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I'm a Defense Department retiree and received my annual annuity statement from OPM the other day. We didn't get a cost of living adjustment this year, but I noticed my monthly payment went up. Upon closer examination, I saw that OPM had arbitrarily reduced my monthly withholding. Evidently, the administration wants us all to think we got a raise, only to find out we will owe the extra money back in 2011 (after the elections, of course). I did a quick survey of my former co-workers and the same thing happened to them. This is very unusual, since withholding amounts...

Two sentences contained in an ABC News article published today stand as proof that the network and its faux reporters are in denial when it comes to identifying terrorism and terrorists:

* In a feature article based on an interview with Sarah Palin, USA's Kathy Kiely cherry picked some old poll data to make the former governor appear to be less popular with the American public than she actually is: "But even as her book sales soar, Palin remains a divisive figure in American politics. In an October Gallup Poll, 50% of those surveyed viewed the conservative Republican unfavorably, compared to 40% who had a favorable view."That Gallup poll was conducted October 1-4, more than three two months ago. Since then, an Opinion Research poll conducted November 17-18 for FOX News...

see link below

Barack Obama left his 2.6 million fans on Twitter, the social networking website, bemused, disappointed and mildly irritated by admitting on Monday that he had never used the service himself. "Let me say that I have never used Twitter," he told students in Shanghai. "I noticed that young people are very busy with these electronics. My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone." During his election campaign, Mr Obama portrayed himself as "connected" to the people through Twitter and his ever-present blackberry phone. Some of his more understanding fans asked if it was any real surprise...

An intern for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was ejected Wednesday from a conference held at the US Capitol Visitors Center Congressional Auditorium after behaving in a threatening manner and repeatedly violating conference rules by attempting to record conference speakers who have been the subject of death threats by Muslims. The CAIR official, Iyad Awadallah of Boca Raton, Florida, was ejected from the conference and escorted from the premises by Capitol Hill police. Awadallah showed up at the International Legal Conference on Freedom of Speech and Religion sponsored by the International Free Press Society and the Liberty Legal Project...

This is a Politico congressional race story that should have been labeled "WARNING: Read this story with a huge grain of salt." Why? First of all because the poll of the New York 23rd Congressional District was mostly taken before the big events of this past week were well known there. And even more importantly, the source of the poll was the Daily Kos which endorsed the very liberal Republican in the race, Dede Scozzafava. However, before we go into how absurd this poll was, let us watch Josh Kraushaar of Politico get all breathless about this highly questionable story:...

"Rush and Soros partners in Rams deal! And you still believe him?" Michael Savage lies with his headline on Rush's Rams deal by inaccurately connecting Soros and Limbaugh. In the article it states, "Limbaugh said he learned Wednesday about the Reuters report that billionaire liberal Soros may have been a member of Checketts' group," while Savage makes up that Rush worked with Soros. http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Limbaugh_Rams_Soros/2009/10/15/272750.html

According to Fox, Pelosi has directed the House to ignore the cost of ObamaCare for years 2-10. She will insist that the only cost is for the first year (2013). Costs for years 2-10 will be "redistributed to other accounts" so as to be made invisible to Obamacare. CBO now saying cost of ObamaCare for the first ten years will be $ 1.2 trillion, at least, with years 11-20 at least $ 2 trillion, and the national debt to surpass $ 13 trillion.

The White House fired back Monday at the health insurance industry for issuing a study that claims the health care reform bill working its way toward a key vote Tuesday will raise the cost of individual coverage by hundreds of dollars a year. Linda Douglass, spokeswoman with the Office of Health Reform, said in a statement that the timing of the study, released just hours before the Senate Finance Committee is set to vote on its bill, raises questions about its legitimacy. She joined other Democratic officials in trying to keep the analysis from gaining traction. "This is a self-serving...

Our government still has not figured out what to do about the dependence on foreign oil that everybody agrees is an unacceptable situation. The sensible thing to do, of course, is to produce more oil and natural gas from sources within and off the coasts near the United States, and the sooner, the better. “Drill here, drill now” is not just a slogan; it’s a prescription for energy independence. The 30-year old ban on offshore drilling along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts expired a year ago, and yet the federal government has sat on its hands, allowing time to pass...

Type Palin in Google News and a list of other negative words or phrases automatically pop up: Palin Resigns Palin Scandals Palin Indictment Palin Embezzlement Palin Letterman Tried to do a ScreenGrab on Firefox but it didn't work

“Hubris-laden charlatans” was the way a recent e-mail from a reader characterized the Obama administration. That phrase seems especially appropriate for the charlatan in chief, Barack Obama, whose speech to a joint session of Congress was both a masterpiece of rhetoric and a shameless fraud. To tell us, with a straight face, that he can insure millions more people without adding to the already skyrocketing deficit is world-class chutzpa and an insult to anyone’s intelligence. To do so after an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office has already showed this to be impossible reveals the depths of moral bankruptcy behind...

Supporters of the President have been bragging all day about the CNN poll which claimed that among people who watch the Health Care speech there was a 14-point gain in support for the plan read the report below.. pay extra special attention to the final paragraph:

'45 percent Democratic and 18 percent Republican'... in sample. CNN poll here: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/10/cnn-poll-double-digit-post-speech-jump-for-obama-plan/

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama used only-in-Washington accounting Wednesday when he promised to overhaul the nation's health care system without adding "one dime" to the deficit. By conventional arithmetic, Democratic plans would drive up the deficit by billions of dollars. The president's speech to Congress contained a variety of oversimplifications and omissions in laying out what he wants to do about health insurance.

If we do not believe that the President is stupid, then what do we believe? The only reasonable alternative seems to be that he wanted to get this massive government takeover of medical care passed into law before the public understood what was in it. Moreover, he wanted to get re-elected in 2012 before the public experienced what its actual consequences would be. Unfortunately, this way of doing things is all too typical of the way this administration has acted on a wide range of issues.

Looks like the LATimes got the story of a clash between pro- and anti-Obamacare protesters totally backwards. This was the lede in a September 3, 2009 LATimes blog (scroll down to find it under "Man bites off man's finger at Obama healthcare rally"): "A 65-year-old man at a Wednesday night California rally supporting President Obama's embattled reform ideas had a finger bitten off during a scuffle with anti-reform protesters." The democraticunderground.com website jumped on the piece and it provokes a series of comments. The first one was, "1. Why are Right-Wings always ruled by Emotions and Never by Logic" Well,...

Bernard Goldberg is getting a good bit of attention for something he said on O'Reilly tonight -- that documents show the CBS investigation in 2004 revealed that George Bush volunteered to fly combat missions in Vietnam. The following is from his website, Bernard Goldberg.com (via Newsbusters):

On Tuesday, FNC's The O'Reilly Factor hosted FNC analyst Bernard Goldberg as the former CBS News correspondent highlighted a story recently posted on his Web site, BernardGoldberg.com, in which he complains of how little mainstream media attention was given to the fact that former President George W. Bush had volunteered to go to Vietnam as part of his service in the Texas Air National Guard, but that he was turned down because other pilots were more experienced, and that CBS News producer Mary Mapes, even though she knew this part of the story before the report aired, did not include...

Ever heard the saying, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"? That's true for any of the 1,000+ page versions of Obamacare. Having informed you in previous columns of "Dirty secret No. 1" and "Dirty secret No. 2" in Obamacare, dirty secret No. 3 is the sin of omission. It's what the health care bill doesn't say that will bite you in the end. If you were writing 1,000+ pages on a subject, don't you think you'd have enough space to cover the essentials? But what if some of the issues were political hotbeds? And, if you were...

Last week, there were several instances of protesters showing up outside of town hall meetings openly carrying firearms. Anti-gun activists and the media were flabbergasted not only at the audacity of the protesters, but that the carrying of firearms happened to be perfectly legal where it occurred. (Eleven states allow unlicensed open carry, with 12 more requiring a permit.) MSNBC, not content to simply say, “Golly, guns are scary!” decided that there must be something racist going on. After showing close-cropped video footage of a protester with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, MSNBC host Contessa Brewer went...

On Tuesday, MSNBCs Contessa Brewer fretted over health care reform protesters legally carrying guns: "A man at a pro-health care reform rally...wore a semiautomatic assault rifle on his shoulder and a pistol on his hip....there are questions about whether this has racial overtones....white people showing up with guns." Brewer failed to mention the man she described was black.

I missed this yesterday at Newsbusters but Treacher, rightly aghast, tipped me to it this afternoon. Never will you see a starker example of MSNBC getting away with the sort of deception for which Fox News would be pilloried, especially in the context of race. If you missed Monday’s post about this, go watch the footage (or look at this photo) and see if you can deduce why they wouldn’t want to show the guy with the rifle from the neck up during this particular segment. For all the well-deserved heat that MSNBC’s primetime line-up has taken for its demagoguery...

CNN's Larry King showed the above video of Barney Frank laying the smack down on a woman at a townhall meeting who compared Obama to Hitler. CNN left out the fact that this woman is a Lyndon LaRouche Democrat. In the full video (via Allahpundit), the woman says, "This policy is already on the way out. It already has been defeated by LaRouche." She also underscores her crazy LaRouchite beliefs by claiming that the U.S. has "30% real unemployment". No one disputes that LaRouchites are on the fringe -- but it's indisputable that they are fringe Democrats. They oppose Obamacare...

Funny how the Dems accuse opponents of Obama's Hell Care of being set up or paid when that is exactly what THEY are doing!Remember the Town Hall meeting on health care held by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (DEMOCRAT-TX) where she rudely talked on her cell phone instead of listening to the question of a real constituent? (video here)Well, maybe Ms. Jackson Lee was on her phone asking her staff "where's that fake doctor you planted in here for me to call on." Eventually, she found her. Right there in the front row center: [VIDEO AT SITE] Ms. Jackson Lee embraces...

Yesterday we informed you of the media's serial misuse of an Obama-as-Hitler poster from esoteric left-winger Lyndon LaRouche's website, as outlets like NBC (on their Nightly News and Meet the Press), CNN and MSNBC all ascribed the poster to sentiments roiled up by talk radio host Rush Limbaugh specifically and conservatives generally. Well apparently CBS hasn't yet learned the lesson we had hoped to impart. In fact, last night they did the other networks one worse.

CNN’s Jim Acosta claimed that Rush Limbaugh’s website “compares the [ObamaCare] reform supporters to Nazis” during a report on Tuesday’s American Morning. The website actually draws a comparison between the DNC’s “Organizing for Health Care” logo and the Nazis’ Parteiadler (Party Eagle) symbol. Acosta also claimed that conservatives “falsely compared” ObamaCare to the Canadian health system. ...[T]he CNN correspondent made his claim about Limbaugh’s website: “Democrats charge the people shouting health care questions at members of Congress these days are being encouraged by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, whose website compares the reform supporters to Nazis.” As Acosta read this...

No shortage of chutzpah on the part of the White House, Democrats, and mainstream media. Even after White House press fixture Helen Thomas criticized the planting of reporters at so-called press conferences, the manipulation of public events and sentiments continues. Now we see the president, Dem Party, and Machiavellian media revving up their propaganda engines to push an unsuspecting public into believing that town hall meetings are staged, rent-a-mobs are bullying congressional members, and insurance companies are choreographing the entire scenario. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and others who express concern about the socialization of our healthcare system are getting slimed. Those...

President Barack Obama, his staff and administration, are all in danger of making the worst political mistake of their lives. They seem unable or unwilling to recognize the damage it will cause. And this reality may be America's brightest reason for genuine hope and change. Since the beginning of the August recess the actual "rulers" in this nation have been given their chance to speak. In high school gyms, in church basements, and in community college auditoriums the first real chance for accountability has been measured against the most tone-deaf administration of my lifetime. Retirees, stay-at-home moms, young professionals, and...

Birth/Death Model Revisions After the typical in January in which the Birth/Death Model revisions bore some semblance of reality, the Birth/Death numbers remain in deep outer space. This month was closer to orbit however, as January and July are revision months. The BLS had a chance to catch up this month but did not. As usual their model added jobs. At this point in the cycle birth death numbers should have been massively contracting for months. The BLS is going to keep adding jobs through the entire recession in a complete display of incompetence. The Birth/Death numbers have been a...

WASHINGTON – August means beaches and barbecues. And for some, a chance to rally the troops for this fall's health care showdown. Senate postponement of work on health care until September gives interest groups on both sides an entire month to whip up supporters, and pushes off crucial votes on the overhaul effort until fall — when people are likely to refocus on the issue. Backers and opponents of President Barack Obama's top domestic priority plan to use Congress' August recess for intensive advertising and grass-roots campaigns in hopes that energized voters might influence wavering lawmakers. Even so, some political...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama remained on the offensive Tuesday on the pace and shape of legislation reinventing health care, against stiffening opposition from Republicans and growing wariness among rank-and-file congressional Democrats. Following a recent pattern, harsh public exchanges ricocheted along Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the Capitol amid laborious work on the measure that Obama has insisted be put together before Congress leaves in August for its recess — a timetable a House Democratic leader indicated was slipping. Entering a closed-door Democratic meeting, House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., told another lawmaker: "No one wants...

Democratic Governors Accuse NGA Staff of Misleading Them on Costs of Health Care ReformBy Serafin Gomez FOXNews.com Monday, July 20, 2009 BILOXI, MISS. -- Democratic governors on Monday softened their opposition to health care legislation being championed by Democrats in Washington after accusing staff at the National Governors Association meeting of misleading them on the costs of the reforms. **SNIP** "Yesterday the NGA staff gave us some information that was not exactly correct so we're working through to find out what the real numbers are," Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer told FOX News on Monday. "Currently the House version does not...

In the late afternoon of July 10, President Obama met privately with Pope Benedict XVI for just over 30 minutes. According to official Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi, S.J., "The president explicitly expressed his commitment to reducing the numbers of abortions and to listen to the church's concern on moral issues." On July 13 in a Senate committee hearing, Sen. Barbara Mikulski was forced to admit under persistent questioning by Sen. Orrin Hatch that the new health-care bill includes abortion coverage. Planned Parenthood's Guttmacher Institute estimates government funding of abortion increases abortion by 20 to 35 percent. There were 1,206,200...

July 16, 2009 (InsideCatholic.com) - In the late afternoon of July 10, President Obama met privately with Pope Benedict XVI for just over 30 minutes. According to official Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi, S.J., "The president explicitly expressed his commitment to reducing the numbers of abortions and to listen to the church's concern on moral issues."   On July 13 in a Senate committee hearing, Sen. Barbara Mikulski was forced to admit under persistent questioning by Sen. Orrin Hatch that the new health-care bill includes abortion coverage. Planned Parenthood's Guttmacher Institute estimates government funding of abortion increases abortion by 20 to...

Future attorneys are taught in law school to never ask a witness a question they don't already know the answer to. On Saturday, CNN's Don Lemon learned this lesson the hard way. Well after President Obama finished his speech in Ghana, Lemon was speaking live to correspondent Nkepile Mabuse who was reporting on location. When Lemon asked whether the warm reception Obama received upon his arrival Friday was unprecedented, Mabuse caught him quite off guard with her response. Pay particular attention to Lemon's body language when Mabuse says, "It's not unprecedented. When President Bush was here, you will remember, in...

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, has told the House Intelligence Committee in closed-door testimony that the C.I.A. concealed “significant actions” from Congress from 2001 until late last month, seven Democratic committee members said.

NEW YORK (AP) — Sarah Palin's decision to step down as Alaska governor was driven in part by her wish to help Republican candidates across the country, associates say. But in New Jersey and Virginia, both of which have competitive governors' races this year, the prospect of a visit from the party's 2008 vice presidential nominee has so far drawn a muted response from the GOP contenders in both states. In Virginia, a historically conservative state where Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate since 1964 to win, Republican Bob McDonnell said Tuesday his campaign had had conversations with the...

A wave of nostalgia for the former GDR is sweeping parts of Berlin. Eighteen years after reunification, knowledge of the communist regime is fading, and its most unpleasant aspects are beginning to be glossed over. 18 years after German reunification, the Wall that once divided the country in two has all but vanished. In Eastern Berlin, memories of the former communist state remain vivid – as evidenced in one local pub. The bar's sign, which reads "come to us or we will come to you," is a slogan once used by the East German secret police. The interior is decorated...

Nico Pitney, the Huffington Post 'reporter' planted in the Brady Briefing Room yesterday by the Obama White House to ask a question on a pre-arranged topic of Barack Obama previously worked as an opposition researcher for Democrat big wig John Podesta and is a self-described "fan" of Barack Obama and his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.Podesta served as Barack Obama's presidential transition chief and is president and CEO of the Center for American Progress (CAP). Pitney served under Podesta as deputy research director for CAP as well as managing editor of CAP's Think Progress blogPitney left Podesta in 2007 and...

ACORN may be about to embark on a huge rebranding effort in order to reinvent itself...disgraced ACORN founder Wade Rathke has renamed ACORN International, which is ACORN's international consultancy....Rathke is trying to dissociate the ACORN affiliate from the oceans of bad ink ACORN has received in the U.S. over the last year. The new name for the international affiliate is Community Organizations International.

President Obama's excuses for firing AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin look weaker every day. The FBI has opened an investigation into a Sacramento program formerly run by a close ally of President Obama's, giving credence to the IG's work.

SEND TO A FRIEND | SHARE ON FACEBOOK | PRINTER-FRIENDLY This is what propaganda looks like: Americans overwhelmingly support substantial changes to the health care system and are strongly behind [72%] one of the most contentious proposals Congress is considering, a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. Bruce Kesler points out that — in traditional NYT/CBS fashion — the sample is badly skewed: According to the actual poll data, of the 73% of respondents who said they voted in 2008 only 34% voted for McCain and 66% for Obama....

In the wake of George Tiller’s killing, many pundits and pro-abortionists have tried to project the shadow of his assassination onto the entire pro-life movement. A June 2 Associated Press (AP) article titled: “Suspect in doctor killing railed against abortion” exemplifies the attempt. Although the AP professes to be an unbiased news source, the only pro-lifers interviewed expressed support for Tiller’s slaying and a substantial part of the story outlined the increased security measures abortion mills will now assume. Although every mainstream pro-life organization issued immediate condemnations of the killing, the article lacked a single quote from any of these...

Jim Press, Chrysler's charismatic deputy chief executive, went to Capitol Hill last week and spoke solemnly about the "very difficult decision" of terminating 789 of the automaker's dealers across the country. He assured members of a House committee that the company's executives had "taken every step to make this a soft landing for the dealers involved" and promised to help them as much as possible. *snip* "You have two choices," Press told the group, according to reports. "You can either help us or burn us all down." Many dealers would long remember the warning that followed to those who refused...

Back in 2005, the Old Media was all atwitter over a supposed ”plant reporter” at a Bush press conference. The Old Media made a big deal out of this guy and used it to try and cast the Bush White House as employing some sort of underhanded control of information. Flash forward to today, President Obama held his Healthcare townhall in Green Bay, Wisconsin and it turns out that Obama’s first “spontaneous question” from the audience sure seems like a “plant” in the same way as the previously mentioned situation in 2005. Will the media take notice? Naturally, President Obama...

Obama speech to Muslims "deceptive," Taliban says Sat Jun 6, 2009 7:54pm EDT LONDON (Reuters) - The Taliban said on Saturday that U.S. President Barack Obama's speech to the Muslim world was full of "deceptive slogans" and did nothing to change relations between America and Muslims. The speech, which Obama delivered at Cairo University on Thursday, "had nothing substantial in terms of content in order to reduce the dissonance that has reached its peak between Muslims and America," the Taliban leadership said in a message posted on Islamist Internet forums and translated by SITE Intelligence Group. "His occupation and transgressing...

Taking a semester off to travel and focus on writing isn't that unusual for a student at Brown University. But instead of studying comparative literature in Europe, Kevin Roose decided to go to Lynchburg, Va., and enroll at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. Roose passed himself off as an evangelical Christian to blend in with students at the school founded by the late Moral Majority leader. The experience led to a book, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University.

You Tube's Local Pstor is back at it. His newest clip had me laughing out loud at the song choice... Thanks to Morningstar madness we will soon see Todd and his new, young wife on a platform near you. ...