May 22, 2012
FSM HOT TOPICS
Exclusive – Oval Office Watch – Thursday, April 29
by OVAL OFFICE WATCH April 29, 2010
“The Federal Takeover of Higher Education Financing: Why Obama’s Boost Could Bust Taxpayers” - SEE HERE.
Obama visits rural Midwest to launch midterm election efforts - HERE.
WH: No Supreme Court pick this week - GO HERE.
Obama Launches Muslim Business Summit - HERE.
Clinton: U.S. seeks new 'tough' Iran sanctions
Reuters via Haaretz.com
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday the United States was seeking tough new sanctions to "sharpen the choices that Iran's leaders face" after weekend talks failed to make headway on Tehran's nuclear program.
Iran's foreign minister and the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency met in Vienna over the weekend but made no progress in advancing a months-old plan for Iran to ship some of its low-enriched uranium out of the country to be turned into fuel for a medical research reactor.
"So far as we are aware based on the readout of the meeting between the Iranian foreign minister and the director general of the IAEA, there was nothing new that was presented," Clinton told reporters during a meeting with a visiting European Union official.
"Iran's continued disregard for its international obligations underscores the importance of united international pressure to change its policies," she added. "The United States is working with our partners . on tough new sanctions that will further sharpen the choices that Iran's leaders face." Read article.
NY Times: W.H. Has Shifted U.S. Policy Against Israel
Jonathan Tobin, JWR.com
If there were any lingering doubts in the minds of Democrats who care about Israel that the president they helped elect has fundamentally altered American foreign policy to the Jewish state's disadvantage, they are now gone. The New York Times officially proclaimed the administration's changed attitude in a front-page story last week that ought to send chills down the spine of anyone who believed the president when he pledged in 2008 that he would be a loyal friend of Israel.
In the view of the paper's Washington correspondents, the moment that signaled what had already been apparent to anyone who was paying attention was the president's declaration at a Tuesday news conference that resolving the Middle East conflict was "a vital national security interest of the United States." Mr. Obama went on to state that the conflict is "costing us significantly in terms of blood and treasure," thus attempting to draw a link between Israel's attempts to defend itself with the safety of American troops who are fighting Islamist terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world. By claiming the Arab-Israeli conflict to be a "vital national security interest" that must be resolved, the "frustrated" The W.H. is making it clear that he will push hard to impose a solution on the parties. Read article.
American Neutrality Toward Israel Invites Violence
Victor Davis Hanson, NRO.com
American relations with our once-staunch ally Israel are at their lowest ebb in the last 50 years.
The Obama administration seems as angry at the building of Jewish apartments in Jerusalem as it is intent on reaching out to Iran and Syria, Israel’s mortal enemies. President Obama himself, according to reports, has serially snubbed Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A new narrative abounds in Washington that Israel’s intransigence with its Arab neighbors now even endangers U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East. Obama is pushing Netanyahu’s Likud government to make concessions on several fronts, from supplying power and food to Gaza to hasten Israel’s departure from the West Bank.
These tensions follow the Obama administration’s new outreach to the Muslim world. Obama gave his first interview as president to the Middle East newspaper Al Arabiya, in which he politely chided past U.S. policy on the Middle East.
In his June 2009 Cairo address, the president again sought to placate the Islamic world — in part by wrongly claiming that Islamic learning had sparked the European Renaissance and Enlightenment.
Lost in all this reset-button diplomacy is introspection on why past American presidents sought to support Israel in the first place. We seem to forget why no-nonsense Harry Truman, against worldwide opposition, ensured the original creation of the Jewish state — or why more than 60 percent of Americans in most polls continue to side with Israel in its struggle to survive.
When Israel is alone, its opportunistic enemies pile on. Read article.
Obama Urges Bipartisan Effort On Soaring Deficits
NewsMax.com
President Barack Obama said Tuesday Washington must urgently confront unpleasant truths about deficits, while the Federal Reserve chairman said failure to mop up red-ink spending would "ultimately do great damage" to the country.
Obama refused to rule out measures that would fight "exploding deficits." This signaled that politically toxic tax increases were options that could be under consideration by members of a panel he tasked with reducing federal deficits that threaten to erode Americans' standard of living.
Obama explicitly told reporters in the White House's Rose Garden that neither he nor his commission members would say what options remain viable.
"We're not playing that game. I'm not going to say what's in. I'm not going to say what's out. I want this commission to be free to do its work," said the president, flanked by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the two men he asked to lead efforts to reach a consensus plan for the deficit.
It's a task, though, that even members of the bipartisan fiscal commission admit is an almost impossible chore: produce a deficit no bigger than $550 billion by 2015, an amount equal to about 3 percent of the total U.S. economy. That would require deficit savings in the range of $250 billion or more.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke used the commission's first meeting as a forum to make his most urgent call yet to get the government's fiscal house in order. He warned that failing to curb federal budget deficits would damage the U.S. economy in the long run. Read article.
Criminal Aliens Pose Threat to Homeland Security
Human Events.com
An Arizona sheriff told a congressional hearing Tuesday that the increase of criminal aliens coming across the border is the greatest homeland security threat facing America.
Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever, testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Border Affairs Committee, said that 17% of people crossing the boarder near Tucson have a criminal record in the United States.
“The bad guys keep coming, and no matter whether the apprehension rates rise or fall, the numbers of criminal aliens rise,” Dever said. “That, sir, is the threat to our homeland security in this country.” Read article.
Senate Panel Previews Electronic Health Technology
Matt Cover, CNSNews.com
The Senate Committee on Aging last week offered a preview of the government’s future role in health care, showing how Americans will interact with doctors and other health care providers. The demonstration offers a glimpse at an overlooked effect of health care reform.
The effort, loosely called e-Health or e-Care, combines health-care technology with 21st-century Internet connectivity. It will allow doctors to interact with their patients through innovations such as video chats, telephone health checkups, and home-health monitoring devices that relay data over wireless Internet connections.
“The development of the broadband network and health information technologies has the potential to truly transform health care and simultaneously enable better outcomes and lowering costs,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). Read article.
What's More Important: Liberty Or The Entity That Protects It?
Chuck Baldwin, Capitol Hill Coffee Shop.com
Let me ask readers a question. What’s more important: freedom and its undergirding principles, or the entity meant to protect it? A word of caution: be careful how you answer that question, because the way you answer marks your understanding (or lack thereof) of both freedom and the purpose of government.
Thomas Jefferson--and the rest of America’s founders--believed that freedom was the principal possession, because liberty is a divine--not human--gift. Listen to Jefferson:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” (Declaration of Independence)
Jefferson could not be clearer: America’s founders desired a land in which men might live in liberty. By declaring independence from the government of Great Britain (and instituting new government), Jefferson, et al., did not intend to erect an idol (government) that men would worship. They created a mechanism designed to protect that which they considered to be their most precious possession: liberty. In other words, the government they created by the Constitution of 1787 was not the object; freedom’s protection was the object.
Again, listen to Jefferson: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” In other words, government is not the end; it is the means. Government is not the goal; it is the vehicle used to reach the goal. Nowhere did Jefferson (and the rest of America’s founders) express the sentiment that government, itself, was the objective. Read article.
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The #twittergulag saga continues: @gopfirecracker suspended, others still trapped
May 21, 2012 11:54 PM
#freegopfirecracker #freegopfirecracker #freegopfirecracker #freegopfirecracker— Dale Holt (@DaleHolt8) May 22, 2012 Come on conservatives! Everyone rallied around @ChrisLoesch when he was suspended! Now its @gopfirecracker so stand up! #freegopfirecracker— Schmoop (@RGSchmoop) May 22, 2012 Hey @twitter and @support – #FreeGOPfirecracker's account has been suspended. Please fix this mishap. Thank you.— Gabriella Hoffman (@Gabby_Hoffman) May 22, 2012 [...]
Cory Booker tweets #IStandWithObama; Hashtag hijackers flood the zone
May 21, 2012 11:39 PM
Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker, the Democrat who defended Bain from the Obama campaign's attacks yesterday morning, has been backpedaling more furiously than a clown on a high wire. Tonight, in an effort to mollify his critics on the Left, he posted four tweets that included the hashtag #IStandWithObama. Conservatives immediately took over the #IStandWithObama hashtag to mock President Obama, and within an hour it became a trending topic.
Cory Booker tries to clear up his position on Bain attacks
May 21, 2012 10:25 PM
Cory Booker continued his quest to run screaming away from the apparently too candid comments he made on Meet the Press on Sunday. Despite attempts earlier today to #FreeCoryBooker from those trying to force him to apologize Booker went on the Rachel Maddow show to do everything he could to walk back what he said. Que the mockery.
Obama's 'When you're president' picture spawns hashtag
May 21, 2012 09:59 PM
"When you're president, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits. Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot." -Barack Obama
Cue #WhenYouArePresident
Obama takes anti-Romney rant to Twitter
May 21, 2012 09:49 PM
It started off this morning with a video of a woman named Valerie from Indiana posted by Barack Obama’s official Twitter account. 12 hours, 12 tweets and a failed hashtag later, Obama’s reelection team took the day to tweet ongoing misinformation about Mitt Romney’s record in the private sector, specifically Bain Capital’s work with the [...]
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