The first is in the State Department. This wasn’t just a wasteful decision, but an unethical, immoral, and I have to hope, illegal one. Within the State Department was a woman named Kathleen McGrade. The Daily Caller did some good, old-fashioned investigative reporting on her, and guess what they discovered? Ms. McGrade had funneled $52 MILLION of yours and my taxpaying dollars to her daughter, and her secret husband. I am not making this up, and neither is the Daily Caller:

[snip] Kathleen McGrade helped their company, Sterling Royale Group, win 43 federally funded contracts over the last few years.

McGrade acted as the Contracting Officer (CO) for awards to Sterling Royale Group. McGrade’s husband, Brian Collinsworth, serves as the company’s Vice President. McGrade’s daughter, J.L. (Jennifer) Herring, is its president and CEO.

When TheDC first reached Collinsworth for comment, he denied being married to McGrade. “She is the CO on our contracts, but we are not married in any way, shape or form. That’s kind of funny, but, okay,” Collinsworth said, adding that he and McGrade have no relationship “other than a professional one of a CO to a company.”

Collinsworth also denied that Herring is McGrade’s daughter, and his stepdaughter.[snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Surprise, surprise, Collinsworth is a big liar. They are indeed married.

Fortunately, the State Department quickly did the right thing – they fired Ms. McGrade:

[snip] “Upon learning of the allegations, the Department immediately relieved Ms. McGrade of her responsibilities,” Laine said in an email. “Subsequently, the Department instructed her company that her employment at the Department is terminated.”

McGrade worked as a federal government contractor, handling the disbursement of taxpayer money for the State Department to other contractors. She worked on-site at the State Department in the office of Overseas Building Operations.[snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Well, that’s just terrific, but, what about our money? And why hasn’t she been brought up on charges? Forced to pay restitution? Something? The State Department is being mum on any further action, according to the article. Oh, well, okay then. That’s fine – not.

Second, we have the ten year lease signed by representatives of the SEC. Oh, this is a doozy. The Wall Street Journal has the story:

[snip] Chairman Mary L. Schapiro has been under fire for the SEC’s decision last year to sign a 10-year lease valued at more than $500 million for 900,000 square feet of space in a D.C. office building known as the Constitution Center. A recent report on the lease by the SEC’s Office of Inspector General found that the SEC unnecessarily limited the locations it could consider because it overestimated the amount of space it needed. The report cited one employee who described the process used to calculate the space needs as a “`WAG,’ (wild-ass guess) and a ‘back of the envelope calculation.’”

The SEC made its projections based in part on the increased responsibilities related to the Dodd-Frank financial-overhaul law but also on budget projections that had not yet been approved. After the anticipated budget increase didn’t materialize, the SEC determined it would not need the space in the building, which is owned by David Nassif Associates.[snip]

Oops. Yep, they signed the lease, but then didn’t need the space after all, so…Good grief. These are the people running our government???

Now you see why they were called on the carpet:

In a hearing Wednesday before the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management to discuss the lease, Ms. Schapiro acknowledged missteps and said she wanted to SEC to cede its authority to lease space to the General Services Administration. U.S. Rep. Jeff Denham (R., Calif.), chairman of the subcommittee, also questioned why there was an urgency to get the deal done in spite of the “collapse of the real estate industry.”

Ms. Schapiro said she had heard there were few options for space. “It was presented to me…that if we were going to have any growth at all, we had to take this space,” Ms. Schapiro said.[snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

You’ll be glad to know that, according to the article, the Office of the Comptroller has been able to rent some of the space, but they are still looking for tenants for the other third of the sf available. Any takers? Oh, and they are considering whether to investigate this or not.

I’m sorry, but what’s the question there, exactly?? Sheesh.

And finally, last but definitely not least, is the third example of wasteful government spending I have heard of in just two days. If the second one was a doozy, this one is a wallop. It seems that two, not one, but two, Navy tankers which have yet to be completed, are now heading to the scrap heap. They only cost $300 million, so not as bad as the 10 year lease, but still, a mighty hefty amount of taxpaying dollars:

[snip] The Isherwood, stretching more than 660 feet, began its final journey this week, unceremoniously towed Tuesday from its mooring spot in the James River Reserve Fleet, also known as the “ghost fleet,” near Fort Eustis in Newport News.

Its destination: International Shipbreaking Limited in Brownsville, Texas, just above the Mexico border. There, the vessel will be cut up, its innards removed and disposed of, and its steel and other metals sold as recycled products.

The Eckford, of equal size, is scheduled to follow next Tuesday, leaving behind fewer than 20 junk ships in the ghost fleet, the smallest number since its inception during World War I.

Once the two Navy oilers have departed, “it will close one of the saddest chapters in American shipbuilding and for that matter, federal fiduciary folly,” wrote Joseph Keefe, a global maritime commentator, this week on the website MaritimeProfessional.com. [snip] {Click here to read the rest.)

This just begs the question: why were these tankers ever even authorized?

Someone asked recently what we are sending to countries that do not think highly of us, according to a recent Pew poll. We are going to give Egypt $1.3 billion this year for military aid; thanks to the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill, $1.5 billion a year to Pakistan; and the list goes on. Since the Congress has failed to provide or pass a budget for the past couple of years, this CRS report on aid to East and South Asia should provide fairly up-to-date information.

But we cannot leave out the billions of US dollars in aid to Afghanistan that has been stolen, or “lost,” there. Holy crap.

“Waste not, want not” should be our mantra. This is especially true as our Congress and president fight over how much more in debt this nation is willing to go. And at what cost to us, our reputation, and our economy, they are willing to accept on our behalf. They can begin by being a helluva lot more careful as to how they spend our tax dollars, whether for programs at home, lack of oversight of personnel who have no authority to be signing contracts, and to those who do have the authority to sign away millions and millions without doing their freakin’ homework first.

These are just three examples in the past two days that have come to my attention. I am sure you can come up with a few more. Our Congress needs to remember they work for US, and when they waste money on programs or goods they are not going to use, they must answer to US. This isn’t Monopoly money after all, it’s for real. It is well past time they started acting like it.

Pakistan had received about $1.9 billion in military assistance from the U.S. in fiscal 2010, which ended Sept. 30, including about $300 million in grants to buy U.S. defense equipment.

U.S. officials hoped the new aid could effectively eliminate Pakistan’s objections that it doesn’t have the equipment needed to launch more operations in the tribal areas.

By July 2011, the U.S. had taken unilateral actions to kill Osama bin Laden and a number of different high level targets through drone strikes. The apparent non-cooperation or push back from the Pakistan military to attack al Qaeda operatives in the northern areas angered U.S. lawmakers. Meanwhile, relations between the two countries soured and hit all-time low — or did they?

Despite the anger expressed by Washington lawmakers, a bill to freeze the $2 billion aid package to Pakistan failed to pass Congress. Now comes news that the Obama administration, in an attempt to appear tough on the Pakistan military, has canceled $800 million of the said aid, purportedly to persuade Islamabad to do far more to combat terrorism.

This cancellation might satisfy Pakistan’s critics, most of whom pushed the administration to press Pakistan to fight militants effectively. But at some point the U.S. has to decide whether paying the Pakistan military is helpful or not. When the aid was initially approved, officials from both the U.S. and Pakistan rejected the notion that the military assistance was a quid pro quo, arguing that they are trying to build a partnership, not cut a deal.

Subtract $800 million from $2 billion and what’s left is the partnership.

The military aid was approved to pressure Pakistan to start operations against militants in the northern areas, which it did not. Now at the time when this aid is being “canceled,” the Pakistani military has already launched a full-fledged operation in central Kurram Agency.

The cancellation of the $800 million plays well in an election year. The American public has grown increasingly concerned about the deteriorating economic situation in the U.S.; add to that the perception that the Pakistan army is less than honest about its sincerity to fight terrorism. The fact of the matter is that the U.S. had no option but to cancel this military aid, which funds the military equipment and the U.S. trainers that Pakistan military refused to accept.

In simple words, the U.S. was not going to hand this amount to Pakistan in cash. The aid is being held back because of training cutbacks including intelligence, surveillance, arms and ammunition and other support equipment. The U.S. had to spend this on its own soldiers, and its own equipment. Since the Pakistan military refused to budge, the U.S. has this money as a little flag on its ledger.

This explains why the Pakistan military announced that suspension of aid would not affect its ongoing campaign against militants in the tribal areas.

The “pause in the military aid,” as the Pakistan ambassador to the U.S. puts it, or “delay” as the U.S. defense department called it, does include a $300 million reimbursement, but the Pakistan army can take advantage of this non-payment to fan the flames of anti-Americanism by claiming that the U.S. is not a reliable partner. This is an $800 million game that Pakistan played, putting the U.S. in a situation where it is left with no option but to follow.

President Lyndon Johnson once asked, “Did you ever think that making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg?” Then answered, “It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else.” It seems that in this case, this situation has reversed and it seems hot to everyone else but to you.

No serious attempt has been made to analyse this phenomenon even though the transformation of Pakistani society over the last three decades pints to this trend.

This new breed of Taliban supporter is overwhelmingly comprised of the upper-middle class that sprang up out of the villages or suburban areas thanks to the enormous flow of American cash that washed through the region after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and later the U.S. invasion.

The corruption in foreign aid distribution, the secret funds for Afghan Mujahideen and the generous bounties to kill or capture extremists sent the price of real estate sky-rocketing in Pakistan, making the farmers living around big cities rich. Flush with cash, the newly-rich farming class left rural life behind and moved to cities.

This is a major transformation in Pakistani society. Usually population shifts of this magnitude happen over an extended period of time. In Pakistan, it happened over two to three decades, drastically changing a social order that had been in place for almost two thousand years.

Around 322 b.c. a Mauryan ruler, Chandragupta Maurya and his successors expanded his power westwards across central and western India, enforcing principles of governance and laying down rules of administration, including tax collection, maintaining the army, completing irrigational projects, enforcing law and order, devising rates of taxation, and reviving the way of life in the cities and villages. Villages became so self-contained that travel became unnecessary.

The great Mauryan Empire ended in 185 b.c., but the system the King Ashoka put in place remained in place and for the most part untouched, even by the British rulers. Village life remained unchanged until the advent of new technologies. The introduction of mechanized farming and harvesting eased the arduousness of farm work and led to an increase in productivity. But on the other hand it rendered a big chunk of the society unemployed. The void created by idleness was filled with religion. New classes emerged, new rites were formed.

A similar phenomenon was occurring in India, but was countered by the development of industry. Residents of rural areas in search of jobs moved to cities, worked in factories and united under labor unions, forming a new working class fighting for equal rights and better opportunities. In Pakistan, however, attempts to build industry were interrupted time and again by dramatic swings from martial law to democracy and back again. Unstable governance rivalries among industrial barons also slowed or disrupted the building of an industrial worker class.

The segment of the new city dwellers brought with them the customs of village life, including myths, superstitions and family structure. The new urbanites were also largely uneducated and taken aback by the bustle of city life and the ways of residents whose worldview was shaped by modern conveniences. The overwhelming majority of these new city residents have become part of the new middle and/or upper middle class trying to fit into a Westernized lifestyle but with poor results. It is this segment of the population that wants to drink alcohol and travel while at the same time supporting the Taliban as holy warriors. They do not want to let go of their old world values and virtues. They form the base of support for politicians like former cricket legend Imran Khan, whose confrontational attitude towards the West boosts their sense of patriotism.

These new urbanites would fall into one of two extreme categories. If the family had strong but backwards religious beliefs, they spent their money building a mosque or supporting religious organizations – their own way of thanking the Almighty for their unexpected good fortune. If the family had cut its ties with such religious dogmas they choose instead to engage in conspicuous consumption — purchasing high-priced houses, acquiring personal booze collections unmatched in most bars in the West, importing expensive cars and moving money to foreign banks. More important is what they didn’t do with their new found wealth: Reinvest the money into the local financial system.

The way out of this alarming state of affairs for Pakistan is to reform the education system that matches to the needs for the modern industrial era coupled with the formation and development of an industrial and manufacturing sector.

The vast majority of foreign aid provided by the international community is still being targeted at state security agencies, as is a disproportionately large percentage of the country’s budget. The Saudi government discovered long ago that paying to mould the minds of the youth in Pakistan was an excellent investment. The results – the rise of totalitarian Islam, contempt for democracy, romanticizing violent Islamist movements, and sectarian violence – are all too evident. It’s time for the West to become a counterbalance and seriously support civilian governments instead of relying on military dictators to further their agendas. The West should also keep on pressing the civilian administration for good governance if they want Pakistan free of extremists.

Oh, my – that is freaking HILARIOUS! Here is part of the article:

The cyber-warfare operation was launched by MI6 and GCHQ in an attempt to disrupt efforts by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular to recruit “lone-wolf” terrorists with a new English-language magazine, the Daily Telegraph understands.

When followers tried to download the 67-page colour magazine, instead of instructions about how to “Make a bomb in the Kitchen of your Mom” by “The AQ Chef” they were greeted with garbled computer code.

The code, which had been inserted into the original magazine by the British intelligence hackers, was actually a web page of recipes for “The Best Cupcakes in America” published by the Ellen DeGeneres chat show.

Written by Dulcy Israel and produced by Main Street Cupcakes in Hudson, Ohio, it said “the little cupcake is big again” adding: “Self-contained and satisfying, it summons memories of childhood even as it’s updated for today’s sweet-toothed hipsters.” [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Isn’t that, um, rich, that they used a recipe from the Ellen Degeneres Chat show? C’mon, that is FUNNY! Use a recipe in a magazine for Al Qaeda Would-Be Terrorists from an out-lesbian’s show? That is fabulous! You know that had to make their little terrorist heads explode. Gotta love MI6! Well done!

Speaking of Al Qaeda, here’s an interesting little tidbit that slipped by. Guess who invited the Libyan “rebels” new National Transitional Council to open an office in Washington, D.C.? Did you guess Obama? Well, then, you would be right. Yes, these are the same people whose connections are still unclear, though they CLAIM none of the people on the council have ties to Al Qaeda…Uh huh. Oh, and this is the same group that demanded Qatar return a rape victim, Eman al-Obeidy, to them, which Qatar did:

[snip] She said that, besides beating her and forcing her onto the plane, the Qataris had taken everything from her and her parents, including cell phones, her laptop, and money.[snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Oh, yes – I can see why President Obama would offer to allow the NTC to open an office in DC. Oh, wait, no I can’t. It is ludicrous. It is obscene.

Speaking of obscene, now it is time for a PSA from Monica Hesse of the Washington Post: Listen up, fellas: Naked man-parts? Not so sexy. Ms. Hesse is referring, of course, to the alleged tweet from Rep. Weiner (oh, wow) a leading Democrat from NY of a, well, um, how shall I say this – weiner. Weiner, of course, denies any such allegation, though – and this is just one of those, WTH kind of moments – he cannot say with certainty that the photo is NOT him.

Whaaaa? I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell would know if somehow there was a photo traveling around of my private parts. How in the hell cannot he NOT KNOW FOR SURE??? I think that says a lot, and what it says is: EWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Back to Hesse’s article. She has some suggestions from women in America about what they WOULD like to see:

[snip] “I would like a photo of a made bed,” says Kathryn Roberts, who works at a law firm in Washington. “I would take rose petals, but I want them on top of a made bed.” And not that fake kind of made, either, where the comforter is smooth but the sheets are a jumbled mess.

“Or laundry,” adds her friend Andrea Neurohr.

“Folded laundry,” elaborates Roberts. “Maybe in a wicker basket.”

Over the years, a handful of famous men — and a boatload full of unfamous, Craigslisty men — have landed in the news for sending women photos of their artfully framed packages. Brett Favre allegedly had a special delivery for Jenn Sterger, a sideline reporter for the New York Jets. Kanye West allegedly provided some of his female MySpace friends with some extra-friendly pictures. There are entire Web sites, aimed at men, teaching them the etiquette for public displays of private parts.

Men! Broaden your seduction techniques!

How about you move away from the below-the-waist close-up? How about you try going naked from the waist up? How about a picture of you, sweaty, cleaning out the storm drain? How about a photograph of you gently caressing the yogurt, as you rotate the soon-to-expire food to the front of the refrigerator? So sexy!

“The refrigerator,” says Gretchen LeMaistre. “That’s a big scenario.” LeMaistre is a San Francisco-based photographer who has worked on the “Porn for Women” series, tongue-in-cheek books purporting to tap into women’s most intimate pleasure zones. In the yet-unpublished “Porn for Working Women,” an attractive man cleans out the office fridge and asks, “Am I the only one who cares if we have a clean breakroom?” [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Uh, yeah. I am guessing that would work.

I suppose at some point we will get to the, uh, bottom of all of this, though so far, for my money, Weiner seems a bit creative in his deflections. I’m thinking he did SOMETHING he shouldn’t have. Oopsy daisy.

Speaking of someone who did something he shouldn’t have, it looks like former NC Senator, VP candidate, and presidential candidate, John Edwards can anticipate criminal charges being filed against him. Again, oopsy daisy. I reckon that’s what happens when you funnel campaign cash to your mistress and your love child. Seems that’s against the law. You’d think an attorney would know that. Apparently not:

[snip] Edwards, a trial lawyer who represented North Carolina in the Senate before his 2004 and 2008 runs for the White House, met last week with benefactor Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, the donor believed to have funded Edwards’s attempt to cover up his affair and child with Rielle Hunter, ABC News reported. Mellon is said to have given Edwards $700,000 for the purpose. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Holy moley, that’s a lot of green. I guess Ms. Hunter likes the finer things in life, huh?

I doubt that will be the color of the jumpsuit Edwards will be wearing if convicted. Ahem. I’m thinking orange. Sure hope it was worth it…

Oh, ick. I feel the need for a metaphorical shower, don’t you? Hey, it is Friday, after all. Here is something just for fun. I hope it brings a smile to your face:

Thank Goodness It’s Friday…

This is disturbing on so many levels, not the least of which how women continue to be treated. At first there were denials that any such thing had occurred:

A senior Egyptian general admits that “virginity checks” were performed on women arrested at a demonstration this spring, the first such admission after previous denials by military authorities.

The allegations arose in an Amnesty International report, published weeks after the March 9 protest. It claimed female demonstrators were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges and forced to submit to virginity checks.

At that time, Maj. Amr Imam said 17 women had been arrested but denied allegations of torture or “virginity tests.”

And now, there is the justification for these, um, “tests” by the military:

But now a senior general who asked not to be identified said the virginity tests were conducted and defended the practice.

“The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine,” the general said. “These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and (drugs).”

The general said the virginity checks were done so that the women wouldn’t later claim they had been raped by Egyptian authorities.

“We didn’t want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren’t virgins in the first place,” the general said. “None of them were (virgins).”

This demonstration occurred nearly a month after Egypt’s longtime President Hosni Mubarak stepped down amid a wave of popular and mostly peaceful unrest aimed at his ouster and the institution of democratic reforms.

Afterward, Egypt’s military — which had largely stayed on the sidelines of the revolution — officially took control of the nation’s political apparatus as well, until an agreed-upon constitution and elections. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Wow. I scarcely know what to say about that admission. It is despicable, deplorable, and horrifying.

Of course, women were not the only ones tortured, as the video below makes clear:

As horrible as the treatment sustained by some of these male protesters is, and it is, it does not compare to the torture, and threat of MORE torture, the women endured. The threat of electrocution or surrender to “virginity tests” is not much of an option, is it?

And here is where the “I told you so” part comes in. Many of the Lefty stripe were celebrating turning over Egypt to the military. Picture Alfred E. Newman when you read this: “What could go wrong?”

Plenty. Not only are they teaming up with the Muslim Brotherhood (told you so about that, too), but women continue to bear the brunt of the anti-woman structure there. Can you imagine any woman in the United States, or Europe, being forced to decide between Electrocution and a Virginity Test? Hell to the no. And it is not okay that our Egyptian Sisters are being forced to do so at the hands of the military.

The rights, and dignity, of women are being subjugated in Egypt. Amnesty International is all over this, thank heavens (I am a card carrying, regular contributor to AI). But between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military, I continue to fear for the safety of women in Egypt.

And I still want to know why Obama wants to send them so damn much money given these human rights abuses, and the strong role of the Muslim Brotherhood. Again, I must ask – where is the hue and cry? So far, the silence is deafening…

You remember the Patriot Act – it is the one many of us were furious about when the Bush Administration came up with it. It is the one that permits warrant-less wiretapping on US citizens. The very one Obama, as Candidate Obama, took time out from pandering to the masses to vote to extend the last time, though Senators Clinton and McCain were opposed to it.

And you may recall, Obama’s minions were adamantly opposed to the Patriot Act. Adamantly opposed. When he pulled that stunt, going to vote for it, their eyes glossed over, their ears closed, and their brains shut down so they wouldn’t go into apoplexy. My younger brother, a stalwart Obamabot, said it was “disappointing” that Obama voted for it. “Disappointing.” Right.

So, what is it now that President Obama has signed an extension, huh? Where is MoveOn.org NOW? Where is Code Pink? Where is DailyKos? I’m just wondering.

Another question I have is, why does Barney Frank not think it is a conflict of interest for him to push his then-lover to work for Fannie Mae? He doesn’t think there are any “ethical” problems with it at all:

[snip] “If it is (a conflict of interest), then much of Washington is involved (in conflicts),” Frank told the Herald last night. “It is a common thing in Washington for members of Congress to have spouses work for the federal government. There is no rule against it at all.”

Frank said he helped his former longtime companion, Herb Moses, land a job at Fannie Mae in 1991 after Moses graduated with a master’s degree in business administration from Dartmouth College. Frank said he was approached by a Fannie Mae executive and vouched for Moses, who formerly worked as an economist in the Department of Agriculture. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Uh huh. Yeah, this is just how Washington does it, so what’s the big deal? Well, this is:

[snip] OK. But Barney’s problem with this latest “bias and vitriol” is that it doesn’t come from the Herald. It comes from a New York Times [NYT] reporter, Gretchen Morgenson — a Pulitzer Prize winner — in a new book, “Reckless Endangerment.”

Morgenson accused Barney of getting a job for his boyfriend on a show a couple of days ago on, of all places, National Public Radio.

[snip]

Can anyone dispute that the New York Times/Boston Globe protects and venerates Barney Frank? And yet here is what the Times’ Pulitzer Prize winner says:

“Frank actually called up the company (Fannie Mae) and asked them to hire his companion, who had just gotten an MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Business (at Dartmouth). . . . Of course the company was happy to provide a job for his companion and rolled out the red carpet in a series of interviews with a variety of executives, and it ultimately did hire the man.”

Another nationwide search!

“And he stayed there for, I believe, seven years.”

[...]

The Pulitzer Prize winner from the Times interviewed Barney about his Significant Other, and Mr. Hot Bottom assured her he never, ever went to bat for his boyfriend’s employer at congressional hearings. Not true, says the NYT reporter.

“The record shows that he was very aggressive and really tough on those who were testifying in Congress about reining in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

True love is what it was. Later on, Barney had an epiphany about Fannie Mae’s corruption. But as Morgenson puts it, “He had been a vocal supporter for so long that it was sort of an odd turnabout.” [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

I’ll say it was. And if you recall, Fannie and Freddie have had wide ranging, far reaching, effects on our economy. So, thanks a lot for that, Barney. And of course, you did NOTHING wrong. Ahahahahahaha. Right.

And it came out the other day that Obama Administration has paid the six top executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the past two years – $34.4 MILLION. Yes, you read that right. Read more here:

[snip] Over the last two years, the Obama administration has approved a whopping $34.4 million in compensation to the top six executives of the financially troubled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage giants, and lacks the necessary protections to ensure such compensation is even warranted.
The largesse flowed to the six executives even though the two companies they run struggle to staunch billions of dollars in losses, remain in government conservatorship, and must compensate taxpayers for assuming the companies’ liabilities during the mortgage crisis. To compensate taxpayers, Fannie and Freddie are tapping Treasury Department funds to pay required 10 percent dividends each quarter to the U.S. government.[snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

These two mortgage behemoths have helped to throw this country into an economic tailspin, and are still bleeding money. And WE are paying them that kind of money?? This is insane. It is absolutely insane. Wow…

And finally, I’d also like to know why Obama is wanting to shell out billions of OUR taxpaying dollars to go to Egypt and other so-called “Arab Spring” countries? I understand he wants to send money there for job creation? What about job creation in his OWN country?? (The other day, when I posted this at my blog, I had mentioned Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her “Do As I Say, Not As I Do, and Buy American,” but Larry Johnson covered it in his own inimitable style, so no need to rehash it here unless you want to do so.)

And not for nothing, but this money will be going to groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, the “rebels” in Libya, who are not all freedom loving would be Democrats. Not at all, since some of them have ties to Al-Qaeda. And we are going to help fund them WHY, exactly?

See, I have questions, though the above are just the beginning. Anyone have some answers?

President Obama made quite the speech today on the Middle East, including Israel, our ally, right before Prime Minister Netanyahu visits. And oh, what an, um, interesting speech it was.

If you have the time, inclination, and intestinal fortitude to watch Obama deliver it, and I warn you, he does go on, here it is:

If that is too much to bear, here is a link from the State Department of Obama’s speech. There is a lot at which to look in this speech, from the brief comment about women (you can definitely see Hillary Clinton’s input there – Obama’s words are very similar to what Clinton has been saying for some time – communities do best when the women who live there are treated fairly), to the comments about Israel. The latter are receiving a great deal of attention. Here is what Obama said:

[snip] So while the core issues of the conflict must be negotiated, the basis of those negotiations is clear: a viable Palestine, a secure Israel. The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their full potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state. [snip]

Some people have taken exception to Obama’s wanting to push Israel back 44 years, including Rep. (Col.) Allen West (FL-R) (h/t to Hokma):

[snip]From the moment the modern day state of Israel declared statehood in 1948, to the end of the 1967 Six Day War, Jews were forbidden access to their holiest site, the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, controlled by Jordan’s Arab army.

The pre-1967 borders endorsed by President Obama would deny millions of the world’s Jews access to their holiest site and force Israel to return the strategically important Golan Heights to Syria, a known state-sponsor of terrorism.

Resorting to the pre-1967 borders would mean a full withdrawal by the Israelis from the West Bank and the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. Make no mistake, there has always been a Nation of Israel and Jerusalem has been and must always be recognized as its rightful capital.

In short, the Hamas-run Palestinian state envisioned by President Obama would be devastating to Israel and the world’s 13.3 million Jews. It would be a Pavlovian style reward to a declared Islamic terrorist organization, and an unacceptable policy initiative. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Holy moley – West sure doesn’t mince words, does he?

This is an Open Thread. Discuss the above, or anything else on your minds.

And for your musical interlude, I offer up the incomparable Phoebe Snow, lost too soon on April 26th, at the age of 60.
I spent many hours of my youth listening to her music. Here she is singing her hit, “Poetry Man”:

Thank you for the gifts you shared with us. You will be missed…

UPDATE: So while Col. West doesn’t mince words, Obama does. Many of the talking heads are saying this morning that Obama was hard on Palestine, too, that he isn’t totally caving into them. You might know that Hamas, an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007. Hamas does not support Israel’s right to exist.

So, what were Obama’s stern words to Palestine about what THEY would have to give up for Israel to return to 1967 boundaries? Oh, he is so tough: [snip] In particular, the recent announcement of an agreement between Fata

h and Hamas raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel: How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist? And in the weeks and months to come, Palestinian leaders will have to provide a credible answer to that question. Meanwhile, the United States, our Quartet partners, and the Arab states will need to continue every effort to get beyond the current impasse.[snip]

Ooooohhhh, so strong, so forceful! NOT.

Obama has set Israel up from the get-go, which is what Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to think, too. He had an angry phone call with Secretary Clinton Thursday before the speech was given, trying to get Obama to back down on his assertions. Clearly, Obama did not.

The question has been asked repeatedly, how involved was Hillary Clinton in this decision by the Administration. Why? Because of her previous solid support for Israel.The National Jewish Democratic Council had a fact sheet on Clinton’s positions when she was running for president to highlight just how strong her support for Israel was. Here is just a portion of that fact-sheet:

[snip] Senator Clinton has an outstanding record of leadership in the U.S. Senate on issues related to the U.S. Israel relationship. Since her election in 2000, Senator Clinton has compiled a very strong voting record on pro-Israel issues. She has cosponsored key pieces of pro-Israel legislation, including the Syria Accountability Act and Palestinian Anti-Terror Act, and signed numerous letters urging action on behalf of the State of Israel. She has repeatedly voted for foreign aid. Senator Clinton introduced legislation calling for the immediate release of the three Israeli soldiers captured by Hamas and Hezbollah.

Clinton has been a leading voice against the anti-Semitism in Palestinian school textbooks. She joined with the Palestinian Media Watch in February 2007 in releasing a report exposing the continuation of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic language in Palestinian school textbooks. Her full statement on this issue is available (here).

Senator Clinton sponsored legislation that limited U.S. contributions to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) until it recognized the Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s version of the Red Cross. This pressure resulted in the ICRC finally admitting MDA into the International Red Cross in the summer of 2006. [Senator Clinton’s position paper on the U.S.-Israel relationship]

Clinton’s strong support for Israel has been recognized time and again in the Jewish Community. For example, the Orthodox Newspaper, The Jewish Press, which opposed Clinton in 2000, wrote in support of her candidacy for re-election to the Senate in 2006: “As regards Israel, she has become an important supporter of the Jewish state both in public and, perhaps more importantly, behind the scenes. She is held in the highest regard by those who regularly plead Israel’s cause in the halls of government. For those who initially were wary of her positions on Middle East issues – and we include ourselves in that category – Ms. Clinton has proved to be a pleasant and welcome surprise.” [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

You can see why Prime Minister Netanyahu might be confused by Secretary Clinton standing behind Obama on this, and having this speech made at the State Department. That is as clear a message as she can send.

I imagine the meeting between Obama and Netanyahu will be a bit testy, to be sure, but I also imagine that Netanyahu feels he has lost a dear friend and ally in Secretary Clinton.

There will be more to come from Obama’s speech as it is parsed. I imagine there will be more fallout as well. I have to say, whooey – I would love to be a fly on the wall in the White House today. How about you?

So why did Charlie Brown keep trying? To quote Samuel Johnson, Charlie Brown’s determination was an example of the triumph of hope over experience.

Like the relationship between the United States and Pakistan for the last 60 years.

Following 1947″s bloody partition from India, Pakistan followed a more pro-Western policy whereas the Indian government defined its foreign policy as more leftist. Diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Pakistan were established shortly after Pakistan’s independence. In May of 1950, Prime Minister Liquiat Ali Khan made the first state visit to the United States, stopping in New York, Washington, Houston and Kansas City. The prime minister was seeking financial and military assistance. The U.S. did not see the usefulness of a strong relationship with Pakistan and her interests in Pakistan were limited.

1954 marked a turning point in the history of relations between the two countries, as the U.S. began providing Pakistan with military aid, which would increase over the years. It was in the same decade that Pakistan experienced its first military coup, when its Army Chief Ayub Khan took power in 1958.

It was at that point that the football, in the form of aid, support of civilian government and cooperation in the war on terror entered the picture. Over the years, the U.S. and Pakistan’s relationship would improve and worsen in increasingly dramatic cycles.

The U.S. refused to provide military assistance to Pakistan during the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War. In April of 1979 the United States suspended all economic assistance to Pakistan (with the exception of food assistance) over concerns about Pakistan’s nuclear program.

The tide shifted in 1981, when Pakistan and the United States agreed on a $3.2 billion military and economic assistance program aimed at helping Pakistan deal with the heightened threat to security in the region and its economic development needs. With U.S. assistance — in the largest covert operation in history — Pakistan armed and supplied anti-Soviet fighters in Afghanistan. Weapons flowed through Pakistan to arm the mujaheddin through General Zia Ul-Haq, another military dictator who rose to power through a coup.

But the relationship’s cracks were becoming more obvious. As Lawrence Wright wrote in his New Yorker piece “U.S. Support for Pakistan: A Long Messy History;”

At the same time, Zia began giving support to an Islamist organization, Jamaat-e-Islami, the forerunner of many more radical groups to come. In November, a mob of Jamaat followers, inflamed by a rumor that the U.S. and Israel were behind an attack on the Grand Mosque, in Mecca, burned the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad to the ground, killing two Americans and two Pakistani employees. The American romance with Pakistan was over, but the marriage was just about to begin.

After 9/11, Pakistan, led by General Pervez Musharraf, reversed course under pressure from the United States and joined the “War on Terror” as a U.S. ally. This alliance began rather dramatically. According to Musharraf’s biography, In the Line of Fire, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage threatened to “bomb Pakistan into the stone age” if the country didn’t get with the program. It was an “offer” that Pakistan was in no position to refuse. General Musharraf was strongly supported by the Bush administration.

In return for their support, Pakistan has received about $10 billion in U.S. aid since 2001, primarily military.

Where did the money go? According to Military Inc., by Ayesha Siddiqa, Pakistan’s army, which has never won a war, found creative ways to take advantage of Western largesse, investing in hotels, real estate, and shopping malls. According to a 2008 GAO report, more than a third of U.S. funds provided Pakistan since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were subject to accounting problems, including duplication and possible fraud.

And then there’s the thorny topic of A.Q. Khan, the father of the “Islamic Bomb.” While Khan was operating a nuclear bazaar, the government of Pakistan argued that if there had been wrongdoing, it had occurred without the military’s knowledge or approval. Critics noted that virtually all of Khan’s overseas travels, to Iran, Libya, North Korea, Niger, Mali, and the Middle East, were on Pakistan government aircraft.

Then comes Osama saga.

For decades, the United States has made the mistake of equating “Pakistan” with its army and supporting military governments. The U.S., in the role of Lucy, has turned aid into a football. Unlike Charlie Brown, the Pakistani people, who do not benefit from this aid, have stopped trusting Lucy.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has also played the role of Lucy, offering assistance in the war on terror. While Pakistan has been helpful and the country’s people have suffered immeasurably as a result of brutal and ongoing terrorist attacks, the army and the ISI, like Lucy, have at times been too clever by half. Despite outward signs that aid will continue to flow to Pakistan’s military, there are growing signs that the U.S. is tired of playing the Charlie Brown role.

Charlie Brown never stopped trying to kick the football. Hope triumphed over experience. Can the same be said for the future of U.S. – Pak relations?

One of the other results of this earthquake, though, was that it knocked the Earth off its axis by about 3 inches, thus increasing the rotation of the earth, and decreasing the length of our days. Not by much, mind you, only 1.26 microseconds, but it is a cumulative thing.

That is all to say, it was a massive earthquake. Secretary of State Clinton had already planned a trip to Chile anyway, and she met with Secretary Bachelet on Tuesday:

Below is the text of Secretary Clinton’s remarks to President Bachelet, and the people of Chile. For the complete session, with comments by President Bachelet, click HERE:

SECRETARY CLINTON: President Bachelet, I first come with the great sympathy and support from President Obama and the people of the United States. This devastating earthquake has wrought so much damage across your country. The ferocity was 800 times greater than the earthquake that hit Haiti, and your leadership and the extraordinary efforts of your government and the people of Chile are responding with resilience and strength. And the United States is ready to respond to the request that the government of Chile has made so that we can provide not only solidarity, but specific supplies that are needed to help you recover from the earthquake.

Amen to that. Chile has a better infrastructure than Haiti, but there was still a tremendous amount of damage done, and loss of life. Clinton continues:

I was planning to be in Chile today anyway for a long-scheduled trip and I was so looking forward to meeting with President Bachelet who is a leader whom I admire greatly and consider a friend. And when I spoke with the president, I said, “I will not come if it will interfere in any way.” And we changed the itinerary so that I could come and I brought with me 25 of these satellite phones. We have identified 62 as the highest priority for the government’s request. I had 25 on my plane loaded on and I’m going to give this one to you, Madam President.

And let me just add after consulting with the president and her ministers, we are sending eight water purification units. They are on their way. We have identified a mobile field hospital unit with surgical capabilities that is ready to go. We are working to fill the need for autonomous dialysis machines. We are ready to purchase and send electricity generators, medical supplies and are working to identify and send portable bridges so that some of the places that are remote that lost their bridges will be able to be reconnected to the country. People are working. That’s a good sound.

And finally, Madam President, after discussing the needs that Chile has, we will look to see if we can provide additional equipments from portable kitchens to helicopters to assist you in this massive rescue recovery effort that you are undertaking. And additionally, we will let the people of America, who are very anxious to help Chileans, know that they can contribute to the Chilean Red Cross; that they can contribute to the Caritas Chile and the ONEMI programs. We will get that information and give our press the specifics.

Like her trip to Haiti, Secretary Clinton, by her presence, and by the tools she brings, represents our country so well, exuding sympathy, comfort, and determination.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Chile. I hope the aid Secretary Clinton brought with her, and promised on our behalf, will be of an immediate help.

There are many, many sad stories, but here is one positive one:

Amazing. The determination of these rescuers is remarkable. What a tribute to the human spirit.

Since communications are very difficult now in Haiti, the State Department has provided a phone number to find missing U.S. Citizens, 1-888-407-4747, as well as a People Finder site if you are looking for someone, or know there whereabouts of someone, as well as an email address, Haiti-Earthquake@state.gov. Secretary Clinton will be on the ground in Haiti Saturday morning.

Still, the loss of life is staggering, with estimates anywhere between 50,000 – 200,000 deaths expected. As one might expect, a number of children are now orphans. While the Red Cross (you can make a donation to the Red Cross via your cell phone by texting in the word “Haiti” to 90999) and other organizations are there, as we know, including at least one that works specifically with children.

And one such group is SOS Children’s Village. From their website:

SOS Children’s Villages History in Haiti

SOS Children’s Villages has been established in Haiti for over 30 years with extensive experience working with children and families in the area. We support around 3000 children and adults in Haitian SOS Children’s Villages (in Santo and Cap Hatien), SOS Youth Centers, SOS Hermann Gmeiner Schools, and SOS Vocational Training Centers. In 2005, SOS Children’s Villages started to operate SOS Family Strengthening Programs, which enable children who are at risk of losing the care of their family to grow within a caring family environment.

That is important – that they already have a presence in Haiti since, unfortunately, where there are disasters, there are unscrupulous people all too willing to take your donations. If you wish to donate, click HERE.

Another organization that already had a presence there is Convoy of Hope:

When the earthquake hit, Convoy’s country director was in Port-au-Prince. And because Convoy’s warehouse was fully stocked, the team was able to begin responding immediately with 50,000 meals.

One load of relief supplies is being airlifted shortly and another truckload of food and medicine just arrived from the Dominican Republic. Additional loads are being readied for immediate shipment and distribution at several points of distribution in Port-au-Prince.

More supplies are critically needed – Please give now to help the earthquake victims of Haiti!

Just two more good ways to help in Haiti.

But to the actual rescues, some rescue members you may not hear much about are the Rescue Dogs. Many are coming from the Search Dog Foundation. Here is a heart-warming story from Haiti:

At 1:15pm local time, an SDF Search Team in Port-au-Prince located three girls, trapped alive since Tuesday in the rubble of Haiti’s devastating earthquake.

Bill Monahan and his Border Collie, Hunter, were searching a neighborhood near the Presidential Palace, concentrating on a large bowl-shaped area of rubble which was all that remained of a 4-story building.

After criss-crossing the area, Hunter pin-pointed the survivors’ scent under 4 feet of broken concrete and did his “bark alert” to let Bill know where the victims were. Bill spoke with the survivors, then passed them bottles of water tied to the end of a stick. As they reached for the water one of the girls said, “Thank you.” Highly trained rescue crews from California Task Force 2 are now working to extricate the girls from the wreckage and provide first aid.

Incredible, these dogs, aren’t they?

But as you might imagine, not only are people suffering in Haiti, but so are animals, just like during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The Humane Society International sent me the following email:

Like you, all of us at Humane Society International are deeply saddened by the reports of death and destruction in Haiti caused by Tuesday’s massive earthquake. We’re grateful that government and relief agencies are mobilizing to assist the hundreds of thousands of people in need of water, medical care, and shelter.

And as with any disaster of this magnitude, animals are also suffering and in dire need of care. To try to help these animals, here’s what HSI is doing right now:

* We’re working with Sociedad Dominicana para la Prevención de Crueldad a los Animales, which is based in the Dominican Republic and has offered to get a team of animal responders and veterinarians into Haiti;
* We’re sending a veterinarian trained in disaster response associated with our partner organization, the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association, to the Dominican Republic to spearhead our assessment;
* We have joined the Animal Relief Coalition for Haiti, and will be working with the World Society for the Protection of Animals, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, and other partner groups on a coordinated response to this crisis;
* We’ve communicated with humanitarian relief agencies and are poised to address the security, transportation, housing, and supply challenges that accompany deployment.

As you read this, we remain uncertain about how we will be able to respond to the crisis in Haiti, but I can tell you that we will do everything we can to help that country’s people and animals in the coming days. If you’d like to support HSI’s International Disaster Fund, which we use to help relief efforts around the globe, click here.

There is also the World Society for the Protection of Animals:

When people’s properties are destroyed, animals’ homes often disappear too. Wild animals often have to flee their habitat to survive. Domesticated animals are at risk of remaining trapped or abandoned with no food or water. Helping animals affected by disasters not only reduces their suffering, it helps restore entire communities.

Given the complete collapse of infrastructure in and around Port-au-Prince, the capital city at the epicentre of the earthquake, any relief operation will be fraught with difficulties but WSPA remains committed to helping those animals affected by the disaster. As you can understand, information at this time is sparse. WSPA will continue to provide up-to-the minute reports as we get more information from our team in the field through our Animals in Disaster blog.

You can click HERE to donate to WSPA.

These are tough times in Haiti, to be sure. The devastation there is just incomprehensible. The loss of life, housing, food, and potable water cannot be minimized. Please help if you can, provide links to those who can if you cannot, and pray if you will.

Here is a good recap of what has happened during the past week from the American Red Cross:

It is hard to put into words the depth of destruction that has occurred in these areas. Below are a few videos to give you an idea of what has happened in these countries. These are not easy to watch, and tragically, many lives have been lost. But it is important for us to know what has happened, and how we can help.

A brief report from the AP on American Samoa and Samoa follows here:

A major earthquake hit Sumatra:

And this is a glimpse into what has happened in the Philippines:

There are many, many more videos available online at Youtube.com, if you wish to see more.

If you want to help, donations can be made to the American Red Cross Donations are also being accepted by Oxfam America, and other worthy organizations.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all those in these areas, for their safety, for those who have been lost, and those who are missing. My prayers also go to all of those brave souls who rush in to help in these situations. Truly, they are heroes…

Now to the article in Washington Post, “Clinton Puts Spotlight On Women’s Issues.” May I just say, before I share the article with you, that she is doing EXACTLY what she said she would do. I’m just sayin’ – she is remaining true to her principles and what she considers to be important. Unlike SOME people I could name. About time some in the MSM got the memo, but WaPo did:

She talked chickens with female farmers in Kenya. She listened to the excruciating stories of rape victims in war-torn eastern Congo. And in South Africa, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited a housing project built by poor women, where she danced with a choir singing “Heel-a-ree! Heel-a-ree!”

Clinton’s just-concluded 11-day trip to Africa has sent the clearest signal yet that she intends to make women’s rights one of her signature issues and a higher priority than ever before in American diplomacy.

She plans to press governments on abuses of women’s rights and make women more central in U.S. aid programs.

But her efforts go beyond the marble halls of government and show how she is redefining the role of secretary of state. Her trips are packed with town hall meetings and visits to micro-credit projects and women’s dinners. Ever the politician, she is using her star power to boost women who could be her allies.

“It’s just a constant effort to elevate people who, in their societies, may not even be known by their own leaders,” Clinton said in an interview. “My coming gives them a platform, which then gives us the chance to try and change the priorities of the governments.”

Wow. That is quite a statement. I am glad she is doing this work abroad, for the marginalized and oppressed. Oh, how I wish she was doing it as the President (and we know she would have kept her word then, too).

But, things don’t always run smoothly, as we know:

Clinton’s agenda faces numerous obstacles. The U.S. aid system is a dysfunctional jumble of programs. Some critics may question why she is focusing on women’s rights instead of terrorism or nuclear proliferation. And improving the lot of women in such places as Congo is complicated by deeply rooted social problems.

“It’s great she’s mentioning the issue,” said Brett Schaefer, an Africa scholar at the Heritage Foundation. “As to whether her bringing it up will substantially improve the situation or treatment of women in Africa, frankly I doubt it.”

Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, said that Clinton has to tread carefully in socially conservative regions, particularly those where the U.S. military is at war. “You might be right, in the narrow sense of women in that country or region need to be empowered, but you’re saying something inimical to other U.S. interests,” he said.

Despite Clinton’s efforts to spotlight women’s issues, it was her own angry response to what she perceived as a sexist question at a town hall meeting in Congo that dominated American television coverage of her Africa trip. A student had asked for former president Bill Clinton’s opinion on a local political issue — “through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton.” Snapped Hillary Clinton: “My husband is not the secretary of state. I am.”

Clinton is not the first female secretary of state, but neither of her predecessors had her impact abroad as a pop feminist icon. On nearly every foreign trip, she has met with women — South Korean students, Israeli entrepreneurs, Iraqi war widows, Chinese civic activists. Clinton mentioned “women” or “woman” at least 450 times in public comments in her first five months in the position, twice as often as her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice.

And that is why it still shocks me that women who consider themselves feminists, and womens organizations, did not wholeheartedly throw their support behind Hillary Clinton, rather going for the young, inexperienced man. Clinton is not new to this issue, and doesn’t just pay lip service to it, either:

Clinton’s interest in global women’s issues is deeply personal, a mission she adopted as first lady after the stinging defeat of her health-care reform effort in 1994. For months, she kept a low profile. Then, in September 1995, she addressed the U.N. women’s conference in Beijing, strongly denouncing abuses of women’s rights. Delegates jumped to their feet in applause.

“It was a transformational moment for her,” said Melanne Verveer, who has worked closely with Clinton since her White House days.

Clinton began traveling the world, highlighting women’s issues. She gradually built a network of female activists, politicians and entrepreneurs, especially through a group she helped found, Vital Voices, that has trained more than 7,000 emerging leaders worldwide. She developed a following among middle-class women in male-dominated countries who devoured her autobiography and eagerly watched her presidential run.

“She might not be having the same restrictions as we have, but she has had restrictions — and she’s moving on. That’s a symbol to us,” said Tara Fela-Durotoye, a businesswoman in Abuja, Nigeria.

Clinton’s legacy is evident in such places as the Victoria Mxenge housing development outside Cape Town, South Africa, a dusty sprawl of small, pastel-colored homes she championed as first lady. When her bus rolled into the female-run project during her trip, a joyful commotion broke out. Women in purple and yellow gowns lined the streets, waving wildly.

Huh. How does this match with the rhetoric spewed by Obama about Hillary Clinton and her work abroad? Does the expression, “Liar, liar, pants on fire” mean anything to you? And yet, people bought his words, hook, line, and sinker. I wonder how they’re feeling now, especially when they read what the effects of her work are, discernible, and quantifiable:

A youth choir swayed outside a community center decorated with photos of Clinton on her previous visits to the project, which has grown to 50,000 houses. Clinton vowed in a major policy address last month to make women the focus of U.S. assistance programs. The idea is applauded by development experts, who have found that investing in girls’ education, maternal health and women’s micro-finance provides a powerful boost to Third World families.

Ritu Sharma, president of the anti-poverty group Women Thrive Worldwide, said she already sees the results of Clinton’s efforts in the bureaucracy. When Sharma’s staff recently attended a meeting about a new agricultural aid program, she said, one State Department official joked, “We have to integrate women — or we’re going to be fired.”

Still, Sharma questioned whether the program would succeed in reaching poor women, especially given the weaknesses in U.S. foreign assistance.

“There’s a lot of healthy skepticism about ‘Will it really happen?’ ” she said.

In a sign of the priority she gives to the issue, Clinton has appointed her close friend Verveer as the State Department’s first global ambassador for women’s affairs.

“She will permeate the State Department, as I want her to, with what we should be doing about empowering and focusing on women across the board,” Clinton said.

This reminds me – do you remember that Obama has a school named after him in Kenya? You know, the one to which he has given not one thin dime? Uh, yeah. Who walks the walk here? Clearly, it’s Hillary:

One issue Verveer has been concerned about is violence against women, particularly the stunningly high number of rapes in eastern Congo. Last week, Clinton, Verveer and the delegation boarded U.N. planes to visit the remote, impoverished region and meet with rape victims. Clinton pressed the Congolese president to prosecute offenders and offered $17 million in new assistance for victims.

“Raising issues like the ones I’ve been raising on this trip to get governments to focus on them, to see they’re not sidelined or subsidiary issues, but that the U.S. government at the highest levels cares about them, is important,” she said. “It changes the dynamic within governments.”

Clinton’s efforts are being reinforced by a White House women’s council and a Congress with a growing number of powerful female members. One sign of that: Aid dedicated to programs for Afghan women and girls increased about threefold this year, to $250 million, because of lawmakers such as Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who was recently named head of the first Senate subcommittee on global women’s issues, and Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations.

It is striking how much time Clinton dedicates to women’s events on her trips, even ones that receive little public attention. In South Africa, a clearly delighted Clinton spent 90 minutes at the housing project, twice as long as she met with South Africa’s president. “It feeds my heart,” she explained. “Which is really critical to me personally since a lot of what I do as secretary of state is very formalistic. It’s meetings with other officials.”

“It is striking how much time Clinton dedicates to women’s events on her trips, even ones that receive little public attention.” Because she doesn’t do it for the publicity, she does it because it is the RIGHT thing to do!! That is another big, huge, difference between Hillary Clinton and other politicians. She does a LOT of things about which people don’t know (as in, not publicized in the media) because she actually, genuinely cares about people.
And that is why she will always be my hero – because she cares, because she SHOWS she cares, and because she brings action to her words. I think we could use a whole lot more of that from our elected officials, don’t you?

If you wish to see where Secretary Clinton went, and what she did, click on this link: Secretary of State Clinton’s Africa Travels – Interactive Map

As she circles the globe in coming years, making the case for women’s empowerment, starting with their basic right to be taken seriously, Clinton really has her work cut out for her. And it isn’t just because the situation of women around the world is so dire, and the ocean of problems confronting them — maternal mortality, sex trafficking, domestic abuse, malnourishment, lack of education, lack of adequate medical care, just for starters — is so wide and so deep. And it isn’t just that her historic mandate — to equally empower the other half of the world’s population, to chip away at the forces “devaluing women,” in the words of Melanne Verveer, the State Department’s new ambassador at large for global women’s issues — is so huge and vague and seemingly overwhelming. It’s also because the tide of trivialization that washes over all things “Hillary” is just so powerful. That tide threatens to drown out anything of substance Clinton might attempt for a population whose problems have long been obscured in the androcentric world of diplomacy. And that’s a huge pity.

Ms. Warner is correct. And shame on the media for their wish to trivialize Secretary Clinton’s work.

This is not about ego or elevating Hillary. This is about decency. The media needs to relearn professionalism, highlighting issues that are of vital interest to our nation and the world. I never cease to be both incensed and amazed that the pundit class and venal newscasters aren’t ashamed to focus on fluff and junk politics. We need to draw attention to important concerns, as Ms. Warner painfully notes below:

This was supposed to be the trip that would show exactly how Hillary Rodham Clinton would make good on her pledge, at her confirmation hearing for secretary of state, to make women’s issues “central” to U.S. foreign policy, not “adjunct or auxiliary or in any way lesser.”

There could have been no more dramatic setting: Overruling the security fears of her aides, she traveled to eastern Congo, where hundreds of thousands of women have been raped over the past decade. She visited a refugee camp and met with one woman who was gang-raped while eight months pregnant; she heard of another who’d been sexually assaulted with a rifle. She was told of babies cut from their mothers’ bodies with razors. She spoke of “evil in its basest form.” She promised $17 million to fight sexual violence.

And back home, all anyone could talk about was Bill.

Had he upstaged her with his trip to North Korea? Had he dogged her, in absentia, all the way to Kinshasa, where a university student, wondering about “Mr. Clinton’s” views, set her off, and set the world cluck-clucking, once again, about her marriage, her temperament, even her hair?

When this last paragraph is all the media can talk about, they send a huge message:

Sexism and misogyny are alive and well.

They also telegraph the fact that they could give a damn about focusing on the atrocities against women in the Congo that left Secretary Clinton so shaken. She has been fighting for the rights of women’s empowerment, education and equality here and around the world long before it was fashionable. When women have greater access to education, health care and jobs, the economy thrives, too. This is not just about a “female agenda.” This is something that affects all of us. As Ms. Warner notes:

This could be a moment for America to redeem itself as far as the world’s women are concerned. Our recent track record, after all, is pretty dim. The Bush administration sent anti-feminists to Iraq to train that country’s women in participatory democracy. We pulled our financing from the United Nations Population Fund and imposed a global gag rule barring women’s health organizations that merely talked about abortion from receiving U.S. funds. We never ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, a pretty base-level human rights treaty, because of worries by black helicopter types that American sovereignty would be compromised. Our lack of paid maternity leave made us something of a world joke. (snip)

…a peculiarly gendered form of trivializing scorn still tags our secretary of state. Just two weeks ago, The Washington Post had to remove from its Web site an ostensibly humorous video sketch by two of its prominent political journalists that juxtaposed a picture of Clinton’s face with a bottle of derogatorily named beer. This sort of thing bodes badly for the country’s ability to treat her — and the issues she most passionately champions — with appropriate respect.

In 2008, we clearly saw the media is incapable of treating this woman with appropriate respect. It is beyond shameful because by constantly shooting the messenger, we diminish the possibility of citizens getting more involved in these vital causes. Her message is blunted by a media blackout about all things substantial in favor of smear and tabloid journalism.

“We have our own work to do at home,” Verveer told me. “We trivialize the importance too often of these issues: the ‘women’s issue’ — you put it in quotes, that little category over there, the box you check. What we have to do is realize these are the issues; if we want societies to prosper and if we want our own security, we have to raise the status of women.”

Women’s empowerment won’t be delivered at the end of a gun or through economic sanctions or even overt criticism, if it cuts into accepted cultural practices. This is messy stuff; some of our most sensitive allies have horrific records on women’s rights. Programs that show success tend to be slow-moving and incremental. Can all this complexity attract — much less sustain — the attention of the public?

Maybe — if we stop viewing everything Clinton does as entertainment.

The UK Independent’s article today, Hillary Wins Hearts As She Concludes Africa Tour offers more by way of real news and real progress made as a result of Hillary’s trip. Certainly something the American media was loathe to cover. Please be sure to read the article.

As the media has clearly demonstrated its bias time and time again, it seems the fourth estate has long abdicated its responsibility for fair or substantive reporting. And we are losing out in the bargain.

As she has done for so many years, Hillary Clinton speaks out for, and stands with, women and children, calling out those who have treated them with such brutality, with such inhumanity. She calls out for justice for these women and children, and for their torturers to receive their comeuppance.

Sadly, inhumanity is not limited to how people treat other people, but the inhumane ways we treat animals, as well. In this particular case, I am referring to horses. And you know I am nuts about horses, have been my entire life. I simply cannot begin to fathom how anyone could do this, and I am thankful that I cannot fathom it.

And that is your warning. The next video is very, very difficult to watch. If you have a weak stomach, you may think twice about watching it:

These two may not seem related, but I think they are. They both speak to how capable people are of despicable acts. In terms of the horses, it is about greed, plain and simple. In terms of the brutal rapes of women and children in DRC by people in the military, no less, it is to control and terrorize civilians, as well as for greed and power.

And in both cases, women and children, as well as the horses, are pawns in someone’s game, used and abused to suit someone’s needs other than their own, with no one to help them. Both the women and children, as well as the horses, are innocent victims of someone’s brutality, of their inhumanity.

Thank HEAVENS we have Secretary Clinton to speak up for women here and abroad, to work to end rape as a tool by those in power. How lucky we are to have someone like HER on our side, who is dedicated to eradicating violence against women. This is her lifelong quest thus far, and goddess knows, I pray she is successful.

As to the horses, I am not a violent person. I have never owned a gun in my life. Frankly, I am scared to death of them though I did have my brother teach me how to handle one properly simply because I think it is important to know how to handle one safely. You just never know when you might come across one these days.
ike I said, I am scared of them.

That being said, I certainly can relate to thinking of horses as beloved family members. Heck, I’d rather hang out with my horse any day than some members of my blood family (three of whom are certified Obots). And I can certainly understand wanting to take action to protect these creatures who cannot protect themselves. Think of it – these horses see people as their caregivers, so naturally, if a person is coming to them, they aren’t going to know the person bears ill intent toward them. How could they know? And that innocence, that trust, literally leads them to slaughter.

I’m sorry – hang on – talk amongst yourselves – okay. Whew.

I know this is nothing new, the manner by which people can treat other people, and animals (Michael Vick is certainly a case in point for the latter after his rampant dog abuse – and he is already out of prison, of course). But it doesn’t mean that I have to accept that this is just how it is. No, not at all.

I hope you won’t either. Thank Secretary Clinton for her work (heck, you can even text or Twitter her). Join an organization like People Helping Horses, which takes in abused and rescued horses, restoring them to health, then allowing them to be adopted by responsible horse owners. Speak up, speak out. We CAN make a difference. We have to make a difference…

– calling the vetting process for Obama administration nominees “ridiculous” and “a nightmare.”

At a question-and-answer session with staff from the U.S. Agency for International Development, a woman asked her when the agency would be getting a new administrator and “why it’s taking so long.”

“Let me say it’s not for lack of trying,” Clinton replied. “The process — the clearance and vetting process — is a nightmare,” she told the staff. “It takes far longer than any of us would want to see. It is frustrating beyond words.”

The secretary said she “pushed very hard last week, when I knew I was coming here, to get permission from the White House to be able to tell you that help is on the way and somebody will be nominated shortly.” But, she said, “the message came back, ‘We’re not ready.’”

Wow. So everyone who wants to work for the Obama Administration has to submit to a colonoscopy. Hillary certainly did. Oh, oops. Sorry. My bad. I guess. I mean. Not exactly everyone. I don’t think the Commander in Chief has ever submitted to, nor could he pass, his own vetting process. And Timmy “Turbo Tax” Geithner clearly would have failed, too, according to the criteria of the White House, except for the fact that our President made a big case of saying Timmy was the only one who knew how to fix the economy.

So how’s that working out so far?

Hey, in Timmy’s case, maybe a strict vetting process would have been a good idea. What a shame he was not subject to the same scrutiny as prospects for the USAID position. As Secretary Clinton further states:

“Anyone who has gone through it or looked at this process will tell you that every administration it gets worse,” she added.

“Some very good people just didn’t want to be vetted,” she explained. “You have to hire lawyers, you have to hire accountants. I mean, it is ridiculous!”

Drawing laughs from the crowd, Clinton said, “And then here’s one of the questions you get asked: First of all, you have to remember everywhere you’ve lived since you were 18. And, beyond a certain age you can’t even remember when you were 18!”

One of her “all-time favorite questions,” she said, is, “Please tell us every foreign national you know.”

“I mean, some people who are of different ancestry, they’re a hyphenated American and they have family still living in other countries, finally said it’s ridiculous. I mean, I have lots of cousins I’ve never met. You’re going to ask me to put their names down so they can all be interviewed? That’s ridiculous!

“You’re sensing my frustration!” Clinton sighed.

Now I know that news media is always looking for any sensational headline it can squeeze out to put Clinton and Obama at odds, but really this does seem to be undermining of her efforts? The combined one-two punch of the State Department and USAID is important and I am continually amazed, if not surprised, how this Administration keeps shooting itself in the foot, not able to focus on the big picture.
A job needs to get done here and this over burdensome vetting process is not helping, particularly when it is only selectively applied.

More do as I say, not as I do, I guess.