the things you believe you're seeing...

Note to Time magazine;

How disgusting...and the mother went along with the idea, no doubt it was her idea all along... Girl won Hannah Montana tickets with fake essay GARLAND, Texas (AP) — An essay that won a 6-year-old girl four tickets to a Hannah Montana concert began with the powerful line: "My daddy died this year in Iraq." While gripping, it was not true — and now the girl may lose her tickets after her mom acknowledged to contest organizers it was all a lie. The sponsor of the contest was Club Libby Lu, a Chicago-based store that sells clothes, accessories and games intended for young girls. The saga began Friday with company officials surprising the girl at a Club Libby Lu at a mall in suburban Garland, about 20 miles northeast of Dallas. The girl won a makeover that included a blonde Hannah Montana wig, as well as the grand prize: airfare for four to Albany, N.Y., and four tickets to the sold-out Hannah Montana concert on Jan. 9. The mother had told company officials that the girl's f...

Could this be what causes the media to turn against Huckabee? Huckabee's muzzle control problem by Jim Tankersley Republican Mike Huckabee took his presidential campaign for a quick pheasant-hunting expedition in Iowa on Wednesday, and at one point, a reporter asked why he hadn’t invited sporting enthusiast Dick Cheney along. "Because I want to survive all the way through this," Huckabee replied, in a chuckling dig at the vice president’s accidental shooting of a quail-hunting partner last year. Any good sportsman, though, couldn’t miss a distinctly Cheneyesque moment in the press accounts of the former Arkansas governor’s morning hunt: At one point, Huckabee’s party turned toward a cluster of reporters and cameramen and, when they kicked up a pheasant, fired shotgun blasts over the group’s heads. This, friends, is dangerously bad hunting form. Your Swamp correspondent, the son of a longtime hunter education instructor, grew up plying the corn rows and stream banks of rur...

I wonder if Mika's friend is the infamous "Tommy" of Harry Reid... BRZEZINSKI: I agree with you Joe. I actually hear the same thing among my circles that I've been talking to about the story. Having said that though, the one thing that does come to my mind, when you look at this campaign, and you look at all the different choices out there, and all the different visions in terms of what our place should be in the world, I just wonder if some voters will look back at post-9/11, and I have a friend who made a decision right after 9-11, holding her baby, in the polling booth, and she decided to vote for George W. Bush because she thought she would, quote, be safer. She now regrets that decision because she doesn't feel like America is safer and she feels like this President has brought us down a path which is leading us to this very moment right here, which is massive destabilization in Pakistan . Ah Mika, Bush was already president after 9/11 so are you talking ab...

I'm sure Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi had more important things to do, like maybe another non-binding resolution on Iraq... IRS: Late Tax Fix Delays Refunds By JESSE J. HOLLAND – 14 hours ago WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 3 million people will have to wait until February to get their tax refunds because of Congress' late fix to the alternative minimum tax, the IRS said Thursday. Congress put a one-year freeze on growth of the alternative minimum tax last week, shielding many middle- and upper-middle income taxpayers from first exposure to the tax. But Congress' late action means the Internal Revenue Service won't be able to start processing five AMT-related forms until February, delaying potential refunds for those people until that month. Between 3 million and 4 million people filed in January for their 2006 taxes using those forms, with many expecting a refund, the IRS said. The average refund was $2,324, the agency said. "We regret the inconvenience the delay will ...

Clinton's "don't ask" policy As she races through Iowa in the days before next week's caucuses, Hillary Clinton is taking few chances. She tells crowds that it’s their turn to “pick a president,’’ but over the last two days she has not invited them to ask her any questions. Before the brief Christmas break, the New York senator had been setting aside time after campaign speeches to hear from the audience. Now when she’s done speaking, her theme songs blare from loudspeakers, preventing any kind of public Q&A. She was no more inviting when a television reporter approached her after a rally on Thursday and asked if she was “moved’’ by Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. Clinton turned away without answering. Her daughter, Chelsea, had the same reaction when a reporter approached her with a question. Hillary Clinton’s no-question policy didn’t sit well with some of the Iowans who came to see her speak. “I was a little bit underwhelmed,’’ said Doug Rohde, 46, as he le...

Has Huck joined the blame America first crowd? With about 150 supporters crowded around a podium set up on the tarmac of Orlando Executive airport (and about 20 Ron Paul supporters waving signs outside) Mike Huckabee strode out to the strains of “Right Now” by Van Halen and immediately addressed the Bhutto situation, expressing “our sincere concern and apologies for what has happened in Pakistan.”

From the Des Moines Register; Webster City, Ia. – Barack Obama told an audience here that, as president, he would use his position to promote higher education. “We’ve got a president who brags about ‘I was a C student, look at me. I got to be president and I can’t pronounce stupider.’ That’s not the message we want for the White House.” The crowd laughed. Are we now back to how the president pronounces words as a qualification?

NFL Network To Simulcast Pats-Giants On CBS, NBC Patriots To Go For Record In First 3-Network Simulcast In NFL History NEW YORK (CBS) ― The New England Patriots' shot at history Saturday night will be available for every household in the country with a television after months of wrangling. The game against the New York Giants, in which the Patriots could become the first NFL team to go 16-0 in the regular season, was originally scheduled to be shown only on the NFL Network, which is available in fewer than 40 percent of the nation's homes with TVs. But the league announced Wednesday that the NFL Network feed will be simulcast on NBC and CBS. It's a major concession by league officials, who repeatedly said they would not show the game anywhere but the NFL Network. The NFL had faced mounting pressure from politicians in recent weeks to make the game available to more viewers. This will be the first three-network simulcast in NFL history and the first simulcast of any kind of ...

Oh brother...Well first the economy is going quite well thank you very much. But the LA Times decides to kill two birds with one stone ...a bad economy is linked to the flow of illegal immigrants beginning to lessen. Of course! It can't have anything to do with stepped up enforcement and the passing of stricter laws against employers, could it? Nah! Tide of illegal immigrants ebbs By Marla Dickerson, Los Angeles Times MEXICO CITY - Lorenzo Martinez, an illegal immigrant who has lived in Los Angeles for six years, has a message for his kin in Mexico's Hidalgo state: Stay put. The steady construction work that allowed him to send home as much as $1,000 a month in recent years has disappeared. The 36-year-old father of four said desperation is growing among the day laborers with whom he competes for odd jobs. Sporadic employment isn't the half of it. Martinez said anxiety is also running high among undocumented workers about stepped-up workplace raids, deportations and i...

Miss France chief wants to strip queen of crown Fri Dec 21, 2007 7:08pm GMT PARIS (Reuters) - The president of the Miss France beauty pageant said on Friday she wanted the winner of the 2008 competition to hand back her crown after a magazine published suggestive photographs of the 22-year old model. "If she had some courage and a bit of dignity she would say 'I'm resigning because I'm not worthy to carry on as Miss France'," the head of the Miss France committee, Genevieve de Fontenay, told Europe 1 radio. Valerie Begue, who comes from the French-run, Indian Ocean island of Reunion, was elected Miss France 2008 on prime time television earlier this month. She has ruled out standing down, saying the pictures were published without her consent. The photos showed the bikini-clad brunette floating in a swimming pool on a wooden cross in a Christ-like pose. Another one showed her licking condensed milk in a provocative fashion. Anyone standing for the Miss France...

Based on the placement of the story in today's NY Times that assessment seems accurate... Hot Air » Blog Archive » Rudy’s security expenses scandal turns out to be mostly crap?

But will the media report it? .: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works :: Minority Page :.

The Washington Post highlights the Dems failures ( and some successes ) during their first year back in control of Congress. Talking about Iraq, this last paragraph seems rather odd... Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), the Senate Democratic whip tasked with trying to find 60 votes for a filibuster-proof majority, acknowledged this week that Democrats' biggest failure stemmed from expecting " more Republicans to take an independent stance" on Iraq. Instead, most of them stood with Bush. "Many of them will have to carry that with them into the election," Durbin said. Since the surge has produced a remarkable turnaround in Iraq and it appears that trend will contiue in 2008, I would think that Republicans that stood by Bush and his Iraq surge policy will be more than happy to trumpet that fact. Durbin's statement illustrates exactly what the problem the Democrats face is. They have so deeply invested themselves in defeat in Iraq that they are unable to admit t...

I thought Jamie Lynn would see the errors of her sister's ways and not take the same road...Well, not so fast; Jamie Lynn Spears says she's pregnant Wed Dec 19, 6:47 AM ET NEW YORK - Another Spears baby is reportedly on the way — and it's not Britney's. Jamie Lynn Spears, the 16-year-old "Zoey 101" star and sister of Britney, told OK! magazine that she's pregnant and that the father is her boyfriend, Casey Aldridge. "It was a shock for both of us, so unexpected," she said. "I was in complete and total shock and so was he." Spears is 12 weeks along and initially kept the news to herself when she learned of the pregnancy from an at-home test and subsequent doctor visit, she told the celebrity magazine, which hits stands in New York on Wednesday and the rest of the country by Friday. What message does she want to send to other teens about premarital sex? "I definitely don't think it's something you should do; it's better ...

Well thats rather strong; Wyoming's Democratic Party chairman says that Hillary Clinton will "completely reverse" progress the party has made in that state and that " most voters in Wyoming seem to hate Hillary Clinton ."

"I'm doctor not a writer!"

Notice how remarkably calm everyone else is...

Moderator: (paraphrased) Senator Obama, you have President Clinton's former national security adviser, state department chief of staff, and other former officials advising you. How can you deliver change when you are using so many former officials of the previous Democratic administration? Hillary: (laughing) I want to hear him answer that. Obama: Well, Hillary, I'm looking forward to you advising me as well.

Oops... Michelle Malkin is sleep-blogging the debate.

But even more disturbing is that these same 9 Dems voted YES on similar resolutions to honor Islam and Indian religions. Maybe they need to be reminded that the country was founded on Christian values...Congressman Steve King commenting on Fox & Friends yesterday... “The [nine] naysayers didn’t make it to the floor to debate. I would like to know how they could vote Yes on Islam, Yes on the Indian Religions and No on Christianity when the foundation of this nation and our American culture is Christianity…I think there’s an assault on Christianity in America.”

But it's beginning to get on my nerves...from today's debate. Huckabee: "I can't part the Red Sea, but I can part the red tape."

The AP again screws up the Kyoto protocol history. Now why would they do that? "The U.S. is the only major industrial nation to reject Kyoto. President Bush contended the emissions cuts would harm the U.S. economy, and should have been imposed on China, India and other fast-growing poorer economies." But these are the facts; "On July 25, 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was finalized (although it had been fully negotiated, and a penultimate draft was finished), the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95-0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98),[40] which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States" On November 12, 1998, Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the protocol. Both Gore and Senator Joseph Lieberman indicated that the p...

Aside from the fact that the gunman took his own life, this is quite a story...and now Jeanne Assam will not have to live the rest of her life thinking she killed another human being, he took care of that himself; Vet lauds female guard who felled gunman By Kieran Nicholson The Denver Post Article Last Updated: 12/10/2007 06:53:56 PM MST Larry Bourbonnais, a combat-tested Vietnam veteran, said it was the bravest thing he's ever seen. Bourbonnais, who was among those shot by a gunman Sunday at New Life Church, watched as a security guard, a woman later identified as Jeanne Assam, calmly returned fire and killed the shooter. "She just started walking toward the gunman firing the whole way," said Bourbonnais, who was shot in the arm. "She was just yelling 'Surrender,' walking and shooting the whole time." Bourbonnais, 59, had just finished up a hamburger in the cafeteria on the sprawling church campus when he heard gunfire, he recalled. He headed in the dir...

According to retired CIA office John Kiriakou waterboarding used on Abu Zubaydah broke him in 35 seconds and disrupted dozens of plots and probably saved thousands of lives... Coming in From the Cold: CIA Spy Calls Waterboarding Necessary But Torture Former Agent Says the Enhanced Technique Was Used on Al Qaeda Chief Abu Zubaydah By RICHARD ESPOSITO & BRIAN ROSS Dec. 10, 2007 In the first public comment by any CIA officer involved in handling high-value al Qaeda targets, John Kiriakou, now retired, said the technique broke Zubaydah in less than 35 seconds. (Editor's Note for Video to the Left: Material from this video transcript may not be used without crediting ABC News in each instance of use. In all cases, use must be limited to one minute or less without the explicit permission of ABC News.) "The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate," said Kiriakou in an interview to be broadcast ton...

Civil Rights Icon Calls Obama Too Young Dec 8, 5:52 PM (ET) By ERRIN HAINES ATLANTA (AP) - Civil rights icon Andrew Young says Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is too young and lacks the support network to ascend to the White House. In a media interview posted online, Young also quipped that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton has her husband behind her, and that "Bill is every bit as black as Barack." "He's probably gone with more black women than Barack," Young said of former President Clinton, drawing laughter from a live television audience. Young, 75, was quick to follow his comment on Bill Clinton with the disclaimer, "I'm clowning."

Why does Marueen Dowd feel the need to stretch her youth into her 20s ? To make a point by bashing Mitt Romney of course! Why else? When I was a kid, we used to drive on the Beltway past the big Mormon temple outside Washington. The spires rose up like a white Oz, and some wag had spray-painted the message on a bridge beneath: Surrender Dorothy! But a Glenn Reynolds reader points out; But if you're imagining Dowd as a pigtailed six-year-old in the back of the family station wagon, think again. The temple was finished in 1974 . Maureen Dowd was born in 1952 . So she was a "kid" who was old enough to vote and drink. (According to this source, the graffiti first appeared in 1973, when Dowd would have been 21.) Thanks to reader Conrad Kiechel for the tip. I remember the graffiti, too, though, which was still there in the 1980s when I was a "kid" practicing law in Washington. By then Dowd was pushing 40. So after that whopper I find it hard to swallow this one; ...

When will the Dems realize that their own words always come back to haunt them, and lose them elections. From the Washington Post on Dems being briefed on waterboarding on 2002, even one Dem named Pelosi; In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) , was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk. Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said. "The brief...

Imagine that, Americans like watching movies that show the US military kicking ass! Not According to Script Hollywood gets shown up by pro-war YouTube videos and a didactic antiwar cat. BY BRENDAN MINITER Friday, December 7, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST The guns of war have fallen silent for Hollywood. Studio executives, who could once count on Americans filling theaters for just about any war movie they produced, are finding this year's war flicks to be a bunch of duds. "Lions for Lambs," Robert Redford's case against the war in Afghanistan, is a flop. It stars Mr. Redford, Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise and may not make back its $35 million price tag. Brian De Palma's "Redacted" played to empty seats. Even "The War," Ken Burns's much-anticipated World War II documentary that aired on PBS in September, met a less-than-explosive reception. But Americans haven't lost their taste for war footage. They've just found a better place to see the type ...

From Don Surber: "Will Dems Defect on Iraq?" Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D.: “I’ve never felt more hopeful about the success of the effort than coming back from this trip.” Unless they want to be labeled as rooting for defeat they will defect in droves... See the story...

I guess when a song about the Iraq war comes out the MSM assumes it anti-war...well Billy Joel's new tune "Christmas in Fallujah" is neither pro or anti-war. It straddles the issue in order to tell the story of soldiers dealing with being away from their families during the Christmas season. Its a pretty good tune but I doubt it will be on everyones Christmas playlist nor will it probably be a big seller. And that is probably due to Billy not singing on the tune but rather the lead vocal is by Cass Dillion. Billy Joel releases anti-war song 2 hours, 2 minutes ago NEW YORK - Billy Joel has released a new pop single, the anti-war "Christmas in Fallujah." Just don't expect to hear his voice on it. ADVERTISEMENT At 58, Joel felt he was too old to sing the song, which was inspired by letters the Piano Man received from soldiers in Iraq. So he gave it to Cass Dillon, a 21-year-old singer-songwriter from Long Island. "I thought it should be somebody youn...

But the opportunity to push Hillary has "in charge" continues... Clinton Seizes Opportunity After Crisis Politico: Democratic Hopeful Looked Like A Woman In Charge After Hostage Drama Dec 1, 2007 (The Politico) This story was written by David Paul Kuhn. Friday afternoon began with possible tragedy: A hostage crisis at Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire. As the incident unfolded Clinton’s campaign closed its doors and canceled her public appearances. But nightfall brought a happy ending: the campaign workers safe, the man in police custody - and Clinton flying to the scene to express thanks. The hostage-taking itself offered a rare, if small, genuine drama in a campaign season governed by strict schedules and scripted stump speeches. And as soon as it ended, Clinton took full advantage of the opportunity she had unexpectedly been handed. In her New Hampshire press conference, she stood before a column of police in green and tan uniforms. She t...