Friday, December 31, 2010

This Really is a Stickup



I've seen it all now. A guy actually holds up a convenience store with a stick. Then comes Hammer Time.
Cops are on the hunt for a man who held up a Virginia convenience store with a very large stick.

In the video, the suspect burst into the supermarket just after 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday, myfoxdc.com reported.

The 58-year-old clerk then grabbed a hammer in an effort to defend himself.

The two had a standoff for about a minute before the stick-wielding lunatic jumped the counter and knocked the clerk down, hitting him several times in the face.

After wrestling, the suspect grabbed some cash and ran out the back door.

Yeah, That Happens a Lot: Man Arrested for Indecent Exposure Says He Was Just Trying to Get Tabasco Sauce Off His Crotch

I'm a little skeptical.

Men don't just accidentally spill spicy condiments on their private parts while in the vicinity of 17-year-old high school cheerleaders - do they?

I suppose on a plane, in sweats, its a plausible scenario, but...

Oh, c'mon! Seriously?
A man busted for indecent exposure after a teen girl said she saw him inappropriately touching himself on an airplane said he was just trying to get rid of the itch on his private parts after he spilled Tabasco sauce.

A 17-year-old high school cheerleader told police that on a flight from Salt Lake City to Lewiston, Idaho, she looked over to see 50-year-old Rafael Escamilla with one hand under his laptop and his "penis going side to side under the tray table that was down."

The girl then got up to go to the bathroom and took a different seat in the back of the plane. When she told her father about the incident, he told TSA officials who then summoned the Lewiston Police who arrested him on indecent exposure charges.

Once in handcuffs, Escamilla said the whole incident was a giant misunderstanding. The physical therapist told police that he had "spilled Tabasco sauce or something similar on his penis and had an incredible itch," according to a police report obtained by The Smoking Gun.

According to the police report, Escamilla said while he admitted rubbing his privates in public, they were never out of his jogging pants. In fact, he pleaded to cops, he tried to cover himself so the young woman "wouldn't see it."
Cross-posted.

NY Gov. David Paterson: Public Pension Funds Are About to Implode...And On That Note, I Am Outta Here!

Today is New York Governor David Paterson's last day in office, and coincidentally he just had a most disturbing epiphany: America's public pension funds are at risk of insolvency.

Zoiks!

It's just so convenient too bad that Paterson won't be around to help clean up the mess. If only he had realized the urgency of the situation earlier in his term, he would have had time to do something about it.

Why are you laughing?
There is a new crisis on the horizon that threatens the solvency of local governments and the recovery of the U.S. economy: teetering public pension funds on the verge of insolvency, with the retirement security of millions of working Americans hanging in the balance.

In 2011, the health of these public funds will take center stage with the very real possibility of significant write-downs in pension asset pools at a time when most funds can ill-afford it. And while these problems were not created in a single year, immediate action will be required to avoid driving our economy deeper into the ditch of recession.
Paterson bequeaths a state pension fund that is $71 billion underfunded to incoming Governor Andrew Cuomo. Nobody knows what 'immediate action' Cuomo has in mind to rescue New York's pension system, but hopefully he's got something up his sleeve besides the 'ol tried and failed 'rob Peter to pay Peter' gimmick.

Don't hold your breath though.



Cross-posted.

Stunner: Sweden Terror Suspect 'Linked to Islam'

You don't say!
ONE OF five men held over a foiled plot to massacre staff at a Danish newspaper had twice been arrested abroad suspected of terror links, the foreign ministry and media say.

Munir Awad, a 29-year-old Swede born in Lebanon, had publicly thanked the Swedish secret service, Saepo, for obtaining his release from Somalia where he was detained three years ago.

"We know Saepo brought us home and we are very grateful," he told a newspaper at the time.

Swedish foreign ministry spokesman Anders Joerle today confirmed the previous arrests and that Sweden had intervened on Awad's behalf.

"Awad was arrested in Somalia by Ethiopian troops. That was in 2007. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2009," foreign ministry spokesman Anders Joerle said.

"The Swedish foreign ministry helped them. I wouldn't say to free him, but what we did was insist that he either should be tried or set free," he said.

Awad was one of five men arrested in Denmark and Sweden on Wednesday for hatching what Danish officials called a plan to "kill as many people as possible" in an assault on the Jyllands-Posten daily.

The paper published in September 2005 a dozen cartoons of the Muslim prophet that triggered violent and sometimes deadly protests around the world.

A Stockholm court identified one man arrested in the Swedish capital as Sahbi Zalouti, a 37-year-old Swede of Tunisian origin. He was yesterday remanded in custody for two weeks.

Joerle said today that Zalouti had been arrested in Pakistan last year for entering the country illegally but that it remained unclear if he was connected to Awad.

Danish intelligence agency PET has identified the only man based in Denmark as a 26-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker living in the Copenhagen suburb of Greve.

The man, identified by media as Abdullah Muhammed Salman, was freed yesterday but is still suspected of being connected to the plot.

The three men arrested in another suburb of Copenhagen were all based in Sweden and had driven to the Danish capital overnight on Tuesday. They have been remanded in custody for four weeks by a Danish court.

PET has not provided their names, but media has identified them as Awad, 44-year-old Tunisian Mounir Dhahri and 30-year-old Swede Omar Abdalla Aboelazm.

When Awad was arrested in Somalia in 2007, he was travelling with his then 17-year-old pregnant wife Safia Benaouda, who is the daughter of the head of Sweden's Muslim Council Helena Benaouda, Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet reported.

Awad told the paper in a previous interview the couple had been tortured and interrogated there before Swedish intelligence agency Saepo helped free them.

When he was arrested in Pakistan in August 2009, Awad was travelling with Benaouda and their then two-year-old son, as well as with Mehdi Ghezali, a Swede who had spent two years in Guantanamo Bay, Joerle said.

The Aftonbladet daily meanwhile reported Awad was also connected to two Swedes of Somali origin found guilty by a Swedish court earlier this month of "planning terrorist crimes" in Somalia and sentenced to four years in prison.

Awad, the paper reported, had shared an apartment in Stockholm with the two men, Mohamoud Jama, 22, and Bille Ilias Mohamed, 26, who are members of the Islamist movement Al-Shebab.

The Somali Islamist militia has declared allegiance to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network and controls most of southern and central Somalia.
Congratulations to the Swedes who went out of their way to help this guy. Maybe they'll learn a lesson. But I doubt it.

Bloomberg: This Week's Disaster a 'Character Building' Experience

Despite the calamity that hit New York City this week and the glaring incompetence of his administration and the snow removal fiasco, Michael Bloomberg still gives himself high marks for 2010. How gracious of him.
The Blizzard of 2010 may have forever dented Mayor Bloomberg's popularity.

The mayor admitted today that the botched snow removal effort this week was a "character building" experience for him.

"This year is not ending the way I would have preferred, but it's still been a good year," he said this morning on his radio show. "Nobody has a career that goes straight up."

He added that the city's failure to clear streets days after the blizzard was "character building."
Uh, no, it was criminal negligence.

Thanks to Hot Air for the link.

Holder: New Black Panther Case a 'Made-up Controversy'

Really, Mr. Attorney General, it was all made up?
Asked about the prospect of oversight hearings and subpoenas involving the New Black Panther case, Mr. Holder said, “there is no ‘there’ there.”

“The notion that this made-up controversy leads to a belief that this Justice Department is not color-blind in enforcement of civil rights laws is simply not supported by the facts,” he said. “All I have on my side with regard to that is the facts and the law.”
Uh, how about some of these facts?
Leaders of the New Black Panther Party express joy in a newly available video that Attorney General Eric Holder tolerated their voter-intimidation activities and dropped a case against them.

In the video below, Malik Shabazz, president of the New Black Panther Party, explains at a NBPP meeting why New Black Panthers were sent to polling places with batons. His comments include some jokes, as when he cracked to members “You know we don’t carry batons…. PSYCHE! I’m just playin’.” Shabazz goes on to explain that his brother got a pass from the Obama Justice Department because “Justice Department leadership changed into the hands of a black man by the name of Eric Holder.” Good to know.
Here's more video of a charming young man Holder let off the hook in the "made-up" case.

You see, nothing happened. Except what happened. But according to our Attorney General, what happened was just a fabrication, all video evidence notwithstanding.

Ever hear of J. Christian Adams, Mr. Holder? Surely you must have. He's a man who once worked for the Justice Department and resigned over this "made-up" non-story.
On the day President Obama was elected, armed men wearing the black berets and jackboots of the New Black Panther Party were stationed at the entrance to a polling place in Philadelphia. They brandished a weapon and intimidated voters and poll watchers. After the election, the Justice Department brought a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party and those armed thugs. I and other Justice attorneys diligently pursued the case and obtained an entry of default after the defendants ignored the charges. Before a final judgment could be entered in May 2009, our superiors ordered us to dismiss the case.

The New Black Panther case was the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law I saw in my Justice Department career. Because of the corrupt nature of the dismissal, statements falsely characterizing the case and, most of all, indefensible orders for the career attorneys not to comply with lawful subpoenas investigating the dismissal, this month I resigned my position as a Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney.
Why would this man resign his position if this never happened?

The irony is the story where the Holder quote comes from generally is sympathetic toward him and laments the frustration he'll be facing with those meanie Republicans in charge of the House. They have some questions for Holder regarding this "made-up controversy," questions I doubt he'll be answering truthfully.

Thanks to Hot Air for the link.

'Disaffected Youths' in France to Ring in New Year With Traditional Carbeques

Conveniently omitted from the story is the word Muslim.
France will deploy extra police and keep vandalism statistics under wraps on New Year's Eve to fight what authorities say has become an annual "sweepstakes" of disaffected youths competing to see who can burn the most cars.

Youths in depressed suburbs of French cities have been torching hundreds of vehicles on New Year's Eve and Bastille Day since the early 1990s. Police say the annual rite has turned competitive, with youths tracking the news in the first days of the new year to see which neighborhood did the most damage.

"I have decided to put an end to the competition, the sweepstakes, and will longer publish the number of burned vehicles," Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said this week, adding that publishing statistics encouraged vandalism.

Opposition politicians described the move as an attempt by President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative government to cover up the violence.

"The government tends to eliminate unfavorable indicators. The interior minister has been publishing trumped-up statistics for years, and now Hortefeux is going even further," Socialist deputy Delphine Batho, a security specialist, told Reuters.

Last year, the Interior Ministry said 1,137 cars had been torched, a 30 percent rise on 2008. French media reported at the time that several thousand cars had been burned.
Ah, those pesky youths. Maybe someone ought to give them a reality show.

Queens Baby Left Braindead Because EMS Workers Couldn't Get Through Unplowed Streets

Three full days after the blizzard hit New York City a baby falls ill. But thanks to the crack job done by sanitation department EMS workers could not get to the child in time and now he's laying braindead in a hospital.

Congratulations, Mike Bloomberg and the sanitation union. Heckuva job. Also critically wounded: Any future political office aspired to by Bloomberg.
A 3-month-old Queens boy was left brain dead last night after snow-clogged routes prevented medics from reaching him quickly -- and unplowed streets later forced the EMS workers to ditch their ambulance and sprint with the ailing baby to the hospital.

As little Addison Reynoso hovered at death's door, a priest performed last rites, and his family considered pulling him off life support.

The baby's heartbroken father fumed at the city's lax clean-up response to last weekend's monster blizzard.

"Clean the streets," Luis Reynoso said, "because that's why the ambulance came too late."

On top of the half-hour it took rescuers to get Addison to the emergency room, family members and friends said they were forced to call 911 several times before they could even reach a dispatcher.

"The weather hampered our efforts," an FDNY source said, hours after Addison -- apparently suffering from a respiratory infection -- was declared brain dead. "The snow did impact this."

Addison was being watched by a family friend in Corona Wednesday afternoon when he suddenly lost consciousness.

The frantic baby-sitter knocked on a neighbor's door after failing to reach a 911 dispatcher at around 1 p.m. and told the neighbors to call for help. A few minutes later, the boy's parents arrived, and his father lay the child on the floor and started performing CPR.

Addison's mom, Rocio Xoyatla, meanwhile, made several 911 calls, but only got a tone. She finally reached a dispatcher at 1:12 p.m., a family friend said.

It took at least 12 agonizing minutes longer for EMS crews to reach the home on 39th Avenue, near 108th Street in Corona.

When they arrived, medics found Luis Reynoso hovering over his dying child, desperately trying to blow life into the tiny lungs of the baby.

Reynoso and his wife sprinted down three flights of stairs with their child and climbed into the ambulance, which slogged two miles through the snowy streets with a police escort.

Then, the unthinkable happened. The ambulance got stuck in the snow on an unplowed stretch at Baxter and Layton streets, just 30 yards short of the emergency room door at Elmhurst Hospital.

EMS workers had to sprint the rest of the way cradling the baby, arriving at 1:42 p.m.

"The main street outside of the emergency room wasn't cleaned yet," Luis Reynoso said. "We had to get out of the ambulance and run."
Three days after the snow the entrance outside the emergency room wasn't plowed? This is criminal. Gee, it almost sounds coordinated.
There was a method to their madness.

The selfish Sanitation bosses who sabotaged the blizzard cleanup to fire a salvo at City Hall targeted politically connected and well-heeled neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn to get their twisted message across loud and clear, The Post has learned.

Their motives emerged yesterday as the city's Department of Investigation admitted it began a probe earlier this week after hearing rumblings of a coordinated job action.

Sources told The Post several neighborhoods were on the workers' hit list -- including Borough Park and Dyker Heights in Brooklyn and Middle Village in Queens -- because residents there have more money and their politicians carry big sticks.

"It was more targeted than people actually think," said a labor source. "Borough Park was specifically targeted [because of] . . . its ability to sort of gin up the p.r. machine."

The plan worked. Residents of those neighborhoods -- who, after three days, were still trying to dig out their cars -- are apoplectic.

"It's hurting people for greed," seethed Barry Coogan, 60, who lives on 64th Road in Middle Village. "Whoever made those decisions should lose their jobs.

"Don't hurt the neighborhood so you can't get medical help."

In Brooklyn, Democratic Assemblyman Dov Hikind called the clean-up "an absolute disaster."

"You have the most unbelievable anger I've ever seen," he said of his Borough Park constituents.

The revelation came as:

* A Queens baby was brain dead last night after poorly plowed roads hampered efforts to rescue him.

* Sources said Sanitation bosses issued verbal directives during the clean-up to give priority to streets near the homes of agency heads and other city bigwigs. "This happens all the time," one Sanit worker said. "They make sure the bosses and politicians get taken care of."

* Despite Mayor Bloomberg's insistence that all roads would be plowed at least once by yesterday morning, many were untouched, with snow still piled high. "We still have work to do," Bloomberg later said.

* Even as streets in the outer boroughs waited for a single plow to arrive, crews were clearing bicycle lanes on the Upper West Side. Bloomberg, however, insisted that was not happening.
Of course Bloomberg's going to dispute that, but I suspect he's full of it and is in CYA mode. If he had any balls he'd de-certify the union today and the state would beging a criminal probe of this mess. That or he should resign in disgrace.

In the end nothing will happen, though. You have a city run by liberals, a state run by a Democrat governor (and a new one being sworn in tonight) and two Democratic senators who've been noticeably absent this week (where's Chuckie?). If Andrew Cuomo wants to start on solid footing, he immediately appoints an independent prosecutor to investigate this mess.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Stupid: Dopey Progressive Group Sets Up 'Where's Christie?' Site

It appears these clowns are going to try and milk this non-story for all it's worth. It's not as if the Governor saw the forecast and skipped town. He was already on vacation when the storm hit the northeast. What was he expected to do? I recall last year after the attempted Christmas Day underwear bombing a member of Obama's crack homeland security team was skiing in Colorado and didn't return for days. For some reason, nobody set up a website asking where he was. But then again, people on our side of the aisle have lives.
A new website is criticizing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's out-of-state travels, including this week's trip to Disney World while a blizzard socked the Garden State.

Whereschristie.com features photos from the Republican governor's campaign trips altered to depict him in a red-and-white stocking cap like the character in the "Where's Waldo?" children's books. It was launched by a Washington-based liberal advocacy group called the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

Democrats criticized Christie for not cutting short his family's Florida vacation while parts of Jersey were being buried by two feet of snow.
It gets dumber. They even criticize Christie for having the temerity to campaign for other Republicans. Imagine the nerve!

The chumps behind this are from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which sports a website eerily similar to Barack Obama's Organizing for America. Probably just a coincidence. Ironically, Obama has also been on a very lavish taxpayer-funded vacation the past week but has managed to escape criticism for not rushing back to DC to oversee the snow cleanup. How convenient.

More recently these boobs mobilized for noble cause: Getting Keith Olbermann back on the air after his brutal two-day suspension. To no surprise, they're an offshoot of MoveOn.org. You'll be shocked to discover George Soros helps pay the bills.

It might be better if these jokers started up a site criticizing Michael Bloomberg. They can call it "Where are the Plows?"

So Glad For The Era of Post Racial Politics

Well, well, well, what is a Democrat supposed to do when asked about members of his party switching to the Republican party? Why tell them to keep their "white sheets handy for the midnight meetings" of course.


The esteemed elected official might want to remember that the switch to the Republican party in the state really got a boost when two African American gentlemen announced that they were switching parties
Two African-American Democrats on Thursday announced that they were joining the Republican Party.

Hall County Commissioner Ashley Bell and former state executive committee member Andre Walker said the Democratic Party had grown too liberal and they are finding a new home with the Republicans.over a disagreement with what the national Democrat party stood for.

The other gentleman in the video, while obviously appearing nervous at the comment, let it pass. He then later asked State Senator Robert Brown to apologize for making the obvious reference to the KKK and by extension smearing all Republicans.

Today Mr Brown held a mini press briefing where he once again proved that being Democrat means never having to say you're sorry and issued a short statement saying he never made reference to the KKK. Ummm, yeah except for that part about white sheets and midnight meetings. He took no questions and on the way out somebody who was accompanying him apparently knocked a reporter down.
As Brown and his aides left the Macon City Hall chambers, 13WMAZ's Bofta Yimam says a man who arrived and left with Brown knocked down Macon Telegraph photographer Woody Marshall.

Stay classy Dems.

'We're Americans. We Like Everything Convenient'

Nothing quite says convenience like a drive-thru adult shop. Come for the vibrators, stay for the free condoms.
Gabrielle Silva takes down a customer's order from the drive-thru window, stuffs a bag full of products and passes it outside to the couple waiting in a car.

"Thanks, and I put some free condoms in there, too!" Silva chirps.

In this technology-savvy north Alabama city, visitors won't just find burgers and prescriptions at the drive-thru window.

A "romance" store called Pleasures offers a rare convenience not only for these parts but nationally: a drive-through with adult novelties for sale. Business is brisk so far, with cars sometimes lining up three deep for vibrators, lubricants, lingerie and other risque items.

"It's been doing well, and really well on nights when it's cold or rainy," said employee Toni Kennedy. "Discretion and the ease of it are big, and convenience. We're Americans. We like everything convenient."

The Horrors of Global Warming: UK Could Have Coldest Winter in 1000 Years

I'm figuring it's the Gore Effect. Was the bloated gasbag in Britain lately?
BRITAIN’S winter is the coldest since 1683 and close to being the chilliest in nearly 1,000 years.

Latest figures reveal that the average temperature since December 1 has been a perishing -1C.

That makes it the second coldest since records began in 1659.

The chilliest on record was 1683/84, when the average was -1.17C and the River Thames froze over for two months.

But with January and February to come, experts believe we could suffer the most freezing cold winter in the last 1,000 years.

The Met Office’s Charlie Powell said: “It’s rare to have cold this prolonged, with temperatures falling incredibly low.

“Temperatures will be down again by Sunday, with nights below freezing and daytimes below average at 3C to 5C. Our outlook forecast to January 26 shows temperatures 2C or 3C below average, frost and ice likely and the highest chance of snow or sleet over the northern half of the UK.”

Although official weather records only go back to 1659, weather experts said the centuries from 1100 to 1500, dubbed the “Medieval warm period”, would not have produced winters as cold as today.
Medieval warm period? You mean they had warm-mongers back then?

Great News: Union Thugs Slowed Down NYC Snow Removal

Say what you will about the incompetence the the buffoon Michael Bloomberg, but this is just unconscionable.
These garbage men really stink.

Selfish Sanitation Department bosses from the snow-slammed outer boroughs ordered their drivers to snarl the blizzard cleanup to protest budget cuts -- a disastrous move that turned streets into a minefield for emergency-services vehicles, The Post has learned.

Miles of roads stretching from as north as Whitestone, Queens, to the south shore of Staten Island still remained treacherously unplowed last night because of the shameless job action, several sources and a city lawmaker said, which was over a raft of demotions, attrition and budget cuts.


"They sent a message to the rest of the city that these particular labor issues are more important," said City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Queens), who was visited yesterday by a group of guilt-ridden sanitation workers who confessed the shameless plot.

Halloran said he met with three plow workers from the Sanitation Department -- and two Department of Transportation supervisors who were on loan -- at his office after he was flooded with irate calls from constituents.

The snitches "didn't want to be identified because they were afraid of retaliation," Halloran said. "They were told [by supervisors] to take off routes [and] not do the plowing of some of the major arteries in a timely manner. They were told to make the mayor pay for the layoffs, the reductions in rank for the supervisors, shrinking the rolls of the rank-and-file."

New York's Strongest used a variety of tactics to drag out the plowing process -- and pad overtime checks -- which included keeping plows slightly higher than the roadways and skipping over streets along their routes, the sources said.

The snow-removal snitches said they were told to keep their plows off most streets and to wait for orders before attacking the accumulating piles of snow.
Meanwhile, one of bumbling Bloomberg's hacks sent his props to the Sanitation Department with this Tweet.

Heckuva job, Goldy.
As city plowing crews waged a losing battle with a raging storm Sunday night, the man in charge of the operation sent a note of praise to his guys on the street.

"Good snow work by sanitation," Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith posted to his Twitter account at 11:06 p.m. Sunday night. "Long shifts well executed and continuing."

Goldsmith, the former mayor of Indianapolis who Mayor Bloomberg brought in this year to cut costs in city government, is widely disliked by the city's unionized workforce.

As the blame game heats up in the wake of the disastrous snow clean up, many are pointing fingers at Goldsmith - and noting that he wasn't in town as the flakes started falling.
By the way, a baby is dead because of this. Unions lied, babies died.

Too Shocking to Behold: The Uncensored Oprah

How nutty is this woman? She's actually broadcasting this mess.
She's become a billionaire off the back of persuading her celebrity guests to bare all - now Oprah Winfrey has let the cameras into her life for an uncensored view of her life behind closed doors.

Appearing without make-up and even in the bath, the chat show queen is even caught when she is 'so drugged' on painkillers after an operation, by her own admission, she 'couldn't even stand up.'

Oprah, 56, explained that she was on 'percocet and valium' after having a colonoscopy, and only stumbled into the meeting she never usually attends because she was so out of it.

In scenes that might surprise some fans, she says: 'The drugs are wonderful - it's a sedation vacation. You're somewhat in, somewhat out.'

The star explained she decided to let the cameras go in behind the scenes for the first time to mark the 25th - and last - season of her chat show, which starts on 1 January on her own new television station, the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).

She called it 'an uncensored look into the private world of our show' run by the 'hardest working people in television - in showiness, in fact.'
Have another percocet.

The Joys of Socialized Medicine: Misdiagnosed Man Has His Penis Amputated

Ouch.
An elderly Swedish man has had to have his penis amputated after doctors misdiagnosed his condition.

Rather than being the urinary tract infection doctors had thought, he had contracted cancer, and medics had missed the signs for over a YEAR.

As the disease had been undetected for so long, the cancer had taken hold and doctors were left with no option other than to lop off his manhood.

The sexagenarian originally visited his local clinic in Blekinge, southern Sweden, in September 2009 for treatment on what he was told was an infection.

When he returned in March 2010 complaining of foreskin irritation, the doctor on duty at the time diagnosed the problem as a simple case of inflammation, the local paper, Blekinge Läns Tidning (BLT), reported.

After three weeks passed without the prescribed treatment alleviating the man’s condition, he was instructed to seek further treatment at Blekinge Hospital.

But it took five MONTHS before he was able to schedule an appointment at the hospital.

When he finally met with doctors at the hospital, the man was informed he had cancer and his penis would have to be removed.

It remains unclear if the man would have been able to keep his penis had the cancer been detected sooner.

But the matter has been reported to the National Board of Health and Welfare in Sweden.
Those dickless wonders who support ObamaCare should be thrilled to hear this news.

Krauthammer: "If The Republicans Propose Serious Entitlement Reform, They're Gonna Get Crushed"

Really?

The same tea party-driven electorate that just obliterated the Democrats - in large measure as a rebuke to their jaw-dropping affinity for racking up debt - is now going to crush Republicans if they dare propose serious entitlement reform?

Sorry, I don't buy it. I think most voters now realize that entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare are simply unsustainable. And the fix is not ever-higher taxes, or raising the retirement age to 68...by 2050, etc. Something serious has to be done, and soon - or else the programs will suddenly and chaotically implode. And who's fault is that going to be?

Of course, it will be the Republicans' fault. And that's the point. The Democrats will always shamelessly demagogue entitlement programs, no matter what Republicans do. Remember when George W. Bush passed that huge unfunded expansion of Medicare (prescription Rx)? It was almost Democrat-like in its foolhardiness. Fat lot of political good that did for the Republicans - to this day, the party is still portrayed by the buffoons on the Left as a bunch of cold-blooded misers who want to see you dead.

I appreciate Krauthammer's concern for the political well-being of the GOP, but this is no time for us conservatives to start being afraid of our own shadows.
"Look, I think the Republicans learned a lesson from what happened with the Gingrich Revolution in '94. The Republicans were so heady in those days, they thought you could govern from Congress. And they had control of the House and the Senate, and they could not. They were defeated, the President faced 'em down, and he won re-election, and essentially drove 'em out of town.

"I think the Republicans have to understand that with control of only one House, all that they can do is containment. If the Republicans propose serious entitlement reform, they're gonna get crushed! First of all, it's not gonna end up being enacted, it'll be demagogued by the Democrats. If there is gonna be a deal on that, it's gonna have to be one behind closed doors, the way the tax cut deal was done in the lame duck session, where the Republicans and Democrats agree in advance that they would take equal hits.

"So, if you're not going to do entitlement reform, what's left? You're going to do domestic discretional spending. I think what the Republicans have to do is to do it in a process way. If you say we want to restore the budget to the 2008 level, you are not actually attacking individual programs, you are leaving to the bureaucrats - meaning the Democratic Obama bureaucrats - the choice of what you cut and what you don't. So I think it's smart - you put a cap on spending, and you say to the Administration, the Democratic Administration, you go ahead now and do it. That way when a program is cut, you are not directly responsible."
Transcribed from the video over at The Right Scoop. Cross-posted.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Highbrow MSNBC Analyst: John Bolton is Such a Warmonger He'd Probably "Invade Uranus"

Is there a bigger meathead on MSNBC than Cenk Uygur? He's got a lot of competition for the honor, of course, but this clip gets his name in the discussion. Clearly, Uygur won some kind of 'next-person-off-the-D-train-becomes-an-MSNBC-host' lottery, because I can think of no other plausible explanation for his employment at the alleged news network.

Who does he think he is anyway, messing with the 'Stache? The 'Stache eats U.N. bureauweenies for lunch. He could devour a halfwit cable news mimbo like Uygur with both hands tied behind his back, blindfolded.

On the other hand, making a funny about 'Uranus' does seem almost sophisticated compared to Keith Olbermann's uninspired fart jokes. So at least it's a tiny step in the right direction.

They've now advanced to 3rd-grade humor at MSNBC!



Via Breitbart. Cross-posted.

Shocker: Fox News Obliterates Cable Competition

How bad is it for the Fox News Derangement Syndrome crowd? Even a "rising star" like Rachel Maddow has seen its ratings slip 14%. Um, I think that rising star just crashed somewhere east of Albuquerque.
The Nielsen numbers are in for 2010, and in the battle for cable news ratings supremacy, Fox News took the title for the ninth year in a row -- bludgeoning the competition for another year.

The blowout comes on the heels on Fox News’ surging 2009, when the News Corp.-owned channel posted its highest-rated year in the network’s 13-year history. (Overall, cable news audiences were down across the board -- though FNC's decline was from a high-water mark.)

Among the other 2010 highlights:

>> MSNBC, which in 2009 boasted its first full-year primetime win over CNN in the 25-to-54-year-old demographic, did so again, while beating CNN in total day “demo” viewers and average total viewers in primetime – both firsts for the network.

>> CNN had its lowest rated year in 14 years in primetime, both in terms 25-54-year-old viewers and average total viewers. And barring a breaking news event in the next few days, the network will at least tie its lowest rated year ever (1999) in total day “demo” viewers.

For average primetime and total viewers in 2010, Fox News beat its cable news competitors (CNN, MSNBC and HLN) combined in total viewers -- and we outslugged CNN and MSNBC combined in “demo.”

Not only did Fox News wallop MSNBC and CNN, it ranked fourth among all cable networks in primetime, behind USA, ESPN and TNT. (MSNBC was 28th, CNN 32nd and HLN 37th.)

Fox owned the top 12 cable news shows in average total viewers and swept the top 10 among 25-54-year-olds (MSNBC's "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" came in 13th and 11th, respectively). Even the nightly repeat of the “O’Reilly Factor” averaged more viewers than MSNBC and CNN shows.

While moving ahead of CNN, several shows in MSNBC’s primetime lineup took a bit of a ratings hit in 2010. “Countdown With Keith Olbermann” fell 25 percent in the 25-54 demo, 11 percent overall. Rising star Rachel Maddow took a step back among 25-to-54-year-old viewers, slipping 14 percent.
The George Soros buttboys at Media Matters must be on suicide watch.

Black Chicago Mayoral Candidates Tell First Black President to Mind His Own Business

I just love a good Democrat food fight over racial politics.
Chicago Mayoral hopeful former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun (D-Ill.) added her voice to a warning issued by mayoral rival Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.): Don't come to Chicago to campaign for Rahm Emanuel or risk his relationship with African Americans.

On Tuesday, Davis got this ball rolling when he issued a statement telling Clinton to stay away from the mayoral election. Emanuel is the front-runner and Davis and Braun--both African American--need a big black vote if they have any chance of coming in second. The Feb. 22 contest is non-partisan and if no one gets 50 percent, a run-off between the top two finishers will be held April 5. Davis told me in an interview he also wanted President Obama--who has been helpful to Emanuel's campaign--to stay out of the mayoral contest. My column on this is here.

Here's what is new: Though Clinton appointed Braun as ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa after she lost her Senate re-election bid, a statement from her campaign issued Wednesday morning was strongly worded:

Said Braun, "Bill Clinton is an outsider parachuting in to support another outsider. Rahm's residency status continues to be challenged in court. It's not yet clear that he will be on the ballot. At the same time former president Clinton risks his legacy and the great respect that he has enjoyed among African Americans by coming to Chicago to endorse Rahm Emanuel who is running for mayor against two black candidates.

Public Service Announcement "The Last Text"

Don't let this be your last words.



Not everyone dies.

Outgoing Democrat Congressman: We're Descending into Fascism or Something

I'm assuming he prefers our quick slide into socialism instead.
In a wide-ranging interview before he prepares to leave the House of Representatives, Hudson Valley Congressman John Hall warned that the nation could quickly descend into Fascism if more is not done to curb the influence of corporate money in politics.

Speaking about the Citizen's United decision, which allowed unregulated flow of cash into campaign coffers, Hall said, "I learned when I was in social studies class in school that corporate ownership or corporate control of government is called Fascism. So that's really the question— is that the destination if this court decision goes unchecked?"

Hall said that the flow of corporate dollars is why he and the Democrats lost control of Congress.
Uh, not really, dickhead. If you had the slightest clue you'd understand it was runaway spending and unemployment. But nobody ever accused Hall of being too bright.
"The country was bought," he said. "The extremist, most recent two appointees to the Supreme Court, who claimed in their confirmation hearings before the Senate that they would not be activist judges, made a very activist decision in that it overturned more than a century of precedent. And as a result there were millions of extra dollars thrown into this race."
The most recent Supreme Court appointees were Kagan and Sotomayor, just for the record. Like I said, he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Uh Oh: Attack Was Racially Motivated

It took some digging, but after I saw a headline that proclaimed loudly that the attack and murder of a Hispanic male was being described by prosecutors as being racially motivated I had to go check it out. Of course, the first thought is this would be tied back to those racist Tea Partiers, of course. My first clue came when the race of the people charged in this murder were not specified and simple curiosity took over from there.

My first clue came in a news article which gave the names of the 'teenagers'.
Steven Mack, Demetrius Yarborough, Deandre Roosevelt Rucker, Sherwin Bilal Archie and Darrius Lavale Tyson face other charges related to the death of Ponce. Pressley said Ponce didn't understand English, so he didn't know what the robbers were ordering him to do -- that's why he was killed.
I ran into story after story that merely repeated the same information which then led me to search on the names. It seems that Mr. Rucker is not a stranger to the world of crime and punishment.


In June, Rucker completed a six-month jail sentence for a probation revocation, according to state Department of Correction records. He was given probation in 2009 after being convicted of felony larceny over $1,000, breaking-and-entering, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and two counts of misdemeanor larceny.

DOC records state that while in prison, he racked up five infractions.
Then I found Mr. Yarborough's mug shot, he also is no stranger to the judicial system.

Yarborough was placed on probation Aug. 24 after convicted on two counts of misdemeanor larceny, conspiracy to commit credit-card theft and another conspiracy charge, according to state Department of Correction records
Finally, I found the mug shots of last two 18-year-olds.

So my question is, where is the ACLU, all the civil rights advocates and the usual parade of race-baiting liberals? The prosecutor says this attack was racially motivated so where are the John Lewis's and Al Sharptons of this world in regards to this case?

Of course, I am probably racist for pointing this out.

Chirp, chirp.

Surprise: Mohammed Cartoon Rage Still in Effect

I get the feeling somewhere around 2050 they'll eventually carry out a successful attack. These maniacs apparently have very long memories.
Intelligence agency PET has arrested four men on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack against the Copenhagen of Jyllands-Posten newspaper.
According to the agency, the arrests were made in suburban Copenhagen and were made following a long-term surveillance operation in collaboration with the Swedish law-enforcement agency SÄPO.

Three of the suspects are Swedish residents and reportedly arrived in Denmark last night, and PET said the attack was to be carried out “in the coming days”.

All four suspects have Middle-Eastern or North African backgrounds.

In addition to the arrests in Copenhagen, Swedish officials arrested a fifth suspect in Stockholm at the same time.

During the arrests, Danish police found an assault rifle and silencer, ammunition, as well as plastic strips, which are often used by police as hand restraints.

According to PET, the group planned to kill as many people as possible in the building that houses Jyllands-Posten.
And their peaceful co-religionists around the globe would have celebrated mass murder.

19 Arrests + 20 Releases = 1 Dead State Trooper


A man with an extensive record of arrests, 19 at last count, including several felony convictions was out on the streets this Christmas holiday from his most recent arrest for drug possession and gun charges two weeks ago shot and killed a Georgia state trooper after being stopped for driving with a busted headlight.
Jail records indicate that Favors has been in the Fulton County Jail a total of 18 times. Most recently, he was booked into the jail on December 11 on charges including possession of cocaine, criminal attempt to enter an automobile, possession of tools for commission of a crime, and obstruction of a law enforcement officer. He bonded out of jail on December 14.

Fulton County Jail records show Favors was also in jail on June 26, 2010; March 17, 2010; February 3, 2010; April 20, 2009; December 12, 2008; April 10, 2008; October 7, 2007; July 12, 2007; April 18, 2000; and December 28, 1999.

During a news conference on Tuesday afternoon, investigators said Favors has had at least 18 prior arrests and numerous convictions. According to Keenan, several of Favors’ prior convictions were felonies, and they included possession of a firearm, alluding police, and drug possession.

According to those that have viewed the dash cam recording of this stop the trooper never stood a chance. After wrecking his car while attempting to elude the officer the man secured his gun. As the trooper approached to make sure everyone was alright shots rang out. Three shots rang out in quick succession and one found it's mark in the head of the trooper. There is little doubt that he was aiming for the head since being the hardcore felon he was he knew the guy would be wearing a bullet proof vest.

There was no excuse for this guy even being on the street and now in addition to the killing of the trooper he will once again face many of the same charges he was just arrested on on December 11. Now a wife no longer has her husband and two children have lost their father all because we have a judicial system which hands out second chances, third chances and in this case almost 20 chances. Officer Lecroy only got one.

UPDATED: I found this in another story about the shooting and just wanted to add it.
LeCroy wasn't able to spend this Christmas at home because of work. But his Thanksgiving visit was much longer than normal, Houston said.

“On Thanksgiving the whole family was here, kids and grandkids. We had a houseful,” Houston said. “Chad seemed reluctant to leave. There was a fire in the fire place and he stayed and stayed and stayed until 1 in the morning. We just commented that, that was unusual.”

It would be the last time he'd see his stepson alive.

Hang in There, Nashville: Watchable Pro Football Is On the Way

Of course, I'm talking about the Lingerie Football League.

Let's face it - the Titans have been M.I.A. since Week 7 this season.

The timing is perfect.
The Lingerie Football League, billed as “True Fantasy Football," plans to bring its bikini-clad female athletes to Nashville in 2012.

Mitchell Mortaza, founder and chairman of the league, said Music City was the “perfect market," and that Bridgestone Arena would be “the right venue" for the sport which began as a pay-per-view alternative to the Super Bowl halftime show in 2004.

Now with 10 teams in cities like Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami, some of the games are televised by MTV. “We’re in an aggressive growth mode, when other sports, especially women’s sports, are scaling back," said Mortaza, 37, whose offices are in West Hollywood, Calif. “Our girls come from all walks of life, and they are 100 percent former college athletes," he said, acknowledging that one of the requirements to play “is to be beautiful, but they also have to be athletic, they can’t be beautiful and just be prancing around." Sean Henry, President and COO of the Nashville Predators and Bridgestone Arena, said he has been contacted by a representative of the league. “We talked a little bit, but nothing past that." The league recently made news with a bench-clearing brawl at a game between the Miami Caliente and the Tampa Bay Breeze, a YouTube sensation.

Mortaza insists the game isn’t “scripted," and says Nashvillians, “can expect the unexpected, from the players. “If the NFL goes on strike, then this is going to be big."
I wonder if the cheerleaders are 350-pound dudes in Speedo.

Coming Soon to Music City: Competitive Pro Football

Cross-posted.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

'All You Folks Who Wanted Shirtless Pictures of the President: Forget It'

Uh, who exactly wants topless photos of this scrawny dude?
The White House is taking extra steps to prevent photos of a shirtless President Obama on vacation in Hawaii.

The president and his family are on a snorkeling trip in Hamauma Bay Nature Reserve, and traveling press are under “explicit instructions that there will be no long lenses or other sneaky attempts to take pictures,” according to a pool report.

Photos of a shirtless president on a Hawaii vacation after his win in the 2008 presidential election caused a stir two Christmases ago. Washingtonian magazine even ran a photo of the president for a cover story on why it’s good to live in D.C. “Our new neighbor is hot,” the magazine declared.

But pictures aren’t likely to come out of Tuesday’s trip to the beach. “All you folks who wanted shirtless pictures of the president: Forget it,” writes The New York Times’s Sheryl Stolberg in her pool report.
Sigh. The White House press corps will just have to live with the memory of two years ago, clutching longingly to those crusty old photos they've long treasured. Shirtless Obama is now a forbidden fruit.

Here a Fatwa, There a Fatwa, Everywhere a Fatwa

Can't accuse these clowns of slacking off on the job.
Taking an afternoon nap, the monotonous drone of vuvuzelas that irritated almost all football fans during the World Cup is OK, and it doesn't matter how much noise a donkey makes, it musn't be touched.

But buy a car raffle ticket and you could be in big trouble, but eating dates from palm trees growing in public areas is acceptable - as long as you don't harm the tree.

These are just some of the 350,000 fatwas, or Islamic religious decrees, that have been thought up by Muslim scholars on their website in Abu Dhabi that has a 'call centre' for those seeking guidance.

They cover a vast range of personal and religious questions submitted online, over the phone or via text to the General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowments (Awqaf).

The centre, which employs 50 scholars, mostly male, has issued a total of 343,121 decrees this year and plans to hire twice the amount of muftis next year to accommodate growing demand for answers.

Vuvuzelas are permissible in soccer stadiums providing they don't exceed 100 decibels which could damage people's hearing, and it is illegal to kill a noisy donkey, bird or other animal, no matter how annoying they are.
Killing Jews and infidels is, of course, acceptable. I'm figuring they have a mostly male staff because someone issued a fatwa against women issuing fatwas.
Body paint, henna and make-up are allowed because they are deemed to be temporary, but tattoos are ruled out because they are permanent.

By November 1 Awqaf had issued 298,277 fatwas this year, with most inquiries made by phone. The centre was averaging about 1,000 fatwas a day.

Rangel Creates Legal Defense Fund; Wait, Isn't This a Little Late?

Seems this may have been a good idea back around the summer of 2008, when his legal problems began piling up. Now seriously, who's going to start coughing up money for this hack after he's been reduced to a punchline?
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) has created a legal defense fund to help pay attorneys' fees following a lengthy ethics investigation that ended with his censure on the House floor.

The 20-term lawmaker has been given permission by the House ethics committee to create the Charles B. Rangel Legal Defense Trust, which is soliciting donations of up to $5,000. Rangel press secretary Hannah Kim confirmed the creation of the fund, first reported by the website Politics Daily.

In a statement, Rangel said the fund will help him "retain counsel for on-going activities related to the recently-concluded ethics investigations and other on-going matters" and to combat new charges brought before the Federal Election Commission (FEC) by a conservative nonprofit group.

The FEC earlier this month opened a probe into allegations by the National Legal and Policy Center that the former Ways and Means Committee chairman improperly used funds from his National Leadership PAC to pay for his legal counsel in his ethics case.

"The repeated filings of allegations, no matter how unsubstantiated, by the National Legal Policy Committee, a politically-motivated right wing group dedicated to eviscerating civil rights and labor union protections, have led me to this action," Rangel said in the statement.
Oooh, it's those evil rightwing bogeymen again. How pathetic. And didn't he get rid of his attorneys back in the fall? So who's he paying now with money gained from this latest scam of his? Himself?

Merry Christmas: NY Man Kills Woman, Stuffs Her in Suitcase; Sadly, His New Job as a Drug Counselor Postponed Indefinitely

Meet Hassan Malik, who, judging by the name, is probably just some misunderstood practitioner of the Religion of Pieces (just a hunch). Hassan hasn't had a good weekend.
An East Harlem man caught on video disposing of a woman's body stuffed inside a suitcase, confessed to smashing his victim with a frying pan and then used an electric cord to strangle her after he caught her trying to steal his money, police sources said.

Hassan Malik, 55, who has a long rap sheet including assault, aggravated harassment, robbery and drugs, was picked up around 1:30 p.m. on Monday in an apartment in Sleepy Hollow, NY.

In a written and videotaped confession, he copped to the strangulation slaying of Betty Williams, 28, sources said.

He told police he paid the victim for sex, but afterwards caught her taking money in his fourth floor apartment on Pleasant Avenue, so he killed her, other law enforcement sources said.

Malik was arraigned this afternoon and held without bail.

According to the criminal complaint, Malik portrayed the murder as self-defense. He said he did it because Williams "struck him with a frying pan twice on his shoulder."

Malik said he took the pan and hit her twice in the head, according to the criminal complaint.

After hitting her, Malik said the woman wrapped an electric cord around his neck -- but he took it and used it to strangle her, causing her "to pass out."
Looks like the city needs to find a new employee.
His lawyer says the 55-year-old Malik was about to start a job as a drug counselor.
A guy on probation going to work as a drug counselor? Sounds like a great plan.

While some stories indicate he had an apartment in Manhattan, he was also living in Westchester.

Irony: NJ Democrat Criticizes Christie for Being in Florida During Storm; Of Course That Democrat is Also in Florida

Naturally, it's uber-hack Ray Lesniak doing the whining. You can't make this stuff up.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's office is pushing back against complaints that both he and the lieutenant governor were vacationing during a blizzard that blanketed the state with snow.

The snowstorm paralyzed much of the Northeast on a busy holiday travel weekend but Christie (R), a darling of national Republicans, and Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno were traveling in Florida's Disney World and Mexico, respectively. State Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D) has been serving as acting governor in their absence and coordinated response efforts.

But that move earned the scorn of state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D), who on Monday questioned "the purpose of the office" of lieutenant governor, which was created in 2005, saying it amounted to "wasted money" if both officials vacationed at the same time.

In a lengthy response Tuesday, Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak said the criticism of the new governor was "overblown."

"Yes, this was a big snow, but we are a northeastern state, and we get plenty of snow, including heavy hits like this," he wrote in an e-mail to The Hill. "But the sky really is not falling, and we'll get through this just as we always have, notwithstanding complaints from opportunistic partisans like Lesniak."

Even though New Jersey's snow is a home-state concern, national observers have eyed the criticism of Christie given his high national political profile.

Drewniak, who noted that Lesniak is "hurling his criticism from his vacation in Florida," pushed back against questions about Christie's management of the state. He stressed that Sweeney has been in close contact with senior administration officials, key agencies and Christie himself since the snow hit.

"All emergency services of the state are functioning as expected under the circumstances and as they normally would," he wrote.
Apparently Lesniak doesn't realize Christie is able to communicate from Florida, just like him. What a dope.

Shocker: Liberals Want to Regulate the Internet

Of course they're pretty much the only group that wants to do so.
American voters believe free market competition will protect Internet users more than government regulation and fear that regulation will be used to push a political agenda.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 21% of Likely U.S. Voters want the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate the Internet as it does radio and television. Fifty-four percent (54%) are opposed to such regulation, and 25% are not sure.

The survey was conducted shortly after the FCC decided on a party line vote to impose so-called “net neutrality” regulations on the Internet world. Republicans and unaffiliated voters overwhelmingly oppose FCC regulation of the Internet, while Democrats are more evenly divided. Those who use the Internet most are most opposed to FCC regulations.

By a 52% to 27% margin, voters believe that more free market competition is better than more regulation for protecting Internet users. Republicans and unaffiliated voters overwhelmingly share this view, but a plurality of Democrats (46%) think more regulation is the better approach.

Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters believe that the FCC would use its regulatory authority to promote a political agenda. Half that number (28%) disagree and believe the commission would regulate in an unbiased manner. The partisan divide is the same on this question as the others. A plurality of Democrats sees an unbiased regulatory approach, while most Republicans and unaffiliated voters fear a political agenda.
In sum, liberals want to control your thoughts, what you watch, what you eat, what you listen to and now your web-surfing habits. But they're all for free speech or something, as long as it's theirs.

So only 21% of the public want this insane regulation. Must be a coincidence that 21% of the public calls themselves liberals.

NY Times: Club Gitmo a Violation of International Law Under Bush; Under Obama: 'A Step Toward Fairness'

Someone needs to send a team of chiropractors over to the New York Times. After bending over backwards and contorting themselves into pretzels there's going to be a lot of spinal damage. This rationale and excuse-making for Barack Obama is astonishing.
This country continues to pay a high price in both security and reputation for the Bush administration’s many violations of international law at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. After more than a year of review, the Obama administration is preparing an executive order intended to resolve the situation of four dozen prisoners in the prison there who are caught in a legal limbo: they cannot be freed because they are considered a potentially serious terrorist threat, and they cannot be tried because the evidence against them is classified or was improperly obtained, often through torture.

The proposed order could give these prisoners a form of legal representation and a system to review their cases. It would not remove the tarnish to the American justice system of holding prisoners without trial. But it could represent a significant step forward in dealing with these cases and possibly reducing their number.

The order, which could be signed by the president as early as next month, would require periodic review of each prisoner’s case by a kind of parole board drawn from agencies throughout the executive branch and not just the military.
So now after dithering for two years, Obama's accomplished nothing toward his declared goal of closing down Club Gitmo and will leave these monsters in limbo. Yet according to the Times, it's the fault of the Pelosi Congress or something.
President Obama’s plan to close Guantánamo — thwarted by Congress — had always recognized that there would be a small core of prisoners who could not be tried because of the nature of the evidence against them or the illegal way that evidence was obtained.
Thwarted by Congress? Huh? They fail to explain how Congress thwarted anything, and Obama could have issued an executive order two years ago to close it, yet he lacked the courage to do so. But now, in keeping with all the sugar-plum fantasies of the NY Times editorial board, Obama's plan to keep the joint open is, ahem, fairness.
To continue with military operations, the president will probably have to swallow his objections and sign the bill. Over the next year, he must work harder to persuade Congress not to interfere with the work of bringing fairness to the justice system at Guantánamo. As Mr. Obama rightly argued when discussing the detentions last week, “We have these core ideals that we observe — even when it’s hard.”
That's right. Our national security be damned. We must have fairness in dealing with wanton killers.

Naturally, they ignore the tremendous recidivism rate of freed Club Gitmo guests. I guess that doesn't help their argument for fairness.

H/T Spitfire Murphy.

Monday, December 27, 2010

"We're Becoming a Nation of Wussies"

That is not a paraphrase of Attorney General Eric Holder. Good guess though.

No, that is Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, getting into a bit of a spat with a local Philly weatherman over the NFL's cowardly decision to cancel last night's Eagles-Vikings game because of forecasted snow, wind, and who knows what other nasty atmospheric disturbances that would have affected the playing conditions.

Rendell is right, for once in his politically misguided life. Football is a cold weather sport. Snow games in late December are to be expected. Heck, most fans hope for those games! Who doesn't like watching football in the snow?

Maybe the No Fun League is still punishing Philly fans for pelting Santa Claus and Jimmy Johnson with snowballs.

What, was that wrong?



Via The Blaze. Cross-posted.

'If You Saw the Girl You'd Have To Be Pretty Desperate'

Let's face it, some men have standards.
A woman jumped into a cab in Darwin, Australia, suggested to the driver that they have sex and when he declined, started kicking the car and then threw a bottle though the rear window, the Northern Territory News reported.

The NT News quoted the cabdriver, who asked to be identified only as Dean, as saying, "If you saw the girl you'd have to be pretty desperate.

"She was a very big fat ugly woman, she got in the car and stunk it out."

Dean, 41, who is engaged to be married, said the woman got in his car outside a tavern Sunday night and asked him “Do you want to have sex?”

When he said he wasn’t interested, she began swearing, slammed the passenger door and started kicking the cab. Then she picked up a bottle and smashed the rear passenger window.

Police arrested the woman a short time later.

"It would appear that she was a bit amorous at that time of the evening," Duty Superintendent Daniel Shean said.

Good News: Alvin Greene Running for Office Again

If at first you crash and burn, try, try again.
Alvin Greene, the unemployed Army veteran who suggested during his failed U.S. Senate bid that making action figures of himself would help create jobs, is running for office again.

Greene paid the $165 filing fee on Christmas Eve to run in a special election for a South Carolina House seat made vacant by the death this month of Rep. Cathy Harvin.

Cal Land, the chairman of the Clarendon County Democratic Party, said Greene entered the race five minutes after the filing period opened. A primary will be held Feb. 15 with the special election set for April 5.
I wonder how his legal problems are coming along?
During the midst of the campaign in August, Greene was indicted by a South Carolina jury for allegedly showing pornography to a college student. He declined to drop out of the race and one of his first campaign speeches lasted a mere 23 seconds.

Greene got into trouble again when a companion of his got into a restaurant altercation with officials from a local Democratic group, resulting in the ejection of Greene and his associates.

Obama to Sleep Easy Tonight: Nutcake Bernie Sanders Won't Be Running Against Him

How upset are the far left nutcases in this country? Apparently some as so far gone they're pleading with loony Socialist Bernie Sanders to run against Barack Obama. Sadly, Bernie doesn't have it in him. Guess he figures there only room for one Socialist in the Democrat primaries.
One of the Senate's liberal leaders said that, despite receiving pleas to challenge President Obama in 2012, he won't take the bait.

When asked last week about launching a potential campaign against the president, self-described democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he "ain't gonna do it."

"You will be the first to know: ain't gonna do it," he said during an interview on Vermont's WCAX-TV.

Speculation mounted that Sanders could run against Obama — it's unclear on what party label — after he spent over eight hours this month railing against the president's tax-cut deal on the Senate floor in a speech that came to be known as the "filibernie."

A website by the name of bernieforpresident.com, billing itself as "An independent and Quixotic plea for sanity," even turned up.

"Let’s face it, this will never happen," the site says. "But hey, why not at least put it out there."
Believe it or not someone with way too much free time actually polled an Obama-Sanders matchup.
If Sanders had decided to challenge Obama, he would have faced a steep climb. A recent Magellan Strategies poll found Obama with a 71-point lead over Sanders among registered voters in New Hampshire, a key early primary state.

Heartache: The End of Camelot

After 63 years no member of the Kennedy clan will hold office in the Congress or Senate. Who said there's nothing to be thankful for?
The Kennedys have held US congressional seats, the presidency and the public's imagination for more than 60 years.

That era ends when Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island vacates his US House seat next month, leaving a city council post in California as the family's sole remaining political holding.

His departure marks the first time in 63 years that a Kennedy will not be serving in elected office in Washington.

The son of the late Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy says he has no qualms about walking away from politics.

The 43-year-old Kennedy says in his family, 'the legacy was always public service, and that didn't necessarily mean public office'.

Kennedy plans to continue the tradition by championing a national effort to boost brain research.
They should start by studying him. I've always wondered how the brainless spawn of the Swimmer managed to be elected to office.

Democrats Now Hitting Up Conservative Bloggers for Cash

Apparently without my realizing it I've become a heavy hitter in Democrat circles and even have those kooks at Media Matters following my every utterance. But really, folks, do you have to hit me up for cash so soon after Christmas?

Got this charming email from Nancy Pelosi today.
From: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi"

To: "Jammie Wearingfool"

Jammie --

Happy New Year! And as we prepare to ring in the new year, I wanted to reach out and thank you for your commitment to our country and your dedication to making change a reality for millions of our fellow Americans.

But our work is far from done.

Shadowy special interest front groups are already up on radio and television with shameful attack ads aimed at reversing the progress we’ve made, and they’re hoping grassroots Democrats like you will stay on the sidelines until New Year’s. If Democrats fall behind in these final critical days, we’ll have to spend months playing catch-up while the opponents of progress ring in 2011 with a big head start on their repeal agenda.

December 31st marks the final FEC deadline of the year. That means my friends at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) have just 5 days to show the media, the pundits, and our opponents that Democrats are ready to stand up to the powerful special interests intent on rolling back the progress we’ve worked so hard to achieve.

Jammie, can you chip in $10 to help House Democrats raise the $250,000 they need before the year-end FEC deadline on December 31st? This deadline is so important that your gift will be matched dollar-for-dollar by a group of generous Democrats.

Because of the hard work of grassroots Democrats like you, we passed historic health care reform, restored common sense regulation to Wall Street, helped ensure equal pay for equal work, and made a college education affordable for millions of young Americans.

Now, the same special interests that fought us every step of the way are intent on rolling back the progress we’ve made. Your action before Friday’s deadline can help ensure that Democrats have what it takes to fight back and stand strong for the interests of hardworking American families.

Contribute to the DCCC before the critical FEC fundraising deadline at midnight on December 31st. Your gift will be matched dollar-for-dollar by a group of generous Democrats.
Generous Democrats? Like the ones who are generous with our money? It goes on in that vein. Someone out there must want to torture me by putting me on that email list. And how's this, the outgoing (thank you, God) House Speaker even signed it herself.

Best Wishes,

Nancy

'There's Still a Tremendous Amount of Homophobia in Our Culture'

I think this dude is living in the past. Perhaps if he came out in the 1960s his career may have suffered, but these days being out of the closet is run of the mill in Hollywood and elsewhere.

Now if you come out as a conservative in Hollywood, then you've got problems.
Actor Richard Chamberlain, who kept his homosexuality a secret for decades while he worked as a romantic leading man on TV, is advising other men in his spot to stay in the closet.

"There's still a tremendous amount of homophobia in our culture," says the actor who came to fame in the early 1960s as the impossibly handsome Dr. Kildare.

"For an actor to be working [at all] is a kind of miracle, because most actors aren't," Chamberlain told The Advocate, the monthly magazine.

"So it's just silly for a working actor to say, "Oh, I don't care if anybody knows I'm gay" -- especially if you're a leading man.

"Personally, I wouldn't advise a gay leading man-type actor to come out."

Chamberlain, now 76, came out only in 2003, at the age of 69.

He made the admission in his autobiography, "Shattered Live," published that year.

Reports about his sexual orientation had been floating for years, but Chamberlain -- apparently concerned about his ability to keep finding work -- always refused to discuss them.

"Despite all the wonderful advances that have been made, it's still dangerous for an actor to talk about that in our extremely misguided culture," he said.
Dangerous? Is he for real?

Few Viable Dem Challengers for Scott Brown

He hasn't exactly been a staunch conservative since beating Martha Coakley, but then again, we're talking about a Republican in Massachusetts. So as the 2012 election cycle begins, the pickings are slim for Democrats looking to challenge Scott Brown.
Democrats claim to be licking their chops about taking on Brown, but it seems more likely that the Democrat with the short straw will get the task. Brown has amassed a war chest of $6 million, more than double Kerry’s.

Democrats may hope a Kennedy will step up in spite of their failure to recruit a family member for the special election. Vicki relocated to Boston and has been making public appearances. But flirting with a run and actually running are two different things. And it’s been surprisingly quiet on the Call-Joe-for-Oil front. A Joe K candidacy would be formidable, but it also would be plagued by his skeletons and questions about the $575,000 salary from his non-profit Citizens Energy Corp.

U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch says he’s staying put but has a $702,000 campaign account balance, and there’s U.S. Rep. Mike Capuano, but he has $144,000 cash on hand and $48,000 debt and lost last year’s primary. And don’t count on Gov. Deval Patrick to run like Bill Weld did in 1996. Remember, Deval got back into the Corner Office without a majority of votes.

In such a blue state, you would expect a greater pool of Democrat challengers. It seems one-party domination has not bred a great farm team for the future.
Democrats have to defend a couple dozen Senate seats in 2012. They have little hope of retaining their majority of they can't manage to win in Massachusetts.

Doesn't the NY Times Realize Olberdunce of the Modern Edward R. Murrow?

This ought to earn the clowns at the Times the next Worst Person in the World Award from Keef Olberdunce.
Did the bill pledging federal funds for the health care of 9/11 responders become law in the waning hours of the 111th Congress only because a comedian took it up as a personal cause?

And does that make that comedian, Jon Stewart — despite all his protestations that what he does has nothing to do with journalism — the modern-day equivalent of Edward R. Murrow?

Certainly many supporters, including New York’s two senators, as well as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, played critical roles in turning around what looked like a hopeless situation after a filibuster by Republican senators on Dec. 10 seemed to derail the bill.

But some of those who stand to benefit from the bill have no doubt about what — and who — turned the momentum around.

“I don’t even know if there was a deal, to be honest with you, before his show,” said Kenny Specht, the founder of the New York City Firefighter Brotherhood Foundation, who was interviewed by Mr. Stewart on Dec. 16.

That show was devoted to the bill and the comedian’s effort to right what he called “an outrageous abdication of our responsibility to those who were most heroic on 9/11.”

Mr. Specht said in an interview, “I’ll forever be indebted to Jon because of what he did.”

'We Tell the American President Barack Obama to Embrace Islam Before We Come to His Country'

I don't think they have much to worry about. He's already well into embracing the religion of peace.
A leader of Somalia's Islamist insurgency threatened to attack America during a speech broadcast Monday.

"We tell the American President Barack Obama to embrace Islam before we come to his country," said Fuad Mohamed "Shongole" Qalaf.

Al-Shabab has not yet launched an attack outside Africa but Western intelligence has long been worried because the group targeted young Somali-Americans for recruitment. About 20 have traveled to Somalia for training and at least three were used as suicide bombers inside Somalia. Al-Shabab holds most of southern and central Somalia and has the support of hundreds of foreign fighters, mostly radicalized East Africans.

It seeks to overthrow the weak U.N.-backed government, which is protected by 8,000 Ugandan and Burundian African Union peacekeepers.

The al-Shabab militia launched coordinated suicide attacks in Uganda in July that killed 76 people. It has also announced its allegiance to al-Qaida and is believed to be harboring a mastermind of the twin 2008 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people.
Really was a good idea going into Somalia back in 1992 and feeding all thos people.