RUTHFULLY YOURS

The only known photos from the White House’s 2009 “Alice in Wonderland” party

By now you’ve probably heard about the “Alice in Wonderland”-themed Halloween party that Obama threw back in 2009 and which the White House tried to cover up (a charge they’re already furiously denying). Here at PJM Belladonna Rogers and J. Christian Adams have already blogged about it, so there’s no need for me to go into the details any further.

But the question everyone’s asking is: Where are the photos?

Well, unfortunately, it seems that the Obamas successfully banned discouraged photographers from inside the party itself. But all is not lost: There were a few photos taken inside of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton in Alice in Wonderland costumes along with Alice herself and the Obamas. And some other photos were taken of festivities outside the event. I’ve done quite a bit of searching, and this is what I could find, so for all of you out there hungry for pictures, here you go (presented in the highest resolution I could track down for each image):

[Note: THESE ARE REAL PICTURES of Halloween at the White House in 2009.]

http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2012/01/09/the-alice-in-wonderland-presidency/?print=1

The big news over the weekend, that the Obama White House had a secret Alice and Wonderland-themed Halloween party, really didn’t surprise me. The taxpayer-funded event featured Johnny Depp in full Mad Hatter costume prancing on tables in the White House State Dining Room. Someone wore the actual Chewbacca Wookie costume, while guests drank punch from blood vials. (An aside: why is Halloween such a big event for some people, requiring excessive decorations and festivities?) The State Dining Room was turned into a Lewis Carroll-themed house of horrors for the invited guests.

Not surprisingly, the White House deliberately concealed the existence of the grotesque party from the public and the press corp. That pesky 16% real unemployment rate required stealth.

The Alice in Wonderland party won’t surprise anyone who has read my book Injustice, for Chapter Seven is actually titled “Through the Looking Glass.” The Justice Department held a similar bizarre party at the Mellon Auditorium courtesy of the taxpayers on April 27, 2010. They called it a “retreat,” but it had skits, singing, dancing, and of course free lunch for nearly 800 DOJ employees paid for by you. It also featured a bizarre agenda, almost as strange as Johnny Depp in Mad Hatter makeup dancing on tables:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/the_taliban_and_the_plo.html
The Taliban and the PLO By Shoshana Bryen

The story below is not a history lesson; it is a cautionary tale. What happens when the United States ignores the nature and behavior of an adversary and pretends that a) people wedded to a violent ideology and believing deeply in their ultimate victory will accept less and allow their enemy to “win” as well; and b) legitimizes them and providing concessions will get them to do it?

In 2006, a 1973 State Department memo regarding the murder of two American and one Belgian diplomat in Sudan was declassified. It acknowledged, “The Khartoum operation was planned and carried out with the full knowledge and personal approval of Yasir Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and head of Fatah.”

That was generally believed to be the case, but still it was a shock to see that the United States government had known (then) for 33 years that Arafat, murderer of Israelis and Jews, was also the murderer of Cleo Noel, George Curtis Moore, and Guy Eid, Western diplomats in service. The three were machine-gunned to death with the “full knowledge and personal approval” of the man with whom the U.S. government opened relations during the Reagan administration with the “full knowledge and personal approval” of Colin Powell, then-NSC adviser to the president and later secretary of State, the person responsible for American diplomats abroad. (Powell told a small group — of which I was a member — that “everyone has something to say, and we should offer them the opportunity to say it.”)

The world could have been spared a lot of trouble if the U.S. government had told what it knew in 1973. Arafat might not have become an acceptable interlocutor for the United States. He might not have been someone for whom the U.S. government betrayed people who worked and died in its service. He might not have become a “partner” for an unwilling Israel, pressured by the United States.

Instead, the State Department hid its contemporaneous knowledge of Arafat’s crime against American diplomats in hopes of enticing/bribing him to make peace with Israel.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11191/pub_detail.asp
The Preemption Imperative: Israel’s Security Algorithm
“Iran believes that whoever is for humanity should also be for eradicating the Zionist regime [Israel] as symbol of suppression and discrimination,” President Ahmadinejad, August 27th, 2011.

When Nikita Krushchev told Western ambassadors at a reception in the Polish Embassy in Moscow on November 18, 1956 that “We will bury you!”, the West was not unduly alarmed. After all, good ol’ Niki, he of shoe-banging fame, was a bit of a hotheaded blowhard. True, the Premier had the nukes to try it, but Western leaders counted on a certain amount of sly calculation on the part of the Soviets. They weren’t suicidal. The Soviets had gone to a lot of trouble ensuring that at least Mother Russia would survive a nuclear exchange. Their industry was redundant and dispersed, their urban populations would be protected by a subway system that doubled as a massive fallout shelter (in contravention with treaty.) They knew the US was naively adhering to its side of the Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) game. Still, they weren’t likely to start anything they didn’t have a good chance of winning, and the Soviets could never quite be sure of what the West, especially America, might be able to do in retaliation.

The Israelis have no such assurance of rational behavior on the part of their enemies. When the Sons of Amalek threaten Jews, they mean it and will carry it out regardless of the cost to themselves. Consider Hitler’s orders toward the end of the War—his armies desperately needed supply, but he ordered that nothing interfere with getting Jews to the ovens. Adolf Hitler, of course, announced his plans for the Jews in Mein Kampf. In the case of Iran, Ahmadinejad has announced his commitment to hastening the return of the Twelfth Imam by precipitating Armageddon, specifically by obliterating the Jewish state.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11195/pub_detail.asp
Nothing would more shift the world’s strategic balance in our favor than energy security. From Russia to Venezuela, Iran to Saudi Arabia, our dependency on foreign oil sustains our adversaries while sending money overseas that could be spent here at home. The last eight presidents have made empty promises to achieve energy security so many people have given up hope that it’ll ever happen, but it may be closer than you think.

I was inspired to write about this after I saw a hopeful video by political analyst Dick Morris. He explained that the U.S. and Canada are producing more oil and contrary to common opinion, our dependency is decreasing, not increasing. It is believed that the expected drilling of up to 3,000 oil wells in Texas by 2013 will increase production by one-fourth by the end of the decade, equal to Venezuela or Kuwait. Five years ago, North Dakota’s Bakken oil field produced nothing. Now it produces 400,000 barrels per day.

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/776/gingrich_was_right_us_aid_pays_for_palestinian_terror_promotion

Gingrich was right: US aid pays for Palestinian terror promotion

With thousands of Americans having sacrificed their lives in the wars on terror, and trillions of dollars spent, Americans may well ask: why have we given almost a billion dollars to the terror-promoters of the Palestinian Authority?

Controversy over Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s charge that Palestinian national identity is a recent invention has, unfortunately, overshadowed a more important point made by Gingrich, namely, that the Palestinian Authority promotes hatred and terrorism with US aid money.

If true, this raises serious questions about US Middle East policy.

According to the Congressional Research Service, US aid to the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 2008 has averaged over $600 million per year. More than $200 million of that annual sum went directly to the Palestinian Authority (“PA”) budget – over $800 million in four years. Where does the
money go?

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/782/the_rise_of_atheism_in_pakistan

An increasing number of young Pakistani’s are adopting Atheism and openly questioning the existence of a God. Many analysts have attributed this trend to the rise of Islamist militancy in Pakistan as well as access to social media and other technological tools that allow people to share and explore new ideas.

A Facebook group called ‘Pakistani Atheists and Agnostics’ was launched a few months ago and has already attracted over 800 members. I caught up with the founder of this group, a young Pakistani Technologist operating under the pseudonym ‘Hazrat Nakhuda’, in order to discuss this new phenomenon.

EDITORIAL: Obama cooks the unemployment books Don’t believe bureaucrats, unemployment is really 11.4 percent
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/9/obama-cooks-the-unemployment-books/The White House has trumpeted recent rosy employment figures, but in their guts Americans know things aren’t getting better. They should trust their instincts.

Jobs are the No. 1 issue going into the 2012 election, which makes the unemployment rate a particularly important indicator. Lately, the trend seems to be favoring the White House. The December unemployment numbers showed a drop to 8.5 percent, down 0.2 percent from the previous month and over half a percentage point from August. In the “jobless recovery,” small moves like that take on outsized significance.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the last 12 months, a net of 1.5 million more Americans found work. This sounds like good news, but the civilian non-institutional worker population increased by 1.7 million over the same period, and the raw percentage of Americans working has basically flatlined at 58.5 percent. To the extent there are new jobs, it has more to do with the fact that there are more people creating more demand, not with any fundamental expansion in the economy.

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Marco Rubio & Allen West Forging Political Alliance? | The Shark Tank

Is a political alliance between Senator Marco Rubio and Congressman Allen West just around the corner? Considering the partisan divide and lack of cooperation between the two Houses of Congress over the past year that has stalled efforts to pass legislation that would aid our economic recovery, such an alliance could help shift some momentum that helps to break the legislative logjam that presently exists.

According to West, the House of Representatives has passed at least 30 pieces of legislation that would aid our economy recovery and eliminate harmful regulations, but these bills are sitting dormant over at the Senate at the orders of Majority Leader Harry Reid.

West has previously said that he was “very appalled “with the Senate’s two- month payroll tax extension because it wasn’t “good policy,” and was simply a short-term political gimmick. When asked if he had reached out to members of the Senate, namely Senator Marco Rubio, West stated he had not yet spoken to the Senator, and added that, “We have not had that discussion, but that is something that needs to happen.”