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POPS Lucid Links 11.09.09 Only when you get to Obama’s page do you learn that Obama a) wasn’t president, and b) didn’t make any speech at the site of the Wall last year when he campaigned for the U.S. presidency in Europe. In remembrance on the 8th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on Washington and New York, our president …. sent Joe Biden to Ground Zero in New York City. Deliberate ignorance: The British press was out front (HT Hot Air) in telling the world that the perpetrator of the Fort Hood attack “worshiped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a ’spiritual adviser’ to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001.” That the attack was jihad-inspired is not open to real dispute. Meanwhile, the PC-addled American press does all it can to minimize the enormity (HT Mark Finkelstein at NewsBusters) of what occurred at Fort Hood and makes excuses for the perpetrator, even to the point of claiming that he might (even though he never experienced
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POPSNo Bundler Left Behind in exchange for pledges to donate $30,400 personally or to bundle $300,000 in contributions ahead of the 2010 midterm elections.” Yup, they’re just haggling over the price. Many Obama bundlers have secured slots on federal advisory panels and commissions. Still more have benefited from the time-honored patronage tradition of rewarding political benefactors with ambassadorships. Clinton did it. Bush did it. And despite all his fantastical, Balloon Boy-level rhetoric of bringing a “new politics” to Washington, Obama’s done it, too. His ambassador to London, Louis Susman, is a Chicago crony with no diplomatic experience who bundled between $200,000 and $500,000 for Team Obama and is known as “The Vacuum Cleaner” for his fundraising prowess. His ambassador to France, entertainment mogul Charlie Rivkin headed up Obama’s California fundraising operations, raking in $500,000 for the campaign and another $300,000 for the inaugural. His ambassador to Spain, Boston money
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POPSTime To Man Up, Barry
The sentence for Kian Tajbakhsh was the longest prison term yet in a mass trial of more than 100 opposition figures, activists and journalists in the post election turmoil. The longest sentence so far, yet news accounts offer no explanation as to what Mr. Tajbakhsh did to deserve arrest, let alone a 12 year sentence. Apparently he was arrested at his home, not at a demonstration. News of his sentence was coupled with reports of lenient treatment given to a Canadian citizen: At the same time, Iran allowed another defendant to leave the country--Canadian-Iranian Maziar Bahari, a Newsweek journalist arrested in the same crackdown who had been freed on bail over the weekend. Bahari joined his British wife, who is in the last days of her pregnancy, in London, Newsweek said on its Web site Tuesday. It could be a coincidence. But news accounts certainly raise a question whether the mullahs are publicly sticking their finger in the Obama administration's eye, letting a Canadian go . .
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POPS The Truth May Be … Out There Anyway, I don’t know if there was a publicity-grabbing hoax plotted, or if an opportunity was seized on the fly, or if it all innocently happened the way Balloon Dad says it did. But whatever happened yesterday, I have a sneaking suspicion the flying Jiffy Pop balloon was not originally conceived, built and being tested as an innovative commuting vehicle. It’s not for nothing Shepard Smith and everyone else was comparing that thing to a UFO yesterday. Maybe, like the Richard Dreyfuss character in ”Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” Richard Heene was just strangely compelled to make his experimental 3DLAV commuting device look like a traditional Roswell-inspired flying saucer hoax.
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POPSAmnesty Now! Let’s play a hypothetical game. Let us assume that Gutierrez’s bill passes, and he achieves his major goal of a general amnesty. The 12 million aliens currently residing in the country illegally suddenly find themselves free to stay, become card-carrying members of the Democratic Party, and live happily ever after. What happens to the next person who steals across the border? History has shown us that, after an amnesty, the rate of illegal border crossings increases. After the last amnesty bill in 1986, the US experienced a flood of new illegal aliens crossing the border. In the twenty-year period between 1985 and 2005, the number of illegal residents soared from an estimated 2-3 million to about 11 million. It is only human nature that, upon hearing of an amnesty, people would, predictably, risk all to come to the US by any means and simply wait out their chance in the hopes of catching the next one.
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POPS Debacle in Moscow by Charles Krauthammer And what's come from Obama's single most dramatic foreign policy stroke -- the sudden abrogation of missile defense arrangements with Poland and the Czech Republic that Russia had virulently opposed? For the East Europeans it was a crushing blow, a gratuitous restoration of Russian influence over a region that thought it had regained independence under American protection. But maybe not gratuitous. Some brilliant secret trade-off to get strong Russian support for stopping Iran from going nuclear before it's too late? Just wait and see, said administration officials, who then gleefully played up an oblique statement by President Dmitry Medvedev a week later as vindication of the missile defense betrayal. The Russian statement was so equivocal that such a claim seemed a ridiculous stretch at the time. Well, Clinton went to Moscow this week to nail down the deal. What did she get? "Russia Not Budging On Iran Sanctions: Clinton Unable to Sway Counterpart."
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POPSPoll: Obama Personal Popularity at New Low Gallup points out that in this latest survey, Hillary Clinton is now more popular than Obama. Sixty-two percent say they have a favorable impression of the Secretary of State, versus 34 percent who have an unfavorable impression. That's a big change from the height of the battle for the Democratic nomination last year; in February 2008, just 48 percent had a favorable impression of Mrs. Clinton, versus 49 percent who had an unfavorable impression. By: Byron York Chief Political Correspondent 10/15/09
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POPSRussia Refuses Call For Tougher Sanctions On Iran, They Would Be “Counterproductive” President Barack Obama " who visited Russia in July " has vowed to “reset” U.S.-Russia relations. Beyond Iran, Lavrov said U.S. and Russia negotiators have made “considerable” progress toward reaching agreement on a new strategic arms treaty. The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires in December and negotiators have been racing to reach agreement on a successor. The two diplomats also discussed possible cooperation on missile defense following Obama’s decision not to proceed with Bush-administration plans to base such a system in eastern Europe. Russia has welcomed Obama’s new approach, but has said it was eager for more detailed information. Clinton said the U.S. would be as transparent as possible. “We want to ensure that every question that the Russian military or Russian government asks is answered,” she said, calling missile defense “another area for deep cooperation between our countries.”
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POPS“Robert Reich, Death Panel Aficionado” What was truly sick about this whole thing was how the young people cheered the news that the older generation would be cut off from health care treatments (for them and others to reap the rewards). One has to wonder, if government controlled health care was so bad only 2 years ago, why is it all of a sudden a good thing now? To what lengths will these people go to hide the truth today regarding something they rightfully shunned not long ago? How far will these cretins in the Political Industrial Complex go in saying whatever it takes to gain power? When will they be honest to the American people, as Reich claims he was being in 2007? H/T Newsbusters
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POPSTentative Inspection Program Would Allow Russia to Visit U.S. Nuclear Sites "We want to ensure that every question that the Russian military or Russian government asks is answered," she said, calling missile defense "another area for deep cooperation between ourcountries." On another critical issue, Lavrov declared that it would be counterproductive to threaten Iran with more sanctions over its nuclear program -- as he resisted efforts by Clinton to win agreement for tougher measures should Iran fail to prove its program is peaceful. Clinton visited Moscow on her first trip since becoming America's top diplomat, in an effort to gauge Moscow's willingness to join the U.S. in imposing sanctions. Clinton said the U.S. agreed it was important to pursue diplomacy with Iran. "At the same time that we are very vigorously pursuing this track, we are aware that we might not be as successful as we need to be, so we have always looked at the potential of sanctions in the event we are not successful and cannot assure ourselves . . .
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POPSShip of Fools: Obama's Intimates and Advisors A sampling of President Barack Hussein Obama's morally bankrupt White House "Brain Trust" 1. Valerie Jarrett - Jarrett served in the administration of Chicago Mayor Harold Washington (who, prior to his election, failed to file income tax returns for 19 years and during it maintained dubious Socialist ties) as well as in the scandal-ridden, current Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. 2. Patrick Gaspard - Prior to coming on board as President Obama's right-hand man, Mr. Gaspard was a registered federal lobbyist for the SEIU - the union members (thugs?) called-in by the Administration to run interference (sometimes violent) between Democrat members of Congress who support ObamaCare and their own constituents. Prior to that, Gaspard worked for ACORN - 3. Eric Holder- "In 1999, over the objections of the FBI, the Bureau of Prisons, and prosecuting attorneys, Holder supported Clinton's commutation of the sentences of 16 FALN conspirators.
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POPSAnalysis: Al Qaeda is The Tip of The Jihadist Spear Indeed, al Qaeda leaders have long recognized that Mullah Omar is firmly behind them. Abdullah Sa'id, an al Qaeda commander who leads its “Shadow Army,” has openly mocked the idea that Mullah Omar would betray al Qaeda now. “US and Western sources talk about their readiness to accept the Taliban in the Afghan future political structure should it leave the Al Qaeda," he has said. But that is not reality, Sa'id explained: “However, these sources close the eyes to the fact that Mullah Mohammad Omar has lost his throne upon his refusal to hand over one person who is Osama bin Laden. Thus, will Mullah Mohammad Omar agree to a condition which he refused when he used to rule and when the United States was at the top of its might, and accept it now while he is on the threshold of a victory over his enemies?” Sa'id’s calculation is plain. Mullah Omar would not agree to turn over bin Laden when he was faced with the prospect of imminent annihilation.
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POPS Universal Health Care Mecca In the past, I paid attention to the health care debate as a speechwriter who prepared speeches, talking points, op-eds, and debate prep material on the topic at different times for John Edwards, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and others. Now, I'm paying attention because I'm a citizen up the creek without a paddle. Since I care more about my country than my personal pride, here's how I lost my insurance: I moved. That's right, I moved from Washington, D.C., back to Massachusetts, a state with universal health care. In D.C., I had a policy with a national company, an HMO, and surprisingly I was very happy with it. I had a fantastic primary care doctor at Georgetown University Hospital. As a self-employed writer, my premium was $225 a month, plus $10 for a dental discount. In Massachusetts, the cost for a similar plan is around $550, give or take a few dollars. My risk factors haven't changed. I didn't stop writing and become a stunt double. I don't smoke.
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POPSMore Evidence of Obama Fatuous Fabrications of His 'Work' Experience During the campaign, advertisements touted that Obama "passed" three bills, without identifying where they were passed (U.S. Senate, Illinois Senate?). In fact, Obama did not pass three bills. That is what a legislature does and in this case, the three bills were passed by the Illinois Senate-a far less notable accomplishment than had the bills been passed in the U.S. Senate. Newsweek details the fabrication: The first bill that's cited is the 1997 law that created the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program in Illinois. The ad claims Obama "passed a law to move people from welfare to work, slashed the rolls by 80 percent." That's going too far. First, the law in question wasn't dreamed up out of thin air by its sponsors. It was the follow-up to the welfare reform act, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, that President Clinton signed on Aug. 26, 1996. That law gave states the ability to design their own welfare programs as long as they met . . .
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POPS Chicago’s “Good Times” Canceled: DynOmite! All I have to say is, where the hell were our international protocol and intelligence teams? Why didn’t someone over at the State Department tell us about this Danish policy before we put everything on the line to bring the Olympic games to the capital of Pay-To-Play cities? We just assumed that we would be treated to the same fawning adulation and deference we get in the USA: the country that invented free speech. We arrived with soaring expectations, only to have the whole thing blow up in our face. Thanks, State, once again. I’m beginning to think that Hillary didn’t really want that job. Insults are under threat in many countries. The World Press Freedom Committee earlier this year published a survey, "The Right to Offend, Shock or Disturb," which details how laws against insults are being used to squelch free speech, including opposition to the government. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704471504574451712299324476.html
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POPSPresident Obama: “My Image Is More Important Than Iranian Nukes” Addendum: Truly, this man wanted the spotlight instead of sending the message, given is lame excuse: But Mr Obama did not want to “spoil the image of success” of his disarmament session, which passed a resolution to work towards a nuclear-free world and a host of measures designed to control the spread of nuclear weapons and reduce existing stocks. How could challenging Iran’s hidden nuclear facilities collide with his image of fighting the spread of nuclear weapons? The two dovetail nicely, and he would have picked up the respect of the hard liners here and abroad. Clearly, this presidency is all about ‘me’ (the imperial ‘me’ of course). And I thought Clinton was self absorbed.
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POPSIn Crazy American Dictatorship Prediction News He was the most intelligent person we’ve had in that position for a long time. But he’s inexperienced … “ “Most intelligent for a long time” seems like a bit of stretch. Even so, old codgers, if they know nothing else, usually know that having intelligence without experience is like knowing how roller skates work without ever having been on them. That’s why they’re always grousing about young whippersnappers. Vidal’s example shows it’s never too late to learn from your mistakes, though when you read on, you’ll see he hasn’t. Meanwhile, in other crazy American dictatorship predictions, there’s this guy on the right side of the aisle who also thinks U.S. military officers will be staging a coup soon. The column by John L. Perry, who I managed to avoid encountering before he lost his mind, got yanked by NewsMax but most of it is here at The Moderate Voice. http://themoderatevoice.com/48019/newsmax-calls-for-a-military-coup-in-u-s/
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POPSA Conversation With Gore Vidal Unfolds: ‘We’ll Have A Dictatorship Soon In The US’ He has crossed every boundary, I say. “Crashed many barriers,” he corrects me. Last year he famously switched allegiance from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama during the Democratic nomination process for president. Now, he reveals, he regrets his change of heart. How’s Obama doing? “Dreadfully. I was hopeful. He was the most intelligent person we’ve had in that position for a long time. But he’s inexperienced. He has a total inability to understand military matters. He’s acting as if Afghanistan is the magic talisman: solve that and you solve terrorism.” America should leave Afghanistan, he says. “We’ve failed in every other aspect of our effort of conquering the Middle East or whatever you want to call it.” The “War on Terror” was “made up”, Vidal says. “The whole thing was PR, just like ‘weapons of mass destruction’. It has wrecked the airline business, which my father founded in the 1930s.
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POPSObama to Meet High-Powered Aides for Afghan Review were the top ranking civilian officials expected for a bracing session on a war some supporters fear could swamp Obama's presidency. War commander General Stanley McChrystal, who warned in a leaked report that the conflict could be lost within a year without more troops, was also due to to take part, either in person or by video link-up, the White House said. Other top military brass included were General David Petraeus who heads US central command, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis Blair. CIA chief Leon Panetta was also due to take part, along with Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as the US ambassadors to Islamabad and Kabul. Obama warned after meeting NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Tuesday that the United States could not fight the battle in Afghanistan alone, in remarks apparently aimed at European partners.
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POPS Obamlet What any prosecutor or defense attorney will tell you about jury deliberations … how long they’re out doesn’t necessarily tell you anything. It could mean they are trying really hard to convince themselves that abandonment will work … and to find a way to convince America and the world that an easy out is the considered, sensible thing to do. Or it could be that they know what they need to do, they are just afraid to do it. Afraid of the consequences of angering their anti-war lefty base, afraid of remaining committed to a war with a horizon past 2010 and 2012. But that’s about as charitable and optimistic a view as is possible, and assumes they actually want to find a way to do the right thing. Unfortunately, there has been little to indicate that is what they are interested in doing. What makes this less like jury deliberations and more like a Shakespearean tragedy, though, is that every now and then, a major player sticks his head out to shout something.
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POPSBREITBART: Podesta Spends Soros' Money Stupidly Mr. Obama, under siege by a video-a-day expose that was exposing the Democratic Party to an avalanche of consequences (ACORN defunded in the House and Senate, ACORN delinked from the census, etc.), needed advice from the last president to navigate through a major political scandal. On this day, neither the president or the former president, nor the media knew how many more videos were coming. The next day, Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta, the Democratic Party’s top fix-it guy with control over much of the left’s well-funded vast attack machinery (think George Soros, the Tides Foundation, et al.), was among a small advisory group placed in charge of investigating the matter. With the mainstream media continuing to ignore the evidence on the tapes, Mr. Podesta is now clearly in charge of feeding them information about his well-structured investigation into the investigators. The ACORN internal probe is a “war room” aimed at destroying the messengers and is not meant , , ,
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POPS Podesta Says Value-Added Tax ‘More Plausible’ as Deficits Grow a Washington-based public policy group, is convening a meeting of economic policy experts Sept. 30 to discuss the long- term fiscal deficit. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in August that the budget deficit will be 11.2 percent of gross domestic product, the highest since World War II. Clinton, facing a deficit of 4.2 percent of GDP, pushed Congress to raise taxes on the wealthy to help trim the shortfall. “He passed it without a single Republican vote,” Podesta said. “It led to the longest period of growth in the United States history.” Ending Tax Cuts Podesta said Obama will begin by ending the upper-income tax cuts enacted under his predecessor, President George W. Bush. “Then you have to look at whether that gets you far enough of the way,” he said. On health care, Podesta expressed optimism that Congress will pass a health-care bill in the next couple of months even though so far none of the measures has won Republican support and Democrats . .
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POPSACORN's Corporate Donors Backing Off Banks and other financial institutions have given millions of dollars and other forms of support to ACORN for decades in response to boycott threats from the organization, as well as accusations of racism and other forms of discrimination in granting personal loans and mortgages. The ACORN campaigns followed passage of the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which was designed to pressure financial institutions to loosen lending standards in order to increase home ownership among poor and minority communities. Legislation strengthening CRA during the Clinton administration greatly encouraged such ACORN activities. Dissident current and former officials of ACORN claim that donations made to AHC and other affiliates are often misappropriated. “There’s no guarantee that any donations are going where they are supposed to be going,” said Ron Sykes, treasurer of the Washington D.C. ACORN and a member of the ACORN 8.
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POPS"Architects of Ruin" throw out common sense and decades of experience in order to make loans that were almost certain to go unpaid. The effort was launched during the Carter administration but really gained momentum and a head of steam during the Clinton years. (GOPers shouldn't feel too smug as the Bush administration continued and even expanded the practice). "Architects of Ruin" can be advance-ordered now on Amazon.com. No doubt, it will generate a flood of negative reviews from liberals in the mainstream media and their allies in the political and academic worlds in part because of sensational tidbits like the fact White House Chief of Staff was paid "more than $46,000 an hour as a board member for Freddie Mac ." What caught my eye today, though, concerns a little known fact about a long-forgotten class-action lawsuit filed in 1994 by three young trial lawyers, one of whom just happens to be sitting in the Oval Office today as president.
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POPSAnalysis: Why Everyone Is Saying No To Obama The only thing Obama did manage to get Bibi and Abbas to say yes to is a photo-op at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in NY. Mazel tov. So why is everyone saying no to Obama? It's the economy, stupid. Everyone has worked it out by now: The great secret is out. America's economy has made Obama a weak president, and he will likely remain weak throughout his first term. He has about two years to pull the American economy out of its free-fall before he begins his reelection campaign. If he can do it, and that's a big if, chances are good that he'll get reelected, and in his second term he can try to pull some geopolitical strings. But for the next three years, expect to see a world that says no to Obama. No meaningful and dramatic diplomatic initiative can come out of the White House in the next three years, as long as Obama remains weak. And that's a real pity, because there are some serious and imminent issues that need to be addressed.
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POPSSunday Morning Talk Shows Schedule: ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN If there’s one thing this White House doesn’t seem worried about, it is that Americans will get tired of seeing President Obama. His talk-show marathon will come after the speech on Wall Street today and a rally in Maryland later this week. The appearances will come at the end of a week in which the Senate Finance Committee will presumably have proposed its long-awaited version of a health care bill; the White House’s consideration of this idea suggests just how pivotal time this is in the health care negotiations. It’s also a reminder of just how much Mr. Obama is out there. As of his seven-month in office mark in August, he had done 114 interviews, compared to 37 by former President George W. Bush and 41 by former president Bill Clinton at a similar point in their administrations, according to Martha Joynt Kumar, a political science professor at Towson University in Maryland.
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POPSMarch on Washington Regardless, the timing of last night’s hastily arranged speech before a joint session of Congress was weird. Such special sessions are themselves weird, exceedingly rare forums usually reserved for dramatic effect, like when Presidents declare war. The glaring exception, it seems, was Bill Clinton’s ill-fated, pen-wagging veto threat to Congress if they failed to pass his (Hillary’s) health care plan. So why did Obama do it? Why now? According to USA Today before his speech, “the ever more noisy opposition to his health care objectives has had one result: It prompted Obama’s decision to address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday in an effort to regain momentum on the issue.” So the President wants to have another argument with the voters. He already has ridiculed publicly citizens who have the audacity to disagree, like the lady who asked him to keep government out of her Medicare. (Maybe she was referring to his proposed $500 billion . . .
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POPSIs Obama’s “Czar System” Grounds For Impeachment? Was this what the Framers intended when they created the three branches of our government with all the checks and balances? I am no lawyer, and obviously not a Constitutional one, but it strikes me there is a problem here. And it could be very embarrassing to Mr. Obama. No doubt this is why, as Byron York points out, the mainstream media has been so reluctant to cover this story, only the WaPo and CBS chiming in at this point, although they were late to the party and relatively perfunctory. Had Bush appointed thirty-one czars outside the normal Congressional approval system the MSM would have been all over it like the proverbial wet suit, declaring a coup d’etat in the making. But, as of now, the MSM has imposed omerta. It is Labor Day weekend. We shall see what happens next week. UPDATE: Now that Van Jones has stepped, not surprisingly the NYT has commented " but without any acknowledgment that they had ignored the story. But what is interesting is that . . . .
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POPS O-Bomba And who will the voters target to register their displeasure? The only signal they can send is a congressional drubbing of historic proportions in 2010 " and they seemed poised to do just that.
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POPSStealth ObamaCare Part I Hidden in "Stimulus" Bill industry (health care) failed. It wasn't just a massive back lash from we the people, but because she was advised it would not pass a constitutional challenge. Now that the American people are beaten down with massive government regulations that ruined the finest health care system in this world and a population that is sick and dying, the shadow government is making another attempt to take over another private sector, even though the U.S. Constitution forbids such legislation . "The underlying method of cutting costs throughout the plan is based on rationing and denying care, not preventing health care need. The plan's method is the most inhumane and unethical approach in cutting costs. The rationing of care is implemented through a Council, equivalent to the National Health Care Board in the British Health Care System. The name given to this panel is The Federal Coordinating Council For Comparative Effectiveness Research (“Federal Council”).
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POPSCyber-Security Bill Permits President to "Seize Temporary Control of Private Sector Networks During A So-Called... Emergency The bill would allow the president to unilaterally declare "a cybersecurity emergency" for non-governmental computer networks in order to respond to a threat. Other sections of the bill go even further: they proscribe government-controlled certification programs that license computer security professionals. And it goes on to demand that certain, privately-owned computer systems and networks be managed only by those professionals who have achieved the federal certification. In all seriousness: if you were elected President and wanted to transform the U.S. into a third-world banana republic like Venezuela, how would your policies differ from those of Obama?
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POPSU.S. Aid to Honduras Moves Toward Formal Cut Off Where's The Thanks? Posted 08/21/2009 INVESTOR.com Allies: Tiny Honduras last week handed over a Syrian death merchant to face justice in the U.S. That's right: The same 'coup-government' the Obama administration reviles is one of the very few helping us fight terror. As shadowy moneymen in the terror underworld go, not many are as unsavory as Jamal Yousef, an ex-Syrian military man turned terrorist arms supplier. Three years ago in Honduras, undercover U.S. agents caught him trying to sell 100 AR-15 assault rifles, 100 M-16 assault rifles, 10 M-60 machine guns, C-4 explosives, 2,500 hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and as many as 18 surface-to-air missiles to Colombia's FARC Marxist narcoterrorists. His price? A ton of cocaine, something he knew how to "move." Honduran cops put him away for petty charges, but he did only three years in prison that ended this week. Instead of letting him walk, the Honduran government put him on a plane bound for New York
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POPSHow Barack Obama Played the Race Card and Blamed Hillary Clinton February 27, 2008 The Obama mass mailings also attempt to appeal to Ohio's labor vote by claiming that Clinton believed that the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, was a "'boon' to our economy." More falsehood: In fact, Clinton had not said that; Newsday originally applied the word "boon" and has now noted the Obama campaign's distortion. In this campaign, Clinton has called for a moratorium on all trade agreements until they are made consistent with labor and environmental standards-- Ignoring all that, the Obama flyer features an alarming photograph of closed plant gates, having no connection to any action of Senator Clinton's, as well as the dubious quotation about her from Newsday in 2006. Newsday has criticized "Obama's use of the quotation" as "misleading ... an example of the kind of slim reeds campaigns use to try and win an office." As insidious as these tactics are, though, the Obama campaign's most effective . . . . .
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POPSRahm Emmanuel Runs the White House; But Who’s Running Rahm? But President Obama’s campaign veterans still blamed him* for spreading harsh attacks against their candidate in the primary showdown with Mrs. Clinton last year. So Mr. Emanuel talked with Mrs. Clinton. *Mr. Blumenthal was out. Perhaps nothing illustrates how far Mr. Emanuel has come than that conversation last month. Sixteen years ago, it was Mrs. Clinton, then first lady, who helped have Mr. Emanuel demoted as a senior official in Bill Clinton’s White House after he ruffled feathers with his aggressive style. Now all these years later, it is Mr. Emanuel telling Mrs. Clinton what she cannot do as a member of the cabinet. Seven months after moving into his office in the West Wing, Emanuel is emerging as perhaps the most influential White House chief of staff in a generation. But with his prominence in almost everything important going on in Washington comes a high degree of risk. As the principal author of Mr. Obama’s do-everything-at-once strategy, he stands to
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POPSTurnabout Is Unfair! This opposition cannot be appeased. Some pundits claim that Mr. Obama has polarized the country by following too liberal an agenda. But the truth is that the attacks on the president have no relationship to anything he is actually doing or proposing. Ha. A little ironic, coming from a guy whose big complaint with Obama is that he isn’t socialist enough. What’s great is how well it works if you sub in “Bush,” ”1999,” ”Republican” and “enraged left” for “Obama,” ”2007,” ”Democrat” and “enraged right.” The difference is Bush actually did engage in extensive bipartisanship and didn’t attempt to ice out the opposition, right up to the end. Is it just me or is anyone else astonished that this Nobel laureate economist can’t do basic math? Not that big a surprise a guess, when you consider that the Nobel crowd gives out peace prizes to terrorists and end-time alarmists.
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POPSBill Made Her Do It * No cruel remarks about how the Chicago native who spent most of her adult life in Arkansas got elected to the Senate from New York, please.
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POPSPawn Swapping In peril in Pyongyang? How jailed female journalists were in greater danger sharing a plane with Bill Clinton The story has all the ingredients of a Hollywood blockbuster. Two beautiful girls in peril, an evil North Korean dictator holding them captive and, riding to the rescue, Slick Willy himself, former President Bill Clinton. As journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee collapsed, sobbing tears of joy, into the arms of their relieved families after being pardoned from a sentence of 12 years’ hard labour in North Korea, their palpable relief was perhaps enhanced by the flood of lucrative film, book and interview offers that came pouring in. The pair had been arrested on the North Korea-China border last March, accused of illegal entry and spying. Then, last Wednesday, the silver-tongued Clinton burst back on to the global political scene by flying to the world’s most secretive state for what its regime described as ‘sincere and exhaustive discussions’
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POPSObama "Blind-Date" May Fail By Daniel Henninger Here is the biggest confusion, and for many Obama voters it’s reality check No. 2: For years, Democratic politicians said the health-care problem was about “47 million uninsured Americans.” Whatever the merits, many people were willing to do something for those with no health insurance. Suddenly, these voters discovered that ObamaCare is about them. When did that happen? Every policy wonk in America may have known this was always an everybody-into-the-pool proposal, and Mr. Obama has talked himself blue saying people could stay with the insurance they’ve got or the doctor they’ve got, “if you’re happy with that” and don’t like the public option. A lot of people simply don’t believe this. How come? White House adviser David Axelrod said this week, “Our job is to help folks understand how this will help them.” It could be they’ve already thought about that. For many people, the first six Obama months already have been an unsettling Dantesque tour through levels . . . .
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POPSObama's "Read my lips. No more taxes." Then Obama's National Economic Council director Lawrence Summers likewise said when asked about the middle-class tax hike on "Meet the Press" that it was "never a good idea to absolutely rule things out, no matter what." That's because Geithner and Summers both know that Obama's health care proposal is not a stand-alone item. In addition to unfunded Social Security and Medicare entitlements, bailouts and stimulus spending have already pushed the national debt to $37,813 for every man, woman and child in America. According to the IRS, the top 5 percent - which includes households earning more than $160,041 - already pays 60 percent of all federal income taxes. Even former Clinton Treasury official Leonard Burman admitted in a New York Times oped that "this idea that everything new that government provides ought to be paid for by the top 5 percent, that's a basically unstable way of governing." White House spokesman Robert Gibbs furiously backpedaled Monday . . . . .
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POPSSenator Asks Clinton to Explain Honduran Policy he said. (Sen. Lugar) Washington has cut $16.5 million in aid to Honduras and this week revoked diplomatic visas for four members of Micheletti's administration to pressure it to reverse the coup. Micheletti on Wednesday night released a statement calling for new efforts to resolve the country's political crisis. But Zelaya's representative in Washington, Eduardo Enrique Reina, told Reuters he thought Micheletti was simply trying to gain time with the statement, noting that Micheletti's aides in Honduras are still vowing not to let Zelaya return. "We will ask the U.S. government to step up the pressure on Micheletti," Zelaya's ambassador told Reuters.
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