And to Think Neil Armstrong Walked on the Moon to Reach Out to Muslims . . .

Another genius-level insight from Barack Hussein Obama.

Can we move November up a few months, say to August? Please.
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Attention Obama Fans: Your Future in Black and Red

Forbes.com recently published an interactive map showing where Americans are moving to and where they are moving from. In this scheme, black lines show people moving into a county; red lines show people leaving the county. If you click on "Chicago," the beneficiary of so much political "genius" and convincing "oratory," this is what you will see:

It doesn't look like the people of Chicago are having a great time there. From Michelle Malkin:

How fitting that the state that produced the profligate corruptocrat-in-chief is now collapsing under the weight of its own fiscal irresponsibility. The same union-coddling, welfare state-expanding, pay-for-play politics that wrought the current misery in Illinois are wreaking havoc for us all.

At present, the State of Illinois owes $5.01 billion in unpaid bills "to schools, rehabilitation centers, child care, the state university." According to the state's comptroller, Daniel W. Hynes, “This is not some esoteric budget issue; we are not paying bills for absolutely essential services. That is obscene.” 

The state is defaulting on payments to pharmacies for drugs and on payments to funeral homes for burying the indigent. The University of Illinois is limping along on 55% of what it was promised. Schools are firing teachers and closing kindergartens, and government agencies are shedding employees.

One such agency, the Community Counseling Centers of Chicago, normally would operate on an annual $16 million provided by the state. Not lately, though. From the New York Times (hat tip, Michelle Malkin):

On any given Monday morning, the agency’s chief administrative officer, John J. Troy, 61, has no idea how he is going to keep its doors open until Friday. He said the state had not come through with an expected $2.2 million, which is about six months of arrears. He has laid off and recalled employees three times in the last two years. 

“Two weeks ago, I had days to meet my $420,000 payroll and all I was looking at was a $200,000 line of credit from a bank,” recalled Mr. Troy. “I drove down to Springfield and said, ‘Hey, you owe us $3 million.’ They said: ‘Oh, that’s nothing. We owe another agency $10 million.’ ” 

“The fact of the matter is,” he added, “I don’t sleep much these days.”

He's not the only one losing sleep. Illinois admits to $62.4 billion in unfunded pension liabilities alone, but that debt could be much higher.

What is Illinois going to do about its mess? Not much. Lawmakers will keep passing deficit budgets and continue to ignore the state's balanced budget laws.

That sets an excellent example for the House of Representatives, where, on July 2, Democrats “deemed as passed” a non-existent $1.12 trillion budget just before setting off for their Independence Day barbecues. Now Democrats can "start spending money for Fiscal Year 2011 without the pesky constraints of a budget."

You heard that right. Although you've never heard it before, because it's a first. A non-existent budget has been "deemed as passed" by the House of Representatives.

From House Budget Committee Ranking Member, Republican Paul Ryan, comes this explanation (Via Human Events via Nice Deb) :

Facing a record deficit and a tidal wave of debt, House Democrats decided it was politically inconvenient to put forward a budget and account for their fiscal recklessness.  With no priorities and no restraints, the spending, taxing, and borrowing will continue unchecked for the coming fiscal year.

It's like a game of musical chairs, isn't it? When the music stops, somebody is going to be left holding the bag. By that time, I wouldn't be surprised if most powerful Democrats have fled the country, taking their war chests with them. A good number of them have already bailed out of Chicago.
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Mexican Cartel Threatens to Blow Up Texas Dam; Generates "Plenty of Concern"

There are plenty of events that you might think would make big news but don't because they contradict utterances made by Barack Obama or one of his high-ranking Obamatons. A case in point is the reported plan by a Mexican drug cartel, the Zeta cartel, to blow up Falcon Dam on the Rio Grande, southwest of San Antonio, Texas, as an act of vengeance against a rival cartel, the Gulf cartel,  "which controls smuggling routes from the reservoir to the Gulf of Mexico."

It seems that members of the Zeta cartel had been circulating handbills and driving around with bullhorns to warn the population "on the Mexican side of the river near the dam to get out of the area." The cartel, of course, is known to have explosives and ex-military members "trained in special forces tactics, including demolition." If these drug thugs had succeeded in seriously compromising the dam, they would have released 534 billion gallons of water stored behind the dam in Falcon Lake. Addendum: That would flood the Gulf cartel's smuggling routes from Falcon Lake to the Gulf, along with "massive amounts of agricultural land . . .  as well as significant parts of a region where about 4 million people live along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border."

Contrast the Zeta cartel's threat in May of this year with a remark made by Obama during his "immigration reform" speech of June 1:

So the bottom line is this: The southern border is more secure today than at any time in the past 20 years. 

Falcon Lake is considered "one of the best bass-fishing lakes in the country"--provided that you aren't being attacked by Mexican Zeta cartel pirates armed with machine guns, like this fisherman:

The threatened attack on the dam was met with secret actions by the "American police, federal agents and disaster officials" including the "U.S. Border Patrol, the Texas Department of Public Safety and even game wardens," according to officials. A "stepped-up presence by the Mexican military" may also have played a role.

Said Gene Falcon, director of emergency preparedness for Starr County where Falcon Dam is sited, "It would have been a hell of a disaster. There was plenty of concern."

I'll bet.

But will that concern ever reach the White House?
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Happy 4th of July

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

November!
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Kagan's Harvard Connections

This week I spent some time trying to wrap my head around the Harvard contribution to the mess this country is in. The Harvard connections in government are never-ending, and, with a Harvard guy sitting in the president's seat, the Harvard connections of his latest Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, deserve some extra scrutiny. The more you look at them, though, the more disturbing the picture becomes.

This apparent Obama nominee is unusual. She's never been a prosecutor or attorney general, or defense attorney or Legal Aid litigator or sitting judge. In fact, she's never been a lawyer in a trial....never.

What has she been, then?

For one thing, she was a Harvard professor when Larry Summers, an Obama economic advisor who was Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary, "arrived from his work at Treasury . . . to deregulate banks and derivatives to get the gambling moving. . . ."

Oh, that.

It was the deregulation of financial derivatives that brought the banking system to its knees. The leading cause of the credit crisis was widespread uncertainty over insurance giant AIG’s losses speculating in credit default swaps (CDS), a kind of derivative bet that particular issuers won’t default on their bond obligations. Because AIG was part of an enormous and poorly-understood web of CDS bets and counter-bets among the world’s largest banks, investment funds, and insurance companies, when AIG collapsed, many of these firms worried they too might soon be bankrupt. Only a massive $180 billion government-funded bailout of AIG prevented the system from imploding.

This could have been avoided if we had not deregulated financial derivatives.

Summers was quite a pal to Kagan. When he served as Harvard president from 2001 to 2006, Kagan "was made a full professor, then Summers tapped her to be the Dean of Harvard Law."

Her pet peeve there was to keep the American military and ROTC off campus because she disputes the "don't ask, don't tell" provisions put in place by Clinton. In 2008, Kagan got money as an advisor to Goldman Sachs global investment house. Meanwhile, she made Cass Sunstein, who is now an advisor to Obama too, a full professor at Harvard. He has suggested the concept of marriage be discontinued. He also has argued that dogs and cats should have "standing" to sue in court.

Oh, him.

Sunstein may love animals, but babies are another story. According to Sunstein, "A restriction on access to abortion turns women's reproductive capacities into something to be used by fetuses." Sunstein also argued that cloning humans is no problem "because human embryos, which develop into a baby, are 'only a handful of cells.'"

An unborn child relying on its mother for nuturance may be a horrifying proposition to Sunstein, but for Kagan, that unborn child is more likely to be a pawn in a political power struggle, or perhaps a stepping stone in a political career. Addressing the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kagan admitted that:

as a Clinton lawyer in 1997, she fraudulently revised an official medical opinion by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The medical society was going to publicly reveal that "its panel of experts found no circumstances in which the (partial birth abortion) procedure was the only option for saving the life of the woman."

In a secret internal memo, she wrote that "This, of course, would be a disaster[.]"

Kagan therefore secretly revised the language so the final statement in 1997 claimed that the partial-birth abortion "may be the best and most appropriate procedure in particular circumstances to save the life or preserve the health of the woman."

That was a pernicious lie. The medical panel originally said that was false. Kagan substituted her own judgment for a medical consensus.

Kagan defended herself. "What I did," she said, was to advance the policy of the president [Clinton]." The "ACOG couldn't identify any circumstances in which the procedure was the only one that could be used in a given case but [it] could find situations in which it was least riskiest [sic] procedure for women."

Kagan's advancement of Clinton's "presidential policy" accomplished something else, too. As pointed out by Pundette:

Thanks in great part to Kagan’s apparent fabrication, all state laws banning partial birth abortions were struck down in 2000. No one knows how many children might be alive now if it weren’t for Kagan’s alleged falsification. Accurate data on partial birth abortions is hard to come by; there are many reasons why a doctor might not want to own up to performing this diabolical “procedure.” But low estimates put the number of victims at somewhere between 650 and 2200 babies terminated annually before the ban. I don’t know how many were killed in states that had a ban in place before the 2000 decision. But would it be going too far to say, if these charges are true, Kagan lied, babies died?

There's more, much more. But this post is getting too long.

Bottom line: We cannot afford to have this woman in the Supreme Court.
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Related posts:

• Govt Care For All Means a Shorter Life for You
• Cass Sunstein: You Have No Constitutional Right to Your Own Body Parts
• Birds and Bees Get to Sue Obama? Green Energy's Fifth Column

I'm Tired of This -- How About You?

A few seconds of this town meeting of the atrociously condescending and utterly stupid Congressman Pete Stark (CA-13) have been broadcast on some conservative talk shows and Fox News. Stark is more honest than many of his colleagues in the House, though. His remedy to the problem that illegal immigrants have transformed Phoenix into a world kidnapping capital, second only to Mexico City, is that Phoenix residents "shouldn't walk home."

The comments of Stark's constituents haven't gotten air play, but you might be interested. I was:



November.

Hat tip: Nickie Goomba.
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The Valerie Jarrett Map

The republican Mother (small "r" noted) is one heck of a researcher. Lately she's been publishing maps of the connections of people of interest using the National Names Database. The following is her "Valerie Jarrett Map." Click on it and use your zoom feature to see some "interesting" connections.

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Less Profit = More Poverty: Why It's Not Good to Hold People's Wealth Against Them

Dr. Zero hits it out of the park:

The concept of profit takes a lot of abuse from the Left.  Democrats usually spit the word out as though it were a curse, especially when they’re working to increase government control over private industry.  Our current economic malaise illustrate that, contrary to liberal rhetoric, the absence of profit does not lead to “shared wealth” or “economic justice.”  A world without profit is a world of poverty.

[snip]

What, exactly, is “profit?”  Technically, it’s income minus expenses.  This does not provide a complete understanding of the concept, however.  If you’re one of the many people who lined up to buy a new iPhone last week, you can appreciate how the retailer made a profit – he paid a certain amount to purchase his inventory of iPhones, added in his overhead costs, and sold it to you for a few dollars more.  His supplier made a profit from him in the same manner, in a chain of commerce which extends all the way back to the manufacturer.

However, it could be said that you also profited from this transaction.  You acquired a device you could not possibly have built yourself, in exchange for the earnings from a few hours of your labor.  You value this device more than the other things you could have bought with the money you paid for it.  Your job allowed you to efficiently convert some of your time into the money you used to make the purchase. Every voluntary transaction produces a mutual increase in value – both parties benefit, or they would not perform the transaction.  The dealer wanted your money, and you wanted that iPhone.

Go read the rest of "A World Without Profit" right now.

Twelve hundred words of clarity. After you read them, you may be able to explain why socialism stinks in terms even a Progressive can understand. 

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How Times Have Changed: China is Stable, Washington is Not

When CNBC knows about it, what more is there to say?

Las Vegas hotel owner Steve Wynn:



Via James Simpson at American Thinker.

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Mahalia Jackson Sings "How I Got Over"

Mahalia Jackson live in Chicago. Just one more reason why she will always be the greatest Gospel singer of all time.



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Less Wealth = More Poverty: Why Don't Obama's Sheepsters Get It?

American progressives commonly complain that the U.S. uses more than than our share of world resources--all the while remaining stubbornly oblivious to the fact that the U.S. translates many of those resources into more than our share of technological enhancements that hugely benefit medical care, food supplies, and quality of life around the world.

From the Investors Business Daily:  

The truth the left has a hard time accepting is that America has made the world a better place. Where would it be without the strength of the U.S. economy? What would have happened these last 200 years without the American ideals of liberty and law that set a lofty standard and provided a clear model for others to follow?

While Jimmy Carter supervised the country's decline into its late 1970s malaise because he missed the American exceptionalism all around him, Obama seems to be offended by it.

Obama is not the only one offended by the fact of American exceptionalism. Opponents of American exceptionalism are precisely those who campaigned for Obama and who voted him into office.

Many of Obama's sheepsters operate under the mistaken impression that rallying for the decline of the U.S. is, in some way, going to help the poor people of the world. It won't. And I am not hopeful that opponents of American exceptionalism will even wake up to the fact that their efforts to bring down the United States will hurt them personally.

As the debt grows, sabotage of American businesses continues, and the economic picture worsens, many soft-hearted leftist sheepsters will continue to try and make things better but, of course, today's problems will grow and worsen. And there will be fewer resources available to help, meaning less medical care, food, and technologies.

Will the sheepsters ever figure out that is what they wanted in the first place?

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"Keeping the Peace" by Arresting (Non-Violent) Christians

If you are a Muslim Arab-American with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood planning to build a mega-mosque overlooking what was once the smoking hole of Ground Zero, New York, where 19 Muslims murdered 3,000 innocent civilians, the city fathers and mothers will strew flowers in your path and call everyone opposed to that idea a "bigot." In fact, the Chief of Police will go out of his way to assure everyone that you are not a security threat.

However, if you are a Christian Arab-American with ties to an Evangelical Church planning to hand out copies of the Gospel of John printed in Arabic at an "Arab Festival" in Dearborn, Michigan, you can expect to be arrested, and the Chief of Police will go out of his way to assure everyone that you are an impediment to "keeping the peace."

Dearborn used to part of the United States, where freedom of speech and religion were protected under the U.S. Constitution. Now Dearborn is part of the Muslim world, where freedom of speech and religion are rigorously denied under Sharia law, which mandates that non-Muslims, as second-class citizens, are forbidden to proselytize to Muslims.

Muslims around the world are quite diligent about enforcing this aspect of Sharia law. How about the time 60 Moroccan security officers raided a Bible study group near Marrakech, arrested and held 18 Moroccans, including infants and children, and deported the American citizen who was present. Or when Iranian authorities imprisoned and tortured an Assyrian pastor they suspected of "converting Muslims." Or when a mob of 20 Muslims savagely beat two young Christians in Fulgazi, Bangladesh, for showing a "Jesus film." Occurrences like these--and much worse--are, sadly, commonplace throughout the Muslim world.

Here's something that happened in Dearborn, Michigan, last year at this time:

This year at the "Arab" Festival, the police again arrested two of these young Christians and two others. When the police released them, the next morning, they held onto the Christians' cameras, apparently because they do not want to display proof that the Christians were not in fact disturbing the peace, at least as it is defined in the United States and not in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, or Sudan. A Sudanese Christian, Pastor George Saeig, escaped arrest only with the help of a temporary restraining order issued by a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

From the Thomas More Law Center:

Arrested on charges of Breach of the Peace are: Negeen Mayel, Dr. Nabeel Qureshi, Paul Rezkalla, and David Wood. Mayel, an eighteen year old female, whose parents emigrated from Afghanistan and [who is] a recent convert from Islam to Christianity, was also charged with failure to obey a police officer’s orders. She was approximately 100 feet away and videotaping a discussion with some Muslims when her camera was seized.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, commented, “These Christian missionaries were exercising their Constitutional rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion, but apparently the Constitution carries little weight in Dearborn, where the Muslim population seems to dominate the political apparatus. It’s apparent that these arrests were a retaliatory action over the embarrassing video of the strong arm tactics used last year by Festival Security Guards [above]. This time, the first thing police officers did before making the arrests was to confiscate the video cameras in order to prevent a recording of what was actually happening.”

Thompson continued, “Contrary to the comments made by Police Chief Ron Haddad, our Constitution does not allow police to ban the right of free speech just because there are some hecklers.  Not all police officers approve of the way their department treated these Christians.”

These four young Christians are not eager to give up their Constitutional rights. Here is part of the video they made:

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Obama Demotes Petraeus from CENTCOM Commander to Theater of Operations Commander

In replacing General Stanley McChrystal with General David Petraeus, Obama has handed Petraeus a demotion from CENTCOM commander to Theater of Operations commander. What's up with that?

The Right Scoop has posted this interview with Allen West, who offers the first analysis of the McChrystal situation that makes sense to me.

Give it a listen.

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Memo to the Left: David Petraeus is No Longer General Betray Us (Times Ad Here)

Teh Won says so.
 
But many of us remember this full-page ad published in the New York Times in September 2007 by MoveOn.org.

Back then, NPR reported:

On Capitol Hill, Republicans called for an official condemnation of the Petraeus ad. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas sponsored the Senate resolution.

The resolution passed 72-25.

Hillary Clinton voted against the resolution.

Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Joseph Biden of Delaware didn't vote at all. 

That was some vote of confidence.

UPDATE:  The Petraeus ad was scrubbed today. But not before I downloaded it. If MoveOn.org is so anxious for people not to read it, I think it's my patriotic duty to make sure that they can.

Here it is. To read the fine print, click on it and then use your zoom command to zoom in.


Weasel Zippers also has the screen shot of the MoveOn.org "General Betray Us" Web page, explaining their "thinking" behind the ad.
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History Review: Senator Obama Mocked the Bible

The relentless crush of events can make even recent history seem remote. The following video is a snapshot of what was going on only 4 (four!) years ago.

From Teresamerica, who asks, "Would a Christian do that?"  Senator Obama speaking in 2006:

Two years later, when Obama needed Christian votes:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is stepping up his effort to correct the misconception that he's a Muslim.

Obama tried to set the record straight at a rally to kick off a weeklong campaign for the South Carolina primary coming up on Saturday.

Obama says he's been going to the same Christian church for almost 20 years. He says he was sworn into office using the family Bible. He says he repeats the pledge of allegiance to the United States flag in the Senate.

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Blago on Tape: "We Could Get Something" for Obama's Senate Seat

Rod Blagojevich, ex-Governor of Illinois, is on trial for racketeering and for "scheming to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat President Obama gave up" following his election to the presidency. He's facing "up to $6 million in fines and a sentence of 415 years in prison." Blago says he's not guilty.

A tape of a conversation between Blago and his former chief of staff, John Harris, isn't improving Blago's chances of staying out of the slammer, nor is it increasing the comfort level of either Rahm Emanuel or Barack Obama.

From Bob Secter at the Chicago Tribune, via the Backyard Conservative, who is keeping a good eye on the unfolding of this trial:

On Nov. 2, two days before the election, Harris said he was shopping for shoes with his son when he got a cell phone call from Rahm Emanuel, the North Side congressman who was soon to become Obama’s chief of staff.

Harris said Emanuel told him Obama was interested in having a close friend nominated to the Senate. Emanuel didn’t mention a name, but Harris said it was clear he was referring to Valerie Jarrett, the former chairman of the Chicago Transit Authority who is now a top White House adviser.

“He wanted to convey to me that (Obama) had a preference,” Harris said.

The next day, Harris said he spoke to Blagojevich on the phone and mentioned the conversation with Emanuel. Harris and Blagojevich didn’t know it, but government agents were recording the conversation, which was played in court today.

On the call, Harris told Blagojevich that Emanuel had asked whether it would be helpful for him to have Obama call. Harris told Emanuel “yes,” that Obama should if he were interested.

“He wouldn’t leave it to osmosis or to the media,” Harris said of Obama. “So you may get a call from him.”

“It sounds as though – if you believe Rahm – that he (Obama) very much cares about it,” Harris told Blagojevich.

Almost immediately, Blagojevich asked, “We could get something for that, couldn’t we?”
Later on the recorded call, Blagojevich asked Harris, "What do I have a shot at getting?"
Harris answered that they should at least start the process. “How about Human Services, can I get that?” Blagojevich said of the cabinet post.

If Obama was willing to call, “Yeah,” Harris answered.

The two talked about floating then-Illinois Senate President Emil Jones as a bargaining chip, and Blagojevich threw out two other names: “Bill Daley, Lisa Madigan.”

Daley is the former commerce secretary and brother of Mayor Richard Daley. Madigan is the Illinois attorney general and daughter of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, Blagojevich’s political nemesis.

Blagojevich then asked whether it should be leaked to Sun-Times gossip columnist Michael Sneed that the pick could be Lisa Madigan. Sneed did indeed print such an item shortly thereafter.

Blagojevich also asked Harris to look up who else had been Health and Human Services secretary. “Did Obama promise it to somebody else?” Blagojevich asked.

The two agreed what Blagojevich said in public about the vacancy should indicate that Blagojevich was very interested in supporting the Obama agenda in deciding how to fill the seat and that Blagojevich very much wanted to hear who Obama had in mind as his replacement.

Americans can expect plenty of "distraction" to keep their minds off this trial. That's all the more reason to pay it some attention.
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Times Square Bomber Pleads Guilty: Aimed to Do "Maximum Damage"

When ABC notices, it's got to be B-A-D.

Faisal Shahzad pleaded guilty Monday afternoon to trying to explode a car bomb in Times Square on May 1, and to receiving terror training from the Pakistani Taliban, and warned that further attacks on the U.S. were coming.

What? Is this the same guy whom New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had pegged as "homegrown," as in, "maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something"?

The 30-year-old naturalized American, who was born in Pakistan and lived in Connecticut, pleaded guilty to ten different terror-related federal charges, two of which carry a mandatory life sentence.

After Shahzad pleaded guilty to the first charge, attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, Judge Miriam Cedarbaum said, "I gather you want to plead guilty to all [the charges.]

"Yes," said Shahzad, and then said he wanted to plead guilty and 100 times more," because he wanted the U.S. to know it will continue to suffer attacks if it does not leave Iraq and Afghanistan and stop drone strikes in Pakistan.

Hold on. Back in May, the Mayor was telling CBS that "no credible evidence so far that this attack was more than at least one person.”

Shahzad spent a full hour giving the judge a narrative of his failed bombing attempt, including his take on recent events and the history of the Middle East. He also admitted that he had placed the bomb in Times Square at its busiest in order to do the maximum damage. 

Betcha he doesn't like Israel.

Shahzad was arrested on May 3, two days after the failed bombing, at New York's JFK airport as he was about to depart on a Dubai-bound flight. 

Despite having been placed on the no-fly list by authorities, the Times Square Bomber managed to "make it to the boarding gate at JFK airport, have his pass scanned by airline workers and then walk on to the plane, which was already taxiing away from the gate." Emirates Airlines apparently was not very interested in posting his name or his passport number to their no-fly list.

A federal grand jury indicted Shahzad on Thursday on 10 terror-related charges, double the number of criminal counts he originally faced. The new counts included a weapons charge and four new terror charges. 

The 13-page indictment also included new details about Shahzad's travels to Pakistan, and names the Pakistani terror group, Tehrik-e-Taliban, from which Shahzad allegedly received bomb training. The indictment also says that Shahzad received money from an unnamed coconspirator in Pakistan prior to the failed May 1 car bombing in midtown Manhattan.

How can this be? We were told that he "got screwed by the recession just like the rest of us, only he chose to react the way he did." On the other hand . . .

The indictment alleged that Shahzad received explosives training in Waziristan, Pakistan from "explosives trainers affiliated with Tehrik-e-Taliban." It accused Shahzad of receiving $5,000 in Massachusetts sent by a coconspirator in Pakistan in February, and another $10,000 from the same coconspirator via New York. According to the indictment, Shahzad purchased a rifle in Connecticut in March that was found loaded in his car on the day of his arrest. 

Shahzad's confession to being a bloodthirsty terrorist has painted Mayor Bloomberg into a corner. The man who was so eager to assure New York City that the Times Square bomber was likely a political opponent of ObamaCare today observed, "We know that our city remains a top target for terrorists."
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Related posts:

• Bread upon the Waters: Times Square Bomber Dropped from Terrorist Watch List
• Pakistani Tries to Car-Bomb Americans; Therefore Americans Are Racists
• Here's His Mug (UPDATED)
• Car Bomb in Times Square (UPDATED) 
• Bread upon the Waters: Religion of Peacer's Plans for Times Square ... 
• Great! 59 New Cap-and-Trade Boondoggles from Big Nanny 
• Terrorists a Few Miles from Harvard University? Now That Would Be ... 

Obama Tells His "Price" for Border Security, AZ Senator Says

Arizonans and other Americans suffer enormously from illegal immigration, but what does that suffering amount to for the president of the United States? It makes a great bargaining chip. When you are in serious pain, you might agree to just about anything to make the pain stop.

On Friday, June 18, Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) told an audience at a town hall meeting in North Tempe why President Obama won’t enforce America’s immigration laws. The entire video is worth watching, but the Obama information starts at 3:17.

Here's what Senator Kyl said:

I met with the president in the Oval Office, just the two of us . . . and we had a discussion about this. . . . Here's what the president said:

"The problem is," he said, "if we secure the border, then you all won't have any reason to support comprehensive immigration reform."

In other words, they're holding it hostage. They don't want to secure the border unless and until it is combined with comprehensive immigration reform.

Now, I explained, "You and I, Mr. President, have an obligation to secure the border. That's an obligation. It also has potentially positive benefits. You don't have to have comprehensive reform to secure the border, but you have to secure the border to get comprehensive reform." I said, "You'd be surprised. Maybe you don't think that there would be any more incentive for comprehensive reform. But I'm not so sure that that's true." In any event, it doesn't matter. We're supposed to secure the border.

But that's why it isn't being done. They frankly don't want to do it. They want to get something in return for doing their duty.

That is, of course, if "they" plan on securing the border at any time.

Hat tips: Snaggletoothie of the Loyal Opposition and The Right Scoop.

Cross-posted at Potluck.
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Happy Father's Day!

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In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

Recorded in 1928, this was a very popular song among young homeless men riding the rails looking for work and sleeping in "hobo jungles" during the Great Depression.

Many fathers from the Greatest Generation remember this song with a twinkle in the eye, and to them especially I send greetings for a Happy Father's Day!

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