"A Once-in-a-Blue-Moon New Year's Eve"
[T]omorrow night, aside from the local New Year’s Eve festivities, the Western Hemisphere is privy to a once-every-three-year phenomenon — a blue moon. Blue moons occur on New Year’s Eves once every 19 years. The last one was in 1990 and the next one will occur in 2028.
The Year's WORST Remarks on Terrorism (Alleged Crime and "Suspect") - President Barack H. Obama
The Decade's BEST Remarks on Terrorism - President George W. Bush
These remarks were defining moments for both presidents.
Bush committed himself to keeping America safe from terrorists. He succeeded.
Obama committed himself to repeating the disastrous, failed policies of the 1990s, at the peril of the American people.
From KITV:
Conservative radio talk host Rush Limbaugh was rushed to a Honolulu hospital on Wednesday afternoon with chest pains, sources told KITV.
Paramedics responded to the call at 2:41 p.m. at the Kahala Hotel and Resort.
Limbaugh suffered from chest pains, sources said. Paramedics treated him and took him to Queen's Medical Center in serious condition.
ALERT: Rush was admitted to a Honolulu hospital today and is resting comfortably after suffering chest pains. Rush appreciates your prayers and well wishes. He will keep you updated via RushLimbaugh.com and on Thursday's radio program.
Yikes! He better hope his Doctors are all Republicans. Alas, when the Hatemongers come to Roost.
Posted By: stars and stripes | December 30, 2009 at 10:00 PM
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I hope he dies
Posted By: not | December 30, 2009 at 10:03 PM
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rush limbaugh has died.
Posted By: | December 30, 2009 at 10:04 PM
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karma
Posted By: don | December 30, 2009 at 10:04 PM
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I hope he chokes on his lies
Posted By: doug | December 30, 2009 at 10:05 PM
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Hope its not a fatal stroke, so that he is incapacitated and paralyzed neck up. :)
Posted By: Ram Jispy | December 30, 2009 at 10:08 PM
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please die rush.
Posted By: The World | December 30, 2009 at 10:08 PM
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Too bad they took him to Queen's. Should have taken him to Tripler. He'll probably pull through at Queen's.
Posted By: LesMs808 | December 30, 2009 at 10:09 PM
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That nasty man deserves a kick n his butt a gallon of salt on his operated veins. :) Hope he does not die and lives a paralyzed man. for a long time to come, so he can soak all his anger and hatred and lives with his cruel mind in his crippled fat body.
Posted By: Ram Jispy | December 30, 2009 at 10:10 PM
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Gee, maybe he'll see the light & realize hate, bigotry & vitriol aren't the best ways to go ... and appear to be very bad for your overall health! (Of course, he's also just fat & disgusting!)
Posted By: | December 30, 2009 at 10:10 PM
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guess we won't be that lucky as only the good die young
Posted By: wackyperson | December 30, 2009 at 10:13 PM
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I hope he chokes on his own vomit
Posted By: richard cranium | December 30, 2009 at 10:16 PM
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I hope he gets brain damage and can't talk anymore
Posted By: Anonymous | December 30, 2009 at 10:16 PM
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I won't be losing any sleep...
Posted By: | December 30, 2009 at 10:16 PM
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It would be really annoying if he croaked before he has to eat his words over the next few years.
Posted By: JimCA | December 30, 2009 at 10:17 PM
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Awww poor Rush. Karma's a *****. If you live I hope you suffer, and if you die, I hope you rot in hell! Get well soon....not!
Posted By: Rico | December 30, 2009 at 10:21 PM
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go to hell rush and take your ditto heads with you
Posted By: rdmonta | December 30, 2009 at 10:21 PM
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Obese junkies tend not to live very long. The fats get your coronary arteries and the opiates whack your liver.
Posted By: jimbo | December 30, 2009 at 10:21 PM
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For what does Rush deserve respect? Being a hypocrite drug addict and trying to get his illegal immigrant housekeeper to score for him? Being a fat blowhard piece of ****? Hoping our elected president fails (which means so does our country)? Or just generally being a massive egotistical turd?
Posted By: dick burns | December 30, 2009 at 10:21 PM
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Finally My Christmas gift has come late but ill take it
Posted By: jes | December 30, 2009 at 10:21 PM
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It is time for all to understand this mans hate for others. He has it all and does not give back anything but hate. Rich Repulican Conservatives do not care if you die why should I worry about him.
Posted By: Jim | December 30, 2009 at 10:22 PM
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abusing prescription drugs has bad side effects
Posted By: | December 30, 2009 at 10:22 PM
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This man is a buffoonish thug, with a crack-heads penchant for drugs...hopefully he and his followers can meet in a warm and cozy place like hell one day
Posted By: | December 30, 2009 at 10:22 PM
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I hope ole Rush is choking on a raw peice of crow. You have shown me how to hate and now I have no problem wishing your worthless fat body to a crumpled paralyzed heap of scum. Just be careful dude, the hospital low life workers are probably minorities, (that you preach hate against) union members, (that you preach intolerance against). Wow, its not looking like the best situation. Hope you dont wake up on your belly and find out youre ..... never mind , you sick, worthless , fat, loudmouth.....
Posted By: outsideman | December 30, 2009 at 10:22 PM
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i hope he dies
Posted By: thomas | December 30, 2009 at 10:22 PM
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Rush is a Hate Monger.. He Disparaged Ted Kennedy in Death... I could Care less what Happens to his Fat, Hateful- Hate Filled A!! Wanda Sykes: Thank You, Maybe his Ateries are Hardening His Chickens are coming Home to Roost.
Posted By: Deserves what He Dishes Out, His Hate & Millions Can't Save Him | December 30, 2009 at 10:23 PM
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I pray he dies an agonizing slow death.
Posted By: PhillipP | December 30, 2009 at 10:25 PM
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i really hope he dies and suffers the worst death he possibly can.
Posted By: real patriot dissident | December 30, 2009 at 10:26 PM
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He will be fine, it cant be a heart attack, he has no heart. And if it is this country has been conducting heart transplants with pig hearts for decades, he is a perfect match for one.
Posted By: paula | December 30, 2009 at 10:26 PM
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Please die! Someone who was a Republican until I realized that the Repubs were analogous to Hulk Hogan and Dems to the Ultimate Warrior.
Posted By: Romulus | December 30, 2009 at 10:26 PM
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Ordinarily, I would be reverential and wish a person well when they get ill or pass on. I was disappointed when liberals treated Reagan with such disrespect after his passing, and I certainly disagreed with President Reagan. But Mr. Limbaugh has never extended the same favor to those on the left, and his lies, hate-mongering, and race-baiting will commend him well in Hell.
Posted By: BRC | December 30, 2009 at 10:26 PM
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To all of my conservative followers: I am now dead. Also, I am in hell. I've learned that this is what you get for being a child-raping, druggie, blowhard ****.
Posted By: Rush | December 30, 2009 at 10:26 PM
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I hope you have a long and painfull death you bag of crap
Posted By: s-dav | December 30, 2009 at 10:26 PM
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I'm waiting for you, Rush.
Posted By: Satan | December 30, 2009 at 10:27 PM
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die my sweet fatty, oh please so we can recycle your blubber.
Posted By: | December 30, 2009 at 10:27 PM
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LMFAO!!!
Posted By: truth fairy | December 30, 2009 at 10:28 PM
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Hope he doesn't come out. Except in a box.
Posted By: Seeya | December 30, 2009 at 10:28 PM
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I do not wish him well. Maybe he will not be able to speak anymore.
Posted By: | December 30, 2009 at 10:29 PM
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He must have ran out of Oxycontin, can u say D.T.'s, withdrawals?
Posted By: | December 30, 2009 at 10:29 PM
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I give him the same respect as he bestows to the one's he vilifys every day. Let him RIP in Hell
Posted By: Jim F | December 30, 2009 at 10:29 PM
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This is my opinion regarding this news. When you exhaust so much energy stating incorrect info and contributing to this polarization, God does have a way to get your attention, and perhaps this is it. My prayer is that he sees his wrong and stop with all of this vitrol just to get ratings
Posted By: lcr | December 30, 2009 at 10:29 PM
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Karma's a *****, Rush.
Posted By: M.G. | December 30, 2009 at 10:29 PM
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Evil Be-Gets
Posted By: Doug | December 30, 2009 at 10:30 PM
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Its hilarious that you condemn others for hating that fat talking head. He breeds hate with the lies you all believe. He may not die today, but he'll pay for his hatred as will you all.
Posted By: ObamaIsGod | December 30, 2009 at 10:30
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This is what happens when you abuse prescription drugs
Posted By: | December 30, 2009 at 10:30 PM
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Rush keels over and lands on Glenn Beck, who flails and crushes O'Reilly's larynx and as all three descend to the lowest rungs of hades, Hannity weeps tears of joy. Ratings!
Posted By: kormac66 | December 30, 2009 at 10:30 PM
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I wonder if he would allow a black doctor to work on him... Get well the repucks - will not know what to do without you !
Posted By: blackman | December 30, 2009 at 10:31 PM
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you white people hang on to conservatives nuts like ****ing ***gots. look how you clowns are rallying for this racist mother ****er. you men are small, insecure, weak minded, and pathetic. hahahahahahah good for rush!!!!!! die ***** die!!!!
Posted By: doglife193 | December 30, 2009 at 10:31 PM
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How does America need him ? We do not need liars just because he and others are prejudice. Only the ignorant need him.
Posted By: LC from Texas | December 30, 2009 at 10:31 PM
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I hope the greedy fat ******* dies and chokes on his own bile. F you teabagger followers of his. Who will you go to next?
Posted By: JimLund | December 30, 2009 at 10:31 PM
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I hope he dies!!!!
Posted By: john | December 30, 2009 at 10:31 PM
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What a great way it would be to start a new year to have the Republicans #1 mouthpiece to hopefully be in a long long long coma then die in 20 years .Soil yourself for me Rush
Posted By: s-dav | December 30, 2009 at 10:32 PM
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Good, the world won't miss this fat piece of crap! If it happens ... rot in hell Limbaugh!
Posted By: Rush Rush Rush | December 30, 2009 at 10:32 PM
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you reap what you sew...good luck buddy !!
Posted By: | December 30, 2009 at 10:32 PM
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I hope the ******* dies
Posted By: TB | December 30, 2009 at 10:33 PM
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Oh god, please don't take Rush away from us. At least don't do it quickly. Make his no good, Hillbilly Heroin ingesting ass suffer terribly.
Posted By: FemiNazi | December 30, 2009 at 10:33 PM
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My curse worked! Now die SOB.
Posted By: proudliberal | December 30, 2009 at 10:34 PM
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It'll be interesting to see what kind of drugs they find in him this time.
Posted By: | December 30, 2009 at 10:34 PM
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Good Riddance to someone who wants to see America fail. Satan is probably having a welcoming party for the fat apostate.
Posted By: | December 30, 2009 at 10:35 PM
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I'm a Republican, and I hope that ****head dies. He's done nothing but sow hatred and dumb down a serious conversation. The entire world would be better off without that ass hole.
Posted By: Republican | December 30, 2009 at 10:35 PM
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Let's hope he dies.
Posted By: sick of bullshit | December 30, 2009 at 10:37 PM
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Oh yeah that's right only liberals can despise Rush Limbaugh. I mean who else can hate a chauvinistic, racist, drug abuser that has nothing ever positive to say to anyone that can think for themselves?
Posted By: Reality Check | December 30, 2009 at 10:38 PM
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RIP Rush /too soon?
Posted By: i yell at townhall meetings | December 30, 2009 at 10:38 PM
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One down & one to go. I hope Cheney is next to go. All the right wing wing nuts are upset because they might have to think for themselves instead of having these two buffoons tell them how to think.
Posted By: MN Switz | December 30, 2009 at 10:39 PM
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die rush.please die...all those years of prescription drug abuse and yo-yo dieting finally catching up huh?
Posted By: msmississippi | December 30, 2009 at 10:39 PM
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The conservatives and GOPers are using even this event to take swipes at those who hold a differing political ideology than themselves whilst asking for restraint from those whom they take swipes at. If this was a democrat neither Limbaugh nor his supporters who post here would show restraint. Rush takes no prisoners and would wish death on Obama in a second. So all in all I hope his fat *** dies.
Posted By: apostle14 | December 30, 2009 at 10:39 PM
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I hope he dies a horrible painful death.
Posted By: sinner | December 30, 2009 at 10:41 PM
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He stuffed 12 hotdogs in his fat mouth and sucked it down with a handful of pain killers. F U Right Wingers, you're all crazy!
Posted By: B-rad | December 30, 2009 at 10:41 PM
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I hope his heart "fails"!!!
Posted By: robertin texas | December 30, 2009 at 10:42 PM
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Rush, please die. The world will be a better place without you!
Posted By: the world | December 30, 2009 at 10:42 PM
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For years Limbaugh has spread his doctrine of hate and lies which has been accepted by his non thinking followers as fair comment. It is ironic but expected that this same crowd no longer believes it is fair comment to dislike the guy
Posted By: Bpost | December 30, 2009 at 10:43 PM
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To all those who say "God bless him", that is what is happening. God is blessing him the way he deserves to be blessed...by taking him from this world (hopefully). BTW you republicans are not going to win anything come 2010 or 2012. Your acute brand of hypocrisy preceeds you.
Posted By: | December 30, 2009 at 10:43 PM
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I hate you Rush but hope you live so Glenn Beck can't take over
Posted By: | December 30, 2009 at 10:44 PM
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i don't wish him well at all. he's an evil vile pig who is damaging the country with his neo-mccarthyism. see you in hell, swine.
Posted By: what? | December 30, 2009 at 10:44 PM
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I could care less about this dirtbag. Hope it's good riddance for you. Hope you got health insurance!!
Posted By: vuduchld | December 30, 2009 at 10:44 PM
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Rush my precious fatty, please don't die, I can't think without you
Posted By: | December 30, 2009 at 10:44 PM
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Hope you never comeout alive.
Posted By: I'M4AMERICA | December 30, 2009 at 10:45 PM
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KARMA!!! Big time. Ugly things happen to UGLY people. You TEABAGGERS would be wise to remember that the next time you froth at the mouth, let your eyes glaze over, turn red in the face, let your juglars dilate, hold Hitler signs, speak tongues, become pathological liars, birthers,deathers, become treasonous, treacherous Benedict Arnolds, etc. TEABAGGERS are UGLY people (I've just described what you all look like to the average American and the world in general) and UGLY things happen to UGLY people. Think about this...
Posted By: Independent | December 30, 2009 at 10:47 PM
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He's an *******. How does it feel now Rush? You wanna sit there and criticize the President? You never criticized your butt buddy Bush did you? You fat piece of crap. Speedy recovery? Maybe your fat ass should feel the pain that you deserve to. You drug addict.
Posted By: | December 30, 2009 at 10:47 PM
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I care less about this subhuman than the gum sticking on my shoe. And for all of you out there into praising this druggie may you meet his same fate!!
Posted By: vuduchld | December 30, 2009 at 10:47 PM
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Wow... another chance to get your pain pills legally!!
Posted By: Fan | December 30, 2009 at 10:47 PM
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1117. Oh!!!! Please die! Please die!
Please God let him die so that the "burning in hell" part can start ASAP.
Posted at 5:28PM on Dec 31st 2009 by scoobydubious
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1118. Hasta La Vista, Hypocrite. My husband and I whooped and high fived last night. The devil is waiting, licking his lips over this one. Cheney next? Less evil in the world.
Posted at 6:08PM on Dec 31st 2009 by gracie
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1119. 1073. LOOK, ALL YOU " APPALLED " FOOLS , SO SORRY THE TRUTH IS SMACKING YOU RIGHT IN THE FACE THAT THE MAJORITY HATES THIS FAT DISGUSTING VILE PIG OF A MAN , DEAL WITH IT.
GO RUNNING TO FOX OR ONE OF YOUR CONSERVATIVE WEB SITES/BLOGS WHERE YOU WILL SEE THIS PIG OF A MAN WRAPPED IN LOVE.
THE MAJORITY HATES HIM.
THE MAJORITY WOULD LOVE TO SEE HIM DEAD , NO MATTER HOW HE DIES, JUST DEAD.
DEAL WITH IT AND MOVE ON YOU SORRY ASSED SELF RIGHTEOUS BIBLE THUMPING LOT.
Posted at 2:40PM on Dec 31st 2009 by HUMEROUS
The White House has posted its response to criticism about Obama's handling of the Christmas Day bomber incident.
The title of the blog post, by White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, is funny: "The Same Old Washington Blame Game."
It think it's Team Obama that's engaged in the same old, same old.
There has been a lot of discussion online and in the mainstream media about our response to various critics of the President, specifically former Vice President Cheney, who have been coming out of the woodwork since the incident on Christmas Day. I think we all agree that there should be honest debate about these issues, but it is telling that Vice President Cheney and others seem to be more focused on criticizing the Administration than condemning the attackers. Unfortunately too many are engaged in the typical Washington game of pointing fingers and making political hay, instead of working together to find solutions to make our country safer.
First, it’s important that the substantive context be clear: for seven years after 9/11, while our national security was overwhelmingly focused on Iraq – a country that had no al Qaeda presence before our invasion – Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda's leadership was able to set up camp in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they continued to plot attacks against the United States. Meanwhile, al Qaeda also regenerated in places like Yemen and Somalia, establishing new safe-havens that have grown over a period of years. It was President Obama who finally implemented a strategy of winding down the war in Iraq, and actually focusing our resources on the war against al Qaeda – more than doubling our troops in Afghanistan, and building partnerships to target al Qaeda’s safe-havens in Yemen and Somalia. And in less than one year, we have already seen many al Qaeda leaders taken out, our alliances strengthened, and the pressure on al Qaeda increased worldwide.
To put it simply: this President is not interested in bellicose rhetoric, he is focused on action. Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country. And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the President.
Second, the former Vice President makes the clearly untrue claim that the President – who is this nation’s Commander-in-Chief – needs to realize we are at War. I don’t think anyone realizes this very hard reality more than President Obama. In his inaugural, the President said “our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.” In a recent speech, Assistant to the President for Terrorism and Homeland Security John Brennan said “Instead, as the president has made clear, we are at war with al-Qaida, which attacked us on 9/11 and killed 3,000 people. We are at war with its violent extremist allies who seek to carry on al-Qaida’s murderous agenda. These are the terrorists we will destroy; these are the extremists we will defeat.” At West Point, the President told the nation why it was “in our vital national interest” to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to fight the war in Afghanistan, adding that as Commander in Chief, “I see firsthand the terrible wages of war.” And at Oslo, in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, the President said, “We are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land.”
There are numerous other such public statements that explicitly state we are at war. The difference is this: President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it, and – unlike the last Administration – we are not at war with a tactic (“terrorism”), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies. And we will prosecute that war as long as the American people are endangered.
The difference is this: President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it, and – unlike the last Administration – we are not at war with a tactic (“terrorism”), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies.
UPDATE, December 31, 2009: "Inspection found nothing amiss"
A social worker from the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare investigated an abuse complaint about baby Dekia Mattox just seven weeks before authorities say she was killed by a homeless drug addict in a filthy, cold home, according to a statement released Wednesday by the state Department of Children and Families.
The bureau's Nov. 4 investigation - which stated "the home was in order," contained food, had a well-heated bedroom for the baby and contained no evidence of drug use - stands in sharp contrast to the medical examiner's report, filed shortly after the baby's death Dec. 26.
Darius Woodley, a drug-addled homeless man who police say was left in charge of 6-month-old Dekia Mattox in a filthy, barely heated Milwaukee cottage, was charged Tuesday with killing the baby and stuffing her body between a couple of mattresses.
Neither the baby's 15-year-old mother, Diamond Mattox, nor Mattox's aunt, who had been responsible for the teen nearly her entire life, were home when the baby was killed early Saturday.
The state-run Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare was involved with Dekia's family, which was the subject of an ongoing investigation, said Erika Monroe-Kane, a spokeswoman for the Department of Children and Families. The DCF, which runs the Milwaukee bureau, is preparing a report that will outline the bureau's involvement, she said.
...According to the complaint and a medical examiner's report:
Mattox left the child with the aunt, Sharon D. Coleman, 48, on Christmas Eve in a cottage the three shared with Coleman's boyfriend, Willie McElroy, 39. The cottage, a dilapidated structure that neighbors said was a drug house, is behind a house in the 2700 block of N. Richards St.
Around midnight Christmas Day, Coleman left the baby with McElroy and Woodley while she went out with another man.
McElroy told police he and Woodley, 36, had spent most of Christmas Day robbing stores and using the proceeds to buy drugs. He said the two smoked marijuana laced with crack, snorted heroin and drank beer.
Coleman, McElroy said, was gone for hours, and the baby began to cry.
McElroy said he left the baby with Woodley while he went searching for Coleman, once at 2 a.m. Saturday and again sometime between 2:30 and 3 a.m.
McElroy told police he stopped to buy $10 worth of crack and then returned to the cottage, which was heated by three space heaters. The temperature on the main floor was 40 degrees. Knives were found on the floor of nearly every room. The bathroom contained a leaking toilet and a broken sink. Dirty dishes filled the kitchen sink. Investigators found empty liquor bottles and beer cans, piles of dirty clothes, discarded baby bottles and little food.
When McElroy returned to the house the second time, he found Woodley passed out on a bed but did not see Dekia.
McElroy woke up Woodley and began searching the house for the baby.
According to the complaint, McElroy looked in a bedroom where he found "a hump in the mattress." He lifted the mattress and found Dekia's body. The child was not breathing.
McElroy said he gave the baby to Woodley, who said, "Man, I didn't mean to do that."
Obama tried to get it right on Tuesday, but he didn't.
On Monday, when Obama finally got around to addressing the Christmas Day attempted terrorist attack on Flight 253, Obama sounded very detached and interested in getting back to the golf course. He was robotic, sounding like a bad lawyer rather than an effective war president and leader of the Free World.
Inexcusably, the White House hasn't posted the transcript of Obama's Tuesday remarks yet, so here's the transcript as provided by the Washington Post:
(Note: As of December 30, 6:30 PM CT, the transcript is STILL not posted on the White House website.)
OBAMA: Good morning. Yesterday, I updated the American people on the immediate steps we took, the increased screening and security of air travel to keep our country safe in the wake of the attempted terrorist attack on Christmas Day.
And I announced two reviews, a review of our terrorist watch list system and a review of our air travel screening so we can find out what went wrong, fix it, and prevent future attacks. Those reviews began on Sunday and are now underway.
Earlier today, I issued the former guidelines for those reviews and directed the preliminary findings be provided to the White House by this Thursday. It's essential that we diagnose the problems quickly and deal with them immediately.
Now, the more comprehensive formal reviews and recommendations for improvement will be completed in the coming weeks. And I'm committed to working with Congress and our intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security communities to take all necessary steps to protect the country.
I wanted to speak to the American people again today, because some of this preliminary information that has surfaced in the last 24 hours raises some serious concerns. It's been widely reported that the father of the suspect in the Christmas incident warned U.S. officials in Africa about his son's extremist views.
It now appears that weeks ago this information was passed to a component of our intelligence community but was not effectively distributed so as to get the suspect's name on a no-fly list.
There appears to be other deficiencies, as well. Even without this one report, there were bits of information available within the intelligence community that could have and should have been pieced together.
We've achieved much since 9/11 in terms of collecting information that relates to terrorists and potential terrorist attacks, but it's becoming clear that the system that has been in place for years now is not sufficiently up to date to take full advantage of the information we collect and the knowledge we have.
Had this critical information been shared, it could have been compiled with other intelligence, and a fuller, clearer picture of the suspect would have emerged. The warning signs would have triggered red flags, and the suspect would have never been allowed to board that plane for America.
Now, the professionalism of the men and women in our intelligence, counterterrorism, and law enforcement, and homeland security communities is extraordinary. They are some of the most hard-working, most dedicated Americans that I've ever met. In pursuit of our security here at home, they risk their lives day in, day out in this country and around the world. Few Americans see their work, but all Americans are safer because of their successes.
They have targeted and taken out violent extremists. They have disrupted plots and saved countless American lives. They are making real and daily progress in our mission to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaida and other extremist networks around the world. And for this, every American owes them a profound and lasting debt of gratitude. Moreover, as Secretary Napolitano has said, once the suspect attempted to take down Flight 253, after his attempt, it's clear that passengers and crew, our homeland security systems, and our aviation security took all appropriate actions.
But what's also clear is this: When our government has information on a known extremist and that information is not shared and acted upon as it should have been so that this extremist boards a plane with dangerous explosives that could have cost nearly 300 lives, a systemic failure has occurred, and I consider that totally unacceptable.
The reviews I've ordered will surely tell us more, but what already is apparent is that there was a mix of human and systemic failures that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security. We need to learn from this episode and act quickly to fix the flaws in our system because our security is at stake and lives are at stake.
I fully understand that even when every person charged with ensuring our security does what they are trained to do, even when every system works exactly as intended, there's still no 100 percent guarantee of success. Yet this should only compel us to work even harder, to be even more innovative and relentless in our efforts.
As president, I will do everything in my power to support the men and women in intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security to make sure they've got the tools and resources they need to keep America safe, but it's also my job to ensure that our intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security systems and the people in them are working effectively and held accountable. I intend to fulfill that responsibility and insist on accountability at every level.
That's the spirit guiding our reviews into the attempted attack on Christmas Day. That's the spirit that will guide all our efforts in the days and years ahead. Thank you very much.
Per the Washington Post, administration officials only got information indicating a "linkage" with al Qaeda on Monday night. But the media were already reporting those ties on Monday -- al Qaeda had claimed responsibility by Monday morning! Was it just that nobody wanted to disrupt the Obama's Christmas vacation? How could Obama have been the last to know?
Again per the Washington Post, Obama only learned about the contact between the CIA and the Nigerian's father on Tuesday morning in a conference call National Security Adviser Jim Jones, his top counterterrorism expert John Brennan, and deputy National Security adviser Tom Donilon. Why are the peole mentioned as being on the conference call all White House? Has the president spoken with Panetta since Friday? With Blair?
If yesterday Obama really didn’t know any or most of what’s now coming out -- which was 72 hours after the incident -- even though parts of the IC must have known...isn’t that a little scary?
And didn't Obama at least know enough yesterday to know that he wasn't an "isolated extremist," as he told reporters in Hawaii in his first attempt to set the record straight on the threat this attack posed?
Why was the Nigerian turned over to the criminal justice system immediately? Did the administration simply prefer a nice, straightforward, uncomplicated trial to culling whatever intelligence this guy has to offer?
As late as Sunday, the FBI was still telling reporters that they were operating on the assumption that the Nigerian had "acted alone." Obviously there were numerous elements in the intelligence community that knew better at that point. Why was the FBI still so completely out of the loop more than 24 hours after the attack?
Who are the two officials who told CNN that we are now considering retaliatory strikes against Yemen in conjunction with Yemeni leaders? Is that even remotely defensible -- to leak information about the planning of sensitive military planning? Were these two career guys or are they political? And if the leaders of the U.S. and Yemen are joining together (in a publically private agreement) to engage in lethal military strikes killing members of Al Qaeda -- removing them from society and their families without benefit of due process or humane considerations -- how would closing Gitmo remove the stain of injustice from America?
Those strikes could include Alwaki, who is an American citizen. If we kill him -- without even getting a warrant! -- does Obama get a pass from the left? From the media? From young Muslims whose seething anger at the injustice of Gitmo compels so many to try and kill American civilians?
Is the Obama administration seriously still considering sending some 90 Yemeni detainees now being held at Gitmo back to their country of origin, where al Qaeda are apparently running around with impunity?
CBS broadcast the 32nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors last night.
This year's honorees were Mel Brooks, Dave Brubeck, Grace Bumbry, Robert De Niro, and Bruce Springsteen.
Hank Stuever, the Washington Post, previewed the program.
A few weeks after it's over, CBS dumps the Kennedy Center Honors broadcast into a dead zone of intra-holiday prime time as if it's a secret act of Yuletide programming charity instead of a proper tribute to the finest accomplishments in our nation's arts culture. Certainly the Honors broadcast (this year's installment is Tuesday night) is not usually a rollicking two hours for those at home who've misplaced their remote controls and are forced to watch it; adding to its mustiness would be all those commercials for Cadillacs and Plavix prescriptions.
But shame on you if you don't catch this one. "The 32nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors" comes along just when we most need a reminder of what quality, manners and showmanship are supposed to look like. We've got enough junk to chew on the rest of the year, and this year's Honors show provides more than its share of rare and exultant moments.
I'm generally no softy when it comes to ritual ceremony, but I was moved by each presentation and performance -- such as when Dave Brubeck's four sons play along during the U.S. Army Jazz Ambassadors' rendition of "Take Five." There's a lovely moment when the camera catches President Obama and the first lady moving their heads hypnotically to the jazz. Or when Mel Brooks, on the verge of tears, sits in that bright rouge opera box and mouths the words along to his "Springtime for Hitler" (sung by "Glee's" Matthew Morrison) and "The Inquisition" (sung by Richard Kind). The entire Opera House comes to an almost holy hush during the tribute to opera legend Grace Bumbry. Besides Brubeck and Caroline Kennedy, who delivers the perennially stiff opening remarks, Bumbry represents the last thread of connection the Honors crowd has to the actual Kennedy era (she performed at the White House in the Camelot days).
What works this year, obviously, is an increase in contemporary wattage. The more the Honors look to youngish recipients who are still practicing their craft, the better it seems. Meryl Streep and Martin Scorsese are joined by Edward Norton, Sharon Stone and Ben Stiller to share their admiration for Robert De Niro. For the finale, Jon Stewart finds a perfect spot between reverence and giddy hero worship for Bruce Springsteen. ("I can tell you what I believe and what I believe is this: I believe that Bob Dylan and James Brown had a baby.") Then comes a powerful tribute to the Boss from John Mellencamp, Melissa Etheridge, Sting (heavily bearded, looking like the Miner 49er) and a heavenly choir. Springsteen sits there, stunned silent with humility.
Obama's WORST Pitch of 2009
BEST Presidential Pitch of the Decade - George W. Bush
According to the Washington Post, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (aka "Farouk1986") "turned to the Internet for counseling and companionship, writing in an online forum that he was 'lonely; and had 'never found a true Muslim friend.'"
The Washington Post reviewed 300 online postings under the name "farouk1986" (a combination of Abdulmutallab's middle name and birth year). The postings mused openly about love and marriage, his college ambitions and angst over standardized testing, as well as his inner struggle as a devout Muslim between liberalism and extremism. In often-intimate writings, posted between 2005 and 2007, he sought friends online, through Facebook and in Islamic chat rooms: "My name is Umar but you can call me Farouk." He often invited readers to "have your say" and once wrote, "May Allah reward you for reading and reward you more for helping."
A U.S. government official said late Monday that federal intelligence officials were reviewing the online postings but had not independently confirmed their authenticity.
Many of the biographical details in the writings, however, match up with facts already known about Abdulmutallab.
Farouk1986 wrote of being born in 1986 and having attended an elite British boarding school in Togo, where many of his classmates were British expatriates and students from around West Africa.
Welcome to the Islamic Forum
This forum is ranked #1 by Google, thanks to its friendly community, quality posts and rich info. We always welcome new members, regardless of their religion or race. We'll happily answer all your questions about Islam and why its the perfect way of life. Our sections cover a vast variety of topics. So, what do you want to discuss today?
All of the postings are on the Islamic Forum Web site (http://www.gawaher.com), which uses a commercially available chat-forum software called IP.Board that automatically assigns dates to users' posts as they are created. Many of Farouk1986's postings drew comments from other forum members on the day they were written.
...In a June 2005 posting, Farouk1986 wrote that he was in Yemen for a three-month Arabic course, saying that "it is just great." He described how many British people and Americans were in Sanaa, gushing about the capital's shopping and global cuisine (including, he noted, Pizza Hut and KFC).
...On Facebook, Abdulmutallab's profile features a photo of him smiling, standing alongside two friends and wearing a sharp-looking pink polo shirt and sunglasses. He has 287 friends.
Fabrizio Cavallo Marincola, 22, who studied with Abdulmutallab at University College London, said Abdulmutallab graduated in May 2008 and showed no signs of radicalization or of links to al-Qaeda. "He always did the bare minimum of work," Marincola said of his classmate, who he said was nicknamed "Biggie."
"When we were studying, he always would go off to pray," Marincola continued. "He was pretty quiet and didn't socialize much or have a girlfriend that I knew of."
Ah, the Internet!
It's a window into the soul.
Like so many of today's notorious figures, the Flight 253 terrorist left a slimy e-trail.
Online postings made by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab the guy with the explosive underwear, reveal some of Farouk's deep thoughts.
Using the screen name "Farouk1986" and posting on the Islamic forum www.gawaher.com, Abdulmutallab expresses his wish to find himself.
What better way than to blow up people?
From the Associated Press:
Farouk1986 says he is from Nigeria, the home nation of the man who allegedly tried to bring down the Detroit-bound flight. And the suspect's father says Abdulmutallab broke off ties with the family.
Those posts, beginning in 2005, show a teenager looking for a new life outside his boarding school and wealthy Nigerian family.
Most of all, they paint a portrait of someone who seems lost and needs someone to hear him.
The postings seem hastily written and are replete with spelling and grammar errors. In one, on Jan 28. 2005, he wrote: "i am in a situation where i do not have a friend, i have no one to speak too, no one to consult, no one to support me and i feel depressed and lonely. i do not know what to do."
The posts were made to an Islamic bulletin board called Gawaher, which literally translates from Arabic as "gems" or "jewels," but can also be read as "essence" or "spirit."
Mr. Abdulmutallab is believed to have posted hundreds of messages on the Islamic Forum website, www.gawahar.com, under the handle “farouk1986,” on topics ranging from European soccer leagues to being lonely.
“When I first came here, I thought I was the only lonely soul,” Farouk1986 wrote on Jan. 29, 2005.
“But after, I realized that almost every good Muslim gets lonely at some point,” he continues. “This I believe is because really there are many Muslims but most are just Muslims by name who do not practice the deen earnestly, leaving the few good Muslims alone. So it’s a test we have to strive and go through for the sake of Allah.”
Other posts from the same period are more carefree and reflect the common concerns of his peers. Farouk1986 wrote passionately about English soccer teams like Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, and Liverpool. Like many young adults, he was concerned with preparing for university studies. He said he hoped to study engineering at Stanford University in California, and that he believed he had the grades – straight As – to gain admission. He was less pleased with his SAT scores, but thought they would be good enough.
“I tried the SAT. It was a disaster!!!” he wrote in 2005. “I didn't practice well and I got 1200. Although I checked the prospectuses, and my SAT grades are in bound with the accepted grade boundary in Caltech, Stanford and Berkeley, so I didn't bother doing more SAT tests.”
Farouk1986 also mentioned that he wouldn’t need a scholarship to attend university, perhaps a reference to his family’s wealth. Abdulmutallab’s father is a wealthy Nigerian banker, who alerted US authorities to his son’s increasingly militant views.
Farouk1986 also responded to others’ posts to offer advice on topics ranging from soccer stadiums to traveling to the Egyptian pyramids. To a fellow student thinking about changing his course of study, he wrote: “I don’t know exactly the situation, but the last thing you want to do is start business information systems and find it hard as well or realize you don’t like it.”
An anonymous user who identified himself as simply Farouk posted in the counseling section of the forum’s website, though there’s no way of knowing if this is the same person as “farouk1986.” One undated posting by this Farouk reads: “I won’t go into too much details about me [sic] fantasy, but basically they are jihad fantasies [sic]. I imagine how the great jihad will take place, how the Muslims will win insha Allah and rule the whole world, and establish the greatest empire once again!!!”
When asked by another user if they are “fantastical dreams” or plans, Farouk replied: “I don't know about you but for me, I believe insha Allah I will realize my goals and dreams, by the power and might of Allah, out of his mercy, if it is best. … You just pray for me Okay. Pray for me hard.”
Climate legislation backed by Obama includes a plan to turn farmland into forests.
From the Washington Times:
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has ordered his staff to revise a computerized forecasting model that showed that climate legislation supported by President Obama would make planting trees more lucrative than producing food.
The latest Agriculture Department economic-impact study of the climate bill, which passed the House this summer, found that the legislation would profit farmers in the long term. But those profits would come mostly from higher crop prices as a result of the legislation's incentives to plant more forests and thus reduce the amount of land devoted to food-producing agriculture.
According to the economic model used by the department and the Environmental Protection Agency, the legislation would give landowners incentives to convert up to 59 million acres of farmland into forests over the next 40 years. The reason: Trees clean the air of heat-trapping gases better than farming does.
Mr. Vilsack, in a little-noticed statement issued with the report earlier this month, said the department's forecasts "have caused considerable concern" among farmers and ranchers.
"If landowners plant trees to the extent the model suggests, this would be disruptive to agriculture in some regions of the country," he said.
...The legislation would give free emissions credits, known as offsets, to farmers and landowners who plant forests and adopt low-carbon farm and ranching practices. Farmers and ranchers could sell the credits to help major emitters of greenhouse gases comply with the legislation. That revenue would help the farmers deal with an expected rise in fuel and fertilizer costs.
But the economic forecast predicts that nearly 80 percent of the offsets would be earned through the planting of trees, mostly in the Midwest, the South and the Plains states.
The American Farm Bureau Federation and some farm-state Republican lawmakers have complained that the offsets program would push landowners to plant trees and terminate their leases with farmers.
The model projects that reduced farm production will cause food prices to rise by 4.5 percent by 2050 compared with a scenario in which no legislation is passed, the department found.
When General Stanley McChrystal told Obama there was an urgent need to send more troops to Afghanistan, it took him months to act.
When a Christmas Day terrorist attack orchestrated by al Qaeda luckily fizzled out, it took Obama days before he made a public statement about the incident.
But when Eric and Cheryl Whitaker's son suffers a minor injury while playing on the beach, Obama springs into action, speeding from the golf course back to his vacation compound, causing a panic.
Some accounts of the drama:
From the Associated Press:
President Obama abruptly ended his golf outing and sped in his motorcade to his compound yesterday after he learned a child of friends was injured while playing on the beach.
Members of the first family were fine, a White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a reluctance to discuss personal matters involving the president.
An ambulance left the Obamas' with lights flashing. The injury to a child of Eric and Cheryl Whitaker, friends of the Obamas, was described as relatively minor, and the child did not require stitches.
Obama was playing golf with friends from Chicago who joined him on his holiday vacation. The White House did not identify whose child was injured
President Obama was unexpectedly taken away from a golf course in Hawaii on Monday and returned to the beachfront compound where he has been staying because the son of one of his friends had been hurt.
A White House spokesman, Bill Burton, said that the president and his family were unhurt.
An official said the person whose son was injured was Dr. Eric Whitaker, who along with other friends of Mr. Obama has been staying in a three-house compound rented in the Kailua area outside Honolulu.
Mr. Obama, Dr. Whitaker and others had been golfing at the Luana Hills Country Club for about an hour when they suddenly jumped into the presidential motorcade and made a dramatic, high-speed departure. The unexpected move triggered concerns about whether the president was injured, particularly after an ambulance with flashing lights sped to the compound. The White House at first did not explain the incident out of concern for the privacy of the Whitakers, but later sent Mr. Burton to tell reporters the first family was uninjured.
The ambulance left after about 15 minutes at the compound, followed by a black sedan. Mr. Obama returned via motorcade to the golf course. An administration official said no stitches were needed.
President Obama's vacation keeps getting bumpier.
On Monday, Obama left an Oahu golf course abruptly, racing back to his family's vacation home after a member of his traveling entourage was hurt.
The son of Eric Whitaker, a close friend of the president's, suffered a minor injury resulting from "run-of-the-mill beach injury," a person familiar with the incident said. The boy was checked out at a local hospital, where doctors determined he would not need stitches, White House spokesman Bill Burton said late Monday.
"Eric and Cheryl Whitaker's son was examined and released from the hospital. He is home playing with his friends and just fine," Burton said.
Several families, including the Whitakers and fellow Chicagoans Marty Nesbitt and his wife and children, are traveling with the Obamas and staying at the vacation house in Kailua.
The president had spent just an hour on Luana Hills Country Club's golf course after making remarks on the attempted Christmas Day airline attack, which consumed much of his weekend. Whitaker was one of those in Obama's golf foursome.
After the entourage departed unexpectedly, the motorcade raced back to the house in a dramatic fashion, and an ambulance was seen speeding in that direction. The incident was initially described only as a "personal matter." A short time later, Obama returned to the golf course.
It seems like the Left has been whining about detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay forever.
Closing Gitmo was so high on the radical Leftists' to-do list that Obama issued an executive order dealing with the closure of the detention facility about 48 hours into his presidential term, on January 22, 2009.
Leftists have painted Gitmo as the place where the U.S. violates human rights, American policy at its worst. They clamored for the release of detainees. What a mistake!
ABC reports that two of the al Qaeda leaders responsible for plotting the Flight 253 attack had been held at Gitmo but were released in 2007. After their release, they entered a rehab program and worked with paints and crayons.
Apparently, the art therapy failed.
Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents.
...American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.
Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody. Al-Harbi has since changed his name to Muhamad al-Awfi.
Both of the former Guantanamo detainees are described as military commanders and appear on a January, 2009 video along with the man described as the top leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Abu Basir Naser al-Wahishi, formerly Osama bin Laden's personal secretary.
In its Monday statement claiming responsibility for the Northwest bombing, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula called bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab a "hero" and a "martyr" and lauded him for beating U.S. intelligence.
The two-page written claim included a photo of Abdulmutallab and boasted of Al Qaeda's success in designing "advanced explosive packages" that can pass through airport screening undetected.
The statement also asks for attacks upon Americans in the Arabian peninsula, and promises further attacks on the American people.
..."The so-called rehabilitation programs are a joke," a U.S. diplomat said in describing the Saudi efforts with released Guantanamo detainees.
Saudi officials concede its program has had its "failures" but insist that, overall, the effort has helped return potential terrorists to a meaningful life.
One program gives the former detainees paints and crayons as part of the rehabilitation regimen.
Vikings quarterback Brett Favre fumbles after getting tripped up by Israel Idonije in the first quarter. Tommie Harris recovered the ball. (Jeff Wheeler, McClatchy-Tribune / December 28, 2009)
Minnesota's Brett Favre grimaces on the sidelines during a timeout.
(Scott Strazzante, Chicago Tribune / December 22, 2009)
Football doesn't get better than Monday night's game.
The Bears handed the Vikings a loss in overtime.
I guess Brett Favre can't win in Chicago in December even if he's wearing his dream purple jersey.
This guarantees another week of Favre-Childress drama.
I love it.
Check this out from the White House Twitter page:
That's a little weird looking.
Here's the link from the tweet: President Obama Speaks Out on Iran Violence.
اوباما
بله ما می توانیم
According to Google Translate, that's "Obama" and "Yes we can."
FINALLY, Obama took some time away from his vacation to get in front of a camera and address the American people about the Flight 253 terrorist attack that was foiled, absolutely no thanks to him.
Here's the transcript of his remarks:
Good morning, everybody. I wanted to take just a few minutes to update the American people on the attempted terrorist attack that occurred on Christmas Day and the steps we're taking to ensure the safety and security of the country.
The investigation's ongoing. And I spoke again this morning with Attorney General Eric Holder, the secretary of homeland security, Janet Napolitano, and my counterterrorism and homeland security adviser, John Brennan. I asked them to keep -- continue monitoring the situation to keep the American people and members of Congress informed.
Here's what we know so far: On Christmas Day, Northwest Airlines Flight 253 was en route from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Detroit. As the plane made its final approach to Detroit Metropolitan Airport, a passenger allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device on his body, setting off a fire.
Thanks to the quick and heroic actions of passengers and crew, the suspect was immediately subdued, the fire was put out, and the plane landed safely. The suspect is now in custody and has been charged with attempting to destroy an aircraft.
A full investigation has been launched into this attempted act of terrorism, and we will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable.
Now, this was a serious reminder of the dangers that we face and the nature of those who threaten our homeland. Had the suspect succeeded in bringing down that plane, it could have killed nearly 300 passengers and crew, innocent civilians preparing to celebrate the holidays with their families and friends.
The American people should be assured that we are doing everything in our power to keep you and your family safe and secure during this busy holiday season.
Since I was first notified of this incident, I've ordered the following actions to be taken to protect the American people and to secure air travel.
First, I directed that we take immediate steps to ensure the safety of the traveling public. We made sure that all flights still in the air were secure and could land safely. We immediately enhanced screening and security procedures for all flights, domestic and international. We added federal air marshals to flights entering and leaving the United States. And we're working closely in this country, federal, state and local law enforcement, with our international partners.
Second, I've ordered two important reviews, because it's absolutely critical that we learn from this incident and take the necessary measures to prevent future acts of terrorism.
The first review involves our watch list system, which our government has had in place for many years to identify known and suspected terrorists so that we can prevent their entry into the United States. Apparently the suspect in the Christmas incident was in this system, but not on a watch list, such as the so-called no-fly list. So I have ordered a thorough review, not only of how information related to the subject was handled, but of the overall watch list system and how it can be strengthened.
The second review will examine all screening policies, technologies and procedures related to air travel. We need to determine just how the suspect was able to bring dangerous explosives aboard an aircraft and what additional steps we can take to thwart future attacks.
Third, I've directed my national security team to keep up the pressure on those who would attack our country. We do not yet have all the answers about this latest attempt, but those who would slaughter innocent men, women and children must know that the United States will more -- do more than simply strengthen our defenses. We will continue to use every element of our national power to disrupt, to dismantle and defeat the violent extremists who threaten us, whether they are from Afghanistan or Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia, or anywhere where they are plotting attacks against the U.S. homeland.
Finally, the American people should remain vigilant, but also be confident. Those plotting against us seek not only to undermine our security, but also the open society and the values that we cherish as Americans. This incident, like several that have preceded it, demonstrates that an alert and courageous citizenry are far more resilient than an isolated extremist.
As a nation, we will do everything in our power to protect our country. As Americans, we will never give in to fear or division. We will be guided by our hopes, our unity, and our deeply held values. That's who we are as Americans; that's what our brave men and women in uniform are standing up for as they spend the holidays in harm's way. And we will continue to do everything that we can to keep America safe in the new year and beyond.
Before I leave, let me also briefly address the events that have taken place over the last few days in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States joins with the international community in strongly condemning the violent and unjust suppression of innocent Iranian citizens, which has apparently resulted in detentions, injuries, and even death.
For months, the Iranian people have sought nothing more than to exercise their universal rights. Each time they have done so, they have been met with the iron fist of brutality, even on solemn occasions and holy days. And each time that has happened, the world has watched with deep admiration for the courage and the conviction of the Iranian people who are part of Iran's great and enduring civilization.
What's taking place within Iran is not about the United States or any other country. It's about the Iranian people and their aspirations for justice and a better life for themselves. And the decision of Iran's leaders to govern through fear and tyranny will not succeed in making those aspirations go away.
As I said in Oslo, it's telling when governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation.
Along with all free nations, the United States stands with those who seek their universal rights. We call upon the Iranian government to abide by the international obligations that it has to respect the rights of its own people.
We call for the immediate release of all who have been unjustly detained within Iran. We will continue to bear witness to the extraordinary events that are taking place there. And I'm confident that history will be on the side of those who seek justice.
Thank you very much, everybody. And Happy New Year.
I heard Clarence Page, columnist for the Chicago Tribune, make this despicable comment on The McLaughlin Group over the weekend.
He pegged the Tea Party movement as the year's most defining political moment, only he didn't use the term "Tea Party."
CLARENCE PAGE: The backlash movement known as the 'teabaggers,' who kind of asked for that name and now they regret it.
The death of six-month-old Dekia Mattox is being investigated as a homicide.
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Charges could be filed Monday against some of the four people who were arrested in connection with the weekend death of a 6-month-old girl, a Milwaukee police spokeswoman said.
Police are investigating the death of Dekia Mattox as a homicide, police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz said Monday. Schwartz did not release the cause of death.
Officers were called to a home in the 2700 block of N. Richards St. about 2:45 a.m. Saturday, Schwartz said. Dekia was pronounced dead just before 4 a.m. Saturday.
Police have previously been called to the home to investigate complaints of drug dealing and misuse of 911, Schwartz said.
...A 48-year-old woman who was arrested at the house is being held in the Milwaukee County Jail on suspicion of neglecting a child, causing death, according to jail records.
At least two of the people taken into custody - a 39-year-old man and a 46-year-old man - were arrested on outstanding warrants, according to arrest records.
The 39-year-old man has since been released, and the 46-year-old man is being held in the county jail on suspicion of retail theft, public drinking and trespassing, according to jail records.
Add 6-week-old Navaeh McIntosh to Milwaukee's inexcusably long list of co-sleeping deaths in 2009.
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
A 6-week-old girl was found dead Christmas morning after spending the night co-sleeping with her mother and her 2-year-old brother.
The mother, Africa Shaw, 27, told investigators that her daughter's lips were blue and her body cold when Shaw woke about 8:30 a.m. Friday, according to a medical examiner's report. The cause of the child's death has not been determined.
Shaw told investigators she fed the child, Navaeh McIntosh, Thursday evening, and then placed the infant on a baby blanket on Shaw's queen-size bed. She covered the baby with a loosely knit baby blanket. Shaw slept with two pillows and a sheet. Her 2-year-old son, who slept at the foot of the bed, was covered with a blanket, according to a medical examiner's report.
Shaw told investigators that her 10-year-old son slept on the floor at the foot of the bed and that her 6-year-old daughter slept on the floor beside her.
The mother, who according to the report is employed as a certified day-care teacher at Nakeema's Wonderland, 4117 N. 7th St., told investigators she played cards and drank two beers before going to bed with her children, according to the report.
Latasha Jackson's Menomonee Falls home, a mansion she was trying to sell for $1,499,900, went up in flames this morning.
That ticks me off. Our tax dollars paid for that home. It's a shame to see it gutted by fire.
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
An early morning blaze destroyed the Menomonee Falls mansion owned by Latasha Jackson, a child-care provider under criminal investigation after receiving millions of dollars from the taxpayer-financed Wisconsin Shares program.
Fire officials said the call came in at 5:17 Sunday morning. No one was at the home, located on Goetz Court, at the time of the blaze, and no firefighters were reported injured. An agent from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was called in to assist the investigation.
Jackson, 32, was the subject of a Journal Sentinel story that outlined how she reaped nearly $3 million from the Wisconsin Shares program - and bought a Jaguar convertible and built the 7,600-square-foot house with an indoor swimming pool and indoor basketball court - while, for 10 years, regulators ignored red flags indicating she was scamming the system. The story sparked a wave of taxpayer outrage and led to a sweeping crackdown on sketchy child-care providers. Within weeks, state regulators cut public funding to about 130 child-care providers suspected of cheating the program.
Menomonee Falls Fire Chief Jeff Hevey said Jackson, who also goes by her married name, Latasha Wilder, was out of town and that he spoke to her Sunday morning.
"I spoke to them on the phone and let them know their house was a total loss," Hevey said. "They were devastated by the news."
Janet Napolitano and the Obama administration are doing an about-face on the attempted Flight 253 terrorist attack.
Here's Napolitano putting a positive spin on "the system":
This morning, she talks about "the system" failing miserably.
Good grief.
Often when a public official whines about being taken out of context, that official is in CYA mode.
There's a problem when the issue becomes the statements from the Obama administration rather than keeping the focus on terrorism.
From the New York Times:
The secretary of homeland security, Janet Napolitano, said Monday that the thwarted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner represented a failure of the nation’s aviation security system, not the success she and other administration officials had portrayed in comments over the weekend.
Ms. Napolitano said Monday on NBC’S “Today” that her remark the day before — “the system has worked really very, very smoothly over the course of the past several days” — had been taken out of context. “Our system did not work in this instance,” she said. “No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way.”
As criticism mounted that security lapses had led to a brush with disaster on the Christmas holiday, President Obama ordered a review on Sunday of the two major planks of the aviation security system — watch lists and detection equipment at airport checkpoints. Some members of Congress urgently questioned why, more than eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks, security measures could not keep makeshift bombs off airliners.
The White House press office said early Monday that President Obama would make a statement within hours from the Kaneohe Marine Base in Hawaii.
Christmas for the Obamas did not include a church service.
That's weird.
Obama claims to be a Christian, but he didn't attend a church service on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. What would his mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, say about that?
He wants us to believe that he's a very spiritual man and that he prays every day.
When Obama was running for president and in a tough race against Hillary Clinton, the Associated Press reported:
The Illinois senator also sought to ease lingering Internet-fed concerns about his religion, in particular whether he was a closet Muslim.
"I am a devout Christian. I have been a member of the same church for 20 years. I pray to Jesus every night," he declared at an earlier appearance in the rural southern Ohio town of Nelsonville. He said he wanted to halt "confusion that has been deliberately perpetrated."
President Obama has performed a difficult but familiar balancing act over the past few days: ordering new security measures in the wake of an attempted airliner attack without excessively alarming the public -- or triggering an outcry from civil liberties advocates.
He has done so almost entirely out of sight. On vacation in Hawaii, tucked away in a lush neighborhood where his family is renting a waterfront home, Obama dispatched surrogates back in Washington -- chiefly Homeland Security Secretary Janet A. Napolitano and press secretary Robert Gibbs, who appeared on the Sunday talk shows -- to reassure the public and explain his approach.
Yet even as the president avoided cameras and played golf and basketball over the weekend, his aides were quick to explain how fully Obama minded the aftermath of the Detroit case. He was briefed shortly after 6 a.m. on Sunday about the latest developments in the Christmas Day incident, aides said. After another airplane security breach occurred three hours later, his advisers quickly issued a statement on his behalf, even though that episode turned out to be a misunderstanding.
...Obama is used to explaining policy himself. But so far in Hawaii, the Christmas Day incident has not required a presidential appearance or Obama's rhetorical skills.
Instead, after going to the gym and playing basketball with a small group -- including friends and staff -- Obama took his family and friends to a Marine Corps base beach that had been closed for the presidential entourage.
His aides noted another important balance Obama is trying to strike: between work and play, his job as president and his family, his public profile and a personal retreat that has been almost completely private for four full days.
"Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt's time, there is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. 'The market will take care of everything,' they tell us. If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes -- especially for the wealthy -- our economy will grow stronger. Sure, they say, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, then jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else. And, they argue, even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, well, that's the price of liberty.
"Now, it's a simple theory. And we have to admit, it's one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government. That's in America's DNA. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker. But here's the problem: It doesn't work. It has never worked."
"[T]here's no such thing as shovel-ready projects."
"The picture was of me, and I sent it."
--ANTHONY WEINER
"A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House."
"I have not said that I was a single payer supporter...."
--BARACK OBAMA"We are going to have to, if you're very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive, so we're going to let you die."
--ROBERT REICH, truth teller
----------------------------
"[Health services should not be guaranteed to] individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia."
----------------------------
"And I can make a firm pledge: under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase - not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."
--BARACK OBAMA, firm pledge-breaker
The story TMJ4 doesn't want you to see-- DIRTY DINING: BROOKFIELD PERKINS
"I think that the Tea Party have some very, very -- some quite sensible notions, actually, when -- on paper. But also that kind of seems to be an umbrella thing that just covers up a lot of real homophobia and racism."
"[The terrorists] flew the plane in, but we caused it; because we were bombing them and they told us to stop."
"I'll put it this way, you don't deserve to keep all of [your money]. It's not a question of deserving, because what government is, is those things that we decide to do together."
"[Tea Party Republicans] have acted like terrorists."
"Why did- Couldn't the President have said at that moment, way back in December of last year, 'no game playing. No hostage-taking. No terrorizing this country with the debt ceiling. I'm not going to negotiate with you guys. You can't play it that way.' Could he have done that?"
"[T]he tea-party Hobbits could return to Middle Earth having defeated Mordor."
--WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL
"I remember distinctly an image of--we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at [Obama's] pant leg and his perfectly creased pant, and I'm thinking, a) he's going to be president and b) he'll be a very good president."
--DAVID BROOKS
"Circumcision is barbaric and stupid.... I love my Jewish friends, I love the apples and the honey and the funny little hats, but stop cutting your babies."
--RUSSELL CROWE
"I feel like calling her back and smackin' her around."
--FRED CLARK, DEMOCRAT
"The picture was of me, and I sent it."
--ANTHONY WEINER
"[I]f you go back to the year 2000, when we had an obvious disaster and - and saw that our voting process needed refinement, and we did that in the America Votes Act and made sure that we could iron out those kinks, now you have the Republicans, who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally - and very transparently - block access to the polls to voters who are more likely to vote Democratic candidates than Republican candidates. And it's nothing short of that blatant."
--DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ
"Wisconsin voters have spoken and I am grateful for, and humbled by, their confidence and trust."
"I'm ecstatic. My supporters are ecstatic, and I'm looking forward to becoming a justice on August 1st."
"We ran a campaign that was focused on being positive and respectful and, and winning; and we did win, and we're confident that the margin will hold."
"You know, the numbers showed that we won and we are gratified to have that victory in hand."
"Paul Ryan: the Dr. Kevorkian of Medicare."
--PAUL BEGALA
"This is probably one of the worst times we've seen because the numbers of people elected to Congress. I went through this as co-chair of the arts caucus. In '94 people were elected simply to come here to kill the National Endowment for the Arts. Now they’re here to kill women."
"The protesters have proven today that they‘re not going away. It was a pretty rough night last night. You can imagine if people said, well, we just can‘t fight the power. Instead, this morning, they came by tens, by hundreds, by thousands. By midday today, it was easily more than 10,000, perhaps as many as 15,000 people on the square here in Madison. Not organized by anyone, just grassroots citizens who came out just like the Minutemen in 1776."
--JOHN NICHOLS
"They're sitting on the money, they're using it for their own -- they're putting it someplace else with no interest in helping you with your life, with that money. We've allowed them to take that. That's not theirs, that's a national resource, that's ours. We all have this -- we all benefit from this or we all suffer as a result of not having it. I think we need to go back to taxing these people at the proper rates."
"I realized I was so un-self-examined I could have been a Republican, but you know, thank goodness I'm just gay. So that's much better, don't you think?"
"Why don't we just raise the taxes and let these folks have their collective bargaining, have their union representation and go back to their jobs? Raise the taxes on the wealthy."
"In 1933, [Hitler] abolished unions and that's what our Governor [Scott Walker] is doing today."
--LENA TAYLOR, Democrat State Senator
"So I would urge my Republican colleagues, no matter how strongly they feel -- you know, we have three branches of government. We have a House. We have a Senate. We have a president. And all three of us are going to have to come together and give some, but it is playing with fire to risk the shutting down of the government."
"Well, when you start off with the Preamble of the Constitution, you talk about the pursuit of happiness."
"I'm Rebecca Kleefisch. I performed fellatio on all the talk show hosts in Milwaukee. And they endorsed me and that's how I became lieutenant governor."
"Brett here. You and Crissy want to get together? I'm all alone. Kinda lonely tonight. I guess I have bad intentions."
"I think [Sarah Palin's] a loon and I think she's kind of a traitor to this country because she would love to erase the line between church and state... [H]er followers are the dumbest people on Earth. ... No, but seriously, they can barely scare up a pulse. I'm serious. They're not, they are really stupid. They're stupid... The people who like Sarah Palin are all on the government dole going out there and bitching about people wanting to get on the government dole. Please. Every one of them is on the government money."
"Dick Cheney. He's never worked an honest day in his life."
"Do you think this Constitution-loving is getting out of hand? I mean, is it a nod to the Tea Party?"
"We can’t just leave it up to the parents."
"[Military leaders] tell us that childhood obesity isn’t just a public health issue; they tell us that it is not just an economic threat -- it is a national security threat as well."
"Actually, I did not take part in [the assassination of Sarah Palin]. I led it."
"[The repeal of ObamaCare is] a kind of creeping genocide."
"[Obama] has to realize that Mitch McConnell has virtually said so that politically he wants to cut out his heart and throw his liver to the dogs."
--DAN RATHER
"And the instructions are not to improvise a comedy sketch, but to elect a group of unqualified, unstable individuals who will do what they are told, in exchange for money and power, and march this nation as far backward as they can get, backward to Jim Crow, or backward to the breadlines of the '30s, or backward to hanging union organizers, or backward to the trusts and the robber barons.
"Result: the Tea Party. Vote backward, vote Tea Party. And if you are somehow indifferent to what is planned for next Tuesday, it is nothing short of an attempted use of democracy to end this democracy."--KEITH "Reagan's dead and he was a lousy President" OLBERMANN
"I gotta wonder when people are gonna start wearing uniforms. I mean they've got an army out there in Alaska of militia people. You've got these guys going around acing like street thugs. I mean it isn't far from what we saw in the thirties, where all of a sudden, political parties started showing up in uniform."
"[Sharron Angle] is a moron on top of being evil... I'd like to see her do this ad in the South Bronx. Come here, bitch. Come to New York and do it. I'm not praying for her. She's going to hell. She's going to hell, this bitch."
"So people have been hurting and I understand that. And it doesn't give them comfort or solace for me to tell them, you know, but for me, we'd be in a worldwide depression."
"I met a woman who's doing research on chromosomal damage to infants, maybe it's even when they're, before they're born, and the impact it has on learning, particularly for little boys. And I listened to this woman and I thought two things. I thought this woman's a lot smarter than I am. And second I thought, this woman's doing the Lord's work. She's using these EMBRYONIC stem cells and she's gonna improve the quality of life for these kids."
"And to play Dick Cheney, all I had to do was find my Dick Cheney. And you can find all the villainy in the world in your own heart, and that's what an actor's job is. I always say to kids, inside you is Hitler and Jesus. And you got to find the appropriate person and bring them out."
"Because I live in the District of Columbia which is so predominantly Democratic, I am a registered Democrat. But I am an avowed neutral. And to put that into practice, I take my young daughter into the voting booth and she votes for me. She's now 14. We've been doing this since she was about age 4. She's now quite informed."
"Sarah Palin's an idiot. Come on. This is a remarkably, stunningly, jaw-droppingly incompetent and mean woman."
"The Democrats may have moved into the center, but the Republicans have moved into a mental institution."
--AARON SORKIN
"Perhaps the greatest threat of all is the undermining of our Constitution and the systematic attack against the inalienable rights of the citizens of this nation, rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution. At the vanguard of this insidious attack is the Tea Party. This band of misguided citizens is moving perilously close to achieving villainous ends."
"Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay."
"[Christine O'Donnell is] a witch who doesn't masturbate."
"Ah, the Tea Party, the nativist bed-wetters who somehow control our national dialogue. Yes, I call them the Pee Party, Jay, because they're always peeing in their pants about something. They're just, they're afraid of a mosque being built in New York. They're afraid of guns. You know, they think Obama, who like every other pussy Democrat has never said a single word about gun control, but they are very sure that he and his Negro army are coming after their guns. You know what? If you think that he's coming after your guns, you need to get out of your chat room and have your house tested for lead. He's not coming after your guns or your Bible or your fishing pole or your chewing tobacco."
"That's a trade-off society is making because of very, very high medical costs, and a lack of willingness to say, you know, is spending a million dollars on that last three months of life for that patient, would it be better not to lay off those ten teachers and to make that trade-off in medical costs. But that;s called the 'Death Panel' and you're not supposed to have that discussion."
"NOT the 'whiteman's bitch'"
--IESHUH GRIFFIN
"[If Rush Limbaugh suffered a heart attack in my presence, I would] laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out. I never knew I had this much hate in me. But he deserves it."
--SARAH SPITZ
"You want freedom, you going to have to kill some crackers. You going to have to kill some of their babies."
"If this was Texas, which is the state that, that is directly on the border with Mexico, and they were calling for a measure like this, saying that they had a major issue with, you know, with undocumented people flooding their borders, I would say I would have to look twice at this. "But this is a state that is a ways removed from the border. And, um, it just, it doesn't make sense to me that when you google this subject, if you put in 'Arizona S.B. 1070,' that you see a picture of the governor of Arizona meeting with President Obama in May of 2010. If you have direct linkage to the president, there are already National Guard troops on the border in Arizona."
"Tell [the Jews] to get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land. It's not German. It's not Poland. [The Jews] can go home. Poland. Germany."
--HELEN THOMAS
"After the last eight years, it's good to have a president that knows what a library is."
--PAUL McCARTNEY
"Now, they're saying I groped a male staffer. Yes, I did. Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn't breathe and four guys jumped on top of me. It was my 50th birthday. It was kill the old guy."
--ERIC MASSA
"By the way, I just want to point out I'm wearing my splash shield because I was told I was going to be in the splash zone (during Harry Smith's colonoscopy on live TV)."
--KATIE COURIC
"And that Word is, we have to give voice to what that means in terms of public policy that would be in keeping with the values of the Word."
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"Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance or that people could start a business and be entrepreneurial and take risk, but not job loss because of a child with asthma or someone in the family is bipolar—you name it, any condition — is job-locking."
--NANCY PELOSI
"Back in World War II, we viewed the Japanese as 'yellow, slant-eyed dogs' that believed in different gods. They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that sound familiar, by any chance, to what's going on today?"
--TOM HANKS
"The 'White Right' is trying to set Barack up to be assassinated.... Here are Christians praying for God to kill Barack Obama."
--LOUIS FARRAKHAN
"I refuse to accept the notion that the United States of America is not going to lead the world economically throughout the 20th Century."
--JOE BIDEN
"Obama's critics keep blasting him for Chicago-style politics. So, fine. Channel your inner Al Capone and go gangsta against your foes. Let 'em know that if they aren't with you, they are against you, and will pay the price."
--ROLAND MARTIN
"TeaBagger crowd: polite. The nutjobs who were bussed to Town Halls didn't get their way paid to Sarah [Palin]'s $100,000 speech."
--ROGER EBERT
"Martha Coakley is running to fill the rest of Ted Kennedy's term, and her opponent is a far-right tea-bagger Republican."
--CHUCK SCHUMER
"I tell you what, if I lived in Massachusetts, I'd try to vote ten times. I don't know if they'd let me or not, but I'd try to. Yeah, that's right, I'd cheat to keep these bastards out. I would. 'Cause that's exactly what they are."
--ED SCHULTZ
"We also see how revved up the tea baggers are at the thought of hijacking health care reform and every chance we have at making progress in Washington."
--JOHN KERRY
"A few years ago, this guy (Obama) would have been getting us coffee."
--BILL CLINTON
"[T]he system has worked really very, very smoothly over the course of the past several days."
----------------------------
"Our system did not work in this instance. No one is happy or satisfied with that."
--JANET NAPOLITANO
"It's not $100 million. It's $300 million, and I'm proud of it and will keep fighting for it."
----------------------------
"The fact of the matter is, and I know people don't believe this, but I can't be bought."
(Can't be bought? Ho, ho, ho.)--MARY LANDRIEU
"I want to say, but it's complicated, but I want to say categorically yes. I agree with you. We should not be using health care reform to provide government access to abortion. I hear what you say. And I would hope that people from whatever party won't try and go down that road and put into a bill in the dead of night and then, lo and behold, wake up the next morning and something that shouldn't have happened did happen. We should not do that."
--HERB KOHL, Liar
"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z."
--KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED
Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder welcomes you to New York!
"Allahu Akbar!"
--MAJOR NIDAL MALIK HASAN
"Physically and from a talent level, this is the best team (the Vikings) I've ever been on."
--BRETT FAVRE
"I didn't realize I had written a column defending Roman Polanski and minimized his crime - are you sure it was me? I mean, I? There is, apparently, more to this crime than it would seem, and it may sound like a hollow defense, but in Hollywood I am not sure a 13-year-old is really a 13-year-old."
--TOM SHALES
[The UN podium] doesn't smell of sulfur. It's gone. No, it smells of something else. It smells of hope."
--HUGO CHAVEZ
"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American."
"Joe Wilson yelled 'You lie!' at a president who didn't. But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!"
--MAUREEN DOWD
"One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game... During the 7th inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez."
--DAVID LETTERMAN
"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life."
--SONIA SOTOMAYOR
"We all considered sexual abuse of minors as a moral evil, but had no understanding of its criminal nature."
--REMBERT WEAKLAND, Archbishop of Milwaukee 1977- 2002
"You know, you might want to look into this, [President Obama], because I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight."
"Rush Limbaugh -- 'I hope the country the fails.' I hope his kidneys fail."
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"[Obama] told me I did a great job. The first lady said the same thing. I got a 'well done' from the president, I'm on cloud nine."
--WANDA SYKES
"I think what Rush does as an entertainer diminishes the party and intrudes or inserts into our public life a kind of nastiness that we would be better to do without."
"Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less."
--COLIN POWELL
"[Tea Party goers are] just a bunch of wimpy, whiny, weasels who don't love their country."
--PAUL BEGALA
"[A]t a certain point I don't think we'll be so consumed with being the pre-eminent super-power and, you know, driven by sort of militarism and this need to export, you know, democracy and so forth."
--RON HOWARD
"I wouldn't want [gay marriage] to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court."
--BARNEY FRANK
"Going forward, my mind will be open to every solution -- except one. We should not -- we must not -- and I will not -- raise taxes."
--JIM DOYLE, Liar
"He's a terrorist. Rush Limbaugh is a terrorist."
--JOY BEHAR
"You know, I just want to say to her (Sarah Palin), just very quickly...F--- you."
--JON STEWART
"Should I be worried about being a slave and being returned to slavery?"
--WHOOPI GOLDBERG
"I also believe that America is the greatest sin against God."
--FR. MICHAEL PFLEGER
"I'd like to tip off law enforcement to an even larger child-abusing religious cult. Its leader also has a compound, and this guy not only operates outside the bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats. That's right, the Pope is coming to America this week and, ladies, he's single."
"If you have a few hundred followers, and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you 'Pope.' It's like, if you can't pay your mortgage, you're a deadbeat. But if you can't pay a million mortgages, you're Bear Stearns and we bail you out. And that is who the Catholic Church is: the Bear Stearns of organized pedophilia -- too big, too fat."
"When the current Pope was in his previous Vatican job as John Paul's Dick Cheney, he wrote a letter instructing every Catholic bishop to keep the sex abuse of minors secret until the Statute of Limitations ran out. And that's the Church's attitude: 'We're here, we're queer, get used to it,' which is fine, far be it from me to criticize religion. But just remember one thing: If the Pope was -- instead of a religious figure -- merely the CEO of a nationwide chain of day care centers, where thousands of employees had been caught molesting kids and then covering it up, he'd be arrested faster than you can say 'who wants to touch Mr. Wiggle?'"
--BILL MAHER
"Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken. Today the reason for the Zionist regime's existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation."
--MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD
"We'll be eight degrees hotter in ten, not ten but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals."
--TED TURNER
"Look, [Mitt] Romney comes from a religion founded by a criminal who was anti-American, pro-slavery, and a rapist. And he comes from that lineage and says, 'I respect this religion fully.'"
--LAWRENCE O'DONNELL
[The Bush] administration has done the greatest assault on our Constitution perhaps in American history."
--RUSS FEINGOLD
"I invite you to embrace Islam... There are no taxes in Islam, but rather there is a limited Zakaat [alms] totaling 2.5 percent."
--OSAMA BIN LADEN
"Mexico does not end at its borders... Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico."
--FELIPE CALDERON
"If our children are healthy, they'll develop into their full potential and become wonderful tax-paying citizens sometime."
--STEVE KAGEN
"I just freaked out."
--ERIC HAINSTOCK
"The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, 'Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it's not a problem.' If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant."
--AL GORE
"Don't fear the terrorists. They're mothers and fathers."
--ROSIE O'DONNELL
"Is America ready for a black president? Well, I say we just had a retarded one. When did being black become a bigger deterrent than being retarded?"
--CHRIS ROCK
"Shut the f--- up! Shut up if you can't take a joke [about President Bush]!"
--BARBRA STREISAND
"Right, oh, yeah, Happy 9/11! Celebrate the day, right?"
--JAMES BROLIN, Mr. Barbra Streisand
"I think President Bush very well may have signed an authorization for the 9/11 attacks."
--KEVIN BARRETT, UW-MADISON Lecturer
"I said what I said. I am not guilty."
--SADDAM HUSSEIN
"Terri will not be starved to death. Her nutrition and hydration will be taken away."
--MICHAEL SCHIAVO
"On the eve of the election last month my wife Judith and I were driving home late in the afternoon and turned on the radio for the traffic and weather. What we instantly got was a freak show of political pornography: lies, distortions, and half-truths -- half-truths being perhaps the blackest of all lies. "
--BILL MOYERS
"I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for."
--HOWARD DEAN
"The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy.' They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win."
--MICHAEL MOORE
"And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the--of--the historical customs, religious customs."
--JOHN KERRY
"F---ing retarded."
"[Republicans] can go f--- themselves!"
"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president."
--HILLARY CLINTON
"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is."
--BILL CLINTON
"And let me tell you something -- for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment."
--MICHELLE OBAMA
"If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew, uh, as a janitor, makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that with a badge of honor."
----------------------------
"If you love me, you got to help me pass this bill."
----------------------------
"[F]or most of my lifetime, the United States was such a dominant economic power, we were such a large market, our industry, our technology, our manufacturing was so significant that we always met the rest of the world economically on our terms. And now, because of the incredible rise of India and China and Brazil and other countries, the United States remains the largest economic and the largest market but there’s real competition out there. And that's potentially healthy. It makes -- Michelle was saying earlier I like tough questions because it keeps me on my toes. Well, this will keep America on its toes."
----------------------------
"If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're gonna PUNISH OUR ENEMIES and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,' if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's gonna be harder and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2."
----------------------------
"We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but THEY GOTTA SIT IN BACK."
----------------------------
"We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever... we absorbed it and we are stronger."
----------------------------
----------------------------
"We are the ones we've been waiting for."
----------------------------
"We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers so I know whose ass to kick."
----------------------------
"We're not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that's fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or you're providing good service. We don't want people to stop fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow the economy."
----------------------------
"It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure."
----------------------------
"But I -- I think that the most important thing for the public to understand is, we're not handling any of these cases any different than the Bush administration handled them all through 9/11."
----------------------------
"One such translator was an American of Haitian descent, representative of the extraordinary work that our men and women in uniform do all around the world -- Navy CORPSE-MAN Christian [sic] Brossard. And lying on a gurney aboard the USNS Comfort, a woman asked Christopher: 'Where do you come from? What country? After my operation,' she said, 'I will pray for that country.' And in Creole, CORPSE-MAN Brossard responded, 'Etazini.' The United States of America."
----------------------------
"I hear that Dr. Joe Medicine Crow was around, and so I want to give a shout-out to that Congressional Medal of Honor winner. It's good to see you."
----------------------------
"We are God's partners in matters of life and death."
----------------------------
"[T]he Cambridge police acted stupidly."
----------------------------
"I am going to teach [my daughters] first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."
----------------------------
"The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings, and INEFFICIENCIES to our health care system."
----------------------------
"Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."
----------------------------
"In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good.... [A] democracy without values can lose its very soul."
--POPE BENEDICT XVI
"When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society."
--POPE JOHN PAUL II
"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."
--MOTHER TERESA
"To promote choice for its own sake is more akin to self-indulgence than self-determination. It is the philosophy of a pre-schooler in a candy shop."
--BRIAN POLLARD, M.D.
"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people."
--MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
"The house we hope to build is not for my generation but for yours. It is your future that matters. And I hope that when you are my age, you will be able to say as I have been able to say: We lived in freedom. We lived lives that were a statement, not an apology."
--RONALD REAGAN
"America has never been an empire. We may be the only great power in history that had the chance, and refused -- preferring greatness to power and justice to glory."
--GEORGE W. BUSH
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
--JOHN F. KENNEDY
"Liberalism is the philosophy of the stupid."
--MARK LEVIN
"We will be Warriors forever."
--BO ELLIS
"I know how much you're supposed to enjoy every sandwich, you know."
--WARREN ZEVON
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