Obama donor Bill Maher and wealthy filmmaker Michael Moore claimed Republicans are treasonous anti-Americans on HBO’s Real Time Friday because of their disagreements with Obama.

“What about trying to repealing it [Obamacare] for the 37th time? Is that a wise use of our resources and time? I mean, at some point obstruction becomes treason,” Maher said. “I mean they’ve also blocked Obama’s head of the EPA. There’s no head of the circuit court in D.C. You know, at some point it just becomes more about hating him [Barrack Obama] than loving your country.”

“No, they hate America. That’s really what it is,” Moore eagerly replied . “I think these conservatives and right-wingers really–for as much as they say they love this country–they hate it. They hate the government. They hate people… why is the government the big, evil bastard here?”

Maher asked Moore to clarify whether the government and the country are two different things, but Moore maintained his claim.

“No, It shouldn’t be,” Moore said. “The government is supposed to be of, by and for the people, right? So why is the government the big evil bastard here?”

“Cause, Mike, it got taken over by a Kenyan socialist, that’s why!” Maher mockingly intoned with a faux southern accent, “That’s why we need our guns. We might have to take over the government.”

Moore then said he is not depressed about the Republican Party because the next generation embraces liberal ideas like gun control and gay marriage.

“They are not bigots, they are not haters” he said and then called the GOP a “squealing dinosaur.”

They support less religion Maher added, prompting an aggressive applause from the audience.

America’s most dangerous Mayor used his commencement address at Kenyon College in Ohio as a political opportunity to slam members of Congress for failing to pass background check legislation.

“Have courage to act on your hopes, don’t be paralyzed by your fears,“ Mayor Bloomberg told the graduating class. “Have the courage to think for yourself and to believe in your ideas. That kind of idea lies in the heart of human invention and progress. And a lot of it lies in the heart of our political problems today.”

The mayor then spent the better part of his 15 minute address on gun control, celebrating the occasion by attacking the NRA and highlighting recent gun violence.

“Too many members of Congress did not have the courage to stand up for the increasingly extremist views of the NRA’s Washington lobbyist,” he said. “Many of them feel that voting for common sense policy would lead to someone challenging them in a primary or hurt their chances to win their party’s nomination to higher office.”

Bloomberg told the graduates that since they were freshmen four years ago, more than 40,000 American people have been murdered with guns. He referenced a shooting last year by a 17-year-old who opened fire at an Ohio high school, killing three and injuring others.

“It was national news — for a day or two. Then came mass shootings in Pittsburgh, Miami, Oakland, Tulsa, Seattle, Wilmington, Aurora, Milwaukee, Texas A&M, Minneapolis, Brookfield, Portland, and after each one, those in Washington just shrugged,” he said.

“Then Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut -- 20 children, six faculty members, all gunned down,” Bloomberg continued. “As a parent I can tell you it is just unthinkable if it happened to one of your children. After Newtown, President Obama and some congressional leaders finally, finally stood up and said something has to be done.”

Bloomberg, co-chair of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, said Congress's failure to pass the gun control bill was "Washington at its worst -- the worst thing that it's ever done."

He justified politicizing the commencement address by reiterating that the theme was "courage."

“Why? Why do I tell you this?” Bloomberg asked. “Number one, this is one of the great tragedies happening in America and two, because I believe it comes down to one word, and that word is courage.”

The New York City mayor spent more than $14 million in support of legislation that would have required universal background checks for all gun-buyers, although the bill died in the Senate on April 17, but the mayor insists the battle isn't over.

“I believe we will win — sooner or later—because I believe in all of you,” he said.

One could have reasonably assumed that Bloomberg’s address would center around career advice for the class of 2013 due to the fact that he is after all a billionaire media mogul.

Venezuela's new president promises to import 50 million rolls of toilet paper as fears of a bathroom emergency spread prompting people across the socialist country to waiting on long lines at supermarkets or pharmacies to stock on up soft tissue.

“I've been looking for it for two weeks,” Cristina Ramos told the Associated Press Wednesday during her hunt for soft white paper. “I was told that they had some here and now I'm in line.”

Several supermarkets were out of toilet paper in the capital Wednesday and Thursday, according to the Associated Press, and those that received fresh batches quickly filled up with shoppers as the word spread.

President Nicholas Maduro blames anti-government forces and the private sector for causing the shortages in an effort to destabilize the country.

The 'excessive demand’ for tissue had “built up due to a media campaign that has been generated to disrupt the country” and the government ''will bring in 50 million to show those groups that they won't make us bow down,” Venezuela Commerce Minister, Alejandro Fleming, told Venezuelan State news agency AVN Tuesday.

“The revolution will bring in the coming days the equivalent of 50 million toilet rolls. Starting this Friday until Wednesday next week, we will get the first shipment which will be equivalent to 20 million toilet rolls of paper needed to cover demand for a week or even more than a week,” he said. “We are going to saturate the market so that our people calm down."

Economists say state controlled prices always result in shortages and the shortage of the basic necessity is probably a result of years of financial dysfunction and prohibitive foreign exchange controls.

Venezuelans, after years of economic dysfunction, are accustomed to shortages from time to time as staples like medicine, milk, flour, sugar, butter, coffee and cornmeal have ran short in the past, but the scarcity of bathroom tissue in the oil-rich country is, for many people, beyond belief. Shoppers often spend several days looking for basic items, and stock up when they find them.

“Here there's a shortage of everything - butter, sugar, flour,” 70-year-old Maria Rojas told AP. But the latest shortage is particularly worrisome 'because there always used to be toilet paper.”

“This is the last straw, that even in this country the toilet paper has to be imported. I can only imagine the money they are making from this. Here in Venezuela not even the toilet paper is made. The same with flour and cooking oil and everything,”a shopper hunting for tissue in Caracas told Sky News. “I am 71 and the first time in my life I have witnessed this."

Venezuela’s 12-month inflation rate has risen to nearly 30 percent while the country's scarcity index is currently at 21 percent — meaning that out of 100 basic goods, 21 of them aren't available on store shelves. Lines for commodities like milk, sugar, cooking oil, corn flour used to make areas, and, yes, toilet paper, can often stretch down the block.

The government this week announced it also would import 760,000 tons of food in addition to the 50m rolls of toilet paper.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information Act Request from the Justice Department to examine the Obama Administration’s warrantless surveillance of citizens' emails and text messages, but received fifteen pages of completely blacked-out documents from the DOJ in response.

Totally Redacted FOIA response

“The documents we received from the FBI don’t flat out tell us whether FBI agents always get warrants, but they strongly suggest that they don’t.” ACLU Staff Attorney Nathan Freed Wessler wrote Monday, suggesting the new documents from the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s offices “ paint a troubling picture of the government.”

The only visible text of the memo was DOJ’s letterhead and the subject line which reads, “Guidance for the Minimization of Text Messages over Dual-Function Cellular Telephones.”

“[The document is] so transparent it’s completely invisible,” one Reddit user described it.

The ACLU argues that current government surveillance practices on electronic communications violate citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights, designed to protect Americans from unlawful searches and seizures.

“If nothing else, these records show that federal policy around access to the contents of our electronic communications is in a state of chaos. The FBI, the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, and DOJ Criminal Division should clarify whether they believe warrants are required across the board when accessing people’s email,” Wessler wrote.

“It has been clear since 1877 that the government needs a warrant to read letters sent via postal mail. The government should formally amend its policies to require law enforcement agents to obtain warrants when seeking the contents of all emails too, ” he wrote.

Reform legislation to update the main statute protecting electronic and online privacy is making its way through the Senate now. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted overwhelmingly in April to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and thus bring our privacy rights in line with the 21st century.

Conservative columnist George Will is now calling out the Obama Administration after the IRS admitted Friday that they targeted conservative groups with the phrases “Tea Party,” “Patriot,” “Freedom,” or “Constitution” in their tax-exempt applications for extra audits, prior to last year's elections.

“The question is, how stupid do they think we are?” Will exclaimed on Sunday’s broadcast of ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. “Just imagine, Donna Brazile, if the George W. Bush administration had IRS underlings, out in Cincinnati of course, saying, ‘We're going to target groups with the word 'progressive' in their title,’ we would have all hell breaking loose.”

“The Tea Party people have known about this and were working on this,” Will said. “But they said — it was just some odd underlings out in Cincinnati who did this and there was no political motive whatever involved.”

This is the 40th anniversary of the Watergate summer here in Washington Will pointed out.

He then noted that one of the items in the 1973 impeachment articles of then-President Richard Nixon, which ultimately led to his resignation, described the Nixon administration’s use of the power of income tax audits in a “discriminatory matter.”

"He has through his subordinates and agents endeavored to cause in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner."

Will’s comparison sent “shivers came up and down my spine,” Karl Rove, Former Chief Advisor to President Bush and Founder of American Crossroads said Monday on Fox.

“We would have every major liberal newspaper in America calling for an investigation, hinting at impeachment,” he said. “It would be leading the evening news, we would have every group that had liberal or progressive tendencies demanding answers and marching on the White House and leaders of Congress—Democrats in Congress, demanding to have answers—it would be a nightmare at the Bush White house had this been done on our watch.”

Townhall went out to the streets of liberal New York City to find out how politically engaged the average liberal is. It appears that those who lazily equate MSNBC and Fox News probably don't watch either network, especially the latter, as Guy pointed out in March.

“I really only watch E! news,” one New Yorker told Townhall.

Nearly all of the interviewees strongly contended that Fox News was the most biased news network, but when asked why they believed it to be the most biased it became apparent that they had never watched the network, or news at all for that matter.

Fox News is more biased because “it talks more about politics” while CNN “talks about more international stuff,” another person responded.

In fact most of the people we spoke to, while strongly asserting that FOX was the most biased, could not identify the current or former Vice Presidents of the United States.

Take a look:

A new Defense Department report describes China’s military modernization, the country’s use of state-sponsored industrial espionage and the Chinese army’s interaction with other forces, including those of the United States.

"China continues to leverage foreign investments, commercial joint ventures, academic exchanges, the experience of repatriated Chinese students and researchers, and state-sponsored industrial and technical espionage to increase the level of technologies and expertise available to support military research, development, and acquisition," David Helvey, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia the U.S. Defense Department, said at a Pentagon news conference Monday.

The 83-page annual report to Congress on Chinese military developments provides a detailed overview of China's military progression. Beijing's publicly announced a 10.7 percent increase in military spending to 119 billion in March and has grown at an inflation-adjusted pace of nearly 10 percent annually over the past decade.

The Pentagon estimates that China's actual spending for 2012 could range between $135 billion and $215 billion.

The cost for People’s Liberation Army personnel has risen from about one-third of its budget to roughly one-half, in an effort to increase the quality of the Chinese force, but that ambition is eating at its wider budget, James Mulvenon, director of Defense Group, Inc.’s Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis told Foreign Policy.

“Over the past decade, these double digit nominal increases have quadrupled spending, and they have made the PLA budget second in size only to that of the U.S. military budget,” he said, “albeit several hundred billion dollars less.”

The U.S. defense budget is contracting and China’s has been growing steadily but military outlays are still about six times more in the U.S.President Obama reportedly will request roughly $526 billion in defense spending for fiscal 2014.

The Defense Department’s report comes as the Obama administration pursues a strategic “pivot” to bolster U.S navel resources in the Asia-Pacific. The administration has said China shouldn’t view the change as an effort to contain its growing presence and assertiveness.

Beijing's military modernization, in an effort to keep up with the Pentagon, is concentrated on the development of armed, medium-range ballistic missiles, advanced-technology stealth aircraft , an aircraft carrier fleet to project power further offshore and investments to conduct a wider range of missions beyond its immediate territorial concerns.

The report said China is acquiring greater numbers of conventional medium-range missiles to increase the range at which it can conduct precision strikes against land targets, naval ships, including aircraft carriers, operating far from China's shores.

China’s DF-21D anti-ship missile, according to the report is capable of attacking “large ships, including aircraft carriers, in the western Pacific Ocean.”

“We are concerned about the ability of China to develop missiles that can project its military power with precision at great distances from China,” Helvey said."In combination with other weapons systems, China is gaining the capability to deny the U.S. a military presence in the western Pacific."

The Pentagon in this report, for the first time, directly accuses the Chinese government, military and civilian experts of using state sponsored industrial espionage to break into US defense computer networks to obtain sensitive data that would fuel its fast paced military modernization and cut its reliance on foreign arms makers. The report warned that the computer skills needed for such espionage is similar to those needed to conduct cyber-warfare.

"China continues to engage in activities designed to support military procurement and modernization," the report said and“ is using its computer network exploitation capability to support intelligence collection against the U.S. diplomatic, economic, and defense industrial base sectors that support U.S. national defense programs. These include economic espionage, theft of trade secrets, export control violations, and technology transfer."

China filed a protest with the U.S. over the report.

"We firmly oppose any groundless criticism and hype, because groundless hype and criticism will only harm bilateral efforts at cooperation and dialogue," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters. “We are firmly opposed to this and have already made representations to the US side."

The US Defense Department had repeatedly "made irresponsible comments about China's normal and justified defense build-up and hyped up the so-called China military threat," Hua said. China's defense build-up was geared towards protecting its "national independence and sovereignty."

The report’s assertions are irresponsible and harmful to trust between the U.S. and China, says Wang Xinjun, a researcher with the Academy of Military Sciences at the People’s Liberation Army. “Although it is common sense that you cannot determine sources of cyber-attacks only through IP addresses, some people in the Pentagon still prefer believing they are from China as they always bear a sense of rivalry. It is an allegation based on presupposition.”

The accusations in the report continue an escalating effort by U.S. officials to call out the Chinese on the cyber-attacks and to press for a more open dialogue with Beijing on the problem U.S. National Security. A U.S.-based cyber-security firm, Mandiant Corp, issued a report in February accusing a secret Chinese military unit in Shanghai of years of cyber-attacks against more than 141 companies worldwide since 2006, a majority of them American.

The Obama administration, as part of its fiscal 2014 budget request, is seeking to increase total U.S. government spending on cyber security to $13 billion, about $1 billion more than current levels.

A new global survey of Muslims by the Pew Research Center has found that Palestinian Arab Muslims polled the highest in favor of suicide bombings as a justifiable means “to defend Islam.”

Most Muslims reject suicide bombing and other attacks against civilians, but a substantial minority in many counties—including 40 percent in Palestine, 39 percent in Afghanistan, 26 percent in Bangladesh, 29 percent in Egypt, 15 percent in Jordan and 15 percent in Turkey—view attacks against civilians as a legitimate means to defending Islam against its enemies.

Few U.S. Muslims voice support for suicide bombing or other forms of violence against civilians in the name of Islam. Eighty one percent say such acts are never justified to defend Islam, 7 percent say it’s “sometimes” justified and 1 percent it is “often justified.” to defend Islam. (do we have the ability to compare to the general support for suicide bombings among non-Muslim Americans? Did Pew poll that?)

Even a small minority of Muslims (1%) worldwide translates to 15 million believers - which is hardly an insignificant number.

Muslim-Americans who identify more strongly with their religion are three times more likely to feel that suicide bombings are justified Fifty eight percent of American Muslims rejected al-Qaeda outright, 5 % have a favorable view of al-Qaeda and 27% percent couldn’t make up their minds of the terrorist organization.

“It takes a village to make a suicide bomber it’s not just one person waking up and wants to be a suicide bomber, they must be recruited and groomed by Islamic extremist organizations that prepare them, train them and lead them to a target,”,the Heritage Foundation's Middle East analyst James Phillips told Townhall.

“I think that would be one of the most powerful factors is the presence of Islamic extremist organization that is bent on using suicide bombers as a strategy and then they prepare the ground and in some ways brain wash young people to do their bidding,” he said.

More than half of Muslims in most countries surveyed say they are concerned about religious extremist groups in their country, including two-thirds or more of Muslims in Egypt (67%), Tunisia (67%), Iraq (68%), Guinea Bissau (72%) and Indonesia (78%).

The poll also examined Muslim views on the following topics: Homosexuality, women's rights, Sharia Law, and honor killing.

A majority of Muslims in Afghanistan (78%) and Iraq (76%) don’t believe in a woman's right to decide whether or not to veil her face and condone extra-judicial executions of women who allegedly have ‘shamed their families’ by engaging in premarital sex or adultery.

Eighty nine percent of Palestinian Muslims favored think women must always "obey" their husband and favor the imposition of Sharia Law into their society.

Countries in southeastern Asia, the former U.S.S.R., southeastern Europe and western North Africa have significantly higher opposition to honor killings.

Pew found Muslims around the world overwhelmingly want sharia to become ‘ the official law of the land’ and view certain behaviors – including prostitution, homosexuality, suicide, abortion, euthanasia and consumption of alcohol – as immoral. But attitudes toward polygamy, divorce and birth control are more varied.

“Many also think that their religious leaders should have at least some influence over political matters. And many express a desire for sharia – traditional Islamic law – to be recognized as the official law of their country. Some believe it should apply to all citizens but most believe its strictures should only be applied to Muslims,” according to Pew.

A majority of Muslims in the surveyed countries—including Jordan (37%), Malaysia (41%) and Afghanistan (53% )—say religious leaders should play a “large” role in political matters.

“Islamic extremist organization exploit the fact that Islamic religion extolls martyrdom and they use that to convince impressionable young people that they will go to heaven after the operation,” Phillips told Townhall. “By cloaking their Islamist totalitarian ideology in religious symbols they recruit and direct young suicide bombers, although they, the ringleaders, don’t sacrifice themselves. They leave that to people they can brainwash.”

According to Pew, "In all but a handful of the 39 countries surveyed, a majority of Muslims say that Islam is the one true faith leading to eternal life in heaven, and that belief in God is necessary to be a moral person.”

Ironically, even though many countries strongly back Sharia, most Muslims favor religious freedom for people of other faiths.

Have you ever felt your heart pounding after hearing a strange bump in the night or felt uncomfortable with the guys hanging out near your local playground? If your front door is suddenly kicked in at 3:00 a.m. and criminals rushed into your house, would you know exactly what to do?

Jason R. Hanson, a former CIA officer and owner and founder of the Concealed Carry Academy, has shown men and women all over the nation how to protect their families from a deadly home invasion, safely handle a firearm and carry a concealed handgun in 35 states.

“There are few things in life as important as being able to protect yourself and your loved ones,” Hanson told Townhall.

“A police officer, if you are lucky, will get to your house in nine minutes. If there is a home invasion or any attack, nine minutes can be very quick. In some other places, it may take half an hour or more. Since the police officers can’t be there to save you, we have got to protect ourselves, and a gun is the best way to do it.”

Hanson spent six years with the CIA and was trained in almost every self-defense skill ranging from shooting to evasive driving. As a CIA officer, he says, he took his self-defense training and knowledge for granted, only later realizing how many people lack basic understanding of how to defend themselves.

“I realized there was a huge need to share with people my CIA ‘secrets’ so they could protect themselves and their loved ones in these unstable times,” he said.

He eventually founded the Concealed Carry Academy, which specializes in concealed carry training.

The academy offers an online course to get a concealed carry permit and fulfills the training requirements for Virginia and Arizona. Combined, these two permits allow holders to carry concealed in up to 35 states, which inspires people from all over the nation to take his course. Topics covered in the online Ultimate Concealed Carry Experience class include choosing the best gun for self-defense, situational awareness, ammunition concerns and training on how to handle home invasions.

Hanson also teaches a class in person, called Spy Escape and Evasion, where he trains gun carriers in skills usually reserved for CIA and FBI training. The course offers advanced training in how to become a human lie detector, how to quickly escape from multiple types of restraints like zip ties, duct tape, rope and even handcuffs, how to create an improvised weapon and much more.

“We shoot about 500 rounds in a single day, covering all different positions: knee ranges, lying on your back, all the positions you may find yourself in one day,” Hanson said. “If you are trying to escape an attacker and you trip and fall, or if someone is invading your home, you will need to know what to do.”

Excerpted from Townhall Magazine's May Townhall of Fame feature. To get the rest of Powe's profile on Jason Hanson, subscribe to Townhall Magazine today.

While Democrats pledge to bring gun control legislation back to the floor, the failure of popular Senate gun proposals affirms — even in the wake of Newtown shootings—more Americans want more guns in homes for protection, and perhaps a sign out front declaring the house a gun-filled rather than gun-free zone.

Amid the controversial debate on gun control, Townhall’sKatie Pavlich went out to Arizona for an intensive week-long firearms training course at a state of the art training facility highlighting the importance of being educated in self-defense.

Fox News' cameras went with her.

“I decided to come out here to the gun site because I think it's important for people to educate themselves in self-defense should they ever be put in a situation where they need to actually defend their life,” Pavlich explained.

Pavlich’s multi-day firearm training course included the basics of self-defense, the ins and outs of the AR-15 and the defensive pistol, how to save lives and fight her way out of a threat, the necessity of “high capacity” magazines and keys to successful crisis management.

The Arizona Gunsite Academy is the largest privately-owned training facility in the world, which trains a law enforcement personnel, military special operations people and a tremendous amount of civilians. The instructors are all highly experienced, most of them military police.

“Here at the Gunsite, they don't teach you how to shoot, they teach you how to fight. There are people here from all over the country, there are people are here from all over the world and they are all here to learn the basics of how to confront a situation rather than be a victim,” Pavlich said.

“What makes gun site different than other defense or shooting schools, they have simulators here to give you realistic situations of what you might face in your home and out in the real world.” Pavlich said.

Many people are afraid of guns, especially women, but that is one unexpected consequence of the gun control push: more people are buying guns. In fact, many of the new gun owners are women.

“We've had over the last year and a half, two years, about a 700% increase in women. They want to learn about firearms. They want to learn to be safe, they want to learn to be able to resolve conflicts,” Buzz Miller, the owner of Gunsite Academy told Fox.

An unprecedented majority of Americans, a wide 51 to 29 percent margin, say having a gun in the household makes it a safer place to be rather than more dangerous, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The public split 35 to 51 percent on whether guns make the home safer or more dangerous in 2000 according to Gallup, that’s nearly a complete reversal.

“I' m a mother of five, my husband is a doctor, I’m a nurse. Until about four years ago i had never shot a gun. I believe in the second amendment, but I was afraid of the gun,” Christine Taylor, a Gunsite participant told Fox, “I think if you have guns in your house, the safety is knowing how to use them.”

Pavlich demonstrated during her training that the controversial AR15, an assault rifle, contrary to popular belief, is actually very useful for self defense.

“You do not need assault weapons to defend yourself or your property,” Sen. Harry Reid, who vows to bring gun control proposal legislation back on the Senate floor warned. “Assault weapons have one purpose and one purpose only. To kill a large number of people really quick.”

“The opposite is true,” Pavlich said, “it’s light weight, compact very accurate and very good against stopping a violent threat.”