Those Funny Funny TSA Employees

Because I'm not scared of flying enough as it is. What with all the rules about no liquids, 3-ounce bottles, removal of my shoes (and thus walking across the scuzzy airport floor barefoot), the underwire in my bra that sets off the security machines, the full-body scanners that do everything but give me medical test results and may or may not work, potentially drunk pilots, arriving at the airport 2 hours early, crotch bombs, strangers man-handling my toothbrush as they manually check my luggage, and more, NOW I need to be afraid of the very people who are paid to ensure 100% safety at the nations' airports stuffing bags of white powder (as in cocaine or other contraband) in my carry-on baggage as a joke.

I hope this TSA employee was fired on the spot (since the TSA won't say if he was fired or quit, just that there was disciplinary action taken). And I hope it was a criminal offense. Because it sure as heck is not funny. Lord knows passenger pranks in airports are never treated with a benefit of doubt (and they should be taken as seriously as they are).

Student Pranked by Philadelphia Airport TSA Worker
Associated Press in the Chicago Sun-Times, January 24, 2010

PHILADELPHIA -- A college student returning to school after the winter break fell victim to a prank at Philadelphia's airport by a Transportation Security Administration worker who pretended to plant a plastic bag of white powder in her carryon luggage.

The worker is no longer employed by the TSA after the incident this month, a spokeswoman said.

Rebecca Solomon, 22, a University of Michigan student, wrote in a column for her campus newspaper that she was having her bags screened on Jan. 5 before her flight to Detroit when the employee stopped her, reached into her laptop computer bag and pulled out the plastic bag, demanding to know where she had gotten the powder.

In the Jan. 10 column for The Michigan Daily, she recounted how she struggled to come up with an explanation, wondering if it was bomb-detonating material slipped in by a terrorist or drugs put there by a smuggler.

"He let me stutter through an explanation for the longest minute of my life," Solomon wrote. "Tears streamed down my face as I pleaded with him to understand that I'd never seen this baggie before."

A short time later, she said, the worker smiled and said it was his.

The worker "waved the baggie at me and told me he was kidding, that I should've seen the look on my face," she said.

Solomon said she asked to speak to a supervisor and filled out a complaint, and during that process was told that the man was training TSA workers to detect contraband. Two days later, she said, she was told he had been disciplined.

"I had been terrified and disrespected by an airport employee," she said. "He'd joked about the least funny thing in air travel."

There was no answer Saturday at a telephone listing for Solomon at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. An e-mail message seeking comment from her was sent Saturday by The Associated Press, and a telephone message was left at her parents' home in suburban Philadelphia.

TSA spokeswoman Suzanne Trevino said late Saturday that the employee was no longer with the agency but did not say whether he had been fired or quit, referring only to "disciplinary action" taken by the TSA. She also declined to identify the worker or his job title, citing privacy laws. She said she did not know whether his actions would be subject to criminal charges.

"The behavior exhibited by this TSA employee was highly inappropriate and unprofessional," Trevino said in a statement.

I Don't Have to Apologize to Sarah Palin

It's no secret that I'm not exactly a fan of Sarah Palin. You can do a search for her on LMS and read some of what I had to say last fall.

That said, I have politely kept my mouth shut during the last week while she took offense at David Letterman's jokes about her and her family because I'm working on the whole "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything" philosophy. But I can't stay quiet anymore.

I'm not actually going to defend David Letterman here. You can decide for yourself whether or not he was out of line. I will say, however, that I don't think he should have given his "apology" last week and I truly can't believe he's giving a true one tonight (I just heard about it on the news). I hate that he was bullied into apologizing to her and her family.

No one ever apologized to President Clinton (the actual President, as opposed to the losing VP candidate who won't let go of her 15 minutes), Hillary Clinton or their daughter Chelsea when the Republicans were making fun of her looks. Every teenager goes through that awkward stage. Chelsea was younger than either Willow or Bristol Palin, the Clintons had taken careful steps to keep her out of the spotlight (unlike the way the Palins paraded their kids all over the country to every campaign stop), and Chelsea had not done anything that would warrant the "dog" or "Janet Reno is her father" comments by Rush Limbaugh and John McCain respectively (again, unlike Bristol who became pregnant as a teenager in spite of Sarah Palin's staunch pro-life anti-pre-marital sex stance). If kids should be off limits, then all children of politicians should be off-limits, not just select ones.

But that's not even my real beef. My real beef is that she should be consistent in her outrage. Where was Sarah Palin's rant about how jokes about sex with underage girls is what causes them to have low self-esteem last fall when the late night comedians were making fun of Bristol? To me, this "outrage" just comes off as Sarah Palin trying desperately to stay relevent and extend her 15 minutes of fame.

I could go on, but Shannyn Moore said it best in The Huffington Post today with her brilliant post "Top 10 Reasons Sarah Palin's 'Outrage' is Misplaced and A Little Late . . . "

10) Last September, a skit on Saturday Night Live suggested incest in the Palin family. "What about the husband?" asked a mock Times reporter. "You know he's doing those daughters. I mean, come on. It's Alaska!" No outrage. Sarah Palin appeared on the show one month later in late October.

9) Days after the announcement of Bristol's pregnancy, Conan O'Brien joked, "It's true, John McCain's running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, has revealed that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. Palin said, 'We should never have introduced her to John Edwards.'" Where was the outrage? Was Conan promoting infidelity with an underage girl?

8 ) From two different Tonight Shows: "Governor Palin announced over the weekend that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is five months pregnant. Oh, boy, you thought John Edwards was in trouble before, now he's really done it!" AND..."All the Republicans are heaping praise on Governor Palin. Fred Thompson said, as an actor, he could see them making a movie about Sarah Palin and her family. Didn't they already make that movie? I think it was called 'Knocked Up!'"--Jay Leno

7) Craig Ferguson's skit of "Larry King vs Levi Johnston" asks about "kinky sex" with the drapes open. Craig Ferguson's honorary Alaska citizenship, granted by Governor Palin wasn't rescinded.

6) "According to expense reports, Sarah Palin charged the state of Alaska over $21,000 for her children to travel with her on official business. In fairness to Gov. Palin, when she leaves them home alone they get pregnant." --Seth Meyers (SNL). Sarah Palin was in a sketch with Meyers a week earlier.

5) On October 8, 2008, Sarah Palin walked out on the ice with six year old Piper and 13 year old Willow, before the game, Conan O'Brien said, "Saturday night, Sarah Palin is going to drop the first puck at the Philadelphia Flyers' hockey game. Then Palin will spend the rest of the game trying to keep the hockey players out of her daughter's penalty box."
Oh, yes he did. You get the outrage...but not a peep then. According to the new "logic", O'Brien was advocating for some really sick stuff.

4) Rush Limbaugh: "Everyone knows the Clintons have a cat. Socks is the White House cat. But did you know there is a White House dog?" Limbaugh put up a picture of Chelsea Clinton. At the time, Chelsea Clinton was 13 years old. Rush also said, "In last year's campaign, the most prominent, articulate voice for standard run-of-the-mill good old-fashioned American conservatism was Sarah Palin." Calling a young teenager a "dog" can't be helpful to her "self-esteem." Where is the apology from the leader of the GOP?

3) "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno."--John McCain, Sarah Palin's running mate. Should McCain apologize to every young woman in America?

2) Palin's friend, political defender and informer of the David Letterman comments, John Ziegler, was fired from his radio show for using the "n-word" online and on air in 1997. In 2000, he was fired for spelling the "n-word" on the air. How much does that word affect the psychological health of America's youth, regardless of their race? Now he is pimping his film about how mean the "liberal media" was to Sarah Palin.

AND...The NUMBER 1 REASON Sarah Palin's Outrage is Misplaced and A Little Late...

1) The "candidate who must be obeyed" was talking about Palin's family when he said, "Kids are off limits." Jake Tapper of ABC News interviewed then Candidate Obama, and asked, "Governor Palin and her husband issued a statement today saying their 17-year-old daughter Bristol, who is unmarried, is five months pregnant. Do you have any reaction?"

OBAMA: "I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people's families are off-limits. And people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Governor Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know, my mother had me when she was 18. And, you know, how family deals with issues and -- and, you know, teenaged children, that shouldn't be the topic of -- of our politics."

The Palin children have been fodder for comedians since they were brought to the national stage. Incest isn't funny. Ugly kid jokes aren't funny. Many of the things said about public figures are just flat wrong. Being "knocked up" isn't much fun. Racist comments hurt all of us. I exhausted the top 10 list before I ran out of outrageous instances ignored by the Palins.

The National Organization for Women named David Letterman to their Hall of Shame. Will Letterman be joining Jay Leno? Conan O'Brien? Craig Ferguson? Seth Myers? Rush Limbaugh? Or John McCain? Of course not! I guess N.O.W. didn't bother checking Sarah Palin's "feminist" credentials. All across America, right wing radio and television talk show hosts feigned outrage in perfect synchronicity. The same people who back up Palin's high drama assertions against Letterman ignored the connections between Bill O'Reilly's irresponsible incitement and the murder of Dr. George Tiller. David Letterman, a late night entertainer, apologized. Fox New's Bill O'Reilly has not.

As a parent, I understand being defensive. I just wonder what took so long. Why now?

More Random Stuff About Me. Are You Bored Yet? That's Rhetorical.

I guess we now can say definitively that yes, in fact, I do bow to peer pressure. Thanks Miss Alex of Fonzie Sox and Dr. Monkey!

This will be the third time I've done this and we're beginning to get to the truly obscure and bizarre and possibly embarrassing things about me. Seriously, this must stop. I'm not doing this again. Well, at least until CERTAIN friends of mine do it for the first time . . . and you know who you are!

1. Right before Christmas, when I was in the 2nd grade, my two front teeth were fairly loose. That winter was especially harsh and during recess, a boy named Blake decided a bunch of people should play "kissing tag." I wanted nothing to do with it because I couldn't stand him, so I started to walk away, but he took that as a sign that I'd already started the game. He came after me, tackled me into a huge pile of frozen snow and knocked out my two front teeth. I spent the afternoon with paper towels shoved in my toothless mouth and he didn't get into any trouble.

2. In 1992 and 1998, I spent my birthday in Grant Park celebrating the Bulls Championships with just a few million of my closest friends.

3. Former Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood and I share a birthday.

4. I've always wanted a sister, but my brother Dave has grown on me over the last 34 years.

5. I miss my best friend, even though the truth is my life is better without her.

6. My first apartment in DC was in the middle of hookerville (my nickname for it), but I could lay in bed at night and have an unimpeded view of the Capitol Dome. It was the only thing I loved about that apartment.

7. I have a crazy family that sometimes embarrasses me. But I'm never embarrassed by any of my relatives I'm connected to on Facebook. Really. That's NOT sarcasm. If you embarrassed me, I wouldn't let you be my Facebook Friend.

8. One of my life goals is to be published.

9. My dad used to tell everyone I was going to be the first woman President.

10. I was named for my maternal grandfather (whom I've never met because he died on my mom's 13th birthday), Jesse Paulk, and my mom's best friend from college, Lynn Meng. I'm Jessica Lynn, but only my mom can call me that.

11. In her gut, she was so certain I was a girl, my mom never even had a boy's name picked out for me. I was Jessica Lynn from the moment she found out she was pregnant with me.

12. When my paternal grandfather was dying, I went to Florida to say good-bye. It was a very emotional trip for me because he'd been an important part of my life. He couldn't talk, but could at least understand what we were saying to a degree. The night before I was scheduled to fly back to DC, I left my hotel room to go for a walk. After about an hour, my dad came looking for me, and found me in my grandfather's room in the nursing home. I was just sitting and talking to him, through many tears, and didn't want to leave. My dad led me out of the room and as we got to the door of his room, I turned around and said "good-bye Grandpa." I have no idea how, but he somehow said "bye Jess." The only two words he'd said for ages. I could barely walk back to the hotel because I was such a wreck. Two days later, Grandpa died and those words will stick with me forever.

13. I never wanted to do anything except be an attorney. I'm not a lawyer, but I have no regrets.

14. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm always really proud when I manage to fix something around my house myself.

15. Whenever I hear U2, I think of my friend Steve, the Illinois Citizenship Experience, and that summer.

16. I didn't get braces until college and I slept with a retainer until I was almost 30. It was the most uncool thing ever and I eventually stopped wearing it, but then my teeth moved. My orthodontist had the last laugh when he put something on my teeth to keep them permanently in place, essentially braces (that's how it feels) but on the back of my teeth.

17. The dirtiest joke I ever heard came from my maternal grandmother. It had a minister in it and she didn't get how truly dirty it was. She just thought it was funny and would routinely tell it at completely inappropriate family functions (think funerals, anniversary parties, Christmas). She is this very prim and proper woman and devout Christian and it baffles my mind to think about where she happened to hear this vile joke. Don't ask me to tell you the joke. I won't.

18. My favorite song is Southern Cross and I prefer the Jimmy Buffett cover to the original.


19. I cry every time I see Serendipity. Don't judge me, you cry at cheezy movies too.

20. Casablanca and It's A Wonderful Life also make me cry and are two of my favorite movies ever. They just don't make movies like these anymore.

21. When I was 13, I played the Virgin Mary in the Christmas Eve play at church. My mother has the pictorial evidence.

22. I wasn't ever the smartest kid, just the most determined.

23. If The West Wing is on TV, don't expect me to do anything else. Ever. I've been known to have a "sick day" if Bravo is having a marathon.

24. I've never been to New York City, except for two one-day business trips.

25. On January 1, 19889, I appeared in part of a segment on the Today Show as part of the Marriage and Family class at my high school. And I'm holding the 10 pound sack of cat litter, my "husband" and I had to dress up to look like a boy. We got the 10 lb sack of cat litter rather than the 5 lb pound of flour that everyone else got because he was a pretty big guy, at least that's what our teachers said.

The REAL Sarah Palin on SNL (live blogging) (VIDEOS!)

Sarah Palin (the real one) is appearing on Saturday Night Live tonight. And I'm staying up to watch, because I'm hoping and praying it will be over the top hysterical.

10:36pm . . . The Opening Skit featuring Tina Fey as Sarah Palin giving a her first news conference, Sarah Palin (the real one), Mark Wahlberg, and Alec Baldwin just ended and I have to admit I was seriously disappointed. As soon as it's available, I'll post it and let you judge for yourself. Here's hoping Sarah appears later and it's funny.



10:39pm . . . SNL is hosted by Josh Brolin and there's Oliver Stone in the audience!

10:47pm . . . Can someone please explain to me how Kristen Wiig is funny? She seems exactly the same to me in every character. All of her voices are the same. And I simply do not find her funny.

10:56pm . . . Mark Wahlberg is back! Maybe Sarah Palin will reappear too. Fingers crossed.

11:15pm . . . Weekend Update . . . . Always funny. Lots of opportunity here to make fun of Sarah. Oh. My. God. Dan Quayle gave Sarah advice? Really?

11:24pm . . . WAHOO! She's BACK in the middle of Weekend Update! This will be GREAT! Wait, an about-to-pop pregnant Amy Poehler is doing the Sarah part rapping and dancing, while Sarah just bobs her head in her seat? WTF???



11:42pm . . . I gotta say, SNL is a huge disappointment tonight and I simply don't understand. They've had some great skits this year, mostly thanks to the election. Tina Fey's impersonations of Sarah Palin are spot-on. Fred Armisen could be a better Barack Obama, but the debate skits have been so good, it hasn't mattered much. Weekend Update has had the best material its had in years. And then there's tonight. What happened? It almost makes me wonder if the McCain/Palin campaign folks made SNL promise not to make fun of Sarah tonight. If her job was to show she could laugh at herself, I'd say Sarah Palin failed. A completely wasted opportunity.

My advice is to erase your TiVo without watching SNL. I watched so you don't have to.

It's the Hypocrisy, Stupid.

I have nothing original to say this morning, so I took this from FranIAm. The original author is unknown, but she got it from her friend David's blog. Frankly, this would be humorous if it weren't so true. Instead of being humorous, it shows the blatant hypocrisy of the GOP.

Read on people...

This was forwarded to me today in an email. There was no attribution to author or source.

I thought that many of them were quite clever. I share them with you lot.

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If you’re a minority and you’re selected for a job over more qualified candidates you’re a “token hire.”

If you’re a conservative and you’re selected for a job over more qualified candidates you’re a “game changer.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you live in an Urban area and you get a girl pregnant you’re a “baby daddy.”

If you’re the same in Alaska you’re a “teen father.” (Actually, according to your own MySpace page you’re an F’n redneck that don’t want any kids, but that’s too long a phrase for the evil liberal media to take out of context and flog morning noon and night).

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Black teen pregnancies? A “crisis” in black America.

White teen pregnancies? A “blessed event.”

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If you grow up in Hawaii you’re “exotic.”Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you’re the quintessential “American story.”

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Similarly, if you name you kid Barack you’re “unpatriotic.”

Name your kid Track, you’re “colorful.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you’re a Democrat and you make a VP pick without fulling vetting the individual you’re “reckless.”

A Republican who doesn’t fully vet is a “maverick.”

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If you say that for the “first time in my adult lifetime I’m really proud of my country” it makes you “unfit” to be First Lady.

If you are a registered member of a fringe political group that advocates secession that makes you “First Dude.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A DUI from twenty years ago is “old news.”

A speech given without proper citation from twenty years ago is “relevant information.”

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If you’re a man and you decide to run for office despite your wife’s reoccurrence of cancer you’re a “questionable spouse.”

If you’re a woman and you decide to run for office despite having five kids including a newborn with Downs Syndrome… Well, we don’t know what that is ‘cause THAT’S NOT A FAIR QUESTION TO ASK!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you get 18 million people to vote for you in a national presidential primary, you’re a “phoney.”

Get 100,000+ people to vote you governor of the 47th most populous state in the Union, you’re “well loved.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you are biracial and born in a state not connected to the lower 48, America needs darn near 2 years and 3 major speeches to “get to know you.”

If you’re white and from a state not connected to the lower 48, America needs 36 minutes and 38 seconds worth of an acceptance speech to know you’re “one of us.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you give your wife a dap on stage, it’s actually a “terrorist fist jab.”

If your daughter licks her palm so that she can slick down your youngest child’s hair on national TV it’s an “adorable moment.” (Seriously, forget about abstinence only, teach these folks some grooming skills).

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If your pastor rails against inequality in the United States of America, you’re an “extremist.”

If your pastor welcomes a sermon by a member of Jews for Jesus who preaches that the killing of Jews by terrorists is a lesson to Jews that they must convert to Christianity, you’re a “fundamentalist.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you’re a black man and you use a scholarship to get into college, then work your way up to being the president of the Harvard Law Review, you’re “uppity.”

If you’re a conservative and your parents pay your way to Hawaii Pacific University . . . you only have four more schools to attend over the next five years before you somehow manage to graduate (it might be five more school over the next five years. No one has yet verified whether or not Palin was actually ever registered at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. But, you know how shady people are who ever attended any kind of school in Hawaii).

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

If you’re 18, white, and get a 16 year old girl pregnant “life happens.”

If you’re 18, black, and impregnate a 16 year old girl, you’re a “registered sex offender

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If you spend 18 months building a campaign around the theme of “Change,” it’s just “empty rhetoric.”

If one week before your party’s national convention you SUDDENLY make your candidacy about “Change,” that’s “red meat.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

And lastly:

If you are a Democrat, an Independent, or even a moderate Republican, if you’re female, male, white, black, Asian, Hispanic, bi-racial, multi-ethnic, or GLBT, if you’re a Jew, Gentile, Muslim, agnostic or atheist - “Yes, we can!”

If you’re a pitbull with lipstick from Alaska, “Yup, yup!”

GOP: "Respect Bristol's Privacy. That's Always Been the Tradition and Practice When It Comes To the Children of Candidates."

Attention! Attention! Attention! The Grand Old Party has an announcement to make!

Per an internal, not for external distribution GOP Talking Points:

"The media should respect Bristol's privacy. That's always been the tradition and practice when it comes to the children of candidates. The children of candidates do not choose to run for office and be thrust into the spotlight."

Yes, you read that correctly. The GOP would like you MEAN and LIBERAL BIASED media types (and that surely includes you bloggers - who John McCain hates) to stop hating on and bad mouthing poor Bristol Palin. And they have a spotless record of always embracing politicians' children, no matter the political party.

Except for when they don't.

"Do you know why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly?" John McCain told a handful of big Republican funders in June 1998. "Because Janet Reno is her father."

For the record (and in case John McCain was confused), Chelsea Clinton, 18 in 1998, was not running for political office, nor had she been thrust into the news due to her activities that were in complete contrast to her father's (President Bill Clinton's) beliefs and policies.

Nope. That is Bristol Palin, the pregnant daughter of Sarah Palin. So John McCain will just have to excuse us for questioning Sarah Palin's strict abstinence policies and her pregnant, unwed teenage daughter.

And just cuz I've been looking for an excuse to point out how misogynistic John McCain is, enjoy the following where John McCain joking about women enjoy being raped* is just "McCain being McCain."



*Trust me on this one. Women DO NOT like being raped.

The Onion is Psychic!

Forget Dionne Warwick's Psychic Friends Network and Miss Cleo, if you want to know the future, just read The Onion!

Seriously, I couldn't make this stuff up.

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

January 17, 2001 Issue 37•01

WASHINGTON, DC–Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect George W. Bush assured the nation in a televised address Tuesday that "our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over."

President-elect Bush vows that "together, we can put the triumphs of the recent past behind us."

"My fellow Americans," Bush said, "at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us."

Bush swore to do "everything in [his] power" to undo the damage wrought by Clinton's two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.

During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.

"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?"

On the economic side, Bush vowed to bring back economic stagnation by implementing substantial tax cuts, which would lead to a recession, which would necessitate a tax hike, which would lead to a drop in consumer spending, which would lead to layoffs, which would deepen the recession even further.

Wall Street responded strongly to the Bush speech, with the Dow Jones industrial fluctuating wildly before closing at an 18-month low. The NASDAQ composite index, rattled by a gloomy outlook for tech stocks in 2001, also fell sharply, losing 4.4 percent of its total value between 3 p.m. and the closing bell. Asked for comment about the cooling technology sector, Bush said: "That's hardly my area of expertise."

Turning to the subject of the environment, Bush said he will do whatever it takes to undo the tremendous damage not done by the Clinton Administration to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He assured citizens that he will follow through on his campaign promise to open the 1.5 million acre refuge's coastal plain to oil drilling. As a sign of his commitment to bringing about a change in the environment, he pointed to his choice of Gale Norton for Secretary of the Interior. Norton, Bush noted, has "extensive experience" fighting environmental causes, working as a lobbyist for lead-paint manufacturers and as an attorney for loggers and miners, in addition to suing the EPA to overturn clean-air standards.

Bush had equally high praise for Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft, whom he praised as "a tireless champion in the battle to protect a woman's right to give birth."

"Soon, with John Ashcroft's help, we will move out of the Dark Ages and into a more enlightened time when a woman will be free to think long and hard before trying to fight her way past throngs of protesters blocking her entrance to an abortion clinic," Bush said. "We as a nation can look forward to lots and lots of babies."

Soldiers at Ft. Bragg march lockstep in preparation for America's return to aggression.

Continued Bush: "John Ashcroft will be invaluable in healing the terrible wedge President Clinton drove between church and state."

The speech was met with overwhelming approval from Republican leaders.

"Finally, the horrific misrule of the Democrats has been brought to a close," House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert (R-IL) told reporters. "Under Bush, we can all look forward to military aggression, deregulation of dangerous, greedy industries, and the defunding of vital domestic social-service programs upon which millions depend. Mercifully, we can now say goodbye to the awful nightmare that was Clinton's America."

"For years, I tirelessly preached the message that Clinton must be stopped," conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said. "And yet, in 1996, the American public failed to heed my urgent warnings, re-electing Clinton despite the fact that the nation was prosperous and at peace under his regime. But now, thank God, that's all done with. Once again, we will enjoy mounting debt, jingoism, nuclear paranoia, mass deficit, and a massive military build-up."

An overwhelming 49.9 percent of Americans responded enthusiastically to the Bush speech.

"After eight years of relatively sane fiscal policy under the Democrats, we have reached a point where, just a few weeks ago, President Clinton said that the national debt could be paid off by as early as 2012," Rahway, NJ, machinist and father of three Bud Crandall said. "That's not the kind of world I want my children to grow up in."

"You have no idea what it's like to be black and enfranchised," said Marlon Hastings, one of thousands of Miami-Dade County residents whose votes were not counted in the 2000 presidential election. "George W. Bush understands the pain of enfranchisement, and ever since Election Day, he has fought tirelessly to make sure it never happens to my people again."

Bush concluded his speech on a note of healing and redemption.

"We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two," Bush said. "Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there's much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."

"The insanity is over," Bush said. "After a long, dark night of peace and stability, the sun is finally rising again over America. We look forward to a bright new dawn not seen since the glory days of my dad."

This ASTOUNDS Me . . . How Could Mike Huckabee Say This?

As much as I'd like to believe we live in a completely colorblind society, where the color of one's skin or their gender truly does not matter, the fact is there are racists in this country. Some of them would like nothing more than for Barack Obama to not be running for President. And some would like that by any means necessary.

Given this fact, how is it possible for former Republican presidential candidate and former Southern Baptist minister Mike Huckabee to make a "joke" at the NRA about someone pointing a gun at Barack Obama? In what part of the universe is this funny? And, yes, it's not funny because Barack is African-American. In fact, I think it's racist.

Some pundits want to give Huckabee the benefit of the doubt and have said that he is known to be a funny guy who ad libs and jokes around a lot. Huckabee, himself, has issued an apology, stating last night "[d]uring my speech at the N.R.A., a loud noise backstage, that sounded like a chair falling, distracted the crowd and interrupted my speech. I made an off hand remark that was in no way intended to offend or disparage Sen. Obama. I apologize that my comments were offensive. That was never my intention."

The thing is, I don't buy it. I want to understand that it was made in the "heat of the moment" and that it was just an "oops," but I believe that making racist (or sexist) jokes isn't just something that happens as an "oops" in public unless you do it in private.

In case you haven't seen it, here's Huckabee's "joke" that he made in front of the NRA yesterday.