When you visit WhiteHouse.gov, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "Presidents," you expect to see a page listing our past presidents' biographies and their contributions to American history. Each President used to have their own bio, separate from other presidents, until now. Someone in the Obama administration has made the decision to add a line or two to some of the presidential bios about.....President Obama.

President Ronald Reagan:

President George W. Bush:

President Dwight D. Eisenhower:

Browse through the rest here.

In Arizona, it's no surprise that water can be hard to come by, but why is the federal government is cutting off the water supply to the famous Old West town of Tombstone?  

Nearly a year ago, Tombstone's water supply lines were heavily damaged in a flood after a heavy rain due to a massive wildfire leaving loose soil in the area. (Read this article to find out why we can thank the Forest Service for catastrophic wildfires)

Since the damage, Tombstone residents have been fighting to repair the water lines, but because they run through a wilderness area, the feds are saying the only option they have is to literally dig up miles and miles of water lines by hand. Why? Machine use in wilderness areas is prohibited by federal law.

More from the Goldwater Institute:

Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Frank Zapata denied Tombstone, Arizona’s emergency request to restore its Huachuca Mountain municipal water supply. Over nine months ago, the historic town’s 130-year-old water system was destroyed by massive flooding resulting from torrential rains and the destruction of surrounding forests in the Monument Fire.

Despite the burial of water reservoirs and water lines under boulders the size of Volkswagens and as much as 12 feet of mud, the Court denied Tombstone’s request to allow it to use mechanized and motorized equipment to restore its water system. In denying the request, the Court ruled that the town did not exhaust efforts to obtain federal permits to use the equipment despite nine months of continuous efforts by the town to secure the U.S. Forest Service’s cooperation. The Court was not moved by a state of emergency declared specifically for Tombstone by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer.
 
The Goldwater Institute has already filed an emergency appeal of the decision.
 
“Requiring Tombstone to seek federal permits to repair its municipal water supply is like demanding a federal permit before the City can make repairs to a fire truck,” said Nick Dranias, Goldwater Institute director of constitutional studies and lead attorney in the case. “Under the Tenth Amendment, the federal government has no power during a state of emergency to stop a local government from repairing its own municipal property, which is essential to providing safe drinking water and adequate fire protection.”
 
The Goldwater Institute is representing the City of Tombstone in this clash with the federal government. Tombstone has property rights to 25 mountain spring heads and all of the water rising and flowing in two canyons in the Huachuca Mountains. Bundled with those rights are access roads and pipeline rights of way. Until last year, the U.S. Forest Service recognized and respected those rights, which date back to the days of Wyatt Earp. Today, the federal government denies they exist and refuses to allow Tombstone to restore more than three of its spring water catchments.

Oh my:

Mitt Romney has moved out to an eight-point lead over President Obama in North Carolina after the two men were virtually tied a month ago.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in the Tar Heel State shows the putative Republican nominee earning 51% of the vote to Obama’s 43%. Two percent (2%) like some other candidate, and four percent (4%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

A few important takeaways:

(1) As the pollsters note, according to the first Rasmussen Reports survey conducted in North Carolina last month, Romney held a negligible two point lead over President Obama. Since that time, however, The One's support has waned. After all, he just became the first sitting president to endorse same-sex marriage; two days after North Carolinian voters effectively banned the practice. His decision to come around on this issue – at least at this point – is undoubtedly alienating some of his supporters.

(2) Remember, too, Barack Obama won North Carolina by a little more than 14,000 votes out of more than 400,000 ballots cast in 2008. (He was also, incidentally, the first Democratic presidential candidate to win there since Jimmy Carter in 1976.) Nevertheless, according to a recent national poll, 1 in 4 voters are less likely to support President Obama after his so-called “evolution” on same-sex marriage. I suspect the numbers are even higher in Tar Heel territory.

(3) It's also strange that the president is trailing Mitt Romney by 8 percentage points in the very state where his party is hosting the 2012 Democratic National Convention. In fairness, these numbers will fluctuate a great deal between now and November. But he’s already visited North Carolina eleven times as president. More to the point, though, his reelection campaign recently bought up millions of dollars in airtime around the state to disseminate his message. So why, then, is an incumbent president – with a huge war chest – suddenly trailing the presumptive Republican nominee by a large margin?

Well, perhaps the reason is obvious. But could this have anything to do with it?

FLASHBACK:

Update: A new poll released today by the Democratic pollster PPP shows President Obama leading Mitt Romney 48% to 47%. Their sample had a D/R/I split of 48/34/18.

Ebony and ivory plead with America to ignore the "made up" dragon behind the curtain.

CLYBURN (D-SC): "Here we're talking about something that makes absolutely no sense. If we didn't have a debt ceiling, what would we be saying then? So this legislation doesn't have any real meaning except that it is legislation that we've opposed on ourselves and should not even be there in the first place."

Earlier in the week I expressed frustration over the fact that the Romney campaign and their partners at the RNC had produced two excellent web ads, but wouldn't cough up the cash to air them anywhere.  A Republican source emailed me to spell out a few factors that affect these sorts of decisions: "As we get closer to November, the campaign will run ads whether they are from the candidate or are hybrid ads with [the RNC]. Because the playing field gets smaller the closer we get to the election, you see a lot of Super PACs up now and with early voting, etc, they are realizing there is value in starting to message early."  Translation: It makes more financial sense to let outside groups drop lots of cash at this stage, even though official Republican organizations and campaigns can't direct the messaging.  With all that in mind, here is a new spot from the policy arm of Karl Rove-aligned Super PAC American Crossroads, which will air in ten swing states:
 

Very good.  By demonstrating that Obama has already demolished some of his most recognizable pledges, conservatives can pre-emptively cheapen and undermine the torrent of new promises he'll inevitably make over the next six months.  The ad also hits Obama on issues that generally don't poll well for him: Taxes, Obamacare, and deficits.  The group will spend $8 million to air this ad in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia within the next two weeks.  They're slated to add $17 million to their media campaign over the next month, matching the Obama campaign's announced expenditures.  I'll leave you with the latest analysis from Gallup:
 

Some six months before voters head to the polls to choose the next president of the United States, Gallup finds several indicators of the economic and political climate holding steady at levels that could be troublesome for President Barack Obama. According to Gallup polling in early May, Obama's approval rating is below 50%, Americans' satisfaction with the direction of the country is barely above 20%, and the economy remains a dominant concern. Comparing today's economic and political ratings with those from previous years when presidents sought re-election reveals that today's climate is more similar to years when incumbents lost than when they won.

This is why the demagoguery train will chug along and a record clip through early November.  To quote our Vice President, gird your loins, America.

Not in this administration, unless of course you're like Julia.

The Obama Justice Department is hitting back against looming contempt charges for Attorney General Eric Holder over stonewalling and the refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena issued back in October 2011. Deputy Attorney General James Cole is defending his boss against allegations of a cover-up and against contempt charges.

In a letter from Cole to Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa, Cole writes, "We believe that a contempt proceeding would be unwarranted given the information the Department has disclosed to the Committee to date; unprecedented given the law enforcement sensitivities at issue; and ill-advised given the damage it would cause to relations between the Executive and Legislative Branches." Cole also wrote, "The Department continues to believe, however, that efforts to arrive at a mutually acceptable resolution of this matter have not been fully exhausted and that both the Committee and the Department must continue to work constructively to avoid conflict."

What information has DOJ disclosed to Congress? Out of 80,000 documents requested, the Committee has received just 7,000, most of which are so redacted, they offer nothing but blocks of black ink.

"The Department has provided the Committee with a large volume of documents, including materials that the Department does not normally disclose to Congress. Your May 10, 2012, letter acknowledges that the Department has produced a large volume of documents on grounds that some were redacted. We do not believe this to be a fair criticism," Cole wrote. 

In the case of Fast and Furious, relations between the Executive branch and Legislative branch can't get much worse. Both DOJ and the White House have refused to provide key Fast and Furious witnesses for questioning, including White House National Security staffer Kevin O'Reilly, who was in contact with former Phoenix ATF Special Agent in Charge Bill Newell about the lethal operation. O'Reilly has been shipped off to Iraq and is "unavailable" for questioning. In the eyes of Obama's DOJ, working "constructively to avoid conflict" really means asking Congress not to continue their investigation in order to divert attention away from who, at the highest levels, approved the deadly program.

Despite these facts, Cole continues to defend his boss and claim the Justice Department has cooperated with requests from the Committee and gives Holder credit for his handling of the situation. "Shortly after the Attorney General learned of the inappropriate tactics used in Operation Fast and Furious, he asked the Department's Acting Inspector General (editor addition: who just so happened to have worked for Holder during his time as U.S. Attorney for D.C.) conduct of review. Moreover, the Attorney General instructed me to issue a directive to the field making clear that those tactics should not be used again."

When did Holder really learn about the tactics? According to his own testimony under oath in front of Congress on May 3, 2011, a "few weeks." Or did Holder know about the tactics in February 2011? Or did he know about it nearly a year before his "few weeks" claim as memos dated as early as July 2010 show? The fact is, Holder has changed his testimony multiple times, under oath in front of Congress.

And the cover-up? There is no cover-up, insists Cole:

"The Committee has also raised questions about the lack of documents produced by the Department reflecting the participation of senior Department officials in devising the inappropriate tactics used in Fast and Furious. Far from reflecting a 'cover-up,' as some have claimed, the lack of documents makes clear that these tactics had their origin in the field in Arizona and not among Department leaders in Washington."

Cole makes this statement with 73,000 documents still being withheld from Congress. Not to mention, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, Holder's #2 man, approved wiretaps for Fast and Furious, which require detailed descriptions of why they are needed. From the beginning, DOJ has taken the approach of blaming a few "low level" "rogue" agents for Fast and Furious, but evidence shows exactly the opposite. High level officials devised, implemented and approved this program. Keep in mind, Fast and Furious was no small program. It involved allowing 2500 AK-47s and .50-caliber rifles (.50 caliber can take down a helicopter) to be trafficked across an international border and spanned multiple government agencies including DOJ, DHS, FBI, IRS and the national security team at the White House. Low level agents in the field were reprimanded and retaliated against for questioning the program. For more on this, and the motivations behind the program, read my book.

The main point of Cole's letter was this: Contempt is an extraordinary step that is unwarranted and inappropriate here.

"Congress has never held an Attorney General in contempt based on a failure to provide documents relating to open criminal investigations and prosecutions."

Well, Mr. Cole, never has any Justice Department approved a program as sinister and fatal as Operation Fast and Furious, either. It's pathetic too that there is not one mention of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was murdered by thugs in the Arizona desert wielding weapons given to them through Fast and Furious, in Cole's letter. Afterall, Holder still denies Terry's murder is connected in any way to the program, despite guns left at the scene being sold through the program to straw purchaser Jaime Avila in January 2010.

You can read the entire letter here.

In a move that has infuriated the state's recall-hungry Democrats, Wisconsin officials have released a new jobs report that bears significant and encouraging news.  Via the Walker campaign:
 

A quarterly report released today by the Department of Workforce Development (DWD) shows Wisconsin created 23,321 jobs in 2011. Wisconsin employers have now put more than 33,521 people back to work so far under Governor Walker’s leadership. “With more than 33,000 jobs created since Governor Walker took office and the unemployment rate plummeting to its lowest since 2008, it is certain the governor’s bold reforms and leadership are moving Wisconsin forward,” said Walker campaign spokeswoman Ciara Matthews. “Governor Walker’s policies have helped employers put more people back to work and our economy is moving toward greater prosperity for all. In contrast, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is presiding over a 28 percent spike in unemployment during his reign as mayor of the nation’s ninth poorest city. Wisconsinites cannot afford to undo the forward progress made under Governor Walker and go backward with Mayor Barrett and his failed record.” The quarterly data issued today by the DWD is comprised of reports issued to 96 percent of Wisconsin employers (over 150,000 Wisconsin employers).

The Journal-Sentinel calls the release of this data "unusual," but admits that many economists believe the measure supporting Walker's just-released figures is substantially more accurate than other methods:
 

In an unusual effort to rebut bad news on the jobs front, the Walker administration is speeding up release of new numbers showing job gains rather than job losses in Wisconsin last year. The numbers come from a source familiar to many economists but one that hasn't figured until now in the state's highly politicized jobs debate heading into the June 5 recall election: the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages...Job numbers are reported in different ways, based on different sources, and it's been common throughout the current recovery for different data to tell different stories. The [new] 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.

If you want to go the full wonk on this subject, watch this detailed explanation of the state's jobs picture from the non-partisan chief economist at Wisconsin's revenue division (Spoiler: Walker's numbers are sound):
 

Incidentally, endeavoring to do (or approximate) an actual jobs count, rather than relying on models and multipliers, is what led two economists to conclude that President Obama's stimulus "saved or created" far fewer jobs than the 'official' numbers claim -- even though those stats have a paltry low-end estimate, too.  But back to Wisconsin.  With the recall election three weeks away, even the DailyKos-aligned Democratic pollster PPP shows Gov. Walker with a five point lead, unchanged over last month's survey.  This means that despite emerging from a contested primary and getting a burst of positive publicity, Democrat Tom Barrett has enjoyed a whopping zero point bounce against Walker.  PPP also says Republican enthusiasm and intensity is outpacing Democrats' in the state.  And we wonder why national Democrats don't want to touch this race with a ten foot pole.  My biggest concern at this point, frankly, is that the steady drumbeat of positive news might lull some Wisconsin Republicans into a false sense of security.  Organized labor and Democrats will unleash the most Hurculean GOTV effort they can possibly muster on June 5, and it will be up to ordinary citizens and taxpayers to beat back their Statist, unsustainable, outmoded designs.

UPDATE - Katie notes that Scott Walker lawn signs are starting to get torched.  Thuggery and intimidation: It's how the Left in Wisconsin rolls.

UPDATE II - A new Marquette poll shows Walker with a 6-point lead and a 50 percent job apprvoal rating. The same poll had Walker up by just one point two weeks ago.  This latest survey aligns almost perfectly with the latest numbers from Rasmussen (+5), PPP (+5), and We Ask America (+9). Summary: Walker's winning.

UPDATE III - Unlike national Democrats, the RGA is playing for keeps in Wisconsin.  Their new ad is below -- plus, I've heard that Walker has just unveiled a spot in which he touts the jobs numbers described in this post.  Video to come, hopefully.  I love the aggressiveness.  It's also fun to listen to Wisconsin Democrats whinge about Walker releasing the jobs data "early."  This from the gang that forced an election two years early.
 

What happened to civility? Don't like Scott Walker? Why not torch pro-Walker signs....in people's front yards... on private property.

Jamie Schumaker came out of his Fox Point home to get the paper Sunday morning to find his small Governor Walker campaign sign reduced to ashes, a sign he put up just the day before.

"You'd like to disagree agreeably and not have to resort to something like this," said Schumaker to TODAY'S TMJ4.

Schumaker said he's an avid Walker supporter, even a donor, and said this is upsetting.  His neighbor's sign ruined the same way.  "I'd hate to see this kind of intimidation and threats creep into certainly this election," said Schumaker.

The Fox Point Police Department said they've had several complaints of burned Walker signs and in response, they plan to put out extra patrols.

The torching came just after the DNC decided to pull out of the recall Scott Walker efforts. 

Whatever you might think about his political views, you've got to admire Ron Paul: he is perhaps one of the most steadfast, unwavering, honest politicians around (no pandering, under-the-table deals, or bipartisan compromising for this guy!). His hardcore libertarian committments often inspire -- er, how shall I put this -- duly unflagging devotion from many of his more avid supporters, who are rarely shy about making themselves heard in their quest to cut through mainstream politicians' disenchanting blather and achieve a smaller government that fully adheres to the Constitution. The Ron Paul camp is at least aware that his disciples can be a rather rowdy bunch, and are taking steps to mitigate their delegates' rambunctiousness before the GOP convention in August. Just take it down a notch, guys:

Ron Paul's campaign, concerned about recent state conventions sent into an uproar by its supporters, has made it clear that they'll expect their delegates to behave at the Republican National Convention. Insiders tell BuzzFeed the delegates will be prepared for Tampa with phone calls and training programs. …

Paul will have more than 100 bound delegates to the convention in Tampa and hundreds more Paul supporters have won slots as pledged Romney delegates at the convention, forcing them to support Romney — but freeing them to cheer for the libertarian and his cause. …Republicans fear they could turn what is usually a carefully-staged infomercial into a chaotic zoo.

Paul's campaign, which hopes to give him a platform and to install his son, Rand, as a major figure in the party, aims to restrain his rowdiest supporers. Training the delegates hasn't started yet, though the campaign expects to begin communicating with them later this spring. …

Paul supporters came to blows with Romney supporters at the Oklahoma state convention recently, and Paul supporters at the Arizona convention booed Mitt Romney's son Josh off the stage in another incident.

The campaign knows that its delegates can't behave this way at the national convention if it wants its issues considered for the party platform. "One of the best ways to be respected is to be respectful," the strategist said.

I'm glad Ron Paul's team is preparing to ensure they have a serious voice at the convention -- I for one think that Rep. Paul's ideas add an extremely valuable element to the national dialogue, and I'd hate for them to be discounted because of some of his supporters' kookier tendencies.

This Obama spokestool at least had the sense to stay relentlessly and unresponsively on message, unlike his colleague Stephanie Cutter, who was reduced to spinning so lamely yesterday that even MSNBC wasn't buying it.  Here's CNN's Ashleigh Banfield pressing Ben LaBolt for five solid minutes about the Obama campaign's dishonest ad attacking Romney over a failed steel mill:
 

A few additional thoughts and fact-checks:

(1) Sorry, Ben, but according to the Washington Post, Romney was already gone from Bain when this factory went bust -- he was off saving the Olympics.  Though Romney was technically still tied to the firm, a patchwork of evidence confirms that he was, in fact, a "passive, limited partner with no management capacity" after he departed in 1999:
 

We also learned that the creditors who sued some of Bain’s companies and executives over dividend payments around the time in question did not name Romney in their lawsuit. Plaintiffs generally try to list as many people as possible as defendants to encourage settlement, so it’s highly unlikely that Romney had any involvement with Bain’s businesses during this period. These facts essentially exonerate Romney from allegations that he was responsible for any outsourcing, bad deals and layoffs that occurred with Bain’s companies in the early 2000s.

Oh, but you already knew that, didn't you Ben?  Because the Post published that research several weeks ago, and awarded your campaign Three Pinnochios for your trouble.  Now you've gone and doubled down on the inaccurate characterization, earning you further scolding from the newspaper.

(2) The Obama campaign seems to have a very odd concept of exactly how Mitt Romney made off with these mysterious and ghastly things called "profits."  By their telling, here's how the process works (concept via South Park):
 

Step 1: Mitt and his fellow fat-cats invest in a good, honest business, run by hardworking middle class Americans.

Step 2: Mitt and his fellow fat-cats load the business up with debt for no reason, other than to maximize their eventual profits.  They cackle and rub their hands together as they prepare to screw over the employees.

Step 3: ???

Step 4: Mitt and his fellow fat-cats reap huge profits as the company fails, leaving shattered lives in their wake.

Economics 101!  Look, of course some of the investments didn't pan out, and jobs were lost.  But the companies that Romney targeted for investment were either promising start-ups in desperate need of capital, or struggling (but salvagable) businesses already in grave danger of going under.  The goal was to invest in businesses that demonstrated some capacity to thrive and deliver robust returns for Romney's investors.  This process creates both wealth -- at which Labolt pointedly sneers -- and jobs.  Bain Capital didn't become a powerhouse by raiding awful businesses and running them into the ground.  They built an excellent reputation by making sound investments.  Those investments didn't merely benefit Romney and his ring of corporate buddies; they helped the tens of thousands of people who were eventually employed by those businesses (Steel Dynamics, Staples, Sports Authority, Dominos, etc), as well as the countless additional workers whose pensions relied on Bain Capital investing their money wisely.  That's right: Bain investors included numerous endowments and pension funds, comprised of middle class workers.  The reason that Mitt Romney made his fortune is that he was damn good at making investment decisions. Investing other people's money is hard.  Just ask Barack Obama. Yet the overwhelming majority of Romney's investments worked out quite nicely, thus earning Bain its "superb" reputation, as described by former Obama advisor Steve Rattner.  Perhaps Mr. Labolt should phone up Rattner for an explanation of how this all works.  Ah, strike that, actually.  Labolt's a paid shill -- facts, context and nuance aren't his currency.  His only job is to do and say whatever it takes to re-elect his hapless boss, and smirkingly defend those methods, come hell or high water.

(3) Notice that Labolt goes out of his way to try to make a distinction between Mitt Romney's private equity dealings and the field as a whole.  He has no choice, really.  He has to attempt to explain why it's okay for his campaign to blast Romney's exceptional record (by industry standards) while Obama runs around vacuuming up cash from private equity donors, including folks from Bain.  Hey, it might be totally hacktastic, but it's sure as hell better than talking about this:
 

Does this man just live in la-la-land or what?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday blasted House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) for threatening not to raise the debt ceiling next year unless greater spending cuts are enacted.

“The brinksmanship we are seeing from Republicans today reminds us of days prior,” he told reporters. “Instead of meeting us in the middle on the problems facing the country, Republicans are already digging these trenches that they are in and saying they are not going to move.”

Reid said that Boehner risks turning the GOP into a rump party of extremists by making such statements.

“It’s pretty clear to me that the Tea Party direction of the Republican Party is driving them over a cliff. And I would suggest that Speaker Boehner look at the long term, which is what will the Republican Party look like in the future,” he said.

Please, allow me the honor of breaking this one down for you, Sen. Reid, real simple-like: We are more than fifteen trillion dollars in debt and still spending far and away beyond our means. Spending cuts, big ones, are in order, and your credibility on money matters is all but spent -- besides your compelling fiscal arguments for "cowboy poetry festivals" and the USPS because "seniors love to get junk mail" and whatnot, this is day 1,112 that the Senate has failed to pass a budget, I believe? Don't you worry about the Republican party going off a cliff in the long-term, sir: no Americans of any party are going to thank you when the country goes off of a financial cliff.

We all know that we're in for what is sure to be another nasty upcoming debt-ceiling fight, but Sen. Reid doesn't appear to attach much meaning to those goings-on, as if it really is just some political circus and fiscal apocalypse actually isn't creeping ever-closer. It looks like Speaker Boehner decided to just get the gauntlet thrown down early, to which Sen. Reid, despite his lofty lecturing sentiments, responded in kind:

Although Reid criticized Boehner for making ultimatums, he also reiterated the hard Democratic position that tax increases must be part of any deficit bargain and that social programs must be protected.

So, wait... you're accusing Speaker Boehner of being too partisan and confrontational, playing with brinkmanship, and being unwilling to compromise, but then you're turning around and... oh, nevermind.

In fairness, several of the questions he misses in this clip were tough, but Mr. Smarty Pants wound up in last place:
 

I think I just got a thrill up my leg.

This line of argument was slightly off-putting when The One first deployed it in 2008 -- but at least back then, the question of whether Americans were prepared to elect the first African-American president with an admittedly "funny name" was very much open.  We did.  By a healthy margin.  But now that he's floundering in the polls, our president appeared to revisit that racial well on The View:
 

Props to Barbara Walters for chiming in and asking a pertinent question in response to this supposed joke, wondering, "why do you say that now after four years?"  Obama misunderstands the query (willfully or otherwise) and crafts his reply as if she'd asked why the race would be close, even after four years of his munificent rule.  I think what she was really asking is why he would imply that his ethnicity and unusual name are still significant barriers to his political success.  After all, he's already been elected to the highest office in the land.  Let's also bear in mind that the last two losing Democratic nominees were both lily white, yet their elections were also "tight."  Significantly tighter, in fact, than Obama's 2008 victory.  How would our president explain those outcomes?  It seems to me that he isn't interested in realistically diagnosing the causes behind his re-election struggles; namely, his failed policies, disappointing outcomes and broken promises.  He is interested in making excuses and blaming others, which has become his modus operandi.  You may be thinking that I'm over-hyping an off-the-cuff, lighthearted answer and devoting far too much time and thought to it.  I suppose that's possible.  But we recently learned that he also blamed the Democrats' 2010 drubbing on supposed identity-based smears, a truly delusional claim: 
 

Corn writes that after the midterm elections, Obama told labor leaders in December 2010 that he held Fox partly responsible for him “losing white males…Fed by Fox News, they hear Obama is a Muslim 24/7, and it begins to seep in…The Republicans have been at this for 40 years. They have new resources, but the strategy is old,” Corn recounted Obama as saying.

These two illustrations lead me to several questions for the gallery:  (1) Does Obama genuinely believe his skin color and name are significant factors in the 2012 presidential election, or is he just tossing red meat to his base (which vehemently believes racism and bigotry explain much of the opposition to Obama, even though Obama's core opponents were also Kerry opponents, Gore opponents, etc)?  (2) Are comments like this the product of an unfortunate intellectual laziness on his part, or is Obama deliberately attempting to delegitimize and stigmatize his opposition by feeding an insidious racial subtext?  Jonah Goldberg ruminates on the topic here.

I like this Mitt Romney.

But by all means, please keep taking off your shoes and letting agents touch you in sensitive areas!

An illegal immigrant worked undetected at Newark Liberty International Airport for 20 years, and used a dead man's identity to acquire a top position in airport security, officials said.

The man was known to co-workers as Jerry Thomas, and for nearly 20 years he has guarded some of the most secure areas of one of the nation's busiest airports.

He was arrested Monday after authorities discovered he is really an illegal Nigerian immigrant by the name of Bimbo Olumuyiwa Oyewole (among other alilases) who entered the country in 1989, officials said.

CBS Station WCBS reports Oyewole, 54, allegedly assumed the identity of a dead man to get a top security job at the airport. He was arrested at his Elizabeth, N.J., home following an anonymous tip, officials said.

"In this case, the defendant utilized an elaborate and complex scheme of identity theft to defraud his employer, the State of New Jersey, the federal government and the Port Authority," Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Inspector General Robert Van Etten said.

Welcome to the year 2012 where the Obama Justice Department, headed by Attorney General Eric Holder, refuses to admit voter fraud is a real threat to our democratic process while they sue state after state for voter i.d. laws.

"There is no proof that our elections are marred by in person voter fraud," Attorney General Eric Holder. "Solutions that have been proposed go to things that do not exist, go to a problem that does not exist."

Remember this?

First, we take you to North Carolina where Project Veritas has exposed how non-citizen voters are capable of obtaining a ballot and voting in the swing state.

In North Carolina we find people who are listed as non-citizens according to Jury refusal forms and who are also registered to vote. We get their comment and are offered their ballots. We are offered a ballot in the name of a dead man, and interview an election Judge who says he only wants to uphold parts of the state constitution. We also interview the following officials at UNC who seemingly embrace voter fraud:
-Terri Phoenix -- Director - UNC LGBTQ Center
-Dean Blackburn UNC Assistant Dean of Students
-Adam Limehouse - Director for the Coalition to Protect All NC Families.

Next, we take you to Florida, a key state in any presidential election, where at least 180,000 non-citizens may be sitting on the voter rolls eligible to vote.

Florida election authorities are examining about 180,000 people who they say may not be U.S. citizens but are registered to vote in the state, an official said on Friday.

State officials are updating Florida's voter rolls ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November. Florida is home to a large Latino population and is expected to be a critical swing state in the contest between Democratic President Barack Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

Officials in Florida have so far identified more than 2,600 potential voters who may not be U.S. citizens and sent their information to local election authorities, Cate said.

And are the feds helping to solve this problem? Of course not, despite federal law requiring the clean up of rolls. President Obama has an election to win and Janet Napolitano to help him do it.

Cate said some Florida officials have asked the Obama administration to grant the state access to databases maintained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to help determine who is a citizen.

"We've been requesting access, but have so far been denied," he said.

So, at this point we've seen dead people voting in New Hampshire and Vermont, a stranger obtaining Eric Holder's ballot and contaminated voter rolls in North Carolina and Florida. Keep in mind, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Florida are all swing states and 180,000 is a lot of potentially illegal votes. On top of that, it is estimated that at least two million dead people in America are still registered to vote.

Solution to this problem? Standing and acting to prevent voter fraud with True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht. Securing the integrity of our vote isn't a partisan issue.

What's the dirty little secret of the 2012 election? Despite a disturbing resistance by our federal government to acknowledge the problem, election fraud is all over the map.

Our republic flourishes when citizens are confident their vote is secure, fair and free. Conversely, election fraud undermines our belief that our elected leaders govern with our consent. Every American - regardless of race, creed or political inclination - has an interest in ensuring our elections are both free and fair.

Such is the conviction that led to the birth of a modern-day election integrity movement, of which our nonprofit and nonpartisan group, True the Vote, is a leading voice.

I honestly thought this was a joke.  Nope. I'll let Commentary's Seth Mandel take it from here:
 

The Heritage Foundation’s Rory Cooper tweeted that Obama had casually dropped his own name into Ronald Reagan’s official biography on www.whitehouse.gov, claiming credit for taking up the mantle of Reagan’s tax reform advocacy with his “Buffett Rule” gimmick. My first thought was, he must be joking. But he wasn’t—it turns out Obama has added bullet points bragging about his own accomplishments to the biographical sketches of every single U.S. president since Calvin Coolidge (except, for some reason, Gerald Ford).

A few examples:
 

On Feb. 22, 1924 Calvin Coolidge became the first president to make a public radio address to the American people. President Coolidge later helped create the Federal Radio Commission, which has now evolved to become the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). President Obama became the first president to hold virtual gatherings and town halls using Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.

On August 14, 1935, President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. Today the Obama administration continues to protect seniors and ensure Social Security will be there for future generations.

In a June 28, 1985 speech Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multi-millionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule.

I'm sure these former presidents are just thrilled that Obama administration officials have taken it upon themselves to self-servingly edit their public biographies for political purposes.  I mean, what good is history if Obama can't repurpose it for his own glorification?  Conservatives have jumped all over this on twitter, creating an #ObamaInHistory hashtag, which became the top-trending topic in the United States.  Click through and browse.  It's great fun.
 

UPDATE - On a policy note, here's a helpful primer on why Reagan would not have supported the so-called "Buffett Rule," contra the White House's biography vandalism.  Obama's current plan would (a) double-down on the Alternative Minimum Tax disaster, which Congress has to fix every single year to avert middle class pain, and (b) fetch roughly $30 Billion in revenues over the next ten years.  Obama's budget would add $11 Trillion to the gross national debt over the same period.