Good Advice: Michael Reagan Urges Believers to Pray for President Obama

Possibly one of the better bits advice I have seen regarding the President as of late.

The story comes via The Christian Post:

Michael Reagan, a political consultant and commentator, urged Americans to pray for their president regardless of political differences.

“It’s easy to pray for your friends. It’s hard to pray for your political opponents,” wrote the son of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan in a commentary for Fox News. “But that’s just what Jesus tells us to do: Love your enemies and pray for them. We disobey our own Scriptures if we don’t pray for our political opponents.”

Reagan reminded Christians to put public interest before personal favoritism, especially when presenting their opinions.

“We need to keep our dialogue focused on issues, not personalities,” he urged. “Yes, we still oppose and expose the harm our opponents are doing to our country. I want to critique my opponents without hating them.”

Referring to 1 Timothy 2:2 – where apostle Paul asked believers to pray “for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives” – Reagan urged Christians to pray for President Obama even though they may not share his political view.

In the light of the unrest in Egypt amongst other nations in the Muslim world, Obama is now facing enormous challenges around the globe, Reagan pointed out.

“I pray for President Obama, while I oppose his agenda,” he wrote. “In fact, our prayers have never been more urgently needed than right now.”

I happen to agree with this; I admit, it is kind of hard to keep a Christian perspective about all of this. There are times, when I lose my perspective about all of this. Anyhow, yes, we as Christians ought to keep the President in our daily prayers.

However, it is a little hard to do that, when you have stuff like this going on. From WorldNetDaily a story on a city official trying to take a Church’s tax exempt status away, for a lack of cleanness?:

A New Hampshire city official has taken the old saying “cleanliness is next to godliness” one step too far in a battle now raging over the tax status of a church building, determining that cleanliness is godliness, according to a legal team in the midst of the fight.

The dispute concerns Liberty Assembly of God, now called Destiny Christian Church, over its decision to use its building to feed the hungry and help the needy, and the resulting impact on its building.

It appears a city official didn’t like clutter, and concluded the church couldn’t be religious with it there.

It was several years ago that the foundations of the problem were set in place, when Concord, N.H., officials decided that if the church used its building to house the homeless and meet missionaries’ needs, it would no longer be a church because those weren’t “religious” purposes.

A subsequent room-by-room inspection of the facility was conducted by city officials, and their determination was that such activities were not religious, so the legal experts with the Alliance Defense Fund jumped into action. They now have pending a tax appeal for the church’s 2008 taxes as well as a lawsuit over the 2009 taxes.

A ruling in the 2008 case could be coming any day, but it’s uncertain whether that will resolve the complications that arose following comments from Kathryn Temchack, the city’s director of real estate assessments, who said the church must be stripped of its full tax exemption because its rooms were not clean.

Stuff like the above, can really mess with a person’s perspective. Although, I do believe it is a good thing to continue to prayer for our Government and our Country as a whole. When we give up on the power of prayer, we have lost the battle.  So, pray for your leaders, daily.

 

UPDATED: Leftist Protesters tape signs to and pile junk around War Memorial in Madison Wisconsin

An alternative title to this post could be, “Another Reason I will never vote Democrat, ever again!”

Anyhow, here is the video via Ann Althouse:

Ann Says:

Meade and I confront them, and we’re told we’re the first people who’ve had a problem with it. I try to explain how that attempted defense of the behavior is only going to make it look worse. It means that of all these crowds of people in the Capitol, no one else has noticed or cared enough to say anything.

There you have it folks; you modern day Democratic Party; haters and disrespectful of the United States Military. Which is why I will never, ever, vote Democrat, ever again. 😡

Those are also the people that got President Barack Hussein Obama elected to the office of President of the United States. Remember this, come 2012.

Others: The Moderate Voice, The Lonely Conservative, Maggie’s Notebook, JammieWearingFool, The “Badger 14”, The Sundries Shack, Right Wing News, Pundit & Pundette, BLACKFIVE, Maggie’s Farm, Cold Fury and Mudville Gazette

Update: You know, it is really sad. There are no intellectuals or even people who use their brain on the left anymore. Want proof? As luck would have it; I have an diary account over at DailyKos and I posted a Dairy with this video, asking what Ann Althouse asked those leftists.  The comments are telling. The left has lost its way badly. 🙁 It is so sad too. That was the party of FDR, JFK and LBJ; and now, it’s…. this. It saddens me to my core. 🙁 —- Update: I went ahead and deleted the dairy; those guys cannot have a discussion without being nasty. So, I killed it. As Marcos Said about our troops; “Screw them.”

 

 

 

Uh-Oh: Days of Rage protests reach Iraq

Not to ripoff AllahPundit over at HotAir.com or anything…. But… gulp. 😮

Via Fox News:

BAGHDAD –  Thousands marched on government buildings and clashed with security forces in cities across Iraq on Friday, in the largest and most violent anti-government protests here since political unrest began spreading in the Arab world several weeks ago.

In two northern Iraqi cities, security forces trying to push back crowds opened fire, killing six demonstrators. In the capital of Baghdad, demonstrators knocked down blast walls, threw rocks and scuffled with club-wielding troops.

The protests, billed as a “Day of Rage, were fueled by anger over corruption, chronic unemployment and shoddy public services.

“We want a good life like human beings, not like animals,” said Khalil Ibrahim, 44, one of about 3,000 protesters in the capital Baghdad.

Like many Iraqis, he railed against a government that locks itself in the highly fortified Green Zone, home to the parliament and the U.S. Embassy, and is viewed by most of its citizens as more interested in personal gain than public service.

Oh, it gets worse too:

Demonstrators trying to get across a bridge going from the square to the Green Zone clashed with security forces. The demonstrators knocked down some of the concrete blast walls that were put up Thursday night and threw rocks at troops who beat them back with batons. Six riot police and 12 demonstrators were wounded in the melee, said police and hospital officials.

The protests stretched from the northern city of Mosul to the southern city of Basra, reflecting the widespread anger many Iraqis feel at the government’s seeming inability to improve their lives.

A crowd of angry marchers in the northern city of Hawija, 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Baghdad, tried to break into the city’s municipal building, said the head of the local city council, Ali Hussein Salih.

Security forces trying to block the crow opened fire, killing three demonstrators and wounding 15, local officials said. The Iraqi Army was eventually called in to restore order.

In Mosul, also in northern Iraq, hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the provincial council building, demanding jobs and better services, when guards opened fire, according to a police official. A police and hospital official said three protesters were killed and 15 people wounded. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief the media.

Black smoke could later be seen billowing from the building.

In the south, about 4,000 people demonstrated in front of the office of Gov. Sheltagh Aboud al-Mayahi in the port city of Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, 340 miles (550 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad. They knocked over one of the concrete barriers and demanded his resignation, saying he’d done nothing to improve city services.

They appeared to get their wish when the commander of Basra military operations, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Jawad Hawaidi, told the crowd that the governor had resigned in response to the demonstrations. Iraqi state TV announced that the prime minister had asked the governor to step down but did not mention the protests.

Around 1,000 demonstrators also clashed with police in the western city of Fallujah 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad clashed with authorities, witnesses said. And in the southern city of Karbala, about 1,000 protesters rallied for better services.

The reason I say gulp is because, what happens if this goes totally out of control and we end up with another civil war in Iraq? Somehow, I do not see President Obama doing anything about it. if anything, he will just end up pulling our forces out of there; and by rights, he most likely should. We did our jobs, we did defeat Al-Qaeda and stopped the insurgency. So, why should we put more people into Iraq and risk more lives? It just would not make any sense.

Either way, it just does not look good for our guys on the ground there.

 

Why are Assassination threats only a huge ordeal for Obama, and not Conservative White Presidents?

It must be because it is Friday and there is not much else to report.

Anyhow, some idiot did the following:

At Rep. Paul Broun’s town hall meeting on Tuesday, the Athens congressman asked who had driven the farthest to be there and let the winner ask the first question.

We couldn’t hear the question in the back of the packed Oglethorpe County Commission chamber, but whatever it was, it got a big laugh. According to an outraged commenter on the article, the question was, when is someone going to shoot Obama?

I’ve asked Team Broun whether that was indeed the question and haven’t gotten an answer. The commenter accurately described the questioner and the circumstances, and no one has disputed his account.

Update: Broun’s press secretary, Jessica Morris, confirmed that the question was indeed, who is going to shoot Obama? “Obviously, the question was inappropriate, so Congressman Broun moved on,” she said.

Here was Broun’s response:

The thing is, I know there’s a lot of frustration with this president. We’re going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we’ll elect somebody that’s going to be a conservative, limited-government president that will take a smaller, who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.

He then segued into Republicans’ budget proposal.

Dumb? Yes. Illegal? Possibly.

The left, predictably, is going, um, “Ape Shit” over it. Perfect example, Oliver Willis: (H/T The Right Sphere)

All Americans should condemn assassination speech, but especially if you’re a member of congress. What an epic shame. What a blight these people are on our government.

Um, Mr. Willis, Where were you, when these people were walking around with signs like this? (H/T NewsBusters)

Where were you Oliver, when these things was being paraded in the streets?

Oh, I know where you were Mr. Willis; you were out there helping CARRYING these signs and things around, weren’t you?

How is it, when a White Conservative Republican is in the White House and liberals threaten to kill him —- it is perfectly fine. But you let a socialist Negro in the damned White House and just because someone dares to verbalize what many in the silent majority are thinking; that is some sort of a fucking federal crime? Tell me that! By the way, I call him a socialist Negro, because that is what the hell he is, I do not believe in Political Correctness on this blog. I call it like I see it.

By the way, Mr. Willis and rest of idiot liberals; you can breath a little easier:

UPDATE, 11:50 a.m.: In a new statement Rep Paul Broun appears to admit he should have condemned his constituent:

Tuesday night at a town hall meeting in Oglethorpe County, Georgia an elderly man asked the abhorrent question, “Who’s going to shoot Obama?” I was stunned by the question and chose not to dignify it with a response; therefore, at that moment I moved on to the next person with a question. After the event, my office took action with the appropriate authorities.

I deeply regret that this incident happened at all. Furthermore, I condemn all statements — made in sincerity or jest — that threaten or suggest the use of violence against the President of the United States or any other public official. Such rhetoric cannot and will not be tolerated.

*****************************************************************

(****)

“In this case this was poor taste,” the source says. “The person realized that.”

Now there’s the small matter of whether Broun regrets not condemning the comment. My understanding is more will be forthcoming from his office on this soon, so stay tuned.

Happy now crybabies? 🙄

Anyhow, yeah, it was stupid; I will admit that, but where was all of that outrage, when the liberals were wanting Bush dead? Fucking hypocrites, the damned whole lot of them. 😡

Note: I just noticed the silly typo in the headline. Hug ordeal? Good Lord. 🙄 I fixed it.

 

Video: Public Sector Unions vs. America

Sign the petition at YouWorkforUs.net!

Yikes! Anti-Semitism during Union Demonstration at Freedom Works HQ?

This is rather bizarre. First some dude hits a lady’s camera, and now this? Whoa. 😮  This whole thing is going in a rather strange particular way.

This guy explains it:

As Lenin said: “Who, whom?”

UPDATE: Tikkum olam is a rabbinical concept that might properly be translated as “for the public good,” but which in the modern era has been politicized by many on the Left, so that it is indistinguishable in their interpretation from “social justice.” Most famously, Michael Lerner — a 1960s anti-war radical who once led an SDS splinter group called the Seattle Liberation Front — named his magazine Tikkun.

I am assuming that Ben Howe is Jewish; That is a new one on me. and This ugly leftist must be Jewish too, she certainly ugly enough to be one. (D’oh! I am so bad… 😛 )

So, does this make this little incident, Jew Vs Jew, you know; kinda like Spy Vs Spy?

I’m just sayin’ ya’ll. 😉

Others: The Other McCain, Breitbart.tv, Fire Andrea Mitchell! and Pajamas Media

Note: Sorry about that misspelling in the headline. I just woke up here, due some awful heartburn. I love ya Mexico, but your food plays hell on my tummy! 🙁 I know, I know, go from picking on Jews to Mexicans; Hey, at least I am fair and…slightly balanced. 😀


 

UPDATED: I am no Tabitha Hale fan, at all; But this is Bullcrap – Tabitha Hale speaks out on her attack!

Believe me, when I tell you. I am not a big fan of Tabitha Hale; she just did not make a big impression on me at all. Might be because of silly photos like this here. Not that a I hate her or anything; just with me, first impressions are everything, and she did not really impress me much.

Having said all that, Tabitha Hale got roughed up a bit. Michelle Malkin has the story:

This is Tabitha Hale, a young conservative activist/original Tea Party organizer/blogger who works for Washington, D.C.-based FreedomWorks. I know her from her great grass-roots work with Smart Girl Politics when the Tea Party movement was just emerging.

Today, Big Labor groups took their Grievance March to the offices of FreedomWorks.

Among the groups protesting: the Communications Workers of America. They’re one of the heavyweight labor biggies that have received a coveted Obamacare Waiver for Favors. CWA facts here.

Video of the assault:

Only defense is I have for the guy is this; he did not want to be taped and he slapped the camera. It is considered assault and I would have been calling the police, or better yet, I would have been kicking the guys ass. This is why I advocate going to these events armed, or if you know one of these is showing up. I would have armed to tooth and would have exercised my second amendment rights on his head with my glock. I do not advocate just shooting someone —- just to be shooting someone or murder — but I do advocate defense; and in this case, this mans killing would have been justified.

Like I said, I do not hate the lady or anything, but her silly looking photos did not impress me one bit.

This must be more of that liberal civility we have been hearing about, right? 🙄

Others: RedState, The Sundries Shack, The Other McCain, Caffeinated Thoughts, Fire Andrea Mitchell!, The Gateway Pundit, All American Blogger, Sister Toldjah, Weasel Zippers, Doug Ross, AmSpecBlog, UNCOVERAGE.net, POWIP, The Daily Caller, Hot Air, Da Techguy’s Blog, No Runny Eggs, The Daley Gator, American Power and Pajamas Media

Update: Tabitha Hale speaks out on her attack:

I’m a 5?1 female in a dress, and he was standing up on a garden wall above me in the courtyard. He hardly felt threatened. I was stunned, because generally protesters are there to, you know, get their message out. They don’t normally shy away from the camera.

I’m very much okay, and very appreciative of the support from my fellow bloggers and activists today. I am, however, shaken up by the level of sheer hatred I experienced today. The look of fury on his face in the close up is appalling. I had not exchanged a word with him. He didn’t know who I was. He didn’t even know my name, what I do. He had probably surmised that I was with FreedomWorks and that was enough.

This just can’t be tolerated anymore. It’s one thing to be called a violent teabagger. It’s another to be called a violent teabagger while you’re being assaulted. They’ve been comparing themselves to the Egyptians ousting Mubarak. Looks like they’re not too far off, given that they share the tendency to assault women with cameras.

In addition, it’s disgusting to me that the first response I received from the Left was rationalization. “You were too close, respect personal space” and “well he obviously didn’t want to be filmed!” – essentially, it’s the “her skirt was too short” defense. No one deserves to be hit. The concern from a bystander was that “You’ll get on the news, stop it!” Unfortunately for him, he did not know who he was dealing with. I will ensure that this happens.

I was not asking for this. There was no confrontation between the thug and myself prior to this. He had not asked me to put the camera away. I was not as close as the video implies (it was cropped from a vertical iPhone video so it would fit on youtube). I was simply filming a protest, as I have done for the past two years. Amazingly enough, none of those crazy right wing extremists ever hit me.

At this point, I’m grateful we moved to a higher security building last month. For a bunch of violent racists, the Left sure seems to be comfortable threatening and attacking us.

We must really suck as bullies.

First of all, I do not know who the hell she thinks she’s calling someone on the left, and second of all; my feeling is, you can’t take the damned heat, then stay out of the kitchen. Also too, thanks for reminding us, that your a poor innocent little girl, we needed that.  If Freedom Works is so damned worried about security, why was not the police called and a report filed, why were there no people there armed to make sure nothing like that happened? I will tell you why; because it is all about publicity; Tabitha’s and more broadly Freedom Work’s. This Video will get circulated and more people will feel sorry for Tabitha and money will flow, it is a classic strategy.

…and lastly, No Tabitha, you do not suck as a bully; but you sure do suck at sob stories and at being a political pawn.

Related: Yikes! Anti-Semitsm during Union Demostration at Freedom Works HQ?

 

 

Special Comment: Birthers, Birchers and Paleoconservatives are Americans too

It appears to me that there seems to be a problem in the Conservative movement; and that is an attempt by the Republican and Conservative establishment, to silence those with whom they disagree or dislike.  Earlier this week, on my personal Blog, I posted two videos; one of RINO, Neo-Conservative princess Sarah Palin, saying that the “Birther” issue was a distraction to the Conservative and Tea Party movement and another of Karl Rove; who conversely was the brains behind Neo-Conservative George W. Bush’s Presidency.  A Presidency that included the invasion and occupation of the sovereign Nation of Iraq —-which we now know was based upon a lie.  Karl Rove in this video suggested that the Birther movement should be excommunicated from the Republican Party and from the Conservative movement entirely, like the John Birch Society was from the Republican Party and the Conservative movement was by that pied piper of the establishment; William F. Buckley.

I have read quite a bit about that so-called excommunication, and in all reality it was an unfair branding of the John Birch Society as being a racist and anti-Semitic organization.  This was performed by Neo-Conservatives, which were and still are, former Democrats who seem to be in love with idea of a big Government — as long as they are the people controlling it.  Furthermore, Neo-Conservatives claim, falsely of course; to be for the constitution — all the while declaring war against countries and other actions that fly in the face of the very principles that the document itself was founded upon.  They do this, all the while, defending a Country and people, who look upon the people of Christian America as nothing more than a group of idiots, of good use.  Yes, Neo-Conservatives, I am referring to your pet project —- Israel.  All of this, in the name of “Defending America” or as it should be called, “defending the empire.”

If any of this sounds even vaguely familiar — it is because Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany or for you history buffs — Rome — minus Israel, of course; did the same very things and eventually were destroyed or simply went broke and failed.

You see, I happen to believe that those who have doubts about President Barack Obama’s place of origin or birthplace; or “Birthers” as they are called by those who wish to degrade them, members of the John Birch Society, we Paleoconservatives and our cousins;  Libertarians — are Americans too. I believe that anyone who tries to silence any sort of political thought, belief, or conviction — of any sort — is doing what was done to those who dared to challenge the actions of Adolf Hitler and the Communist leadership in the former Soviet Union.  Yes, that does include those, of whom I disagree with.  It is called thought policing and it goes against the very tenets of our United States Constitution and the very ideals that surrounded our leaving of England to find a land, where we as a people could be free to worship God in the way that we pleased — without fear of persecution.  This is what caused Senator Joseph McCarthy to lose support from his fellow Republicans.

Whenever you seek to control those with whom you disagree, you run the danger of becoming like the liberal left in this Country.  This is why I have such an issue with the Neo-Conservative wing of the Republican Party.  It is because of the mentality of “We are always right in what we believe and if anyone disagrees with our way of thinking and Governing; then that person is not a real Conservative.” Furthermore, they will try to suppress those, of whom they disagree; that my friend is a tactic right out of the Saul Alinsky playbook.  This is to isolate, suppress and even mock and ridicule those who are in opposition to what these people believe.  Hence, the reason Neo-Conservatives are even called by that name, it is not a slanderous term that is related to a particular ethnic or Religious group, it is a name given to bunch of people, who bolted from the socialist party and joined the right — and brought their tactics with them.

Now, I feel that I should be clear; I do not have any problem believing that President Barack Obama is a citizen of the United States of America.  However, I believe that President Barack Obama, like every other President; should release his original long form birth certificate.  Now does that make me a crazy person?  I think not.  Furthermore, I believe that John Birch Society is a great American institution of liberty and I happen to agree with the majority of what they believe in, if not all of it — Now does that make me a crazy person or even a racist or anti-Semite —  of course not.  I also happen to believe that Pat Buchanan and Representative Ron Paul are both exemplary Americans, who happen to love their Country and do not wish to see it become another third world Nation lost to the wiles of Socialism and Globalism.  Now, does that make me some sort of a racist, Anti-Semite terrorist?  I think not.

Now, do I believe that Ron Paul can be elected President of the United States?  As much as I would like to believe that he could be elected; I cannot.  Neo-Conservatives control a good part of the Republican Party, and between them and the Neo-Liberal left in this Country; which control a good part of the media — except for Fox News that is Neo-Conservative and not Ron Paul friendly at all, I just do not believe that Ron Paul would be able to overcome such odds.  You do not believe that the Neo-Conservatives would give up that cottage industry that easily, do you.  Oh please, just look what they did to Pat Buchanan when he tried to break into that little clique in the Republican Party — much of the same thing as did happen to Ron Paul —- False accusations of racism and Anti-Semitism.

As long as there is empire to defend, Countries to be invaded for oil and pseudo-states to support the Neo-Conservatives will never surrender control of the Republican Party.  Furthermore, as long as there is a stranglehold on the mainstream media by the neo-liberal left in this Country someone like Ron Paul does not have a chance in Hades to be elected President of the United States of America.  As long as lying Neo-Conservatives like Karl Rove, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich are around, the chances of Paleoconservatives like Pat Buchanan or libertarian Conservatives like Ron Paul do not stand a chance of ever being elected.

In closing, America is a great Country; it is just being held hostage, so to speak — by some very powerful and evil people, as is the Republican Party.

Also Published at USA Sentinel

A Sign from God? — National Christmas tree toppled

This is completely obligatory; and the only reason I am posting this is because I know it will ruffle the feathers of a few idiots who follow this blog.

Energy-efficient National Christmas Tree FAIL!

WASHINGTON (CNN) –The nation’s most energy-efficient National Christmas Tree doesn’t appear to be the nation’s most energy-resistant one. The 42-foot tall Colorado blue spruce snapped at its base Saturday morning in Washington.

While the cause of the tree toppling is yet unknown, the National Weather Service issued a “High Wind Warning” for the DC area Saturday noting that, “heavy wind gusts between 25 and 60 mph” were expected and supposed to be at their strongest right around the time a tipster told CNN the tree was downed.

The tree was trimmed over the holidays with green-hued LED lights and snowflake ornaments in an area called “The Ellipse” directly between the south lawn of the White House and the Washington Monument. The First Family lit the tree, a tradition going back 87 years, on December 9, 2010, as blues legend BB King, Maroon 5, and others performed at the ceremony. It stayed lit each evening until New Year’s Day.

via National Christmas tree toppled – The 1600 Report – CNN.com Blogs.

Think maybe the Lord in Heaven might not be too happy with President Obama? Could be! 😮

Honestly, I have not seen any e-mails or blog postings saying this; so, I thought I would be the first. I will refrain from the analogies, feel free in the comments section. Just keep ’em clean and I will approve them.

Video: The Reality Report: Taking the Neo-Conservatives to the mat!

In this space, before I post this video; I usually post a disclaimer, because usually, I do not agree with some of the content and ideas presented in this Video report.  However, this week, I am going to forgo the disclaimer. Because a good ninety percent of what is presented here, I absolutely agree with and besides, nothing gives me more joy, than to watch freedom-loving Americans making Neo-Conservative fascists look like the damn fools that they are. Yes, it warms the cackles of my stone cold heart to see those who wish to sell our freedoms out to the altar of “Security” made to look like buffoons.

Very well done gents, very, very, well done. 😀

Having said all that —- here is the synopsis and Video….

Synopsis: In this special CPAC expanded edition of the Reality Report, we go face to face with Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich and present the highlights (and lowlights)! ; Gary Franchi runs into former Saturday Night Live star, Victoria Jackson, and interviews CPAC Chair David Keene about the Defender of the Constitution Award. Gary also meets with Jesse Benton, Ron Paul’s Communications Director, to give you the inside scoop on the Ron Paul 2012 Presidential campaign. Jeff Frazee from Young Americans for Liberty joins the show to tell us how he got turned on to Ron Paul’s message. We meet with Congresswoman Nan Hayworth from New York’s 19th district to ask her about her vote for the Patriot Act. We also ask Ron Paul supporters what it is about his message that inspires them. We also take you to the Jordan Page after party for the release of his new album titled “Liberty”. Angie returns to deliver the headlines with a special report on the Young Americans for Freedom and Truth Squad.TV’s confrontation. We’ll read your email, review last week’s poll results and brand a new enemy of the state.

The Video:

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Clinton to announce new envoy for the “AfPak” Theater

This looks like it could be a big mess.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has chosen a new special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, after months of delay and disagreements between the White House and the State Department over the parameters of the job that became vacant with the December death of Richard C. Holbrooke, senior officials said.

Retired diplomat Marc Grossman is expected to take over as the administration is facing a crucial year for its war strategy in Afghanistan, where it plans to begin U.S. troop withdrawals this summer and to move toward a political settlement including negotiations with the Taliban before the end of 2011.

In Pakistan, a key partner in the strategy, the situation has become even more fraught with peril, as U.S.-Pakistani relations have plummeted to their lowest point in years over Pakistan’s rejection of U.S. demands to grant diplomatic immunity to a U.S. official accused of murder there.

The administration has suspended high-level official contacts with the Pakistanis, and senior members of Congress have warned Islamabad that it risks a cutoff of U.S. aid.

via Washington Post:  Clinton to announce new ‘AfPak’ envoy.

Wow, I was not aware of all these problems. Looks like Hillary Clinton has her work cut out for her. Two things that stand out here:

  1. Why do we keep sending over retired people to handle these situations? Cannot Hillary Clinton or President Obama find anyone who is not at retirement age to handle this problem? Just a thought there, not trying to criticize it; because I doubt John McCain would be able to handle this any better.
  2. This situation with the murder charge just looks bad all around and will most likely hamper our efforts to combat the war on terror and will hinder us from capturing or killing Osama Bin Ladin. Because you cannot capture the bad guys; if you cannot get along with the people where they are hiding.

Again, I have said this a million times here, and I will say it again. Bush handled this whole thing wrong after 9/11. Bush should have went after the Countries that financed the attacks on 9/11. Instead he went after their training grounds, with the assumption that it would be a cakewalk to catch them; and then he went into Iraq, on what we now now to be bad intelligence and also assumed that would be cake walk too — and Afghanistan was left to neglect.  As of a result that poor leadership, we now have this mess to contend with. I pity Hillary and even President Obama to a point, they inherited this awful mess and now, they have to make gold, out of a steaming bag of crap. What a mess! I would not want to be in their shoes at all. 🙁

But, that is what happens, when you elect Neo-Conservatives who are on a so-called “Mission from God.” Let this be a lesson to America and to the Republican Party and all who supported and voted for the man. Say what you want, but between the bailouts and his poorly planned war on terror — we find ourselves in a awful mess; both with debt and with foriegn diplomacy.

President Barack Obama loses Andrew Sullivan??!?!?!?!?

He might as well have lost Walter Cronkite!

The Thrill is Gone for Sully!

But the core challenge of this time is not the cost of discretionary spending. Obama knows this; everyone knows this. The crisis is the cost of future entitlements and defense, about which Obama proposes nothing. Yes, there’s some blather. But Obama will not risk in any way any vulnerability on taxes to his right or entitlement spending to his left. He convened a deficit commission in order to throw it in the trash. If I were Alan Simpson or Erskine Bowles, I’d feel duped. And they were duped. All of us who took Obama’s pitch as fiscally responsible were duped.

The cynical political calculation is obvious and it is well put by Yglesias and Sprung. If Obama backs Bowles-Simpson, the GOP will savage him for the tax hikes, while also scaring the wits out of the elderly on Medicare. The Democratic left – just look at HuffPo today – will have a cow. Indeed, if Obama backs anything, the GOP will automatically oppose him. He has to wait for a bipartisan agreement which he can then gently push ahead. But that’s exactly why we are in this situation today. Because no president has had the balls to deal with it, and George W. Bush made it all insanely worse. Sprung says the proposal on corporate taxes is a trial balloon

via Obama To The Next Generation: Screw You, Suckers – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan.

I will not really get into all this; all I know is, we are in a crap load of debt, which is more then out entire Gross Domestic Product.  Now, like some Right-Wing blogs, I am not going to sit here, like a chump and tell you it is all the Democrats fault. The truth is both parties are guilty of this nonsense of spending money we do not have; and now both parties are acting like total buffoons, instead actually trying to get it down. Which is not totally surprising.

However, I do find it mildly amusing that the same blogger, who was essentially Barack Obama’s poodle dog during the 2008 election cycle is now the first blogger to come out swinging against him.  Which proves my theory entirely of the fact that liberals, which is what Sully is, not a Conservative; are just not much loyal to the one’s that they elect. My opinion? Sure, that is what I do here. However, based upon what I have been seeing in the left wing media in this day and age; my opinion not that very far off.

Having said all of that….. CUE THE MUSIC! HIT IT B.B.!

Others: The Moderate Voice, Hot Air, xpostfactoid, Outside the Beltway, Ballot Box, The New Republic, National Review, Doug Ross, AmSpecBlog, Wall Street Journal, Washington Wire and Chicago Boyz via Memeorandum

Hope and Change?: FBI doesn’t need court’s OK to get phone records, Obama’s Justice Department claims

Well, isn’t this just a lovely story to pick up on a Sunday Morning?

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration’s Justice Department has asserted that the FBI can obtain telephone records of international calls made from the United States without any formal legal process or court oversight, according to a document obtained by McClatchy.

That assertion was revealed by the department – perhaps inadvertently – in its response to a McClatchy request for a copy of a secret Justice Department memo.

Critics say the legal position is flawed and creates a potential loophole that could lead to a repeat of FBI abuses that were supposed to have been stopped in 2006.

The controversy is a legacy of the Bush administration’s war on terror. Critics say the Obama administration appears to be continuing many of the most controversial tactics of that strategy, including the assertion of sweeping executive powers.

For years after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI sought and obtained thousands of telephone records for international calls in an attempt to thwart potential terrorists. The bureau devised an informal system of requesting the records from three telecommunications firms to create what one agent called a “phone database on steroids” that included names, addresses, length of service and billing information.

Go read the rest here

Which proves to this old school, Paleoconservative, Fundamentalist Christian one thing and one thing alone. That the only difference between a Neo-Liberal; like President Obama and a Neoconservative like President Bush is this —- One loves big Government and the other loves big Government as long as they are the one’s controlling it.

I remember how doing the Bush era, people like Keith Olbermann,were wailing to the top of their lungs about how darned horrible of the Bush Administration to allow such stuff to happen; and now that the Obama Administration is in power, what do you hear?

(click to play)

That is right, absolutely nothing about it at all. That is because the socialist liberals do not give a damn about personal liberty, all they care about is winning elections. All of the attacks against the Bush administration about everything; Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, Iraq —- everything  —was just partisan politics. It never was about the people; because socialists do not give a darn about the people! All they care about is power – governmental power — everything else to them is just second nature.

Which pretty much sums up why I stopped voted for the Democratic Party.  I am pretty much on to their game anymore. They try to come off as the party of the people; but anymore, they are all about the party of the state.

Quotes of the Day

Nine Eight House Republican freshmen and three inaugural members of the Tea Party Caucus voted against a proposed extension of three Patriot Act provisions Tuesday night, blocking the measure from passage under fast-track rules.

The House clearly backed the measure, voting 277 to 148 to extend the provisions, and most Republicans stuck by their leadership and supported the extension. But enough defected, joined by most Democrats, to keep the measure seven votes shy of the two-thirds majority required for passage under the fast-track procedure.

The House is likely to bring the extensions back up before the end of the month under regular procedures, when a simple majority would suffice to send it to the Senate.

Attention immediately swung to whether House members sympathetic to the tea party had decided the matter, especially after Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) said Monday that the vote would be “the tea party’s first test.”

******

The vote was a blow to President Obama, who had asked Congress to extend the PATRIOT Act’s surveillance authorities — which are due to expire February 28 — for three years.

House Republican leaders weren’t willing to go that far in removing meaningful congressional checks and balances on the surveillance authorities that both the Bush and Obama administrations have used to conduct “roving surveillance” of communications, to collect and examine business records, and to target individuals who are not tied to terrorist groups for surveillance. But they did propose a one-year extension of the authorities.

Most House Republicans — including supposed defenders of the Constitution such as Michigan Congresswoman Michele Bachmann — went along with their leadership. In so doing, they failed to address fundamental concerns, raised by conservatives and liberals, about Patriot Act abuses of the very Constitution that theyread aloud at the opening of the current Congress.

But House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, led the vast majority of House Democrats in opposing any extension. In all, 122 Democrats — roughly two-thirds of the party’s House caucus — voted “no” to extending surveillance authorities that the American Civil Liberties Union warns “give the government sweeping authority to spy on individuals inside the United States and, in some cases, without any suspicion of wrongdoing. All three should be allowed to expire if they are not amended to include privacy protections to protect personal information from government overreach.”

*****

Today, Dennis Kucinich and the Tea Partiers were on the same side. If Obama wants to be on the wrong side of this issue (as he seems to be on the wrong side in nearly every aspect of the ‘War on Terror’), then so be it. But the House of Representatives has shot down (perhaps only temporarily) a measure to extend the three most grievous portions of the Patriot Act from 2001 (the ‘lone wolf’ provision, the roving wiretaps, and the unchecked powers to seize records with little-to-no probable cause). It has been beyond disheartening to watch Barack Obama more or less carry the mantle of unchecked police powers and indefinite detention that highlighted George W. Bush’s reckless and counterproductive ‘War on Terror’ strategy. More importantly, the apparent approval and continuation of such policies by the Obama administration has turned what was once a bitterly divided series of issues into something resembling bi-partisan consensus. Quite frankly, there is much that the likes of Rand Paul and Dennis Kucinich can indeed agree on. Perhaps this may be the start of the genuine liberals in Congress joining with the genuine conservatives in order to attempt to stop much of the genuinely un-American activities that have occurred post-9/11 on our watch and in our name. It is a pipe dream, but it is a goal worth advocating none-the-less.

*****

As Members of Congress, we are obligated to protect the rights and civil liberties afforded to us by the Constitution and to exercise our oversight powers fully.  Despite years of documentation evidencing abuse of these provisions by the Inspector General of the Department of Justice, they may extended without any meaningful debate or opportunity to implement common-sense reforms to ensure that the privacy and civil liberties of all Americans are fully protected. Our failure to do so makes Congress complicit in these violations of basic constitutional rights.

****

The three provisions, incidentally, were for surveillance of non-citizens, roving wiretaps of multiple phones owned by a suspect, and the “library records” provision giving the FBI access to, among other things, medical and business records, which apparently was the sticking point for many Republicans voting no. Those three will lapse at the end of the month unless they’re extended; as with the Bush tax cuts, because the issue is contentious, Congress is in perpetual “temporary” extension mode instead of reaching a permanent resolution on any of them. Frankly, if there’s any tea party angle to all this, it’s that there wasn’t more opposition among the GOP freshmen: After months of rhetoric about government intrusion and hand-wringing on both sides about Obama’s expansion of Bush’s counterterror powers — to the point where U.S. citizens like Awlaki are now marked for death by presidential decree — they had some political cover to draw the line on extending parts of the Patriot Act further if they wanted to. (Ron Paul was among the 26 no’s, of course.) Nope.

Noted Socialist Filmmaker Michael Moore sues for supposed lost profits

Now this is a laugh! 😆

Via the Hollywood Reporter:

I guess he needs more Pizza or something

Filmmaker Michael Moore has sued Harvey and Bob Weinstein, accusing the brothers of “Hollywood accounting tricks” and “financial deception” that cheated him out of at least $2.7 million in profits from the hit documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.

In a lawsuit filed today in Los Angeles Superior Court, Moore says the Weinsteins and an affiliated entity called the Fellowship Adventure Group agreed to split profits from the film 50-50 but then diverted monies to hide them from Moore.

The suit for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and constructive fraud claims that in 2008 Moore conducted an audit of the 2004 film, which grossed $222 million worldwide, and “discovered substantial irregularities in the accounting” that resulted in a “gross underpayment to [Moore],” the lawsuit says.

Those irregularities include an alleged secret deduction of $2.5 million in revenue that the Weinstiens claimed was paid to acquire an interest owned in the film by a predecessor company called Icon Entertainment International; a 7.5% “override” fee on advertising costs in the amount of $1.2 million, “despite the fact that [the Weinsteins] did not incur the advertising costs and the [deal] did not permit [them] to deduct these costs”; as well as additional improper deductions of fees paid to distribution consultants, accountants, residuals, foreign taxes and travel expenses, including what Moore says are the “grossly excessive and unreasonable” costs of hiring a private jet to carry a single passenger to Europe.

But of course, the Weinstein’s deny this:

Weinstein lawyer Bert Fields dismissed the claims in an interview.

“The Weinsteins have paid everything they should have paid,” Fields tells THR. “Mr. Moore has received a huge amount of money from this film and we believe he is overreaching. He should be ashamed of himself”

There seems to be much more to that and I suggest that you go read it. The ironic part is that this is the same clown, who fawned over Cuba’s healthcare system and is totally into the idea of “share the wealth.” So, it strikes me as ironic that this socialist twit would be whining about his profits from his movie, that basically promotes the tenants of socialism; have been stolen. I mean, what’s wrong with a little wealth sharing? Right? I know what you’re thinking… “That’s stealing!” Well, guess what? When you say “Share the wealth,” you are basically saying take money from those who have worked hard to earn their money and give it to those, who have not worked for it at all. In other words: Legalized Stealing.

Hilarious!: Jonathon Turley to Obama White House: “Quit your whining!”

I will say this about Jonathon Turley; at least he is consistent. Turley always gave it to Olbermann on Countdown straight about the Bush Administration; whether it was what Olbermann wanted to hear….or not.  For this he has my respect.

Anyhow, Turley tells it like it is about the Obama healthcare plan, which he calls the Ford Pinto Healthcare plan:

After this week’s decision striking down the entire federal health care law as unconstitutional, the White House went into a full convulsive rage at Judge Roger Vinson of the Northern District of Florida.

Borrowing an attack that has more often been heard from Republican administrations, Stephanie Cutter, a senior adviser to President Obama, issued a statement denouncing Vinson as a “judicial activist.” That charge was quickly picked up by Democratic lawmakers. The evidence cited for this charge was the fact that Vinson “declared that the entire law is null and void even though the only provision he found unconstitutional was the (individual mandate) provision,” which requires every citizen to buy health insurance.

What the White House does not mention is that it played a game of chicken over health care with the court and lost a critical battle in Florida. Instead of inserting a “severability clause” designed to protect an act from this type of global rejection, the legislation was rammed through a divided Congress with diminishing public support.

The absence of the clause was just one of the flaws in this legislation, which even sponsors now admit must be amended to address serious problems ranging from passage. Of course, even without such a clause, judges can still avoid striking down an entire law and confine their rulings to a specific provision. That is what Judge Henry

Hudson did last year in Virginia after finding the individual mandate unconstitutional. Hudson was right to do so, in my view, but that does not make Vinson a judicial activist. The charge of activism sounds like the lament of every bad gambler after being discouraged from playing a high-risk hand.

I very highly recommend that you read the rest of that. One thing I will say about Turley; he is not a partisan. Turley is a Constitutional scholar and I admire the guy greatly for his refusal to cow-tow down to the liberal left. I always said that this law would be repealed; and this is why. You just do not write a piss poor law like this and expect it not be challenged.

…and this is what this law was….a piss poor written law.

Video: The Reality Report: Bypassing the Obama Kill Switch

Please Note: The posting of this video does not constitute an endorsement of views presented in this video. It is simply posted for information purposes only.

—-

In this issue of the reality report: The Egyptian Revolution triggered a government shutdown of the web. Could it happen here? Is the internet kill switch back on the congressional table? If the Feds shut down the web in the United States how could “We the People” get around the internet blackout? Gary Franchi reveals what tools you need to bypass a Government sponsored internet blockade. In this edition, Ron Paul explains the how the Federal Reserve works outside of congress’ constitutional framework. We also look at Senator Chuck Schumer failing miserably while explaining the three branches of government. Beautiful words are uttered from the lips of the Florida attorney general about Obamacare. President and founder of Freedom Law School, Peymon Montehedeh, gives us the details on this years’ Freedom Conference, and we announce a new action taking place in March. We’ll take a dip into the mailbag, deliver the results of last week’s poll, a viewer brands a new Enemy of the State… and Nina returns to deliver the Headlines from the new Reality Report News Room.

http://RTR.org | http://RealityReport.TV

Cartoons of the Day

O what a beautiful morning?!?!

Now Playing!

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Quotes of the Day

Two of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s closest allies, his new vice president, Omar Suleiman, and his defense minister, Hussein Tantawi, are quietly working on a plan under which Mubarak would step down from power, according to a U.S. scholar who has been staying in regular touch with the Egyptian political and military leadership.

“They want to be sure that Mubarak is going to cooperate,” said Stephen P. Cohen, president of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development and a longtime confidant of Egyptian and Israeli leaders.

The two-part plan, according to Cohen, would involve the immediate removal of 100 members of the Egyptian Parliament whose election this past fall was seen as illegitimate. They would be replaced by 100 candidates who were barred from running in the election or who were defeated because of government meddling in the election process.

A second possible step would be the organization of new parliamentary and presidential elections. The plan, according to Cohen, “requires [Mubarak] to give up his office.” Asked whether Mubarak would do that, Cohen answered, “He is getting ready to do so.”

***

The White House on Sunday dispatched a former ambassador to Egypt, Frank Wisner, to fly to Cairo to urge the Egyptian government to, at the very least, embrace political reforms.

“As someone with deep experience in the region,” a White House official says, Wisner “is meeting with Egyptian officials and providing his assessment.”

Senior officials would not discuss whether Wisner was charged with showing Mubarak the door. Wisner, the ambassador to Egypt from 1986 to 1991, is currently in Cairo.

A major readjustment to administration rhetoric in response to the crisis in Egypt came on Sunday when the phrase of the day was “orderly transition.”

The president issued a statement saying he supports “an orderly transition to a government that is responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people.” And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took to the Sunday shows to make that argument. “it needs to be an orderly, peaceful transition to real democracy,” she said.

But transition to what?

[…]

One administration official tells ABC News: “we don’t know.”

Video: So, is this what passes for civil discourse among the liberals?

So, liberals — is this what you call civility?

Posted on liveleak, in case it disappears:

From the Comments section of the video:

RACISTS like this, are begging for war. Let’s give them one. It is 220,000,000 white people, against 37,000,000 blacks. You know what a genocide looks like? You don’t, because there is no one left, to remember it. Be? smart, though. Let them, make the first violent moves. Let the people, see their violence. Let them give us a reason. Be patient. Do not move, as an individual. Wait. Keep giving them rope, they need, to hang themselves. LOL!!!

A-Farking-Amen. 😡

(H/T Michelle Malkin)

BREAKING NEWS: Florida Supreme Court Judge Rules Obamacare Unconstitutional

This just in from the AP:

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) — Federal judge in Florida strikes down Obama health care plan as unconstitutional.

Here is Video of the decision announcement at Fox News by Megan Kelly via Eyeblast:

Update #4: Here’s the text of the entire decision handed down: (H/T Weasel Zippers)

Vinson Ruling

A highlight via Ace of Spades HQ:

It would be a radical departure from existing case law to hold that Congress can regulate inactivity under the Commerce Clause. If it has the power to compel an otherwise passive individual into a commercial transaction with a third party merely by asserting — as was done in the Act — that compelling the actual transaction is itself “commercial and economic in nature, and substantially affects interstate commerce” [see Act § 1501(a)(1)], it is not hyperbolizing to suggest that Congress could do almost anything it wanted. It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place.

In the final analysis, this Act has been analogized to a finely crafted watch, and that seems to fit. It has approximately 450 separate pieces, but one essential piece (the individual mandate) is defective and must be removed. It cannot function as originally designed. There are simply too many moving parts in the Act and too many provisions dependent (directly and indirectly) on the individual mandate and other health insurance provisions — which, as noted, were the chief engines that drove the entire legislative effort — for me to try and dissect out the proper from the improper, and the able-to-stand-alone from the unable-to-stand-alone. Such a quasi-legislative undertaking would be particularly inappropriate in light of the fact that any statute that might conceivably be left over after this analysis is complete would plainly not serve Congress’ main purpose and primary objective in passing the Act. The statute is, after all, called “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” not “The Abstinence Education and Bone Marrow Density Testing Act.” The Act, like a defectively designed watch, needs to be redesigned and reconstructed by the watchmaker.

This is going to really put a monkey wrench Obama’s plans. Although, I tend to think that the Obama Administration will argue it to the Supreme Court of the United States.  The reaction from the White House is going to be an interesting one.

I do believe, that if this Healthcare Bill is scrapped, and they Democrats lose this issue; this may could very well render President Obama unelectable in 2012.  Something tells me, that this entire Presidency is going to be Jimmy Carter all over again.

Stay Tuned.

Update: Memeorandum has the roundup of reactions so far.

Update #2: Jonathon Chait at The New Republic weighs in:

That aside, the pattern once again has held that every Republican-appointed judge has ruled against the law’s constitutionality and every Democratic-appointed-judge has ruled for it. Now, the ultimate arbiter is the Supreme Court, where Republican appointees hold a 5-4 majority, though one of those 5 (Anthony Kennedy) is not a completely down-the-line Republican.

Given this divide, wouldn’t it make sense to… let elected officials decide? That’s the logic of judicial restraint, anyway, and it’s logic conservatives used to employ about a host of topics. But that was before they gained the ability to win huge victories in the courts that they couldn’t win at the ballot box.

Update #3: Steve Benon at Washington Monthly says:

Republicans are thrilled, of course, because activist court rulings are to be celebrated, just so long as it’s activism the right can agree with.

Liberals do the same thing Steve; so quit your whining, please. You look childish.

Update #5: AllahPundit weighs in:

What is a bit surprising is that Vinson went further and held that the mandate isn’t “severable” from the rest of the law — which means that the whole law is unconstitutional, not just the part that requires people to buy insurance. That’s unusual insofar as courts like to be modest when striking down statutes; if they can find a section of it unconstitutional while preserving the rest of it, they’ll do so out of respect for the democratic branches that enacted it. In this case, however, as we’ve been told by Democrats many times, you can’t have universal health care unless you force people to pay for it. Cutting the mandate out of O-Care and keeping the rest of the scheme intact would create a nightmare scenario in which people avoid buying insurance until they get sick, with insurers required to accept them by the new rules governing preexisting conditions. Before long, that cost burden would drive most insurers into bankruptcy, with the golden age of a public option or single-payer soon to follow.

[…]

A fun fact about ObamaCare: Unlike virtually every other federal statute, it contains no “severabililty clause” at the end requesting that if any part of it should be held unconstitutional in court, the rest should be preserved as good law. Vinson actually mentions that fact in the opinion and notes that an earlier draft of the law did contain such a clause, suggesting that it was deliberately dropped because even Congress agrees that you can’t sever any one part from such an elaborate scheme. The truth, however, may be more prosaic: According to a Democratic aide who spoke to the Times back in November, the clause was omitted because of … an “oversight.” Oops!

Update #6: Obligatory:

and….:

Sorry, I couldn’t resist. 😛