I love what his mother said about private ownership through hard work. Priceless wisdom.

Isn’t it kind of redundant for a god to pray to himself?

(Mediaite) — In an interview with Diane Sawyer, President Obama spoke confidently about the mission in Libya, while also taking a moment to make light of some recent criticism he’s received. Obama predicted that Gaddafi knows “the noose is tightening” and that the people of Libya will soon be free from being under his control.

Obama reveals to Sawyer:

I do a lot of praying. Absolutely. Every night, right before I go to bed. You know, and I am praying that – I’m making the best possible decisions, and that I’ve got the strength to serve the American people well. And frankly as President of the United States, you know, your responsibilities extend beyond beyond our borders. And these decisions are difficult.

Keep reading…

FYI: It’s a “time-limited, scope-limited kinetic military action.”

WASHINGTON — Enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya required four sorties by NATO aircraft in the past 24 hours, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

The figures followed comments from US and allied commanders that the regime’s air defenses have been knocked out in earlier coalition raids, with Moamer Kadhafi’s aircraft effectively shut down under a no-fly zone now firmly in place.

The four no-fly zone sorties were flown by Canada and Spain, using F-18 fighter jets, said a US defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

NATO is due on Thursday to take over from the US military the command of the coalition air campaign, launched under a UN resolution to protect civilians.

As part of “Operation Odyssey Dawn,” the US military also launched 22 Tomahawk cruise missiles in the past 24 hours, bringing to 214 the total number of missile strikes since the operation began on March 19, the Pentagon said.

HT: American Glob

Asshat.

(The Hill) — Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer’s (N.Y.) instructions for his colleagues to label GOP lawmakers as “extreme” is not helpful to budget negotiations, the Senate’s top Republican said Tuesday.

“That’s really not helpful, if we’re trying to reach an agreement here,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) told reporters at a press conference.

Earlier Tuesday, Schumer gave advice to a group of fellow Democrats before a conference call with reporters saying, “I always use the word extreme. . . . That is what the caucus instructed me to use this week.”

The remark was heard by reporters before the conference call officially began.

Lawmakers on both sides have ramped up the rhetoric against each other amid a stalemate over a proposal to fund the government through the rest of the fiscal year and avoid a government shutdown after short-term funding expires April 8.

See Chucky Schumer: Dems Have Been “Left at the Altar” by Tea Party Republicans

He has no shame.

Washington — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Monday disputed warnings that Social Security is headed for bankruptcy, calling those assertions an  “outright lie.” And he says the huge federal entitlement program has not added “one penny” to the federal deficit.

Both of Reid’s claims are misleading.

Reid made the comments at a “Back Off Social Security” rally at the Capitol on Monday. Reid was joined by other Senate Democrats and liberal activists, who accuse Republicans of plotting to privatize Social Security. Democrats have used similar tactics in the past to scare senior citizens, who vote in large numbers.

“Social Security has not contributed one penny to the debt or the deficit ever in its 75 years,” Reid said at Monday’s event.

The claim is false. According to the actuaries for Social Security and Medicare, the Social Security program ran a deficit of approximately $41 billion, excluding interest on the bonds in the Social Security trust funds. Those bonds, which are a special type of Treasury bond, are placed in the trust funds in place of the cash surpluses Social Security has taken in from payroll taxes.

Because there is no cash in the Social Security trust funds, any deficits the program runs, including the 2010 deficit — and those projected into the future — must be repaid from current tax revenue.

Since the federal government was already running a deficit in 2010, and ran one in 2009, the money required to pay the Social Security deficit would have had to be borrowed, meaning it was added to the deficit and the national debt, contrary to Senator Reid’s claim.

Correction, we used to be a “great and powerful” country, then we elected Barack Hussein Obama.

(click above image for video)

REP. ANTHONY WEINER (D-NY): “He struck a right line. He defined a goal, defined how we’re going to do it. Let me say one other thing. We’re a great, powerful country. What’s the value of being a great, powerful country if we’re not going to step in against tyrants that are slaughtering their point and that’s the point the President made tonight.”

There are a few victims: Israel, the truth, and those who blindly and stupidly follow the British and Western media.

HT: New Zeal and Larry7 (prev. just Larry)

Previous: UK: Columnist Melanie Phillips Under Investigation for Calling Palestinian Murderers of Israeli Family “Savages”

Arrested in Pakistan, what a surprise.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Intelligence sources say top Indonesian terror suspect Umar Patek has been arrested in Pakistan.

Patek is one of the main suspects in the 2002 Bali bombings that left 202 people dead.

Two officials speaking on condition that they not be named said Patek was taken into custody in Pakistan on March 2. One of the sources is an Indonesian security official, and the other is a Philippine intelligence official who cited information from U.S. counterparts.

One of the sources is an Indonesian security official and the other a Philippine intelligence official who cited information from U.S. counterparts.

It begins.

CAIRO (AP) — Members of an ultraconservative Muslim sect clashed with villagers south of Cairo over demands that a liquor store and coffee shops be closed, officials said Tuesday, a sign of the increasing assertiveness of the fundamentalist Salafi movement.

One villager was killed and eight others were injured in the armed clashes, which erupted late Monday in the village of Kasr el-Bassil in Fayoum province, a security official said.

The fighting broke out after Salafi followers ordered the owner to close the liquor store and coffee shops as they try to forcibly impose their strict interpretation of Islam by banning the drinking of alcohol.

Salafis were tolerated as a religious group under ex-President Hosni Mubarak to counter Mr. Mubarak’s top foe, the Muslim Brotherhood.

But Salafis have gained power as they rise to play a more political role as followers now ponder the nomination of a presidential candidate, following the 18-day uprising that led to the ouster of the former regime.

That has alarmed many of the secular and liberal forces in Egypt because of the group’s extremist discourse and imposition of Islamic sharia law.

Dozens of Salafis also staged a protest Tuesday in Cairo, accusing a church of abducting Camilla Shehata, a Coptic Christian priest’s wife who some believe converted to Islam and is being held against her will.

Salafis also have accused the police of collaborating with the church by handing Mrs. Shehata over to church authorities to reconvert her. The woman’s whereabouts are currently unknown.

Such protests were held almost weekly by the Salafis over the summer as they accused the Coptic Church of conspiring to “Christianize” Egypt, but they largely stopped after a suicide bombing on New Year’s Day outside a Coptic church in the port city of Alexandria killed 21 people.

Protesters held signs reading “peaceful, nonviolent” to defuse fresh rumors that the movement planned a massive rally on Tuesday aimed at supporting moves to force all Egyptian women to wear a veil and punish those who don’t adhere by burning their faces with acid.

Brothers Holder and Obama take care of their “people.”

(AP) — In a case that has drawn strong criticism from Republican conservatives, the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility has found no evidence that politics played a role when department attorneys dismissed three defendants from a voting rights lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party.

OPR, which investigates allegations of attorney misconduct, concluded that the government lawyers’ work on the lawsuit in 2009 was based on a good-faith assessment of the law and the facts and had a reasonable basis.

“We found no evidence of improper political interference or influence from within or outside the department” and the government attorneys acted appropriately in the exercise of their supervisory duties, OPR said in a letter Tuesday to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas.

“We found no evidence to support allegations — which were raised during the course of our investigation — that the decision-makers, either in bringing or dismissing the claims, were influenced by the race of the defendants,” OPR’s letter added.

The lawsuit stemmed from complaints that New Black Panther Party leaders intimidated white voters at a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day in 2008.

Two lawyers who formerly worked in the department’s voting rights section of the civil rights division have described what they called hostility from senior officials and career attorneys to pursuing Voting Rights Act violations against minorities alleged to have harassed white voters.

It’s almost like he doesn’t know there was an arms embargo slapped on Libya in February that included no exemptions for non-regime forces.

(MSNBC) — President Barack Obama predicted Tuesday that continued military and diplomatic pressure will force Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to “ultimately step down.”

In an interview with NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams a day after he addressed the nation to explain his Libya policy, Obama refused to rule out providing direct U.S. military assistance to the rebels fighting Gadhafi’s government. But he said that was unlikely and that his comments shouldn’t be interpreted as signaling wider U.S. intervention in the region.

“Gadhafi’s been greatly weakened,” Obama said. “He does not have control over most of Libya at this point, and so for us to continue to apply this pressure, I think, will allow us the space and the time to forge the kind of political solution that’s necessary.”

Obama said that nine days into the U.S. action in Libya, “The degree to which we’ve degraded Gadhafi’s forces . . . has been significant.”

His comments came after U.S. ships and submarines were reported to have fired cruise missiles at Libyan missile facilities in and around Tripoli overnight.

“Our primary military goal is to protect civilian populations and to set up the no-fly zone,” he said, but “we’re not taking anything off the table at this point.”

“One of the questions that we want to answer is do we start getting to a stage where Gadhafi’s forces are sufficiently degraded where it may not be necessary to arm opposition groups,” he said.

He’s either clueless or threatening to break this UN Security Council embargo, I’d bet the house on clueless.

(FP) — In the rush to curtail Muammar al-Qaddafi’s military capacity to attack civilians in Libya, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on February 26 to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Libya. But the measure also unwittingly impeded the effort of the Western-backed rebels to fight Qaddafi’s forces.

Paragraph 9 of Resolution 1970 required all U.N. members to “immediately take the necessary measures” to bar the sale, supply or transfer of weapons, mercenaries, or other supplies to Libya. The arms embargo, which was adopted before the rebels had emerged as a potential threat to the regime, included no exemptions for Qaddafi’s foes.

Praise be to Allah!

TEHRAN (FNA) — Iran on Tuesday unveiled the first diesel-engine locomotive, produced by the country’s experts, in a ceremony attended by First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi.

After unveiling the diesel engine locomotive, Rahimi was briefed on the potentialities of this national achievement gained by the Iranian experts.

This diesel locomotive has been produced at the cost of 77 billion rials and it is about 3,710 kilos in weight.

Its engine power is rated at 1,000 kW per minute.

Diesel is a strategic industry, and by using this heavy oil as a fuel instead of gas for locomotives, the Islamic Republic of Iran has joined the 12 world countries which manufacture this type of engine.

HT: FavStock

He appeals to the “community standard,” which he believes approves of referring to a woman as a “cunt.” However, this only confirms that Bill Maher lives in a community of moral lepers.

See Report: Vile Leftist Trash Bin Bill Maher Calls Sarah Palin a “Cunt”

Much better if the disgusting toad had to testify as a defendant in a criminal case about his role in the financial crisis that precipitated the need for reform.

(The Hill) — Republicans in charge of the House Oversight Committee have rejected a request from Democrats to have Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) testify at a hearing on the financial reform law that bears his name.

Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) asked on March 25 for Frank to testify at Wednesday’s hearing on the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, which will explore whether the bill prevents financial firms from believing they are “too big to fail.” Cummings is the ranking member of the committee, while Quigley is the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee that is holding the hearing.

They argued that as one of the primary authors of the law, Frank could provide “valuable insight” on Dodd-Frank and its impact on financial markets. They added that Frank said he would be willing to testify.

But in a response dated March 28, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), the subcommittee chairman, informed the lawmakers that Frank would not be allowed to testify. Copies of the letters were obtained by The Hill.

Rather, he said that Timothy Massad, the Treasury Department’s acting assistant secretary for financial stability, will “provide a Democrat perspective” in his testimony.

“This hearing is not about the legislative intent behind the Act or revisiting the debate surrounding the Act’s passage,” he wrote.

Neil Barofsky, the outgoing special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) will testify alongside Massad.

The fight does not mark the first time Democrats and Republicans have squared off on the committee over who is invited to hearings. Cummings criticized Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) in January for refusing his request to have a witness from the mortgage servicing industry appear at a hearing on TARP and the foreclosure crisis.

“It’s hard for me to understand how we can have today’s hearing on the foreclosure crisis without anyone from industry at the witness table,” he said in his opening statement at the Jan. 26 hearing.

Frank is the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, where McHenry is also a member.

Lapdogs.

(Washington Examiner) — President Obama’s sales pitch, of sorts, for the war in Libya was a bit more personal for some of the country’s most prominent columnists.

The president made a surprising pit stop before his address to the nation on Libya Monday evening, meeting with a group of newspaper columnists during their briefing with Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, sources confirmed.

Attending the impromptu visit were the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman, Washington Post’s David Ignatius, Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol and Doyle McManus of the L.A. Times.

The reviews that followed were generally positive. Ignatius said Obama’s address offered “clarity” on the Libyan conflict and Kristol wrote that the president had “come a long way” in embracing the “American foreign policy mainstream.”

(Breitbart) — Chicago media reported on a recent march in Chicago as being an “Anti-War” march organized by students and “faith based groups” who “hope to spark change in our democracy.” What they left out was the clear fact that the march and rally had much less to do with the Iraq war than it did about a far-left socialist agenda. Citizen journalist “Rebel Pundit” provides the information the media chose not to tell their viewers.

Meanwhile, one moron brings a stupid “witch doctor” sign to a Tea Party rally and we have a week’s worth of stories about the “racism in the Tea Party.”

(CBS News) — Sen. John McCain continued to press President Barack Obama for a more forceful strategy to remove Muammar Qaddafi from power in Libya, saying that the U.S. should be willing to use “any means” necessary to accomplish that goal and comparing the current strategy of limited air power combined with diplomatic pressure to the post-Gulf War strategy in Iraq that kept Saddam Hussein in power.

Mr. Obama laid out his case for intervention Monday night, saying that he authorized the use of missile and airstrikes in an international military action to protect civilians from a “massacre.”

However, while the U.S. policy calls for the departure of Qaddafi from power, the president said the U.S. would not be willing to pursue deeper military involvement, such as sending in ground troops, to make that happen.

Instead, the U.S. would support the continued coalition-led no-fly zone in addition to economic sanctions and other diplomatic tools to increase pressure on Qaddafi.

I don’t recall anyone holding a gun to their heads when they voted for the Obama-Pelosi agenda.

(Politico) — As victims of the House Democratic election massacre speak out about what caused their ouster last November, they are pointing their fingers squarely at a Washington duo: Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.

Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) moved their party’s agenda too far left during the past Congress. And then they failed to help rescue the party’s mostly supportive lawmakers, two defeated first-termers who have joined Washington-based think tanks said Tuesday.

“Moderates and independents who leaned toward Obama didn’t come out because they saw a continuing polarization. Health reform was only supported by Democrats. So, the message from Washington was that Obama was getting his way,” said former Rep. Dan Maffei (D-N.Y.), who has become a senior fellow with Third Way, the centrist Democratic group.

Party leaders and liberal allies told him that he was too pessimistic last fall when he warned them that he was in danger of losing. Obama and Pelosi “couldn’t bring themselves to believe that it would be this bad,” said Maffei, who unsuccessfully sought a late campaign stop by Obama. “Low turnout was why I lost. My opponent [Republican Ann Marie Buerkle] was seen as fringe and votes didn’t think she could win.” He lost by about 650 votes.

Former Rep. Glenn Nye (D-Va.) blamed Pelosi’s liberal agenda for his more decisive 10-point loss. “A winning political strategy is to take issues that are popular with the center. Democratic leadership brought too many votes that weren’t going to be enacted. It was a ‘choose and lose’ approach,” said Nye, now a senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund.

No, not making this up.

(AJC) — The Georgia Legislative Black Caucus filed a lawsuit Monday against the state of Georgia seeking to dissolve the city charters of Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, Milton and Chattahoochee Hills. Further, the lawmakers, joined by civil rights leader the Rev. Joseph Lowery, aim to dash any hopes of a Milton County.

The lawsuit, filed in a North Georgia U.S. District Court Monday, claims that the state circumvented the normal legislative process and set aside its own criteria when creating the “super-majority white” cities within Fulton and DeKalb counties. The result, it argues, is to dilute minority votes in those areas, violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

“This suit is based on the idea that African Americans and other minorities can elect the people of their choice,” said Democratic State Sen. Vincent Fort.

The Office of the Governor and the Office of the Attorney General declined comment pending further review of the case.