Okay, I’m having trouble focusing on any one story, today…there’s almost too much to contend with, and I need to clear some tabs before my computer crashes, so I’m just gonna do a link dump. There’s lot’s of good stuff out there, today.
You can start with Peter Wehner at Commentary, who dissects Obama’s deplorable U.N. speech, concluding:
There is more to be said about the Obama speech—including the president’s tiresome pretense that he and he alone will lead the world out of its cul-de-sac, where “we bicker about outdated grievances.” But I cannot escape a depressing thought, one I hope is proved to be wrong over time: that Barack Obama, even though he is the leader of America, is constantly placing himself above it. His criticisms of our country are now part of a troubling routine, so much so that Obama is now winning the applause of people who genuinely hate America (like Fidel Castro, who complimented Obama for his “brave gesture” and “courage” in criticizing the United States at the UN).
Obama not only fails to strongly defend the United States; he is actually adding brush strokes to a portrait of our country that diminishes its achievements and standing. He seems unable or unwilling to speak out—in a heartfelt and passionate way—on its behalf. He is, of course, too clever not to ever say a word of praise for America; no, this sophisticated wordsmith and smooth politician, this cool customer ever in search of The Golden Mean, can speak in both text and subtext. He says just enough to deny the charge that he is not a strong defender of the country he leads. But by now we’re on to the game.
No one believes America’s history is pristine; we are all familiar with the catalogue of our own sins, beginning with slavery. Other presidents have recognized them, and a few have given voice to them. But it was done in the context of a reverence for America—for what it has been and stands for, for what it is and can be. Think of the words of George Washington, who said of America, “I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love.” That is a noble sentiment from a man whose love of country knew no bounds. They are also words that I cannot imagine President Obama saying, at least with conviction. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t like his country or admire things about it; it means that he has yet to really speak out for it. And it means that he has shown, so far at least, that he is more interested in advancing his interests than in speaking on behalf of the nation that elected him. There are enough critics of America in the world; we don’t need to add America’s president to that list.
Perhaps Mr. Obama will come to understand that there is a problem when the president of the United States—an “inestimable jewel,” Lincoln called her—has harsher things to say about his own country than he does about many of the worst regimes on Earth.
It is all quite disturbing, and to have to say this about an American president almost makes me sick.
Read the whole thing.
Next!
OMG, have you been hearing about Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar”? Not good!:
President Obama’s “safe schools czar” is a former schoolteacher who has advocated promoting homosexuality in schools, written about his past drug abuse, expressed his contempt for religion and detailed an incident in which he did not report an underage student who told him he was having sex with older men.
Conservatives are up in arms about the appointment of Kevin Jennings, Obama’s director of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, saying he is too radical for the job.
This is the kind of person you want no where near the education system, yet there he is! A friggin’ Czar in charge of keeping schools safe?! But nothing about this administration surprises me anymore.
Next!:
The American Thinker: The Soros/Axelrod Axis? (why the question mark)?
There is no proof, but there certainly is reason to suspect that Soros also has been working in cahoots with David Axelrod, Obama’s former campaign strategist and now his numero uno domestic policy adviser. Soros has expertise in influencing our nation’s foreign policy by forming faux astroturf groups that operate under the guise of being independent. Soros, the hedge fund billionaire, is one of the world’s most astute investors. He has mastered the art and science of politics and invests in a panoply of think tanks, 527 groups, politicians, astroturf groups, and the Democratic Party to provide himself with the tools to influence our nation’s policies. In this administration , he may have reached the pinnacle of his power. Now many of his groups are starting to look like tools the White House is using to drive policy.
Next!:
Obama’s Speeches– Obama Mentions Self Nearly 1,200 Times!
Yeah, some guy has clocked how many times Obama has referred to himself in just 41 speeches so far this year, not including this week’s big speech at the United Nations.
Next!
Obama and ACORN: A Love Story
You know how this one goes, by now…but Candace de Russy at PJ Media has a good synopsis up, just to punctuate the risibility of Obama’s attempts to distance himself from ACORN.
Next!
Prez Comes Across As A Gullible Sap
Rich Lowry has been on a roll, lately, pulling no punches:
President Obama yesterday did his best impression of a high-school soph omore participating in his first Model UN meeting, retailing pious clichés he learned from his pony-tailed social studies teacher.
Even Woodrow Wilson might have blanched at the mushy-headed exhortations to world peace and collective action better suited to a college dorm-room bull session or a holiday-season Coca-Cola commercial.
“No nation can or should try to dominate another nation,” Obama intoned. “No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold.”
Has an American president ever expressed such implicit hostility toward his own nation’s pre-eminence in world affairs? Or so relished in recalling its failings, or so readily elevated himself and his own virtues over those of his country?
Have you seen this, yet?:
Czech President:U.N. climate meeting was propaganda:
Czech President Vaclav Klaus sharply criticized a U.N. meeting on climate change on Tuesday at which U.S. President Barack Obama was among the top speakers, describing it as propagandistic and undignified.
“It was sad and it was frustrating,” said Klaus, one of the world’s most vocal skeptics on the topic of global warming.
“It’s a propagandistic exercise where 13-year-old girls from some far-away country perform a pre-rehearsed poem,” he said. “It’s simply not dignified.”
Love it.
Ace has a related story:
The Dog Ate My Global Warming Evidence: Having Refused to Disclose Temperature Records for Years, UN’s Climate Research Unit Now Claims Its Evidence of Warming Was Just Lost
Sound like a joke? It’s not a joke…
Neither is this:
Obama’s Policies Would Redistribute Nearly $1 Trillion in Wealth Every Year
By 2012, nearly $1 trillion from the top 30 percent of American families will be redistributed among the bottom 70 percent if Obama’s proposals on taxes, health care, and climate change become law, according to the Tax Foundation.
Ugh…uncle!
This one is sobering, but not groundbreaking to those of us who have been paying attention:
Mark Tapscott: Beware the Stalin in progressive hearts:
Consider: Nowhere does the Constitution grant Congress authority to require every American to buy a particular private service or product on pain of forfeiture of a significant portion of their wealth. Yet, every version of Obamacare currently being discussed in Congress requires just that.
Forcing all of us to buy officially approved health insurance is essential to a functioning government-run system. As Obama told Congress, “many of insurance reforms we seek – especially requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions – cannot be achieved” without the individual mandate.
Why? Because the politicians and bureaucrats who will manage the government-run health care program know that, without the force of government behind them, they won’t be able to make the rest of us do what they tell us to do.
Once the power is granted, the question becomes how severe will the enforcement be. Fines will suffice, for Obamacare, for now. For Stalin, the first choice was usually the Gulag, or a bullet. It’s just a matter of degree.
But that is what government always does as it becomes more costly, intrusive and intolerant of dissent. As if to drive the point home, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a gag order this week telling all private companies participating in the Medicare Advantage program to shut up. Violators would face fines and jail time. Forget the First Amendment.
The gag order was issued after Humana Corp. sent a letter to its policyholders who participate in Medicare Advantage telling them the facts about Obamacare’s effect on the program. The companies were ordered “to end immediately all such mailings to beneficiaries and to remove any related materials directed to Medicare enrollees from your website.”
The bureaucrats added this blunt threat: “Please be advised that we take this matter very seriously and, based upon the findings of our investigation, will pursue compliance and enforcement actions. ….”
Those, my friends, are the words of soft tyranny. How much longer before it becomes a hard tyranny?
One more from Ace:
Treasury Dept. IG Launches Investigation of ACORN for Impermissible Partisan Activities
Synchronicity: WH Moves to Obscure Ties Between ACORN and Big Labor
Another sobering read from Michael Ledeen:
Is Obama Naïve?
I don’t think so. I think that he rather likes tyrants and dislikes America. I think he’d like to be more powerful, I think he is trying to get control over as much of our lives as he can, so that he can put an end to the annoying tumult of our public life. As when he said (about health care) to the Congress, “Okay, you’ve talked enough, now it’s time to do the right thing (my thing).” And he’s trying to end American power in the outside world. He’s saying “I’m going to stop us, before we kill again.”
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