Would-be Ford assassin freed from prison on parole

She is now 77 years old.

One of the women who unsuccessfully tried to assassinate President Ford 32 years ago was released on parole Monday from a federal prison in California, according to a Bureau of Prisons spokesman.

Sara Jane Moore was released in the morning from the federal women's prison in Dublin, outside San Francisco, according to Mike Truman of the Bureau of Prisons.

There was no immediate comment from the prison facility itself, where Moore had been Inmate No. 04851180. Officials said she had a recent parole hearing, but did not know what prompted her release at this time.

Nor was it clear what her plans are, or where she is headed.

Hillary says she risked life on White House trips

Failing miserably to channel Benazir Bhutto.

VINTON, Iowa - Ever since Barack Obama suggested Hillary Clinton's eight years as first lady were a glorified tea party a few days back, she's looked for an opening to strike back.

On Saturday night in Dubuque she pounced, arguing she risked her life on White House missions in the 1990s, including a hair-raising flight into Bosnia that ended in a "corkscrew" landing and a sprint off the tarmac to dodge snipers.

"I don't remember anyone offering me tea," she quipped. The dictum around the Oval Office in the '90s, she added, was: "If a place was too dangerous, too poor or too small, send the first lady."

Jeez, give me a freaking break.

RASMUSSEN Poll

From Drudge:

McCain 17%

Romney 16%

Huckabee 16%

Giuliani 15%

Thompson 12%

Five candidates all within 5 points of each other. Brother that's a horserace!

Hillary: Pakistan troops might have killed Bhutto

What a completely speculative and irresponsible statement.

Hillary Rodham Clinton waded into Pakistan's volatile internal political situation Saturday, raising the possibility the country's military might have assassinated Benazir Bhutto because the killing took place in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

Clinton's remarks came as Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's government seemed to reject a call for an independent international investigation of the murder that Clinton and John Edwards proposed on Friday.

During a question-and-answer session at an elementary school here, Clinton offered a detailed prescription for the troubled country, suggesting that the U.S divert aid away from its military to social welfare programs.

And for the second time in as many days, she cast doubt on Musharraf's contention that the suicide bombing that led to the death of the country's most popular opposition leader was masterminded by al-Qaida.

Huckabee Confused about Borders

This guy is literally a walking agglomeration of unforced errors.

NYT/DES MOINES — Mike Huckabee used the volatile situation in Pakistan Friday to make an argument for building a fence on the American border with Mexico and found himself trying to explain a series of remarks about Pakistanis and their nation.

On Thursday night he told reporters in Orlando, Fla.: “We ought to have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our borders and particularly to make sure if there’s any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country.”

On Friday, in Pella, Iowa, he expanded on those remarks.

“When I say single them out I am making the observation that we have more Pakistani illegals coming across our border than all other nationalities except those immediately south of the border,” he told reporters in Pella. “And in light of what is happening in Pakistan it ought to give us pause as to why are so many illegals coming across these borders.”

The Nature of Our Enemy

I sympathize but with what this women obviously knew of her advisary's, did she have a death wish or what?

The next to last assassination attempt on Benazir Bhutto came on Dec. 13, when a man in the crowd got the former prime minister’s attention. He was holding a one-year-old baby — Bhutto said later she thought it was a girl — and tried to hand the child across the sea of bodies. Bhutto said, “He kept trying to hand it to people to hand to me. I’m a mother. I love babies. But the [streetlights] had already gone out and I was worried about the baby getting dropped or hurt.” So she turned away and ducked into her armored vehicle. Just then, the baby’s body, rigged with explosives, detonated.

That is the nature of the enemy. Thursday morning brought news that another bomber has succeeded in killing Bhutto. Early reports suggest that this time the terrorists relied on a suicide bomber and a gunman. Al-Qaeda was quick off the mark. “We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahedeen,” said commander and spokesman Mustafa Abu al-Yazid in a phone interview with Adnkronos International. Whether al-Qaeda really did the killing or opportunistically claimed credit is unclear. But there is no doubt that Bhutto represented a modernizing movement within the Islamic world and was accordingly seen as a threat by the seventh-century zealots who rig babies with explosives.

How long before Huckabee suggests that WE have been brutal and need to negotiate with these misunderstood malcontents?

Benazir Bhutto Critically Injured At Rally

Pakistan, ground zero for World War III.

Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has been critically injured after a suspected suicide attack at a political rally in Pakistan.

She is undergoing emergency surgery at a nearby hospital, Sky News sources say.

The explosion went off just after Ms Bhutto left the rally in Rawalpindi, minutes after her speech to thousands of people.

Update: Per AP, "she's dead".

This from Sky News

Huckabee's illegal-alien record hit

Something that is becoming increasingly evident...Mike Huckabee is long on lip service and very short on action.

Mike Huckabee is overselling his record of cracking down on illegal aliens as governor, claiming he ordered his state police to arrest illegal aliens when in fact he never signed the agreement with federal authorities that would have allowed it.

Mr. Huckabee signed a bill that began the process, but he never followed through with signing an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to secure training for state police officers. Without it, they cannot enforce federal immigration law.

"This is a policy difference, but the facts are the facts — under Governor Huckabee's administration, there was never even any effort to begin negotiating with Homeland Security," said former state Rep. Jeremy Hutchinson, the Republican who sponsored the 2005 law.

Holes in Global-Warming Theory Put Mitigation Effort at Risk

Iraq's looking good, economy's solid and now this? E-gad all that hysteria on the left and no place to go...

Has global warming stopped? The Earth's temperatures have held steady since 2001, says a veteran science writer, a pattern that raises questions about the intense efforts under way to stem the impact of greenhouse gases.

What is indisputable, says David Whitehouse on the Web site of the New Statesman, a generally left-leaning British weekly, is that the amount of gases such as carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere has been increasing steadily for decades as humans burn more fossil fuels. Scientists believe those gases absorb outgoing infrared radiation from the Earth's surface, causing heat to be retained. In principle, that produces the greenhouse effect that is the fundamental theory behind global warming.

The world's temperatures rose sharply from 1980 to 1998 but have leveled off since then, according to Mr. Whitehouse's reading of U.S. and United Kingdom government statistics. In other words, he says, global warming has ceased.

While scientists have proposed a variety of theories for the recent plateau in temperature, those explanations are inadequate, says Mr. Whitehouse, who spent 18 years covering the sciences at the British Broadcasting Corporation and holds a doctorate in astrophysics. The working hypothesis of global warming remains a good one, says Mr. Whitehouse, but it doesn't fully explain what is occurring in the Earth's atmosphere. "Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what" or risk wasting billions of dollars on the wrong solutions.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

"To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you: You will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger."

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among people." Luke 2:1-21

Woman shops for three days inside Wal-Mart

If it was a Home Depot I could relate...

LILBURN, Ga., Dec. 24 (UPI) -- Police in Lilburn, Ga., said an elderly woman spent three days shopping inside a local Wal-Mart.

Lilburn Police Detective Matt Lake said the 70-year-old woman ate at the Blimpie sandwich shop inside the store but it wasn't known where -- or whether -- she slept during her three-day shopping spree, the Gwinnett (Ga.) Daily Post reported Monday.

"She spent three straight days in Wal-Mart," Lake said. "Employees called the police department. She asked an officer for a ride home, she paid for her merchandise and the Lilburn police gave her a ride home."

Now's the time to come Out for Fred (Updated and Bumped)

As most of you are aware Romney is our second choice for the nomination. Just the same we have some serious concerns with the man and Rick Moran is both brutal and eloquent in addressing some of them...

In my case, it was between Fred and Romney. But today's news about Romney backpedaling on his contention that Governor George Romney marched with Martin Luther King during the civil rights era is the straw that broke the camel's back. It never happened, and his campaign disingenuously came out with a statement saying that Mitt was "speaking figuratively" not "literally."

Well, figuratively speaking, I'm a fine figure of a man, devilishly handsome, and have women three at a time when I'm not battling terrorists and making liberals' heads explode.

On the other hand, if you want to be "literal" about it, I'm 50 pounds overweight, devilishly cute, haven't spoken to another woman since I met my Zsu-Zsu, and I write long, logical, cogent articles against terrorism while making liberals' heads explode.

I don't trust a man who speaks "figuratively" as an adjunct to using plain English. Romney speaks "figuratively" fluently – on abortion, gay marriage, immigration, and other issues. I can't abide politicians who find it necessary to shade, color, or otherwise try to obscure their positions on issues. It smacks of pandering which is not only dishonest but reveals an inconstant character and someone without any core principles or beliefs.

Read the whole thing

WHOA NELLY, scathing.

UPDATE: Four Pinocchios for Romney on MLK

Hopefully this will put an end once and for all to the obfuscation and spin on this subject...

"They [George Romney and Martin Luther King] were hand in hand...They led the march. We all swung our hands, and they held their hands up above everybody else's."

Quote distributed by the Mitt Romney campaign.

After news reports challenged Mitt Romney's repeated accounts of his father marching with Martin Luther King, his campaign put a reporter from Politico in touch with eyewitnesses who claimed to have seen the former Michigan governor "hand in hand" with the civil rights leader. But their memories are almost certainly flawed as contemporaneous news reports show that King was addressing a meeting in New Jersey at the time the eyewitnesses supposedly saw him in Grosse Pointe, MI.

The Facts:

Romney did show up at a smaller march the following Saturday in the exclusive Grosse Pointe suburb of Michigan to protest housing discrimination. But contemporaneous news reports show that King had left the Michigan area by then, and was traveling in the Northeast

"I was fifteen feet away from them [Romney and MLK]," said Robertson, 64, who attended Grosse Pointe high school. "You don't forget that kind of thing."

I called up one of the eyewitnesses cited by Politico and the Romney campaign, Ashby Robertson.

When I told Robertson that news reports placed Martin Luther King in New Jersey at the time, he replied: "Well, it was somebody who certainly looked like him."

Al-Qaida confirms death of top operative in Iraq

Photo via AP

The purported leader of al-Qaida's umbrella group in Iraq has confirmed the death of a top operative who the US military said was killed in an attack last month, according to a new audiotape.

The US military had said it captured or killed 40 al-Qaida fighters last month, including a Syrian who died in a Nov. 17 raid on a reported propaganda house. The Syrian, identified as Abu Maysara, had escaped from an Iraqi prison in March.

Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, praised Maysara as "a well experienced mujahid (holy warrior) and propagandist."

Sunni, Shia Peace March

Something you won't see on the front page of the NYT.

BAGHDAD — Approximately 1,000 Iraqi citizens, of both Shia and Sunni religions, joined together on the sectarian fault line in Rawaniyah, the Karkh District of Baghdad, to march with one another in what they called a “Peace March”, Dec. 19.
It was an Iraqi initiative to ease sectarian tensions, solely driven by Iraqi Neighborhood Council (NAC) and District Advisory Council (DAC) leaders and Sheiks from both religious sects in the area, said Capt. Marcus Melton, commander of Pale Horse Troop, 4th Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, attached to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).

With Iraqi Army and Iraqi policemen maintaining the security on the streets and within the crowd during the event, they were able to successfully complete the march for united peace among all Iraqis.

We're in Good Company

The fact that the majority of conservative political bloggers back Fred Thompson is no surpise to this political junkie. Jay at StoptheACLU has a list and we are proud to be in their company.

In blogger poll, after blogger poll it has been Fred Thompson hands down, despite the efforts of Ron Paul bots. Most conservative bloggers I know have either came out and endorsed him, or are rooting from him. Below are just a handful.

John Hawkins of Rightwing News, Erick Erickson of RedState.Com, Pejman of RedState, Eugene Volokh of Volokh's Conspiracy, Polipundit of Polipundit, Ala from Blonde Sagacity, Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, Kender at Kender's Musings, Gribbit at Gribbit's Word, Bill Quick of Daily Pundit, Misha of Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiller, Bob Krumm, Brandon at Conservative Superiority, Curt at Flopping Aces, Darrell of Alpha Patriot, Jimmie of the Sundries Shack, Justin Higgins of Right on the Right, Kim du Toit, MacRanger of Macsmind, Rick Moran of Right Wing Nuthouse, Mike Hendrix of Cold Fury, Rob Port of Say Anything, Stix of Stix Blog, TraderRob of Opinipundit, William Dyer of Beldar Blog, Nate of Irate-Nation, William Teach of Pirate's Cove, Kate of Ol Broad, Steve of Pencilnub, and though he is getting doubts…Ace of Ace of Spades. Plus many more.

Get the full story HERE

Huckabee "A Dean Scream Moment?"

Michelle Malkin says Mike Huckabees ad going after Rush Limbaugh was a major "Huck up"...

I was in the car listening to Rush Limbaugh responding to the Mike Huckabee campaign’s attack on him. What an unbelievably knuckle-headed move by Huckabee’s minions. Casting Limbaugh as part of the Beltway-Manhattan elite? Those who’ve been tuning in and listening closely know that Limbaugh has scrupulously avoided playing favorites with any of the GOP candidates. He’s been an equal-opportunity scrutinizer. What possible benefit could accrue from going after one of the conservative movement’s most popular figures?

Say goodnight Gracie.

But he sure is popular with the left: Ohio governor says Huckabee is his favorite GOP candidate

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat who already has endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton for president, said former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is his favorite among the Republican candidates.

Huckabee, like Strickland, is an ordained minister.

"He's a very socially compassionate man who obviously has concern for the poor and the working middle class, while at the same time, having rather conservative views when it comes to a matter like abortion or gay marriage," Strickland said.

Beginning of Thompson's Iowa Surge?

Thompson is essentially where Kerry was at this point in 04. Huckabee and Romney are about where Dean and Gephardt were.

Mike Huckabee 31%

Mitt Romney 25%

Fred Thompson 16%

Regardless of your persuasions it's going to be interesting.

Consumer Spending Surges in November

The economic pronosticators ought to get with the hurricane predictors and deliberate their mutual record of accuracy.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Consumers put aside worries about slumping home sales and soaring gasoline prices and headed to the malls in November, pushing spending up by the largest amount in 3 1/2 years.

The Commerce Department reported Friday that consumer spending surged by 1.1 percent last month, nearly triple the October gain. The gain reflected various promotional efforts by retailers such as heavy discounting and longer store hours at the start of the holiday shopping season.

Physics 101

Tancredo Out

It's being widely speculated that Tom Tancredo has called a press conference this afternoon to announce he is withdrawing from the Presidential race. As a staunch conservative and strong anti-illegal immigration proponent his campaign never left the starting gate. Will he endorse anyone at the announcement? We'll see.

Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo plans to drop out of the race during an announcement Thursday afternoon in Des Moines, Iowa, GOP sources close to the campaign have told FOX News.

Tancredo, who has aggressively pushed his anti-illegal immigration message throughout the GOP primary race, has not been able to break through in the polls against his better known competitors. He and California Rep. Duncan Hunter typically poll in the single digits behind Texas Rep. Ron Paul in national surveys.

Tancredo would not personally confirm whether he will pull out of the race.