It's On Like Donkey Kong

After spending most of today listening to CSPAN while they covered the debate in the House of Representatives over the Republicans Cut, Cap and Balance bill I must say I couldn't agree with Rep West more.

From: Z112 West, Allen
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2011 04:48 PM
To: Wasserman Schultz, Debbie
Cc: McCarthy, Kevin; Blyth, Jonathan; Pelosi, Nancy; Cantor, Eric
Subject: Unprofessional and Inappropriate Sophomoric Behavior from Wasserman-Schultz

Look, Debbie, I understand that after I departed the House floor you directed your floor speech comments directly towards me. Let me make myself perfectly clear, you want a personal fight, I am happy to oblige. You are the most vile, unprofessional ,and despicable member of the US House of Representatives. If you have something to say to me, stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut the heck up. Focus on your own congressional district!

I am bringing your actions today to our Majority Leader and Majority Whip and from this time forward, understand that I shall defend myself forthright against your heinous characterless behavior……which dates back to the disgusting protest you ordered at my campaign hqs, October 2010 in Deerfield Beach.

You have proven repeatedly that you are not a Lady, therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me!

Steadfast and Loyal

Congressman Allen B West (R-FL)

I am doing some mindnumbing work this week so I am allowed to work from home, which is giving me the opportunity to catch some of the goings-on from our distinguished congress critters. Today the Congressional Black Caucus spent the morning taking to the floor of the house and bemoaning the various photo ID requirement laws that the states are passing in regards to preventing voter fraud, which of course to them is equivalent of Jim Crow laws. After the first half dozen of them got up all saying the same thing it simply became a carnival sideshow act. I wonder how many of those folks in that stampede for Section 8 housing applications in Dallas last week had photo ID? Didn't seem to disenfranchise any of them.

Anyway, the day in a nutshell was the Republicans pointing out the various things the proposed legislation actually contained while the Democrats were sounding warning bells about granny getting thrown out of burning buildings along with her cat food supper by representatives of big oil who were trying to catch their flight out of town on their corporate jet. Or something like that.

It really gets old when the Dems get on their talking points and just won't budge, even when they can't manage to read them off of the note cards prepared for them. There was even one congress critter from California that I had trouble understanding since her command of the English language was almost nonexistent. I am going to assume she gives all her campaign speeches in Spanish.

Anyway, kudos to Rep. West for laying a smack down on ol' DWS; the only question left is which victim card shield is she going to hide behind.

Murdoch Attacker a 'Climate Camp' Idiot

By now you've seen Rupert Murdoch being attacked by some leftwing maniac engaging in the time-honored peaceful protest the left is famed for. That and glitter-bombs.

Well, to no surprise, he's a deranged climate kook:



This cat is way, way out there. The left should be proud to have this nitwit on their side. Brave guy, attacking an old man like that.

H/T Tim Blair.

This newly-crowned leftwing icon happily tweeted the impending crowning achievement of his life.

Some are outraged by how lax security is in Parliament. I've seen this crap go on with Code Pink for years.

Racist Liberals Blast Obama's 'Stupid Social Security Tax Holiday'

As we all know, any criticism of Barack Obama is racist. Now not only are House Democrats racist, they're calling Obama's plans stupid. A few more insults and they'll be honorary Klansmen.

Liberal Democrats are stepping up their attacks on President Obama for his plan to extend a payroll tax break by a year.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) blasted Obama last week for his “stupid Social Security tax holiday,” arguing that money would be better used on more stimulative spending.

He and other liberal lawmakers fear the extended tax holiday might make a permanent cut more likely, thus slashing Social Security’s primary funding stream and threatening future benefits.

“It’s a unique tax break. You don’t just give away money, you have to borrow money to give away money, to restore the Social Security trust fund,” DeFazio said Friday. “If you’re going to borrow $110 billion, spend it on infrastructure [and] put 4 million people to work instead of pissing away 25 bucks a week, which is what we’re doing now.”

Put four million people to work? This guy's a regular comedian. If $110 billion would put four million people to work, Obama's failed stimulus should have eliminated unemployment entirely.

Fast and Furious: A Criminal Couldn't Have Designed It Better

History of Operation Gunrunner per Statement of Kenneth E. Melson, Deputy Director Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Before the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies

Between fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year 2009, ATF has had significant impact on the trafficking in the Southwest Border States. ATF has recommended 984 cases involving 2,034 defendants for prosecution. To date, 1,397 defendants have been arrested, 1,303 defendants have been indicted, 850 defendants have been convicted, and 636 defendants have been sentenced to an average of 86 months incarceration. Three-hundred and seven of the cases and 881 of the defendants recommended for prosecution involve gang related offenses. Four hundred and ninty-seven cases have charged violations related to the trafficking of an estimated 14,923 firearms. One hundred and fifty-nine of these cases involved gang- related trafficking of over 3,665 firearms. In all investigations, over 6,688 firearms have been seized and are no longer available to violent criminals and gang members.

Confused? Me too. How many weapons were actually seized. Is it 14,923 or 6,688?

In 2010 the ATF requested funds to expand the operation into several other cities.

As part of a recent emergency supplemental funding bill for border security, the ATF will establish similar teams in seven cities considered parts of significant gun trafficking routes -- Atlanta; Dallas; Brownsville, Texas; Las Vegas; Miami; Oklahoma City; and Sierra Vista, Arizona.
The first Gunrunner Impact Team was established in Houston last year after and operated in the region for 120 days, resulting in about 430 weapons being recovered.

It is here that we have our first clue about the program that would become Fast and Furious, except at this time they were called Gunrunner Impact Teams (GRIT).

It is also curious to note that the creation and implementation of these teams came on the heels of a report from the Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General which pointed out the difficulties that the ATF was having in regards to cooperation with Mexican authorities in conducting gun traces which were designed to try and determine the point of origin of firearm used in a crime or confiscated. The Mexicans considered it a joke and even after the United States supplied them with training and software with which to conduct the traces less then a quarter of all weapons seized were ever run through the system. Couple the lack of willingness on the part of the Mexicans with the very low number of weapons actually being seized by ATF agents and you have created the conditions which allow a program like the Fast and Furious program to thrive.

There is no doubt that pressure was being exerted on several fronts. Probably foremost is the budget for the ATF. In their annual battle to continue to receive funding they knew that the woeful numbers that they were reporting for the parent Gunrunner program were not displaying the best bang for the buck. Secondly, pressure to prove government assertions that a majority of firearms seized or used in drug crimes south of the border came from the United States. Since the Mexicans were not cooperating to establish just such a link it needed to be created.

The big question for me however is how could a government law enforcement agency which was fully aware of the inability and unwillingness of Mexican authorities to actively assist in the tracing of firearms, and knowing that very few weapons were being interdicted prior to crossing the border would engage into an operation which would allow the passage of those weapons across the border? It is almost as if the ATF was working for the drug cartels and I shudder to think if that is what might lie at the bottom of any investigation into this.

Anybody interested in the reports I got my information from is welcome to it. Here are some links for you.
Memo U S embassy Armstrafficking

2009 Gunrunner Stats

Project Gunrunner

Testimony Director Melson FY11 Appropriations

Fairly Unbalanced: BBC Moves to Silence 'Climate Change Skeptics'

As if ignoring so-called skeptics all these years hasn't done the trick. Now the climate change warm-mongers and propagandists are making official government policy to try and ignore those interested in exposing the climate frauds.

What are they so afraid of?

Opponents of global warming should be given less coverage by the BBC than the climate change lobby, the corporation will rule.

The BBC is set to publish a report tomorrow on its science output announcing changes to rules on impartiality.

Following the overhaul, programme makers and broadcasters will be compelled to give less prominence to those who oppose the scientific community's majority view.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the report draws heavily on an independent review of BBC coverage by Steve Jones, a professor of genetics at University College London.

Professor Jones is understood to have cleared the BBC of any suggestion of bias in its programming.

Oh, so a genetics professor is now a media expert?

But the main conclusion made is that in cases where there is a widely held scientific view, such as on GM crops or the MMR injection, the BBC shouldn't give airtime to critics of the scientific consensus.

That's right. Just shut out the opinion of others and you can all believe your own bullshit.

Wonderful.

Your Tax Dollars at Work: The Association Between Penis Size and Sexual Health Among Men Who Have Sex with Men

This could well be the most ridiculous waste of money we've ever seen. But surely there are some who would defend crap like this.

As the country plunges further into debt and with the small task of securing a multi-trillion dollar deal still on the cards, it has emerged that thousands of tax dollars were wasted on a study examining the correlation between a gay man's penis size and his sex life.

The study was among several backed by the National Institutes of Health who granted almost $900,000 in one year on this and other studies.

The institute has come under scrutiny from a group claiming the agency is wasting valuable tax dollars at a time when the country is trying to control its debt.

The Traditional Values Coalition drew attention to the report as part of a six-month investigation into NIH grants for examples of 'institutional waste'.

It has not been ascertained how much of the $900,000 grant went to he 2009 report, called The Association Between Penis Size and Sexual Health Among Men Who Have Sex with Men, but the coalition release stated that at least $9.4 million went to a ten-year study that included the penis-size research.

According to Fox, the grant was administered by NIH's National Institute on Drug Abuse, and went first to a group called Public Health Solutions and a researcher with the National Development and Research Institutes before going to individual researchers.

It compiled data from a survey of more than one thousand gay and bisexual men at events in New York city held for the gay community.

Those who participated were given a free movie voucher.

President of the Traditional Values Coaltion Andrea Lafferty said: 'This country is broke and we cannot spend money on this kind of stuff.

'We’ve got nameless, faceless bureaucrats who thought this was a good use of taxpayer money.

'But, at the end of the day, it was the NIH directors who signed off on it. These nameless, faceless bureaucrats seem to think the American taxpayers are a limitless ATM machine.

'We're spending money on wacky stuff. The president has said he's going to hunt down waste. Well, I'm going to give it to him on a platter.'

If it doesn't involve military "waste" they need not bother. Obama just isn't interested.

The study abstract, authored in June 2010, is here. A snippet:

Further, size played a significant role in sexual positioning and psychosocial adjustment. These data highlight the need to better understand the real individual-level consequences of living in a penis-centered society.

Good grief.

Obama Zombie Suggests It's Time to Skip Lavish Vacation

Poor thing, fretting that our Boy King might leave a bad impression on the millions of people he's driven into unemployment and poverty. Why, they might resent seeing this spoiled brat frolicking on the beaches, golfing and eating his ice cream while Americans suffer.

Is she kidding? Does she actually think he cares what people think.

Get a grip, honey, he's not paying you any attention.

I love my summer vacation. I like President Obama more than most of you.

But a new Marist Poll says that for the first time ever a majority of American adults — 55 percent — will not be booking a summer vacation this year. They’re too worried about jobs and money. The “Staycation” of 2009 has morphed into the “Naycation” of 2011.

But Obama, who’s got us panicked over this debt-ceiling stalemate, will soon be off — again — to Blue Heron Farm, Martha’s Vineyard. Check out the pictures of this “farm” online. You practically drool. It looks like the centerfold of “Town & Country,” the magazine for aspiring zillionaires.

Obama's "plan" is working. He's actually got no plan, but he's managed to scare the daylights out of lame-brained columnists. Admittedly, that's not difficult.

But unless Obama fixes this fiscal disaster — now — he can’t go. He should have a staycay like the rest of us.

Instead, he’ll be looking at 28 acres on the water from a pristine white Victorian farm house handsomely appointed with Restoration Hardware-style chairs and tables on an elegant patio. There’s also a reconstructed Pennsylvania hay barn dating back to the 1800s and a boat house for the Boston Whalers and catamarans to cruise Tisbury Great Pond. Plus a golf green and pool and flower gardens, vegetable gardens and apple orchard — not a droopy leaf in site. And don’t forget the basketball court.

Let’s call it a Barack-acation.

By my estimate, the Barack-acation began 30 months ago tomorrow. How much actual work has he put in on the job? Very little, judging by the disastrous results.

Meanwhile jittery Americans will enjoy their “staycations” this summer, rearranging shelves in the basement and fighting with the electric company over air-conditioning bills. The “naycation” set — that’s the elderly, veterans and the disabled — will sweat it out just getting a government check August 3. The unemployed, meanwhile, can just keep enjoying their unwanted days off.

Obama would just love to see riots if our benevolent government started withholding checks. Just another little something he could blame on the GOP, gleefully enabled by the media. It's like a re-election wet dream of his.

Barack Obama is running for re-election with dismal poll numbers, more than 9 percent unemployment, gas sneaking back to $4 a gallon and a blistering heat wave melting us all. It’s just an unseemly time for him to be frolicking surfside on a summer vacation that may well cost us beleaguered taxpayers as much as $50,000 just for the house — forget the Secret Service and all that presidential security.

Michelle and the girls would be crushed, no doubt, to pass up two weeks in Chilmark. But there are millions of other kids who are feeling pretty miserable this summer, too, and their daddies had nothing to do with this mess.

They just had a vacation to Africa. Let them stay home in the lavish comforts of the White House.

Media Can't Get Enough of the Scandal of the Century

That evil Rupert Murdoch obviously must pay for his role that has resulted in the deaths of over 150 law enforcements agents.

The phone hacking scandal that has claimed the jobs of Britain's two most high-profile police officers, caused the closure of one of the country's most famous newspapers, prompted 10 arrests so far and led to calls for the resignation of the Prime Minister reaches a critical juncture today with a moment of high drama to rival anything that the British media has produced before, either in real life or fiction.

The founder and the appointed heir to the world's most famous media empire will take centre stage in the next act of the hacking saga.

Rupert and James Murdoch will sit before a panel of MPs and face questions that the company over which they preside was involved in phone hacking on an "industrial scale", made illegal payments to police officers and sought to corrupt the democratic process by "owning" politicians. In their answers, for which they have been carefully drilled by a team of lawyers and media trainers, the pair will attempt to rescue a tarnished reputation and distance themselves from serious criminality.

Oh wait, I'm sorry. This scandal doesn't involve illegal gun-running by high-level officials. My bad, I got confused.

This one does, yet it gets a fraction of the media coverage.

Project Gunrunner, of which Operation Fast and Furious was a part, and now Operation Castaway, are without noble purpose. The cover story is that they were part of a plan to trick and track gunrunners. In fact, these schemes made it easy for criminals, drug cartels and gangs to acquire weapons.

The real purpose, we have stated and still suspect, was to advance the administration's push for gun control and the stripping of law-abiding Americans of their Second Amendment rights through "common sense" restrictions on private gun ownership by creating chaos and fomenting violence with the guns provided.

Don't get me wrong. The authorities in the UK should pursue this as best they can, although we suspect much of their alleged outrage involves a long-desired payback toward Murdoch. But he's a big boy, so let him defend himself, if he can.

What's indefensible is the actions of our own administration and their media enablers ignoring a scandal thousands of times worse.

The body count of Gunrunner, Fast and Furious, and Castaway includes Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, who was killed in December 2010 at the hands of an illegal immigrant working for the Sinaloa Cartel while patrolling an area near Tucson. In addition to Terry, Immigration Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata was also killed in a separate incident by a weapon allowed to "walk" into Mexico from the U.S.

Only 1,300 of the estimated 2,500 guns allowed to walk into Mexico have been recovered and roughly 150 Mexican law enforcement officers have been killed by weapons traced to Gunrunner. As the bodies pile up, the stench of cover-up grows very strong indeed.

Can you imagine a Republican authorizing such a stunt? Neither can I? So what are Obama and Holder hiding, and when do the televised Congressional hearings begin?

Never Loan a Democrat Anything

The irony is just so ripe in this story. First off, being a liberal herself she should have known better than to loan another liberal anything. The number one rule in their book is possession is 9/10ths of the law. How else can you explain why most Democrat lawmakers die in office? Once they get that seat they own it, and ain't no way they are going to give it back. They certainly aren't voted out.

Angela Moore ran for Georgia secretary of state last year. She said the DeKalb Democratic Party won't return the more than $10,000 worth of furniture she says she loaned the organization.

"If you loaned me something, it is my responsibility to give it back," Moore told Channel 2's Tom Jones. Moore said the DeKalb Democratic Party doesn't seem to understand that concept.

Good luck getting the stuff back or any sort of reimbursement. Oh, and remember to vote Democrat. They're real good with other people's stuff. Or something.

Steve Wynn Goes Nuclear on Obama: 'We Haven't Heard That Kind of Talk Except From Pure Socialists'

Not a good day to be failed President Obama. An even worse day when you're a business owner looking for ways out of this disastrous Obama economy.

It's safe to say Steve Wynn isn't a big Obama fan.

I believe in Las Vegas. I think its best days are ahead of it. But I'm afraid to do anything in the current political environment in the United States. You watch television and see what's going on on this debt ceiling issue. And what I consider to be a total lack of leadership from the President and nothing's going to get fixed until the President himself steps up and wrangles both parties in Congress. But everybody is so political, so focused on holding their job for the next year that the discussion in Washington is nauseating.

And I'm saying it bluntly, that this administration is the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime. And I can prove it and I could spend the next 3 hours giving you examples of all of us in this market place that are frightened to death about all the new regulations, our healthcare costs escalate, regulations coming from left and right. A President that seems, that keeps using that word redistribution. Well, my customers and the companies that provide the vitality for the hospitality and restaurant industry, in the United States of America, they are frightened of this administration.And it makes you slow down and not invest your money. Everybody complains about how much money is on the side in America.

But wait, there's more!

The guy keeps making speeches about redistribution and maybe we ought to do something to businesses that don't invest, their holding too much money. We haven't heard that kind of talk except from pure socialists. Everybody's afraid of the government and there's no need soft peddling it, it's the truth. It is the truth. And that's true of Democratic businessman and Republican businessman, and I am a Democratic businessman and I support Harry Reid. I support Democrats and Republicans. And I'm telling you that the business community in this company is frightened to death of the weird political philosophy of the President of the United States. And until he's gone, everybody's going to be sitting on their thumbs.

Meanwhile, another Democrat Obama supporter isn't too happy, either.

Hacking You Can Believe In

Alternate working headline: Your tax dollars at work.

A Department of Transportation electronic road sign was apparently hacked into and the road warning changed over the weekend.

The sign at the intersection of Unionville-Indian Trail and Ridge roads in Union County was changed to read "Impeach Obama." Some passers by stopped to take pictured of the sign and comment on the message. One driver said the act was bold because she thought the hacker could get into trouble for manipulating a state-owned road sign.

There'll probably be a Justice Department probe by sundown.

Fresh Out of Ideas, Young People Take Up "Owling"

A young man "owling" at his [former] place of employment.

I must be getting old. Apparently, there is an "owling" craze taking place right under my nose, and here I am utterly oblivious to the whole thing.

The bizarre internet craze of ‘planking’ is set to lose its cult online status to the increasingly popular trend of ‘owling’.

Hundreds of young people in America, Australia and now, Britain, have taken up the new ‘owling’ craze.

It consists of nothing more taxing than crouching on one's haunches and staring into the middle distance, like an owl.

Participants then take photos of themselves and post them on Facebook or on other social networking sites.

Extra kudos is earned for those who do it in unusual situations.

The trend is a development of the popular craze of ‘planking’ in which people would take pictures of themselves lying face down in strange locations.

However, in recent months ‘planking’ has become increasingly mainstream - and thus less popular on the trend-conscious internet.

Last month the celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay posted pictures of himself planking - a development that prompted trend-watchers to declare the craze ‘officially dead’.
‘Owling’ is believed to have started in Australia within the last few weeks.

Indeed, it is so new that the Wikipedia entry for ‘owling’ describes the practice as being a term used in the Middle Ages to describe the ‘the smuggling of sheep or wool from England to another country’.

Despite its relative youth, the owling craze already has two popular Facebook groups dedicated to it, onto which more than 1,000 people are listed as members.

More pictures here.

Cross-posted. Hat tip: Drudge.

And You Freak Out Over A Paper Cut

Just watched this interview by John Stewart with the most recent Medal of Honor recipient SFC Leroy Petry and I had to smile. I even laughed. Now normally losing a hand and getting shot in both legs is not a laughing matter, but the sort of matter of fact way and modest manner in which this Ranger explained the actions leading to his being awwarded the Medal of Honor, while not funny to most civilians, and I am not exactly sure how most readers of this blog will take it, but at least to me it was priceless.


To his credit Mr. Stewart parked his partisanship at the door.

C'mon admit it! You smiled a little bit.

Heh: Tiger Woods Bimbo Threatens to Sure Parasite Gloria Allred

Hard to believe someone would feel used by a leech like Gloria Allred.

Celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred says former client Rachel Uchitel has no case against her.

Tiger Woods' ex-mistress is reportedly threatening to sue Allred over millions of dollars she got from - and then returned to - the golfer.

TMZ reports that Uchitel thinks she got bad advice from Allred and has hired a second lawyer to prepare a malpractice case.

But Allred said she "was not involved in any way in the allegations" in the TMZ story.

Uchitel reportedly got $10 million in hush money when the Woods' sex scandal exploded.

Unnamed sources told TMZ that Woods' lawyer contacted Allred months ago to say Uchitel had violated a confidentiality clause by speaking to the media and going on VH1's "Celebrity Rehab" for her love-addiction.

Uchitel then returned the "lion's share" of the money she got from the scandalous golfer, TMZ reported.

But Allred got to keep her fees in the give-back deal and now Uchitel feels like she was sold out, TMZ said.

This Uchitel isn't quite the brightest bulb, is she? Allred, naturally, takes the low road.

In a statement, Allred said she hasn't spoken to Woods' lawyer in more than a year and she threatened legal action against "anyone who defames me."

Is calling her a leech and a parasite defamation?

Geithner Admits: We Have No Plan

So nice to see Little Timmy and his boss are prepared.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Monday there is no backup plan if Congress does not raise the debt ceiling, but expressed optimism that talks were moving towards a deal.

"Our plan has been — and it's the only plan available — is for Congress to act," he said Monday on CNBC. "Their plan and our plan is for Congress to raise the debt limit."

So no Plan B, other than some impromptu temper tantrums.

Ah, the best and brightest.

Meanwhile, when the adults offer an actual plan it's immediately rejected and demagogued.

So, How's That New 'Religion' Working Out For You?

Anybody that has even one functioning brain cell understands that Islam is cult of violence and blood. That is a message that was made clear to one of their recent converts down under.

The victim has moved out of his home but hopes what happens to him will not distort people's view of his adopted religion, the network said.

Didn't distort anything for me. I wonder if he was drunk when he decided to convert. I also hope he knows the price for unconverting is death.

Final thought. Anybody see a good Fosters beer commercial coming?

A Sneak Peek Into Those Closed Door Budget Negotiations

Any questions?

'If I'm Gov. Cuomo, I Want To See Obama Defeated Rather Than Re-elected in 2012'

Let's face it. How many Democrats really want to see Barack Obama lead us further down the path to financial ruin? Give him four more years and the damage to the country, not to mention his own party, may likely be irreversible. So if you're Andrew Cuomo or any other Democrat with future aspirations, do you get all-out to help Obama win a second term.

Some don't think so.

Will Gov. Cuomo be backing the Republican candidate for president next year?

Certainly not openly. But privately, that could be another matter.

Two nationally prominent Republicans, in an assessment that's begun being whispered in some Democratic circles, contend it's in Cuomo's political interest for President Obama to be defeated next year.

"If I'm Gov. Cuomo, I want to see Obama defeated rather than re-elected in 2012," said GOP pollster/strategist John McLaughlin, whose New York-based company boasts a top-flight client list that includes House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).

"The question is, 'Would Cuomo rather run in 2016 against a first-term Republican or in the aftermath of a second term of Obama, the most left-wing president we may have ever seen, with economic policies that harm the private sector with massive tax increases and a homeland-security path that includes hostility to Israel?' "

McLaughlin continued, "Cuomo has a different, far more moderate, model where he has cut spending, didn't raise taxes, capped property taxes and hasn't engaged in the class-warfare, anti-Wall Street rhetoric that the president has used.

Cuomo has essentially been a clone of Chris Christie, minus the viral videos and hostility from the media. He's played it smart and become a legitimate contender down the road, something I never thought I'd say. Actually, I'd take him over Obama right now given the choice.

"A second term for Obama with the same policies he has now would probably be a political catastrophe for the nation and the Democrats. If there's four more years of Obama, you don't want to be Cuomo running for president as the leader of the Democratic Party."

Cuomo may already be holding back full-fledged support for Obama. When pressed on where he stood on the president's demand for higher taxes on the wealthy last week, the governor responded with a tepid, "I tend to agree with the president's position."

Former US Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, a lobbyist with strong ties to the Washington political establishment, said, "If President Obama loses next year, Cuomo immediately comes to the fore.

"Cuomo will be the power in the Democratic Party because he has done it in a great state, he stabilized the economic situation, took on some of the Democratic sacred cows and got results," said the Republican D'Amato, who backed Cuomo last year over hapless Republican Carl Paladino.

"Generally, after a president serves two terms, the public wants a change. There was an exception with Ronald Reagan, who handed off the job to his vice president. But I think there will be an incredible weariness with Obama and the Democrats if he serves another four-year term."

Some key New York Democrats have privately reached the same conclusion.

"If the governor wants to run for president in 2016, and I think he does, it would be much better for him to have a Republican in the White House for the next four years," said a prominent New York Democrat.

Cuomo may not be the only Democrat hoping Obama goes away. In all likelihood the Democrats will be losing the Senate in 2012, the GOP will retain the House and he'll be an immediate four-year lame duck. He won't be able to govern and judging by his childish behavior of late, his belligerence will only increase. I surmise plenty of Democrats would breathe a sigh of relief if he announced tomorrow he won't be running next year. The problem is his massive ego would never allow that. Besides, he's got a lot more parties, vacations and golf to squeeze in before he returns to private life.

NY Democrat Eliot Engel Running Illegal Apartment Building

I guess New York City laws are for the little people.

Rep. Eliot Engel and a business partner have repeatedly ignored city efforts to shut down an illegal apartment at a Bronx building they own, the Daily News has learned.

One city agency cited the owners of 1142 Metcalf Ave. in early 2009, and since then inspectors repeatedly tried to investigate complaints that the illegal unit never went away.

Again and again, Engel and his business partner ignored them, and the initial violation remains open, records show.

Six times since 2009, Buildings Department inspectors door-knocked the six-unit building owned by Engel, (D-Bronx/Westchester), and his partner, local businessman Harry Bajraktari.

Each time they couldn't get in, so each time they left notices instructing the owners to contact the agency to arrange an appointment - six notices in all since 2009. The latest visit took place last month.

Each time, city officials say, the owners ignored the request.

Engel's involvement with the Metcalf Ave. apartments began in mid-2008 when Bajraktari, his friend and benefactor, suggested over drinks that Engel become a 24% partner in a six-unit building he was thinking of buying.

Bajraktari, who manages more than two dozen properties in the city, says he's been friends with Engel for more than 20 years. Since 2005, Bajraktari, one of his other partners, and their families have contributed $72,200 to Engel's campaigns.

How generous. And it just so happened that Engel happened to be having drinks with this guy and got a nice 24% stake in an apartment building. One wonders how much Engel is profiting off this illegal property. He hasn't been in any hurry to disclose that information.

Though they bought into the property in December 2008, Engel did not reveal his ownership on either his 2008 or 2009 disclosure statements to Congress.

He revealed the arrangement for the first time in May on his 2010 statement, then amended the earlier filings last week, after The News asked about it.

He claimed he "neglected to list" the property earlier because he'd made no money off it. The forms require Congress members to report any business interests.

Um, so if he hasn't made any money, why amend earlier filings?

Surprise! Obama's Stimulus Extended Corporate Jet Tax Break

Funny how Obama endlessly plays the class warfare card with his whining about tax breaks for corporate jet owners. Guess he has no idea his own stimulus in 2009 extended those same tax breaks.

Oops.

Below is the research memo I received, but let me highlight these points:

* The tax depreciation break was first passed in 1987 (during President Reagan’s presidency.)

* The tax break was EXTENDED a few times — most recently in the President’s 2009 stimulus bill ( which was passed by the DEMOCRATIC House and Senate and signed by the President. And I don’t know if any Republicans voted for the 2009 stimulus bill but I do know that almost all were opposed – if not all.) (By the way, Congressman Van Hollen told me on ON THE RECORD at 10pm that he did NOT vote for this tax depreciation for corporate jets but he did by voting for the 2009 stimulus bill…so he was mistaken.)

So…asssuming the research below is correct, either President Obama’s memory is failing him or his assistants are feeding him the wrong information or he is playing politics.

Obama playing politics? Whodathunkit?

For the record, no Republicans voted for the stimulus. So Democrats alone extended the corporate jet tax break.