Wednesday Funnies :-)

Passing major legislation on Saturday night is a symptom of Potomac Fever

Navy SEALs Face Assault Charges for Capturing Most-Wanted Terrorist

March 31, 2004: Iraqis chant anti-American slogans as the charred and mutilated bodies of U.S. contractors hang from a bridge over the Euphrates River in Fallujah, Iraq.

(Fox News) - Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

Ed Begley Jr. Loses It On Fox News

(Big Hollywood) - Yikes. Someone got the talking points. Can you say, “Peer reviewed studies?” Methinks those leaked emails that pretty much show Global Warming is … what’s the best way to put it?… the big fat freakin’ lie we all knew it was, has stirred our friend Ed up some.

You know what he sounds like? Someone who believes the Earth is 6,000 years old trying to explain away a dinosaur fossil.

Oh, that old time religion…

Obama Shatters Spending Record for First-Year Presidents

The federal government spent $3.5 trillion during President Obama's first year in office. This far exceeds the spending for any other first-year president.

(Fox News) - President Obama has shattered the budget record for first-year presidents -- spending nearly double what his predecessor did when he came into office and far exceeding the first-year tabs for any other U.S. president in history.

In fiscal 2009 the federal government spent $3.52 trillion -- $2.8 trillion in 2000 dollars, which sets a benchmark for comparison. That fiscal year covered the last three-and-a-half months of George W. Bush's term and the first eight-and-a-half months of Obama's.

That price tag came with a $1.4 trillion deficit, nearly $1 trillion more than last year. The overall budget was about a half-trillion more than Bush's for 2008, his final full fiscal year in office.

Video: The greatest rock cover 'evah'?

(By Allahpundit, Hot Air) - For your enjoyment as we transition to a holiday state o’ mind, a palate cleanser that’s destined to go mega-viral. Three possible explanations: (1) there’s some 'heavy' drug use going on these days at the Muppets Studio; (2) this is actually a clip of Queen’s video and I’m seeing it as Muppets because my takeout order tonight was laced with something; (3) I can’t think of a third. Bottom line, someone’s tripping balls here. I hope it’s not me!

As always, Animal is the star of the show. Just wait for it.

Education Secretary Rejects D.C. Voucher Program As Parents Press Congress to Continue It

(CNSNews.com) – U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says no more low-income, mostly minority children will get taxpayer-funded scholarships to attend private or parochial schools in the District of Columbia.

Duncan told CNSNews.com that school vouchers are “not the solution” to fixing D.C.’s failing public schools.

Duncan made the comments just days after concerned parents made another trip to Capitol Hill to press U.S. lawmakers to continue funding the city’s Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP).

Sen. Conrad Suggests That People Who Don’t Believe in Civilian Trials for Terrorists Should Leave America and ‘Go Somewhere Else’

(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) told CNSNews.com that civilian courts are well-suited to prosecute al Qaeda terrorists and that "if people don't believe in our system, maybe they ought to go somewhere else.”

Conrad also dismissed a question about the rights of terrorists captured on foreign battlefields and the rules of evidence in terms of a civilian court trial as not serious.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Nov. 13 that five suspects in the 9/11 attacks would be tried in a civilian court in New York City instead of facing a military trial.



Related Material...

• (CNSNews.com) - McCain: Obama Administration Giving 9/11 Mastermind ‘His Wish’ by Giving Him Civilian Trial in New York

• (CNSNews.com) - Sen. Feinstein: Whether Osama bin Laden Should be Read Miranda Rights is a 'Murky Area'

• (CNSNews.com) - Sen. Dodd: Civilian Courts Better Than Military Tribunals for Prosecuting Terrorists

Krauthammer: 9-11 trial like OJ trial

"By the time Obama came to office, KSM was ready to go before a military commission, plead guilty and be executed. It's Obama who blocked a process that would have yielded the swiftest and most certain justice. Indeed, the perfect justice. Whenever a jihadist volunteers for martyrdom, we should grant his wish. Instead, this one, the most murderous and unrepentant of all, gets to dance and declaim at the scene of his crime. [Attorney General Eric] Holder himself told The Washington Post that the coming New York trial will be 'the trial of the century.' The last such was the trial of O.J. Simpson."

Charles Krauthammer

We Pay Them to Lie to Us

(By John Stossel, Townhall.com) - When you knowingly pay someone to lie to you, we call the deceiver an illusionist or a magician. When you unwittingly pay someone to do the same thing, I call him a politician.

President Obama insists that health care "reform" not "add a dime" to the budget deficit, which daily grows to ever more frightening levels. So the House-passed bill and the one the Senate now deliberates both claim to cost less than $900 billion. Somehow "$900 billion over 10 years" has been decreed to be a magical figure that will not increase the deficit.

It's amazing how precise government gets when estimating the cost of 10 years of subsidized medical care. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's bill was scored not at $850 billion, but $849 billion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said her bill would cost $871 billion.

How do they do that?

ClimateGate Hoax: The Universe of Lies Versus the Universe of Reality

Rush Limbaugh: Corners of Deceit: Gov'ment, academia, science, media.

Rush Limbaugh's Morning Update: Legacy

Rush Limbaugh: Well, whoopee. A joint study issued by the UN Development Program and the World Health Organization reports that almost half of the world's population has no modern sources of energy.

Broken down by the numbers, two billion people have no access to natural gas or propane (including Obama's brother), and over a billion live without any electricity (including Obama's brother). Summarizing the findings, a UN spokesman said: "Half of humanity is completely disconnected" from the green energy debate, and their needs have to be central to the climate agreement being worked on in Copenhagen.

Now, this is 180 degrees out of phase. We know what works, and what doesn't work. Free markets work. Capitalism works. The profit motive works. Freedom works. Why, in less than 300 years, America rose from that principle to become the most powerful nation on earth. Individual freedom, capitalism, free markets, and the ability to profit from one's own efforts unleashed a wave of prosperity unmatched in human history.

But liberals in the UN -- and sadly, now in our government -- seek to impose wealth-redistribution schemes, rather than wealth-creation policies. They want to constrain affordable energy sources, rather than develop them. They heap blame and scorn on us, rather than take the American freedom model and emulate it.

What this report shows is the utter failure of liberalism, worldwide. And half the world's population living in poverty is their legacy -- including Obama's brother!

Read the Background Material on the Morning Update...
• AP: UN pushes electricity, fuels lack in climate talks

Pelosi Won't Say If Bin Laden Has 'Right To Remain Silent'

(CNSNews.com) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) refused to answer whether terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, if captured, should be told he has a right to a lawyer and a right to remain silent.

Related Material...

• (CNSNews.com) - Osama bin Laden Should Be Prosecuted in Civilian Court, Sen. Menendez Says

Despite Obama’s Repeated Claims That Enacting $787-Billion Stimulus Was Urgent, 78 Percent of Money Remained Unspent by End of Fiscal 2009 Says Federa

(CNSNews.com) - After his election last November and until the $787-billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was passed in February, President Barack Obama repeatedly insisted that it was urgent for Congress to enact his economic “recovery” bill immediately. Yet, by the end of fiscal 2009 fully 78 percent of the federal spending authorized by that bill had not yet taken place, according to the Government Accountability Office.

In the meantime, the national unemployment rate climbed 26 percent, from 8.1 percent in February to 10.2 percent in October.

NYC Tavern Serves Up 100-Proof Thanksgiving Bird

(AP) - You'll need to be 21 to take a bite out of this Thanksgiving turkey. New York City tavern owner Paul Hurley unveiled what he is calling the nation's first 100-proof turkey on Monday.

Katie Couric's Forbidden Dance of Gin

(Gawker) - When CBS News anchor Katie Couric isn't asking Sarah Palin gotcha questions, she's doin' Da Butt, or the Lambada, or whatever white ladies do when the Black Eyed Peas are on the sound system.

UPDATE: We've learned that these are from the after-party celebrating Couric's debut as anchor of the CBS Evening News. Oh, lord.

Cheney Slams KSM ‘Show Trial’ & Calls Obama Bow ‘Fundamentally Harmful’

“I can’t for the life of me figure out what Holder’s intent here is in having Khalid Sheikh Mohammad tried in civilian court other than to have some kind of show trial. They’ll simply use it as a platform to argue their case – they don’t have a defense to speak of – it’ll be a place for them to stand up and spread the terrible ideology that they adhere to."

Related Material...

• (The Weekly Standard) - Holder Wants "Show Trial" for KSM

Gibbs on gigantic national debt: Hey, don’t forget the savings in ObamaCare

(Hot Air) - Pity this poor bastard, left with no choice but to resort to just the sort of lamer-than-lame talking point that made that SNL skit over the weekend so grimly funny. Click the image and skip ahead to -2:03 for Tapper’s segment on our mind-boggling national debt, where you’ll find Gibbs enthusiastically reminding him that Reid’s health-care bill will produce a whopping $130 billion in savings over 10 years. Minor point one: As previously noted, $130 billion is less than the deficit incurred just last month. Minor point two: As hopefully everyone knows by now, the only reason Reid’s bill costs as “little” as it does is because it doesn’t go into effect until 2014. The “10-year cost” is actually the five-year cost from 2014 to 2019. A true 10-year projection would score the bill at … $1.8 trillion.

Minor point three: Our debt is now so astronomical that, by 2019, the interest on it alone will amount to $700 billion annually — the equivalent of one new TARP per year. And that’s if interest rates stay low.

Video: The Tiffany Network’s tradition of objective journalism

(By Ed Morrissey, Hot Air) - Just in case you might be wondering about the kind of coverage the CBS Evening News will give the health-care bill in the coming weeks of Senate debate, Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters caught this big signal from Katie Couric on CBS’s website. Couric offers this little poem, based very loosely on “A Visit from St. Nicholas” by Clement Clark Moore, on CBS.com’s Notebook, and gives a cutesy endorsement to Olympia Snowe and any aisle-crossing she might to do save Harry Reid’s bacon:

Rush Limbaugh's Morning Update: Proof!

Rush Limbaugh: Last Thursday, computer servers used by researchers at England's Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia were accessed by what appears to be whistleblowers. Over 3,000 documents and e-mails were then posted on the Internet, exposing the way "climate change science" is conducted.

The documents show climate researchers knew the evidence for global warming wasn't there, but they passed it off as "settled science" anyway. Some of the e-mails discuss how these global warming advocates could paper over inconvenient truths to present a "unified" view on global warming. The Wall Street Journal even reports: "On at least one occasion, climate scientists were asked to 'beef up' their conclusions" because "environmental officials in one country were planning a 'big public splash.'"

The documents also reveal plots to shut down all opposing views by pressuring scientific journals not to publish the work of dissenting scientists, or by boycotting journals that dared make raw data available for scrutiny. The e-mails also discuss ways to foil the Freedom of Information Act, to prevent access to the data that these researchers claimed support their global warming theories -- which the e-mails prove doesn't!

In other words, there's proof -- genuine proof -- that the "consensus science" on global warming is, and has been, a total hoax (as I have stated for years). Now, let's see if any of this evidence makes its way to the "cap-and-tax" scheme the Democrats are trying to foist on us -- in the name of fraudulent science.

Read the Background Material on the Morning Update...
• WSJ.com: Climate Emails Stoke Debate

Khalid Sheikh Mo to Plead Not Guilty, Attack US Foreign Policy

Rush Limbaugh: Obama, Holder and KSM seek to try the Bush team.

Terrorist Parody: New York, New York!

Spiegel Online: Germans Balk at Helping Execute KSM

Chart: The Real 10 Year Cost of Reid's Health Care Bill Is $1.8 Trillion

The Weekly Standard: Harry Reid and his fellow Democrats claim that the cost of the Senate's health care bill is $849 billion over the first ten years. But, as Jeffrey Anderson pointed out in the New York Post on Friday, they get this figure by using "the same accounting trick as past versions: 99 percent of the costs don't kick in until the fifth year of that "10-year" period. The true 10-year costs are well over twice what Reid's advertising: $1.8 trillion."

Here's a chart Anderson made using CBO projections to show that the Senate health care bill costs $1.8 trillion during the first ten years that the program is up and running (download the PDF here)...

McCain Tells Sr. Citizens To Cut Up Their AARP Cards

Greg Hengler, Townhall.com: McCain's bright moment on the Senate floor

Stokes sheriff will retire next year

'You need time off,' Joyce says after 40-year career

Winston-Salem Journal: Mike Joyce, the sheriff of Stokes County since 1990, will not seek re-election next year, he said yesterday.

"At the end of the term, I'll have 40 years in law enforcement," he said. "The time comes for all things to end."

Joyce said he made his announcement now to give people who might run a chance to make their decision.

Joyce said he hasn't decided what he will do when his job ends.

"I have no plans at this point, but I'll stay active with something," he said.

Palin dines, prays with Rev. Billy Graham

AP: Sarah Palin on Sunday dined and prayed with the Rev. Billy Graham, who has counseled presidents and other politicians for decades.

Graham had never met Palin, who is scheduled to stop at Fort Bragg in eastern North Carolina on Monday to promote her memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life." The former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee and members of her family flew into Asheville in the western part of the state, then went to Graham's mountaintop home in nearby Montreat for dinner.

Billy Graham said it was an honor having Palin in his home to join his family for dinner and that they took the opportunity to pray together.

Saturday Vote to Ration Health Care, Fine Any Without Insurance

Rush Limbaugh: Do you think there's any chance they won't get 60?

Rush Limbaugh's Morning Update: Dismantle

Rush Limbaugh: Oh, folks. Get this. Last week, the Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee passed a measure giving the government power to "dismantle" private financial firms they believe are "too big." We're not just talking about firms that are insolvent or inches away from declaring bankruptcy; the target firms can be healthy and well capitalized. But if Democrats -- for whatever reason -- say that a company would hurt the economy if it failed, they want to march in and be able to destroy it.

Pennsylvania Congressman Paul Kanjorski, the author of the provision, said: "Financial firms that want to play in a casino need to have their own resources to cover their bets and not assume tax dollars are available in reserve if their bets fail." The legislation sets up a council to determine if a company's "scope, scale, exposure, leverage, and interconnectedness" make it too big.

Congressman Kanjorski: You Democrats play casino with peoples lives on a daily basis! You don't have the money to play yourselves; you take the money from taxpayers, you spend it without consequence, and when you run out, you borrow from future generations without batting an eye. (Or you print it!) The size, scope, and "interconnectedness" of the federal government is beyond measure. It is leveraged to the hilt, and it fails every day at almost everything it attempts.

Americans don't want your grubby hands dismantling businesses on your enemies list; we want the power-mongering, freedom-crushing, anti-capitalist, socialist Democrat Party that's now in charge dismantled... for the good of the country. Thank you, sir!

Read the Background Material on the Morning Update...
• AP: Panel -- US can dismantle 'too big to fail' firms