Throw the Dog a Bone!

Wow, so Obama comes out and says that we should drill for oil offshore. Why am I skeptical? Perhaps it's because he's been getting hammered in the polls over Obamacare. Perhaps it's because his party's getting a lot of pushback about maligning the Tea Partiers. Perhaps it's just because I don't believe anything he says.

I can only hope that the conservative public doesn't fall for this ruse. He knows that the environmentalists will pounce on this. He knows that he only has to restrict the "favored" areas to those bordering blue states. He knows he won't have to follow through on anything because his benefactors in the environmentalist movement and the blue states will completely halt any such effort.

On the other hand, he knows that his sycophants in the press will fall all over themselves to talk up his new-found stature on energy. He also knows that the press will downplay any conservative's criticism as being "obstructionist" toward the public good.

Days until November 2nd: 216! Whatcha gonna do with that bone he just threw atcha?

That reminds me of something.

What Obama Really Thinks

Here's what Obama really thinks about your opinion on healthcare everything.

Hat tip: Brian Gilbert

The Circumstance of Chance

I'm watching Joe the Plumber speak at the Tea Party rally in Searchlight, Nevada. Have you ever known of someone that parlayed a chance meeting with a Presidential candidate and became a national spokesman?

This is the beauty of the country we live in. Joe asked a simple question of Barack Obama and became a conservative icon overnight. Most people would shrink from that exposure. Not Joe. I admire this guy for his courage in stepping up to the plate and seizing upon his "15 minutes of fame" to leverage it into a national voice that has not been diminished.

What would you do in a similar circumstance?

The Liberal Attack on Tea Partiers

Or, as Sarah Palin would say, "Quit making things up!"



Hat tip: Conservatives4Palin

Still the Agitator-in-Chief

Barack Obama cut his teeth on agitating the low-income residents of south Chicago. It must be part of his core being, because he has not stopped since being elected President.

Today, from Iowa:



Lest we forget, there was also this.

Who or what else must he demonize to stay afloat? He certainly doesn't have to worry about the Tea Party movement. His sycophants in the media and Congress have that covered.

Just wait, the race-baiting and hate-mongering will probably get worse as time goes on. We just have to make sure not to get discouraged before we vote in November. I don't know about you, but I can't wait!

Tags: Agitator-In-Chief, Healthcare Threats, Tea Party Activists

Fish Pedicures No Longer

Damn, just when I thought I'd worked out the terms of a franchise agreement....



Hat Tip: Instapundit

Marxist March

What would we do without Photoshop?

Hat tip: Hillbuzz

The Feckless Profundity of a Faustian Utopia

Just channeling my inner George Will in trying to describe the debacle that occurred in the U.S. House of Representatives last night. We've now gone from "Kill the Bill" to "Repeal the Deal", in this case, the deal with the devil. After all, isn't that the biggest temptation the devil provides by telling us we can be God-like?

The Democrats have once again succumbed to their yearning for being God-like by telling us what we must and must not do with our healthcare. Come to think of it, hasn't the Left always worked in earnest to expunge any mention of God from the public square? Haven't they been committed to a humanistic approach to government for the last several generations?

And to what end? To gain power, prestige and a prominent place in Hell? For that is truly all that awaits them in their lust for governance. The blessings that have been bestowed on our country are being squandered and ignored before our very eyes.

The test is this: Do we have the faith and meddle to reclaim those blessings? Will it be through silent disobedience or overt revolt? Will we once again put God ahead of our obscene lust for Utopia? Isn't Utopia only available in the domain of God and Heaven? That's what I was taught.

Paul Ryan Know More About Healthcare Than....All Democrats?

This video is a must see. Paul Ryan is a very intelligent and honest Congressman who has proposed ideas that the Left just can't see. Where is the honesty amongst Democrats?

High Crimes and Misdemeanors

(Originally posted 3-15-10, 6:42pm CDT. Scroll down for an update.)

It's time to dust off the history books and examine the basis for impeachment. Not this instant, but in the event that the House adopts the Slaughter Solution and uses it to enable a bill to be presented to President Obama for signing. Technically, any such bill presented would not be a bill at all. If, in fact, President Obama signs it into law, what could be the consequence?

There have been cases made that Obama could be subject to impeachment now, based on past acts. The problem with that is the fact that the Democrats control both houses of Congress. No impeachment proceedings can gain ground due to partisan positions.

But what of healthcare reform? The public has signaled its displeasure with a government takeover of the U.S. healthcare system on many different levels. Recent polling, Tea Party events, townhall meetings and marches on Washington D.C. have made it very clear that nationalizing healthcare is not supported by public opinion. So what happens if it DOES pass?

The elections of 2010 will determine the path that the voters insist be taken. The elections may not give the Senate Republicans a two-thirds majority, in which case an impeachment conviction is unlikely. But the House could definitely turn to Republican control and enable impeachment proceedings to begin. What will be the political environment should that happen?

Although I think that removing Obama from office is unlikely, anything to slow down or stop his agenda is fine by me.

Update, 3-19-10, 6:00pm CDT

I'm not the only one that thinks impeachment is a possibility. The Washington Times is now suggesting the same thing. You can read about it here.

LA Times: Poll Drop Due to Postponing Asian Trip

In the most laughable lead-in line I have read in a long, long time, the LA Times spins Obama's drop in the polls this way:

Americans, apparently unhappy with President Obama insulting Asian allies by twice postponing his long-planned trip there this week, have turned against the Democrat in a major poll.

Now, a new Gallup Poll finds, Obama's public approval rating has suddenly fallen to the worst level since he took office however many years ago that seems. He was right around 70% in January of 2009.

Is it any wonder why the mainstream media is bleeding both subscribers and readers?

Hat tip: Instapundit

Confirmed: It's All About Obama

Although we've all know this for some time, Politico confirmed the fact that healthcare legislation is not about giving the American public what it needs, but giving Obama what he needs:

President Obama's pitch: Fate of presidency on the line
By GLENN THRUSH | 3/18/10 4:55 AM EDT

President Barack Obama had exhausted most of his health care reform arguments with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus during a White House meeting last Thursday when he made a more personal pitch that resonated with many skeptics in the room.

One caucus member told POLITICO that Obama won him over by “essentially [saying] that the fate of his presidency” hinged on this week’s health reform vote in the House. The member, who requested anonymity, likened Obama’s remarks to an earlier meeting with progressives when the president said a victory was necessary to keep him “strong” for the next three years of his term.

Another caucus member, Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.), said, “We went in there already knowing his presidency would be weakened if this thing went down, but the president clearly reinforced the impression the presidency would be damaged by a loss.”

Added Serrano: “He was subtle, but that was the underlying theme of the meeting — the importance of passing this for the health of the presidency.”

Read the whole thing here.

A Tribute to Ronald Reagan

I remember the day of his funeral. My wife and I watched....and cried. I don't believe that any man has so embodied the spirit of America in my lifetime. Ronald Reagan did!

To What End?

What is it about healthcare reform that the Democrats are willing to forgo their majority in Congress to enact it? Nancy Pelosi seems to want her minions to fall on their sword and pass the bill. What's in it for her?

In a word, longevity. In another word, control.

Nancy Pelosi doesn't have to worry about losing her seniority in Congress. Her seat is pretty safe. She'll still be there when the carnage of 2010 concludes. She'll still be there in the minority, as she has been in the past.

The Democrats understand that this is a watershed event. They have the opportunity to change forever the makeup of the U.S Government. They are betting that it cannot be undone.

I beg to differ.

Let them pass this monstrosity. It will determine the fate of the country for years to come, but not in a way that the Democrats will relish. This truly IS a watershed event. However tone-deaf the Democrats are to the majority of public opinion, they know incrementalism. If they can get this passed, they have steered the government in their desired direction. It make no matter if the entire bill is overturned after the elections of 2010. They will have moved the government to the Left. Unless....

I believe that the Tea Party movement is just getting started. The movement is not going away in light of advances in New Jersey and Massachusetts. There are countless battles in the future, each of which will be pivotal.

The time to engage is now! It doesn't matter what you do, just do something. Email your Congressman, attend a local tea party event, begin a blog, talk to friends. Just do something!

There has always been talk about the "silent majority" that has been reticent to engage in political issues. Now, however, those political issues are at the forefront of determining how we will live our lives.

I don't want government telling me what I "must" do. I'd rather make my own mistakes and learn from them. I NEVER entrusted government to make my decisions for me and I sure as hell am not going to start now.

Recommended reading:

Deemed to Have Passed?!

Sarah Palin Responds to Impending Healthcare Cram-down

Virtual Impeachment

Tags: Deemed Passed, Healthcare Cram-down, Nancy Pelosi

Lamestream Media's New Target: Ginni Thomas

Virginia (Ginni) Thomas is the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. She has formed a new group called LibertyCentral.org, which describes itself thusly:

LibertyCentral.org is a non-profit, non-tax deductible organization which will have a user-friendly, entertaining, and educational website designed to provide an online community for visitors to preserve freedom and reaffirm the core founding principles.

As it is wont to do, the LA Times put out a hit piece to disparage both Ginni Thomas and, by association, her husband.

Andy McCarthy has this take from The Corner, at National Review Online:

The Legacy Media's War on Conservatives [Andy McCarthy]

So let me make sure I have this straight. If you're a "progressive" lawyer who volunteers to represent America's enemies for free in offensive lawsuits brought against the American people during wartime, and then you are placed in a policy-making position in the Justice Department, we're not allowed even to suggest that you be identified, much less to infer that the sympathies that impelled you to donate your talents to al Qaeda might affect your decision-making at DOJ.

If you're a hard-Left ideologue and pro-abortion zealot like Dawn Johnsen, who has analogized unwanted pregnancy to slavery, we're supposed to avert our eyes from your record and put you in charge of DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel, an influential government position that calls more than any other for even-handed, non-partisan, non-ideological scholarship.

But if you are the wife of a Supreme Court justice — not the Supreme Court justice himself, mind you, but the justice's wife — and you dare to have your own career and further dare to be a public conservative who defends core American principles of individual liberty against the Leftist onslaught, we are supposed to assume that the impartiality of the Supreme Court (on which the wife of the justice does not sit) has been compromised.

That's the upshot of the Los Angeles Times hit job this morning by Kathleen Hennessey on Ginni Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas. It's an unmitigated disgrace.

I've looked through other articles by Ms. Hennessey, searching for one about whether she thought the high court would be compromised by the appointment of Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Prior to her appointment, Justice Sotomayor herself — not her spouse, herself — was a Leftist activist (board member and top policy maker at the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education fund) who infamously opined that a "wise Latina" is more apt to make good decisions that a mere "white male who hasn't lived that life." Doesn't seem to have troubled Ms. Hennessey, though.

Nor did the journalist fret about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Ginsburg also had an extensive pre-Supreme Court career in Leftist causes (e.g., co-director of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project in the 1970s) — and on while on the Court she has been a reliable Leftist vote who, for example, champions resort to international law to interpret the U.S. Constitution and, in a bizarre extrajudicial comment, favorably linked abortion with eugenics ("Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion" (emphasis added)).

No, none of that bothers the media. The Court's ballyhooed "impartiality" is only threatened because a conservative male justice is married to a conservative woman who has a life and career of her own, which was once thought to be the feminist ideal.

I've been writing a lot lately about the disconnect between the American legal profession and the American mainstream. The legacy media is no different from the bar on this score. Because of that, it is shriveling into extinction. It can't survive on a competitive playing field by enraging its consumer base — the only potential savior on the horizon is the possibility of a bail-out by our current Leftist government (i.e., Democrats forcing the public to underwrite what the public doesn't want to buy). Today is just the latest example of why it is heading downn the tubes. That's one part of the silver lining. The other is that the hit piece is likely to have the opposite effect from what the Times intended.

Tags: Clarence Thomas, Andy McCarthy, Ginni Thomas, Liberty Central

Sarah Palin Responds to Impending Healthcare Cram-down

Posted this morning, via Facebook:

With a Stiff Spine America Must Stand Against Obamacare
Today at 11:24am

If Senator Reid, Speaker Pelosi, and President Obama get their way, soon our country will be changed forever. Using every partisan parliamentary trick in the book (including some they invented just last week), Washington’s Left intends to ram through their takeover of our health care system regardless of the consequences.

The latest twists and turns in the Obamacare drama seem almost surreal. One minute the Democrat leadership is trying to amend a bill before the president has even signed it into law, and the next minute they’re trying to draft a new rule that will allow the House to “deem” a bill passed without actually voting on it! They’re determined to use the Senate reconciliation process as a parliamentary trick to bypass the regular voting procedure (and by the way, to add insult to injury, they’re now going to ram through federalization of America’s student loan industry with this same reconciliation vote). Is there any other wildly unpopular legislation they’d also like to sneak in? Perhaps the anti-energy-independence policy “Cap and Tax” (aka Cap and Trade) is next?

And make no mistake, the Obamacare bill is wildly unpopular. The Democrats’ own pollsters warn of an “unmitigated disaster” for them in November if they don’t abandon their plan and start over with real incremental health care reform. Incredibly, at this point, they don’t seem to care. Speaker Pelosi thinks Congress must pass the bill so that the American people can then “find out what’s in it.” We know what’s in it. We don’t want it. The Democrats will take short-term electoral losses in exchange for long-term radical change of the United States of America. They assume we’ll come to accept this new intrusion of government once we’re stuck with it. That’s why we can’t concede this battle. Americans must stiffen our spines and stand against this action that violates the will of the people with centralized government mandates and crippling costs.

Republicans in Congress are holding the line, and some Democrats are standing with them. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) said he won’t vote for the Senate bill if federal funding of abortion is included. Last Friday, he told National Review Online that some Democrats have told him that if abortions aren’t covered in Obamacare then “more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more…Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America?” As I wrote in my first post on this topic, human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion. Government health care will not reduce the cost of medical care; it will simply refuse to pay it. And who will get left behind when they have to ration care to save money?

Please ask yourself: who will be left behind? And who will decide – what kind of panel will decide – who receives the health care that government will obviously have to ration?

There’s a great deal of pressure being put on Stupak’s pro-life Democrats. They’re already dwindling in number. Their party is threatening them, and so are powerful SEIU labor union bosses. The Democrats respecting the sanctity of life have every incentive to buckle under the pressure, so they need to know that we’ll support them if they do the right thing and vote no on Obamacare.

Please take the time to get involved in the debate this week. There are many grassroots efforts under way. There will be a march on Washington on Tuesday, March 16th (see here for details). Rep. Michele Bachmann has a “Kill the Bill” online petition that you can sign here. Most importantly, contact members of Congress and offer your support if they do the right thing.

We know we’ll beat them at the ballot box, but we have to kill this bill before November. This is the final push. We must stand up and stand together one last time to insist on true market-oriented, patient-centered health care reform that reflects America’s values and the will of the people.

- Sarah Palin

For more information on Congressional shenanigans, go here.

Tags: Sarah Palin Facebook, Healthcare Cram-down, Deemed Passed

"Polarizing" is the new meme.

I am constantly confronted with the notion that this candidate or that candidate is "polarizing". Outside of its obviously negative connotation, what the hell does that mean? That meme has been affixed to Sarah Palin since the onset of her emergence on the national political scene as John McCain's running mate in the 2008 Presidential election. I hear it on my local news. I read it every time I stoop to read something in the Washington Post or countless other liberal opinion pieces, some of which pass themselves off as hard news. No, I'm not going to link to all the sources, because you know what I mean.

What exactly does it mean to be "polarizing"? According to Wikipedia, one of my favorite, liberal online sources:

Political scientists principally measure polarization in two ways. One is "plain" or generic polarization, often referred to as popular polarization, which happens when opinions diverge towards poles of distribution or intensity. Political scientists [use] several kinds of metrics to measure popular polarization, such as the American National Election Studies' "feeling thermometer" polls, which measure the degree of opinion about a political figure.

The other form that political scientists examine is partisan polarization, which happens when support for a political figure or position differentiates itself along political party lines.

Popular media definitions and uses of "polarization" tend to be looser.

Ahah! We may be on to something. The popular media (aka, lamestream media) defines "polarization" as something other than what political scientists tend to believe. In other words, the lamestream media twists the definition of "polarizing" to depict something bad or not desirable. To the contrary, a "polarizing" politician is one that has the listener choose sides, something that should be a good thing.

When all is said and done, is not the politician who wins an election the one who is most "polarizing". After all, didn't that politician sway the electorate to their way of thinking? Isn't that desirable in politics? If Sarah Palin continues to be "polarizing", she must be doing something right, because she's persuading people to choose sides and accept her point of view as their own.

That's not a bad thing. What it is is common sense.

Where's Waldo?

Rush Limbaugh plugged the music of Waldo de los Rios on his radio show and the next day Amazon had a huge run on Waldo-related music. You've probably heard some of Waldo's interpretations of symphonic masterpieces, but didn't know who had done it. Here's a sample. Enjoy!



This is surely a testament to musical freedom. The key word being FREEDOM! Freedom to choose, freedom to compose, freedom to live your life as you are compelled to do! And in so doing, WE get to appreciate the efforts of your passion...long after you are gone!

Oh, as an added feature, I can't let you go without a little bit of Brahms.

Hey Howell! What about Andrea Mitchell?

Howell Raines is the former executive editor of the New York Times. In a WAPO opinion piece today titled "Why don't honest journalists take on Roger Ailes and Fox News?", he straddles the line between self-parody and bombasity.

He missed this on MSNBC, where Andrea Mitchell pleads with a Democratic congressman:

ANDREA MITCHELL: Bottom line, what happens if you don't get health care for this president is, this is really all-or-nothing for the sense of his power, his legacy, he's invested so much in this, in this first year. You've got to get this for him.

ELIJAH CUMMINGS: Andrea, I agree with you a million percent.

Perhaps Howell is watching the wrong channel!

Virtual Impeachment

If Congress passes healthcare by some obscene twisting of rules, why not impeach Obama by twisting the rules as well?

After all, a virtual bill signed by the President of the United States deserves a virtual impeachment, does it not? Lord knows that Congress won't have the guts to do what needs to be done in the event that healthcare "reform" is passed into law. Why not the citizens of the United States?

I'm sure that Hillsdale College would love to organize a virtual impeachment proceeding as a learning tool. They could even promote it as a means to gain benefactors.

My stepfather graduated from Hillsdale College and then received a law degree from the University of Michigan. He was a politician and a patriot in the truest sense of the word, as defined by conservative principles. I truly miss him, as he passed away several years ago.

"Deemed" To Have Passed?!

Nancy Pelosi is up to more tricks in trying to cram healthcare reform down the collective throat of the American public. In the biggest affront to the U.S. Constitution yet, the chief House Parliamentarian is preparing a new rule that would allow the House to avoid a vote on the Senate healthcare bill. I kid you not!

Excerpted from NationalJournal.com

House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter is prepping to help usher the healthcare overhaul through the House and potentially avoid a direct vote on the Senate overhaul bill, the chairwoman said Tuesday.

Slaughter is weighing preparing a rule that would consider the Senate bill passed once the House approves a corrections bill that would make changes to the Senate version.

Slaughter has not taken the plan to Speaker Pelosi as Democrats await CBO scores on the corrections bill. "Once the CBO gives us the score we'll spring right on it," she said.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said last week President Obama wanted the overhaul passed by March 18. Gibbs reiterated the deadline Tuesday.

House members are concerned the Senate could fail to approve the corrections bill, making them nervous about passing the Senate bill with its much-maligned sweetheart deals for certain states.

"We're well beyond that," Pelosi said Tuesday, though she did not clarify.
While members await a final package and a CBO score, Senate Majority Whip Durbin said Democrats have asked Senate Parliamentarian Alan Frumin for information on how reconciliation can be used "with our goals" and what "the basic rules are."

Republicans want to offer points of order that require 60 votes to overcome under the so-called Byrd rule. Democrats want points of order limited and straight majority votes. It will be up to the parliamentarian to rule what is subject to the Byrd rule and Democrats, Durbin indicated, are looking for guidance on how he views those questions.

Not to be outdone, the chief Senate Parliamentarian has a different take.

From RollCall.com:

The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that President Barack Obama must sign Congress’ original health care reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package, senior GOP sources said Thursday.

The Senate Parliamentarian’s Office was responding to questions posed by the Republican leadership. The answers were provided verbally, sources said.

House Democratic leaders have been searching for a way to ensure that any move they make to approve the Senate-passed $871 billion health care reform bill is followed by Senate action on a reconciliation package of adjustments to the original bill. One idea is to have the House and Senate act on reconciliation prior to House action on the Senate’s original health care bill.

Information Republicans say they have received from the Senate Parliamentarian’s Office eliminates that option.

All in all, it appears that the Democratic-controlled Congress is quite willing to ignore the Founding Fathers' intend and make up whatever rules they need to help pass healthcare.

My thought is this: If Congress presents a bill to President Obama that is clearly in violation of the U.S. Constitution (i.e. passing a bill without actually voting on it), will he sign it? If he does, would this not be an impeachable offense?

Please don't take my word for it. Here is the relevant text you must know (emphasis mine):

U.S Constitution, Article I, Section VII, Clause II.

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively…

An excellent wrap-up is also presented by Doug Ross here. Sarah Palin's response is here.

Tags: Deemed Passed, Parliamentarian, Founding Fathers, Slaughter Solution

Reagan & Obama Debate

This is too good to pass up as a post.



Hat tip: Texas for Sarah Palin

I Could Have Written This

From the American Thinker:

March 09, 2010

I got a letter from the census today
Richard N. Weltz

There in my mail was an envelope clearly marked to show it came from the US Bureau of the Census and that said Bureau had duly paid a first-class postal rate to send it to me.

Kind of light and thin, so I took it to be a short form questionnaire to be filled out and returned; but it wasn't. It was a letter telling me that I would be receiving the actual census form soon in the mail -- and would I kindly be good enough to fill it out and mail it back.

Then a gratuitous paragraph explained that this would be important because it would help determine how much money (read "pork") would be allocated to my community. No mention of the actual reason designated for a census by our Constitution: for the purpose of apportioning among the states their representation in the lower House.

Part of the letter's text was also printed below the main body in Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Korean, and Vietnamese.

Presumably, tens or hundreds of millions copies of this useless missive is being sent out at taxpayer expense -- which must be enormous -- for printing, translation, typesetting in foreign languages and non-Latin scripts (I know a little about that part, having been in the business for decades), postage, addressing, presorting, and mailing.

How much more money -- in this time of recession -- is being wasted by this administration in the running of the 2010 census project? I shudder to think.

BTW, I received the above letter in the mail yesterday, March 8th.

Obama At The Bat!

This is too good not to share. Play on my fellow conservatives!



Hat Tip: Conservatives4Palin

Truthers Have New Ally

It appears that Truthers now have a new champion.

According to Reuters:

(Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday called the September 11 attacks on the United States a "big fabrication" that was used to justify the U.S. war on terrorism, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Ahmadinejad, who often rails against the West and Israel, made the comment in a meeting with Intelligence Ministry personnel.

It came amid escalating tension in the long-running dispute between Iran and the West over Tehran's nuclear program, with the United States pushing for new U.N. sanctions against the major oil producer.

Ahmadinejad described the destruction of the twin towers in New York on September 11, 2001 as a "complicated intelligence scenario and act," IRNA reported.

He added: "The September 11 incident was a big fabrication as a pretext for the campaign against terrorism and a prelude for staging an invasion against Afghanistan." He did not elaborate.

Nearly 3,000 people died in the hijacked airliner attacks on New York and Washington, which were carried out by al Qaeda operatives.

In January, Ahmadinejad termed the September 11 attacks "suspicious" and accused the West of seeking to dominate the Middle East.

Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel to be wiped off the map, was re-elected in a disputed presidential vote last June that stirred the largest display of internal unrest in the country since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

(Reporting by Ramin Mostafavi and Hashem Kalantari; writing by Fredrik Dahl; editing by Noah Barkin)

Sarah Palin on The Tonight Show

Sarah Palin did a great job last night on Leno. In case you missed it, enjoy!

sp_jlshow
by therightscoop