Joy Tiz, Canada Free Press.com

 

Telegraph reporter Stephanie Gutmann describes her reaction to Barack Obama’s appearance in Berlin: “After it was over I picked up the phone and called a friend back home. ‘It’s worse than we thought,’ I told him. ‘The guy’s actually crazy.’”

 

Guttman was talking about candidate Obama’s agenda as he presented it that day, in which he promised to take on the terrorists in Afghanistan, take on the drug dealers, rebuild Afghanistan, eliminate the building nuclear threat, secure all loose nukes, decrease arsenals from another era, form a new global partnership that will end terror networks, redistribute wealth, save the planet, withdraw all troops from Iraq, keep the oceans from rising, end famine, and reduce carbon output. Most politicians would have quit after two or three such ambitious proposals.

 

Incredibly, there are Obamanutz among us who honestly don’t realize that Barack Obama is a narcissist of the worst kind. Most people erroneously presume that narcissism is something akin to egomania or an unusually high sense of self-esteem. The truth is the reverse. Narcissists suffer from self-loathing, not too much self-love.

 

It takes a bit of narcissism to wake up in the morning and think, “Hey, I really ought to be leader of the free world.” Read article.

Jake Tapper, ABC News.com

 

If all goes according to plan, Colorado businessman Vinai Thummalapally will soon be moving to a Central American tourist paradise to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Belize.

 

Thummalapally was President Obama's roommate at Occidental College in 1979. As Barbara and Vinai Thummalapally described it to the Colorado Springs Gazette, they "used to party with (the president) in college. He was the guy who'd drink a few beers, maybe take a toke, stay up until 4 a.m. then excuse himself to crank out an 'A' paper due that morning. ... He was Barry, the mellow guy in the leather jacket, dragging on a cigarette."

 

Of course, friendship only goes so far in the world of ambassadorships. It's Thummalapally's fundraising for -- not partying with -- President Obama that is more characteristic of his fellow ambassador nominees. Read article.

 

Andrea Lafferty, Alain's Newsletter.com

 

Liberal reporters went into spasms when President Bush fired several U.S. Attorneys during his administration. Yet, these same reporters are strangely silent over the firing of Gerald Walpin, the inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service.

 

President Obama claimed he had lost confidence in Walpin. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) is questioning the firing and the explanation for it. Obama has violated the Inspector General Reform Act, which requires the President to “communicate in writing … the reasons for any such removal.”

 

The reform act was created to protect officials like Walpin from being forced out for political reasons. Yet, that appears to be precisely why he was fired.

 

Walpin was investigating the misuse of federal grant money by a non-profit group run by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA basketball star – and Friend of Obama (FOO).

 

IG Walpin found that this non-profit was using Americorps grants to pay volunteers to engage in political activities, run personal errands for Johnson and even wash his car.

 

Walpin’s investigation forced Johnson’s group to repay half of the $850,000 grant. He did his job, but in Washington, D.C., no good deed goes unpunished. Read article.

Robert Zullo, Houma Today.com

 

In 15 years of selling guns and ammunition, he's never seen anything like it.

 

Shotgun shells, rifle cartridges and pistol rounds have been flying off the shelves with such speed at Houma Auto Parts, Calvin Prevost's gun store on Honduras Street, that the owner has taken to hiding what ammunition he can in the back so customers who buy a gun can leave at least with a single box of rounds. Wednesday afternoon, there were wide gaps between the boxes of ammunition for sale at the shop, formerly an auto-parts and gun store but now strictly a firearms business.

 

''That shelf is usually packed,'' Prevost said. ''If we don't hide ammo, they'll buy it all.''

 

Spurred by rampant rumors and fears that President Barack Obama, now six months into his term, may levy massive taxes on ammunition or add cumbersome new firearms restrictions, gun owners have been buying bullets in huge quantities, creating shortages nationwide.

 

''The American public just went bonkers,'' Prevost said. ''People are panicked.'' Read article.

 

David Limbaugh.com

 

The more we learn about the White House's summary firing of AmeriCorps' inspector general, Gerald Walpin, the more it smells of lawlessness, cronyism and a flagrant disregard for transparency and government accountability.

 

Remember President Barack Obama's commitment to oversee the expenditure of taxpayer funds to avoid waste and inefficiency -- to the point that he deputized Vice President "Mean" Joe Biden as the executive enforcer?

 

That was then. This is now. As has proved customary with this administration, the walk has not matched the talk. Biden's casual admissions that the administration "guessed wrong" and that money has been wasted don't begin to describe the fiscal recklessness and corruption that define this White House.

 

Walpin -- in investigating the misuse of AmeriCorps funds by St. HOPE charity, which is under the direction of Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a strong Obama supporter -- discovered that St. HOPE had failed to use the federal monies for the purposes specified in the grant and improperly had used AmeriCorps personnel to drive Johnson to personal appointments, run other errands for him and wash his car. On Walpin's recommendation, an official at the Corporation for National and Community Service, the organization that runs AmeriCorps, ordered Johnson's suspension.

 

Walpin also referred the matter to the local U.S. attorney's office for a criminal inquiry. Though no criminal charges were filed, St. HOPE agreed in a settlement to repay half its $850,000 of AmeriCorps grants.

 

But the real fireworks didn't begin until Walpin briefed the CNCS board May 20 on his investigation. A few weeks later, the White House called him and gave him one hour to decide whether he would resign or be fired.

 

He refused to resign, and the White House summarily fired him, as promised, grossly violating the 2008 Inspector General Reform Act, co-sponsored by then-Sen. Barack Obama, which forbids the White House from firing an IG without providing 30 days' notice and the specific reasons for the firing. Read article.

 

Julian E. Zelizer, Politico.com

 

The most potent threat to the Obama administration’s fledgling health care plan may come not from the insurance industry or skeptical doctors but from the Congressional Budget Office.

 

Earlier this week, CBO released preliminary estimates suggesting that the health care proposals — the most ambitious currently under discussion — from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee would cost $1 trillion and trim the number of uninsured by only 16 million.

 

With a few more reports like this, CBO could quickly prove more damaging to the administration’s health care efforts than could Republican attacks about “socialized medicine.”

 

The last Democratic president found out the hard way. CBO proved a major thorn in President Bill Clinton’s side when his administration pushed health reform in 1993-94. Because of pay-as-you-go budget rules in place at the time, any new spending proposals had to be matched by offsetting cuts. CBO, under the directorship of the widely respected Robert Reischauer, repeatedly frustrated the administration by casting aspects of the plan in politically unappealing ways. Read article.

 

Jeff O'Bryant, CatwalkChatt.com

 

How much more government do we need? We’ve been building upon it now for over 200 years and it is getting to the point to where many do not even care anymore how enormous it has grown.

 

Things go badly, we need more government to solve the problem. Things are going fine, we need more government to keep them that way. Such is what the politicians wish you to think.

 

Obama may scare the right wing (and with good reason), but Obama didn’t just pop out of nowhere. Had it not been him it would have been another president. We as a nation have been moving closer and closer to this moment, baby step-by-baby step, stride-by-stride, and now we are at the leaping stage. Government has just taken over GM; ABC will present little more than an Obama infomercial from the White House itself on the administration’s health care “plan” and the president is even seeking authority to take over other companies.

 

All the steps along the way, an income tax, Social Security, government hiring quotas, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, government bailouts, government subsidies, government housing and more. We’ve taken from the rich and given to the poor; we’ve taken from the poor and middle class and given to the rich. We’ve all been taken from to provide lifetime careers to politicians and lobbyists who are more parasites than anything else.

 

Is this truth falling on deaf ears? Are you so comfortable that injustice does not move you? Are you so well-fed that the assault upon your liberty is of no concern to you? Do you have so much money that you think you are beyond caring about how dangerous your government is becoming to your liberty? Do you believe that government has your best interests at heart to the point where you would relinquish your precious freedoms for their empty promises? Read article.

 

Jack Cashill, WND.com

 

What no one can question about the investigation into the mysterious July 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island is that the government came down hard on serious journalists, and on no journalist harder than investigative reporter James Sanders.

 

A key player in that government machinery was none other than District Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

 

In May 2000, she and two colleagues ruled against James Sanders and his wife, Elizabeth, in a civil suit the pair brought against the government agencies that had pursued and arrested them.

 

From the beginning, the story of TWA Flight 800, the one James Sanders chronicled, has been a story of humanity betrayed – none more so than the families of the 230 good souls aboard that doomed plane.

 

Fifty-three of the dead were TWA employees. A TWA trainer, Elizabeth Sanders had worked with many of the attendants on the doomed flight and knew several of the pilots.

 

Their deaths wounded Elizabeth deeply. In the weeks afterward, she and her TWA colleagues passed numbly from one memorial service to another, their grief matched only by their growing anger at the obvious misdirection of the investigation. Read article.

 

Dr. Laurie Roth, NWV.com

 

More Tea Parties are coming up around July 4th all across the country and folks are focused, angry and ready to exercise their 1st amendment rights again. We saw with the last flurry of Tea Parties on April 15th the slanderous report released by Homeland security and Napolitano and dispersed to fusion centers across the country. It identified as potential terrorists those of us who are against abortion, oppose same-sex marriage, are pro state and federal sovereignty, fear communist regimes, are against one world government, are not happy about the loss of U.S. manufacturing, oppose restrictions on firearms, are against lax immigration laws and the unbelievable one that still curdles my brain is…..drum roll…..returning vets!

 

That offensive and lying list ended up targeting 2/3rds of the country, certainly those who love their freedom, constitution and God. How nasty and how dangerous of us! We all remember Napolitano’s lame apology only to the vets after a huge uproar by the military when they were named after fighting for our country. All other insulted groups and citizens were apparently chopped liver. Napolitano promised to reword the Homeland security report. Who will be left in who is still targeted? Read article.

 

Online WSJ.com

 

Except for Britain and certain quarters of Vienna, conservatism in Europe shares little with the Hayekian brand of liberalism. A paternalistic right, along with the socialists, passed restrictive labor codes and created state-run pension and health systems. The welfare state empowered narrow interests to defend the status quo. Before the Obama Administration Euro-fits the U.S. economy, Americans need to know that this model saps economic dynamism and is nearly impossible to fix.

 

For decades, Europeans have been frustrated with low growth, chronic unemployment and fading competitiveness. The answers tend to come from the right, and successful center-left politicians have embraced market reforms (think Tony Blair). On the Huffington Post earlier this week, columnist Robert Kuttner bemoaned the left's collapse in Europe: "American progressives used to look longingly to Europe, with its stronger trade unions and its more comprehensive social protections. Those are still there, but unraveling under assault." Failure will do that. Read article.

 

Robert Stacy McCain, Pajamas Media.com

 

White House officials who fired whistleblower Gerald Walpin last week have sparked a series of investigations that pose both political and policy threats to the Obama administration.

 

Describing the probe into the dismissal of the AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin, one Capitol Hill source on Thursday compared Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley’s demand for facts in the case to a row of dominoes ready to tip over.

 

Grassley is asking questions, a team of Senate investigators is poring over documents in the case, and where the investigation proceeds now “depends on what dominoes fall next,” explained the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

 

Already, the FBI is looking into charges that Sacramento, Calif., Mayor Kevin Johnson deleted e-mails relevant to an investigation by Walpin, whose dismissal appears to have violated a law passed last year (and co-sponsored by then-Sen. Barack Obama) to protect inspectors general from political retribution. Meanwhile, Grassley has expanded his own probe to include questions of whether the administration is undermining the independence of other government watchdogs.

 

Beyond the legal and political ramifications, Republicans in Washington acknowledge that the potential scandal could aid their policy battle against the effort by the White House and congressional Democrats to push sweeping new proposals on health care, energy and financial regulation.

 

Polls show voters increasingly skeptical of the administration’s policy agenda, and even the popular new president’s job-approval ratings have declined slightly in recent weeks. If the IG investigation uncovers a serious scandal, it could do permanent damage to public perception of Obama as a reformer who promised to bring “Change We Can Believe In.”Depending on “what dominoes fall next,” Republicans on Capitol Hill may have discovered in the 75-year-old Walpin the one domino that topples the whole stack.

 

Depending on “what dominoes fall next,” Republicans on Capitol Hill may have discovered in the 75-year-old Walpin the one domino that topples the whole stack. Read article.

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