Democrats Threaten Use of "Nuclear Option" to Pass Obama's Health Care

The President will meet with Democrat and Republicans members of Congress tomorrow, ostensibly in an attempt to come to agreement on Obama’s health care bill.

The summit will likely lay the groundwork for pushing the final bill through Congress using a privileged budget process called “reconciliation” that will allow Democrats to more easily overcome Republican efforts to block the bill in the Senate.

Obama's plan would make it easier to bypass Republicans if necessary and ram through legislation by a process requiring a simple majority in the 100-member Senate rather than the 60 votes needed to clear procedural hurdles.

If you follow Congressional politics, you may have heard the beginnings of a debate among the parties about the potential use of the "reconciliation process", also referred to as the "nuclear option", which only requires 51 votes as a way for Democrats to avoid a Republican filibuster of a health care bill in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters yesterday that Republicans "should stop crying" about the possible use of the parliamentary procedure known as budget reconciliation to pass a health care reform bill.

“They should stop crying about reconciliation as if it's never been done before.”

Actually Reid is right, the reconciliation sentae procedural process has been used several times in the past; however, this process has only been used to deal with budgetary actions and amendments. It has never been used by any party as a means of “steamrolling” a huge, deficit ridden, entitlement program into law. The reconciliation process was created in 1974 to facilitate adjustments of existing spending programs, not to implement new ones.

Of course, back in 2005 when (then) President Bush and his Republican Congress threatened, but did not use, the use “reconciliation” as a means of forcing the Congress to act on his Supreme Court nominations, the Democrats all had a completely different view of this process, they saw the use of “reconciliation” as nothing more than “…the end of democracy!”

I would think that perhaps Harry Reid should try and remember what he and his colleagues, including (then) Senator Obama, whined about to stop Presidient Bush from using the "reconciliation" or "nuclear option" back in 2005 before they start complaining about the exact type of response they are now receiving from the Republicans.

"There is not a Muslim Poblem"

Imam Zaid Salim Shakir

Speaking at a college in California last December about terrorism, Imam Shakir told his student audience that “There is not a Muslim problem.” And that the terrorist massacre at Fort Hood, Texas was the result of eay access to guns and the National Rifle Association (NRA).

For those wondering who Imam. Zaid Shakir is, he’s the go-to expert on Islamic issues for the mainstream media. The New York Times describes him as a “leading intellectual light,” while rap scholar, Cornel West says “he is one of the towering principle [sic] voices not only in contemporary Islam, but in American society.” A 200 page report entitled, “The 500 Most Influential Muslims” edited by professors John Esposito and Ibrahim Kalin was published this month by The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre (Jordan) and the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (Georgetown University) describes Imam Zaid Shakir as “one of America’s most influential scholars.”

Born in Berkeley, California, as Ricky Mitchell, he accepted Islam in 1977 while serving in the United States Air Force, and shortly after changed his name to Zaid Salim Shakir. A summa cum laude graduate, he obtained a BA in International Relations at American University in Washington, D.C. and later earned his MA in Political Science at Rutgers University. While at Rutgers, he led a successful campaign for disinvestment from South Africa, and co-founded a local Islamic center, Masjid al-Huda. After a year of studying Arabic in Cairo, Egypt, he settled in New Haven, Connecticut and continued his community activism, co-founding Masjid al-Islam, the Tri-State Muslim Education Initiative, and the Connecticut Muslim Coordinating Committee. As Imam of Masjid al-Islam from 1988 to 1994 he spear-headed a community renewal and grassroots anti-drug effort, also accepted the position as Professor and taught political science and Arabic at Southern Connecticut State University. He served as an interfaith council Chaplain at Yale University and developed the Chaplaincy Sensitivity Training for physicians at Yale New Haven Hospital. Zaid shakir now particapates as a speaker in reviving the islamic spirit.

Shakir then left for Syria to pursue his studies in the traditional Islamic Sciences. For seven years in Syria, and briefly in Morocco, he immersed himself in an intense study of Arabic, Islamic law, Quranic studies, and spirituality with some of the top Muslim scholars of our age. In 2001, he was the first American graduate from Syria's prestigious Abu Nour University and returned to Connecticut, serving again as the Imam of Masjid al-Islam, and writing and speaking frequently on a host of issues.

In 2003, as a scholar-in-residence at Zaytuna Institute located in California, Shakir began to teach Arabic, Law, and Islamic Spirituality. And, in 2008, he co-founded the Berkeley, California - based Zaytuna College dedicated to the revival of Islamic Sciences and the preservation of traditional teaching methods.

Back in December, Imam. Shakir spoke at Claremont McKenna College in California about last year’s ort Hood, Texas massacre of innocent service men and women by Major Nidal Malik Hasan.

“There is not a Muslim problem. Especially based on the number of Muslims who have done this particular act. It’s not a Korean problem because the kid in Virginia tech was a Korean American. It’s not a white American problem because the kids in Columbine or several other places were white Americans. That’s not the common denominator, race is not the common denominator, religion is not the common denominator, gender–maybe, I would say they should just chill out. What is the common denominator. The common denominator is easy access to guns. The common denominator is that there are more guns in America than there are human beings. There are more guns in America than human beings, and they are easily had. And if someone tries to limit their accessibility, they’re going to be challenged by the NRA, the National Rifle Association–one of the most powerful lobbies in this country. That’s the common denominator. So if we are serious as a society about stopping this violence, it doesn’t behoove us to demonize Muslims. We’re here to talk about Muslims, I’m not trying to dodge that, but if behooves us to make it far, far, far more difficult for people to get their hands on a gun. And it we’re not willing to do that, it’s easy to go blame the Muslims. That’s easy and that’s why so many people do–it’s a national sport. Vilify the Muslims, they’re weak, they can’t fight back.”

It’s “easy to go blame the Muslims”?

A quick review of the internet revealed some 33 terrorsit incidents, dating back to 1979, and guess what? They were all committed by “Muslim” terrorists!

U.S. Embassy Hostage Taking – Tehran, Iran – November 4, 1979

Truck Bombing of U.S. Embassy, Beirut – April 18, 1983

Truck Bombing of U.S. Marine Barracks, Beirut – October 23, 1983

Truck Bombing of U.S. Embassy Annex, Kuwait – December 23, 1983

Hijacking of Kuwait Airways Flight 221 – December 3, 1984

CIA Station Chief William Buckley kidnapped and murdered, Lebanon – March 1984

U.S. Embassy Compound Attacked, Beirut – September 20, 1984

Restaurant bombing, Madrid, Spain – April 12, 1985

TWA Flight 847 hijacked to Beirut, June 13, 1985 – June 13, 1985

Rhein-Main Airbase Bombing, Frankfurt, Germany – August 8, 1985

Cruise Ship Achille Lauro Hijacked, Port Said, Egypt – October 7, 1985

Egyptair Flight 646 Hijacked – November 23, 1985

Airport attack, Rome, Italy – December 27, 1985

Airport attack, Vienna, Austria – December 27, 1985

Bombing of TWA Flight 840, Athens, Greece – April 2, 1986

La Belle Disco Bombing, Berlin, Germany – April 5, 1986

Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, Lockerbie, Scotland – December 21, 1988

Shooting of CIA Employees, Langley, Virginia – January 25, 1993

Bombing of World Trade Center, New York City – February 26, 1993

U.S. Military Complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is Bombed – November 13, 1995

Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia are Bombed – June 25, 1996

U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dares Salaam, Tanzania are Bombed – August 7, 1998

USS Cole Bombed, Aden, Yemen – October 12, 2000

Attempted Al-Qaeda Federal Prison escape, New York City – November 11, 2000

September 11, 2001 attacks, New York, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania

Bombing of Restaurant, Zamboanga, Phillipines – October 2, 2002

Bombing of U.S. Consulate, Manado, Indonesia – October 12, 2002

Bali Night Club Bombing, Indonesia - October 12, 2002

Madrid Train Bombings, Spain – March 11, 2004

Bombings of London’s Public Transport System – July 7, 2005

Attack on International Airport, Glasgow, Scotland – June 2007

Attack on Little Rock Recruiting Center, Arkansas – June 1, 2009

Fort Hood Massacre, Texas – November 6, 2009

Attempted Bombing NWA Flight 253, Detroit – December 25, 2009

It is exactly this sort of liberal progressive politically correct fictional history that our colleges and universities are spoon feeding students that results in our children graduating and entering main stream America with an intentionally “taught” guilt ridden mentality whereby they lay the blame for these acts on the United States instead of exactly where it should be laid, on extremist Islamic Fundamentalism.

Sarah Plain 2.0

Sarah Palin has resurrected herself after a disastrous vice presidential campaign and resignation as governor of Alaska last July. Her muddled explanations for quitting the governorship made her a pariah in media and political circles, and she was exiled to the silent wilds of Alaska.

Given up for politically dead, her swift and amazing comeback as author of a No. 1 best-selling memoir, "Going Rogue," and hero of the mushrooming Tea Party movement has been a shock to the system, on both sides of the aisle.

"She's a force to be reckoned with,'' said Diane Sawyer on "ABC World News" on Monday.

But Palin's critics are legion, loud, and come in all political shades. Even a fellow conservative Republican like Joe Scarborough, the host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," frowns at the thought of a Palin presidential candidacy. On MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports" on Monday, he said, in part, that Palin is "not the voice of somebody who's going to take on Obama in 2012."

Other critics are not quite as sensible and even-keeled. Going for the jugular has become fair game when it comes to Palin. The New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica slashed her bloody in a Monday column in which he said that she seems to believe that "somehow she can go from being this kind of pinup girl for her Tea Party friends to the White House." He also called her a bubble-head. "You listen to her long enough and actually feel yourself getting dimmer by the minute."

Meaner and tougher Chris Mathews, the host of "Hardball," whose legs got all “tingly” with Obama’s election as President, makes no secret of his contempt for Sarah Palin and her followers. Agitated by the idea that Palin might dare to run for president, he dribbled a string of jabs on his shows on Monday and Tuesday, saying, among other things, "Is she a balloon-head?" and "She's got nothing going on mentally."

Lastly, on HLN's Feb. 8 "The Joy Behar Show," Eve Ensler, the writer of the infamous "The Vagina Monologues" which is a play made up of a varying number of monologues where every monologue somehow relates to the vagina, be it through sex, love, rape, menstruation, mutilation, masturbation, birth, etc., appeared on the broadcast and she was asked by the show's host, Joy Behar, what she thought about Sarah Palin.

”Well, I just think the idea that she doesn't believe in global warming is bizarre. And I think we just kind of have to walk around the world at this point and look at what is happening to nature and earthquakes and tsunamis…I think that idea that she doesn't believe in global warming and she could actually run for office, and we have a country where that is possible, it seems insane.”

Gee, isn’t that great? The author of the “Vagina Monologues” chastises Sarah Palin for her skepticism regarding the religion of global warming and suggests she only has to look at the facts, in this case the recent number of earthquakes and tsunamis, for proof of climate change!

To the liberal left, facts are no longer pieces of information presented as having objective realities and instead are simply unsupported fictional sound bites spewed out to fit a particular political agenda or cause.

In this case, I believe Ms. Ensler must have been listening to Danny Glover’s rant about Global Warming having caused the earthquake in Haiti!

And now, for the benefit of Ms. Behar and Ms. Ensler, some facts…

Eathquakes are sudden rolling or shaking events caused by movement under the Earth's surface resulting from slippage or pressure release along a fault line or volcanic activity.

Tsunamis are, for the most part, caused by underwater landslides or the sudden release of pressure along a fault line or subduction zone resulting in a massive uplift of the ocean floor.

Earthquakes and Tsunamis are not caused by changes in the earth's atmosphere which concerns the theory of anthropogenic global warming or climate change.

It does my heart good to know that we live in a country where this woman from Alaska comes out of nowhere and turns the entire political scene of the country “topsy turvy” and democrats and republicans alike are fearful of her growing momentum and status with the American people and where Joy Behar and Eve Ensler, armed with a less than educated knowledge of the earth sciences can attempt to use The Vagina Monologues as a means of portraying Sarah Palin’s skepticism regarding global warming as bizarre and indicative of an insanity within our nation.

Bottom line? Sarah Plain won't be going away anytime soon and in the words of Martha Stewart, “That’s a good thing!”  So there she is now, on center stage, Sarah Palin 2.0!

Srah Palin and the Tea Party

This past Saturday evening, Sarah Palin delivered, what I thought to be, a marvelous keynote speech at the Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennesse.

As much as I like Palin, I have to confess that my greatest enjoyment comes from watching the heads of the liberal left in this country explode every time she speaks.  There is something about this woman that strikes fear into the hearts of the liberal left of this country!

As expected, a myriad of progessive craniums went "kaboom" within hours after the end of Palin's speech. 

The Associated Press (A): “ Sarah Palin, in a speech that was short on ideas but big on enthusiasm, took aim at President Barack Obama and the Democrats, telling a gathering of "tea party" activists that America is ripe for another revolution."

Bill Press (Radio Host on MSNBC): “…there was a string of platitudes, but there was a lot of cheap shots. But she didn't offer one idea, and the only ideas she talked about, as you mentioned, well she's talked about energy. Who has put out there new money for energy projects? Who's talked about nuclear power? Who's talked about offshore drilling? Barack Obama. She talked about tax cuts. Who's put tax cuts out for small business? Barack Obama. I don't think she even knows what's going on in Washington.”

Joel Klein (Time Magazine Columnist): “It matters what you say. And that's where I have a problem with Palin. What she said was drivel…Those who celebrate Sarah Palin's lack of knowledge as a form of "authenticity" superior to Barack Obama's gloriously American mongrel ethnicity and self-made intellectuality are representatives of a long-standing American theme--the celebration of sameness, and mediocrity, in a country that has succeeded brilliantly because of its diversity and restlessly eccentric genius.”

MikeHalperin (Time Magazine Political Aanalyst): Sarah Palin “longs for -- and talk incessantly about -- an America that no longer exists.”

Bob Shrum (Democrat Operative): “… what we heard tonight was more a masterful exercise – masterful – in paranoid politics. I mean, she came across to me as a merchant of hate with an oh gosh smile."

I am amazed that both the liberal left and their friends in the main stream media still haven't figured out this "Tea Party" business yet.  It is not a third political party nor is it a organizational structure run by one or a few specific individuals. And it is certainly not a group of uneducated, racist, un-american,  activists that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Pelosi would have you to believe.

The "Tea Party" is a loose knit coalition of concerned and involved American citizens who have lost faith in their government and elected representatives.  They recognize the current political system has grown corrupt, venal, and out-of-touch with the the very people that they’re supposed to represent.  Thus the people, once again, are reasserting themselves acorss the nation in various states in this loose confederaion known as the "Tea Party."

The liberal left and main stream media would have you think that Sarah Palin is the head of the Tea Party, a idea that could not be further from the truth. 

All one has to do is listen ckosely o Palin's speech when she speaks about the Tea Party.  She describes it as a "bottom up", grass roots organization comprised of "the people."  Palin even went so far as to recommend that the Tea Party not go out of its way to identify individual national leaders but rather to utilize the power of the American people to press for reform in the form of smaller government, less spending and tazes and a strong national defense.

For the conservative movement, Palin represents a potential solution to the right's unending problem of a news media that consistently sides with the political opposition. She is the first public figure to utilize (and, in some cases, dominate) multiple media, including traditional (television, books) and new (Facebook, Twitter) media platforms. The sum of her efforts should be the model for conservative politicians and public figures going forward.

Palin reaches more Americans with a Facebook message (just under 1.3 million) than Keith Olbermann reaches during his 8 p.m. broadcast slot on MSNBC (roughly 1 million). Fox News now has plans to build a television studio in her home in Wasilla. Her recent book Going Rogue has spent 11 weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list, and has netted her somewhere in the 8-figure range.

Although it is not widely known or reported, Palin, for some time now, has been receiving daily briefings from several high level staff personages in the beltway on a myriad of issues ranging from domestic and foreign policy to terrorism and has boot strapped herself far and away from the myopia of Alaska politics.
She has gone from a political corpse to one of the most prolific and influential persons in the conservative movement in under a year. 

Sarah Palin's political metamorphisis and the accompanying birth of the American Tea Party can only bode well for the future of our nation as their words and ideas are not spoken as a democrats or  republicans,
but as  "We the People!" 

And that,  ladies and gentlemen, is how our founding fathers meant it to be!

Harry Reid to call his Proctologist!

From the Associated Press news service earlier today...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama says "we should take our time" getting to a final health care bill.

He said Thursday he wants to go through the legislation in detail with Republicans to examine their ideas and Democratic ideas to see whether there are better ways to improve the nation's health care system than have already been proposed.

Obama said that letting some time pass before calling for a vote also will allow "everybody to get the real facts."

Could it be?  President Obama has cautioned his democrat colleagues to slow down and take their time rather than ramming a 2,000 page health care bill nobody has read through Congress and into law?

Suddenly sober and thoughtful review and discussion are the words of the day?

Perhaps the President is not aware of the fact that, according to his own Democrat Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, anyone who suggests that the Congress "slow down" and take their time with health care are no different than those who opposed the end to slavery, women's sufferage and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Back in December of last year, Harry Reid took the floor of the Senate and said just that.

Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all Republicans have come up with is this. – “slow down, stop everything, let’s start over.” If you think you have heard these same excuses, you’re right. When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery there were those who dug in their heels and said “slow down!” When women spoke up for the right to …to vote some insisted they “slow down.” When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal rights to everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear here today! 

I would thoroughly enjoy watching some reporter ask Harry Reid - 

"Senator Reid, in light of President Obama's statement yesterday asking everyone to "slow down" in their mad rush to pass a health care bill, do you now also equate the President as being no differenet than those who opposed slavery, women's right to vote and the Civil Right Act of 1964 as you stated for the record on the floor of the Senate?"

Although I'm sure that a veteran, grizzled, experienced politician like Harry would have no difficulty fielding that question but it would still be amusing knowing that he would have to call his proctologist to let him know he found his head!

What do I Know?

Imam Zulqarnain Abdu-Shahid

Zulqarnain Abdu-Shahid is a Muslim Imam employed by the New York City Department of Correction with a salary of $49,500 to cater to the spiritual needs of incarcerated Muslim inmates within the New York Correctional system. Prior to taking his Muslim name, the Iman was known simply as Paul Pitts.

Yesterday, as Imam Abdu-Shaid was entering the Manhattan Detention Complex formerly known as the Bernard Kerik Center and years previous to that as the “Tombs”, he was found to be carrying “three utility blades and a scissors”.

The Correction Department has a strict policy of accounting for all disposable razor utilized by inmates within the agency. If an inmate is able to obtain a razor blade that blade may be used to slash another inmate causing serious injury.

If an inmate wants to shave, he must first surrender his inmate identification to his area officer who will then provide him with the razor. When the inmate is finished, he returns the razor to the Officer and, in turn, receives his identification card back. All razors are maintained in the Officer’s station under continual supervision. If a razor is found to be missing, the area is locked down and an immediate thorough search of the area and all inmates is conducted.

Additionally, all staff working within a city correctional facility are made succinctly aware of the agency’s policy regarding the prohibition against carrying any type of contraband into a facility.

As far as a pair of scissors is concerned, the scissor blades could be separated resulting in two sharpened knives or “shanks” being made available to the inmates.

Now it goes without saying that attempting to introduce any type of Not surprisingly, weapons contraband within a correctional facility is a big “no – no” and is viewed by that agency as a very serious offense. As such, Imam Abdi-Shahid was arrested and charged with four felony counts of promoting prison contraband in the first degree. He is currently still incarcerated in lieu of a $50,000 bail.

Not surprisingly, Imam Abdu-Shahid stated that he “didn’t know (the contraband) was in his bag.” At his arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court the Iman’s lawyer, James McQueeny said that the utlility blades were, in fact, “injector blades from an injector razor.”  On the other hand, jail sources have stated that the blades were one and a half inches long and three quarters of an inch wide.

I almost forgot to mention, Imam Abdu-Shahid, then known as Paul Pitts, and three other men were convicted in 1979 of murder and robbery for the December 1976 holdup of a Harlem supermarket that left 30-year-old customer Philip Crawford dead from a bullet wound. Their trial was the longest in state Supreme Court history -- one year, three months and three days. Abdu-Shahid served 14 years of a 15-year-to-life prison term before being paroled in August 1993. A prior sex assault charge against him was dismissed before the murder case.

Imam Abdu-Shahid’s lawyer, James McQueeny, acknowledging his client’s previous legal troubles, stated in court that his client is now “completely reformed.”

It is also interesting to note that Iman Abdu-Shahid’s boss, Head Chaplain, Muslim Imam Umar Abdul-Jalil was employed by City Corrections and allowed access to the city correction facilities even though he also,served fourteen years in prison for flony drug charges. 

Last year, Imam Abdul-Jalil was stripped of two weeks vacation as punishment for signing off on a plan by another Tombs chaplain, Rabbi Leib Glanz, to allow a jailhouse bar mitzvah for the son of an inmate at the same facility Abu-Shahid was working at.  The sanctioned bar mitzvah party included catered food, a live band, and scores of noninmate guests, among them Head Chaplain Imam Abdul-Jalil.

Lest I forget,  kudos to the Correction Officer working the Front Gate post at the Manhattan Detention Complex who took the time to do his or her job right and discovered and confiscated the weapon contraband before it disappeared within the jail.

Suffice it to say that regardless of the outcome of the criminal case against Iman Abu-Shahid, I would think a top to bottom intensive review of all City Correction non-uniform hires is called for in order to ascertain the extent of access of Ministerial and other civilian and volunteer staff within correctional facilities who may have serious felony criminal histories.

But then again, what do I know?

Obama Administration Tone Deaf to Terrorism?

Liberal columinist Richard Cohen writing in today’s Washington Post (Obama administration is tone-deaf to concerns about terrorism) stated…

There is almost nothing the Obama administration does regarding terrorism that makes me feel safer. Whether it is guaranteeing captured terrorists that they will not be waterboarded, reciting terrorists their rights, or the legally meandering and confusing rule that some terrorists will be tried in military tribunals and some in civilian courts, what is missing is a firm recognition that what comes first is not the message sent to America's critics but the message sent to Americans themselves. When, oh when, will this administration wake up?

As I stated at the outset, Mr. Cohen is a liberal and included in his piece is the perfunctory jab at  George W. Bush but Mr. Cohen ends this one paragraph with a sort of back-handed compliment to the Bush Administration. (see boldface/underlined)…

No doubt George Bush soiled America's image abroad with what looked liked vigilante justice and Dick Cheney's hearty endorsement of ugly interrogation measures. But more is at stake here than America's image abroad -- namely the security and peace of mind of Americans in America. Bush stands condemned by the facts for Sept. 11 -- his watch, his responsibility -- and in all likelihood he bent over backward to ensure that nothing like those attacks would happen again.

Having gotten his shot at the Bush administration out of the way, Mr. Cohen closes his column with the following statement regarding our President.

The Obama administration, on the other hand, seems to have bent over backward to prove to the world it is not the Bush administration and will, almost no matter what, ensure that everyone gets the benefit of American civil liberties. But the paramount civil liberty is a sense of security and this, sad to say, has eroded under Barack Obama. Repeatedly, the administration has shown poor judgment. Abdulmutallab's silence is a scream that something is wrong.

Here’s a hint for the President…as you have proven time and time again, we all know that you have a deaf ear for the majority of the common folk of this nation but when your good friends on the left join those common folk in slamming your policy on terrorism, maybe it’s time to wake up and start acting like a real Commander in Chief!

Eric Holder - Attoeny General

Attorney General Eric Holder

I can’t understand why everyone outside of the Obama administration is scratching their heads wondering why Attorney General Eric Holder decided to transfer the trial of terrorists from the military to civilian authorities and affording those terrorists all rights and privileges guaranteed under our constitution.


After all, Holder’s record includes obstructing an FBI investigation of the theft of nuclear secrets from Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory; rejecting multiple requests for an independent counsel to investigate alleged fundraising abuses by then-Vice President Al Gore in the Clinton White House; undermining the criminal investigation of President Clinton by Kenneth Starr in the midst of the Lewinsky investigation; and planning the violent raid to seize then-six-year-old Elian Gonzalez at gunpoint in order to return him to Castro's Cuba. His Justice Department has also dropped a serious voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party stemming from members' actions on Election Day 2008.

It's not like we didn't know what we were getting when Obama appointed Holder as the nation's Attorney General.

Reuters News Services Publishes then Pulls Story about Middle Class Tax Increases

Yesterday, the Reuters News Service ran a story about President Obama’s 2010 Budget creating a “slew of tax increases” for the American middle Class.

NEW YORK (Reuters.com) -- 2/1/09

The Obama administration's plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.

In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year -- effectively a tax hike by stealth.

While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.

Interestingly enough, some four hours after the story was published, Reuters pulled the story explaining that the story will be run again later this week. 

It will be interesting to see what changes are made to the story.

Obama: Complacent, Weak and Ineffectual?

Christopher Edley

President Obama’s self-confidence borders on complacency. He is ill served by senior staff, especially his Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel. He does not appear to be learning on the job as he did when campaigning for the White House. His Administration is too deferential to Congress, too reliant on the President’s personal charm, and as a result is regarded by its enemies as weak and ineffectual.

Now, who in the world would have written those word’s about the “Chosen One”?

Glenn Beck? No.
Rush Limbaugh? No.
Sean Hannity? No.
Bill O’Reilly? No.

Well then, it had to be some far right, conservative wing nut, right?

Actually, this assessment of Obama’s first year in office came not from one of his established critics on the Right, but from one of his most respected mentors — his former professor at Harvard Law School, Chris Edley, and published in Britains Times Online.  Professor Edley also stated...

“What I fear is that having made history, having won a Nobel prize, having been celebrated around the world, a measure of complacency may have set in…I don’t mean that the effort is not there, but that the discipline of self-criticism has perhaps faded.”

Obama's "disciline of self criticism" could not have faded as it was never there to begin with. 

The President's inexperieince and accompanying lack of any real leadership have served to make him overly dependent on his progressive liberal friends and allowed our curent Congress to run amuck. 

Professor Edley simply stated the same in a kinder way!

Premier Danny Williams shuns Canada's Nationalized Health Care and comes to United States for Heart Surgery!

Danny Williams, Premier, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Danny Williams, the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, has chosen to abandon his country's nationalized health care system and instead, come to the United States for needed heart surgery.

Deputy Premier Kathy Dunderdale said Williams decided to go to the U.S. for surgery after weeks of consultation with his doctors, but added she wasn’t aware whether that type of surgery was offered elsewhere in Canada.


Needls to say, Premier Williams' decision to leave Canada nd come to the United States for the surgery has raised eyebrows over his apparent shunning of Canada's health-care system.

I would think that Mr. Williams' decision should also give pause to those here in the states who are still hell-bent in "transforming" our health care system here in the states into a government controlled system not unlike Canada's!