Well-funded Arab group indoctrinates American high school and college students.

http://tinyurl.com/ydqcxwt
Model Middle East IndoctrinationBy Stephen Schwartz The American Thinker
Most Americans, even many of those concerned with the problems of academic Middle East Studies, have probably never heard of the Model Arab League (MAL), an American exercise similar to the better-known Model United Nations. The stated aim of such efforts is to expand awareness of world affairs among high school and college students. Participants compete in regional role-playing sessions as representatives of constituent countries in the corresponding world bodies and receive awards for their performance. They are then sent to contend at "nationals" held in Washington, D.C. and similar to matches sponsored by many other student societies and sports associations.
But the Model Arab League could be described better as a propaganda network for Arab nationalism, including promotion of the Arab states' hostile postures toward Israel, than as a contributor to excellence in international studies or debate.
The Model Arab League was created in 1983 at Georgetown University by the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations (NCUSAR), which came into existence that same year, and the website of which prominently features MAL activities. NCUSAR's president and chief executive officer is an indefatigable Saudi apologist named John Duke Anthony. In May 2009, Anthony was appointed by the Obama administration to the U.S. State Department's Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy. He has been an adjunct professor at the Georgetown Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS) since 2006...

Why the fundamental idea of government spending for growth is wrong.

****Obama claims that he is not an ideologue but one of his most basic assumptions is not "truth" as he sees it but, rather, ideological and flawed, at that. Admittedly, it is one the Democrats have embraced since the days of FDR who first failed to recognize that, if you make war on capitalists, capital will go on strike. ( WWII finally forced capital to go back to work and the Great Depression ended.)****
http://tinyurl.com/yd4bhq9
Why Government Spending Does Not Stimulate Economic Growth:Answering the Critics And how taxes affect economic growth. By BRIAN M. RIEDL ,Heritage Foundation
Proponents of President Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus bill continue to insist that the massive government bailout played a decisive role in moving the economy out of the recession. Yet assuming no destructive government actions, the economy's self-correction mechanism was widely expected to move the economy out of recession in 2009 anyway. With a parade of "stimulus" bills the past two years (going back to President George W. Bush's tax rebate in early 2008), it was entirely predictable that some would link the expected end of the recession to whichever stimulus bill happened to come last.
Indeed, President Obama's stimulus bill failed by its own standards. In a January 2009 report, White House economists predicted that the stimulus bill would create (not merely save) 3.3 million net jobs by 2010. Since then, 3.5 million more net jobs have been lost, pushing the unemployment rate above 10 percent.[1] The fact that government failed to spend its way to prosperity is not an isolated incident:...

Pelosi uses military as her personal chauffeur service

http://tinyurl.com/y9sdtlc
Un-frickin-believable: U.S. Military Serving as Chauffeurs, Babysitters for the Pelosi Kids: Receipts That Will Blow Your Mind
Meet the Pelosi family! Using Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, Judicial Watch uncovered thousands of pages of travel documents related to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's use of military aircraft.What hasn't been revealed so far is that military aircraft are being used to shuttle Pelosi's kids and grandkids between DC and San Francisco without any Congressional representatives even onboard! ...****But don't worry, they reimbursed the government...for the price of a commercial coach class ticket! ****//
Pentagon Tipped Pelosi on FOIA Request
The Washington, D.C.-based newspaper Roll Call asked the Pentagon five months ago for documents related to travel on military aircraft by members of Congress.
The Defense Department hasn’t yet responded to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. But Roll Call discloses that a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has contacted the newspaper to ask about the “FOIA request on the Speaker” — apparently indicating that the Pentagon notified Pelosi that the travel records being sought involve her office.
FOIA experts say there is “probably nothing illegal” about the military tipping off members of Congress that “a reporter is snooping around, as long as it is clear that a [member] has no role in deciding what information the military is required to release,” Roll Call reported on Tuesday.
And Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill wrote: “The Speaker strongly supports the Freedom of Information Act. It is not unusual for agencies to provide such information, nor is it particularly newsworthy to be notified that an agency is following the law by responding to a request under FOIA.”
But Hammill did acknowledge that the Pentagon generally does not alert the speaker when a FOIA request is submitted for records involving her.
And Meredith Fuchs, general counsel at the National Security Archive — which focuses on government transparency — said it appears inappropriate that the Defense Department would provide information to a member about a FOIA request before providing information to the person who made the request.
Roll Call noted that its FOIA request was not limited to Pelosi, and the newspaper does not know if the Pentagon contacted other members about the request.

Cognitive warfare of the jihadists works with the aid of Western media

Cognitive Warfare and Goldstone's Gaza Report - Richard Landes
In the final analysis, Goldstone's report represents yet one more example of a massive failure of the West in its cognitive warfare with Islamist forces. For the West, cognitive war is an adjunct to the real battlefield; for the jihadists, the physical battlefield (where they know they can only lose, for now) is an adjunct to the cognitive battlefield. Hamas in 2008-2009, and Hizbullah in 2006, pursued a strategy literally unknown in the history of warfare of maximizing their own civilians' deaths in order to turn people the world over against their designated enemies. For Hamas, the media battlefield was their main concern. Indeed, they barely fought in the field.
By echoing their accusations, journalists and organizations like Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, and the UNHRC make this strategy a success; they make it "rational." It is hard to imagine a more spectacular victory of the ruthless "weak" forces of an asymmetrical war, one that specifically encourages sacrifice of their own populations.
As long as the militarily weaker side can attack enemy civilians with impunity from the midst of their own civilians and have every attempt to strike back turned against the society that tries to protect itself from their aggression, they advance their cause. Accordingly, critics have denounced the report for its unintended consequences, as a "terrorist's charter," as a roadmap for lawfare that will tie the West down like the Lilliputians did Gulliver, as a recipe for the victimization of civilians by ruthless jihadists.
The writer, an American historian and author, is an associate professor in history at Boston University. (GLORIA Center, IDC Herzliya)

Nonegenarian WWII veteran tells off Obama.

http://tinyurl.com/ycef6cw
Retired Master Chief Harold Estes does a pretty good job.

More and more are screaming about Obama/Holder coddling of terrorists

One should get credit for doing the right thing. One gets some, but less, credit for ceasing to do the wrong thing. One shouldn't get credit at all for being STOPPED from doing the wrong thing. What does one deserve when he has to be dragged, kicking and screaming, from doing an obviously wrong thing?
http://tinyurl.com/ygqtdee
It Is Time To Prioritize Security Over Terrorist Rights The Heritage Foundation
Yesterday, the White House ordered the Department of Justice to begin considering places other than New York City to host the civilian criminal trial of 9/11 ...terrorists. The New York Times describes..."a retreat by the administration" and reported that the Obama administration "was scrambling"... latest bit of self-inflicted national security chaos comes after Obama ally New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced yesterday that he did not want KSM's trial in Manhattan. ...Six Senators, including Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Jim Webb (D-VA), John McCain (R-AZ), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) all signed a letter...Perhaps that is why the President did not mention KSM during his State of the Union address. Last week, the nation's top intelligence official, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, told a Senate committee that the Obama administration was wrong to question Flight 253 would-be-bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab with civilian law officers instead of using specially trained interrogators from the recently-created High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group...These concerns were then echoed by 9/11 Commission heads former-Gov. Thomas Kean (R-NJ) and former-Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN), who said U.S. intelligence agencies should have been consulted before Abdulmutallab was granted constitutional protections under U.S. law, known as Miranda rights, and initially stopped talking to investigators.Americans don’t think terrorist deserve constitutional rights. Americans also know that military commissions are fair.

A SOTU speech only Washington could love

http://tinyurl.com/y96bahb
Morning Bell: A Speech Only Washington Could Love from The Heritage Foundation
...President Barack Obama came to office expecting to pass a “big bang” of policy changes all in the first year: health care, cap-and-trade, and banking regulation. With the big-bang strategy officially a failure [1], President Obama’s State of the Union address...tried to keep all of these legislative efforts alive while also acknowledging that the country has firmly rejected his policy agenda....result was an incoherent mess of promised tax cuts for small businesses coupled with the threat of tax hikes from his health care and energy proposals; more federal money to encourage banks to lend to businesses, coupled with new taxes on banks and individuals; the continued waste of his $862 billion stimulus plan and $2 trillion in new health care spending, coupled with a delayed and temporary spending freeze...Highlights include:...The tax credit for new hires is another recycled idea ...Last tried in the 1970s, the tax credit proved to be a windfall for big businesses that were planning to hire anyway. Small businesses, the engine of job growth, did not use the tax credit...will likely also delay hiring since businesses that understand the tax credit now face an incentive to postpone hiring decisions to take advantage of the tax credit. Extending the Bush tax cuts and undoing the heavy taxes in the health care legislation is a better step to job creation than this tax credit...President Obama tonight called for a new tax on banks and other large financial institutions, “a modest fee,” he said, “to pay back the taxpayers who rescued them in their time of need.”...Obama knows that almost every major bank has paid-back...Taxpayers made substantial profits on those repayments. On the other hand, most of the companies that still owe billions to taxpayers, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and auto firms GM and Chrysler, would not be subject to the tax. In short, Mr. Obama would tax those that have paid back taxpayers and exempt those who have not....Obama’s spending freeze would apply to a narrow sliver of spending (somewhere around 1/8th of total spending) and at best, savings would be less than one percent of the total budget....explicitly exempts the very entitlement programs driving future deficits....it would start next year, conveniently after the elections...His calls for new nuclear power, offshore oil and gas exploration, and other new energy technologies are certainly welcome.***But who believes him?*** ...his program of subsidies, special tax treatment, and government support ...ignores the evidence that these programs end up killing more jobs than they create. Spain has already gone down this road,...Each green job created cost on average $758,471... foreign affairs did seem like an afterthought, briefly addressed. ...the fight on terrorism has not...been advanced by the Obama administration — quite the reverse as the nation has become more vulnerable. Nor has the administration distinguished itself by its support for human rights in Iran — in fact it missed a critical moment to get involved during last summer’s uprisings against the Iranian regime....“Economic thinkers have recognized for generations that every person has two ways to become wealthier. One is to produce more, the other is to capture more of what others produce. … ...every policy proposal in Obama’s speech last night is a boon for the lawyer/lobbyist economy in Washington and a hindrance to wealth-creating Americans everywhere. ...
* According to the latest Rasmussen Reports poll, only 29% of U.S. voters now say the country is heading in the right direction, the lowest level of voter confidence in the nation’s current course so far this year.
* Despite President Obama’s supposed spending freeze, the federal government expects to add more government jobs.
* According to not one , but two , New York Times Supreme Court analysts, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was correct when he mouthed “not true” after President Obama mischaracterized the Supreme Court’s recent campaign finance law decision.***Actually, Obama made TWO mistakes in his unprecedented attack on the Supreme Court. He should know better: although NOT a regular faculty member of the University of Chicago, he did teach a course on voting rights law as a "Senior Lecturer" ( a title the UofC uses for non-academics doing some teaching.)***
http://tinyurl.com/yc7s28n
*... New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Wednesday he did not want Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s trial in Manhattan.
* Global warming fear mongers are now blaming this winter’s cold weather on global warming .

Obama's politicized and counterproductive policy toward business.

****Perhaps it's a lack of understanding of economics, or of history or just I-don't-care political opportunism (and narcissism), but the President is doubling down on folly.****
http://tinyurl.com/yc87dcc
Bonfire of the Populists The president's anti-Wall Street rhetoric is not good for the economy, and may hurt his party politically. By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
The problem with fires is that they can blow in any direction. Consider the White House, which is seeing a backdraft from the anti-Wall-Street flame it has been dousing with gasoline.His agenda on the ropes, President Obama made a calculated decision to pivot to populism. The Massachusetts Senate race highlighted a fed-up public. The White House strategy: Channel that anger away from itself and to easier targets. Its opening shots were a new tax on banks, new restrictions on banking activities, and Mr. Obama roaring, "We want our money back!"
The president fed the fire with his State of the Union address. Americans are angry at "bad behavior on Wall Street." It is time to "slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas." Lobbyists are trying to "kill" financial regulation. American "cynicism" is the result of "selfish" bankers, CEOs who "reward" themselves "for failure" and lobbyists who "game the system." (No mention of Cornhusker Kickbacks or backroom union deals, but never mind.)
For an administration that claims to know its political history, the White House appears to have misread at least one decade. FDR was re-elected in 1936 for many reasons, but among them was his fiery denunciations of "economic royalists," "economic tyranny," and "economic slavery." Business knew it was in the president's crosshairs and put its capital on strike. The economy didn't recover until the war. Team Obama is already witnessing a repeat...A venture capitalist recently remarked to me that the uncertainty the administration has created is "nothing short of paralyzing." Nobody will invest in an industry that might be the next to be overtaxed, overregulated, or publicly disemboweled...."People in the economy are thinking about whether to invest or take risks when what they are seeing are early signs of Hugo Chávez economics," says Wisconsin GOP Rep. Paul Ryan....this populist fire is an act of self-immolation.
...The administration made the mistake of leaking that its new strategy was pure politics,...robbed it of its authenticity. Americans have also watched this White House prop up moribund auto makers, float Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and cut deals with pharmaceutical companies....The country's growing investor class is not impressed by the sort of business mau-mauing that pummels their 401(k)s.
...

The story that AIG HAD to be rescured to save the global financial system is a fairy tale, told by idiots.

http://tinyurl.com/yhfqdl4
The Latest AIG Story Regulators can't agree on what the real systemic threat was.
Will regulators ever coherently explain why AIG could not be allowed to go bankrupt in September of 2008? At yesterday's House hearing, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner and predecessor Hank Paulson said they didn't bail out AIG to save its derivatives counterparties. Instead, said Mr. Geithner, the now-famous 100-cents-on-the-dollar buyouts of credit default swap contracts were necessary to prevent a further downgrade of AIG by credit-ratings agencies. ****If the loan sharks, to whom Joey is in hock, learn that his rich uncle has paid off some of his debts, they might not break his knees but they still won't lend him any more money. That is, it's a charade that you could fool the rating agencies this way ( not that they couldn't fool themselves, of course.)****This topic probably deserves another hearing on its own. Remember, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where Mr. Geithner was president, had by that time already seized AIG. We're guessing that a ratings agency is pretty comfortable with the creditworthiness of a firm 79.9%-owned by Uncle Sam. Yet Mr. Geithner is saying that the same credit raters that applied triple-A ratings to tranches of junk mortgages somehow got the yips when the world's most respected borrower was standing behind AIG.
If the agencies had applied to AIG the credit rating of its new owner, there wouldn't have been much need to send more collateral to such counterparties as Goldman Sachs. Instead, AIG could have demanded the return of some of the collateral it had already posted. Bad news for those counterparties... ****No one has pursued the rumor that the French Finance Minister called Secretary Paulson in a panic that Societe Generale would go down if AIG defaulted. This would be another argument that it was the counterparties that Paulson et al were concerned about. The new story that it was the insurance funds that would be imperiled by AIG's default was not only gainsaid by the New York Insurance Commissioner, Eric Dinallo, whose job it was to oversee the security of reserves required to back insurance policies, but it could not be otherwise. That's what insurance regulation is all about. Warren Buffett uses his insurance companies as the base for his investments but NOT in the way that Paulson et al seem to be claiming. Would you believe....?****

As Hollywood says, any mention of your name is good.

Just how much notoriety has Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) earned for the backroom deal he secured in exchange for his support of health care reform legislation?
Here's a clue: Ethics laws are now being introduced with his name in the title.
A bill has been submitted to the Tennessee General Assembly entitled the "Ben Nelson Act to Ensure Political Integrity." Sponsored by Republicans in the state legislature, the measure would qualify as bribery the trading of a vote for special favors in a lawmaker's district.
The reference, naturally, is to Nelson's support for health care legislation in exchange for additional federal assistance with Nebraska's Medicaid costs. In the past, bringing home the pork used to be a generally-accepted practice. On occasion, lawmakers took pride in how many legislative gifts they could secure for their constituents.

A test for radical Islam

Ask leading Islamic personalities, religious imams, and your local politicians.
Radical Islam. Got Questions? Get Truth! (Of course, this is likely of limited utility because of (8) taqiyya, giving Muslims the right to lie to non-Muslims, especially about matters concerning Islam.)
1. Do you believe the implementation of sharia law on a national public policy is compatible with the United States Constitution?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
2. Do you believe Islam provides a superior system of governance over America’s Constitutional Republic?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
3. If sharia law were fully implemented in America could a Christian, Jew, or woman be President?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
4. Do you believe Islam requires Muslims to impose sharia law on non-Muslims?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
5. Do you believe Muslim parents have the authority, from the Qu’ran to kill their child for purposes of maintaining family honor?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
6. Do you support moderate Islam and oppose radical groups who advocate and support violent resistance against Western governments and citizens?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
7. Do you agree with Section 219 of the American Immigration and Nationality Act that designates Hamas, Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad, Palestine Liberation Front, Palestine Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Jemaah Islamiya, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Al-Qa’ida as Foreign Terrorist Organizations?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
8. Do you believe lying about or misrepresenting(taqiyya: deception) Islam’s true positions to defend or advance Islam is morally acceptable?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
9. Do you believe it is morally acceptable to kill American troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other parts of the world?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
10. Do you believe Muslims who die during violent resistance against Western nations and citizens go directly to Paradise?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
11. Do you believe that a Muslim who converted to another religion is now an enemy of the House of Islam and may be killed?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
12. Do you believe religious Islam(worship and study of Islam) and political Islam(subjugation of all humanity to Islam) should be separated to allow for freedom of worship without political obligation to Muslim clerics, imams, or ayatollahs?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
13. Do you believe in female genital mutilation for women of Islam?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
14. Do you believe any land upon which Muslims reside is claimable as part of a Muslim theocratic(religious) state?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
15. Do you believe Muslims should collect a religion-based tax from Christians, Jews, and non-Muslims as stipulated in the Qu’ran?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
16. Do you believe in the right of non-Muslims to build houses of worship in Muslim countries?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
17. Do you support corporal punishment and death for peoples engaging in homosexual relationships?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
18. Do you believe in the killing of innocent women and children to further the spread of Islamic rule throughout the world?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
19. Do you believe Israel and Jews have a right to exist as a sovereign Jewish nation?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
20. Do you believe imams and religious leaders have absolute freedom to incite worshippers and supporters through hate-filled speech and radical sermons?
*Strongly Agree *Moderately Agree *Undecided *Moderately Disagree *Strongly Disagree
Copyright © 2009 Clarion Fund, Inc. All rights reserved.

Islam a peaceful religion? Not! A more authoritative source than the theologian Bush or the sympathizer, Obama

http://tinyurl.com/yd57q58
Is the Anger of the Muslim Street Justifiable by Islam? By Tawfik Hamid
In the last few decades, Muslims have committed several violent acts because they felt their religion had been insulted or attacked. These acts ranged from murders and violent riots against Salman Rushdie for writing the "Satanic Verses" to violent riots as a response to rumors of US soldiers insulting the Quran. The aggressive Muslim reaction after the publishing of cartoons of prophet Mohammed by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in Denmark is another well-known example of the Muslim world's reactions. Sadly, these acts of violence have resulted in devastating consequences such as the burning churches and the killing many innocent people.
The question many have raised is: are these violent reactions condoned by Islam and the result of Islamic teachings?
The answer to this question is that the reaction depends largely on the sources used by a particular follower and their understanding of the appropriate religious texts. The following are a few examples to illustrate how a Muslim's response to insulting Islam can vary depending on the religious references used:
...Option 4: Muslims who follow the current mainstream Islamic jurisprudence books of all four legal schools can also justify barbaric reactions to insulting Islam through the well-known rule in Islamic jurisprudence This rule justifies killing those who insult the prophet or Islam...Ironically enough, the 'peaceful Muslims' - or the Muslims who do not use violence against those who insult Islam - are the ones who do not practice the mainstream Islamic jurisprudence and practice Sharia Laws "properly"! ...Islam will be perceived by others as Muslims practice and portray it. If Sharia laws justify killing a human soul because he or she insulted the prophet Mohamed or insulted Islam, then the Muslim world must not expect others to call Islam a peaceful religion and the westerners must not expect the outcome of this teaching to be anything but violence and barbarism...//

Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind of 9/11, and those who have perpetrated the over 13,000 jihad attacks worldwide since then repeatedly point to the Koran as their inspiration and authority. Yet Barack Obama, Tony Blair, and other Western leaders have praised the Koran as a "book of peace" -- without providing any evidence of actually having read it. ****Well, I'm pretty sure Obama HAS read it. He could cite passages from it according to Nicholas Kristrof of the NY Times.****It's time they did -- and it's time that all Westerners got to know the book that inspires our enemies to commit their hideous acts of hate and terrorism. Trouble is, the Koran is not an easy read. It's been called the "wrist-slittingly boring," as well as confusing, contradictory, and muddled.
Now, in The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, Robert Spencer -- the bestselling author and Islam expert -- shows exactly what's in the Koran, and why every American should be concerned about Islam's holy book... you'll learn:
* What the Koran says about who Infidels are -- and what must be done about them
* The Koran's appallingly harsh teachings on women
* What it really says about warfare against Infidels
* Its strange teachings on Christians and Christianity
* Its relentless demonization of the people whom the Koran identifies as the chief enemies of the Muslims: the Jews
* Why claims that the Koran teaches peace and tolerance are false
Spencer also shows how the Koran developed, and even provides a revealing, disquieting glimpse into the Hadith, the traditions of Muhammad that for Muslims worldwide are second in authority only to the Koran itself.

A defender of Western civilization (hint: hardly Obama!)

http://tinyurl.com/yjrua9y
Why I Stand with Geert Wilders by Daniel Pipes
Who is the most important European alive today? I nominate the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. I do so because he is best placed to deal with the Islamic challenge facing the continent. He has the potential to emerge as a world-historical figure.
That Islamic challenge consists of two components: on the one hand, an indigenous population's withering Christian faith, inadequate birthrate, and cultural diffidence, and on the other an influx of devout, prolific, and culturally assertive Muslim immigrants. This fast-moving situation raises profound questions about Europe: will it retain its historic civilization or become a majority-Muslim continent living under Islamic law (the Shari'a)?...

Commentary on the Massachusetts result

http://tinyurl.com/yezsq64
From Tim Carter: Here's a very funny mashup video taking the video and audio footage of a real movie, and then changing the subtitles. I hope this video is up for a while, but at some point YouTube will delete it for copyright infringement. It's pretty funny:

Obama's antipathy to Israel is so deep he can't even bring himself to state the obvious.

Maybe I’m Getting Paranoid … About Obama by Marty Peretz
I've just read the transcript [1] of the president's remarks about Haiti , the ones he made on January 15. He noted that, in addition to assistance from the United States , significant aid had also come from " Brazil , Mexico , Canada , France, Colombia , and the Dominican Republic , among others." Am I missing another country that truly weighed in with truly consequential assistance? Ah, yes. There it is. Right there "among others." Yes, the country to which I refer is "among others," that one.
The fact is that, next to our country, Israel sent the largest contingent of trained rescue workers, doctors, and other medical personnel. The Israeli field hospital was the only one on the ground that could perform real surgery, which it did literally hundreds of times, while delivering--as of last week--at least 16 babies, including one premature infant and three caesarians. The first 250-odd Israelis were real professionals, and they were supplemented by others, also professionals. And to these can be added the many organized Jews from the Diaspora who, in solidarity with Israel , also went on a work pilgrimage, an aliyah, in solidarity with Haiti .
It's not that Israeli participation in the Haiti horror was being kept secret. I myself saw it reported several times on television
—on ABC [2], NBC [3], CBS [4], and CNN [5].
So didn't Obama notice? For God's sake, everybody noticed the deep Israeli involvement. I understand that Obama doesn't like Middle East narratives that do not contain "one side and the other side" equal valence. But he couldn't have that here. The Arabs don't care a fig, not for their impoverished and backward own, and certainly not for strangers. That's why their presence in Haiti amounted to a couple of bucks from Saudi Arabia and maybe from some other sheikhs.
An afterthought: Who would want Arab participation in the rescue effort? This was serious work and dangerous work. Amateurs weren't welcome.
Yes, I think that the labors of the Israelis were edited out of Obama's speech, either by his speechwriters (who have made dissing Israel their forté) or by his own oh-so-delicate but dishonest censoring mechanism.

A Danish guide to remedying their (and our) Muslim problems.

http://tinyurl.com/y85jx4s
A Salute to Denmark...Keep Her Free! By Susan MacAllen
In Denmark, once-liberal immigration policies have forced huge governmental change and zero tolerance for Muslim immigrants intent on turning Denmark into an Islamic welfare haven...

War game simulation of Iran and its nuclear program.

http://tinyurl.com/ydz9klg
Who loses the Iran game By David Ignatius
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.How will the confrontation over Iran's nuclear program evolve during the next year? If a simulation game played at Harvard last week is any guide, the situation won't look pretty: Iran will be closer to having the bomb, and America will fail to obtain tough U.N. sanctions; diplomatic relations with Russia, China and Europe will be strained; and Israel will be threatening unilateral military action.
My scorecard had Team Iran as the winner and Team America as the loser. The U.S. team -- unable to stop the Iranian nuclear program and unwilling to go to war -- concluded the game by embracing a strategy of containment and deterrence. The Iranian team wound up with Russia and China as its diplomatic protectors. And the Israeli team ended in a sharp break with Washington...****The U.S. is reconciled to a nuclear Iran and is primarily concerned with forcing Israel to accept this. Obama's undertakings to prevent a nuclear Iran are clearly vacuous and his only conflict will be with Israel.To an objective observer, it is only a question about whether Israel can succeed in attacking Iran. The better alternative, unfortunately eschewed by Obama, was(is) to destabilize the Iranian regime by supporting dissidents and aiming for regime change.****

You can't be too prepared when facing middle-schoolers.

"Jon Stewart rips Obama’s use of teleprompters in middle school" By Raw Story
Jon Stewart rips Obamas use of teleprompters in middle school"You set up the presidential podium and a teleprompter in a sixth grade classroom?"That's the exclamatory hypothetical question The Daily Show's Jon Stewart posed to President Barack Obama after catching the president using two teleprompters when speaking to a middle school class. "Here's what health care means to you," Stewart mocked, drawing out the syllables in each word in an effort to replicate Obama's slow delivery. "Let's say, you develop 'coo-ties.'"
Stewart lampooned Obama for using a teleprompter in a classroom, saying it was like delivering an "Oval Office speech from your nap-mat." "Now since you obviously don't have a Rove-type there advising you, let me give you a couple of image minefields to avoid," the comic added. "If you want to go to the Superbowl, regular box seats will do. And, if you want to listen to some music, buy an iPod like the rest of us."

Great quotes from Obama speeches. When his vocabulary fails, there are neologisms to substitute.

Er...there aren't too many. Oh, wait..." Yes We Can!"
Yes We Can/Si Se Puede: Remembering and Forgetting Cesar Chavez (March 31, 1927—April 23, 1993) By Luis Leon
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/humanrights/1351/
Perhaps the most memorable slogan to emerge from the 2008 presidential campaign was the inspiring phrase, “Yes We Can.” This utterance alone embodied the inspirational spirit of a new and hopeful political age. However, as Barack Obama himself admits (albeit belatedly), the mantra was coined over forty years ago in the hot and dusty agricultural fields of California’s central valley by a Mexican-American man, obscure, but nonetheless determined to transform history: Cesar Chavez...Now safely ensconced in the White House and enjoying high approval ratings, the president can give Chavez his due credit. By contrast, just last year at this time, candidate Obama had not yet cited Chavez as the author for his campaign slogan, but he had in some ways gone farther; the candidate had proposed that Chavez’s birthday become a national holiday...Sadly, the president seems to have forgotten his promise to declare a national holiday in honor of the man whose legacy continues to influence our politics, and our lives.***It already sufficed to placate the Latino vote so keeping the promise means nothing more. The editor, Geoffrey O'Brian, of the next edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, says that he is planning to include just one from Obama's Presidency thus far: when he called the U.S. "a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers". This is noteworthy because it is so startlingly inaccurate. While the Judeo-Christian antecedents of the U.S. are clear, the citation of Muslims ( especially in a position of equality with Christians ) and Hindus does not convey truth. The inclusion of nonbelievers, which accurate, seems gratuitous. So, this is the best so far?***
http://tinyurl.com/ydqdyjo
CAPITAL CULTURE: Critics assess Obama's speeches By HILLEL ITALIE AP
NEW YORK (AP) - As a supporter of Barack Obama for president, former JFK speechwriter Ted Sorensen welcomed the young Democrat as a winning, Kennedy-esque orator...But as Obama prepares to deliver his first State of the Union address, Sorensen wonders if the president hasn't become more like the politicians he supposedly displaced....But even admirers have a hard time remembering what he actually says. Ted Widmer, who edited an anthology of political speeches for the Library of America, praised Obama for his "masterful" style, but could not cite a specific line the president said. Similar observations were made by Jeff Shesol, David Frum and Harry C. McPherson, who wrote speeches for presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Lyndon Johnson, respectively. "The speech he made in Cairo _ I remember the intelligence, the breadth and the reasonableness," McPherson says. "But I can't tell you, and this is one of the shortcomings of the kind of speech he makes _ I can't quote anything, or cite anything, off the top of my head."****Perhaps only the recollection is one of reasonableness because the trancript conveys an obeisance to a part of the world which has declared war on us and murdered thousands of our citizens.****...White House spokesman Bill Burton. "And though people may not remember particular lines or phrases from every speech, when he is done speaking, people always get a sense of who the president is and exactly where he is coming from."****Perhaps not. One of his professors at Harvard Law recalls his speeches while RUNNING for President of the Harvard Law Review ("when he was finishe...d, both sides thought he was endorsing their--opposing-- positions.") "Obama is very strong at sort of coolly laying out issues, which may not be memorable, but is effective," O'Brien says. "When he was running for president, he had to draw on a more impassioned style. He was addressing huge crowds of people."****Where he indulged the repetitive nonsense of some churches with "We are the people we are waiting for." (Evidently also not original nonsense.Cf "in April 2007, Thomas Friedman was taken to task for not only misquoting the phrase in his New York Times column but also for not giving proper credit for the source from which it came.Friedman doesn't quite get the quote right and he doesn't credit the author of the phrase We are the people we have been waiting for. She is the late poet June Jordan. The phrase we are the ones we have been waiting for from 'Poem for South African Women' (1980) was picked up by many graduation speakers ... and others including most notably the singers Sweet Honey in the Rock who made the phrase into a song and Alice Walker who took the phrase as title for her most recent collection of essays (2006). )****...Fred R. Shapiro, who edits the Yale Book of Quotations, mentioned a few phrases from Obama's inaugural speech that could make the next edition some years from now. He cites Obama's insistence that "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals" in the fight against terrorism, and that "a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served in a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath."****Does the first of these compare favorably to Benjamin Franklin's famous quote, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."? ****... Shapiro doesn't think that any of his presidential statements have caught on widely ...not at the level of then-candidate Obama's private observation in 2008 that small-town Americans "cling to guns or religion."...
"I think it's very important for people to remember the words. Words have power. A successful speech will resonate and phrases will provide a kind of power in the near term and the longer term," Shesol said. "But, ultimately, it's important to any president to be able to make continually clear who he is, what he believes and where he wants to go."...****Right. The Cambridge police acted stupidly. The Christmas bomber was an isolated incident. We are one of the largest Muslim countries. ...Let's not forget the accusations (and fact) of plagiarism http://tinyurl.com/2ujx8w Let's not forget "wee-wee'd up", a phrase whose meaning is still unclear months after it was uttered.****

A digest from Friday, January 22, 2010

http://tinyurl.com/y8ayc3u
The Foundation The Patriot Post January 22, 2010
"It is to me a new and consolatory proof that wherever the people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights." --Thomas Jefferson
'The People's Seat' "Here's my assessment of not just the mood in Massachusetts, but the mood around the country: The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office." So said Barack Obama when asked about Tuesday's special election to fill the Senate seat held for 46 years by the late Ted Kennedy.Naturally, to Obama, everything is about him; though, in a sense, Brown's shocking victory was about Obama -- but not in the way he thinks...

Test imminent of Dems' hypocrisy in Cape Wind controversy

http://tinyurl.com/y9x89dp
Cape Wind's fate unclear, even in Obama's hands By JAY LINDSAY, AP
BOSTON – After eight years of review, the future of a controversial wind farm off Cape Cod now rests in what would seem to be friendly hands — an Obama administration that's pledged to make the U.S. "the world's leading exporter of clean energy."
But it's tough to tell if Cape Wind's prospects just got better or worse.
Obama has never mentioned the project while talking publicly about renewable energy, despite his enthusiasm for the topic and the fact Cape Wind would be the nation's first offshore wind farm.
Some Cape Wind advocates have chalked up Obama's silence to respect for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, an early and influential Obama backer. Kennedy battled the project fiercely, writing Obama of his opposition the month before he died in August from brain cancer.***This might impinge on the view from the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port.Turn this one down and it's hard to see how any other wind farm can ( or should ) succeed.****

Obama bank reforms don't add up; he likely doesn't understand

http://tinyurl.com/yl7ejmd
The President's Bank Reforms Don't Add Up
Restricting loans to real estate virtually guarantees another bank crisis in the future. By PETER J. WALLISON
After the Democrats' disaster in Massachusetts last Tuesday, President Obama appears to be flailing. Gone is the cool and measured demeanor that made him look presidential when the financial crisis struck during the 2008 campaign. Instead, the financial reform proposals he advanced later in the week seem to reflect political panic—a desperate attempt to appeal to the populist sentiment against Wall Street. Unfortunately, they also reflect a limited understanding of good financial or banking policy.....Where, then, can banks find borrowers? The answer, unfortunately, is commercial and residential real estate.
...These loans will continue to rise in the future, because only real-estate, small business and consumer lending are now accessible activities for banks.This is not a good trend, because the real-estate sector is highly cyclical and volatile. It was, indeed, the vast number of subprime and other risky mortgages in our financial system that caused the weakness of the banks and the financial crisis. Requiring banks to continue to lend to real estate, because they have few other alternatives, virtually guarantees another banking crisis in the future. ...that Mr. Obama now proposes to close off this one avenue through which banking organizations can be profitable is strong evidence that neither he nor his advisers, in attempting to lash out at banks, have thought through the long-term prospects and needs of the banking industry. That might make good populist politics, but it is not responsible policy. Instead of trying to punish the banking industry, Mr. Obama should try to understand why banks have become so heavily invested in real estate...

Obama/Clinton force visa for an Islamist banned by Bush.

http://tinyurl.com/yjxx64x
Obama Overrules Homeland Security for Tariq RamadanDavid P. Goldman
Daniel Pipes posted this evaluation of the State Department’s decision (dictated by Obama) to overrule a longstanding ban on permitting the Islamist academic Tariq Ramadan to enter the US: Jan. 20, 2010 update: From today’s Associated Press: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has signed orders enabling the re-entry of professors Tariq Ramadan of Oxford University in England and Adam Habib of the University of Johannesburg in South Africa once they obtain required admittance documents, department spokesman Darby Holladay said.
Clinton “has chosen to exercise her exemption authority for the benefit of Tariq Ramadan and Adam Habib,” Holladay said. “We’ll let that action speak for itself.” In a prepared statement, Holladay noted the change in U.S. posture since both professors, who are frequently invited to the United States to lecture, were denied admittance after making statements counter to U.S. foreign policy. Both the president and the secretary of state have made it clear that the U.S. government is pursuing a new relationship with Muslim communities based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”
Comments: (1) I always expected this outcome, that Ramadan would be allowed in, because so many forces were aligned in his favor. That the exclusion lasted over five years was impressive. (2) Note that this change was ordered from the very top, specifically invoking Obama. (3) Note also the sleaziness of the State Department spokesman, ascribing Ramadan’s exclusion to his “making statements counter to U.S. foreign policy.” No, the reason was explicitly his having provided funds to a terrorist-related organization. Why the gratuitous lie, State Department? (4) The Obama administration puts this case into the context of “pursuing a new relationship with Muslim communities based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” But it’s always been a terrorism case, with no connection to issues of Islam. What amateurs. (5) Note the term “mutual respect,” the hackneyed phrase repeatedly applied to the U.S. government and Muslims – so much so that I have devoted a whole blog to Obama’s use of these words. (6) So, fellow Americans, how many of you feel safer with the prospect of Tariq Ramadan present in person to talk to our Islamists?

Paul Berman, whose superb 30,000 word expose on Ramadan in the New Republic showed how the Swiss-born Islamist terrorizes journalists with the threat of violence, had this comment in Tablet magazine today:

Tariq Ramadan is coming to America. Is it a mistake for the Obama administration to let him in?

It’s a good move for the U.S. to encourage freedom of speech and open debate. It’s a mistake, however, to imagine that he has positive contributions to make.

Ramadan has no deep, important thoughts we need to hear?

I do think it’s worth the trouble to look into his deep thoughts, and to notice how problematic they are. He can say something attractive at the level of a slogan; but when you examine it more closely it turns out to have unexpected meanings. He opposes terrorism but he does it with a series of asterisks. If you read the footnote in tiny print you discover some troubling aspects regarding terrorism, and this is borne out by the fact that he did donate money to a Hamas charity. To do so was not illegal at the time, and he has himself argued he didn’t know where his money was going. But if you read Ramadan carefully you would not be surprised to learn he donates money to such groups....Ramadan’s own philosophical ideas, which I find pretty appalling and obscurantist....The main reason they are attracted to Ramadan’s ideas is because of a bias against Muslims that leads many people to think the Muslim world, which contains 1.5 billion people, is incapable of producing genuinely attractive thinkers. Of course this is untrue, but because so many people believe it, they turn to Tariq Ramadan. Another reason is that there is a Western fantasy that some messianic Muslim figure will step forward and resolve all the outstanding problems between Islam and the West. There’s a search for the great Muslim hope. Ramadan is put into that role, and he puts himself into it. To imagine that such a figure will step forward also reflects a bias against the Muslim world, since it suggests there is such a thing as the Muslim world—when in fact there is not any such thing. Islam has 10,000 sects and heresies and 100,000 episodes in its history, on the one hand. On the other hand, there are 56 states in the Organization of the Islamic Conference, each of which has its own history. So we’re talking about 1.5 billion people resting on 1,400 years of history. It’s absurd to think of this as constituting a single unit. The idea that it does constitute a single unit is a doctrine of the Islamist movement—with a single movement you have a single leader, like the caliph....

More concessions to questionable Muslims

Obama Administration Lifts US Ban on Muslim Brotherhood Leader by Avi Yellin The Barack Obama administration has decided to lift a ban preventing Muslim Scholar Professor Tariq Ramadan from entering the United States. Ramadan, an Egyptian currently living in Switzerland, is a leading member of Europe’s Muslim Brotherhood branch and the grandson of the movement’s founder Hassan al-Banna. The Muslim Brotherhood is the parent organization for Hamas and some of the groups that recently merged into al-Qaeda, including Ayman al Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
Ramadan was invited to teach at the University of Notre Dame in 2004 but the George W. Bush administration revoked his visa, citing a statute that applies to those who have “endorsed or espoused” terrorism. The administration later dropped the terror endorsement claim and linked the ban to $1,336 in donations Ramadan made between 1998 and 2002 to a Swiss charity that was later blacklisted by the US.
Although the White House asked the court last March to uphold the Bush-era entry ban on Ramadan, the administration has now decided to lift the ban and possibly allow both Ramadan and South African Muslim activist Professor Adam Habib onto American soil. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters that the government no longer views Ramadan or Habib as representing threats to the United States. “The next time Professor Ramadan or Professor Habib apply for a visa, they will not be found inadmissible on the basis of the facts that led to denial when they last applied.”
http://tinyurl.com/yjxx64x
Obama Overrules Homeland Security for Tariq Ramadan David P. Goldman
Daniel Pipes :Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has signed orders enabling the re-entry of professors Tariq Ramadan of Oxford University in England and Adam Habib of the University of Johannesburg in South Africa once they obtain required admittance documents, department spokesman Darby Holladay said...Both the president and the secretary of state have made it clear that the U.S. government is pursuing a new relationship with Muslim communities based on mutual interest and mutual respect...this change was ordered from the very top, specifically invoking Obama.Note also the sleaziness of the State Department spokesman, ascribing Ramadan’s exclusion to his “making statements counter to U.S. foreign policy.” No, the reason was explicitly his having provided funds to a terrorist-related organization. Why the gratuitous lie, State Department?...it’s always been a terrorism case, with no connection to issues of Islam. What amateurs....So, fellow Americans, how many of you feel safer with the prospect of Tariq Ramadan present in person to talk to our Islamists? Paul Berman, who...showed how the Swiss-born Islamist terrorizes journalists with the threat of violence, had this comment in Tablet magazine today:
Tariq Ramadan is coming to America. Is it a mistake for the Obama administration to let him in?It’s a good move for the U.S. to encourage freedom of speech and open debate. It’s a mistake, however, to imagine that he has positive contributions to make....I do think it’s worth the trouble to look into his deep thoughts, and to notice how problematic they are. He can say something attractive at the level of a slogan; but when you examine it more closely it turns out to have unexpected meanings. He opposes terrorism but he does it with a series of asterisks....How can so many Western intellectuals, like Buruma and Garton Ash, just to name two, be so wrong about Ramadan?...many people to think the Muslim world, which contains 1.5 billion people, is incapable of producing genuinely attractive thinkers.....but because so many people believe it, they turn to Tariq Ramadan...a Western fantasy that some messianic Muslim figure will step forward and resolve all the outstanding problems between Islam and the West... Ramadan is put into that role, and he puts himself into it. To imagine that such a figure will step forward also reflects a bias against the Muslim world,...Islam has 10,000 sects and heresies and 100,000 episodes in its history, on the one hand. On the other hand, there are 56 states in the Organization of the Islamic Conference, each of which has its own history. So we’re talking about 1.5 billion people resting on 1,400 years of history. It’s absurd to think of this as constituting a single unit. The idea that it does constitute a single unit is a doctrine of the Islamist movement—with a single movement you have a single leader, like the caliph. The defense of Tariq Ramadan in intellectual circles reflects a series of unexamined and in some cases very unattractive assumptions...

Obamen in disarray and sniping at each other.

****The Stockholm Syndrome became well-known when, out of helplessness, victims started to identify with their oppressors. Less well-known is the Custer Syndrome where the outnumbered and surrounded troopers of the feckless Custer started to shoot at each other! The political debacle for Democrats in Massachusetts has produced denial and, now, sniping at each other with members of Obama's economic team disagreeing and Senators and Congressmen announcing withdrawal of support for Ben Bernanke's reappointment as Fed Chairman. When Obama announced his jihad against banks yesterday, it was reminiscent of the photographs of the old USSR where Paul Volcker was next to Obama and Geithner was far away, indicating who was in favor and who not. As a commentator remarked, when one was relegated to the periphery of a group photo the next remove was to Siberia. Obama and the Democrats are casting about for a scapegoat to blame for their political troubles ( the idea that the Massachusetts election was a response to eight years of Bush (!) was too absurd to survive even a full day of Obama's trying it. See Krauthammer's article )Now, they're trying to blame Bernanke and Democrats like Boxer (D, CA), in severe trouble for their own re-elections are choosing to shoot at the Chairman of the Fed although Congress is infinitely more responsible for the financial and job troubles ( they also cannot suggest a replacement who would be more --politically--acceptable.)Every crazy thing Obama is proposing or about to propose will only make the decline of the dollar and the job situation worse. It is increasingly clear to more and more that Obama doesn't understand finance OR economics and doesn't care!****
http://tinyurl.com/yeblwrk
Obama Seen as Anti-Business by 77% of U.S. Investors Heidi Przybyla
Jan. 22 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. investors overwhelmingly see President Barack Obama as anti-business and question his ability to manage a financial crisis, according to a Bloomberg survey.
The global quarterly poll of investors and analysts who are Bloomberg subscribers finds that 77 percent of U.S. respondents believe Obama is too anti-business and four-out-of-five are only somewhat confident or not confident of his ability to handle a financial emergency...//
http://tinyurl.com/yd4erw3

Geraldo Rivera and FoxNews are alone in reporting this.

Just another story that do do not see in our Newspapers or on our TV!!!!!!!
Saturday evening on his Geraldo At Large program anchored from Haiti and aired on FNS, Geraldo Rivera and his brother Craig reported on an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) field hospital operating in Haiti . Within 24 hours of the earthquake the IDF had arrived in Haiti and built their field hospital (16 hours flying and 8 hours building). They have a full operating theater, a pediatric ICU, an Obstetrics facility and about 100 beds, all set up in a tent. The unit is staffed by about 40 IDF doctors. They are saving lives by preventing infection in neglected wounds and by operating when necessary. The IDF unit is complemented by a ZAKA unit, the folks who clean up human remains after bombings and provide for compassionate burial. It is worth noting that ZAKA are primarily orthodox Jews who violated the Sabbath in order to get to Haiti quickly. Jewish law says saving lives takes precedence over the Sabbath.

A frustrated bully lashes out. Barney Frank intrudes rationality to Obama's hysterics.

http://tinyurl.com/y99qj9l
Obama steps up campaign against Wall Street banks By JIM KUHNHENN, AP WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama stepped up his campaign against Wall Street on Thursday with a far-reaching proposal for tougher regulation of the biggest banks. "We have to get this done," Obama said at the White House. "If these folks want a fight, it's a fight I'm ready to have."
It was a stern, populist lecture from the president to Wall Street...Obama said the government should have the power to limit the size and complexity of large financial institutions as well as their ability to make high-risk trades..."We have to enact commonsense reforms that will protect American taxpayers and the American economy from future crises," Obama said. "For, while the financial system is far stronger today than it was one year ago, it's still operating under the same rules that led to its near-collapse."... Overhauling financial rules is the one issue on Obama's legislative agenda that appears still alive after Democrats' devastating loss Tuesday in the Massachusetts Senate race. The White House is renewing Obama's demand for an independent consumer financial protection agency as part of any overhaul. That's one of the major sticking points in the Senate; the House has passed its version already...****While there is much merit in these ideas, the timing and the across-the-board attack makes it clear that this is a political reaction to the repudiation Obama got in Massachusetts. This pretends that the Massachusetts vote was against Wall Street, rather than against Obama. Today's announcement is premature since it has insufficient details to be sure that it was carefully thought out. The major cause of the financial meltdown was not the banks ( AIG was not even a bank and would not have been affected by this proposal ) but, rather, the bad loans that banks were forced to make by Congress. The subsequent repackaging of the toxic paper by Wall Street was a secondary, rather than primary, cause of the problems. Saying banks would no longer be "allowed" to trade for their own accounts, sponsor hedge funds, etc. begs the question as to whether bank holding companies provide sufficient distance. Otherwise, it would provide some return to Glass-Steagall. In any case, Obama will only break up American banks and set the table for large, integrated foreign banks to come in to eat their lunch and put the system at the same risk. Better is just to throw out the idea of "too big to fail." The fact that there are already rules limiting the possibility of using deposits for banks other affiliate activity makes it clear that this is probably a political, rather than substantive, proposal. The claimed goal is to enhance lending to small business but the logic is unclear of how breaking up big banks will further this.****
http://tinyurl.com/yckewxf
Mean Street: Obama is Killing America by Killing Wall Street What has become of America? by Evan Newmark
Today, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein announced record annual profits of $13.4 billion for his bank.He has repaid the U.S. taxpayer $11.42 billion for taking TARP money he didn’t want.He will contribute another $6.4 billion in taxes to the general public.And within weeks, if President Obama gets his way, Blankfein has a good shot at becoming the most hated man in our nation.
Apparently, this is now how we treat success in America. We damn it, and then we punish it by enacting loopy, politically expedient measures such as caps on Wall Street trading and principal investments. Why is our country so self-destructive? We need people to come together, but we engage in populist divisiveness. We need millions of jobs, but we kill the incentives and destroy the capital that will create them...
****Barney Frank, in an interview, intruded an element of rationality that rallied the markets by saying that "he" would require that any change take place over five years so that a fire sale of divestible assets would not occur. ****
http://tinyurl.com/y9rny5s
Kneale: Obama Loses It—the Bank-Bash Backlash
By: Dennis Kneale
The Democrat Debacle in Massachusetts offered a rare gift to President Obama: a premonition of the rout that was about to rack his own party in the mid-term congressional elections nine months from now....Instead, Bam is losing it. He is squandering this gift in favor of a damaging, intensified attack on big banks—the very engine of economic growth he needs to revive the economy and get himself re-elected....Real estate mogul Mort Zuckerman, an Obama supporter, said as much moments ago on Power Lunch, saying the President is “playing games with the financial system. . . It’s more about politics than policy.” In so doing, the President has shed his usual, becalmed visage of judicious intelligence and what-me-worry confidence. In its place is an unpleasant portrait of a sulking, vengeful politician lashing out at Goldman Sachs et al...and their brethren on Wall Street—the only target that, his polls say, might resonate with the voters who are forsaking him.
...Obama’s bank-bashing bent is an ominous sign that Rahm Emanuel and the politicos have taken over the White House, infecting sound economic policy with poll-motivated invective and restrictions that could thwart a strong rebound.Former Fed head Paul Volcker had prescribed this straitjacket months ago but got nowhere, as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and economic adviser Laurence Summers opposed the idea.Then the Democrats lost in Massachusetts on Tuesday, and suddenly the “Volcker Rule” is top priority...President Obama doesn’t care about any of this. He is down in the polls, he was humiliated in Massachusetts, and he’s trying to start a fight in an empty room to get himself out of this mess. Yesterday he declared that if Wall Street fat cats want a fight, he’s happy to give them one.But the better point was made on Power Lunch today by BB&T bank CEO Kelly King. He says he is surprised the President is “looking for a fight—we’re looking for consensus.”

Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

http://tinyurl.com/yejtqgl
UN climate report riddled with errors on glaciers By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON – Five glaring errors were discovered in one paragraph of the world's most authoritative report on global warming, forcing the Nobel Prize-winning panel of climate scientists who wrote it to apologize and promise to be more careful.
The errors are in a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N.-affiliated body. All the mistakes appear in a subsection that suggests glaciers in the Himalayas could melt away by the year 2035 — hundreds of years earlier than the data actually indicates. The year 2350 apparently was transposed as 2035.
The climate panel and even the scientist who publicized the errors said they are not significant in comparison to the entire report, nor were they intentional. And they do not negate the fact that worldwide, glaciers are melting faster than ever.
But the mistakes open the door for more attacks from climate change skeptics...

Wow! National Security Chief says it was a mistake to Mirandize the Xmas bomber.

So, Blair wasn't consulted; Leiter wasn't consulted; Janet Napolitano wasn't consulted. Who the hell DID authorize treating the Christmas bomber as an ordinary criminal rather than as an enemy combatant to be interrogated about terrorist colleagues in Yemen, etc? Obviously it was the Justice Department and, either directly or indirectly Eric Holder. Since Obama tried to label the guy as an isolated individual, it's likely he was, as well.

Military's PCness refuses to mention Hasan or Islam.

http://tinyurl.com/ycaeybd
The Fort Hood Report: Why No Mention of Islam?
By Mark Thompson ****Obama wants to maintain the fiction that we are not at war with Islam, that he is not weak on terrorism ( that he defines as only Al Qaeda, and he would probably claim that Hasan is not a member of Al Qaeda ), and that Radical Islam has nothing to do with terror. It is only dictate from the top that could cause the military to be so blind.****
The U.S. military's just-released report into the Fort Hood shootings spends 86 pages detailing various slipups by Army officers but not once mentions Major Nidal Hasan by name or even discusses whether the killings may have had anything to do with the suspect's view of his Muslim faith. And as Congress opens two days of hearings on Wednesday into the Pentagon probe of the Nov. 5 attack that left 13 dead, lawmakers want explanations for that omission...

Jobs created or saved due to Stimulus Bill includes a fraud ( and 32 staffers for Michelle )

http://tinyurl.com/yc679ah
Michael Mann's Climate Stimulus A case study in one job 'saved.'
As for stimulus jobs—whether "saved" or "created"—we thought readers might be interested to know whose employment they are sustaining. More than $2.4 million is stimulating the career of none other than Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann.
Mr. Mann is the creator of the famous hockey stick graph, which purported to show some 900 years of minor temperature fluctuations, followed by a spike in temperatures over the past century. His work, which became a short-term sensation when seized upon by Al Gore, was later discredited. Mr. Mann made the climate spotlight again last year as a central player in the emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit,...****Mann is being investigated by his own university. (Fraud is not protected by "tenure.")"Jobs created or saved" is a joke epitomized by the example of the 32 staff jobs created to serve Michelle Obama.****

It's really simple, even if Obama is blind to it ( or professes to be )

http://tinyurl.com/ykz2eb8
The Rich Jihadi Proved Western Anti-Terror Measures Don't Work DEBKAfile's Special Analysis...glossing over two essential facts:
1. The fundamentalist school of Islam, Sunni and Shiite, has declared a perpetual war on Western culture. It is not rooted in political or social differences, such as the gap between the have-not Muslim peoples and the affluent West, or even in various world disputes like the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which are often held up as symbols of injustice. These extremists simply loathe everything the West stands for: religious orientation, philosophy, way of thinking and mores, and are willing to lay down their lives to extinguish it.
2. Al Qaeda holds to the belief that devastating attacks on big US cities are the key to smashing America's wealth and strength as the leading Western superpower...

Will the media credit Israel for Haitian efforts?

"With Great Pride"
On Friday, El Al and IDF planes came into Haiti, carrying 250 medical personnel -- doctors, nurses, lab and x-ray technicians and even a psychiatrist -- and supplies for a mobile hospital, including a pharmacy, a surgical unit, and a maternity ward. A young Haitian mother who was the first to deliver in this ward, early this morning, named her baby Israel.
You can see footage of an IDF rescue team at work in Haiti here:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/Page/VideoPlayer&cid=1194419829128&videoId=1263147905094
Members of ZAKA, the Israeli ultra-Orthodox volunteer rescue organization, were on the scene as well. Yesterday, on Shabbat, they labored, digging in the rubble of a collapsed multi-story university building, where cries were heard. After hours of effort, they succeeded in pulling eight students from that rubble, alive.
These ZAKA members then took time, in the midst of the chaos, to wrap themselves in their tallitot (prayer shawls) and recite their Shabbat prayers. Undoubtedly most if not all of the Haitians on the scene had never seen such a sight.
When the men had finished praying, a crowd of people gathered around them and kissed their tallitot.
According to one report, head of the ZAKA mission, Mati Goldstein said:
"With all the hell going on outside, even when things get bad Judaism says we must take a deep breath and go on to save more people.
"We did everything to save lives, despite Shabbat. People asked, 'Why are you here? There are no Jews here', but we are here because the Torah orders us to save lives…"
At one point, when things were very grim, Goldstein reported that one mission member started to sing, Heveinu Shalom Aleichem (We bring peace to you.) "I had tears in my eyes," he said.
The ZAKA mission will be staying in Haiti a couple more days, even though beyond a certain point it is highly unlikely that anyone else will be found alive under the rubble.
What is exceedingly important to the mission is making their Israeli identity very clear. And so, in this regard, you can help Israel by sharing this broadly and letting the world know what we are all about.

Martha Coakley is morally unfit to be in the Senate ( altho she perhaps fits the spirit of Chappaquiddick )

http://tinyurl.com/ycdrs7u
Coakley: Reward The Guilty, Punish The Innocent
Martha Coakley isn’t just a lousy US Senate candidate. She’s a crummy AG, too.... Rewarding guilty people and law breakers is unjust. Punishing the innocent is even worse. Coakley has a lousy track record on both.First there are the guilty who have benefitted from Coakley’s policies....Are you a politically-connected cop guilty of raping a 23-month old girl with a curling iron? Coakley won’t even ask the judge to make you pay bail.****The guy subsequently got two life sentences but Coakley let him walk until sentencing.****...And if you’re innocent? As Dorothy Rabinowitz points out in painful detail in today’s WSJ, Coakley fought to keep an innocent man in jail for years, long after Coakley knew he was innocent....Does Martha really like punishing innocent people? I don’t think so. I think she just doesn’t care...
http://tinyurl.com/ylftg22
Martha Coakley's Convictions The role played by the U.S. Senate candidate in a notorious sex case raises questions about her judgment. or Ethics.By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ
The story of the Amiraults of Massachusetts, and of the prosecution that had turned the lives of this thriving American family to dust, was well known to the world by the year 2001. It was well known, especially, to District Attorney Martha Coakley, who had by then arrived to take a final, conspicuous, role in a case so notorious as to assure that the Amiraults' name would be known around the globe...****Long after it was clear to all and sundry that a terrible miscarriage of justice had occurred in the case against all the Amiraults, Coakley continued a vendetta against the remaining Amirault, Gerald.****...Before agreeing to revise Cheryl's sentence to time served, Ms. Coakley asked the Amiraults' attorney, James Sultan, to pledge—in exchange—that he would stop representing Gerald and undertake no further legal action on his behalf. She had evidently concluded that with Sultan gone—Sultan, whose mastery of the case was complete—any further effort by Gerald to win freedom would be doomed. Mr. Sultan, of course, refused.
***It is mind-boggling that a prosecutor would try to deny a defendant his right to counsel.*** In 2000, the Massachusetts Governor's Board of Pardons and Paroles met to consider a commutation of Gerald's sentence. After nine months of investigation, the board, reputed to be the toughest in the country, voted 5-0, with one abstention, to commute his sentence. Still more newsworthy was an added statement, signed by a majority of the board, which pointed to the lack of evidence against the Amiraults, and the "extraordinary if not bizarre allegations" on which they had been convicted.Editorials in every major and minor paper in the state applauded the Board's findings. District Attorney Coakley was not idle either, and quickly set about organizing the parents and children in the case, bringing them to meetings with Acting Gov. Jane Swift, to persuade her to reject the board's ruling. Ms. Coakley also worked the press, setting up a special interview so that the now adult accusers could tell reporters, once more, of the tortures they had suffered at the hands of the Amiraults, and of their panic at the prospect of Gerald going free. On Feb. 20, 2002, six months after the Board of Pardons issued its findings, the governor denied Gerald's commutation.Gerald Amirault spent nearly two years more in prison before being granted parole in 2004. ....Attorney General Martha Coakley—who had proven so dedicated a representative of the system that had brought the Amirault family to ruin, and who had fought so relentlessly to preserve their case—has recently expressed her view of this episode. Questioned about the Amiraults in the course of her current race for the U.S. Senate, she told reporters of her firm belief that the evidence against the Amiraults was "formidable" and that she was entirely convinced "those children were abused at day care center by the three defendants."
What does this say about her candidacy? (Ms. Coakley declined to be interviewed.) If the current attorney general of Massachusetts actually believes, as no serious citizen does, the preposterous charges that caused the Amiraults to be thrown into prison—the butcher knife rape with no blood, the public tree-tying episode, the mutilated squirrel and the rest—that is powerful testimony to the mind and capacities of this aspirant to a Senate seat. It is little short of wonderful to hear now of Ms. Coakley's concern for the rights of terror suspects at Guantanamo—her urgent call for the protection of the right to the presumption of innocence. If the sound of ghostly laughter is heard in Massachusetts these days as this campaign rolls on, with Martha Coakley self-portrayed as the guardian of justice and civil liberties, there is good reason.
http://tinyurl.com/ybntulb
Martha Coakley, Witch Hunter Attorney General by Ashley Herzog ****Coakley made a career out of prosecuting phantom molesters and Gerald Amirault was part of her need to maintain the fiction that she was doing good.****

Tax code too complex for IRS Commissioner to do his own taxes

****At least he seems to be honest enough to PAY his taxes; more than one can say for tax cheat Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and such Congressmen as Charlie Rangel, Chris Dodd, et al.****
http://tinyurl.com/y8k4onu
Patricia Murphy on IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman's admission that he doesn't prepare his own taxes.... ****Isn't it time to simplify the tax code so that billions of dollars of time and effort aren't thrown down a rathole and, even more important, that the people can see what special side deals have been inserted into the code by fat-cat lobbyists for unions and other special interests? ****

Medicare will cease to provide services before it goes broke.

http://tinyurl.com/yc6g4mp
Why Doctors Are Abandoning Medicare By C.L. Gray Physicians will not be bullied into bankruptcy. Our system needs reform, but what's being hammered out in Washington is not the answer
Two weeks ago the Mayo Clinic shocked the nation when it closed the doors of one of its Arizona clinics to patients on Medicare. Just this past June President Obama himself praised Mayo as a model of medical efficiency noting that Mayo gives “the highest quality care at costs well below the national norm.” If Mayo feels compelled to walk away from this government-run program, others will surely follow. The nation must understand why.
Doctors are leaving Medicare for two reasons: one obvious, the other more concealed.
The first is simple—the math:
1) For the past decade Medicare consistently paid physicians 20% less than traditional insurance companies for identical service.
2) On January 1, 2010 Washington made hidden cuts to Medicare by altering its billing codes.
3) Medicare will cut physician reimbursement by another 21% on March 1. The CBO said this cut must take place if the Senate healthcare bill was to “reduce the deficit.”
4) Even more, Congress pledged to cut Medicare by yet another $500 billion. Again, the CBO said this additional cut must take place if the Senate healthcare bill was to “reduce the deficit.”
Many physicians were operating at a loss even before this series of massive cuts. In 2008, Mayo Clinic posted an $840 million loss in caring for Medicare patients. No businesses can survive when patient care expenses exceed revenue.
The second is more ominous—Washington’s increasingly abusive posture toward physicians.President Obama reflected this attitude last summer. On national television, he stated as fact a surgeon is paid between $30,000 and $50,000 for amputating a patient’s foot.In reality,...It is frightening to think our president is so wildly misinformed even as he stands on the cusp of overhauling American health care. But it gets worse....Washington now faces increasing pressure to cut Medicare spending. One way to do this is to intimidate physicians into under-billing. To do this Washington intends to spend tax payer dollars to ramp up physician audits using Recovery Audit Contractors (RAC audits) to randomly investigate private physician’s Medicare billing.A physician group at my hospital recently experienced an AdvanceMed audit, an earlier version of the RAC. For a year Medicare auditors made their practice a living hell, making them question if it was worth caring for Medicare patients at all.

An independent reviewer (who was paid a percentage of the audit) reviewed 86 patient records and “found” the physicians had “fraudulently billed” Medicare for $351,820. After spending a year fighting the allegations, eventually, eventually all charges were dropped. The physician group was vindicated but only after spending almost $100,000 defending themselves. The independent reviewers were clearly after money, not justice....(It is worth noting the investigators are given legal immunity from a countersuit for conducting a “fraudulent investigation.”)This story is not unique. To reduce Medicare’s budget shortfall physicians are being subjected to these abusive investigations nationwide. If medicine increasingly falls under government control, why should the best and the brightest of our youth give up 15 years of their life to go into medicine?...Physicians cannot be bullied into bankruptcy. Our system needs reform, but this is not it. If you continue on your present course, sadly, it will be our seniors that pay the price.




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Who the hell do these idiots think they are?

****This is a classical example of chutzpah.The WHO, which issued a completely flawed and misleading report on the relative status of healthcare in the world in 2000, now arrogates to itself the right to tap into the funds of consumers all over the world to pursue further insult to truth without hindrance. The globalist Obama administration will likely look with favor on this international effort to circumvent U.S. law by negotiating a treaty. Fortunately, it requires 2/3 approval of the U.S. Senate and that retains our hold on sanity. ****
http://tinyurl.com/yghoeb3
U.N.'s World Health Organization Eyeing Global Tax on Banking, Internet Activity
By George Russell
The World Health Organization (WHO) is considering a plan to ask governments to impose a global consumer tax on such things as Internet activity or everyday financial transactions like paying bills online.Such a scheme could raise "tens of billions of dollars" on behalf of the United Nations' public health arm from a broad base of consumers, which would then be used to transfer drug-making research, development and manufacturing capabilities, among other things, to the developing world. ****Incredible! They want to pick American pockets to subsidize competition for the American drug industry. Only with an Obama as President could even the most outrageous consider making such a proposal.**** The multibillion-dollar "indirect consumer tax" is only one of a "suite of proposals" for financing the rapid transformation of the global medical industry that will go before WHO's 34-member supervisory Executive Board at its biannual meeting in Geneva...

Dirty tricks from Chicago

The article mentions the Chicago mantra: "Vote early and often." There is also "The dead live on in the hearts of their loved ones and their votes in the columns of Democrats."
http://tinyurl.com/yz8pqtf
Obama and the White House Chicago Boys By Ed Lasky
Barack Obama has a problem. His polls numbers are dropping and his policies are fueling an angry backlash across America. The Democratic party is held in disrepute, and congressional Democrats are dropping like flies. This imperils Obama's radical agenda and his own 2012 prospects. What to do? Game the system and rig the future elections. That is how things are done in the streets of Chicago...****Since the Massachusetts election ()to fill the seat left by Ted Kennedy) has tightened, and a Republican could conceivably win, the Democrats plan not to seat a Republican winner until after the Healthcare vote. Who cares about the will of the voters? ****

Dire outlook for economy due to Obama.

http://tinyurl.com/yefokft
Kneale: Why I Fear an 'Obama-tastrophe'
Published:14 Jan 2010 By: Dennis Kneale ...a litany of Obama actions that instigate disaster

Justice Dept's head-in-the-sand report about domestic Islamist terrorism

http://tinyurl.com/y87c9hg
Justice Department releases report trying to convince citizenry that threat of homegrown extremism is exaggerated By Steven Emerson Analysis from world renowned terrorism expert
A hallmark of research is that it is neutral and thus open to unanticipated results and findings. Reading "Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim-Americans," a new report funded by the Justice Department's National Institute of Justice,...violate this cardinal principle of scholarly research. The report's headline is that the threat of homegrown extremism is exaggerated. That's an odd conclusion just a week into 2010. While the authors acknowledge 2009 was an unusually active year for homegrown terror plots, the litany of cases is insufficient to alter, or even place an asterisk by their conclusion. "The recent spike of cases in 2009 is disturbing," the authors write, "but it is far too early to know if this is an aberration or a trend. Even if the levels of radicalization of Muslim-Americans do increase, it is important to emphasize that the numbers of individuals engaged in these activities are extremely small."... ****The NUMBER of terrorists can be small and wreak havoc. The cases for some reason don't include domestic Muslims who train for terror outside the U.S.****...Their definition ignores the radical dogma that goes along with "non violent activities" and the often-used Koranic solicitation that those who finance jihadists are blessed the same as if they participated. It also buys in to the "covenant of security" understanding many Britons now regret. In essence, radical groups were tolerated as long as their violence did not target the United Kingdom...

GITMO is only part of Obama's overall plan

http://tinyurl.com/ybtak5q

Obama czar expresses Administration's disdain for Israel and perhaps more.

***J Street is a leftist, putatively "pro" but actually "anti-Israel" group endorsed by the Obama administration to put a good face on its own hostility to Israel.***
http://tinyurl.com/ydgx2y5
Obama Anti-Semitism 'Czar' Slammed for Criticizing Israel's Oren by Gil Ronen
The American Israeli Action Coalition (AIAC) today heavily criticized President Barack Obama’s anti-Semitism “czar”, Hannah Rosenthal, for her public criticism of Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, and called for her immediate dismissal from her post.Rosenthal, whom Obama appointed to head the Office To Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, criticized Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, for pointing out to an assembly of Jewish leaders that J Street was “fooling around with the lives of 7 million people.”...****Rosenthal's association with J Street antedates her appointment and amounts to a tacit endorsement of J Street by Obama.****

Obama might not even answer the red phone if he's on vacation.

‘Hillary Was Right’ About Obama and Terror
During the 2008 presidential race Hillary Clinton’s campaign warned that if a national security crisis arose with Barack Obama in the White House and the “red phone” alerting him rang at 3 a.m., he could not be trusted to adequately respond.
“Turns out Hillary Rodham Clinton was right all along,” declared Charles Hurt, Washington, D.C. bureau chief for the New York Post.
Hillary’s warning in a campaign ad suggested that an Obama White House would so downplay the threat posed by terrorism that “the government’s focus would shift away from the harsh and determined tactics used to protect the homeland,” Hurt wrote on Friday, adding, “Instead, Obama would turn his attention to becoming more popular in the world and stress negotiations over hardball tactics.”That attitude has trickled down to all levels of the government responsible for national security, according to Hurt.
On Thursday, President Obama sought to calm Americans’ fears about the terror threat following the attempted bombing of a plane on Christmas Day. But “there wasn’t much to see in the White House other than bungling of previous bungling,” according to Hurt, as the administration rescheduled Obama’s address to the country several times.
At 8 a.m., the White House said the president would speak at 1 p.m. Then at 1 p.m., the announcement came that he would deliver his address at 3 p.m. At 3 p.m., the White House said Obama would speak at 4:30 p.m. He took the podium at 4:34 p.m.Hurt cited Obama’s trip to Cairo last year to address the Muslim world, when he said it is “part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear,” and opined, “If you have time for such nonsense, then you are not spending enough time thinking about how to thwart this enemy.
“But it is not like we weren’t warned by Hillary Clinton.”
Another 2008 presidential candidate, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, declared Friday morning that the Fort Hood shootings and the Christmas Day bombing incident show Obama and his advisers have been “fundamentally wrong” in their approach to the war on terror.Giuliani, who was New York's mayor when terrorists struck on Sept. 11, 2001, told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” viewers that the president has tried to let “political correctness trump reality.”
Giuliani said the Obama administration came into power with the belief that
President George W. Bush’s response to the 9/11 attacks was unnecessarily severe, and had alienated America’s potential allies abroad.
“They’d gone too far, Bush had overreacted, we make the war on terror worse if we emphasize it too much — this is what they truly believed,” Giuliani said. “But they were fundamentally wrong.”

Cavalier attitude of Obamaians about terrorism.

Not only did Obama keep on his Hawaii vacation, and not even speak out until three days had elapsed, but other WH officials seem unperturbed by the Christmas bomber.
http://tinyurl.com/y8btnlt
White House defends NCTC head Michael Leiter: We said he could go on vacation after attack BY James Gordon Meek DAILY NEWS
Michael Leiter, head of the NCTC, set up after 9/11 to battle terror attacks, could be in hot water after remaining on ski slopes following Christmas Day jetliner bombing try.Leiter's ski pass
WASHINGTON - Counterterror watchdog Michael Leiter wasn't AWOL. He got the okay from his White House bosses to take a six-day ski vacation right after the Christmas Day bomber nearly blew up an airliner....President Obama's top counterterror adviser, John Brennan, said Thursday he gave Leiter the green light to head for the slopes. At the time, Leiter's National Counterterrorism Center was already facing scrutiny for missed red flags in the plot against Northwest Flight 253...

Local Muslim riots make going to Gaza unnecessary.

http://tinyurl.com/yz3645j
Le Futur de la France ! Ppt Presentation
Oct 19, 2009 ... :Nul n'est besoin d'allera Gaza! Mais à Nice seulement

More evidence that the canard about American healthcare not being best.

http://tinyurl.com/yb2kr36
Where U.S. Health Care Ranks Number One
Isn't 'responsiveness' what medicine is all about? By MARK B.CONSTANTIAN
...Time pictured President Obama in white coat and stethoscope. The story opened: "The U.S. spends more to get less [health care] than just about every other industrialized country."...The comparative ranking system that most critics cite comes from the U.N.'s World Health Organization (WHO). The ranking most often quoted is Overall Performance, where the U.S. is rated No. 37. The Overall Performance Index, however, is adjusted to reflect how well WHO officials believe that a country could have done in relation to its resources. The scale is heavily subjective... (see prior Yoda blogs on this subject)

Obama administration refuses to acknowledge nature of terrorism

Finally, the President acknowledges that "we are at war" (previously we were warred against but were only dealing with criminals ). With whom are we at war? We are at war with Al Qaeda. No mention of the Islamist nature of Al Qaeda or the fact that we are also at war with other Islamic jihadists who may not be members of Al Qaeda and might even be at war with IT (e.g. Shia jihadis ). For all a martian would know from the President's mention, Al Qaeda might be an organization like Rotary International.
When the venerable, crotchety White House correspondent Helen Thomas twice asked John Brennan, the chief advisor on Homeland Security "What is the motivation of these terrorists who want to kill us?" he couldn't bring himself to say that it was Muslims who wished to establish a world Caliphate and whose religion gave them the right in their eyes to kill or convert us. He fumbled around saying only that these people (presumably limited to some featureless organization called Al Qaeda ) want to kill innocent people. ( The same John Brennan insisted "there was no smoking gun" in the Christmas bomber incident --No, there were many smoking guns and many identifiable miscreants-- and who suggested that his staff not interrupt their Christmas vacations in light of the incident.)
A question for the President is whether the Muslim fanatic who is the killer at Ft Hood, Major Hasan, is at war with the U.S. and if he is part of what the President called Al Qaeda, in the view of Obama. There are efforts to treat Hasan as merely a criminal, and a mentally-deranged one, at that. (One might therefore argue that all of the jihadi terrorists are deranged since they have little regard for their own earthly lives.)
There is no rationale as to how Holder's Justice Department and Obama decide who gets tried in civilian courts and who in military tribunals. The Christmas Day bomber ( who actually SUCCEEDED in his act of terrorism since he has cost the U.S. millions and millions of dollars in wasteful activity and inconvenience as a result of his failed attempt to kill people and crash a plane ) picked Christmas Day deliberately and was clearly, from the getgo, identifiable as a member of international terrorism ( in this case, specifically Al Qaeda, AS WELL.)Why was he Mirandized, given a lawyer and silenced as a result instead of being heavily interrogated as a captured enemy. We are told, by way of extenuation, that he WILL talk as a result of plea bargaining. First, information is highly perishable. Second, someone who was embarked on a suicide mission is unlikely to be highly susceptible to the blandishments of plea bargains ( and what are we willing to reduce the charge to? )
This is all a clear example of what Mark Steyn has termed Obama's ISLAMO-SCHMOOZING; there is a pervasive refusal to admit, acknowledge and take advantage of the Islamist nature of the terrorists' war against us. (They have LONG been in a war against us; only recently has Obama admitted that WE are in a war with Al Qaeda --after assuring the Muslim world that the U.S. is NOT at war with Islam. )