Then pushed it over a cliff.

When it rains, it pours.

(Life News) — In a move that generated little media attention or focus, New Hampshire became the latest state to scrap taxpayer funding of the Planned Parenthood abortion business when members of a panel voted to void a $1.8 million contract.

Last Wednesday, on a 3-2 vote, members of the Executive Council rejected a taxpayer funded contract with the abortion business and told a newspaper that it was because Planned Parenthood does abortions and spends large amounts of money paying its administrators huge salaries and lobbying the state government.

The Executive Council voided the contract with Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (PPNNE) with Councilor Dan St. Hilaire of Concord casting a vote against the contract along with David Wheeler of Nashua and Raymond J. Wieczorek of Manchester. The Union Leader indicates Raymond S. Burton of Bath and Chris Sununu of Newfields supported funding the abortion business.

While the council approved contracts for legitimate medical centers and organizations, St. Hilaire told the newspaper that Planned Parenthood does abortions and its CEO earns in excess of $250,000 a year. St. Hilaire also cited the fact that most of the services and administration are located outside New Hampshire, in Vermont.

Nick Toumpas, commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, reacted to the move and told the newspaper he’s not sure if the de-funding will have any affect on the medical services women in New Hampshire receive. Like other states, women have many other options to find medical care from non-abortion agencies.

Bad case of the munchies?

(The Hill) — President Obama made a lunchtime pit stop during his Iowa trip Tuesday.

Obama’s motorcade made an unannounced visit to Ross’ Restaurant in Bettendorf, Iowa, one of the quad cities on the border of Illinois and Iowa. The visit surprised owner Cynthia Freidhof, who met the president at a town hall meeting in August 2008.

“How are you doing? We came to order some food,” Obama said upon arrival, according to a White House pool report.

Obama reportedly told Freidhof at their meeting that he wanted to visit her cafe someday after hearing her describe the menu.

Obama might not want to tell First lady Michelle Obama, who runs an anti-obesity campaign, that he ate at a place best known for serving mountains of greasy food.

Ross’ restaurant is known for dishes called “Mountains”; their signature dish is the Magic Mountain: Texas grilled toast, hamburger meat, French fries or hash browns and cheese sauce.

Freidhof, who didn’t realize the president would be visiting until she watched his motorcade turn off the highway, renamed the signature dish ‘Presidential Magic Mountain’ in his honor for the day.

“Anybody who wants one, I will buy it for you,” Obama said, according to the report.

The president bought Magic Mountains for three customers in the restaurant, and brought four Magic Mountains and two Volcanos (the Magic Mountain with the addition of chili) back to traveling companions.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney ordered a Volcano but told reporters he could not finish it.

Now the kicker to this story is the workers at these plants in Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee don’t want to unionize; in fact, they’re extremely happy with their jobs.

(Bloomberg) — The United Auto Workers is trying to hold its first successful organizing drive at a foreign-car factory in the U.S. To succeed, the union has to convince people like Rocky Long.

“I don’t see any problems here. I don’t see how they could help me out,” said Long, who’s worked at the Hyundai Motor Co. (005380)assembly plant in Montgomery, Alabama, for five years. Of the union representatives who came to his home this year, he said, “I really didn’t give them the time of the day.”

UAW President Bob King has pledged to organize a foreign automaker this year to expand its bargaining power beyond the U.S. companies it has negotiated with for seven decades. While Detroit is mostly retooling old plants, overseas car companies are building and expanding U.S. factories. The union is seeking to revive membership ranks that declined 75 percent to 376,612 last year from its peak of 1.5 million.

Standing in his way are rising sales and added investments at Hyundai’s Alabama complex and sites such as affiliate Kia Motor Corp.’s factory in Georgia. Already, King and his organizers are learning that workers at foreign-owned assembly plants, most of which are in the U.S. South, may not be easy to persuade.

“The UAW has to convince workers that they need a union when in fact without a union they got what they consider to be one of the best jobs they’ve ever had: a good manufacturing job with a company that’s expanding,” Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, said in an interview.

Michele Martin, a UAW spokeswoman, didn’t respond to requests for comment or to interview union supporters in Alabama. King hasn’t said which automaker he’s trying to organize.

While Hyundai officials declined to speak about specific pay, workers said the hourly rate is generous for the area.

Montgomery’s median household income in 2009 was $42,346, about $9,000 less than the national median and $6,400 less than in Michigan, according to the U.S. Census 2009 American Community Survey.

Wanda Carter, a Hyundai hourly worker, said she doesn’t see a need for a union at the Alabama plant.

“Hyundai does the best they can do to work with the Hyundai employees,” said Carter, who declined to give her age.

She wasn’t alone. Workers at another potential UAW target, Volkswagen AG (VOW)’s new plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, said they were excited just to have a job in the auto industry. There isn’t any talk of forming a union, said Terry Young, a line worker.

“You don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth,” said Young, 34.

The position is much safer than his previous job as a welder at construction sites and the pay is “great” for the area, he said.

“This is one of the good jobs,” Young said. “I love it.”

Naturally, the unions aren’t thrilled with all this so it’s time to play hardball.

King has said the union has set aside $60 million from its strike fund to organize the U.S. workers of an Asian or European automaker this year. He’s said the campaign will aim to put public pressure on the companies and accuse them of violating workers’ human rights if they try to block organizing efforts.

“If a company makes the bad business decision to engage in anti-union activity, suppress the rights of freedom of speech and assembly, we will launch a global campaign to brand that company a human-rights violator,” King said in a Jan. 12 speech in Detroit. “We do not want to fight, but we will not run from a fight.”

Why not stick a giant “for sale” sign on the front lawn?

(WaPo) — President Obama and top White House aides are waging a behind-the-scenes push to win over skeptical big-dollar donors — whose early money is needed to help fund a dramatic summertime expansion of his battleground-state machinery.

Campaign officials are working to broaden Obama’s network of “bundlers,” the well-connected rainmakers tasked with soliciting big checks from wealthy donors, while seeking to preserve the aura of a grass-roots movement by luring back the kind of small Internet donations that helped shatter fundraising records four years ago.

To do so, Obama and his aides are leveraging every asset available to a sitting president — from access to top West Wing officials to a possible food tasting with the White House chef.

Much of the fundraising in recent weeks has occurred at targeted events designed to appeal to specific groups, many of which have expressed frustration with administration policies, including Jews, gays and business leaders. Obama has attended 28 fundraisers from coast to coast — a pace that could continue, or even accelerate, over the next several months.

The West Wing charm offensive shows how Obama’s White House, which has eschewed Clinton-style traditions of feeding donor egos with Lincoln bedroom overnights and frequent phone calls from the president, is adjusting itself for a campaign that needs to overcome low approval ratings and a sour economy.

Early reports say 14 killed so far, no word if any were westerners (who frequent the hotel).

(NDTV) — The Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul has come under a commando style attack, with explosions and gunfire being heard from the building, according to police sources.

Initial reports suggest as many as 14 people could have been killed.

Sources have told NDTV that a group of 5 attackers breached the secured first picket at the hotel. Three were killed by the time they were able to breach a second picket. Two of the attackers then entered the hotel lobby firing indiscriminately.

The hotel is said to be popular with foreigners.

More from Fox News:

At least six suicide bombers attacked the Intercontinental hotel in Kabul Tuesday, a U.S. official told Fox News. The attack is still ongoing.

Afghanistan news agency TOLOnews is reporting at least 10 people have been killed. That number has yet to be independently confirmed.

Streets leading to the Intercontinental hotel are blocked.

“It’s an attack on the Intercontinental Hotel. There are several gunmen shooting,” Kabul criminal investigations chief Mohammad Zahir told AFP.

He said “a number” of police had been wounded.

Azizullah, an Afghan police officer who uses only one name, told The Associated Press at the scene that at least one bomber entered the hotel Tuesday night and detonated a vest of explosives.

Jawid, a guest at the hotel, says the attack occurred as many people were having dinner in the hotel restaurant. He says he heard gunfire throughout the several story building.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in telephone call to the AP.

The WSJ’s reporter in Kabul is being told the attack is “huge.”

So he wants to take away our Second Ammendment rights because American traitor and al-Qaeda’s resident nerd Adam Gadahn made a video tape?

(NY Daily News) — An ominous television ad commissioned by Mayor Bloomberg will soon blanket the airwaves — warning that Al Qaeda could exploit the so-called “gunshow loophole.”

Bloomberg’s anti-gun alliance raises the alar that terror thugs may be trying to buy powerful firearms within the U.S.

The 30-second ad, which debuts Tuesday, uses images from a June 3 video released by Al Qaeda that features its American-born spokesman Azzam Al-Amriki urging would-be jihadists to obtain their guns here.

“This is a golden opportunity,” said Al-Amriki. “America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms.”

“You can go down to a gun show and come away with a fully-automatic assault rifle without a background check,” Al-Amriki said on the terror tape. “So what are you waiting for?”

Bloomberg and his coalition — dubbed “Mayors Against Illegal Guns” — have long urged for the repeal of the gunshow loophole, which allows unlicensed sellers to peddle weapons without running a background check of the buyer.

“Criminals already know how to take advantage of gaps in our gun laws, and now Al Qaeda knows too,” said Bloomberg about the new commercial.

“Weak gun laws aren’t just a crime problem, they’re a national security threat,” Bloomberg said, “and this ad should be a wake-up call to Congress.”

Chutzpah.

(Washington Times) — President Obama’s regulatory czar told a Capitol Hill gathering Tuesday that the administration has produced fewer burdensome rules for industry than did the administration of President George W. Bush.

“There is no tsunami” of regulations, said Cass Sunstein, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, at a symposium on innovation on Capitol Hill, rejecting complaints from the business community and congressional Republicans that the administration’s regulatory policies had harmed the economy and cost U.S. jobs.

Industry leaders have complained about the growth of costly regulations under Mr. Obama. It was U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue who first called the new round of regulations — on banking, health care, energy and the environment — under Mr. Obama a “tsunami.”

But Mr. Sunstein argued that the administration is streamlining rules and relations of some 30 executive agencies.

“The annual cost of regulations has not increased during the Obama administration,” he said. “In its last two years, executive agencies in the Bush administration proposed far higher regulatory costs than did those agencies in the Obama administration in our first two years.”

(click image for video)

Liberal pretzel logic: It’s morally correct to spend every dollar taken in, then borrow billions more to spend on government waste and stick our children with the bill.

CHIP REID, CBS NEWS: “This weekend, when the Vice President was laying out all the things that you have to do and how much — when he said you have to ask those who are struggling in this economy to bear the burden and let the most fortunate among us off the hook, he said that borders on being immoral. Does the President agree with that?”

JAY CARNEY, WH PRESS SEC: “Why, I think he does. Yes.”

Led by moonbat Congressman Dennis Kucinich and joined by fellow far-left reps Eleanor Holmes Norton, Barbara Lee, Bob Filner, Sam Farr, and William Lacy Clay.

(JPost) — Six members of the United States Congress wrote to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week, asking her to “do everything in [her] power” to help “ensure the safety of all American citizens on board The Audacity of Hope.”

The Audacity of Hope is a US flagged ship bearing 36 American passengers intending to participate in this week’s flotilla to challenge Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza. Its passengers include Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Alice Walker, former US ambassador to Ecuador Samuel Hart, and activist Hedy Epstein.

The six members of Congress to sign the letter regarding the American presence are Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich, Missouri Representative William Lacy Clay, California Representatives Sam Farr, Bob Filner and Barbara Lee, and District of Columbia Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton. Kucinich initiated the letter.

“We request that you do everything in your power to work with the Israeli government to ensure the safety of the US citizens on board,” the letter reads, saying that the signatories “urge all parties to practice maximum restraint and avoid violence.”

The left always manages to find new and inventive ways to repulse those who love this country.

(Breitbart) — One councilman compared the pledge of allegiance to the communist manifesto. Another woman she couldn’t pledge allegiance to our country because she’s a citizen of the world.

Note the assploding irony of a hardcore lefty trying to disparage the Pledge by comparing it to The Communist Manifesto.

Hence the reason T-Paw received 1.03% of the vote in the latest WZ poll.

NEW YORK — GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty said Tuesday that the War Powers Act “does not apply” to the U.S. intervention in Libya, but that he would consult with Congress anyway if he launched the mission as president.

During a question-and-answer session following a speech on foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, Pawlenty said that he would confer with members of Congress “as a courtesy and gesture of respect,” but that he does not believe congressional authorization would be required for such a mission.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has threatened to cut off funds for the Libyan mission if the White House does not better explain the intervention.

Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor, used his speech to call for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s ouster and criticized Obama for being hesitant to act more bodly to remove him from power.

Let me guess, when Obama took the oath of office he had his toes crossed so the rules don’t apply to him?

(WaPo) — A State Department lawyer arrived on Capitol Hill Tuesday with two difficult tasks: Convince a Senate committee that the Obama administration didn’t need Congress’s approval for its military operations in Libya.

Then: Convince the Senate to give Obama that approval anyway.

He didn’t seem to make a lot of headway on either front.

Facing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, legal adviser Harold Koh laid out a flurry of legal arguments to justify the campaign. He did not, at least initially, seem to win over several skeptical senators on the panel.

“I think you’ve undermined the credibility of this administration. I think you’ve undermined the integrity of the War Powers act,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). “You’ve done a great disservice to our country.”

Koh told the committee that while the law says presidents must obtain congressional authorization before sending troops into hostilities overseas, what’s happening in Libya doesn’t constitute hostilities.

And what if legislators don’t agree? In that case, Koh said, they should still support the campaign, because to do otherwise would help Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi.

“We can all agree it would only serve Gaddafi’s interests” if Congress forced U.S. forces to withdraw, he said.

The hearing followed a long-running pattern in the White House’s handling of the Libyan conflict. Whenever it has tried to pacify unhappy members of Congress, the Obama administration has usually had the opposite effect.

Quick note on the poll and the logic behind it: I left off Ron Paul because if I include him, it will get spammed to death. I added Rick Perry because all reports indicate he’s very likely to declare later this summer, and I left off Palin because I haven’t seen anything indicating she is even close to announcing a run. The rest are all declared candidates.

Update: 12:45 PM EST

With 2,817 votes cast, here are the results.

The top two “others” were Ron Paul with 213 votes and Palin getting 193.

The dead babies thrown in the dumpster beg to differ.

(Huff Po) — Amy Poehler goes to bat for Planned Parenthood in a fundraising email sent out by the women’s health service provider on Monday.

“You know who is awesome? Cecile Richards. She’s the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America,” Poehler says. “Every single doctor and nurse and receptionist and volunteer who shows up at a Planned Parenthood health center to make sure that every person who walks through their door gets the care they need.”

The message from the “Parks and Recreation” star and former cast member of “Saturday Night Live” comes amid Republican efforts mounting on the state level to defund the women’s health organization.

HuffPost’s Laura Bassett reports:

Four states have passed legislation defunding Planned Parenthood so far this year, but the family planning provider is not going down without a fight. A federal judge in Indiana sided with Planned Parenthood against the defunding law on Friday, blocking its implementation, and now the legal battle is moving to Kansas.

Poehler concludes her message by asking readers to join her in “saying that Planned Parenthood is awesome.”

Keep reading…

Bonus fun fact of the day: ZIP used to hang around with Poehler’s younger brother when he was in college.

Sorry guys, the gravy train is over.

(Life News) — The Planned Parenthood abortion business filed a lawsuit today in federal court against the state of Kansas over a law pro-life Gov. Sam Brownback signed to revoke its taxpayer funding in the Sunflower State.

The law shifts funding away from the Planned Parenthood abortion business and stops abortion funding in health insurance programs. The legislation follows a new law in Indiana that made the state the first to yank millions from Planned Parenthood by cutting off its revenue stream from Medicaid. The Kansas Senate passed the measure on a 28-10 vote and the state House followed suit with an 86-30 vote.

The insurance portion of the legislation prohibits private health insurance companies from forcing enrollees to pay for abortions and it makes those who want to potentially have abortion coverage pay for an insurance rider. It also ensures abortions can’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars through the state exchanges set up under the federal Obamacare health care law.

On Planned Parenthood, the measure has the state budget directing over $300,000 in Title 10 money to local full-service health clinics instead of Planed Parenthood and it places $300,000 into the Stan Clark grant-matched fund for pregnancy support and adoption counseling.

(click image for video)

(RCP) — NBC’s Chuck Todd said on his MSNBC show that when Michele Bachmann says phrases like “I take him at his word” it reminds him of Ricky Bobby.

Ricky Bobby was actor Will Ferrell’s character in the movie “Talladega Nights.” Ricky Bobby was a NASCAR race car driver and depicted as a stereotypical Southern male.

Ricky Bobby from “Talladega Nights.”

Sorry CAIR/lefties, you can’t accuse us of “Islamophobia” for quoting Muslim religious leaders own words.

Via Translating Jihad:

If there are two men, and one of them is stronger spiritually, while the other is stronger physically, (the latter) is more beneficial to that nation. In war, for example, the strong man offers his courage, even if he is immoral or licentious. The weak man (only) offers his impotence, even if he is faithful.

Listen to the response of Imam Ahmad (may Allah have mercy on him), for the Shaykh of Islam (i.e. Ibn Taymiyya) based his ruling on this fatwa from his Shaykh, the Shaykh for the Sunnis, Imam Ahmad. Imam Ahmad was asked about two men, who were leaders in a raid. One of them was a strong, immoral man. The other was a weak, righteous man. With which one would he go into battle? Imam Ahmad said: “As for the strong, immoral man, his strength benefits the Muslims, while his immorality only hurts himself. But as for the weak, righteous man, his righteousness only benefits himself, while his weakness hurts the Muslims.” Thus the Imam said he would go to battle with the strong, immoral man. I hope this answer is clear. The Prophet (peace be upon him), said the same thing in the two Sahihs (Muslim and al-Bukhari), “Allah will support this religion through an immoral man.”

No way he’s winning reelection if the economic downturn persists.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is in a fragile position as the 2012 campaign begins: Only 37 percent of registered voters approve of his handling of the economy, his lowest rating ever, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll.

Another ominous sign for Obama: By nearly 2-1, voters disapprove of how he’s handling the federal budget deficit, expected to hit a record $1.5 trillion this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

“It’s a real caution sign . . . the four-year lease on the White House is very much dependent on how people end up looking at the economy,” said Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which performed the survey.

The poll of 1,003 adults, including 801 registered voters, was conducted June 15-23. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.0 percentage points for the entire sample and plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for registered voters.