Yesterday we wondered whether President Obama would support Britain in the latest dispute with Argentina over the Falkland Islands? Today we learn Obama decided not to support Britain, our closest ally.

According to the Times, The Obama/Hillary State Department insisted that the U.S. position was one of longstanding neutrality:

“We are aware not only of the current situation but also of the history, but
our position remains one of neutrality,” a State Department spokesman told
The Times. “The US recognises de facto UK administration of the islands but
takes no position on the sovereignty claims of either party.”

This seems like revisionist history, and is a far cry from the staunch support the U.S. gave Britain under President Reagan during the 1982 Falklands War.

Read More →

The Senate version of the Democrats’ so-called health care reform is so unpopular,  Nevada’s Harry Reid finds it necessary to vote on it at 1:00 a.m.

David M. Herszenhorn reports the Democrats must conduct six votes to pass their Obamacare — one of the crown jewels of Obamaism:

• 1 a.m. MONDAY – To end debate on “a manager’s package” that includes all the latest changes to the bill. 60 votes required.
• 7 a.m. TUESDAY – To approve the manager’s package. Simple majority required.
• Also TUESDAY – To end debate on Mr. Reid’s original health care proposal, as amended by the manager’s package. 60 votes required.
• 1 p.m. WEDNESDAY – To approve Mr. Reid’s original proposal. Simple majority required.
• Also WEDNESDAY – To end debate on the finalized health care legislation. 60 votes required.
• 7 p.m. THURSDAY, Christmas Eve (or anytime after the prior vote if all senators agree) – To approve the final bill. Simple majority required.

Reid’s 400 pages of changes to the Obamacare legislation the Democrats are rushing through the Senate were revealed only this morning, so the vote the Democrats scheduled for the middle of the night will come less than 40 hours after the amendments were made available — well short of the 72 hours Democrats promised the bill would be available before any vote:

The Senator mentioned, I note, having in mind the managers’ amendment, which he has not seen and, frankly, this Senator has not seen either. I have some ideas what is in it, but I have not seen it myself. I think as a practical matter this will be available for 72 hours, as the Senator suggests. Why do I say that? I say that because it is my expectation that Senator Reid’s managers’ amendment will be filed very quickly, maybe in a day or two [emphasis added]. (Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), Congressional Record, S.13289, 12/16/09)

Obamaism: Worse than socialism.

Interest in the recent spat of Democrat retirements from the House of Representatives has highlighted interest in a House Retirement Watch. So far, 23 members of the House — 11 Democrats and 12 Republicans, have announced plans to leave the House by the January 3, 2011 end of the 111th Congress:

DEMOCRATS

1. Neil Abercrombie (HI) Resigning to run for governor of Hawaii.
2. Brian Baird (WA) Retiring.
3. Artur Davis (AL) Running for governor of Alabama.
4. Bart Gordon (TN) Retiring.
5. Paul Hodes (NH) Running for U.S. Senate.
6. Kendrick Meek (FL) Running for U.S. Senate.
7. Charlie Melancon (LA) Running for U.S. Senate.
8. Dennis Moore (KS) Retiring.
9. Joe Sestak (PA) Running for U.S. Senate.
10. John Tanner (TN) Retiring.
11. Robert Wexler (FL) Resigning effective in January of 2010. There will be a special election to replace Wexler on April 13, 2010.

REPUBLICANS

Read More →

Rasmussen reports Sunday’s Obama’s Presidential Approval Index, fell to -19. Only yesterday, we noted Obama’s approval index fell to -16.

There is no good news, but lots of bad news, for Obama in the collapse of his approval numbers:

• Among those who consider fiscal policy issues the most important, only 1% Strongly Approve and 81% Strongly Disapprove.

Read More →

Rasmussen finds former GOP Congressman Rob Simmons is still Dodd’s toughest opponent, leading Dodd by 13% — 48% to 35%.

The newest candidate in the race, Linda McMahon — the ex-CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, also leads Dodd 44% to 38%. But Dodd is now so unpopular, even “long-shot” candidate Peter Shiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, leads Dodd — 40% to 39%.

What is most notable about the Rasmussen poll is McMahon’s high disapproval rating. More voters have a very unfavorable opinion of McMahon. While Simmons is seen very favorably by 12% and very unfavorably by 8%, McMahon’s very favorables total 14% and her very unfavorables are 17%. These findings comes on the heels of McMahon’s expensive promotional advertising campaign conducted in the absence of any other candidate advertising. Rasmussen considers the number of people with strong opinions more significant than the total favorable/unfavorable numbers “at this point in a campaign.”

This is a big problem for McMahon and evidence that a major block of voters is already predisposed against her. The recent string of negative news stories about her will only feed that sentiment.

Read More →

President Obama’s big speech announcing, after three months of indecision, that he will give Gen. McChrystal only three-quarters of the 40,000 additional troops the general told Obama he needed to achieve victory in Afghanistan left a lot to be desired.

Like Obama has done with issue after issue, his new “strategy ” for the War in Afghanistan tries to have it both ways. Obama’s strategy is a Bush-like surge, but with a timetable for ending, not winning the war.

I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.

I have been an unrepentant supporter of the war, but a war our leaders are not willing to fight to win, is not a war we should fight.

Obama said he made his have it both ways decision because our national security is at stake:

I make this decision because I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

How can the Commander-in-Chief put a time limit on fighting for our national security?

I do not know if I can continue to support a war effort that Obama previously referred to as a “necessary war” and now calls a “vital national interest,” but is nevertheless only willing to continue for 18 more months. If it is necessary and vital should we not be willing to carry on until we are victorious?

Rasmussen reports Obama’s Presidential Approval Index fell to -15. Another record low.

Rasmussen’s Obama Approval Index has now been in negative double digits for nine straight days. Last week the index stood at the previous record low, -14, for three consecutive days.

According to Rasmussen, support for the Democrats’ Obamacare has fallen to a new low of 38%. Sixty percent of voters believe passage of the bill will lead to higher health care costs.

It’s not just Rasmussen, Gallup, Quinnipiac, and Hawkeye all find Obama’s approval to be 48%.

As we have said before, the more voters find out about President Obama, the less they care for him and his radically liberal policies.

Patients First goes after President Obama’s broken promises of transparency in the health care reform process:

Presidential candidate Obama promised time and again not to negotiate health care reform behind closed doors, to bring all parties together and to broadcast health care reform negotiations on C-SPAN.

It is truly unfortunate that President Obama did not keep those promises, but instead, chose to meet privately with health care executives, cut a deal with drug firms in secret, and outsourced the drafting of the Obamacare legislation to the extremely partisan, Democrat-controlled Congress.

The House Republican Conference has compiled the following list of the 110 new Obamacare boards, bureaucracies, commissions, and programs created in H.R. 3962, Speaker Pelosi’s legislation for a government takeover of health care:

1.     Retiree Reserve Trust Fund (Section 111(d), p. 61)

2.     Grant program for wellness programs to small employers (Section 112, p. 62)

3.     Grant program for State health access programs (Section 114, p. 72)

4.     Program of administrative simplification (Section 115, p. 76)

5.     Health Benefits Advisory Committee (Section 223, p. 111)

Read More →

Obama spent the day golfing instead of making his long awaited decision about sending more troops to Afghanistan.

For weeks, President Obama has been indecisively dithering about whether to send more troops to Afghanistan to fight what he correctly calls a “war of necessity.” General Stanley A. McChrystal’s report, in which he requests more troops, was issued at the end of August.

The Commander in Chief, taking political heat for not having enough women in his inner circle, found golf a more important political expediency than finally making the Afghan decision. There was so much heat that an article in the New York Times began, “Does the White House feel like a frat house?” Obama apparantly needed headlines proclaiming that he golfs with a woman, more than he needed to make the life and death decision as to whether he will send more troops in support of his “war of necessity.”

Obama’s Afghan indecision has gone on for so long, some wonder if Obama has delayed his long overdo decision until after this year’s gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia in order to help struggling Democrat candidates Jon Corzine and Craig Deeds. Others have simply concluded that Obama is ignoring Afghanistan and breaking his vow to fight his “war of necessity.”

The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, the government watchdog which oversees how the stimulus monies are spent reports contractors who received money from President Obama’s failed $787 billion stimulus program created or saved 30,383 jobs by the beginning of October.

According to the Wall Street Journal, this report covers only spending on infrastructure and social programs being carried out by private companies, which were awarded about $16 billion in stimulus funds. That amounts to $526,610 per job created or saved.

Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers claims the stimulus and “other policy actions caused employment in August to be slightly more than one million jobs higher than it otherwise would have been.”

I can’t wait to hear the CEA’s Obama-speak explanation as to how the contractors’ measly 30,383 jobs supports the council’s million plus estimate.

The Director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas W. Elmendorf, told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that the House-passed Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade tax climate change legislation – would slow the economy and would cause “significant” job losses in fossil fuel industries:

We want to leave no misunderstanding that aggregate performance — the fact that jobs turn up somewhere else for some people — does not mean that there are not substantial costs borne by people, communities, firms in affected industries and affected areas. You saw that in manufacturing, and we would see that in response to changes that this legislation would produce.

Director Elmendorf also testified that the Waxman-Markey cap-and-tax would cut the nation’s gross domestic product by 0.25 to 0.75 percent in 2020 compared with “what it would otherwise have been,” and by 1 to 3.5 percent in 2050.

Elmendorf’s testimony undercuts the current position of President Obama and the Democrats’ congressional leaders, who claim cap-and-tax would help revive the economy. They make that claim despite the fact that presidential candidate Obama said his cap and trade plan will cause electricity rates to “necessarily skyrocket” and will bankrupt anyone who builds a coal-powered plant.

With members of President Obama’s brotherhood of community organizers, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, more commonly known “ACORN,” caught on video while they gave advice on how to skirt federal laws to buy a home to use as a brothel and how to cloak the status of underage “sex workers,”  Obama renews his effort to distance himself from ACORN.

During Sunday’s talk show Obamarama, the President acted as though he barely knew about ACORN. In an exchange with George Stephanopoulos, Obama said that ACORN “deserves to be investigated,” but did not endorse recent votes in Congress to cut off ACORN’s federal funding but did not endorse recent votes in Congress to cut off ACORN’s federal funding:

STEPHANOPOULOS:  How about the funding for ACORN?

OBAMA:  You know, if — frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely.  I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  Both the Senate and the House have voted to cut it off.

OBAMA:  You know, what I know is, is that what I saw on that video was certainly inappropriate and deserves to be investigated.

STEPHANOPOULOS:  So you’re not committing to — to cut off the federal funding?

OBAMA:  George, this is not the biggest issue facing the country.  It’s not something I’m paying a lot of attention to.

Does Obama really expect us to believe that because he was one of he Senators that did not bother to vote for The Housing Assistance Tax Act of 2008 that he did not know that it provided a mechanism to provide community organizing groups like ACORN federal funding? Does Obama really expect us to believe that he was not aware of the brouhaha over efforts to include even more federal money to community organizing groups like ACORN in the big $700 billion bailout bill that Obama voted for during the heat of the Presidential campaign?

There are a lot of connections between Obama and ACORN that Obama does not the public to scrutinize:

• ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis has strong ties to the Obama White House

• Obama ran a voter-registration drive for ACORN partner Project Vote

• Obama represented ACORN

• Obama taught classes for future Leaders of ACORN

• ACORN endorsed Obama’s presidential campaign

• Obama’s campaign paid more than $800,000 to ACORN - The 800,000 was allegedly for get-out-the-vote efforts, but the Obama campaign “mistakenly misrepresented” what ACORN was doing to The Federal Election Commission. Some found this “mistake” highly suspicious:

“Barack Obama’s failure to accurately report his campaign’s financial records is an incredibly suspicious situation that appears to be an attempt to hide his campaign’s interaction with a left-wing organization previously convicted of voter fraud.”

• ACORN received thousands of dollars from the Woods
  Fund during the time Obama served on the board of directors of the Woods
  Fund (1993 to 2002) –$45,000
  (2000), $30,000 (2001), $45,000 (2001), $30,000 (2002), and $40,000
  (2002) [Donors Forum website - ifs.donorsforum.org, accessed 6/10/08].

• ACORN was caught over and over again engaging in fraudulent voter registration. Something NBC, CNN and John Fund documented.

• Then there are the attempts to wipe the web clean of potentially damaging articles concerning Obama’s involvement with ACORN and the false claim, made on Obama’s so-called fight the smears website, that Obama was never an ACORN trainer.

• Obama told community organizers they will shape his presidency

If I was Obama and my community organizer experiences were so closely tied to ACORN and all it’s fraudulent and otherwise dubious activities as Obama’s are, I’d try to hide the connections too.

Add George Will to those calling for a new strategy for Obama’s war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In a column entitled “Time to Get Out of Afghanistan,” Will expands upon comments he made on ABC’s “This Week” and argues we should reduce our forces in Afghanistan and “do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.”

The Will strategy comes a day after General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan, submitted a report that also calls for a new strategy in Afghanistan. According to the New York Times, McChrystal’s report lays the groundwork for more troops and “would invest the United States more extensively in Afghanistan.”

President Obama announced a new strategy for his war in Afghanistan and Pakistan at the end of March - less than six months ago. Can Obama sell another new, more intensive, Afghan strategy, while his leave Iraq by date certain policy continues to move closer to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in that theater of the struggle formerly known as the Global War On Terror?

Read More →

President Obama’s campaign organization, Organizing for America, goes way, way too far.

Team Obama wants to use 9/11 to push back against protesters, referred to as “Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists” by calling Senators in support of the Obamacare public government option.

Today, the Obama campaign folks sent out a notice to “grassroots” supporters about the planned 9/11″health care organizing event”:

What day? Our US Senators return to DC the Tues after Labor Day. That next FRIDAY, Sep 11, is Patriot Day, designated in memory of the nearly three thousand who died in the 9/11 attacks.

All 50 States are coordinating in this – as we fight back against our own Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process, whipped to a frenzy by their Fox Propaganda Network ceaselessly re-seizing power for their treacherous leaders.

The offensive notice has been scrubbed from the Organizing for America website, but I was able to get the following screenshot [click for larger image].

How dare they? Don’t contemplate the nearly 3,000 innocent souls murdered by the
terrorists. Instead, politicize a day of remembrance. Whatever happened
to what presidential candidate Obama said on September 11, 2008:

Americans across our great country came together to stand with the
families of the victims, to donate blood, to give to charity, and to
say a prayer for our country. Let us renew that.

What happened to all that hope?

Don’t let team Obama get away with hijacking Patriot Day, a day that should remain a day of remembrance. Don’t wait until the Obamatons launch the planned Senate assault. Call your Senators and your Representatives now. Let them know what you think about this despicable effort to politicize 9/11. Tell them what you think of the president’s campaign organization calling protesters terrorists. Do it now.

A big h/t to the Heritage Foundation.

Moe has posted about the DNC’s pushback to the Cheney interview. But there is much more to former Vice President Dick Cheney’s interview than Cheney’s statement that the enhanced interrogation techniques worked.

During an interview on “FOX News Sunday,” Chris Wallace asked former Vice President Dick Cheney if he thinks Democrats are soft on national security? Cheney responded affirmatively, then added that in recent years the Democrats didn’t have as strong of advocates on national defense or national security as they used to have — the pro defense wing of the Democratic party isn’t as strong as it once
was.

The video and transcript of the interview are available below.

A “Terrible, Terrible Precedent”

This was Cheney’s first interview since the Obama justice Department named a prosecutor to investigate possible CIA abuses of terror detainees. Asked about that action against CIA personnel, Cheney called it a terrible, terrible precedent:

Read More →

There he goes again. President Obama bears “false witness” as he complains about others bearing “false witness” against Obamacare.

A “scripted” online discussion about Obamacare conducted with a “friendly audience” of religious voters and pastors Wednesday, ended with Obama “bemoaning those who bear ‘false witness’ against his plans — and then making a claim of his own that’s been widely shown to be false”:

“There’s been a lot of misinformation,” Obama said, complaining about people who are “bearing false witness.”

He said the first thing he wanted to correct was the idea that the proposed overhaul would force some people into different health care plans. “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan,” he said, repeating one of his stock lines.

Unfortunately, that Obama “stock line” is not true.

Read More →

Saturday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced the members of the “Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research” (”CER”), which was stealthily included in the Obama boondoggle stimulus — one of those bills the Democrats passed without anyone having a chance to read it.

According to George Will, the draft report on the so-called stimulus bill states the CER will identify medical “items, procedures, and interventions” that it deems insufficiently effective or excessively expensive. They “will no longer be prescribed” by federal health programs.

Tom Daschle, advocated a “Federal Health Board” similar to the CER, whose recommendations “would have teeth”: Congress could restrict the tax exclusion for private health insurance to “insurance that complies with the Board’s recommendation.”

Will tried to warn us in January:

The CER, which would dramatically advance government control — and rationing — of health care, should be thoroughly debated, not stealthily created in the name of “stimulus.”

This is Obamacare — government-controlled healthcare stealthily enacted. Is it even worse? Is the CER a stalking horse for the so-called “death panels.” With more than a quarter of Medicare expenses spent on the last year of life, one has to wonder. One has to wonder even more when the controversial Ezekiel J. Emanuel, one of those “deadly doctors,” is included as a member.

Democrat Senators Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska say the Senate should abandon efforts to pass cap-and-trade this year.

Cap-and-trade legislation will require 60 votes to pass the Senate. According to Bloomberg, at least 15 of the Senate’s 60 Democrats have said the House-passed version — the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade tax climate change legislation — would hurt the economy and must be changed before they can support it. Most Republican Senators oppose the cap-and-trade measure.

The resistance by Senate Democrats Lincoln undercuts President Obama’s plan to cap carbon dioxide emissions and establish a market for trading pollution allowances. A plan that presidential candidate Obama said will cause electricity rates to “necessarily skyrocket“ and will bankrupt anyone who builds a coal-powered plant.

Does Obama’s cap-and-trade tax, face the same fate as President Clinton’s BTU energy tax, which died in the Senate?

At Tuesday’s town hall meeting on health insurance reform at Portsmouth High School in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, President Obama falsely claimed the AARP endorsed Obamacare. That is another Obama falsehood, one the AARP denies.

In his opening remarks Obama said, “We have the AARP on board because they know this is a good deal for our seniors.” In response to a question from a women concerned about losing her Medicare supplement if something happens to her husband, Obama said, “AARP would not be endorsing a bill if it was undermining Medicare, okay?”:

You can watch the video here.

Well, first of all, another myth that we’ve been hearing about is this notion that somehow we’re going to be cutting your Medicare benefits. We are not. AARP would not be endorsing a bill if it was undermining Medicare, okay? So I just want seniors to be clear about this, because if you look at the polling, it turns out seniors are the ones who are most worried about health care reform. And that’s understandable, because they use a lot of care, they’ve got Medicare, and it’s already hard for a lot of people even on Medicare because of the supplements and all the other costs out of pocket that they’re still paying.

The AARP has not endorsed any health care plan that is currently being considered by Congress.

Obama’s false claim of an AARP endorsement caused the AARP issue a denial:

“While the President was correct that AARP will not endorse a health care reform bill that would reduce Medicare benefits, indications that we have endorsed any of the major health care reform bills currently under consideration in Congress are inaccurate.”

Counting his whopper that he has not said he was a “single payer supporter,” that’s two lies in one town hall meeting. What else is Obama lying about? Obama cannot expect the American people to believe anything he says about Obamacare when the record shows he is not telling the truth.