In the frenzy of protest against Indiana's new religious freedom law some of the more outspoken have made fools of themselves. Gov. Dannell Malloy, D-Conn., announced a ban on state-funded travel to the state in the belief there was intention to discriminate against gays. Wake up, governor. Connecticut has a similar law on the books.

The new Edward M. Kennedy Institute dedicated by President Obama (also known as the Teddy Kennedy shrine) is costing taxpayers $38 million. Kennedy's liberal friends in the U.S. Senate are helping steer millions more in private money to the museum.

Barack Obama promised that his progressive, big government economic policies would jump start the economy. But Obama-economics was a failure. The U.S. economy produced $1 trillion less in 2014 than Obama promised in 2010.

"Even Nixon didn't destroy the tapes." - Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus after it was disclosed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wiped her personal email server clean.

Presidential trivia: President Obama isn't the highest paid world leader. With an annual salary of $800,000 he ranks number two in a recent study. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong draws the largest salary, $1.7 million. And that's after he took a 28 percent pay cut.

President Obama's spokesman Josh Earnest attacked Indiana's new religious freedom law, saying it legitimizes discrimination against homosexuality. He ignored the fact that Obama voted in favor of similar legislation when he was a state senator in Illinois.

"Don't be too elated." - Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., as Reid announced he would retire from the Senate when his term ends in 2017.

How Your Taxes Are Spent
Diana Rubens, director of the Philadelphia VA regional benefits office, was paid $288,000 in "relocation payments" to move the 140 miles from Washington, D.C. to her new place of work. Rubens, who was given large bonuses at a time when patient backlogs increased by 300,000, drew a base salary of $181,000 in 2014.

One day after approving a balanced budget, the House of Representatives passed a health care bill that will add an estimated $141 billion to the federal deficit over the next decade.

"We've made our share of mistakes." - President Obama, on the fifth anniversary of Obamacare. That's putting it mildly.

Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was praised by National Security Adviser Susan Rice for serving with "honor and distinction" when the Obama administration arranged for his release from the Taliban in exchange for five terrorist leaders, has been charged by the Army with desertion. Rice also blamed the Benghazi killings of four Americans on a controversial video -- a claim that never held up.

How Your Taxes Are Spent
The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol spent $945 million on field radios that didn't work, according to a Government Accountability Office report. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives purchased $600,000 worth of drones that it never flew - and disposed of them.

If you've just finished writing a check to the Internal Revenue Service, this report might give you some heartburn. As of September 30, 2014, almost 305,000 federal workers and retirees owed more than $3.5 billion in unpaid taxes. Congress should throw that into the face of the agency's director the next time he comes looking for higher appropriations.


Afghanistan has a new president, Ashraf Ghani, who exuded a spirit of cooperation with the U.S. in a visit to the White House. It's too bad President Obama, in a joint press conference, referred to him as "President Karzai" - the name of his predecessor.

Laura Dowling didn't receive a bouquet of red roses for Valentine's Day. Instead it was her bad luck on Friday, February 13 to be handed her walking papers  In fact, the Washington Post reports, Dowling was "escorted" out of the White House after serving almost six years as the Chief Florist. The paper's gossip column, Reliable Source, devoted two successive days to probing the mystery of her departure. Some sources said her floral arrangements were too "fussy" for the first lady's "emerging modern and clean aesthetics."

No sooner had Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, announced he was running for president than questions were raised about his eligibility to hold the office. The fact that Cruz was born in Canada (to an American mother) prompted the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal to run commentaries on the Cruz "birther movement." Noted Obama birther Donald Trump, who also is talking about a run, was among the first to speak out.

When the White House sends out belated sympathy notes,  it's time for a shakeup. National Security Adisor Susan Rice used her Twitter account to offer condolences regarding the death of Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. The problem is she was two years late. Achebe died on March 22, 2013.

Call it President Obama's minimum wage proposal for managers. In a recent interview Obama expressed concern about companies getting around federal overtime rules by designating workers who make under $23.000 a year as managers. Obama has talked of raising this threshold to $42,000, or even as high as $57,000.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is boasting about being the first to put his toe in the water for the 2016 Republican nomination. Does that also make him likely to be the first to drown in the primaries?

In a scene reminiscent of starstruck fans swooning over idols such as Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, Pope Francis was mobbed by a group of overexcited nuns, let out from their closed convents during his visit to Naples. The archbishop had to rein them in after they swarmed the pontiff, showering him with gifts and greetings. Ted Cruz should be so lucky.

President Obama is determined to expand the federal government during his last two years in office. How's he going to do it? "By hook or by crook," he told the Huffington Post.

Amtrak lost $214 million last year. But management of the publicly funded train service thought that was so good employees were rewarded with $11.2 million in bonuses, according to an inspector general's report.

First Lady Michelle Obama is taking another overseas junket at taxpayers' expense. This time she's traveling to Japan and Cambodia for a "girls' education initiative." The Washington Times reports a planned visit to a Buddhist Temple in Kyoto is costing $78,741 for rental cars.

With April 15 coming up soon, a poll shows that most Democrats believe taxes are fair while most Republicans feel they are overtaxed. But the Pew Research Center found "considerable support for Congress completely changing the federal tax system."

It's not bad enough for Secretary of State John Kerry that the nuclear talks with Iran in Switzerland are virtually stalled but also he couldn't get his bike in gear. Kerry has been seen riding a 10-year-old orange racer along the shore of Lake Geneva. But Yahoo News reports that Swiss police went to a local bike shop, with a U.S. security team in tow, and ordered an urgent repair of a gear-change mechanism. The bike was fixed for $20. The talks ...

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is featured in the April issue of Playboy. No, not in the nude. But he did bare himself of some harsh opinions about President Obama in an interview with James Rosen of Fox News. His accusation that President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder "are playing the race card" for suggesting those who criticize them are doing so because of their race drew sharp rebuttals from their defenders.

Secret Service Chief Joseph Clancy told a congressional committee he didn't have the authority to fire senior agents who got drunk and rammed their government car into a White House barrier. Now we learn that the U.S. attorney's office in D.C. will not file charges against a drunken federal employee who crashed a drone onto the lawn of the executive mansion. Party on!

"Netanyahu Wins Decisive Victory in Israeli Election - Washington Post
"Netanyahu Beats Obama in Close Election" - The Daily Caller
"WH Avoids Congratulating Bibi" - The Weekly Standard

Some of the consequences of President Obama's executive amnesty for illegal immigrants are really unbelievable. Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation estimates that lifetime Social Security and Medicare benefits for the amnesty beneficiaries would be well over a trillion dollars.

First Lady Michelle Obama has launched a #GimmeFive challenge" as part of her fight against fat. A video announcing the challenge listed President Obama's five ways to be healthy: "jogging on stage to give a campaign speech, shooting a basketball, playing tennis, climbing the stairs to Air Force One, and lifting a baby." No mention of golf?

The Environmental Protection Agency has come up with yet another way to intrude upon the lives of private citizens. EPA is creating a system to monitor hotel guests to see how much time they spend in the shower. The system will track the amount of water a guest uses as a means of getting individuals to "modify their behavior."

Julia Trant had a question for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, at an event in New Hampshire. "The whole world's on fire?" she asked, to clarify a charge the GOP presidential hopeful had leveled at the "Obama-Clinton foreign policy." Cruz replied, "yes", but then assured the three-year-old that "everyone's here to make sure that the world you grow up in is even better."

An industry group is sending an angry message to Washington: "hands off my hot dog." The North American Meat Institute is protesting recommendations by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, a federal panel responsible for helping to develop good nutrition policies. The committee has called for decreased red meat consumption.

Just when tax returns for low income earners become more complex because of Obamacare, the Obama administration has killed a program aimed at helping them. The millions of dollars allocated to the taxpayer assistance centers now are going to liberal groups with political ties.

The annual Gridiron Club Dinner in Washington brought political celebs together for some mostly good-natured joshing. Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., was a featured speaker. He was optimistic about taking back the Oval Office for Republicans. But noting that his failure to graduate from college has become an issue he joked: "If my first term is anything like college I won't make it through four years."

Gridiron guest President Obama took jabs at Walker and other GOP contenders, House Speaker John Boehner, Hillary Clinton and himself. Referring to his aging, he said, "Just a few years ago, I could never imagine ever being in my fifties. And when it comes to my approval ratings, I still can't."

It's a little early to be speculating about who will be the last Obama administration appointee to leave when his term expires. But Valerie Jarrett, President Obama's senior adviser, hints she might be the one. She told New York Magazine, "I intend to stay until the lights go off."

President Obama ignored all the serious events of the day and tried to be funny in an appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel TV show. Reading a "mean tweet" that proposed flying him "to some golf course around the world and just leave him there?", Obama, a golfing addict, said, "I think that's a great idea."

A study done by professors from universities in Finland and California came to an unsurprising conclusion: there are too many studies.

Is working for President Obama driving his bodyguards to drink? Yet another incident involving inebriated Secret Service agents has emerged. After a party involving heavy drinking, two senior agents drove a government car into security barricades at the White House.

"I don't get along all that well with the president, but Michelle's good people." - Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., quoted by The Hill.

Actually reading a bill before voting on it can produce some surprising results. Senate Democrats asked Republicans to bring an anti-human trafficking bill to the floor, but then threatened to block it after discovering it contained language preventing federal funding of abortions.

Hillary and Bill Clinton need to get their act together. She told reporters she used her private email account while she was secretary of state to exchange messages with her husband. But a spokesman for the former president said he "has sent a grand total of two emails during  his entire life" ... and neither was to his wife.

Convenience over compliance appears to be Hillary Clinton's explanation for conducting official State Department business through a private email account. "It would be easier to carry just one device," she said. Never mind that in an earlier TV interview she named four "devices" she had. Besides, as many commentators pointed out, anyone can have multiple email accounts on a single hand-held device.

How Your Taxes Are Spent
Records obtained by Judicial Watch show the Obama family's 2014 Christmas vacation to Hawaii cost taxpayers $3,672,798 in flight expenses alone.

Inevitably, with the Hillary Clinton email scandal snowballing, comparisons are being drawn to Watergate. One of the most memorable jibes came from National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg. He said Clinton's paranoid and calculating way of handling the controversy makes her look like "Nixon in a pantsuit."

More echoes of Watergate: "What did he know and when did he know it?" President Obama told CBS he learned about Clinton's private email system from news reports. But then White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama actually did know Clinton didn't use a government email address when she was secretary of state.

Democratic pollster Pat Caddell blasted the Obama administration following a leak that federal corruption charges may be filed against Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., an administration critic. "This White House is Nixon on steroids," Caddell said.

"Hillary Clinton Faces Test of Record as Women's Advocate" - New York Times
"Will Clinton's experience be a liability?" - Washington Post
These headlines, plus sharp ridicule by Saturday Night Live  suggest the liberal media might be deserting one of their favorites.

Bill and Hillary Clinton's family foundation stands accused of accepting "millions of dollars in donations from Middle Eastern countries known for violence against women and for denying them many basic freedoms." Bill Clinton's response: "I think it is a good thing."

President Obama said he learned about Hillary Clinton's use of private email as secretary of state "through news reports." The same way he found out about "Fast and Furious", IRS, Benghazi and all the other scandals in his administration?

With Washington, D.C. coated with snow, dozens of children and their parents took to Capitol Hill and broke a government rule. They went sledding in open defiance of a controversial ban. If President Obama can violate the Constitution by exercising his executive authority ...

Gina McCarthy has her marching orders. She's the EPA  Chief Administrator and she told The Hill newspaper she's on a mission to finalize the first-ever carbon dioxide regulations on power plants before President Obama leaves office. In the face of this major initiative, the U.S. coal industry is fighting for survival.

In light of the cloud of scandal hovering over former secretary of state Hillary Clinton's private email account, tongues are wagging in the nation's capital over Scott Gration, who was forced out as ambassador to Nairobi in 2012, partially because he was using private email for official business.

It's not just Republicans that are up in arms over Hillary Clinton's secret email correspondence while she was secretary of state. After the New York Times broke the story that Clinton maintained a private email account, several normally Democrat-friendly news media sources have joined in a chorus of criticism. And the Associated Press said it is considering taking legal action against the State Department for failing to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests involving Clinton's emails.

Remember when mothers admonished their children to "eat your vegetables"? That certainly hasn't that happened since First Lady Michelle Obama asserted her authority to dictate what America's children should eat. A federally funded study on the effect of Obama's school lunch standards found that vegetable consumption has "significantly decreased" since the rules went into effect.

"He ain't got no email problems. He ain't got no foundation problems. What you see with Joe is what you get." - Dick Harpootlian, former South Carolina Democratic Party chairman and prominent backer of Vice President Joe Biden as a 2016 presidential candidate.

If you're dying to know how the next president stands on agriculture, and specifically on ethanol, cattle and row crops, pay attention to what some prospective candidates have to say at the first-ever Iowa Agriculture Summit Saturday. So far only Republicans, no Democrats, have accepted invitations to participate in the event.

A Washington watchdog group -- the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust -- is demanding that Attorney General Eric Holder sue former secretary of state Hillary Clinton to retrieve her email correspondence from a private account during the time she was an Obama cabinet member. Any bets on whether Holder will do that before leaving office?

When liberals angrily accuse the rich of not paying their "fair share" of taxes, they simply ignore the facts. Congressional Budget Office records show the top 1 percent of income earners paid 24 percent of all federal taxes, while the bottom fifth paid less than 1 percent in the last year for which data is available.

Why do certain public officials think they're above the law? The New York Times has exposed Hillary Clinton for exclusively using a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state. Federal law requires that letters and emails sent and received by federal officials be retained as government records.

What's next? Will President Obama try to usurp the taxing power of Congress the same way he has attempted to execute a legislative power grab? Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has called on Obama to raised more than $100 billion in corporate taxes through executive action. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the president "is very interested in this avenue."

Here's a noteworthy idea: Reps. Scott Rigell, R-Va., and David N. Cicilline, D-R.I., are sponsoring a bipartisan bill to help restore the public's confidence in Congress by requiring every member of the House of Representatives to undergo annual ethics training. It's the Ensuring Trust and Honorability in Congressional Standards (ETHICS) Act.

Why are opponents of President Obama's new deportation amnesty so determined to block it? One reason is that it would permit as many as 4 million illegal immigrants to get Social Security numbers, making many of them eligible for tax refunds, even on previous returns.

When was the last time Hillary Clinton was in Washington? It might have been the same time as Benjamin Netanyahu's last visit. It's ironic that the former secretary of state and the Israeli prime minister were both scheduled to be in the nation's capital on the same date this week.

House Democrats believe Speaker John Boehner will bring a "clean" Homeland Security funding bill to the floor this week and some of Boehner's fellow Republicans are making noises about forcing their leader to step down. When did a clean bill become a dirty trick?