Monday, March 25, 2013

The Sequester from the Party of Treason.

  • Posted by Judson Phillips on March 24, 2013 at 2:20pm in Tea Party Nation Forum
  • Calling the Democrats the Party of Treason is a pretty good idea.  Seriously can anyone remember the last time they did something that was actually a benefit to America and to real Americans?

    Now that Obama’s sequester has kicked in, the White House is closed for tours, the military is being gutted and air traffic control towers are being closed.

    So you would think we are totally out of money, right?

    Wrong!

    From Ynetnews.com:

    The United States has quietly unblocked almost $500 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority, which had been frozen by Congress for months, a top US official said Friday.

    The news that the funds had finally been freed up came after US President Barack Obama met top Israeli and Palestinian leaders in a landmark visit to Israel and the West Bank earlier this week.

    "To date, we have moved $295.7 million in fiscal year 2012 money… and $200 million in fiscal year 2013 assistance," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.

    The Obama administration also notified Congress in late February that it was seeking a further $200 million to fund US Agency for International Development (USAID) programs for the Palestinians, she said.

    The first sum comprises some $195.7 million, allocated under the 2012 fiscal year budget for USAID economic, development and humanitarian assistance, as well as a further $100 million earmarked specifically for narcotics control.

    The second sum of $200 million unblocked and available to the Palestinian Authority will come under the 2013 budget and be spent for direct budget support.

    The Palestinian Authority is facing its worst economic crisis in years, in part because of a failure by donors to deliver pledged funds. But its finances were plunged further into chaos after president Mahmud Abbas won upgraded UN observer status at the UN General Assembly in late November.

    Isn’t that special.  We have a lot of things in America that our tax dollars and those dollars borrowed from China could be used for and what does Obama want to do with them?  Give them to a nation that hates America!

    That is Obama logic.

    $500 million would keep air traffic control centers open.  That is about a quarter of what is needed to refuel the nuclear carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.  The USS Abraham Lincoln is just sitting in port in Virginia, little more than a 100,000 ton paper weight because budget cuts have made it impossible to refuel the carriers’ nuclear reactor.

    Which is worse?  The Obama Regime’s reckless spending of our money or the silence from the Republican Party?

    Saturday, March 23, 2013

    I no longer like Bill Clinton

  • Posted by David Lawrence on March 22, 2013 at 9:31am
  • David Lawrence

    I no longer like Bill Clinton

    I contributed thousands of dollars to Bill Clinton back when he was running for office.  I was even invited to his second inauguration in Washington.

    When he was impeached I felt that the Republicans were picking on him.  Who cared that he had oral sex in the Oval Office?

    What business was it of anyone else’s?

    That was before I lost my business and went to jail for tax evasion.  That was before I crashed into the wall of morality, realized the power of reform and learned to respect my punishment. It’s ironic that living with criminal people makes you realize the sickness of immorality.

    It wasn’t until I got to jail that I understood that values were all that kept us from being beasts or getting locked up.  Sexual morality did matter.  I watched criminals reading porno magazines and it made me sick. Living with farting and burping men makes you fall in love with women.

    I did not experience a religious conversion.  I was a Jew but I was not religious.  I experienced a moral conversion, an appreciation of what was right and wrong instinctively rather than in a religious context.

    I realized that Clinton’s being the leader of the strongest country in the world required respect for one’s position.  Engaging in sex in the White House and cigar foreplay was an insult to the country, Clinton’s wife and to Monica herself.  It embarrassed us throughout the world and made us seem weak and without values or principles.

    If Clinton had any class he would have resigned from the Presidency.  He would have said, “I have violated the rules of marriage and leadership.  I do not deserve to be President.  I do not belong.”

    And yet the old reprobate still hangs around politics, loved by his immature followers and jockeying for the presidency for his cuckolded wife. He is now promoting gay marriage even though he has no respect for any sex and is using gays as a pretense for his purported open-mindedness.

    Maybe his cheating with an intern does not affect his ability to make executive decisions.  But it does affect the constellation of views that circle around him and weaken him as a leader.  He embarrasses us.  He should get out of the limelight and swim in a remote Maine nudist camp where he can pretend that his perversions are just love of fresh air.

    Thursday, March 21, 2013

    New Pope, Same Liberal Media

    New Pope, Same Liberal Media

    Pope Francis, the first Pope of that royal name, was elected by the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church on March 13, 2013.

    Francis is the first pope of the Americas, a region that nobody believed (but many hoped) a pope would come from.

    Like Benedict XVI, however, Francis is faced with a challenge - the liberal media.

    Recall that when Pope Benedict XVI was elected, the Mainstream Media 1.0 hated him. He was not only very conservative but very educated, serving an academic position and acting as a ghostwriter for Pope John Paul II during his later years. Benedict XVI was very conservative during his papacy, most notably with his executive order allowing churches to vote to offer the Tridentine Rite (Latin Mass), though he tended to be liberal at times.

    The liberal Mainstream Media did everything they could to dig up scandals on Benedict XVI, frequently including a call for him to resign with every article published (as well as consistent attempts to push him into allowing abortion, euthanasia, female priesthood, and gay marriage and adoption).

    When Benedict XVI did resign, the Mainstream Media started pulling the same tricks on Francis I. Francis has already stated his opposition to gay families and abortion. Digging up a military scandal, and having Michael Moore release a fake photo of a non-Francis giving Communion to an Argentinian dictator, accompanies pushing the liberal agenda with regard to abortion, gay marriage, female priesthood, etc.

    There is no reason for the Mainstream Media to do this. Catholics are not required by their faith to agree with the pope 100% on everything, nor is anyone forced to be Catholic. One can change their religion anytime, or start their own church, as the Society of St. Pius X did in their opposition to Vatican II and the New Mass.

    Sometimes the Mainstream Media 1.0 and the liberal agenda it pushes is very obvious. This has consistently been the case with its constant attempt to bully the Catholic Church into approving abortion and other liberal causes. This happened during the reign of Benedict XVI, and will continue to happen under Francis I.

    As is our right under a secular democratic republic, we are free to believe what we choose to believe. If you disagree with someone else's beliefs, feel free to tell them yours, but don't bully or judge them. Intimidation is never the answer.

    Monday, March 18, 2013

    Our Country Run By Idiots!

    If you have to get your parents’ permission to go on a field trip or take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.

    If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for being in the country illegally ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.


    If you have to show identification to board an airplane, cash a check, buy liquor, or check out a library book, but not to vote who runs the government ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.

     
    If the government wants to ban stable, law-abiding citizens from owning gun magazines with more than ten rounds, but gives 20 F-16 fighter jets to the crazy new leaders in Egypt ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.

    If, in the largest city, you can buy two 16-ounce sodas, but not a 24-ounce soda because 24-ounces of a sugary drink might make you fat ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.


    If an 80-year-old woman can be stripped searched by the TSA but a woman in a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head searched ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.


    If your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of
    dollars of debt is to spend trillions more ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.


    If a seven year old boy can be thrown out of school for saying his teacher is "cute", but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.


    If children are forcibly removed from parents who discipline them with spankings while children of addicts are left in filth and drug infested homes... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.


    If hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more government intrusion, while not working is rewarded with EBT cards, WIC checks, Medicaid, subsidized housing, and free cell phones ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.


    If the government's plan for getting people back to work is to incentivize NOT working with 99 weeks of Unemployment checks and no requirement to prove they applied but can’t find work ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.


    If you pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big screen TV while your neighbor buys iPhones, TV's and new cars, and the government forgives his debt when he defaults on his mortgage ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.


    If being stripped of the ability to defend yourself makes you more "safe" according to the government ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.

    Friday, March 15, 2013

    'Atheist liberals just love to play God'

    In today's issue: A caller prompted Dr. Savage to note that godless progressives love to “play God” themselves, in their need to control every aspect of people’s lives, right down to how much soda they can, and should, consume.


    “The less connected people are to God, the more they want to be like God,” said Savage, adding:
      Look at Hugo Chavez, the dictator who just died.
      Why are lowlifes like Sean Penn attracted to dictators?
      Because they themselves have no belief in God and believe themselves to be demo-gods.
      That's why they're drawn to the even bigger demigod.
      Do I personally know if God exists? Let's put it this way: I have my doubts.
      The older I get, the more doubts I have, when I see babies killed and I see evil thriving.
      But I'll never forget a conversation I had about God with a stranger.
      I was in North Beach in San Francisco in the mid-1970s. He was a hobo -- not a homeless bum, as they are today. In other words, he was a vagabond, with long white hair.
      I asked him if he believed in God, and he looked at me with unblinking blue eyes like I was crazy for asking such a question, and he replied: “Who do you think created me?”

    Sunday, March 10, 2013

    Nancy Pelosi wants you to pay a $10.10 minimum wage. Herself, not so much.

  • Posted by Jack Kemp on March 8, 2013 at 4:43pm
  • Jack E. Kemp

    The Washington Times now reports that "Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said that recent Wall Street gains mean one sure thing: The minimum wage should be hike to $10.10 per hour."

    Well, that sounds generous of Nancy Pelosi.  But some of our readers may recall a 2006 piece at American Thinker which stated:

    As Peter Schweizer notes in his best-selling expose of liberal hypocrisy, "Do As I Say (Not As I Do)," part of the fortune of this defender of the working man is a Napa Valley vineyard worth $25 million that she owns with her husband. The vineyard produces expensive grapes for high-end wines. Napa grapes bring up to $4,000 a ton compared with $300 a ton for, say, San Joaquin grapes.

    But Pelosi, winner of the 2003 Cesar Chavez award from the United Farm Workers, hires only nonunion workers and sells these grapes to nonunion wineries. ...

    Which makes Pelosi's steadfast opposition to any attempts to enhance border security and stem the flow of illegal immigration into the U.S. all the more interesting since she seems to be among those rich employers who financially benefit from a steady supply of cheap foreign labor. ...

    The source book, Do As I Say (Not As I Do), also has this quote on pages 150-151:

    The Pelosis own a large stake in an exclusive, fifty-room hotel and resort in Napa, California. Auberge du Soleil features a world-class French restaurant, a luxury spa, and beautiful rooms with cottages, all in the ambience of Provence...The hotel resort has more than fifty rooms and boasts more than 250 employees - but it is a strictly nonunion shop. The dishwashers, maid staff, busboys, and bellboys (many of them Hispanic immigrants) might be targeted in membership drives by HERE (note: an AFL-CIO union), but at Auberge they will have to face management alone.

    [snip]

    ... the Pelosis are also partners in a restaurant chain called Piatti. ... The chain boasts sixteen restaurants in five states and has more than nine hundred employees. ... But work there ... and you can't get a union card. As with Auberge du Soleil, at Piatti the Pelosis' commitment to organized labor ends at the front door.

    Author Peter Schweizer also emphasizes that because many of the Pelosis' workers are immigrants, they are the most likely to have lower wages.  The book did not specify whether these employees included illegal aliens; however, there is a possibility of that.  Ironically, Schweizer also points out that none of the unions Nancy Pelosi supports would hold a conference at her hotel because of the non-union labor.

    It appears that Ms. Pelosi could easily be paying less than the legal minimum wage to workers who have, shall we say, problems with either documenting their status or understanding labor laws written in English or even another language.  Thus, Pelosi possibly could not be impacted by a rise in the minimum wage the way McDonald's -- or McDonald's employees -- would be.  By the way, a hamburger with "pomme frites" (French fries) at The Bistro Bar at Pelosi's Auberge du Soleil hotel is $19.

    It also appears that Nancy Pelosi feels (notice I didn't say "thinks") that expenses added to employers by ObamaCare, impacting both hiring and firing, make for a mere trifle that can be easily absorbed with no problem -- no problem for her, that is.

    Well, Al Gore can drop by her hotel with his huge check from Qatar, and they can share a glass of wine from her vineyard and sing "Look for the Union Label," as Al said his mother used to sing to him (at age 27).  They can both then look for the union label -- but they won't find it.

    Rand Paul Confirms There Is Always Hope

  • Posted by Lloyd Marcus on March 10, 2013 at 7:42am

    Courageous Tea Party Senator Rand Paul confirmed my statement that no one can foresee the future well enough to be totally fatalistic. Since the presidential election, discouraged patriots have been saying we have lost the country. Obama holds all the cards. All hope of restoring our country back to the vision of our Founding Fathers is gone. Game over.

    As a Christian, I have encouraged patriots to keep the faith, stay on the battle field defending what is right. Situations can turn on a dime. Who could have foreseen that Rand Paul would challenge Goliath and win? Senator Rand Paul's successful Filibuster resulting in the White House backing down from their unconstitutional claim that Obama has a right to kill Americans without due process is huge.

    I wonder if this latest Obama Administration attack on the Constitution (wanting the right to kill Americans on American soil without a trial) was their jump-the-shark-moment? This extremely scary attempt by the Administration really exposes Obama's Imperial President mindset and arrogance. 

    And quite frankly, why shouldn't Obama feel emboldened to do whatever he pleases including deciding who lives and who dies? Low info voters have sent Obama the message that as long as he keeps his vow to take care of them and punish the rich, they do not care about losing freedom or him shredding the Constitution. Along with the mainstream media firmly in his back pocket, it is understandable that Obama would think himself invincible – a supreme dictator – a king.

    By attempting to secure unprecedented unconstitutional authority to kill Americans at will, Obama may have pushed the envelope a bit too far in the minds of the American people.

    Also, I have noticed that a few in the mainstream media are criticizing Obama for closing down the White House tours to hype his bogus pain of sequestration.

    And here is another breath of fresh air confirming that the country has not gone totally reprobate. The Bible miniseries is enjoying huge numbers, even beating the zombies.

    So, to all you hopeless gloom and doomers in the Tea Party, stop it! There is always hope. You do not know what is going to happen tomorrow.

    So you gotta hang on til tomorrow, come what may. Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love ya tomorrow! You're always a day a-wayyyyyyyyy!!!”

    Lloyd Marcus, Proud Unhyphenated American
    Chairman, Conservative Campaign Committee
    LloydMarcus.com

  • Thought Crimes and Pastry Guns

  • Posted by David M. Huntwork on March 8, 2013 at 9:35pm
  • Recently, a school in the once great state of Maryland offered counseling to students “troubled” by a classmate eating pastry into the shape of a gun. You might think his offense was kind of silly, but the school considered the seven year old students triggering action a “Level 3” violation of the following code:

    Any gun of any kind, loaded or unloaded, operable or inoperable, including any object other than a firearm which is a look-a-like of a gun. This shall include, but is not limited to, pellet gun, paintball gun, stun gun, taser, BB gun, flare gun, nail gun, and air soft gun.

    His two day suspension was followed up with a letter to every parent in the school:

    Dear Parents and Guardians:

    I am writing to let you know about an incident that occurred this morning in one of our classrooms and encourage you to discuss this matter with your child in a manner you deem most appropriate.

    During breakfast this morning, one of our students used food to make inappropriate gestures that disrupted the class. While no physical threats were made and no one [was] harmed, the student had to be removed from the classroom.

    * * *

    As you are aware, the Code of Student Conduct and appropriate consequences related to violations of the code are clearly spelled out in the Student Handbook, which was sent home during the first week of school and can be found on our website, www.aacps.org.

    If your children express that they are troubled by today’s incident, please talk with them and help them share their feelings. Our school counselor is available to meet with any students who have the need to do so next week. In general, please remind them of the importance of making good choices.

    Yes, let us discuss the mental devastation of dastardly pastry weaponry with our children, shall we?  Thankfully, the strawberry pop tart in question was destroyed before it could cause any further harm to the most vulnerable among us.

    Now the child, to his credit, did take full blame for this ugly incident. He told FOX45, "All I was trying to do was turn it into a mountain but, it didn't look like a mountain really and it turned out to be a gun kinda." When his teacher saw the strawberry tart he knew he was in trouble, "She was pretty mad…and I think I was in big trouble."

    This, unfortunately, is not an isolated incident. It is instead just another example in a long list of examples of disturbing reactions to children simply being children currently unfolding all across the nation. Now as “scary” as pop tart guns, tiny action figure plastic weapons, pointy “finger guns,” and invisible pretend grenades may be to school administrators (who apparently don’t remember what it was like to be a child) their reactions to such child's play makes them an amazing embarrassment to themselves as well as to society at large.

    I would further offer that if you are a teacher or school administrator afraid of legos, fingers, paper, active imaginations, rubber bands, spit balls, and the like then you have absolutely no business attempting to shape and mold vulnerable young minds. These and related incidents are certainly a stinging indictment of the public school system. Understand the reality that these are the type of people teaching your children, guiding their education, and indoctrinating them on how to think and act while you are off trying to make a living and provide for your family. It is simply disgraceful. The public school system continues to morph into the liberal indoctrination system at an alarming speed with its usual baggage train of illogical thought and actions.

    I think we can all agree that no lives are saved, no tragedy averted, and no additional aura of safety added to a school campus by such classroom clampdowns. In this hyper-sensitive, progressive, nanny-state world where we are afraid of shadows and the innocent actions of small children one can only wonder what ever happened to logic and common sense. It is not this poor child with a twinkle of an imagination that needs counseling or punishment, but the principle and a teacher who made this into more than a five second incident. A stern “Josh, sit down and eat your food” would probably have been sufficient but no, not in “let’s scare the public that all guns are bad” overreaction land.  In this era of symbolism over substance sound thinking is really the only casualty in the classroom in this type of situation.

    These same finger-wagging administrators should have seen my childhood toy gun collection, not to mention the full scale battles we waged at recess in elementary school. When I was a child playing full blown WAR at recess was normal and nobody gave it a second thought. We played Army, Star Wars, and staged epic reenactments of civil war battles during recess. We even had officers and ranks.

    Often such playground clashes were elevated to class on class warfare. The fifth graders would wear their Boy Scout shirts on a certain day and be the Union, and the sixth graders would play the Confederates. If your position was “overran” you might get roughed up a bit but such play consisted mostly of the trading of volleys followed by Gettysburg like charges. It really was great fun. I think even pastry kid would have enjoyed it. Can you imagine the hysterics such a scene would cause today? “Little Billy Yank pretended to shoot a musket at little Johnny Reb at Barack Obama Elementary School today, full story at eleven.”  How things have changed in such a short amount of time.

    And while it is easy to write such paranoia off to nervous ninnies and worry-wart weenies, the other alternative is perhaps even more frightening. A comment by JCM (http://twitter.com/JCM1776) suggested the following.

    This is not stupidity, laziness, on the part of school. This extreme intolerance of an everyday object has a purpose.

    Indoctrinate an entire generation that guns are bad, bad, bad, that talking about them, having pictures of the them, the thoughtcrime of them is evil itself.

    When this generation comes of age, disarming then enslaving the population becomes a breeze.

    Now that is more frightening than any misshaped pastry could ever be.

    Perhaps the school would just have been happy if little Josh had merely stated that he was transgendered and wanted to go change with his female classmates in the girl’s locker room. For that type of behavior is being strategically fast-tracked as normal and protected while at the same time playing with your government funded pop tart is not. Progressivism is indeed a confusing and detrimental disorder, and the proof is all around us.

    Our enemies parade their children around in suicide vests and teach them to kill and hate all Westerners and Jews. We teach ours to be afraid of misshaped breakfast food and to tremble at the mere hint of something possibly representing a firearm. Even in obvious play. The educational system in the United States is beyond broken and is dominated and controlled by politically correct, busy-body Progressive administrators. What a shame.

    In the end, Josh’s father said "I'll just call it insanity, it's a pastry." I couldn’t agree more.

    Ryan: New House Republican budget includes ObamaCare repeal

     

    Published March 10, 2013

    FoxNews.com

    Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, said Sunday that his new budget includes the repeal of President Obama’s health-care reform law known as ObamaCare.

    Ryan told “Fox News Sunday” that the new proposal will make enough cuts to balance the federal budget in 10 years, compared to his previous one that tried to achieve that goal in 25 years.

    “We think we owe the American people a balanced budget,” the Republican congressman said.

    Ryan said the focus of the ObamaCare repeal would be to stop the expansion of Medicaid, the federal program that provides medical services to low-income U.S. families.

    “Our budget does promote repealing ObamaCare,” said Ryan, who was not clear whether his 2014 budget is based on a full repeal.

    Ryan, the Republican 2012 vice presidential nominee, said he wants states to run Medicaid through federal block grants.

    Ryan said his proposal attempts to reach a balanced budget, in part, by slowing the rate of federal spending from 4.9 percent to 3.4 percent. Other parts include consolidating federal job-training programs and reforming the federal Food Stamp program to ensure only qualified applicants receive the benefits.

    “I’ve very confident this is the way to go,” said Ryan, whose budget would have a better chance of passing the Republican-controlled House than the Democrat-controlled Senate.

    Friday, March 08, 2013

    White House suspends public tours, but first family trips in full swing

    Visitors to the nation's capital looking for a White House public tour are out of luck starting this weekend, courtesy of what the Secret Service says is its own decision to deal with the sequester cuts.

    But while the agency said it needed to pull officers off the tours for more pressing assignments, the budget ax didn't swing early or deep enough to curtail a host of recent Secret Service-chaperoned trips like President Obama's much-discussed Florida golf outing with Tiger Woods, first lady Michelle Obama's high-profile multi-city media appearances, or even daughter Malia Obama's New York dinner outing with a group of teenage friends.

    Obama's pricey golf outings have been a particular target for Republicans who see them as examples of what they say are the administration's rather selective concerns with running up the tab of Secret Service resources. On March 5, Texas Rep. Louis Gohmert filed an amendment to a House resolution that would prohibit federal funds from being spent on Obama's golf trips until public tours of the White House resumed.

    Gohmert referenced press reports pegging the cost of a recent Florida golf outing Obama took with Tiger Woods at $1 million. He also cited press reports saying 341 federal workers could have been spared furloughs if Obama had stayed home.

    "The president's travel expenses alone, for the golfing outing with Tiger Woods, would pay for a year of White House visits," Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer said Thursday. "So I suggest that perhaps he curtail the travel."

    The price tag and draw on Secret Service resources involving promotional campaigns like Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" initiative is less clear.

    The Secret Service does not usually reveal how many agents and other resources are assigned to protective missions so it's not known just how much it cost taxpayers to ferry the first lady to events like her dance routine on Jimmy Fallon's show -- the highlight of a Feb. 22 media blitz in New York -- or her Feb. 27-28 visit to Mississippi, Missouri and her hometown of Chicago.

    Those trips would all have involved Secret Service details traveling with the first lady, as well as advance work by teams of agents on location.

    When asked by FoxNews.com if the first lady's office or schedule would be affected by the sequester, the White House issued a 100-word statement that made no mention of any specific cuts that might affect Michelle Obama's activities -- while making a generic reference to cuts affecting the "Executive Office of the President," which houses the first lady's office. 

    Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest, asked how the White House was cutting back, on Friday said there would be furloughs and pay cuts.

    On the decision to close the tours, Press Secretary Jay Carney a day earlier said "the President and the first lady have throughout the time that they've been here made extraordinary efforts to make this the people's house, and it is extremely unfortunate that we have a situation like the sequester that compels the kinds of tradeoffs and decisions that this represents."

    It's also not clear what Secret Service resources were dedicated to the New York visit by 14-year-old Malia Obama, who was spotted dining with a group of friends at the New York restaurant Buddakan less than 24 hours after President Obama signed off on the sequester. According to media reports, the group was chaperoned by four parents and five security guards who dined at the table directly next to them. There were also Secret Service agents in the restaurant, according to reports that said they stayed behind the group.

    How much overtime these types of assignments cost the Secret Service may be an area of concern. Donovan told FoxNews.com that overtime costs factored into the decision to shut down the White House tours. By taking the 30 officers involved in the tours and assigning them to high-priority security posts, officers normally on those duties can log fewer hours -- in turn saving the Secret Service money.

    "It reduces overtime costs overall for us," Donovan said.

    The tours will not be rescheduled and will stay frozen until further notice.

    That's bad news for groups like the sixth graders at St. Paul's Lutheran School in Iowa, who had been planning to take the White House tour on March 16. Fourteen students from that group and their teacher on Thursday took their frustrations to Facebook. In a web video, they held up handmade posters and chanted, "The White House is our house."

    Some Republicans in Congress expressed their displeasure with the cuts more forcefully. "Canceling all self-guided White House tours is the latest shameless political stunt by the president, who is twisting basic government efficiency into an extreme consequence," Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ga., said in a statement March 5.