Just wanted to start your day off with a little tidbit that you can be sure to pass along to your liberal friends who are oh-so-convinced that George Bush is still the reason for this country's problems. We've heard Barack Obama touting this line for months ... the war in Iraq is taking a serious toll on the economy. Well as it turns out, Barack Obama should look himself in the mirror. Here are the details.

The Congressional Research Service tells us that the total cost of the Iraq war under President Bush was $622 billion. Do you have any clue how much Obama is going to spend on welfare, treating America's parasite infestation, in just 2010 alone? Care to guess? Well ... let's try $888 billion. Yup, you got it. That's about $260 billion more than the cost of the Iraq war under Bush. And what will we get for that money? An entrenched welfare class, that's what. Our parasite problem will become even worse. Frankly, we got a lot more bang for the buck out of the war in Iraq.

Just trying to keep the truth. I mean, where else do you think you will find these facts ... the mainstream media??

President Obama has finally decided to take the reins and steer this healthcare debate. Next Wednesday he is going to address a joint session of Congress. This will be the first address to a joint session of Congress since President Bush gathered the clowns together after the 9/11 ISLAMIC terrorist attacks.

Clearly, Democrats in Congress haven't done all that great of a PR job when it comes to selling their healthcare plan. The hope is that PrezBO still has enough star power left to muster some support. Is he going to advocate a government option? Probably not. At this point, too much is riding on the success or failure of healthcare reform - the remainder of Obama's presidency, for example -- and a government option seems absolutely doomed for failure. That's a good thing because the government option was merely a not-so-suave way of getting to single-payer, and single payer means absolute government control.

There's that word again! CONTROL! My guess is that whatever you hear from Mr. Government next week, control of your health care will be hidden in the details. This, after all, is the goal. At the end this is all an exercise aimed to making sure that Democrats never lose control of the congress again. To get that sort of a grip on power they need an inseparable grip on you. Controlling your access to and paying for your health care would do it. So ... onward.

As soon as Obama plays his cards we'll get back into the game.

By the way ... did I mention that the 9/11 attackers were MUSLIMS?

First of all .. making some goon think that they're drowning is not torture. I'm not even sure that drowning someone is torture. That's murder. Go ahead ... Google the words "drowning" and "pleasant." Doesn't sound like torture to me. Also .. firing a gun near someone's head or depriving them of sleep isn't torture either. If it was there would be thousands of Marine Corps drill instructors and college professors who should be awaiting charges right now.

All of this moralistic grandstanding is starting to get on my last nerve ... and there's not all that many left. What a bunch of hogwash. Let's try a little scenario here. No fudging. No "buts." This is your scenario ... if you don't want to accept it as-is, then walk away.

Scenario: Your spouse and child have been kidnapped. They've been buried alive in a box. They have enough air and water to last a day or so. You have someone in your custody whom you know with absolute certainty can tell you where your family members are buried. Now .. what are you going to do to get the information you need to save your spouse and child. Don't' give me this "call the police and let them deal with it" scenario. You know that the police are bound by the rules ... but are you? Will you put a washcloth over this person's face and pour water on it? No? Will you point a gun at his head and tell him that he has seconds to live if he doesn't give up the information? No? Would you start breaking this thugs fingers - one-by-one - until he gives you the information you need? No? Are you kidding me? Well ... tell you what. Why don't you call your spouse and children into the room right now and read this to them. Tell them that if was they who were buried in that box waiting to die that you wouldn't torture someone to save their life. Tell them that this guy would walk away with every body part in tact .. no scratches .. no broken bones. You would do nothing to frighten this man into thinking that his life is in danger. Why you wouldn't even poor water on his head. Tell your family members would just have to die before you would do anything closely related to torture to the man who had the information that could save their lives. Tell them that --- and then live with the look in their eyes. Tell them that --- and then live with the knowledge that they know what a wuss you are.

Me? I'm just not the nice reason you are. I can't think of a single thing I would not do to this man if it would give me the information I need to save my wife and daughter. Get out the glass rods and the bamboo shoots. I'll need some pliers and a blow torch as well. When it's all over, and my family is save, I'll let the jury decide.

National security has resurfaced in the news lately for a lot of reasons.

Number one: Congress is on vacation.

Number two: Eric Holder decided that it would be a wise idea to investigate CIA interrogators for their role in terrorist interrogations.

Number three: the moonbats need something to sink their teeth into.

Number four: it has been a violent couple of months for the troops in Afghanistan. Number five: we are approaching the anniversary of September 11th.

Now if you will recall, the Obama administration declared that we are no longer fighting a war on terror. That phrase was removed from the White House lexicon along with "jihad" and others that may insinuate the hateful ideology of Islam. In fact, there is no more Islamic terrorism. The phrase now is "man-caused disasters." And the war against these Islamic goons is now our "overseas contingency operation."

Well somebody needs to inform White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. He must have been sick the day that this memo was released, because yesterday Robert Gibbs actually used the phrase "war on terror" during his daily press conference. Hard to fight a war when you can't call it like it is, isn't it?

Now Robert Gibbs also had a few things to say to Dick Cheney. Cheney has been very vocal about the administration's decision to investigate terrorist interrogators. Cheney said that this is a purely political act, "It's an outrageous political act that will do great damage, long-term, to our capacity to be able to have people take on difficult jobs, make difficult decisions, without having to worry about what the next administration is going to say." Robert Gibbs chalked up Cheney's criticism to nothing short of "typical" and "unfounded." He says, "I'm not entirely sure that Dick Cheney's predictions on foreign policy have borne a whole lot of fruit over the last eight years in a way that has been either positive or, to the best of my recollection, very correct."

Seems like these guys need to get out of a spitting match and start focusing on the real enemy.

The Obama administration recently decided to release Mohammed Jawad from Guantanamo Bay. The Afghani man was 12 at the time he was detained back in 2002 hurling a grenade at a US vehicle in Kabul, injuring two American soldiers and their interpreter.

So now that Mohammed is a free man, he wants to sue Washington over his "illegal detention" ... holding him for seven years "without charges." Where's Ramsey Clark when you really need him?

Usually .. .you throw a grenade at U.S. troops, you're DRT. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, that means Dead Right There. So our troop recognize this Muslim thug is young and they spare his life. They can't leave him around to become an adult bomb-thrower though, so they detain him until they think the danger is passed. Now he wants to sue.

Is it too late to shoot the ungrateful little bastard?

Is there a connection? Why yes! There is!

Just yesterday we learned that Obama's Attorney General, the ethically-challenged Eric Holder, is appointing a special prosecutor to go after the CIA agents who saved American lives by using somewhat harsh interrogation techniques against Muslim terrorist detainees. Never mind that both Obama and Holder had made earlier promises that they would not pursue a vendetta against these operatives. That was then, and this is now ... and now the uber-left is demanding some sort of legal action against the Bush Administration for what they view as the horrors of the Bush years. After all, "we won," so why can't we prosecute the losers? The political bloodlust of the left must be assuaged!

In the midst of all of this I want to remind you of something. During the election last November a group of Black Panther goons stood outside of a polling place in downtown Philly. They were wearing paramilitary costumes and were carrying nightsticks. As white voters would approach this polling place these thugs would yell "You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker!"

Well .. this happened to be against the law. One former civil rights lawyer and publisher of the liberal Village Voice called the episode "one of the most blatant forms of voter intimidation I've ever seen." So here comes the Justice Department. The BUSH Justice Department. At the beginning of January a civil lawsuit was filed against the New Black Panther Party and three of its goons for violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. None of the defendants would even file a response to the lawsuit. Perhaps they knew that they had nothing to worry about.

And so it came to be!

Just what do you think happened to this action against the Black Panthers? Why, it was dismissed! Eric Holder allowed these goons to walk. Lawsuit dismissed. One defendant was told that he could never carry a weapon within 100 feet of a polling place again .. the other three walked away.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is Obama's Attorney General. He will permit Black Panther thugs to intimidate white U.S. Voters, but if you work for the CIA, and if you're charged with the responsibility of discovering information on future terrorist attacks against our people - if your job is to save American lives instead of intimidate white voters - you had better lawyer up. Eric Holder is coming after you with guns blazing.

Elections have consequences. Black Panthers walk. CIA operatives get put under investigation.

Another goodie from the White House. Let's see how you feel about this one.

Barack Obama has decided that the task of interrogating terrorists and terrorist suspects should be left up to the White House, rather than the CIA. Obama has created an "elite team" of interrogators that will question suspects in accordance with the Army Field Manual. The name of the unit will be the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG. The unit will be overseen by the National Security Council, which gives the White House direct oversight. The rules are that all interrogation of terrorist suspects must be interrogated in compliance with the terms of the Army Field Manuel. Does that tell you enough? Well ... here's more. This means that if you catch some Muslim goon who you absolutely know is involved in a plot to kill a few thousand innocent Americans; and if you are dead-on certain that this individual has information on the details of this plot, but he refuses to talk ---- we cannot deprive him of any sleep or play loud music to encourage him. Loud music and sleep deprivation are, I suppose, defined by Team Obama as "torture."

Is anyone keeping a scorecard here? First we learn that the White House is going to seize control of the 2010 Census. We know that this is so the census can be politicized and the numbers of people prone to vote Democrat can be inflated. Now we learn that the Obama White House is going to have its own Presidential Unit for Safe Suspect Interrogation.

Interesting acronym there.

Earlier in the week, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer wrote an op-ed in USA Today essentially calling these town hall protestors "un-American." Well Michelle Malkin did a little bit of research and she came up with a video of Nancy Pelosi from 2006. In this video, Nancy is conducting a town hall meeting on the war in Iraq. The town hall took place in her home district of San Francisco so you can only imagine what she faced: protestors. We are not talking "Brooks Brothers" protestors .. we are talking more like Code Pink protestors. Yup the hairy leg and braided armpit brigade was out in full force. Anyway, click on the link and take a look at how Nancy not only lets these protestors have their say, chanting "no more war" but allows them to come up front with all of their anti-war signs and even applauds them!

I wonder if Princess Nancy would dare to call these people in her own district "un-American." They were vocal too .. only they were saying the things that a left-wing politician would like to hear.

Yep. The Obama administration has made it official .. we are not longer engaged in a "war on terrorism." You won't see the word "jihadists" either. Nor the words "global war." The head of the White House homeland security office, John Brennan says that this is a "new way of seeing" things. Instead, the only terminology that will be used is "at war with al Qaeda."

That's it. "We are at war with al Qaeda," says Brennan. "We are at war with its violent extremist allies who seek to carry on al Qaeda's murderous agenda."

Don't you feel so much safer now?

What do you think? Is this really Osama bin Laden? Do you think he's even still alive?

As you are well aware, I Twitter. (@talkmaster) I use Twitter to post insensitive remarks or thoughts and the occasional article to read. But the US military in Afghanistan has decided that it is going to start using Twitter, along with Facebook and YouTube. It is part of a new effort to reach people who get their information on the Internet rather than newspapers.

Apparently this effort is also another way to counter Taliban propaganda. There is a big problem with the Taliban spreading false messages about how many soldiers are being killed or what is happening ... so this is an effort to help set the record straight.

This week, the military has already used Twitter to announce the death of a US service member from non-combat-related injuries. The death was posted on Twitter before being announced in a formal press statement. The military also wants soldiers to post photos and stories to help portray daily life in Afghanistan.

Not sure what I think about this. All this time I thought that we were relying on private-sector war correspondents for information. Now the government tweets?

It looks like the Obama administration is willing to go to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary to avoid releasing the batch of detainee abuse photos in dispute. Jamie Dupree has all the details.

Meanwhile, The Daily Telegraph seems to be dead set on stirring up the terrorists and further endangering troops. Karen Tum covers their antics in the Swampland blog.

One out of every seven detainees that are freed from Guantanamo Bay ends up returning to terrorism. This according to the Pentagon. But Barack Obama wants to close up shop in Guantanamo Bay. Our government can't figure out what to do with the remaining prisoners. Doesn't all this make you feel so warm and fuzzy?

Change you can believe in? Housing terrorists in the US instead of Gitmo. How's that work for you?

Hillary Clinton says that last week's deadly bombings in Iraq are a sign that extremists are afraid that the Iraqi government is succeeding.

Know what? Hillary may be right. But this is something only a Democrat can say. Imagine if a Republican had tried to explain that bombings in Iraq were a sign of progress. Wouldn't fly.