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What is the difference between a politician and a pirate? The pirate won't pretend he is doing you a favor when he takes your money. The pirate will only steal from you once. The pirate will probably treat you better while waiting on your ransom. The pirate is more honest about their intentions. You can avoid pirates. You can kill pirates.

After the flippant dismissal by U.S. Circuit Court Judge James Robertson of the lawsuit to attempt to determine whether Barack Obama is constitutionally eligible to serve as President, D.C. attorney John Hemenway received a letter from a lawyer representing Barack Obama and Joe Biden, his Vice President.  (Hemenway had enjoined the suit launched by Hillary Clinton's ally, Philip Berg, the former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania and attorney Lawrence Joyce of Arizona, in an attempt to force President Obama to disclose his birth records, currently being protected against public scrutiny by the Obama legal team at a reported cost of as much as one million dollars.) ...

'It is morphing now to include members of the armed forces' A security analyst who provides intelligence information to a wide range of law enforcement, private corporation and security interests has written in a publicly released "white paper" that the issue of Barack Obama's eligibility to be president could become a "flashpoint" in the United States. The suggestion comes from Lyle Rapacki, a former police officer who has worked in the field of psychological disorders for years. Since the 1990s, he has provided his analysis, both in public "white paper" reports as well as classified documents, to various safety and...

The Republicans need to slam this home again and again. The Democrats in Congress, at the behest of the Obama Administration, specifically authorized the AIG bonuses, and then pretended that the recipients were greedy, evil, corrupt SOB's. I've got your greedy, evil, corrupt SOB's right here.

U.S. Rep. Fortney “Pete” Stark, D-Calif., the No. 2 man on the U.S. House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee, responsible for writing the tax code, could be the latest in a list of prominent Democrats in Washington with tax problems. According to a Bloomberg News report, he has allegedly been taking advantage of a tax break on a Maryland home he claims as his principal residence. Homeowners in Maryland qualify for a tax credit for residences they use “for the legal purposes of voting, obtaining a driver’s license, and filing income tax returns,” according to the Maryland Assessment Procedures...

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner acknowledged Thursday that his department "expressed concern" to Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) that a provision concerning bonuses in the stimulus bill could prompt lawsuits from workers at bailed-out companies—a measure at the heart of this week’s AIG bonus controversy. Already under fire for his handling of the issue, Geithner said Treasury officials spoke with Dodd about the measure. The language that was then substituted in the bill allowed the controversial AIG bonuses to go forward. “But we also worked with him to strengthen the overall framework,” Geithner said. “And his bill has this very important provision...

roanoke,va - WASHINGTON (AP) - Now it can be told: The mysterious petty theft that President Barack Obama’s new computer chief committed at age 21 was shoplifting four dress shirts worth $134 from J.C. Penney. A 1996 Montgomery County, Md., police report obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday under a public records law shows Vivek Kundra was observed by a security guard putting the men’s shirts into a shopping bag and leaving the store without paying. Sgt. Tom Stanton wrote that Kundra was arrested after a brief foot chase and the property was recovered

In a complete reversal from his stance Tuesday, Sen. Chris Dodd admitted he inserted language into the federal stimulus bill allowing $165 million in bonuses to those AIG executives. But the president made him! Dodd, chairman of the senate banking committee, finally admitted to CNN (see clip) that his stimulus amendment allowed the universally-reviled bonuses, which went to the very AIG executives responsible for tanking the company.

American International Group’s unpaid CEO Edward Liddy said the company’s board has been in close consultation with the Federal Reserve since November about whether to hand out the $165 million in bonuses it issued to its top employees last week. The disclosure took Capital Markets subcommittee chairman, Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., by surprise and he asked Liddy to clarify his statement. Since the bonuses were disclosed last week, the Obama administration has said they found out about the payments just before they were handed out by AIG, which is the recipient of $170 billion in government funds and is slated...

Apparently, the Obama administration hasn’t backed away from its plans to start offloading costs for wounded veterans to third-party insurance, which will make acquiring such insurance nearly impossible. The commander of the American Legion emerged from a meeting with President Obama “angered” at Obama’s insistence on generating revenue from those who sacrificed for American security: The leader of the nation’s largest veterans organization says he is “deeply disappointed and concerned” after a meeting with President Obama today to discuss a proposal to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans who have suffered service-connected disabilities and...

AUSTIN — Mexican drug cartel violence is not spilling into Texas, several frustrated border mayors told a state legislative committee Monday in an effort to dispel public perceptions that their communities are under siege. “For me to believe that our cities are so endangered by all this violence that we need to send the military to the border is a knee-jerk reaction,” McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez told the House Border and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee. Cortez, mayor for 19 years, said his daughter in San Antonio recently called to express apprehension about his re-election because of fears he might become an...

From Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.: "President Obama demonstrated his citizenship during his campaign by circulating copies of his birth certificate, which showed he was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961." From U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Fla.: "The claim that Barack Obama is not a citizen of the U.S. is false. This rumor is simply election year politics." She referred questioners to Snopes for documentation. From U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Mich.: "Rest assured, however, I will well remember your concerns regarding this issue during the 111th Congress." From Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas: "I welcome President-elect Obama's commitment to reform the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's Treasury secretary says the administration has inherited "the worst fiscal situation in American history." Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the House Ways and Means Committee Tuesday that Obama entered office facing a $1.3 trillion deficit — about 10 percent of the nation's economic output. Republicans have complained that Obama's budget proposal would balloon the deficit even higher, to $1.75 trillion.

CHICAGO – A Chicago minister told The Associated Press he and other black pastors who previously supported U.S. Sen. Roland Burris now plan to ask him to resign. The minister spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity because a meeting with Burris hadn't yet been scheduled. Many of the city's black pastors supported seating Burris because of his scandal-free reputation — even though he was appointed by then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich after the governor was arrested. But revelations that Burris attempted to raise money for Blagojevich while seeking the Senate job have eroded some of his support. Blagojevich is accused of trying...

In his first weeks in office, President Barack Obama shut down his predecessor’s system for reviewing regulations, realigned and expanded two key White House policymaking bodies and extended economic sanctions against parties to the conflict in the African nation of Cote D’Ivoire. Despite the intense scrutiny a president gets just after the inauguration, Obama managed to take all these actions with nary a mention from the White House press corps. The moves escaped notice because they were never announced by the White House Press Office and were never placed on the White House web site. They came to light only...

LONDON (Reuters) - A widely available blood pressure pill could one day help people erase bad memories, perhaps treating some anxiety disorders and phobias, according to a Dutch study published on Sunday. The generic beta-blocker propranolol significantly weakened people's fearful memories of spiders among a group of healthy volunteers who took it, said Merel Kindt, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, who led the study. "We could show that the fear response went away, which suggests the memory was weakened," Kindt said in a telephone interview.

GOP Leader Blasts Media Bias in House Floor Speech @ 3:20 pm by Michael O'Brien An alleged liberal bias by journalists covering recent scandals was enough "breaking news" to House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who took to the floor of the House yesterday to complain. "The national media spells scandal without the 'D,'" Smith alleged during one-minute speeches by members on the House floor Monday. "Two weeks ago the Governor of Illinois was removed from office," he added. "All three television networks ran full reports on the story the same night and again the following morning. Not...

When it comes to global warming, the canary in the coal mine isn't a canary at all. It's a purple finch. As the temperature across the U.S. has gotten warmer, the purple finch has been spending its winters more than 400 miles farther north than it used to. And it's not alone. An Audubon Society study to be released Tuesday found that more than half of 305 birds species in North America, a hodgepodge that includes robins, gulls, chickadees and owls, are spending the winter about 35 miles farther north than they did 40 years ago. The purple finch was...

CUMMING, Ga. (AP) - A woman who claimed her house was set on fire because she supported President Barack Obama and her boyfriend have been charged with first-degree arson. Forsyth County Chief Investigator Steve Anderson said Friday that 47-year-old Pamela Graf and her boyfriend, 46-year-old Steve Strobel, are being held in different jails. Graf is in Forsyth County and Strobel in Barrow County, where he was charged with obstruction of justice in the case earlier this week. Graf's home burned on Jan. 18 while she was in Washington, D.C., to attend the inauguration. Officials found spray-painted graffiti that included a...

By their actions ye shall know them. By now we are seeing an ominous pattern of actions by the O administration. We know that President Obama is a very slick liar indeed, but then so was Bill Clinton. But Clinton had a smaller majority in Congress, and was forced to compromise after the Gingrich Congress was elected in 1994. It is still possible that Obama may turn toward the mainstream. But the early omens look dark. Foreign and military affairs There is a reason why Israel s voters are suddenly turning to the center-Right Netanyahu and Likud. They fear that...

Barack Obama says that we should not let "very modest differences" get in the way of the Democrats massive spending bill, otherwise known as the economic stimulus bill. It's funny that Obama would consider the differences between government spending and tax cuts "very modest." Do I really need to explain the fundamental differences between the plans the Democrats have proposed and those supported by Republicans? I didn't think so. Jamie Dupree has done a top notch job of combing through this Senate economic stimulus bill .. I'll give you a little taste of what he found, and you can check...

President Barack Obama’s plan to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will include the trial or release of the 250 detainees still held there, but the Yemen government has said 101 of those prisoners should be sent home. “We want our detainees back,” Mohammed Albasha, spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy in Washington, D.C., told CNSNews.com, adding that “a plot of land” has already been set aside for a center to rehabilitate the men once they are repatriated. Albasha said the rehabilitation program will include psychological counseling, religious dialogue, vocational training and arranged marriages. “By the time they leave...

A New York woman quoted as saying she "remembers" the birth of Barack Obama and who was hailed as independent evidence of the president's eligibility to occupy the Oval office has told WND that's not exactly how things happened. Instead, she told WND she could provide no specifics about the birth. The interview by the Buffalo News with Barbara Nelson was cited by the Democratic Underground website under the headline "Independent Confirmation of Obama's Birth."

There is evidence that Israel committed war crimes during its 22-day campaign in the Gaza Strip and there should be an independent inquiry, U.N. investigator Richard Falk said on Thursday. The mental anguish of the civilians who suffered the assault is so great that the entire population of Gaza could be seen as casualties, said Falk, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Falk, speaking by phone from his home in California, said compelling evidence that Israel's actions in Gaza violated international humanitarian law required an independent investigation into whether they amounted to...

An inaugural ball honoring U.S. military veterans ended in a kerfluffle as several veterans walked out when a musical act's attempt at humor backfired. During the Heroes Red, White & Blue Inaugural Ball honoring the nation's veterans, a vocalist with George Clinton and the P. Funk All-Stars held up a white towel with large block letters saying "[Expletive] GEORGE," perturbing many audience members who walked out after the display, interpreting it as a jab at the outgoing commander-in-chief, George W. Bush. A spokeswoman for the ball's organizers said the sign was inappropriate. "Obviously we and the Heroes Ball coordinators were...

Katrina President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur. President Obama swiftly responded to Hurricane Katrina. Citing the Bush Administration's "unconscionable ineptitude" in responding to Hurricane Katrina, then-Senator Obama introduced legislation requiring disaster planners to take into account the specific needs of low-income hurricane victims. Obama visited thousands of Hurricane survivors in the Houston Convention Center and later took three more...

Hamas claimed its men foiled an attempt by IDF soldiers to enter the Gaza city neighborhood of Shajaiyeh close to the border with Israel, Israel Radio reported early on Saturday morning.

A remarkable 32% of Americans choose Barack Obama as the man they most admire living anywhere in the world today, putting him in the No. 1 position on Gallup's annual Most Admired Man list. Hillary Clinton earns the top spot for Most Admired Woman, named by 20%. No one comes close to matching Obama in percentage mentions on this year's list of most admired men, based on a Dec. 12-14 USA Today/Gallup poll. By contrast, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin makes a strong showing in second place for Most Admired Woman, garnering 11% of all mentions.

Autos: The government gave the Big Three a $17.3 billion bailout based on the idea that both management and the unions would make concessions. Now the UAW says no thanks. Can we have our money back?Last week's deal was supposed to hold both the managers' and unions' feet to the fire. In handing out the taxpayer money, the White House insisted the auto union cut worker pay roughly to the levels of their successful competitors, Toyota, Honda and Nissan. For $17 billion in emergency bailout cash and possibly much more later, it was a reasonable request. As President Bush said,...

Craig's assertions that the transition team was unaware of Blagojevich's efforts to sell off Obama's old seat do not correspond to the transcripts of wiretapped conversations released by the FBI two weeks ago in which the governor repeatedly swears and expresses frustration in his attempts to strike a deal on the Senate seat.

Rahm Emanuel, a congressman from Chicago and a friend of Obama's, told me that he, Obama, David Wilhelm, who was Blagojevich's campaign co-chair, and another Blagojevich aide were the top strategists of Blagojevich's victory. He and Obama "participated in a small group that met weekly when Rod was running for governor," Emanuel said. "We basically laid out the general election, Barack and I and these two." A spokesman for Blagojevich confirmed Emanuel's account, although David Wilhelm, who now works for Obama, said that Emanuel had overstated Obama's role. -- from Making It: How Chicago Shaped Obama, by Ryan Lizza, the...

The president-elect's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, failed to show up as expected at the Chicago presidential transition offices. Reporters, who had wanted to ask questions about contacts with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, immediately set out on a search for him but to no avail. According to an unsubstantiated report, a MSBBC News cameraman was in the Green Room and saw Emanuel double dipping the meatballs into the sweet and sour sauce. After a few rounds, he thought the congressman looked a bit pekid. He even imagined that he heard the Obama appointee mumble, “Why, why, why?” In the mean...

Wow. Ace of Spades highlights a photo that suggests when Obama said, "I had no contact with the governor or his office," what he really meant was "I met him and shook his hand in front of photographers at the National Governors Association meeting last Tuesday." Which, you know, kinda makes that "no contact" statement not accurate. Or, in some less generous eyes, a lie.

President-elect Obama will enter the White House with sky-high approval ratings and hopes of a dour, but optimistic, electorate on his shoulders, according to a new poll. The Hart/McInturff poll, conducted by Democratic pollster Peter Hart and Republican pollster Bill McInturff, shows two in three voters have positive views of the incoming president, and 45 percent feel very positively about Obama. That is higher than at any point before, and about 10 points higher than the previous high, recorded just before the election. Just 16 percent have negative feelings toward Obama. The poll was conducted among 1,009 adults between Dec....

LINK ONLY: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-12-10-corruptstates_N.htm?se=yahoorefer

CHICAGO – President-elect Barack Obama said Thursday that he's confident no member of his staff was involved in discussing deals for his Senate seat with disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Obama also said once again that he had no discussions about the seat he is vacating with the Democratic governor, who was arrested by federal agents this week in connection with an alleged corruption scheme. "I was as appalled and disappointed as anyone," Obama said at a news conference called to announce a series of new appointments to the administration he is setting up. "I have never spoken to the...

This week Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested on charges that he conspired to sell Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat, among other misdeeds. At first the president-elect tried to distance himself from the issue: "It is a sad day for Illinois. Beyond that, I don't think it's appropriate for me to comment." But it quickly became clear that Mr. Obama would have to say more, and yesterday he called for Mr. Blagojevich to resign and for a special election to fill the vacant Senate seat. What remains to be seen is whether this episode will put an end to what...

There's nothing like a little Guilt-by-Association Red Meat to bring the anti-Obama crowd back to the comment boards. Hundreds of posts have found their way to various articles on washingtonpost.com and elsewhere about the dramatic arrest yesterday of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich for, among other things, allegedly trying to sell the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Obama. Federal prosecutors said without equivocation that there is no evidence of Obama's involvement in the matter, but the noisy anti-Obama comment crowd stirred from its post-election silence to fire away. Because, as Michael D. Shear and Chris Cillizza wrote, "the conspiracy allegedly dreamed...

Democrats have had success running against what they called a GOP 'culture of corruption.' Now the party hopes the political fallout from the Blagojevich case and others will be limited. By Janet Hook December 10, 2008 Reporting from Washington -- The arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich on Tuesday marked the latest in a series of scandals involving Democratic politicians -- an ironic turn for a party that won control of Congress in 2006 in part by saying it would end a "culture of corruption" under Republican leadership. Democrats also highlighted Republican ethical problems in the successful bid to...

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama liked to boast that he was a tough survivor of the bare-knuckled world of Chicago politics. But the president-elect also has steered clear of most of its scandals, navigating a careful middle ground that has left him relatively unscathed in a city synonymous with corruption.

Katie Granju is a Knoxville blogger that gained prominence because Glen Reynolds features her. I'm jealous. But what's interesting is that despite her conclusion that Obama and his spokesman Axlerod lied about this contacts with Blagojevich her support has not wavered. She concludes So I'm supposed to believe that Axelrod "misspoke" when he said he knew that his boss had spoken with the governor? Because I don't. Either Axelrod is lying or Obama is lying. That's my position based on my knowledge of how politics works, and the evidence so far. As I said yesterday, it would be completely expected...

An Obama aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, took back David Axelrod's remark last month that Barack Obama and Rod Blagojevich had spoken recently. "What the president-elect said today is correct, David Axelrod misspoke," the aide said. Obama said today the men had not spoken. An open question: When they last spoke.

78 Pages of corruption by the numbers...........

Is Rezko Explaining How Much Tainted Money He Has Provided To Obama's Political Campaigns?Obama Has Acknowledged That Rezko Has Raised About $250,000 For His Campaigns. "For the first time, Sen. Barack Obama put a figure Friday to the amount of campaign contributions that indicted political fund-raiser Tony Rezko raised for the senator's campaigns, and the number -- about $250,000 -- was far more than he previously acknowledged." (Tim Novak, Chris Fusco, Dave McKinney and Carol Marin, "More Rezko Dough Found," Chicago Sun-Times, 3/15/08)However The Most Recently Reported Total Of Rezko Related Funds The Obama Campaign Has Donated To Charity Is...

General Motors to Invest $1 Billion in Brazil Operations -- Money to Come from U.S. Rescue Program By Russ DallenLatin American Herald Tribune staff General Motors plans to invest $1 billion in Brazil to avoid the kind of problems the U.S. automaker is facing in its home market, said the beleaguered car maker. According to the president of GM Brazil-Mercosur, Jaime Ardila, the funding will come from the package of financial aid that the manufacturer will receive from the U.S. government and will be used to "complete the renovation of the line of products up to 2012." "It wouldn't be...

The state worker who unwittingly ran an improper child-support check on the man known as Joe the Plumber told lawmakers yesterday that a deputy director later "dictated" how she was supposed to cover it up. Vanessa Niekamp, an administrator for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services' Office of Child Support and a 15-year state employee, said that when Deputy Director Doug Thompson came into her office, "He appeared very upset, his neck was bright red, and he was shaking. He closed my door." Thompson told her she must write an e-mail to the agency's information-security officer, and then...

American teenagers lie, steal and cheat more at "alarming rates," a study of nearly 30,000 high school students concluded Monday. The attitudes and conduct of some 29,760 high school students across the United States "doesn't bode well for the future when these youngsters become the next generation's politicians and parents, cops and corporate executives, and journalists and generals," the non-profit Josephson Institute said. In its 2008 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, the Los Angeles-based organization said the teenagers' responses to questions about lying, stealing and cheating "reveals entrenched habits of dishonesty for the workforce of the future..."

If 2008 is remembered as the year of the “bailout,” when the federal government spent billions to rescue the nation’s financial system, it should also be recalled for another kind of bailout—Christians with impeccably pro-life records who suddenly abandoned what they declared to be a sinking ship. Abortion seemed to be one of the few issues on which Senator Barack Obama had an unambiguous and unchangeable position during the campaign, as he promised that “the first thing I’d do as president is to sign the Freedom of Choice Act,” something that would nullify all existing laws restricting abortion. The most...

Vice-president elect Joe Biden Fargo, North Dakota, Nov 22, 2008 / 02:14 pm (CNA).- Following the Fall meeting of the U.S. Catholic bishops in Baltimore, where they pledged not to yield ground to the incoming Obama administration on the issue of abortion, Bishop Samuel Aquila has revealed that vice president-elect Joe Biden is struggling with his conscience over his support for abortion.Bishop Michael Hoeppner of Crookston, Minnesota and Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo, North Dakota are just two of the bishops who have increased their efforts to speak more forcefully and clearly on the issue of abortion over the...