Grieving mother's message to the Ditherer-in-Chief: 'Don't leave our troops hanging!'

From Sky News:

The mother of a US soldier killed in Afghanistan has told President Barack Obama he must give his generals what they need to beat the Taliban.

Sgt Dale Griffin, 29, was killed by a roadside bomb and Mr Obama was present at the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware when his body was repatriated in November...

As the president prepares to announce how many more troops he'll send to Afghanistan, Sgt Griffin's mother Dona told Sky News she believed he should give military commanders everything they ask for.

She said: "The president is the Commander-in-Chief of our armed services. He asked if there was anything he could do and I leaned in and whispered in his ear 'Don't leave our troops hanging'."

His father, Gene, added: "Dale was the kind of guy who wanted to win the fight and he fought to win.

"I think we need to do that as well. We realize that it's a conflict that needs to be resolved and its not going away.

"Our son spoke to that with his actions so we're confident that's the way we need to move as well."

Mr Obama has been criticized over the time he has taken to decide on a new strategy.

Sgt Griffin is the first soldier from his home town of Terre Haute in Indiana to be killed in Afghanistan.

He is being honored with a memorial pavilion.

Vietnam veteran Clifford Stephens, who helps run the town's AmVet center, said Mr Obama risked repeating the mistakes of the failed campaign in south-east Asia.

He said: "Too much politics. If it was left to the services to take care of business and go in and do the job and not set deadlines and tell us who we can shoot, when we can shoot and what we can shoot, things would get done a lot quicker."

Thanks to David Gaouettea, [a current Obama Appointee], Anwar al-Awlaki is now a free man

From ABC News:

A felony arrest warrant for radical Islamic cleric Anwar al Awlaki [Spiritual Mentor to Fort Hood Killer, Nidal Hussein] was rescinded in 2002 a day before he was intercepted as a terror suspect at New York's JFK airport, forcing authorities to release him, according to sources familiar with the case...

In October of 2002, a federal judge in Denver signed off an arrest warrant for Awlaki. However, JTTF investigators were astonished when just days after the warrant was issued, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Denver decided to rescind it.

According to the former JTTF agent, members of the terrorism task force were "disappointed and shocked" by the decision. The agent says the supervisory assistant U.S. Attorney on the case, David Gaouette, had been fully briefed on Awlaki's suspected terrorism ties...

Gaouette, an assistant U.S. attorney since 1989, was appointed this August by President Obama as the U.S. Attorney for Colorado. When asked why Awlaki's arrest warrant had been rescinded, a public affairs officer said Gaouette was unfamiliar with the particulars of the Awlaki case, and would have to research it before he could comment.

Gaouette's office did not reply to a request for a copy of the Awlaki arrest warrant. The clerk's office for the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado was also unable to provide a copy of the warrant, citing the age of the case and the fact that the warrant was rescinded...

Read the full article

P.S. - Additional links to various news stories on the web can be found on the sidebar to the right.

"Using Fear as a Political Tool"?

UK Climate Expert, Kevin Anderson - November 29, 2009: Most of the world's population will be wiped out if Global Warming is not contained, only a few people with the right sort of resources may survive.

Al Gore - January 28, 2009: Global Warming will bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fiber of life everywhere on the Earth.

Al Gore - November 25, 2003: George W. Bush is using fear as a political tool.

H/T - Rush Limbaugh

Obama's diplomacy with Russia is working like a charm!

On July 7, the Times Online reported that President Obama had offered to scrap plans for a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe if Russia helped to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

On September 17, the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union's surprise attack on Poland, Obama announced that he was officially scrapping plans to construct a missile defense system in Eastern Europe against Iranian missile attacks.

Indeed, only a consummate diplomat like Obama - well versed in the art of acquiescence and appeasement - is capable of making such a grand concession on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland.

For indeed, Obama is truly unique among world leaders, in that he possesses a rare and uncanny understanding of the human psyche. Hence, he is aware that if you simply play nice with your adversaries they will invariably respond in kind:

From Reuters:

Russia's energy minister pledged Sunday a quick completion of Iran's first nuclear power station - [the Bushehr nuclear plant].

The comment from Sergei Shmatko came... as Iran's government announced plans to build 10 new uranium enrichment plants, in a major expansion of its disputed nuclear program.

Iran's state broadcaster IRIB quoted Shmatko as saying that Bushehr had become "a symbol of cooperation between Iran and Russia and nobody dares to hurt it."

In a related development, Russia has assured Iran that it will honor a deal to supply the Islamic Republic with advanced S-300 air-defense missiles, Teheran's ambassador to Moscow said Friday.

"We had heard reports that Russia would not deliver these systems to Iran, but we asked the Russian side and they denied it," Seyed Mahmoud Reza Sajadi told reporters in Moscow...

"Neither side plans to go back on this contract.... It is profitable for both sides," he said...

The United States and Israel... fear Iran could use the systems to boost defenses around its nuclear sites.

Iran denies developing atomic weapons and insists that its nuclear energy program is peaceful in nature.

Pray tell, who else other than Obama, is capable of nurturing such peace and good will between former adversaries?

It is truly a miracle!

UPDATED: Climategate Scientist Provided Data to the US Congress

Update: Scroll down to the bottom.

From Right Pundits:

Data from the research of the British scientist P.[Phil] Jones exposed in Climategate was used in official report on Climate Change to US Congress.

Climategate began when anonymous hacker published on Internet tons of e-mails of Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. The correspondence seems to suggest that the data in the research was tempered with in non-scientific ways.

Mr. Jones’s research was used in an official document presented to the President of the USA and the US Congress in October 2009.

Mr P. D. Jones is featured on p.17 of the report to US Congress as co-author of a science paper “Consistency of modeled and observed temperature trends in the tropical troposphere”, International Journal of Climatology.

To make sure it is the same scientist I followed the publication and was able to confirm that P.D. Jones was represented in the research cited for the US Congress a Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich.

The report was made available to Congress in October and the Introduction letter is signed by Dr. John P. Holdren, Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. Holdren is featured in the e-mails hacked and released in the wake of the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen.

There is a great possibility in the light of the British Climategate that somebody was feeding the US Congress wrong information and fake data......

Newsbusters adds the following tidbit:

The 172-page document... was submitted as a supplement to President Obama's fiscal 2010 budget.

As such, its contents not only impact future and current legislation involving global warming, but also how tax dollars are spent to research and address it.

Obama: I will "finish the job" in Afghanistan, I've got an exit strategy!

Please note, the following post - while indeed true - was written tongue-in-cheek:

President Obama vowed on Tuesday to 'finish the job' in Afghanistan and said he would accomplish this goal by implementing an exit strategy to withdraw US troops from the war-torn region.

“It is my intention to finish the job" in Afghanistan, the President said, "consequently, we need to make it clear to the Afghan government that our commitment is not open-ended and that we are prepared to abandon ship, if the going gets rough."

Media reports indicate that Obama's new strategy calls for the deployment of some 34,000 troops and also contains so-called, "exit-ramps", which will enable the President to wave the White Flag, if necessary, and to "Finish the Job" in a most timely and efficient manner.

End of tongue-in-cheek post.

The following is an excerpt from an article in Radio Free Europe. The article quotes Obama as saying that "it remains America's goal to ensure that Al-Qaeda can't have a safe haven in Afghanistan." The only way to accomplish that goal, Obama says, is "to ensure stability in Afghanistan." He then goes on to pledge that he will get the job done, the implication being, that he will bring about stability in Afghanistan. But then he concludes his statement by saying "the job of stabilizing Afghanistan will be up to the Afghans themselves", the implication being, that it is up to them to get the job done - which means, his pledge to "finish the job" in Afghanistan, is totally null and void.

Today Obama said it remains America's goal to ensure that Al-Qaeda can't have a safe haven in Afghanistan. The way to do that, he argued, is to ensure stability in Afghanistan.

"After eight years -- some of those years in which we did not have, I think, either the resources or the strategy to get the job done -- it is my intention to finish the job," he said.

Obama said the job of stabilizing Afghanistan will be up to the Afghans themselves.

Sigh..... Who knows, maybe I'm reading too much into this article. Maybe Obama's words were taken out of context. Nevertheless, one thing is for certain, 'finishing the job' and 'exit strategies' do not go in hand in hand.

The "core strengths" of a "broken" and "sound" economy?

During the Presidential campaign, Barack Obama hammered John McCain for saying the fundamentals of the US economy were strong. In March of 2009, however, both Obama and his economic adviser Christina Romer stated essentially the same thing, namely that the fundamentals of the economy were "sound". [Despite the fact that only a week earlier, White House Budget director Peter Orszag asserted that, "fundamentally, the economy" was "weak."]

White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs tried to smooth over this seeming contradiction by asserting that Sen. McCain had characterized the economy as being fundamentally "STRONG", whereas the president had merely characterized the economy as being fundamentally "SOUND":



As I noted back then, aside from the fact that Mr. Gibbs' assertion was nothing more than a childish play on words, he was skewering the truth. "For indeed, during the first presidential debate in September, Barack Obama specifically stated that Sen. McCain had said the fundamentals of the economy were "SOUND" - not "STRONG". [McCain had actually used the word 'strong', but Obama mistakenly thought he had used the word 'sound'.] Obama then went on to say that he disagreed with this assumption and did not think the fundamentals of the economy were 'SOUND'":

OBAMA: And there are folks out there who've been struggling before this crisis took place. And that's why it's so important, as we solve this short-term problem, that we look at some of the underlying issues that have led to wages and incomes for ordinary Americans to go down.... because, you know, 10 days ago, John said that the fundamentals of the economy are SOUND.

DEBATE MODERATOR, JIM LEHRER: Say it directly to him.

OBAMA: I do not think that they are.

LEHRER: Say it directly to him.

OBAMA: Well, John, 10 days ago, you said that the fundamentals of the economy are SOUND. And...

MCCAIN TO LEHRER: Are you afraid I couldn't hear him?

(LAUGHTER)

Nevertheless, Barack Obama on Monday repeated the same refrain.

At the conclusion of a Cabinet meeting on Monday, Obama said that the U.S. economy has "core strengths" that will put the nation in a good stead for the long term despite a difficult year for millions of people.

Jim Geraghty points out that when Barack Obama and Joe Biden ridiculed Sen. McCain for saying the "fundamentals of the economy" were "strong," unemployment was at 6.1 percent. Today unemployment is at 10.2 percent. And, according to the New York Times, some 17.5 percent of Americans were either without a job entirely or underemployed in the month of October.



In a separate post, back in March, I asked the following question while paraphrasing a sentence from Barack Obama's campaign ad:

"How can John McCain Barack Obama fix our economy, if he doesn't understand its broken'?"

Barack Obama and Eric Holder, "too intellectual?"

President Obama told CNN last week that it was Attorney General Eric Holder who decided to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian federal court.

"You know, I said to the attorney general, 'make a decision based on the law,' " the president told CNN.

Similarly, Eric Holder recently confirmed to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Obama had left the decision up to him: "This was a tough call, and reasonable people can disagree with my conclusion." He reiterated, "I made this decision."

However, as former Attorney General John Ashcroft recently noted, Eric Holder does not have the authority to make such decisions:

"The attorney general doesn't have the authority to mandate that the secretary of defense turn somebody over to him and yield jurisdiction so that something that would have been done in a military setting is done in a civilian setting." The only one who does have the authority, Ashcroft said, is the superior of both the AG and the defense secretary: President Obama himself.

Additionally, the Weekly Standard notes as follows:

When Obama came into office and signed the executive order setting a January 2010 deadline for closing Gitmo, detainee policy was placed under the purview of Obama's White House counsel Greg Craig. That is, detainee policy was to be set by the White House, not the Department of Justice.

Now Craig is gone and all of a sudden the American people are to understand that these decisions need to be made independently of the White House, by an attorney general who isn't even asked to bounce his new policies off the president before announcing them to the public!

MSNBC's Chris Matthews recently criticized the Obama administration's decision to try KSM in a civilian court, saying the President was getting "a little too intellectual." and that he was not connecting "to real people and their emotional gut feelings about things."

"When politicians begin to get a little too intellectual, they lose connection with the American people," Matthews said.

However, Matthews is grossly mistaken, because even on an intellectual level, the Obama administration's decision does not hold water.

David Beamer, whose son, Todd Beamer, died on United Airlines Flight 93, attended the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which Eric Holder explained the rationale behind his decision:

In his opening remarks, Attorney General Holder acknowledged that these defendants could have been brought to trial in civilian court or before military tribunals. But he made the argument that trying them in our criminal courts would restore the integrity of our judicial system. He assured us that..., that classified information would not be revealed, that the evidence was overwhelming, and that justice would be served.

Then he said that the USS Cole attackers would be tried in military courts since they attacked our military. So how does Mr. Holder categorize the Pentagon [attack]? Inexplicably, he offered up the body count of 9/11, the fact that civilian deaths outnumbered military ones, as a rationale for his decision.

However, one of the detainees, whom, Eric Holder has decided to prosecute before a military tribunal, has been accused of participating in a plot to blow up oil tankers in the Straits of Hormuz. Oil tankers are not military targets, consequently, according to Eric Holder's twisted line of reasoning, the perpetrators of this attack should not be tried before a military tribunal.

But, in truth, even the terrorists accused of orchestrating the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole are, in essence, civilian terrorists, and not military personnel who were engaged in military warfare. They are no different than ordinary civilians who attack soldiers at a military installation [Unlike, Nidal Hussein, who was a member of the US military when he committed his crime].

The fact that the USS Cole attack was perpetrated against a military installation does not make it a war crime, unless the perpetrators themselves were military personnel. Consequently, the perpetrators of this attack should not be tried before a military tribunal - unless we assume - as we really should assume - that all terrorist acts, are in essence, acts of war.

Hence, Eric Holder's decision - even on an intellectual level - makes absolutely no sense at all.

Truth be told - as Jack kelly and others have noted - bringing KSM before a civilian court will ultimately jeopardize the war against terror:

Prosecutors will be forced to reveal U.S. intelligence on KSM, the methods and sources for acquiring its information and his relationships to fellow al-Qaeda operatives," wrote former Justice Department official John Yoo in the Wall Street Journal last week. "The information will enable al-Qaeda to drop plans and personnel whose cover is blown. It will enable it to detect our means of intelligence-gathering and to push forward into areas we know nothing about."

The concern isn't hypothetical. Andrew McCarthy, who prosecuted the blind sheikh, Abdel Rahman, after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was required to turn over to defendants a list of 200 possible co-conspirators which, he said, apparently was delivered to Osama bin Laden within days of its production as a court exhibit.

Mr. McCarthy declined to prosecute another suspect in that bombing for fear the intelligence loss through discovery outweighed the benefits of a conviction.

What's more, trying KSM in New York City, in front of the international media, will likely put New York City in the cross hairs of another major terrorist attack.

Adding to the dilemma is the announcement made on Sunday by attorneys representing 5 of the detainees that "the five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy."

The defendants will explain "their assessment of American foreign policy," said one of the lawyers. And,"their assessment is negative," he said.

I'll conclude this post, by quoting Jack Kelly's commentary on the matter:

The potential consequences for the United States of extending to these terrorists the constitutional rights afforded U.S. citizens in a civil trial are grave.

The legal status of the al-Qaeda bigwigs -- none of whom are U.S. citizens -- was that of unlawful combatant. In attacking the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, they committed an act of war, but did so in a manner which deprives them of prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Convention of 1949.

To be recognized as lawful combatants, irregulars must meet four criteria, the Geneva Convention states. The criteria are "(a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (c) that of carrying arms openly; and (d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war."

The al-Qaida bigwigs fail to meet three of those four criteria, and thus, under international law, are entitled only to such "rights" as their captors are willing to extend to them. And now Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder have decided to give them the rights of American citizens.

The most consequential of those rights is that of discovery -- the right of American defendants to see the evidence the prosecution has against them. Prosecutors will be forced to reveal U.S. intelligence on KSM, the methods and sources for acquiring its information...

Former Justice Department official Shannen Coffin thinks the real reason for a civilian trial is that President Obama hopes KSM and his lawyers will attack the Bush administration.

"The decision to try KSM in civilian court accomplishes indirectly what Obama does not wish to do directly -- it puts the Bush administration's interrogation tactics on trial for all the world to see," Mr. Coffin said.

This would be red meat for the liberal base. But it's unlikely to be popular with centrists who are already unhappy with Mr. Obama's economic policies.

This has been, arguably, the most political administration in modern times. Ten months after his inauguration, Mr. Obama still behaves more like a candidate than a president. But in pursuing his vendetta against his predecessor at the expense of American security, he may be campaigning to be a one-term president.

My apologies to Chris Matthews, but the decision to try KSM in New York City can only be construed as an intellectual decision, if, as Jack Kelly posits, the Obama administraton is pursuing a political vendetta against George W. Bush. But in truth, this decision will only harm the president in the 2012 presidential election. And thus - contrary to Chris Matthews' assertion - it is safe to assume that Barack Obama and his cronies are indeed lacking the very basic and rudimentary foundations of both intellectual and cognizant thinking.

Chris Matthews: Is Obama an Egghead?

Chris Matthews: - "President Obama has his chin out on just about every hot issue out there. Health care, terror trials... He’s exposed and vulnerable. His poll numbers are dropping. Is he just too darned intellectual? Too much the egg head?...

"Why did he pick Tim Geithner to be his economic front man? Why all this dithering over Afghanistan. And who thought it was a wonderful idea to bring the killers of 9/11 to New York City, the media capital of the world, so they could tell their story?

"Is Obama channeling Adlai Stevenson for heaven’s sake? I’m not attacking intellectuals because I do appreciate their contribution – but when politicians begin to get a little too intellectual, they lose connection with the American people.

"I look at Geithner, I don’t think he’s a great political spokesperson. I look at this decision to put the trial up in New York City. I look at releasing a mammogram report that says we can do better with less testing. And I begin to think this administration’s getting almost like one that you would imagine Adlai Stevenson running. Highly ethereal, highly intellectual, egg head. Not connected to real people and their emotional gut feelings about things...

"The mammogram - to tell women our doctors - our intellectuals have decided, based on data, that you don't have to have these tests -- everybody's been taught since birth, 'get tested!'...

"I worry about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He is going to find himself an ACLU lawyer, not that there is anything wrong with that. I may want one. I like the fact we have them, and I like the ACLU. But if he gets himself a good civil liberties lawyer up there in New York, he's going to use that as a platform from hell, where he gets to spew his point of view on the Middle East, that kind of thing he is going to sell, with the beard and everything. The New York Post is going to be reborn with this guy as the enemy. I just worry that he is going to win this argument for months before he gets executed, if he does get executed, if that ever happens. I worry about this trial becoming a show for the bad guys..." -
Hardball - November 20, 2009

Breitbart to Holder: Investigate ACORN or more tapes will be released right before 2110 elections!

Andrew Breitbart [who released the recent ACORN sting videos]:"This message is to Attorney General Holder. I want you to know that we have more tapes. It's not just ACORN. And we're going to hold out until the next election cycle. Or else, if you want to do a clean investigation, we will give you the rest of what we have. We will comply with you. We will give you the documentation we have from countless ACORN whistleblowers who want to come forward but are fearful of this organization and the retribution that they fear, that this is a dangerous organization.

"So if you get into an investigation, we will give you the tapes. And if you don't..., we will revisit these tapes come election time!"

Obama administration silencing EPA employees for exposing 'Cap and Trade' sham

The couple issued the following disclaimer on their video:

"We are speaking out as parents, citizens, a married couple and attorneys. Our opinions are based on more than 20 years each working as attorneys at the US Environmental Protection Agency in the San Francisco regional office. However, nothing in this video is intended to represent the views of the EPA or the Obama administration."

Sadly, Obama's penchant for silencing his critics is eerily similar to China's censorship policies, which is the point I was alluding to in my previous post, "Chinese President to Obama: Stop Suppressing Democracy!" The President can not honestly and sincerely criticize Chinese censorship, when he himself is the king of censors - and the greatest silencer of 'em all.

Chinese President to Obama: Stop Suppressing Democracy!

Chinese President Hu Jintao Monday called on President Obama to "respect the tenets of Democracy and the universal right of freedom of speech" as he lambasted the US President for declaring war on Fox News.

Jintao was addressing students at a town hall-style meeting in Shanghai when he issued his stinging rebuke of the White House

"I believe the more freely information flows, the stronger society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable," Jintao said.

"Freedom of expression is a universal right," he said, "and it should be available to people of all political stripes and ideologies: Democrats, Republicans, CNN pundits and Fox News commentators alike."

Upon learning of Mr. Jintao's critique, President Obama issued the following response to the White House(CNN/MSNBC) Press pool:

"I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years. So let me be clear: No system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by another. It is extremely naive of the Chinese President to think he can impose his free-thinking ideologies upon my administration and suddenly transform the White House into a western style Democracy over night. Perhaps that will happen one day. But right now, my first and foremost concern is to implement a government-controlled health care system and to stimulate massive government spending."

P.S. In case you didn't realize it, this report was fabricated. And, no, my name is not ElBaradei

Update: Fox News' Major Garrett has been granted an interview with Chairman Obama in Beijing Tuesday night. Fox and four other major networks will each get 10 minute interviews with his Royal Highness. Did Mr. Jintao's rebuke have an effect on Obama? Heh...

ElBaradei reconfirms he's a fake, phony and a fraud

On November 5, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei told the New York Times that United Nations inspectors found “nothing to be worried about” during their inspection of an underground nuclear facility near the Iranian city of Qom.

According to the Times, ElBaradei said that his inspectors’ initial findings concurred with Tehran’s insistence that the plant had been built on a heavily fortified military site as a fallback in case its main plant was bombed, rather than to conceal a military use.“The idea was to use it as a bunker under the mountain to protect things,” he said.“It’s a hole in a mountain.”

At the time, I wrote that ElBaradei was nothing more than a fake phony and a fraud - aka, an Iranian apologist. I noted how ElBaradei had recently conceded [begrudgingly] that Iranian scientists had been working on an advanced nuclear warhead design, and yet, he had staunchly denied this in September.

And, today, we learn that Mr. ElBaradei's rosy assessment of Iran's underground nuclear facility was also nothing more than a smoke screen. Apparently, there are some within the IAEA who refuse to let ElBaradei get away with his charlatanism:

From the LA Times:

Iran says it built its previously undisclosed nuclear facility inside a mountain near the city of Qom in 2007 in response to rising international tensions and American threats of war under the Bush administration. But according to an International Atomic Energy Agency report issued today, satellite photos showed construction on the Fordow facility began in 2002, well before Iran's nuclear program became a hot international issue...

According to the report, an Oct. 28 letter by Iran's Atomic Energy Organization said the Bush administration's war talk prompted it to build the facility. "As a result of the threats of military action against Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iran decided to establish contingency centers for various organizations and activities," it stated...

But the report said international inspectors told Iranian officials that they had obtained commercial satellite photos showing that work on the site began in 2002, stopped in 2004, and then resumed in 2006.The agency report says the facility is being built to house 3,000 centrifuges, which scientists say is enough to produce the enriched uranium for about one bomb in a year.

Thus - as the report clearly indicates - ElBaradei knew that work on Iran's underground nuclear facility had begun in 2002, and not 2007, when he issued his "nothing to worry' about statement to the New York Times.

And, now I notice that the Guardian has also made note of this point:

ElBaradei only last week, in an interview with the New York Times, played down the significance of the previously undisclosed site, saying it was "nothing to worry about".

The report may reflect the thinking of the IAEA's inspectors and ElBaradei's political staff, who have tended to be more skeptical about Iran's intentions than their chief.

But the real question is: Why did Elbaradei conceal the fact that the Iranians had lied and that work on the Qom facilities had actually commenced in 2002?

But even more significant, nuclear experts say the facility's planned capacity -- 3,000 centrifuges -- makes no sense as a stand-alone civilian enrichment center since it would be too small to fuel a nuclear power station around the clock. But, they say, it could make enough fissile material for one or two atomic bombs per year.

"It won't (even) be able to produce a reactor's worth of fuel every 90 years, but it will be able to produce one bomb a year," said Ivan Oelrich, vice president of the Strategic Security Program of the Federation of American Scientist. "It does look strange."

Indeed, it does look strange, however, even more puzzling is why ElBaradei insisted initially that this facility is harmless if its sole purpose can only be to produce nuclear weapons?

Similarly, the AP noted several days ago :

Iran's recently revealed uranium enrichment hall is a highly fortified underground space that appears too small to house a civilian nuclear program, but large enough to serve for military activities, diplomats told The Associated Press on Thursday...

One of the diplomats — a senior official from a European nation — said Thursday that the enrichment hall is too small to house the tens of thousands of centrifuges needed for peaceful industrial nuclear enrichment, but is the right size to contain the few thousand advanced machines that could generate the amount of weapons-grade uranium needed to make nuclear warheads.

All of the diplomats have access to information compiled by the IAEA.

But of course, ElBaradei craftily omitted this critical piece of information in early November.

The final question remaining: Is there still time to repair the damage that ElBaradei has stealthily and insidiously wrought upon the free world?

Perhaps, but of course, only time will tell.

The Audacity of Hillary

Several months ago, Planned Parenthood gave its annual Margaret Sanger Award to Hillary Clinton. In her acceptance speech, the Secretary of State was effusive in her praise of the renowned Racist & Eugenicist:



A few weeks later, at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Clinton was asked about those bizarre remarks. Her convoluted and brazen reply?



Ah yes, The Audacity of Hope!

Sending Gitmo detainees to Illinois would make amends for failed olympic bid

You gotta give credit where credit is due!: After losing out in his bid to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago and failing to generate the much anticipated source of tourism and revenue for his former home state, President Obama could have easily turned his back on the people of Illinois and said: "I'm sorry, I tried my best. Now go home and leave me alone!"

But instead, the president is attempting to make amends with his former home state by transfering the masterminds of the 9/11 attacks - currently incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay - to Illinois. Such a move would, in turn, spark a huge wave of tourism from various rogue countries, like Afghanistan and Pakistan, and would subsequently generate a new source of revenue for the state of Illinois.

And, for this, the people of Illinois owe a huge debt of gratitude to the president.

However, according to The Hill, Illinois congressman, Mark Kirk, "wrote the president on Saturday to try to PREEMPTIVELY block the Gitmo detainees from being moved to" Illinois:

An Illinois congressman wrote the president on Saturday to try to PREEMPTIVELY block terror suspects from being moved to his state for trial.

On Saturday, Rep. Kirk sent the president a letter urging him to keep prisoners currently housed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba out of Illinois.

"If your Administration brings Al Qaeda terrorists to Illinois, our state and the Chicago Metropolitan Area will become ground zero for Jihadist terrorist plots, recruitment and radicalization," Kirk wrote in his letter... "As home to America’s tallest building, we should not invite Al Qaeda to make Illinois its number one target."

Apparently, Mr. Kirk is a despicable ingrate who doesn't appreciate the president's efforts to promote tourism in the state of Illinois!

Nevertheless, if, as the Hill reports, Mr. Kirk is trying "to PREEMPTIVELY block terror suspects from being moved to" Illinois, he needs to be aware of one thing: Preemptive tactics are no longer deemed lawful by the current administration, and Mr. Kirk could find himself embroiled in a deep legal quagmire with the Obama administration.

From Bloomberg news - Oct. 15, 2009:

The Pentagon is reviewing the Bush administration’s doctrine of preemptive military strikes with an eye to modifying or possibly ending it...

“This doctrine was always at odds with international law and norms,” said James Lindsay, director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York...

“I don’t think the Obama people believe preemption should be defined in this incredibly broad sense..," said James Mann, an author in residence at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

And, thus, Mr. Kirk, in trying "to preemptively block" the Obama administration from moving terror suspects to Illinois, could find himself in deep doo-doo with an administration that deems preemptive tactics to be at odds with international law.

But of course - as Kenneth Anderson noted in October - at the same time that the Obama administration was announcing its intention to possibly end the Bush doctrine of preemption, the Russians came out and endorsed not only preemptive military force, but even preemptive use of nuclear weapons:

The Russians succeeded in putting Mr. Obama and the Americans in their place. Nikolai Patrushev, the chief of the Presidential Security Council, manufactured an occasion while Mrs. Clinton was in Moscow to warn that Moscow reserves the right to make "a pre-emptive nuclear strike" against both small and large enemies.

In an interview with Izvestia, the important Moscow daily, he said Russian officials are examining “a variety of possibilities for using nuclear force, depending on the situation and the intentions of the possible opponent.”

In situations critical to national security, he said, “options including a preventative nuclear strike on the aggressor are not excluded.” Even regional or “local” wars will be included in the new strategy, expected to be official policy in December.

And, thus, while the Russians have clearly indicated that they will use preemptive warfare and even pre-emptive nuclear strikes against their enemies, if need be, they will not allow the US to use not only preemptive strikes, but even preemptive sanctions against Russia's nuclear client and close ally, Iran.

Welcome to President Obama's New World Order....

A lasting, enduring, sustained and unwavering commitment?

Barack Obama Then:

"The Afghan people must know that our commitment to their future is enduring, because the security of Afghanistan and the United States is shared."
Barack Obama - July 15, 2008

"The United States has made a lasting commitment to defeat Al Qaeda [and] to support the democratically elected, sovereign governments of both Pakistan and Afghanistan. That commitment will not waver, and that support will be sustained."
President Obama speaking at a White House press conference after meeting with Afghan President, Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President, Asif Ali Zardari - March 6, 2009

Barack Obama Now:

"President Barack Obama warned that the US commitment to Afghanistan was 'not open-ended' after meeting his war cabinet to discuss the deployment of tens of thousands more troops.... 'The president believes that we need to make clear to the Afghan government that our commitment is not open-ended,' a White House official said, briefing journalists on Obama's latest round of talks with military chiefs."
AFP - November 11, 2009

"President Obama is pushing his national security team for more detail about an exit strategy for U.S. forces fighting in Afghanistan... 'Obama wants to make clear that the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan is not open-ended,' one source added."
NPR - November 11, 2009

As one senior Pentagon official stated back in August: "I think they (the Obama administration) thought this would be more popular and easier. We are not getting a Bush-like commitment to this war."...

Obama: hard for Iran to make quick decisions

From Reuters:

An unsettled political situation in Iran may be complicating efforts to seal a nuclear fuel deal between Tehran and major world powers, President Barack Obama said on Monday.

Obama told Reuters in an interview that the United States had made more progress toward global nuclear non-proliferation in the last several months than in the past several years.

"But it is going to take time, and part of the challenge that we face is that neither North Korea nor Iran seem to be settled enough politically to make quick decisions on these issues," he said at the White House.

Yep, you read that correctly:

As long as the protesters continue to create havoc and political instability in Iran, Obama can not be faulted for his inability to reach an agreement with Tehran.

Unfortunately, the evil protesters are not only meddling in Iran's internal affairs, they are also impeding Obama's efforts to make peace with the Mullahs.

The following is an excerpt from the Reuters interview:

QUESTION: I'd like to ask about Iran and North Korea. You won the Nobel Prize for your nuclear disarmament efforts but don't seem to be making a lot of progress on either. And one of the stumbling blocks seems to be China, in both cases. Can you convince the Chinese to get tougher? And if you can't, do you really expect progress anytime soon?

OBAMA: Well, first of all, I think it's very important to say that if by lack of progress you're suggesting we have not already eliminated nuclear weapons from the face of the earth in the first nine months of my administration, then that's true.

QUESTION: Come on, you've won the Nobel Prize. Surely, by now ...

QUESTION: What's taking so long?

OBAMA: ... I would strongly argue that we have made more progress on this issue over the last several months than we've seen in the last several years. But it is going to take time. And part of the challenge that we face is, is that neither North Korea nor Iran seem to be settled enough politically to make quick decisions on these issues...

Indeed, Iran would gladly give up its nuclear ambitions, if only those protesters would just go away....

House Health Care Bill Aborted?

From Bloomberg News:

More than 40 House Democrats signed a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowing to vote against a final health overhaul measure if it includes abortion restrictions contained in legislation approved Nov. 7, said Representative Diana DeGette.

“We will not vote for a conference report that contains language that restricts women’s right to choose...,” says the letter, released by Democratic Representatives Louise Slaughter of New York and DeGette of Colorado. The two lead a caucus of lawmakers who favor abortion rights.

Libtalker, Ed Schultz: Why does Obama keep telling us how tough he is?

Libtalker, Ed Schultz: "I've noticed on a few stump speeches that he (Obama) tells us that he might be small, but he's tough. And I have thought about all of the past presidents. I haven't heard a president tell us how tough he is. Am I wrong? Tell me if I'm wrong. ... And I think that's rather strange, or unusual..." - (h/t - Radio Equalizer )



Apparently, Obama must listen to the Ed Schultz show.

George W. Bush Secretly Visits Fort Hood Victims

Former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura secretly visited Fort Hood Friday night and spent "considerable time" consoling those who were wounded in Thursday's shooting spree, Fox News reported on Saturday.

The Bushes entered and departed the sprawling military facility in secret, having told the base commander they did not want press coverage of their visit, a source told Fox News.

Meanwhile, President Obama has yet to visit the wounded...

Wonder what his excuse is this time around.....

Update: On Friday, President Obama visited with soldiers wounded in Afghanistan at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre. The White House said the visit was planned before the Fort Hood massacre.

The question, however, arises: Why didn't Obama visit the wounded at Fort Hood over the weekend?

Answer: On Saturday he was probably too busy selling his health care plan [on Capital Hill] and simply didn't have the time to worry about the health and welfare of the troops. And, late Saturday, the president had no choice but to retreat with his family to Camp David for an overnight excursion. And, on Sunday, lets see..., well, he was probably watching an important football game....

ObamaCare endorsements: What the bribe was

From The Hill:

As the suicidal Democratic congressmen proceed[ed] to rubber-stamp the Obama healthcare reform despite the drubbing their party took in the ’09 elections, the president trotted out the endorsements of the AMA and the AARP to stimulate support. But these — and the other endorsements — his package has received are all bought and paid for. Here are the deals:

The American Medical Association (AMA) was facing a 21 percent cut in physicians’ reimbursements under the current law. Obama promised to kill the cut if they backed his bill.... With this blackmail leverage, Obama compelled the AMA to support his bill … or else!

The AARP got a financial windfall in return for its support of the healthcare bill... The AARP is one of the main suppliers of Medi-gap insurance, a high-cost, privately purchased coverage that picks up where Medicare leaves off. But President Bush-43 passed the Medicare Advantage program, which offered a subsidized, lower-cost alternative to Medi-gap. Under Medicare Advantage, the elderly get all the extra coverage they need plus coordinated, well-managed care, usually by the same physician. So more than 10 million seniors went with Medicare Advantage, cutting into AARP Medi-gap revenues.

Presto! Obama solved their problem. He eliminates subsidies for Medicare Advantage. The elderly will have to pay more for coverage under Medigap, but the AARP — which supposedly represents them — will make more money...

The drug industry backed ObamaCare and, in return, got a 10-year limit of $80 billion on cuts in prescription drug costs. (A drop in the bucket of their almost $3 trillion projected cost over the next decade.) They also got administration assurances that it will continue to bar lower-cost Canadian drugs from coming into the U.S. All it had to do was put its formidable advertising budget at the disposal of the administration...

So these endorsements are not freely given, but bought and paid for by an administration that is intent on passing its program at any cost.

$2.6 trillion price tag for House health care bill!

From the Heritage Foundation:

The [House health care] bill is front loaded with taxes, and back-loaded with spending in the first ten years. Since most of the spending in the House bill does not fully go into effect until 2014, the 10-year cost estimates based on the preliminary CBO score (for years 2010 through 2019) only account for six years of new spending under the plan. Once it is implemented (over a full 10-year window from years 2014 to 2023), the giant House health bill carries a price tag of $2.4 trillion, or as much as $2.6 trillion with the “doc fix.”

UPDATE -This just in:

The House of Representatives Saturday passed, by a vote of 220 to 215, historic health care legislation that would require virtually all Americans to obtain health insurance and create a government-run health insurance plan to help them do so.

Just 1 republican voted for the bill. The Senate must also vote on its version of a bill, which is not expected until December at the earliest. President Obama later praised the passage of the $2.6 trillion bill saying, "it is legislation that is fully paid for and will reduce our long-term federal deficit."...

Ahem......

Mohamed ElBaradei, Iran's Nuclear Weapons Facilitator

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei on Thursday said United Nations inspectors found “nothing to be worried about” during their inspection of an underground nuclear facility near the Iranian city of Qom:

Mohamed ElBaradei’s assessment, the first word on what was found at the controversial site near Qom, came in the course of an interview with The New York Times...

Mr ElBaradei told the newspaper that his inspectors’ initial findings concurred with Tehran’s insistence that the plant had been built on a heavily fortified military site as a fallback in case its main plant was bombed, rather than to conceal a military use.

“The idea was to use it as a bunker under the mountain to protect things,” Mr ElBaradei said.

“It’s a hole in a mountain.” Mr. ElBaradei’s words will be met with disappointment in Western capitals, long critical of his leadership of the atomic watchdog as too soft on Iran.

Here's the problem with the latest findings:

ElBaradei is a fake phony, fraud, and a patent liar!

From the New York Times:

The UN nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting the Islamic Republic's scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, the Guardian reported in its Friday edition.

The newspaper, citing what it describes as "previously unpublished documentation" from an International Atomic Energy Agency compiled dossier, said Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of a "two-point implosion" device.

The IAEA said in September it has no proof Iran has or once had a covert atomic bomb program.

The Vienna-based IAEA was not immediately available for comment on Thursday.
Iran's Foreign Ministry and the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) were also unavailable for comment when contacted by Reuters.

The IAEA statement in September followed reports from the Associated Press quoting what it called a classified IAEA document saying agency experts agreed Iran now had the means to build atomic bombs and was heading toward developing a missile system able to carry a nuclear warhead...

Extracts of the dossier have been published before, but it was not known the dossier included documentation of such a sophisticated warhead, the newspaper said...

Here's what ElBaradei said in September:

With respect to a recent media report, the IAEA reiterates that it has no concrete proof that there is or has been a nuclear weapon program in Iran.

At the Board of Governors´ meeting on 9 September 2009, Director General Mohamed ElBaradei warned that continuing allegations that the IAEA was withholding information on Iran are politically motivated and totally baseless...

However, as we mentioned before, the Guardian cited "what it describes as 'previously unpublished documentation' from the IAEA saying "Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of a "two-point implosion" device." And, the Associated Press - in September - quoted what it called a classified IAEA document saying agency experts agreed Iran now had the means to build atomic bombs and was heading toward developing a missile system able to carry a nuclear warhead

The question arises, why did ElBaradei try to conceal this information back in September? And, why has he suddenly changed his tune?

Clearly, ElBaradei is a fake and a phony, and his remarks [assurance] on Thursday about Iran's underground nuclear facility have absolutely no validity at all.

Now, as far as ElBaradei changing his tune, there may be something else playing out.

Obama may have put the squeeze on ElBaradei to reveal the goods on Iran's nuclear warhead program, in an effort to extract an agreement from Iran to ship its stockpile of low-enriched uranium abroad for processing.

Of course, as experts have already noted, such a concession would be folly on Obama's part because Iran has the capability to replenish it's uranium stockpile in little over a year's time.

In any case, Obama probably had enough information on Iran's nuclear warhead program to force ElBaradei on the issue. Conversely, he might not have had sufficient information about Iran's underground nuclear facility, and thus ElBaradei felt free to absolve the Iranians on that matter.

Or, perhaps, a more remote possibility: Obama is playing "Good Cop, Bad Cop", letting Ahmadinejad save face on his underground nuclear facility but denying him the opportunity to both develop a nuclear warhead and keep his stockpile of uranium.

I'm just theorizing and laying out all the possibilities. It's merely academic.

One final tidbit:

Obama is purportedly working hand in hand with Russian leaders to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. However, Julian Borger of the Guardian noted the following:

The apparent leap forward in [Iran's nuclear] warhead technology that these [IAEA]documents imply, point towards outside help and it will refocus attention on the issue of "foreign expertise" in weaponization that the agency raised in its reporting... last year.

I am reliably informed that the foreign expert under scrutiny was a Russian weapons specialist, whose presence in the country will raise questions once more of the nature of the relationship between the two countries.

Ah yes, Obama's pals, Comrades Putin, Medvedev and Lavrov.

Isn't it wonderful that we finally have a President who's willing to work with Iran's allies to disarm Iran? HOW SWEET!

Stimulus-related job numbers don't add up

A couple of interesting tidbits from the Chicago Tribune:

More than $4.7 million in federal stimulus aid so far has been funneled to schools in North Chicago, and state and federal officials say that money has saved the jobs of 473 teachers. Problem is, the district employs only 290 teachers.

"That other number, I don't know where that came from," said Lauri Hakanen, superintendent of North Chicago Community Unit Schools District 187.

The Obama administration last week released the first round of data designed to underpin the worthiness of its economic stimulus plan, which so far has directed $1.25 billion to Illinois schools. That money has helped save or create 14,330 school jobs in the state, the administration claimed.

But those statistics, compiled initially by the Illinois State Board of Education, appear riddled with anomalies that raise questions about their validity, according to a Tribune analysis... Many local school officials were perplexed by the stimulus data attributed to their districts.

In the official report, Wilmette Public Schools District 39 was credited with 166 jobs saved by stimulus aid. Superintendent Raymond Lechner said the number should be zero.

At Dolton-Riverdale School District 148, stimulus funds were said to have saved the equivalent of 382 full-time teaching jobs -- 142 more than the district actually has.

A similar discrepancy was found in data for Kankakee School District 111, where the stimulus report logged the equivalent of 665 full-time jobs saved.

"That's impossible," a top Kankakee school official said, adding that the entire payroll -- full and part time -- is 600 workers...

[To be fair, the Tribune also says that, for various reasons, there appears to be an under-count in reporting the number of jobs created or saved in Chicago...]

If my memory serves me correctly, Illinois is not the only state to have reported inflated job numbers with regards to its school system - which kind of makes you wonder, 'who's tinkering with the numbers, and why'? Are state officials fixing the numbers in order to gain favor with the President, which would then enable them to ask him for additional funds? Does the administration share any blame for these erroneous reports? Or is the whole thing just an honest mistake?

One thing is for certain, despite all the blatant errors, the administration continues to promulgate these fallacious numbers.

But here's another interesting - and, undoubtedly more important - tidbit:

In Schaumburg-based School District 54, Superintendent Ed Rafferty... warned that "unless there's a guarantee of continuation of (federal or state) money, the vast majority of these" newly-created/saved jobs "will be eliminated because there won't be local resources to fund them."

In other words, as soon as the stimulus funds dry up, all those newly-created [or saved] jobs will fall by the wayside.

Change we can believe in? Me no think so....

P.S. I seem to be in good company. The American Thinker also cited the Tribune article earlier today and highlighted both of the aforementioned points.

Election results unnerves moderate Democrats in Congress

"Last night, I think voters sent a clear message that the administration and Congress need to focus on the economy. We need to focus on creating jobs right now, and you don't do that by raising taxes on small business."
Democratic Rep. Dan Boren

Mr. Boren also called himself "a solid no" on Obama's health-care overhaul

"What the exit polls showed was real voter fatigue with how crowded the plate is. We need to take a deep breath, step back and clean the plate before we add to it."
Democrat Rep. Gerry Connolly

"I do consider Virginia a bellwether state. I would encourage the leadership to get back to the center."
Rep. Gene Taylor, a conservative Democrat from Mississippi

"The American people get it. They know we're on an unsustainable fiscal course."
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D.

"I've always had pause" about health care overhauls and ramped-up government spending.
Sen. Ben Nelson, (D-Ne)

School Children Singing Praises to Obama

"Obama is fresh. Obama is cool... Obama in charge of the Oval Office. He told Bush and his cabinet to get off this - Obama is the man A – a-a-a-aay. Obama is President of the USA-aaaay. Tomorrow’s a new day – ay – ay- ay- ay...."



(H/T - Big Hollywood)

White House blames election results on "anti-incumbent fervor"

White House officials Wednesday defended Democratic setbacks in Tuesday's gubernatorial elections saying the election results weren't a referendum on Barack Obama's presidency, but rather a reflection of voters' concerns over high unemployment and the sad state of the economy, which, apparently, has no connection with the president's economic policies.

However, later in the day, an unidentified White House official came up with a different explanation: He attributed the election results to "anti-incumbent fervor."

The rationale behind his theory - I assume - is as follows:

Voting for a Democrat would be akin to rooting for the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series: Everyone loathes the Phillies because they are the reigning champions, so they root for the Yankees!

From the Politico:

Mike Bloomberg’s stunningly narrow re-election in New York was a ...profound embarrassment for a Democratic establishment – from the White House on down — that abandoned his rival, City Comptroller Bill Thompson, as a hopeless loser.

Bloomberg’s meager five-point win left Democrats pondering what might have been if New York’s Democratic donors hadn’t turned their back on Thompson, if its politicians had worked for him, and most of all if President Barack Obama had offered anything more than the lamest words of praise.

“Maybe one of those Corzine trips could have been better spent in New York. Who knows?" remarked New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, who weighed his own run for mayor, referring to the White House’s devout attention to the New Jersey contest.

“Maybe Anthony Weiner should have manned-up and run against Michael Bloomberg,” shot back a White House official, who attributed the night’s results across the board to anti-incumbent fervor.

But guess who's gonna be the incumbent in the 2012 presidential election?

If you guessed Barack Obama, you are correct....

"Obama, Obama, you are either with them or with us!"

"Obama, Obama, you are either with them or with us!"
Opposition marchers - defying baton-wielding police at a government rally in Iran - calling on President Obama to pick a side, as he pursues talks with the Iranian regime.
AP - November 4, 2009

"You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror!"
President George W. Bush - at a press conference on November 6, 2001 - asserting there was no room for neutrality in the war against terror.


"We do not interfere in Iran’s internal affairs."
Barack Obama, reaffirming his commitment not to meddle in Iran's internal affairs, in a statement released by the White House on November 4, 2009 in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the seizing of the American Embassy in Tehran

Obama: "I Love Elections! It’s so much fun!"

OBAMA, IN 2006:

"My goal is every candidate I campaign for, I want to win. Every single candidate. I love elections! It’s so much fun! It’s even more fun when you’re not on the ballot.”
Senator Barack Obama in 2006 expressing exuberant joy after watching the election results of the midterm elections. Obama had just finished traveling coast-to-coast on behalf of Democratic candidates, and the Democrats had taken control of both the House and the Senate

NOVEMBER 3, 2009:

"President Obama is not planning to watch Tuesday nights election returns, Obama aides Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod tell CNN. Obama is more likely to watch Tuesday night's Chicago Bulls game than any political coverage, according to Axelrod."
CNN's Political Ticker - November 3, 2009

GIBBS, KEANE: ELECTIONS WEREN'T A REFERENDUM ON OBAMA. DEMOCRATS WERE DEFEATED BECAUSE VOTERS WERE UNHAPPY WITH THE ECONOMY:

"The White House distanced itself Wednesday from Democratic losses in two states, saying the races for governor hinged on local issues and were not a referendum on President Barack Obama... White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that voters in both states went to the polls to work through "very local issues that didn't involve the president." The presidential spokesman said that voters were concerned about the economy...
AP

"Democratic Party chairman Tim Kaine said Mr Obama remained popular and that the party's losses reflected voter anxiety about the economy and jobs."
BBC

OBAMA AND THE ECONOMY:

"Public approval of Obama’s handling of the economy has slipped to 46 percent in an Oct. 30-Nov.1 CNN poll from 59 percent in March. Three elections today, for governor in New Jersey and Virginia and to fill a House seat in upstate New York, may provide an early test of voter sentiment about Obama..."
Bloomberg News - November 3, 2009

"Independents were a critical part of Obama's victory [for the presidency] in Virginia, New Jersey and across the country. But after more than a year of recession, they [independent voters] fled from Democrats in the two states, where the economy trumped all."
AP - November 4, 2009

OBAMA

"More West Virginia voters disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as President than those who approve. According to a new voter opinion poll being released this week by MBE, 51% of registered voters in the state disapprove of the job President Obama is doing while 45% approve. One in five (20%) “strongly”approve of the president’s job performance and 36% strongly disapprove."
MBE [pdf] - September 1, 2009

"39% [of Virginia voters] say Obama campaigning for Deeds in Virginia makes them less likely to vote for the Democratic candidate. Just 24% say it makes them more likely to vote for Deeds, and 36% say it has no impact on their voting decision."
Rasmussen Reports - October 28, 2009

Past Ties Between White House and CBO Cause for Concern?

Yesterday, I cited an article from the AP which maintains that the health care bill, proposed by the House, would cost $1.2 trillion over a decade and would thus increase the federal deficit by at least $200 billion. This is in stark contrast with the Congressional Budget Office's optimistic forecast, which contends the health care bill would actually reduce the federal deficit by $104 billion over the 2010–2019 period.

Verum Serum, though, raises an important question about the CBO's objectivity in assessing the costs of health care reform.

Excerpted from Verum Serum:

Whether Democrats succeed in passing healthcare reform legislation in the coming weeks will, to a large part, depend on the final bill scoring by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)... However, there is an interesting connection between the White House and CBO leadership which does not seem to be widely known, and which may be cause for concern.

The current Director of the CBO is Douglas Elmendorf, a highly-regarded, Harvard trained economist. As you may know, the CBO Director who preceded Elmendorf was Peter Orszag, who now heads up the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Both Elmendorf and Orszag were senior fellows at the Brookings Institution prior to joining the federal government, but they share something else in common as well.

As it turns out, Orszag was the founding director of the Hamilton Project at Brookings, a multi-year research initiative focused on economic policy to “benefit more Americans”. When Orszag left Brooking for the CBO in early 2007, economist Jason Furman took over the reigns of the Hamilton Project. Furman departed in June 2008 when he accepted a position as director of economic policy for the Obama campaign. Who took over for Furman? If you guessed Doug Elmendorf, then you are correct.

Notably, healthcare reform was a significant focus of the Hamilton Project. Furman ultimately authored a book (Who Has the Cure? Hamilton Project Ideas on Health Care), and Elmendorf co-authored a paper with Furman which argued the benefits of “establishing universal health insurance”.

So you have three successive directors of a liberal-leaning policy initiative. Two of them are now very close economic advisers to the President. Orszag at the OMB, and Furman who is now Deputy Director of the National Economic Council. And then you have Douglas Elmendorf in charge at the CBO....

Ah yes, the good ol' reliable CBO......

Obama accused Bush of staging a photo-op with wounded troops in '07

In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Rush Limbaugh suggested that President Obama's recent visit to Dover Air Force Base was nothing more than a staged photo-op. This elicited a torrent of outrage from pundits in the liberal mainstream media.

Conversely, when Obama made similar remarks about former president Bush, the mainstream media didn't even bat an eyelash.

As I noted in my previous post, in March of 2007, President Bush toured Walter Reed Army Medical Center after he had learned of the dilapidated conditions there and the poor quality of care that the patients were receiving - which prompted the following remark from Obama:

"The problems plaguing our military hospital system will not be solved with a photo-op."

But this particular remark didn't seem to bother the mainstream media.

Double standard?

Perhaps.

Or maybe it's just a severe case of selective amnesia.....

Obama's hypocrisy on Veterans' Care

From Reuters News Agency - March 30, 2007:

President George W. Bush apologized to wounded U.S. troops who endured dilapidated conditions and bureaucratic delays as he toured Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the flagship military hospital.

Bush, in his first visit to Walter Reed since a scandal over health care there erupted in February, met with some patients who had previously been at the outpatient building where the worst conditions were found.

"I was disturbed by their accounts of what went wrong," Bush said. "I apologize for what they went through and we're going to fix the problem."...

Sen. Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat who is also seeking his party's 2008 presidential nomination, accused Bush of being slow to tackle problems with veterans health care.

"The problems plaguing our military hospital system will not be solved with a photo op," Obama said in a statement. "Our military hospital system is in a state of crisis. Delays and rhetorical band-aids will not move us closer to a solution."

Likewise, the AP reported in June of 2008:

Barack Obama stopped by Walter Reed Army Medical Center Saturday to visit wounded war veterans, a group that he has said endures substandard care under the Bush administration...

Obama has criticized the Bush administration for its treatment of veterans... and has suggested Republican rival John McCain would continue Bush policies if elected.

The administration was roundly criticized last year after it was revealed that veterans at Walter Reed were housed in rundown accommodations and suffered neglectful care. Obama has said the country has failed its veterans by allowing such "second-rate conditions..."

During his remarks later Saturday before [a] Latino group, Obama said "we have to treat our veterans better.""We're betraying what I think is a solemn pact that we make with our veterans," he said.

However, today, the AP reported as follows:

Serious safety issues continued to plague a southern Illinois Veterans Affairs hospital even after major surgeries were suspended two years ago because of a spike in patient deaths, according to a federal report released Monday.

Surgeons at the VA medical center in Marion, Ill., performed procedures without proper authorization, patient deaths were not assessed adequately and miscommunication between staff members persisted, the Veterans Affairs Department's inspector general said in the report, which covers the fiscal year that recently ended...

"To think two years later, after all the promises and investigation, that Marion is still suffering is inexcusable," said Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat. "There are some awful things that have occurred there."

He and three other Illinois leaders wrote a letter Monday to Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki demanding a meeting about the facility...

The inspector general's 30-page report said the hospital did not sufficiently monitor 87 percent, or 20 of 23 of its physicians, to ensure they could perform procedures competently. There also were problems with infection control — including a patient with a history of MRSA staph infections wrongly put in a room with two other patients and a shared a bathroom — outdated staff training, and poor medication management and patient data analysis...

The truth of the matter is, Obama's remarks in March of 2007, were right on the mark:

"Our military hospital system is in a state of crisis. Delays and rhetorical band-aids will not move us closer to a solution."

AP: House Health Bill will increase deficit by at least $200 billion

From the AP:

The health care bill headed for a vote in the House this week costs $1.2 trillion or more over a decade, according to numerous Democratic officials and figures contained in an analysis by congressional budget experts, far higher than the $900 billion cited by President Barack Obama as a price tag for his reform plan...

"Now, add it all up," Obama said in a nationally televised speech in early September. "and the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has referred repeatedly to the bill's net cost of $894 billion over a decade for coverage...

Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said the measure... would "not add one dime to the deficit."

"In fact," added Daly, "the CBO said last week that it will reduce the deficit both in the first 10 years and in the second 10 years."

However, now that the AP has informed us that the health care bill will cost over $300 billion more than [Pelosi and] the CBO' s estimate, it would seem the CBO's assurance of a reduced government deficit is misguided.

Here is what the CBO claims:

Enacting H.R. 3962 would result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $104 billion over the 2010–2019 period... The estimate includes a projected net cost of $894 billion over 10 years for the proposed expansions in insurance coverage.

But in fact, if the AP is correct, the health care bill will cost $1.2 trillion, not $894 billion as cited by the CBO. Hence H.R. 3962 would result in a net increase in federal budget deficits of $200 billion [rounded number].

Of course, this is only the AP's estimate. Lord knows what the real costs of this health care bill will be.

Rasmussen: Under Obama, Americans no longer believe the US is winning the "War on Terror"

According to a new Rasmussen poll, just 34% of voters believe the United States and its allies are winning the "War on Terror", down nine points from a month ago and 21 points from when Barack Obama first took office. At the time, 53% of voters said the U.S. held the advantage.

It should be noted, however, that there is a serious flaw with the latest Rasmusen poll. The problem is as follows:

According to the Obama administration, there is no such thing as "The War Against Terror". It is non-existent, merely hearsay, and nothing more than an illusion concocted by the GOP. Consequently, the US can not possibly be winning the aforementioned war. For indeed, it is merely a fictional war, a chimerical creation of a handful of delusional, right-wingers.....

Gitmo Detainees: We want to stay here!

Socialist leaders tend to believe that the masses are incapable of choosing their own destinies and understanding their own needs, hence, they'll force their beliefs and political agendas down their people's throats - whether they like it or not. Barack Obama, however, takes this phenomenon to a whole new level. He believes that the terrorist community is also incapable of assessing its own needs and that only he knows how to provide the terrorists with their much deserved comforts, luxuries and amenities:

From the Telegraph UK:

As President Barack Obama's deadline to close Guantánamo looms, some occupants of the notorious detention center would rather prolong their stay than be sent to maximum security prisons on the US mainland...

Despite its reputation, the regime at the Pentagon facility on Cuba's southern coast offers privileges that would not be enjoyed at the federal "supermax" prison at Florence, Colorado, the likely alternative for the most dangerous al-Qaeda suspects...

Peter King, a Republican congressman who visited earlier this year and wants the prison kept open, said that "if there's any scandal at Guantánamo, it is that the detainees are treated too well".

The 221 remaining inmates receive between four and 20 hours outdoor recreation in the Caribbean sun and anything from weekly to almost unlimited access to DVDs and receive three newspapers (USA Today, plus one Egyptian and one Saudi Arabian title) twice a week. Every bed has an arrow pointing towards Mecca and every cell a prayer rug...

The detainees' diet is exclusively Middle Eastern and halal, in observance of regional and religious sensitivities. Dates, olive oil and honey are provided daily and pita bread is baked on the premises. They drink the same bottled water as the prison's staff and have the same access as other prisoners to 16,000 books and 1,600 magazines held at the library.

An escorted tour of Guantánamo by the Daily Telegraph revealed that Camp 7's requested reading included Gardens of the World by Mick Hales, Fine Art Flower Photography by Tony Sweet and a copy of Birds and Blooms magazine, material in keeping with nature-bound leisure pursuits approved by conservative Islam. Two volumes of the Tales of the Arabian Nights were also in the pile. Tomes on Islamic theory are in plentiful supply and demand, said library staff.

At the low security Camp 4, detainees could be seen sitting in the yard chatting and hanging up their laundry. A new gravel football field was recently completed.

At Florence, Colorado, prisoners would also spend 22 ½ hours a day in a 9ft by 9ft cell with the only natural light coming from a skylight outside.Exercise would be limited to an hour and a half indoors five days a week and they would have minimal contact with others, including the 33 other international terrorists held there. An official study found that most inmates suffer psychological trauma from the severe isolation.

Since 2005 an Arab American cultural adviser, who for security reasons is identified only by the name of Zak, has been employed at Guantánamo to liaise with detainees.
He said that some detainees would rather stay put than go on trial in the US, where they would probably receive a life sentence or could wait years for a death sentence to be carried out.

"They know there will not be the same privileges as here," he said. "Given the choice of being sentenced forever in Guantánamo or moved to supermax, it is 'no, can I stay in Gitmo?'. Here they can be outside, they can smell the sea."

Truth be told, the Obamas and Chavezes of the world know darn well their policies are detrimental to the masses, but in spite of this, they continue to pursue their political agendas - even at the expense of the poor and hapless terrorists they purport to protect.....