10)      It’s really, really hard to be President –people expect you to do things and stuff.

9)      America needs to be more like China.

8)      Five year plans: they’re not just for Stalin anymore.

7)      It’s still Bush’s fault.

6)      Equity demands that it should be ten times more expensive to go to college in order to do something productive than it should be to go to college in order to become a bureaucrat.

5)      Spending more public money on health care will still reduce the deficit. Really. It will.

4)      Ending the influence of lobbyists and operating transparent government remains as important a promise to make today as it was during the 2008 campaign.

3)      Joe Biden is very, very bored.

2)      The problem with Washington is that everyone is eternal campaign mode. Accordingly, everyone should follow the President’s example and limit themselves to no more than 158 interviews and 411 speeches per year.

1)  Nancy Pelosi’s face really is frozen.

(Honorable Mention: McCain-Feingold was passed during Teddy Roosevelt’s administration, for in overturning it the Supreme Court “reversed 100 years” of law).

Originally posted by Rich Trzupek, at ‘Big Journalism’

Andy Rooney on ‘60 Minutes’ a few weeks back:

“I don’t think being a minority makes you a victim of anything except numbers. The only things I can think of that are truly discriminatory are things like the United Negro College Fund, Jet Magazine, Black Entertainment Television, and Miss Black America.

Try to have things like the United Caucasian College Fund, Cloud Magazine, White Entertainment Television, or Miss White America and see what happens…Jesse Jackson will be knocking down your door.

Guns do not make you a killer. I think killing makes you a killer. You can kill someone with a baseball bat or a car, but no one is trying to ban you from driving to the ball game.

I believe they are called the ‘Boy Scouts’ for a reason, which is why there are nogirls allowed.. Girls belong in the Girl Scouts!  ARE YOU LISTENING MARTHA BURKE ?
I think that if you feel homosexuality is wrong, it is not a phobia, it is an opinion. I have the right ‘NOT’ to be tolerant of others because they are different,weird, or tick me off.

When 70% of the people who get arrested are black, in citieswhere 70% of the population is black, that is not racial profiling; it is the Law of Probability.

I believe that if you areselling me a milkshake, a pack of cigarettes, a newspaper or a hotel room, you must do it in English!  As a matter of fact, if you want to be an American citizen, you should have to speak English! My father and grandfather didn’t die in vain so you can leave the countries you were born in to come over and disrespect ours.

I think the police should have every right to shoot you if you threaten them after they tell you to stop. If you can’t understand the word ‘freeze’ or ’stop’ in English, see the above lines..

I don’t think just because you were not born in this country, you are qualified for any special loan programs, government sponsored bank loans or tax breaks, etc., so you can open a hotel, coffee shop, trinket store, or any other business.

We did not go to the aid of certain foreign countries and risk our lives in wars to defend their freedoms so that decades later they could come over here and tell us our Constitution is a living document and open to their interpretations.

I don’t hate the rich. I don’t pity the poor. I know pro wrestling is fake, but so are movies and television. That doesn’t stop you from watching  them.

I think Bill Gates has every right to keep every penny he made and continue to make more. If it ticks you off, go and invent the next operating system that’s better, and put your name on the building.

It doesn’t take a whole village to raise a child right, but it does take a parent tostand up to the kid and smack their little behinds when necessary, and say ‘NO!’

I think tattoos and piercings are fine if you want them, but please don’t pretend they are a politicalstatement.. And, please, stay home until that new lip ring heals. I don’t want to look at your ugly infected mouth as you serve me french fries!

I am sick of ‘Political Correctness.’ I know a lot of black people, and not a single one of them was born in Africa–so how can they be ‘African-Americans’? Besides, Africa is a continent. I don’t go around saying I am a European-American because my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was from Europe . I am proud to be from America and nowhere else.

And if you don’t like my point of view, tough…because

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE
TO THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                                                                                                                                      AND TO THE REPUBLIC FOR WHICH IT STANDS–                                                                                                                                             ONE NATION UNDER GOD, INDIVISIBLE,                                                                                                                                                             WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.

Open letter to President Barack Obama from Adm. James A. Lyons, Jr., USN (Ret.) 
Chairman
, Former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet

January 27, 2010

President Barack Obama
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I am writing you ahead of your State of the Union address to caution you against drawing premature conclusions about the national security implications of climate change and cap-and-trade legislation.

Media reports indicate that you may frame climate change as a national security issue to prod Congress into passing cap-and-trade legislation, like the Waxman-Markey bill that passed the House last June.

But recent developments underscore the danger of such action.

During 2009, much testimony was heard in the Senate about how Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035 leading to regional freshwater shortages that could destabilize the relationship between India and Pakistan. This concern was originally given credence by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its 2007 assessment of the science. Sen. John Kerry, in his comments and speeches last year, noted how this region is home to Al Qaeda.

But just last week, the IPCC issued what has been called an unprecedented apology for including the Himalayan glacier claim in its report. The IPCC said that the Himalayan glacier claim was “poorly substantiated” and the claim was made in violation of “the clear and well-established standards of evidence, required by the IPCC procedures.”

In addition to the Himalayan glacier controversy, investigations by the IPCC, University of East Anglia and Penn State University are still ongoing into the so-called Climategate scandal, in which thousands of e-mails between senior IPCC scientists have given rise to concerns about inappropriate data manipulation and censoring of opposing scientific views with respect to climate change.

In addition to these significant controversies related to the science underpinning concerns about climate change, it is also important to consider how climate change policies will impact the military. To the extent, for example, that the national response to climate change makes energy more expensive and less available, and distracts the military and national security agencies from their core mission of keeping America safe, it could very well be that the true threat to national security is not climate change, but our response to it. According to studies by the Congressional Budget Office and others, Cap and Trade legislation could force U.S. energy producers to close facilities and cut production to comply with its mandates. Foreign energy producers would not believe their good fortune as they would only stand to benefit from such action.

Mr. President, I recommend that you consider establishing an independent commission of military and national security experts to examine the implications of climate change and related policies to national security. It is too important an issue to be driven by unsubstantiated claims, tainted by scandal and to result in counterproductive policies.

Sincerely,

Admiral James A. Lyons, Jr., USN (Ret.)
Chairman, 
Former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet