How’s That Working Out for You President Obama?

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Patriotic Americans who love their country were furious and embarrassed when President Obama began his administration by apologizing to various countries (especially Muslim countries and throughout Europe) for the supposed misdeeds and slights by past administrations. Some of this appalling behavior was conducted in the shadow of thousands of crosses and stars over the graves of American servicemen buried in Europe (a list of many of the countries freed by American soldiers is at the end of this piece). Then, to raise the level of ignorance and stupidity to new heights, Obama overturned decades of American commitment to freedom by remaining silent as Iranians were beaten and murdered in the streets as they sought free elections in their country.

Obama has also insulted our closest ally, Great Britain, over and over again, seriously frightened the Israelis, placed the Czech Republic and Poland in jeopardy (by canceling the missile treaty), cancelled the second ABM program, and, in general, caused our allies (particularly Sarkozy in France) to wonder aloud about his understanding of world affairs.

Liberals will never learn that peace treaties come from the barrel of a gun, and it is better for the world that we hold the gun. Unlike most other countries, we turn over the reins to local inhabitants once the bad guys are defeated and peace is established.

How have we and Obama been repaid for these reckless statements and this policy of outreach to various dictators? Our Iran policy is in tatters, Afghanistan is in flames, North Korea is thumbing its nose by shooting off missiles, and Venezuela is buying arms from Russia and getting ready to supply uranium to Iran.

It is always especially telling when a liberal publication publishes a piece like this:

The Tenacity Question

By DAVID BROOKS October 30, 2009 NY Times

Today, President Obama will lead another meeting to debate strategy in Afghanistan. He will presumably discuss the questions that have divided his advisers: How many troops to commit? How to define plausible goals? Should troops be deployed broadly or just in the cities and towns?

For the past few days I have tried to do what journalists are supposed to do.
I’ve called around to several of the smartest military experts I know to get their views on these controversies. I called retired officers, analysts who have written books about counterinsurgency warfare, people who have spent years in Afghanistan. I tried to get them to talk about the strategic choices facing the president. To my surprise, I found them largely uninterested.

Most of them have no doubt that the president is conducting an intelligent policy review. They have no doubt that he will come up with some plausible troop level.
They are not worried about his policy choices. Their concerns are more fundamental. They are worried about his determination.

These people, who follow the war for a living, who spend their days in military circles both here and in Afghanistan, have no idea if President Obama is committed to this effort. They have no idea if he is willing to stick by his decisions, explain the war to the American people and persevere through good times and bad.

Their first concerns are about Obama the man. They know he is intellectually sophisticated. They know he is capable of processing complicated arguments and weighing nuanced evidence.

But they do not know if he possesses the trait that is more important than intellectual sophistication and, in fact, stands in tension with it. They do not know if he possesses tenacity, the ability to fixate on a simple conviction and grip it, viscerally and unflinchingly, through complexity and confusion. They do not know if he possesses the obstinacy that guided Lincoln and Churchill, and which must guide all war presidents to some degree.

Their second concern is political. They do not know if President Obama regards Afghanistan as a distraction from the matters he really cares about: health care, energy and education. Some of them suspect that Obama talked himself into supporting the Afghan effort so he could sound hawkish during the campaign. They suspect he is making a show of commitment now so he can let the matter drop at a politically opportune moment down the road.

Finally, they do not understand the president’s fundamental read on the situation. Most of them, like most people who have spent a lot of time in Afghanistan, believe this war is winnable. They do not think it will be easy or quick. But they do have a bedrock conviction that the Taliban can be stymied and that the governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan can be strengthened. But they do not know if Obama shares this gut conviction or possesses any gut conviction on this subject at all.

The experts I spoke with describe a vacuum at the heart of the war effort — a determination vacuum. And if these experts do not know the state of President Obama’s resolve, neither do the Afghan villagers. They are now hedging their bets, refusing to inform on Taliban force movements because they are aware that these Taliban fighters would be their masters if the U.S. withdraws. Nor does President Hamid Karzai know. He’s cutting deals with the Afghan warlords he would need if NATO leaves his country.

Nor do the Pakistanis or the Iranians or the Russians know. They are maintaining ties with the Taliban elements that would represent their interests in the event of a U.S. withdrawal.

The determination vacuum affects the debate in this country, too. Every argument about troop levels is really a proxy argument for whether the U.S. should stay or go. The administration is so divided because the fundamental issue of commitment has not been settled.

Some of the experts asked what I thought of Obama’s commitment level. I had to confess I’m not sure either.

So I guess the president’s most important meeting is not the one with the Joint Chiefs and the cabinet secretaries. It’s the one with the mirror, in which he looks for some firm conviction about whether Afghanistan is worthy of his full and unshakable commitment. If the president cannot find that core conviction, we should get out now. It would be shameful to deploy more troops only to withdraw them later. If he does find that conviction, then he should let us know, and fill the vacuum that is eroding the chances of success.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal has said that counterinsurgency is “an argument to win the support of the people.” But it’s not an argument won through sophisticated analysis. It’s an argument won through the display of raw determination.

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Countries freed by US military action

Generally the dates given are when democratic elections were established or re-established, or some major constitutional change allowing such to occur.

Republic of Austria, 1945
France, 1945
Norway
Japan, 1946
Philippines, 1946
Greece, 1946
Italy, 1947
Belgium
Netherlands, 1945
Republic of China (Taiwan)
Denmark, 1953
Republic of [South] Korea, 1948
Federal Republic of Germany, 1949
Guam, 1970
American Samoa, 1978
Grenada, 1984
Republic of Poland, 1989
German Democratic Republic (East Germany), 1990
Republic of Hungary, 1990
Republic of Bulgaria, 1991
Kuwait, 1991
Iraqi Kurdistan
Lithuania, 1992
Czech Republic, 1992
Republic of Slovakia, 1992
Latvia, 1994
Kosovo, 2000
Afghanistan, 2001
Iraq, 2002-ongoing

VP Biden Caught in Another Blooper

Only the most committed liberal or a totally ignorant person would believe much of anything that VP Joe Biden has to say. After all, for decades he has been considered the ‘gaff-master’ on the Washington scene. This man, who wanted to divide Iraq into three countries and made 17 documented errors of fact during his debate with Sarah Palin, is a complete fool.

Biden Tells CNN: Economy has 'hit bottom' and is coming back

October 30, 2009 CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) – In an exclusive interview with CNN, Vice President Joe Biden said Friday he believes the economy has "hit bottom" and he's confident the stimulus package is helping to put the economy back on track.

"Oh I'm confident we've hit bottom," Biden said. "The question is look, we're not going to be satisfied, Ed, until I'm able to sit in front of you and say, 'Look, this month we grew jobs.'"

The vice president acknowledged that with unemployment at 9.8 percent across the country right now, it is hard to convince the American people the nation is coming of out of recession. Biden made his comments on a day in which he released a new report claiming the stimulus has created or saved somewhere between 640,000 and one million jobs.

"The net effect is growing jobs," said Biden, though he quickly acknowledged: "It doesn't say a lot to people to say, 'You know there would have been a million more ... jobs lost but for this [stimulus]. My grandpop used to have an expression... We lived in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

He said when the guy in Dixon City, a suburb, is out of work it's an economic slowdown. When your brother-in-law's out of work, it's a recession. When you're out of work, it's a depression. And it's a depression for millions of people."

Biden added there's a "necessary disconnect when people are out of a job," but he asserted that the recent report showing that the Gross Domestic Product has grown 3.5 percent in the last three months shows the recovery plan is working.

"Every expert out there has said... - and you know this - is that in a large part is attributable to the stimulus package," said Biden. "Put another way, without the stimulus package, the economy wouldn't have grown this last quarter."

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Even the liberal CBS network couldn't swallow this one:

CBS Says White House Is Fudging Stimulus Jobs Numbers

October 30, 2009 NewsBusters (Excerpt)

"When Katie Couric and the folks at CBS start doubting what the Administration says about how effective February's economic stimulus package was, you know President Obama is in trouble.

Consider that on Thursday's CBS "Evening News," Chip Reid began a segment with the following startling statement about a jobs report card to be released by the White House Friday:

Well, Katie, that report is going to claim that the stimulus has already created or saved hundreds of thousands of jobs, but if the administration`s first effort at counting stimulus jobs is any guide, tomorrow`s numbers could be hard to believe."

Nancy Pelosi Strikes Again

I apologize for another blog post on government healthcare, but no matter how many polls are taken or town halls are held showing that the American people (especially seniors) oppose ANY government takeover, the liberal Democrats relentlessly push on.

As an aside, I have several friends who are liberal Democrats. I honestly don’t know how they can support people who lie about almost everything all the time. They lie about the cost of their healthcare bills; they lie about the “Death Panels”; they lie about the Medicare cuts; they lie about the number of uninsured citizens who want insurance but can’t afford it, they lie about funding abortion, one way or another, they lie about covering illegals, one way or another, they lie about statements by Rush Limbaugh; they lie about Sarah Palin’s family, they lie, lie, lie.

The following is an analysis of the new Pelosi version of healthcare just made public:

10 Facts Every American Should Know About Speaker Pelosi's 1,990-Page Gov't Takeover of Health Care

Washington, Oct 29 - Congressman Boehner's Office

Members of Congress and the American people are just beginning to look at Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) 1,990-page government takeover of health care, but it’s already becoming clear just how costly and unsustainable this proposal is. From higher taxes on middle-class families to job-killing mandates on small businesses to cuts in Medicare benefits for seniors, here are 10 facts every American should know about Speaker Pelosi’s 1,990-page government takeover of health care:

1. RAISES TAXES ON MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill imposes a range of tax increases on families with income below $250,000, breaking a promise made by President Obama. Tax increases on middle class families include: an individual mandate tax of up to 2.5 percent of income for taxpayers earning as little as $9,350; repeal of a tax break on medicine purchased with funds from an HSA (health savings account); limits to tax relief through FSAs (flexible spending accounts); taxes on medical devices that will inevitably be passed on to consumers; and a new tax on all insurance policies.

2. MASSIVE CUTS TO MEDICARE BENEFITS FOR SENIORS. Despite grave warnings from CBO, FactCheck.org, and the independent Lewin Group that cuts to Medicare of the magnitude included in Speaker Pelosi’s bill would have a negative impact on seniors’ benefits and choices, Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill stays the course and cuts Medicare by hundreds of billions of dollars.

3. NO PROTECTIONS FOR SMALL BUSINESSES. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill claims to exempt small businesses from the steep eight percent ‘pay or play’ employer mandate. The facts tell a different story. Using Census data compiled by the Small Business Administration, this so-called ‘exemption’ hammers small employers with only, on average, 17 or more employees to new taxes and mandates. The outfits affected employ 70 percent of all small business employees, or 42.3 million workers. Adding to the assault on small businesses, the bill does not index the small business “exemption” amounts, meaning more and more small businesses will be ensnared by this job-killing employer mandate each year.

4. INCREASES THE COST OF HEALTH INSURANCE. Imposing a new $2 billion tax on insurance policies will be passed on to patients in the form of higher premiums. Changes to the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit will, according to estimates by CBO, will raise Medicare Part B premiums by $25 billion and Part D premiums by 20 percent. And imposing an unfunded mandate on the states to pay for the bill’s Medicaid expansion will shift the burden of this expansion on state taxpayers who may experience tax increases to cover the cost.

5. USES GIMMICKS TO HIDE BUDGET-BUSTING COST, PILES UP DEBT ON FUTURE GENERATIONS. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill claims to be deficit neutral, but uses budget gimmickry to hide its massive total cost. Working families across America know they cannot simply decide that a bill they get in the mail doesn’t exist, but that’s exactly what congressional Democrats are doing. In order to meet the President’s ‘target’ spending total of $900 billion, Democrats have simply swept costly provisions under the rug, including the $245 billion ‘doc fix.’

6. IMPOSES JOB-KILLING EMPLOYER MANDATES. Additional taxes on employers and new government mandates that dictate acceptable insurance will place new and crushing burdens on employers. These are burdens that will ultimately fall squarely on the backs of workers in the form of reduced wages, fewer hours or lost employment. CBO agrees that "[e]mployees largely bear the cost of... play-or-pay fees in the form of lower wages." According to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the nation’s largest small business association, an employer mandate of this magnitude will disproportionately impact small businesses, triggering up to 1.6 million lost jobs. Two-thirds of those jobs would be shed by small businesses.

7. TILTS THE PLAYING FIELD IN FAVOR OF THE GOVERNMENT-RUN INSURANCE COMPANY. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill promises not to give the government-run plan advantages over private insurers in the market, but the opposite is true. The bill provides billions in start-up funding for the government-run plan, and while it requires the plan to repay the money over time it does not require the plan to pay interest on this “loan.” This interest-free, taxpayer-subsidized loan is potentially worth millions of dollars and tilts the playing field in favor of the government-run plan.

8. THREATENS CASH-STRAPPED STATES WITH UNFUNDED MANDATES. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill swells the number of Americans on the government rolls by expanding Medicaid eligibility. Medicaid is financed through a federal-state partnership, but the bill dumps nearly ten percent of the mandated expansion included in the bill onto the states. States, already struggling with fiscal constraints, would be left on the hook for billions of dollars due to this unfunded mandate.

9. CREATES A NEW MONSTROSITY IN THE TAX CODE. Starting in 2011, Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill imposes a 5.4 percent tax on adjusted gross income above $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for married couples. Yet, the dollar amounts for which the tax kicks in are not indexed for inflation. We’ve seen this horror film before: the Alternative Minimum Tax, another Frankenstein’s monster of the tax code, also wasn’t indexed for inflation and now affects millions of middle class families with incomes below the Democrat’s surtax.

10. MISSES AN OPPORTUNITY TO CURTAIL JUNK LAWSUITS. Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill misses a critical opportunity to rein in junk lawsuits and costly defensive medicine. The bill includes only a voluntary grant program to deal with the medical liability crisis instead of including real reform, which would produce tens of billions of dollars in savings, improve efficiency in our health care system and reduce costs for patients and providers.

Some Hope Climate Change Foolishness Declining

The UN has signaled that member nations are backing off on supporting climate change agreements. Perhaps news that world temperatures have been plateauing or declining since 1998 has gotten through to some of these people as well as the understanding that earth’s climate has gone through countless increasing and decreasing cycles for as long as records and ice core samples can show. It would be good if President Obama and leading Democrats would also take note of this. Of course, there is little chance of this because it has long been obvious that manmade global warming is both a religion and a way to scuttle America’s economy to the hard left.

UN signals delay in climate change treaty

By EDITH M. LEDERER (AP) – October 28, 2009 (Excerpt)

UNITED NATIONS — "Just weeks before an international conference on climate change, the United Nations signaled it was scaling back expectations of reaching agreement on a new treaty to slow global warming.

Janos Pasztor, director of the secretary-general's Climate Change Support Team, said Monday "it's hard to say how far the conference will be able to go" because the U.S. Congress has not agreed on a climate bill, and industrialized nations have not agreed on targets to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions or funding to help developing countries limit their discharges.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has made a new climate treaty his top priority, hosting a Sept. 22 summit on climate change to spur political support and traveling extensively to build political momentum for a global agreement to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which only requires 37 industrialized nations to cut emissions.

Pasztor told a news conference "there is tremendous activity by governments in capitals and internationally to shape the outcome" of the climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in early December, which "is a good development" because political leadership is essential to make a deal.

But he indicated that Copenhagen most likely won't produce a treaty, but instead will push governments as far as they can go on the content of an agreement." AP

A Crucial Special Election in Upstate NY

There are times when one must recognize that a special situation has appeared, and your instincts and the rules-of-thumb you usually follow must be thrown out the window. That is the situation confronting me with regard to the special election in upstate New York to elect a new Congressman.

I favor conservative candidates, but I have always felt that once the primary is over, a Republican should support the Party’s candidate. That’s what Democrats do, and it is a major factor in their successes. This is why I supported Sen. John McCain in the last election even though I had to hold my nose. It is also true that voting for a third party candidate is invariably destructive and only serves to elect Democrats. That’s how we got Bill Clinton – twice.

But this is different. This is very different. This is an election wherein the Party leaders have chosen a RINO candidate, and a true conservative is running well in the election campaign. The reason that this is different is because of the Tea Party movement and the unwillingness, so far, of the Republican Party establishment, especially the RNC, to embrace the principles that are driving the Tea Party protesters.

Even if we lose this seat, I am supporting the independent conservative, Doug Hoffman, in order to send a message to Republican Party leaders – get on board with what the man in the street wants – true conservatives, or go down to defeat after defeat.

New York race at epicenter of a GOP mutiny

Many conservative voters are rejecting the party nominee in a special House election, leaving leaders to rethink the Republican Party's identity.

By Janet Hook October 27, 2009 latimes.com

Silvan Johnson adores Sarah Palin, belongs to a conservative discussion group and fumes at President Obama's spending policies. But when it comes to picking a new congressional representative for her upstate New York district, she is in no mood to help the Republican Party.

In fact, Johnson and many other conservatives want to use a Nov. 3 special election to teach the GOP a lesson about sticking to conservative values -- even though that lesson could mean the party loses a House seat it has held for decades. The conservatives are backing a third-party candidate, splitting the Republican vote and giving the Democrat a lead in some recent opinion polls.

"Both parties seem to be more for big government," said Johnson, a probation clerk in Fulton, N.Y. "The Republicans need to learn that the people they are running [for office] do not represent the views of the people."

The conservative rebellion in northern New York is showing that the anger among disaffected voters, which became prominent this summer during the "tea party" anti-spending rally in Washington and at town hall meetings on healthcare, has become a baffling political force that even Republicans are having a hard time harnessing.

The fight on the right has also made this district the epicenter of a national debate about the future of the Republican Party -- leaving party leaders to ask whether they are better off emphasizing the GOP's small-government and socially conservative values, or trying to broaden their appeal to reach independent and moderate voters.

That dilemma is coming clearly into view as the party lines up candidates for important 2010 races, including Senate contests in competitive states such as Florida, Illinois and New Hampshire.

The party establishment has tended to choose middle-of-the-road candidates, like moderate Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida. But conservatives have responded by raising money and building up the candidacy of conservative Marco Rubio, former speaker of the Florida House.

For now, major GOP figures are using New York's special House election to send a signal that they want the party to turn toward the right.

Palin herself has rebuffed the Republican candidate, who was hand-picked by local GOP leaders and who supports abortion rights and gay marriage. Instead, Palin has endorsed the conservative alternative, Doug Hoffman. So have former House Republican leader Dick Armey of Texas and former GOP presidential candidate Steve Forbes.

Voters from outside the district have weighed in too. Cathy Vasilakos, an accountant in Brooklyn, sent a $50 check to Hoffman to protest the fact that Newt Gingrich and the national GOP had endorsed the Republican nominee, Dede Scozzafava, a longtime state assemblywoman.

Vasilakos returned a fundraising letter from the Republican National Committee, after scribbling with her black Sharpie: "I'd rather give my monetary support to conservatives like Doug Hoffman. When the RNC gets a clue, they can put me back on their mailing list."

But Gingrich and many other Republican leaders say that if the party is to win nationally and in swing districts like this one, it cannot move too far to the right.

Support for Hoffman, they argue, is a recipe for electing the Democrat, lawyer Bill Owens. That may allow Republicans to maintain their ideological purity, they say, but it will not win the elections needed to oust Democrats from power.

"We have to decide which business we are in," Gingrich said on his website after conservatives derided his endorsement of Scozzafava. "If we are in the business of feeling good about ourselves while our country gets crushed, then I probably made the wrong decision."

The 2009 off-year elections come at a crucial juncture for the GOP in its journey to recover from brutal electoral defeats in 2006 and 2008.

The party has been buoyed by near unanimity among its lawmakers on Capitol Hill in opposition to Obama's healthcare, economic and environmental policies. Its fundraising and candidate recruitment efforts for 2010 have rebounded.

But polls indicate that dwindling enthusiasm for Obama and his policies is not translating readily into increased support for the GOP.

Recent surveys show Republican Party identification dropping this year, even as the share of Americans who say they are independent has jumped.

In another greatly watched 2009 political campaign, for governor of New Jersey, a wide swath of alienated voters is turning away from both political parties: An independent candidate is showing surprising strength against Democratic incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine and his Republican opponent, Chris Christie.

New York is holding a special House election in the 23rd District -- which stretches across the Adirondack mountains from Oswego to Lake Champlain -- to replace the district's 16-year congressman, moderate Republican John M. McHugh, who was named secretary of the Army. The region has sent Republicans to Congress since 1980. But in presidential races, it is a swing district: In 2008, Obama won it with 52% of the vote.

When McHugh was picked for the Army post, the district's 11 GOP county chairmen met in July and chose Scozzafava as their nominee -- over Hoffman and a handful of other contenders. She had high name recognition, and supporters said she was the one most likely to draw the centrist support needed to win.

Hoffman, a businessman, abandoned his promise to back the Republican nominee and ran with the endorsement of the Conservative Party, a significant force in New York politics that usually works in tandem with the GOP.

Word of his insurgent campaign spread locally and nationally, via online activist groups and publicity from conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck.

The campaign attracted volunteers like Jennifer Bernstone, a performing artist in Canastota, N.Y., who had never been involved in politics.

Bernstone had been seething ever since President George W. Bush agreed to bail out teetering Wall Street banks in late 2008. She snapped into political action a few weeks ago, after the GOP nominated Scozzafava.

"Dede is more liberal than the Democrat," Bernstone said, as she put in a day of campaign work that began at 8 a.m. and was likely to end after midnight.

In addition to supporting abortion rights and gay marriage, Scozzafava backs legislation making it easier for unions to organize. Critics say she is insufficiently committed to tax cuts.

McHugh had been easily reelected in the district by wide margins, and Scozzafava's backers say a conservative like Hoffman does not fit the district.

"Her positions on a lot of issues are reflective of the electorate here," said Matt Burns, a Scozzafava spokesman. "If the idea is that every Republican that runs for office needs [to be] someone who fits in Georgia, then it's going to be very, very difficult for Republicans to gain a majority in the House of Representatives."

Many of Hoffman's supporters and donors are from outside the district.

Bernstone said she was expecting volunteers to come from far-flung parts of the state, and even from Connecticut, for weekend canvassing.

Donations started coming from all parts of the country as the race began to draw national attention. As of Oct. 14, the campaign reported it had raised about $307,888 -- more than Scozzafava, but less than Owens.

In the week after that, a surge of Internet donations doubled Hoffman's total, campaign spokesman Rob Ryan said.

Vasilakos, the Brooklyn accountant, was among Hoffman's long-distance donors.

"This race matters to me," she said. "But I can't go upstate with a sign."

A More Complete Obama Enemies List

In my last blog entry I mentioned some of the people and groups that the thugs now infesting the peoples' White House are now demonizing. I did not include the list of outrageous incidents that took place during the campaign when anyone who pointed out the truth of a particular matter was immediately slimed. Of course the Sarah Palin situation is a case all and of itself. The Obamaites have not stopped sliming her and her family.

Fortunately this piece showed up this morning to remind us of how many incidents have taken place since Obama came along.

Obama's Real Enemies List

By Mark Hyman October 26, 2009 American Spectator

Much has been made by the political left of Richard Nixon's infamous enemies list. The reality is most of those named were people who did not receive presidential Christmas cards or White House reception invitations.

In contrast, Barack Obama has a real enemies list the peace prize-winner and his proxies have attacked during the past year, including the minority of news outlets that do not worship the media's latest false idol.

In August 2008, the Obama campaign implored the Justice Department to levy criminal charges against those funding an American Issues Project commercial that proved embarrassing to Obama. Days later, the campaign sent an "Obama Action Wire" to thousands of liberal activists exhorting them to harass Chicago's WGN radio because an on-air guest unearthed university documents that contradicted Obama's claims about his long-time ties to domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.

In the autumn, state prosecutors and top sheriffs in the swing state of Missouri who were prominent Obama supporters complied with a chilling Obama campaign request. The officials threatened to prosecute media outlets that printed or broadcasted material they deemed to be inaccurate about the Democratic nominee.

In the final days before the election, three newspapers that endorsed John McCain were booted from the Obama campaign bus. The New York Post, Dallas Morning News and Washington Times were unceremoniously shown the door immediately after their papers' endorsements appeared and were replaced with Jet and Ebony magazines.

In only his third full day as president Obama personally went on the offensive against a media personality. Obama warned Congressional Republicans against listening to Rush Limbaugh. The man who offered to sit down with Holocaust denier and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad drew a line in the sand regarding a born-in-the-heartland radio talk show host.

Earlier this year, Justice Department political appointees killed a six-month investigation by career DOJ lawyers into the most blatant voter intimidation case in 40 years. Last November, jack-booted, uniformed, baton-wielding thugs from the New Black Panther Party obstructed a Philadelphia polling location and behaved in an intimidating manner toward white voters, apparently for having the appearance of someone who might possibly vote for McCain.

Only weeks into his term, Obama established several embarrassing presidential firsts including targeting private individuals by names, assigning Shauna Daly a well-known "partisan dirt-digger" and non-lawyer to the White House Counsel's Office to likely gain access to Bush Administration documents protected under attorney-client privilege, and moving the senior political advisor into the West Wing. Daly left the White House after a mere month and returned to the Democratic National Committee where using privileged attorney-client information in opposition research would set a new low in unethical practices.

At the cost of denigrating the Office of the President, Obama's chief political strategist attacked a 21-year-old beauty pageant contestant whose public views were out of step with those of Administration allies. Fifty-four year-old David Axelrod appeared on National Public Radio last May and insisted Carrie Prejean was one of three finalists for the Obama family dog. An NPR studio audience showered Axelrod with cheers. Weeks before, Prejean was victimized by a militant homosexual judge who was angered she did not enthusiastically endorse gay marriage during the Miss USA competition.

Earlier in the spring, the Department of Homeland Security circulated a document warning law enforcement of an alleged threat posed by "domestic rightwing terrorists." Included in the group of potential terrorists were individuals who are pro-life, support the Second Amendment and oppose the flood of illegal aliens. The DHS pamphlet also singled out military veterans as possible domestic terrorists in-waiting.

White House targets include sectors of an entire industry. A common thread among the list of 789 Chrysler dealerships ordered closed by the White House is that the owners donated to GOP candidates, Republican-leaning causes or donated to Hillary Clinton or John Edwards during the Democratic presidential primaries.

Apparently successful franchises such as Chrysler's highest-rated 5-star dealerships were ordered closed in favor of less successful car lots and the consistent discriminator was which political party the owners supported. Reportedly, the closure list was drawn up by the office of the then-car czar, Steven Rattner. It is no surprise that Rattner's wife is Maureen White, the former Democratic National Committee Finance Chair.

Also targeted during the auto industry purge were financial institutions that did not willingly accept Obama's political demands in Chrysler's restructuring. One fund manager reported being on the receiving end of a profanity-laced tirade by Rattner that included threats to use the Internal Revenue Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission in gangster-like enforcement roles.

At mid-year, the White House ordered the firing of Gerald Walpin as Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community Service after Walpin discovered a key Obama supporter misused federal grant money. Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson squandered $850,000 in grant funds to inflate staff salaries and pay for personal services instead of the intended purpose of tutoring impoverished schoolchildren. Walpin's firing was in direct violation of a federal statute barring the removal of an IG without first filing a 30-day notice with Congress.

When the Tea Party movement was at its height, the White House publicized an email address, encouraging supporters to turn-in neighbors who opposed the Obama Administration's socialized medicine proposals. In a similar vein, the White House began collecting and archiving comments from social-networking sites without disclosing these practices to the public.

The Department of Health and Human Services threatened health insurance companies against communicating with their customers over proposed legislative measures implying the agency would punish offenders when it came to Medicare reimbursement.

Color of Change, a deeply partisan group founded by Obama political appointee Van Jones, launched a boycott effort against Fox News personality Glenn Beck. The talk show hosted outed Jones for his crackpot theory that George Bush was complicit in the September 11th terrorist attacks.

In recent weeks, the White House escalated its assault against Fox News, urging other news organizations to sever ties with the news channel. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Communications Director Anita Dunn and Axelrod attacked FNC for -- among other things -- fact-checking false statements made by Veterans Affair assistant secretary Tammy Duckworth. In comparison, the Obama Administration was silent when CNN's Wolf Blitzer hosted a newscast that fact-checked a Saturday Night Live comedy sketch that lampooned Obama.

The Obama Administration has media accomplices when it holds free speech hostage. The New York Times, the self-anointed Praetorian Guard of the First Amendment, editorialized against Fox News and for Obama, omitting troublesome facts and mischaracterizing events. The paper abandoned the role of media watchdog, and served as Obama's lap dog. The New York Times' political support of a controversial leader is reminiscent of events of 75 years ago. It was Richard Euringer, the library director in Essen, Germany, who endeared himself to the regime in the mid-1930s by selecting more than 18,000 works to be burned for not conforming to the Nazi ideology.

A Tough Summer and Florida Trip

Against the sad backdrop of an American president acting like a pouting teenager (he has compiled an ‘enemies list’ and vilified, first Wall St. brokers, then bankers, automobile executives, Chrysler bondholders, fictitious doctors who supposedly cut off healthy legs to earn $30,000 fees, fictitious doctors who fraudulently take out tonsils unnecessarily, white policemen if they dare confront a person of color, Rush Limbaugh, health insurance companies, his hand-picked Commander in Afghanistan, Fox News, Price-Waterhouse, the US Chamber of Commerce, and anyone else who disagrees with his plans and programs – and who blames Bush for everything that goes wrong under the Obama administration), Norma and I have had a tough summer and early fall. Perhaps it is because we are so depressed by what is happening in our beautiful country – and so frightened that American healthcare is about to be ruined forever.

All summer I have been hampered by back problems and a collapsing left leg, while Norma has been undergoing a long series of tests to see if she qualified for Reclast treatment for osteoporosis. She was cleared for the IV treatment for the Friday before we were to fly to Florida for the winter on the following Tuesday (this past Tuesday). We had already changed over our mail, addresses and various utilities and services, but we went ahead with the treatment because not to do so would mean that the exhausting testing would have to be repeated all over again.

Coincidentally, our RI condo complex decided to repave the condo streets that week – raising the possibility that we might be trapped in our condo, or that I would not be able to get Norma home after her Reclast treatment. Fortunately it rained for a few days, which postponed the repaving.

I brought Norma home from the hospital Friday afternoon after the Reclast. We had been told that Reclast had potential severe side effects, including flu-like symptoms, nausea and vomiting, but her doctor said not to worry. Three o’clock Saturday morning Norma began to shiver violently and got a splitting headache. Then she began having nausea and vomiting over and over again. She was terribly sick. When she got chest pains (she has had several heart attacks and has four stents), I called 911, and she was taken to RI Hospital, about 30 minutes away.

She was released about 3:00 PM on Monday, and we rushed home to get some prescriptions filled and to do all the things we always do to winterize our condo, including draining the pipes. We have a long checklist we have developed over the years.

Our wonderful friends, Joan and Bea, helped load our luggage (I can’t carry much of anything) and took us to a motel beside the airport. After they left, Norma came down with some new reactions that were scary, and we didn’t know whether it was because of the Reclast, or because of the new medications she was taking to combat the Reclast side effects. Luckily Norma had a Benadryl in her luggage, and that seemed to slow the reactions and help her to sleep. We made our flight the next morning.

We had planned to rent a car in Tampa and drive to our Florida condo, but our great friends, Mason and his Norma, offered to pick us up and take us home. This was about a four-hour round trip for them, so it was no small offering. We gladly accepted their offer.

I had previously made an appointment from RI with an orthopedic surgeon close-by in Florida, and I found out on Thursday that I will probably need a hip replacement. I am also writing this blogpost on a brand–new computer, because on Thursday my old computer went kaput and would not boot – even from the Operating System CD. This new computer uses Microsoft’s new Windows 7 Operating System, so perhaps I will gain some insights about it that will help my friends when they upgrade.

One good thing did happen. A year or so ago I subscribed to an online service that automatically backs up your files (Mozy.com), and after I set up my new computer I was able to recover all my text files, pictures, videos and Favorites. The only other problem is that my old printer will not work with Windows 7, so I have also had to get a new printer (I got one that operates on our Wi-fi network).

We are very, very happy to be in Florida for the winter. Now I have to get my hip replaced before Obamacare hits.

THE RNC and ANOTHER PERCEPTIVE CARTOON

I keep telling the Republican National Committee to stop calling me and stop sending me phony surveys and donation requests. Until you stop supporting RINOs (liberals in disguise) I'm not interested.
LEFT CLICK TO ENLARGE

Rush Limbaugh and the Left-Wing Liars

Rush has conducted a radio program for more than 20 years, 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. When left-wing slimers decided to punish him for his conservative views and his impact on people that he inspires, the best they could do is tell lies about him. All across the left-wing, cable networks, especially CNN and MSNBC, talking heads kept repeating the lies until, as Hitler's Goebbels once proved, people will believe any lie if you tell it enough times. I really fear for my country because there is no question in my mind that much of this was orchestrated by the Obama White House, the same group that is sliming Fox News.

Here is what Rush had to say:

The Race Card, Football and Me

My critics would have you believe no conservative meets NFL 'standards.'

By RUSH LIMBAUGH OCTOBER 16, 2009

David Checketts, an investor and owner of sports teams, approached me in late May about investing in the St. Louis Rams football franchise. As a football fan, I was intrigued. I invited him to my home where we discussed it further. Even after informing him that some people might try to make an issue of my participation, Mr. Checketts said he didn't much care. I accepted his offer.

It didn't take long before my name was selectively leaked to the media as part of the Checketts investment group. Shortly thereafter, the media elicited comments from the likes of Al Sharpton. In 1998 Mr. Sharpton was found guilty of defamation and ordered to pay $65,000 for falsely accusing a New York prosecutor of rape in the 1987 Tawana Brawley case. He also played a leading role in the 1991 Crown Heights riot (he called neighborhood Jews "diamond merchants") and 1995 Freddie's Fashion Mart riot.

Not to be outdone, Jesse Jackson, whose history includes anti-Semitic speech (in 1984 he referred to Jews as "Hymies" and to New York City as "Hymietown" in a Washington Post interview) chimed in. He found me unfit to be associated with the NFL. I was too divisive and worse. I was accused of once supporting slavery and having praised Martin Luther King Jr.'s murderer, James Earl Ray.

Next came writers in the sports world, like the Washington Post's Michael Wilbon. He wrote this gem earlier this week: "I'm not going to try and give specific examples of things Limbaugh has said over the years because I screwed up already doing that, repeating a quote attributed to Limbaugh (about slavery) which he has told me he simply did not say and does not reflect his feelings. I take him at his word. . . . "

Mr. Wilbon wasn't alone. Numerous sportswriters, CNN, MSNBC, among others, falsely attributed to me statements I had never made. Their sources, as best I can tell, were Wikipedia and each other. But the Wikipedia post was based on a fabrication printed in a book that also lacked any citation to an actual source.

I never said I supported slavery and I never praised James Earl Ray. How sick would that be? Just as sick as those who would use such outrageous slanders against me or anyone else who never even thought such things. Mr. Wilbon refuses to take responsibility for his poison pen, writing instead that he will take my word that I did not make these statements; others, like Rick Sanchez of CNN, essentially used the same sleight-of-hand.

The sports media elicited comments from a handful of players, none of whom I can recall ever meeting. Among other things, at least one said he would never play for a team I was involved in given my racial views. My racial views? You mean, my belief in a colorblind society where every individual is treated as a precious human being without regard to his race? Where football players should earn as much as they can and keep as much as they can, regardless of race? Those controversial racial views?

The NFL players union boss, DeMaurice Smith, jumped in. A Washington criminal defense lawyer, Democratic Party supporter and Barack Obama donor, he sent a much publicized email to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell saying that it was important for the league to reject discrimination and hatred.

When Mr. Goodell was asked about me, he suggested that my 2003 comment criticizing the media's coverage of Donovan McNabb—in which I said the media was cheerleading Mr. McNabb because they wanted a successful black quarterback—fell short of the NFL's "high standard." High standard? Half a decade later, the media would behave the same way about the presidential candidacy of Mr. Obama.

Having brought me into his group, Mr. Checketts now wanted a way out. He asked me to resign. I told him no way. I had done nothing wrong. I had not uttered the words these people were putting in my mouth. And I would not bow to their libels and pressure. He would have to drop me from the group. A few days later, he did.

As I explained on my radio show, this spectacle is bigger than I am on several levels. There is a contempt in the news business, including the sportswriter community, for conservatives that reflects the blind hatred espoused by Messrs. Sharpton and Jackson. "Racism" is too often their sledgehammer. And it is being used to try to keep citizens who don't share the left's agenda from participating in the full array of opportunities this nation otherwise affords each of us. It was on display many years ago in an effort to smear Clarence Thomas with racist stereotypes and keep him off the Supreme Court. More recently, it was employed against patriotic citizens who attended town-hall meetings and tea-party protests.

These intimidation tactics are working and spreading, and they are a cancer on our society.

Contemporary Cartoon and Video

TWO OF MANY LIBERAL LIARS WHO WILL SAY AND DO ANYTHING
TO DESTROY ANYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH THEM


THE MARINES UNDERSTAND A TERRIBLE MISTAKE WAS MADE


If video does not load, go here.
WHY ARE THE MARINES NOT CHEERING? KEEP READING

Debacle in Moscow
By Charles Krauthammer October 16, 2009 RealClearPolitics

WASHINGTON -- About the only thing more comical than Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was the reaction of those who deemed the award "premature," as if the brilliance of Obama's foreign policy is so self-evident and its success so assured that if only the Norway Five had waited a few years, his Nobel worthiness would have been universally acknowledged.

To believe this, you have to be a dreamy adolescent (preferably Scandinavian and a member of the Socialist International) or an indiscriminate imbiber of White House talking points. After all, this was precisely the spin on the president's various apology tours through Europe and the Middle East: National self-denigration -- excuse me, outreach and understanding -- is not meant to yield immediate results; it simply plants the seeds of good feeling from which foreign policy successes shall come.

Chauncey Gardiner could not have said it better. Well, at nine months, let's review.

What's come from Obama holding his tongue while Iranian demonstrators were being shot and from his recognizing the legitimacy of a thug regime illegitimately returned to power in a fraudulent election? Iran cracks down even more mercilessly on the opposition and races ahead with its nuclear program.

What's come from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton taking human rights off the table on a visit to China and from Obama's shameful refusal to see the Dalai Lama (a postponement, we are told). China hasn't moved an inch on North Korea, Iran or human rights. Indeed it's pushing with Russia to dethrone the dollar as the world's reserve currency.

What's come from the new-respect-for-Muslims Cairo speech and the unprecedented pressure on Israel for a total settlement freeze? "The settlement push backfired," reports The Washington Post, and Arab-Israeli peace prospects have "arguably regressed."

And what's come from Obama's single most dramatic foreign policy stroke -- the sudden abrogation of missile defense arrangements with Poland and the Czech Republic that Russia had virulently opposed? For the East Europeans it was a crushing blow, a gratuitous restoration of Russian influence over a region that thought it had regained independence under American protection.

But maybe not gratuitous. Surely we got something in return for selling out our friends. Some brilliant secret trade-off to get strong Russian support for stopping Iran from going nuclear before it's too late? Just wait and see, said administration officials, who then gleefully played up an oblique statement by President Dmitry Medvedev a week later as vindication of the missile defense betrayal.

The Russian statement was so equivocal that such a claim seemed a ridiculous stretch at the time. Well, Clinton went to Moscow this week to nail down the deal. What did she get?

"Russia Not Budging On Iran Sanctions: Clinton Unable to Sway Counterpart." Such was The Washington Post headline's succinct summary of the debacle.

Note how thoroughly Clinton was rebuffed. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared that "threats, sanctions and threats of pressure" are "counterproductive." Note: It's not just sanctions that are worse than useless, but even the threat of mere pressure.

It gets worse. Having failed to get any movement from the Russians, Clinton herself moved -- to accommodate the Russian position! Sanctions? What sanctions? "We are not at that point yet," she averred. "That is not a conclusion we have reached ... it is our preference that Iran work with the international community."

But wait a minute. Didn't Obama say in July that Iran had to show compliance by the G-20 summit in late September? And when that deadline passed, did he not then warn Iran that it would face "sanctions that have bite" and that it would have to take "a new course or face consequences"?

Gone with the wind. It's the U.S. that's now retreating from its already flimsy position of just three weeks ago. We're not doing sanctions now, you see. We're back to engagement. Just as the Russians suggest.

Henry Kissinger once said that the main job of Anatoly Dobrynin, the perennial Soviet ambassador to Washington, was to tell the Kremlin leadership that whenever they received a proposal from the United States that appeared disadvantageous to the United States, not to assume it was a trick.

No need for a Dobrynin today. The Russian leadership, hardly believing its luck, needs no interpreter to understand that when the Obama team clownishly rushes in bearing gifts and "reset" buttons, there is nothing ulterior, diabolical, clever or even serious behind it. It is amateurishness, wrapped in naivete, inside credulity. In short, the very stuff of Nobels.

MUST READ If You Are a Senior or Love a Senior

Although Obamacare supporters come on TV every day to ridicule the talk of "Death Panels", their existence still remains in all the bills before Congress because of the concept of QARY to be applied under all versions of Obamacare.

QARY stans for Quality Adjusted Remaining Years. What it means is that if a senior needs an expensive treatment or procedure, the cost of that procedure is to be divided by the estimated remaining lifespan of that person. If that number exceeds $20,000, the procedure will be denied.

For example, if your 85 year old father needs colon surgery that costs $100,000, and his remaining life span is set at 4 years, $100,000/4 = $25,000; procedure denied. When you add this provision to the rationing, denials and extended waiting times that $500 billion in Medicare cuts will bring about, what you have is that Obamacare is a death sentence for many seniors.

If you are a senior or you have a loved one who is a senior, you must work to stop government-controlled healthcare.

This column by Dick Morris was written last August, but everything in it still applies:

IT’S ALL A DEATH PANEL: THE TRUTH ABOUT OBAMACARE

By Dick Morris And Eileen McGann August 18, 2009

Washington is all atwitter about “death panels”: President Obama derides the idea that his health-care reform calls for them; the Senate is stripping “end of life” counseling language from its bill — and last Friday the voice of the liberal establishment, The New York Times, ran a Page One story “rebutting” the rumor that ObamaCare would create such boards to decide when to pull the plug on elderly patients.

But all those protests miss the fundamental truth of the “death panel” charge.
Even without a federal board voting on whom to kill, ObamaCare will ration care extensively, leading to the same result. This follows inevitably from central features of the president’s plan.

Specifically, his decisions to (1) pay for reform with vast cuts in the Medicare budget and (2) grant insurance coverage to 50 million new people, vastly boosting demand without increasing the supply of doctors, nurses or other care providers.

Whether or not he admits it even to himself, Obama’s talk of cutting “inefficiencies” and reducing costs translates to less care, of lower quality, for the elderly. Every existing national health system finds ways to deny state-of-the-art medications and necessary surgical procedures to countless patients, and ObamaCare has the nascent mechanisms to do the same. With the limited options that Obama’s vision would leave them, many will find that “end of life counseling” necessary and even welcome.

“Reform” would cut care to the elderly in several ways:
* Slash hundreds of billions from Medicare spending, largely by lowering reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals for patient care.
If a hospital gets less money for each MRI, it will do fewer of them. If a surgeon gets paid less for a heart bypass on a Medicare patient, he’ll perform them more rarely. These facts of the marketplace are not only inevitable consequences of Obama’s cuts but are also its intended consequence. Without them, his savings will prove illusory.

* Expanding the patient load by extending full coverage to 50 million Americans (including such “Americans” as illegal immigrants) without boosting the supply of care will force rationing decisions on harried and overworked doctors and hospitals.
People with insurance use a lot more health-care resources — so today’s facilities and personnel will have to cope with the increased workload. Busy surgeons will have to decide who would benefit most from their treatment — de facto rationing. The elderly will, inevitably, be the losers.

* The Federal Health Board, established by this legislation, will be charged with collecting data on various forms of treatment for different conditions to assess which are the most effective and efficient. While the bills don’t force providers to obey the board’s “guidance,” its recommendations will still wind up setting the standards and protocols for care systemwide.

We’ve already seen Medicare and Medicaid lead a similar race to the bottom with their formularies and other regulations. With Washington dictating what every policy must cover and regulating all rates, insurers and providers will all have to follow the FHB’s advice on limiting care to the elderly — a de facto rationing system.

* In assessing whether to allow certain treatments to a given patient, medical professionals will be encouraged to apply the Quality-Adjusted Remaining Years system. Under QARY, decision-makers seek to “amortize” the cost of treatment over the remaining “quality years of life” likely for that patient.

Imagine a hip replacement costing $100,000 and the 75-year-old who needs it, a diabetic with a heart condition deemed to have just three “quality” years left. That works out to $33,333 a year — too steep! Surgery disallowed! (Unless of course, the patient has political connections . . . )

Younger, healthier patients would still get the surgery, of course. The QARY system simply aims to deny health care to the oldest and most infirm, “scientifically” condemning them to infirmity, pain and earlier death than would otherwise be their fate.

In short, ObamaCare doesn’t need to set up “death panels” to make retail decisions about ending the lives of individual patients. The whole “reform” scheme is one giant death panel in its own right.

Mark Steyn on the Peace Prize, Funny, but Serious

Winston Churchill famously once said, 'We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.'

After two weeks in office President Obama was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Norwegian socialists. Socialists Of The World, UNITE! After nine months in office, it looks like the Pax Americana that has kept the world at peace since the end of World War II may be coming to a close. We hope not.

Who Really Won?

In diminishing American power abroad, Obama and the U.S. choose decline.

By Mark Steyn October 12, 2009 National Review

The most popular headline at the Real Clear Politics website the other day was: “Is Obama Becoming A Joke?” With brilliant comedic timing, the very next morning the Norwegians gave him the Nobel Peace Prize. Up next: His stunning victory in this year’s Miss World contest. December 12, Johannesburg. You read it here first.

For what, exactly, did he win the Nobel? As the president himself put it: “When you look at my record, it’s very clear what I have done so far. And that is nothing. Almost one year and nothing to show for it. You don’t believe me? You think I’m making it up? Take a look at this checklist.”

And up popped his record of accomplishment, reassuringly blank.

Oh, no, wait. That wasn’t the real President Obama. That was a comedian playing President Obama on Saturday Night Live. And, for impressionable types who find it hard to tell the difference, CNN — in a broadcast first that should surely have its own category at the Emmys — performed an in-depth “reality check” of the SNL sketch. That’s right: They fact-checked the jokes. Seriously. “How much truth is behind all the laughs? Stand by for our reality check,” promised Wolf Blitzer, introducing his in-depth report with all the plonking earnestness so cherished by those hapless Americans stuck at Gate 73 for four hours with nothing to watch but the CNN airport channel. Given the network’s ever-more-exhaustive absence of viewers among the non-flight-delayed demographic, perhaps Wolf could make it a regular series:
Who was that lady I saw you with last night?

That was no lady, that was my wife.

“In fact, our sources confirm, his wife is, biologically speaking, a lady. Joining us now is our medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, we all like a joke, but how much truth is behind the laughs?”

Fortunately, the Nobel Committee understands that President Obama’s accomplishments are no laughing matter. So they gave him the Peace Prize for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” I assumed this was a reference to his rip-roaring success in winning the Olympic Games for Rio — but as it turns out, the deadline for Nobel nominations was way back on February 1.

Obama took office on January 20. Gosh, it’s so long ago now. What “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy” did he make in those first twelve days? Bowing to the Saudi King? Giving the British prime minister the Wal-Mart discount box of Twenty Classic Movies You’ve Seen A Thousand Times? “Er, Barack, I’ve already seen these.” “That’s okay. They won’t work in your DVD player anyway.”

For these and other “extraordinary efforts” in “cooperation between peoples,” President Obama is now the fastest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in history. Alas, the extraordinary efforts of those first twelve days are already ancient history. Reflecting the new harmony of U.S.-world relations since the administration hit the “reset” button, the Times of London declared the award “preposterous” and Svenska Freds (the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society) called it “shameful.” There’s something almost quaintly vieux chapeau about the Nobel decision, as if the hopeychangey bumper stickers were shipped surface mail to Oslo and only arrived last week. Everywhere else, they’re peeling off: The venerable lefties at Britain’s New Statesman currently have a cover story on “Barack W. Bush.”

Happily, there are still a few Americans willing to stand by Mister Saturday Night. “I am shocked at the mean-spirited comments,” wrote Judi Romaine to the Times in protest at all the naysaying. “I’m afraid I’ve registered into a very conversative [sic], fear-based world here but I’d like to suggest the incredible notion we all create our worlds in our conversations. What are you building by maligning rather than creating discourses for workability? Bravo to Obama and others working for people, however it appears to cynics.”

If that’s the language you have to speak when you’re “working for people,” I’d rather work for a cranky mongoose. Yet to persons who can use phrases like “creating discourses for workability” with a straight face, Obama remains an heroic figure. Like Judi Romaine, he works hard to “create our worlds in our conversations.” Why, only the other day, very conversationally, the administration floated the trial balloon that it could live with the Taliban returning to government in Afghanistan. A lot of Afghans won’t be living with it, but that’s their lookout.

This is — how to put this delicately? — something of a recalibration of Obama’s previous position. From about a year after the fall of Baghdad, Democrats adopted the line that Bush’s war in Iraq was an unnecessary distraction from the real war, the good war, the one in Afghanistan that everyone — Dems, Europeans, all the nice people — were right behind, 100 percent. No one butched up for the Khyber Pass more enthusiastically than Barack Obama: “As president, I will make the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban the top priority.” (July 15, 2008)

But that was then and this is now. As the historian Robert Dallek told Obama recently, “War kills off great reform movements.” As the Washington Post’s E. J. Dionne reminded the president, his supporters voted for him not to win a war but to win a victory on health care and other domestic issues. Obama’s priorities lie not in the Hindu Kush but in America: Why squander your presidency on trying to turn an economically moribund feudal backwater into a functioning nation state when you can turn a functioning nation state into an economically moribund feudal backwater?

Gosh, given their many assertions that Afghanistan is “a war we have to win” (Obama to the VFW, August 2008), you might almost think, pace Judi Romaine, that it’s the president and water-bearers like Gunga Dionne who are the “cynics.” In a recent speech to the Manhattan Institute, Charles Krauthammer pointed out that, in diminishing American power abroad to advance statism at home, Obama and the American people will be choosing decline. There are legitimate questions about our war aims in Afghanistan, and about the strategy necessary to achieve them. But, eight years after being toppled, the Taliban will see their return to power as a great victory over the Great Satan, and so will the angry young men from Toronto to Yorkshire to Chechnya to Indonesia who graduated from Afghanistan’s Camp Jihad during the 1990s. And so will the rest of the world: They will understand that the modern era’s ordnungsmacht (the “order maker”) has chosen decline.

Barack Obama will have history’s most crowded trophy room, but his presidency is shaping up as a tragedy — for America, and the world.

Two Incredible Day-by-Day Cartoons

I felt that the 10/11/09 Day-by-Day Cartoon was so meaningful and to the point that I am repeating it here:
LEFT CLICK TO ENLARGE

And yesterday:

Recent Nobel Peace Prize Recipients

Recent Nobel Peace Prize Recipients

2009
Barack Hussein Obama

Courtesy of Powerline.com:

2007
AL GORE The award to Al Gore and the IPCC "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change" fits in with a subset of cosmopolitan frauds, fakers, murderers, thieves, and no-accounts going back about twenty years.

2005
MOHAMED ELBARADEI (joint winner). He's done such a nice job with Iran.

2004
WANGARI MAATHAI The Kenyan ecologist peacefully teaches that the AIDS virus is a biological agent deliberately created by the Man.

2002
JIMMY CARTER JR., former President of the United States of America. A true cosmopolitan, he has undermined the foreign policy of his own country and vouched for the bona fides of tyrants and murderers all over the world. Commenting on the award, Nobel Committee Chairman Gunnar Berge emphasized that the award was meant as a denunciation of American policy toward Iraq. "It should be interpreted as a criticism of the line that the [Bush] administration has taken," Berge said. "It's a kick in the leg to all that follow the same line as the United States."

2001
UNITED NATIONS, New York, NY, USA.
KOFI ANNAN, United Nations Secretary General. Among other things, they respectively served as the vehicle for, and presided over, one of the biggest scams in history.

1994
YASSER ARAFAT (joint winner), Chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO, President of the Palestinian National Authority. He was a cold-blooded murderer both before and after receiving the award.

1992
RIGOBERTA MENCHU TUM, Guatemala. She is the notorious Guatemalan faker and author, sort of, of I, Rigoberta Menchu. Like President Obama, she is a memoirist of distinction.

1988
THE UNITED NATIONS PEACE-KEEPING FORCES New York, NY, U.S.A. Notwithstanding rapes and sex abuse committed by the team in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and the Congo, still doing fine work all over the world.

1976
BETTY WILLIAMS, United Kingdom, founder of the Northern Ireland Peace Movement (later renamed Community of Peace People), who in later years repeatedly called for the assassination of President George Bush. How peaceful can you get?

1973
LE DUC THO (with Henry Kissinger) for the 1973 peace with honor bequeathed to the fortunate people of Vietnam.

The Prince of Lies

Why didn't all these people who have now figured out Obama figure him out a year ago when his close connections to Rv. Wright and terrorist Ayers came to light? When he wouldn't salute our flag? When he gave Hillary the finger? When he lied about only accepting public campaign finance money? When he threw his grandmother under the bus? When he prevented American voters from learning anything about his birth and his life before Chicago politics? When Michelle said she had never been proud of her country before? Etc., etc., etc.

The Prince of Lies

By John Griffing September 01, 2009 American Thinker

"A lie told often enough becomes truth." - Vladimir Lenin

President Obama's skill as a liar is critical to his success as a Socialist.

Considering the zeal with which President Obama has in a very short time remade America, we can conclude that he will not stop until America is completely socialist. But one building block remains: government-controlled healthcare. As Lenin once said, "Medicine is the keystone in the arch of socialism." To embark upon such an ambitious project that has yet failed at every attempt, President Obama must lie, since it is clear that a sizeable majority opposes his healthcare reform.

And President Obama is a most gifted liar. We're not talking about a new Clintonian era of likeable misinformation. This is not, "I didn't inhale." President Clinton's loveable way of twisting the truth pales in comparison to Obama's brazen boldness in lying even when Obama knows he will be caught.

President Obama is a special breed of liar, employing an array of varying techniques intended to marshal public emotion in his favor. For example, he uses his own grandmother to gain sympathy for a plan that will leave millions of grandmothers without care.

Unlike his predecessors, when caught in the midst of a deception, Obama is not deterred. He lies to cover his lies. Remember confessed terrorist Bill Ayers? First, then-Senator Obama denied knowing Ayers at all. Then, when the evidence was incontrovertible that Obama had indeed not only known Ayers, but also worked with him professionally, Obama changed his defense to one of ignorance, claiming that he was only a child when Ayers committed his crimes, and assumed that Ayers had been rehabilitated. Obama has continued and applied this pattern to a host of crucial national questions.

Obama is a Socialist. And the authentic Socialist is not driven by morality or truth, but by the end that justifies the means.

This philosophy reveals itself quite starkly in President Obama's patent fabrications regarding his healthcare reform plans. Observe the consistent mismatch between the facts and what Obama says:

Obama says that he does not support a "single-payer system" even though his comments in favor of single-payer healthcare are on tape, and his "public option" amounts to a piecemeal takeover of private-sector medical coverage.

Obama says, "You will not be waiting in any lines," but Section 1151 of HR 3200 penalizes hospitals for the costs incurred in readmitting patients, permitting the Health and Human Services Secretary to "reduce" payments to hospitals for readmission, a decision likely to force the sick out into the cold. If a cancer patient has a relapse, they might as well get drunk on morphine, because readmission will be exceedingly difficult.

Obama ridicules the idea of "death panels" as right-wing hysteria, saying that HR 3200 contains no such entity. He is right. The Independent Medicare Advisory Council, the source of the death panel concerns, is the topic of another bill introduced by the Obama Administration. Its job? To cut Medicare payments. And specific sections of his proposed legislation create mechanisms that will result in the loss of care for elderly persons. In addition, Medicare Advantage programs would be ended, a cut of $150 billion. This has not stopped the President from saying, "We are not talking about cutting Medicare benefits."

Obama makes the transparently false claim that private insurance will not be affected by HR 3200, and that those who like their current plans can keep them, despite the fact that individual Americans will only be allowed to obtain private plans for a 5 year grace period, and government plans will become the default should citizens switch employers.

Obama says that "46 million of our fellow citizens have no coverage. They are just vulnerable. If something happens, they go bankrupt, or they don't get the care they need." But everyone can currently obtain care, even if they cannot pay. That is why 60 hospitals in California have closed, because the law requires them to treat everyone. And that 46 million number is known to be bogus, since 9.7 million of this number are illegal aliens. By one estimate, 14 million Americans choose not to obtain coverage. 18 million are under 34 and are either dependents or simply opt not to seek insurance, according to one study. When these numbers are subtracted, only 5 million uninsured remain.

Obama says that "we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need," but responding to a Medicare recipient that had been denied the only drug that would alleviate his condition, Obama had this to say, "Look, there may be -- in nine out of 10 cases, the generic might work as well or better than the brand name. And we don't want to just subsidize the drug companies if you've got one that works just as well as another."

Obama says that the healthcare reform measure will not be used to expand federal funding of abortions, knowing that the vaunted Hyde amendment applies only to Medicaid, not the public option, and that the Capps Amendment, as passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, explicitly requires every enrollee of a government-subsidized health insurance plan to be charged an extra fee to cover abortions. Obama can hardly plead ignorance.

Obama makes outrageous claims that his healthcare reform will reduce the deficit and rein in healthcare spending, but the CBO says just the opposite. How can the present healthcare crisis, supposedly a crisis of spending, be solved with more spending, and by an institution known for its reckless disregard for fiscal realities?

At the heart of this barrage of deception and dishonesty is an uncommon genius, innate to only the most devious sort. While Obama's opponents spend their precious time addressing each new lie, Obama will keep the focus off the end-zone, and government healthcare will sail into place. This strategy has a name; it is called "the big lie," and it depends on a fundamental truth of human nature: fatigue.

At some point, citizens grow weary of hearing that their leaders are out for their ill, that political policies are nothing more than grand deceptions. Who wants to believe their President is a serial liar that seeks to impose full Socialism on the land of the free? Some truths are too big to contemplate, an observation that would lead one of the world's most successful propagandists to write:

It would never come into their [the people's] heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation.

Obama is counting on this principle. Most Americans are growing tired and are ready for some sort of compromise, but we cannot give in to this impulse. Obama will not give up and neither can we. Be encouraged. Don't lose hope. We must push forward, and keep the heat on the enemies of freedom. Americans must stay alert or the lie of all lies will consume what is left of liberty in America.

Two additional points: Every statement alluded to in the above article can be verified by going to the link above and then following the souces provided.

Most voters only follow politics during an election campaign. The rest of the time they are busy with work and watching "American Idol", and the bulk of the media is still protecting Obama. We can not let up until Obamacare and Cap & Tax are defeated, and Obama and the Democrat Congress are history.

Mmm, mmm, mmm

If video doesn't load, go here.
When Saturday Night Live starts making fun of Obama, things are definitely starting to turn for the better, and maybe America has a chance of surviving as a free and capitalistic society.

Enter the White Queen By George Will

Enter the White Queen

By George Will October 4, 2009 RealClearPolitics

WASHINGTON -- Last Thursday, the president's "engagement" with Iran began. This Wednesday, the U.S. war in Afghanistan will enter its ninth year. And U.S. foreign policy is entering a White Queen phase.

In "Through the Looking Glass," Alice says she is unable to believe the White Queen's claim to be 101. The Queen responds, "Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes." Alice: "There's no use trying, one can't believe impossible things." Queen: "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Regarding Afghanistan, the president might believe he can effect a Houdini-like escape, uninjured, from the box his words have built. Regarding Iran, he seems to believe its leaders can be talked or coerced (by economic sanctions) out of their long, costly pursuit of nuclear weapons by convincing them that such weapons do not serve Iran's "security."

On March 27, the president announced "a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan." He said his "clear and focused goal" was to prevent the Taliban from toppling Afghanistan's government, and to prevent al-Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan or Pakistan. U.S. forces "will take the fight to the Taliban" in Afghanistan's "south" and "east" but "at the same time, we will shift the emphasis of our mission to training and increasing the size of Afghan security forces."

On Aug. 17, the president reiterated his belief that U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is "not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity." This was two months after he replaced the U.S. commander there with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, directing him to assess the resources required for the strategy. The general has done that. But the president does not yet want to discuss troop numbers. Why not?

The president's national security adviser, Jim Jones, a former four-star Marine general, told The Washington Post that before deciding on troop levels, the focus must be on strategy: "The bumper sticker here is strategy before resources." So, is the president reassessing his March 27 strategy? If so, why?

Perhaps because fraud devalued Afghanistan's election. But it was not a sunburst of new information that President Hamid Karzai is corrupt. Or did the president believe, as only the White Queen could, that Karzai had reformed?

Granted, counterinsurgency -- especially when it includes the nation-building implicit in McChrystal's assessment -- requires a reliable partner. But, again, Karzai was a known commodity on March 27. Besides, a presidential strategy is half-baked if its author decides it is dubious after its first collision with difficulty.
Regarding Iran, what did we learn when we learned about the secret nuclear facility in the tunnel? That Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons? We knew that. That Iran lies? We knew that, too. We did, however, learn something when the president, at the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, went public with his knowledge of the facility.

On one side of the president stood France's president. On the other side stood Britain's prime minister, who said Iran's behavior would "shock and anger the whole international community." Not quite. The leaders of Russia and China were not standing with the president.

China has contracted to provide Iran with gasoline, a commodity that could be central to what Defense Secretary Robert Gates calls "severe" sanctions that he thinks might cause Iran to change course. Russia's real leader, Vladimir Putin, was not even in Pittsburgh. Russia's Potemkin president, Dmitry Medvedev, did say something that only the White Queen could believe means that Russia will participate in serious pressure on Iran: Sanctions are not "the best means of obtaining results" but "if all possibilities" are exhausted, "we could consider international sanctions." Over to you, Queen.

Gates says "the only way" to prevent a nuclear-capable Iran "is for the Iranian government to decide that their security is diminished by having those weapons, as opposed to strengthened." But to accept that formulation requires accepting two propositions that would tax the White Queen's powers of belief.

One is that possession of nuclear weapons would make Iran less secure. Question: If Saddam Hussein had possessed nuclear weapons in March 2003, would the United States have invaded Iraq? Iran's leaders probably think they know the answer.

The other proposition is that Iran's regime seeks nuclear weapons merely to enhance the nation's security and not also for regional hegemony or the enjoyment of the enlarged status that comes from being a nuclear power. To believe that, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.

Illegal ACORN Votes Likely Elected Al Franken

Now that most people are recognizing that ACORN is basically a criminal enterprise, its activities are being examined closely all over the country. In Minnesota, the reason why a near-psychotic like Al Franken was elected to the US Senate is now becoming more clear. If only 1% of the 43,000 new voters (all Democratic) registered by ACORN in Minnesota were fraudulent (investigations in other areas indicate nearly 50% of ACORN registrations prove fraudulent), Franken is in office illegally.

It’s not surprising that many patriots are ready to take up arms given how Democrats are ignoring the will of the people on healthcare and the extent of election corruption being uncovered that put them in office.

Worst trouble with ACORN is at the polls

Nationally, its voter registration is often fraudulent. So what about here?

Star Tribune September 26, 2009 (Excerpts)

“It’s worth recalling, however, that ACORN is best-known for its massive voter-registration campaigns, which focus relentlessly on getting Democrats elected in targeted states. Here its record is appalling—and goes to the heart of our democratic electoral system.

In October 2008, ACORN announced triumphantly that it had registered about 1.3 million new voters in 18 battleground states, among them Minnesota. A few weeks later, however, the director of Project Vote—an ACORN affiliate—acknowledged to the New York Times that election officials had rejected about 400,000 of those, for reasons including duplicate registrations, incomplete forms and (in the Times’ words) “fraudulent submissions from low-paid field workers trying to please their supervisors.”

Nothing new here. ACORN’s registration drives “routinely produce fraudulent registrations,” according to a staff report released in July 2009 by the ranking Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The report describes ACORN as “a criminal conspiracy” and details violations ranging from unpaid taxes to a million-dollar embezzlement and cover-up. “To date,” the report says, “nearly 70 ACORN employees have been convicted in 12 states for voter-registration fraud.”

In May 2009, Nevada’s attorney general charged ACORN and two employees with 39 felonies. Authorities raided ACORN offices after complaints about numerous forms with false addresses and names—including the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys. Forty-eight percent of forms turned in were “clearly fraudulent,” according to a Las Vegas election official. ACORN recruited felons living in transitional housing in Las Vegas to act as canvassers and promised illegal bonuses if they signed up more than 20 new voters a day….

ACORN’s practices can make fraud difficult to detect. For example, “at election offices around the country, ACORN workers are famous for waiting until registration deadline to dump thousands of new documents on overworked clerks—making it harder for them to fully vet the registration forms,” according to the New York Post.

As a result, fraud often only comes to light by chance. Fraud “has been discovered by cursory checks or by accident,” John Samples, an election expert at the Cato Institute, told the Post. “There’s a lot more out there to be discovered.”

Here in Minnesota, ACORN has boasted of playing a major role in the 2008 elections. It claims to have registered 43,000 new voters, which it describes as 75 percent of the state’s new registrations. Franken’s margin of victory in the Senate race was razor-thin: 312 votes out of about 3 million cast. And Minnesota’s laws on proof of voter eligibility are notoriously loose. Did ACORN folks pull some fast ones to help get their favorite son Franken elected—a win that handed Democrats the 60-vote, veto-proof majority that they needed to enact their liberal agenda?

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie assures us that Minnesota’s system of voter verification protects electoral integrity.

But here’s an uncomfortable fact: Ritchie himself was endorsed by the now-notorious ACORN and elected with its help.

*******************

Massive Layoffs (at ACORN)

by Matthew Vadum October 2, 2009 BigGovernment.com (Excerpt)

“A credible source claims the embattled left-wing advocacy group ACORN is poised to announce massive staff layoffs but an ACORN spokesman denies this is the case.
A credible source close to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now revealed that the activist network intends to lay off all staff members operating out of its New Orleans headquarters. All information provided by the source to this reporter in the past has turned out to be correct….

My source said that one of the employees to be cashiered in the Crescent City is the daughter of disgraced ACORN founder Wade Rathke. Rathke’s wife, Beth Butler, also works for ACORN but it is unclear at this point if she too will be laid off. Rathke’s son also reportedly is employed by ACORN.

ACORN also plans to lay off two-thirds of its Washington, D.C., staffers as soon as Wednesday of next week, according to the source. Layoffs will also extend to ACORN’s affiliate the ACORN Institute.

The source also revealed that all or most of ACORN’s development staff in the group’s New York City office will soon be laid off if they haven’ been laid off already.

ACORN’s already tarnished image took a major hit last month when BigGovernment.com unveiled undercover sting videos in which ACORN staffers across America were shown advising a pair posing as a pimp and a prostitute on the finer points of avoiding prosecution for prostitution, importation of underage illegal aliens to serve as sex workers, obtaining government grants under false pretenses, and tax evasion.

The adverse publicity generated by the videos and the group’s never-ending scandals is slowly but surely drying up ACORN’s funding sources.” BigGovernment.com

The Difference Between Socialism, Communism and Fascism

Lots of people are throwing around some terms that they do not understand.

Speaker Pelosi recently implied that Tea Party protesters were “Nazis”. Someone should explain to her that the millions who gathered in Washington, DC were protesting the greatly stepped-up intrusion of government into their lives and the huge debt the Democrats are placing on the backs of their children. This is exactly the opposite of Nazism. Given the actions of the goons from SEIU, ACORN and the Black Panthers in Philadelphia, if anyone deserves the title of Nazis, it is the liberal Democrats she represents.

From Yahoo Answers:

Socialism- The philosophy created by Karl Marx that promotes the advancement of the proliteriat (industrial wage earners) over the burgoise (the middle class) using the power of the state in economic matters. This includes income redistribution, a welfare state, and increased government regulation.

This is the exactly the program being carried out by the Obamaites.

Communism (International Socialism) or Hard Liberal Progressivism- The philosophy created by Trotsky and Lenin. The belief in Socialism as a religious doctrine. They believe in the eventual world wide revolution of all the working class and an eventual united world order under socialism.

Fascism (National Socialism) or Hard Populism- The philosophy created by Bendito Moussilini and adapted elsewhere (ie. Adolph Hitler). The belief that Socialism can be adapted to different countries, cultures, races, religions, and circumstances. Rather than the absolute faith of the Communists they believe that Socialism should be a national matter and should have different variations based on location and the people proporting it. It also finds no problem in adapting policies to match certain events and needs... ie. Corporatism.

Nazism- The National Socialist Party of Germany in the 1930's and 40's. They promoted the same ideology as Fascism except they adapted it to the individual national circumstance (Germany)... ie. Anti-semetism.

Marxism- Another word for Socialism.