Once thing you got to say about our Homeland Security Secretary...

She's consistant!! She puts her foot in her mouth at least once a week. She's made more apologies and retractions in these first 100 days than Bubba did to Hellary in years of marriage.
This swine flue miscue is just the latest.... From YAHOO news:

Napolitano retracts 'passive surveillance' term
Wed Apr 29, 2009

WASHINGTON – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is asserting that the description she initially gave of the border swine-flu monitoring effort no longer applies.

Appearing Wednesday before a Senate panel, Napolitano said that "passive surveillance" is "not an accurate picture of what is going on" at U.S. entry points. She had used that term Tuesday morning to describe the nature of the monitoring for illness.

On Wednesday, Napolitano said that U.S. officials are "actively" questioning visitors at the border, asking questions about "whether they are ill, their travel history and the like."

She also discounted turning to thermal meters to gauge whether people are carrying a fever, and Napolitano also said she does not believe the facts of the current situation would merit closing the borders.

Somehow she got to be governor of Arizona -- so she must have something on the ball, but I sure ain't seen it yet. Anita Hill, one of her earlier clients during the Justice Clarence Thomas' attempted lynching - must be plumb proud of her.......... not!

As usual, Ramirez nails the day - and the idjit!!!

Last week, we heard how Obamanation was saving us money....

He actually called all his wise men & women and Chicago Wiseguys together and said: "Go forth and find $100 million to cut out of the proposed $3.6 Trillion budget so I can brag about it.

Lo, his cabinet struggled hither and yon, cut out school vouchers for poor kids in the Washington DC school district to force them back to their loser public schools, and found other groups with no lobbyists to make their cuts.. And, in fact, they found the cuts Obamanation wanted... he could now travel across the land and brag about how he, the Messiah, had miraculously saved us all these $100 million in spending..

I looked long and hard for some way to describe this .0029% cut in a way that brought it home, and Brietbart, bless their hearts, did it well... Glom on to this very short Video for a display of how meaningful this cut you heard so much about actually means....

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=328543&widget=1

Well, I see they have identified the origin of swine flu....

I'm sure somebody out there will take offense with this posting...... that it is unkind in a troubled period. To them I'll say, "Y'all need to loosen up your corsets!"

Senator Specter makes spectacle of himself......

In his announcement about changing parties today - the RINO of Pennsylvania admitted that his chances of winning the Republican Primary were 'bleak' (his word). Thus he has decided to run as a Dimmocrat 'cause his chances are better in their mulish corral.

How weak must a candidate be, to be able to predict his own political demise a year before his party's primary? The question is --- how stupid are the Pennsylvanian Dems, that he would assume they would nominate him?

Finally, under the stupid column, Specter proudly reminded his microphone and both people listening that 200,000 former Pennsylvania Republicans had changed parties and registered as Democrats this last year ----- Duh -- will somebody tell Dumbo (I wouldn't insult Forrest Gump by calling him that) that all those Republicans registered Dem so they could vote in the Dem Primary to exercise "Operation Chaos" and slow down Hellary's run for the Dem nomination..... Please?

Stupid is as stupid does.............

Well Pilgrims, the Doc has cut me back to one glass of wine per day..... ahh well....I won't tell if you won't!

Slippery as they are - it's hard to nail down a snake oil salesman....

But Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn does just that as she questions Tennessee's Snake Oil Saleman of the Century during congressional hearings this week......

Al Gore makes that Governor doin' the 'side-step' in the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, look as honest as Abe Lincoln. It is known to all that when he left the public trough, Gore was worth one or two million bucks. His net worth is now said to be a hundred times that ! Not bad for an self proclaimed concerned citizen who claims his efforts are purely altruistic!

Here see Slippery Al Gorebot for your self and judge. If it piques your interest, there is lot's more to see. This is only a two minute video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXGkI-mw7Pw

"Won't you be my friend?"

Use the money where it's truly needed......

Pilgrims, I have come with a brilliant idea for Obamanation!! He keeps trying to figure out how to spend the TARP money in a way which will control things......

How about he issues it to all the trucking companies that haul gravel, rocks and debris and overloads up and down our Texas highways at 75 MPH!! They could surely use some TARP money -- and all the citizens of Texas would be grateful !!!

American diplomacy, Obamanation style.......

We get a peek into Annie's personal side......

Nell Husbands Martin Coulter
Ann Coulter

April 22, 2009

A lot of people claim to be my No. 1 fan -- God bless them -- but my true No. 1 fan left this world last week. My mother quietly stopped breathing last Tuesday, as she slept peacefully, holding my hand.

She was the biggest fan of all of us -- Father, me and my brothers John and Jim.

After reading the eulogy column I wrote for Father last year -- not to excess, probably only about 4,637 times -- Mother realized to her chagrin that she wouldn't be able to read the eulogy column I'd be writing for her, and started hinting that maybe I could rustle up a draft so she could take a peek.

But I couldn't do it, until I had to.

The only thing Mother wanted to be sure my brothers and I included in her remembrances were her contributions to the Republican Party, the New Canaan Republican Town Committee and the Daughters of the American Revolution.

She was a direct descendant of at least a dozen patriots who served the cause of the American Revolution and traced her lineage on both sides of her family to Puritan nonconformists who came to America in 1633 seeking religious freedom on a ship led by Pastor Thomas Hooker. Or, as Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano would call them, "A dangerous right-wing extremist hate group."

Even back in the Puritan days, Mother's female ancestors were brought up on charges for their heretical dressing styles (and then sassed the judge). During the Revolution, one female ancestor, Effie Ten Eyck Van Varick, contributed to the rebel cause by donating lead for bullets from the curtain weights in her home in what was, even then, traitorous, loyalist Manhattan.

Mother's deep-seated political activism saved me on more than one occasion.

At the 2004 Republican National Convention, I was taking my parents to a lot of the parties in New York and, at one of them, Herman Cain walked up to me and told me he was a big fan even though I probably didn't know who he was.

Cain was the former president and CEO of Godfather's Pizza who was then running for the U.S. Senate from Georgia. I had seen him on Fox News' "Cavuto" -- but I couldn't remember his name for the life of me.

Luckily for me, Mother was standing next to me and she piped in, "I know who you are -- I donated to your campaign." Thank you, Mommy!

Mother probably contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to various conservative outfits over the years -- all in her little $20 checks -- especially to any organization that claimed it was going to stop Hillary. In fact, if they mentioned Hillary in their letter, Mother sometimes made it $25.

My brothers and I always figured we'd have no inheritance, but there would be a lovely memorial to Oliver North somewhere.

Mother may have thought her most notable characteristic was her Republican activism, but, for the rest of us, it was her constant, unconditional love. She was a little love machine, spreading warmth and joy wherever she went.

Every time she'd see me, even after just a few days' absence, she'd hug me as if I had been lost in the Himalayan Mountains for the past 20 years.

On Mother's birthday last year, I had a dinner party for her with Rush Limbaugh, Conrad Black and my friends Peter and Angie.

Mother was always delighted to be with people talking about politics -- actually she told me that, lately, she was delighted to be around any conversations that didn't involve who had a doctor's appointment or who had died that day.

So I let her stay up until 3 a.m. that night, well past her bedtime. Mother was so happy that after I had her all tucked in and the lights out, I heard her singing herself to sleep.

Even on the rare occasions when I'd be cross with her, she'd completely forget about it, and within 10 seconds would be telling me what a wonderful, precious daughter I was. My brother Jimmy found out recently that she'd even forgotten that he had caused her to miss Reagan's first inauguration by getting in a car accident the night before we were leaving -- and she never should have forgotten that.

Everyone wanted my mother to be his mother. (The "his" in that sentence is grammatically correct and Mother would never let us forget it.) I'm sure everyone thinks he has the perfect mother, but we really did.

Since I was a little girl, friends, relatives and neighbors would bring their problems to Mother. She had a rare combination of being completely moral and completely nonjudgmental at the same time -- the exact opposite of liberals who have absolutely no morals and yet are ferociously judgmental.

You could tell Mother anything, get good counsel and not end up feeling worse about yourself.

Several of Mother's New Canaan friends sent us notes last week, calling her a "gentle lady" and remarking that she never had an unkind word for anyone.

As a family member, I can assure you that -- much to our annoyance -- she really did never have an unkind word for anyone. I mean, except Democrats, but not anyone she knew.

Whenever the rest of us would be making fun of someone -- trust me, always for good and sound reasons -- Mother would somehow manage to muster up a defense of the miscreant. Father would always smile and say, "Your mother defends everyone."

She was, in fact, such a "gentle lady" that I had to go to her doctors' appointments and hospital visits with her and be her Mother Lion. If officious hospital administrators had told Mother to get off a gurney, go outside in the pouring rain and stand on one foot for three hours before the doctor would see her, she'd thank them profusely and apologize for being such a bother.

She viewed her doctors' appointments as social visits, which is the other reason I'd have to go with her, to make sure we eventually got around to the business end of the appointment.

When she began her final decline last fall, she had to go to her Connecticut doctor without me to find out what was wrong. This was the first time she didn't seem to be getting better after a chemo treatment.

So I had been worrying about her appointment all day, but when I called her that night, she immediately turned the subject to me and asked me how my book was going.

I insisted on knowing if she had seen the doctor and she perked up and brightly told me that, oh yes, she had seen him, he had all my books in his office, he was worried about Obama, too, and he has such beautiful children!

Before she launched into a spirited discussion of his children's extracurricular activities and triumphs on the athletic field, I had to ask her, "Mommy, did the doctor happen to say anything about why you're feeling lousy?"

It turned out, of course, that it was the ovarian cancer -- as well as the massive amounts of poison she had been receiving to kill the cancer over the past five years. That was the beginning of the end.

Now I'll never be able to introduce my Mother to friends and surprise them with her charming Southern accent.

And I'll never see my mother's beautiful face again, at least not for the next several decades here on Earth. I've been looking at her across the room in doctors' offices over the past few years, thinking to myself: There will come a point when you won't see that face again.

Her angelic face always looked like home to me. My whole life, as soon as I'd see my mother's face I'd know I was safe, whether I was a little girl lost in a department store or a big girl with a problem, who needed her mother.

Thanks to the doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and mother's fighting Kentucky spirit, we got to see that face much longer than anyone ever expected.

So now she's with Daddy and Jesus. Every single day since Daddy died last year, Mother would say how much she missed him and gaze at his photo, telling us what an amazing man he was and repeating his little expressions and jokes. Even though I miss her, I'm glad they're together again.

I don't know about Jesus, but I think Daddy was getting impatient. But Mommy was always running a little bit late.

Thanks for sharing, Annie..............

MSM's encouragement of class warfare and envy continues....

Today's San Antonio Express-News displayed a perfect example of how the Main Stream Media promotes class warfare. First, here's the story exactly as printed in the News:


Woman driving Mercedes critically injures infant
By Valentino Lucio - Express-News

A 42-year-old woman driving a 2008 convertible Mercedes Benz jumped a curb and critically injured an 18-month-old girl around 8 p.m. Thursday on the city’s North Side, police said.

San Antonio police officers at the scene said the driver of the vehicle was intoxicated when she hit the infant, the infant’s 3-year-old sister and 36-year-old mother while they were tending to yard work at their home in the corner of Rogers Place and Cabin Road near Rogers Ranch Parkway.

The driver fled the scene after the accident, but police stopped her off Gold Canyon Rd.

She is currently in police custody and faces two counts of intoxicated assault and two counts of failure to stop and render aid, police said.

The infant suffered a punctured lung and injuries to her head. She was airlifted to University Hospital in critical condition. Her mother and sister suffered only minor scrapes and bruises.

What in tarnation does the vehicle make have to do with this story, much less the year and model? Not a thing -- I'm surprised the reporter didn't include the brand names of any expensive jewelry the woman wore.....

The story is that an drunk driver lost control, jumped the curb and seriously injured an eighteen month old baby! She drove away - but was found, arrested and is in custody!!! That's the story, plus the current condition of the victim -- we'll pray for the child....

Do you reckon that if she was driving a 2002 Ford Taurus, that would be a part of the headline and first line of the news item....... nahhh, neither do I!!

And they wonder why their readership and subscriptions drop everyday!!!

Brit Scientists develop racer that runs on chocolate......

Chocolate-powered 145mph racing car made of vegetables

A new racing car made of vegetables and powered by chocolate will hit speeds of 145 miles per hour when it is launched next month.

By Sarah Knapton
22 Apr 2009

Chocolate: Vegetable fibres are mixed with resins to produce the car parts and the oils in the chocolate are refined to produce fuel.

Designers hope the environmentally-friendly technology used in their car will be adopted by Formula 1 teams such as McLaren and world champions Ferrari.

The car, named ecoF3, has a steering wheel made of carrots, a body made of potatoes and a seat made of soybeans.

Vegetable fibres are mixed with resins to produce the car parts and the oils in the chocolate are refined to produce fuel.

It is the first Formula 3 racing car designed and made from sustainable and renewable materials.

The WorldFirst team, from Warwick University, in Coventry, West Mids, hope racing chiefs will change the rules so they can compete in championship races next season.

The engine fails to meet current regulations because of its unusual fuel.

A team spokesman said: "We hope the Formula 1 teams will see that an environmentally friendly car is not necessarily a slow car.

"We expect our new materials to be used by the Formula 1 cars of the future."

Just think of all the new sponsor possibilities...... from Al Gorebot's Carbon Footprint extortion company -- to the Jolly Green Giant --- to the Hershey Company!! No more STP and Exxon!!!

Obamanation's Policies flying fast and furious...

Time to get 'O's handbook out again folks......

We have discussed Saul Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals' in here before -- but I reckon it's time to take another quick review. If you are clueless regarding Saul Alinsky, then you better do some homework - so you'll know why the country appears to be flushing down the toilet. (I'll post a link to some Cliff notes below)

In any event, after Obamanation and his handlers (puppeteer) tried to divert our attention (from the zillions of dollars he is giving to his cronies at ACORN and using to nationalize the banks and auto companies) by making Rush Limbaugh out to be the bad guy..... after that fizzled out!

When the resoundingly successful Tea Parties rose as a great anti-tax swell across the country -apparently someone in the White House said, "Quick! Back to Alinsky's Rule 12, it worked before - we can do it again.. "

"RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.) "

Thus, they targeted the two Americans already darkened by the left and the MSM, the former President and his Veep. Bush & Cheney!!

So within a week they have started a witch hunt normally only seen in banana republics and Marxist regimes - and have set Bush & Cheney up for headlines for months to come. Will anything come of it? Of course not -- and they know this. Hell, they would have to find half of the Congress and the courts guilty as well --

But that doesn't matter - they have diverted everybody's attention away from their own failings, wild spending and nationalization movements... Just like the better magicians misdirect our attention so we don't see their slight of hand, so too, this cabal of socialists inside the Beltway are trying to turn the attention of us great unwashed citizenry away from them and on these two patriots.

And love 'em or hate 'em, there is no one in this country that thinks for a minute that President Bush didn't do his damnedest to protect this country for eight years. That, Pilgrims - is a patriot!

So don't let the sleight of hand fool you -- keep your eye on the Black Jack! Not the Joker.....

For a quick glance at Saul Alinsky's Rules go to:

http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/8925/alinsky.htm

Reagan Style Vs Obamanation Ineptness

President Ronald Reagan believed that if you surrounded yourself with first class, brilliant folks, it made him look better. Obamantion on the other hand, (or his handlers) must believe just the opposite... this weeks poster gal for dimmest bulb on the porch is Homeland Secretary Janet (Reno) Napolitano...

First she insults every US veteran that ever served in uniform by calling us all unhappy, hapless and dangerous to the nation. Then last week she accused Canada of having 'leaky' borders and pointed out that the 9-11 terrorists infiltrated the US from Canada. 3rd string, left wing bloggers even know better than that --- and she should!!!

National Post Editorial this morning states it well:

The border for dummies
National Post editorial board

Can someone please tell us how U. S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano got her job? She appears to be about as knowledgeable about border issues as a late-night radio call-in yahoo.

In an interview broadcast Monday on the CBC, Ms. Napolitano attempted to justify her call for stricter border security on the premise that "suspected or known terrorists" have entered the U. S. across the Canadian border, including the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack.

All the 9/11 terrorists, of course, entered the United States directly from overseas. The notion that some arrived via Canada is a myth that briefly popped up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and was then quickly debunked.

Informed of her error, Ms. Napolitano blustered: "I can't talk to that. I can talk about the future. And here's the future. The future is we have borders."

Just what does that mean, exactly?

Just a few weeks ago, Ms. Napolitano equated Canada's border to Mexico's, suggesting they deserved the same treatment. Mexico is engulfed in a drug war that left more than 5,000 dead last year, and which is spawning a spillover kidnapping epidemic in Arizona. So many Mexicans enter the United States illegally that a multi-billion-dollar barrier has been built from Texas to California to keep them out.

In Canada, on the other hand, the main problem is congestion resulting from cross-border trade. Not quite the same thing, is it?

Would someone please call the 'O' man and clue him in?????

Memorial Day is still a month away......

But I didn't want to wait a month to share this outstanding column by Peter Heck!

Arrogant Americans, Mr. President?

Peter Heck - Guest Columnist -

4/14/2009

As I was sitting in church waiting for the start of the service, my grandpa came walking towards me pointing his finger. No matter how old I get, and no matter how long he's been out of the U.S. Navy, that's still an intimidating sight. As he approached me, his voice quivered as he said, "We saved that continent twice...how dare my president apologize for this country's arrogance." My grandpa is right. Americans need not apologize to the world for their arrogance; rather, Americans should apologize to their forefathers for the arrogance of their president.

Barack Obama's first foreign trip as President of the United States has confirmed the naiveté so many of us feared during the election cycle. But worse than that, it has also demonstrated that our president suffers from either a complete misunderstanding of our heritage and history, or an utter contempt for it. Neither is excusable.

Garnering cheers from the French of all people, President Obama declared, "In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world.. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive." Consider that Obama spoke these words just 500 miles from the beaches of Normandy, where the sand is still stained with 65-year-old blood of "arrogant Americans."

Indeed, columnist Mark Whittington observes, "One should remind Mr. Obama and the Europeans how America has 'shown arrogance' by saving Europe from itself innumerable times in the 20th Century. World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and the wars in the Balkans were largely resolved by American blood, treasure, and leadership." But all that appears lost on the president's seemingly insatiable quest to mend fences he imagines have been tarnished by the bullish George W. Bush.

If Obama wishes to continue trampling the presidential tradition of showing class to former office holders and publicly trash Bush for his own personal gain, so be it. But all Americans should make clear that no man – even if he is the president – will tarnish the legacy of those Americans who have gone before us. Ours is not a history of arrogance. It is a history of courage, self-sacrifice, and honor.

When abusive monarchs repressed the masses, Americans resisted and overthrew them. When misguided policies led to the unjust oppression of fellow citizens, Americans rebelled and overturned them. When millions of impoverished and destitute wretches sought a new beginning, Americans threw open the door and welcomed them. When imperial dictators were on the march, Americans surrendered their lives to stop them. When communist thugs threatened world peace, Americans bled to defeat them. When an entire continent was overwhelmed with famine and hunger, Americans gave of themselves to sustain it. When terrorist madmen killed the innocent and subjugated millions, Americans led the fight to topple them.

This is the legacy that generations of Americans have left. If President Obama seeks stronger relations with the world community, perhaps he should begin by reminding them of these very truths, rather than condemning his own countrymen on foreign shores.

This "obsessive need to put down his own country," has caused blogger James Lewis to call President Obama a "stunningly ignorant man" who has evidently never spoken to a concentration camp survivor, a Cuban refugee, a boat person from Vietnam, a Soviet dissident, or a survivor of Mao's purges.

Unfortunately, I can no longer bring myself to give Mr. Obama that benefit of the doubt. Not after looking at the pain in my grandpa's eyes...a man who still carries shrapnel in his body from his service to this country.

As a student and teacher of history, I recognize that America has made mistakes...plenty of them, in fact. But one of the great things about our people has been their courage and humility in admitting and correcting those mistakes. God willing, they will prove that willingness again in four years and correct the mistake that is the presidency of Barack Obama.

What was that famous but misquoted line from the Senate Hearings in the Fifties: "Have you no shame?". The answer from Obamanation would obviously be ........ ....'No...."

A true 'PROFILE IN COURAGE"!!! and Michell Mallkin points it out....

Civility and Tolerance in the Age of Obama
Michelle Malkin

April 22, 2009

They told us if Barack Obama were elected, the nation would come together. Souls would be fixed. Spirits would be healed. Public discourse would be elevated. Welcome to civility and tolerance in the Age of Obama:

-- Celebrity leech/trash blogger Perez Hilton took to the Internet and TV airwaves to humiliate a beauty pageant contestant who gave what he considered an "offensive" answer about gay marriage. Hilton, inexplicably serving as a judge for the Miss USA contest, asked Miss California, Carrie Prejean, whether she supported the legalization of gay marriage. Prejean respectfully answered: "I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised." President Obama, by the way, defines marriage the same way Prejean does.

No matter. Hilton immediately lambasted Prejean as a "dumb b*tch" in a viral YouTube video he taped after the pageant Sunday night. He apologized the next morning for the attack, then retracted his apology, then escalated his divisive rhetoric. On Tuesday afternoon, Hilton told an MSNBC female anchor that he was thinking of an even more vulgar epithet -- the "c-word" -- as he listened to Prejean's answer. The female anchor said nothing. Basking in his new role as thought and speech enforcer, Hilton told CNN's Larry King that beauty pageant contestants must bow to the tolerance mob: "Yes. I do expect Miss USA to be politically correct."

And apparently, the Miss USA organizers agree. Instead of apologizing for Hilton's vile behavior, the pageant director of the Miss California contest, Keith Lewis, sent a note to Hilton throwing Prejean under the bus: "I am personally saddened and hurt that Miss CA USA 2009 believes marriage rights belong only to a man and a woman. … Religious beliefs have no place in politics in the Miss CA family."

But gutter profanity and misogyny do?

-- At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill last week, former GOP Congressman Tom Tancredo came to speak against legislative proposals to provide illegal alien students in-state tuition discounts not available to law-abiding Americans and legal immigrant students. Protesters at the institution of higher learning responded by blocking Tancredo with massive banners and screaming, "No dialogue with hate." Adults in the room stood by while students smashed a window a few feet from where Tancredo stood. Physically threatened, Tancredo was forced to leave without delivering his remarks.

According to campus reports, for a week leftists had prepared to mount a speech-squelching demonstration. The same thuggish tactics have been used at Columbia University, Georgetown University and Michigan State University to shut down speakers who support strict immigration enforcement. The UNC administration apologized for the students' tantrum, but took no steps to examine its own culpability for fostering a climate of intellectual vandalism and intolerance.

-- The nightly airwaves turned into a soft-porn cesspool last week as liberal journalists derided and slimed hundreds of thousands of Tea Party protesters across the country who oppose reckless taxing and spending by both major political parties. Award-winning CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, mimicking his bottom-of-the-barrel competitors at MSNBC, smugly indulged in sexual puns about "teabagging." MSNBC devoted the entire week to sophomoric sexual slang and innuendo with references to "nuts," Dick Armey and "full-throated" protesters.

And White House adviser David Axelrod calls the Tea Party folks "unhealthy"?

Speaking of unhealthy, angry white liberal actress Janeane Garofalo venomously played the race card: "It's about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up and is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks." The theme was echoed by Jeffrey Kimball, a professor emeritus of history at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, who castigated the "extreme right" for organizing against Obama because "he's black and he's liberal."

Tell that to the thousands of activists in South Carolina who practically booed and heckled white Republican Rep. Gresham Barrett off the stage at a Tea Party in Greenville last Friday night for supporting the trillion-dollar TARP and embracing the pork-laden stimulus law after voting against it. "Go home!" they shouted. The only color that mattered to protesters: the red ink of government debts.

But in the Age of Obama, there's no room for such nuance and inconvenient truths. A decent young woman is a "dumb b*tch" for holding the same view of marriage as the Obamessiah. A conservative campus speaker is bullied as a hatemonger by wild-eyed hatemongers. A grassroots movement is debased as a bunch of racist vulgarians by a media mob of racists and vulgarians. Civility and tolerance have taken a left-hand turn down a one-way street. So much for changing course.

Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

I was pleased to see that Carrie's Grandmother is no shrinking violet either! She is reported to have told a journalist yesterday......"I don't know why they would have Perez Hilton judging a women's beauty contest anyway - if anything, he should be a judge at a 'Chippendale' contest.." Well said Grandma!

On this strange day of Beltway events ... it is good to reflect on good advice.....!

“Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.” ~ Ronald Reagan, from his first inaugural speech as governor of California, January 5, 1967

News is breaking faster than ole Pecoz can absorb it......

Yesterday, Obamanation said that he wants to look forward and not backward. That he has no interest in investigating members of the last administration, much less prosecuting them, for approving 'intensive interrogation' techniques.....

This morning (after a phone call, from whom one wonders) or maybe pillow talk with his own little Evita, he did a 180 degree turn and now says that the Attorney General, the Justice Department and anybody else that thinks they've got a dog in that fight....... are welcome to go after 'em!!!

Not sure if that was the POTUS or (Soros's TOTUS) speaking -- but it sure do be one significant about face over night...

I thought only 3rd World countries, Communists and Fascists started prosecuting former administrations on trumped up charges when they take office. Well slap me up the side of the head and say 'Good Morning Stupid'........ I din't reckon we had turned that far left just yet!!

This would be interesting if it wasn't happening in my country, OUR COUNTRY! Maybe his strings are being pulled sooo tight he ain't got any wiggle room any more!! ?? Stay tuned ---

Tres Amigos!!

I guess we'll have to give him an 'A' for how well he plays with other America haters...............

I saw on this evening's news....

That Obamanation took his 'Apology Tour' over to the CIA Headquarters today to apologise for releasing all their TOP SECRET CODEWORD NOFORN communications. Seems like he said, with a chuckle, "I din't mean to hurt you or your mission -- my TOTUS made me say it!"

Kind of like the sign over the Veterinarian/Taxidermist office says:

'EITHER WAY YOU GET YOUR DOG BACK!'

Janet Napolitano obviously never heard that old axiom......

'When you find you have dug yourself into a hole -----STOP DIGGING"!! Poor sad Janet, (separated at birth from Janet Reno?) just doesn't know when to stop!! From Hot Air:

Napolitano: Returning vets too stupid to avoid extremists
April 20, 2009 by Ed Morrissey

Janet Napolitano continues to thrash around for any rationalization she can find for the DHS report that painted political organizing on abortion, federalism, and immigration as potential national-security threats and called returining military vets a danger to the country they served. Yesterday on CNN, Napolitano tried explaining that the DHS doesn’t see these vets as threats. The DHS sees them as saps who don’t know any better than to fall into extremist traps:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Sunday portrayed veterans as victims – not perpetrators – of right-wing extremism as she sought to combat the political controversy arising out of an April 14 Homeland Security memo warning that returning soldiers could be ripe for domestic terrorism participation.

“The report is not saying that veterans are extremists. Far from it,” Napolitano said on CNN’s State of the Union. “What it is saying is returning veterans are targets of right-wing extremist groups that are trying to recruit those to commit violent acts within the country. We want to do all we can to prevent that.”

Yes, the poor dears are victims that obviously can’t decide themselves not to join violent groups … none of which the report bothers to name, by the way. Unlike the report on left-wing extremism, which names several known groups with track records of violence, the DHS report that Napolitano continues to defend never bothers to name an actual threat. Instead, it repeatedly states that DHS has no data on actual threats:

The DHS/Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) has no specific information that domestic rightwing* terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, but rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues.

And how does the DHS identify “domestic rightwing* terrorists”?
Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

So the Federalist Society has gone from being a group that follows the Constitutional tradition to being a potentially dangerous extremist group! And what did the report actually say about veterans?

Page 2, the first mention of veterans in the report, makes veterans sound more like perps than victims: The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.

That doesn’t say that terrorist groups will exploit senseless veterans and trick them into becoming violent terrorists. It presumes that veterans have a predisposition to become violent extremists because of the difficulties that they have “reintegrating into their communities.” It’s the latest corollary to the every-Vietnam-vet-is-a-powderkeg belief. It’s not until two pages later that the report mentions the issue of recruitment and radicalization.

And on page 8, we get this rather large section header:
(U) Disgruntled Military VeteransNapolitano is not only condescending towards veterans in her latest rationalization, she’s being completely dishonest about the way the DHS assessment treats returning combat vets. The report identifies them as a potential national-security threat to the country which they defended on the front lines.

DHS needs to stick to watching the groups themselves, and not people exercising their First Amendment rights and returning military veterans. In fact, the first thing Napolitano should do is to actually get threat data, instead of making up a bunch of scare stories about political dissent while not bothering to identify actual known racist and white-supremacist groups with track records of violence who should be watched.

By direction of the Janet Napolitano, head of OUR Department of Homeland Security,

Pre-revolution, the old Russia was called 'Tsarist Russia'.....

and they only had one Tsar or Czar at a time. All of a sudden, the Washington Beltway has become overrun with czars! Apparently when the TOTUS (Teleprompter of the United States, in case you forgot) speaks to us using the POTUS as it's sock puppet, the czar word flows easily!

As the LA Times (!) puts it:

He has appointed special advisors who will work from inside the White House on healthcare, the economy, energy and urban issues, with more to come.

"The challenges coming at us are bigger than anything we've seen since the Depression," said Jim Messina, deputy White House chief of staff. "It's crucial to have people in these positions who can help us meet them head-on."

But some lawmakers and outside experts fear that Obama is setting up a system that is not subject to congressional oversight and creates the potential for conflict among his many advisors.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) became concerned enough to send a cautionary letter to Obama last week. At times, he said, past White House staffers have assumed duties that should be the responsibility of officials cleared through the Senate confirmation process. He cited President Bush's naming of homeland security czar Tom Ridge as an example.

"They rarely testify before congressional committees and often shield the information and decision-making process behind the assertion of executive privilege," Byrd wrote of past czars and White House staffers in similar positions. At times, he said, one outcome has been to "inhibit openness and transparency, and reduce accountability."

"The rapid and easy accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the constitutional system of checks and balances," Byrd said.

It's far too early to tell whether Obama's quest for efficiency will lead to overstepping the bounds of presidential authority, but the latest appointment announcement could offer a few clues.

This week, he named two women to lead his effort to overhaul the nation's healthcare system. One of them, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, was tapped to be Health and Human Services secretary. At her confirmation hearings, senators will be able to probe her views on health policy and demand detailed documentation of her credentials.

But the other, Nancy-Ann DeParle, who was named health czar, can begin work right away, without outside review of her abilities or opinions. And whereas lawmakers can ask Sebelius for testimony in the future and control her budget, DeParle may remain largely outside the gaze of Congress.

Paul Light of New York University, an expert on the presidency, said Byrd has a valid constitutional concern about Obama's use of czars. Light too is worried about Obama's expansion of the czar system, but his apprehension is focused on more-practical concerns.

He points out that previous presidential czars became frustrated because they had no permanent staff, and their power was diffuse and unclear. Besides, he said, "there are so many czars in this White House, they'll be constantly bumping in to each other."

In addition to naming DeParle to coordinate healthcare policy, Obama has tapped Carol Browner to be White House energy czar, a post that could overlap with the functions of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Energy Department and other agencies. Adolfo Carrion Jr., a former Bronx borough president, is urban affairs czar, a job that may dovetail with the functions of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. And Paul A. Volcker, Obama's big-picture economic czar, must coordinate with the Treasury Department and other agencies.

The confusion about competing roles played by czars and their Cabinet counterparts was on display Monday as White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tried to explain how authority would be divided between DeParle and Sebelius as they steer health reform through Congress.

At first, he declared that DeParle "will be in charge." Then he acknowledged a role for Sebelius and others.

I understand that still to come are a Car Czar, a Bo Czar, a vegetable garden Czar and penultimate to Obamanation himself, a CZAR CZAR, who ostensibly be in charge of keeping track of the other czars. All without Congressional over site and operating at the whim of the POTUS and the TOTUS handlers and string pullers......

Hmmmm, maybe we need a Handler & String Puller Czar, to keep Soros et al., in check?

Sometimes they are all smiles ---

Some hopeful words from someone who knows.......

BREITBART: Dreaming of President Petraeus and an American surge
Andrew Breitbart
ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Signs of our collective weakness emerged after 9/11 when only part of the American population took seriously that we were at war with an evil and motivated enemy determined to destroy our way of life. Since then, al Qaeda has refused to quit despite debilitating losses.

Clearly, our national will is wilting away.

Following the tragic lead of Europe, too many Americans no longer want to engage our external threats head-on. And on the domestic front, we are confronting the economic crisis of our lifetime with the same full-steam-ahead spending-spree mind-set that got us into the mess to begin with.

We say: Let's create more government dependency, reward the incompetent and print more money.

That's doubling down on stupidity.

We are a trust-fund nation (picture Tori Spelling in the Lifetime Channel role of her career) whose BMW has run out of gas in the middle of the Mojave Desert after a pointless 115-miles-per-hour joy ride. The credit cards are maxed out. We're out of cell phone range. And dad, who just got taken by Uncle Bernie Madoff, wouldn't take the call anyway.

The silent generation, which learned valuable lessons from the Depression and World War II, is not here to guide us through these difficult times. The narcissistic baby boomers, who probably think this song is about them, are now firmly in charge. And that's the rub.

What is scaring us - even though many of us won't admit it - is that we elected a president who wants more than anything to be liked. What else explains his headlong rush to persuade foreign governments - even enemy regimes - to embrace us? And what else justifies his infatuation with Hollywood?

And even that he doesn't quite get right. I still can't believe that the president of the United States traveled across the country - without his teleprompter crutch - and made fun of the Special Olympics on national television.

When the going gets tough, the weak go on Leno.

I can't get out of my head that the leader of the free world gave the British prime minister 25 films on DVD that don't even work in U.K. machines.

I can't wrap my head around the fact that the commander in chief tried (for a minute anyway) to require injured warriors to pay to have private insurers take care of their treatment.

I can't believe the president would allow the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to dictate the terms of his budget - and Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd, the symbols of government kowtowing to Wall Street - to be spokesmen for his financial bailout.

And did President Obama really produce a YouTube video to appease President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs of Iran?

Yes, he did.

These aren't beginner's mistakes. These are his core incompetencies.

The media that got him elected knows it is responsible for the gathering debacle, and so Jon Stewart, a so-called comedian and exemplar of the groupthink of the governing elite, is desperately hunting for scapegoats. Now that their secular savior is in charge, the "Dissent is Patriotic" bumper-sticker crowd is figuring out ways to stamp out criticism.

I admit, I am now officially freaking out.

The last time I felt this hopeless was when the Democratic Party and its cohorts in the media sold us on the false premise that we lost the war in Iraq. In the process, they also sought to demonize the very man that led us out of our peril.

His name is Gen. David H. Petraeus.

Less than two months into the Obama presidency, which appears to be lost somewhere in the Mojave Desert, I have decided to try to soothe my anxieties by placing my hope in a political surge.

In the election of 2010, Republicans should run heroic veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom who exhibited the will and fortitude to defeat the enemy and to rebuild a torn nation, even while too many of their fellow countrymen wrote them off.

And in 2012, the man President Obama's staunchest allies called "General Betray Us" should come in with guns blazing and defeat the man whose only weapon to lead us to victory is a teleprompter.

• Andrew Breitbart is the founder of the news Web site www.breitbart.com and is co-author of "Hollywood Interrupted: Insanity Chic in Babylon - the Case Against Celebrity."

The good general, certified brilliant and experienced, matched with a politically experienced Veep of strong certified conservative principles, would make a heck of a team in 2012

One of those letters I wish I had written:

Senators Coburn, Brownback, DeMint, Burr, Murkowski, Inhofe, and Vitter sent the following letter to DHS Secretary Napolitano yesterday concerning the DHS conservative hit job:

April 16, 2009

The Honorable Janet Napolitano
Secretary
The Department of Homeland Security
310 7th street, S.W.
Washington, DC 20528-0150

VIA FASCMILLE

Dear Secretary Napolitano,

We write today concerning the release of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” prepared by the Extremism and Radicalization Branch, of the Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division.

While we agree that we must fight extremists who are both foreign and domestic we are troubled by some of the statements your department included as fact in the report titled above, without listing any statistical data to back up such claims.

First, your report states that “Returning veterans possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to rightwing extremists…” without listing any data to support such a vile claim against our nation’s veterans.

Second, the report states that the millions of Americans who believe in the Second Amendment are a potential threat to our national security. Why? Do you have statistics to prove that law-abiding Americans who purchase a legal product are being recruited by so-called hate groups?

Thirdly, the report states that those that believe in issues such as pro-life legislation, limited government, and legal versus illegal immigration are potential terrorist threats. We can assure you that these beliefs are held by citizens of all races, party affiliation, male and female, and should not be listed as a factor in determining potential terror threats. A better word usage would be to describe them as practicing their First Amendment rights.

Also, you list those that bemoan the decline of U.S. stature and the loss of U.S. manufacturing capability to China and India as being potential rightwing extremists. We would suggest that the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs in the manufacturing industry to foreign countries are not potential terror threats, but rather honest Americans worried about feeding their families and earning a paycheck.

In closing, we support the mission of DHS in protecting our country from terror attacks and are proud of the many DHS employees who make this possible in conjunction with our state and local law enforcement. We ask that DHS not use this report as a basis to unfairly target millions of Americans because of their beliefs and the rights afforded to them in the Constitution. We also ask that you provide us with the data that support the unfair claims listed in the report titled above and to present us with the matrix system used in collecting and analyzing this data?

Finally, we look forward to your prompt reply and we offer our assistance to DHS in our shared effort to fight terrorism both home and abroad by using data that is accurate and independent of political persuasion.

Ann aims at foul minded faux TV journalists (with a small j) and other Dims!

OBAMA'S RECIPE FOR CHANGE NOT MY CUP OF TEA by Ann Coulter
April 15, 2009

I had no idea how important this week's nationwide anti-tax tea parties were until hearing liberals denounce them with such ferocity. The New York Times' Paul Krugman wrote a column attacking the tea parties, apologizing for making fun of "crazy people." It's OK, Paul, you're allowed to do that for the same reason Jews can make fun of Jews.

On MSNBC, hosts Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow have been tittering over the similarity of the name "tea parties" to an obscure homosexual sexual practice known as "tea bagging." Night after night, they sneer at Republicans for being so stupid as to call their rallies "tea bagging."

Every host on Air America and every unbathed, basement-dwelling loser on the left wing blogosphere has spent the last week making jokes about tea bagging, a practice they show a surprising degree of familiarity with.

Except no one is calling the tea parties "tea bagging" -- except Olbermann and Maddow. Republicans call them "tea parties."

But if the Republicans were calling them "tea-bagging parties," the MSNBC hosts would have a fantastically hilarious segment for viewers in San Francisco and the West Village and not anyplace else in the rest of the country. On the other hand, they're not called "tea-bagging parties." (That, of course refers to the cocktail hour at Barney Frank's condo in Georgetown.)

You know what else would be hilarious? It would be hilarious if Hillary Clinton's name were "Ima Douche." Unfortunately, it's not. It was just a dream. Most people would wake up, realize it was just a dream and scrap the joke. Not MSNBC hosts.

The point of the tea parties is to note the fact that the Democrats' modus operandi is to lead voters to believe they are no more likely to raise taxes than Republicans, get elected and immediately raise taxes.

Apparently, the people who actually pay taxes consider this a bad idea.

Obama's biggest shortcoming is that he believes the things believed by all Democrats, which have had devastating consequences every time they are put into effect. Among these is the Democrats' admiration for raising taxes on the productive.

All Democrats for the last 30 years have tried to stimulate the economy by giving "tax cuts" to people who don't pay taxes. Evidently, offering to expand welfare payments isn't a big vote-getter.

Even Bush had a "stimulus" bill that sent government checks to lots of people last year. Guess what happened? It didn't stimulate the economy. Obama's stimulus bill is the mother of all pork bills for friends of O and of Congressional Democrats. ("O" stands for Obama, not Oprah, but there's probably a lot of overlap.)

And all that government spending on the Democrats' constituents will be paid for by raising taxes on the productive.

Raise taxes and the productive will work less, adopt tax shelters, barter instead of sell, turn to an underground economy -- and the government will get less money.

The perfect bar bet with a liberal would be to wager that massive government deficits in the '80s were not caused by Reagan's tax cuts. If you casually mentioned that you thought Reagan's tax cuts brought in more revenue to the government -- which they did -- you could get odds in Hollywood and Manhattan. (This became a less attractive wager in New York this week after Gov. David Paterson announced his new plan to tax bar bets.)

The lie at the heart of liberals' mantra on taxes -- "tax increases only for the rich" -- is the ineluctable fact that unless taxes are raised across the board, the government won't get its money to fund layers and layers of useless government bureaucrats, none of whom can possibly be laid off.

How much would you have to raise taxes before any of Obama's constituents noticed? They don't pay taxes, they engage in "tax-reduction" strategies, they work for the government, or they're too rich to care. (Or they have off-shore tax shelters, like George Soros.)

California tried the Obama soak-the-productive "stimulus" plan years ago and was hailed as the perfect exemplar of Democratic governance.

In June 2002, the liberal American Prospect magazine called California a "laboratory" for Democratic policies, noting that "California is the only one of the nation's 10 largest states that is uniformly under Democratic control."

They said this, mind you, as if it were a good thing. In California, the article proclaimed, "the next new deal is in tryouts." As they say in show biz: "Thanks, we'll call you. Next!"

In just a few years, Democrats had turned California into a state -- or as it's now known, a "job-free zone" -- with a $41 billion deficit, a credit rating that was slashed to junk-bond status and a middle class now located in Arizona.

Democrats governed California the way Democrats always govern. They bought the votes of government workers with taxpayer-funded jobs, salaries and benefits -- and then turned around and accused the productive class of "greed" for wanting not to have their taxes raised through the roof.

Having run out of things to tax, now the California legislature is considering a tax on taxes. Seriously. The only way out now for California is a tax on Botox and steroids. Sure, the governor will protest, but it is the best solution ...

California was, in fact, a laboratory of Democratic policies. The rabbit died, so now Obama is trying it on a national level.

That's what the tea parties are about.

To appreciate all the humor on the 'Magazine Cover'... you need to click on it to enlarge it!

and read all the references to the articles inside...

Amazing what happens to news TV ratings.......

...... when news networks refuse to cover the news! Here are the ratings this week during the hundreds of 'Teas Parties' in all fifty States across the nation...... guess which networks tried to ignore them in hopes they would ...... just go away...


FOX RATINGS SURGE ON PROTEST COVERAGE
8-11 PM ET

FOXNEWS 3,390,000
MSNBC 1,210,000
CNN 1,070,000
CNN HEADLINE 909,000


FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,980,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 3,239,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 2,947,000
FOXNEWS BECK 2,740,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 2,401,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 2,185,000
COMEDY DAILY SHOW 1,777,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,499,000
COMEDY COLBERT 1,446,000
CNNHN GRACE 1,336,000
CNN KING 1,292,000
MSNBC MADDOW 1,149,000
CNN COOPER 1,021,000

I find it hilarious that Keith Olbermann, the cartoon character of journalism, is rated exactly between the only two acknowledged news comedy shows on the Comedy Channel. I reckon that gives us three sources of news comedians.....??

I guess Anderson Cooper's guest gigs filling in for Regis Philbin to expand his journalistic credentials hasn't helped too much. Maybe he could get Kelly Rippa to fill in for his news gig sometime to help raise the ratings and the program's IQ..

Cartoonist "Lisa" nails down current sentiments.....

CNN caught with it's biassssed pants down......

Awesome: Chicago tea partiers confront CNN hack after hit piece posted at 2:05 pm on April 16, 2009 by Allahpundit

A seamless conclusion to the smear job heard ’round the world, thanks to some amazingly fortuitous timing by Founding Bloggers. On a day when the grassroots came out to protest the establishment, it’s fitting that a small indie outfit like FB would end up putting the screws to CNN this way. What’s most striking is how savvy the protesters are about the game Roesgen’s playing:

They know exactly why she zeroed in on the guy with the Obama/Hitler sign, and it ain’t because of his grasp of economics. Stick with it until the end or else you’ll miss the astounding nerve of this disingenuous moron, who just spent three minutes on national television sneering at the people around her, to say to the woman who’s yelling at her, “You know, you really don’t need to be so antagonistic.” Content warning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd2tg8gxCDU&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fhotair%2Ecom%2Farchives%2F2009%2F04%2F16%2Fawesome%2Dchicago%2Dtea%2Dpartiers%2Dconfront%2Dcnn%2Dhack%2Dafter%2Dhit%2Dpiece%2F&feature=player_embedded

I have never posted anything even PG-13, but CNN & MSNBC did it all day yesterday on their broadcast into your house and home!!!

Cable Anchors, Guests Use Tea Parties as Platform for Frat House Humor
Cable anchors and guests covered the anti-tax tea party protests by cracking a litany of barely concealed sexual references.

FOXNews.com

Thursday, April 16, 2009

For thousands of Americans, Tax Day was a moment to protest what they see as bloated budgets and a pile of debt being passed on to their children.

For CNN, MSNBC and other media outlets, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use the word "teabagging" in a sentence.

Teabagging, for those who don't live in a frat house, refers to a sexual act involving part of the male genitalia and a second person's face or mouth.

So when the anti-tax "tea party" protests were held Wednesday across the country, cable anchors and guests -- who for weeks had all but ignored the story -- covered the protests by cracking a litany of barely concealed sexual references.

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper interspersed "teabagging" references with analyst David Gergen's more staid commentary on how Republicans are still "searching for their voice."

"It's hard to talk when you're teabagging," Cooper explained. Gergen laughed, but Cooper kept a straight face.

MSNBC's David Shuster weaved a tapestry of "Animal House" humor Monday as he filled in for Countdown host Keith Olbermann.

The protests, he explained, amount to "Teabagging day for the right wing and they are going nuts for it."

He described the parties as simultaneously "full-throated" and "toothless," and continued: "They want to give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing and lick government spending." Shuster also noted how the protesters "whipped out" the demonstrations this past weekend.

Tea Party participants were not amused. The events were held in dozens of cities across the country, and while some demonstrators were criticized for wielding off-topic and sometimes insensitive protest signs, most took to the streets to speak out against government spending.

Brent Bozell, president of the conservative Media Research Center, said the media coverage was "insulting," reacting specifically to CNN reporter Susan Roesgen's combative interviews with Illinois demonstrators in which she declared that the protests were "anti-CNN" and supported by FOX News. She left the teabagging jokes to her colleagues, though.

"I've never seen anything like it," Bozell said. "The oral sex jokes on (CNN) and particularly MSNBC on teabagging ... they had them by the dozens. That's how insulting they were toward people who believe they're being taxed too highly."

Max Pappas, public policy vice president at FreedomWorks -- a small-government group which promoted the tea parties -- said it's a "shame" media outlets cracked jokes at a genuine "grassroots uprising."

"I think what that reveals is how worried they are that this might actually be something serious. You make fun of things you're afraid of, I'd say," Pappas said.

If anyone thinks the orally charged remarks on mainstream cable were just a coincidence, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow's segments over the past week with guest, Air America's Ana Marie Cox, would dissolve all doubt. Their on-air gymnastics, dancing around the double entendre of the week, looked like live-action Beavis and Butthead.

By one count, the two of them used the word "teabag" more than 50 times on one show. And on Monday, Cox even let the viewers in on their joke -- referencing Urbandictionary.com, a site which offers a number of colorful definitions for the term "teabagging."

"Well, there is a lot of love in teabagging," Cox said. "It is curious, though, as you point out, they do not use the verb 'teabag.' It might be because they're less enthusiastic about teabagging than some of the more corporate conservatives who seem to have taken to it quite easily."

Jenny Beth Martin, a Republican activist who helped organize one protest in Atlanta, said she's not too worried about the protests being dismissed by some media outlets. She estimated 750,000 people attended more than 800 protests in all 50 states, and that at the very least the local media and community newspapers documented it.

"Our message definitely got out where it needed to get," she said.

These so called news outlets are not only biased and incompetent - they are sophomoric as well ----- SHAME ON THEM!!!

Easy formula from Ramirez today......

April 15th = Tea Party Day

The casually started movement for these hundreds of 'Tea Parties' in all Fifty states has grown past all expectations. The MSM and Obamanation are doing all they can to ignore it - but it's grown way bigger than anything they can hide under a bushel basket.

'O' speaks through Neolpolitano and Homeland Security calling all participants - right wing extremists.. Neo-Nazis, and worse..

When will we bring back the days where folks inside that D.C. beltway remember who the hell they work for!!

If you can't be a part of your local Tea Party, at least show your support both locally and to your elected so called representatives... What an oxymoron that is!!

You go Taxpayers!!!!

Ain't it amazing!

On the day after the Homeland Security honcho, Neopoltinio (or whatever) puts out a 9 page warning against all those red-neck, right wing, dangerous folks in this country of ours.... especially - those unhappy soldiers who have been serving their country in uniform -----

On the day after that report --this happens at the University of North Carolina!!!
After you read the story, you can watch the video of the news report on the link below---- as you watch, you have to wonder -- just who are the extremists in this country ????


UNC protest gets rowdy Wednesday

April 15, 2009
Tim NelsonCHAPEL HILL (WTVD) --


There are two questions following a rowdy student protest at UNC Chapel Hill Tuesday night.
Did the protest get out of line and did campus police go too far?

Dozens of protesters turned out to oppose a speech given by a former Colorado congressman, who was on campus to speak against illegal immigration.

Tom Tancredo didn't make it through his talk. In fact, he left campus early after protesters interrupted his speech and broke a window.
Protesters who weren't allowed into the room where the speech was being given gathered outside the door and chanted, "There's no debate, no space for hate."
In video from Tuesday night's incident, things clearly grow more tense with campus police. There is pushing and shoving on both sides.
One officer is seen on video shaking pepper spray, which was used. Some protesters coughed and covered their mouths after it was sprayed.
In another video clip placed on You Tube, police can be seen shooting their tasers in the air. No protesters were tased and reportedly, no one was arrested.

The former congressman once ran for president on a platform firmly against illegal immigration. He was invited to UNC to deliver a speech opposing in-state tuition benefits to illegal immigrants.
Protesters interrupted his speech, stretching out a banner in front of him that read, "No one is illegal." Tancredo grabbed the banner and confronted one of the people holding it.
Then there was the sound of glass shattering. A window was broken by more opponents outside. As the situation escalated, Tancredo left.

Those who went to hear him speak were clearly upset. ""Obviously there wasn't a point," one attendee said. "He wasn't going to be allowed to speak."

UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp responded to Tuesday night's events and said, "We're very sorry that former Congressman Tancredo wasn't able to speak. We pride ourselves on being a place where all points of view can be expressed and heard, so I'm disappointed that didn't happen tonight. I think our public safety officer appropriately handled a difficult situation."

(Copyright ©2009 WTVD-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

For video of the news report, go to:
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/video?id=6761629

Don't know which is worse.........

.... the thieving state employees or their pun loving boss with the smart mouth!

I-TEAM: State Workers Use Old Vet's Headstones for Patio
April 9, 2009

BOULDER CITY, Nev. -- It's been called egregious misconduct and an affront to all military veterans. The I-Team has uncovered allegations that state employees have been using gravestones from a veteran's cemetery as their own backyard patio.

They say they have done nothing wrong -- that there are no rules stopping them from taking 77 gravestones from the veterans cemetery, many of them still engraved with the names of the fallen.

In their mind, there was nothing to stop them from turning those stones into a patio.

It is the ultimate honor and a final way to so thank you for giving so much. At the Boulder City Veteran's Cemetery, each grave is marked with a memorial, 130 pounds of granite.

Only now, not too far from the cemetery in a Boulder City neighborhood, 77 of those gravestones are not being used as a memorial, but a backyard patio.

With inside information and a fear of retribution, a man we'll call George came forward to blow the whistle to stop this from happening again, "Is it ethically appropriate for two state employees to help themselves to gravestones?"

Those employees are Tami and Kevin Jenicke. Tami works in the veterans home. Her husband, Kevin, actually works at the cemetery where the stones should be.

With the engravings either face down or scraped off, the I-Team wanted to know if the allegations were true.

Tami Jenicke wouldn't say yes, "To our knowledge, we have not done anything wrong," but she wouldn't say no.

"It would appear that the possibility is very, very strong that they are gravestones," said Carole Turner with the Office of Veterans Services.

Turner is one of Tami's bosses in the state Office of Veterans Services. Wednesday she confirmed that those are the stones. Now with the word out, an investigation is underway, "We are taking this very seriously and we will leave no stone unturned."

When the spouse of a veteran passes, husband and wife can be buried together. That means a new stone for both names. Turner never expected anyone to take the old stones home for personal use.

"Reasonable, prudent judgment and common sense should prevail," she said.

Turner has to lean on the rules for proper disposal for old stones. The only problem, "The Nevada Office of Veterans Services does not have a formal policy in place."

That's why the Jenicke's feel the stones were up for grabs. "Everything that we have done has been within the policies that have been explained to us," said Tami.

The federal government sees it differently. The Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington says the gravestones are always government property and that they "cannot be used for any purpose other than to mark the grave of a veteran."

Turner says the Jenicke's actions go against her department's mission, "To serve Nevada veterans in life and to memorialize them in death."

Like an American Flag, the weighty memorials must have an honorable destruction, ensuring that none of them can be seen in the wrong light, not from the sky or from a backyard.

The state Veterans Office says the Jenicke's may face sanctions and disciplinary action. They will return each and every one of the stones, nearly two tons of granite where it shouldn't be.

How about they dig each one up by hand, and wheelbarrow it back to it's proper place at the cemetary regardless of the distance!!! Then lay some real punishment on 'em!

Keep your fingers crossed ----

With the 'O' man's proclivity for tours, as in his recent 'Apology Tour' in Europe, I sure hope he doesn't find it necessary to parade the good Captain Phillips and/or his crew thru the White House for a 'Self-Congratulations' tour and photo shoot.

Obamanation done good, the Navy did great, and the Seal Snipers did outstanding, let's hope they don't feel the need for some sophomoric victory dance in the end zone!

Just move on -------like it's was done in the spirit of 'business as usual'!

The last thing we need is another incident like when that idiot hung the 'Mission Accomplished' flag behind 'W'!!

Sure as shootin' Pilgrims, a couple of self-congratulatory pics on the world's front pages and any of several bad things will happen. More piracy with violence, international news releases showing pics of the 3 dead 'choir' boy pirates, all dressed in their 'go to mosque get ups', or something even worse.

We don't need it -- nor does the world!

Good Old Chuckie Schumer --- always good for a video snot ..err shot!!!

“Hard Right” , “”Traditional Values”"* “Strong Foreign Policy”** , are over…and President Obama is going to “talk” bipartisan to the American People…but He realizes until the “grassroots” of the Republican party agree that Traditional Values and Strong Foreign Policy are over, the “Hard Right” is the enemy….not the Pirates..they are just a distraction.

So says, that current Poster Boy for term limits...... Senator Chuck Schumer of New York. The man who never saw a camera or mike he couldn't beat everybody to be in front of......

This is a very short video clip from this weekend, just 30 seconds, so even y'all with dial up service get to see it..... turn up your sound though, you don't want to let one pearl of wisdom escape you~~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JQpKeyN39c

Reuters' reports...........

....the 2009 U.S. tax season promises to see a large uptick in first-time delinquent income taxpayers.

"Our calls are up 280 percent," said Richard Boggs, founder and chief executive of Los Angeles-based Nationwide Tax Relief, a firm that helps delinquent taxpayers resolve tax issues.

"We've seen a huge rise in what we call the rookie delinquent taxpayer," he said. "They are incredibly scared, and they have no idea what's going to happen to them because, God bless them, they've never owed before."

As the weak economy puts job security and a steady flow of income on a slippery slope, many are wary of the U.S. tax man, tax consultants say.

You don't reckon the average American taxpayer has learned in the last few months that the way to get their nose in the Federal Trough in the Obamanation administration is to quit paying their taxes do you? Great health care bennies, good retirement stuff == and an instant high paying 'consultant' job in four years when the 'gig' is over!!!

Breaking & Entering - Obamanation Style -2009

Nomination for "Understatement of the Year'!!

Navy commander: Trio of shots ended sea standoff
AP News
Monday, April 13, 2009

Adm. William Gortney said Monday that it took only three shots for Navy snipers to kill the trio of pirates holding captain Richard Phillips hostage on a lifeboat drifting in the high sea.

Interviewed from Bahrain, Gortney said the takedown happened shortly after the hostage-takers were observed by sailors aboard the USS Bainbridge "with their heads and shoulders exposed."

Asked how the snipers could have killed each pirate with a single shot in the darkness, Gortney described them as "extremely, extremely well-trained."

He told NBC's "Today" show the shooting by the snipers was ordered by the captain of the Bainbridge after the pirates "exposed themselves" to attack.

Military officials were widely praising the snipers for three flawless shots, which they described as remarkable, coming at night and from the stern of a ship on rolling waters.

Defense officials also indicated, speaking anonymously, that the Navy snipers got the go-ahead to fire after one of the pirates was seen holding an AK-47 so close to Phillips that the weapon appeared to be touching him. Two other pirates popped their heads up, giving snipers all three of their targets, one official said.

I reckon calling those Naval snipers 'extremely well trained' would be kinda like calling a Navy Seal...... pretty well conditioned! Or Jimmy Doolittle a 'pretty good pilot'!!! See also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCOZBr7pSAQ&feature=player_embedded

Here is the important breaking news....

You probably thought the economy, the new White House dog, or the Navy Seals rescue of the Naval captain was the important news of the day ----

Not so! Here is the real White House breaking news from our man of the people and leader of the free world! :

GLAMOUR 'FIRST'
By ANNIE KARNI

April 12, 2009 --
She's America's top "model."

Michelle Obama is the nation's first first lady to add a full-time makeup artist to her traveling entourage, according to stylists who have worked with presidential wives over the past 16 years.

Makeup artist Ingrid Grimes-Miles, 49, helped create Obama's signature look on her inaugural trip to Europe last week.

Grimes-Miles, who has been working with the first lady for six years, now splits her time between DC and Chicago, where she dolls up morning-news anchors for WGN TV.

"No other first ladies have consistently traveled with a makeup artist," said hairdresser Bernard Portelli, who styled Hillary Rodham Clinton's blond mane in 1993 and tracks trends in first-lady style.

"It took Laura Bush four years to finally look good. It's taken Michelle Obama two months. She wears fake eyelashes that are beautiful. She can't do those herself."

It's so refreshing to know that Ms Obamanation is so concerned about the little things!

Amazing how these 'little things' can escape our attention until somebody of George Will stature grabs us by the scruff of the neck....

As you read today's column, let your mind wander and think of the ramifications that such legislating or 'Executive Orders' might create.....

Racing Past the Constitution
George Will
Sunday, April 12, 2009

WASHINGTON -- Rampant redistribution of wealth by government is now the norm. So is this: It inflames government's natural rapaciousness and subverts the rule of law. This degeneration of governance is illustrated by the Illinois Legislature's transfer of income from some disfavored riverboat casinos to racetracks.

Illinois has nine licensed riverboat casinos and five horse-racing tracks. In 2006, supposedly to "address the negative impact that riverboat gaming has had" on Illinois horse racing, the Legislature -- racing interests made huge contributions to Gov. Rod Blagojevich -- mandated a transfer of 3 percent of the gross receipts of the four most profitable casinos, those in the Chicago area, to the state's horse-racing tracks. This levy, subsequently extended to run until 2011, will confiscate substantially more than $100 million.

What is to prevent legislators from taking revenues from Wal-Mart and giving them to local retailers? Or from chain drugstores to local pharmacies? Not the tattered remnant of the Constitution's takings clause.

The Fifth Amendment says private property shall not "be taken for public use without just compensation" (emphasis added). Fifty state constitutions also stipulate taking only for public uses. But the Illinois Supreme Court ignored the public use question. Instead, the court said it is "well settled" that the takings clause applies only to government's exercise of its eminent domain power regarding land, buildings and other tangible or intellectual property -- but not money.

Conflicting rulings by state courts demonstrate that that question is chaotically unsettled. That is one reason the U.S. Supreme Court should take the Illinois case and reject the preposterous idea that money is not property within the scope of the takings clause -- an idea that licenses legislative confiscations. Another and related reason why the court should take the case is to reconsider its 2005 ruling that rendered the "public purpose" requirement empty.

The careful crafters of the Bill of Rights intended the adjective "public" to restrict government takings to uses directly owned by government or primarily serving the general public, such as roads, bridges or public buildings. In 1954, in a case arising from a disease-ridden section of Washington, D.C., the court broadened the "public use" criterion. It declared constitutional takings for the purpose of combating "blight" that is harmful to the larger community.

In 2005, however, in a 5-4 decision, the court radically attenuated the "public use" restriction on takings, saying that promoting "economic development" is a sufficient public use. The court upheld the New London, Conn., city government's decision to seize an unblighted middle-class neighborhood for the purpose of turning the land over to private businesses which, being wealthier than the previous owners, would be a richer source of tax revenues. So now government takings need have only some anticipated public benefit, however indirect and derivative, at the end of some chain of causation hypothesized by the government doing the taking and benefiting from it.

In a brief opposing the Illinois Legislature, the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization of state legislators, makes this argument against "predatory taxation": Suppose Congress, eager to aid newspapers hurt by competition from new information technologies, decides to take a percentage of the assets of Bill Gates and half a dozen other beneficiaries of those technologies, and give the money to newspapers. Would not this "take and transfer" scheme be unconstitutional? Targeting specific, identifiable persons or entities for unfavorable treatment, and transferring their assets to equally identifiable persons or entities, surely also raises equal protection issues.

Unquestionably a legislature can impose a levy on casinos if the revenues become subject to what the state legislators' brief calls "allocation via the familiar push and pull of political decision-making." But Illinois' confiscation of riverboat revenues is a private-pockets-to-private-pockets transfer, without even laundering the money through the state treasury.

The Supreme Court has held that "one person's property may not be taken for the benefit of another private person without a justifying public purpose." But in the aftermath of the court's ruling in the New London case, the Illinois Legislature merely seeks judicial deference toward its judgment that transferring wealth from casinos to racetracks serves the public purpose of benefiting "farmers, breeders, and fans of horse racing."

The court's virtual nullification of the "public use" requirement encourages lawlessness, which will proliferate until the court enunciates the constitutional principle that the takings clause protects money, like other forms of property, against egregious seizures. Enunciating such a principle would be a step toward restoring meaning to the "public purpose" clause.

Some folks get immortalized in Madam Tussaud's wax museum...

Others, like Senator Craig, are recognized in lesser ways.

Like an Easter Peep for example!

As usual, the AmericanThinker.com poses some thoughts..... worth thinking about...

Let us thank the Somali pirates
By James Lewis

Flashback: It's 1979, and President Jimmy Carter is facing a hostage crisis, with American diplomats being kidnapped by Islamist "students" in Tehran. Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew our Cold War ally, the Shah of Iran, with the tacit (permission) of the Carter Administration, because it thought of the murderous Ayatollah as "some kind of saint," in the words of former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young.

Jimmy and Zbig have been trying to explain their disastrous ignorance ever since; and because they are mentally stuck in appeasement thinking, they have infected the Obamanites with the same plague bacilli.

Flashforward to 2009, and an American merchant marine captain is being held hostage by Islamist pirates off the coast of Somalia. It's a repeat of 1979, and the world is watching to see if Obama is going to be any more effective than Jimmy Carter was.

Obama may think this is a "distraction". The rest of the world sees it as a test. And so, far Obama is flunking. The world will draw its own conclusions very quickly

Thank heavens for the pirates! Why? Because we must know as soon as possible if the Obamanites are as incompetent and foolish as they proudly claim to be -- or whether they can summon up the guts to try to rescue the captain. We have plenty of special ops forces who are trained for hostage rescue. The West has forty years of experience in knocking over hostage takers, as Israelis did in Entebbe. But similar methods have been perfected by now, as shown most recently in Colombia, where US forces advised the Colombian government how to deal with another hostage situation.

It always comes with real risk, both to our own troops and to the hostages. And yes, Mr. Obama, we may have to knock some pirates' heads as well.

If Obama fails to take action, watch for Russia to make a move on the Ukraine. China will get more aggressive toward Taiwan. Iran will openly throw sandals at Obama effigies, and the rest of the world will realize -- uh-oh, no more cop on the international beat. North Korea will launch another missile over Japan -- pahdon me, another satellite launch will somehow go astray, heading toward Hawaii.

That means one of two things: either the aggressors start winning, or somebody else has to play the international cop -- the role the United States has carried for sixty years.

So who do you want to play the world's cop?

Russia will happily volunteer do it for Europe, since Europe won't do it for itself. China could squeeze concessions from Japan and South Korea to stop the Norks. And in the Middle East it will either be Israel -- which can protect the Arab countries from nuclear attack by Iran -- or it will be the mad mullahs of Qom. I would guess that the Israelis will bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, with the covert help of Arab Gulf states.

We0lcome to the age of American weakness. The whole world, we were told in the last eight years, wanted to bring the US down a notch or two. Well, just be careful what you wish for.

Maybe we should thank the Somali pirates for testing Obama this early in the new administration.

Hellary speaks --- they think...........

Unfortunately, only the 'choir' is listening to Miss Annie!

Let's All Surrender Our Weapons -- You First!
Ann Coulter
Wednesday, April 08, 2009

The rash of recent shooting incidents has led people who wouldn't know an AK-47 from a paintball gun to issue demands for more restrictions on guns. To be sure, it's hard to find any factor in these shootings that could be responsible -- other than the gun.

So far, this year's public multiple shootings were committed by:

-- Richard Poplawski, 23, product of a broken family, expelled from high school and dishonorably discharged from the Marines, who killed three policemen in Pittsburgh.

-- Former crack addict Jiverly Wong, 41, who told co-workers "America sucks" yet somehow was not offered a job as a speechwriter for Barack Obama, who blockaded his victims in a civic center in Binghamton, N.Y., and shot as many people as he could, before killing himself.

-- Robert Stewart, 45, a three-time divorcee and high school dropout with "violent tendencies" -- according to one of his ex-wives -- who shot up the nursing home in Carthage, N.C., where his newly estranged wife worked.

-- Lovelle Mixon, 26, a paroled felon, struggling to get his life back on track by pimping, who shot four cops in Oakland, Calif. -- before eventually being shot himself.

-- Twenty-eight-year-old Michael McLendon, child of divorce, living with his mother and boycotting family funerals because he hated his relatives, who killed 10 of those relatives and their neighbors in Samson, Ala.

It might make more sense to outlaw men than guns. Or divorce. Or crack. Or to prohibit felons from having guns. Except we already outlaw crack and felons owning guns and yet still, somehow, Wong got crack and Mixon got a gun.

After being pulled over for a routine traffic violation, Lovelle Mixon did exactly what they teach in driver's ed by immediately shooting four cops. Mixon's supporters held a posthumous rally in his honor, claiming he shot the cops only in "self-defense," which I take it includes the cop Mixon shot while the officer was lying on the ground.

I guess Mixon also raped that 12-year-old girl in "self-defense." Clearly, the pimping industry has lost a good man. I wish I'd known him. I tip my green velvet fedora with the dollar signs all over it to him. Why do the good ones always die young? Pimps, I mean.

Liberals tolerate rallies on behalf of cop-killers, but they prohibit law-abiding citizens working at community centers in Binghamton, N.Y., from being armed to defend themselves from disturbed, crack-addicted America-haters like Jiverly Wong.

It's something in liberals' DNA: They think they can pass a law eliminating guns and nuclear weapons, but teenagers having sex is completely beyond our control.

The demand for more gun control in response to any crime involving a gun is exactly like Obama's response to North Korea's openly belligerent act of launching a long-range missile this week: Obama leapt to action by calling for worldwide nuclear disarmament.

If the SAT test were used to determine how stupid a liberal is, one question would be: "The best defense against lawless rogues who possess _______ is for law-abiding individuals to surrender their own _______________."

Correct answer: Guns. We would also have accepted nuclear weapons.

Obama explained that "the United States has a moral responsibility" to lead disarmament efforts because America is "the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon."

So don't go feeling all morally superior to a country whose business model consists of exporting heroin, nuclear bombs and counterfeit U.S. dollars, and of importing Swedish prostitutes, you yahoo Americans with your little flag lapel pins.

On the other hand, the Japanese haven't acted up much in the last, say, 64 years ...

Fortunately, our sailors didn't wait around for Obama to save them when Somali pirates boarded their ship this week. Stop right now or I'll ask the U.N. to remind the "international community" that "the U.S. is not at war with Somali pirates."

Gun-toting Americans are clearly more self-sufficient than the sissy Europeans. This is great news for everyone except Barney Frank, who's always secretly wondered what it would be like to be taken by a Somali pirate.

Police -- whom I gather liberals intend to continue having guns -- and intrepid U.N. resolution drafters can't be everywhere, all the time.

If a single civilian in that Binghamton community center had been armed, instead of 14 dead, there might have only been one or two -- including the shooter. In the end, the cops didn't stop Wong. His killing spree ended only when he decided to stop, and he killed himself.

"The shooter will eventually run out of ammo" strategy may not be the best one for stopping deranged multiple murderers.

But it's highly unlikely that any community center in the entire state would be safe from a disturbed former crack-addict like Wong because New York's restrictive gun laws require a citizen to prove he has a need for a gun to obtain a concealed carry permit.

Instead of having Planned Parenthood distribute condoms in schools, they ought get the NRA to pass out revolvers. It would save more lives.

Indiana is gonna be identified as a 'Contrarian' State!

From the WSJ today.......

More States Look to Raise Taxes

By LESLIE EATON

A free fall in tax revenue is driving more state lawmakers to turn to broad-based tax increases in a bid to close widening budget gaps.

At least 10 states are considering some kind of major increase in sales or income taxes: Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin. California and New York lawmakers already have agreed on multibillion-dollar tax increases that went into effect earlier this year.

Fiscal experts say more states are likely to try to raise tax revenue in coming months, especially once they tally the latest shortfalls from April 15 income-tax filings, often the biggest single source of funds for the 43 states that levy them.
...
Hope you Pilgrims noted that 7 states manage to operate without ANY state imposed income taxes.... On the other hand there are actually states that are considering belt tightening instead of tax increases....!

Many states remain determined to balance their budgets by relying solely on spending cuts. That is the case in Indiana, where raising revenue "is really not on the table," said Pat Bauer, the speaker of the state House.

Instead, he hopes to tap the state's rainy-day fund and to produce a budget that covers only one year, rather than the usual two, because plunging revenue makes it impossible to forecast that far in advance.

Tax collections have dropped drastically the past four months, according to Christopher A. Ruhl, director of the Indiana Budget Agency. Income-tax collections, which reflect withholding and estimated tax payments, fell 21% in March compared with last year and are down 7% for the fiscal year.
.....
This has led some experts, such as Nicholas Johnson of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, to predict more legislatures will take up broad-based tax increases as early as May or June. "The problem," he said, "is that they are filling a hole that has gotten a little deeper."


Lordy, would that there were more forward thinking state legislators and governors like those in Indiana and the seven no income tax states in this country!!!

And this is the way it is.................

There is absolutely nothing funny about this news item....

in today's NY Post, so please Pilgrims, don't read my take on it as a weak attempt at humor!

NIGHTMARE ATTACK
By JAMIE SCHRAM, LORENA MONGELLI and LUKAS I. ALPERT

April 8, 2009 --
A late-night stop for a bite to eat left a beautiful student nearly blinded when she turned down a lecherous thug's come-on and he responded by punching her in the face at an Upper East Side pizza parlor, officials said.

"I have nightmares now. I wake up in the middle of the night with him beating me. He was a maniac," said the 26-year-old victim, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Christine. "It was horrific and scary. I'm traumatized."

Cops say the savage beating took place at John & Tony's Pizzeria on First Avenue at 60th Street at 3:50 a.m. on March 20. Dzemal Kolenovic, 31, of Brooklyn approached the victim as she was eating with a pal and began hurling pick-up lines at her.

"I asked him nicely, 'Can you please leave us alone?' " Christine said. "He just started cursing, 'F- - - you, bitches. You whores.' "

When the woman and her friend stepped outside, the hot-headed thug allegedly began throwing punches in an explosion of violence.

"He threw me to the ground. I asked him, 'Why are you doing this?' and he said, 'Because I'm Albanian, I can do whatever the f- - - I want,' " she said.

Her friend tried to dial 911 on her cellphone, but Kolenovic smacked it out of her hands into her face, leaving the friend with a fractured jaw, police said.

He then turned his fury back on Christine as she cowered on the pavement and beat her unconscious.

"First he punched me once in the right eye and then he got really wound up and hit my left eye. I had bruises all over. My arm, my knees were all cut, and my lower back. Both my eyes were swollen shut," she said.

As she lay unconscious, Kolenovic and his friends hopped into a car and fled, police said.

"I don't remember the ambulance ride and woke up in the hospital," Christine said.

She was taken to New York Hospital where she was treated for "bruising and substantial pain to both eyes as well as blindness in [the] left eye," according to the criminal complaint.
Her vision has since returned although she may require several surgeries, she said.

"I just went inside for a slice of pizza. I don't even know the guy. He just came out of the blue and beat the crap out of me."

Cops were able to track down Kolenovic via restaurant credit-card receipts, sources said. He turned himself in to police last Wednesday and was charged with two counts of felony assault, said a spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.

Kolenovic was released on $5,000 bail and is due back in court today. His lawyer declined to comment.

Kolenovic has a rap sheet with a 2001 arrest for disorderly conduct for which he served four days in city jail and a 2005 arrest for a motor-vehicle infraction in Queens.

Christine said she's just stunned.

"My main concern is that he doesn't come after me and he doesn't do this to anyone else," she said.

Now here is a question to ponder. Event's like this happen daily in every city and town..... but when they do, editorial writers, columnists and organized groups don't start waving flags and suggesting that it should be against the law to make a fist! Matter of fact, this event is an exception (probably 'cause the victim is so attractive) -- they don't usually report it.

That begs the question... why is it that on those relatively rare occasions when some borderline psychotic or stressed out individual goes 'postal' and starts a shooting rampage, all these same editorial writers, columnists and organized groups start hollerin' to outlaw all handguns, or rifles or whatever was used?

Honest fear? Honest concern? Or just opportunism, grasping for any event that supports their preconceived and developed personal beliefs?

Just wonderin?

News Alert -- MIssing Duckling found and returned!

Here's a news item with a happy ending for all of you Pilgrims that have been fretting over Bostons missing brass duckling..... as reported by TheBostonNewsChannel.com:

BOSTON -- Mrs. Mallard's missing duckling has been found.

The wayward duck was found on Mt. Vernon Street, but police have released few other details about his discovery. There was no word on any arrests.

"Pack," one of the ducklings in the iconic sculpture of a family of ducklings based on the well-known children's book "Make Way For Ducklings," was snatched from the Public Garden Monday morning.

Police recovered it sometime overnight, not far from the where the garden sculpture is located.

There was no word if they know who snatched the bronze sculpture. The thief could face larceny charges for the theft of public art.

"This sculpture has become such an important part of Boston and I just think whoever did it is so mean. I just think it's a mean, cruel thing to have done," sculptor Nancy Schon said.

The sculpture is based on a 1941 book about a pair of mallard ducks who decide to raise their eight little offspring on an island in the Public Garden lagoon. To get there they have to make their way from the Charles River down Mount Vernon Street to the garden.

Author Robert McCloskey won a Caldecott Medal for the drawings in the book and it is also the official children's book of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Park rangers discovered the fowl play while on routine patrol in the park Monday. Pack was the second to last of Mrs. Mallard’s eight bronze ducklings who reside at the corner of Beacon and Charles Streets.

The theft outraged Boston Mayor Tom Menino.

“Not only are the Make Way for Ducklings loved by everyone, but they are public art,” said Mayor Thomas M. Menino. “This act is not a prank, it is a crime."

The Make Way for Ducklings sculpture, was created and installed by Schon in 1987.

Some of Pack's other brass siblings have also been stolen over the years. Quack, Jack and Mack have also been nicked in the past, but all eventually made their way back to mother mallard

Apparently, Bostonians take ducknapping pretty seriously!

A word from the Majority Leader...........

Y'all might think I'm in overdrive on the topic of Obamanation today Pilgrims,

but he does seem to be going everywhere, doing all the wrong things and saying all the wrong things.. doesn't he? This is from AmericanThinker.com today. Mr Lewis nails it down!

Those arrogant Americans
By James Lewis

We have a rock star president who for the first time in American history fired the President of a private corporation, General Motors, then immediately flew to Europe with an entourage of 500 courtiers and a worshipful media, bowed waist-deep to the King of Saudi Arabia, and proceeded to accuse his own country of arrogance.

In France, of all places.

Does anybody else think this guy is shockingly ignorant? I wonder if he has every really talked to a concentration camp survivor, or a Cuban refugee, or a boat person from Vietnam? Or a Soviet dissident. Or a survivor or Mao's purges.

Not to mention families with fallen American soldiers in the graveyards. Yes, he's going to Normandie, but will he apologize for our arrogance there, too? Does he really understand anything beyond the PC history of the world? Or will he just lie in his photo op at the American Cemetery at Normandy?

Ahhh, those arrogant Americans. First they rebel against King George III and all the crowned heads of Europe. Then they welcome tens of millions of poor and persecuted people from the Old World. Then they fail to bow down to Europe's greatest figures -- from Napoleon and Otto von Bismarck to the Kaiser, Hitler and Stalin. Then they fight a civil war, losing half a million people to liberate black people in America. Then they diss the man the BBC considers to be the greatest philosopher ever, one Karl Marx, whose followers killed 100 million innocents in the 20th century. And then, to top it all off, they liberate both the Western half of Europe (in 1946) and the Eastern half (in 1989).

What arrogance these Americans have. Either that, or a very, very -- no, stunningly -- ignorant man was just elected president -- largely because millions of benevolent voters believed that we owe black people a presidency. They may come to see that as their biggest mistake ever. In the next couple of years they will see a tripling of government debt, high inflation, a permanent loss in their personal wealth, and a major devaluation of the dollar.

Which, to judge by his recent television performance, should just make him giggle quite inappropriately, in front of God and everybody.

What kind of man has such an obsessive need to put down his own country? Especially given our real history? Has he ever read an honest history book?
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/04/those_arrogant_americans_1.html at April 06, 2009 - 01:31:17 PM EDT

This seems like an ideal place to quote from Obamanations autobiography - Dreams From My Father:

"To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our setereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society's stifling constraints. We weren't indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated."

BHO - “Dreams From My Father,” pages 99-100

Is our POTUS threatening bankers with LYNCH MOBS?

Sure sounds like it to me! From the Charlotte Observer:

Plain talk ruled when bankers met with Obama
Insider
Posted: Thursday, Apr. 02, 2009

Bank of America chief Ken Lewis has been beat up by the government for a few months now, and he apparently snapped back – at least for a moment – during last week's meeting between President Obama and the CEOs of the nation's top banks.

According to the American Banker trade publication, which cites sources who were at the meeting, Lewis told the prez: “Mr. President, I am not going to suck up to Larry and Tim like the rest of these guys,” referring to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, the head of the National Economic Council.

Obama, for his part, told the bankers: “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

I am trying to picture what would have happened if 'W' had called in a bunch of union CEO's and threatened to turn the 'mobs' on them if they didn't bow to his wishes ...... Hot Damn! The headlines and cries from the pundits would be overwhelming....

But I didn't hear or see a word of this overt threat to the bankers, did you?

Either Obamanation watched too much TV when he was a kid.....

...or that empty suit of his is filled with Coke Cola pipe dreams...

Axelrod: Obama will create nuke-free world

Top White House aide David Axelrod said the administration aims to create a nuclear weapon-free world.

“That would be the goal, to remove this scourge for the face of the earth and take away that threat that hangs over us now,” Axelrod said on CNN's "State of the Union."

While unilateral disarmament would be impossible, Axelrod noted, the president aims to lead a movement to begin the process of reduction.

“The president is committed to an aggressive regime,” he said.

President Barack Obama outlined his disarmament plan on Sunday morning in Prague, just hours after North Korea launched a controversial rocket.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib-Qiyklq-Q

Our President gets scarier and scarier..... Perhaps he can get Rodney King of Los Angeles (who's fifteen minutes of fame with "Can't we all just get along" expired when he was sent back to jail) to serve as Ambassador to the UN and he can lead the choir!!!

This Reuters headline this morning got Ole' Pecoz to cogitating....

...first the headline:

Italy muzzled scientist who foresaw quake
06 Apr 2009
By Gavin Jones

ROME, April 6 (Reuters) - An Italian scientist predicted a major earthquake around L'Aquila weeks before disaster struck the city on Monday, killing dozens of people, but was reported to authorities for spreading panic among the population.

The first tremors in the region were felt in mid-January and continued at regular intervals, creating mounting alarm in the medieval city, about 100 km (60 miles) east of Rome.

Vans with loudspeakers had driven around the town a month ago telling locals to evacuate their houses after seismologist Gioacchino Giuliani predicted a large quake was on the way, prompting the mayor's anger.

Giuliani, who based his forecast on concentrations of radon gas around seismically active areas, was reported to police for "spreading alarm" and was forced to remove his findings from the Internet.

A spokesman for the Italian Gob'mint went on to say:

It is useful to underline that it is not in any way possible to predict an earthquake," it said, adding that the agency saw no reason for alarm but was nonetheless effecting "continuous monitoring and attention". It is useful to underline that it is not in any way possible to predict an earthquake," it said, adding that the agency saw no reason for alarm but was nonetheless effecting "continuous monitoring and attention".

This of course, would be the same Italian Gob'mint that takes all predictions about global warming as accepted fact!! As do most of the other governments of the world. There has been no scientific proof of such warming, just computer models designed by.......... err, well, -- humans. But it is taken as gospel!

Hmmm, must not be as much power to grab and money to make in recognizing 'earthquake predictors' as opposed to 'global warming' chicken littles....!

Ramirez on Obamanation's gift to the Queen!

To properly appreciate this column, you have to remenber that the Guardian Newspaper

...... is one of the most militantly liberal papers in the U.K. They have long been America bashers, but have heretofore -- been very supportive of Obamanation for all the Left reasons.

The question that flummoxed the great orator
John Crace The Guardian, Friday 3 April 2009

Barack Obama, the World's Greatest Orator (™all news organisations), didn't exactly cover himself in glory when the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson asked him a question about who was to blame for the financial crisis. Normally word perfect, Obama ummed, ahed and waffled for the best part of two and a half minutes. Here, John Crace decodes what he was really thinking ...

Nick Robinson: "A question for you both, if I may. The prime minister has repeatedly blamed the United States of America for causing this crisis. France and Germany both blame Britain and America for causing this crisis. Who is right? And isn't the debate about that at the heart of the debate about what to do now?"

Brown immediately swivels to leave Obama in pole position. There is a four-second delay before Obama starts speaking [THANKS FOR NOTHING, GORDY BABY. REMIND ME TO HANG YOU OUT TO DRY ONE DAY.]

Barack Obama: "I, I, would say that, er ... pause [I HAVEN'T A CLUE] ... if you look at ... pause [WHO IS THIS NICK ROBINSON JERK?] ... the, the sources of this crisis ... pause [JUST KEEP GOING, BUDDY] ... the United States certainly has some accounting to do with respect to . . . pause [I'M IN WAY TOO DEEP HERE] ... a regulatory system that was inadequate to the massive changes that have taken place in the global financial system ... pause, close eyes [THIS IS GOING TO GO DOWN LIKE A CROCK OF SHIT BACK HOME. HELP]. I think what is also true is that ... pause [I WANT NICK ROBINSON TO DISAPPEAR] ... here in Great Britain ... pause [SHIT, GORDY'S THE HOST, DON'T LAND HIM IN IT] ... here in continental Europe ... pause [DAMN IT, BLAME EVERYONE.] ... around the world. We were seeing the same mismatch between the regulatory regimes that were in place and er ... pause [I'VE LOST MY TRAIN OF THOUGHT AGAIN] ... the highly integrated, er, global capital markets that have emerged ... pause [I'M REALLY WINGING IT NOW].

So at this point, I'm less interested in ... pause [YOU] ... identifying blame than fixing the problem. I think we've taken some very aggressive steps in the United States to do so, not just responding to the immediate crisis, ensuring banks are adequately capitalised, er, dealing with the enormous, er ... pause [WHY DIDN'T I QUIT WHILE I WAS AHEAD?] ... drop-off in demand and contraction that has taken place. More importantly, for the long term, making sure that we've got a set of, er, er, regulations that are up to the task, er, and that includes, er, a number that will be discussed at this summit. I think there's a lot of convergence between all the parties involved about the need, for example, to focus not on the legal form that a particular financial product takes or the institution it emerges from, but rather what's the risk involved, what's the function of this product and how do we regulate that adequately, much more effective coordination, er, between countries so we can, er, anticipate the risks that are involved there. Dealing with the, er, problem of derivatives markets, making sure we have set up systems, er, that can reduce some of the risks there.

So, I actually think ... pause [FANTASTIC. I'VE LOST EVERYONE, INCLUDING MYSELF] ... there's enormous consensus that has emerged in terms of what we need to do now and, er ... pause [I'M OUTTA HERE. TIME FOR THE USUAL CLOSING BOLLOCKS] ... I'm a great believer in looking forwards than looking backwards.

Life without a teleprompter to tell you what to can be a bitch.... can't it!

The more things go around....... the more they stay the same- -

This editorial cartoon is from the Herald Tribune in 1934! Sorry it's not clearer, but like Ole' Pecoz, it's old, gray and has traveled a long way...........
The more things change, the more they stay the same! Those who fail to heed the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. A review of the economic history of the 1930’s demonstrates that Roosevelt’s spending programs failed to turn the economy around. Unemployment temporarily dropped and then rose again in the late thirties to more than 15%. It took a World War to reverse that trend.

Annie is ready to 'FIRE' everybody......

Why Is Rick Wagoner Fired and Nancy Pelosi Still Working?
Ann Coulter
Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Apparently, it's OK for Obama to fire the head of General Motors, but Bush can't fire his own U.S. attorneys.

It is generally agreed that the Obama administration's demand that Rick Wagoner resign as chairman of General Motors is the price of GM's accepting government money.

To promote the sales of GM vehicles, Obama says the government will stand by your GM car warranty. And all the taxpayers will get a lube job. The new GM owner's manual will come with a disclaimer: "Close enough for government work."

Now that we're all agreed that the government can make hiring and firing decisions based on infusions of taxpayer money, I can think of a lot more government beneficiaries who are badly in need of firing.

Just off the top of my head, how about Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and everybody at the Department of Education?

How about firing all the former Weathermen, like Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn and Mark Rudd, whose university salaries are subsidized by the taxpayer?

Nearly every university in the country accepts government money. Is there any industry in America more in need of some "restructuring" than academia? What's Berkeley's "business plan" to stop turning out graduates who hate America?

And what is Obama's justification for keeping Shirley M. Tilghman as president of Princeton University as long as Princeton employs prominent crackpot Peter Singer?

Singer, the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton's Center for Human Values, believes parents should have the right to kill newborn babies with birth defects, such as Down syndrome and hemophilia, and says there is nothing morally wrong with parents conceiving children in order to harvest them for spare parts for an older child -- or even for society to breed children on a massive scale for spare parts.

His views on these issues are so extreme I'm surprised Singer hasn't been offered a position in the Obama cabinet yet. Perhaps he paid his taxes and was disqualified.

Singer compares the black liberation movement to the liberation of apes, saying we must "extend to other species the basic principle of equality that most of us recognize should be extended to all members of our own species." (Imagine if Rush Limbaugh had said that and then go lie down for 20 minutes.)

The esteemed professor Singer also believes sex with animals is acceptable and has no objections to necrophilia -- provided the deceased gave consent when still alive. We're still waiting to hear his views on sex with dead animals. Especially me, as I have no plans for next weekend.

Doesn't a "new vision" for Princeton -- which benefits from massive taxpayer subsidies in the form of student loans and government grants -- require firing the president of Princeton? That university is clearly teetering on the brink of moral bankruptcy.

When is the government going to get around to firing 99 percent of public school superintendents? They're clearly turning out an inferior product -- i.e., America's public school graduates -- as compared to some of the foreign models now available.

In New York City, spending on public schools increased by more than 300 percent between 1982 and 2001, coming in at $11,474 per pupil annually -- compared to about $5,000 for private schools.

But in 2003, a New York court ruled that graduates of New York City's public schools did not have the skills to be "capable of voting and serving on a jury." (Worse, some kids coming out of New York high schools are so stupid they don't even know how to get out of jury duty.)

If Obama can tell GM and Chrysler that their participation in NASCAR is an "unnecessary expenditure," isn't having public schools force students to follow Muslim rituals, recite Islamic prayers and plan "jihads" also an "unnecessary expenditure"? Are all those school condom purchases considered "necessary expenditures"?

Illegal aliens cost the American taxpayer more than $10 billion a year, net, in Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, free school lunches, prison, school and court costs. And yet cities, counties and states across the nation are openly refusing to enforce federal immigration law against illegal aliens -- all while accepting billions of dollars of stimulus money on top of a litany of other federal payouts.

Shouldn't somebody be fired over this? Like maybe Geraldo Rivera?

How about hauling San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom before a congressional committee and firing him? In fact, just being named "Gavin Newsom" should be grounds for dismissal. San Francisco is getting $18 million of stimulus money -- to say nothing of its residents who receive federal money in the form of Social Security payments, government grants, welfare payments, federal highway funds and on and on and on.

Doesn't PBS take federal funds? Obama should really ask Big Bird to step down. While we're at it, shouldn't Tim Geithner be fired?

Now that the government owns everything, there's no end to the dead wood that can be cleared out.

Except the problem is -- as this very partial list demonstrates -- most of the dead wood exists only because of the government in the first place. Capitalism has its own methods of clearing out dead wood, which the government keeps preventing by forcing the taxpayer to bail out capitalism's losers.

"April Fools day has come and passed. and your the biggest fool at last!!"

That was a taunt issued in my youth to those playing April Fools day jokes a day late. It would appear that the Executive Editor Bill Keller, of the New York Times -- didn't get the word.

On April 2nd, while speaking at Stanford California, he said:


"On the NYT: Keller predicted that the Times will be "left standing after the deluge." Noting that readers have offered to donate money to keep the Times alive, Keller suggested that GM probably isn't getting similar offers.

Commenting on the keep-the-Times alive movement, Keller said: "Saving the New York Times now ranks with saving Darfur as a high-minded cause." "

Apparently life on the 80th floor keeps your head in the clouds and not on the street! Hard to believe the cajones of this cowboy!!!

Behind every storm cloud, there is a silver lining......

as suggested by this editorial from the New York Times:

With the Downturn, It’s Time to Rethink the Legal Profession
By ADAM COHEN

The economic downturn is hitting the legal world hard. American Lawyer is calling it “the fire this time” and warning that big firms may be hurtling toward “a paradigm-shifting, blood-in-the-suites” future. The Law Shucks blog has a “layoff tracker,” and it is grim reading. Top firms are rapidly thinning their ranks, and several — including Heller Ehrman, a venerable 500-plus-lawyer firm founded in 1890 — have closed.

The employment pains of the legal elite may not elicit a lot of sympathy in the broader context of the recession, but a lot of hard-working lawyers have been blindsided, including young associates who are suddenly finding themselves with six-figure student-loan debts and no source of income.

Leading firms have historically avoided mass layoffs, concerned that their reputations would take a hit. But some have been putting those inhibitions aside, perhaps calculating that the stigma of pushing out their colleagues has faded. Law firm managers and bar associations should be looking for more creative ways to deal with the hard times — like reducing pay for both partners and associates to save jobs, as a few firms have begun doing.

The silver lining, if there is one, is that the legal world may be inspired to draw blueprints for the 21st century.

The changes are likely to begin with compensation. Years ago, law firm starting salaries were not that different from government or public-interest jobs. But the gap has become a chasm. First-year salaries at top firms are around $160,000, compared with $48,000 to start for state and local prosecutors and $40,000 for legal-services lawyers. New associates often earn more than the judges they appear before.

The downturn will probably rein in salaries at the high end. Top firms are already under pressure to lower the $160,000 starting salary; one industry-watcher says it could fall as low as $100,000. And fewer firms will feel the need to pay the top salary.

Lower pay should mean that associates will not need to work the grueling hours many have been forced to. And it will mean less pressure to go into private practice for law graduates who would rather do something else.

Clients are also likely to benefit — and consumers, since legal fees are built into the cost of almost everything. Even before the downturn, big-firm clients, led by the Association of Corporate Counsel, were pushing to phase out the billable hour — which can go as high as $1,000. Tight corporate budgets will give clients more leverage to push to pay by the project or for successful outcomes.

For years, law school tuition rose along with big-firm salaries. Between 1990 and 2003, the cost of private law schools rose at nearly three times the rate of consumer prices. The average graduate now leaves with more than $80,000 in debt. In one survey, 66 percent of students said debt prevented them from considering government or public-interest jobs.

If the downturn is prolonged, law schools will need to keep tuition and other costs in check so students do not graduate with unmanageable debt. More schools may follow the lead of Northwestern, the first top-tier law school to offer a two-year program.

Law schools may also become more serious about curriculum reform. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching released an influential report that, among other things, urged law schools to make better use of the sometimes-aimless second and third years. If law jobs are scarce, there will be more pressure on schools to make the changes Carnegie suggested, including more focus on practical skills.

They may also need to pay more attention to preparing students for nonlegal careers. Law graduates have always ended up in business, government, journalism and other fields. Law schools could do more to build these subjects into their coursework.

The past few decades of prosperity made a lot of lawyers wealthy, but they were not always good for the profession. Law school deans, bar association leaders and firm managers should follow Rahm Emanuel’s advice about never allowing a crisis to go to waste and start planning for what comes next.

Sometimes shock can bring new life to old industries!!

'How come the TOTUS din't tell me this!!!!"

Obamanation sets new standards in Princely travel......

Military strained by Obama trip
Bill Gertz INSIDE THE RING (Washington Times)

Air Obama

President Obama's European visit this week has strained Air Force heavy-airlift capabilities and obliged the military to hire more foreign contractors to help resupply U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, according to military sources.

The large delegation traveling with the president in Europe required moving several transports, including jumbo C-5s and C-17s, from sorties ferrying supplies to Afghanistan to European bases for the presidential visit, said two military officials familiar with the issue. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid any misunderstanding with White House officials.

The Air Mobility Command, part of the U.S. Transportation Command, was ordered to provide airlift for the president's entourage of nearly 500 people, including senior officials, staff, support personnel, news reporters and some 200 Secret Service agents for the European visit, which began Tuesday in London.

Airlift for the traveling entourage also was used to move the president's new heavy-armored limousine and several presidential helicopters used for short transits.

To make up for the shortfall, the Air Force had to increase the number of Eastern European air transport contractors hired to fly Il-76 and An-124 transport jets into Afghanistan loaded with troop supplies, the two officials said.

The airlift crunch comes at a particularly difficult time, as the military is stepping up deliveries of supplies in advance of a surge of 21,000 U.S. troops.

One official said the problem was not only the vehicles and helicopters that were needed for presidential security, but also the unusually large number of people traveling with the president. The official said U.S. taxpayers are paying twice for airlift, once for Air Force jets that are not available for a war zone and again for foreign contractor aircraft that are.

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to comment. Col. Gregory Julian, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, said he was unaware of a transport shortage but noted that it was not unusual for the military to hire air-transport contractors in such circumstances.

Presidential logistics for such trips involve a complicated military process that involves insuring smooth travel and having backup aircraft ready for use. Such large trips as the current European one generally cost millions of dollars.

I am sure that the visits by the Sultans of yore, and the Kings of less yore, were less encumbered than this show of ego, waste and ostentation!!!

Makes me plumb proud to know that our United States Gob'mint keeps propping this misogynist up in power!!!

Hamid Karzai signs law 'legalising rape in marriage'
President Hamid Karzai has signed a law the UN says legalises rape in marriage and prevents women from leaving the house without permission.

By Ben Farmer in Kabul
31 Mar 2009

Mr Karzai has been accused of electioneering at the expense of women's rights by signing the law to appeal to crucial Shia swing voters in this year's presidential poll Photo: AFP/GETTY
The law, which has not been publicly released, is believed to state women can only seek work, education or doctor's appointments with their husband's permission.

Only fathers and grandfathers are granted custody of children under the law, according to the United Nations Development Fund for Women.

Opponents of the legislation governing the personal lives of Afghanistan's Shia minority have said it is "worse than during the Taliban".

Mr Karzai has been accused of electioneering at the expense of women's rights by signing the law to appeal to crucial Shia swing voters in this year's presidential poll.

While the Afghan constitution guarantees equal rights for women, it also allows the Shia community, thought to represent 10 per cent of the population, the right to settle family law cases according to Shia law.

The Shiite Personal Status Law contains provisions on marriage, divorce, inheritance, rights of movement and bankruptcy.

The bill passed both houses of the Afghan parliament, but was so contentious that the United Nations and women's rights campaigners have so far been unable to see a copy of the approved bill.

Shinkai Zahine Karokhail, a female MP, said the law had been rushed through with little debate.

She told the Guardian newspaper: "They wanted to pass it almost like a secret negotiation, "There were lots of things that we wanted to change, but they didn't want to discuss it because Karzai wants to please the Shia before the election."

The Afghan justice ministry confirmed the law had been signed, but said it would not be published until technical difficulties had been overcome.

A spokesman for President Hamid Karzai would not comment.

Gonna be interesting to see how Obamanation tries to pass the buck on this one back to 'W" along with all the rest has already passed!!

Thomas Paine addresses the stimulus bill....

Agree with him or not, you have to admire this fellers writing, delivery style, and passion! This six minute video is the third in his series........ You need sound, and hopefully you have a DSL connection -- dial up will take a while........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeYscnFpEyA&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcommunity%2Ethomhartmann%2Ecom%2Fservice%2FdisplayDiscussionThreads%2EkickAction%3Fas%3D93519%26w%3D221989%26d%3D188772&feature=player_embedded