When was the last time you dropped $91,000 on a roundtrip flight to Europe?

(Never? Thought so.)

How about the last time you needed a 68-person entourage to accompany you to a resort town? (Yea, didn’t think so.)

But apparently our First Lady doesn’t have a problem with appearing a bit, well, out of touch with American people struggling to make ends meet amidst hard economic times.

Last Friday's news that the Obama administration’s forecast about jobs and the economy turned out to be overblown (once again) makes her trip sting that much more for the American public.

At a minimum, Mrs. Obama could have saved some pennies on the flight and gone somewhere in America (what a concept!), boosting our American economy and showing solidarity with her people. But her American people seem to be less interesting than castles and European cafes.

The particularly distasteful nature of her trip has led some to start calling her a “modern day Marie Antoinette.”

While Mrs. Obama noshes on paella and tapas and suns those infamous arms, one has to wonder if she is muttering to herself about angry Americans (who might make it to the nearest beach this summer if they are lucky) ... 'let them eat apple pie.'

Ashley Samelson blogs about faith, feminism, and politics at www.rogueinrouge.com.

Photo: Splash News

Ashley Samelson comments on the latest episode in the Arizona imbroglio - proof positive that bad federal law, mishandled, brings about additional legal paradoxes at the state level.

An Institutionalized Oxymoron

The federal government has done some serious judicial dentist work on the Arizona immigration law. Specifically, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton has removed the bill’s sharpest teeth, rendering Arizona’s latest effort to deal with its illegal immigration crisis lifeless.

The Politico Newsbreak announcing the development stated:

"A federal judge has blocked key provisions of a controversial Arizona law aimed at illegal immigrants. The judge blocked a requirement that police have to check the immigration status of detainees they reasonably suspect of being in the country illegally, and stopped part of the law that makes it a crime for immigrants to be in the state illegally.”

Can you read that without your head spinning? So police can detain someone they “reasonably suspect of being in the country illegally” and then what, have coffee with them? Because it’s no longer “illegal” to be in this country “illegally?”

In her ruling, Bolton writes, "Requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully-present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked.”

Sign me up to be the first person who, if arrested, spends an extra two minutes while my legal citizenship is confirmed.

Much like the concept of a legal Cuban cigar, this federal ruling is little more than institutionalized oxymoron in the place of good rule of law. American citizens and the many hardworking legal immigrants in this country deserve better than that.

Ashley Samelson blogs about faith, feminism, and politics at www.rogueinrouge.com.

Photo Credit: Fred Smith

APP is happy to welcome first-time contributor Ashley Samelson to our principled discussions.

"More of a Metaphor"

Bush waited six days to send in the feds after Katrina. And the world never let him forget.

Thirty-six days after BP's deep-water oil rig exploded, oil is still gushing into the ocean, while the Obama administration sits back, points fingers, holds investigations, eats mole, traipses around with President Calderon and applauds his criticism of U.S. gun laws (forget about the fact that violent crime in the U.S. is now in the third year of steady decline, while nearly 30,000 people have died in Mexico's drug wars), and harps on fuel-efficiency standards.

When Interior Secretary Ken Salazar threatened to "push [BP] out" if "the company did not perform," the director of the federal government's response to the disaster, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, dismissed the threat as "more of a metaphor."

He said "To push BP out of the way would raise the question of: Replace them with what?"

Well, how about a federal disaster response team?

Furthermore, where is the outcry from the environmentalists? Why aren't they out in their stenchy, dreadlocked glory, demanding action from the government?

The Obama administration is handling the worst ecological disaster in U.S. history like an eight-grade girl handles being crossed by a BFF, with a lot of finger pointing and hair twirling. And environmentalists have shown themselves to be the spineless idealists we always suspected them to be.