Saturday, January 21, 2012

The Case Against Barack Obama...


DIOGENES SARCASTICA

"Obama was the perfect empty vessel, the perfect figurehead behind which the Woodstock and Communism-was-a-good-idea-only-poorly-executed crowd could hide behind while they gave it once last try......"

Lunatic's Asylum - I have not bashed President Frequent-Flyer-Miles for some time now, which is not surprising: in order to criticize someone for anything, it is first necessary for them to have done something. Barack Obama, as I have said many times before, is simply not a doer so it has been difficult to criticize anything after his first year in office -- except his lack of action. However, the last few months of Presidential inaction may have given new meanings to the words 'procrastination' and 'inertia'.

There simply hasn't been anything to talk about. The first year of the Obama Presidency was an easy topic to discuss and dissect, what with such juicy topics as nationalized health care, nationalized banks and auto companies, welfare-programs-disguised-as-economic-stimulus, the enormous waste of resources that was the actual Stimulus Bill, the twice-daily accusations of racism on somebody's part, the forceful implication by the administration and it's allies that mere principled disagreement with the Vacationer-in-Chief was tantamount to treason.

The second year of the Obama Experiment was simply chock full of politically-expedient bullshit; the Debt Ceiling Debates, the Libyan War, the call for an even bigger waste of taxpayer money (Son of Stimulus), Solyndra and the Green Energy Boondoggle.

Going into our Third Year with no one at the rudder, even the flow of politically-motivated crap has first slowed to a trickle and then eventually petered out into a state of complete non-action on anything. Once again Barack Obama, who's supposed to be a leader, has done what he's always done best: let someone else do (in this case, a Republican-led House of Representatives) and then cry "Obstructionist/Racist/Unfair!" at the top of his lungs.

Let's start at the very source of all of this apathy and political spinmeistering:

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It was clear to anyone who could draw breath without mechanical assistance in November of 2008 that Barack Obama was little more than a slick marketing campaign that took advantage of the sense of panic which gripped America at the time. If you bought the bill of goods that was the new-and-improved Kennedyesque kabuki play that was the rise of Obama, if you seriously believed in the nonsensical rhetoric about lower sea levels, international brotherhood, and an economic recovery sparked by more social and political welfare programs, then you cannot be in the least surprised that we have arrived at this current state of affairs, with a crippled President reduced to ducking hard issues and honest work. 

READ MORE ...


Does Obama have a "trusted" friend? ..

Obama names Turkish PM Erdoğan among trusted friends
ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

Turkey and US relations visibly improved in 2011, reflected by the Obama-Erdoğan friendship, despite strained relations between US ally Israel and Turkey. AP photo
Turkey and US relations visibly improved in 2011, reflected by the Obama-Erdoğan friendship, despite strained relations between US ally Israel and Turkey. AP photo
U.S. President Barack Obama named Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan among the five leaders that he has established relations based on confidence, in an interview with Time.

In an interview with Fareed Zakaria, the Editor-at-Large of Time magazine, Obama named Turkish PM Erdoğan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, and British Prime Minister David Cameron among leaders that he was able to forge "bonds of trust."

Responding to a question on whether his style of diplomacy was “very cool and aloof,” and that he does not “pal around” with his counterparts, Obama said that the “friendships and the bonds of trust” that he has been able to forge with a whole range of leaders is “precisely, or is a big part of, what has allowed us to execute effective diplomacy.”

“I think that if you ask them, Angela Merkel or Prime Minister Singh or President Lee or Prime Minister Erdogan or David Cameron would say, we have a lot of trust and confidence in the President,” Time quoted the U.S. President as saying. “That’s part of the reason we’ve been able to forge these close working relationships and gotten a whole bunch of stuff done.”

Obama noted that the U.S. alliances with NATO, Japan, South Korea, our its close military cooperation with countries like Israel have “never been stronger.” 

“In the United Nations, not only do we have a voice, but we have been able to shape an agenda,” Obama said. “And in the fastest-growing regions of the world, in emerging markets, in the Asia-Pacific region ... countries are once again looking to the United States for leadership.”
January/20/2012

Bee's note:
Wasn't Turkey the  Islamic country Obama first apologized to for what Obama considered "America's mistakes"?  And how about all the happy smiles and visits to mosques during Obama's first visit to Turkey!  And didn't Obama prevent Congress from passing a bill noting that Turkey had indeed committed genocide 100 years ago against the Armenian people.  
Oh, and let us not forget that Obama has refused to visit America's ally Israel since he took Office.  But, wait ... according to Obama, Israel is really not an ally of the USA.
And lastly, hasn't every Republican candidate acknowledged during debates that Turkey is NOT a "friend" of the USA; and, the US should stop the flow of aid to Turkey immediately, as it is not in the best interests of the United States. 
(Photo: Obama visiting mosque in Turkey)
Is this Obama's way of telling the Untied States - "we the people" that it matters not what we know and believe to be true, he will stick by our enemies through thick and thin?  Does Obama serve the American people, or is his loyalty towards those of Islamic/Muslim countries?
Americans insist that Congress respond to Obama's "friendships" with Turkey - immediately!  We cannot wait until November!  Turkey's ally is IRAN and not the United States.  Therefore, while weak-kneed Obama thinks he has a "trusted" friend in Turkey, the poor man is being deceived, or worse,  ..... 


One more time, let me repeat .... TURKEY IS AN ALLY OF IRAN.


Oh, look what is happening in France: "Thousands of Turks gather in Paris to protest genocide bill ...  strange how we haven't heard Turkey apologize for their "mistakes" to the world ....what say you, Obama?!
















READ CAREFULLY: Obama tells Time Israel not an ally - by Israel Matzav


by Carl in Jerusalem
January 20, 2012, Friday

In an interview with Fareed Zakaria in Time Magazine, Barack Hussein Obama gives a(n incomplete) list of American allies and then lists Israel as a country with which the US has 'close military cooperation.' I'm going to give you the entire question and answer so no one tries to claim it's out of context. Emphasis is mine.
Fareed Zakaria: When we talked when you were campaigning for the presidency, I asked you which Administration’s foreign policy you admired. And you said that you looked at George H.W. Bush’s diplomacy, and I took that to mean the pragmatism, the sense of limits, good diplomacy, as you looked upon it favorably. Now that you are President, how has your thinking evolved?

President Obama: It is true that I’ve been complimentary of George H.W. Bush’s foreign policy, and I continue to believe that he managed a very difficult period very effectively. Now that I’ve been in office for three years, I think that I’m always cautious about comparing what we’ve done to what others have done, just because each period is unique. Each set of challenges is unique. But what I can say is that I made a commitment to change the trajectory of American foreign policy in a way that would end the war in Iraq, refocus on defeating our primary enemy, al-Qaeda, strengthen our alliances and our leadership in multilateral fora and restore American leadership in the world. And I think we have accomplished those principal goals.

We still have a lot of work to do, but if you look at the pivot from where we were in 2008 to where we are today, the Iraq war is over, we refocused attention on al-Qaeda, and they are badly wounded. They’re not eliminated, but the defeat not just of [Osama] bin Laden, but most of the top leadership, the tightening noose around their safe havens, the incapacity for them to finance themselves, they are much less capable than they were back in 2008.

Our alliances with NATO, Japan, South Korea, our close military cooperation with countries like Israel have never been stronger. Our participation in multilateral organizations has been extremely effective. In the United Nations, not only do we have a voice, but we have been able to shape an agenda. And in the fastest-growing regions of the world in emerging markets in the Asia Pacific region, just to take one prominent example, countries are once again looking to the United States for leadership.

That’s not the exact same moment as existed post–World War II. It’s an American leadership that recognizes the rise of countries like China and India and Brazil. It’s a U.S. leadership that recognizes our limits in terms of resources, capacity. And yet what I think we’ve been able to establish is a clear belief among other nations that the United States continues to be the one indispensable nation in tackling major international problems.

And I think that there is a strong belief that we continue to be a superpower, unique perhaps in the annals of history, that is not only self-interested but is also thinking about how to create a set of international rules and norms that everyone can follow and that everyone can benefit from. So you combine all those changes, the United States is in a much stronger position now to assert leadership over the next century than it was only three years ago.

We still have huge challenges ahead. And one thing I’ve learned over the last three years is that as much as you’d like to guide events, stuff happens and you have to respond. And those responses, no matter how effective your diplomacy or your foreign policy, are sometimes going to produce less-than-optimal results. But our overall trajectory, our overall strategy, I think has been very successful.
Oh gosh.... Where to start? George H.W. Bush was the most anti-Israel President between Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama.

He hasn't ended the war in Iraq - he's removed the United States from it and squandered all that the United States had accomplished there. He's redefined the enemy as the al-Qaeda bogeyman, ignoring the fact that there are Islamic terrorist organizations like Hezbullah and Hamas, which feel just as warm and fuzzy about the US as al-Qaeda does. He pretends that there is no such thing as militant Islam.

Outrageously, he refers to 'allies' like the UN(!), Japan and South Korea, and military cooperation with 'countries like Israel.' Clearly, to Obama, Israel is something less than an ally. Even less than the UN. His assertions about the UN and about the US controlling its agenda would be laughable were they not leading to such disastrous consequences for the West.

Obama tries to pass on American leadership to countries like India, China and Brazil. That's simply outrageous, but it's in line with Obama's continuing denial of American exceptionalism. Quite simply, he believes that America is no different than anyone else, that it can't lead, that it can't innovate, and that it's just another middling power. But he says that thanks to his degrading of American capabilities, the US is in a better position to assert leadership in the future. Huh? Amazing.

Finally, 'stuff happens and you have to respond'? Doesn't a superpower (oh - Obama thinks the US is just a 'power') try to shape events?

He goes on to once again refuse to commit that Iran won't get a nuclear weapon (but that the US will 'do all we can' to stop them). What a disgrace....

You can all read the rest of it. What really got me was that he clearly doesn't consider Israel to be an ally, and that Israel's Jewish friends in the US are - as best as I can tell - ignoring that.

Why I'm Giving Newt a Pass on the Scarlet-A Factor

January 21, 2012

AMERICAN THINKER

By Kyle-Anne Shiver

Newt Gingrich is an adulterer many times over, which is old news.  The second Mrs. Gingrich, scorned in favor of the third Mrs. Gingrich, is in the process of spilling the sordid divorce beans in her long-stated goal of stopping Newt's climb to the presidency.
But I decided a couple of months ago to give Newt a pass on the Scarlet-A factor, and I seriously doubt there's a single thing an embittered ex-wife can say that will change my mind at this point.  Yes, I empathize with the 2nd Mrs. Gingrich.  Yes, I believe that adultery is a very serious offense.  Yes, I wish the man I am supporting for president had a perfect track record in all aspects of his life, both public and private.
I'm putting my country over the matron's sisterhood here, and a couple of my friends have already stared at me incredulously as I've explained my reasons.
How could I, outspoken defender of monogamy and premarital chastity, so compromise my own principles to vote for a man who has trashed his own wedding vows and, if he wins the presidency, would ensconce his former mistress as first lady?
Well, it's complicated.
For one thing, I don't see red-blooded, healthy, high-testosterone men through a set of 1950s June-Cleaver glasses.  Newt's a Boomer, for crying out loud.  He's a Boomer through and through, down to every one of his adulterous acts. 
We Boomers honestly did believe that sexual morality could be separated from all other spheres.  We heralded cohabitation as the commonsense precursor to healthy marriage.  We pushed the bounds of every sexual prohibition to its furthermost limits and insisted on the right to exterminate our young in the womb to offset female disadvantage.  We've embraced serial monogamy so enthusiastically that we've made it mainstream.  Kids from our broken families are everywhere now, and bonded step-families are now as commonplace as they were rare in June Cleaver's America.
In many ways, Newt Gingrich is us.  He is us in ways Mitt Romney doesn't even seem to know exist in the real world. 
Not all Boomers bought into this now-quite-blemished idea of separating our sex lives from all the rest in terms of morality, but more of us did than didn't.  And pretending that's not the case isn't going to put this Boomer-released genie back into its bottle.  America will have to depend upon the new generations' learning from our mistakes to even come close to doing that.  And I doubt seriously whether these young libertarians want to go back to straight-laced, Christian sexual morality enforced by law anyhow.
The point is this.  Newt Gingrich, like Bill Clinton, is a Boomer in this sexually liberated regard.  And right this very minute, there are as many women who identify with Callista Gingrich, the mistress who became a wife, as will identify with the formerly scorned ex.  In my own circle of close female friends, two of them were former mistresses. 
As Boomers, we would have to do a whole lot of Scarlet-A shunning to keep the marriage vow-breakers out of our midst.  Unfortunately, that would mean most of us Boomers would have fewer friends than we could count on one hand.  Amongst the younger generations, the only place where one can beam solidly on the side of chastity is at church on Sunday. 
At any rate, fair is fair, and since the 2nd Mrs. Gingrich is now nursing her divorce-grudge in public, the public needs to remember just how it was that Marianne came to be the second wife of Newt Gingrich.  She had an affair with him while he was still married to wife #1.  Exactly so, dear readers.  The second wife, now running to the press crying foul over Newt's adultery, was his mistress (in an adulterous affair) before she became his wife. 
Wife #1 was Newt's former high school math teacher, with whom he was having backseat sexual dalliances by the time he was only 16 years old.  When Newt was of age, he married his teacher, and they had two children.  Newt's only daughters have both defended their father in public, and it was their mother who was scorned for wife #2, Marianne, who is now doing all she can to turn a long-lost grudge match into the death knell for Newt's presidential aspirations.  A man who is able to keep the high regard of his daughters under such circumstance is a man worthy of second and third and fourth chances, in my opinion.
Let's not forget that Newt Gingrich is a Southerner.  And Southern men have long, long, long, long been known for their randy ways, which a great many of us women find as attractive as we find it nettlesome when we are ourselves scorned for more verdant female pastures. 
Whether South Carolina women will give Newt a pass on his hound-dog history is up in the air, but knowing Southern women as well as I do, I will bet that they will.   Many are thinking right this minute along the lines of Sarah Palin.  We've got bigger fish to fry at the moment, and when one's Country is on the line, it's no time to be indulging puritan fantasies about men.  Many women are thinking that we've got a once-married, publicly chaste president in the White House now, and it's not working out so well for America.   
Southern women are not idealists wearing rose-colored glasses, especially when it comes to men.  Even the most religious among us tend to see men as they are and not as we would wish them to be.  Even in the Antebellum South, women turned a willfully blind eye to a husband's sexual romps in favor of financial security and the social status of marriage.  Then, Civil War and Reconstruction deprivations only reinforced this already-strong survival instinct among Southern women, who quite often will put up with a mistress on the side and only get vengeful when the husband takes that mistress for his new wife.  Southern women tend to believe that it's as much a woman's duty to keep her man as it is a man's duty to remain in marital fealty.
So, I'm getting pretty darned fed up with men running around screaming that Newt will cause a gender gap so huge that it simply can't be ameliorated by other factors more important.  I'm planning to vote for Newt myself.  And I can guarantee you we women are a heck of a lot more complicated than this anyhow.
Actually, c-o-m-p-l-i-c-a-t-e-d doesn't even spell the half of it when it comes to women.  

Kyle-Anne Shiver is a frequent contributor to American Thinker and PJ Media.  She welcomes your comments at www.kyleanneshiver.com

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/why_im_giving_newt_a_pass_on_the_scarlet-a_factor.html#ixzz1k67t8o2F
 

ISRAEL: How close are those terrorists rockets? (see map)


IAF Targets Terrorist Squad In Response to Rocket Fire

In response to rocket fire, an IAF aircraft targeted a terrorist squad in the southern Gaza Strip. The squad fired rockets seconds before being targeted. A hit was confirmed.
Archive: IAF Targeting Terror Facilities, IDF, Gaza, Hamas, Rockets, rocket
Archive: IAF Targeting Terror Facilities (Photo: IDF Website)
Since the beginning of the year over 7 rockets, fired from Gaza, have hit Israel.
The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli civilians, and will operate against anyone who uses terror against the State of Israel. The Hamas terror organization is solely responsible for any terrorist activity emanating from the Gaza Strip.
Hamas Rocket Ranges
Rocket Ranges from the Gaza Strip

US Chief of Staff visits Israel on confidence-building mission

ANNE'S OPINIONS
US Chief of Staff Martin Dempsey with Israeli Chief of Staff Benny Gantz
US Chief of Staff Martin Dempsey with Israeli Chief of Staff Benny Gantz
If there is one phrase that makes me more uneasy than “we’re from the government and we are here to help you”, it is “we are from the United States Government and we are here to reassure you”.  I have no doubt that the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey is sincere in his pronouncements; I am just rather wary of the Obama Administration’s motives in sending him to Israel at this specific time with this specific message, especially as it is no secret that the Americans would like Israel to hold off on attacking Iran.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, began his round of meetings with Israel’s top military and political leadership on Friday with a clear message – coordination and dialogue is the key to improving Israel’s security standing in the region.
“We have many interests in common in the region in this very dynamic time and the more we can continue to engage each other, the better off we’ll all be,” Dempsey told IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz and Defense Minister Ehud Barak at the beginning of their meeting at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv on Friday. Barak responded saying, “There is never a dull moment. That I can promise you”.
Dempsey also assured Gantz of US commitment to Israel: “The simplest message of all, my presence here, I hope reflects the commitment we have with each other and I’m here to assure you that’s the case.”
“I do know that both our countries share the same interests and values, and I’m sure that we can somehow work it out together,” Gantz said to his US counterpart earlier in the conversation, seemingly referring to the issue of the Iranian nuclear threat.
Dempsey, the US’s most senior military officer, arrived in Israel late Thursday night for talks that are aimed at getting the IDF and the government to put the brakes on plans to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. The US is hoping that Israel will move attack plans to the back burner and give diplomacy and sanctions more time to have an effect on the Iranian regime.
The US army chief’s visit comes amid rising tension between Jerusalem and Washington over Israeli frustration with the US and Europe’s reluctance to impose tougher economic sanctions on Iran.
He is expected to try and reassure Israel that the Obama administration is committed to stopping Iran’s nuclear program, even if it ultimately comes down to using military force. Top US officials have recently said that the US will not allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon.
While there are differences between the countries as to the type of steps that need to be taken to stop Iran, both Israel and the US share the same intelligence assessments regarding the status of Iran’s nuclear program.
In related news, it appears that the huge joint US-Israel missile defense exercise, due to have taken place in the spring but whose postponement (not cancellation apparently) was announced earlier this week, was delayed at Israel’s request.
According to Jeffrey Goldberg:
Despite claims made in the Israeli press that the Obama Administration, worried about provoking Iran, initiated a postponement of a massive joint Israeli-U.S. missile defense exercise scheduled to begin later this month, Pentagon officials say it was the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, who asked his counterpart, Leon Panetta, for the postponement. The claim that the exercise, dubbed “Austere Challenge 12,” was scrubbed from the calendar because the Obama Administration feared provoking the Iranian regime is “baseless,” one senior Pentagon official told me just a few minutes ago, in a telephone call initiated by a group of senior defense officials.
One of the senior defense officials told me this: “Minister Barak called Secretary Panetta and asked if we could take the exercise off the calendar. The Israelis were concerned that they did not have the resources in place to carry it out effectively.” The exercise, which was to begin with a live-fire drill, would have involved several thousand Israelis as well as several thousand American military personnel, and Barak told Panetta, according to these officials, that Israel could not pull together the resources necessary to stage the exercise successfully. “Our military is much bigger than theirs and this exercise was going to consume a much larger portion of their resources,” the official said.
Jeffrey Goldberg further reports that Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren confirmed this report.
These are definitely unsettling times. It would be proper to improve coordination of sensitive declarations like these to avoid giving a morale-boost to our enemies.
About "Anne's Opinions" ... My family, life in Israel, pro-Israel activism and monitoring the media on the web
Bee' s Note:
It is all too easy to assume we know what Israelis think and how Israel will act in any given situation, but far more important to listen to Israel's citizens speak, in order to grasp a better understanding of issues and the politics behind the ever-present dangers facing Israel.
There has been much news this week about the US Chief of Staff visiting Israel and the purpose behind that visit (most supporters of Israel can guess...), but there is a report from DEBKA that would be an interesting read -US acts to hold Israel back from striking Iran. Their intel agencies at odds.  Hmm!  Sounds like a good reason for the US Chief of Staff to visit Israel.  And, in yesterday's report, also by DebkaNetanyahu: Iran has decided to become a nuclear state. Action needed before it is too late.
According to PM Netanyahu's concerns about Iran, my guess is that Israel and the US are not on the same page; there cannot be a "mutual" agreement, when Iran's on the verge of obtaining their nuclear capabilities with the danger of attacking Tel Aviv before an eye can blink, and the rest of the West and European leaders wish to give Iran more time to stall, by promising "talks", as the sanctions, oil embargoes, etc and etc. have not prevented Iran from working in those caves, happily preparing to announce she's "got the bomb"!   
I am as suspicious (and a little nervous) about this latest of visits from the US to Israel and for good reason:  to-date, has anything come out of this Obama Administration that actually supports Israel's right to defend herself, doesn't split up her land or send her back to 1967 borders; or, accuses her of not being willing to "get to the damn table"?!  Where's that "mutual commitment" Dempsey is stressing to Israel?
Ask yourself: If Mexico threatened to blow up Washington, DC, claimed to be momentarily prepared to do so with a nuclear weapon, would the US appreciate visits from foreign leaders advising us to "hold off", "be patient", "after all, we're with you 100%", "don't worry, be happy",  would the US government hold back, or would it say, "Hey guys, our lives are on the line and those threats are not idol threats, so either you help us or get out of the way" ...??!