They’re just now questioning the “peace” cred of some of the past recipients?

The nomination deadline for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize has expired amid renewed criticism the award committee has drifted away from the selection criteria established by the prize’s founder.

Stockholm’s County Administrative Board, which supervises foundations and trusts in the city, is investigating claims the Nobel Foundation has widenened the scope of the prize to a point where it no longer reflects Alfred Nobel’s will.

Unless Alfred Nobel’s will was to give his Peace Prize to a terrorist, an appeasing failure of an ex US president who emboldens thugs around the world, a enviro scam artist and a president who had done nothing up to that point except read speeches from a teleprompter and has since turned into a killing machine, they might want to re-visit the criteria.

Jon Huntsman officially dropped out of the race earlier today, which means two things heading into tonight’s South Carolina debate: Michelle Malkin’s mute button finally gets a chance to cool off, and the field has now been narrowed down to five:

The remaining Republican presidential candidates treated Jon Huntsman’s endorsement of Mitt Romney as he bowed out of the race Monday much they way they treated Huntsman during his candidacy — with barely a glance.

“I like Jon Huntsman. I actually got a chance to meet him and his wonderful wife and family and I wish him the very, very best, and he brings something to the table. But this is a race about who’s going to be the strong conservative against Barack Obama,” Rick Santorum told Fox News.

With Huntsman gone and with Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and the South Carolina Republican Party literally setting their debate stage Monday night with one less lectern, many pundits and voters — and even a candidate — agree that should Romney pull of the hat trick this Saturday in South Carolina and go 3-0 in the early GOP contests, it could be very tough to stop him

The race is down to five now, which means four are tweaking their strategy to undo Romney’s substantial lead in the polls, both in South Carolina and across the nation.

The action (if you can call a debate “action”) starts at 9 p.m. EST. Watch live on Fox News or online here. Romney’s stretching his lead nationally and this could be the last chance for the remaining four to throw everything they’ve got. Could be entertaining.

Additional drinking game rule: Double shot when Romney says something along the line of “four Pinocchios, Newt – four Pinnocchios!“

You mean, this isn’t The One we’ve been waiting for? Oprah will be more upset than the last time she glanced at her television network’s balance sheet.

From ABC News:

Holding hands and smiling despite the 37 degree temperatures, the President Obama and his family walked across the street from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church today to attend the 11 a.m. service.
[...]
According to pool reports, the Rev. Dr. Luis Leon discussed Obama in his sermon. He told the congregation Americans thought Obama would be a Messiah and change would be immediate.

“People have a tendency to create idols. Society must wait without idols,” he said.

I totally disagree that “change” wasn’t immediate. Things got worse almost overnight. We’ve gone through trillions of dollars worth of initiatives that were supposed to transform America into a progressive Shangri-La (which is in fact a contradiction in terms), but things have only gone downhill.

If Obama isn’t the Messiah, I hope Reverend Leon tells the people in the below video… if they haven’t already figured it out for themselves by now:

As evidenced above, the similarities are already uncanny, but President Obama today will try and draw himself even closer to Teddy Roosevelt:

OSAWATOMIE, KAN. — President Obama will give an economic speech in Osawatomie, Kan., Tuesday at a location the White House says it was very specific in picking and was meant to stir echoes of President Teddy Roosevelt.

Roosevelt spoke in the very same town more than 100 years ago on Aug. 31, 1910, where he presented his vision for America and the coming 1912 election.

Sound familiar?

That’s by design.

The White House says it spent a month planning and choosing this location and that there are parallels between how working class families felt then and now.

And of course Obama will use a teleprompter, just like Teddy did for his speech that was entitled “New Nationalism” (or “Old Socialism” depending on how you look at it).

I join the White House in hoping that there are plenty of parallels between the two situations — Teddy Roosevelt went on to get his ass kicked in the 1912 election.

Obama speech update: The Unraveler-in-Chief warns of the “unraveling of the American dream.”

In 2006, Obama admitted that the title was the idea of his Pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright:

“I’m not plugging the book, but the title of it, ‘The Audacity of Hope.’ Some people have noticed that I actually used that line in the speech that I gave at the 2004 Democratic Convention,” Obama said on November 4, 2006 in Bristol, Pa., at a rally in support of Patrick Murphy, who went on to serve two terms in Congress. ”But I tell you what: I’m confessing to all of you here today — it’s a big crowd, 2,000 people — I’m confessing in front of the TV cameras: I actually stole this line from my pastor, Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.”

Here’s the video from the Daily Caller:

Rev. Jeremiah Wright? Hard to believe the book’s title wasn’t “The Audacity of Rich White People”

Funny… the only words Obama heard his pastor say in 20 years were “The Audacity of Hope”?