LIZ PEEK: Angry Voters to Obama: Stop the Ticking Debt Bomb.

UPDATE: Obama’s Money Advantage Disappearing.

TIME FOR A LAWSUIT: Memphis Police Delete Photographer’s Cell Phone Pictures.

CHARLES GASPARINO: Warren Buffett: Ugliness The Media Overlook.

Much less has been said about Buffett’s unsaintly investment record. I won’t bore you with every gory detail of his questionable associations, which include no-lose investments in Goldman Sachs and General Electric just before the companies received massive federal aid during the financial crisis.

But other items really take the shine off St. Warren’s halo — like his insistence that the ratings agencies didn’t play a key role in setting up the 2008 financial meltdown.

In fact, the ratings biz was rife with conflicts of interest, since the agencies were paid by the same entities they were rating. Most people figure that’s why these “watchdogs” ignored major signs of trouble in the housing markets as they slapped all those Triple-A ratings on the toxic housing-related debt that was at the heart of the financial crisis.

But Buffett has publicly defended the rating agencies as bit players in the debacle, caught up in the mania much like nearly everyone else. His obvious motive: He held a major stake in rating agency Moody’s Investors Service, so Berkshire got a nice cut out of all those fees that Moody’s “earned” as it fueled the crisis.

It’s hard to believe a conservative businessman would be able to get away with that hypocrisy — not to mention the association with a business that helped do so much damage to the US economy.

It’s also hard to believe that any conservative businessman who was just interviewed by the Securities and Exchange Commission over some corporate sleaze would be getting invitations to the White House, much less be touted at the State of the Union Address.

Luckily, they’ve got the state-controlled media on their side.

LIGHT RAIL FAIL: LAX Light Rail Misses Airport by a Mile.

s they tout a posh redo of the Tom Bradley International Terminal meant to reposition LAX as a travel hub for the new millennium, Los Angeles leaders are creating a potentially hobbling obstacle for the airport. The other big mass-transit infrastructure project nearby, the “Crenshaw/LAX” Metro light rail, will stop a full mile short of LAX.

That fact is almost certain to baffle and anger travelers to LAX, and help cement the old joke that “Los Angeles planning is an oxymoron.”

Emphasis on the “moron.”

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Soaring Beef Prices Force Shoppers To Find Other Foods.

LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: Systemic Reform: “Knowledgeable and respected authorities inside and outside the legal academy are correctly describing the American system of legal education as being in a state of ‘crisis’ and in need of dramatic reforms. Yet most members of the legal academy refuse to accept that major structural reforms are necessary.”

UPDATE: 12 more law schools facing class actions over employment data. The already-troubled Widener Law School is on the list, marking yet another non-feather in the cap of its star-crossed Dean, Linda Ammons. And if Widener was really fudging the numbers, then given its low ranking, how much worse would it be if the numbers were accurate?

THOUGHTS ON drone strikes in Yemen.

AT AMAZON, up to 50% off on power and hand tools.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) Used Campaign Cash To Hire Private Investigators In Twitter Scandal.

LOWER EDUCATION UPDATE: L.A. teacher charged with molesting 23 children. “A veteran elementary school teacher was arrested on horrifying child molestation charges after a film processor gave police photos showing blindfolded children with their mouths taped and cockroaches on their faces, authorities said Tuesday. . . . Berndt worked for more than 30 years at Miramonte Elementary School in an unincorporated area of South Los Angeles before being fired as a result of the investigation. Miramonte serves a poor, mainly Hispanic neighborhood.” It gets worse.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): House Prices Hit Post-Bubble Low. “The housing bust, in other words, appears to be even worse than it was at the nadir of the recession. For millions of homeowners, that’s an unsettling reality, and potentially an issue in the presidential campaign. But the damage may be far more widespread.”

HMM: Chinese Manufacturing Endures Rocky Holiday Season.

12 WAYS OBAMA COULD LOSE: “As a partisan Democrat, I’m rooting for Mr. Obama, but there are numerous problems, both visible and unforeseen, that could trip him up.”

WHITE HOUSE REFUSES TO COMMENT ON PETITION TO INVESTIGATE CHRIS DODD: “The White House has issued a statement in which they refuse to comment on the petition to investigate Chris Dodd for bribery from the MPAA to pass legislation. The reason given: ‘because it requests a specific law enforcement action.'”

And that’s not all they won’t comment on.

BYRON YORK: Why Romney Won, Why Gingrich Lost. Plus, the danger of Romney’s negative advertising: “Romney is like a doctor using massive doses of chemotherapy and radiation to kill a cancer — the Gingrich threat — but trying to spare the patient, which is his own candidacy. It might be close by the time this is all over.”

HMM: Top cancer foundation decides to cut ties with Planned Parenthood. “The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation has broken off a partnership through which it provided cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood clinics, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. Planned Parenthood blamed the political controversy over abortion.”

NEW YORK POST: Jon Corzine: Obama’s Boodle Bundler. “Granted, Obama may no longer want voters to recall that he once said Corzine was his ‘go-to guy’ for financial advice after he entered the White House. But apparently he has no problem with taking money from Corzine and his well-heeled friends.”

SLUSH FUNDS: Congress Warns Holder Over Acorn Payola.

CHANGE: Obama To Unveil New Vote-Buying Scheme. Keep an eye on this guy. He’s hoping you’re too distracted by the GOP infighting to notice what he’s up to.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Obamanomics Has Gov’t Workers Happy, Others Miserable. “The dominant media may tell you a new day is dawning in Obama’s America. In fact, our overfed government is partying, while those of us in the private sector pick up the tab for its excesses.”

SACRIFICING ECONOMIC GROWTH FOR POLITICAL GAIN: Hope is not a strategy. Nowhere is that truism more evident than in President Obama’s energy policy. “While it may be the most newsworthy, the misguided decision on the Keystone XL pipeline isn’t the only example of sacrificing American jobs, economic competitiveness and energy security for quick political gain.”

MICKEY KAUS: “When even crusading opinion journalists who work for The New Republic have to deny their interest in actually equalizing incomes for its own sake then it kind of proves Andrew Kohut’s point that Americans reject that point of view, no? … P.S.: I suspect polls will show Americans do care about social equality (that we are ‘equal in the eyes of each other,’ as Ronald Reagan put it). The popular desire for social equality is why Mitt Romney ate at McDonald’s today. In any case, I’ve argued, instead of focusing on rising income inequality (about which they can do little) liberals would be better advised to focus on ensuring social equality even in the face of disparate incomes.”

But most liberals don’t believe in social equality, because they think they’re much better than those slope-forehead yahoos in flyoverland. if you could get rid of the oikophobia that might be a strategy, but oikophobia is the unifying principle of most of the left these days.

IN CALIFORNIA, THE FRUITS OF PROFLIGACY: Controller: State to run out of cash in March without action.

TAXES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Another Kennedy Tax Writeoff.