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October 2, 2009
Exclusive: Oval Office Watch – Friday, October 2
Obama and the Politics of Concession: Iran and Russia put Obama to the test last week, and he blinked twice. SEE HERE.
Thanks Barack... Youth Unemployment Rate Reaches Post World War II High - CLICK HERE.
Time to Act Like a President
Richard Cohen, Washington Post.com
Sooner or later it is going to occur to Barack Obama that he is the president of the United States. As of yet, though, he does not act that way, appearing promiscuously on television and granting interviews like the presidential candidate he no longer is. The election has been held, but the campaign goes on and on. The candidate has yet to become commander in chief.
Take last week's Group of 20 meeting in Pittsburgh. There, the candidate-in-full commandeered the television networks and the leaders of Britain and France to give the Iranians a dramatic warning. Yet another of their secret nuclear facilities had been revealed and Obama, as anyone could see, was determined to do something about it -- just don't ask what.
The entire episode had a faux Cuban missile crisis quality to it. Something menacing had been discovered -- not Soviet missiles a mere 100 miles or so off Florida but an Iranian nuclear installation about 100 miles from Tehran. As befitting the occasion, various publications supplied us with nearly minute-by-minute descriptions of the crisis atmosphere earlier in the week at the U.N. session -- the rushing from room to room, presidential aides conferring, undoubtedly aware that they were in the middle of a book they had yet to write. I scanned the accounts looking for familiar names. Where was McNamara? Where was Bundy? Where, in fact, was the crisis? Read article.
The Limits of Charisma - Mr. President, please stay off TV.
Howard Fineman, Newsweek.com
If ubiquity were the measure of a presidency, Barack Obama would already be grinning at us from Mount Rushmore. But of course it is not. Despite his many words and television appearances, our elegant and eloquent president remains more an emblem of change than an agent of it. He's a man with an endless, worthy to-do list—health care, climate change, bank reform, global capital regulation, AfPak, the Middle East, you name it—but, as yet, no boxes checked "done."
This is a problem that style will not fix. Unless Obama learns to rely less on charm, rhetoric, and good intentions and more on picking his spots and winning in political combat, he's not going to be reelected, let alone enshrined in South Dakota.
The president's problem isn't that he is too visible; it's the lack of content in what he says when he keeps showing up on the tube. Obama can seem a mite too impressed with his own aura, as if his presence on the stage is the Answer. There is, at times, a self-referential (even self-reverential) tone in his big speeches. They are heavily salted with the words "I" and "my." (He used the former 11 times in the first few paragraphs of his address to the U.N. last week.) Obama is a historic figure, but that is the beginning, not the end, of the story. Read article.
The Soros-Axelrod Axis?
Ed Lasky, American Thinker.com
George Soros is one of the big sugar daddies of the Democratic Party. He also is the ruler of an archipelago of so-called 527 groups that pose as non-partisan activists groups, but in fact are often hyper-partisan (such as MoveOn.Org), and are often employed by Democrats to influence elections. Soros, for years, has been the top funder of such groups. His influence among Democrats is widespread and enduring (and was well-documented by David Horowitz and Richard Poe in their book, The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party). His pet think-tank, the Center for American Progress, has been the idea factory and employment agency (think Van Jones, among others) for President Obama.
There is no proof, but there certainly is reason to suspect that Soros also has been working in cahoots with David Axelrod, Obama's former campaign strategist and now his numero uno domestic policy adviser. Soros has expertise in influencing our nation's foreign policy by forming faux astroturf groups that operate under the guise of being independent. Soros, the hedge fund billionaire, is one of the world's most astute investors. He has mastered the art and science of politics and invests in a panoply of think tanks, 527 groups, politicians, astroturf groups, and the Democratic Party to provide himself with the tools to influence our nation's policies. In this administration , he may have reached the pinnacle of his power. Now many of his groups are starting to look like tools the White House is using to drive policy.
A little background might help to tease out the possibility that Soros may have established an early working relationship with Axelrod. Soros was an early and ardent supporter of Barack Obama, even using a loophole in federal campaign laws to funnel outsized donations to him for his Senate campaign. The various think tanks and 527 groups that Soros funds have provided advisers and de facto campaign help for Barack Obama. Naturally, Soros and Axelrod would have crossed paths. Read article.
A Secret White House Power Grab Is In Full Swing
Phil Kerpen, FoxNews.com
It’s one thing for President Obama to surround himself with the advisers he’d like to have, but it’s another to bestow on them sweeping powers to broker secret negotiations and push forward vast new regulations that could cost American families thousands of dollars.
Cap-and-trade energy tax legislation appears stalled, at least for now, in the U.S. Senate. But that doesn’t mean the cap-and-trade energy tax isn’t imminent.
Senate Environment Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer hasn’t even introduced the bill yet; new Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln has declared the House bill dead on arrival; and there are several other crosscutting controversies that divide Democrats on the bill. The Obama administration is unfazed. They are moving full steam ahead with an even more costly regulatory scheme in the name of global warming—shoehorning the regulation of greenhouse gases into the 1970 Clean Air Act, a bill passed before anyone had ever thought of global warming and that couldn’t be less suited to the task.
Driving the push for this massive power grab and circumvention of the elected branches is a key White House official who avoided Senate confirmation by being installed not as EPA director, but instead as White House Climate Czar: Carol Browner. Read article.
Obama's Competing Waterloos
David Limbaugh.com
Sen. Jim DeMint predicted that Obamacare would be President Barack Obama's Waterloo. While that's certainly a strong possibility, Obama has other Waterloos in the wings competing for the prize, such as his monstrous deficits and his disastrous foreign policy.
The Heritage Foundation reports that Obama's budget would produce $13 trillion in deficits over the next decade, even more than the outrageous $9 trillion previously projected. This is nation-shattering stuff, folks, and Obama and his minions remain unflappable, intent on staying the bankrupting course, sporting Alfred E. Neuman, "What, me worry?" expressions. The fact that we know they can't be that oblivious is what makes us wonder whether something more sinister lurks in their motives.
But Obama's foreign policy is shaping up to be every bit as dangerous. Because he has lived in a relatively cloistered political world -- surrounded and shielded by mostly fellow leftist radicals -- he apparently doesn't realize just how repugnant his appeasement policies and mantralike derision of this nation are to most Americans.
When I first heard that he was Mirandizing al-Qaida on the battlefield, I thought it was political satire. But it wasn't, any more than his scrapping of long-range missile defense or his apparent plan to unilaterally disarm us of our nuclear weapons.
Then there's Afghanistan, which Obama and his fellow Bush-hating Democratic machine exploited merely to bludgeon Bush on his Iraq policy. It was transparently obvious that this appeasement bunch wasn't serious when they said they wanted to ramp up our efforts in Afghanistan and evacuate Iraq because the former was supposedly part of the war on terror and the latter was not. The political strategy was simple: Let's vent our anti-war spleen on Iraq under cover of beating the war drums on Afghanistan. Read article.
ACORN video scandal leads to questions about Obama connection
Darren Pope, Columbia Independent Examiner.com
On his afternoon Fox News show on Friday, September 18, Glenn Beck pointed out the connections between ACORN, The Apollo Alliance, SEIU, and other groups, and to radicals from the 1960's and 1970's who he says are still actively pursuing their goal of "collapsing the system" and replacing it with a socialist government.
What is the Apollo Alliance? Their own desciption may sound very familiar to those who followed the 2008 presidential campaign, and is very similar to the mantra of the Obama administration.
"The Apollo Alliance provides a message of optimism and hope, framed around rejuvenating our nation’s economy by creating the next generation of American industrial jobs and treating clean energy as an economic and security mandate to rebuild America."
The director of the Apollo Alliance's New York office is Jeff Jones. Jones was a co-founder of the Weather Underground terrorist group, along with William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.
Obama also downplayed his connection to Ayers during the 2008 campaign, but a closer look shows there may be more than meets the eye there. Valerie Jarrett, Obama's Senior Advisor, has an Ayers connection herself. Her mother knew Ayers father and they worked on at least one education project together. Jarrett describes Obama as being "like a brother".
Obama and Ayers were members of the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, between 1999 and 2002. They lived within a few blocks of each other in the upscale Hyde Park section of Chicago, and both men ran in the same liberal/progressive circles. They both know many of the same people. many people contend it's a stretch to ask anyone to believe that the two men barely knew each other.
Van Jones, the controversial former "Green Jobs Czar" who recently resigned after public furor over his inflammatory racial comments and his past admission to being a communist, is also now with the New York State branch of the Apollo Alliance. Beck warned after the resignation that Jones would not go away, he would just be moved and would continue to advise the president and help shape Obama adminstration policies. Read article.
Obama’s Gitmo guru plays fall guy as admin back peddles on facility closure
MataHarley, Flopping Aces.net
Obama took office, confident he would fulfill his campaign promise to close Club Gitmo in a year’s time. To head up the closure details, he appointed White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig… a leading voice for instituting a closure deadline. Despite the advice of other of Obama’s top advisors, warning against any such deadlines, he chose political posturing and poll bumps, signing the EOs… thereby obligating himself to a deadline he was doomed to miss.
Today, as reported by WaPo staffers, Anne E. Kornblut and Dafna Linzer, Obama’s WH is not only quietly backpeddling on his false “hopes”, but has already arranged for Craig’s payment for his scapegoat services – dangling a possible seat on the bench or a diplomatic position.
The POTUS, ever conscious of never wanting to be the focus of blame for failure, tapped Pete Rouse back in May as Craig’s replacement, and pulled in message strategist, Axlerod and deputy communications director Dan Pfeiffer to craft the new talking points when the manure of broken promises hit the proverbial fan. Read article.
Valerie Jarrett - At the Core of Obama
Radio Patriot.com
Who is Valerie Jarrett? The brain of Barack and Michelle Obama. The alter ego, the "mind meld". The head of the pimple on a rash of pimples infecting our executive branch. She's the one who brought in Van Jones, and who knows how many other communist radicals. Read her background - her roots (Chicago tentacles) go way back and very deep into Obama's background. An insider. In fact, she's so inside, she's at the center of it.
The media is hammering Glenn, attacking him at every turn. He is the new "cause du jour" object of the Saul Alinsky Left, who have identified him, polarized him, and are attacking him in an all-out effort to destroy him.
Why is this important? Because it is a high def example of what Obama and his army of radicals do. Like a heat seeking missile, they attack to destroy anyone who threatens their mission. Both Rush and Glenn are major targets. It is brutal. And the point is this: what they're doing to Glenn et al, they'll do next to us. We are in their crosshairs. Mister Smooth and Cool in the White House is the window dressing to a nefarious bunch who'll stop at nothing to enforce their regime of "hope and change" on all of us. And Valerie Jarrett is the General who's planning the strategy and issuing marching orders. Familiarize yourself with this. Read article.
The Truth about the Public Option: It's a Trojan horse — just look at student loans.
Stephen Spruiell, NRO.com
When will the press notice President Obama’s hypocrisy when it comes to the “public option”?
Speaking at a community college in Troy, N.Y., on Monday, Obama slammed the banking industry for opposing his education bill, which passed the House last week. The bill would change the way the government subsidizes student loans. Under current law, the federal government insures banks against losses on the fixed-rate student loans known as Stafford loans. The government also pays banks a subsidy on these loans to offset their capital costs. In addition, the government offers a “public option,” under which students can borrow directly from the government at the same rates.
This option has been available since 1993, but students and universities overwhelmingly prefer the banks: The government’s share of new federally backed loan originations peaked at 30 percent right after the direct-lending program was created and has fallen steadily to 20 percent since then.
Obama wants to change that by making the government the sole provider — the “single payer,” if you will — of all federally subsidized student loans. He couches this policy change as cutting off an “unwarranted subsidy for the big banks.” So far, however, the press has failed to make the connection between this rhetoric and Obama’s pitch for health-care reform. The changes he wants in health care would make the market for health insurance look a lot like the market for student loans.
If Obamacare were to become law, everyone would be required to purchase a health plan. Those who couldn’t afford one would get a subsidy. Obama also wants to create a government-run public option so that people could purchase health insurance directly from the government. He says this would promote competition and keep the private insurers honest — which is exactly how Democrats defended the public option in student loans when it was created. Read article.
Canada newspaper: Stimulus weakened the U.S. Economy
Don Surber, Blogs.DailyMail.com
What have I been saying on this blog?
We would have been better off doing nothing — nothing — last January.
But Nooooooo!
All those smarty-pantsed Ivy Leaguers who think they are our moral and intellectual superiors thought they knew better.
They thought they could buy prosperity for $787 billion.
Or maybe they really want to, as Rush Limbaugh said, destroy the economy and start all over again as a communistic country.
Either way, they are imbeciles. This nation is the world’s last best hope. The bounty of our economy has cured more diseases, fed more people and stopped more wars (do you really think Europe went 60+ years without a war because of France?) than any other civilization.
The administration is hellbent on changing all that. Now the National Post has editorialized: “Stimulus makes U.S. too much of a risk.”
Now the National Post has editorialized: “Stimulus makes U.S. too much of a risk.” Read article.
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BRAVO!! I am with you all the way. My concern is "what can we do right now" Im not sure how much more America can take before ..... collapse!!
posted by: luckyinky
Friday, October 2, 2009 at 03:45 AM
