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The lines began forming Saturday morning outside the Sioux Falls Barnes & Noble bookstore, fully 35 hours before former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was to arrive there to sign her new book, "Going Rogue." But the mother of five was far from South Dakota tonight. In fact, she was only about a half-dozen blocks from the White House that she didn't help John McCain win. Palin appeared in a brand-new role for the possible 2012 Republican presidential candidate -- joke-teller as the GOP's representative at the annual winter Gridiron Dinner, a 124-year-old group of Washington writers and guests who hold...

The Telegraph is reporting that Professor Micharl Mann of notorious hockey stick fame has thrown CRU's Phil Jones under the bus: "One of the scientists to whom the emails were addressed, Professor Michael Mann, the Director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University has moved to distance himself from some of the comments in the emails that suggest scientists did not want the IPCC, the UN body charged with monitoring climate change, to consider studies that challenged the view global warming was genuine and man-made. Speaking to BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight, Prof Mann said: 'I...

Secret Service punished in Salahi case By: Glenn Thrush and Jake Sherman December 3, 2009 12:47 PM EST Secret Service agents who let a gate-crashing couple through a checkpoint at last week’s White House state dinner have been placed on administrative leave — and could face unspecified disciplinary actions, the agency’s director said. In 90 minutes of testimony before a House committee Thursday, Director Mark Sullivan deflected blame from embattled White House social secretary Desiree Rogers — even as the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee left open the possibility of subpoenaing Rogers as a witness. Republicans blame Rogers,...

<p>LONDON — Britain's University of East Anglia says the director of its prestigious Climatic Research Unit is stepping down pending an investigation into allegations that he overstated the case for man-made climate change.</p> <p>The university says Phil Jones will relinquish his position until the completion of an independent review into allegations that he worked to alter the way in which global temperature data was presented.</p>

Read part one here.White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers has been dodging the heat so far for her failure to ensure the first state dinner by the Obama administration went off without embarrassing the Obamas.Worse still, her failure resulted in a potentially lethal security breakdown that has international repercussions.Slowly the press, which adores Rogers almost as much as they adore her boss First Lady Michelle Obama, are beginning to look past the acknowledged faults of the Secret Service to Rogers' failed stewardship of the dinner.Rebecca Dana and Lloyd Grove have a devastating article at the Daily Beast that noted several...

The ditherer-in-chief will finally announce to our military and the rest of the world his decision regarding General McChrystal's request for additional troops in Afghanistan this Tuesday. After months of keeping the fine men and women serving our country twisting in the wind, Barack Obama has at last made up his mind. It is estimated that he will elect to give McChrystal roughly 30,000 to 35,000 of the 40,000 troops McChrystal requested. The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan had warned in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needed more forces within the next year and...

Obama, speaking to CBS in Beijing, says he's "furious' about the stream of leaks characterizing the Afghanistan deliberations... CHIP REID: “Firing offense??” THE PRESIDENT: “Absolutely" M What's odd about this is that many of the leaks (though certainly not all) have seemed deliberate, in tandem with Flickr photo releases from the meetings and in line with a message that Obama is considering deeply. And indeed, leaking has been a signature of the transition from the Plouffe/campaign era to a governing era run by Rahm Emanuel, who talks frequently to the press and whose hiring was one of the first major...

A body discovered floating in the Chicago River near Merchandise Mart this morning is believed to be that of Chicago Public Schools Board President Michael Scott, police said. Police have not positively identified the man, but Scott’s Cadillac was found nearby and Scott’s family had reported him missing earlier in the day....

Remember how the Democrats reacted when the Bush Administration started replacing U.S. Attorneys? At least they were actually political appointees employed at the will and whim of the President.

WH communications director Anita Dunn will step down at the end of the month. She will return to Squier Knapp Dunn, the consulting firm where she is a partner, but will remain as a consultant to the WH on communications and strategic matters. Dan Pfeiffer, her deputy, will take over. Dunn and Pfeiffer are longtime confidantes -- having worked closely in Daschle's political orbit for years. The turnover is the only change in Obama's senior staff with 10 months (or so) of his presidency having passed. COS and former Illinois Congressman, Rahm Emanuel, would like to return to elected office...

The White House's top communications aide is stepping down at the end of the month and will be replaced by her deputy.

At least one Democratic political strategist has gotten a blunt warning from the White House to never appear on Fox News Channel, an outlet that presidential aides have depicted as not so much a news-gathering operation as a political opponent bent on damaging the Obama administration. Political consultants are a staple of cable television talk shows, analyzing current events based on their own experiences working on campaigns or in government. One Democratic strategist said that shortly after an appearance on Fox he got a phone call from a White House official telling him not to be a guest on the...

.SNIPARTnews has reported that the White House has quietly de-listed a painting by Alma W. Thomas that it chose last month, among some 45 pieces borrowed from several Washington museums, to decorate the private White House residence and the West and East Wings. Titled, “Watusi (Hard Edge)” from 1963, the work takes a Matisse collage and, as Holland Cotter wrote in The New York Times, praising the selection, “shifts the pieces around, cools the colors down, and adds a title that refers to a Chubby Checker song.” “But through copying Matisse,” Mr. Cotter added, “she began to work out a...

Bryan, TX (LifeNews.com) -- Planned Parenthood is attempting to silence a former abortion center director who quit working for the abortion business after seeing an ultrasound of an abortion procedure. Officials with the group are pushing a request for a restraining order on Abby Johnson and a pro-life group that helped her conversion.Johnson had been the director of the Planned Parenthood center in this southeast Texas city that is home to Texas A&M University.She turned in her resignation on October 6 after years of a local pro-life group helping her see the problem with abortion. After the ultrasound, she decided...

When Van Jones resigned his White House job, under fire for his pro-communist views, White House adviser David Axelrod said that Jones had himself made the decision to leave the administration. But new documents indicate that Jones didn't even write his own resignation letter. It is now abundantly clear that he was pushed out because the scandal threatened to implicate Obama friend and White House adviser Valerie Jarrett in the scandal that gave him a critical White House position without proper vetting. Jones, a self-identified communist, was an anti-police activist in Oakland, California, before an extreme makeover landed him at...

Virginia Democratic candidate R. Creigh Deeds said Friday that he was confused and frustrated by statements from senior aides to President Obama that Deeds had rejected their advice in running his campaign for governor as some state party activists denounced what they saw as a betrayal by advisers to a president they helped elect a year ago. Deeds said he was puzzled by the comments from unnamed Obama administration officials who said that he had virtually no chance to defeat Republican Robert F. McDonnell and that such a loss would reflect on Deeds's failings rather than on Obama's popularity. They...

In an interview earlier this month, Creigh Deeds (D) blamed, in part, the Democrats’ national agenda as he trails Bob McDonnell (R) in Virginia’s gubernatorial race. “Frankly, a lot of what’s going on in Washington has made it very tough,” he said. But now the White House is blaming Deeds. A senior administration official tells the Washington Post that Deeds made several mistakes in his campaign. "I understood in the beginning why there was some reluctance to run all around the state with Barack Obama," the official said. "You don't do that in Virginia. But when you consider the African...

War Strategy: When Bush and Petraeus proposed the surge in Iraq, Democrats demanded that the general testify before Congress. So why has the Senate blocked a similar invitation to our commander in Afghanistan? Those with memories longer than the 24-hour news cycle recall that in the dark days of the Iraq War, David Petraeus was summoned to Washington to explain the surge strategy that would eventually lead to victory in Iraq. Democrats hoped for a show trial. MoveOn.org took out a full-page ad in the New York Times labeling the commanding general of our efforts in Iraq "General Betray-us." Then...

Hiding Behind Synonyms: Obama Begins Campaign to Throw Gen. McChrystal Under the Bus Erick Erickson Monday, October 5th at 11:33AM EDT If they had gone to the New York Times, the nation would see it as just another example of the Gray Lady’s unrepentant sixties bra burning hysteria against war. Instead, the Obama administration has gone to the Washington Post to begin the process of getting rid of their troublesome General who dares to think winning in Afghanistan is possible.To understand why and how, we must refer to Jonah Goldberg and his important work Liberal Fascism. This book is necessary...

Good grief. You begin to wonder if the man has a list of Friendly Leaders I Still Need to Offend. The Washington Post is reporting that the Dalai Lama went to Washington this week – apparently expecting to be received at the White House – only to find that his meeting with the president has been “postponed… until after Obama’s summit with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, scheduled for next month.” According to the Post, this is the “first time since 1991, the Tibetan spiritual leader will visit Washington this week and not meet with the president.” The snub could...

The Libertarian Party’s chairman said that the Republican Party’s hero “was not serious about cutting the size of government.” I receive the Libertarian Party’s “Monday message” each week, as a byproduct of the brief period before the 2008 election when I wasn’t sure if I could bring myself to vote for John McCain…until I realized that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” (That must be what McCain meant when he began every other sentence with “My friends…”) I couldn’t let Virginia turn blue and asphyxiate (though of course, it did anyway,) so I gave up on the Libertarians...

TALLAHASSEE -- Gov. Charlie Crist is a Republican. But in so many ways, you wouldn't know it -- from championing felon rights to backing the federal stimulus package, he's bucked his party's agenda until now. Crist welcomed President Barack Obama to the Sunshine State with open arms seven months ago. The president was here to campaign for the stimulus. That was then and this is now. "There are concerns that we have about the direction of this administration," Crist said on CNN. Crist said the country won't vote for Obama again. The governor even hit national news Tuesday morning to...

The Washington Post reports today that Greg Craig has been replaced as the point man on Guantanamo and will likely leave the White House. The story places the blame for crafting the Guantanamo strategy for a date certain shutdown, of convincing The One of its wisdom and the failure to follow through, squarely on Craig’s shoulders. It hinted that Obama may now not be able to meet his January 22 deadline.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Barack Obama says ACORN misdeeds captured on secretly taped videos should be investigated, but that the controversy over the community service group was not occupying much of his time. In an interview broadcast Sunday on the ABC program "This Week," Obama was asked if he supported cutting off all federal funding for ACORN — an acronym for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — due to the incriminating videotapes. "What I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated," Obama said.

Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga arrived in the United States of America on Saturday night to news of cancellation of a luncheon with US President Barack Obama which had earlier been scheduled for later this week. The news followed a round of confusion over whether he would attend the luncheon, hosted by the White House for selected leaders from sub-Saharan Africa on the sidelines of the 64th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York. New York-based Kenyan ambassador to the UN Zachary Muburi-Muita told the Nation on Saturday night that the State Department contacted him on Friday to...

~ EXCERPT ~ ALBANY, N.Y. - National Democratic Party leaders have asked Gov. David Paterson to consider withdrawing from the 2010 governor's race, according to two senior New York Democratic advisers. Both advisers, who are close to the governor, spoke to The Associated Press on Saturday on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for Paterson. The sources said it was unclear what Paterson would do in response. The New York Times, which originally reported the request on its Web site, said that it was President Barack Obama who asked Paterson to withdraw. The New York...

The Times, citing sources, said Obama is concerned that "Mr. Paterson cannot recover from his dismal political standing." According to the Times report, the decision to ask Paterson to step aside was proposed by political advisors to Obama, but approved by the president himself.

ALBANY - In a stunning request, the Obama administration has made it clear to poll-challenged Gov. Paterson that the White House would prefer he not seek election to a full four-year term next year. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/09/19/2009-09-19_obama_administration_.html#ixzz0RdGUhJLx

Has Obama asked beleaguered and unpopular NY Governor David Paterson to drop out of the race to keep his seat? That's what the New York Times is reporting. If true, this is fairly extraordinary. It's highly unusual for a president to step in and tell a governor who is not facing something like a crippling scandal or imminent indictment that his time is up. And when it's the first black president telling one of only two black governors to clear the way for someone else...that definitely falls into the category of Stories You Never Expected To Read. The person most...

Days after the Census Bureau announced it would cut ties with the organizing group ACORN, and barely 24 hours after the ... ... Senate voted to withdraw funding from the lightning-rod activist group, the White House expressed support for measures to hold the group accountable for "unacceptable" behavior. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs alluded to video, taken by the conservative site BigGovernment.com, showing ACORN employees giving advice to individuals posing as sex traffickers. "Obviously, the conduct that you see on those tapes is completely unacceptable. I think everyone would agree to that," Gibbs said. "The administration takes accountability extremely...

Obama said 12/01/07, "Before I even get inaugurated, during the transition we're going to being calling all of you in to help us shape the agenda. We're gonna be having meetings all over the country with community organizations so that you all have input into the agenda of the next presidency of the United States of America" Senator Obama 12/01/07 Heartland Democratic Presidential Forum see 1:48http://www.stoptheaclu.com/2008/10/13/video-obama-speaks-to-community-organizers-including-acorn/ Today "the One" has his puppet say, "Obviously, the conduct that you see on those tapes is completely unacceptable. I think everyone would agree to that," Gibbs said. "The administration takes accountability extremely seriously."...

Not the first time Jimbo’s caused The One some grief at an inopportune moment. Remember when he decided to go hug it out with Hamas just as the general election campaign was kicking off last year? “The president does not believe that — that the criticism comes based on the color of his skin,” Gibbs said. “We understand that people have disagreements with some of the decisions that we’ve made and some of the extraordinary actions that had to be undertaken by this administration and previous administrations to stabilize our financial system, to ensure viability of our domestic auto industry.”…

Two more ACORN officials were fired Friday after a second video surfaced showing staffers in the community organizers' Washington office offering to help a man and woman posing as a pimp and prostitute acquire illegal home loans that would help them set up a brothel. The firings came less than 24 hours after another pair of ACORN officials from the group's Baltimore office were canned for instructing the "pimp" and "prostitute" how to falsify tax forms and seek illegal benefits for 13 "very young" girls from El Salvador that pair said they wanted to import to work as child prostitutes....

Arrest warrants have been issued in Miami for 11 people suspected of falsifying information on hundreds of voter registration cards last year. The FBI and state authorities were making arrests Wednesday. The workers being sought were hired to register voters by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. Prosecutors say they were first notified by ACORN about problems with workers in June 2008. Republicans and conservative activists have accused ACORN of fraud in voter registration drives around the country. ACORN officials say the Florida case proves the organization is committed to an honest process. The case involved...

Van Jones, former Green Job commissar for the Obama Administration, was tossed under a green hybrid bus, the President's spokesman said today. The hybrid bus runs on a mixture of hydrogen and hype. The two substances are then converted into energy, which is then distributed to the wheels, which are guided by the media. "We didn't just want to chuck Van under any old carbon-spewing bus," said Robert Barry Gibbs. "We wanted to make sure that it would suit his environmental awareness." Jones, a communist and professional rioter, was tossed under the bus after revealing the Obama administration's actual intent...

UK sources: Obama knew about the Lockerbie bomber every step of the wayObama seems to have screwed up really big (Again!) British officials claim Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton were kept informed at all stages of discussions concerning Megrahi’s return. The officials say the Americans spoke out because they were taken aback by the row over Megrahi’s release, not because they did not know it was about to happen.

President Obama and the US Secretary of State fuelled a fierce American backlash against Britain, claiming Abdelbaset Al Megrahi should have been forced to serve out his jail sentence in Scotland – but a senior Whitehall aide said their reaction was ‘disingenuous’. British officials claim Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton were kept informed at all stages of discussions concerning Megrahi’s return. The officials say the Americans spoke out because they were taken aback by the row over Megrahi’s release, not because they did not know it was about to happen. ‘The US was kept fully in touch about everything that...

Link only, per FR posting rules. Link is here

In the game of political football that is today national security, spare a thought for CIA Director Leon Panetta. Quarterbacking is hard enough without getting sacked by your own team. President Barack Obama fought hard for the former California congressman during his uncertain February confirmation fight. That's about the last thing the president has done for his spy chief. Quite the opposite: If the latest flap over CIA interrogations shows anything, it's that Mr. Panetta has officially become the president's designated fall guy. The title has been months in the making. Mr. Obama is contending with an angry left that's...

Aug 16 2009, 9:11 pm by Marc Ambinder Administration Official: "Sebelius Misspoke." An administration official said tonight that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius "misspoke" when she told CNN this morning that a government run health insurance option "is not an essential part" of reform. This official asked not to be identified in exchange for providing clarity about the intentions of the President... A second official, Linda Douglass, director of health reform communications for the administration, said that President Obama ... had not backed away from that belief, and that he still wanted to see a public option in...

CNN president kills birther story TVNewser reports that CNN President Jon Klein has declared a halt to birther coverage -- a tacit shot at Lou Dobbs. Klein forwarded Dobbs's producers a memo under this heading, which I suspect won't calm the conspiracists: Since the show's mission is for Lou to be the explainer and enlightener, he should be sure to cite this during your segment tonite. And then it seems this story is dead - because anyone who still is not convinced doesn't really have a legitimate beef.

We will know when their internal polling on this is disasterous, because at that point, he will throw Henry Louis Gates overboard. Just like he threw his Grandmother overboard. Just like he threw Rev. Wright overboard. Just as he did a Judas on Bill Ayers.

Someone might want to look into whether an impostor took President Obama's place during his trip to Russia In a release touting an agreement between Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev over how to craft a follow-up to the START arms reduction treaty, the White House claimed the document had been signed by one "Barak Obama." Whoops:

Excerpted from: http://www.commoditynewscenter.com/articles/Insight/Barack%27s_Obama%3B_The_New_Iraq?page=1 Exit Strategy; noun - A plan for removing oneself from a difficult situation if it arises- 1. "The method by which a venture capitalist or business owner intends to get out of an investment that he or she has made in the past." "Though Mr. Obama's comments are sound in principal, how will they play out in practice? Never once (to my knowledge) has there been a detailed discussion of what the government's exit strategy at GM will be. Not once have the US tax payers heard a reasonable explanation as to how they will get out...

<p>Americans woke up this week to news that President Obama is now describing the U.S. as--if you take into account the number of Muslim Americans--"one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."</p> <p>Going strictly by the numbers, President Obama is wrong. America's Muslim population is variously estimated at somewhere in the range of about 3 million to a high-end guess of 6 million, which puts it way below not only all major Muslim states, but below Russia, China and--as my colleague Andrew McCarthy points out--Burkina Faso.</p>

Obama makes US look weak, critics on right say 21 mins ago WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama made the United States look weak when he failed to stand up to Arab tyranny and Iran in his speech to Arabs and Muslims, US critics from the right charged Thursday. House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner welcomed the president's "thoughtful and optimistic" speech in Cairo but voiced concern about his points on non-Arab Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even though Israel has a right to defend itself against terrorism, "he seemed to place equal blame on the Israelis and the...

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) commented on Pres. Obama's address at Cairo University addressing the Muslim world, saying that offering to speak with Iran makes the U.S look "weak."

How appropriate that U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter finds himself at the back of the Democratic Party bus. Did he really expect a hero's welcome and continuance in chairman positions after renouncing his own party at a time of crisis? History shows that nobody trusts or respects a turncoat and a traitor. Arlen should have learned that from the treatment Benedict Arnold received from the British after changing sides in the midst of a fight. Arnold joined with the British but was never accepted or respected by his peers, many officers despised him and his military career was relegated to the...

Gibbs on Sykes: 9/11 is not 'comedy' By: Alexander Burns May 11, 2009 02:01 PM EST In his daily briefing Monday, Robert Gibbs distanced the president from comedian Wanda Sykes’ joke comparing Rush Limbaugh to a 9/11 hijacker at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. "I don't know how the guests get booked,” Gibbs said, adding that he hadn’t “talked specifically” with Obama about Sykes’ crack. “I think there are a lot of topics that are better left for serious reflection rather than comedy. I think there's no doubt 9/11 is part of that,” Gibbs continued.