By BOB CHRISTIE, Associated Press – The Republic

PHOENIX — The Republican who nearly ousted Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in 2010 has officially joined the race to replace her.

Jesse Kelly came within 4,200 votes of defeating the Democrat during the year the tea party led the GOP to a House of Representatives takeover. He vowed to run again but stopped campaigning after Giffords was shot in January 2011.

Kelly resurfaced within days of Giffords’ Jan. 22 announcement that she would resign to focus on her recovery, filing paperwork with the Federal Election Commission, updating his campaign web site and sending out press releases.

On Friday, he formally announced he was entering the race again at a press conference in Tucson, promising a positive campaign that would focus on lower taxes, a strong economy and more jobs.

Kelly joins fellow Republicans Dave Sitton and state Sen. Frank Antenori in the special April 17 GOP primary in Giffords’ 8th District. The winner goes on to a special June 12 general election.

Sitton announced his campaign on Thursday, saying he would push for job creation, fiscal discipline, real health care reform and border security. When he announced on Jan. 27, Antenori touted his record in cutting budgets, cutting spending and the size of government, according to the Arizona Republic.

To read more, visit:  http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/8c5ce2036dd1409081fc85ac63e75132/AZ–Giffords-Seat-Kelly/

By Amy Gardner and David Fahrenthold, The Washington Post

LAS VEGAS — In 2010, as the tea party rose to prominence, the movement splintered in Nevada and helped nominate Republican Sharron Angle in one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country.

Angle lost to Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D) in the general election. But even after that disappointment, the state’s powerful tea party movement is no more united in this year’s GOP presidential nominating contest.

Just as last time, influential conservative leaders are all over the map. Chuck Muth, a prominent operative, is working for a group that supports former House speaker Newt Gingrich. An army of local tea party activists is supporting Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.). And Angle has endorsed Rick Santorum, former Senator from Pennsylvania.

As a result, Mitt Romney is far ahead in the polls and not nearly as vulnerable as he would be if his opponents were less divided. Within the tea party, there is little support for Romney, the front-runner whose moderate record as Massachusetts governor has fueled an “anyone-but-Romney” movement among some Republicans. But there is also little unity about whom to support in his place.

To read more, visit:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/unity-eludes-nevada-tea-party-in-gop-presidential-race/2012/02/02/gIQArS9hlQ_story.html

By Brian Womack – Bloomberg.com

Google Inc. (GOOG), whose chairman has served as an adviser to President Barack Obama, is a sponsor of this month’s Conservative Political Action Conference, co-hosted by the Tea Party.

Google is one of nine main sponsors, alongside the National Rifle Association and the Heritage Foundation, according to the conference’s website. Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are slated to speak at the three-day event, which starts in Washington on Feb. 9. Google is the only business listed among the primary sponsors.

The company says it will have a presence at both Republican and Democratic events during this year’s election season, including each party’s convention. Google also had a role in the Iowa caucus last month. The CPAC event was attractive because half the attendees are under 25 and heavy users of technology, Google said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.

“This event is a great opportunity for us to showcase Google.com/elections and tools like Google+, which we hope will be used by every candidate and campaign,” the Mountain View, California-based company said.

To read more, visit:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-03/google-sponsoring-conservative-political-conference-co-hosted-by-tea-party.html

By Judson Berger | FoxNews.com

As the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation faces accusations that it split with Planned Parenthood over political pressure, at least a couple pro-life groups are claiming the organization may have acted out of concern over an alleged link between abortion and breast cancer.

The theory that induced abortion increases the risk of breast cancer has been studied for decades and is a controversial one — and one that is contested by major medical organizations.

Komen for the Cure’s website states that despite debate over the subject, “research clearly shows no link between the two.” Komen asserted that position as recently as October 2011 in a brief document on the debate.

As pro-choice organizations claim political pressure led to the decision to cut ties, Komen also claims it was merely following a new policy on grant recipients that is not unique to Planned Parenthood.

But considering Komen for the Cure’s dedication to fighting breast cancer and raising breast cancer awareness, the under-the-radar theory on an abortion-cancer link was swiftly cited by some anti-abortion groups to explain why the organization may have cut ties to the nation’s largest abortion provider.

To read more, visit:  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/02/anti-abortion-groups-cite-cancer-abortion-link-to-explain-komens-split-with/

By MICHAEL R. CRITTENDEN, The Wall Street Journal

HENDERSON, Nev.—Rep. Ron Paul wrote himself out of the story of Florida’s Republican presidential primary, saying the cost of television advertising would be high in the state and the odds of winning any convention delegates low.

The Texas congressman decamped to Maine, where nominating caucuses begin in earnest this weekend and Mr. Paul felt he could better gain traction.

The result: a distant fourth-place finish in Florida, with a mere 7% of the vote.

But now, Mr. Paul is back as a potentially big player in the next state to vote—Nevada, which holds presidential nominating caucuses on Saturday.

On Wednesday morning, Mr. Paul held a rally for Hispanic voters, saying he favors a “generous” immigration policy. Later, he spoke before roughly 200 supporters about his economic plans, which include elements likely to play well in this hospitality-heavy state, such as a call for no federal taxes on tips.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is favored to win the caucuses, as he did four years ago, but Mr. Paul and his supporters say their eight-plus months of campaigning here will translate into a strong showing. Mr. Paul came second in the state in 2008.

To read more, visit:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203920204577197480561875456.html

The Romney campaign first learned of Donald Trump’s decision to endorse Mitt Romney about 24 hours before Trump introduced the presidential candidate at a Las Vegas Hotel. A senior Romney adviser says the flamboyant billionaire businessman essentially told Romney “Hey, I think you’re the best guy for the job and I want to make it public.”

Almost anything could happen with a mercurial guy like Donald Trump on board. He has endorsed and funded many Democrats in years past, and within the past 12 months, he flirted with a Republican presidential run, mocked Romney’s business credentials and changed his party affiliation to independent.

Still, the Romney campaign greets Trump’s endorsement with open arms. “You haven’t seen us turn down any endorsements yet,” said a senior adviser who adds that Trump’s ties to the finance community and his “terrific tea party appeal” could be very helpful moving forward. “Hopefully”, he added “ (Trump) can help raise money and it ain’t like he’s camera shy.”

Nothing has been agreed upon in terms of a role for Trump, but the Romney campaign indicates Trump may be willing to do some grassroots campaigning among what the adviser called “hyper-conservatives”.

Florida exit polls showed Romney beating his chief opponent Newt Gingrich among self-identified tea party members and conservatives, but among those identifying themselves as “very conservative”, Gingrich bested Romney.

To read more, visit:  http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/02/source-romney-learned-about-endorsement-the-day-before/

By GERRY SHIELDS, NYPost.com

WASHINGTON — Ouch!

A new budget report released yesterday projects that federal taxes will shoot up 30 percent over the next two years due to a rise in personal income and the scheduled expiration of federal tax breaks.

The $800 billion hit to taxpayers would come partly through the elimination of tax breaks such as the Bush-era tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

With the nonpartisan CBO predicting a rise in worker salaries due largely to inflation, it projected that more wage earners would be pushed into higher tax brackets — funneling even more cash to Washington.

The CBO also projected that over the next 10 years, Americans will see a rise in government fees and penalties, all of which will contribute to keeping the economy sluggish over the next two years.

“That pace of growth partly reflects the dampening effect on economic activity from the higher tax rates and curbs on spending scheduled to occur this year and especially next,” the report said.

To read more, visit:  http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/workers_to_pay_more_in_taxes_STOWf6oePda8nZrluqZURK

By Michael Shanahan and Rita Nazareth, Bloomberg.com

Stocks (SXXP) rose, erasing a four-day drop in U.S. benchmark indexes, while the dollar and Treasuries fell on signs global manufacturing is strengthening. Silver and aluminum led commodity gains, while natural gas slid.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 1.2 percent to 1,328.38 at 12:58 p.m. in New York and the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 134.49 points to 12,767.40, above its highest close since May. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index jumped 2 percent to a six-month high. Ten-year Treasury yields increased five basis points to 1.85 percent, while the Dollar Index fell 0.6 percent, amid diminished demand for safer assets. The euro rallied 0.8 percent to $1.3186, nearing its highest level of 2012.

U.S. manufacturing grew at the fastest pace since June, according to data from the Institute for Supply Management, while a government report showed construction spending increased more than forecast. The U.K.’s factory measure unexpectedly rose to an eight-month high and reports showed manufacturing in Europe, China and India increased in January.

“The news on the economy is better,” David Sowerby, a Bloomfield Hills, Michigan-based portfolio manager at Loomis Sayles & Co., which oversees $150 billion, said in a telephone interview. “The uncertainty in Europe has diminished. While corporate profits have been less robust, they are still growing. Stock valuations had reflected a potential profit recession, which is not going to happen. That’s what’s moving stock prices higher.”

Rebound After Slump

The S&P 500 rebounded after its longest losing streak since November and the Dow Jones Industrial Average snapped its first four-day slump since August. The S&P 500 started the session trading for about 13.7 times its companies earnings and has been stuck below its five-decade average multiple of 16.4 since May 2010, the longest stretch since a 13-year period beginning in 1973.

Profits have topped estimates at about two-thirds of the 209 companies in the S&P 500 that released results since Jan. 9, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Earnings-per-share have risen 2.3 percent for the group amid 6.5 percent growth in sales.

To read more, visit:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-01/stocks-advance-in-europe-before-u-s-manufacturing-report-bunds-decline.html

By: Karen De Coster, LewRockwell.com

Public education, in its current state, is based on the idea that government is the “parent” best equipped to provide children with the values and wisdom required to grow into intelligent, functional adults. To echo what former first lady Hillary Clinton professed, these public school champions believe “it takes a village” to cultivate a society of competent human beings.

As Hebrew University historian Martin van Crevald points out in his book, The Rise and Decline of the State, nineteenth-century state worshippers who wanted to impose a love of big government ideals upon the youth popularized the archetype for state-directed education. Additionally, there was an overall appetite for discipline of the “unruly” masses that reinforced the campaign to take education out of the hands of individuals. After all, the self-educated masses might resist government decrees, and this kind of disarray would be undesirable in the move toward building a powerful, controlling state apparatus. Prussia’s Frederick William I and France’s Napoleon discerned this, as did a legion of other despotic rulers throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. In a recent article published on the American Daily Herald “Dumberer and Dumberest,” Glenn Horowitz writes:

If you’re not familiar with it, the Prussian system was a teaching methodology designed to stamp out good little worker bees assembly-line fashion, trained to be complacent with their station in life and compliant with every demand of the State. An elite of those better educated but still proven unquestioningly loyal to the State were promoted to lead the proletariat, rewarded with elevated status and material success commensurate with their skills and the zeal they demonstrate in supporting the system. It specifically avoided developing creativity and independent thought, reasoning these were skills the worker classes didn’t need in their roles as mass produced labor.

Modern education is built upon a foundation set forth by tyrants. What is most disquieting about the public education mindset is that those who believe most strongly in it are convinced that there are no other suitable alternatives to the compulsory schooling provided via the public domain. The egalitarian core belief of these public education proponents is that society is responsible for obtaining, maintaining, and paying for the process of equally developing young minds.

Since the laws of the modern state that control the educational system lean heavily toward equality, federal compulsory schooling is necessarily a bias against the best and brightest of America’s children. Federalized education sustains the philosophy that schools have the obligation to treat all students as pure equals – equal in intelligence, work ethic, performance, and desire.

Such nonsense is refuted by H. George Resch in his article “Equality vs. Equity” on the Separation of School and State website. Mr. Resch contends that compulsory, government-controlled education is trying to achieve ends that are not possible due to the fact that general equality is not only impossible to define, but that biological, environmental, and cultural differences among us are so vast that a compulsory, standardized public education poses difficulties that cannot be overcome, and certainly not by a government-run school system.

To read more, visit:  http://lewrockwell.com/decoster/decoster191.html

By David Kravets, Wired.com

Google has quietly announced changes to its Blogger free-blogging platform that will enable the blocking of content only in countries where censorship is required.

Twitter announced technology last week addressing the same topic. It said it had acquired the ability to censor tweets in the countries only where it was ordered removed, instead of on an internet-wide basis.

Twitter’s announcement via its blog sparked a huge online backlash. The microblogging service was accused of becoming a censoring agent.

Yet Google’s announcement three weeks ago — buried in a Blogger help page — went unnoticed until it was highlighted by TechDows on Tuesday.

Google wrote Jan. 9 it would begin redirecting Blogger traffic to country-specific URLs, meaning whatever country you’re in, you’ll get that country’s domain for Blogger-hosted blogs.

TechDows reports that this is now happening in India, for example. So when you’re there and click on a Blogger blog, the URL will end in.

To read more, visit:  http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/google-censoring-blogger/