I don't know that the "let grandma die" healthcare rationing bill can be stopped as the Democrats are salivating in their power, short-lived though it may be. But, if it can be stopped, here's how it will be done.
From Human Events:
Ten New Reasons Why Obamacare Can Still Be Killed
by Phyllis Schlafly
"New reasons emerge almost daily as to why Obamacare can and must be defeated.
1. The American people oppose Obamacare by almost 2 to 1 in the latest CNN poll. Other polls show lopsided opposition to passing either the Senate or House health-care bill.
Public opinion is against the bill because of its obscene costs in higher taxes, burdensome debt, anti-freedom mandates, rationing, and reduced care for seniors. The American people have awakened to the fact that Obamacare is transformational legislation that will drag us against popular will into European-style Socialism.
2. The Democrats' double-counting of Obamacare's financial benefits has been exposed as a colossal lie. Harry Reid told the Senate that his bill strengthens our future by both 'cutting our towering national deficit by as much as $1.3 trillion over the next 20 years' AND 'strengthening Medicare and extending its life by nearly a decade.'
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) refuted that assertion. CBO said the claim that Obamacare would provide these benefits simultaneously 'would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government's fiscal position.'
3. Obamacare is unconstitutional because of its mandate that all individuals must carry 'approved' health insurance, and all businesses must give health insurance to their employees whether or not the company can afford it. 'Universal' coverage will be enforced by the Internal Revenue Service with power to punish those who don't have such a plan.
Constitutional lawyers point out that the Commerce Clause does not give Congress the authority to force Americans to buy health insurance as a condition of living in our country because personal health insurance is not 'commerce.' The CBO wrote that 'a mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action'; the Supreme Court has never upheld any requirement that an individual must participate in economic activity.
4. Since the Senate bill imposes sharp limits on health-insurance companies' ability to raise fees or exclude coverage, it likely will force many of them out of business. Obamacare is unconstitutional because it violates the Bill of Rights protections against takings without just compensation and deprivation of property without due process of law.
5. Other Obamacare provisions blatantly legislate racial and other forms of discrimination. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights sent two letters to the President and congressional leaders warning about the obnoxious requirements for racist and sexist quotas.
The Senate bill requires that 'priority' for federal grants be given to institutions offering 'preferential' admissions to minorities (race, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, and religion). Institutions training social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, behavioral pediatricians, psychiatric nurses, and counselors will be ineligible for federal grants unless they enroll 'individuals and groups from different racial, ethnic, cultural, geographic, religious, linguistic, and class backgrounds, and different genders and sexual orientations.'
6. Obama's claim that 'everybody' will now be covered creates few winners but lots of losers. Universal health insurance will be achieved by forcing young people to pay the additional costs (insurance for the youngest third of the population would rise by 35 percent), and by restricting and rationing care for the elderly.
7. According to Robert Samuelson in the Washington Post, the 'wild card is immigration.' From 1999 to 2008, 60 percent of the increase in the uninsured occurred among Hispanics, and Obama's refusal to close our borders will make this problem more costly every year.
8. Obamacare gives Medicare bureaucrats the power to ration health care by forcing doctors to prescribe cheaper medical devices and drugs. In the recent case of Hays v. Sebelius, the court ruled that Medicare doesn't have the right to make this rule, but Obamacare takes jurisdiction away from the courts to hear any appeal from decisions of the new Medicare Commission.
The 'stick' applied to primary-care doctors is imposing financial penalties if they refer too many patients to specialists. The 'carrot' is financial rewards to doctors who give up small practices and consolidate into larger medical groups or become salaried employees of hospitals or other large institutions.
9. The Senate bill contains at least a dozen of what can be described as bribes. Senator Mary Landrieu received a $300 million increase in Medicaid funding for her state (known as the Second Louisiana Purchase), and a $100 million bribe to Senator Ben Nelson gives Nebraska a permanent exemption from the costs of Medicaid expansion.
10. The Senate bill even has a four-page section artfully written to enable ACORN to get federal health-care grants. This section describes grant recipients as 'community and consumer-focused nonprofit groups' having 'existing relationships ... with uninsured and underinsured consumers.'"
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Just Keep Us Safe
Not only is Dick Cheney not going away and he is not shutting up, but more and more Americans are coming to recognize that the Bush Administration's approach to dealing with jihadists was more effective than that of the current administation.
If Americans tune into the news, they are forced to hear about the Dems' methods of dealing with terrorists. But, they are not falling for the liberals' law enforcement approach. In fact, the liberal spin is going in one ear and out the other.
We prefer the Cheney approach. Now to those who are in charge: Get out there and do what it takes to protect the American people. We DON'T CARE if our enemies have to suffer a little. Frankly, we are not losing one moment of sleep worrying about them. Just keep us safe.
Read about the recent findings from Hot Air:
Rasmussen: 58% prefer the Cheney option on EunuchBomber
"I just call it the Cheney Option because it recalls a time when we treated terrorists as unlawful combatants rather than defendants. Apparently, a healthy majority of Americans agree with that approach. Rasmussen surveyed likely voters about how they would like to see Umar Abdulmutallab interrogated, and 58% said bring on the drips:
'Fifty-eight percent (58%) of U.S. voters say waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques should be used to gain information from the terrorist who attempted to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 30% oppose the use of such techniques, and another 12% are not sure.
Men and younger voters are more strongly supportive of the aggressive interrogation techniques than women and those who are older. Republicans and voters not affiliated with either major party favor their use more than Democrats.
Seventy-one percent (71%) of all voters think the attempt by the Nigerian Muslim to blow up the airliner as it landed in Detroit should be investigated by military authorities as a terrorist act. Only 22% say it should be handled by civilian authorities as a criminal act, as is currently the case.'
Let’s look inside the numbers, where the responses get very, very interesting. Rasmussen’s analysis says men are more likely than women to break out the waterboard, but a majority of women (54%) favor its use on Abdulmutallab, too. Older voters may be less likely to approve of its use, but it still wins a plurality among 50-64 year olds (49%) and senior citizens (48%), outstripping opposition by double digits in both cases. Democrats give waterboarding a thin plurality (43/41), while 60% of independents favor its use. A majority of self-described moderates (51%) favor it as well.
So far, the response to using the criminal system is almost uniformly negative, with 71% saying that the military should be handling the issue. Women are more likely than men (75/66) to have that reaction. Among age demographics, the lowest percentage agreeing was 67% among the 50-64 demo. Sixty percent of Democrats want it handled by the military, with only 30% agreeing with the Obama administration. Even 50% of self-described liberals want the military handling Abdulmutallab, not the FBI. Only among the political class does Obama gain majority support, 60/33 in favor of civilian handling of the terrorist.
[...]
What this poll shows is that the American public has awakened once again to the terrorist threat — and that the Obama administration is badly out of step with voters on security issues."
Wow! The majority of Democrats support waterboarding, and they also support the military handling the prosecution of terrorists. Diogenes, you and your radical leftists are so out to lunch on this issue.
If Americans tune into the news, they are forced to hear about the Dems' methods of dealing with terrorists. But, they are not falling for the liberals' law enforcement approach. In fact, the liberal spin is going in one ear and out the other.
We prefer the Cheney approach. Now to those who are in charge: Get out there and do what it takes to protect the American people. We DON'T CARE if our enemies have to suffer a little. Frankly, we are not losing one moment of sleep worrying about them. Just keep us safe.
Read about the recent findings from Hot Air:
Rasmussen: 58% prefer the Cheney option on EunuchBomber
"I just call it the Cheney Option because it recalls a time when we treated terrorists as unlawful combatants rather than defendants. Apparently, a healthy majority of Americans agree with that approach. Rasmussen surveyed likely voters about how they would like to see Umar Abdulmutallab interrogated, and 58% said bring on the drips:
'Fifty-eight percent (58%) of U.S. voters say waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques should be used to gain information from the terrorist who attempted to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 30% oppose the use of such techniques, and another 12% are not sure.
Men and younger voters are more strongly supportive of the aggressive interrogation techniques than women and those who are older. Republicans and voters not affiliated with either major party favor their use more than Democrats.
Seventy-one percent (71%) of all voters think the attempt by the Nigerian Muslim to blow up the airliner as it landed in Detroit should be investigated by military authorities as a terrorist act. Only 22% say it should be handled by civilian authorities as a criminal act, as is currently the case.'
Let’s look inside the numbers, where the responses get very, very interesting. Rasmussen’s analysis says men are more likely than women to break out the waterboard, but a majority of women (54%) favor its use on Abdulmutallab, too. Older voters may be less likely to approve of its use, but it still wins a plurality among 50-64 year olds (49%) and senior citizens (48%), outstripping opposition by double digits in both cases. Democrats give waterboarding a thin plurality (43/41), while 60% of independents favor its use. A majority of self-described moderates (51%) favor it as well.
So far, the response to using the criminal system is almost uniformly negative, with 71% saying that the military should be handling the issue. Women are more likely than men (75/66) to have that reaction. Among age demographics, the lowest percentage agreeing was 67% among the 50-64 demo. Sixty percent of Democrats want it handled by the military, with only 30% agreeing with the Obama administration. Even 50% of self-described liberals want the military handling Abdulmutallab, not the FBI. Only among the political class does Obama gain majority support, 60/33 in favor of civilian handling of the terrorist.
[...]
What this poll shows is that the American public has awakened once again to the terrorist threat — and that the Obama administration is badly out of step with voters on security issues."
Wow! The majority of Democrats support waterboarding, and they also support the military handling the prosecution of terrorists. Diogenes, you and your radical leftists are so out to lunch on this issue.
Jihadists Emboldened
If our leaders, from President Obama to his colleagues on both sides of the aisle, want to keep America safe, they had better begin to educate themselves on the nature of radical Islam. They could start by taking a few tips from Frank Gaffney Jr., via the Center for Security Policy. Of course, they are not likely to do anything so politically incorrect.
In the meantime, a weak president who kowtows to the Muslim world is emboldening our enemies worldwide as attempted terror attacks on our own soil have grown in number since
Jihad 101
By Frank Gaffney, Jr.
"Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano came in for some well-deserved criticism for declaring over the weekend that 'the system worked' with respect to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's effort to blow up the plane he was flying from Amsterdam to Detroit. By Monday, she was backpedalling, acknowledging that 'our system did not work in this instance.'
In truth, for a lot of Americans, Ms. Napolitano has not had much credibility since she tried to ban 'terrorism' from the official lexicon of her department. But arguably the most serious indication that she is wholly ill-equipped to carry out her present responsibilities can be found in another - as yet uncorrected - statement she made on Sunday. She told CNN's 'State of the Union' that, 'Right now, we have no indication [that Abdulmutallab's actions were] part of anything larger.'
Not 'part of anything larger'? Is she serious? Does she take us for fools?
Read my lips, Secretary Napolitano: Abdulmutallab's actions were absolutely, positively part of something larger. What they were part of is the comprehensive theo-political-legal program that authoritative Islam calls Shariah.
This supremacist program requires its adherents to engage in jihad, or holy war, to bring about the triumph of Islam under a global theocracy, one that will impose Shariah on Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Pursuant to Shariah, jihad should - wherever practicable - be pursued through the terrifying use of violence. Where violent jihad is impractical or would be counterproductive, Shariah directs faithful Muslims to use other means to advance the same goal. Koran expert Robert Spencer calls the latter 'stealth jihad.'
The question must be asked: Are we seeing a dramatic increase in violent jihadism in America - National Public Radio reported on Saturday that there had been fourteen attempts in 2009 (compared to two or three in recent years) and that they had been increasingly 'operational' in character, not just 'aspirational' - because violence is now seen to be practicable here?
Specifically, could it be that jihadists have been emboldened by what they see as weakness and/or fecklessness on the part of the U.S. administration? Could steps Team Obama has taken - such as the closure of Guantanamo Bay, the release of some hardened terrorists held there to Yemen (where Abdulmuttalab claims he got his plastic explosive device), granting others access to civilian courts and constitutional rights, etc. - actually be emboldening them to believe that murder and mayhem will accelerate the defeat and conquest of the infidel West?
The U.S. government was warned by Abdulmutallab's father at least two months ago that his son had been 'radicalized' - in other words, that he had embraced Shariah. That being the case, he was transformed from being one of the hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world who are not a problem into one of those who are.
In the wake of the latest, narrowly averted massacre at the hands of jihadists, we are being promised executive branch reviews of the practice that, in the wake of his father's warning, put Abdulmuttalab on the improbably named Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) database - but did not revoke his multiple entry U.S. visa or otherwise keep him from flying. Multiple congressional investigations will be launched, as well.
Such reviews will, however, amount to little more than a waste of time and taxpayer resources - and possibly a serious distraction - if they do not address, and henceforth require screening for, the motivation for such attacks. It is absurd to think that 'the system' is going to do anything other than exponentially increase the amount of discomfort for airline passengers as long as it does not weed out those who embrace as an article of faith their duty to destroy us.
We need to be equally clear about the menace posed by those who adhere to Shariah but profess to seek to 'Islamicize' America through non-violent means. In the wake of the recent actual and averted attacks, the press has, for example, trumpeted the views of parents of five jihadists from Northern Virginia, imams at mosques where they worshipped and prominent fixtures in the various Muslim Brotherhood front organizations. Unsurprisingly, all of them profess shock - shock! - that these young people would want to do as they have been taught to, pursuant to Shariah: namely, follow the way of jihad against the Dar al-Harb (the 'House of War' that is the non-Muslim world).
Nowhere in these disinformation operations is any mention made of the Muslim Brotherhood's self-declared mission in America. According to an internal Brotherhood strategic plan dating from 1991, that mission is: 'A kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions.'
As long as Janet Napolitano, Attorney General Eric Holder, the intelligence community, law enforcement, the military, the media and most especially President Obama refuse to acknowledge what animates our enemies, we will never develop an effective strategy for defeating them, let alone successfully implement it. Part and parcel of achieving such an understanding is to stop allowing the stealth jihadists in our midst to blind us to this reality."
In the meantime, a weak president who kowtows to the Muslim world is emboldening our enemies worldwide as attempted terror attacks on our own soil have grown in number since
Jihad 101
By Frank Gaffney, Jr.
"Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano came in for some well-deserved criticism for declaring over the weekend that 'the system worked' with respect to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's effort to blow up the plane he was flying from Amsterdam to Detroit. By Monday, she was backpedalling, acknowledging that 'our system did not work in this instance.'
In truth, for a lot of Americans, Ms. Napolitano has not had much credibility since she tried to ban 'terrorism' from the official lexicon of her department. But arguably the most serious indication that she is wholly ill-equipped to carry out her present responsibilities can be found in another - as yet uncorrected - statement she made on Sunday. She told CNN's 'State of the Union' that, 'Right now, we have no indication [that Abdulmutallab's actions were] part of anything larger.'
Not 'part of anything larger'? Is she serious? Does she take us for fools?
Read my lips, Secretary Napolitano: Abdulmutallab's actions were absolutely, positively part of something larger. What they were part of is the comprehensive theo-political-legal program that authoritative Islam calls Shariah.
This supremacist program requires its adherents to engage in jihad, or holy war, to bring about the triumph of Islam under a global theocracy, one that will impose Shariah on Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Pursuant to Shariah, jihad should - wherever practicable - be pursued through the terrifying use of violence. Where violent jihad is impractical or would be counterproductive, Shariah directs faithful Muslims to use other means to advance the same goal. Koran expert Robert Spencer calls the latter 'stealth jihad.'
The question must be asked: Are we seeing a dramatic increase in violent jihadism in America - National Public Radio reported on Saturday that there had been fourteen attempts in 2009 (compared to two or three in recent years) and that they had been increasingly 'operational' in character, not just 'aspirational' - because violence is now seen to be practicable here?
Specifically, could it be that jihadists have been emboldened by what they see as weakness and/or fecklessness on the part of the U.S. administration? Could steps Team Obama has taken - such as the closure of Guantanamo Bay, the release of some hardened terrorists held there to Yemen (where Abdulmuttalab claims he got his plastic explosive device), granting others access to civilian courts and constitutional rights, etc. - actually be emboldening them to believe that murder and mayhem will accelerate the defeat and conquest of the infidel West?
The U.S. government was warned by Abdulmutallab's father at least two months ago that his son had been 'radicalized' - in other words, that he had embraced Shariah. That being the case, he was transformed from being one of the hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world who are not a problem into one of those who are.
In the wake of the latest, narrowly averted massacre at the hands of jihadists, we are being promised executive branch reviews of the practice that, in the wake of his father's warning, put Abdulmuttalab on the improbably named Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) database - but did not revoke his multiple entry U.S. visa or otherwise keep him from flying. Multiple congressional investigations will be launched, as well.
Such reviews will, however, amount to little more than a waste of time and taxpayer resources - and possibly a serious distraction - if they do not address, and henceforth require screening for, the motivation for such attacks. It is absurd to think that 'the system' is going to do anything other than exponentially increase the amount of discomfort for airline passengers as long as it does not weed out those who embrace as an article of faith their duty to destroy us.
We need to be equally clear about the menace posed by those who adhere to Shariah but profess to seek to 'Islamicize' America through non-violent means. In the wake of the recent actual and averted attacks, the press has, for example, trumpeted the views of parents of five jihadists from Northern Virginia, imams at mosques where they worshipped and prominent fixtures in the various Muslim Brotherhood front organizations. Unsurprisingly, all of them profess shock - shock! - that these young people would want to do as they have been taught to, pursuant to Shariah: namely, follow the way of jihad against the Dar al-Harb (the 'House of War' that is the non-Muslim world).
Nowhere in these disinformation operations is any mention made of the Muslim Brotherhood's self-declared mission in America. According to an internal Brotherhood strategic plan dating from 1991, that mission is: 'A kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions.'
As long as Janet Napolitano, Attorney General Eric Holder, the intelligence community, law enforcement, the military, the media and most especially President Obama refuse to acknowledge what animates our enemies, we will never develop an effective strategy for defeating them, let alone successfully implement it. Part and parcel of achieving such an understanding is to stop allowing the stealth jihadists in our midst to blind us to this reality."
"A Dismal Failure"
A summmary of 2009 in an Obama nation, via Red State:
What a Difference a Year Makes
"Just a year into the Obama Administration, things look very different than candidate Obama said they would last November. Both in domestic and international affairs, the first year of Obama’s presidency must by any objective standard be judged a dismal failure. His victories have largely been small and partisan, while his defeats have been large and bipartisan. Obama has been ridiculed even in his moments of triumph, and he closes the year with the dubious distinction of becoming the most polarizing president in history, in the shortest amount of time ever.
On January 20, 2009, the new president’s approval rating stood at 68 percent in the Gallup poll. Obama started his presidency with the highest approval number in the poll of any president since John F. Kennedy in 1961. Only twelve percent said they disapproved of his job performance, a low bested only by George H.W. Bush in 1989 and one point lower than the 13 percent who disapproved of Ronald Reagan at the start of his first term in 1981. Obama began on a high.
The new president chose to spend that political capital on rolling back several of George W. Bush’s administration’s programs. He rescinded the prohibition on funding for abortions overseas, he announced the planned closure of the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and he ordered a halt to military commissions for terrorist suspects imprisoned there.
Domestically, he made passage of an economic stimulus package his first top priority. With dire warnings of economic collapse and unemployment climbing to over eight percent, President Obama endorsed the eventual $787 billion package rammed through Congress with only three liberal Republican Senators in support.
Despite passage of the so-called stimulus – and some economists argue because of it – unemployment has risen to ten percent and shows scant evidence of coming back down soon. Democrats are now considering a second round of stimulus modeled on the unsuccessful first round while the White House makes the Orwellian claim that it has rescued the economy from the brink of depression.
The public is not amused. A solid majority of 53 percent, the same number that voted for him a year earlier, recently told Gallup they are dissatisfied with Obama’s handling of the economy. Fifty-five percent disapprove of his job creation efforts. That the stimulus has been a failure is evidenced by the fact that the administration recently announced that Obama would make a 'hard pivot' to job creation in January.
On foreign policy, the Obama Administration’s first year efforts have met with little more success. The president whose name merely placed in nomination was supposed to stop the rise of the oceans due to global warming wasn’t able to get the world to do more than 'take notice' of a very weak tea agreement on carbon emissions in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Copenhagen in particular was not good to Obama in his first year. Obama winged his way there in September to seal his hometown Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 summer games. The delegates listened politely, took pictures, sought autographs, and promptly eliminated Chicago in the first round of balloting. It was a public relations disaster for the president who promised to make the world love America again.
Obama spent the year jetting from capital to capital across the globe apologizing for his country; literally bowing and scraping before royalty and world leaders. He capitulated to Russia on missile defense, and to Iran on nuclear weapons. He ended the war on terror, and announced the coming end of the war in Afghanistan. He refused to support a nascent revolution in Iran, and tried to foment one in Honduras. He gave in to the world, and the world gave to him, awarding Obama the Nobel Peace Prize in October.
But the award was met with derision here and abroad, with most serious commentators calling it premature at best. Even Obama himself was forced to admit that he did not deserve the award, but accepted it anyway as a 'call to action.' But that phrase remains a hollow one, as Obama has shown precious little ability to call the world to action on any issue in his first year. By the time he was awarded the prize in Oslo earlier this month, only nineteen percent of Americans were willing to say that he deserved it.
Back on the domestic front, Obama closed the year with a mad dash for health care legislation. His first major push for health care nationalization ended in a conflagration of voter anger and town hall protests in August. But the House passed a bill in November and the Senate rushed another version through this month, giving its bill final approval on Christmas Eve. Americans, however, are soundly rejecting the gift, with fifty-five percent telling Rasmussen they disapprove of the plan.
All of this has led to a record first year collapse in Obama’s presidential approval rating. The year that began with so much hope, optimism, and expectation ends with roughly half of Americans disapproving of his performance. His 47 percent approval in the latest Gallup poll was the lowest rating achieved by a first-year president in the history of the poll. The White House response was to criticize the poll, calling the most respected and longest running presidential approval survey, 'meaningless.'
Candidate Barack Obama was a hope salesman in 2008. And he did his job well, convincing 53% of the country that his mere presence in the White House alone would usher in a new way of doing business in Washington, a new reality in world affairs, and a brighter future for the United States and the world.
Perhaps he oversold."
What a Difference a Year Makes
"Just a year into the Obama Administration, things look very different than candidate Obama said they would last November. Both in domestic and international affairs, the first year of Obama’s presidency must by any objective standard be judged a dismal failure. His victories have largely been small and partisan, while his defeats have been large and bipartisan. Obama has been ridiculed even in his moments of triumph, and he closes the year with the dubious distinction of becoming the most polarizing president in history, in the shortest amount of time ever.
On January 20, 2009, the new president’s approval rating stood at 68 percent in the Gallup poll. Obama started his presidency with the highest approval number in the poll of any president since John F. Kennedy in 1961. Only twelve percent said they disapproved of his job performance, a low bested only by George H.W. Bush in 1989 and one point lower than the 13 percent who disapproved of Ronald Reagan at the start of his first term in 1981. Obama began on a high.
The new president chose to spend that political capital on rolling back several of George W. Bush’s administration’s programs. He rescinded the prohibition on funding for abortions overseas, he announced the planned closure of the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and he ordered a halt to military commissions for terrorist suspects imprisoned there.
Domestically, he made passage of an economic stimulus package his first top priority. With dire warnings of economic collapse and unemployment climbing to over eight percent, President Obama endorsed the eventual $787 billion package rammed through Congress with only three liberal Republican Senators in support.
Despite passage of the so-called stimulus – and some economists argue because of it – unemployment has risen to ten percent and shows scant evidence of coming back down soon. Democrats are now considering a second round of stimulus modeled on the unsuccessful first round while the White House makes the Orwellian claim that it has rescued the economy from the brink of depression.
The public is not amused. A solid majority of 53 percent, the same number that voted for him a year earlier, recently told Gallup they are dissatisfied with Obama’s handling of the economy. Fifty-five percent disapprove of his job creation efforts. That the stimulus has been a failure is evidenced by the fact that the administration recently announced that Obama would make a 'hard pivot' to job creation in January.
On foreign policy, the Obama Administration’s first year efforts have met with little more success. The president whose name merely placed in nomination was supposed to stop the rise of the oceans due to global warming wasn’t able to get the world to do more than 'take notice' of a very weak tea agreement on carbon emissions in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Copenhagen in particular was not good to Obama in his first year. Obama winged his way there in September to seal his hometown Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 summer games. The delegates listened politely, took pictures, sought autographs, and promptly eliminated Chicago in the first round of balloting. It was a public relations disaster for the president who promised to make the world love America again.
Obama spent the year jetting from capital to capital across the globe apologizing for his country; literally bowing and scraping before royalty and world leaders. He capitulated to Russia on missile defense, and to Iran on nuclear weapons. He ended the war on terror, and announced the coming end of the war in Afghanistan. He refused to support a nascent revolution in Iran, and tried to foment one in Honduras. He gave in to the world, and the world gave to him, awarding Obama the Nobel Peace Prize in October.
But the award was met with derision here and abroad, with most serious commentators calling it premature at best. Even Obama himself was forced to admit that he did not deserve the award, but accepted it anyway as a 'call to action.' But that phrase remains a hollow one, as Obama has shown precious little ability to call the world to action on any issue in his first year. By the time he was awarded the prize in Oslo earlier this month, only nineteen percent of Americans were willing to say that he deserved it.
Back on the domestic front, Obama closed the year with a mad dash for health care legislation. His first major push for health care nationalization ended in a conflagration of voter anger and town hall protests in August. But the House passed a bill in November and the Senate rushed another version through this month, giving its bill final approval on Christmas Eve. Americans, however, are soundly rejecting the gift, with fifty-five percent telling Rasmussen they disapprove of the plan.
All of this has led to a record first year collapse in Obama’s presidential approval rating. The year that began with so much hope, optimism, and expectation ends with roughly half of Americans disapproving of his performance. His 47 percent approval in the latest Gallup poll was the lowest rating achieved by a first-year president in the history of the poll. The White House response was to criticize the poll, calling the most respected and longest running presidential approval survey, 'meaningless.'
Candidate Barack Obama was a hope salesman in 2008. And he did his job well, convincing 53% of the country that his mere presence in the White House alone would usher in a new way of doing business in Washington, a new reality in world affairs, and a brighter future for the United States and the world.
Perhaps he oversold."
The Change from January to December
What a difference a year makes! Last December, Obama was hailed as the coming savior. I remember Christmas shopping last year and seeing his mug on all kinds of merchandise; it was enough to make a conservative gag.
Now, after eleven months of all that "hope and change", the president's favorable ratings are in the toilet. Here's to you, Mr. President, via the Patriot Room:
Obama's 2009 polls end badly
"There's not much massaging of data available to make these numbers look good:
Presidential Approval Index
12/31/2009 -18
01/21/2009 +28
Movement -46
Strongly Approve
12/31/2009 24%
01/21/2009 44%
Movement -20%
Strongly Disapprove
12/31/2009 42%
01/21/2009 16%
Movement 26%
Total Approve
12/31/2009 46%
01/21/2009 65%
Movement -19%
Total Disapprove
12/31/2009 53%
01/21/2009 30%
Movement 23%
The overall numbers went from +25% to -7%. That's an epic fail by any measure. And this measure is 'likely voters.' And this is an election year."
Now, after eleven months of all that "hope and change", the president's favorable ratings are in the toilet. Here's to you, Mr. President, via the Patriot Room:
Obama's 2009 polls end badly
"There's not much massaging of data available to make these numbers look good:
Presidential Approval Index
12/31/2009 -18
01/21/2009 +28
Movement -46
Strongly Approve
12/31/2009 24%
01/21/2009 44%
Movement -20%
Strongly Disapprove
12/31/2009 42%
01/21/2009 16%
Movement 26%
Total Approve
12/31/2009 46%
01/21/2009 65%
Movement -19%
Total Disapprove
12/31/2009 53%
01/21/2009 30%
Movement 23%
The overall numbers went from +25% to -7%. That's an epic fail by any measure. And this measure is 'likely voters.' And this is an election year."
Rush Limbaugh Hospitalized
Please pray for Rush Limbaugh, a voice for truth and conservatism in a dark nation. While vacationing in Hawaii, he was rushed to the hospital with chest pains, and the liberals are ecstatic over his health problems.
The depth of their depravity can be witnessed here, via Gateway Pundit:
Liberal Glee on Display Over Limbaugh Hospitalization
"Here are a few of the Twitter comments by users that I saw in the 15 minutes or so that I perused the site:
@kenneth212 Rush Limbaugh was rushed to the hospital in Honolulu. Maybe Santa did get my letter.
@MelechT Rush Limbaugh was rushed to the Hospital. Just when I thought Christmas was over…
@tontocorazon RT @Pumpy_Beanis DIE RUSH LIMBAUGH YOU F***ING PIG MAN JUST F***ING DIE
@phontigallo: I was scared of another death this year til I heard Rush Limbaugh was in the hospital. Come on 2009; don’t fail me now
@amazingatheist: Ruch Limbaugh hospitalized with chest pains. Let’s all hope he dies.
@heartfeltrobot YES VIRGINIA, THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS! RT @cnnbrk Radio host Rush Limbaugh was rushed to a Honolulu hospital with chest pains.
@Teevho Rush Limbaugh in serious condition in the hospital? Oh happy day! Are they sure he didn’t just ingest too much hillbilly heroin?
@bbb1962 RT @MelechT: Rush Limbaugh was rushed to the Hospital. Just when I thought Christmas was over… #divinejustice #kanyeshrug *Lmfao!*
@DoodlebugFtDOR LOL..RT @phontigallo: I was scared of another death this year til I heard Rush Limbaugh was in the hospital. Come on 2009; don’t fail me now
@Yves_V So Rush Limbaugh in the hospital? If he dies, 2009 won’t be so bad after all #JustSayin
@twofacedmonster So sad…cough. RT @cnnbrk: Radio host Rush Limbaugh was rushed to a Honolulu hospital with chest pains
@danjohnny5 RT @phontigallo: I was scared of another death this year til I heard Rush Limbaugh was in the hospital. Come on 2009; don’t fail me now.
@OTOOLEFAN: Rush Limbaugh rushed to the hospital? Are the Death Panels in place yet?
@JustPlainMike RT @OTOOLEFAN: Rush Limbaugh rushed to the hospital? Are the Death Panels in place yet?
@Scottama RT @phontigallo: I was scared of another death this year til I heard Rush Limbaugh was in the hospital. Come on 2009; don’t fail me now.
@riegelracing Rush Limbaugh had a heart attack?!?! Its a late birthday present!!!!!!
@stratogato Rush Limbaugh, say hello to LUCIFER when you get there my friend
@NYfitter: RT @Mopec35: RT @Pumpy_Beanis: DIE RUSH LIMBAUGH YOU F***ING PIG MAN JUST F***ING DIE
@margery Is Rush Limbaugh terminally sick? Yippee
@ocicat_bengals Smite Rush Limbaugh in 2009!
@ZSS This just in, Rush Limbaugh hospitalized. How much you want to bet the words “hookers” and “blow” aren’t too far behind?
@RJ_Acosta i now heard this rush guy is an asshole,Rush Limbaugh,i hope you die in hell mother f***er! >:3
@dingane1: if rush Limbaugh dies ill let 09 slide on taking MJ
@the_condor RUSH LIMBAUGH SHOULD BE IN PRISON FOR HATE CRIMES. LET HIM DIE.
Probably the most clever:
@Marnus3: My sincere wish is for a full recovery for Rush Limbaugh so he can witness the re-election of Barack Obama
A few were fair-minded:
@djdebutante OK, I’m not a Rush Limbaugh fan by any means, but wishing him dead? Really people, that’s just low.
@LakefieldKid I am trying so very hard not to say anything bad about Limbaugh so I will not. But, it is killing me to remain quiet.
@FirstLadySK: Yeah, Rush Limbaugh is a terrible person, but to wish death upon him is wrong on so many levels..
What does this say about our culture?
I wonder how much press this reaction will get. The press sure liked to talk about those peaceful and orderly Tea Parties though. The one I went to with 7,500 people in California was filled with children and was about the most family-friendly public event I have ever attended."
The depth of their depravity can be witnessed here, via Gateway Pundit:
Liberal Glee on Display Over Limbaugh Hospitalization
"Here are a few of the Twitter comments by users that I saw in the 15 minutes or so that I perused the site:
@kenneth212 Rush Limbaugh was rushed to the hospital in Honolulu. Maybe Santa did get my letter.
@MelechT Rush Limbaugh was rushed to the Hospital. Just when I thought Christmas was over…
@tontocorazon RT @Pumpy_Beanis DIE RUSH LIMBAUGH YOU F***ING PIG MAN JUST F***ING DIE
@phontigallo: I was scared of another death this year til I heard Rush Limbaugh was in the hospital. Come on 2009; don’t fail me now
@amazingatheist: Ruch Limbaugh hospitalized with chest pains. Let’s all hope he dies.
@heartfeltrobot YES VIRGINIA, THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS! RT @cnnbrk Radio host Rush Limbaugh was rushed to a Honolulu hospital with chest pains.
@Teevho Rush Limbaugh in serious condition in the hospital? Oh happy day! Are they sure he didn’t just ingest too much hillbilly heroin?
@bbb1962 RT @MelechT: Rush Limbaugh was rushed to the Hospital. Just when I thought Christmas was over… #divinejustice #kanyeshrug *Lmfao!*
@DoodlebugFtDOR LOL..RT @phontigallo: I was scared of another death this year til I heard Rush Limbaugh was in the hospital. Come on 2009; don’t fail me now
@Yves_V So Rush Limbaugh in the hospital? If he dies, 2009 won’t be so bad after all #JustSayin
@twofacedmonster So sad…cough. RT @cnnbrk: Radio host Rush Limbaugh was rushed to a Honolulu hospital with chest pains
@danjohnny5 RT @phontigallo: I was scared of another death this year til I heard Rush Limbaugh was in the hospital. Come on 2009; don’t fail me now.
@OTOOLEFAN: Rush Limbaugh rushed to the hospital? Are the Death Panels in place yet?
@JustPlainMike RT @OTOOLEFAN: Rush Limbaugh rushed to the hospital? Are the Death Panels in place yet?
@Scottama RT @phontigallo: I was scared of another death this year til I heard Rush Limbaugh was in the hospital. Come on 2009; don’t fail me now.
@riegelracing Rush Limbaugh had a heart attack?!?! Its a late birthday present!!!!!!
@stratogato Rush Limbaugh, say hello to LUCIFER when you get there my friend
@NYfitter: RT @Mopec35: RT @Pumpy_Beanis: DIE RUSH LIMBAUGH YOU F***ING PIG MAN JUST F***ING DIE
@margery Is Rush Limbaugh terminally sick? Yippee
@ocicat_bengals Smite Rush Limbaugh in 2009!
@ZSS This just in, Rush Limbaugh hospitalized. How much you want to bet the words “hookers” and “blow” aren’t too far behind?
@RJ_Acosta i now heard this rush guy is an asshole,Rush Limbaugh,i hope you die in hell mother f***er! >:3
@dingane1: if rush Limbaugh dies ill let 09 slide on taking MJ
@the_condor RUSH LIMBAUGH SHOULD BE IN PRISON FOR HATE CRIMES. LET HIM DIE.
Probably the most clever:
@Marnus3: My sincere wish is for a full recovery for Rush Limbaugh so he can witness the re-election of Barack Obama
A few were fair-minded:
@djdebutante OK, I’m not a Rush Limbaugh fan by any means, but wishing him dead? Really people, that’s just low.
@LakefieldKid I am trying so very hard not to say anything bad about Limbaugh so I will not. But, it is killing me to remain quiet.
@FirstLadySK: Yeah, Rush Limbaugh is a terrible person, but to wish death upon him is wrong on so many levels..
What does this say about our culture?
I wonder how much press this reaction will get. The press sure liked to talk about those peaceful and orderly Tea Parties though. The one I went to with 7,500 people in California was filled with children and was about the most family-friendly public event I have ever attended."
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
"We're Terror's Little Helpers"
Lt. Col. Ralph Peters addresses the evil of political correctness that is destroying our nation and endangering its citizens. Wake up, America! All the wishing in the world will not make Islamic terrorism go away. And yes, it is all about the religion of allah.
We find no orders to murder innocents in Buddhism, Mormonism, Christianity, or Judaism, but only in Islam. Hmmm, does that mean there is a connection between terrorism and Islamic. Duh! You think?
From the New York Post:
Lying to ourselves
Blindness to Islam ties helps terrorists
By Ralph Peters
"On Christmas Day, an Islamist fanatic tried to blow up an airplane whose passengers were mostly Christians. And we helped.
Our government gets no thanks for preventing a tragedy. Only the bomber's ineptitude preserved the lives of nearly 300 innocents.
How did we help Umar Abdulmutallab, a wealthy Muslim university graduate who decided that Allah wanted him to slaughter Christians on their most joyous holiday?
By continuing to lie to ourselves. Although willing -- at last -- to briefly use the word 'terror,' yesterday President Obama still refused to make a connection between the action, the date and Islam.
Was it just a ticketing accident that led to a bombing attempt on Christmas? Was it all about blackout dates and frequent-flyer miles?
It wasn't. You know it. And I know it. But our government refuses to know it. Despite vast databases crammed with evidence, our leaders -- of both parties -- still refuse to connect Islamist terrorism with Islam.
Our insistence that 'Islam's a religion of peace' would have been cold comfort to the family members of those passengers had the bomb detonated as planned.
Abdulmutallab's own father warned our diplomats that his son had been infected by Islamist extremism. Our diplomats did nothing. Why? Because (despite a series of embassy bombings) the State Department dreads linking terrorism to Islam.
Contrast our political correctness with Abdulmutallab's choice of Christmas for his intended massacre. Our troops stand down on Muslim holidays. A captive terrorist merely has to claim that a soldier dog-eared a Koran, and it's courts-martial all around.
We proclaim that the terrorists 'don't represent Islam.' OK, whom do they represent? The Franciscans? We don't get to decide what's Islam and what isn't. Muslims do. And far too many of them approve of violent jihad.
It gets worse. Instead of focusing on the religious zeal and inspiration of our enemies and how such motivations change the game, our 'terrorism experts' agonize over whether such beasts as Abdulmutallab or Maj. Hasan, the Fort Hood assassin for Allah, are really members of al Qaeda or not.
As a Sunday Post editorial pointed out, al Qaeda's far more than a formal organization; it's an idea, a cause. If a terrorist says he's al Qaeda, he is, even if he doesn't have a union card from Jihadi Local 632.
We're dealing with a global Muslim movement, not a Masons' lodge.
And that 'global' aspect is especially worrying. Despite limited Special Operations strikes beyond our recognized combat zones, we still don't accept the nature of the threat from jet-set jihadis. Our leaders and our military are obsessed with holding ground in Afghanistan -- even though al Qaeda's growth areas are in Yemen and Africa.
We voluntarily tie ourselves down, while our enemies focus on mobility. Worse, we've convinced ourselves that development aid (the left's all-purpose medicine) is the key to defeating al Qaeda.
That's utter nonsense. Abdulmutallab's a rich kid. He didn't come from a deprived background, bearing the grievances of the slum. He's a graduate of a top English university. And Osama bin Laden's from a super-rich family. How does building a footbridge in Afghanistan deter them?
Most of our home-grown Islamist terrorists hail from middle-class families -- such monsters as Maj. Hasan or the Virginia virgin-chasers under arrest in Pakistan (where jail conditions are a lot worse than at Guantanamo -- can't we just leave 'em there?).
This isn't a revolt of the wretched of the earth. These terrorists are the Muslim-fanatic versions of Bill Ayers and the Weathermen, pampered kids unhappy with the world. Al Qaeda's big guns are re- belling against privilege. There's a lot of Freud in this fundamentalism.
Spoiled brats remade their god in their own vengeful image. And we have to kill them. This one really is a zero-sum game.
We're not just fighting men but a plague of faith. Until Washington accepts that, we'll continue to reap a low return on our investments of blood and treasure.
On Christmas Day, a Muslim fanatic attempted to butcher hundreds of Christians (dead Jews would've been a bonus). Our response? Have airport security analyze the contents of grandma's mini-bottle of shampoo -- we don't want to 'discriminate.'
With our lies, self-deception and self-flagellation, we're terror's little helpers."
We find no orders to murder innocents in Buddhism, Mormonism, Christianity, or Judaism, but only in Islam. Hmmm, does that mean there is a connection between terrorism and Islamic. Duh! You think?
From the New York Post:
Lying to ourselves
Blindness to Islam ties helps terrorists
By Ralph Peters
"On Christmas Day, an Islamist fanatic tried to blow up an airplane whose passengers were mostly Christians. And we helped.
Our government gets no thanks for preventing a tragedy. Only the bomber's ineptitude preserved the lives of nearly 300 innocents.
How did we help Umar Abdulmutallab, a wealthy Muslim university graduate who decided that Allah wanted him to slaughter Christians on their most joyous holiday?
By continuing to lie to ourselves. Although willing -- at last -- to briefly use the word 'terror,' yesterday President Obama still refused to make a connection between the action, the date and Islam.
Was it just a ticketing accident that led to a bombing attempt on Christmas? Was it all about blackout dates and frequent-flyer miles?
It wasn't. You know it. And I know it. But our government refuses to know it. Despite vast databases crammed with evidence, our leaders -- of both parties -- still refuse to connect Islamist terrorism with Islam.
Our insistence that 'Islam's a religion of peace' would have been cold comfort to the family members of those passengers had the bomb detonated as planned.
Abdulmutallab's own father warned our diplomats that his son had been infected by Islamist extremism. Our diplomats did nothing. Why? Because (despite a series of embassy bombings) the State Department dreads linking terrorism to Islam.
Contrast our political correctness with Abdulmutallab's choice of Christmas for his intended massacre. Our troops stand down on Muslim holidays. A captive terrorist merely has to claim that a soldier dog-eared a Koran, and it's courts-martial all around.
We proclaim that the terrorists 'don't represent Islam.' OK, whom do they represent? The Franciscans? We don't get to decide what's Islam and what isn't. Muslims do. And far too many of them approve of violent jihad.
It gets worse. Instead of focusing on the religious zeal and inspiration of our enemies and how such motivations change the game, our 'terrorism experts' agonize over whether such beasts as Abdulmutallab or Maj. Hasan, the Fort Hood assassin for Allah, are really members of al Qaeda or not.
As a Sunday Post editorial pointed out, al Qaeda's far more than a formal organization; it's an idea, a cause. If a terrorist says he's al Qaeda, he is, even if he doesn't have a union card from Jihadi Local 632.
We're dealing with a global Muslim movement, not a Masons' lodge.
And that 'global' aspect is especially worrying. Despite limited Special Operations strikes beyond our recognized combat zones, we still don't accept the nature of the threat from jet-set jihadis. Our leaders and our military are obsessed with holding ground in Afghanistan -- even though al Qaeda's growth areas are in Yemen and Africa.
We voluntarily tie ourselves down, while our enemies focus on mobility. Worse, we've convinced ourselves that development aid (the left's all-purpose medicine) is the key to defeating al Qaeda.
That's utter nonsense. Abdulmutallab's a rich kid. He didn't come from a deprived background, bearing the grievances of the slum. He's a graduate of a top English university. And Osama bin Laden's from a super-rich family. How does building a footbridge in Afghanistan deter them?
Most of our home-grown Islamist terrorists hail from middle-class families -- such monsters as Maj. Hasan or the Virginia virgin-chasers under arrest in Pakistan (where jail conditions are a lot worse than at Guantanamo -- can't we just leave 'em there?).
This isn't a revolt of the wretched of the earth. These terrorists are the Muslim-fanatic versions of Bill Ayers and the Weathermen, pampered kids unhappy with the world. Al Qaeda's big guns are re- belling against privilege. There's a lot of Freud in this fundamentalism.
Spoiled brats remade their god in their own vengeful image. And we have to kill them. This one really is a zero-sum game.
We're not just fighting men but a plague of faith. Until Washington accepts that, we'll continue to reap a low return on our investments of blood and treasure.
On Christmas Day, a Muslim fanatic attempted to butcher hundreds of Christians (dead Jews would've been a bonus). Our response? Have airport security analyze the contents of grandma's mini-bottle of shampoo -- we don't want to 'discriminate.'
With our lies, self-deception and self-flagellation, we're terror's little helpers."
Racial Profile Middle Eastern Young Men
Now, this guy gets it. For the sake of national security, Muslims should be willing to endure closer scrutiny before boarding our transportation systems. After all, if they have nothing to hide, then what's the big deal? They and other non-Muslims will all be much safer. Don't peaceful Muslims also want the benefit of more secure travel?
Read from the American Thinker:
Please search me next time I board a plane
S. John Massoud
"If you take a close look at my last name, you will notice that it is not the typical Anglo Saxon Protestant name, but instead the name Massoud is a name that has Middle Eastern origins. The fact of the matter is that my father is from Afghanistan. And I am as proud of my Afghan heritage as I am my Scots Irish and German heritage.
Shortly after 9-11, it became apparent that I was being searched more often than pure White Anglo Saxon passengers. A white sitting next to me on the plane asked what I thought about this and my response was 'Glad they do this, keeps everyone safe'. The white man looked puzzled and I continued 'Let's be frank, the fact is that serial killers are more likely than not to be white males, drug dealers are more likely to be ethnic minorities, and terrorists who blow up buildings and planes in the name of Jihad are probably single Middle Eastern males ages 30-45. So I'm glad they are paying closer attention to me, because it helps make sure that no one brings a bomb on the plane, which in turn makes sure I'll get to my destination alive.'
The guy (obviously a liberal) asked me 'But isn't that racist'?
There is no way to respond to such a person. This type of person who would be more pleased with being blown out of the sky than being seen as 'insensitive'. Many Muslims now are saying that we should not 'racially profile Muslims'. Sorry but there is nothing wrong with 'racial profiling'. (racial profiling is not the same as pulling over someone for 'driving while black') And the fact is that if Muslims want to be taken seriously on this issue, instead of saying 'don't racially profile us' they should instead say that killing of civilians is wrong and chastize the radicals who would kill in the name of Allah.
Next time I get on a plane, I hope that the TSA won't be afraid to check my baggage, and the baggage of whoever else is in front of me or behind me. Don't be afraid to hurt my feelings or the feelings of anyone else. Just be sure to get me from my point of origin to my destination alive. And everyone else on the plane too."
Loud applause from all Americans who want to be kept safe.
Read from the American Thinker:
Please search me next time I board a plane
S. John Massoud
"If you take a close look at my last name, you will notice that it is not the typical Anglo Saxon Protestant name, but instead the name Massoud is a name that has Middle Eastern origins. The fact of the matter is that my father is from Afghanistan. And I am as proud of my Afghan heritage as I am my Scots Irish and German heritage.
Shortly after 9-11, it became apparent that I was being searched more often than pure White Anglo Saxon passengers. A white sitting next to me on the plane asked what I thought about this and my response was 'Glad they do this, keeps everyone safe'. The white man looked puzzled and I continued 'Let's be frank, the fact is that serial killers are more likely than not to be white males, drug dealers are more likely to be ethnic minorities, and terrorists who blow up buildings and planes in the name of Jihad are probably single Middle Eastern males ages 30-45. So I'm glad they are paying closer attention to me, because it helps make sure that no one brings a bomb on the plane, which in turn makes sure I'll get to my destination alive.'
The guy (obviously a liberal) asked me 'But isn't that racist'?
There is no way to respond to such a person. This type of person who would be more pleased with being blown out of the sky than being seen as 'insensitive'. Many Muslims now are saying that we should not 'racially profile Muslims'. Sorry but there is nothing wrong with 'racial profiling'. (racial profiling is not the same as pulling over someone for 'driving while black') And the fact is that if Muslims want to be taken seriously on this issue, instead of saying 'don't racially profile us' they should instead say that killing of civilians is wrong and chastize the radicals who would kill in the name of Allah.
Next time I get on a plane, I hope that the TSA won't be afraid to check my baggage, and the baggage of whoever else is in front of me or behind me. Don't be afraid to hurt my feelings or the feelings of anyone else. Just be sure to get me from my point of origin to my destination alive. And everyone else on the plane too."
Loud applause from all Americans who want to be kept safe.
The Buck Stops at the President
Once again, the Brits step up to the plate and dare to nail Obama for his nightmarish job of dealing with national security. The American Pravda has questioned his competence to a small degree, but not like the Brits have.
Read from Toby Harnden (the same guy who called Obama "President Panywaist"), over at the UK Telegraph, via Gateway Pundit:
Barack Obama gets an 'F' for protecting Americans
"There is no more solemn duty for an American commander-in-chief than the marshalling of 'all elements of American power' – the phrase Obama himself used on Monday – to protect the people of the United States. In that key respect, Obama failed on Christmas Day, just as President George W. Bush failed on September 11th (though he succeeded in the seven years after that).
Yes, the buck stops in the Oval Office. Obama may have rather smugly given himself a 'B+' for his 2009 performance but he gets an F for the events that led to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarding a Detroit-bound plane in Amsterdam with a PETN bomb sewn into his underpants. He said today that a 'systemic failure has occurred'. Well, he’s in charge of that system.
The picture we’re getting is more and more alarming by the hour. Here are some key elements to consider:
1. Abdulmutallab’s father spoke several times to the US Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria and visited a CIA officer there to tell him, apparently, that he feared his son was a jihadist being trained in Yemen. According to CNN, the CIA officer wrote up a report, which then sat in the CIA headquarters at Langley for several weeks without being disseminated to the rest of the intelligence community. This was not just a casual encounter. Again according to CNN, there were at least two face-to-face meetings, telephone calls and written correspondence with the father. If it’s true that the CIA sat on this then it beggars belief.
2. After 9/11, the huge bureaucracies of the Homeland Security Department and the Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI) were created. Inside the DNI, the National Counter Terrorism Center was created. These organisations were created to 'connect the dots'. It may well be that the fault lay with NCTC and not the CIA – CIA spokesman George Little says here that 'key biographical information' and information about 'possible extremist connections in Yemen' was passed to NCTC. If NCTC knew about it, then did someone at the National Security Council within the White House? There’s a huge blame game beginning so we’ll no doubt know soon enough.
3. It wasn’t just the meeting with the father. According to CBS, 'as early as August of 2009 the Central Intelligence Agency was picking up information on a person of interest dubbed 'The Nigerian' suspected of meeting with 'terrorist elements' in Yemen'. So there were other parts of the jigsaw that were not put together.
4. In his studied desire to be the unBush by responding coolly to events like this, Obama is dangerously close to failing as a leader. Yes, it is good not to shoot from the hip and make broad assertions without the facts. But Obama took three days before speaking to the American people, emerging on Monday in between golf and tennis games in Hawaii to deliver a rather tepid address that significantly underplayed what happened. He described Abdulmutallab as an 'isolated extremist' who 'allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device on his body' – phrases that indicate a legalistic, downplaying approach that alarms rather than reassures. Today’s words showed a lot more fire and desire to get on top of things – we’ll see whether Obama follows through with action. In the meantime, he went snorkelling.
5. There has been a pattern developing with the Obama administration trying to minimise terrorist attacks. We saw it with Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Muslim convert who murdered a US Army recruit in Little Rock, Arkansas in June. We saw it with Major Nidal Malik Hassan, a Muslim with Palestinian roots who slaughtered 13 at Fort Hood, Texas last month. In both cases, there were Yemen connections. Obama began to take the same approach with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. We’ll see whether this incident shakes him out of that complacency. Whether it’s called the war on terror or not, it’s clear that the US is at war against al-Qaeda and radical Islamists.
6. Guantanamo Bay. It seems that two of the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) planners behind this attack were released from Guantanamo Bay during the Bush administration. That calls into question the competence of Bush administration officials but also the wisdom of closing Guantanamo Bay. How many other enemies of America and the West are going to be released back to the battlefield? As Mike Goldfarb asks: 'Is the Obama administration seriously still considering sending some 90 Yemeni detainees now being held at Gitmo back to their country of origin, where al Qaeda are apparently running around with impunity?'
7. Janet Napolitano, Obama’s Homeland Security Chief, has been a disaster in this, exhibiting the kind of bureaucratic complacency that makes ordinary citizens want to go postal. On Sunday, she told CNN that 'one thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked' and ABC News that 'once the incident occurred, the system worked'. A day later, she grumbled that quoted 'out of context' before reversing herself, telling NBC: 'Our system did not work in this instance. No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way.' The 'system worked' comment was a 'heckuva job, Brownie' moment. Is she up to the job?
8. Will Obama hold individuals accountable? Briefing the press today behind a cloak of anonymity as a 'Senior Administration Official', Denis McDonough, NSC chief of staff (he gave the game away by saying he was from Minnesota), said that Obama 'intends to demand accountability at the highest levels' before adding: 'It remains to be seen what that means exactly.' If heads don’t roll – and soon – then Obama’s words will seem hollow. It’s an opportunity for him to show some real steel.
9. There’s a continued, unfortunate tendency for everyone in Obamaland to preface every comment about something going wrong with a sideswipe against the Bush administration. On Sunday, Bill Burton, Deputy White House Press Secretary, briefed: 'On the Sunday shows, Robert Gibbs and Secretary Napolitano made clear that we are pressing ahead with securing our nation against threats and our aggressive posture in the war with al Qaeda. We are winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us, and have dramatically increased our resources in Afghanistan and Pakistan where those terrorists are.' Why pat yourself on the back for 'winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us' when the issue at hand is why the US government under Obama, er, took its eyes off a terrorist who did try to attack us and nearly killed 300 people? It’s bordering on the juvenile. Obama’s been president for a year now. It’s time for him to accept that things that happen as his responsibility, not Bush’s. It’s time for him to echo Ronald Reagan, who said over Iran-Contra: 'I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration.'
10. Will there be US air attacks against targets in Yemen? Watch this space. It’s safe to say that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or AQAP, described to me by a senior intelligence official today as 'officially recognised and in corporate terms a sanctioned franchise of al-Qaeda' that is plainly now seeking to become an international rather than just a regional Islamist player."
Read from Toby Harnden (the same guy who called Obama "President Panywaist"), over at the UK Telegraph, via Gateway Pundit:
Barack Obama gets an 'F' for protecting Americans
"There is no more solemn duty for an American commander-in-chief than the marshalling of 'all elements of American power' – the phrase Obama himself used on Monday – to protect the people of the United States. In that key respect, Obama failed on Christmas Day, just as President George W. Bush failed on September 11th (though he succeeded in the seven years after that).
Yes, the buck stops in the Oval Office. Obama may have rather smugly given himself a 'B+' for his 2009 performance but he gets an F for the events that led to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarding a Detroit-bound plane in Amsterdam with a PETN bomb sewn into his underpants. He said today that a 'systemic failure has occurred'. Well, he’s in charge of that system.
The picture we’re getting is more and more alarming by the hour. Here are some key elements to consider:
1. Abdulmutallab’s father spoke several times to the US Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria and visited a CIA officer there to tell him, apparently, that he feared his son was a jihadist being trained in Yemen. According to CNN, the CIA officer wrote up a report, which then sat in the CIA headquarters at Langley for several weeks without being disseminated to the rest of the intelligence community. This was not just a casual encounter. Again according to CNN, there were at least two face-to-face meetings, telephone calls and written correspondence with the father. If it’s true that the CIA sat on this then it beggars belief.
2. After 9/11, the huge bureaucracies of the Homeland Security Department and the Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI) were created. Inside the DNI, the National Counter Terrorism Center was created. These organisations were created to 'connect the dots'. It may well be that the fault lay with NCTC and not the CIA – CIA spokesman George Little says here that 'key biographical information' and information about 'possible extremist connections in Yemen' was passed to NCTC. If NCTC knew about it, then did someone at the National Security Council within the White House? There’s a huge blame game beginning so we’ll no doubt know soon enough.
3. It wasn’t just the meeting with the father. According to CBS, 'as early as August of 2009 the Central Intelligence Agency was picking up information on a person of interest dubbed 'The Nigerian' suspected of meeting with 'terrorist elements' in Yemen'. So there were other parts of the jigsaw that were not put together.
4. In his studied desire to be the unBush by responding coolly to events like this, Obama is dangerously close to failing as a leader. Yes, it is good not to shoot from the hip and make broad assertions without the facts. But Obama took three days before speaking to the American people, emerging on Monday in between golf and tennis games in Hawaii to deliver a rather tepid address that significantly underplayed what happened. He described Abdulmutallab as an 'isolated extremist' who 'allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device on his body' – phrases that indicate a legalistic, downplaying approach that alarms rather than reassures. Today’s words showed a lot more fire and desire to get on top of things – we’ll see whether Obama follows through with action. In the meantime, he went snorkelling.
5. There has been a pattern developing with the Obama administration trying to minimise terrorist attacks. We saw it with Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Muslim convert who murdered a US Army recruit in Little Rock, Arkansas in June. We saw it with Major Nidal Malik Hassan, a Muslim with Palestinian roots who slaughtered 13 at Fort Hood, Texas last month. In both cases, there were Yemen connections. Obama began to take the same approach with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. We’ll see whether this incident shakes him out of that complacency. Whether it’s called the war on terror or not, it’s clear that the US is at war against al-Qaeda and radical Islamists.
6. Guantanamo Bay. It seems that two of the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) planners behind this attack were released from Guantanamo Bay during the Bush administration. That calls into question the competence of Bush administration officials but also the wisdom of closing Guantanamo Bay. How many other enemies of America and the West are going to be released back to the battlefield? As Mike Goldfarb asks: 'Is the Obama administration seriously still considering sending some 90 Yemeni detainees now being held at Gitmo back to their country of origin, where al Qaeda are apparently running around with impunity?'
7. Janet Napolitano, Obama’s Homeland Security Chief, has been a disaster in this, exhibiting the kind of bureaucratic complacency that makes ordinary citizens want to go postal. On Sunday, she told CNN that 'one thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked' and ABC News that 'once the incident occurred, the system worked'. A day later, she grumbled that quoted 'out of context' before reversing herself, telling NBC: 'Our system did not work in this instance. No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way.' The 'system worked' comment was a 'heckuva job, Brownie' moment. Is she up to the job?
8. Will Obama hold individuals accountable? Briefing the press today behind a cloak of anonymity as a 'Senior Administration Official', Denis McDonough, NSC chief of staff (he gave the game away by saying he was from Minnesota), said that Obama 'intends to demand accountability at the highest levels' before adding: 'It remains to be seen what that means exactly.' If heads don’t roll – and soon – then Obama’s words will seem hollow. It’s an opportunity for him to show some real steel.
9. There’s a continued, unfortunate tendency for everyone in Obamaland to preface every comment about something going wrong with a sideswipe against the Bush administration. On Sunday, Bill Burton, Deputy White House Press Secretary, briefed: 'On the Sunday shows, Robert Gibbs and Secretary Napolitano made clear that we are pressing ahead with securing our nation against threats and our aggressive posture in the war with al Qaeda. We are winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us, and have dramatically increased our resources in Afghanistan and Pakistan where those terrorists are.' Why pat yourself on the back for 'winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us' when the issue at hand is why the US government under Obama, er, took its eyes off a terrorist who did try to attack us and nearly killed 300 people? It’s bordering on the juvenile. Obama’s been president for a year now. It’s time for him to accept that things that happen as his responsibility, not Bush’s. It’s time for him to echo Ronald Reagan, who said over Iran-Contra: 'I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration.'
10. Will there be US air attacks against targets in Yemen? Watch this space. It’s safe to say that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or AQAP, described to me by a senior intelligence official today as 'officially recognised and in corporate terms a sanctioned franchise of al-Qaeda' that is plainly now seeking to become an international rather than just a regional Islamist player."
Domestic Abuse in Gaza
Hey, libs, try to spin your way out of these findings regarding physical abuse at the hands of members of the "religion of peace".
From Jihad Watch:
Gaza: 77% of women experience abuse
"Qur'an 4:34: 'Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them.'
No matter how apologists attempt to spin the beatings as a last resort (as if it would be acceptable then), the bottom line is that Allah says a man can hit the women under his control. These are the consequences of the letter and spirit of the law.
'Report: 77% of Gaza women face violence,' by Rachel Kliger for The Media Line, December 29 (thanks to Don):
'The vast majority of women in Gaza face violence of varying types, a new survey has found.
The study, by the Gaza-based Palestinian Women's Information and Media Center, found that violence against women in Gaza has increased since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in the June 2007 coup and Israel subsequently imposed restrictions on the coastal enclave.
The study found that 77.1% of Gazan women have experienced violence of various sorts, with almost half experiencing violence of more than one type.
A quarter of the women said they do not feel safe in their own homes because of violence and more than a third said they were unable to fight back as they had more urgent priorities to deal with.
7% of the women surveyed said they had encountered verbal violence, 71% mental violence, 52% physical violence and more than 14% sexual violence.
"I think the levels [of violence] are higher than they were in the Gaza Strip in previous years and compared to other countries, the rates are certainly higher," Huda Hamouda, Director of the PWIC told The Media Line. "It's hard to imagine a family living in dignity when seven family members are living on less than three dollars a day."
"Many say they suffer from disrespect and deprecation," Hamouda said. "There's also domestic violence, which is committed by relatives such as the father, the brother or the husband."'
Even this, Hamouda tries to pin on Israel. But it wasn't Israel who put verse 4:34 in the Qur'an; there are also similar statistics for domestic abuse elsewhere in the Muslim world. Did Israel do that, too?"
From Jihad Watch:
Gaza: 77% of women experience abuse
"Qur'an 4:34: 'Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them.'
No matter how apologists attempt to spin the beatings as a last resort (as if it would be acceptable then), the bottom line is that Allah says a man can hit the women under his control. These are the consequences of the letter and spirit of the law.
'Report: 77% of Gaza women face violence,' by Rachel Kliger for The Media Line, December 29 (thanks to Don):
'The vast majority of women in Gaza face violence of varying types, a new survey has found.
The study, by the Gaza-based Palestinian Women's Information and Media Center, found that violence against women in Gaza has increased since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in the June 2007 coup and Israel subsequently imposed restrictions on the coastal enclave.
The study found that 77.1% of Gazan women have experienced violence of various sorts, with almost half experiencing violence of more than one type.
A quarter of the women said they do not feel safe in their own homes because of violence and more than a third said they were unable to fight back as they had more urgent priorities to deal with.
7% of the women surveyed said they had encountered verbal violence, 71% mental violence, 52% physical violence and more than 14% sexual violence.
"I think the levels [of violence] are higher than they were in the Gaza Strip in previous years and compared to other countries, the rates are certainly higher," Huda Hamouda, Director of the PWIC told The Media Line. "It's hard to imagine a family living in dignity when seven family members are living on less than three dollars a day."
"Many say they suffer from disrespect and deprecation," Hamouda said. "There's also domestic violence, which is committed by relatives such as the father, the brother or the husband."'
Even this, Hamouda tries to pin on Israel. But it wasn't Israel who put verse 4:34 in the Qur'an; there are also similar statistics for domestic abuse elsewhere in the Muslim world. Did Israel do that, too?"
Excuses and Priorities--Updated
On a light note, read the following from the American Thinker:
Top Ten reasons it took Obama 3 days to respond to terror attempt
William Tate
"Barack Obama has received considerable criticism for waiting three days to address the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Flight 253. In the holiday spirit of giving, I would like to offer Obama ... the Top 10 excuses Obama can use for why it took him so long to speak up.
10. My teleprompter was on vacation last week.
9. Polishing a Nobel Prize takes longer than you think.
8. It was Bush's fault. (Hey, it worked last year.)
7. The waves here in Hawaii are bitchen, dude.
6. Janet Napolitano said the system worked great, even if I couldn't get email on my Blackberry for a while there.
5. This sort of thing just ain't supposed to happen on my watch.
4. It was Bush's fault.
3. Axelrod never told me I'd have to work holidays.
2. I was busy celebrating Festivus.
And the Number One excuse Obama can give for taking so long to respond to the attempted attack on Northwest Flight 253:
I was busy looking for my birth certificate."
On a more serious note, read about the interesting priorities of our commander-in-chief, also from the American Thinker:
Strange priorities in Obamaland
Andrew Thomas
"Let me get the facts straight. On Christmas day, an al-Qaida associated suicide bomber nearly incinerates a planeload of Americans over Detroit. Our fearless leader makes a flaccid statement three days later, decrying the act. What took three days? Was he busy golfing, shooting hoops, or just working out at the gym?
Later on that day, the son of a friend who was vacationing with the Obama family in Hawaii has a minor accident. The nine year-old son of Dr. Eric Whitaker bumps his head during a surfing lesson. Obama instantly interrupts his golf game to rush back to his luxury resort and check on his friend's son's condition. As it turns out, he is fine.
My question is: Why does a friend's son get immediate attention while the safety of American citizens takes three days of vacation before getting around to addressing it? Obama reveals himself again?"
Good point.
UPDATE: BTW, take note, Diogenes, to the last sentence in the second article. You will notice that I did not post the name the author gave to President Obama, but instead, out of respect for his office, replaced it with his name. You forgot to acknowledge that I do that.
Top Ten reasons it took Obama 3 days to respond to terror attempt
William Tate
"Barack Obama has received considerable criticism for waiting three days to address the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Flight 253. In the holiday spirit of giving, I would like to offer Obama ... the Top 10 excuses Obama can use for why it took him so long to speak up.
10. My teleprompter was on vacation last week.
9. Polishing a Nobel Prize takes longer than you think.
8. It was Bush's fault. (Hey, it worked last year.)
7. The waves here in Hawaii are bitchen, dude.
6. Janet Napolitano said the system worked great, even if I couldn't get email on my Blackberry for a while there.
5. This sort of thing just ain't supposed to happen on my watch.
4. It was Bush's fault.
3. Axelrod never told me I'd have to work holidays.
2. I was busy celebrating Festivus.
And the Number One excuse Obama can give for taking so long to respond to the attempted attack on Northwest Flight 253:
I was busy looking for my birth certificate."
On a more serious note, read about the interesting priorities of our commander-in-chief, also from the American Thinker:
Strange priorities in Obamaland
Andrew Thomas
"Let me get the facts straight. On Christmas day, an al-Qaida associated suicide bomber nearly incinerates a planeload of Americans over Detroit. Our fearless leader makes a flaccid statement three days later, decrying the act. What took three days? Was he busy golfing, shooting hoops, or just working out at the gym?
Later on that day, the son of a friend who was vacationing with the Obama family in Hawaii has a minor accident. The nine year-old son of Dr. Eric Whitaker bumps his head during a surfing lesson. Obama instantly interrupts his golf game to rush back to his luxury resort and check on his friend's son's condition. As it turns out, he is fine.
My question is: Why does a friend's son get immediate attention while the safety of American citizens takes three days of vacation before getting around to addressing it? Obama reveals himself again?"
Good point.
UPDATE: BTW, take note, Diogenes, to the last sentence in the second article. You will notice that I did not post the name the author gave to President Obama, but instead, out of respect for his office, replaced it with his name. You forgot to acknowledge that I do that.
ObamaCare Support Sinking
The Obama presidency and the Democrats' control of Congress is proving to be a disaster for them. How's that "hope and change" working out for you?
When it comes to the "let grandma die" healthcare rationing bill, support for it is sinking deeper. Americans aren't particularly pleased with their politicians who choose to ignore their wishes.
Get the latest poll findings, via Gateway Pundit:
Bad News For Corruptocrats– A Record 58% Now Oppose Obamacare (46% Strongly Oppose)
"Here’s more bad news for the bribe-takers, vote-buyers and jokers…
Opposition to the nationalized health care legislation making its way through Congress is is now at its highest point at 58%. 19% of voters strongly support the bill while 46% strongly oppose it.
Rasmussen reported:
'Many have questioned whether those who favor or oppose the health care plan in Congress really know what’s in it. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey suggests that they have a decent understanding of the bill and that voter attitudes towards the legislation have hardened.
While several individual components of the plan are popular, reminding voters of what’s included in the plan has virtually no impact on support for the overall legislation. This suggests that there are not major surprises in the legislation that will cause people to change their opinion of it.
Thirty-nine percent (39%) of voters nationwide support the plan, and 58% are opposed. That’s consistent with our weekly tracking of the issue which has found support between 38% and 41% every week from just before Thanksgiving to the end of 2009.
The new figures include 19% who Strongly Favor the plan and 46% who Strongly Oppose it.'
Yid with Lid has charted the discontent.
Good luck with that ad Senator Nelson."
When it comes to the "let grandma die" healthcare rationing bill, support for it is sinking deeper. Americans aren't particularly pleased with their politicians who choose to ignore their wishes.
Get the latest poll findings, via Gateway Pundit:
Bad News For Corruptocrats– A Record 58% Now Oppose Obamacare (46% Strongly Oppose)
"Here’s more bad news for the bribe-takers, vote-buyers and jokers…
Opposition to the nationalized health care legislation making its way through Congress is is now at its highest point at 58%. 19% of voters strongly support the bill while 46% strongly oppose it.
Rasmussen reported:
'Many have questioned whether those who favor or oppose the health care plan in Congress really know what’s in it. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey suggests that they have a decent understanding of the bill and that voter attitudes towards the legislation have hardened.
While several individual components of the plan are popular, reminding voters of what’s included in the plan has virtually no impact on support for the overall legislation. This suggests that there are not major surprises in the legislation that will cause people to change their opinion of it.
Thirty-nine percent (39%) of voters nationwide support the plan, and 58% are opposed. That’s consistent with our weekly tracking of the issue which has found support between 38% and 41% every week from just before Thanksgiving to the end of 2009.
The new figures include 19% who Strongly Favor the plan and 46% who Strongly Oppose it.'
Yid with Lid has charted the discontent.
Good luck with that ad Senator Nelson."
Former El Al Head on Airline Security
If America wants to keep its citizens safe in the air, we need to listen to what the Israelis have to say. Israel profiles its passengers, and it's been over thirty years since it has had an incidence of terror on its airlines. Profiling--that's the answer, along with close observation of the behavior of passengers.
Listen to what Isaac Yeffet, the former head of Israeli El Al Airlines has to say, via Hot Air:
Listen to what Isaac Yeffet, the former head of Israeli El Al Airlines has to say, via Hot Air:
Cheney on Obama's Handling of National Security
Ouch! Dick Cheney nails President Obama for his weakness in dealing with national security. In the end the Obama Administration has looked foolish and incompetent with all its denial about the threat of terror, or perhaps I should say its favorite term: "man-made disaster". I'd we willing to guess that Obama's vacation hasn't been all that restful, even with all the golf outings.
Americans are beginning to realize that our commander-in-chief is AWOL when it comes to our national security.
From Politico, via Hot Air:
Dick Cheney: Barack Obama 'trying to pretend'
"Former Vice President Dick Cheney accused President Barack Obama on Tuesday of 'trying to pretend we are not at war' with terrorists, pointing to the White House response to the attempted sky bombing as reflecting a pattern that includes banishing the term 'war on terror' and attempting to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center.
'[W]e are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe,' Cheney said in a statement to POLITICO. 'Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society.'
(.....)
Here is Cheney’s full statement:
'As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of Sept. 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.
'He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core Al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, "war on terror," we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war."
Americans are beginning to realize that our commander-in-chief is AWOL when it comes to our national security.
From Politico, via Hot Air:
Dick Cheney: Barack Obama 'trying to pretend'
"Former Vice President Dick Cheney accused President Barack Obama on Tuesday of 'trying to pretend we are not at war' with terrorists, pointing to the White House response to the attempted sky bombing as reflecting a pattern that includes banishing the term 'war on terror' and attempting to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center.
'[W]e are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe,' Cheney said in a statement to POLITICO. 'Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society.'
(.....)
Here is Cheney’s full statement:
'As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of Sept. 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.
'He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core Al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, "war on terror," we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war."
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Once a Terrorist, Always a Terrorist
It's a small world after all, at least when it comes to Islamic savages.
(Gateway Pundit)
Read from Jihad Watch:
Two Al-Qaeda top dogs behind Flight 253 jihad plot were released from Gitmo
"Gitmo recidivism comes back to bite us directly. 'Two al Qaeda Leaders Behind Northwest Flight 253 Terror Plot Were Released by U.S.: Former Guantanamo Prisoners Believed Behind Northwest Airlines Bomb Plot; Sent to Saudi Arabia in 2007,' by Brian Ross, Anna Schecter and Joseph Rhee for ABC News, December 28 (thanks to Awake):
'Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Northwest bombing in a Monday statement that vowed more attacks on Americans.
American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.'
An "art therapy rehabilitation program." Yes, you read that right.
'Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody. Al-Harbi has since changed his name to Muhamad al-Awfi.
Both Saudi nationals have since emerged in leadership roles in Yemen, according to U.S. officials and the men's own statements on al Qaeda propaganda tapes.
Both of the former Guantanamo detainees are described as military commanders and appear on a January, 2009 video along with the man described as the top leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Abu Basir Naser al-Wahishi, formerly Osama bin Laden's personal secretary.
In its Monday statement claiming responsibility for the Northwest bombing, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula called bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab a "hero" and a "martyr" and lauded him for beating U.S. intelligence.
The two-page written claim included a photo of Abdulmutallab and boasted of Al Qaeda's success in designing "advanced explosive packages" that can pass through airport screening undetected.
The statement also asks for attacks upon Americans in the Arabian peninsula, and promises further attacks on the American people.
The suspected bomber, 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, told FBI agents he was trained for his Christmas Day mission in Yemen by top leaders of al Qaeda who provided him with the explosive materials.
"The so-called rehabilitation programs are a joke," a U.S. diplomat said in describing the Saudi efforts with released Guantanamo detainees.
Saudi officials concede its program has had its "failures" but insist that, overall, the effort has helped return potential terrorists to a meaningful life....'
I.e., jihad."
"The so-called rehabilitation programs are a joke." Isn't that the truth? "Once a terrorist, always a terrorist" would be a much more effective policy.
This catastophe must be laid at the feet of George W. Bush. America better wake up NOW!
(Gateway Pundit)
Read from Jihad Watch:
Two Al-Qaeda top dogs behind Flight 253 jihad plot were released from Gitmo
"Gitmo recidivism comes back to bite us directly. 'Two al Qaeda Leaders Behind Northwest Flight 253 Terror Plot Were Released by U.S.: Former Guantanamo Prisoners Believed Behind Northwest Airlines Bomb Plot; Sent to Saudi Arabia in 2007,' by Brian Ross, Anna Schecter and Joseph Rhee for ABC News, December 28 (thanks to Awake):
'Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Northwest bombing in a Monday statement that vowed more attacks on Americans.
American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.'
An "art therapy rehabilitation program." Yes, you read that right.
'Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody. Al-Harbi has since changed his name to Muhamad al-Awfi.
Both Saudi nationals have since emerged in leadership roles in Yemen, according to U.S. officials and the men's own statements on al Qaeda propaganda tapes.
Both of the former Guantanamo detainees are described as military commanders and appear on a January, 2009 video along with the man described as the top leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Abu Basir Naser al-Wahishi, formerly Osama bin Laden's personal secretary.
In its Monday statement claiming responsibility for the Northwest bombing, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula called bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab a "hero" and a "martyr" and lauded him for beating U.S. intelligence.
The two-page written claim included a photo of Abdulmutallab and boasted of Al Qaeda's success in designing "advanced explosive packages" that can pass through airport screening undetected.
The statement also asks for attacks upon Americans in the Arabian peninsula, and promises further attacks on the American people.
The suspected bomber, 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, told FBI agents he was trained for his Christmas Day mission in Yemen by top leaders of al Qaeda who provided him with the explosive materials.
"The so-called rehabilitation programs are a joke," a U.S. diplomat said in describing the Saudi efforts with released Guantanamo detainees.
Saudi officials concede its program has had its "failures" but insist that, overall, the effort has helped return potential terrorists to a meaningful life....'
I.e., jihad."
"The so-called rehabilitation programs are a joke." Isn't that the truth? "Once a terrorist, always a terrorist" would be a much more effective policy.
This catastophe must be laid at the feet of George W. Bush. America better wake up NOW!
The Euro-Med Partnership
I have spoken out endlessly, it seems, about the Islamization of Europe. This continent is nearly lost to the "religion of peace". With Muslim birth rates soaring over those who are non-Muslim, the clock is ticking until many European nations will have a Muslim majority.
That being said, the situation is actually worse than I thought, and the Europeans are responsible for the dismal future that awaits them. We must be concerned about what goes on in Europe because we are following in their footsteps, especially now that the globalist President Obama is at the helm.
Read from the American Thinker:
Dooming Europe
By Pamela Geller
"'The Europe as you know it from visiting, from your parents, or friends is on the verge of collapsing.' Geert Wilders said this in a speech he made in the U.S. last year. He went on: 'We are now witnessing profound changes that will forever alter Europe's destiny and might send the continent in what Ronald Reagan called "a thousand years of darkness."' This applies not just to Europe, but to America as well.
Been to Europe lately? Thought it was bad? You ain't seen nothing yet. The passage of the Lisbon Treaty, hailed by Barack Obama, nailed the coffin shut on national sovereignty in Europe. The people of Europe fought it, but they were overwhelmed by their political elites and the lack of American leadership in this age of our Marxist U.S. president.
Come January 1, 2010, a disastrous and suicidal pact called the Euro-Med Partnership (referring to Europe and the Mediterranean region) goes into effect with little fanfare or examination. It boggles the mind that such a consequential and seismic cultural shift could be mandated and put into play without so much as a murmur from the mainstream media.
Why should Americans care about this? The reason is that this global gobbledygook is coming to America, thanks to our globalist president.
The European human rights group called Stop the Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) has been working tirelessly to expose the mass Muslim immigration plan of the Euro-Med Partnership. A statement on the SIOE website criticizes the secrecy of the process: 'It was shocking to hear about the plans and at the same time knowing that Danish politicians and a [cowardly] Danish press -- who is otherwise proud to be critical -- has told nothing to the Danish people about this project which begins already in January next year. This also showed clearly at the conference. Only very few politicians showed up and no media. Those politicians who showed up had obviously never heard about the Euro-Mediterranean project.
The goal of the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation is to create a new Greater European Union encompassing both Europe and North Africa, with the Mediterranean Sea becoming a domestic Eurabian sea. The goal is to establish a 'comprehensive political partnership,' including a 'free trade area and economic integration'; 'considerably more money for the partners' (that is, more European money flowing into North Africa); and 'cultural partnership' -- that is, importation of Islamic culture into post-Christian Europe. According to the SIOE, in the Euro-Med plan, 'Europe is to be islamized. Democracy, Christianity, European culture and Europeans are to be driven out of Europe. 50 million North Africans from Moslem countries are to be imported into the EU.'
Skeptical? It's already happening. The British Daily Express reported in October 2008 on 'a controversial taxpayer-funded "job centre"' that opened in Mali as 'just the first step towards promoting "free movement of people in Africa and the EU". Brussels economists claim Britain and other EU states will "need" 56 million immigrant workers between them by 2050 to make up for the "demographic decline" due to falling birth rates and rising death rates across Europe.' To offset this decline, a 'blue card' system is to be created that will allow cardholders to travel freely within the European Union with full rights to work -- as well as the full right to collect welfare benefits.
A Muslim population from Africa moving freely into Europe threatens America. On Christmas Day, a Nigerian Muslim flew from Amsterdam to Detroit and tried to explode a bomb on the plane -- after he was allowed to board without a passport. The Euro-Med Partnership will make jihad attacks like this one all the easier.
And once in Europe, Muslims have already begun demanding special privileges and accommodations. IslamOnline reported on December 21 that 'Muslims activists from 26 European countries have come together to launch the first rights council to enlighten European Muslims about their rights, monitor rising Islamophobia and defend Muslim rights in European courts of law.' Ali Abu Shwaima, a Muslim leader in Italy, explained: 'We think European human rights groups are not doing enough to defend the rights of Muslims. Therefore we thought that we need this new council, especially that all laws and constitutions in Europe respect freedom of religion and oppose all forms of discrimination and racism.'
'Islamophobia,' 'discrimination,' and 'racism' are all terms that Muslims in Europe and America use to confuse people into thinking that the perpetrators of Islamic terrorism are the real victims. And it is working: Geert Wilders is going on trial in the Netherlands instead of all the Islamic hate sponsors he is fighting. It has to be this way to increase harmony between the Muslim and non-Muslim member-states of the Euro-Med Partnership.
This internationalism is already destroying what has made Europe free and great. And now Barack Obama wants to do the same thing to America."
God help us all.
That being said, the situation is actually worse than I thought, and the Europeans are responsible for the dismal future that awaits them. We must be concerned about what goes on in Europe because we are following in their footsteps, especially now that the globalist President Obama is at the helm.
Read from the American Thinker:
Dooming Europe
By Pamela Geller
"'The Europe as you know it from visiting, from your parents, or friends is on the verge of collapsing.' Geert Wilders said this in a speech he made in the U.S. last year. He went on: 'We are now witnessing profound changes that will forever alter Europe's destiny and might send the continent in what Ronald Reagan called "a thousand years of darkness."' This applies not just to Europe, but to America as well.
Been to Europe lately? Thought it was bad? You ain't seen nothing yet. The passage of the Lisbon Treaty, hailed by Barack Obama, nailed the coffin shut on national sovereignty in Europe. The people of Europe fought it, but they were overwhelmed by their political elites and the lack of American leadership in this age of our Marxist U.S. president.
Come January 1, 2010, a disastrous and suicidal pact called the Euro-Med Partnership (referring to Europe and the Mediterranean region) goes into effect with little fanfare or examination. It boggles the mind that such a consequential and seismic cultural shift could be mandated and put into play without so much as a murmur from the mainstream media.
Why should Americans care about this? The reason is that this global gobbledygook is coming to America, thanks to our globalist president.
The European human rights group called Stop the Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) has been working tirelessly to expose the mass Muslim immigration plan of the Euro-Med Partnership. A statement on the SIOE website criticizes the secrecy of the process: 'It was shocking to hear about the plans and at the same time knowing that Danish politicians and a [cowardly] Danish press -- who is otherwise proud to be critical -- has told nothing to the Danish people about this project which begins already in January next year. This also showed clearly at the conference. Only very few politicians showed up and no media. Those politicians who showed up had obviously never heard about the Euro-Mediterranean project.
The goal of the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation is to create a new Greater European Union encompassing both Europe and North Africa, with the Mediterranean Sea becoming a domestic Eurabian sea. The goal is to establish a 'comprehensive political partnership,' including a 'free trade area and economic integration'; 'considerably more money for the partners' (that is, more European money flowing into North Africa); and 'cultural partnership' -- that is, importation of Islamic culture into post-Christian Europe. According to the SIOE, in the Euro-Med plan, 'Europe is to be islamized. Democracy, Christianity, European culture and Europeans are to be driven out of Europe. 50 million North Africans from Moslem countries are to be imported into the EU.'
Skeptical? It's already happening. The British Daily Express reported in October 2008 on 'a controversial taxpayer-funded "job centre"' that opened in Mali as 'just the first step towards promoting "free movement of people in Africa and the EU". Brussels economists claim Britain and other EU states will "need" 56 million immigrant workers between them by 2050 to make up for the "demographic decline" due to falling birth rates and rising death rates across Europe.' To offset this decline, a 'blue card' system is to be created that will allow cardholders to travel freely within the European Union with full rights to work -- as well as the full right to collect welfare benefits.
A Muslim population from Africa moving freely into Europe threatens America. On Christmas Day, a Nigerian Muslim flew from Amsterdam to Detroit and tried to explode a bomb on the plane -- after he was allowed to board without a passport. The Euro-Med Partnership will make jihad attacks like this one all the easier.
And once in Europe, Muslims have already begun demanding special privileges and accommodations. IslamOnline reported on December 21 that 'Muslims activists from 26 European countries have come together to launch the first rights council to enlighten European Muslims about their rights, monitor rising Islamophobia and defend Muslim rights in European courts of law.' Ali Abu Shwaima, a Muslim leader in Italy, explained: 'We think European human rights groups are not doing enough to defend the rights of Muslims. Therefore we thought that we need this new council, especially that all laws and constitutions in Europe respect freedom of religion and oppose all forms of discrimination and racism.'
'Islamophobia,' 'discrimination,' and 'racism' are all terms that Muslims in Europe and America use to confuse people into thinking that the perpetrators of Islamic terrorism are the real victims. And it is working: Geert Wilders is going on trial in the Netherlands instead of all the Islamic hate sponsors he is fighting. It has to be this way to increase harmony between the Muslim and non-Muslim member-states of the Euro-Med Partnership.
This internationalism is already destroying what has made Europe free and great. And now Barack Obama wants to do the same thing to America."
God help us all.
Napolitano Failed to Do Her Job Properly
Janet Napolitano should be thrown under President Obama's crowded bus for her incompetence. In this age of terror, we cannot afford to have a DHS secretary who is not doing everything in her power to protect us.
Read about how she failed at her job, via Debbie Schlussel:
EXCLUSIVE: Napolitano Failed to Get Dutch to Allow Air Marshals on US-Bound Flights!
"Contrary to Janet Napolitano’s claim that 'the system worked,' not only didn’t the system work with Northwest Airline Flight 253 Islamic terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, but a former top Customs official tells me that Napolitano had a major role in that failure. She failed to get the Dutch to agree to allow our Federal Air Marshals on flights into the U.S. from Amsterdam!"
Read it all.
Read about how she failed at her job, via Debbie Schlussel:
EXCLUSIVE: Napolitano Failed to Get Dutch to Allow Air Marshals on US-Bound Flights!
"Contrary to Janet Napolitano’s claim that 'the system worked,' not only didn’t the system work with Northwest Airline Flight 253 Islamic terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, but a former top Customs official tells me that Napolitano had a major role in that failure. She failed to get the Dutch to agree to allow our Federal Air Marshals on flights into the U.S. from Amsterdam!"
Read it all.
Krauthammer on Obama's Statement on Iran
At last! Obama has finally addressed the situation regarding the freedom fighters in Iran. But, was what he said enough?
Listen to what the great Krauthammer has to say, via Hot Air:
Listen to what the great Krauthammer has to say, via Hot Air:
Stop the Name-Calling
Let's stop all the name-calling on both sides. We can still make our arguments without verbally attacking each other. I don't like when my kids call each other names, and I won't post comments if there's name-calling on my blog. Believe me, there's lots of names I would like to use for some of these liberals. But, if I can refrain, so can each of you.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Obama: A Year Later
A year ago Americans were celebrating the election of their "knight in shining armor", Barack Obama, who rode up on his white stallion to rescue America from all things evil, in other words, all things Bush.
But, oh, what a difference a year can make. Now that Americans have become better acquainted with Obama and his leftist agenda, the halo is gone and the savior persona has been flushed down the toilet. If only they would have listen to those of us who had warned of an Obama nation and what a catastrophe that would be, they would have saved us all a lot of suffering.
Read from the American Thinker:
Obama's Image: What a Difference a Year Makes
By Ed Lasky
"Almost a year has passed since January 20, 2009 -- when the waters of the ocean no longer rose and America began to heal from the depredations of Republicans. Barack Obama has been our president for that long, and the people have started to wise up.
The light that shines on Barack Obama as president has reflected back an image that bears very little similarity to the iconic visage that floated above us all in 2008. Why has Barack Obama betrayed so many allies, broken so many promises, thrown so many pledges and people under the bus?
One simple aphorism (paraphrasing Winston Churchill) can explain it all. Barack Obama is no longer a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Much about his past remains murky, but faced with the need to govern, he has given the American people plenty of evidence of his nature...if only they will look.
Obama is a cynic wrapped in a hypocrite inside a bully.
This comes as a shock to many, who are dismayed to find that he is 'just a politician,' as Reverend Wright, Jr. (who knows him so well) called him back in 2008. But Wright was being all too kind and generous to his future former parishioner (Wright followed a long and ever-growing line of people trampled by Barack Obama's rise.)
But Barack Obama is far more than just a politician. We all swallow a lot from politicians; we know that many pander and narrowcast, changing their message to suit their audience. But Obama expressly campaigned as a man who would not do this. He was the candidate of hope and change -- he would bring a big broom to sweep clean the Augean Stables known as Washington, D.C. He called forth the better angels of our nature (hat tip: Honest Abe Lincoln, one of the truly honest politicians from Illinois) and tapped into a deep yearning for the rarest of the real things: an honest leader.
A cynic
Obama defined his campaign with high-sounding rhetoric that '[his] rival in this race is not other candidates, but cynicism.' The line resonated and soon became his mantra.
He later asked us to fight cynicism and revealingly told us that cynics believe they are smarter than everyone else. To this it could be said that Obama knows what that is like.
Could there be anything more cynical than to look upon Americans as being too forgetful to remember all the broken promises Obama made?
These include -- but are not limited to -- a promise that there would be no health care mandates (there are); that he would take a scalpel to the budget and bring down the deficit (headed towards the stratosphere as he rewards his own special interest groups); and that he would end earmarks (his spending bills are polluted by them; he is, after all, a Chicago politician).
He promised to close Gitmo -- not a done deal, and like many deadlines he promised, no one is sure when or if this will happen.
He promised the end of partisanship, but he has stoked it to a roaring blaze with his refusal to work with Republicans. He promised to end our wars, but now he is sending more forces into Afghanistan.
He stated that he would fight the gay marriage ban, but instead he ended up supporting it, in effect, by defending the Defense of Marriage Act.
He promised the most transparent administration in history, but instead he imposes layers of secrecy and invokes executive powers to cloak his administration from scrutiny (e.g., his use of executive privilege to protect Desiree Rogers, his social secretary, from questioning regarding the WhiteHouseGate-crashers).
We were promised that if we passed the stimulus bill under Barack Obama's presidency, then the unemployment rate would drop below 8% by now -- and here we are, during Christmas season, cruising along at a solid 10% (17% if we include the underemployed and those who left the workforce because they saw no prospects of landing a job).
We were promised that the anti-Bush would restore respect for America around the world and bring international comity. Instead, he has alienated our allies and empowered our adversaries -- a dynamic that has brought all but zero benefits to America (very little cooperation in Afghanistan, on 'climate change,' or on Iran's nuclear program). While he may have snagged himself a Nobel Peace Prize, the leaders of the world are increasingly treating him, and America, with disrespect and contempt.
The betrayals are so breathtaking and widespread (all of his promises have an expiration date) that all one can surmise is that the ultimate cynic is the One who
campaigned against cynicism.
We can sense that Obama is a cynic by referring back to his own definition: someone who thinks he is smarter than everyone else.
We have abundant evidence of this derisive attitude.
'I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director.'
Obama had the ego to think he was better than the key experts playing roles in his victory: He is apparently smarter than his policy directors and political directors, and he's a better speechwriter to boot.
We know how Obama feels about small-town Americans: They are bitter yokels who cling to guns or religion or antipathy towards people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment. But he has additionally demeaned a wide range of other Americans (doctors, cops, Special Olympics contestants, and many more, as you can see via the Insulter-in-Chief). And how many of us are the 'typical white person' he derided in the not-so-distant past? Patriots who wear flags on their lapels? They are among the great unwashed.
We also know how Obama feels about people living in suburbia. He has no use for those people in the gray flannel suits. He said, in an un-teleprompted remark: 'I'm not interested in suburbs. The suburbs bore me.'
As Barack Obama has intoned, words matter.
Yes, they do Mr. President, especially in the days of YouTube, Google, and the internet. These are the tools the common folk can tap to remember your promises -- and your breaking of them.
These are the videos we can watch instead of the redacted versions put out by your pals and accomplices in the media --those versions scrubbed clean of your malapropisms, mistakes, stammering, evasions, and most importantly, your broken promises. Only a cynic would think of us as being too forgetful or ignorant to recognize the Big Lie.
Only a certifiable cynic would consider the American people so unperceptive as to not recognize the wide gap between the image and the reality, the promises made and broken, the differences between the smiling visage on the Shepard Fairey posters (themselves a fraud -- how symbolic!) and the hectoring, finger-pointing, vengeful curmudgeon we now have in the Oval Office.
A hypocrite
The hypocrisy knows no bounds, either.
A hypocrite decries the role of money in politics and then breaks his promise to accept public financing for his presidential campaign (because he could see the money rolling in) while his challenger kept his promise to abide by the campaign law he himself created. Was there a certain degree of cynicism displayed there by Obama, knowing McCain was hoisted on his own petard?
A hypocrite preaches that he will bring us together as a people and heal our wounds when he wants our votes -- but after he wins, he practices the politics of polarization and declares that he wants not 'to quell people's anger,' but to channel it.
Only a hypocrite would campaign on a platform of bringing us together ('we are one people,' 'this was the moment -- this was the time -- when we came together to remake this great nation,' 'there is no red America, there is no blue America,' etc.) and then stoke the very polarization that he promised would end in the Age of Obama. His guru, Saul Alinksy, would be happy that his Rules for Radicals has become the blueprint for how the president can run, and ruin, a great nation.
Only a hypocrite would engage in as many baldfaced lies as our president has over the past few years. The end of lobbyists? Balderdash. In fact, as a Politico headline noted, 'Lobbyists are on pace for a record year.'
And what is a lobbyist? What is the meaning of the term when Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, is such a frequent visitor to the White House that he might as well sublet some space in the Lincoln Bedroom? Does anyone think Andy Stern is there to talk about the weather? A lobbyist by any other name is still, in the end, a lobbyist.
Barack Obama has also countenanced the buying of votes (payoffs to states to get senators to sign on Harry Reid's health care reform bill) in the Senate to get ObamaCare passed.
Obama decried the politics of fear during the campaign and then employed the same as president -- as he did when he had the audacity to predict the 'bankruptcy' of America should ObamaCare not pass. Or, before that, he augured the collapse of the economy should the stimulus bill not pass. When every bill becomes a do-or-die proposition, is that not playing the politics of fear?
Is it hypocritical to tout that tax dollars are not 'monopoly money' and that we 'can't continue to spend as if deficits don't have consequences' while engaging in irresponsible profligacy that would make Nero blanch? (Obama has a history of problems with his own credit standing, but now he is playing with our money.)
Does he think others are too stupid -- the belief that most defines a cynic -- to realize that his deficit-plagued budgets are a sure way to penury for us and our children and grandchildren?
Decrying fat cats while calling up a jet for a trip to Manhattan and a stroll down the Great White Way of Broadway? Taking jaunts to Copenhagen to try to snag the Olympics for his hometown pals in Chicago, who, no doubt, were hoping to snag some lucre? That's the Chicago Way. One could go on.
A bully
All this cynicism and hypocrisy is wrapped up and empowered by the other notable feature of Barack Obama: Our president is a bully.
Among the many examples: demeaning 'fat cats' and telling Wall Street bankers that he is the only one standing between them and the pitchforks; telling a recalcitrant Democratic Congressman that they'd better toe the line because 'we are keeping score, brother'; belittling allies, such as the Israelis, by telling them they need to be more self-reflective; trying to impose a left-wing lunatic dictator wanna-be on the innocent people of Honduras; dissing Eastern Europeans by not giving them a respectful warning that he was going to break a promise to them regarding missile bases in their nations; and forcing British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to grovel in a kitchen in order to have a few words with the President of the United States. (This treatment is attributable, speculates the Wall Street Journal, to some personal bad will between Great Britain and some Kenyan ancestors of Barack Obama. The man knows how to hold an ancestral grudge -- even if it means the rest of America suffers from slighting one of our formerly most treasured allies).
A bully is someone who can justify his actions by bragging that 'I won.' Whatever happened to the slogan 'Yes we can'? Whatever happened to the 'new kind of politics'? Well, they're so 2008.
A bully is someone who taunts, 'If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.'
A bully is someone who runs roughshod over not only his opponents (politics can be a blood sport, after all), but also the Constitution -- as Obama has from almost day one of the One. Here are just a few examples of his inclination to ignore our most sacred document: czars exercising power without being approved by the Senate; violating the property clause by ignoring bankruptcy law -- as he did with the auto bailouts and attempted to do with mortgage 'cram-down' plans; the chilling of free speech by threats against Fox News and by bringing back the threat of regulation affecting talk radio. Even health care reform has come under scrutiny for violating the Constitution.
There is a cliché in Washington: that all one needs to know about politics can be learned on the playground. But perhaps Obama's street-smart education was learned on the basketball court -- where height reigns (and there is no higher office in America), and where trash-talk is used to demoralize and defeat.
A cynic wrapped in a hypocrite inside a bully."
But, oh, what a difference a year can make. Now that Americans have become better acquainted with Obama and his leftist agenda, the halo is gone and the savior persona has been flushed down the toilet. If only they would have listen to those of us who had warned of an Obama nation and what a catastrophe that would be, they would have saved us all a lot of suffering.
Read from the American Thinker:
Obama's Image: What a Difference a Year Makes
By Ed Lasky
"Almost a year has passed since January 20, 2009 -- when the waters of the ocean no longer rose and America began to heal from the depredations of Republicans. Barack Obama has been our president for that long, and the people have started to wise up.
The light that shines on Barack Obama as president has reflected back an image that bears very little similarity to the iconic visage that floated above us all in 2008. Why has Barack Obama betrayed so many allies, broken so many promises, thrown so many pledges and people under the bus?
One simple aphorism (paraphrasing Winston Churchill) can explain it all. Barack Obama is no longer a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Much about his past remains murky, but faced with the need to govern, he has given the American people plenty of evidence of his nature...if only they will look.
Obama is a cynic wrapped in a hypocrite inside a bully.
This comes as a shock to many, who are dismayed to find that he is 'just a politician,' as Reverend Wright, Jr. (who knows him so well) called him back in 2008. But Wright was being all too kind and generous to his future former parishioner (Wright followed a long and ever-growing line of people trampled by Barack Obama's rise.)
But Barack Obama is far more than just a politician. We all swallow a lot from politicians; we know that many pander and narrowcast, changing their message to suit their audience. But Obama expressly campaigned as a man who would not do this. He was the candidate of hope and change -- he would bring a big broom to sweep clean the Augean Stables known as Washington, D.C. He called forth the better angels of our nature (hat tip: Honest Abe Lincoln, one of the truly honest politicians from Illinois) and tapped into a deep yearning for the rarest of the real things: an honest leader.
A cynic
Obama defined his campaign with high-sounding rhetoric that '[his] rival in this race is not other candidates, but cynicism.' The line resonated and soon became his mantra.
He later asked us to fight cynicism and revealingly told us that cynics believe they are smarter than everyone else. To this it could be said that Obama knows what that is like.
Could there be anything more cynical than to look upon Americans as being too forgetful to remember all the broken promises Obama made?
These include -- but are not limited to -- a promise that there would be no health care mandates (there are); that he would take a scalpel to the budget and bring down the deficit (headed towards the stratosphere as he rewards his own special interest groups); and that he would end earmarks (his spending bills are polluted by them; he is, after all, a Chicago politician).
He promised to close Gitmo -- not a done deal, and like many deadlines he promised, no one is sure when or if this will happen.
He promised the end of partisanship, but he has stoked it to a roaring blaze with his refusal to work with Republicans. He promised to end our wars, but now he is sending more forces into Afghanistan.
He stated that he would fight the gay marriage ban, but instead he ended up supporting it, in effect, by defending the Defense of Marriage Act.
He promised the most transparent administration in history, but instead he imposes layers of secrecy and invokes executive powers to cloak his administration from scrutiny (e.g., his use of executive privilege to protect Desiree Rogers, his social secretary, from questioning regarding the WhiteHouseGate-crashers).
We were promised that if we passed the stimulus bill under Barack Obama's presidency, then the unemployment rate would drop below 8% by now -- and here we are, during Christmas season, cruising along at a solid 10% (17% if we include the underemployed and those who left the workforce because they saw no prospects of landing a job).
We were promised that the anti-Bush would restore respect for America around the world and bring international comity. Instead, he has alienated our allies and empowered our adversaries -- a dynamic that has brought all but zero benefits to America (very little cooperation in Afghanistan, on 'climate change,' or on Iran's nuclear program). While he may have snagged himself a Nobel Peace Prize, the leaders of the world are increasingly treating him, and America, with disrespect and contempt.
The betrayals are so breathtaking and widespread (all of his promises have an expiration date) that all one can surmise is that the ultimate cynic is the One who
campaigned against cynicism.
We can sense that Obama is a cynic by referring back to his own definition: someone who thinks he is smarter than everyone else.
We have abundant evidence of this derisive attitude.
'I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director.'
Obama had the ego to think he was better than the key experts playing roles in his victory: He is apparently smarter than his policy directors and political directors, and he's a better speechwriter to boot.
We know how Obama feels about small-town Americans: They are bitter yokels who cling to guns or religion or antipathy towards people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment. But he has additionally demeaned a wide range of other Americans (doctors, cops, Special Olympics contestants, and many more, as you can see via the Insulter-in-Chief). And how many of us are the 'typical white person' he derided in the not-so-distant past? Patriots who wear flags on their lapels? They are among the great unwashed.
We also know how Obama feels about people living in suburbia. He has no use for those people in the gray flannel suits. He said, in an un-teleprompted remark: 'I'm not interested in suburbs. The suburbs bore me.'
As Barack Obama has intoned, words matter.
Yes, they do Mr. President, especially in the days of YouTube, Google, and the internet. These are the tools the common folk can tap to remember your promises -- and your breaking of them.
These are the videos we can watch instead of the redacted versions put out by your pals and accomplices in the media --those versions scrubbed clean of your malapropisms, mistakes, stammering, evasions, and most importantly, your broken promises. Only a cynic would think of us as being too forgetful or ignorant to recognize the Big Lie.
Only a certifiable cynic would consider the American people so unperceptive as to not recognize the wide gap between the image and the reality, the promises made and broken, the differences between the smiling visage on the Shepard Fairey posters (themselves a fraud -- how symbolic!) and the hectoring, finger-pointing, vengeful curmudgeon we now have in the Oval Office.
A hypocrite
The hypocrisy knows no bounds, either.
A hypocrite decries the role of money in politics and then breaks his promise to accept public financing for his presidential campaign (because he could see the money rolling in) while his challenger kept his promise to abide by the campaign law he himself created. Was there a certain degree of cynicism displayed there by Obama, knowing McCain was hoisted on his own petard?
A hypocrite preaches that he will bring us together as a people and heal our wounds when he wants our votes -- but after he wins, he practices the politics of polarization and declares that he wants not 'to quell people's anger,' but to channel it.
Only a hypocrite would campaign on a platform of bringing us together ('we are one people,' 'this was the moment -- this was the time -- when we came together to remake this great nation,' 'there is no red America, there is no blue America,' etc.) and then stoke the very polarization that he promised would end in the Age of Obama. His guru, Saul Alinksy, would be happy that his Rules for Radicals has become the blueprint for how the president can run, and ruin, a great nation.
Only a hypocrite would engage in as many baldfaced lies as our president has over the past few years. The end of lobbyists? Balderdash. In fact, as a Politico headline noted, 'Lobbyists are on pace for a record year.'
And what is a lobbyist? What is the meaning of the term when Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, is such a frequent visitor to the White House that he might as well sublet some space in the Lincoln Bedroom? Does anyone think Andy Stern is there to talk about the weather? A lobbyist by any other name is still, in the end, a lobbyist.
Barack Obama has also countenanced the buying of votes (payoffs to states to get senators to sign on Harry Reid's health care reform bill) in the Senate to get ObamaCare passed.
Obama decried the politics of fear during the campaign and then employed the same as president -- as he did when he had the audacity to predict the 'bankruptcy' of America should ObamaCare not pass. Or, before that, he augured the collapse of the economy should the stimulus bill not pass. When every bill becomes a do-or-die proposition, is that not playing the politics of fear?
Is it hypocritical to tout that tax dollars are not 'monopoly money' and that we 'can't continue to spend as if deficits don't have consequences' while engaging in irresponsible profligacy that would make Nero blanch? (Obama has a history of problems with his own credit standing, but now he is playing with our money.)
Does he think others are too stupid -- the belief that most defines a cynic -- to realize that his deficit-plagued budgets are a sure way to penury for us and our children and grandchildren?
Decrying fat cats while calling up a jet for a trip to Manhattan and a stroll down the Great White Way of Broadway? Taking jaunts to Copenhagen to try to snag the Olympics for his hometown pals in Chicago, who, no doubt, were hoping to snag some lucre? That's the Chicago Way. One could go on.
A bully
All this cynicism and hypocrisy is wrapped up and empowered by the other notable feature of Barack Obama: Our president is a bully.
Among the many examples: demeaning 'fat cats' and telling Wall Street bankers that he is the only one standing between them and the pitchforks; telling a recalcitrant Democratic Congressman that they'd better toe the line because 'we are keeping score, brother'; belittling allies, such as the Israelis, by telling them they need to be more self-reflective; trying to impose a left-wing lunatic dictator wanna-be on the innocent people of Honduras; dissing Eastern Europeans by not giving them a respectful warning that he was going to break a promise to them regarding missile bases in their nations; and forcing British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to grovel in a kitchen in order to have a few words with the President of the United States. (This treatment is attributable, speculates the Wall Street Journal, to some personal bad will between Great Britain and some Kenyan ancestors of Barack Obama. The man knows how to hold an ancestral grudge -- even if it means the rest of America suffers from slighting one of our formerly most treasured allies).
A bully is someone who can justify his actions by bragging that 'I won.' Whatever happened to the slogan 'Yes we can'? Whatever happened to the 'new kind of politics'? Well, they're so 2008.
A bully is someone who taunts, 'If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.'
A bully is someone who runs roughshod over not only his opponents (politics can be a blood sport, after all), but also the Constitution -- as Obama has from almost day one of the One. Here are just a few examples of his inclination to ignore our most sacred document: czars exercising power without being approved by the Senate; violating the property clause by ignoring bankruptcy law -- as he did with the auto bailouts and attempted to do with mortgage 'cram-down' plans; the chilling of free speech by threats against Fox News and by bringing back the threat of regulation affecting talk radio. Even health care reform has come under scrutiny for violating the Constitution.
There is a cliché in Washington: that all one needs to know about politics can be learned on the playground. But perhaps Obama's street-smart education was learned on the basketball court -- where height reigns (and there is no higher office in America), and where trash-talk is used to demoralize and defeat.
A cynic wrapped in a hypocrite inside a bully."
Our Govt Looking Out for Us--Updated
Our own government seems to be our worst enemy. How's this for insanity?
From Gateway Pundit:
Muslim Man Released From Jail After Posting $100 Bond… Threatened to Blow Up Local Stores
"It’s an Obama world…
Mohamed Ibrahim is out of jail after posting $100 bond. Mohamed, 35, threatened businesses on Poplar Avenue, Summer Avenue, Mendenhall, Perkins and Danny Thomas Boulevard. The suspect tried to kick out the windows of a patrol car during the arrest and police said they had to use pepper spray to subdue him.
Memphis officials released Mohamed Ibrahim from jail after he threatened to blow up several local stores. He was carrying a knife and driving a PT Cruiser when he was arrested.
MyEyeWitness News reported:
'Tonight, Mohamed Ibrahim is out after posting $100 bond. Earlier in the day, he was arrested after police say he walked into several Memphis businesses and threatened to blow them up.
Court records show Ibrahim was also telling people he was Muslim, and wanted to start a jihad, or holy war, in Memphis.
Police say when they arrested him, he had a butcher knife hidden in one of his jacket sleeves.'
There’s more… The Commercial Appeal reported:
'The FBI found three Islamic cassette tapes and miscellaneous papers in the suspect’s car, which were removed for additional study, according to the affidavit. Police charged Ibrahim with commission of an act of terrorism, filing false reports and disorderly conduct. He posted $100 bond and was released, pending his court date on Monday.'
The local store owners must be feeling much better now that Mohamed is back on the street."
UPDATE: Good news from Hot Air:
"Either the original reporting was incorrect or the bail got increased in Ibrahim’s court appearance this morning. According to Shelby County courthouse website, the bail is now at $50,000 (case number 09148795). He has a court date of January 11th."
From Gateway Pundit:
Muslim Man Released From Jail After Posting $100 Bond… Threatened to Blow Up Local Stores
"It’s an Obama world…
Mohamed Ibrahim is out of jail after posting $100 bond. Mohamed, 35, threatened businesses on Poplar Avenue, Summer Avenue, Mendenhall, Perkins and Danny Thomas Boulevard. The suspect tried to kick out the windows of a patrol car during the arrest and police said they had to use pepper spray to subdue him.
Memphis officials released Mohamed Ibrahim from jail after he threatened to blow up several local stores. He was carrying a knife and driving a PT Cruiser when he was arrested.
MyEyeWitness News reported:
'Tonight, Mohamed Ibrahim is out after posting $100 bond. Earlier in the day, he was arrested after police say he walked into several Memphis businesses and threatened to blow them up.
Court records show Ibrahim was also telling people he was Muslim, and wanted to start a jihad, or holy war, in Memphis.
Police say when they arrested him, he had a butcher knife hidden in one of his jacket sleeves.'
There’s more… The Commercial Appeal reported:
'The FBI found three Islamic cassette tapes and miscellaneous papers in the suspect’s car, which were removed for additional study, according to the affidavit. Police charged Ibrahim with commission of an act of terrorism, filing false reports and disorderly conduct. He posted $100 bond and was released, pending his court date on Monday.'
The local store owners must be feeling much better now that Mohamed is back on the street."
UPDATE: Good news from Hot Air:
"Either the original reporting was incorrect or the bail got increased in Ibrahim’s court appearance this morning. According to Shelby County courthouse website, the bail is now at $50,000 (case number 09148795). He has a court date of January 11th."
Life in Gaza
Based on reports from the American Pravda, the Palestinian people are living in squalor because of those "nasty Israelis". Aren't the terms "genocide" and "concentration camps" thrown about quite frequently?
Well, let's look at some photos to see what life is like in Gaza, via Israel Matzav:
Photos from the World's biggest concentration camp
"Here are some recent photos from the World's biggest concentration camp: Gaza. The pictures come from an Arabic web site that can be found here.
It looks like they're starving and suffering, doesn't it? Now, the same group that maintains that Arabic web site also maintains an English language web site that gives a far different picture of 'Palestinian' life in Gaza. They learned well from that old double talker Arafat, didn't they?
Arutz Sheva explains:
'The pictures on the Arabic-language site were posted for the Eid al Adha Muslim festival, which recalls the forefather Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, who the Bible states was Isaac. The Muslim tradition substitutes him with Ishmael.
The pictures on the Arabic-language site are headlined with the caption, "Clothes for their children despite the siege,” referring to the partial blockade Israel placed on Gaza following the Hamas military coup more than two year ago.
Israel has allowed thousands of trucks, bearing tens of thousands of tons of food, goods and equipment into Gaza, but the United Nations has claimed several times that a humanitarian crisis is “imminent.”
Statistics provided by the Palestinian Authority show that unemployment in the Gaza area dropped in the second quarter this year by 20 percent from 45.5 percent in the second quarter of 2008.'
Hmmm. Read the whole thing.
But what I'm really curious about is how they have all those fancy baked goods. After all, Richard Richard Goldstone told us that Gaza's 'only flour mill' was 'cruelly destroyed by Israel. So where has all the flour gone? Seemingly to that one bakery in Gaza.
Hmmm."
Between the American Pravda, the Jew-haters in Europe, and the Muslim world, they have some massive PR campaign going to make the situation in Gaza into something it is not. And, of course, Israel is always the villain.
Well, let's look at some photos to see what life is like in Gaza, via Israel Matzav:
Photos from the World's biggest concentration camp
"Here are some recent photos from the World's biggest concentration camp: Gaza. The pictures come from an Arabic web site that can be found here.
It looks like they're starving and suffering, doesn't it? Now, the same group that maintains that Arabic web site also maintains an English language web site that gives a far different picture of 'Palestinian' life in Gaza. They learned well from that old double talker Arafat, didn't they?
Arutz Sheva explains:
'The pictures on the Arabic-language site were posted for the Eid al Adha Muslim festival, which recalls the forefather Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, who the Bible states was Isaac. The Muslim tradition substitutes him with Ishmael.
The pictures on the Arabic-language site are headlined with the caption, "Clothes for their children despite the siege,” referring to the partial blockade Israel placed on Gaza following the Hamas military coup more than two year ago.
Israel has allowed thousands of trucks, bearing tens of thousands of tons of food, goods and equipment into Gaza, but the United Nations has claimed several times that a humanitarian crisis is “imminent.”
Statistics provided by the Palestinian Authority show that unemployment in the Gaza area dropped in the second quarter this year by 20 percent from 45.5 percent in the second quarter of 2008.'
Hmmm. Read the whole thing.
But what I'm really curious about is how they have all those fancy baked goods. After all, Richard Richard Goldstone told us that Gaza's 'only flour mill' was 'cruelly destroyed by Israel. So where has all the flour gone? Seemingly to that one bakery in Gaza.
Hmmm."
Between the American Pravda, the Jew-haters in Europe, and the Muslim world, they have some massive PR campaign going to make the situation in Gaza into something it is not. And, of course, Israel is always the villain.
The Party of Lawyers
Now, this is interesting. Many Americans probably think that most politicians began their careers as attorneys. But, that's not exactly the case. Most Dems have, whereas most Republicans have not. Perhaps, the Democratic Party should be renamed the "Lawyers" Party.
Read from the American Thinker:
The Lawyers' Party
By Bruce Walker
"The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers' Party. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are lawyers. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are lawyers. John Edwards, the other former Democrat candidate for president, is a lawyer and so is his wife Elizabeth. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate.) Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at the Democrat Party in Congress: the Majority Leader in each house is a lawyer.
The Republican Party is different. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not lawyers, but businessmen. The leaders of the Republican Revolution were not lawyers. Newt Gingrich was a history professor; Tom Delay was an exterminator; and Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer, not a lawyer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.
Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office thirty-one years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work. The Democratic Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history like Gingrich.
The Lawyers' Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America. And so we have seen the procession of official enemies in the eyes of the Lawyers' Party grow. Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.
This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.
Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all consuming. Some Americans become 'adverse parties' of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class action suit. We are citizens of a republic which promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.
Today, we are drowning in laws, we are contorted by judicial decisions, we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. When lawyers use criminal prosecution as a continuation of politics by other means, as happened in the lynching of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay, then the power of lawyers in America is too great. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to use, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.
We cannot expect the Lawyers' Party to provide real change, real reform or real hope in America. Most Americans know that a republic in which every major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges is not what Washington intended in 1789. Most Americans grasp that we cannot fight a war when ACLU lawsuits snap at the heels of our defenders. Most Americans intuit that more lawyers and judges will not restore declining moral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy.
Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse."
Read from the American Thinker:
The Lawyers' Party
By Bruce Walker
"The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers' Party. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are lawyers. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are lawyers. John Edwards, the other former Democrat candidate for president, is a lawyer and so is his wife Elizabeth. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate.) Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at the Democrat Party in Congress: the Majority Leader in each house is a lawyer.
The Republican Party is different. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not lawyers, but businessmen. The leaders of the Republican Revolution were not lawyers. Newt Gingrich was a history professor; Tom Delay was an exterminator; and Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer, not a lawyer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.
Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office thirty-one years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work. The Democratic Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history like Gingrich.
The Lawyers' Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America. And so we have seen the procession of official enemies in the eyes of the Lawyers' Party grow. Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.
This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.
Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all consuming. Some Americans become 'adverse parties' of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class action suit. We are citizens of a republic which promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.
Today, we are drowning in laws, we are contorted by judicial decisions, we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. When lawyers use criminal prosecution as a continuation of politics by other means, as happened in the lynching of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay, then the power of lawyers in America is too great. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to use, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.
We cannot expect the Lawyers' Party to provide real change, real reform or real hope in America. Most Americans know that a republic in which every major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges is not what Washington intended in 1789. Most Americans grasp that we cannot fight a war when ACLU lawsuits snap at the heels of our defenders. Most Americans intuit that more lawyers and judges will not restore declining moral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy.
Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse."
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