In the news…

1.  It would appear that Obama’s public persona has been presented differently at different times. A promotional booklet produced in 1991 by Barack Obama’s then-literary agency, Acton & Dystel, which touts Obama as “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.”   The booklet, which was distributed to “business colleagues” in the publishing industry, includes a brief biography of Obama among the biographies of eighty-nine other authors represented by Acton & Dystel.  The following online bio was used up until April 2007:

BARACK OBAMA is the junior Democratic senator from Illinois and was the dynamic keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He was also the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. He was born in Kenya to an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister and was raised in Indonesia, Hawaii, and Chicago. His first book, DREAMS FROM MY FATHER: A STORY OF RACE AND INHERITANCE, has been a long time New York Times bestseller.

2.  More information has been released in the Trayvon Martin shooting.  Police audio of one witness account says that Trayvon Martin was beating George Zimmerman and the witness tried to get Trayvon to stop.  The witness says he ran and immediately called 911.  Autopsy reports also show that Trayvon had traces of illegal drugs in his system.

3.  In just two weeks, the DOW Industrial Average has dropped nearly 900 points.  Investors have grown concern over the growing debt in Europe and the election of Socialist who are calling for more taxes and less cuts to spending.

4.  Fifty percent of Americans now have a favorable opinion of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, up from 39% in February and his highest by 10 percentage points.  As a result of the increase, Romney’s favorable rating nearly matches President Obama’s 52%.

5.  Congress is investigating the White House over a secret deal in June 2009 with the pharmaceutical industry to clinch passage of Obamacare.  The 2009 deal made with lobbyist representing the drug industry may have won pharma’s backing for the unpopular law in exchange for a Democratic promise to protect the drug companies’ revenues and profits from profit-sapping regulations, such as price caps on drugs.

6.  President Barack Obama’s 2012 budget was slammed yesterday as an “attack on the middle class and our most vulnerable citizens” by the United Auto Workers Union.  Obama’s budget was rejected yesterday in the Senate 99-0.  In March it was rejected 414-0.  No Democrat voted for Obama’s budget.

7.  The Congressional Research Service estimates that since 2008 the Obama Administration has spent over  $70 billion on “climate change activities.”  The report revealed that from fiscal years 2008 through 2012 the federal government spent $68.4 billion to combat climate change. The Department of Defense also spent $4 billion of its budget, the report adds, on climate change and energy efficiency activities in that same time period.

Richard Tisei, up and coming openly gay Republican power broker

In the news…

1.  An exclusive report obtained by ABC News shows that George Zimmerman had a “closed fracture” of his nose, a pair of black eyes, two lacerations to the back of his head and a back injury the day after he fatally shot Trayvon Martin. The report shows that Zimmerman also suffered bruising in the upper lip and cheek.  WFTV has confirmed that autopsy results show 17-year-old Trayvon Martin had injuries to his knuckles when he died.  The medical examiner found two injuries on Martin’s body: The fatal gunshot wound and broken skin on his knuckles.

2.  In the latest USA Today/Gallup Generic Congressional Poll shows Republicans extending their lead over the Democrats by 6 points.  According to the poll voters prefer Republican 50% to Democrats 44%.

3.  Franciscan University, a Catholic institution in Steubensville, Ohio, is claiming that Obamacare has forced the school to end its student heath insurance program. The massive health care overhaul, the university says, has led to cost increases that no longer make offering the program a viable possibility.

4.  More evidence of liberal hypocrisy… Van Jones said that he and environmentalists stayed quiet during the BP oil disaster in 2010 because Barack Obama was president — and admitted he would have “been out there with a sign protesting” had George W. Bush or John McCain been occupying the White House.

5.  The Huffington Post reports today that a quiet transformation is taking place in the Republican Party, which has begun to embrace openly gay candidates – and among gay Republicans, who now feel more comfortable speaking out in a party that may have accepted them but didn’t always show it.  While differences still exist, the party is on the cusp of a generational shift in which the longtime foes of gay rights are replaced by younger party leaders who are more accepting.

In the news…

1.  Democrat and Obama’s claim that the GOP is mounting a war on women has proven to be a failure. A month into his assault on the Republicans and Mitt Romney, the new CBS-New York Times poll shows that the GOP presidential candidate now leads among women and men.  Women now back Romney 46 percent with 44 percent for Obama, an 8-point switch. Romney’s support among men has dropped, but he still edges Obama 45 percent to 42 percent. Despite the media hyping the so-called war on women, aside from Fox, no major outlet has reported Romney’s new lead with women voters.

2. Four black men brutally beat a soldier in Tampa, whose car broke down a few miles from his home. The attack came when he was walking home. A group of three black men walked ahead of the soldier. Police say one of the men in the group doubled back and asked the soldier to borrow a dollar. When the soldier reached for his wallet, the first punch flew. The first, tremendous sucker punch laid the victim onto the ground. The other two men joined in, punching and kicking the soldier.  The fourth attacker — a man the soldier said he had walked past earlier — joined in the beating. Reverend Al Sharpton has not commented on the attack.

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I am reading Edward Klein’s book, ‘The Amateur’ and each day I will share excerpts from this fascinating book about Obama by this former New York Magazine reporter.

1. Obama first met Reverend Jeremiah Wright in 1985 were he was introduced to Black Liberation Theology. One of the pillars of Wright’s Trinity United Church, where Obama attended for more than 20 years, is ‘economic parity’ and references ‘mal-distribution.’ Black Liberation theologians, like Wright, state a preference for Marxism as an ethical framework for black churches.

2. Wright recalls that Obama approached him not in search of Christ, but to talk to him about organizing black churches in Chicago. Later, Obama would often drop by Wright’s church to talk about more personal things and to make sense of who he was. Wright told Obama, “Well, you already know the Muslim piece of your background. You studied Islam, didn’t you?” Obama answered that he did. “But help me understand Christianity, because I already know Islam,” he told Wright.

3. Wright says that he doesn’t know if Obama ever converted from Islam to Christianity, but thinks he may have convinced him it was okay to make a choice of who he believed Jesus was.

4. Wright became Obama’s life coach, political inspiration, and was like his substitute father. Wright encouraged Obama to make a career out of politics and offered to introduce him to wealthy members of Trinity United Church.

5. Michelle Obama, not Barack chose Trinity to be their home church so that she could associate with the small transcendent black elites with wealth, power, and influences.

6. According to Wright, Michelle never belong to any church prior to Trinity and says that Michelle grew up in a “Jack and Jill” middle income class environment. He adds that church is not Michelle or Barack’s thing. “It was never their thing,” he stresses and adds, “but, the church was an integral part of Barack’s politics. Because he needed the black base.”

7. Barack was offered a job at the University of Chicago to teach law in 1991 by the university’s dean, Douglas Baird. Obama said he had an interest in writing a book on voting rights and Baird told him he would provide him the resources he needed if he accepted the position. After several months, Obama decided that he didn’t want to write a book on voting rights and at 30 years old told Baird he would be writing his autobiography. For 12 years Obama taught at the Law School, but by all accounts was rarely seen or virtually heard from.

8. In 1996, while still teaching law, Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate. During most of his seven years, Obama was largely absent. He rarely showed up to committee meetings and, in fact, didn’t show up for picture day. By most accounts, Obama had no interest in the process or learning the legislative process and instead preferred to stand on the State Senate floor and give speeches.

9. Against the advice of Michelle, Obama decided to challenge Bobby Rush, a four-term member of Congress, in 2000. Rush pummeled Obama at the polls and it left the Obamas deep in debt. Obama confided to friends that Michelle wanted a divorce and Michelle told one of her friends that she had drawn up divorce papers. Obama was so depressed that friend worried he was suicidal.

10. Obama met Jim Reynolds, who was a CEO of a global investment firm and a mover and shaker in Chicago’s wealthy black community. He was impressed with Obama’s memoir, ‘Dreams from My Father’ and agreed to jump start Obama’s political ambitions. He introduced Obama to Jesse Jackson who Reynold’s said would broaden Obama’s view beyond neighborhood concerns. Every Saturday for a year Obama would hone his speaking skill by giving speeches at Jackson’s PUSH coalition.

11. Obama met Steve Rogers, a wealthy black entrepreneur and professor who help retire some of Obama’s debt from his unsuccessful congressional bid. Obama constantly left messages on Rogers cell asking for more money, however, this time for Democrat members of Congress. He wanted to show that he could raise money for candidates around the country. Rogers agreed in exchange that once Obama got elected he would address his students. Obama agreed. Once elected, Obama said he was too busy to keep his promise and said, ‘come on, man, you should know better when politicians make promises.’ Rogers was furious and said, ‘You’re a dirty, rotten motherf*cker”. A year later Obama finally showed up. Rogers says, “What you have with Barack Obama is a lack of Character.”

Courtesy:  John Paulus

Click HERE to purchase THE AMATEUR

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In the news…

1.  Despite character attacks by the Obama media and campaign, Mitt Romney’s lead over Obama continues to grow.  In the latest Rasmussen Poll Romney now beats Obama 50% to 43%.  This is the first time Romney has reached the 50% level of support and is his largest lead ever over the president. It comes a week after a disappointing jobs report that raised new questions about the state of the economy.

2.  The older sister of Mitt Romney’s former high school classmate, who the Washington Post claimed Romney bullied, said she has no knowledge of any bullying incident involving her brother and the GOP presidential candidate.  “The family of John Lauber is releasing a statement saying the portrayal of John is factually incorrect and we are aggrieved that he would be used to further a political agenda. There will be no more comments from the family,” she said.

3. Bill Clinton thought so little of President Obama — mocking him as an “amateur” — that he pressed his wife last summer to quit her job as secretary of state and challenge him in the primaries, a new book claims, “The country needs you!” the former president told Hillary Clinton, urging her to run this year, according to accounts of the conversation included in Edward Klein’s new biography of Obama.  The title of Klein’s explosive, unauthorized bio of Obama, “The Amateur” (Regnery Publishing), was taken directly from Bill Clinton’s bombshell criticism of the president, the author said.

“The economy’s a mess, it’s dead flat. America has lost its Triple-A rating . . . You know better than Obama does,” Bill said.  Bill Clinton insisted he had “no relationship” with Obama and had been consulted more frequently by his presidential successor, George W. Bush.  Obama, Bill Clinton said, “doesn’t know how to be president” and is “incompetent.”  But Hillary resisted the entreaties, according to two of the guests interviewed for the book.

4.  In an exclusive preview of The Amateur by Human Events, Obama’s longtime physician reveals the lack of humanity in Obama’s character and carelessness with which he enacted the entirely politicized health insurance reform, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often called ObamaCare.

Dr. David Scheiner said that he believes the president miscalculated politically and that the health reform is ultimately doomed to fail. Worse, Scheiner doubts the character of a man who holds the highest and most influential office in America: “I think there is too much of the University of Chicago in him. By which I mean he’s academic, lacks passion and feeling, and doesn’t have the sense of humanity that I expected.”

5.  Detailed leaks of operational information about the foiled underwear bomb plot are causing growing anger in the US intelligence community, with former agents blaming the Obama administration for undermining national security and compromising the British services, MI6 and MI5. Members of Congress are calling on a full investigation to determine who in the Obama administration leaked the information and more importantly, why.

Purchase ‘The Amateur’ here.

Courtesy:  John Paulus

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While the Washington Post has been diligently digging into relatively innocent high school pranks by Mitt Romney, they’ve spent the last few years diligently ignoring President Obama’s far more controversial high school days.

Obama, by all accounts, was a habitual drug user in high school. He tried cocaine, he admits in Dreams From My Father; he “tried drugs enthusiastically.” The Chicago Tribune reported back in 2007 that Obama thanked the “Choom Gang” in his high school yearbook; “chooming” was Hawaiian slang for smoking pot. The Honolulu Advertiser reported that Obama’s senior portrait “prominently displayed … A package of ‘Zig-Zag’ rolling papers and a matchbook.” One of Obama’s close friends was arrested for drug possession during high school.

In his memoir, Obama talked about routinely getting high. “Junkie. Pothead,” he wrote. “That’s where I’d been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man.” But, according to Obama, he only got high because he was contemplating deep matters: drugs could “push questions of who I was out of my mind.”

Obama told students in 2007 that this activity constituted “goofing off” and “wasting time”:

“I will confess to you that I was kind of a goof off in high school as my mom reminded me,” Obama said. “I went to high school in Hawaii, so there’s a lot of opportunity to goof off because the weather is really good all the time …

“You know, I made some bad decisions …. You know, got into drinking and experimenting with drugs. There was a whole stretch of time where I didn’t apply myself. It wasn’t until I got out of … high school, and went to college that I started realizing, man, I wasted a lot of time.”

The New York Times, however, went out of its way to find Obama’s classmates to testify that drugs played only a “bit part” in Obama’s youth. Yet Obama would later brag on the campaign trail that he “inhaled frequently … that was the point.”

During his high school years, Obama hung out with communist radical Frank Marshall Davis; in 2007, the Los Angeles Times reported that during his high school days, “he felt the first stirrings of anger toward whites. He says he also delved into black nationalism.” He was “offended or even enraged when white classmates adopted black street slang or revealed their underlying consciousness of his race by going out of their way to tell him how much they admired a black musician or athlete.”

This activity is certainly more reflective of Obama’s ideological history than Mitt Romney’s pranks on teachers and fellow students. And as for the drug use – well, that seems just a bit more serious than walking a teacher into a door or cutting a student’s hair. But leave it to the Post to ignore or downplay all of that in favor of continuing stories about Romney’s dog, his high school hijinks, and whatever other nonsense they can use to protect President Obama from his own incompetence.

Courtesy:  Ben Shapiro

In the news…

1.  Just how unpopular is President Barack Obama in some parts of the country? Enough that a man in prison in Texas got 4 out of 10 votes in West Virginia’s Democratic presidential primary.  The inmate, Keith Judd, is serving time at the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana, Texas, for making threats at the University of New Mexico in 1999. Obama received 59 percent of the vote to Judd’s 41 percent.  For some West Virginia Democrats, simply running against Obama is enough to get Judd votes.  It was also enough for Judd to earn delegates.  Obama will run into a similar challenge in Arkansas.

2.  A day after North Carolina voted to ban gay marriage, Obama flipped flopped on the issue and now says that he supports gay marriage.  In the past, Obama made clear that he didn’t believe gay marriage was a civil right and stated that marriage was between a man and a woman.  Flip flopping on gay marriage makes this choice politically risky for Obama. Black voters, who were critical to Obama’s ‘08 victory, are strongly against marriage equality. A recent Washington Post/ABC poll found 55% of blacks oppose gay marriage and 42% support it, which is almost the opposite of white voters—53% support and 43% oppose.

3.  Despite Obama’s assertions that his economic policies helped create jobs for women, 324,000 women dropped out of the nation’s civilian labor force in March and April as the number of women not in the labor force hit an all-time historical high of 53,321,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  This year (in both January and April), only 57.6 percent of the women in the civilian noninstitutional population were in the labor force. That is the lowest rate of labor force participation by American women since April 1993, according to historical data maintained by BLS.

4.   A labor union with strong ties to President Obama is helping make the Occupy Wall Street movement a more permanent fixture in the nation’s capital, moving Occupy DC into office space the group can use to organize and grow through the presidential election.  The Service Employees International Union, one of Obama’s most vocal supporters among labor groups, is paying $4,000 a month for three offices the Occupy protesters will use for at least the next six months to plan future demonstrations, organize and host workshops.

OWS members have had ties to terrorism and our suspected of sending powdered substances to various financial institutions.

5.  Limbaugh’s new “Rush Babes for America” Facebook page – also known as “The National Organization of Rush Babes” — was open for public viewing just prior to the beginning of his radio program Tuesday. He announced it in the third hour of his show, between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. EDT.  Twenty-four hours later, Limbaugh’s page devoted to conservative women had more than 33,800 “likes.”

The National Organization for Women launched its main Facebook page on June 17, 2008. At time of publication, that page had 28,146.

Limbaugh launched the new Facebook page as a direct response to NOW’s campaign to get him off the air. The conservative host explained Tuesday that he believes NOW does not represent the views of a majority of American women.

In the news…

1.  Over the past week we have been bombarded with fawning by the mainstream media and the Obama campaign over how brave Obama was to approve the mission that killed Osama bin Laden.  Tucked away safe in the situation room, Obama watched as brave Navy SEALs risked their lives to ensure that they carried out their mission.  The same “brave and courageous” president, however, doesn’t want to risk his political career when it comes to his stance on gay marriage.  Over the past few days, the Obama campaign and White House have said that Obama’s stance on gay marriage is “evolving”.  Like he did so often while a state senator, Obama has basically voted “present”, afraid to risk his political career unlike the SEALs who risked their lives.  “Brave” and “courageous?”

2.  The US Post Office is losing up to $25 million dollars a day and a bailout recently approved by the Senate would appropriate $34 billion in federal money to help it stave off bankruptcy.  Ironically, however, Congress shares much of the blame. For years, the Postal Service begged Washington for the freedom to cut its own budget by closing post offices and cutting employees. But Democrats, under pressure from rural constituents and labor unions, prevented the cuts, and the service continued to bleed red ink.

In December, the USPS said it wanted to close more than half of its mail processing centers, eliminate 28,000 jobs, end overnight delivery of first-class mail, close 3,700 local post offices and end Saturday delivery.  The Democrat controlled Senate said no, prohibiting the Postmaster General from taking those actions altogether, or delaying them for two to three years.  Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe says  the Senate is stopping him from saving $20 billion. House Republicans call the Senate bill a joke, a special-interest spending binge that does nothing to reform an agency losing business every day, as more and more Americans use e-mail and electronic banking.

3.  The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows Mitt Romney earning 49% of the vote and President Obama attracting 44% support. Three percent (3%) would vote for a third party candidate, while another three percent (3%) are undecided.  The Gallup Poll has Romney beating Obama 47% to 44%, however, in the all important independent voter, Romney trounces Obama garnering 48% to Obama’s 38%.

4.  An interesting thing is happening in the heavy Democrat state of New Jersey.   Fifty-six percent of New Jersey voters approve of Gov. Chris Christie, according to a Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll this morning.  That’s Christie’s highest ever rating in a Fairleigh Dickinson poll.  “It’s hard to imagine that a minority party governor could really do much better,” said poll director Peter Woolley. “  Just thirty-three percent of voters disapprove of Christie.

5.  If you haven’t read or heard (because the left control the media) Massachusetts Democrat Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren is in a bit of hot water over whether she had claimed American Indian heritage as a way to advance her academic career.  Warren’s campaign released a statement claiming that Ms. Warren is the great-great-great granddaughter of  O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford, who was Cherokee, which would make Warren 1/32 Cherokee… but there’s a problem… it’s also not true and the real truth is not pretty.

O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford had no Cherokee heritage, was listed as “white” in the Census of 1860, and was most likely half Swedish and half English, Scottish, or German, or some combination thereof. (Note, the actual 1894 marriage license makes no claim of Cherokee ancestry.)

But the most stunning discovery about the life of O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford is that her husband, Ms. Warren’s great-great-great grandfather, was apparently a member of the Tennessee Militia who rounded up Cherokees from their family homes in the Southeastern United States and herded them into government-built stockades in what was then called Ross’s Landing (now Chattanooga), Tennessee—the point of origin for the horrific Trail of Tears, which began in January, 1837 and killed over 4,000 Indians.

Courtesy:  John Paulus

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“If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition,” Obama told CBS in early 2009.  Today the Department of Labor released its job numbers and they were bleak.

The jobless rate fell to a three-year low of 8.1 percent, and earnings stagnated.  A meager 115,000 jobs were added to the economy in April.  The headline may look great, but the truth of the US labor force paints a much different picture.

The civilian labor force shrank in April by 342,000 workers, and remains below where it stood when the economic recovery started 34 months ago, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Had the labor force not declined, unemployment would have been 8.3% in April, instead of the 8.1% reported.

Compared with June 2009, the month the economic recovery officially started, the labor force has shrunk by 365,000, a trend that has never occurred in any post World War 11 recovery. Those saw the labor force climb by the millions by this point in their recoveries, even as unemployment rates were driven down.

The decline in the workforce combined with the growing population has pushed the labor force participation rate — which compares those working or looking for a job the working age population — fell again in April to 63.6%. That’s down from 65.7% in mid-2009, and is the lowest it’s been since 1981.

Economists note that the shrinking labor force has masked the true size of the unemployment problem, since people who quit looking for a job are no longer counted as unemployed.  In fact, had the labor force participation rate had stayed where it was in June 2009, the unemployment rate would be around 11%.

If the news couldn’t get worse, so far this year, nearly 1 million workers have applied to get on the disability program. According to the Social Security Administration, more than a third will eventually be enrolled in the program.

Almost 90,000 workers enrolled the program in April, pushing the total for new enrollees over 333,000 in the first four months of the year.  If you add in spouses and dependents, the number of beneficiaries added to the program so far this year climbs to 539,000.

More than 5 million workers and their families have enrolled in the disability program since Obama took office.

A report last fall from the Obama administration’s economic advisers warns that the mass exodus of workers who can’t find a job onto the disability rolls poses a long-term risk to the economy, since once enrolled, these workers almost never return to the active workforce. This can, the report said, result “in a loss to society of the economic contribution those workers could have made.”

One can fully understand why Obama would rather we talk about dogs and contraception.

Courtesy:  John Paulus

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In the news…

1.  He lied.  Obama admits that the his New York girlfriend he speaks about in his book, ‘Dreams of My Father’, doesn’t exist.  Obama has told biographer David Maraniss that the ‘New York girlfriend’ was actually a composite character, based off of multiple girlfriends he had both in New York City and in Chicago.  In fact, the scene Obama describes in his book where he went to see a new play by a black playwright may be a fabrication as well. “None of this happened with Genevieve,” Maraniss writes. “She remembered going to the theater only once with Barack, and it was not to see a work by a black playwright. When asked about this decades later, during a White House interview, Obama acknowledged that the scene did not happen with Genevieve. “It is an incident that happened,” he said. But not with her. He would not be more specific.  Joe Wilson was right.

2.  They hid like cockroaches. The Twitter account of a Department of Homeland Security senior staffer who publicly cheered for socialist “May Day” protests has been removed from public view, just one day after it was reported by various news media.  On Tuesday evening, Nate Snyder, the special adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for “Community Partnership and Strategic Engagement,” tweeted “Happy May Day! #solidarity.”

May 1, known in left-wing circles as May Day, is an observance when socialist party faithful and labor unions have traditionally held massive anti-capitalist protests. On Tuesday some liberal organizers used the occasion to rekindle the Occupy Wall Street movement’s flames.

Snyder’s Twitter account also no longer displays his original self-description as an “Obama administration official at DHS.”

Rodriguez lends evidence that Pelosi lied about her knowledge of waterboarding.

In the news…

1.  Obama arrived today in Afghanistan in a surprise visit to do a little more gloating on the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden by US Navy Seals.  Obama had done his best in recent days to shift focus from the economy, a place where his policies have failed, to the killing of bin Laden. As Obama continues to spike the Osama ball, he has punted the economic one.  For example,  the S&P reports today that housing levels, when factoring for inflation, are down to 1984 levels having declined another 3.5% in 12 months.

2.  Remember when our nightly broadcast news was filled with a tribute to all the troops that were killed that day… the name, age, and where the service member resided along side his or her picture was featured.  And, of course, who could forget the infamous death count number.  After the 2008 election and the inauguration of Obama, those nightly “tributes” slowly disappeared.  It left one to wonder if perhaps no American were losing their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, however, according to an unofficial count by icasualties.org, at least 33 U.S. service members were killed in Afghanistan during the month of April, making it one of the deadliest months on record.  One must question why the media no longer pays “tribute” to the fallen.  Perhaps, those “tributes’ will return under a Republican President.

3.  Since we’ve been on the subject of the military, according to Louis Farrakhan, the US military serves “the synagogue of Satan” and joining the US military is fighting for the enemy.  One hopes that Obama will use his speech in Afghanistan to condemn these remarks.

4.  Would it surprise you if I told you that liberals will feign outrage or support of something if it means that they can acquire political points or power?  Former CIA counterterrorism chief Jose Rodriguez provides new evidence that Rep. Nancy Pelosi lied when she declared she had not been briefed about the use of waterboarding.

In his new book, “Hard Measures,” Rodriguez reveals that he led a CIA briefing of Pelosi, where the techniques being used in the interrogation of senior al-Qaeda facilitator Abu Zubaida were described in detail. Her claim that she was not told about waterboarding at that briefing, he writes, “is untrue.”

“We explained that as a result of the techniques, Abu Zubaydah was compliant and providing good intelligence. We made crystal clear that authorized techniques, including waterboarding, had by then been used on Zubaydah.” Rodriguez writes that he told Pelosi everything, adding, “We held back nothing.”

Rodriguez asks, “So Pelosi was another member of Congress reinventing the truth. What’s the big deal?” The big deal, he explains, is “the message they are sending to the men and women of the intelligence community who to this day are being asked to undertake dangerous and sometimes controversial actions on behalf of their government. They are told that the administration and Congress ‘have their back.’ You will forgive CIA officers if they are not filled with confidence.”

What Rodriguez and others must recognize is that “leaders” like Pelosi don’t care how their reinventing of the truth impacts the safety of the country, what’s most important is how they can manipulate the truth for greater political power and control.

5.  As Obama spikes the Osama ball again today, let’s leave you with part of a Bloomberg wire report this morning:

Barack Obama campaigned four years ago assailing President George W. Bush for wage losses suffered by the middle class. More than three years into Obama’s own presidency, those declines have only deepened.

The rebound has generated relatively few of the moderately skilled jobs that once supported the middle class, tightening the financial squeeze on many Americans, even those who are employed.

“It started long before Obama, but he hasn’t done anything,” said John Forsyth, 58, a railroad-car inspector and political independent from Lebanon, Ohio. “He kept pushing this change, change, change, and he hasn’t done anything.”

Underlying the erosion of the middle class, defined by some economists as the middle 60 percent of income earners, are trends that stretch back decades, including competition from lower-wage workers overseas and technological advances that allow factories and offices to produce more with less labor.

As a candidate in 2008, Obama blamed the reversals largely on the policies of Bush and other Republicans. He cited census figures showing that median income for working-age households — those headed by someone younger than 65 — had dropped more than $2,000 after inflation during the first seven years of Bush’s time in office.

Yet real median household income in March was down $4,300 since Obama took office in January 2009 and down $2,900 since the June 2009 start of the economic recovery, according to an analysis of census data by Sentier Research, an economic- consulting firm in Annapolis, Maryland.

I guess we have a better understanding of why Obama is in Afghanistan celebrating the Navy SEALs historic killing of Osama bin Laden.

Courtesy:  John Paulus

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