a small dose of reality

How they vote in the United Nations:
Below are the actual voting records of various Arabic/Islamic
States which are recorded in both the US State Department and
United Nations records:

Kuwait votes against the United States 67% of the time
Qatar votes against the United States 67% of the time
Morocco votes against the United States 70% of the time
United Arab Emirates votes against the U. S. 70% of the time.
Jordan votes against the United States 71% of the time.
Tunisia votes against the United States 71% of the time.
Saudi Arabia votes against the United States 73% of the time.
Yemen votes against the United States 74% of the time.
Algeria votes against the United States 74% of the time.
Oman votes against the United States 74% of the time.
Sudan votes against the United States 75% of the time.
Pakistan votes against the United States 75% of the time.
Libya votes against the United States 76% of the time.
Egypt votes against the United States 79% of the time.
Lebanon votes against the United States 80% of the time.
India votes against the United States 81% of the time.
Syria votes against the United States 84% of the time.
Mauritania votes against the United States 87% of the time.

U S Foreign Aid to those that hate us:

Egypt, for example, after voting 79% of the time against
 the United States, still receives $2 billion annually in US
Foreign Aid.

Jordan votes 71% against the United States
and receives $192,814,000 annually in US Foreign Aid.

Pakistan votes 75% against the United States
receives $6,721,000 annually in US Foreign Aid

India votes 81% against the United States
receives $143,699,000 annually.

Perhaps it is time to get out of the UN and give the tax savings back to
the American workers who are having to skimp and sacrifice to pay the taxes

Recently Jay has had his writers brouse blogs for possible materials.  He is preparing a series of jokes about dopey progressive blogs where there is no give and take.  The bit he plans to do will include him writing his own clever comments to some of the dopeisms his writers find.

For Our Democratic Friends:

"Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. We also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. And without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee. By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher."

For Our Republican Friends:

Here's wishing all of You a

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Be careful and do not let millard use this well intentioned tool to eliminate the dissemination of the truth.

In an effort to steal business from Weightwathers and other competitors, Jenny Craig announced that Michael Moore  will be their public face beginning in January

Hmmmm....maybe I don't like what is going on in Mexico politically....do I have the right to hop aboard my tacomobile and go there and vote just the same as a real Mexican citizen?   

Can I rent a gulfstream  and zip over to France  and vote for my favorite fascist? 

 

Maybe certain INS employees are not US citizens and are afraid of being uncovered.  About four million new BCCs, also called Laser Visas, micas, or pasaportes locales, are held by Mexican citizens, allowing them to cross into the US for up to 72 hours, staying within 25 miles of the border (65 miles for Tucson AZ); The BCC is probably the largest mandatory biometric ID program run by the federal government (there is also a new biometric version of the so-called “green card,” but older versions of the card are still valid). The card’s manufacturer, Drexler Technologies, calls it the “World's Most Secure ID Card” and the “World's Most Counterfeit Resistant Card” – so, clearly, this is being held up (at least by the vendor) as a good test case.

DNC chairman Dean approached the lovable rascal  about becoming a presidential candidate in 2008 as part of Dean's anti Hillary strategy.  Knight told Dean to go to hell and immediately registered as a Republican.  This signifies the beginning of a Hollywood wake up call that show biz has been backing the wrong jackass.

The INS issued a bulletin eliminating paid kwanzaa holiday time and prohibiting paid sick or personal time during kwanzaa.  This policy is retroactive effective January 2000 and any employees who do not reimburse the INS for salary received during the interim no later than January 31, 2006 will be terminated without notice.

"Any American whose views are to the left of mine is subject to immediate deportation", said the Senator on Wednesday.  He then added, "Any such American who puts those views on the Internet shall have their hands chopped off to prevent further ridiculous rantings.  If they then try to keyboard with any other body part, that part too shall be chopped off."

Further Fatwas may be issued as necessary.

               A SPECIAL INVITATION
Please join Christopher Buckley and National Review editors on February 9th in New York City to support NR and NRO. Details.  Rumor has it that millardoretardo's bloghi.com pals will underwrite her trip. 
 

Seriousness is stupidity sent to college.
P. J. O'Rourke

As the new year approaches, it is not a bad idea for any of us who take ourselves too seriously to ask for a second opinion.

“The trouble with our liberal friends
is not that they’re ignorant:
It’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”
- Ronald Reagan

Listen up millardo...you MIGHT learn some TRUTH...

I believe more African-Americans spent this season reflecting on the birth of Christ than some phony non-Christian holiday invented a few decades ago by an FBI stooge. Kwanzaa is a holiday for white liberals, not blacks.

It is a fact that Kwanzaa was invented in 1966 by a black radical FBI stooge, Ron Karenga, aka Dr. Maulana Karenga. Karenga was a founder of United Slaves, a violent nationalist rival to the Black Panthers and a dupe of the FBI.

In what was probably ultimately a foolish gamble, during the madness of the '60s the FBI encouraged the most extreme black nationalist organizations in order to discredit and split the left. The more preposterous the organization, the better. Karenga's United Slaves was perfect. In the annals of the American '60s, Karenga was the Father Gapon, stooge of the czarist police.

Despite modern perceptions that blend all the black activists of the '60s, the Black Panthers did not hate whites. They did not seek armed revolution. Those were the precepts of Karenga's United Slaves. United Slaves were proto-fascists, walking around in dashikis, gunning down Black Panthers and adopting invented "African" names. (That was a big help to the black community: How many boys named "Jamal" currently sit on death row?)

Whether Karenga was a willing dupe, or just a dupe, remains unclear. Curiously, in a 1995 interview with Ethnic NewsWatch, Karenga matter-of-factly explained that the forces out to get O.J. Simpson for the "framed" murder of two whites included: "the FBI, the CIA, the State Department, Interpol, the Chicago Police Department" and so on. Karenga should know about FBI infiltration. (He further noted that the evidence against O.J. "was not strong enough to prohibit or eliminate unreasonable doubt" — an interesting standard of proof.)

In the category of the-gentleman-doth-protest-too-much, back in the '70s, Karenga was quick to criticize rumors that black radicals were government-supported. When Nigerian newspapers claimed that some American black radicals were CIA operatives, Karenga publicly denounced the idea, saying, "Africans must stop generalizing about the loyalties and motives of Afro-Americans, including the widespread suspicion of black Americans being CIA agents."

Now we know that the FBI fueled the bloody rivalry between the Panthers and United Slaves. In one barbarous outburst, Karenga's United Slaves shot to death Black Panthers Al "Bunchy" Carter and Deputy Minister John Huggins on the UCLA campus. Karenga himself served time, a useful stepping-stone for his current position as a black studies professor at California State University at Long Beach.

Kwanzaa itself is a lunatic blend of schmaltzy '60s rhetoric, black racism and Marxism. Indeed, the seven "principles" of Kwanzaa praise collectivism in every possible arena of life — economics, work, personality, even litter removal. ("Kuumba: Everyone should strive to improve the community and make it more beautiful.") It takes a village to raise a police snitch.

When Karenga was asked to distinguish Kawaida, the philosophy underlying Kwanzaa, from "classical Marxism," he essentially explained that under Kawaida, we also hate whites. While taking the "best of early Chinese and Cuban socialism" — which one assumes would exclude the forced abortions, imprisonment for homosexuals and forced labor — Kawaida practitioners believe one's racial identity "determines life conditions, life chances and self-understanding." There's an inclusive philosophy for you.



(Sing to "Jingle Bells")

Kwanzaa bells, dashikis sell

Whitey has to pay;

Burning, shooting, oh what fun

On this made-up holiday!



Coincidentally, the seven principles of Kwanzaa are the very same seven principles of the Symbionese Liberation Army, another charming invention of the Least-Great Generation. In 1974, Patricia Hearst, kidnap victim-cum-SLA revolutionary, posed next to the banner of her alleged captors, a seven-headed cobra. Each snake head stood for one of the SLA's revolutionary principles: Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba and Imani — the same seven "principles" of Kwanzaa.

With his Kwanzaa greetings, President Bush is saluting the intellectual sibling of the Symbionese Liberation Army, killer of housewives and police. He is saluting the founder of United Slaves, who were such lunatics that they shot Panthers for not being sufficiently insane — all with the FBI as their covert ally.

It's as if David Duke invented a holiday called "Anglika," and the president of the United States issued a presidential proclamation honoring the synthetic holiday. People might well stand up and take notice if that happened.

Kwanzaa was the result of a '60s psychosis grafted onto the black community. Liberals have become so mesmerized by multicultural nonsense that they have forgotten the real history of Kwanzaa and Karenga's United Slaves — the violence, the Marxism, the insanity. Most absurdly, for leftists anyway, is that they have forgotten the FBI's tacit encouragement of this murderous black nationalist cult founded by the father of Kwanzaa.

Now the "holiday" concocted by an FBI dupe is honored in a presidential proclamation and public schools across the nation. Bush called Kwanzaa a holiday that promotes "unity" and "faith." Faith in what? Liberals' unbounded capacity to respect any faith but Christianity?

A movement that started approximately 2,000 years before Kwanzaa leaps well beyond mere "unity" and "faith" to proclaim that we are all equal before God. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). It was practitioners of that faith who were at the forefront of the abolitionist and civil rights movements. But that's all been washed down the memory hole, along with the true origins of Kwanzaa.

COPYRIGHT 2005 ANN COULTER

Apart from the day The New York Times goes out of business — and the stellar work Paul Krugman's column does twice a week helping people house-train their puppies — the newspaper has done the greatest thing it will ever do in its entire existence. (Calm down: No, the Times didn't hold an intervention for Frank Rich.)

Monday's Times carried a major expose on child molesters who use the Internet to lure their adolescent prey into performing sex acts for Webcams. In the course of investigating the story, reporter Kurt Eichenwald broke open a massive network of pedophiles, rescued a young man who had been abused for years, and led the Department of Justice to hundreds of child molesters.

I kept waiting for the catch, but apparently the Times does not yet believe pedophilia is covered by the "privacy right." They should stop covering politics and start covering more stories like this.

In order to report the story, the Times said it obtained:

— copies of online conversations and e-mail messages between minors and the creepy adults;

— records of payments to the minors;

— membership lists for Webcam sites;

— defunct sites stored in online archives;

— files retained on a victim's computer over several years;

— financial records, credit card processing data and other information;

— The Neverland Ranch's mailing list. (OK, I made that last one up.)

Would that the Times allowed the Bush administration similar investigative powers for Islamofacists in America!

Which brings me to this week's scandal about No Such Agency spying on "Americans." I have difficulty ginning up much interest in this story inasmuch as I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East, and sending liberals to Guantanamo.

But if we must engage in a national debate on half-measures: After 9/11, any president who was not spying on people calling phone numbers associated with terrorists should be impeached for being an inept commander in chief.

With a huge gaping hole in lower Manhattan, I'm not sure why we have to keep reminding people, but we are at war. (Perhaps it's because of the media blackout on images of the 9/11 attack. We're not allowed to see those because seeing planes plowing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon might make us feel angry and jingoistic.)

Among the things that war entails are: killing people (sometimes innocent), destroying buildings (sometimes innocent) and spying on people (sometimes innocent).

That is why war is a bad thing. But once a war starts, it is going to be finished one way or another, and I have a preference for it coming out one way rather than the other.

In previous wars, the country has done far worse than monitor telephone calls placed to jihad headquarters. FDR rounded up Japanese — many of them loyal American citizens — and threw them in internment camps. Most appallingly, at the same time, he let New York Times editors wander free.

Note the following about the Japanese internment:

1) The Supreme Court upheld the president's authority to intern the Japanese during wartime;

2) That case, Korematsu v. United States, is still good law;

3) There are no Japanese internment camps today. (Although the no-limit blackjack section at Caesar's Palace on a Saturday night comes pretty close.)

It's one or the other: Either we take the politically correct, scattershot approach and violate everyone's civil liberties, or we focus on the group threatening us and — in the worst-case scenario — run the risk of briefly violating the civil liberties of 1,000 people in a country of 300 million.

Of course, this is assuming I'm talking to people from the world of the normal. In the Democrats' world, there are two more options. Violate no one's civil liberties and get used to a lot more 9/11s, or the modified third option, preferred by Sen. John D. Rockefeller: Let the president do all the work and take all the heat for preventing another terrorist attack while you place a letter expressing your objections in a file cabinet as a small parchment tribute to your exquisite conscience.

COPYRIGHT 2005 ANN COULTER

The blogger who writes progressive minds has been taken into federal custody pursuant to the renewed Patriot Act and has been shipped to a "black" prison somewhere overseas.  As a result of bribing a guard, Jackie Chiles was contacted for the purpose of bringing suit against Bloghi.com on the basis that the company should have immediately deleted any postings on her site and failing to do so made her mad ravings available to the watchful eye of Homeland Security.  Even Chiles  would not waste his time on her and is presently considering seeking damages from millard for wasting his time.

This year Ted Kennedy won based on overall design, compatibility with the association's mission and simply being himself

 

The remake of Gone with the Wind, in the form of a ten act play has opened on Broadway featuring Sheehan and Sharpton in the lead roles.  But this is just the beginning of the story....

During rehearsals Sheehan and Sharpton began an unexpected and torrid romance that in real life actually sizzles way more than their on stage roles.  So far no online video footage, ala Paris Hilton has been found.  If you find any please let us at asmalldoseofreality.bloghi.com know and we will treat it with the same delicacy of other news items covered here.

Imagine my pleasure when a monster fruit basket arrived on Christmas Eve with a handwritten note from Shalana Millard

 

The note was so nice, let me paste it in here:  "Dear Barry,  Although during the course of the year, you and I have had some philosophic and intellectual differences, Please let me say it was all in good clean fun and I hope you viewed it in the same way.  I have thought about my regretful policy of erasing comments made on my blog at my whim and often changing who is allowed to comment and when in a seeming capricious manner.  The joy of the Christmas season has shown me that my approach has been let's say slightly off target.  Barry, I not only admire you and eagerly await your every post and comment, I feel the same way about every blogger I have interacted with on blog hi.  Please Barry and you too Elmer, C-Mom and everyone else, let's have a fresh start and enjoy the snappy reparte' on the various blogs and commentaries that I hope you know I enjoy and I know you enjoy.  A beleted and heartful Merry Christmas to All.  Fondly, Shalana Millard".

Both during my political career and in retirement that has to be the sweetest note I have ever received.  Thank you Ms. Millard and Merry Christmas to you!  Your pal, Barry

Merry Christmas to all readers, commentator and blogger and especially to you Ms. Millard.  I appreciate the laughs and entertainment everyone provides.  Thanks, Barry

                                          

It doesn't require independent thinking. In fact, independent thinkers need not apply. And it doesn't necessarily pay money. But it will give you the opportunity to bore millions of Americans (well, maybe a couple hundred thousand) with your party's current orthodoxy.

Right now the speed-dialing fingers of the bookers at The Situation Room, Scarborough Country, The Big Story (with albino werewolf John Gibson), Hannity & Colmes, Anderson Cooper 360 °, Fox Special Report With Brit Hume, CNN Live Sunday, The O'Reilly Factor, CNN Daybreak, and other shows are in need of fresh faces to field the political questions unearthed by the day's news.

 

Sounds like a logical next step for lastwordmillard...she has the qualifications.

lastwordmillard is joined by the democratic brain trust for a skull session

Many people, for example our pal lastwordmillard unfortuntely have no where to go.  This year millard is going on the road with the circus.

On her way to Hanoi for an anniversary party this week, Fonda made a quick appearance in Tehran.

lastwordmillard Relaxing at Home Getting Ready for the Holidays.  No wonder she is so touchy and grouchy.

                        

Following the recent speech and press conference featuring President Bush, a Republican respresentative and a democratic representative put their best faces forward

After a retreat at one of the Kennedy compounds, Pelosi's pals announced a John Kerry sponsored Iraq success strategy

Howard Dean was so pleased with this development that it is already set in concrete as part of the 2008 Democratic platform.  When O. J. Simpson was asked for his thoughts, he replied, 'That is the keystone of my life philosophy both back in my football day and in my post trial days...I cry every time I think of Johnny Cochrane.'

When asked who will ultimately win the war in Iraq, a 57 percent majority thinks the Iraqis aided by the United States will win, while about one in ten (12 percent) think the terrorist insurgents and one in five (18 percent) say it is too soon to tell. In addition, by 51 percent to 38 percent Americans disagree with Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean's comment that the war in Iraq is not winnable.

The DNC Chairman and the Massachusetts dynamic duo head off on a taxpayer funded junket to the Pacific:

Sick and tired of being sexually harassed by Jane Fonda, John Kerry takes Ted Turners advice and takes a powder.  Kerry should be safe in his natural habitat until the treacherous Fonda hunts him down.

 

 

You liberal demo's shown below may read on at your own risk:

Citing lack of cash flow and nothing to do while looking out the windows as limosine liberals are wont to do, Dean and Clinton released their first product to the market today:

I ran across this item in an email that crossed my desk....gee I wonder why I didn't see in on CNN or read about it in the New York Times

>  Don't know whether you heard about this
>  but Denzel Washington and his family visited
>  the troops at Brook Army Medical Center, in
>  San Antonio,Texas (BAMC) the other day. This
>  is where soldiers who have been evacuated from
>  Germany come to be hospitalized in the United
>  States, especially burn victims. There are some
>  buildings there called Fisher Houses. The Fisher
>  House is a Hotel where soldiers' families can stay,
>  for little or no charge, while their soldier is staying
>  in the Hospital. BAMC has quite a few of these houses
>  on base, but as you can imagine, they are almost filled
>  most of the time.
>
>  While Denzel Washington was visiting BAMC, they gave
>  him a tour of one of the Fisher Houses. He asked how
>  much one of them would cost to build. He took his check
>  book out and wrote a check for the full amount right there
>  on the spot. The soldiers overseas were amazed to hear
>  this story and want to get the word out to the American
>  public, because it warmed their hearts to hear it.
>
>  The question I have is why does:
>  Alec Baldwin,   
>  Madonna,
>  Sean Penn   and
>  other Hollywood types  
>  make front page news with their anti-everything
>  America crap and Denzel Washington's Patriotism
>  doesn't even make page 3 in the Metro section of
>  any newspaper except the Local newspaper in San
>  Antonio.

Reports are now in that millard was a real American when working as a CIA operative.  After she took the fall when this photo was made public, millard turned to booze and oxycotin.  Her anger and loss of touch with reality continues to snowball out of control.  This story will be followed carefully as event unfold.

Bloggers everywhere are reporting that millard is having trouble erasing and or editing comments to her ridiculous posts, continuing to add "final" insulting comments in response to intelligent and accurate comments and writing additional fraudulent posts at the same time.  Stay tuned...millard is spinning outta control.

 

 

 

millard's capacity of deceit is growing daily.  Word has it that millard has a call into Al Franken for help.  As a good faith gesture millard, if you send me your log in information I will help you keep things under control.  As you would say, the truth must never stay in print....for long.

    

 

 

 

It just figures it was that rascally Cat in the Hat!

"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through
our papers. We are the president." (we are????)
--Hillary Clinton commenting on the release of
subpoenaed documents.

"We will not tolerate people of color such as millard playing the race card and calling whities racists", shouted Jesse. He went on to say, " That right is exclusively reserved by the African American community to be pulled out by our attorneys at key point in high profile trials and at anytime by me of course."   Michael added, "yeah, whatever he say".  millard was not available for intelligible comment.      

 

 

 

 

In nonstunning news millard has finally lost it.  Go to conservative-mommy.bloghi.com.  Since millard (who has now established in her own words the racist fraud she really is) erases any comments she doesn't like, I recommend flooding her government funded inbox:

---

shalana.millard@usdoj.gov.

Yep...that's right...the former tyrant is now a funny man

Lab Mice Grow Human Brain Cells After Injections

Monday, December 12, 2005 SAN FRANCISCO — Add another creation to the strange scientific menagerie where animal species are being mixed together in ever more exotic combinations.

The Arnold is the MAN

 

Not as many as Woody Harrelson...But way more than John Frenchie Kerry

 

The barber shop...where men are men and wacky leftists aren't.  The four of us totally enjoyed the experience and plan to make it a ritual prior to any public apprearance particularly those where any of us get a chance to unmask the wacky leftist for what they are....freshly shaven hair flushing down the drain.

This delightful facility makes the experience of every bowler special. For examples:

  starting with the basics

 

  how to get started

 

  advanced technigues

 

  tasty healthy food to wash down with a pitcher or two

 

all in all, fun for the whole family can be found here:

 

http://conchesterlanes.amfcenters.com/default.cfm

 

 

 

Democrats self-inflicted wounds (Joe Scarborough)

God help the Democrats. What a clueless party packed with clueless leaders.

It really doesn’t matter what the Republicans do because Democrats always seem to find a way to become even more disconnected from Middle America. Even after Iraq, Katrina, Big Oil, global warming, Harriet Miers, Tom DeLay and CIA leaks, the Democrats always seem to one up the GOP when it comes to self-inflicted wounds.

This week the head of the Democratic National Committee said the United States was doomed to failure in Iraq. While Howard Dean’s rants may thrill the base in Manhattan and Beverly Hills, it tears the Party away from the very people it needs to reach in the political middle.

As if that weren’t enough to Re-McGovernize the Democrats for the week, there was John Kerry on Face the Nation this weekend suggesting that American troops were committing acts of terror against innocent Iraqis.

Here is Kerry’s clueless quote:
“There is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the—of—of—of—historical customs, religious customs, whether you like it or not.”

The Senator and his staff can spin it anyway they want but use of the word “terrorizing” in conjunction with our troops is not the way to win votes in Ohio or any other swing state.

Add to that statements made earlier this year by Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate, comparing US troops to Stalinist thugs, Nazis and members of the Khmer Rouge and you begin to see a troubling pattern.

Is there no grownup running today’s Democratic Party that can tell these blowhards to shut their mouths?

Oh wait. These are the people who will be running the Democratic Party as they head into the 2006 elections.

Not good news if you are a Democrat or one who prefers a two-party system.

 

Announcing his candidacy, Rudy said, "There is no way I would allow the great state of New York to go down in the annals of infamy by sending THAT woman and her boytoy (No..not Reno) to the White House.

AMMAN, Jordan  — Three men threatened Saddam Hussein's chief lawyer as he boarded a plane from Baghdad to Jordan on Thursday, and the three were removed from the flight, the Iraqi lawyer and his colleague, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, said.

 

The lawyer, Khalil Dulaimi, did not say how the men threatened him. He did not identify the men but said he knows them.

"I know them well, but I will not give their names," Dulaimi told reporters after arriving at Amman's international airport. "Airport authorities refused to allow them to embark on the same plane."

Clark, who is participating in Saddam's defense team in the ousted Iraqi leader's trial on mass murder charges, said: "There were three people that threatened him directly and they were planning to board the plane. ... The security people removed them."

Clark said other lawyers also received threats in the Baghdad courtroom during the three sessions of Saddam's trial that were held this week. "There were threats even at the court, on the balcony, there were three people making threats during the trial. I didn't personally receive any threat, or see anyone follow me."

During this week's proceedings, the judge ordered the removal of one man from the visitors' balcony for making threatening gestures toward the defense.

 

WASHINGTON — Lighting up the chilly night with a resolute flick of a switch, House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Thursday night illuminated this year's Capitol Christmas — not "holiday" — Tree, reinstating its religious title for the first time in years.

Known as the Capitol Holiday Tree since the 1990s, the Engelmann spruce towering over the Capitol's West Lawn became a symbol of the Republican-led Congress's resolve on the matter of holiday wishes. The issue touched the White House when some Christian conservatives expressed anger over the cards they received from President Bush and his wife, Laura, wishing them a pleasant "holiday season."

Hastert, who made clear in a letter last month that he intended to light a Christmas tree on the Capitol lawn, on Thursday flicked a switch that illuminated the 65-foot spruce dressed up with 10,000 lights and 3,000 ornaments. It will shine nightfall to 11 p.m. each day through Jan. 1.

The brightly colored ornaments were crafted by the people of its home state, New Mexico, and strands of energy-conserving LED lights decorate the tree

"Each of these (ornaments) showcases an attribute of New Mexico, including its rich cultural heritage, its history, natural resources and wildlife," said Architect of the Capitol Alan Hantman.

Hastert, R-Ill., wrote to Hantman last month urging a return to the tradition of calling the spruce the Capitol Christmas Tree, instead of the Capitol Holiday Tree.

"I fully understand your desire to make all holiday displays as inclusive as possible," Hastert wrote. "There are many ways to accomplish this."

Hantman confirmed Thursday that this year's spruce is indeed a Christmas tree.

As for the White House holiday cards, a spokeswoman for Laura Bush said the first couple wanted to be inclusive and respectful of other traditions.

The tree has been a Capitol tradition since 1964

 

Franklin  Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program.  He  promised:

 

1.) That  participation in the Program would be completely  voluntary,

 

2.) That the  participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual  incomes into the Program,

 

3.) That the money  the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from  their income for tax purposes each year,

 

4.) That the money  the participants put into the independent "Trust Fund" rather than into the  General operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the  Social Security  Retirement Program, and no other Government program,  and,

5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed  as income.

 

Since many of us  have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check  every month -- and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the  money we paid to the Federal government to "put away," you may be  interested in the following:

 

--------------------

 

Q: Which Political  Party took Social Security from the independent  "Trust" fund  and  put it into the General fund so that Congress could spend  it?

 

A: It was  Lyndon  Johnson and the democratically  controlled House and Senate.

 

--------------------

 

Q: Which  Political Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA)  withholding?

 

A: The Democratic  Party.

 

--------------------

 

Q: Which  Political Party started taxing Social Security  annuities?

 

A: The Democratic  Party, with  Al Gore  casting the "tie-breaking" deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he  was Vice President of the U.S.

 

-------------------

 

Q: Which  Political Party decided to start giving annuity payments to  immigrants?

 

AND MY  FAVORITE:

 

A: That's right!   Jimmy  Carter  and the   Democratic Party.   Immigrants moved into this country, and at  age 65, began to receive Social Security payments!   The Democratic  Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into  it!

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Then, after doing  all this lying and thieving and violation of the original contract (FICA), the  Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your  Social Security away!

 

And the worst part  about it is, uninformed citizens believe it!

 

If enough people  receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe good changes  will evolve.  Maybe not, some Democrats are awfully sure of what isn't  so.