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December 29, 2009
Exclusive – Oval Office Watch – Tuesday, December 29
The States Can Check Washington's Power - CLICK HERE.
Where did these guys come from? - HERE.
Obama gave INTERPOL immunity from the Constitution on Dec 16! - SEE HERE.
Cross the River, Burn the Bridge
Mark Steyn, NRO.com
Last week, during a bit of banter on Fox News, my colleague Jonah Goldberg reminded me of something I’d all but forgotten. Last September, during his address to Congress on health care, Barack Obama declared: “I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.”
Dream on. The monstrous mountain of toxic pustules sprouting from greasy boils metastasizing from malign carbuncles that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve is not the last word in “health” “care,” but the first. It ensures that this is all we’ll be talking about, now and forever.
Government can’t just annex “one-sixth of the U.S. economy” (i.e., the equivalent of annexing the entire British or French economy, or annexing the entire Indian economy twice over) and then just say: “Okay, what’s next? On to cap-and-trade . . . ” Nations that governmentalize health care soon find themselves talking about little else.
America’s belated embrace of government health care is going to be far more expensive and disastrous than the Euro-Canadian models. Whatever one’s philosophical objection to the Canadian health system, it is, broadly, fair: Unless you’re a cabinet minister or a bigtime hockey player, you’ll enjoy the same equality of crappiness and universal lack of access that everybody else does. But, even before it’s up-and-running, Pelosi-Reid-Obamacare is an impenetrable thicket of contradictory boondoggles, shameless payoffs, and arbitrary shakedowns. Read article.
Expansion of Global Governance, INTERPOL, and Obama
Michael leMieux, NewsWithViews.com
President Obama has made no secret of his passion for all things global. Even from the campaign trail where he spoke of being a “global citizen.” In 2008 he spoke at a rally in Michigan where he envisioned “a picture of a world where all boundaries are disappearing… not only is it impossible to turn our back to the tide of globalization, but efforts to do so can make us worse off”
President Obama has made no qualms of his support for the G20 and the climate conference in Copenhagen where it was touted as a basis for global governance. In fact the New European President, Herman Van Rompuy, stated: “2009 is also the first year of global governance, with the establishment of the G20 in the middle of the financial crisis. The climate conference in Copenhagen is another step towards the global management of our planet.”
President Obama has also made no secret of his support for the United Nations and their mission. An INTERPOL web site press release (PR200992) stated they had the support of over 60 nations for INTERPOL becoming the “United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and were participating “governments establish a plan of action to promote international police peacekeeping as an essential counterpart to the military…”
On the 16th of December the heads of EUROPOL and INTERPOL agreed to enhance co-operation “for a global police response to serious crime and terrorism. (INTERPOL web site) Read article.
The War Against the Wannabe Rich
Victor Davis Hanson, JWR.com
There is class warfare going on in this country — but it's not against the established rich. It's against those who are trying to become wealthy.
President Obama has declared that those who make over $200,000 will pay higher income taxes. Caps on payroll taxes are supposed to come off as well for the upper class. Envisioned estate taxes will take 45 percent of individual inheritances valued over $3.5 million. Many states have also hiked their income taxes on the upper brackets.
Again, most of those targeted are not the already rich — a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates — but millions of the wannabe rich. They may have achieved larger-than-average annual incomes, but they're not the multimillionaire speculators on Wall Street who nearly wrecked the American economy in search of huge bonuses and payoffs. Most are instead professionals and small-business owners who take enormous risks in hopes of being well-off and passing their wealth on to their children.
Oddly, much of the populist rhetoric about the need to gouge the newly affluent is voiced by the entrenched wealthy, who don't have to care how high taxes go, given their own vast fortunes. Often those in government claim that their higher taxes proposals are simply targeting the affluent like themselves — proof of their own selflessness. President Obama, for example, has complained that the well-off like himself could afford to pay more. Read article.
Congress - Are they stupid or conspiring to enslave us all?
Michael LeMieux, News With Views.com
There have been many commentaries on the constitutional oaths taken by our political leaders. There have even been organizations created around constitutional oaths of which I am a proud member (Oath Keepers). To me, and to every other person sworn to protect and defend the Constitution, it is and should be a solemn duty to ensure that our actions live up to that oath. But is that what is actually happening or has the oath and by extension the Constitution been relegated to mere politics.
I would say that for the vast majority of the rank and file in the military it is a solemn vow. I have come to the conclusion that for the vast majority of politicians, regardless of party, it has become a mere ceremony of attaining office and nothing more. I have drawn this conclusion from the actions of those in political positions and not from their words.
So where in the Constitution does Congress derive its power to interject itself into every facet of our lives? For those that have read the Constitution it cannot be found in the words of the Constitution but only based on inference and conjecture and then only if you have not studied the writings of those who penned the document. Read article.
Sarah Palin: Dumb Like Reagan?
AWR Hawkins, Pajamas Media.com
In 1976, Ronald Reagan lost the Republican presidential nomination to incumbent Gerald Ford. Yet his message during the primary campaign had so inspired the party’s conservative base that he was allowed to address the Republican National Convention anyway. And as he addressed that convention, speaking of the Democrat-led attack on personal rights and economic liberty, many of those who listened could not help but think they were hearing the man who would be the GOP’s presidential candidate in 1980.
On November 2, 2008, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and presidential candidate John McCain lost the national election to Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Yet throughout the campaign, Palin’s words, rather than McCain’s, jolted the conservative base of the Republican Party from its slumber. From her speech at the Republican National Convention on September 3, 2008, to the “common sense” solutions she’s prescribing for America’s ills while on her book tour, many of the people listening to Palin think they’re hearing the woman who will be a presidential candidate in 2012.
Reagan had been a Hollywood actor in Westerns before entering politics, and the media never allowed him to escape the stigma of being a “dumb cowboy.” To them he was B actor who became a C president in 1980, pushing a domestic agenda based on shrinking the size of government and a foreign policy that supposedly made America the laughingstock of the world. (Remember how pundits gasped when Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” and again when he called “Communism a form of insanity”?)
But a funny thing happened on the way to Reagan’s bid for re-election. To the media’s chagrin, it became obvious that the “dumb cowboy” was deeply beloved by the citizens of this nation. Read article.
ObamaCare: Freedom on Life Support
Larry Elder, Townhall.com
Ignore, for the moment, the ludicrous claim that giving 30 million Americans health insurance actually lowers the cost of health care. What happened to freedom, to the opposition to an intrusive federal government?
Ask a liberal what he most dislikes about the "right"? "I resent the attempt to tell me how to live my life," he'll say. He'll mention abortion and say that the decision belongs to a woman and her doctor. He'll mention same-sex marriage and say that government should not prevent two people of the same sex from marrying, especially if one objects based upon religious grounds. He'll argue that a Supreme Court "stacked" with right-wingers threatens his liberty.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia gives liberals hot flashes. He is religious. He calls the Constitution a "contract," not a "living, breathing" document on which one can discover or project nonexistent rights. He is a "strict constructionist," or an "originalist," who believes that the literal words in the Constitution have meaning. He thinks his job is to figure out what the original Framers meant, not what he would like them to have meant.
Ask a liberal how Scalia and those who share his "conservative" philosophy think the Supreme Court should decide issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and doctor-assisted suicide? He'll say, "Scalia would impose his religiously based worldview on society -- anti-same-sex marriage and anti-abortion -- because the federal government should always preserve life."
No, Scalia would not. Read article.
Cause For Hope For The Next Generation Of Politics
Bruce Kesler, Maggie's Farm.com
The Senate vote for cloture on the Reid-negotiated and bought version of ObamaCare will shape the coming decades’ politics as surely as the Congressional votes to virtually abandon South Vietnam shaped its’ following decades.
For the past three and a half decades, the clearest dividing line and predictor of how we and our leaders would approach issues, ranging from the social to the geopolitical, is the position – contemporaneous or in retrospect -- held about the US Congress’ votes to not meet US pledges to supply and aid South Vietnam in the face of North Vietnam’s heavily Soviet and Chinese supplied continued armed and logistical build-up and massive invasion.
In the reaction to President Nixon’s deserved fall, an overwhelmingly Democrat and anti-Vietnam war Congress was elected in 1974, determined to overturn US foreign policy. Polls were equivocal, at least providing some cover or excuse. In the wake of President Obama’s undeserved credence to govern from the center, an overwhelmingly Democrat and liberal Congress was elected in 2008, determined to instead legislate from the left and overturn US domestic policy. This time, polls are decisively opposed, but ignored, and there’s no cover or excuse.
Basically, in both cases, we went from a nation following a course – as befuddled as it may be – of determination to pursue freedoms to a nation that waffles freedoms away. Basically, our “conservative,” “liberal” and “moderate” postures toward most issues over the past decades have been in line with how we view the causes and outcomes of our Vietnam involvement. So, too, will our future divides and postures be determined by how we now or come to view the causes and outcomes of reshaping almost a fifth of the US economy and almost 100% of our personal and fiscal health. Read article.
We've Figured Him Out
Ben Stein, Spectator.org
Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed?
Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:
The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.
They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.
They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.
The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.
Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future. Read article.
My Opinion
Arnold Ahlert, JWR.com
One of the things I find amusing is when people tell me I'm opinionated—and I thank them for saying so. Their reaction is almost always the same: a half-beat of confusion arising from the fact that they consider what they said to be critical, even as I thank them for being complimentary.
I know my having strong opinions frightens people. I knew it from the first college cocktail party I attended where an actual conversation broke out—a rarity itself—and I was the lone voice of dissent among a room full of liberals who couldn't imagine how anyone had the temerity to challenge their "superior" wisdom. I don't know which reaction was more revealing: the contemptuous look of those being challenged, or the fearful look of those on the sidelines who never speak up at all, lest they be accused of having the "wrong" ideas.
Liberalism is all about intimidation. Those who consider themselves champions of tolerance and freedom are nothing more than intellectual jackboots, whose fealty to both begins and ends with an absolute conformity to their worldview. Anyone who disagrees with a liberal isn't a person with competing ideas. He is a member of an inferior species, one to be scorned and ridiculed.
Don't think the word "marriage" should apply to gays? You're homophobic. You believe affirmative action is a quota system? You're racist. Think people who come to America should do it legally? You're xenophobic. Think America should defend itself from its enemies? You're an imperialist. Believe in capitalism and personal responsibility? You're selfish and heartless. Read article.
Why Are We Tiring of Obama?
Victor Davis Hanson, Pajamas Media.com
The China Presidency
I have an heirloom china pitcher on my mantle that has dozens of glued cracks — so much so that it is now purely ornamental and will not hold water. When I was a boy I’d ask my mother when, and under what circumstances, did the china crack apart.
She would provide stories about each fissure and mend, many of the break narratives handed down to her from her own grandparents in the house. There wasn’t one single accident, but instead dozens that rendered a once useful pitcher into a non-functional art object.
Something of the same is happening with our President. He is experiencing the sharpest popularity decline in the history of first-year administrations. The problem is not just that he inherited a bad economy; Reagan did too. Or that the war in Afghanistan heats up, since it is not nearly as bad as the mess Nixon inherited in Vietnam.
Instead, after 11 months there has emerged a series of bothersome incidents that the public has come to associate with Obama, both the man and his philosophies. Some are major policy issues; others trivial acts of no cosmic importance. None in themselves matter all that much. Each gaffe or mistake was contextualized and mended, or attended to by Robert Gibbs. Some are Obama’s fault; others the work of associates. Sometimes mere chance is the culprit. Read article.
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