Editors note: Mittens and Palin, what a ticket and election that will make for 2016, a one to remember for all time!

By Robert Costa (The Washington Post)

DES MOINES — Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin told The Washington Post in an interview Friday that she is “seriously interested” in running for the White House in 2016.

“You can absolutely say that I am seriously interested,” Palin said, when asked to clarify her thinking about a possible presidential bid.

Palin, the GOP’s 2008 vice-presidential nominee, said she stood by comments she made Thursday in Las Vegas to ABC News, where she first expressed enthusiasm about potentially competing for the Republican presidential nomination.

“I am. As I said yesterday, I’m really interested in the opportunity to serve at some point,” Palin said Friday, as former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, a potential 2016 rival, looked on.

Palin’s comments, made in an interview in the lobby of the Marriott hotel here, came hours before she is scheduled to address a group of conservative activists at the Iowa Freedom Summit, a gathering hosted by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), an immigration hard-liner.

Palin said, “It is a significant step, of course, for anyone to publicly announce that they’re interested. Who wouldn’t be interested? Who wouldn’t be interested when they have been blessed with opportunities to speak about what is important to this country and for this country?”

Still, Palin said that she is not yet ramping up a national political operation. Instead, Palin said, she is contemplating her political future and does not feel rushed to make a final decision.

Palin arrived in Iowa Friday alongside Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), one of her closest political allies, and Jason Recher, one of Palin’s longtime political advisers. In the lobby, she signed autographs for some hotel guests and mingled with the dozens of GOP figures congregated near the lobby bar, including former House speaker Newt Gingrich.

Palin previously mulled a presidential run ahead of the 2012 election cycle, but declined to enter the contest. During the run-up to the GOP primaries, her supporters built an expansive political network in Iowa on her behalf, in case she jumped in.

On the campaign trail last year, Palin traveled extensively to bolster her handpicked candidates, including stops in Iowa with Republican Joni Ernst, who won a Senate seat. Her political-action committee, SarahPAC, donated to several tea-party favorites.

Editor’s note: President Obama is right, it starts with our cities and our Mayors and then our States and then the whole of the US. The Mayor of LA writes to us and tells us he will deal with LA’s disgraceful homelessness issue this year. Actions speak louder than words. Will the Mayor of LA go under cover and spend a day on Skid Row? Will he stop the LAPD from clearing the homeless out of the camera’s view for next month’s Oscars on Hollywood Blvd?

By Juliet Eilperin (The Washington Post)

President Obama hosted more than 200 Democratic and Republican mayors at the White House on Friday in an effort to drum up support for some of the domestic policies he is pressing Congress to adopt this year.

In recent weeks, the president and his advisers have emphasized that state and local officials are open to adopting new, costly social programs on issues ranging from paid leave from work to free community college tuition, even if Republican leaders in Congress have resisted.

“We take our partnership with you seriously because you’re often the place where change happens fastest,” Obama told the mayors, who had come to Washington to attend the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ winter meeting.

Obama emphasized that state and local officials from both parties have already adopted several of the policies he has advocated. More than 20 cities and counties have raised the minimum wage since 2013, he noted, while New Orleans recently became “the first major city to wipe out homelessness among veterans.”

The administration has also collaborated with local officials on a manufacturing challenge, an effort to mentor young men of color and other initiatives, Obama said.

“So that’s what mayors do. They get things done. They make things happen,” the president said. “And what I also say when­ever I meet with mayors is that I have confidence in you because the fact is that you can’t afford to be ideological. I don’t care whether you’re Republican, Democratic or independent — the truth of the matter is folks want to make sure that their garbage is picked up, that their roads are functioning properly and traffic isn’t sucking away their days.”

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA star who is president of the Conference of Mayors, gave Obama an unorthodox introduction by making a faux basketball announcement as the Alan Parsons Project’s “Sirius” played in the background. “The point guard from Pennsylvania Avenue!” Johnson cried out as the president entered the room.

After taking the podium, Obama remarked, “I have to say that that introduction is longer than my remarks, and more exciting.”

Senior administration officials, including Vice President Biden and several members of the Cabinet, met with the mayors this week to share policy ideas.

Earlier Friday, a group of big-city mayors led by New York’s Bill de Blasio and Los Angeles’s Eric Garcetti, both Democrats, announced plans to file a legal brief supporting Obama’s executive action to shield some illegal immigrants from deportation. Obama’s move has been challenged in federal court by 25 states. The brief will argue that “the public interest across the country is served clearly and overwhelmingly by implementing immigration reform by executive action,” the mayors said in a statement.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) is among 28 mayors who joined the brief. Six of the mayors, including Houston Mayor Annise Parker (D), are from states that brought the lawsuit, setting up mayor-governor confrontations. Texas is leading the lawsuit, which argues that Obama’s move was unconstitutional.

“We think it is crucial that when the administration is trying to help us address these core issues, and they come under attack, that mayors stand up and say, no, in fact, the executive action will help our people and we think it’s crucial to move forward,” de Blasio said during the mayor’s conference.

David Nakamura contributed to this report.

Has anyone seen Hillary as we need her to announce this week if she is running for President at the latest or move over because as per usual the Republicans have had a head start with Mittens back in the race and W.’s brother Jebbie oiling his Florida water skis to take him to The White House in January 2017. No Hillary, it won’t work this time either like it didn’t work in 2008, waiting for the last minute and making the grand de ole entrance. A unknown called Barack Obama stole your thunder then and Mittens or Jebbie could do it this time. You don’t take that risk anymore with social media these days. Also Hillary please don’t bring back all your old campaign cronies. Learn from the past that is your bridge to the present and your success for the future.

We got hammered in the November elections and we need energy from our 2016 Presidential candidate soon and very soon. It is a hard pill to sallow after all the work we did to get him re-elected in 2012 but our President is just what W. was after the November elections in 2006, a lame duck President. sad but true and we need to move on but if you don’t announce this week sometime Hillary, we might all move on like in 2008 and you will leave us with Mittens or Jebbie. This waiting game is helping no one especially those most loyal to you. Please announce this week, yes or no. Thank you Madam President-elect.

Mittens is running again? We didn’t believe it so we sat on the story but it’s true good old Mitt Romney is running for a third time for the Presidential Election in 2016. We welcome it and could we be more fair to Mittens this time around? Yes, if he will listen to us as we saw the home made documentary his children made on his 2012 campaign trail and you know what? We kind of liked Mittens but Mitt listen this time as you who once said, a person who does the same thing again and again and gets the same result, now that’s insanity!

So here are suggestions for you Mittens:

1. Dump the personal zillions of dollars you have hidden in off shore bank accounts.

2. Don’t flip flop all over the shop. If you make a statement and no matter what, stick to it.

3. Be more careful what you say in private meetings. One of our spies could be there recording

your every word with an IPhone.

4. Drop all your old advisors including your Press Advisor Eric F***storm who treats reporters like they are some sort of insects to be booted around at his mercy and someone who wouldn’t know Freedom of the Press if it hit him in the ass.

5. Stop babbling about Ronald Regan. He wasn’t that good of a President. Just ask anyone who was mentally ill or from the lower income class when he was President and they would have a few things to say about him. They are now fathers and grandfathers and still haven’t forgotten “the good ole Regan years” as you kept calling them. Also it makes you sound like you have no confidence in yourself as President.

6. What else to get our full support? Oh yes, make sure to run as a Democrat.

We look forward to it Mittens in 2015/2016 and no we won’t underestimate you, cause if Jebbie makes a dog’s dinner (but his is not up on his car roof too we hope!) of the primaries, you could be the main man again and you know what they say and we hope it isn’t true: third time lucky.

Today as so many marched in Paris in solidarity, what happened there last week leaves us with so many questions rather than answers. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after the attack and the callous murder of the Editor and staff at Charlie Hedbo and two French Policemen who were gunned down while doing their duty as “war on civilization”. No, plain and simple it is a “war on journalists, photographers, writers, cartoonists and bloggers”. As with the beheading last year of British journalist and photographer James Foley and so many more of our media colleagues what happened in Paris last week has drawn the line for all those in journalism, be it working for the main stream media or bloggers, it makes no difference as with technology, if the CIA or FBI can track what and where we write from, so can terrorists who have become that new generation of internet and social media savvy experts that they now are. So no, no one can hide in their rooms on their laptops and re-print the cartoons of the Prophet and expect not to be found, if they really want to find us and try and destroy our Freedom of expression, they will.

You take the poor Pope for instant, how many cartoons are drawn of him weekly and some of them even sexual and degrading. Why aren’t the Catholics up in arms over those cartoons? Or maybe the Pope has a better sense of humor than we give him credit for? The question here is not what will the French Government do to combat terrorism, the question is what will journalists, photographers, writers, cartoonists and bloggers do now that the lines have being refined? This is something that we as journalists and bloggers need to address. No media outlet in either Europe or the US has had to courage to reprint Charlie Hedbo’s cartoons that offended some members of the Muslim faith except for The Hamburg Morgenpost newspaper in German and its offices were targeted last night in an arson attack. Will it be the staff’s lives next that will be threatened or taking at The Hamburg Morgenpost?

I don’t blame the main stream media for not publishing these cartoons in memory of all those that died last Wednesday in the Charlie Hedbo’s offices in Paris as they have families and no journalist, no photographer, no cartoonist or blogger wants to die a martyr because they are just doing their job exposing lies, corruption or simply poking fun at politicians or at religion. Neither do these journalists or bloggers want twenty-four protection, where is the sense in that? What if the journalist under twenty-four protection is researching a story say in the US on FBI corruption? Do you think the journalist’s confidential sources are going to meet and talk with FBI Agents standing over this journalist? All calls made to and from this journalist’s cellphone would be tracked? All areas they worked in, wired? Where does that leave the Freedom of Press?

The hardest reality about Charlie Hedbo and no one dares write about this yet and that is, not only was it hated by some in the Muslim communities but it was also detested by the French establishment and by Israel’s living in France. And yes, it has started, on line all the conspiracy theories are already flying about an “inside job” like we hear some much about 9/11. Yes, the French Government and their intelligent and security agencies will have a lot of questions to answer but if like with the death of Princess Diana in Paris, we will be waiting for direct replies to our direct questions for a long time, which of course will only fuel the conspiracy theories even more. We don’t know the facts and may never do, maybe the French Police recommended to the Editor and staff at Charlie Hebdo to have tighter security and maybe they refused their extra offer of more heavily armed Police Officers around their building?

We may never find out but one thing remains and that is this is “war on journalism” plain and simple. Most politicians in the US, even in opposition with any bit of clout, get twenty-four hour, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year Secret Service protection, but journalists? For those very few outspoken journalists and film makers left like Michael Moore (remember the comments George W. Bush made to as he was walking pass Moore when Bush was President shortly after 9/11) who many within the establishment have nothing but contempt for, you think the Secret Service would offer protection to Michael Moore if he decided to make a documentary (which I am sure he is considering now) on cartoons on the Muslim faith and the Prophet? Would Moore even accept twenty-four security if it was offered?

The big question over the next few weeks will be if France in the light of what happened at the offices of Charlie Hebdo last week be able to balance new security measures without affecting the civil liberties of its citizens? The French unlike us in the US after 9/11 will not take too kindly to their Government restricting their civil liberties. This issue was brought forward today on the BBC covering the march earlier in Paris with an International journalist being interviewed, who made this very point that the French Government mustn’t react and impose new laws that would impede the rights of the citizens of France. Of course the shocking comment of the day award then goes to the BBC’s senior correspondent Lyse Doucet who herself is an American-French citizen that they were now having “a dangerous discussion”. So here it has begun in France and first heard by a senior BBC correspondent as we heard in the US straight after 9/11 that any suggestion of caution on the new laws being rushed in to fight terrorism that might affect civil liberties in France is “a dangerous discussion”. Does the media now work for our Governments or does the Governments work for our media?

It goes back to the politicians and the media always and even though these three suspects that were shot dead by the French Police on Friday had some training in Yemen, they still were what they always were: thugs, scum of the earth and petty criminals who lived in poverty with little future for themselves or any children they might bring into the world. The word “terrorists” that both the politicians and the media call them, actually empowers them as now today even though they might be hated in parts of the West, they are heroes in other parts of world. No network as far as I could find today showed the celebrations of martyrdom in Southern Afghanistan of these three suspected murdering thugs shot dead Friday by the French Police. Even the BBC and its senior correspondence no longer grasp the complexity of what is evolving daily in Europe and the US. Both politicians and the media should carefully chose their terminology very carefully as only one newspaper worldwide as I could see on Saturday called these three suspected murders “thugs”, which is what they were they were, simply petty criminals who were thugs and found a cause to become heroes in certain parts of the world. They got what they wanted, their faces printed all around the world. When you are so deep in the poverty trap with no way out, death is not the end and is something to fear, death brings peace and a final end to all their personal suffering. We journalists or bloggers seemed to miss that.

As a US citizen and also (as I called myself) a European citizen and someone who rates Paris as one of my top favorite cities and someone who had great memories of not far from where Charlie Hebdo’s offices are located and the fact that eight journalists and cartoonists were murdered by those thugs there, it is very personal to me what happened in Paris last week. But as a European citizen I hope the French Government don’t make the mistake we did in the US after 9/11 and remove so many civil rights of their citizens, which the US did and gave George W. Bush and Dick Cheney so much power. Sadly our current President voted to renew the Patriot Act when he was a Senator and has done nothing to reverse some of the Patriot Act. The argument that no attacks have being carried out in the US since the Patriot Act was brought is an insult to President Clinton, who under his administration thawed terrorists attacks against US citizens in the US and he had no Patriot Act to assist him. President Clinton had a very pro-active intelligence team with the likes of Dick Clark on his team and we saw what George W. Bush and Dick Cheney did to him when they got into power.

We can only hope that the French Police do not now single out the law abiding Muslim citizens living in France as three of their colleagues were also gunned down in cold blooded murder last week like the US Police and the FBI did after 9/11 and the British Police did to the law abiding Irish living in England during the IRA bombing campaign in the UK. Everyone certainly understands that they will be angry as time wears on that three of their colleagues died in such a way but it is important that these three suspected murders were pretty criminals who were thugs and scum of the earth for what they did in Paris last week to seventeen people and the ten people who are also critical injured and were more importantly an insult to the Muslim faith and the Prophet.

This is a war on journalists, photographers, writers, cartoonists and bloggers who want to expose what they deem as injustices or hypocrites be it in politics or in religion and there is no communications or journalist college that can prepare us for those professional decisions on what and who we decide to write about and sometimes it simply is impractical in our line of work to accept twenty-four protection from the Government or Police when and wherever our work takes us to expose corruption with them also. It is a fine balancing act and it remains to be seen where the Twenty-first Century will take us as we see in America the few corporations buying up all the media outlets that in return donate millions to Presidential candidates and then fire their more outspoken journalists. Now more than ever, journalists, photographers, writers, cartoonists and bloggers work freelance to try and make a living using social media without the supports you would normally have from a big publication or a newspaper. It makes the world a much more dangerous place now that these “thugs” can come knocking on our doors like they did to the staff at Charlie Hebdo in Paris last week and they may take our bodies but they will never take our work or our spirit.

And finally to quote President John F. Kennedy’s address to the American Newspaper Publishers Association on April 27, 1961: “Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution, not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply give the public what it wants but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion”. – JE SUIS CHARLIE.

Editors Note:

We published cartoons of George W. Bush, Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush and we will print cartoons of who and what we like because we believe in the First Amendment, the right of Free Speech and you can kill our journalists, behead our reporters but we will never, never, never life in fear of any threat of death from those who use violence to suppress our right to the freedom of speech be that in words, pictures or cartoons. Those of you who believe in such actions have lost before you have began your campaign of hatred and murder of innocent journalists, photographers, writers and cartoonists. You don’t respect the Prophet, you don’t even practice his message, you are hypocrites, scum of the earth and you will have nowhere to hide and you will do nothing with your threats or actions of murder but reinforce all us journalists, writers, photographers, cartoonists, bloggers and unite all of us and our belief in the First Amendment. George W. Bush or Mitt Romney didn’t shoot or kill us when we put up all those cartoons making fun of them because no matter what you think of them, they respect the First Amendment and our Freedom of Speech. Time to grow up and stop insulting the Prophet with you actions of terror and murder. Tonight our thoughts are with the brave men and women in Paris who lost their lives in the name of the Freedom of the press and the two French Police Officers who bravely lost their lives also. That action today in Paris did not only break so many hearts belonging to their love ones but finally woke us all up. From now on all newspapers worldwide and bloggers with any guts will print whatever cartoons we want to print, even if is the Pope or the Prophet, just get used to it. Today we not only lost some great people in Paris, we lost our complete fear of you, those three killers that did that in Paris today are not terrorists but uneducated thugs who probably can’t even spell the word Koran not alone read it. We in the West must get real and stop calling these ignorant, uneducated thugs “terrorists”. They might believe they are heroes for their cause but the Prophet tonight is saying to those that killed those innocent in Paris tonight “shame on you and shame on you for using my name”. To Stephane Charbonnier (“Charb”), editor of Charlie Hebdo,the members of staff of Charlie Hebdo, the French Police Officers, their families and loved ones, there are no words to express our deep sorrow at the lost of so many lives in Paris today. Sleep well and sleep peacefully our Princes and Princesses, tonight the world is a lot loner planet without you. We will leave the last word to the greatest writer of all: William Shakespeare and we will print one of those cartoons from Charlie Hebdo in memory of their bravery. You have not scared us with your actions in Paris today, you woke us up to face you, stand tall and stand strong and die for what we believe in: the First Amendment and the Freedom of Speech: God rest you brave journalists souls of Charlie Hebdo and the French Police Officers protecting you who also lost their lives today: “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.” William Shakespeare – Hamlet.

“I prefer to die standing then dying on my knees” – Stephane Charbonnier (“Charb”), editor of Charlie Hebdo. RIP January 7th, 2015, Paris, France.