Gallup Poll: Obama Approval Rating 46%

Ed Morrissey - Or, to put it another way, Barack Obama has returned to the same approval levels he’s had without the short-lived bump he got from the Osama bin Laden operation.  Gallup delivers the bad news in today’s survey results, showing Obama underwater (via Jim Geraghty):

President Barack Obama’s job approval rating averaged 46% in June, down from 50% in May but similar to his ratings from February through April.
The president’s approval rating rose in May after the May 1 announcement that U.S. forces had killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. It has since subsided about equally among all major demographic subgroups, reverting nearly to April’s level.
Obama’s strongest support continues to come from blacks (86%), adults aged 18 to 29 (54%), those living in the East (53%), and Hispanics (52%). This is in addition to 81% approval from fellow Democrats (as well as 75% from liberals and 55% from moderates, not shown here).

Absent two significant and brief spikes, the trend line on Obama’s approval has been nearly flat for more than a year.  The first spike occurred in January after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), and the second was just a few weeks ago after OBL’s sudden adoption of room temperature courtesy of the Navy SEALs.  Otherwise, Obama’s approval ratings have remained in a narrow range of 44-47% since May 2010 — which is almost certainly related to the lack of change in economic conditions during that period.
The demographic results are mildly interesting but hardly a surprise.  Obama lost ground in almost all categories, but in most cases simply returned to the old trend lines.  In looking at the annual averages, most of the damage to Obama’s standing came in 2010, and probably most of it in the first half of the year.  While this suggests that Obama may be reaching a floor for his approval rating, it also suggests that he may be close to his new long-term ceiling as well.  It didn’t take long after such a singular event as the OBL mission for voter assessments to return to their year-long level.
What does this mean to Obama’s re-election effort?  The 44-47% range is not a slam-dunk re-elect number, but it’s also not a slam-dunk loss level, either.  The re-election campaign will have to focus on a big base turnout (not unlike the 2004 campaign for Bush, actually), which means that Obama needs to go more to his left over the next several months.  That’s why we’re seeing the red-meat political rhetoric about corporate jet owners and the usual class-warfare arguments, while Obama attempts to shift his optics to the center by talking about spending cuts and entitlement reform.  That’s a very difficult balance to maintain, and if the economy continues to stagnate, it probably won’t pay off.

Operation Project Gunrunner Was Funded By Stimulus Package

Posted on Thursday, July 07, 2011 1:06:47 PM by Domandred
Something about Project Gunrunner (gunwalker, fast and furious) has been bugging me but I just couldn't put my finger on it.
This morning when I woke up I remember seeing Project Gunrunner in a bill that was discussed here. The original thread about it was a rumor thread that HR45 had been rolled into the stimulus package.
In that thread I scanned the text of H.R.1 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 for gun, firearm, etc and came up with a hit.
I posted in the thread: "Only time “gun” or “firearm” appears is in the part that give $10,000,000 to the ATF for Project Gunrunner. That was H.R. 495, asking for 15,000,000 for Gunrunner".
H.R. 495 that I mentioned never made it out of committee, but it looks as it was to specifically fund Gunrunner.
Instead portions of it were rolled into the stimulus package a month later. That text found in H.R.1 is:
For an additional amount for ‘State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance’, $40,000,000, for competitive grants to provide assistance and equipment to local law enforcement along the Southern border and in High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas to combat criminal narcotics activity stemming from the Southern border, of which $10,000,000 shall be transferred to ‘Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Salaries and Expenses’ for the ATF Project Gunrunner.
Notice that's $40,000,000 for Southern border enforcement, $10,000,000 of which specifically for Project Gunrunner. What does $10 million pay for here? It didn't hire any new agents that I am aware of.
What this tells me is that several congressmen also had knowledge of what Gunrunner was going to entail. This isn't just the ATF and DOJ. This is all levels and areas of government. Even members of the House and Senate knew what Project Gunrunner was.

The New Christian Feminism Of Bachman And Palin

Marie Griffith - Is evangelical feminism an oxymoron?
A slew of writings has recently emerged about the "evangelical feminism" represented by women like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. Since I studied women like these for my first book, "God's Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission," I've been on a few reporters' call lists for commentary. A lot of confusion remains, however, and I hope I can contribute something more substantial to this discussion.
First, everyone should realize that the version of evangelical feminism we're witnessing in current Republican politics is a far cry from this term's original meaning. As Pam Cochran has written in her important study, "Evangelical Feminism: A History," the movement in its earlier form emerged in the 1970s. Its promoters were Christian women who believed that Jesus was a thoroughgoing egalitarian and that Christian principles were perfectly compatible with the ideals of equality emerging from the Women's Liberation Movement. While evangelical feminism has taken a number of different directions since then, it typically leans moderately left on most political issues, which is one reason why it has captured the wrath of hardline complementarians like Wayne Grudem and John Piper. ("Complementarianism" is the view that God designed men and women not to be equal but to be complementary, with men as the leaders and women as helpmeets.)
Palin and Bachmann decidedly do not lean left. What is "feminist" about them, for those who want to use that descriptive, is their belief that God calls women no less than men to fight His battles against Satan on earth. Women hold awesome power as spiritual warriors, in this worldview; they're not doormats, nor should their godly duties be confined to the domestic sphere. This is its own sort of egalitarianism, to be sure, but it is one far more compatible with the complementarian theology of arch-conservative Protestantism than with the feminism of liberal religion. After all, Bachmann and Palin have both made much of their roles as wives, mothers and churchgoers in a way meant to show that their political leadership will not upend the gender hierarchy so crucial in the conservative evangelical home and church sanctuary.
To the feminists who make their homes in secular or religiously liberal circles -- such as member of the National Organization for Women, the Feminist Majority Foundation, the Center for Women's Global Leadership, the International Alliance of Women, the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance and the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights -- women like Palin and Bachmann represent a dangerously regressive form of womanhood: a sort of capitulation to the hierarchical gender norms of yore. Even to hear them called feminist feels anathema, especially since their politics show a willingness to execute policies that do nothing to empower individual women, men and children on earth. And I expect that many of the earlier evangelical feminist pioneers (the late Nancy Hardesty, Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen, etc.) have been just as unhappy to see the media now using this term with no apparent recognition of its origins.
The more interesting phenomenon here is to see how surprised so many pundits continue to be at the fact that so many American women and men actually LIKE newfangled evangelical feminists such as Bachmann and Palin. Of course they do! These women embody that combination of conventional beauty (with a wink of sex appeal), earnestness, piety, accessibility and steely certitude of their own godliness that comprises the highest ideal of white conservative evangelical womanhood today. They're like those pretty, popular girls at church camp by whom awkward girls like me hoped to be acknowledged, or even (gosh) befriended. Always, the boys liked them best, but you felt cooler just basking in their aura. If these girls accepted you, you knew you were OK.
Palin and Bachmann are also excellent at embodying the female victim: a woman who works hard to make it on her smarts and hard work but who gets criticized for her looks and scorned as a dumb girl, over and over again. Liberals may scoff at Palin's criticisms of the lamestream media's obsessive derision, but she's frankly got a point. I am no fan of the political programs of either woman, and yet -- I'll admit it -- the appallingly sexist mockery of them has more than once inspired me to identify with them against their smug denigrators. For me, raised by a feminist mother and a feminist myself since adolescence, that's saying something.
Even today, many American women from all walks of life experience feelings of degradation that stem from the socialized devaluation of their femaleness. Conservative and liberal women alike endure subtle forms of misogyny every day. In my experience, sharing these war stories is one practice that bridges women across many other kinds of social divides. For evangelicals, to be persecuted is to be blessed; and the more Palin and Bachmann are belittled (rather than civilly debated), the greater their popularity. Surely, we are smart enough to understand that.
Perhaps we should take heart that the evangelical feminism represented by Palin and Bachmann is so wildly popular among segments of conservative Americans. Even if its appeal is as much about style as about substance, a door has opened that will not be easily shut. There's no reason why feminists of another, more progressive sort couldn't take a lesson here, if we pause to consider what it may be.

California Lawmakers Demand Schools Teach "Gay History In America"

Bob Unruh - A bill devised by a homosexual California lawmaker, Mark Leno, requiring schools to promote homosexuality and other alternative sexual lifestyles to children without parental permission or even knowledge has been approved by the legislature and is on its way to Gov. Jerry Brown.
Critics say the vote to approve SB48 could create a vast new opportunity for indoctrinating children into such roles.
"May this brash attack upon children's innocence finally motivate parents to remove their children from the government school system, and get them into the safe havens of church schooling and homeschooling," said Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com, a leading statewide pro-family organization promoting moral virtues for the common good.


Thomasson outlined how the new law effectively will require textbooks and instructional materials to positively promote "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans" as role models. It also will provide for teaching children as young as 6 years old to admire homosexuality, same-sex "marriages," bisexuality and cross-dressing, as well as "sex change" medical operations.
Thomasson's analysis says, "Children will be taught to support the political activism of 'Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Questioning' (LGBTIQ) political groups, as the bill requires 'particular emphasis on portraying the role of these groups in contemporary society.'"
Teachers also will be required to portray homosexuality positively, "because to be silent can bring the charge of 'reflecting adversely' or 'promoting a discriminatory bias.'" School boards will have to adopt textbooks and other materials based on their positive advocacy for homosexuality and parents – because the teachings are a part of the state's core curriculum – will be neither notified nor given the option of withdrawing their children from the teachings, he said.




The vote in the Democrat-controlled Assembly was 49-25, with Democrats endorsing the idea and Republicans opposing it. It passed the state Senate several weeks earlier. "This sexual brainwashing bill would mandate that children as young as 6 years old be told falsehoods – that homosexuality is biological, when it isn't, or healthy, when it's not," he said.
"Parents don't send their sons and daughters to school to learn to admire homosexuality, bisexuality, cross-dressing, 'sex change' operations, homosexual 'marriages,' or to support legal persecution of people who disagree," Thomasson said. "There's already a raft of school sexual indoctrination laws on the books. Impressionable children are already being sexual indoctrinated, but SB48 would be the most in-your-face brainwashing yet. We urge Gov. Brown to respect parents, remember basic academics, and basic family values, and veto this bad bill when it reaches his desk."
Thomasson explained that SB48 can be interpreted to make it illegal for teachers to tell students negative effects of homosexuality, such as that male homosexuality is the largest transmitter of HIV, along with higher cancer rates and earlier deaths.
He said California government schools no longer are morally safe for impressionable children.
"Because of the raft of sexual indoctrination laws already in force, which promote homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality under the guise of 'discrimination' and 'harassment,' the social engineers are already having their way with more than six million boys and girls, with or without SB48," Thomasson said. "That's why we strongly urge loving parents to rescue their children by permanently removing them from government schools and placing them in the safe havens of church schools or homeschooling."
His organization runs the Not Born this way website, which documents facts about homosexuality, as well as RescueYourChild.com, which advocates for parents to withdraw their children from public schools in favor of homeschooling, religious school or other private instruction.
The bill is sponsored by state Sen. Mark Leno, who boasts on his website of founding a business with his "life partner, Douglas Jackson," who later died of AIDS complications.
"S.B. 48 is intolerant. It would force – much more than recommend – all local school boards, public school teachers, and history textbooks to teach children as young as kindergarten to admire 'lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans' as their personal role models," Thomasson wroter earlier about the plan.
"Fathers and mothers who love their children and want moral values for their children cannot trust Democrat legislators, homosexuals or teacher unions, all of which conspired to push forward this perverse bill," he told WND.
Thomasson's SaveCalifornia.com was a key player in the battle in the state in 2007 and 2008 over a variety of laws that now forbid any "adverse" portrayal of alternative sexual choices in school, class, curriculum and by teachers.
On his state website, Leno expressed his worry: "Most textbooks don't include any historical information about the LGBT movement, which has great significance to both California and U.S. history."
Over protests from families and family organizations, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law Senate Bill 777 and Assembly Bill 394 several years ago. The measures institutionalized the promotion of homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism and other alternative lifestyles by banning any "adverse" references in schools.

Homosexual former San Francisco leader Harvey Milk

At the time, officials said SB 777 "functionally requires public school instructional materials and school-sponsored activities to positively portray cross-dressing, sex-change operations, homosexual 'marriages,' and all aspects of homosexuality and bisexuality, including so-called 'gay history.'"
The second bill, AB 394, "requires public schools to distribute controversial material to teachers, students, and parents which promotes transexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality, all under the guise of 'anti-harassment' training."
California also has mandated that public schools honor Harvey Milk, a homosexual activist and reported sexual predator, as well as an advocate for Jim Jones, leader of the massacred hundreds in Jonestown, Guyana.
In honoring Milk, Thomasson organization notes, schools are advocating for the acceptance of what Milk sought: the entire homosexual, bisexual and cross-dressing agenda, a refusal to acknowledge sexually transmitted diseases spread by the behavior, his behavior as "a sexual predator of teenage boys, most of them runaways with drug problems," advocacy for multiple sexual relationships at one time, and "lying to get ahead."
A 1982 biography of Milk tells of a 16-year-old named McKinley, who "was looking for some kind of father figure."
"At 33, Milk was launching a new life, though he could hardly have imagined the unlikely direction toward which his new lover would pull him," the book says.
It also states, "It would be to boyish-looking men in their late teens and early 20's that Milk would be attracted for the rest of his life."
The consequences of refusing to accept the state's beliefs about homosexuality can be devastating, SaveCalifornia documents.
In a report from Thomasson, he said got an email from a parent whose daughter had objected to attending a "gay straight alliance rally to honor Harvey Milk at Moreno Valley High School."
Said the email, according to Thomasson, "You were right our daughter was told she had to attend a gay straight alliance rally to honor Harvey Milk. … She shared she was a christian with the teacher and only after she saw Lauren was clearly upset about going to this rally did she issue her a hall pass. She was persecuted by another student but made it out of the class. I picked up her and she was very upset. How many other Christians were forced to go to this rally?"
The account from 16-year-old Lauren provided more details, Thomasson reported.
"When she walked into her U.S. History class Monday, May 23, she saw the words 'Gay-Straight Alliance Assembly – Harvey Milk' on the blackboard. Her teacher, obviously a pro-homosexuality agenda sympathizer, told Lauren and every other student walking in to go to the assembly. Lauren protested, but the teacher didn't listen to her at first. Lauren again said she didn't want to go, and finally the teacher exempted her, but only her," he said.
"Lauren got out of that one, but her fellow students were corralled into the brainwashing assembly, like cattle going to slaughter, where the homosexual sponsor of the on-campus Gay-Straight Alliance told them how they must support the homosexual-bisexual-transsexual agenda of Harvey Milk. Later, a Muslim classmate told Lauren she wished she had refused to go to the assembly, too."
The report described how the teacher, several days earlier, had "played several minutes of the R-rated Milk film, which showed two homosexual men in bed together."
"Parents, realize there was NO advance parental notification of this happening or the opportunity to opt out your children. Even more, realize there was no parent permission sought, no opt-in form to sign. No, Harvey Milk sexual indoctrination, and other sexual indoctrination implemented, because of other perverse laws are being done behind parents' backs and despite parents' objections," Thomasson's report said.
WND previously reported what happened to one irate parent who found out about a public school's sexual indoctrination of his children and demanded changes – he spent the night in jail.
David Parker, who brought a case against Estabrook Elementary school in Lexington, Mass., several years ago, eventually ended up withdrawing his children from the school because of the harassment they endured because of the dispute.
An appellate court said the indoctrination was appropriate because same-sex "marriages" are legal in Massachusetts following the work of former Gov. Mitt Romney and others, and the refusal of the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene.
That left the school district not only teaching behaviors the Parker family considered immoral but deliberately refusing to tell them when it would be taught, so they could keep their children home.
Parker noted the ruling says teachers "have a constitutional right to coercively indoctrinate little children [into whatever they choose to teach]."
A WND/Wenzel Strategies poll just weeks ago revealed an overwhelming majority of Americans say elementary school is no place to promote the homosexual lifestyle. Even among liberals there is the strong belief that such lessons should be left outside the door of the classroom.
"Whether they object on moral grounds or simply out of concern that many U.S. schools are failing in their core missions of teaching basics doesn't really matter – the vast majority of American adults want this type of curriculum kept out of the classroom," Wenzel chief Fritz Wenzel said.
The scientific telephone survey was done April 19-21, and had a margin of error of 3.23 percentage points. It found that 65 percent of all respondents objected to teaching elementary school children that homosexuality is a "normal alternative lifestyle."
The question was, "Do you believe elementary school children should be taught that homosexuality is a normal alternative lifestyle?"
Only 22 percent said yes, and 13 percent were unsure.

Is A U.S. Default On $14 Trillion Debt Inevitable?

Patrick J. Buchanan - As President Bush prepared to invade Iraq in September 2002, the head of his economic policy council, Lawrence Lindsey publicly estimated such a war could cost $100 billion to $200 billion.
Lindsey had committed candor, and the stunned Bushites came down on him with both feet.
“Baloney,” said Donald Rumsfeld. The likely cost would be $60 billion, said Mitch Daniels of the Office of Management and Budget. We can finance the war with Iraqi oil, said Paul Wolfowitz.
By year’s end, Lindsey was gone, back, in Ronald Reagan’s phrase, “testing the magic of the marketplace.”
And the cost of the Iraq War? It has passed $1 trillion.
So Lindsey is worth listening to. And he is now saving that the Obamaites may be wildly underestimating the deficits America is going to run in this decade. Here is why.
The average rate of interest the Fed has had to pay to borrow for the last two decades has been 5.7 percent. However, President Obama is projecting the cost of money at only 2.5 percent.
A return to the normal Fed rate would, by 2020, add $4.9 trillion to the cumulative deficit, says Lindsey, more than twice the $2 trillion in savings being discussed in Joe Biden’s debt-ceiling deal.
Second, Obama is estimating growth in 2012, 2013 and 2014 at 4, 4.5 and 4.1 percent. But the normal rate for a mature economy recovering from recession is 2.5 percent.
Hence, if we return to a normal rate of growth, rather than rise to Obama’s projected rate, says Lindsey, that would add $700 billion to the deficit over the next three years and $4 trillion by 2020.
Taken together, a U.S. return to a normal rate of growth of 2.5 percent, higher than today, and a normal rate of interest for the Fed could add as much as $9 trillion to the deficits between now and 2020.
New taxes on millionaires and billionaires who ride around in corporate jets can’t cover a tenth of 1 percent of these deficits.
Writes Lindsey, “Only serious long-term spending reduction in the entitlement area can begin to address the nation’s deficit and debt problems.”

• 

His conclusion is logical, but seems impossible to achieve when both parties are talking of taking Medicare and Social Security off the table. Which makes his final point all the more compelling:
“Under current government policies and economic projections, (bondholders) should be far more concerned about a return of their principal in 10 years than about any short-term delay in interest payments in August.”
Lindsey is saying that the probability of U.S. bonds losing face value through inflation or default is high, given the size of the deficits we will be running and the improbability that any deficit-reduction plan now out there can significantly reduce them.
Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s are already talking of downgrading U.S. debt if the debt ceiling is not raised by early August.
Is America then headed for an inevitable default?
One Chinese economist is already accusing us of defaulting, as the Fed’s flooding of the world with dollars has seen the dollar lose 10 percent of its value against other currencies in the last year.
Holding $1 trillion in U.S. debt, China has watched the purchasing power of that U.S. paper plummet. Understandably, Beijing fears that if we ever pay back all they have lent us, it will be in U.S. dollars of far lesser value.
What should House Republicans do?
Stick to their principles and convictions.
For the cause of the deficit-debt crisis has been the explosion in federal spending under Barack Obama to the largest share of the U.S. economy since the climactic years of World War II.
Administrations of both parties contributed to this rise in the federal share of gross domestic product. But the GOP committed itself in 2010 to rein it in, without raising taxes. On that pledge the GOP triumphed and should keep its commitment.
First, because it is a solemn undertaking with a nation disgusted with politicians who say one thing and do another. Second, because our fiscal crisis, like Europe’s, is a result of too much government, not too little revenue. Third, because there is no credible school of economic thought that says raising taxes on the productive sector when one in six workers is unemployed or underemployed is the way to prosperity.
Under Obama these past two years, the nation relied on the U.S. government to pull us out of the ditch. But Obama’s $787 billion stimulus, his three deficits of 10 percent of GDP, and Ben Bernanke’s tripling of Fed assets by buying the bad paper of big banks and $600 billion in U.S. debt all failed.
For Republicans to agree now to a tax increases that would violate their principles, their promises to the voters and their basic philosophy — and be icing on the cake of Obama’s debt-ceiling increase — would be politically suicidal.
Indeed, were the Republican Party to do this, it would raise the question of why we need a Republican Party.

Russia Calls For Cease Fire In Libya, Rebel Leader: Gadhafi Can Stay In Libya

(CNN) -- Libya's rebel leader says he does not have a problem with Moammar Gadhafi remaining in the country, once he resigns and as long as he remains under supervision, according to a television report.
Mustafa Abdel Jalil contradicted earlier opposition statements that Gadhafi's exit from the country was an absolute prerequisite to bring about the end of the months-long conflict. It signaled a possible willingness to negotiate with the Libyan leader to bring about an end to the fighting.
In a Reuters Television report Sunday, Jalil made the comments while reacting to a proposal put forward by the African Union, which rebels have interpreted to mean Gadhafi should have no further role in the country's leadership.
Jalil told Reuters once Gadhafi resigns, "At that point he can decide if he would stay in Libya or abroad."
"If he desires to stay in Libya, we will be the ones to determine the place and there will be international supervision on all his movements and communications," he said during an interview in the rebel-stronghold of Benghazi.

Jalil took the reins of the rebel movements after resigning from Gadhafi's government in February over what he saw as excessive use of force against demonstrators calling for the leader's resignation.
Libyan government spokesman Musa Ibrahim has previously said the prospect of a peace deal would be welcomed, but not one that rested on Gadhafi's departure.
The fighting in Libya is slated to take center stage Monday at a meeting between NATO nations and Russia. The meeting brings together countries who support the airstrikes targeting Gadhafi's forces and one of the biggest critics of the bombing campaign.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen will meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as part of the Russia-NATO Council meeting in Russia's Black Sea resort town of Sochi, Russia's state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing the Kremlin.
"The sole possibility of stabilizing the situation in Libya is an immediate cease-fire and the start of talks between the internal Libyan participants in the conflict with the support of, but not interference from, outside," the Kremlin said, according to RIA Novosti.
Russia has been a critic of the NATO bombing campaign that began in March after the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution for the use of force, with the exception of a ground invasion, to protect civilians. Russia, a member of the Security Council, abstained from the vote.
"Special responsibility in the search for a political-diplomatic solution to the crisis lies with regional organizations, above all the African Union, and the UN secretary general's special envoy," the Kremlin said, according to the news report.
The meeting follows reports Sunday of fierce fighting in western Libya, where Gadhafi's forces have been shelling the towns of Yefren and Kikla, east of the rebel stronghold of Zintan.
The shelling began three days ago, according to Mazigh Buzakhar, who works for an opposition media group.
Buzakhar said clashes in the western Nafusa mountains on Sunday killed two rebel fighters and wounded 11.
CNN cannot independently confirm Buzakhar's account.
Conditions in the embattled towns in the Nafusa mountains are bleak, with no electricity and a shortage of water, Buzakhar said.
Rebels have been battling Gadhafi's forces for months in an attempt to bring about an end to the Libyan leader's 42-year rule.
The rebels received a financial boost Sunday when Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu pledged $200 million in support to the opposition. Davutoglu made the pledge during a meeting with Jalil in Benghazi, the foreign ministry said.
The Foreign Ministry told CNN Monday that Turkey recognizes the opposition in Libya as legitimate representatives of the country, however, it does not mean the rebels are recognized as the sole representatives.
Turkey has not cut off its diplomatic relations with Gadhafi's government, the ministry said.
Gadhafi has been under international pressure to step down, and the International Criminal Court at The Hague issued a warrant for his arrest as well as for the arrest of his son, Saif al-Islam Gadhafi and his brother-in-law Abdullah al-Sanussi.
The warrants are "for crimes against humanity," including murder and persecution, "allegedly committed across Libya" from February 15 through "at least" February 28, the court said in a statement.
On Sunday, South African President Jacob Zuma traveled to Russia to discuss efforts to end the fighting in Libya, just days after he and other members of the African Union said would not cooperate with the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Moammar Gadhafi.
Zuma and others were attending a meeting of the International Contact Group on Libya -- a group of NATO countries, Arab nations and other countries working to bring about an end to the months-long conflict.
The African Union said its members will not cooperate with the ICC's arrest warrant for Gadhafi, arguing that the measure jeopardizes efforts to negotiate a peace deal in the war-torn nation.
The arrest warrant "seriously complicates the efforts aimed at finding a negotiated political solution to the crisis in Libya," said a statement summarizing the countries' decision at a summit in Equatorial Guinea that ended Friday.
Libya is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the international court's authority, and the court does not have the power to enter Libya and arrest the leaders.

Gadhafi has made clear he would not recognize the court's authority.

26% Of Americans Don't Know U.S. Declared Independence From England

Think Progress - According to a new poll by Marist, more than a quarter of Americans couldn’t correctly identify the country from which the United States declared its independence.
While 74 percent correctly named Great Britain, 20 percent said they weren’t sure and six percent named other countries. In the South, 32 percent of respondents either responded incorrectly or weren’t sure.
The poll comes on the heels of test scores that showed few American students gaining proficiency in U.S. history, a problem presidential candidate Rick Santorum blamed on the “conscious effort” by “the left” to keep Americans uninformed.

Gallup Poll: Obama Approval Rating Hits-All Time Low For The Poor

(CNSNews.com) - President Barack Obama’s approval has hit an all-time low among the poorest Americans, according to the Gallup poll. Meanwhile, when compared to the other income brackets reported by Gallup, Obama's approval is highest among the richest Americans.
In the week of June 20-26--the most recent week published by Gallup--only 45 percent of Americans in the lowest income bracket reported by the polling company (those earning less than $2,000 per month) said they approved of the job Obama was doing as president.
Gallup publishes the president’s weekly approval numbers among Americans in four income brackets: those earning less than $2,000 per month, those earning between $2,000 and $4,999 per month, those earning between $5,000 and $7,499 and those earning more than $7,500.
In Gallup's most recent survey, Obama had majority approval in none of these income brackets.
However, of the four, his approval was highest--47 percent--in the richest bracket, those earning more than $7,500 per month.
His approval rating last was 42 percent among those earning $2,000 to $4,999 per month and 43 percent among those earning $5,000 to $7,499 per month.
Prior to last week, when it hit an all-time low of 45 percent, Obama’s approval rating among the poorest bracket reported by Gallup had never dropped below 47 percent. It had hit that level twice: first in the week of Nov. 8-14, 2010; then again in the week of April 25-May 1.
In addition to being at an all-time low among the poorest Americans, Obama’s approval rating is also nearly at an all-time low among the next poorest group of Americans reported by Gallup, those who earn between $2,000 and $4,999 per month. The only time his approval among this group was lower than the 42 percent it was last week was in the week of Aug. 23-29, 2010, when it dropped to 41 percent.
According to Gallup, Obama’s highest approval rating among the poorest Americans came in the week of March 16-22, 2009, just two months after he was inaugurated and one month after he signed his $787-billion economic stimulus law. That week, his approval was 68 percent among Americans earning less than $2,000 per month.
In March 2009, the unemployment rate in the United States was 8.6 percent.  This month, it is 9.1 percent.