From The Daily Caller:

SNL cuts sketch critical of Obama

 The Daily Caller has obtained a scrapped sketch critical of President Barack Obama that was intended for airing at the opening of last night’s “Saturday Night Live” on NBC.

In the skit, President Obama addresses Americans soon after the first anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden — and he makes sure to remind viewers that all credit for the raid on the terrorist leader’s compound belongs to him.

“I hope you had a safe and joyous first anniversary of his killing,” the president, portrayed by Fred Armisen, begins.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to be at home this year, as I had to fly to Afghanistan, to remind President Karzai that, exactly one year ago, we killed Osama bin Laden, and that the decision to do so was a gutsy one,” the president continues. “And was mine.”

The president then outlines what gifts are appropriate on the anniversaries of “Killing Osama bin Laden Day,” and reminds his audience that “heavy drinking, and Killing Osama bin Laden Day, are never a good combination.”

The full text of the skit, which was authored by comedian Jim Downey, is viewable below. It is not clear why the skit was scrapped.

The real President Obama has faced harsh criticism in recent weeks for allegedly politicizing bin Laden’s death by taking too much credit for the operation that killed him.

Instead of the skit, NBC opted instead to air a parody of Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends.” That skit, which also featured Armisen, mocked Fox News personalities by portraying them as clueless partisans.

“Shame on President Barack Obama, who is running a campaign ad that argues that Mitt Romney would not have made the decision to launch the raid,” said Taran Killam, who portrayed Fox personality Steve Doocy.

“I can name one person who wouldn’t have launched that raid: Barack Obama!” Bobby Moynihan, playing Fox host Brian Kilmeade, interjected.

  Obama Address Cold Open - May 6, 2012

It's simple. Voters can keep a better eye on a criminal who's locked up.

From The "Christian Science" Monitor via Yahoo! News:
Ouch! Obama loses 41 percent of W.Va. primary vote to federal inmate

Meet Keith Judd, who's incarcerated in Texas for extortion. He's also a serial presidential candidate, and in West Virginia's Democratic primary Tuesday, he grabbed 41 percent of the vote from President Obama. Republicans are gleeful. 

 In an embarrassment to President Obama, Federal Inmate No. 11593-051 – otherwise known as Keith Judd – won 10 counties and 41 percent of the vote in West Virginia’s Democratic presidential primary Tuesday.

Mr. Judd is incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana, Texas, where he is serving a 210-month sentence for extortion, according to The Charleston Gazette. Judd had paid the $2,500 filing fee and submitted a notarized “certificate of announcement” to appear on the ballot.

He is even qualified to have a delegate at the Democratic National Convention, because he won at least 15 percent of vote. However, no one has stepped forward to fill that role.

But those are just details. The Republicans are having a field day with this slap at the president. Mr. Obama is deeply unpopular in West Virginia and was already certain to lose the small mountainous state in November. But the fact that enough people bothered to turn out in an uncontested primary to register a protest against the incumbent is telling.

“Just how unpopular does someone have to be for this to happen?” says Joe Pounder, research director and deputy communications director at the Republican National Committee, in a statement.

He notes that Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia wouldn’t say whom he voted for in the primary. “Apparently, it’s a smarter political calculation to let people believe you may have voted for the guy in federal prison over the sitting president of your own party. Just saying,” Mr. Pounder writes.

West Virginia’s Democratic governor, Earl Ray Tomblin, has also not revealed his vote. Energy is a big issue in his state – America’s second-biggest producer of coal – and the Environmental Protection Agency’s handling of mining-related permits has angered the local industry, writes the Associated Press.

In addition to being a convicted felon, Judd is also a serial presidential candidate. In the 2008 Idaho Democratic primary, he finished third behind Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton with 1.7 percent of the vote, per The Charleston Gazette.

According to the website for the secretary of State of West Virginia, the state’s primaries are closed. Major party members are required to “vote the ballot” of their party. But “all the major parties allow members of minor parties and unaffiliated voters to vote their ballots upon request,” the site says.

Still, the 41 percent who voted for Judd had to have included a lot of registered Democrats. One voter, an electrician named Ronnie Brown from Cross Lanes, W.Va., told the AP that he’s a conservative Democrat who voted “against Obama.”

"I don't like him,” Mr. Brown said. “He didn't carry the state before, and I'm not going to let him carry it again."

And yes, Brown did vote for Judd – or “that guy out of Texas,” as he put it.

Emperor Haile Unlikely believes Our Boys to be his Praetorian Guard.

More excrement vomits from the mouth of the Hater of the Free World.

From ABC via Yahoo! News:
Transcript: Robin Roberts ABC News Interview With President Obama

 ...But I have to tell you that over the course of-- several years, as I talk to friends and family and neighbors. When I think about-- members of my own staff who are incredibly committed, in monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together. When I think about-- those soldiers or airmen or marines or-- sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf-- [Emphasis mine. F.G.] and yet, feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask, Don't Tell is gone, because-- they're not able to-- commit themselves in a marriage...

Dumbo the Presiphant* comes out of the closet as a Confederate slavemaster; Endorses states' rights

Let's dissect the the latest horrorshow, shall we?

From ABC via Yahoo! News:
Transcript: Robin Roberts ABC News Interview With President Obama

 Benito answers a question about sodomites being allowed to play "house" with each other

...At a certain point, I've just concluded that-- for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that-- I think same-sex couples should be able to get married. Now-- I have to tell you that part of my hesitation on this has also been I didn't want to nationalize the issue. There's a tendency when I weigh in to think suddenly it becomes political and it becomes polarized. 

And what you're seeing is, I think, states working through this issue-- in fits and starts, all across the country. Different communities are arriving at different conclusions, at different times. And I think that's a healthy process and a healthy debate. And I continue to believe that this is an issue that is gonna be worked out at the local level, because historically, this has not been a federal issue, what's recognized as a marriage. 

Racist!

ROBIN ROBERTS: Well, Mr. President, it's-- it's not being worked out on the state level. We saw that Tuesday in North Carolina, the 30th state to announce its ban on gay marriage. 

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well-- well-- well, what I'm saying is is that different states are coming to different conclusions. But this debate is taking place-- at a local level. And I think the whole country is evolving and changing. And-- you know, one of the things that I'd like to see is-- that a conversation continue in a respectful way. 

I think it's important to recognize that-- folks-- who-- feel very strongly that marriage should be defined narrowly as-- between a man and a woman-- many of them are not coming at it from a mean-spirited perspective. They're coming at it because they care about families. And-- they-- they have a different understanding, in terms of-- you know, what the word "marriage" should mean. And I-- a bunch of 'em are friends of mine-- you know, pastors and-- you know, people who-- I deeply respect...

Oh-oh. It must be election time. He's droppin' letters to get street cred.

* An Asian presiphant, of course. An African presiphant would be racist.

The truth about Lizzie Warren's ancestry isn't funny. It's sick.

It's the Joseph Goebbels strategy, kiddies - Accuse your enemies of your crimes.

I'll bet her bedroom is covered in Cherokee scalps.


From the truth-tellers at Breitbart.com:

Elizabeth Warren's ancestor rounded up Cherokees for the Trail of Tears

 For over a quarter of a century, Elizabeth Warren has described herself as a Native American.  When recently asked to provide evidence of her ancestry, she pointed to an unsubstantiated claim on an 1894 Oklahoma Territory marriage license application by her great-great grand uncle William J. Crawford that his mother, O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford, Ms. Warren's great-great-great grandmother, was a Cherokee.  

After researching her story, it is obvious that her "family lore" is just fiction.

As I pointed out in my article here on Sunday, no evidence supports this claim. O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford had no Cherokee heritage, was listed as "white" in the Census of 1860, and was most likely half Swedish and half English, Scottish, or German, or some combination thereof. (Note, the actual 1894 marriage license makes no claim of Cherokee ancestry.)

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

This new information about Ms. Warren’s true heritage came as a direct result of a lead provided to me by William Jacobson over at Legal Insurrection, who in turn had received the information from one of his readers. Jacobson, who has questioned Warren's explanation for her law faculty listing, calls this discovery "the ultimate and cruelest irony" of the Warren Cherokee saga.

Jonathan Crawford, O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford’s husband and apparently Ms. Warren's great-great-great grandfather, served in the East Tennessee Mounted Infantry Volunteer Militia commanded by Brigadier General R. G. Dunlap from late 1835 to late 1836. While under Dunlap’s command he was a member of Major William Lauderdale’s Battalion, and Captain Richard E. Waterhouse’s Company.

These were the troops responsible for removing Cherokee families from homes they had lived in for generations in the three states that the Cherokee Nations had considered their homelands for centuries: Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.  

While these involuntary home removals were not characterized by widespread violence, the newly displaced Cherokee mothers, fathers, and children found an oppressive and sometimes brutal welcome when they finally arrived at the hastily constructed containment areas. An estimated 4,000 Cherokees were warehoused in Ross’s Landing stockades for months awaiting supplies and additional armed guards the Federal Government believed necessary to relocate them on foot to Oklahoma.

Jonathan Crawford most likely did not join the regular Army troops who "escorted" these Cherokees along the Trail of Tears. He did, however, serve once more with Major William Lauderdale's re-formed Batallion of Tennessee Mounted Infantry Volunteer Militia. This group fought the Seminole Indians in Florida during the Second Seminole War. Crawford arrived in Florida in November, 1837, and served there for six months until his unit was disbanded in Baton Rouge, Louisiana the following May. (Note: It was not uncommon in those days for militia formed to serve for a limited period of time under specific commanders would reform later under the same commanders.)

Jonathan Crawford's service as a Private in Captain Richard E. Waterhouse's Company of Major William Lauderdale's Battalion of Mounted Infantry in Brigadier General R. G. Dunlap's East Tennessee Mounted Infantry Volunteers is confirmed by his appearance in the muster roll of the Brigade, taken around June of 1836. (Note that this transcription of the muster roll incorrectly lists the date as 1832.)

His service a year later (1837) in Major William Lauderdale's Tennessee Volunteer Mounted Infantry (Five companies of volunteers, one of which was led by Captain Richard E. Waterhouse) is confirmed by his widow O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford’s 1851 pension application before the Bledsoe County, Tennessee commissioners

Meanwhile, William J. Crawford (Elizabeth Warren's great-great grandfather who would, fifty-seven years later, falsely claim that his mother was Cherokee in that now-infamous 1894 Oklahoma Territory marriage license application) was born in Bledsoe County, Tennessee in 1837. This was just a few months after his father apparently helped remove thousands of Cherokees from their homes and a few months before his father went off to fight Seminole Indians in Florida.

His father, Jonathan Crawford, Elizabeth Warren's great-great-great grandfather, died in Jackson County, Tennessee in 1841. His mother, O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford, died sometime between 1860 and 1870 - most likely in Bledsoe County, Tennessee.

Neither O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford, Jonathan Crawford, nor any of their seven other children, apparently ever claimed that O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford had Cherokee heritage. 


As recently as two weeks ago, Ms. Warren publicly claimed to have Native American ancestry. In Dorchester, Massachusetts on April 27 at the Bricklayers and Allied Craftsmen Apprentice Training Center she stated,  “I am very proud of my Native American heritage.” Yet, decades after she first made this same claim, it now appears that it is without any foundation.

It is time for Ms. Warren to publicly acknowledge the truth of her ancestry. It is time for her to admit that she has no Native American heritage that she can prove; and it is time for her to acknowledge instead, that she is likely a direct descendant of a Tennessee Militiaman who apparently rounded up the ancestors of those who truly have Cherokee heritage, the first step in their forced removal from the Southeastern United States to Oklahoma over the long and tragic Trail of Tears. 

Michael Patrick Leahy is the Editor of Broadside Books’ Voices of the Tea Party e-book series, and author of Covenant of Liberty: The Ideological Origins of the Tea Party Movement.

"Elizabeth Warren" is merely Ward Churchill* in drag.

Wow. The yahoos at Yahoo! actually let some reasonableness slip through. Here's Michelle Malkin to take apart the Bay State's commie cow who dares to slander the heroic Cherokees.

“Sacaja-Whiner”: Elizabeth Warren and the Oppression Olympics

Elizabeth Warren is the Harvard law professor running for Senate in Massachusetts as a Democratic populist-progressive champion. But don't call her "Elizabeth Warren." Call her "Pinocchio-hontas," "Chief Full-of-Lies," "Running Joke" or "Sacaja-whiner."
  

Warren has claimed questionable Native American minority status for years to reap career "diversity" benefits. Now, Cherokee leaders, campaign rival GOP Sen. Scott Brown and an army of Twitter detractors have called her out for gaming the racial-preference system. Live by identity politics, die by identity politics.

The Boston Herald reported last Friday that Harvard administrators "prominently touted Warren's Native American background ... in an effort to bolster their diversity hiring record in the '90s as the school came under heavy fire for a faculty that was then predominantly white and male." When asked for proof of her tribal heritage, Warren's campaign first denied that she had ever bragged about it. But from 1986 to 1995, Warren listed herself as a minority professor in a professional law school directory.

While the Democrat's team scrounged for evidence over the weekend, Warren stalled for time by asserting that she didn't need to provide documentation because family "lore" backed her up. Someone told her a story, you see, and magically conferred native status upon her. Through narrative, all things are possible! (Notorious "fake Indian" Ward Churchill is wondering why he didn't think of this alibi first before the University of Colorado at Boulder fired him for academic fraud.)

On Tuesday, Warren finally discovered a great-great-great-grandmother supposedly "certified as Cherokee" and a random cousin somehow involved with a museum that preserves Native American art. There's also a great-great-grandfather somewhere in Warren's dusty genealogical records who spent time on a Cherokee reservation. Because walking a mile in someone else's moccasins is now just as good as being born in them.

Native American officials aren't buying Warren's 1/10,000th Cherokee claim. Suzan Shown Harjo, a former executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, told the Herald: "If you believe you are these things then that's fine and dandy, but that doesn't give you the right to claim yourself as Native American."

When Brown raised the issue, Warren and her progressive strategists traded in the candidate's Native American blanket for a War on Women victim's mask — because asking a privileged Harvard prof to verify her minority claims is sexist, of course.

"If Scott Brown has questions about Elizabeth Warren's well-known qualifications," her campaign manager railed, "he ought to ask them directly instead of hiding behind the nasty insinuations of his campaign and trying to score political points. Once again, the qualifications and ability of a woman are being called into question by Scott Brown, who did the same thing with the Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan. It's outrageous."

Once again, the left's incurable love affair with oppression chic is on naked display. It's an Olympic competition of the haves to show their have-not cred. Just a few weeks ago, it was the White House tokenizing Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor — the "wise Latina" — as "disabled" in an official graph promoting the administration's minority hiring practices. What's her disability? She has diabetes. No, it's not debilitating, nor does it fall anywhere near the definition of disability under federal law.

But like their friend Elizabeth Warren, the Ivy League social engineers at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. just couldn't help embellishing their "diversity" record to score political correctness points. Birds of a manufactured feather flock together.See

Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010).

* See Fake Indian Update.

Non-perverts strike a blow against the forces of sodomite fascism.

From AFP via Yahoo! News:

North Carolina bans gay marriages

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Voters in North Carolina have approved a state constitutional amendment forbidding gay marriages, civil unions and domestic partnerships, still divisive social issues in the United States.

 

Wrong. North Carolina already has a law forbidding same sex "marriages". This vote basically copied part of the dictionary into the NC constitution. Trying to change the definitions of words is practically the definition of totalitarianism. Please read 1984.

BTW, why not have the report filed by someone actually in North Carolina?

 

Coservatives landslide a Repansycan dinosaur into extinction!

Watch as the AmericaLast media does everything possible to ignore the obvious - people are pissed off.
 
From AP via Yahoo! News:


Lugar loss has lessons for Republicans, Democrats

 Veteran Sen. Richard Lugar's loss in the Indiana GOP primary provides warnings for President Barack Obama and his Democrats as well as Mitt Romney and fellow Republicans six months before the November election.

In one state at least, anti-incumbent sentiment is coursing through the electorate, a potentially ominous sign for the incumbent Democratic president seeking a second term and lawmakers of all political stripes. The GOP also remains deeply split between the establishment wing and insurgent tea party, a fissure that underscores the challenge the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and other GOP candidates face in the months ahead to unite the party.

"We are experiencing deep political divisions in our society right now," Lugar, 80, one of the nation's longest-serving senators, said in a statement after the results were known. "These divisions have stalemated progress in critical areas. But these divisions are not insurmountable."

The loss of Lugar — who boasted of strong conservative credentials but was lambasted by critics for working with Democrats — also highlights the degree to which deal-makers are becoming a rarity on a Capitol Hill often consumed by partisan gridlock. He follows Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a moderate known for bipartisanship, in leaving the Senate at year's end. Others too, including former Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., have left in recent years.

Ultimately, it was Lugar's efforts to cross party lines and his longevity in Washington — two issues that tea party-backed challenger Richard Mourdock used against him — that proved too much for Indiana Republicans.

"Sen. Lugar has sided too many times with the Democrats," Stacy Rutkowski of Valparaiso, who voted for Mourdock, said on her way out of her polling place. "He's been there six terms, and it's time for some new blood."
A few hours after conceding, Lugar slammed Mourdock for embracing "groups whose prime mission is to cleanse the Republican Party of those who stray from orthodoxy as they see it."
 
"This is not conducive to problem solving and governance," Lugar said. "And he will find that unless he modifies his approach, he will achieve little as a legislator. Worse, he will help delay solutions that are totally beyond the capacity of partisan majorities to achieve."

Broadly, Lugar's defeat may create an opportunity for Democrats working to hang onto a narrow four-seat majority in the Senate. National party leaders vowed to help centrist Democrat Joe Donnelly, a three-term House member from South Bend, compete against Mourdock, the conservative state treasurer, in a Senate race the party otherwise would have bypassed.

But whether Democrats follow through with that pledge — and go all in for Donnelly by spending large sums of money in the race — is an open question. Indiana has been a hard place for Democrats to win. Four years ago, Obama became the first Democrat to carry the state in a presidential election since 1964, and he did so by a single percentage point, turning out vast numbers from the Chicago-influenced urban and industrial region in Indiana's northwest.

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman Matt Canter said the race, with Lugar out, "could move in a more competitive direction." The group and a political action committee that supports Democratic candidates began attacking Mourdock even before the polls were closed. Both described him as out of step with not just mainstream Republicans, but mainstream voters.

Democratic strategist Tad Devine said Mourdock's conservative profile has Democrats optimistic about their chances despite Indiana's Republican trend. Said Devine, "If the Senate race turns out to be a moderate Democrat and an out-of-step Republican, moderate voters who regret that they can't vote for Lugar will help Donnelly."

But Republican strategist Phil Musser doubts the state will be in play come the fall.

"Nationally, Democrats will throw a lot of money into it quickly. I'm not one who believes it will be a competitive Senate race," said Musser, a former Romney aide.

The race illustrated vulnerabilities for Democrats and Republicans alike.

Incumbents, Obama included, are at risk no matter their party at a time when the economically struggling public is sour over anyone linked to Washington. So, it seems, are lawmakers with a history of working with members of the opposite party.

Just ask Lugar.

Mourdock hounded the veteran senator over questions about his Virginia home — and Indiana residency — and his long Washington ties. The challenger also took Lugar to task over his collaboration with Obama. The two worked together on nonproliferation issues, and Lugar was one of only a handful of Republicans to vote to confirm Obama's two appointments to the Supreme Court.

It wasn't just those issues that didn't sit well with voters, who craved change after nearly four decades of Lugar representing them. That was clear from signs stating simply "retire Lugar" that dotted the roadside along U.S. 30 east of Valparaiso, a Republican-leaning town in northern Indiana.

"He's a good and decent man," Valparaiso Republican Bruce Garrison said of Lugar after casting his vote for Mourdock. "But how can the country keep going on the path it's on? And how can we send the same people back to fix it?"

It's that reject-the-status-quo strain among voters that incumbents up and down the ballot will find themselves having to fight against over the next six months.

That Lugar — an establishment candidate if there ever was one — fell to a tea party-backed Republican made clear that the divisions within the GOP that were on display in 2010 primaries across the country had not yet healed.

"There is an element of the Republican base, and it's stronger than ever now, that was never going to vote for Richard Lugar," said Dan Dumezich, a Lugar supporter from northwest Indiana and Romney's state co-chairman.

The split presents a huge challenge for Romney as he seeks to unify the Republican Party in the coming months.

He has campaigned as the establishment choice, but he was beaten badly at times by insurgent favorites, first former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in South Carolina and later in a series of contests by conservative former Sen. Rick Santorum.

Now Romney is working to mend the rifts. Whether he can — and whether the tea party and other conservatives rally behind him — won't be clear until November.

For more laughs, check out the left-fascist comedy stylings of Mr. Heinz- Kerry, who seems to have finally stopped lying about his war record. [Hee-hee. I'm kidding. It's just that nobody pays any attention to him any longer.]

John Kerry Laments Dick Lugar's Primary Loss - ABC OTUS News via Yahoo! News

Some EPA drone nails ex-Rep. Giffords to a tree while blood and water pour from Dumbo's* side.

He's being replaced by Barabbas J. Zealot...

From The Lookout at Yahoo! News:

Official: EPA should 'crucify' polluters

 Al Armendariz, the Environmental Protection Agency official at the center of a budding scandal surrounding a 2010 video in which he said the EPA should "crucify" polluters, has resigned.

 Armendariz, head of the EPA's South and Southwest region in Dallas, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson late Sunday informing her of his decision to step down.

"As I have expressed publicly, and to you directly, I regret comments I made several years ago that do not in any way reflect my work as regional administrator," he wrote. "As importantly, they do not represent the work you have overseen as E.P.A. administrator."

Samuel Coleman, who served as the EPA's senior federal official in New Orleans during the agency's response to Hurricane Katrina, will replace Armendariz as acting administrator.

Republicans, already critical of what they call the Obama administration's war on energy, seized upon the video when it surfaced last week, calling for Armendariz to resign.

According to the Associated Press, Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe led the charge, pointing to Armendariz's May 2010 speech as proof of the "EPA's assault on energy, particularly the technique of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking." 

Inhofe's office uploaded the clip, shown above, [Go search for it yourself, kiddies. I'm not in the mood. - F.G.] to YouTube.


Armendariz was appointed regional chief by President Barack Obama in 2009.

But "before SMU prof Al Armendariz had even warmed the seat at his post as EPA regional chief," Brant Hargrove wrote in the Dallas Observer, "he was pilloried as an activist whose research into the air pollution caused by fracking operations made him unfit to run a five-state office overseeing some of the industry's most important drilling grounds."

* Dumbo the Presiphant is an Asian presiphant, of course. An African presiphant would be racist.

Is Wanda Sykes doing "Killa O" jokes now?

The Atlantic Wire [via Yahoo! News] provides evidence that ol' jug-ears Okhrana has shored up his commie base and is now running to the right.

Ex-CIA interrogator: Obama's war on terror more brutal than Bush's

 The former head of the CIA's Clandestine Service Jose Rodriguez says President Obama is waging the nation's war against radical Islam in a far more brutal manner than his predecessor President George W. Bush.  

 "We don't capture anybody any more," Rodriguez told 60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl on Sunday. "Their default option of this Administration has been to ... take no prisoners ... How could it be more ethical to kill people rather than capture them? I never understood that one."  

 Those remarks by Rodriguez have been largely overshadowed by his more controversial defense of "enhanced interrogation techniques," which is laid out in his new book out today called Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives. But what was interesting to observe last night was the overlap in views by advocates of enhanced interrogation (a.k.a. torture) such as Rodriguez and opponents of such tactics, like your Glenn Greenwalds and Ron Pauls, who essentially agree on one important point: It's better to capture suspected terrorists and draw out information from them than assassinate them without due process.  

 The latest high-profile case to raise this issue was the assassination of American-born YouTube preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by Hellfire missiles fired from a drone in September. There wasn't a move to attempt to interview al-Awlaki, he was just blown to smithereens. And to many civil libertarians, that exercise of power against an American citizen is far more threatening than what we saw from the Bush administration. "How can anyone who vocally decried Bush’s mere eavesdropping and detention powers without judicial review possibly justify Obama’s executions without judicial review?" Greenwald wrote at the time. "How can the former (far more mild powers) have been such an assault on Everything We Stand For while the latter is a tolerable and acceptable assertion of war powers?" 

 It's a valid point and will likely continue to gain traction as Rodriguez launches his book tour. Clearly, however, it's not the focus of Rodriguez's spiel, which is a larger defense of enhanced interrogation. On that front, he's got more of an uphill battle. As Reuters reported Friday, Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats are about to end their almost three-year-long investigation of "enhanced interrogation" and will report that it had little success in eliciting intelligence. "One official said investigators found 'no evidence' such enhanced interrogations played 'any significant role' in the years-long intelligence operations which led to the discovery and killing of Osama bin Laden last May by U.S. Navy SEALs," reported Mark Hosenball. While that report doesn't bode well for Rodriguez's case, neither did his vague pronouncement that the enhanced interrogation "saved lives." With the lack of specifics in his 60 Minutes interview, supporters of torture had probably better hope there's more in his book to make the case.

Insane Hussein Insaner sees damaged chicks everywhere except in the dumpsters behind Planned Genocide "clinics".

More unfunny obfuscation from the bloodstaindest clown around!



From Yahoo!'s The Ticket:

Obama would veto student loan bill

 The pitched political battle over student loans isn't going away. On Friday, the White House threatened to veto a bill to keep interest rates on a popular kind of loan from doubling come July 1 because the Republican-crafted legislation pays for it by tapping a special fund in President Barack Obama's landmark health care law. The House ignored the veto threat and passed the bill anyway on Friday, with a 215-195 vote.

Obama criss-crossed the country this week in support of legislation that would keep more money in the pockets of cash-strapped college students. Republicans initially resisted the idea, but Mitt Romney quickly moved to neutralize the issue as a political weapon by embracing it in principle. House Republicans adapted by finding a clever "pay-for" solution to defray the cost of the legislation (lower interest rates = lower payments = lower revenue for the government). They chose the Prevention and Public Health Fund included in what all sides have now agreed to call "Obamacare," which Republicans have vowed to repeal.

"The Administration strongly supports serious, bipartisan efforts to prevent interest rates from doubling for over 7 million college students in the coming year," Obama's Office of Management and Budget said in a "statement of administration policy," the formal mechanism for announcing where the president stands on legislation.

"Unfortunately, rather than finding common ground on a way to pay for this critical policy, H.R. 4628 includes an attempt to repeal the Prevention and Public Health Fund, created to help prevent disease, detect it early, and manage conditions before they become severe," OMB said, warning that "women, in particular" would suffer. "This is a politically-motivated proposal and not the serious response that the problem facing America's college students deserves. If the President is presented with H.R. 4628, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill," it said.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner's office pounced. "The president is so desperate to fake a fight that he's willing to veto a bill to help students over a slush fund that he advocated cutting in his own budget. It's as simple as this: Republicans are acting to help college students and the president is now getting in the way," said Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck.

Obama's budget, unveiled earlier this year, calls for tapping into the same fund to cover other programs. The Senate's Democratic majority, which will likely kill the Republican bill, has proposed covering the nearly $6 billion tab for the student loan proposal by raising taxes on wealthy Americans.

 

What you talkin' 'bout, Witless? Everybody known Bush killed that Onana Porn Laden guy.

From ABC via Yahoo! News:

Obama ad: Would Romney have killed bin Laden?

 Would Mitt Romney have ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden? President Barack Obama's reelection campaign released a new video on Friday that strongly implies that he would not have, using the presumptive Republican nominee's own words against him.

Ever since Vice President Joe Biden boiled down Obama's 2012 slogan to "bin Laden is dead, GM is alive," it has been clear that the embattled incumbent would not hesitate to use the May 2, 2011 Navy SEAL strike as a political weapon.

The video, taken from footage shot for Obama's 17-minute campaign commercial "The Road We've Traveled," opens with the message "the Commander-in-Chief gets one chance to make the right decision" and turns to former president Bill Clinton for validation. "That's one thing George Bush said that was right: The president is the decider in chief. Nobody can make that decision for you."

"Look, he knew what would happen," says Clinton. "Suppose the Navy Seals had gone in there and it hadn't been bin Laden. Suppose they had been captured or killed. The downside would have been horrible for him, but he reasoned 'I cannot in good conscience do nothing.' He took the harder and the more honorable path and the one that produced in my opinion the best result," he says, amid images including a photograph of New York City firefighters cheering the news of bin Laden's death.

"Which path would Mitt Romney have taken?" asks the onscreen text. The video recalls Romney's contention, in an April 2007 interview with the Associated Press, that Americans will not be markedly safer if bin Laden were killed and that "it's not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person." (Days later, in a May 3 2007 debate, Romney was asked about his words and responded "We'll move everything to get him...This is a global effort we're going to have to lead to overcome this jihadist effort. It's more than Osama bin Laden. But he is going to pay, and he will die.") It also cites a Reuters report referring to an August 2007 Republican candidates debate: "Mitt Romney criticized Barack Obama for vowing to strike al-Qaeda targets inside Pakistan if necessary." (That's probably safer than directing viewers to the transcript of the debate: Romney criticized Obama for openly discussing the possibility of striking inside Pakistan, not for entertaining the idea. When moderator George Stephanopoulos asks whether it's fair to summarize his position as "keep this option on the table, but it is foolish to talk about it in public," Romney doesn't disagree.)

The Obama campaign video wraps up with Clinton saying: "He had to decide and that's what you hire a president to do. You hire the president to make the calls when no one else can do it."

Romney has taken pains to praise Obama for the raid. On Friday, Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul bristled at the video.

"It's now sad to see the Obama campaign seek to use an event that unified our country to once again divide us, in order to try to distract voters' attention from  the failures of his administration. With 23 million Americans struggling for work, our national debt soaring, and household budgets being squeezed like never before, Mitt Romney is focused on strengthening America at home and abroad," she said.

The Obama video came one day after Vice President Joe Biden, in a speech assailing Romney on foreign policy, declared: "On this gut issue, we know what President Obama did. We can't say for certain what Governor Romney would have done."

 

Watch and listen as some dumbasses whistle past their own graves.

First, some alleged Catholics...

From Roto-Reuters:

Bishop's linking Obama to Hitler enrages Notre Dame professors

 More than a hundred University of Notre Dame professors have demanded that Illinois Bishop Daniel Jenky renounce comments he made criticizing President Barack Obama's stance on religious liberty that compared him to dictators Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
 
"Jenky's comments demonstrate ignorance of history, insensitivity to victims of genocide and absence of judgment," said the letter addressed this week to the leadership of the renowned Catholic university in Indiana and signed by 131 professors from various fields.

The letter urged the school to distance itself from Jenky's "incendiary statement," and called for Jenky, 65, a Notre Dame graduate who has led a Catholic diocese in Peoria, Illinois, since 2002, to "renounce loudly and publicly this destructive analogy" - or resign from the university's Board of Fellows and board of trustees.

Jenky, along with other U.S. Catholic bishops and social conservatives, condemned the Obama administration's requirement that church-affiliated institutions provide insurance that covers contraception.

But his April 14 homily singled out Obama and the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, saying "The Church will survive ... the calculated disdain of the President of the United States ... and of the current (Democratic) majority of the federal Senate."

Even after the White House sought to calm the furor by announcing last month it would not require church-run hospitals, universities and charities to pay for birth control coverage but instead shift the burden to insurers, the bishops continued to battle against the mandate.

The bishops said the mandate was part of a broader attack on religion by state and federal authorities, a position echoed by Republican presidential candidates on the campaign trail who accused the Obama administration of waging war on religious freedom.

In his homily, Jenky compared the administration's stance to anti-religious figures in history such as Hitler and Stalin who "have tried to force Christians to huddle and hide within the confines of their churches."

"Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services and health care," Jenky said.

"In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama - with his radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path," he said.

Jenky's comments were quoted in newspapers, and his homily was reproduced on the website of the Catholic Post, the Peoria diocese's newspaper.

Critics of Jenky, including groups dedicated to the separation of church and state, seized on his remarks, contending he instructed his flock to vote against Obama in November's general election, a violation of the church's tax-exempt status.

In response to the uproar, Patricia Gibson, chancellor of the Peoria diocese, said in a statement that Jenky's comments had been taken out of context and that he was only drawing from history to illustrate his point.

"Bishop Jenky is concerned that our government is treading on one of our most dear freedoms: religious liberty ...," she wrote.

A diocese spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on the Notre Dame professors' letter.

Jenky formerly served as an auxiliary bishop in the Indiana diocese that includes Notre Dame, and had previously worked for the school in administrative posts.

A school spokesman, Dennis Brown, said the letter was from a group of faculty members, not the school itself. "Beyond that, we do not comment on the personal views of Board members other than to say that they do not necessarily reflect those of the university."

 And now some "Jews" who obviously think those horror stories their grandparents told were merely fairy tales that are only useful for intimidating ones's political opponents into silence...

From AP via Yahoo! News:

 ADL wants Ill. bishop's apology for Obama comments

  The Anti-Defamation League wants an Illinois bishop to apologize for a homily that compared President Barack Obama's heath care policies to actions by Adolf Hitler, but a diocese spokeswoman says the comments were intended as historical context.

Don't forget Bismarck!

Peoria Roman Catholic Bishop Daniel Jenky said Sunday that Obama is following previous governments that "tried to force Christians to huddle and hide only within the confines of their churches." He pointed to Hitler in Germany and Josef Stalin in the Soviet Union.

ADL Regional Director Lonnie Nasatir said Thursday that Jenky needs a history lesson on the "religious intolerance and anti-Semitism fostered in society" by Hitler and Stalin.

Diocesan Chancellor Patricia Gibson, however, says Jenky offered the comparisons to "prevent a repetition of historical attacks upon the Catholic Church and other religions."

Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria bitch-slaps the jug-eared commie creep, his stooges, and his enablers.

From The Daily Caller:

To the milquetoast Catholics-in-name-only who lick the boots of Leviathan for the crumbs of approval that fall from its gaping, blood-soaked maw, I say Your day is done! Repent and beg Almighty God for forgiveness!

To the lowercase jews who who think they own the word "hitler" but wouldn't set foot in a Temple on a dare, I say Choose your friends wisely! Repent and return to the faith of your fathers before it finds you useful no more!

To the nonbelievers and heretics I say read and listen to this man's inspired words. You may not know it, but this battle is yours, too.

And to the faithful Catholic kiddies...ain't this a kickass sermon?


From The Catholic Post:

Editor's note: Following is the full text of the homily of Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, CSC, at the Mass during the April 14 "A Call to Catholic Men of Faith" in Peoria. A podcast audio version of the homily is available at
The Bishop's Podcasts.

For a story on the annual march and Mass click here.

For several photos from the event, visit The Catholic Post's site on Facebook.

A further statement from the Diocese of Peoria regarding this homily can be found here.

There is only one basic reason why Christianity exists and that is the fact that Jesus Christ truly rose from the grave. 

The disciples never expected the resurrection. The unanimous testimony of all four Gospels is that the terrible death of Jesus on the cross entirely dashed all their hopes about Jesus and about his message. He was dead, and that was the end of it. They looked for nothing more, and they expected nothing more. 

So as much as they had loved him, in their eyes Jesus was a failed messiah. His dying seemed to entirely rob both his teaching and even his miracles of any lasting significance.

And they were clearly terrified that his awful fate, at the hands of the Sanhedrin and the Romans, could easily become their awful fate. So they hid, trembling with terror, behind shuttered windows and locked doors.

When the Risen Christ suddenly appeared in their midst, their reaction was shocked incredulity. They simply could not believe their own eyes. 

Reality only very slowly began to penetrate their consciousness when Jesus offers proof of his resurrection. He shows them the wounds on his hands, his feet, and his side. Jesus even allowed them to touch him. He breaks bread with them and eats with them. And only then could they admit to themselves what had seemed absolutely impossible – the one who had truly died had truly risen! The Crucified now stood before them as their Risen, glorious, triumphant Lord.

His rising from the grave was every bit as real as his dying on the cross. The resurrection was the manifest proof of the invincible power of Almighty God. The inescapable fact of the resurrection confirmed every word Jesus had ever spoken and every work Jesus had ever done.

The Gospel was the truth. Jesus was the Christ, the promised Messiah of Israel. Jesus was the Savior of the world. Jesus was the very Son of God.

There is no other explanation for Christianity. It should have died out and entirely disappeared when Christ died and was buried, except for the fact that Christ was truly risen, and that during the 40 days before his Ascension, he interacted with his Apostles and disciples, and on one occasion even with hundreds of his followers.

Today’s appointed Gospel reading for this Saturday in the Octave of Easter is taken from the 16th Chapter of Mark. It concludes with a command from the lips of Jesus, given to his disciples, given to the whole Church, given to you and me assembled here today: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

We heard in today’s Second Reading from the Acts of the Apostles that the same Sanhedrin that had condemned Jesus was amazed at the boldness of Peter and John. Perceiving them to be uneducated, ordinary men, they recognized them as companions of Jesus. They warned them never again to teach, or speak to anyone, in the name of Jesus. 

But the elders and the scribes might as well have tried to turn back the tide, or hold back an avalanche. Peter and John had seen the Risen Christ with their own eyes. Peter and John were filled with the Holy Spirit. They asked whether it is right “in the sight of God for us to obey you rather than God. It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.”

And Peter and John and all the Apostles, starting first in Jerusalem in Judea and Galilee and then to the very ends of the earth, announced the Resurrection and the Good News to everyone they encountered.

According to the clear testimony of the Scriptures, these Apostles had once been rather ordinary men – like you and me. Their faith hadn’t always been strong. They made mistakes. They committed sins. They were often afraid and confused.

But meeting the Risen Lord had changed everything about these first disciples, and knowing the Risen Lord should also change everything about us.

You know, it has never been easy to be a Christian and it’s not supposed to be easy! The world, the flesh, and the devil will always love their own, and will always hate us. As Jesus once predicted, they hated me, they will certainly hate you. 

But our Faith, when it is fully lived, is a fighting faith and a fearless faith. Grounded in the power of the resurrection, there is nothing in this world, and nothing in hell, that can ultimately defeat God’s one, true, holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. 

For 2,000 years the enemies of Christ have certainly tried their best. But think about it. The Church survived and even flourished during centuries of terrible persecution, during the days of the Roman Empire.

The Church survived barbarian invasions. The Church survived wave after wave of Jihads. The Church survived the age of revolution. The Church survived Nazism and Communism. 

And in the power of the resurrection, the Church will survive the hatred of Hollywood, the malice of the media, and the mendacious wickedness of the abortion industry. 

The Church will survive the entrenched corruption and sheer incompetence of our Illinois state government, and even the calculated disdain of the President of the United States, his appointed bureaucrats in HHS, and of the current majority of the federal Senate.

May God have mercy on the souls of those politicians who pretend to be Catholic in church, but in their public lives, rather like Judas Iscariot, betray Jesus Christ by how they vote and how they willingly cooperate with intrinsic evil.

As Christians we must love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, but as Christians we must also stand up for what we believe and always be ready to fight for the Faith. The days in which we live now require heroic Catholicism, not casual Catholicism. We can no longer be Catholics by accident, but instead be Catholics by conviction. 

In our own families, in our parishes, where we live and where we work – like that very first apostolic generation – we must be bold witnesses to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We must be a fearless army of Catholic men, ready to give everything we have for the Lord, who gave everything for our salvation.

Remember that in past history other governments have tried to force Christians to huddle and hide only within the confines of their churches like the first disciples locked up in the Upper Room.

In the late 19th century, Bismarck waged his “Kulturkampf,” a Culture War, against the Roman Catholic Church, closing down every Catholic school and hospital, convent and monastery in Imperial Germany.

Clemenceau, nicknamed “the priest eater,” tried the same thing in France in the first decade of the 20th Century.

Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services, and health care.

In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama – with his radical, pro abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path.

Now things have come to such a pass in America that this is a battle that we could lose, but before the awesome judgement seat of Almighty God this is not a war where any believing Catholic may remain neutral.

This fall, every practicing Catholic must vote, and must vote their Catholic consciences, or by the following fall our Catholic schools, our Catholic hospitals, our Catholic Newman Centers, all our public ministries -- only excepting our church buildings – could easily be shut down. Because no Catholic institution, under any circumstance, can ever cooperate with the instrinsic evil of killing innocent human life in the womb. 

No Catholic ministry – and yes, Mr. President, for Catholics our schools and hospitals are ministries – can remain faithful to the Lordship of the Risen Christ and to his glorious Gospel of Life if they are forced to pay for abortions.

Now remember what was the life-changing experience that utterly transformed those fearful and quaking disciples into fearless, heroic apostles. They encountered the Risen Christ. They reverenced his sacred wounds. They ate and drank with him. 

Is that not what we do here together, this morning at this annual men’s march Mass? 

This is the Saturday of the Octave of Easter, a solemnity so great and central to our Catholic faith that Easter Day is celebrated for eight full days, and the Easter season is joyously observed as the Great 50 Days of Easter. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ – risen from the grave – is in our midst. His Holy Word teaches us the truth. His Sacred Body and Blood becomes our food and drink.

The Risen Christ is our Eternal Lord; the Head of his Body, the Church; our High Priest; our Teacher; our Captain in the well-fought fight.

We have nothing to fear, but we have a world to win for him. We have nothing to fear, for we have an eternal destiny in heaven. We have nothing to fear, though the earth may quake, kingdoms may rise and fall, demons may rage, but St. Michael the Archangel, and all the hosts of heaven, fight on our behalf.

No matter what happens in this passing moment, at the end of time and history, our God is God and Jesus is Lord, forever and ever. 

Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Christus imperat!

Christ wins! Christ reigns! Christ commands!

Amen to all that, Your Excellency!

FREEDOM FROM TYRANNY IS YOUR GOD-GIVEN RIGHT!

 From the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference:


Take Action: Protect Religious Freedom

Thank you for your advocacy on the religious liberty-violating HHS mandate that requires employers to provide contraceptives, sterilization and abortion-causing drugs free of charge in their health insurance plans.  You have continued to put the rights of religious Americans and religious institutions before our elected officials, and your help is needed again.

The Obama Administration has opened another comment period – even if you’ve sent messages before, you need to do so again! The fundamental legal and moral concerns about government intrusion into religious ministries have not been addressed. Under the regulations as they currently stand, religious institutions that serve the common good (including charities, universities and hospitals) will be unable – even forbidden - to provide their own employees or students with health coverage consistent with their values. 

Your voice is needed today – click on the link below to submit comments to HHS and our elected officials. Please forward this email to your friends and family too! Imagine all of the 3 million Catholics in Pennsylvania speaking with a united voice in support of our first amendment rights.

 Since January there has been much attention given to the very troubling Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) coercive mandate requiring almost all private health plans to cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs.  For the first time in our nation’s history, the federal government will force religious institutions to facilitate drugs and procedures contrary to our moral teaching.  And it will purport to define which religious institutions are “religious enough” to merit an exemption.

 

The HHS mandate is a serious conflict, and it is not the only threat to our most cherished freedom. In their recent statement, Our First, Most Cherished Liberty, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) discuss current concerns and urge all Catholics to join the effort to end this unprecedented government coercion of conscience and intrusion in religious affairs.

Religious liberty is more than freedom of worship. It is not only about our ability to go to Mass on Sunday or pray the Rosary at home. It is about whether we can make our contribution to the common good of all Americans.

As Catholics and Americans we have a solemn duty to be staunch defenders of religious liberty. Pray for our country and take a stand today by sending a message to our leaders with an urgent appeal to support this God-given right. 

Click below to demand respect for the First Amendment from our moral and intellectual superiors.

Take Action: Protect Religious Freedom