Do you remember when the White House and the power of the presidency and administration and all of its history and ambiance stood for something special and dignified?  Well, that ship has sailed.

Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, announced yesterday that her Department played an instrumental role in “sealing the deal” for Madonna-wannabe Lady Gaga to perform at a gay pride rally in Rome, Italy.

Beeming with pride, Clinton cited a letter that David Thorne, the U.S. ambassador to Italy, sent to Lady Gaga urging her to participate in the event. Madam Secretary said:

And then there is the work that our embassy team in Rome has been doing. Two weeks ago they played an instrumental role in bringing Lady Gaga to Italy for a Euro Pride concert.

Now as many of you know Lady Gaga is Italian American and a strong supporter of LGBT rights. And the organizers of the Euro Pride event desperately wanted her to perform and a letter to her from Ambassador Thorne was instrumental in sealing the deal.

What will our Administration’s Muslim allies think about this?

Secretary Clinton’s announcement was made at the State Department during a celebration of LGBT Pride Month, co-hosted by the department and Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies (GLIFAA), a group that, per its website, “represents lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) personnel and their families in the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Foreign Commercial Service, Foreign Agricultural Service, and other foreign affairs agencies and offices in the U.S. Government.”

To quote Dana Carvey’s Church Lady:  Well, now…isn’t that…special?

Lady Gaga performed at a rally at the ancient Circus Maximus in Rome, Italy on June 11th. The rally followed a gay pride march through the city of Rome.

Gaga made the news earlier this year when she released her song “Judas” in early May. In the video, Gaga is a Mary Magdalene figure–in a motorcycle gang—who becomes enamored with Judas.

According to billboard.com:

The video opens with a motorcycle gang cruising down a freeway, as Gaga clutches onto a Jesus-like figure who wears a golden crown of thorns.

Lyrics include:

Oh, I’m in love with Judas, Judas. In the most Biblical sense I am beyond repentance. Fame hooker, prostitute wench, vomits her mind.

And our tax money is supporting this?  The Obama Administration has alienated all of our allies and embraced our enemies.  The Mid-East is ablaze in Islamic Revolution, and their focus is a Gay pride Rally in Italy?

Am I missing something here?

This comes a month after the Obamas hosted a poetry ceremony at the White House featuring rapper and actor Common.

Common, a friend of Obama’s former pastor of 20 years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose real name is Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr., has been a staunch defender of the racially-oriented pastor, and also has unleashed rapping attacks on former President George W. Bush.

While Common is not identified as a gangsta rapper, some of his songs and poems do feature violent imagery. For instance, in one poem, he called for the metaphorical burning of President George W. Bush — a “burning Bush.”

Obama more than likely met Common at Trinity United Church of Christ. Wright retired as pastor there in 2008, the same year that Obama ended his relationship with Wright after videos of his racially-charged, anti-American sermons became a campaign issue.

As you may remember, in the sermons, Wright called the U.S. government racist and in the days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he proclaimed that “America’s chickens are coming home to roost” after it dropped atomic bombs on Japan and “supported state terrorism against Palestinians and black South Africans.”

At first, Obama stood behind Wright but later disowned him for the purposes of political expediency.

Common, however, still stands behind Wright, as he told the Electronic Urban Report in 2008:

He never really was against white people or another race. It was more against an establishment that was oppressing people. I think we all can see that this country has problems and a lot of it starts in the political system.

According to the rapper, during the 2008 presidential race, Wright’s sermons were filled with love, not hate:

What I picked up from the pews…was messages of love. Anything that was going on against that love he would acknowledge and expose. He’s been a preacher that’s helped raise one of the greatest political figures in the world, and hopefully, the next president. He’s also raised one of the greatest rappers in the world.

In a 2007 poem titled “A Letter to the Law,” Common pontificated against the U.S. invasion of Iraq while urban areas were being neglected:

Seeing a fiend being hung/With that happening, why they messing with Saddam?

Burn a Bush cos’ for peace he no push no button/Killing over oil and grease/no weapons of destruction.

Classy.

Speaking of class, it looks like Obama has filmed a campaign ad for his re-election drive at the place he “stays”…the People’s House.

Per Jim Geraghty at NRO the following ad shot for Obama’s re-election campaign, appears to have originated in the White House.

In the video, Obama promotes a “Dinner With Barack” raffle. To participate in the contest you need to donate at least $5 to the president’s re-election campaign and your name will be raffled off to enjoy a dinner with the President, airfare and accommodations included. In a new web video, Obama announced Vice President Joe Biden will also be attending the dinner.

If that’s true, it would be a possible violation of Federal Election Commission Laws.

It’s already a violation of the dignity of the office.  But, that’s nothing new.

Dignity has not exactly been a byword for this administration.

Imagine this…you have a son playing for the U.S. Soccer team. You travel to Los Angeles to watch him in a game against Mexico.

You walk into the Rose Bowl…and it’s as if you suddenly entered a stadium in Mexico City. You and the rest of the American fans are vastly outnumbered. The American Team’s goalkeeper is being bombarded with a chanted obscenity.  And when the National Anthem is played, it is dishonored with the blowing of air horns and bouncing of beach balls.

Estimates are, that there were about 80,000 Mexico fans among the announced crowd of 93,420.

They cheered their team on to a 4-2 victory over our country’s soccer team that night.

According to coach Bob Bradley:

Obviously … the support that Mexico has on the night like tonight makes it a home game for them. It’s part of something we have to deal with on the night.

The atmosphere was overwhelming. The night was filled with air horns and “Ole” chants, backed up with a roar from the crowd that sounded like a low flying jet that began at the “tailgate” party in the parking lot hours before the game and continued for hours afterward.

The Mexican fans continued the celebration throughout the postgame trophy ceremony, booing the U.S. team one final time, as they were announced.

According to one fan:

We’re not booing the country, we’re booing the team. There is a big difference.

Yeah, right.

Do you remember, how, right before the Christmas Holidays, the Senate tried to pass the Drean Act, but failed in their attempt?  No worries.  President Barack Hussein Obama passed it by Executive Order last Friday, once again bypassing the wishes of the American people and ruling by diktat.

From Greg Guignat, the Conservative reporter for the Phoenix edition of examiner.com:

The Obama administration memo from the John Morton, Director of I.C.E. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) directs I.C.E. agents now to use “prosecutorial discretion”with regard to enforcing immigration laws.

Director Morton says that Obama Administration policy directs border patrol agents not to enforce immigration laws: “When ICE favorably exercises prosecutorial discretion, it essentially decides not to assert the full scope of the enforcement authority available to the agency.”

You read that right. According to the Obama administration “favorable” enforcement means NOT enforcing the law!

According to one of the first press reports to break this important story, the new Obama policy is cut and dry: “federal immigration officials do not have to deport illegal aliens if they are enrolled in any type of education program, if their family members have volunteered for U.S. military service, or even if they are pregnant or nursing.”

Per whitehouse.gov, the original DREAM Act contained the following qualifiers:

Young people must meet several requirements in order to qualify for the conditional status it will provide them. These requirements include entering the country when they were under 16 years old, proving they have continuously lived in the U.S. for at least 5 years and graduated from a U.S. high school or obtained a GED; demonstrating their good moral character; proving they have not committed any crimes that would make them inadmissible to the country. Only then can they obtain a conditional status for a limited period of time.

After their six year conditional status, these same individuals will need to meet additional requirements to move on to the next phase of this process. Specifically, they must have attended college or served in the U.S. military for at least 2 years, and once again, pass criminal background checks, and demonstrate good moral character. If young people are unable to fulfill these requirements, they will lose their legal status and be subject to deportation.

Only applies to individuals who entered the U.S. as children. According to DREAM Act’s provisions, beneficiaries must have entered the United States when they were under 16 years old.

Whitehouse.gov lists the following reasons as to why the original DREAM Act would have been good for America:

The DREAM Act will contribute to our military’s recruitment efforts and readiness.

The DREAM Act will make our country more competitive in the global economy.

The DREAM Act will have important economic benefits.

The DREAM Act will allow our immigration and border security experts to focus on those who pose a serious threat to our nation’s security.

Even with all those supposedly wonderful things that the DREAM Act would do, the Democratically-controlled Senate failed to pass it, as reported on latimes.com:

The Senate rejected a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants on Saturday, a defeat that pushes any effort to reform immigration into the next Congress where conservatives will have even more influence.

In a 55-41 vote, senators failed to advance the Dream Act, which would have provided a way to legalize those immigrants who arrived in the United States illegally as children and who attend college or serve in the military. Three Republican senators voted for cloture, but 60 votes were need to advance the measure. Five Democrats voted no.

The Senate’s failure was a result of the American people filling their Senators’ voice and e-mails, expressing their opposition, in no uncertain terms.

Now, the President of the United States has overruled the American people and bypassed our system of checks and balances once again.

All for the sake of gaining new Democratic voters.

The cadence of explosions that you heard yesterday was not the 4th of July coming early.  It was Liberal and Fiscal Conservative heads everywhere imploding as the announcement came out that former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin will visit Iowa on Tuesday to attend the premiere of a movie about her career.

Along with her husband, Todd, Palin will attend the premiere of the movie, The Undefeated, at a historic theater in the small town of Pella, outside Des Moines.

The two-hour movie is the work of conservative filmmaker Stephen Bannon.

Bannon was first approached by Palin and her staff after last November’s midterm elections and asked to produce a series of videos that would highlight the former governor’s record in Alaska.

With editorial control and using his own money, Bannon produced a feature-length film that follows Gov. Palin’s rise to power in Alaska, her reform efforts as governor and her dramatic entrance onto the national political stage as Senator John McCain’s running mate in 2008.

With the assistance of Gov. Palin and her team, Bannon was granted access to key Palin allies in Alaska and a treasure trove of rarely seen footage, including images dating back to Palin’s time on the Wasilla City Council, her first political office.

Gov. Palin issued the following statement about the trip:

We are very excited to visit historic Pella and its opera house and look forward to seeing the finished film for the first time with fellow Americans from the heartland.

The Main Stream Media and Political Pundits everywhere are beside themselves with angst and worry, because they simply cannot figure out with the Arctic Fox is going to do next.

Gov. Palin has not yet announced whether she’ll seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. However, If that were her plans, she would want to compete in Iowa, where her brand of Regan Conservatism would have strong appeal.

She will arrive in Iowa the day after Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., launches her campaign Monday in Iowa.

Add this little tidbit of news into the political mix:

Alcoa announced today [last Thursday] that U.S. President Barack Obama will tour its Davenport, Iowa, facility, one of the most advanced manufacturing plants in the world, on Tuesday June 28. Originally opened in 1948, the plant employs 2,000 people, and is a focal point of the global aluminum industry, generating approximately 25 percent of its revenues through exports.

Bettendorf, Iowa is about 150 miles to the East of Pella.

To paraphrase one Palin supporter:

 Looks like the GAME IS ON!

Former Massachusetts Governor and the man responsible for state-run healthcare in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, and Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann are presently tied for the lead, going into the Iowa Caucus, according to a poll taken by Des Moines, Iowa’s newspaper of record, the Register.

Romney, proclaimed to be the national front-runner by the Political Elite of both political parties and the Main Stream Media, attracted support from 23 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers.  Bachmann, who will not officially kick off her campaign in Iowa until tomorrow, is right there with him, with 22 percent.

Here’s the kicker: today on realclearpolitics.com, Gov. Palin is listed as being in Third Place among the potential Republican nominees going into the Iowa Caucus, and she hasn’t even declared…yet!

Herman Cain, the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, a Tea Party favorite who has never held public office before, comes in after Palin, with 10 percent.

The other candidates in the Republican Primary don’t even break 10 %: former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Texas Rep. Ron Paul, 7 percent each; former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, 6 percent; former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, 4 percent; and former Utah Gov. and ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, 2 percent.

Thet’s pretty sad, considering former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has spent 26 days in Iowa campaigning, hired the finest Iowa campaign operatives that money could buy, and was the first major candidate to air television ads in Iowa.

By the way, the Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll has been used in the past as an indicator of political viability in the National Elections. The Iowa caucuses are scheduled for Feb. 6.

It’s still early, though. In fact, 69 percent of those polled by the Register said they could still be persuaded to support a candidate other than their first choice.

The poll, which was conducted by Selzer & Co. Inc. of Des Moines, was based on telephone interviews with 400 likely Republican caucus-goers June 19 to 22. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

Back on December 7th, 2010, former Pennsylvania Senator and now candidate for the Republican Nomination, Rick Santorum, said the following about Gov. Palin, in an interview with thehill.com:

“If she decides to get into the race, she will take a lot of air out of the room, that’s for sure,” Santorum said Monday during a swing through South Carolina.

He called the former Alaska governor a “larger-than-life figure,” but said that could cause her problems when campaigning in small, early primary states such as South Carolina and Iowa.

“She is such a media star, I would think it’s hard for her to have normal interactions” with voters, he said. “I have my own challenges and that’s getting the crowd. Her problem isn’t getting the crowd, it’s sort of having more real time with people. I get plenty of real time and that lower profile works for me in a way that I can go do things that are just going to be harder for her.”

Santorum added, “It’s not that she can’t do it, everybody has their own challenges.”

Well, Senator, it doesn’t seem that she’s having any difficulty getting her message out to the people so far…and she’s not even running, yet.

Perhaps, you should invest in an oxygen mask.

Yesterday, GOP negotiators did their impression of Popeye, the Sailor Man, when, in the midst of trying to broker a major deficit-reduction deal, they declared in unison:

I’ve had all I can stands, I can’t stands no more!

The Republicans then proceeded to walk out on Democrats at the negotiating table, leaving it up to President Barack Hussein Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to resolve the toughest issues.

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Sen. Jon Kyl (D-AZ), both left the bi-partisan talks yesterday, saying that the Democrats’ demand that the budget deal include tax increases was to blame.

According to Sen. Kyl,  it’s going to take those in the highest levels of power to break the impasse between the two political parties.

The goal of the talks, led by Vice-President Joe Biden, was to strike a budget deal which the Democrats hoped would ease the way for Congress to raise the government’s $14.29 trillion debt limit.

According to Treasury Department officials,without the ability to borrow additional money, the government is going to run out of cash to pay its bills by Aug. 2. They also have said that defaulting on any U.S. obligations could trigger another financial crisis and recession.

Biden’s group has canceled its scheduled meeting for today.

Now, it’s up to the Big Dogs.

Rep. Cantor told the Wall Street Journal:

We’ve reached the point where the dynamic needs to change.  It is up to the president to come in and talk to the speaker. We’ve reached the end of this phase.

The Obama White house and their Congressional minions have, publicly anyway, expressed optimism that talks between the three leaders can reach a satisfactory agreement.

According to Rep. Cantor, the Biden-led group had come up with more than $2 trillion in spending cuts over the next ten years.   A Democratic official close to the talks said the total was only about $1.2 trillion (of course).

Vice-President Biden remarked that:

As all of us at the table said at the outset, the goal of these talks was to report our findings back to our respective leaders. The next phase is in the hands of those leaders, who need to determine the scope of an agreement that can tackle the problem and attract bipartisan support. For now the talks are in abeyance as we await that guidance.

The Democrats seem to gotten the notion, from someone, possibly Karl Marx, that the answer to fixing Obama’s rotten economy is to raise taxes.  Therefore. they are adamant about getting rid of the tax cuts put in place by President George W. Bush.

How would getting rid of the Bush tax cuts affect average Americans?  Eric Fox, posting on forbes.com, breaks it down for us:

The two major tax-cutting bills from the Bush era were the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (EGTRRA) of 2001, and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003.

These two laws cut taxes across the board for earned income, long-term capital gains and dividends. The legislation also expanded the child tax credit and made dozens of other changes and adjustments to the tax code, involving exemptions, deductions and the marriage penalty.

EGTRRA created six tax rate brackets–10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33% and 35%, based on income levels. If no extension is passed and signed into law, then the pre-2001 tax rates will go back into effect starting in tax year 2011. The 10% bracket would disappear, and those taxpayers would move up to the 15% bracket, which would apply to all incomes below $34,550. The other tax rates would increase to 28%, 31%, 36% and 39.6% for the highest earners making more than $379,650.

One major provision that will expire at the end of 2010 is the child tax credit, which EGTRRA doubled from $500 to $1,000 per child. Unless Congress votes to extend the child tax credit, the maximum amount will revert back to $500 for tax year 2011, and the number of families eligible for that amount will be much less as tougher eligibility standards that existed prior to EGTRRA will go back into effect.

The maximum tax rate on long-term capital gains and qualified dividends were also reduced to 15%, with lower income filers facing a 0% tax rate. The sunset provisions would move the capital gains rate back to a maximum of 20%, and qualified dividends would resume being taxed at the regular tax rate of the filer, or as high as 39.6%.

…President Obama has asked Congress to extend and make permanent the 10%, 15% and 25% tax rates. The 28% bracket would be recalculated to include individuals with income less than $200,000 and married filers with income less than $250,000. The “rich” would be out of luck under the proposal, with the 33% and 35% brackets expiring at the end of 2010, and the former 36% and 39.6% tax rates going back into effect.

Obama is also seeking to make permanent the long-term capital gain rates of 0% and 15%, but tax capital gains at a rate of 20% for those taxpayers that fall into the 36% and 39.6% brackets. None of this has been decided yet, and passage is not certain due to the politics of Washington in general–and during an election year in particular.

President Obama and the Democrats seem to be looking for a panacea to their problem of keeping unfulfilled promisethat they made to their base of all the things that they would do for them, and give to them, once Obama ascended to the throne, with a vibrant economy being one of those promises.

Unfortunately, the Obama Administration does not want to accept the fact that the business of America is business, and raising Americans’ tax burden is only going to continue to dig a economic hole that our great-grandchildren will still be trying to dig out of.

Last night, President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) formally addressed the American people for the sixth time since he ascended to the throne of the Regime. He announced a withdrawal of American Troops in Afghanistan, which he euphemistically referred to as drawdown, to be completed by 2014.

He began his address with his usual Don’t blame me, I inherited this mess approach:

By the time I took office, the war in Afghanistan had entered its seventh year. But Al Qaeda’s leaders had escaped into Pakistan and were plotting new attacks, while the Taliban had regrouped and gone on the offensive. Without a new strategy and decisive action, our military commanders warned that we could face a resurgent Al Qaeda, and a Taliban taking over large parts of Afghanistan.

By the way, don’t try to count the number of I’s in this speech. I lost count.

For this reason, in one of the most difficult decisions that I’ve made as President, I ordered an additional 30,000 American troops into Afghanistan. When I announced this surge at West Point, we set clear objectives: to refocus on Al Qaeda; reverse the Taliban’s momentum; and train Afghan Security Forces to defend their own country. I also made it clear that our commitment would not be open-ended, and that we would begin to drawdown our forces this July.

Tonight, I can tell you that we are fulfilling that commitment. Thanks to our men and women in uniform, our civilian personnel, and our many coalition partners, we are meeting our goals. As a result, starting next month, we will be able to remove 10,000 of our troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, and we will bring home a total of 33,000 troops by next summer, fully recovering the surge I announced at West Point. After this initial reduction, our troops will continue coming home at a steady pace as Afghan Security forces move into the lead. Our mission will change from combat to support. By 2014, this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security.

We are starting this drawdown from a position of strength. Al Qaeda is under more pressure than at any time since 9/11. Together with the Pakistanis, we have taken out more than half of Al Qaeda’s leadership. And thanks to our intelligence professionals and Special Forces, we killed Usama bin Laden, the only leader that Al Qaeda had ever known. This was a victory for all who have served since 9/11. One soldier summed it up well. “The message,” he said, “is we don’t forget. You will be held accountable, no matter how long it takes.”

Here comes the part of the speech that piqued my interest. Evidently, our CIC actually is naive enough to believe that we can negotiate with the Taliban:

We do know that peace cannot come to a land that has known so much war without a political settlement. So as we strengthen the Afghan government and Security Forces, America will join initiatives that reconcile the Afghan people, including the Taliban. Our position on these talks is clear: they must be led by the Afghan government, and those who want to be a part of a peaceful Afghanistan must break from Al Qaeda, abandon violence, and abide by the Afghan Constitution. But, in part because of our military effort, we have reason to believe that progress can be made.

The goal that we seek is achievable, and can be expressed simply: no safe-haven from which Al Qaeda or its affiliates can launch attacks against our homeland, or our allies. We will not try to make Afghanistan a perfect place. We will not police its streets or patrol its mountains indefinitely. That is the responsibility of the Afghan government, which must step up its ability to protect its people; and move from an economy shaped by war to one that can sustain a lasting peace. What we can do, and will do, is build a partnership with the Afghan people that endures – one that ensures that we will be able to continue targeting terrorists and supporting a sovereign Afghan government.

What happens after the last American Troops pull out of Afghanistan? Well, just like the last guy at the Sports Bar, we get stuck with the check.

It is estimated that the yearly bill for the US to sustain the Afghan security forces, after we withdraw, will be $6bn to $8bn a year, a figure that has caused a massive political freak-out in Washington and among those in charge of NATO’s end of the deal.

However, we don’t have to worry about the Afghan regime collapsing.  Even after we give the keys to the Afghan Government at the end of 2014, there will still be a significant foreign military presence.

Which countries will make up that force, where it will be based, and who will control it, is currently the subject of negotiations between the Afghan and US governments.

Considering who is presently in charge of our end of the negotiations, we’re destined to get the raw end of the deal.

Tonight, at 7:00 p.m. Central, Americans will have the honor and privilege of, once again, viewing the President of our country, Barack Hussein  Obama, as he comes into our living rooms, against the  advice of the Pentagon, to  announce the withdrawal of up to 30,000 troops from Afghanistan by November next year, just  in time for the US presidential election.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 31% of Likely U.S. Voters think it is at least somewhat likely that the United States will remove its remaining 50,000 troops from Iraq by the end of this year as scheduled, and that includes just three percent (3%) who say it’s Very Likely.  Sixty-five percent (65%) believe a full troop withdrawal from Iraq by year’s end is unlikely, with 21% who say it’s Not At All Likely.

Attorney General of the United State Eric Holder, made a special  announcement yesterday, in a speech to the American Constitution Society:

We have reinvigorated the important work of our Civil Rights Division. Not only is this office once again open for business, it has never been stronger.

Now, some of you know during this administration’s first fiscal year the Department filed a record number of civil rights criminal cases. We’ve also expanded enforcement efforts to guarantee that in our work places, our military bases, in our housing and lending markets, in our voting booths in our border areas, in our schools and places of worship. And I mean all places of worship.

That’s pretty funny. 

While AG Holder is speaking  nobly about locking up those who deny us of our basic civil liberties, he himself refused to prosecute the New Blank Panthers for “violating the Voter Rights Act in November 2008 by using coercion, threats and intimidation at a Philadelphia polling station”.

He also neglected to mention that he and his boss, President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) are under investigation by Congress.

Holder and Obama ordered the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) program “Operation Fast and Furious” to allow gun stores near the Mexican border to sell semiautomatic weapons in bulk to “straw purchasers” and then track their journey. As a result, many of the guns were linked to crimes, including the killing of a Border Patrol agent.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, under the leadership of its Chair, Darrell Issa (R-CA is engaged in questioning witnesses in an effort to get to the bottom of this potentially impeachable offense.

The committee’s quest is to find out who at ATF and the Department of Justice knew and authorized the program.

Rep. Issa and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) have issueda report on “Operation Fast and Furious,” which says border patrol and ATF agents were told to “surveil” weapons and not interdict.  According to the report, agents were warned of devastating consequences, including criminal activity, but supervisors ignored their warnings.

According to  ATF Agent John Dodson, who terstified before the committee:

Every time we questioned that order, there was punitive action.

Also, according to Dodson, the ATF stopped tracking the weapons once they traveled too far from the border.  By doing this,  the ATF lost track of 1500 – 1800 weapons.

Rep. Issa has accused the administration of ignoring committee requests for documents on “Operation Fast and Furious.”

Issa sent out  a subpoena on March 31, 2011 to the acting Director of the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATFE) Agency, Kenneth Melson, to find out what he knew and if he signed off on the program.

While in  committee, Congress is trying to determine whether or not, the administration actually needs to respond to the subpoena. Issa hasthreatened a “slew” of subpoenas in response to the Department of Justice’s refusal to provide information.

Several witnesses have been called, including the family of a slain border security agent, ATFE agents and Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich.

By the way, you remember the New Black Panther Party case, don’t you?

In an article posted on washingtonpost.com, on 1/27/11, Jennifer Rubin summed it up succinctly:

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights came out in December with a draft of its interim report on the New Black Panthers Party scandal. Earlier today a final report was posted on the commission’s website, and with it, a flurry of rebuttals and separate statements from a number of the commissioners. The import of these statements should not be minimized.

The statements indicate several points: 1) the New Black Panther Party case brought by career Justice Department employees was meritorious on the law and the facts; 2) there is voluminous evidence of the Obama administration’s political interference in the prosecution of the New Black Panther Party case; 3) there is ample evidence that the Obama administration directed Justice Department employees not to bring cases against minority defendants who violated voting rights laws or to enforce a provision requiring that states and localities clean up their voting rolls to prevent fraud; 4) the Justice Department stonewalled efforts to investigate the case; and 5) vice chairman Abigail Thernstrom has, for reasons not entirely clear, ignored the evidence and tried to undermine the commission’s work.

In the words of The Naked Gun’s Lt. Frank Drebin:

Move along.  Nothing the See Here.

In closing, you, no doubt, noticed that I highlighted the phrase,  And I mean all places of worship.  While,  in and of itself, that is another very noble thing for AG Holder to say, when you examine Holder’s background, perhaps it isn’t.

Everyone knows how anxious the AG and the president have been to stage the Dog and Pony shows euphemistically called “Civilian Trials”  for the Islamic Terrorists who have murdered out countrymen.

There’s a reason for AG Holder’s eagerness.  Per Andrew Breitbart’s biggovernment.com:

Attorney General Eric Holder says nine Obama appointees in the Justice Department have represented or advocated for terrorist detainees before joining the Justice Department. But he does not reveal any names beyond the two officials whose work has already been publicly reported. And all the lawyers, according to Holder, are eligible to work on general detainee matters, even if there are specific parts of some cases they cannot be involved in.

Holder’s admission comes in the form of an answer to a question posed last November [2009] by Republican Sen. Charles Grassley. Noting that one Obama appointee, Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, formerly represented Osama bin Laden’s driver, and another appointee, Jennifer Daskal, previously advocated for detainees at Human Rights Watch, Grassley asked Holder to give the Senate Judiciary Committee “the names of political appointees in your department who represent detainees or who work for organizations advocating on their behalf…the cases or projects that these appointees work with respect to detainee prior to joining the Justice Department…and the cases or projects relating to detainees that have worked on since joining the Justice Department.”

…Holder says other Obama appointees, like Holder himself, came from law firms which represented detainees but did no work on behalf of the terrorist prisoners. But other than Katyal and Daskal, Holder does not reveal any names of any Obama appointees, nor does he mention the cases they worked on.

Suffice it to say, with all this baggage accompanying his United States Attorney General, Obama, in all good judgement, should ask for his resignation, before the trail of corruption leads all the way back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

That probably will not happen, though.  Shady  operations seem to be S.O. P. for this administration.

Why, good morning, Mr. President!  It was a pleasant surprise when you called, saying that you were passing through and wanted to meet me here for breakfast this morning.  Please allow me to order for you:

Waitress, please bring President Clinton a Rooty Tooty Fresh ‘n Fruity with a big glass of Sweet Tea, please.

It’s been a heckuva a week, huh, sir?

It has just been announced that America’s Misery Index, which adds together the unemployment and inflation rates, is at an all time high.

You remember the Misery Index. It was first thought of in the 70s, by economist Arthur Okun.

The other day, when  President Scooter lamely joked, that…

Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected…

he actually got something right, for once.

The index, is showing an extremely economically- sick 12.7—9.1 percent for unemployment and 3.6 percent for annualized inflation.  Americans have not experienced this number since 1983.

By the way, Mr. President, did you know index has been above 10 since November 2009 and had been under double-digits from June 1993 through May 2008.

Of course, back in the 80s, during the reign of Ronaldus Maximus, Paul Volcker, leading the Federal Reserve, brought the Misery Index down sharply, as America recovered under president Reagan’s leadership.

Man, I miss him. How about you, Mr. President?

You do, too? I thought so.

I read in an article at cnbc.com, written by John Carney, where Paul Dales, the chief U.S. Economist at Capital Economics said that:

The good news is that other measures suggest conditions aren’t quite that bad and over the next 18 months the gloom should lift a little. The bad news is that households won’t be in the mood to boost their spending significantly for several more years.

Dales says all the misery may not be as bad as it appears. An alternative measure, put forth in 1999 by Robert Barro, encompasses a wider swath of misery, measuring employment against the so-called “natural rate” and compares inflation against the previous 10 years. The Barro measure also looks at whether gross domestic product is below its “potential” and compares yields on the 10-year Treasury note against the yields of the previous 10 years.

With all that rolled in, Dales says the Barro index is indicating that while things aren’t expected to get dramatically better, the level of misery is probably at a peak and should roll back over the next 18 months.

But, hey, Mr. President, Americans are not alone in our misery.  Republican candidate Mitt Romney feels our pain, just as you did.

According to politico.com:

Mitt Romney sat at the head of the table at a coffee shop here [in Tampa, Florida] on Thursday, listening to a group of unemployed Floridians explain the challenges of looking for work. When they finished, he weighed in with a predicament of his own.

“I should tell my story,” Mr. Romney said. “I’m also unemployed.”

Romney is, of course, worth several hundred million dollars and unemployed by choice. In fairness to him, Jeff Zeleny notes that the voters he was speaking with “joined him in laughter.”

Perhaps you could give lessons to Mittens on how to speak to average Americans, Mr. President?

Anyway, that’s enough about the economy.  I read this week where Hil, and her assistant, Huma Weiner, returned this week from another State Department trip.

What a mess, huh?  No wonder you’re sitting here in an IHOP in Northwest Mississippi with me.

I heard that Anthony Weiner called you to apologize, since you guys have been so close in the past,with her working for Hil as her assistant all these years, and you officiating their wedding last July.

I read in the Wall Street Journal that Huma called your wife, seeking her opinion before the pervert, err, I mean, the Congressman confessed publically on Monday.

I heard that Huma hit the roof, and rightfully so, when Weiner told her the truth last Monday.

I know you guys are upset about the whole thing.

When he finally resigned on the 16th, I know that it must have been both sad and relieving.

But, something has me puzzled.  Why did the Democratic Leadership  jump all over Weiner’s dalliance, and yet, they defended you from impeachment to their dying breaths?

Was it because Anthony Weiner was an abrasive jerk, who presented a poor public image, while you were a presidential Ric Flair:  a wheelin’-dealin’, kiss-stealing, limousine-ridin’, jet-flyin’, saxophone-playin’, glad-handin’, son-of-a-gun?

Or, was it because there were a lot of politically powerful people out there who owed you favors?

Even though all of that is true, I think the reason is deeper and more Machiavellian than that.

You held the most powerful position in the Free World. The Democratic Party was not about to give that up.  Weiner was just one Congressman out of 435, just one vote among many.  The Beltway Elite have little tolerance for anyone who rocks the boat, especially if they belong to the lower echelon of political power, such as a Congressman.

Once Weiner became a national punchline, he became about as welcome as Rosanne Barr singing the National Anthem.

But, don’t worry about Weiner, Mr. President.  Did you hear that Hustler Magazine Founder and Professional Pervert Larry Flynt offer him a job?

Really!  Flynt, speaking to huffingtonpost.com, said that:

He is a natural pornographer who has a skilled eye for unusual views and acrobatics … It’s clear he’s better suited to join our team than be the governor of the state of New York.

I think that he turned down the offer, though.

Anyway, it’s been great to speak with you this morning, Mr. President.  Safe travels and…behave yourself.

About that last part…never mind.

I thought that the Democratic Party and the Labor Unions were supposed to support working Americans?

Per foxnews.com, the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government will hold a hearing in South Carolina on June 17th, looking into a federal labor lawsuit against Boeing Co.

The National Labor Relations Board filed the lawsuit, claiming that the company moved manufacturing facilities from Washington state to North Charleston in order to avoid unionized workers.

The National Labor Relations Board is a U.S. government agency, charged with administering the National Labor Relations Act (1935). The three-member of the NLRB are appointed by the president. The board organizes elections to determine whether employees wish to be represented by a labor union in collective bargaining. They also monitor labor practices by employers and unions.

The NLRB does not initiate investigations.  It becomes involved in a labor dispute, such as the  Boeing factory, after being contacted by employers, individuals, or unions.

The National Labor Relations Board has no enforcement powers. But, it can, and will, especially under a Democratic Administration,  go after perceived offenders in court.

In April, the National Labor Relations Board sued Boeing. The NLRB claimed that the manufacturer located a new 787 passenger aircraft assembly line in South Carolina, which happens to be a right-to-work state, in order to retaliate against Washington state union workers who went on strike in 2008.

The NLRB is demanding that Boeing return the jobs to Washington.

The only problem with that idea, is the fact that Boeing has already built a new South Carolina plant and has hired 1,000 workers.

Yesterday, in another battlefront in the Liberals’ War on Prosperity, the Obama White House blocked a proposal from House Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) to speed up the process of oil and gas leasing and energy infrastructure permitting in an Alaska reserve.

Obama and his bureaucratic minions claim that permitting this production of energy by American companies on American soil could force federal regulators to flout environmental laws and would, by necessity, include a costly, redundant resource assessment.

Mike Pool, deputy director of the Bureau of Land Management, while announcing that his agency will hold lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve, known as NPR-A, in December 2011 and each year after, also emphasized that his agency, which oversees 191 lease tracts covering 1.6 million acres, has all the tools it needs to facilitate development of oil in the reserve while balancing protections for wildlife habitat and subsistence users.

According to Pool, holding lease sales in the areas most likely to produce commercial oil and gas and set permitting deadlines could be detrimental to the agency’s public land management process, including the National Environmental Policy Act:

Systematically over time we have been responsible to conduct and make available leasing in NPR-A. There’s no delay in permitting and processing as it involves BLM responsibilities in NPR-A.

Pool added that his agency has no pending backlog of rights of ways or other projects.

According to another Interior official, there is no reason to reassess or update the U.S. Geological Survey’s most recent assessment of oil and gas resources in the reserve, as called for by Hastings’ bill. The most recent survey found about half a billion barrels ofoil at prices near current levels.

Pool said:

I think we have everything in place and we have demonstrated that over time. We currently have all the regulations and the authorities we need.

Hastings, fresh off a trip last week to NPR-A with Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell (R), said:

Producing oil and natural gas in the NPR-A is pointless if there’s no way to get it out of there. The real problem is the federal government’s blocking and delaying of permits for necessary roads, bridges and pipelines needed to transport the energy out of the NPR-A.

According to committe spokesman Spencer Pederson, speaking after the hearing, the decision of the Interior Department suggests the Obama administration may be responding to the panel’s hearings:

However, if Interior paid attention to our NPR-A Access Act hearing, they would have learned that simply issuing lease sales does not solve the problem of producing oil in the NPR-A and transporting it for use.

He also added that, according to the Interior Department, it would be posting a 30-day request for nominations to industry in the coming week to help identify the potentially most productive areas to lease in the December sale.

And to bring today’s post into focus, here’s a little gem I discovered.

In return for a $5 donation to his reelection campaign, President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) is offering his fans a chance to to win a “casual” dinner with him at an unstated location, by participating in a raffle, whose proceeds go to his re-election campaign.

Obama announced that his campaign will raffle off four tickets for the casual dinner in an e-mail to his supporters:

We rely on everyday Americans giving whatever they can afford–and I want to spend time with a few of you. So if you make a donation today, you’ll be automatically entered for a chance to be one of the four supporters to sit down with me for dinner. Please donate $5 or more today.

The e-mail goes on, trying to rally the troops, neglecting to mention that Obama himself has conducted several high-dollar fundraisers in the weeks since his announcement that he is seeking re-election:

Most campaigns fill their dinner guest lists primarily with Washington lobbyists and special interests. We didn’t get here doing that, and we’re not going to start now. We’re running a different kind of campaign. We don’t take money from Washington lobbyists or special-interest PACs–we never have, and we never will.

Really, Mr. President?

Found on americanthinker.com, in an article written by Mallory Factor, on September 22, 2008, is the following refudiation:

On June 26 [2008], the AFL-CIO brass officially endorsed Barack Obama for president. With Big Labor’s largest umbrella organization and its member unions pouring unprecedented resources into the general election campaign, the public ought to fear the legislative payback that would ensue if Obama were elected.

…The two largest union coalitions — the AFL-CIO and the “Change to Win” Federation, a coalition of the American labor unions formed in 2005 as an alternative to the AFL-CIO — have publicly admitted they will spend at least $300 million combined on federal elections alone. When combined with political action committees and local unions and other union funders, at least $1 billion of union money (mostly in forced union dues coerced from workers as a job condition) is being dumped into electioneering.

And, looking back on the Obama Presidency, in 2011, it certainly appears that Big Labor got its money’s worth.