While she was waiting in line to get her book autographed by Gov. Sarah Palin, young 17 year old Jackie Seal, was appraoched by MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell. Jackie was wearing a t-shirt that said, “The US government handed out $700 billion in Wall Street bailouts and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”

Norah O’Donnell took this 17 year old to task for it because Gov. Palin supported the bailouts. Watch her treatment of Ms. Seals:

Wonkette has declared her “a miniature idiot” because she was unaware of a statement Palin made during a debate with Vice President Joe Biden.

Obviously, liberal voters are far more informed and know all the positions of their favorite candidate.

Like these Obama voters, who love his positions, as long as they are John McCain’s. They even support Obama’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate:

And then there are these walking vaults of knowledge. I especially like how the first woman spelled her candidate’s name wrong:

Finally, let’s not forget these folks who just finished casting their ballots for Teh One:

Yes, clearly the GOP is the party filled with ignorant voters.

Sarah Palin had to support the bailouts. She was John McCain’s running mate and he, for some reason, decided to suspend his campaign to go back to Washington and help create them. It’s not like she’s going to oppose them after that.

Is it possible that a political candidate took a position they weren’t entirely supportive of for, gasp, political reasons? It’s not only possible, but probable.

As for supporting Sarah despite her support of the bailout, do you think there are any gay marriage advocates out there who support Obama? He’s against gay marriage, you know.

Tell me liberals, have Obama’s positions evolved since the campaign? Do you think a 17 year old Obama supporter would know?

By the way, Robert Stacy McCain tracked down Jackie’s Twitter account. You can follow her here.

Sen. Lindsey Graham is far from my favorite Republican. He’s somewhere below Kit Bond, and long time readers know how I feel about him. But sometimes he’s a top notch member of the team.

He took Attorney General Eric Holder to task for his decision to bring terrorists off the battlefield and give them Constitutional rights in a federal court.

He’s fantastic here:

NPR has the transcript:

GRAHAM: Can you give me a case in United States history where a (sic) enemy combatant caught on a battlefield was tried in civilian court?

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: I don’t know. I’d have to look at that. I think that, you know, the determination I’ve made –

SEN. GRAHAM: We’re making history here, Mr. Attorney General. I’ll answer it for you. The answer is no.

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: Well, I think –

SEN. GRAHAM: The Ghailani case — he was indicted for the Cole bombing before 9/11. And I didn’t object to it going into federal court. But I’m telling you right now. We’re making history and we’re making bad history. And let me tell you why.

If bin Laden were caught tomorrow, would it be the position of this administration that he would be brought to justice?

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: He would certainly be brought to justice, absolutely.

SEN. GRAHAM: Where would you try him?

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: Well, we’d go through our protocol. And we’d make the determination about where he should appropriately be tried.

SEN. GRAHAM: Would you try him — why would you take him someplace different than KSM?

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: Well, that might be the case. I don’t know. I’m not –

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, let –

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: I’d have to look at all of the evidence, all of the –

SEN. GRAHAM: Well –

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: He’s been indicted. He’s been indicted already. (Off mike.)

SEN. GRAHAM: Does it matter if you — if you use the law enforcement theory or the enemy combatant theory, in terms of how the case would be handled?

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: Well, I mean, bin Laden is an interesting case in that he’s already been indicted in federal court.

SEN. GRAHAM: Right.

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: We have cases against him. (Off mike.)

SEN. GRAHAM: Right, well, where would — where would you put him?

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: It would depend on how — a variety of factors.

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, let me ask you this. Okay, let me ask you this. Let’s say we capture him tomorrow. When does custodial interrogation begin in his case?

If we captured bin Laden tomorrow, would he be entitled to Miranda warnings at the moment of capture?

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: Again I’m not — that all depends. I mean, the notion that we –

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, it does not depend. If you’re going to prosecute anybody in civilian court, our law is clear that the moment custodial interrogation occurs the defendant, the criminal defendant, is entitled to a lawyer and to be informed of their right to remain silent.

The big problem I have is that you’re criminalizing the war, that if we caught bin Laden tomorrow, we’d have mixed theories and we couldn’t turn him over — to the CIA, the FBI or military intelligence — for an interrogation on the battlefield, because now we’re saying that he is subject to criminal court in the United States. And you’re confusing the people fighting this war.

What would you tell the military commander who captured him? Would you tell him, “You must read him his rights and give him a lawyer”? And if you didn’t tell him that, would you jeopardize the prosecution in a federal court?

ATTY GEN. HOLDER: We have captured thousands of people on the battlefield, only a few of which have actually been given their Miranda warnings.

With regard to bin Laden and the desire or the need for statements from him, the case against him at this point is so overwhelming that we do not need to –

SEN. GRAHAM: Mr. Attorney General, my only point — the only point I’m making, that if we’re going to use federal court as a disposition for terrorists, you take everything that comes with being in federal court. And what comes with being in federal court is that
the rules in this country, unlike military law — you can have military operations, you can interrogate somebody for military intelligence purposes, and the law-enforcement rights do not attach.

But under domestic criminal law, the moment the person is in the hands of the United States government, they’re entitled to be told they have a right to a lawyer and can remain silent. And if we go down that road, we’re going to make this country less safe. That is my problem with what you have done.

You’re a fine man. I know you want to do everything to help this country be safe, but I think you’ve made a fundamental mistake here. You have taken a wartime model that will allow us flexibility when it comes to intelligence gathering, and you have compromised this country’s ability to deal with people who are at war with us, by interjecting into this system the possibility that they may be given the same constitutional rights as any American citizen.

And the main reason that KSM is going to court apparently is because the people he decided to kill were here in America and mostly civilian, and the person going into military court decided to kill some military members overseas. I think that is a perversion of the justice system.

There’s some rumbling now that a new anti-Obama slogan featuring a Biblical verse is hoping the president dies. The slogan is, “Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8.”

Psalm 109:8 reads, “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.”

I read this as him only serving one term and then losing the next election. I think most people read it the same way. The Christian Science Monitor agrees:

For many, the slogan is just a humorous way express disapproval for President Obama. It’s been tweeted and retweeted by Obama critics with messages like “too funny” and “an excellent prayer for America.”

Twitter user Cheri Douglas felt compelled to share the psalm with others. Reached by phone, she said she found it on website while searching for Bible passages relating to leadership – a topic on which she writes, speaks, and consults for a living.

Ms. Douglas was unaware of the verses that followed the ones she referenced and doesn’t think that those who shared the psalm wish the President harm.

That’s where the thoughts of ill will to the president really begin. Psalm 109:9 reads, “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”

Now, that’s hard to read any other way than, “Let’s hope he dies.” But that’s not what is being asked. If it were, the phrase would be “Pray for Obama: Pslam 109:8-9.” By referring only to verse 8, it’s clear people using the phrase only want him out of office.

That being said, here’s a little gift from me to you. Feel free to use it where ever you want:

Al Gore was on Conan O’Brien recently and they were discussing the current state of catholic school girl uniforms. No, not really. It would have been a lot cooler if they were because as usual with Al Gore, he was promoting the propaganda of global climate catastrophe.

During the conversation, he exposed his vast intellect by explaining how the center of the Earth was really hot.

No, hotter than that. Think “center of the sun” hot:

Transcript via Powerline:

Conan: Now, what about … you talk in the book about geothermal energy …

Al: Yeah, yeah.

Conan: and that is, as I understand it, using the heat that’s generated from the core of the earth …

Al: Yeah.

Conan: … to create energy, and it sounds to me like an evil plan by Lex Luthor to defeat Superman. Can you, can you tell me, is this a viable solution, geothermal energy?

Al: It definitely is, and it’s a relatively new one. People think about geothermal energy — when they think about it at all — in terms of the hot water bubbling up in some places, but two kilometers or so down in most places there are these incredibly hot rocks, ’cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees, and the crust of the earth is hot …

John Derbyshire at The Corner notes:

the temperature at the earth’s core, 4,000 miles down, is usually quoted as 5,000 degrees Celsius, though these guys claim it’s much less, while some contrarian geophysicists have posted claims up to 9,000 degrees. The temperature at the surface of the Sun is around 6,000 degrees Celsius, while at the center, where nuclear fusion is going on bigtime, things get up over 10 million degrees.

If the temperature anywhere inside the earth was “several million degrees,” we’d be a star.

Good thing we aren’t looking to this guy to help create energy and environmental policy…

Ah, The Onion…

I have written here, here, here and here about the anti-gun fervor of the British government. I thought I had hit the rock bottom of the absurd barrel when I learned their biathletes have to spend 20 to 30 days a year training in Switzerland because their sport’s equipment is illegal in their home country.

No lie. They can’t even get special public funding because of the country they represent in the Olympics considers their sport illegal.

That lunacy has been trumped. Behold the new standard.

A former soldier finds a gun in his yard, turns it in to police and now faces 5 years in jail for gun possession:

The court heard how Mr Clarke was on the balcony of his home in Nailsworth Crescent, Merstham, when he spotted a black bin liner at the bottom of his garden.

In his statement, he said: “I took it indoors and inside found a shorn-off shotgun and two cartridges.

“I didn’t know what to do, so the next morning I rang the Chief Superintendent, Adrian Harper, and asked if I could pop in and see him.

“At the police station, I took the gun out of the bag and placed it on the table so it was pointing towards the wall.”

Mr Clarke was then arrested immediately for possession of a firearm at Reigate police station, and taken to the cells.

Paul Clarke said he “thought it was [his] duty to hand it in and get it off the streets.” Now, because of the way the law is written, he faces five years in prison for trying to get a gun off the streets.

Prosecuting, Brian Stalk, explained to the jury that possession of a firearm was a “strict liability” charge – therefore Mr Clarke’s allegedly honest intent was irrelevant.

Just by having the gun in his possession he was guilty of the charge, and has no defence in law against it, he added.

The judge in the case agreed:

Judge Christopher Critchlow said: “This is an unusual case, but in law there is no dispute that Mr Clarke has no defence to this charge.

“The intention of anybody possessing a firearm is irrelevant.”

So what does this teach the public? If you find a gun in the street, leave it for someone else to pick up. Perhaps a kid, or a criminal. Meanwhile, you call the police and hope they stop by and pick up the gun…and don’t lock you up.

For those of you who don’t watch Oprah every day… (heh heh heh)

Jeffery Dahmer killed his first victim in 1978.

Over the next 13 years, he would kill 17 people. When police finally arrested Dahmer, they found a human head in the refrigerator. Not long after that, they found three more in the freezer, along with a human heart.

The police would learn the depths of one man’s depravity:

Anne E. Schwartz, the reporter who was first on the scene, describes what she saw in her book The Man Who Could Not Kill Enough: “…in the back of the closet was a metal stockpot that contained decomposed hands and a penis. On the shelf above the kettle were 2 skulls.

Also in the closet were containers of ethyl alcohol, chloroform, and formaldehyde, along with some glass jars holding male genitalia preserved in formaldehyde…Polaroid photos taken by Dahmer at various stages of his victims’ deaths. One showed a man’s head, with the flesh still intact, lying in a sink. Another displayed a victim cut open from the neck to the groin, like a deer gutted after the kill, the cuts so clean I could see the pelvic bone clearly.”

When Dahmer went to trial, the evidence was against him. He plead “not guilty by reason of insanity.” As Don Davis wrote in The Milwaukee Murders, defense attorney Gerald Boyle had to convince the jury that Dahmer was insane, that “only an insane person would do the things he did.”

He failed. The jury believed the prosecutor, Mike McCann, who said Dahmer knew what he was doing was wrong, but did it anyway.

Jeffery Dahmer was not crazy. He was evil.

The left is trying their best to convince Americans that Major Nidal Hasan is a nut, a crazy loon with a gun.

When I heard this today as I drove home, I recalled the words of Dr. Stanton E. Samenow. He wrote the book on criminal thinking and if you haven’t read “Inside the Criminal Mind,” you should. It’s a very interesting read.

On the topic of insanity, Samenow writes:

When a criminal commits a shocking crime…a gut reaction on the part of the average citizen is to conclude that he must be crazy. But this reveals only the public’s perceptions, and nothing about the workings of the criminal’s mind.

I read somewhere, I can’t recall where, that people do this to make themselves feel better. Rather than believe a rational, thinking person could do the evil men do, they decide only crazy people could. But the fact is that rational, thinking people do commit evil on those around them.

Major Nidal Hasan is not a nut with a gun.

He’s a killer who knew what he was doing and knew it was wrong. Don’t rationalize his behavior by dismissing the planning he did, the choice of targets or the evidence pointing to a jihadist mindset.

He is a terrorist who killed 14 people, no crazier than the cannibal murderer of Milwaukee.

Cross posted at Right Wing News.

In a stunning array of government incompetence, and I’m being generous here, the Obama Administration’s website Recovery.gov is bragging about the 30 jobs the stimulus has created in Arizona’s 15th District.

There’s a problem, though. Arizona doesn’t have a 15th District:

The reporting problems are not limited to Arizona, ABC News found.

In Oklahoma, recovery.gov lists more than $19 million in spending — and 15 jobs created — in yet more congressional districts that don’t exist.

In Iowa, it shows $10.6 million spent – and 39 jobs created — in nonexistent districts.

In Connecticut’s 42nd district (which also does not exist), the Web site claims 25 jobs created with zero stimulus dollars.

The list of spending and job creation in fictional congressional districts extends to U.S. territories as well.

• $68.3 million spent and 72.2 million spent in the 1st congressional district of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
• $8.4 million spent and 40.3 jobs created in the 99th congressional district of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
• $1.5 million spent and .3 jobs created in the 69th district and $35 million for 142 jobs in the 99th district of the Northern Mariana Islands.
• $47.7 million spent and 291 jobs created in Puerto Rico’s 99th congressional district.

That is some hard core incompetence.

Now, consider how screwed up your health care records are going to be when the government starts inputting your data.

Well, this is news to me. According to Stephen Scott, “director of research at the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners,” lesbians are better at this parenting thing than a mom and a dad:

His controversial position draws backing from research that suggests children with two female parents are more aspirational than those with opposite-sex parents. Some studies also also shows children with lesbian parents are no more or less likely to have tendencies towards homosexuality.

Research at Birkbeck College, part of London University, and Clark University in Massachusetts suggests that same-sex couples make good parents because children cannot be conceived accidentally – parents must make an active decision to adopt or find a sperm donor.

On the surface, this could be a convincing position. These are people who have to make a conscience choice to have a child. They really put a lot of thought into it.

But, this assumes that a majority of male/female couples don’t plan to get pregnant. And then when they do, they are poor parents.

It also assumes that parents who put thought into children make better parents.

Have you ever met a couple who, regardless of the amount of thought involved would just make terrible parents?

Planning for a baby doesn’t make you a good parent. Loving the baby does.

The question is, does a child fare better with heterosexual parents than it does with homosexual parents, or does it matter?

What do you think?

Abdul Walid Hamid was working at his kiosk in the mall when a customer stopped by wearing a crucifix. It wasn’t long after that people were calling 911. Hamid was screaming “Allah is power” and “Islam is great.”

In his hand was the customer’s crucifix. He reportedly ripped it from their neck.

He was arrested and later arraigned “on charges of battery, grand theft, terrorist threats and exhibition of a deadly weapon.”

Two days later, Major. Nidal Hasan was charged.

Hasan, also a Muslim, opened fire on soldiers and civilians at Fort Hood on November 5. According to police, he fired over 100 rounds, killing 14 (I include the unborn baby) and wounding 30. Before a shot was fired, Major Hasan shouted “Allahu akbar!”

Also:

• He was corresponding via e-mail with “the radical American cleric, Anwar al Awlaki” who “served as an inspiration for men convicted in terror plots in Toronto and Fort Dix, New Jersey…”
• He had business cards with “SOA” inscribed under his name. “SOA” stands for “Soldier of Allah.” They also had “SWT,” referring to an Arabic phrase for “glory to him, the exalted.”
• He wanted U.S. soldiers charged with war crimes.
• He defended suicide bombers.
• He may have wired money to Pakistan.

On the 12th of November, Major Hasan was charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder.

Notice the difference?

A guy in the mall who yanks a necklace off a person’s neck and yells, “Allah is power” is charged with “terrorist threats.” A guy who kills 13 after screaming “Allahu akbar” can’t have the term “terrorism” or “terrorist” associated with him in any way.

In fact, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the left still doesn’t want us to “jump to conclusions” concerning Major Hasan.

It isn’t jumping to conclusions when you follow the evidence. It’s called seeing the obvious terrorist sympathizer in front of you with the gun.

When I worked with juvenile youth, we were once trained that the gang bangers weren’t as dangerous as the wannabes. That’s because the wannabes were really gonnabes. They would do whatever they had to to become a gangster too.

Hasan is a terrorist. Perhaps if he had just run around stealing dog tags and yelling “Islam is great,” he would have been charged accordingly.

But then, that might have been too damaging to diversity.

We have a president that has a thing for subservience. There isn’t a conservative alive worth his salt that doesn’t know the president bowed to King Saud. Now he’s gone and done it again, this time bowing to the Emperor of Japan, Emperor Akihito:

Some say the president was just being culturally sensitive, while others are saying the act is unprecedented. For example, I added this video to my Facebook page. Ed Morrissey later used it on Hot Air. It shows 46 handshakes, but only one bow:

So, is he right in what he did, or is this really a first?

According to Jake Tapper’s friend, both:

“This picture shows two things,” my friend writes.

“1) The ‘right’ is wrong about Obama’s bow.

“2) The ‘left’ is wrong about Obama’s bow.

“His bow is neither (1) unprecedented nor (2) a sign of cultural understanding.

“At their 1971 meeting in Alaska, the first visit of a Japanese Emperor to America, President Nixon bowed and referred to Emperor Hirohito and his wife repeatedly as ‘Your Imperial Majesties.’”

(See that picture HERE.)

“Yet, (and?) Nixon gets the bow right. Slight arch from the waist hands at his side.

“Obama’s handshake/forward lurch was so jarring and inappropriate it recalls Bush’s back-rub of Merkel.

The left can continue to tell us all about how culturally sensitive Obama is, but when they do, they should remember how hypocritical it is when compared to how they treated Bush for this photo:

Culturally, this was a sign of “kinship.” Considering how much Bush was trying to convince the Islamic community that America was not at war with Islam, you would think the left would have applauded this “culturally sensitve” gesture.

Are we trying to convince the Japanese we aren’t at war with them? Or just are we just sucking up?

Glenn Beck has dedicated an entire show to black conservatives. Kevin Jackson, author of The Black Sphere and “The Big Black Lie” had a seat on the set, proving that I was right when I told Andrew, “Kevin Jackson is going places. He’s gonna be big.”

Here’s the show:

Hat Tip: Hot Air

Most circuses have a ring. This one will have a courtroom:

WASHINGTON — Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and four other men accused in the plot will be prosecuted in federal court in New York City, the United States attorney general announced Friday.

…

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said he would seek the death penalty against the five defendants if they are found guilty in federal court.

No big deal, right? I mean, New York has tried terrorists before. What the problem?

Democrat Senator Jim Webb knows (h/t Hot Air):

I have never disputed the constitutional authority of the President to convene Article III courts in cases of international terrorism. However, I remain very concerned about the wisdom of doing so. Those who have committed acts of international terrorism are enemy combatants, just as certainly as the Japanese pilots who killed thousands of Americans at Pearl Harbor. It will be disruptive, costly, and potentially counterproductive to try them as criminals in our civilian courts.

The precedent set by this decision deserves careful scrutiny as we consider proper venues for trying those now held at Guantanamo who were apprehended outside of this country for acts that occurred outside of the country. And we must be especially careful with any decisions to bring onto American soil any of those prisoners who remain a threat to our country but whose cases have been adjudged as inappropriate for trial at all. They do not belong in our country, they do not belong in our courts, and they do not belong in our prisons.

I have consistently argued that military commissions, with the additional procedural rules added by Congress and enacted by President Obama, are the most appropriate venue for trying individuals adjudged to be enemy combatants.

I was listening to Rush Limbaugh while I was at work today and he was quoting Andy McCarthy from National Review Online. See, it’s easy to attribute this as a leftist attempt to redefine the 9/11 attacks as a crime, not an act of war. But McCarthy says, and I agree with his thinking, that this is about putting the Bush Administration, the CIA and the military on trial:

Nothing results in more disclosures of government intelligence than civilian trials. They are a banquet of information, not just at the discovery stage but in the trial process itself, where witnesses — intelligence sources — must expose themselves and their secrets.

Let’s take stock of where we are at this point. KSM and his confederates wanted to plead guilty and have their martyrs’ execution last December, when they were being handled by military commission. As I said at the time, we could and should have accommodated them. The Obama administration could still accommodate them. After all, the president has not pulled the plug on all military commissions: Holder is going to announce at least one commission trial (for Nashiri, the Cole bomber) today.

Moreover, KSM has no defense. He was under American indictment for terrorism for years before there ever was a 9/11, and he can’t help himself but brag about the atrocities he and his fellow barbarians have carried out.

So: We are now going to have a trial that never had to happen for defendants who have no defense. And when defendants have no defense for their own actions, there is only one thing for their lawyers to do: put the government on trial in hopes of getting the jury (and the media) spun up over government errors, abuses and incompetence. That is what is going to happen in the trial of KSM et al. It will be a soapbox for al-Qaeda’s case against America.

Is there another logical reason to bring him to America? Please add it to the comments section. But from where I sit, this guy is ripe for a military tribunal to listen to his confession and then have a firing squad execute him.

The Politico has helped the pro-abortion side of the Stupak Amendment debate tonight by manufacturing a “scandal” of sorts. It turns out that the Republican National Committee’s insurance covers elective abortion:

Federal Election Commission Records show the RNC purchases its insurance from Cigna. Two sales agents for the company said that the RNC’s policy covers elective abortion.

Informed of the coverage, RNC spokeswoman Gail Gitcho told POLITICO that the policy pre-dates the tenure of current RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

“The current policy has been in effect since 1991, and we are taking steps to address the issue,” Gitcho said.

The fact that the RNC offers elective abortion via its insurance does more than simply make the party look like hypocrites for opposing abortion. It lends ammunition to the proponents of government run health care who think abortions should be covered in any plan created by Congress.

Politico emphasizes this point:

There is no indication that any RNC employee has used the abortion coverage, but Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said it’s “no surprise” that the RNC is offering it.

“It’s an employer that wants to provide standard health benefits for its employees,” she said. “That’s why the Stupak amendment goes too far in taking away benefits that women have today, and that’s why women won’t allow the Stupak amendment to become law.”

The Stupak amendment, named for sponsor Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), was adopted by the House before it passed the health care bill on Saturday night. It prohibits a government-backed health care plan from offering abortion services and bans the use of federal subsidies for individuals to buy into health care plans that provide abortion coverage.

Allow me to introduce a bit of nuance to the story. The RNC insurance is funded by private money. The Stupak amendment is attached to public money.

This should be plain enough for even a liberal to notice the difference.

The left will, however, use this as a talking point to damage the brand of the RNC. And from a hypocrisy point of view, they have a point.

But let’s not pretend the fact the RNC offers elective abortion in its insurance is a reason to fund the procedure with taxpayer dollars.

Hat Tip: Memeorandum