Saber Rattling: Is it time for the next big Mid-East Confrontation?

Hmmm...: Within the space of two days, all these articles come out:

From Israel:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to rally support in his cabinet for an attack on Iran, according to government sources.

From the UK:

Britain's armed forces are stepping up their contingency planning for potential military action against Iran amid mounting concern about Tehran's nuclear enrichment programme, the Guardian has learned.

The Ministry of Defence believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government.

And from rightcheer in Amurrica:

As the International Atomic Energy Agency prepares to release its latest report on Iran's nuclear program, an Obama administration official said Thursday that the Islamic regime has a credibility problem.

"Iran, over many years, has been unable to demonstrate the peaceful intent of its nuclear program," Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes told reporters in Cannes, France, where President Obama was attending the G20 summit."

more from The Guardian via Hot Air:

Britain’s armed forces are stepping up their contingency planning for potential military action against Iran amid mounting concern about Tehran’s nuclear enrichment programme, the Guardian has learned.
The Ministry of Defence believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government.
In anticipation of a potential attack, British military planners are examining where best to deploy Royal Navy ships and submarines equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles over the coming months as part of what would be an air and sea campaign.
They also believe the US would ask permission to launch attacks from Diego Garcia, the British Indian ocean territory, which the Americans have used previously for conflicts in the Middle East.

I for one say it's about damn time! Wag that dog Barry! Time go for your second violation of the War Powers Act!
Bombs Away, Barry!

Just Like a Big Boy!

Sorry for this post so long after the fact, but I think it's still relevent:

So the jokey Trump candidacy accomplished one thing: it humiliated Obama into releasing his long form birth certificate, over two years AFTER he was sworn in to be President.  The President said

"This issue has been going on for two, two and a half years now. I think it started during the campaign," Obama said. "I have watched with bemusement, I've been puzzled at the degree at which this thing just kept on going."

"We're not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers," the president said.

Ironic. This president calling everyone else carnival barkers. RTP&GG ourselves did an in depth analysis of the situation a while ago.  I guessed that there must be something embarrassing about the birth certificate or it would have been released ages ago, long before he became president.  But, if you go to the first link above you can see a clear pdf of the certificate and you will see nothing at all odd about it, outside of the somewhat odd situation he was born into, which was already well-documented public knowledge.

Obama was trying to make fun of the people that raised a stink about the birth certificate, and of course liberals all praised this bold move.

The problems still are a) Why wasn't it mandatory to produce the birth certificate to run for president? b) Why didn't he just produce it and quash all the rumors long ago?

I am going to renew my Oregon Drivers License in a few weeks and I will need to produce my birth certificate.  When kids sign up for Little League in 3rd grade they have to produce birth certifcates to prove they are the right age to play for the team they signed up for.  This was a simple thing that should have been mandatory.

Talk about "soft bigotry of low expectations".  This is the softest and lowest I've ever seen.  Are we going to next praise him for knowing his home address and phone number, just like a big boy?  Barack, I'm so proud of you!   You really are qualified to be president!

Osama Bin Laden Killed by US Forces near the capital of Pakistan

Some guy we haven't talked about in ages killed by US forces outside of the capital of Pakistan.

First off:  This is definitely fantastic news!  The goat fucker deserved to die and that it comes at the hands of US forces, bullet to the head form, is a great thing.  Kudos to President Obama for having the balls to authorize the operation, for this must have been a delicate operation, deep inside Pakistan, not a drone strike near the border.

However, as everyone notes: this won't end the war on terror.  It may be a temporary body blow to the terrorists, but, that's it.  It'll be interesting to hear in the next few days, to what extent bin Laden was still involved in Al Qaeda operations.  I've said many times that, living or dead, he's been irrelevent to the war for many years, offering no moral support to the people that would look to him for inspiration.  I don't think he ever was too involved at the tactical level.  Hopefully we'll learn soon to what extent he was still involved with things. 

But, there are some things that make you say "hmmm":

• A covert operation deep inside Pakistan, close to the capital.  This is where Osama's been hiding?  How did the ISI not know about his whereabouts all this time?  Is it remotely conceivable that they didn't know?
• Assuming they did know where he was, did they just recently give up the whereabouts to US intelligence, or is this something US intelligence figured out themselves?
• Obama authorized what, on the surface, would be a very risky mission.  He just doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would do that.

Bud-D's conspiracy theory:  The ISI gave him up in exchange for cancellation or a great reduction in drone strikes.  Pakistan gave tacit permission for the US to go in and snatch him.  Obama will use this -undeniably great event- to justify pulling out of Afghanistan this summer.

And maybe it's time?  What does the RTP&GG community think?

It'll be interesting what we learn in the near future about what really went down.  What if the Pakistanis didn't know anything or didn't give him up?  Then I've got to say that Obama and our Special Forces really kicked ass.  And what about Pakistan?

Obama - Bloodthirsty NeoCon Warmonger Thread

I'll bet we're all over that map on the rightness of the attacks Obama has ordered on Libya.  I think that a determined effort to support rebels to overthrow Kaddafi is a good idea.  He's been a thorn in our side for decades and no matter who takes over there after he is overthrown, it can't be any worse.  He should have been killed after he ordered the Pan Am Lockerbie bombing that killed I think over 200 Americans.  But, even our hero, Ronald Reagan, just did a light retaliation for that horrible act.  In my opinion, the most powerful nation in the world, if it wants to remain the most powerful nation in the world, smashes opponents who pick fights like that.  Kaddafi has needed eliminating for quite some time.  Saying "but he's one of many assholes in the world that need taking out, what has he done this time that sets him apart from the others?"  I say, past behavior for which he should have paid, and also, and this is something that it seems pundits on the left and right fail to account for in trying to be righteous for their side: it would be relatively easy to overthrow him.  This as opposed to say Ahmedinajad (sp?) or Communist China.  Yes, this asshole can be overthrown and held up as an example (like Saddam Hussein) for a relatively small amount of effort on our side.  So, I generally support the mission in Libya, so long as it includes overthrowing and killing Kaddafi.  If those are not goals, and they don't appear to be the publically stated goals of the French, British, or Obama, then I'm wondering what we're doing.

Regardless of how I feel about the action, the way Obama, the Boy King, has gone about this, and how he has arrived at the point where he felt justified sending American men and material in harm's way is greatly flawed, to the point of being disgusting.  And the path he has taken will greatly increase the dissention on both the right and the left for his war effort.  Ace has an outstanding article discussing this,  As always, a read the whole thing article, but here are a couple things: on the legitimacy of Obama charging ahead without Congressional authority (you know, the kind Bush actually got before Afghanistan and Iraq)-emphasis mine:

The Constitution does not merely enumerate the powers of office; it also enumerates the duties of office. Certainly politicians, being politicians, would occasionally enjoy ignoring their Constitutional duties. That does not give them license to do so, however.

There is and always has been argued an inherent presidential war-making power in cases where the situation is moving too quickly for formal Congressional debate, and thus, any debate would in fact resolve the issue by default -- if national interests are at risk within hours, the President (it has long been argued) can act on his own authority, temporarily, to preserve the status quo ante so that meaningful debate over options can be had (in the sense that there will still be options remaining, rather than a fait accompli), and that the president, as commander in chief, can always act in the defense of America itself.

Obviously that last part is inapplicable here; America is not directly threatened by anything that happens in Libya. American interests are indirectly threatened, depending on hypothethical future contingencies, and that means that there may be a reason to act, but this sort of indirect, hypothetical threat is not enough to give the president license to act purely on his own authority.

As to the "we must not tarry" argument -- that is disproven wholly by Obama's perfect willingness to debate this for weeks at the United Nations. He was perfectly willing to allow the rebellion to crumble to the very brink of defeat in order to secure United Nations authorization; obviously, then, this was not a "we must not tarry" situation, because the President tarried quite a bit. In fact, he tarried so much that the situation may now in fact comprise an unrecoverable loss.

What's most disgusting to me is that Obama seems to think getting permission from the UN and France is more important than getting it from Congress:

What is preposterous here, and offensive, is the apparent belief by Obama that an international Tyrant's Club created in 1945 is the true, genuine war-authority authority while the Congress specifically named in the Constitution as the war-approving authority is... what? Nothing, apparently. The international tribunal called the United Nations has, somehow, without a Constitutional amendment, displaced the Congress as the lawful tribunal for approving the injection of United States armed forces into war.

When did that happen? When, as United States citizens, did we all agree that we should no longer have the democratic power to decide when we would and would not go to war, and would instead leave the matter up to foreign powers, many (most) of whom are allied against us in one fashion or another?

Obama believes this did happen. He doesn't think we agreed on it, of course, as he knows, surely, that no such vote every took place. But he thinks that those International Representatives are much more competent to decide the fates of Americans and so, consistent with his left-liberal worldview, such responsibilities and powers are taken away from the American public and reposed instead in "better" people, either a small self-declared American elite or a foreign elite, better able to make decisions on behalf of ignorant, uneducated Americans.

Obama is following his beliefs; he is not being given sufficient credit for that: the military of the US should only be used for causes deemed important to the UN. Anything else, such as causes deemed important to the US, is evil.

Obama's State of the Union Address - Profile in Cowardice

As most Americans know, our country is in a severe economic predicament, caused chiefly by exploding entitlement programs such as Social Security, and Medicare, but exacerbated by exploding federal budgets, begun under the Bush II administration, and hyperinflated under the Obama administration.  In the State of the Union address, Obama would call this a "Sputnik Moment", which implied that this moment of economic peril was similar to the call-to-action that occurred when the Russians launched Sputnik, putting a satellite into orbit before anyone else did, and kicking off the US space program.  This would be an economic Sputnik moment, spurring the US to action against this dire economic threat.  But, as is demonstrated in this very well written article, Obama, as is his modus operandi, took the cowards way out.  Again, a read the whole thing article, but here are some good paragraphs:

The thrust of Obama's agenda follows Lenin's. The old jobs are gone. We must prepare for the future by educating our youth. The sturm und drang of the "We Musts" quickly becomes an argument for pandering to the teacher's unions. Only by empowering the teacher's union will we be able to compete with China. But China isn't strong because of its teachers, but because it has no independent unions, no minimum wage, no pollution laws and nothing to get in the way of the terrible machine of its industry. The People's Republic of China is not beating us in science or math, but in manufacturing cheap products with an undervalued national currency.

Handing out free educations to beat China is like going to college to fight a bear. Not only will it not improve your bear fighting skills, it actually gives the bear the upper hand. American math and science degrees are used to do research whose practical applications take the form of products manufactured in China. Even if all 300 million Americans all go to work as researchers, we are not going to "out-compete" and "out-innovate" by "out-educating" Americans. Russia has the highest percentage of college degrees by population in the world. China has the lowest. These figures have little to do with their economic success.

America already has a college degree program percentage rate on par with Sweden and Finland, countries that almost wholly subsidize higher educations. Greece subsidizes 99.7 percent of higher education, and yet has a lower degree rate than America and is in a state of complete economic meltdown. America has higher rates of graduates than many of the European countries which heavily subsidize their education systems. The takeaway is that state subsidized education does not ensure more graduates. And more graduates does not mean more jobs.

Basically, the whole thrust of Obama's speech was pure bull. What he is talking about is pap, not a call to take on the real problems in this country. Again, read the whole thing, I've got to go.

A Couple Gratuitous Obama Observation/Slams

We haven't delved too much into Obama's history on this blog as I recall.  We certainly can't be considered a hard core Birther site.  I'll bet that every one of us believe that Barack Obama satisfies the citizenship requirement in the Constitution to be President.  The problem is that one must use the word 'believe' because there has never been enough evidence presented to the public to establish beyond a doubt that he does.  We know very little of the normal things that everyone wants to know about a president.  The MSM has displayed its true bias by, on one hand, tearing with incredible zest into the micro-gyno-history and family of Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin (gratuitous Palin photo required), but being singularly uninterested in the many obvious questions about President Barack Obama's past.  A couple of articles discuss these things: the first is a 'What If?' scenario pointing out the unapologetic Marxism of Obama by presenting us with a hypothetical alternate candidate:

So I want to present you with a hypothetical. Let's say a leader were elected who had, during his childhood, been mentored by an avowed Nazi. Let us further say that his guardians had chosen this mentor for him, indicating that they were likely sympathetic to the man's beliefs. Now, let us say that upon reaching college, this future leader gravitated toward Nazi professors. Moreover, we then find out that a man who knew the leader as an undergraduate and was, at the time, a Nazi himself, said that the leader was "in 100-percent total agreement" with his Nazi professors and was a flat-out Nazi who believed in old-style Brownshirt tactics.

Okay, we're almost done. After graduating, the leader-to-be spends twenty years sitting in a white-power church, has an alliance with a self-proclaimed Nazi and ex-terrorist, and, apparently, becomes a member of a National Socialist party for a while. And then, upon being elected, he appoints an avowed Nazi to his administration and also a woman who cites Adolf Hitler as one of her two favorite philosophers. Now here's the million-depreciated-dollar question:

What would be nuttier: to claim that this man was a Nazi or to claim that such an assertion is out-of-bounds?

This is an EXACT description of Barack Obama, except replace 'Nazi' with 'Marxist' and replace 'White Power' with 'Black Power'.  Yet the MSM is not the slightest bit interested in these questions concerning The President of the United States.  Read the whole thing, there are a lot more goodies.

The next article lays out the bullet-point issues the Birthers are concerned about.  The author, as well as every other citizen of the USA should be interested in the answers, even if they are convinced Barack Obama is a bona-fide US citizen.  Again, why are these issues scoffed at?  Someone tell me exactly why resolving these issues is a ridiculous thing.  As the author says, every other president in the last 100 years has been able to satisfactorily resolve these issues:

To date the following are all undisclosed:

1) 1961 long-form, original, signed birth certificate
2) Marriage license between Obama’s father (Barak Sr.) and mother (Stanley Ann Dunham) — not found, not released
3) Obama’s baptism records — sealed
4) Obama’s adoption records — sealed
5) Records of Obama’s and his mother’s repatriation as US citizens on return from Indonesia — not found, not released
6) Name change (Barry Sotero to Barack Hussein Obama) records — not found, not released
7) Noelani Elementary School (Hawaii) — not released
Punahou School financial aid or school records — not released
9) Occidental College financial aid records — not released.
10) Columbia College records — not released
11) Columbia senior thesis — not released
12) Harvard Law School records - not released
13) Obama’s law client list — sealed
14) Obama’s files from career as an Illinois State Senator — sealed
15) Obama’s record with Illinois State Bar Association — sealed
16) Obama’s medical records — not released
17) Obama’s passport records — not released

Does wanting to see the records above seem unreasonable? It seems perfectly reasonable to me. So why scoff at the Birthers?  It seems to me that by far the bigger question is, why are all these perfectly normal things being hidden?

Why does Obama want to "fundamentally transform" America?

Why does President Obama's policies seem to be aimed at redistributing America's wealth and destructive to America's economy? Why does he view America as an evil Country that has been the source of great injustices throughout its history? Why does he chose to surround himself with socialist and communist who have openly espoused the very same goal of fundamentally transforming America that entails the destruction of America as we know it? Why is he compromising our national security by contributing $2.5260 trillion to our national debt, which is more than the cumulative debt of all Presidents from Washington through Reagan? Why does he support a victory Mosque being built near Ground Zero by our enemy? Basically he is a foreigner and an enemy of America-- by foreigner I mean culturally and by enemy I mean one who is dedicated to the destruction of the last remnants of America as it was founded. This article explains the roots of President Obama and provides some insight into what motivates him and might explain his reasoning behind his transformative policies.

"Here is a man who spent his formative years--the first 17 years of his life--off the American mainland, in Hawaii, Indonesia and Pakistan, with multiple subsequent journeys to Africa." If this statement is true than this would technically make him America's first foreign, culturally, President. This would also explain why he does not believe in American exceptionalism.

The article goes on to explain who his father was and takes a look at Obama's book "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" to see what these dreams were.

But to his son, the elder Obama represented a great and noble cause, the cause of anticolonialism. Anticolonialism is the doctrine that rich countries of the West got rich by invading, occupying and looting poor countries of Asia, Africa and South America. As one of Obama's acknowledged intellectual influences, Frantz Fanon, wrote in The Wretched of the Earth, 'The well-being and progress of Europe have been built up with the sweat and the dead bodies of Negroes, Arabs, Indians and the yellow races.' Obama Sr. was an economist, and in 1965 he published an important article in the East Africa Journal called 'Problems Facing Our Socialism.' Obama Sr. wasn't a doctrinaire socialist; rather, he saw state appropriation of wealth as a necessary means to achieve the anticolonial objective of taking resources away from the foreign looters and restoring them to the people of Africa. [Might this explain the President's previous statements in 2001?] It may seem incredible to suggest that the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. is espoused by his son, the President of the United States. That is what I am saying. From a very young age and through his formative years, Obama learned to see America as a force for global domination and destruction. He came to view America's military as an instrument of neocolonial occupation. He adopted his father's position that capitalism and free markets are code words for economic plunder. Obama grew to perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America. In his worldview, profits are a measure of how effectively you have ripped off the rest of society, and America's power in the world is a measure of how selfishly it consumes the globe's resources and how ruthlessly it bullies and dominates the rest of the planet.[Might this explain why he is pushing for a Cap and Trade system that would help to redistribute America's resources throughout the world?] But instead of readying us for the challenge, our President is trapped in his father's time machine. Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation's agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son. The son makes it happen, but he candidly admits he is only living out his father's dream. The invisible father provides the inspiration, and the son dutifully gets the job done. America today is governed by a ghost.[Imagine the ghost of despotic African ruler.] (All [ ] indicate my words.)

Most of us on this blog are aware of Obama's major reforms: the stimulus package that did nothing for the economy but put us into greater debt, his attempts to slow our economy down and redistribute America's wealth to the world by regulating carbon emissions through a cap and trade scheme, health care reform, and financial reform. These reforms take on a new meaning if Obama holds these views as it would indicate what the goals of these reforms are: the humbling/leveling of America and the redistribution of our wealth. If he holds the views then this makes him a very dangerous man to America because he views it as an evil Country that must pay for its sins. If one did hold these views what would you do as the President of America? One thing is for certain: that Obama plans on "fundamentally transforming" America.

Is This Our Guy? Paul Ryan Takes Dear Leader to the Woodshed

Many pundits councelled against Republicans taking Obama up on meeting him at the Health Care Summit today.  But, it seems to be universally agreed that the Republicans more than held their own at the meeting and gave Obama a bloody nose.

All the blogs are linking to Paul Ryan (Representative from Wisconsin) giving Dear Leader a little lecture on ObamaCare-onomics.  Enjoy the pained look on Obama's face and Joe Biden burying his head in his hands at the link as someone who actually has a clue tells them what their plan is about.

A telegenic guy (that's a non-gay way of calling him handsome) speaking truth to power with lots of facts.  I like it.  I wish those words could come out of Sarah's mouth, but, so be it.

Our Congenitally Kowtowing Commander-In-Chief

Speaking of bowing: here we have Dear Leader bowing subserviently to...wait for it...The Right Honorable Mayor of Tampa.

What's up with this guy?  I mean, come on, this is getting ridiculous.  Click on the link to Ace of Spades to see the full range of jokes this generates, and yet, comedians say there is nothing funny about this president.   Hmmm...

Now, I'm clearly no psychiatrist, but it seems to me that what we have here is a man that is not a product of American culture, where while we are raised to treat each other with respect, we are to do it as equals.  He is rather a product of a culture with a severe caste system, where you treat them with the deference due them whereever they or you fall in the social pecking order.  I believe we are seeing our president treating people as he was raised to treat them in Indonesia.  That probably also explains why he is so often insulting to women, and why he treats the common folk of the US as ignorant peons. 

Just my pop-psy analysis.

Whoa! I'm Surprised Again: US Arms Sale to Taiwan

But for Obama's relatively decent job so far in Iraq & Afghanistan, it's my opinion that his foreign affairs performance has been pretty much a total failure: pulling out of the ABM deal with Poland and the Czech Republic, insulting allies and bowing low to 3rd world shitheads, playing nice to the mullahs while Iranians fighting for democracy are slaughtered in the streets.  Kowtowing to Communist leaders in China, while dissing the Dalai Lama showed that he wasn't going to do anything to piss off our nation's primary bankroller.  That may be the economically prudent course of action, but it has not been America's stance regarding Tibet until now.

I expected him to behave in a similar way towards our long-time Cold War ally, Taiwan.  I figured he'd let the alliance die on the vine for fear of pissing off the ChiComs.  But, today we hear of a $6.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan, similar to a sale the Bush administration did in 2008:

It would include 60 UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters, 114 Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles, mine-hunting ships and information technology.

A pretty significant poke in the eye to the ChiComs (and proof Obama intends to continue America's alliance with Taiwan).  It'll help the budget as well.  This takes more balls than I figured Obama had.  China has responded by suspending military exchanges with America.

Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei warned U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman that the sale would "cause consequences that both sides are unwilling to see."

We'll see if they do anything else to preserve their all-important face, my bet is nothing significant. My guess is the Chicoms are more bluster than brawn. But, I figured that Obama would be easily intimidated by their economic and military bluster as he was at the Copenhagen Climate Conference. Kudos to Dear Leader on this one!

Scott Brown Wins!!!

Epic, epic, epic! 
I can't sum it up any better than commenter 'Monty' at Ace's:

The Donk spin is inevitable, but it isn't going to work in this case. If it were any other state, any other Senate seat, then yes; they could spin it. But this was Saint Teddy the Blessed Savior's seat! Which he had held for more than four decades! And declared that health-care was his signature issue!

...and was just roundly defeated by a GOP candidate named Scott Brown.

This is not spin-able. This is a catastrophe, a calamity, a chasm the Democrats are still struggling to fathom. The "setbacks" in North Virginia and New Jersey are now looking like the vanguard of the slaughter to come, with tonight's debacle freezing the hearts of every at-risk Democrat in both houses of Congress. No Democrat seat is safe; they suspected this before but they know it now.

Obama's touch turns things to lead rather than gold; he is a lame-duck from now on. A failure. (And this is about Bammer, no doubt about it: by going to Mass to stump for Coakley, and failing, he made it about himself rather than Coakley. And he belly-flopped, just like every other time.) Democrats are going to trample each other rushing to the center to avoid the coming electoral bloodbath (much good it may do them), which means that the health-care bill, amnesty, card-check, and the KSM show-trial are probably all dead.

It has been a great day, my fellow Morons. A great day indeed.

Damn Straight! And, Way To Go Massachusions!

Obama's Afghanistan and Iraq Policies - Status Update

So, what's the RTP consensus on Commander-in-Chief Obama's policies in Iraq and Afghanistan?  The one aspect of Obama's presidency that I've been pleasantly surprised about is his handling of the Iraq and Afghan conflicts so far.  Pleasantly surprised as in not-a-disaster.  He's blown off his political base and pretty much done exactly what George Bush would be doing if he still were in office.  The fact that I can repeat this statement seven months after I first said it is a good thing.

In Iraq: After George Bush made the brave, painful, unpopular, highly risky choice (ie acted like a leader) of endorsing the surge suggested by Gen Petraeus, and ended up winning Iraq War III, Obama did not pull out precipitously as he had said he would in his campaign.  Obama has ordered a phased, steady disengagement, but, probably only due to Bush's efforts, this is happening under the same conditions that it would have happened with Bush at the helm: a combat phase-out happening when Iraqis are able to control things themselves.  From The Whitehouse's own Issues page:

Responsibly Ending the War in Iraq
On February 27, 2009, President Obama announced a plan to responsibly end the war in Iraq.

By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end and Iraqi Security Forces will have full responsibility for major combat missions. After August 31, 2010, the mission of United States forces in Iraq will fundamentally change. Our forces will have three tasks: train, equip, and advise the Iraqi Security Forces; conduct targeted counterterrorism operations; and provide force protection for military and civilian personnel. The President intends to keep our commitment under the Status of Forces Agreement to remove all of our troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.

Assuming things don't go down the tubes between now and then, this is a good, sensible policy, but only because Bush cleared the way for it to be sensible.

In Afghanistan, you know, the War that Bush forgot in his pursuit of cheap Iraqi oil, Obama has approved an increase in troop levels by 30,000, in semi-agreement with the request of Gen McChrystal, in an attempt to surge to put down the growing insurgency by the Taliban.  He announced a timetable for departure, which is foolish, but the fact that he is willing to fight the war even temporarily is more than what we expected from him.  This may or may not be the right policy for Afghanistan.  Maybe the right policy here is to pull back to major bases and just fuck up the Taliban when they get uppity.  But, at least it is not cutting-and-running.

I have many, many bones to pick with Obama, but in this critical area, he has been no better or worse than his predecessor, and it must drive his left wing base crazy!  You go girl!

Hope 'n' Change Fading Overseas Too?!

This good article by noted Arab Neocon Fouad Ajami regarding Obama's declining status in the Arab world motivated me to put together this list of recent articles on the rest of the world's view of Obama.  I'm not totally sure what the rest of the world really thought about the United States electing Obama president.  Did they think that the US was showing that yes, we really are the land of opportunity...for anyone?  Did they think, well, it's great that we don't have to deal with that warmongering, moron-cowboy George Bush anymore?  Did they think, finally someone who will understand us third-world types, taking into account his heritage and upbringing?  I don't know.  What they're finding out for sure is that, well we've elected a kowtowing pussy for one thing, an egotistical ponce for another, and a short-sighted simpleton (from the top article) for a third; and consequently, the high regard the rest of the world had for him at one time seems to be slipping a lot recently.

Compare and contrast subservience and mutual respect.  As I've probably said before, I think that the rest of the world is most happy that the US is being turned back into the Pillsbury Doughboy it was during the Carter and Clinton administrations, not willing to stand up to anybody.  They will never like us, regardless of what we do until we're turned into supine Euro-Socialists or a third world basketcase.  Since they will never like us, it's better that they fear us than laugh at us.  Unfortunately, we now have the Town Fool in the Oval Office.

"Workers of the world unite!" More interesting people in postions of power and influence in our government.

(I am copying this from the Glen Beck show. This video is twenty minutes. The two other videos say the same thing in about three minutes. I saw this and thought it was interesting.)

Andy Stern is the President of the Service Employ International Union. Unions are a means to bring about bigger government. This guy has visited the White House twenty two times. He is working towards building a global organization or as he puts it, " "workers of the world unite". I just finished reading a book on the regimes of Hitler and Stalin and this term was the battle cry of communism and Stalin's goal of a global Bolshevik revolution. Communism in its raw, naked form is dead; but a mild and meek version under the guise of taking care of us is attempting to establish itself in America. To see this just look at some of the people that are in positions of power in our government. The video is one minute and fifteen seconds. I think what this guy is trying to say is fairly obvious.

Have you heard of Anita Dunn the White house communication director? She admires a very interesting person. Mao Tse Tung and Mother Teresa are her favorite political philosopher and the two people she turns to most. The first two minutes is the relevant part. Mao was a communist that killed between forty and seventy million people. Why would this be here favorite political philosopher? I am trying to understand what she is trying to say from this clip. Maybe she is saying you don't have to follow someone else's path or definition of how to do things but you can admire them?

The manufacturing Czar has some interesting thoughts. I don't know the complete context of what he is talking about. Is he being sarcastic? When I look at what other people in the Obama White House have said, I have some doubts about him being sarcastic or joking here.

Generally speaking, we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to gain the system. To beat the market or at least find someone who will pay a lot of money cause they're convinced that there is a free lunch. We know it is largely about power, that it's an adult only no limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely comes from the barrel of a gun, and we get it that if you want a friend you should get a dog.

The free market is nonsense?

The list of people with an affinity for communism in positions of power in our government keep growing. When will the list end? A part of me wants to hopes these quotes are taken out of context. It looks like with the results of these current elections that the public opinion is changing and these people are running out of time; but the Left's goal of bringing about this form of government will never end, and I believe this goal will eventually be realized in some form at a much later date. I guess the election of Obama shows how people react when it seems like the economy is crumbling and things seem very bad--they elect a charismatic-savior-like leader with an affinity for communism that can speak well , has rock star power, has a nice slogan with a nice and catchy ring, and wants to fundamentally transform America. I hope all of this debt doesn't create an even worse economic situation or even an economic collapse. Who will the people elect to fix that mess?

WSJ: Worst Bill Ever

Another article on a matter that the RTPers are weak on: the Health Care issue. The Wall Street Journal says of Pelosi's Health Care Bill

but we believe it is no stretch to say that Mrs. Pelosi's handiwork ranks with the Smoot-Hawley tariff and FDR's National Industrial Recovery Act as among the worst bills Congress has ever seriously contemplated.

Wow. That's about as serious a slam as is possible to make. What is so maddening is how effortlessly the Democrats shade and hide the truth to get their bill passed.

Even so, the House disguises hundreds of billions of dollars in additional costs with budget gimmicks. It "pays for" about six years of program with a decade of revenue, with the heaviest costs concentrated in the second five years. The House also pretends Medicare payments to doctors will be cut by 21.5% next year and deeper after that, "saving" about $250 billion. ObamaCare will be lucky to cost under $2 trillion over 10 years; it will grow more after that.

Read the whole thing. Get some learnin'. Good stuff.

Entertaining spoof on the black and the victim culture.

I got this video off of Boortz dot com the fourth link from the bottom. The last minute is good. This video can not be labeled as racist since black people are the ones that made it. A good satire of black culture. A good book to read about this is "Black Rednecks and White Liberals", by Thomas Sowell. It debunks a lot of myths and common beliefs about race relations and slavery and such.

Oh.My.God. - Dear Leader wins Nobel Peace Prize

I think I pretty much feel like Janice on hearing the news of our super overachieving President's Nobel Peace Prize (check out this London Times opinion of the choice).



To paraphrase a real leader, Never has one man been nominated for so much for doing so little.

So This is what a Community Organizer Does!

During the election season, a big deal was made of what a Community Organizer does. This was because this was the only professional experience Barack Obama had prior to becoming a State Senator in Illinois. Both Liberals and Conservatives explained what it entailed, either to build up or knock down candidate Obama. Barack Obama did legal work for and embraced the chief community organizing organization in America, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now or ACORN. On the campaign trail, he courted and encouraged ACORN:

Now, as you've probably all heard, a couple of young folks, Hannah Giles (age 20) & James O'Keefe (age 25), just like Scooby Doo, have shown the world what Obama's favorite organization and profession is all about. Working with Andrew Breitbart's Big Government Media Organization/Blog, they posed as pimp and hooker trying to set up a brothel of underaged, illegal-alien El Salvadorean girls, and went to some number (how many we don't know yet, but an ever-increasing number) of ACORN offices across the nation looking for advice on how to set their business up and keep the IRS from finding out about it. Showing a great dedication to customer service, the ACORN offices in Baltimore, Washington DC, Brooklyn, San Bernardino, & San Diego (so far) were more than happy to do everything they could for them. I guess this is the kind of entrepeneurship that Community Organizers find appealing. An NGO in action! Check out the videos. Disgusting, evil, & hilarious at the same time...oh, yeah, and not particularly surprising, the main surprise being how all the ACORN employees could fall for the cleancut young people pulling the sting on them. While watching the videos, keep in mind that this organization is where Obama is coming from, his heart and soul, the type of group he wanted to work for rather than going into a law practice.

The kids, or maybe it was Andrew Breitbart, were cunning in the publication of their sting. They published the Baltimore video, and ACORN's response was to fire the two employees in the video and

A spokesman for ACORN, Scott Levenson, when asked to comment on the videotape, said: "The portrayal is false and defamatory and an attempt at gotcha journalism. This film crew tried to pull this sham at other offices and failed. ACORN wants to see the full video before commenting further."

Yes, they did try at other offices: Next Big Government released the DC video which appeared to not be a failure; ACORN's response was then to fire two more employees and state

The group's leaders said Friday they were "appalled and angry" at what their staffers had done, but insisted the videos were part of a political "smear" campaign and not representative of the institution as a whole.

The kids then showed that, well, it was representative of more than you might think by releasing the Brooklyn video. At this point, though ignored by the entire MSM outside of Fox, the Senate took notice, and voted 83-7 to block federal funding to the organization. The US Census Bureau, who, incredibly, had been preparing to use ACORN in the 2010 census, told them their services were no longer needed. ABC newsanchor Charles Gibson spoke for the entire non-Fox MSM at that time saying on a Chicago radio station,

Gibson: HAHAHAHAHA. HEHEHE. I didn’t even know about it. Um. So, you’ve got me at a loss. I don’t know. Uh. Uh. But my goodness, if it’s got everything including sleaziness in it, we should talk about it this morning.

Roma: This is the American way!

Gibson: Or maybe this is just one you leave to the cables.

Roma: Well, I think this is a huge issue because there’s so much funding that goes into this organization…

Gibson: I know we’ve done some stories about ACORN before, but this one I don’t know about...

Roma: Jake Tapper did some blogging on it. I know he’s blogged at least once on this scandal.

Gibson: You guys are uh really up on the website.

Not fit for the MSM according to Charles Gibson.

I could go on. Eventually, everyone was forced to pay attention to the sting operation because of the drip, drip, drip release of the videos. And they're not done yet! Many of the blogs on the sidebar will give you more information on MSM, Government, and ACORN's attempts to ignore, obfuscate, or cry racism against the kids showing videos of ACORN's employees. Congress is now launching federal investigations into ACORN's behavior and ACORN has shut down operation.

An ongoing, fascinating story of an organization near and dear to Obama's heart.

And ACORN would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling kids!

Obama is "his brother's keeper".

I thought this is hilarious. I read this article about President Obama repeatedly invoking the Bible when trying to pass his health care reforms. "He said the reforms aim to carry out one of God's commandments.'I am my brother's keeper. I am my sister's keeper,' Obama said. He called health reform a 'core ethical and moral obligation." I noticed during the campaign and in his speeches that Obama often used the line that "I am my brother's keeper". One can wonder if he really believes or practices this when we look at his half brother who is living in an African mud hut. "Mr Obama, 26, the youngest of the presidential candidate's half-brothers, spoke for the first time about his life, which could not be more different than that of the Democratic contender. 'No-one knows who I am," he told the magazine, before claiming: 'I live here on less than a dollar a month'." Maybe Obama has some conflict with his brother. Obama wants to be the one to take care of us and provide for us, but from his record of taking care of his family, he also has an aunt in Boston who is facing deportation, I wonder how good of a job we would do at this? I can not believe this, I don't think the White house has said this is not true, or given and explanation on this matter. This reveals a lot about Obama.

Obama Ramps Up the Fishing

Evidently not content with the his minions' tattling production in his 'Rat on your Neighbor' program, President Hope 'n' Change orders another project to collect data on his subjects; and this time he has those dirty rightwing Fascists (oxymoronic phrase, I know), those people who make lefties shake with rage, the ACLU up in arms! Reversing a policy in place the last 9 years (you know, during evil Chimpy McHaliburton's reign), the Obama administration issued a directive to

reverse current federal policy and allow the use of web tracking technologies, like cookies, on federal government websites

That is, gather data on those who visit Federal websites. So, don't think about getting those federal transcripts unless you want Big Brother Barry tracking you! I know we here at RTP are always visiting wacko right wing conspiracy websites to get our crazy ideas, and the ACLU is no different. Here's more from those crazies ranting against the administration of Hope & Change:

“This is a sea change in government privacy policy,” said Michael Macleod-Ball, Acting Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “Without explaining this reversal of policy, the OMB is seeking to allow the mass collection of personal information of every user of a federal government website. Until the OMB answers the multitude of questions surrounding this policy shift, we will continue to raise our strenuous objections.”

Gosh those crazy guys. As deluded as RTP regarding the Obama administration's 1984-style efforts to monitor its citizens.