Boom! Dozens of Catholic institutions file suits over HHS mandate

Image via A Catholic View

As I said on the very first day the outrageous HHS contraception mandate came down,  it was a huge tactical error for the Obama administration to pick a fight with the Catholic church during an election year.

There was absolutely no way the church was going to lay down on such a critical life issue – in fact, they are going on the offense.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air reports:

Dozens of Catholic institutions filed lawsuits today against the Department of Health and Human Services over its mandate and its narrow definition of religious practice:

Catholic archdioceses and institutions filed suit in federal district courts across the country Monday against the so-called contraception mandate, claiming their “fundamental rights hang in the balance.”

The plaintiffs include a host of schools and organizations, including the University of Notre Dame and the Archdiocese of New York. The lawsuits, though related, were filed individually.

The schools are objecting to the requirement from the federal health care overhaul that employers provide access to contraceptive care. The Obama administration several months back softened its position on the mandate, but some religious organizations complained the administration did not go far enough to ensure the rule would not compel them to violate their religious beliefs.

Kathryn Jean Lopez posts a brief statement from Timothy Cardinal Dolan, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and one of the chief critics of the HHS mandate:

We have tried negotiation with the Administration and legislation with the Congress – and we’ll keep at it – but there’s still no fix. Time is running out, and our valuable ministries and fundamental rights hang in the balance, so we have to resort to the courts now. Though the Conference is not a party to the lawsuits, we applaud this courageous action by so many individual dioceses, charities, hospitals and schools across the nation, in coordination with the law firm of Jones Day. It is also a compelling display of the unity of the Church in defense of religious liberty. It’s also a great show of the diversity of the Church’s ministries that serve the common good and that are jeopardized by the mandate – ministries to the poor, the sick, and the uneducated, to people of any faith or no faith at all.

The institutions filing lawsuits don’t just comprise a few ultraconservative institutions, either.  The University of Notre Dame hosted a speech by President Barack Obama in 2009, but today insists that Obama and his administration are attacking religious freedom in their complaint.

Read Captain Ed’s entire post for more links, plus Franciscan University president, Father Terence Henry’s video statement.

The Obama administration’s attempts at misdirection on the issue – turning it into a debate about women’s rights and what-not -  has ended up uniting the church against them,and insulting the intelligence of women with working brain cells.

Like Ed says,

This oppressive move may well cast Catholics off from the Democratic Party for a generation.  This will be a “come to Jesus” moment for many Catholics, and a wake-up call to the USCCB about the nature of government mandates in general.

Better late than never.

Linked by Michelle Malkin, thanks!

Pic of the Day: Obama’s Sealed Records

Via Roger’s Rules: Who Is Barack Obama? The Question that Won’t Go Away:

So now Chris Matthews isn’t the only one experiencing a little thrill when he thinks about Barack (omit middle name) Obama. The recent revelation that from the early 1990s until the day before yesterday—or, to be more accurate, until Obama made his decision to run for president—a biographical pamphlet circulated by his literary agents described him as having been “born in Kenya” has been setting the world of Twitter atwitter.

What should we think about that? An agency spokesman who claims to have been responsible for the “born in Kenya” wheeze has publicly said that it was a mistake, a typographical error, a slip of the pen that just went “unchecked” for, um, sixteen-seventeen years. I can understand that. She meant to write “Hawaii” and wrote “Kenya” instead. Could happen to anyone. They look and sound enough alike, don’t they,  that no one noticed. You meant to write “there” and you wrote “their” instead. You meant to write “cup” and you wrote “floccinaucinihilipilification” instead. No one—no one at the literary agency, not the author himself—could be expected to notice. You understand that, right?

Well, maybe that is an unprofitable line of inquiry. However it happened, the take-away here is not that Obama was really born in Kenya.  As my friend Roger Simon points out in “The Mystery of the Kenyan Birth,” the noteworthy thing is that it is one more puff in the cloud of unknowing that surrounds the president.

Read it all, and check out the comments too.

The graphic is via the SuperPAC, ABO2012:

Defeat Barack Obama in 2012

ABO 2012 SuperPac will raise and spend $250 million dollars to defeat Barack Obama in 2012. Our coalition of individuals, small and medium size businesses, and faith-based groups are committed to taking America back from Team Obama. Defeating Obama will break the big government/big labor hold on the economy, restore economic freedom and job creation, revive our military, renew our international stature, and get America back on the path to prosperity.

Hear hear!

SEE ALSO:

Powerline: The long shadow of Barack Obama’s identity crisis

Doug Ross: Barack Obama’s biographical brief edited repeatedly over 17 years, but Kenyan birthplace changed just weeks after his presidential run announced

Lined by Theo Spark, and Doug Ross, Thanks!

Your Sunday Hymn: Preface (Vere Dignum) to Traditional Latin Mass of the Ascension

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

This is one of the ‘secret prayers’ of the Mass, recited silently by the Priest after the Lavabo. It is a preface to the Sanctus. This particular version is from the mass of the ascension. The background image is Rembrandt’s “The Ascension”. The Latin lyrics and English follow.

Vere dignum et justum est, aequum et salutare, nos tibi semper, et ubique gratias agere: Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens, aeterne Deus. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Qui post resurrectionem suam omnibus discipulis suis manifestus apparuit, et ipsis cernetibus est elevatus in caelum, ut nos divinitatis suae tribueret esse participes. Et ideo cum Angelis et Archangelis, cum Thronis et Dominationibus, cumque omni militia caelestis exercitus, hymnum gloriae tuae canimus, sine fine dicentes.

It it truly meet and just, right and for our salvation, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto Thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty, everlasting God: through Christ our Lord. Who, after His Resurrection, appeared openly to all His disciples, and, while they looked on, was taken up into heaven, that He might grant unto us to be sharers in His own divinity. And therefore, with Angels and Archangels, with Thrones and Dominations, and with all the hosts of the heavenly army, we sing the hymn of Thy glory, evermore saying.

 

Lawfare: Dems With Criminal Records Target Conservative Bloggers

Lawfare:

Lawfare is asserted to be the illegitimate use of domestic or international law with the intention of damaging an opponent, winning a public relations victory, financially crippling an opponent, or tying up the opponent’s time so that they cannot pursue other ventures such as running for public office.

It’s a tactic used almost exclusively by the left and *Islamic combatants in the war on terror..

And there are currently two high profile cases of lawfare going on in the United States, by Democrats with criminal backgrounds. The victims are two Georgia blogs who are accused of slander by the state’s Democrat Political Director, a criminal recidivist, and Aaron Worthing, formerly of Patterico, who has been framed by a domestic terrorist for a crime he did not commit.

In Georgia, two blogs,  Georgia Politics Unfiltered, and  the Democrat blog, Blog for Democracy, have been targeted with frivolous lawsuits for reporting on the criminal past history of the Georgia Democratic Party political director, Rashad Richey.

Rashad Richey was arrested twelve times in Fulton and DeKalb counties on a variety of charges including burglary, driving with revoked license, battery, family violence, obstructing an officer, and violating probation. Richey’s first arrest came in 1998.
Democrats, here in Georgia, hired Rashad Richey; paying him over $75K.

His last arrest occurred in 2010 while he was on the Democratic Party of Georgia’s payroll, and he Owes Over $4K in Back Child Support.

I reported on the shocking story, here. 

Rashad Richey responded by filing frivolous lawsuits against the two Georgia bloggers who had reported on the story.

Since no one had reported anything but the embarrassing truth about Richey, he has no case. It is without a doubt, a totally absurd, nuisance lawsuit. You can’t slander or liable someone with the truth.

As Andre Walker of Georgia Politics Unfiltered says: Free Speech is My Defense:

The thirteen page answer says the lawsuit of Georgia Democratic Party political director Rashad Richey should be dismissed because all or part of the allegedly slanderous or libelous material or content is true and is protected political speech under the Constitutions of the State of Georgia and the United States of America.

Walker has written An Open Letter to Georgia Democratic Party Political Director Rashad Richey, asking that he drop the case, or face the consequences.

The letter, which is posted below, essentially asks your attorneys to voluntarily withdraw, abandon, discontinue or dismiss the lawsuit filed against me. The letter gives you and your attorneys thirty days from the date of the letter to end this frivolous legal action or face claims of abusive litigation under the Georgia Abusive Litigation Act.

Walker has also authored the Blogger Shield Bill because blogs and new media still fall into a “murky gray area regarding protection from revealing their sources on a story.”

That’s why, through research and consultation with other bloggers, I’ve crafted a new bill to level the playing field.

The Blogger Shield Bill (posted below) is a simple, one-page bill that says any person, company, or other entity engaged in the gathering and dissemination of news for the public shall have a qualified privilege against disclosure of any information, document, or item obtained or prepared in the gathering or dissemination of news.

You can donate to Andre Walker’s legal defense fund, here.

The other high profile case is darker and even more worrisome because we’re dealing with a much more vicious and cunning criminal, and he’s being funded by some left-wing heavy hitters.

The victim is Aaron Worthing, formerly of Patterico, and the guy going after him is Brett Kimberlin, a convicted domestic terrorist, drug dealer and document forger.

As The Lonely Conservative notes:

He’s also a pathological liar. His unique ability to butcher the truth caught the eyes of prominent leftists like George Soros, Barbara Streisand and Teresa Heinz Kerry (wife of former Senator and presidential candidate John Kerry) who have donated tens of thousands of dollars to his “charity” through their foundations.

Last night when I wrote about this (post was updated and bumped so it’s dated today) I was at the end of a very long day and didn’t have the time or energy to get into details and was hoping you would follow the links. Anyway, this Kimberlin guy should not be a free man. His claim to fame is setting bombs all over the town of Speedway, Indiana. Here’s a news report describing his crimes.

It was at Speedway High School where the freshman football team had just played a game and the players were still getting dressed. Hundreds of parents and students were either waiting in their cars or walking through the parking lot after the game.

A Speedway High School gym bag had been left by itself, as if forgotten by a player. One of the parents, Carl DeLong, 39, walked over to retrieve it when the bomb went off. His right leg was nearly blown off and his left leg and right hand were severely damaged. Doctors tried to save his leg but had to amputate.

If you read the whole thing, you’ll note that these bombings went on for several nights before the victim, Mr. DeLong, was critically injured. The whole town was terrorized and living in fear. A few years later, after losing his leg and having fingers reattached, Mr. DeLong took his own life due to the pain he endured thanks to Brett Kimberlin, the perpetrator of these crimes. DeLong’s widow (who was also injured) sued Kimberlan, and was awarded over $1.5 million. He had a long criminal record, but thanks to lax federal criminal laws, his 50 year sentence was reduced to 17 and now he’s out on the streets, the internet, and the courtrooms, harassing conservative politicians and bloggers, while hiding his income so he doesn’t have to pay Mrs. DeLong.

Aaron Worthing’s story:

Regular readers of this site know that for some time the convicted domestic terrorist known as Brett Kimberlin has been harassing me.  He did this because I dared to offer a bit of light, free legal help to a man he was suing named Seth Allen and then as he came after me, I told the truth about his deplorable criminal background and the fact he lied under oath in a hearing on November 14, 2011 and recommended that he be charged with perjury.  (If you didn’t know, you can catch up on the story, by using this link.)  And for a while I have been silent about the saga, so that maybe you thought he had moved on and had chosen to leave me alone.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Starting on January 9, 2012, Brett Kimberlin actually attempted to frame me for a crime.  He falsely accused me of essentially beating him up inside the courthouse for the Montgomery County Circuit Court, in Rockville, Maryland.  He has claimed at different times that I decked him, that I struck him three times, that I wrestled with him, that I pushed him, that courtroom staff separated us, that the sheriff’s deputies separated us, and that even after the deputies arrived that I kept coming at him repeatedly and had to be restrained.

What didn’t occur to him was that there was a security camera that captured what really happened in the courthouse that day.  I have the footage and I have included it in a long post that tells the whole story of how I came to be there that day and what really happened.  You will read with your own eyes the transcripts and documents in which he claimed I beat him up, and then you will see the footage that proves that this was a fabrication.  I have even created a video comparing his description of what happened to the video footage, piece-by-piece.  In other words, you won’t have to believe my word on this.  You will only have to believe your eyes.

But the post will also tell you the harrowing story of the damage this man has done to my life.  He did more than just lie about what happened.  This convicted document-forger produced fake photographs of his supposed injuries and even fake medical records.  And using that falsified evidence and his lies, he convinced the Montgomery County State’s Attorney to maintain second degree assault charges against me for over two months—with a punishment of up to ten years in prison, if convicted—taking it so close to trial that I was forced to take the time and expense of preparing much of my defense.  He has cost me and my wife our jobs because our workplace was frightened that this violent bomber might show up at work.  After all, he had published my home address and work address in court filings, for no reason other than to harass me.  He has obtained a peace order (similar to a restraining order) against me in part for supposed “harassment” for having told the truth about him on this blog.  And you will learn that after the video emerged, the charges were dropped and the peace order was dismissed on appeal.

And you will learn that once I had the video, I came to the State’s Attorney’s office for Montgomery County, Maryland.  I showed them, as I am about to show you, how Kimberlin lied repeatedly under oath in his attempt to frame me.  I documented it meticulously, as I will for you.  And I demanded justice.  And they refused to provide it for me; they blew me off.

And you will learn how you can help me correct this injustice.

So please read the larger post.  It is long, but there is a lot to tell and I really could use your help.

How you can help, here.

First, please spread the word far and wide about this story.  Tweet it, blog it, Facebook it, link it, whatever.

SEE ALSO:

The Other McCain: Domestic Terrorist Now Using ‘Lawfare’? Convicted Felon Kimberlin’s 501(c)3 Raised $1.8 Million in Six Years

More background at Patterico

*Added as an afterthought.

Exorcist Author William Peter Blatty and Other Concerned Alumni Sue Georgetown Over Sebelius Invite

In a  repeat of  Notre Dame’s unbelievably poor decision to have the most radically pro-abort President in American history speak at their 2009 Commencement, now another  Catholic university has invited perhaps the second most notorious and influential pro-abort in the country, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Kathleen Sebelius, has been chosen to be a featured speaker at an awards ceremony at Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute – a deliberate slap in the face of the US Catholic Bishops.

That they would do this so soon after the HHS mandate’s assault on religious freedom is nothing short of outrageous, not to mention insulting and demoralizing.

Georgetown University alumni, students and others are preparing a canon law suit to be filed with the Archdiocese of Washington and the Vatican, seeking remedies “up to and including the possible removal or suspension of top-ranked Georgetown’s right to call itself Catholic or Jesuit in its fundraising and representations to applicants.”

The effort is being led by the distinguished Georgetown alumnus William Peter Blatty, who won an Academy Award for his screenplay and book The Exorcist and has been honored by Georgetown with its John Carroll Medal for alumni achievement.

Blatty is urging Georgetown alumni, students, parents, faculty and anyone associated with Georgetown to join the lawsuit at www.gupetition.org.  The website includes an inspiring letter by Blatty and a description of Georgetown’s historical ties to the Jesuits, the Washington Archdiocese and the Vatican.

Via The Cardinal Newman Society:

William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel The Exorcist—which went on to become an Oscar-winning movie—depicts an epic battle of good versus evil waged under the auspices of the Catholic Church.  Reportedly based on a real exorcism Blatty heard about as an undergraduate on a scholarship at Georgetown University, the novel is steeped in Catholicism. Indeed, the “hero” of The Exorcist is the fictional Father Damien Karras, a Georgetown Jesuit, who, at great personal cost, drives out the demon.
Now Blatty, a longtime financial contributor to his alma mater, says that Georgetown is no longer true to the Catholic identity he knew there as a member of the class of 1950. In this interview, Blatty, now retired and living in Maryland, explains why he and a group of other concerned alumni have filed a canon law lawsuit to pressure the Jesuit university either to reclaim its Catholic identity or cease to call itself a Catholic institution.

Here is the full interview:

Q. You have put together an impressive website at www.gupetition.org, and you’re developing a case under the Catholic Church’s canon law. You certainly look to be very serious about this. How far are you willing to go to return Georgetown to its Catholic roots?

A. To quote from the Georgetown Alumni Song, “Until the sun grows cold.” I am ready to go all the way for as long as it takes, and if something happens to me, other Father King Society members will take the baton. I know that canon procedure can be murky, but I have great faith in the Holy Spirit that churchmen will do the right thing. I have faith, most of all, in the Holy Father. He knows that 21 years of ignoring Ex corde Ecclesiae makes a mockery of our Church and of Christ Himself.

Q. So you must be pretty steamed about the situation at Georgetown to be doing all of this instead of enjoying your retirement with your lovely wife! What motivates you?

A. What motivates me? Love. In the middle of my senior year at Brooklyn Prep, my mother and I lived in poverty, so that without the full scholarship Georgetown gave me, I would likely never have been able to go to college. Every blessing that I have, in particular my strong faith, I owe to my mother and to my alma mater whom I love and want back: beautiful, healthy and, above all, faithful.

I am not “steamed.” I am aggrieved. And I finally came to realize that I have only one more important thing that I can do, and this is it.

Q. I understand that you are an alumnus and have donated generously to Georgetown in the past. Have things really changed so much that you would now publicly challenge the university to return to its Catholic roots?

A. Yes, of course. I considered even asking them to give my money back to transfer to a scholarship fund in my son’s name at an actually Catholic school. The change crept in over many years. It was disguised by talk that sounded right but hid secondary motives.

Even now, Georgetown puts up a Potemkin village. It points to its chaplains, its Masses, its Knights of Columbus Chapter. At alumni dinners, they will make sure there is a Jesuit in a collar at every table, like the floral arrangement. But they refuse to recruit Catholics, and the faculty is now at 20 percent Catholic! Catholic students have to live as if they are in a foreign country, where all around them everyone is treating them like strangers. Just for being authentically Catholic! If we do not all act now we will lose the great universities. I refuse to accept that.

Read the rest of the interview, here.

And here’s a treat for you Exorcist fans:  William Peter Blatty appeared on EWTN’s The World Over with Raymond Arroyo, last Fall  to discuss the 40th anniversary edition of his landmark novel.

In the middle of the interview he was asked to read an excerpt from the book and he was happy to oblige. What followed was a delightfully chilling reading from the chapter in which Father Karras first meets Regan. (starts at 4:48):

SEE ALSO:

Hot Air: Does Georgetown need … The Exorcist?

Linked by Powerline, thanks!

Another Awesome American Crossroads Ad: Obama is so Great….

Oh man,  American Crossroads did it again, and this one is going to leave a mark.

SEE ALSO:

Bonfire of the Vanities: The American Narcissus’ Greatest Hits

Via: Marathon Pundit

Krauthammer: Romney Ad Linking Rev. Wright to Obama “Would Be Completely Legitimate”

As the left weakly tries to put Republicans on the defensive on the Rev. Wright controversy, Charles Krauthammer is having none of it.

On Fox’s Special Report, Thursday evening, Charles Krauthammer said that a Romney ad linking the controversial preacher, Jeremiah Wright to Barack Obama would be completely legitimate, but thought it was wise of him to avoid it. He then went after the MSM with gusto, decrying its “appalling double standard”:

“It’s okay for the Washington Post to run a 5000 word front page story on a prank that Romney at the age of 15 had comited but somehow it’s illegitiate, or low road, or whatever for people to bring up the fact that the adult Obama had a 20 year relationship with a racist, anti-American preacher whom he considered,  spoke about,   wrote about as his mentor or spiritual adviser…That is a double standard unlike any I have ever seen.”

Mitt can certainly keep his hands clean on this one and let others do the mud slinging.

SEE ALSO:

Yid With Lid: Did Mitt Romney Just Fall Into An Obama Trap ?

Linked by Doug Ross, thanks!

Ht tip: American Glob

Vetting Obama: Born in Kenya? Roger L. Simon Interviews Deconstructing Obama Author, Jack Cashill (Video)

After offering a lengthy disclaimer that they are in no way, shape, or form icky {{{birthers}}}, Joel Pollak of Big Government drops this neutron bomb:

Breitbart News has obtained a promotional booklet produced in 1991 by Barack Obama’s then-literary agency, Acton & Dystel, which touts Obama as “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.”

The booklet, which was distributed to “business colleagues” in the publishing industry, includes a brief biography of Obama among the biographies of eighty-nine other authors represented by Acton & Dystel.

It also promotes Obama’s anticipated first book, Journeys in Black and White–which Obama abandoned, later publishing Dreams from My Father instead.

Roger L. Simon of PJTV was thinking what I was thinking — what does Deconstructing Obama author, Jack Cashill think of this new information? Does it mean that the mainstream media will finally start vetting Obama?

SEE ALSO:

Jack Cashill in The American Thinker: The Hand of Clinton in Obama revelations?

The emergence of this brochure two weeks after David Maraniss’s revelation in Vanity Fair about Obama’s composite girl friends and one week after the debut of Ed Klein’s new book on Obama, The Amateur, suggests some media string-pulling beyond the powers of any conservative.

Call me a conspiracy theorist — a tag that has lost much of its sting in the last few hours — but I sense the hand of Clinton.  The Klein book, for instance, opens with an intimate meeting chez Clinton in which Bill encourages Hillary to do the seemingly unthinkable, namely challenge Obama in 2012.  Someone at that meeting was allowed to talk to Klein, probably encouraged to talk to Klein.  Indeed, the meeting may have been staged for Klein’s benefit.

UPDATE:

People are revisiting this old post from December 2008, (I’m not surprised):Kenyan Ambassador: Obama’s Birthplace “Already Well Known In Kenya”

Sheriff Joe weighs in:

We act on facts,” Arpaio told WND today. “We started the investigation back in August and utilized my Cold Case Posse to look into documents, the birth certificate and also the Selective Service forms. We seem to have much stonewalling going on.

“But I’m not going to back down. We are continuing to investigate what we feel are fraudulent government documents. We’re going to keep going, to prove once and for all whether they are genuine,” he said.

The unearthed publication “does put more smoke out there,” he said.

“We’ve gotten tons of information regarding this matter. This is just another little element,” he said.

UPDATE II:

Leave it to the British press to ask the obvious: How did the mainstream media miss this?

Look beyond the sordid details and the big story here is that this nugget wasn’t part of the wider discussion had back in 2008 about Obama’s background and credentials. And why not? The documents were easy to find – the one that showed that “born in Kenya” was still being used in 2007 was on the Internet.

UPDATE III:

3-2-1… right on cue…

Born in Kenya’: Obama’s Literary Agent Misidentified His Birthplace in 1991

I made a boo-boo…it was all me and definitely not Obama (he had nothing to do with it), says agency assistant.

“This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me–an agency assistant at the time,” Goderich wrote in an emailed statement to Yahoo News. “There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more.”

There ya go –  mystery solved.

UPDATE IV:

Big Government responds: A ‘Fact Checking Error’–Again, and Again, and Again…

UPDATE V:

Ace of Spades HQ: Obama Drove Drunk, Too
Obama’s Agent Required, And Still Requires, Authors To Submit Their Own Bios:

Update: Obama’s Literary Agent Requested Authors Submit Their Own Bios. Breitbart.com is killing it.

 Submission guidelines at the Dystel & Goderich website (original emphasis): “[Y]ou should describe in two or three sentences—no more—what the book will be about. This is followed by another brief paragraph on why it is being written and then another on why you are qualified to write it….Finally, there should be a more formal narrative Bio of the author.”

How does Breitbart know this? The source of the article is an author who was also with Obama’s agency — he’s quoting from the materials the agency sent him.

 

All material she used in our proposals came directly from me and my writing partner. She edited our rough-draft proposals and gave us feedback, but the final versions were all ours. Our final versions, bio included, were then simply photo-copied, by us, and distributed to potential publishers. This was back in the pre-Google days, recall.I was asked to write the bio in the third person.

Jack Cashill: BHO’s ever-changing story:

Despite the claims made in the 1991 sales brochure produced by literary agent Jane Dystel, I do not believe Barack Obama was born in Kenya.

But I do believe that Obama said he was. The agency’s alleged fact-checking error is pure bull. I have written eight books myself, and I got to review every piece of promotional literature sent out about me or about my books. All authors get to do this.

The question that must be asked is why would Obama say he was born in Kenya if he was not. Well, from early on no doubt, Barack Obama learned that it paid to be exotic. Foreign birth gave him a romantic allure and also allowed him to distance himself from the bitter clingers of the country he barely deigned to inhabit.

“I chose my friends carefully,” he writes in “Dreams,” “The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.” These were the people with whom he felt comfortable.

 

Others around the web:

Gateway Pundit: WOW! Drudge Headline Shocker: OBAMA ‘BORN IN KENYA AND RAISED IN INDONESIA AND HAWAII’ (And VIDEO!)

AoSHQ: Oh, Dear: 1991 Promotional Material Circulated By Obama’s Literary Agency States, In His Bio, That Obama Was “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii”

Update: Obama’s Kenya-Born Bio Was Only Corrected in April 2007

The Powers That Be: Obama’s Former Literary Agents Were Birthers!

Atlas Shrugs: Obama’s Literary Agent in 1991 Booklet: ‘Born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii’

Rosslyn Smith, The American Thinker: Hard to believe Obama didn’t approve literary agent listing him as born in Kenya

Linked by Doug Ross, thanks!

New York Judge Blocks NDAA Indefinite Detention Provision

A New York judge is effectively putting the kibosh on provision 1021 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) by ruling that the government may not lock up American citizens without due process.

The controversial provision would allow the government to imprison anyone suspected of, or even associated with, terrorism.

Via Business Insider:

Bob Van Voris and Patricia Hurtado at Bloomberg report U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest ruled against President Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and the Department of Defense and in favor of a group opposing provision 1021 of the NDAA.

The opposition, including former New York Times reporter Christopher Hedges, filed the complaint January 13.

From Bloomberg:

The plaintiffs contend a section of the law allows for detention of citizens and permanent residents taken into custody in the U.S. on “suspicion of providing substantial support” to people engaged in hostilities against the U.S., such as al-Qaeda.

“The statute at issue places the public at undue risk of having their speech chilled for the purported protection from al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and ‘associated forces’ – i.e., ‘foreign terrorist organizations,’” Forrest said in an opinion yesterday. “The vagueness of Section 1021 does not allow the average citizen, or even the government itself, to understand with the type of definiteness to which our citizens are entitled, or what conduct comes within its scope.”

At a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing Wednesday morning, Senator Lee questioned FBI Director Mueller on the potential for indefinite detention of U.S. citizens under the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.

Last December, Senator Lee joined with Senator Feinstein and 29 other cosponsors in introducing S.2003, the Due Process Guarantee Act.

Hat-tip: Brian B.

 

Hump Day Link-Around

Ken Catalino cartoon via Townhall

Better late (in the day) than never, right? The truth is, I’ve got to dump some tabs before I crash my computer. The Obama administration, as always, keeps the 24 hour news cycle busy – never a dull moment with this guy.

Hopefully, if and when Romney is elected, the daily outrages will cease – or at least slow down a bit. The nogoodnick left will always be out there plotting and scheming to overthrow our system of government, but at least if Republicans hold all the reins of power again, the left’s power and influence will be greatly diminished.

***

The Washington Free Beacon: Obama’s War on Bald Eagles:

Obama administration proposes loosening rules against ‘programmatic’ killing of bald eagles:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service is proposing to loosen regulations prohibiting the killing of bald eagles for the benefit of renewable energy companies.

The Heritage Foundation’s blog “The Foundry” reports on the latest instance of the Obama administration’s war on wildlife:

A draft regulation first filed in April would allow businesses to apply for 30-year permits allowing them to kill bald eagles in the course of other legal activities. The length of those permits would be a six-fold increase over the five-year window allowed under current law.

The USFWS explains at FederalRegister.gov: “We have reviewed applications from proponents of renewable energy projects, such as wind and solar power facilities, for programmatic permits to authorize eagle take that may result from both the construction and ongoing operations of renewable energy projects. During our review, it became evident that the 5-year term limit imposed by the 2009 regulations (see 50 CFR 22.26(h)) needed to be extended to better correspond to the timeframe of renewable energy projects.”

The Free Beacon’s Andrew Stiles previously reported on how the Obama Administration’s “mean green killing machines” are decapitating golden eagles, threatening hundreds of baby tortoises, and disrupting protected kit fox populations in California.

And now specifically targeting one of the nation’s most patriotic  symbols.

***

Reason: The Most Open and Transparent Administration in History Confiscates Cell Phones Before Fundraising Dinner:

Obama’s campaign team has graduated from consigning reporters to the closet during fundraisers, to confiscating the cell phonesof attendees:

Pool reporter David Nakamura of the Washington Post reported that at a $35,800 a head fundraiser at the home of Blackstone COO Hamilton “Tony” James in New York City Monday night, the 60 attendees were asked to place their phones in plastic bags by the door.

An Obama aide called the move it “standard operating procedure,” but veterans of a range of other campaigns said they’d never heard of the practice, which is common in secure White House spaces where there are concerns of espionage, but unknown in contexts in which only political secrets are discussed.

***

Iowahawk: The Idiossey:

The Not-Really-That-Epic Poem of Obamacles
Revised and Updated

(with Apologies to Homer)

Book the First: A question for the Muse

Speak to me, O Muse, of this resourceful man
who strides so boldly upon the golden shrine of Potomac,
Between Ionic plywood columns, to the kleig light altar.
Fair Obamacles, favored of the gods, ascends to Olympus
Amidst lusty tributes and the strumming lyres of Media;
Their mounted skyboxes echo with the singing of his name
While Olbermos and Mattheus in their greasy togas wrassle
For first honor of basking in their hero’s reflected glory.
Who is this man, so bronzed in countenance,
So skilled of TelePrompter, clean and articulate
whose ears like a stately urn’s protrude?
So now, daughter of Zeus, tell us his story.
And just the Cliff Notes if you don’t mind,
We don’t have all day.

Said the Muse:

I will tell the story of Obamacles through my scribe Iowahawk.
But this poem is copyrighted, so reproduce at your peril.

(Oops!)

Keep reading – at least until Book the Sixth: The Rage of Hildusa, my personal favorite part of the not so epic poem.

***

Pathetic… Weekly Standard: Obama Leads by Only 7 in Arkansas’s Democratic Primary:

A new poll of Arkansas Democrats shows Barack Obama receiving support from only 45 percent of Democratic primary voters in Arkansas’s Fourth Congressional District, while 38 percent support his underfunded and relatively unknown primary challenger, Tennessee lawyer John Wolfe, Jr. Seventeen percent are undecided in the district poll.

***

The Washington Free Beacon: Obama’s Bad Businessmen:

The president’s most famous business supporters face financial losses, scandals.

A slew of left-wing business moguls are on the skids thanks to poor investment decisions, questionable judgment, and accusations of bribery and cronyism.

Warren Buffett has lent his star power and his surname to President Barack Obama’s push for higher taxes, but his firm and its shareholders have not fared well during the Obama administration. Berkshire Hathaway has underperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index by an average of eight percent over the past three years.

Buffett is not the only famous presidential supporter to fall from business grace.

Television titan Oprah Winfrey appears to have lost the golden touch that helped make her the richest self-made women in America and propelled Barack Obama from up-and-coming Illinois senator to the nation’s first black president.

Bloomberg News reported earlier this month that the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) may have lost as much as $330 million  since its launch due to poor ratings and lackluster demand.

Winfrey may be the most famous loser among Obama’s backers at the moment, but she is not the biggest.

Hedge-fund billionaire Philip Falcone has driven telecommunications company LightSquared into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The Federal Communications Commission in February revoked its conditional approval of the LightSquared’s broadband wireless network project due to projected interference with GPS technology used by the military.

Shouldn’t be surprising: Socialism is bad for business.

***

Atlas Shrugs: Treason: Obama outs Al Qaeda infiltrator for Election Gain:

Treason. Plain and simple. Can we hope a special prosecutor will be named to investigate the White House? I am sure that Patrick Fitzgerald, the Valerie Plame special prosecutor, has little to do these days.

How apathetic are the American people to suffer so contemptible and traitorous an administration with so little outrage?

BOMBSHELL: Al-Qaeda Infiltrator was Working for Brits not CIA, Cover Blown for Election Year Politics PJM.

***

LifeNews: Catholic Bishops May Sue Obama Admin Over HHS Mandate:

The nation’s Catholic bishops warned yesterday that they may consider filing suit against the mandate the Obama administration put in place that forces pro-life and religious groups to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs for their employees.

“[F]orcing individual and institutional stakeholders to sponsor and subsidize an otherwise widely available product over their religious and moral objections serves no legitimate, let alone compelling, government interest,” attorneys for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote in a letter to the Obama administration. “Absent prompt congressional attention to this infringement on fundamental civil liberties, we believe the only remaining recourse … is in the courts.”

“We believe that this mandate is unjust and unlawful – it is bad health policy, and because it entails an element of government coercion against conscience, it creates a religious freedom problem,” wrote Anthony Picarello, USCCB associate general secretary and general counsel, and Michael Moses, associate general counsel.  “These moral and legal problems are compounded by an extremely narrow exemption that intrusively and unlawfully carves up the religious community into those that are deemed ‘religious enough’ for an exemption, and those that are not.”

***

Time to call your Senators…

Noisy Room: MARITIME ATTACK: Law of the Sea Treaty in US Senate for Approval:

The U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs is once again diddling with the ultra-massive U.S. sovereignty and communitarian wealth giveaways known as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Treaty (UNCLOS or LOST). Whenever one sees “communitarian,” one may think “global communist.”

Neo-Marxist Saboteur Barack Obama‘s State and Defense Departments (including numerous compromised, NATO-head officers) are pressuring the Senate to adopt this travesty after years of resistance dating back to Ronald Reagan’s presidency. If the committee goes forward with it, they could choose either of two paths: 1. the honorable and traditional congressional method of holding hearings, or 2. “fast-track” it, in order to slip voting through with as little light of day or time for the People to react, as possible.

The Senate is still Harry Reid’s crypto-Marxist Senate, and this committee’s chairman is John Kerry, so LOST may pop up for a vote like a rapist plunging from behind the bushes in the dark, within the next few days.

Recent and upcoming reports may be found at Heritage.org: “heritageaction.com/tag/law-of-the-sea-treaty.” Gulag Bound will also continue to monitor: “gulagbound.com/tag/un-convention-on-the-law-of-the-sea-unclos-or-lost.”

For other sources, see in Investors.com, “Obama Seeks Sovereignty Surrender Via LOST Treaty,” May 8, 2012; in U.S. News & World Report, “Kill the Law of the Sea Treaty,” May 10; and at Breitbart, Daily Caller, or American Thinker, “American Sovereignty: LOST at Sea?” by Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison, May 14.

Perhaps the most thorough of the most recent articles is found at Liberty News Online, “The Creature from the Ocean’s Floor – the Law of the Sea Treaty,” by John W. Wallace, May 15.

See also: Dick Morris: Third World Ripoff Of Offshore Royalties: Screwed!

Signed in the 70s as part of the “New International Economic Order” heralded by the United Nations and described, accurately by Forbes, as a scheme to “take money from productive First World countries and give it to authoritarian Third World dictatorships.”

Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush refused to send it to the Senate for ratification, but Obama is pushing it, hoping to jam it through the Democratic Senate.

The Treaty requires the United States to pay to an International Seabed Authority half of its oil and gas royalties from wells beyond the 200 mile continental shelf. The Authority would distribute these revenues as it saw fit – with the U.S. casting only 1 of 160 votes in making the decision. Estimates of the total amount of revenue we will forfeit run to the hundreds of billions. Who needs foreign aid?

***

This is one of my favorite stories of the week….

John Nolte, Big Journalism: Chris Matthews Is Dumb:

Chris Matthews just isn’t a very bright guy. A decade ago, he at least used to ask interesting questions, but once he was struck with Bush and Palin Derangement Syndrome, he’s become a laughingstock in his quest to carry the left’s water, especially Obama’s.

Not only is Chris Matthews dumb enough to get a leg tingle from President Obama’s dull, pedantic speeches, he’s dumb enough to admit to to those tingles on television.

As if to reinforce my father’s opinion of him, after relentlessly mocking how well Governor Sarah Palin would hypothetically do on “Jeopardy,” Matthews made a king-size fool of himself in reality [video below].

Picture of an idiot in action

***

Make sure you’re sitting down for this next one….

Stars and Stripes: Officials: Nearly $2 million in guns, combat gear sold to gangs:

A wide-reaching investigation by military and civilian authorities has uncovered a criminal conspiracy within the Armed Forces to steal and sell nearly $2 million in guns and combat gear to gangs in the U.S. and foreign countries including China, military officials have confirmed.

The probe began more than a year and a half ago when agents with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service began to conduct undercover operations to disrupt and reduce the theft, transfer, sale and possession of stolen U.S. Government property. With the aid of Marine and Naval authorities, NCIS has recovered $1.8 million in stolen guns and combat gear to include assault rifles, night-vision goggles, flashlights and other items, military officials said.

Those involved are accused of stealing, over-ordering or otherwise obtaining equipment and selling guns locally and other gear over the Internet to people in foreign countries including China and Russia, officials said.

***

Jill Stanik Illinois Review: Klein got it wrong in book about Obama and Illinois’ Born Alive Act:

Edward Klein’s unauthorized biography of Barack Obama, The Amateur, was released yesterday.

While I appreciate that Klein devoted a chapter of his book, albeit only three pages, to Obama’s opposition as state senator to the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act, he got it pretty much all wrong.

***

TFP Student Action: Talk about bullying: Pro-homosexual teacher bullies Catholic student:

The latest video released by the Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance reports how Daniel Glowacki, a 16-year-old junior at Howell High School in Michigan, was persecuted for refusing to go along with the homosexual agenda in class.

Daniel’s economics teacher, Jay McDowell, queried his students about their position regarding homosexuality.  As a Catholic, Daniel responded that he followed Church teaching on the issue.

According to the interview, the pro-homosexual teacher had a fit. “He said we lost our right to free speech when we stepped inside his classroom,” said Daniel Glowacki. “I’ve never really been yelled at by a teacher like that before, so when he started yelling at me, I was just kind of in shock.”

The Thomas More Law Center is representing the boy in a lawsuit against the local school district and the offending teacher.

The Right Scoop: James O’Keefe exposes voter fraud in North Carolina:

From dead people to non-citizens voting, O’Keefe and his crew once again expose non-existent voter fraud and why we desperately need voter-ID. But they don’t just stop there. They also interview UNC officials who don’t seem to care about voter fraud and even one election judge who says that even though he swore to uphold the Constitution, he really only wants to uphold parts of it.

Watch at the link….

***

Big Government: Google Shuts Down Another Conservative Blog: KSM Trial Edition:

This past Sunday morning, I took to my blog, The New York Conservative, to opine on the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (“KSM”) and his fellow terrorists. The full text of the post is available further below.

The New York Conservative was a blog hosted by Google Blogger. I started the blog in February of this year and had posted 17 columns prior to the KSM entry, commenting on political matters and issues affecting the Catholic Church. I would post my entries on Facebook and occasionally would email a link to friends or other interested parties. I received no complaints about the blog whatsoever.

On Monday, the pro-U.S. security group Secure American Now posted a link to my KSM piece on its website. The link received numerous hits and generated multiple comments on the Secure America Now page.

However, a few hours after Secure America Now linked to the New York Conservative, I received a form email, no reply possible, from Google Blogger informing me that the New York Conservative had been deleted. The email classified my blog as “spam” in violation of Google’s terms of service. There was no further explanation. My URL was dead; all of the content, everything I ever posted, was gone.

(Video)The Daily Rushbo: Limbaugh On Zimmerman Broken Nose Evidence: Welcome To The Duke Lacrosse Case All Over Again:

Rush: George Zimmerman is a heck of a lot more Black than Elizabeth Warren is Indian… And I’d almost have to say “If Obama had another Son he would look a hell of a lot like George Zimmerman.

Jim Geraghty:New Ad Reminds Voters Corzine Is Still Raising Money for Obama:

This ad from the AmericanFutureFund hitting President Obama for his ties to disgraced former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, already has more than 214,000 views on YouTube in just two days.

The Cardinal Newman Society, Georgetown Scandal:

From the CNS President, Patrick J. Reilly:  NOW is the time to sign the petition at GeorgetownScandal.com, and help swell our ranks to send a clear message to Georgetown!  The heat is on Georgetown to cancel its invitation to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.  Thanks to YOU, we discovered this scandal and raised the alarm, thousands have signed our petition, and other groups have joined in the effort.

Jeffrey Lord, The American Spectator: The Obama Thugocracy:

“We’re playing with water guns, they’re playing with Scuds…. These people are terrorists…. There is a war. If we treat it as less than a war we will lose it.”
—MSCO CEO Mark Stevens to Heritage Foundation on fighting the Left

---

Mark Stevens and Frank VanderSloot.

Stevens is the Rush Limbaugh sponsor whose company and personal safety were threatened because he refused to buckle to the far-left haters in the Sandra Fluke affair. He is speaking out again. And he pulls no punches.

But before we get to Mark Stevens and the enthusiastically received, sensational talk he gave at the Heritage Foundation’s 35th Annual Resource Bank conference in Colorado, let’s talk about Frank VanderSloot.

Why?

Because what Mark Stevens is discussing — the rise of “domestic terrorism” associated with the Obama left — and the recent investigation of Romney contributor VanderSloot by a company called Fusion GPS are most assuredly part and parcel of the same issue.

Here is Mr. VanderSloot just last night on The O’Reilly Factor discussing what has been happening to him — correction — is happening to him.

Who paid Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS to investigate Romney contributor Frank VanderSloot?

Now there’s a question for congressional investigators.

Or bloggers.

While the dirt sought on VanderSloot by Fusion investigator Michael Wolf was public — as revealed in this superb reporting by the Wall Street Journal‘s Kim Strassel — (divorce records, a case involving a dispute with an ex-employee) Strassel has it exactly right when she terms this “trolling for dirt.”

Bonfire of the Vanities: The American Narcissus’ Greatest Hits

photoshop via Free Canuckistan, by R. Martin and Richard Terrelly

Yesterday, conservative blogs and twitter had a lot of fun with the news that Obama has inserted himself into every  US President biography since Coolidge (barring only Ford) on the White House Website…

Yid With Lid had this to say:

Talk about delusions of grandeur,  the White House website contains biographies of each of the men who held the office of President.  Recently the Narcissist-in-Chief decided to embellish each of the biographies beginning with Calvin Coolidge. The embellishment? A mention of a milestone achieved by his most favorite person in the entire world—Barack Obama.

***

He really gets creative with JFK:

Did you know?

President John F. Kennedy famously suggested the American people: “Ask what you can do for your country.” In 1961, the Peace Corps was created, facilitating service among citizens working toward peace in developing countries. In 2011, President Obama celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps with a Presidential Proclamation.

Notice anything missing from the Kennedy quote? It began with “Ask not what your country can do for you…”  Of course “not asking what your country can do for you” is abhorrent to a progressive like Obama.

Not surprising is that Obama ignored the 20% across the board tax cuts originally proposed by Kennedy, signed by LBJ and resulting in prosperity.

***

The most galling one of all:

Did you know?

In a June 28, 1985 speech Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multi-millionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule. Technically the first sentence was correct. Reagan did call for a fairer tax code, but not by raising taxes on the rich but by simplifying the tax code and lowering tax rates.

With lower personal and corporate rates and another capital gains tax cut, small and entrepreneurial businesses will take off. Americans will have an open field to test their dreams and challenge their imaginations, and the next decade will become known as the age of opportunity. American industry will benefit, too, because the billions that are presently being squandered on the loopholes—things like jojoba bean shelters, racehorse write-offs, windmill farms, and luxury lunches for business executives-will be reinvested in the productive economy, where it will build new factories and businesses, create new jobs, and finance the new inventions that will keep America number one in the world market.

Read them all but and try to keep a straight face. The White House claims that its all OK because they didn’t change the bios, ignoring the fact that much of the added information was false. The larger issue is that with this president its all about him.  HE killed Bin Laden, the military is fighting for HIM.

For four years now, conservatives, and now I’m sure more than a few moderates and liberals have noticed this man’s unbelievable  egomania – narcissism to use the clinical term. There should no longer any doubt in anyone’s mind that this President suffers from delusions of grandeur.

I noticed it right away, myself – posting in May of 2008;The Narcissistic Qualities Of Barack Obama.

Let’s take a trip down Memory Lane and review example after example of the President’s narcissism as more and more political observers made the same diagnosis:

By July of 2008, Charles Krauthammer had written The Audacity Of Vanity, citing a few of the growing examples of candidate Obama’s egotism:

Americans are beginning to notice Obama’s elevated opinion of himself. There’s nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?

Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted “present” nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself.

It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history — “generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment” — when, among other wonders, “the rise of the oceans began to slow.” As Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer noted in his London Daily Telegraph column, “Moses made the waters recede, but he had help.” Obama apparently works alone.

Obama may think he’s King Canute, but the good king ordered the tides to halt precisely to refute sycophantic aides who suggested that he had such power. Obama has no such modesty.

After all, in the words of his own slogan, “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” which, translating the royal “we,” means: ” I am the one we’ve been waiting for.” Amazingly, he had a quasi-presidential seal with its own Latin inscription affixed to his lectern, until general ridicule — it was pointed out that he was not yet president — induced him to take it down.

Obama’s desire to give a campaign speech at Germany’s historic Brandenburg Gate, that summer raised eyebrows here and abroad:

The gate stood for 28 years behind the Berlin Wall in communist East Germany’s heavily fortified border zone. Probably the capital’s best-known monument, it was once a symbol of Germany’s Cold War division and now stands for its reunification.

Steg (spokesman for the chancellor), noted that the Brandenburg Gate has become “a place with a particular exclusivity, intensity and symbolism” in view of past speeches by sitting U.S. presidents and events such as a large rally in solidarity with the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

As a result, he said Merkel has voiced “great skepticism as to whether it is appropriate to bring an election campaign being fought not in Germany but in the United States to the Brandenburg Gate.”

Steg said that “no German (chancellor) candidate would think of using (Washington’s) National Mall or Red Square in Moscow for rallies, because it would be considered inappropriate.”

Angela Merkel reportedly found Obama’s plan to be “a bit odd”.

The Boston Globe, 7/23/08, in The Audacity Of Ego opined:

Barack Obama always was a larger-than-life candidate with a healthy ego. Now he’s turning into the A-Rod of politics. It’s all about him.

He’s giving his opponent something other than issues to attack him on: narcissism.

A convention hall isn’t good enough for the presumptive Democratic nominee. He plans to deliver his acceptance speech in the 75,000 seat stadium where the Denver Broncos play.

And as you probably remember, they were not content with a basic combination of video screens and slogans, Obama’s campaign produced a full-on neoclassical temple: “four imposing Greek columns and 10 sizable pilasters, all connected by a frieze and arranged in a gently curving arc. From the center of this colonnaded contraption extended a long peninsular walkway, lined with blue carpeting and capped by a circular stage and wedding-cake steps.“

Ace wrote at the time:

I used to think he was Captain Bullshit.

Now I think he is so dangerously narcissistic his ego just warps the world around him, like gravity, so that everything really does wind up revolving around him.

Remember the interior of Obama’s campaign plane? Let me remind you…

Via Newsbusters: Jake Tapper from ABC covered Obama on his overseas trip. Here were some of his thoughts:

Obama’s campaign has been pulling out all the stops, distributing these flyers in German to round up a huge crowd for his speech tonight, one the Obama campaign is billing at almost presidential. Even though he is not the president.

-to his hobnobbing with world leaders, to his military exercises in Israel and Iraq, everything about this trip is meticulously designed to make you comfortable with Obama as commander in chief. That started with his newly retrofitted plane. The American flag on the tail wing has been replaced by an enormous Obama “O.” And the slogan “change we can believe in” is on the sides. [Tapper is now inside the plane.] Inside, the plane has been redesigned to separate the senator and his staff from us lowly reporters. And this was the site of a big media mutiny the other day as Obama officials insisted they’d be able to brief us on background as anonymous officials. One of them said that’s what we did at the White House during the Clinton years. We pointed out they don’t work at the White House. Other flourishes, an Obama napkin holder after we refueled in Ireland.

On August 2, 2008, Kyle-Anne Shiver in the American Thinker, wrote an excellent piece that is especially poignant, today.

The salvation that Obama offers comes in the form of radically changing America to a utopian state, which he contends will fix our “broken souls.” That simply is not within the province of his abilities.

As Pope Benedict has so wisely and emphatically stated:

Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic.
– Truth and Tolerance; p. 116

Barack Obama stands front and center now, offering the age-old false promise that mankind can save itself through “collective redemption,” and simply because he employs Christian language and symbols, no genuine lovers of God will be fooled.

Hope in God?

Or hope in Obama?

I thank God every day for giving us Americans such a clear and easy choice. Perhaps He is simply using Barack Obama to separate a bit of chaff from the grain.

Alas, it was an easy choice for too few of us. Many lovers of God were fooled, and voted for “the One”, who just as we feared,  has been working feverishly to replace God with the State.

After Obama had been President for a year and a half, , Jonathan Last in the The Weekly Standard wrote: American Narcissus The vanity of Barack Obama:

Yet you don’t have to delve deep into armchair psychology to see how Obama’s vanity has shaped his presidency. In January 2009 he met with congressional leaders to discuss the stimulus package. The meeting was supposed to foster bipartisanship. Senator Jon Kyl questioned the plan’s mixture of spending and tax cuts. Obama’s response to him was, “I won.” A year later Obama held another meeting to foster bipartisanship for his health care reform plan. There was some technical back-and-forth about Republicans not having the chance to properly respond within the constraints of the format because President Obama had done some pontificating, as is his wont. Obama explained, “There was an imbalance on the opening statements because”—here he paused, self-satisfiedly—“I’m the president. And so I made, uh, I don’t count my time in terms of dividing it evenly.”There are lots of times when you get the sense that Obama views the powers of the presidency as little more than a shadow of his own person. When he journeyed to Copenhagen in October 2009 to pitch Chicago’s bid for the Olympics, his speech to the IOC was about—you guessed it: “Nearly one year ago, on a clear November night,” he told the committee, “people from every corner of the world gathered in the city of Chicago or in front of their televisions to watch the results of .  .  . ” and away he went. A short while later he was back in Copenhagen for the climate change summit. When things looked darkest, he personally commandeered the meeting to broker a “deal.” Which turned out to be worthless. In January 2010, Obama met with nervous Democratic congressmen to assure them that he wasn’t driving the party off a cliff. Confronted with worries that 2010 could be a worse off-year election than 1994, Obama explained to the professional politicians, “Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.”In the midst of the BP oil spill last summer, Obama explained, “My job right now is just to make sure that everybody in the Gulf understands this is what I wake up to in the morning and this is what I go to bed at night thinking about: the spill.” Read that again: The president thinks that the job of the president is to make certain the citizens correctly understand what’s on the president’s mind.

Obama’s vanity is even more jarring when paraded in the foreign arena. In April, Poland suffered a national tragedy when its president, first lady, and a good portion of the government were killed in a plane crash. Obama decided not to go to the funeral. He played golf instead. Though maybe it’s best that he didn’t make the trip. When he journeyed to Great Britain to meet with the queen he gave her an amazing gift: an iPod loaded with recordings of his speeches and pictures from his inauguration.

On November 9, 2009, Europe celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was kind of a big deal. They may not mention the Cold War in schools much these days, but it pitted the Western liberal order against a totalitarian ideology in a global struggle. In this the United States was the guarantor of liberty and peace for the West; had we faltered, no corner of the world would have been safe from Soviet domination.

President Obama has a somewhat different reading. He explains: “The Cold War reached a conclusion because of the actions of many nations over many years, and because the people of Russia and Eastern Europe stood up and decided that its end would be peaceful.” Pretty magnanimous of the Soviets to let the long twilight struggle end peacefully like that, especially after all we did to provoke them.

So Obama doesn’t know much about the Cold War. Which is probably why he didn’t think the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall was all that important. When the leaders of Europe got together to commemorate it, he decided not to go to that, either. But he did find time to record a video message, which he graciously allowed the Europeans to air during the ceremony.

I always believed that at some point, Obama would want to downplay the hero worship and cult-of personality nonsense that surrounded him -  if not during the 2008 campaign – at least once he became President. It was frankly getting embarrassing. I  mean – The Obama Chia Head was just so wrong…

But no – although the fervor for Obama merchandise had died down by mid 2009,  Obama flags were flown at his inauguration and have been appearing ever since, (causing neighborhood squabbles), and upsetting veterans, without a peep of discouragement from the Commander in Chief.

In May, 2011, right after he posted a copy of his birth certificate online, the Obama Campaign began Hawking “Made in the USA” Mugs and Tee Shirts.

A visit to his own Campaign website gift shop, today, is to experience deja-vu of all the most embarrassing  examples of 2008′s overwrought Obamamania. Who wants an Obama spatula? Cutting board? How about an Obama dog bowl (In retrospect, a chilling photo™).

It doesn’t seem to matter how much he is ridiculed –they just keep hitting us with more of it – like the President shooting hoops with Obama Basketballs…just last month.

It’s no secret that Obama has been seeking a return to the  “cool” of his 2008 campaign  -

“I know that it’s not going to be exactly the same as when I was young and vibrant and new,” he said at a fundraiser last year. “And there was — posters everywhere, hope. The logo was really fresh. And let’s face it, it was cool to support me back then. At cocktail parties, you could sort of say, ‘Yeah, this Obama guy, you haven’t heard of him? Let me tell you about him.’”

What’s creepy to increasing numbers of us, (the logo, the posters, the conceits, the Obama merchandise, the Obama inserting himself into the biographies of every US President since Coolidge) is considered cool by President Narcissus.

Roger Simon thinks Obama may well be imploding:

It is becoming okay not to like Barack Obama.

The Teflon cloak of being a cool, hip black guy, our first African-American president, is losing its power. That cloak of supposed post-racialism – not a “post-boomer leadership style,” whatever that may be – is what protected Obama. No one, not me, not David Brooks, wanted to be accused of racism. America desperately wanted to like Obama.

But they can’t. We can’t. And not just because the economy is brutal.

In hard times you get to see the individual up close, what he is made of. Roosevelt was one thing, Obama something completely different.

Can you imagine having a “fireside chat” with Barack Obama? Brrr…. The incumbent is a petulant, defensive narcissist, not someone with the humanity, humility or the experience to lead us out of dark days. Most people know this. More and more they are allowing themselves to admit it. Soon this may be a deluge.

Issa: Contempt Citation Against Holder Will “Absolutely” Come Before Election (Video)

Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) appeared on Greta Van Susteren’s Show, Monday night, to give an  update on the investigation of the Obama Justice Department’s Operation Fast and Furious and on holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of congress.

He says that the Committee wants to make sure they’ve “dotted every i and crossed every t”, and they’re still trying to “make the case across the aisle”, which I suspect is at Boehner’s beckoning.

When Greta pressed him for an idea of when a contempt citation might come, he told her it would “absolutely” come before the election.

As a further timeline, Issa referenced the Brian A. Terry Memorial Act which passed  unanimously in the Senate, last week. It will rename Brian Terry’s  former border patrol station in Naco after the slain agent. Issa assured Greta that the contempt citation will come by the time he meets with the Terry family —- when? Where? That part somehow got lost. Greta didn’t want to talk about the Brian Terry Memorial Act, she wanted to talk about the Contempt citation – but I think Issa was trying to tell her something, there.

By the way -mum’s the word from the President and Attorney General, who have made no public comments about the Brian A. Terry Memorial Act which passed both houses of Congress unanimously.

Representatives for the White House didn’t answer The Daily Caller’s requests for comment about the act that passed both chambers of Congress with bipartisan support. Attorney General Eric Holder spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler has also not responded to requests for comment on the act.

It’s also unclear whether Obama will do a public signing ceremony for the act, assuming he chooses to sign it. White House spokesman Eric Schultz didn’t answer when The Daily Caller asked him if Obama had invited the Terry family to Washington to do a public signing event.

As David Codrea writes in the Gun Rights Examiner, this creates an interesting dilemma for the President, ‘particularly because of Terry’s mother calling his Attorney General Eric Holder a “coward” and a “joke,” and especially since the slain agent’s parents filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department and ATF that “seeks $25 million dollars in compensation for Terry’s death.”’

Will the White House be able to use the lawsuit as an excuse for the President to quietly sign the bill without comment, attendees, ceremony? Or if there is one, will they have a “no cameras/microphones” rule, and offer up words like “to protect the family’s dignity” and “the solemnity of the occasion” to ensure that no politically embarrassing footage gets created?

Despite the Obama administration’s silence on the Terry Memorial Act, congressional Democrats and Republicans supported it 100% — another bad omen for Holder who hopes his political allies will continue to carry the administration’s water  in the Fast and Furious investigation.

Linked by AoSHQ, thanks!

Alert Krauthammer – It’s Happened: Hunters Shot Down Animal Rights Group’s Drone Earlier This Year

Yesterday on  Fox’s Special Report, Charles Krauthammer made clear his objection to the use of   surveillance drones for domestic spying.

He said that he didn’t want to see regulations, or restrictions on the use of drones in the United States – he wants to see a ban.

He went on to say:

I would predict, (I’m not encouraging it!) but I’ll predict that the first guy who uses a Second Amendment weapon to bring a drone down that has been hovering over his house, is going to be a folk hero in this country.

Well it turns out, a camera equipped drone has been shot down already on American soil – not a government drone – an animal rights groups’ drone – and it appears that the objection to the thing was so pervasive in Broxton Bridge, SC, where it was shot down,  last February,the local police looked the other way, and didn’t pursue the shooters.

Via The Blaze: Citizens Shoot Down Animal Rights Group’s Surveillance Drone:

A remote-controlled aircraft owned and operated by an animal rights group called SHARK, was reportedly shot down near Broxton Bridge Plantation, South Carolina, on Sunday.

TheTandD.com reports:

Steve Hindi, president of SHARK (SHowing Animals Respect and Kindness), said his group was preparing to launch its Mikrokopter drone to video what he called a live pigeon shoot on Sunday when law enforcement officers and an attorney claiming to represent the privately-owned plantation near Ehrhardt tried to stop the aircraft from flying.

“It didn’t work; what SHARK was doing was perfectly legal,” Hindi said in a news release. “Once they knew nothing was going to stop us, the shooting stopped and the cars lined up to leave.”

Hindi said the animal rights group decided to send the drone up anyway but that seconds after it hit the air “numerous shots rang out.”

“As an act of revenge for us shutting down the pigeon slaughter, they had shot down our copter.”

He claimed the shooters were “in tree cover” and “fled the scene on small motorized vehicles.”

Here’s SHARK’s video of the shoot-down:

Hat tip: Callawyn.

Krauthammer: Domestic Surveillance Drones Should Be Banned –

The Obama administration has just green-lighted drone technology for local law enforcement amid widespread privacy concerns.

The Federal Aviation Administration caused Capitol Hill eyebrows to raise, Monday,  as it began to explain the rules of the sky for  newly licensed drones at potentially dozens of sites across the country.

Fox News reported:

The agency, on its website, said that government “entities” will have to obtain a special certificate in order to fly the aircraft, adding that the FAA is “streamlining the process for public agencies to safely fly (drones) in the nation’s airspace.”

In doing so, the government is taking a tool that has become synonymous with U.S. counterterror warfare in countries like Pakistan and Yemen — and putting it in the hands of U.S. law enforcement.

Unlike some of the drones used overseas, these will not be equipped with missiles. They are to be used purely for surveillance. But that alone has raised serious privacy concerns on Capitol Hill and beyond.

“Our Founding Fathers had no idea that there would be remote-control drones with television monitors that can feed back live data instantaneously — but if they had, they would have made darn sure … that these things were subject to the Fourth Amendment (protecting individual privacy),” Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, told Fox News.

Airline pilots worry that there’s currently no system that allows operators of unmanned aircraft to spot and avoid helicopters and planes, Bloomberg reported. 

Charles Krauthammer came out hard against domestic surveillance drones,  on Monday Night’s  Fox’s Special Report. So much so that the show’s host, Bret Baier later said he’d never seen Charles so animated.

He said that he didn’t want to see regulations, or restrictions on the use of drones in the United States – he wants to see a ban.

Said Krauthammer:

I would predict, (I’m not encouraging it!) but I’ll predict that the first guy who uses a Second Amendment weapon to bring a drone down that has been hovering over his house, is going to be a folk hero in this country.

UPDATE:

Re shooting drones out of the sky — it’s already been done!:

Via The Blaze: Citizens Shoot Down Animal Rights Group’s Surveillance Drone:

A remote-controlled aircraft owned and operated by an animal rights group called SHARK, was reportedly shot down near Broxton Bridge Plantation, South Carolina, on Sunday.

TheTandD.com reports:

Steve Hindi, president of SHARK (SHowing Animals Respect and Kindness), said his group was preparing to launch its Mikrokopter drone to video what he called a live pigeon shoot on Sunday when law enforcement officers and an attorney claiming to represent the privately-owned plantation near Ehrhardt tried to stop the aircraft from flying.

“It didn’t work; what SHARK was doing was perfectly legal,” Hindi said in a news release. “Once they knew nothing was going to stop us, the shooting stopped and the cars lined up to leave.”

Hindi said the animal rights group decided to send the drone up anyway but that seconds after it hit the air “numerous shots rang out.”

“As an act of revenge for us shutting down the pigeon slaughter, they had shot down our copter.”

He claimed the shooters were “in tree cover” and “fled the scene on small motorized vehicles.”

Thanks to commenter, Callawyn.

Audio: Amateur Author Ed Klein: Clinton and Obama Have “nothing but Mutual Contempt for Each Other”

Hannity’s radio show today featured some interesting dish from former NYTs Magazine Editor, Ed Klein, the author of the explosive new book about Obama; The Amateur.

The book gets its title from the words Bill Clinton uttered when he was  trying to encourage Hillary to take on Obama in the Democratic primary of 2012:

Obama doesn’t know how to be president. He doesn’t know how the world works. He’s incompetent. He’s…he’s…Barack Obama’s an amateur.

I’ve always suspected that Bill Clinton despised Obama, so I’m always aghast when I see  him give interviews propping him up, or even starring in campaign ads for him. It makes them look like BFFs, and I wonder what the hell is going on. Why would you do that for someone you hate?  Klein has a very simple answer for that.

Clinton says there is no loyalty in politics, but he’s been pretty loyal to Obama this year, for someone who hates him.

Hat tip: Smitty, of the Other McCain, who was listening to Hannity in the car.

Linked by Doug Ross, thanks!