FRED HUTCHISON, RA ANALYST — In consideration of a gay advocacy column by Ann Fisher, a gay rights bill in the legislature, and a public invitation by the [Columbus] Dispatch to discuss the issue, I write this short piece and address it to [Ohio] state legislators... (more)

CLIFF KINCAID — If President Obama's handshake with Cuban dictator Raul Castro is news, Castro's featured presence at the Nelson Mandela memorial service and what the South African government said about him are equally newsworthy. South Africa was described as "joined at the hip" to Cuba and in its debt for "liberation."... (more)

JOSEPH FARAH — This budget deal stinks to high heaven. Republicans have an opportunity to increase substantially their majority in the House and recapture control of the Senate next year as Americans finally wake up to the nightmare of Obamacare.... (more)

NATIONAL JOURNAL — House Speaker John Boehner went off on outside conservative groups Wednesday morning for pushing against the new budget deal. Several key conservative groups are against the sequester relief within the new budget deal.... (more)

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE — Senate Republicans scrubbing the Ryan-Murray budget deal have come across a little-noticed provision that will limit the GOP's ability to block tax increases in future years.... (more)

ERICK ERICKSON — Everyone really should be able to admit it is the oddest and most nonsensical fight. The Ryan budget does raise taxes. It does fund Obamacare. It does break sequestration. And it does nothing to address the debt and deficit. It is a compromised can kicked down the road just to a further distance than normal. In doing so, though, it violates a lot of what the very Republican leaders now kicking the can campaigned against mere weeks ago.... (more)

TERENCE JEFFREY — The new debt run up by the federal government since House Speaker John Boehner cut his first spending deal with President Barack Obama has now topped $3 trillion--exceeding all the debt accumulated under all American presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan.... (more)

WORLDNETDAILY — Dr. James Dobson, the longtime family values advocate who now reaches millions through his Family Talk ministry, has filed a lawsuit against Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius over the Obamacare abortion mandate.... (more)

MICHELLE MALKIN — It's elementary: When Democrats find themselves in political trouble, they reach for your wallets. After squandering billions on an ineffectual stimulus, failed green energy boondoggles and the disastrous Unaffordable Care Act, the Obama White House wants to dump $75 billion more into "free" preschool for all. That'll solve everything.... (more)

CLIFF KINCAID — Bill Keller of The New York Times admits Nelson Mandela was a communist, but suggests it doesn't really matter because communism collapsed. But communism never died in South Africa. Mandela lied about his party membership, for the obvious purpose of confusing and deceiving people about what is really going on in South Africa.... (more)

MAIL ONLINE — The last time a divided U.S. Congress passed a budget deal, President Ronald Reagan was denying he traded arms for Iranian hostages and the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion was fresh in Americans' minds. But a House Republican and a Democratic senator hope they've found a compromise that federal legislators can live with.... (more)

WORLDNETDAILY — South Carolina lawmakers have a proposal in their legislative pipeline that would nullify the federal Obamacare law.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — Soweto, the Johannesburg suburb where popular resistance to apartheid set off the revolution that changed South Africa and established Nelson Mandela as the father of a new country, is the most dangerous place on the continent this week. Anyone who ventures into the street risks being crushed by the hordes of official visitors trying to get in front of a camera.... (more)

TIMOTHY P. CARNEY — John Podesta is a revolving-door corporate lobbyist. He's also a former Bill Clinton fixer and opposition research consultant for the Democrats. So it's fitting President Obama has officially brought Podesta onto the White House staff.... (more)

PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY — The media are currently filled with reports that U.S. students are scoring poorly on international tests. The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which compares 15-year-olds in most industrialized countries, reported that U.S. students dropped from 25th to 31st in math, 11th to 21st in reading and 20th to 24th in science.... (more)

CBS — Officials at Shaw Air Force Base are trying to determine what to do about a holiday display after a Nativity scene was taken down last week.... (more)

NEWSMAX — Thirty-five years after lifting a ban on blacks entering the priesthood, the Mormon church has offered an explanation for a practice that was in place for more than 100 years, saying it was rooted in the racism of the times.... (more)

NEWSMAX — Unless strict limits are placed on the Patriot Act's broad surveillance powers, the legislation will likely be killed altogether when it expires in 2015, the Act's author, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, predicts.... (more)

WORLDNETDAILY — More than eight years after homeowners in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood of New London, Conn., were abandoned by the U.S. Supreme Court -- in the historic and controversial "Kelo decision" -- and watched as their modest homes on small residential lots were razed, a plan may finally be in the works to redevelop the area.... (more)

WORLDNETDAILY — CIA documentation confirms that former CIA director Leon Panetta revealed classified information at a 2011 awards ceremony attended by "Zero Dark Thirty" filmmaker Mark Boal to curry favor with Hollywood, according to the Washington-based government watchdog Judicial Watch.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — The Obama administration overruled career Homeland Security officials and expedited visa applications for about two dozen foreign investors for a politically connected Las Vegas casino hotel after repeated pressure from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his staff, according to internal government documents obtained by The Washington Times.... (more)

WASHINGTON TIMES — With final losses from the auto industry bailout near $15 billion, President Obama is using fuzzy math to claim that taxpayers lost no money on his administration's portion of the rescue program, analysts say.... (more)

ALAN KEYES — There are many these days who bloviate passionately against Barack Obama's misdeeds. Meanwhile, they refuse to back the only strategy that can constitutionally end his abuses before it's too late. President Warren G. Harding described bloviating as "the art of speaking for as long as the occasion warrants, and saying nothing." Reportedly, he himself was one of its primordial master craftsmen... (more)

CLIFF KINCAID — It appears that AIM and blogger Trevor Loudon are among the few sources highlighting the official statement of the South African Communist Party (SACP) about Nelson Mandela having been a high-ranking member. SACP deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila is quoted by a South African magazine as saying it was denied at the time for "political reasons."... (more)

WORLDNETDAILY — If you thought Obamacare could not get any more unattractive to an increasingly skeptical American public, think again.... (more)