The President Who Hates His Country

Today, we have a new crop of inveterate America- and Jew-haters, among them the Marxist leader of Venezuela Hugo Chavez, Nicaragua’s president Daniel Ortega, Iran’s “death-to-America-and-Israel” study-in-abnormal-psychology Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the ever-sabotage-America and anti-Semitic “leaders” of the 22-Arab states that surround Israel.

I have either read about or observed firsthand all of these people. Yet in my decades of commenting on the political scene, I cannot recall a single leader of any country or regime who has ever spoken negatively of his country or tolerated others speaking ill of the land or the people he represented -
Until now

Bizarre and, yes, repugnant as it is to our essentially centrist country, America now has a president who has broken that time-honored tradition. Barack Obama, on the campaign trail and as the leader of the free world is the first U.S. president to proclaim to anyone within earshot that he, like his wife, is not proud of his country, and is all-too-willing to offer serial apologies – for America! – to Americans and foreigners alike. Read more.....

"Under Obama's reasoning, the judge's job isn't to interpret the law: the judge should walk a mile in the appellant's Birkenstocks."

--Human Events editor Jed Babbin

"It is dangerous in this day and age to use the word 'fascism' lightly. Liberals sling around the term 'fascism' without regard to its meaning -- for the Left, 'fascism' applies to everything from religious social perspectives to conservative tax cut prescriptions. But economic fascism has a precise, defined meaning. And Barack Obama's economic policy fulfills that meaning in every conceivable way."

--radio talk-show host Jerry Doyle

"Liberals do not win elections for Republicans. Conservatives win elections. Whenever conservatives try to placate liberals and show how sensitive and caring and in touch with the feelings and concerns of the other party they are, they lose. But when Republicans stand on principles and demonstrate conviction and give evidence that their ideas work, they win."

--columnist Cal Thomas

"The killer virus for Republicans hasn't been intolerance inside the party for moderates. What cost Republicans control of the White House and Congress was alleged conservatives behaving too much like Democrats, especially on spending."

--columnist Brendan Miniter

"[I]t is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand....The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a great Measure, than they have it now, They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty."

--John Adams

"If you met a man who said he would like to 'transform' or 'remake' his wife, would you conclude that he: a) thought very highly of his wife and loved her? Or b) held his wife in rather low esteem and therefore found living her rather difficult? The answer is obvious: Those who wish to remake anything (or anyone) do not think highly of the person or thing they wish to remake. Little is as revealing of Barack Obama's and the left's view of America than their use of the words 'transform' and 'remake' when applied to what they most want to do to America. ... In light of those frequently made criticisms of America, I have often asked representatives of the left why they criticize America so much if they love it so much. 'Precisely because we love America, we criticize it. You criticize that which you love,' is the nearly universal response. But, of course, it isn't true. If you constantly criticize your spouse, for example, it is difficult to imagine that you really do love him or her. And perhaps more important, it is very unlikely that your spouse feels loved. That is why after being routinely described as racist, sexist, imperialist, etc., it is difficult to be able to tell that America is loved by the left. This is not written in order to indict the left, let alone the president, for not loving America. No one can measure another's feelings. Furthermore I do not question the sincerity of anyone who says he loves America. What I question are the actions and rhetoric of those who claim to love America yet want to transform and remake it."

--columnist Dennis Prager

"Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world."

--U.S. Senator Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

'No Child Left Inside Act' Would Spend $500M Teaching 'Environmental Literacy' Starting in Kindergarten
(CNSNews.com) - Surrounded by elementary students from the Green School in Baltimore and charming critters – including an armadillo, cheetah and an Asian Toddy Cat – Democrats declared that the introduction of the “No Child Left Inside Act of 2009” was “historic” legislation that would connect children with nature. Some critics, however, said it is a way to spread environmental propaganda in the public schools...

David Limbaugh : Memo to Capitalists: Be Very Afraid

Lately, MSNBC's Chris Matthews has been on a childish tear, taunting Republicans to admit their belief in the biblical account of the Creation. Someone ought to ask this paragon of smug self-satisfaction why, if he's so brilliant, he unquestioningly echoes the demagogic hyperbole of global warming fanatics hellbent on destroying the economic system responsible for producing unprecedented prosperity in the advanced industrialized world.

Thomas Sowell : "Empathy" Versus Law: Part IV

While President Barack Obama has, in one sense, tipped his hand by saying that he wants judges with "empathy" for certain groups, he has in a more fundamental sense concealed the real goal -- getting judges who will ratify an ever-expanding scope of the power of the federal government and an ever-declining restraint by the Constitution of the United States.

Pelosi admits waterboard briefing - Washington Times

Accuses CIA of lying to her - 'They mislead us all the time'

The Catlin Ice Follies

The global warmists have yet another embarrassment on their hands.

Offshore Tax Changes

"The Obama administration released more details this week of its planned overhaul of the tax structure for American companies doing business overseas. In order to scrounge money for his expensive domestic programs from whatever source possible, Obama proposes a variety of ways to raise $210 billion. Income shifting by U.S. companies to foreign subsidiaries would be restricted. U.S. companies that draw at least 80 percent of their income from foreign business will no longer be able to treat interest and dividends as exempt from withholding tax. Also, some U.S. firms that pay levies in foreign jurisdictions would no longer be eligible for foreign tax credits. Taken together, these proposals will amount to a 6 percent increase in the corporate tax rate for U.S. companies, which already pay about 10 percent higher taxes than companies in the rest of the developed world. Ultimately, this will make American firms less competitive in the international marketplace at precisely the time they will need every advantage they can gain in order to help turn around our economy."

-From The Patriot Post-

Ensign: GOP will try to block closing Gitmo

TheHill.com

Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairman John Ensign (Nev.), returning from a trip to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said Friday that Republicans will try to block closing the U.S. prison there and may be successful.

Read more.....

Death of U.S. healthcare

By Dick Morris
TheHill.com

When all of America’s top health insurers and providers met at the White House this week and pledged to save $2 trillion over the next decade in health costs, they were pledging to sabotage our medical care. The blunt truth, which everybody agreed to keep quiet, is that the only way to reduce these costs is to ration healthcare, thereby destroying our system.

Read More...

"Conservatism is the political belief that best mirrors human nature across time and space; but because its precepts are sometimes tragic and demand responsibility rather than ever-expanding rights, it requires adept communicators -- not triangulators and appeasers whose pleasure is only for the moment."

--columnist Victor Davis Hanson

"Proponents of today's world-turned-upside-down economic policies say the policies might seem wrong but really are boldly modern in their rejection of markets in favor of pervasive government intervention in economic life. Hence New York, which until eight months ago was the financial capital of the world, is no longer even the financial capital of the United States. Washington is."

--columnist George Will

"There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly."

--American author and poet Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."

--Thomas Jefferson

Larry Kudlow : Obama’s ‘Public’ Health Plan Will Bankrupt the Nation

Does anybody really believe that adding 50 million people to the public health-care rolls will not cost the government more money? About $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion more? At least.

So let’s be serious when evaluating President Obama’s goal of universal health care, and the idea that it’s a cost-cutter. Can’t happen. Won’t happen. Costs are going to explode.

Think of it: Can anyone name a .......

If You Disagree With Obama, Are You Anti-American?
By Ben Shapiro

If you attack President Barack Obama’s policies, are you attacking America? According to today’s left, the answer is yes: Barack Obama is America. And opposition to Barack Obama or any of his policies is therefore, by definition, anti-American.

Pelosi Blames Bush for Social Security and Medicare Woes
(CNSNews.com) – "There is no Social Security crisis," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared in a May 2005 news release. On Tuesday, reacting to a dire government report on the solvency of Social Security and Medicare, Pelosi said it’s all the Bush administration’s fault.

Taxing worker health benefits considered

Top Democrat broaches idea - Washington Times

The Senate's top tax writer said Tuesday that taxing employer-provided health benefits is a possibility as lawmakers search for ways to pay for overhauling the nation's health care system and to insure 50 million Americans who lack coverage - a stance that riles both business and union leaders and is at odds with some leading Democrats.

Memo exposes global warming dispute

EPA science called 'stretch' - Washington Times

A memo released Tuesday shows an agency within the Obama administration objected to a landmark Environmental Protection Agency ruling on global warming, arguing that it was not based on sound science and could prove costly to businesses.

Pakistan: Born to Jihad - HUMAN EVENTS

As Afghan president Hamid Karzai and Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari huddled with President Barack Hussein Obama at the White House last week, Taliban jihadis extended their inexorable advance into Pakistani territory. General David Petraeus was quoted as warning that Pakistan could be mere weeks from falling to their onslaught.

Labor's Investment In Obama Pays Off

By MICHELLE MALKIN

"We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama — $60.7 million to be exact — and we're proud of it," boasted Andy Stern,...

Ill-Conceived Taxes

IBDeditorials.com:

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Health Care: Many question how the high cost of government-run medical care available to all can be paid for. No problem. Just raise federal revenues by making consumer goods cost more.

Biden's Card-Carrying Middle Class

IBDeditorials.com:

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Unionization: Vice President Joe Biden tells a labor group that expanding the middle class means a resurgence of unions. But the free choice of middle-class workers is why unions have declined.

Editorials: Game Of Monopoly

IBDeditorials.com:

Antitrust: It's a pretty sad state of affairs when American corporations, our economic champions, get cuffed around by bureaucrats overseas and no one stands up for them. But that's just what's happening now.

Following in the well-trod steps of Microsoft Corp. earlier this decade, Intel has run afoul of European regulators, who this week slapped the chipmaker with a $1.45 billion antitrust fine.

This has nothing to do, mind you, with monopoly or price-gouging. It has everything to do with Europe's ongoing efforts to tear down U.S. companies that outcompete their own state-aided firms.

But the same economically destructive urge to attack successful industries with antitrust now seems to have reinfected the U.S.

On Monday, FTC antitrust chief Christine Varney unveiled a sweeping return to aggressive U.S. antitrust enforcement. As the Associated Press aptly noted, this might lead "some of technology's biggest companies . . . to rethink their business strategies or expansion plans." That is, they'll stop innovating and expanding.

Nancy Pelosi was an accomplice to 'torture.'

Nancy Pelosi and Waterboarding - WSJ.com

Someone important appears not to be telling the truth about her knowledge of the CIA's use of enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs). That someone is Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. The political persecution of Bush administration officials she has been pushing may now ensnare her.

Government-run insurance plans have curtailed access to new medicines.

Health-Care Reform and the 'Innovation Test' - WSJ.com

U.S.-based private industry is the heart and soul of this innovation drama, investing $58 billion in research and development for new medicines in 2007 alone. Virtually no discovery reaches the point of regulatory approval if it is not shepherded through clinical development by a large biotech or pharmaceutical company. This means companies too often maligned as "Big Pharma" are in fact the only entities with the right combination of expertise, infrastructure and financing to pull this off.

Yet in today's policy-reform drama -- if early clues from Washington are a guide -- the requirements of innovation may be written out of the script. Already in defensive mode, several large pharmaceutical companies are restaging the old merger play -- continuing to narrow the ranks of firms with the full-scale capacity to innovate. Meanwhile, skittish investors have retreated, leaving nearly half of all publicly traded biotech companies with less than a year of cash on hand. These trends amount to show-stoppers if they continue.

Michele Bachmann : Ever-Expanding Health Care

President Obama's policy agenda is a lot of things, but it is certainly not sluggish. He has wasted no time highlighting those initiatives he'd like in place - from the cap-and-trade energy tax to a takeover of the American auto industry to radical healthcare reform. And it’s healthcare that has been looming in the background until now, as the President seems to be slowly unraveling his vision.

Socialism and Secularism Suck Vitality Out of Society

By Dennis Prager

"Outside of politics, sports, and popular entertainment, how many living Germans, or French, or Austrians, or even Brits can you name?"

How ObamaCare Will Affect Your Doctor - WSJ.com

Expect longer waits for appointments as physicians get pinched on reimbursements.


By SCOTT GOTTLIEB

At the heart of President Barack Obama's health-care plan is an insurance program funded by taxpayers, administered by Washington, and open to everyone. Modeled on Medicare, this "public option" will soon become the single dominant health plan, which is its political purpose. It will restructure the practice of medicine in the process.

Republicans and Democrats agree that the government's Medicare scheme for compensating doctors is deeply flawed. Yet Mr. Obama's plan for a centrally managed government insurance program exacerbates Medicare's problems by redistributing even more income away from lower-paid primary care providers and misaligning doctors' financial incentives.

Israel's 'warm' strategic ties with U.S. under Bush have cooled significantly

TEL AVIV — Strategic cooperation between Israel and the United States has faded under the administration of President Barack Obama.

U.S. blocking Israeli access to U.S. fighter-jets

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has imposed obstacles on Israeli efforts to procure U.S.-origin fighter-jets.

Is there nothing they won't spend our hard-earned money on?

U.S. Will Pay $2.6 Million to Train Chinese Prostitutes to Drink Responsibly on the Job

(CNSNews.com) - The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, part of the National Institutes of Health, will pay $2.6 million in U.S. tax dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly on the job. “The purpose of the project is to try and develop an intervention program targeting HIV risk and alcohol use,” Dr. Xiaoming Li, the researcher conducting the program, told CNSNews.com. The grant, made last November, is one of several “international initiatives” sponsored by NIH.

EXCLUSIVE: Union head returns some of $1.2M pay - Washington Times

Longshoreman's financial report raised questions

By Jim McElhatton

EXCLUSIVE:

The president of the shipyard workers union - a labor organization dogged for years by declining membership and a federal racketeering lawsuit - reported receiving $1.2 million in compensation last year but abruptly gave back much of the money in April after his big payout was disclosed to the government, according to federal documents and interviews.

Obama reverses stance on immigration - Washington Times

On the thorniest of political issues, President Obama has embraced the enforcement-first position on immigration that he criticized during last year's presidential campaign, and he now says he can't move forward with the type of comprehensive bill he wants until voters are convinced that the borders can be enforced.

Religious Speech at Risk
By David Aikman

The House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would expand the definition of a "hate crime" beyond the existing definition of a crime committed because of race, religion, or national origin. The new definition will include "sexual orientation."

Now every reasonable person agrees that homosexuals deserve as much protection against mugging and other violence as any other member of society. The question is: do they deserve more?

The problem with adding "sexual orientation" is that anyone who criticizes homosexual behavior -- not orientation -- might be prosecuted for inciting a "hate crime." That includes pastors who quote what the Bible says about homosexual practice.

A new law that infringes on old rights -- religious freedom -- while claiming to protect new ones, is a bad law.

Austin Hill : Obamanomics: Naive, Or Intentionally Destructive?

Does President Obama want the U.S. economy to decline further? Or is he just simply naïve about what is required to make the economy grow, and about the differences between “good“ and “bad“ economic policy?

News Headlines - Cheney backs Limbaugh over Powell on GOP future

Dick Cheney made clear Sunday he'd rather follow firebrand broadcaster Rush Limbaugh than former Joint Chiefs chairman Colin Powell into political battle over the future of the Republican Party.

Even as Cheney embraced efforts to expand the party by ex-Govs. Jeb Bush of Florida and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and the House's No. 2 Republican, Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, the former vice president appeared to write his one-time colleague Powell out of the GOP.

Asked about recent verbal broadsides between Limbaugh and Powell, Cheney said, "If I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I'd go with Rush Limbaugh. My take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn't know he was still a Republican."

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann : No Triangulation Now

Despite Gen. Colin Powell's advice that the Republican Party must move to the center, now is not the time for triangulation by the GOP. It is, rather, the time for the Party to stand firm and fast upon its principles and let this nation come around to its way of thinking, driven by horror at the consequences of Obama's program.

The leftist challenge brought by Obama is no longer a theoretical one to be parried by adroit positioning. He means to pass the ultimate left agenda and has the votes to do so. When he is finished -- well before the 2010 elections -- our nation will be unrecognizable.

Michael Barone : On Guns and Climate, the Elites Are Out of Touch

Many years ago, political scientists came up with a theory that elites lead public opinion. And on some issues, they clearly do. But on some issues, they don't. Two examples of the latter phenomenon are conspicuous at a time when Barack Obama enjoys the approval of more than 60 percent of Americans and Democrats have won thumping majorities in two elections in a row. One is global warming. The other is gun control. On both issues, the elites of academe, the media and big business have been solidly on one side for years. But on both, the American public has been moving in the other direction.

Burt Prelutsky : Where Are Liberals Hatched?

I used to be what I thought was a liberal. If, at the time, anyone had asked me to explain myself, I would have said that I opposed Jim Crow laws, that I believed workers were entitled to make a decent wage and work in a safe environment, and that American citizens shouldn’t be discriminated against because of their race, religion or national origin.

I quit being a liberal because I didn’t believe that members of particular minority groups deserved advantages denied to others, that illegal aliens weren’t entitled to anything but a swift kick to the backside, that being a devout Christian didn’t make you a bad person, and that capitalism was a system that worked, while socialism not only didn’t work but most often turned into tyranny.