Allen West to Obama, Reid, Pelosi: ‘Get the Hell Out of the United States of America’

 

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) said Saturday President Barack Obama and other liberals should "get the hell out of the United States of America." (AP)

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) had a strong message Saturday for President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “Get the hell out.”

West made the comments during a speech at a Palm Beach County GOP event in West Palm Beach.

“This is a battlefield that we must stand upon. And we need to let President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and my dear friend, chairman of the Democrat National Committee, we need to let them know that Florida ain’t on the table,” West said.

The audience was booing by the time West got to Pelosi’s name.

“Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else,” he continued. “You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America.”

As the audience cheered and many rose to their feet, West added, “Yeah I said ‘hell.’”

“This is not about 1 percent or 99 percent. This is about 100 percent. It’s about 100 percent America. And I will not stand back and watch anyone defame, degrade or destroy that which my father fought for, my older brother, my father-in-law, myself, my nephew and all my friend still in uniform,” he said.

“I will not allow President Obama to take the United States of America and destroy it. If that means I’m the No. 1 target for the Democrat Party, all I got to say is one thing: Bring it on, baby.”

Video:  Rep. Allen West - "Obama, Reid, Pelosi, get the hell out of the USA" - 28 January 2012

The Blaze

It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” -Sam Adams

If you want wisdom read one chapter of Proverbs every day and never stop. Greg Badger

Picture of the Day – And the End of Gatesgate…

Posted on White House Site

Story by Thomas Lifson of the American Thinker

Obama's revealing body language

I am stunned that the official White House Blog published this picture and that it is in the public domain. The body language is most revealing. Sergeant Crowley, the sole class act in this trio, helps the handicapped Professor Gates down the stairs, while Barack Obama, heedless of the infirmities of his friend and fellow victim of self-defined racial profiling, strides ahead on his own. So who is compassionate? And who is so self-involved and arrogant that he is oblivious?

We have chosen not to get involved in Gatesgate and the Beerfest side-tracking follies. This photos, posted by the White House, pretty much says it all and should be the end to Gatesgate!! - Ask Marion

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

The Coming Demise of the Strange Co-Presidency of the United States

This was a good cop / bad cop pairing, if ever there was one: he, the dreamer, the spinner of words and the perfect front man; she, the partisan bully and de facto shaper of policy. The co-presidency of Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi is one of the stranger outcomes of the last election.

Imagine if it had been her name instead of his at the top of Democrat ticket last November. That is a race that even old, tired and badly confused John McCain could have won by the widest of margins.

The American people elected Barack Obama, but what they have gotten -- in domestic policy matters -- is a snootful of Nancy Pelosi. To quote long-time Democratic Party activist Ted Van Dyk, what they have gotten is "an expensive mess" -- a series of hastily conceived bills "loaded with costly provisions designed to gain support from congressional leaders and special-interest constituencies."

While the president has been running around the world giving speeches, Pelosi has taken charge of domestic policy. It was she who cobbled together the stimulus package and she who has taken the lead in setting energy and healthcare policies.

Mr. Van Dyk, who was active in Lyndon Johnson's White House, hoots at the idea -- floated by White House staffers -- that the Obama's strategy in pushing health-care and energy initiatives brooks comparison with the way Johnson pushed his Great Society legislation. In an article in the Wall Street Journal he wrote:

Johnson's initiatives were framed in the White House by his administration…. Your (Obama) strategy, by contrast, has been to advocate forcefully for health-care and energy reform but to leave the details to Democratic congressional committee chairs. You did the same thing with your initial $787 billion stimulus package. Now, you're stuck with a plan that provides little stimulus until 2010. A president should never cede control of his main agenda to others.

But it is questionable how much the president knows or cares about domestic policy issues, beyond wanting to present himself -- first, last and always -- as the champion of urgently needed change.

In his book Dreams from My Father, he tells how he came to give his first speech as a student at Occidental College in Los Angeles. "As something of a lark," he says, he became involved in a campaign calling for disinvestment in South Africa. Obama says he approached the microphone "in a trancelike state" and began:

"There's a struggle going on," I said. My voice barely carried beyond the first few rows. A few people looked up and I waited for the crowd to quiet.

"I say, there's a struggle going on!"

The Frisbee players stopped.

"It's happening an ocean away. But it's a struggle that touches each and every one of us. Whether we know it or not. Whether we want it or not. A struggle that demands we choose sides. Not between black and white. Not between rich and poor. No -- it's a harder choice than that. It's a choice between dignity and servitude. Between fairness and justice. A choice between right and wrong …

Whatever those words were supposed to mean, they had an electric effect upon the audience. This, then, was vintage Obama -- at the tender age of 20 -- speaking in a way that seems to transcend both race and class. But listen to his response a couple pages later when a co-worker compliments him on his speech:

"It was short, anyway."

Regina ignored my sarcasm. "That's what made it so effective," she said. "You spoke from the heart, Barack. It made people want to hear more…"

"Listen, Regina," I said, cutting her off, "you are a very sweet lady. And I'm happy you enjoyed my little performance today. But that is the last time you will ever hear another speech out of me…"

"And why is that?"

I sipped on my beer, my eyes wandering over the dancers in front of us. "Because I've got nothing to say, Regina. I don't believe that we made any difference by what we did today. I don't believe that what happens to a kid in Soweto makes much difference to the people we were talking to. Pretty words don't make it so. So why do I pretend otherwise. Because it makes me feel important. Because I like the applause. It gives me a nice, cheap thrill. That's all."

"You don't really believe that."

"That's what I believe."

Now perhaps those are the thoughts an immature and angry young man -- who has yet to discover his calling in life. However, on almost every page of the book we find a man who loves to give speeches and pass out free and unsolicited advice. At all times, he seems acutely conscious of his effect upon an audience, yet strangely indifferent to the substance or content behind his words.

There is, for instance, the revealing story of how he quelled an incipient revolt by five volunteers who were working for him when he had a $10,000 a year job as a "community organizer" in Chicago. They are all on the verge of quitting. "It has nothing to do with you," one tells him. "The truth is, we're just tired. We've all been at this for two years, and we've got nothing to show for it" -- nothing, that is, in the way of tangible results, though there have been endless meetings and rallies.

The young Obama's response is to -- launch into a speech. Happening to spot some boys who are vandalizing a vacant apartment, he points out the window and demands to know, "What do you suppose is going to happen to those boys out there?… Who's going to make sure they get a fair shot? The alderman? The social workers? The gangs?… You know, I didn't come here 'cause I needed a job. I came here 'cause Marty said there were some people who were serious about doing something to change their neighborhood."

While the purported purpose of his community organizing job was to rally support for a plan to save manufacturing jobs in metropolitan Chicago, there is no evidence that he and co-workers saved a single job. Indeed, he himself says, "The big manufacturers had opted for well-scrubbed suburban corridors, and not even Gandhi could have gotten them to relocate near Altgeld (a big public housing project) anytime soon." So if everything was destined to fail, what was the point in doing it in the first place?

That is also a question that should be asked of the stimulus plan, which doesn't seem to be stimulating much of anything; the cap- and trade bill, which will raise taxes without, seemingly, doing anything to limit carbon emissions; and the health care plan, which carries the scarcely believable promise of greatly expanded care at greatly reduced cost through the mechanism of greater government control in the decision-making process. All this adds up to the sacking of America's resources for the salving of the liberal conscience.

Obama is fast coming to a point where he must choose sides. To paraphrase the words of his first speech, this is not a choice between black and white, or between rich and poor. Nor is it a choice between dignity and servitude, or between fairness and justice. It is none of those things.

Leaving rhetoric aside, it is a simple and less-than-heroic choice between playing to a small audience and playing to a much larger audience. The small audience consists of power-hungry politicians and their friends in Hollywood, academia and the media, who want to ratchet up taxes and launch a raft of expensive social programs, of little or no practical value, in the midst of the worst recession in 60 years. The larger audience consists of the people who elected him in 2008, and who may very well turn against his party in the 2010 Congressional elections.

Surely, he will choose to play to the larger audience. If so, Nancy Pelosi may remain the Speaker of the House but she will deposed from her unofficial position as co-President of the United States. No doubt the Republic will survive this loss.

By Andrew B. Wilson on 7.29.09 @ 6:08AM - a former Business Week bureau chief in Dallas and London, is a freelance writer living in St. Louis, Missouri

I’m not sure I agree with all of this, but I found it to be an interesting Article – Ask Marion~

Hovering on High: Obama Surveys the World

WASHINGTON -- When President Obama returned from his first European trip, I observed that while over there he had been "acting the philosopher-king who hovers above the fray mediating" between America and the world. Now that Obama has returned from his "Muslim world" pilgrimage, even the left agrees. "Obama's standing above the country, above -- above the world. He's sort of God," Newsweek's Evan Thomas said to a concurring Chris Matthews, reflecting on Obama's lofty perception of himself as the great transcender.

Not that Obama considers himself divine. (He sees himself as merely messianic, or, at worst, apostolic.) But he does position himself as hovering above mere mortals, mere country, to gaze benignly upon the darkling plain beneath him where ignorant armies clash by night, blind to the common humanity that only he can see. Traveling the world, he brings the gospel of understanding and godly forbearance. We have all sinned against each other. We must now look beyond that and walk together to the sunny uplands of comity and understanding. He shall guide you. Thus:

(A) He told Iran that, on the one hand, America once helped overthrow an Iranian government, while on the other hand "Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians." (Played a role?!) We have both sinned; let us bury the past and begin anew.

(B) On religious tolerance, he gently referenced the Christians of Lebanon and Egypt, then lamented that the "divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence" (note the use of the passive voice). He then criticized (in the active voice) Western religious intolerance for regulating the wearing of the hijab -- after citing America for making it difficult for Muslims to give to charity.

(C) Obama offered Muslims a careful admonition about women's rights, noting how denying women education impoverishes a country -- balanced, of course, with "meanwhile, the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life."

Well, yes. On the one hand, there certainly is some American university where the women's softball team has received insufficient Title IX funds -- while, on the other hand, Saudi women showing ankle are beaten in the street, Afghan school girls have acid thrown in their faces, and Iranian women are publicly stoned to death for adultery. (Gays, as well -- but then again we have Prop 8.) We all have our shortcomings, our national foibles. Who's to judge?

That's the problem with Obama's transcultural evenhandedness. It gives the veneer of professorial sophistication to the most simple-minded observation: Of course there are rights and wrongs in all human affairs. Our species is a fallen one. But that doesn't mean that these rights and wrongs are of equal weight.

A CIA rent-a-mob in a coup 56 years ago does not balance the hostage-takings, throat-slittings, terror bombings and wanton slaughters perpetrated for 30 years by a thug regime in Teheran (and its surrogates) that our own State Department calls the world's "most active state sponsor of terrorism."

True, France prohibits the wearing of the hijab in certain public places, in part to allow the force of law to protect Muslim women who might be coerced into wearing it by neighborhood fundamentalist gangs. But it borders on the obscene to compare this mild preference for secularization (seen in Muslim Turkey as well) to the violence that has been visited upon Copts, Maronites, Baha'i, Druze and other minorities in Muslim lands, and to the unspeakable cruelties perpetrated by Shiites and Sunnis upon each other.

Even on freedom of religion, Obama could not resist the compulsion to find fault with his own country: "For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation" -- disgracefully giving the impression to a foreign audience not versed in our laws that there is active discrimination against Muslims, when the only restriction, applied to all donors regardless of religion, is on funding charities that serve as fronts for terror.

Obama undoubtedly thinks he is demonstrating historical magnanimity with all these moral equivalencies and self-flagellating apologetics. On the contrary. He's showing cheap condescension, an unseemly hunger for applause and a willingness to distort history for political effect.

Distorting history is not truth-telling, but the telling of soft lies. Creating false equivalencies is not moral leadership, but moral abdication. And hovering above it all, above country and history, is a sign not of transcendence but of a disturbing ambivalence toward one's own country.

By Charles Krauthammer – Real Clear Politics - letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Washington Post Writers Group

Posted: Daily Thought Pad

Obama condemns Muslim attack on Arkansas Army recruiters… “NOT”

By Michelle Malkin  •  June 2, 2009 12:47 PM

President Obama announced his choice for Army Secretary this afternoon.

The news isn’t what he said in his statement about GOP Rep. John McHugh:

“As Secretary of the Army, he will ensure that our soldiers are trained and equipped to meet the full spectrum of challenges and threats of our time. And John [McHugh] shares my belief that a sustainable national security strategy must include a bipartisan consensus at home, and he brings patriotism and a pragmatism that has won him respect on both sides of the aisle. I look forward to working with him in the months and years ahead.”

The news is what he left out.

Not a word about the jihadi attack on the two Army recruiters in Arkansas. No condemnation of the heinous attack and senseless violence. No condolences for the families of the targeted men or praise for the military recruiters who have been under increasing attack on U.S. soil.No statements from the DOJ or Pentagon, either.

Nothing.

***

Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic notices similar whitewashing by government-funded NPR, which failed to report the name and religion of recruiter-murdering suspect Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad:

Why not tell people what is actually happening in the world? We saw this a couple of weeks ago, when the press only gingerly acknowledged that the malevolent though incompetent suspects in the synagogue bombing-conspiracy case in New York were converts to Islam. How is the public served by this kind of silence? The extremist Christian beliefs of George Tiller’s alleged murderer are certainly relevant to that case, and no one in my profession is hesitant to discuss them. Why the hesitancy to talk about the motivations of the man who allegedly killed Pvt. William Long?

Amy Ridenour: Some murders matter more than others.

See what others have said:

Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.

Trackbacks

1. Blue Collar Republican » Blog Archive » The Silence Is Deafening
2. One Arkansas Army recruiter shot dead, another wounded by muslim Carlos Bledsoe aka Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad - HUSSEIN Obama STILL has not condemned this jihadist! | Fire Andrea Mitchell!
3. Muslim Extremist Murders U.S. Serviceman on American Streets « The Political Inquirer
4. Muslim Extremist Kills Military Recruiter vs. Abortion Doctor Killed « Trust, But Verify
5. Some murders matter more than others | Right Voices
6. Cassy Fiano » Soldier killed in Arkansas by Muslim convert; media too busy with George Tiller murder to notice
7. Obama Silent on Recruitment Center Shooting : The American Pundit
8. Michelle Malkin » And now this: Shooting at military recruiting center; 1 dead, 1 wounded; suspect is anti-military Muslim convert
9. Mudville Gazette
10. Jihadi Kills US Army Recruiter at Arkansas Recruitment Center — The Dana Report
11. Obama condemns Muslim attack on Arkansas Army recruiters…not | The 2008 Elections
12. EXAMINER.COM: Recent extremist shootings raise questions about responsible speech | Unequal Time
13. Obama Quick to Decry Abortionist’s Murder… Why Is He Still Mute on Soldier’s Murder by Black Muslim Terrorist? « Frugal Café Blog Zone
14. This, that, and the other « Lindy’s Blog: Where Mom is Always Right
15. Tel-Chai Nation
16. Obama’s actions speak louder than his words « Garnette’s View
17. What was missing from Obama today « The Daley Gator
18. Turning The Tables:The Left Culpable In Death Of The Arkansas Military Recruiter « Nice Deb
19. Hell no we don’t apologize | BitsBlog
20. Playing Catch-Up « Obi’s Sister
21. ma condemns murder of child killer; Mum on murder of soldier | The TIW Blog
22. Leaning Straight Up » Palin not afraid to speak the truth about the Long and Tiller killings
23. Five « The Reluctant Optimist
24. Jesus is Lord, A Worshipping Christian’s Blog » Blog Archive » Obama Vocal on Tiller - Silent on Muslim Terrorist Attack on Recruiters
25. Vocal Minority
26. Climate Of Liberal Hate « Vets On The Watch
27. Michelle Malkin » Mapping the “climate of hate”
28. The Crazy Continues… « Around The Sphere
29. Watcher of Weasels » Six Months and Counting - You Voted For Them!

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Comments

Comment pages: « 1 [2]

1. #101

   On June 3rd, 2009 at 9:01 am, happyscrapper said:

   Obama’s true feelings and agenda are becoming clearer every passing hour. He is Commander-In-Chief of the armed forces, yet feels the murder of an abortion doctor is more tragic and more worthy of his condolences than the murder of a soldier. Now, he is over kissing the a$$ of the Saudi King. Next, on to Egypt to spout off about his Muslim roots. Interesting that no one heard about those “roots” when he was campaigning for Pres. In fact, his opponent, Juan McAmnesty, forbid anyone to even mention that Obama’s middle name was Hussein! Everything was covered up by the complicit MSM…his associations, his Muslim background, his socialist agenda…everything. And now we are stuck with him. Chicago thug, black supremacist, socialist, Muslim, America-basher, and our president. It doesn’t get any sicker than that.

2. #102

   On June 3rd, 2009 at 9:09 am, jangar said:

   Interesting that no one heard about those “roots” when he was campaigning for Pres. (the info was all out there to be found, read and researched!!).

   
   

 

Source:  FOX NATION

Posted:  Daily Thought Pad

The Death of Israel

From Caroline Glick, deputy editor and op-ed writer for the Jerusalem Post, comes alarming news.  An expert on Arab-Israeli relations with excellent sources deep inside Netanyahu's government, she reports that CIA chief Leon Panetta, who recently took time out from his day job (feuding with Nancy Pelosi) to travel to Israel "read the riot act" to the government warning against an attack on Iran.

More ominously, Glick reports (likely from sources high up in the Israeli government) that the Obama administration has all but accepted as irreversible and unavoidable fact that Iran will soon develop nuclear weapons.  She writes, "...we have learned that the [Obama] administration has made its peace with Iran's nuclear aspirations. Senior administration officials acknowledge as much in off-record briefings. It is true, they say, that Iran may exploit its future talks with the US to run down the clock before they test a nuclear weapon. But, they add, if that happens, the US will simply have to live with a nuclear-armed mullocracy."

She goes on to write that the Obama administration is desperate to stop Israel from attacking Iran writing that "as far as the [Obama] administration is concerned, if Israel could just leave Iran's nuclear installations alone, Iran would behave itself."  She notes that American officials would regard any harm to American interests that flowed from an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities as Israel's doing, not Iran's.
In classic Stockholm Syndrome fashion, the Obama administration is empathizing more with the Iranian leaders who are holding Israel hostage than with the nation that may be wiped off the map if Iran acquires the bomb.

Obama's end-of-the-year deadline for Iranian talks aimed at stopping its progress toward nuclear weapons is just window dressing without the threat of military action.  As Metternich wrote "diplomacy without force is like music without instruments."  By warning only of possible strengthening of economic sanctions if the talks do not progress, Obama is making an empty threat.  The sanctions will likely have no effect because Russia and China will not let the United Nations act as it must if it is to deter Iranian nuclear weapons.

All this means is that Israel's life is in danger.  If Iran gets the bomb, it will use it to kill six million Jews.  No threat of retaliation will make the slightest difference.  One cannot deter a suicide bomber with the threat of death.  Nor can one deter a theocracy bent on meriting admission to heaven and its virgins by one glorious act of violence.  Iran would probably not launch the bomb itself, anyway, but would give it to its puppet terrorists to send to Israel so it could deny responsibility.  Obama, bent on appeasement, would likely not retaliate with nuclear weapons.  And Israel will be dead and gone.

Those sunshine Jewish patriots who voted for Obama must realize that we, as Jews, are witnessing the possible end of Israel.  We are in the same moral position as our ancestors were as they watched Hitler rise but did nothing to pressure their favorite liberal Democratic president, FDR, to take any real action to save them or even to let Jewish refugees into the country.  If we remain complacent, we will have the same anguish at watching the destruction of Israel that our forebears had in witnessing the Holocaust.

Because one thing is increasingly clear: Barack Obama is not about to lift a finger to stop Iran from developing the bomb.  And neither is Hillary Clinton.

Obama may have held the first White House cedar, but he's not planning to spend next year in Jerusalem.

Source: Dick Morris.com

White House: Closing Gitmo a 'Hasty Decision' - Updated

Updated: White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said closing the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was a “hasty decision,” in his daily press briefing with reporters. But he later backtracked in the briefing and clarified that he was referring to decisions made under George W. Bush.

The White house spokesman was asked whether it was a "mistake" to request the resources to close Guantanamo Bay without a plan.

"It was a mistake to set up something that became a rallying cry for enemies around the world and to hope for so long that we could simply continue to perpetuate the theory of keeping detainees there while the courts ruled otherwise," Gibbs responded.

"I don't doubt that the President--and I think he'll say this tomorrow--that we've made some hasty decisions that are now going to take some time to unwind. And closing Guantanamo Bay obviously is one of those decisions," he added.

But later in the briefing Gibbs was asked a follow up question on what looked like a startling admission. Gibbs said that he meant that the "hasty decisions" were made by the previous administration.

"And you said hasty," a reporter asked, “you talked about hasty decisions tomorrow, that it's going to take some time to unwind. Are you talking about the President's hasty decisions or the previous administration's hasty decision as it regards Guantanamo?”

"No, no, no, I'm sorry," Gibbs said. "My boss might want to know the answer to that. No, no, I'm discussing decisions that were made in the previous administration."

The reporter asked again, “You were not referring to the executive order?”

“No, no, no,” Gibbs said.

So either the White House spokesman misspoke or said too much. That’s for the public to decide. To some critics, Gibbs comment might evoke Michael Kinsley's famous political adage. Kinsley defined a gaffe in Washington as a moment when someone tells the truth. 

Guantanamo Bay has become a political minefield for the president. President Obama’s decision to close the controversial detention center in the early days of his presidency was met with adulation on the political left and earned headlines in newspapers across the world. It was seen as a clear break from Bush-era national security policy.

But recently Obama has broken with liberals over his decision to continue Bush-era military commissions to try Guantanamo Bay prisoners and his decision not to release photographs allegedly depicting U.S. soldiers abusing detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq. To an extent, this split with the political left is indicative of the difference between campaigning and governing.

Gibbs’ gaffe Wednesday (Click here to see video) may have only further aggravated large portions of Obama's political base. Liberals rallied to Obama during the campaign in part because of his strong criticism of George W. Bush's "war on terror."

White House critics have long argued that closing Guantanamo Bay was one policy shift easier said than done.

Gibbs reversal, on what looked like a mega reversal, comes on the eve of a major national security speech by Obama. Obama is expected to address, in part, Senate Democrats' opposition to funding the closure of Gitmo. Democrats have withheld funding closure until the White House offers a clear plan on how the detention center will be shut down and importantly, where detainees will be sent.

The closure of Guantanamo Bay has quickly turned into a "not in my backyard" issue. No U.S. representative wants to explain why a Gitmo detainee was allowed to live in his or her district. In the same vein, Obama has found U.S. allies no more willing to accept detainees. France and Britain each accepted one former detainee. There are about 240 detainees at Guantánamo Bay and 30 are clear for release.

David Paul Kuhn is the Chief Political Correspondent for RealClearPolitics and the author of The Neglected Voter

By: David Paul Kuhn

President Obama decided to wedge himself in before a planned speech by former Vice President Cheney on Guantanamo Bay, Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, CIA Memos and American Safety.  Obama had not definitive plan, came across as narcissistic kid or like he was still campaigning and attacked the Bush-Cheney White House no less than 28-times.  This after he keeps saying that we (he) aren’t going to point fingers… HMMM… wonder when that is going to happen?  Obama’s Speech came across as a pre-emptive unprepared rebuttal to Vice President Cheney’s Speech.  He was talking from an 9/10 perspective… as if there were no danger.

Vice President Cheney, who would rather be fishing and hunting and has no political ambition or anything to gain from his president campaign, except to protect the American People came across as prepared and sincere.  His speech was very informative, reminding us of the stakes and threats that the Bush White House was operating under after 9/11.  He took responsibility, let us know that there were only 3-people water-boarded… one the engineer of 9/11, and reminded us that the results of the water-boarding saved us from an attack on Los Angeles.

After President Obama’s and Dick Cheney’s speeches today the work on Capital Hill continued unaffected.  There was no additional discussion of funds to close Guantanamo Bay~

• Comments have poured in from 9/11 families and survivors thanking Vice President Cheney.
• CNN, a liberal network, just did a poll showing that President Cheney’s approval rating has increased by 8% since he has been speaking out over the past month.
• Vice President Cheney is still asking to have CIA Memos declassified to support his position.  Obama refuses…  The memos that were released were redacted and left out the results of the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques.

Also released today… 

• 1 out of 7 released Guantanamo Bay releasees goes back to anti-American terrorist activities
• Under the Clinton Administration and others, torture was outsourced to Egypt and other countries… and it wasn’t water-boarding.

Related Resources:

• Obama vs Cheney...
• Click here to read the transcript of Dick Cheney's national security speech at the American Enterprise Institute.
• CIA denies Cheney request to declassify memos
• Cheney Says: Obama Endangers the Nation

Posted:  Daily Thought Pad

Obama vs Cheney...

Cheney on Obama: 'Recklessness Cloaked in Righteousness'

 Click here to read the transcript of Dick Cheney's national security speech at the American Enterprise Institute.

Today's speech... about Gitmo, squeezed in before Cheney's speech... planned for weeks came across as the Serious Adult (Cheney) verses the Narcissistic PC Man-Chiled (Obama) - Never a Fair Fight 

Obama and the 9/11 Families

The president isn't sincere about 'swift and certain' justice for terrorists.

By DEBRA BURLINGAME

In February I was among a group of USS Cole and 9/11 victims' families who met with the president at the White House to discuss his policies regarding Guantanamo detainees. Although many of us strongly opposed Barack Obama's decision to close the detention center and suspend all military commissions, the families of the 17 sailors killed in the 2000 attack in Yemen were particularly outraged.

Getty Images

Barack Obama addresses CIA employees, April 20.

Over the years, the Cole families have seen justice abandoned by the Clinton administration and overshadowed by the need of the Bush administration to gather intelligence after 9/11. They have watched in frustration as the president of Yemen refused extradition for the Cole bombers.

Now, after more than eight years of waiting, Mr. Obama was stopping the trial of Abu Rahim al-Nashiri, the only individual to be held accountable for the bombing in a U.S. court. Patience finally gave out. The families were giving angry interviews, slamming the new president just days after he was sworn in.

The Obama team quickly put together a meeting at the White House to get the situation under control. Individuals representing "a diversity of views" were invited to attend and express their concerns.

On Feb. 6, the president arrived in the Roosevelt Room to a standing though subdued ovation from some 40 family members. With a White House photographer in his wake, Mr. Obama greeted family members one at a time and offered brief remarks that were full of platitudes ("you are the conscience of the country," "my highest duty as president is to protect the American people," "we will seek swift and certain justice"). Glossing over the legal complexities, he gave a vague summary of the detainee cases and why he chose to suspend them, focusing mostly on the need for speed and finality.

Many family members pressed for Guantanamo to remain open and for the military commissions to go forward. Mr. Obama allowed that the detention center had been unfairly confused with Abu Ghraib, but when asked why he wouldn't rehabilitate its image rather than shut it down, he silently shrugged. Next question.

Mr. Obama was urged to consult with prosecutors who have actually tried terrorism cases and warned that bringing unlawful combatants into the federal courts would mean giving our enemies classified intelligence -- as occurred in the cases of the al Qaeda cell that carried out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and conspired to bomb New York City landmarks with ringleader Omar Abdel Rahman, the "Blind Sheikh." In the Rahman case, a list of 200 unindicted co-conspirators given to the defense -- they were entitled to information material to their defense -- was in Osama bin Laden's hands within hours. It told al Qaeda who among them was known to us, and who wasn't.

Mr. Obama responded flatly, "I'm the one who sees that intelligence. I don't want them to have it, either. We don't have to give it to them."

How could anyone be unhappy with such an answer? Or so churlish as to ask follow-up questions in such a forum? I and others were reassured, if cautiously so.

News reports described the meeting as a touching and powerful coming together of the president and these long-suffering families. Mr. Obama had won over even those who opposed his decision to close Gitmo by assuaging their fears that the review of some 245 current detainees would result in dangerous jihadists being set free. "I did not vote for the man, but the way he talks to you, you can't help but believe in him," said John Clodfelter to the New York Times. His son, Kenneth, was killed in the Cole bombing. "[Mr. Obama] left me with a very positive feeling that he's going to get this done right."

"This isn't goodbye," said the president, signing autographs and posing for pictures before leaving for his next appointment, "this is hello." His national security staff would have an open-door policy.

Believe . . . feel . . . hope.

We'd been had.

Binyam Mohamed -- the al Qaeda operative selected by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) for a catastrophic post-9/11 attack with co-conspirator Jose Padilla -- was released 17 days later. In a follow-up conference call, the White House liaison to 9/11 and Cole families refused to answer questions about the circumstances surrounding the decision to repatriate Mohamed, including whether he would be freed in Great Britain.

The phrase "swift and certain justice" had been used by top presidential adviser David Axelrod in an interview prior to our meeting with the president. "Swift and certain justice" figured prominently in the White House press release issued before we had time to surrender our White House security passes. "At best, he manipulated the families," Kirk Lippold, commanding officer of the USS Cole at the time of the attack and the leader of the Cole families group, told me recently. "At worst, he misrepresented his true intentions."

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder told German reporters that 30 detainees had been cleared for release. This includes 17 Chinese fundamentalist Muslims, the Uighurs, some of whom admit to having been trained in al Qaeda and Taliban camps and being associated with the East Turkistan Islamic Party. This party is led by Abdul Haq, who threatened attacks on the 2008 Olympics Games in Beijing and was recently added to the Treasury Department's terrorist list. The Obama administration is considering releasing the Uighurs on U.S. soil, and it has suggested that taxpayers may have to provide them with welfare support. In a Senate hearing yesterday, Mr. Holder sidestepped lawmakers' questions about releasing detainees into the U.S. who have received terrorist training.

What about the terrorists who may actually be tried? The Justice Department's recent plea agreement with Ali Saleh al-Marri should be of grave concern to those who believe the Obama administration will vigorously prosecute terrorists in the federal court system.

Al-Marri was sent to the U.S. on Sept. 10, 2001, by KSM to carry out cyanide bomb attacks. He pled guilty to one count of "material support," a charge reserved for facilitators rather than hard-core terrorists. He faces up to a 15-year sentence, but will be allowed to argue that the sentence should be satisfied by the seven years he has been in custody. This is the kind of thin "rule of law" victory that will invigorate rather than deter our enemies.

Given all the developments since our meeting with the president, it is now evident that his words to us bore no relation to his intended actions on national security policy and detainee issues. But the narrative about Mr. Obama's successful meeting with 9/11 and Cole families has been written, and the press has moved on.

The Obama team has established a pattern that should be plain for all to see. When controversy erupts or legitimate policy differences are presented by well-meaning people, send out the celebrity president to flatter and charm.

Most recently, Mr. Obama appeared at the CIA after demoralizing the agency with the declassification and release of memos containing sensitive information on CIA interrogations. He appealed to moral vanity by saying that fighting a war against fanatic barbarians "with one hand tied behind your back" is being on "the better side of history," even though innocent lives are put at risk. He promised the assembled staff and analysts that if they keep applying themselves, they won't be personally marked for career-destroying sanctions or criminal prosecutions, even as disbelieving counterterrorism professionals -- the field operatives and their foreign partners -- shut down critical operations for fear of public disclosure and political retribution in the never-ending Beltway soap opera called Capitol Hill.

It worked: On television, his speech looked like a campaign rally, with people jumping up and down, cheering. Meanwhile, the media have moved on, even as they continue to recklessly and irresponsibly use the word "torture" in their stories.

I asked Cmdr. Kirk Lippold why some of the Cole families declined the invitation to meet with Barack Obama at the White House.

"They saw it for what it was."

Ms. Burlingame, a former attorney and a director of the National September 11 Memorial Foundation, is the sister of Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame III, the pilot of American Airlines flight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

Source:  Wall Street Journal

Posted:  Daily Thought Pad

Broken Earmark Promises

Wednesday -- behind closed doors -- President Barack Obama signed his 2009 Omnibus spending package, calling it an "imperfect" bill. With 8,570 disclosed earmarks worth $7.7 billion "imperfect" is an understatement.

It's bad enough that our president was in an irresponsible rush to spend hundreds of billions with his "stimulus" package ($787 billion), and soon $350 million in the second half of the TARP funds, $32 billion -- at least -- for his new SCHIP program, and now $410 billion in his "imperfect" omnibus bill, but on top of that, he's been dishonest.

Just two weeks before Obama took office he told reporters that his plans would set a “new higher standard of accountability, transparency and oversight. We are going to ban all earmarks.”

On the campaign trail, ironically almost a year ago today, Obama co-sponsored an amendment that would establish a one-year earmark moratorium for 2009 (the bill failed to pass).

“We can no longer accept a process that doles out earmarks based on a member of Congress' seniority, rather than the merit of the project," Obama said. "The entire earmark process needs to be re-examined and reformed.”

“I pledge to slash earmarks by more than half when I’m president of the United States of America,” said Obama again on the trail in September.

During a debate with McCain in Mississippi, Obama famously said “Absolutely we need earmark reform, and when I’m president I will go line by line to make sure we are not spending money unwisely.”
Obama’s entire campaign was formed around the mantra of hope and change, “earmark reform” came out of his mouth almost as often as “um.”
And then, in his sort-of State of the Union address drum roll… “I’m proud that we passed a recovery plan free of earmarks” said Obama.

“There was just a roar of laughter -- because there were earmarks,” ultra liberal Sen. Claire McCaskill, (D-Mi) told reporters. Actually, there were bunches, gobs of them. 
So define earmark? The Washington Post writes that none of the items in the recovery package “are traditional earmarks -- funding for a project inserted by a lawmaker bypassing the normal budgeting process -- according to the White House and Democratic leaders.”

Though the Post did report that despite pledges, the recovery package did have pork in it. No “earmarks” but “pork.”

Republicans were responsible for stripping the bill of some of its most wasteful spending (the best definition). $1.7 million for a honey bee factory, $20 million for the removal of fish passage barriers, and $300 million for “green” golf carts, just to name a few. (Republican earmarxists were responsible for others that are arguably just as bad.)

"I know that there are a lot of folks out there who've been saying, 'Oh, this is pork, and this is money that's going to be wasted,' and et cetera, et cetera. Understand, this bill does not have a single earmark in it, which is unprecedented for a bill of this size. … There aren't individual pork projects that members of Congress are putting into this bill," said Obama.

Tomato, tomahto, “earmark” or “pork” … Let’s call the whole thing off; it’s unnecessary spending of our tax dollars.

The day after Obama’s address to the nation, the House passed another $410 billion spending bill with 8,570 disclosed earmarks, and Obama signed the bill despite all the earlier promises.

$52.1 million for Vice President Joe Biden’s earmarks as a senator from Deleware, $8.3 million for Rahm Emanuel as a House member from Illinois, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, formerly a Republican congressman from Illinois, $26.5 million --  just to name a few.

So what does the Obama administration say now?

"We want to just move on. Let's get this bill done, get it into law and move forward," Budget Chief Peter Orszag told reporters.

“That's last year's business,” said Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

And why, precisely, do we believe that next year would be any different?

by Michelle Oddis, Assistant Managing Editor at HUMAN EVENTS

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Bipartisan Buddies: Sarah Palin and Barack Obama

While most everyone was watching the attempted bipartisanship on Capitol Hill this week, some of it broke out successfully in an unlikely place elsewhere.

It seems that Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin, the unsuccessful GOP VP nominee, was worried that the Army was going to cut off pensions to the state's old-timers long-retired from the Alaska Territorial Guard. So she sat down and wrote a letter to the new big guy himself, DemocraticPresident Barack Obama,who's vowed to take extra special care of veterans.

And the largest state's small congressional delegation got involved too.

And, what do you know? According to the ever-vigilant Sarah Palin for President blog, the Army suddenly decided it didn't really need to cut off those payments after all

It found a special fund to pay them, while Sens. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, and Mark Begich, a Democrat, together shepherd the proper authorizing legislation through Congress.

Amazing when it works.

And speaking of Sarah and Barack, this weekend they're both attending the off-the-record black tie dinner of the Alfalfa Club, one of those fraternity-like get-togethers that Washingtonians schedule throughout the year to convince themselves of their eliteness. Palin, who as The Ticket reported, formed her own SarahPAC this week, says she's attending to pitch the interests of Alaska.

And?

According to Paul Bedard over at Washington Whispers, Palin's presence in D.C. has sparked an interview bidding war between CNN's Larry King, who's had seven wives and almost as many heart attacks, and ABC's George Stephanopoulos, who hasn't.

--Andrew Malcolm

Photo credit: Vogue