Obama Still Poised To Silence Critics

Very early in Obama’s presidency, on February 19, 2009 to be exact, I wrote a  post about how this thin skinned president was poised to silence critics of his regime.

We already knew about Obama’s history of intimidation, and character assassination.  We knew how he had tried to destroy his political enemies – at least regular readers of this site know, because I covered it while it was happening, here, and here, and here. While projecting an outward appearance of near messianic magnanimity, his underlings, lawyers, and political allies were always working feverishly to steamroll over critics, (and plaintiffs).

Mark Hyman of  The American Spectator wrote about Obama’s Chicago brand of hardball politics, recently in an article entitled, Obama’s Enemies List. As many of us feared, the “Chicago way” has found a home in The White House:

In only his third full day as the 44th president Obama personally went on the offensive against a media personality. On January 23rd, Obama warned Congressional Republicans against listening to Rush Limbaugh. The man who offered to sit down with Holocaust denier and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without any preconditions whatsoever views an American radio talk show host as a dangerous threat.

In precedent-setting action, Obama moved his director of political affairs, a highly partisan post, from the Old Executive Office Building into the West Wing. Political operative Patrick Gaspard was given White House access not experienced by his predecessors. Obama official Shauna Daly, a non-lawyer and career opposition researcher described as a “partisan dirt-digger,” was assigned to the White House counsel office. The move signals not only a new low in partisan activities, but suggests the office assignment may be intended to hide Daly’s political activities under the guise of the counsel’s attorney-client privileges.

Fast forward over two years later, and nobody even bats an eye at White House enemies lists, lies, threats, intimidation, bullying, corruption, and  opposition research of anyone who looks like a threat to His Highness.

This is the new normal.

So, nothing weird about this report from The Daily Caller, at all:

HuffPo’s Sam Stein writes that Jesse Lee, a member of the Obama administration’s new media department, will take on a new role in replying — at times aggressively — to stories that paint the administration in a bad light.

In a preview of what his duties may be, Lee blasted Fox News commentator Glenn Beck in a White House blog post, accusing Beck of lying and engaging in a “partisan attack to boost ratings.”

“This week, Jesse Lee will move from the new media department into a role in the communications department as Director of Progressive Media & Online Response,” said Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer in an internal memo obtained by the Huffington Post.

Director of “Progressive” Media.  Wonderful.

Bryan Preston calls him, “The Pushback Czar”.

I call him the “Shut-up Czar”, a government paid hack whose job it is  to silence critics.

This comment at the Daily Caller said it all:

When are we going to hear something – better yet, see something – from Obama about jobs??? Today he’s Irish. Last week he was lighting the fuse in Israel. He’s diddling around with his image on twitter and the net. Moats with alligators. Yammering about oil company profits. IT’S THE ECONOMY STOOOPID! This country will remain constipated until we squeeze this disgraceful @#$% from our White House.

MORE:

This will be a government sanctioned White House version of Obama’s farcical campaign propaganda website,  “Fight the Smears” which  corrected supposed “smears” and “misinformation”, (often just inconvenient truths), with  half truths,  misinformation, and flat out lies of its own.

I plan to hit back twice as hard.

Linked by RD Brewer in Ace of Spades  Headlines, and Michelle Malkin in Buzzworthy, Doug Ross in Larwyn’s Links, and The Other McCain in Live at Five, and Pirate’s Cove, thanks!

RELATED:

Nobody’s laughing….

Obama Jokes in Ireland: I Should ‘Paddle’ Bad Members of Congress

Members of Congress beware. If you misbehave, you could be getting visit from Barack Obama and his new hurling stick.

After meeting with Ireland’s prime minister yesterday and receiving the stick as a gift, Obama immediately suggested one use unrelated to its place in the native Irish sport of hurling.

He bounced the flat-paddled, wooden club in his hands like a Louisville Slugger and suggested it might make a good weapon for spanking uncooperative representatives and senators.

“If Congress doesn’t behave,” he said, taking a playful swing with his new toy. “I’m going to give them a little paddle, a little hurl.”

With any other President that would be a cute joke. But with this bully in the pulpit, it has ominous implications.

UPDATE

Uh oh — Lee’s wife, Nita Chaudary, behind the “Betray Us” Ad? Googling Jesse Lee

Lee is married to Nita Chaudary. Here is a CSPAN transcriptfrom Sep. 10, 2007, wherein Chaudary represents — and ardently defends — MoveOn.org for publishing the Petraeus smear ad prior to Petraeus speaking a word before Congress.Says Chaudary:

We want to make sure the truth gets out there in advance of this testimony.

I found the following bio for Chaudary from 2008:

Nita Chaudhary, Campaign Director at MoveOn.org Political Action: Nita leads MoveOn’s campaigns on the Iraq War, Constitutional Liberties as well as running the fundraising program for MoveOn’s 2008 electoral effort. In the past she was the Director of Online organizing for the DNC. She’s also held several positions at People for the American Way, including Media Research Analyst, Web Editor, and Online Organizer.

I think it fairly safe to hypothesize that Chaudary may own that ad: as the leader of MoveOn’s campaigns regarding the Iraq war, the ad as conceived may be her work.

Obama’s Re-Election Campaign Digging Up Dirt On Potential Opponent, Chris Christie

Chris Christie and  two-faced Obama shake hands at Newark International Airport. AP Photo via Politico 44

Even though Christie has said on numerous occasions, in no uncertain terms, he. will. not. be running, (“Short of suicide, I don’t really know what I’d have to do to convince you people that I’m not running. I’m not running,” he’s insisted), the Obama camp is spending resources trawling for dirt on the Republican rock-star governor.

The NY Post reports:

The Obama campaign is trying to keep its efforts from public view, concerned they would only elevate Christie’s already impressive standing within the Republican Party, sources said.

The operatives have chosen not to dispatch their own people to New Jersey, but instead are talking to people there and in New York who know Christie from his time in the governor’s office, as a gubernatorial candidate and as US attorney.

Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, did not respond to messages.

That would be Jim, “we will punch them back twice as hard” Messina. Only they’re not “punching back”, they are on the offensive against a man who has never been anything but cordial with the president.

Of rumors that Christie is considering a run, a “flattered” Christie spokesman said:

“This is just wishful thinking . . . He is not running, and he is not cracking the door open even a little bit.”

Since this is how Obama wants to roll, maybe some Republican opposition researchers should  do a little more digging into Obama’s Chicago years, Columbia years, and Occidental years.

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They could start by reading Stanley Kurtz’s “Radical In Chief”, and Jack Cashill’s, Deconstructing Obama.

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And let’s not forget his WH corruption with Michelle Malkin’s;Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies

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And then maybe,  just maybe they could look into that puzzling CT Social Security number issue.

See also:

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The Other McCain: Obama’s Smear Machine

On the one hand, this looks like mind-games: Democrats are trying to mess with Republicans’ heads, to promote the notion that Team Obama is unbeatable even by the GOP elite’s “dream candidate.” On the other hand, the fear of a ferocious Chicago-style attack is very real, as the New York Times obliquely notes in its story on Mitch Daniels’ decision:

Saying that his family did not want to go through a campaign, Mr. Daniels became the third high-profile Republican in eight days to choose not to compete for the chance to challenge Mr. Obama. . . .
But after weeks of deliberating in public and making clear that his wife and four daughters had deep reservations — caused in part by the knowledge that they would be exposed to intensive scrutiny over a period in the 1990s when Mr. Daniels and his wife, Cheri, divorced and then remarried — he said he was unsuccessful in swaying his family.

As we know, Obama has no compunction at all about using an opponent’s divorce records to destroy his political career.

UPDATE:

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Karl Rove said this is going to be the most negative reelection campaign ever mounted by a President, ever, when asked about this on Fox News, this morning:

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Linked by Michelle Malkin in Buzzworthy, thanks!

Mullah Omar Reported – Not Confirmed – Dead

Asia Pacific News is reporting that according to an Afghan intelligence  source,  Mullah Mohammed Omar, (the one-eyed sheik) has been killed in Pakistan by the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).

KABUL – Afghanistan’s intelligence services said on Monday that Taliban leader Mullah Omar had “disappeared from his hideout” in Pakistan, but could not confirm that he had been killed despite an earlier claim.

Omar, the one-eyed, reclusive leader of militant Islamists with a US$10 million bounty on his head is known for his strict adherence to Sharia law and hard line on women’s rights. He is said to have vanished up to five days ago.

“We can confirm that he has disappeared from his hideout in Quetta, (the capital of the southwestern Pakistani province) Baluchistan,” said Mashal, spokesman for the National Directorate of Security (NDS).

“He has disappeared from his location during the last four to five days,” he added, speaking in English. “So far we cannot confirm the killing of Mullah Omar officially.”

Mashal’s comments came hours after one Afghan intelligence source called a handful of reporters to tell them, on condition of anonymity, that Omar had been killed in Pakistan by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

A separate source later told AFP that he had been missing for 11 days.

The Taliban have denied that he is dead or missing.

Brad Thor at Big Peace, notes:

Just over a year ago, we broke the exclusive story that Mullah Omar had been taken into custody by the Pakistani Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).  We also predicted that Mullah Omar would never be seen alive again.

Linked by Verum Serum, and Michelle Malkin in Buzzworthy, thanks!

Stories You May Have Missed Over The Weekend

As you may have noticed, the rapture failed to materialize on Saturday, but you may have missed Zombie’s firsthand report about the media circus in front of end-times prophet Harold Camping’s Oakland, California headquarters.

Zombie’s photo-essay begins with some serious Christians, who were disgusted by Camping’s self-serving prophecies, and then it takes a major downward slide as the sarcastic hipsters, professional jokers, Gay Pride attention whores, sarcastic nihilists, “scientists,” a koolaid wielding Santa, and basically kooks of every stripe showed up.

As Zombie notes in his/her report, this minor story has mostly been a convenient excuse to bash Christians, even though the vast majority of Christians think Camping is a kook.

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Wackos were out in full force on the East Coast, (*Washington DC), as well for Obama’s AIPAC appearance. The usual Jew-hating suspects were  to protest the event, only as Atlas Shrugs notes, in past years, the group was small and insignificant. Now has swelled to a much larger, bolder, and more menacing crowd. She calls this “the Obama effect”:

What these pictures fail to convey is the malevolent carnival atmosphere, the strange dirge of death music played by awful musicians and drummers. It was a surreal hell.

Yes, that’s Medea Benjamin of Code Pink.

As for Obama’s speech, she says:

In a rare, useless skill set mastered by our clumsy President, Obama managed to double down and backpedal at the same time. He tried to softshoe the ’67 borders remark by focusing instead on the caveat of mutually agreed-upon swaps. He admonished us for taking him the wrong way. I kid you not.

I said that the United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.

[…]

That is what I said.  Now, it was my reference to the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps that received the lion’s share of the attention. And since my position has been misrepresented several times, let me reaffirm what “1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps” means.

By definition, it means that the parties themselves – Israelis and Palestinians – will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967. It is a well known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a generation. It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last forty-four years, including the new demographic realities on the ground and the needs of both sides. The ultimate goal is two states for two peoples. Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people; each state enjoying self-determination, mutual recognition, and peace.

As if the Muslims would swap anything with the Jews and allow the Jews peace in their rightful homeland. Lunacy.

See update below!

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Jennifer Rubin used the same choice of words: Obama double downs at AIPAC:

The president just finished speaking to a packed convention room at the AIPAC policy conference. He was not booed when he entered; most stood and offered brief applause. Still, the crowd during the speech had long periods of stony silence, and audible boos were heard when he brought up his plan to base an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal on the 1967 border lines. (tsk Pam!) President Obama took nothing back from his foreign policy speech on Thursday and blamed the press for any controversy. He doubled down, making this upcoming presidential election a time for choosing for friends of Israel.

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…the lowlight was his reiteration of his Thursday remarks on the 1967 lines. Oh, yes, he did. But mixed in were blame-the-media and woe-is-me sentiments that were shameful displays by a U.S. president.

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This is the sort of spin that pro-Israel Democrats use to justify voting for Obama. But there is a reality that can’t be avoided. This president once again has proved an apt negotiator on behalf of the Palestinians and a thorn in Israel’s side. Now is a time of choosing for the American Jewish community, for Israel and for Congress. And if Obama should be reelected in 2012 one can only imagine how hostile he will become toward the Jewish state.

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This one via Ace: Flemming and Hayes: Obama’s Classmate At Columbia Raises New Questions:

This candid email was sent to us by someone who wishes to remain anonymous. We have confirmed its author was a student at Columbia University at the same time as Obama.

The points raised in the following email have yet to be addressed by the “main-stream” media, let alone the Obama Administration. What say you?

First, why Columbia?  i.e. why a child from Hawaii, and a school in California would want to go to Columbia (rather than Harvard, Yale, etc).

Columbia is the birthplace of the Communist movement in the United States.
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If you recall, the gentleman that Obama’s grandfather ‘chose’ to be his African American role model, Frank Marshall Davis (who he cites in his books), chairman of the Hawaii Communist Party.

Next.  Despite the press’s stories to the contrary, Obama has long ties, largely through, again, his grandparents, Davis and Valerie Jarret’s families, with yes, Bill Ayers.

And again, despite the press to the contrary, Ayers admission to Columbia just a few years after the planned bombing of Low Library was publicized and criticized all over the campus.  His presence was well known and heavily documented.  Jarrett’s father and Ayer’s father were best friends.

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There’s much more from Obama’s Columbia classmate including — how did a poor Hawaiian  kid from a 3rd rate college like Occidental, ( where he apparently didn’t do well academically) – even get into Columbia?

You’ll definitely want to read his memory of Obama getting slapped down in Brzezinski’s Presidential Brief class for having such outrageous, unrealistic views on unilateral disarmament.

Finish reading at Flemming and Hayes.

Note: Recall Zombie’s October 2008 report –, Barack Obama’s Close Encounter with the Weather Underground  (Did the presidential candidate and the revolutionary terror group cross paths at a violent 1981 anti-Apartheid protest?)

Keep in mind that a fellow-traveler during Obama’s Occidental days, Dr. John Drew, (now reformed), has gone on the record to claim that Obama was a firm believer in violent Marxist revolution at the time.

It would be nice if more former acquaintances who knew Obama back in the day, would  go on the record to tell the world what they know about the man. I’ve read that there are a number of people back in Chicago who know things about Obama that would shock the general public. There are only a few – like Debbie Revor and Dr. Drew,  who have been brave enough to come forward under their real names.

Man up, the rest of you –  2012 is looming.

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PACNW Righty has an interesting post about the left’s latest BDS attack:  Bush Makes a Bunch on the Lecture Circuit, and the Left is Mad

There is just something about George Bush that the leftist press just can’t seem to leave him alone. Now they are picking at him because he is making a fist full of money on the lecture circuit. In a piece at The Daily Beast the author mentions several times that Bush had wanted to stay out of the limelight, then they go on to chastise him for delivering speeches across the country and the world.

When George W. Bush declined President Obama’s invitation to ceremony at New York’s ground zero after Osama bin Laden was killed, the former president citied his desire to keep a low public profile.

But Bush has been raising his profile in a different, and lucrative, way: He has ranked in millions of dollars since leaving office by making scores of speeches the typically warn him six figures a pop.

Breitbart TV: Watch How Rep. Paul Ryan Answers Same Question David Gregory Asked Newt Gingrich

In that same interview, Ryan also reiterated that he is not interested in running for President in 2012.

UPDATE:

Via Big Peace, a video From Philip Klein at the Washington Examiner. Described as a “bizarre video clip from the proceedings of Move Over AIPAC– a production of the Israel-hating hags at Code Pink and several pro-jihad groups.”

What in God’s name was the point?

The saving grace, according to Dave Reaboi is the fact that Helen Thomas, the scheduled keynote speaker at Move Over AIPAC– did not participate in the “mooning for peace.”

iOWNTHEWORLD: Benjamin And Barry – The Early Years. Oy.

Netanyahu……oy oy oy!

*I’ve been confused about where AIPAC took place, all day — at first, assuming it was on the East Coast, either DC or NYC.  Then a report seemed to indicated that it took place in San Francisco, so I issued a correction, I’ve since been able to confirm it was indeed DC, as I originally thought. Sorry for the confusion.

Linked by Michelle Malkin in Buzzworthy, , thanks!