JB Williams, Capitol Hill Coffee House.com

 

A United Nations Mandate?

On April 29, 2009, I released Part I of this column, which resulted in a firestorm of interest in the story behind current Census Bureau efforts to capture and record the GPS coordinates of every private residence in the United States…

 

World Net Daily led with this story on May 5 … Census - GPS Tagging Your Home's Front Door.

 

The story blasted around the Internet within hours of its release, drawing millions of readers and thousands of comments from both Obama and ACORN supporters, and Americans already fearful of a corrupt and possibly unconstitutional government, clearly running wild with unbridled power. By 24 hours later, even the Census Bureau in DC was reading the column.

 

Obama and ACORN supporters were quick to offer a nasty laundry list of excuses for why Obama and ACORN had a need (and a right) to create a database of GPS coordinates for every American citizen. One idiot named Steve actually claimed that the US Constitution requires Obama to mark your door with GPS coordinates.

 

Of course, Americans still waiting to see a copy of Obama’s birth and college records feel quite differently... Read article.

 

Obama's "Smart Power" Not Yielding Results

Donald Lambro, Townhall.com

 

The world's terrorists and rogue nations have clearly become more dangerous since Barack Obama took office, and analysts say they're testing him to see how much they can get away with.

 

North Korea, Iran, Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Afghan Taliban have gotten much more threatening in recent months, while the administration pursues a new foreign policy based on the belief that they can achieve much more through soft diplomacy -- sitting down with our adversaries and having a "dialogue" with them.

 

In an ever more dangerous world, the Obama administration says it is practicing "smart power" instead of "hard power."

 

"With smart power, diplomacy will be the vanguard of foreign policy," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told senators at her confirmation hearings.

 

That's the message Obama has sent since his swearing-in, but so far it doesn't seem to be working. On the contrary, it seems to be encouraging further bad behavior. Read article.

Greg Scandlen, Heartland.org

 

A revolution is underway in American health care, but you won’t read about it newspapers or see it on TV.

 

The revolution involves a growing number of Americans who are reclaiming their right to buy health care goods and services that they decide are beneficial. They are shrugging off the heavy hand of regulation by Washington politicians, insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms, hospitals, medical organizations, federal agencies, and giant employers, all of whom are fighting over who gets what of the trillions of dollars Americans spend each year on health care.

 

This is a Consumer Driven Health Care Revolution.

 

The revolution got underway six years ago, when consumers were able to redirect some of the health care money they earned into new deposits such as health savings accounts, health reimbursement arrangements, flexible spending accounts, and insurance policies with low premiums and high deductibles.

 

Empowered by control over their own money, consumers increasingly demanded the information needed to make good decisions about their health care. Once they possessed both the money and information, consumers forced changes in the delivery of services to make health care more efficient, more accountable, more convenient, and certainly more affordable. Read article.

 

Michael Barone, JWR.com

 

Last Friday, the day after Chrysler filed for bankruptcy, I drove past the company's headquarters on I-75 in Auburn Hills, Mich. As I glanced at the pentagram logo, I felt myself tearing up a little bit. Anyone who grew up in the Detroit area, as I did, can't help but be sad to see a once great company fail.

 

But my sadness turned to anger later when I heard what bankruptcy lawyer Tom Lauria said on a WJR talk show that morning. "One of my clients," Lauria told host Frank Beckmann, "was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight."

 

Lauria represented one of the bondholder firms, Perella Weinberg, which initially rejected the Obama deal that would give the bondholders about 33 cents on the dollar for their secured debts while giving the United Auto Workers retirees about 50 cents on the dollar for their unsecured debts.

 

This, of course, is a violation of one of the basic principles of bankruptcy law, which is that secured creditors — those who loaned money only on the contractual promise that if the debt was unpaid they'd get specific property back — get paid off in full before unsecured creditors get anything. Read article.

 

Alex Alexiev, NRO.com

 

President Obama sat down with the presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan to seek a way out of the existential crisis now facing those two nations. As reported by the press, Obama secured commitments from them for greater cooperation in the struggle against the “common threat,” as well as assurances that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons would be secure — in other words, the same promises and commitments that every White House meeting with Pakistan’s leaders since 9/11 has invariably delivered. 

 

One thing that almost certainly was not discussed is the real nature of the problem facing the three countries and Washington’s decisive contribution to it. As a result, whatever putative solutions were agreed upon will remain putative; and, even if the Pakistani army makes temporary headway against the Taliban in Swat and elsewhere, the problem will continue to fester and undermine the viability of Pakistan and Afghanistan alike.

 

Put simply, the Taliban, murderous as it is, is not the problem. The problem is the Pakistani military and the stubborn refusal of Washington to comprehend this basic reality. We need to remind ourselves that Pakistan is not a sovereign state with a military, but a sovereign military with a state at its disposal to use as it sees fit. Read article.

 

Barry Rubin, Gloria-Center.org

 

The U.S. State Department has produced excellent research and analysis in its “Country Reports on Terrorism 2008” report just released. Now the only problem is to ensure the Obama administration reads and absorbs the contents.

 

What can this report teach U.S. policymakers?

 

Regarding Iran, their government has massive evidence of its continuing role as “the most significant state sponsor of terrorism.” Why is Iran doing this? According to the State Department, “To advance its key national security and foreign policy interests, which include regime survival, regional dominance, opposition to Arab-Israeli peace, and countering Western influence, particularly in the Middle East.” That’s right, and it’s not going to change, especially one Iran has nuclear weapons.

 

Not only does Tehran use the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (the institution most supportive of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) “to clandestinely cultivate and support” Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizballah; plus radical Islamist groups in Afghanistan, the Balkans, and in Iraq against U.S. forces. Read article.

 

Review & Outlook, Online WSJ.com

 

Is embarrassing the military and the Bush Administration worth jeopardizing U.S. interests, or perhaps even the lives of American soldiers?

 

We ask because we are being taken to task by the American Civil Liberties Union for opposing the Obama Administration's decision to release photographs collected as part of a military probe into prisoner abuse. In a letter published nearby, ACLU lawyers Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh write that our objections to the release are "disturbing, particularly because [they come] from a news organization." Apparently, their idea of "all the news that's fit to print" is, well, anything.

 

But that isn't this newspaper's motto. And even today, media organizations understand some news really isn't fit to print, particularly the kind that puts lives in jeopardy. Some also understand that especially in war there are such things as legitimate government secrets, which serve the public interest precisely because they are secret.

 

In this case, it is difficult to see what public interest is served by the release of the photos. Mr. Jaffer and Ms. Singh claim they will allow the public to judge for itself whether the Bush Administration was telling the truth when it claimed the prisoner abuse "was aberrational and that it occurred in spite of policy." But how exactly does releasing photos that depict only the abuse explain whether the abuse was aberrational or not?

 

On the contrary -- and as with the case of Abu Ghraib -- the chief effect of the photo dump, which will surely overwhelm front pages and Arab Web sites, will be to make every instance of abuse seem the norm. Read article.

 

Wesley Pruden, JWR.com

 

The president has given his personal warranty on cars from Detroit — if a fuel pump on your new Pontiac falls apart and the dealer won't make it good, just call the White House and ask for the president. Happy days are here again.

 

The transformation of the American automobile industry into a government operation, managed from Europe, may be the preview of how Mr. Obama intends to remake America in the image of the Old Country. London's Financial Times reported Monday that Sergio Marchionne, the chief executive of Fiat, has big plans for consolidating Fiat, Chrysler and General Motors Europe into an enormous new publicly traded European car company.

 

Joining the Opel, Vauxhall and Saab models from GM with Fiat and Chrysler would create a company that could generate revenues of $106 billion annually on sales of 7 million cars, making Fiat/Opel, as the company would be called, second only to Toyota as the world's largest automobile company. Note the weasel words "would" and "could." Read article.

 

Jack Kelly, RCP.com

 

Has Barack Obama made an enemy who can sabotage his presidency?

 

The presidency of George W. Bush began to unravel when some in high positions at the Central Intelligence Agency began waging a covert campaign against him.

 

The CIA's war against President Bush was motivated by ass covering, or by political partisanship. But with President Obama, it's personal.

 

Many are furious about his disclosure of explicit details of the interrogation methods used on some al Qaida bigwigs, and his waffling on whether or not those who employed them will be subject to prosecution. Read article.

 

James Lewis, American Thinker.com

 

The prancing and preening Obama crowd is a natural victim for all the con artists in the world -- and that's practically every real enemy of the United States and Western civilization.

 

That's the way it is. Get used to it, because any therapeutic intervention first requires them to bump into reality. Just listen for the loud bangs as they go bouncing off the walls.

 

What we are seeing today with Obama is a neurotic repetition compulsion. All the things that didn't work for Jimmy are being tried again by Barry O. They will end up not working again. Only a fool could be surprised.

 

Obama is a natural follow-up act for Carter. Right now he looks like Jimmy Carter, Jr., with even more self-righteous arrogance and even more towering folly -- which is quite an accomplishment. Oh, yes, and he's black, which delights the media, because our media airheads always confuse symbolism with substance. But being black is only skin-deep. It doesn't guarantee anything. You have to be a fool to believe otherwise.

 

Being our first black president won't save Obama from the consequences of his arrogance. Nor will it save the country. Sorry about that. Reality always gets the final vote. Read article.

 

Andrea Lafferty, Alain's Newsletter.com

 

Andrea Lafferty, Executive Director for the Traditional Values Coalition released the following statement, today, supporting efforts by House Appropriator Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) to block Guantanamo Bay terrorist detainees from entering the United States and receiving taxpayer funded welfare benefits.

 

Lafferty’s statement follows:

 

“At the risk of stating the obvious, the American people will be a lot safer if these people are kept at Guantanamo. The Obama Administration asks us to swallow another whopper – bringing terrorists into your neighborhood will make you safer. That is illogical but not surprising coming from Obamaland where there are “moderates” in the Taliban and Iran looks like a prospective ally.

 

“No lucid American would advocate increasing the danger to our families and our children. No lucid American would add that we should also use taxpayer funds to ensure that these terrorists are comfortable here and free from the daily financial responsibilities of the rest of us.

 

“This does alleviate some of my concern about our porous borders, however, because no sneaking into our country in the dark of night will be necessary under this dangerous proposal. Our government will bring these hardened terrorists into major American cities and pay them so that they will not be distracted by earning a living or searching for jobs and can devote their full time and energy to terrorizing Americans.

 

“Congressman Tiahrt’s effort to stop this nonsense is commendable." Read article.

 

Glenn Garvin, Miami Herald.com

 

You know what they say about monkeys, typewriters and Shakespeare. My question is, if you sat an infinite number of Joe Bidens at an infinite number of microphones, would any of them ever say anything that wasn't infinitely stupid? From his reminiscences about Franklin Roosevelt's famous White House television address on the day of the 1929 stock market crash (that is, three years before Roosevelt was president and 20 years before Americans bought TVs) to his campaign-rally exhortation to Missouri state Sen. Chuck Graham to ''Stand up, Chuck, let 'em see ya!'' (Graham's in a wheelchair), Biden's serial stupidities have become a national mortification.

 

Listening to Biden's gaffeprompter running full speed ahead on the subject of swine flu last week -- he warned Americans that airplanes, subways and classrooms are microbiologic deathtraps, then promptly took a train to Delaware -- my first thought was, who in the world made this guy vice president? My second was, oh, right. And my third was, no wonder people are always calling Barack Obama the smartest guy in the room. At most White House meetings, it's probably literally -- if dishearteningly -- true.

 

Consider Lisa Jackson, Obama's EPA boss, explaining market economics during an NPR interview. ``The president has said, and I couldn't agree more, that what this country needs is one single national roadmap that tells automakers, who are trying to become solvent again, what kind of car it is that they need to be designing and building for the American people.''

 

''Is that the role of the government?'' asked the reporter. ``That doesn't sound like free enterprise.''''Well, it is free enterprise, in a way,'' declared Jackson. Yes, in the same way that Madonna is a chastity goddess. I'm sure my surprise at Jackson's remarks was tiny compared to that of Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Il, who must have been horrified to learn they're actually capitalist plutocrats instead of model socialists.

 

''Well, it is free enterprise, in a way,'' declared Jackson. Yes, in the same way that Madonna is a chastity goddess. I'm sure my surprise at Jackson's remarks was tiny compared to that of Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Il, who must have been horrified to learn they're actually capitalist plutocrats instead of model socialists. Read article.

 

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