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Bill O'Reilly Nails Robert WexlerTue Jul 22, 2008 at 09:11:12 PM Bill O'Reilly did a good number on "local" Congressman Robert Wexler tonight. And I think Wexler is in a bit of trouble. You see, the longtime Democratic rep says he lives in Delray Beach and he's required to maintain a residence in his district. But he really lives in Potomac MD. The house in Delray that he calls his "offical residence" is owned by Lawrence and Roslyn Cohen, the parents of Wexler's wife, Laurie. And it's in a restricted over-55 community, which makes it impossible for Wexler and and...

After meeting with top U.S. military commanders and members of the Iraqi government, Sen. Barack Obama today said his opposition to the surge and support for a firm timetable for the withdrawal of troops hasn't changed. ~snip~ Obama and Petraeus have also staked out opposing positions on whether there should be a timetable for withdrawing American forces. Obama said that in his meeting with Petraeus, the general discussed his "deep concerns" about "a timetable that doesn't take into account what they anticipate might be a change in conditions." "My job is to think about the national security interests as a...

MADRID — A Spanish court absolved four men and upheld the acquittal of a fifth on Thursday in the convoluted legal proceedings relating to the 2004 Madrid commuter train bombings that killed 191 people in the deadliest attack by Islamic militants on European soil. The rulings followed appeals of some of 21 convictions by a lower court after a five-month trial that ended in October. Seven other people were acquitted at that time. Most dramatically, the court on Thursday upheld the acquittal of one of the bombing’s accused masterminds, Rabei Osman, an Egyptian, who was found guilty in 2006 in...

From the Maha - Guess who's been involved intimately with Fannie Mae? Does the name Jamie Gorelick ring a bell? This woman is everywhere, and Jamie Gorelick got a 26 million payout when she left the place. Jamie Gorelick got 26 million to leave, one of Clinton's guys, Franklin Raines, Franklin Raines, he was kicked out after corrupting the place. He left shortly before he was taking it in the shorts, but he got out of there with no penalty whatsoever. What is it with these Clinton people? This is why we don't get any tell-all books on the Clinton...

In this morning's New York Times, Barack Obama published an op-ed on Iraq that presumably previews his "major speech" on the subject tomorrow. Even by Obama's standards, the piece is breathtakingly dishonest. Obama admits that he opposed the surge, and the attendant change in strategy and tactics, that have brought us close to victory. But he somehow manages to twist his being wrong about the surge--the major foreign policy issue that has arisen during his time in Congress--into vindication: But the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true. The strain on our military has grown,...

Sooner or later, voters are going to recognize the exquisite sensitivity of the Obama campaign to ridicule as weakness. By choosing to cry foul  over the New Yorker cover depicting the Obamas as the opposition supposedly sees him, the campaign reveals the precariousness of the substance-free image-building effort to date. The irrepressible Doug Ross  dug up a New Yorker cover mocking Bush and Cheney as the gay cowboys from Brokeback Mountain, sarcastically noting the missing firestorm of protest.   Are Americans really going to want to vote for someone who holds himself to be above criticism and mockery?    

Now that Barack Obama seems so keen on hearing what our commanders on the ground in Iraq think, he had better get ready to hear some bad news. His plan to withdraw all U.S. Troops within 16 months of taking office simply cannot be done logistically, say commanders on the ground. Unless, Obama just wants to leave all the equipment behind! Here is an excellent report from ABC and Good Morning America . . . (see video)

REV. JESSE JACKSON APOLOGIZES TO SEN. BARACK OBAMA FOR 'CRUDE AND HURTFUL COMMENTS' CAUGHT BY OPEN MIC... DEVELOPING...

The percentage of voters who give Congress good or excellent ratings has fallen to single digits for the first time in Rasmussen Reports tracking history. This month, just 9% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Most voters (52%) say Congress is doing a poor job, which ties the record high in that dubious category. Last month, 11% of voters gave the legislature good or excellent ratings. Congress has not received higher than a 15% approval rating since the beginning of 2008. The percentage of Democrats who give Congress positive ratings fell from 17% last month to 13%...

No, ignore that photograph, and its possible implications, and look further down the piece at this fellow (pictured at right; click to enlarge). Look closely at his medals. As any American veteran can tell you, it's as easy to spot the fact that those aren't American medals as it is to tell the difference between, say, an M4 and an AK-47. In particular, take a look at the top right medal in the gentleman's array. Then, take a look at the image below at left. See a resemblance? The medal is the "Order of the Patriotic War" -- "an Order...

Jay McKinnon, a self-described Department of Homeland Security-trained document specialist, has implicated himself in the production of fraudulent Hawaii birth certificate images similar to the one endorsed as genuine by the Barack Obama campaign, and appearing on the same blog entry where the supposedly authentic document appears. The evidence of forgery and manipulation of images of official documents, triggered by Israel Insider's revelation of the collection of Hawaii birth certificate images on the Photobucket site and the detective work of independent investigative journalists and imaging professionals in the three weeks since the publication of the images, implicate the Daily Kos,...

  In the beginning, there was the 2nd Kos image Posted by Polarik on Thursday, July 03, 2008 4:22:48 PM Which came first? Kos's first image or Kos's second image? Simple, it was the second image that appeared first, and then the first image appeared second. WTF, you might ask? Well, here is the Genesis of the faked images in order of their appearance: 1. Kos's first posted image (1024 x 1000 pixels, 300 DPI) is a direct reduction of their second image.The seal is visible. 2. Kos's second posted image (2427 x 2369pixels, 300DPI) was the starting point for...

Democratic presidential presumptive Sen. Barack Obama (IL) met with his terrorist supporting fundraiser, Jodie Evans, at a $5 million Hollywood fundraiser held last week at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion on Tuesday, June 24.In what can only be described as a big middle finger to the veterans and military families who have urged Obama to renounce Evans, Obama met with Evans and was photographed with her at the fundraiser.Evans is co-founder of the leftist anti-American group Code Pink. She and Code Pink have endorsed the terrorists in Iraq and have sent over $600,000 in cash and humanitarian aid to "the other...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Senator Barack Obama is issuing a call here today for more Americans to become involved in public service, imploring citizens of all ages to rally to the nation’s need at home and abroad. “I will ask for your service and your active citizenship when I am president of the United States,” Mr. Obama will say in an address here on a college campus. “This will not be a call issued in one speech or one program – this will be a central cause of my presidency.”

Scalia's selective historyBy Jack RakoveAppeals to the evidence of history figured prominently in last week's Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia vs. Heller, striking down a sweeping ban on handguns and affirming that the 2nd Amendment protects a fundamentally individual right "to keep and bear arms." Yet read the two main opinions by Justices Antonin Scalia (for the conservative majority) and John Paul Stevens (in dissent), and you will see that different ways of defining and reading what counts as historical evidence expose a fault line between them.One would have to be terribly naive to think that how these...

Fellow Blog Talk Radio compadre David Zublick over at Heading Right says, “Maybe Not“. I noted back here that when Kos produced - not a birth certificate - but a certificate of live birth there were several discrepancies noted that pointed to the fact - aside from the convenience - that the document was most likely forged. Since Obama has failed to produce a birth certificate, in-spite of several calls to do so, is telling indeed. I was born in 1958 in the State of Florida and I can get a birth certificate for ten bucks. I doubt Hawaii was...

The Fourth of July is a patriotic holiday but patriotism has long been viewed with suspicion or disdain by many of the intelligentsia. As far back as 1793, prominent British writer William Godwin called patriotism "high-sounding nonsense." Internationalism has long been a competitor with patriotism, especially among the intelligentsia. H.G. Wells advocated replacing the idea of duty to one's country with "the idea of cosmopolitan duty." Perhaps nowhere was patriotism so downplayed or deplored than among intellectuals in the Western democracies in the two decades after the horrors of the First World War, fought under various nations' banners of patriotism....

Click to view images froma patrol in Northeast Baghdad. Photos by Bill Murray. BAGHDAD, IRAQ: It’s near noon on a Friday in Northeast Baghdad and the neighborhoods the U.S. military calls Muhallahs 535 and 734 are quiet. It’s the weekend, and many adults are at the local mosques for worship, leaving the streets filled with dozens of adolescent boys, yelling, kicking and raising minor havoc on bicycles, soccer balls and the unlucky stray dog. As U.S. Army Specialist Luis Garza and 2nd Lieutenant Jonathon Logan patrol the neighborhoods, they remember these streets during a less docile time. Both men...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former New York Stock Exchange chief Richard Grasso won a knockout victory on Tuesday in his four-year fight to keep every last penny of his $187.5 million pay package, as an appeals court threw out the state's remaining claims against him. The ruling, Grasso's second court victory in the past week, prompted New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to throw in the towel. The New York Supreme Court's appellate division, in a 3-1 vote, dismissed two legal claims against Grasso brought by former Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in 2004. The ruling follows a decision last week...

Failed 2004 Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) lashed out today at the most decorated living American serviceman, Col. Bud Day, who was awarded the Medal Honor for his heroism as a POW during the Vietnam War.Kerry attacked Day for his role in the McCain Truth Squad (a new effort by presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain to defend his military service from criticism) because of Day's participation in the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth (SBVT) 2004 campaign which criticized Kerry's service in Vietnam as a junior naval officer and his actions protesting the war when he returned...

I’m not sure what to do with this. Obviously what he said raised someone’s eyebrow at ABC, but they don’t give us enough of a quote to know exactly what he’s saying. While Barack Obama was urging supporters not to devalue the military service of rival John McCain on Monday, a top Democratic voice on foreign policy argued at the political arm of a liberal think tank that the former POW’s isolation during the Vietnam war has hobbled the Arizona senator’s capacity as a war-time leader.The comments were made by Rand Beers, Sen. John Kerry’s, D-Mass., top national security adviser...

WASHINGTON: With Senator Barack Obama planning to visit the Middle East and Europe in an apparent effort to burnish his foreign policy credentials, the credentials of his likely presidential rival, Senator John McCain, came under sharp attack Sunday from a man considered a possible Democratic vice presidential candidate. The retired general Wesley Clark said McCain had not "held executive responsibility" and had not commanded troops in wartime. McCain's experience in Vietnam, where he was a prisoner of war for five years, has seemed at times almost to grant him invulnerability to criticism of his security background. But on Sunday he...

A bill introduced in Congress this week would "compel" oil and natural gas companies to produce from federal lands they are leasing. If only it were that easy to find and produce oil. Imagine, an act of Congress that could do what geology could not. These lawmakers ask why oil and gas companies want more access to federal lands to drill if they aren't using all of the 68 million acres they already have? Anyone with even the most basic understanding of how oil and natural gas are produced – and this should include many members of Congress – knows...

The disconnect between what Democrats are saying about Iraq and what is actually happening there has reached grotesque proportions. Democrats won an exhilarating electoral victory in 2006 pledging withdrawal at a time when conditions in Iraq were dire and we were indeed losing the war. Two years later, when everything is changed, they continue to reflexively repeat their "narrative of defeat and retreat" (as Joe Lieberman so memorably called it) as if nothing has changed. It is a position so utterly untenable that John McCain must seize the opportunity and, contrary to conventional wisdom, make the Iraq War the central...

This column will probably get Barack Obama in trouble, but that’s not my problem. I cannot tell a lie: Many Egyptians and other Arab Muslims really like him and hope that he wins the presidency. I have had a chance to observe several U.S. elections from abroad, but it has been unusually revealing to be in Egypt as Barack Hussein Obama became the Democrats’ nominee for president of the United States. While Obama, who was raised a Christian, is constantly assuring Americans that he is not a Muslim, Egyptians are amazed, excited and agog that America might elect a black...

The federal case against him is so strong that prosecutors had no interest in striking cooperation agreements with the ringleader of Spitzer's hooker-supplier, Emperors Club VIP, and his second in command, sources told The Post's Murray Weiss. Prosecutors have records of Spitzer's transactions, phone records and taped conversations with Emperors Club, and are confident they need little more to nail him on charges that could include violating prostitution laws and money laundering, sources said. Probers are also said to be looking into whether he used campaign funds to pay for his pleasures. The case against Spitzer includes the cooperation of...

As talking points go, especially in bringing the base around, you can do a lot worse than this. Think we’ll be hearing more of it going forward? Hmmm.

Former President Clinton lost the codes to nuclear war the day the Monica Lewinsky affair broke, was MIA in the fall of 1998 when a decision was needed on the killing of Osama bin Laden, and was "too busy watching a golf match" to OK a 1996 bombing mission in Iraq, says a blockbuster new book by Clinton's former military aide. Lt. Col. Robert Patterson, who carried the nuclear "football" from May 1996 to May 1998, crosses a line no other "mil aide" has before in condemning his commander in chief in Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How...

PARK CITY, Utah - President George W. Bush visited Park City to help shake the pockets of donors at a Deer Valley function to bolster Republican campaigns. The Park Record has no report of how well the money-rustling went, but it does report that Bush was greeted, after a fashion, with crude signs and hand gestures. These hand gestures apparently weren’t friendly hand waves. Summit County Sheriff Dave Edmunds described them as “classless and embarrassing.” To ensure the president’s safety, 47 law officers were called out to help monitor the motorcade route. The cost to local taxpayers for overtime pay...

It sounds worse than I imagined....For about 30 minutes, Michelle Obama launched into a rant about the evils of America, and how America is to blame for the problems of Africa. Michelle personally blamed President Clinton for the deaths of millions of Africans and said America is responsible for the genocide of the Tutsis and other ethnic groups. She then launched into an attack on “whitey”, and talked about solutions to black on black crime in the realm of diverting those actions onto white America. Her rant was fueled by the crowd: they reacted strongly to what she said, so...

After staring into the abyss of nuclear war over Berlin and Cuba, Kennedy chose that June as the "time and place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and truth is too rarely perceived - yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace." That speech went beyond the reviled Neville Chamberlain ("peace for our time") by calling for "not merely peace in our time, but peace for all time." Instead of aiming, with Woodrow Wilson, to "make the world safe for democracy," the speech proposed to "make the world safe for diversity," a step...

And having read the book, I have to hand it to McClellan. In a genre as routinely and justly derided as the Washington memoir, it takes a special talent to produce a specimen that even by those standards is this flaming-dirigible bad. It’s usually the sign of a weak reviewer that he feels the need to extrapolate some sort of psychoanalysis from the text, but in McClellan case it’s unavoidable. In fact, once I began reading McClellan’s book, I had to seek outside counsel to confirm my suspicions about his precarious mental state. Political consultant Mary Matalin — no stranger...

"Good morning. I'm Senator Barbara Boxer from California and Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Next week, the Senate will begin debate on one of the most important issues of our time -- global warming. "Senators have come together across party lines to write a law that will not only enable us to avoid the ravages of unchecked global warming, but will create millions of new jobs and put us on the path to energy independence. Other benefits of our legislation will be cleaner air, energy efficiency, relief for consumers and the alternative energy choices that American families...

A really interesting theory about the alleged Michelle Obama tape, which could explain a lot, from the liberal blog Booman Tribune. Michelle, offering a speech critical of President Bush, offers a refrain of "why'd he" — the words "why did he" mushed together — that sounds like "whitey" on the tape. Apparently, if the tape ever comes to light, her words will sound something like: Whitey cut folks off Medicaid? Whitey let New Orleans drown? Whitey do nothing about Jena? Whitey put us in Iraq for no reason? ...when the intended message is, Why'd he cut folks off Medicaid? Why'd...

Record Obama Crowd, the Size of a City By Matthew Mosk PORTLAND, Ore. -- Sen. Barack Obama has seen his share of large crowds over the last 15 months, but his campaign said they have not approached the numbers gathered along the waterfront here right now. The campaign, citing figures from Duane Bray, battalion chief of Portland Fire & Rescue, estimated that 75,000 people are watching him speak. The scene suggests this is not an exaggeration. The sea of heads stretches for half a mile along the grassy embankment, while others watch from kayaks and power boats bobbing on the...

To the question of the moment--What did Barack Obama know and when did he know it?--I answer, Obama knew everything, and he's known it for ages. Far from succumbing to surprise and shock after Jeremiah Wright's disastrous performance at the National Press Club, Barack Obama must have long been aware of his pastor's political radicalism. A careful reading of nearly a year's worth of Trumpet Newsmagazine, Wright's glossy national "lifestyle magazine for the socially conscious," makes it next to impossible to conclude otherwise. Wright founded Trumpet Newsmagazine in 1982 as a "church newspaper"--primarily for his own congregation, one gathers--to "preach...

Lieberman: Carter Is 'Naive' at Best Thursday , April 17, 2008 Former President Jimmy Carter met another top Hamas official Thursday in a Cairo hotel and planned to meet more officials in Syria Friday, drawing the ire of dozens of U.S. lawmakers. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., told FOX News that "at best, President Carter is being naive" in trying to negotiate with avowed terrorists. "There is a long list of people who thought they could reason with dictators and killers, going back to Neville Chamberlain and Hitler in the 1930s, but it has been shown to be absolutely wrong." Rep....

Heavens to Murgatroyd! Chris Matthews has reduced Hillary Clinton to a cartoon character. Snagglepuss to be precise. "Exit stage left" was one of the Hanna-Barbera animation's catchphrases, and Matthews used it to wonder whether Hillary was prepared to leave the presidential race, given her flagging political fortunes. Here's how Matthews put it at the top of today's Hardball: CHRIS MATTHEWS: Meanwhile, listen carefully. That sound you hear is the slow falling of electoral delegates, of superdelegates, to Barack Obama. Seven more came aboard today. So with Obama way ahead in elected delegates, now trails Hillary Clinton by only four-and-a-half superdelegates....

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Republican John McCain on Monday dismissed Democratic rival Barack Obama as having zero national security experience. Arriving in North Carolina on the eve of the presidential primary, McCain said there are stark differences between him and the two Democratic candidates, Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. But he concentrated on Obama in particular.

<p>COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and other Democratic leaders are calling on scandal-scarred Attorney General Marc Dann to resign.</p> <p>Dann's response to his fellow Democrats is that he is staying on the job.</p> <p>Strickland, Sen. Sherrod Brown, other Democratic state officeholders and all Democratic state legislators sent Dann a letter Monday saying his actions hurt his ability to do his job.</p>

For any spiritually minded, up-wardly mobile African-American living in Chicago in the mid-1980s, the Trinity United Church of Christ was—and still is—the place to be. That's what drew Oprah Winfrey, a recent Chicago transplant, to the church in 1984. She was eager to bond with the movers and shakers in her new hometown's black community. But she also admired Trinity United's ambitious outreach work with the poor, and she took pride in upholding her Southern grandmother's legacy of involvement with traditional African-American houses of worship. Winfrey was a member of Trinity United from 1984 to 1986, and she continued to...

Was it remotely conceivable that someone with Jeremiah's Wright's worldview and connections had somehow avoided a pilgrimage to the world capitol of Yankee-hatred, to worship and commiserate with its high priests? Not a chance. Reverend Wright was part of Revered Jesse Jackson's 300 person entourage to Havana in 1984. “Viva Fidel!” bellowed Reverend Jackson while concluding his speech at the University of Havana. “Viva Che Guevara!..Long Live our cry of Freedom!” “He (Jesse Jackson)is a great personality,” reciprocated a beaming Fidel Castro, “a brilliant man with a great talent, capable of communicating with people, very persuasive, reliable, honest. Jackson's main...

You'll recall the name Michael Pfleger. He's, you know, the white Jeremiah Wright. Now, it appears the radical, hate-preaching Pfleger is playing therapist and go-between for newly-divorced couple Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright. Seriously. You almost can't parody this mess. But Iowahawk can and does so again brilliantly with "Advice for the Lovelorn." Can this campaign be saved?

Barack Obama on Monday once again distanced himself from his retired pastor, Jeremiah Wright, as the reverend grabbed the spotlight for the fourth day in a row by suggesting the furor around his controversial remarks is an attack on black churches in America. Plagued by the ongoing uproar regarding Wright, Obama said Wright does not represent his views or vice versa. “I have said before and I will repeat again that what some of the comments that Reverend Wright have made offend me and I understand why they’ve offended the American people,’ Obama told reporters while traveling in Wilmington, N.C....

The latest evidence of the gap between political rhetoric and economic reality is the Democratic-controlled House's decision to set aside, possibly indefinitely, the free trade agreement negotiated with Colombia by the Bush administration. On economic grounds, there's no reason to reject the agreement. Colombia's exports already enter the U.S. market duty free under the 1991 Andean Trade Preference Act. Meanwhile, many U.S. exports to Colombia face stiff tariffs -- up to 35 percent on autos, 15 percent on tractors and 10 percent on computers -- most of which would ultimately go to zero under the agreement. The tariffs dampen demand...

New York Times Op-Ed opinion columnist William Kristol compared Barack Obama's remarks about the bitterness of white working class voters leading them to nationalism, religion and guns to Karl Marx. "The Mask Slips" published New York Times on April 14, 2008.

A reader from Free Republic has dug up an old article last year (March 07) From TNR about Obama. It was written by Ryan Lizza, Senior editor at The New Republic. It's a biographical piece, but in the article, it explicitly states that Jeremiah Wright is a former Muslim.

John McCain's campaign called on Barack Obama Tuesday to condemn a comment from one of his Senate supporters that the presumptive Republican nominee, a naval aviator during the Vietnam War, "was a fighter pilot who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit."

WHAT DO ethanol and the subprime mortgage meltdown have in common? Each is a good reminder of that most powerful of unwritten decrees, the Law of Unintended Consequences - and of the all-too-frequent tendency of solutions imposed by the state to exacerbate the harms they were meant to solve. Take ethanol, the much-hyped biofuel made (primarily) from corn. Ethanol has been touted as a weapon in the fashionable crusade against climate change, because when mixed with gasoline, it modestly reduces emissions of carbon dioxide. Reasoning that if a little ethanol is good, a lot must be better, Congress and the...

EL PASO, Texas - Trying to overcome a string of losses and a staff shake-up, Hillary Rodham Clinton sought new energy Tuesday night from a boisterous crowd of about 12,000 in a state she hopes will provide a rebound in her quest for the Democratic presidential nomination. Clinton, whose rallies had been overshadowed by rival Barack Obama's huge crowds, arrived at the packed University of Texas at El Paso basketball arena as voters were giving Obama victories in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. But her sights were set on the March 4 Texas and Ohio primaries and on President Bush....