That assumes it was a superimposition.  If not, this is a fine representation of Rosie in casual gear.

She looks mahvelous, simply mahvelous–for Rosie O’Donnell:

  On March 17th, a civil trial began in Portland, Oregon in which a former Boy Scout is alleging that ”the

I’m not privy to the details of the action except as reported in The Oregonian but the reporter contends that there are hundreds of confidential Boy Scout files accumulated over the course of the organization’s century-old history that indicate the Scout’s hierarchy knew of and tolerated sexual predators for decades.

The report also contends that “dozens” of sex abuse claims have been filed against the Scouts over the years, which claims were all settled out of court so that the organization’s confidential files never became public.

Without impugning the motives or veracity of The Oregonian’s reporter, Aimee Green, it’s curious that none of those dozens of charges were ever investigated by authorities and no sexual predator was ever indicted.

Assistant Scoutmaster Timur Dykes  of Portland was indicted and has admitted to at least 17 molestations and it is one of his victims, now 37 years of age, who brought the suit for $14 million against the Boy Scouts of America and its local council.

In court, attorney Kelly Clark, representing the victim, “held up file folder after file folder from Boy Scout headquarters that he said proves the organization knew of at least 1,000 suspected child molesters from 1965 to 1985.” 

That, of course, is yet to be proven before he and the anonymous victim will collect a penny in damages. 

Clark,  who specializes in child sexual abuse cases, also represents seven other alleged victims of Dykes. 

The lead defense attorney will argue that “sexual abuse of children wasn’t a problem specific to the Scouts but one that occurs throughout society.  He also told jurors that child molesters are difficult to track and that the organization kept confidential files on them in an effort to protect children.” 

Patrick Boyle, author of a book on sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts, commented for The Oregonian story: “People are unwilling to punish the Boy Scouts.  I draw a distinction with the Catholic Church, because a lot of people don’t like the Catholic Church:” http://bit.ly/awyvCG

That backhanded praise for the Scouts and un-called for slap at the Catholic Church may be the key to what this case is all about, namely drawing an awkward parallel between the two institutions since the Church has been in the news for some years now over alleged and admitted pedophilia committed by some priests.

Nowhere in Green’s story nor in Boyle’s comments is any mention made of the homosexual angle in both institutions.  Nowhere is the word, “homosexual,” even used. 

The Catholic Church in desperation over a dearth of vocations to the priesthood wrongfully recruited suspected homosexuals and then covered up some of their crimes against kids.  Likewise, the Boy Scouts may have done the same in order to staff its ranks with troop leaders.

However, that may be the issue in the trial against the Boy Scouts organization but isn’t the whole societal issue, that being the recent “emancipation” of homosexuals thanks to legal and political decisions.

With the encouragement of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, NAMBLA, the activities of GLSEN, GLAAD and other gay activist groups, and the imprimatur conferred on homosexuality by Obama’s safe schools czar, Kevin Jennings, an avowed homosexual, many gays now feel more empowered than they ever have been.

Is it any wonder that many of them would flock to seminaries and Boy Scout troops to seek their victims under the unintended auspices of the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America?

Also curious is the fact the Portland case was filed after the Boy Scouts have come under attacks by gays by publically refusing membership to homosexual scout leaders: http://bit.ly/cA8qM5 

Timur Dykes is evidently guilty of pedophilia.  He has confessed to the crimes.  The Boy Scouts of America is clearly innocent until proven guilty of facilitating homosexual contact with boys.

Still, in a civil, not criminal trial, with the right judge and jury, the Scouts may well lose this one.  It’s certain there will be more to follow.

They had better be prepared.  

It ain’t over ’til it’s over . . . It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings . . . It ain’t over ’til they vote! 

Use whatever cliche’ or excuse you wish but in truth Obamacare won’t become the law of the land until the House votes on Sunday, the bill goes back to the Senate to vote on House amendments, and the final bill reaches the president’s desk for his signature. 

Any delaying tactic would serve the purpose of postponing final approval of this anti-democratic, unconstitutional, Medicare-busting, deficit-exploding, outrageously-expensive power grab by this administration and, with luck, push the final vote back until after Congress’ 2-week Easter Break which begins on Friday, March 26th. 

Those two weeks will be critical as congresspeople return home and be forced to listen to their constituents’ views on America’s future and on whether one-sixth of America’s economy will be turned over to governmental bureaucrats to administer.

Speaker Pelosi needs 216 votes on Sunday; 215 will mean defeat and will mean that congress will have to face more town halls where the people can express their opinions to their representatives.

Every vote counts.  This may be your last chance to stop Obamacare by calling the House of Representatives at (877) 762-8762 (toll-free) or at (202) 224-3121 or (202) 225-3121. 

Start with recently-undecideds, make yourself heard, and don’t take a busy signal for an answer.  Their phone numbers may be found here: http://barackhatesthis.com/

That journalistic reality goes beyond the news axiom of, “Dog bites man, not news; man bites dog, news!” to a newspaper’s or network’s philosophical beliefs and editorial policies.  Ideally, editorial opinions belong on the editorial page yet frequently make their way into editorialized news features.

Some stories never get beyond a reporter’s notes or laptop if they’re deemed not fit to print, as the New York Times’ slogan puts it.  However, thanks to the new age of the internet, rare is the story that doesn’t get at least minimal publicity even if, or because, it is politically incorrect.

One such story is being widely condemned as outrageous and “off-target,” descriptions which should immediately raise red flags among thinking people indicating it’s true and very much on target.

Former NATO commander and senior officer, retired General John Sheehan of the Marine Corps was testifying in congress about the infamous 1995 Srebenica massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in that Bosnian town when Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI) attacked his testimony as being “off-target” because he had overstepped his bounds.

The precise subject of Sheehan’s remarks was woefully inappropriate and markedly politically incorrect chiefly because Levin didn’t want to hear that Dutch peacekeeping forces in Bosnia failed in their mission because the ranks of the peacekeepers were crawling with proud and outed homosexuals. 

As the senate is grappling with a foregone conclusion, repeal of Clinton’s 1993 “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on gays in the military, Sheehan was asked and told the truth, that being poorly-equipped and poorly-led were only two of the reasons the Serbs were allowed to run roughshod over Srebenica.  The other was the presence of massive numbers of homosexuals in the Dutch battalion.

Asked how he knew that, Sheehan under oath testified that the information had come to him directly from the former chief of staff of the Dutch army.  Levin, Chairman of the Senate committee on Armed Services who was sitting on his ass in Washington during the massacre, knew better and denounced Gen. Sheehan’s testimony thereby effectively calling the former Marine a liar.

Unsurprisingly, a spokesman for the Dutch government also criticized the testimony as “complete nonsense:” http://bit.ly/dnewaJ

What’s nonsensical as well as rude was Levin, an individual who never served in our military, attacking the veracity of a retired general purely in the interests of placating his homosexual constituency and repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

A second story is equally unsettling although dealing with a totally different subject.

Hidden in the bowels of the massive, 1018 page senate Obamacare bill about to be voted on, or not voted on, by Nancy Pelosi’s minions is a tiny, little feature endorsing racial discrimination.

On page 879, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is directed to discriminaate “in awarding grants or contracts under this section . . . [and] shall give preferences to entities that have a demonstrated record of . . . training individuals who are from underrepresented minority groups or disadvantaged backgrounds.”

Translation: Whites, even poor Whites, need not apply. 

Preference for Blacks and Latinos, for example, to nursing, medical, and dental schools, will become the law of Obamaland under Obamacare.  The errant rationale is that disproportionately poor health among Blacks is due to racism and not attributable to lifestyle and other factors.

That flaw in our society is supposed to be remedied by the senate health bill.

The United States Commission on Civil Rights, however, doesn’t think so.  The commissioners said, “Racial preferences in the Senate Health Care Bill, in addition to being unconstitutional, will not improve health care outcomes for minority patients.”

Besides, I would add, isn’t this supposed to be a health care bill and not a civil rights bill?

Joe Hicks, a California advisor to that civil rights commission, concludes his observations by writing, “Some say that life is a game of winners and losers.  This might be true, but we shouldn’t allow Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid to pick the people who win or lose just because of skin color or their last name:” http://bit.ly/9yenqa

Good point, Joe.  Another good point is, Why won’t anyone hear anything about it or about Dutch gays allowing a massacre to happen?    

Perhaps Speaker Pelosi was thinking of Rep. Joseph (Joe) Wilson (R, SC) when she prayed for an intercession by St. Joseph since on the same day she was praying President Obama was proving Joe Wilson right.

The reader may remember Joe from last September when he committed a gross breach of congressional decorum and etiquette by loudly contradicting the president during a speech on Obamacare to a Joint Session of Congress. 

Obama had just finished saying, “There are also those who claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants.  This, too, is false.  The reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally,” when Wilson yelled from his seat, “You lie!” 

Anyone who would care to reminisce on that sweet moment in history can click here for a replay: http://bit.ly/qDxkY.  Those into comedy might want to catch Pelosi’s gushy explanation of why St. Joseph the Worker is on the side of Obamacare can click here: http://bit.ly/qDxkY 

Justifiably, Wilson caught a lot of flak for his spontaneous reaction to what he believed was an outright falsehood.  What he said may have been true but where he said it was clearly not the proper forum. 

Rahm Emanuel would have saved it for a shower room. 

Wilson’s chief error, aside from being indiscreet, was that his correction of Obama’s veracity was a tad premature.   The president had repeatedly tipped his hand on illegal immigration but only yesterday unequivocably announced where he stands.  He supports a plan to legalize illegal aliens and get them green cards and launch them on a path to citizenship: http://bit.ly/9vWVxF

Voila!  Illegals become legals become citizens become eligible for Obamacare!

Take that, Joe Wilson!

Anyone who says Barack Hussein Obama is stupid is a fool.  The Machination Man may be manipulative, devious, immoral, unprincipled–and a liar–but he’s anything but stupid.    

  Let’s have a nice round of applause for Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming.  Those are the only 9 states without a personal income tax and where citizens don’t have to wait for their state governments to send them their annual refunds for overpaid taxes. 

And, let’s have a rousing Bronx cheer for those taxpaying dolts expecting a hefty refund from their respective state governments for giving those governments, as well as the feds, an interest free loan for a year or more. 

You usually only get a big refund if you have your employer over-withhold taxes from your wages so you’re effectively giving the federal treasury as well as your state and local governments that tax free loan.

I must say that’s very generous of all you hefty refunders out there.  It’s also very stupid.

Even dumber are taxpayers who agree to over-withholding in states having the greatest troubles balancing their budgets.  Those are the states–including California and New York–which have announced that they will be glomming even more money from their hapless denizens by not issuing refunds on time.

Try taking one of Governor Arnold’s IOU’s to the bank or grocery store or to that travel agency that was booking your trip to the Bahamas with that refund “windfall.”  You may have to settle for a trip to the backyard until your governor gets around to returning your money.

You should receive interest on that extended, forced loan but don’t bet on it.

As Tax Freedom Day, the day on which working Americans will have paid up all their federal, state and local tax levies, approacheth, it may be time for some taxpayers to re-jigger their W-4’s, unless of course they enjoy giving interest-free loans to politicians. 

Those who don’t relish such grand displays might want to consider hiking their “dependents” to a number commensurate with their deductions.

It’s all quite legal but try not to underpay or else you’ll be hit with a minimal penalty.

Many taxpayers over-withhold as a way of compensating for an inability to save money on their own.  They use taxes as a form of forced savings and like seeing that big refund check come in the mail.  Again, it arrives sans interest as opposed to your getting your money every payday which you could then invest.

If your refund usually amounts to 2 or 3 digits, that advice is irrelevant.  If it comes to 4 or 5 digits, it would amount to some real money if invested judiciously. 

Tax Independence Day or Tax Freedom Day, the day on which Americans finally pay up their annual taxes changes every year, usually gets later and later.  For 2009, it was April 13th, meaning the average American had to work 103 days to pay off various taxes.

Keep in mind that’s an average.  Alaskans were paid up 3 weeks earlier, Connecticut and New Jersey workers weren’t done coughing it up until 3 weeks later. 

By way of comparison, a hundred years ago tax free day was January 19th and the tax burden was a paltry 5%; fifty years later it stood at April 11th and the burden at 28%; a half century later, the date had moved up by 2 days, and the tax burden held steady at 28%.

Those numbers sound pretty fair and reasonable unless one considers the much larger pie that governments were slicing in 2009 vs. 1960.

Let’s see what they look like after a decade of obamacare.

Much of the rest of the world views America with a pronounced case of tax envy: Canadians work work until June 6th and pay 43% of their hard-earned money to various levels of government.  Other dates and percentages include the semi-socialistic UK coming in at May 14 and 37%, France at July 15 and 54%, and the winners of the tax sweepstakes, Sweden and Norway, July 29th and 57%: http://bit.ly/8ZBRW9  

Americans can’t hope to compete with those tax burdens, yet.  But, if you thrive on the idea of wasting money in unnecessary tax withholding, keep it up!  Your generosity helps keep my taxes down.  

Thus, his claims to have campaigned in all 57 states and other “Bush-isms” have somehow escaped the radar of the MSM whereas G.W. Bush’s malapropisms and innocent mistakes are still prime fodder for ridicule.

Nevertheless, Obama and his henchmen, principally VP Joe Biden   as primary henchman, continue to outshine any Bush faux pas even if few people ever hear about them.

Joe the Mouth’s latest was his heartfelt wish that Irish P.M.’s Brian Cowen’s sainted mother rest in peace or, as Biden said after realizing Cowen’s mom was very much alive and kicking, “God bless her soul.” 

Actually it was Cowen’s da who was deceased but why quibble when it comes to a meaningless regret from the vice-president of the United States: http://bit.ly/bFY7Wo

Obama himself, no piker when it comes to looking and sounding inept and stupid, tried to show his underling Biden how to dance around questions and emerge smelling like a rose in a Wednesday interview.  However, his dance routine failed and he emerged looking petulant, evasive, and impatient. 

Problem was that his interviewer wasn’t Katie Couric or another lackey of the MSM but Bret Baier of Fox News who hit the president with probing and persistent questions which had Obama reeling and frustrated.  

He was searching for his mouth to insert his foot and found it with repeated contradictions on Obamacare.

It wasn’t as much what Obama said but rather what he didn’t and wouldn’t say about the health care maneuverings now going on in Congress that betrayed him. 

Instead of directly answering Baier’s queries, he engaged in long-winded speechifying and repeatedly chastised the Fox News interviewer for interrupting him whereas Baier was merely trying to get the president to answer his questions.

Make your own judgement on just who was being rude to whom and how evasive Obama was: http://bit.ly/af6kbI

The Washington Post described the 20 minute chat as “a testy affair,” which is a distorted view of the exchange.  More precisely, it was an honest effort to get some honest answers.

Baier was making a valiant attempt to cut through what John McCain had earlier called, “The sleaze that Chicago-style sausage-making going on in the formation of this bill:”  http://bit.ly/cCOsuN

Our leader would have been better off pleading ignorance and blaming the whole health reform fiasco on his hapless vice-president.

Obama clearly outshone Biden in the idiocy and foot in mouth departments while trying to show his empathy for the victims of the Haitian and Chilean earthquakes. 

Demonstrating his skill with the Clintonian “Ah feel your pain” synthetic emotion, Obama once again pulled off another foot in mouth trick in the interview when he spoke of the Hawaii earthquake.

What Hawaii earthquake, you ask?  The one the president invented, I answer. 

Defending the baldfaced bribe of Sen. Mary Landrieu to get her onboard the Obamacare Express, the president said that special deals like that second Louisiana Purchase “also affects Hawaii which went through an earthquake.”   

Here’s the full excerpt of that part of the interview:  http://bit.ly/aybXxU 

Haitians and Chileans don’t vote too often in American elections so the discombulated Obama tried to link them with the victims of the Hawaiian mini-tsunami which resulted from the Chile quake.  That disaster pummeled our 50th state with piddling 4 foot waves.

Obama seemed to think that Hawaii had suffered an earthquake and therefore needed as much federal aid as Louisiana.

Someone should clue him in on that gaffe since Baier let him get away with it.

 It’s not many school districts that require an emergency financial manager.  Detroit does.  It’s not many school districts that boast of an illiterate school board president.  Detroit does.

The mostly black city, a status only dreamed of by its long-time mayor Coleman Young, has lost 50% of its school population in a decade, the same percentage loss suffered by the city over those ten years.  Detroit is filled with vast areas resembling Berlin in 1945 but without the German will to overcome severe adversity.

Instead, Detroit’s city fathers are considering bulldozing vast tracts of dead tenement and broken factory land and converting them into farm land.  That, at least, could make it more productive than its current decimated tax base.

Certainly Detroit’s plight is not fully the responsibility of municipal mismanagement.  The United Auto Workers, the UAW,  is also responsible for demanding, and getting, higher and higher wages and perks with no quality improvement in their product, demands which drove America’s auto industry into the ground and the Motor City into a concrete wall.

Most UAW members live and lived outside the innercity walls and thus have little voice or interest in determining the fate of Detroit and the fate and future of that one institution that could turn around Detroit’s sad destiny, its school system.

No such turnaround is expected soon even with the intervention of Mr. Robert Bobb, that governor-appointed emergency financial manager whose chief function so far has been centered on stemming the tide of computers stolen from schools, some 500 valued at $600,000. 

In a cash-strapped district and city, twelve hundred dollar computers seem an extravagance anyway but just one of the many extravagances and instances of corruption that Bobb has uncovered: http://bit.ly/5te6pW

As a financial overseer, Bobb would have little influence on the day-to-day activities in Detroit’s 94 elementary and secondary schools. 

That influence would and should be the domain of the people in charge of those schools, the principals, assistant principals, and department heads who, in turn, are under the scrutiny of the elected school board president who would be expected to provide direction and inspiration.

Aside from his impressive name and title, the President of the Detroit Board of Education, Otis Mathis III, neither inspires nor seems capable of directing anything.

Now waging a legal battle to determine the future of the nation’s lowest-performing, big city school district, Mathis is a bad caricature of an educational leader.

Polipundit.com featured a March 16th article on Mathis entitled, ”Is Our School Board Presidents Reading?” 

That nonsensical and ungrammatical title illustrates its focus on the nonsensical and ungrammatical Otis Mathis III who seems proud of his background as a Detroit student during who “earned” an average of .98, not 98% but 2 points below a 1%.

A product of affirmative action for both black and inept students, he later fought to end Detroit’s English proficiency graduation requisite because it made him “feel stupid.”  After winning that battle and after his election as school board president, Mathis finally graduated high school in 2008 with a GED.

In that capacity, he now sends out mass emailings such as this: “If you saw Sunday’s Free Press that shown Robert Bobb the emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools, move Mark Twain to Boynton which have three times the number seats then students and was one of the reason’s he gave for closing school to many empty seats.”

And this gem: “Do DPS control the Foundation or outside group? If an outside group control the foundation, then what is DPS Board row with selection of is director? Our we mixing DPS and None DPS row’s, and who is the watch dog?: http://bit.ly/dejIku

I don’t know who controls the DPS but I do know who controls Detroit’s public schools and it’s not Albert Einstein.

Mathis is more like Alfred E. Neuman   and he explains a great deal about why Detroit and its schools are in such a sorry mess.   

 Innercity School Sends 100% of Its Graduates on to College.  Chicago’s Urban Prep Academy for Young Men not only graduated every young man in their school but every one of them is going to college next semester.  All 107 seniors in Urban Prep will be attending one of 72 American colleges.  Kudos to the grads and to their excellent school! (http://bit.ly/bJrKDO)

 People Who Tempt Mother Nature Should Pay the Piper:  Hamptonites who built homes on the Atlantic are all in a tizzy after being flooded out by last weekend’s nor’easter which brought 17 foot waves and 70 mph winds to their front doors: http://bit.ly/d3VOhr.  Taxpayer-subsidized flood insurance will help them rebuild but won’t do much for their eroded private beaches.

  A Kiss Is But a Kiss, Except in Dubai: An amorous British couple in Dubai faces a month in jail for violating that emirate’s decency laws by engaging in a public liplock.  Brits aren’t known for being very demonstrative and it’s believed alcohol played a part in their indecency in uptight Dubai: http://bit.ly/cscEL2.

 Is There a Doctor in the House?  According to a New England Journal of Medicine survey, there may not be after we get Obamacare.  Almost a third of 1200 responding doctors said they would quit or retire if Obamacare is passed, almost 50% said they would quit or retire if a public option is included:   ( http://bit.ly/aH3sOA)

 Pssst.  Hey, you want a job?  Rep. Joe Sestak (D, PA) wanted a job, the senate job of Sen. Arlen Specter (D, PA).  However, the White House didn’t want him to have that particular job and offered Sestak “a high-ranking administration job if he would drop his senate primary challenge:” http://bit.ly/bdo8mS  Methinks that’s called bribery?

 Regressive Soda Tax Hits Poor the Hardest.  Instead of revamping the tax code, eliminating government waste and redundancy, cutting payrolls, and prosecuting tax and welfare cheats, New York State has hit upon a sweet solution to its budgetary mess: make a 12 ounce can of soda cost 12 cents more.  Everyone will blame Coke and Pepsi while the governor skates off with the money: http://bit.ly/9zMEux

 Massachusetts Changes Bully Bill but Keeps Its Potty Mind.  Language in a Massachusetts’ State Senate anti-bullying bill that would have criminalized any and all criticism of homosexuals was deleted from that bill.  The legislature is still considering the “Transgender Rights . . .” bill that would permit “men” to use ladies’ rooms and vice versa: http://bit.ly/cO0koX

 South African Baboons Like Chardonnay.  Well, they like choice Chardonnay grapes which they’ve been gobbling up by the tonnes–as the Brits spell tons–of them in S.A. vineyards. One vintner lost 40% of his grape harvest in a month.  Problem is you can’t shoot them and you can’t live with baboons, as any woman knows.  Solution: the French way, surrender and harvest fewer grapes: http://bit.ly/cXz1B5