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WASHINGTON – White House gate crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination Wednesday, refusing to answer a House committee's questions about their uninvited appearance at a state dinner. The jet-setting Virginia couple repeatedly said they were remaining silent on advice of counsel, but that didn't prevent members of the Homeland Security Committee from peppering them with questions about how they got through Secret Service checkpoints on Nov. 24. Tareq Salahi read an opening statement in which he offered to have the couple's lawyers provide information about their appearance at the dinner for the prime minister...

To the editor: I don't understand why the White House is so upset about two party crashers as Barack Obama's steak dinner the other night. Is it really appropriate and politically correct to call them party crashers just because they trespassed on Mr. Obama? Does that make them criminals? Isn't that discrimination? Shouldn't they be rewarded for such bold and brave behavior? Maybe they were just trying to feed their family? I would suggest that it's more appropriate to call them "undocumented guests." Just because they weren't officially invited doesn't mean they should be treated like criminals. Maybe they should...

Can't post AP.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama says the White House gate-crashers got in through a "screw-up," he's unhappy with everyone involved and it won't happen again. "What I know is what everybody knows, which is that these people should not have gotten through the gate," Obama told CBS' "60 Minutes" in an interview airing Sunday night. "I was unhappy with everybody who was involved in the process," Obama said in the interview. "And so, it was a screw-up."

The evidence clearly shows that the congressional investigation of the White House Gatecrashers is being controlled and limited. Homeland Security Committee chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS), now the subject of an Ethics Committee investigation, has made it clear that he wants to limit the investigation. Is he trying to protect White House officials with something to hide? Ignoring evidence of White House connections to the alleged gatecrashers, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, Thompson will not subpoena Desirée Rogers, the White House social secretary who is a very close friend of Barack and Michelle Obama. As a result of the stonewalling and cover-up,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House gate-crashers plan to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights and refuse to testify if they are subpoenaed to appear on Capitol Hill about the security breach. Reality TV hopefuls Michaele and Tareq Salahi said through their lawyer on Tuesday that the House Homeland Security Committee has drawn premature conclusions about the Nov. 24 incident, when they were able to get into the state dinner without being on an approved guest list.

Desiree Rogers is under scrutiny for her office's role in the infamous security breakdown at the state dinner. A woman with a reputation as a consummate perfectionist is being criticized for dropping the ball — and, by some, for putting her own aggrandizement over her job. The White House social secretary under fire for her office's role in the security breakdown that let an invited couple into a state dinner once joked that she regularly allowed party crashers at White House events. Desiree Rogers made the claim in an interview with the trade magazine BizBash at the Creative Coalition's annual...

If White House social secretary Desiree Rogers survives this week's withering attacks for her role in last week's state dinner security breach, she'll have gotten by with a lot of help from her friends in the West Wing. As a House committee opened hearings Thursday on how two uninvited partygoers were able to enter the White House grounds and shake hands with President Barack Obama, top presidential aides delivered a clear message to critics of this favored staffer: Back off. In a White House not known for its tolerance of staffing errors, Rogers has been the beneficiary of an unprecedented...

A random websurf today shows no shortage of prominent coverage in the Arabic language media including running commentary on the fiasco as well as in some cases detailed background explanations as to how the recent State Dinner security breach occured at the White House and uncleared people were able to come into close access with the President of the United States and visiting The Prime Minister of India.One such outlet is Arab Times in Arabic, located in the United States, but many other outlets are carrying it outside of the USA--including on some questionable sites. This appeared on Arabic...

Before she made it into a White House state dinner without an official invitation, Michaele Salahi made it onto the Redskins alumni cheerleading squad -- without ever having been a Redskins cheerleader. Salahi performed at FedEx Field during halftime of the Redskins-St. Louis Rams game Sept. 20 with a group of 150 former Redskins cheerleaders. Salahi's rehearsals with the group were filmed by a crew that has been following Michaele Salahi and her husband, Tareq, for possible inclusion on a cable TV reality show, "The Real Housewives of D.C." Several former cheerleaders said in interviews that Michaele Salahi's presence at...

Research shows the following:"Unlawful Entry. A Violation of D.C.Code § 22-3102(1967).-- Unlawful Entry is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not exceeding $100 or imprisonment in the District of Columbia jail for not more than six months or both in the discretion of the court."

A couple of aspiring reality TV stars gatecrashed the state dinner hosted in honour of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the White House, clicked pictures with US Vice President Joe Biden and other guests and then posted them on their Facebook profile, US media said. A Washington Post report said: "Tareq and Michaele Salahi -- polo-playing socialites -- were seen arriving at the White House and later posted on the Facebook photos of themselves with VIPs at the elite gathering." "Honoured to be at the White House for the state dinner in honour of India with President Obama and...

A top Eritrean AIDS activist is among some 150 delegates of last month's international AIDS conference in Toronto who stayed behind and filed refugee claims in a bid to remain in Canada, immigration officials confirm. Amanuel Tesfamichael, 32, had to sprint to a waiting car at Pearson airport to escape Eritrean agents as he arrived for the AIDS 2006 conference. Most of the claimants have the deadly disease and include a large group of women from hardest-hit South Africa and citizens of El Salvador, Eritrea, Uganda and Zimbabwe. "It feels good to be free," said Tesfamichael, who has the disease....

I guess it's time to restate the obvious. President Bush still doesn't get it. Or worse, he gets it and continues to deliberately deceive the American people. We do not need nor desire a "comprehensive immigration reform plan" – at least as he envisions it. Bush is trying to extort the American people by promising to protect the border with still inadequate measures only if we accept the illegal presence of 15 million aliens already here and many, many millions more in the future. The American people must continue to reject this shakedown. We cannot be held hostage by Bush's...

President Bush accuses those of us who want to secure America's borders and fully enforce our immigration laws of lacking "compassion." Huh. Well, I have yet to hear an ounce of compassion from President Bush for America's countless casualties of lax immigration enforcement. Where's the sympathy for innocent, law-abiding citizens who have lost their lives at the hands of illegal aliens and their open-borders enablers? Nope, we haven't heard a word about the victims as the White House pours on its unadulterated pro-illegal alien rhetoric and "undocumented workers do the jobs Americans won't do" propaganda – all in support of...

Everybody is surprised by the size of the recent demonstrations against legislation to do something about illegal immigration in this country. Why should we be surprised that rallies in Chicago and L.A. are drawing 500,000 people? There are at least 12 million illegal aliens in this country – 12 million illegal invaders, lawbreakers, people who broke into our country, defied the rules about legal entry, many of them taking up permanent residency and taking full advantage of free services designed for taxpaying citizens. Is it a surprise to Americans that there are at least 12 million illegal aliens? Is it...

Bogus arguments are a tip-off that you wouldn't buy the real reasons for what someone is doing. Phony arguments and phony words are the norm in discussions of immigration policy. It starts with a refusal to call illegal aliens "illegal aliens" and ends with asking for "guest worker" status for people who are not guests but gate crashers. As for the substantive arguments, they are as phony as the verbal evasions. What about all those illegal workers that we "need"? Many of the illegals are working in agriculture, producing crops that have been in chronic surplus for decades. These surplus...