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The night we waved goodbye to America... our last best hope on Earth
Last updated at 5:57 PM on 10th November 2009
Anyone would think we had just elected a hip, skinny and youthful replacement for God, with a plan to modernise Heaven and Hell – or that at the very least John Lennon had come back from the dead.
The swooning frenzy over the choice of Barack Obama as President of the United States must be one of the most absurd waves of self-deception and swirling fantasy ever to sweep through an advanced civilisation. At least Mandela-worship – its nearest equivalent – is focused on a man who actually did something.
I really don’t see how the Obama devotees can ever in future mock the Moonies, the Scientologists or people who claim to have been abducted in flying saucers. This is a cult like the one which grew up around Princess Diana, bereft of reason and hostile to facts.
The night America changed: Barack and Michelle Obama in Chicago
It
already has all the signs of such a thing. The newspapers which
recorded Obama’s victory have become valuable relics. You may buy Obama
picture books and Obama calendars and if there isn’t yet a children’s
picture version of his story, there soon will be.
Proper
books, recording his sordid associates, his cowardly voting record, his
astonishingly militant commitment to unrestricted abortion and his
blundering trip to Africa, are little-read and hard to find.
If
you can believe that this undistinguished and conventionally Left-wing
machine politician is a sort of secular saviour, then you can believe
anything. He plainly doesn’t believe it himself. His cliche-stuffed, PC
clunker of an acceptance speech suffered badly from nerves. It was
what you would expect from someone who knew he’d promised too much and
that from now on the easy bit was over.
He needn’t worry too much. From now on, the rough boys and girls of America’s Democratic Party apparatus, many recycled from Bill Clinton’s stained and crumpled entourage, will crowd round him, to collect the rich spoils of his victory and also tell him what to do, which is what he is used to.
Just
look at his sermon by the shores of Lake Michigan. He really did talk
about a ‘new dawn’, and a ‘timeless creed’ (which was ‘yes, we can’).
He proclaimed that ‘change has come’. He revealed that, despite having
edited the Harvard Law Review, he doesn’t know what ‘enormity’ means.
He reached depths of oratorical drivel never even plumbed by our own Mr
Blair, burbling about putting our hands on the arc of history (or was
it the ark of history?) and bending it once more toward the hope of a
better day (Don’t try this at home).
I am not making this up. No wonder that awful old hack Jesse Jackson sobbed as he watched. How he must wish he, too, could get away with this sort of stuff.
And
it was interesting how the President-elect failed to lift his admiring
audience by repeated – but rather hesitant – invocations of the
brainless slogan he was forced by his minders to adopt against his will
– ‘Yes, we can’. They were supposed to thunder ‘Yes, we can!’ back at
him, but they just wouldn’t join in. No wonder. Yes we can what
exactly? Go home and keep a close eye on the tax rate, is my advice.
He’d have been better off bursting into ‘I’d like to teach the world to
sing in perfect harmony’ which contains roughly the same message and
might have attracted some valuable commercial sponsorship.
Perhaps,
being a Chicago crowd, they knew some of the things that 52.5 per cent
of America prefers not to know. They know Obama is the obedient servant
of one of the most squalid and unshakeable political machines in
America. They know that one of his alarmingly close associates, a
state-subsidised slum landlord called Tony Rezko, has been convicted on
fraud and corruption charges.
They also know the US is
just as segregated as it was before Martin Luther King – in schools,
streets, neighbourhoods, holidays, even in its TV-watching habits and
its choice of fast-food joint. The difference is that it is now done by
unspoken agreement rather than by law.
If Mr Obama’s
election had threatened any of that, his feel-good white supporters
would have scuttled off and voted for John McCain, or practically
anyone. But it doesn’t. Mr Obama, thanks mainly to the now-departed
grandmother he alternately praised as a saint and denounced as a racial
bigot, has the huge advantages of an expensive private education. He
did not have to grow up in the badlands of useless schools, shattered
families and gangs which are the lot of so many young black men of his
generation.
If the nonsensical claims made for this
election were true, then every positive discrimination programme aimed
at helping black people into jobs they otherwise wouldn’t get should be
abandoned forthwith. Nothing of the kind will happen. On the contrary,
there will probably be more of them.
And if those who
voted for Obama were all proving their anti-racist nobility, that
presumably means that those many millions who didn’t vote for him were
proving themselves to be hopeless bigots. This is obviously untrue.
Yes we can what?: Barack Obama ran on the ticket of change
I
was in Washington DC the night of the election. America’s beautiful
capital has a sad secret. It is perhaps the most racially divided city
in the world, with 15th Street – which runs due north from the White
House – the unofficial frontier between black and white. But, like so
much of America, it also now has a new division, and one which is in
many ways much more important. I had attended an election-night party
in a smart and liberal white area, but was staying the night less than
a mile away on the edge of a suburb where Spanish is spoken as much as
English, plus a smattering of tongues from such places as Ethiopia,
Somalia and Afghanistan.
As I walked, I crossed another of Washington’s secret frontiers. There had been a few white people blowing car horns and shouting, as the result became clear. But among the Mexicans, Salvadorans and the other Third World nationalities, there was something like ecstasy.
They grasped the real significance of this moment. They knew it meant that America had finally switched sides in a global cultural war. Forget the Cold War, or even the Iraq War. The United States, having for the most part a deeply conservative people, had until now just about stood out against many of the mistakes which have ruined so much of the rest of the world.
Suspicious of welfare addiction, feeble justice and high taxes, totally committed to preserving its own national sovereignty, unabashedly Christian in a world part secular and part Muslim, suspicious of the Great Global Warming panic, it was unique.
These strengths had been fading for some time, mainly due to poorly controlled mass immigration and to the march of political correctness. They had also been weakened by the failure of America’s conservative party – the Republicans – to fight on the cultural and moral fronts.
They preferred to posture on the world stage. Scared of confronting Left-wing teachers and sexual revolutionaries at home, they could order soldiers to be brave on their behalf in far-off deserts. And now the US, like Britain before it, has begun the long slow descent into the Third World. How sad. Where now is our last best hope on Earth?
on a tip from my fabulous friend, John K.
Health-care fight gives GOPers a chance to winBy George Will
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Rushing to lock the nation into expensive health-care and climate-change commitments, Democrats are in an understandable frenzy because public enthusiasm for both crusades has been inversely proportional to the time the public has had to think about them. And the president pushing this agenda has, with his incontinent hunger for attention, seen his job approval vary inversely with his ubiquity. Consider his busy December — so far.
His Dec. 1 Afghanistan speech to the nation was followed on Dec. 3 by his televised "jobs summit." His Dec. 8 televised economics speech at the Brookings Institution was followed on Dec. 10 by his televised Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, which was remarkable for 38 uses of the pronoun "I."
And for disavowing a competence no one suspected him of. ("I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war." Note the superfluous adjective.) And for an unnecessary notification. ("Evil does exist in the world.") And for delayed utopianism. ("We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes." But in someone's.) And for solemnly announcing something undisputed. (There can be a just war.) And for intellectual applesauce that should get speechwriters fired and editors hired. ("We do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected." If the human "condition" can attain perfection anyway, human nature cannot be significantly imperfect.)
Then on Dec. 13, he was on "60 Minutes"
praising himself with another denigration of his predecessor, a.k.a.
"the last eight years." (Blighted by "a triumphant sense about war.")
When Attorney General Eric Holder announced last month that five
suspected terrorists would be tried in federal courts, he said: "After eight years of delay. . . ." When the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force made the controversial recommendation that women should get fewer mammograms,
Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said: "This
panel was appointed by the prior administration, by former President
George Bush." In congressional testimony, Treasury Secretary Timothy
Geithner almost deviated from the script. He said the Obama
administration began after "almost a decade" — slight pause — "certainly eight years of basic neglect."
If he was a Republican, his career would be over but when your side has no standards of good behavior, you can do anything you like.
Sen. Chuck Schumer loves the sound of his own voice, but it carried a bit farther than he might have liked on the US Airways shuttle from New York to Washington on Sunday.
According to a House Republican aide who happened to be seated nearby, the notoriously chatty New York Democrat referred to a flight attendant as a “bitch” after she ordered him to turn off his phone before takeoff.
Schumer and his seatmate, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), were chatting on their phones before takeoff when an announcement indicated that it was time to turn off the phones....
“The senator made an off-the-cuff comment under his breath that he shouldn’t have made, and he regrets it,” Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon told Shenanigans.
Stay classy, Chuck!
In the words of Hilary Clinton,
"I don't think anyone can doubt that our outreach has produced very
little in terms of any kind of positive response from the Iranians."
Fars News/Handout/Reuters
A long-range Sejil 2 missile is test-fired in the desert at an unknown location in Iran in this Iranian military handout.
"If they don't, time will run out," said Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman. (And then what, Pillsbury Dough Boy? It is clear that Obama has no Earthly idea what to do and more than that, he has no interest whatsoever in protecting Israel or the US. He is far more concerned in 'transforming' our country into some Marxist utopia, he's been hearing about his entire life.)Iran missile tests puts pressure on Israel, the West
UNITED
NATIONS -- Iran test-fired an upgraded version of its most powerful
missile yesterday, demonstrating it is now easily capable of striking
any part of Israel, which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President,
said four years ago should be "wiped off the map."
The
solid-fuel characteristic of the two-stage Sejil-2 means it is more
accurate than liquid-fuel rockets, bolstering Iran's threat to target
Israel's civilian nuclear reactors if Israel attacks Iranian nuclear
installations.
Analysts said the test appeared aimed at
dissuading Israel from launching a pre-emptive military attack on any
of Iran's nuclear facilities, which Western powers believe are part of
a secret program to develop a nuclear bomb.
"It hit the defined target," Iranian state television said reporting on the test, but gave no further details.
Earlier
versions of the missile were also able to reach Israel, but the
2,000-kilometre range of the Sejil-2 means large parts of southeastern
Europe are now within range.
The launch serves as a direct
challenge to the efforts of Barack Obama, the U.S. President, to
resolve the nuclear issue through diplomacy.
The White
House reacted with a reminder about Mr. Obama's year-end deadline for
Iran to respond to U.S.-led diplomatic overtures.
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=2349195#ixzz0ZuqJzEMm
Excerpt from the book: "the broad sweep of the global military, political, moral, and — yes — spiritual struggle that faces us; and what we must do if we wish to survive. Above all, we must avoid the twin perils of complacency and despair, and for that a sober, factual, and contextual presentation like that found in Trifkovic's work is essential. Every American owes it to himself to know the real score of the post-9/11 world — and this slim but invaluable volume is the place to start
on a tip from the great reasonsjester
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The idea of essentially taxing hard-working citizens of the democracies in order to fill the treasuries of Third World kleptocracies went nowhere, thanks mainly to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (and the debt crisis of the early ’80s). They put a stake through the enterprise.
But such dreams never die. The raid on the Western treasuries is on again, but today with a new rationale to fit current ideological fashion. With socialism dead, the gigantic heist is now proposed as a sacred service of the newest religion: environmentalism.Since we operate an overwhelmingly carbon-based economy, the EPA will be regulating practically everything. No institution that emits more than 250 tons of CO2 a year will fall outside EPA control. This means over a million building complexes, hospitals, plants, schools, businesses, and similar enterprises. (The EPA proposes regulating emissions only above 25,000 tons, but it has no such authority.) Not since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service has a federal agency been given more intrusive power over every aspect of economic life.
Roger L. Simon and Lionel Chetwynd, both Academy members, are among a small, meandering pack of known political conservatives still believed to be on the loose in the liberal bastion of movie-making.
In 2007, the Academy sanctified Gore's cinematic message of global warming with its famous statue, enriched his earnings by $100,000 per 85-minute appearance (please click this link and read the article!) and helped elevate the Tennessean's profile to win the Nobel Peace Prize despite losing the election battle of 2000 to a Texan and living in a large house with lots of energy-driven appliances.
Chetwynd and Simon were prompted to make their hopeless demand this week by the ...
... leak two weeks ago of a blizzard of British academic e-mails purporting to show that scientists at the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit systematically falsified data to document the appearance of global warming in recent years.
The university is reportedly investigating the claims, which added dry fuel to the never-ending political debate over whether the Earth really is warming as a result of human activity or if it's just normal natural cycles and the debate is what's heated. The demand to withdraw Gore's award provides yet another opportunity to argue.
The startling leak comes at an inconvenient time, just before next week's United Nations climate change meeting, which will cause an immense carbon footprint with thousands of people flying up or over to Denmark to talk about saving the environment.
These airplanes will include Air Force One with its primary passenger, President Obama, who's returning to the Copenhagen scene where he didn't help win the 2016 Summer Olympics for Chicago, which could do with a little global warming at this time of year.
Simon, a screenwriter who is also chief executive officer of Pajamas Media, a network of conservative online blogs, conceded he knew of no precedent for the Academy withdrawing a previously awarded Oscar, despite decades of Hollywood high jinks and worse. But, he added, "I think they should rescind this one."
The controversial leaked documents have been assembled here by Pajamas Media and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The joint demand by Simon and filmmaker Chetwynd is available on video here.
The television news-watching world in America has not learned much about the so-called Climategate scandal because it has not really been mentioned on the air except for a notorious cable news channel named for a three-lettered, wily, wild animal that often seems to revel in debunking liberal shibboleths.
Network news programs have been far more concerned with the
obviously more important White House party-crasher story involving a
couple of formally-dressed phonies.
In my opinion (and there's nothing humble about it!) Gore should have been stripped of his Oscar and Nobel prize, as soon as it became known that his dopey film is filled with lies and exaggerations and faulty science. The fact that he has had to cancel his appearance (and sale of his handshakes, can you imagine?) in Copenhagen is utterly delicious. It should be interesting to see how the conference proceeds and Obama appears and all of those charlatans carry on as if nothing has changed when clearly everything has changed for them. The movement is on its last legs and the only ones who don't know it are the idiots whose religion is man-made global warming climate change.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
By Diane Macedo
Jon Stewart discusses leak of controversial emails exchanged by British climate researchers.
ABC didn't cover it. CBS didn't either. And NBC apparently wouldn't go near it.
The
network news broadcasts have ignored a growing scandal over evidence of
a potential climate cover-up — and now they've even been scooped by the
fake news at Comedy 
"The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" produced its "reporting" on
Stewart described leaked e-mails from Britain's University of East Anglia, including one referring to a researcher's "trick" to "hide the decline" in some temperature readings in recent decades.
"It's just scientist-speak for using a standard statistical technique — recalibrating data – in order to trick you," Stewart said sarcastically.
Nearly two weeks since news broke of the e-mail scandal, climate
Still, according to a report Wednesday morning by the conservative Media Research Center, "none of the broadcast network weekday morning and evening news shows addressed Climate-Gate or the incriminating Jones development. ... This marked 12 days since the information was first uncovered that they have ignored this global scandal."
The Business & Media Institute had just as much trouble finding the networks' Climate-gate coverage.
"An examination of morning and evening news programs on ABC, CBS and NBC since Nov. 20 yielded zero mentions of the scandal, even in the Nov. 25 reports about Obama going to Copenhagen to discuss the need for emissions reductions," the Institute reported Wednesday.
But during that time, the Institute says, "the networks reported on pro-golfer Tiger Woods' 'minor' car accident at least 37 times. They also found time to report on an orphaned Moose and the meal selection at the president’s State Dinner."
Media Research Center President Brent Bozell reacted to the findings saying, "To pretend this story simply doesn’t exist is damning to journalism."
With Barack Obama, it’s always about the radicalism. Always.
The Salahis say that the truth will come out eventually.
We will see. So far the state-run media has been pretty quiet about their radical associations.
The Washington DC couple denied Tuesday on
“The Today Show” that they were gatecrashers. Said and Michaele Salahi
insisted that they did not party-crash the White House.
Maybe the truth is on their side? Maybe the party-goers were invited to the White House on purpose?
As reported earlier… American Power discovered this on the White House party crashers- They belong to a radical anti-Israeli group:
Tareq Salahi, the polo-playing intruder, is a Palestinian nationalist with ties to the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) , a pro-Palestine lobby demanding the “right of return” for all Palestinian refugees and their descendants. The “right of return” has long been considered the backdoor to Israel’s destruction. But not only that: ATFP President Ziad Asali is an America-basher who blamed 9/11 on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Asali was a lead U.S. official to PLO terrorist Yassir Arafat’s funeral in 2004. And in a position paper in 2007, the ATFP called for a power-sharing agreement at the Palestinian Authority, which would have included the State Department’s designated-terrorist group, Hamas.
And, there’s more…
Canada Free Press reported that the American Task Force for Palestine (ATFP) has airbrushed references to Salahi from its website:
We do know for a fact that among the slew of memberships on charitable boards, Tareq Salahi is a former member of The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP). The only way to know for a fact is because even though ATFP scrubbed all references to Salahi as a board member, he can still be found on Google cache. (Canada Free Press)
Sad that White House Secret Service are looking like Keystone Kops in the aftermath of Obama’s very first state house dinner in the tent.
While the media is fixated on the hitch in Michaele Salahi’s git-along, there can be no doubt that these recently minted “party crashers” really get around.
American Power has more on the Salahi’s leadership role with the the American Task Force on Palestinian, the “moderate” rights groups pushing a thinly-veiled program of Palestinian nationalism and the “right of return” (the backdoor destruction of Israel).
According to Discover the Networks, ATFP’s former vice president is Rashid Khalidi, the Columbia University Middle East Studies professor and militant Palestinian rights activist. Khalidi cites the late Edward Said as his major influence, and according to the entry cited, “As with Said before him, Khalidi’s involvement with the Palestinian cause goes beyond mere support.” And, “Khalidi so strongly identified with the aims of the PLO, which was designated as a terrorist group by the State Department during Khalidi’s affiliation with it in the 1980s, that he repeatedly referred to himself as ‘we’ when expounding on the PLO’s agenda.” Also, according to Campus Watch, ATFP remains in full support Kahlidi, for example, during charges of academic misconduct in 2005, at the time of Senator Barack Obama’s meeting with Tareq Salahi. See, “ATFP EXPRESSES FULL SUPPORT FOR COLUMBIA PROFESSOR RASHID KHALIDI.
Note too that Obama’s ties to the Palestinian community became something of an issue during the 2008 campaign. See, the Los Angeles Times, “Allies of Palestinians See a Friend in Obama.” Plus, from Andrew C. McCarthy and Claudia Rosett, “In Obama’s Hyde Park, It’s All in the Family: Passing Anti-American Radicalism From Generation to Generation.
As you may recall. The LA Times hid the tape of Barack Obama attending a 2003 Jew-bash where he praised and toasted the former PLO operative Rashid Khalidi.
Maybe the Salahis were just the latest radicals to be invited to the Obama White House?
They weren’t the first. And won’t be the last.
When was the last time the Palestinians offered a "goodwill gesture" to Israel?....
Jerusalem - Israel would likely release 980 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by Hamas more than three years ago, the State Prosecution said Sunday.
The government is likely to free the 450 prisoners that Hamas has asked for in exchange for Shalit, as well as an additional 530 prisoners, as a 'gesture to the Palestinians', the State Prosecution said in response to a petition submitted by a group of bereaved parents.
'There is a possibility for the release in principle of about 450 prisoners whose names are being delivered by Hamas, and whose release is being examined in detail in accordance with different considerations and based on rationales of security and values,' the statement said.
Regarding the additional 530 Palestinian prisoners, the prosecution said that 'the list of these prisoners has not been formed yet and no criteria have been set on this matter.'
ZIP
While I am extremely desirous of Gilad Shalit's release (I have been praying for it for years) I don't understand the 'wisdom' of exchanging a righteous soldier for terrorists and murderers. And hundreds of them? If someone can explain it to me, I'd be grateful.
So, this vapid and social-climbing couple manage to crash Obama's first state dinner. And now the whole world knows that the US president is pretty easy to access. Terrorists everywhere can make note that all they have to do, is hire a blond and crash a WH event, to get close enough to the leader of the free world. It was bad enough to think we had the weakest and most naive president in the history of our country, now we know his administration is as dopey as Obama. But don't worry, our country is safe. And once they take over health care, our medical records will be as safe as the White House...D'oh!
US President Barack Obama is back in the US after an Asian trip that produced few results.
There were only a few hours left before Air Force One was scheduled to depart for the flight home. US President Barack Obama trip through Asia had already seen him travel 24,000 kilometers, sit through a dozen state banquets, climb the Great Wall of China and shake hands with Korean children. It was high time to take stock of the trip.
The mood in Obama's foreign policy team is tense following an extended Asia trip that produced no palpable results. The "first Pacific president," as Obama called himself, came as a friend and returned as a stranger. The Asians smiled but made no concessions.
Lost Some Stature
Upon taking office, Obama said that he wanted to listen to the world, promising respect instead of arrogance. But Obama's currency isn't as strong as he had believed. Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the world of realpolitik. The Asia trip revealed the limits of Washington's new foreign policy: Although Obama did not lose face in China and Japan, he did appear to have lost some of his initial stature.
In Tokyo, the new center-left government even pulled out of its participation in a mission which saw the Japanese navy refueling US warships in the Indian Ocean as part of the Afghanistan campaign. In Beijing, Obama failed to achieve any important concessions whatsoever. There will be no binding commitments from China to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A revaluation of the Chinese currency, which is kept artificially weak, has been postponed. Sanctions against Iran? Not a chance. Nuclear disarmament? Not an issue for the Chinese.
The White House did not even stand up for itself when it came to the question of human rights in China. The president, who had said only a few days earlier that freedom of expression is a universal right, was coerced into attending a joint press conference with Chinese President Hu Jintao, at which questions were forbidden. Former US President George W. Bush had always managed to avoid such press conferences.
Relatively Unsuccessful
A look back in time reveals the differences. When former President Bill Clinton went to China in June 1998, Beijing wanted to impress the Americans. A press conference in the Great Hall of the People, broadcast on television as a 70-minute live discussion, became a sensation the world over. Clinton mentioned the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, when the government used tanks against protestors. But then President Jiang Zemin defended the tough approach taken by the Chinese Communists. At the end of the exchange, the Chinese president praised the debate and said: "I believe this is democracy!"
Obama visited a new China, an economic power that is now making its own demands. America should clean up its government finances, and the weak dollar is unacceptable, the head of the Chinese banking authority said, just as Obama's plane was about to land.
Obama's new foreign policy has also been relatively unsuccessful elsewhere, with even friends like Israel leaving him high and dry. For the government of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, peace is only conceivable under its terms. Netanyahu has rejected Obama's call for a complete moratorium on the construction of settlements. As a result, Obama has nothing to offer the Palestinians and the Syrians. "We thought we had some leverage," says Martin Indyk, a former ambassador to Israel under the Clinton administration and now an advisor to Obama. "But that proved to be an illusion."
Even the president seems to have lost his faith in a genial foreign policy. The approach that was being used in Afghanistan this spring, with its strong emphasis on civilian reconstruction, is already being changed. "We're searching for an exit strategy," said a staff member with the National Security Council on the sidelines of the Asia trip.
'A Lot Like Jimmy Carter'
An end to diplomacy is also taking shape in Washington's policy toward Tehran. It is now up to Iran, Obama said, to convince the world that its nuclear power is peaceful. While in Asia, Obama mentioned "consequences" unless it followed his advice. This puts the president, in his tenth month in office, where Bush began -- with threats. "Time is running out," Obama said in Korea. It was the same phrase Bush used against former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, shortly before he sent in the bombers.
There are many indications that the man in charge at the White House will take a tougher stance in the future. Obama's advisors fear a comparison with former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, even more than with Bush. Prominent Republicans have already tried to liken Obama to the humanitarian from Georgia, who lost in his bid to win a second term, because voters felt that he was too soft. "Carter tried weakness and the world got tougher and tougher because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators, when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead," Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker in the House of Representatives, recently said. And then he added: "This does look a lot like Jimmy Carter."
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
Updated November 24, 2009
Top Republican Lawmakers Not Invited to Obama's First State Dinner, FOXNews.com
Among others, the president didn't invite his 2008 campaign rival, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, even though Obama the candidate pledged a post-partisan presidency.
Workers build the floor to a tent on the South Lawn of the White House for Obama's first state dinner. (Reuters)
While the White House is mum about who will be among the 300 or so lucky invitees to President Obama's first state dinner Tuesday night, word is already leaking out about who's not on the A-list, The Washington Times reports.
Chief among the non-attendees: top Republican lawmakers.
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner won't be there; he's on Thanksgiving break and home in Ohio. His deputy, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, also didn't get an invitation to the dinner.
The president didn't invite his 2008 rival, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, even though Obama the candidate pledged a post-partisan presidency.
Most senators will be back in their home states during the holiday break, and few Republicans want to return to Washington for a party packed with Democrats. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell received an invitation but decided to skip the dinner.
Some top Democrats also found themselves out of the loop. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who turned out to be a pivotal player in Saturday's health care vote, didn't rate an invitation. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana, who wrote the first draft of the bill, also didn't get the vaunted engraved invitation to the black-tie dinner.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat turned independent who will be crucial to the fate of health care reform, won't be attending the dinner. He prefers to stay in Connecticut.
(And don't bore me with, "Well, some Republicans were invited!" It is true however, it seems disingenuous since Obama has REFUSED to meet with anyone from the GOP since APRIL, regarding health care. With Obama, it is purely, "to meet with me, you must agree with me completely." He has treated Republicans with disdain since he took office. Tell me, is there a single promise Obama made, that he has kept? Because he certainly hasn't kept his promise of bi-partisan leadership.)
Charles Krauthammer - Nov 20, 2009
Townhall
The White House's forthcoming state dinner with the Prime Minister of India is expected to be larger than those of President Barack Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush. But another upcoming White House event will be smaller than in years past: The White House's annual Hanukkah party.
The guest list is expected to be shrunk by more than half, according to the Jerusalem Post. "Though several Jewish leaders expressed understanding for the economic and other reasons behind the cut, they acknowledged that it would likely help feed feelings in some quarters of the American Jewish community that the White House is giving them the cold shoulder."
The move comes on the heels of Obama's cancellation of an appearance before the General Assembly of North American Jewish Federations last week.
The White House's decision is likely a response to tough economic times and a desire to keep the holiday festivities reasonable.~Uh really? Funny, Obama didn't mind spending the big bucks on the GIANT Ramadan Dinner Celebration he threw. And what kind of self-loathing Jews are Axelrod and Rahm(adan) Emanuel, anyway? I hate those creeps and I am growing more and more impatient with American Jews who are still making excuses for Obama.
Posted by: James Pethokoukis
Guess what? It turns out the Chinese are kind of curious about how President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plans would impact America’s huge fiscal deficit. Government officials are using his Asian trip as an opportunity to ask the White House questions. Detailed questions.
Boilerplate assurances that America won’t default on its debt or inflate the shortfall away are apparently not cutting it. Nor should they, when one owns nearly $2 trillion in assets denominated in the currency of a country about to double its national debt over the next decade.
Nothing happening in Washington today should give Beijing any comfort or confidence about what may happen tomorrow. Healthcare reform was originally promoted as a way to “bend the curve” on escalating entitlement costs, the major part of which is financing Medicare and Medicaid. That is looking more and more like an overpromised deliverable.
FOXNews.com
In the face of a 10.2 percent unemployment rate -- the highest since 1983 -- President Obama on Thursday announced plans for a jobs summit in December. (Well, that should really do it!)
Thursday: Before departing for Asia, President Obama announced a jobs summit in December. (AP Photo)
President Obama took time Thursday -- before jetting off to Asia for a 10-day tour -- to announce a December jobs summit aimed at synching job growth with the massive government spending meant to "break the back" of the recession.
The announcement came as the Labor Department reported another 502,000 new jobless claims, two high-tech mainstays announced big layoffs and the unemployment rate reached 10.2 percent.
Obama said the White House forum will gather CEOs, small business owners, economists, financial experts and representatives from labor unions and nonprofit groups "to talk about how we can work together to create jobs and get this economy moving again." Maybe he can take a page out of the Reagan rule book; Reagan managed to get us out of worse unemployment and higher inflation, than Obama inherited. But that would necessitate having a president that really does care about getting Americans working. It should be clear to everyone, by now, that Obama is more comitted to socializing the economy than saving it.
And so it goes, Obama has time for Copenhagen, and weekends at Camp David and playing golf every weekend. What he doesn't have time for is visiting the wounded at Fort Hood, honoring the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, or making a timely desicion about Afghanistan, while our soldiers are there, being shot at. He certainly is a change for America. Not since Jimmy Carter, have we had such a selfish and weak president.
on a tip from my newly-single friend, Eric
We criticized Barack Obama when he bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia. Americans do not bow to royalty. When the royal is the ruling tyrant of a despotic regime, the wrong is compounded. Obama's bowing to the King was deeply offensive.
When the story emerged from the shadows of the Internet, Ben Smith ran an item on Politico with the White House denying the bow. "It wasn't a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he's taller than King Abdullah," said an Obama aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Bill O'Reilly ran a bemused segment on it once the White House denied what Obama had done.
A reporter asked Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs about the bow. Under his own name and on the record, Gibbs denied what any fool could see. Indeed, one astute observer commented on CNN that "Ray Charles could see that he bowed."
Obama has now done it again. Andrew Malcolm asks (and reports): "How low will he go? Obama gives Japan's Emperor Akihito a wow bow."
Obama's breach of protocol is of a piece with the substance of his foreign policy. He means to teach Americans to bow before monarchs and tyrants. He embodies the ideological multiculturalism that sets the United States on the same plane as other regimes based on tribal privilege and royal bloodlines. He gives expressive form to the idea that the United States now willingly prostrates itself before the rest of the world. He declares that the United States is a country like any other, only worse, because we have so much for which to apologize.
This makes me sick. I mean, really, when I saw it, I felt like throwing up. He can't be bothered to put his hand over his heart for his own country but he just loves to bow to foreign monarchs?
UPDATE!!!
His narcissism in nauseating.....
Via GWP
In attendance: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and German President Horst Koehler
Instead of being there, the world got this from the leader of the country that was responsible for bringing down the wall..
Celebrating VEE Day – 20 Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall Democrats Build New Socialist State
Jules Crittenden coins it VEE Day – Victory in Eastern Europe Day.
20 years ago today the Berlin Wall came down and Germany was reunited.
Libertas dug up this remarkable video on this historic event:
But, today the Western World again faces grave threats on its freedom. This time many of these dangerous forces come from within.
In America cap and trade legislation, socialized health care, record deficits, record unemployment, government takeover of banks and car companies, record spending, a collapsing economy, a democrat-media complex, anti-American forces in education and Hollywood…
There are a number of threats facing America today.
Melanie Phillips added this today, “We were fools to believe that the fall of the Berlin Wall killed off the far left.”
The end of the Cold War even led some to proclaim that this was ‘the end of history’ – which was to say that liberal democracy was now the dominant and unchallengeable force in the world.
However, the 9/11 attacks on America tragically proved this to be absurdly over-optimistic. The eruption of radical Islamism revealed that, while the West may have been rid of one enemy in the Soviet Union, another deadly foe had risen to take its place. So much is, sadly, all too evident.
But what is perhaps less obvious is that communism did not just vanish in a puff of historical smoke. The Soviet Union was defeated and fell apart, for sure. But the communist ideology that fuelled it did not so much disintegrate as reconstitute itself into another, even more deadly form as the active enemy of western freedom.
Subversive
Soviet Communism was a belief system whose goal was to overturn the structures of society through the control of economic and political life. This mutated into a post-communist ideology of the Left, whose no-less ambitious aim was to overturn western society through a subversive transformation of its culture.To grasp the extent to which this has in fact taken place, we have to go back in time to well before the moment the Berlin Wall fell. The collapse of communism was actually a slow-burning process. Its moral and political bankruptcy became obvious decades before that glorious Berlin day in November 1989.
For many communist fellow travellers, the scales fell from their eyes when the Hungarian uprising was crushed in 1956. Others, over the years, lost faith not just in communism but in its less radical sister, socialism, as their core tenet of ‘equality’ proved itself in a myriad different ways to be the enemy of freedom and justice, with market forces appearing to carry the torch of liberty instead.
But as communism slowly crumbled, those on the far-Left who remained hostile towards western civilisation found another way to realise their goal of bringing it down.
This was what might be called ‘cultural Marxism’. It was based on the understanding that what holds a society together are the pillars of its culture: the structures and institutions of education, family, law, media and religion. Transform the principles that these embody and you can thus destroy the society they have shaped.
The Berlin Wall may be gone but socialism lives on.
So as we celebrate today… Is it just coincidence that President Barack Obama will not be in Berlin today?
I miss having the type of president who does noble things without needing a camera present. And I miss having the type of First Lady who uses her presence to give comfort instead of admonish and berate. The Bushes are not perfect but they personify some of the best traits a person could have. They (quite unlike our current Fist Couple) are compassionate and humble people who know how to give of themselves. *sigh*
Nov 7, 2009 8:03 am US/Central
George W. Bush Visits Fort Hood, Wounded Soldiers
FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) ― Former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, visited wounded soldiers and their families near the site of the worst mass shooting on an Army post in the United States.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
Chairman Zero wasn't watching election returns last night. There was something much more important on his mind, watching the fawning, HBO Documentary about himself that would have made Leni Riefenstahl say, "Don't you think this might be a bit much?"
At first he was concerned that the documentary seemed to portray him as hiding a nefarious agenda behind promises of global peace and universal health care ... then, someone pointed out that he was watching the premier of V and helped him change the channel.
Also, Breitbart has uncovered 11 new videos of schoolchildren being forced to sing songs of praise to Chairman Zero. Sure, nothing creepy or North Koreaish about that. No, sir...
WASHINGTON – Independents who swept Barack Obama to a historic 2008 victory broke big for Republicans on Tuesday as the GOP wrested political control from Democrats in Virginia and New Jersey, a troubling sign for the president and his party heading into an important midterm election year.
Conservative Republican Bob McDonnell's victory in the Virginia governor's race over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds and moderate Republican Chris Christie's ouster of unpopular New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine was a double-barreled triumph for a party looking to rebuild after being booted from power in national elections in 2006 and 2008.
The outcomes were sure to feed discussion about the state of the electorate, the status of the diverse coalition that sent Obama to the White House and the limits of the president's influence — on the party's base of support and on moderate current lawmakers he needs to advance his legislative priorities.
His signature issue of health care reform was dealt a blow hours before polls closed when Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid signaled that Congress may not complete health care legislation this year, missing Obama's deadline and pushing debate into a congressional election year.
Elsewhere on Tuesday, Maine voters weighed in on same-sex marriage in a closely watched initiative, and New York and California picked congressmen for two vacant seats. A slew of cities selected mayors, and Ohio voted on allowing casinos.
The president had personally campaigned for Deeds and Corzine, seeking to ensure that independents and base voters alike turned out even if he wasn't on the ballot. Thus, the losses were blots on Obama's political standing to a certain degree and suggested potential problems ahead as he seeks to achieve his policy goals, protect Democratic majorities in Congress and expand his party's grip on governors' seats next fall.
Democrats were supposed to bring, among other things, a new work ethic to Washington after they took over in 2006. As most things Dem, it was a pure sham:
After taking control of the House in 2006, Democrats said lawmakers would work four or five days a week to bring change to America. But the Politico's Jake Sherman reports on October 7, 2009 that midway through President Obama's first year in office, the House, "has settled into a more leisurely routine. Members usually arrive for the first vote of the week as the sun sets on Tuesdays — and they're usually headed back home before it goes down again on Thursdays."
Some aren't really upset at this latest Democrat breach of trust with the American people.
Missouri Republican Congressman Roy Blunt looks on the bright side: "Two and a half days a week is plenty of time to consider the ideas coming out of this Democrat-led House. Imagine the damage they could do with five-day workweeks."
Anything, anything at all, to keep the Wicked Witch of the West away from the gavel.
How absolutely pathetic. What legacy he's defending I have no idea, maybe the "worst president in history?".....
(Politico) – President Barack Obama has been in office just nine months and already he is defending his legacy, pushing back more aggressively against criticism of his record on health care, climate change, closing Guantanamo, reforming immigration laws and financial regulations and managing the war in Afghanistan.
For the past two weeks, as he’s jetted across the country to fill Democrats’ 2010 coffers, Obama has been test driving a new speech that sounds a lot like one he’d be giving if he were on the ballot next year: A line-item defense of his record so far, and a sober reminder to supporters of the against-the-odds campaign slog that eventually swept him into office.
ZIP
FOXNews.com
Sunday, October 25, 2009
President Obama signed a proclamation declaring the H1N1 influenza a national emergency, giving doctors and medical facilities greater leeway in responding to the flu pandemic.
Obama signed the declaration late Friday, which the White House said allows medical treatment facilities to better handle a surge in flu patients by waiving federal requirements on a case-by-case basis.
"The foundation of our national approach to the H1N1 flu has been preparedness at all levels -- personal, business, and government -- and this proclamation helps that effort by advancing our overall response capability," the White House said in a statement.
In the proclamation, Obama said the pandemic keeps evolving, the rates of illness are rising rapidly in many areas and there's a potential "to overburden health care resources."
(In a related new story; the Obama's refuse to have their daughters get the H1N1 vaccine. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, people. Nothing to see here...)
Tuesday, October 20, 2009, 6:28 PMJim HoftChicago-Style Politics Strikes Again–
First it was insurance companies, then doctors, then FOX News and now the Obama Administration is attacking the US Chamber of Commerce, the world’s largest business federation representing 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions. The purpose of the Chamber of Commerce is to fight for free enterprise. That is why they opposed cap-&-tax and the democrats’s nationalized health care plans.
No wonder the Obama Administration hates them.Tonight Charles Krauthammer responded to Obama’s “gutter-style Chicago politics”:
Via the Hope For AmericaThe US Chamber of Commerce spent $35 million in the 2008 campaign.
There are reports that the Chamber could spend $70-100 million in the 2010 campaign.
Let’s hope so. The anti-capitalist radicals in the White House have done nothing to help American small businesses since they moved in.
hat tip pianogirlfrom Gun Owners of America
Springfield, VA
Friday, October 9, 2009President Obama, left, appears at a town-hall meeting on health insurance in Grand Junction, Colo. William Kostric, right, carries a 9-mm pistol as he stands outside an earlier town-hall meeting held by Obama in Portsmouth, N.H. From left: Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty; Joel Page / APSenate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has something to say to gun owners: “Own a gun; lose your coverage!”
Baucus’ socialized health care bill comes up for a Finance Committee vote on Tuesday. We have waited and waited and waited for the shifty Baucus to release legislative language. But he has refused to release anything but a summary — and we will never have a Congressional Budget Office cost assessment based on actual legislation. Even the summary was kept secret for a long time.
But, on the basis of the summary, the Baucus bill (which is still unnumbered) tells us virtually nothing about what kind of policy Americans will be required to purchase under penalty of law — nor the consequences. It simply says:
* “all U.S. citizens and legal residents would be required to purchase coverage through (1) the individual market…”;
* “individuals would be required to report on their federal income tax return the months for which they maintain the required minimum health coverage…”;
* in addition to an extensive list of statutorily mandated coverage, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius would be empowered to “define and update the categories of treatments, items, and services…” within an insurance plan which would be covered in a policy constituting “required minimum health coverage.”
ObamaCare and gun control
It is nearly certain that coverage prescribed by the administration will, to control costs, exclude coverage for what it regards as excessively dangerous activities. And, given Sebelius’ well-established antipathy to the Second Amendment — she vetoed concealed carry legislation as governor of Kansas — we presume she will define these dangerous activities to include hunting and self-defense using a firearm. It is even possible that the Obama-prescribed policy could preclude reimbursement of any kind in a household which keeps a loaded firearm for self-defense.
The ObamaCare bill already contains language that will punish Americans who engage in unhealthy behavior by allowing insurers to charge them higher insurance premiums. (What constitutes an unhealthy lifestyle is, of course, to be defined by legislators.) Don’t be surprised if an anti-gun nut like Sebelius uses this line of thinking to impose ObamaCare policies which result in a back-door gun ban on any American who owns “dangerous” firearms.
After all, insurers already (and routinely) drop homeowners from their policies for owning certain types of guns or for refusing to use trigger locks (that is, for keeping their guns ready for self-defense!). While not all insurers practice this anti-gun behavior, Gun Owners of America has documented that some do — Prudential and State Farm being two of the most well-known.
Continues here.
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