27 days? wow.

Haiti: man ’survives 27 days in the rubble’

This just in from the playground

To coin a phrase from the First Lady, ‘For the first time in my adult life,’ I am truly embarrassed for my country.

(Actually, that’s not true. It’s the second but who cares about cigar abuse and the lies about it now…? Oh wait, maybe it was the third time, I do have recollections of the Carter years.)

So, Mr. Gibbs, how about answering some more questions? (warning adult language at the end)

What a f’ing idiot. I never thought anyone would make Scott McClellan articulate and bright.

Team Obama: The crying continues…

They are a thin-skinned bunch at 1600 Pennsylvania. What a surprise Bush is mentioned and dissent is no longer patriotic by this bunch of cry-babies.

Let’s start with John Brennan of Team Obama, a man who evidently never met a deskjob in national security he didn’t like:

Politics should never get in the way of national security. But too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe.

…There is little difference between military and civilian custody, other than an interrogator with a uniform. The suspect gets access to a lawyer, and interrogation rules are nearly identical.

Would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid was read his Miranda rights five minutes after being taken off a plane he tried to blow up. The same people who criticize the president today were silent back then.

Cries to try terrorists only in military courts lack foundation…

Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda. Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill. They will, however, be dismantled and destroyed, by our military, our intelligence services and our law enforcement community. And the notion that America’s counterterrorism professionals and America’s system of justice are unable to handle these murderous miscreants is absurd.

A round up of reactions follows. First, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air comments:

Gee, isn’t that remarkably similar to the type of thing the Left accused the Bush administration of saying? In fact, that’s exactly what Clinton’s remarks were intended to address. The motivation of dissent matters less than its relevance and truth — and the truth is that our nation’s counterterrorist professionals were not consulted in the handling of Abdulmutallab until after the Department of Justice forced a delay of weeks in getting information from the EunuchBomber. DNI Dennis Blair and FBI Director Robert Mueller didn’t get a call until afterwards, and the High-Value Interrogation Groups (HIGs) hadn’t yet been commissioned almost a year after Obama shut down their predecessor interrogation groups….

Now Brennan wants to screech about patriotism and how being held accountable for a series of screw-ups somehow makes the people demanding that accountability the handmaidens of Osama bin Laden. If Brennan can’t handle accountability, maybe he should resign his position and let someone else with more testicular fortitude — and a better understanding of representative democracy — take his place.

Byron York follows with:

Brennan sets up a fairly obvious straw man when he writes that, “Cries to try terrorists only in military courts lack foundation.” The argument over the treatment of Abdulmutallab is an argument specifically over the treatment of an al Qaeda soldier who was caught trying to blow up an airliner — not whether terrorists should be tried only in military courts. As far as I know, the critics who believe the administration made a serious mistake with Abdulmutallab also believe that there are other cases — involving financial or logistical support of terrorism, for example — that are well suited to the civilian court system.

Finally, Brennan repeats President Obama’s argument that the Bush administration’s treatment of Richard Reid justifies the Obama administration’s handling of Abdulmutallab. “Would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid was read his Miranda rights five minutes after being taken off a plane he tried to blow up,” Brennan writes. “The same people who criticize the president today were silent back then.” Critics find the argument weak because when Reid was apprehended, in December 2001, the institutions to handle suspects like him did not exist. Should Bush have put Reid before a military commission? A high-value detainee interrogation group? Send him to Guantanamo? None of that existed in the early months of the war on terror….

And sure enough, in the new op-ed, Brennan writes that, “Senior counterterrorism officials from the White House, the intelligence community and the military were all actively discussing this case before he was Mirandized and supported the decision to charge him in criminal court,” Brennan writes. Not a word about Congress.

Scott Johnson of Powerline:

Brennan rests his straw men in part on then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s September 2008 Guidelines for Domestic FBI Operations. Mukasey, however, begs to differ. As one might infer from the title of the guidelines, Mukasey explains that the decision to provide Miranda warnings to the Christmas Day bomber and classify him as a criminal defendant do not follow from them.

Mukasey told Bill McGurn: “First, the guidelines Mr. Brennan refers to involve intelligence gathering. They do not deal with whether someone in custody is to be treated as a criminal defendant or as an intelligence asset. Second, as for gathering intelligence, it begs the whole question about whether he [Abdulmutallab] should have been designated a criminal suspect. And there is nothing–zero, zilch, nada–in those guidelines that makes that choice. It is a decision that ought to be made at the highest level, and the heads of our security agencies have testified that it was made without consulting them.”

One more timely column addresses Brennan’s remarkable performance as a spin merchant on behalf of the Obama administration. In “Miranda wrongs,” Ralph Peters locates the source of Brennan’s lassitude in the same place I do.

So, let’s check in on Col. Peters:

The White House position is a PR blend of lies, half-truths and ignorance. Let’s strip out the politics and lay out the facts from an intelligence professional’s perspective:

* The administration claims Abdulmutallab is now cooperating. That’s either dishonest or idiotic — or both.

If he is cooperating, jeez, you don’t tell the terrorists. Why on earth leak it that the guy’s blabbing, thus warning the enemy? Could the administration — just possibly — be playing politics?

Missed it by that much....

* Even if he’s talking now, Abdulmutallab won’t provide actionable intelligence. It’s too late: His contacts had time to vacate the premises and alter their modes of operation.

The best information that a low-level operative like the Jockey-shorts jerk possesses is highly perishable — the captive isn’t privy to long-term plans, just the immediate details of his mission and a few basic contacts.

Information that might have been valuable on Dec. 26 may be worthless by Jan. 26. Yet, in that critical early window we convinced Abdulmutallab to clam up — thanks to the folly of treating him to a lawyer.

In the intelligence world, where I served for decades, we derided such useless data as we’re getting now as “history lessons.”

* What plea bargain did we have to grant Abdulmutallab to get him to talk? Why should we ever have to plea-bargain with terrorists? Can any serious lawyer show us where in the laws of land warfare (which include the Geneva Convention) or in the broader sphere of international law it specifies that terrorists must be read their Miranda rights upon capture?

We’re doing this to ourselves, folks. And it’s going to kill more Americans….

Both sides of the aisle seek political gains from the terrorism issue — too often forgetting the essential goal of protecting the United States. This time, though, the White House is unquestionably in the wrong — trying to deceive the American people on an issue of life and death.

In the end, there is no reason — legal, moral or practical — to treat foreign terrorists bent on massacre as if they were citizens of the country they dream of destroying.

Feel safer now?

Quote of the Day

Pacifism is a serious subject for sweet adolescence, or a way of life for certain eccentric sects who, it must be noted, survive because they live among non-eccentric people who reject pacifism and fight to keep those little sects alive and free. – Charles Krauthammer

Iran is getting punchy?

via FOCUS Information Agency:

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says Iran is set to deliver a “punch” that will stun world powers during this week’s 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

President Mahmoud “I’m a nucking futcase” Ahmadinejad refused to answer direct questions about the Supreme leader’s comments deciding to gush about the movie he had just seen.

The only thing missing was a shirtless Leo....

Proving stupidity is boundless…

From Neil Peart of Rush:

And isn’t it funny that by then [March 2010] the band will have been represented in the Motorcycling Hall of Fame, the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Songwriting Hall of Fame, and the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame—but not yet in the “official” rock pantheon? Passing strange . . .

I have said repeatedly that the Rock’N'Roll Hall of Fame is a joke.

Rush is better off without having to stand next to the likes of Madonna, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Micheal Jackson, Earth, Wind, & Fire, Parliament Funkadelic, The Jackson Five, Bob Marley, and others who better represent pop music in their own amazing ways but have little or nothing to do with rock music.

The band Rush is better off being ignored by the Hall of Fame. They get to keep their credibility as rock musicians without having lowered their standards to be popular which is why they are loved in the first place.

Mission Accomplished

Much to the dismay of fans and allies of Code Pink, John Murtha, ANSWER, MoveOn.org, and others who wanted to cut and run rather than win in Iraq: Marines quietly wrap up ops in Iraq

Spot the Idiot, Arrest the Idiot: Michael Patrick McManus

Michael Patrick McManus aka General Ballduster McSoulpatch

Holy crap this year, this month, this week, and this day continue to get better.

ALL the praise and accolades should go to a group of intrepid milbloggers and their readers who will not allow the honor of those who earned what they did to be besmirched by low-life, attention whores who feel the need to play hero when they’ve done nothing to earn it.

Michael Patrick McManus, aka General Ballduster McSoulpatch, was arrested on Friday for wearing a military uniform, awards, and medals none of which he earned.

Even better, this douchebag never rose above the rank of Private First Class when he did serve and he left the Army as an E-1 according to his DD-214. It takes very high levels of stupidity, beta-maleness, pussification, and abject failure to end up an E-1 after three years. Which might explain his need to promote himself.

Go read what you can about the lies, stories, and out-right laughable claims this poster boy for mental health has made.

This is not the first time is pathetic excuse for a man got in trouble for impersonating a military officer and federal law enforcement employee.

Man arrested, accused of stolen valor

The picture of McManus was taken at Mayor Parker’s victory party in December. The man who shot it is retired military. He sent six pictures to us though he didn’t want to be identified. He spoke with us by phone about why he was so suspicious seeing all the awards on this man’s uniform.

That was kind of my initial indication that you know what, something here doesn’t add up. It doesn’t look right,” he said.

The medals included two distinguished service crosses, the second-highest award for valor given by the Army. Even a purple heart.

“The parachute badge. That’s the basic parachute badge,” said a military expert.

What’s more experts say around his neck appears to indicate he is the Commander of the British Empire.

“He’s got so many, if you take out the list of decorations, it looks like he just went and collected every one and slapped them on his chest,” John Bradley said.

Bradley is a retired U.S. Army Officer, a graduate of the Military Academy at West Point and he teaches courses in military history at the University of Houston-Downtown and Rice University. We asked him to look at the pictures for us.

“It strikes me as overwhelming, in the sense that anybody who had that many awards would be very, very, very rare. As young as he was, there’s no possibility he could have earned those types of awards,” Bradley said.

He also said the chin whiskers are a dead giveaway. He says no true serviceman would dishonor the uniform by appearing in public with facial hair.

Here is the “general” being led into court today from a screenshot of the news video:

Some think those are bandages from recent combat with insurgents and terrorists while serving as a translator to the Emperor of Pandora in the far-off country of Fullofshitistan and not a jock strap.

John Murtha dead

I honor his service while he was in the Marines, but it ends there:

U.S. Rep. John Murtha, an influential critic of the Iraq War whose congressional career was shadowed by questions about his ethics, died Monday. He was 77.

The Pennsylvania Democrat had been suffering complications from gallbladder surgery. He died at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va., spokesman Matthew Mazonkey said.

I have contempt for just about everything else he did that followed – the corruption he embraced as a legislator, his support of and work with the hags of Code Pink, and especially what he said about our Marines in Haditha.

Rest in Peace, ex-Marine.

British sniper avenges his friend by killing Taliban

via Telegraph:

Fusilier Martin Williams described shooting the insurgents as a “vendetta” against those who killed his friend Robert Hunt, who was the 200th soldier to die in Afghanistan.

For nine hours without a break he manned a compound rooftop with a few sandbags hiding his position as he picked off the enemy.

“It’s hard to explain, and I know it sounds like something out of a film, but I felt that I have done my bit for Robert,” he said…

His skills were put to the test when his patrol came under fire after it moved into a compound in an area north of Lashkar Gah in central Helmand last Monday. He took up his position and waited patiently for enemy troops to appear. His victims included two Taliban shot in a ditch at a distance of about 800 yards, including one who was hit in the throat.

“He put his hand out as if asking someone to help but not one came,” the Welshman said. “There was definitely less movement after I dropped them.

“The Taliban are used to machine guns but as soon as you get a sniper on the ground, it puts the fear of God into them.”

Another Kennedy idiot

RFK, Jr. 15 months ago: Global warming means no snow or cold in DC

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who flies around on private planes so as to tell larger numbers of people how they must live their lives in order to save the planet, wrote a column last year on the lack of winter weather in Washington, D.C.

In Virginia, the weather also has changed dramatically. Recently arrived residents in the northern suburbs, accustomed to today’s anemic winters, might find it astonishing to learn that there were once ski runs on Ballantrae Hill in McLean, with a rope tow and local ski club. Snow is so scarce today that most Virginia children probably don’t own a sled. But neighbors came to our home at Hickory Hill nearly every winter weekend to ride saucers and Flexible Flyers….

Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil and its carbon cronies continue to pour money into think tanks whose purpose is to deceive the American public into believing that global warming is a fantasy.

Having shoveled my walk five times in the midst of this past weekend’s extreme cold and blizzard, I think perhaps RFK, Jr. should leave weather analysis to the meteorologists instead of trying to attribute every global phenomenon to anthropogenic climate change.

Joe Sr. was the successful one. Joe Jr. was the about the only honorable one. JFK served his country honorably but stopped acting like an officer and a gentleman as soon as he got out of the Navy. The rest of them just rode the coattails, cashed the checks, cheated in college and their marriages, got drunk, took the pills, did the coke, raced the cops, submerged or crashed their cars, tell others how to live lives they will not, and have to regularly schedule DE-tox and RE-tox weeks ahead of time so they won’t miss Sundance, the next Sierra Club meeting, or 2:45 AM votes in Congress after never working a day in their lives because of their last name.

Isn’t that so Patrick?

At least Eunice left a respectable legacy behind.

Obama Fail: I would talk to them without pre-conditions

Defiant Iran set to begin higher enrichment of uranium

click for larger

Meet the Taliban, the porn-loving, pedophilia practicing, homosexuality denying, drug-dealing enemy

Afghan Men Struggle With Sexual Identity, Study Finds

As if U.S. troops and diplomats didn’t have enough to worry about in trying to understand Afghan culture, a new report suggests an entire region in the country is coping with a sexual identity crisis.

An unclassified study from a military research unit in southern Afghanistan details how homosexual behavior is unusually common among men in the large ethnic group known as Pashtuns — though they seem to be in complete denial about it.

The study, obtained by Fox News, found that Pashtun men commonly have sex with other men, admire other men physically, have sexual relationships with boys and shun women both socially and sexually — yet they completely reject the label of “homosexual.” The research was conducted as part of a longstanding effort to better understand Afghan culture and improve Western interaction with the local people.

He calls me his own little "love gun". He's my "fuzzy freedom fighter". We enjoy young boys, long walks in the opium fields, fighting for Allah, and Maybelline eye-liner.

Afghan drug trade fuels insurgency

Taliban insurgents waging an increasingly deadly campaign against foreign troops make at least 100 million dollars a year from taxing Afghanistan’s opium trade — the world’s biggest, US and Afghan officials say.

According to the Pentagon “there is a well established connection between the drug trade and financing the insurgency.”

Via The Jawa Report: Taliban’s Siraj Haqqani: Rape, Murder & Videotape

Combine Hustler’s Larry Flynt with Coppola’s Don Corleone and what do you get? Siraj Haqqani, the Taliban’s Godfather of Porn.

Allow me to set the stage for one of jihad’s bravest, most pious Muslim warriors.

Siraj Haqqani is the chief operating officer of the deadliest terror network in the Afhanistan/Pakistan (Af/Pak) theater, the Haqqani terror network. It was established by Siraj’s father, the senile Jed Clampett of jihad, Jalaluddin Haqqani. A heretofore remorseless criminal organization, the Haqqanis realized the real growth industry (i.e. money) for the group laid in embracing the jihad. In a stunning come to Jesus, (whoops) come to Allah moment, the Haqqanis magically embraced the war against the Infidel, as well as defenseless Muslims who didn’t toe their Sharia line. What many don’t know is how much dirty laundry hangs off that line.

When Siraj, who is said to rival Mullah Omar for Taliban leadership, isn’t sending his toughest soldiers to roam the bazaars in search of the little blue pills he uses to fuel a thirst for young boys that would have made Michael Jackson blush, he is busy making sure the closet door remains firmly shut on one of the Taliban’s most damning skeletons, the Haqqani pornography ring.

Taliban make children plant IEDs to thwart Army snipers

Boys as young as 12 are being used by the Taliban to plant bombs designed to kill and maim British troops in Afghanistan.

Army commanders say insurgents are forcing children to lay improvised explosive devices (IEDs) because they know they will not be shot by British snipers.

Hopefully new efforts to exterminate these pigs will be successful:

AMERICAN and British troops poised to assault the Taliban stronghold of Marjah have begun targeting insurgent leaders for assassination.

Military sources said special forces had been infiltrating the town on “kinetic” missions — jargon for armed attacks. “Special forces guys have been going in on assassination missions with the aim of decapitating the Taliban force,” one said.

At the British base of Camp Bastion and the adjoining Camp Leatherneck, the US marine base, troops and munitions have been airlifted in by night to avoid enemy rockets. It is clear that international forces are on the brink of a big battle. All yesterday morning, the thud-thud-thud of heavy machineguns and the crump of mortars filled the air.

Happy Birthday, President Reagan

He spoke better than Obama and had an actual resume.

He understood America better than the Bushes – both of them.

He had more guts, integrity, honor, and decency than Clinton.

And Carter will never be remembered like Reagan for any of his so-called accomplishments.

He understood that softness came with prosperity and that the danger of becoming complacent and weak was in our future. He warned us about this fact repeatedly.

In the end, he was good for America and for the world at large. He wasn’t perfect, but he was a far cry better than anything we’ve had since.

He will never be forgotten.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President, and thank you.

Obama: Forget about what I used to do…

From James Taranto via Hold On Tight

This is almost a bottom story of the day, but bear with us: At his meeting with Senate Democrats Wednesday, President Obama complained that Senate Republicans are using procedural maneuvers to block the confirmation of his nominees. The Washington Post portrays the president as hypocritical, noting that this is “a legislative tactic he once practiced himself”:

In 2005, a year after his election to the Senate, Obama placed a hold on Susan Bodine to lead the Environmental Protection Agency office that oversees Superfund and emergency cleanup programs because the agency had missed a deadline on new regulations for lead paint exposure.

In September 2006, Obama and Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) blocked Robert L. Wilkie’s nomination as a Defense Department assistant secretary over a long-delayed Pentagon report on Midwestern wind farms.

And Obama joined with other Democrats in October 2007 to block the nomination of Hans von Spakovsky to the Federal Election Commission. Von Spakovsky later withdrew; Wilkie and Bodine were eventually confirmed.

In addition, in 2005 and 2006 Obama voted against allowing the confirmations of Janice Rogers Brown and Bill Pryor as federal judges, Samuel Alito as a Supreme Court justice, and John Bolton as U.N. ambassador to proceed to a vote on the floor, although only in Bolton’s case was the filibuster successful. Obama was not part of the bipartisan “Gang of 14,” which reached an agreement to stop most judicial filibusters temporarily.

Funny how things change.

Who are the 300 terrorists held in U.S. prisons?

click for larger

via Washington Examiner:

“The Bush administration used the criminal justice system to convict more than 300 individuals on terrorism-related charges,” writes Attorney General Eric Holder in a new letter to Republican critics in Congress. The letter is part of the Obama administration’s aggressive defense of its decision to grant full American constitutional rights to al Qaeda soldier Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused Christmas Day bomber. That defense boils down to one sentence: Bush did it, too.

Republicans on Capitol Hill object. They argue that one of the reasons some terrorists were handled in the criminal justice system is that it took George W. Bush and Congress years to establish a military tribunal system that satisfied constitutional requirements — a process that was lengthened by legal challenges filed by some of the same lawyers who now work in Holder’s Justice Department.

You can argue about that forever. But there’s one serious factual debate going on about Holder’s letter, and that concerns those “300 individuals.” Just who are they?

It turns out some lawmakers have been trying for months to get an answer. They’re not saying the claim is false — they just want to see what it’s based on. But so far they haven’t been able to find out.

Pelosi: Where Are the Jobs, Mr. President?

Pelosi: Where Are the Jobs, Mr. President?

August 1, 2003

Washington, D.C. — House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ announcement that 470,000 people abandoned their job searches in July and that 3.2 million private sector jobs have been lost since President Bush took office:

“The fact is that President Bush’s misguided economic policies have failed to create jobs. Since President Bush took office, the country has lost 3.2 million jobs, the worst record since President Hoover. And today we learned that in July nearly half a million people gave up looking for a job.

“Job losses are taking a real toll on the financial security of American families. While Democrats are fighting for opportunity, jobs, and economic security for working families, Republicans continue to focus on helping those who need help the least.

“According to today’s survey, while the national unemployment rate dropped slightly, it still stands at a near record high. In addition, the unemployment rate for African Americans was still over 11 percent in July, and the unemployment rate for Hispanics was 8.2 percent in July.

How does that feel America? No glove, no gel, no nothin'...

“It is time for President Bush and the Republicans to get to work for all Americans, not just the elite few.”

Don’t hold your breath waiting for Her Highness of San Fran-syphilis to release another presser any time soon taking Dr. Utopia to task for a far worse performance.

This is a prime example of the duplicity of Nancy Pelosi writing about “the elite few” only to turn around and spend over a thousand dollars a week for booze, food, and many other things on her private airliner that her family and friends have been using at our expense to the tune of over $2 million in just a couple of years. Talk about someone who defines HYPOCRITE.

Never forget, for Pelosi and most of her allies, public service and politics are not based in principle or virtue. It is based on pride, greed, envy, gluttony to name a few….

Quote of the Day

“I have a preference for non-Ivy League law clerks. I’m not part of this new or faux nobility.” – Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas

via Justice Thomas, On the Road Again

Spot the Idiot(s): Life Here in the Shallow End of the Gene Pool

I like living in Reno/Sparks, I honestly do. But holy crap, some of the people here make the biggest imbeciles look brilliant and f-ugly look beautiful.

Case in point these three stooges: Three arrested in Sparks after tip from Realtor

On Feb. 1, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office received information from a local Realtor of suspicious subjects that asked to see several residences for sale in the 2600 block of West View in Sparks.

Authorities say the Realtor became suspicious after she responded to show the residence to 19-year-old Nicco Way, Reno, and two other subjects. Way asked the Realtor specific questions about the alarm system in the home and gave conflicting information about being pre-qualified for a home loan.

Washoe County Sheriff Detectives followed up on the information given by the Realtor and issued an alert to the patrol division. At 11 p.m., Washoe County Patrol Deputies were checking the area for the vehicle and subjects, and were alerted by a witness who saw the vehicle return to the area.

Washoe County Sheriff Patrol Deputies located the vehicle and initiated a traffic stop on Prater Way. Matthew Cook, Way and Kenneth Benkosy were subsequently arrested for the listed charges. A fourth subject in the vehicle was not charged and released at the scene.

The suspects include:

Nicco Donovan Way, 19 years old, Reno Resident, Bkg # 1002218. Charges: Using ID information of Another, Obstructing and Resisting, FTA Bail $13,000.00.

Matthew Allen Cook, 20 year old, Sparks Resident, Bkg # 1002216. Charges: DUI-Drugs, Possession of Controlled Substance Bail $1695.00.

Kenneth Allen Benkosky, 23 year old, Reno Resident, Bkg # 1002217. Charges: Possession of a Controlled Substance, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia Bail $ 1300.00.

Now that’s a trio of kids that would make a mother proud and the girls giddy, huh?

Quote of the Day

“This president is a real slow learner.” – Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman

Source

Part of a pattern

Via Kausfiles, “Some would call this a stunning admission of incompetence.”

You don’t say?

WTF?

AFP: US debt to hit proposed ceiling by end-February: Treasury:

The US debt is on track to hit a congressionally proposed debt ceiling of 14.3 trillion dollars by the end of February, the Treasury said Wednesday, a day ahead of a key vote to raise it to that level.

“Based on current projections, Treasury expects to reach the debt ceiling as early as the end of February. However, the government’s cash flows are volatile, making it difficult to forecast a precise date,” the Treasury said in a statement.

The current limit on the public debt of the United States is 12.374 trillion dollars.

The US debt exceeded 12.349 trillion dollars on Monday, according to Treasury data.

The US House of Representatives will vote Thursday on whether to raise the US debt limit to a historic 14.3 trillion dollars, allowing the United States to borrow another 1.9 trillion dollars.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said representatives would take up the measure a week after the Senate approved the higher debt ceiling in a 60-39 vote.

In December, both houses agreed to increase the debt limit by an interim amount of 290 billion dollars to ensure the US government would continue to function.

The Senate also last week passed an amendment to legislation raising the debt ceiling that requires new budget items to be paid for, dubbed “pay-as-you-go.”

The measure is intended to prevent the federal government from spending money it does not have and to control the massive US budget deficit.

The House has adopted a similar measure.

If this is all GWB’s fault, can we have him back in charge of fixing it? He actually took an economics course or two and most likely got a decent grade that we can look up if we want.

3 Reasons Not To Sweat The “Citizens United” SCOTUS Ruling

Can’t wait for you to come stump for Dingey Harry in Vegas, Mr. President.

Obama and Reid are two peas in a pod. They are both tone deaf, pandering, elitist jerks:

President Barack Obama took another dig at Las Vegas at his New Hampshire town hall Tuesday after similar remarks got him into hot water last year.Obama said that people should not “blow a bunch of cash in Vegas” during a tough recession. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman called for Obama to apologize after he made comparable comments last February.

“When times are tough, you tighten your belts,” he said at the forum.” You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash in Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.”

via Obama takes another dig at Las Vegas

We love you too here in Nevada, Mr. President, we appreciate all the work you are doing to help us finally bring about some change.

What better place for us to start than with non-other than Harry Reid?

Celebrity Jeopardy

RedPlanetCartoons

Let’s avoid Japan US relations if possible….

Why Obama Is an Even Bigger Spender Than Bush

A must read:

In June 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama declared that President Bush had run “the most fiscally irresponsible administration in history.” At the time Obama made that statement, the highest deficit run up by the Bush administration was $412.7 billion. Today, President Obama released his administration’s new 10-year budget outlook and it never shows an annual deficit lower than $739 billion.

To be clear, this isn’t meant as a defense of the Bush administration’s fiscal record, which I view as completely atrocious. The point is that as horrendous as the Bush administration’s record is, the Obama administration is far worse, even if you give Obama some leeway. Below, I made a number of calculations that cast an escalating amount of blame on Bush, and Obama still ends up as the worse spender….

Let’s just say we think that Obama and Bush should share the blame, and so instead of eliminating the three roughest years, we factor 2009 into Bush’s performance, while saying Obama’s responsibility truly starts in 2010. By that measure, Bush’s average annual deficits jump to 2.9 percent of GDP, but Obama’s projected shortfalls soar to 5 percent per year. In spending terms, Bush’s average rises to 20.2 percent, but Obama’s is higher still at 23.5 percent.

Let’s say we decide to be even more charitable…

via The American Spectator

Zeitgeist

DRUDGE REPORT 2010®

He's looking HOPEFUL.

Team Obama: Oceana has always been at war with East Asia.

Not even Orwell’s Ministry of Truth could save the idiots of Team Obama at this point:

But wait, there’s more from Reason on the perils of being a pathological liar:  Obama: ‘I Don’t Think I Said That.’ In Exactly Those Words. In That Particular Speech

Last week Peter Suderman noted that President Obama, in his exchange with Republican congressmen on Friday, not only conceded that opponents of his health care plan had proposed reforms that were worthy of consideration but bragged (not altogether accurately) that some of them had been incorporated into the bills that passed the House and Senate. Those remarks contradicted the Obama administration’s earlier claims that the opposition had no solutions to offer. How did Obama address this contradiction at Friday’s session devoted to cross-party civility and understanding? By denying it. When Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) complained that “you have repeatedly said, most recently at the State of the Union, that Republicans have offered no ideas and no solutions,” Obama replied:

I don’t think I said that. What I said was within the context of health care—I remember that speech pretty well. It was only two days ago.

I said I’d welcome ideas that you might provide. I didn’t say that you haven’t provided ideas. I said I’d welcome those ideas that you’ll provide.

Saying that you’re waiting to hear ideas strongly implies that you haven’t heard them yet, doesn’t it? But never mind that. The president and his underlings have directly stated what he only implied in the State of the Union address. Most conspicuously, there was the September 2009 speech to which Peter referred last week:

I’ve got a question for all those folks [opponents of his plan]: What are you going to do? What’s your answer? What’s your solution? And you know what? They don’t have one. Their answer is to do nothing. Their answer is to do nothing.

PolitiFact.com found three other examples:

• A White House blog post attacking the Republican health care plan said it offered “no ideas.” (The posting appears to have a typo. It reads: “The Republican bill offers new no ideas.”)

• White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel on April 19, 2009, described the Republicans as “the party of never…the party of no new ideas.” (He was referring not just to health care, but also to fiscal discipline.)

• At a White House briefing April 28, 2009, press secretary Robert Gibbs made a similar comment: “I think you heard me and others say that you can’t just be the party of no or the party of no new ideas.”

N.O.W. watch how we tolerate others…

From the Washington Post comes this on the Tim and Pam Tebow Super Bowl ad that advocates choosing life when the mother is faced with a decision concerning aborting her child:

Pam Tebow and her son feel good enough about that choice to want to tell people about it. Only, NOW says they shouldn’t be allowed to. Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikini selling beer is the right one. I would like to meet the genius at NOW who made that decision. On second thought, no, I wouldn’t.

via Tebow ad exposes the intolerance of the “tolerant” Left

Another Obama promise finds a home

TaxProf Blog: President Obama’s Budget Contains $1.9 Trillion in Tax Increases

The First Teleprompter of the United States make another appearance

This time, it’s at a meeting? What are there ten? twenty? people in that room?

Pathetic.

Another record deficit courtesy of Obama

White House to paint grim fiscal picture: source

Deficits are projected to fall as the economy recovers, but they will still average roughly 4.5 percent of GDP over the coming decade, according to the estimate.

Deficits are expected to rise again toward the end of the decade due to the increasing cost of retirement and healthcare programs as the “baby boom” generation retires.

Obama has warned that the burgeoning U.S. debt could unnerve U.S. financial markets, driving up borrowing costs and putting future economic growth at risk.

China, the biggest foreign holder of U.S. Treasuries, has urged the United States to get its fiscal house in order.

The grim forecast could help build support for a bipartisan commission proposed by the White House that would recommend ways to address long-term budget problems.

Obama and his fellow Democrats face a growing voter backlash for the aggressive spending measures they have taken to stimulate the economy.

But Democrats point out that most of the fiscal mess has been inherited from the previous administration of Republican George W. Bush, who cut taxes and created an expensive prescription drug-benefit while pursuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The recession, which began in December 2007 and ended last year, also worsened the fiscal picture by depressing government revenues while forcing up spending on unemployment benefits and other safety-net programs.

Let’s take note again of the next to last sentence there in bold above.

What you will never hear is that the deficit was going down in Bush’s second term right up to the TARP debacle AND that the deficits these idiots are creating are so large they can’t be compared to what Bush left them. This is all on them.

Obama is to blame for this, no one else.

And the news keeps getting better:

If President Obama thinks the political earthquake that hit his party last month in Massachusetts was bad, he had better read the Congressional Budget Office’s latest economic forecasts for the next two years.

In testimony before the House Budget Committee last week, which got scant news media attention, CBO Director Douglas W. Elmendorf painted a bleak forecast for the nation’s economy under the White House’s no-jobs, no-growth tax and spending policies. It spells even deeper political losses for the Democrats in Congress than are presently forecast.

Just how full of crap are they?

Welcome aboard Air Pelosi…

where family members joy ride for free while we take the tax payer for a ride of their own…

Nancy Pelosi is a crook.

The Mayor of Tampa? Really?

Yep.