BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

By: Kenneth P. Vogel and Laura Rozen Nearly two years after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ended her losing presidential campaign and endorsed rival Barack Obama, Clinton’s allies maintain a triad of groups that have continued to make her presence felt in the political world — and could serve as a platform for the next phase of her public life. Her presidential campaign committee, still in the process of winding down, maintains and makes money off a lasting asset from her presidential bid — an e-mail list of 2.5 million core supporters. Her Senate campaign committee accrues modest interest on a $1.9 million nest egg. And a thriving foundation called No Limits, founded after Clinton resigned from the Senate to join Obama’s Cabinet, works to burnish her legacy, maintains contact with Clinton supporters and pursues a policy agenda that closely mirrors Clinton’s own — health care and women’s issues. The three entities operate almost completely apart from Clinton, who is barred by proto...

Think our government and its overseers aren't becoming more narcissistic and self-absorbed? Fiddling with 'Rome' burns? (and if you or I did this - we'd be S.O.L.!) Then read this; your tax dollars HARD AT WORK: SEC porn peekers at work confess by Jim McElhatton U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission workers who made a habit of looking at pornography on their government computers, even as the economy was tanking, offered varying explanations when caught. "I think it was just arrogance and ignorance on my part," one worker said. "You know, I mean … I didn't intend to hurt anybody. I didn't intend to hurt the SEC's image or anything like that." The Washington Times reported in February on the existence of about two dozen such cases, which were detailed in reports to Congress as well as in more than 150 pages of case summaries obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Additional pornography cases surfaced last week in a memo f...

An Interview with Historian Michael Oren on the Tangled Web of US Involvement from the age of Jefferson to Today by Michael J. Totten MJT: So tell us, Michael, why does America’s involvement in the Middle East 200 years ago matter today? What does it have to do with September 11 and Iraq? Oren: Well it matters, Michael, because many of the same issues that Americans are facing today in the Middle East were confronted by America’s founding fathers – Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Washington. For example, they had to confront the issue of state-sponsored terrorism in the Middle East. They had to face a threat to the United States, and decide whether to generate military power and then project that power thousands of miles from the United States. They had to decide whether to involve the United States in an open-ended and rather expensive bloody war in the Middle East. This was, of course, the Barbary War, America’s first overseas military engagement and America’s longest overseas m...

I read C.S. Lewis' THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS years ago. And loved it. Never has it been more true than it is right now, today: Screwtape (a pseudonym for an emissary of Satan) advises his young cousin on how to derail a Christian: Let him begin by treating patriotism…as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely a part of the “cause,” in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce… [O]nce he’s made the world an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Putting Faith Before Politics By DAVID KUO Op-Ed Contributor SINCE 1992, every national Republican electoral defeat has been accompanied by an obituary for the religious right. Every one of these obituaries has been prematur...

Not only do extremists continue to threaten to control our freedom of expression, control women - they are trying to control our sense of humor. As I have expressed on this blog before, bullies usually have NO sense of humor about themselves - while feeling free to attack others. It's too bad these animals wouldn't get it even if we aired "THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE" for them. This country and most Americans got sick of being threatened and pushed around over 230 years ago. This rhetoric could be easily tossed aside as a schoolyard screaming match, except in this case - some of these fanatics have nukes. Time to stop singing Kumbaya to people who are THIS far off the reservation, President Obama! by John Avlon An effort by the show's creators to satirize the threatening attitudes of Islamic extremists has resulted in... threats from Islamic extremists. Don’t screw with South Park—and don’t ever try to intimidate us into accepting Sharia law. That’s the message...

I struggle with something related to my lifelong battle with PTSD. Until a few years ago, when I was in counseling for what used to be called a "breakdown," ( and very medicated so I could function) I brought it up. I always called it my "deer in the headlights" response. Now I know its an actual phenomena called the "freeze response." Example : When I was about 13 my 'best friend' started dating a 32 year old guy. He would, at her request, pick me up when she and I were going to events at a local Evangelical youth group. He would either attend with us (as a counselor, no less!) or he'd come back when it was over. Bizarre I know, but I was 13 and naive. I came from a home where I had no privacy or right to my own opinions. And everyone always thought my 'best friend' was such a sweet, nice, perfect, wholesome girl. The winters where I grew up were brutal. I was allowed to ride up front because I was so tall but often the thr...

I was just a teen when Earth Day was started. I remember going out with a few friends from school and cleaning up a park. I was excited about doing something to really help. I didn't know it was a drop in the bucket. Today I am replaced all my light bulbs as they burn out with energy efficient ones, I am probably renting solar panels for my roof soon. I recycle. I love gardening and plant and keep my yard beautiful by getting compost from the NYC Composting Project as well as the stuff I 'make' myself. But am I doing enough? Probably not. Learn more about Earth Day and what you can do: EARTH DAY FROM THE E.P.A. EARTH DAY NETWORK NYC WASTELESS

I get asked a lot why I have "suddenly" come out in the last few years as very Pro-Israel and Zionist leaning. My progressive friends know I lean their way on politics in the U.S. -- but can't understand why I lean so right on Middle East issues. They figure I must have some personal agenda. But I don't. Neither was my support "sudden." My reasons are multilayered and to express myself I must digress and seem to go off topic but its the only way I can explain. I was raised by a narcissistic parent. They've been dead 10 years this next September and only a year or so after they passed did I feel safe expressing, let alone feeling my rage at them for what they had done to me. I have no intention of forgiving the unforgivable but I do feel pity for them and hope that Hashem is giving them the healing and help they need now that they're in His care. However, that upbringing made me a magnet for people with personality disorders. I didn't know ...

by Kathy Krajco I, for one, am sick of the insult to our intelligence in narcissist sympathizers trying to hand people the line that the poor, poor narcissist doesn't mean to hurt anyone, that they don't know what they are doing, that it just sort of happens, that they think they are behaving normally. Your brain must be dead if you think that people who abuse ONLY ON THE SLY - behaving like angels when there are witnesses - don't know exactly what they're doing. To the bullet-headed narcissist sympathizers, I say, "Try real, real hard to understand. Bend a brain cell or two. Repeat to yourself 100 times that "He abuses only in the dark. When other people are watching, he acts like he's full of loving kindness even toward the very one he abuses in the dark." Maybe if you repeat that simple fact to yourself 100 times, it will sink in. Think. Think real, real hard what it means. Really work at lifting that mental weight. Come on, you can do it. If you t...

First it was Dr. Laura, then Dr. Blowhard Phil, then media whore Dr. Ablow... now it's Dr. Drew... Yes - he ticks me off too. Sex Addiction rehab? You can't REHAB a Narcissist or Sociopath... because you can't rehabilitate something that was NEVER HABILITATED in the first place!! He's a moron... Dr. Drew enrages me. The way his whole empire is built on callous exploitation of the pain, suffering, and need of others makes me very suspicious of his motives and goals in treating people. But even more than that, his eagerness to observe people through tabloid reporting and unsubstantiated rumors and then make unfounded assumptions about whether they’re experiencing substance addiction or abuse issues and/or mental health issues is, frankly, repugnant. ... I saw this reported by the Onion AV Club and they respond so nicely I’m just going to quote them: Dr. Drew Pinksy, of Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew, Sex Rehab With Dr. Drew, and Dr. Drew’s Ol’ Fashioned Healing Vapo...

Keli Ata wrote a good piece in March 2007 about the Israeli people, who endure daily acts of terrorism. She asked if their anxiety when they hear Arabic is the result of racism or PTSD? The answer, in my mind, was PTSD. Absolutely no question. I have had PTSD for 43 years now. Probably longer. PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is joked about and claimed by a lot of people who may or may not have it. And the 'fluff' we can read on the web about symptoms is not the same as the hard diagnostic materials that clinicals & psychiatrists have access too. The latter is horrifying in its accuracy to sufferers. I didn't know I had it until about 1998. About 1 year into my being a mother and just a few months after I was diagnosed with serious hormonally-caused Post Partum Depression. When my counselor brought it up to me, she honestly thought I knew that I had it. I didn't. Nor did I think I was depressed. I just thought I was moody, like everyone always ac...