Remember this scene:

Now try to wrap your head around this:

The Obama Administration plans to give $400,000 in funding to a Libyan charity run by the Gadhafi family, and U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) wants the grant withdrawn.

The money would be divided between two foundations run by the family of Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi. A $200,000 share is set to go to the Gadhafi Development Foundation, which is run by Gadhafi’s son, Saif, and another $200,000 are to go to Wa Attassimou, an organization run by Muammar Gadhafi’s daughter, Aisha.

Maybe the charities are doing good things and deserve some love from America, right? Not really. According to the BBC, the “Gaddafi Foundation, a charity which tries to project a new and positive image of Libya.”

Sit back and soak that in for a second. $11 trillion in debt, massive budget deficits…and we are giving nearly half a million to the Libyian image consultants.

The other group, Wa Attassimou, gave an award to the Iraqi shoe thrower, Muntazer al-Zaidi:

“Waatassimou group has taken the decision to give Muntazer al-Zaidi the courage award … because what he did represents a victory for human rights across the world,” the group, headed by Aicha Gaddafi, said in a statement.

The group said the Iraqi authorities should honour the journalist for his actions.

How could this even be an option? What in the world is the thought process that makes this possible?

It wasn’t too long ago that Energy Secretary Steven Chu suggested that America should paint all of its flat top roofs white in order to stop global warming. Cause, it’s all our fault you know.

Now, I don’t have a problem with someone who owns a building spending money to paint it white because they think they are helping the environment. I have a problem with the government a) forcing people to paint their roof white or b) paying for roofs to be painted white.

In New York there is a volunteer program that is painting roofs white, and Mayor Bloomberg and Al Gore are cashing in on the action:

“White is the new green,” said Bloomberg, as he gathered with blue-state-loving former VP Al Gore and volunteers to paint Queens rooftops white.

The color white absorbs less heat, making the temperature on the top floor of a building 10-20 degrees cooler, thus lowering the need for power-consuming air conditioners.

The mayor and Gore said members of the city’s new volunteer corps will paint 100,000 square feet of rooftop space by October 9.

And the Democratic Gore all but endorsed Bloomberg, who is technically an Independent but has support of city Republicans.

“The issue of climate crisis goes beyond party politics,” said Gore.

If this works, a business should do it. Not to prevent the fiery end of the planet from uncontrolled global warming, but to fatten the bottom line. After all, if the Democrats get what they want, electricity prices are going to “necessarily skyrocket.” They’re going to need the saving from white rooftops to pay for Obama’s energy tax.

As an aside, New York City had a really cool summer:

New York City’s three warmest days so far this year are April 25, 26, 28! They were 88-92-90 on those three days and they haven’t been warmer than 86 since then (though they should reach 90 a couple times in the next week). NYC has been -3.7° since the end of May.

Since I posted the video of children singing praises to President Obama, there have been a few more details that have come out about it.

Michelle Malkin identified the school as the B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington Township, NJ.

Jon at Exurban League posted a letter Burlington Township School District released, concerning the video:

Dear Burlington Township Families:

Today we became aware of a video that was placed on the internet which has been reported in the media. The video is of a class of students singing a song about President Obama. The activity took place during Black History Month in 2009, which is recognized each February to honor the contributions of African Americans to our country. Our curriculum studies, honors and recognizes those who serve our country. The recording and distribution of the class activity were unauthorized.

If you have any further questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me or Dr. King, Principal of B. Bernice Young School, directly.

Sincerely,
Dr. Christopher M. Manno,
Superintendent of Schools

Again, this was a sanctioned school event. Singing praises to a man, not a country. Here’s the lyrics:

Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
He said that all must lend a hand
To make this country strong again
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
He said we must be fair today
¨Equal work means equal pay
¨Mmm, mmm, mm!
¨Barack Hussein Obama
He said that we must take a stand
¨To make sure everyone gets a chance
¨Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
He said red, yellow, black or white
All are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mm!
¨Barack Hussein Obama
Yes!
¨Mmm, mmm, mm
Barack Hussein Obama

But wait! There was more! We didn’t catch this yesterday, but there was another taught to these children. Here are the lyrics for the second song:

Hello, Mr. President we honor you today!
For all your great accomplishments, we all doth say “hooray!”
Hooray, Mr. President! You’re number one!
The first black American to lead this great nation!
Hooray, Mr. President we honor your great plans
To make this country’s economy number one again!
Hooray Mr. President, we’re really proud of you!
And we stand for all Americans under the great Red, White, and Blue!
So continue — Mr. President we know you’ll do the trick
So here’s a hearty hip-hooray —
Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!

And let me point this out. Here’s a section from the song about Obama:

He said red, yellow, black or white
All are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

Now a section from “Jesus Loves the Little Children:”

Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Red and yellow
Black and white
They are precious in His sight.
Jesus loves the little children
Of the world.

This brings the creepiness quotient up by a factor of 10.

Once again, the global warming alarmists warned us that the poor polar bears were going to die because all the ice was going to disappear. Once again, they were wrong:

This year, the minimum extent did not fall as low as the minimums of the last two years, because temperatures through the summer were relatively cooler.

That’s right, the temperatures were cooler. There were records set for cold all over, however there was no decrease in the CO2 levels worldwide. There was a very interesting lack of sunspots though.

But they aren’t going to let facts get in the way of their agenda. Even though the ice didn’t reach the level of 2007, they invoke LL Cool J and say, “Don’t call it a comeback”:

While the ice extent this year is higher than the last two years, scientists do not consider this to be a recovery. Despite conditions less favorable to ice loss, the 2009 minimum extent is still 24% below the 1979-2000 average, and 20% below the thirty-year 1979-2008 average minimum. In addition, the Arctic is still dominated by younger, thinner ice, which is more vulnerable to seasonal melt. The long-term decline in summer extent is expected to continue in future years.

Yes, and you can take that to the bank. After all, they were so spot on with their last predictions concerning Arctic sea ice:

From a post on CA SteveM posted a graph from the NSIDC’s compiled 2008 projections of sea ice by the different ‘experts’ in the field.  Since 2008 minimum is clearly marked and 220,000 sq miles is equal to 570,000 sq kilometers of increase.  We can determine where on the NSIDC graph the actual Arctic sea ice turned out.

All I can say is, be glad you’re not an expert on sea ice.  The linear trend is actually closer than the majority of the experts.

But at least the polar bears are safe now, right?

The southern border of America is 1,954 miles long. According to the Border Patrol, it now has “effective control” over only 697 of those miles.

Within the last year, 530 aliens from “special interest countries” were caught by our Border Patrol, as were three people “linked to terrorism.”

Out of 32 regions the National Drug Intelligence Center describes as “high intensity drug trafficking areas,” five of them are on the southern border.

The NDIC went on to describe the border between California and Mexico as “easily breached.” It described the border between Arizona and Mexico as “largely unprotected.” And it called a section of the New Mexico Border “an ideal smuggling corridor.”

So, why is the Obama administration cutting the number of Border Patrol agents guarding the southern border?

Easterling said on Tuesday that in fiscal 2009, 17,399 Border Patrol agents have been deployed on the U.S.-Mexico border. In fiscal year 2010, the Border Patrol plans to decrease that by 384 agents, leaving 17,015 deployed along the Mexican frontier. At the same time, the number of Border Patrol agents deployed on the U.S.-Canada border will be increased by 414, from a fiscal 2009 total of 1,798 agents to a fiscal 2010 total of 2,212.

They are taking them and putting them on Canada’s border.

Consider this: since the stimulus package passed, the federal government has increased by 25,000 employees. We can hire people to process Social Security benefit claims, but not people to protect the borders?

Had the previous Republican president and Congress handled this issue, I would not be writing about it today, except to decry how Obama is loosening up the border Bush secured. But Bush didn’t secure it. And McCain, despite his campaign promises, would not have the backbone to secure the border.

For some reason, Washington, D.C. will not handle the immigration issue in a way that discourages or prevents illegal immigration, nor will it handle the millions of  illegal immigrants already in the country, other than to try to make them all legal, (cough, voters, cough).

Surely they could not be putting votes before the security of the nation. No, why would they do that?

By the way, more than 70 people are in custody following a gun fight at America’s busiest border crossing. Sounds like a great time to cut manning.

Cross posted at Right Wing News.

The left really wants to tax the rich. They want to take all they can and redistribute it in as many different ways as they can think of and then think up some more ways of spending other people’s money.

There’s a saying, I don’t know if it’s an old saying, but it goes: Government doesn’t tax for the money it needs. It finds a need for the money it takes.

As long as they can get the rich’s money, they will find a way to spend it.

Unless, they move away:

“You heard the mantra, ‘Tax the rich, tax the rich,’” Paterson said Wednesday at a gathering of newspaper editors at an Associated Press event in Syracuse. “We’ve done that. We’ve probably lost jobs and driven people out of the state.”

“People aren’t wedded to a geographic place as they once were. It’s a different world,” New York Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch said.

Ravitch said last year’s surcharge on income taxes for the next three years won’t likely meet budget expectations. He said Albany must look to politically difficult spending cuts, rather than more taxes, to meet a deepening shortfall that Paterson estimated Wednesday could reach $3 billion.

“I don’t think they have any choice,” Ravitch said. “In my personal opinion, we’re at the outer limits of the elasticity of our tax system.”

For some, it’s already snapped.

How much would you have to pay in taxes before you packed up everything and move to New Hampshire? No, really. Think about that for a second.

$1000 a month? $5000 a month?

How about $13,000 a day?!

Buffalo Sabres owner Tom Golisano, the Paychex founder and billionaire who was paying $13,000 a day in New York income taxes, and media mogul Rush Limbaugh became ex-New Yorkers this year. Developer and New York icon Donald Trump told Fox News in April that the higher tax rates were foolish, stupid and “a total disaster for the state” and have spurred several of his millionaire pals to talk about leaving.

Golisano, who created 5,000 jobs from his Rochester payroll processing company, bristled when politicians said he was bailing out on New York this spring.

“If anything, New York state has bailed out on us,” said Golisano, a past independent candidate for governor. (Emphasis mine.)

Meanwhile, businesses are moving to places like Ireland because of their great tax system. I wrote about this before in my American Issues Project column. It was the first article I wrote. If we just taxed people like Sam Walton sold panties, we’d be in a lot better position today than we are.

Photo Credit: ibm4381

I thought it was bad when California wanted to outlaw plasma screen televisions to stop global warming.

I thought it was expensive when Sec. Steven Chu suggested the price of gasoline in America should be intentionally ramped up to European levels to discourage driving.

I thought is was even more expensive when Australia wanted to tax procreation by forcing parents to pay a $5000 “baby levy” and an annual $800 carbon tax per child (I have five…right now anyway.)

And then there is the very real, very dangerous suggestion of assigning a carbon cap on each and every person, starting with the rich, limiting how much carbon they can expend per year.

But now, it’s gone too far.

They want to take my toilet paper.

It is a fight over toilet paper: the kind that is blanket-fluffy and getting fluffier so fast that manufacturers are running out of synonyms for "soft" (Quilted Northern Ultra Plush is the first big brand to go three-ply and three-adjective).

It’s a menace, environmental groups say — and a dark-comedy example of American excess.

The reason, they say, is that plush U.S. toilet paper is usually made by chopping down and grinding up trees that were decades or even a century old. They want Americans, like Europeans, to wipe with tissue made from recycled paper goods.

It has been slow going. Big toilet-paper makers say that they’ve taken steps to become more Earth-friendly but that their customers still want the soft stuff, so they’re still selling it.

Now the stuff I wipe my backside with has to be green? If this doesn’t show you the level of control these people want over you, then I don’t know what will. Again, they want to dictate what you wipe your butt with now.

This reminds me of Sheryl Crow’s suggestion that legislation be passed prohibiting people from using more than one square of toilet paper at a time.

Now, for those who think this is just silly, take it to step two: if they can dictate your choice of toilet paper, what else can they dictate?

UPDATE:

I was going to cross post this on RIght Wing News, but William Teach already beat me to it.  Great minds think alike.  He even used the Obama toilet paper. 

Teri Christoph, one of the founders of Smart Girl Politics, details how a daughter of one of her friends became so upset at a quiz at school that she couldn’t finish it and had to shot it to her mother. The quiz was over President Obama’s health care speech to Congress. The students were made to watch the speech and then take the quiz. Discussion? Debate?

Not part of the curriculum:

The questions asked gave the assumption that the answers provided in the President’s speech were fact and not opinion. The students were given no opportunity to discuss opposing views or have a debate on the topic. In fact, when one student stated that the President had lied, the student was told that kind of talk was unnecessary. Students in the class with opposing views were forced to remain silent or whisper amongst themselves.

Teri has the quiz. Here’s a peek:

Parents turn their children over to the school system expecting them to educate them, not indoctrinate them. However, indoctrination is the agenda and has been for some time. You can see it has been ramped up lately, from this quiz to the video below.

Take control of your children’s education. You have to be an active participant, not on the sidelines. Find out what they are being taught. You might be surprised.

Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin

Yeah, those right wingers were really off their rockers thinking that Obama speaking to the nation’s school children was indoctrination.

The first question is: what school is this? The better question is: what country is this?

President Obama said the war in Afghanistan was a “war of necessity.”  He told the Veterans of Foreign Wars,

"Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which Al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans."

Now it seems that the “war of necessity” isn’t as important to the Obama administration as politics.  With Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, calling for more troops lest the war in Afghanistan be lost to the Taliban, the White House turns to civilian advisors:

“But before any decision is made, some of President Obama’s civilian advisers have proposed looking at other, less costly options to address his primary goal of preventing al-Qaeda from reestablishing itself in Afghanistan. Those options include a redirection of U.S. efforts — away from protecting the Afghan population and building the Afghan state and toward persuading the Taliban to stop fighting — as well as an escalation of targeted attacks against al-Qaeda itself in Pakistan and elsewhere.”

Why would the White House do this?  Because the left doesn’t think it’s the right thing to do.  After all, “generals always want more troops.”  And the polls show the war isn’t as popular with Americans as it was in 2001. 

Here’s the danger Obama faces.  If he goes the political route, and refuses to follow the advice of his generals, one of them could simply decide to hang up his stars. 

In Kabul, some members of McChrystal’s staff said they don’t understand why Obama called Afghanistan a "war of necessity" but still hasn’t given them the resources they need to turn things around quickly.

Three officers at the Pentagon and in Kabul told McClatchy that the McChrystal they know would resign before he’d stand behind a faltering policy that he thought would endanger his forces or the strategy.

"Yes, he’ll be a good soldier, but he will only go so far," a senior official in Kabul said. "He’ll hold his ground. He’s not going to bend to political pressure."

On Thursday, Gates danced around the question of when the administration would be ready to receive McChrystal’s request, which was completed in late August. "We’re working through the process by which we want that submitted," he said.

So, with the soldiers and Marines on the ground, fighting and dying, and the generals calling for more help, the Obama administration is “working though the process” to get the request for more help to the president.

Are we still to believe that Obama sees this as a war of necessity when they can’t get the general’s assessment to the president’s desk faster than I can order and receive something from eBay?  Honestly, if I bought a pair of Timberland boots in late August and I still hadn’t received them, I would be irate.  However, we are to accept that the administration hasn’t been “ready to receive McChrystal’s request.”

Can you imagine McChyrstal’s feedback?

“Buyer bought into war yet refused to return emails asking for additional troops.  Waited 6 weeks then quit trying.  Trust at your own risk.”

This isn’t something to play politics with.  If Obama refuses to take the action necessary to win this war, it will reinforce the image of America quitting when the going gets tough.  Remember, that is the exact image Osama bin Laden had of us prior to attacking. 

Win the war, politics be damned.

Cross posted at Right Wing News.

Even the left wing press in the UK sees Obama as impotent!

Obama the impotentThe disappointment with Barack Obama is tangible – on climate change and financial reform Europe leads while the US lags Comments 250 Buzz up! Digg it hill o Steven Hill o guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 22 September 2009 13.00 BST o Article historyMuch hope has been invested in Barack Obama’s ability to strike a new course for the US following eight years of Bush administration unpopularity. Yet many in the US and abroad are impatient with the pace of progress under the Obama administration. The president made the rounds on five news talkshows on Sunday as he pressed his policies and vision, preparing for what is likely to be a difficult week.Besides the ongoing battle over healthcare, this week sees two showdowns between Europe and the US that will reveal further slippage in American global leadership. The first showdown comes today at a UN special session on climate change in New York City; the second will come at the end of the week at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, where America and Europe will butt heads over financial system reforms designed to ensure that the AIGs of the world can never again cause an economic collapse.Europe has been increasingly critical of America’s failures to live up to its global responsibilities. The US is not only the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases but is by far the largest per capita emitter of carbon and other pollutants. China comes close to the US in terms of total carbon emissions, but it has four times more people, who each belch far less individually. Europe, while having much the same high living standard, has an “ecological footprint” that is only half of America’s, since Europe has taken leadership in implementing renewable technologies and conservation practices.

via Obama the impotent | Steven Hill | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

When will the US Press wake up and start seeing what they have wrought on us?

There is a new artist spreading his message on the streets and I guarantee he isn’t getting any federal funding from the NEA. He, or she, is tagging ACORN symbols with the phrase “Funded Prostitution Zone.”

As first noticed by the blogs Curbed LA and The Eastsider LA, the graffiti began appearing last week in a number of neighborhoods around downtown including Echo Park and Silver Lake. The graffiti bears the ACORN logo and the words "Funded Prostitution Zone."

Last week, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)  found itself in the middle of a media storm after a series of videotapes surfaced showing members of the group answering questions from conservative activists posing as a prostitute and a pimp.

In some of the videos, members of ACORN appear to be giving advice on how to set up a prostitution business, according to reports. It is not clear in what manner the videotapes were edited.

“Appear to be giving advice?” It seemed to me to be obvious. The couple described what they wanted to do, which was import underage girls for prostitution, and ACORN was more than willing to help them set up a brothel

As far as the phantom stenciler being a mystery, it seems one of the commenters at the L.A. Times blog has found the guilty party. Unsavoryagents.com. Scroll down and you can see the used stencil. Run your mouse over the picture of the stencil and it will change to a picture of the urban art.

I finally got around to doing another Bloglines, and had the pleasure of speaking with Steven Foley from The Minority Report. It was a really smooth conversation and Steven had some really great insights in the right and wrong way to start a blog today.

Click here to listen to the show on RFC Radio.

-- Our Apologies. Somewhere along the way we lost this audio. --

This Sunday when President Obama was on the ABC leg of the full Ginsberg, he was asked a question about ACORN.  You would think that, being the most intelligent human to ever hold the post of POTUS, he would have a good answer.

You would be wrong:

STEPHANOPOULOS:  How about the funding for ACORN?

OBAMA:  You know, if — frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely.  I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  Both the Senate and the House have voted to cut it off.

OBAMA:  You know, what I know is, is that what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  So you’re not committing to — to cut off the federal funding?

OBAMA:  George, this is not the biggest issue facing the country.  It’s not something I’m paying a lot of attention to.

Now, that’s a valid point.  It isn’t the biggest issue facing the country.  But let’s be realistic.  You know he knows about the ACORN scandal.  And even if he didn’t, you want me to believe that no one in his staff knows about it and thought to brief Obama on it before he went on five different Sunday morning talk shows.

That’s a bit hard to swallow.

The president knows, but didn’t want to get pulled into defending ACORN or get distracted from his agenda of selling a government health care overhaul.

And as far as defunding ACORN, I’ll believe that when I see it.  Remember, he told them they would help set his White House agenda: