May 21, 2012
FSM HOT TOPICS
Exclusive – Oval Office Watch – Saturday, February 13
by OVAL OFFICE WATCH February 13, 2010
Joblessness for minorities looms large during snowy White House meeting - HERE.
Jobs bill not likely to create many jobs - SEE HERE.
Presidential Greatness
William Katz, Political Mavens.com
What is wrong with this president? It is, as Hammerstein wrote in “The King and I,” a puzzlement.
He came to office with such promise. Even those of us who opposed him expected more, and wanted him to succeed. Yet, a year later, there is profound disappointment. True, some of the griping is on the Zoloft left of American politics, the chic crowd that thinks the president has gone moderate. These people can be dismissed easily, as they represent a part of America that can meet in a large walk-in closet.
But for the majority, disillusionment has also set in. The president still has the support of his party, but he has virtually none among Republicans. His greatest disaster is seen among independents, where his support has collapsed. The number who have abandoned him equals or exceeds, in most polls, his margin of victory in 2008. Unless he can rebuild, he will soon be seeking private housing.
Why?
First, the president’s ego is out of control. I have never seen a president so completely devoted to a belief in himself. Franklin Roosevelt conceded that he wouldn’t make a hit every time he came to bat. Obama thinks he’s batting 1,000, and that it’s others who are striking out.
Second, the president has revealed himself to be the leftist we said he was, and that the media denied he’d ever be. He has not governed from center-left, but from the solid left. But that’s not where Americans are. Read article.
Unsentimental Education
Martin Peretz, JWR.com
An interview by Joe Klein in Time magazine is hardly a historical event. But, when the interview is with Barack Obama, it lays claim to some newsworthiness. This is especially true when it is ballyhooed as a firstanniversary event. Since, moreover, (right after awarding himself good grades on Al Qaeda in Yemen and Somalia) it’s clear that Obama wanted to make a point: “The other area which I think is worth noting is that the Middle East peace process has not moved forward. And I think it’s fair to say that for all our efforts at early engagement, it is not where I want it to be.”
Klein then throws the president an easy ball, which Obama hits just outside the third baseline. “I’ll be honest with you. . This is just really hard. Even for a guy like George Mitchell, who helped bring about peace in Northern Ireland. This is as intractable a problem as you get.” I suppose this is an admission of sorts for the president. But, as he goes on, you find that his understanding of “the problem” is not an understanding at all. It is a disposition, and the disposition is his. Not his alone, mind you. Still, it is his, and that’s what counts.
How does one characterize this disposition? Of course, you can read the interview. Or let me quote briefly: “Both sides--the Israelis and the Palestinians--have found the political environment, the nature of their coalitions or the divisions within their societies, were such that it was very hard for them to start engaging in a meaningful conversation. . Moving forward, though, we are going to continue to work with both parties to recognize what I think is ultimately their deep-seated interest in a two-state solution in which Israel is secure and the Palestinians have sovereignty and can start focusing on developing their economy and improving the lives of their children and grandchildren.” One is tempted to ask what Arab model the Arabs of Palestine will use as a prototype for their own prosperity and freedom. Is there such anywhere in the Arab world? Perhaps the president will himself propose one. Read article.
Presidential Promises and Pretenses
Jacob Sullum, Townhall.com
The day before President Obama delivered his State of the Union Address last week, The New York Times reported that "aides said he would accept responsibility, though not necessarily blame" for failing to deliver on promises he made during his campaign. If you accept responsibility for something bad, aren't you accepting blame by definition? Not if you're Barack Obama, who has a talent for accepting responsibility while minimizing and deflecting it.
"With all the lobbying and horse trading, the process (for producing health care legislation) left most Americans wondering, 'What's in it for me?'" Obama said in his SOTU speech. "I take my share of the blame." For breaking his oft-repeated promise to televise health care negotiations on C-SPAN? For agreeing to provisions that would benefit special interests at the expense of the general public? No. "For not explaining it more clearly to the American people" -- as if the problem could have been solved with a nifty PowerPoint presentation.
The president is even less forthright when it comes to the fiscal responsibility he keeps promising. On Monday, he declared, "We simply cannot continue to spend as if deficits don't have consequences, as if waste doesn't matter, as if the hard-earned tax money of the American people can be treated like Monopoly money."
Yet somehow he manages to do so. Read article.
Vulnerable Dems seek distance from Obama
Janet Hook & Christie Parsons, Baltimore Sun.com
As Congress begins picking through President Obama's vast election year budget, many Democratic incumbents and candidates seem to be finding something they love — to campaign against.
A Democratic Senate candidate in Missouri denounced the budget's sky-high deficit. A Florida Democrat whose district includes the Kennedy Space Center hit the roof over NASA budget cuts. And an endangered Senate Democrat denounced proposed cuts in farm subsidies.
A headline on the 2010 campaign website of Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), blares her opposition to Obama's farm budget: ``Blanche stands up for Arkansas farm families,'' it says.
Heading into an election season in which Republicans are trying to tie Democrats to Obama's unpopular policies, Obama's budget gives his fellow Democrats an unlikely campaign tool — a catalogue of ways to establish their distance from controversial aspects of his administration.
It is a time-tested campaign tactic for politicians to declare their independence of party leaders. But the tactic is particularly important for Democrats this year, because their party dominates Washington, and being an insider is a political liability in an anti-incumbent climate. Read article.
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Soros
Joy Tiz.com
In a 1998 interview with Steve Kroft, George Soros acknowledged forging documents and pretending to be Christian to save himself from the Nazis, for which he feels no guilt or sorrow. “I was fourteen,” Soros said. “My character was made them.” Regarding his participation in confiscating valuables from innocent Jews, and serving death camp warrants, Soros told Kroft, “It created no problem at all.” Soros has no sense that he shouldn’t be there; he felt he was a mere spectator. Soros rationalizes his behavior: “If I didn’t do it, someone else would.”
Thus, it makes perfect sense that Soros is the de facto head of the Democratic Party in America now that it is a foaming-at-the-mouth, rabid, left-wing Democratic Party. As David Horowitz and Richard Poe put it, “Soros and his Shadow Party did not invent the politics of demagoguery and racial division. They are merely practicing and expanding the politics familiar on the Democratic Left.” (The Shadow Party)There is seldom any originality among the left wing.
In 1979, Soros set up his misnamed foundation, the Open Society Institute (OSI). The OSI is the hub of the Shadow Party’s operation, doling out tens of millions every year to radical organizations to further the Soros agenda:
promoting the view that America is institutionally an oppressive nation
promoting the election of leftist political candidates throughout the United States
opposing virtually all post-9/11 national security measures enacted by U.S. government, particularly the Patriot Act Read article.
Second Stimulus, Same as the First
The Foundry, Heritage.org
When President Barack Obama was sworn into office, the U.S. economy employed 134.6 million people and the unemployment rate stood at 7.6%. In response to growing job losses, President Obama passed an $862 billion stimulus plan that his economic experts promised would help the United States employ at least 138.6 million people by 2010. Reality has not been kind to President Obama’s hope. Today, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics released its monthly jobs report showing the U.S. economy shed another net 20,000 jobs, leaving only 129.5 million jobs, almost 10 million short of the President’s promises.
Anticipating this bleak job news, the President announced in his State of the Union address last week: “That is why jobs must be our number one focus in 2010, and that is why I am calling for a new jobs bill tonight.” It is understandable why the President wants to call this new legislation a “jobs bill” instead of what it really is: his second stimulus. But that would mean admitting that his first stimulus completely failed, which both the objective evidence and the opinion of the American people show it has.
And why did the President’s first stimulus fail? For the same reason his second stimulus is destined to fail: Only the private sector in pursuit of opportunity can create jobs on net. The best we can hope from government is that it keeps to a minimum the jobs it prevents and the income and wealth it destroys. Read article.
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Occupy Chicago freakout: The LRAD is coming, the LRAD is coming!
May 21, 2012 00:57 AM
Here is an LRAD. It’s a Long Range Acoustic Device better known as a sound cannon and it’s used to disperse unruly crowds. Here is an Occupy Chicago freakout over the LRAD (led by the same livestreamer who freaked out last night over a brief police stop): Two #LRAD s spotted heading to march.— Tim [...]
Michael Moore spreads hysterical, anti-police fable from his Occupy comrades
May 21, 2012 00:37 AM
The crockumentary film-maker should have read Twitchy first. As we told you Saturday night, the trio of Occupy Chicago livestreamers who freaked out over a brief, Chicago police pullover didn’t have their apartment raided, didn’t have any of their equipment damaged, were not “held at gunpoint,” and had none of their high-priced cameras, phones, and [...]
It will rain: Awww, Occupy Chicago's all wet; finally, free showers for all!
May 20, 2012 11:09 PM
Mother Nature is Chicago law enforcement’s best friend. Tonight, the rabble-rousers’ plans for anarchy got spoiled by rain. Twitter had fun as the Occupiers and their fearless livestream crews ran for cover, while a few of the mobsters hung around to harass officers on duty and break out in senseless chants: Fkin Streamers afraid of [...]
Marion Barry has change of heart after being saved by Filipino hospital staff
May 20, 2012 10:00 PM
In what reads like a bad Hollywood movie script Marion Barry has changed his mind about Filipino nurses. Just a few weeks after complaining about how many Filipino nurses work in Washington DC Barry's life was saved by Filipino nurses. That's right, the same people he wanted to push our of DC hospitals ended up treating his potentially life threatening blood clot.
May 20, 2012 06:15 PM
Violence erupts at the end of the NATO Summit protests. Earlier today, members of Black Bloc were arrested for plotting to attack police stations, Mayor Emanuel's home and President Obama's campaign headquarters. Their violence then turned to the protest; police in riot gear move in, wearing gas masks. Protesters are throwing things at police according to video, live photos and reports from on the ground in Chicago.
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