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WASHINGTON — Nix the flags and the podium. Cue the opulent 18-foot tower of gold-bottled French champagne. When President Obama addresses an elite roster of hipsters and multimillionaires, including hosts Beyoncé and Jay-Z, in New York tonight, he will do so next to a custom-designed tower of $800-per-bottle champagne that dominates the main room at Jay-Z’s 40/40 nightclub. The 350-bottle champagne tower — designed by Jeffrey Beers — is a monument to Jay-Z’s favorite bubbly, Armand de Brignac, which is known colloquially by rappers, clubgoers and connoisseurs as Ace of Spades because of its gold-spade label. “It’s floor-to-ceiling gold bottles...

Editor's note: It's a presidential election year, so we thought we'd weigh in with our list of the five worst presidents. We start with, yes, the current incumbent. See our other choices at U-T Opinion online. He took office at a time when the U.S. economy was on its worst slide in 75 years, but pushed policies using borrowed money that were more meant to preserve government jobs than broadly help the private sector where the great majority of Americans work, ensuring the jobs crisis continued. He railed against the heavy spending and big deficits of his predecessor, but blithely...

**snip** Obama has shown contempt for American friends and allies. He insulted the Czechs and Poles when he unilaterally and without warning repudiated our missile defense agreements with them. His contemptuous snubs and denigrations of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu are notorious. He recently showed contempt for the British by refusing to say he would recognize Britain's claim to sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, even if the Falklands' residents voted for British sovereignty in a plebiscite. And just as Jimmy Carter ensured the shah's departure by rejecting him, so Obama paved the way for the Muslim Brotherhood's rise to power in...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Obama's speech yesterday on the economy and Paul Ryan. This also plundered new depths of cynicism and outright prevarication. But it's an election year and Obama does not have one thing in his record to run on. He cannot point, nor can the Democrats, to one thing they have done and say, "You want more of this? Vote for us." Not one, folks. There isn't a single thing. Now, they're gonna try to make Obamacare that, but the court might get in the way. But I want you to listen to Obama yesterday afternoon talking to his...

Former US President Jimmy Carter has disclosed that he had angry exchanges with Pope John Paul II about liberation theology and about the ordination of women. The former president said that he complained to the Pontiff about the Church’s “perpetuation of the subservience of women” while Blessed John Paul II was visiting the US in 1978, and “there was more harshness when we turned to the subject of ‘liberation theology.” Carter said that he classified the Pope as a “fundamentalist,” placing him in that category along with Iran’s late Ayatollah Khomeini. In the same interview Carter said that “it...

WASHINGTON - Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income. The latest census data depict a middle class that's shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government's safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.

Just reported on Fox News...at a Detroit rally for Obama to preview his joke of a jobs bill, Jimmy Hoffa Jr. warming up the crowd said of the GOP and the Tea Party "Let's take these sons of b-tches out!" This is a clear incitement to violence which Obama must condemn at once. If he does not, then he is a rank hypocrite accusing conservatives of incivility and incitment as part of his attempt to politicize the Gabby Giffords shooting. This is a MUCH MORE CLEAR CALL FOR VIOLENCE than anything they can pin on anyone in the Tea Party,...

CNBC just broke in and told the audience that the President has requested airtime and will speak to the nation at 1300hrs EST (12 noon central, 10 AM PST) on the US national debt downgrade.Developing...

WASHINGTON — Former US president Jimmy Carter, who brokered the existing peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, predicted Sunday that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will have to resign because "the people have decided," a report said. "This is the most profound situation in the Middle East since I left office," Carter said during the Sunday religion class he teaches at a Baptist church in his hometown of Plains, in the southern state of Georgia. Carter's comments were reported by the Ledger-Enquirer newspaper of Columbus, Georgia. A spokeswoman for the former president did not immediately respond to AFP to confirm them.

In his first interview since Election Day, former President Jimmy Carter told CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante that Republicans were "irresponsible" in the first half of President Obama's term and the second half will be "better." More of Plante's interview with President Carter airs 12:30pmET Tuesday on "Washington Unplugged."

Implicitly acknowledging the decline of American dominance, Barack Obama on Sunday said the US was no longer in a position to "meet the rest of the world economically on our terms". Speaking at a town hall meeting in Mumbai, he said, "I do think that one of the challenges that we are going face in the US, at a time when we are still recovering from the financial crisis is, how do we respond to some of the challenges of globalisation? The fact of the matter is that for most of my lifetime and I'll turn 50 next year -...

Right Wing Bloggers Choose '25 Worst Figures In American History' The blog Right Wing News asked "more than a hundred bloggers" who they thought were the worst people in American history. The results may shock you! Or maybe not. Jane Fonda makes the cut, along with FDR. Let's look. This question was put out to over 100 crazies with internet connections: Out of all the gangsters, serial killers, mass murderers, incompetent & crooked politicians, spies, traitors, and ultra left-wing kooks in all of American history — have you ever wondered who the worst of the worst was?" Some of the...

Americans for Prosperity: Obama's Oval Office speech was so similar to Jimmy Carter's Malaise speech, they almost seamlessly fit together.

On May 3, Barack Obama went down to Louisiana to eyeball the possible damage from the blowout of BP's exploded oil rig, keep the cleanup crews on their toes — no version of "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" from him — and show the Gulf states and the rest of the nation his concern. Later that day, the Washington Post's Web site played the story precisely where it belonged — entombed in the middle of the page. In its placement, it said the president of the United States did not, in this case, matter all that much....

When Japan’s prime minister visited Washington this month, Japanese officials lobbied intensely to get him a one-on-one with Barack Obama. In the end, Yukio Hatoyama had to settle for just 10 minutes, and even that during a banquet when the US president was presumably more interested in the appetisers and wine. These things matter in Japan. One senior politician called the put-down – as it was inevitably viewed in Tokyo – “humiliating”. He even noted that the Japanese prime minister was shunted to the edge of a group photo, the diplomatic equivalent of banishment to Siberia. It would be wrong...

Here is video of President Obama today at a news conference closing his "Nuclear Security Summit," where he made the odd statement that "whether we like it or not, we (United States) remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, we get pulled into it." Whether we like it or not? Does that mean President Obama does not like America being a "dominant military superpower?" Youtube Link

Iran is poised to begin producing nuclear weapons after its uranium program expansion in 2009, even though it has had problems with thousands of its centrifuges, according to a newly released CIA report. "Iran continues to develop a range of capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so," the annual report to Congress states. A U.S. official involved in countering weapons proliferation said the Iranians are "keeping the door open to the possibility of building a nuclear weapon."

Obama talking down to McCain at the Health Care Summit: ""Let me make this point, John, because we're not campaigning anymore, the election is over"...Obama is clearly annoyed today...good...

Considering how this past week, eh-hem....this past year.....has gone, I dedicate this thread to.... I stand here today as hopeful as ever that the United States of America will endure, that it will prevail, that the dream of our founders will live on in our time. ~ Barack Obama (At the Lincolm Memorial concert on National Mall in Washington, January 18, 2009, two days before his inauguration as US President.) I have studied the Constitution as a student; I have taught it as a teacher; I have been bound by it as a lawyer and legislator. I took an...

WASHINGTON - Sounding a friendly tone to the nation's community bankers, President Barack Obama on Tuesday said the White House will seek to cut bureaucratic restrictions so that local lenders can help businesses seize "enormous opportunities" for growth after bleak times. "We feel very optimistic that the worst is behind us," the president declared after meeting with heads of a dozen small and community banks. The event, among the final acts of business for Obama before he leaves for a Christmas vacation in Hawaii, follows a similar meeting the president held at the White House with some of the nation's...

Rasmussen reports Sunday's Obama's Presidential Approval Index, fell to -19.

Yesterday, 13 of our own troops were killed and 30 others were injured in Fort Hood, Texas at a secure U.S. Army base and the president is nowhere to be seen. This doesn't even surprise us, but for the people who still support Obama, you now further understand why we call you 'idiots.' Signs of Trinity church, Black Liberation Theology, Bill Ayers and Marxist professors? Hmmm.... After all, President Obama seemed to make it to Manhattan last month when Goldman Sachs, his number one Wall Street campaign contributor along with several other shadow banking firms attended an expensive DNC fundraiser...

Many years ago, at a certain academic institution, there was an experimental program that the faculty had to vote on as to whether or not it should be made permanent. I rose at the faculty meeting to say that I knew practically nothing about whether the program was good or bad, and that the information that had been supplied to us was too vague for us to have any basis for voting, one way or the other. My suggestion was that we get more concrete information before having a vote. The director of that program rose immediately and responded indignantly...

(CNN) -- Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that racial politics played a role in South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst during President Obama's speech to Congress last week and in some of the opposition the president has faced since taking office. Former President Carter tells "NBC Nightly News" that racism has surfaced in opposition to President Obama. "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," Carter told "NBC Nightly News." "I live in the South, and I've seen the...

Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed? Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths: The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith. They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright. They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of...

After more than 60 years together, Jimmy Carter has announced himself at odds with the Southern Baptist Church -- and he's decided it's time they go their separate ways. Via Feministing, the former president called the decision "unavoidable" after church leaders prohibited women from being ordained and insisted women be "subservient to their husbands."

With his massive wealth transfer proposals, it was hard not to view President Obama as a decent man who was inviting fiscal ruin with the best of intentions. That was until the Washington Times reported that he had secured a $500,000 advance for a book project just days before taking office. The White House argues that the $500,000 payment is not a “book deal,” but a “license” that was negotiated over the course of months for an abridged youth version of a preexisting book. Only the “paperwork” was signed just before taking office. Whatever the argument, it is incumbent on...

he $787 billion, 1,074 page stimulus bill has been passed. President Barack Obama has signed it. It will have no impact on the economy in 2009. The bill will stimulate nothing but the National Debt. Within months, plans for another stimulus plan will be demanded by the Congress because speed and the appearance of action are how politicians get reelected. The annual deficit for 2009 is now estimated at between $2 trillion and $3 trillion give or take a few 100 billion. These figures seem incomprehensible to the average person on the street. Some perspective is in order. If we...

My wife and I tag-team to get our four kids ready for school in the morning. She manages the lunch-packing process and I make a hot breakfast. Rarely does a lively morning pass that I don’t gaze upon my children at the kitchen table and silently lament Washington’s economic decision-making. I agree with President Barack Obama, who says, “The situation could not be more serious.” It has taken years of toxic economic decision-making to create the cracks in America’s economy: an annual deficit of one-trillion dollars, a national debt of $10 trillion, unfunded Social Security and federal healthcare liabilities of...

In a previous column, I said the Obama stimulus package is the greatest consumer rip-off and fraud in history. (See “Obama Attempts to Pull Off Greatest Rip-offs, Con Jobs in History” (Feb. 2) and also on The Bulletin’s Web site at www.thebulletin.us.) The President has saved Bernard Madoff, king of Ponzi schemes, from having that honor. He got away with a paltry $50 billion, nothing like the trillions we’re about to see go for pork. I should also add that the stimulus package is just the beginning of the meltdown of the Obama presidency. In fact, Martin Wolf, a columnist...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich issued a sharp critique of President Barack Obama's speech before House Democrats in Williamsburg, Va. "It shrinks his presidency," said Gingrich Friday at the American Enterprise Institute. "I thought last night's speech in Williamsburg actually was a lot more like Carter and a long way from Reagan." The former Speaker's remarks referred to the more partisan tone adopted by Obama Thursday evening in addressing Republican objections to the stimulus package and to the President's assertion that critics want to return to "the same policies that for the last eight years doubled the national debt and...

How worthless is Jimmy Carter? Haley Barbour, Governor of Mississippi, makes the point that when an opposition party seizes control of the White House from its rival, that party almost always holds the Presidency for two terms at least. This means that the odds heavily favor Barack Obama’s reelection in 2012. In the last 112 years, an opposition party took over the presidency eleven times (McKinley in 1896, Wilson in 1912, Harding in 1920, FDR in 1932, Eisenhower in 1952, Kennedy in 1960, Nixon in 1968, Carter in 1976, Reagan in 1980, Clinton in 1992, George W. Bush in 2000)....

<p>President George W. Bush told a group of Texas reporters Friday that he regretted immigration policies were not reformed while he was in office.</p> <p>"I'm very disappointed that it didn't pass," he said in an interview with correspondents from his home state. "I'm very worried about the message that said, 'Republicans are anti-immigrant.'"</p>

"Candidate Jimmy Carter said he stood for change." - Associated Press, 11/3/1976 Goodness. What a difference a year makes. In fact, a year after Carter's inauguration night, even some Democrats were rolling their eyes. Come, now: Let's revisit history, shall we? Before President Jimmy Carter's January1977 inauguration: November 3, 1976: "What Will Carter Presidency Look Like?" An AP news analysis, by Louise Cook reminds literates that "Jimmy Carter said he stood for change. He left a long list of promises" like Whatshisname. Consider.  "A streamlined bureaucracy"? Yes.  "A new tax system"? Yes. "A pared-down defense budget"? Yes. "Comprehensive national health and...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=alHWVvGnkcd4&refer=canada Link only This is important

<p>Jimmy Carter became our 39th president at the young age of 52. He was a one-term governor from Plains, GA, where he managed the family peanut farm and taught Sunday school. He was also a graduate of the Naval Academy and served seven years in the Navy, leaving as a lieutenant.</p>

After a Georgia inmate convicted of murdering a police officer was spared from execution a second time, the condemned man's widely publicized supporters erupted in joy. But far from television cameras, the victim's family seethed. "My son is dead. Theirs is still alive," said Anneliese MacPhail, the officer's mother. "That's just the way I feel."

If you want to get riled up, or you need a good laugh... Can't post article, so here's a link: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-08-28-carter-denver_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Last week raised important questions about whether Barack Obama is strong enough to be president. On the domestic political front, he showed incredible weakness in dealing with the Clintons, while on foreign and defense questions, he betrayed a lack of strength and resolve in standing up to Russia’s invasion of Georgia. This two-dimensional portrait of weakness underscores fears that Obama might, indeed, be a latter-day Jimmy Carter. Consider first the domestic and political. Bill and Hillary Clinton have no leverage over Obama. Hillary can’t win the nomination. She doesn’t control any committees. If she or her supporters tried to disrupt...

Jimmy Carter, Unwitting Crusader for Islamofascism   written by Ken on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 #fullpost{display:inline;}Not since Neville Chamberlain has the world seen as wreckless an appeaser as Jimmy Carter. During the Jimmy Carter nightmare in the 70's, Iran took 52 American's hostage for 444 days and had the most powerful nation on Earth on its knees. Not until a real President, Ronald Reagan, came to office did Iran take the US serious enough to release all American Hostages. Since then we have had to live with Iran as a rogue Islamic state thanks to the peanut farmer, turn...

Barack Obama should not pick Hillary Clinton as his vice-presidential nominee, former president Jimmy Carter has told the Guardian. "I think it would be the worst mistake that could be made," said Carter. "That would just accumulate the negative aspects of both candidates." Carter, who formally endorsed the Illinois senator last night, cited opinion polls showing 50% of US voters with a negative view of Clinton. In terms that might discomfort the Obama camp, he said: "If you take that 50% who just don't want to vote for Clinton and add it to whatever element there might be who don't...

Former US President Jimmy Carter urged Washington to establish friendly ties with Tehran, reiterating the need for his country to resume trade relations with Iran, which he described as a "rational" nation. Speaking at the Hay Festival yesterday, Carter also suggested the US should provide nuclear power technology and fuel to Iran as a show of goodwill. "What happens if, in three years' time, Iran has a nuclear weapon," Carter asked. "I'm not sure that is going to happen, but if it does, what do we do? They are rational people like all of us in this room. Do they...

OPINION, May 4 /Christian Newswire/ -- Gary McCullough, director of the Christian Newswire, submits the following for publication and is available for comment: When judging the performance of a president the grid one uses is the most influential factor. For many Americans that grid is national security. With this in mind, which presidents have led our nation to a more secure status? And which presidents have left us more at risk? When viewed through this grid I propose that President Jimmy Carter put America at physical risk more so than any other president. Today on a Sunday talk show, Mr....

Jimmy is on with Merideth and states that the state dept. never told him not to go to the Middle East. What a loser

The United States registered an official protest with Israel against its ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, for calling former U.S. President Jimmy Carter an "enemy of Israel" prior to Carter's recent visit to the region. A senior Foreign Ministry source said Saturday that the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv asked that Gillerman be made aware of the U.S. administration's dissatisfaction with the disrespectful comments about the former U.S. President.

Recent talks between former president Jimmy Carter and a militant leader failed to make much of a difference in Gaza, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki said Wednesday. Carter's meeting with exiled Hamas militant leader Khaled Meshaal, which drew anger from both the U.S. and Israel, did not produce a cease fire or prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel, al-Malki told Agence France-Presse. "The only thing he achieved was permission on the part of Khaled Meshaal of Hamas to deliver a letter from a detained Israeli soldier to his family. Nothing else," al-Malki told AFP. Also on Wednesday, Carter stopped just...

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday accused Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of not telling the truth about warnings she said her department gave Carter not to speak to Hamas before a Middle East trip. The State Department has said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, issued the warning before Carter, a veteran of Middle East diplomacy, went on his trip last week. Rice said in Kuwait on Tuesday: "We counseled President Carter against going to the region and particularly against having contact with Hamas." "President Carter...

The decision of the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award former President Jimmy Carter the Nobel Peace Prize for 2002 requires some serious review. The Committee stated that it was honoring the former president "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development." But history tells a different story - that of a political neophyte president who, when it came to conducting domestic and foreign affairs, was way out of his depth. According to Michael Schoenfeld of Commentary, who reviewed Carter's book Living Faith,...

As former President Jimmy Carter met with Hamas leaders and laid a wreath at the tomb of terrorist Yasser Arafat, Americans were wondering who Carter really is. Carter came into office portraying himself as a man of the people, a peanut farmer who cares about the problems of working class Americans. But Secret Service agents, Air Force One stewards, and White House residence staff saw an entirely different picture.Snip.... If the true measure of a man is how he treats the little people, Carter flunked the test. Inside the White House, Carter treated those who helped and protected him with...

We just don’t get it. The Left in America is screaming to high heaven that the mess we are in in Iraq and the war on terrorism has been caused by the right-wing and that George W. Bush, the so-called “dim-witted cowboy,” has created the entire mess. The truth is the entire nightmare can be traced back to the liberal democratic policies of the leftist Jimmy Carter, who created a firestorm that destabilized our greatest ally in the Muslim world, the shah of Iran, in favor of a religious fanatic, the ayatollah Khomeini. Carter viewed Khomeini as more of a...