Scozzafava Drops Out of NY 23

With her support fading by the hour, the Republican establishment candidate Dede Scozzafava (pro abortion, pro union, pro gay marriage, ACORN endorsed) dropped out of the special election in NY 23, leaving the race to Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, and liberal Democrat Bill Owens.

Hoffman was endorsed by Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson and other Conservative Republican stalwarts.  Scozzafava was endorsed by Newt Gingrich, who backed the Republican Party machine.

With Hoffman pulling away Scozzafava’s support in the remaining days of the campaign and Scozzafava’s support dropping by the hour, the race is now set to be a referendum on more big government spending and sending Owens to Congress, or the country learning to live within its means via Hoffman.

As of this morning, Owens and Hoffman were in a statistical dead heat at 35% with Scozzafava polling at 20 after having led the race as recently as 3 weeks ago.

Ken Spain, the campaign spokesman for the NRCC said Scozzafava will now ‘release her supporters’ to vote for Hoffman this Tuesday.

Voters in NY-23 now have a clear choice on Tuesday: they can elect to continue big government spending under Barack Obama, or they can opt to return the country to some semblance of fiscal responsibility and vote for Doug Hoffman.

We wait with baited breath for the results Tuesday night.

Democrat James Clyburn Reveals Democrat Plan to Use Nuclear Option to Pass ObamaCare

From Thursday evening on “Air America”

Gunshots Hit U.S. Congressmans Office Windows

(D. Oregon) Peter DeFazio’s Offices are in a Federal Courthouse

Associated Press (Via NY Times)

Friday, October 30th, 2009

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) -- Three shots fired at a federal courthouse in Oregon late Wednesday or early Thursday hit windows in U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio's office, while a fourth shot hit a wall above the office, the FBI said.

No one was in the second-floor office at the time, and the Democratic congressman's staffers in Eugene found the damage when they arrived for work Thursday morning.

Investigators believe the shots were fired between 9:30 p.m. Wednesday and 7 a.m. Thursday, FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele said, adding they're not certain that DeFazio's office was the intended target.

''Right now, our biggest concern is determining why this happened,'' Steele said, adding the FBI doesn't know whether the shooter or shooters were trying to hurt anyone. ''We're obviously taking this very seriously.''

DeFazio spokeswoman Molly Simmons confirmed the congressman was in Washington, D.C., at the time.

Editors Note: No idea why shots would be fired at a Liberal Democrat Congressman’s office, who consistently votes to take away the rights of American’s via “health care reform”, “cap and trade”  and the takeovers of the automobile and banking industry.  Nope, no clues there as to why someone would be shooting at a Congressman’s office.  Nah, American’s across the country aren’t mad as hell at this Congress and “President” that some lunatic would pick up a gun and shoot at the windows of a Congressman who’s directly threatening their livelihood and rights by passing all these new taxes and government takeovers of their daily lives. 

In related news …..

Democrat Plan To Kill Private Insurance Alive & Well ….

Just when the Tea Parties ended and America thought the “public option” and government run health care seemed to be dead, along comes a 1,990 page monstrosity called “Health Care Reform” which includes all the things the Democrats said it wouldn’t.  Public Option.  Death Panels.  Taxpayer funded abortions.  $500,000,000 in cuts to Medicare, and more.

The Democrats plan has always been to kill private health insurance and control the American public via the health care delivery system.  Just look at the ‘great job’ the Federal Government is doing in delivering H1N1 flu shots.  The Obama Administration said in August that more than 120,000,000 flu shots would be available by this time. 

To date, less than 10,000,000 have been delivered.  With each passing day and new government initiative (think: Cash for Clunkers) the Federal Government demonstrates how it mismanages our hard earned taxpayer dollars, then simply turns around and demands more to “fix the problem.”  Now the Federal Government says that flu shots will be available by “mid November” about the time the virus will reach its peak, and that’s too late.

Yet, there are still those in this country who advocate for a Government run health care program.  Are these people completely stupid?  (Rhetorical question.)

It has always been Obama’s and the Democrats plan to seize control of health care.  They’ve wanted control since 1939 to complete FDR’s “great mission.”  Obama and the Democrats can deny all they want that their intent isn’t to take over health care, the proof is in the pudding, and here it is.

 

Pelosi Denies Public Access To “Health Care Reform Announcement”

Credit: Breitbart TV

Let’s get this straight from the get-go:

First, the American Public has every God Given Right to be on public property when a monstrosity called “health care reform” is being announced by the very people who SERVE US.

Second, these MORONS in Congress think we exist to serve THEM.  They have it backwards.  No wonder people are getting upset and shooting out windows (see story above.)

Third, this monstrosity of “health care reform” is over 1,990 pages in length and cost us, the U.S. Taxpayer almost $2 million dollars per word to produce.  (Again, see story #1 above as to why people are so angry at this congress!)

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are conspiring to turn each and every one of us into their own personal tax slaves, subjugating us to the will of the Federal Government.  Thankfully people are beginning to wake up, which is demonstrated in both their personal approval ratings, well below 30% in every major poll.  Congress’ ratings aren’t so great either, less than 25% approve, more than 60% disapprove of this Congress.

Is the revolution finally beginning? (For clues, see story #1)  The FBI however seems to be clueless. 

 

Think We’re Finally Pulling Out of Recession?

Think Again!  3.3% GDP Growth in Q3 Was An Aberration

The Federal Government reported yesterday that the economy actually grew in the third quarter of this year at 3.3%, thus ending the recession.

Ahhh, but wait.  What grew and where?  The clues are as obvious as the nose on your face: Automobiles and Housing.

Now why did Automobiles and Housing grow?

Cash for Clunkers, which the government thinks was a wild success actually cost the American Taxpayer about $24,000 per car, not the $4,500 the Federal Government said,  according to Edmunds.Com’s CEO Jeremy Anwell.

For this revelation, the Obama White House decides to pick a fight with the best, most used car site on the Internet.  Once again, Obama tries to destroy those that disagree with him, or prove him and his policies wrong.

On the housing front, there’s been a major influx of new buyers in the market once again in large part “thanks” to a government program that gives $8,000 of taxpayer money  to “first time homebuyers.”

Now the problem: Who were many of these first time homebuyers?  Few of them were actually “first timers”, many of them were people purchasing second or third homes – in their children’s names, in their Trust’s names, in their Estate’s names and in some cases – in their PETS NAMES!  Here we have another Government program fraught with fraud with no checks and balances to make sure the program is actually working the way it’s intended.

Yesterday Obama trumpted “the recession is over!” citing GDP growth in the third quarter of this year.  The problem is, the “growth” came at huge expense to the American Taxpayers and is not sustainable absent true economic growth driven by consumer and business spending – not Government spending!

That won’t happen until the Obama Administration turns off the money presses and stops deflating the value of the American dollar.  Everyone but Obama sees the hyper-inflation on the horizon which is why people are hoarding dollars.  The savings rate in this country has hit a historically high 8% which is more than any European country.

The reason the savings rate is so high is driven by the Obama money presses and the fact that the American People remember the hyper-inflation of the 70’s under Jimmy Carter. 

The economy isn’t getting better, it’s about to get a whole lot worse under this, the Worst President in the History of the Country. 

Unemployment & Underemployment Near 18%

Once again, proof the economy isn’t getting better.  The Bureau of Labor & Statistics now shows the actual unemployment and under-employment rate near 18% across much of the country, HIGHER in some places such as Detroit, much of Michigan, parts of Ohio, Indiana and California.

THESE ARE DEPRESSION ERA UNEMPLOYMENT RATES!!!!!!

This despite a “drop” in the number of “new claims” for unemployment which is nothing more than a statistical aberration driven by the number of people falling off the unemployment roles because they’ve exhausted their benefits.

Don’t look for the Obama Administration or the Democrats to extend benefits anytime soon, they need to drive the unemployment rate down by any means necessary to make the economy look better than it actually is.

Think anyone in the “mainstream” media is going to catch onto that fact?  Don’t hold your breath.

No Free Lunch

The True Cost of ObamaCare Finally Released

Higher Taxes, lower wages, fewer jobs, lower standard of living, and less freedom.

While I’ve said these things repeatedly here on the blog and elsewhere (ie: chat) the above are the conclusions of a study by the National Center for Public Policy Research, policy analyst Matt Peterson.

In a just released report titled: No Free Lunch: The True Cost of ObamaCare”, Peterson concludes “Instead of providing ‘affordable’ health care for everybody, ObamaCare will in fact lead to dramatically higher health insurance premiums, higher taxes, reduced Medicare benefits, lower wages and fewer jobs for low and middle-income Americans.”

Quoting the report:

Higher Taxes - ObamaCare would be paid for with massive tax increases, amounting to an estimated increased tax burden of $2.3 trillion in the coming decades.

Lower Wages/Fewer Jobs - New taxes and fees imposed on businesses by ObamaCare would result in fewer jobs and lower wages for low- and middle-income workers.

Standard of Living - The massive government spending required would explode the federal deficit with ruinous consequences for every American's standard of living.

Medicare Benefits - ObamaCare aims to pay for itself, in part, with hundreds of billions in devastating cuts to Medicare and Medicare Advantage.

Privacy - ObamaCare regulations would result in a larger, more powerful IRS and ensure that more personal information is shared with more people.

Your Freedom - ObamaCare would require, under threat of penalty, every American to have insurance whether they want or need it.

Peterson’s report confirms what the Congressional Budget Office’s findings last month which estimated that ObamaCare would explode the Federal Deficit by another $1.5 TRILLION dollars a year, continuing as far as the eye can see.

For those who advocate for a ‘single payer’ system or ‘government option’ I have a question for you:  The Obama Administration promised last month that there would be 120,000,000 doses of H1N1 flu shots available by this time.  This morning, CNN and MSNBC (both “Obama Approved” media outlets) reported that less than 3,000,000 shots were available for the general public.  Given the Federal Government’s “stellar” job in getting less than 3,000,000 shots available to the public, what in the blue hell makes you think they can deliver health care effectively?

You who have eyes, do not see that the Federal Government is oft the problem, and never the solution.  Reagan was right – again.

 

Gallup: 61% of American’s Think Obama Nobel Undeserved

Why those RACISTS!  How *DARE* they think Obama didn’t deserve his Nobel Peace Prize!  Obama worked very hard his first 11 days in office to earn the nomination, and just look at the results he’s delivered since his time in office.

ObamaCare Fails First Hurdle

You wouldn’t know from the approved Obama Media, but Government takeover of Health-Care is going down in flames.

From yesterday’s New York Times, p. 25:

"You have to read all the way to page A-25 in today’s New York Times to learn about it, but the Senate took its first floor vote on Obamacare yesterday and the White House lost. Big. The NYT reports: “Democrats lost a big test vote on health care legislation on Wednesday as the Senate blocked action on a bill to increase Medicare payments to doctors at a cost of $247 billion over 10 years. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, needed 60 votes to proceed. He won only 47. And he could not blame Republicans. A dozen Democrats and one independent crossed party lines and voted with Republicans on the 53 to 47 roll call.”

As we reported on Monday and Tuesday, yesterday’s “doc fix” (a $247 billion “payout” to doctors) vote was part of a White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel strategy to smooth passage of President Barack Obama’s $1 trillion-plus health care overhaul by transferring a quarter of its cost into a separate, and completely unpaid for, bill. This transparently dishonest shell game was too much for honest Democratic Senators like Evan Bayh (D-IN), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Bill Nelson (D-FL), and Ron Wyden (D-OR). Wyden told the NYT: “On the eve of a historic debate on health care, it’s essential to show a commitment to real reform,” which includes fiscal responsibility.

Yesterday’s vote marks a significant failure of the Left’s special interest approach to passing Obamacare. From the beginning, the White House thought that if it bought off all of the business interests involved (the American Medical Association, the drug industry, health insurers, hospitals, etc.) opposition to the plan would whither. In one sense, the plan worked. USA Today reports PhRMA, Pfizer, America’s Health Insurance Plans, and the Federation of American Hospitals have all ponied up millions of dollars for lobbying and television ads in support of Obamacare.

But all these special interest television ads failed to rid Americans of their common sense objections to Obamacare’s government takeover of health care. Gallup reports today that Americans now more than ever believe the costs their family pays for health care will get worse if Obamacare passes. And more Americans now believe that Obamacare will lower the quality of care they receive, reduce their health care coverage, and complicate the insurance company requirements they have to meet to get certain treatments covered.

Instead of the massive overhaul being pursued by the White House, a solid majority of Americans tell Gallup they want to see Congress move in the opposite direction. By 58% to 38%, Americans would generally prefer to see Congress deal with health care reform “on a gradual basis over several years” rather than “try to pass a comprehensive health care reform plan this year.” Bipartisan, fiscally responsible, reform such as equalizing the tax treatment of health insurance purchases, freeing customers to purchase health insurance across state lines, and allowing states more flexibility on Medicaid spending are readily doable. And that is what the people want.

At the end of the day, all Republican’s and 13 Democrats led by Senator Bobby Byrd (D. W. VA) voted against cloture which would’ve ended debate on the Senate floor and forced a vote. 

Byrd was also the first Senator (of either party) to question the Constitutionality of Obama’s “Czars.”  As Obama looks to consolidate power in the White House, the Senate’s most senior member, and fellow Democrat Byrd stands in Obama’s way of elevating executive power above the Senate Chamber.  In short, Byrd is protecting the Senate’s power against the White House and this is as it should be.

If Obama thinks he can get in a pissing match with Byrd and win, he’s got another thing coming.  Constitutionally speaking, Bobby Byrd will kick Obama’s ass up and down Pennsylvania avenue.

 

The Doctors Are Out …

66% Oppose “ObamaCare”

A recent IBD/TIPP Poll showed two-thirds of physicians opposing Congress' proposed reforms, and warning of dire consequences. Now, a forum of prominent doctors has amplified those concerns.

Of 1,376 doctors responding in late August, 65% opposed Congress' reform plans; 45% said enactment would make them consider leaving their practice or take early retirement; and 67% expected fewer students to apply to medical schools.

Some 65% also felt seniors would end up with lower-quality care under a government plan; 71% didn't think it possible for the government to cover 47 million more people and cut costs while also delivering better quality care; finally, 60% of physicians didn't think that under a government plan, drug companies would have incentives to continue developing as many lifesaving new medicines.

America's doctors know their patients better than politicians do. And the hostility seen in these poll results was mirrored by virtually all of the 15 esteemed physicians from the New York metropolitan area gathered by former New York state Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey for a Forum on Medical Excellence Monday evening.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was vilified by Washington politicians for coining the term "death panels" to describe the government bureaucracies that would intrude in life-and-death decisions regarding the allocation of resources under the proposed government takeover of our health system.

(Excerpted, read the rest at Investors Business Daily)

Related Articles:
Canadian Patients Feel Wait of the World

Excuses Wearing Thin For Obama, Media

Editors Note: Printed in Obama's Hometown Newspaper, The Chicago Sun Times Today, October 20th.

BY STEVE HUNTLEY

Have you heard the news? President Obama inherited an economic mess from the Bush administration.

You say that's hardly news? But it's been the message sounded over and over by the White House. Top Obama adviser David Axelrod said on one of the Sunday news shows, "He walked in the door, we had the worst economy since the Great Depression." In San Francisco, Obama talked of being "busy with our mop." White House heavy hitter Rahm Emanuel used the worst-economy-since-the-Depression line on a public TV news show.

You'd think it's October 2008, the final month in the Obama presidential candidacy, rather than October 2009, nine months into the Obama presidency. Yet the Obama White House is in full campaign mode -- maybe because it needs to mask the shortcomings of the Obama presidency.

Take, for example, all the talk of inheriting the worst economy since the 1930s crisis. That came in response to the news that the federal deficit hit $1.4 trillion.

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.

Obama is still popular, but polls show the public losing faith in his policies. Another indicator was a ''Saturday Night Live'' skit lampooning Obama for the major accomplishments of his administration -- "jack and squat." If the honeymoon is ending with the American voter, it isn't for obsequious elements of the mainstream media. CNN prostrated itself by fact-checking the ''SNL'' comedy skit.

But that's harmless compared to the virulent campaign against Obama critics carried out by the denizens of MSNBC. Its Obama acolytes seek to demonize opponents of Obama's policies by focusing on most marginal corners of right-wing politics like, for example, the "birthers" who deny Obama is a natural born citizen. The larger scheme is to imply Obama critics are racists.

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, or so goes the left-wing story line. I wouldn't defend everything Limbaugh has ever said, but lies were used to blacklist him from professional football for his political views.

Recently an MSNBC personality accused the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of lobbying for policies that amount to being "treasonous to this country." Remember how liberals roared in outrage at any hint of their patriotism being questioned for criticizing the Iraq War? Well, it's the left that doesn't shy from attacking the patriotism of those it dislikes. Recall the repulsive Moveon.org "General Betray-us" ad against Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus. Recent opposition to Chicago's Olympic bid was cast as a sign of a lack of patriotism among Obama critics.

The MSNBC blast against the chamber appears to dovetail with what the Politico newspaper reports is a White House and Democratic effort "to marginalize" the business organization. That echoes the administration assault on the Fox News Channel: It says Fox isn't a news organization.

The White House trying to dictate who's a news organization. Democrats out to gut a business group. Obama media allies damning Americans as racist, unpatriotic and treasonous. Is this the America Obama promised when he campaigned to end the cynical and divisive politics of the past?

Editor: I'd given up on buying much less reading the Chicago newspapers because they've been so far in the tank for Obama it's been sickening. So imagine my surpise today when I pick up a leftover newspaper on the commuter train home from the City this evening and see the above article in the Sun Times. I wonder if the Obama Administration is now going to tell the rest of the newspapers around the country to ignore the Chicago Sun-Times because it isn't "real" journalism (read that: So far up Obama's ass they can't see daylight anymore.) If I were Steve Huntley, I'd hire someone to start my car in the morning. Surely the Obama Chicago style political thugs aren't going to like this article ...

FCC Set To Give Obama Keys to Internet

Glenn Beck reported today that the Federal Communications Commission is set to give Obama control of the Internet.

The "rationale" behind these new FCC Regulations will be to "protect consumers from false or misleading information."  In passing the regulations, the FCC is not permitting any public comment or input.

In related news, the Obama Administration is now backing a Newspaper Industry bailout, to prevent long time publishers from going under as a result of the recession.  Wait, is it a recession, or is it simply that the general public recognizes a White House Driven propaganda machine and has chosen not to support it? Either way, the Obama Administration has decided to financially burden we taxpayers on the progressive media's behalf so that we get "the real news", or that is to say, the news the Obama Administration wants us to get.

I report, you decide.

In more related news, the White House admitted the other day that the American Media (save for Fox News) is in the pocket of the Obama Administration and is directly following the administrations orders.

Here we have Anita Dunn speaking via videotape to a Dominican Republic government conference.

"Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control," said Dunn.

"One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters," said Dunn, referring to Plouffe, who was Obama's chief campaign manager.

"We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it," Dunn said.

Dunn has been under fire since she led a White House campaign last week against Fox News, claiming the top-rated news network (which beats CNN, CNN Headline News, MSNBC, CNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS nightly newscasts combined) was an "arm of the Republican Party" and "opinion journalism masquerading as news."

Fox News' response? You can see for yourself, in her own words, where Anita Dunn says Mao Tse-tung was her idol:

So why is the Obama Administration working so hard to get the "keys to the Internet" so they can shut it down and to squelch Fox News? Rule #1 in a Socialist take-over is to squelch all opposition. Once the media is controlled feeding the people only what the Administration wants it to hear, then they can do anything un-checked.

All I can say at this point is Joseph Goebbels would be proud of Obama, Anita Dunn, and the willing co-whores in the Media at CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC.

Thankfully Fox News isn't folding, and American's who desire true journalism have turned to Fox for the truth they can't find anywhere else.

Speaking Of The Only True News Source ...

How'd the mainstream media miss this one? Oh, that's right - the Obama Administration didn't think this was real news coming from their own Vice President, none other than the buffoon Joe Biden. Did you all know we're in a Depression? Yes, the Vice President said it:

It's official folks - we knew it all along, but it's high time someone from the Administration comes out and admits it - WE'RE IN A DEPRESSION!!!

The Danger of Obama’s Dithering

His Foreign Policy Brings to Mind Jimmy Carter

By John R. Bolton

October 18, 2009

Weakness in American foreign policy in one region often invites challenges elsewhere, because our adversaries carefully follow diminished American resolve. Similarly, presidential indecisiveness, whether because of uncertainty or internal political struggles, signals that the United States may not respond to international challenges in clear and coherent ways.

Taken together, weakness and indecisiveness have proved historically to be a toxic combination for America's global interests. That is exactly the combination we now see under President Obama. If anything, his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize only underlines the problem.

All of Obama's campaign and inaugural talk  about "extending an open hand" and "engagement," especially the multilateral variety, isn't exactly unfolding according to plan. Entirely predictably, we see more clearly every day that diplomacy is not a policy but only a technique. Absent presidential leadership, which at a minimum means clear policy direction and persistence in the face of criticism and adversity, engagement simply embodies weakness and indecision.

Obama is no Harry Truman. At best, he is reprising Jimmy Carter. At worst, the real precedent may be Ethelred the Unready, the turn-of the-first-millennium Anglo-Saxon king whose reputation for indecisiveness and his unsuccessful paying of Danegeld -- literally, "Danish tax" -- to buy off Viking raiders made him history's paradigmatic weak leader.

Beyond the disquiet (or outrage for some) prompted by the president's propensity to apologize for his country's pre-Obama history, Americans increasingly sense that his administration is drifting from one foreign policy mistake to another. Worse, the current is growing swifter, and the threats more pronounced, even as the administration tries to turn its face away from the world and toward its domestic priorities. Foreign observers, friend and foe alike, sense the same aimlessness and drift. French President Nicolas Sarkozy had to remind Obama at a Sept. 24 U.N. Security Council meeting that "we live in the real world, not a virtual one."
Examples of weakness abound, and the consequences are readily foreseeable.

Canceling the Polish and Czech missile defense bases is understood in Moscow and Eastern European capitals as backing down in the face of Russian bluster and belligerence. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threatened the day after our 2008 election to deploy missiles targeting these assets unless they were canceled, a threat duly noted by the Russian media when Obama canceled the sites.

Given candidate Obama's reaction to the 2008 Russia-Georgia war -- calling on both sides to exercise restraint -- there is little doubt that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's project to re-extend Russian hegemony over as much of the former Soviet Union as he can will continue apace. Why should he worry about Washington?

Obama's Middle East peace process has stalled, most recently because he set a target for an end to Israeli settlement expansion, couldn't meet it and then proceeded as though he hadn't meant what he said originally. By insisting that Israel freeze settlements as a precondition to renewing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Obama drew a clear line. But when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu withstood Obama's pressure, Obama caved, hosting a photo-op with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that strengthened Netanyahu and weakened Abbas just when Obama wanted to achieve exactly the opposite. However one views the substantive outcome of this vignette, Obama himself looked the weakest of all. It could well be years before his Middle East policy gets back up off the ground.

On nuclear nonproliferation, North Korea responded to the "open hand" of engagement by testing its second nuclear device, continuing an aggressive ballistic missile testing program, cooperating with other rogue states and kidnapping and holding hostage two American reporters. Obama's reaction is to press for more negotiations, which simply encourages Pyongyang to up the ante.

Iran is revealed to have been long constructing an undeclared, uninspected nuclear facility that makes a mockery of almost seven years of European Union negotiation efforts. Forced to deal publicly with this deeply worrying threat, Obama proposes the equivalent of money-laundering for nuclear threats: Iranian uranium enriched in open, unambiguous defiance of four Security Council resolutions will be enriched to higher levels in Russia, and then returned to be burned in a Tehran reactor -- ostensibly for peaceful purposes. Sarkozy again captured the growing international incredulity in his noteworthy Security Council speech: "I support America's 'extended hand.' But what have these proposals for dialogue produced for the international community? Nothing but more enriched uranium and more centrifuges."

Finally, Obama's agonizing, very public reappraisal of his own 7-month-old Afghanistan policy epitomizes indecisiveness. While there is no virtue in sustaining policy merely for continuity's sake, neither is credit due for too-quickly adopting policies without appreciating the risks entailed and then fleeing precipitously when the risks become manifest. The administration's stated reason for its policy re-evaluation was widespread fraud in Afghanistan's Aug. 20 presidential election. But this explanation is simply not credible. Did not the administration's generals and diplomats on the ground, not to mention United Nations observers, see the election mess coming? Was the Hamid Karzai administration's cupidity and corruption overlooked or ignored during Obama's original review and revision of his predecessor's policy?

The unmistakable inference is that Obama did not carefully think through his March Afghan policy, or did not have full confidence then or now in Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal or Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, or that it is now politically inconvenient among increasingly antiwar Democrats to follow through on that policy.
None of these explanations reflect credit on the president. He is dithering. Whatever decision Obama reaches on Afghanistan, his credibility and leadership have been badly wounded by his continuing public display of indecisiveness.

Our international adversaries undoubtedly welcome all of these "resets" in U.S. foreign policy, but Americans should be appalled at how much of our posture in the world has already been given away. If Obama's first nine months indicate the direction of the next 39, we still have a long way to fall.
John R. Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option."

Editors Note: Can you believe this was published in the leftist LA Times?  They were so far up Obama’s arse during the campaign, have they finally turned on him too?

Obama To Force His Agenda Through Even If It Means Defeat For House/Senate Dems in 2010

Confirming yesterday’s column on Human Events by Connie Hair (a friend of this writer…) here’s Karl Rove describing how Obama is going to move forward with ObamaCare, the original House Bill H.R. 3200 which implements “death panels” and taxpayer funded abortions as “reproductive health care.”

The Democrats know they’re in trouble, and time is not on their side.  They know if they lose key Governor’s races in New Jersey and elsewhere this November, that the jig is up on their socialist agenda. That’s why they’re going to try and “race this through” the voters of this country be damned.

Do we need anymore proof that the Democrats hate America as well as you and I, the citizens of this country?  Obama, Reid, Pelosi certainly know what’s best for us and they’re upset that we don’t just bend to their will!

That’s right, Health Care “Reform”, Cap & Tax, Climate Change .. hang onto your wallets, the Democrats are coming for all our money!

 

Obama To Cede U.S. Sovereignty

All in the name of “climate change” the Western countries of the world are about to cede their national sovereignty to the United Nations and transfer trillions of dollars of wealth to third-world countries as a ‘debt payment’ for their not having contributed to so-called “global warming.”

Democrats Going Nuclear On ObamaCare

Nuclear Option Means Only 51 Votes Required To Pass

Connie Hair
Human Events

House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) held a hearing this morning to certify that H.R. 3200 -- the main House Obamacare bill which was the subject of all the town hall rage in August -- has met all requirements to pass as a “budget reconciliation” measure.

Under reconciliation, the bill can be passed by a simple majority vote in the Senate -- just 51 votes -- and will be given preferential treatment on the House floor as well. The Dems have apparently invoked the “nuclear option” to shut out Republicans and ensure the bill is passed before the end of the year.

The bill certified for “reconciliation” is the Ways & Means version of H.R. 3200 that was passed out of committee before the August break, and before it was read aloud at town hall meetings across the country and blasted by voters across the country.

It contains all of the horrors previously exposed: federal funding of abortion, coverage for illegal aliens, comparative effectiveness, healthcare rationing, deep cuts to Medicare. Everything the American people overwhelmingly reject.

No amendments were allowed at the hearing and no debate. Rangel told Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the ranking Republican on the committee, that he would not have preferred to do it this way, but leadership -- i.e., Speaker Pelosi -- forced his hand.

While the media cameras are focused on Harry Reid’s office door, the House of Representatives has made it possible for H.R. 3200 to pass the Senate with 51 votes. It is still possible that Senator Reid won’t choose to use reconciliation in the Senate, but the odds against it are infinitesimal.

Since it has now cleared the Ways and Means Committee (fulfilling the $1 billion reconciliation requirement), H.R. 3200 will go to the Budget Committee where they will do the same thing that was done today in Ways & Means. They will agree that the bill has met the reconciliation requirements on a straight party line vote.

The bill then goes to Pelosi and the Rules Committee where Pelosi will do the same thing Reid is doing right now: merge the three House versions of H.R. 3200 together into whatever she wants it to be, then she will schedule it for a floor vote.

H.R. 3200 could see a floor vote in the next two weeks, or the first week of November. If it passes, the House it goes to the Senate and can pass there with 51 votes.

Home Foreclosures Up 15% over 2008

More evidence of the economy having “improved” since Obama took office?  Hardly.

Obama said yesterday that the economy has improved since he took office in January of this year.  Yesterday we posted that the unemployment rate is nearly 3% higher on a national average since he took office, and in some states more than 5% – 7% higher than when Obama seized the White House. 

We also posted yesterday that according to the Department of Labor, an additional 5,500,000 (an average of 550,000 a month) have lost their jobs since Obama seized the White House in January of this year.

Today, we hear that home foreclosures went up an additional 5% in the Summer to Fall quarter of 2009, for a grand total of 15% over 2008’s record foreclosure rate, the last year of the Bush Administration.

Only in a liberal democrat panty waste land does rising unemployment, more unemployed, and more homeless mean a “better” economy.

Now the question is: Better for WHO?  If you’re Barack Hussein Obama and you’ve already seized control of Wall Street, the Banking System, the Automobile Industry and are now seeking to gain control of the National Health Care system, the news couldn’t better for you!

Unfortunately for the rest of us who live in the real world outside the Washington D.C. bubble, we’re witnessing an abysmal failure of this Presidency at record speed, faster than the demonstrably failed Jimmy Carter Administration.