• Sarah Palin

    Sarah Palin to Resign as Alaska Governor on July 26 – What’s Next?

    Sarah Palin What's Next

    So, Sarah Palin is out as Governor of Alaska.

    Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made a surprise announcement Friday that she is resigning from office at the end of the month without explaining why she plans to step down, raising speculation that she would focus on a run for the White House in the 2012 race.

    The former Republican vice presidential candidate hastily called a news conference Friday morning at her home in suburban Wasilla, giving such short notice that only a few reporters actually made it to the announcement. State troopers blocked late-arriving media outside her home, and her spokesman, Dave Murrow, finally emerged to confirm that Palin will step down July 26. He refused to give details about the governor’s future plans.

    “Once I decided not to run for re-election, I also felt that to embrace the conventional Lame Duck status in this particular climate would just be another dose of politics as usual, something I campaigned against and will always oppose,” Palin said in a statement released by her office.

    Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will be inaugurated at the governor’s picnic in Fairbanks at the end of the month, Murrow said.

    A shrewd political move or is Sarah Palin bidding farewell to political life? And, for how long?

    On Twitter, Sarah Palin tweeted:”We’ll soon attach info on decision to not seek re-election … this is in Alaska’s best interest, my family’s happy … it is good. Stay tuned”

    Flap’s take:

    Sarah Palin is fed up with political life and will step back for now in holding public office. She will take her celebrity and do the following:

    • Raise money for the GOP on the banquet circuit
    • Host a talk radio show
    • Host or co-host a television show
    • Write books with the concomitant tours
    • And, most importantly – raise her children and spend time with her husband, Todd.

    Then, and only then will she entertain running for office again – if she ever does.


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  • Barack Obama,  Colin Powell

    Colin Powell Warns Obama: “And We Can’t Pay for it All”

    Colin Powell

    Former Secretary of State General Colin Powell appears on the CBS talk show “Face the Nation” on Sunday in Washington

    Now, Colin Powell, the turncoat Republican In Name Only (RINO) who endorsed Barack Obama over John McCain is now expressing skepticism over Obama’s “Big Government Agenda.”

    Colin Powell, one of President Obama’s most prominent Republican supporters, expressed concern Friday that the president’s ambitious blitz of costly initiatives may be enlarging the size of government and the federal debt too much.

    “I’m concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs and the additional government that will be needed to execute them,” Mr. Powell said in an excerpt of an interview with CNN’s John King, released by the network Friday morning.

    Mr. Powell, a retired U.S. army general who rose to political prominence after a long and accomplished military career, said that health care reform and many of Mr. Obama’s other initiatives are “important” to Americans.

    But, he said, “one of the cautions that has to be given to the president — and I’ve talked to some of his people about this — is that you can’t have so many things on the table that you can’t absorb it all.”

    “And we can’t pay for it all,” said Mr. Powell, who was the first African-American to serve as secretary of state, under former President George W. Bush. He was also national security adviser to President Reagan, and was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H.W. Bush from 1989 to 1993.

    Guess Obama did not deliver a plum appointment for Colin and now he feels free to lecture the President.

    But, we all know what a fair weather friend Colin is, now don’t we?


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  • Dentistry,  Medicare

    Blind Man’s Tooth – Eye Implant Enables Him to See Wife for First Time

    tooth and eye implant

    Martin Jones opens his newly-sighted eye fitted with a tooth

    Wow!

    What a story.

    When Martin Jones met his wife four years ago he never imagined that one day he would get to see what she looked like.

    The 42-year-old builder was left blind after an accident at work more than a decade ago.

    But a remarkable operation – which implants part of his tooth in his eye –  has now pierced his world of darkness.

    The procedure, performed less than 50 times before in Britain, uses the segment of tooth as a holder for a new lens grafted from his skin.

    ‘The doctors took the bandages off and it was like looking through water and then I saw this figure and it was her,’ he said today.

    ‘She’s wonderful and lovely. It was unbelievable to see her for the first time.’

    Congrats to this chap and to the eye surgeons who have perfected this procedure.


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  • Barack Obama,  North Korea

    Shocking Surprise: With Soviet Parts North Korea Taepodong – 2 Could Reach United States

    This is North Korea’s Taepodong-2 missile which has a range of 4,000 miles. Intelligence analysts do not believe it would be capable of hitting Hawaii which is 4,500 miles away – Uh Wrong!

    Oops, somebody miscalculated here.

    With concerns rising about a possible North Korean long-range missile test this weekend, two independent scientists say the regime may be using an old Soviet ballistic missile to boost a rocket capable of reaching the West Coast of the United States.

    North Korea is not known to have nuclear warheads and faces years of research and testing before building such a reliable weapon.

    But the scientists say that if North Korea does have such a Russian-made ballistic missile in its arsenal, it could modify the rocket into a two-stage missile that could reach Seattle, Wash., carrying a 900-kilogram warhead, or San Francisco carrying a 700-kilogram charge.

    The design of a long-range missile tested by North Korea last April “represents a very significant advance in rocket technology,” said Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Ted Postol and Union of Concerned Scientists’ David Wright in a June 29 assessment published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

    Using data and imagery from North Korea’s April 4 launch, Postol and Wright calculated that the second stage of the North Korean rocket had the external dimensions, engine power and key features of an SS-N 6, a Soviet submarine-launched ballistic missile first deployed in 1968.

    Their theory is at odds with U.S. officials’ skepticism of the recent North Korean long-range missile launch, dismissed as a failure.

    Missile expert and former U.N. arms inspector Mike Elleman cautioned against assuming that the similarities between the external dimensions of the North Korean second stage and the SS-N 6 mean that the two are the same technology.

    But Elleman added that the coincidence is hard to explain.

    Geoffrey Forden, another missile expert with MIT, sees merit in the Russian missile theory and believes North Korea may have its own production line for SS-N 6 missile components.

    Guess President Obama might reverse his cuts in the National Missile Defense Program now, eh?

    Stay tuned…….


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  • Jonah Goldberg,  National Review,  Sarah Palin

    National Review to Sarah Palin: Stay Home and Bake Cookies

    This photo provided by the U.S. Navy shows Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, left, and her husband Todd, addressing the crew of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, June 22, 2009

    Normally I like Jonah Goldberg’s work but today he resumes the “in the tank” mentality for Mitt Romney at National Review in this piece.

    The subhead says it all:

    A Letter to Sarah Palin

    Stay home and do your job and your homework.

    Please Jonah and National Review. Why don’t you just tell this “unqualified” Alaska Governor woman to just stay home and bake cookies.

    Sure, you guys want Mitt Romney – and why that is – is due to the fact he has pumped money into your fledgling magazine and your careers, but sheesh. If Palin wants to run now or later – let her do it her way – even with all of the carping from the LEFT and Romney right.

    I was disappointed in the National Review during the 2008 GOP Presidential season and continue to be. As a conservative voice of reason you have lost your way.


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  • Barack Obama,  Day By Day

    Day By Day by Chris Muir July 3, 2009 – Red Shirt Diaries

    day by day 070309

    Day By Day by Chris Muir

    Of course, Chris, Obama has a ready supply of Che and Mao shirts. They sit in his closet next to the hamper with all of the RED diapers as remembrances from his Administration staff.

    This coziness with the world-wide LEFT gives me pause. What is Obama selling?

    And, is he selling out America?

    Time will tell.

    Previous:

    The Day By Day Archive


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  • Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2009-07-02

    • Former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney — who was aboard a ship the Israeli navy intercepted this week — is in a detention center and will be returned to the United States, the U.S. Embassy said.
      McKinney was among those on a ship that the Israeli Defense Forces said violated an Israeli blockade and crossed into Gazan waters on Tuesday.

      The Israeli navy gained control of the ship and took McKinney and about 20 people into custody, said the Free Gaza Movement, a human rights group that sent the ship.

      The group said the ship, which it calls Spirit of Humanity, was carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza.

      McKinney served six terms in the House of Representatives as a Democrat from Georgia and was the Green Party's 2008 presidential nominee.

      The ex-lawmaker is in the Givon immigration detention center in the central Israeli city of Ramle, the U.S. Embassy said.

      She has been given deportation papers but has refused to sign them, the embassy said.

    • Those who oppose Iran acquiring nuclear weapons are left in the near term with only the option of targeted military force against its weapons facilities. Significantly, the uprising in Iran also makes it more likely that an effective public diplomacy campaign could be waged in the country to explain to Iranians that such an attack is directed against the regime, not against the Iranian people. This was always true, but it has become even more important to make this case emphatically, when the gulf between the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the citizens of Iran has never been clearer or wider. Military action against Iran's nuclear program and the ultimate goal of regime change can be worked together consistently.

      Otherwise, be prepared for an Iran with nuclear weapons, which some, including Obama advisers, believe could be contained and deterred. That is not a hypothesis we should seek to test in the real world. The cost of error could be fatal.

      (tags: Iran Israel)
    • To summarize baseball legend Reggie Jackson: nobody boos a nobody. That is definitely true in the case of Governor Sarah Palin. I don’t think I am going out on a limb here when I speculate that individuals who repeatedly attack her anonymously view her as a threat. And that includes members of the media hell-bent tearing down young Republican up-and-comers as well as some in Governor Palin’s own party — a party desperately in need of redefining — who are motivated, for whatever reason, to try and crush their rivals.

      The most recent and grossly unfair attack came from Vanity Fair magazine. The writer clearly had an unshakable point of view from the start and talked only to those who would criticize. For example, he personally asked me at event preceding the White House Correspondents Dinner if I would talk to him about Governor Palin. I agreed. He didn’t call. He didn’t email. He never once tried to get my take. I also know he never contacted campaign manager Rick Davis, or John McCain

      (tags: sarah_palin)
    • Tuesday night on Hugh's program, we discussed the Vanity Fair article about Sarah Palin and why, eight months after the election, Palin still arouses such fury amongst liberals and so many rank-and-file Democrats.

      After all, even if you think her election to the vice presidency would be the worst disaster ever to befall the Republic, Palin has, by and large, gone away. She's mostly focused on her work as governor of Alaska. She doesn't appear on many talk shows or do many interviews. She's been outside of Alaska . . . four times? Once to the National Governors Association meeting, once to a pro-life dinner, once to the Alfalfa Club dinner, and once to Albany for an event raising money for a museum honoring William Seward, the 19th-century U.S. secretary of state who acquired Alaska for the United States

      (tags: sarah_palin)
    • Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was canceling plans for an exclusive "salon" at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

      The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff."

    • The tension between Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and top McCain campaign aides in the closing days of last fall's presidential campaign is elucidated in a profile in the new issue of Vanity Fair. CBS News' Scott Conroy and special contributor Shushannah Walshe, who are writing a book about Palin, reveal just one example of how the mutual frustrations went even further than what has been disclosed so far.

      Internal campaign e-mails exchanged three weeks before Election Day offer a rare look at just how frustrated then Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin had become with the manner in which top McCain campaign aides were handling her candidacy. The e-mails, obtained exclusively, also highlight the power struggle and thinly veiled acrimony that pervaded the relationship between Palin and the campaign's chief strategist, Steve Schmidt.

    • True to his coming-into-office promise, President Barack Obama has held his top staff salaries at the same level as his predecessor.

      Which ain't too shabby.

      $172,200.

      True, according to an initial analysis by The Hotline, Obama has more folks making that top salary (20) than George W. Bush did (18). The hours are long. And they could probably make more dough back in Illinois politics, if you know what we mean. And D.C. house prices always get jacked when a new administration comes to town because there's not a lot of time to negotiate.

      But they get free parking for their foreign brand cars in downtown Washington. And access to the White House Mess.

      Here are some of the newly-minted bigshots making the big bucks: David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, Valerie Jarrett, Carol Browner, Larry Summers, James Jones, Susan Sher (Michelle's chief of staff), Rahm Emanuel and Jon Favreau, the paper Hillary-groping speechwriter (photo here).

      (tags: barack_obama)
    • Employers in the U.S. cut 467,000 jobs in June, the unemployment rate rose and hourly earnings stagnated, offering little evidence the Obama administration’s stimulus package is shoring up the labor market.

      The payroll decline was more than forecast and followed a 322,000 drop in May, according to Labor Department figures released today in Washington. The jobless rate jumped to 9.5 percent, the highest since August 1983, from 9.4 percent.

      Unemployment is projected to keep rising for the rest of the year just as the income boost from the stimulus package fades, undermining prospects for a sustained rebound in household purchases, analysts said. As companies from General Motors Corp. to Kimberly-Clark Corp. cut costs, the lack of jobs will restrain growth.

    • Employers cut a larger-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate climbed to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent. Workers also saw weekly wages fall, suggesting Americans will have little appetite to spend and the economy's road to recovery will be bumpy.

      The Labor Department report, released Thursday, showed that even as the recession flashes signs of easing, companies likely will want to keep a lid on costs and be wary of hiring until they feel certain the economy is on solid ground.