1.1. In for a penny, in for 3/4 of a cent?

In the battle on the U.S.-Mexico border, the fight against illegal immigration often loses out to environmental laws that have blocked construction of parts of the “virtual fence” and that threaten to create places where agents can’t easily track illegal immigrants.

Documents obtained by Rep. Rob Bishop and shared with The Washington Times show National Park Service staffers have tried to stop the U.S. Border Patrol from placing some towers associated with the virtual fence, known as the Secure Border Initiative or SBInet, on wilderness lands in parks along the border.

In a remarkably candid letter to members of Congress, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said her department could have to delay pursuits of illegal immigrants while waiting for horses to be brought in so agents don’t trample protected lands, and warns that illegal immigrants will increasingly make use of remote, protected areas to avoid being caught.

The documents also show the Interior Department has charged the Homeland Security Department $10 million over the past two years as a “mitigation” penalty to pay for damage to public lands that agencies say has been caused by Border Patrol agents chasing illegal immigrants.

By all means, let’s protect our nation from illegal immigration and terrorism, but let’s do so only where it coincides with the precious concerns of the enviro-weenies.

Maybe the government can strike a deal with the coyotes to smuggle their illicit human cargos only in areas first approved by those whose environmental concerns take precedence over the lives and wellbeing of Americans, and make a similar arrangement with any terrorists or MS-13 gangs wishing to come into the U.S. to wreak their havoc.

Dipstix…

2. Our esteemed Ego-In-Chief:

PRESIDENT OBAMA was too busy to attend the celebrations in Germany this week marking the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago. But he did appear by video, delivering a few brief and bloodless remarks about how the wall was “a painful barrier between family and friends” that symbolized “a system that denied people the freedoms that should be the right of every human being.” He referred to “tyranny,” but never identified the tyrants — he never uttered the words “Soviet Union” or “communism,” for example. He said nothing about the men and women who died trying to cross the wall. Nor did he mention Harry Truman or Ronald Reagan — or even Mikhail Gorbachev.

He did, however, talk about Barack Obama.

Of course he did. He is, after all, his favorite subject.

It’s been a point of debate between Chuck and I whether he was this big a self worshiper before he ran for his present position (Chuck’s opinion) or his ego was hyper-inflated by the messiah building PR showered upon him by the mainstream media, and the adulation he received from millions of gullible mental zeros or overreactive Bush-haters who elected him (my opinion).

If I’m right, my flashback to Peter Finch as Howard Beale in Network (you know, “Go to the window…”) is almost spot-on.

“Few would have foreseen,” declared the president, “that a united Germany would be led by a woman from [the former East German state of] Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it.”

As presidential rhetoric goes, this was hardly a match for “Ich bin ein Berliner,” still less another “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” But as a specimen of presidential narcissism, it is hard to beat. Obama couldn’t be troubled to visit Berlin to commemorate a momentous milestone in the history of human liberty. But he was glad to explain to those who were there why reflections on that milestone should inspire appreciation for the self-made “destiny” of his own rise to power.

Was there ever a president as deeply enamored of himself as Barack Obama?

The first President Bush, taught from childhood to shun what his mother called “The Great I Am,” regularly instructed his speechwriters not to include too many “I’s” in his prepared remarks. Ronald Reagan maintained that there was no limit to what someone could achieve if he didn’t mind who got the credit. George Washington, one of the most accomplished men of his day, said with characteristic modesty on becoming president that he was “peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies.”

Obama, on the other hand, positively revels in The Great I Am.

“I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” he told campaign aides when he was running for the White House. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that . . . I’m a better political director than my political director.”

At the start of his presidency, Obama seemed to content himself with the royal “we” — “We will build the roads and bridges . . . We will restore science to its rightful place . . . We will harness the sun and winds,” he declaimed at his inauguration.

But as the literary theorist Stanley Fish points out, “By the time of the address to the Congress on Feb. 24, the royal we [had] flowered into the naked ‘I’: ‘As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress.’ ‘I called for action.’ ‘I pushed for quick action.’ ‘I have told each of my cabinet.’ ‘I’ve appointed a proven and aggressive inspector general.’ ‘I refuse to let that happen.’ ‘I will not spend a single penny.’ ‘I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves.’ ‘I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half.’” In his speech on the federal takeover of GM, Obama likewise found it necessary to use the first-person singular pronoun 34 times. (”Congress” he mentioned just once.)

The writer of the linked column, Jeff Jacoby, knows his subject:

At this rate, it won’t be long before the president’s ego is so inflated that it will require a ZIP code of its own.

…which, as we know, is their not-too-subtle public relations machine, get their backs up with profound indignancy, if not shock, when anyone infers, even remotely, that Barack Hussein Obama is in any way pro-Muslim, anyone who is unfamiliar with histrionics would take them seriously.

I will admit that I’m both Jewish and pro-Israel, and that I have little use for the “Palestinians”, a collective who have built up a well deserved reputation as a spawn of terrorism and a people who, as Abba Eban once said, “never miss a chance to miss an opportunity”, but even if I entertained totally neutral feelings between both the Jews and the “Palestinians”, I would have to be either completely obtuse or a bald faced liar if I failed to note that the Obama Administration is very much anti-Israel and pro-”Palestinian”.

The “Palestinians”, those fine folks who brought us Hamas.

In fact, there would seem to be a certain almost malevolent tone to Barack Hussein’s treatment of Israel, as is well defined in a column by Caroline Glick.

Once again, US President Barack Obama has demonstrated his intention of “putting light” between America and Israel. His hostility towards Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during the latter’s visit to Washington this week was breathtaking.

It isn’t every day that you can see an American President leaving the Prime Minister of an allied government twisting in the wind for weeks before deciding to grant him an audience at the White House.

It isn’t every day that a visiting leader from a strategically vital US ally is brought into the White House in an unmarked van in the middle of the night rather than greeted like a friend at the front door; is forbidden to have his picture taken with the President; is forced to leave the White House alone, through a side exit; and is ordered to keep the contents of his meeting with the President secret.

You know, the very blatancy of this move speaks volumes.

I don’t guess the Chicago machine is what you’d call a bastion of discretion where its corruption is concerned — after all, in one of those few large U.S. cities where racketeering, graft and corruption are historically hallmarks of day-to-day reality, there is little need to try and mask what the people expect, anyway, as a matter of course.

Therefore, the Chicago Machine© product B. Hussein Obama brought to the White House is, for lack of any previous need for subtlety, is transparently obvious for what it is.

As a result, no amount of lying, nor third rate subterfuge performed under the nom de guerre of a “transparent administration” could be expected to fool anyone who wasn’t deaf, dumb, blind and brain dead — we’ve learned that nothing Obama says is worth taking seriously, that his actions will tell us the truth long before he will.

The fun part is that the mainstream media, liberal rodents that they are, will go with the program no matter what O says or does.

Knowing this, the president, feeling, I suppose, like any worthy communist party general secretary who knows he is well shielded by a strong propaganda ministry (or, in this case, the MSM), charges ahead with even his most extreme agendas, including that of bringing down Israel, taking the Jewish state away from the Jewish people.

Ahead of Obama’s meeting with Netanyahu, the Wall Street Journal reported that Obama was effectively attempting to blackmail the Israeli premier by conditioning the meeting on Netanyahu’s willingness to make tangible concessions to the Palestinians during his speech before the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America.

“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!” you exclaim.

Although the report was denied by the Obama administration, if it was true, such a move by the White House would be without precedent in the history of US relations with Israel. And if untrue, the very fact that the story rings true is indicative of the wretched state of US relations with Israel since Obama entered office.

Obama’s hostility was evident as well during his meeting with fifty Jewish leaders at the White House this week. In an obvious bid to split American Jewry away from Israel, Obama refused to discuss Israel or Iran with the concerned American Jewish leaders. As far as Obama was concerned, all they deserved from him was a primer on the brilliance of his economic policies and the worthiness of his plan to socialize the American healthcare industry. His foreign policy is none of their business.

Obama’s meeting with American Jewish leaders was supposed to be a consolation prize for American Jews after Obama cancelled his first public address to American Jews since taking office. The White House claimed that he cancelled the speech because his visit to the Fort Hood memorial service made it impossible for him to attend. But then the conference was a three-day affair. The organizers would probably have been happy to reschedule.

Although the report was denied by the Obama Administration…; Whose word is as good as what?

Uh oh, here’s the kicker!

Instead, as Iran races to the nuclear finish line, America’s Jewish leaders were forced to sit through White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel’s kitschy Borscht Belt schmooze about his bar mitzvah.

When you take all the above into consideration, the entire exercise was a calculated insult to Jews and Israel, a veritable slap in the face!

The ironic thing about Obama’s nastiness towards Netanyahu and his arrogant treatment of the American Jewish community is that while it has made him the first US president to have no credibility among Israelis and has caused a 14 percent drop in his support among American Jews, it has failed utterly to earn him the trust of the Muslim world.

Today the Fatah movement is in disarray. Last week its leader Mahmoud Abbas announced his intention to retire and has placed the blame for his decision on the Obama administration as well as on Israel. Key Palestinian spokesmen like Saeb Erekat have declared the death of the peace process and called for the renewal of the jihad against Israel.

As for the larger Muslim world, a report this week in the New York Timesstated that the US’s key Arab allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been perilously weakened since Obama took office. Their diminished influence has been accompanied by the rapid rise of Iran and Syria. Both of these rogue states have been on the receiving end of continuous wooing by Obama administration officials who seem ready to do just about anything to appease them.

And this is the president of what country? The U.S.? My country?

Gadzooks!!!!

Read the rest of the column here.

Having read the book of Revelations before, I wonder how many Christians there are out there who think of the Antichrist in the same context as they do B. Hussein Obama…

Okay, well, first off, James Taranto got me started earlier while I was reading Best Of The Web Today.

Who says President Obama hasn’t accomplished anything since taking office? To his Nobel Peace Prize and two Grammys, we can add a sports record, Politico reports:

Obama has only been in office for just over nine months, but he’s already hit the links as much as President Bush did in over two years.

CBS’ Mark Knoller–an unofficial documentarian and statistician of all things White House-related–wrote on his Twitter feed [Saturday] that, “Today - Obama ties Pres. Bush in the number of rounds of golf played in office: 24. Took Bush 2 yrs & 10 months.”

Yes, we can!

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports from Kabul that “eight American troops were killed in two separate bomb attacks Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, making October the deadliest month of the war for U.S. forces since the 2001 invasion to oust the Taliban.”

We know what you’re thinking, but this is not Obama’s fault.

Afghanistan is someone else’s mess, so why don’t you grab a mop? As White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN last week:

It’s clear that basically we had a war for eight years that was going on, that’s adrift. That we’re beginning at scratch, and just from the starting point, after eight years. . . . Before you commit troops, which is–not irreversible, but puts you down a certain path–before you make that decision, there’s a set of questions that have to have answers that have never been asked. And it’s clear after eight years of war, that’s basically starting from the beginning, and those questions never got asked. And what I find interesting and just intriguing from this debate in Washington, is that a lot of people who all of a sudden say, this is now the epicenter of the war on terror, you must do this now, immediately approve what the general said–where, before, it never even got on the radar screen for them.

Hang on a second. It has now been 51 weeks since Obama was elected president, and more than nine months since he took office, and he’s just now getting around to asking the “questions . . . that have never been asked”?

But that’s not really fair to Obama. After all, he has a busy schedule, what with golf games and pitching the International Olympic Committee and date nights and Democratic fund-raisers and health care and the U.N. Security Council and Sunday morning talk shows and saving the planet from global warming and celebrating the dog’s birthday and defending himself against Fox News and all.

Remember how the lefties used to rail at George W. Bush every time he took a break at his ranch, played a round of golf or spent a weekend at Camp David as though he were goofing off, knowing fully well that he was, like any POTUS, “on duty” 24/7?

At least Dubya addressed problems directly and did what he had to do with neither procrastination nor the blatant indecision we see festering in the Oval Office today.

Next!

Thomas Sowell talks about what amounts to the dismantling of America by the Obama Administration.

Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official — not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate, but simply one of the many “czars” appointed by the President — could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?

Did you think that another “czar” would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers — that is, to create a situation where some newspapers’ survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?

Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called “experts” deciding who could and could not get life-saving medical treatments?

Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life and death decisions about your loved ones?

Does any of this sound like America?

How about a federal agency giving school children material to enlist them on the side of the president? Merely being assigned to sing his praises in class is apparently not enough.

How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path? President Obama has already floated the idea of a national police force, something we have done without for more than two centuries.

Read the entire Thomas Sowell column here.

Yep, that’s what millions of irresponsible Americans placed at the helm of the United States last November, and may they pay twice as much for their stupidity as the rest of us.

Shame on them!

Seth is taking a necessary hiatus (agaaaiiiin!?, you ask, but this one has something to do with his getting his present and ongoing setbacks eliminated, the ones that’ve been plaguing his life for nearly a year).

To hear him tell it, for awhile he’ll be busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest, so I’ll try and cover up what could otherwise be a lengthy period of blog-vacuum.

Ahem, now it’s time for my opinions to be registered, the boss being gone and all.

This evening, however, I want to bring your attention to an article Seth asked me to post on, a column by Tony Blankley titled The World Won’t Wait On Washington Indecision

On three fronts — South Korean trade, Ukrainian/Russian diplomacy and Afghan war fighting — the Obama administration is being increasingly pressured by unfolding events to shed ideology and rationalizations and come quickly to a realistic analysis of world events and their consequences. In each of these cases, in the absence of very prompt United States policy decisions and actions, we shall incur long-term irreversible economic, geopolitical or national security harm. I will discuss the Afghan war decision in a future column.

That’s okay, Tony. B. Hussein’s got enough on his plate with just the other two issues, and he doesn’t seem to have the wherewithal even to give either of them the proverbial “old college try”.

In the case of South Korea, last week the European Union completed a bilateral trade deal (requiring approval by the European Parliament) with South Korea. While the 2006 U.S. deal with South Korea languishes unratified by both a Congress and White House controlled by the evidently protectionist wing of the Democratic Party, the Europeans cannot believe their luck. They basically copied our hard-negotiated tentative agreement, and if they soon ratify it, they will be able to take economic advantages over the United States.

European officials are “ecstatic” about the access they have gained. Catherine Ashton, the EU trade commissioner, told the Financial Times, “I think the package is the best we’ll ever get and I think it’s a fantastic package for Europe.” “There is no doubt the Korea-US agreement was used as a benchmark or even a model from the Korean side,” Christopher Dent, professor of East Asian political economy at the University of Leeds, told the Financial Times last week.

The pact would increase trade for South Korea-EU by about 20 percent — surging past current U.S.-South Korean trade levels if the U.S. fails to ratify our treaty first. Indecision by the U.S. government will in fact be a decision to lose up to $25 billion per annum of trade and jobs to the Europeans.

Truth to tell, I ain’t what you’d call surprised. I mean, with Cap ‘n Trade raring to go, it’s pretty obvious that keeping Americans working at all, let alone decreasing our current high unemployment numbers, is not real high on the priority list for the president and our lefty congress, nor do those liberal elitists give a flying whatchamacallit whether or not the U.S. middle class maintains a standard of living that surpasses the poor in a third world shithole.

I hate to say it, but I’m kind of wondering whether Obama and Kongress actually have an agenda, any real plans, or whether they’re just wingin’ it, fingers crossed. You know, like a “just ignore it and it will go ‘way” type attitude.

On the Ukrainian front, Russia is ratcheting up heavy pressure on the country to vote for the pro-Russia candidate in the January election, while ambiguous American policy and actions are undercutting pro-Western forces in Ukraine.

Last week, The Guardian — a prestigious leftist British newspaper — headlined an article thus: “Ukraine fears for its future as Moscow muscles in on Crimea. As Ukraine prepares for its first presidential election since the Orange Revolution, there are signs that its giant neighbour to the east will not tolerate a pro-western outcome.”

The crunch may come over Crimea, currently part of Ukraine but sought by Russia as in olden days. It was, of course, at Yalta, in Crimea, that the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union drew spheres of influence that deeply shaped the Cold War that followed.

Today, as The Guardian ruefully notes, “almost 65 years after the ‘big three’ met in the Crimean seaside resort of Yalta — now in Ukraine — the question of zones of influence has come back to haunt Europe. Russia has made it clear that it sees Ukraine as crucial to its bold claim that it is entitled to a zone of influence in its post-Soviet backyard.”

This follows Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s August letter to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, seen by diplomats as an “unprecedented diplomatic mugging … a seething letter,” which said not only that Yushchenko is a “nonperson” but also that Russia was reviewing Russia and Ukraine’s 1997 friendship treaty, a reference that The Guardian characterized as “a hint that Moscow may no longer respect Ukraine’s sovereign borders.”

“Diplomatic mugging.”

Where I come from, Yushchenko would’ve said “Them’s fightin’ words” and meant it, but what’s the friggin’ Ukraine gonna do against Russia? Bring a knife to a gunfight?

I mean, are we looking at the beginnings of an attempt to restore the former republics, one at a time, to the Cold War status quo, while the Obama Administration and the Kommie Kongress sit watching with a digit, the one beside the thumb or the next one over, stuck up the place in the back, there?

When The One made a liar out of himself by folding under the glare of Medvedev and his strongman mentor Vladimir Putin, reneging on the antiballistic missile system (remember that one?), he certainly showed Moscow who’s boss (hint: not Obama).

Like I said, but Tony Blankley puts so much better (but then, he’s a pro, I’m just a pajamas ‘bathing trunks and deck shoes in the saloon of my boat’ guy):

These disturbing events are being seen explicitly by Europe and Ukraine in the context of President Barack Obama’s recent decision to reverse our policy to place anti-missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. Again, as even the leftist Guardian explains:

“‘A lot of people in this part of the world are seriously s——ing themselves,’ one analyst in Yalta admitted bluntly. ‘We don’t know what Obama’s deal (with Moscow) was. They think that Russia will take it as a green light,’ he added. Washington insists it dropped the shield following a new assessment of Iran’s nuclear threat. But many in Ukraine believe the White House sacrificed its commitments to eastern Europe in order to ‘reset’ relations with Moscow.”

President Obama’s refusal to meet with Yushchenko when they were both in New York for the recent United Nations conference is taken by some as further evidence that Washington is abandoning to Russian suzerainty the former Soviet-controlled states of eastern Europe.

Well, I’ve thought, at least since Obama started his campaign for his current job (yeah, he’s doing a job on us, alright) and since Pelosi and the rest of the lefty crowd took over and transformed Congress into Kongress, that the helm of government was going to hard left rudder.

The Europeans strongly oppose Moscow’s imperial assertions but seem unable to speak out, let alone act, without American leadership. In fact, Brussels has indicated that Ukraine has no hope of joining the EU in the foreseeable future.

Hah! I seem to recall that during the bulk of the Bush 2 Administration, all we heard was criticism from the rest of the world. According to the leftist mainstream media, we were hated because of Dubya, you know, one of those POTUSes who was more concerned with what he perceived as America’s interests than what other countries perceived as the way he should do his job. That’s called leadership.

This European passivity comes in the face of President Obama’s idealistic call at the U.N. last month that “those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world’s problems alone.”

It seems that Europe, in fact, will stand by. The world may say it disapproves of bold American leadership, but it fears — and is powerless in — its absence. Except, of course, to nibble at our economic ankles while we are inattentive.

What’s this? Now that we have a leader who can’t lead, all those other countries are sort of quiet in their criticism, at least the kind that they once used to blast Bush for taking a leadership role in global affairs. Now they’re in a quandary! Where’s America’s leadership!? We need it!

Well, Europe, your politically motivated lefty asswipes of the Nobel Kommittee spoke your piece for you when they issued B. Hussein the prize they’ve relegated, in their choices of recipients over the last couple of decades, to the value of something out of a Cracker Jack box.

The big problem with The One’s antics, or, more to the point, lack thereof, is that his inaction/indecision of today will leave future Presidents with crises that will make anything happening now look pretty pedestrian.

…from today’s Washington Times Online. I’m somewhat pressed for time this morning, I have some people to meet, but figured I’d share them.

Here we have a fine example of the term, “haste makes waste” in action, in this case mongers of political agendas in such a hurry to blow our hard earned tax money that they misinformed the public, largely through failure to do their homework and largely to get their itinerary pushed through in a hurry, in an un-thought-out, unconstitutional, just plain stupid act, part of the idiotic and ill advised TARP program.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. misled the public about the financial weakness of Bank of America and other early recipients of the government’s $700 billion Wall Street bailout, creating “unrealistic expectations” about the companies and damaging the program’s credibility, according to a report by the program’s independent watchdog.

The federal government last October loaned Bank of America and eight other “healthy” financial institutions a total of $125 billion - the initial payout from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP - in an attempt to avoid a series of major bank collapses that would push the sputtering economy into a free fall or depression.

The rationale for giving money to stable banks and not failing ones, regulators said, was that such institutions would be better able to lend money and thus unfreeze tight credit markets - a major factor in last year’s Wall Street losses.

Right. Now the American taxpayer gets to pay the price for the blatant miscalculations due to political agendas and faulty thinking of a number of general purpose assholes.

Moving right along, we have the messiah Barack Hussein, whose military expertise evidently outshines that of his generals, coming up with excuses as to why he’d rather allow U.S. servicemen and woman to die than to commit more troops where General McChrystal says they are needed. What does McChrystal know, anyway, right? He’s just a general, whereas Obama, the guy who once, for campaign reasons, said the war in Afghanistan is justified in order to compare it to Iraq (according to his excellency, unjustified) is so much more knowledgeable about warfare that, well,

One day after an attack in Afghanistan killed eight American soldiers, President Obama’s national security adviser downplayed both the importance of U.S. troop levels and the possibility of a Taliban return to power.

National security adviser James L. Jones suggested that Gen. McChrystal’s call for more troops must be tempered by diplomatic considerations as the president weighs how to deal with the 8-year-old war.

“Well, I think the end is much more complex than just about adding ‘X’ number of troops. Afghanistan is a country that’s quite large and that swallows up a lot of people,” the retired Marine general said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Right, let’s here more, Jones. What else did Obama instruct you to say, and being an ex-military man yourself, how does it feel to be a party to it?

The rest of the story can be found here.

Remember when B. Hussein Obama promised that his administration would be transparent?

Well, it certainly is…Profoundly transparent in its falsehoods. The man speaks through both sides of his mouth at once, blatantly (and yes, transparently) lies.

For example.

“Our alliance is based on shared interests and shared values. Those who threaten Israel threaten us. Israel has always faced these threats on the front lines. And I will bring to the White House an unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security…I will ensure that Israel can defend itself from any threat - from Gaza to Tehran.… Across the political spectrum, Israelis understand that real security can only come through lasting peace. And that is why we - as friends of Israel - must resolve to do all we can to help Israel and its neighbors to achieve it.”

[Obama Speech at 2008 AIPAC Policy Conference, 6/4/08]

While his website hands us one thing, his deeds demonstrate something entirely different.

From Atlas’ post:

The United States called on its close ally Israel on Tuesday to conduct credible investigations into allegations of war crimes committed by its forces in Gaza, saying it would help the Middle East peace process.

Michael Posner, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, said that Hamas leaders also had a responsibility to investigate crimes and to end what he called its targeting of civilians and use of Palestinian civilians as human shields in the strip.

The U.N. Human Rights Council was holding a one-day debate on a recent report by Richard Goldstone, a South African jurist and former U.N. war crimes prosecutor.

His panel found the Israeli army and Palestinian militants committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity during their December-January war. Israel did not cooperate with the U.N. inquiry and has rejected the report as biased.

“We encourage Israel to utilise appropriate domestic (judicial) review and meaningful accountability mechanisms to investigate and follow-up on credible allegations,” Posner said in a speech to the Geneva forum.

“If undertaken properly and fairly, these reviews can serve as important confidence-building measures that will support the larger essential objective which is a shared quest for justice and lasting peace,” he said.

Pure and simple, the gist is that any Israeli effort at self defense of any definitive nature is “disproportionate”. If x number of Palestinians are killed in the course of such an enterprise, then x number of Israelis have to be killed as well. Meanwhile, it’s perfectly acceptable for Hamas to fire rockets into Israeli cities and towns, destroyiong property and killing innocent civilians.

Going back to a meeting between B. Hussein and a couple of his Islamic butt buddies:

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama privately expressed his support for a new Arab state within Israel’s current borders, including eastern Jerusalem, during his meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah this summer.

According to a report published Tuesday in the Lebanese newspaper al-Ahbar, Obama told Abbas that he supports a PA state, and Arab “rights to east Jerusalem” as well. The sources said Abbas and PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad “heard the best things they ever heard from an American president” during the meeting. However, said sources quoted in the report, the candidate asked them to keep his declaration a secret.

East Jerusalem has no holy standing for Muslims like certain anti-Israel revisionists would have us believe, but Obama’s got that covered by grouping it in with the West Bank, rendering it a part of the “real estate” dispute.

The man attended an anti-Israel, pro-Islamic terrorist church in Chicago for over twenty years.

By backing Hamas and friends here against our old and faithful ally Israel, he is showing us, also, that no matter how hard the liberal media that got him elected tried to cover it up, the President’s name tells us exactly where he’s coming from and where he truly belongs (I’ll give you a hint: They have camels there — moooo!).

His words on one level call the Israelis friend, while on another level, along comes the kick in the groin.

Could it be that Barack Hussein Obama’s actual ambition for all of us is something like this?

…and see a more secure America.

From 2 August, 2009:

The Obama administration is looking at creating a courtroom-within-a-prison complex in the U.S. to house suspected terrorists, combining military and civilian detention facilities at a single maximum-security prison.

Several senior U.S. officials said the administration is eyeing a soon-to-be-shuttered state maximum security prison in Michigan and the 134-year-old military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., as possible locations for a heavily guarded site to hold the 229 suspected al-Qaida, Taliban and foreign fighters now jailed at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.

The officials outlined the plans — the latest effort to comply with President Barack Obama’s order to close the prison camp by Jan. 22, 2010, and satisfy congressional and public fears about incarcerating terror suspects on American soil — on condition of anonymity because the options are under review.

The best way to satisfy public fears about incarcerating terror suspects on American soil would be to leave them incarcerated at Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay, and try them there, as well!

Getting that bit out of the way,

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Obama administration is working to recover from missteps that have put officials behind schedule and left them struggling to win the cooperation of Congress.

Even before the inauguration, President Obama’s top advisers settled on a course of action they With four months left to meet its self-imposed deadline for closing the U.S. military prison at were counseled against: announcing that they would close the facility within one year. Today, officials are acknowledging that they will be hard-pressed to meet that goal.

The White House has faltered in part because of the legal, political and diplomatic complexities involved in determining what to do with more than 200 terrorism suspects at the prison. But senior advisers privately acknowledge not devising a concrete plan for where to move the detainees and mishandling Congress.

Truncating…

Craig said Thursday that some of his early assumptions were based on miscalculations, in part because Bush administration officials and senior Republicans in Congress had spoken publicly about closing the facility. “I thought there was, in fact, and I may have been wrong, a broad consensus about the importance to our national security objectives to close Guantanamo and how keeping Guantanamo open actually did damage to our national security objectives,” he said.

the importance to our national security objectives to close Guantanamo and how keeping Guantanamo open actually did damage to our national security objectives

Is that convoluted thinking, or what?

One of the chief concerns in the whole “what to do with the terrorists imprisoned at GITMO” kerfuffle is a typical liberal concern, of course: Other countries, particularly European countries, disapprove of our holding them there.

American liberals, for the most part, are more concerned with the approval of the European Union than they are with what’s actually in the best interests of the American people. Shame on them!

Durn, I forgot — liberals have no sense of shame.

However, I haven’t read anyplace where the EU countries have pledged to take the detainees off our hands and accept them into their own societies.

Q:Why is that?

A:Old fashioned good sense!

Maybe our President needs to GITMO of that!

At least I’ll assume (I know, assume makes an “ass” out of UME), to judge by the sense of logic, patriotism and common sense Obama has demonstrated as POTUS to date, that the graduate of the corrupt Chicago machine won’t heed the advice of these former DCIs. After all, the Obama credo is “politics before the people.”

Seven of the 10 living former CIA chiefs Friday urged President Obama to overrule his attorney general and not reopen investigations into CIA employees who may have abused detainees during the George W. Bush administration.

The former directors warned that further investigations would demoralize current CIA officers and might also lead allied intelligence services to suspend or scale back cooperation with the United States because the judicial probes could disclose joint operations and activities.

Why should Obama care about compromising methods and personnel? His good fiends friends at the New York Times certainly didn’t care about that kind of thing during the Bush Administration, when they blared every counter-terrorist program or strategy they could get their teeth into in order to play politics at the peril of the American people, just as Mr. O would likely have no qualms about.

If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but to judge, as a horse handicapper might say, from Past Performances, it’s a good bet I’m right.

On Aug. 24, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. appointed a federal prosecutor, John Durham, to review cases against CIA officers suspected of exceeding Justice Department guidelines for interrogations of terrorist suspects following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The decision to reopen the cases was controversial in part because the Justice Department under the Bush administration had already considered the charges and declined to prosecute the officers.

In a letter released Friday, the former directors of the CIA, who included Democratic and Republican appointees, wrote: “If criminal investigations closed by career prosecutors during one administration can so easily be reopened at the direction of political appointees in the next, declinations of prosecution will be rendered meaningless. Those men and women who undertake difficult intelligence assignments in the aftermath of an attack such as September 11 must believe there is permanence in the legal rules that govern their actions.”

The entire article is here.

While we’re visiting the Washington Times, anyway, I’d like to direct your attention to the picture of Nancy Pelosi in this article.

Doesn’t she look like she uses the same cosmetic surgeon as the late Michael Jackson?

Well, lookee here!

The Obama administration has asked Congress to extend three contentious provisions of the USA Patriot Act - a bill once described by President Obama as “shoddy” - and urged an appeals court to deny access to U.S. courts for detainees at a military prison in Afghanistan.

Can’t get enough
of that “shoddy” stuff…

Civil liberties groups immediately criticized both moves, which would extend Bush-era terrorism policies that have long been unpopular with Democrats.

In a letter made public Tuesday, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, asking Congress to reauthorize three portions of the Patriot Act that are set to expire at the end of the year.

Well, we might say that now that he’s in the hot seat himself, maybe B. Hussein Obama realizes that perhaps there were some good reasons for some of the Bush anti-tango policies.

Then, on the other hand,

The three portions permit roving wiretaps, the seizure of certain business records and the monitoring of suspected “lone wolf” terrorists. Mr. Weich said the administration is willing to consider modifications that provide additional privacy protections provided they do not undermine the effectiveness of the provisions.

roving wiretaps and the seizure of “certain business records” somehow go hand in hand with the kind of communistic government the Obama and Pelosi seem hell bent on delivering.

If Bush could use these provisions to protect us from terrorism, why can’t Obama use them to keep a weather eye on us in the event that there are conservative “subversives” afoot?

While we’re on the subject,

…deny access to U.S. courts for detainees at a military prison in Afghanistan…

Hey! Is that you, O?

Tell me it ain’t so!

…There’s no way I would want my children to be subjected to anything like this, not an organized address aimed at school children by a socialist, anti-Israel, anti-U.S. Constitution president like Barack Hussein Obama. I mean, one that’s actually providing advance instructions for how teachers should prep students for the event?

Look, we all know how the Democrats, under liberal control, have adapted the same indoctrination procedures as so many totalitarian governments, working through the classroom to program future adults.

When I was a kid and teachers/schools were more conservative and dedicated to teaching rather than forcing political indoctrination on their pupils, we were taught how to think, encouraged to analyse the facts of a matter and draw our own conclusions. Today, they teach students what to think.

Here we have a president who managed to get himself elected by millions of idiots by speaking for months without saying a damn thing of substance, a president who even now is trying to push a healthcare bill down our throats without saying what he means when he “explains” himself, and seeing as he’s running more and more into right thinking people who are asking questions he doesn’t want to answer (if he told the truth, something B. Hussein Obama finds repulsive, always has, always will, Americans would laugh his healthcare bill out of existence as they realized what an anti-America, anti-freedom entity we’ve (well, not me, not anyone with all their facilities intact) ushered into the White House, insulting our intelligence as he does.

But, he figures, if I work through the children, like we liberals have been doing with our gay rights and global warming agendas, at least I may be able to help program future generations.

On September 8, in what the Department of Education is touting as a “historic” speech, President Obama will be talking directly to students across the U.S., live on the White House website. But some parents and conservatives are blasting the president, calling the speech an excuse to brainwash American children.

Last month, in an interview with 11-year-old student reporter Damon Weaver, the president announced his big back-to-school plan:

“I’m going to be making a big speech to young people all across the country about the importance of education; about the importance of staying in school; how we want to improve our education system and why it’s so important for the country. So I hope everybody tunes in.”

Yeah, everybody tune in. Where liberals are concerned, communist indoctrination education needn’t concern itself with accurate history, the three Rs or anything else that might cloud the mindsof potential future Democrat voters.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a letter to the nation’s principals, inviting schools to watch the speech and included suggested classroom activities. But Jim Greer, the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, came out swinging against the planned speech. An excerpt from his statement:

“The address scheduled for September 8, 2009, does not allow for healthy debate on the President’s agenda, but rather obligates the youngest children in our public school system to agree with our President’s initiatives or be ostracized by their teachers and classmates.”

NBC spoke with Katie Gordon, a spokeswoman for the Florida Republican Party, who said the party’s “beef” is with the accompanying lesson plans. The guide for pre-K through grade 6 suggests questions students think about during the speech, such as “What is the President trying to tell me? What is the President asking me to do?”

The plan for grades 7-12 includes a “guided discussion,” with suggested topics: “What resonated with you from President Obama’s speech? What is President Obama inspiring you to do?”

“Guided discussion”, indeed.

The Cato Institute, a public-policy research foundation, issued a press release entitled “Hey Obama, Leave Those Kids Alone,” criticizing the “troubling buzzwords” in the lesson plans:

“It’s one thing for a president to encourage all kids to work hard and stay in school – that’s a reasonable use of the bully pulpit. It’s another thing entirely, however, to have the U.S. Department of Education send detailed instructions to public schools nationwide on how to glorify the president and the presidency, and push them to drive social change.”

That sounds about Obama’s speed, him bein’ a left winger an’ all.