While Democrats mock Mitt Romney for his allged lack of interest in the “very poor” and focus their political pitch on income inequality, one can’t help noticing the Obamas running around to $35,000-a-head fundraisers with the very rich and very famous in New York City and Hollywood.

Michelle Obama kicked off February with an exclusive fundraiser in Beverly Hills at the home of Netflix executive Ted Sarandos and his wife Nicole Avant, who raised Hollywood millions for the Obamas in 2008, and then became their ambassador to the Bahamas. Now Nicole Avant’s back managing Obama’s Hollywood money march. Many of Tinseltown’s titans ponied up: Jeffrey Katzenberg, Harvey Weinstein, Haim Saban, and Steve Bing, among others. (Katzenberg’s also given $2 million to the Obama-affiliated super PAC called Priorities USA Action.)

California has the largest amount of "bundlers" who’ve raised gazillions for Team Obama. Bundlers collected at least $35 million from their wealthy-people networks. That represents at least 40 percent of the $86 million raised by the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee last quarter.

That list includes not only Katzenberg and Weinstein, but Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. ABC “Desperate Housewives” star Eva Longoria was in the second highest tier, bundling $200,000 to $500,000. You don’t have to have a California address to be a Hollywood bundler, either. David Cohen of Philadelphia is executive vice president of Comcast, the new owners of NBC and Universal Studios.

In her remarks in Beverly Hills, Mrs. Obama plucked the liberal heart strings by touting her husband’s appointment of two “brilliant” women to the Supreme Court to push social liberalism: “We cannot forget the impact their decisions will have on our lives for decades to come — on our privacy and security, on whether we can speak freely, worship openly and, yes, love whomever we choose.”

That love-whomever-we-choose theme is a sop to another major Hollywood/New York constituency, the LGBT activists. Last summer, Michelle Obama appeared at another million-dollar California fundraiser at the luxurious Westwood mansion of her interior decorator Michael Smith and his partner James Costos, an executive at HBO.  Ellen DeGeneres and her partner Portia De Rossi were there, as well as Drew Barrymore, Ryan Phillippe, and Vanessa Williams.

Every time Mrs. Obama goes to California for cash, she also makes TV appearances to boost the Obama image. On the latest trip, she was honored by Jay Leno and by Ellen DeGeneres. Last summer, she taped an episode of the popular Nickelodeon show “iCarly,” which just aired in January. The Viacom network promoted her cool dance moves and her laudable support for military families.

Don’t think all these favors aren’t part of a deliberate attempt by the entertainment conglomerates to influence legislation designed to maximize their own profits. Their major initiative is the current “Stop Online Piracy Act.” Unfortunately, their opposition is the tech sector in Silicon Valley to the north.  Although the DNC received $1 million more from the entertainment sector than from the tech sector in the first three quarters of 2011, Obama just declared he could not support this bill.

In between Michelle’s Hollywood ATM withdrawals, President Obama landed in southern California late September for three events: one at the ritzy La Jolla home of Elizabeth and Mason Phelps; a gay event at the House of Blues in West Hollywood with ABC “Modern Family” star Jesse Tyler Ferguson; and then a $17,900-a-plate dinner with 100 top Hollywood bigwigs at Fig & Olive restaurant on Melrose Place, including Jack Black, Judd Apatow, Quincy Jones, Danny DeVito and Rhea Pearlman. This is Hollywood’s One Percent.

Of course, for the last two weeks, we’ve been incessantly reminded that Obama sang two lines of Al Green’s soul classic “Let’s Stay Together.” That was one of several Big Apple fundraisers for Obama at the Apollo Theatre. “American Idol” executive producer Nigel Lythgoe went on Twitter to invite the president to sing a duet with Al Green on his show. Smooch, smooch.

In the same trip, Obama held a $35,800-per-ticket fundraiser at the New York brownstone of director Spike Lee, who was infamous in Bush era for suggesting in a reckless conspiracy-theory HBO documentary that the federal government dynamited the levees to drown black people in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Obama patronized Lee by claiming he and his wife went on a first date to see “Do the Right Thing,” which ends with a race riot. That’s a real hand-holding flick. Among the 45 guests were Mariah Carey and husband Nick Cannon.

Campaign Obama wants its candidate to be seen as the embodiment of the “99 Percent.”  In truth, he is the personification of the exclusive and ultimate One Percent – the superrich and superfamous. Our “news” and entertainment media have their hands full trying to meld those conflicting themes into one convincing narrative.

On Friday's Inside Washington on PBS, as the panel discussed the new Obama administration rule that requires even Catholic employers to provide health insurance coverage for contraception to their employees, both liberal columnist Mark Shields and conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer hit Obama for the decision, while NPR's Nina Totenberg claimed that there were valid arguments in both directions as she made a flawed analogy between contraception and immunization as a defense of the Obama position.

But the blunt criticism directed at Obama by the liberal Shields, who is also a longtime regular on the PBS NewsHour, was the most surprising part of the show. After host Gordon Peterson noted that some Catholic leaders had supported Obamacare, and asked if they are "being hung out to dry," Shields responded:

They've been hung out to dry. I mean, this is a dissing, in common parlance, of Catholics. I haven't noticed thousands of people in groups lined up to provide services to the poor and the hungry and the left out and the left behind, and that's what Catholic Charities has done, that's what Catholic schools do in big cities.

And the idea that somehow that they're not doing societies – they aren't in it for the bucks. They're in it because they provide these services, and it's their mandate by their religion. I just, I don't understand Barack Obama on this, and I think that politically Catholics have voted on the winning side in every presidential election (INAUDIBLE).

Totenberg soon jumped in:

There's a very good argument that is being made by the Catholic Church, but if you take it out of the area of contraceptives and you said supposing you had a preschool that wouldn't do immunizations because its religion didn't allow immunizations, or wouldn't  insure for immunizations. We're not talking about paying here, we're talking about insurance and insurance that people can avail themselves of. The board of health would be in there. It's a very tricky question. There are very good arguments to be made on both sides.

Krauthammer ended up knocking down Totenberg's argument and attacked "liberal secular arrogance." Krauthammer:

Look, immunization is a matter of public safety; birth control is not. It's a huge difference, and what this is doing is saying, as Mark indicated, the Catholic Church isn't only a church. It's an institution that actually has outreach and social serviesa dn does good works. Liberals say, okay, "In the church, you can appoint anybody you want and we'll leave you alone, but once you step out into society, you have to be under our heel and you have to provide a morning after pill, which for Catholic, a believing Catholic in the hierarchy of the church, is an abomination. Otherwise, you're cut off, and that is liberal secular arrogance and has no place in this society.

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the the Friday, February 3, Inside Washington on PBS:

GORDON PETERSON: New Obama administration policy requires all employers, including Catholic employers, to pay for FDA-approved contraceptives regardless of the Catholic Church teaching on this issue. Now, during the debate over the health care law, the president of the Catholic Health Association supported the President. Now, the President's critics say – Sister Carole Keehan and others who supported this bill – are being hung out to dry. Your take, Mark?

MARK SHIELDS: They've been hung out to dry. I mean, this is a dissing, in common parlance, of Catholics. I haven't noticed thousands of people in groups lined up to provide services to the poor and the hungry and the left out and the left behind, and that's what Catholic Charities has done, that's what Catholic schools do in big cities.

And the idea that somehow that they're not doing societies – they aren't in it for the bucks. They're in it because they provide these services, and it's their mandate by their religion. I just, I don't understand Barack Obama on this, and I think that politically Catholics have voted on the winning side in every presidential election (INAUDIBLE).

PETERSON: Is it relevant or irrelevant that the vast majority of Catholics practice contraception in violation of this teaching?

SHIELDS: It is irrelevant because what you're doing is you're closing down Catholic institutions. That's what you're basically (INAUDIBLE).

NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: Can I just say something here? This has been the law actually  since 2000. There's an EEOC ruling; 28 states have laws like this. There's a very good argument that is being made by the Catholic Church, but if you take it out of the area of contraceptives and you said supposing you had a preschool that wouldn't do immunizations because its religion didn't allow immunizations, or wouldn't  insure for immunizations. We're not talking about paying here, we're talking about insurance and insurance that people can avail themselves of. The board of health would be in there. It's a very tricky question. There are very good arguments to be made on both sides.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Look, immunization is a matter of public safety; birth control is not. It's a huge difference, and what this is doing is saying, as Mark indicated, the Catholic Church isn't only a church. It's an institution that actually has outreach and social serviesa dn does good works. Liberals say, okay, "In the church, you can appoint anybody you want and we'll leave you alone, but once you step out into society, you have to be under our heel and you have to provide a morning after pill, which for Catholic, a believing Catholic in the hierarchy of the church, is an abomination. Otherwise, you're cut off, and that is liberal secular arrogance and has no place in this society.

In what is apparently completely unimportant news to just about everyone except NBC2 in Southwest Florida and Andrew Breitbart, numerous instances of illegal voting by non-citizens have been uncovered. Projecting the problems across the state and into the rest of the nation would seem to indicate that many thousands of people who are registered to vote should never have been allowed to register and are routinely casting ballots illegally.

A Google News search on "Florida vote fraud" (not in quotes) at Google News at 11:00 PM ET indicated that there was a grand total of six stories on this disturbing development. Immediately below the reference to the non-citizen voting news is a link to a Tampa Bay Times editorial posted two days ago which claimed that voter fraud is "a nonexistent problem in this state." Uh huh. What follows are excerpts from each segment (Part 1; Part 2) of Andy Pierrotti's NBC2 report (also look at the TV reports at the links, which differ from the text below):

---

(From Part 1)

NBC2 Investigates: Voter fraud

Two elections supervisors are taking action after an NBC2 investigation uncovers flawed record keeping and human error allowing people who are not citizens of the United States to vote.

No one knows how widespread this problem is, because county election supervisors have no way to track non-citizens who live here.

So NBC2 did something election officials never thought to do, and found them on our own.

"I vote every year," Hinako Dennett told NBC2.

The Cape Coral resident is not a US citizen, yet she's registered to vote.

NBC2 found Dennett after reviewing her jury excusal form. She told the Clerk of Court she couldn't serve as a juror because she wasn't a U.S. citizen.

We found her name, and nearly a hundred others like her, in the database of Florida registered voters.

… Based on our investigation, both election offices say they'll now request a copy of every jury excusal form where residents say they can't serve because they're not a citizen.

(From Part 2)

Poor record keeping is what's leading to potential fraud in the elections system. And election supervisors say registering non-citizens will continue until they get more help.

Officials we spoke to say non U.S. citizens are voting in Lee and Collier counties.

"If there is a change by one vote and somebody's voted that really has no right to be voting," said Lee County Supervisor of Elections Sharon Harrington.

Nearly 100 registered are now under investigation for possible voter fraud.

"It could change the whole complexion of an election," Harrington said.

We found those 100 people after reviewing jury excusal forms. We compared the names of those who said they couldn't serve because they were not U.S. citizens to those listed on Florida's voter registration rolls.

"I was surprised that there were quite that many," Harrington said.

It would have been nice if Pierrotti had told viewers what the error rate was, i.e., how many jury excusal forms did it take before they got to nearly 100 ineligible voters. 200? 500? 1,000? It would also be nice to know what percentage of registered voters are called for jury duty in any given year, because the chances that there are non-citizens voting who have never been called for jury duty would appear to be quite high, and might possibly be a multiple of the number who were caught through excusal forms.

Depending on the error rate found, projecting the problem across all of Florida could lead one to reasonably believe that there are thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of non-citizens who either registered themselves and are voting illegally, or that others who have posed as them, with or without their knowledge, have registered and are voting on their behalf. It's not a great leap to speculate that the number of illegally registered non-citizens is in the tens to hundreds of thousands nationwide.

But voter fraud "a nonexistent problem in this state." Just ask the Tampa Bay Tribune. What a crock.

Don't expect the rest of the establishment press to notice this disturbing and disconcerting story.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

On Tuesday, Ken Thomas of the Associated Press covered President Barack Obama's appearance at the Washington Auto Show and allowed Obama's criticism of Mitt Romney as being among those "willing to let this industry die" to stand, ignoring known history in the process.

Obama's statement marks him as a true ingrate, because for better or worse (my opinion: worse; your mileage, so to speak, may vary) Mitt Romney, after warning of the dangers of bailing out General Motors and Chrysler, shifted gears four months later and vigorously defended the President when the administration orchestrated a boardroom coup at GM which included the forced resignation of CEO Rick Wagoner. This was the point at which it became clear that Obama wanted the government to control what happened at GM until it either recovered or was forced into what most were already seeing as an inevitable bankruptcy filing. In a CNN interview the day the news broke, Romney complimented Obama for demonstrating "backbone." What follows are five paragraphs from Thomas's piece, a screen shot of the article CNN posted that day, and a transcript of the relevant portion of Romney's March 31, 2009 interview:

---

Obama plays up auto industry success story

… As the industry was collapsing in the fall of 2008, Romney predicted in a New York Times op-ed that if the companies received a federal bailout, "you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye." Romney said the companies should have undergone a "managed bankruptcy" that would have avoided a government bailout.

"Whether it was by President Bush or by President Obama, it was the wrong way to go," Romney said at a GOP presidential debate in Michigan in November. Romney said the nation has "capital markets and bankruptcy – it works in the U.S. The idea of billions of dollars being wasted initially, then finally they adopted the managed bankruptcy. I was among others that said we ought to do that."

Both the Bush and Obama administrations found themselves in uncharted territory in the fall of 2008 and early 2009. GM and Chrysler were on the verge of collapse when Congress failed to approve emergency loans in late 2008. Bush stepped in and signed off on $17.4 billion in loans, requiring the companies to develop restructuring plans under Obama's watch.

The following spring, Obama pumped billions more into GM and Chrysler but forced concessions from industry stakeholders, enabling the companies to go through swift bankruptcies. Obama aides said billions in aid – about $85 billion for the industry in total – was necessary because capital markets were essentially frozen at the time, meaning there was no way for GM and Chrysler to fund their bankruptcies privately.

Without any private financing or government support, they argued, the companies would have been forced to liquidate.

Here is the CNN report summarizing Romney's March 31, 2009 interview:

Here is the transcript of that CNN interview (bolds are mine):

Romney: I think a lot of people expected the president just to cave and to write a big check, and just hope for the better. I’m glad that he’s expressing some backbone on this and saying to those guys, “Hey, you’ve gotta get your house in order or you guys are gone. You’re going to go to bankruptcy.” That’s something I think he should have said months ago. There were a numbers of us who said that bankruptcy or a bankruptcy-like process was something that was needed to get GM and Chrysler, y’know, on their feet again. But by the way, kudos to Ford for running itself independently and apparently making a go of it on its own.

CNN Host: Now let me just bring you back to what you were saying about bankruptcy. In fact, you offered to call him on it. You said, quote, “In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check.” Do you still think that that’s the best idea, to allow these companies to go into bankruptcy, restructure, then emerge?

Romney: Well it’s clear that just writing checks is not the answer. It really keeps the bondholders and the UAW and other stakeholders from taking the necessary haircuts that allow these companies to be competitive. You either have to go through a bankruptcy process, a pre-packaged bankruptcy, or special legislation giving an entity the power to get these companies through these difficult times. Or, if the parties want to do it voluntarily, great, but if they can’t do that — and apparently at this stage it’s looking like they haven’t been able to — then you’re going to have to have that kind of a club to get these companies to be able to restructure their excessive costs.

CNN Host: A couple of minutes ago, Jon Stewart made the joke about the government backing warranties here. The government’s gotten involved in so many things, backing warranties, guaranteeing bank accounts, buying up toxic assets. There was an interesting line in the New York Times this morning, quote, it said, “It means that the government is not only the ultimate guarantor of saving accounts and insurance policies – it will also cover that blown transmission.” The question that I had, in the next 30 days is, why would anyone but a Chrysler product, and in the next 60 days why would anyone but a General Motors product when they don’t know what the future of these companies is going to be, regardless of whether the government is backing the warranties?

Romney: Well, that’s in fact that’s why a number of folks, myself included, pointed out, said last November, “Don’t just write checks.” Because you’re sealing the fate of these companies, unless you help them restructure. Give confidence to the American people that they’re going to be here forever. If you don’t do that, well, just putting $17 billion into them is going to be wasted, and also, ultimately, seal their fate. You’ve got to get these companies back on a track where it shows that they can be successful and viable. That can only happen if they’re fundamentally restructured. Just writing checks, just saying you’re going to protect warranties, that’s not enough.

It's also worth noting that the Obama administration did what Mitt Romney said he wanted to see happen by taking GM and Chrysler into managed bankruptcies, except for one "little" thing: They were heavily managed by the government. As a result, United Auto Workers members at GM suffered very little while certain disfavored creditors suffered a lot (outrageous creditor favoritism, accompanied by White House intimidation, also happened earlier at Chrysler). The AP's Thomas "somehow" forgot to mention all of that too — all in the name of letting the President get in a cheap shot feeding the untrue stereotype that Republicans and conservatives just wanted the domestic auto industry to die.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

“Immigrant Worker Firings Unsettle a College Campus,” New York Times reporter Jennifer Medina’s sympathetic report from Claremont, Calif., on immigrants without proof of legal residency being fired from the Pomona College cafeteria, blamed the firings on union-busting on the part of campus administration and failed to pose the obvious factual question: Were the workers here illegally or not? (Not that the Times has ever shown much concern about illegal immigration in its news coverage.)

The dining hall workers had been at Pomona College for years, some even decades. For a few, it was the only job they had held since moving to the United States.

Then late last year, administrators at the college delivered letters to dozens of the longtime employees asking them to show proof of legal residency, saying that an internal review had turned up problems in their files.

Seventeen workers could not produce documents showing that they were legally able to work in the United States. So on Dec. 2, they lost their jobs.

Now, the campus is deep into a consuming debate over what it means to be a college with liberal ideals, with some students, faculty and alumni accusing the administration and the board of directors of betraying the college’s ideals. The renewed discussion over immigration and low-wage workers has animated class discussions, late-night dorm conversations and furious back and forth on alumni e-mail lists. Some alumni are now refusing to donate to the college, while some students are considering discouraging prospective freshmen from enrolling.

For the last two years, many of the dining hall workers had been organizing to form a union, but the efforts stalled amid negotiations with the administration. Many on campus believe that the administration began looking into the employees’ work authorizations as a way to thwart the union effort, an accusation the college president, David W. Oxtoby, has repeatedly denied. But that has done little to quell questions and anger among the fired workers and many who support their efforts to unionize.

Medina briefly let legal reality intrude:

Dr. Oxtoby and the college’s trustees repeatedly said there was no choice but to fire the workers. In a letter from the law firm, lawyers for the college said the college would have left itself open to investigation and punishment from federal immigration authorities had it not fully examined the employment files.
 

Not once did Medina, a journalist, raise the obvious factual question: Were the cafeteria workers in the United States illegally?

CNN's Wolf Blitzer was apparently quite moved by President Obama's speech at Thursday's National Prayer Breakfast. Blitzer hailed it as a candid address and noted that the President spoke "very movingly" of his faith.

Of course, Obama's profession of his faith came shortly after his administration mandated religious-affiliated organizations to act against their church's teaching, a decision that caused great uproar. Blitzer did not mention that fact, but did cast Obama in a positive light as opposed to GOP candidate Mitt Romney. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

"He [Obama] also spoke about the Christian obligation to help the poor, amid the uproar Mitt Romney sparked by saying he's more concerned about the middle class than the very poor," Blitzer said.

Earlier in the afternoon, anchor Don Lemon expressed surprise at Obama's "candid" message after his faith has been criticized as of late. "So for a guy whose faith has been criticized, judged, and called into question, that was some pretty candid stuff," he surmised.

Lemon also noted Obama's "humbling" story of meeting evangelist Billy Graham, a term Blitzer used later to describe the same portion of Obama's speech. Were positive words like "candid" and "humbling" in the CNN talking points for the day concerning Obama's address?

A transcript of the segment, which aired on February 2 at 4:29 p.m. EST, is as follows:

[4:26]

WOLF BLITZER: President Obama opens up very movingly about his faith. You're going to hear him describe his spiritual journey, what he says has humbled him to his core.

(…)

[4:29]

BLITZER: President Obama talking openly and surprisingly candidly about his Christian faith at the National Annual Prayer Breakfast here in Washington today. The President shared that he prays regularly, and he described a humbling meeting with the Rev. Billy Graham. He also spoke about the Christian obligation to help the poor, amid the uproar Mitt Romney sparked by saying he's more concerned about the middle class than the very poor.
 

The liberal media have had a field day as they've been hard-at-work bashing the breast cancer charity Komen for the Cure and hyping how Planned Parenthood raised some $400,000 in 24 hours following Komen's announced decision to suspend grants to the abortion provider.

But did you know that Komen has seen a 100 percent uptick in its donations? Caroline May of The Daily Caller reported that this afternoon:

In the wake of this week’s announcement that Susan G. Komen for the Cure will no longer be awarding grants to Planned Parenthood, the breast cancer organization’s donations have gone up 100 percent in the last two days.

On a Thursday conference call Nancy Brinker, the founder and CEO of the Komen Foundation, told reporters that the organization is “singularly focused” on combating breast cancer, and that the politics of the decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood has been distracting from their mission.

Nevertheless, since cutting ties, Brinker announced that Komen’s donations have gone up in the last two days — by 100 percent.

“Our donations are up 100 percent in the past two days. With all of the emotion around these issues — which we understand, we get emotional too, we do this every single day of our lives,” Brinker said, explaining that they do not make decisions to be popular, they make them to fight cancer.

Pro-lifers are just as fired up with excitement that Komen is distancing itself from Planned Parenthood as pro-choice radicals are incensed at the move. It remains to be seen if the liberal media will note Komen's fundraising success, but we at NewsBusters are calling on them to Tell the Truth!

In other news, Al Sharpton rejected criticism that he makes his living as a race-baiting grievance-monger. Suffice it to say, uncomfortable truths do not sit well with this man.

Responding to Mitt Romney saying he's "not concerned about the very poor" because of the decades-old government safety net, Sharpton swung into action on his radio show with a claim that is delusional even by Sharpton's expansive standards (audio clip after page break) –

The statement by Mitt Romney today, he's trying to walk it back saying that he wasn't concerned with the poor, concerned with the middle class, that he's trying to clarify it but even in his clarity I think he exposes to many the misconceptions. He said, well, there are programs for the poor, I meant my focus.

What programs for the poor? They [Republicans] keep acting as if poor people have all of these things that are helping them.

This from a man with the ear of the president, which should be surprising but, sadly, isn't.

A person tossing out such a whopper is not just engaging in magical thinking more often seen in children. He is locked in the infantile philosophy known as liberalism.

For example, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a lefty think-tank cited so often on MSNBC that they're a member of the family, posted an article last April titled "Policy Basics: Where Do Our Federal Tax Dollars Go?," that does a nifty job of demolishing Sharpton's claim –

Safety net programs: About 14 percent of the federal budget in 2010, or $496 billion, went to support programs that provide aid (other than health insurance or Social Security benefits) to individuals and families facing hardships.

These programs include: the refundable portion of the earned-income and child tax credits, which assist low- and moderate-income working families through the tax code; programs that provide cash payments to eligible individuals and households, including Supplemental Security income for the elderly or disabled poor and unemployment insurance; various forms of in-kind assistance for low-income families and individuals, including food stamps, school meals, low-income housing assistance, child-care assistance, and assistance in meeting home energy bills; and various other programs such as those that aid abused and neglected children.

According to FederalSafetyNet.com, federal spending to alleviate poverty has soared in the last 50 years, from $445 per person in 1960 to $7,741 per person in 2010 through a dozen federal programs. "Yet despite the increase in spending," the site points out, "the poverty level has remained fairly constant at between 12-15 percent of the population. While we have spent more and more money we have not lessened the number of people in poverty. Why? The reason is because our system is poorly designed. It doesn't have "conditions" attached to it, it "doesn't make work pay" and it lessens responsibility of participants."

An article from last May by the Heritage Foundation's Brian Riedl, "Myths of Tax Cuts for Rich, Spending Cuts for Poor," also demonstrates the lunacy of Sharpton's claim –

According to the White House's Office of Management and Budget, federal anti-poverty spending has soared from $190 billion in 1990 to $348 billion in 2000, and to a staggering $638 billion this year (all adjusted for inflation). The growth since 2000 has been particularly remarkable in the Children's Health Insurance Program (470 percent), food stamps (229 percent), energy assistance (163 percent), child care assistance (89 percent) and Medicaid (80 percent)

These expansions have been bipartisan: Mr. Bush — unfairly derided as bad for poor people — became the first president to spend more than 3 percent of the nation's income on anti-poverty programs. President Obama then pushed it above 4 percent. In fact, since 1990, anti-poverty spending as a share of national income has expanded as fast as Social Security, Medicare, defense and education — combined.

In answer to Sharpton's question, "What programs for the poor?," a one-word answer comes to mind — those. No matter. He'd rather you believe him than your lying eyes.

(h/t, Brian Maloney at Radio Equalizer)