Robert Tracinski, RCP.com

 

Barack Obama gave a big speech Thursday on his economic plan. This speech gives us a lot of new information about what Barack Obama will do in office--and the style in which he will do it.

 

During the primaries and the general election, not to mention the presidential transition, Obama has weaved from the far left to the moderate center, blurring himself into a seeming enigma. But now we can see the outlines of how he will govern, and it is a combination of the far left and the center--the worst kind of combination. He will act on the ideas of the far left, while presenting them under a moderate, conventional, non-ideological cover.

 

The danger of Barack Obama's presidency is not that he will act openly on the old dogmas of the left. Indeed, during his transition he has largely attempted to meld into the Washington woodwork by hiring only the most conventional Beltway insiders. Instead, the danger is that he has been so steeped in leftist dogma for his entire life that he will accept the left's attitudes implicitly and automatically, without even realizing it.

 

Consider just the first paragraph of Thursday's speech. Read article.

Rev. Lainie Dowellk, VoiceInk.blogspot.com

 

If all that it takes for Barack Obama to reassure the American people that we will have better days ahead are a bank of unfurled flags behind him and delivering a left-over canned election speech, then Barack Obama's job would be done and we could have peace about his intent. But, as of now, all I can see is a little man being propped up by his unseen speech writers who are trying hard to make him appear Presidential.

 

The snakes are on the move. They are crawling all over the United States Constitution and slithering underneath the underbelly of all that has become seamy in American society, such as abortions on demand, bailouts instead of working economies, socialism instead of capitalism, union handouts and card check, same-sex marriages, medical suicide, universal healthcare, welfare, and whatever else comes down the pike that is outside of commonsense. And enacting those issues are forever changing the face of our "One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all."

 

Shame on America for allowing this. Read article.

 

Oliver North, Townhall.com

 

During the course of the past two months, President-elect Barack Obama and the presidential transition team have replaced their campaign maxim, "Change We Can Believe In," with a new mantra: "We Only Have One President at a Time." It is a slogan that already is worn out.

 

During this week's Oval Office photo op with President George W. Bush and former Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and William Jefferson Blythe Clinton, PEBO used the "one-president-at-a-time" dodge to avoid answering a reporter's hurled interrogatory about Israeli military operations in Gaza. The response from those in the lineup -- and apparently most in the mainstream media -- is to nod approvingly at PEBO's sagacity every time they hear him say it. The only trouble: It simply isn't true. Read article.

 

Clarence Page, JWR.com

 

As if President-elect Barack Obama didn't have enough waiting for him on his platter at the White House, a new report on juvenile violence offers another flavor for him to chew on: the color of crime.

 

Remember the backlash he stirred up last year with a speech in a black Chicago church when he criticized absentee fathers and negligent mothers? The Rev. Jesse Jackson and other critics asked why Obama singled out us black parents when other ethnic groups misbehave, too. A disturbing new report on youth violence offers an answer: Our kids are killing each other more than other ethnic groups' kids do.

 

After more than a decade of overall decline in violent crimes, a study of federal crime statistics by Northeastern University criminologists brings on the gloom. It finds the number of homicides involving black male juveniles as victims rose 31 percent and as perpetrators by 43 percent between 2002 and 2007.

 

During the same period, murders by white youth actually decreased. Read article.

 

James Rosen, McClatchyDC.com

 

Republicans who just four years ago boasted of nearing "permanent majority rule" now watch a dynamic leader move into the White House at the helm of a resurgent Democratic Party with new footholds in longtime Republican bastions.

 

For Republican activists across the country, Barack Obama's inauguration as the first black president produces dread, bewilderment and grudging admiration.

 

"I'm in a deep depression," said Josephine Schmidt, a mother of three and a small-business owner in Atascadero, midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco in California's Central Valley.

 

"Obama is going to lead this country on a path we've never seen before, the path of socialism," Schmidt said. "It's going to take years and years for us to recover, if we ever do." Read article.

 

Bruce Kesler, Maggie's Farm.com

 

If conditions and challenges weren’t ominous enough for the new Obama administration, his strong-willed mother-in-law is moving into the White House. If that alone isn’t enough for most, imagine yourself facing a relocation to very difficult new job, almost every one with power affecting you having differing wants and confronting you with demands often at odds with your own, literally not enough money in the world to satisfy everyone’s desires and the demands increasingly undercutting even necessities, and gangs of lethal thugs roaming the streets around you.

 

Even your formerly most staunch supporters begin to report that most of your previous smooth talk is empty that got you the job and that you’re in over your head. Like vultures expecting a fat carcass but facing a rotting pigeon of a meal, they squabble and fight each other. Almost all your mentors expose they haven’t really much clue what to do. Well, here’s a piece of advice: Don’t just do something, stand there. Most of the challenging conditions will sort themselves out. Running around like a chicken without a head, or doing for the sake of doing, will not only likely have little positive effect but will probably have worse consequences.

 

Let’s go through a brief list: Read article.

 

Jennifer Rubin, Pajamas Media.com

 

The Senate will hold the confirmation hearing of attorney general nominee Eric Holder. This is shaping up to be one contentious outing as Sen. Arlen Specter and other Republicans prepare to delve into Holder’s involvement with the Marc Rich and Puerto Rican terrorist pardons and the Elian Gonzales affair. It’s not his legal views which are most at issue, but his character.

 

And if Democrats and Republicans alike get the sense that Holder has played fast and loose with Justice Department guidelines, ethical standard and even with their colleagues (in his testimony during the 2001 Congressional probe of the Rich pardon, for example) Holder may have a sticky time getting out of the Senate Judiciary Committee (which may have a 9-9 split between the parties). Read article. 

 

Paul Hsieh, CS Monitor.com

 

Imagine a country where the government regularly checks the waistlines of citizens over age 40. Anyone deemed too fat would be required to undergo diet counseling. Those who fail to lose sufficient weight could face further "reeducation" and their communities subject to stiff fines.

 

Is this some nightmarish dystopia?

 

No, this is contemporary Japan.

 

The Japanese government argues that it must regulate citizens' lifestyles because it is paying their health costs. This highlights one of the greatly underappreciated dangers of "universal healthcare." Any government that attempts to guarantee healthcare must also control its costs. The inevitable next step will be to seek to control citizens' health and their behavior. Hence, Americans should beware that if we adopt universal healthcare, we also risk creating a "nanny state on steroids" antithetical to core American principles. Read article.

 

Sam Hananel, CNS News.com

 

Hilda Solis, President-elect Barack Obama's pick for labor secretary, told lawmakers Friday that if confirmed she will work to expand job training programs, enforce workplace safety, health and fair pay laws and make sure employee pension plans are secure.

 

The California congresswoman appeared Friday before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to tell lawmakers how she would lead a department that Obama says he wants to "once again stand up for working families."

 

Solis called the job losses "a crisis situation" and said one of her initiatives would promote "green jobs" that could reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil.

 

Solis was introduced by Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both California Democrats who praised her long history of activism on behalf of unions and workers rights. Read article.

 

Paul Jacob, Townhall.com

 

It may be that Obama will bring some positive change to the federal government. But just how much harm will his big-government philosophy pile on? Coming from Chicago’s Democratic machine via less than a full term as arguably the most liberal United States senator, Obama offers mostly grist for the skeptics’ mill.

 

It remains unlikely that we’ll see any meaningful reform, and surely no shrinking of big government.

 

But remember, President Obama is not acting alone. He will have accomplices.

 

Though the outgoing Congress earned the lowest public approval scores in the history of such polls, soon-to-be President Obama certainly seems to be counting on the new, even worse, Congress. Read article.

 

William Jelani Cobb, Washington Post.com

 

Here's what hasn't changed in America.

 

In the past week or so, we've seen a threatened Senate stand-off, hyperbolic historical references, an alleged case of stonewalling by the Illinois secretary of state, lawsuits and rumors of lawsuits, a wild-card nominee for the Senate first turned away from that body and then perhaps accepted by it, and that same nominee called upon to testify in the impeachment hearings of the man who nominated him -- all tied together by the complicating factor of race. Former Illinois attorney general Roland W. Burris may well be qualified to serve as the junior senator from Illinois, but his path to office demonstrates not only that cynicism is alive and well but that the politics of racial divisiveness remain with us too. With one stroke, public attention shifted away from a corrupt governor's attempt to auction a public office and onto the reliably controversial terrain of race.

 

Former Illinois attorney general Roland W. Burris may well be qualified to serve as the junior senator from Illinois, but his path to office demonstrates not only that cynicism is alive and well but that the politics of racial divisiveness remain with us too. With one stroke, public attention shifted away from a corrupt governor's attempt to auction a public office and onto the reliably controversial terrain of race. Read article.

Print This E-mail This

Share It: