North Korea launched a rocket attack against a South Korean island near their western border Tuesday, burning buildings, killing at least two marines and injuring 16 others. The attack was in response to military drills by South Korea in the area.

South Korea returned fire and launched fighter jets in response to the strike They claimed that the “inhumane” attack on civilian areas violated the 1953 armistice halting the Korean War. The two sides are technically still at war. A peace treaty was never negotiated.

Added to the tension is North Korea’s claim that it has a new uranium enrichment facility. Not to mention the fact that North Korea launched this attack just six weeks after their dear leader Kim Jong Il proclaimed his youngest son Kim Jong Un as his heir apparent.

America has tens of thousands of troops stationed in South Korea. President Barack Hussein Obama’s administration condemned the attack and called on North Korea to “halt its belligerent action,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in Washington. He also said the United States is “firmly committed” to South Korea’s defense, and to the “maintenance of regional peace and stability.”

In a surprisingly related story…

The U.N. Human Rights Council has presented our nation with 228 recommendations from 56 countries urging the U.S. to improve human rights for Native Americans, end the death penalty, eliminate racial disparities, stop torture, ratify key international treaties and more.

The council’s first review of the U.S. rights record took place Nov. 5 as part of the Universal Periodic Review, a mechanism by the U.N. General Assembly in 2006 to review human rights records of all 192 U.N. member states every four years. And the Obama administration, which doesn’t seem to like their own country very much, was more than happy to cooperate.

America joined the U.N. Human Rights Council in 2009, ending a boycott of the hypocritical council by President George W. Bush.

Per heritage.org:

The HRC was created in 2006 to replace the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, a body that had failed to hold governments accountable for violating basic human rights and fundamental freedoms. During negotiations to establish the HRC, many basic reforms and standards to ensure that the council would not simply be a repeat of the commission did not receive sufficient support in the General Assembly. As a result, the HRC has been no better—and in some ways, worse—than the commission it replaced.

Anticipating this outcome, the Bush Administration decided not to seek a seat at the Geneva-based council in 2006. Based on its subsequent disappointing record, the U.S. again declined to seek a seat in 2007 and 2008. The Bush Administration also withheld a portion of the U.S. contribution to the U.N. regular budget (equivalent to the part of the U.S. contribution allocated to the HRC) and distanced itself from the council’s proceedings except in instances of “deep national interest.”

The 30-member U.S. delegation was given an hour to present its report and respond to questions. Eighty-five countries had signed up to try to verbally tear down the United States, but there was time for only 56 to present. The results of the ensuing dog and pony show were compiled in a draft “outcome document” that was adopted by the U.N. Human Rights Council on Nov. 8.

The U.S. will review the recommendations and present a formal response at the March 2011 session of the Human Rights Council.

Both countries and politically-driven Progressive organizations with an axe to grind against America presented a bunch of issues and recommendations involving anything that they could think up to try to harm America’s reputation. They were especially critical of our treatment of indigenous peoples.

Take this garbage for what it’s worth.  The Heritage Foundation reports that, during its review:

North Korea asserted that it “comprehensively provides” for fundamental rights and freedoms, including “the right to elect and to be elected, the freedoms of speech, the press, assembly, demonstration and association, the rights to complaints and petitions, work and relaxation, free medical care, education and social security, freedoms to engage in scientific, literary and artistic pursuits, and freedoms of residence and travel.”

These outrageous lies were accepted and approved by the majority of member states in the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The endorsement of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and its full implementation was recommended by several countries, including such paragons of virtue as Mexico, Nicaragua, the Bolivian Republic of Venezuela, Egypt, Sudan, Iran, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea).  Their contribution to the slamfest?  They want the United States to:

Unconditionally lift its measures of economic embargoes and sanctions unilaterally and coercively imposed upon other countries, as these measures are inflicting severe and negative impact on the human rights of the peoples.

No, North Korea.  Murderous, totalitarian regimes inflict a severe and negative impact of the human rights of the peoples.

I’m sure that Obama and his geniuses in the State Department have these two issues under control.

After all, we can’t let a little thing like Communism or a lust for World Domination get in the way of the brilliant “Smart Power” Foreign Policy Initiative of President Barack Hussein Obama, can we?

It looks like it’s time for Hillary to hit that Reset Button.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has threatened Americans seeking to travel by air.  They have proclaimed that if you refuse to allow them to view you through the nekkid body scanners or submit to an extremely intimate pat down by someone you don’t even know, you will not be allowed to fly.  However, you will not be allowed to leave the airport, either.

You, an average American citizen, will have to be questioned by the TSA and possibly by local law enforcement. And for not allowing the TSA to treat you like a Terrorist, you could face a fine up to $11,000 and possible arrest.

Sari Koshetz, regional TSA spokesperson, based in Miami said:

Once a person submits to the screening process, they can not just decide to leave that process.

She also stated that such passengers would be questioned “until it is determined that they don’t pose a threat” to the public.

Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Teri Barbera said PBSO deputies stationed at the airport would become involved if the TSA asks them to.

Barbera said that if a person is estimated to be a possible threat, deputies have the legal right to detain and search that individual:

The deputies will do it at the airport just as they would do it anywhere else.

According to her, once the TSA and deputies have determined that you’re just an average American, you will be allowed to leave.

The ACLU has gotten involved. (Of course.)  They want everyone to petition the Department of Homeland Security, and Big Sis, who oversees the TSA, to dump this ill-conceived security program.

The ACLU writes:

All of us have a right to travel without such crude invasions of our privacy. Tell DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to put in place security measures that respect passengers’ privacy rights. You shouldn’t have to check your rights when you check your luggage.

The ACLU also outlined ways for citizens to respond to TSA demands at checkpoints and also provided a form letter for filing complaints.

But the TSA is stomping up and down and holding its breath until it turns blue.

In a testimony before Congress Wednesday, TSA Administrator John S. Pistole said that the touch feely program would not be stopping anytime soon, because:

We have to ensure that each person getting on every flight is secure.

U.S. Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) asked about groups that objected to all forms of bodily search on religious grounds.  Pistole didn’t care:

While we respect that person’s beliefs, that person’s not going to get on an airplane.

The nekkid body scanners are now being used at more than 60 airports.

As we enter the busiest travel season of the year, hurried travelers will have to slow down and undergo treatment that has, in the past, been reserved for suspected Islamic Terrorists or citizens of some Marxist nation, not citizens of the United States of America.

Tales are surfacing of cancer survivors being humiliated,  young children being patted down, and massive lines already starting at America’s airports.

President Barack Hussein Obama (peace be upon him) was asked about the new TSA procedures in Lisbon, where he is attending a NATO summit.

Scooter says that he sympathizes with the Proletariat…errr….ummm…us little people:

I understand people’s frustrations, and what I’ve said to the TSA is that you have to constantly refine and measure whether what we’re doing is the only way to assure the American people’s safety. And you also have to think through are there other ways of doing it that are less intrusive.

But at this point, TSA in consultation with counterterrorism experts have indicated to me that the procedures that they have been putting in place are the only ones right now that they consider to be effective against the kind of threat that we saw in the Christmas Day bombing.

All this because of the little ol’ Underwear Bomber?  Now, I realize that the failed Islamic Terrorist setting fire to himself on that plane was an embarrassment, Scooter, but why are you using police-state tactics, instead of using the profiling system employed by Israel and other nations?  Do you want  America’s Airlines to be financially damaged, so that you can benevolently bail them out like you did America’s Financial structure and Automotive Industry?

In an interview with ABC News, Isaac Yeffet, the former head of security for the Israeli airline El Al, says the only way to secure the skies is to employ highly educated, well-trained agents to question passengers. Forget bomb-sniffing “puffers” or scanners that can see through passengers’ clothes. Yeffet said that he has seen many terrorists outsmart airport security over the years, and as technology improves, so do the terrorists’ methods.

Yeffet, who now runs his own firm, Yeffet Security Consultants, says:

We are dealing with a sophisticated enemy who knows how to beat our technology.

Evidently, our administration, as usual, believes that they are smarter than all those other countries who have proven that profiling is successful.

At least, I hope that’s the reason.  It couldn’t have anything to do with the president’s political ideology, could it?  Hold on.  This just in:

Mark Knoller via Twitter:  Obama joked that he’d have AF-1 fly home via South America so he could see Hugo Chavez.  Some joke.

Sources:  sun-sentinel.com, twitter.com, msnbc.com, abcnews.go.com

The Great Debate among Americans for the past two years has been concerning the president of our country.  It goes something like this:  Does Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) actually know what he’s doing to us or is he in waaay over his head?

Recently, Vice-President Joe (Stand up, Chuck!) Biden sat down with Lisa De Paulo of GQ magazine and answered the following questions:

Do you think the perception of the president as aloof and not caring is a bad rap?

I really do. Look, one of the things I’ve never been accused of is not caring about people. And so I think I’m a pretty good judge of folks who are. I watch this guy; I have lunch with him every single week. We sit for an hour alone, and there’s nothing on our agenda, just the two of us. I spend—when we’re both in town? I spend three, five, six hours a day with him, I mean literally.

Really?

Really. I start off with the presidential daily brief, which is on the economy, on national security. I meet with him when he meets once a week with Clinton and Gates. I meet with him when any congressman or senator or governor’s involved. I meet with him when there’s any event that has to do with foreign policy. I’m engaged. I’m with him in the situation room, because I do so much on the foreign-policy side. And so I watch the guy. And I find nothing, nothing about him that’s aloof. Look, I judge people in large part by how they treat people who wait on them at a table. Watch him. Watch how he treats ordinary people. There’s nothing aloof about him.

So what is it?

I think what it is, is he’s so brilliant. He is an intellectual. And the president, in a strange way, has more faith in the American people than about anybody I know. He sits there and says, “Look, we just tell ’em. Just tell them.” It’s almost kind of a blind faith. You know, when someone will say to him, “Well, look, Mr. President, you really oughta do it this way.” [He says] “No. The American people get this. Just tell them. Just go out there and do the right thing.” I don’t want to—I’m not making him—he’s not a moralizer. But he’s just… Look, think about the guy. This is an African-American who had a Caucasian mother, raised in a Caucasian neighborhood by Caucasian grandparents. Talk about a guy who knows what it’s like. This is a guy who gets it. This is a guy, for example, when we were talking about making compromises on health care just to get it done, he said, “Look, this is an historic opportunity. What about all those poor whites? What about all those black men who are gonna be left out? No, this is it.” He has a great expression. He says—and the reason why I’m confident we’ll be reelected—he says, “Look, I always joke, I always wanted to be a former president. If it has to be in four years, so be it. As long as we do the right thing.”

One of the reasons we kind of balance each other? I probably am too much of Scranton. Hi, you know, hug, touch. It was the way I was raised. Whereas he is not, you know, emotive that way. I think that’s why we make such a good team.

You said earlier that Obama knew, before the election, that he could never meet the expectations.

Yeah. I mean, the expectations were sooo inordinately high. But I think, in a sense—and this is gonna sound strange to you, probably—that the expectations of the press were higher than the people’s expectations. Because here comes this guy who is, you know, handsome, smart, athletic, ran an incredible campaign. This guy’s got a backbone like a ramrod, a brain bigger than his skull, and a heart that just keeps beatin’. And so the press saw that, too.

May I throw up now?

I don’t think you’ll find any Republican or Democrat, scholar or student, who’ll tell you that he didn’t accomplish more in the first two years than about anybody since Franklin Roosevelt. The only disagreement is, Republicans will say he accomplished too much of the wrong thing. And some on the left say he accomplished mostly good things but not enough of it. The truth of the matter is that I think the American people know where this guy’s heart is.

Out of the mouths of babes and Joe Biden.  Yeah, I would say that, judging from the Midterm Elections, Americans know exactly where Obama’s heart is.  Remember what he said to Joe the Plumber?

How about what he says in this speech, ironically posted on youtube.com by an adherent to the Muslim faith:

In the interview, Crazy Uncle Joe said:

Watch how he treats ordinary people. There’s nothing aloof about him.

Explain this, Mr. Vice-President:

This is brilliant?  By whose standards? 

As I have written before, this President and his administration as so out of touch with the American people, it’s unbelievable.  From his failed economic policies to the shoving down our throats of Obamacare, he has shown a blatant disregard for the wishes of the American people, projecting an image, not unlike that of a dictator who views himself as the smartest man in the room and does what is best for his subjects, regardless of their wishes.

Brilliant?  Mr. Vice-President, respectfully, sir, I do not think that you know what that word means.

Our Lame Duck Congress is living up to their name. They aren’t accomplishing anything.

After Senate Democrats met for hours yesterday trying to agreed on a position on extending the Bush tax cuts, Majority Leader Harry Reid emerged empty-handed, but Dinghy Harry still wants to hold a vote:

My friend [Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky] has offered some legislation to extend all them all, costing $4 trillion. I’ll be happy to arrange that, but he should also help arrange a vote on $250 thousand. Period.

Reid is adamant about only extending the tax cuts for those making $250 thousand or less, which even he seemed to recognize may not pass.

We want to give the Republicans an opportunity to vote on McConnell’s legislation. and we want opportunity and may be plural vote. We have to do it more than once, twice, whatever it takes, to show the American people that we support the middle class.

That’s garbage, Harry. You simply have orders from Obama to pass the legislation the way he wants it.

The legislation that Minority Leader McConnell introduced in September, was to permanently extend all the tax cuts.

According to McConnell:

This is the only bill that’s yet been offered that would prevent a tax hike on anyone. In other words, nobody in America would get a tax hike at the end of the year.

Meanwhile, back among those who pay the salaries of these politicians, fewer new businesses are starting in our country. and because of this, prospects for job growth and innovation are bleak.

More businesses are closing in America right now than are opening up. And those that are opening up are hiring fewer employees. The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of companies with at least one employee fell by 100,000, or 2%, within the span of a year ending March 31.

That was the second worst performance in 18 years, the worst being the 3.4% drop in the previous year.

The Administration has a lot to be proud of.

Newly opened companies created a seasonally adjusted total of 2.6 million jobs in the three quarters ended in March, 15% less than the comparable time when investors and entrepreneurs were still digging their way out when the Dotcom bubble burst.

Obama’s economic policies have caused more funemployed Americans into business for themselves, working as consultants or trying to sell something…anything online. But these desperate people are not forming a company and hiring employees.

Businessmen are reluctant to invest in start-up firms. Venture-capital firms invested $25.1 billion in the year that ended in September, up 10% from the same period a year earlier but still down 27% from two years earlier, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.

Angel investment amounted to $8.5 billion in the 2010 first half—30% below the average level in the five years leading up to the financial crisis, estimates Jeffrey Sohl, director of the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire.

He plainly states:

I’ve never seen seed capital so low.

Obama , in his weekly Presidential  Address after the shellacking known as the Midterm Elections, said that extending tax cuts for everybody, including those that actually hire Americans, would be detrimental and would add to the deficit:

President Ronald Reagan  disagreed with increasing taxes to cut the budget deficit:

Obama and his administration have demonstrated over and over again they firmly believe in Keynesian Economics.  This is an economic theory stating that active government intervention in the marketplace and monetary policy is the best method of ensuring economic growth and stability.

However, Reagan believed that if you eased taxes and the restrictions of government bureaucracy on American Business that we, as a nation, would reap the rewards. More Americans would be employed as established businesses grew, and Americans would be able buy goods and contribute back to the economy as a result of their employment. And, due to the pro-business stance of the Reagan Administration, American entrepreneurs were able to start their own businesses, and hire their own employees.

It’s funny how, during the economic expansion of the Reagan Administration, that the ultimate practitioner of Keynesian Economics (aka Marxism), the Soviet Union, began to lose their position as a world power as America’s power and prestige in the world increased.

Now, under Obama’s failed economic policies, Americans are watching our country’s economic standing, both foreign and domestic, being weakened to the point where we are just about at the point of being laughed off the world stage. While this administration is preaching Keynesian Economics, the rest of the world is beginning to embrace Capitalism.

When the new Congress convenes in January, they need to begin to address the situation. Unfortunately, though, while the thin-skinned, self-proclaimed smartest man in the room remains in the Oval Office and is able to exercise his veto power, I’m at a loss as to what they can do.

I hope that they have some ideas… because I never got a job from a poor man.

Sources: wsj.com, foxnews.com

Approximately one year ago, United States Attorney General Eric Holder was appearing before Senate committee, defending the Administration’s plan to try 5 Islamic terrorists  in civilian courts who were complicit in the mass murder of 3,000 people on September 11, 2001. 

Holder proclaimed during questioning that:

Failure is not an option.  These are cases that have to be won.

The first civilian trial of a Guantanamo prisoner, Ahmed Ghailani, ended yesterday with the acquittal of the Al Qaeda operative on all but one count out of a total of 281.

Ghailani, 36, was convicted of conspiracy to destroy U.S. buildings and property in the 1998 bombings of U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.

The day before the 1998 bombings, Ghailani fled Africa with a one-way ticket to Pakistan, using an alias, according to prosecutors. While on the run, he lived in Afghanistan, working as a cook and bodyguard for Osama Bin Laden and later as a document forger for Al Qaeda.

He was captured in 2004 in Pakistan and was kept at a secret CIA camp overseas. He was transferred to Guantanamo in 2006 and was held there until last year.

It took the civilian jury 4 1/2 days to reach their less- than-just verdict. The Islamic Terrorist faces a mandatory 20-year-to-life sentence for the conspiracy conviction.

Ghailani naturally appeared relieved, hugging his lawyers after the verdict was read in Manhattan Federal Court.

The Obama administration, in a purely political move, went ahead with this dog and pony show, despite the objections of the American public, in an attempt to prove how effective the political philosophy of treating the War of Terror as a law enforcement issue would be.

So, now that they have eggs on their faces, what do they have to say for themselves? …Not a whole lot:

We respect the jury’s verdict and are pleased that Ahmed Ghailani now faces a minimum of 20 years in prison and a potential life sentence.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara attempted to cover the government’s failure, saying:

He will face, and we will seek, the maximum sentence of life without parole when he is sentenced in January.

Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.), who has been against such trials since the beginning, called the mixed verdict

…a disgraceful miscarriage of justice

It shows how totally wrong the Obama administration is to bring a case like this to civilian court. He was acquitted of 224 counts of murder.

Judge Lewis Kaplan barred a key witness from testifying because the man’s name came to light while Ghailani was held at a CIA camp where suspects reportedly were tortured.

King explained:

If this had been before a military tribunal, evidence that was blocked in this case would have been admissable.

His defense attorney argued that Ghailani was a “dupe” who was kept in the dark about the plot. No witnesses were called to testify on Ghailani’s behalf during the month-long trial.

Per defense lawyer Peter Quijano:

This verdict is a reaffirmation that this nation’s judicial system is the greatest ever devised. It is truly a system of laws and not men.

Laws, not men…hmmm.  So legal jurisprudence trumps America’s safety?

Returning to the subject of that stalwart defender of America, AG Eric Holder, from 2001 until he became Attorney General, Holder worked in private practice for the prestigious law firm of Covington and Burling.  Researching his time there is quite illuminating.  Can you say Conflict of Interest?

In her best-seller, Culture of Corruption, Michelle Malkin wrote:

One wonders what the Obamas would say about Holder’s lucrative work for Chiquita Brands International if it had been performed by, say, John McCain’s top lawyer? As chief counsel for the global company, Holder won a “slap-on-the-wrist plea deal to charges that it had paid off” Colombian paramilitary death squads. Liberal critics of Holder point out that he used his influence as a former Clinton Justice Department official to negotiate a sweetheart deal for Chiquita.

…Putting on the best terrorist defense is a Covington & Burling specialty. Among the firm’s other celebrity terrorist clients: 17 Yemenis held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The law firm employed dozens of radical attorneys such as David Remes and Marc Falkoff to provide the enemy combatants with more than 3,000 hours of pro bono representation. Covington & Burling co-authored one of three petitioners’ briefs filed in the Boumediene v. Bush detainee case, and secured victories for several other Gitmo enemy combatants in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Falkoff went on to publish a book of poetry, Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak, which he dedicated to the suspected terrorists: “For my friends inside the wire, Mahmoad, Majid, Yasein, Saeed, Abdulsalam, Mohammed, Adnan, Jamal, Othman, Adil, Mohamed, Abdulmalik, Areef, Adeq, Farouk, Salman, and Makhtar. Inshallah, we will next meet over coffee in your homes in Yemen.”

Lovely.  

So, the man in charge of enforcing America’s laws kept Terrorists out of jail before he landed this job.  How unconscionable and/or stupid does Obama and his pinheaded minions in his administration and Congress have to be in order for Eric Holder to have been appointed Attorney General of the United States of America?

If Obama and Holder have the audacity to continue with the farce of attempting to try unrepentant Islamic Terrorists in our Federal Courts, regardless of which American city the trial is located in, they have more than proven their blatant disregard for the safety of Americans.

Between the accusations of racism with the Justice Department, the Federal Government’s war against the citizens of Arizona, and granting civilian trials to Islamic Terrorists who are waging jihad against our country, there is more than enough of a case to justify replacing Eric Holder as U.S. Attorney General.

And we need to relieve his boss of his duties while we’re at it.

It was not very long ago that American travelers were complaining about the hassle of heightened Airport Security measures that were in place after the Islamic Terrorist attack on September 11, 2001.  Americans were being made to pass through metal detectors, passed over with detecting wands, and had their luggage sent through an x-ray machine. 

Well, after the embarrassment that President Barack Hussein Obama’s Administration experienced over the failed “Underwear Bomber”, Scooter and Janet Big Sis Napalitano have taken it upon themselves, without running it by Congress or anyone else, to install an extremely invasive system of physical pat downs of passengers, ranging from 3 year olds to seasoned citizens.

The head of the Transportation Security Administration, John Pistole, is defending the new procedure,which some have labelled sexual assault. The new procedure involves TSA employees running their hands up the inside of passengers’ thighs and touching around women’s topsides.

Pistole admitted that the government is not always ahead of the terrorists. He said that the TSA is seeking “the proper mix” between passengers’ rights and protecting airplanes. He told a Senate committee which was holding a meeting about the safety of cargo:

There is an ever-evolving nature of the terrorist threat.

We want to be sensitive to people’s sensitivity to privacy and their being while ensuring that everybody is secure on every flight.

Pistole insists that he is concerned about fliers’ safety and privacy and asked the flying public to “work together” with his agency.

According to him, the only people who undergo the patdowns are those who refuse to go through very revealing full-body scanners or those who somehow trip other detectors.

He said:

It’s a very small percentage of all passengers. Our patdown approach is very similar to what is being used in Europe.

Explain that to 3-year-old Mandy Simon. She had to go through security with her daddy at the airport in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Mandy became scared and started crying when she was asked to put her teddy bear through the X-ray machine. Because she was upset, she set the machine off twice, which meant she “must be hand-searched.”

A TSA employee patted down Mandy and she started screaming and kicking her legs. Her daddy, Steve, happens to be a TV reporter and caught 17 seconds of the ordeal on his cell phone:

And if  you think that Mandy’s is an isolated case, watch this pat down of a 3-year-old boy:

The Obama Administration has reassured the flying public time and time again that any naked images of them at airport checkpoints would be destroyed immediately.

However, information has come out that the U.S. Marshals Service, in at least one case, has been keeping thousands of similar naked images recorded by its body scanners.

Gizmodo reports that U.S. Marshalls in a Florida courthouse have saved 35,000 body scanner images.

Just don’t point and laugh, people.

The new TSA procedure has unleashed a firestorm over the internet, driven in part by an airport traveler who famously resisted a full-body scan and groin check with the words:

If you touch my junk, I’ll have you arrested.

John Tyner’s online story,complete with cell-phone video of the encounter,has helped fuel a campaign urging travelers to decline the body scans next week during the busiest travel day of the year.  Here’s Tyner’s story from an interview with Shannon Bream of Fox News:

Tyner is a 31-year-old software engineer from Oceanside, Calif.  He insists that he was not looking to be famous when he stood up to TSA agents last weekend at the San Diego airport.

Tyner said:

I don’t think I did anything heroic.  I stood up for what I thought was right.

After he refused to go through the full-body scanner, he then refused to submit to a groin check as part of a pat-down. He was tossed from the airport Saturday after being threatened with a fine and lawsuit.

HIs defiance has inspired online sales of T-shirts, bumper stickers, hats and even underwear emblazoned with the words, “Don’t Touch My Junk!”

Tyner is hesitant to advocate that Americans do what he did, saying he appreciates that most people cannot afford to put expensive trips at risk:

But people ought to do what their consciences say they should do. If civil disobedience is a way they think would work, I think they should do it.

Tyner’s actions have resulted in an online campaign urging air travelers to refuse body scans in a “National Opt-Out Day” the day before Thanksgiving, one of the year’s busiest travel days.

There are 300 of the scanners in use at 60 U.S. airports. The Transportation Security Administration will be using approximately 500 of them by the end of the year.

In Israel, where Palestinians attacked planes in the 1970s, passengers face tough questioning and multiple inspections. Single women who are not Israeli citizens are sometimes inspected more intensely because militants have tried to use them as couriers.  El Al and British Airways employ profiling as well, and they have never had a hijacking.

Wow.  Actually providing intelligent security measures through the use of profiling. What a concept!

Big Sis Janet Napolitano has defended America’s new Airport Security Procedure, proclaiming:

It’s all about security. It’s all about everybody recognizing their role.

Shut up, she explained.

As regular readers of my Blog can attest, I’m a proud patriotic American, the son of a D-Day veteran.  I bleed red, white, and blue. 

Having said that, I, like a lot of other proud Americans are asking why, with the best intelligence network at their fingertips, are Scooter and Big Sis attacking the delicate problem of Airport Security with all the finesse of a bull in a China Shop?  Has their political ideology trumped their concerns for Americans’ safety?  Is this administration so afraid of offending the Muslim community that it has clouded their memory of exactly what happened and who it was that murdered innocent Americans on 9/11/2001?  Rumors are floating that the TSA may discontinue searching Muslim women wearing traditional garb.  If this namby pamby administration does not put the safety of Americans first, before their political ideology and misguided world view,  and shelves this literally touchy feely security procedure for a smarter one, such as the Israelis use,  they will continue to propagate unrest among their own citizenry, which, as Glenn Beck said yesterday, may be the whole purpose of this new security procedure in the first place.

What are you going to do this weekend? If you are like the majority of Americans, you’ll spend it with family and friends, trying to find something inexpensive to do, due to the effects of the Obama Economy.

As I just said this, I heard Liberal heads all exploding in unison as they shrieked:

But…but…Boooosh!!!!!

Nope.  The sad fact of the matter is: A government report issued on Monday reported that the number of U.S. households that have been forced to get emergency food from a food pantry almost doubled between 2007 and 2009, at the height of the recession.

According to the The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of households jumped to 5.6 from 3.9 million.

An article published in the USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) “Amber Waves” said:

Households also accessed additional assistance through USDA’s 15 food and nutrition assistance programs.

The USDA is in charge of the government’s food stamp program,known as SNAP or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, for low-income families and other domestic feeding programs like school lunches.

During the 2009 fiscal year,according to the article:

15.2 million households participated in SNAP in an average month, up from 12.7 million in FY 2008.

In a separate report, the ERS said the percentage of U.S. households that did not have access to enough food for an active, healthy life, at some point during the year hit a record in 2009.

More than 50 million people, including at least 17 million children, lived in households uncertain of having or getting enough food at some point because of insufficient money or other material resources.

Remind me again the year in which the Democrats took over Congress. Oh yeah, 2007.

So this weekend, as millions of Americans are simply trying to survive, what is the leader of their country going to be doing?

Coming off a failed Asia trip, where Obama’s proposals were rebuffed time and again by world leaders trying to not laugh out loud at his economic policies, Scooter will travel to Europe this Friday and Saturday.

His mission is to attempt to convince skeptical European allies that he is an effective American President, able to engage in better cooperation on issues ranging from the war in Afghanistan to the fight against trade protectionism.

The problem for Obama is the fact that, just as Americans have seen behind his mask, so has the rest of the world, as evidenced by his failed Asian trip. Our allies do not have a whole lot of confidence in this “leader of the free world”.

As the president attends back-to-back NATO and European Union summits in Lisbon on Friday and Saturday, he faces an uphill battle, according to Sally McNamara, a European affairs expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington:

Obama is facing  the daunting task of figuring out how to show the Europeans not only that he’s still important to them but that they’re still important to the U.S..

One of his main problems is that our friends in Europe may be feeling ignored by his foreign policy initiatives.

Despite his nonsensical European Presidential Campaign stops where he was treated like a rock star, once Obama was elected, he placed Europe on the back-burner, instead courting favor with India and Asia and devoting his attention to an attempt to change America into a socialist country, resulting in high unemployment and a horrible economy.

He will only be spending 24 hours in Lisbon, Spain, after spending 10 days in Asia.

And while Obama’s been pushing his failed strategy of more government spending, European leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron have been stressing fiscal discipline.

Because they tried socialism already and it did not work.  Capitalism does.

To say that the Europeans are less than impressed with Obama’s economic policies is an understatement. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, earlier this month, said the Federal Reserve’s decision to pump $600 billion into the U.S. economy was “clueless.” Germany, China and other big exporters have identified the action as a backdoor way to bring down the value of the dollar, thereby giving U.S. goods a trade advantage.

Obama will meet first with NATO leaders and then with heads of the 27-nation EU, the world’s biggest economic bloc. Given his track record, this weekend will undoubtedly be a failure, also.

This president’s domestic and foreign policies are both failing in an epic way.  In the span of two years, he has spent more money that all of our other presidents combined.  Instead of turning a slow economy around, his economic policies, including his so-called “Stimulus” Bill and strident government take-over of private industry, have not only driven the car into the ditch, his policies are burying our economy deeper than the Kennedys buried Chappaquiddick.  The next time that you’re in church or at a ballgame, count 6 people down the row.  That person may be fighting, economically, for their very survival.

America’s allies…and our enemies…have been watching for the past two years.  They view this American President as an inept bungler.  They probably are laughing themselves silly, wondering how the American people could have elected such a lightweight.  Obama has succeeded in diminishing America’s stature throughout the world.

Obama has never believed in American exceptionalism.  The crux of all his speeches has basically been to identify America as just another nation on the world stage.  He has been doing his best to turn the Shining City on the Hill into just another Third World Barrio.

The good news is, November 2nd was a refudiation (Refudiate…The New Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year…More Liberal heads exploding.) of Obama and his minions’ Master Plan to radically change America.  With the American people rejecting his policies, along with the rest of the world, Obama will be locked for the next two years in an ideological prison of his own device.

The most ethical Congress evah returns to Capital hill today.  As I wrote last week, there are a lot of things on the agenda, most of which are wishes and dreams.

There are two important pieces of legislation that will have to be tackled right off the bat, though:  The extension of the Bush tax cuts and the START Nuclear Arms Reduction Treaty.

The START treaty, which has been pending in the Senate for months,would reduce the limit on strategic warheads to 1,550 for each country from the current ceiling of 2,200. It also would set up new procedures to allow both countries to inspect each other’s arsenals to verify compliance.

The treaty was signed by President Barack Hussein Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April and is waiting to be ratified by the Senate.  Before the Midterms, this would have sailed through.  Now, it won’t be so easy, with Senators looking over their shoulders, scared by the righteous indignation of the American people, who spoke in a loud and clear voice on November 2nd.

Then, there’s the Bush Tax Cuts.  Of course, Scooter and his minions have been adamant about raising the taxes of American families making $250,00 or more, while Republicans and the majority of the American people want all the Bush Tax Cuts extended.

The smell of compromise is in the air.  The WH has been signaling that they may be agreeable to extending the tax cuts for the so-called wealthy for a couple of more years, while indefinitely extending the rest of the cuts.

The problem, as usual, is Obama himself.  He’s still of the opinion that over-taxing those who actually create jobs and put Americans to work is no big deal.  Obama told reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington from an Asia trip:

It won’t significantly boost the economy, and it’s hugely expensive. So we can’t afford it.

Obama then allowed the possibility of compromise to remain open:

If they feel very strongly about it, then I want to get a sense of … how they intend to pay for it.

Republicans have signalled back that they would be willing to talk about it, but they realize that the folks back home do not want their taxes raised. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has introduced legislation that would permanently extend the current tax rates for all income levels,said in a statement:

I’m willing to listen to what the president has in mind for protecting Americans from tax increases.

Two other Republican leaders said on Sunday that Congress may only be able to come up with a short term-continuation of the current tax rates.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)said:

If the president wants to compromise on a two or three-year extension … if that’s all we can get out of the president, and he is the president, so we’ll work with him on that.

Our ol’ buddy Sen. John McCain of Arizona said he would be alright with a short-term extension of all the tax cuts. The World Champion reacher-across-the aisle voted against the Bush tax cuts, claiming that they disproportionately benefited wealthy Americans and did not reign spending.

He opined that:

They should be extended until we are out of this recession. At such time we can look at other tax hikes. But when we’re in a serious recession I cannot believe that raising taxes is a good thing on anybody.

Wow.  How profound.  Gee, John.  Ya think?

Meanwhile, Freshmen Orientation Classes begin for almost 100 incoming members of the House of Representatives, chosen by the American voters 13 days ago.

Yesterday, there were four events held at the same time for the newbie Congresscritters:  A meet and greet at the Capitol Hill Club, sponsored by the Claremont Institute, a forum at the Regan Building, held by the Constitutional Congress, a third meeting, also at the Reagan Building, organized by the Tea Party Patriots, and. of course, the formal orientation session, held at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel.

The TPP, apparently upset at being ignored yesterday, issued a memo, intercepted by Fox News:

Don’t Let them Steal OUR New Members of Congress. They are apparently trying to make sure that instead of sitting with grassroots tea party leaders from around the country, the lobbyists and consultants can sink their claws into the freshmen and begin to ‘teach them’ the ways of DC.

The TPP went on to publish on the internet the personal cell phone numbers and email addresses of every freshman Republican member. TPP backers then blasted the government-issued BlackBerries of the freshman GOPers with tons of voice messages and emails.

While I understand the TPP’s concern, I think that they should have allowed these neophytes to take their place on the playing  field first before they tackled them.  These incoming Freshmen know what the American people expect of them.  That message was sent loud and clear on November 2nd.  They, along with their veteran colleagues, know the consequences of failing to follow through with the mandate that they were given on that historic day.  They talked the talk to get to Capitol Hill.  Now, it’s up to them to walk the walk.