Jury: Rancher did not violate Mexicans' rights

My BS meter just exploded. I'm going to have to visit Ebay for a new one. Can anyone loan me theirs in the meantime?

The good news is: The Rancher did not violate the Mexican's rights

The bad news is: The moronic jury awarded the Mexican's $78,000 in actual and punitive damages and the robed moron in charge agreed.

It's beyond comprehension how a jury of 8 people, who obviously live in that area and see on a daily basis all the problems illegal aliens cause, could in fact award the illegal aliens damages. The ultimate insult is that this trial took 9 days, and the jury had to deliberate for a day and a half in order to make their decision. Like they say, you can't make this crap up!
Rees

Jury: Rancher did not violate Mexicans' rights
from The Washington Times
by Jerry Seper (Contact)
Tuesday, February 17,2009

A federal jury on Tuesday afternoon ruled that an Arizona rancher did not violate the civil rights of 16 Mexican nationals he detained at gunpoint after they had snuck illegally into the United States in 2004, but the jury awarded $78,000 in actual and punitive damages to six of the illegal immigrants on claims of assault and infliction of emotional distress.

After a nine-day trial, the eight-person jury -- four men and four women -- returned the verdict in U.S. District Court in Tucson, Ariz., after a day and a half of deliberation, also tossing charges of false imprisonment, battery and conspiracy against Douglas, Ariz., rancher Roger Barnett. Most of the award, about $60,000, was for punitive damages.

Mr. Barnett's attorney, David T. Hardy of Tucson, described the decision as an "80 percent victory," adding that he wished he and his client "would have gotten the other 20 percent." But he said he would appeal the decision, citing what he called "solid grounds." He also said U.S. District Judge John M. Roll had been "scrupulously fair" during the landmark trial.

Mr. Barnett owns the Cross Rail Ranch near Douglas, Ariz., where he maintains cattle on 22,000 acres of private and leased land. A $32 million lawsuit, brought by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), sought damages for civil rights violations and the infliction of emotional distress. It also accuses Mr. Barnett of assault, battery and false imprisonment.
Also named were Mr. Barnett's wife, Barbara, and his brother, Donald, although the jury dismissed the allegations against both the wife and the brother.

The trial was based on a March 7, 2004, incident in which Mr. Barnett approached a group of illegal immigrants while carrying a gun and accompanied by his dog.
Click to read the article and comments

Obama’s Revenge

This is an absolutely fantastic article.
Rees

Obama’s Revenge
by Joan Swirsky
from The New Media Journal
February 6, 2009

section from the article:

While his community-organizing job paid a paltry $12,000 or so per year, Obama somehow managed to pay his way through one of the priciest graduate schools in the world, Harvard Law School. (I say somehow managed because we have no record of his tuition payments). Even more amazing, he became the first black president of the Harvard Law Review without ever producing a written paper – or at least a paper that the public has ever read.

There is a good deal of evidence that Obama’s acceptance at Harvard Law – and his tuition – were facilitated by friends who had a vested interest in the community organizer. Among them was Percy Sutton, a former Manhattan borough president and ardent leftist, who was also Malcolm X’s lawyer. In an interview last year, the octogenarian Sutton stated: “I was introduced to [Obama] by a friend. The friend's name was Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, and the introduction took place about 20 years ago.” Sutton described al-Mansour as "the principle adviser to one of the world's richest men" and suggested that al-Mansour was raising money for Obama. Knowing that Sutton had friends at Harvard, al-Mansour asked him if he would write a letter to Harvard recommending Obama, which Sutton did most agreeably. This took place about 1988 when 27-year-old Obama was applying to Harvard Law.

Journalist Jack Cashill has credibly speculated that Obama’s two memoirs were actually written by his pal Bill Ayers, who was and is a University of Illinois at Chicago English professor, having escaped life in prison on a technicality. Two years [after he was admitted to law school], Cashill writes, “while still a law student, Obama improbably received an advance to write a memoir that would be called `Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,’ which was published in 1995.” His second memoir, published in 2006, was “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.” (I suspect Cashill said “improbably received an advance” because, as stated earlier, Obama had not produced even one paper or distinguished himself in any way to have inspired a major publishing company to approach him).

Al this begs the question: Who writes two memoirs about himself before the age of 45? My own speculation is that it could be no one but a narcissist. As most people know in this age of pop psychology, the psychiatric disorder of narcissism derives from the Greek myth in which Narcissus, a handsome young man, became obsessed with himself and fell in love with his own image as he gazed into a pool of water. A lot of people have some degree of narcissism, which is characterized by grandiosity, an unquenchable need for admiration, unhealthy self-absorption, dependence on the affirmation of others, and also a lack of empathy, which is hidden by both personal charm and the kind of earnest language that pretends to “feel your pain.”

Or he could be a malignant narcissist., which psychiatrist Dr. Otto Kernberg, a legendary leader in thought disorders, compares to a narcissist on steroids. This variety involves paranoid traits (think of Obama’s thin-skinned, quasi-hysterical reactions to Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin), and ego-syntonic aggression, which means the person is perfectly in-sync with people who have the courage he lacks to lash out.

But consider the source! Obama’s father was a self-aggrandizing narcissist who thought nothing of throwing his son away to fulfill his own ambitions and his mother also threw him away for the same reason. Talk about DNA, which Obama perfectly exhibited when, during his campaign, he unflinchingly dispensed with both his white grandmother and his black “mentor” Rev. Wright for his personal ambition.

As blogger Eric Gurr has said: “We still talk about the health care crisis, the environmental crisis, the oil crisis, the banking crisis. Let me tell you my friends you are about to learn the meaning of the only crisis that matters, the survival crisis.”

You can be sure that the sad-lonely-angry two-year-old, the jealous-confused-resentful 10-year-old, the self-conscious- cheated-victimized adolescent, and the man who found solace in and identified with his hate-America mentors is now determined to redeem all of his demons.

Unfortunately, he is acting out his rage on free-market capitalism, a free press, property and gun rights, a limited constitutional government, protection of the unborn, and everything else that is good and great about our country
Click to read the entire article

Either way, Americans everywhere are going to need a shower to rid themselves of the political filth.

regarding the stimulus bill:

Either way, Americans everywhere are going to need a shower to rid themselves of the political filth.

Jeff Schreiber - America's Right

'Israel assassinating Iranian officials'

And I applaud Israel for their effort. At least someone is trying to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Obama's 'talk-till-you-drop' diplomacy sure isn't going to make any difference. Oh, wait a minute. Did I actually criticise Obama? (doorbell rings in the background)
Rees

Feb 17, 2009 8:13 Updated Feb 17, 2009 12:58
By JPOST.COM STAFF

Israel has launched a covert war in an effort to disrupt Iran's nuclear program, the British Daily Telegraph quoted US intelligence sources as saying.

According to the article published on Tuesday, sabotage, front companies and double agents, as well as the assassination of top figures involved in Iran's atomic operations, were being used to interrupt the program.

"Disruption is designed to slow progress on the program, done in such a way that they don't realize what's happening. You are never going to stop it," a former CIA officer on Iran told the Telegraph. "The goal is delay, delay, delay until you can come up with some other solution or approach. We certainly don't want the current Iranian government to have those weapons.

The newspaper quoted Reva Bhalla, a senior analyst with Stratfor, a US private intelligence company with strong government security connections, as saying that the strategy was to assassinate key figures.

"With cooperation from the United States, Israeli covert operations have focused both on eliminating key human assets involved in the nuclear program and in sabotaging the Iranian nuclear supply chain," she said. "As US-Israeli relations are bound to come under strain over the Obama administration's outreach to Iran, and as the political atmosphere grows in complexity, an intensification of Israeli covert activity against Iran is likely to result."
Click to read the article and comments

Geert Wilders Is a Test for Western Civilization. If Rushdie should be defended, why not the Dutch politician?

from The Wall Street Journal
By BRET STEPHENS
February 17, 2009

Twenty years ago, Andres Serrano put a plastic crucifix in a glass of urine, photographed it and called it art. Conservatives in particular weren't pleased: not with Mr. Serrano, not with his picture, and not with the National Endowment for the Arts, which had forked over $15,000 in taxpayer money to support this uretic gesture.

Also 20 years ago: On Valentine's Day, 1989, the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Salman Rushdie, condemning him to death for supposedly blaspheming Islam in his novel, "The Satanic Verses." Iran later upped the ante by severing diplomatic ties with Britain and putting a bounty on Mr. Rushdie's head. The fatwa remains in effect today by order of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.

These twin anniversaries come to mind following the British government's decision last week to ban Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders from British soil as an "undesirable person." Mr. Wilders is also being prosecuted for hate speech in his native Holland, where he faces up to 16 months in prison if convicted. His alleged crime involves making a short film called "Fitna," which draws a straight line between Quranic verses and acts of Islamist terror. Mr. Wilders has also called for banning the Quran, which he labels a "fascist book" on a par with Hitler's "Mein Kampf."

Whatever else might be said about Mr. Wilders's travel ban and prosecution, it helps put into context the events of 1989. In the case of Mr. Serrano, liberal Americans went into a lather about defending his rights to artistic expression and freedom of speech against the parochial leaders of the religious right, men like Jesse Helms and Pat Robertson. Never mind that the worst of their threats involved withholding public funding; fundamental things were said to be at stake.

For liberals, the issue is straightforward. If routine mockery of Christianity and abuse of its symbols, both in the U.S. and Europe, is protected speech, why shouldn't the same standard apply to the mockery of Islam? And if the difference in these cases is that mockery of Islam has the tendency to lead to riots, death threats and murder, should committed Christians now seek a kind of parity with Islamists by resorting to violent tactics to express their sense of religious injury?

The notion that liberals can have it both ways -- champions of free speech on the one hand; defenders of multiculturalism's assorted sensitivities on the other -- was always intellectually flimsy. If liberals now want to speak for the "right" of this or that group not to be offended, the least they can do is stop calling themselves "liberals."
Click to read the entire article

from Breitbart


A video of a hysterical passenger screaming at airline staff and writhing on the floor after missing a flight at Hong Kong airport has become a YouTube hit.

By Sunday, the three-minute clip of the furious woman had racked up close to 40,000 hits in three days on the video-sharing site.

The video starts with the screaming woman running towards the departure gate and bouncing off a female security guard, after she learned that her flight has been closed. She then starts banging a desk before collapsing to the floor and rolling around, while maintaining a high-pitched wail. A man unsuccessfully tries to comfort her and get her off the floor, but the shrill screaming continues.
Click to read the article
The footage, entitled "A woman missed her flight at the boarding gate HKIA" appears to have been shot with a mobile phone from behind the staff desk.

The woman was travelling on a Cathay Pacific flight to San Francisco on February 4, a Cathay spokeswoman told AFP.

"All passenger doors had already been closed and the crew was preparing the flight for departure," she said.

"As the passengers had failed to show up on time, we had already offloaded their checked baggage to comply with the security requirements."

The spokeswoman said the woman had been able to take a flight a few hours later, adding passengers are always advised to arrive at the gate no later than 20 minutes before the scheduled departure time.

"We do not know who shot the video or who posted it on the web," she said.

Sen. Burris adamantly denies misleading Ill. House

By RUPA SHENOY
Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 18 mins ago
from Yahoo News

CHICAGO – One month after Roland Burris was sworn in to the U.S. Senate to represent Illinois and fill Barack Obama's vacant seat, he's hearing calls for his resignation.

"I can't believe anything that comes out of Mr. Burris at this point," state Rep. Jim Durkin said.

"I think it would be in the best interest of the state if he resigned because I don't think the state can stand this anymore."

Durkin and House Republican Leader Tom Cross want an investigation of Burris for possible perjury.

Their statements come after Burris over the weekend released a Feb. 5 affidavit that he filed with the Illinois House committee investigating the impeachment of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The affidavit contradicts statements he made last month in front of the committee, before being sworn in Jan. 15.

The discrepancy could mean he perjured himself.
Click to read the rest of the article

Obama warned over ‘welfare spendathon’

From The Sunday Times
February 15, 2009
by Tony Allen-Mills in New York

The new administration's economic stimulus plan may undo reforms that cut the dole queues, critics say

RONALD REAGAN started it, Bill Clinton finished it and last week Barack Obama was accused of engineering its destruction. One of the few undisputed triumphs of American government of the past 20 years – the sweeping welfare reform programme that sent millions of dole claimants back to work – has been plunged into jeopardy by billions of dollars in state handouts included in the president’s controversial economic stimulus package.

Robert Rector, a prominent welfare researcher who was one of the architects of Clinton's 1996 reform bill, warned last week that Obama’s stimulus plan was a “welfare spendathon” that would amount to the largest one-year increase in government handouts in American history.

If you like government dependence, you will love the plan they are jamming through Congress,” declared Michael Steele, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Rector, a senior scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation, argued that Obama’s spending proposals in effect encouraged individual states to add more families to their welfare rolls; the more Americans sign on to the dole, the more state budgets will benefit from US Treasury payouts.
Click to read the entire article

Burris confirms request for Blagojevich donation

Can you smell that? Yes, it's the stench of another Illinois Democrat that didn't quite offer up all the facts when first presented with the opportunity. Now it's revealed that this smoldering POS has already changed his story twice. I hope they end up impeaching him, but that well never happen due to the entangled connections with the Obama campaign. Can there possibly be one honest politician in Illinois? Nevermind. Slap me for my stupidity and get it over with.
Rees

By JOHN O'CONNOR
Associated Press Writer
from Yahoo News

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Sen. Roland Burris admitted in a document released Saturday that former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's brother asked him for campaign fundraising help before the governor appointed Burris to the Senate.

The disclosure is at odds with Burris' testimony in January when an Illinois House impeachment committee specifically asked if he had ever spoken to Robert Blagojevich or other aides to the now-deposed governor about the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama.

State Rep. Jim Durkin, the impeachment committee's ranking Republican, told The Associated Press that he and House Republican Leader Tom Cross will ask Sunday for an outside investigation into whether Burris perjured himself.

It's the second time Burris has changed his story. In an unsolicited affidavit to the impeachment committee on Jan. 6, Burris said he had only one limited conversation with the governor before accepting the Senate appointment.

Then, appearing before the committee Jan. 8, he said he told former Blagojevich aide-turned-lobbyist Lon Monk last summer that he was interested in the post.
Click to read the rest of the article

Suspected US missile strike kills 27 in Pakistan

The good news they killed 27 of these barbaric scumbags. The bad news is that they weren't able to kill 28.
Rees

By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer
February 14, 2009
from Yahoo News

ISLAMABAD – Dozens of followers of Pakistan's top Taliban commander were in a compound when a suspected U.S. missile attack hit Saturday, killing 27 militants in an al-Qaida stronghold near the Afghan border, officials said.

The strike appeared to be the deadliest yet by the American drone aircraft that prowl the frontier, and defied Pakistani warnings that the tactic is fueling extremism in the nuclear-armed Islamic nation.

After Saturday's strike, Taliban fighters surrounded the flattened compound in the village of Shrawangai Nazarkhel and carried away the dead and wounded in several vehicles. The village is in South Waziristan, part of the tribally governed area along the Afghan frontier considered the likely redoubt of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.

The victims included about 15 ethnic Uzbek militants and several Afghans, said Pakistani intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. The seniority of the militants was unclear.

Two of the officials said dozens of followers of Pakistan's top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, were staying in the housing compound when it was hit. There was no indication that Mehsud was present.
Click to read the entire article

Where was the hand of God?

Her post already has 102 comments. I'm sure she will receive a few more before the day is out.
Rees

Where was the hand of God? - Please explain
February 13th, 2009
by Heather Mac Donald
from the blog Secular Right - Reality & Reason

Will Bill O’Reilly or anyone else who saw the hand of God in the safe landing of US Airways Flight 1549 this January please explain why God chose not to save Continental Connection Flight 3407, which plunged into a house outside of Buffalo last night, killing all 49 people on board and a resident on the ground?

Among the explanations which will not be accepted: “humans cannot possibly fathom God’s mysterious ways.” Oh yes they can, apparently—when something good happens. Having found proof of God’s love in the safe conclusion of US Airways Flight 1549, believers cannot now turn around and claim that God’s ways are veiled just because something disastrous happens. If it’s legitimate to infer beneficence from a happy outcome, it is equally plausible to infer malice or at least indifference from a negative outcome. You can’t pick and choose the actions in which you find God’s will transparent.
Click to go to the blog and comments

'Ask God what your grade is'

BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS
Prof calls Christian student 'fascist b------'
Lawsuit filed after speech met with: 'Ask God what your grade is'

Posted: February 13, 200912:15 am Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

A student at Los Angeles City College has filed a lawsuit against the institution after a professor called him a "fascist b------" and told him to "Ask God what your grade is" following the student's speech about morality.

The case has been filed by the Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of Jonathan Lopez after his encounter with Professor John Matteson in a speech class.

The lawsuit alleges Lopez was participating in a class assignment to give a speech on "any topic" from six to eight minutes.

"During the November, 24, 2008 class, Mr. Lopez delivered an informative speech on God and the ways in which Mr. Lopez has seen God act both in his life and in the lives of others through miracles. In the middle of the speech, he addressed the issues of God and morality; thus, he referred to the dictionary definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman and also read a passage from the Bible discussing marriage," the ADF explained.

At that point, the professor interrupted him and refused to allow him to finish his speech, ADF said. Matteson then called Lopez a 'fascist b------" and dismissed the class.

Later, the professor left an evaluation form on Lopez's backpack
without a grade, instructing him to "Ask God what your grade is."
Professor's grading of student's speech

The professor also warned on the evaluation form, "proselytizing is inappropriate in public school."

Yet several weeks earlier, Matteson has announced to the class, in connection to the California vote Nov. 4 in support of a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between one man and one woman only, that, "if you voted yes on Proposition 8, you are a fascist b------."
Click to read the rest of the article

Prominent Orchard Park man charged with beheading his wife

The article indicates that, "Muzzammil Hassan is the founder and chief executive officer of Bridges TV, which he launched in 2004, amid hopes that it would help portray Muslims in a more positive light."

Well, I'm quite positive that beheading your wife is not going to help "portray Muslims in a more positive light." Anyway, this beheading stuff is so 700 AD'ish.
Rees

Prominent Orchard Park man charged with beheading his wife

By Gene Warner
News Staff Reporter
from The Buffalo News
February 13, 2009

Orchard Park police are investigating a particularly gruesome killing, the beheading of a woman, after her husband -- an influential member of the local Muslim community -- reported her death to police Thursday.

Police identified the victim as Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37. Detectives have charged her
husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, with second-degree murder.

"He came to the police station at 6:20 p.m. [Thursday] and told us that she was dead," Orchard Park Police Chief Andrew Benz said late this morning.

Muzzammil Hassan told police that his wife was at his business, Bridges TV, on Thorn Avenue in the village. Officers went to that location and discovered her body.

Muzzammil Hassan is the founder and chief executive officer of Bridges TV, which he launched in 2004, amid hopes that it would help portray Muslims in a more positive light.

The killing apparently occurred some time late Thursday afternoon. Detectives still are looking for the murder weapon.

"Obviously, this is the worst form of domestic violence possible," Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III said today.

Authorities say Aasiya Hassan recently had filed for divorce from her husband.

"She had an order of protection that had him out of the home as of Friday the 6th [of February]," Benz said.

Muzzammil Hassan was arraigned before Village Justice Deborah Chimes and sent to the Erie County Holding Center.
Click to go to the article
gwarner@buffnews.com

D'oh! Caterpillar CEO Contradicts President on Whether Stimulus Will Allow Him to Re-Hire Laid Off Workers

I'll bet that he just made it on Obama's S list. He should get a good accountant for when he just coincidentally gets audited this year.
Rees

From ABC News
Jake Trapper reporting
February 12, 2009

D'oh! Caterpillar CEO Contradicts President on Whether Stimulus Will Allow Him to Re-Hire Laid Off Workers
February 12, 2009 6:16 PM

Click to watch the video - you must watch this video to see how Obama gets contradicted - It's great!

EAST PEORIA, ILL. -- President Obama today repeated the claim we asked about yesterday at the press briefing that Jim Owens, the CEO of Caterpillar, Inc., "said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off."

Caterpillar announced 22,000 layoffs last month.

But after the president left the event, Owens said the exact opposite.

Asked if the stimulus package would be able to stop the 22,000 layoffs or not, Owens said, "I think realistically no. The truth is we're going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again"

"It is going to take some time before that stimulus bill" means re-hiring, he said.
Click to read the article

Analysis: Obscure post gives Obama big headache

This is a perfect example of the Associated Press doing damage control for Obama. They are doing their best spin trying to convince people that situation isn't that big of a deal, so it doesn't look bad on Obama.

First of all, they say that it is an "obscure post" and that "commerce secretary is not one of Washington's more glamorous jobs." Well, if that were the case, why would Obama originally offer it to Richardson who is currently Governor of New Mexico, served in the Clinton administration as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Energy Secretary and a 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate. Did he offer the "lowly" position to him to embarrass him? No, this is just Obama BS.

The Associated Press and most of the other main stream media organizations should stop embarrassing themselves by writing ridiculous articles like this, assuming that we can't see through their journalistic deceit.
Rees

Analysis: Obscure post gives Obama big headache
By CHARLES BABINGTON
Associated Press Writer
from Yahoo News
February 12, 2009

WASHINGTON – Quick, who headed the Commerce Department under President George W. Bush?

No disrespect to Carlos M. Gutierrez, but commerce secretary is not one of Washington's more glamorous jobs. It's overshadowed by first-tier Cabinet posts at Justice, State, Defense and Treasury. Scores of senators, House members, Supreme Court justices and White House aides would draw more attention at a Georgetown cocktail party or DuPont Circle restaurant.

But the job is giving a disproportionately big headache to President Barack Obama, who now must try a third time to fill it. Don't be surprised if he picks a lower-profile nominee, because his two rather ambitious choices have backfired.

Obama first tapped New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat who gained national attention with his 2008 presidential bid. Richardson withdrew amid a federal investigation of state contracts won by a politically connected company.

Then Obama turned to Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. Though not a national figure, the taciturn Yankee is a player in the Senate. A former Budget Committee chairman, he is liked by colleagues and known for unemotional, no-nonsense analyses of fiscal matters.

Gregg stunned colleagues late Thursday when he withdrew his name, citing "irresolvable conflicts" with Obama's handling of the economic stimulus and 2010 census.
Click to read the article

Obama Misreads His Mandate

Reagan didn't assume his landslide was a license for whatever he wanted.

By STEVEN F. HAYWARD
from The Wall Street Journal
February 12, 2009

President Barack Obama's honeymoon period seems to have ended quickly. That's because Mr. Obama doesn't grasp the essentials of presidential leadership. Rather than making a compelling case for his economic policies, he has resorted to curt rebuffs, such as telling House Republican whip Eric Cantor, "I won." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the same thing the same day: "We won the election; we wrote the [stimulus] bill." This is the trope of a party that has lost its ability to make an argument.

Mr. Obama and his team would be well advised to put aside the imperious FDR model and study Ronald Reagan's first 200 days in office. The contrast is instructive.

Upon entering office in 1981, Reagan's team produced a 50-page, detailed blueprint for their first six months in office. The passage of their economic policy was the central objective. This report, called the Initial Actions Project (IAP), has received little attention from historians or journalists (with the notable exception of Lou Cannon). It would be highly useful for Mr. Obama to review it.

One of the main themes that emerges from the IAP report is that Reagan and his team didn't assume that a landslide victory meant they had a mandate to do whatever they wanted. To the contrary, the report's authors, Richard Wirthlin and David Gergen, wrote: "The election was not a bestowal of political power, but a stewardship opportunity for us to reconsider and restructure the political agenda for the next two decades. The public has sanctioned the search for a new public philosophy to govern America."

Reagan never attempted to stifle debate by saying "I won." The IAP noted that President Jimmy Carter "failed to realize that leadership means more than 'laying it all out;' it also means keeping at it." Like Mr. Carter, Mr. Obama seems peeved that Washington won't roll over for him.
Click to read the entire article

Shumer: The American People don't care about pork spending

Well, if upChuck Schumer says we don't care, then I guess we don't care. After all, now that the age of Obama is here, there is no need for the individual thought process. Obama and the Democrats will be doing that for us.

Rees

Breaking: Gregg withdraws at Commerce

from Hot Air
posted at 4:22 pm on February 12, 2009
by Ed Morrissey

According to a breaking news alert from MSNBC, Judd Gregg has withdrawn from his nomination as Commerce Secretary.

More to come …

Clicke to read Statement by Senator Gregg

Livin' On The Edge

Livin' On The Edge
by Aerosmith
1993

There's somethin' wrong with the world today
I don't know what it is
Something's wrong with our eyes

We're seein' things in a different way
And God knows it ain't his
It sure ain't no surprise

There's somethin' wrong with the world today
The light bulb's gettin dim
There's meltdown in the sky

If you can judge a wise man
By the color of his skin
Then mister you're a better man than I

Click for complete lyrics

UN General Assembly President: "Fidel Castro Is the Closest Thing We Have to a Saint"

Fidel Castro: The UN’s Saint
from Fausta's Blog

From the cesspool of depravity,

UN General Assembly President: “Fidel Castro Is the Closest Thing We Have to a Saint”

UN General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto praised Fidel Castro on World Day of Social Justice saying the Cuban tyrant is the closest thing we have to a saint.

In his own words,

Prensa Latina reported that, in regards to Fidel Castro, the UN official said that “rather than a hero, Fidel is what best resembles a saint in our troubled world.”

He added that the United Nations and all humanity are in debt with Fidel Castro, who has dedicated his life to promote and practice solidarity with the oppressed peoples of the world.

US-born anti-Semite and former Sandinista D’Escoto is one of Ahmadinejad’s buddies and publicly embraced him after ‘Jad’s fiery UN speech last year where Ahmadinajad quoted from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. (Here’s the whitewashed official UN bio of D’Escoto.)
Click to go to the blog

Geert Wilders detained in Britain

Just an absolute "classic" reason from the UK for banning Wilders. "he posed a threat to "community harmony and therefore public security." If the U.S. were to implement that rule, Obama would have to leave the U.S. because he really poses a threat to community harmony.
Rees

Dutch creator of controversial film about Koran travels to UK on principle after being banned

from Ynet News.com
Associated Press
Published: 02.12.09, 17:38

A Dutch lawmaker barred from Britain because of his anti-Islamic views says he has been detained at Heathrow Airport and will be returned home.

Geert Wilders, creator of the controversial film 'Fitna', which suggests a link between the Islam's holy book and terrorism, sent the Associated Press a text message confirming he would be returned home within the hour.

The British government had warned Wilders he was not welcome because he posed a threat to "community harmony and therefore public security."

But Wilders criticized the travel ban as an attempt to stifle freedom of speech and traveled to Britain on a point of principle.

The Dutch government has protested the ban, and the Netherlands' ambassador to Britain waited for Wilders at Heathrow Airport to offer assistance.

Wilders is being prosecuted in the Netherlands for hate speech after calling for a ban on the Koran.
Click to go to the article

Dishonest Reporting 'Award' 2008

from Honest Reporting
COMMUNIQUE: 12 February 2009

Our eighth annual recognition of the most skewed and biased coverage of the Mideast conflict.

Sloppiest Fact Checking: Boston Globe

Boston Globe editors didn't bother double checking the stats when Eyad al-Sarraj and Sara Roy wrote in February:

Although Gaza daily requires 680,000 tons of flour to feed its population, Israel had cut this to 90 tons per day by November 2007, a reduction of 99 percent.

But Martin Kramer crunched the numbers, found them half-baked, then sourced the stats back to Egypt's Ahram Weekly, writing:

You don't need to be a math genius to figure out that if Gaza has a population of 1.5 million, as the authors also note, then 680,000 tons of flour a day come out to almost half a ton of flour per Gazan, per day.

The Globe posted a correction at the bottom of the web page, which Kramer rightfully called onto the carpet too:

The pounds-for-tons ''correction'' is an attempt to cover up the authors' original sin: they just copied the figure straight from the Ahram Weekly (which anyway doesn't use pounds--it uses metric measurements). The Boston Globe should go back to the authors and ask for the precise source of their figures. It's called fact-checking.

Sarraj and Roy are entitled to their opinions, but even op-eds have to be based on accurate info.
Click to read the other finalists

Obama the legal scholar screws up

February 12, 2009
Ed Lasky
from The American Thinker

When addressing families of terror victims regarding his decision to suspend military tribunals of suspected terrorists, President Obama "clearly didn't do his homework" according to the Washington Times. His own legal counsel Greg Craig admitted the President made mistakes when discussing details about terrorism and made a key error when he tried to explain the law to the families.

The column points out that terror suspects want as much information as they can so they can inform terror networks about the methods and people used by our government to track down terror suspects. This is one reason they dismiss their lawyers: they alone can receive these disclosures without having to go through the "filter" of a lawyer.

This facilitates terror in the future. Therefore, prosecutors want to minimize the information released to suspects and to courts; while terror suspects want to maximize the disclosure. When confronted with this conundrum, the President mistakenly interpreted basic Constitutional law. The Washington Times:

... Obama's answer to this conundrum was "there is no reason we have to give [the terrorists] everything." Evidently the former editor of the Harvard Law Review seems to think that one of his powers as president is personally to pick and choose which constitutional rights apply to terror defendants and which do not. That's the very thing they were criticizing President Bush for.
White House Counsel Greg Craig, often seen whispering in the president's ear during question periods, admitted later to Ms. Burlingame that the chief executive was getting the facts of the law wrong during the discussion with the families. Craig asked her if CIPA covers a case in which terrorists defend themselves, noting that "this is something we hadn't contemplated." If nothing else, this admission of ignorance is more evidence that the decision to rush ahead with closing Guantanamo and shutting down the military tribunals was ill-conceived, poorly planned, and may ultimately be injurious to our national security.

This is far from the first time that Barack Obama erred in his understanding of the law. He has a pattern of making similar mistakes, as I pointed out in Barack Obama, Legal Scholar. . This should come as a disappointing surprise. After all, during the campaign we heard about his presidency of the Harvard Law Review, his years as a constitutional law professor (actually, more of a lecturer than a professor) at the renowned University of Chicago Law School, his brilliance. Yet, the mistakes he made -- and continues to make -- are ignored by many in the mainstream media.

If George Bush had made these mistakes in front of grieving families, let alone stammered when discussing them (as Deborah Burlingame, one of the relatives, said he did), he would be excoriated for his ignorance and insensitivity. He would be charged as being unprepared (and he was not a lawyer or constitutional professor).

Yet Barack Obama gets yet another pass. Many more yet to come
Click to read the article and comments

GOODBYE, AMERICA! IT WAS FUN WHILE IT LASTED

February 11, 2009
by Ann Coulter

It's bad enough when illiterate jurors issue damages awards in the billions of dollars because they don't grasp the difference between a million and a billion. Now it turns out the Democrats don't know the difference between a million and a trillion.

Why not make the "stimulus bill" a kazillion dollars?

All Americans who work for a living, or who plan to work for a living sometime in the next century, are about to be stuck with a trillion-dollar bill to fund yet more oppressive government bureaucracies. Or as I call it, a trillion dollars and change.

The stimulus bill isn't as bad as we had expected -- it's much worse. Instead of merely creating useless, make-work jobs digging ditches -- or "shovel-ready," in the Democrats' felicitous phrase -- the "stimulus" bill will create an endless army of government bureaucrats aggressively intervening in our lives. Instead of digging ditches, American taxpayers will be digging our own graves.

There are hundreds of examples in the 800-page "stimulus" bill, but here are just two. First, the welfare bureaucrats are coming back.

For half a century, the welfare establishment had the bright idea to pay women to have children out of wedlock. Following the iron laws of economics -- subsidize something, you get more of it; tax it, you get less of it -- the number of children being born out of wedlock skyrocketed.

The 1996 Welfare Reform bill marked the first time any government entitlement had ever been rolled back. Despite liberal howling and foot-stomping, not subsidizing illegitimacy led, like night into day, to less illegitimacy.

Welfare recipients got jobs, as the hard-core unemployables were coaxed away from their TV sets and into the workforce. For the first time in decades, the ever-increasing illegitimacy rate stopped spiraling upward.

As proof that that welfare reform was a smashing success, a few years later, Bill Clinton started claiming full credit for the bill.

Well, that's over. The stimulus bill goes a long way toward repealing the work requirement of the 1996 Republican Welfare Reform bill and rewards states that increase their welfare caseloads by paying unwed mothers to sit home doing nothing

HHS bureaucrats will soon be empowered to overrule your doctor. Doctors who don't comply with the government's treatment protocols will be fined. That's right: Instead of your treatment being determined by your doctor, it will be settled on by some narcoleptic half-wit in Washington who couldn't get a job in the private sector.

And a brand-new set of bureaucrats in the newly created office of "National Coordinator of Health Information Technology" will be empowered to cut off treatments that merely prolong life. Sorry, Mom and Pop, Big Brother said it's time to go.
Click to read the article
COPYRIGHT 2009 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
1130 Walnut, Kansas City, MO 64106

If The Government Made Viagra

from Investors Business Daily

cartoon by Michael Ramirez

What a farce! Obama decided in advance which reporters could ask a question at his news conference.

This must be Obama's version of the old Russian TASS news agency.
Rees

Obama's Press List
Membership shall have its privileges
from The Wall Street Journal

About half-way through President Obama's press conference Monday night, he had an unscripted question of his own. "All, Chuck Todd," the President said, referring to NBC's White House correspondent. "Where's Chuck?" He had the same strange question about Fox News's Major Garrett: "Where's Major?"

The problem wasn't the lighting in the East Room. The President was running down a list of reporters preselected to ask questions. The White House had decided in advance who would be allowed to question the President and who was left out.

Presidents are free to conduct press conferences however they like, but the decision to preselect questioners is an odd one, especially for a White House famously pledged to openness. We doubt that President Bush, who was notorious for being parsimonious with follow-ups, would have gotten away with prescreening his interlocutors. Mr. Obama can more than handle his own, so our guess is that this is an attempt to discipline reporters who aren't White House favorites.

Few accounts of Monday night's event even mentioned the curious fact that the White House had picked its speakers in advance. We hope that omission wasn't out of fear of being left off the list the next time.
Click to read article

Africanized bees found in Utah for the first time

So now that these African Killer Bees have migrated to America, would the politically correct term for them now be "African-American Killer Bees?"
Rees

from Yahoo News
by By MIKE STARK
Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 42 mins ago

SALT LAKE CITY – Africanized honey bees have been found for the first time in the Beehive State. The bees, long the subject of lore as "killer bees," were recently discovered in Utah's Washington and Kane counties, the state Department of Agriculture said Wednesday.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed that seven hives — three in the wild and four managed by private beekeepers — contained Africanized bees. The hives have since been destroyed.

The bees in Utah do not appear to be widespread and no injuries to people or animals have been reported.

State and local officials have been anticipating the bees' arrival since they showed up in Mesquite, Nev., in 1999, just a few miles from the Utah line.
Click to read the article

The Bump Heard Around The World!

Picture Caption Suggestions from Hot Air:

Doh!

Mark30339 on February 9, 2009 at 2:53 PM

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“That’s not the doorway I thought I knew.”

flipflop on February 9, 2009 at 2:53 PM

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Barry bumps unused portion of his anatomy.

Vashta.Nerada on February 9, 2009 at 2:55 PM

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“Every time a President bumps his head, the debt goes up by one trillion dollars”

BobMbx on February 9, 2009 at 2:56 PM

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Obama’s lofty idealism meets lowered expectations, with predictable results.

notta_dhimmi on February 9, 2009 at 3:01 PM

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“See? I take my head out of my ass for ten seconds, and THIS is what happens!”

Master Shake on February 9, 2009 at 3:04 PM

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and then reality hit Barry upside the head . . .

NoDonkey on February 9, 2009 at 3:04 PM

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Thats what you get Barry for dissing the Marine band.

Elric66 on February 9, 2009 at 3:05 PM

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Thats what you get Barry for dissing the Marine band.

Elric66 on February 9, 2009 at 3:05 PM

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“Eh…no problem. The MSM will issue me some goose egg offsets.”

csdeven on February 9, 2009 at 3:14 PM

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The Messiah is amazed that helicopter door doesn’t part for Him.

rbj on February 9, 2009 at 3:14 PM

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“Rahm, make sure THAT never happened!”

Yoop on February 9, 2009 at 3:15 PM

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“Wanna Get Away?”

Bishop on February 9, 2009 at 3:19 PM

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The sill of Marine One’s doorway struck the President in the head, today. Secret Service agents quickly wrestled the helicopter to the ground, and it is being held for questioning.

George Orwell on February 9, 2009 at 3:23 PM

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…that’s the last time I’m partying with Michael Phelps…

PatriotPete on February 9, 2009 at 3:25 PM

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Sign above Marine One cabin door…”Please remove messianic over-inflated ego before entering”

Wyznowski on February 9, 2009 at 3:26 PM

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“The Obama presidency…from fist bumps to head lumps…a sign of things to come?”

Liberty or Death on February 9, 2009 at 3:28 PM

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“When asked about today’s head-bumping by President Obama when entering Marine One, Vice-President Biden chuckled, but reminded the Press Corps not to make too much folly out of the incident, saying, “I’m pretty sure the same thing happened to President Lincoln as well… remember he was 6-and-a-half-feet tall….”

Members of the Press Corps nodded and wrote down their notes, adding no further questions on follow-up following the VP’s comment.

jrlingreenbay on February 9, 2009 at 3:37 PM

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This is your brain on stimulus…any questions?

John on February 9, 2009 at 3:52 PM

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As Grandma used to say, it ain’t as easy as it looks, getting 10 gallons of manure in a 5 gallon can.

Cheshire Cat on February 9, 2009 at 3:57 PM

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Marine One to be named “Worst Helicopter in the World” tonight on Countdown.
(Have. You. No. Shame. Sir…korsky?!”)

Planet Moron on February 9, 2009 at 4:01 PM

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I’m gonna start bustin’ skulls if you don’t pass this package.
Ouch!

uniclone on February 9, 2009 at 4:22 PM

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People do it all the time when getting tossed into the back seat of Crown Victorias.

IlikedAUH2O on February 9, 2009 at 5:04 PM

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Obama sparks wild new craze. Emergency rooms across the country reporting ‘head-bump’ epidemic.”

mike_NC9 on February 9, 2009 at 7:39 PM

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Looks like he went out for that beer with Hannity after all.

Uncle Pinky on February 9, 2009 at 8:34 PM

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Affirmative Action meets Darwin

ex-Democrat on February 10, 2009 at 8:55 AM

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Hillary’s incredible, shrinking role

I can't wait until Hillary gets fed up and decides that it's time for debris to hit the fan. She can't be happy with her second class status in Obama's cabinet. Is there any doubt how devious Obama really is? He played Hillary for a fool on the world stage. Obama's and Hillary's relationship will come to an end soon, but not before thinks get real interesting. Obama will continue to undermin Hillary and I believe Hillary will retaliate by setting Obama up by humiliating him on the world stage. Their vendettas against each other will trump their duty to the office that they hold. They won't care if they embarass the United States as long as they can succeed in embarassing the other. What a tangled web...
Rees

Hillary’s incredible, shrinking role
By Dick Morris
posted in The Hill
Posted: 02/09/09 06:23 PM [ET]

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is finding that her job description is dissolving under her feet, leaving her with only a vestige of the power she must have thought she acquired when she signed on to be President Obama’s chief Cabinet officer.

Since her designation:

• Vice President Biden has moved vigorously to stake out foreign policy as his turf. His visit to Afghanistan, right before the Inauguration, could not but send a signal to Hillary that he would conduct foreign policy in the new administration, leaving Hillary in the role of backup.

• Richard Holbrooke, the former Balkan negotiator and U.N. ambassador, has been named special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He insisted on direct access to the president, a privilege he was denied during much of the Clinton years.

• Former Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine), negotiator of the Irish Peace Accords, was appointed to be the administration’s point man on Arab-Israeli negotiations.

• Samantha Powers, Obama’s former campaign aide, who once called Hillary a “monster,” has been appointed to the National Security Council (NSC) as director of “multilateral affairs.”

• Gen. James L. Jones, Obama’s new national security adviser, has announced an expansion of the membership and role of the NSC. He pledges to eliminate “back channels” to the president and wants to grow the NSC’s role to accommodate the “dramatically different” challenges of the current world situation.

• Susan Rice, Obama’s new United Nations ambassador, insisted upon and got Cabinet rank for her portfolio, and she will presumably also have the same kind of access to Obama that she had as his chief foreign policy adviser during the campaign.

So where does all this leave Secretary of State Clinton?

While sympathy for Mrs. Clinton is outside the normal fare of these columns, one cannot help but feel that she is surrounded by people who are, at best, strangers and, at worst, enemies. The competition that has historically occupied secretaries of State and national security advisers seems poised to ratchet up to a new level in the current administration.

Hillary’s essential problem is that she is an outsider in the current mix. She was the adversary in the campaign, and Rice and Powers — at the very least — know it well, having helped to run the campaign that dethroned her. Can they — and she — be devoid of bitterness or at least of normal human trepidation? Not very likely.

The fact is that the power of the secretary of State is not statutory, nor does it flow from the prestige of the post’s occupant. Former Gen. Al Haig, once supreme commander of NATO and chief of staff to President Nixon, found that out when he was undercut as secretary by the White House troika of Mike Deaver, James Baker and Ed Meese. Bill Rogers, Eisenhower’s attorney general and Nixon’s California confidant, found himself on the outs from the moment he became secretary of State, with Henry Kissinger soaking up all the power through his direct access to Nixon as national security adviser.

The power of the secretary of State flows directly from the president. But Hillary does not have the inside track with Obama. Rice and Powers, close advisers in the campaign, and Gen. Jones — whose office is in the White House — all may have superior access. Holbrooke and Mitchell will have more immediate information about the world’s trouble spots.

So what is Hillary’s mandate? Of what is she secretary of State? If you take the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan out of the equation, what is left? One would have to assume that the old North Korea hands in the government would monopolize that theater of action. What, precisely, is it that Hillary is to do? The question lingers.

And for this she gave up a Senate seat?
Click for the article

A Colorado school district does away with grade levels

By Amanda Paulson Amanda Paulson
Tue Feb 10, 3:00 am ET
from Yahoo News

Westminster, Colo. – School districts across the US are trying to improve student performance and low test scores. But few have taken as radical an approach as Adams 50.

For starters, when the elementary and middle-school students come back next fall, there won't be any grade levels – or traditional grades, for that matter. And those are only the most visible changes in a district that, striving to reverse dismal test scores and a soaring dropout rate, is opting for a wholesale reinvention of itself, rather than the incremental reforms usually favored by administrators.

The 10,000-student district in the metropolitan Denver area is at the forefront of a new "standards-based" educational approach that has achieved success in individual schools and in some small districts in Alaska, but has yet to be put to the test on such a large scale in an urban district.
Click to read the article