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THIS WEEK'S
Football Predictions
(I bet you are thrilled!)
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THE FIRST 100 THINGS
To Run Out
In an emergency
1. Generators (good ones cost dearly. Gas storage, risky. Noisy...target of thieves; maintenance etc.)
2. Water filters/purifiers
3. Portable toilets
4. Seasoned firewood. Wood takes about 6 - 12 months to become dried, for home uses.
5. Lamp oil, wicks, lamps (first choice: buy clear oil. If scarce, stockpile any!)
6. Coleman fuel. Impossible to stockpile too much.
7. Guns, ammunition, pepper spray, knives, clubs, bats & slingshots.
8. Hand-can openers, & hand egg beaters, whisks.
9. Honey/syrups/white, brown sugar
10. Rice - beans - wheat
11. Vegetable oil (for cooking) without it food burns/must be boiled etc.,)
12. Charcoal, lighter fluid (will become scarce suddenly)
13. Water containers (urgent item to obtain.) any size. Small: hard clear plastic only - note - food grade if for drinking.
14. Mini heater head (propane) (without this item, propane won't heat a room.)
15. Grain grinder (non-electric)
16. Propane cylinders (urgent: definite shortages will occur.
17. Survival guide book.
18. Mantles: aladdin, coleman, etc. (Without this item, longer-term lighting is difficult.)
19. Baby supplies: diapers/formula. Ointments/aspirin, etc.
20. Washboards, mop bucket w/wringer (for laundry)
21. Cookstoves (propane, coleman & kerosene)
22. Vitamins
23. Propane cylinder handle-holder (urgent: small canister use is dangerous without this item)
24. Feminine hygiene/haircare/skin products.
25. Thermal underwear (tops & bottoms)
26. Bow saws, axes and hatchets, wedges (also, honing oil)
27. Aluminum foil reg. & Heavy duty (great cooking and barter item)
28. Gasoline containers (plastic & metal)
29. Garbage bags (impossible to have too many).
30. Toilet paper, kleenex, paper towels
31. Milk - powdered & condensed (shake liquid every 3 to 4 months)
32. Garden seeds (non-hybrid) (a must)
33. Clothes pins/line/hangers (a must)
34. Coleman's pump repair kit
35. Tuna fish (in oil)
36. Fire extinguishers (or..large box of baking soda in every room)
37. First aid kits
38. Batteries (all sizes...buy furthest-out for expiration dates)
39. Garlic, spices & vinegar, baking supplies
40. Big dogs (and plenty of dog food)
41. Flour, yeast & salt
42. Matches. {"Strike anywhere" preferred.) boxed, wooden matches will go first
43. Writing paper/pads/pencils, solar calculators
44. Insulated ice chests (good for keeping items from freezing in wintertime.)
45. Workboots, belts, levis & durable shirts
46. Flashlights/lightsticks & torches, "no. 76 Dietz" lanterns
47. Journals, diaries & scrapbooks (jot down ideas, feelings, experience; historic times)
48. Garbage cans plastic (great for storage, water, transporting - if with wheels)
49. Men's hygiene: shampoo, toothbrush/paste, mouthwash/floss, nail clippers, etc
50. Cast iron cookware (sturdy, efficient)
51. Fishing supplies/tools
52. Mosquito coils/repellent, sprays/creams
53. Duct tape
54. Tarps/stakes/twine/nails/rope/spikes
55. Candles
56. Laundry detergent (liquid)
57. Backpacks, duffel bags
58. Garden tools & supplies
59. Scissors, fabrics & sewing supplies
60. Canned fruits, veggies, soups, stews, etc.
61. Bleach (plain, not scented: 4 to 6% sodium hypochlorite)
62. Canning supplies, (jars/lids/wax)
63. Knives & sharpening tools: files, stones, steel
64. Bicycles...tires/tubes/pumps/chains, etc
65. Sleeping bags & blankets/pillows/mats
66. Carbon monoxide alarm (battery powered)
67. Board games, cards, dice
68. D-con rat poison, mouse prufe ii, roach killer
69. Mousetraps, ant traps & cockroach magnets
70. Paper plates/cups/utensils (stock up, folks)
71. Baby wipes, oils, waterless & antibacterial soap (saves a lot of water)
72. Rain gear, rubberized boots, etc.
73. Shaving supplies (razors & creams, talc, after shave)
74. Hand pumps & siphons (for water and for fuels)
75. Soysauce, vinegar, bullions/gravy/soupbase
76. Reading glasses
77. Chocolate/cocoa/tang/punch (water enhancers)
78. "Survival-in-a-can"
79. Woolen clothing, scarves/ear-muffs/mittens
80. Boy scout handbook, / also leaders catalog
81. Roll-on window insulation kit (manco)
82. Graham crackers, saltines, pretzels, trail mix/jerky
83. Popcorn, peanut butter, nuts
84. Socks, underwear, t-shirts, etc. (Extras)
85. Lumber (all types)
86. Wagons & carts (for transport to and from)
87. Cots & inflatable mattress's
88. Gloves: work/warming/gardening, etc.
89. Lantern hangers
90. Screen patches, glue, nails, screws,, nuts & bolts
91. Teas
92. Coffee
93. Cigarettes
94. Wine/liquors (for bribes, medicinal, etc,)
95. Paraffin wax
96. Glue, nails, nuts, bolts, screws, etc.
97. Chewing gum/candies
98. Atomizers (for cooling/bathing)
99. Hats & cotton neckerchiefs
100. Goats/chickens
FROM A SARAJEVO WAR SURVIVOR:
Experiencing horrible things that can happen in a war - death of parents and friends, hunger and malnutrition, endless freezing cold, fear, sniper attacks.
1. Stockpiling helps, but you never no how long trouble will last, so locate near renewable food sources.
2. Living near a well with a manual pump is like being in Eden.
3. After awhile, even gold can lose its luster. But there is no luxury in war quite like toilet paper. Its surplus value is greater than gold's.
4. If you had to go without one utility, lose electricity - it's the easiest to do without (unless you're in a very nice climate with no need for heat.)
5. Canned foods are awesome, especially if their contents are tasty without heating. One of the best things to stockpile is canned gravy - it makes a lot of the dry unappetizing things you find to eat in war somewhat edible. Only needs enough heat to "warm", not to cook. It's cheap too, especially if you buy it in bulk.
6. Bring some books - escapist ones like romance or mysteries become more valuable as the war continues. Sure, it's great to have a lot of survival guides, but you'll figure most of that out on your own anyway - trust me, you'll have a lot of time on your hands.
7. The feeling that you're human can fade pretty fast. I can't tell you how many people I knew who would have traded a much needed meal for just a little bit of toothpaste, rouge, soap or cologne. Not much point in fighting if you have to lose your humanity. These things are morale-builders like nothing else.
8. Slow burning candles and matches, matches, matches.
OBAMA DECLARES H1N1 FLU 'NATIONAL EMERGENCY'
Obama signed a proclamation declaring the H1N1 influenza a national emergency, giving doctors and medical facilities greater leeway in responding to the flu pandemic.
Obama signed the declaration late Friday, which the White House said allows medical treatment facilities to better handle a surge in flu patients by waiving federal requirements on a case-by-case basis.
"The foundation of our national approach to the H1N1 flu has been preparedness at all levels -- personal, business, and government -- and this proclamation helps that effort by advancing our overall response capability," the White House said in a statement.
In the proclamation, Obama said the pandemic keeps evolving, the rates of illness are rising rapidly in many areas and there's a potential "to overburden health care resources."
Because of vaccine production delays, the government has backed off initial, optimistic estimates that as many as 120 million doses would be available by mid-October. As of Wednesday, only 11 million doses had been shipped to health departments, doctor's offices and other providers, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The government now hopes to have about 50 million doses of vaccine for the so-called swine flu out by mid-November and 150 million in December.
The flu virus has to be grown in chicken eggs, and the yield hasn't been as high as was initially hoped, officials explained.
H1N1 is more widespread now than it's ever been. Health authorities say almost 100 children have died from the flu, and 46 states now have widespread flu activity.
Worldwide, more than 5,000 people have reportedly died from swine flu since it emerged this year and developed into a global epidemic, the World Health Organization said Friday. Since most countries have stopped counting individual swine flu cases, the figure is considered an underestimate.
The flu has infected millions of Americans and killed nearly 100 children in the U.S. The chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that over a thousand people have died as a result, with 46 states reporting widespread H1N1 activity.
"Since the beginning of the pandemic, we've seen more than 1,000 deaths and 20,000 hospitalizations," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the CDC. "We expect it to occur in waves, but we can't predict when those waves will happen."
(Well...I told ya so!
Obama has come up with another "emergency" in order to side-step the real situations that require his immediate action!
The assholes in D.C. are quick to announce the 1,000 deaths from the supposed flu, however, they are extremely hesitant in stating the conditions under which these deaths occurred!
What conditions? How about the age of the patient; was the patient suffering from any other "deadly disease"; was the patient's immune system compromised; what was the general health status of the patient?
Even the common cold will "kill" the very young, the very old, the immuno-suppressed, and those with other serious health conditions!
Instead of taking care of what he can take care of (namely the request for 80,000 more troops in Afghanistan that was requested over 2 months ago) he has once again created a "disaster" that neither he, nor anyone else, can, at any time, correct!
Time for Obama to stop fighting windmills and get down to what he was elected to do! Or, get the hell outta the way of someone who can!!)
OBAMA'S 'CZARS' WON'T TESTIFY
The White House has told Congress it will reject calls for many of Obama's policy czars to testify before Congress - a decision senators said goes against the president's promises of transparency and openness and treads on Congress' constitutional mandate to investigate the administration's actions.
Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican, said White House counsel Greg Craig told her in a meeting Wednesday that they will not make available any of the czars who work in the White House and don't have to go through Senate confirmation. She said he was "murky" on whether other czars outside of the White House would be allowed to come before Congress.
Miss Collins said that doesn't make sense when some of those czars are actually making policy or negotiating on behalf of Obama.
"I think Congress should be able to call the president's climate czar, Carol Browner, the energy and environment czar, to ask her about the negotiations she conducted with the automobile industry that led to very significant policy changes with regard to emissions standards," Miss Collins said at a hearing Thursday that examined the proliferation of czars.
The debate goes to the heart of weighty constitutional issues about separation of powers. Obama argues that he should be allowed to have advisers who are free to give him confidential advice without having to fear being called to testify about it. Democrats and Republicans in Congress, though, argue that those in office who actually craft policy should be able to be summoned to testify because they do more than just give Obama advice.
At issue are the 18 positions Miss Collins says Obama has created since he took office. Of those, she says 10 - the White House says eight - are in the executive office and not subject to Freedom of Information Act requests or requests for testimony.
Czar is an informal term given to the positions.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent and chairman of the government affairs committee, asked the White House to provide a witness for Thursday's hearing but it did not send one.
In a letter last week to Miss Collins, though, Mr. Craig explained that the White House is not trying to circumvent Congress.
"We recognize that it is theoretically possible that a president could create new positions that inhibit transparency or undermine congressional oversight. That is simply not the case, however, in the current administration," Mr. Craig wrote.
Mr. Craig said the new positions Obama has created within the White House "are solely advisory in nature" and have no independent authority.
Senators disagreed with that evaluation, pointing to Mrs. Browner and health care czar Nancy-Ann DeParle, who is Obama's health care adviser.
"We do happen to have a Cabinet officer with Health and Human Services with whom I have never had a conversation on health care, not because I have any opposition to her but because it's my perception Nancy-Ann DeParle is calling the shots," said Sen. Robert F. Bennett, Utah Republican.
Criticism of czars has boiled over after talk-show host Glenn Beck - who senators at the hearing repeatedly referred to as "he who shall not be named" - began a campaign to highlight their proliferation in the Obama administration. But Miss Collins said she's been looking at czars for months, and she doesn't have problems with many of the czars Mr. Beck has criticized.
Still, Mr. Craig spent two pages of his four-page letter to Miss Collins critiquing Mr. Beck's positions.
Legal experts testifying before the Senate panel said Congress needs to be careful not to overreach in reacting. They said options open to lawmakers include writing new laws to restrict advisers' authority or writing the positions into law as needing Senate confirmation. A White House aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they are trying to work to accommodate "all reasonable congressional requests for information" and said some White House advisers have given informal briefings to members of Congress in lieu of testimony.
The aide also said some czars are outside the White House itself and they can be called to testify. The aide said five of them have already done so.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, Missouri Democrat, blasted Republicans for raising the issue and said she took offense at their comparisons between Obama and President Nixon.
She said Congress should instead be looking at the legality of presidential signing statements to shape how laws are implemented - a tool whose use expanded substantially under President George W. Bush.
Last month, Miss Collins offered an amendment to compel administration officials to testify, but it was ruled not germane to the bill being debate.
Democrats said it went too far because it would have covered all executive branch employees, including the national security adviser and the chief of staff, who have always been recognized as out of bounds.
Miss Collins said the issue shouldn't be so intractable and that Congress and the White House should be able to agree on a list of people who should be able to testify.
For his part, Mr. Lieberman said he's still looking for a good solution.
"We both share a desire to do something about this to help Congress uphold our responsibility for oversight, but we understand the balance here as reflected in the Constitution," he said.
(If they are making policy, WHICH THEY ARE, and they HAVE NOT BEEN ELECTED by the American people, WHICH THEY HAVEN'T, they should not only have to answer to Congress and the American people, but should be removed, IMMEDIATELY, from all government positions and locations!)
NOTHING
Worth Writing About
Today
GMAC
In Talks
For 3rd round of US hand-out!
GMAC, the former lending arm of General Motors Co., is in talks with the Treasury Department for a third injection of taxpayer aid, a further sign of the U.S. government's entrenchment in the U.S. auto industry.
The Treasury Department mandated earlier this year that GMAC Financial Services raise an additional $11.5 billion in capital after undergoing a "stress test" along with 18 other banks. While other banks deemed undercapitalized have been able to raise funds from private investors, GMAC has been forced to go back to the government.
GMAC is a crucial player in the U.S. auto industry, providing wholesale financing to many General Motors and Chrysler dealerships to pay for the vehicles on their lots. The company also operates a mortgage lending unit - Residential Capital - which has been pummeled by the housing market downturn. It also runs an insurance unit and an online banking unit called Ally Bank.
A Treasury Department spokesman confirmed that it was in talks with GMAC about a third helping of aid. The government already owns a 35 percent stake in GMAC after providing $12.5 billion to the lender. It also owns a majority-stake in GM and a smaller stake in Chrysler.
The Treasury spokesman declined to comment on whether the government's ownership stakes in GM and Chrysler make it more willing to again help prop up GMAC. But Kirk Ludtke, a senior vice president of CRT Capital Group LLC in Stamford, Conn., who follows GMAC, said the automakers can't succeed without GMAC.
"We continue to believe that a viable GMAC is critical to the success of GM and Chrysler," Ludtke said.
Citing people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal first reported late Tuesday that the U.S. government could hand over another $2.8 billion to $5.6 billion to Detroit-based GMAC. The latest capital infusion would be in the form of preferred stock, the paper said. The government's stake could rise if the new preferred shares were ever converted into common stock.
A GMAC spokeswoman declined to comment.
Of the 19 banks that underwent the government's stress tests, 10 were determined to be undercapitalized. GMAC is the only one of those unable to raise all of its necessary capital from investors.
Treasury's move would make GMAC the only U.S. company to receive three rounds of bailout aid. Last December, the government gave GMAC $5 billion in exchange for 5 million shares and GMAC's agreement to extend financing services to bailed-out Chrysler LLC. Then in May, the Treasury Department announced a new $7.5 billion injection for GMAC - short of the $11.5 billion the government's stress test showed the company would need to stay afloat if the economy worsens.
To help GMAC raise the remaining capital, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took the rare step earlier this year of allowing the junk-rated company to gain access to the FDIC's debt guarantee program. The FDIC agreed to guarantee up to $7.4 billion in GMAC-issued debt in case the company defaulted on payment, and has already backed about $4.5 billion worth.
According to the paper, the FDIC told GMAC Tuesday that it would guarantee the remaining $2.9 billion in debt to prevent the company from being forced to reduce its lending volume.
GMAC in August posted a wider second-quarter loss of $3.9 billion. Midway through the quarter, GMAC became the preferred lender for Chrysler. Last week, the Treasury Department informed Chrysler's former lender, Chrysler Financial, that it would have to shut down by the end of 2011.
(Another $8-BILLION going to GM?
About time to just shut their doors and sell-off the buildings for whatever they can be sold for!)
DOES CONGRESS HAVE ITS PRIORITIES STRAIGHT?
Working Hard or Hardly Working?
The House of Representatives has taken heat lately for its three-day workweeks. But now some are questioning just how much important work is getting done when lawmakers do show up.
On Tuesday, the House took up a resolution sponsored by Texas Democrat Al Green honoring the birthday of Confucius. It was eventually postponed. Tuesday's floor schedule also included a non-binding procedural vote along with various resolutions including one to welcome the archbishop of Constantinople on his visit to the U.S.
The Washington Times reports that House Minority Leader John Boehner complained that Democrats would rather "celebrate the birth of an ancient Chinese philosopher" than debate plans for jobs and health care with Republicans.
Last week, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer noted, "We're doing a lot of work. It just happens it's not on the floor."
(Three days a week?
Hey, for what they are accomplishing, that is okay by me.
Just chop 40% off their salaries and expenses!!)
LIEBERMAN: I'LL BACK A FILIBUSTER SENATE HEALTHCARE BILL
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said Tuesday that he'd back a GOP filibuster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s healthcare reform bill.
Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats and is positioning himself as a fiscal hawk on the issue, said he opposes any health care bill that includes a government-run insurance program - even if it includes a provision allowing states to opt out of the program, as Reid has said the Senate bill will.
"We're trying to do too much at once," Lieberman said. "To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don't think we need it now."
Asked about Lieberman’s threat to filibuster a final vote on the Reid plan, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said: "I haven't seen the report from Sen. Lieberman or why he's saying what he's saying. I think Democrats and Republicans alike will be held accountable by their constituents who want to see health care reform enacted this year."
Lieberman said that he'd vote against a public option plan "even with an opt-out because it still creates a whole new government entitlement program for which taxpayers will be on the line."
His comments confirmed that Reid is short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill out of the Senate, even after Reid included the opt-out provision. Several other moderate Democrats expressed skepticism at the proposal as well, but most of the wavering Democratic senators did not go as far as Lieberman Tuesday, saying they were waiting to see the details.
Lieberman did say he's "strongly inclined" to vote to proceed to the debate, but that he'll ultimately vote to block a floor vote on the bill if it isn't changed first. "I've told Sen. Reid that if the bill stays as it is now I will vote against cloture," he said.
"I can't see a way in which I could vote for cloture on any bill that contained a creation of a government-operated-run insurance company," Lieberman added. "It’s just asking for trouble - in the end, the taxpayers are going to pay and probably all people who have health insurance are going to see their premiums go up because there’s going to be cost shifting as there has been for Medicare and Medicaid."
ARES LAUNCH A SUCCESS
IS FREE SPEECH
Being Muzzled
In America?
Obama, who is sitting in the Oval Office right now promised to bring us "hope" and "change." Barack Obama is keeping at least one of those promises: change. But it's not the kind of change millions of you voted for.
This nation is being fundamentally transformed; Obama promised us in his own words he would transform it. What we didn't know was how and just how much.
One way this administration and its helpers are doing it is by systematically stripping away our right to free speech. Yes, Obama and other progressives profess to be the saviors of our First Amendment rights.
But when you pull back the curtain, you will see that free speech is being eradicated for controlled speech: Control over the media; control over the Internet; control over you.
One of the groups behind all this is Free Press.
I was struck first by their motto: "Free Press. Reform media. Transform democracy."
I didn't realize democracy needed transforming. But anyway, you'll remember that Free Press is the group pushing net neutrality, which would take the Internet out of the hands of private business and put it into the hands of government. That would create a level-playing field, which would destroy the free market that... created the Internet. But hey, you know how those evil corporations are: Always trying to be successful and make money. So evil.
Free Press is also behind SaveTheNews.org, which is "leading the search for new public policies to save journalism and to promote a robust free press in America."
Hmm, policies? Policies like a government bailout for journalism? How exactly does that "promote a robust free press"?
But on to Public Broadcasting. Executive director Josh Silver's position paper "Public Media's Moment" spells out to Obama how to take advantage: "The growing crisis facing commercial journalism and public media's unique ability to address it... makes such reform all the more urgent... you have a rare opportunity to achieve real change and reinvent public media."
Adding: "Just as the economic crisis has put an end to free market fundamentalism, so too should the failure of commercial media to adequately serve the public interest end the myth that government has no role in fulfilling society's information needs."
You see how the White House's "Fox isn't a real news organization" comments make more sense now, right?
Silver calls on Obama to create a White House commission on public media to provide policy recommendations. And how do we pay for it? Silver points out that currently only $400 million per year goes to public media. He recommends a media trust fund, starting with $50 billion, more money from Congress or - wait for it - a tax on electronics:
"A tax of 0.5 percent of the purchase price for every home electronic device: multimedia players, cable and satellite set-top boxes, video game systems, televisions, etc. those devices that entertain America would in turn be supporting programming to inform, educate and enlighten. And the fee would be paid by those consumers with the means to spend on new electronics."
Those consumers "with the means"? That means "rich" people. Higher taxes and this will not increase the deficit by one thin dime.
Step one: Shut down the speech they don't like. But, since nature abhors a vacuum, the question is: What do they fill the space with?
FORUM IS NOT AVAILABLE
The Forum is not available. I'm not sure if it will return.
When the servers were moved from California to Florida all of stevespages was trashed!
I have managed to get the main pages operational once again, but the database in the forum is totally fucked!
THIS WEEK'S
Football Predictions
(I bet you are thrilled!)
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DID YOU SET YOUR CLOCKS BACK?
ANOTHER
Failed
Presidency
Barack Obama is on track to have the most spectacularly failed presidency since Woodrow Wilson.
In the modern era, we've seen several failed presidencies--led by Jimmy Carter and LBJ. Failed presidents have one strong common trait-- they are repudiated, in the vernacular, spat out. Of course, LBJ wisely took the exit ramp early, avoiding a shove into oncoming traffic by his own party. Richard Nixon indeed resigned in disgrace, yet his reputation as a statesman has been partially restored by his triumphant overture to China.
George Bush Jr didn't fail so much as he was perceived to have been too much of a patrician while being uncomfortable with his more conservative allies. Yet George Bush Sr is still perceived as a man of uncommon decency, loyal to the enduring American character of rugged self-determination, free markets, and generosity. George W will eventually be treated more kindly by historians as one whose potential was squashed by his own compromise of conservative principles, in some ways repeating the mistakes of his father, while ignoring many lessons in executive leadership he should have learned at Harvard Business School. Of course George W could never quite overcome being dogged from the outset by half of the nation convinced he was electorally illegitimate -- thus aiding the resurgence of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.
But, Barack Obama is failing. Failing big. Failing fast. And failing everywhere: foreign policy, domestic initiatives, and most importantly, in forging connections with the American people. The incomparable Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal put her finger on it: He is failing because he has no understanding of the American people, and may indeed loathe them. Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard says he is failing because he has lost control of his message, and is overexposed. Clarice Feldman of American Thinker produced a dispositive commentary showing that Obama is failing because fundamentally he is neither smart nor articulate; his intellectual dishonesty is conspicuous by its audacity and lack of shame.
But, there is something more seriously wrong: How could Obama riding in on a wave of unprecedented promise and goodwill have forfeited his tenure and become a lame duck in six months? His poll ratings are in free fall. In generic balloting, the Republicans have now seized a five point advantage. This truly is unbelievable. What's going on?
No narrative. Obama doesn't have a narrative. No, not a narrative about himself. He has a self-narrative, much of it fabricated, cleverly disguised or written by someone else. But this self-narrative is isolated and doesn't connect with us. He doesn't have an American narrative that draws upon the rest of us. All successful presidents have a narrative about the American character that intersects with their own where they display a command of history and reveal an authenticity at the core of their personality that resonates in a positive endearing way with the majority of Americans. We admire those presidents whose narratives not only touch our own, but who seem stronger, wiser, and smarter than we are. Presidents we admire are aspirational peers, even those whose politics don't align exactly with our own: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, Reagan.
But not this jerk. It's not so much that he's a phony, knows nothing about economics, is historically illiterate, and woefully small minded for the size of the task-- all contributory of course. It's that he's not one of us. And whatever he is, his profile is fuzzy and devoid of content, like a cardboard cutout made from delaminated corrugated paper. Moreover, he doesn't command our respect and is unable to appeal to our own common sense. His notions of right and wrong are repugnant and how things work just don't add up. They are not existential. His descriptions of the world we live in don't make sense and don't correspond with our experience.
In the meantime, while we've been struggling to take a measurement of this man, he's dissed just about every one of us--financiers, energy producers, banks, insurance executives, police officers, doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, post office workers, and anybody else who has a non-green job. Expect Obama to lament at his last press conference in 2012: "For those of you I offended, I apologize. For those of you who were not offended, you just didn't give me enough time; if only I'd had a second term, I could have offended you too."
Mercifully, the Founders at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 devised a useful remedy for such a desperate state--staggered terms for both houses of the legislature and the executive. An equally abominable Congress can get voted out next year. With a new Congress, there's always hope of legislative gridlock until we vote for president again two short years after that.
Yes, small presidents do fail, Barack Obama among them. The coyotes howl but the wagon train keeps rolling along.
CLINIC SAYS NO-HAT POLICY APPLIES TO MUSLIM DOCTOR'S HEADSCARF
A Muslim doctor interviewing for a job at a suburban Dallas medical clinic says officials there told her she couldn't wear her headscarf in the workplace.
Dr. Hena Zaki of Plano, Texas, said Friday that she was shocked when CareNow officials told her that a no-hat policy extended to her hijab.
The 29-year-old doctor wants an apology and a change in CareNow's policy.
However, CareNow President Tim Miller says he sees nothing wrong with the policy and feels no need to apologize. In a statement, his company says it does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion or national origin in employment decisions.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations calls CareNow's policy "a blatant violation" of federal law.
(Hold your ground Tim Miller!
As for you, Hena Zaki, fuck off and go back to where your ancestors came from! We don't need you, doctors like you, of even citizens like you! And take that assholes at Council on American-Islamic Relations with you!)
MURDER NEEDS NO FOOTNOTE
Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act, which by some weird circumstance also includes hate crime legislation.
Now, I'm no fan of hate. Hate in all forms is ugly, even when performed by beautiful people (that's a shout out to Stephanie Von Pratt, who turned me down for my senior prom). But here's what I don't get: If I kill someone, I'm a killer. But hate crime law says that I also broke a new law, one that has to do with my thoughts when I committed said crime.
So it's a thought crime more than a hate crime. Which begs the question: How can a thought be against the law?
Now I can barely read, so I don't want to get too deep into this, but if I were to kill my co-host Bill Schulz, whether I hated him or not, that's a crime. But, if we find out later that he was a sequential hermaphrodite, one might say it could be a hate crime.
I don't get that at all.
What of terrorists? Does the fact that they hate us make their crimes worse? Not to them; punishment is meaningless. Which is the real truth about hate, anyway: Hate crime laws won't stop hate or crime. It's an after-the-fact gesture that does nothing to stop evil.
Even more, focusing on the killer's outlook diminishes the victim. It's no longer Bill Schulz is dead, but "Bill Schulz, the sequential hermaphrodite, is dead."
Humanity should come before identity. We need to see people as people, not as part of groups. We know bigotry is bad. But murder in any form is so substantially worse, that it needs no footnote.
LET’S KILL ALL THE TOMATOES!
If we can correctly guess anything about the nature of the leftist mind, it’s that its neurons, in varying degrees, are rife with chemicals that give rise to the love of power, the love of being ruled, the love of hypocrisy, and the love of neurotic guilt - a quadruplet that explains perverse behaviors that leftists always characterize as resulting from a triumph of reason.
For example, when American liberals hear Shakespeare’s character say that to create a utopian society, "The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers," they don't cheer a person who reveals an admirable thoughtfulness regarding what "Utopia" means.
Rather, liberals claim reason impels them to hiss, "Dick the Butcher is a racist, fascist troglodyte - like every member of today’s tort reform loving mob!"
To be honest about it, leftist perversity always gets the "let’s kill" thing wrong.
Such is the case regarding the bureaucrats of the Swedish National Food Administration, who, in their zeal to reduce Sweden’s "carbon footprint," are trying to convince Swedes to do a lot of perfectly stupid killing.
What is this all about? Well, to understand it, one first needs to know that according to Elisabeth Rosenthal (NY Times), all Swedes may soon be confronted with new labels that list "the carbon dioxide emissions associated with the production of foods, from whole wheat pasta to fast food burgers."
To give us an idea of what the labels look like, Rosenthal explains that a set of guinea pig Swedish shoppers are already being "flummoxed" by the following pronouncement on a box of oatmeal (which this author has restated in the English system).
"Climate declared: 14 ounces CO2 per pound of product."
Now, Swedes may be bewildered by the message, but Americans immediately perceive both its meaning and intent:
The information informs shoppers that nearly a pound of carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere to produce a pound of the oatmeal.
Its purpose is to encourage Swedes to do their darnedest to kill one food and purchase another that is more carbon friendly -price be damned.
As sensible people will guess, the real plan is eventually to ditch the program’s Obama-sized portion of hope and replace it with governmental force that kills food choices.
But as things now stand, the Food Administration is simply counting on obedient subjects of the Swedish nanny state to love the most environmentally correct foods.
Yes, love them - even if, for example, the stuff has the taste and texture of stable bedding and is infinitely less nutritious than the steelcut havremjöl, which, topped with environmentally sinful sugar and banana and eaten for frukost on many a frozen morning, has, since childhood, warmed the little that remains of the Swedish heart and soul.
Swedes will also have to make other wrenching decisions as they turn from their shopping lists to read from "proposed new dietary guidelines" that take the environment into account.
Yes, every Swedish man and kvinna will be faced with deciding whether to stick with old favorites or obey bureaucrats who recommend eating carrots instead of greenhouse-grown tomatoes or beans in place of red meat.
"Never happen in the United States," somebody might say, "because Carol M. Browner, Obama’s Energy Coordinator/Global Warming Czar, doesn't have the stomach to attempt laying a culinary guilt trip on Americans."
Too bad Mr./Ms. Somebody is fixated on the stomach because Czar Browner certainly has the mind for the job as revealed by Stephen Dinan (Washington Times) when he informed us that as soon as Barack Obama chose her for the post, her name disappeared from websites of a number of organizations.
Foremost among those groups is the Commission for a Sustainable World Society, a subsidiary of Socialist International that, according to Dinan, promotes the idea of "global governance" aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions - the economy be damned.
Yes, like every other good liberal, Ms. Browner would love to kill tomatoes and steak in favor of springing into life dinners of carrots and beans, all in the name of energy independence and a clean environment.
We know this to be true because during the Election of ’08, T. Boone Pickens labored as hard as he could on behalf of a plan that eschews killing tomatoes to build a bridge to America’s independent, environmentally sound energy future by erecting electricity producing windmills from North Dakota to Texas and drilling vigorously for natural gas on American soil.
During the campaign, Pickens was optimistic that liberals understood and would act upon his practicable proposal.
But soon after Obama assumed office, T. Boone learned that he who lives upon hope in liberalism will die worse than by fasting as liberals conveniently shoved him and his plan into the vortex of the common sense sucking, We the People devouring black hole that is politics in Washington, DC.
No, liberals won't support practical, private sector plans that move toward achieving an energy independent, environmentally healthful America.
Neither will members of the "wealthiest Democratic group" (Pew Research) reach into their own deep pockets to cover millions of liberal rooftops with photovoltaic systems, a technology currently too costly for most Americans.
But in their insatiable pursuit of power, liberals will connive mightily to institute abominations such as "Cap and Trade," a contrivance so mad Rube Goldberg couldn't even imagine it but one nevertheless beloved by partners at Goldman Sachs as well as accountants at the DNC and IRS.
They will continue to jet fuel all the way to Ulan Bator for a vacation or to Tierra del Fuego to attend a conference on "Reducing CO2 Emissions."
And having learned that Swedes are feeling guilty when they order their favorite burger, they will surely try to create a National Food Administration that issues "environmentally sensible" National Dietary Guidelines.
After all, according to the bible of the Liberal Church, wallowing in neurotic guilt or inducing it in others is one of the four main loves that make life worth living.
OBAMA STILL MASTERBATING ABOUT TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN!
The asshole living (part time) in the White House fired the military leaders in the gulf and appointed his "favorites".
Then he asked them to submit a report as to what is required to "win" the war.
When they submitted their report the "supposed president" let it lay on his desk for 2 months before looking at it!
When confronted with the fact that he was ignoring the military's needs he said he would make his decision after the Afghan run-off election.
Meanwhile, because we don't have enough troops or the equipment they need over there, September and October set records for the most U.S. military people killed!
Now the simple son of a bitch has said he will probably make a decision in a few weeks, after he returns from his trip to Asia!
How many more Americans are going to be killed and wounded because this half-assed bastard refuses to give them what they need ... and NOT what he "thinks" is appropriate?
What the fuck does he know about military or appropriate? This simple-minded bastard was never even a Boy Scout, and has never held a job where he had to make a decision!
ENOUGH IS FUCKING ENOUGH!
GOP SENATORS
To Boycott
Climate bill hearings
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is engaged in public partisan warfare over a climate bill, a battle that foreshadows the deep struggle the Obama administration will face as Democrats attempt to push a version of the sweeping legislation through the Senate.
Chairwoman Barbara Boxer of California announced last week that she will proceed with a markup of the bill beginning Tuesday, even though all seven Republicans on the committee say they plan to boycott the proceedings.
Republicans say that EPW rules prohibit Boxer from holding a markup without two Republicans present, but Boxer aides indicated on Sunday that they still planned to attempt the hearing.
"Sen. Boxer has said that she will use all the tools at her disposal to move forward," said a Boxer aide.
The boycott, led by the committee’s two most moderate Republicans, Sens. George Voinovich of Ohio and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, illustrates the difficulty for Democrats in getting significant bipartisan backing for their climate bill - even among GOP lawmakers who support taking action to combat climate change.
"I'm willing to work with the people on the other side of the aisle. But if you jam this thing through here, it’s not going to be good," Voinovich said on Thursday.
The Obama administration has so far been unable to attract significant Republican backing for major initiatives like health care and the economic stimulus package.
On climate, the two parties are battling over a handful of Republicans who might support a bill, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Dick Lugar of Indiana and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine.
Republican leaders see cap and trade as an issue that could severely hurt Democratic chances in the midterm elections, and they're pressuring their members to vote against the bill to keep their caucus as united as possible.
Democrats may need Republican votes to pass a bill to offset possible losses within their own party. Prominent moderate Democrats such as Sens. Max Baucus of Montana, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota have raised a long list of concerns about the bill. And at least some Democratic supporters expect to lose the votes of Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.
Nelson said on Friday that a cap-and-trade bill could not pass the Senate this Congress.
"I haven't been able to sell that argument to my farmers, and I don't think they're going to buy it from anybody else," Nelson told CNBC.
Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry is working with South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham to build GOP support for the legislation by dangling provisions like increased domestic oil exploration and expanded use of nuclear power.
But so far, other Republicans have yet to voice strong support for a climate bill.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has co-sponsored several versions of his 2003 climate bill, has made clear that it will be difficult for him to support the Kerry-Boxer proposal without significantly greater commitments on nuclear power.
McCain told POLITICO that he’s spoken with Kerry about his requirements, and the Democrat is "not ready to do that."
Alexander has vocally opposed Boxer’s legislation - a stance some Democratic aides attribute to his position in the Republican leadership. Although he is pushing hard for electric cars, expanded nuclear power and renewable energy, Alexander believes the Kerry-Boxer bill will hurt economic growth.
Voinovich has spent months requesting additional analysis of the bill. His reputation for bipartisan deal making and concerns about climate change had raised hopes that the retiring senator could be in play. But his aides say it is unlikely that he'll be able to support this legislation, blaming his opposition on a fast-tracked committee procedure.
"These guys wanted to engage in the process," said a Voinovich aide. "That’s the big folly on Boxer’s part. She had an opportunity to reach across the aisle to compromise and deal with guys like Voinovich. That could have brought them along."
But Boxer says that she spoke with both Alexander and Voinovich several months ago, and they were unwilling to work with her on the bill. She dismissed the Republican opposition as political maneuvering used to delay Senate action.
Last year, she partnered with Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner, who has since retired, to pass climate legislation through the committee.
"I had a partner in John Warner, but I have nobody else," said Boxer. "These Republicans on this committee are really more of the party of no. They are not interested in tackling this problem at all."
The seven Republicans on the committee met late Thursday night on the Senate floor and agreed to boycott the markup hearing. They want a more thorough analysis of the legislation to be completed by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Voinovich first requested an EPA analysis of the House climate bill after it passed in late June, but he says he was turned down because the agency wanted to wait until the Senate bill was released.
To put pressure on the agency, Voinovich placed a hold on the nomination of Robert Perciasepe, the White House’s nominee for the No. 2 position at the EPA.
The agency released a short analysis of the bill last week and has agreed to run a fuller study, a process that Administrator Lisa Jackson said in committee hearings on Tuesday will take at least five weeks.
Voinovich and the other Republicans would like Boxer to wait at least that long.
Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the committee, cited the two years of negotiations over former President George W. Bush’s Clear Skies initiative, when he says Republicans postponed the markup several times as Democrats pushed for more information. Inhofe also struggled to get enough support for the legislation during that period, as Republicans then held a very narrow margin on the committee.
"That was a very deliberative process, and I think we need to be somewhat deliberative," he said.
But Boxer noted that the EPA conducted a more thorough analysis of the House bill and her legislation borrows heavily from that legislation.
"Their objections don't pass the smell test," she said. "It seems to me they just want to delay this and delay it so we don't make progress."
(Just what the hell do the Republicans think they will accomplish?
You do not "win a battle" by hiding from it! You face it like a man and beat the crap out of the opposition!
But then again, Republicans today aren't anywhere like the republicans of yesterday!!!)
'WALKING EAGLE'
Barack Obama was invited to address a major gathering of the American Indian Nation in upstate New York.
HE spoke for almost an hour on HIS future plans for increasing every Native American's present standard of living, since HE has now become the President.
HE referred to his career as a Senator, how HE had signed 'YES' for every Indian issue that came to HIS desk for approval. Although Obama was vague on the details of HIS plan, HE seemed most enthusiastic about HIS future ideas for helping HIS 'red sisters and brothers'.
At the conclusion of his speech, the Tribes presented Obama with a plaque inscribed with his new Indian name - "Walking Eagle". Obama then departed in HIS motorcade, waving to the crowds.
A news reporter later inquired, of the group of chiefs, how they came to select the new name they had given to Obama. They explained that "Walking Eagle" is the name given to a bird so full of shit it can no longer fly.
GUESS WHO IS AHEAD OF YOU TO GET THE H1N1 VACCINE
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are unhappy that detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility will get the H1N1 vaccine before many Americans.
Missouri Republican Congressman Roy Blunt says: "It's outrageous that in Missouri, expectant mothers, children and others vulnerable to the H1N1 virus do not have access to the vaccine and our tax dollars are funding vaccines for accused terrorists detained at Gitmo."
Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak wrote to Army Secretary John McHugh: "As long as Americans must wait to receive the vaccine, the detainees in Guantanamo Bay should not be given preferential treatment."
The military says the detainees are included in the priority group because prison populations are at a higher risk of getting the flu.
(Hummm ... it's a shame that the H1N1 vaccine doesn't come in suppository form ... with barbed-wire wrapping to insure they don't slip out. After all, we do want these poor misunderstood creatures of Allah to receive the full benefit of the vaccine!)
AMERICANS
Offended By
The American Flag?
This past week, a 20-year-old employee at a Home Depot in West Palm Beach was reportedly fired because he wore a button that said: "One nation, under God, indivisible" -- a quote from the Pledge of Allegiance.
Then in Massachusetts, a fitness center displayed a large American flag and some patrons of the fitness center complained that the flag was offensive because it might be construed as being a Christian symbol. I've heard it all now. To his credit, the owner of the fitness center decided that the flag would stay and the members who were offended would have to go.
Thank God for him!
The total idiots who didn't want to conduct their workouts in the presence of the American flag need more than help to get their bodies in shape. They need to get rid of some of the fat in their head and build up some muscle in their brains.
If the American flag offends people in America, then I suggest that those people find a flag they like better and take the next flight one way to where that flag flies. I'd actually be in favor of taking the bailout and stimulus money the government wants to spend and use it to stimulate people who hate our flag to bail out in the country of their choice.
It's been said, "you can't cure being stupid," and even government health care won't fix it. To those who don't like what the American flag represents, I have to wonder what is it about freedom that you find offensive?
That flag represents the sacrifice of thousands of men and women who have put on a uniform and given their very lives to empower us to know freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and freedom of assembly. I don't hate that flag, I'm grateful for it and what it represents. I proudly pledge my allegiance to that flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
For those who hold it in contempt, I hope you do more than leave the gym; I really hope you leave the country and stop taking up space in a country that is big enough to handle your small mind, but wouldn't want to burden you with having to respect your freedom and the men and women of our military who died to give it to you.
Frankly, it would be easier to get rid of you than the flag and much better for the country.
(If you don't like the American flag, if you don't like the American anthem, if you don't like America ... GET THE FUCK OUT!)
THE GENDER STUDIES RACKET
DePaul students and faculty are up in hairy underarms over the denial of tenure to Melissa Bradshaw, a professor of women's and gender studies.
If you don't know what tenure is, it's a guaranteed lifetime job. And in case you don't know what "gender studies" is, it's horse poop.
So here we have an awesome collision of two idiotic practices: Tenure, which allows professors to pursue ideas that would fail in a world of measurable achievement, and gender studies, where earnest types angrily analyze the sexes, usually while wearing panties made from hemp.
Gender feminists believe being female is a social construct - internal sex organs be damned - and all life amounts to is a struggle between the powerless female against evil, patriarchal man.
In short, if I just said "moogie-bloogie-toogie," it would have made more sense.
See, gender studies is a racket. People only enroll in it to teach it. In that sense, it's a lot like joining Amway, but without the delightful products. And because gender studies doesn't help you do anything else but teach gender studies, no wonder tenure is so vital.
The sad thing is that the world really needs gender studies, but a real version. Men don't get women and women don't get men. Rather than spending so much time deconstructing power myths, we should be teaching the sexes how to play nice. Do that and you not only deserve tenure, but also some excellent toiletries.
If you'd like me to stop by, I have some anti-aging creams I'd love to show you. You'll like them so much, I bet you'll want to sell them yourself.
IS CHRISTMAS STILL DECEMBER 25TH?
When I was growing-up in Atlantic Highlands, N.J., all the Ricciardellis got together for holiday meals. All 90 of us (at least on July 4th ... a combination of the birth of both our grandmother and our adopted country)!
Naturally Christmas was the biggest holiday for my family, and the guest lists shrunk to around 9 parties of 10 guests each.
The second biggest holiday was Thanksgiving. And on Thanksgiving morning, before all the guests arrived, the Ricciardelli kids were all gathered in front of their TVs watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, waiting for that magic moment when the last float passed in front the Macy's store.
It was Santa! And the "official" beginning of the Christmas season. Now we could swamp our parents with our wish lists, and stores could put up their Christmas displays, and the Christmas sales would begin.
What a wonderful time it was.
Now I have to wonder ... "What the fuck happened?"
It seems that the Christmas advertising and sale season moved from Thanksgiving to Halloween.
Next it moved from Halloween to Columbus Day.
And this year I actually saw Christmas displays and advertisements on September 8th, the Tuesday after Memorial Day!
To me at least, this is fucking stupid! For two reasons.
The first is that none of the Christmas announcements or displays of 2009 contain, or are not allowed to contain, any religious theme, so far!
The second is that the entire reason for Christmas is NOT increased sales. It is supposed to be a time of joy, happiness, peace and love. And for us Christians, the celebration of Christ's birth!
A 4-month-long "Christmas Season" is pure bullshit!
And personally I will NOT spend one cent at any business that advertises Christmas before Santa's float passes in front of Macy's (yes, I still watch the parade).
IS IT AN INDICATION OF 2010 and 2012?
It appears that the productive voters have made a decision!
They don't like what has been happening for the past 11 months and are ready to make changes!
Another state has voted down the gay marriage law! (There are 31 states that supposedly had laws protecting gay marriage, and now all 31 have voted them down when presented to the voters!)
And it appears that all Democrats running for an elected position were defeated by conservative candidates!!
Way back when JFK was running for president the Democrats had a "theme song" ... "Happy Days Are Here Again" ... seems that the productive American voters are now singing that song...
OBAMA WON'T GET
Health Care Bill
In 2009
Senior Congressional Democrats told ABC News today it is highly unlikely that a health care reform bill will be completed this year, just a week after President Barack Obama declared he was "absolutely confident" he'll be able to sign one by then.
"Getting this done by the by the end of the year is a no-go," a senior Democratic leadership aide told ABC News. Two other key Congressional Democrats also told ABC News the same thing.
This may come as an unwelcome surprise for the White House, where officials from the president on down have repeatedly said the health care bill would be signed into law by the end of the year.
"I am absolutely confident that we are going to get health care done by the end of this year, and Nancy Pelosi is just as confident," Obama said Oct. 27 at a fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi may still be confident - and her spokesman Brendan Daly said today, "We are going to get our part done" - but the reason for the delay can be found in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has yet to release the bill he eventually plans to bring to the Senate floor. Reid is still waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to come up with an estimated cost of several possible variations of his bill before deciding which one to introduce in the Senate.
That cost estimate, Democrats tell ABC News, is not expected until next week.
Asked directly by ABC News, "Will you pass health care reform this year?" Reid pointedly did not answer "yes."
Instead, he replied, "We are not going to be bound by any timetables," adding, "We are going to do this as quickly as we can."
The delay is causing some frustration among Reid's fellow Democrats, but Reid said of his colleagues, "They want us to do this the right way, not the fast way."
After Reid made his comments, his spokesman said the goal remains getting a health care bill passed by the end of the year.
"Our goals remain unchanged," Reid spokesman Jim Manley said. "We want to get health insurance reform done this year, and we have unprecedented momentum to achieve that."
The White House has pushed hard to get a bill passed this year, getting it done before the beginning of the Congressional campaign season. But the delay in the Senate will almost certainly push the health care debate into 2010.
The White House has tried to avoid that because passing major legislation in a Congressional election year is considered more difficult.
The best hope, Congressional Democrats now say, is for Democrats to pass Senate and House versions of the health care bill by the end of the year, pushing off House-Senate negotiations for a final bill until January.
(Hopefully Obama will not get anything he wants until he is out of office!
He has already caused enough damage to America in the 11 months he has been operating out of the White House.
And ... I still want to see a copy of his REAL birth certificate and transcripts of all his educational experiences!)
ISN'T IT REMARKABLE?
The only automobile manufacturer to actually show a profit in the last quarter is Ford?
And the only automobile manufacture that told Obama and his buddies to go fuck themselves when they insisted that Ford take a multi-billion-dollar-bail-out?
Once again, it has been proven that if left to their own devices American corporations can turn things around and increase their security without the "help" of big government!
Once again, the government has proven that they have no idea how to run a business!
Prior to Ford's announcement the government has managed to trash AMTRAK (which it has been supporting for over 30 years and has never shown a profit), the postal service which now raises rate on a yearly basis and claims to be still loosing money, and both GM and Chrysler which have declared losses even after receiving billions of dollars in bail-out money!
Other "successes" of the current government include refusing to give Social Security recipients a COLA this year, but managed to give themselves a very healthy raise!
The government has castrated our military but cutting funding on equipment and supplies.
The government has managed to "appoint" a host of "czars", many of which are felons, to run the country with no responsibility to Congress of the American people.
The government has bowed in subservience to raghead warlords and chiefs.
The government has apologized for being responsible for every ill which every country in the world faces.
The government has managed to piss-off the leaders of our most trusted, and needed, allies, while sucking-up to leaders of terror-nations and bands of rogue terrorists.
Well, the American Public Worm is turning ... it is evidenced by the election results of November 3rd, and will be further realized in the general elections of 2010 and 2012.
MY CHRISTMAS SHOPPING STORES ARE GETTING RARE!
If you read yesterday's opinion you will notice that I have refused to shop at any store that advertises or display Christmas before Thanksgiving.
Well, it appears that I have severely limited my options!
So far Sears, Kmart, WalMart, Lowe's, Overstock ... WHAT? OVERSTOCK?!?!
I just can't ignore Overstock. Not that I have ever purchased anything from them, or will ever purchase anything from them, but they showed their old Christmas commercial last night ... the one with the "Big O Lady" singing a Christmas song.
Anyone who has been here for awhile will remember that I have this really great fantasy about her and me ...
I sill can't understand why they quit using her in their ads ... other than 95% of the female population is extremely jealous!
UNEMPLOYMENT FLIM-FLAM
In January 2009, as Obama unveiled his plans for economic recovery, he assured the Congress and the American people that, if we would just agree to set up a $787 billion slush fund for him to play with, he would fix our sick economy and that the unemployment rate would never exceed 8 percent. With a straight face, and with words that came straight from his teleprompter, he vowed that he would accomplish something that no man, and no government, has ever accomplished before: he would halt the downward spiral of the economy and stimulate economic growth, and he would do it all with borrowed money.
Democrats in Congress gave him what he asked for. By June 2009, just five months later, the unemployment rate was at 9.5 percent, and by mid-October it stood at 9.8 percent, the highest level since 1940 during the Roosevelt Administration. But what is most curious about current discussions of our economic plight is that no one, Democrat or Republican, ever seems to mention one of the greatest contributing factors to unemployment… the minimum wage.
The first attempt at establishing a minimum hourly wage occurred in 1933, during the early years of the Great Depression, when Roosevelt’s National Industrial Recovery Act set a minimum wage standard of $0.25 per hour. However, in a 1935 court decision (Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States), the United States Supreme Court found the act to be unconstitutional. The Roosevelt Administration made a second attempt in 1938 with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. The minimum wage was again set at $0.25 per hour and that legislation has withstood the test of time.
Whether Democrats conceived the idea of a minimum wage as an economic tool with which to buy the votes of those at the bottom rung of the economic ladder, or if the potential political benefits occurred to them as an afterthought, we may never know. What we do know is that, since its inception, the minimum wage has been a political football, a major factor in business economics and government social engineering.
Contrary to opinions on the political left, the minimum wage was never intended to provide a living wage for a head of household; its purpose was to provide a wage floor, preventing unskilled and entry-level workers from being exploited unfairly by unscrupulous employers.
However, it did not take long for the leaders of organized labor to figure out that, by exerting constant upward pressure on the minimum wage, the "trickle-up" effect on the higher wage brackets made non-economic wage demands in the skilled trades much easier to sell. And while liberals and labor leaders insist that the minimum wage has little or no impact on overall employment, they tend to ignore the impact of the minimum wage on the availability of entry-level jobs… the tens of millions of jobs at which teenagers and unskilled workers begin to learn the work ethic and the economic realities of the capitalist system.
Most liberal apologists for "progressive" social engineering have claimed that increases in the minimum wage have little, if any, effect on overall employment statistics. However, in spite of what leftists may say, numerous studies show that increases in the minimum wage do have a significant impact on overall employment… particularly on the availability of entry-level jobs.
In a study titled, "The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Covered Labor Demand," Dr. Walter J. Wessels of North Carolina State University, a leading expert in labor-management relations, agrees with most studies on the subject. His study finds that, "for every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, overall employment decreases by 0 to 2 percent. It finds a stronger effect for covered (entry level) employment: a decrease in covered employment ranging from 4 percent to 5 percent."
The U.S. national minimum wage was held at $5.15 per hour from 1997 until 2007, perhaps because even liberal politicians were finally willing to admit, grudgingly, that businessmen, especially small business owners, must look very closely at their overall labor costs and that an increase of $0.75 or $1.00 per hour in the minimum wage could have a major impact on the number of minimum wage jobs that a given employer might have available.
However, after gaining control of both houses of Congress in 2006, Democrats made a major push in 2007 for the largest increase in the minimum wage in many decades, a forty percent increase from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour. And although the effort was strongly opposed by Republicans and by the Bush Administration, on the grounds that such a large increase would have a damaging impact on an already faltering economy, congressional Democrats attached the minimum wage increase to an Iraq War funding measure and the president was forced to sign it.
The minimum wage went from $5.15 per hour to $5.85 per hour in July 2007, from $5.85 to $6.55 in July 2008, and from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour on July 24, 2009. Bearing in mind that increases in the unemployment rate lag increases in the minimum wage by a year or more, a comparison between the two shows a clear corollary:
1999 - Minimum Wage: $5.15 per hour - Unemployment Rate: 4.2 percent
2000 - Minimum Wage: $5.15 per hour - Unemployment Rate: 4.0 percent
2001 - Minimum Wage: $5.15 per hour - Unemployment Rate: 4.7 percent
2002 - Minimum Wage: $5.15 per hour - Unemployment Rate: 5.8 percent
2003 - Minimum Wage: $5.15 per hour - Unemployment Rate: 6.0 percent
2004 - Minimum Wage: $5.15 per hour - Unemployment Rate: 5.5 percent
2005 - Minimum Wage: $5.15 per hour - Unemployment Rate: 5.1 percent
2006 - Minimum Wage: $5.15 per hour - Unemployment Rate: 4.6 percent
2007 - Minimum Wage: $5.85 per hour - Unemployment Rate: 4.6 percent
2008 - Minimum Wage: $6.55 per hour - Unemployment Rate: 5.7 percent
2009 - Minimum Wage: $7.25 per hour - Unemployment Rate: 9.8 percent
This is not to suggest that the doubling of the unemployment rate from 4.6 percent to 9.8 percent over a three year period is all due to a forty percent increase in the minimum wage. However, Professor Wessels’ findings would suggest that a forty percent increase in the minimum wage would result in the loss of as many as 12.3 million jobs in a civilian workforce of some 154.5 million over a three year period.
But the greatest damage is done in the number of jobs that are never created because of the significant increase in the minimum wage. Prof. Wessels suggests a 4-5 percent decrease in the number of available minimum wage jobs for each ten percent increase in the minimum wage.
Needless to say, it is nearly as problematic to estimate the number of jobs that were never created because of a forty percent increase in the minimum wage, as it is for Obama to take credit for the number of jobs saved by hundreds of billions of dollars of mostly wasted federal spending. These are things that no one can possibly know, or even estimate with any degree of certainty.
What is important for the American people to understand as we approach the 2010 mid-term elections is that the concern over joblessness shown by the Obama Administration and their Democratic friends in Congress is pure "flim-flam." Their unemployment concerns cannot be taken seriously when the Democratic Party and Democratic administrations have an unbroken record for killing millions of jobs through uneconomic increases in the minimum wage.
When teenagers can't find summer jobs to save money for college, and when young married couples need second jobs to make ends meet, but can't find them because they've been killed off by uneconomic, politically motivated, increases in the minimum wage, they should know where to place the blame.
FORT HOOD, TEXAS
12 KILLED
31 WOUNDED
Here is what is known at this time.
A U.S. Army Major, who has announced his opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for many months received orders deploying him to that area.
He then assembled several other Army troops and proceeded to shoot those members of the Army who served under his command, and were also scheduled to deploy to the Gulf.
The name of the Major was Malik Nadal Hasan, and he was killed by civilian police during his terror rage.
The names of the arrested suspected co-terrorists has been withheld, as has the names of the killed and wounded.
Obama, naturally, took this event for a "press conference" and called the shooting a "horrific outburst of violence" on members of the nation's armed forces. "It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an army base on American soil. My staff and my cabinet will find out who is responsible for this!"
(Hey, Obama ... isn't that the job of the Army? But, then again, you wouldn't know because even though you are the "Cucumber-In-Chief" you never served in the military and have no idea of what the military really does!)
But, as long as we are looking to place the blame, let's place it where it belongs.
On the Post commander! He was aware of the Major's anti-war sentiments and of his public outbursts against the war and his deployment.
(Those of us who remember, remember Sgt. Asan Akbar, a muslim American soldier, who ran through his camp in 2003 in the Gulf, and lobbed grenades and fired his M4 carbine into three tents that housed officers, killing 1 and wounding 12.
Maybe, just maybe, it is about time to investigate into muslims who want to join the American forces a little deeper?)
UDATE
The Army announced that the shooter acted alone and that the three other soldiers questioned were cleared and released.
But the two most startling announcements were that the civilian cop who killed the shooter, and was reported as dead, is in fact alive and doing well in the hospital.
The second fact released by the Army is that the shooter, Malik Nadal Hasan, is also alive in the hospital!
As an aside, it was announced that the victims were not targeted. They were unknown to the shooter and were just unlucky in being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Still, there should be a serious investigation into why this shooter was not stopped, since he had been extremely vocal in his opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both to his fellow officers, in an Internet blog, and even to his superiors for at least the past 6 months!!
DEMOCRATS' PLAN
To Help 'Sick'
Requires 6-month wait!
You're afraid your cancer is back, and a health insurance company just turned you down.
Under the health care bills in Congress, you could apply for coverage through a new high-risk pool that Barack Obama promises would immediately start serving patients with pre-existing medical problems.
Wait a second. Read the fine print. You may have to be uninsured for six months to qualify.
"If you are a cancer patient and have cancer now, you can't wait six months to go into a plan because your condition can go from bad to death," said Stephen Finan, a policy expert with the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. He called the waiting period in the Senate bill "unacceptable."
Advocates for people with serious health problems, as well as some insurance experts, are raising questions about one of the most important upfront benefits in the Democratic health care legislation: a high-risk pool for the medically uninsurable.
Obama proposed the pool in his September health care speech to Congress. Intended to serve the most vulnerable as a temporary fail-safe, it would stay in place until 2013. That's when insurance companies would be banned from denying coverage because of medical problems.
Government subsidies to make coverage more affordable for millions of uninsured would also start that year.
Now, concerns are being raised about the design of the high-risk pools. In addition to the six-month wait, there's a more fundamental issue - whether $5 billion set aside for the three-year program is enough. The money would be used to help people in poor health pay premiums.
Obama credits his Republican presidential rival, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, for the risk-pools idea. But when the GOP candidate proposed it in 2008, the estimated cost was $7 billion to $10 billion a year.
The six-month wait is in the health care bill the Senate Finance Committee approved last month. To qualify for the pool, patients must be turned down for coverage because of a pre-existing condition and uninsured for at least six months.
"If you are somebody with cancer or a heart condition who needs immediate coverage and immediate treatment, that's not very helpful," said Karen Pollitz, a Georgetown University health policy professor.
Senate Finance staffers say the restriction is meant to prevent people switching from more expensive coverage to take advantage of government assistance.
But the House health care bill unveiled last week by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., doesn't include a waiting period. Instead, it would require insurance plans who "dump" seriously ill patients to repay the federal pool. "The House provision will provide immediate relief for people with high-risk conditions who have no alternative for coverage," said Finan.
It may be easier to fix the waiting period than the financing.
Both the House and the Senate Finance bills set aside $5 billion for the pools.
"It doesn't seem like it's near enough money," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was a top domestic policy adviser for McCain. The McCain campaign ultimately concluded it could take as much as $20 billion a year to properly run risk pools, he said. The White House says McCain's proposal was more elaborate and not directly comparable to Obama's.
If the Democrats' risk pool starts running out of money, the government may have to start a waiting list, raise premiums or take other unpopular measures. Congress could be asked for a bailout.
Several independent experts say concerns about the financing are valid.
"It would seem that ($5 billion) is going to be small relative to the need," said Thomas Buchmueller, a University of Michigan business professor.
Some 30 states now have risk pools for those who can't get health insurance on the private market, covering about 200,000 people at a cost of around $1 billion a year.
"This is clearly not going to be enough money to cover everybody," said Pollitz.
Insurance expert John Bertko, a visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution, said it may be possible to stretch the $5 billion, but there's a small margin for error.
Bertko said his "back of the envelope" math suggests there are about 1 million uninsured Americans in poor health, or five times the number currently covered by state high-risk pools. If all of them signed up for the new federal pool, it would burn through the $5 billion in a year.
However, people eligible for government benefits often fail to sign up. And if only one-third were to enroll, the budget could work.
That's cutting it close. "No doubt about that," said Bertko.
(What the hell? If you are sick and need insurance ... too fucking bad?!?!
Wait for 6 months to pass from the time you applied for insurance, and if you are still alive, you might receive limited coverage?
But if you are an illegal alien, you and your whole family has complete coverage immediately ... at no cost!
Wadda buncha fuckin' morons!!)
FORCE CONGRESS ONTO GOVERNMENT HEALTH INSURANCE PLAN
Republican Rep. Joe Wilson proposed an amendment Wednesday that would force all members of Congress to receive health insurance coverage through the government-run plan proposed in the House's reform bill.
Though Republicans oppose the so-called "public option," the South Carolina gadfly -- who gained notoriety for shouting "you lie" at President Obama during his address to Congress two months ago -- is proposing the requirement to draw attention to what he sees as the plan's flaws.
"They know the government-run option will not be in the interest of the American people, either individually or for the American citizens at large," Wilson said Wednesday, arguing that's the reason Congress does not require its members to sign up.
The current House health care legislation states that members of Congress "may enroll" in the public plan. Wilson wants that changed to "must enroll."
"If the public option is good enough for the American people, then it's certainly good enough for Congress," Wilson said. "If this government-run plan is so good, why don't members of Congress take the plan?"
House Democrats have published their final adjustments to the 1,900-page health care bill, starting a 72-hour clock before the bill comes to the floor.
No Republicans have come forward in support of the bill, but Democrats have a strong enough majority to pass the bill as long as they can resolve intra-party disputes.
(Sounds good to me! Force the bastards to have the same insurance they want to sell to the American public!
And while they are at it ... let's also put a cap on their salary and expenses, as well as eliminate their "retirement pay" after a stinking 2 to 4 years of "service"!
Oh, and no more free postage and personal phone service, no more "pool cars", no more perks that the American public cannot cash-in on!)
WELFARE PEOPLE GET FREE CELLPHONES AND MINUTES!!!
Lifeline Assistance is part of a program that was created by the government to provide discounted or free telephone service to income-eligible consumers. To help bring you this important benefit, SafeLink Wireless is proud to offer Lifeline Service. Through our Lifeline Service you will receive FREE cellular service, a FREE cell phone, and FREE minutes every month! SafeLink Wireless Service does not cost anything - there are no contracts, no recurring fees and no monthly charges.
Any minutes you do not use will roll-over. Features such as caller ID, call waiting and voicemail are all also included with your service. If you need additional minutes, you can buy TracFone Airtime Cards at any TracFone retailer Walmart, Walgreens, Family Dollar, etc). SafeLink Airtime Cards will be available soon.
The process to qualify for Lifeline Service depends on the State you live in. In general, you may qualify if...
You already participate in other State or Federal assistance program such as Welfare, Federal Public Housing Assistance, Food Stamps and Medicaid.
OR
Your total household income is at or below 135% of the poverty guidelines set by your State and/or the Federal Government.
AND
No one in your household currently receives Lifeline Service through another phone carrier.
You have a valid United States postal address. In order for us to ship you your free phone you must live at a residence that can receive mail from the US Post Office. Sorry, but P.O. Boxes cannot be accepted.
In addition to meeting the guidelines above you will also be required to provide proof of your participation in an assistance program, or proof of your income level.
(Another Obama gift to his parasitic people!)
OBAMA'S
Frightening Insensitivity
Following shooting
Obama didn't wait long after Tuesday's devastating elections to give critics another reason to question his leadership, but this time the subject matter was more grim than a pair of governorships.
After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that Obama would speak about the incident prior to a previously scheduled appearance. At about 5 p.m., cable stations went to Obama. The situation called for not only his trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective.
But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light Obama making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian affairs, Obama thanked various staffers and offered a "shout-out" to "Dr. Joe Medicine Crow - that Congressional Medal of Honor winner." Three minutes in, Obama spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms. Who is advising him?
Anyone at home aware of the major news story of the previous hours had to have been stunned. An incident like this requires a scrapping of the early light banter. Obama should apologize for the tone of his remarks, explain what has happened, express sympathy for those slain and appeal for calm and patience until all the facts are in. That's the least that should occur.
Indeed, an argument could be made that Obama should have canceled the Indian event, out of respect for people having been murdered at an Army post a few hours before. That would have prevented any sort of jarring emotional switch at the event.
Did Obama's team not realize what sort of image they were presenting to the country at this moment? The disconnect between what Americans at home knew had been going on - and the initial words coming out of Obama's mouth was jolting, if not disturbing.
It must have been disappointing for many politically aware Democrats, still reeling from the election two days before. The New Jersey gubernatorial vote had already demonstrated that Obama and his political team couldn't produce a winning outcome in a state very friendly to Democrats (and where Obama won by 15 points one year ago). And now this? Congressional Democrats must wonder if a White House that has burdened them with a too-heavy policy agenda over the last year has a strong enough political operation to help push that agenda through.
If Obama's communications apparatus can't inform - and protect - their boss during tense moments when the country needs to see a focused commander-in-chief and a compassionate head of state, it has disastrous consequences for Obama's party and supporters.
All Obama's men (and women) fell down on the job Thursday. And Democrats across the country have real reason to panic.
(Actually, what should we have really expected Obama to do?
Exactly what he did ... once again he looked out into the world around him and all he saw was himself!
If we could fund all of his give-aways with his ego and ignorance, we would have a humongous surplus instead of a terrible debt!)
OBAMA: 'DONT' JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS' ON FORT HOOD SHOOTING
In the wake of the deadliest mass shooting at a U.S. base, Obama on Friday cautioned against jumping to conclusions on the motive of the suspect.
"We don't know all the answers yet and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts," Obama said on the White House lawn.
(Fucking idiot!
The shooter had a history of anti-American involvement in the Gulf.
His blog stated he was against the war and that he praised the actions of the suicide bombers.
He reportedly told anyone around him that he wanted America out of that area and that he was not going to support the aggressive American activities there.
He supposedly yelled, in raghead language, that familiar chant used before the beheading of every American before he unloaded on the G.I.s ... "Allah Akbar" ... or whatever the hell these cretins like to shout.
What the hell more does Obama need to prove that one of his beloved muslim assholes is nothing more than a piece of camel shit?)
UNEMPLOYMENT RATE 10.2%
No matter how many times Obama says he's created 'or saved' 1 million jobs, or Tim Geithner says the economy is great - there's one truth difficult to ignore: unemployment keeps going up and is now at 10.2%. Despite the trillions of dollars government has dumped into trying to 'fix' the economy, our 'leader' responds with Hope and Blame (Bush) rather than the promised Hope and Change.
"DON'T ASK THE QUESTION IF YOU DON'T ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER"
During the late 1970's I had the pleasure of being the Private Nurse for Senator Lynch.
Most of the time my duties were at his house, but occasionally I was able to take "road trips" with him to sessions of congress and to his son's house.
Both of his sons were lawyers, and although they were Democrats I enjoyed their company, and they taught me a few thing about government.
The most important of which was, "Don't ask the question if you don't already know the answer".
Now you are asking yourself, "What the hell has this got to do with anything?"
Well, I was watching the "press sessions" from Fort Hood, and I found that the information supplied by the Army to be satisfactory.
However; the questions asked by the geniuses of the media were about two levels lower than a kindergarten experiment!
At least five of these "reporters" asked if the shooter was suffering PTSD from the shooter's previous tours in Iraq. Duh? It was already stated that the shooter was never deployed to any location outside of Walter Reed Hospital and Fort Hood! Besides, in order to suffer from PTSD you have to undergo some sort of stress and trauma. The worst thing this raghead ever experienced was that he stated that someone supposedly called him a "camel jockey" one time! Upon investigation it was found that this never happened!
Then the "reporters" started asking why the Army never took action against the shooter for his anti-American stance, and why he had such a long career in the Army. Well, he was under investigation for his position on American policy and American involvement in the wars, as well as his many statements supporting the Taliban and Al Qaeda. As for his long Army career, it wasn't all that long! What made it appear long was the fact the Army paid for his college, his medical school, his internship and residency. He spent only a year and a half as an Army "shrink" at Walter Reed, and received a very poor evaluation of his abilities and performance. He was then transferred to Fort Hood.
It has been reported that he was treating returning GIs for PTSD ... actually he was treating GIs who had drug and/or alcohol problems. His superiors did not feel he was capable of treating PTSD!
The next area that these "reporters" took was that he was suffering from PTSD, and that his actions were those of someone who had "flipped-out" and were not the actions of a terrorist. Well, the PTSD was already covered, but, his actions were well planned in advance. He had disposed of all his possessions, had purchased firearms (and for the umpteenth time they were NOT military firearms!), and supposedly had files on his computer which indicated what he was about to do! THAT MAKES HIM A TERRORIST!
The the geniuses got into the realm of firearms! Something they know absolutely nothing about!
One of the idiots with a microphone wanted to know how he obtained a fully automatic FN-5.7. Duh (again). The FN-5.7 is a semi-auto handgun with a 20-round magazine (and NOT a "clip" as the "reporters" stated). They then said that since he had fired over 100 rounds he must have been shooting at people for a long time since it takes "forever" to reload a 20-round "clip", and they wanted to know why the 300-or-so soldiers did not attack him while he was reloading! These assholes have been watching too many old cowboy movies! First of all, it doesn't take forever to drop an empty magazine and insert a new one. Anyone familiar with his firearm can drop and insert in around 1-1/2 to 2 seconds! And he didn't have to "reload", all he had to do was carry spare magazines. (Personally, I have at least 5 spare magazines for every one of my semi-auto pistols, and the same number of "speed-loaders" for my double-action revolvers.)
The MSM is doing their best to accomplish two things ... the first being that the shooter was not responsible for the shootings (some even claimed that the police were responsible for several of the killings and woundings); and secondly, it was all G.W.'s fault!
These "reporters" could have learned a lot if they had been with the Senator and his sons ... but, unfortunately, they were too busy sucking down martinis and looking at pictures of semi-nude coeds!
THIS WEEK'S
Football Predictions
(I bet you are thrilled!)
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SUSPECT
Could Face Death Penalty
In Fort Hood shooting
The Army psychiatrist suspected in Thursday's deadly Fort Hood rampage in Texas could get the death penalty if he is convicted of multiple counts of first-degree murder - and military law experts say the evidence against him will be substantial.
American-born Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan has yet to be charged but is expected to face at least 13 counts of murder, one for each of the victims who died, as well as numerous assault and weapons charges in a court-martial.
"Obviously, we're all guessing, but it's reasonable to believe that he will be convicted and sentenced to death," said retired Navy lawyer Philip Cave, now a military crimes defense attorney.
Cave estimated that Hasan, 39, would spend between five and 15 years in the military's court martial system.
"It will be a long charge sheet," military law scholar Richard Rosen told KCBD.com, "one longer than I've ever seen in my life time in the Army."
Though the number of wounded has fluctuated, at least 30, including Hasan, and possibly up to 38 were injured in the mass shooting at the Army base in Killeen.
Army Secretary John McHugh said Friday an investigation is proceeding but no charges have yet been filed against Hasan.
Rosen, a retired colonel who was stationed at Fort Hood for 10 years, called the shooting "tragic and horrible."
"Legal advice is being given at all levels of command right now," Rosen told KCBD.com
Only 10 members of the American military have been put to death with approval from the president since 1951 under the Uniform Code of Military Justice - the armed services' legal system.
The last military execution was the 1961 hanging of Army Pvt. John Bennett for rape. Another defendant, Pvt. Ronald Gray, was scheduled to be executed in December 2008 for multiple murders and rape, but a stay was granted mere days before the execution.
But the massacre at Fort Hood has been called the worst mass shooting ever on an American military base.
"All things being equal, he may well be one of those executions," Cave told FoxNews.com.
Hasan is believed to have methodically and calmly opened fire on his fellow comrades as they filled out medical paperwork and underwent testing at a processing center that handles soldiers coming and going to war.
Around 1:30 p.m. Thursday, witnesses say a man later identified as Hasan jumped up on a desk and shouted the words "Allahu Akbar!" - Arabic for "God is great!" He was armed with at least one semiautomatic pistol capable of firing up to 20 rounds without reloading. He shot about 100 rounds before civilian police officer Kim Munley wounded him with four rounds.
Though his motive remains unclear, speculation has swirled that he was dreading his own imminent deployment to the battlefields in Afghanistan, where he was to continue his work counseling fellow soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress and other mental turmoil.
Relatives and associates say Hasan was critical of both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and did everything he could to avoid being on the frontlines.
No one who knew him, however, expected him to be driven to kill.
The suspected gunman's Palestinian uncle told Fox News that the family was "shocked" by the allegations and had no indication Hasan was capable of such violence.
"He was very quiet, very nice, never been upset, always a smile," Rafiq Ismail told Fox News in Ramallah, the West Bank. "Till now, we did not believe he did it. ... Something happened, made him snap or something."
As a psychiatrist, Hasan had for years listened to other soldiers' tales of war horrors. Cave said if Hasan's lawyers can show that he himself was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) - which can happen to psychiatrists and can be a successful legal strategy - then they might use that in their defense in an attempt to land Hasan a lesser sentence.
But Cave doesn't think Hasan would be sentenced to anything less than life in prison.
Terror charges also could be filed, he said, but only if the government has hard evidence that Hasan was linked to and acting on behalf of an actual terrorist group.
In trying to prove premeditation, Cave expects prosecutors to point to the fact that Hasan had been saying goodbye to friends and giving away most of his belongings, including copies of the Koran, and left several messages for neighbors the morning of the killings.
"Nice knowing you, old friend," Hasan said in a 5 a.m. Thursday voicemail to neighbor Willie Bell. "I'm going to miss you."
Cave said the defense probably would counter that those actions were those of a man about to be sent overseas to war.
("COULD"?!?!?!
There were over 300 witnesses to this raghead's killing spree!
Plus the forensic evidence on the bullets and his firearm...
Or is some damn liberal lawyer and court member going to decide that it was all G.W.'s fault because he was President when the raghead enlisted?
The court martial should take all of 15 minutes to complete and the sentencing phase should take around 1 minute!
But I guarantee you, it won't!!)
MUSLIM POPULATION IN THE MILITARY RAISES DIFFICULT ISSUES
The deadly rampage at Fort Hood is forcing Pentagon officials to confront difficult questions about the military's growing Muslim population.
The military has worked hard to recruit more Muslims since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the number of Muslim troops, while still small, has been increasing. There were 3,409 Muslims in the active-duty military as of April 2008, according to Pentagon statistics.
Military personnel don't have to disclose their religions, and many officials believe the actual number of Muslim soldiers may be at least 10,000 higher than the Pentagon statistics. For instance, the military "Officer Record Brief" of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the suspect in the Fort Hood shootings, said he had "no religious preference" and didn't identify him as a Muslim.
Even now, Muslim soldiers remain fairly rare in some parts of the military. At West Point, Army officials said there were just 24 Muslim cadets out of a total student body of 4,400. The Muslim cadets worship in an interfaith center on the bucolic New York campus, but don't have a dedicated mosque.
The push to boost Muslim representation has proven to be a double-edged sword for the military, which desperately needs the Muslim soldiers for their language skills and cultural knowledge, but also worries that a small percentage of those soldiers might harbor extremist ideologies or choose to turn their guns on their fellow soldiers.
In one of the military's most notorious cases of fratricide since Vietnam, Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar, a convert to Islam, rolled a grenade into a tent filled with other soldiers in April 2003. The attack killed two officers and wounded 14 others. During his court-martial, prosecution witnesses testified Sgt. Akbar had committed the attack because he believed the U.S. military would kill Muslim civilians during the coming invasion. Sgt. Akbar was later sentenced to death.
Muslim soldiers also face challenges stemming from their dual identities as adherents of the Islamic faith and as members of the U.S. military. In Iraq and Afghanistan, Muslims serving in the U.S. military often use fake last names to avoid being singled out by insurgents as traitors and to prevent reprisals against their families elsewhere in the world.
(Oh bullshit! It is no problem!!
Just take every muslim in uniform, and regardless of the rank, title and time of service remove them from their current position and place them as ordinary infantry.
They would make no decisions, they would have access to no WMDs, and they would be filling the needs of front line troops.
Oh, they would retain their rank, but their pay wold be that of an E-2 ... until all hostilities are over in the gulf area.
Those who survive and have caused no problems would be re-instated to their previous rank and position.)
FRANK MOCKS HEALTH REFORM PROTESTERS, BACHMANN
Democratic Rep. Barney Frank took a dig Friday at the Republican lawmaker who organized a protest by conservatives against health care legislation.
Frank, a Massachusetts liberal, told an audience: "Some of the people (at the rally) that wanted to engage me in conversation appeared to have been the losers in the 'Are you smarter than Michele Bachmann contest?"'
Rep. Bachmann, R-Minn., had organized Thursday's rally attended by thousands of conservatives critical of the Democrats' health care plan. Her spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment. Frank, who recently compared arguing with an angry voter to conversing with a dining room table, said this week's protest was like being trapped inside a furniture warehouse.
(Duh? Well at least Bachmann and his supporters were not present when their queer "partner" was busted in a drug raid!!
Can Barney say the same?)
ORLANDO SHOOTING SUSPECT 'MENTALLY ILL'
The engineer accused of fatally shooting one employee and wounding five others at the firm where he once worked is "very mentally ill" and crumbled under the stress of his divorce, bankruptcy and unemployment, his attorney said Saturday.
Jason Rodriguez, 40, was ordered held without bail at the Orange County Jail, where he is under suicide watch after Friday's shooting. His mother, Ana Rodriguez, also apologized Saturday, telling reporters she is "so sorry for everything that has happened."
"Sorry for the families involved. I'm really very sorry, it is very hurtful," she said.
Public defender Bob Wesley asked the judge at a brief court appearance Saturday that police and prosecutors have no contact with Rodriguez without his permission.
Wesley told reporters that Rodriguez "is a very, very mentally ill person" who lost his emotional stability because of deep financial problems.
"This guy is a compilation of the front page of the entire year - unemployment, foreclosure, bankruptcy, divorce - all of the stresses," Wesley said. "He has been declining in mental health. There is no logic whatsoever, which points to a mental health case. It looks like a classic case of stress overload."
Employees at Reynolds, Smith and Hills recognized their former co-worker when he drew a handgun from a holster under his shirt, police said, and killed Otis Beckford, 26, next to a receptionist's desk in an office at a downtown Orlando tower. He then walked into the office and unloaded several more rounds, wounding five other employees at the company he had been fired from two years ago.
Orlando police identified the five wounded victims Saturday as Gregory Hornbeck, 39; Ferrell Hickson, 40; Guy Lugenbeel, 62; Edward Severino; 34; and Keyondra Harrison; 27. All were in stable condition at Orlando hospitals, and all were expected to survive.
Rodriguez was taken into custody several hours after the shooting. He has been charged with first-degree murder.
Police said Rodriguez told detectives he blamed the firm for recent trouble he had receiving unemployment benefits. As officers led him handcuffed into a police station Friday, a reporter asked him why he had attacked his former colleagues.
"Because they left me to rot," said Rodriguez, who recently told a bankruptcy judge he was making less than $30,000 a year at a Subway sandwich shop and had debts of nearly $90,000. He is the divorced father of a young son.
All the victims worked at Reynolds, Smith and Hills, where Rodriguez was an entry-level engineer for 11 months before he was fired in June 2007, the company said.
The Legion Place building, where the shooting occurred, remained cordoned off Saturday with police tape. A few officers and crime scene investigators blocked the entrance to the parking garage. It was far different from the chaos that unfolded a day earlier, when stunned workers streamed out.
Some workers returned to the building to get their cars. Others came back to get purses, wallets and other belongings they left behind in a scramble to escape the shooting spree. Only workers with identification were being allowed in the building and had to be escorted by an officer. They were not allowed to stay and work.
Courtney Moore, who works as a paralegal on the 17th floor, returned to get her car. She said she shared elevators frequently with Beckford and always saw him in the building's cafeteria and recalled an elevator ride they shared about a month ago when she had a bad day.
"I was so rude to him. I feel so bad now," Moore said. "I can't remember exactly what I told him, but it wasn't nice. He was always so polite and friendly. I told him I was sorry. Then he said, 'It's OK. Have a great day."'
Hours after the shootings, police tracked Rodriguez to his mother's home and ordered him to come out. He surrendered peacefully, apologizing as officers handcuffed him, police said.
"I'm just going through a tough time right now. I'm sorry," officers quoted him as saying.
Rodriguez worked on drawings in the firm's transportation group before he was fired. The company did not hear from him again.
"There was nothing to indicate any hard feelings," said Ken Jacobson, the firm's general legal counsel and chief financial officer.
Rodriguez told detectives the company had fired him without cause and had made him look incompetent. He told them he was unemployed for a year and a half before getting a job at a Subway, where worked until recently.
He told them the shop couldn't give him enough hours, and he later filed for unemployment. He expected to get a check recently but when it didn't arrive he blamed Reynolds, Smith and Hills, thinking it was harming his efforts to qualify, police said.
His ex-wife's mother, America Holloway, told The Associated Press that Rodriguez and her daughter, Neshby, were married for about 6 1/2 years before divorcing several years ago. They have an 8-year-old son who lives with Neshby in Kissimmee, about a half-hour away.
Holloway said the couple lived with her in Orlando for several years and that Rodriguez abused her daughter and once threw all her clothes into the street.
After the divorce, Rodriguez seldom saw his son, but he called last week while the child was at Holloway's house and the boy asked his father why he did not come over, too.
"He said, 'Because I don't have any money. I don't have a job. I don't have anything to eat. When things get better, I'll come see you,"' Holloway said Rodriguez told his son.
(Mentally ill my ass!
He was mentally alert enough to find his firearm, load his firearm, find his ex-workplace, locate the employees he wanted to kill, ready his firearm to shoot, and commence shooting selected people.
Why these obvious killers are first encountered by police and then "taken into custody" beats the shit outta me! If a cop sees someone shooting other people, the shooter should be terminated "with extreme prejudice" as the popular Nam phrase went!
With no friggin' repercussions!!)
NYPD COP SHOOTS TEEN IN FACE AFTER HE PULLED PELLET GUN
A police detective shot a New York teen in the face Friday night after he pulled a realistic-looking pellet gun during an argument in the Bronx.
Police say 15-year-old Marcus Bonner was hit in the cheek, but survived. He was hospitalized in stable condition.
Authorities say a group of officers were conducting an undercover drug operation when they spotted the teen threatening a group of rival youths with the gun.
The officers chased the teen and confronted him. Police say the Bonner was shot when he reached for the gun.
They didn't find out after the shooting that the weapon was a fake.
The shooting was one of two by police on Friday. A man was wounded by an off-duty officer in Brooklyn after he allegedly tried to rob him at gunpoint.
(And this is one of those times when I support the action of the policeman!
A gun is a gun is a gun, regardless of the caliber or the firing mechanism!
A .22-caliber pellet gun can be extremely painful, and even fatal if someone is shot in the head.
In this day and age when the liberal assholes have demanded that water pistols and cap guns be banned, they will probably assume the position that the cop was wrong and he, without sufficient cause, shot this poor, misunderstood teenager, and should be severely punished!
If they take that position, then I also want them to take a position in front of a backstop and allow a teenager with a pellet gun to shoot each of them twice ... then see what the idiots have to say...)
SUPREME COURT TO EXAMINE LIFE IN PRISON FOR JUVENILES
The Supreme Court is being asked to say that locking up juveniles and throwing away the key is cruel and unusual -- and thus, unconstitutional.
Joe Sullivan was sent away for life for raping an elderly woman and judged incorrigible though he was only 13 at the time of the attack.
Terrance Graham, implicated in armed robberies when he was 16 and 17, was given a life sentence by a judge who told the teenager he threw his life away.
Life sentences with no chance of parole are rare and harsh for juveniles tried as adults and convicted of crimes less serious than killing. Just over 100 prison inmates in the United States are serving those terms, according to data compiled by opponents of the sentences.
Now the Supreme Court is being asked to say that locking up juveniles and throwing away the key is cruel and unusual -- and thus, unconstitutional. Other than in death penalty cases, the justices never before have found that a penalty crossed the cruel and unusual line. They will hear arguments Monday.
(Pure bullshit!
The punishment for a crime should be based on the severity of the crime, not the age of the criminal!
And, the whole idea of life imprisonment is even more assinine!
If the crime would warrant such a sentence, then it should be the immediate death sentence.
Why the hell should the tax payers support these scumbags for 60 or 70 years at a cost of over $35,000 per year for each?
Thirty-five cents of electricity is about all they are worth!)
PELOSI 'HEALTHCARE' BILL: BUY A $15,000 POLICY OR GO TO JAIL
Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (HR3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain "acceptable health insurance coverage" and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.
In response to the JCT letter, Camp said, "This is the ultimate example of the Democrats’ command-and-control style of governing - buy what we tell you or go to jail. It is outrageous and it should be stopped immediately."
Key excerpts from the JCT letter:
"HR3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax." [page 1]
"If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply..." [page 2]
The criminal penalties outlined include:
Prosecution is authorized under the Code for a variety of offenses. Depending on the level of the noncompliance, the following penalties could apply to an individual:
Section 7203 - misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.
Section 7201 - felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years." [page 3]
When confronted with this same issue during its consideration of a similar individual mandate tax, the Senate Finance Committee worked on a bipartisan basis to include language in its bill that shielded Americans from civil and criminal penalties. The Pelosi bill, however, contains no similar language protecting American citizens from civil and criminal tax penalties that could include a $250,000 fine and five years in jail.
(Yup ... that's our government working for us...
Well, I refuse to buy health insurance ... so send my ass to jail for 5 years. The food will probably be better than what I can afford, and I won't have to cook it.
The pool table (and the pool), the basketball court, the exercise gym, the library, and all those other goodies are definitely better than what I have, since I don't have any of them.
And they still have to take care of me and my heart problems, as well as pay for my $270-a-month medications!
There is one small problem however ... I will not be able to continue my reloading or target shooting...)
GUESS WHO IS MISSING
When 6 U.N. people were killed recently in a terrorist attack, the U.N. pulled ALL their people out of Afghanistan!
While American troops are being killed and wounded, the U.N. has pulled around 1/2 of their non-American troops out of Afghanistan.
Of the 71,000 troops still in Iraq and Afghanistan, over 1/2 are American.
Yet the U.N. states they are still "in charge" of the situation...
ON ANOTHER TERRORIST FRONT
On the Friday after the slaughter of Americans, at an American Army Post, in America, President Bush and Mrs. Bush arrived at Fort Hood Army Post to meet with the troops involved in the terrorist attack. And they spent the entire day talking with them and their commanders.
However, Obama and Mama Obama still haven't visited! Oh, they did send a letter ... or was it a phone call?
What has Obama been doing?
On November 6th Obama issued his first review of species that are candidates for protection as endangered species, identifying a total of 249 species in need of protection. (Ain't it wonderful that he cares more about owls than the American military?)
On November 6th Obama picked the new head the Federal Communications Commission transition team. Yes, he is a liberal and ex-lobbyist.
On November 6th Mama Obama made arrangements to appear on "Iron Chef America" in January. This is much more important than supporting the American troops!
On November 6th about an hour after the shootings at Fort Hood Obama reminded the country that he is the commander-in-chief of the military. Of course he didn't know what to command, and he has no idea what his chief responsibility is!
On November 6th it was announced that the unemployment rate in America is 10.2% ... that is 2.2% higher than Obama promised it would not exceed if his trillion-dollar-bail-out-bill was passed. Well, the bill passed and unemployment has gone up. When Obama heard the statistic he announced that the reason it has gone up is because he did not give away enough of the tax payer's money, and because business owners are afraid to hire! (What Obama managed to squash is that certain areas of the country, and certain types of jobs, have unemployment rates of better than 18%!)
On November 6th and 7th Obama urged people not to jump to conclusions that this was an attack by a muslim extremist.
On November 7th Obama congratulated the House for passing the "Universal Heath Care" legislation, and promised to sign it into law before January 1st (I guess he forgot that the Senate also has to pass the bill, just as it is, without modification).
On November 7th Obama broke his campaign promise that there would absolutely be no increase or new taxes. With his support of the House health scare fiasco he has supported a 5.1% increase in taxes on both individuals and corporations! He has also neglected to remind the American population that $500,000,000,000.00 was going to be cut from the Medicare program to help pay for his "Obamacare Program for the Lazy, Ignorant, and Illegal Alien" citizens!!
On November 8th Obama is preparing for his trip to China. This asshole can't go to Fort Hood in Texas, or down the street to Walter Reed Hospital to visit the injured troops, but he can take his family and friends to China! (However, I have heard that the troops at Fort Hood and Walter Reed don't want Obama anywhere around them!)
And since the shootings Obama has managed to find time to "shoot some hoops" and swing a golf club.
It is fairly obvious as to what exactly Obama feels is important right now...
FURTHER OBAMA ACTIVITY
(OR LACK OF ACTIVITY)
Obama has decided "Fuck the Germans and their Berlin Wall"!
This ignorant bastard can fly his wife and friends all over the world for everything from a New York party to begging that the Olympics be held in Chicago, but he refuses to go to Germany to celebrate the anniversary of the removal of the Berlin wall. I bet he would go if they were having a chicken B-B-Q in his honor!
After more than 3 months Obama still hasn't decided as to what course of action he is going to take in reviewing the recommendations of the Generals who are on the ground and in charge of the gulf situation.
They request 80,000 troops initially, but then when that was declined asked for 40,000, and Obama is still sitting on the pot.
He has said he will make a decision in a couple of weeks (meanwhile Americans are being killed at record rates because they don't have the manpower or the supplies they require), BUT someone in Obama's little group of Marxist "advisors" has leaked to the MSM that Obama will probably insist that the U.N. increase their troops to the area!
(Duh ... read above about the U.N.!!)
AFTER 30 YEARS THEY STILL DON'T GET IT
Thirty years ago this week a group of Iranian "students" shouting "death to America" stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran, taking nearly 100 hostages, among them 65 Americans. Though foreign national employees and some Americans were released within a few weeks, the remaining 52 were held for 444 days.
For the American people, it was an introduction to militant Islam. For President Jimmy Carter, intent on "engaging" the radical regime that replaced Shah Reza Pahlavi, it was a disaster. The Obama administration appears to have missed the lessons of this debacle.
Though Carter described the embassy takeover as "a disappointing development" and "surprising," it shouldn't have been. Strikes, mass demonstrations and student protests throughout Iran began early in 1978. In September, the shah responded by declaring martial law. It didn't help.
On January 16, 1979, the shah - seriously ill with cancer - fled and sought refuge in Morocco, Mexico and the United States. Two weeks later, February 1, 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile in France to be greeted by more than 5 million devotees lining the streets of Tehran. Ten days later he proclaimed himself Iran’s supreme leader.
When hundreds of students chanting anti-American slogans flooded into and briefly occupied the U.S. embassy on February 15, the Carter administration delivered a "strongly worded diplomatic note" protesting the "lack of protection by Iranian authorities." For the next eight months, despite increasingly strident pronouncements by Khomeini and officials of his new "Islamic Republic," Carter and his aides made repeated overtures to "engage" the regime in Tehran.
On November 1, 1979, Zbigniew Brzezinski met in Algiers with the ayatollah’s Prime Minister, Mehdi Bazargan. Three days later the "students" charged into the U.S. embassy again. This time they stayed.
Though some of those who participated in the takeover subsequently claimed they planned nothing more than a "sit in" like those on U.S. college campuses during anti-Vietnam War protests, the ayatollah’s most radical followers were actually in control of events. Despite Carter administration protests, Khomeini’s Revolutionary Guards and police, posted outside the embassy walls, did nothing to end the takeover or the hostage situation. Carter responded by freezing Iranian assets in the U.S. and "severing diplomatic ties" with Tehran.
On Christmas Day, less than two months after the hostages were seized in Tehran, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Once again, President Carter, wracked by intelligence failures and indecision, said he was "shocked and surprised" and boycotted the Olympics.
Over the course of the next year, while the Carter administration dithered, Khomeini and his council of militant clerics created all of the instruments of state control common to revolutionary regimes, but with an Islamic twist. He purged the military and the Iranian civil service; created a massive internal secret police network; a "block warden" system to spy on neighbors; took control of print and broadcast media; rounded up opponents and tried them in "special courts" under Sharia law.
By the spring of 1980, when Carter ordered our deeply under-funded U.S. military to rescue the hostages held in Tehran, Khomeini was convinced that he was on a divine mission to "purify Islam" and re-establish a "caliphate" in the "Lands of the Prophet." When Operation Eagle Claw failed catastrophically on the night of April 24-25 with the loss of eight American lives - and without the Iranians firing a shot - the ayatollah claimed it was because Allah "protected the Islamic State from infidels." He also began predicting an apocalyptic battle against the U.S. and Israel which would destroy "The Great Satan," and "the Zionist entity."
Though the hostages were released on January 20, 1981 - just hours before Ronald Reagan’s inaugural - Tehran’s wave of terror didn't stop. By 1982, despite a bloody war with Iraq, the ayatollah’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had created a proxy force in Lebanon: Hezbollah. Over the course of the next five years, Hezbollah terrorists - armed, trained and paid for by Tehran - hijacked, kidnapped, bombed and killed more Americans than any terror organization on the planet until the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
In the three decades since the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, the rhetoric of revolutionary Islam is little changed. The words and pronouncements of Iran’s current Supreme Leader, Seyyed Ali Khamenei and the declarations of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad echo those of Khomeini 30 years ago.
Their actions are also unchanged. This week, while our Fox News Team was at an Air Force base in the Nevada desert, Israeli commandos seized 60 tons of Iranian weapons en-route to Hezbollah.
The regime in Tehran still proclaims "Death to America." They still promise to destroy Israel. Only now the Iranians are building nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them.
Like the Carter administration, Obama and his advisers are apparently convinced that "engaging" the Iranian regime will somehow make things different. After 30 years they still don't get it.
(Jimmy Carter and Obama ... what a pair! If I were in the World Series Of Poker and were dealt them in the same hand I would shoot the dealer...)
OBAMA DRAWS CRITICISM FOR SITTING OUT BERLIN WALL ANNIVERSARY
Obama does not plan to travel to Germany to attend the 20th anniversary celebration Monday of the fall of the Berlin Wall, drawing heated criticism from those who say he's ignoring a shining triumph of American-inspired democracy.
But Obama squeezed in a trip to Copenhagen last month to lobby, unsuccessfully, for Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. He plans to travel to Oslo next month to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, an award that even Obama has said he does not deserve. And this coming week, he sets out on a weeklong tour of Asia.
But Obama does not plan to travel to Germany to attend the 20th anniversary celebration Monday of the fall of the Berlin Wall, drawing heated criticism from those who say he's ignoring a shining triumph of American-inspired democracy.
"A tragedy," is how former House Speaker Newt Gingrich described Obama's absence.
(Actually, "tragedy" is how Obama should be described! Maybe "disaster" would be more appropriate!)
HE WAS FIRED FOR TELLING COLLEAGUE HER GAY MARRIAGE IS WRONG
A manager at a Massachusetts retail store claims he was unjustly fired after he told a colleague he thought her impending marriage to another woman was wrong.
Peter Vidala, 24, told FoxNews.com he was terminated in August from his position as second deputy manager at a Brookstone store at Boston's Logan Airport after a conversation he had with a manager from another Brookstone store who was visiting the location.
Vidala claims the woman, whom he declined to identify, mentioned four times that she had married her partner. He said he then left the store briefly to visit the airport's chapel before returning.
"I found it offensive that she repeatedly brought it up," Vidala said. "By the fourth time she mentioned it, I felt God wanted me to express how I felt about the matter, so I did. But my tone was downright apologetic. I said, 'Regarding your homosexuality, I think that's bad stuff.'"
The woman, according to Vidala, then said, "Human resources, buddy - keep your opinions to yourself," before exiting the store.
Two days later, Vidala, who had been employed for just a matter of weeks, received a termination letter citing the company's zero-tolerance policy regarding "harassment" and "inappropriate and unprofessional" comments.
(Let's see now ... the queer bitch mentioned 4 times that she was a lesbo.
He mentioned 1 time that he felt it was wrong.
He get fired...
Since I don't work for that company, and I don't give a shit what the bitch thinks, I'll say it...
"REGARDING YOUR HOMOSEXUALITY, I THINK THAT'S BAD STUFF! YOU WANNA BRAG ABOUT BEING QUEER, SAVE IT FOR YOUR FRIENDS ... I DON'T WANNA HEAR IT!!!"
YES, I'M LONG-WINDED TODAY!
It has been a hell of a weekend!
U.S. ARMY
Told Of Hasan's Contacts
With al qaeda
U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.
According to the officials, the Army was informed of Hasan's contact, but it is unclear what, if anything, the Army did in response.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said that he requested the CIA and other intelligence agencies brief the committee on what was known, if anything, about Hasan by the U.S. intelligence community, only to be refused.
In response, Hoekstra issued a document preservation request to four intelligence agencies. The letter, dated November 7th, was sent to directors Dennis Blair (DNI), Robert Mueller (FBI), Lt. Gen Keith Alexander (NSA) and Leon Panetta (CIA).
Hoekstra said he is "absolutely furious" that the house intel committee has been refused an intelligence briefing by the DNI or CIA on Hasan's attempt to reach out to al Qaeda, as first reported by ABC News.
"This is a law enforcement investigation, in which other agencies - not the CIA - have the lead," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said in a response to ABC News. " Any suggestion that the CIA refused to brief Congress is incorrect."
Investigators want to know if Hasan maintained contact with a radical mosque leader from Virginia, Anwar al Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen and runs a web site that promotes jihad around the world against the U.S.
In a blog posting early Monday titled "Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing," Awlaki calls Hasan a "hero" and a "man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people."
According to his site, Awlaki served as an imam in Denver, San Diego and Falls Church, Virginia.
The Associated Press reported Sunday that Major Hasan attended the Falls Church mosque when Awlaki was there.
The Telegraph of London reported that Awlaki had made contact with two of the 9/11 hijackers when he was in San Diego.
He denied any knowledge of the hijacking plot and was never charged with any crime. After an intensive investigation by the FBI , Awlaki moved to Yemen.
People who knew or worked with Hasan say he seemed to have gradually become more radical in his disapproval of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On Sunday, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) called for an investigation into whether the Army missed signs as to whether Hasan was an Islamic extremist.
"If Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have a zero tolerance," Lieberman told Fox News Sunday.
A fellow Army doctor who studied with Hasan, Val Finell, told ABC News, "He would frequently say he was a Muslim first and an American second. And that came out in just about everything he did at the University."
Finell said he and other Army doctors complained to superiors about Hasan's statements.
"And we questioned how somebody could take an oath of office and be an officer in the military and swear allegiance to the constitution and to defend America against all enemies, foreign and domestic and have that type of conflict," Finell told ABC News.
The Army Chief of Staff, General George Casey, raised concerns over the weekend that innocent Muslim soldiers could suffer as a result of the shooting at Fort Hood.
"I think the speculation (on Hasan's Islamic roots) could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers," he said on ABC's "This Week."
(Seems that the attitude was something like, "Don't do anything about him ... we don't want to piss-off the muslims!".)
OBAMA LEANING TOWARD 34,000 MORE TROOPS FOR AFGHANISTAN
Barack Obama is nearing a decision to send more than 30,000 additional US troops to Afghanistan ... NEXT FUCKIN' YEAR!
What a genius ... and a true patriot and commander-in-chief!
FORGOTTEN PROOF OF ISLAMIC EVIL ON U.S. SOIL
Violent crimes committed by Muslim extremists on US soil were not confined to the events of September 11th, 2001, the Beltway Sniper killings, and the murderous rampage of Major Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood.
One of the most horrific incidents of Islamic rage has escaped the attention of the mainstream media and the American people. The mayhem was conducted in the name of Allah and resulted in the deaths of over 270 white Christians. And it occurred in California.
The killings began on October 19, 1973 when members of an elite group within the Nation of Islam (NOI), known as the Death Angels, kidnapped Richard and Quinta Hagueas while they were taking a stroll near their home on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco.
The Black Muslims forced the couple into a white van and began to sexually molest the 28 year-old Quinta. When Richard protested, a member of the squad smashed his jaw with a wrench. Following the molestation, the Muslims proceeded to decapitate her with machetes. The cuts severed her cervical spine and ripped through her carotid arteries, jugular veins, epiglottis, and hypo pharynx. "That girl’s wounds screamed out hate," SFPD detective Earl Sanders later recalled. "Whoever cut her didn't just cut through flesh, they cut through bone. They cut deep." The killers next turned their attention to Richard, smashing his skull with the wrench and hacking away at his face and neck with their machetes.
Ten days later, Frances Rose, a 28 year-old physical therapist, was shot in the face at point blank range by Jesse Lee Cooks, a member of the Death Angels, who blocked her car and demanded a ride as she drove up to the entrance of the University of California’s Extension Campus on Laguna Street.
Within the next two months, seven additional attacks took place on the streets of San Francisco, including a hit on Art Agnos, a member of California’s Commission, and the murders of Ilario Bertuccio, an 81 year-old maintenance man, Paul Dancik, a 26 year-old street junkie, Saleem Erakat, a 53 year-old grocer, and Marietta DiGirolamo who worked as a janitor for Mr. Erakat.
On December 22nd, a member of the Death Angels gunned down 19 year-old Neal Moynihan in front of the Civic Center Hotel. Moynihan had just was purchased a late-minute Christmas gift -a teddy bear for his kid sister. The assassin fled down a nearby alley to Gough Street, where 50 year-old Mildred Hosler was waiting at a bus stop. He shot her four times in the left breast and then continued to jog down the street. The killer had eliminated two white people within three minutes.
On Christmas Eve, the Death Angels captured a homeless white man and transported him to the Black Self-Help Moving & Storage Company, a business owned by the Nation of Islam, where they butchered him while he was still alive and trussed up his remains like a Christmas turkey, which they then tossed into San Francisco Bay. The body was so mutilated that the SFPD has never been able to come up with the name of the corpse. He remains known as John Doe #169.
The attacks, by now, had become so commonplace that the SFPD reserved radio frequency "Z" for communications related to the killing spree. For this reason, the crimes became known as the "Zebra Murders." It proved to be an ironically prescient handle since the incidents involved random attacks by Black militants on White victims.
The killings stopped for five weeks only to resume on January 28, 1974, with the murders of Tana Smith, a 32-year old secretary; John Bambic, 84, an avid junk collector; Jane Holly, 45, a social activist; and Vincent Wollin, who was celebrating his 69th birthday by treating himself to a doughnut and a cup of coffee.
The rampage continued with the shooting of Roxanne McMillan, a 23 year-old housewife and mother of a four-month old baby, who would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair, and Thomas Bates, a 21-year old student who was shot three times while hitchhiking near Emeryville.
On April 1, a Death Angel stalked and shot Thomas Rainwater, 19, and Linda Story, 21, as they walked away from the Salvation Army School for Officers’ Training, where they were first-year cadets. Rainwater, who was shot three times in the back with a .32 caliber weapon, was dead at the scene. Story was shot twice, while she sought to escape from the killer’s clutches. The bullets narrowly missed her spine and she later recovered.
On Easter Sunday, April 14th, the Black Muslims killed 19 year-old Ward Anderson and wounded 15 year-old Larry White on the corner of Fillmore and Hayes, where the teenagers were waiting for a bus. Two days later, they executed Nelson T. Shields, 23, heir to a prominent DuPont executive, in the Ingleside district of the city.
The break in the case came after the SFPD posted a $30,000 reward for any information leading to the arrests of the killers. Anthony Harris, a worker at Black Self-Help & Storage, took notice. He was struggling to support a wife and baby, and $30,000 was a lot of dough to him. A few hours after he dropped a dime into a pay phone, detectives took him into custody for questioning. Harris spilled his guts, telling the cops about the Death Angels and the point system within the Nation of Islam for killing white people.
Angels, according to the system, gained their "wings" upon killing four white children and five white women, or, if they preferred, nine white men. Upon attaining this quota, a photo of the Angel was taken with a pair of black wings affixed to his back. The photo was mounted on a board along with pictures of other successful candidates, and the board was displayed on an easel at Black Self-Help Moving & Storage Company location.
In the pre-dawn hours of May 1st, more than 100 police officers carried out simultaneous pre-dawn raids. Forty officers were deployed to an apartment building at 844 Grove Street, where J.C. X. Simon lived in Apartment 2, and Larry Green in Apartment 7. Twenty cops charged into Black Self-Help Moving & Storage Company on Market Street, where two suspects lived. None of the men arrested in the raid offered resistance.
San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto held a press conference to announce that the men taken into custody were members of the Nation of Islam’s Mosque No. 26, where they aspired to become "Death Angels." John Muhammad, the leader of Mosque No. 26, expressed indignation and demanded that the Mayor apologize for his racist remarks. Muhammad, however, refused to explain Lesson No. 10 of the Nation of Islam as penned by Elijah Poole (Elijah Muhammad):
"Lesson Number Ten: Why does Muhammad and any Muslim murder the devil [the white man]? What is the duty of each Muslim in regard to four devils? What reward does a Muslim receive by presenting four devils at one time? Answers: Because he [the devil] is 100 percent wicked and will not keep and obey the laws of Islam. His ways and actions are like a snake of the grafted type. So Muhammad learned he could not reform the devils, so they had to be murdered. All Muslims will murder the devil because they know he is a snake and also if he be allowed to live, he would sting someone else. Each Muslim is required to bring four devils, and by bringing and presenting four at a time his reward is a button to wear on the lapel of his coat. Also a free transportation to the Holy City, Mecca, to see Brother Muhammad."
Muhammad was not the only African American to express outrage at the Mayor’s remark. The Black Liberation Army sent a communiqué to FM rock station KSAN which called for an armed uprising of all radical groups, including the SLA, the Weather Underground and the Death Angels - against the racist municipal government.
The uprising never took place and the proceedings took place without the spilling of blood. Of the seven suspects taken into custody, three were later released. The remaining four - Larry Green, J. C. X. Simon, Manuel Moore and Jesse Lee Cooks, were found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
The Black Self-Help & Storage Company was managed by Tom Manney, a Nation of Islam member and former St. Ignatius High School and City College football star. Manney lent his black Cadillac to the murderers, who used it to hunt down their victims, and an illegal .32 pistol that was used in several of the killings. He was taken into custody only to be released for lack of evidence.
In October 1973, when the killing spree started, there were fifteen divisions of the Death Angels within California. The California Attorney General’s Office had compiled a list of 71 execution-style murders committed around the state, either with a machete or a pistol, in which the killer - or killers - was always a well-dressed and groomed youngish black man and the victim always white. In addition to San Francisco, the murders were carried out in Oakland, San Jose, Emeryville, Berkeley, Long Beach, Signal Hill, Santa Barbara, Palo Alto, Pacifica, San Diego, Los Angeles, and in the counties of San Mateo, Santa Clara, Los Angeles, Contra Costa, Ventura and Alameda. The Nation of Islam genocide campaign had actually begun approximately three years before the San Francisco killings.
It took law enforcement officials several years to come to terms with the real enormity of the crime. From 1970 to 1974, the Nation of Islam was responsible for "just under 270" Black-on-White murders in California alone. How many killings occurred throughout the country has yet to be calculated.
Nor has the economic impact of the killings ever been assessed. However, clippings from the San Francisco Chronicle document that the city remained crippled by fear. Tourism fell to an all-time low; hotel prices plummeted; stores and restaurants closed for lack of business; cultural events failed to attract audiences. When night fell, the city by the bay became a ghost-town.
The rampage made the Nation of Islam the bloodiest domestic terrorist group in US history, yet no law enforcement or government figure, in this heyday of the Civil Rights movement, opted to take the Muslim organization to task, let alone to expose Elijah Poole as the instigator of mass murder. At the heart of the matter remained the fact that the Nation of Islam was a "religion" with thousands of adherents and even more supporters. As a "religion," it was protected by a battery of constitutional rights. The first line of the first article of the Bill of Rights reads:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
Doing anything that contravened these words would create a legal maelstrom that would result in the loss of a juridical or governmental position and personal costs beyond calculation. And so the real cause of the murders was neither addressed nor uprooted.
VETERAN'S DAY
Official recognition of the end of the first modern global conflict -- World War I - - was made in a concurrent resolution (44 Stat. 1982) enacted by Congress on June 4, 1926, with these words:
WHEREAS the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and
WHEREAS it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and
WHEREAS the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.
An Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U. S. Code, Sec. 87a) approved May 13, 1938, and the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday - - a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be hereafter celebrated and known as "Armistice Day. "
Armistice Day was primarily a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I, but in 1954, after World War II had required the greatest mobilization of soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen in the Nation's history; after American forces had fought aggression in Korea, the 83rd Congress, at the urging of the veterans service organizations, amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word "Armistice" and inserting in lieu thereof the word "Veterans. " With the approval of this legislation (Public Law 380) on June 1, 1954, November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.
Later that same year, on October 8th, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the first "Veterans Day Proclamation " which stated:
"In order to insure proper and widespread observance of this anniversary, all veterans, all veterans' organizations, and the entire citizenry will wish to join hands in the common purpose. Toward this end, I am designating the Administrator of Veterans' Affairs as Chairman of a Veterans Day National Committee, which shall include such other persons as the Chairman may select, and which will coordinate at the national level necessary planning for the observance. I am also requesting the heads of all departments and agencies of the Executive branch of the Government to assist the National Committee in every way possible."
A letter from the President to the Honorable Harvey V. Higley, Administrator of Veterans' Affairs, was sent on the same date designating him to serve as Chairman. In 1958, the White House advised the VA's General Counsel that there was no need for another letter of appointment for each new Administrator, as the original proclamation in 1954 established the Committee with the Administrator of Veterans' Affairs as Chairman.
The Uniforms Holiday Bill (Public Law 90-363 (82 Stat. 250)) was signed on June 28, 1968, and was intended to insure three-day weekends for Federal employees by celebrating four national holidays on Mondays- - Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Columbus Day. It was thought that these extended weekends would encourage travel, recreational and cultural activities and stimulate greater industrial and commercial production. Many states did not agree with this decision and continued to celebrate the holidays on their original dates. The first Veterans Day under the new law was observed with much confusion on October 25, 1971.
It was quite apparent that the commemoration of this day was a matter of historic and patriotic significance to a great number of our citizens, and so on September 20th, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford signed Public Law 94-97 (89 Stat. 479), which returned the annual observance of Veterans Day to its original date of November 11, beginning in 1978. This action supported the express will of the overwhelming majority of the State legislatures, all major service organizations and the American people.
The restoration of the observance of Veterans Day to November 11 not only preserves the historical significance of the date, but helps focus attention on the important purpose of Veterans Day: a celebration to honor America's veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good.
For P. M. Release October 8, 1954
Murray Snyder, Assistant Press Secretary To The President
THE WHITE HOUSE OFFICE
Lowery Air Force Base
Denver
In connection with the signing of the proclamation on Veterans Day, the President today sent the following letter to the Honorable Harvey V. Higley, Administrator of Veterans' Affairs:
Dear Mr. Higley: I have today sighed a proclamation calling upon all of our citizens to observe Thursday, November 11, 1954 as Veterans Day. It is my earnest hope that all veterans, their organizations, and the entire citizenry will join hands to insure proper and widespread observance of this day. With the thought that it will be most helpful to coordinate the planning, I am suggesting the formation of a Veterans Day National Committee. In view of your great personal interest as well as your official responsibilities, I have designated you to serve as Chairman. You may include in the Committee membership such other persons as you desire to select and I am requesting the heads of all departments and agencies of the Executive branch to assist the Committee in its work in every way possible.
I have every confidence that our Nation will respond wholeheartedly in the appropriate observance of Veterans Day, 1954.
Sincerely,
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
Veterans Day, 1954
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
3071
Whereas it has long been our customs to commemorate November 11, the anniversary of the ending of World War I, by paying tribute to the heroes of that tragic struggle and by rededicating ourselves to the cause of peace; and
Whereas in the intervening years the United States has been involved in two other great military conflicts, which have added millions of veterans living and dead to the honor rolls of this Nation; and
Whereas the Congress passed a concurrent resolution on June 4, 1926 (44 Stat. 1982), calling for the observance of November 11 with appropriate ceremonies, and later provided in an act approved May 13, 1938 (52 Stat. 351) , that the eleventh of November should be a legal holiday and should be known as Armistice Day; and
Whereas, in order to expand the significance of that commemoration and in order that a grateful Nation might pay appropriate homage to the veterans of all its wars who have contributed so much to the preservation of this Nation, the Congress, by an act approved June 1, 1954 (68 Stat. 168), changed the name of the holiday to Veterans Day:
Now, Therefore, I, Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States of America, do hereby call upon all of our citizens to observe Thursday, November 11, 1954, as Veterans Day. On that day let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain. I also direct the appropriate officials of the Government to arrange for the display of the flag of the United States on all public buildings on Veterans Day.
In order to insure proper and widespread observance of this anniversary, all veterans, all veterans' organizations, and the entire citizenry will wish to wish to join hands in the common purpose. Toward this end, I am designating the Administrator of Veterans' Affairs as Chairman of a Veterans Day National Committee, which shall include such other persons as the Chairman may select, and which will coordinate at the national level necessary planning for the observance. I am also requesting the heads of all departments and agencies of the Executive branch of the Government to assist the National Committee in every way possible.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and cause the seal of the United States of America to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington this eighth day of October in the Year of our Lord nineteen hundred and fifty-four, and of the Independence of the (SEAL) United States of America the one hundred and seventy-ninth.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
By the President:
JOHN FOSTER DULLES
Secretary of States.
The Origins of Veterans Day
In 1921, an unknown World War I American soldier was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. This site, on a hillside overlooking the Potomac River and the city of Washington, became the focal point of reverence for America's veterans.
Similar ceremonies occurred earlier in England and France, where an unknown soldier was buried in each nation's highest place of honor (in England, Westminster Abbey; in France, the Arc de Triomphe). These memorial gestures all took place on November 11, giving universal recognition to the celebrated ending of World War I fighting at 11 a.m., November 11, 1918 (the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month). The day became known as "Armistice Day."
Armistice Day officially received its name in America in 1926 through a Congressional resolution. It became a national holiday 12 years later by similar Congressional action. If the idealistic hope had been realized that World War I was "the War to end all wars," November 11 might still be called Armistice Day. But only a few years after the holiday was proclaimed, war broke out in Europe. Sixteen and one-half million Americans took part. Four hundred seven thousand of them died in service, more than 292,000 in battle.
Armistice Day Changed To Honor All Veterans
An answer to the question of how to pay tribute to those who had served in this latest, great war came in a proposal made by Representative Edwin K. Rees of Kansas: Change Armistice Day to Veterans Day, and make it an occasion to honor those who have served America in all wars. In 1954 President Eisenhower signed a bill proclaiming November 11 as Veterans Day.
On Memorial Day 1958, two more unidentified American war dead were brought from overseas and interred in the plaza beside the unknown soldier of World War I. One was killed in World War II, the other in the Korean War. In 1973, a law passed providing interment of an unknown American from the Vietnam War, but none was found for several years. In 1984, an unknown serviceman from that conflict was placed alongside the others. To honor these men, symbolic of all Americans who gave their lives in all wars, an Army honor guard, The 3d U.S. Infantry (The Old Guard), keeps day and night vigil.
A law passed in 1968 changed the national commemoration of Veterans Day to the fourth Monday in October. It soon became apparent, however, that November 11 was a date of historic significance to many Americans. Therefore, in 1978 Congress returned the observance to its traditional date.
National Ceremonies Held at Arlington
The focal point for official, national ceremonies for Veterans Day continues to be the memorial amphitheater built around the Tomb of the Unknowns. At 11 a.m. on November 11, a combined color guard representing all military services executes "Present Arms" at the tomb. The nation's tribute to its war dead is symbolized by the laying of a presidential wreath. The bugler plays "taps." The rest of the ceremony takes place in the amphitheater.
Veterans Day ceremonies at Arlington and elsewhere are coordinated by the President's Veterans Day National Committee. Chaired by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the committee represents national veterans organizations.
Governors of states and U.S. territories appoint Veterans Day chairpersons who, in cooperation with the National Committee and the Department of Defense, arrange and promote local ceremonies.
THIS WEEK'S
Football Predictions
(I bet you are thrilled!)
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ANTI-GUN
Government
Schools
Great ... more overreaction typical of the anti-gun culture permeating government institutions...
Educators at Brody Middle School must have had the fright of their lives given the way they panicked at the sight of a bag of empty shell casings ... empty shell casings that had the word "Blank" clearly printed on the side of each one.
Knowing no other way to save their students from the horrors of empty blanks, school officials suspended Jazmine Martin, who had brought the casings to school for show and tell.
Jazmine and her family had recently attended an old west show during their visit to the Circle B Ranch on a summer vacation in South Dakota.
The show's highlight was a simulated gun fight, after which Jazmine excitedly gathered up the shell casings.
"They picked up the shells as souvenirs of that event - it was wonderful," said Chenoa Martin, Jazmine's mother.
Her daughter was eager to show her findings to her science teacher, but it proved too much for her Principal, Randy Gordon.
Apparently, even a mere interest in anything related to firearms or ammunition is strictly forbidden in government schools, and anyone who steps out of bounds simply must be punished.
Thank goodness her parents are fighting this outrageous suspension to make sure their daughter maintains her unblemished record.
Call Principal Gordon yourself at 515-242-8443 to console him on what, judging by his reaction, must have been a very traumatizing experience.
(CALL HIM! CALL HIM!!)
OBAMA CALLS FOR REVISED AFGHANISTAN WAR OPTIONS
After months of deliberating, Obama opted not to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.
That stance comes in the midst of forceful reservations about a possible troop buildup from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official.
In strongly worded classified cables to Washington, Eikenberry said he had misgivings about sending in new troops while there are still so many questions about the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Eikenberry, who once commanded forces in Afghanistan, resigned his Army commission to take the job as U.S. ambassador in Kabul earlier this year, and his is an influential voice among those advising Barack Obama on Afghanistan.
Eikenberry sent multiple classified cables to Washington over the past week that question the wisdom of adding forces when the Afghan political situation is unstable and uncertain, said an official familiar with the cables. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations and the classified documents.
Cables are diplomatic messages that may or may not be classified and carry greater heft than other forms of communication such as e-mail.
Eikenberry made the point that the administration should step cautiously in planning for any troop buildup while there are still so many questions surrounding Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the official said. Eikenberry is the front line U.S. official dealing with Karzai, the U.S.-backed leader whose administration was stained by corruption and mismanagement. It was a visiting senior senator, Democrat John Kerry of Massachusetts, who was instrumental in persuading Karzai last month to accept the findings of a U.N. panel that his re-election vote in August was too marred by fraud to stand.
Karzai agreed to a second round of voting but was elevated to a second term as president without a runoff election when his challenger dropped out. Since then, U.S. officials have been alarmed at some of Karzai's remarks and the lack, so far, of meaningful steps to clean house.
Eikenberry's objections were a wild card in the midst of what had appeared to be the final days of Obama's long decision-making process on how to revamp U.S. strategy in the 8-year war. Eikenberry has participated in some of Obama's war council sessions over the past several weeks.
Military officials said Obama has asked for a rewrite before and resisted what one official called a one-way highway toward war commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal's recommendations for more troops. The sense that he was being rushed and railroaded has stiffened Obama's resolve to seek information and options beyond military planning, officials said, though a substantial troop increase is still likely.
Obama was considering options that include adding 30,000 or more U.S. forces to take on the Taliban in key areas of Afghanistan and to buy time for the Afghan government's small and ill-equipped fighting forces to take over. The other three options on the table Wednesday were ranges of troop increases, from a relatively small addition of forces to the roughly 40,000 that the top U.S. general in Afghanistan prefers, according to military and other officials.
The key sticking points appear to be timelines and mounting questions about the credibility of the Afghan government.
Administration officials said Wednesday that Obama wants to make it clear that the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan is not open-ended. The war is now in its ninth year and is claiming U.S. lives at a record pace as military leaders say the Taliban has the upper hand in many parts of the country.
Eikenberry, the top U.S. envoy to Kabul, is a prominent voice among those advising Obama, and his sharp dissent is sure to affect the equation. He retired from the Army this year to become one of the few generals in American history to switch directly from soldier to diplomat, and he himself is a recent, former commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Eikenberry's cables raise deep concern about the viability of the Karzai government, according to a senior U.S. official familiar with them who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the classified documents. Other administration officials raised the same misgivings in describing Obama's hesitancy to accept any of the options before him in their current form.
The options presented to Obama by his war council will now be amended.
Military officials say one approach is a compromise battle plan that would add 30,000 or more U.S. forces atop a record 68,000 in the country now. They described it as "half and half," meaning half fighting and half training and holding ground so the Afghans can regroup.
The White House says Obama has not made a final choice, though military and other officials have said he appears near to approving a slightly smaller increase than McChrystal wants at the outset.
Among the options for Obama would be ways to phase in additional troops, perhaps eventually equaling McChrystal's full request, based on security or other conditions in Afghanistan and in response to pending decisions on troops levels by some U.S. allies fighting in Afghanistan.
The White House has chafed under criticism from Republicans and some outside critics that Obama is dragging his feet to make a decision.
Obama's top military advisers have said they are comfortable with the pace of the process, and senior military officials have pointed out that Obama still has time since no additional forces could begin flowing into Afghanistan until early next year.
Under the scenario featuring about 30,000 more troops, that number most likely would be assembled from three Army brigades and a Marine Corps contingent, plus a new headquarters operation that would be staffed by 7,000 or more troops, a senior military official said. There would be a heavy emphasis on the training of Afghan forces, and the reinforcements Obama sends could include thousands of U.S. military trainers.
Another official stressed that Obama is considering a range of possibilities for the military expansion and that his eventual decision will cover changes in U.S. approach beyond the addition of troops. The stepped-up training and partnership operation with Afghan forces would be part of that effort, the official said, although expansion of a better-trained Afghan force long has been part of the U.S. objective and the key to an eventual U.S. and allied exit from the country.
With the Taliban-led insurgency expanding in size and ability, U.S. military strategy already has shifted to focus on heading off the fighters and protecting Afghan civilians. The evolving U.S. policy, already remapped early in Obama's tenure, increasingly acknowledges that the insurgency can be blunted but not defeated outright by force.
(Give the son-of-a-bitch a pair of desert camos, an M4, a couple of MREs and stick his ass in ragheadland for a year! He will "reconsider"!
And what would happen to the U.S.A. while Obama is playing "Cummander-In-Chief"? Absolutely nothing worse than what has been happening with his ass in the White House!
In addition to him changing his mind there would also be another good side effect. The ragheads would be shooting at him instead of damn good American soldiers!!)
PELOSI'S CONSTITUTIONAL CONTEMPT
At Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Oct. 29th press conference, a CNS News reporter asked, "Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?" Speaker Pelosi responded, "Are you serious? Are you serious?" The reporter said, "Yes, yes, I am." Not responding further, Pelosi shook her head and took a question from another reporter. Later on, Pelosi's press spokesman Nadeam Elshami told CNSNews.com about its question regarding constitutional authority mandating that individual Americans buy health insurance. "You can put this on the record. That is not a serious question. That is not a serious question."
Suppose Congress was debating a mandate outlawing tea-party-type protests and other large gatherings criticizing Congress. A news reporter asks Nancy Pelosi where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to outlaw peaceable assembly. How would you feel if she answered, "Are you serious? Are you serious?" and ignored the question. And what if, later on, someone from her office sent you a press release, as was sent to CNS News, saying that Congress has "broad power to regulate activities that have an effect on interstate commerce," pointing out that demonstrations cause traffic jams and therefore interferes with interstate commerce?
Speaker Pelosi's constitutional contempt, perhaps ignorance, is representative of the majority of members of both the House and the Senate. Their comfort in that ignorance and constitutional contempt, and how readily they articulate it, should be worrisome for every single American. It's not a matter of whether you are for or against Congress' health care proposals. It's not a matter of whether you're liberal or conservative, black or white, male or female, Democrat or Republican or member of any other group. It's a matter of whether we are going to remain a relatively free people or permit the insidious encroachment on our liberties to continue.
Where in the U.S. Constitution does it authorize Congress to force Americans to buy health insurance? If Congress gets away with forcing us to buy health insurance, down the line, what else will they force us to buy; or do you naively think they will stop with health insurance? We shouldn't think that the cure to Congress' unconstitutional heavy-handedness will end if we only elect Republicans. Republicans have demonstrated nearly as much constitutional contempt as have Democrats. The major difference is the significant escalation of that contempt under today's Democratically controlled Congress and White House with the massive increase in spending, their proposed legislation and the appointment of tyrannical czars to control our lives. It's a safe bet that if and when Republicans take over the Congress and White House, they will not give up the massive increase in control over our lives won by the Democrats.
In each new session of Congress since 1995, John Shadegg, R-Ariz., has introduced the Enumerated Powers Act, a measure "To require Congress to specify the source of authority under the United States Constitution for the enactment of laws, and for other purposes." The highest number of co-sponsors it has ever had in the House of Representatives is 54 and it has never had co-sponsors in the Senate until this year, when 22 senators signed up. The fact that less than 15 percent of the Congress supports such a measure demonstrates the kind of contempt our elected representatives have for the rules of the game - our Constitution.
If you asked the questions: Which way is our nation heading, tiny steps at a time? Are we headed toward more liberty, or are we headed toward greater government control over our lives? I think the answer is unambiguously the latter - more government control over our lives. Are there any signs on the horizon that the direction is going to change? If we don't see any, we should not be surprised. After all, mankind's standard fare throughout his history, and in most places today, is arbitrary control and abuse by government.
(Wouldn't it be just great if Pelosi's plastic man actually injected several doses of botulism instead of the after-market Botox into Pelosi's face?
Wishes and dreams are what America is made of...)
HERE WE GO AGAIN
Another day another Obama nominee with a troubling record. What else is new?
This time it is Obama's nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration Erroll Southers. The Washington Post reports that in 1988, Southers was censured by the FBI for asking law enforcement officials to conduct a background check on his ex-wife's boyfriend.
According to The Post, Southers has admitted to this misconduct. He says he hasn't done anything similar since and he has promised not to misuse government data bases again in the future.
Well, that's comforting. Given how much the Democrats worried about invasions of privacy during the Bush era, Mr. Southers is certainly a surprising choice.
(Maybe, just maybe, Obama should move his office into some federal prison, then he wouldn't have to travel so far to meet with his "advisors" and "czars"!)
CAIR SPEAKER TO MUSLIMS:
OK To Attack
Fort Bragg
A Council on American-Islamic Relations adviser and regular speaker at its events has suggested Islamic law permits Muslims to attack C-130 military transport planes carrying the 82nd Airborne out of Fort Bragg, N.C., according to a stunning new book exposing Washington-based CAIR's inner workings.
Radical Islamic cleric Zaid Shakir, a frequent guest speaker at CAIR events, tells his Muslim audiences: "Jihad is physically fighting the enemies of Islam to protect and advance the religion of Islam. This is jihad."
Acceptable targets of jihad, he says, include U.S. military aircraft.
"Islam doesn't permit us to hijack airplanes filled with civilian people," Shakir once told a Muslim audience. However, "If you hijack an airplane filled with the 82nd Airborne, that's something else."
The 82nd Airborne Division's elite paratroopers fly out of Fort Bragg, N.C., which is part of North Carolina state Sen. Larry Shaw's district. Shaw is CAIR's new chairman.
The recording of the lecture, which Shakir gave earlier this decade to a Muslim audience in the San Francisco Bay area, was obtained by the authors of the bestselling "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America."
The bombshell revelation comes in the wake of the worst military massacre at a domestic U.S. military base in American history, and the worst Islamic terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.
Last week, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly gunned down in cold blood more than 50 of his fellow soldiers preparing to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan from Fort Hood, Texas. Eyewitnesses say before opening fire, Hasan jumped up on a desk and screamed, "Allahu akbar!" like the 9/11 hijackers. The suspect fatally shot 13, including a security guard. The death toll is actually 14 when a slain unborn child is counted.
Imam Shakir also gives his blessing to the use of bombs as a weapon of jihad, as long as the explosives hit "select" targets and are not indiscriminate in their destruction. Civilians can be a legitimate target, he says, if "there's a benefit in that," according to "Muslim Mafia," co-authored by former federal agent P. David Gaubatz and investigative journalist Paul Sperry, author of "Infiltration."
Even "old elderly men" and "women who are conscripted" - including Israeli and American women in uniform - are eligible enemy combatants in jihad. "This is Shariah," Shakir asserts in a CD recording of one of his lectures in 2001, which the authors obtained from a radical mosque bookstore in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Shakir, a black convert, has been portrayed as a moderate in the mainstream media, including the New York Times, which recently ran a positive profile of him. His pro-jihad statements revealed in "Muslim Mafia" have not been previously reported. CAIR has sued and obtained a temporary restraining order to censor the book's documentary evidence detailing CAIR's support of terrorism and obstruction of FBI investigations.
Longtime CAIR advisory board member and chief fundraiser Siraj Wahhaj echoes his friend Shakir's interpretation of jihad.
"If we go to war, brothers and sisters - and one day we will, believe me - that's why you're commanded [to fight in] jihad," the imam has told his flock in Brooklyn. "When Allah demands us to fight, we're not stopping and nobody's stopping us."
CAIR has invited Shakir back to speak at its events even after the FBI questioned him about a copy of one of his incendiary pamphlets found in the apartment of a suspect in the first World Trade Center bombing. The pro-jihad pamphlet lauded the "armed struggle" that brought about the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan, where U.S. troops are dying in record numbers from Taliban and al-Qaida ambushes.
Shakir, who recently confided to the New York Times that he'd like to see the U.S. "become a Muslim country" ruled by Islamic law, is a regular speaker at CAIR as well as Islamic Society of North America events. (Federal prosecutors say CAIR and ISNA are fronts for the terrorist group Hamas and its parent the radical Muslim Brotherhood, and the sister organizations were recently listed as unindicted terrorist co-conspirators in the largest terror finance case in U.S. history.) Recently, Shakir helped host workshops and delivered keynote speeches at banquets held at CAIR chapters in Chicago, Orlando and San Diego, among others.
"Imam Zaid's speeches are very practical and bring the best out of his listeners," said former CAIR official Ibrahim Moiz, a close personal friend who invited Shakir to speak to Muslims in Maryland, according to "Muslim Mafia."
The cleric has not tempered his jihadist views.
"I don't regret anything I've done or said," Shakir has insisted.
Shakir holds little, if any, respect for law enforcement, particularly the FBI, according to "Muslim Mafia." He constantly belittles the bureau in speeches to Muslims, even warning them that the FBI frames Muslims for terrorism - terrorist acts that he contends the FBI secretly commits.
"The World Trade Center bombing of course was aided and abetted by our good friends at the FBI," the imam has claimed, in just one of the many wild-eyed conspiracy theories he peddles.
The American Muslim cleric also preaches treason against the United States, according to the book, which hit No. 5 on Amazon.com's non-fiction best-seller list the day after it was released last month. It currently ranks No. 1 in books on terrorism and Islam.
Shakir advises the Muslim community in America to wage a cultural jihad now, and a violent jihad later - once the proper "infrastructure" is in place.
He says Muslims should respect American democracy insofar as it can be exploited to help the Brotherhood one day assume power here.
And the only thing that could stop the Islamization of America, he notes, is if its people rose up and denied the subversive movement the unbridled freedom it's heretofore enjoyed.
However, if Americans were to do that, Muslims would then be obligated, he says, to exercise their supposedly "divine legal right" to rise up and wage violent jihad, reveals the book "Muslim Mafia."
"What a great victory it will be for Islam to have this country in the fold and ranks of the Muslims," sermonized Shakir, who continues to be a marquee speaker at CAIR functions.
For now, he said, following the radical Muslim Brotherhood playbook, Muslims must continue to "create a state within a state."
THE MEDIA HAS NOT COVERED
The Fort Hood Massacre
Accurately
A new study by the Culture and Media Institute, a conservative group, says the following: 85 percent of network evening news stories on Fort Hood did not mention the word "terror." In fact, in 48 reports, ABC, CBS and NBC referenced terrorism just seven times. Only 29 percent of the evening news reports even mentioned Major Hasan was a Muslim. Of those mentions, 50 percent defended Islam. And before Obama's speech at Fort Hood, 93 percent of the network evening news stories ignored any discussion about a terror connection. But after Obama said that extremist views were involved, all three networks began to report a possible connection to terrorism.
So you can see that apparently the American media is still under the sway of the White House and not accurately portraying things as they really are.
In TIME magazine this week, editor at large Nancy Gibbs leads the coverage with an article entitled: The Fort Hood Killer: Terrified or Terrorist?
With all due respect, I don't care if Hasan was terrified and I know he is a terrorist. The TIME article discusses the pressure of Iraq and Afghanistan, but you can't be blaming American foreign policy for the actions of a terrorist killer like Hasan. It simply doesn't add up.
NPR, a usually liberal outlet, has been a sane voice in evaluating Hasan, who was charged in a military court Thursday with 13 counts of premeditated murder. National Public Radio reports that Hasan's supervisors at the Walter Reed hospital in Washington had reprimanded him for telling a patient, "Islam can save your soul."
Also, The Dallas Morning News is reporting that Hasan may have wired money to Pakistan, but that is still not confirmed.
What is confirmed is that Hasan was involved with Islamic terror elements. But the media still - still - does not want to acknowledge the truth. That's downright dangerous because people are dying all over the world, the victims of terrorism generated by fanatical Muslims.
It is time the American media wised up, got honest and told the folks exactly the danger we all face.
FT. HOOD KILLER'S TITLE WAS 'SOLDIER OF ALLAH'
The Army knew him as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, MD. But he gave himself another title - "Soldier of Allah."
Hasan, the man responsible for the Fort Hood massacre that left 13 dead and 29 wounded, printed up business cards he ordered over the Internet that identified him as "SoA" - a jihadi acronym for "Soldier of Allah."
The latest peek into the warped mind of the Army-trained psychiatrist came as the US Army Criminal Investigation Command charged him yesterday with 13 counts of premeditated murder.
If convicted, he faces a lethal injection.
A 14th murder charge is being weighed because victim Pvt. Francheska Velez, 21, was pregnant.
With every day that passes since last week's bloodbath, more revelations come to light indicating that Hasan, 39, likely embraced an extremely violent perversion of Islamic ideology.
Investigators found the box of the sinister-reading business cards in his apartment, according to ABCnews.com. The green and white cards, the colors of Islam, had his name with the title "Behavior Heatlh [sic] Mental Health and Life Skills" along with "SoA (SWT)."
SWT likely stands for Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, or "Glory to God" in Arabic, according to terrorism investigators.
Witnesses reported Hasan began his 100-bullet rampage at the Fort Hood Soldier Readiness Processing Center with the Arabic shout of "Allahu Akbar!" or "God is great!"
Reporters yesterday were given a tour of Hasan's $325-a-month apartment in Killeen, Texas, where they a noticed a cache of prescription drugs, including the HIV medicine Combivir.
The HIV med, which health-care workers take after exposure to HIV from a blood splash or needle puncture, was dated from 2001, when Hasan was in medical school.
Also left in his apartment was an array of Jordanian and Israeli coins and an Indian-published book titled "Dreams and Interpretations."
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, who first revealed that the FBI knew Hasan had communicated with al Qaeda associates, said Hasan, whose Army salary was $90,000 a year, may have also wired money to Pakistan.
"They are trying to follow up on it because they recognize that if there are communications - phone or money transfers with somebody in Pakistan - it just raises a whole other level of questions," Hoekstra told the Dallas Morning News.
He added that the latest bombshell came from sources "outside of the [intelligence] community."
Lawless regions of Pakistan are believed to be refuges for al Qaeda, and the country is facing a terrorism campaign by Islamist militants seeking to overthrow the government.
Investigators are looking to see whether Hasan supported Islamic charities overseas that may be fronts for terrorist organizations or was in contact with militant groups.
Obama appointed a top aide for Homeland Security and counterterrorism, John Brennan, to conduct a top-to-bottom review of the intelligence gathered on Hasan before the attacks.
All intelligence agencies were ordered to preserve every scrap of documentation they collected on Hasan.
Brennan's report is due at the end of the month.
The FBI and Defense Department have faced withering criticism in the wake of the attacks for ignoring the warning signs that Hasan harbored deep sympathies for militant Islam.
The FBI intercepted 10 to 20 e-mails that Hasan, a native of Virginia, sent to Anwar Aulaqi, an al Qaeda propagandist in Yemen who had befriended three 9/11 hijackers.
Despite the chilling correspondence, the Joint Terrorism Task Force that stumbled upon the e-mails concluded that Hasan was merely doing research as a psychiatrist. The task force never opened an in-depth investigation.
This week, one investigator familiar with the e-mails said they were actually Hasan's attempt to seek advice for a "moral dilemma."
The investigator, however, said the task force feared US officials could be seen as biased against Muslims if they pursued the leads.
Beginning in early 2008, doctors at Water Reed Medical Center began voicing concerns about Hasan's increasingly erratic behavior as the Army-trained psychiatrist completed his fellowship in disaster and preventative psychology.
Both at Walter Reed and at the Pentagon-run Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, colleagues and supervisors called Hasan subpar and outright lazy.
More troubling were frequent outbursts that made it known he sympathized more with Muslim extremists, including suicide bombers, than with US troops.
Some of his supervisors met to question his sympathies - wondering outright whether he'd ally himself with Muslims fighting US troops. They even wondered whether he'd be a security risk and wondered if it would be better if he was quickly discharged.
He was combative whenever the topic of the War on Terror or Islam arose, a near daily occurrence for a military facility coping with two wars, they said.
At Fort Hood, he openly talked with fellow Muslims about his aversion to participating in a war against Muslims.
He was then ordered to deploy to Afghanistan - his worst fear.
Pentagon officials say he made no formal application for an early discharge or as a conscientious objector, although Hasan's family says he hired a lawyer in an attempt to get out.
PART OF AMERICA'S STORY?
Obama said, in his Cairo speech: "I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America's story.
Dear Mr. Obama:
Were those Muslims that were in America when the Pilgrims first landed? Funny, I thought they were Native American Indians.
Were those Muslims that celebrated the first Thanksgiving day? Sorry again, those were Pilgrims and Native American Indians.
Can you show me one Muslim signature on the United States Constitution? Declaration of Independence? Bill of Rights? Didn't think so.
Did Muslims fight for this country's freedom from England? No.
Did Muslims fight during the Civil War to free the slaves in America? No, they did not. In fact, Muslims to this day are still the largest traffickers in human slavery. Your own 'half brother' a devout Muslim still advocates slavery himself, even though muslims of Arabic descent refer to black muslims as "pug nosed slaves." Says a lot of what the Muslim world really thinks of your family's "rich Islamic heritage" doesn't it Mr.Obama?
Where were Muslims during the Civil Rights era of this country? Not present. There are no pictures or media accounts of Muslims walking side by side with Martin Luther King Jr.. or helping to advance the cause of Civil Rights.
Where were Muslims during this country's Woman's Suffrage era? Again, not present. In fact, devout Muslims demand that women are subservient to men in the Islamic culture. So much so that often they are beaten for not wearing the 'hajib' or for talking to a man that is not a direct family member or their husband. Yep, the Muslims are all for women's rights aren't they?
Where were Muslims during World War II? They were aligned with Adolf Hitler. The Muslim grand mufti himself met with Adolf Hitler, reviewed the troops and accepted support from the Nazi's in killing Jews.
Finally Obama, where were Muslims on Sept. 11th, 2001? If they weren't flying planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or a field in Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people on our own soil, they were rejoicing in the middle east. No one can dispute the pictures shown from all parts of the Muslim world celebrating on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and other news networks that day. Strangely, the very "moderate" Muslims who's asses you bent over backwards to kiss in Cairo, Egypt on June 4th were stone cold silent post 9-11. To many Americans, their silence has meant approval for the acts of that day.
And THAT, Obama, is the "rich heritage" Muslims have here in America.
And now we can add November 5, 2009 - the slaughter of American soldiers at Fort Hood by a muslim major who is a doctor and a psychiatrist who was supposed to be counseling soldiers returning from battle in Iraq and Afghanistan. That, Obama is "muslim heritage" in America.
OBAMA TRANSFORMS TERRORISTS INTO U.S. CITIZENS
Welcome to the Islamic America of Barack Hussein Obama,
Self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees have been granted full rights and protection under the U.S. Constitution.
They will be sent to New York to face trial in a civilian federal court, an Obama administration official announced today.
Under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Mr. Mohammed and the other "alleged" terrorists will have the right to a speedy trial, the right to publicly paid counsel, the right to immediate access to all government evidence - - including the most sensitive intelligent files - - that can be used against him, the right to remain silent, the right to obtain witnesses in his favor, the right of protection against self incrimination, and the right to participate in jury selection.
The trial is expected to cost over $100 million and may drag on for many years.
Thanks to Obama’s decision, Mr. Mohammed will have a platform to reach out to radical Islamists throughout the world to join in the holy war against the United States and the opportunity to disseminate highly confidential government information to every jihadist in creation.
This information is expected to produce a dire impact on the U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and to create a new wave of attacks against the American people.
While Mr. Mohammed has obtained all the rights and privileges of a U.S. citizen, such rights and privileges are being denied to real red-blooded American citizens.
Dr. Paul L. Williams, noted author and journalist, is now being dragged into a Canadian court of law and stripped of his Constitutional rights for statements he made from his home in Pennsylvania - statements that are well within the limits of American libel laws.
Williams was quoted as saying: "I want my rights back! Obama has handed them [Constitutional Rights] to an Islamic terrorist."
Yet neither the American Civil Liberties Union nor the American Center for Law and Justice has come to the defense of Dr. Williams.
By attempting to warn the American people of a terror threat, he is being treated as a terrorist.
And Mr. Mohammed, himself a terrorist, is being treated as a privileged citizen, with rights and status usually reserved for politicians and Wall St. bankers.
Without confirming details of the decision, Barack Obama said it was a legal and national security matter. "I am absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be subjected to the most exacting demands of justice," Obama said at a joint news conference in Tokyo with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.
Bringing Mr. Mohammed and his terrorist friends to U.S. soil to face trial represents a key step in Mr. Obama’s plan to close the terror suspect detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama initially planned to close the detention center by Jan. 22, but the administration is no longer expected to meet that deadline.
It is also a major legal and political test of Obama’s overall approach to terrorism. If the case suffers legal setbacks, the administration will face second-guessing from those who never wanted it in a civilian courtroom. And if lawmakers get upset about terrorists being brought to their home regions, they may fight back against other parts of Obama’s agenda.
"This is definitely a seismic shift in how we're approaching the war on al-Qaida," said Glenn Sulmasy, a law professor at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy who has written a book on national security justice. "It’s certainly surprising that the five masterminds, if you will, of the attacks on the United States will be tried in traditional, open federal courts."
The New York case may force the court system to confront a host of difficult legal issues surrounding counterterrorism programs begun after the 2001 attacks, including interrogation techniques, including water-boarding, that were used on some of the suspects while in CIA custody.
Mr. Mohammed was subjected to water-boarding or simulated drowning 183 times in 2003.
Holder will also announce that five other detainees, including a major suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, will face justice before a military commission, the official said.
Attorney General Eric Holder has decided the case of the five Sept. 11 suspects should be handled by prosecutors working in the Southern District of New York, which has held a number of major terrorism trials in recent decades at a courthouse in lower Manhattan, just blocks from where the World Trade Center towers tumbled on Sept. 11, 2001.
Some members of Congress have fought any effort to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial in the United States, saying it would be too dangerous for nearby civilians.
The Obama administration has defended the planned trials, saying many terrorists have been safely tried, convicted, and imprisoned in the United States, including the 1993 World Trade Center bomber, Ramzi Yousef.
Mohammed and the four others - Waleed bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali - are accused of orchestrating the attacks that killed 2,973 people on Sept. 11.
Mohammed admitted to interrogators that he was the mastermind of the attacks - he allegedly proposed the concept to Osama bin Laden as early as 1996, obtained funding for the attacks from bin Laden, oversaw the operation and trained the hijackers in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The charges against the others are as follows:
- Bin Attash, a Yemeni, allegedly ran an al-Qaida training camp in Logar, Afghanistan, where two of the 19 hijackers were trained. Bin Attash is believed to have been bin Laden’s bodyguard. Authorities say bin Laden selected him as a hijacker, but he was prevented from participating when he was briefly detained in Yemen in early 2001.
- Binalshibh, a Yemeni, allegedly helped find flight schools for the hijackers, helped them enter the United States and assisted with financing the operation. He allegedly was selected to be a hijacker and made a "martyr video" in preparation for the operation, but was unable to get a U.S. visa. He also is believed to be a lead operative for a foiled plot to crash aircraft into London’s Heathrow Airport.
- Ali allegedly helped nine of the hijackers travel to the United States and sent them $120,000 for expenses and flight training. He is believed to have served as a key lieutenant to Mohammed in Pakistan. He was born in Pakistan and raised in Kuwait.
- Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, a Saudi, allegedly helped the hijackers with money, western clothing, traveler’s checks and credit cards. Al-Hawsawi testified in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, saying he had seen Moussaoui at an al-Qaida guesthouse in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in early 2001, but was never introduced to him or conducted operations with him.
OBAMA LOWERS BAR FOR SUCCESS
In Afghanistan War
Seeks exit strategy
Top Obama administration officials took pains to lower the bar for success in Afghanistan Sunday, stressing that the administration is seeking an exit strategy and holds "no illusions" that it will transform the country into a functional modern democracy.
The ongoing rhetorical tweaking of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan comes as the president weighs whether to send more troops to the war zone. It was thought that officials were leaning toward sending more than 30,000 U.S. forces, but Obama rejected all troop-level proposals last week, sending strategists back to the drawing board.
Obama is expected to announce some troop increase along with clearer limitations on U.S. goals for the war when he returns from Asia late this week. The announcement is expected either just before or just after the Thanksgiving holiday on Nov 26.
But while the three-month delay in settling on a new war strategy has frustrated Democrats and Republicans alike, administration officials argue that Obama is within his rights to take his time and that the mission must be narrowed. They say the focus from here must be on ensuring that Afghanistan does not return to being a "safe haven and a staging platform" for terrorists.
"We have no illusions. This is not the prior days when people would come on your show and talk about how we were going to help the Afghans build a modern democracy and build a more functioning state and do all of these wonderful things," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "That could happen, but our primary focus is on the security of the United States of America."
White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod said Sunday that there is a "concern" in the administration about exit strategy, which he said will be a factor in the decision process.
"We have been there for eight years. It is a long, long time. And we have to keep focused on what our purpose was in the first place. Our purpose was to disrupt and dismantle and destroy Al Qaeda," he told CNN's "State of the Union." But obviously we cannot make an open-ended commitment. And we want to do this in a way that maximizes our efforts against Al Qaeda, but within the framework of bringing our troops home at some point. ... There has to be a framework to this decision."
Clinton stressed that point in a separate interview with NBC's "Meet the Press," though she said she would not "define the exit strategy" at this stage.
"We're not interested in staying in Afghanistan. We're not interested in any long-term presence there," Clinton said.
Clinton, an influential voice in deliberations about whether to add large numbers of U.S. troops to the eight-year war, also said Afghan President Hamid Karzai can do more to reduce corruption and go after those who may have looted U.S. aid in the past.
She said the U.S. government will not provide civilian aid without assurances that there are ministries they can hold accountable, and that the Obama administration wants a tribunal to prosecute major corruption crimes and a new anti-corruption commission.
Clinton would not comment directly on concerns expressed by the U.S. ambassador to the country, Karl Eikenberry, who relayed to the White House his reservations about whether problems with the Afghan government could undermine the effectiveness of any troop increase.
Eikenberry's concerns seemed to throw a wrench in the decision-making process -- one that critics say has lasted far too long already.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Obama will have "overwhelming support" from GOP senators if he grants the troop requests, but said the caucus is "frustrated" with the inaction.
"We are a little bit perplexed about the length of time it's taking to make this decision," he told "Fox News Sunday." "Part of being president is you don't have easy choices. You have a lot of choices you have to make among difficult options. None of them are perfect. ... I think the president, as difficult as this decision is, needs to make it, needs to follow the advice of his generals."
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani went further, telling "Fox News Sunday" that the delay "is political strategy, not war strategy."
(Just what America needs ... a government who has as their prime objective the appeasement of muslim terrorists!
What would happen to Sean Payton if he announced that his objective in playing football was to simply score 1 point per game, and after game 8 decided not score any points?
What if Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus had decided 6 weeks ago that they had been racing long enough this year and decided that they were going to put #48 in the garage for the rest of the season?
Well, I'll tell you what would happen ... millions of NFL and NASCAR fans would demand their removal, and the owners would honor the fans requests!
Well, let me tell you this America. We are the fans, we are the owners, and we have the right ... hell, the responsibility to fire the drivers, crew chiefs and head coaches in our government at any time!
AND I STRONGLY SUGGEST WE DO IT NOW!
We have spent trillions of dollars, and countless American G.I.s have been wounded and died, not because the enemy is stronger, larger or better equipped, but because the assholes in D.C. are wimps and clueless cowards!
As I have said before, many times over, these idiots never learned a damn thing from Korea or Nam!
Generals on the ground should decide the fate of war, not some half-baked politicians who are interested in only maintaining their cushy jobs for life!
Fire all of them, in any manner possible, and give America back to REAL Americans!!!)
OBAMA TELLS BURMA TO FREE SUU KYI
An official says Obama has told Burma's junta to free pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.
Obama delivered the message during his summit Sunday with leaders of 10 Southeast Asian nations, which included Burma Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has told reporters that Obama called on Burma to free Suu Kyi and other political prisoners, and end oppression of minorities.
He says Obama "brought that up directly with that government," press secretary Robert Gibbs said.
Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi has been in detention for 14 of the last 20 years.
(Who the hell is Obama to tell anyone anything?
What's he going to do if Burma refuses? Hit Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein with his purse? Start to cry and run to tell Rev. Wright that no one obeys him?
Hey, Obamination ... did ya ever hear of cleaning your own house before telling others to clean their houses?
Wadda fuckin' idiot, as well as his supporters, supposed Americans, placed in the White House!)
OBAMA ISSUES WARNING TO IRAN
(Like who gives a shit if Obama warns anyone about anything? Iran doesn't, Iraq doesn't, Afghanistan doesn't! China doesn't, Russia doesn't!)
OBAMA URGES CONGRESS TO DELAY FORT HOOD INVESTIGATION
On an eight-day Asia trip, Obama turned his attention home and pleaded for lawmakers to "resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into the political theater."
(Holy shit! Obama already has turned it into a "political theater" when he announced that we should wait until all the facts are in before declaring that terrorist was a terrorist!
Too bad Obama didn't wait for the facts before declaring those police officers were "racists" when they arrested the obnoxious and egotistical black friend of Obama's!)
CLINTON SAYS SHE'D BE GLAD TO MEET PALIN OVER COFFEE
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she's never met the one-time Republican vice presidential hopeful and former Alaska governor and thinks it would be very interesting to sit down and talk with her.
(But who the hell said that Sarah wants to have coffee with Hillary?)
CHINA CRITICIZES
U.S. Financial Management
During Obama visit
China's top banking regulator issued a sharp critique of U.S. financial management only hours before Barack Obama commenced his first visit to the Asian giant, highlighting economic and trade tensions that threaten to overshadow the trip.
Liu Mingkang, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said that a weak U.S. dollar and low U.S. interest rates had led to "massive speculation" that was inflating asset bubbles around the world. It has created "unavoidable risks for the recovery of the global economy, especially emerging economies," Liu said.
The situation is "seriously impacting global asset prices and encouraging speculation in stock and property markets."
His comments signaled that Obama - on the third leg of a four-country Asian tour - can expect blunt talk from Chinese leaders on the economy. The issue could complicate his broad agenda in China that also includes efforts to extract new commitments on climate change and to encourage them to take a more active role to defuse nuclear threats in Iran and North Korea.
The trip has already had some hiccups. Wrangling between the administration and Beijing over Obama's town hall meeting with university students in Shanghai on Monday was intense, with China wanting to screen the audience and its questions, and the U.S. wanting a freer exchange.
(Oh-oh...
And Obama has allowed China to buy around 55% of the U.S.!
This kinda reminded me of when I was a kid and daddy was threatening to take away my allowance...)
ARREST AT WAL-MART LEADS TO CHARGES OF RACISM
Nearly three years after Heather Ellis switched checkout lines at a Missouri store and touched off what she calls a racially charged dispute, the young black schoolteacher faces a trial that could get her 15 years in prison.
Witnesses say Ellis cut in front of waiting customers, shoved merchandise on a conveyor belt out of her way and became belligerent when confronted, according to court filings.
Ellis maintains she was merely joining her cousin in a faster line. She says she was pushed by a white customer, hassled by store employees, called racial slurs and physically mistreated by police officers.
Police say she kicked one officer and split another's lip. Her trial for assault, resisting arrest and disturbing the peace begins Wednesday.
(There was a popular phrase when I was a kid...
"That's one uppity nigger!"
Well, seems that is still applies in Missouri!
I hope they nail her ass!!)
SCOTUS WON'T HEAR APPEAL FROM GROUP
WHO SAYS NFL'S 'REDSKINS' NAME OFFENSIVE
The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal from a group of Native Americans who think the name of the NFL's Washington Redskins football team is offensive.
The high court on Monday turned away an appeal from Suzan Shown Harjo. That ends the latest round in the 17-year court battle between the Redskins and a group of American Indians who want them to change their name.
Harjo and her fellow plaintiffs have been working since 1992 to have the Redskins trademarks declared invalid. They initially won — the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office panel canceled the trademarks in 1999. But U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly overturned the ruling in 2003 in part because the suit was filed decades after the first Redskins trademark was issued in 1967.
The U.S. Court of Appeals then sent the case back to Kollar-Kotelly, noting that the youngest of the plaintiffs was only 1 year old in 1967 and therefore could not have taken legal action at the time.
But Kollar-Kotelly rejected that argument, saying the youngest plaintiff turned 18 in 1984 and therefore "waited almost eight years" after coming of age to join the lawsuit. The Court of Appeals upheld that decision in May, and the Supreme Court now has refused to review that decision.
This doesn't end the legal battle, however. The plaintiffs have a backup plan: A group of six American Indians ranging in age from 18 to 24 filed essentially the same claim two years ago, but the new case has been on hold until this one was resolved.
None of the judges has commented on whether the Redskins name is offensive or racist, instead holding in favor of the football team on legal technicalities.
The case is Harjo v. Pro-Football, Inc., 09-326.
(FINALLY! The SCOTUS makes a decent decision!!!)
PALIN: "I CAN'T BE BLAMED FOR GOP LOSING PRESIDENCY IN 2008"
Sarah Palin said she thinks the Republican ticket lost the 2008 presidential election because Americans were looking for change, and not because she undermined the campaign or was unprepared for the vice presidential seat.
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey that aired Monday, Palin said the economy tanked under a Republican administration and people wanted to try a different path.
"They were quite concerned about the road that America was on with our economy. They did not want more of the same. They did not want status quo. And I think, unfortunately, our ticket represented what was perceived as status quo," she said.
"I don't think I could be blamed for losing the race any more than I could be credited with winning the race had I done a better job as a candidate," Palin added.
Appearing on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" a day before the release of her 413-page book, "Going Rogue: An American Life," Palin said she knew she didn't have a good interview with CBS' Katie Couric, but thought that Couric was interested in a partisan agenda.
Palin said in hindsight, she wishes she had given some exact examples when Couric asked her which newspapers she reads.
"I was already so annoyed and it was unprofessional for me to wear my annoyance on my sleeve," Palin said, noting that she perceived Couric's question as suggesting that Alaskans are Neanderthal and uneducated.
As for her daughter's pregnancy, Palin described to Oprah the handling of the news that Bristol Palin was pregnant, saying that the then-17-year-old Bristol was embarrassed to see her pregnancy on the news. Palin said she tried to console Bristol and thought the campaign botched the message management on the pregnancy and thought that the realism of the situation should have been the message that shone through.
"I was naive to think that reporters would leave my kids alone," she added.
Palin said it's "a bit heartbreaking" to see Levi Johnston, the father of her grandson, taking the road he has chosen. Palin said Johnston, who is set to appear in an upcoming edition of Playgirl magazine, is appearing in "porn," and on a path that is "not a healthy place to be."
Johnston has been working up a Hollywood career, and has said he plans to shovel some dirt on Palin. Last week, he traveled to New York City to shoot his Playgirl photo spread, and told FoxNews.com that he is trying to get custody of his son.
"That's all I care about right now," he said.
Palin said that Johnston hasn't been back "in a while" to see his son, Tripp. Bristol is taking care of baby Tripp full-time, but has the support of a large family, she said.
Not closing the door entirely, Palin said Johnston is working his gig but he is "family," "is loved," and that it could all work out in the end.
"We don't have to keep going down this road of controversy and drama. We're not really into the drama, we don't really like that. We're more productive we have other things to concentrate on," Palin said.
The new memoir doesn't contain any references to Johnston but she told Oprah that she continues "to hope for the best and to pray for Levi." She did not, however, invite Johnston to Thanksgiving.
There is an "open invitation for Levi to come to Aunt Katie's house for Thanksgiving dinner in Washington," she said in an apparent reference to Couric, whom she called "the perky one."
While Palin is promoting her book, she also appears to be preparing for a future in politics despite stepping down from the Alaska governorship over the summer.
"I'm concentrating on 2010 and making sure that we have issues tackled as Americans, to make sure we are on the right road," she said, adding that she wouldn't say whether she is running for president in 2012 regardless of whether she was asked.
"I'm looking forward to affecting positive change between then and now. I don't know what I'm going to be doing in 2012, it's not on my radar screen right now, as I am dealing with so many issues that are important," Palin told Winfrey.
"More and more I am learning, you don't need a title to make a difference," she added.
Even if she's cagey on her political goals, Palin is keeping her name in the spotlight. "Going Rogue" is already a bestseller and she has re-launched the PalinforAmerica.com Web site, which will create a community sign-up for Palin supporters around the country; forums and organizational opportunities for Palin fans.
"We want this site to be used as a tool to inform and organize people who support Sarah Palin and believe in the causes that will restore America," reads the site.
Insiders who've spoken with Palin recently said she seems eager to run in 2012, but Palin faces some public opinion problems. In the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, 60 percent overall said she is not qualified to be commander in chief while 52 percent said they see her in unfavorable terms.
But among Republicans, Palin's favorability rating skyrockets to 76 percent.
Palin told Oprah that the title of her book came from the very first time she publicly broke ranks with John McCain's campaign over its decision to withdraw from Michigan. Palin's book will be released Tuesday and she begins a book tour Wednesday in Grand Rapids, Mich.
(Don't worry, Sarah. Aware citizens do not blame you!
We (I) blame a spineless Republican party, and their selection as Presidential candidate, who was already proven to be a loser in the preceding Presidential election.
Yes, I voted Republican, but not because of the Presidential candidate, but because of you!
Rest assured that if you decide to become involved in another political campaign, you will have my vote.)
WASHINGTON SHOULD TRY SOMETHING NOVEL
So General Motors says it's on the rebound; so much of a rebound, that by the end of this year, it's going to start paying back all the money we gave it. Maybe a billion bucks by December 31 and another billion bucks each quarter for the next six quarters. Then the rest of it in some huge public offering the company is planning sometime next year, maybe early 2011.
(How is government Motors going to pay me back? They just announced a $1.8-BILLION loss for this last quarter? And has asked for another bail-out (the third!) of several BILLION dollars for their financial arm, GMAC!)
So by then, we'll get all our money back, all of it. And, I'm told, with interest.
So, one question: When can I expect my check? You know, my share of that loan I co-signed. By my math, it should be at least a few hundred bucks; about what a $50 billion loan works out to when you divide it by the roughly 300 million Americans who wrote it.
(I'm still waiting for the $250 Obama said I should receive because Social Security decided not to give a COLA this year...)
So I'm waiting for it: My share, my interest, my check.
And don't give me that nonsense, Washington: "We never asked you for the money when we gave it, we're not going to return the money when you demand it."
This is the same nonsense you pulled with this TARP thing. Originally that was meant for rescuing big banks. Then some of those big banks gave it back and you said, let's save it for other big banks that might go bad.
Then it was for small banks, then all banks, then not even banks. Any old special interest with a special need will do.
Well, no, Washington, this will not do. Not for the folks who write the checks and pay your salary.
So pay us some respect. First, by trying something novel: Paying us back.
IMAM SAYS HE DIDN'T PRESSURE HASAN
A radical Muslim cleric with suspected links to al-Qaida considered himself a confidant of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused in the Fort Hood shootings, The Washington Post reported Monday.
But the cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, insisted in an interview with a Yemeni journalist contacted by the Post that he did not pressure Hasan to harm Americans. Al-Awlaki is a former imam at a Falls Church, Va., mosque where Hasan and his family occasionally worshipped.
Al-Awlaki, a native-born U.S. citizen, left the United States in 2002, eventually traveling to Yemen. He said Hasan first e-mailed him in December 2008. Eventually, al-Awlaki said, Hasan came to view him as a confidant.
"It was clear from his e-mails that Nidal trusted me," al-Awlaki told the journalist. "Nidal told me: 'I speak with you about issues that I never speak with anyone else.'"
He showed the journalist his correspondence with Hasan but would not provide it to the Post. He said Hasan questioned the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and said the Army psychiatrist cited Islamic law that demanded "that what America was doing should be confronted."
"So Nidal was providing evidence to Anwar, not vice versa," said the Yemeni reporter, Abdulelah Hider Shaea.
Hasan, 39, was charged last Thursday with the Nov. 5 shooting spree at Fort Hood, in which 13 people were killed.
The imam told Shaea that the Fort Hood attack was acceptable under Islam. "America was the one who first brought the battle to Muslim countries," al-Awlaki said.
Al-Awlaki also denounced Muslims who condemned the attack. "They say American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan should be killed," the imam argued, "so how can they say the American soldier should not be killed at the moment they are going to Iraq and Afghanistan?"
Al-Awlaki is considered to have deep and close links with al-Qaida, former U.S. intelligence officials have told The Associated Press. In 2001, al-Awlaki had contact with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, according to law enforcement officials.
ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS COMPROMISE US BORDER SECURITY
In the battle on the US-Mexico border, the fight against illegal immigration often loses out to environmental laws that have blocked construction of parts of the "virtual fence" and that threaten to create places where agents can't easily track illegal immigrants.
Documents obtained by Rep. Rob Bishop and shared with The Washington Times show National Park Service staffers have tried to stop the US Border Patrol from placing some towers associated with the virtual fence, known as the Secure Border Initiative or SBInet, on wilderness lands in parks along the border.
In a remarkably candid letter to members of Congress, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said her department could have to delay pursuits of illegal immigrants while waiting for horses to be brought in so agents don't trample protected lands, and warns that illegal immigrants will increasingly make use of remote, protected areas to avoid being caught.
The documents also show the Interior Department has charged the Homeland Security Department $10 million over the past two years as a "mitigation" penalty to pay for damage to public lands that agencies say has been caused by Border Patrol agents chasing illegal immigrants.
"I want this resolved so border security has the precedence down there. If wilderness designation gets in the way of a secure southern border, I want the designation changed," said Mr. Bishop (R-UT), who requested the documents. "If it means you lose a couple of acres of wilderness, I don't think God will blame us at the judgment bar for doing that"...
A major problem is wilderness - lands deemed so pristine that they should be maintained in that condition, free of man-made structures.
Wilderness is governed under a 1964 law that imposed strict rules that tie Border Patrol agents' hands, and there is a lot of that land along the border. According to the Congressional Research Service, California has 1.8 million acres of wilderness within 100 miles of the border, and Arizona has 2.5 million acres. New Mexico and Texas have smaller plots.
According to e-mails obtained by Mr. Bishop, Park Service officials at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and at the Denver office that oversees the park said they will not allow the Border Patrol to place electronic surveillance towers on parts of the park that are designated wilderness.
(I love the National Park System. It's good to know that we have lands that are protected from housing complexes and strip malls.
But damnit! I also want to know that American citizens are also protected and rate a higher level of importance than some damn pine tree!)
DEMOCRAT SENATORS PUSH PLAN TO SUBSIDIZE LOST HOURS
Senate Democrats crafting a job creation bill are considering a proposal to give money to workers who cut their hours in order to avoid layoffs.
A bill sponsored by Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) would give unemployment compensation to employees who accept a reduced work schedule to allow their companies to avert layoffs or to hire more employees. Reed's proposal for work-sharing was mentioned during the Senate Democrats' lunch Tuesday, when Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that an initiative focusing on jobs would soon be a priority, Reed's office said.
Democratic Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), Paul Kirk (D-MA) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) have signed on as co-sponsors.
Reed's plan calls for up to $600 million for the program, which would last for up to two years. Rhode Island and 16 other states already have their own work share programs, which have saved more than 146,000 jobs this year so far, according to the Labor Department. Reed's bill would provide funding for existing work share programs and grants for states that have yet to start them. If all 50 states participated in work share programs, between 400,000 and 500,000 jobs a year could be saved, according to Reed's office.
"Work share programs provide businesses with the flexibility to reduce hours instead of cutting jobs," Reed said in a statement. "This plan will help prevent layoffs, make businesses more productive, and save taxpayers money by keeping people on payrolls and off unemployment benefits."
A federal work-sharing program is one of several proposals likely to be considered by Democrats as part of a new jobs bill. Reid's announcement Tuesday that he is looking at ways to boost job creation came on the heels of the October jobs report, which showed the unemployment rate hitting double digits for the first time since 1983. Barack Obama is making his own jobs push, announcing this week that he will convene a jobs summit next month.
(Holy shit! We already pay ranchers for not ranching, and we pay farmers for not farming. Now they want us to pay workers for not working?
I'm a Registered Nurse ... when are the Democrats going to start paying me for not nursing?)
ISLAM
Bashers
What does it take to make Islam bashers mend their ways? Why don't these folks come to their senses and see Islam as a religion of peace and praise the God of Abraham for continuing his beneficence on humanity by sending Muhammad to guide and humanize us?
Why is it that some people keep criticizing a religion that has nearly 1.5 billion followers throughout the world? Now, if this faith was indeed what its detractors claim it is, wouldn't these masses of people see through it and dump it?
Didn't our very own President go around the Muslim heartland and sing the praises of Islam at every stop? Didn't he bow with great deference to the King of Islam in Saudi Arabia? Didn't he proudly proclaim Islam as the faith of his dear and near kindred? Didn't he, time and again, tell us that Islam is indeed the religion of peace? Didn't he with his captivating oratory skills cite passages from the Quran to show how reverent he was toward this religion? Didn't he appoint a raft of "devoted" Muslims to sensitive and high posts in government?
Even ignoring the President’s behavior and pronouncements, we have numberless others in the know such as politicians, media experts, academics and what-nots who keep preaching to us that Islam is indeed a sanctified religion wrongly vilified by a bunch of hate mongers. After all, its very name means peace. How could anyone possibly have anything but praise for a religion called peace? What is more precious than peace?
Exacerbated, the champions of the religion of peace bemoan: what does it take to convince the detractors of Islam to stop their unceasing effort to present a distorted image of this wonderful world-encircling religion?
Well, just a few problems that makes taking the President’s remarks and actions, as well as all the other Islamic apologists and know-it-alls, difficult.
* Claiming "Islam" means "peace" is fraudulent to begin with. Islam is an Arabic word. And the word for peace in Arabic is "solh," and not Islam. Islam is derived from the root word "taslim," which means submission or surrender. Hence, Islam’s true name, surrender, is in fact most descriptive of what it is: total, unconditional submission and surrender of the individual and the community to the will and dictates of Allah as revealed by his "rasool," messenger, Muhammad.
* Further proof of the fraudulent nature of billing Islam as a religion of peace is the irrefutable fact that Muhammad himself led his followers during his lifetime in 78 battles, only one of which was defensive in nature
* Perusing the religion of peace’s holy book, the Quran, taken by Muslims as the literal revelation of Allah, reads more like a manual of intolerance and war than a divinely-revealed prescription from a benevolent God for a life of brotherhood and peace.
Quran 2:216 "Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but it may happen that you hate a thing which is good for you and it may happen that you love a thing which is bad for you. Allah knoweth, you knew not."
Quran 8:65 "O Prophet exhort the believers to fight. If there be of you 20 steadfast, they will overcome 200 and if there be of you a 100, they shall overcome a 1000, because the disbelievers are a folk without intelligence"
* Deeds speak louder than words. From its very inception, Islam was a movement of violence. Violence both within its ranks as well as against the non-Muslims has been the unceasing practice. The minute Muhammad died, jockeying for power among his disciples led to numberless murders and battles. The faith of peace never saw peace even within its own ranks and never allowed the rest of the world any peace at all by lashing out to other lands near and far.
* A quick scan of the daily news shows the adherent of the religion of peace engaged in unspeakable acts of mayhem and murder in much of the world. There is hardly any need to allude to them here. But the Islamists have an answer for that too. Islam is not responsible, they say. It is only a bunch of opportunists who commit these acts for their own political and economic objectives. We are to believe that those daily suicide bombers explode their vests in the midst of marketplaces, funeral processions, and even mosques are doing so to further their own personal agenda.
* All these aside, a recent report from the FBI estimates that of the 2000 mosques in the United States, 10% preach Jihad. Welcome to the religion of peace as it is invading the land of the free to make it the land of submission. This is not some Islam-hating crackpot group reporting. It is the FBI, an agency known for its bending backward to be politically correct in tune with the rest of the administration.
* The Muslim population is rapidly burgeoning in America by high birth rate as well as successful extensive conversion in prisons. Even by the rules of probability, a fraction of these Muslims may be deeply influenced by the Jihad preachers and take upon themselves Islamist missions of various severity and destruction. How many Jihadists did it take to pulverize the NY Trade Centers? It took one Maj. Nidal Hasan to take the life of 13 and injure 29 others in an outburst of Islamic peace-making.
* Islamist apologists come in all shades. There are true faithful who are out and out in front about it. They believe Islam and its ways are the answer. It doesn't matter whether it is seen as good or bad by others. Then there are those who are hired mouthpieces who are like lawyers that defend a murderer to the limit of their ability simply because they are paid to do so. That’s their chosen profession. We may not like either of the above two types, yet it is understandable.
* What really is hard to deal with are those who either, through ignorance or a misplaced sense of fairness and multiculturalism, keep saying that Islam itself is not bad, the Quran contains no more violence than does the Bible, and that the moderate Muslims who are the vast majority are good people and need to do something about the criminal minority. These folks go even a step further and call those of us who sound the alarm against Islam in general, as unjustified hate mongers.
But the notion of moderate Muslims is an illusion created by the wishful thinking of a good-hearted yet deluded people. The so-called minority Jihadist-types are indeed the real Muslims. These Jihadists hate the so called moderate Muslims as much as they hate the kefirs - the infidels. And it is always the small group, the militant minority that eventually topples the complacent uncaring majority. History is replete with support of this contention.
In my view, truth and the naked truth should be the only standard. No sugar-coating, no political correctness, no hired-guns to cover up for the Islam menace that has inflicted humanity for so long and keeps marching across the globe for doing more harm.
So who is to repent? A Muslim by any other name is a Muslim. It is the human calling for every Muslim to cast off the chain of Islam and take his or her rightful place along the ranks of the truly peaceful and free people of the world.
HERE'S HOW TO TELL IF IT'S PRODUCED IN AMERICA
This may be useful to know when grocery shopping, if it's a concern to you.
The whole world is afraid of China-made "black hearted goods". Can you differentiate which one is made in Taiwan or China? If the first 3 digits of the barcode are 690, 691 or 692, the product is MADE IN CHINA. 471 is Made in Taiwan. This is our right to know, but the government and related departments never educate the public, therefore we have to RESCUE ourselves. Nowadays, Chinese businessmen know that consumers do not prefer products "MADE IN CHINA ", so they don't show from which country it is made. However, you may now refer to the barcode, remember if the first 3 digits are:
00-09 then it is MADE IN USA & CANADA
30-37 then it is MADE IN FRANCE
40-44 then it is MADE IN GERMANY
471 then it is MADE IN TAIWAN
49 then it is MADE IN JAPAN
50 then it is MADE IN UK
690-692 then it is MADE IN CHINA
BUY USA & Canada by watching for "0" at the beginning of the number. We need every boost we can get!
THIS WEEK'S
Football Predictions
(I bet you are thrilled!)
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UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
Of The New York City
Terrorist trial
Most of the major issues have been discussed by others and will not be addressed other than listing them below:
* Terrorists may be granted bail;
* Much of the evidence may be ruled inadmissible;
* The trial will become a forum to preach fundamentalists Islamic doctrine;
* The trial can drag on for years;
* If one or more of the terrorists are sentenced to prison terms, they will recruit more terrorists in the prison system.
All of the above may occur, but other ramifications, unintended consequences, may also occur.
Islamic detainees at Guantanamo Bay are granted privileges not afforded to men awaiting trial in local jails, or prisoners in federal or state prisons. At Guantanamo, each detainee has an individual cell and a better diet than they had at home. Meals totaling up to 4,200 calories per day are brought to their cells, well above the 2,000 to 3,000 calories recommended for weight maintenance by U.S. government dietary guidelines. It is reported that some inmates are eating everything on the menu. One detainee has almost doubled in weight, to 410 pounds, said Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand, spokesman for the detention facilities at Guantanamo, a U.S. Navy station in southeast Cuba. Detainees are simply served a wide variety of food and are expected to choose what appeals to them.
Detainees are not subject to body searches of their crotch area, beard, or hair. Thus, they are able to meet with their attorneys, receive contraband, and pass messages to their compatriots. Guards are required to treat copies of the Koran with respect - special procedures not afforded the Bible or Torah. Terrorist detainees throw feces and urine at their military guards, whose response is limited by strict protocols. Such actions are not allowed in jails.
Lawyers for the five terrorists will demand the same "privileges" for their clients in New York City or county jails. What, no in-cell food delivery? No menu to chose from? Unacceptable! Jail guards will be accused of "torture", "racism", "racial insensitivity", "bigotry", "religious insensitivity" etc. when they respond in a normal manner when assaulted with feces or urine by the terrorists - assaults military guards have to put up with. The guards' response to these assaults will provide the basis for more motions, hearings that provide forums for propaganda, and additional opportunities to turn the trial (trials if defense lawyers succeed in obtaining a separate trial for each terrorist) into a circus. On the upside, newspaper sales will skyrocket.
Seating the jury will be another circus. Defense lawyers will demand that Muslims be on the jury. I see no way to exclude them. One or more Muslims can cause a hung jury. Then the circus begins anew.
Demonstrations will occur. New York City experienced Muslim Day in 2008. Then there was the pro-Hamas demonstration in Florida. Will there be similar parades and demonstrations in support of the terrorists? Will there be counter demonstrations? Will angry Americans say enough is enough and confront the Muslim demonstrations? I think the answer to all of these questions is yes.
Now the problem. If violent confrontations between Muslim supporters of the terrorists and angry Americans occur, who will the police and New York National Guard protect? If protection is provided to the Muslims supporting terrorists, and Americans supporting American values are injured and/or jailed, what will be the nation's reaction? Will millions of angry Americans from every state converge on the city to vent their outrage? If yes, New York State and New York City will have to consider the consequences of using force against American citizens, something that could even spark a civil war. What a terrorist delight that would be!
Or, consider the unthinkable - one or more (or even all) of the terrorists are acquitted. Could this happen? Of course it could. If it does, how will the American people react?
I think each of us should consider these possibilities - how we will deal with these unintended consequences - and answer the question for our selves.
Let the games begin.
OBAMA'S GIFT TO OSAMA
Whoever suggested that Barack Obama is not a Christian? Obama’s decision to try those Gitmo prisoners in New York is the perfect gift for Osama bin Laden and just in time for Christmas. We can only imagine those non-alcoholic champagne corks popping in some remote cave in Afghanistan.
While al Qaeda and the far left celebrate the Obama-Holder decision, it has shocked and outraged most Americans. They are outraged because these men were captured in a war on terror; and should be treated as enemy combatants. And because prosecuting them in a civilian court rather than by military tribunal will undoubtedly reveal classified information and investigative techniques that will help our enemies; and because it will require extraordinary security measures at an astronomical cost to taxpayers; and because it will likely increase the risk of another terrorist attack in New York. They also know that, due to the magnitude of these cases, witnesses and the jury pool could become targets of intimidation or worse, and that the defendants will do their best during the trial to create a circus atmosphere and exploit their public platform for propaganda purposes.
But the left refuses to consider any of that, arguing that our justice system is the best in the world, and will certainly prevail against these common thugs. Their newfound respect for anything American is refreshing, given their propensity to condemn this country. They call us arrogant and imperialistic, and compare our soldiers to Nazis. They denounce our capitalist economy and our health care system, pointing with envy to socialist Europe. Obama, himself, spent the first six months of his presidency apologizing for the country he was elected to lead, and his own wife admitted during his campaign that she had never before been proud of America.
So now they've found something they like about America, proclaiming their utmost confidence in our system of justice. But are they really confident that it will convict these terrorists or that it will expose some mistreatment of callous killers by the previous administration?
In fact, our justice system is the best in the world, but it is far from perfect. It is designed to afford the accused with every far-reaching benefit that liberal judges can divine from our Constitution. There is the Miranda admonishment, the right to a speedy trial, the various exclusionary rules that often bar damning evidence. Convictions require the unanimous decision of 12 jurors, and because of their daunting task, prosecutors often accept plea bargains to reduced charges.
How many hardened criminals are walking the streets today because a prosecutor or police officer neglected to cross a "T" or dot an "I", or because a single, wide-eyed juror was taken in by the slick patter of a high-priced defense attorney? And these particular defendants will have the best attorneys money can buy.
The problem is compounded by Obama’s decision to change horses in the middle of the stream. Even those who reject the concept of a war on terrorism must surely understand that re-designating enemy combatants as criminal defendants has made the prosecutor’s job almost insurmountable. Were they read their Miranda Rights? What about their speedy trial? Were they subjected to mistreatment? These issues and others will certainly be vigorously attacked by the defense attorneys.
No one, not even the 9-11 survivors, wants to see an innocent man convicted of a crime, and even though Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his confederates have admitted their roles in the terrorist attacks, they are entitled to a fair and impartial hearing. The military tribunal that was to have taken place would have accomplished that without the problems associated with a public trial.
Eric Holder has stated that he is confident these men will be convicted and face the "ultimate punishment." Those who watched the O.J. Simpson trial are not so sure. Government prosecutors have become so encumbered with liberal court decisions benefiting the accused, that even solid cases can be difficult to prove. Our criminal justice system is a good one, but it is flawed and not intended for international terrorists. It is founded on the principle that it is "better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer."
What if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is one of those ten?
OBAMA: ADMINISTRATION LEAKS ON AFGHAN WAR STRATEGY A FIRING OFFENSE
Obama said he was furious over administration leaks on his deliberations on Afghanistan war strategy and considered them a firing offense, Reuters reported Wednesday.
In an interview with CBS News, Obama said deliberations over the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan are "life and death decisions" and that he would "absolutely" fire anyone found to be leaking confidential information on the matter.
"For people to be releasing information during the course of deliberations, where we haven't made final decisions yet, I think is not appropriate," he told CBS while in Beijing during a nine-day trip to Asia.
Details of Obama's deliberations and the views of some of his national security aides have appeared for weeks in news stories. Obama echoed the concerns of Defense Secretary Robert Gates about those "leaks," saying he is probably angrier than Gates about them.
"I think I'm angrier than Bob Gates about it," he said. "We have deliberations in the situation room for a reason; we're making life and death decisions that affect how our troops are able to operate in a theater of war."
Obama said in an interview with NBC News Wednesday that his strategy in Afghanistan will "put us on a path towards ending the war" and that his goal is not to pass the conflict on to the next president.
He also declined to say he trusted Afghan President Hamid Karzai, offering praise to Karzai for holding his country together but saying: "He has some strengths, but he has some weaknesses."
"I'm less concerned about any individual than I am with a government as a whole that is having difficulty providing basic services to its people," Obama said in his latest blunt assessment of the Karzai government, whose competence is an essential part of a U.S. war effort now in its ninth year.
Obama is expected soon to announce a revamping of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is likely to send thousands more troops into Afghanistan to stabilize the deteriorating security there.
Many times, the White House has said Obama will reveal his decision in the next few weeks. Obama did so again in a series of TV interviews, saying his announcement will come by year's end.
But there will be no drawdown of U.S. forces anytime soon. Obama has sought to repeatedly assure the world that the U.S. is not pulling out of Afghanistan, a case he plans to make to the American public.
Obama promised to tell the nation "in very clear terms, what exactly is at stake, what we intend to do, how we're going to succeed, how much it's going to cost, how long it's going to take."
He has a tough sell. Polling shows most Americans do not favor sending more troops to Afghanistan.
(Two points here!
The first is the "firing" of anyone who leaks. If Obama intended that to come out as "firing squad" I have to agree with him.
Leaking military strategy during a conflict is TREASON, and there is only one punishment for that!
The second point is the last sentence of the story...
I believe that most Americans want more troops to be sent to Afghanistan IF, AND ONLY IF, the goal of the mission is to totally wipe-out the Taliban! However, if D.C. continues to play games (as they have been doing for the past 8 years) then not only am I against sending more troops, but I am all for pulling all the troops and equipment out immediately!
And, it should' take another friggin' 6 weeks to make a decision!
So, Obama ... either shit or get off the pot!!)
THOUSANDS TURN OUT FOR PALIN'S BOOK TOUR IN MICHIGAN
College students ditched class, employees skipped work and some huddled in the cold overnight just to make sure they get an orange wristband Wednesday that would let them meet Sarah Palin.
Thousands gathered outside a Barnes & Noble and chanted "Palin! Palin! Palin!" for the kickoff of the former Republican vice presidential candidate's "Going Rogue" book tour, which has taken on the feel of a political pep rally.
"She's a person of faith, she has a family, she has gone through a lot of the trials and tribulations we have. I'd vote for her in a heartbeat," said Lana Smith, a dispatcher at a bus company who took the day off work and had been waiting in line since 5:30 a.m.
"Someday I hope her name is up in lights and I'll have had the privilege of meeting her," Smith said.
Country music played as Palin's tour bus, painted to resemble the cover of her book, pulled up to the Woodland Mall in Grand Rapids.
"I just can't tell you how good it is to be back in Michigan," the former Alaska governor told the crowd, which chanted "Palin! Palin!"
"Alaska and Michigan have so much in common, with the huntin' and the fishin' and the hockey moms, and just the hardworking, patriotic Americans who are here," Palin said.
Wearing a "Palin Power" bumper sticker across her red sweat shirt, 72-year-old Rachel Baragar praised Palin's honesty and down-to-earth manner.
"She could be your next door neighbor," said Baragar, of Caledonia.
The memoir was released Tuesday but has topped best-seller lists for weeks. At the Barnes & Noble, about 1,000 orange wristbands were handed out, allowing wearers to get two copies autographed by Palin at the three-hour signing event.
College students Megan Patzky of Racine, Wis., and Sarah Cranmer of Chicago waited in line overnight and skipped their Wednesday classes at nearby Calvin College to get an autograph. Patzky planned to give the signed book to her father for Christmas.
After standing in the cold all night, Patzky and Cranmer were happy to get into the mall around 6:15 a.m. "We were hoping that someone would start selling coffee, but nobody did," Patzky joked.
"Going Rogue" follows Palin from childhood to her departure last summer as Alaska governor. The title refers to her independent streak as a candidate, stemming from complaints within the campaign of GOP presidential nominee John McCain that she had gone "rogue" by disagreeing with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan last October.
McCain halted his campaign in the state after internal polls showed Obama approaching a double-digit lead. Palin publicly disagreed with the move and said she'd "sure love to get to run to Michigan" to make sure residents know the Republicans had not given up in the state.
Before the pullout, Palin had campaigned with McCain in Grand Rapids. Her three-week book tour is expected to largely mirror the 2008 race with stops in cities such as Noblesville, Ind.; Washington, Pa., and Rochester, N.Y.
Many of those waiting at the Michigan bookstore said they would vote for Palin if she decides to run for president in 2012.
"I believe she's a good, strong person to do the things we need to do in this country," said David Zak, 70, who drove about two hours to see Palin. "I like her Christian philosophy. I like that she's pro-life. I believe she can do what needs to be done to get ahead."
POSTAL SERVICE DROPS SANTA LETTERS PROGRAM
Thousands of starry-eyed children all over the world are writing letters to the jolly man at the North Pole this holiday season, but they will not likely get a response from Santa Claus or his helpers.
The U.S. Postal Service is dropping a popular effort begun in 1954 in the small Alaska town of North Pole, where volunteers open and respond to thousands of letters addressed to Santa each year. Replies come with North Pole postmarks.
Postal Service officials said they are tightening rules in such programs nationwide after a postal worker in Maryland recognized a volunteer in the agency's Operation Santa program as a registered sex offender. The postal worker interceded before the individual could answer a child's letter, but the Postal Service viewed the episode as a big enough scare to make changes to the program.
People in North Pole are incensed by the change, likening the Postal Service to the Grinch trying to steal Christmas. The letter program is a revered holiday tradition in North Pole, where light posts are curved and striped like candy canes and streets have names such as Kris Kringle Drive and Santa Claus Lane. Volunteers in the letter program even sign the response letters as Santa's elves and helpers.
North Pole Mayor Doug Isaacson agreed that caution is necessary to protect children. But he's outraged the North Pole program should be affected by a sex offender's actions on the East Coast - and he thinks it's wrong that locals just found out about the change in recent days.
"It's Grinchlike that the Postal Service never informed all the little elves before the fact," he said. "They've been working on this for how long?"
The Postal Service began restricting its policies in such programs in 2006, including requiring volunteers to show identification.
But the Maryland incident involving the sex offender prompted additional changes, even forcing the agency to briefly suspend the Operation Santa program last year in New York and Chicago.
The agency now prohibits volunteers from having access to children's family names and addresses, spokeswoman Sue Brennan said. The Postal Service instead redacts the last name and addresses on each letter and replaces the addresses with codes that match computerized addresses known only to the post office - and leaves it up to individual post offices if they want to go through the time-consuming effort to shield the information.
Anchorage-based agency spokeswoman Pamela Moody said dealing with the tighter restrictions is not feasible in Alaska.
"It's always been a good program, but we're in different times and concerned for the privacy of the information," she said.
Moody stressed that kids around the world can still send letters to Santa Claus. The Postal Service still runs the giant Operation Santa Program in which children around the world can have their letters to Santa answered, and the restrictions do not affect private organizations running their own letter efforts.
But what will change are the generically addressed letters to "Santa Claus, North Pole" that for years have been forwarded to volunteers in the Alaska town. That program will stop, unless changes are made before Christmas.
Losing the Santa-letter cache is a blow to the community of 2,100 people, who pride themselves on their Christmas ties. Huge tourist attractions here include an everything-Christmas store, Santa Claus House, and the post office, where visitors can get a hand-stamped postmark on their postcards and packages if they ask for it.
Another issue raising the hackles on some locals is separate recent change. Anchorage - 260 miles to the south - is now processing the thousands of requests for North Pole postal cancellation marks on Christmas cards and packages from outside the state. It's a job long handled by nearby Fairbanks, about 15 miles (25 kilometers) away.
Moody said with as many as 800,000 items processed last year, Fairbanks is not equipped to handle the overload. Anchorage is the only city in Alaska with the high-speed equipment necessary to do the job without delay. Moody disagreed with the mayor's belief that the process creates a false postmark.
Santa Claus House, built like a Swiss chalet and chock full of all items Christmas, sells more than 100,000 letters from Santa and one of the lures is the postmark.
Operations manager Paul Brown believes his business will be affected under changes to the volunteer Santa letter program because tens of thousands of letters are addressed to Santa Claus House, North Pole, Alaska.
Those letters will still be forwarded to volunteers but it's unclear yet if anything will be done with them. Those intercepted by the postal service will probably eventually be shredded.
Brown worries about misinterpretations of the changes, such as people believing it's no longer possible to get individual pieces of mail graced with the North Pole postmark.
(I bet, yes, I bet, that if the letters were to Allah, Obama would force the USPS to continue the service!)
CLIMATE CHANGE GASBAGS WANT TO SHAME YOU
In the New Scientist magazine, the writers argue that your personal carbon footprint should be made public because knowledge of your misdeeds might change your ways. They ask: "Would you want your neighbors, friends or colleagues to think of you as a free rider, harming the environment while benefiting from the restraint of others?"
This is an excellent question, for it exposes the real motivation behind most climate change apostles: to allow these gasbags the superior pleasure of shaming you.
It's all about denigrating your reputation in order to elevate theirs; a self-satisfied reward for their sheep-like devotion to climate change hysteria.
Now, mind you, I'm all for shame. I think it's a forgotten art, something that might be useful in curtailing some of the more disgraceful elements of American culture. I speak mainly of any show on VH1 that involves an elimination round and, of course, John Mayer.
But this enviro-shaming isn't even close to that. It's not like they're actually condemning you for authentic, immoral behavior. Nope. Rather than shaming an Islamic radical for killing innocent people, they'd rather go after those of us who didn't bring a reusable hemp shopping bag when visiting the local Whole Foods.
That's a real shame. They're manufacturing phony righteousness when, these days, real righteousness is so desperately needed. And for that, I'd happily recycle my foot in their ass.