Kellsey Grammer appeared on the Glenn Beck Program yesterday. Among other topics that include Sarah Palin and his new movie, “American Carol.” One of the more interesting topics is when Glenn asked Grammer where we are as a nation.

GLENN: Where do you think we are as a nation today? If we don’t wake up soon, we don’t turn our lives around, where do you think we are as nation?

GRAMMER: We’re in a crisis of a Civil War basically, just not a shooting one. That’s been my feeling for some time now. I was honestly, I said it years ago but I mean, the guy that did anything to really bring us together was Osama Bin Laden and that’s a pretty awful situation. And, you know, when people were going down in those planes, and I knew several people on board, they weren’t Republicans and Democrats. They were Americans. And I attended several memorials where actually they were used as opportunities to punch George Bush around and I thought, already? This is already happening? I mean, there’s a sickness. It’s like decay from the inside, and it scares the hell out of me. I mean, otherwise rational, you know, cordial human beings have lost their minds about — I recently spoke at one of these McCain campaign things and I said simply that in my community it has been impossible since George Bush was elected to have anything but a tortured and dysfunctional conversation. I mean, it’s as though we stand in completely different worlds and that does still make me nervous.

GLENN: But we do. You know, to kind of go off on your Civil War thing, I was, two weekends ago I met with a guy who was I believe the first person to say a global terror network. That was his phrase. And he said this is not — we’re treating this like a police action. This is not. This is a global terror network. And I said to him, I asked him, you know, where are we in our history, where do you think we are. And he said, people don’t understand. We’re in 1860.

GRAMMER: Oh, yeah. There you go.

GLENN: We’ve got to have a leader that steps to the plate that says united we stand, divided we fall, and can actually unite us.

You can read the full transcript of the interview on GlennBeck.com.

Insiders listen here.

Well looks like there is nothing the American People can do about the bailout bill now. It just crossed the wires that President Bush has officially signed the bill after both houses of Congress passed it.

The Bailout bill gives the Treasury Department $700,000,000,000 of monopoly money to use in hopes of buying up bad credit loans and freeing up the financial markets of all this bad credit. Our financial system just lost it’s ability to fail. In my opinion not having the option of failing will mean more bad decisions in the future. Five , ten, or twenty years from now we will look back at this day and realize that it was a HUGE MISTAKE.

HOTAIR: Breaking: Bailout vote underway; Update: 218; Update: 263-171

Update: Sugary Senate pork made the medicine go down: 263-171 as the gavel comes down, with some 90 Republicans voting yes. The Dow has suddenly dropped by 80 points or so, but I think I know why – it’s pessimists like me unloading their portfolios to capitalize on the post-bailout spike ahead of what they expect will be another downturn next week. (I didn’t unload, but thought about it.)

The Dow is bouncing. It has gone negative, now it’s back in the positive.

You can read the entire text of the H.R. 1424, which is U.S. Senate’s version of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008, and Tax Extenders and Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act of 2008. The 451-page bill is a part of a proposed bailout of United States financial system

Update: Now that economic bailout plan has been finally passed in both houses, and sign into law what kind of impact will this have on the Presidential election and the many congressional contests around the country. One of the reasons congressmen voted No on a similar bill on Monday was because they feared that they would lose the support of their constituents. Is one month long enough time for the voters to forget about this debacle of a bill?

Yesterday John McCain announced Alaskian Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. I’ve been spending the past 24 hours consuming as much information that I can find about her and I have been impressed. The news media keep saying that Palin is a “Game Changer” in this year’s presidential campaign – and I do agree. Before she was added to the Republican ticket I wasn’t sure if I could vote for McCain, now I’m 98% certain that I will be voting for McCain/Palin come November.

Here is the text from Palin’s speech:

Governor Sarah Palin: “And I thank you, Senator McCain and Mrs. McCain, for the confidence that you have placed in me. Senator, I am honored to be chosen as your running mate. I will be honored to serve next to the next president of the United States.

“I know that when Senator McCain gave me this opportunity, he had a short list of highly qualified men and women, and to have made that list at all — it was a privilege. And to have been chosen brings a great challenge. I know that it will demand the best that I have to give, and I promise nothing less.

“First, there are a few people whom I would like you to meet. I want to start with my husband, Todd. And Todd and I are actually celebrating our 20th anniversary today, and I promised him a little surprise for the anniversary present, and hopefully he knows that I did deliver.

“And then we have as — after my husband, who is a lifelong commercial fisherman, lifetime Alaskan — he’s a production operator. Todd is a production operator in the oil fields up on Alaska’s North Slope, and he’s a proud member of the United Steelworkers Union, and he’s a world champion snow machine racer. Todd and I met way back in high school, and I can tell you that he is still the man that I admire most in this world.

“Along the way, Todd and I have shared many blessings, and four out of five of them are here with us today. Our oldest son, Track, though, he’ll be following the presidential campaign from afar. On September 11th of last year, our son enlisted in the United States Army. Track now serves in an infantry brigade. And on September 11th, Track will deploy to Iraq in the service of his country. And Todd and I are so proud of him and of all the fine men and women serving the country in uniform.

“Next to Todd is our daughter Bristol; another daughter, Willow; our youngest daughter, Piper; and over in their arms is our son Trig, a beautiful baby boy. He was born just in April. His name is Trig Paxson Van Palin.

“Some of life’s greatest opportunities come unexpectedly, and this is certainly the case today. I never really set out to be involved in public affairs, much less to run for this office. My mom and dad both worked at the local elementary school. And my husband and I, we both grew up working with our hands.

“I was just your average ‘hockey mom’ in Alaska. We were busy raising our kids. I was serving as the team mom and coaching some basketball on the side. I got involved in the PTA and then was elected to the city council and then elected mayor of my hometown, where my agenda was to stop wasteful spending and cut property taxes and put the people first.

“I was then appointed ethics commissioner and chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and when I found corruption there, I fought it hard and I held the offenders to account. Along with fellow reformers in the great state of Alaska, as governor, I’ve stood up to the old politics as usual, to the special interests, to the lobbyists, the Big Oil companies and the ‘good old boy’ network.

“When oil and gas prices went up so dramatically and the state revenues followed with that increase, I sent a large share of that revenue directly back to the people of Alaska — and we are now — we’re now embarking on a $40 billion natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence.

“I signed major ethics reforms, and I appointed both Democrats and independents to serve in my administration. And I’ve championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. In fact, I told Congress thanks, but no thanks, on that “Bridge to Nowhere.” If our state wanted a bridge, I said, we’d build it ourselves.

“Well, it’s always, though, safer in politics to avoid risk, to just kind of go along with the status quo. But I didn’t get into government to do the safe and easy things. A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not why the ship is built. Politics isn’t just a game of competing interests and clashing parties. The people of America expect us to seek public office and to serve for the right reasons. And the right reason is to challenge the status quo and to serve the common good.

“Now, no one expects us to agree on everything, whether in Juneau or in Washington. But we are expected to govern with integrity and good will and clear convictions and a servant’s heart.

“Now, no leader in America has shown these qualities so clearly or presents so clear a threat to business as usual in Washington as Senator John S. McCain. This — this is a moment when principles and political independence matter a lot more than just the party line. And this is a man who has always been there to serve his country, not just his party.

“And this is a moment that requires resolve and toughness and strength of heart in the American president. And my running mate is a man who has shown those qualities in the darkest of places and in the service of his country. A colleague once said about Senator McCain: That man did things for this country that few people could go through; never forget that. And that speaker was former Senator John Glenn of Ohio. And John Glenn knows something about heroism.

“And I’m going to make sure nobody does forget that in his campaign. There is only one candidate who has truly fought for America, and that man is John McCain.

“This is a moment — this is a moment when great causes can be won and great threats overcome, depending on the judgment of our next president. In a dangerous world, it is John McCain who will lead America’s friends and allies in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

“It was John McCain who cautioned long ago about the harm that Russian aggression could do to Georgia and to other small Democratic neighbors and to the world oil markets.

“It was Senator McCain who refused to hedge his support for our troops in Iraq, regardless of the political costs. And you know what? As the mother of one of those troops and as the commander of Alaska’s National Guard, that’s the kind of man I want as our commander in chief.

“Profiles in courage, they can be hard to come by these days. You know, so often we just find them in books. But next week when we nominate John McCain for president, we’re putting one on the ballot!

“To serve as vice president beside such a man would be the privilege of a lifetime, and it’s fitting that this trust has been given to me 88 years almost to the day after the women of America first gained the right to vote.

“I think as well today of two other women who came before me in national elections. I can’t begin this great effort without honoring the achievements of Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and, of course, Senator Hillary Clinton, who showed such determination and grace in her presidential campaign.

“It was rightly noted in Denver this week that Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America. But it turns out the women of America aren’t finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all.

“So for my part, the mission is clear. The next 67 days I’m going to take our campaign to every part of our country and our message of reform to every voter of every background, in every political party, or no party at all. If you want change in Washington, if you hope for a better America, then we’re asking for your vote on the 4th of November.

“My fellow Americans, come join our cause. Join our cause and help our country to elect a great man the next president of the United States. And I thank you, and I — God bless you, I say, and God bless America. Thank you.”

Terror at Omaha Mall.

OMAHA, Neb. — Omaha police said nine people were dead, including the alleged shooter, after shots were fired inside the Von Maur store at Westroads Mall on Wednesday afternoon.

Sgt. Teresa Negron said there are nine fatalities. She said officers found the suspected shooter dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Negron could not describe the shooter, but said he was a male. Negron said most of the victims were inside Von Maur.

The gunman has been identified:

OMAHA, Neb. — The shooter at Westroads Mall was identified as Robert A. Hawkins of Bellevue, according to the Sarpy County Sheriff’s Department, and a suicide note said he was going to be famous.

Hawkins, 19, had been arrested on a couple of misdemeanors in November and was due in court this month. One charge included minor in possession of alcohol. He was arrested on Nov. 24. He was due in court for an arraignment on Dec. 19.

Sarpy County deputies said they are getting a warrant to search Hawkins’ home in the Quail Creek neighborhood in Bellevue.

The woman who owns that house at 4302 McCartey Drive, who only gave her first name of Debra, said Hawkins had a lot of emotional instability. She said she thought he was turning things around. She said he had just learned that he was fired from McDonald’s.

Debra said Hawkins was coming out of his room Wednesday morning when she last saw him.

“He said he’d gotten fired and was pretty upset and said, ‘This is the only way,’ and we tried to talk to him,” Debra said. “He was just a very troubled — I had no idea that he was this troubled. I don’t know if it was because he got fired from McDonald’s.”

Debra said she saw Hawkins with a gun last night and thought he and her sons were going hunting, which they did quite often.

Shooter was said to be a black male in his 30′s. Possibly wore fatigues. Possible more than one shooter? Fox News is citing a local NBC report that one person has a self-inflicted wound. KETV has a photo of a male matching the description of the shooter in custody. FoxNews radio is reporting that the shooter is in custody dead.

Police radio reports 2 people dead, up to 10 victims. KETV reporting that are multiple fatalities. 9 Dead confirmed, and 5 victims in Omaha hospitals.

Shots said to be random. 35 to 40 shots said to have been fired. Event said to have occurred in a gift-wrap customer service line. Employees and customers were among the victims.

Officers are stilling trying to clear the mall store by store.

Witness: Shooter was a tall man. He was standing in the children’s section. Raising his gun in the hair shooting numerous rounds into the air.

KETV 7:24: Gunman left three notes. One to his family, One to his friends, and One that was titled, “My Will”. He lost his job at McDonalds recently. Landlord took him to give him safe shelter, stability. Her sons grew up with the Gunman. Warrant has been issued for the house.

Flashback:

Police Remove Grenade from Westroads Parking Lot

Posted: Dec 1, 2007 04:26 PM

Omaha, NE – Police removed a grenade from the parking lot outside Westroads Mall late Friday.

Omaha Police say someone found the grenade in the mall parking lot near The Cheesecake Factory. It was still intact – meaning the pin had not been removed. Police say no one was around when they found the grenade. The bomb squad safely removed it from the area.

Police do not have any suspects at this hour.

Related News Articles

- Worst Mass Slaying In Nebraska History Claims 9
- More Known About Westroads Mall Shooter
- Two Surviving Victims Identified After Westroads Shooting
- Six Minutes of Mayhem
- Troubled Youth Ends in Bloodshed

For Immediate Release from Fred08.com:

Fred Thompson Statement on the National Intelligence Estimate

McLean, VA – Fred Thompson released the following statement today on the latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) regarding Iran:

“The accuracy of the latest NIE on Iran should be received with a good deal of skepticism. Our intelligence community has often underestimated the intentions of adversaries, including Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and North Korea. And are all of the CIA detractors now going to take intelligence pronouncements at face value? It’s awfully convenient for a lot of people: the administration gets to say its policies worked; the Democrats get to claim we should have eased up on Iran a long time ago: and Russia and China can claim sanctions on Iran are not necessary. Who benefits from all this? Iran.

“And what if the NIE estimate is accurate? It’s essentially an analysis of Iran’s intentions at a point in time. Meanwhile, Iran continues to enrich uranium for allegedly peaceful purposes, but which would allow them to easily transition to a nuclear weapons program at any point in the future. Maybe even now–now that so many seem willing to forget Iran’s past deceptions and ongoing intransigence. After all, a nuclear weapons program is simply an extension of the process by why uranium is enriched for civilian nuclear fuel. To this day Iran has yet to comply with international demands and its Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty requirements for open inspections and other safeguard measures.

“The bottom line is that the United States must continue to improve its human intelligence capabilities and intelligence analysis. We must hope for the best, but not let our guard down for a moment. If something appears to be too good to be true, it very well may be.“

I’ve been pondering the “Postwar Findings About Iraq” Phase II report from the United States Senate. The report states that there was no known link between Saddam Hussein and the terror organization Al Qaeda. I think we were played.

Now here me out on this. I’m not going to be placing blame on President Bush or anyone in our government. They were simply acting on the intelligence that we and other nations had gathered prior to 2003. Since then Bush has repeatedly confirmed that the intelligence was faulty. As White House press secretary Tony Snow said, there is “nothing new” here.

Were we all, including President Bush, played by our enemies? Were we unknowingly duped into ousting Saddam? I’m beginning to believe that this is the likely case. Al Qaeda’s leadership is a ragtag fleet of strategist and war gamers who have a very clear endgame. They want to put an end to the western culture, destroy non-believers, and create a world government based on Islam, known as a caliphate. Is it at all possible that Saddam Hussien was the lesser of two evils in the Middle East?

According to wikipedia Saddam believed in spreading Pan-Arabism, which is a secular movement for unification among the Arab peoples and nations of the Middle East. In other words he wanted to become the person who controlled the entire region. Al Qaeda and Iran have similar ambitions, but they want to spread Pan-islamism, the religious movement of reunification among all muslims in the world. Both movements were opposed to each other because they basically had the same goal.

Did Al Qaeda have the resources to plant false information about its own involvement in Iraq? Is it possible that Al Qaeda, not President Bush tugging at the American people’s emotions when we learned there might have been a possible link between Al Qaeda and Iraq? Isn’t that what a terror organization does?  What better way for someone to lie about Al Qaeda’s involvement if it were coming directly from the mouth of an Al Qaeda informant.

This entire post deals with conspiracy theories and I have no information to back up my claims. Though it surely seems plausible…

Glenn Beck seems to be the only guy on TV who has a highlighter and is taking notes. On tonight’s “Real Story” segment Glenn quoted President Bush’s speech from Tuesday. In the speech the President linked together the war on terror and the war in Iraq using Osama Bin Laden’s own words.

These terrorists hope to drive America and our coalition out of Afghanistan, so they can restore the safe haven they lost when coalition forces drove them out five years ago. But they’ve made clear that the most important front in their struggle against America is Iraq — the nation bin Laden has declared the “capital of the Caliphate.” Hear the words of bin Laden: “I now address… the whole… Islamic nation: Listen and understand… The most… serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War… [that] is raging in [Iraq].” He calls it “a war of destiny between infidelity and Islam.” He says, “The whole world is watching this war,” and that it will end in “victory and glory or misery and humiliation.” For al Qaeda, Iraq is not a distraction from their war on America — it is the central battlefield where the outcome of this struggle will be decided.

The reason we need to stay in Iraq and defeat the enemy from Bin Laden’s mouth. They want to establish a world government based on Islam and Iraq is going to be the caliphate’s Washington.

Drudge Reports:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to attend the summit of Non-Aligned Movement countries in the Cuban capital Havana in mid-September, an official said Wednesday.

“The president will take part in the summit of Non-Aligned countries in Havana,” said the official from the president’s office, who asked not to be named.

The summit of the 116-nation grouping is to take place between September 11-16, and Ahmadinejad is also expected to attend the UN General Assembly in New York that starts on September 12, the official said.

There was no indication as to when Ahmadinejad would be arriving in Havana and New York.

Flashback a few days ago Iran stated that the U.N. should relocate away from NYC.

(Tehran, Iran, Sep. 04)– Iran suggested on Monday that the United Nations headquarters be relocated from New York to a country other than the United States.

“The U.S. tries to pressure Iran in any way possible. We are convinced that considerations should be made regarding the United Nations which is based in this country”, government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham told reporters during his weekly press conference.

“Either the UN must be relocated from the U.S. and set up in a different country or the U.S.’s provisions in this regard must be limited so that the UN plays a more serious role”, Elham said

More from Drudge…

Ahmadinejad said in Tehran Wednesday that his attendance of the UN General Assembly would be a “suitable opportunity” to challenge Bush in a television debate.

“My forthcoming visit to New York for the UN General Assembly would be a suitable opportunity to hold the debate and all world people, especially the Americans, could hear and watch it without censorship,” the news agency ISNA quoted the Iranian president as saying in a cabinet session.

More quotes from President Ahmadinejad

(The Peninsula Online) “I hope that the Americans will not hide from such a debate which is the best way to create peace,” Ahmadinejad said in a statement. “We are ready to make suggestions to help the world better to install justice, calm, wellbeing, peace, friendship and kindness and destroy the climate of violence, threats and bad humour,” he added.

In a fiercely religious speech to a conference in Tehran, Ahmadinejad had earlier said Bush was “nothing” compared to God and was struggling against a current that was inexorably taking the world towards divinity. “I am telling him (Bush) that all the world is threatening you since the general path that the world is taking is towards worshipping God and divinity,” Ahmadinejad said.

China wants the Iran conflict to be solved through dialogue. Nothing new here as it’s something that’s been assumed. As I said before, I believe in the dialogue route, just with the Iranian people and not the current Iranian Regime.

(Beijing) – China said again on Tuesday that it hoped the Iran nuclear standoff with the West could be resolved through dialogue.

“We have consistently stood for the resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue through negotiation and dialogue,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Qin Gang told a regular news conference.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan shares the same opinion as China.

(Hindustan Times) “The international community should not isolate Iran,” Annan told the Madrid daily El Pais in an interview during his stop in Doha, Qatar, after visiting Iran over the weekend.

Annan has made clear he wants a negotiated solution to the impasse, which deepened after Iran ignored an August 31 UN Security Council deadline to stop its uranium enrichment programme. That set the stage for possible UN economic and political sanctions.

Annan said confrontation with the Security Council “will not be in Iran’s favour or that of the region.”

______

El Presidente of Iran has called for liberal teachers to be removed from their jobs immediately. Earlier this year that was a similar call from conservatives in our own nation. They too wanted the liberalism that is being taught in the school to cease to exist. I’m more realistic on the matter, I don’t believe you can have a yin without a yang. While I might disagree with liberal teachings I believe there is a place for them in our schools. The purpose of college is to take on new ideas and challenge those ideas. If students kept that perspective in mind I doubt this would be an issue in our schools. Too much yang is unhealthy.

(Canoe) “Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities,” the agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during a meeting with a group of students.

Ahmadinejad complained that changes in the country’s universities were difficult to accomplish and that the country’s educational system had been affected by secularism for the last 150 years, but said “such a change has begun.”

Earlier this year, Iran retired dozens of liberal university professors and teachers. And last November, Ahmadinejad’s administration for the first time named a cleric to head the country’s oldest university in Tehran amid protests by students over the appointment.

They never work, especially when enforced by the U.N. Theres always a way around them (Remember France and Russia’s under the table deals with Iraq?). Sanctions never seem to result in the downfall of leaders, it only isolates them and creates more tension.

Sanctions will effect the people of Iran. When they are enforced they will be used as propaganda against the U.S.

Our President needs to be vocal. He needs to tell the Iranian people that he does not support sanctians against Iran. They need to stand up against the oppressive government and march for a democratic revolution. He needs to get ahead of the spin that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will undoubtly tell the Iranians.

(The Age) The European Union (EU) says it wants to see more dialogue with
Tehran before agreeing to US requests for sanctions to be imposed
against Iran for intransigence over its nuclear program.

Iran faces the threat of UN security council sanctions after the
UN’s atomic watchdog said Tehran had refused to stop work on its
nuclear program by Thursday’s deadline.

Unless, of course, President Bush has lost all hope in the Iranian people…