† Is Obama Already A Lame Duck?: The New York Times reports that “[a] last-ditch effort” by President Barack Hussein Obama to forestall Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas seeking Palestinian membership in the United Nations “faltered” and French President Nicolas Sarkozy “stepped forcefully into the void, with a proposal that pointedly repudiated Mr. Obama’s approach”:
The extraordinary tableau Wednesday at the United Nations underscored a stark new reality: the United States is facing the prospect of having to share, or even cede, its decades-long role as the architect of Middle East peacemaking.
Even before Mr. Obama walked up to the General Assembly podium to make his difficult address, where he declared that “Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the U.N.,” American officials acknowledged that their various last-minute attempts to jump-start Israeli-Palestinian negotiations with help from European allies and Russia had collapsed. …
The Palestinians have never fully trusted the United States to serve as an honest broker with Israel. But its credibility with the Palestinians has crumbled with the recognition that Mr. Obama may not have the clout to press the Israelis into a peace deal that requires significant compromises. …
After Mr. Obama laid out his defense of the peace process, Mr. Sarkozy took to the same podium in a forceful disavowal of Mr. Obama’s position. “Let us cease our endless debates on the parameters,” he said, calling instead for a General Assembly resolution that would upgrade the Palestinians to “observer status” as a bridge toward statehood. “Let us begin negotiations, and adopt a precise timetable.”
For his part, Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler notes that each time Obama has spoken about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the United Nations, “his vision has gotten narrower and his language less sweeping. Now he is no longer just trying to forge peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but trying to stave off diplomatic disaster as the Palestinians pursue a statehood bid”:
[In 2009] Obama was still an international rock star when he gave his maiden speech, and so — somewhat unusual for a speech from the U.N. podium … [b]ut Obama’s policy on the Middle East was already in trouble … An ill-conceived demand by the administration that Israel halt all settlement activity had led the Palestinians to balk at any direct talks with Israel until settlement expansion was actually ended.
In order to have something positive to say, Obama had pushed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to attend a three-way meeting at the United Nations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the day before giving the speech. “Yesterday, I had a constructive meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas,” Obama announced. “We have made some progress.” [Emphasis added.]
This was actually untrue. … [H]e had little leverage to persuade either the Israelis to immediately freeze settlement growth or the Palestinians to return to the talks. A few months later, the Israelis agreed to a nine-month, partial moratorium on settlements, but the Palestinians rejected it as too little and too late. …
[In 2010] the president tried to rearrange the diplomatic chairs so he could have something to announce at the United Nations. Just weeks before the General Assembly meeting, the president hosted Netanyahu and Abbas at the White House to launch direct talks between the parties.
But the negotiations were already in deep trouble, because Israel planned to lift its settlement moratorium at the end of the month, and the Palestinians had made it clear they would end the talks if the moratorium ended.
Obama put his prestige on the line when he spoke to world leaders, essentially demanding that Israel extend the moratorium. …
Five days after Obama spoke, Israel ignored his plea to maintain the settlement moratorium, and the direct talks the president had touted were dead.
Aside from showing the real-world consequences of having elected a man who is patently unqualified for the presidency and has not even proved himself able to learn on the job, The Stiletto was struck by a pattern in this administration’s MO: Obama wanted to prove his relevance at the U.N. so he pushed the Palestinians and Israelis into talks that not only went nowhere, but turned disastrous. Obama wanted to tout his administration’s efforts to create “green economy” jobs and pushed Department of Energy officials to approve a government-backed loan guarantee to solar panel manufacturer Solyndra and the company declared bankruptcy and fired over 1,000 employees.
Whether its domestic or foreign policy, the entire machinery of government is not being purposed to benefit the American people or to further this country’s strategic geopolitical and national security interests, but to prop up an incompetent fool and make him look good in the eyes of voters and other world leaders. Guess what? It ain’t working.
† Every Bubble Bursts Eventually: You know why President Barack Hussein Obama is attending so many five-figure-per-head fundraisers? Because that’s where the money is – and not just because the well-heeled can afford to pony up sums that exceed the annual salary of many Americans (those lucky enough to have a job, anyway). “[V]oters of moderate means who dug deep for the candidate and his message of hope and change, sending him $10 or $25 or $50 every few weeks or months” have soured on Obama, The New York Times reports:
In interviews with dozens of low-dollar contributors in the past two weeks, some said they were unhappy with what they viewed as Mr. Obama’s overly conciliatory approach to Congressional Republicans. Others cited what they saw as a lack of passion in the president, or said the sour economy had drained both their enthusiasm and their pocketbooks.
For still others, high hopes that Mr. Obama would deliver a new kind of politics in his first term have been dashed by the emergence of something that, to them, more resembles politics as usual.
“When I was pro-Obama in 2008, I was thinking of him as a leader who could face the challenges that we were tackling,” said Adnan Alasadi, who works in behavioral health in Mesa, Ariz. Mr. Alasadi contributed repeatedly to Mr. Obama during his first campaign but says he will not give the president — or anyone else — any more money.
“Now I am seeing him as just an opportunistic politician,” Mr. Alasadi said.
Such defections are not merely symbolic. About a quarter of Mr. Obama’s record haul during the 2008 cycle came from donors giving $200 or less, supporters who could be tapped again and again without hitting federal contribution limits. Many of those same people were also volunteers in his campaign, knocking on doors, calling friends and neighbors and helping turn out the voters that fall. …
[A] vast majority of Mr. Obama’s past donors, who number close to four million, have not yet given him any money at all.
† Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times: With a record number of Americans on food stamps, more businesses have been approved by the USDA to accept them and now Yum! Brands, which includes Taco Bell, KFC, Long John Silver's and Pizza Hut and other restaurants, wants a piece of the pie, USA Today reports:
Federal rules generally prohibit food stamp benefits, which are distributed under the USDA's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), from being exchanged for prepared foods. Yet a provision dating to the 1970s allows states to allow restaurants to serve disabled, elderly and homeless people, USDA spokeswoman Jean Daniel said. …
Four states accept restaurants, with Florida the most recent to begin a program.
"It makes perfect sense to expand a program that's working well in California, Arizona and Michigan, enabling the homeless, elderly and disabled to purchase prepared meals with SNAP benefits in a restaurant environment," Yum! spokesman Jonathan Blum said. …
Kelly Brownell, director of Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, says encouraging more fast-food consumption is not good for people's health. "It's preposterous that a company like Yum! Brands would even be considered for inclusion in a program meant for supplemental nutrition."
"They think going hungry is better?" counters Edward Cooney of the Congressional Hunger Center. "I'm solidly behind what Yum! is doing."
On a related note, Brooklyn rapper Stanley Lafleur (AKA Mr EBT) put out a video that he says mocks food stamp abuses he has witnessed in his neighborhood. In the video (NSFW) he raps about using his sister’s Electronic Benefit Transfer card to buy dope and beer:
"I'm never going hungry, swiping all day y'all. Sandwiches, chips, a big box of Oreos. Cereal, Kix, but I couldn't buy a 40, dog?" he waxes poetically, dancing through store aisles and up to the counter at a McDonald's.
"I wish I could buy some weed with my EBT but the drug dealer fronted me," raps Lafleur.
† AZ Becomes The Epicenter Of Civility: Where are those worthies running the University of Arizona's National Institute for Civil Discourse when you need them -- really, really need them? Here's where they weren't: At the Saddle Ranch bar on the Sunset Strip last week where Bristol Palin was heckled by a patron, The Blaze reports:
Palin unexpectedly found herself in the middle of a heated argument after a heckler yelled “Did you ride Levi like that?“ and ”Your mother’s a whore!” He also goes on to call her mother, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, “the devil.”
In the clip, you’ll see that rather than avoiding the situation, Palin walks over to her heckler and asks that he explain what his issues are with her mother. In a dialogue that Business Insider says “no one comes away … looking very good” in, both parties sound off.
The heckler, Stephen Hanks, tells Hollywood gossip site TMZ that he didn’t realized that he was being filmed, and that it “felt good to get it off his chest” because he thinks the Palins are “dangerous” and “trash from Wasilla.” He added, “Some people may think I crossed the line, some people may think I didn’t go far enough.” Count me amongst the former.
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