Geraldo is…  wow.  He has some nerve.  I can’t believe Fox News still employs him.  He probably cried racism when they tried to fire him after this incident in 2003:

Fox News Channel correspondent Geraldo Rivera is being expelled from Iraq for broadcasting details about future U.S. troop movements in the country, according to the Pentagon.

Dick Cheney is only the second person (that I recall) that this treasoner has accused of treasonous behavior.  Remember when he accused Rick Perry of it when he “threatened” secession during a Tea Party rally? 

The only person listed in this blog post guilty of REAL treason is Geraldo himself.

VP Joe Biden’s mother passed away today at the age of 92.  Thoughts and prayers go out to the Biden family.  May she rest in peace.

The left, all the way up to the Obama administration, are calling BF (Bush’s Fault) on the terrorist attack — the systems in place “for years” were inadequate, Bush let out the guys who planned the bombing, blah, blah, blah.   Yep, the systems were inaqequate, because of so much push back against allowing the CIA to do their jobs.  And yep, Bush let out those effers because he was finally giving way to the heap of shit that had been piling on him since his 2004 reelection over the wars and terrorist “rights”.  He shouldn’t have done it, and many said so.

/rant mode

But instead of making lists of home-grown terrorists (like pro-lifers and veterans), Janet “the system worked” Napolitano should have been FIXING the systems if they were so broken.  Instead of Nancy “they lied to us” Pelosi saying the CIA never briefed her on waterboarding and demanding some on-paper-only program be investigated, she should have had her Homeland Security committee helping Napolitano.  And instead of Harry “the war is lost” Reid trying to punish Joe Lieberman because he supported McCain, he should have let him loose to work on a fix, too.  And instead of the whole of Congress working on taking over health care, killing us with carbon credits, and card check, etc, they should have been working one of the few things the Constitution actually charters them to do — provide for a common defense.

But, they don’t have to.  You see, even if Obama DOES screw up (as his administration clearly did here), he has the COA (Cover Obama’s Ass) left in full force.  They just call BF.   The Democratic Underground has a list of newspaper articles regarding Bush’s whereabouts during the Richard Reid attack back in 2001 (no link — bing it).  He was also on vacation.  And he didn’t make a statement for SIX whole days.  And.. and..  he was at Camp David to celebrate the holidays.  And.. and.. and.. there were accounts of all the minutia he and his family were doing to get ready for Christmas, including going to the gym.  AND THEN he went to that damn CRAWFORD!   And on top of that… ON TOP OF THAT… NO ONE on the right called for for Richard Reid to be treated as an “enemy combatant.”  AAAAAHHH!

Well, forgive us, O, glorious One!  Since Bush did it, you’re SOOO allowed some leeway.  You and yours spent almost his entire presidency criticizing his approach to the war on terror.  Then, you spend your first year doing NOTHING ABOUT IT. 

Yeah, all Bush’s fault.

/end rant mode

When the Richard Reid bomb plot happened, it was three months after 9/11.  People were on edge, waiting for another attack.  I don’t remember how I reacted to Bush’s six day lag in a personal response, but from what I read, I didn’t see anyone saying “the system worked” before Bush managed to make a statement.  Heck, even Joe Biden said these things might still happen, and we’re lucky Reid wasn’t successful.  It appeared as if it took a few days to even establish exactly who Richard Reid was (he traveled as Richard Reid, but many thought it was an alias for a few days).

Most of the fomenting about the response time now is coming from the blogs, talking heads, and opinion columns.  There weren’t very many blogs around back in 2001.  I did a quick search, and the only real commentary, blogwise, that I found was from Talking Points Memo.  And if you look at his archive, he was hardly focused on the Reid incident.  He even mentioned that the MSM was being PC and almost downplaying the heritage of Reid.  With the recent incident, we knew the guys real name and motive within 24 hours. 

But you have to admit, most of the outrage is well-placed.  We’ve known about this guy for months and he STILL had a visa to enter the US.  We were warned by his father — that alone should be enough to suspend it pending further investigation.  But no, the left says we can’t blame Obama because he hasn’t had time to fix the problems yet. 

Oh, wait, the left spent a lot of time blaming Bush, who was in office almost 8 months, for not following up on a piece of intel that said terrorists wanted to use planes as bombs (as Andrew Breitbart pointed out on Glenn Beck today).  Hmm.  But we can’t blame Obama, who’s been in office 11 months, for not following up on CIA and parental notifications on “The Nigerian.”  OK, not sure how that works…

I will say this, however.  I think too many people are making a mountain out of a mole hill over Obama’s location.  It’s not like he’s backpacking the Appalachian trail or anything.  His words mean a lot more than his location, and his words are what are failing him now.  We sound like a bunch of screechers when we complain about the little things instead of focusing on the big ones. 

But, as much as I like him, Karl Rove needs to back off a bit.  I saw a clip of him on either Hannity or O’Reilly, I can’t remember which one, Monday night where he complained about Obama waiting a “whole 72 hours” to make a statement.  Mr. Rove was in Bush’s administration during the Reid incident.  Why didn’t Bush come out before six days during the Reid incident?  Just sayin’.

Dems, well almost all politicians, have spent the past couple of days railing on AIG about their millions worth of taxpayer-funded bonuses, even going so far to call for a McCarthy-esque naming of names.  We all know it’s been a ruse to keep people focused on the bad, greedy executives receiving massive bonuses instead of the rest of the news.  But what are they diverting from? 

Maybe this:

[A large company] is awarding approximately $2 billion to its U.S. hourly employees through financial incentives, including handing out $933.6 million in bonuses on Thursday[.]

This is a perfect example of a non-bailout-funded company actually growing in this time of crisis giving close to 1.7 times last year’s total back to its HOURLY employees.  This is the antithesis of what is going on right now, and it could be used as a great example to hold up for the rest of the companies, right? 

The problem is that the “large company” is Wal-Mart.  That evil, evil Wal-Mart that screws its employees at every turn it gets that chance.  The Dems could never be caught extolling the praises of that company.

Gethner didn’t know about the bonuses until the weekend — or did he?  Obama didn’t know about the bonuses until Timmy told him — or did he?  Dodd didn’t know about the amendment to allow the bonuses in Porkulus — or did he?

But, you will be happy to know, I did find some truth in the midst of all the drama and lying yesterday.  Here’s the quote, spoken by none other than Barney Frank (his emphasis in all caps, mine in bold): 

[A]s to retention, no, I do not think these are the people you want to retain.  The argument is you need to have the people who made the mistakes so they know how to undo them.  Human nature being what it is, I think there’s a lot to be said about having people who were NOT the ones who made the mistakes undo them.  The natural tendency to protect your own mistakes comes into play.

No truer words.  We all need remind ourselves about Rep. Frank’s heartfelt speech during the 2010 election.

Yes, this really is a picture of my daughter at the blastocyst stage, about 100 cells and five days after fertilization. This is what researchers will destroy, funded in part by taxpayer dollars in the future, in order to come up with a miracle cure for something even though privately funded research has come up with nothing.  Adult stem cell research has shown promise, and it doesn’t destroy anything.  And through that kind of research, you can potentially use your own DNA to create parts you might need one day.  Way to put science first, eh?

Going against the liberal thought, PJ O’Rourke, a cancer patient, slams Obama for his justification of allowing federal funds for embryonic stem cell research.  I say going against liberal thought because liberals think people always vote in their own self interests — got cancer, vote for stem cell research that might cure it; make less than $250,000, vote for the guy that will give you a tax break.  However, some of us actually vote based on principles, something liberals just don’t understand.

So, take a look, Obama.  That’s a picture of my daughter up there, and I would no sooner destroy that to cure my mom of diabetes than destroy her now, as an almost three-year-old, in the same vain.

As Redstate is reporting that Obama is gearing up his propaganda machine against the Republicans again, the GOP needs to get out in front of this mess — especially the House Republicans.  They need to start introducing Obama’s broken or forgotten conservative campaign promises as legislative alternatives.  Rep. Boehner and company need to introduce them one at a time and force Pelosi to show her hand when she doesn’t allow their bills on the calendar. 

The first one that comes to mind is ending capital gains taxes on small businesses.  When Obama introduced his plan today, I didn’t hear one word of it.  I did hear what sounds like him turing the Small Business Administration into another Fannie / Freddie.  Let’s just hope he doesn’t let them chop up the loans and sell derivatives Merrill Lynch who will get them insured by AIG.  Sounds like a recipe for disaster, eh? 

Back to my original point, they also need to introduce legislation to keep the promise that Obama would remove income taxes from seniors who make less than $50,000.  There are also several pro-military promises Obama made that could easily be introduced, such as pay raises.

This way, they aren’t the party of no.  They can sell it as being supportive of Obama while keeping their principles.  The problem is they need to sell it — they had a great alternative to Porkulus, as Redstate points out, but no one knew about it.  To sell this, they need to be on every show, at every microphone, telling the country they have this legislation on the table that are promises Obama made and they are trying to help him keep them.  They can also blame Pelosi for keeping the legislation off the calendar.

Michelle reported on the Judicial Watch release of documents on Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) use of military planes for travel.  She then called foul on the MSM outlets calling this whole thing insignificant. 

This morning on “Cashin’ In,” Wayne Rogers said it costs taxpayers about $30,000 per week to use the military travel.  I couldn’t find that figure anywhere, but I did find an old Jake Tapper article that said the C-32 (the non-stop plane) costs about $22,000 an hour to fly.  At that rate, $30,000 sounds like a low-ball figure, so I’ll use this to point out just how “insignificant” this is.

The bottom 50% of taxpayers, individuals or families who make $30,881 or less (2005 data), pay an average of $483 per year in federal income taxes*.  These are the poor people that Pelosi and her Dem cronies purport to help so often.  To fund her jaunt for one week, it takes one year’s tax money of 62 families.  If she uses the service only half the year, 26 weeks, the total for the year is $780,000, which is one year’s tax money of 1,615 families!

That’s not insignificant.

* I got this figure by taking the numbers from the last line on the first table at the data link.  I took the income taxes paid divided by the number of returns to come up with an average figure.

The day after he signed the $787B monstrosity that is Porkulus, Obama spoke to America about the need to reduce this country’s deficit, promising to reduce it by half by the end of his first term.  Then he held a “fiscal responsibility summit.”

Obama kept telling us the end was near while Porkulus was still in the Senate waiting for a couple of turn-coat Republicans to help him out.  He kept putting on the pressure with his gloom and doom speeches, not even allowing for members to read the damn bill.  After the Senate finally passed it, Obama and his family took a weekend shopping trip to Chicago before he managed to get back to Colorado* to sign this “emergency” bill.

After touting that Porkulus was earmark-free (not entirely true) during his quasi State of the Union address, Obama then started pushing the $410B Spendibus bill, laden with 8,500 earmarks. 

About 30 minutes ago, just before signing the bill that the Senate passed last night, Obama extolled the virtues of earmarks then called for reform. 

Is this just a big joke to him?  He keeps signing all these “imperfect” bills, promising to get it right next time.  I keep waiting for the cameras to pop out and tell us it WAS all just a big joke, and we can get back to normal lives after a good laugh and a few curse words.

Update:  I’m not the only one who’s noticed. 

Update II: Hot Air offers an apt Gone with the Wind comparison.

* I corrected the location. I forgot he made a signing show in Colorado rather than go back to DC.  He had to tour the solar panel factory or something.

Bill Adair, editor of Politifact.com and St. Petersburg Times Washington bureau chief, was on “America’s News HQ” with Chris Wallace this afternoon. The ObamaMeter is keeping track of Obama’s campaign promises — all 512 of them.  While all promises start off classified as “no action,” the site has classified several that have already come up during the administration thus far.  He highlighted five on the show.

Promise #37: Extend Bush tax cuts for people in lower incomes.  Politifact has classified this one as “in the works.”  Adair said the legislation is in the new budget, and he expects it to pass.

Promise #24: End income tax for seniors earning less than $50,000.  It is classified as “stalled” because it was not in his budget outline, and Adair does not expect it to reappear anytime soon.

Promise #505: Create $3,000 tax credit for companies that add jobs.  It is classified as “broken.”  Obama touted it as a part of his stimulus package in October after the initial crisis, but it didn’t show up in the Porkulus bill because many Democrats thought those big, nasty, greedy businesses would fire people then rehire them to get the break.

Promise #15: Created a foreclosure prevention fund.  It is classified as “kept,” because of his $275B plan ($75B for homeowners, $200B for Fannie / Freddie).  That one hasn’t passed yet, so I’m not sure why it is not classified as “in the works” instead.  He didn’t mention that on the show.

Promise #234: Allow five days of public comment before signing bills.  We all know that one is “broken.” 

The site keeps track of every little promise, not just the big ones.  They are tracking the promises about the dog (#502),  college playoffs (#306), and phasing out incandescent light bulbs (#492).

Promise #512 is his pledge to go “line-by-line” through the budget to make sure spending is not wasteful.  They called that one a “compromise” because Porkulus was “largely earmark-free” and Spendibus was full of earmarks.  Well, I dispute that.  Even though the Porkulus projects didn’t technically have earmarks, we have the lists of the projects that the states and cities (well, except Chicago) sent to Congress so they could get the right amount of money allocated.  I mean, c’mon, the $8B for “high-speed rail” only belongs to one project, and we all know it even if it isn’t spelled out in the bill.  Sen. Reid wanted it, and he shoved it in during the conference, and I consider that an earmark even though Politifact argues that other projects will compete for the money.

So while technicalities might be argued, at least someone is keeping track, and we can all watch Obama’s successes and failures virtually in real time.

The site also has a Truth-O-Meter, which rates the truthfulness of statements by politicians and staff.  There is a Flip-O-Meter as well, but it appears to be mostly campaign-related at the moment.