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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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POPS Washington and the Jobs Market The larger measure of joblessness that includes marginal and part-time workers jumped 0.5% to 17.5%. And the average hours worked in a week stayed the same at 33.0, which means that millions of Americans working part-time will have to become full-time before employers start hiring new workers. If Democrats really want to create jobs and save themselves from a debacle in 2010, their best policy option is to stop creating so much investment uncertainty and additional barriers to business hiring. Stop trying to raise business costs by making it easier to unionize via "card check." Stop trying to raise energy costs with a cap-and-tax bill. Stop adding to the deficit and future tax burden with a 12% increase in domestic spending for 2010. Above all, stop trying to ram through Congress on a partisan vote a health-care bill that imposes a 5.4-percentage-point income tax "surcharge" on anyone making more than $500,000 a year......
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POPSMajor Malik Nadal Hasan.......But First A “Shout Out” to Obama’s Bud No reason I can’t go golfing, shoot some hoops, and hit the town with Michelle. President Bush used to break into tears when addressing soldiers and was reviled as a stone-hearted warmonger; Donald Rumsfeld was demonized for using a machine to sign notification letters to fallen soldiers’s next-of-kin. President Obama gives out rounds of virtual fist-bumps to his buds before even mentioning a slaughter of American soldiers, perpetrated by Americans, in mid-America. We desperately need an adult in the White House. Sadly, today’s press conference proves we do not have one. (Incidentally, the shooter " who killed 12 people with two handguns " is reportedly an adherent of the Religion of Peace who was incensed about being sent to war.)
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POPS The Obama Work-Out War-weary Obama manages a decision … more golf! Boston Herald: WASHINGTON - President Obama has outperformed former President George Bush in a key area - he’s hit the links as many times in nine months as Bush did in nearly three years, political Web sites reported. Politico, a political news and gossip site, and the Chicago Tribune’s The Swamp, reported that CBS’ Mark Knoller - who documents presidential statistics - Tweeted Sunday, “Today - Obama ties Pres. Bush in the number of rounds of golf played in office: 24. Took Bush 2 yrs & 10 months.” The Swamp noted that after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Bush quit golf, saying, “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf . . . I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal . . . ” Come on, guys. Iraq was different. That was Bush’s war. Afghanistan? That’s Bush’s other war! http://www.julescrittenden.com/2009/10/27/golf-for-we-not-for-thee/
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POPS Bush Bad Most important, the American people will quickly lose faith in a war that they conclude their Commander in Chief is ambivalent about fighting. Reports of puzzled commanders and troops in the field are already multiplying as they wonder why they’re risking death by IED if Mr. Obama isn’t sure about the mission. AP, apparently getting it: “Karzai’s election increases pressure on Obama.” It’s getting bad when even the AP wants to know what gives with the “marathon deliberations.” GOP’s Boehner actually gets in the first and only opinion on those deliberations in this AP article … “The White House has no further pretext for delaying the decision on giving Gen. McChrystal the resources he needs” … a highlighting which I can assure you, based on long experience reading between AP’s lines, is not insignificant.
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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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POPSAlternate Iraq War Universe … Obama Won!
Never mind that the surge was initiated by President George Bush, and the current withdrawal was negotiated by the Bush administration with a sovereign, elected Iraqi government which his actions allowed to come into being, in place of the prior despot he had deposed, while Democrats, including Obama, were howling for abandonment. Obama deserves some credit, of course. For staying Bush’s course and throwing his own boneheaded pandering demands for a precipitous pullout under the bus. OK, I thought Friedman had got about as weird as he could. Silly me. This next step is particularly important, which is why we cannot let Afghanistan distract U.S. diplomats from Iraq. Remember: Transform Iraq and it will impact the whole Arab-Muslim world. Change Afghanistan and you just change Afghanistan. Fascinating. The big clamor for the last few years of course has been that Iraq was distracting us from Afghanistan, and now every jackanape out there, to include Friedman . . .
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POPSPakistan Dawn, Pakistan Trutherism Obama's military problem is getting worse President Obama is presiding over a slow-motion civil-military crash occasioned by his meandering Afghanistan strategy review. The crash has not yet happened and is avoidable, but it also foreseeable. Of concern, the latest reports out of the White House suggest that Obama's team is not yet fully aware of the dangers. If it happens, it will be a problem entirely of Obama's own making and it could have a lasting impact on the way his administration unfolds. As Rich Lowry has observed, President Obama rarely misses a chance to blame a challenge he is confronting on his predecessor. This rhetorical tic served Obama well during the campaign and probably still resonates with partisans who post anonymous comments on blogs or who suffer from chronic Bush Derangement Syndrome. . . .
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POPSDick Cheney Takes It To Obama on National Security It appears that Obama’s dissenters are piling on his back. As a result, the foreign policy hawks and neocons are making a successful comeback. We all witnessed how capable and successful Cheney was when he took his case to the airwaves, TV shows, and editorials in defending the Bush administration’s legacy. It is beyond dispute that Cheney can make a convincing case and draw a sharp contrast between the Obama administration on what it takes to secure America and defends its interests. As more and more Americans see President Obama as indecisive in making his decision in Afghanistan, even as his commanders on the ground request direct action and troop increases, the more this type of onslaught will sink him further in the polls and erode what little is left of his political capital and public confidence. October 22, 2009 by Jason
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POPSThe Other Thing Obama Inherited But rapidly deteriorating conditions and a widely disputed and unresolved election in Afghanistan gave the Obama administration pause and led to the current policy review. “Having announced his Afghanistan strategy last March, President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission,” (Cheney) said, calling on Obama to fulfill a promise he made in August to armed forces in a speech at the VFW to give them the support and resources need to get the job done. “It’s time for President Obama to make good on his promise,” he said. “The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger.” “Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries,” he added. “Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause.”
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POPSExcuses Wearing Thin for Obama, Media Pals Yet just a few months ago, the Obama camp was singing a little different tune. It was under criticism for the $787 billion stimulus package it bulldozed through Congress on grounds that massive spending was needed to keep the unemployment rate from breaching 8 percent. When joblessness hit 9.5 percent in June, Vice President Joe Biden said, "We misread how bad the economy was." They inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, or the economy turned out to be worse than they thought. Which is it? It can't be both -- unless your brain is completely addled by the Obama charisma. That's the backdrop to the story of Rush Limbaugh getting booted from a group bidding to buy the St. Louis Rams. He was smeared on CNN and MSNBC with false accusations of making two racist comments. He is an abrasive critic of Obama, so he must be racist.. . Recently an MSNBC personality accused the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of lobbying for policies that amount to being "treasonous . . .
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POPS Waiting For Godot “The thunderstorm is there and it’s kind of brewing and it’s unstable and the lightning hasn’t struck, and hopefully it won’t,” said Nathaniel C. Fick, a former Marine Corps infantry officer who briefed Mr. Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign and is now the chief executive of the Center for a New American Security, a military research institution in Washington. “I think it can probably be contained and avoided, but people are aware of the volatile brew.” Last week the national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Thomas J. Tradewell Sr., gave voice to the concerns of those in the military when he issued a terse statement criticizing Mr. Obama’s review of Afghan war strategy. “The extremists are sensing weakness and indecision within the U.S. government, which plays into their hands,” said Mr. Tradewell’s statement on behalf of his group, which represents 1.5 million former soldiers. Last August, in a speech to the V.F.W., Mr. Obama defended . . .
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POPSObama’s Tripling of the National Debt in Pictures In 2009, Washington will spend $30,958 per household "the highest level in American history" and under President Obama’s budget, the figure will rise above $33,000 by 2019. The public national debt" $5.8 trillion as of 2008" is projected to double by 2012 and nearly triple by 2019. Thus, America would accumulate more government debt under President Obama than under every President in American history from George Washington to George W. Bush combined. To put that $1 trillion dollars into perspective, have a look at what it looks like! http://izismile.com/2009/03/10/can_you_imagine_one_trillion_dollars_6_pics.html
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POPSNobel Peace Prize Winners Comment: absurd decision on Obama makes a mockery of the Nobel peace prize The award of this year’s Nobel peace prize to President Obama will be met with widespread incredulity, consternation in many capitals and probably deep embarrassment by the President himself. Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world. Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace. The pretext for the prize was Mr Obama’s decision to “strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples”.
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POPSWe’ve Won the Battle of the NAFTA Superhighway It was during this meeting that the environmental study director informed them the Final DEIS (Draft Environmental Impact Statement) would be submitted to the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) by January, 2008. The next step would be condemnation of the 146 acres per mile to build the super highway. The newly formed Eastern Central Texas Sub-Regional Planning Commission (ECTSRPC) went to work laying out in government-to-government meetings the flaws in TXDOT’s study and violations of law being committed by the agency. The coordination strategy utilized by these courageous Texans, developed by Fred Kelly Grant, president of American Stewards, stopped the I-35 Trans-Texas Corridor. How big is this coordination victory for local government? Here is what we were up against: * The Trans-Texas Corridor was a keystone project for Governor Perry; * It was fully supported by President George W. Bush; * It had the funding of the Spanish Corporation, Cintra-Zachry;
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POPSUPDATE: Obama Blog Propaganda is Government-Wide of the Department of Justice, Holder and President Obama. One conservative editor recently told the Muffled Oar that they have noticed a significant increase in the number and aggressiveness of comments to stories critical of the Holder Justice Department. “There is clearly a designed effort to rebut stories that are exposing the Holder Justice Department as more political than the last. We’ve seen a change in the pattern of anonymous emails we receive and comments posted at our paper’s webpage.” One shivers at the thought of a team of Department of Justice Bloggers anonymously trolling the web to spin the message of a President. It is particularly terrifying when those same anonymous government employees at the Department attack media outlets and newspapers anonymously. How much longer before the Blog Squad operates in the open to intimidate political opponents and critics? Posted by Isaac Muzzey
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POPS Mr. President, Please Stay Off TV Obamabots are still upset at the audacity of George Stephanopoulos for daring to ask The One if forcing people to buy health insurance was simply a new tax... "Stephanopoulos : That may be, but it's still a tax increase. Tele-POTUS : No. That's not true, George. For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is, is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase. People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I'm not covering all the costs. Stephanopoulos : But it may be fair, it may be good public policy... Tele-POTUS : No, but " but, George, you " you can't just make up that language and decide that that's called a tax increase. Any...
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POPSThree Historical Lessons to Help the President Cope continued testing its missiles designed to deliver nuclear war heads to Tel Aviv. And the health care takeover is losing momentum. These issues require hard work for a hardened politician. Most that want to be President relish these days as the chance to make a real difference for the country. Obama chooses a flight to Copenhagen. Defense Secretary Gates furthered the concern over Afghanistan on the Sunday talk shows by pointing out that leaving that basket-case of a country would allow the Taliban and Al Qaida to regroup, rearm and re-attack the American homeland. Should that occur, of course the US military would be sent back into Afghanistan to hunt bad guys " at least until the next leftist liberal was elected President. The Prez though, is reluctant to get into a war that can’t be quickly won. The President’s preferred choice may be to fight the War on Terror on the streets of American cities rather than Afghanistan. Reasoning that we wouldn’t have to pay
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POPSObama and Afghanistan: Making plans, Faking plans, Breaking plans which even at the time they were made should have been seen as what they obviously were: so much campaign puffery. What is this strategy? It’s one Obama uses for many issues, not just Afghanistan. It goes something like this: (1) say whatever you think will get you votes, even if you don’t mean it (2) do something opposite when the original stance becomes politically inexpedient and/or unecessary (3) don’t acknowledge the contradiction or even attempt to explain it (4) if somehow you are forced to break rule three and acknowledge your reversal, blame it on someone else"preferably George Bush, Republicans in general, and/or those crazy Tea Party attendees. [ADDENDUM: The wrongness and inconsistency in Obama’s Afghan policy was all quite clear back in July of 2008, when I wrote this post. And don’t forget that Obama could not have been more incorrect about the surge, not only at the very beginning but repeatedly, even after it had clearly succeeded.
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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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POPSObama: From Savior to Leftist Windbag in Nine Months Hugo Chavez got a big round of American-hating applause when he said “it doesn’t smell like sulfur in here anymore” in reference to President Bush whom he had previously referred to as the devil. Words are cheap and Obama used a whole lot of them to promote his socialist-light agenda to the nation last year. There might not be much in the ways of original ideas floating around in his head - just a collection of discarded Democrat lost causes from the past half century or so - Obama has convinced himself that as a man of destiny he doesn’t have to bother with trivial matters like telling the truth or keeping his word. In an effort to sell healthcare reform to the nation that it doesn’t want, Obama habitually plays fast and loose with the truth. It’s gotten to the point where he can barely speak on the subject for longer than a few minutes without someone wanting to cough up the word “liar” in the background, just like Rep. Joe Wilson did last week.
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POPS New Mindset Needed To Defeat Terror Afghan-born Al-Qaida operative named Najibullah Zazi, precisely the enemy Bush spoke of in 2001. Throughout the course of this investigation by the FBI and New York City Police Department, we have heard that Zazi had several pages of hand-written notes of bomb-making instructions inside a computer that he kept in his possession. He allegedly wrote those notes last year when attended an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan. "You're talking about subway stations, public places where potentially thousands of people could be killed," said former FBI agent Brad Garrett. "And in addition to that, when you add multiple locations, you're talking about potentially a horrendous number of people dying.” Since Zazi’s arrest, federal agents have tracked down a number of beauty supply stores in Colorado where Zazi and accomplices purchased unusually large quantities of hydrogen peroxide and acetone, which would be used to create improvised explosive devices and weapons of mass . . .
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POPSThe UN Loves Barack Obama Because He Is Weak Not convinced about that last “seething with anti-Americanism” line, though. I think the world actually loves America. That’s why the world is all trying to get here. The world just has a bit of an adolescent attitude toward America’s dad-like role in the world. . . I’d say it’s more the United Nations General Assembly that is seething with anti-Americanism. Get back on topic, Nile! OK, here we go: It is natural that much of the UN will embrace an American president who declines to offer strong American leadership. A president who engages dictators like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez will naturally gain respect from the leaders of the more than 100 members of the United Nations who are currently designated as “partly free” or “not free” by respected watchdog Freedom House. The UN is not a club of democracies - who still remain a minority within its membership " it is a vast melting pot of free societies, socialist regimes and outright tyrannies.
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POPSCBS: Obama International ‘Darling,’ But Hasn’t Accomplished Anything However, Reid spent the remainder of the segment demonstrating how that break with the Bush administration has failed to achieve any results: "The President orchestrated a mini summit today with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but in the end, the result was a hand shake, not a break through....Mr. Obama has reached out to rogue nations like Iran, but that hasn’t stopped President Ahmadinejad...from pursuing a nuclear program." Reid concluding his report by noting: "There are two very busy days still to go in this summit, but the White House is actively downplaying expectations because they concede there won’t be much in the way of immediate results." Here is a full transcript of Reid’s report: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2009/09/23/cbs-obama-international-darling-hasn-t-accomplished-anything "Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center.
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POPSGood Slogan,“End of the Road, 2010!” Catchy OK, forget that last bit for a minute … there’s no indication they can make anything happen even with House and Senate majorities, and they’ve done everything they can to avoid actually saying what they are for, anyway. It’s the naked surrenderism that is truly astonishing. It’s not just that are they ready to give up if the GOP wins back some seats. Did they learn nothing from George Bush? He got what he wanted even when they took Congress. He’s still having key parts of it his way even after the opposition took the White House … on a ticket that called for doing anything but what Bush did. Now Biden, his boss and the Congressional leadership are looking for a politically viable way to lose a war Bush showed them how to win. While apparently, if that “End of the Road 2010″ statement represents their reality, in no particularly big rush to advance their agenda and not particularly hopeful about it. Help me out here. Why’d they even run in the first place?
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POPSFOUND: Bush White House NEA (leaks R us) Conference Call Transcript MS. CZARNOSKI: Speaking as an artist, I would first like to say, what’s my cut? MR. SMIRNOV: Is very good question. Is very much sliding scale depending how much service yous do for Mr. Bush. I mean America community. Mister Bush he sees many places where is good for Art. Here is to explain Mr. good buddy vice president Dick Cheney. MR. CHENEY: Hello everyone and thank you Yakov. I would like to say… MR. SMIRNOV: Please not to shoots me, Mr. Vice Presidents! MR. SMIRNOV: hhenng heh… heee… uh… Yakov make bad joke. Please Cheney buddy, Yakov sorry. MR. CHENEY: As I was saying, the President and I believe the Hillbilly Arts and Entertainment community can play a crucial role in moving our country, and the political debate forward. Whether your home base is Branson or Myrtle Beach or Laughlin, whether your art is wind chimes or plywood ducks, all of you can leverage your talents to address the plight the GOP community.
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POPSRA's Daily Russian News Blast US to modify or jettison missile defense plans? NATO chief to meet with Russian envoy; Lukaschenko sends out mixed messages. South Ossetia denies book burning; think tank leader says Putin could be heading for Brehznev-style decades in power; Medvedev finds inspiration on blogosphere. Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko has suggested the traditional ally of Russia must 'move away from dependence on just one country, even one that is near and dear to us'. The Moscow Times reports that the authoritarian leader has emphasized ties with Russia, whilst on a rare visit to EU-member state Lithuania. The Russian Foreign Minstry has said that the criminal investigation into charges of forgery against RIA Novosti's Tbilisi bureau chief is politically motivated. South Ossetia has denied bonfire-style burning of Georgian books and other classic works at the state university. An op-ed contributor in the Moscow Times is disturbed by what makes it onto Russian bookshelves.
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POPSObama Heads For Foreign Policy Disaster The U.S. is applying pressure to Israel, because Israel is susceptible to U.S. pressure, in hopes of gaining concessions from the Palestinians, who are not. The process is the diplomatic equivalent of a drunk searching for his key under the streetlamp"because it's brighter there. The approach has never worked before, but repeated failure does not seem to have discouraged Obama from trying yet again. Not everything that goes wrong in the world is the president's fault, of course. Vladimir Putin's Russia would behave aggressively no matter who was president, just as any president would confront the same unappealing range of options in Pakistan. But the very intractability of such problems makes it more important to do right what can be done right. Despite the domestic focus of these early months of his presidency, Barack Obama thinks of himself as a foreign policy thinker above all, according to those who know him best. His confidence is undiminished by his lack . . .
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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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POPSAmerica’s Truth Czar tells Pelosi to Get Bent And did I mention that Wilson was right? Why yes; yes, I did, and yes, he was, as the White House has gotten busy “clarifying” the section of the Big Takeover bill that he specifically called King Obama out for in the first place " a section the Liar in Thief and other liberal professional equivocators would have you believe didn’t exist. “I’ve apologized one time. The apology was accepted by the president, the vice president…I am not apologizing again,” he told “FOX News Sunday.” “I believe that is sufficient.” “I believe in the truth. What I heard was not true,” Wilson explained Sunday. “I believe (Obama) was misstating the facts.” He most certainly was " The Truth Czar caught Big Chief Training Pants On Fire with his lips moving, and doused the flames with the cold water of truth. Now he’s told Pelosi to go chase herself, and the Left will go absolutely apoplectic over having their Golden Boy . . .
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POPSA Completely Bizarre Protest That’s Based on Love of Country As we learned during the last eight years, there should always be death threats against the president, provided that the President is George Bush. And, of course, the American flag should be burned, trampled, despoiled, desecrated and in all other ways treated to the humiliation due the symbol of the evil nation being protested. So what’s with these wacky conservatives and their amateur attempt at gathering a couple of million people to march on the Capitol? They’re going about it all wrong. They’re wearing and waving the American flag as if they’re proud of it, and they’re spouting incredibly foolish notions that have absolutely nothing to do with America being evil or America murdering people. They’re also not excoriating Israel. Here are just a few examples of these neophyte activists who seem to have absolutely no appreciation for the fact that the purpose behind a march on D.C. is to let everyone know how evil America is but. . . .
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POPSWhy Can’t The Silver-Tongued Post-Partisan Healer Seal The Deal? by Mark Steyn population outside the current system, why is it necessary to destabilize the arrangements of the 90 percent within it? Well, says the president, not so fast. Lots of people with insurance run into problems when they change jobs or move to another state. Okay, In that case, why not ease the obstacles to health-care portability? Well, says the president, shuffling his cups and moving the pea under another shell, we’re spending too much on health care. By “we’re,” he means you and you and you and you and millions of other Americans making individual choices over which he casually claims collective jurisdiction. And that, ultimately, gets closer than anything else he says to giving the game away. For most of the previous presidency, the Left accused George W. Bush of using 9/11 as a pretext to attack Iraq. Since January, his successor has used the economic slump as a pretext to “reform” health care. Most voters don’t buy it: They see it as Obama’s “war of choice,” . . .
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POPS 9.11 Remembered 9/11: Timeline of Terror Special Friday, Sept. 11, 2009 at 10 p.m. ET http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,548605,00.html "We love you, Dad, and we miss you," said Philip Hayes Jr., whose father, long retired from the Fire Department, rushed to the site that 2001 morning and ultimately gave his life. President Barack Obama, observing his first Sept. 11 as president, had signed an order declaring it a day of service. He and first lady Michelle Obama marked a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House as a bugler played taps at 8:46 a.m., when the attacks began. Obama has distanced himself from many of the anti-terror policies of former President George W. Bush, but his remarks recalled Bush's speech to Congress in the immediate aftermath of the attacks: "We will not tire, we will not falter and we will not fail." Defense Secretary Robert Gates oversaw the ceremony held Friday at the Pentagon memorial.
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POPSWhy The Left is Horrified at Joe Wilson's Liar Statement Joe Wilson only said what 75% of the American people were thinking. And since the Democrats won't even meet with Republicans to discuss health care reform; since they reject tort reform; since they really do allow illegal immigrants to get free health care; since they lie repeatedly about improving care; since simple mathematics refutes the concept of adding tens of millions to the health care system while 'improving care', 'covering preexisting conditions' and 'not adding to the deficit'... well, there are about 200 million Americans who think that Obama is lying. And the Democrats will be committing political suicide in 2010 if they try to ram this tyrannical, socialist fraud down the American people's throats.
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POPSPrograms in Several States Could Address Medical-Malpractice Abuses Today the hospital encourages employees to report mistakes, and also to report issues that might lead to mistakes. A committee of peers reviews serious incidents. If the panel determines that a mistake has occurred, the hospital and doctors apologize. In addition, the University of Michigan compensates the patient or the family. The costs to such a review are high, said Mr. Boothman. They are included in the hospital's risk-management budget, which has grown to more than $3 million annually, up from $500,000 in 2001. But claims against the hospital have been reduced to 106 in 2008 from 121 in 2001. Andrew Muth, an Ypsilanti, Mich., plaintiffs lawyer, said the hospital's project achieves the primary goal of litigation: getting to the truth quickly and efficiently. In the second initiative, plaintiffs lawyers in participating states must retain medical experts who have practiced in the same specialty area as the physicians accused of malpractice.
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POPSHow Obama Can Make Healthcare Better Without Congress This is the same sort of silliness that President Bush suggested when he was pushing immigration reform "If Congress passes my immigration reform bill, I will start enforcing existing laws regarding immigration." In both these examples, the duty of the president is to execute the laws and run the executive departments faithfully. That includes stopping fraud, criminality, and waste -- regardless of what Congress does. Without waiting for congressional approval, which he does not need to end fraud in Medicaid, push our schools to bring back physical education, or streamline the process of FDA approval of drugs, President Obama could begin to make healthcare in America better and less costly right now. But that assumes that President Obama actually wants to improve healthcare in America. In fact, all the countless speeches, all the vastly complex congressional bills, all the relentless insistence that America is in crisis, are all intended to accomplish just one thing:
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POPSIn President Barack Obama Backyard, 10,000 Patriots Unhappy About Unstainable Government Spending New Lenox Tea Party Express draws 10,000 YouTube (1:58) On tax day, the tea party movement began in earnest. Until now the movement has remained at the local levels. No longer will that be the case. The movement is coming to Washington on September 12, 2009 for a march and rally at the US Capitol. From autos to banking, the government is crowding out the private sector of our economy. Where Bush bailed out the private sector, Obama is making hostile government takeovers. Ignoring our multi trillion dollar deficit, Washington is considering a massive new energy tax and a takeover of health care. On Saturday, September 12th FreedomWorks will be joined by over ten thousands of liberty-loving activists to take a stand against politicians who are bankrupting our future. National co-sponsors include Tea Party Patriots, ResistNet, National Taxpayers Union, Americans For Tax Reform, Young Americans for Liberty, Ayn Rand Center, Campaign for Liberty, Free Republic .
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POPSCrazy Conspiracy Theorism Disavowed The evidence that President Obama's "Green Jobs Czar" is a total radical continues to grow. Gateway Pundit is now reporting that Van Jones in addition to having said he was a communist in the past, also signed onto the radical 9/11 "Truther" statement. "Truthers" believe President George W. Bush and the U.S. Government were responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States, or at the least had foreknowledge and did nothing to try and stop it. Below you see the image of Jones' name listed among 100 prominent Americans who had signed onto the statement. He is listed at #47. http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/6D05BD78-AA93-41DE-9F93-CE81CB6742A6/ http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/4D643726-F0D4-4C36-89C0-795E108E306D/ Van Jones Denies Signing Truther Petition-Apologizes for the Other Crazy Things http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2009/09/van-jones-denies-signing-truther.html YID with LID blog
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POPSObama "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones Signed 9/11 "Truther" Document That is a Pandora's box they don't want to open. They are still actively trying to protect Obama. It is unimaginable that someone like Jones can hold such a high office in a Presidential administration and his radical views not be exposed. But it is happening before our eyes.
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