Drudge has been headlining the image for hours. No doubt the mainstream media’s talking heads will quickly assure us that it’s a sign of humanity and we can’t really expect him to restrain his manly instincts. Besides, it’s a great compliment paid to the minor and, really, he’s so dreamy. Of course, it would’ve been a perverted act worthy of impeachment had Bush done the same, but whatever.

According to a biography page dug up by Ace, the girl he’s checking out is the same as the one in the purple dress here. Assuming the information is accurate, our commander-in-chief was caught staring at the ass of a 16-year-old Brazilian girl and activist for UNICEF.

President Horndog-in-Chief has all the tact of a drunk college guy on spring break in Miami; all the self-restraint of a horny rottweiler humping Scarlett Johansson’s leg. Such a lack of class hasn’t been witnessed from a world leader since the last time Obama gave Gordon Brown a set of non-working DVDs.

Reports indicate that Obama will introduce new tap-and-trade legislation next week. Senate sources attribute the new move to his stimulated package.

Not the First Time: Ace finds another picture of Obama checking out an unknown woman. In his defense, at least the woman was old enough to vote in that earlier case.

Stand by for Congressional Democrats who voted to protect the continued payment of the bonuses, as well as President Obama who signed the legislation protecting the bonuses, expressing absolute outrage that AIG would, er, pay out the contractual bonuses.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – American International Group <AIG.N> is preparing to pay millions of dollars more in bonuses to several dozen top corporate executives, after an earlier round of payments set off a national furor, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

The report said AIG has been pressing the U.S. government to approve the payments in hopes of shielding itself from renewed public outrage.

AIG does not need the permission of Kenneth Feinberg, appointed last month to oversee the compensation of top executives at seven firms that have received large federal bailouts, the Post said.

But AIG officials have been reluctant to move forward without political cover from the government, according to the report.

Perhaps that’s because the ACORN gang and its allies on the far-left sent executives death threats and showed up outside their homes for daring to accept a payment they had a contractual right to receive. AIG would like the backing of the Obama Administration, supposedly under the impression that ACORN would back down if the plan had the blessing of the Community Organizer-in-Chief.

But the Treasury might refuse to form an opinion on the plan:

AIG’s upcoming payments do not fall under Feinberg’s official purview because they involve bonuses delayed from 2008, the article said.

As a result, some Treasury officials believe they are under no obligation to offer an advisory opinion in this case, which could leave company officials to decide the matter on their own, the Post said, citing a person familiar with the talks.

As I said, stand by for the obligatory fauxrage from Congressional Democrats. Maybe the legislative body will even pass another unconstitutional bill-of-attainder in response.

Every so often we get a bit of insight into the minds of the liberal Hollywood elite. And it’s always a terrifying experience.

“I don’t think people fought and gave their lives so that some guy can sit in his bedroom and be mean. I don’t think that’s what freedom of speech is,” he continued. “Freedom of speech is really about assembly — for us to collectively have an idea. We want to get our point of view out so we can assemble and I can appoint you to be the spokesman. That’s freedom of speech — to be able to collectively speak for a sector of people. But somehow it’s turned into ‘I can be an asshole whenever I feel like, say whatever I like, be disrespectful to people and not be courteous.’ It’s not good for our society. Not being courteous is not really freedom of speech. …

Get that? Freedom of speech doesn’t mean you have an individual right to have and express your own, separate opinion. No, it only means that a “collective” of people have the right to have the same exact idea and appoint one spokesman to express it on behalf of all of them. Quite the patriotic spirit…if we were in Communist Russia.

Via HAH.

Even with their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate Democrats simply don’t have the votes to pass the job-killing legislation at this point. Not looking forward to totally embarrassing her colleagues and the White House by having the bill defeated in such a climate, Barbara Boxer is putting the whole thing on hold and making no promises on delivery dates.

President Barack Obama’s push for quick action by Congress on climate change legislation suffered a setback on Thursday when the U.S. Senate committee leading the drive delayed work on the bill until September.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer said her self-imposed deadline of early August for finishing writing a bill to combat global warming has been put off until after Congress returns from a recess that ends in early September.

“We’ll do it as soon as we get back” from that break, Boxer told reporters. Asked if this delay jeopardizes chances the Senate will pass a bill this year, Boxer said, “Not a bit … we’ll be in (session) until Christmas, so I’m not worried about it.”

But Boxer did not guarantee Congress will be able to finish a bill and deliver it to Obama by December, when he plans to attend an international summit on climate change in Copenhagen.

With unemployment on the rise, President Obama’s approval rating trending downwards, and predictions of massive inflation from even Democratic supporters, Senate Democrats simply can’t afford to pass more job-killing legislation right now. They neither possess the political capital nor want the responsibility of its inevitable failure resting squarely on their shoulders.

More: Hot Air.

Remember when President Obama promised to end the culture of corruption and pay-to-play in our nation’s capital? Or when Congressional Democrats promised the most open, ethical, and honest Congress in history? As Jim Geraghty would say, all of their promises come with expiration dates.

ABC reports this morning that the Maryland firm Smartronix has won what seems like an enormous $18 million contract to re-design the Recovery.gov website. Approximately $9.5 million would be spent by January in order to make “Recovery 2.0? out of the site that is at least supposed track the spending of federal stimulus funds in detail.

Smartronix, a medium-sized Maryland-based firm (over 500 employees) founded in 1995, boasts a large number of government clients, mostly military. The company appears to have just one important political connection: according to FEC records, Smartronix president, Mohammed Javaid, vice president Alan Parris, and partner John Parris have together given $19,000 to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D) since 1999.

Something smells fishy here. It costs $18 million for a website that tracks how money is being spent…from one piece of legislation? $18 million? For that cost, the website better be capable of crapping diamonds. Unless of course that’s how much web designers get paid for their work, in which case I’m clearly in the wrong industry. But I kind of doubt that that’s the case.

The question now is how much competition there was for the large Recovery.gov contract. As Ed Morrissey points out, Smartronix got $47 million in federal contracts for FY 2007, and only $132,000 of that amount came from open, multi-bid contracts. It would seem that Smartronix has some friends in Washington making sure it gets the large, over-priced contracts with little effort or competition.

He’ll be helped along with his plan by the Easter Bunny, while flying unicorns will deliver him to future climate change meetings. He would’ve promised world peace and the creation of a tonic for immortality but he didn’t want to seem too ambitious in his first six months.

President Obama and other leaders backed historic new targets for tackling global warming last night in an agreement designed to pave the way for a world deal in the autumn.

For the first time, America and the other seven richest economies agreed to the goal of keeping the world’s average temperature from rising more than 2C (3.6F).

They also agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 as they strove for a worldwide deal at Copenhagen in December…

There were signs last night that the G13 — the eight joined by China, India, Mexico, South Africa and Brazil — would today also sign up to the 2C limit.

Hopes of an international deal remain on a knife edge because earlier yesterday China and India declined to support the objective of halving their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and Hu Jintao, the Chinese President, flew home to deal with growing problems in his own country.

While there are signals that India may be prepared to move, the G8 leaders do not expect agreement from the developing countries to halve emissions.

There’s a surprise. So while China and India continue building their economies and national wealth, we’ll be busy punishing our industries and driving our nation further into recession over voodoo science. The developing nations are just smart enough to know better than sign on to a job-killing, industry-destroying initiative aimed at stopping a natural warming of the planet.

You’ll recall that the Kyoto Protocol also left developing nations out of the limitation. The Senate rejected it by a real close margin — 95 to nothing. While some liberal senators might be willing to punish their own nation over the junk science alarmism, it’s questionable as to whether Obama can get the 67 votes needed to ratify a treaty. There are plenty of moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats not ready to jump off the cliff with the far-left enviroloons.

More: Hot Air.

Nothing says confidence in your legislation like proclaiming that people would run away screaming if they actually knew what it contained.

The fact that the socialized health-care bill is a monstrosity isn’t exactly news to those Americans not currently located up Barack Obama’s posterior, but it’s nice to see a temporary bout of total honesty from Hoyer.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the health-care reform bill now pending in Congress would garner very few votes if lawmakers actually had to read the entire bill before voting on it.

“If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,” Hoyer told CNSNews.com at his regular weekly news conference.

Hoyer was responding to a question from CNSNews.com on whether he supported a pledge that asks members of the Congress to read the entire bill before voting on it and also make the full text of the bill available to the public for 72 hours before a vote.

In fact, Hoyer found the idea of the pledge humorous, laughing as he responded to the question. “I’m laughing because a) I don’t know how long this bill is going to be, but it’s going to be a very long bill,” he said.

I’m sorry, but how much do we pay members of Congress? Oh yes, a base of $174,000 per year for rank-and-file back-benchers. In his role as House Majority leader the American people pay Steny Hoyer to the tune of $193,400 per year. And that doesn’t include book sales, eventual kickbacks received from securing pork, and the other benefits received by our suppsoed representatives. I’m thinking members of Congress can take the time to read proposed legislation at that salary level. It’s not like they’re volunteering their time.

Christ. It’s remarkable the sheer amount of pomposity contained within the halls of Congress. They feel absolutely no obligation to understand what they’re committing the American people to when they vote for entire overhauls of the American life. The general tax-paying public has once again been converted to the proverbial Forgotten Man mentioned by William Graham Sumner. Unbelievable.

Via Hot Air.

Pictured Above: Charlie Crist Kissing President Obama’s Posterior, Helping Build Federal Deficit

Conservatives must never forget the day that Governor Charlie Crist sold out not only the Republican Party but future generations of Americans — all so he could jump on the temporary popularity bandwagon.

On May 19, 2009 the Florida governor and now-Senate candidate announced his support for the deficit-expanding, future generation-indebting “stimulus” plan pushed by the Obama White House and leading Congressional Democrats. He even stood with President Obama, fresh off a campaign based on ripping the Republican Party and Crist’s allies to shreds, to show his support for the legislation that even some Democrats would end up voting against in Congress.

Of course, now we know just how large of a failure the stimulus package, no doubt hastened along by Crist’s vocal support, turned out to be. The national unemployment rate is now higher than even the Obama Administration predicted it would be without the stimulus package. Even the left-wing Washington Post now reports that Democrats in Washington are worried about keeping their jobs after the $800 billion package failed to create American jobs and restart the economy — both of which were promised heavily by the bill’s supporters. Hundreds of billions of dollars and increased debt owned by China later and we’re left with rising unemployment, imminent massive inflation, and major companies still filing for bankruptcy.

And what about Big-Spender Charlie? Crist, a man who helped push this disaster from the beginning, is asking for Florida Republicans to send him to the United States Senate. He actually wants them to place him in the Congressional body responsible for voting on and passing the stimulus package. Doesn’t America have enough problems as it is? Do we really need another fiscally irresponsible vote in the U.S. Senate?

Republicans have another option. Marco Rubio, at the young age of 38-years-old, is the former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. He’s running against Crist for the Republican nomination and could sure use your financial support — whether you’re in the Sunshine State or not. Rubio is a staunch fiscal, social, and defense conservative who understands what this nation needs at this crucial junction in its history.

We don’t need more out-of-control spending and borrowed money from China, Rubio says. We need a balanced budget and tax relief for Americans and businesses. You don’t create jobs by taking more and more money away from small and large businesses, removing their ability to invest in the hiring of additional workers. You create jobs by creating an incentive and providing the ability for companies to expand. Rubio understood the $800 billion monstrosity wouldn’t work from the very beginning — of which Crist was ignorant.

Florida Republicans — and the national party to a lesser extent — have an alternative to Big-Spender Charlie and his Big-Spender friends. They can elect Marco Rubio, a true conservative, to the United States Senate. It’s time for a man with a clear vision and strong convictions to join the legislative body — not one who sells out ordinary Americans to gain temporary popularity.

If you’d like to help Rubio out, you can find his website here. Let’s join together and send a real conservative to Washington.

This time on the safety of air travel, which is actually the safest mode of transportation available in today’s world. Apparently, in its attempt to push even more government regulations on the airline industry, the administration is working on scaring everyone into thinking air travel has become terribly dangerous.

[W]hen LaHood berated me for suggesting that flying in a commercial airplane was a safe mode of transportation, I knew he was perfect for a Cabinet position.

In his best Illinois tough-guy form, LaHood was in the middle of grandstanding about the need for new regulations covering airlines and pilots, who, despite those imposing uniforms, according to LaHood, display the accountability of a pro athlete. And if airlines did not voluntarily hand over this personal information, Ray LaHood would make them do it.

When I asked LaHood if there was an outbreak of gruesome airline calamities that had somehow escaped my attention, he suggested I ask the relatives of those who died in a recent commuter jet accident about safety. Americans, he declared, were demanding more regulation. And he ended with a sarcastic quip, “I’m happy you feel safe.”

Oh, I do. Why wouldn’t I? There wasn’t a single U.S. airline passenger death due to an accident in 2007 and 2008, years in which commercial airliners carried 1.5 billion passengers. If you are a skateboarder, skier, pedestrian or train rider, your chances of dying are far higher.

Perhaps Secretary LaHood should actually review the fatality rate involved in traveling by airliner. Or maybe he already has and is just lying through his teeth. I stand a higher chance of getting killed while driving along I-95 on any given day than never seeing my family again due to a flight on Delta. But don’t let that stop the administration’s fear mongering strategy intended to scare the public into supporting even more government regulation.

Exit Question: What has the government done as of late to indicate that I should feel safer if its regulating an industry? How did that governmental regulation of the financial sector work out for the country? And yet the solution offered time after time by Democrats is more of the same.

Matt Drudge has an interesting timeline of statements and actions by the Obama Administration. At 4:15am eastern time, President Obama said the following to Moscow’s New Economic School:

The future does not belong to those who gather armies on a field of battle or bury missiles in the ground.

A few hours later, the Associated Press reported that multiple suspected American missiles had killed at least a dozen militants on the Afghan border:

ISLAMABAD (AP) – Suspected U.S. missiles and Pakistani fighter jets attacked followers of a notorious militant leader close to the Afghan border Tuesday, but the army complained the American strikes were hurting its campaign against the country’s public enemy No. 1.

Between 12 and 14 militants were killed when two missiles hit a training camp run by Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan tribal region, intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media. The missiles were believed fired by American drones.

President Obama says one thing and then proceeds to do quite the opposite. At one moment the future doesn’t belong to those gathering armies and utilizing missiles, while he’s utilizing the U.S. military to launch missiles that kill over a dozen militants at the next. And he doesn’t just contradict his words with his actions. He contradicts his Vice President.

In a Sunday interview on ABC’s This Week, Vice President Biden gave Israel the green light to carry out military operations against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Israel has a sovereign right to decide what is in its best interest in dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions whether the United States agrees or not, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview on Sunday…

In an interview on ABC’s “This Week” program, Biden said Israel can determine for itself how best to deal with the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

“We cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination, that they’re existentially threatened,” Biden said.

Then, on Tuesday, President Obama insisted that Israel didn’t have the green light to launch a pre-emptive attack on Iran to protect itself:

The US has “absolutely not” given Israel a green light for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, US President Barack Obama said Tuesday.

Obama was qualifying comments Vice President Joe Biden had made Sunday that left the impression the US would not stand in the way of an Israeli action.

“We have said directly to the Israelis that it is important to try and resolve this in an international setting in a way that does not create major conflict in the Middle East,” said Obama, currently in Russia, during a CNN interview.

Obama said it was “very important that I’m as clear as I can be, and our administration is as consistent as we can [be] on this issue.”

Perhaps the Obama Administration should get together and line up its policy stances. President Obama is saying Israel doesn’t have the green light to attack Iran one day and Vice President Biden is contradicting him another. Heck, President Obama can’t even match his own rhetoric with his actions.

Thank God the adults are in charge now, huh?

Considering our nation’s deficit as it is has been projected to be $1.7 trillion for this year, and the public’s total outstanding debt is over $11 trillion, one has to wonder how Obama and his big government minions in Congress intend to fund this socialization of our health system. Well, no, we really don’t have to wonder, do we?

CBO has scored the House healthcare overhaul bill at $1.5 trillion over 10 years, according to sources. House Ways and Means Democrats plan to help pay for the bill by raising taxes on people earning $250,000 or more and taxing sugary beverages, sources said.

The tax on sugary drinks is expected to raise about $50 billion. A previous Ways and Means paper revealed Democrats were considering raising taxes on the wealthy through a 2 percent surtax that would raise $256 billion.

The House will not pay for the measure by taxing employer-based healthcare benefits, suggesting a merger of the House and Senate bills will be difficult. The Senate Finance Committee wants to keep its offsets within the health arena if possible and is weighing capping the value of employer-based coverage eligible for the tax exclusion.

Instead, the House will make Medicare cuts in the neighborhood of $500 billion and raise another $350 billion from an employer mandate. The specifics of the offsets are still somewhat in flux. Raising the Medicare payroll tax is another big-ticket item that appears to be on the table.

Translation: Taxes are going up and Medicare is going down. Congress is placing a tax on sugary drinks, such as soda, and increasing taxes on our nation’s job creation sector. They’ll drive up unemployment through these initiatives and implement the job-killing cap-and-trade legislation at the same time. You can expect unemployment to skyrocket, taxes to go up, the deficit to balloon, and the national debt to continue its never-ending expansion.

Oh, and just in case you thought this was the bad news for today, word comes from Washington that yet another multi-billion (or trillion) dollar “stimulus package” is being considered by Congressional Democrats. You know, because the first one was such a raving success. If at first you fail entirely, spend and spend some more.

Really? He’s going to compare resistance to the acceptance of unproven science to the Third Reich and its brutal murder of millions? Even if you think the global warming deniers are wrong, comparing them to Nazis? Apparently…

Al Gore today compared the battle against climate change with the struggle against the Nazis.

The former US Vice President said the world lacked the political will to act and invoked the spirit of Winston Churchill by encouraging leaders to unite their nations to fight climate change. He also accused politicians around the world of exploiting ignorance about the dangers of global warming to avoid difficult decisions. Speaking in Oxford at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, sponsored by The Times, Mr Gore said: “Winston Churchill aroused this nation in heroic fashion to save civilisation in World War II.”

He added: “We have everything we need except political will but political will is a renewable resource.”

Mr Gore admitted that it was difficult to persuade the public that the threat from climate change was as urgent as the threat from Nazi Germany.

“The level of awareness and concern among populations has not crossed the threshold where political leaders feel that they must change.

“The only way politicians will act is if awareness raises to a level to make them feel that it’s a necessity.

Gore is a classless cult leader who personally profits from his legions of supporters buying into his bull, all while running up the energy bill on his own home and enjoying his personal yacht. I wouldn’t be surprised if he laughed at his supporters behind their backs for actually accepting what he says as fact.

And yet millions of clueless, lemming-like Americans believe everything he says because fellow leftist alarmists have given him a Nobel Prize for his pushing of the international alarmist agenda. It’s sickening and equally disturbing.

The cap-and-trade legislation passed by the House of Representatives and now in front of the Senate will kill jobs in America, Democrats have conceded in the legislation itself. According to US News and World Report:

According to Friday’s Washington Times, the legislation includes language that provides, should it become law, that people who lose their jobs because of it “could get a weekly paycheck for up to three years, subsidies to find new work and other generous benefits—courtesy of Uncle Sam.”

How generous are these benefits? Well, according to the Times, “Adversely affected employees in oil, coal and other fossil-fuel sector jobs would qualify for a weekly check worth 70 percent of their current salary for up to three years. In addition, they would get $1,500 for job-search assistance and $1,500 for moving expenses from the bill’s ‘climate change worker adjustment assistance’ program, which is expected to cost $4.2 billion from 2011 to 2019.”

Instead of being a the source of millions of new jobs of “green jobs”—as House Democrats are fond of saying over and over again—the provision is a hidden admission that their effort is a job killer, not just a massive new tax on energy.

So at a time when unemployment is approaching double-digits and shows no signs of stopping its steady climb, when more and more homes are either going unsold or into foreclosure, and when Americans are hoping just to be able to pay their bills next month, Congressional Democrats and the Obama Administration are pushing through legislation that will kill even more American jobs? Change we can believe in, apparently.

We already knew how disastrous cap-and-trade is, of course, from its protectionist measures that will spark trade wars to its aforementioned job-killing aspects. The Wall Street Journal has recently reported that China plans to ban the import of US chicken thanks to one measure in the legislation, while even Democrats in the private sector — including Warren Buffett — have pointed out how horrible the legislation will be for our economy. This latest report is just a confirmation from the bill sponsors themselves that cap-and-trade will worsen the recession. All in the name of stopping global warming, which scientists can’t even agree is occurring in the first place.

Your government and tax dollars at work, folks.

Via HAH.

With cap-and-tax looming on the horizon in the U.S. Senate, how long before we start seeing environmental police here in the states? You know, all in the name of “saving the environment”. Freedom is usually taken away in the name of some supposedly good cause. Just look at this cute polar bear while we infringe on your basic rights.

The agency is creating a unit of about 50 auditors and inspectors, complete with warrant cards and the power to search company premises to enforce the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), which comes into effect next year.

Decked out in green jackets, the enforcers will be able to demand access to company property, view power meters, call up electricity and gas bills and examine carbon-trading records for an estimated 6,000 British businesses. Ed Mitchell, head of business performance and regulation at the Environment Agency, said the squad would help to bring emissions under control. “Climate change and CO2 are the world’s biggest issues right now. The Carbon Reduction Commitment is one of the ways in which Britain is responding.”

The formation of the green police overcomes a psychological hurdle in the battle against climate change. Ministers have long recognised the need to have new categories of taxes and criminal offences for CO2 emissions, but fear a repetition of the fuel tax protests in 2000 when lorry drivers blockaded refineries.

The central unit, based in Warrington, Cheshire, can call on the agency’s national network of hundreds of pollution inspectors, many of whom will soon be trained in CO2 monitoring.

It will also be able to demand energy bills from utilities without the companies under investigation knowing they are being watched.

I sometimes question as to whether the Brits know that 1984 was a warning and not an instruction manual.

With the cap-and-tax legislation before Congress, putting government-mandated caps on the release of carbon emissions by companies, we’re only a few steps away from our own form of the EnviroCops. Chances are that President Obama would implement the concept here immediately if he could. But Democrats will find a way in the future, perhaps guilting Americans into giving up rights to privacy by showing them a polar bear adrift on a chunk of ice. Or maybe, with their control of 60 votes in the Senate, they’ll just pass it without even attempting justification.

Now is the time to stop this insanity. Michelle Malkin has the numbers to call to help put a halt to the cap-and-tax gateway legislation. Call like your basic rights and freedoms depend on stopping this legislation. They just might.

Thanks to Ed Morrissey.

It’s a question that’s been posed on both sides of the aisle since the White House issued its first statement on Honduras. Despite Manuel Zelaya being lawfully removed from office following his violations of the Honduran constitution, President Obama has stood by the deposed leader and demanded his immediate reinstatement. It’s begs the question: Why?

For starters, Obama’s no stickler for the rules himself. Just yesterday we learned that he intends to bypass Article II, Section II of the U.S. Constitution in order to sign-on to the nuclear treaty without the consent of Congress. Our own president intends to ignore our constitution because he wants to do something without the hassle of, oh, meeting the law. Zelaya did the same thing when he ignored the Honduran constitution to hold a referendum that was ruled illegal.

Secondly, Zelaya is a committed leftist who likely shares much of Obama’s agenda. Washington has spent the last 7 months nationalizing American industries, while Zelaya is close buddies with the king of nationalization: Hugo Chavez. The deposed leader favors the legalization of drugs, maintains friendly relations with Cuba, has expressed intentions to get involved in even more world bodies, pursued what The Economist described as “economic populism”, and has a fuzzy history with the required oversight of elections. The OAS has said he engages in censorship and his opponents within Honduras have gone as far as calling him “authoritarian”. Right up President Obama’s alley, in other words.

Perhaps the most hysterical claim by the Obama Administration has been that it’s acting forcefully and loudly in order to ensure the international community that is has nothing to do with the Central American coup. Right after it claimed that it was silent and cautious in regards to Iran in order to ensure the international community that it has nothing to do with the Mousavi opposition there. If this is the foreign policy we have to look forward to for the next four years, we’re all screwed.

More: Hot Air.

Because constitutional violations are fun! Besides, that “living document” makes accomplishing whatever he wants to do so hard…

With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty of the task might mean temporarily bypassing the Senate’s constitutional role in ratifying treaties by enforcing certain aspects of a new deal on an executive levels and a “provisional basis” until the Senate ratifies the treaty.

“The most ideal situation would be to finish it in time that it could be submitted to the Senate so that it can be ratified,” said White House Coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Security and Arms Control Gary Samore. “If we’re not able to do that, we’ll have to look at arrangements to continue some of the inspection provisions, keep them enforced in a provisional basis, while the Senate considers the treaty.”

Samore said administration lawyers are exploring the “different options that are available. One option is that both sides could agree to continue the inspections by executive agreement; that would work on our side. On the Russian side, as I understand it, that would require Duma approval.”

The fact that the administration is preparing for such an extraordinary measure shows just how much pressure the two administrations are under to arrive at an agreement before the 18-year-old treaty expires.

Just to be clear, Democrats control 60 votes in the Senate and have five months to get the treaty ratified before the current one expires. And yet the Obama Administration feels the need to bypass the Senate and ignore the constitution? I can’t even imagine how horrible this treaty must be.

As Ed Morrissey says:

Well, that is, if the deal actually does put in place an effective verification system and doesn’t amount to a de facto unilateral disarmament.  With exactly five months to win Senate approval, the effort by the Obama White House in floating this idea now makes it sound like Obama wants to give away the store in order to score some points with his 1980s no-nukes agenda.

Democrats are using this opportunity to pass every college campus proposal and far-left, economy-destorying idea they can. They know their support with Americans won’t last much longer, especially if they’re going to start totally ignoring the constitution. You know, the constitution that states:

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur;

Perhaps Obama’s copy of the constitution has that last part scratched out.

North Korea has spent $700 million this year alone to launch missiles and conduct nuclear tests — enough to feed its starving population for a full two years.

The staggering figure once again displays Pyongyang’s total lack of concern regarding its people, as if more evidence were required.

SEOUL- IMPOVERISHED North Korea has spent an estimated US$700 million (S$1.02 billion) this year on nuclear and missile tests, enough to solve its food shortage for at least two years, South Korean news reports said on Monday.

The figure includes the estimated US$43 million cost of test-firing five Scud and two Rodong missiles on Saturday, according to unidentified government officials quoted by Chosun Ilbo newspaper…

Officials quoted by Chosun estimated it cost US$300 million to launch a long-range Taepodong-2 missile on April 5, and another US$10 million to launch 10 short-range missiles in recent weeks.

In addition, they estimated the May 25 underground nuclear test – the country’s second since 2006 – cost between US$300-400 million.

One million tons of rice can be purchased for approximately $300 million on the international market. The United Nations estimates than 9 million out of the DPRK’s 24 million citizens are in need of food aid. The total lack of concern from the Kim regime is appalling and yet totally unsurprising.

I didn’t cover the first few because North Korea launching a couple of missiles isn’t really major news anymore. But we’re already on our fifth — yes, fifth — missile launch of the night. Clearly these are developments out of the ordinary.

Each and every one of the middle-range missile tests violate United Nations resolutions and international law. So we can basically expect the response from the international community to be UN resolutions and condemnations. In other words, the cycle of stupidity continues unabated.

Update: BNO News confirms a sixth missile launch from the DPRK. Gee, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that Kim Jong-Il simply doesn’t take the international community and the United States that seriously anymore. It’s almost as if he knows he can do what he wants and they’ll do nothing other than send an angry letter in respose.

Governor Sarah Palin has announced that she will resign the office she occupies, and Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell will be inaugurated on July 25th.

More: Hot Air, Michelle Malkin.

Update: I honestly don’t know what to say about this. As far as political imagery goes, it doesn’t get much worse than this for a presidential run. She abandoned her first term, incomplete, three years before the next presidential election? She’s not even a one-term governor — she’s a part-term governor.

She will be absolutely slammed from all sides during any run for failing to fulfill her obligation to the citizens of Alaska. She abandons her elected post once something better opens up for her personal advancement? Like I said, not the best imagery.

Update X2: Even Ace, a defender and relative supporter of Palin’s, says it’s all over for her career:

And that is that.

It’s over. You can’t resign from a governorship and then run for higher office. Barring some strong reason, like needing treatment for cancer.

Indeed.

Update X3: Far too much of press conference was consumed with whining about the treatment she’s received. If she thinks what she’s had to deal with is bad, how will she deal with being a Republican president?

We better hope she has a great VP, because he might have to take over if someone mocks her or her children.

Update X4: MSNBC has sources saying that Palin is out of politics for good. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least at this point.

According to Fox News, CNN, BNO News, and other outets.

Why is she limiting herself to one term? Many, including myself, believe it has something to do with her presidential aspirations. She’s likely taking the next three years off to raise money, read-up on policy stances, and build a national apparatus. Judging by her performance over the 2008 campaign, she has quite a bit to read-up on.

Another potential factor in her decision is that her re-election was no longer a guarantee. She still has a respectable amount of support in the state, but her approval rating has fallen quite a bit since the days when her favorables were famous.

Recent polls put Governor Palin’s in-state approval rating in the low or mid-50s, respectable but a far cry from one-time ratings near 90 percent. Some tie the drop to what they say is her newfound proclivity for “red meat” conservative issues over pragmatic Alaskan interests. Others cringe at the family melodramas that have become tabloid fodder. Either way, the loss of support for “Sarah-dise” – the nickname used for Palin’s smooth-running early tenure – includes some notable figures.

Anyway, the decision can turn out to be a big gamble. It can either help to build her support and provide time to become a more viable candidate, or it can lead her to drop out of the public spotlight and become that also-ran from the last election. Only time will tell.

One thing is sure: The timing of this announcement is odd. The Friday before the Fourth of July? Most Americans outside the political class won’t be paying attention. As I said over at Hot Air, Barack Obama could climb the Empire State Building with a Stratocaster and it would largely be buried this weekend

Via Hot Air.

MAJOR UPDATE: She’s not just going to be a one-term governor. She’s going to be a part-term governor. According to MSNBC, BNO, and other outlets, Palin has confirmed that she’s resigning within weeks.

Update X2: Alaskan television station KTUU is also reporting that she announced her resignation during the press conference. Supposedly she’ll be out by the end of July.

I’m hearing from a few friends in the immigration community that Congressional Democrats are looking at a push for amnesty. While you should probably take that for a grain of salt, it would seem to match-up with rhetoric from the administration and earlier reports that high-ranking Democrats sought an immigration bill by the end of this year.

Typically the argument has been that the 12 to 20 million illegal aliens in this nation are doing the jobs Americans won’t do. Well, that argument doesn’t fly as well during a period approaching double-digit unemployment, when millions of Americans are looking for jobs to pay their bills. Americans simply aren’t going to buy that Joe Smith, unemployed and trying to pay his mortgage, wouldn’t work in a factory.

President Obama, when addressing the issue earlier this year, mentioned the taxes the the millions of illegal aliens fail to generate by being categorized as illegal. That seems to be the argument that proponents of amnesty will look towards this time: That, considering we’re in a recession and spending has gotten out of control, we need their tax dollars to help cover the nation’s tab. How to acquire those tax dollars? Why, legalize them all immediately, you see. It’s a matter of the nation’s economy and helping to fix the massive national debt Americans are concerned about, in other words.

In which the boy king once again exposes his complete naivete when it comes to foreign policy. There was a time when Russia and China were the biggest roadblocks to pushing Iran into submission; now it appears to be the administration in Washington.

The United States is opposed to enacting a new set of financial sanctions against Iran that are due to be discussed in the G8 summit next week, diplomatic officials in New York reported Friday.

According to officials, sanctions against Iran are expected to top the G8’s agenda. Sources are also predicting a pointed debate between the heads of the industrialized nations over an appropriate response to Iranian authorities’ suppression of reformist demonstrations in Iran led by Mir Hossein Mousavi and other Iranian opposition leaders.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi hinted in a newspaper interview earlier in the week that the G8 is due to decide on new financial sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Berlusconi disclosed that he had spoken with the heads of the G8 nations and has discussed such steps with them.

According to the Italian prime minister, “the general leaning [among G8 leaders] is toward sanctions.”

However, diplomatic sources in New York reported that American officials are working behind the scenes to prevent new sanctions from being imposed against Iran.

Why would President Obama oppose sanctions against an illegitimate government that sponsors terrorism and seeks the nuclear bomb? The administration is telling other members of G-8 that the sanctions could “backfire”, driving Iran away from the negotiating table it has repeatedly stressed it will never join.

In other words, Obama and his allies are still living their fantasy world where a repetitive and unambiguous “no” means “yes”. They’re still testing out their college campus theories that the Mullahs and civilian leadership in Iran have already rejected time and time again. The Islamic Republic has stressed that it won’t negotiate on its nuclear program, yet here’s the Obama Administration thinking that the way to get the country to the table is by rewarding it.

Christ. It’s like we’ve elected a 20-something philosophy student who lives in an alternative universe. France, Germany, Italy, and other major nations that have held discussions with Iran even agree that now is the time for tougher sanctions. But the Boy King at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue doesn’t live in the world of reality; he’s still residing in a textbook of theories.

Democrats in Washington have discussed the removal of President Ronald Reagan’s name from Reagan National Airport, the Washington Examiner reports. Apparently they wish to return the airport to its previous name, National Airport.

At Wednesday’s Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Board meeting, chairman H.R. Crawford – a former District Council member and Marion Barry confidante – told fellow Board members that he has heard talk on Capitol Hill about yanking former President Ronald Reagan’s name off the local airport and returning it to its previous generic moniker: National Airport.

“It was just a discussion. We’re not aware of anything specific,” MWAA spokeswoman Tara Hamilton later told The Examiner.

It’s clear that the current crop of congressional leaders want no part of Reagan’s grand conservative vision for America, but erasing all trace of his memory from an airport that’s already been named in his honor is about as petty as you can get.

Why would anybody on Capitol Hill even consider such a patently partisan move, which is guaranteed to make Democrats look small and ridiculous? Do they so fear the inevitable comparisons between the Great Communicator and his teleprompted successor in the White House?

Sure they would. Nothing from the Democratic Party would surprise me anymore, including a push to rename the airport after Barack Obama. Many in the party would love nothing more than to wipe away the successful two terms of the small government, strong-defense president.

H/t Hot Air Headlines.

If President Obama’s response to the Honduran coup is any indication of his future foreign policy goals, we should all be very concerned. According to Bloomberg, Washington has suspended some of its aide to Honduras following the recent removal of leftist thug Manuel Zelaya from power.

Deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said he’s plotting his return to the Central American nation and called for “strong” action from the U.S. to help restore him to power.

“Their words are strong,” Zelaya said today during an interview in the lobby of the Sheraton hotel in Panama. “We’re going to see now if their actions are strong.”…

The U.S. has suspended some aid to Honduras while it evaluates whether the removal of Zelaya meets the definition of a military coup under American law.

“We’ve taken some actions to hit the pause button on assistance programs which we would be legally required to terminate” if it is found to have been a military coup, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters today in Washington…

Supreme Court Justice Rosalinda Cruz said in an interview yesterday that the military acted under judicial orders when it deposed Zelaya, rejecting the view of President Barack Obama and other leaders that he was toppled in a coup.

Just to be clear, Zelaya was violating his nation’s constitution at the time of his removal. As the report notes, the military only acted on court order after Zelaya moved forward with an illegal referendum and ignored his nation’s system of checks-and-balances. He was attempting to utilize the military to become president for life, ala his friend Hugo Chavez, at the time.

And yet here we are supporting his return and suspending aide to punish the Honduran officials who dared to protect their nation’s constitution and rule of law. We’re actually punishing Honduras for following its constitution and legally removing Zelaya for breaking the law. Unbelievable.

Remember the days when Congressional Democrats were promising that putting them in power would bring about a new era of honest, open, and ethical government? Yeah, you can pretty much forget about all of that.

Spending by lawmakers on taxpayer-financed trips abroad has risen sharply in recent years, a Wall Street Journal analysis of travel records shows, involving everything from war-zone visits to trips to exotic spots such as the Galápagos Islands.

The spending on overseas travel is up almost tenfold since 1995, and has nearly tripled since 2001, according to the Journal analysis of 60,000 travel records. Hundreds of lawmakers traveled overseas in 2008 at a cost of about $13 million. That’s a 50% jump since Democrats took control of Congress two years ago.

The cost of so-called congressional delegations, known among lawmakers as “codels,” has risen nearly 70% since 2005, when an influence-peddling scandal led to a ban on travel funded by lobbyists, according to the data.

Look, trips to nations such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and other hotspots can be justified. But that’s not where our Congressional leaders went:

Although complete travel records aren’t yet available for 2009, it appears that such costs continue to rise. The Journal analysis shows that the government has picked up the tab for travel to destinations such as Jamaica, the Virgin Islands and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Lawmakers frequently bring along spouses on congressional trips. If they take commercial flights, they have to buy tickets for spouses. If they fly on government planes — as they usually do — their spouses can fly free…

In mid-June, Sen. Daniel Inouye (D., Hawaii) led a group of a half-dozen senators and their spouses on a four-day trip to France for the biennial Paris Air Show. An itinerary for the event shows that lawmakers flew on the Air Force’s version of the Boeing 737, which costs $5,700 an hour to operate. They stayed at the Intercontinental Paris Le Grand Hotel, which advertises rooms from $460 a night.

The lawmakers were invited to a dinner party at the U.S. Embassy and had cocktails at a private party at the Eiffel Tower. Mr. Inouye attended a dinner sponsored by the Aerospace Industries Association, a U.S. trade group. Another senator on the trip, Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby, took a cruise on the River Seine with defense-industry executives and elected officials from Alabama, Mississippi and Florida.

So while Americans are losing their jobs, trying to pay their bills, and worry about the massive spending from Washington, our Congressional leaders are taking taxpayer-funded vacations to exotic locales. Craptastic.

Thanks to Ed Morrissey.

Thank God for that Obama stimulus package, huh? We were warned that unemployment could hit 9% if we didn’t pass it immediately and without reading the contents. Now the national unemployment is only, er, 9.5% and growing. *launch confetti cannons*

WASHINGTON – 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.

You’ll be comforted to know that President Obama is “deeply concerned” that he won’t get re-elected that the unemployment percentage isn’t going down anytime soon, with many economists predicting a double-digit figure by the end of summer. We’ll add this to the other events Obama is “deeply concerned” about, including but not limited to the Iranian election violence, the ongoing missile tests in North Korea, and the coup in Honduras.

June’s payroll reductions were deeper than the 363,000 that economists expected and average weekly earnings dropped to the lowest level in nearly a year.

However, the rise in the unemployment rate from 9.4 percent in May wasn’t as sharp as the expected 9.6 percent. Still, many economists predict the jobless rate will hit 10 percent this year, and keep rising into next year, before falling back.

All told, 14.7 million people were unemployed in June.

The good news is that the chance of amnesty passing this year dwindles as the unemployment figure rises. It’s kind of hard to sell Americans on the idea that million of illegal aliens are doing the jobs Americans won’t when, you know, millions of Americans are looking for jobs.

If laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time work are included, the unemployment rate would have been 16.5 percent in June, the highest on records dating to 1994.

“We were on the road of things getting less bad in the jobs market, and that has been temporarily waylaid,” said economist Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics. “But this doesn’t change my view that the recession will end later this year. We’re probably two months away.”

The Dow Jones is down 177 points as I post this.

The Washington Post has cancelled a service it planned on providing to offer lobbyists face time with Obama Administration officials for a fee. Here’s what the legendary paper would’ve done for the price:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off the record, non-confrontational access to “those powerful few” — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.

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

The offer—which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters—is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.

Just how brazen was this flier in offering the paper’s pimping services?

“Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate,” says the one-page flier. “Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth … Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama Administration and Congressional leaders …

“Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No. The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it.["]

Wow. Spirited and relaxed bought time with high-ranking government officials. Lovely.

Following public and even media pressure, the paper has decided not to go ahead with the program. Apparently the response wasn’t as pleasant as the publisher had hoped, as Weymouth is distancing herself from the flier and idea altogether.

Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth today canceled plans for a series of policy dinners at her home after learning that marketing fliers offered lobbyists access to Obama administration officials, members of Congress and Post journalists in exchange for payments as high as $250,000.

“Absolutely, I’m disappointed,” Weymouth, the chief executive of Washington Post Media, said in an interview. “This should never have happened. The fliers got out and weren’t vetted. They didn’t represent at all what we were attempting to do. We’re not going to do any dinners that would impugn the integrity of the newsroom.”

Moments earlier, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said in a separate interview that he was “appalled” by the plan and had insisted before the cancellation that the newsroom would not participate.

“It suggests that access to Washington Post journalists was available for purchase,” Brauchli said. The proposal “promises we would suspend our usual skeptical questioning because it appears to offer, in exchange for sponsorships, the good name of The Washington Post.”

“suggests”? No, it basically comes out and shouts that WaPo journalists were available for purchase.

Via Hot Air.

The Obama Administration continues its reckless policy of supporting a deposed leftist leader with dictatorial visions this evening, suspending military relations with Honduras after the government there removed Manuel Zelaya from power by court order.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Obama administration said Wednesday it has suspended joint military operations with Honduras to protest a coup that forced President Manuel Zelaya into exile. The U.S. withheld stronger action in hopes of negotiating a peaceful return of the country’s elected leader.

Let’s review the type of man that the Obama Administration seeks to return to power in Honduras, shall we?

Manuel Zelaya is a crony of Venezuelan thug Hugo Chavez, has a radical far-left agenda, and has been accused of permitting the flow of tons of cocaine into his nation illegally. He attempted to hold a referendum removing the term limit for his presidency in the first step towards a Chavez-like scenario which permits a presidency for life. The Supreme Court ruled it illegal, but he pushed forward with it anyway, ordering the military to hand out the ballots. When the armed forces refused to be complicit in the crime, he replaced their chief.

Zelaya was moving forward with an illegal referendum to keep himself in power, ignored his nation’s laws, and wiped his posterior with the Honduran constitution. The Supreme Court ordered him removed from power, the military peacefully carried out the order, and he was replaced with the next civilian constitutionally in line for the presidency.

And yet here President Obama is demanding the return of Zelaya to power, apparently so that he can continue trampling on the constitution, ignoring the system of laws, and holding an illegal referendum. All while the president claims to be standing up for democratic values. Fantastic.

Well, this year certainly hasn’t turned out the way Arlen Specter expected. Today came the latest bad news for the senator, as a prominent Democrat in Pennsylvania jumped into the party’s primary:

A congressman from the Philadelphia suburbs will challenge U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter in the Democratic Senate primary.

In an interview with The Wayne Independent Wednesday morning, U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa.,confirmed his intention to run against Specter, a long-time Republican who switched to the Democratic party earlier this year.

“I am going to get into the race against Arlen Specter … for senator,” said Sestak[.]

Pennsylvania Democrats haven’t forgotten that Specter proudly called himself a Republican and friend of George Bush until it became clear that he would lose his former party’s primary. He still holds several right-wing positions unpopular in the Keystone State, not the least of which is opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act.

Sestak, on the other hand, is a career-long Democrat who opposed the war in Iraq, criticized the Bush Administration, and supported Senator Obama’s run for the presidency. He’s a very active member of Congress and a favorite of high-ranking Congressional Democrats.

If Arlen Specter loses the Democratic primary, his long political career will be over. Pennsylvania electoral law prevents a candidate from losing a party’s primary and then running as an independent. If Sestak is as strong as many expect him to be, Specter is (frankly) screwed.

Via Hot Air.

The Supreme Court’s overturning of lower court judges, including Sonia Sotomayor, has hurt the nominee’s support for confirmation amongst the general public. That’s what a new poll from Rasmussen Reports released today shows.

A heavily publicized U.S. Supreme Court reversal of an appeals court ruling by Judge Sonia Sotomayor has at least temporarily diminished public support for President Obama’s first Supreme Court nominee.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, conducted on the two nights following the Supreme Court decision, finds that 37% now believe Sotomayor should be confirmed while 39% disagree.

Two weeks ago, the numbers were much brighter for the nominee. At that time, 42% favored confirmation, and 34% were opposed.

Sotomayor has a poor image with both men and women, with both demographics having more people disapproving of her than approving. Even most income brackets find majorities disapproving of her as a court nominee.

Will this hurt her chance of confirmation? I doubt it. Democrats are more interested in appeasing their special interests and repaying victim groups than putting up someone the American public approves of. She’ll still get confirmed, but it may hurt both the Obama Administation and Congressional Democrats politically.