Where Are My Keys?

This should be interesting..

Remember the IG from Sacramento that was fired by the Obama Administraion (in violation of the very law Obama helped craft to prevent this sort of behavior by the White House) back in July?

Well, he's been cleared of a complaint that charged him of acting improperly:

Gerald Walpin, the AmeriCorps inspector general fired by the White House in July during his probe of Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, has been cleared of a complaint by the acting U.S. attorney in Sacramento that he had acted improperly.

Now, he says, he wants his job back.

"It takes away any basis belatedly set forth by the White House as a reason for my termination," Walpin said this morning in an interview from his home in New York. "So I am certainly looking forward to a final determination by the court and to be reinstated."

Walpin filed suit in federal court in Washington, D.C., in July alleging that he was fired improperly while investigating whether Johnson had misused federal grant funds. The government is trying to have the case dismissed, but Walpin filed documents in court late Monday opposing that.

Among the documents was an Oct. 19 letter from the Integrity Committee of the Council of the Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency telling him that the probe against him had been closed.

"After carefully considering the allegations described in the complaint together with your response, the IC determined that the response sufficiently and satisfactorily addressed the matter and that further inquiry or an investigation regarding the matter was not warranted," committee Chairman Kevin L. Perkins wrote.

Will Walpin now file suit for wrongful termination?

A new take on an American classic..

Found it over at Evil Klown:

Some might say this was politics at play..

Obama waits while American soldiers die in Afghanistan, and then will follow the two-month old recommendations of the General he put in charge.  It's not official yet, but I'll wager that the numbers are magically close.

What took so long, Mr. President?  Were you waiting for some elections to pass?

Disgusting.

How was this guy still in the military?

It appears Hasan had tried to reach out to al Qaeda.

It is not known whether the intelligence agencies informed the Army that one of its officers was seeking to connect with suspected al Qaeda figures, the officials said.

One senior lawmaker said the CIA had, so far, refused to brief the intelligence committees on what, if any, knowledge they had about Hasan's efforts.

CIA director Leon Panetta and the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, have been asked by Congress "to preserve" all documents and intelligence files that relate to Hasan, according to the lawmaker.

1,460 days..

Today is the Little Duper's fourth birthday.

We'll have cake and juice boxes, play stick-the-tail-on-the-donkey, smash a pinata, play with friends, and eat too many sweet things.

And we'll celbrate the miracle of her birth.

Gibbs has a short memory, doesn't he?

Robert Gibbs has some issues with the imagery being attached to his boss lately.  He must not have been paying attention during the last eight years.  I'm sure there is some evidence of Gibbs speaking out about the imagery when it was used against President Bush, right?

 

You hear in this debate, you hear analogies, you hear references to, you see pictures about and depictions of individuals that are truly stunning, and you hear it all the time. People — imagine five years ago somebody comparing health care reform to 9/11. Imagine just a few years ago had somebody walked around with images of Hitler. Hopefully we can get back to a discussion about the issues that are important in this country that we can do so without being personally disagreeable and set up comparisons to things that were so insidious in our history that anybody in any profession or walk of life would be well advised to compare nothing to those atrocities.

It sucks, doesn't it Mr. Gibbs?  While you and your ilk were giggling at the hate being spewed by the Left, and telling us that dissent is the highest form of patriotism, did you ever question the way in which that message was delivered?

Or did you just start paying attention on 1/20/2009 when your guy became the target?

Over at Huffington Post, they have a slidshow of the "12 most offensive signs at Bachmann's Tea Party".

I wonder if they'll put these signs that the Left carried around about Bush for a comparison of what the definition of "offensive" is.

Would the narrative be different if it had been a Republican?

Of course it would have.  Had this been any of the more-recognizable Republicans that had been present at a friends house while a pot bust was underway, we'd be hearing all about it from the House Ethics Committee already.  Frank's "excuse" (I swear I'm not making this up) was:

Congressman Frank tells FOX25 that he was surprised and disappointed with what police found.  He also tells us that he wouldn't recognize a marijuana plant if he saw one because he is, "not a great outdoorsman," and ,"wouldn't recognize most plants."

Good to know that the guy tasked with writing laws doesn't know what illegal substances look or smell like.  I'll fall back on what my track coach in college told all the freshman when we first got on the team about being around illegal activities at parties.  He said that (paraphrasing, of course) "You better not even think about smoking it while you are there, and you better have the common sense not to be in that situation in the first place."

Clearly an 18 year old college freshman (at a State school, no less) has/had more common sense than a sitting Congressman.

Pretty cool use of technology..

Found this over at Instapundit.  It's a website that tracks marine movement around the waterways of the world.  Click on a quadrant (the number inside shows how many ships are in it), and the map zooms to give you more detail.  The more you zoom, the more info pops up, including type of ship, speed, and even a photo.

Pretty neat.

Of the People, for the People..

By the millionaires.

As Washington reels from the news of 10.2 percent unemployment, the Center for Responsive Politics is out with a new report describing the wealth of members of Congress.

Among the highlights: Two-hundred-and-thirty-seven members of Congress are millionaires. That’s 44 percent of the body – compared to about 1 percent of Americans overall.

CRP says California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa is the richest lawmaker on Capitol Hill, with a net worth estimated at about $251 million. Next in line: Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), worth about $244.7 million; Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), worth about $214.5 million; Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), worth about $209.7 million; and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), worth about $208.8 million.

All told, at least seven lawmakers have net worths greater than $100 million, according to the Center’s 2008 figures.

“Many Americans probably have a sense that members of Congress aren’t hurting, even if their government salary alone is in the six figures, much more than most Americans make,” said CRP spokesman Dave Levinthal. “What we see through these figures is that many of them have riches well beyond that salary, supplemented with securities, stock holdings, property and other investments.”

The CRP numbers are somewhat rough estimates – lawmakers are required to report their financial information in broad ranges of figures, so it’s impossible to pin down their dollars with precision. The CRP uses the mid-point in the ranges to build its estimates.

This should help garner public support for the Democrat Health Bill..

Buy a policy, or go to jail.  I bet Biden thinks it's patriotic, just like paying your taxes.

Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail.  The JCT letter  makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.