Phil Bailey, political director of the South Carolina Senate Democratic Caucus, referred to Haley — who is Christian — as the “Sikh Jesus”:

@nikkihaley is the Sikh Jesus. She can resurrect an unlawful campaign from the dead by simply appearing at a @SCGOP hearing.

— PhilBaileySC (@PhilBaileySC) May 17, 2012

Haley’s opponents have long tried to attack her based on race and the common belief that she is Sikh.

A liberal reporter for Time even once asked her if she tips Sikh cab drivers more than others. They expect her to be as racist as they are.

We’ll wait for the South Carolina Democratic Party to condemn this blatant racism by one of its top officials.

Elizabeth Warren’s embattled campaign faced another setback yesterday after the New England Historic Genealogical Society said there is no proof of her Native American heritage, forcing the novice candidate back to square one in the ongoing scandal, according to pundits.

Warren most recently cited her cousin’s cookbook “Pow Wow Chow” as evidence of her ancestry. I’m not joking. She really did that.

Meanwhile, the Boston Globe — a liberal paper — had to run a correction in Tuesday’s paper retracting their earlier claim of evidence backing up Warren’s story. They now admit they have no evidence she’s Cherokee.

Allahpundit notes it may be prudent for the longterm if Warren came out now and said she was basing her claim on family legend. But then he notes she’s so desperate to show the left she’s standing up the right that she really can’t.

I’ll leave you with this from renowned political analyst and professor Larry Sabato:

“It’s glued to her now. This is going to be with her throughout the campaign,” said Larry Sabato, who heads the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “I don’t know how it goes away when you have so many unanswered questions.”

We can all hope he’s right.

Sheen, a Dayton native and activist, will attend the lunch and private reception, scheduled for May 30 at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Dayton, with Brown, to raise funds for his political action committee, the Ohio Valley Grassroots Victory Fund.

A private reception will be held with Sheen and the Senator from 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Guests are asked to contribute $2,500. Following the reception, the lunch will last until 1:30 p.m. and contribution levels range from $250 to $1,000.

For the 2012 election cycle, Ohio Valley Grassroots Victory Fund has reported $473,000 in receipts and more than $432,000 in disbursements through March, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Desperation ain’t pretty.

The United States Senate, which Obama’s own party controls by a margin of 53-47, has just rejected the president’s budget proposal unanimously. The final vote was zero votes for the budget, ninety-nine votes against.

This, by the way, was the same budget that failed the House of Representatives unanimously. Not a single member of the president’s own party, including Nancy Pelosi, could stomach his absolutely absurd proposal.

And by the way, this is an actual count of jobs — not a survey based on theories. From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

The other numbers, from the Quarterly Census, tell a more positive story, one the Walker administration is in a hurry to get out. They are based on a jobs count, not a survey. Each state gathers the quarterly census data from virtually all employers in both the public and private sectors, which are mandated to share staff and wage data as part of their tax and unemployment insurance reports. That makes it a more reliable source of employment data, state officials and many economists say.

The public employee unions are getting desperate. Their activists are now turning to burning pro-Walker yard signs. How very typical. When they can’t win fair and square they turn to intimidation and thuggery.

This is the front against which Walker bravely fought. And it’s not over yet. We can’t get complacent. Walker has a great new ad out today, but he’ll need help keeping it on the air. Please donate what you can.

Conservative candidate and state senator Deb Fischer has defied conventional wisdom, defeating establishment favorite and Attorney General Jon Bruning for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Nebraska.

Earlier tonight, renowned political analyst and professor Larry Sabato confirmed that the Senate race would be considered “Leans Republican” regardless of whether Fischer or Bruning ultimately prevailed.

The Democratic nominee, Bob Kerrey, previously held the seat but quickly moved to New York after retiring. He spent years pushing progressive policies and even toyed with a run for mayor. He’s considered a weaker candidate than Democrats needed to be truly competitive.

They’re both rich as hell. Varying degrees of rich as hell, but both rich as hell. Neither feels your pain. Neither is like you. Neither worries about paying his bills.

Now instead of trying to find a presidential candidate who feels your pain, find the one that can competently run the country and create jobs. Barack Obama ain’t it.

Or beating the holy hell out of George Zimmerman. Like Zimmerman said had happened.

SANFORD, Fla. — WFTV has confirmed that autopsy results show 17-year-old Trayvon Martin had injuries to his knuckles when he died.

The information could support George Zimmerman’s claim that Martin beat him up before Zimmerman shot and killed him.

The autopsy results come as Zimmerman’s attorney, Mark O’Mara continues to go over other evidence in the case.

O’Mara wouldn’t comment on the autopsy evidence, but WFTV legal analyst Bill Sheaffer said it’s better for the defense than it is for the prosecution.

Yeah, lots of questions coming up.

Like if Zimmerman murdered Martin in cold blood, why did Martin allegedly have time to yell for help for an extended period of time? And why did Zimmerman suffer injuries to his head? And if Zimmeran is such a racist, why is he, an Hispanic male, friends with other black men? And why are autopsy results in line with what Zimmerman claimed?

A top fundraiser for President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign expressed disappointment that he is taking money from the private equity industry while simultaneously attacking them to tarnish Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital.

Don Peebles, a Miami real estate executive who has raised more than $100,000 for the president’s campaign this cycle, told BuzzFeed “I think it’s difficult to attack or demonize an industry and then take money from it.”

“I think it’s inconsistent,” he added. “I wonder why the leaders of that industry are supporting him.”

Peebles, who is sometimes described as the largest-scale African-American real estate developer in the country, told BuzzFeed that he was wary of the ads by the Obama campaign and the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA which have attacked Bain Capital.

“Any type of attack and vilification of a particular industry is not okay to begin with,” he said.

The Obama campaign is now and always has been hypocritical about accepting money from industries the president simultaneously demonizes for political gain. It’s just that some of his biggest supporters are starting to take note.

But he was.

CNN’s Ashleigh Banfield correctly pointed out that the Obama campaign is attempt to blame Romney for the closure of a steel company — a company that closed years after Romney left Bain. A company that was closed while Bain was being lead by an Obama supporter, by the way.

Look, we all know these attacks were dishonest and nothing more than a cheap attempt to distract from Barack Obama’s failed record. A former top Obama adviser called the attacks “unfair” while another big Obama supporter defended the process of creative destruction.

But it’s nice to see an Obama shill called out for his despicable claims on CNN. It’s a nice change.

First of all, Barack Obama only leads Mitt Romney by one point: 47-46. That’s perhaps due to the fact that the president’s job approval in the state is just 44%. 50% disapprove.

Next up, Tom Barrett’s nomination by the Democratic Party for governor hasn’t resulted in a bounce for him. Given a choice between Barrett and incumbent Scott Walker (R), Wisconsinites go for Walker 49-45.

The bad news (for Democrats) continues in the Lieutenant Governor’s race, where incumbent Rebecca Kleefisch leads her rival (Mahlon Mitchell) 46-43.

Finally, to round it all off, every single potential Republican nominee for United States Senate leads likely Democratic nominee Tammy Baldwin in head-to-head matchups. Every single one.

When even Democratic pollsters are finding a disaster ahead for Democrats in a normally blue state, you know the tide has shifted. But we can’t let up. Unions will continue to pour millions of dollars into this race.

Donate to Scott Walker. Make sure your like-minded Wisconsinite friends and family members are registered to vote and actually vote on primary day. Let’s win this thing.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger got searched by a Transportation Security Administration employee while going through a security checkpoint at LaGuardia Airport in New York Friday, The Washington Post reports.

Kissinger, who was in a wheelchair, was told by a TSA agent that he needed to be searched.

“He stood with his suit jacket off, and he was wearing suspenders,” freelance reporter Matthew Cole told the Post. “They gave him the full pat-down. None of the agents seemed to know who he was.” Cole added that Kissinger was given “the full Monty” search.

Whatever your opinion of Kissinger, this demonstrates the complete lack of common sense at the TSA.

Did anyone really believe the 88-year-old former Secretary of State was a national security threat? Of course not. They’re just mindlessly following procedure. No common sense, all senseless bureaucracy.

Supposedly an Obama ally, Eric Whitaker, was tasked with approaching Jeremiah Wright back in 2008 to offer him a large sum payment in exchange for keeping his mouth shut about Obama’s 20 years in the church.

(Refresher: This is the Jeremiah Wright who, as head of the Chicago church, preached that America deserved the 9/11 attacks, called us a nation of racists, and called for God’s damnation of America. All while Obama was present. Obama never protested and remained in the church until it became a political liability.)

Whitaker makes more than one appearance in the Obama story. He also happens to run the Urban Health Initiative at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where Michelle Obama was employed and coincidentally got a significant raise after her husband was elected to Senate. The position she held was apparently eliminated after she left.

Anyway, Whitaker’s program just got a $6 million contract from the Department of Health and Human Services. He was one of just 26 grantees out of a pool of more than 3,000 applicants. What a coincidence that Michelle’s former employer, Obama’s surrogate to Wright, and a longtime supporter of the president’s political ambitions was rewarded with a multi-million dollar contract.

A federal judge today blocked the ambush election plan due to the lack of quorum present when the board decided on the new rules. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg — an Obama appointee — noted that just two members voted on the rule change. Three votes are required for a quorum to be present, as defined by federal law.

“According to Woody Allen, eighty percent of life is just showing up,” Boasberg wrote in an opinion issued today. “When it comes to satisfying a quorum requirement, though, showing up is even more important than that.”…

“Two is simply not enough,” Boasberg wrote. “The board lacked the authority to issue it, and therefore it cannot stand.”

The board was in such a rush to rig the system for union bosses that it didn’t ensure its Is were dotted and Ts crossed. Luckily there’s a federal judge willing to stand up to the board.

(Reuters) – Two illegal immigrants pleaded guilty in Texas on Monday to possessing 27,000 rounds of assault rifle ammunition along the U.S.-Mexico border, where cross-border weapons smuggling has increased in recent years, the Attorney’s Office said.

Police in Laredo, Texas, discovered the ammunition after they stopped a Dodge Ram pickup truck that failed to stop at a stop sign in March, Attorney Kenneth Magidson said in a statement.

Weapons traffickers along the U.S.-Mexico border regularly attempt to evade authorities to garner big payoffs from Mexican drug cartels. Magidson did not indicate whether the ammunition was destined for Mexico.

Advocates of gun control falsely claim that the overwhelming majority of weapons found in Mexico originate in the United States. That misleading statistic is based on a four-year period during which the Mexican government decided which weapons would be submitted for testing.

The Mexican government, which has pushed for tighter gun control in the United States, had control of the sample. You can imagine the problem that arises.

Mexican authorities, hoping to push a narrative, would submit mostly weapons that would help affirm their preferred narrative. The eventual number of weapons tested was just a small fraction of those Mexican authorities destroyed without testing on a regular basis.

But an anchor for MSNBC does it and it’s just fine. Because he’s a Democrat. And he later says he’s “just teasing”. Because that would totally stop the left from ripping a Fox News anchor apart. Or not.

A new poll from CBS/New York Times shows a major turn-around in the presidential campaign: Mitt Romney now leads Barack Obama by 3 points nationally. The governor is also said to be leading Obama with women by 2.

More: 70% of Independents say Obama’s shift on gay marriage was politically-motivated. Romney leads with moderates by 7. 51% say same-sex marriage should be illegal. Romney’s lead with women is 46-44.

We will continue to take leadership positions, win delegates, and carry a strong message to the Republican National Convention that Liberty is the way of the future.

Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted. Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have. I encourage all supporters of Liberty to make sure you get to the polls and make your voices heard, particularly in the local, state, and Congressional elections, where so many defenders of Freedom are fighting and need your support.

I hope all supporters of Liberty will remain deeply involved – become delegates, win office, and take leadership positions. I will be right there with you. In the coming days, my campaign leadership will lay out to you our delegate strategy and what you can do to help, so please stay tuned.

Paul understands that mathematically there’s no way he wins. In fact, it’s likely Mitt Romney will have the nomination sewn-up well before Tampa. Paul is now just hoping for influence and maybe a speaking slot. Some wonder if he’s angling for his son to have a chance at the White House down the road.

This statement effectively means his campaign is coming to an end. Yeah, he’s still going to try for delegates at state conventions. But that’s like trying to save the Titanic by bailing water with teaspoons. He’s not trying for additional votes and won’t actively campaign in states yet to vote. Now it’s just a matter of negotiating for the best unity/exit conditions.

Bottom line: Be cautiously optimistic. If you’re in Wisconsin don’t get so comfortable you put off voting. If you have like-minded friends and family there, make sure they vote. It’s not over yet.

Update: The blame game is already beginning on the left. Wisconsin Democrats are blasting the Democratic National Committee for not wasting money on the race. The DNC is keeping quiet for now.

First we learned the guy who ran Bain while a steel company the president cited was being closed was….an Obama supporter. Then a former top Obama adviser called the president’s attacks on Romney “unfair“. Now this…

President Obama is headed to a fundraiser this evening at the apartment of financier Tony James, president of the Blackstone Group.

The timing is a little awkward, given that today’s the day Team Obama rolled out a major ad offensive targeting Mitt Romney’s time as a private equity executive.

And the awkwardness is all the more acute because James came to the defense of the private equity industry a few months back, when several of Romney’s GOP opponents – chiefly, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry – were blasting him as a “vulture capitalist” and worse.

“The truth is that private equity creates jobs and is necessary for a healthy economy,” James said in February, according to Bloomberg. “Last year we created 4.6 percent new jobs organically in America. By contrast, last year the U.S. economy created 1.8 percent new jobs.”

Obama’s own advisers and supporters view his attacks as unfair, despicable, and untruthful. One has to wonder if the Obama campaign will have the decency to drop the despicable line of attack. I doubt it.

ABC News:

Rattner, who was known as President Obama’s “car czar,” also said that job losses — like the ones featured the new ad — while unfortunate, are “part of capitalism.”…

But Rattner insisted that he portrayal of the private equity firm that Romney ran was skewed in Obama’s ad.

“It did it superbly well, acting within the rules, acting very responsibly, and was a leading firm,” Rattner noted. “I do think to pick out an example of somebody who lost their job, unfortunately, this is part of capitalism, this is part of life. And I don’t think there’s anything Bain Capital did that they need to be embarrassed about.”

Furthermore, the man in the ad lost his job because the company closed in 2001. Romney left Bain in 1999. The man who was running Bain when the steel company closed? Obama supporter and major fundraiser Jonathan Levine.

In fact, Obama is specifically blaming Romney for the closure of a company in 2001. Romney left Bain in 1999 to go run the Olympics. The man who was running Bain in 2001 was Jonathan Levine — a man who is today a major donor to the Obama campaign.

Lavine, according to the Los Angeles Times, is a top Obama bundler and a managing director at Bain Capital. Lavine, who has raised over $100,000 for the president, was at the firm when GST Steel declared bankruptcy. So according to the Obama team’s logic, Romney, who had left Bain, is responsible for GST Steel’s demise, but Lavine, who was there, is not? Expect to hear more about this connection.

Obama’s lying — plain and simple. Expect more lies as his campaign gets desperate to distract from his failed record.

LOS ANGELES — The state budget shortfall in California has increased dramatically in the last six months, forcing state officials to assemble a series of new spending cuts that are likely to mean further reductions to schools, health care and other social programs already battered by nearly five years of budget retrenchment, state officials announced on Saturday.

Gov. Jerry Brown, disclosing the development in a video posted on YouTube, said that California’s shortfall was now projected to be $16 billion, up from $9.2 billion in January. Mr. Brown said that he would propose a revised budget on Monday to deal with it.

“We are now facing a $16 billion hole, not the $9 billion we thought in January,” Mr. Brown said. “This means we will have to go much further and make cuts far greater than I asked for at the beginning of the year.”

Yeah, turns out simply raising taxes — and subsequently driving wealth producers from the state — doesn’t work. And yet in the same video Brown asked Californians to back more tax hikes. Because that’s worked so well in the past. What’s that definition of insanity again?

State officials said the shortfall was a result of disappointing revenue collections in April as California continued to struggle to pull out of the recession. “We are still recovering from the worst recession since the 1930s,” Mr. Brown said.

And yet other states just as rattled by the recession are recovering well. The difference is they have smaller governments, fewer welfare programs, and don’t make it a policy to drive businesses and wealth producers from the state in the name of funding more entitlement programs.

At a certain point replacing businessmen and investors with welfare recipients comes back to bite you in the ass. Other states should look to California as a warning. So should the federal government for that matter.

But then there’s this, which seems to ratchet-up the tension five-fold.

Bill Clinton thought so little of President Obama — mocking him as an “amateur” — that he pressed his wife last summer to quit her job as secretary of state and challenge him in the primaries, a new book claims,

“The country needs you!” the former president told Hillary Clinton, urging her to run this year, according to accounts of the conversation included in Edward Klein’s new biography of Obama.

The title of Klein’s explosive, unauthorized bio of Obama, “The Amateur” (Regnery Publishing), was taken directly from Bill Clinton’s bombshell criticism of the president, the author said.

“Barack Obama,” Bill Clinton said, according to book excerpts, “is an amateur.”

The withering criticism is incredible, given the fact that Bill Clinton is actively campaigning for Obama’s re-election.

But according to the book, Bill Clinton unloaded on Obama and pressed Hillary to run against her boss during a gathering in the ex-president’s home office in Chappaqua last August that included longtime friends, Klein said.

“The economy’s a mess, it’s dead flat. America has lost its Triple-A rating . . . You know better than Obama does,” Bill said.

Bill Clinton insisted he had “no relationship” with Obama and had been consulted more frequently by his presidential successor, George W. Bush.

Obama, Bill Clinton said, “doesn’t know how to be president” and is “incompetent.”

But Hillary resisted the entreaties, according to two of the guests interviewed for the book.

Clinton at least had political skill. Obama’s an incompetent first year philosophy student who relies on the media to sweep his incompetence and failure under the rug.

In Mogadishu, a former teacher wishes he had sent more economic assistance and fewer armed drones to fix Somalia’s problems. And many in the Middle East wonder what became of Obama’s vow, in a landmark 2009 speech at the University of Cairo, to forge a closer relationship with the Muslim world.

In other words, people liked him because they thought he’d redistribute more money to them and abandon Israel to stand by Palestine. It had nothing to do with inspiring hope, except the hope that he’d prioritize them over America’s best interests.

Those high European expectations have turned into disappointment, largely because of the continued U.S. military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan and Obama’s failure to close Guantanamo Bay in the face of vehement congressional opposition.

Again, they were hopeful he’d prioritize the whining of Eurocrats over the national security interests of the United States. That’s why they supported him. Keep that in mind the next time you hear some “global citizen” fawn over a left-wing politician.

Then we get into this crap:

Foreign policy expert Josef Braml, who analyzes the U.S. for the German Council on Foreign Relations, said many Germans give Obama too much of the blame because they don’t understand the limits of his powers.

“There’s a lack of understanding both of how the system of checks and balances works – or doesn’t work any longer – and a lack of understanding of how big the socio-economic problems in the United States are, which cause the gridlock,” Braml said in a telephone call from Greece, where he was on vacation.

Bullcrap. This is an excuse and one that didn’t seem to make an appearance during the Bush Administration, which took the blame for everything. Obama had enough power to spend trillions of dollars, $820 billion of which on direct stimulative measures, and ram his agenda through Congress for years. His power was only limited starting in January 2011, and even then only modestly.

Obama has been the U.S. president “least involved in the Palestinian issue,” said Mohammed Ishtayeh, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

“We were very optimistic when Obama was elected. He talked in his meeting with us without looking into his notes; that tells how much he knows about our issue,” he said.

Yeah, he lied to you. That’s what he does. He talked a good game, got his Nobel Peace Prize, and then went about doing whatever the hell he wanted. He played you for a fool and he was right.

“President Obama has removed so much of the cowboy image of America that has been imprinted in the mentality of Iraqis by Bush,” Baghdad lawyer Raad Mehsin said.

Only because you want to perceive him differently. This is a guy who not only ramped-up drone strikes and America’s war commitment in Afghanistan but launched another war in Libya and sent special forces troops into African countries. He’s kept almost all of Bush’s foreign policy.

Obama remains popular in Japan, one of the United States’ closest allies, though that may be a matter of style over substance, said Koichi Nakano, political science professor at Sophia University in Tokyo.

“The Japanese like Obama. Maybe they don’t know all that much about him, but I guess he continues to be seen as a youthful, energetic, charismatic leader,” he said.

Yeah, we’ve noticed he’s most popular when people know very little about him or his policies. When all they see is the facade. Once they get to know him their views begin to sour.

“The fact that Obama himself was making the announcement of U.S. troops in Australia quelled a lot of fears,” Lockyer said. If Bush had made it, he said, “there would have been a lot more hostility.”

“Democrat presidents tend to be a little bit more hesitant to define the world as good and evil, which tends to be more attractive to Australian ears,” he said.

Too many of our fellow world citizens want to be tucked in at night and told that there’s no real “evil” — only differences of opinion. It’s a lie and Obama knows it, too. Someone who straps a bomb to a pregnant woman is evil — not just someone with a different outlook on life. There’s evil in the world. One day they’ll grow up and come to grips with that.

Sorry for the rant but this article annoyed the hell out of me. It’s a mixture of the Associated Press and global academics covering for Obama’s incompetence, mixed with naive beliefs and sprinkled with pure stupidity. It needed a rant.

A good reminder indeed, including for Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, who was sworn in on the same day as Lugar in 1977 and faces his own primary challenge against a tea-party-backed candidate.

“It’s very sad for me because we came in together,” Hatch said. “Dick’s a great man and he’s done a lot of great things for this country. This just wasn’t the way it should have ended.”

How should it have ended? With Lugar rubber-stamped a few more times and then dying in office like Robert Byrd?

All the while voting for debt increases, confirming liberal Supreme Court justices, voting consistently against gun rights, and serving as “Obama’s Favorite Republican”?

Either Hatch wanted Lugar there because he agrees with him or because they’re simply buddies. In which case he prioritizes the buddy system that rewards inner-Washington loyalty over service to the public. Which is wrong.

Hatch has to go, too. That primary is in June. You can support his conservative challenger here.

It’s true that Americans are more pessimistic about the economy and more critical of Obama’s handling of it. So the jobs report didn’t help the president on the biggest issue of the day.

But there’s also this. 51% support Obama’s decision to become pro-gay marriage, but — and this is a big but — just 13% say it makes them more likely to support him. 23% — nearly a quarter of voters — say it makes them less likely.

Why? Pro-gay marriage voters tend to be more “meh” than “LET’S GET OUT THERE AND SHOW OUR SUPPORT”. Gay marriage opponents are more “let’s get out there and vote against it” than “meh”. The issue is more likely to impact the votes of gay marriage opponents than supporters.

Again, I don’t think either by itself explains the sudden shift. And I’m not sure how much to read into the numbers. But if you’re looking at polls and numbers on the economy right now, you’d rather be Mitt Romney than Barack Obama.

What shall we do about this.

The shout from the crowd was clear. As President Barack Obama gave the first official campaign speech of his re-election bid at a sports arena in Ohio last weekend the first mention of his Republican opponent Mitt Romney prompted a male voice in the throng to yell: “Traitor!”

Earlier in the rally, held in the Ohio state capital of Columbus, several warm-up speakers for Obama had derided and mocked Romney for once using a Swiss bank account. Campaign videos played to the audience had prompted loud boos when Romney appeared or was mentioned…

“People look at Romney, and he is the personification of everything that is wrong with the system,” said Justin Ruben, executive director of MoveOn.org, a web-based group that campaigns on progressive causes. Ruben said the group had recently taken an internal poll of its left-wing members and been surprised that 68% of them felt Romney was as bad as or worse than President George W Bush as an American politician. “That was striking. I was not sure that our members had a scale that went beyond Bush,” Ruben said.

Romney disagrees with their far-left agenda, therefore he must have betrayed his country. Watch as the media remains silent over this.