Sarah Palin 'Would Be Willing' to Take On "Failure" Obama in 2012...So Would Hillary I Bet...

Palin ‘Would Be Willing’ to Take On Obama in 2012

By Judson Berger
FOXNews.com

Sarah Palin has President Obama in her sights, telling FoxNews.com she “would be willing” to challenge him in the 2012 presidential race.

The former Alaska governor, in an interview Saturday on the sidelines of the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, said President Obama’s “lack of experience” has held him back his first year in office and that she would put her credentials up against his any day.

“I would be willing to if I believe that it’s right for the country,” Palin said when asked if she would run for president in 2012.

She qualified the statement, adding that she sees “many” other potential candidates who are “in as strong or stronger position than I am to take on the White House and if they’re in a better position than I in three years, I’ll support them.”

But the former GOP vice presidential nominee told “Fox News Sunday”: “I won’t close the door that perhaps could be open for me in the future.”

Feb. 6: Sarah Palin speaks at the first National Tea Party Convention.

Palin is doing more than simply dipping her toe in the water with tentative talk of presidential aspirations. Since unexpectedly leaving the Alaska Governor’s Mansion last year, she’s formed a political action committee, she’s started endorsing and supporting candidates in the Republican primaries, she’s published a book and she’s been agitating the administration on a regular basis.

She delivered the keynote address Saturday at the tea party convention, using it to hammer Obama as soft on terrorism. When convention organizer Judson Phillips mentioned the idea of “President Palin” in a question-and-answer session afterward, audience members leapt to their feet and burst into a chant of “Run, Sarah, Run.”

In the near-term, Palin said she is going to focus her energy on the upcoming GOP primaries, and that she may support “hundreds” of candidates in the months ahead.

“I do want competition to allow the cream of the crop to rise (in the GOP contests),” Palin said, adding that her support would translate into everything from donations to campaign rallies. “There are hundreds of candidates on local, state and on the national level that hopefully we’ll be able to help.”

Palin recently endorsed Rand Paul, the son of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate in Kentucky. She said she was attracted to his limited government platform and that she’s already donated to the campaign.

Asked which other races she’s focusing on, Palin, who’s a Fox News analyst, said she’ll “do whatever I can to help” the Republican nominee, whoever he or she is, against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada.

“If the election were today, Reid … would go down,” Palin said.

However, she said she doesn’t have any favorites in the Republican primary — and dismissed the idea that she fancies herself a political kingmaker.

“That’s going too far because I do not have that power nor desire,” she said.

During her Saturday keynote address and in her interview with FoxNews.com, Palin pointed to the tea party movement as the surging political force that will make waves in the upcoming elections.

She said tea party support will “absolutely” be critical for candidates in some districts and that the GOP should not be scared of the movement.

“It absolutely helps (the Republican Party) and those who are fearful about it and those who are trying to stir up controversy about it — they obviously are apprehensive in terms of the message getting out there, and those people are gonna get thumped because this is a good message,” she said. “Who can argue this movement?”

As Palin aligns herself more closely with the evolving tea party movement, some surveys suggest she could have the support to eventually mount a competitive presidential run — despite tough questions raised during the 2008 campaign about her experience and qualifications. A poll last week had her leading, by a few points, the pack of potential GOP candidates. The Research 2000 poll also showed Republican voters viewing her as more qualified to be president than Obama by a 4-1 margin.

Asked whether she believes she’s more qualified than Obama, Palin showed little hesitation.

“In the campaign, we tried to bring attention to the fact that Obama had really not a lot of experience. And I do say that my executive experience, as an administrator, as a team manager if you will was, and so was John McCain’s as a matter of fact, was stronger and we had more experience than Barack Obama did in terms of managing huge multi-billion dollar budgets and thousands of employees …¦ and that hasn’t changed,” Palin said.

“I think that President Obama with all due respect, his lack of experience is really made manifest in the way that decisions are made in the White House today,” she added.

Palin slammed Obama in her Nashville speech for his foreign and national security policies. And with health care reform on the ropes, she told FoxNews.com it’s time to pull the plug.

“I sure wish that the present tool being used to reform health care would die, but I don’t trust as far as I can throw them some of the people who are saying ok, we’ll slow down,” she said. “What they’re working on today there in Congress and the White House, it needs to die.”

[Via http://ctpatriot1970.wordpress.com]

Romania agreed to be part of new US defence shield

Romanian president said his country has agreed to host missile interceptors as part of a new US defence shield. (photo, from bbc.co.uk)

The plan was approved by the defence council and still needs parliamentary approval, said president Traian Basescu.

A previous missile shield has been scrapped by the US. It was based in Poland and the Czech Republic and had infuriated Russia, which threatened to respond by training nuclear warheads on Poland the Czech Republic.

According to a US official, the new system would provide better defence from “the emerging threat” of Iranian short-and medium-range missiles.

The system will “protect the whole of Romania’s territory”, said Mr Basescu, adding that it “is not directed against Russia”.

He said Romania will host “ground capabilities to intercept missiles” that would be operational by 2015 if approved by parliament.

Smaller system for shorter-range missiles

US State department spokesman PJ Crowley also stressed that the new system was “not a capability that is directed at Russia”.

Romanian president said his country has agreed to host anti-ballistic missile interceptors as part of the administration’s “new missile defence plan… to protect US forward-deployed troops and our NATO allies against current and emerging ballistic missile threats from Iran.”

US president decided the abandon the original plan in September, amid attempts to “reset” the relationship between his country and Russia. Barack Obama’s decision was greeted with enthusiasm in Moscow.

Obama announced that a reconfigured system designed to shoot down short- and medium- range missiles would replace the anti-ballistic missile shield favoured by former President George W Bush.

US president also said intelligence suggested Iran was concentrating on shorter-range, not intercontinental, missiles.

US Vice-president Joseph Biden visited Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic in October, seeking support for the new system.

Poland has already signed up.

[Via http://babs22.wordpress.com]

2/4/2010 - Shelter Spotlight #35

Good Evening Ladies & Gentlemen, Boys & Girls, And Welcome To The 35th Installment Of Hatter & Beanz. Tonight We Head West, And Feature For You, The Works Of An Amazing Homeless Shelter Located In Rosevile, CA. The Folks At The Gathering Inn Provide Nearly 17,000 People A Place To Lay Their Head Each Year. That’s Pretty Impressive If You Ask Me. Not Only Are They Accomplishing That Number, But They Accept Folks Both Young And Old As Well. The Gathering Inn Is Located At 201 Berkeley Ave., Roseville, CA 95678.

“On a cold day in January 2004, a group of ministers in Placer County met to talk about a longstanding problem in the community—there was no safe and warm place for people to go if they lacked housing during the coldest months of the year. The ministers represented many different faiths, but felt united in their desire to help those who were suffering each night in the cold. Together, the ministers imagined gathering those who were homeless into the warmth of their churches, to provide supper, overnight accommodations and hospitality. They discussed the nomadic model of care, which had been used successfully in many other parts of the country. It was a simple concept that appealed to them: the site of the hosting church would change from one night to the next“.  – From Their Website – http://www.thegatheringinn.com

You See, All It Takes Is One Night, One Idea And The Rest Is History. Have A Great Night Folks.

[Via http://hatterandbeanz.com]

Today in Review: Chaffee Kid~"Play By the Rules"

Hey Ya’ll!

Running thru the list of recently added videos on Yallwire.com, I came across an interesting video by Chaffee Kid called “Play By the Rules”.  I couldn’t  find anything on this artist , so I hope I am not linking myself to any political scandals… ha!  I thought the video had some great humor and the song (which I must say on record I neither agree nor disagree with) has a lot to say about the present state of our country.  Are you ready for your soap box?    I give this video a 6!

Check out the video @ Chaffee Kid – Play By The Rules at www.yallwire.com!

Country Rocks!

JW

[Via http://longroadtonashville.com]

Is the F-35 an expensive dud? like the F-111

WASHINGTON — The Joint Strike Fighter was supposed to be the program that broke the mold, proof that the Pentagon could build something affordable, dependable and without much drama.

But rather than being the Chevrolet of the skies, as it was once billed, the fighter plane, also called the F-35, has turned into the Pentagon’s biggest budget-buster. And with worries growing that the rise in costs could overwhelm other programs, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates fired the general in charge this week and said he would withhold $614 million in fees from the prime contractor, Lockheed Martin.

The decision was an embarrassment for Lockheed Martin, the nation’s largest military contractor, which could eventually draw at least a quarter of its sales from the F-35. But Pentagon officials said they wanted to make sure they avoided the kind of death spiral that had caused so many other weapons programs to collapse.

The Air Force, the Navy and the Marines are planning to buy more than 2,400 of the planes. But any delays could force them to spend billions of dollars on less advanced fighters to avoid a shortfall. That, in turn, would reduce their orders for the F-35, driving up the price for each plane and forcing them to cut orders further.

The main problem, some analysts say, is that even with recent improvements in acquisition practices, the military persists in buying new weapons systems before all the kinks are worked out.

At the Pentagon’s behest, Lockheed Martin has already started building production models of the F-35, even though only 2 percent of the flight test program has been completed. “Unless they convert the program to a fly-before-you-buy approach, they will continue to have pain,” said Winslow T. Wheeler, an analyst for the Center for Defense Information in Washington.

But Pentagon officials said that given the rapid changes in technology, they could not afford to take such a gradual approach without systems becoming outdated before they rolled off the line. Lockheed Martin executives said that they had gotten the message about picking up the pace, and that they believed they would be able to start delivering the planes faster than the government now projects.

“They have been very clear that they intend to hold us to more aggressive standards, and we intend to perform to those,” Daniel J. Crowley, one of Lockheed Martin’s project managers, told reporters on Tuesday.

Mr. Crowley acknowledged that the program, which has been adjusted several times, was running six months behind the latest schedule. But he said that after building the first few planes, the company had been able to sharply reduce how much time and money each one required. And that has given it more confidence that it can get back on track.

Mr. Gates also said on Monday that he knew of “no insurmountable problems, technological or otherwise, with the F-35.” But he added a year to the development phase of the program, and slowed plans to increase production, to give the company a chance to catch up.

Still, that solution is basically a gamble that the company will do better. The program, which is by far the Pentagon’s largest, is expected to cost nearly $300 billion if all of the 2,456 planes are purchased in the next 25 years. Eight allied nations have also invested in the program and could buy hundreds of additional planes.

Some senators sounded skeptical in questioning Mr. Gates at a hearing on Tuesday. “I’m still concerned about whether the services will get the J.S.F. when they need them,” said Senator John McCain, Republican from Arizona, referring to the plane.

Other senators criticized Mr. Gates, who promoted the coming of the F-35 as a reason to kill the more costly F-22 fighter program last summer, for not having a handle on the problems sooner.

Many of the concerns were outlined in a report by a special Pentagon assessment team in late 2008. Mr. Gates said at the hearing on Tuesday that he did not recall that report. He said he had intervened now to try to head off the dire projections in a similar assessment completed in the fall.

That study found that the development of the plane could be delayed by two and a half years and cost an extra $16.6 billion if no changes were made. Mr. Gates has also said that he replaced the head of the program, Maj. Gen. David R. Heinz of the Marine Corps, to show that officials would be held accountable “when things go wrong.”

When the Pentagon began thinking about the F-35 in the mid-1990s, the Pentagon was building the F-22, the world’s stealthiest fighter, for aerial dogfights, and it expected to buy 650 to 750 of them. The F-35, which also has stealth features to avoid radar, was meant to focus more on attacking ground targets. Creating three versions with a similar core — one each for the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines — was supposed to make it more affordable.

But while delays and overruns pushed the cost of the F-22 so high that only 187 are being built, the projected costs of the F-35 program have also risen to $298.8 billion from an early estimate of about $200 billion.

Counting all the development costs, each F-35 is now projected to cost about $122 million compared with about $350 million for each F-22. Another concern is that additional problems often appear in flight testing. And a recent Navy study concluded that the F-35 could be significantly more expensive to operate than older fighters.

But Mr. Crowley, one of Lockheed Martin’s top managers on the project, said the company had greatly reduced the parts shortages that delayed the first planes. He said the company was talking to the Pentagon about adding another plane to the flight test program, and it was much closer to finishing sensitive systems, like the software that operates the plane and its sensors, than it was at a similar stage on the F-22.

He added that it was “our intent to outperform” projections for the program, enabling the government to buy more planes than it expected to over the next few years.

Other industry officials said they had heard that Mr. Gates was likely to name Vice Adm. David J. Venlet, commander of the Naval Air Systems Command, to succeed General Heinz in overseeing the program. And given that Mr. Gates has had to backtrack from his praise for the program, he now has even more on the line in holding it together. February 3, 2010 Gates Tries to Get F-35 Program Back on Course By CHRISTOPHER DREW

[Via http://militarystrat.wordpress.com]

White House to roll out $3.8 trillion budget plan

NEWS
White House to roll out $3.8 trillion budget plan
February 1, 2010 1:28 a.m. EST

Washington (CNN) — President Obama will take the wraps off his $3.8 trillion budget plan for fiscal 2011 at a White House ceremony Monday.

The spending package comes as the administration struggles to strike a balance between fiscal restraint and job creation in an economy that has struggled to rebound from recession.

The federal deficit in 2009 grew by about $1.6 trillion, pushing the nation’s total debt to $12 trillion.

During last week’s State of the Union address, Obama proposed freezing all nonsecurity federal discretionary spending for three years in an effort to save $250 billion.

Nonsecurity discretionary spending refers to an array of domestic programs — everything from agriculture to energy. The freeze would not apply to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid or other entitlement programs.

The president is scheduled to highlight his budget priorities at a 10:45 a.m. appearance in the White House Grand Foyer.

Presidential Press Secretary Robert Gibbs will fill in some of the blanks at an afternoon briefing with reporters.

Last year’s $3.5 trillion budget passed on a party-line vote.

The government’s fiscal year runs from October of one year through September of the next.

© 2010 Cable News Network Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.

[Via http://dominicstoughton.wordpress.com]

Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev Offered the Assistance of the MP to the US State Department in Preparing its Annual Report on Freedom of Conscience

Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk (1966- ), the Head of the MP Department for External Church Relations

In a communication with John Beyrle, the US Ambassador to Russia, Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, the Head of the MP Department for External Church Relations (DECR), offered the assistance of the Moscow Patriarchate in the preparation of the annual US State Department report on freedom of conscience in the world. Archbishop Hilarion noted “the importance of the work of the US State Department in preparing an annual report on the state of religious freedom in the world. The MP, according to Vladyki Hilarion, could be involved in preparing the materials for this document, which would make it more objective. He also stressed the positive dynamics in the content of this document manifested in recent years”, said a statement posted on the website of the DECR. The statement went to claim that Mr Beyrle expressed his satisfaction with the response of the DECR to the State Department report and expressed his readiness to work with the MP. During a meeting, Archbishop Hilarion told the US ambassador about the current state of church-state relations in Russia and about the public service of the MP. He told the ambassador that, in Russia, the traditional religious communities made a “decisive contribution” to the establishment of the state, and this affects both the status and the specific implementation of religious freedom in Russia, this “should be considered in any analysis of church-state relations”.

29 January 2010

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=33967

Editor’s Note:

This piece was badly translated by Interfax. The title was badly botched as, “Russian Church to Assist US Department of State on Annual Report on Freedom of Religion”. Of course, this gives the implication that the initiative for this action was from the American side. It was not so. This is much less than it appears at first glance. Mr Beyrle was polite to HA… nothing more. Nothing was committed to or agreed to. It looks as though HA is trying to make up for his gaffe at Der Spiegel. HA made an offer, Mr Beyrle did not even give him a hint of the actual response. In actuality, Foggy Bottom careerists who are, in the main, Russophobes trained by Brzeziński, write the report. Trust me; they shall not change their spots. There is a good side to all this… perhaps, it will open up the Boy Wonder’s eyes to the perfidy of the Western secularist class and sour him on cooperating with the Latins… one should always pray for a happy result, no?

In any case, American policy towards Russia since Clinton has been a mindless rehash of the Polish interwar policy of Prometheism (don’t forget, Brzeziński’s father was a member of the fascist junta of the colonels (he was the Ambassador to Canada in 1939)). It’s not going to change, for the career personnel are fixed in their ways by now. Only a collapse on the entirety or a portion of the post-Soviet space will effect a change. Shall the impeding fall of the Ukrainian successor-state be such a catalyst? We shall have to see… my crystal ball is out for repairs.

BMD

[Via http://02varvara.wordpress.com]