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Charity: On the surface, the Komen Foundation's reversal of its Planned Parenthood grant cut-off shows the left's power to enforce conformity. What it really reveals is that Planned Parenthood doesn't need taxpayer support. When the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation announced it was planning to stop giving money to Planned Parenthood a short five years after it started, you'd have thought from the reaction that it had committed a capital crime. Liberals brutally denounced the charity. More than two dozen Democratic senators called on Komen to reconsider. One of them, California's Barbara Boxer, said the funding cutoff reminded her of "the McCarthy era." In short order, Komen more or less reversed itself, rather than see its hugely successful, 30-year effort to cut breast cancer deaths burned to the ground by a liberal lynch mob. But before Komen caved, an interesting thing happened: Donations to Planned Parenthood exploded. Within hours, in fact, 6,000 donated a total of $400,000. A family in Dallas pledged $250,000, and New York's Mayor Bloomberg promised to match that. In other words, Planned Parenthood more than made up for the $680,000 in grants that Komen was planning to withhold. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Jobs: Of course it's good news that 243,000 new jobs were created in January, shaving the unemployment rate to 8.3%. But thanks to massive policy errors by the White House, we're still way below where we should be. President Obama, speaking in Arlington, Va., immediately took credit for the bullish report, crowing that "altogether, we've added 3.7 million new jobs over the last 23 months." The president went on to say: "We can't go back to the policies that led to the recession. And we can't let Washington stand in the way of our recovery." "Our" recovery? And "We can't go back to the policies that led to the recession"? The cause of the recession was, in fact, housing policies put in place by President Clinton and aggressively supported by Democrats in Congress, including former Sen. Barack Obama. How soon we forget. These were the policies that led to the housing meltdown, the financial crisis and, ultimately, the deep recession we're still climbing out of. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Taxes: President Obama's campaign to soak rich investors is already getting complicated. His small-business breaks would benefit those he says are paying less than a fair share. The State of the Union speech is fast fading into history, but one of its themes — raising taxes on the rich — has legs in politics if not in policy. This is an election year, and the idea of making people like Warren Buffett (or Mitt Romney) pay a higher share of the income to the government polls well. One of Obama's allies in Congress, Rep. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., has introduced a bill that would impose a minimum effective tax rate of 30% on people earning more than $1 million. The bill may not get very far in the current Congress, but that's not the point. The object is to win in November. The 30% bill is political rhetoric, not serious policy. Even Obama must know that his endorsement of a 30% minimum tax on the wealthy is just hot air. As a practical matter, the only way to garner that much from the Warren Buffett-Mitt Romney set is to end preferential treatment for capital gains and stock dividends, raising the top rates from 15% to 35%. Even then, a big giver to church and charity, such as Romney, would still be able to keep the federal share tax bite below 30%. But the Obama administration says, at least this time around, that it will leave the charitable deduction alone. So it would have to dig deeply into investment income if it is to come close to imposing a Buffett Rule that meets its own fairness test. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Nuclear Terror: The administration claims economic sanctions are working in preventing Iran from making a nuclear weapon. Why, then, is Tehran apparently assembling a missile that can reach the U.S.? To carry TNT? President Obama has described the waves of economic sanctions imposed on Islamofascist Iran as "the sort of pressure that will have a direct impact on the Iranian government." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last month claimed that "sanctions have been working," making it "much more difficult for Iran to pursue its nuclear ambitions." Foundation for Defense of Democracies President Cliff May concedes that sanctions have done some good, but are far from enough. In a column last week, he noted Iran's currency has lost half its value since December, inflation is officially over 20% and may really be twice that, and crude oil production is falling. Plus, "Iran's rulers have forfeited more than $60 billion in energy investment and $14 billion in annual oil sales," with hundreds of billions of dollars in potential natural gas sales prevented. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Nanny State: The food police who've targeted everything from salt to Happy Meals now set their sights on regulating sugar as a controlled substance to fight obesity. The fat we should fear most, though, is overweight government. The pursuit of happiness, one of those unalienable rights endowed to us by our Creator, is under assault once again by those who spend every waking moment worrying that somebody somewhere is actually enjoying his or her life without government supervision. In an article titled "The Toxic Truth About Sugar," published in the journal Nature, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (where else?) said worldwide consumption of sugar has tripled over the last 50 years and is now contributing to 35 million annual deaths, even if sugar-coated corn flakes aren't listed as the causes of death. Whether these unfortunate victims of what may be called "cereal killers" died happy is also not recorded. The researchers cite three major health risks — alcohol, tobacco and sugar. "Two of these three — tobacco and alcohol — are regulated by governments to protect public health, leaving one of the primary culprits behind this worldwide health crisis unchecked," the researchers write. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Scandal: In a shameful performance, the attorney general Thursday reprised his tap-dancing routine before a panel investigating the Fast and Furious gunrunning operation that got U.S. agents and Mexicans killed. 'It's Groundhog Day, and Brian Terry's family and taxpayers are still waiting for Fast and Furious answers from the Justice Department," Chairman Darrell Issa said before the hearings. "We will not wait until the next Groundhog Day to get answers for the American people." Rep. Issa, R-Calif., has threatened Attorney General Eric Holder with a contempt of Congress citation if he doesn't get answers to questions on Fast and Furious, such as who authorized it and what and when Holder knew. The story constantly changes. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Industrial Policy: In recent days we learned sales of the Volt and Leaf cratered, President Obama's failed green jobs program is under investigation, and another "clean energy" company's in trouble. Green is the new red. Each week, it seems, brings fresh evidence that the Obama administration's obsession with so-called clean energy is an increasingly costly failure. January car sales data out this week provided additional proof that consumers are turning their backs on electric cars, making President Obama's pledge to get a million of them on the road in three years look even more ridiculous. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Church And State: President Obama has taken a very powerful name in vain in defense of his class warfare economic policies. In fact, Obama encourages a sin Jesus Christ repeatedly admonished: envy. Attending the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Obama declared that raising tax rates on higher incomes "coincides with Jesus' teaching that 'for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.'" It is disgraceful enough for a president to use a religious event to push an economic agenda that has already insured his place in history as the food stamp president. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

War on Terror: The Taliban is poised to retake Afghanistan under the administration's cut-and-run policies. Instead of burying this dangerous enemy, it's repeating the mistakes that led up to 9/11. In fact, Washington is steadily retreating full circle back to the defensive posture it took toward Afghanistan in 1996. Then, the Clinton administration coddled the thuggish regime and let it seize power. In no time it hosted al-Qaida's leaders, who were able to open major terror camps around the country, where they eventually trained the 9/11 hijackers. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Rules: In a "Twilight Zone" moment, the president suggests Republicans oppose his financial overhaul because they detest simplicity. Nothing's more complex than Dodd-Frank. In a speech proposing his so-called Homeowners Bill of Rights, Obama held up a simplified mortgage form as an example of the great work his new bank watchdog agency is doing. "This, by the way, is what some of the folks in Congress are trying to roll back and prevent from happening," he said. "I guess they like complicated things that confuse consumers and allow them to be cheated. I prefer actions that are taken to make things simpler." Apparently he didn't read the 2,300-page bill he signed. It authorizes the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to do things that only complicate the mortgage process, including: • Requiring lenders to report reams of new data related to race. • Conducting studies on the fairness of the FICO credit scoring system. • Setting up an Office of Fair Lending to police banks and "target areas of greatest risk for discrimination." • Overseeing the placement of a diversity czar in each federal financial agency, including the Fed and its 12 regional banks. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com