President Obama's Second-Term Speeches

Note:  You might want to start at the Barack Obama Index Page, especially if you arrived here by using a search engine.

Barack Obama has made a number of speeches that everyone seemed to look forward to, but in each case he seemed to talk a lot and say very little.

Analysis of Obama's speeches:

Obama's First-Term speeches.

Obama's Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 2013.

Las Vegas Immigration speech, January 29, 2013.

State of the Union speech, February 12, 2013.

Chicago, February 15, 2013.

Press conference, March 1, 2013.

Israel, March 21, 2013.

Planned Parenthood, April 26, 2013.

News conference, April 30, 2013.

Mexico City, May 3, 2013.

Ohio State University, May 5, 2013.

Morehouse College, May 19, 2013.

National Defense University, May 23, 2013.

Belfast, June 17, 2013.

Berlin, June 18, 2013.

Global warming speech, Georgetown University, June 25, 2013.

Race relations speech, July 19, 2013.

Knox College, July 24, 2013.

Lincoln Memorial, August 28, 2013.

Press conference, Stockholm, Sweden, September 4, 2013.

Presidential address, September 10, 2013.

Economics speech, September 16, 2013.

Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner, September 21, 2013.

UN General Assembly, September 24, 2013.

Press conference, October 8, 2013.

Rose Garden speech to defend Obamacare, October 21, 2013.

Defending Obamacare in Boston, October 30, 2013.

OFA speech, November 4, 2013.

Obama pretends to apologize for Obamacare, November 7, 2013.

The Obamacare "Fix" news conference, November 14, 2013.

Obamacare promotion news conference, December 3, 2013.

Income inequality speech, December 4, 2013.

NSA domestic surveillance "reform" speech, January 17, 2014.

State of the Union speech, January 25, 2014.

The Obamacare End Zone Celebration Speech, April 1, 2014.

Obama speaks about voter-ID laws at an Al Sharpton event, April 11, 2014.

The VA hospital scandal outrage speech, May 21, 2014.

Afghanistan withdrawal speech, May 27, 2014.

West Point commencement speech, May 28, 2014.

Worcester Technical High School commencement speech, June 11, 2014.

University of California at Irvine commencement speech, June 14, 2014.

Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 27, 2014.

Wilmington, Delaware, July 17, 2014.

Press conference, August 6, 2014.

Statement on Iraq, August 7, 2014.

American Legion convention, August 26, 2014.

"We don't have a strategy" press conference, August 28, 2014.

Laborfest, September 1, 2014.

Prime-time address on Middle-East strategy, if any:  September 10, 2014.

United Nations climate summit, September 23, 2014.

United Nations General Assembly, September 24, 2014.

Rhode Island, October 31, 2014.

Post-election press conference, November 5, 2014.

Blanket amnesty announcement, November 20, 2014.

"Year end" press conference, December 19, 2014.

Pellissippi State Community College, January 9, 2015.

State of the Union address, January 20, 2015.

National Prayer Breakfast, February 5, 2015.

White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism, February 18, 2015.

Benedict College, March 6, 2015.

Selma, Alabama, March 7, 2015.

Earth Day in the Everglades, April 23, 2015.

Portland, Oregon, May 7, 2015.

Georgetown University, May 12, 2015.

U.S. Coast Guard Academy, May 20, 2015.

Catholic Hospital Association, June 9, 2015.

Reaction to South Carolina shooting, June 18, 2015.

End zone dance after Supreme Court saves Obamacare again, June 25, 2015.

Eulogy at the Charleston Funeral, June 26, 2015.

Announcement of normalized relations with Cuba.

Press conference, July 15, 2015.

American University, August 5, 2015.

Las Vegas, Nevada, August 24, 2015.

Obama goes to Alaska to stop global warming, September 1, 2015.

United Nations, September 30, 2015.

Reaction to (and politicization of) a school shooting in Oregon, October 1, 2015.

Press conference in Turkey, November 16, 2015.

Oval Office prime time address, December 6, 2015.

The Pentagon, December 14, 2015.

Gun control speech, January 5, 2016.

Town Hall meeting about gun control, January 7, 2016.

State of the Union address, January 12, 2016.

Baltimore mosque, February 3, 2016.

Cuba, March 22, 2016.

Argentina, March 23, 2016.

Howard University, May 7, 2016.

Hiroshima, May 27, 2016.

Reaction to the Orlando terrorist attack, June 12, 2016.

More defensive and petulant reaction to the Orlando terrorist attack.

Orlando, Florida, June 16, 2016.

Dallas, Texas, July 12, 2016.

United Nations, September 20, 2016.

Tampa, Florida, December 6, 2016.

Press conference, December 16, 2016.

Farewell address, January 10, 2017.

Other second-term speeches.

Obama's speeches in general.

Speeches he hasn't delivered yet.

Obama's post-presidential speeches.




Obama's Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 2013.

Embarrassing Predictions Haunt the Global-Warming Industry.  [Scroll down]  In his second-term inaugural address, Obama also made some climate claims, saying:  "Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and powerful storms."  Ironically, all three of the examples he provided of what he called the "threat of climate change" actually discredit his argument. [...] Regarding hurricanes and tornadoes, it probably would have been hard for Obama to choose a worse example to illustrate the alleged threat of man-made warming.  Contrary to predictions by global warmists, hurricanes and tornadoes have been hitting in record-setting low numbers.

Don't Stop Believin'.  Obama took to the podium following several musical performances and speeches to address what he said are America's myriad and ongoing crises.  Global warming, the ailing middle class, the social safety net, and healthcare all received mentions in Obama's second inaugural address, which highlighted the president's left-of-center second term agenda without offering any concrete proposals.  "We, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it," Obama said.

Inverting the Founders.  President Obama has become a master at the trick of couching progressive prescriptions in the language of the traditional American creed — thus effecting a deliberate inversion of that creed's actual meaning.  That's exactly what he did with his second inaugural address, using the language of the American Founding to promote collectivism in almost all areas of life.

The Significance of Obama's Inaugural Address.  In his inaugural speech he did what he seemingly cannot keep himself from doing: portraying himself and his followers as Children of Light and portraying his opponents as Children of Darkness.  You are either with Obama — or you are with the forces of cruelty and bigotry.  In Obama's world, there is no middle ground.  He is the Voice of Reason; those who oppose him are the voice of the mob.

Obama's second inaugural is a political speech.  President Barack Obama never mentioned the words Democrat or Republican, yet his second inaugural address was a decidedly political speech.

A flat, partisan and pedestrian speech.  Missing from the speech was the first inaugural address's perhaps naïve dream of uniting America.  This second speech seemed to accept that America is divided and, as Obama put it, "progress does not compel us to settle centuries long debates about the role of government for all time."  He called out those who would "treat name-calling as reasoned debate" — I wonder who that could mean? — but Obama's plan seemed to be to roll the negativists, rather than try any longer to reason with them.

A President Who Has Learned Nothing.  President Obama's Inaugural Address [...] had the usual obeisance to the traditions of American democracy and the virtue of relative brevity.  Yet there was nothing in it that showed that he had learned a thing in the four years since he first took the oath of office.

'A Decade of War Is Now Ending'.  Someone needs to inform the jihadists.  On a day when we are still counting the bodies — including the American bodies — from the deadly terror attack in Algeria, this statement from President Obama's inaugural address was particularly jarring.

Obama's Target is Not Just Republicans, but the Constitution Itself.  President Barack Obama's second inaugural address has been described as one of the most partisan ever given, heralding a sweeping left-wing agenda and demonizing his opponents.  But President Obama's target is not simply the Republican Party:  it is the Constitution itself, and the values of liberty that it enshrines.

Moments After Inaugural Address, Obama Launches Battle Machine.  Shortly after delivering one of the most divisive inaugural addresses in American history, President Barack Obama doubled down on his ram-it-through strategy by sending out an email on behalf of his newly-converted permanent campaign instrument, Organizing for Action.

Well, the Good News Is, Obama's Honeymoon is Already Over.  President Barack H. Obama took the oath office and delivered a forgettable, partisan address to the nation.  He offered no solutions to the nation's pressing debt problem, because he does not have one.

Fox's Brit Hume: Obama's Speech Confirms That He Is An 'Out And Out Liberal,' Not A Moderate.  "I think we had a clarifying moment today in that the president's speech served a real purpose," Hume began.  "It should put to rest for all time the idea that Barack Obama really is a moderate.  "Barack Obama is a liberal," Hume continued.  "I don't think he's a radical, but he is an out and out liberal.  And now, newly reelected, he intends to pursue the course of that liberalism."

Charles Krauthammer: Obama Just Declared That The Era Of 'Big Government Is Back' And 'Reaganism' Is Dead.  "I thought it was an amazing speech, and historically very important," Krauthammer began.  "This this was really Obama unbound.  And I think what's most interesting is that Obama basically is declaring the end of Reaganism in this speech."

CNN's Slobbering Love Affair with Obama's Inaugural Speech.  Anderson Cooper, Gloria Borger, Dana Bash, David Gergen, etc. not only couldn't bring themselves to criticize anything in Barack Obama's Inaugural speech (really, he's going to make hard choices to reduce the deficit and health care costs?), but after a good half-hour of post-speech analysis, the gushing became nauseating.  And what won CNN's hearts?  Well, what always and so easily wins over this simplistic crowd:  identity politics.

Obama: 'America Can't Succeed When a Shrinking Few Do Well and a Growing Number Barely Make It'.  During his inauguration speech, President Obama spoke of the class divide in the nation, saying... [Video clip]

Inauguration 2013: Obama saved the world, but nobody knows how.  Platitudes, slogans, and talking points are not policies.  "Cleaning up the mess" of his predecessor is nonsense unless one can state exactly what policies caused the mess to begin with.  Tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 have nothing to do with the financial crisis of 2008 in the same way that Clintonomics does not deserve credit for the 1990s dot-com economy or blame for the 2000 crash.  If liberals cannot name a single successful Obama economic policy, then maybe it is possible that he has never had one.

Obama inauguration: the President starts his second term with a declaration of class war.  Obama's second inaugural was far from the unifying speech that we were promised but instead a declaration of (continued) war on the conservative movement and a rallying cry for liberals.  Does the President not realise that he won the 2012 election and doesn't have to carry on campaigning?

Chris Matthews: Obama 2nd Inaugural Akin to Gettysburg Address.  Barack Obama is perhaps the only modern president who has had the burden of swatting away comparisons between his own soaring rhetoric and that of our 16th president.  You may recall that, in the wake of the Newtown massacre, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Maraniss gushed over the president's remarks, writing, "People will long remember what Barack Obama said in Newtown," and calling the speech "[Obama's] Gettysburg address."

Mark Levin's Inaugural Day Message — Fight!  "I don't think Obama knows exactly what he's going to go for in his second term," Levin said, "as he will look for opportunities to exploit as events unfold.  I am sure they've drawn up a partial a list, and we already know that it includes, but is not limited to, gun control; attacks on the First Amendment such as religious liberty; amnesty for illegal aliens; union expansion; institutionalizing Obamacare; institutionalizing voter corruption; de-industrialization via the EPA; destroying the capitalist-based economy via tax increases, smothering regulations, massive deficit spending, and endless borrowing; and hollowing out our military; etc.

Where Are the 23 Executive Orders?  The President has found a winning formula to push through his extreme policy views:  campaign, grow support, give the appearance of action and fund raise off pseudo-action.  The President is now applying this campaign tactic to gun control, giving the appearance to America that he is taking action to protect children from madmen.

Second Inaugural Address: Obama Declares War on Liberty As We Know It.  Sounding the same themes of class warfare that propelled his re-election campaign, President Barack Obama devoted his second inaugural address to laying out his second term agenda:  a struggle to undo the seeming injustices of America's past, and to overcome the army of straw men that stand in opposition to progress.  In the process, President Obama attempted nothing less than an assault on the timeless notion of liberty itself.

Obama Speech Ignores Failed Economy; Media Gushes Anyway.  Imagine an alternate universe where it was George W. Bush, or any Republican, sworn in for a second term yesterday — but with Obama's economic record.  Imagine if after spending nearly a trillion dollars on tax cuts (instead of stimulus), Bush stood before the nation and gave an ideological address that focused almost solely on divisive social issues and never once mentioned his struggling economy.

What Obama really said in that inaugural speech (And what he left out).  [Scroll down]  "We have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society's ills can be cured through government alone," said the president, who is trying to cure society's healthcare ills by centralizing control in the hands of unelected Washington bureaucrats.  "Our celebration of initiative and enterprise, our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, these are constants in our character," said the man who's expanded food stamps by nearly 50% and surreptitiously had work requirements dropped from welfare benefits.

President Obama's socialist agenda will make existing divisions even more bitter and rancorous.  What a contrast last night's Inaugural Address was compared to the one President Obama gave four years ago.  Gone was any attempt to reach out to his Republican opponents.  In its place was an aggressive assertion of modern liberalism, with the emphasis on gay rights, gun control, gender equality, combating climate change and — if his remarks about Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and income inequality are anything to go by — redistributive taxation.  This is a fully-fledged socialist agenda that will leave the the 47.2 percent of Americans who didn't vote for Obama feeling ostracised and angry.  If this is going to be the tone of Obama's second term, the next four years are likely to see America more divided than at any time since the 1960s.

From Kill Romney to Kill the Constitution.  When one hears the President of the United States use his inaugural address to favorably cite the most infamous phrase associated with the disastrous Neville Chamberlain — that would be "peace in our time" — there can only be trouble ahead.  The mechanics for this march backwards to failure are already in place.  First and foremost is the Orwellian use of his language.  Tyranny is freedom.  Collectivism is liberty.  "Together" is shorthand for government control.

Obama's Mention of Gay Rights May Raise Eyebrows Among Black Backers.  By linking the founding moments of women's rights (Seneca Falls, N.Y.), African-American rights (Selma, Ala.), and gay rights (Stonewall Inn), President Obama stepped forcefully into a politically charged zone.  He became the first president to mention the word "gay" and the issue of gay rights in an inaugural address, according to ABC News.  While praised by gay-rights advocates, the remark might raise eyebrows in the African-American community, where social conservatism runs deep, as does skepticism about gay rights.

The Audacity of Fluff: A Critical Reading of Obama's Inaugural Address.  Were hard truths expressed?  Were complicated concepts rendered in clarifying language?  Were the disagreements that divide us insightfully characterized?  Was an argument advanced?  No, the craftsmanship was marshaled in place of substance rather than in support of it.  The president expertly associated himself with certain ideas and evoked certain impressions.  He burnished his brand rather than acting like a leader.

The Most Dangerous Sentence in Obama's Second Inaugural Address.  In an otherwise unmemorable second inaugural speech, I was struck by one sentence:  "But we are also heirs to those who won the peace and not just the war, who turned sworn enemies into the surest of friends, and we must carry those lessons into this time as well."  Two points:  First, our forebears were only able to "win the peace" because they first crushed our enemies in war.  But under President Obama we're not committed to winning our wars.  We're committed to ending them.  Does Obama really think we're going to win the peace after not winning the war?

A defiant Obama reminds Americans why he is the most liberal president in US history.  If anyone remains in any doubt that the next four years will be a relentless exercise in left-wing presidential radicalism, look no further than Barack Obama's second inaugural address.  This was not a president in any mood to reach out across the political aisle, or to give words of comfort to the nearly 60 million Americans who did not vote for him last November.  His address was defiant and divisive, projecting his firm commitment to seeing through his avowedly liberal agenda in the face of concerted opposition on Capitol Hill and in the 30 states which have Republican Governors.

Obama declares war on reality.  [Scroll down]  Concerted global action so far to deal with the threat of climate change has resulted in: higher energy prices; more deaths from fuel poverty; more intrusive regulation; the destruction of rainforests and the squandering of agricultural land on biofuels; higher food prices; famine and food riots — as a result partly of the drive for biofuels; the entrenchment of corporatism and rent-seeking to the detriment of free markets; the ravaging of the countryside with ugly solar farms and even uglier wind turbines; the deaths of millions of birds and bats; the great recession.  How any of this has in any way benefited either our children (who are going to find it far harder to find a job) or future generations is a complete mystery.

Inaugurating President Chamberlain.  Reading through the speech (I will be honest:  I couldn't bear to listen to it live, I just couldn't), I was haunted by an echo.  The speech reminded me of something, of someone.  Who was it?  Woodrow Wilson?  Yes, in part.  But there was another ghost in the wings ... Got it:  "Peace in our time," the president said, "requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes:  tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice." [...] Where have we heard that before?  Who was the last politician to strut across the world stage proclaiming "peace in our time"?  Why, Neville Chamberlain, of course.

A 'limitless' vision: Obama lays out liberal agenda for second term.  Perhaps the most surprising passage of Mr. Obama's speech was his emphasis on the need to address climate change, an initiative that he ignored in his re-election campaign after failing in his first term to advance a "cap and trade" plan for controlling greenhouse gas emissions.  The president used the example of Superstorm Sandy, which devastated portions of the East Coast in late October, to revive his call to combat climate change.  "We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations," Mr. Obama said.

Obama's Inaugural: If God 'Truly' Created Us Equal, Homosexual 'Love' is Equal as Well.  President Barack Obama opened his second inaugural address by quoting the statement from the preamble to the Declaration of Independence that all men "are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights."  He then went on to say that if men were in fact created equal, then homosexual "love" must be equal as well.

Obama's Bogus Journey.  The world will little note nor long remember anything President Barack Obama said in his second inaugural address; still less will it remember any of the gushing encomiums his admirers in the press reliably produce, comparing him variously to Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln and Jesus.  Obama said that developing "sustainable-energy sources" is "what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared."  Does anyone believe that in a week anyone will find that an arresting and compelling thought?  Or credit it for being a thought at all?

The Peaceful Transfer of Mobocracy.  The disturbing hollowness of Obama's inauguration derives from this more subtle form of revolution.  All the usual trappings of tradition were on display but at the service of a revolutionary ideology antithetical to them.  Obama swore to uphold the Constitution, by which he meant his lawless reading of it.  He invoked God-given rights, by which he meant man-made ones.

Obama Rips 'Name-Calling,' Inaugural Full of Name-Calling.  In yesterday's inaugural address, President Obama stated, "We cannot mistake absolutism for principle or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate."  But Obama was not shy about discarding reasoned debate in favor of brutal name-calling in order to ram forward his agenda.

More Calculated Deception.  The President did not present to the nation any agenda in his Inaugural Address.  There were only a few code words, with double, even multiple, meanings.  That is the fundamental innovation Obama has brought to our politics:  deniability.  His methodology is, as I have long exposed, Calculated Deception.

Obama's Living Declaration.  I think it would be a serious mistake to ignore or fail to attend closely to President Obama's second inaugural address. [...] In Obama's telling, "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God" have dropped out.  Before you know it, devotion to the founding principles serves up the welfare state, the campaign against global warming (evolved into "climate change"), gay marriage, open borders and something to ameliorate long lines to vote.  We shall overcome.  While Woodrow Wilson gave us "the living Constitution" — the Constitution unmoored from its ascertainable meaning and constraints — Barack Obama gives us a living Declaration of Independence.  Those self-evident truths are an evolving thing.

Obama's Second Inaugural.  [Scroll down]  In fact, in my opinion the lumbering and bogged-down character of our economy is the chief threat to the very economic security (not to mention prosperity) that the progressives say they are after.  But Obama's speech expressed no grasp of our current situation.  It is for that reason that he relied so heavily on straw men and absurd caricatures of his opponents' positions.  At one point, almost despite himself, the president stumbled upon the kind of thinking those opponents now actually offer, though he quickly picked himself up and continued to march in the opposite direction.

Good Sense and Gun Control.  President Obama has said that anything is worth it "if even one life can be saved."  Citing Newtown in his inaugural address Monday, he said that our journey as a nation will not be complete until we know our children are "always safe from harm."  First, common sense tells us that's ridiculously impossible.  Moreover, a Nestorite standard would not only do terrible violence to the First, Second, and Fifth Amendments, it would indisputably hold the freedom, health, and happiness of the many hostage to the potentially bad actions of the few.

Left off Bam's train.  To hear Obama, you would think he was anointed by unanimous consent.  The more than 63 million people who voted for someone else were cited only as obstacles to his vision.  Apparently, his victory makes all other views illegitimate.  The banana-republic approach was one of many demoralizing flaws in a speech that fell short of the grand occasion.  In tone and content, it struck me more as an omen of trouble than a celebration of our democracy.

Obama Promises To Fix Inequality He's Made Worse.  A centerpiece of President Obama's second inaugural address was a call for greater economic equality, with the president saying that "our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it."  But that's precisely what's happened over the past four years, as Obama's economic policies left the majority of Americans falling behind while the wealthy few got further ahead.  Evidence of this is everywhere you look.

There's No Room for Civil Liberties in Obama's Inauguration View of America.  As the president's speech Monday made clear, the authoritarian right and egalitarian left meet in the middle on at least one issue:  Neither side values the rights of the individual.

Lawmaker wants Obama to prove climate change.  Rep. Thomas Massie challenged President Obama to roll out the proof that humans have played a hand in climate change.  Mr. Massie, Kentucky Republican, said he was "disappointed" that the president in his second inaugural address blamed droughts on "human activity" and accused some of "denying the evidence of scientists."

Obama's speech lauds government, dismisses opponents.  President Barack Obama's second inauguration speech promised a sharply ideological second term where "the people" will use government to accomplish the tasks that he declared cannot be accomplished by individuals.

Brit Hume: Obama's Speech Should Kill Notion Held By His Admirers in the Press That He's a Centrist.  Brit Hume had some harsh words for America's Obama-loving media Monday.  Appearing on Fox News's Special Report, Hume said, "[The President's] inaugural speech should put to rest for all time the notion much favored by his admirers in the press that he is a centrist.  He is not"

Chris Christie knocks President Obama's inaugural speech.  The brief honeymoon between New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and President Obama appears to be over.  The Republican lawmaker slammed Obama's second inaugural address earlier this week, calling it excessively partisan.  "Instead of trying to bring people together it was a manifesto for, 'Hey, it's my way or the highway,'" Christie said during a radio interview reported by PolitickerNJ.

Holding Obama to his inauguration promises.  Left unchecked, the president's addiction to borrowed money will jeopardize the future of the next generations — of our children and grandchildren.  The time to act is now.  In his inaugural address, Mr. Obama said he agrees, insisting we must "reduce the size of our deficit."  Good.  We can hope he means it, but we'll believe it when we see it.

Obama Inaugural Speech Says Almost Nothing Of No. 1 Crisis: Entitlements.  President Obama's second inaugural address made a great show of defending Social Security and Medicare from any change.  It may turn out to be the defining mistake of his presidency.

Did you catch Neville Obama speaking on peace?  Apparently history was not a strong suit in college days for Barry Obama — or his highly-paid speechwriters.  In his 2,106 word aspirational tone poem from the Capitol steps at Monday's official inauguration, Obama called for many people to do many things and vowed a myriad of vows, already faded in the memory of millions — as usually happens to inaugurals and State of the Union shopping lists. [...] Among those 2,100 words, four shockers leapt out at the eyes and ears of many not in the American news media.  "Peace in our time."

Obama highjacking the American Revolution.  [Scroll down]  Our "union," Obama went on, was "founded on the principles of liberty and equality."  Nice prose — and transparent nonsense.  How could the American Union have been founded on the principle of equality, when "equality" is not mentioned in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights or the Federalist papers?  How could equality be a founding principle of a nation, six of whose 13 original states had legalized slavery, and five of whose first seven presidents owned slaves all their lives?  What Obama preached in his inaugural was not historical truth but progressive propaganda, an Orwellian rewrite of American history.

Surprise! Obama Comes Out As A Real Leftist.  The media herd is stunned to discover that Barack Obama is a man of the left.  After 699 teleprompted presidential speeches, the commentariat was apparently still oblivious.  Until Monday's inaugural address, that is.

Obama's Declaration of Collectivism.  One of the least remarked upon aspects of President Obama's inaugural speech was his attempt to co-opt the Founding Fathers' Declaration of Independence to bolster his liberal-left agenda. [...] Mr. Obama is arguing counter to the Founding Fathers that the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of equality of results, not the equality of opportunity, and that he will do what he can to use government to make everybody more equal in terms of their income and life work.

We the Government.  President Obama's second inaugural address won't be remembered for stirring lines, but then its purpose seemed to be more political than inspirational.  Mr. Obama was laying down a marker that he has no intention of letting debt or deficits or lagging economic growth slow his plans for activist, expansive government.

Carbon Use and GDP.  In his inaugural address on January 21, President Obama invoked great ideals of human dignity, equality, and most especially "progress" to justify his second-term agenda, a cornerstone of which will be a crusade to limit humanity's use of carbon.  In fact, nothing could be more antithetical to the goal of advancing the human condition than restricting carbon consumption.

His Queeg Moment.  Obama's second inauguration speech may be his Queeg moment — an undeniable demonstration that, in an emergency, he is incapable of grappling with reality.  For all his unceasing invocation of the word "change," the outstanding thing about Obama has been his apparent inability to react, even to an imminent crisis.

The Real Barack Obama.  The country may be catching on:  Barack Obama is our first knee-jerk liberal president.  And now that he will never face the voters again, he doesn't mind showing it. [...] In his second inaugural address, he gave a full-throated defense of the entitlement state and made no mention of reforming Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security before they go bust.  He is issuing a stream of executive orders, and he backed the Pentagon's recently announced plan to lift the ban that kept female soldiers out of combat positions.

Do you Care about the True Meaning of the Obama Speech?  When you take the Obama speech apart, he sounds a whole lot different!  Does he sound like a Communist or a Capitalist?

Second Inaugural Blues.  To begin with, it is not only Obama's second inaugural of the past four years, but his second inaugural in as many days.  Obama, of course, was formally sworn in on Sunday at the White House.  But his actual address and the pomp and circumstance associated with it was reserved for the following day.  In other words, Obama just had to make Martin Luther King, Jr. Day about him.

Adolf Hitler — Progressive Pioneer.  President Obama's second inaugural was a speech that the Obama Media literally drooled over as a straight forward and forceful expression of progressivism unmatched in American history.  I agree, it was, but there was one thing that bothered me... the tendency of these media personalities to ignore the sources of many of the ideas the president expressed so well.

Déjà Vu — You Think?  Sadly we know the Obama boilerplate speech by heart, and so the inaugural address was by now unfortunately straw-man psychodrama.  Five years ago, the well-delivered script caused fainting, now it should earn mostly yawns:  Fault the well off; invest more borrowed money in more federal programs that have no demonstrable record of success; blame the bad news on others; ignore the $1 trillion-plus annual borrowing; threaten to use more executive orders; demonize the opposition; take bad news abroad and declare it good, and fluff everything up with the hope-and-change cadences that address the trivial and avoid the fundamental.

Obama still chasing 'green jobs' will-o'-the-wisp.  It's one thing to say we have to throw a lot of money at solving global warming to save the planet.  It's quite another to pretend that there is a "green economy" just waiting to happen, filled with hundreds of thousands or even millions of good jobs, as Obama has often promised.  The new "green energy economy" that Obama has repeatedly spoken of — a future of lower ocean levels in which Americans work at good-paying jobs manufacturing windmills and solar panels — has always been among the most optimistic features of his vision for America.  But given that it is an economically impossible pipe dream, it is also one of the biggest flops of his presidency.

Obama's Bonfire of Green Energy Inanities.  President Obama, as his Inauguration Address confirms, is in denial about both the climate and energy realities.  Repeating the most alarmist rhetoric of ideologue-turned-salesman to oil interests Al Gore, Obama appeared ignorant of the fact that data shows global warming isn't happening.  The president has re-stated his desire for yet more backing to a green energy industry that is collapsing being wholly reliant on the lifeline of public subsidy.  And that can only mean dumping further on the oil, gas and coal industries that made the US the powerhouse it still is.

Keystone vs. religion.  A common take on the inaugural speech was that it signalled a No More Mr. Post-Partisan Nice Guy.  In fact, there never was such a guy.  Mr. Obama's attitude to opponents has always been dismissive.  His self-righteous approach was summed up in the assertion that "We cannot mistake absolutism for principle or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate."  You see?  Only liberals have principles to which they must stick; Republicans are just bone-headed "absolutists."

Inaugural Lies and the Big Chill.  In his second inaugural speech, Barack Obama said, "We must respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations"[.]  To what "climate change" is Obama referring?  Is it the now thoroughly debunked "global warming" hoax? [...] Did any among the thousands in attendance at the inauguration, shivering in the frigid weather, wonder what the President was talking about or why?

Conservatism Means Replacing Big Government With Civil Society.  The president's second inaugural address was an advertisement for the biggest, most expensive government the world has ever known.  It was a pitch for new government solutions, more government programs, and the promises of government-made utopia.  Of course, no mention was made about the future cost of the president's vision for the country, how to pay for it, or the damage that will occur from increasing our debt.

Obamacare: The World's Ugliest Toddler.  On Saturday [3/23/2013], President Obama marked the birthday of his "most important domestic achievement" with a statement in which he catalogued the miracles this prodigy has already performed in its first three years.  Among these, you may be surprised to learn, is that it is saving us money:  "Most importantly," he said, "the growth of health care costs is beginning to slow."  He made the same claim in his SOTU address, and his toadies in the establishment media dutifully repeated it, but the facts reveal this to be just another example of Presidential prevarication.


Las Vegas Immigration speech, January 29, 2013.

Obama to Fly Over 9 Hours Just for Speech on Immigration.  President Barack Obama will fly over 9 hours tomorrow [1/29/2013], round-trip from Washington, D.C. to Las Vegas, Nevada, just to deliver a speech on immigration, according to the president's White House schedule.  With Air Force One estimated to cost $182,000 per hour in flight, Obama's trip — that is, only his travel to and from Vegas — will cost taxpayers over $1.6 million.

What Was the Point of Obama's Immigration Speech?  I know the president likes the sound of his own voice, but, really, what was the point of his immigration speech today in Las Vegas?  He didn't deal with any of the hard issues — like guestworkers or spousal immigration rights for homosexual couples or how many millions more people a year he wants to admit — and just regurgitated the usual boilerplate about how we're a nation of immigrants and our system is broken, etc.

Fundamental Transformation of America Equals turning legal civil society into illegal one.  Obama took a 9-hour plane ride to Las Vegas yesterday [1/30/2013] at a cost of $1.6 million to unemployed Americans, all to make a speech about the new world order that now describes immigration reform:  wholesale amnesty with no borders in between.

Obama Flunks Archaeology 101 in Vegas.  "Unless you were one of the first Americans, a Native American, you came from someplace else, somebody brought you," President Barack Obama told the assembled throngs in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

The Editor says...
Who brought me to Texas?  I was conceived and born here, and I have lived here all my life.  I am a Native Texan; therefore, I am a Native American.

Obama: Unless you were a Native American, you came from someplace else.  This afternoon in Las Vegas, President Obama reminded most American citizens that they were descended from immigrants themselves.

The Editor says...
My ancestors came here legally and didn't mooch off the people who were already here.

Obama Uses Failing High School as Backdrop for Immigration Speech.  President Obama, looking for a high school with a majority Hispanic population to use as a backdrop for his demagogic speech on immigration reform, settled on Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Unfortunately, the same children to whom Obama spoke of opportunity are deprived of it at Del Sol, which dramatically underachieves academically.

GOP: Obama Still Campaigning, Not Leading on Immigration.  President Obama's remarks on immigration reform, delivered Tuesday at a campaign-style event in Las Vegas, were not overtly partisan.  However, his message to congressional Republicans was perfectly clear:  Get with the program, or suffer politically.  Republicans are wary of the president's call to "finally put this issue [of immigration reform] behind us" by not allowing it to "get bogged down in endless debate."  For one, they are eager to have that debate, which they believe has only just begun.  Obama's remarks did not inspire much enthusiasm.

The United States of Mexico.  At a recent major policy speech in Las Vegas, Mr. Obama pushed for comprehensive immigration reform.  In particular, this reform contains one seminal proposal:  a pathway to legalized status for 11 million to 20 million illegal aliens.  In short, the president is calling for amnesty.


State of the Union speech, February 12, 2013.

In anticipation of the speech:

Obama's Latest Jobs Promise — Deja Vu All Over Again.  President Obama says his State of the Union speech will be "focused on job creation."  Seems as though we've heard this song before from Obama.  And we already know how it ends.

Why the GOP Should Walk Out on Obama.  President Obama is expected to eviscerate Republicans during tonight's State of the Union address tonight.  It will be a speech that builds on his second inaugural address last month.  As Charles Krauthammer put it during an appearance on FNC's Special Report with Bret Baier:  ["] In fact, if the inaugural address was this sort of extraordinarily ideological address, I think the State of the Union is going to be extremely aggressive and partisan.["]

Obama has state of the delusion speech shovel ready.  The State of the Union address has always been little more than a nationally televised stump speech.  As all presidents believe that anything happening anywhere in the country is a direct result of their policies, none have ever wanted to paint a less than rosy picture about the supposed "state of the union."  After all, if it's in a bad state, it must be their fault.  However, with the U.S. now in full-fledged collapse, the speeches have become so detached from reality that they should be called "state of the delusion" addresses.

Reaction to the speech:

Obama's Most Dishonest State of the Union Address.  Obama's ridiculous 6600-word marathon is also not a lengthy speech; it is the party's program.  The professional flatterers and fawners in the media have long since given up describing the teleprompter-in-chief as a talented speaker.  These days Obama gives speeches that not only sound like they were read from a teleprompter, but also written by a teleprompter.

Tragedy and Comedy at the SOTU.  Obama stressed the need for job creation, but the fact is that artificially raising the minimum wage to $9/hr will stifle jobs.  Faced with increasingly tighter budgets due to a shrinking economy, higher taxes, health care costs and overly burdensome regulations imposed by Obama, the average business of any size will be forced to cut back on employees if they are compelled to pay higher wages.

Obama recklessly claims America is 'Stronger' in State of the Union.  During Barack Obama's first State of the Union address of his second term, the President claimed that the United States is seeing more economic growth and that as a nation we are "stronger" today than we were before.  Though when President Obama claimed that the state of our union was "stronger," one could only ask: for whom?  22.7 million Americans are unemployed, underemployed, or have given up looking for work under the Obama administration.  The unemployment rate when Obama took office was 7.8%; four years later, it stands at 7.9%.  Are these Americans living in a "stronger" nation?

Sen. Ted Cruz: Obama SOTU 'Unabashed Liberalism'.  The first State of the Union address of President Obama's second term was too partisan and failed to address the nation's economic problems, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told CNSNews.com.  "I think the president missed a real opportunity tonight to reach across the aisle, to find bipartisan cooperation on productive steps to get our economy going and get people back to work," Cruz said.  "Instead he chose to embrace unabashed liberalism."

Obama's agenda is simple — take more of your money.  The state of our union, President Obama now tells us with "renewed" confidence, is "stronger."  Stronger than what, exactly?  The deepest bowels of a recession?  "There is much progress to report," he says, dreamily.  Tell that to the millions of Americans who are still unemployed.

Obama's State of the Union: 6,419 words and almost as many clichés.  Obama used to be known as a Real Good Talker.  He made his initial national bones with a speech.  But the last two — his Inauguration and State of the Union — are tired, boilerplate, bits and pieces of campaign rhetoric cut and pasted into recycled collections of empty phrases that sound swell — until you read them.

Barack Obama outlines his big government vision for American decline in State of the Union address.  There was no talk of tax cuts or freeing businesses from red tape and suffocating regulation.  Not a word about advancing economic freedom, but acres of language about government intervention, in the economy, the workplace, education system, and practically every aspect of American life, plus a job-killing costly minimum wage hike, which will hit small businesses hard and undoubtedly add to the unemployment rolls.  Tonight the president demonstrated once again how out of touch he is with public opinion on the economy.

Obama's 'bipartisan' State of the Union paints Republicans as anti-science, job-hating Neanderthals.  The State of the Union repeated a lot of the same themes of the past few years.  That's because a lot of Obama's promises remain unfulfilled and are still reliant on slipping them through a hostile Congress.  Take his signature pledge to raise the minimum wage to $9, which he insisted will stimulate the economy and create jobs.  Back in 2008, Obama said he's raise the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011.

U.S. Rep. Kerry Bentivolio Responds to President's State of the Union.  "President Obama keeps trying to convince us that giving up our freedoms and letting the government make our decisions on how to run our lives is a sign of progress.  He wants the government to tell us how to run our businesses.  He wants the government to get between us and our doctors.  He wants the government to take more of our nation's hard earned money instead of letting us spend it for ourselves.  All of these intrusions make us less prosperous, less healthy, and less free.

Obama's Most Audacious SOTU Lie.  It is difficult to say with certainly which of the many whoppers President Obama told tonight took the most crust to utter, but my money is going on this assertion, made a few minutes into the speech:  "Already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of health care costs."  I know "Orwellian" has now become rather hackneyed, but there is simply no other adjective that better describes this statement.  It is not merely a lie.  It is the precise opposite of the truth.  It is just as absurd as "war is peace" or "freedom is slavery."

What Second Term Agenda?  The lesson from the State of the Union address is this:  Barack Obama has no second term agenda.  Oh, sure, he campaigned furiously for the job, starting in about January of 2011.  But his campaign almost never outlined his plans for a second term, focusing instead on interest group payoffs and demonization of his rival.

Nothing New in the State of the Union.  President Obama's second term wish-list — his ideas for jump-starting the job-starved economy — looked a lot like his warmed-over, half-baked proposals of the past.  With rare exceptions, Obama's fifth State of the Union address was a costly laundry list of more big government programs aimed at his party's political base.

Welcome to fantasy world of gov't as cure-all.  Last night, Barack Obama told Congress that "The American people don't expect government to solve every problem."  They might not expect it, but don't worry, he's got a plan for every problem — and in every case, the solution is more government.

There He Goes Again.  Did I miss something?  Or was the State of the Union Address delivered by President Obama last night unusually pedestrian, packed to the gills with clichés, promises, gimmicks, and endless talk of partnerships, goals, challenges, and commissions for which Washington is famous?

Fact Checking The State of the Union.  Is Congress really to blame for the looming sequester?  Has manufacturing really shot up under President Obama?  The Daily Beast sifts through the Internet's best fact checks to assess the State of the Union claims.

The State of Our Union Rendered in a Fractured Bizarro Lens.  The state of our union is weak and fraying.  This president has launched attacks on faith and is going out of his way to divide our people.  Our economy is not growing, it contracted in the final quarter of 2012.  Our economy is not growing jobs.  On the international front, North Korea greeted President Obama's 2013 rendition of Give Me More Money with a nuclear test — a sure sign that his strategy of engagement, which his soon-to-be defense secretary supports, is a failure.  But like with all of his other failed policies, Barack Obama declared that he will just keep on doing them all.

Chris Stevens Was Not Even Remembered.  In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama failed to mention the late Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the three other Americans who died on Sep. 11, 2012 in the terror attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.  He mentioned the victims of the massacre in Newtown, CT in December, and invited the families of victims of other violent gun crimes to watch from the gallery.  But the Benghazi victims' families were not present at all.

Krauthammer on SOTU: 'This speech is about spending your way to prosperity'.  Washington Post columnist and Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer on Tuesday [2/12/2013] criticized President Barack Obama's State of the Union address as unrealistic and egocentric, arguing that the president made clear he is more concerned about his own image than the realities of governance.

State of the Second Amendment.  Obama's "more than a thousand" claim is confusing.  Was he implying there were 1,000 firearms-related deaths in the last two months?  Gun banners like the Violence Policy Center claim "more than 30,000 Americans die in gun suicides, homicides, and unintentional shootings."  According to the FBI, a monthly average of 715 firearms murders occurred in 2011, or 1,430 over two months.  If Obama based his claim on government data not yet publicly available, this means America is experiencing a historic drop in firearms-related fatalities.

State of the Union Address on Foreign Policy: Careful Phrasing Conceals Disasters.  Obama defined his main successes — careful to credit the military (whose budget he seeks to cut deeply and whose health benefits he's already reduced) rather than his usual emphasis on taking the credit for himself [...]

The State of Obama.  [Scroll down]  Obama also claimed credit for the energy revolution of hydraulic fracturing, which exists only despite the concerted efforts of Obama's leftist allies to destroy it.  For the most part, though, Obama did what he does best:  promote government control over people's property and lives.  He repeatedly called for raising taxes on the "wealthiest and the most powerful."  He called for more corporate welfare for (useless) "renewable" energy and for "efficient" building construction.  He called for more government funding for scientific research.  He called for a "market-based solution to climate change," one of his many euphemisms for more government regulation of the economy.

Obama's State of the Union lowest-rated since 2000.  In general, viewership for Obama's State of the Union addresses has been in constant decline.  He drew 52.4 million in 2009, 48.0 million in 2010, 42.8 million in 2011 and 37.8 million in 2012.  His 2013 address was the second-lowest rated since Nielsen began recording viewership in 1993.

Trent Franks: 'Astonishing' that Obama Never Mentions the Muslim Brotherhood.  Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) says "it's astonishing" that President Obama never mentions the Muslim Brotherhood and its control of the Egyptian government.  "He never mentions the Muslim Brotherhood.  It's astonishing.  If there's anything that has been a trend in this administration related to terrorism, it's their unwillingness to call it for what it is," Franks told CNSNews.com immediately following Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night.

Obama's Big State Of The Union Lie.  'Already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of health-care costs," the president claimed Tuesday.  This ranks as one of the biggest State of the Union whoppers ever told.  In fact, not only are health-care costs climbing, but employers are also shifting those costs onto the very "middle-class" families Obama spent much of his speech championing.

State Of The Union Shtick: Obama's 5 Unintentionally Comical Lines.  "It is not a bigger government we need, but a smarter government."  That's rich coming from the guy who jacked up spending to record levels.  According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government is now on track to consume an average of 22.1% of GDP over the next decade.  That's bigger than all but eight of the 60 post-World War II years before Obama took office. [...] Then there was this:  "As long as countries like China keep going all in on clean energy, so must we."  All in?  Sixteen of the world's top 20 most polluted cities are in China.

Obama attempting to redefine the word "citizen".  Throw out your Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, folks.  President Barack Obama is now redefining words.  During Tuesday night's State of the Union address, the POTUS expressed his belief that U.S. citizenship is only partly about one's legal status.  "We are citizens," the President said.  "It's a word that doesn't just describe our nationality or legal status.  It describes the way we're made."

Statism: Obama's Real Version of Fatherhood.  Last night, President Obama made a bold defense of fatherhood in his State of the Union address.  "What makes you a man isn't the ability to conceive a child," he said, "it's the courage to raise one."  This piquant comment spiced up the worn out menu of an unappetizing first term.  The president who will fix the economy "without increasing the deficit by a dime," and provide a middle class income by upping the minimum wage to 9 bucks an hour also plans to keep investing in green energy (Solyndra), while he pays lip service to the oil and gas revolutions that — without any federal help — have saved our fledgling economy from utter ruin.

Obama's SOTU Speech: Government Unbound.  Needless to say, there was no shout-out to the families of police officers murdered or shot by [Christopher] Dorner, much as there was not a word about the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi.  Stevens and the entire Libyan fiasco were inconvenient and best left ignored during the president's speech, as had been the approach from the time of the attack on the diplomatic outpost until after the election.

America Tunes Out Obama as SOTU Ratings Crater.  Frankly, he's boring.  Same drivel, different day, packed with cliches and nothing to say.

Mark Levin slams Obama, says we must fight Obama every step of the way.  Mark Levin went on Hannity tonight and just torched Obama and his Castro-like SOTU address.  He also got in a few jabs in at the media too for not holding Obama and his lies accountable.

President Unleashes a Nationwide 'Community Organizing' Campaign.  The president's State of the Union address (SOTU) was merely a prelude to a massive undertaking to go nationwide with his community organizing methods and objectives.  This is a president who operates in campaign mode 24/7.

No debt crisis in Obama's State of the Union.  From President Obama's State of the Union address, one might have come away with the impression that the nation's finances are hunky-dory.  Obama suggested that most of the heavy lifting on deficit reduction is already done, and that the rest can be accomplished by making minor adjustments to spending and closing tax loopholes on wealthier Americans.

President Obama's No-Growth State Of The Union.  Even with average wages, adjusted for inflation, dropping for 21 of the last 23 months, higher rates of poverty, 23 million Americans unable to find regular work, ongoing $1 trillion deficits, ObamaCare pushing employers to cut full-time workers and hire part-timers, and the gross domestic product falling during the last quarter, there wasn't much in President Obama's second inaugural address about job creation, debt reduction or economic growth.  Instead, it took only a few minutes into the speech before the rich became the target.

Rubio's Thirstiness Trumps Obama's Untruthfulness.  Why does a re-elected chief executive, dubiously claiming a mandate from the people, insult the intelligence of millions of Americans struggling to stay afloat in a contracting economy during the worst economic recovery on record with ludicrous contentions like this:  "After years of grueling recession, our businesses have created over 6 million new jobs"?  Why does he present an electorate that just returned him to power with the wild claim that "already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of health care costs"?

SOTU: Energy Fabrications, Falsehoods and Fantasies.  [For example,] That's why my administration will keep cutting red tape and speeding up new oil and gas permits.  Drilling permits that once took 30 days to be approved now take more than 180 days.  Even relatively simple things like the approval of development plan (DOCD) revisions are sometimes drawn out to nearly 300 days.

Obama's Voting Initiative Greeted With Skepticism.  President Barack Obama's State of the Union pledge to create a nonpartisan commission to "improve the voting experience in America" has triggered reactions from the election-overhaul community that range from guarded optimism to overt disappointment.

Marco Rubio's Impressive Response to Obama's 2013 State of the Union Address.  In [...] one paragraph, Sen. Rubio captured the fundamental flaw in the so-called Affordable Care Act:  it makes health insurance more expensive, in turn making hiring more expensive, and our health-care entitlements more expensive.

Obama's Minimum Wage Increase Fallacy.  [In his State of the Union speech,] Obama called for raising the minimum wage to $9.00 per hour, and to index the minimum wage to inflation.  Sounds great!  In ObamaWorld, in a static economy where the economy will not react to a minimum wage increase, what Obama proposes would be fine.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), we don't live in a static economy;  rather, we live in a dynamic economy that will react to a minimum wage increase.

State of the Union blues.  No matter what your political persuasion, even if you're the biggest Obama supporter in the world, you have to wince when he says things that are obviously untrue.  I copied the transcript of his speech into Microsoft Word and started highlighting the lies, but that was an exercise in futility.  Almost everything was highlighted. He lies obsessively. [...] Then I tried limiting myself to outrageous, interesting lies, but that's not really much of a limit with this guy.  For example, he started by talking about the economy and his very first sentence on the subject boasted about creating six million new jobs.  Six million!  Just a few months ago he was running for re-election claiming four million, which was up from three million, which itself was a figment of his overactive imagination.

No, Mr President, the war against al-Qaeda is far from won.  There are times, such as last night's State of the Union address, when I think President Barack Obama has taken leave of reality.  How he can claim, when half the Arab world is being overrun by Islamist militants, that al-Qaeda is now a shadow of its former self is beyond comprehension.

The latest proof that President Obama is a freebooting Marxist.
Obama and the Pirates.  You probably heard again last night that President Obama still thinks "the rich," a crass term implying low class social envy, do not pay their "fair share."  He has been barnstorming America saying precisely that for his more than four years in office now.  But the indisputable facts from official government sources say otherwise.

Remember Your Oath To Protect The Constitution, Mr. President.  Mr. President, perhaps amidst the merriment surrounding the inaugural festivities you misremembered your oath.  Sir, you solemnly swore "to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution."  But these few weeks hence, your State of the Union speech essentially disavowed America's cherished founding charter.  Many left-leaning pundits applaud your "bold" vision to radically redefine America.  President Obama, you are understandably emboldened by re-election, but you were not made king.  Regardless of whether you agree with constitutional precepts, you're still legally bound; still compelled by the sacred oath you swore.

Obama Unveils His Economy-Killing Cap-And-Tax Plan.  A nonexistent crisis is a terrible thing to waste, and in justifying his proposal for a cap-and-tax scheme, President Obama claimed in his State Of The Union that "the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15."  He was lying.  The fact is, according to new data released quietly last October by Britain's Met Office, the world's natural post-Ice Age warming trend stopped about 16 years ago.  From the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.

Obama waging an 'endless campaign'.  Thursday [2/14/2013] brought the latest example, with a rally-style event in Decatur, Ga., intended to build support for the administration's proposals on pre-K education.  It was preceded by a similar stop in Asheville, N.C., to advocate for manufacturing plans, and two major speeches — the State of the Union and the second inaugural address — that were notable for their vigorous liberal tone.

Why his Cap and Trade threat to Congress is Obama's — and America's — Rubicon.  First came the warning:  Congress must pass a cap-and-trade bill to combat global warming because, Obama said, "the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15.  Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods, all are now more frequent and more intense."  (Set aside that, as the Climate Depot's Marc Morano documents, the facts make it abundantly clear that the president is quite wrong on each point in that sentence.)  Then came the threat:  "And if Congress won't act soon to protect future generations, I will.  I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take."

No, America's roads and bridges are not crumbling.  Among President Obama's most persistent demands for new spending is the perennial call for large-scale "infrastructure" spending.  To hear Obama tell it, the United States of 2013 is a "Road Warrior" wasteland filled with disintegrating roads and bridges, desperately awaiting billions of dollars in government spending.  In the past, he has amusingly set up photo ops near bridges that wouldn't be affected by his plans to plump for "infrastructure," selecting them because they looked good on camera, or straddled key congressional districts.  He's currently agitating for $40 billion in "urgent upgrades."  It is considered extremely rude to ask him what happened to the countless billions he appropriated for "infrastructure" in his trillion-dollar 2009 stimulus plan.

Minimum wage and teen unemployment
The Minority Youth Unemployment Act.  One paradox of the Obama Presidency is how it has retained the support of young people and minorities despite the damage its policies have done to their economic prospects.  In his latest attempt to increase the minority youth jobless rate, President Obama is proposing to raise the minimum wage.  In his State of the Union address, Mr. Obama proposed an increase to $9 an hour by 2015 from $7.25, and then indexing the minimum to inflation.

The data doesn't support Obama's proposal, but his party won't waver in its commitment to the mythology of left-wing class struggle.
Obama's Minimum Wage Welfare State.  Real median household income in the United States has fallen more than 8 percent since Barack Obama was first sworn in as president, and has even fallen during the course of the Obama "recovery."  That, of course, is the fault of George W. Bush, John Boehner, rich people, and ATM machines.  Fortunately, President Obama and his economic advisors have come up with a solution to this problem:  force businesses to pay their employees more.

Recycling old and failed ideas.  In his State of the Union address, the president recycled the idea of spending more on education, though prior increases have not changed the unsatisfactory results — a fact he inadvertently acknowledged by saying we're not keeping up with other countries in science and math.  He maintained there are tens of thousands of jobs available but companies can't fill them because public schools aren't teaching students what they need to know.  We spend huge sums on education already, so money and achievement must not be related.  Infrastructure?  We've heard that before, too.  Why is nothing ever fixed with all the money that's been spent during the last four years?

Would New Gun Laws Spark Widespread Civil Disobedience?  In his State of the Union address, President Obama doubled down on his gun-control proposals, again demanding that Congress ban so-called "assault weapons" and "high capacity magazines."  This is not a surprise.  What has been a surprise are the increasingly open calls for defiance from gun owners, state legislatures, and local law enforcement.  If the president's proposals become law, he may move the country into turbulent waters we haven't seen in many years.

State of the Union speech: The president's annual letter to Santa.  Nobody expands his promises with expensive abandon quite like Barack Obama.  His State of the Union this week was a classic of its kind, delivering nothing of substance, something of value only to the pundits who recycle nothing with greater skill than even the politicians they celebrate.

State of the Union: Failure.  Our failure in chief gave us his annual blurred vision of America again Tuesday night.

State of the Government Speech '13.  What was most apparent in the speech was the underlying assumption that the government not only was A solution, but THE solution.  The President is the prototypical statist, in that that he believes that the instrumentality of the state is indispensable to curing society's ills, and is the principal mechanism by which reforms need to be made.

Obama and his 1 percent.  In the State of the Union, Mr. Obama once more went after "the few," and "the wealthiest and the most powerful," whom he blasted as the "well-off and the well-connected" and the "billionaires with high-powered accountants."  Like clockwork, the president then jetted to West Palm Beach, Fla., for yet another golfing vacation at one of the nation's priciest courses, replete with lessons from a $1,000-per-hour golf pro to improve the presidential putting.

Explaining the Inexplicable.  The president, as is his wont, blasted the "one percent," the "millionaires and billionaires," and the "well-connected" in his recent State of the Union speech — and then he flew off to golf and hang out with the one percent of the one percent in South Florida while his wife and kids jetted to Aspen to ski.

Obama's Thirteen Words.  [Scroll down]  Fast forward to 2013, and President Obama's State of the Union, where he said, talking about global warming:  "Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods — all are now more frequent and intense."  That statement was demonstrably false, as SEPP's The Week That Was points out. [...] Of course, there were so many other untrue statements in Obama's SOTU that it is understandable that the 13 words on global warming got lost in the shuffle.

The Crushing Impact Of A 24% Minimum Wage Hike.  Barack Obama, during his State of the Union speech, declared that he wanted to raise the minimum wage to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 per hour.  It was obviously written into his speech to garner applause from the Democrats in attendance and, no doubt, resonated with many low-income workers who might have been watching.  It is also a good bet that those Democrats and many others who think raising the minimum wage is a good idea have never run a business, as they do not understand (or care?) about the compensation problems of wage compression.

Human-Caused Climate Change Less Than Expected.  President Obama is determined to do something about global warming, telling Congress in his State of the Union address that if they won't act on it, he will.  The president's refrain is familiar, but unfortunate.  Obama continues to ignore new science suggesting that the threat posed by human-caused climate change is substantially less than previously thought.

Obama's Energy Plans [are] Not a Triumph But a Tragedy.  [Scroll down]  The inclusion of this comment in the SOTUA aligns with Obama's ideology of pushing less energy usage.  This is troubling because it is widely accepted that energy consumption and economic growth go hand-in-hand.  A successful country uses more energy.  For example, one of the reasons the US is using less gasoline is that so many people are unemployed.  They are not driving to and from work every day.  They are not taking long driving vacations.  They are hunkered down.  Heavy manufacturing requires abundant, available, and affordable energy.  Energy is one of manufacturing's biggest expenses.  But because of closed factories, we are actually using less electricity in the industrial sector than we did in 2000.

Obama's insults expose his ignorance and mental laziness.  [Scroll down]  At some point during the State of the Union, the President mentioned his "plan" to spend $1 billion dollars to create 15 manufacturing "innovation centers."  The President didn't talk about any details, though, because there were none.

The Lost Era of Economic Growth.  President Obama highlighted the need for strong economic growth in his State of the Union address in February, citing it 11 times.  He mentioned it 5 times in a speech in Illinois in mid-March. [...] Obama hasn't a clue about actually generating economic growth — his policies thwart it — but he's awfully good at messaging.

Obama's most fervent follower is himself.  It's worth remembering that when Mr. Obama took up gun control in his State of the Union address, he set the bar at shin level for himself and Senate Democrats.  He didn't demand victory; he demanded a mere vote on the issue.  Running through a list of victims he was all too eager to politicize [(]"The families of Newtown deserve a vote.  The families of Aurora deserve a vote," etc.[)] he brought the Democrats in the audience to their feet.  Many in the press hailed it as one of the most moving moments of his presidency.

In Six Short Months, President Obama Has Lost His Mojo.  Obama turned his inaugural and State of the Union addresses into a left-wing dream factory, from his declaration of war on global warming (on a planet where temperatures are the same as 16 years ago and in a country whose CO2 emissions are at a 20-year low) to the invention of new entitlements e.g., universal preschool for 4-year-olds for a country already drowning in debt.

This is an original compilation, Copyright © 2013 by Andrew K. Dart


Chicago, February 15, 2013.

Good Fathers Do More To Stem Violence Than Gun Control.  Obama, in Chicago, finally talked about the lack of fathers and the impact this has on crime rather than complain about the number of rounds in a magazine:  "For a lot of young boys and young men in particular, they don't see an example of fathers or grandfathers, uncles, who are in a position to support families and be held up in respect.  And so that means that this is not just a gun issue; it's also an issue of the kinds of communities that we're building. [...]"  He offers no alternative.  Why would he?  That would require a wholesale rethinking of the welfare state and of the perverse incentives that work against the interests of the very people the left claims to care about.

In Chicago, Obama stresses community, family in curbing violence.  Obama arrived in Chicago after weeks of not inserting himself into the scourge of violent crime in his hometown, a city now run by his former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.  In recent weeks, many here have called on him to come to Chicago to speak about gun-related violence, much as he did in Newtown, Conn., after the elementary school massacre there.

Obama's Chicago Speech On Gun Violence Tells Blacks A Skewed Story.  [A]fter much prodding, Obama returned home to the city of Chicago to offer his thoughts on gun violence that is currently ravaging one of the most-impoverished sections of the city.  Unfortunately, Obama's point of view harkened more to the hackneyed than anything especially helpful.


Press conference, March 1, 2013.

Obama: 'I am not a dictator, I'm the president'.  Asked Friday by CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jessica Yellin why President Obama can't simply refuse to let congressional leaders leave a room until they reach a deficit-reduction agreement, the president said he can't "force Congress to do the right thing."

Nixon:  I am not a crook.    Obama:  I am not a dictator.
Obama: 'I Am Not A Dictator,' Can't Just Use 'Jedi Mind Meld' To Force GOP Into Deal.  During his lengthy press conference this morning, President Obama joked that he is unable to use a "Jedi mind meld" to force the Republican House to go along with his plan for avoiding budget sequestration.  He also said "I am not a dictator" when asked why he doesn't just force the GOP opposition into agreeing on a deal.

Transcript: Obama's press conference on spending cuts.  President Obama stepped into the White House Press Briefing Room to give a statement and take questions about the forced spending cuts scheduled to begin Friday.


Israel, March 21, 2013.

Obama's Mix of Reality and Fantasy.  President Obama continued his charm offensive with the people of Israel with his speech to an audience of students in Jerusalem that reaffirmed his support for Zionism and Israel's "unbreakable" alliance with the United States. [...] The speech demonstrated that, despite the new warmth between Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, there is still considerable distance between their positions.

Obama encouraged Israelis to rebel.  In his speech, Barack Obama encouraged the Israeli public to rebel; to rebel against the concept that has existed here [in Israel] for the past 20 years; rebel against the narrative of PM Netanyahu and the Right; rebel against the Barak-Sharon-Netanyahu legacy, according to which there is no one to talk to on the other side, Mahmoud Abbas is no different from Ismail Haniyeh and settlement construction must continue.  Despite the expressions of fondness toward Netanyahu, the American president does not believe the Israeli leader.

'Obama's greatest speech,' say commentators.  American news outlets crowned United States President Barack Obama's speech in Jerusalem Thursday [3/21/2013] as a "great speech," comparing it to his milestone "Cairo speech" at the beginning of his first term.

Obama Goes To Israel And Talks Down To Israelis.  Waiting until his fifth year in office to visit our staunch ally, President Obama showed the real purpose of his trip:  to bully the Israelis in person.  It takes gall to lecture Israelis that "you have the opportunity to be the generation that permanently secures the Zionist dream."  "Trust me," is Barack Obama's message on what the White House calls a "listening tour."  But what loyal citizen of the Jewish state would place faith in him?

Obama Compared the Palestinians to Canada? Networks Ignore The Gaffe.  Radio hosts like Mark Levin and Web sites like Canada Free Press are mocking President Obama's statement in a press conference yesterday [3/21/2013] with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, where he compared the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to U.S.-Canada relations.  What?  Levin called him a "moron" for the comparison.  But ABC, CBS, and NBC failed to notice.  They acted like a press release service for Obama on their newscasts Thursday night and Friday morning [...]


Planned Parenthood, April 26, 2013.

Editor's note:
This speech was originally scheduled for Thursday the 25th.

Obama Is Ducking the Gosnell Abortion Controversy.  Up in Pennsylvania, abortionist Kermit Gosnell is on trial, accused of having killed a handful of babies who survived his procedures.  And Planned Parenthood is in the thick of it all.

Obama to deliver keynote at Planned Parenthood annual gala.  President Obama will deliver the keynote address at Planned Parenthood's annual gala Thursday [4/25/2013], highlighting his close ties to a group that spent millions in support of his reelection campaign.  The speech follows a hard-fought election cycle in which women's health issues dominated several Senate campaigns and figured prominently in the race between Obama and GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

Obama backs out of Planned Parenthood keynote address.  President Obama has canceled plans to deliver a keynote address at Planned Parenthood's annual fundraising dinner Thursday night [4/25/2013], citing a desire to spend more time with family of the victims of the fertilizer plant explosion in Texas.  White House spokesman Jay Carney announced the decision to cancel the keynote speech at the gala during his daily press briefing with reporters Wednesday.  He said Mr. Obama will still address Planned Parenthood and its supporters Friday morning.

Megyn Kelly Guests Slam Obama For Giving Speech To Planned Parenthood In Wake Of Gosnell Trial.  Megyn Kelly and her two guests dished out some serious criticism of President Obama's upcoming keynote address at Planned Parenthood's gala this afternoon on Fox News.  Kelly opened the segment by questioning Obama's decision to speak at the event "just as the group comes under fire for reportedly knowing about some of the horror stories" from the Kermit Gosnell clinic "but not doing more with that information."

Obama to Largest Abortion Provider: 'God Bless You'.  President Obama ended his address to the largest abortion provider in the U.S., Planned Parenthood, by saying, "God bless you." [Video clip]

Obama: 'Planned Parenthood isn't going anywhere'.  During a speech this morning at the Planned Parenthood gala, President Obama vowed he would never allow Republicans to cut taxpayer funds for the abortion provider.  "If there's one thing the past few years have shown is that Planned Parenthood isn't going anywhere," Obama said as the crowd cheered.  "It's not going anywhere today, it's not going anywhere tomorrow."

Obama: Abortion foes want [us to] return to [the] 1950s.  President Barack Obama vowed Friday to join Planned Parenthood in fighting against what he said are efforts by states to turn women's health back to the 1950s, before the Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide, and singled out the GOP-governed states of North Dakota and Mississippi for criticism.

Obama Trades Night-time Planned Parenthood Appearance for Today.  With the unabashed presence of President Barack Hussein Obama at today's Planned Parenthood Fundraising Gala, acclaimed 'Stars of Obama' twinkle as brightly in the glare of daylight as they do in the dark of night.  Obama ducked last night's keynote speaking engagement at the Planned Parenthood dinner, only to show up at the event today [4/26/2013].

Broken Justice for the Unborn.  Tonight was going to be the night for President Obama's keynote at Planned Parenthood's Washington Gala.  But the White House announced yesterday afternoon that the president had changed his schedule.  It would be a wonderful thing if the cancellation indicated the president's moral reconsideration rather than a mere political recalculation following Planned Parenthood's recent statements indicating its awareness of complaints about Kermit Gosnell's squalid abattoir and its overall toleration of late-term abortions.  But Obama will now speak to Planned Parenthood on Friday morning [4/26/2013]  — a less visible and celebratory occasion, of course, but still an event signaling a presidential endorsement.

Obama Avoids [the] Word 'Abortion' in [his] Speech Defending Planned Parenthood.  President Obama gave a speech slamming critics for trying to turn Planned Parenthood "into a punching bag" while notably avoiding the word "abortion" in the entire address.  "The fact is, after decades of progress, there's still those who want to turn back the clock to policies more suited to the 1950s than the 21st century.  And they've been involved in an orchestrated and historic effort to roll back basic rights when it comes to women's health," Obama said.

Palin Hammers 'Radically Pro-Abortion' Obama for Planned Parenthood Speech.  Governor Sarah Palin, responding to Barack Obama's speech to Planned Parenthood today, took on Obama on her Facebook page.  She noted that it was no accident that the same day Obama addressed the giant abortion provider, she was addressing a pro-life woman's resource center.

Obama 12-Minute Speech to Planned Parenthood [was] Time for 7.6 Abortions at Planned Parenthood .  President Barack Obama praised the Planned Parenthood Federation of America for saving lives and helping women and families in a 12-minute, 3-second speech on Friday, which was enough time for 7.6 abortions to take place at Planned Parenthood clinics, based upon the abortion data in their latest annual report.

Women Deserve Better than Planned Parenthood.  The cheering at the president's speech this morning reminded me of Andrew Cuomo's state-of-the-state address, where he took on a similar tone of abortion triumphalism.  Gone is the talk of "safe, legal, and rare."  The posture is instead one of expectation (as in, abortion is just expected of women who didn't plan to be pregnant) and increase.  Gosnell should make us reconsider this all.  But not under this president's leadership, it would seem.

Will Doug Kmiec Please Stand Up?  This week, Obama addressed Planned Parenthood, going so far to close his address by saying "God bless you."  This is an organization responsible for hundreds of thousands abortions a year.  Obama's attendance was timed to coincide with the Kermit Gosnell trial — a wicked saga so gruesome that I can barely contemplate the facts.  Make no mistake — Obama went to the Planned Parenthood event this week because of the Gonsnell trial.  Planned Parenthood needed a cheerleader after a very bad month.

More about the trial of "Doctor" Kermit Gosnell.

President's speech to Planned Parenthood: a reminder of the Left's dishonest abortion views.  The other "abortion in the news" moment was Obama's slobbering love letter to Planned Parenthood, when he spoke at their big hoo-ha.  If you doubt that it was a love letter, you need only listen to the very last few seconds of his speech:  ["]As long as we've got to fight to make sure women have access to quality, affordable health care, and as long as we've got to fight to protect a woman's right to make her own choices about her own health, I want you to know that you've also got a president who's going to be right there with you, fighting every step of the way.  Thank you, Planned Parenthood.  God bless you.["]

30 Reasons To Dislike Barack Obama.  [#10]  He actually said, "Thank you, Planned Parenthood.  God bless you."  We're talking about people who murder babies for a living and he's asking God to bless that?  What a despicable man.

First Black President Makes Racist White Woman's Dream Come True.  Last Friday, Obama became the first sitting president to address a Planned Parenthood national conference.  In his introductory remarks, Obama paid homage to a "health clinic" (one of his many euphemisms) which opened in Brooklyn "nearly a hundred years ago."  Since he was being careful with language, Obama didn't bring up PP's founder, Margaret Sanger, who along with her sister and a friend started the Brooklyn clinic he referenced.


News conference, April 30, 2013.

Obama on Obamacare: This is as Good as it Gets.  President Obama had some gnarly news for the Democratic campaign committees:  This is as good as it gets for his signature health law.  In a press conference on the 100th day of his second term, Obama found himself on the defensive and short on answers.  Syria genocide?  We're looking into it.  Benhgazi whistleblowers?  Never heard of them.  Intelligence gaps on the Boston Marathon bombing?  "This is hard stuff."

Dubious call to chill.  With his own administration saying chemical weapons have been used in Syria, a Democratic senator saying ObamaCare has become a "train wreck," and others worrying that the failure to neutralize the Tsarnaev brothers before the Boston massacre indicates a systemic failure in the nation's homeland defense, Obama spent an hour in a press conference yesterday morning Chip-Dillering America.

Who We Must Blame For Boston.  Barack Obama promised Tuesday [4/30/2013] that he would be taking lessons from the Boston Marathon jihad bombing:  "When an event like this happens, we want to review every step that was taken, we want to leave no stone unturned, we want to see if there is in fact additional protocols and procedures that could be put in place that would further improve and enhance our ability to detect a potential attack."  Sounds great — but ultimately all Obama offered were words.  Words that are unlikely to be backed up by real action.

Issa: Obama 'aids those' who are intimidating Benghazi whistle-blowers.  House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., accused President Obama of "aid[ing] those in his Administration who are intimidating" potential Benghazi whistle-blowers, because Obama pleaded ignorance when asked about the issue today [4/30/2013].

Obama pledges inquiry on Benghazi survivors' testimony.  President Obama said he is unaware of longstanding efforts by Republican lawmakers to question survivors of the Benghazi attacks but pledged to investigate the issue.  "I'm not familiar with this notion that anybody has been blocked from testifying," the president said during a White House news conference on Tuesday.  "So what I'll do is I will find out what exactly you're referring to."

Obama Not Familiar With Benghazi Whistle-Blower Threats.  Administration officials actually need to lawyer up to reveal the truth about the Benghazi disaster that left our ambassador and three others dead.  This from "the most transparent administration in history."

Obama 'not familiar' with intimidation of Benghazi whistleblowers.  President Obama on Tuesday said he was unaware of complaints from Benghazi whistleblowers inside his own administration who contend that they are being intimidated over their cooperation with investigators into the September 2012 attack, but pledged to look into the matter.  "I'm not familiar with this notion that anybody's been blocked from testifying," Mr. Obama said in response to a question during a press conference in the White House briefing room.  "What I'll do is find out what exactly you're referring to."

Obama: 'I'm Not Familiar' With Benghazi Whistleblowers Being Threatened.  President Barack Obama said today at a press conference that he's "not familiar" with reports that Benghazi whistleblowers are being threatened.

The Un-Lyndon Johnson.  It finally seems to be dawning on much of the Washington press corps that President Obama doesn't much like the way governance works in a democracy and so he just doesn't do what presidents are paid to do:  get things done.  It seems that his press conference yesterday, marking the hundredth day of his second term, was more or less of a disaster.  He whined that his failure on gun control, cybersecurity, and removal of the sequester was all the fault of Congress, and especially congressional Republicans.

The Clinical Definition of 'Insanity'.  President Obama made a number of ill-conceived remarks in his press conference Tuesday, but the topper was the one reported by the New York Times regarding the performance of federal investigators in the aftermath of a 2011 warning from Russian intelligence that Tamerlan Tsarnaev — one of the eventual Boston Marathon bombers — was an Islamic radical.

Just How Ignorant Is Obama About ObamaCare?  At his press conference this week, President Obama tried to reassure Americans about ObamaCare.  Instead, he displayed either an incredible lack of understanding about his own law, or something far worse.  Asked about increasing Democratic concern over what Sen. Max Baucus called a looming ObamaCare "train wreck," Obama claimed that it's all much ado about very little.  But almost nothing he said in defense of ObamaCare was accurate.

Presidential Followership.  Tuesday's meandering mess of a news conference exposed that his first term's permanent campaign — attempting to reframe all issues to maximize him and minimize his opposition — is going to be inappropriate for the only thing Mr. Obama has got now:  a mere American presidency.  Whether Roosevelt, Nixon, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, every second-term president must in time come to grips with the reality that it can't be about just his agenda or just him.

Train Wreck: ObamaCare Blocking Job Creation, Economic Growth.  On Friday [5/3/2013] the government will release its unemployment report for April.  The jobs numbers last month were a huge disappointment.  Americans can't afford more bad news.  Washington needs to break the cycle of weak job growth month after month.  To do that, we need to honestly deal with one of the main roadblocks to job creation:  President Obama's health care law.  At a press conference this week, the president proved once again that he doesn't understand how his law threatens Americans' jobs, their care and their paycheck.

Obama plays Truth or Dare with your health care.  At his impromptu news conference last Tuesday, President Obama demonstrated he is either so detached he doesn't know what's happened as the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) is being implemented or that he knows but intends to brazen his way through an emerging policy debacle.  Whichever it is, it's likely to be a political disaster for the president and his party.


Mexico City, May 3, 2013.

Obama Spins Furiously On Guns.  Barack Obama's comments about guns in Mexico today [5/3/2013] demonstrated a curious lack of self-awareness.  "[M]ost of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States."  So the violence perpetrated by Mexican drug cartels is our fault?  That seemed to be the implication.  But obviously, if there were not a single firearm in the U.S., the drug cartels would be just as well armed as they are today.

Obama, in Mexico, Credits Latinos for Winning Presidency.  Speaking to a Mexico City crowd on Friday [5/3/2013], President Barack Obama said he would not be president if not for Latino voters, and then he pledged immigration reform in the United States to legalize those who are here illegally.  "Without the strong support of Latinos, including so many Mexican-Americans, I would not be standing here today as president of the United States," Obama said.  "That's the truth."

Obama: Americans 'Are Root Cause of Violence That's Been Happening Here in Mexico'.  President Barack Obama, speaking in Mexico City on Friday, said the United States is responsible for much of the crime and violence in Mexico because of the demand for drugs and the illegal smuggling of guns across the southern border. [...] Obama acknowledged the illegal smuggling of guns into Mexico by American criminals, but did not mention the Justice Department's Operation Fast and Furious that allowed the flow of about 2,000 U.S. guns to Mexican drug trafficking organizations.

Obama Blames U.S., Repeats 90% Gun Lie In Mexico.  Once again blaming his own country for Mexico's gun violence without mentioning Fast and Furious, the gun runner in chief pledges to find and jail gun smugglers.  Perhaps he should start with his own administration.


Ohio State University, May 5, 2013.

Obama: The Only Thing We Need to Fear Is Fear of Tyranny.  On Sunday, President Obama delivered the commencement address at Ohio State University.  He once again gave voice to the essential element of his philosophy of government.

Obama's message to the Class of '13: So much is wrong with America.  Seventy-five months into his perpetual campaign to transform America into something else, Barack Obama is still talking about all that's wrong with the country he's spent almost $2 billion of other people's money to lead.  You might think by now the unhappy warrior would be capable of touting some progress in his annual string of commencement addresses to inattentive audiences sitting in hot sun.  But, No.

Obama's Demeaning Commencement Address.  [P]residents rarely speak off-the-cuff, and their every word is carefully chosen for exactly the message the White House wants to convey to the public.  Their graduation speeches, like all presidential addresses, go through many drafts and are reviewed by high-level administration officials to ensure that they accurately reflect the administration's policies and priorities.  That's why President Barack Obama's speech at Ohio State University's 2013 Commencement should trouble all Americans.

The Biggest Threat Of Government Tyranny Says There Is None.  The president told college graduates over the weekend to dismiss those warning of government tyranny.  But he wouldn't have brought it up if he didn't feel the need to defend his administration's heavy hand.


Morehouse College, May 19, 2013

Obama's Black lie to Black Graduates.  While delivering the commencement speech at historically black Morehouse College, President Obama predictably utilized "victimology 101" to access the inner victim that presumably exists inside all black Americans.  He disingenuously reminded the all-male graduates, "As an African American, you have to work twice as hard as anyone else if you want to get by."  Unsurprisingly, this underhanded insinuation that racism is so pervasive that no amount of individual effort will overcome it received a thunderous ovation, even though this recycled notion has the legitimacy of a three-dollar bill.

Obama Uses Commencement Address to Recall Jim Crow, Racism.  In a commencement address at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, President Barack Obama recalls Jim Crow laws and racism of the 40s and 50s.  Morehouse College is a historically black college.

Obama 'The Jerk' Gets Personal About Race.  Our half-black, half-white, half-Muslim president addressed his ilk at Morehouse College today — "another historically black college".


National Defense University, May 23, 2013

GOP's Chambliss: Obama speech will be 'viewed by terrorists as victory'.  The senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee said President Obama's national security speech will be "viewed by terrorists as a victory."  Sen. Saxby Chambliss (Ga.) made the remarks in a statement released moments after Obama's speech.  He focused his criticism on Obama's plans to move toward closing the Guantanamo Bay detainee camp.  "We knew five years ago that closing Guantanamo was a bad idea and would not work," Chambliss said.  "Yet, today's speech sends the message to Guantanamo detainees that if they harass the dedicated military personnel there enough, we will give in and send them home, even to Yemen."

Obama Narrows Scope of Terror Fight.  Nearly a dozen years after the hijackings that transformed America, President Obama said Thursday [5/23/2013] that it was time to narrow the scope of the grinding battle against terrorists and begin the transition to a day when the country will no longer be on a war footing.

Full Text of Obama's 'Future of our Fight against Terrorism' Address.

'You Can Close Gitmo Today!' — An audience plant?
Code Pink Heckler Completely Derails Obama's Counterterrorism Speech.  Another major political speech, another Code Pink heckling.  During President Obama's counterterrorism policy speech at National Defense University on Thursday afternoon, Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin interrupted when the topic turned to the closing of the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.  "I'm about to address it, ma'am," Obama said as Benjamin went off about the hunger strike currently taking hold amongst Gitmo detainees.  "Why don't you sit down?  But you've got to let me speak."

The Editor says...
It is safe to assume that if a Tea Party heckler interrupts an Obama speech, an IRS audit is sure to ensue.

Obama Calls for Gitmo Inmates to Be Transfered to the United States.  In a speech today, President Obama is calling for the transfer for Gitmo inmates to the United States.  "The original premise for opening GTMO — that detainees would not be able to challenge their detention — was found unconstitutional five years ago.  In the meantime, GTMO has become a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the rule of law.  Our allies won't cooperate with us if they think a terrorist will end up at GTMO. [...]"

The Editor says...
I find that hard to believe.  Name the "allies" who are opposed to putting terrorists away at Guantanamo Bay.

Obama Rejects 'Global War on Terror'.  President Obama is using his national security address today to reject the "Global War on Terror."

The End of the Perpetual War.  President Obama's speech on Thursday was the most important statement on counterterrorism policy since the 2001 attacks, a momentous turning point in post-9/11 America.  For the first time, a president stated clearly and unequivocally that the state of perpetual warfare that began nearly 12 years ago is unsustainable for a democracy and must come to an end in the not-too-distant future.

Who Invited Code Pink's Medea Benjamin to Obama's Speech?  President Barack Obama was heckled Thursday by leftist terrorist ally Susan 'Medea' Benjamin while giving a speech on national security issues at the National Defense University at Ft. McNair in Washington, D.C.  Curiously, Obama's staff let Benjamin interrupt and engage Obama several times on issues like Guantanamo and drones over several minutes before she was forcibly removed from the press rows in the back of the auditorium where the speech was being given.

Obama 'Respects Inherent Dignity of Every Human Life' — When Deciding Whether to Abort Terrorists.  Giving a speech on counter-terrorism policy at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., today, President Barack Obama explained that when deciding whether to target terrorists with drones — whether or not the terrorists are U.S. citizens — he has set a "high threshold" of respect for human life.  "But the high threshold that we have set for taking lethal action applies to all potential terrorist targets, regardless of whether or not they are American citizens," Obama said.  "This threshold respects the inherent dignity of every human life."

What scandals? Obama tries tacking to terror, drones and Gitmo.  In an hour-long speech of nearly 7,000 words, interrupted by a persistent heckler, the former Real Good Talker reminded his audience at the National Defense University, whose mission is to study war, that the United States has "constitutional principles" that have survived many wars during more than two centuries.  No kidding.  And that "having fought for our independence, we know a price must be paid for freedom."  Strange words indeed coming out of the mouth of an alleged constitutional law lecturer and president whose Internal Revenue Service has been illegally targeting and intimidating Americans of a certain contrary political persuasion.

War against terrorism must end, Barack Obama says.  America's perpetual war against terrorism since September 11th must come to an end, President Barack Obama said today as he announced new restrictions on drone strikes and a fresh effort to close the Guantánamo Bay prison camp.

Obama's Speech: Hamlet as Wartime Leader.  In seventy lugubrious paragraphs, President Obama today asked America whether as commander-in-chief he should bomb terrorists.  He concluded that sometimes he should, and sometimes he shouldn't.  He couldn't quite make up his mind.  Therefore, he would appoint a panel to advise him.  Mr. Obama has already authorized more than 200 such drone bombings.  His staff has bragged that before ordering a bombing, he personally reviews who lives and who dies.  Imagine if Prime Minister Churchill or President Truman had appeared on television to announce an advisory panel before bombing our enemy.  We would be appalled.  The president appeared before us not as our leader, but as our Hamlet.

Obama signals retreat in the fight against terrorism.  President Obama delivered an address today at the National Defense University called "The Future of our Fight Against Terrorism."  Actually, part of the speech was about the past, including much self-congratulation and some shots at President Bush.

Obama: Increase in domestic terrorism fueled by Internet.  During his foreign policy speech Thursday afternoon, President Obama warned that domestic terrorism would increase in the modern age of the Internet.  "[T]his threat is not new," Obama said.  "But technology and the Internet increase its frequency and lethality."  Obama warned Americans that materials on the Internet could influence people to commit terrorist acts.  "Today, a person can consume hateful propaganda, commit themselves to a violent agenda and learn how to kill without leaving their home," he said.

Uh-oh!  It sounds like Barack H. Obama is about to take over the Internet.

President Obama dreamily wants to scale back the war on terror.  President Obama declared on Thursday that it's time for the U.S. to leave behind the global war on terror.  He might first try convincing America's war-waging global enemies to do the same.  Almost a dozen years after 9/11, the President wishfully hopes to demilitarize national security in the age of Islamist radicalism. He judges the country ready for such a step because a long fight has markedly degraded the attacking capacities of Al Qaeda and affiliates.

Heckled by an Activist, but Getting the Last Word.  At times on Thursday, it seemed President Obama was taking part in a debate rather than giving a speech.  Deep into an address at the National Defense University, where Mr. Obama sought to redefine America's approach to fighting terrorism, a heckler repeatedly interrupted from the back of the room, demanding an end to drone strikes and the closing of the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba.  The heckler — though she objected strenuously to being described that way — was Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of Code Pink, a group opposed to United States military actions.  She is a familiar face on Capitol Hill, where she has repeatedly interrupted proceedings.

The Editor says...
I find it interesting that the heckler objected to being called a heckler.  That might indicate that she was just following orders as an audience plant, and should instead be called an enabler.

O 'ends' terror war.  Amid catcalls from a Leftist heckler too blitheringly stupid to understand her dream was coming true, President Obama yesterday declared his intention to end the War on Terror — not quite 12 years since the 9/11 attacks.  In what may have been the most important speech of his presidency, Obama said he would ask Congress to join him in efforts to "refine, and ultimately repeal," the Authorization to Use Military Force passed three days after 9/11.  In other words, he intends to write the War on Terror out of US law.

How Obama Bungled the Guantánamo Closing.  President Obama called today for a renewed effort to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.  But back in 2009, the White House dropped the ball on closing the controversial military prison by failing to come up with a plan in time, refusing to help House Democrats who were fighting for its closure, and then abandoning the plan altogether and blaming Republicans.

Obama's war on leaks undermines investigative journalism.  For the past five years, beginning with his first presidential campaign, Barack Obama has promised that his government would be the most open and transparent in American history.  Recently, while stating that he makes "no apologies" for his Justice Department's investigations into suspected leaks of classified information, the president added that "a free press, free expression and the open flow of information helps hold me accountable, helps hold our government accountable and helps our democracy function."  Then, in his National Defense University speech Thursday, Obama said he was "troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable."

Questions Obama dodged in terror speech.  US President Barack Obama set out Thursday to redefine the US fight against global terrorism.  But despite calling for a more targeted and not "boundless" theater of global operations, Obama left the specifics and timelines for action, by which his success or failure can be measured, out of his big speech.

Obama Surrenders Just As Islamic Jihad Intensifies.  In arguably the weakest national security speech by a commander in chief, Obama denied Thursday that our terrorist enemy is inspired by Islam — while at the same time appeasing Islamic critics by apologizing for drone strikes and agreeing to throttle back on such precision bombings, and close down the terrorist prison at Guantanamo.  He vowed to wind down further military actions in the war on terror, arguing he can protect America through law enforcement actions, instead, as if the threat comes from bank robbers or other common criminals.  His mea culpas and capitulations will only embolden the Islamist enemy.

Obama's Head-in-the-Sand Speech on Terror.  If one wanted to come up with a slogan for the Obama Administration it would be that to win the war on terrorism one must lose the war on revolutionary Islamism because only by showing that America is the Islamists' friend will it take away the incentive to join al-Qaida and attack the United States.  So:  why have not hundreds of such denials had the least bit of effect on the course of that war?

Can Obama Declare Peace?  President Obama's speech at the National Defense University calling for an end to the war on terror forces the question of who gets to declare peace.  The Left wing in our political debate has been agitating for some time to repeal the authorization to use military force that the Congress passed after 9/11.  The President boarded the bandwagon yesterday.

A Skeptical Celebration of President Obama's Shifty Terrorism Speech.  President Obama attempted something familiar in his well-crafted speech at National Defense University:  he signalled that counterterrorism efforts would change significantly in his second term; and like his predecessor, he avoided mentioning that the forsaken policies were mistakes.

Obama Speaks, The Heart Sinks.  He's actually getting worse.  This president will not admit that we are in a war, as President George W. Bush defined it, with various terrorist organizations and with countries that support them.  In his overlong, rambling speech to the National Defense University on terrorism and national security, the president never even mentioned Iran, which happens to be our main enemy and the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism.  Not one word.

Obama under fire for declaring the war on terror 'over' in week of extremist attacks.  Some call it wishful thinking, but President Barack Obama has all but declared an end to the global war on terror.

Even for liberals, Obama has crossed a line.  Barack Obama announced an end to America's war on terror last week.  In future, he declared, he would restrict the unmanned drone attacks that had been his own signature anti-terrorist initiative, and he would really, really make an effort to shut down the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay — as he had promised to do way back when he was running for president the first time.


"The quickest way to end a war is to lose it."
-- George Orwell                               


Analysts contradict Obama on Islamic terror threat.  Terrorism analysts are rebutting President Obama's assertion that the "scale of the threat" from Islamic terrorists has reverted to pre-Sept. 11, 2001, levels.  "This is a total fabrication," said Steven Emerson, whose Investigative Project on Terrorism tracks radical Islam.  "The 'scale of this threat' in the 1990s never closely resembled the terrorist attacks post-9/11.  This is an outright lie."

O's split personality.  Beset by growing world disorder, a sluggish economy and big scandals at home, President Obama tried to reset his presidency last week with a long speech on national security and terrorism.  At least that's what he said the speech was about.  In reality, it was — surprise — about him.  Both sides of him.

A speech to 'kiss and make up' with his base.  What do you do when your base is angry about Guantanamo?  I guess that you promise to close it again.  You also blame Congress for not giving you the money to do it.  The problem is that it was a Congress controlled by Democrats that did not provide the funding.  What about drones?  You promise that we will "drone" more carefully from now on.  Let's hope that the terrorists will cooperate by keeping children away from them.

For Obama, it's Like 9/11 Never Happened.  Perhaps the most shocking — and depressing — aspect of the president's speech on Thursday was his inability to grasp the nature and extent of the threat facing America and the west from Islamic extremism.  What possessed this president to declare an end to the war on terror?

Is that because Obama is a Muslim?

Stupid.  "You're stupid," is not something even his most severe critics usually say to President Barack Obama.  But on Friday morning [5/24/2013] I picked up the Wall Street Journal and learned that the president had given a speech about the war on terror saying, "This war, like all wars, must end." [...] This war, like all wars, must end when someone wins it.  The president — speaking at the National Defense University, of all places — said, "the core of al Qaeda ... is on the path to defeat."  And so it may be.  But meanwhile, the core of al Qaeda, its aims and its beliefs, is also on the path to Boston and London and any number of other places.

Contrary to Obama, the Terror War Has Barely Begun.  The collapse of Middle Eastern states from Libya to Afghanistan vastly increases the terrorist recruitment pool, while severely restricting the ability of American intelligence services to monitor and interdict the terrorists.  In addition, it intensifies the despair that motivates Muslims like the Tsarnaev brothers or Michael Adebolajo to perpetrate acts of terrorism.  That makes President Obama's declaration that America is winding down the "war on terror" — a misnomer to begin with — the worst decision by an American commander-in-chief since the Buchanan administration, perhaps ever.

Our Enemies Get a Vote.  They say all is fair in love and war (I'm skeptical), but that doesn't mean war and love have much in common.  When it comes to love, both parties need to be in on it.  In war, all it takes is one to tango.  Sure, if the non-belligerent party doesn't want to fight, it can try to talk, or cut a deal, or even surrender.  But it's up to the guys willing to kill to decide how things will proceed.

Barack Obama, George Orwell, and Terror.  Lying can be a conscious choice or an accidental habit.  The leader "Big Brother" did it all the time in 1984, but lying can also come from sloppy language.  President Obama and his team use euphemisms to describe Arab-Islamic terror.  Fort Hood was "workplace violence," Detroit a "lone gunman." [...] President Obama's address on terror shows he is not interested in reversing his PC process of willful blindness and willful ignorance regarding Islamic terror.

Drone On.  Last week President Obama announced restrictions on U.S. drone strikes.  He touted the rules — "written policy standards and procedures that formalize and strengthen the Administration's rigorous process" for authorizing targeted killings — in a policy statement, a speech, and a background briefing by senior administration officials.  This week Obama went right back to business.  He killed a Taliban leader with a drone strike in Pakistan, and White House press secretary Jay Carney won't even admit that's what happened.

Let the Sunshine In.  The president described an al Qaeda so thoroughly enervated that the threat it poses no longer requires a sustained, global campaign dedicated to its elimination.  "Today, the core of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan is on a path to defeat," he said.  "Their remaining operatives spend more time thinking about their own safety than plotting against us."  The shift in policy the president announced is risky even if he's right about the diminished threat posed by al Qaeda.  And it's dangerous if he's incorrect.

Obama's Dorothy Doctrine.  Nice thought.  But much as Obama would like to close his eyes, click his heels three times and declare the war on terror over, war is a two-way street.  That's what history advises:  Two sides to fight it, two to end it.

Obama Declares War on Terror Over.  In a hallmark speech last week, President Obama unilaterally declared the war on terror over.  The end of that war, Obama stated, meant we could return to the halcyon days of the Clinton-era law enforcement, during which America experienced a spate of terrorist attacks ranging from the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 to the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996 to the bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 to the USS Cole bombing in 2000.  What justified Obama's announcement?  Nothing, except his need to pacify his leftist base.

What Obama Didn't Mention in Counterterror Speech.  A new State Department report to Congress comes the day after an Argentinian prosecutor drops a massive indictment accusing Iran of plotting attacks from Latin America:  "These are sleeper cells.  They have activities you wouldn't imagine."

Let's Win This One for the Griper.  Admirers sometimes say that Barack Obama is too cerebral in not letting his emotions show.  But he went all gushy in one telling moment in his speech last week at the National Defense University.  That was when he paused to consider the "hard fact" that even the most carefully considered unmanned strikes against known terrorists occasionally result in civilian casualties.

Maybe the teleprompter is being loaded by somebody in Moscow.
Obama's Sword and Shield.  In watching President Obama speak on terrorism last week, we were taken aback to hear him say that America needs an anti-terrorism program that is both our sword and our shield.  This was a striking choice of words by an American president.  Remember the emblem of the KGB?  Maybe you don't, but we do.

President Obama Declares Terror War Over But Hezbollah Has Other Ideas.  Last week, President Obama called the war on terror effectively over.  It came at a peculiar time — just as an Argentine prosecutor and the State Department each warned of a resurgent Iran in our hemisphere.

President Obama's National Security Speech: Dangerous Lies.  In his latest national security speech, President Obama talked about wanting to close Guantánamo Bay, greatly reducing the drone program, and ending the 2001 Military Authorization Act, and he took credit for keeping Americans safe by supposedly defeating terrorism.  There have been arguments by some that he made his national security speech to deflect the scandals encircling his administration.  However, Americans should take his speech as a warning that this president has pivoted to enforce his ideology.

Obama — Red Lines and Red Herrings.  Terror attacks or plots from Benghazi to Boston, Bulgaria to London, Detroit to Fort Hood, and Little Rock to Times Square are signs that terrorists are still alive and kicking.  Obama wants to ignore or belittle these events, just as some did before 9-11.  Yes, there were no 9-11-scale attacks, but there was a new 9-11 assault in Benghazi by Al-Qaeda.  There were also more anti-US attacks and attempted attacks in the last four years than the previous seven.

All We Are Saying...  The problem of declaring victory against an enemy who refuses to concede defeat is not new.  The World War 2 generation solved the problem by continuing until the foe threw in the towel.  Although President Obama may believe that victory consists in convincing one's countrymen that "we won", historically it consisted of convincing the enemy that he lost.


Belfast, June 17, 2013

Barack Obama looks like a president going through the motions.  Listening to Barack Obama give his speech in Belfast on Monday [6/17/2013], it was hard not to stifle a yawn.  I kept waiting for the part when he would say something interesting, but, about three quarters of the way through, realised it wasn't going to come.

Barack's Brave New World Blarney.  This week Obama took his Brave New World propaganda to the youth of Northern Ireland.  He has visions of a secularist utopia for them too.  With uniformed school children arrayed behind him, he in effect called for the elimination of religious education in Northern Ireland: [...] Who knows, maybe Obama can lend these benighted schools one of his former education advisers, such as his "Safe Schools" czar Kevin Jennings, who wrote the foreword to Queering Elementary Education.  Or maybe he can dispatch Arne Duncan to share his wisdom.  After all, Chicago's schools are such a picture of peace.

Obama: Religious schools encourage division.  Barack Obama actually made this claim at a speech in Belfast on Monday, but it seems to be gaining traction overnight.  His claim, aimed at both Catholic and Protestant "schools and buildings," came in prepared remarks rather than an extemporaneous response to a question.  The Scottish Catholic Observer quotes the argument accurately.

The devil went to the G8 and nobody slammed the door in his face.  It was pure Saul Alinsky when President Barack Obama went after Catholic schools in a G8 speech in Northern Ireland on Monday.  The "Irish ancestry" of her husband purportedly searched by wife Michelle pales in comparison to Barack's real roots because his entire career, including his 2008 rock star-like debut on the world stage came from the Catholic Church through Satan-lover Saul Alinsky right in their hometown of Chicago.  In front of a captive audience of about 2,000 young people — his signature audience that leaves out adults — Obama claimed that Catholic education divides people and blocks peace, according to the Scottish Catholic Observer.

President Obama's Belfast Blarney.  President Obama's recent trip to the G-8 Summit in Belfast, Northern Ireland, included an address at the Waterfront hall.  There, he criticized Catholic and Protestant schools and compared them to segregated schools in the U.S. when he was a boy.  His remarks were hailed by British atheists.  They took his speech for what it was:  an attack on faith-based education everywhere.

Obama remarks about Catholic schools spark new fight with church.  President Obama's remarks on Catholic schools during his trip to Northern Ireland this week have sparked an unexpected uproar, with critics accusing him of diminishing religious education.  The backlash, which has grown steadily since Mr. Obama made the comments Monday, once again has put the commander in chief at odds with the Roman Catholic Church, which is fighting a provision in the president's health care law that requires religious institutions to provide free birth control for their employees.


Berlin, June 18, 2013

Obama Directs DoD to Acknowledge Nuke Attack Isn't Likely, So Cut Arsenal.  President Obama used his speech before the Brandenburg Gate this morning to tout further planned reductions to the U.S. nuclear arsenal. [...] "The U.S. intent is to seek negotiated cuts with Russia so that we can continue to move beyond Cold War nuclear postures," the White House said.

White House Blows the Berlin Speech.  President Obama's speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin today was a stage director's nightmare.  The president was sweating profusely — you could see the outlines of his undershirt.  There were ghostly reflections off the protective glass in front of him.  And instead of heaving throngs of admirers, Obama addressed 6,000 or so invited guests.  And something was wrong with TOTUS!

Berlin Speech: 200,000 for Obama in 2008; Only 6,000 Today.  The White House pool report reveals that only 6,000 will be in attendance for Obama's Berlin speech today.  Last time around, when Obama delivered a speech in Berlin in the 2008 presidential campaign, when he was still a senator, 200,000 folks came out to see him.  Update:  The pool reporter says only 4,500 were present for Obama's speech.

Obama Looking for Love in Wrong Places.  Today's speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin only emphasized the contrast between the ecstatic reaction he received there from a huge audience in 2008 and the tepid response he got today to a laundry list of foreign policy proposals including a call for reductions in nuclear weapons that will likely go nowhere.

Mush from the wimp.  That was the joke headline a Boston Globe writer named Kirk Scharfenberg placed atop a 1980 editorial about a speech by President Jimmy Carter, thinking it would be removed before it was printed.  But it wasn't found and fixed until tens of thousands of papers had been printed.  Pity Mr. Scharfenberg is no longer with us.  Because his memorable gaffe is the perfect heading for President Obama's performance yesterday in Berlin, whence he delivered his usual bromides about peace with justice and the danger of nuclear arms.  The muted crowd says it all:  just 4,500 people, all carefully invited.

Barack Obama bombs in Berlin: a weak, underwhelming address from a floundering president.  Ultimately it was little more than a laundry list of Obama's favourite liberal pet causes, including cutting nuclear weapons, warning about climate change, putting an end to all wars, shutting Guantanamo, ending global poverty, and backing the European Project.  It was a combination of staggering naiveté, the appeasement of America's enemies and strategic adversaries, and the championing of more big government solutions.  There was little in this speech that advances US interests, or makes the world a safer place.

NBC's Todd Excuses Obama's Poor Speech Performance: Crowd Too Small, 'It Was Hot'.  Appearing on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports on Wednesday [6/19/2013], NBC's chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd came up with a long list of excuses for President Obama's poor speech performance in Berlin.

President issues call to 'break down the walls in our hearts'... from behind a giant bulletproof screen.  Speaking from behind a wall of bullet-proof glass, the US president removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves as he battled the 86F temperature on Wednesday, quipping:  'People of Berlin, your welcome is so warm I'm going to take off my jacket.'  At times wiping away beads of sweat, the President read from paper because the teleprompter wasn't working.

Obama ignored in Berlin.  In 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama spoke to 200,000 adoring fans in Berlin.  Five years later, the crowds have all but disappeared.  President Obama came back to Berlin to give a speech, and 4,000 people had nothing better to do than listen to empty words and broken promises of hope and change.  The other 196,000 Germans who attended the first speech, like much of the rest of the world, tuned him out.  They had no interest in the 2013 version of "Ich bin Ein Teleprompter."

Obama to Berliners: Ich bin ein awful speaker.  Obama 's 2013 speech was a peculiar and awkward one.  Awkward because his teleprompter was malfunctioning.  Obama is a poor public speaker without that visual crutch feeding the words to his gazing eyes.  Instead, the president was reduced to reading from a text on the podium, not his strong suit.  And it was a peculiar speech for this time because of its marginal subject matter.

Barack Bamboozles Berlin.  [Scroll down]  Barack Obama ended with a Martin Luther King Jr. quote crescendo:  "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."  In the end, so too does "loss of freedom in America threaten freedom everywhere."  That loss is precisely why, both in Germany and here at home, free people must grasp the potentially harmful impact the 'peace-loving' guy standing behind eight inches of bulletproof glass seeks to impose on the Western world.

Obama hits a wall in Berlin.  [Scroll down]  Shifting his strange focus from Russia's nuclear weapons, Obama said "we can... reject the nuclear weaponization that North Korea and Iran may be seeking."  Were Obama given to saying such stuff off the cuff, this would be a good reason for handcuffing him to a teleprompter.  But, amazingly, such stuff is put on his teleprompter and, even more amazing, he reads it aloud.  Neither the people who wrote those words nor he who spoke them can be taken seriously.

Barack Obama's really bad trip.  Berlin hadn't seen bombing like this since the allies turned the city into a wasteland in the spring of 1945, when American B-17s and B-24s, British Lancasters and Russian heavy artillery took turns making the rubble bounce.  This week the bomb was the bomber himself, and when the day was done, the legend of the irresistible eloquence of Barack Obama lay in shreds and tatters.

World Without Boundaries.  So easy it would be to tune the president out, to dismiss his words as clichés, to examine his actions instead of his speeches.  But that would be a mistake.  Falling walls matter to Barack Obama, and it is important to know why. [...] Obama aligned himself in his Wednesday speech with one of the founders of modern liberalism, Immanuel Kant, "who taught us that freedom is the 'un-originated birthright of man, and it belongs to him by force of his humanity.'"  Kant's world, Obama's world, the liberal world, is one of autonomous and enlightened individuals, shorn of attachment, living under republican governments in a global order of perpetual peace.

The Obama Age of Proliferation.  Mr. Obama returned this week to Berlin to give his long-promised speech laying out his plans to rid the world of nuclear weapons.  His idea is to remove those weapons initially and primarily from American hands.  North Korea and Iran each got a single line in his speech, which is at least more than he gave to China, which is investing heavily in the world's third largest nuclear arsenal.

Krauthammer: Obama's Berlin speech 'self-indulgent, anachronistic and adolescent'.  "Obama gave a speech in Germany this week," Krauthammer said.  "Was it a) a stirring defense of the United States and the concept of liberty, like Reagan and Kennedy; b) a mediocre mush of platitudes; c) the worst presidential speech on foreign affairs in memory; or d) self-indulgent, anachronistic and adolescent?"

Obama's Rhetoric Little Noted nor Long Remembered.  MSNBC's Chris Matthews tried to excuse Mr. Obama's flat Berlin performance by saying the sun was glaring and he couldn't read his teleprompter.  Chris ought to remember that the sun was even more intense on the day after a blizzard in January, 1961, when John F. Kennedy took the oath as president.  Still, Kennedy, hatless and wearing his mourning coat in 20-degree weather, delivered an unforgettable Inaugural Address.


Global warming speech, Georgetown University, June 25, 2013

The president plans to raise your power bill.  If you accept the science of global warming, then you accept the fact that the president's unilateral action on climate change will have absolutely no effect in terms of adjusting the global thermostat to a temperature Obama finds desirable.  The rest of the developing world, anchored by India and China, are building carbon-burning factories, power plants and even whole new cities that will overwhelm any new rules the president may impose on Americans and our struggling economy.

Obama's Fundamental Transformation of a Nation He Despises.  [Scroll down]  Now, with the help of "extreme weather" coverage on every mainstream news service, he has been ginning up another crisis as the pretext for sweeping regulation of the entire economy.  And just last week, in a speech at Georgetown University, he has announced what that regulation will cover.  It will cover just about everything.  Every activity that uses energy, or that used energy in its manufacture or requires energy for its maintenance, will be regulated — not by Congress but by the president directly.  That is the strategy behind Obama's new pronouncements on the "social cost" of carbon emissions. [...] But what is the "social cost" of carbon?  It is the cost of future climate events that "might result" from increased carbon emissions.

Obama to unveil climate plan in Tuesday speech.  People consulting with White House officials on Obama's plan, to be unveiled Tuesday [6/25/2013] at Georgetown University, say they expect him to put forth regulations on heat-trapping gases emitted by existing coal-fired power plans [sic].

Tell Obama: There's No Climate Change To Fight.  Apparently President Obama will announce yet another set of policies next month aimed at mitigating global warming.  But why?  The enemy he promises to fight simply doesn't exist.

Obama unveils climate change plan that goes around Congress.  President Obama is launching fresh battles over climate change with plans to curb emissions using executive powers that sidestep Congress — including controversial rules to cut carbon pollution from existing power plants.  The wide-ranging plan, which Obama will tout in a speech later Tuesday, also beefs up federal efforts to help deploy low-carbon and renewable energy, and has programs to help harden communities against climate-fueled extreme weather.

Obama declares a War on Coal.  An administration that throughout its 2012 election campaign denied it was waging a War on Coal has now come out and publicly declared its intention to shut down coal-fired power plants — putting hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work and sending electricity prices skyrocketing.  This is not what the American people voted for.

Obama orders new rules on coal-fired plants, sets condition for Keystone pipeline.  President Obama pressed ahead Tuesday with his climate change agenda, calling for new regulations on coal-fired power plants and setting a new condition for the approval of the controversial Keystone pipeline.  "We need to act," Obama said, in an address at Georgetown University.  Even before he spoke, the president's proposal drew condemnation from the coal industry and lawmakers whose states rely on that industry for jobs.

Obama: driving a green dagger into the heart of the American dream.  When it comes to pinpointing the nadir of the Obama administration, future historians are going to suffer a serious case of option paralysis.  Was it Benghazi?  The NSA?  His use of the IRS to harass the Tea party?  The various scandals involving his black ops department, the EPA?  Obamacare?  Personally, though, I think the one they will eventually plump for is Obama's Climate Action Plan of June 25 2013.  The economy, after all, is everything.  Without an economy you can't afford a domestic policy, let alone a foreign policy.  So you'd think the very last thing any president would do as his country began to show the first vague signs of slow — and quite possibly illusory — recovery after a long recession would be to jeopardise it with a whole new raft of utterly pointless regulation and wasteful government expenditure.

Obama: The Man With A Climate Change Plan.  We hoped Obama might moderate his green ambitions in the face of the shift in the climate change discussion.  Global warming has slowed significantly in recent years, and we're gradually learning just how feeble our understanding of our planet's climate is.  Given this uncertainty, emulating Europe by pushing through growth-constricting green policies to meet targets based on fallible climate models would be a huge mistake.  Unfortunately, Obama didn't mention any of this in his speech, instead insisting that the science is settled.

WH Climate Adviser: 'A War on Coal Is Exactly What's Needed'.  Daniel P. Schrag, a White House climate adviser and director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment, tells the New York Times "a war on coal is exactly what's needed."  Later today, President Obama will give a major "climate change" address at Georgetown University.  "Everybody is waiting for action," Schrag tells the paper.  "The one thing the president really needs to do now is to begin the process of shutting down the conventional coal plants.  Politically, the White House is hesitant to say they're having a war on coal.  On the other hand, a war on coal is exactly what's needed."
[Emphasis in original.]

OFA talking points: Don't mention cost or impact of Obama's environmental policies.  An environmental official working on behalf of Organizing for Action, the Obama administration's advocacy group, sent out a memo to supporters and pro-Obama pundits, warning them to avoid using "economic arguments" to defend the president's new policies that could put a damper on coal plants and the Keystone Pipeline project.  Ken Berlin, who is General Counsel for the Coalition for a Green Capital and chairman of OFA's Energy and Environment Team, also warned people to not "over-promise on the impacts taking action will have."

President Obama's recently proposed policies will do little to combat climate change — but they will do much for his political and economic objectives.
"Carbon Pollution" and Wealth Redistribution.  No crisis should go to waste, an eternal truth highlighted in bold by a purported climate change apocalypse that is now the target of actions newly proposed by President Obama.  This so-called "crisis" will flood not various coastlines, but instead the front pages, replacing other, less flattering political headlines for the administration.  And if the proposed actions offer the potential of sizeable wealth transfers to political allies?  That is far more than mere icing on the cake.  Whatever the weakness of the evidence on greenhouse gases and climate effects, the real goal of carbon policy is a regional redistribution of wealth [...]

Obama Announces Plan to Save the Earth from a Problem That Doesn't Exist.  Obama has failed to fix the economy or win the war in Afghanistan, but give him an imaginary problem and he's on it like Michelle on a glazed poundcake.  Even major liberal media outlets are admitting that the whole Global Warming thing isn't panning out.  So that's the perfect time for His Majesty Barack I, Protector of the Planet from the Carbon Devil, to announce that he will be bypassing Congress and going all Imperial Presidency on a problem that even its enthusiastic backers are backing away from.  While raising electricity rates sky high.

The radical ideologue in chief can no longer stand the heat, nor apparently his country.
Obama's Climate Obsession.  In a speech at Georgetown University on Tuesday, Obama laid out his new "climate action plan," which regurgitates every radical and ridiculous environmentalist talking point of the past several years.  This despite the fact that while carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have continued to increase (to about 400 parts per million, or about 0.04 percent of the air we breathe), the global average temperature increase "over the last 15 years was just 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.11 degrees Fahrenheit) — a value very close to zero," a trend that climate models have utterly failed to predict.

The Editor says...
Mr. Obama doesn't have an obsession with climate.  He probably couldn't answer basic questions about the climate, without the assistance of the teleprompter.  Instead, Obama has an obsession with the destruction of capitalism, and the best way to dismantle capitalism is to waste everybody's money on impossible and pointless regulations.

Barack Obama to cut emissions in vow to save planet.  Barack Obama today unveiled the most ambitious plan to counter climate change ever put forward by a US president, saying he would not condemn future generations "to a planet that is beyond fixing".  In sweeping proposals released after four years of frustrated efforts, Mr Obama ordered new curbs on carbon emissions from power plants and called for America to ready its defences against an already-changing climate.  The president also surprised environmentalists by signalling he would reject a controversial oil pipeline if it was found to "significantly exacerbate" the problem of carbon pollution.

The Editor says...
(1) There has never been a time when the climate did not change.  To say that it is "already changing" is grossly misleading.  (2) Carbon dioxide is not carbon.  (3) Carbon dioxide is not pollution.  (4) I would much rather take my chances with inevitable climate change than preventable tyranny.

Pricey Attack on Phantom 'Warming'.  There hasn't been much evidence of "global warming" for at least 15 years.  If anything, "cooling" has kicked in as part of an eternal cycle that stretches back through history.  But President Obama is not one to let the facts stand in the way of a beautiful theory.  Especially when it rallies his restive liberal base.  During (what else?) a speech at Georgetown University on Tuesday, Obama announced that he'll use his favorite leadership tool, executive orders, and the powers of the unelected, Nixon-era Environmental Protection Agency to end-run Congress and crack down on one of his favorite whipping boys, coal.  All in the name of fighting the phantom menace of climate change and in particular carbon emissions.

Obama's Carbon Scam Jeopardizes Keystone Jobs.  'Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation's interest," the president said in his speech on climate change.  "And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution."  As with Benghazi, President Obama must not talk to the State Department much.  For in March, for the second time, the department, tasked with ultimate approval of Keystone XL because it crosses an international boundary, said Keystone XL will have no net impact on so-called greenhouse gas emissions.

Europe exits climate money pit as Obama jumps in.  What does America have to show for the billions of taxpayer dollars spent to stop climate change?  Is the climate better now because of 20 years of throwing money at it?  The issue is the climate, not the loads of exorbitantly expensive subsidy scandals, secretive scientists and bureaucratic claptrap we've generated to allegedly stop climate change.  The question is, did the claptrap make the climate better?

'Carbon Pollution' and Wealth Redistribution.  No crisis should go to waste, an eternal truth highlighted in bold by a purported climate change apocalypse that is now the target of actions newly proposed by President Obama.  This so-called "crisis" will flood not various coastlines, but instead the front pages, replacing other, less flattering political headlines for the administration.  And if the proposed actions offer the potential of sizeable wealth transfers to political allies?  That is far more than mere icing on the cake.

Obama's War on Prosperity.  Four years ago [President Obama] began his Inauguration by announcing that fossil fuels were a thing of the past and that we would now get our energy from "wind, sun and soil."  He spent the next four years trying unsuccessfully to push cap-and-trade through Congress and subsidizing a bunch of scraggly "renewable energy" projects that haven't produced much of anything except a few notable scandals.  Now with unemployment still pushing 8 percent, with participation in the work force at a historic low of 62 percent, with the economy limping along in a five-year doldrums, and with the financial system starting to tremble as Ben Bernanke lets up the pressure on interest rates, the President has decided to stake his second term on — another initiative against coal!

More about President Obama's intentional destruction of the American economy.

Coal-state Dems chisel away at Obama climate plan.  Coal-state Democrats have been as scathing as any Republican in reaction to the president's plan, unveiled Tuesday in a speech at Georgetown University.  The pushback was almost immediate, and a glaring signal of the trouble Obama may encounter as he charges ahead with new restrictions on coal-fired power plants.

Seattle Mariners, Portland Trailblazers Support Obama Global Warming Agenda.  Two professional sports team have endorsed President Barack Obama's global warming proposals.  Executives from the Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners and the National Basketball Association's Portland Trailblazers issued statements after Obama announced new environmental regulations last week.

Is Climate Change Our No. 1 Crisis, Mr. President?  The economy stagnates.  Syria burns.  Scandals lap at his feet.  China and Russia mock him, even as a "29-year-old hacker" revealed his nation's spy secrets to the world.  How does President Obama respond?  With a grandiloquent speech on climate change.  Climate change?  It lies at the very bottom of a list of Americans' concerns (last of 21 — Pew poll).  Which means that Obama's declaration of unilateral American war on global warming, whatever the cost — and it will be heavy — is either highly visionary or hopelessly solipsistic.

Obama's Climate Change Plan Telegraphs Desperation, Disconnect.  The President's Climate Change plan, which will be unveiled on Tuesday at Georgetown University, will likely receive a positive review from the environmental lobby.  The environmentalists will also do their part to give the president cover with moderates and conservatives by saying it doesn't go far enough.  But to those Americans who are still concerned about the economy, jobs and this Administration's proclivity for playing fast and loose with the Constitution, it will be further evidence of Obama's disconnect with reality and his allegiance to politics and ideology over the needs of America's families and businesses.

EPA Growth Knows No Limits.  Last week, President Obama rolled out a climate plan fit for a king.  In his speech at Georgetown University, the president declared that since Congress won't enact climate policies, he's just going to impose them — much as would a king.  Simply put, the president is using Congressional inaction as a pretext for a climate policy power grab, and that is very troubling.  Alas, it is only the latest development in a worrying accumulation of authority at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Obama pledges carbon limits at power plants, says Keystone can't raise greenhouse gases.  President Obama on Tuesday called for the first-ever U.S. limits on carbon emissions at existing power plants and vowed to block the Keystone XL pipeline if its construction would exacerbate greenhouse gases, outlining a series of executive actions to combat climate change and igniting a fierce debate over environmental policy in Washington.

Obama should confront climate change fantasies.  President Obama's new climate policies outlined Tuesday include both brilliant and useless ideas.  The confusion stems from Obama's unwillingness to confront three climate fantasies:
  •   Renewables are a major part of the solution today.  No, they are almost trivial.  Today, the world gets 81% of its energy from fossil fuels — by 2035, in the most green scenario, we will still get 79% from fossil fuels. [...]
  •   Biofuels should play a major part of the solution.  No.  For now, biofuels simply diverts food into cars, driving up food prices and starvation, while clearing forests for new fields emit more CO2 than biofuels save.
  •   Efficiency can cut emissions.  No.  While efficiency is good, studies show it has little climate impact, because its savings gets eaten up by more use.  As your car gets more efficient, you drive it further, and the money you still save get used for other carbon-emitting activities.

"A dangerous, arrogant, fact-free tirade."
Blowing Smoke: Obama Climate Speech Riddled With Lies.  President Barack Obama's naïve and error-riddled speech at Georgetown University on Tuesday clearly demonstrated that he is serious about trying to stop global climate change.  However, like the tide, climate change is a natural event of such proportions that it is largely unaffected by human activities.  Obama ignores that the "official climate science" on which he bases America's climate and energy policies has been washed away by 17 years without global warming, despite atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) — the gas Obama blames for rising temperatures — continuing to increase primarily due to the emissions of China and India.

Obama's Climate Plan Has No New Ideas, But Would Make Economy Worse.  Except for resolve to curb carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from existing power plants, this manifesto either doubles down on the subsidized green energy programs of his first term or creates mushy-to-the-point-of-meaningless new programs to weather (extreme) weather.  The president's thinly veiled plans to eliminate coal from our nation's energy supply would undermine the reliability, affordability and adequacy of electricity.  Although natural gas has rapidly gained ground in the power mix, coal still provides 40% of this country's electric power.  Ethanol, wind and any source labeled green already increase the costs of food, fuel and electricity.

Obama's Climate Change Speech Ignores Science & EU Experience.  President Obama was playing to his most extreme "green" constituency in his climate and energy speech at Georgetown University today, blasting global warming skeptics as "flat-earth society" ostriches with their heads in the sand.  President Obama said he does not have "patience for anyone who denies that this problem is real."

Obama Launches New Global Warming Video as Phony "Consensus" Crumbles.  The president seems to be unaware that even top climate alarmists have admitted that there has been no evidence of global warming for at least the past 15 years. [...] The president's energy program, outlined in [a] White House Fact Sheet and detailed in "The President's Climate Action Plan," both released today [6/25/2013], would place onerous new restrictions on coal fired power plants and other fossil fuels and would direct billions more dollars into funding "renewable energy" sources, such as solar and wind.

The Top 5 Lies Of Obama's Climate Change Speech.  President Obama is being lauded for his plans to restrict carbon dioxide emissions.  But the scheme looks more like the last refuge of a desperate movement, because the speech he gave in its defense was full of lies.  Al Gore called Obama's Tuesday presentation at Georgetown University a "terrific and historic speech."  It was not an honest message, though.  His text was laden with myths, fables, distortions and outright lies.

Beware! Media Will Support Obama's Climate Lies.  At the heart of the President's speech is his reference to "carbon pollution."  It has no scientific basis.  You will not read that in Wednesday's newspapers, nor hear it on radio and television unless you are tuned to conservative media.  The claim that carbon dioxide (CO2) is a pollutant is absurd insofar as it is, next to oxygen, the second most vital gas for life on planet Earth.  It is responsible for the growth of all vegetation, including crops vital to feeding humanity and the livestock on which they depend as a food source.

Mr. President, It's Not "Carbon Pollution" It's the "Elixir of Life!"  On June 25th, President Obama unveiled his plan to reduce what he refers to as "carbon pollution" — the emission of gaseous carbon dioxide into the air that primarily results from the burning of fossil fuels.  In discussing the rationale for his plan, the President claims that carbon dioxide, or CO2, "causes climate change and threatens public health" and that "cutting carbon pollution will help keep our air and water clean and protect our kids."  Unfortunately, President Obama's statements could not be further from the truth.

Global Warming: There's Nothing To Fight Against.  On Tuesday, President Obama will lay out his plan for fighting climate change at a speech at Georgetown University.  He's expected to announce a regime for regulating greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants.  This from the same politician who in 2008 as presidential candidate promised that his administration would bankrupt anyone who wanted "to build a coal-powered plant."  So no new coal plants plus new regulatory authority that puts the government boot on existing power plants' necks.  From where does this president think electricity will come?

EPA Growth Knows No Limits.  Last week, President Obama rolled out a climate plan fit for a king.  In his speech at Georgetown University, the president declared that since Congress won't enact climate policies, he's just going to impose them — much as would a king.  Simply put, the president is using Congressional inaction as a pretext for a climate policy power grab, and that is very troubling.  Alas, it is only the latest development in a worrying accumulation of authority at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Coal industry threatened by stringent new EPA standards.  The Obama administration has rejected accusations it has launched a "war on coal."  But it presses ahead with yet more carbon regulation.  In a speech at Georgetown University on June 25, President Obama said, "I am directing the Environmental Protection Agency to put an end to the limitless dumping of carbon pollution from our power plants and complete new pollution standards for both new and existing power plants."  Those new "Source Performance Standards" to further limit greenhouse gases threaten the industry.


Race relations speech, July 19, 2013

O'Reilly Smacks Down Obama's Race Speech: President Has 'No Clue' How To Combat 'Gangsta Culture'.  "The sad truth is that from the president on down, our leadership has no clue, no clue at all about how to solve problems within the black community," O'Reilly said.  "And many are frightened to even broach the issue.  That's because race hustlers and the grievance industry have intimidated the so-called 'conversation,' turning any valid criticism of African-American culture into charges of racial bias."

Facing Facts about Race.  The president, I think, spoke out for three reasons:  1) He is an unbound, lame-duck president, with a ruined agenda, facing mounting ethical scandals; from now on, he will say things more consonant with being a community organizer than with being a nation's president;  2) he knows the federal civil-rights case has little merit and cannot be pursued, and thus wanted to shore up his bona fides with an aggrieved black community;  and 3) as with the ginned-up "assault-weapons ban" and the claim that Republicans are waging a "war on women," Obama knows, as a community activist, that tension can mask culpability [...]

Channeling King Henry II.  On July 19, President Barack Obama delivered remarks that could very well inflame racial tensions.  He could have — and should have — made a statement about the judicial process, noting the jury ruled after the prosecution put forward its best case. [...] Instead, Obama studiously ignored any mention of the Zimmerman family aside from a not-so-oblique reference to "racial profiling" — an allegation against George Zimmerman leveled by but clearly not proven by the prosecution.  He then made matters worse by saying "outcome and the aftermath might have been different" if Martin were a "white male teen."

In what alternate universe is the Trayvon Martin case a civil rights landmark?  I headed off to JFK Airport for my trip to Israel on Friday [7/19/2013] not long after Obama gave his surprise speech on the Florida jury verdict finding George Zimmerman not guilty of Second Degree Murder and Manslaughter in the killing of Trayvon Martin.  The presidential statement elevated the Martin case to a historic status in the struggle for civil rights, although a discussion of the facts of the case was noticeably absent.  Having had a subsequent 10-hour plane ride with no Wi-Fi, then some more down time, I was thrilled to see that the regular and guest authors here had taken Obama and others to task on the factual and legal absurdity of the presidential statement.

Trayvon Martin, where's your daddy?  Last Friday [7/19/2013], President Obama made the comment again:  "If I had a son..."  We all know the story.  Only this time Obama in reference to the Zimmerman verdict went further:  "It could have been me."  This is not very tasteful, especially from a sitting president.  Chris took exception to what the president said; as he put it, "if Trayvon Martin had had a daddy in the family, he might not be dead today."

It's 'Al' to the chief.  Is Al Sharpton president of the United States?  Or just attorney general?  I ask because it's not clear where the rabble-rousing rev's agenda ends and White House policy begins.  These days, they are one and the same. [...] Obama's headline-grabbing statement that "Trayvon Martin could have been me" and his attempt to justify black anger were straight out of Sharpton's playbook.

Obama's safe, overrated and airy speech.  Finally the president has spoken about George Zimmerman's acquittal.  Even as the country waited for his singular response — the nation's leader and a law professor who once looked like Trayvon Martin — the president danced around the issues.

No one asked him, so why'd Obama offer more thoughts on Trayvon Martin?  To the minor extent that Obama's been a leader, he's a reluctant one.  From behind, as in Libya, Egypt, elsewhere.  Opaque, as in Benghazi and elsewhere.  He's an exhorter, full of "you-should's" and infrequent "I will's."  Lots of "I's" in Obama talk.  Not many "We's."

Obama's Off-teleprompter Race Speech.  Much has been made of Obama's impromptu crashing of the press briefing at the White House the other day to weigh in yet again on Trayvon Martin's death.  The reception of Obama's discussion reminded me of the movie The King's Speech, where the man who would be king of England had to give just one good speech, so all of England would feel comfort.  As in the movie, I chuckled at the big deal made by "reporters" that the man who is supposed to be a great orator and "Leader of the formerly Free World" did so without his "blankie," the trusted teleprompter.

The Editor says...
How do we know there wasn't a big teleprompter at the other end of the room?

Does Obama Believe That The Zimmerman Jury Racially Profiled Trayvon?  On July 19, 2013, President Barack Obama discussed racial profiling and commented on the jury verdict in the George Zimmerman case.  Obama's statements indicate that he believes that the jury racially profiled Trayvon.  Obama said:  "The juries [sic] were properly instructed that in a case such as this reasonable doubt was relevant, and they rendered a verdict.  And once the jury has spoken, that's how our system works."

Obama Continues Racial Zimmerman Narrative While Hispanics Targeted.  Barack Obama continued to promote the evidence-free narrative that Trayvon Martin was racially profiled by Hispanic George Zimmerman in remarks made Friday.  The President said, "few African-American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed."

In Wake of Zimmerman Verdict, Obama Makes Extensive Statement on Race in America.  The White House's original plan — for Mr. Obama to address the verdict in brief interviews on Tuesday with four Spanish-language television networks — was foiled when none of them asked about it.  Instead, he appeared in the White House briefing room with no advance warning and little of the orchestration that usually accompanies presidential speeches.

Obama could be Al Sharpton 35 years from now.
'Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago'.  President Obama said Friday that Trayvon Martin, the unarmed 17-year-old shot dead last year, could have been him as a young man.  'You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son.  Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me, 35 years ago,' Obama said in a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room.

Obama: Trayvon Martin 'Could Have Been Me'.  Six days after a Florida jury acquitted a Hispanic man in the shooting death of an African-American teen, President Barack Obama made his first extensive comments on the case, speaking in personal terms about his own experience of being black in America.  "Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago," the president said in the remarks, made Friday during a surprise appearance in the White House press room.

President Obama's sad view of America.  President Obama's extensive remarks in the White House Briefing Room this afternoon were as surprising as they were gratuitous. [...] The media seems fixated on "how personal" the speech was.  I am baffled by that response.  He is the president of the United States, the only elected leader there to represent us all and to provide cohesion, but here he was channeling Oprah Winfrey.  He cheered for emotionalism and for the perspective that insists it is always about race.

Our Post-Racial President Claims to be Black.  Last Friday, President Obama made his first attempt to claim his position as the first black president. [...] On May 21, 2012, Newsweek proclaimed Barack Obama as America's first gay president.  They could have also dubbed him America's first green president.  Some entrepreneurs would name him America's first socialist president.  Nonetheless, when blacks voted last year, their faithfulness to their candidate arguably won the election for him.  Black voter loyalty had not been strongly acknowledged or rewarded publicly.  Therefore last week's address on Trayvon Martin's death was a milestone for black democratic activists.


Knox College, July 24, 2013

The first of several attempts to label his many scandals as "phony."

10 missteps Obama made at Knox.  President Obama's economic hour-long speech at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., on Wednesday was scary, not just for its statements, but for what some characterize as disregard of the rule of law.  Obama made yet another case for government spending — which he calls "investment" — on infrastructure, education, and health care.  Then he threatened to use executive power or public shaming to move his agenda if Congress failed to act.  Politicians have a right to make their case, but not to make an end run around the law.

Bored with Obama.  President Obama spoke for 66 minutes at Knox College the other day, trying one more time to change the subject and "pivot to the economy."  As he has many times before, both in campaign speeches and other talks, the president promised to expand the middle class, create jobs, and reduce inequality.  The reviews were not generally favorable.

Obama the Unembarrassable.  His speech at Knox College on the economy contained all the ingredients of a vintage Obama speech:  much fanfare about little substance; a stunning distortion of his record across the board, especially on the economy; refusal to accept responsibility and blaming others for the problems he's caused; his ludicrous portrayal of himself as an outsider pitted against the Washington political class he heads; predictable appeals to class warfare; tried-and-failed prescriptions for "growing the economy from the middle out"; his professed identification with the middle class, which his policies are devastating; his cynical dismissal as phony distractions of a raft of real administration scandals that would have brought other administrations to their knees; and an expression of affinity for government, not the American people, as the solution for all of our problems.

Obama's Pernicious Week.  At first listening, President Obama's grand pivot #19 to jobs speech before a collection of human props at Knox College was a nothingburger.  It included no new ideas.  It scolded his political opponents for having ideas of their own.  It included some talk about the economy being "poised" for growth when it has actually been poisoned against it.  It included the usual Obama nod to empty, lofty rhetoric.

Nothing 'phony' about O's scandals.  How can a man talk for more than an hour on a single topic, as Obama did on Wednesday, and say absolutely nothing new?

Nothing 'phony' about O's scandals.  What's phony about the fact that the IRS targeted citizens based on their ideology?  That the discussion of this targeting went all the way up to the president's hand-picked IRS chief counsel William Wilkins?  That Wilkins met with Obama in April 2012 just two days before "new guidance" on how to handle Tea Party applications was sent from Washington to IRS operatives?

Obama's hunt for a legacy — the politics of division.  With his signature second-term agenda priorities — gun control and amnesty — all but dead, President Obama has once again begun to search for someone — anyone — to blame.  See, none of this is his fault.  Five years of sky-high unemployment, an out-of-control federal deficit, spending run amok, gas prices twice what they were in 2008:  Not His Fault.

Mother of slain Benghazi victim Sean Smith: 'My son is dead. How could that be phony?'.  The mother of a Benghazi victim is furious about the new White House strategy of calling the terrorist attack and many other scandals plaguing the Obama administration "fake" or "phony."  Patricia Smith, mother of Sean Smith, who was slain in the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack, lashed out on "Your World" on the Fox News Channel about that terminology.

Victims slam Obama's "phony scandals" talking point.  If the Left can confer Absolute Moral Authority status upon the likes of Sandra Fluke, conservatives sure[ly] ought to acquaint the American public with women like Becky Gerritson and Patricia Smith.

Which scandals does Obama think are "phony"?  Lots of righties are asking this question after O tossed it into his snooze of a speech.  And it's not just O.  Remember, Carney sneered about pretend scandals yesterday too in his skirmish with Scarborough on "Morning Joe."  This is, it seems, an official White House talking point, adopted by The One himself.  Somehow, after five years and several thousand "pivots" to stupid and/or dangerous left-wing agenda wishlist items, the White House has decided that all it really wants to talk about is the economy [...]

Obama talks up economy, hits Republicans on 'phony scandals'.  President Obama on Wednesday dismissed a series of controversies dogging his administration as "phony" in remarks that represented a clear shift in White House tactics.  "With an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball," Obama said in an economic address at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill.  Obama's comments marked an inflection point in the way the administration has been dealing with a raft of controversies, many of which the White House has previously suggested were substantive.

The Editor says...
Obama's many scandals are not phony.  At least two of them have had deadly consequences.

Are media buying into 'phony scandal' claim?  Conservative leaders allege the media are trying to ignore the once high-profile scandals overshadowing the Obama administration, as President Obama and his aides aggressively push the claim that these controversies are "phony."  The "phony scandal" line was the unofficial talking point of the week in Washington.  White House Press Secretary Jay Carney made it his fallback retort from the podium — when asked about the president's new wave of speeches on the economy, Carney explained Obama was trying to refocus Washington away from "fake" controversies.

Reporters Tell Obama His Ideas are "Great"?  We have all heard about liberal media bias, but this is just over the top. [...] In his speech that lasted over an hour yesterday [7/24/2013], President Obama said reporters praise his economic proposals as "great and tell him that they are "all good ideas".  The speech which droned on for what seemed like ages, presented no new ideas and was dismissive of serious concerns with his administration.

Omission Watch: Networks Skip Clip of Obama Boasting Reporters Say He Has 'Good Ideas' That 'Sound Great'.  One snippet of Obama's speech in Galesburg, Illinois is getting left out of the TV news packages for perhaps obvious reasons.  Obama announced yesterday that reporters are with him in thinking his socialist plans are "good ideas" and "sound great," but Republicans will never back them.  This might also make it sound like there's zero overlap between "reporters" and "Republicans."

Obama Blames the GOP for His Lousy Economic Record.  Obama is going out on the road to maintain and bolster what popularity he retains because there is a huge portion of the population that continues to ignore the failure of his stimulus program, the Benghazi scandal, the growing scandal within the Internal Revenue Service, the revelation that the NSA is tracking and retaining records of all our electronic communications, and most obviously the lavish lifestyle of Obama that permits him take his family on an "official" trip to Africa that cost of $100 million, soon to be followed by another vacation in Martha's Vineyard.

President Alinsky Threatens Americans with Rising 'Social Tensions'.  You can take the community organizer out of the South Side, but you can't take the community organizer out of the community organizer.  Today, America heard threats from the increasingly predictable President Alinsky.  "The position of the middle class will erode further," Mr. Obama said.  "Inequality will continue to increase, money's power will distort our politics even more.  Social tensions will rise, as various groups fight to hold on to what they have, start blaming somebody else for why their position isn't improving.  That's not the America we know."  This is standard-fare Das Kapital by Karl Marx.  Obama doesn't even attempt to disguise it, leaving out only the original author's name.

Obama speaks on the economy and no one cares.  Even liberals are tuning the president out when he talks about his grand ideas for stimulating the economy. [...] The fact is, there was nothing new in this, the 19th "pivot" Obama has made to the economy.  Everybody knows it, and that's why nobody paid much attention to it.

Barack Obama flops in Knox: the president's speech was a train-wreck.  It's been a rough few weeks for Barack Obama.  A wave of scandals has undermined trust in the White House, and a series of major polls has hammered the president in the first year of his second term.  Support for Obama has dropped to its lowest level in two years, with widespread public dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy.

When Did Obama Decide That The Scandals He Once Thought Were Serious Are Now 'Phony'?  On Wednesday [7/24/2013], President Barack Obama set the tone for the debate surrounding the many controversies that have plagued his administration since the spring.  The president called those scandals "phony" and denigrated those who find any worth in their investigation. But, as one prominent conservative opinion writer noted yesterday, it was not long ago that the White House was acknowledging the seriousness of the scandals he now derides as contrived.

Lights, camera, economy: Obama uses rhetoric of class warfare in jobs speech.  Deploying the rhetoric of class warfare against congressional Republicans, President Obama warned Wednesday that "social tensions will rise" if Washington doesn't take steps to reverse the growing gap between wealthy Americans and the middle class.  In a campaign-style speech at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., the president proclaimed that America during his presidency has "fought its way back" from a recession and called on voters to "pressure Congress to invest in our future" by spending more on such items as education, clean energy and infrastructure.

When Obama mails it in.  Barack Obama is bored.  You can see it in his demeanor and in his face, the way anticipation becomes melancholy.  Most of all you can hear it in his voice when he steps up to make the speech that once sent audiences into frenzy.  He's mailing it in (with postage due).

Obama's Death and Taxes Economy.  On July 24th, Obama delivered yet another economic speech in which he castigated Republicans in Congress for the sequester that he proposed, promised big economic benefits for the entire country from green energy and illegal immigration and promised to spend every one of his remaining days trying to help working people; at least those days when he isn't on the golf course, on vacation at Martha's Vineyard or delivering useless speeches.

This was written two days before the speech:
Obama's Overhyped Summer Sequel.  The White House is treating President Obama's upcoming economic speech as the "must see" event of the summer.  It's more likely to resemble all those big-budget movies this year — an overhyped flop.

Obama Calls Income Gap 'Wrong' — After Widening It.  In his speech in Illinois last week, and at events since, Obama described income inequality in the starkest terms.  "This growing inequality is morally wrong," he said, and "undermines the very essence of America."  To be sure, income inequality is a standard trope for liberals, who always use it to advocate more wealth redistribution.  And Obama's latest focus neatly coincides with his plans to push for more federal spending and taxes on the "rich" in coming budget battles.

Obama's Sloppy History Problem.  In Chicago on July 24, Obama delivered an hour-long speech in which he complained that "with this endless parade of distractions and political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball."  The mother of one of the four Americans murdered at the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi immediately objected.  "He's wrong.  My son is dead.  How could that be phony?"

Obama's Creeping Authoritarianism.  Please don't complain later that you didn't see it coming.  As always, Mr. Obama states publicly what his intentions are.  He is doing that now.  Toward the end of his speech last week in Jacksonville, Fla., he said:  "So where I can act on my own, I'm going to act on my own.  I won't wait for Congress."  (Applause.)  The July 24 speech at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., has at least four references to his intent to act on his own authority, as he interprets it:  "That means whatever executive authority I have to help the middle class, I'll use it."  (Applause.)  And:  "We're going to do everything we can, wherever we can, with or without Congress."

Obama: Do as I say, not as I do.  While his premise — work hard, succeed; loaf, fail — is spot on, he moves on in his Harvard mind to conclude, nonsensically, that succeeding while others fail is inherently unjust.  "This growing inequality is ... morally wrong," he said in Galesburg. [...] Said by the man who runs Washington — the biggest insider in the nation's capital.  And said by the man who flies in his barber from Chicago for a new fade, who has suits hand made by a private tailor, whose daughters vacation in Cancun, whose wife suns it up in Florida one day, then hits the slopes in Aspen the next — all on the taxpayers' dime.

Education Spending Soars, Test Scores Stagnate.  "If you think education is expensive, wait until you see how much ignorance costs in the 21st century," Obama declared July 24 at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill.  "If we don't make this investment, we'll put our kids, our workers, and our country at a competitive disadvantage for decades."  Obama's latest demand for even more government spending or "investment" in America's schools confirms how profoundly and irretrievably he is removed from reality.

Poll: Voters believe scandals aren't 'phony'.  A majority of voters believe the scandals embroiling the Obama administration are not "phony," according to a Fox News poll.  Voters in the Fox News poll also indicated they thought the controversies should be taken more seriously.  For example, 69 percent of voters think the controversy surrounding the National Security Agency surveillance programs should be taken seriously, while 78 percent feel the same about President Obama's handling of the terrorist attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last Sept. 11 that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

Fox poll shows "phony scandal" line playing worse that you'd think.  After an avalanche of scandals hit the White House this spring, the Obama administration adopted the public-relations strategy of calling IRS political targeting, NSA domestic snooping, and the deaths of four Americans in an utterly predictable terrorist attack on a diplomatic facility "phony scandals."  How's that working?  According to a new Fox poll, even worse than you'd think.

Green Jobs: Surely You're Joking, Mr. President.  In his speech at Knox College, President Obama laid out his plan for the Detroitification of America:  higher taxes, higher spending, increased minimum wages, more mandates, and rerouting the path of upward mobility through tried-and-failed social programs.  He blames unfettered markets for taking America away from the halcyon days of the 1950s and 1960s, ignoring the phenomenal growth of taxes, spending, and regulation since then.  His promise for more of the same makes you wonder if his teleprompter has been inverting his charts and tables.


Lincoln Memorial, August 28, 2013

This is called fishing for compliments.
Obama: My speech won't be as 'good' as MLK's.  As President Obama prepares to deliver a major address to mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, he's making clear that his speech won't hold a candle to Martin Luther King Jr.'s seminal address.  "Let me just say for the record right now, it won't be as good as the speech 50 years ago," said Obama, who added that he was still working on the address that he will deliver from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Wednesday.

President Obama's flat and uninspiring message to America: I have a big government dream.  Barack Obama's speech on the 50th anniversary of MLK's Washington address was an opportunity to bring Americans together and unite the country in memory of a greatly revered American leader.  Instead, as my colleague Tim Stanley pointed out in his excellent piece, this was a deeply partisan speech, filled with campaign-style rhetoric.

The Editor says...
That's the only speech Obama knows — the campaign speech.  And even after delivering the same speech on so many occasions, he still has to read it from a teleprompter.

The March on Washington commemoration didn't live up to the original.  "It won't be as good as the speech 50 years ago," President Obama told an interviewer.  Obama fulfilled his prediction.

Barack Obama uses the March on Washington to attack his opponents.  Barack Obama's speech on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington was classic Obama:  beautifully delivered, moving, deceptive, divisive, frustrating.  And, of course, it was far more about Barack Obama than it was Martin Luther King Jr.

Government and Segregation.  Mr. Obama made a point to emphasize that Martin Luther King Jr. had sought not only racial equality but also economic advancement.  This is true, and now as then it is a noble ambition that conservatives as much as liberals share.  But then Mr. Obama tried to yoke that King aspiration to our current political debates, and here his rhetoric turned to a too-familiar politics of polarization.

President Obama's (Un)Memorial Speech.  The 50th anniversary of the March on Washington was obviously a momentous occasion.  What a shame, then, to see it marred by speeches that made it sound more like a campaign event.  Some of the things said were patently absurd, like Bill Clinton's claiming it was tougher to vote than to buy an assault rifle.  But watching President Obama's speech was almost painful.  He took what could have been a great moment and turned it into a dirge on class warfare and the terrible civil-rights violation caused by "corporate profits soar[ing]."


Press conference, Stockholm, Sweden, September 4, 2013

Blurred Red Lines.  President Obama isn't easy to follow up San Juan Hill, or for that matter even Capitol Hill.  Rather than walk point on national security, he prefers to blend in with the enlisted men and women.  Consider his astonishing statement on Wednesday [9/4/2013] at a press conference in Stockholm about his comments last year drawing a "red line" on the use of chemical weapons by Bashar Assad in Syria.  "First of all, I didn't set a red line," the President said.  "The world set a red line.  The world set a red line when governments representing 98% of the world's population said the use of chemical weapons are abhorrent and passed a treaty forbidding their use even when countries are engaged in war.  "Congress set a red line when it ratified that treaty.[..."]

The Buck Stops Here.  "First of all, I didn't set a red line," Barack Obama said today at a press conference in Stockholm.  "The world set a red line.  The world set a red line when governments representing 98% of the world's population said the use of chemical weapons are [sic] abhorrent and passed a treaty forbidding their use, even when countries are engaged in war."

The Editor says...
This is more proof that Barack H. Obama can't get a subject and verb to agree, even verbally or in print.

Obama's 'red line' remarks on Syria were a train wreck.  President Obama has done himself no favours today [9/4/2013] with his disingenuous statements on Syria in Stockholm alongside Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.  As The Weekly Standard first reported, Barack Obama claimed "he didn't set a red line" on Syria's use of chemical weapons, arguing that "the world set a red line" when it passed the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention prohibiting the use of chemical weapons.  He also declared that his credibility isn't on the line, but Congress's credibility, America's credibility and the international community's credibility is at stake if military action isn't taken on Syria.

Obama's Half-Assad War.  In Obama's 2002 speech against the Iraq war, he scoffed at "armchair weekend warriors" who pursue "dumb" and "rash" interventions. [...] In his 2002 speech, Obama said that "petty dictators" don't justify military intervention, that Saddam Hussein posed no "imminent threat" to the U.S., that war would divert attention from domestic problems, and that a poorly conceived war would "fan the flames" of the Middle East and make a bad situation worse.  Substitute "Syria" for "Iraq" in the speech and one has a decent rejoinder to his Saturday announcement:  Assad is a petty dictator; he hasn't attacked the U.S.; this is a wag-the-dog diversion by a floundering president; the lack of any coherent strategy is sure to destabilize Syria and boost Islamic radicals.

Crown O Clown in Chief.  The Los Angeles Times quotes a U.S. official who says President Obama wants an attack "just muscular enough not to get mocked." [...] But how can we not mock a president who says he's "made the decision" that military action against Assad is a moral imperative and essential to U.S. security; and that he's "made a second decision" to not make a decision but to wait for Congress to decide.  A president making these two completely contradictory statements is bad.  But to make them in the same speech?

About the Syria red line that Obama drew, he now claims it was someone else.  You probably could have anticipated this.  When President Obama gets in trouble, he either has no idea about the wrongdoing (think IRS, FBI).  Or it was someone else's fault.  (You-know-who from Texas.)  Now, we know that the red line statement Obama made as president 381 days ago about how any Syrian use of chemical weapons "would change my calculus" wasn't really Obama's fault.  According to Obama, although it looked just like the American president standing at the little podium with no teleprompter in the White House Briefing Room, that modest man was actually speaking on behalf of the entire world.  "I didn't set a red line; the world set a red line," Obama claims.

Obama lies to the world: I didn't set a red line.  This morning in a press conference in Sweden, Obama denied before the entire world that he set a red line, trying to spin it as 'the world set a red line' or something.  [Video clip]

Quagmire at Home.  Republicans also have reason to suspect that Obama's decision to request congressional approval was an effort to put them on the spot — and his ludicrous denial yesterday that he "set a red line" or that his credibility is at stake reinforces that view.  The fierce watchdogs of the press, confronted with this brazen falsehood, show themselves once again to be Obama's pet hamsters.


Presidential address, September 10, 2013

Obama's Strange FDR Quotation.  Near the end of his speech to the nation on Syria, President Obama quoted Franklin Roosevelt:  "Our national determination to keep free of foreign wars and foreign entanglements cannot prevent us from feeling deep concern when ideas and principles that we have cherished are challenged."  Which of FDR's stirring wartime speeches does this quotation come from?  None of them.

Obama's Syria speech: An illogical argument from a paralyzed president.  After a week or so of political whiplash, the country heard directly from President Obama as he tried to explain his policy.  The speech was exceptionally revealing in the logical disconnect that plagues his policy.

No passion, no new arguments as Barack Obama restates unpopular case for Syria strike.  It was billed as a historic address to the nation, but when Barack Obama spoke to the American people on Syria, he delivered only a short history of the arguments that have already failed to persuade the public and the US Congress of the need for military action.

Barack Obama's Syria speech was an incoherent mess.  Billed as a game-changer on Syria, the President's White House address landed with a thud that could be heard as far away as Damascus.  Barack Obama has a huge credibility problem on Syria and on foreign policy in general, and Tuesday night's speech will do nothing to help that.  As Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer put it on Fox News, it was "one of the most odd presidential speeches ever delivered," with no clear-cut strategy laid out, while urging Congress to delay a vote on the use of force against Assad's regime.

Obama's Syria speech almost irrelevant.  "The US military does not do pinpricks."  That was about the only good line in a speech by President Barack Obama that may not have won many converts.  He stood behind a podium rather than sitting at the desk in the Oval Office, and made a speech that was clear but almost entirely lacking in passion and devoid of new arguments.  Indeed, the first two-thirds seemed cut and pasted from earlier speeches.

Syria Tells You Everything You Need to Know About Barack Obama.  The good news is we're not at war.  The bad news is ... almost everything else about President Obama's handling of Syria — the fumbling and flip-flopping and marble-mouthing — undercut his credibility, and possibly with it his ability to lead the nation and world.  As he addressed a global audience Tuesday night, liberal elites blindly accepted White House fiction that Russian intervention this week was somehow part of Obama's master plan.

Obama Cuts Syria Speech to 15 Minutes, Will Pitch Diplomacy and War.  McClatchy chief correspondent Mark Seibel reports on Tuesday evening that President Obama's speech on Syria will last just 15 minutes.  That is a massive downgrade from most addresses to the nation.  The theme of the address has also reportedly shifted from a pitch for military action against Syria to a triumphal announcement that negotiations are underway.

No longer 'Fundamental Transformation of America' but the Free World.  The unquenchable ego of President Barack Hussein Obama is rebuilding the Russian bear and destabilizing the entire Free World.  With 13 questionable US government YouTubes showing that chemical attacks did take place on August 21 in Syria — with no proof who was responsible for them — Obama, who was trying to advance World War III — merely stumbled back into his own trap.  And that's only if he's not part of the Putin act.  Last night's address to the nation proved a walk back on the 'Highly propagandized America Attack on Syria'.  Russian president Vladimir Putin came out of this one like a John Wayne movie hero.

Krauthammer: 'One of the most odd presidential speeches ever delivered'.  Krauthammer decried Obama's message for giving Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposal so much weight.  "That's what makes this one of the most odd presidential speeches ever delivered," Krauthammer said.  "Here is a president who urgently addresses the nation on all channels to call for a pause in assuming that the nation does not want to do in the first place.  This is, you know, almost unbelievable.  And the fact that he puts so much weight on the Russian proposal, which is a farce."

Obama's Syria address to the nation flops.  It was all too obvious last night that the only reason President Obama gave his speech to the nation was that it would have been too embarrassing to cancel it.  The result was inconsistent and unsatisfying at any level.  Obama commandeered the nation's airwaves to call for a "diplomatic pause" in a Congressional vote he requested to affirm a military threat to enforce a red line he doesn't take responsibility for.

Obama calls for hold on his Syria attack that Americans didn't want anyway.  Obama tried to make the best of it in his speech, which was a good one as a start educating Americans.  But it was at least six months tardy to convince anyone now.  And prime-time presidential addresses are supposed to be important.  This one ended up being an announcement that Obama was asking Congress to stop doing what he had just asked it to do, even though he maintains he didn't really need to, but he's still really serious because gas attacks are awful.

Media underwhelmed by Obama's double message.  Fox's Charles Krauthammer saw the Obama message as "we will do this if we have to," but put it "on the back burner."  CNN's John King said he had never seen a president "say I'm trying to prepare you for a Plan B."  CBS's Bob Schieffer hinted at a bit of face-saving, because "he was almost certainly going to lose this vote" on Capitol Hill.

10 reasons why it's now worse.  President Obama had gotten himself into quite a bind going into his Tuesday night speech on Syria.  But he made things much worse because of an incoherent speech, which even former officials are blasting.

Obama Acts Like He Doesn't Know He's an Executive-Power Extremist.  It's often hard to tell if President Obama is lying to the American people or to himself.  Is he willfully misrepresenting who he is?  Or is he blind to his true self?  Over the last five years he has repudiated many of the positions he took in 2008, but still talks like and perhaps likes to think of himself as the man who ran on change.  A passage from his Tuesday speech on Syria provides a striking example.

The fruits of epic incompetence.  That "strike Syria, maybe" speech begins with a heart-rending account of children consigned to a terrible death by a monster dropping poison gas.  It proceeds to explain why such behavior must be punished.  It culminates with the argument that the proper response — the most effective way to uphold fundamental norms, indeed human decency — is a flea bite:  something "limited," "targeted" or, as so memorably described by Secretary of State John Kerry, "unbelievably small."

Hamlet should be on stage, not in the Oval Office.  President Obama can agonize and debate all likes — behind closed doors.  We don't need to and should not see a president think out loud and champion irresoluteness, as we saw this Tuesday night and over the last few weeks.  We don't elect presidents to be the "equivocator" or the "vacillator."  The left passes indecision off as thoughtfulness, trying to make a fatal flaw into a virtue.

Barack Obama, the 98-pound weakling.  The moral imperative is clear, he argued.  We cannot let dictators get away with this.  On the other hand, the United States can't be expected to solve all the world's problems, either.  Therefore, the way ahead is to outsource U.S. foreign policy on Syria to ... Vladimir Putin!  So much for the credibility of the world's only superpower.

More about Obama's wag-the-dog war in Syria.


Economics speech, September 16, 2013
A partisan campaign speech delivered while there was a shooting spree underway at a nearby Navy base.

Yesterday, Obama Was Not My President — or Yours.  On Monday [9/16/2013], while the death toll mounted at the Navy Yard, President Barack Obama delivered a strident partisan tirade against Republicans, using the fifth anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse to score political points ahead of the debt ceiling debate. [...] Speaker of the House John Boehner said that Obama's speech was a "shame."  Charles Krauthammer said that it was in "extremely bad taste."  It was worse than that.  It was an insult to the victims and their families, a slap in the face to the nation as a whole, a dereliction of the simplest duty of empathy and discretion.

Obama: "Republicans In Congress Don't Seem To Be Focused On How To Grow The Economy".  ["]So far, their budget ideas revolve primarily around even deeper cuts to education.  Even deeper cuts that would gut the scientific research and development.  Even deeper cuts to America's infrastructure investment.  Our roads, bridges, schools, and energy grid.  These are not the policies that would grow the economy faster.  They are not the policies that would help grow the middle class.  In fact, they do the opposite.["]

The Editor says...
Every sentence of Mr. Obama's tirade was either false, misleading, or deceptive, as far as I could tell.

Obama Defends Economic Record, Rips GOP as DC Attack Unfolds.  Just minutes after the Washington DC police chief said that two shooters might still be on the loose in the Navy Yard mass murders, President Obama held a previously scheduled event to defend his economic record.

Carney: Obama Implementing Executive Actions Following Navy Yard Shooting.  President Barack Obama on Monday wearily lamented "yet another mass shooting," this time in the nation's capital where the debate that raged earlier this year over tightening firearms laws has stalled amid opposition from gun-rights advocates.

What is Obama afraid of?  What mania could have compelled the president to take partisan swipes and accuse Republicans of being unpatriotic while police were in the middle of a manhunt after a mass shooting at a naval base just a few miles from the White House? [...] The president certainly knew the shooting was taking place and that the manhunt was underway, referencing both in introductory remarks before going into his standard stump speech assailing Republicans in the ongoing budget battle, now in its third year.  It had been more three hours since the news broke.

Despite mass shooting, Obama delivers partisan economic speech.  There's something seriously wrong with the mind of President Obama.  As parts of Washington, DC remained on lockdown after a mass shooting at the Navy yard near Capitol Hill, Obama delivered a partisan speech on the economy that was previously scheduled.  You would think he would have postponed his attack on his opponents until the DC shooters were apprehended and the bodies of those murdered weren't still warm.

Also posted under Is Obama Sane?

Obama Goes to War.  Presidents traditionally try to reach a rough domestic consensus if they are faced with going to war abroad.  Mr. Obama wants to smooth everything over abroad so he can get back to his favorite pursuit of declaring war at home.  At least that's how it's gone the last week, as Mr. Obama all but wrapped up that ghastly business in Syria and turned his attention to the real enemy — Republicans.

The Nation's Fiscal Crisis Just Got Far Worse.  One day after President Obama bragged about how fast the deficit is declining, the Congressional Budget Office reported that the government is in far worse fiscal shape than it previously thought. [...] Obama said Monday that "by the end of this year, we will have cut our deficits by more than half since I took office."  It's not that Obama and Co. have suddenly gotten religion when it comes to fiscal responsibility.  They simply see the current deficit decline as an excuse to abandon all spending restraint.  But the CBO's latest long-term budget report shows that any such celebration is woefully premature.

CNN isn't quite sure... Did Obama strike the wrong tone on Monday?  The White House defended President Barack Obama from criticism that he was tone deaf in his reaction to the mass shootings at Washington Navy Yard.  For a second straight day, White House press secretary Jay Carney faced questions about a Monday afternoon event that occurred as the situation at the Navy Yard was still unfolding.

Krauthammer: Obama's "Hyperpartisan" Economic Speech in "Extremely Bad Taste".  On Special Report, tonight, Charles Krauthammer slammed Obama for his decision to go ahead with a previously scheduled economic speech while the the Naval Yard shooting was still unfolding, calling it "in extremely bad taste."  The speech itself, he called "hyperpartisan" while marveling at the president's "remarkable" quip that (in his magnanimous opinion), some Republicans "are decent."  To do this within minutes of 13 Naval employees — brave Americans who lie dead — was in extremely bad taste," Krauthammer noted with great disdain.

If only Obama were just a fake.  Dear Mr. President,  It didn't seem possible, but you shocked me.  After lowering my expectations for you, from very high five years ago to bottom-of-the-barrel now, I figured you could never again disappoint me.  But you did it.  And if your aim was to further diminish respect for the office you hold, mission accomplished.  The content of Monday's hyperpartisan speech was par for your hyperpartisan presidency, but the timing marked a new low.  Let me be clear:  Have you neither decency nor shame?

Can Barack Obama sink any lower? An out of touch president with no sense of decorum.  [New York Times columnist Maureen] Dowd reminds us that in the immediate aftermath of the brutal killing of 12 people just three miles from the White House and blocks from Capitol Hill, Barack Obama was in full campaign mode, bashing his political opponents, while families were grieving the loss of their loved ones.  Instead of speaking to the nation as the president of all Americans, he decided to proceed with a deeply partisan speech aimed at attacking conservatives over their opposition to his increasingly unpopular health care reforms.

Losing the Room.  President Obama also gave a speech Monday, talking at the White House while the drama unfolded at the supposedly secure Navy Yard nearby.  He could have posted his original remarks on the White House Web site and replaced them with a cri de coeur on gun control, or comfort for the shaken city.  The 12 who died were, after all, under his aegis as workers in a federal building.  But, jarringly, the president went ahead with his political attack, briefly addressing the slaughter before moving on to jab Republicans over the corporate tax rate and resistance to Obamacare.

Obama, Spiked For His Own Good?  President Obama barely noticed, but there was a horrific mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday. [...] It was tasteless, inappropriate, and diminishing of the presidency.  ABC, CBS, and NBC skipped over Obama's refusal to let breaking news of a gun massacre deter conservative-bashing remarks.  These were the same networks that went absolutely bonkers when Romney made what they saw as inappropriate political comments on the heels of the Benghazi attacks.

Yes, people were dying in a gunfight across town, but Obama had a speech to give.  Barack Obama has never been accused of possessing the most refined sense of appropriate, especially when it comes to what normal people regard as tragedies. [...] When a 133-foot-tall wall of tsunami water rolled 10 miles inland to kill 16,000 in Japan two years ago, Obama expressed his sorrow, then went golfing.  When bad weather canceled his trip to the funeral of Poland's president, Obama paid his respects by golfing.  As the Gulf coast economy struggled back from the nation's worst environmental disaster ever, Obama urged all Americans to vacation there.  Then, he took his family to the New England coast.  So, it should not be surprising that as heavily-armed SWAT teams combed the Washington Navy Yard Monday for at least one deranged killer, Obama took the occasion to proceed with one of his harshest partisan speeches in months.

AP: For all of Obama's "recovery" blather, the poverty rate isn't budging.  After his bizarre and widely panned decision to go forward with it just hours after the Navy Yard shooting on Monday, President Obama gave yet another speech about how much the economy has ostensibly recovered since the financial crisis five years ago. [...] Yes, it's all very interesting and compelling, I'm sure, except that by far too many measures, the middle class has only been faring worse and worse during Obama's presidency.


Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner, September 21, 2013

Obama blames NRA for gun violence.  After spending the day on the golf course Saturday, Mr. Obama spoke to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner about his priorities.  Referring to Monday's tragic shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, along with the mass murders in Newtown and Aurora in 2012, Tucson in 2011 and shootings in Chicago, he said:  "As long as there are those who fight to make it as easy as possible for dangerous people to get their hands on a gun, then we've got to work as hard as possible for the sake of our children.  We've got to be ones who are willing to do more work to make it harder."  So who is fighting to make it easy for criminals to get guns?

Obama knocks GOP lawmakers again at black caucus dinner.  President Obama used the podium at the Congressional Black Caucus' annual dinner Saturday to again rip Republicans for trying to defund U.S. healthcare reform.

It's Sanity, Not Anarchy.  His description in a speech on Saturday is an example of his unprecedented political attack mode.  He said that the House bill on funding the government would cause the government to "default for the first time in United States history," even though the bill is designed specifically to not do that and will pay for all of government except for the additional expenses of implementing ObamaCare.


UN General Assembly, September 24, 2013

Text of President Obama's speech at the U.N. General Assembly.

Obama at the U.N.: Still Absent on Freedom and Democracy.  In his speech today at the United Nations, President Obama continued his administration's odd and somewhat schizophrenic policy with respect to freedom, human rights, and democracy. [...] And Mr. Obama explains that "although we will be wary of efforts to impose democracy through military force, and will at times be accused of hypocrisy or inconsistency — we will be engaged in the region for the long haul.  For the hard work of forging freedom and democracy is the task of a generation."  Now this is very general.  How does it apply when we deal with actual American foreign policy in a particular country?  It does not.

Obama: 'World is more stable now than it was five years ago'.  President Obama told the U.N. General Assembly Tuesday morning that the "world is more stable now than it was five years ago."

The Editor says...
And he's right, with the exception of North Korea, Syria, Lybia, Egypt, Yemen, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Pakistan, Mexico, Detroit and Chicago.

Barack Obama's UN speech was pure mush.  The president's speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday was as soggy as it gets, with Mr. Obama extending the hand of friendship to Iran's new president Hassan Rouhani.  In his UN address, President Obama was eager to recycle the propaganda flowing out of Tehran in recent weeks, with the White House making a rapprochement with Iran the centerpiece of its Middle East strategy.

Obama's UN Declaration: 'The World Is More Stable Than It Was Five Years Ago'.  President Obama gave a meandering defense of U.S. policy before the United Nations General Assembly in New York today, capped by declarations of wiggle room on key issues such as Iran as he directed Secretary of State John Kerry to begin dialogue with new "reformer" Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.  Not bothering to mention the human rights of Iranians, the president's muddled message continued:  "We are not seeking regime change, and we respect the right of the Iranian people to access peaceful nuclear energy."

Our sucker-in-chief's U.N. outing.  He began by assuring the world of America's near-pacifism and lack of seriousness when it comes to fighting terrorism.  Obama cited our retreat from Iraq and Afghanistan, new limitations on the use of drones, and his "diligent" work to close Gitmo.  The world already understands your of lack of seriousness, Mr. President.  There's no need to embarrass yourself by reminding folks that, after five years, the Gitmo prison is still up and running.

Obama's U.N. Speech Showed Indifference to Freedom and Religious Minorities in Middle East.  President Obama's speech to the United Nations today displayed the tone-deafness to freedom and to the fate of non-Muslim peoples in the Middle East that he has shown since coming to office.  When he discussed Iran, a vicious dictatorship whose regime is rejected by the great majority of that nation's population, what words of encouragement did he have for the Iranian people?  None.

A Useless Obama Addresses the Useless United Nations.  I don't know who looked more pathetic when President Obama addressed the United Nations Assembly on Tuesday; him or the assembled ambassadors, many from nations where human rights, justice, and liberty don't exist.  Like the League of Nations before it, the United Nations has long since demonstrated how useless it is.

Obama's Message to the World.  Obama's speech should be read in its entirety.  The speech represents a comprehensive map of misreading, to borrow Harold Bloom's phrase.  It takes us on a tour of American interests focused on the Middle East and advertises the cluelessness that emanates from the top of the Obama administration.  The speech deserves a knowledgeable line by line annotation exposing its errors and fatuities.


Press conference, October 8, 2013

President Obama throws a tantrum at press conference — compares his opponents to hostage-takers and deadbeats.  This was a childish, as well as unpleasant, display of petulance by Mr. Obama, who treats elected officials as though they were puppets who should dance to his tune.  It was followed by an embarrassing set of hand-picked questions from a largely subservient liberal-dominated media, none of which seriously challenged the president's policies or his handling of the shutdown.  In the UK, a British prime minister would never get away with this kind of performance without a barrage of relentlessly tough questioning.

Obama's panic button still not working.  Right now the government shutdown/slimdown is a public exercise in pulling-the-wings-off-flies, with a look-how-much-pain-I-can-so-easily-inflict-upon-the-plebes kind of showcasing.  But the only one really panicking is Obama witnessed in the outrageous lies dropped in yesterday's presser.

Obama's so-called news conference: What the media failed to ask.  It sure looked like a news conference. [...] But it wasn't a news conference.  A news conference contains news, something we did not know before.  None of the nearly 10,000 words Obama uttered during those 66 minutes were new.  He's all for talking, just not negotiating.  Most of Obama's words, in fact, were old and stale stump propaganda.  Anyone accidentally overhearing even a partial newscast in recent weeks has heard Obama say the same things over and over and over again.

Unbelievable: Obama gets no questions at presser on ObamaCare rollout or shutdown theater.  It ran for one hour and six minutes, with 12 different reporters being called on — although, notably, not Ed Henry of Fox News — and between them they couldn't muster one question about the catastrophe that is Healthcare.gov or the spectacle of National Park Rangers locking senior-citizen tourists out of war memorials and/or inside their hotels.

For Obama, Little to Say That Hasn't Been Said.  That didn't keep Obama from saying it all again.


Rose Garden speech to defend Obamacare, October 21, 2013

Don't Let Obamacare Crisis go to Waste.  The constipated debut of Obamacare has reduced the president of the United States to the status of TV pitchman.  "Act now" to get this great product, he exhorted listeners on Monday, offering testimonials from one of the rare successful purchasers, promising limitless benefits and low prices, and even an 800 number.  His operators are standing by, he urged, and they speak 150 languages!

Ineptness of Obama leaves America staggering.  That was America standing behind President Obama in the Rose Garden this week as he stammered, and droned on and on, trying to explain away the epic disaster that Obamacare has become even before it has begun.

Xenophon on the Website Roll-out.  [Scroll down]  Now we move to the website.  The symbol of the incompetence in the roll out is stunning.  Where is the "smooth," the "cool" and the efficient in running things?  It would seem that the least gifted of administrators would have checked things out a while ago and begun to exercise a nudge here or there to get things going.  On top of all that some of the president's disagreeable qualities have become manifest.  Instead of fessing up like an ordinary guy and taking responsibility, we are treated to the full set of our leader's little pathologies.

Obama the Avatar.  Discussing the Obamacare disaster in the Rose Garden on Monday, President Obama led with a phrase to which we have become accustomed:  "Nobody," the president emoted, "is madder than me" about this mess.  Along with "let me be clear" and "make no mistake," this is a favorite construction.  Obama, you see, is more concerned for and correct about everything than everybody else at all times.  "Nobody shares the frustrations of the American people more than I do," he told WABC earlier this month; "nobody is more frustrated" than he about the IRS scandal; "no person," the president affirmed during the election, "is more interested" in "seeing this economy growing strong."

Obama Disassociates from Reality.  About President Obama's remarks on Monday in the Rose Garden on the matter of the problems plaguing the Affordable Care Act and, specifically, healthcare.gov, it seemed to me that they served a valuable purpose, at least to this extent:  They distilled the Obama presidency to some of its core qualities:  (a) detachment from reality; (b) misleading in its claims; (c) deeply polarizing and partisan; and (d) filled with lame excuses.  But there was another noteworthy element to what the president said.  I have in mind the pitiable quality of his remarks.  Speaking about the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Obama kept insisting — over and over and over again — how good the product is, how really and exceptionally good it is, how popular it is, and how things really and truly will work out.

Government propaganda: 'The Site Was Very Easy to Use'.  The Obama administration is even deeper in denial about the ObamaCare fiasco than the president's shockingly bewildered speech yesterday indicated.

Liberal Hates Obamacare Now, But Still Won't Admit that Ted Cruz Was Right.  As a poor executive, Obama has proven himself incapable of spotting trouble as Healthcare.gov was being built, and on Monday appeared just as ineffective as the nation's IT manager.  Obama's team know how to campaign.  They do not know how to do much else.

How Long Do They Really Have To Fix That Obamacare Website?  On Monday, President Obama addressed the problems directly for the first time.  "No one is more frustrated than me," he said, promising that technology experts from around the country were working with the administration "to get this working better, faster, sooner."  Still, he did not offer details about the scope of the problems, a timeline for the repairs, or who have successfully enrolled out of the more than 19 million visitors to the federal site.

Obamacare (As Seen On TV).  President Obama was forced into the White House Rose Garden appearance by the deluge of news stories — a deluge that would have started two weeks earlier but for the government shutdown — about the utter failure of the Obamacare website, healthcare.gov.  Americans can't log in, can't set up accounts, can't get through the security questions, can't get basic information without giving the government personal information, and most of the time, if they get that far, can't find a good product at a good price.  Instead, the few plans that have nominally small monthly premiums come with enormous deductibles and cost-sharing.

The high cost of ObamaCare deception.  President Obama's Rose Garden press conference on the ObamaCare disaster featured a group of 13 human props, lined up on stage behind him to put a face on the alleged virtues of his health care scheme.  It turns out none of them had actually purchased an ObamaCare insurance plan, and only three of them had even completed the application process.  What a perfect summary of the disastrous incompetence and fundamental dishonesty of Barack Obama's "signature achievement!"

Obamacare: A broken website is doing more damage than the Republicans.  Could bad coding succeed where Ted Cruz failed?  Yesterday, President Obama came out and gave a speech admitting that the website that is crucial to Obamacare has failed disastrously.  "The affordable care act is more than just a website", he said.  That's true of Facebook too, but the point is, the whole thing won't work without the website.

'Marketplace:' Where People Buy Compulsory Insurance With Other People's Money.  When President Barack Obama spoke in the Rose Garden on Monday to justify and explain the problems at the website his administration has created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to sell government-approved and subsidized health insurance plans, he used the word "marketplace" seventeen times.

Triumphant President Takes Victory Lap Over Huge Obamacare Success.  The appearance was more of a pep rally, replete with upbeat promises and applauding supporters.  Aides might as well have hung a large "mission accomplished" banner over Obama's head.  The fact that the Obamacare websites — a core element of the law functioning — are in total shambles and won't be fixed for many weeks or even months were all but shrugged off as an afterthought.

White House Obamacare team: Best, brightest — and a mystery.  The "best and the brightest" also appear to be the cloaked and elusive.  President Barack Obama insists he's culled the country's tech elite to help repair the mangled Healthcare.gov website.  But the administration hasn't made its smart new crew public, and any of the tech companies or federal contractors involved remain tight-lipped.

5 liberals who slammed the president's Obamacare speech.  In an address from the White House Rose Garden Monday on the less-than-stellar launch of the Obamacare online exchanges, President Obama sought to ease a worried nation.  But he didn't even succeed in assuaging the concerns of his liberal supporters in the media.

Todd Takes Carney to Task Over Obamacare Flop: 'Who Misled the President on This?'  NBC's Chuck Todd bluntly asked White House spokesman Jay Carney Monday [10/21/2013] who "misled" President Obama by letting him make promises about the Obamacare website that it has been simply unable to meet.  Carney said Obama was frustrated and focused on making improvements, but Todd kept asking who "let him down" and continued to pound away at the administration's inability to explain what has gone so wrong with the website.

ObamaCare's Rose Garden Band-Aid.  The Weekly Standard described the event as an "infomercial" where the president gave phone numbers — which by some reports didn't answer — and website information and other data, as though the problems with ObamaCare could be solved by people having that information.  The Associated Press described the event as a "health-care pep rally" that emphasized the spin:  the health care law is "more than a Website."

Healthcare.gov is walking dead.  In a White House speech Monday, President Obama assured the public that his new health-care law is up and running even in the absence of a functioning Web site.  He told people they can call an 800 number instead of buying coverage online.  Reporters duly called the number and got busy signals, or when getting through and following the directions, got referred back to healthcare.gov.  This, no doubt, is another "glitch" — the administration's catchall word for the fact that it is almost impossible to enroll for insurance under ObamaCare.

Don't Forget Obamacare's Electronic Medical Records Wreck.  The White House finally acknowledged the spectacular public disaster of Obamacare's Internet exchange infrastructure during Monday's Rose Garden infomercial.  But President Shamwow and his sales team are AWOL on the bureaucratic ravages of the federal electronic medical records mandate.  Modernized data collection is a worthy goal, of course.  But distracted doctors are seeing "more pixels than patients," Dr. DiNubile observes, and the EMR edict is foisting "dangerous user-unfriendly technology" on physicians and patients.

At the White House: Obamacare success stories that aren't.  President Obama invited a number of people to stand behind him as he delivered his speech on the state of Obamacare at the White House Monday morning. [...] But after reading the White House-provided descriptions of each of those behind the president, it's clear the administration was stretching to present people who, beyond supporting Obamacare, have actually gained from it in any tangible way.

Obama Tells Americans to Enroll via Phone, Phone Number Crashes.  "Nobody is madder than me about the fact that the website isn't working as well as it should, which means it's going to get fixed," Obama said.  He then recommended a toll-free phone number to call.  There was only one problem: the Obamcare toll-free phone number was overloaded and immediately crashed.

President Obama helps fainting audience member during long-winded speech.  President Obama's long-winded speech in defense of his health care reform nearly put one audience member to sleep, with a guest standing directly behind the President almost fainting as he continued to drone on for nearly 30 minutes.

Pregnant diabetic who nearly fainted at Obamacare speech denies stunt claims.  The pregnant woman who nearly fainted behind President Obama during his Rose Garden speech denies that the swooning interruption was a stunt.  All eyes were on Karmel Allison, who stood at attention in a bright red dress behind the President, when the she nearly fainted during his remarks Monday in the White House Rose Garden.

Woman who fainted in Rose Garden loves Obama, unlikely to benefit from Obamacare.  Karmel Alon Allison, the pregnant diabetic woman who fainted in the Rose Garden Monday, has claimed that the Affordable Care Act would drive down her health care costs.  But there's almost no circumstance where the UCSD grad student and sometime entrepreneur would pay less for her health insurance under Obamacare.  And, according to a leading health care expert, Allison's situation as a grad student and spouse of a tech executive is "irrelevant" to Obamacare.  Additionally, both Karmel and her husband, David, are longstanding progressive Obama supporters, according to their Twitter feeds.

Conspiracy Theorist Contends 'Obama's Fainting Lady was Faked'.  How much do some distrust Obama? Enough for at least one person to suggest that the woman who fainted behind the president at his Obamacare speech earlier in the week was part of a White House gag.

Proof Obama's Fainting Lady was Faked in 3 Minutes.  For some strange reason, Obama has to have props around him when he does one of his con-jobs in the Rose Garden, or wherever he chooses to receive his worshipers.  This was no different, except that he had animated props this time. [...] Why did Obama think it was necessary to "catch" a fainting woman just when he said the words, "To free families from the pervasive fear that one illness....?"  He said it, and down she went.  Well not actually down.  She just weaved and wobbled a little and never quite fainted.  And, consequently, Obama never actually caught her.  He turned around and put his hand on her shoulder as if to steady her and turned back to the camera to make sure it got a clear shot of his "rescue" efforts.

Group behind Obama at Rose Garden speech includes only 3 Obamacare registrants.  Of the 13 people who flanked President Obama during his speech defending Obamacare in the Rose Garden Monday, just three had successfully registered for the new Obamacare exchanges.  A list of the people who joined Obama on stage provided by the White House included people who have or "will" benefit from Obamacare, small business owners, representatives from "partner organizations," and new registrants.

How many people onstage with Obama today have successfully enrolled in ObamaCare?  The White House communications team had three weeks to find 10-15 people who've actually enrolled in O-Care via Healthcare.gov to serve as human props for an Obama press conference on this subject.  Three weeks.  And yet, according to the WH's own mini-biographies of the people invited to the Rose Garden today, just three have successfully registered so far.

Vaporcare.  "The Affordable Care Act is not just a website," President Obama said at the Rose Garden today.  "It's much more."  It's like a chamois, it's like a towel, it's like a sponge.  Another way of putting it is that ObamaCare isn't just a technical failure.  And it isn't just an economically unsustainable scheme.  Now it's a rhetorical disaster too.  Even by the standards of Obama speeches it was terrible.  It was so bad, it was the ObamaCare website of political oratory.

Jay Carney's Worst Press Briefing?  After a speech in which President Obama failed to discuss how he was going to fix Obamacare, save for providing a 1-800 number to call, which was not working during and immediately after his speech, White House press secretary Jay Carney went on to have a pretty rough press briefing.

With Legacy on the Line, Obama Reduced to Pitchman.  Mr. President, why are you lying to the American people about why healthcare.gov isn't working? [...] Just how is the President lying?  Simple.  Because by trying to Sham-Wow this sale... after reporter after reporter has tried (and failed) logging on in the middle of the night when traffic is low, and especially after the independent research firm Millward Brown Digital found the number of visitors to healthcare.gov has dropped by 88 percent since Day 1 of its launch, this excuse that a massive amount of demand is forcing the website to fail is, yes, an outright lie to any sane person not blinded by ideology.  Period.

Chuck Todd Grills Jay Carney: 'Who Misled the President' About Obamacare 'Glitches'?  NBC News Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd dug into White House Press Sec. Jay Carney on Monday [10/21/2013] following President Barack Obama's Rose Garden address where he discussed the problems associated with implementing the Affordable Care Act.  Todd repeatedly asked Carney who "misled" Obama and what advisors "let him down" ahead of the implementation of the ACA.

1-800-ObamaCare-Denial.  The White House pitched President Obama's Rose Garden event on Monday as a new transparency, but he event amounted to an infomercial, complete with a 1-800 number.  Operators are standing by and "the product is good," the President said.  He even encouraged Americans to bypass the website and apply for benefits over the phone or by mail.  Too bad this infomercial lacked tangible information.

Where is the White House getting the money for ObamaCare's "tech surge"?  Unless I missed it, neither O nor HHS has said how big the "tech surge" is.  Maybe they've hired 200 people to come in and re-write millions of lines of code, or maybe they've convinced 10 highly regarded IT managers to come in and reorganize the site with the people already on staff.  I can kinda sorta buy that the latter might work pro bono, for the glory of "rescuing" ObamaCare, but not the former.  So if we're talking about dozens or hundreds of new contractors, where's that money coming from?

Obama the Blameless.  Could there be more convincing proof that President Obama is more concerned about himself than he is about the Americans he is supposed to serve than his Monday morning speech defending the disastrous Obamacare rollout rather than apologizing for it?  Could there be more compelling evidence that he is first and foremost a Saul Alinsky agitator than the fact that he took the offense and attacked Republicans for fighting him on the budget — a fight that in no way caused any rollout problems — rather than humbly admit these inexcusable and humiliating problems?

Obama's "ObamaCare 13" in White House Speech includes 2 Muslims.  Are Muslims now 20 percent of the country?  They had to pick these people up from somewhere and that 'somewhere' was most likely political organizations linked to Obama.  The group isn't all that diverse.  Comparatively speaking.  There seems to be one African-American and one Latino prop in the 13.  I don't see any Asians.

In Obamacare speech, Obama makes a desperate sales pitch.  It was an extensive pitch — a bit too extensive.  As Obama was closing his 27-minute infomercial, a woman standing right behind him passed out.  The people around her caught her, and Obama turned around to assist.  "This happens when I talk too long," he explained.  Talking too long, yes.  And protesting too much.  Obama's pitch sounded a bit desperate and perhaps it should.  The product he rolled out three weeks ago was seriously defective.

Obama has declared Healthcare.gov problems unacceptable. Problem solved.  The "unacceptable" speech is a staple of the Obama presidency.  Through gritted teeth, the president acknowledges something he'd rather not, usually something his administration has screwed up royally — Benghazi, the IRS scandal, or the push for intervention in Syria.  He detaches himself from the situation and all responsibility for what he's acknowledging while offering a stern lecture for those who caused the problem — usually someone he hired and under his direct instruction — and promising to get to the bottom of it.  He might show a flash of barely contained Spock-Obama anger to send a thrill up the legs of newscasters.

Just three out of the 13 Americans in Monday's Rose Garden Obamacare photo-op have actually signed up.  When President Barack Obama defended his foundering health insurance overhaul Monday in a carefully staged and scripted White House pep rally, thirteen people stood behind him as examples of Americans whom the 'Obamacare' law would help.  But according to their biographies, just three have actually enrolled in the plans offered in their states.

Woman Who Got Shout-Out From President Can't Afford Obamacare Policy After All.  Jessica Sanford, the Federal Way woman who got a shout-out from President Obama last month with her fan letter for the Affordable Care Act, got a rather rude awakening last week.  Turns out she doesn't qualify for a tax credit after all.  At least that's what the letter said that she got from the state.  Now she says her dream of affordable health insurance has gone poof.


Defending Obamacare in Boston, October 30, 2013

Obama Cancels 'You Can Keep Your Plan' Promise: 'Just Shop Around'.  In a speech at Boston's Faneuil Hall on Wednesday afternoon [10/30/2013], President Barack Obama discarded his now-infamous broken promise:  "If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance."  Instead, he offered a new promise:  "You will be getting a better deal," the president told health insurance consumers.  He blamed insurance companies, not Obamacare, for the canceled policies.

Obama: 'Grossly Misleading' to Say ACA's Cancelled Plans, People Can 'Just Shop Around'.  President Obama stood by his dubious and increasingly controversial promise that Americans can keep their insurance plans under his health-care law, and accused those making claims to the contrary of being "grossly misleading."  He claimed critics are not providing the full context of changes to previously "substandard plans," and argued the plan terminations are caused by insurance companies rather than the new health-care law.  Nonetheless, in his speech today in Boston, the president encouraged those that have received letters of dropped coverage to look for a new one on their state marketplace or the Healthcare.gov website.  "Just shop around in the new marketplace," he said.

The Editor says...
Barack H. Obama is not a man who should accuse others of being grossly misleading.

Insurance Industry Finds It's Sleeping With The Enemy.  Four years ago, the insurance industry decided to get in bed with President Obama to help him get his health reform passed.  But as soon as things started to go wrong, guess who Obama blamed? [...] In a speech in Boston on Wednesday, for example, Obama said that people "are getting notices from their insurance companies suggesting that somehow, because of the Affordable Care Act, they may be losing their existing health insurance plan."  Not so, Obama insisted.  The blame rests instead with "bad apple" insurers who'd been offering "cut rate plans" or had decided to "downgrade or cancel" their "substandard" policies.

A President Manqué.  Some of us have been saying for years that the law was a bad idea in part because it was designed to force the cancellations of millions of insurance policies.  This has now turned out to be true.  And in Massachusetts Mr. Obama tweaked his former unqualified promise to say that his guarantee applied only to "the vast majority of people," adding that the terminations were "a central premise of the Affordable Care Act from the very beginning."  Mr. Obama went on to tell those who are losing their choice of coverage that they're not being fired, they're merely being restructured.

The First Hustler Runs the Big Con.  All along, it had been a bait-and-switch by the first hustler.  In Boston, Obama could no longer evade the truth.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans who had purchased health insurance in the private market were getting notices their plans were being canceled.  That this revelation had blown a hole in his credibility did not seem to trouble Obama.  Indeed, the president appeared impatient with the complaints.  These were "substandard" plans anyhow, he said, the lousy offerings of "bad-apple insurers."


OFA speech, November 4, 2013

Obama and Carney Talk Down to the Idiots.  [Scroll down]  Unlike [Jay] Carney, who was just talking down to a room full of journalists, the president was talking down to the American people as if they were too stupid to follow along with the permutations of his tortured explanations.  The president claimed that there was no difference between what he was saying for three years about ObamaCare and today.

Obama tweaks message about keeping health plans under ObamaCare.  As thousands of consumers receive health insurance cancellation notices, President Obama is continuing to fine tune his promise that Americans who like their health plans would be able to keep them under his signature health care law.  The president told about 200 of his campaign supporters and health care activists Monday that the administration had promised Americans they could keep their current coverage — as long as their plans hadn't changed since ObamaCare was signed into law.

The White House Fable Factory.  This Alinsky-steeped administration has relied on an endless stream of sensationalized, phony personal dramas to sell Obamacare.  Last month, Organizing for Action (previously Obama for America) promoted the "success story" of Chad Henderson, a supposedly random young person who miraculously enrolled in Obamacare while everyone else in America experienced major tech meltdowns and sticker shock.  Turned out Lying Chad was actually an OFA volunteer who hadn't really enrolled in Obamacare yet because he was "joking."  No matter.  Yesterday, Obama appeared before OFA to solicit even more stories from the group to help propagandize Obamacare.

Liar in Wait.  President Obama is a very dishonest man.  For years, he has told us, as he did when he spoke to the American Medical Association in Chicago in June 2009, "If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period."  Well, that period has now been followed by a comma; a semi-colon; a hyphen and, while we're at it, let's throw in some brackets both of the square and round variety.  On Monday night, while speaking before Obamacare supporters at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, D.C., President Obama said:  ["]Now, if you have or had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really like that plan, what we said was you could keep it if it hasn't changed since the law was passed.["]

Obama: 'What We Said Was, You Could Keep' Your Health Care Plan, If....  During an appearance in front of supporters at Monday evening's Organizing for America summit in Washington, D.C., President Obama addressed the critics who are latching on to promises he made over the course of several years about the impact of the Affordable Care Act on those who already have health insurance.  "If you like your plan, you can keep it," Obama said again and again, sometime adding the word "period" at the end.

Obama: My last campaign is making sure Obamacare works.  President Obama on Monday night [11/4/2013] addressed activists with Organizing for Action as they launch a drive to enroll consumers in Obamacare and said his last campaign would be making sure his signature health care law "works for every single person in America."

Obama adds an 'if' to his 'you can keep your plan' promise.  In his latest defense of his troubled health care reform law, President Obama on Monday night massaged past statements and told supporters that the administration had indeed promised Americans they could keep their insurance plans — as long as they hadn't been changed.  His remarks, offered at a gathering of Organizing for Action volunteers in Washington, were the latest attempt by the White House to square its repeated past promises that no one would be forcibly kicked off an insurance plan with the fact that many Americans now face exactly that scenario.

Obama denies 'you can keep it' videotaped promises.  President Barack Obama told his enthusiastic supporters Monday night that he never promised what video recordings show him promising at least 29 times.  The videos show Obama promising 300 million Americans that "if you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan, period."  But that's not what he really said, Obama announced Monday [11/4/2013] in a speech to about 200 Organizing for Action supporters, [...]

Obama revises history.  Yesterday, President Barack Obama claimed that when he promised Americans that they if they liked their health care plan they could keep it, he also stated "if it hasn't changed since the law passed." [...] The fact that video exists of at least 23 instances in which the president added no such limitation clause, and in some of which he added the emphatic "Period" after claiming you can keep your health plan seems to not register with him.

The Next Big Obamacare Scandal.  "What we said was you could keep it if it hasn't changed since the law was passed," he told Obamacare's political beneficiaries and contractors this past Monday during a speech they applauded enthusiastically.  The "if" clause never appeared in his public statements before now.  Obama did not just "misspeak," as a recent New York Times editorial tried to characterize his deliberate deception.  As confirmed by his own aides cited in aWall Street Journal article last Saturday, policy experts who wanted to include more truthful caveats in the president's public pronouncements concerning retention of choice of patient insurance plans and doctors were overruled by the political spinmeisters.

More about OFA.


Obama pretends to apologize for Obamacare, November 7, 2013

This wasn't exactly a speech, it was an interview on Obama-friendly NBC.  But its effect was the same.

A "Sorry" Excuse for a President.  President Obama is "sorry" that millions of Americans have had their health insurance plans cancelled despite his promises that ObamaCare would not cause this. [...] A godly sorrow should compel Obama to ask the CEOs of health insurance companies to reinstate policies that have been canceled for those who want them, which would garner those companies goodwill for years to come.  He should ask Congress to send to him legislation fully repealing ObamaCare.  He should sign and return it along with his letter of resignation.

Presidential Liability.  Obama attempted to quell the Obamacare political firestorm during an NBC interview on November 7 when he said "I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances from me."  If that were said by a company CEO in a product liability lawsuit, millions of people would have a cause of legal action.  One must ask Obama the critical question, "If you are sorry and really accept responsibility, what are you going to do to make whole the people you have harmed"?  He has not answered that.  He never will.  He has expressed false regret just for political purposes.  No one is to be trusted in this administration.  No one.  Think Benghazi.  Fast and Furious.  Keystone.  IRS scandal.  If he gets away with this, our entire society is in serious trouble.  Not just because of the medical insurance fiasco, but because we have accepted broad political deceit from our leaders.

President Obama said he is sorry about healthcare.gov, but neither looked nor sounded sincere.  President Obama was a sorry sight on the evening of Nov. 7, trying to bond with his fellow Americans in their disgust at the rollout of his unique and much-treasured gift to the people, and he has much to be sorry about.  He was indeed sorry, but not for the things he said that he was, and most of the things he was sorry for couldn't be named.  He was sorry the website had crashed, sorry his approval numbers were down around 40 percent, sorry the Democrats coming up for election next year were starting to pani, [sic] and sorry his plan was becoming so toxic that it caused the governor's race in Virginia to tighten considerably in the Republicans' favor close to the end.

Obama's "Apology" — Substituting New Lies for Old.  On November 7 President Obama was forced to "apologize" to the millions of Americans who are losing their health insurance because of ObamaCare, something he repeatedly promised would never happen — "no matter what."  "Period."  He was forced into a public display of faux contrition by a convergence of political realities, including a panic in his own party, led especially by the 21 Democratic senators who are facing reelection battles next year, in the vortex of the growing ObamaCare maelstrom.

All These Lies And Incompetence, Too.  'It is so bureaucratic and so cumbersome that a whole bunch of it doesn't work or it ends up being way over cost."  No, that wasn't some hard-core Tea Party lawmaker calling for a radical downsizing of the federal government.  That was Obama attempting to explain how it is that his administration could fail to build a working website despite spending 3½ years and hundreds of millions of dollars on it.

Barack Obama's Pants are on Fire.  Irreparable damage on the national level aside, after hawking the Affordable Care Act like a snake oil salesman, barking "Step right up, if you like your insurance plan you can keep your insurance plan," some gravely ill Americans are finding out that the cure-all the merchant of "Hope and Change" peddled was pure quackery.  Now, after a panicked realization has set in, the president, doing what he does best, decided he should at least make believe that he's sorry and that he's diligently working toward rectifying the catastrophic situation he caused.  Appearing remarkably serene, Obama chose to share his remorse with NBC anchor Chuck Todd.

Obamacare Is Running Out of Bullets.  Conservatives may complain that the apology was inadequate, since the president did not admit that he'd misled people.  But this is the first time I can remember this president apologizing like this.  It may be sincere.  It is also a sign that his administration is backed into a corner.  It can't deny that this is happening, nor can it blame anyone else.  What's left to it are expressions of regret.

The Editor says...
I disagree with the statement that Obama's apology "may be sincere."  Mr. Obama is not known for sincerity, and this "apology" of his was obviously constructed by his lawyers and then rehearsed over and over.

Krauthammer On Obama's Apology: "The President Now Is Toxic".  ["]The thing is called Obamacare.  There's no running away from it.  It's got his name on it.  You see the president, you think about the policy and you know it's a disaster.  And the problem for the Democrats is, they are hostage to a bunch of geeks working right now late into the night trying to fix a system which is not just the glitches we talked about.  The architecture, the underlying structure of it is wrong.  I think the likelihood of it being fixed, working like you would expect from any normal commercial private website normally by December 1 is pretty small.["]

Obama: I'm Sorry for Obamacare (Sort Of).  Apologizing is all well and good, and yet Obama still finds himself in a tough position.  It is one thing to apologize for the disaster that has been the technical rollout, and quite another to apologize for your own dishonesty.

Sorry your insurance got canceled! Here, let the taxpayers make it up to you.  A round of applause for anyone who guessed that President Obama would deal with a rising tide of public outrage over his phony "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan" promise by throwing other people's money at the problem!

Obama Burns Media Supporters with Apology.  Many were hurled under President Barack Obama's bus on Thursday night [11/7/2013] when he told NBC News reporter Chuck Todd that he was "sorry" those who were losing their health insurance coverage were shocked by this eventuality because of repeated "assurances" he made to the contrary.  The president's supporters in the media were first among those to take a dive under the wheels of the president's forward-moving signature policy achievement.

Media Pans Obama's "Apology".  The president's passive-voice expression of vague regret was so half-[heart]ed and self-serving that conservatives can simply sit back and let the mainstream media tee off on its inadequacy.  He's not sorry for lying repeatedly in furtherance of his political goals, and he's certainly not sorry that people are losing their coverage.  His law required that outcome.  His promise was an intentional lie.

The lowest low of the Obama presidency.  Here's what President Obama really wanted to tell NBC's Chuck Todd about the implementation of the health-care law in an interview Thursday:  "Look, Chuck.  We're talking about 5 percent of the population who can't keep their plans.  Five percent.  And once the Web site starts working right, they will realize they can get better plans anyway."  Of course, when you're president of the United States, you don't say that — unless you don't want to be president much longer.  Time and time again during the interview with Todd, Obama kept running into the political reality that the 5 percent of the country who can't keep their health-care plans isn't all that big a deal unless you are part of that 5 percent.

The Editor says...
People have always been able to get "better plans" if they were willing to pay more for their insurance.  In a free country, the insurance customers make those decisions on their own.  Under a left-wing dictatorship, such as the one Mr. Obama apparently seeks to establish, the citizens have no choice but to buy more than they will ever use, in order to pay for the medical bills accumulated by society's dead weight.

Obama is sorry Americans aren't smart enough to grasp what he really meant.  First, what Obama didn't do.  He didn't apologize for misleading the entire country for three-plus years by saying without qualification dozens of times that if Americans like their existing health insurance plan, they can keep it.  "Period."  The Real Good Talker didn't admit any mistake there, not even an inadvertent one based on his enthusiasm for what he believes is best for his countrymen.  Such bald statements, which documents show he knew were false in mid-2010, played a key role in calming latent fears about his massive federal government plan to reshape nearly a fifth of the country's economy.

Fact-Checking The President's Kind-Of Sort-Of 'Apology' For Obamacare-Driven Insurance Cancellations.  Yesterday [11/7/2013], in an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd, President Obama addressed the problems caused by his incessantly-repeated pledge to the American public that "if you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period.  No one will take it away, no matter what."  As millions of Americans receive cancellation letters in the mail, however, that pledge looked increasingly strained.  "I am sorry that they, you know, are finding themselves in this situation, based on assurances they got from me," the President said last night.  In the course of his interview, however, Mr. Obama made several other misleading statements that don't accurately reflect Obamacare's impact on pre-existing health insurance plans.

Obama offers fauxpology for 'situation'.  Using lawyerly care in choosing passive-construction words, President Obama last night apologized for something, but most definitely not for lying to the American people in order to sell his health care plan on false promises and get re-elected.  Here are the words he uttered to Chuck Todd, White House correspondent for NBC, friendliest news agency among the progressive media toadies.


The Obamacare "Fix" news conference, November 14, 2013

  ... in which President Obama attempted to issue a verbal decree, negating part of "the law of the land" that Democrats had previously defended against any such modifications.

Brit Hume: Obama 'fix' meant to 'shift blame,' says media has turned against him.  On Thursday's "The Kelly File," Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume explained to host Megyn Kelly why even the so-called fix President Barack Obama proposed earlier in the day was fraught with problem of its own — and that it was meant to shift blame away from the administration.

The Obamacare 'Fix' Is Illegal.  The president's "fix," announced last Thursday in a somber news conference, allows insurance companies to renew policies that do not meet the minimum care standards of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which go into effect on Jan. 1.  So far, only 13 states have said they will cooperate with the administration's initiative, however, and some have refused.  The debate has turned mostly on questions of actuarial policy.  But the bigger problem states must consider is that the fix itself is unconstitutional.  And even if the president did have the authority to take such action, state compliance with it would still break the law.

GOP Rep. Introduces Bill Calling Obama's Actions Unconstitutional.  Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis (R-FL) introduced legislation challenging the president's ObamaCare "fix." President Obama first delayed the employer mandate.  Then, after private insurance companies began canceling millions of Americans plans after the president promised they wouldn't, he asked the companies to give people back their plans.

Dem. Rep.: Obama Lacks 'Legal Underpinning' for Obamacare Fix.  Democratic congressman Nick Rahall says he voted for the Keep Your Health Plan Act because President Obama's Obamacare fix lacked the "legal underpinning" he believes is necessary.  [Video clip]

ObamaCare Fix as Bad as ObamaCare Itself.  [Scroll down]  And that's assuming it's legal to begin with.  What the president has done is issue a "waiver" to insurance companies based on the doctrine of "prosecutorial discretion" that allows him to selectively enforce laws.  Yet as National Review's Andrew McCarthy points out, that doctrine is one of "allocation," based on the notion that government's ability to enforce every law equally is constrained by finite resources.

The beginning of the end for Barack Obama.  Second-term presidents in the past 30 years have had some pretty embarrassing news conferences, full of frank admissions of failure, submissive spasms of shame and groveling, grieving apologies. [...] But there has never, ever, been a more pitiful presser than the one conducted last week by President Obama.  In a nutshell, he said sure, everything's a mess, but he just didn't know.

Rand Paul: Obama's Attempts to Fix Obamacare Are 'Unconstitutional'.  Obamacare is not "fixable," and the president's administrative attempts to fix it are "unconstitutional," Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told Fox News on Monday [11/18/2013].  "One of the clear separations of powers was that the legislature was supposed to legislate and the president wasn't.  He's essentially amended Obamacare maybe 20- some-odd times, and I don't think he's allowed to.  And so I think it needs to be decided in court," Paul said.

Obama's "5 Percent" Con Job.  Let's quickly recap the lawlessness and cynical politics behind Thursday's pathetic press conference.  Obama, who poses as a constitutional-law expert, knows full well that a president has no legal authority to waive statutory mandates.  Even if he had such power, moreover, he knows that there is no practical possibility of undoing — within the next few weeks, as the ACA would require — the new arrangements that insurance companies and state regulators spent the last three years structuring to comply with Obamacare mandates.  In sum, Obama is well aware that his proposed "fix" is frivolous.

Thus Spake Obama.  It is a condition of my admission to this great land that I am not allowed to foment the overthrow of the United States government. [...] Fortunately, at least as far as constitutional government goes, the president of the United States is doing a grand job of overthrowing it all by himself.  On Thursday, he passed a new law at a press conference.  George III never did that.  But, having ordered America's insurance companies to comply with Obamacare, the president announced that he is now ordering them not to comply with Obamacare.

"Racist" President Says Now You can Keep Your "Substandard Insurance".  The purported "fix" to allow voters to keep the insurance that the administration ordered them to cancel is so unworkable, the insurance commissioners of South Carolina and Washington State both turned the proposition down almost as soon as the president made it.  Even Howard Dean questioned whether the president can legally do this, though I don't recall him saying a word when this train wreck started down the track through procedures which ignored decades of Congressional practice and procedure and when the president tossed off waivers to his friends and allowed HHS to draft regulations that were directly in conflict with the promises he was repeatedly making to voters and even the clear language of the Act.  (This, as his spokesmen were arguing that ObamaCare was "settled law" which could not be altered or repealed.)

The Lawlessness of the 'Fix'.  Not only is a president barred from writing or rewriting laws; he is required to enforce them as Congress has written them.  The only exception is when he has a good-faith reason to believe they are unconstitutional, a claim Obama can hardly make about Obamacare while crowing that the Supreme Court has upheld it.

It may be all over for Obama.  President Obama's proposed policy "fix" may ultimately fix little in the mess the Affordable Care Act has created, but his concessions Thursday nonetheless made history.  In an unprecedented admission, Obama not only owned up to failure — something he has never done — but he admitted to misleading congressional Democrats who are now being blamed for telling their constituents they could keep insurance plans they liked.

ObamaCare "Fix" Is An Attempt At Spaying Constitution.  The president of the United States doesn't even get a line-item veto on budget laws.  So he certainly can't legally rewrite the ObamaCare statute.  A political meltdown is mutating into a constitutional crisis.

Why insurance companies who follow the ObamaCare 'fix' could face legal troubles.  Selectively not enforcing laws has become a hallmark of the Obama administration.  The president has used it when it comes to laws being broken by illegal aliens.  A future president might take the oath to uphold the laws more seriously and start enforcing them again but, in the interim, illegal aliens don't have to worry about being deported.  It simply doesn't work the same way for insurance companies.  President Obama could also tell companies that he won't enforce the anti-trust or fraud laws next year, but if they break the law, they are still at risk.  Telling a future president that Obama said it was okay won't protect them from legal liability.

The President's ObamaCare Backpedal.  Succumbing to the growing panic over his health law, the president on Thursday moved to throw his party a political lifeline. [...] Mr. Obama took to the podium in the White House briefing room to explain that yes, some Americans may indeed now keep the health-care plans they like.  Maybe.  If insurers can undo three years of work in a few weeks.  If state regulators can move at similar lightning speed.  So long as the old plans come with new warning labels.  And with the understanding that those Americans lucky enough to receive a renewal option can only keep the plans they "like" for a further year.  Those giant caveats aside, the president wishes you good fortune.

Obama Overwhelmed.  Whatever the cause, the president's blundering on the cherished, decades-old liberal dream of universal health care and his jaw-dropping news conference Thursday are a blow to those on the left who still cling to the notion that he is a man of immense talent. [...] It is fair to say what we saw yesterday was not merely a policy failure and indictment against liberal big government, but confirmation of his personal unfitness for the job.

The Latest Obamacare Fix Only Makes Things Worse.  Today [11/14/2013], Obama announced that he's going to let insurance plans that don't comply with Obamacare's regulations skate by.  In other words, he's not going to enforce those regulations.  The legal basis for this decision — as for many of the decisions the president has made about enforcing this law — is unclear.  Also unclear is whether the decision will help anyone.

Obama's Insurance 'Fix' Is Unconstitutional.  Outlets are quoting Democratic operative Howard Dean saying of President Barack Obama suspending certain Obamacare requirements, "I wonder if he has the legal authority to do this."  To remove all doubt:  The Take Care Clause of the Constitution absolutely forbids any president from doing exactly what Obama did Thursday.

Obama's Phony Cancellation Solution.  [Scroll down]  Let's put aside for the moment the question of whether Obama can even do this legally.  This is a president who, after all, has already arbitrarily changed and postponed various parts of ObamaCare — such as the congressional opt-out, the employer mandate, various enforcement rules, cuts to Medicare Advantage, out-of-pocket caps — when they would have proved politically hazardous.  The question is:  Why should anyone trust Obama's latest "you can keep your plan" promise?  It turns out, no one should.

Lawless?  The Constitution's executive article (Article II) begins, "the executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America."  The Constitution vests the entire executive power in just one person. [...] The purpose of Obama's press conference, however, was not to talk about his ineptitude in exercising the executive power — even as it pertains to his signature legislation.  Rather, it was to announce how he — as he put it — will now "improve" that legislation.  Alas, the president doesn't have the authority to change laws, and therefore he doesn't have the authority to "improve" them.

Obama: 'I don't think I'm stupid enough' to mislead on website.  In the days leading up to the Oct. 1 launch of HealthCare.Gov, President Obama says he didn't know just how faulty the site would be.  He told reporters Thursday that, had he known of the rampant glitches and crashes that have plagued Obamacare's central hub, he wouldn't have promoted it so heavily.

Obama's political malpractice.  Listening to the president Thursday was painful.  He acknowledged the need "to win back some credibility."  He "fumbled the rollout" of health care.  He is "letting ... down" congressional Democrats who took the risk of supporting Obamacare.  Although he's sometimes been "slapped around a little bit unjustly," the president said, "This one's deserved, all right?  It's on us."  Can he recover?  I'm sorry to say:  I'm not at all confident.

After Apology, Obama Vows to 'Push Back' Against Healthcare Critics.  Hours after President Barack Obama declared in a Thursday White House press conference that he "fumbled the roll out on this health care law" and said "that's on me," Obama delivered a defiant speech at a Cleveland plant wherein he vowed to "push back" against the swelling chorus of Americans opposed to Obamacare.

Obama still misses the mark: HIPAA prohibits health insurance cancellations.  President Obama continues to miss the mark.  Federal law already prohibits insurance companies from cancelling policies, and his "fix" is a flop.  Millions of insurance policies are being cancelled throughout the country, as reports confirm.  Democrats were aware this would happen under the new Obamacare law.  However, these millions of insurance policies should never have been cancelled.  Federal law prohibits their cancellation.

Insurance companies protest Obama's Obamacare fix.  U.S. insurance companies are giving the stink-eye to President Barack Obama's latest Obamacare fix, likely dooming it to failure.  The companies' hostility is important because the president is trying to prevent swing-state Democratic politicians from fleeing his Obamacare project amid rising anger from middle-class, politically influential swing voters.  If they flee, the GOP gets a chance to rollback the Democrats' power grab by pushing some free-market rules back into the health-care sector.

Obama's sorry story.  Obama said that by regulatory fiat, he would allow insurance companies to extend the kinds of policies they have been canceling. Since many companies have little appetite for doing so after shifting business models per Obama's diktat, there's no telling whether the President will, in fact, redeem his vow.  The policies at issue covered those who purchased them as individuals, as opposed to getting coverage under a group policy in the workplace.  The President found them to be substandard.

Backpedaling Bam is fumbling and bumbling.  On Thursday, President Obama conducted the "Springtime for Hitler" of press conferences.  He came out at noon and proceeded to blather his way through an hour of self-justifications and evasions and apologies and complaints. [...] First, he said he had not been "informed directly that the Web site would not be working."  What on earth does that mean?  Was he somehow informed indirectly?  In an affronted tone, the president said he wouldn't have been so stupid as to have promised a great Web site if he'd known it was lousy.  Which makes you wonder:  Did he ask?

The 23 most revealing words Obama spoke.  He spent more than three years promising Americans they could keep their health plans and doctors if they wanted.  A blatant lie he knew was false by mid-2010.  Last week the president apologized.  But being Barack Obama, not for lying.  For the fact that attentive Americans did not understand what he really meant, which was the exact opposite of what the Great Talker was saying.  Thursday Obama held a news conference for what he called an "update" on implementing the unaffordable Affordable Care Act.  In the course of 51 minutes Obama uttered some 7,000 words.  He said the word "apology" once and "regret" once.  The word "sorry" never passed his lips.  As usual, Obama talked a lot about himself, saying "I" 115 times.

The Emperor's New Rules.  Stung by public anger and his rapidly plunging approval ratings, President Obama wants to delay the cancellation of existing health care insurance policies for one year.  It has nothing to do with the public interest.  It has everything to do with crass political calculations.

Five Quotes From the Catastrophically Awful Obamacare Press Conference.  President Obama had three goals coming into today's press conference:  First, to shift responsibility for the Obamacare fiasco onto insurers by saddling them with mid-implementation changes.  Second, to quell Democratic panic on Capitol Hill.  And third, to nudge the media toward turning the page on his healthcare debacle.  He accomplished none of these things.  Indeed, he made things worse — sinking his presidency to a new nadir.

Obama's healthcare 'fix' strictly political move, experts say.  At best, President Obama's proposed health care "fix" offers political protection for vulnerable lawmakers.  That's because beyond giving insurance companies permission to continue offering individual health care plans that don't comply with the Affordable Care Act, the president's fix doesn't compel anyone to do anything.  So why even propose such a fix, and especially a remedy that, according insurance experts, could lead to more expensive premiums for the people the fix is supposed to help?

NBC Reporter Reveals Electoral Flaw in Obamacare Fix: Dems Have to Campaign on 'Trust Obama'.  Make no mistake, President Barack Obama is announcing an administrative fix to the Affordable Care Act to allow individuals losing their insurance to keep their old plans into 2014 as a result of the collapse of his and Democratic politician's support in the polls.  This is a political dilemma and the president is offering a political fix.  There is just one problem, as identified by NBC News reporter Kasie Hunt:  Democrats do not get to campaign on anything beyond saying they put their trust in a president.  It's a level of trust in the president that the public does not share.

Obama: You can keep your plans ... for now.  Privately insured Americans whose insurance was deemed unworthy under Obamacare can keep their plans one more year, President Barack Obama said today.  In a news conference [11/14/2013] announcing the policy shift, Obama tried to calm public fury and address his own party's concerns that he reneged on his promise to allow people to keep their insurance plans if they wanted to.

Obama Announces Obamacare 'Fix' That Doesn't Fix Anything, Blames Insurance Companies.  President Obama announces today [11/14/2013] that he supports a "fix" for Obamacare that would allow some Americans to keep the healthcare plans they already had for an additional year.  That was already built into the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare law.  It's not an actual change to anything, it's just an attempt to get out ahead of the bills that Republican Fred Upton and Democrat Mary Landrieu are sponsoring in the House and Senate that would legislatively "fix" Obamacare.  It's an exercise in blame-shifting, and an abdication of leadership.

National Review Writer: Obamacare 'The Biggest Mistake That Any Party Has Made in 100 Years'.  On Thursday, National Review staff writer Charles C. W. Cooke joined Fox News Channel's Gretchen Carlson to discuss President Barack Obama's proposed administrative fixes to the Affordable Care Act.  Pivoting to a piece Cooke recently wrote, the National Review columnist said that the ACA may be looked on by history as "the biggest mistake that any party has made in at least 100 years."  Asked first to react to the president's press conference, Cooke said that it might be "the lowest I've ever seen him."  "He looked broken," he added.  "And he flailed.  He filibustered when he was given the Iran question in the middle, for example.  He talked at length.  He just desperately didn't want to talk about health care."

State insurance commissioner rejects Obama's proposal to extend canceled policies.  State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler has rejected President Obama's proposal to allow insurance companies to extend health insurance policies for people who have received notices that their policies will be cancelled at the end of the year.  Within two hours of President Obama's news conference announcing the proposed administrative fix for Americans upset by their policy cancellations, Kreidler issued a statement rejecting the proposal.

Obama claims 'enforcement discretion' to make Obamacare changes.  President Obama turned to prosecutorial discretion yet again Thursday as he tried an end run around Congress, claiming unilateral authority to let companies continue to offer health care plans under Obamacare even if those plans violate his namesake law.  The move drew howls of disapproval from Republicans and ignited a legal debate over whether Mr. Obama has the executive authority he is claiming.

Howard Dean Questions Legality of Obama's 'Keep Your Plan' Fix.  Following President Obama's speech revealing a "keep your plan" fix for the Affordable Care Act, former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean questioned the legality of such a proposal.  The president's plan to assist those who've seen their healthcare plans canceled after the implementation of Obamacare includes allowing such people to retain their plan for one more year.  Additionally, insurance companies will be required to tell people renewing those plans of all the alternate options and benefits they'll lose in the process.

Obama retreats on Obamacare, allows existing low-cost policies to continue.  President Barack Obama has decided to save his endangered Obamacare law by suspending for one year enforcement of the law's critical but unpopular elimination of roughly 15 million low-cost insurance plans held by Americans who buy insurance on their own.  The plan sets up the insurance companies to take the political blame for the Democratic-designed Obamacare plan during the 2014 election.  Officials explained the president's decision as a prerogative of the nation's chief law-enforcement officer.

The Editor says...
The Attorney General is frequently described in the press as "the nation's chief law-enforcement officer."  In this case, Mr. Obama isn't enforcing the law — he's changing it week by week.

'Fairy Tale' Continues as Obama Proposes Extralegal Obamacare Fix.  The president is not proposing that the law be changed to allow all health insurance plans grandfathered into Obamacare's eligibility requirements.  No, instead the White House is saying that it will use "enforcement discretion" to allow illegal health insurance plans to be able to still be sold.  That is, the Obama administration will not enforce the penalty on individuals for not having eligible health insurance plans and they'll allow the insurance companies to still sell so-called bad plans — plans they technically can't sell under Obamacare.

Obamacare fix for canceled health policies could raise costs: insurers.  President Barack Obama's fix for canceled health plans could "destabilize" the insurance market and lead to higher costs for consumers without further steps, America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group, said on Thursday [11/14/2013].

Obama announces he will allow subpar or junk policies to be sold by bad apple insurance companies.  President Obama's press conference on Obamacare "fixes" today started more than half an hour after its announced time, a good indicator of last minute panic over wording.  That's because appearances, not substance, are the essence of this "plan."  For one thing, state insurance commissioners must approve any new plans.  In California, health insurers have been required to sign contracts promising to end old policies, and the federal government lacks the authority to change lawful contracts.  The idea that 50 state insurance commissions could and would quickly approve new plans yet to be created by insurance companies is ludicrous.

Somewhat related:
Obamacare advocate poised to become next U.S. surgeon general.  President Barack Obama will nominate the head of a doctors group that promotes his signature healthcare law to be the next U.S. surgeon general, the White House said on Thursday [11/14/2013], shortly after Obama proposed a "fix" for the latest problem with the law.


Obamacare promotion news conference, December 3, 2013

Wreckers of the world, unite.  There is a disturbing undercurrent in Obama's campaign-style speech on behalf of Obamacare at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building today.  Obama never credits opponents of the law with the substance of their criticism.  He does not attribute decent motives or good faith opposition to them.  Rather, he treats them as "wreckers" (as they were deemed in the Soviet Union) guilty of destructive thought crime.

Who was standing behind Obama today? White House won't say.  Nineteen people stood behind President Obama on stage in the Executive Office Building Tuesday as the president kicked off a new campaign to promote Obamacare. [...] But [with one exception] Obama never said who those people were, and, unlike other events, the White House did not release their names or biographies.  A spokesman later said the White House would not provide the information.  A pool report called the group "19 individuals whom the White House said benefited from health care reform."  Beyond that, their connection to Obamacare remains unknown.

Obama embarks on new health-care push after Web site fixes, urges Americans to sign up.  President Obama on Tuesday embarked on the difficult task of persuading Americans to reconsider his landmark health-care law after its botched launch, imploring people to sign up as part of a major push to publicize the benefits of the Affordable Care Act.  Republicans immediately lampooned the effort — coming more than three years after passage of the law and two months after its disastrous rollout — and conservative activists vowed to wage a counterassault publicizing the law's downsides.

Obama Gets Standing Ovation from His Staff After Asserting Obamacare Won't Be Repealed.  During a presentation at the White House in which President Barack Obama touted the benefits of the Affordable Care Act, the president declared that his signature health care reform law was not going to be repealed.  This assertion led his administration members, his staff, and audience members to rise from their seats and give the president a standing ovation.

Obamacare, where the liberal dream crashes and burns.  On Wednesday afternoon, a bunch of twentysomethings were summoned to the White House to hear an infomercial from Barack Obama himself.  He was pitching health insurance. [...] Mr. Obama desperately needs healthy young people to sign on to Obamacare in order to subsidize the old and sick.  But the salesman-in-chief can't close the deal.


Income inequality speech, December 4, 2013

Obama's Quest To Increase Income Inequality — Starting With The Minimum Wage And Obamacare.  If a teen unemployment rate of 25% is not high enough to suit, raise the minimum wage and it will go up. [...] Why? Because no business can pay a worker more than the value they bring to the firm e.g. you have to "earn your pay".

The End of Poverty in America.  President Obama, on Wednesday, made a big speech about "economic inequality" and vowed to spend his last three years in office working to increase the federal minimum wage, as well as a lot of other things. [...] The one thing I've never had anyone do is explain to me why if a $15 an hour minimum wage is a good idea, a $100 an hour minimum wage is a bad idea.  I suspect it's because they realize that if they do, the jig is up:  if they raise the minimum wage that high, companies won't be able to pay the wage, and either there will be massive unemployment or massive inflation, as companies try to make up the difference.

The War of the Wages.  Mr. Obama returned to his favorite theme of rising income inequality on Wednesday [11/4/2013], which he called "the defining challenge of our time."  He ought to know since few Presidents have done more to increase inequality than he has.  Median household income has fallen since the economic recovery began, while the rich who own capital assets have done very well thanks to the Federal Reserve's focus on reflating stock and home prices.  Mr. Obama is the Chief Economist of Nottingham posing as Robin Hood.

America to be hit by fast food strike as Barack Obama warns of gap between rich and poor.  America is facing a wave of strikes by its fast-food workers on Thursday [12/5/2013] a day after Barack Obama warned that inequality in the USA had soared to the point that it now posed "a fundamental threat to the American dream".  Low-paid workers in McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken and other fast-food outlets in 100 cities across America were due to start rolling strikes to protest at the low level of America's $7.25 (£4.45) federal minimum wage.  The strikes are the latest part of a mushrooming publicity campaign for higher wages among those working so-called "McJobs", with fast-food restaurants seen as a high-profile pressure points to bring the question of US income inequality to the fore.

Barack Still Wants More Buggy Whips.  The prez yammers about "income inequality," using it as a ruse to beef up big government and trample freedom.  His O-ness slyly declared that disparities in income can be laid at the feet of technological innovations and market capitalism.

Dem Calls Obama's Inequality Speech One of the Best in Presidential History.  A Pennsylvania Democrat called President Obama's economic speech yesterday [12/4/2013] hosted by the Center for American Progress one of the best speeches ever given by an American leader.  Obama called for increasing the minimum wage and decried a wage gap in America, saying reversing the trend is "the defining challenge of our time."  "The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American dream, our way of life and what we stand for around the globe," he said.

Can a Minimum-Wage Hike Really Motivate Voters?  President Obama's message for the coming year is going to be a renewed focus on "income inequality." [...] One of the president's agenda items on this is raising the minimum wage.  President Obama backs a proposal from Democratic members of Congress to raise it to $10.10 per hour.  On that front, fast-food workers around the country are walking out on the job and holding protests today [12/5/2013], with one Detroit fast-food employee arguing his $7.40 per hour constituted "slave wages."

Our ideological president.  At a fundraiser in Seattle on the day before Thanksgiving, President Obama told a group of Democratic donors, apparently without a hint of irony, "I'm not a particularly ideological person."  One wouldn't know it from the ponderous 48-minute oration on income inequality that he delivered in Washington on Wednesday.

Latter-Day Marxist.  A week ago, the White House Marxist declared that income inequality was the "defining challenge" we face.  If Obama really means what he says (which he almost never does) he could begin by giving up the millions he has already pocketed and the fancy houses and the fancy vacations he funds with taxes coming from Americans who are scraping to make ends meet.  Or he could close down Obamacare, the largest redistribution of income from the have nots to the haves in our lifetimes.

'Income Inequality' — The Biggest Lie of All.  In the last few days Barack Obama has attempted to change the subject of public discourse from healthcare to income inequality, which he has dubbed "the defining challenge of our time."  Now he tells us!  Since POTUS hasn't paid much attention to this problem for the first five plus years of his administration, even with African-American unemployment through the roof and the middle class disappearing from American economic life, [...] this should come as some surprise.

Obama's Misguided Obsession With Inequality.  In his widely noted speech, President Obama said that "a dangerous and growing inequality and lack of upward mobility" is "the defining challenge of our time."  This belief makes Mr. Obama unique:  Unlike the other presidents since World War II, he places inequality above economic growth as the organizing principle of U.S. economic policy.

Obama Must Be Forced to Resign.  Ignoring the central role of a free market prolongs bad economic conditions and high taxation to maintain an ever-expanding central government led to big problems for European nations and promises the same — or worse — for the U.S.  When you add in the increased debt imposed in Obama's first term you are looking at the road to ruin.  Blaming "millionaires and billionaires" or "income inequality" is the very essence of communism.  It is a rejection of our capitalistic economic system.

Obama Boosts Income Inequality With Federal Pay Raise.  Earlier this month, in one of his many pivots, President Obama made a speech lamenting income inequality in America.  He called it the "defining challenge of our time." [...] Nearly three weeks later, Obama contributed to that inequality by signing an executive order hiking civilian and military pay by 1% in 2014.  Again, it's not a big raise.  And we don't begrudge better pay for those who serve us in the armed forces.  But we have to question why federal civilian workers need bigger paychecks.  It looks like things are already going well for them.

Barack Obama's Presidency Is A Complete Failure By His Own, Self-Imposed Standards.  Only the incomes of the top 20% have been rising under Obama, as the Fed's loose monetary policies have juiced the stock market and corporate profits.  This has to be considered a disgrace, that Obama carries on publicly about rising inequality and how that is so important, yet inequality has been precisely accelerating under his own, consistently anti-growth, economic policies, which are precisely crippling the poor and the middle class.

The Five Biggest Myths About Income Inequality.  "Inequality is the defining challenge of our time," according to President Obama. [...] But have you noticed that hardly anyone else is talking about it?  When is the last time you heard a shoeshine person or a taxi cab driver complain about inequality?  For most people, having a lot of rich people around is good for business.  But if average folks are not complaining should they be?

Liberals Double Down on Inequality.  It was on December 4, 2013 that President Obama opened the Year of Inequality with his speech on economic mobility.  A month later liberal hounds are baying for extended unemployment benefits and higher minimum wage, and conservatives are drawing up lists of what liberals know that ain't so.

Define Income Inequality.  Democrats are revving up for a huge national "conversation" on income inequality.  This is in no small part because the Obama administration and congressional Democrats would rather talk about anything other than Obamacare. [...] As a broad generalization, liberals see income as a public good that is distributed, like crayons in a kindergarten class.

Obama's drives to stoke class warfare to win midterm elections.  The mantra from the administration, like the rantings of the "Occupy" crowd and the new finger-pointing quasi-Marxist mayor of New York City, is that in today's United States, it is impossible to get ahead unless one is born rich, works on Wall Street or finds some other way to profit from the misery of others.  Their rhetoric and proposed policies play on envy and remind one of the class warfare that has dominate European politics for so long.

To Each, According to His Delusions.  The latest faux issue to insinuate itself into our political polemics travels under the unedifying name of "income inequality."  As political abstractions go, this one is more incoherent than most.  (Shabbier too in its naked appeal to envy and resentment.)  Almost no one who uses the term says what he means by it.  But it has the ring of yet another incitement to leftist larceny.  Since President Obama heaved this dead cat into the room a few weeks ago, I've been waiting for anyone speaking for the Republican Party to say that this hustle is nothing more than Marxist boilerplate.  Since no one in the Grand Old Party has either the courage or the awareness to say this, I guess it's up to me.

Obama is 100% right about inequality.  America was not built around fighting inequality.  Never.  America was not built around equality, fairness, or social justice.  Those have never been the cornerstones of our economy.  Those have never been the central tenants of our country, or our Constitution.  [...] Yet somehow we managed, even with inequality not even on our radar screen, to build the greatest nation in world history — and the greatest economy in world history.  Coincidence?  We built an economy more powerful than most of the world combined.  An economy so great that people the world over tried to escape their countries to come to ours.  An economy so great the world gave it a name:  "the American Dream."

Big government exacerbates inequality, economist argues.  When liberals start talking about inequality, it's nearly always in pursuit of more government.  They take for granted that a free market makes inequality worse and Big Government programs are needed to mitigate it.  This argument appears flawed in many ways.  For one thing, inequality in and of itself — as separated from the problems of poverty and immobility — might be harmful only when that inequality is created by cronyism.  Also, the Left's economic policies can exacerbate inequality as often as they can shrink it.

Fact-Free Liberals.  President Obama seems completely unaware of how many of the policies he is trying to impose have been tried before, in many times and places around the world, and have failed time and again.  Economic equality?  That was tried in the 19th century, in communities set up by Robert Owen, the man who coined the term "socialism."  Those communities all collapsed.

Obama Shifts from 'Income Inequality' to 'Ladders of Opportunity'.  President Obama has already changed his vernacular concerning his second term focus of "income inequality."  He is now calling it "ladders of opportunity."  In an apparent effort to blunt criticism over his intent to engage in full-blown class warfare during his second term, Obama is softening the harsher term with a new label.


NSA domestic surveillance "reform" speech, January 17, 2014

Citing Paul Revere, Edward Snowden, Obama vows spy reforms; Should we trust him?  Of course, by now it's no national secret that this president doesn't know much about a lot of what he's supposed to know.  He was AWOL when four helpless Americans were murdered in Benghazi, but still made his Vegas fundraisers on time.  He apparently forgot his immediate briefing on the actual terrorist cause of that violence, which he blamed on a video for two more weeks.  Obama and his minions knew that Mitt Romney causes cancer.  But by his own admission, Obama was clueless about the IRS helping his reelection by intimidating and curbing his political opponents.

Obama's NSA Speech: More mush from the proto-tyrant.  Yesterday [1/17/2014], President Obama delivered a speech to an audience at the Justice Department on NSA telephone spying that, in typical fashion, said very little of substance but sounded nice until you paid attention.  Almost every change announced included a backdoor that vitiated any substantial change.

Obama's restrictions on NSA surveillance rely on narrow definition of 'spying'.  Alongside the invocation of privacy and restraint, Obama gave his plainest endorsement yet of bulk collection, a term he used more than once and authorized explicitly in Presidential Policy Directive 28.  In a footnote, the directive defined the term to mean high-volume collection without the use of discriminants.

Obama's Speech: A Little Relief, More Dereliction of Duty.  President Obama's central proposal gains little in the way of privacy.  Congressional oversight, judicial review, and a special presidential commission revealed no actual abuses of the NSA program for political purposes, commercial gain, or even personal advantage.

The Nonsolution.  As the IRS investigations of political enemies show, it is what you are allowed to do with what you know that constitutes the major peril.  When the intelligence and law enforcement functions are mixed they constrain each other, as may have happened in the case of the Boston Bombers.  The incentive of the FBI is to secure a conviction.  The incentive of intelligence is to anticipate a threat.  Mix these two functions together and you sometimes get neither or if you get something, you get something very dangerous.

Dissecting Obama's NSA Speech.  President Obama's central proposal gains little in the way of privacy.  Congressional oversight, judicial review, and a special presidential commission revealed no actual abuses of the NSA program for political purposes, commercial gain, or even personal advantage.  There were an isolated number of mistakes made, as with any large technological system--and far fewer errors and mistakes, I might add, than have occurred with the Obamacare insurance system or the IRS reviews of Tea Party groups.

Obama's Misguided NSA Reforms.  According to some reports, the White House plans to make three changes:  1. Give Privacy Act rights to foreigners[,] 2. Prohibit the government from collecting telephone metadata, instead requiring it to ask the telephone companies to conduct searches for it[,] 3. Create an office to challenge search warrants sought from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts.  In brief, these ideas seem poor to me because they are solutions in search of a problem.  There has been no discovery of any deliberate abuses by the NSA of any American's privacy or constitutional rights as part of these programs.  The first reform strikes me as ludicrous.  Why should foreigners have any privacy rights against the United States government?

Obama to Announce Sham NSA Reform Today.  Reeling from Edward Snowden's disclosures that the Obama-era NSA has been sweeping up Americans' data despite Candidate Obama's promise to wage a nicer war on terrorism, the president is set to announce some "reforms" of how the spy agency handles the data it is gathering.  Once we get past the fluff, the reforms appear to be to 1) have the NSA house the data somewhere other than NSA's own servers; 2) require a judicial finding before the government queries the database; and 3) let Eric Holder figure out the rest.

NSA Unleashed, Obama Tells Public, 'Trust Me'.  Previews of the president's address on counterterrorism Friday suggest he will not embrace the most far-reaching proposals of his own advisers and will punt some of the toughest issues to a dysfunctional Congress.  The National Security Agency gets a pass.

Obama's NSA speech leaves more questions than answers.  Basically there's a lot of stuff he now says the NSA shouldn't do.  Unless they think they ought to.  The president has not put a lid on this debate — indeed he rather has given the pot a vigorous stir.  What he's announced shouldn't upset the intelligence community — and is unlikely to greatly reassure civil liberties groups — but both sides will be left with more questions than answers.

Obama's Belated Defense of the NSA.  It is very hard to take President Obama seriously.  At Friday's big surveillance speech, after five years of Big Government — orchestrated Constitution shredding, he looked the American people in the eye and explained that, as monitoring technology has evolved over the centuries, our nation has always "benefitted from both our Constitution and traditions of limited government."  While your head was still spinning, another whopper:  After five years of whimsically "waiving," ignoring, and unilaterally rewriting congressional statutes, he bleated that "our system of government is built on the premise that our liberty cannot depend on the good intentions of those in power; it depends upon the law to constrain those in power."

Rand Paul Mocks Obama's NSA Speech: 'If You Like Your Privacy, You Can Keep it'.  Sen. Rand Paul responded today [1/17/2014] to Obama's NSA speech in which Obama announced plans to reform the National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program, which has been unconstitutionally spying on Americans, in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment.  Senator Paul, in a statement reiterated that he will continue to fight for his Fourth Amendment Restoration Act as well as his lawsuit against the Obama NSA.

What would Patrick Henry do with the NSA?  In his speech of Friday last, President Obama laid out some nifty new review processes to see to it that the NSA behaves — our "reviewers" will now have "reviewers."  And therein lies the problem: government cannot be the judge of the extent of its own powers, that is what has led to this moment.

Obama goal for quick revamp of NSA program may be unworkable, some U.S. officials fear.  U.S. officials directed by President Obama to find a way to end the government's role in gathering Americans' phone records are deeply concerned that there may be no feasible way to accomplish the task soon, according to individuals familiar with the discussions.

Obama's NSA blind spot.  President Obama's recent speech on government surveillance is dominating the conversation, but he won't be making the key decisions on the future of the National Security Agency's collection of domestic phone data.  The statutory provision authorizing these massive sweeps expires June 1, 2015.  If Congress simply does nothing, the NSA's domestic spying program will soon come to a screeching halt.  The question is whether Americans will seize this opportunity to gain critical perspective on the crisis responses of the George W. Bush years.  Voters elected and reelected Obama precisely because he promised to engage in this decisive reappraisal.  But his speech failed to redeem this promise.


State of the Union speech, January 25, 2014

Anticipation:

Obama Income Inequality Plans: Been There, Tried That.  In his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, President Obama is expected to make income inequality the centerpiece of his address. [...] But what Obama is unlikely to say in his lengthy address is that income inequality — as measured by the Census Bureau's Gini index — has increased faster on his watch than it did under any of the three previous presidents.

Obama's Shrinking Speech Ratings.  Indeed, the television ratings for the [State of the Union] speech have declined over the last three presidents, even as the number of outlets televising the event is increasing, reflecting the proliferation of both competing television outlets and new digital media fighting for viewers' attention.  Moreover, around-the-clock news channels, hypercompetitive Web outlets and pitched battles on Twitter mean the president no longer has a near-monopoly on political messaging during and after the speech.

State of the Union Guests Will Include Boston Marathon Bombing Survivors, First Openly Gay NBA Player.  The White House has partially unveiled the list of guests who will join first lady Michelle Obama in her box at the president's State of the Union address Tuesday night.  Six names have been revealed thus far, including two survivors of the April terror attack on the Boston marathon and the first male athlete in a major American sport to come out as openly gay.

Obama's State Of The Union Address: If You Like Your Income Inequality, You Can Keep It.  From a promised minimum wage increase, to destabilization of the health care system, to an energy policy encapsulated by "Under my plan ... electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket," no part of the Obama vision is about making America freer and richer.  The president will double down on big government during the State of the Union Address.  He will lament "income inequality" and a "wealth gap" aggravated by government itself, and advocate greater dependence on the state as a remedy.

In Speech to Congress, Obama To Talk of Ignoring Them.  President Obama will be addressing Congress Tuesday in his State of the Union speech, but much of his speech will include plans to bypass them, White House officials said Sunday [1/26/2014].

The King is Naked.  The reason for the State of Obama's America isn't Obama.  The reason for the State of Obama's America is... liberalism.  Or, if you prefer, socialism.  Progressivism.  From the $20 trillion spent on LBJ's War on Poverty to the cause of what the Obama White House loves to refer to as "the Great Recession" of 2008 on through to the dreadfully poor state of today's American economy, as Mr. Obama takes to the podium tonight he does so as Exhibit A that the central idea of increasing the role of government in American life has proved itself to be an abject failure.

Reaction:

Fact Checking the 2014 State of the Union address.  Here is a guide through some of President Obama's more fact-challenged claims, in the order in which he made them.

Fact Checking the 2014 State of the Union address.  [Quoting President Obama:] "The more than eight million new jobs our businesses have created over the past four years."  The president is cherry-picking a number that puts the improvement in the economy in the best possible light.  The low point in jobs was reached in February 2010, and there has indeed been a gain of about 8 million jobs since then, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Fact check: Obama's State of the Union.  We found a few overstatements and cherry-picked numbers among the applause lines and proposals in President Obama's State of the Union address.  [#1] He boasted of businesses creating "more than 8 million new jobs" in the last four years.  But that leaves out a loss of government jobs, not to mention the loss of jobs earlier in Obama's presidency.  [#2] Obama credited the Affordable Care Act with signing up more than 9 million Americans for private insurance or Medicaid.  But Medicaid estimates include renewals, along with new enrollees.  [#3] Obama boasted that the U.S. "reduced our total carbon pollution more than any other nation on Earth."  Yes, but the U.S. produces a lot of emissions.  Looking at percentage change, dozens of countries did better.  [#4] Federal deficits have been "cut by half," as he said, but they're still at historically high levels.

A Small, Incoherent State of the Union Address.  The speech was long, more than an hour.  At times it was defiant, at others it felt almost conciliatory.  But mostly the speech was forgettable, disposable — a long list of modest policy proposals that will not be remembered for much longer than their echo in the House chamber.

Obama's Mismatched, Misfit State of the Union Is In the Books.  How does one critique a speech like tonight's?  It's like trying to find rational structure in cotton candy.  Poke it too much and it'll just get all over you and make a big mess.  Obama is like an actor stepping into a role that is larger than himself — a Brendan Fraser trying to take on a John Wayne role.  He looks the part, he sounds the part, but the gravitas just isn't there.

I'm Starting To Forget It Already.  I'll leave it to others to fact-check the thing.  There were more than a few statements that struck me as the sort of thing that wouldn't bear up well under close scrutiny — particularly on Iran's nuclear program, women's pay, and domestic energy — but I'm too tired to do the scrutinizing now.  My general impression was this was a remarkably boring speech, intellectually and rhetorically.  Not every idea was terrible.  But no idea was particularly exciting, or all that significant.

A Clintonian Speech.  It seemed like a laundry list of mostly dinky initiatives, and as such a return to Clinton's style of State of the Union addresses.

State of the Union Media Verdict: Obama plays small ball with subdued speech.  President Obama delivered a rousing finale with an emotional tribute to a soldier Tuesday night, but that followed a lengthy speech that received less than rave reviews.

Is Obama Backing Away from Obamacare?  The president devoted less than 7 percent of his State of the Union address — just 462 words in a speech that was 6,778 words long — to an anecdotal and weak defense of his signature legislative achievement.  Surely Democrats in the Senate who are facing the voters for the first time this November after voting for Obamacare were expecting much more.  Instead, they got an anecdote, pointing to Amanda Shelley of Arizona who needed a safety net and was grateful for Obamacare.  But the president didn't mount a strong, energetic defense of the law or make any explanation for its obvious and embarrassing failures.

Immigration Less Than Two Percent of Obama's State of the Union Speech.  President Barack Obama only mentioned immigration reform efforts as a mere throwaway line in his State of the Union speech Tuesday evening.  The only time he mentioned the matter, according to prepared remarks distributed to press before delivery, was as something he argued would help the economy after a long line of other policy prescriptions he pushed.

Obama throws in towel on global-warming legislation.  President Obama came to office promising significant action to fight climate change, and Tuesday night's State of the Union indicates this administration fully recognizes any action on that issue over the next three years will come not through legislation but through regulations and executive actions.  Rather than call for a "comprehensive energy and climate bill" as he did in 2010, Mr. Obama on Tuesday focused on much smaller goals and touted the controversial efforts of his Environmental Protection Agency to cut down on carbon emissions from power plants.

Obama prepared to avoid Congress, go it alone on carrying out modest initiatives.  For the first time since taking office, Obama spoke to Congress on Tuesday evening from a clear position of confrontation, threatening to veto new Iran sanctions, warning against further moves against his health-care law and demanding action on a series of previously proposed economic measures.

How many workers will be affected by Obama's minimum wage executive order?  Ahead of tonight's State of the Union Address, the White House has announced that President Obama will sign an executive order raising the minimum wage for workers employed through federal contracts.  The policy is a part of a "year of action" being touted by the Obama administration, in which the president will attempt to impose changes through executive order that he cannot pass through Congress.  But the White House document explaining the planned action does not indicate how many Americans will actually be affected by the executive order.

The State of the Union: The Self-Congratulatory Blowout of the Governing Class.  The State of the Union Address feels like a national ritual that is stuck on autopilot, lumbering along year by indistinguishable year, immune to reform or adaptation or updating, usually instantly forgotten and increasingly irrelevant... and yet unstoppable.  Even the speech text is pretty much the same every year, regardless of the actual condition of the country.

SOTU Wrapup.  The speech contained a multitude of rehashed policy points about tax reform, education partnerships, manufacturing revival, and an "all-of-the-above" energy strategy that focuses on alternative fuels.

Obama promises a dramatic 'year of action' — with or without help of Congress.  Provoking Republican lawmakers with an in-your-face vow to bypass Congress if necessary, President Obama said Tuesday night that he would use his executive authority on a dozen issues including income inequality and job training to spur "a year of action" for his stalled agenda.  "America does not stand still — and neither will I," Mr. Obama said in the annual State of the Union address.  "So wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that's what I'm going to do."

Obama's foolish proposals won't fix distressed economy.  Promising to address inequality and strengthen the middle class, President Obama's State of the Union address combined sound and foolish proposals, laced with good, old-fashioned demagoguery.  Despite nearly five years of economic recovery, the fortunes of working Americans have decidedly worsened.  The president's policies should carry considerable culpability and bear correction.  Instead, he pronounced that upward mobility has stalled — when non-partisan economic studies show that's not true — and insisted the wealthy should pay to balance the accounts.

A President Becalmed Grasps for Power He May Not Have.  A year ago, President Obama was fresh from his reelection victory and filled his State of the Union message with bold plans for everything from immigration to gun control.  Since then his job-approval rating has fallen from 52 percent down to just over 43 percent in the Real Clear Politics average of all polls.  Obamacare, his signature legislative accomplishment, is fodder for every late-night comedian and even has Democrats worrying in public that it might be fiscally unsustainable.  It's now clear that President Obama is politically weakened and that his dreams of a legislative home run are now merely a field of dreams.

My 14 Observations of Obama's 2014 SOTU.  [#9] Well, I see Obama managed to find the one person in America who managed to sign up for Obamacare.  While I am glad that Amanda Shelley got the medical care she needed, the fact is that America has fewer people with health insurance than we did on October 1, 2013.  As long as the White House is fudging the Obamacare enrollment numbers, President Obama is in no position to tell Republicans, "Let's see if the numbers add up.

Former Bush Speechwriter: Obama Plagiarized Bush's 2007 SOTU speech.  Following President Barack Obama's State of the Union address on Tuesday, former George W. Bush speechwriter Mark Thiessen told Fox News Channel's "The Kelly File" host Megyn Kelly that Obama's speech plagiarized lines from Bush's 2007 speech, for which he said he was the lead speechwriter.

The State of Liberalism.  Obama's State of the Union reads like a shopping list while those of earlier presidents of both parties, such as Kennedy and Johnson, or Reagan or Bush, did not.  Why?  Because Obama's shopping list has no true guiding principles, no broader political understanding of our point in American history, no plan for guiding the nation from 2008 to 2016 in the most prosperous and secure way possible.  Obama retains a liberal's faith in government intervention in the markets and civil society, but to no purpose.  Without that broader understanding of politics, Obama's agenda reduces to distributing more benefits to more groups.

The State of Our Union Is Depressing.  The speech last night was depressing for its predictability, its lack of self-awareness, and its lack of solutions to help America get back on track.  It was, however, stunning to listen to the president still trying to sell his misguided health-care law to the public as if nothing had happened.

Tension in Democratic Party after Obama speech.  Tensions within the Democratic Party were on display in the living rooms of Massachusetts, where liberal activists watched President Barack Obama's State of the Union address with skepticism.

Obama flexes executive muscle in State of the Union.  President Obama flexed executive muscle in his State of the Union address Tuesday, rolling out a series of unilateral actions in an attempt to reassert his standing in Washington and with the American public.  Obama's prime-time speech to millions of people came against the backdrop of the roughest stretch of his presidency.  And eager to keep Americans from tuning him out, the president framed his executive orders as part of a "year of action" to boost job creation and combat income inequality.

The TOTUS Who Can't Look America in the Eye.  Not once — not even once — did the man who claims to be the legitimate leader of our nation ever look me, and all the other watching citizens of this nation, in the eye during his State of the Nation speech.  He was a dash-top bobble-head, swinging back and forth from prompter to prompter.  Good grief!  The man can't uncouple himself from his comfort-zone technology for even a moment to look Americans in the eye just once, and give us some sense of our comfort that he is sincere.

Pabulum from the POTUS.  This man, our President, is the emptiest suit of empty suits.  There is no there there.  He reads the teleprompter but one cannot help thinking that he was reading the speech for the first time and that he most certainly did not write it.  He believes himself to be above the ignoble work of actually writing the speeches he delivers, just as he considers himself above actually governing.  He dictates.  He lectures.  He orders.  He vacations.  He golfs.  He spends taxpayer dollars profligately.  He pontificates on issues about which he knows virtually nothing beyond what his callow young "advisers," like the odious Dan Pfeiffer, tell him.  He is a cipher.

More about Barack Obama's teleprompter addiction.

Obama bemoans worsening income inequality as if he hasn't been president.  President Obama gave another speech Tuesday night.  It was the 93rd time a president has personally delivered a State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress.  And it sounded like it.  Obama has looked and sounded as if he's mailing it in these past few weeks.  Not Tuesday night.  He seemed genuinely involved and invested in his 7,000 words.  Unfortunately for him and anyone who chose to listen to the whole 65 minutes, there wasn't anything new or even much to invest any thought in.

Presidential Theater.  What's with this perpetual charge from the left that women make only 77 cents for every dollar men make?  If this were actually true when it came to "equal pay for equal work" (Obama's allusion only a few words or sentences later), then clearly a lot of employers out there are brazenly breaking a lot of laws.  Where are all those deputized federal regulators when we really need them?

Biden offered the best SOTU commentary of all.  How boringly familiar was the State of the Union address?  Boring enough that Joe Biden, seated right behind Obama and on camera for the entire snooze fest, started mugging and interacting with members of Congress in the audience.  It was quite a good commentary on the performance of the Commander in Chief who could not rise above the level of pabulum.

More Pinocchios for the President on Equal Pay.  Perhaps it's progress that the president waited until the second half of the speech to trot out the must-have line about equal pay and the wage gap.  Perhaps his speech writers just needed to fill time so cut and paste a line from dozens of previous speeches: [...] Yet they are behind the curve in using a statistic that is increasingly acknowledged as misleading.

State of the Union 2014: Obama embraces Obamacare.  Obamacare didn't show up in the State of the Union address until over halfway through, and it encompassed all of nine paragraphs in an hour-plus stemwinder.  But this was very much a hard sell by the president for Americans to sign up for his signature health care law, the biggest sales pitch Obama has made in a State of the Union address since the law passed.

Obama vows to pursue gun control 'with or without Congress'.  President Obama vowed on Tuesday night to pursue gun control "with or without Congress."  In his State of the Union address, Obama referenced recent mass shootings and called for new gun laws.  In the aftermath of mass shootings over the last several years, Obama and Democrats have unsuccessfully pushed for new gun control measures.  "Citizenship means standing up for the lives that gun violence steals from us each day," Obama said.

The State of the Union: Make it stop.  "The Constitution's mild requirement has become a tiresome exercise in political exhibitionism," the columnist George Will wrote this week, calling the speech "the most execrable ceremony in the nation's civic liturgy, regardless of which party's president is abusing it" as a "made-for-television political pep rally."

Obama Abandons Unrealistic Progressives, Courts the Right with New Media Strategy.  The media was not impressed by Obama's agenda last night, and the White House seems to have concluded that they may never be again.  The aggressive, sweeping progressive agenda they would like Obama to communicate is simply beyond his constitutionally-constrained ability to deliver.

Mike Lee's Tea Party State of the Union Response: Obamacare 'an Inequality Godzilla'.  In his response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address that focused heavily on "inequality," Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) slammed Obamacare as "an inequality Godzilla," symbolizing an administration that has favored Washington, D.C. while purporting to fight for America's middle class.

President Wuss and the State of the Union.  Whether they support the president's policies or not, the American people expect their national leader to be resolute.  The person that gave the address Tuesday night was a wuss.

Obama's Love of Elites.  President Obama drew applause from the House chamber for striking what seemed to be a populist blow against elitism in his State of the Union.  "I believe that here in America, our success should depend not on accident of birth, but the strength of our work ethic and the scope of our dreams," Obama said early in his remarks.  Looking at his administration, however, you would never know he believes that.

State of the Union moot as Obama becomes irrelevant.  The fanfare for the president's annual speech to Congress has gotten absurd, but especially so in 2014, when nothing this president does matters.  Not a single thing.  He is irrelevant, inconsequential, insignificant.  Hollow, empty, useless and worthless.  Neither here nor there nor anywhere, fully deprived of practical significance, the lamest of lame ducks.

Economists see few dollars and little sense on Obama agenda.  Indeed, there was little new on the economic front in Mr. Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday evening.  One exception was the president's announcement that he would hike the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour for all federal contractors and urged Congress to enact legislation doing the same for all American workers.

There's Something About MyRA.  By now, you may have heard about MyRA.  The acronym, which President Barack Obama stumbled over in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, stands for My Retirement Account.  Obama introduced the new plan like this:  "MyRA guarantees a decent return with no risk of losing what you put in." On Wednesday, the administration said it will launch a pilot program of the "new, simple, safe and affordable 'starter' retirement savings account" by the end of the year.

myConstitution.  President Obama has just announced the creation of a new program, which he calls myRA, as part of an overarching agenda he's implementing, which could well be called myConstitution. [...] Creating a new type of retirement account certainly doesn't sound like a president carrying out his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.  And even if this isn't technically the creation of a new kind of IRA but merely a rebranding of existing Roth IRAs (it's a bit hard to tell), the administration's choice of language strongly suggests that Obama is engaging in an alternative form of lawmaking — and is proud of it.

Beck Slames Obama "MyRA" Plan: Biggest Heist in History.  Glenn Beck slammed President Obama's "myRA" proposal on his radio program Thursday as a "bigger lie than 'if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.'"  The initiative was unveiled by the president during his State of the Union address on Tuesday as a way to help more people save for retirement.

State of the Union draws 33.3 million viewers, lowest since 2000.  President Obama's 2014 State of the Union address drew an average of 33.3 million viewers Tuesday night, according to Nielsen.  That is the lowest showing since 2000, when President Clinton's speech averaged 31.5 million viewers.

Jackson Lee on SOTU: 'Executive Orders are Legal'.  In reference to President Barack Obama's pledge, during his State of the Union speech, to advance his agenda on climate change and the minimum wage by executive order, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said "executive orders are legal" and that he is "acting on behalf of the American people."

Speech To Congress Rife With Excuses, Finger-Pointing.  President Obama made a confession to the American people Tuesday.  His call for "a year of action" admits that he'd prefer we forget his five years of failed actions and inaction.  Confession may be good for the soul, but it can't be good for the country when a president admits failure by talking as if somebody else has been in charge for the past five years.

Watching the State of the Union speech with the sound muted:
The Silent SOTU.  As I followed along via the closed captions, it was immediately apparent that Obama had a) nothing to say and b) was saying it very badly.  Mercifully spared his characteristic drone, the predictable cadences and the sine-wave rise and fall of his voice, all a viewer was left with were the president's policy prescriptions, often hilariously rendered into fractured English in the caption crawl, and his robotic body language; he appeared more akin to a hologram than a human being. [...] Finally, there is this:  At least half the country simply does not believe the man has the best interests of the union at heart.

'Just Quit': Group of Black Political Activists in Chicago Savage Obama's State of the Union.  After watching President Barack Obama's State of the Union Address on Tuesday night, a group of African-Americans were asked for their thoughts on the speech.  Their reactions were not favorable toward the president.  Most said they believed that their conditions had not greatly improved over the course of his presidency with one of the interviewees even saying that Obama should resign.

Meanwhile, Back in America ....  The State of the Union was a spectacle of delusion and self-congratulation in which a Congress nobody likes rose to cheer a president nobody really likes.  It marked the continued degeneration of a great and useful tradition.  Viewership was down, to the lowest level since 2000.

The Decline and Fall of 'Hope and Change'.  Whatever he once was or wasn't, Obama is now a creature of the Washington, D.C., establishment.  He is captive to its loyalties and prejudices, and committed to safeguarding its interests.  That doesn't mean he hasn't or won't accomplish anything worth while, but there are whole categories of problems that he won't try to fix.  Hope and change are dead.

President ignores ObamaCare horror stories as human, financial costs pile up.  As expected, President Obama used his State of the Union speech Tuesday to extol the virtues of ObamaCare, and also as expected, retold the story of one person positively affected by the program.  But for each success there are countless failures.

Obama's State of the Union whoppers.  The term "cherry-picking" is often applied to the practice of presidents who use inaccurate, narrowly drawn, fuzzy statistics and claims to cover up their economic failures.  President Obama did a lot of it in his fact-challenged, State of the Union address Tuesday night, in which he made exaggerated claims that do not stand up to serious scrutiny.

Not watching SOTU last night was surprisingly refreshing.  Reading the headlines and tweets today, there aren't any of them that couldn't have been written before the speech.

Obama and Executive Orders.  Barack Obama announced in his 2014 State of the Union Address that he intends to bypass Congress "whenever and wherever" to achieve his extremev left-wing goals.  Evidently, Obama intends to govern by executive orders (EO's).  EO's are usually defined as directives that either implement or interpret a federal law, a constitutional provision, or a treaty.  Obama has threatened to issue executive orders to make policy, a different use of them.

Obama's SOTU: 18 Lies and Distortions That Should Concern Us.  Mr. Obama began the speech by saying 'my fellow Americans.'  Is he serious, do you think?

The State of the Static Union (and Universalist Claptrap).  This week to an ever-diminishing audience President Obama outlined a pedestrian plan for the remainder of this year, amidst the usual hornswoggle of invited guests in the gallery and dubious daytime TV style anecdotal stories of their lives.  More popular than ever is the wish that we could return to State of the Union messages being delivered on paper to Congress.

Obama's Weaponization of Government.  A tired, graying Barack Obama stood before Congress this week as a political figure, party leader, and progressive activist to make sure the Members understood one thing — he doesn't need them.  In fact, he hasn't needed them in quite some time.  After all, in his mind, it's his government.

No, Women Don't Make Less Money Than Men.  It's the bogus statistic that won't die — and president deployed it during the State of the Union — but women do not make 77 cents to every dollar a man earns.  President Obama repeated the spurious gender wage gap statistic in his State of the Union address.

Shhh. The President Is Sleeping.  The president on display at Tuesday's State of the Union is one who has shrunk from the pretension of becoming a president on the order of Ronald Reagan or Franklin Roosevelt into the purveyor of a list of puny policies that tinker at the margins.

Obama's Failure in State of the Union Marks Decline of American Leadership.  Readers are entitled to candor:  Though I sugared it a bit for the television viewers, I thought the speech was a disaster and an embarrassment.  The president showered down on us a sequence of whoppers so astounding I thought at times that, in Margaret Thatcher's phrase, "my ears were deceiving me."  The unmitigated shambles of his health-care reform, which has failed to deprive scores of millions of Americans of any insurance coverage only because the schedule of its application has been altered, he represented as a great leap forward for the average person.

American Idle.  [Scroll down]  President Obama is committed to reducing male wages relative to female ones.  In his State of the Union address, he declared:  "Today, women make up about half our workforce.  But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns.  That is wrong, and in 2014, it's an embarrassment."  Actually, it's an embarrassment that the president perpetuates this myth — which Slate, in the headline of a 2013 story by feminist author Hanna Rosin bluntly called a "lie."

SOTU infographic
During the 65 Minutes Obama Spoke, This Happened In America.

Obama can't wish away terrorism.  President Obama's 2014 State of the Union address is remembered today mainly for this bit of rhetorical irony:  "America must move off a permanent war footing."  It was the triumph of speechwriting over experience.  Obama's pledge came about three weeks after the fall of Fallujah to the Islamic State.  By June, Mosul would be overrun.  Global jihadism now has a cause — Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's sham caliphate — around which to rally.  It controls unprecedented territory and resources.  It has a stream of thousands of Western recruits cycling in and out of the Middle East.  And it encompasses a dangerous competition between the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, in which acts of terrorism are a source of street credibility.


The Obamacare End Zone Celebration Speech, April 1, 2014

The Debate Is Not Over, Mr. President.  President Obama confuses high enrollment numbers with success on Obamacare, ignoring the obvious fact that millions of Americans are signed up but not sold.  "The point is, the repeal debate is and should be over.  The Affordable Care Act is working," the president said while announcing the enrollment of more than 8 million Americans.  That is not the point.  The debate is not over.

Obama shuts down debate.  When President Obama trumpeted the 8 million figure representing people who had signed up for ObamaCare, he didn't just declare it a victory.  He declared the debate over — and told Republicans "it's well time to move on."  Now, we understand the eagerness of politicians to declare debates over.  It's certainly easier than defending ObamaCare's broken promises, or even providing the breakdowns behind that 8 million top-line number that would let us measure if the program is getting the sign-ups it needs.

Barack Obama, the adolescent president.  [President Obama] talks like an arrested-development adolescent.  Anyone who has tried to engage a member of that age cohort in an argument probably recognizes the four basic teenage tropes, which also are the only arrows in Obama's overrated rhetorical quiver.  He employed them all last week when he went to the White House briefing room to exclaim, as he is wont to do, about the excellence of the Affordable Care Act.  First came the invocation of a straw man.

Georgia Numbers Show Obama's '8 Million Enrollee' Claim Is A Fraud.  Not that anything Barack Obama represents as a factual claim should ever be believed, mind you, but last week's chest-thumping surrounding the purported "eight million" number of Obamacare enrollees didn't last very long before it started to fall apart.  That "eight million" doesn't take into account whether the newly-insured have actually paid for anything.  So what percentage of the enrollees in Obamacare actually have health insurance in force?  How many have signed up but not paid?  In Georgia, it looks like the number is about half.

New poll confirms: Obamacare debate definitely not "over".  [Scroll down]  The president, coincidentally, offered the exact same straw man analysis at his Thursday press conference.  Speaking of which, Obama's central theme in the briefing room was that the national debate regarding Obamacare is now "over."  Because he says so.  A new poll from Fox News indicates that voters disagree.

'Obamacare is Working!'  Last Thursday, the president announced the Obamacare debate over for the second time this month.  The pretext for his repetition of this talking point was yet another implausible claim concerning the number of people his health care law has helped gain coverage.  He offered this new total, 8 million, as proof that further resistance to "reform" is futile:  "The repeal debate is and should be over... The Affordable Care Act is working."  If you feel that President Obama is protesting a bit too much, you are not alone.

Barack Obama and the politics of lies.  That was quite a victory dance President Obama did Thursday while claiming Obamacare is "working" because eight million people have now supposedly signed up for the health care program. He even indulged in some less-than-subtle mockery of Republicans — and by extension the majority of Americans who have disapproved of Obamacare since before it became law.  "The repeal debate is and should be over," Obama said, taking a dig at Republicans who are "going through, you know, the stages of grief ... anger and denial and all that stuff ..."  But a president who is viewed by most Americans as less than honest has no business crowing about a victory that remains anything but obvious.

Obama taunts GOP, takes nationally televised victory lap on Obamacare.  The 8 million enrollment number marks a major success for Mr. Obama, who scrambled six months ago after computer glitches nearly left the system stillborn.  But the president nursed Obamacare with a series of delays and extensions  — many of which Republicans said were illegal  — and easily surpassed the initial target of 7 million sign-ups.  Beneath the enrollment numbers, though, are plenty of questions.  Although Mr. Obama touted the 35 percent of federal exchange enrollees he said were younger than 35, the administration acknowledged in a fact sheet that just 28 percent are 18 to 34 — the key demographic insurers need to sign up in order to cover the costs of older Americans with health conditions who no longer can be denied coverage.  Economists said the number needed to prevent premium spikes is close to 40 percent.

Shut Up, He Explained Again.  In his opening statement, Obama asserted that "the repeal debate is and should be over.  The Affordable Care Act is working."  He said the same thing on April Fool's Day, though the repetition is beginning to feel like "Groundhog Day."  The assertion, and especially the reassertion, that the debate is over is self-refuting, for it is simply a statement of Obama's position in the debate.

Obama Celebrates Eight Million 'Enrollments,' Again Declares Debate 'Over'.  President Obama addressed the White House press corps today [4/17/2014], announcing that with the final numbers in, Obamacare's exchanges have attracted eight million sign-ups — 35 percent of whom are "under the age of 35," he said.  Several elements of his comments were misleading: [...]

Obama offers new insults, then laments gridlock.  President Barack Obama used his Thursday press conference to diagnose Republicans as fear-mongering, spiteful, obstinate, petulant and obstructive, as he again declared mission-accomplished in his effort to put the nation's health-care under government control.  "I recognize that their party is going through the stages of grief — anger and denial and all that stuff — and we're not at acceptance yet," Obama told reporters, where he announced that his Obamacare network had claimed 8 million subscribers.  Obama coupled his passive-voice diatribe with his more-in-sorrow-than-anger promise that he "would much prefer a constructive conversation with the Republicans about how do we get some stuff done."

Obama: GOP going through 'stages of grief' over Obamacare.  Obama announced Thursday that 8 million consumers had signed up for Obamacare's insurance exchanges and said that the successful enrollment period should end the debate over the law's future.  Republicans, though, say they will press ahead with efforts to undo his signature domestic initiative.

Obama: Health care sign-ups hit 8 million.  President Barack Obama called on his fellow Democrats to "forcefully defend and be proud" of the fact that millions of people have signed up for health care insurance through the federal marketplaces, and faulted Republicans who are still angling to repeal the Affordable Care Act.  "I don't think we should apologize for it.  I don't think we should be defensive about it.  I think there is a strong, good, right story to tell," Obama said Thursday during a rare appearance at the daily White House news conference.

The Most Un-American Speech Barack Obama Has Ever Delivered.  But the most ghastly aspect of the president's speech was its celebratory tone.  This president stood in the Rose Garden in the lawn of the people's house.  He used force to coerce Americans into doing what he wants for the sake of politics and power.  An American president should never celebrate taking freedoms away from Americans.  This president has, and he is pleased with himself for doing it.  He basks in the applause of those who celebrate with him, as if it's an achievement to use the full force of government to impose yourself on others.  Outside the gates of his little ceremony, Democrats remain on the run because Obamacare is wreaking havoc on people's lives.

Obama Rips Critics in Deeply Partisan Obamacare Speech.  President Obama seized on the veneer of good news about Obamacare to tear into his critics, issuing one of the most partisan speeches of his presidency and accusing opponents of lying about the law to scare the public because they're opposed to people having health insurance.

5 Reasons Obama's 7.1 Million Number Is Meaningless.  On Tuesday [4/1/2014], President Obama triumphantly announced that, with the power of the mainstream media, Hollywood, and the threat of the IRS, the mission had been accomplished:  7.1 million Americans had selected an Obamacare plan.  Obama's tone was nothing short of exuberant:  "7.1 million Americans have now signed up for private insurance plans through these market places.  7.1!  Yep!"  He then went on to criticize those who had expressed objections to Obamacare for its deprivations of plans, doctors, drugs, and liberty:  "Why are folks working so hard for people not to have health insurance?"

Study shows just 858,000 newly insured Americans have paid up!  A triumphant President Barack Obama declared Tuesday his signature medical insurance overhaul a success, saying it has made America's health care system 'a lot better' in a Rose Garden press conference.  But buried in the 7.1 million enrollments he announced in a heavily staged appearance is a more unsettling reality.  Numbers from a RAND Corporation study that has been kept under wraps suggest that barely 858,000 previously uninsured Americans — nowhere near 7.1 million — have paid for new policies and joined the ranks of the insured by Monday night [3/31/2014].

Seven Million? Who Does the Obama White House Think They're Fooling?  President Obama is going to make a statement about Obamacare this afternoon.  He's likely to crow about that number that just magically appeared last night.  That number is so raw and unfiltered that it's meaningless.  Supposing that it's even a real number and not something that this dishonest cabal just made up.  First, there are the cancellations.  Fox counted up all the cancellations in each state that are directly attributable to Obamacare and came up with 6.2 million.  Subtract that from the 7 million sign-ups and we're at less than 1 million.  Some number of those who had their insurance killed by the man who promised they could keep it would have been expected to sign-up for a new plan within Obamacare.

Obama jabs press: Future HealthCare.gov outages 'won't be news'.  President Obama expressed the White House's frustration with news coverage of the Affordable Care Act's rocky rollout by taking a jab at the press on Tuesday.  During his ObamaCare enrollment victory lap speech in the Rose Garden, the president swiped at reporters, who the White House believes were too eager to spotlight every incremental development associated with the site's botched launch.

Obama's Rose Garden phony numbers 'tell'.  The April Fool's Day show put on in the Rose Garden yesterday was no triumph, but rather an act of desperation, touting "enrollment" numbers generated without any transparency, intended to arrest the downward spiral of Obamacare and the Democratic Party's electoral prospects.  Obama himself gave away the game unintentionally, in what poker players call a "tell" that consisted of two parts.  The first part of the tell was the obvious outright lie told by the president in a "poor me" moment of self-pity.

President's celebration skips those asking the hard questions.  [W]hile the president basked in his success and predictably castigated his critics, he took no questions.  Perhaps that's because some of them would have been hard to answer.  For instance:  How many new enrollees have paid their premiums?  The numbers above include everyone who has "picked" a health plan, even if they haven't yet paid for it, sort of like Amazon counting every item a shopper puts in their "cart" as a sale.  Even Health Secretary Kathleen Sibelius concedes that only 80 percent of those who've picked a plan have actually paid the first month's premium.  Insurance executives also report that an another 3 percent to 5 percent paid once, but then stopped.  If these numbers hold, it would mean that just 5.6 million Americans (and 312,000 New Yorkers) really bought insurance through the exchanges.

Obama TD Dance a Poor Strategy for Dems.  Given the mistake-filled rollout of ObamaCare, the fact that the numbers reported by the government indicated that it had exceeded the seven million goal that had been set as the goal for the open enrollment period, the administration felt it had good reason to spike the ball and that's exactly what the president did.  But in doing so, the president not only misrepresented the nature of what had actually been accomplished, he also mischaracterized the nature and the extent of the opposition to the law.

The ObamaCare Copperheads.  In the Rose Garden Tuesday, President Obama reported that 7.1 million people had signed up so far, confirming a Monday night White House news leak.  "That doesn't mean all our health-care problems have been solved forever," he conceded with customary modesty.  The government appears to have tapped heretofore-unknown reserves of bureaucratic efficiency by releasing numbers timed to this campaign-style pep rally.  Yet for months the Health and Human Services Department has refused to disclose crucial contextual data, such as how many insurance contracts are in force, the market-by-market totals and how many beneficiaries were previously covered.  Regardless of your partisan sympathies, the White House's selective disclosure is a crime against transparency and accountable government.

A Slacking Figure.  Yesterday President Obama claimed that "more than 3 million young adults... have gained insurance under this law by staying on their family's plan."  Indeed, the number of young people who can now stay on their parents' insurance plans until age 26 — the so-called "slacker mandate" — is one of the most oft-repeated Obamacare statistics. [...] For example, when disputing the Medicaid numbers back in January, Ezra Klein claimed, "The 3.1 million young adults who got coverage through the new insurance regulations is a pretty reliable figure."  Well, no, it's not.

Is Sebelius headed under Obama's bus now?  "Four-score and seven years ago, the Democrat began.  No, not really.  But he used the same construction.  Six months ago today, a big part of the Affordable Care Act kicked in as healthcare.gov and state insurance marketplaces went live, Obama intoned.  Obviously, Obama did not describe exactly how six months ago the healthcare.gov website went live — by dropping dead.  But he announced to the properly enthusiastic crowd of staffers that 7.1 million people had enrolled.  (Applause)  The photo op was added to Obama's daily schedule only after assurances that his namesake legislative program had reached the goal his Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, had naively set back in September.

Mark Levin blasts Obama for his Castro-like campaign rally.  Mark Levin opened his show tonight livid over Obama's Castro-like campaign rally on Obamacare today, where he spewed lie after lie to his clapping seal sycophants.  And the media just echoes what he says like it's the truth.

Media Joins Obama in Mission Accomplished Obamacare Spin.  The old media really seemed to be reveling in the "miraculous" recovery of Obamacare, uncritically reporting signups have "surged" to that vaunted, administration-set "seven million" enrollees figure that remains under a cloud of suspicion given major gaps in what we know about it.  Tuesday, Obama held a triumphal news conference replete with adoring crowds applauding and some of his most deeply partisan rhetoric of his presidency.  It was a spiking of the football that Obama hasn't indulged in since he "got" bin Laden.

Networks Refuse Obama Request for Primetime to Announce Obamacare Hitting 7 Million Mark.  According to a report via BuzzFeed's Evan McMorris-Santoro, President Barack Obama requested the opportunity to address the nation in prime time on the major broadcast networks on Tuesday night to announce that the Affordable Care Act had reached 7 million enrollees.  Those networks did not, however, accommodate the White House's request.  "Three sources familiar with the request confirmed the White House asked for the prime time slot in their effort both to emphasize a bright moment following the challenging roll out and, more important, to try to reintroduce the country to a law that remains unpopular," McMorris-Santoro reported.  The White House declined to comment on the revelations.

'Billions' spent on attacking Obamacare?  A reader asked us about this comment during the president's victory lap on the Affordable Care Act.  Were there really "billions" of dollars worth of commercials opposing the law?  Our initial reaction was that this was just a bit of presidential hyperbole.  On the other hand, the president did make this assertion in a major speech.  So let's see what the data say.

Obama [was] Tackled in the End Zone.  What on earth is this man boasting about?  Boasting is obnoxious enough when the braggart in question has accomplished something, but how many people do you know who brag when they've hurt millions?  Under the goal posts in the Rose Garden, Obama said:  Obamacare "is doing what it's supposed to do; it's working. ... The debate over repealing this law is over; the Affordable Care Act is here to stay. ... I've got to admit, I don't get it.  Why are folks working so hard for people not to have health insurance?  Why are they so mad about the idea of folks having health insurance?"  This is outrageous, even for him.

Study shows just 858,000 newly insured.  A triumphant President Barack Obama declared Tuesday his signature medical insurance overhaul a success, saying it has made America's health care system 'a lot better' in a Rose Garden press conference.  But buried in the 7.1 million enrollments he announced in a heavily staged appearance is a more unsettling reality.  Numbers from a RAND Corporation study that has been kept under wraps suggest that barely 858,000 previously uninsured Americans — nowhere near 7.1 million — have paid for new policies and joined the ranks of the insured by Monday night.

Obamacare Is Still a Fraud!  What a disgusting amount of self-congratulations we've had to endure from Barack Obama and his cronies, who are now boasting that 7.1 million people had signed up for Obamacare when the first open enrollment period ended on March 31.  "The debate over repealing this law is over," the President declared.  Continuing his outburst of wishful thinking, he added, "The Affordable Care Act is here to stay."  Not so fast, Mr. President.  The issue is not nearly as settled as you'd have us believe, as a closer look at those enrollment numbers will quickly reveal.

13K In Maryland Lost Insurance Thanks to Obamacare and Never Got It Back.  As you probably already know, the President has been boasting about how the Affordable Care Act is succeeding so wonderfully.  Barack Obama is delusional.  Consider his question:  "Why are folks working so hard for people not to have health insurance?"  Why indeed!  The question is quite ironic because Obama is the one who has worked very hard for people not to have health insurance.  And now we have confirmation in Maryland that he has taken away the insurance of 13,000 people who remain uninsured.

No, The Obamacare Debate Isn't Over.  Last Tuesday, our President swaggered into the Rose Garden to announce that 7.1 million people have signed up for health coverage through Obamacare's exchanges and that all further argument about the future of his "signature domestic achievement" was pointless:  "The debate over repealing this law is over.  The Affordable Care Act is here to stay."  The problem with this claim is that no one with a basic grasp of arithmetic believes Obama's enrollment figures, only about a quarter of the electorate supports his "reform" law, and it is still the target of multiple lawsuits challenging its constitutionality.

The president takes the low road.  The president gave two speeches this week, one in the Rose Garden to talk about Obamacare and one in Ann Arbor, Mich., to push minimum wage increases.  What did we learn?  We learned that President Obama is most comfortable in campaign mode, and his campaigning has gotten downright ugly. [...] We also learned that the president was vain enough to asked the networks to cover his speech in prime time, but they denied the White House that request.  Prime time may not be what it used to be, but presidential speeches aren't either, and the networks know it.

The Premature Obamacare Victory Lap.  President Obama and the Democrats pushed through their signature domestic policy stating the "Affordable" Care Act would cover "every American."  They have used the figure of "48 million uninsured Americans."  To date, Obamacare has then enrolled less than 2 percent of those uninsured Americans.  "It's working!" exclaimed the President.  The Rand Corporation crunched the numbers and discovered only 858,000 people of the 7 million enrollees have actually paid their premiums, which is required to actually be covered.  "It's working!"  You will soon read that many of the applications in the official White House count are actually duplicate and incomplete applications.

Digging Out From Under the Rubble of Obama's Catastrophic "Success".  Obama asked for a primetime network shot to announce his Big Victory, and the red diaper babies of the networks actually refused him.  I'm not sure if this is just about the bottom line, or if the networks (and especially their news divisions) are feeling a bit used [...] And maybe they've noticed that Obama's people always claim to only know the numbers they're interested in promoting, while claiming to have no idea about the ones that might not be so attractive.

Sebelius' exit gives Obama a fresh page to mess up.  It was really just a matter of time until Kathleen Sebelius was looking up at the Obama bus passing over her bureaucratic body.  On April Fool's Day when President Obama attempted his ObamaCare victory lap with unsubstantiated enrollment numbers and failed to mention Sebelius even once, her political fate was sealed, as we predicted here.  Obama is not known as Mr. Gratitude by anyone who's ever dealt with him.  But staring right at Sebelius in the front row of the Rose Garden and praising only Nancy Pelosi and Dick Durbin, of all people, for the trumped-up success of ObamaCare and not even mentioning his Health and Human Services secretary after five years of tough, loyal duty was cold.  And telling.


Obama speaks about voter-ID laws at an Al Sharpton event, April 11, 2014

Vote Fraud is a Venerable Tradition.  Barack Obama accuses Republicans of threatening the right to vote.  Standing alongside Al Sharpton — the FBI snitch who aided Tawana Brawley's hoax and probably sparked an anti-Semitic riot, Obama spoke before Sharpton's National Action Network.  Obama allegedly said, "[t]he right to vote is threatened today in a way that it has not been since the Voting Rights Act became law nearly five decades ago."  He also declared that, "[a]cross the country, Republicans have led efforts to pass laws making it harder, not easier, to vote."  What are those rascally Republicans doing?  Efforts to require photo IDs in order to vote are probably uppermost in Obama's mind.  He might also have been thinking about moves to limit the times polls are open, cut back on early voting, especially on weekends, curtail the mailing of absentee ballots, and require proof of citizenship in order to vote.  These and other changes to American voting practices are anathema to Democrats, who claim they are efforts to suppress voting by minorities and the poor.

President Obama's Bogus Voting Rights Claims.  Last Friday, in a speech at Al Sharpton's National Action Network conference, President Obama proudly announced that the Justice Department had taken on more than 100 voting rights cases since 2009.  The problem with that claim is that, since 2009, the Justice Department has taken on only 39 voting rights cases — and as former Voting Section lawyer Christian Adams points out, only 13 were related to protecting minority voting rights.  And, with respect to some of the cases in which the department has been involved, it lost spectacularly — such as its false claim that South Carolina's voter ID law was discriminatory.

Obama at Sharpton Event: Voter ID Supporters Are 'the Real Frauds'.  Obama, who hails from a city known for the Daley Machine and its "vote early and vote often" slogan, ripped Republicans for trying to preserve the integrity of the ballot by reducing voter fraud and requiring voter IDs.  He made the accusation that there is a "well-organized effort" to undo gains the Civil Rights Movement has made in the last 50 years, and he said voting rights are "under particular assault."  "Voters who want to vote should be able to vote," Obama said.  "Period."

Obama decries 'bogus' voter fraud complaints.  President Obama labeled complaints about voter fraud "bogus" and accused Republicans of cynically trying to prevent Americans from accessing the polls in a fiery speech Friday at a civil rights forum hosted by Al Sharpton.  Obama argued that attempts in some states to impose new voter identification restrictions were actually efforts by Republicans to make "it harder, not easier to vote."  And the president said that while voter fraud should be prevented, it rarely occurred.  "So let's be clear, the real voter fraud is the people who try to deny our rights by making bogus arguments about voter fraud," Obama said.

President Obama [is] accusing Republicans of trying to restrict the right to vote.  President Obama stood Friday [4/11/2014] with the Rev. Al Sharpton and accused Republicans of trying to keep millions of Americans from voting, in a fiery speech days after new revelations about Sharpton's past as an FBI informant.  "The right to vote is threatened today in a way that it has not been since the Voting Rights Act became law nearly five decades ago," Obama told the annual convention of Sharpton's National Action Network in Manhattan.  Obama's appearance represented a presidential seal of approval of Sharpton's role as a civil rights activist, [...]

Obama Lies about Voter Fraud and DOJ Investigations Before Paranoid Audience.  A tragic phenomenon has affected President Obama since he became President.  The more radical his audience, the more outrageous his lies.  At his appearance before Al Sharpton's National Action Network, Obama called voter fraud claims "bogus" and said his Justice Department has "taken on more than 100 voting rights cases since 2009."  This is a bald faced lie.  One need merely click [a] link at the Justice Department's own website to see it is a lie.  The truth is that 39 cases have been brought, not 100, and only 13 relate to protecting minority voting rights — usually foreign language ballot issues.

Obama to Headline Al Sharpton's NAN Conference.  President Obama is lending his political support to fellow community organizer Al Sharpton by headlining the MSNBC host's National Action Network (NAN) conference this week in New York.  Obama's choice to headline the conference underscores the close ties of the two leaders and provides an increased sense of political legitimacy to the controversial leader and his much-maligned organization.

Obama: Right to vote 'threatened' by GOP.  President Obama on Friday said that Republicans were behind the biggest threat to voting rights in decades.  "The principle of one person, one vote is the single greatest tool we have to redress an unjust status quo.  You would think there would not be an argument about this anymore," said Obama in an address to Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network conference in New York City.  "The right to vote is threatened today in a way that it has not been since the Voting Rights Act became law nearly five decades ago," he added.  The president directly blamed Republicans, saying new voting laws in states across the country would make it harder for Americans to get access to the ballot box.

The Atlantic Calls Out Obama for Race-Baiting in Voter ID DebateThe Atlantic criticized Barack Obama Monday for "racializing" the issue of voter suppression.  Friday, Obama delivered a speech on the evils of voter suppression efforts at Al Sharpton's National Action Network, giving what The Atlantic calls "the right speech in the wrong place."


The VA hospital scandal outrage speech
May 21, 2014.

The Fourth Branch of Government.  Preferring to look ignorant rather than irresponsible, President Obama said last week that he only recently learned of scandals at the Department of Veteran Affairs through news reports.  He spoke of the problems at the department as if they had blindsided him, despite the fact that as a candidate in 2008 he railed against the "the broken bureaucracy of the V.A." and decried outrageous delays in treatment for veterans.  He didn't need news reports to inform him of the depth of the department's flaws; he could have reviewed his own campaign speeches.

Fournier: Obama's VA Presser 'Pathetic'National Journal's Ron Fournier had sharp criticism for President Obama over his handling of the Virginia Veterans scandal.  Fournier called the Obama Administration's view on scandal "pathetic" and said Obama knew the scandal "was a systemic problem" when he came into office.  "He is winding down the wars and he knew this had to be a radical overhaul and what did he do, like he's done with a lot of other things?" he asked.  "He didn't pay attention, he didn't govern.  Now he's holding nobody accountable," he continued.

Obama is President Passive over the Veterans Affairs scandal.  It doesn't inspire great confidence that President Obama, on the day he finally decided to comment about excessive wait times for veterans' medical appointments, showed up late to read his statement.  The White House briefing room is only about 100 feet from the Oval Office, but Obama arrived 13 minutes after the scheduled time for his remarks, the first since the day the scandal broke late last month with a report that 40 veterans had died in Phoenix while waiting to see doctors.

Veterans groups blast Obama's remarks on VA scandal: 'Tremendous disappointment'.  Two top veterans groups — the American Legion and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) — voiced their displeasure Wednesday with President Obama's remarks on the growing VA scandal.  The American Legion said in a statement that the president's decision not to announce the firing of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki was "an unfortunate one," while Paul Rieckhoff, the CEO and founder of IAVA, called Mr. Obama's response "a tremendous disappointment," the Hill reported.

Obama Let the VA Scandal Become a Political Circus.  President Obama sounded resolute Wednesday addressing the secret waiting lists at VA hospitals, until you noticed the caveats that hung off nearly every line.  It was the first time the president addressed the VA scandal and it came almost a month after the story broke.  But the speech was more detailed than anything that had yet come from the White House and sounded all the more forceful coming after VA Secretary Shinseki's tepid appearance before Congress last week.  Had this speech come two weeks — or even 10 days — ago, it might have been taken in good faith as a signal that real accountability was coming in short order.  But for many, that moment has passed.

'I will not stand for it:' Obama speaks out on misconduct at VA hospitals.  President Obama said Wednesday [5/21/2014] he won't tolerate evidence of the Department of Veterans Affairs "cooking the books" to falsify waiting times at its hospitals, but he did not sack its embattled leader.  The President said is that if misconduct is proven, especially a link between undue waits and preventable deaths at a Phoenix facility, "It is dishonorable, it is disgraceful, and I will not tolerate it, period."  After meeting in the Oval Office with VA Secretary Erick Shinseki, Obama left no doubt that the growing allegations are a major political problem even if Shinseki's job is safe for now.

MSNBC Panel Admits VA Scandal A 'Political Problem' for Obama, 'Confidence is Lost'.  During a panel discussion on her 12 p.m. ET hour MSNBC show on Wednesday [5/21/2014], host Andrea Mitchell wondered why President Obama chose to make a statement on the Veteran's Affairs scandal without having any significant reforms to announce:  "Why send the President out to say something about the VA when he's not ready to take bolder action?"  Chief White House correspondent and political director Chuck Todd acknowledged:  "Well, this was an attempt, I think, to stop the political bleeding that was taking place... that this has become a political problem for the White House. [...]"

Obama's mad-and-not-going-to-take-it-anymore doesn't solve VA Scandal.  Does Obama, a lifetime legend in his own mind, really think that verbalizing his anger will make the Veterans Affairs scandal go away?  Following up his effusive "I'm mad" protestations, Obama vowed to "fix whatever is wrong" at the agency, while refusing to throw VA Secretary Eric Shinseki under his well populated bus.  Obama described Shinseki as a "great soldier" who has "put his heart and soul into this thing".  "This thing" is the deaths of veterans in as many as 26 veteran hospitals.

The Killer Rabbit Phase.  Yesterday [5/21/2014] Obama flapped his lips to no effect.  The Free Beacon highlights "the longest response ever to a yes or no question" (video below), but there was much more where this came from.  [Video clip]  With the background of his own words condemning his nonfeasance in office, Obama said:  "[W]hen I came into office, I said we would systematically work to fix these problems, and we have been working really hard to address them."  If true, Obama's statement makes for a startling self-condemnation.

Why we're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore.  Many inside the beltway sub-culture who rarely, if ever, venture outside the 202 area code, except to venture to the 212 area code, have reactions ranging from disbelief to sneering condescension regarding the primary challenges being mounted against Republican incumbents.  But if they actually took the time to talk to the people they claim to represent, instead of at them or over them, perhaps this whole GOP civil war thing could have been avoided. T

Obama lets down vets.  "I will not stand for it — not as commander-in-chief but also not as an American," he declared at a hastily arranged event Wednesday.  But stand for it he has for months, despite documented reports that Veterans Administration hospital officials falsified records to show that they were speedily taking care of vets even as wait times for appointments shot up and some desperate patients died. [...] With shades of the Obamacare website fiasco, the picture is one of a chief executive who's far less adept at executing than in attempting to get by with political posturing.

Obama gins up his outrage act over VA scandal.  President Barack Obama is fed up — again.  He's outraged over his latest scandal involving lethal delays providing promised medical care to American veterans — again.  Because, Obama claims, he didn't know about it — again.  And he's vowing to get to the bottom of the problem — again.  And hold all those accountable — again. [...] ["]So if these allegations prove to be true, it is dishonorable, it is disgraceful, and I will not tolerate it.  Period!"  Oh-oh.  There's Obama's telltale punctuation point — "Period!"  That's become a guaranteed laugh-line since its frequent use in his ObamaCare "you can keep your doctor" lies.


Afghanistan withdrawal speech
May 27, 2014.

Krauthammer: Obama's Afghanistan Announcement 'An Act of Personal Narcissism'.  On Tuesday's [5/27/2014] "Special Report" on the Fox News Channel, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer reacted to President Barack Obama's announcement earlier in the day of his plans Tuesday to withdraw all combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016.  "I think it's worse than a political act to announce the leaving," Krauthammer said.  "It's kind of an act of personal narcissism. [...]"

Obama's Afghan Withdrawal Announcement 'Personal Narcissism'.  Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer had harsh words for President Obama over his decision to publicly announce the United States's troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. [...] He said President Obama's decision to publicly announce the troop withdrawal is indicative of an administration that is politicizing foreign policy in an unprecedented fashion.  "I mean, is that how we're now setting the strategy of the United States of America — a war zone where so many have died and so much treasure and blood has been spent so a president can leave office looking good?" he asked.

How 21st Century Wars End Under Democratic Presidents.  President Obama announced today [5/27/2014] that the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan will shrink to 9,800 by the end of this year and to essentially zero by the end of 2016. [...] But the specific timetable for essentially full withdrawal is surely the president's handiwork, not the true desire of our commanders.  Obama explained, self-fulfillingly, that "this is how wars end in the 21st century."

Obama will keep 9,800 US troops in Afghanistan after December despite State of the Union promise.  In a stunning admission Tuesday afternoon, a senior White House official told reporters on a conference call that part of the continuing U.S. mission in Afghanistan will involve training security forces in that country to 'help us' defeat al-Qaeda — not the other way around.  The White House has sought to assure the press that the U.S. role after 2014 would be reduced to what President Barack Obama called 'an advisory role' just an hour later.  But the official's statement, which drew no follow-up inquiry from the few reporters permitted to ask questions, indicates that American forces will take on a more substantial part of Afghanistan's coming security needs.

How Low Can the President Stoop?  Today in the Rose Garden, President Obama announced that he's going to keep a little under 10,000 troops in Afghanistan through 2014, half that number by the end of 2015, and will have all those forces out by the end of 2016.  Putting aside the fact that this is the lowest number military advisors estimated was necessary to maintain training and some counterterrorism capability in country over not just one year but several, the decision to halve and then zero out those forces by 2016 is a reminder not only of how seriously unserious this president on strategic matters can be but also how cynically partisan he is.

A 'Monumental Mistake'? Obama Details Afghanistan Withdrawal Plan.  National security hawks in Congress quickly slammed President Obama's Rose Garden announcement detailing the drawdown of American troops in Afghanistan as a "monumental mistake" put into action to score political points.

Obama's Loopholes.  So ends our war in Afghanistan, not with a bang or a whimper but a snark:  President Obama's snipe that "it's harder to end wars than it is to begin them."  In the run-up to the president's Rose Garden remarks Tuesday [5/27/2014], attention was on one figure:  9,800.  This was the number of troops he would leave behind in Afghanistan to lock down our achievements there.


West Point commencement speech
May 28, 2014.

You Won't Believe Who America's Greatest Enemy Is.  President Obama's West Point speech proved telling in ways he probably didn't plan.  The commander-in-chief tried to use the commencement address to quell concerns over a foreign policy that has produced nothing but controversy and setbacks since the debacle in Benghazi.  But the president scored more misses than hits with the audience, pundits and the press.  Even The Washington Post acknowledged that the speech did little more than mow down a field of "straw men."  As far as policy goes, the speech may have been a clarion call for little more than muddling through.  But for prospectors of presidential rhetoric, it is a gold mine.

Is Obama acting like a former president?  It looks like we have officially entered the world of the post-Obama presidency.  President Obama's recent speeches and remarks make it obvious that he is not making any serious effort to govern or to drive world events.  Except for covering the basics, he seems to have taken something like an early retirement.  We can look back at his West Point speech, which may go down in history as his first post-presidency speech, and the endpoint of an Obama foreign policy.

Congress in dark on counterterror plan before Obama speech at West Point.  Members of Congress need to pay attention when President Obama delivers a speech: He could be urging support for an initiative they've never heard of.  During a commencement address to West Point cadets last month, Mr. Obama called on Congress to fund a new $5 billion counterterrorism plan to "train, build capacity and facilitate partner countries on the front lines" of the war on terror.  Sounds like something Congress could get behind, if they only knew what it was.  The staff for the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, has yet to be briefed by or receive details from the White House about the new initiative.

Emptiness at West Point.  It was a somber parade of straw men, as the president applauded himself for steering the nation on a nervy middle course between extreme isolationism and madcap interventionism.

Obama's global war on straw men.  It is hard to carve the insipid into marble, or to inspire a nation with shrunken ambitions.  The natural result of this foreign policy theory is a speech such as the one Obama recently delivered at West Point.  For the most part, the president does not inspire.  He does not persuade.  He justifies himself.  The world he depicts is a choice between foolhardy extremes.  The proper response is not primarily an assertion of American values or the defense of U.S. interests; it is a trust in Obama's own balancing judgment.

Excuses Excuses.  In a rambling, defensive, and disjointed commencement speech at West Point, the president attempted retroactively to impose a framework on his ad hoc and often incoherent foreign policy.  He sought to convince his audience — and the world — that he has a vision for America's role and that it's working.  What we're seeing today, he argued, is all part of the plan.  That's a tough sell.  Our allies are confused and dispirited, our enemies are unquestionably emboldened.

At West Point, Obama tries to excuse the inexcusable.  Like a pitcher who has lost his fastball, Barack Obama has lost "the speech."  The speech has always been central to the president and his presidency. [...] No more.  The man who once said, "I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters," has lost his stuff.  His recent speech at West Point was widely panned — and not just by the president's usual critics.  Even the New York Times' editorial page joined in.  It pronounced the address "largely uninspiring."  I would add the words contradictory, unpersuasive and in places just plain silly.  The United States, he essentially said, will use force "when our people are threatened."  No kidding.

Kisses and Concussions.  [Scroll down]  On Wednesday he wowed them at the U.S. Military Academy's commencement.  He's gotten very good at listening to himself speak and trying out new lines.  A few highlights:  "[B]y most measures, America has rarely been stronger relative to the rest of the world.  Think about it.  Our military has no peer....  Meanwhile, our economy remains the most dynamic on Earth; our businesses the most innovative....  So the United States is and remains the one indispensable nation."  And for a right-wing jingoist he was forward-looking too, promising the graduating men and women of West Point that he will proudly send them into combat against the evil forces of... climate change.

The tragedy of Obama's foreign policy.  For six years the world has scratched its head about President Obama's foreign policy doctrine.  Is it "leading from behind," as he himself has said on occasion, stepping back in hopes that an international coalition will take charge?  Is it using American military or economic power to topple dictators?  Is it killing enemies with drone strikes and spying on allies with advanced technology?  Is it using words instead of weapons?  With much fanfare, the president set out to set things straight on Wednesday by articulating a comprehensive Obama Doctrine in a major foreign policy address at West Point's commencement ceremonies.

Krauthammer: Obama's West Point speech was 'literally pointless'.  Charles Krauthammer said Wednesday on "Special Report with Bret Baier" that President Obama's attempt to lay out his foreign policy vision during his commencement address at West Point was "literally pointless.  It didn't have a point, it was a defensive speech."  One day after he declared that all U.S. troops will be out of Afghanistan by 2016, Obama told the graduating cadets that "the landscape has changed" with the end of the war in Iraq.  The president said that Wednesday's graduating class would be the first class in nearly a decade that likely will not be deployed to a war zone.

Obama's Fantasy World.  In his speech at West Point yesterday, President Obama attempted to lay out his vision for America and the world in the years to come.  The address was notable for several things, beginning with what is by now Mr. Obama's almost comical use of straw men, with the president creating one imaginary critic and sham argument after another.  What was also apparent in this speech was another Obama trait:  prickliness and pettiness, in this case using a military academy commencement ceremony to mock his critics.  "Those who argue ... that America is in decline, or has seen its global leadership slip away — are either misreading history or engaged in partisan politics," the president asserted. (

Obama's West Point speech exposes his foreign-policy failures.  President Obama promised a powerful speech on national-security policy on Wednesday to the graduates of the United States Military Academy.  Instead, the chief executive reinforced the notion that in an increasingly dangerous world, he is in over his head.  Obama's principal argument was that U.S. national security must not be based solely on military power, and that America cannot go it alone in the world.  But this was no grand revelation; every recent president has believed the same thing.  Even George W. Bush, falsely criticized for unilateralism, assembled a larger international coalition than any Obama has put together.

Points of Departure.  The phrase "offshore balancing" did not appear in President Obama's commencement address at West Point.  It did not have to.  Obama's every word was informed by the idea that America should renounce nation-building, extended deployments, base construction, and other elements of hard power in favor of diplomacy, military-to-military partnerships, multilateral institution-building, and soft-power in general.  "Just because we have the best hammer," the president said in a particularly insipid use of cliché, "does not mean that every problem is a nail."  Not the administration, nor its supporters, nor its critics have been successful in defining precisely what the "Obama Doctrine" is.  But offshore balancing seems to me to be as good a way as any to describe the president's strategy.  What does it mean?

The Seven Faces of Barack Obama.  The real problem with president Obama's commencement address to West Point's latest graduating class is that it was a perfect microcosm of his many personalities and traits as Commander-in-Chief.  Obama may have hoped to lay out a broad vision of the world for the rest of his term, but in doing so, he exhibited the multiple faces, attitudes, and approaches to the world that has defined his presidency for the past five and a half years.  The result has been confusion.

WaPo, NYT, WSJ agree: Obama speech "ludicrous ... uninspiring ... disturbing".  Actually, all of those adjectives come from the New York Times — and that's the most sympathetic take on Barack Obama's big pivot/comeback speech on foreign policy.  The West Point address accomplished a rarity in media and politics by creating a consensus between the editorial boards of the NYT, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.  That consensus, however, is that Obama flopped in his straw-man approach to criticism and his utter incoherence on American policy.  When a President can't convince one of these three on policy, it may be time to find a new approach — or perhaps a new team.

9 Media Pubs Slam Obama's Speech at West Point: 'Icy,' Ludicrous,' Uninspiring' and 'Disturbing'.  [Ten excepts from leading news outlets reacting negatively to Obama's speech.]

Brother Rat.  Thank me.  Thank me so very much.  Even though this is ostensibly a graduation speech it is really about me.  My ratings have been slipping of late and my media advisors said a photo-op in Bagram and a speech at West Point will boost the polls by about 3 points.

Obama At West Point: The Psychology Of Surrender.  Bluntly: as a professor of irregular warfare and international security I cannot recall ever reading a more confused speech by a head of state, nor one that is so utterly detached from reality.  From the opening passages that speak of how the world automatically looks to America when "schoolgirls are kidnapped in Nigeria, or masked men occupy a building in Ukraine," to the president later taking credit for the fact that "more people live under elected governments today than at any time in human history" it feels as if the President is living in an alternate reality.

Even the New York Times ....  Whenever President Obama does something that is universally panned, such as his foreign policy speech/commencement address at West Point on Wednesday, he can typically count on the New York Times editorial board to have his back.  Not this time.  "The address did not match the hype, was largely uninspiring, lacked strategic sweep and is unlikely to quiet his detractors, on the right or the left," the Times' editors wrote.  "This was far from Mr. Obama's big moment."

Levin: 'Somebody Who Wants to Fundamentally Transform America' Doesn't Believe It's Exceptional.  "I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being," President Obama told the nation's newest Army officers at West Point on Wednesday.  No he doesn't, said conservative talk-show host Mark Levin.  "American exceptionalism — somebody who wants to fundamentally transform America doesn't believe America is an exceptional place at all.  So that's just all bull," Levin told Fox News's Sean Hannity Wednesday night.  "What does he mean by American exceptionalism?" Levin asked.  "He stands up like Mussolini and talks about having a pen.  But what does that mean?  That means he's going to override the Constitution when he likes?  American exceptionalism — does he like free market capitalism?  No, he detests it.  Does he like individual liberty and success?  No, he attacks it."

Obama's West Point Speech signals a presidency in deep trouble.  Yesterday's speech to the graduating class of West Point by President Obama may be remembered as the signal that his presidency has entered a crisis of confidence, much as Jimmy Carter's infamous "malaise" speech has gone down in history as marking a failed presidency.  Not only was the content of the speech delusional (calling Russia "isolated" in the wake of a massive and historic gas deal with China that marks a major rapprochement between two powers hostile to the United States; claiming Ukraine as an example of the success of his coalition strategy), the delivery was wooden, as if Obama were wishing he were on a golf course or basketball court, and felt a hostile vibe.  And the visible reception was embarrassingly icy, with only a few people applauding at key lines, and a standing ovation in which the vast majority remained seated and unmoved, suggesting the commander in chief is held in contempt by the next generation of military leadership.

AP (Naturally) Ignores Widely Noted 'Tepid' and 'Icy' Obama Reception at West Point.  Following President Barack Obama's speech today at West Point, the UK Daily Mail reported "tepid applause and a short standing ovation from less than one-quarter of the audience upon his introduction."  In a CNN video clip found at Mediaite, Jim Clancy noted that Obama did not sound like a "commander-in-chief speaking to his troops."  He further observed:  "You heard the reception; it was icy."

Obama v. Bush at West Point: It's No Contest.  I was privileged to visit and lecture at the U.S. Air Force Academy a few weeks ago, and noted at the time that the students — I mean, cadets — looked and spoke rather differently than most of the students I encountered at Boulder.  They impressed me as a very serious and fine bunch.  Too bad they had to suffer through Slow Joe Biden as their commencement speaker earlier this week.  It could have been worse.  They could have been Army cadets at West Point yesterday, suffering through our abdicating commander-in-chief.  Take in this video that captures what even CNN called "tepid" applause from the cadets at his introduction.

Obama Vows to Battle Global Climate Change in West Point Speech.  President Obama delivered a major policy speech Wednesday, claiming that fighting climate change was every bit as important to America's national security as stopping terrorism or working to stop countries from obtaining nuclear weapons.  The world, Obama insisted, needed to come together to address this looming global threat.  "That spirit of cooperation must energize the global effort to combat climate change — a creeping national security crisis that will help shape your time in uniform, as we're called on to respond to refugee flows, natural disasters, and conflicts over water and food," Obama warned.  Obama detailed forthcoming policy from his administration that would save the planet from this crisis.

Obama at West Point: 'Effort to Combat Climate Change... Will Help Shape Your Time in Uniform.  While Obama views climate change as a national security crisis, many Army officers will not have learned about it during their time at West Point.  The phrase "climate change" is mentioned only six times in the U.S. Military Academy's course catalog for the class of 2016.  For example, cadets who take Environmental Engineering courses will study "air pollution concerns such as global climate change, acid rain and smog."  A Meterology course includes "a brief look at climate and climate change." [...] The U.S. Military Academy at West Point says its curriculum is "carefully designed to meet the needs of the Army" and develop "officer-leaders of character to serve the Army and the Nation."

Montel Williams Goes on Fiery Rant over VA: Why Didn't Obama Apologize?!  Talk show host Montel Williams is an American veteran, and he is particularly incensed about the scandal over veteran deaths as a result of secret waiting lists.  Moreover, he was bothered by how President Obama was at West Point, yet didn't take a moment to apologize for how his administration has dropped ball on veterans' health.  Williams told Neil Cavuto that giving Secretary Shinseki the boot won't really fix much.

Obama's Insulting Version Of American Exceptionalism.  During his mushy commencement speech at West Point, President Obama told the graduates, "I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being."  (Every fiber of his being? [...])  Obama refrained from adding, as he has in the past, that Brits and Greeks believe, respectively, in British and Greek exceptionalism.

At West Point, President Obama binds America's hands on foreign affairs.  President Obama has retrenched U.S. global engagement in a way that has shaken the confidence of many U.S. allies and encouraged some adversaries.  That conclusion can be heard not just from Republican hawks but also from senior officials from Singapore to France and, more quietly, from some leading congressional Democrats.  As he has so often in his political career, Mr. Obama has elected to respond to the critical consensus not by adjusting policy but rather by delivering a big speech.

What's not to trust in an Obama team probe of the Obama team?  President Obama is off to West Point again today.  He'll deliver yet another speech [...] to outline his latest vision for a new world order that isn't going to happen but will get him through a few more news cycles in the 967 days remaining in his White House tenure.  You can always tell when Obama feels threatened.  He orders up new investigations of others and begins throwing speeches at just about everything in sight.

CNN: West Point Gave Obama 'Icy' Reception.  CNN's international correspondent Jim Clancy called the West Point response to President Obama's meandering foreign policy address "pretty icy" Wednesday.  Clancy said it was "not really a great speech to give at the U.S. Military Academy," and the address has drawn bipartisan criticism.  "It was a philosophical speech," he said.  "It was not a Commander-in-Chief speaking to his troops.  And you heard the reception.  I mean, it was pretty icy."

Obama's Speech at West Point: Lies, Deceptions and Delusions.  Today Barack Obama gave the commencement address at the United States Military Academy at West Point.  While the address was billed as his "foreign policy vision" it was vintage Obama:  banal, deceptive, self-serving, and partisan to the very core.  Sort of a metaphor for them [sic] man himself.

Obama at West Point: 'Because We Have the Best Hammer Does Not Mean that Every Problem Is a Nail'.  President Obama laid out his foreign-policy vision to graduating West Point cadets in his first remarks since his announcement that the U.S. would draw down forces in Afghanistan by the end of the year, with the last troops leaving by 2016.  The president assured them that the United States would maintain its leading role in the world.  He urged a more measured approach to conflict abroad that would avoid what he described as the impulse of some to intervene militarily wherever problems exist.

Highlights of the West Point Speech.  President Obama laid out a foreign policy vision on Wednesday [5/28/2014] for his final two and a half years in office in a speech at the United States Military Academy at West Point.  Here are some of his key points: [...]

Obama owes Americans a responsible explanation of Bowe Bergdahl deal, not empty rhetoric.  [Scroll down]  The president was simply tossing out high-sounding rhetoric that fails to respond to real-world circumstances.  That's exactly what he did in his foreign policy speech last week at West Point.  For example, Obama attempted to defend his lead-from-behind approach by declaring, a "strategy that involves invading every country that harbors terrorist networks is naive and unsustainable."  Of course it is.  No serious voice in U.S. national security has ever advocated that course of action, much less pursued it.  Obama was merely knocking down a straw man of his own devising.


Worcester Technical High School commencement speech
June 11, 2014.

The indoctrination continues until the very last day of school.
Obama blasts GOP at high school graduation, tells students to vote Democrat.  They're barely old enough to vote, but graduating seniors at a Massachusetts high school were encouraged Wednesday [6/11/2014] by President Obama to boot Republicans from office and help the administration enact more of its agenda.  Speaking at the commencement service at Worcester Technical High School in Worcester, Mass., the president slowly transitioned from delivering a pep talk to leading a political pep rally.


University of California at Irvine commencement speech
June 14, 2014.

Obama Used Commencement Speech To Attack Americans Who Disagree With Him.  President Obama delivered the commencement speech at UC Irvine over the weekend and used the occasion to go on the attack against Americans who don't agree with his climate change policies.  Not only did he call those skeptical of global warming theory the derogatory term "deniers" he also told the graduates that we are a threat to their existence. [...] If anyone is a threat to our future it's Obama, not people who don't buy into global warming theory.

Denying climate change is like saying the moon is made of cheese, argues Obama.  Obama issued the call to the tens of thousands gathered at Angel Stadium even though he said Congress 'is full of folks who stubbornly and automatically reject the scientific evidence' and say climate change is a hoax or fad.

Obama Asks College Grads to Help Take on Climate-Change Deniers.  President Barack Obama called on Americans coming of age to demand that politicians respond more aggressively to climate change, comparing those skeptical about man-caused alterations to the environment to a belief that the moon is "made of cheese."  In a commencement address today to graduates of the University of California at Irvine, Obama delivered one of his feistiest critiques of lawmakers who object to environmental regulations he's pushing that are aimed at reducing carbon emissions.

Obama urges UCI grads to take action on climate change.  His talk lasted about 30 minutes, with roughly two thirds of it dedicated to climate change.  He urged students to take up the issue of environmental stewardship — and pointed out that a low-carbon economy could be a builder of jobs and income in the future.  "I'm not telling you this to discourage you.  I want to light a fire under you."  As he spoke, commentors debated the issue on social media, with some suggesting Obama was inappropriately inserting politics into the graduation ceremony.

Obama pushes global warming agenda in commencement speech.  Obama told those in attendance that they must respond now to protect children and future generations — a theme he has repeated after announcing in recent weeks new rules for reducing carbon emission for plants that burn fossil fuel.  "We also have to realize, as hundreds of scientists declared last month, that climate change is no longer a distant threat but 'has moved firmly into the present,'" said Obama in the ongoing effort by him and his supporters to win the debate on global warming and its possible causes.  "The overwhelming majority of scientists who work on climate change, including some who once disputed the data, have put the debate to rest."

Obama Flunks his Climate Science 101 at University of California, Irvine.  Denying climate change is like saying the moon is made of cheese, President Obama has said in his latest attempt to persuade an unconvinced world that "global warming" is the most urgent crisis of our time. [...] "I'm not a scientist."  Possibly the only factually accurate words in the president's entire speech.

Also posted under Silencing the Global Warming Skeptics.


Minneapolis, Minnesota
June 27, 2014.

Obama's fall campaign in June.  President Obama offered a scathing indictment of congressional Republicans during an economic speech in Minnesota on Friday [6/27/2014], accusing his political opponents of failing to "do anything, except block me and call me names."  The president argued the GOP had "blocked or voted down every serious idea to strengthen the middle class" offered by Democrats this year.

No President's Ever Dodged Duty As Barack Obama Has.  It's getting tiresome, and it happened again last week during a speech in Minnesota, when President Obama blamed Republicans for the dreadful first-quarter GDP numbers showing the economy shrinking by 2.9%.

Obama Feels Your Pain Because He And Michelle Once Lost Their Nanny.  President Barack Obama channeled Hillary Clinton's recent "dead broke" complaints Thursday, when he told a hard-hit Minnesota woman that Michelle Obama's difficulty with a nanny in Chicago echoed her family's history of repeated layoffs and wage cuts.  Minnesota resident "Rebekah [Erier] sent me this letter, and it moved me," Obama told his donors at an evening fund-raiser in Minneapolis, Minn., as he tried to show he is in touch with ordinary people's concerns.

A Feisty Obama Hits the Road to Rekindle Message of Hope.  For over an hour, Obama took questions from a hand-picked audience of 350 Minnesotans, who probed broadly his views on climate change, gun violence, study-abroad programs, STEM education, minimum wage, and a pay hike for federal workers.  At every turn, Obama hammered on his policy wish list, but offered little prospect for immediate solutions.

Obama: 'They're Phony Scandals'.  President Obama warned people in Minnesota Friday not to believe what they hear on television:  "They're fabricated issues, they're phony scandals that are generated.  It's all geared towards the next election or ginning up a base.  It's not on the level," the president insisted.

Obama Visits Minnesota, Minnesota's Dem Senators Avoid Him Like the Plague.  You know things are bad when the Clown of the Senate whose whole ID is that he's leftier than left doesn't want to be seen with you. [...] It's estimated that 140,000 people in Minnesota would lose their health insurance policies because of ObamaCare.  ObamaCare's approval rating isn't doing too well there and it will be easier for [Senator Al] Franken if he isn't seen with the Obama of ObamaCare.

Obama Attacks GOP's 'Block Me, Call Me Names' Strategy.  Obama accused Republicans of deliberate inaction, of being "tone deaf," focusing more on elections and "media sound bites" than progress.  "They don't do anything except block me.  And call me names," Obama said.

Obama Grows Petulant Over GOP Challenge.  Currently traveling in Minnesota, Barack Obama appears to be bristling at the notion that House Republicans are set to challenge him in the courts.  PBS characterizes his demeanor as "mocking."  Perhaps.  But observers of he Obama White House might note that he often becomes petulant, if not downright immature whenever he feels his presumed authority is being challenged by another branch of America's Constitutional form of government.


Wilmington, Delaware
July 17, 2014.

Obama sparks anger with 40-second mention of Malaysian plane crash before giving transportation speech.  President Barack Obama provoked fury in the U.S. on Thursday by casually devoting less than a minute to the deaths of 295 people aboard a Malaysian airliner, as he began an often jokey 16-minute speech about the need to expand America's transportation infrastructure.  There are no confirmed American dead and the White House issued a statement on Thursday evening [7/17/2014] which said they were still seeking any 'information to determine whether there were any American citizens on board'.

Semi-retired president interrupts burger run to issue brief statement on plane being blown up.  Here's the clip, which makes clear that his "statement on Ukraine" isn't really a statement on Ukraine at all.  It's 60 seconds tacked onto a speech about infrastructure that was already planned for today.

Obama's bizarre and frightening response to the shoot down of MH17.  The White House will attribute excessive caution to the president's shocking remarks.  But reporters were getting background from administration officials that the plane was shot down with a missile for several hours prior to the president's remarks.  And, of course, the fact that he then went merrily on his way to a fundraiser while what amounts to an act of war was committed against US citizens is just one more indication how out of touch this president is.

All of this 'fundraising' is really getting old.  President Obama needs to get in the game or resign and let someone else do the job.  We just don't have room for this kind of a president at a time when everything is falling apart or going to hell.

Obama Proves Again that Fundraising Trumps National Security.  After the terrorist attack at Benghazi, President Obama was widely criticized for flying to Las Vegas for a fundraiser the next day.  In fact, he had also missed a week's worth of intelligence meetings prior to the attack.  With the downing of Malaysian Flight MH17, which the Ukrainian government claims was due to the plane being fired upon by Russia, Obama is once again sending a message that fundraising is of the utmost importance, regardless of what national security threats America may face.

Americans Perish in Malaysia Airlines Attack; Obama Campaigns, Cracks Jokes with Crowd in Delaware.  While the world tuned-in to learn about the attack on MH17 in the aftermath of the attack, President Obama casually dined at The Charcoal Pit in Wilmington, Delaware, ordering a cheeseburger and fist-bumping patrons in a jovial fashion.  Soon after, Obama spoke to a crowd at Wilmington about the attack for a total of 38 seconds before switching to an upbeat tempo and campaigning. [...] After glossing-over the tragedy that reportedly took the lives of 23 Americans, Obama shifted his tempo to "hoot-and-holler" mode and began with his all-too-typical, faux-folksy charm by telling the crowd, "It is great to be in the state that gave us Joe Biden!"

Our Callow Commander-in-Chief.  It is at times like these, when he is pushed kicking and screaming into the crucible, that Obama's callowness shows.  For his supporters, that jejune, jocular air has been a plus for almost six years.  For the rest of us, it has served as a liability and an irritation.  Yesterday, it became a wholesale embarrassment. [...] [T]he president spent a grand total of 38 seconds on the downing of the plane, describing what he knew to have been an atrocity as a "tragedy" that "might" have happened, and then going back to slamming Republicans for refusing to agree with him on infrastructure spending, to joking with his adoring fans, and to suggesting that America needed to stop indulging in what the more traditional among us like to refer to as "politics."

Obama manages a photo-op, not a crisis.  Obama didn't call an emergency meeting of his national security team.  He didn't assemble his joint chiefs of staff in the White House situation room.  No, he flew to Delaware to go to a photo-op at the Charcoal Pit diner.  He gave a campaign speech.  By this time, the cause of the plane crash was known.  But Obama said merely, "it looks like it may be a terrible tragedy."  May be?  A tragedy?  He didn't know yet if it was a tragedy?  And a tragedy — not an act of terrorism or a war crime?  Just a tragedy — like a tragic accident?  And, after that bloodless, token comment, he continued his campaign speech, joking, laughing.

This weak and timid President talks big and does nothing.  At a political event in Wilmington, Delaware, on Thursday [7/17/2014], President Obama devoted only 40 seconds to the shooting down of the Malaysian airline, his first statement to the world following the news.  His emotionless reference to the attack as 'a terrible tragedy' seemed disconnected from the horrific moment, particularly as he immediately reverted to script to praise his administration and criticise Republicans.  It was a far cry from President Reagan's 1983 fierce denunciation of the Soviet shooting down of a Korean airliner as a 'crime against humanity'.

The tranquillity of Obama's mind.  When [Obama] went to Delaware on Thursday and opened with a few sentences about the shooting down of a Malaysian airliner in Ukraine before joking about Joe Biden and going back to his prepared text on infrastructure, many thought he had failed to take seriously an international disaster.  They were even less impressed when he had lunch at the Charcoal Pit and ordered burgers and fries (not a photo op, of course).  It was not until 24 hours later that he took to the podium to promise an aggressive investigation.

Group Now Claims Obama Wasn't Technically Fundraising For It On Day Of Malaysia Air Plane Crash.  As the United States gathered information Thursday [7/17/2014] about the Malaysian airliner shot down over Ukraine, President Barack Obama was in New York on a quick fundraising swing with Democratic donors.  But now one of the super PACs that hosted Obama for an event — the House Majority PAC — claims that Obama's meeting with donors was not technically a fundraiser.  According to a pool report from the event, an official with the House Majority PAC disputed the characterization of the meeting as a fundraiser because there were no tickets or cost of admission for donors.

The Editor says...
If those invited were donors, they had already paid the "cost of admission."  Yes, it was a fundraiser, and yes, Barack H. Obama exhibited his usual poor judgment.


Press conference
August 6, 2014.

'Extraordinarily Irresponsible' — Obama Gives Pointless, Yet Damaging, Press Conference.  President Obama gave a press conference this evening [8/6/2014].  He started a little over an hour late without explanation.  Reporters stuck to asking questions that they evidently knew Obama would be comfortable answering.  None of them asked him about any of his administration scandals.  ABC's Jon Karl, usually a tough questioner of Obama and his spokesmen, asked a rambling question that played right into the Democrats' "economic patriotism" canard.  Despite the fact that the president showed a passionless, bloodless, disinterested face to the world, he still managed to do some damage.

Obama: 'I'm bound by the Constitution'.  President Obama on Wednesday dismissed charges that he broke the law by going around Congress on issues ranging from health care to immigration.  "I never have a green light.  I'm bound by the Constitution.  I'm bound by separation of powers," Obama said at a press conference, concluding a Washington summit on Africa.  "What I can do is scour our authorities to try to make progress," Obama added of his approach in the face of congressional gridlock.

ABC's Jon Karl to Obama: Are You Trying to Push Limits of Executive Power?  President Obama held a press conference today and one of the first questions he got was from ABC's Jonathan Karl.  Karl brought up Obama's concerns about executive power under his predecessor and asked, "Has Congress' inability to do anything significant given you a green light to push the limits of executive power?"  Karl even invoked the criticisms from some that at times he's an "imperial president" and other times a "do-nothing president."  Obama denied the former charge, saying, "I never have a green light, I'm bound by the Constitution, I'm bound by separation of powers."

Extraordinary Irresponsibility.  In yet another uninspiring performance by our unengaged and unengaging president, this time a press conference at the end of a three-day U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C., Barack Obama discussed, among other things, the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas which, according to The One, "we" have achieved.  It's not entirely clear just how "we," meaning the president, his feckless Secretary of State John Kerry, and his utterly incompetent foreign policy team (but at least they're loyal — the most important characteristic for employees of any petty dictator), helped achieve anything other than the emboldening of Hamas, which led to the death of many more of Hamas' human shields.  Obama further asked how "we build on this temporary cessation of violence."

Obama Will Drop a Nuclear Bomb on Immigraton Law.  Barack Obama has consistently refused to follow immigration law.  He has sent the message to other countries — many other countries throughout the world — that our border is porous and once you are here, we have your back.  In his speech this evening, as he wound up the U.S. African Leaders Summit at the State Department, he made it quite clear that he will violate immigration law by legalizing an untold number of illegal alien adults and children.


Statement on Iraq
August 7, 2014.

Obama's Belligerent Description of Hamas is More Fit for 'Frat Boys' Than a Terrorist Organization.  On Fox New's [sic] "Special Report with Brett Baier" Wednesday night [8/6/2014], Charles Krauthammer gave a devastating evaluation of the attitude and words given by the President in statements about Russia and Israel.  On the President's response to the news about the possibility of war between Russia and Ukraine, Krauthammer summarized Obama's response as basically having zero interest in the issue.

Obama's narrow, specific, extremely limited action in Iraq.  The Drudge headline says, "Obama Bombs Iraq."  The Washington Examiner headline says, "U.S. military aircraft conducts first airstrike in Iraq."  The Washington Post headline says, "U.S. launches airstrikes against Islamic State in Iraq."  All are entirely accurate, but what is perhaps most notable about President Obama's rationale for action, laid out in a brief address to the nation Thursday night [8/7/2014], is how precisely limited the president's directive is.  Some Republicans are calling for Obama to take broad and decisive action in Iraq.  This is most definitely not it.

ISIS Threatens America: 'We Will Raise The Flag Of Allah In The White House'.  The terror group President Barack Obama threatened to strike in Iraq Thursday evening [8/7/2014] is itself threatening to strike the American homeland.  "I say to America that the Islamic Caliphate has been established," Abu Mosa, a spokesman for the terror group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), told VICE Media in a video interview posted online Thursday.  "Don't be cowards and attack us with drones.  Instead send your soldiers, the ones we humiliated in Iraq."  "We will humiliate them everywhere, God willing, and we will raise the flag of Allah in the White House," he added.

The Editor says...
That flag is probably already in place, somewhere inside the White House.

Obama's New, Undeclared Iraq War.  The 1973 War Powers Resolution requires presidents to notify Congress when invoking Article II powers and to seek authorization from Congress if the new conflict lasts more than 60 days.  In this sense Obama's new Iraq war is for now undeclared, even though the authorization for the old Iraq war remains on the books.  Obama campaigned in 2012 in part on his accomplishment of ending the Iraq War and as recently as last month, his administration urged Congress to repeal the 2002 law that authorized it.

In Iraq, Obama launches another drive-by war.  [I]t's hard to discern the objective of this attack:  Will we bomb until ISIS is eliminated?  Or does ISIS simply need to be contained?  Are we simply protecting Kurdistan, the semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq?  What if American intervention becomes a rallying cry for other terrorist groups in the region?  Will we bomb them, too?

It's Not Present Obama's Fault That Past Obama Pulled The U.S. Out Of Iraq.  Past Obama is Present Obama's greatest enemy.  Over and over again, Past Obama's words and actions keep tripping up his future self.  Obama says what he means, and he means what he says.  And what he means, what he always means, is that he needs to get through the next five minutes.  Anything he says at any particular moment is in service of that one and only goal.  If it directly contradicts anything he's said before, or anything he says after, that's your problem.


American Legion convention
August 26, 2014.

Obama and the Democrats' problem with military voters is growing.  President Obama is becoming increasingly alienated from our uniformed military, military households and veterans.  Need proof?  Look no further than the speech he gave yesterday at the American Legion's national convention in Charlotte.  The reaction was politely described as "tepid" and, by all accounts, his applause lines fell flat with the audience of veterans, especially when explaining his foreign policy objectives.  Even his overtures to the audience about fixing the Department of Veterans Affairs were met with relatively muted enthusiasm.  I think the president's speech got the worst reception of any he has given since his commencement address at West Point in May.

The 5 most nauseating quotes from Obama's American Legion speech.  Here's a hint for Obama — and any other rote "bring our boys home" liberal — on military culture:  Our soldiers don't want to be "brought home" just for the sake of being brought home — and certainly not to fulfill a campaign promise.  They want to be brought home because the mission was successfully completed and structures put in place to ensure those gains are protected and progress continues.  Obama liked the symbolism of a full and complete withdrawal from Iraq, apparently not understanding what a residual force or its importance is.

Obama's Speech To The American Legion Was Painfully Awkward.  On Tuesday, the president spoke to the American Legion's national convention, facing a crowd of veterans deeply concerned about widespread corruption at the Veterans Administration and the resultant deaths of some veterans awaiting health care.  So when Obama began by lecturing the veterans about cynicism and explaining his most recent foreign policy choices — instead of addressing the VA crisis — the audience clearly wasn't pleased.  Fox News cameras captured a sea of blank or frowning faces looking silently back at the president as he paused for failed applause line after failed applause line.

Watch Obama's Rousing Speech That Brought Military Vets To Their Feet.  No, Obama's speech before the American Legion at their convention in Charlotte NC, this morning, stunk on ice — as usual — and the veterans mostly sat on their hands — as usual. [...] Obama got off on the wrong foot almost immediately when he badly botched the word adjutant.  Watch him pause, grimace and sweat in distress as he sees the word coming, knowing that he has no idea how to pronounce it.  It's not as bad as "corpseman" — but close.  "I want to thank the entire leadership team for welcoming me here today, including your... National... uh... (gulp)... Adsnt — uhh — Dan Wheeler... Ay yi yi.  Over five years in office, and the Commander-in-Chief still doesn't know how to pronounce all his military titles.

Also posted under Barack Obama's greatly overrated intellect.

Obama describes a happy, thriving America to veterans, who know better.  President Obama is enduring an awful summer of domestic troubles, foreign tragedies and a lost national narrative that's put him on the defensive.  He'll try to recapture control of the country's political dialogue next month by igniting an emotional controversy over legalizing illegal aliens.  But Tuesday [8/26/2014] the Democrat was in Charlotte to describe to American Legion members an exotic foreign land where November voters should be delighted to keep his party members in office.

Tepid clapping greets unpopular Obama's VA speech at American Legion convention .  President Barack Obama faced a tough crowd on Tuesday — American military veterans — and fell flat on his applause lines as he failed to win over the American Legion's convention-goers.  His 35-minute speech seemed to have reminded the audience of the stark divide between the White House's policy choices and the feelings of the men and women often called on to carry them out.  A Virginia legionnaire who served in the U.S. Marine Corps told MailOnline that 'a small group of Obama's admirers — and there are some here — sat near the front and tried to generate applause for him about 10 times.'

The Editor says...
The useful idiots who sit in the front row and try to start applause at certain points in a speech are known as stooges.

Obama to unveil executive actions on veterans' health care.  President Obama on Tuesday [8/26/2014] will roll out new executive actions to strengthen veterans' health care, using a speech at the American Legion National Convention to trumpet a reduction in the disability claims backlog at government hospitals.  The president will announce executive initiatives that automatically enroll those receiving mental health services through the Defense Department into similar Department of Veterans Affairs programs, expand mental health peer support for veterans being treated in primary care settings and invest nearly $115 million in suicide prevention and treatment of diseases like post-traumatic stress disorder.


"We don't have a strategy" press conference
August 28, 2014.

Barack Obama refuses to decide and fails to act.  Just in case you thought that the Leader of the Free World was secretly harbouring a calculated, well-developed plan for bringing Isil under control and putting Russia's imperial leader back in his box, Barack Obama banged that idea firmly on the head last week.  He gave an extraordinary briefing, which the Washington press corps had been led to believe would contain a major announcement on the White House strategy on foreign policy.  It did.  The announcement was that there was no White House strategy on foreign policy.  Seriously.  In the president's exact words:  "We don't have a strategy yet."

Obama's 5 Worst Foreign Policy Decisions.  [#1]  Iraq/Isis:  Despite being told over and over again that it was a terrible idea to set up a timeline in Iraq and pull out of the country for political reasons without getting a Status of Forces Agreement, Obama did it anyway. [...] What's Obama's plan to handle this disaster his policies created?  Earlier this week, he said, "We don't have a strategy yet.  We need to make sure that we've got clear plans.  As our strategy develops, we will consult with Congress."

Latest Big Lie: 'We Have No Strategy'.  They DO have a strategy, but they prefer to appear indecisive. That's because the strategy would likely provoke even greater criticism than the false confession of endless dithering. The actual strategy is detente first, and then a full alliance with Iran throughout the Middle East and North Africa. It has been on display since before the beginning of the Obama administration. During his first presidential campaign in 2008, Mr. Obama used a secret back channel to Tehran to assure the mullahs that he was a friend of the Islamic Republic, and that they would be very happy with his policies.

The Trouble Is that Obama DOES Have a Strategy.  Obama's "we-don't-have-a-strategy" gaffe was so egregious as to distract attention from the fact that he does indeed have a strategy, which has blown up in his face. His strategy is accommodation with Iran at all costs. As I wrote earlier this month, our ISIS problem derives from our Iran problem: Bashar Assad's ethnic cleansing, which has displaced 4 million Syrians internally and driven 3 million out of the country, was possible because of Iranian backing. The refugee flood in Iraq and Syria gives ISIS an unlimited pool of recruits.

Do You Want to Know Why There's No ISIS Strategy?  The White House, where the president rolls into work mid-morning, where everything starts late, and where schedules are sort just suggestions, is a disorganized mess.  And that's why there's no ISIS policy, even though the administration claims to have been aware of the threat for a year.

He Has No Strategy.  The man does not have a strategy.  The man sitting in the White House, the man who is supposed to be the leader of the free world, the man to whom the West would like to look to for direction, has no clue, no strategy.  For over a year, practically on a daily basis, the man who occupies the Oval Office was briefed about the growing threat of a terrorist group which is so brutal that even Al Qaeda has disavowed any connection to it.  The man who laid claim to the highest office in the world was told, warned, informed, cautioned, alerted and briefed with precise details about the rise of IS (formerly ISIS or ISIL).  The man who has a definite strategy for employing thousands of agents to spy on innocent American citizens doesn't have a strategy vis-à-vis the butchers of ISIS.

Liberal Pundits Baffled By Obama's 'We Don't Have A Strategy'.  Liberal commentators from The New York Times and The Washington Post expressed alarm over President Obama's admission that "we don't have a strategy yet" to confront ISIS, with Times columnist Nicolas Kristof saying "he's got a problem."  On Friday, liberal guests on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" took their turns savaging the president's poor messaging at a press conference on the ultra-violent Islamist group the day before.  The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson claimed that the "urgency" of the threat expressed by other White House officials "contrasted with what the president said — or didn't say."

White House Blames Media For Obama 'No Strategy' Comment.  White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest took great lengths to explain why President Obama's comment about having no strategy to defeat the Islamic State in Syria.  "I don't want to put the cart before the horse," Obama said during his press conference yesterday.  "We don't have a strategy yet."  Earnest acknowledged that he responded quickly on Twitter to clarify Obama's "no strategy" statement after the press conference, after it was clear that the media was using his comment as the focal point of their stories.

Pentagon pressed on why there's no strategy to defeat ISIS.  President Obama's gaffe Thursday that "we don't have a strategy" for a broader fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is putting pressure on the Pentagon as reporters ask:  Why not?  "The question presumes that we're not doing anything, that there's no sense of urgency in the Pentagon.  And you and I both know that's not true," Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said Friday [8/29/2014] after being pressed on the issue.

Strategy irony: Obama declares 'National Preparedness Month,' 'PrepareAthon'.  President Obama admits to not having a strategy to deal with the terrorist crisis in Syria and appears stymied in stopping Russia's drive into Ukraine, but that doesn't mean Americans are off the hook for preparing their own disaster strategy.  On Friday [8/29/2014], the president declared September "National Preparedness Month," a time when he wants the nation to set their own strategy for dealing with a killer crisis — like climate change.

Fox's Ed Henry: Obama's 'No Strategy' Remark a 'Disaster' for WH.  Megyn Kelly was incredibly bewildered Thursday night [8/28/2014] at President Obama's comment about having no concrete Syria strategy yet.  Ed Henry was very blunt in telling Kelly that this is an unqualified "disaster" for the White House.  Henry admitted he was "stunned" that none of his colleagues in the briefing room followed up on that remark of the president's, especially considering how quickly after the presser the White House jumped right into "damage control mode."

White House does damage control.  President Obama was referring only "to military options for striking" Islamist militants in Syria when he said the White House did not "have a strategy yet," press secretary Josh Earnest insisted Thursday.  The White House launched a full-court media press to clarify the president's comments after the media and Republicans seized on the admission.

Man without a plan.  Stating only the obvious, President Obama acknowledged Thursday that he is flummoxed at the moment as to how the U.S. should deal with ISIS, whose rampaging barbarians advertised the mass killing of roughly 100 prisoners shortly before he spoke.  "We don't have a strategy yet," the President advised in a remark likely to indelibly stamp the remainder of his administration, because he offered no sign that the United States will have a sweeping anti-ISIS action plan in the foreseeable future.  Obama freighted his latest press conference remarks about ISIS with so many conditions for applying U.S. military power that he has, in effect, given the savages assurances that they can behead and crucify at will for a good long time to come.

No One Heard Anything Obama Just Said Because His Tan Suit Was So Loud.  President Obama gave an important press conference today and even took questions from the press, but all of this was overshadowed by the fact that Obama debuted one of the ugliest suits in the history of this great nation.

Yes we tan! Obama ridiculed for wearing a 'used car salesman' suit to discuss crises in Iraq and Ukraine.  [C]onservative pundit Michelle Malkin did not miss a chance to take a potshot at the president, tweeting:  'I don't care that Obama's suit is tan.  The problem with the suit that it's EMPTY.' [...] Some people have unfavorably compared the khaki-clad president to a church deacon, an insurance salesmen and a real estate agent.

'We don't have a strategy yet': Obama stuns Washington by admitting he is clueless about tackling ISIS.  President Barack Obama said during a Thursday press conference that his administration doesn't have a plan worked out yet for defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) in Syria.  'I don't want to put the cart before the horse,' Obama said at the White House.  'We don't have a strategy yet.'  'We need to make sure we've got clear plans, and we're developing them,' he said.

Is the US committed to the destruction of Isil?  President Barack Obama came to the White House briefing room last night and conceded:  "We don't have a strategy yet" for confronting Isil.  The remark is a gaffe in the classic sense: a clearly true statement that the politician who utters it immediately regrets.  Republicans seized on the line as evidence of Mr Obama dithering in the face of the jihadist threat, and the President's men raced to the airwaves to try to walk it back.  But the fact is that despite more than 100 air strikes against Isil in Iraq since the beginning of August, the White House remains unable to field even basic questions about its policy in the Middle East.

'No strategy' a gift-wrapped gaffe that could haunt Obama.  President Obama's admission in a press conference Thursday that "we don't have a strategy yet" for a broader confrontation with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is a real problem for the White House.  Rather than the average inartful comment that disappears after a few news cycles, the no-strategy line could help cement charges that Obama lacks the competency to handle multiple crises at once.  A central component of the GOP's strategy for the midterms is to paint Obama as either overwhelmed by the challenges of his office or simply too detached to care — and make Democrats defend an unpopular second-term president.

Krauthammer's Take: 'I Thought the President Could No Longer Surprise Me. I Was Wrong'.  On Thursday's [8/28/2014] Special Report, Charles Krauthammer said he was shocked by President Obama's statement that he doesn't have a strategy for the Islamic State in Syria.  "[...] The President of the United States, in the middle of a real crisis, a few days after the beheading of an American, deliberately sort of spitting in the face of the country and demonstrating his cruelty, the president gets in front of the world and says, "I don't have a strategy."  If that is true, don't say anything.  Why do you announce that you don't have a strategy?"

'We Don't Have a Strategy Yet'.  Here's the problem:  Cancer is a disease.  The Islamic State is an enemy.  There's a difference.  Cancer develops, as it were, naturally.  We counter it as best we can through human art and invention.  Medicine or surgery sometimes succeeds in checking the disease and even freeing the body of it.  But a terrorist movement does not develop naturally.  The Islamic State was brought into existence by certain human beings acting according to a certain intention, an evil and destructive intention to be sure, but an intention nonetheless.  To counter the Islamic State — to defeat it — we need to grasp and frustrate and overcome our enemies' intention.  Treating cancer is a task for surgery.  Fighting the Islamic State is a task for strategy.

Why Obama's 'We don't have a strategy' gaffe stings.  By now, President Obama's remark that "we don't have a strategy yet" has made the rounds.  Republicans were quick to pounce on it, as well they should have.  But while the White House went into damage-control mode, emphasizing that it was a reference to the lack of decisions about increasing military action in Iraq and/or Syria and not a lack of a broader strategy there, the damage was already done.  As with all gaffes, the worst ones are the ones that confirm people's preexisting suspicions or fit into an easy narrative.

Obama's 'strategy' misfire.  President Barack Obama tried to get himself a bit more political space Thursday to make a decision about whether to expand the U.S military campaign against Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria, but in so doing he may have dealt himself a significant political blow by suggesting that his policy on the issue is adrift.  "We don't have a strategy yet," Obama said as he took questions from reporters in the White House briefing room.

Obama warns ISIS: 'We don't have a strategy yet'.  Obama says the Muslim extremists, whose barbarism brings a whole new meaning to the word 'extremists," do not belong in the 21st century.  Turns out, it may well be the disconnected, lame-duck American president who doesn't belong where he is.  As soon as the questions began, the commander-in-chief of the world's sole remaining superpower, albeit a stumbling one now, lost control of the news conference, as he's lost control of his presidency and its narrative with 875 days left.  Obama spent most of the 30 minutes saying what he is not going to do.

Obama Never Has a Plan.  On Thursday, President Obama held a press conference in which he humiliated himself entirely on the question of America's handling of the terror group ISIS.  Explaining that he had to consult Congress and check the pulse of Americans, Obama stated, "I don't want to put the cart before the horse.  We don't have a strategy yet."  Which begs the question:  what [...] does this guy do for a living?

Obama under fire for admitting no 'strategy yet' for ISIS in Syria.  President Obama is facing intense criticism for admitting Thursday [8/28/2014] "we don't have a strategy yet" for dealing with Islamic State militants in Syria, despite warnings from top military advisers and others that the group must be confronted on that side of the border.  The president made the comment during a briefing with reporters in which he overtly played down the prospect of any imminent military action in Syria. He tried to temper speculation that he was about to roll out a "full scale" strategy, one that might expand the current, limited airstrike campaign in northern Iraq.  "I don't want to put the cart before the horse.  We don't have a strategy yet," Obama said.

Latest Big Lie: 'We Have No Strategy'.  They DO have a strategy, but they prefer to appear indecisive.  That's because the strategy would likely provoke even greater criticism than the false confession of endless dithering.  The actual strategy is detente first, and then a full alliance with Iran throughout the Middle East and North Africa.  It has been on display since before the beginning of the Obama administration.


Laborfest
September 1, 2014.

Obama's Spin Can't Keep Up With America's Economic Reality.  At a Labor Day rally in Milwaukee, President Obama turned the limelight on himself, approvingly and inaccurately.  "By almost every measure," he declared, "the American economy and the American workers are better off than when I took office."  In contrast to Mr. Obama's self-congratulatory assertion, the Census Bureau reports that median household income in the United States, adjusted for inflation, is down by more than $2,000 since Obama's first inauguration in January 2009.  Additionally, as an indicator of the economic downturn, a sixth of the U.S. population is currently receiving food stamps, an increase in the participation rate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program of 61 percent since 2008.

Obama Has It Wrong — American Workers Aren't Better Off Under His Policies.  Time was, they had fact-checkers at the White House.  They must've had the weekend off when President Obama let go a whopper at a Labor Day rally in Milwaukee.  'By almost every measure," he boasted, "the American economy and American workers are better off than when I took office."  This must explain why nearly half of American workers believe the U.S. is still in a recession.  Sure, the stock market's done well and employment has picked up, but the most important indicator of their financial situation is whether take-home pay keeps pace with inflation.  And by this measure most households are falling behind.

Obama Invents "Immigration Rights" in Milwaukee Labor Speech.  During an address to labor union leaders and supporters at Milwaukee's Laborfest on September 1, President Obama added another category to the long list of special interests that demand their own rights — "immigration rights." [...] In a statement quoted by the Daily Caller, Mark Krikorian, director of the Center of Immigration Studies, said that Obama's "immigration rights" phrase "implies that some people have the right to move here."

Obama Gets Fired Up for 'Immigration Rights' at Laborfest.  President Obama delivered a fiery speech at Laborfest 2014 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin voicing support for unions and organized labor.  He also voiced his support for "immigration rights," lumping it together with civil rights, gay rights, and voting rights.

Obama Unleashed: 'I'm Not Asking for the Moon'.  Monday [9/1/2014] at the Laborfest event in Milwaukee, President Barack Obama gave a passionate speech in his plea for fair wages for workers.  [Video clip]


Prime-time address on Middle-East strategy, if any
September 10, 2014.

Anticipation:

Predicting the President's Big Speech.  My own view on the matter can be summarized in a word:  Libya.  Libya on a gigantic scale.  The major danger facing the Obama administration is that this vast, Rube Goldberg coalition will malfunction and get away from them.  There will be friction between the Sunni parts, and sparks between the Sunni and Shia components, and gasoline all around.  Once your allies on the ground start fighting among themselves, whom do you bomb?

What Obama's ISIS speech will say — about him.  President Obama was not trying to be funny when he informed NBC-TV's newest host that the presidency involves an element of theater.  No kidding, Barack.  But it came out hilariously from the guy who gave his 2008 nomination acceptance speech with a backdrop of fake Greek columns — in Denver.  Or a month before that when the rookie senator rented a major Berlin intersection for a campaign speech to 200,000 Germans, none of whom could vote in the U.S. presidential election.  But each of whom was a living prop for Obama's claim to be a world savior.  "Part of this job," Obama told Meet the Press' new host, Chuck Todd, "is also the theater of it.  Well, it's not something that always comes naturally to me."  (Nationwide laughter.)

How Obama plans to ace his big speech on ISIS.  President Obama delivers a major address Wednesday on the growing threat of Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. He needs to sell his plan to the American people and Congress — but others will be watching too.

Major Garrett Asks Why Anyone Should Watch Obama's ISIS Speech.  Given what we know of President Obama's speech tonight, Major Garrett of CBS News asks White House Spokesmodel Josh Earnest the $64,000 question — Why should anyone bother to watch?  Garrett lays out all the bullet points the President will deliver tonight — no boots on the ground, no timeline, no cost information, no tactical operational details — in other words:  nothing new.  What's the point of a speech, a primetime address to the nation, where no new information will be conveyed?  Couldn't the media just replay one of his old speeches on ISIS?

A Mismanage-able Problem.  President Obama says he intends to shrink the al-Qaeda-spawned Islamic State into a "manageable problem."  Perhaps we'll learn more about how when he speaks to the nation on Wednesday evening.  Still, the question presses:  Is he the manager for the job?  In answering that question, past performance is more a guarantee of future results than is any statement of newfound purpose from a president whose innate dishonesty has turned his signature phrase "Let me be clear" into notorious self-parody.

Do over! Obama speech to reverse course on severity of Islamic State threat.  Nine months after belittling the Islamic State as a "JV" terrorist group, President Obama will devote an urgent prime-time address Wednesday to his plan for defeating the suddenly resurgent militants, a strategy that will rely heavily on U.S. partnership with an untested Iraqi government and unproven Syrian rebels.

Obama tells leaders he doesn't need their vote for ISIS campaign.  President Obama told congressional leaders at a White House meeting on Tuesday [9/9/2014] he doesn't need their authorization to expand his military campaign against Islamic terrorists.  The president offered the assurance one day before a prime-time address he's scheduled to give to the nation.

Reaction:

Obama's speech strategy: open with your biggest lie.  Over the past several weeks, there's been a plethora of discussion over Obama's "strategy" vis-à-vis ISIS (aka ISIL), whether he actually had a strategy and, if so, what it might be.  Well, he certainly had a strategy for the speech he gave last night.  Like an entertainer who opens his act with his biggest number, Obama's strategy was to open his speech with the most blatant, brazen, bald-faced lie imaginable.  It had me livid within the first few minutes of his speech, when he had the colossal gall to state, "First of all, ISIL is not Islamic.  No religion condones the killing of innocents."

The Nowhere Man Goes to War.  Pity Barack Obama.  Our hapless chief executive must be suffering from a cognitive disorder the size of Alpha Centauri.  The poor guy grew up on the anti-imperialist mouthings of lefty poet Frank Marshall Davis, schoolboy revolutionary Bill Ayers and later anti-Israel professor Rashid Khalidi, not to mention the well-known anti-American excrescences of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and now he has to go to war — as an imperialist — against the very Third World people he was told again and again we colonized and destroyed.  His head must be about to explode.  No wonder he insisted in his Wednesday night speech that the Islamic State is not Islamic — what is it?  Hindu?

Obama's unnecessary, unpromising war.  President Obama said Wednesday night the United States is going to war "to degrade and ultimately destroy" the group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.  So right off you know one thing we will not do:  destroy it.  The only thing more reliable than the habit of American presidents of starting wars is the inability of wartime presidents to achieve their goals.

Schlock and awe: Obama polls war.  There exist any number of fair criticisms of George W. Bush's Iraq policy — that he underestimated the resistance we would encounter, that he deferred too long to failing generals, that the surge ought to have come sooner, and so on.  The one thing that can't be said about him is this:  that his war policy was driven by the polls and politics.  This is the operative difference between Presidents Bush and Obama, which the latter drove home in his prime-time address Wednesday evening.

'King Putt's' Islamic State of Denial.  President Barack Hussein Obama's 'no-strategy strategy' in dealing with the Sen. Dianne Feinstein described "most vicious, well-funded, militant terrorist organization we have ever seen" turns out to be the name he publicly bestowed upon them from the State Floor of the White House last night:  ISIL, (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) — the name the Islamic State gave to itself — if only to show they already include Israel in their ambitious caliphate.

'No Boots on the Ground,' Like 'You Can Keep Your Doctor'.  In this hyperpartisan age, there is one point of agreement between Republicans and Democrats on foreign policy — that is, in addition to the newfound conviction that Congress need not exercise its constitutional authority over war: namely, that there shall be no "boots on the ground in Iraq."  It is a view requiring immediate clarification: there may be more U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq, but no combat troops will be sent.

Obama's Three Fatal ISIS Delusions.  With his address to the nation Wednesday evening, President Obama revealed that he is a leader in deep denial about the threat the United States faces, and about the steps that are necessary to deal with it.  In his remarks, Obama offered up a series of delusions, each of which point to the ultimate defeat of the United States in the war he has embarked upon.  Delusion #1:  Obama still thinks ISIS is the JV team.

Sorry Mr. President, ISIS Is 100 Percent Islamic.  In a televised address on how to address the Islamic State this evening, President Barack Obama declared the organization variously known as ISIS or ISIL to be "not Islamic."  In making this preposterous claim, Obama joins his two immediate predecessors in pronouncing on what is not Islamic.  Bill Clinton called the Taliban treatment of women and children "a terrible perversion of Islam."  George W. Bush deemed that 9/11 and other acts of violence against innocents "violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith."  None of the three has any basis for such assertions.  To state the obvious:  As non-Muslims and politicians, rather than Muslims and scholars, they are in no position to declare what is Islamic and what is not.

It's Not a Misnomer.  When you are dealing with an administration whose officials look you in the eye and tell you the Muslim Brotherhood is a "largely secular" organization, it's tempting to laugh off the idiocy spouted by President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry about how the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam.  We should resist the temptation, though, because there is a dangerous purpose behind the laughable assertion.  Obviously, Bing West and Daniel Pipes are correct that the terrorist group is entirely Islamic.

Obama war request puts congressional Democrats in a tight spot.  Some Capitol Hill lawmakers are baffled.  What does President Obama want from Congress as he begins the U.S. military escalation in Iraq and Syria?  The question wasn't answered by the president's much-anticipated speech Wednesday night.  First, Obama seemed to tell Congress to mind its own business.  "I have the authority to address the threat from ISIL," he said, indicating he didn't need or want any permission from the legislative branch to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.  Then Obama added, "But I believe we are strongest as a nation when the president and Congress work together.  So I welcome congressional support for this effort in order to show the world that Americans are united in confronting this danger."

Is Obama starting a war so his party can win the next election?
Why Obama's assault on ISIS probably won't save the Democrats this fall.  Until Wednesday night's speech, the president was taking a political beating on foreign policy that had a toxic effect on his approval ratings.  And that was a major drag on vulnerable Democrats, especially those red-state senators trying to hang on and keep the chamber from tipping to the GOP.  But now, whether or not Obama is leading from behind, as his critics say, he has committed to using U.S. military power against the terrorists.  And that could scramble the electoral outlook.

Didn't Barack Obama Declare the War on Terror Over?  The President who once declared the War on Terror over, used variants of the word "terror" eighteen times in his speech.  And what of the President's speech?  Put it to you this way — it is the first time he has wanted to talk about jobs and the economy in a long time.  Basically, our strategy is to outsource the military's job to Syrian rebels.  Just last week the President said those rebels are not capable of doing what needs to be done.

Obama's Big Speech: Is he chasing public opinion, and does it matter?  President Obama's address on battling ISIS, the details of which were carefully leaked, raises a question that has dogged his six-year tenure:  Is he again leading from behind, or is he carefully calibrating the public mood?

Obama's consistent unseriousness about the Islamic State.  As we suspected, President Obama tried in his Wednesday-night speech to make it sound like he was doing something new when he, in fact, he is not.  Moreover, in describing his response, he made plain that he doesn't take the threat to the homeland seriously.  For a threat his advisers say is greater than that posed by al-Qaeda after 2001, he proposed measures suitable for Yemen and Somalia.  No, really — that's the plan.

Obama Plays Catch-Up With Public and Himself.  President Obama on Wednesday night entered a new phase of his presidency — and he did it in a most Obama of ways.  First, to what's changed:  He's announcing a war, not ending one.  He's preparing to act without Congress, almost exactly a year after deferring to the legislative branch on a question of whether to use American military force.  The president is rushing to catch up with and soothe an anxious, even frightened, public.  He's doing it while looking to reverse perceptions that he's been slow to respond to metastasizing crises in the Middle East and beyond.

Obama Announces Additional Troops Abroad — but No Combat Mission.  By the time President Obama delivered his prime time speech this evening, he had already effectively softened the news of his decision to launch further military air strikes against Islamic State terrorists in both Iraq and Syria.  Obama announced, however, that he would send 475 additional troops overseas, to help the fight against ISIS terrorists, repeating that his mission was to degrade and destroy them.  But Obama cautiously asserted that any proposed actions "will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil" — which was a stronger position than his earlier promise to keep American boots off the ground.

President Obama renews war on terror; vows coalition to wipe out Islamic State.  President Obama announced an escalation of the war against Islamic State terrorists Wednesday night with plans to intensify airstrikes in Iraq, send more U.S. military advisers to Baghdad, provide arms to Syrian rebels and likely expand airstrikes into Syria.  "If left unchecked, these terrorists could pose a growing threat beyond that region — including to the United States," Mr. Obama said in a prime-time address from the White House.  "We will conduct a systematic campaign of airstrikes against these terrorists."

Obama: ISIS is not Islamic.  Obama said early in his speech tonight that ISIL is not Islamic even though they call themselves the Islamic State, adding that no religion condones the killing of innocents: [...]

Obama's Speech on ISIS, in Plain English.  Has any past president announced military action with such ambivalence and unease?

Text of Obama's speech.  [As if it matters.]

Obama makes the case for war against ISIS as he promises to 'take out' the terror group in Iraq AND Syria.  President Barack Obama will pursue ISIS terrorists in Syria and expand airstrikes in Iraq because 'if you threaten America, you will find no safe haven', he said in a prime-time national address on Wednesday night.  He also pledged that he will not put tens of thousands of American boots on the ground there.  In a four-point plan that he laid out, the Commander-in-Chief announced coming airstrikes in both countries, additional support for Iraqi army units, counter-terrorism activities to hamstring ISIS, and renewed humanitarian aid for victims of ISIS militants.

Obama announces 'broad coalition' to fight Islamic State extremist group.  President Obama on Wednesday night outlined an open-ended campaign to combat the threat posed by the Islamic State, significantly expanding the counter-terrorism strategy that has been a hallmark of his presidency.  Obama said in a prime-time speech televised from the White House that the United States will join "with our friends and allies to degrade, and ultimately destroy, the terrorist group known as ISIL," using an alternative acronym for the group that has emerged in Iraq and Syria.

CAIR Wants Obama in Speech to Dissociate ISIS From Islam.  The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) wants President Obama in his speech on ISIS Wednesday night to reject the jihadists' "misappropriation of Islamic terms and concepts," and to recognize that the terrorist group was created by "the lack of freedom and justice in the region."  CAIR leaders plan to join other local and national Muslim leaders in a Capitol Hill viewing of Obama's prime-time address to the nation on a strategy to counter the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) threat.

Five things that could go horribly wrong with Obama's action in Iraq.  If there's one thing America's misadventure in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 taught everyone, it is that things can go terribly wrong when the U.S. intervenes in a foreign environment with deep sectarian divisions, an ineffectual government, armed factions, and the general complexities of the Middle East. [...] In his address to the nation Wednesday night, the president laid out a multi-point proposal for action.  He also had an opportunity, which he chose not to take, to warn Americans of some of the specific ways his new intervention could go wrong.  "Any time we take military action, there are risks involved, especially to the servicemen and women who carry out these missions," Obama said.  But he did not elaborate or explain any of those risks.

The Religion of Liberalism and the 'Killing of Innocents'.  In his primetime speech about going after ISIL, a sibilant Barack Obama promised America that "[w]e will degrade, and ultimately destroy" the band of head-chopping thugs that, with each passing day, is growing larger and stronger.  The problem for America is that the president conveyed the message with significantly less conviction than when he promised us that with ObamaCare we could keep our own doctors.  In addition to the unconvincing delivery, Barack was wearing way too much pancake makeup, and he was positioned below drapes that, from a certain angle, created an optical illusion of the president sporting two horns that would turn Beelzebub green with envy.  In his speech Obama made "two things clear," which, as usual, were anything but.

Obama's Betrayal of the Constitution.  President Obama's declaration of war against the terrorist group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria marks a decisive break in the American constitutional tradition.  Nothing attempted by his predecessor, George W. Bush, remotely compares in imperial hubris.  Mr. Bush gained explicit congressional consent for his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.  In contrast, the Obama administration has not even published a legal opinion attempting to justify the president's assertion of unilateral war-making authority.  This is because no serious opinion can be written.

Obama inevitably will need to use ground troops to defeat Islamic State, experts warn.  Trying to uproot and destroy the Islamic State's army of terrorists in Iraq without American ground troops, as President Obama promoted Wednesday night, is doomed to failure, national security experts say.  At the least, the president needs to get ground troops closer to the fight, say some politicians and analysts.  He should introduce special operations units to advise and join the Iraqis on hunt-and-kill missions against Islamic State leaders, as well as insert controllers to point out targets for warplanes.

Obama's ship is sinking.  The rising clamor over the beheading of two Americans, and rapidly sinking polls, forced President Obama to reassure the nation last week he had a plan to deal with the Islamic State.  He did some of what he had to do, but only some, and so most military analysts believe the expanded airstrikes will not be a sufficient match for the size and weaponry of the terrorist army.  They miss the point.  The disjointed speech wasn't really about terrorism and launching a new war.  It was about saving Obama's presidency.

Obama's uncertain trumpet, again.  The speech's only news was the promise to expand the air campaign into Syria and (finally) seriously arm the secular opposition.  But this creates a major problem for Obama.  Just a month ago, he ridiculed the non-jihadist rebels as nothing but a bunch of "doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth."  Now he deputizes them as our Syrian shock troops.  So he seems finally to have found his Syria strategy:  F-16s flying air support for pharmacists in tanks.

'War Lite' No Winning Strategy Against Islamic State.  "Degrade and ultimately destroy" is no war strategy, especially against a terrorist state scheming the infiltration of our southern border.  "American leadership at its best" would be to destroy IS, ASAP.  Imagine President Roosevelt announcing after Pearl Harbor that first we have to "degrade" the Empire of Japan.  Imagine Churchill promising, "We shall 'degrade and ultimately destroy' them on the beaches ... ."

None Dare Call It War.  It is one of the most bizarre things we've ever seen.  One minute the President of America goes on national television to announce that he has ordered our military to "degrade and ultimately destroy" the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.  The next moment his state secretary goes on Cable News Network to make a declaration that CNN reported under the headline:  "Kerry: U.S. not at war with ISIS."  It seems Mr. Kerry wants to draw a distinction between, on the one hand, a counter-terrorism operation, which is how he describes that in which are involved, and, on the other hand, war.

Obama's New War on ISIS May Be Illegal.  President Obama's new war against ISIS is off to a shaky legal start.  Obama's using the law that authorized attacks against al Qaeda to justify his new fight in Syria and Iraq.  One small problem:  ISIS and al Qaeda are at each others' throats.  Legal experts were shocked to learn Wednesday that the Obama administration wants to rely on that 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force against al Qaeda for the new ISIS war.  "On its face this is an implausible argument because the 2001 AUMF requires a nexus to al Qaeda or associated forces of al Qaeda fighting the United States," said Robert Chesney, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law.  "Since ISIS broke up with al Qaeda it's hard to make that argument."

Barack Obama's plan to fight Isil is hard to believe.  Despite their professions of loyalty in Jeddah this week, Mr Obama's regional Sunni allies, particularly Turkey, Egypt and Jordan, are unsurprisingly lukewarm about being harried into a conflict which — as they see it — was born out a US decision to abandon Syria and Iraq to Shia excesses.  And even the plan smacks of desperation.  Only a month ago Mr Obama ridiculed the very idea of arming moderate rebels in Syria as a "fantasy", but now apparently this once silly idea is key to holding Syrian territory when it is recaptured from Isil forces under the cover of US air strikes.

Obama announces 'broad coalition' to fight Islamic State extremist group.  President Obama on Wednesday night outlined an open-ended campaign to combat the threat posed by the Islamic State, significantly expanding the counter-terrorism strategy that has been a hallmark of his presidency.  Obama said in a prime-time speech televised from the White House that the United States will join "with our friends and allies to degrade, and ultimately destroy, the terrorist group known as ISIL," using an alternative acronym for the group that has emerged in Iraq and Syria.

Obama announces he'll do what he should have done a month ago.  With a decisive tone designed to give the impression that this was a spontaneous conclusion reached after personal deliberation (and not, certainly not, a decision reached after looking at his latest poill ratings) Barack Obama announced his long-awaited strategy for dealing with Isil.  The only substantive changes to what we already knew to be his policy were the unsurprising intention to extend air strikes into Syria, and the rather less expected one to assist the Syrian rebels.  There would, in other words, be a systematic attempt to support those trying to bring down the Assad regime.  These two announcements were embedded in the sort of forceful-sounding but ambivalent rhetoric we have come to expect.

On What Is and Is Not Islamic.  During his speech last night, President Obama declared, "ISIL is not 'Islamic.'  No religion condones the killing of innocents.  And the vast majority of ISIL's victims have been Muslim."  It is certainly true that the vast majority of the victims of ISIS, as the group is more commonly known, have been Muslim as have been the majority of victims of other radical Islamist movements, it is not the job of any president to decree what is and is not Islam; what is and is not Christianity; and what is and is not Judaism.  For all practical purposes, religion is what its practitioners believe it to be, not what an American president says it is.

Obama: Islamic State 'Is Not Islamic'.  President Obama laid out a four-part strategy Wednesday night to "degrade and ultimately destroy" the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL), saying he will not hesitate to extend airstrikes to Syria.  Addressing the nation from the White House, he used the opportunity to repeat the administration's rejection of the jihadists' claim to be acting on behalf of Islam.

'Oversimplification', 'Wildly Off-Base': MSNBC Slams Obama's ISIS Speech.  President Obama's Wednesday-night speech laying out the United States' military strategy against the Islamic State didn't get the best reception on the left, and not because it was too hawkish:  Chris Matthews repeatedly called it "not sufficient," NBC correspondent Richard Engel slammed it as "wildly off-base" and an "oversimplification," and even Al Sharpton admitted the plan left a lot to be desired.  A panel composed of some of MSNBC's brightest stars lit into the president almost immediately after he wrapped up his address to the American people.  "I heard all the necessary conditions, but not the sufficient conditions for defeating ISIS," Matthews lamented.

Obama says the Islamic State 'is not Islamic.' Americans disagree.  Throughout his presidency, President Obama has emphasized one point while talking about Islamist extremists:  They are not practicing Islam, he has said, they are perverting it.  He took that a step further Wednesday night.  While announcing that he's expanding the campaign against the Islamic State extremist group into Syria, Obama said flatly that this group, which is trying to install a caliphate in the Middle East, "is not Islamic."  He didn't say they are perverting their religion; he said they're not even part of that religion.

Obama's "not Islamic" Islamic State Claim Ridiculed.  President Obama's assertion Wednesday night that the Islamic State terrorist group "is not 'Islamic'" is drawing derision from a number of quarters.  The claim, also made by Obama's predecessors, is "preposterous," Daniel Pipes wrote for the National Review Online.  "To state the obvious: As non-Muslims and politicians, rather than Muslims and scholars, they are in no position to declare what is Islamic and what is not."

China gives cautious response to Obama's Islamic State call.  China responded cautiously on Thursday to a call by US President Barack Obama for a broad coalition to root out Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, saying the world should fight terror but that the sovereignty of countries must be respected.  Obama also told Americans on Wednesday that he had authorized US air strikes for the first time in Syria and more attacks in Iraq in an escalation of a campaign against Islamic State.

Obama Takes On ISIS With Brave Words, Pinprick Strikes, And Phantom Allies.  President Barack Obama last night promised to defeat ISIS (a.k.a. ISIL or the Islamic State) by combining American air power and 475 additional troops — not boots on the ground — with the ground forces of ephemeral allies, whose willingness and ability to fight are far from certain.  Among the allies who are to conduct the ground campaign against ISIS are the Kurds (whose fighting ability is not in question), Iraqi forces that collapsed when confronted with several thousand ISIS fighters, and now the largely unknown "moderate" forces fighting the Assad regime.  The president showed his "fighting side" by expanding American air power into Syria and placing his bets on the farmers, teachers and dentists whose fighting ability he recently disparaged.

Obama's coalition may not hold against Islamic State.  President Obama on Wednesday accepted that the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria had left his preferred Middle East policy in shambles and announced a new one centered on building a broad coalition to fight the Islamist extremist group.  In doing so, the president finally accepted direct U.S. intervention in Syria.  Many of the actions he proposed in Wednesday night's speech to the nation were those his administration had previously rejected as impractical over the past three years, including U.S. bombing raids and arming Syrian rebels believed to be "moderates."

Obama at the Credibility Gap.  Rarely has a president faced a greater challenge in establishing his credibility for a new foreign-policy move than Barack Obama did in his nationally televised speech tonight.  A CNN poll earlier this week found that just 30 percent of voters thought Obama had presented a clear plan for fighting the Islamic State.  While Obama now pledges to ask Congress to train and aid Syrian rebels who would fight the group, voters remember that he backed similar plans in Syria in 2013, when his advisers saw Syrian president Bashar Assad as the major threat.

Obama's 'Strategy' Has No Chance of Success.  President Obama just announced that he is bringing a counter-terrorism strategy to an insurgency fight.  He was at pains to repeat the phrase "counter-terror" four times in a short speech.  Noting that ISIL is not a state (partly because the international community thankfully does not recognize it), he declared, "ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple.  And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way."  Neither of those sentences, unfortunately, is true.

The Obama Bomb.  [Scroll down]  The swift rise to power of so brutal and determined a jihadist entity is clearly on Obama's malign scorecard, the handiwork of a president who, by his own admission, did not formulate a strategy to deal with the impending menace until he went on TV to explain it on Wednesday night (White House press secretary Josh Earnest frantically tried to cover for Obama, saying he really meant Syria); who withdraws troops from contested regions; who refuses to take responsibility for his mistakes and even attempts to capitalize on them for propaganda advantages; and who is always brought up short by events he is unable to take the measure of.

Coalition Refusing Obama's ISIS Fight Far Bigger Than One Helping It.  For all the ridicule heaped upon George W. Bush's so-called "Coalition of the Willing" by President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry, among others, the US-led 2003 operation to liberate Iraq and overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein was assisted by 49 nations that provided material military support including troops, intelligence cooperation, material, logistics, ground facilities, and financial assistance.

Squandered Credibility of U.S. Will Prove Hard To Address By a Faltering Obama.  There is no possible explanation that is not discreditable for why we went from then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's assertion that Assad was "a reformer," to the unctuous Obama revelation that it was "time for him to go," to the infamous, self-eradicating "red line," to the abdication in favor of Congress to approve the much-announced punitive cruise-missile attacks that new Secretary of State John Kerry assured would be "unbelievably small," to confiding the disposal of the poison gas that Assad had conferred upon some of his refractory countrymen to the capable and infinitely trustworthy hands of Vladimir Putin, who had supplied Assad in the first place.  This dismal sequence was summarized Wednesday by the president in his address to the country as the combination of strength and diplomacy that resolved the Syrian poison-gas crisis.

Even a Top Democrat Thinks Obama's Legal Case for War Makes No Sense.  The White House and senior members of the Obama administration have been trying to convince Congress all week that, legally speaking, there's no difference between ISIS and al Qaeda.  But at the same time — and, often, in the very same classified briefings — members of the U.S. intelligence community are telling lawmakers that the two Islamic radical groups aren't in cahoots at all.  In fact, they're competitors for supremacy in the global jihadist movement.

The Barbarians Within Our Gates.  With his decision to use force against the violent extremists of the Islamic State, President Obama is doing more than to knowingly enter a quagmire.  He is doing more than play with the fates of two half-broken countries — Iraq and Syria — whose societies were gutted long before the Americans appeared on the horizon.  Obama is stepping once again — and with understandably great reluctance — into the chaos of an entire civilization that has broken down

Retired Head Of Marine Corps: Obama's ISIS Strategy Doesn't Have 'A [...] Chance [...] Of Succeeding'.  The man who was the top Marine general from 2006 until his retirement in 2010 says President Barack Obama's strategy to defeat the terrorist group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is doomed to fail.  "I don't think the president's plan has a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding," retired Marine General James Conway, who served as the 34th Commandant of the Marine Corps during the end of the Bush administration and the beginning of the Obama administration, said at the Maverick PAC Conference in Washington, D.C. Friday, according to a source in attendance.

BHO Goes to War.  Barack Hussein Obama, the American president least interested in war in most of our lifetimes, possibly ever, has found himself plunged half-heartedly in the middle of it, going to war, bombing Islamic State territories within Syria, a country he at first warned would itself be bombed for its use of chemical weapons.


United Nations climate summit
September 23, 2014.

Obama to UN: Climate Change [is] Our Fault.  On Tuesday, shortly after announcing to the American public that the United States was now bombing ISIS in Syria, the President of the United States flew to New York to address the United Nations — on climate change.  His speech mixed high-flown sentiment with apologies for America, and pledged American sacrifice in the name of a lofty goal without evidence that such sacrifice would in any way contribute to attaining that goal.  In other words, it was a typical Barack Obama whirligig.

Obama Calls For More Ambitious Approach To Climate Change In U.N. Speech.  In a speech at the U.N. Climate Summit, President Obama called for a more ambitious global approach to environmental issues, and noted a new push to boost what the White House calls "global resilience" in the face of climate change.


United Nations General Assembly
September 24, 2014.

Commando vs. Community Organizer: Netanyahu Slams "Brazen Lies" Told by Obama and Abbas.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose not to let President Obama's bold allegation that Israelis were not interested in peace go unanswered in his speech Monday at the UN. [...] President Obama spent five sentences of his 39-minute UN address on Iran, telling the world "my message to Iran's leaders...We can reach a solution that meets your energy needs while assuring the world that your program is peaceful."  Another brazen lie, since no one believes that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful or has anything to do with its energy needs, which can be met into the next century by its natural resources.

The Throat-Clearing President Versus the Throat-Cutting Terrorists.  Last week, President Obama spoke to the United Nations about the growing threat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.  In the course of that speech, he discussed a wide variety of threats to Western civilization, ranging from Ebola to global warming, from chaos in Syria to China's incursions in the South China Sea.  The speech seemed unfocused, meandering.  But it held together thanks to one common thread:  Barack Obama believes that words solve everything.  Particularly his own.  Obama's narcissism isn't mere arrogance.  It's messianism.  It's pure faith that his verbiage can alter the course of history.

Barack Obama, Outside Agitator.  In his U.N. address, President Obama listed a parade of horrors afflicting our world: "Russian aggression in Europe," "terrorism in Syria and Iraq," rapes and beheadings by ISIL, al-Qaida, Boko Haram.  And, of course, the Ferguson Police Department.  That's right.  The president could not speak of war, terrorism and genocide without dragging in the incident in a St. Louis suburb where a white cop shot and killed a black teenager. [...] Obama said that "young men of color" are too often "judged by stereotypes."  But behind those stereotypes are FBI statistics that show that black males between 16 and 36, two percent of the U.S. population, commit a vastly disproportionate share of all violent crimes.  Where are the stats to sustain Obama's stereotype of cops?

Obama's Latest Collectivist Speech.  Mr. Obama gave an ethereal, other-worldly, pie-in-the-sky address to the U.N. Wednesday that was not based in reality. [...] Mr. Obama declared war on war as if anyone who wants to attack us and others was actually listening.  He quoted Sheikh bin Bayyah described its purpose:  "We must declare war on war, so the outcome will be peace upon peace."  He gave his usual shout out to the Israelis and told them to engage in the "hard work of peace" which to him means negotiating with terrorists.

Just Another Obama Speech to the UN.  For better or worse, I watched President Obama's speech today to the UN General Assembly. Ninety percent could have been uttered at any Obama speech, and probably has been.  The predictable mix of anodyne platitudes, vague calls to action, and more-in-sadness-than-anger scolding has become all too familiar to listeners foreign and domestic.  The audience of international  grifters  diplomats appeared bored out of their corrupt minds and who can blame them?  A quick CNN cut to the U.S. delegation showed a worried Samantha Power and John Kerry with head in hands.

In U.N. speech, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama makes case for war.  This is how a Nobel Peace Prize laureate goes to war.  He smiles warmly at the members of the U.N. General Assembly.  He mentions his grandmother's village in Kenya and notes that "Islam teaches peace."  He admits his country's own flaws, praises "the path of diplomacy and peace," and asserts that lasting gains cannot be "won at the barrel of a gun."

Obama Praises Muslim Cleric Who Backed Fatwa on Killing of U.S. Soldiers.  President Barack Obama favorably quoted and praised on Wednesday in his speech before the United Nations a controversial Muslim cleric whose organization has reportedly endorsed the terror group Hamas and supported a fatwa condoning the murder of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.  Obama in his remarks offered praise to controversial cleric Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah and referred to him as a moderate Muslim leader who can help combat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL or ISIS) radical ideology.  However, Bin Bayyah himself has long been engulfed in controversy for many of his views, including the reported backing of a 2004 fatwa that advocated violent resistance against Americans fighting in Iraq.

Barack Obama's 'Broad Brush' U.N. Speech.  Frankly, when Obama cites "the prospect of war between major powers reduced ... Hundreds of millions of human beings ... freed from the prison of poverty, and the world economy strengthening," it's hard to tell what planet he came from.  Apparently Barry hasn't noticed, but World War III is geared up, and pasting a smiley face on severed heads isn't going to change that.  Then there's China.  Obama conveniently forgot to mention that if China is taken out of the equation, his rosy economic picture changes markedly.  Nevertheless, thanks to Common Core, ObamaCare, and "Hope and Change," the president said he reminds American youth that, for those who manage to make it out of the womb alive, this is the "best time in history to be born."

Obama's condemnation of Ferguson, Missouri, during UN talk was a mistake.  President Obama spoke Wednesday to the United Nations General Assembly in his annual foreign policy address to the world body.  Speaking after the Brazilian president but before Uganda's leader, Obama spoke for 31 minutes on Russia, Asia, Ebola, Iran and climate change.  Eighteen minutes into his speech, Obama mentioned ISIS.  Then, he went on to talk about "violent extremism" (he never mentioned "Islamic extremism").  But after talking about terrorism and "taking action against immediate threats," Obama transitioned to calling out America's "failure" and "our own racial and ethnic tensions" in "the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri."

Cheney rips Obama for 'Ferguson'.  Dick Cheney says it's "outrageous" that President Barack Obama mentioned the summer's unrest in Ferguson, Mo., while speaking about ISIL during a speech at the United Nations.  "I was stunned," the former vice president said on Wednesday [9/24/2014] during an interview on Fox News' "Hannity."  As Obama attempted to muster support from U.N. member nations to combat extremism earlier Wednesday, he referred to the police killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown as a way to recognize critics who point out that the U.S. has "plenty of problems within its own borders."

Obama outdoes himself in UN speech.  By now we are well aware that President Obama goes out of his way to praise Islam, making false claims that Islam is a religion of peace (is anyone else completely sick of that expression?) and lauding purported Muslim contributions to civilization.  When speaking at the United Nations on Wednesday Obama took taqiyya to a whole new level when he praised Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah.  Who, you may ask, is that? [...]

Obama, confounded, chides tribal Middle East in speech to UN General Assembly.  The international system on which the United States relies is failing to "keep pace" with an interconnected world, President Barack Obama said on Wednesday, in a somber speech on the state of global affairs.  The speech was an acknowledgment by the president of the challenges to his own doctrine of multilateralism:  "we cannot rely on a rule book written for a different century," he said.

Full text of Barack Obama's speech to the UN General Assembly.  For what it's worth.


Rhode Island
October 31, 2014.

3 Reasons President Obama Is Wrong About Stay-At-Home Mothers.  Charlie Spiering reports on a speech President Obama made in Rhode Island today [10/31/2014].  You know things are rough for President Obama this election season when he is relegated to a state so small CNN thinks it's a city.  Anyway, he was painting a picture of how he'd like to expand the administrative state to include government pre-school.  Because public schools are doing such a good job generally.  Anyway, he then took an absolutely bizarre swipe against stay-at-home mothers: [...]

'That's Not a Choice We Want Americans to Make' — Obama Slams Stay at Home Moms.  Condescension aside, aggravating is the constant drum beat of the modern "feminist" lie that women can have it all.  It's simply not true.  Those with successful careers and families are routinely put in a place of choosing one or the other.  Men with families also find themselves in the same dilemma, yet no one wants to talk about their struggles, because "feminism."  Beyond perpetuating modern "feminist" myths is an even nastier issue with the President's poorly worded statements:  are we really in a place culturally where it's acceptable to demonize a woman's choice to stay at home as, "not a choice we want Americans to make"?  Evidently so.

Obama on Moms Who Stay Home to Raise Kids: 'That's Not a Choice We Want Americans to Make'.  During a speech in Rhode Island today, President Obama called for more taxpayer-spending on pre-school in order to "make sure that women are full and equal participants in our economy" and said the following: [...]

Obama's Last Midterm Speech: The Economy's Great! ...Except for Women.  In Barack Obama's last weekly address before the November election, he resorted to his usual chicanery, this time with an emphasis on the War on Women.  Obama started by claiming that over the past 55 months, "Our businesses have added 10.3 million new jobs."  "Our businesses?"  Since when did the creator of the infamous line "You didn't build that," have the right to call them "Our businesses?"  "Added 10.3 million new jobs?" [...]


Post-election press conference
November 5, 2014.

It's still Obama's way or the highway.  "What's most important to the American people right now," Obama said, "the resounding message not just of this election, but basically the last several is: Get stuff done.  Don't worry about the next election.  Don't worry about party affiliation.  Do worry about our concerns."  Of course, this is a rather obtuse take on what the voters said and did.  They punished one specific party affiliation.  And they did so precisely because the "stuff" that that party and its president have focused on "getting done" apparently does not align with, and perhaps even exacerbates, many of their concerns.

Obama Wants Conservatives to Self-Cannibalize Over His Executive Action on Immigration.  Having received a walloping in the elections, President Obama has promised to double down by tearing the country apart over illegal immigration.  "I've shown a lot of patience," he said with characteristic conceit at Wednesday's contrition-free press conference.  Make no mistake.  It will be the opening salvo of a two-year campaign that will decide which course the country takes:  one that fundamentally alters our way of life or one that conserves our many blessings.

President Impervious.  At the end of his opening statement at the traditional postelection presidential press conference, Barack Obama offered this assurance:  "I continue to believe we are simply more than just a collection of red and blue states," he said.  "We are the United States." [...] Last week, Obama recited those words impassively from a prepared statement.  They followed a series of clichés and preceded a list of empty promises.  His words no longer move the country.  Even Barack Obama doesn't seem to believe much that comes out of the president's mouth these days.  The Age of Obama may be over, but his presidency continues, alas.

Conservative Senators Warn Obama on Unconstitutional Amnesty Move.  Yesterday Obama responded to the decisive public repudiation of his policies represented by the massive Republican wave by reaching out to the incoming majority, generously offering to give them a few weeks to propose legislation to his liking before he jettisons the Constitution entirely and rules by decree.

Mope and Change.  Losing the Senate "doesn't make me mopey, it energizes me, because it means that this democracy's working."  It took him until near the very end of his painfully meandering Castro-length post-shellacking press conference for a decent soundbite to emerge, but for once, the president didn't disappoint: [...]

In defeat, Obama tells GOP: My mandate is bigger than yours.  President Obama did something extraordinary, perhaps unprecedented, in his post-election news conference Wednesday:  He claimed a mandate on behalf of voters who didn't vote.  "To everyone who voted, I want you to know that I hear you," the president said.  "To the two-thirds of voters who chose not to participate in the process yesterday, I hear you, too."  What did that mean?  What did those non-voters say?  It would probably be more useful to ask what the president heard.  And apparently Obama heard expressions of support from non-voters across the land.

RNC on Obama Press Conference: 'Is He Detached or in Denial?'.  In an eyebrow-raising Wednesday press conference, President Barack Obama appeared unapologetic to fellow Democrats for Tuesday's historic midterm election losses — losses many in the president's own party attribute directly to him.  "I'm having a great time!" Obama said with a smile during the press conference.

Obama reacts to midterm disaster: Not my fault and other dumb claims.  Here's Obama's news conference reaction to that nationwide rejection:  "I don't want to try to read the tea leaves on election results."  "The resounding message not just of this election, but basically the last several is:  Get stuff done."  In other words, no one minds ObamaCare raising costs and reducing choices, Dodd-Frank, thousands of pages of new regulations strangling enterprises and job creration or any of his missteps threatening national security.  The American people, in Obama's eyes, just want more done.

Obama's presser goes Through the Looking Glass.  For President Obama, elections mean just what he chooses them to mean.  Tuesday's midterm, which saw Democrat senators, governors, and House members fall like bowling pins, was all about the two thirds of the registered voters who didn't bother to show up.

WaPo Factchecker Gives Obama 3 Pinocchios For Bogus Health Care Claim.  President Obama continued his tradition of blatantly lying to the American people about ObamaCare during his press conference Wednesday and the Washington Post Factchecker has called him out on it giving him 3 Pinocchios.

The man who would not pivot.  President Obama took to the podium today to inform the nation that he will change exactly nothing about how he does his job after a historic drubbing in the midterm elections.  He will tout the same policies in the same ways, with no particular plan for how to get any of them passed, with no particular nevermind paid to how the politics have shifted tectonically beneath his feet, armed with nothing but his assertions of his rightness.  Again.

President Obama's Press Conference, Translated.  Sometimes, politicians can be a little difficult to understand.  For example, they don't alway say why they mean.  I know this comes as a shock.  Having spent, as a Washington reporter, endless spans of unrecoverable, precious time listening to politicians, I can be of help.  I'm fluent in their language, and I can translate for you.  As a public service, here is an English language version for you of President Obama's press conference Wednesday.

The Silent Majority?  Last week President Obama consoled himself after his party suffered heavy losses by noting that "two-thirds" of voters didn't show up to the polls.  Obama presented himself as the voice of this nonvoting silent majority.  He had "heard" them.  Through telepathy apparently, he knows that they want him to continue his failed progressive agenda. [...] Almost four out of ten voters didn't vote in Obama's election in 2008.  But back then he wasn't in the mood to listen to nonvoters.


Blanket amnesty announcement
November 20, 2014.

In anticipation of the speech:

Obama to Give Live Executive Amnesty Speech Tomorrow Night.  Tomorrow night, at 8 p.m. EST, President Obama will address the nation on his coming executive amnesty.  "Our immigration system has been broken for decades — and every minute we fail to act, millions of people who live in the shadows but want to play by the rules and pay taxes have no way to live right by the law and contribute to our country," says the White House press secretary in a blog post.

Obama's Royal Scam.  Obama has on several occasions correctly described the action he now intends to take as unlawful.  He has dismissed it as royal rather than presidential in character. [...] Obama must feel some compunction about the forthcoming decree because he has baldly lied about his past statements disclaiming the constitutional authority he now purports to exercise.

Obama's Executive Order on Immigration Is Unlikely to Include Health Benefits.  Millions of undocumented immigrants who are set to be granted a form of legal status by President Obama as early as this week will not receive one key benefit:  government subsidies for health care available under the Affordable Care Act.  Mr. Obama is preparing to use his executive authority to provide work permits for up to five million people who are in the United States illegally, and to shield them from deportation.  But an official familiar with the administration's deliberations said on Tuesday [11/18/2014] that such people would not be eligible for subsidized, low-cost plans from the government's health insurance marketplace, HealthCare.gov.

The Editor says...
You can believe that story if you like, but it's obvious that even if Obama is telling the truth for once, under Obama's wholesale amnesty plan, the incremental approach is still in play:  The millions of illegal aliens will get permission to stay here, then they'll eventually get Obamacare, food stamps, subsidized housing, full citizenship and voting rights.  Just not all at once.  These things have to be carefully meted out in order to avoid backlash.  (Keywords:  boiled frog.)

Obama to shield 5 million from deportation.  President Barack Obama will announce Thursday that he is shielding about 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation, circumventing Congress to provide the most sweeping changes to immigration policy in decades.  Obama released a video Wednesday previewing his prime-time speech and his Friday trip to Las Vegas, where he will promote the executive actions he's taking.

The Editor says...
Unveiling or signing an executive order can be done in the White House.  It does not require a flight to Las Vegas.  Obama's trip to Las Vegas should be counted as another vacation, if that's all the work he did.  Anyone else who lives and works on the east coast would consider an all-expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas to be a vacation, even if only for a three day weekend — especially on a luxury liner like Air Force One.

Appropriations panel: Defunding immigration order 'impossible'.  It would be "impossible" to defund President Obama's executive actions on immigration through a government spending bill, the House Appropriations Committee said Thursday [11/20/2014].  In a statement released by Committee Chairman Hal Rogers's (R-Ky.) office hours before Obama's scheduled national address, the committee said the primary agency responsible for implementing Obama's actions is funded entirely by user fees.

Sounds like a lot of chest-thumping and saber-rattling without any concrete action.
McConnell: 'Congress Will Act' if Obama Goes Through with Immigration Order.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) vowed on the floor of the upper chamber this morning that "if President Obama acts in defiance of the people and imposes his will on the country, Congress will act."  "We're considering a variety of options.  But make no mistake.  When the newly elected representatives of the people take their seats, they will act," he said in reference to the GOP majority in the 114th Congress.

The Game Plan to Stop Obama's Unconstitutional Amnesty.  The Obama Administration is planning to pardon at least 4.5 million illegal aliens and grant them work permits.  This move will allow them to receive driver's licenses and Social Security cards, and eventually obtain access to our welfare system.  Additionally, as part of his coup, he is planning to make numerous changes to our immigration system — all without the consent of Congress.  It's as if Article I Section 8 of the Constitution, which explicitly grants Congress plenary power over immigration and naturalization, does not exist.

Livid GOP Governors threaten legal action over Obama's immigration executive order.  A group of Republican governors tore into President Barack Obama on Wednesday [11/19/2014] over his forthcoming immigration directive and threatened to sue him for breaking the law.  'I would go to the courts,' Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said Wednesday during an annual retreat for the party's chief executives.  'This is illegal.'  Outgoing Texas Gov. Rick Perry accused Obama of 'sticking his finger into the eye of the American people' and said his state may take legal action against the president, too.

Martha to Earnest: How Did Obama Completely Change His Mind?  Obama has stated numerous times in recent years that he does not have the authority to act without Congress to reform the immigration system the way he would like.  For instance, in May 2011 he said, "Sometimes when I talk to immigration advocates, they wish I could just bypass Congress and change the law myself.  But that's now [sic] how democracy works."  Despite those previous statements, the president will go ahead with a plan that is expected to grant amnesty to up to 5 million illegal immigrants in a primetime address tonight.

The same chant haunts the man who will never be king.  That Obama is opening the floodgates by granting amnesty to 5 million illegal aliens isn't this evening's news.  The real news already happened when people caught on last summer that Obama had left the southern border wide open.  All Obama is really doing prime time tonight is taking time to openly brag about it.

Obama opts for confrontation.  On immigration, President Obama has decided to take on Republicans poised to control the House and Senate in the next Congress.  In a prime-time address on Thursday, Obama will announce executive actions that could give legal status to millions of immigrants that are in the country illegally.

Steve King Plots Three-Step Response to Executive Amnesty.  With only hours before President Obama is expected to announce a major unilateral amnesty for illegal immigrants, Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill appear flummoxed at what they might do to stop him from going forward.

Republican Governors Seethe Over Obama's Pending Move on Immigration.  President Obama's impending executive action on immigration is unleashing the fury of Republican governors who now control a clear majority of the nation's statehouses — and not entirely for the reasons that partisans might expect.  The new legal protections that the president is poised to bestow on five million illegal immigrants Thursday will immediately thrust the issue back to the states, forcing dozens of governors who vigorously oppose the move to contemplate a raft of vexing new legal questions of their own, like whether to issue driver's licenses or grant in-state college tuition to such people.

Obama mows down separation of powers and limits on executive power.  Obama on Thursday night plans to announce an amnesty for about 5 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally.  His order is based on no statutory authority, but is instead an expansion of the idea of "prosecutorial discretion" — the notion that federal government can't catch all scofflaws, and so it must set priorities.  Republicans, and even much of the mainstream media, have sniffed out Obama's likely true motives here, and they are nakedly political.

State AGs Say Obama 'Sees Himself As Above the Law'.  Even before President Obama announced that his immigration plan will proceed in the absence of legislation, several state attorneys-general announced they plan to sue the president.  "It is anticipated tonight's speech will again prove our president sees himself as above the law," Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt said on Thursday.

Republican Leaders Urge Restraint.  Restraint.  That's the attitude Republican leadership is urging the party's rank and file to adopt ahead of the president's issuance of an executive amnesty for approximately 5 million illegal immigrants tonight.  While Texas senator Ted Cruz is calling the president a monarch and urging Congress to respond to an amnesty by refusing to confirm any of the administration's nominees when the 115th Congress convenes in January, and Alabama senator Jeff Sessions and others are looking to withhold funding from various federal agencies, House and Senate leaders are showing little appetite for those sorts of fights.

Obama's immigration edict has no legal justification.  The broadcast networks refused to air the president's immigration speech, with some insiders admitting the networks found it too political.  Besides that, the speech was insulting to anyone remotely familiar with our system of government, and it assumes that his base is so unhinged it will stop at nothing to get what it wants.

The Editor asks...
When have the networks ever considered Obama's speeches to be "too political" to put on the air?

Obama Doesn't Bother to Solicit English-Speaking Networks for Coverage.  Reports have it that illegal immigrants across the country are throwing watch parties in anticipation of the president's announcement of amnesty for around 5 million immigrants here illegally.  One Chicago Latino leader, Pastor Emma Lozano of Aldaberto United Methodist Church, told The Washington Times she'll be watching the address alongside people currently facing deportation:  "We're going to be watching this very closely, people in my church," said Aldaberto.

Obama to issue immigration order on Mexico's 'Revolution Day'.  No doubt it's just a quirk of the calendar, but President Obama is making his announcement to grant legal status for millions of illegal immigrants on Mexico's "Revolution Day."  The president's prime-time address Thursday coincides with the date in 1910 when the Mexican revolution began.  The timing hasn't escaped the notice of the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, a group that opposes the president's plan.


Reaction to the speech:

Post, Journal, USA Today reject Obama's solo immigration action, NYT applauds it.  Of America's four national newspapers, only the New York Times' editorial board is satisfied with President Obama's plan to act on immigration reform without Congress.  Obama on Thursday announced that he would issue an executive order to delay deportation for some 5 million immigrants now living in the United States illegally.

King Barack's doddering effort at amnesty slaps workers in the face.  In his immigration lecture Thursday night, President Obama revealed himself as a man politically broken, isolated from any sense of normal reality and completely unspooled from logic.  The man who once unified this country with elegant, daring and powerful speeches was ashen, confused and doddering.  It was like watching someone you have had breakfast with your whole life slip into the haze of Alzheimer's and suddenly become confounded about what to do with the carton of milk and the bowl of cereal.

"Obama has engaged in a sustained and calculated campaign to dismantle the immigration laws of the United States".  President Obama's executive amnesty violates the laws Congress has passed in order to create and implement laws Congress has refused to pass.  The President is providing an estimated 5 million illegal immigrants with social security numbers, photo IDs and work permits — allowing them to now take jobs directly from struggling Americans during a time of record immigration, low wages, and high joblessness.  This amnesty plan was rejected by the American people's Congress.  By refusing to carry out the laws of the United States in order to make his own, the President is endangering our entire Constitutional order.

Conservative expert on immigration law to pursue suit against executive action.  By the time Obama's speech ends, [Kris] Kobach can't even pretend to be interested in talking about local voter turnout.  "A huge thing just happened tonight in the history of this country," he announces to the group, and then he explains the details.  "Imperial, executive amnesty," he says.  "The sacrificial shredding of our Constitution."

Amnesty? No, Treason!.  After committing a long list of well documented crimes against the people of the United States, the man — and I use the term advisedly — occupying the White House and the formerly respected office of President, has finally topped his shameful list with the penultimate political felony, treason.  With clear knowledge that declaring his so-called amnesty for millions of criminal invaders — including countless murderers, rapists, child molesters, violent thieves, pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers and addicts, virtual slavers, and terrorists — is a totally unconstitutional act, and therefore, totally illegal, Marxist revolutionary Barack Hussein Obama has committed an act that will wreck our economy, put us more trillions into debt, destroy our educational and health systems, and permanently put more millions of American citizens out of work.  Black people, the group he has lied so often about caring about, will be especially hard hit, with those at the bottom of the pile, socially and economically, doomed to stay there in perpetuity.

Obama plays dirty politics with the Constitution.  At some point during grade school, American children are taught about the separation of powers. [...] But any schoolboy watching President Obama's speech on Thursday night — where he laid out his plan to act unilaterally on immigration (without Congress) — might rightly be confused.  For it seems that the president has crossed that fine line between enforcing the law (his proper role) and simply rewriting laws that do not suit him.  And in so doing, he has directly contradicted at least 22 of his own past statements, including very specific quotes like:  "I'm president, I'm not king.  I can't do these things just by myself'" and "I'm not the emperor of the United States.  My job is to execute laws that are passed."

Republican Party Cowards.  It was an audacious announcement that was both unconstitutional and confrontational.  It circumvented Congress, and their vital role in this issue, and was, thus, radically different from the last time amnesty was given to illegal immigrants.  In 1986, President Reagan did not issue an executive order on illegal immigration; he signed a bill passed by Congress.  Sadly, this President does not care what Congress thinks or does.  He has no interest in meeting or working with them.  Whether he is acting like a tyrant or an emperor, it is clear that he is not acting in conjunction with Congress.

Obama's Amnesty Speech, Deconstructed.  The good news is the thunderous applause was only heard among the illegal immigrants gathered outside the White House to rejoice in the lawlessness of an American president abjectly refusing to faithfully execute American laws.  The majority of the country had no such reaction, and sees this bitter, cynical assault on limited government and the rule of law for what it is.

Communist Party USA Praises Obama for Violating the Constitution on Amnesty.  The Communist Party USA, in their Peoples' World magazine, praised Barack Obama's decision to violate the law and bastardize even a valued legal tactic called "prosecutorial discretion." [...] The AFL-CIO also backs the president.  Illegal immigrants are the unions "brothers and sisters."  It doesn't seem to phase them that they have welcomed in more workers to compete with their members.

The Unstoppable Emperor of La Raza.  [T]he reality of life in 2014, 2015, and 2016 is that we've got millions — five is the current guess, but it's an open ledger — of Mexicans and Central Americans with a smattering of others who are getting social security numbers and work permits and it's a safe bet the government will disperse them in a way, and not track them, so that it will be practically impossible to remove them.

Obama Flies Luis Gutierrez On Air Force One For Exec Amnesty Celebration.  On Friday [11/21/2014], President Barack Obama flew Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) on Air Force One with other Democrats to a speech at a Las Vegas high school (Del Sol) where he delivered a speech to celebrate and promote his executive amnesty.

Six Democratic Senators Have Criticized Obama's Executive Amnesty (So Far).  A handful of Senate Democrats are publicly expressing disapproval of the president's executive action on immigration, but it's not yet clear that any of them are willing to do anything to stop him.

Obama to Congress: It's My Way or My Way.  [Scroll down]  This guy is supposed to be a lawyer.  The question of his authority to do X is independent of what Congress does.  The executive branch may not write laws.  You could look it up.

Alinsky Does Amnesty.  In Thursday's speech, Obama was not just brazen but remorseless, not deigning to offer a word of explanation for his sudden 180.  Another day, another story line in the soap opera, as if the prior episodes had never happened.  The pundits were aghast and, for once, seemed embarrassed at having covered the solipsist-in-chief's original expressions of humility as if they were, you know, sincere.  This, fittingly, stirred the Obama courtiers to an embarrassing defense of their man.  We were told that the president — heretofore the brightest, most learned ever to grace the office — had previously been uninformed about the extent of his power, but thankfully his lawyers set him straight.

Dear Mr. Obama, It Must Be Good to Be King.  Incredibly, even after all of the scandals, corruption, lies, and deceits; even after this past week when we learned about the depth of your Obamacare deception; even after using the IRS to target your political opponents; even after letting your ambassador die in Benghazi and lying about it afterwards; even after dividing the nation and exploiting racial tensions for your own gain; even after six years of incompetence, dishonesty, conspiracy, and illegality; even after every law you've flouted, promise you've broken, and lie you've told, you still found a way to top yourself.  In refusing to enforce our borders and uphold our immigration laws, you are now guilty of the most profound presidential power grab since Abraham Lincoln.

Jorge Ramos: Obama's Amnesty Will 'Demonstrate Our Newfound Power'.  Univision's Jorge Ramos is already celebrating President Obama's planned executive action on amnesty, calling it a "triumph for the Latino community."  Ramos has been a passionate advocate for immigration reform — even swimming across the Rio Grande to highlight the dangers illegal immigrants face.  But for Ramos and his audience, Obama's amnesty order would be a key victory.

Obama's 'America'.  President Obama told us yesterday that we must legalize millions of illegal aliens because America is "a creed, an idea" — and is not what he calls "a bloodline." [...] Obama buttressed his view by pulling out the line that America is "a nation of immigrants," with only the "idea" to hold itself together and make that nation "America."  In reality, America was founded by a migration, not an immigration — one that took place within what is now a different concrete society: England.  That society sent settlers across the ocean to consolidate and expand its newly claimed territories for itself.  It was a colonial implantation of an existing society, not a nation of immigrants who formed a new society out of nothing but an idea.  Immigrants came later and assimilated into the preexisting society.

Executive Amnesty: Will We Allow One Man to Fundamentally Transform America?  [Scroll down]  The rare Enterovirus D68 is causing an outbreak across 45 states, sickening nearly 700 — mostly children.  Illegal alien minors are also spreading dengue fever, swine flu, tuberculosis, and possibly Ebola.  Obama's open border policy has delivered over 300,000 illegals; 75,000 of them are children who directly entered schools across America without proper examinations and so on.  It has been exposed that many of the illegals are gang members and drug dealers.  As inconceivable as this is to imagine, it does appear that one man, exploiting the historical aspect of his presidency to break the law at will, may be allowed to fundamentally transform America.  Obama via executive order will grant amnesty to 5 million illegals, plus the 75,000 children who invaded our country and their parents.  If Republicans do not stop Obama's insanity, one characterless, out-of-control, arrogant, evil liar will fundamentally transform America.  That is totally unacceptable.

Obama announces amnesty for millions of 'anchor baby' parents and illegal immigrant children.  President Obama announced a plan Thursday night to mainstream millions of illegal immigrants with an executive order allowing them to stay instead of facing deportation, bringing howls from Republicans who complained about so-called 'anchor babies' helping their illegal parents remain in the U.S.  The president calmly explained in a 16-minute speech — subtitled in Spanish — the parameters of what angry Republicans are calling a lawless 'amnesty.'

Jeff Sessions: Obama's Amnesty 'Endangering Our Entire Constitutional Order'.  Incoming Senate Budget Committee chairman Sen. Jeff Sessions says that President Barack Obama's executive amnesty is something that is "endangering our entire constitutional order" as a democratic Republic.  "President Obama's executive amnesty violates the laws Congress has passed in order to create and implement laws Congress has refused to pass," Sessions said in a statement.

Cruz Quotes Cicero.  Texas senator Ted Cruz took to the Senate floor to speak out against President Obama's executive amnesty.  He did so today by quoting at length from Cicero:  [Video clip]

Harry Reid: Good Luck Trying to Undo Executive Amnesty.  Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) argues that despite the fact that President Obama's executive amnesty will not have the force of law, it would be very difficult for another president to rescind.

Leaked WH Amnesty Document: Obama to Fast Track Green Cards, Access to Govt. Benefits.  President Barack Obama will fast track green cards — or legal permanent residency in the United States — in his planned executive amnesty for illegal aliens that he will announce on Thursday evening, a leaked document published by a liberal group shows.  The document says that for illegal aliens who get what the administration calls "relief from deportation," that the Obama White House is "reducing the time that families are separated while obtaining their green cards."

Obama's Amnesty Threatens To Shut Constitution.  Pundits warn that a funding fight over the president's move to grant de facto amnesty to illegal aliens threatens a politically risky government shutdown.  But there's something much more important at stake here.  The Founders had good reason to give Congress the power of the purse: Short of impeachment, it's the most effective way to stop a lawless president from disobeying the will of Congress and usurping powers not granted by the Constitution.  The question is:  Will Congress use this power to thwart President Obama's shredding of the Constitution with his executive amnesty plan?

Obama Is Destroying The United States As Full-Blown Amnesty Unfolds In Plain Sight.  If you want to know what the upcoming amnesty bill will look like, all you have to do is examine the demands of Obama's army of open borders people.  They are always in alignment.  The Hill reports that open borders groups will occupy House office buildings today to demand an expansion of the DREAM Act to include all family members.  They also want all illegal youth to be de-prioritzed for deportation.

Boehner's Office Lists 22 Times Obama Argued Against Executive Amnesty.  [#1] "I take the Constitution very seriously.  The biggest problems that we're facing right now have to do with [the president] trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all.  And that's what I intend to reverse when I'm President of the United States of America."  (3/31/08)

America's Eerily Calm Transition to Dictatorship.  Obama's expected plan to grant legal status to as many as 5 million illegal immigrants was hailed as a victory for the powerful amnesty movement and criticized by amnesty opponents as an extra-constitutional power grab by a president who has grown increasingly fond of issuing executive power grab.

10 Scholars Defending Immigration Action Have Democratic Ties.  The Department of Justice has released a letter from 10 legal scholars at colleges across the country which defends President Barack Obama's executive action on immigration.  But while the DOJ touts these professors' prominence, their neutrality is coming into question.

Obama's Amnesty Speech, Deconstructed.  Tonight we were treated to a spectacle eerily reminiscent of a scene from Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, in which Chancellor Palpatine of the Galactic Republic declares a reorganization into the Galactic Empire and makes himself an emperor.  That scene ends with a great quote from Padme Amidala, the character played by Natalie Portman, who laments "So this is how liberty dies.  With thunderous applause."  The good news is the thunderous applause was only heard among the illegal immigrants gathered outside the White House to rejoice in the lawlessness of an American president abjectly refusing to faithfully execute American laws.

Sen. Sessions reacts: We must stop Emperor Obama.  Apparently, America now has its first emperor.  And he has issued an imperial order to dissolve America's borders.  Millions more will enter and demand the same amnesty benefits as those who came before.  The entire moral foundation and consistency of our laws will have been eviscerated.  Law enforcement officials have repeatedly warned that the president's new amnesty will unleash a "tidal wave" of illegal immigration.  The impact on our jobs, wages, hospitals, schools, police departments and neighborhoods will be crushing.

Sen. Sessions reacts: We must stop Emperor Obama.  President Obama's executive amnesty will provide an estimated 5 million illegal immigrants with the exact benefits Congress rejected, in violation of federal law.  His order will grant them social security numbers, government-issued ID's, legal status and work permits.  Illegal immigrants will now be able to take jobs and benefits directly from struggling Americans in a time of high unemployment and low wages.  They will be able to take jobs from Americans in all occupations, ranging from truck drivers to power company workers to jobs with city government.  Many illegal immigrants will also be able to obtain green cards and become permanent residents, allowing them access to almost all federal programs, to receive citizenship and sponsor foreign relatives to join them in the U.S.  In addition to providing formal amnesty benefits for 5 million illegal immigrants, President Obama has also eliminated virtually all enforcement with respect to the other nearly 7 million illegal immigrantsin the United States.

No, 'Prosecutorial Discretion' Does Not Justify Obama's Lawless Amnesty.  Obama, like all presidents before him, has that power.  This may be infuriating to those who would like to see the crisis of illegal immigration tackled more energetically.  That, however, is a policy dispute; a president is not lawless just because one disagrees with him on policy.  If that was all there were to Obama's order, it would be unremarkable.  But it is not unremarkable.  Some simple examples illustrate the difference.

Unions say immigration announcement a 'big step forward'.  The AFL-CIO praised President Obama's executive order on immigration, saying the president was acting within his authority to better the nation's "moral and economic interests."  At the same time, the labor federation slammed the action for its changes to the high-tech immigration program, saying that it would result in the "continued suppression of wages in the tech sector."

Today is a Sad Day.  This is a turning point.  This is a new nation.  Fundamentally changed.  If we are indeed to become a country in which the chief executive ignores laws and does as he pleases, then we are finished.

How the GOP Can Stop Obama's Unconstitutional Immigration Power Grab.  Tonight President Obama will announce his edict on immigration.  This will mark the most blatant attempt to subvert the Constitution since Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court in 1937.  Here's how Republicans should respond to this Constitutional crisis.

Oklahoma, Texas AGs Plan to Sue Obama over Executive Order on Immigration.  Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt announced prior to President Obama's speech, in which he said that he will grant legal status to immigrants in the country illegally, that the state will bring forward legal action.

Obama: Kneel Before Zod.  On Thursday night, President Obama delivered his address to the nation on his executive amnesty.  It was historic, both in its scope and in its dishonesty:  the speech represented a closely-woven and incredible tapestry of falsehood, exposited with a straight face by the greatest liar in modern American history.  To those versed in immigration and constitutional law, watching Obama lay out his program felt like watching a madman describe, with preternaturally perfect sincerity, how the moon was constructed of cheese:  you know the argument is untrue, but it's incredible to watch its dogged exposition.

Boehner Says Obama's Immigration Action Damages Presidency.  Speaker John A. Boehner said Friday [11/21/2014] that President Obama was "damaging the presidency itself" by using his executive authority to prevent the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants.  Mr. Boehner said that the House would act to counter the president, but he declined to be specific.  "With this action, the president has chosen to deliberately sabotage any chance of enacting bipartisan reforms that he claims to seek," Mr. Boehner told reporters.  "And as I told him yesterday, he's damaging the presidency itself."

Laws Emanate from the White House Now.  Obama's speech announcing his immigration diktat was the usual pabulum: "our immigration system is broken," can't let illegals "remain in the shadows," "commonsense middle-ground approach," blah, blah, blah. [...] But the speech was notable for some of the things Obama didn't mention.  For instance, he lied about what his non-amnesty amnesty consisted of:  "All we're saying is we're not going to deport you."  As polling has suggested, this is less likely to provoke opposition than the truth:  "All we're saying is we're not going to deport you — and also, here's a work permit, a Social Security number, and a driver's license."

Telemundo Celebrates Weakened U.S. Immigration Law Enforcement.  "There's a lot to celebrate tonight," Telemundo anchor José Díaz-Balart declared during Telemundo's special coverage of President Obama's Nov. 20 announcement of unilateral executive actions that include lifting the threat of deportation for 4.1 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States, along with eliminating the Secure Communities program of federal, state and local cooperation in the enforcement of U.S. immigration law that was launched during the administration of President George W. Bush.

Obama's Forging His Own Reality.  By going it alone on immigration reform, President Obama signaled Thursday that, in his final two years in office, he's going to be dealing strictly in reality — his version of it anyway.  Not the long-dead dream of hope and change, that rhetoric alone can move mountains.  Not the similar fantasy of working hand-in-hand with congressional Republicans.  Or even the fiction that most of the country is listening to him.

Obama's deceitful claim illegals will 'pay their fair share'.  The problem with this rhetoric is that very few illegal immigrants make enough money to actually pay taxes.  Instead, their "fair share" will amount to a substantial gift from American citizen and legal immigrant taxpayers who have played by the rules. [...] Not only will they not pay income taxes, many are likely to get a check from the IRS, thanks to the Orwellian-named Earned Income Tax Credit, which send a gift from taxpayers to low income families.

Obama puts the cat among the pigeons.  Barack Obama put the cat among the pigeons Thursday night, but he may be surprised by how big that cat could get, and with it a big cat's appetite for more than pigeons.  His "executive orders" demanding a stop to deportations is no doubt good news for millions of illegal immigrants — 5 million at last count — he wants to preserve and protect for Democrats looking to replenish a depleted constituency.  But it's not such good news for anyone who appreciates law and order on the border.

Schlafly: Obama could launch another Civil War.  President Obama's looming executive action on immigration reform represents a Fort Sumter-type moment, according to conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly.  Schlafly at first considered comparing the Obama amnesty to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor but decided that Obama's plan is much more subtle.  "With Pearl Harbor, the American people knew what was happening," she said.

Obama Wanted to 'Work Together' With Republicans So Much That He Spent Nine Months Planning to Work Around Them.  After the voters rejected President Obama and his policies and his party on November 4, the president spoke to the nation and declared that he had gotten the election's message.  That message was:  The American people want Democrats and Republicans in Washington to work together.  He didn't mean that.  It was just a line he used to buy time.

AP Slams Obama for Lies in Amnesty Speech.  Perhaps the president's most notable lie of the night was when he declared, "Although this summer, there was a brief spike in unaccompanied children being apprehended at our border, the number of such children is now actually lower than it's been in nearly two years."  To call the border crisis of 2014 a "brief spike" is not only misleading, but completely inaccurate.

Obama slammed for citing Bible to push amnesty for illegal immigrants.  President Obama's biblical references to justify his executive action on immigration didn't sit so well with some in the conservative camp, with one notable pundit — commentator and columnist Charles Krauthammer — characterizing the spiritual reference as both "remarkable" and audacious.  Mr. Obama included a brief citation from Exodus in his televised remarks about his planned amnesty path without congressional permission.

Texas Leaders Ready to Fight After Obama's Executive Action.  Texas leaders are united in opposition and ready to battle President Barack Obama over his unilateral attempt to protect millions of illegal immigrants from being deported.  In a televised speech to the nation Thursday evening, Obama announced he was issuing a series of executive orders to enact immigration reform, and will likely soon face a lawsuit from the State of Texas, as well as other states with Republican leadership.

Should Republicans Embrace The Obama Non-Enforcement Doctrine?  [Scroll down]  Under the Obama Non-Enforcement Doctrine, a president can't enact new laws by decree, but he can exercise his discretion by not enforcing existing laws.  This means that the doctrine is a one-way ratchet with an inherently libertarian bent.  Given a little thought, conservatives could come up with a long list of laws that we would be better off without.  Each one would be a candidate for the Obama Non-Enforcement Doctrine.  My guess is that if a Republican president applied Obama's doctrine a couple of times, the Democrats would say "uncle."  There would be bipartisan support for a constitutional amendment to make it beyond dispute that the Obama Non-Enforcement Doctrine is defunct.

Hasselbeck vs. Earnest: Isn't This a 'Slap in the Face' to Legal Immigrants?  Elisabeth Hasselbeck challenged White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest this morning on whether giving amnesty to about 5 million illegal immigrants is a "slap in the face" to those who have come to the United States legally.  She pointed out that many have spent a lot of money on the process to become U.S. citizens.  "What do you say to them?  Because they want their money back and it's offensive to them," she said.

Obama and Boehner
States and Localities Should Nullify Obama's Unconstitutional and Unlawful Executive Action.  Thursday night [11/20/2014] marked a truly historic event related to the federal system of Constitutional checks and balances.  A man named Barack Obama, commanding the entirety of the Executive Branch of the Republic, announced that he would create his own federal statutes from whole cloth, thereby usurping the responsibilities of the Legislative Branch.  Congress, now controlled by a pair of corporatists, promptly issued a variety of sternly worded memos and then departed for the airport to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Obama's amnesty: Your guide to the gimmicks.  What do the president's amnesty plan and Obamacare have in common?  Both were orchestrated with massive government-funded propaganda.  Barack Obama is repeating the process used by him and by MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber to enact Obamacare, based on manipulation, deception and the supposed stupidity of American voters, who were told they could keep their plan and keep their doctor.

You Are Being Played.  I oppose comprehensive immigration reform.  I think Congress always fails as comprehensive legislation.  But, long time readers know I am squishier on the immigration issue than many RedStaters.  There are portions of what the President proposed last night that I support in principle and, frankly, was surprised by how mild some of the actions were, given the run up to the announcement.  But whatever I think of those things the President proposed, it is irrelevant because I believe the President has no power to do what he has done.  He himself agreed back in 2011.

Obama Leads Democrats Back to the Wilderness.  For all of the hysteria leading to President Obama's immigration executive order, it turned out to be much ado about little.  Except that Obama just dispersed the remaining asset so desperately needed by the Democrats in 2016, perhaps beyond.  Of course the hysteria was justified when reckoning Obama's constitutional by-pass.  Yet at the same time overwrought, when his action is seen as mere feather-puffing exhibitionism in his habitual pattern of statutory abuse throughout his entire presidency.

Rogue President.  Asserting a legal and constitutional authority he himself said he did not have, President Obama is going rogue, issuing an executive amnesty to 4 to 5 million illegal aliens.  He will order the U.S. government not to enforce the law against these 5 million, and declare that they are to be exempt from deportation and granted green cards.  Where did Obama get his 4-5 million figure, not 2-4 million, or 5-7 million?  Nowhere in law, but plucked out of his own mind, as to what he can get away with.  Barack Obama just felt it was about right.

Revenge of the Ditz Lord.  [Scroll down]  In sum, I think the speech was a bit of a bluff, designed to show he retains some relevance when, in fact, he has little.  It is not a sure winner among the targeted class.  It will leave Congress with opportunities to challenge it legally but only a small window (for example, the large number of people covered or blanket, rather than case by case, adjudications) within which to challenge the order on constitutional grounds.  But there remain countless practical obstacles to making this order achieve what its detractors fear — a wholesale backdoor grant of permanent residency and a path to citizenship.  It will, nevertheless, encourage even more illegals to cross the border in the mistaken hope that they can receive legal status.  It will create legal and administrative chaos.

Obama Shreds Constitution.  President Obama's recent "executive action" regarding the Federal government's laws respecting naturalization marks the first time in U.S. history that a president has usurped the authority of Congress "to establish an uniform rule of naturalization" and established the United States as a sanctuary for illegal immigrants.  He has stated to illegal immigrants that they do not have to follow the laws of the United States.

Obama: Hostage-Taker on Immigration.  The latest and most brazen act of hostage-taking, however, is the President's attempt to argue that if Congress does thinks his executive action on immigration violates the Constitution, it can simply "pass a bill."  Here, President Obama is making his oath to uphold the Constitution and "faithfully execute" the laws of the United States contingent on agreement by the legislature to bow to his well.  The nation can have the rule of law, so long as the laws that rule are those he agrees with.  It should be obvious that such a condition actually negates the rule of law.

Surprise: Border Crossings Surge With Obama's Legalization Announcement.  Last week President Obama announced his plan to legalize at least five million people living illegally in the United States during a primetime address to the nation from the White House.  He detailed the plan again last Friday at a Las Vegas high school.  Just before his announcement, law enforcement officers working in and people living along the Texas border with Mexico were already seeing a surge in illegal immigration as a result.

Obama's Amnesty Will Cost $22,000 Per US College Grad.  President Barack Obama's amnesty for four million illegal immigrants will cost Americans about $2 trillion, or roughly $40 billion a year for the next five decades.  The cost of Obama's generosity is equivalent to 30 cents extra for every gallon of gas bought by Americans.  Or a $10 monthly fee added to every cellphone.  Or a $22,000 tax on every American graduate's four-year college degree.

A Magic Pen And An Empty Suit.  The one positive thing I can say about the president's amnesty speech on Thursday is that I didn't lose any respect for him afterwards.  That is because me losing respect for Barack Obama is a mathematical impossibility at this point.  The speech had as much substance as the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.  An empty man in an empty hall spoke empty words to a nation that no longer believes him.  Only rank partisans, drooling drones, and the progressive media revere Barack Obama anymore.  We are watching the tumbling of an empty suit in a dryer. [...] Loaded with sob stories, the speech and the spin after attempted to make our feelings overwhelm our brains.  Unfortunately for Obama and the Democrats, tales of families being "ripped apart" because their child was born here while they are illegal are meaningless.

Obama Brazenly Lies, Stirs Up Ferguson, Justifies Violating the Constitution on ABC News.  Barack Obama wants a legislative solution as long as it agrees with his ideology and encourages endless illegal immigration.  If not, he will legislate from the White House and then he will lie about it, hoping Americans really are stupid.  In the ABC News video clip at the end of this post, Barack Obama lies and says he didn't say what he said.  He's not changing immigration law, he's "prioritizing", according to him.  In fact, he is absolutely changing the law.  He's halting deportations and deciding who gets amnesty for starters.  He clearly promised he wouldn't.

Obama: 'I've actually been very restrained'.  President Obama said in an interview broadcast Sunday that he "bent over backwards" to give Congress leeway to pass immigration reform.  On ABC's "This Week," Obama said he has issued fewer executive actions than most former presidents "by a long shot."  "If you ask historians, take a look at the track records of the modern presidency, I've actually been very restrained.  And I've been very restrained with respect to immigration.  I bent over backwards and will continue to do everything I can to get Congress to work," Obama said.

WaPo: Four Pinocchios for Obama on Bush 41 amnesty claim.  Actually, Glenn Kessler gives Peak Pinocchio to both Barack Obama and his press secretary Josh Earnest for disseminating a dishonest argument intended to bolster the notion that Obama's predecessors used executive power for amnesty.  The argument actually began on Wednesday afternoon [11/19/2014] as Earnest laid out the structure of the defense: [...]

Ted Cruz: The Senate must block all presidential nominees until Obama rescinds his amnesty.  It's not so much that he wants the Senate to block O's nominees as he wants Mitch McConnell to refuse to bring those nominations to the floor in the first place.  That's a clever way of killing two birds with one stone.  If McConnell follows Cruz's plan, Cruz can take credit among conservative voters for having been the motive force in bottling up O's nominees.  If McConnell doesn't follow Cruz's plan, Cruz can point to it as proof that the establishment squishes refuse to fight the White House with everything they've got,

Obama and the Dispensing Power.  It is difficult to find anywhere in the history of the United States a broader assertion of the power of the executive to make law than that asserted by Mr. Obama in this case.  That does not mean, however, that this action is wholly without precedent in our collective political history.


"Year end" press conference
December 19, 2014.

Mr. Obama held a press conference at the end of 2014, which is December 19 in his case, because he apparently intends to refrain from doing any work for the rest of the year.  That's because Mr. Obama is lazy.  He chose to take questions only from female reporters, which is probably because he could count on them to ask "softball" questions — and the girls didn't let him down.

Obama: Black America 'Better Off Now than It Was When I Came into Office'.  America Urban Radio reporter April Ryan asked President Obama today about the state of black America today [12/19/2014] compared to before he took office six years ago.  Obama said, "Like the rest of America, black America, in the aggregate, is better off now than it was when I came into office."  He brought up America's "troubled past" while acknowledging it's "not an excuse for black folks."  But while many African-Americans work hard to provide for their families, "they're starting behind, oftentimes, in the race."

White House: Exec Amnesty Made 2014 'Year of Great Progress' for 'Progressive Agenda'.  On Friday, before President Barack Obama's end-of-year press conference, White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer declared that Obama's executive amnesty is one of the reasons that made 2014 a "year of great progress" for Obama "and the progressive agenda."  "President Obama's executive action to fix our immigration system is the most meaningful effort in decades to make the system fairer, more transparent, and more predictable," he spun.  "It is a decision with legal, economic, and moral justifications, and its implementation over the next few years will be a boon to this country for decades."

Five Thoughts on Obama Final 2014 Press Conference.  [#1] Obama repeated his now familiar spiel about the country being in much better shape now than when he took office, praising what he termed an "American resurgence."  He claimed improvement by almost any conceivable measure; "pick any metric," he said.  Setting aside numerous metrics like the national debt, poverty rates, median household income, wage growth, workforce participation, and (still) rising healthcare costs, Obama is advancing an argument that Americans just don't believe.

Five Thoughts on Obama Final 2014 Press Conference.  [#3] He didn't come out and say it, but the president telegraphed an inclination toward vetoing the Keystone Pipeline if and when Republicans pass legislation next year.  Obama listed the alleged drawbacks of the popular project, sniffing that it would only create "a few thousand" temporary jobs.

Five Thoughts on Obama Final 2014 Press Conference.  [#5] The president did not call on any male reporters, nor did any television reporters get a question.  Many of the questions were sharp, and there's obviously nothing wrong with selecting female interrogators, but it's worth noting that Obama's picks ensured that three of the journalists who consistently ask the toughest questions in White House briefings (Fox's Ed Henry, CBS' Major Garrett and ABC's Jonathan Karl) were all shut out.  Make of that what you will.

The Editor says...
I suspect that Mr. Obama is only doing as he is told by his immediate supervisor.

Obama only calls on female reporters to ask questions in his final press conference of the year.  President Obama has finished the year on a memorable note — by only answering questions from female reporters at the final press conference of 2014. [...] Although he had said [Juliet] Eilperin would ask the last question, reporters continued to shout out more — as is tradition — and Obama clearly ignored a question from a male reporter about his new year's resolution.  Instead, he called upon one more woman — April Ryan of American Urban Radio.

Obama Swaggers on Water.  The secret to Barack Obama's success is an apparently infinite capacity for feeling good about himself without any evidence to support the conclusion.  That's what propelled a one-term U.S. senator and former Illinois state legislator with an undistinguished record in either body to the presidency:  an implacable sense of self-confidence drawn from — well I don't know where it's drawn from.  If you watched the press conference today, you saw it on display.  He was relaxed, confident, completely dismissive of his opponents, and bragging shamelessly about his achievements.  The media are already calling it "swagger."

Obama says Keystone pipeline will carry only Canadian oil and have minimal impact on gas prices.  President Barack Obama stepped into an oil-slicked Keystone Pipeline mess on his way out of town Friday, contradicting the findings of his own State and Energy Departments.  The pipeline, a 1,179-mile long planned conduit stretching from Albert, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, has generated environmental controversy that the administration pledged to weigh against the project's economic impact.  Obama claimed Friday during a press conference before he left for an extended vacation that America would hardly notice the $8 billion enterprise's impact on their pocketbooks.

Obama Only Calls on Women Reporters at Year-End Press Conference.  While the media isn't even clear if this was a first, Barack Obama took questions from only female reporters during today's White House press conference.

Obama: Most black people don't use racism as an excuse.  Before flying off to Hawaii for a two-week vacation, President Obama said Friday that most blacks understand America's history of slavery and segregation isn't an excuse for their current challenges.  Asked by a reporter to assess the state of black America, Mr. Obama said most blacks are "better off now" than when he came into office, due to the economic recovery.

The 5 Biggest Lies From Obama's Friday Press Conference.  The truth, as Democrats and Republicans alike admit, is that Obama never works with Congress directly, never compromises, and despises spending any time on the business of government.  So the notion that Obama "wants to work with the new Congress" is as laughable as it is disingenuous.

Chuck Todd: Obama 'Earned The Right To Have Some Swagger'.  On Friday afternoon President Obama held [h]is annual end-of-year press conference, and following the event the folks at MSNBC eagerly cheered on the president's performance.  During MSNBC's post-press conference coverage, Chuck Todd, NBC News Political Director and moderator of Meet the Press, proclaimed that Obama looked "incredibly strong" and was "a president who feels as if he's earned the right to have some swagger."

6 Obama quotes show Obama really needs this vacation.  A new Gallup Poll finds less than a quarter of Americans (23%) are satisfied with the way things are going in their country.  But that didn't stop President Obama from pronouncing 2014 a really good year overall in his year-end news conference.

Obama's final press encounter of 2014: Where were the tough questions?  President Obama took a victory lap the other day, and nobody in the press tried to slow him down.  Obama skated in a year-end news conference, easily handling questions that were bland, tentative or rambling.  This is not unrelated to the fact that he skipped the front-row TV correspondents — Jonathan Karl, Ed Henry, Major Garrett — who tend to ask more confrontational and, yes, theatrical questions.  And it most decidedly had nothing to do with the president's unusual move of fielding questions only from female reporters.  It's not how the queries were delivered, it's how they were framed.


Pellissippi State Community College
January 9, 2015.

If gas is cheap, what's the rush to get a more fuel-efficient car?
Obama: Take Gas Money Savings and 'Buy a Fuel-Efficient Car'.  Because gas prices are low now, President Barack Obama said people should take the savings from that and go buy a "new appliance" or "a fuel-efficient car," during a speech today on at [sic] Pellissippi State Community College.

The Editor says...
The price of a gallon of gas has gone down 50¢ in the last six months.*  Suppose I buy ten gallons a week, so I'm saving $5 a week on gas.  What kind of "new appliance" can I buy with that amount of money?

More free stuff from Obama: Two years of college at no cost to you.  Some really big news coming from President Obama today:  He's got an idea of free community college for everyone for two years.  Like many exciting Obama ideas, it sounds too good to be true.  Remember the $2,500 health insurance savings he promised on every family's health insurance costs under ObamaCare?  But according to a video teaser POTUS taped sitting at — no, wait — sitting on his desk aboard Air Force One, Obama's going to outline the plan today at Knoxville's Pellissippi Community College as part of his State of the Union preview tour.

Obama's Free Community College Idea May Be Hard Sell.  President Obama unveiled the idea in a video posted to Facebook on Thursday night, then pitched it publicly at an event Friday [1/9/2015] in Knoxville, Tenn.  "Community colleges should be free for those willing to work for it," Obama told a crowd at Pellissippi State Community College.  "It's not a blank check, not a free lunch, but for those willing to do the work... it can be a game changer."  The president called a community college education one of the "central pathways to the middle class."

Obama's Free Community College Idea May Be Hard Sell.  President Obama unveiled the idea in a video posted to Facebook on Thursday night, then pitched it publicly at an event Friday [1/9/2015] in Knoxville, Tenn.  "Community colleges should be free for those willing to work for it," Obama told a crowd at Pellissippi State Community College.  "It's not a blank check, not a free lunch, but for those willing to do the work... it can be a game changer."  The president called a community college education one of the "central pathways to the middle class."

More about Obama's harebrained scheme to provide free tuition to everybody.


State of the Union address
January 20, 2015.

In anticipation of the speech:

Valerie Jarrett Says Americans 'Hungry' For Obama to Act Like an Imperial President.  On Tuesday [1/27/2015], White House Senior AdviserValerie Jarrett told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that Americans are "hungry" for Obama to take unilateral action, bypassing Congress wherever he can to get things done, CNS News reported.  "People around our country are hungry for action," she said. [...] Although Obama will prod Congress to act on his agenda, Jarrett said Obama "will make clear tonight that he will take action on his own," bypassing Congress when he sees fit.  "We're going to do what we can, within the president's own executive power, and working throughout the country with those who want to move our country forward," she added.

If Obama Spoke Honestly, Here's What He'd Say in State of the Union.  Likely, in his sixth State of the Union address, President Obama will drone on about the need for "the rich," those hard-working higher earners, to pay more taxes.  He will demand the federal government create more programs it can't afford.  Finally, in tyrannical fashion, Obama will threaten Congress with vetoes and more executive orders if the legislative branch doesn't bend to his will.

SOTU: Biden pitches 'free' stuff.  Vice President Joe Biden is playing the role of President Obama's pitch man in advance of the State of the Union address Tuesday night, promoting the "free" stuff the White House is offering to build support for the agenda called "DOA" by the GOP.  In a State of the Union address fundraising email for the Democratic Party, Biden pushed the promise of free community college and better high-speed internet.  He did not mention the proposed $320 billion in taxes the White House is also heralding.

Cancel the State of the Union.  It would not be unprecedented. Richard Nixon decided to stay home in 1973, and that decision was not listed in the articles of impeachment.  Dwight Eisenhower, recovering from a heart attack, elected not to appear in 1956, and both he and the country survived.  Not showing up on Capitol Hill used to be the norm.  The Constitution says the president "shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union," but it doesn't specify the means of communication.

Obama plans to increase taxes on couples making more than $500,000 to 28 percent to 'help middle class'.  President Barack Obama is seeking an increase in taxes on the wealthiest Americans by raising the capital gains rate and eliminating a tax break on inheritances, then using the revenue to fund new tax credits and other cost-saving measures for the middle class.  The president's proposals are to be announced during Tuesday's State of the Union address.  They are likely to be cheered by liberal Democrats and considered non-starters with the new Republican majority on Capitol Hill.

Obama's State of the Union speech to include $320B tax hike proposal.  Escalating his battle with congressional Republicans, President Obama will propose $320 billion in higher taxes in his State of the Union address, mostly by raising the rate on capital gains and closing tax loopholes for wealthier families, senior administration officials said Saturday [1/17/2015].  Mr. Obama also will call on lawmakers to impose a new fee on big banks with more than $50 billion in assets to discourage risky financial investments, a holdover from the Wall Street crisis that is sure to appeal to the president's liberal base.

Obama to unveil tax package at State of the Union.  President Obama plans to use his State of the Union speech to target tax loopholes that benefit the wealthy, while offering new tax breaks for middle-class items like child care, White House officials said Saturday [1/17/2015].  In the prime-time address Tuesday, the president plans to call for ending certain loopholes on trust funds, increasing the top tax rates on dividends and capital gains, and imposing new fees on big financial firms that borrow heavily.  Obama also plans to propose new tax breaks for families that have a second working member, child care and the costs of college education, according to a White House proposal.

Obama proposes tax hikes on wealthy to pay for $447B jobs bill.  The White House said Monday that President Obama wants to pay for his $447 billion jobs bill by raising taxes on the wealthy and businesses.  Jack Lew, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), said the tax hikes would pay for Obama's entire bill, which the administration is sending to Congress Monday evening [1/19/2015].

End of an Error.  Obama also wants to raise the capital gains tax to 28 percent, so the total tax take might be as high as 56.8 percent.  But many capital assets, such as real estate and shares in a company founded by the decedent, are held for decades and the capital gains and estates taxes are not indexed for inflation.  So much of the value taxed away would be illusory, a tax on phantom gains.  An investment worth $1 million in 1970 would have to be worth $6.1 million today for there to be any real gain at all.

Obama trolls, talks trash with a purpose.  It's true the president seems to take real pleasure in annoying his adversaries.  But there's a serious strategy behind it.  With no real political clout on Capitol Hill and a job approval rating that has stayed mostly below 50 percent for a long time, Obama is trying to leverage the power he has left to force his agenda on the Republican majority.  His big talk, executive actions, and outlandish proposals are the best ways he has to control the debate in Washington.

A big night for the choir.  President Obama doesn't have a choice.  The Constitution requires him to "give to Congress information about the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."  The Founders didn't anticipate Barack Obama.  If they had they would have commanded him to move tonight's State of the Union to Halloween. [...] The speeches are nearly always forgettable, unless there's someone brave enough in the audience to tell the president "you lie!" as a South Carolina Republican congressman told Mr. Obama in 2009.

Obama to gloat over resurgent U.S. economy in State of the Union address.  [Scroll down]  Since Democrats lost resoundingly in the midterm elections in November, Mr. Obama has been taking high-profile executive actions.  He granted deportation amnesty in November to as many as five million illegal immigrants, and last month Mr. Obama announced that he would normalize U.S. diplomatic relations with Cuba for the first time in more than 50 years.

How Michelle Obama is using her box at the State of the Union to boost her husband's agenda.  First Lady Michelle Obama will fill nearly two dozen of the seats in her State of the Union box with individuals representing key initiatives being promoted by her husband during the annual address to Congress.

Obama plays Robin Hood.  The White House wants President Obama to play the part of Robin Hood at Tuesday's State of the Union address.  Obama hopes to use the big speech to remove a blemish of his presidency:  an economic recovery that has left wage growth behind.  Free community college.  A $175 billion tax cut for the middle class.  Faster, cheaper broadband internet.  A week of paid sick leave.  Discounted mortgages.  Obama wants to move forward with all of these populist proposals for the poor and middle class, and he wants to do so by taking from the rich in the form of higher taxes on the wealthy and Wall Street.

Surprise: Obama Prepares 'Defiant' State of the Union.  At times, one can only sit back and marvel at the fact that this man successfully marketed himself to the electorate as a pragmatist at heart and a would-be healer of sundry societal and political divisions.  Barack Obama's background, associations and voting record (such as it existed at the time) clearly demonstrated that he'd lived his adult life as an entrenched ideologue — the type of person of whom voters are typically suspicious.  So he molded his message to elide and disguise his core character.  He did so with the complicity of much of the media and has proceeded to allowed the mask to slip further and further as his presidency wears on.

President Obama sings the same old song.  Advance leaks of the president's address indicate he will call for higher taxes on the wealthy and successful in order to pay for programs for the poor and middle class.  This is boilerplate Democratic wealth redistribution we've heard since New Deal days, which appeals more to emotions than it does to principles with a long history of success.

Obama declares war on the middle class.  In his upcoming state of the union address Barack Obama will propose approximately $320 billion in new taxes.  He's packaging this as a "Robin Hood*" effort:  "By ensuring those at the top pay their fair share in taxes, the president's plan responsibly pays for investments we need to help middle-class families," the administration says in a summary.  It faces long odds in the Republican-controlled Congress, where lawmakers have bitterly complained about a string of recent tax increases on the wealthy.  Ostensibly, by ripping off some taxpayers he will be able to give more people free stuff.  This is simply cynical class warfare of several different levels.

27 Facts That Prove Just How Badly Barack Obama's Presidency Has Devastated the Middle Class.  During his State of the Union speech on Tuesday evening [1/21/2015], Barack Obama is going to promise to make life better for middle class families.  Of course he has also promised to do this during all of his other State of the Union addresses, but apparently he still believes that there are people out there that are buying what he is selling.  Each January, he gets up there and tells us how the economy is "turning around" and to believe that much brighter days are right around the corner.  And yet things just continue to get even worse for the middle class.  The numbers [in this article] will not be included in Obama's State of the Union speech.  They don't fit the "narrative" that Obama is trying to sell to the American people.  But all of these statistics are accurate.  They paint a picture of a middle class that is dying.

Obama has [the] worst State of the Union record since Ford, study shows.  Judging by his recent history, it doesn't really matter what President Obama says in Tuesday's State of the Union address — Congress is going to ignore him anyway.  Mr. Obama has the second-worst record of getting his State of the Union policy requests enacted into law of any president in the last five decades, according to an analysis by two scholars that puts him only above the unelected two-year presidency of Gerald Ford.

5 good reasons to blow off Obama's speech.  [#1] Since he returned from Hawaii, Obama has been going around the country saying what he's going to say tonight.  You know, how the state of the union is good, really good.  Well, a little better than it used to be.  And how he wants to give out more free stuff like no-cost college education.  And how he's really looking out for the middle-class.  So, he'll propose tax cuts for them, part of the $300+ billion in his new spending to be financed with new taxes.  But don't worry about them.  This president is only gonna tax those rich folks that most Americans aren't.  And guess what?  Obama leaves tomorrow on our 747 for another trip to tell Americans that what he said he was going to say tonight he actually did say tonight.  Heads up, Kansas and Idaho.

"Legislative Proposals"? — Perhaps A Different Take On The State of The Union.  The president will enter the House chamber Tuesday night for his sixth State of the Union address riding a wave of confidence driven by an improving economy and brightening public approval ratings.  And he seems as defiant as ever.  Although Obama has vetoed just two bills in his six years, the White House has threatened to veto five measures from Congress this month alone — including legislation that would authorize the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline, tie funding of the Department of Homeland Security to a rollback of Obama's executive actions on immigration, and impose new economic sanctions on Iran.

Obama's State of the Union will call for hundreds of billions in new taxes.  President Obama will use his state of the union address Tuesday to call for hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes in order to pay for programs targeting students, the middle class and retirees, the White House announced Saturday [1/17/2015].  The president will propose financing his planned middle class tax cuts with tax hikes targeted at the "1 percent," as well as a new tax on big banks.  The plan would raise over $300 billion over 10 years altogether.  The bulk of that revenue would come through tax increases targeted at the investment income of high income earners and bequests by wealthy Americans.


Reaction to the speech:

Obama's Reality Distortion Field.  One month ago, President Obama told the nation in his State of the Union address that "we're demonstrating the power of American strength and diplomacy," citing Russia as his prime example.  "We're upholding the principle that bigger nations can't bully the small — by opposing Russian aggression, and supporting Ukraine's democracy, and reassuring our NATO allies," he said.  "Today, it is America that stands strong and united with our allies, while Russia is isolated with its economy in tatters. That's how America leads — not with bluster, but with persistent, steady resolve."  Really?  From the headlines, it appears Russia is more aggressive than ever.

How Obama Glossed Over His Greatest Failure.  Deep into his predictably Panglossian State of the Union speech on Tuesday, the president reminded the audience of the vision he shared at his breakout 2004 convention speech — namely, that there not be a "a black America or a white America, but a United States of America."  Pundits, he conceded, faulted him for failing to deliver on this vision, but curiously, Obama did not say the pundits were wrong.  Instead, he criticized them for their cynicism, their failure to take his vision seriously.  This, of course, was nonsense.  The great majority of those who did not vote for Obama, pundits or otherwise, wanted him to succeed in making America "one people" as pledged.

Woman Showcased by Obama in SOTU is a Former Democratic Campaign Staffer.  The woman whose story of economic recovery was showcased by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address is a former Democratic campaign staffer and has been used by Obama for political events in the past.  Rebekah Erler has been presented by the White House as a woman who was discovered by the president after she wrote to him last March about her economic hardships.  She was showcased in the speech as proof that middle class Americans are coming forward to say that Obama's policies are working.  Unmentioned in the White House bio of Erler is that she is a former Democratic campaign operative, working as a field organizer for Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.).

Associated Press Fact Check Tears Apart Obama's State Of The Union Claims.  The Associated Press released a fact check of President Barack Obama's 2015 State of the Union address, and their analysis is not kind to Obama's claims.

Fact Check: Obama Claims Credit For Incomplete Recovery.  The U.S. may not have "risen from recession" quite as rousingly as President Barack Obama suggested in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night.  Seven years after that severe downturn began, household income hasn't recovered and healthy job growth is complicated by the poor quality, and pay, of many of those jobs.

In His Last State of the Union, Obama Disastrously Boasted of an End of War.  Literally, everything about him — everything he says, thinks, does, believes, or is — is wrong.

Obama boasts he's "stopping" the "advance" of ISIS.  Reality:  Islamic State doubles the amount of land they hold in Syria.  Obama:  We're winning!

The Top Five Takeaways From The SOTU.  As it turns out, the President's speech was pretty humdrum and more than a little silly in places, delivered with all the contrived bluster of his considerable self-regard and gift for delusion.

The Real State Of the Union: By the Numbers.  Say, I wonder if our beloved President will mention any of these stats?

Obama the Sentimentalist.  A week after his State of the Union address, political observers are still trying to figure out what President Obama's game is.  That's because rhetorically and substantively, he seems to be in another world.

Obama's happy talk is contradicted by reality.  Don't feel ashamed if President Obama's State of the Union address seemed bewildering.  Perhaps you felt like factually false assertions kept coming out of the president's mouth — not debatable or tendentious statements, but stuff that just plain isn't true, and that could have easily been fact-checked by his speech writers.  That's because such assertions did keep coming — again and again.  This might explain quite a bit.  Obama, it appears, begins his discussion of public affairs from a completely different set of premises than those who read the news and keep up on the world.

Also posted under Obama's greatly overrated intellect.

Obama Blows Smoke.  We know that supply-side economics emphasizes serious cuts in tax rates and Keynesianism relies on massive amounts of government spending.  But how in the world does "middle class economics" work?  After President Obama cited it repeatedly in State of the Union speech, I waited and waited for him to explain how it works.  He never did.

Restate of the Union.  President Obama sure is consistent.  His State of the Union address sounded like his other speeches:  What I've done is great!  America is in a much better position.  We've created a manufacturing sector that's adding jobs.  More oil is produced at home.  I cut deficits in half!  Give me a break.  The deficit is lower now not because of any prudence on Obama's part but merely because the $800 billion stimulus spending blowout didn't continue.  All the president does is increase spending:  free community college, free Obamaphones, free birth control, etc.  Yes, our annual deficit is lower, but it's still $488 billion!  Our $18 trillion national debt increases by $3 million every minute!

Obama's Foolish Gitmo Fixation.  President Barack Obama's State of the Union address was an advertisement for his ideological fixity, and so he inevitably reiterated his unbending determination to close down the prison facility at Guantánamo Bay.  Gitmo is to him what Carthage was to Cato the Elder.  It is an obsession, and it must not stand.  One of his first acts as president was to sign an executive order to close it down (having no idea what that would entail), and he wants all detainees out of the facility by the time he steps on Marine One to depart for his retirement in January 2017.

Why Can't He Tell The Truth?  In his SOTU, Mr. Obama bragged that the USA now has the highest high school graduation rate in its history.  Roughly 80 percent of entering high school freshmen now graduate. [...] Is Mr. Obama aware that in the city where he gave his speech, Washington, D.C., only about 53 percent of high school students graduate?  Is he aware that in this country the high school graduation rate in predominantly black cities is on average roughly twenty percentage points lower than for whites?

Obama's State of the Union fantasy world.  Obama's next-to-last State of the Union address did not substantially address two of the most pressing issues currently facing our nation and that matter most to its military veterans:  the lack of a clear United States national security strategy — to include the crisis facing our military — and the inability of the VA bureaucracy care to deliver timely health care to millions of our veterans.  But you wouldn't know it by listening to Tuesday night's State of the Union address.

Obama's tax plan an assault on economic growth cloaked in populist demagoguery.  The tax plan President Obama unveiled during his State of the Union is an assault on economic growth cloaked in populist demagoguery.  It will not help middle class Americans but rather guarantee that their incomes remain stagnant.  He wants to divert attention from the fact that his policies of higher taxes, blow-out spending, anti-growth regulations and the costly, chaotic government-created disruption of ObamaCare have caused median incomes to stay below what they were back in 2007.

Cable news viewers tune out Obama.  President Obama's State of the Union drew just over 8 million viewers on the major cable news networks, suggesting Tuesday's address may have been one of the least-watched in more than a decade.  According to preliminary Nielsen ratings obtained by Variety, Fox News led the cable networks with nearly 3.5 million viewers.  CNN placed second with just over 2.5 million, while MSNBC rounded out the trio with just under 2 million Americans tuning in.  The combined 8 million viewers in the preliminary ratings is down 1.1 million from last year and 2.35 million from 2013.

Smirk of the Union: How Better Politics Became Bitter Politics.  Despite the best efforts of his staff, we saw the real Barack Obama last night.  In the time it takes a smirk to spread across a face, the president revealed himself to be something quite different than the earnest believer in bipartisanship the speech was crafted to convey.  The tension between the president's supposedly practical ends and his entirely partisan means was immediately evident.

Surreal: Obama Demands 'A Better Politics,' Lectures Nation on Demonization.  White House aides promised a "defiant" 2015 State of the Union Address, and the president delivered.  He spoke with the swagger of a man who possessed no inkling that his party had just been decimated at the polls by voters, after having personally framed the election as a referendum on his agenda.  It was a sharply ideological, base-pleasing speech, predictably and tiresomely peppered with assurances of the speaker's nonpartisan pragmatism.

These Are the Top 5 Foreign Policy Issues Obama Never Bothered to Mention in SOTU.  The president of the United States gave a 6,000-word State of the Union address to the American people and, despite the fact the planet is blowing up with crises, conflicts, and misery, he might have devoted 600 words of it to foreign policy.  Of course, that may be because he has failed to deal with these problems adequately.  Or even competently.  Since SOTU is a speech for the president to toot his own horn, it's hard to blow when his foreign policies blow.  With a dearth of foreign policy statements, there were several serious issues the president didn't even bother to mention.

Obama: Climate Change is the Greatest Threat.  Not radical Muslim terrorism, not an unsecured border, not an ever-growing federal debt that now exceeds $18 trillion, not the fact that 109 million live in households on federal welfare programs.  These are not the greatest threats facing us today.  "No challenge — no challenge — poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change," President Obama declared in his State of the Union Address on Tuesday night.  Although he referred to it as "climate change" and not "global warming," the president immediately followed his declaration that this was the greatest threat to future generations by stating that fourteen of the hottest fifteen years "on record" have occured since 2000.

Barack Obama readies for two years of political warfare with Republicans.  President Barack Obama last night set the stage for two years of grinding political warfare with Republicans in Congress, asking them to accept higher taxes on the rich while threatening to use his veto power to block many of their priorities.

The State of the Union Is Dumb Hacks Writing Garbage Speeches.  Yesterday, The New York Times introduced us to Cody "Hemingway" Keenan.  The president has given him the nickname "Hemingway," not because he is an overrated drunk — though he may indeed be that — but because he writes and has a beard.  Unlike Hemingway, who wrote novels and stories that people still revere decades after his death, Keenan writes speeches that the president delivers and that everyone promptly forgets, because modern political speeches are disposable garbage.  Judging by this profile, though, no one seems to have explained that distinction to Keenan, his friends, or Times reporter Michael Schmidt.

Obama calls for civility, then immediately taunts Republicans over his two presidential wins.  President Obama spent much of Tuesday's State of the Union calling for civility in politics — then taunted Republicans over his two election victories, after many of them applauded the looming end of his political career.  Mr. Obama issued a broad call for "a better politics" that began with common principles, and said his agenda isn't political, pointing out "I have no more campaigns to run."

Obama declares war on income inequality and boasts of leading-from-behind foreign policy in divisive State of the Union.  The speech was more about the 2016 presidential election than convincing the Republican-dominated Congress to adopt the White House's positions, and President Obama emphasized his commitment to staying on the offensive in his last two years.  He laid out a familiar mix of liberal themes in his sixth State of the Union — the second-last of his presidency — but placed special emphasis on issues where his supporters and the GOP most starkly disagree.

Obama Quotes Obama In State of the Union Address.  During his State of the Union address, Obama recalled his glorious 2004 speech in Boston at the Democratic National Convention that nominated Sen. John Kerry for president.  [Video clip]

President Obama, with two years to go, commits to cementing a liberal legacy.  In his sixth State of the Union address, Obama celebrated many of the most ambitious, progressive policies he put in place shortly after taking office and called for more — making an unabashed pitch for expansive government action on the economy, scientific research, infrastructure, education and the environment.

Obama spent more for dinner in Hawaii than his SOTU tax credit for families.  [Scroll down]  Ditto for commuter costs. Take Columbus, Ohio, as the example.  The Center for Neighborhood Technology's "Affordability Index" puts the cost of "average annual transportation" at $14,001.  That's about $538 every two weeks, or more than enough to eat the president's tax credit.  Put another way, the credit wouldn't even cover the tab for two at Hawaii's Vintage Cave restaurant where the president and first lady dined on New Year's Day.  It costs $295 per person, and doesn't even include wine.

Obama's Progress on His Agenda.  Every year since he took office, President Barack Obama has given a speech to the nation outlining his agenda for the next year.  This is a look at the proposals the president has made in those six speeches — and whether they have been accomplished, along with key promises from each of Mr. Obama's presidential campaigns.

Barack Obama channels Gordon Brown.  A good proportion of the US electorate must have hoped that in electing Barack Obama as president, they would be getting the visionary intellect and magnetism of a John Kennedy.  Instead, they ended up with the vision of Jimmy Carter and the personal charm of Richard Nixon.  Mr Obama's State of the Union address was about as relentlessly bellicose and self-regarding as it was possible for a president whose politics had received two successive popular rejections to be.

New Page. Same Obama.  The president declares that the nation has finally turned the corner and is entering a new era.  Then why does everything feel so familiar?

Obama tilts the scales against stay-at-home moms.  President Obama couldn't come up with a middle-class tax agenda until his party had lost all control over the legislative branch.  This suggests his new tax proposal is little more than meaningless political posturing.  After all, if he really wanted these or similar tax cuts and tax hikes, Obama could have advanced them when his party controlled the House and the Senate.  Many commentators have correctly noted that this is the White House's effort to frame the 2016 election in class-warfare terms.  When the tax provisions of the president's budget die on arrival, Democrats will respond that Republicans are protecting the wealthy at the expense of the middle class.

A fantasy for tweens.  [Scroll down]  And as for "turning the page," what about American involvement in Iraq?  The centerpiece of his State of the Union last year was extensive back-patting about pulling all our forces out of Iraq.  And last night?  He called on Congress to give him a new authorization for the war against the Islamic State — a war that is being fought in... Iraq.

Optimistic Obama out of touch with Americans.  The recent terrorist attacks in Paris, on the heels of the hostage situation in Australia and the slew of ISIS beheadings, have rattled Americans — and for good reason.  Over 80% of the electorate believes that there will be a terrorist attack on American soil.  And, unfortunately, in light of what we now have seen is possible in Western nations, it is my belief that they may not be wrong.  In light of this, the president's claim that we are stopping ISIS's advance is not only wrong in real terms, but shows an administration that is out of step with American sentiment.

CBS's Bob Schieffer Swoons: Obama's Speech Was 'Uplifting' with 'Soaring Rhetoric'.  At the conclusion of President Barack Obama's 2015 State of the Union speech, CBS News chief Washington correspondent and Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer offered plenty of praise for the President's address by proclaiming it as "the best speech he's made in awhile" with "soaring rhetoric" and being "uplifting at the end."

Obama Touts Pacifist National Security Policies in State of the Union Speech.  President Obama, in his annual state of the union speech, defended six years of pacifist, diplomacy-dominated national security policies that he portrayed as aimed at defeating new threats and protecting the planet.  During a joint session of Congress, Obama stressed the economic recovery after the late-2000s recession.  And he sought to promote his domestic policy agenda of providing paid sick and maternity leave and free community college.

The Obama Show.  I do think it was better delivered than most of his State of the Union addresses.  I didn't, however, think it was particularly well-written.  "The shadow of crisis has passed"?  C-minus.  More telling, the last 15 minutes amounted to Obama's golden oldies.  His real foe is cynicism.  We can all work together.  There are no red states or blue states.  We are all our "brother's keeper."  The difference is that the first time we heard this stuff it had at least superficial plausibility because the Obama presidency hadn't happened yet.

Obama Makes History: First Time Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Used in SOTU.  Although President Obama omitted the words "Islamic terrorism" from his speech tonight, many applauded him for uttering "lesbian," "transgender," and "bisexual" for the first time ever in the history of the State of the Union Address.

NBC's Engel Rips SOTU: The World Obama 'Wishes We Were All Living In' Doesn't Exist.  NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel had a less-than-glowing reaction to President Obama's State of the Union tonight, saying, "It sounded like the president was outlining a world that he wishes we were all living in but is very different from the world that you just described."  He said Obama's comments about making progress in the war on terror just didn't add up.  If American leadership is about stopping ISIS' advances, as Obama said, "that just isn't the case" right now.  And that's not to mention how the U.S. is being dragged back into the Middle East despite what Obama said.

Nemesis 1, Hubris 0.  Just as president Obama claimed in his state of the union that "the shadow of crisis has passed" and proclaimed that American firepower had stopped the advance of "militants" in the Middle East, the Washington Post is reporting a possible coup in Yemen.

Endless Gifts From Uncle Obama.  [Scroll down]  My favorite part of the speech, though, was about how he wants to make a kinder, gentler politics in America.  He sticks it to the Republicans any chance he gets, attacks the police, mocks law enforcement, and then he gets all hissy when anyone criticizes him.  And what's with him comparing anti-Semitism and discrimination against transgenders?

Obama's disconnected, out of touch, in denial State of the Union.  Just as remarkable, against the backdrop of the Democratic electoral carnage of his years in office, was that the president's most memorable line of the night was a bit of ad-lib bragging about his own election victories.  When Obama said, "I have no more campaigns to run," some Republicans snarkily began to applaud, whereupon the president shot back, "I know, because I won both of them."  Some Democrats dutifully cheered Obama's comeback line, even though his victories ended up costing them a lot.

Inside Obama's 'Robin Hood' State of the Union tax proposals.  A defiant President Obama used his sixth State of the Union address to offer a litany of Democratic priorities that centered on tax increases on the wealthy intended to fund new social programs benefiting everyone else.  Unconcerned that he was addressing a Congress under full Republican control for the first time, the president danced around the outlines of his tax plan, dubbed a 'Robin Hood' approach by outraged Republicans that amounts to 'class warfare'.

Obama Proposes a Law that Already Exists.  President Barack Obama shamed Congress in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night to pass legislation that already exists.  Apparently not briefed by his secretary of labor and attorney general, Obama announced:  ["]That's why this Congress still needs to pass a law that makes sure a woman is paid the same as a man for doing the same work.  Really.  It's 2015.  It's time.["]  But it was June 10, 1963 when Congress passed "The Equal Pay Act of 1963," which can be found at 29 U.S.C. §206(d).

Obama's Lying to You About Free College, Kids.  President Barack Obama took his State of the Union on the road yesterday [1/21/2015], telling college students in Boise, ID that he will make two years of college "free" and "universal."  What he did not tell them, however, is that he wants to tax 529 savings plans to pay for those two free years of community college — which are already free anyway for poor students, under federal grants.  Essentially, Obama proposes to take money away from some middle-class students to subsidize others' education.

State Of The Union Address Just A Political Commercial.  Should the State of the Union continue in this form? Not only was the president's speech a fundraising pitch, so was Sen. Joni Ernst's GOP reply.  That does a disservice to both a rising star and the competition of ideas.

Just an average, ordinary retooled homemaker... who happens to be a Democratic campaign staffer.  During President Barack Hussein Obama's (D) State of the Union class warfare clarion call Tuesday night, he justified his proposed redistribution policies by describing an average young couple.  As the cameras panned to a long haired woman seated next to Michelle Obama, Obama's voice over told of two young lovebirds who married, were working — he in construction, she waitressing — and then had a baby.  An American success story.  But the husband lost his construction job, the wife took out loans for... yes, community college to retrain for an unmentioned new career and lo and behold! everything fell into place once again.

Also posted under audience plants and "randomly selected" people.

Obama Croons: I Did It My Way.  As President Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, I saw all of 2015 flash before my eyes.  It was a smart speech that wisely stuck to "middle-class" values and was shrewdly short on details.  I saw another year of the president not compromising.  For Republicans, it was Groundhog Day — an endless loop of the president talking up bipartisanship without practicing it.

Tax hikes won't improve the state of our union.  President Barack Obama revisited a number of familiar — and failed — themes in his State of the Union address.  Once again, the president is asking for higher taxes on the wealthy and more government entitlement programs for the poor and middle class. [...] What is notable is that despite six years of sluggish economic growth and repudiation of his economic policies in last fall's elections, the president is sticking to his class warfare guns, choosing to grow government rather than the economy.

Also posted under Lies about taxes and spending.

What, Exactly, Is Bold About Obama's Agenda?  The State of the Union speech supposedly was chock full of big, brassy new ideas to help the middle class.  Truth is, the president offered little that hasn't already been tried and mostly failed. [...] When we looked at what Obama actually proposed, all we found was a musty laundry list of liberal programs, most of which already got huge boosts in spending and failed to deliver on their promises.

State of the Union Drew Lowest TV Audience in 15 Years.  President Barack Obama's 2015 State of the Union address drew the lowest television viewership for any such speech in the last 15 years, according to new data from Nielsen.  The president's Tuesday address was watched by 31.7 million viewers across 12 broadcast and cable networks that carried the speech live, despite a two-week campaign style tour and a social media blitz to drum up interest.  That's down from the 33.3 million viewers who tuned in to Mr. Obama's State of the Union address last year, and the 52.4 million who watched him deliver a 2009 speech to a joint session of Congress early on in his presidency.

When Will Obama Get a Grip on Islamic Terrorism?  Someone needs to tell President Obama that the global War on Terror is alive and well, and not receding, as he would like Americans to believe.  Collen Hufford was beheaded in Oklahoma; in New York, an axe was embedded in the head of a New York City Policeman.  In Western Europe, Islamic extremists killed Jews and journalists in France, while in Belgium there were shootouts.  In Sydney, Australia, a hostage crisis resulted in two killed, and in Canada, soldiers were murdered.  There are reports that as many as 20 sleeper cells could be ready to strike in France, Germany, Britain, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

I'm A Stay-At-Home, Working Mom, And I'm Sick Of Being Insulted By The President.  My husband and I decided, back when we had a large amount of student loans, one decent job between us, and a surprise first baby on the way, that we would do whatever it took to give our child the majority of his care with our own hands. [...] Our arrangement didn't generate so many tax revenues for President Obama's high-tax, big-government planned economy.  Maybe that's why he declared non-parent child-care a "must-have" in Tuesdays' State of the Union speech:  "It's not a nice-to-have — it's a must-have.  It's time we stop treating childcare as a side issue, or a women's issue, and treat it like the national economic priority that it is for all of us."

Obama uses SOTU to announce surrender to Iran.  One of the great thing about the Obama administration is that it is impossible to pick the biggest foreign or national security policy blunder.  There are so many possible choices that even the harshest critic will be frozen, nay, knocked senseless by the magnitude of the task.  Last night's alleged State of the Union address, however, may signify a change:  we may now be able to pick a superlative blunder.

Delayed Reaction.  It took me a couple of days to summon the strength to watch President Obama's seventh State of the Union Address (the sixth if you don't count his 2009 address to a joint session of Congress); the speech was an hour-long exercise in deception, hypocrisy, and narcissism — which is to say it was more of the same from the most insular and self-absorbed politician of our generation, a man who never stops campaigning.  Within the first seconds of his long-winded address, the president, missing only a cone-shaped hat and a magic wand in his attempt to recast reality, said that while the first part of the 21st century was replete with terrorism and economic turmoil, "tonight, we turn the page."

The Smartest Guy Ever to Be President Isn't Quite As Smart As He Thinks.  Barack Obama is really, really smart.  I know, because he told me so during his State of the Union address.  Our president is especially smart on foreign policy. [...] Take how smart the president has been in combating [sic] ISIS (aka ISIL and the Islamic State).  On Tuesday night Mr. Obama informed us that he was asking Congress to pass a resolution to authorize the use of force against the Islamic State.  This comes precisely a year after our really, really smart commander in chief referred to ISIS as a "jayvee team."  That prediction was so prescient that the president decided to deceive us about it.

A Tedious, Recycled State of the Union.  It's hard to believe that was only President Obama's sixth State of the Union address.  It feels like he's given so many more.  Maybe that's because the man seems to be constantly talking.  And talking.  The talking is the background noise of much of the last decade, auditory wallpaper that seems to line the corridors of everyday life.  And when he talks, he's often talking about himself — particularly about things he's said on other occasions when he was talking.

Obama: We've achieved victory in Europe.  NATO: The fighting's never been worse.  Let's review what is probably going to be remembered as Barack Obama's most tone-deaf and imprudent statement amid an ocean of similarly ill-considered assertions in Tuesday's State of the Union.  Not merely the president but everyone who wrote and vetted the 2015 State of the Union address thought it was a great idea to take a victory lap over the White House's approach to the crisis in Europe precipitated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

SOTU: Obama Boasts of Fundamentally Transforming America.  The biggest news from the State of the Union, besides the lies about almost everything, is that he sees himself as triumphant and he is.  He has fundamentally transformed the United States.  Barack Obama was legitimately satisfied with his successes last night.  He has been successful in turning us into a welfare state which is fueled by redistribution.

Fox News Poll: Voters disagree with vision Obama expressed in State of the Union.  Many American voters are not on the same page as President Obama when it comes to the mood of the country and his economic proposals.  Yet significant improvements in perceptions of the economy are boosting approval of the president — and less than half of voters want his executive actions repealed.  First, Americans don't think we're the happy family President Obama described in his State of the Union speech.  A new Fox News national poll released Wednesday [1/28/2015] finds that by a three-to-one margin, voters see America as a dysfunctional family rather than as the "tight-knit" grouping Obama claimed we are (73-24 percent).

Reporter Asks Earnest: If Alan Gross Was at SOTU, Why Wasn't Bergdahl?  At Thursday's [1/29/2015] White House press briefing, Daily Mail reporter Francesca Chambers asked Press Secretary Josh Earnest why recently-freed prisoner Alan Gross was invited to the State of the Union, but Bowe Bergdahl was not.  Bergdahl was freed last year in a prisoner swap with the Taliban, but since then has been called a "deserter" for the actions that led to his capture.  On Wednesday, NBC News and Fox News both reported that Bergdahl had been charged with desertion, but the Army disputed claims that he has been charged with desertion.  Amid the conflicting information, Chambers sought to figure out why Gross, who was recently brought back to the U.S. after spending five years in a Cuban prison, was invited to the State of the Union, but Bergdahl was not.

Obama caved on 529 taxes because it hit too many Democrats?  The hasty retreat on Barack Obama's plan to pay for "free" community college looked clumsy even for a president who routinely floats proposals without performing due diligence. [...] Obama made a dozen references to college in his State of the Union speech, and spent a significant amount of time arguing for both the subsidy and the 529 tax to pay for it.  In less than a week, though, Obama abandoned it — so quickly that the White House didn't even get a chance to get it out of the budget proposal they will send to Capitol Hill.

Diary of January 27, 2015.  One thing you may have noticed, as I did, about the media's coverage of President Obama's State of the Union Address last week, is how often the President's grip on reality was called into question. [...] "The only plausible rationale" for the President's proposals, avers the [Wall Street] Journal, "is that he thinks he can gain politically by driving Republicans nuts."  Of course, that doesn't rule out the possibility that he's nuts.

America In Retreat.  President Obama laid out a defense of his reactionary, retreating foreign policy during his State of the Union address Jan. 20.  "My first duty as Commander-in-Chief is to defend the United States of America," he said.  "In doing so — in doing so, the question is not whether America leads in the world, but how.  When we make rash decisions, reacting to the headlines instead of using our heads; when the first response to a challenge is to send in our military — then we risk getting drawn into unnecessary conflicts, and neglect the broader strategy we need for a safer, more prosperous world.  That's what our enemies want us to do.

Ginsburg wasn't '100 percent sober' during State of the Union.  Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg admits to sharing some wine with her colleagues and not being "100 percent sober" for President Obama's State of the Union address in January.  During Obama's speech, which lasted just under an hour, many viewers on social media pointed out that the 81-year-old liberal justice appeared to be snoozing.


National Prayer Breakfast
February 5, 2015.

Questioning The Loyalty Of Barack Obama.  In the wake of president Barack Obama's comments at the National Prayer Breakfast that smeared Christianity by equating the "Crusades and the Inquisition... slavery and Jim Crow" to the violence committed in the name of Islam by jihadists, Obama created the narrative.  His tactic was deliberate, knowing the response would provoke Christians and immediately put them on the defensive having to explain why a christian civilized morality is better than a radical Islamic savage morality.  According to White House spokesman Eric Shultz, Obama was trying to talk about moments "over the course of human history, there are times where extremists pervert their own religion to justify violence."  By taking this route of explaining radical Islam, the president directs the course of debate throughout our country without mentioning the crux of the issue that is the underlying problem.  Whether its controversial remarks of race, gender, or religion, he creates the divide with his relentless attacks on the principles of what once made our country great.

President Compares Islam to Christianity.  It is important to analyze these words — because the president of the United States spoke them in a major forum, and because what he said is said by all those who defend Islam against any criticism.  Referring to Islamic violence, the president accuses anyone who implies that such religious violence "is unique to some other place" — meaning outside the Christian West — as getting on a "high horse."  Is this true?  Of course, not.  In our time, major religious violence is in fact "unique to some other place," namely the Islamic world.  What other religious group is engaged in mass murder, systematic rape, slavery, beheading innocents, bombing public events, shooting up school children, wiping out whole religious communities and other such atrocities?

Obama points the finger at Christians when talking about terrorism.  Obama sounded like a mash up of Islamic propaganda, a person going off the rails, an immature man-child with a massive chip on his shoulder, and someone who allows his mask to slip off bit by bit unable to fully control revelations of his true self.

Obama equates Islamic terrorism with 'terrible deeds' committed by Christians.  Wading deeper into the debate over violence inspired by radical Islam, President Obama Thursday [2/5/2015] equated terrorism with "terrible deeds" committed by Christians in centuries past, comments that quickly sparked disgust among conservatives.  Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, Mr. Obama said Christians can't lay claim to a higher moral ground in discussions of how to confront violent extremist groups such as the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

The Future Must Not Belong to Those Who Slander Christians by Harping On the Crusades.  Stunned and horrified Americans, and indeed Christians around the world, not to mention victims of Islamist horror from every religious background, will be trying to process Obama's idiotic words for days to come.  Yes, folks, the President of the United States just told the civilized world it has no moral standing to criticize the head-choppers, child-crucifiers, slave-takers, and auto-da-fe enthusiasts of the modern world, because the Crusades happened a thousand years ago.  The basic concept here is nothing new.  Lazy, arrogant liberals have been babbling about the Crusades and Inquisition ever since Islamist terrorism became a big problem for the Western world.

White House Defends Obama's Prayer Breakfast Remarks.  Aboard Air Force One, White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz defended President Obama's controversial remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast yesterday [2/5/2015].  Schultz explained that he believed that the remarks were "suited" for the event that was attended by many Christians.

Critics pounce after Obama talks Crusades, slavery at prayer breakfast.  [Scroll down]  Some Republicans were outraged.  "The president's comments this morning at the prayer breakfast are the most offensive I've ever heard a president make in my lifetime," said former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore (R).  "He has offended every believing Christian in the United States.  This goes further to the point that Mr. Obama does not believe in America or the values we all share."

Why did Obama compare Crusades to Islamic State at prayer breakfast?  At the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Obama made a reference to Christianity that infuriated some conservatives.  Speaking in general, Mr. Obama began by condemning zealots who hijack religion "for their own murderous ends."  He cited the recent massacre at a Pakistani school carried out by the Taliban, the assault on Charlie Hebdo headquarters in Paris perpetrated by radical Islamists, and the terrible murders carried out by the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS or ISIS).

Krauthammer's Take: 'Mr. President, the Crusades Were 800 Years Ago!'  "Everything [President Obama] does is to minimize what's happening" in Syria and Iraq with the Islamic State, says Charles Krauthammer, pointing to the president's "astonishing" comments at today's National Prayer Breakfast.  "Everything he does is to minimize what's happening, to hold us back and to essentially deny the gravity of what's happening.  That's why today he had to compare it to the Crusades and to the Inquisition, which is simply astonishing.  Mr. President, the Crusades were 800 years ago, and the Inquisition 500 years ago.  What's happening right now is not Christians on the march.  It is radical Islam."

Obama Attends Prayer Breakfast With Sudanese Official Accused of Genocide.  Human rights activists are assailing the Obama administration for the president's appearance at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday with the foreign minister of Sudan, a country whose government is accused of genocide.  Activists also say the presence of the foreign minister, Ali Ahmed Karti, at the breakfast as well as reports of meetings with administration officials could signal that Washington is considering normalizing relations with Sudan. The International Criminal Court (ICC) indicted President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan in 2009 for war crimes and genocide in the southern region of Darfur, where the United Nations says government forces have killed as many as 300,000 people in non-Arab rebel tribes.

Rev. Jeremiah Obama Compares Christians of 1291 to Today's ISIS.  Barack Obama, speaking at a prayer breakfast Thursday morning, equated ISIS with Christians of 1000 years ago.  Sounding like an impassioned Black Liberationist preacher, Barack Obama made it clear today that he feels the same way about Christians as he does about Jews and America itself.  No one needs to be told normal Muslims cannot be blamed for the maniacs destroying the Middle East, Far East, Asia and Africa.  What he doesn't understand is these maniacs are not radical Christians or radical Jews or radical Hindus.  They are radical Islamists and it's the year 2015 not 1291.  There is no use delving into the obvious.  Listen to his obnoxious rant for yourself.

Obama at National Prayer Breakfast: 'People Committed Terrible Deeds in the Name of Christ'.  At the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama reminded attendees that violence rooted in religion isn't exclusive to Islam, but has been carried out by Christians as well.  Obama said that even though religion is a source for good around the world, there will always be people willing to "hijack religion for their own murderous ends."  "Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ," Obama said.  "In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ."

Obama At National Prayer Breakfast: 'People Committed Terrible Deeds In The Name of Christ'.  At the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama reminded attendees that violence rooted in religion isn't exclusive to Islam, but has been carried out by Christians as well.  Obama said that even though religion is a source for good around the world, there will always be people willing to "hijack religion for their own murderous ends."

Obama's remarks on religious intolerance in India provoke outrage.  President Obama's comments that religious conflict has produced "acts of intolerance" in India that would have shocked the country's peace icon, Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi, provoked a stream of outrage in India on Friday [2/6/2015].  Obama made the remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Thursday, which also raised the ire of conservative Christians in the United States.

Obama's comparison of Crusades to Islamist terror acts misses mark.  President Obama put on his preaching clothes yesterday and drove up Connecticut Avenue to the Washington Hilton to deliver a sermon to the choir.  He took his text from the first chapter of the Book of Moral Equivalence and let the choir have both barrels. [...] Mr. Obama has so far been unable to talk very much about Islamic terrorism, or even to say the words "Islamic" and "terrorism" in the same sentence.

A Jew Examines Why Obama Never Names Islam.  [Scroll down]  Note the now unsurprising use of the word "religion," not "Islam," or the even more telling "Mohammed," a warlord who married a little girl and a figure, one can safely say, not very much like Christ.  Nevertheless, Obama can blacken Christians and name them in a speech, but not Muslims.  The reason is not complicated.  Obama is not a religious person.  He rarely appears in church, except for political purposes.  He is titularly a Christian, but identifies emotionally, from his youth in Indonesian madrassas and from his ideological predisposition, with Third World Muslims.  But now he is confronted with those same Muslims behaving like barbarians across Africa and the Middle East and sometimes into Europe and America.

The Political Superiority of Christian Civilization.  President Barack Obama told the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday that Americans ought to be humble in the fact of radical Islam, because "people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ" as well.  In addition to offending much of his audience and the nation with his sophomoric moral relativism, the president also obscured a fact that ought to be obvious but is rarely spoken aloud:  as far as the world's religions go, Christianity has done the most to advance freedom.

Mark Levin: Obama "A Nihilist, A Narcissist And An Extremist;" Warns "We Are Going To Get Hit Again".  ["]What Obama is saying and doing is the lowest of the low now.  He really is not a leader of a great people.  He's not a leader of a great nation.  He is stuck in his own ideology.  He's stubborn and ignorant at the same time.  There are black Christians and black Muslims in Africa who are being slaughtered.  They don't want to hear about the Jim Crow laws.  There are Christians, there are other Muslims being slaughtered in the Middle East, they don't need a lecture from Obama about Christianity.["]

Horse Pucky from Obama.  On Tuesday, the so-called Islamic State released a slickly produced video showing a Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a steel cage.  On Wednesday [2/4/2015, the United Nations issued a report detailing various "mass executions of boys, as well as reports of beheadings, crucifixions of children, and burying children alive" at the hands of the Islamic State.  And on Thursday, President Obama seized the opportunity of the National Prayer Breakfast to forthrightly criticize the "terrible deeds" ... committed "in the name of Christ."

The Editor says...
The "terrible deeds" he was talking about were committed in the name of the Pope, not in the name of Jesus Christ.  There is a big difference, and I doubt if Mr. Obama knows enough about Christianity to make that distinction.

Krauthammer: 'Stunned' At Obama's 'Banal,' 'Offensive' Prayer Breakfast Remarks.  With the Jordan/ISIS conflict ready to come to a crescendo at any moment, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer slammed President Barack Obama's speech before the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday.  The commentator called Obama's remarks "banal and offensive," adding that the present issue the world must deal with is radical Islam, rather than the Inquisition and the Crusades, which Obama mentioned in his speech.  In his remarks to the prayer breakfast, Obama urged everyone to refrain from "insults" and "attacks" on Islam, while invoking the Crusades and the Inquisition to show that other groups in the past have done wrong.

Obama Again Shows His Contempt For America and the West.  First, he cited the crusades and the Inquisition.  These events occurred more than 500 years ago in "some other places."  They had nothing to do with America, whose founding was centuries away.  To suggest that the crusades and the Inquisition should preclude Americans from a sense of vast moral superiority to ISIS is to carry moral relativism to an absurd extreme.  Obama also claimed that "in our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ."  I don't doubt that some who argued in favor of slavery and Jim Crow tried to reconcile these institutions with Christianity.  But the Bible doesn't call for enslavement or racial discrimination.  In fact, as John has pointed out, Christianity fueled the abolitionist and civil rights movements.  By contrast, Muhammad favored, and in fact committed, beheadings.

Barack Obama, A Moral and Historical Ignoramus.  There was nothing wrong, in principle, with the Crusades.  They were an appropriate (if belated and badly managed) response to the conquest of the Holy Land by Islam.  Did marauding 11th century armies inevitably commit outrages?  They certainly did.  In fact, that still happens today.  But the most unfortunate thing about the Crusades is that they failed. [...] But more fundamentally, what is the point?  Obama is telling us not to get on our "high horse."  Does that mean that we shouldn't try to do something about the groups that are ravaging the Middle East and Africa and carrying out terrorist acts around the world?

Man On A High Horse.  We see events spinning out of control in the Middle East.  We see our efforts in Iraq thrown away by the president.  We see the slaughter in Syria.  We see the rise of the Islamic State.  We see the flourishing or al Qaeda.  We see mad mullahs of Iran on the march.  We see Obama facilitating the mullahs' efforts and enhancing their power.  He seems not to care or to understand that they have never given up the fight against the United States since their ascension to power in 1979.  We see the president and his subordinates going to ludicrous extremes to avoid mention of the devil that drives our enemies.  We see that the president has become a laughingstock and an object of contempt around the world.

Imam Obama comes out at the National Prayer Breakfast.  Obama, who says he is a Christian, rarely goes to church and gets his daily morning prayer delivered to him over his phone.  And when he did go to church it was at Trinity United Church of Christ, where he spent 20 long years listening to Jeremiah Wright curse America.  It was Obama, who in recalling the opening lines of the Islamic call to prayer during a New York Times 2007 interview recited them "with a first-rate accent", describing the call to prayer as "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset." [...] Imam Obama's words were an insult to Christians and the Christian faith, dressed to kill in the kind of rhetoric you would expect from an imam holding forth at a mosque, but never at the White House.

Jindal to Obama: 'Medieval Christian Threat is Under Control'.  Bobby Jindal on Friday [2/6/2015] released a statement responding to the president's remarks on Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast in which he cautioned Americans from getting on a "high horse" when taking a stance against radical Islam because people have committed "terrible deeds" in the name of Christianity, too.  "It was nice of the President to give us a history lesson at the Prayer breakfast," Jindal said.  "Today, however, the issue right in front of his nose, in the here and now, is the terrorism of Radical Islam, the assassination of journalists, the beheading and burning alive of captives.  We will be happy to keep an eye out for runaway Christians, but it would be nice if he would face the reality of the situation today.  The Medieval Christian threat is under control, Mr. President.  Please deal with the Radical Islamic threat today."

Obama's prayerful gibberish.  [I]n the aftermath of President Obama's eyebrow-arching remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday, is there a Christian minister anywhere who didn't immediately feed Sunday's half-finished sermon to the shredder?  I mean, how could any ordained defender of the faith let this latest, hopelessly egregious exercise in moral equivalency by the president pass unchallenged?

Obama's Moral Equivalence Ignores Islamic Doctrine.  The insipid moral equivalence in President Obama's apologia for Islam at the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday morning has already been deconstructed by such commentators as Roger Simon, Victor David Hanson and Jonah Goldberg.  I am bothered, though, by the president's presumption of equivalence between doctrinal apples and oranges.  If, as he maintains, we must engage in comparative religion with a focus on what believers do in the name of their varying faiths, then we should also analyze what their varying faiths tell them to do.

Obama's Drones Have Killed More Than the Spanish Inquisition.  Controversy still swirls around Obama's comments during the National Prayer Breakfast this week, where he chastised Christians for getting on their "high horse" over the ongoing global jihad, invoking medieval abuses that occurred hundreds of years ago during the Crusades and Inquisition.  But perhaps it is Obama who should avoid getting on his high horse, since according to recently published statistics, Obama's drone campaign has killed more people during the six years of his presidency than were killed the 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition.

People Committed Terrible Deeds In The Name Of Democrats.  By now you've probably dismounted from your high horse.  After all, President Obama reminded us that while it is bad that the Islamic State (which apparently isn't Islamic, "whatever ideology they're operating off of") is beheading people and burning them alive in 2015, Christians (who were obviously Christian) also did very bad things in 1215.  If you didn't learn this presidential history lesson, The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates is here to offer extra help after class.  He points out that Christianity was often invoked in defense of slavery, segregation and white supremacy for a large part of American history.

We need a president, not a history teacher.  A few days ago, ISIS set a POW on fire and then put it on video for all the world to see.  A few days before, they beheaded a journalist.  A bit before that, they killed kids and enslaved young girls.  So what is President Obama doing talking about the Crusades or Spanish Inquisition or slavery in the U.S.?  Am I the only one who thinks that this speech should have been read by an adult before the president went to the Prayer Breakfast?

Obama's bad Christians.  We'll leave it to others to sort out the history here, and to address the extraordinary bad taste the president showed in invoking Christian misbehavior from the Middle Ages at a time when innocent Christians in places such as Iraq and Syria are being beheaded and even crucified for their faith.  What strikes us is how unaware the president is that the bad Christian behavior he invokes is powerful evidence against his own refusal to concede those carrying out jihadist attacks around the world today have anything to do with Islam.

WH Spox: Obama's Remarks on Christians Were About Being 'Honest with Ourselves'.  President Obama spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast yesterday and addressed the idea of terrorists being influenced by radical Islam.  Obama said, "Lest we get up on our high horse and think that this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ."  This comment set off conservatives all over the place, and today the press grilled White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz on exactly what the president meant.

Day Before Denouncing Christianity, Obama Held Secretive Meeting With Islamic Leaders.  Yesterday [2/5/2015] Obama once again made good on his promise to "stand with the Muslims" when he responded to the latest ghastly atrocity by the Islamic State by absurdly blaming Christianity for slavery and denouncing the Crusades.  On the previous day, he attended a religious meeting more to his liking. [...] Considering the malevolent ultra-radicals he openly consults with (e.g., Al Sharpton) and even appoints to positions of great power (e.g., Eric Holder), the imagination balks at who must have attended this meeting for the Regime to want it kept secret.  Members of the terror umbrella group the Muslim Brotherhood were likely present, given Obama's record of support for it at the expense of Western interests.

The Depravity of Obama's Prayer Breakfast Remarks.  [T]he real depravity in Obama's remarks is that it accepts and promotes the idea that events of hundreds of years ago justify a never-ending cycle of violence and retribution.  If one accepts Obama's concept of history then reconciliation between tribal, religious and racial "enemies" can never be accomplished; [...]

Dear World, We're Sorry.  Barack Obama thought it pertinent to mention the crusades at the National Prayer Breakfast as one of the sins of Christianity in an attempt to make moral equivalence with radical Islamists in the present day.  We have a leader willing to look back 1,000 years to justify his indifference to horrors today.  He's counting on the vast majority of Americans who have their faces too buried in their cell phones to realize that if you have to reach back 1,000 years to make your argument, you don't have much of an argument.  But that is the story of modern America — passionate indifference based firmly in ignorance.  I don't know if Obama knows how ignorant what he says is or if he's simply reading what his handlers put in the teleprompter, but the motive matters less than the result.

Obama Struggles to Name the Nazis.  Our messianic leader is constantly apologizing for what we've done since 1776.  None of the media-controlled voters remember an incident at Pearl Harbor, not to mention all the other assaults, like the Rape of Nanking.  Americans can't figure out why those Nazis and Japanese keep attacking the United States, but the media are only focused on some celebrity's hindquarters.  They attack those who mention anything else.

Chuck Todd: Obama Likes to Troll National Prayer Breakfast.  After President Barack Obama's remarks at last week's National Prayer Breakfast in which he said Christians and others should refrain from getting on their high horses about Islamic violence given their own bloody histories, Chuck Todd wondered if the president was essentially trolling the Prayer Breakfast crowd.  "My question is why he felt compelled to bring this up at all," said historian Jon Meacham.  "I have my own theory," Todd said.  "He's not a big fan of the Prayer Breakfast, and I think he almost enjoys creating a rhetorical debate."

Islam, history and the failure to recognize a world threat.  If you don't know which side the president is on, you should probably be forgiven.  It often appears HE doesn't know which side he is on.  Last week had to be an all-time low not just for this president, but for any president in history, in terms of looking weak and vacillating, if not downright pusillanimous, in the face of the enemy.  The enemy, in case you need a scorecard, is Islamic expansionist jihad.  The tactic is terrorism waged with shameless barbarity, and the goal is worldwide domination in the form of a Sharia-law-based caliphate.

POTUS: Burning the Jordanian Pilot Avenges the Crusades.  Some have characterized Obama's speech, a talk in which he reminded a largely Christian audience that "terrible deeds have been done in the name of Christ," as endorsing moral equivalency.  But his speech was not just a tiresome reiteration of the left's theme of moral equivalency.  It was far worse than that.  The president of the United States actually gave a rationale for why ISIS was justified in burning Kassasbeh alive.  Obama's words effectively endorsed the actions of ISIS as a justifiable response to the behavior of Christians during the Crusades.  He essentially implied the burning the Jordanian pilot avenged the Crusades.  Yes, that is what the commander in chief of the United States not so subtly did.

Muslim Group's Enthusiastic Invitation to Obama After Christianity Comments.  The nation's largest Muslim group is inviting President Barack Obama to visit an American mosque, enthusiastically embracing the president's controversial comments at the National Prayer Breakfast this week comparing past Christian misdeeds to the Islamic State. [...] Obama met with 15 Muslim leaders at the White House Wednesday [2/4/2015], but the White House has not yet released the names, only that they were "American Muslim leaders."

Obama's Political Prayer.  [Scroll down]  He was scolding us in advance, not for what we had done but for what it was clear to him, in his wisdom, that we were thinking about doing.  Yet if his goal had been merely to rub out all rage and bitterness against ISIS as if it were a cigarette butt to be casually flipped to the ground and squashed by the presidential foot, he wouldn't have achieved half the offensiveness he actually managed.  For the president had no interest in claiming his own share in the guilt of the Inquisitors; his goal was to demonstrate his long heritage of victimhood and show off his moral superiority.  He explained that the Inquisition had led via slavery right to Jim Crow; and where Jim Crow is concerned, he embodies all suffering victims (not that he actually has any ancestors who were slaves).

Obama's Crusades.  No one said, "Wait, this is just stupid."  Or, "Isn't this irrelevant to today's threat?"  Or, "Man, we're going to offend about a billion people with this line."  Or at least, no one powerful enough said it.  It's not just the president, it's that all those arrogant, bright young things around him, from the nameless wordsmith to 46-year-old chief of staff Denis McDonough, thought it was fine to scold us with centuries-old history by equating 21st-century Islamist barbarians with 11th-century medieval Christians.  And when they let that speech go through, they showed the rest of us what, not just the president, but everyone working around him really thinks about Western civilization.

Obama equating today's ISIS with the Crusades of 1096 A.D. draws disbelief.  Once again Barack Obama, who entered American public life a decade ago as a real good talker, has created another unnecessary verbal mess for himself by dragging the medieval Crusades into the contemporary discussion of terrorism by Islamic extremists.  But what his tortured comparison also did was add fuel to the widespread suspicion that this American president who professes to be Christian harbors some dark, hidden affinity or allegiance to Islam.

Obama isn't helping Muslims with his sloppy comparisons.  [Scroll down]  But far more offensive is the historically illiterate statement about America — an attempt to place slavery and Jim Crow under a Christian banner.  As Obama said, the name of Christ has been used to justify all manner of evils.  But it takes a very ignorant person indeed to suggest that profit-seeking slaveholders viewed themselves as fulfilling God's will; or that the Ku Klux Klan and other racists had some kind of point when they scrambled to create ad hoc, after-the-fact religious rationalizations for evils they were already engaged in for other reasons.  What Obama dismisses is the reason such religious rationalizations were concocted — because the racists' beloved institutions had been under such ferocious attack from Christian fundamentalists — the people we now know as the abolitionists.

Media Rewriting Obama's Prayer Breakfast "Crusades" Speech to No Avail.  Punch-drunk on his own moral superiority, the President lectured a room full of people who had since adeptly handled the crisis of violent Medieval Christians and, unlike their ISIS "bretheren" are not still wandering about in the desert setting fire to people in cages, on how their respective religions' darkest times, found mostly in history books the President clearly does not read, are just as deplorable.

Obama's Lies About The Crusades vs Islamic Jihad.  As Obama continues to push his lies about how the Crusades are "just like" today's modern Jihadists, others are pushing back on his lies.  Obama's sophist point was that the Christian Crusades of over 500 years ago were "bad too," just like what the Muslims are doing today by murdering millions of people a year.  Of course, it is utterly meaningless about what Crusaders did over 500 years ago, but that point doesn't even matter.  The fact is his comparison lacks any historical accuracy [...]

Which is more disturbing: Obama's speech at the prayer breakfast or the audience response?  Like many people, Obama's sickening speech at the National Prayer Breakfast got under my skin.  Not only because of what he said, but because of the audience response.  Why did people sit there?  Why did Christians, Jews, and others sit through the insulting pack of lies that Obama spewed?  Where is it written that anyone must sit through a speech, even if the speaker is the President of the United States?

Obama Makes Up Facts — Again.  Barack Obama is the President of the United States, but to judge from his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast last Thursday morning, one might get the impression that he thinks himself far more than that. [...] As eminent historians are so famous for doing, President Obama also chose to lecture on religious history, and do so as glibly and inaccurately as possible.  As many another aspirant historian does, President Obama went in by way of the Crusades.  He hadn't actually singled out Islamic extremism as a particular problem at the moment — because he will not even name it — but he did decide to say that everybody else could be just as guilty as the religion that must not be named: [...]

"Inappropriate": How Half of Americans Describe Obama's National Prayer Breakfast Address.  It was a speech that was reportedly supposed to be "provocative," and if so, succeeded brilliantly.  A new poll, however, indicates that the speech went a step beyond provocation; many Americans found it downright "inappropriate," according to a freshly-released Economist/YouGov poll:

Keyword:  dog whistle
ISIS picks up on Obama's Prayer Breakfast Crusades Meme.  Just one week and a half after President Barack Obama linked the Crusades and Inquisition with "many terrible deeds done in the name of Christ" at the National Prayer Breakfast, ISIS has picked up and run with his meme.  A horrific ISIS video showing the mass beheading of 21 Christians condemns the faith's believers as "crusaders".  Words, even when uttered from White House National Prayer Breakfasts, have meaning, as do the drift of encouraging messages that can be picked up even a world away.


The White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism
February 18, 2015.

Related topics:
Violence and hate speech come from the Left
Islam is NOT a religion of peace

Remarks by the President in Closing of the Summit on Countering Violent Extremism.  [Full text of his speech, for what it's worth.]

To Fight Extremism, Obama Calls on US to Embrace Its Muslims.  In the fight against violent extremism, President Barack Obama has argued the U.S. has one thing going for it that Europe doesn't:  a long tradition of warmly embracing its immigrants, including Muslims.

Obama: 'Notion That The West Is at War With Islam Is An Ugly Lie'.  Speaking again at the White House Summit to Countering Violent Extremism [2/18/2015], President Obama asserted that the notion that the United States is at war with Islam is "an ugly lie."  He encouraged all Muslim leaders to directly challenge the notion that somehow the West was at war with Islam. [...] Obama criticized those who referred to Islamic State terrorists as Islamic, arguing that they were only offering the terrorists legitimacy.

Obama: Americans Will Defeat Jihadis With Diversity, Tolerance.  President Barack Obama says 300 million Americans must accept a fractured and diverse America if they want to defeat Muslim terrorists.  "If extremists are peddling the notion that Western countries are hostile to Muslims, then we need to show that we welcome people of all faiths," he said Wednesday, while quoting a letter he said he received from an 11-year-old Muslim girl living in the U.S.  The Muslim girl "is our hope ... [and] our future," he said, without mentioning the roughly 4 million Americans who are born each year.

Obama dances around reality as ISIS plays the tune.  After months of taking flak for his lack of a coherent strategy to combat ISIS, President Obama came up with an answer.  Unfortunately, it's "Let's pretend."  In a speech to a conference Wednesday as well as an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, our president did set forth an agenda for countering what he insisted on calling "violent extremism."  But his approach puts the top priority on the West acknowledging the terrorists' economic and political grievances.  That won't convince anyone that Obama understands the nature of the threat.  Nor will it do much to convince groups like ISIS that he's serious about defeating them.

Obama at extremist summit: 'We are not at war with Islam'.  The White House found itself on the defensive Wednesday over the administration's downplaying of Jewish and Christian victims of Islamist terrorism, as President Obama hosted a summit seeking to gloss over Muslim connections to violent extremism.  Mr. Obama told the conference that the U.S. is not at war with the Muslim world but it needs to counter the religious ideology that groups such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State are using to recruit young fighters.  And he defended his avoidance of the term "radical Islam" to describe terrorists.

Egyptian Government Outraged That White House Hosted Muslim Brotherhood Terrorists.  The peerless Middle East Media Research Institute, better known as MEMRI, serves up another major story certain to be ignored by our betters in legacy media.  To wit:  the government of one-time ally Egypt is outraged that the Obama administration is fomenting civil unrest — again — in that country by propping up the Nazi-aligned terror group known as the Muslim Brotherhood.

At summit on 'violent extremism' (by nobody in particular) Obama stresses need to placate Muslims.  Ever since the day after 9/11, our leaders have been cautioning us against blaming all Muslims for the acts of terror done in the name of Islam.  And the fact is that there have been remarkably few hate crimes against Muslims, to the great credit of the American people.  Jews are far more risk of hate crime, in fact.  This disproportionate concern for "unfair target[ing]" and desire to exempt all Islamic institutions from scrutiny rests on the dogmatic assertion that there is absolutely nothing in Islam for  infidels  non-Muslims to worry about.

Obama refuses to acknowledge 'Muslim terrorists' at summit.  They're burning and beheading victims in the name of Islam, but President Obama delivered a major speech Wednesday on combating violent extremism — while refusing to use the words "Muslim terrorists."  "No religion is responsible for terrorism — people are responsible for violence and terrorism," Obama told a crowd that included Muslim community leaders at the White House.

Andrea Mitchell: Obama's Terror Summit 'A Dog And Pony Show'.  The White House's Summit on "Countering Violent Extremism" may be on day two, but some left-of-center personalities think the ongoing response from the Obama administration is nothing more than a charade.  On her Wednesday [2/18/2015] show, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell called the White House's summit on terrorism "a dog and pony show" due to the lack of high level officials from foreign nations.

Krauthammer: Obama Sounds Like Christians Killed Muslims.  "[President Obama] sounds like a community organizer talking about outreach to communities.  If you listen to the president today, and his emphasis on Islamic grievances, on reaching out, on making Muslims feel comfortable and not excluded, you would think that we are responding to the execution, the beheading of 21 Muslims on behalf of 21 extreme Christians somewhere in the world.  It is so divorced from reality, as if the problem is the lack of understanding of the Muslim grievances, particularly in the Middle East.  We talk about root causes as if that's going to make any difference whatsoever. [...]"

Democrat hits Obama on extremism summit.  The White House's event doesn't specifically call out Islamic extremism, although a fact sheet for the summit discusses terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and the the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.  During a speech Wednesday afternoon [2/18/2015], Obama spoke about how extremists have used Muslim ideology as an entry point to lure supporters, but insisted that those groups represent a perversion of the religion.

Obama defends the 'true peaceful nature of Islam'.  President Obama defended the "true peaceful nature of Islam" on Wednesday — saying terrorist groups like ISIS promote a "twisted interpretation of religion that is rejected by the overwhelming majority of the world's Muslims."  In an op-ed published in the Los Angeles Times, the commander-in-chief provided a possible preview of a speech later at a White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism, in which community leaders from across the country gathered to discuss how to protect people from "extremist ideologies."  "The world must continue to lift up the voices of Muslim clerics and scholars who teach the true peaceful nature of Islam," Obama wrote.

Coincidentally with his speech, Mr. Obama's name appeared on this op-ed in the LA Times:
President Obama: Our fight against violent extremism.  [Scroll down]  That pluralism has at times been threatened by hateful ideologies and individuals from various religions.  We've seen tragic killings at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in 2012 and at a Jewish community center in Kansas last year.  We do not yet know why three young people, who were Muslim Americans, were brutally killed in Chapel Hill, N.C. But we know that many Muslim Americans across our country are worried and afraid.  Americans of all faiths and backgrounds must continue to stand united with a community in mourning and insist that no one should ever be targeted because of who they are, what they look like, or how they worship.

The Editor says...
Thank you, Imam Soetoro.  Unfortunately, Colleen Hufford and Brendan Tevlin are unavailable for comment.

White House traps itself in terrorism word games.  Why has the Obama administration tied itself in knots over what to call Islamic terrorism?  We know the president has rejected the term in favor of "violent extremism," ordering his administration not to refer to Islamic terrorists like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria as Islamic.  "No religion is responsible for terrorism," Obama declared at the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism Wednesday [2/18/2015].  And yet in the same speech, Obama uttered the word "Christianity" once, "Judaism" once, "Buddhism" once — and "Islam" or "Muslim" 52 times.  If a listener did not know better, he might think there was something Islamic about the extremism that was the subject of the White House conference.

Obama Is Wrong. Democracy Is The Last Thing The Middle East Needs Right Now.  President Barack Obama gave a speech at White House's "Countering Violent Extremism" summit yesterday crammed with predictable feel-good ideas for combating the imaginary root causes of  Islamic  extremism.  And in the midst of arguing that radicalism was principally driven by anger over colonialism, illiteracy, and unemployment, Obama proposed an idea that we should have been abandoned trillions of dollars and many years ago:  more democracy.

Find the 'Countering Violent Extremism Summit' at the Intersection of Islamists and Leftists.  You may understandably think of it as an ISIS jobs fair, but the ongoing confab in Washington is officially known as President Obama's "summit" on "Countering Violent Extremism."  That being the case, many Americans seem surprised at the appearance of Salam al-Marayati, leader of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).  After all, the White House is having a public hissy fit over the upcoming speech to Congress by Obama's bête noire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  An odd time, one might think, for the POTUS to be so chummy with a Muslim activist best know[n] for theorizing, right after the 9/11 attacks, that "we should put the State of Israel on the suspect list."

None Dare Call It 'Islam'.  First of all, Islam has not "been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding," as Obama said yesterday in his speech about combatting terrorism. [...] But let's return to the president's speech.  "No religion," he says, "condones the killing of innocents."  Can Obama really be that ignorant of the glorious history of Islam and the glittering deeds of Mohammed?  We have it on the highest (for Muslims, the only) authority that he regularly slaughtered innocents.  Consider, to take just one example, the year 627 siege of Medina, then home to a Jewish tribe.  After a couple of weeks, the inhabitants surrendered unconditionally. Mohammad then had the 600-800 men butchered, and sold the women and children into slavery.  "We are not at war with Islam," Obama said yesterday.  "We are at war with people who have perverted Islam."  Let's see, that would be the Iranians?  No, no:  we like them now, remember?

Is This What Obama Meant By 'Perverted Islam'?  President Obama's closing speech at his bizarrely confused and irresolute Countering "Violent Extremism" Summit was predictable in its now-pathetic formula to avoid the obvious truth — that Islamist ideology is behind the current attacks Muslims are perpetrating in a campaign to impose Sharia on the entire world.  In Obama's formula — which builds upon the false narrative first propounded by George W. Bush that Islam is a "religion of peace" — it is now "perverted Islam" that is behind the war that he is losing.  While some may think that Obama, by finally at least using the word "Islam" in association with this war, has taken a step toward recognizing the reality of what's going on, we see his remarks as a dangerous series of lies not only about what he is doing, but about the nature of Islam and the Islamic ideology of Sharia.

Obama refuses to acknowledge 'Muslim terrorists' at terror summit.  They're burning and beheading victims in the name of Islam, but President Obama delivered a major speech Wednesday on combating violent extremism — while refusing to use the words "Muslim terrorists."  "No religion is responsible for terrorism — people are responsible for violence and terrorism," Obama told a crowd that included Muslim community leaders at the White House.

Obama: Islam 'Woven into the Fabric of Our Country Since Founding'.  In his bloviating speech on Thursday [2/19/2015] at his summit on countering violent extremism, President Obama bent over backwards to make nice with Islam.  Not only were terrorists not Muslim, President Obama stated, but Islam played a crucial role in America's founding.  "Here in America," Obama stated, "Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding."  Obama seems significantly more comfortable with this characterization of the historic role of Islam than he is with the non-fictional actual historic role of Christianity and Judaism in the American founding.

The Truth About the Crusades.  When President Obama cited the Crusades as an example of Christian bad behavior toward Islam, he wasn't speaking with historical accuracy.  But you'd never know that if you only know the conventional wisdom about the Crusades.  Instead of condemning ISIS barbarism as barbarism directed at Christians, Obama has sought to divorce the barbarism from theology.  There are many reason[s] for this, reasons covered by many others here at PJ Media and elsewhere.  Among them is the fact that Obama and his movement see the world through such thick secular lenses that they are incapable of understanding the vast majority of the world (and the United States) that still sees the world through theological lenses.  Obama and his followers are a radical secular minority attempting to manage a theological world.

Obama's Fight Against the Ideology-With-No-Name.  The terrorists are animated by an ideology, and we cannot understand what Obama called "the nature of the enemy" without knowing this ideology.  You cannot go into a war of ideas without understanding the ideas you are at war with.  Yet, throughout the two speeches, he never mentions the substance of the enemy's ideas once.


Benedict College
March 6, 2015.

Obama speaks at Benedict College in Columbia.  Barack Obama today [3/6/2015] is making his first visit to South Carolina since becoming president, spending a few hours in the capital city and delivering remarks at Benedict College.

Obama Claims It's Easier To Buy Guns Than Books And Vegetables.  Citing his failure to pass stricter gun laws in 2013, President Obama used dramatic language to discuss the gun debate on Friday [3/6/2015].  "It is hard to reduce the easy availability of guns," Obama complained during a town hall meeting at South Carolina's Benedict College.  "As long as you can go on into some neighborhoods, and it's easier for you to buy a firearm than it is for you to buy a book, there are neighborhoods where it's easier for you to buy a handgun and clips than it is for you to buy a fresh vegetable," Obama continued.  "As long as that's the case, we're going to continue to see unnecessary violence."

Obama's odd series of exaggerated gun claims.  A reader asked us to examine these remarks, believing they showed a pattern of exaggeration by the president.  (We also got a number of tweets about the statements.)  The president's comments came as part of a long answer in response to a question concerning programs to keep youth off the streets and away from gun violence.  These are an interesting set of remarks to fact check, because some of the analysis in part turns on what the listener believes the president was trying to say.


Selma, Alabama
March 7, 2015.

Obama invoking civil rights struggles past and present.  The nation's first black president plans a speech Saturday from the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, the site of one of the movement's stirring moments, and will refocus on last year's fatal shooting by a white police officer of a black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri.

Obama Blasts Voter ID Laws in Selma Speech.  I defy President Obama to name me one person who has been denied the right to vote as a result of the passage of any state voter ID law.  The states that require a photo ID have gone to great lengths to ensure its citizens receive their IDs free of charge.  For President Obama to compare contemporary voter ID laws to the laws of the Jim Crow South trivializes the what those who crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge 50 years ago achieved and is yet another example of the President's dishonesty, disingenuousness and demagoguery.

Obama's Unscrupulous Selma Speech.  Under the guise of commemorating justice, on the 50th Anniversary of the Bloody Sunday March in Selma, Alabama, Barack Obama engaged in his usual artful deception by exploiting the event to further his agenda. [...] For starters, historical revisionist Barack Obama left out the fact that those doing the beating in Selma were members of the Democratic Party.  The president dared not reveal that, 50 years later, both he and his political cronies are now politically and economically billy-clubbing the very people he pretends to defend.

Obama Honors Selma After Ignoring Gettysburg.  After ignoring the battle that ended slavery under the first Republican president, President Obama at the 50th anniversary of Democrats' blocking the Selma bridge says, "We're the slaves that built the White House."  The parts of American history that this president chooses to commemorate and what he says about them speaks volumes about his view of America and American history.  His America is not only unexceptional, it is perpetually and deeply racist, an overbearing world bully with no right to lecture the world about morality, democracy or freedom.

Conservative Black Leaders: Obama's Likening Selma to Gay Activism 'Ridiculous,' 'An Insult'.  Conservative black leaders are calling President Barack Obama's likening of homosexual activism to the 1965 Selma to Montgomery civil rights march "ridiculous" and "an insult."  "We're the gay Americans whose blood ran in the streets of San Francisco and New York, just as blood ran down this bridge," President Obama said in a speech delivered Saturday at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala.

Black Mob Violence Spreads as the President Preaches Victimization.  The President celebrated black victimization at his recent speech in Selma, but around the rest of the country, black people were making the successful transition from victim to predator.  Within a few days of the President's Selma speech, black mob violence and black on white crime proceeded apace, much of it on video.  None of it acknowledged as racial violence in local media.


Earth Day in the Everglades
April 23, 2015.

Taxpayers slapped with $866,615 jet fuel bill for Obama's Earth Day speech.  President Obama's decision to take his Earth Day speech attacking climate change "deniers" to Florida, home of two GOP presidential candidates, cost taxpayers $866,615.40 just for the flight of Air Force One.  Taxpayer watchdog Judicial Watch revealed Wednesday that the Air Force provided documents showing the flight expenses of flying the jumbo jet 4.2 hours to Miami.  He was then helicoptered 20 minutes to the Florida Everglades for his speech.

Obama's Earth Day Trip To Florida Cost Taxpayers $866K in Flight Expenses Alone.  Anyone else get the feeling the media would be making a bigger deal about this if we had a Republican president?

Obama Takes Cheap Shot at Florida Gov. Rick Scott During Sparsely Attended Everglades Speech.  The thinly veiled insult came during the president's speech at the Florida Everglades, which only a small handful of Floridians attended.  The speech was televised by Al Jazeera America but none of the major cable news networks, according to Mediaite.  As the president made his case for taking action on climate change, he scoffed at one denier in particular who supposedly refuses to even allow the words "climate change" to be said in his state.  A key component of the left's strategy to impose their policies on the populace is to mock and ridicule those who don't go along with the program.  The idea is to force everyone into accepting their hard-left agenda through peer pressure.


Portland, Oregon
May 7, 2015.

Obama on Climate Change: 'I'm Not a Scientist, But I Know a Lot of Scientists'.  At a DNC fundraiser in Portland last night, President Obama mocked the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee for wielding a snowball on the floor of the upper chamber to make a point about climate change. [...] "That's why we're taking actions through the EPA to make sure that we cut carbon pollution that's produced from power plants.  It's the right thing do."  Obama promised "there are jobs to be had for those countries that are first to figure out how to harness the power of the sun and the wind, and store it properly and distribute it properly."  "And I want that to be America," he added.

The Editor says...
Let's start with the last sentence first.  Obama has demonstrated two things more clearly than anything else in the last six years:  He hates America and hates capitalism.  He has also shown his inability to create "green jobs."  Now to the previous sentence:  He wants to harness the power of the sun and the wind and "store it properly and distribute it properly."  That sounds like about 3½ Manhattan Projects worth of scientific breakthroughs, which Mr. Obama apparently believes he can create by reading a teleprompter just the right way.  It would be far more feasible to rely upon the fuels and technologies we already possess and understand, such as coal, natural gas, and petroleum, rather than magic fairy dust yet to be invented.  As for the EPA, he's using bureaucracy to choke the life out of capitalism, by pretending that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, which it isn't.  All in all, the President's speech has a looser connection to reality than the average comic book.

Obama: 'I Can Understand Science'.  President Barack Obama said at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Portland, Ore., yesterday [5/7/2015] that he is "not a scientist," but that:  "I can understand science."  Obama made the remark as he talked about his agenda for fighting global warming.  "That's why we're taking actions through the EPA to make sure that we cut carbon pollution that's produced from power plants," he said.  "It's the right thing to do."  "We're going to keep investing in clean energy," he said.

The Editor says...
If Mr. Obama can understand science, he should understand that (1) there is no such thing as dirty energy, and (2) carbon dioxide is not carbon, for the same reason that water is not hydrogen, and (3) carbon dioxide is an absolutely vital plant food, not a pollutant.  Mr. Obama seems to understand demagoguery better than he understands science.


Georgetown University
May 12, 2015.

Barack Obama, Media Critic.  This morning, President Obama participated in the Catholic-Evangelical Leadership Summit at Georgetown, where he discoursed on poverty.  Incredibly, Obama seems to think the real problem lies with Fox News:  Obama argued if we are going to end poverty, "We're going to have to change how the media reports on these issues."  Huh?  If the media stopped reporting on poverty, poverty wouldn't exist?  That isn't quite it, but Obama's explanation is incoherent.

Barack Obama, pathetic at three levels.  This is vintage Obama.  First, he's dishonest.  His assertion about Fox News is an invention.  Second, he's unpresidential.  It's beneath the dignity of his office for Obama to whine about a cable news network.  This isn't the first time Obama has gone after Fox News.  Each time he does, he makes himself more pathetic.  Third, Obama is unserious.  Poverty is an important issue.  It deserves serious discussion.  To blame poverty, even in part, on the media (Obama said if we are going to end poverty, "we're going to have to change how the media reports on these issues") is juvenile.  Obama is blaming the messenger.  The failure of the liberal approach to waging war on poverty predates Fox News.

Obama Disapproves: 'Kids Start Going to Private Schools... Private Clubs'.  President Barack Obama told a gathering at Georgetown University on Tuesday that the problem isn't racial segregation, it's wealth segregation, manifested by "elites" who "are able to live together, away from folks who are not as wealthy."  "Kids start going to private schools," he said.  (Just as he did and his own kids do.) [...] Even before he was elected president, Obama campaigned on the promise of wealth redistribution.  Throughout his presidency Obama has been a champion of the middle class and an adversary of the wealthy.  When he called for tax hikes on the wealthy in September 2011, he insisted it was "not class warfare," but "fairness."

Barack and Michelle the Poverty Pimps.  Obama was never poor.  He lived a charmed and privileged life, including the photographed chapter where he was the spoiled and spiffy little darling of his well-heeled maternal grandparents.  Ditto for the woman he was later to make his wife.  Crying poor mouth by the Obamas has about as much validity as the rich-by-billions Clintons trying to get away with crying poor mouth.

Obama's Conversation on Poverty Reveals a Poverty of Character.  It's classic Obama: erecting strawmen.  Obama has spent his entire presidency making "folks mad at folks at the top."  How many times has Obama talked about "corporate jets", "you didn't build that, someone else did" and "wealthy paying more of their share".  Indeed, Obama even made a point of saying during this conversation, "The top 25 hedge fund managers made more than all the kindergarten teachers in the country."  And what does any of this have to do with the price of tea in China?


U.S. Coast Guard Academy
May 20, 2015.

President Obama's Delusional War on Climate Change.  President Barack Obama focused on global climate change in his commencement remarks at the Coast Guard Academy. [...] There are so many perplexing aspects to these remarks, I hardly know where to begin.  Such a great deal of evidence refutes the climate assertions made by environmental activists (including expanding Antarctic glacial levels) that failure to question the premise is a dereliction of common sense.  Additionally, instead of offering inspiration and a reason to take pride in serving, President Obama projected hostility and fear.

ISIS Seizes Ancient Antiquities Site and City of Palmyra as Obama Warns World of... Global Warming.  ISIS has seized the ancient city of Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage site.  It will soon be destroyed.  It is considered one of the most enchanting sites in the Middle East.  The U.N. called out for reinforcements but none came.  I hope we have a lot of good photos and video.  But it's climate change that's the problem.  Just ask Barack.  How many people are still in this beautiful city to be tortured and killed?  President Obama spoke to the Coast Guard graduates today [5/20/2015] to tell them of the horror of global warming.

Obama: Climate deniers endangering national security.  President Obama in a speech on Wednesday [5/20/2015] cast climate change as a growing national security threat, accusing Republican skeptics of harming military readiness by denying its effects.  Obama argued in his address to graduates at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy that rising sea levels and higher global temperatures endanger military bases and could force personnel to respond to conflicts around the world that are fueled by their effects.  "Climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security, and, make no mistake, it will impact how our military defends our country," Obama told new Coast Guard officers at the academy's New London, Conn., campus.  "And so we need to act — and we need to act now."

Nevermind terror, Obama tells the military global warming is imminent security threat.  Finally, President Obama addressed what he sees as the nation's worst security threat, just days after the fall of Ramadi to ISIS and North Korea's declaration that it has miniaturized a nuclear warhead to fit on an ICBM capable of reaching the United States.  In a speech to graduates at the Coast Guard Academy, Obama said, yes, yes, terrorism is a grave danger.  But there's another one.  "We cannot, and we must not, ignore a peril that can affect generations," the commander-in-chief declared ominously.  That threat?  Global warming.

Delusional Obama links climate change and terrorism.  President Obama's assertion in his commencement address to cadets at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy that the rise of ISIS in Syria and Boko Haram in Nigeria, and the brutality of both, is somehow linked to climate change shows just how dangerously detached from reality U.S. foreign policy has become.  For those who wondered why upwards of two hundred thousand have died in Syria, Boko Haram abducts Christian schoolgirls, and ISIS beheads and burns people alive in its reign of terror, the president placed a major part of the blame on fossil fuels and your SUV.

Obama: Climate Change Fueled Rise of Boko Haram, War in Syria.  During his speech at the Coast Guard Commencement ceremonies, President Obama warned that climate change was part of the reason behind increasing violence in countries around the world.  Obama pointed out that under his administration, the Pentagon had begun identifying climate change as a "threat multiplier" in world conflicts, although he was careful not to put all the blame on changing weather patterns.

Obama warns global warming could maybe make hurricanes worse, if we had any.  Don't worry, we're not going to play some silly word game about President Obama giving another of his long-winded speeches at the National Hurricane Center.  That would be a cheap trick.  So, we're not going to talk about Obama's Thursday speech there like it was the first major hurricane to reach the continental United States in nine years.  The former Real Good Talker was in Miami this week and he did speak about hurricanes.  He's on a global warming jag right now, bringing it up at every opportunity because it isn't ISIS.

The Alarmist-in-Chief Rallies the Troops against Climate Change.  President Barack Obama is less than stalwart in the fight against ISIS and doesn't seem overly concerned about Vladimir Putin's predation in Ukraine or China's aggression in the South China Sea.  It is the fight against climate change, an allegedly dire threat to the nation's security, that brings out his inner Churchill.  In remarks at the Coast Guard Academy commencement, Obama pledged his undying hostility to climate change and his determination to fight it on the beaches and in the fields.  He called it "one of the most severe threats" we face and "an immediate risk to our national security."


Catholic Hospital Association
June 9, 2015.

Obama Tries To Bully The Supreme Court One More Time.  In Germany on Monday and again on Tuesday [6/9/2015] in a speech to the Catholic Hospital Association in Washington, Obama dusted off the lines he's used time and again to defend ObamaCare. [...] ObamaCare is doing better than expected, the president said, dismissing "the constant doom and gloom predictions" that never "came to pass."  Does he mean "doom and gloom predictions" like "you'll lose your health plan and your doctor because of ObamaCare?"  Oh, wait, that one did come true.  Maybe he meant skyrocketing premium costs.  Oops, looks like that one's happening as well.  We've detailed the many other ways ObamaCare has failed on most of its key promises, so there's no need to do so again.  Except to say each has gotten worse.

Obama Recalls His Work for Catholic Church: 'Every Human Being, Made in the Image of God, Deserves to Live in Dignity'.  Speaking at the Catholic Health Association Conference in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday [6/9/2015], President Barack Obama recalled that his first job in Chicago was with the Catholic Church and that in this job he saw that "every human being, made in the image of God, deserves to live in dignity." [...] Obmacare provides taxpayer subsidies to health insurance plans that cover surgical abortions.  Through a "preventive services" regulation the administration issued under the ACA, it also mandates that most health insurance plans must cover contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-inducing drugs and IUDs.

Obama makes moral case for preserving his healthcare law.  Four words in the law could unravel Obamacare in the Supreme Court.  So President Barack Obama is marshaling his own numbers — and an unusual moral weight — to stress the achievements of his health overhaul law.  Addressing the Catholic Health Association on Tuesday [6/9/2015], Obama spoke about the 100 years it's taken to reform health care in the United States, and the millions of people Obamacare has helped over its five years of implementation.  "This is now part of the fabric of how we care for one another," Obama said.

The Editor says...
It is astonishing that Mr. Obama was invited to speak to a Catholic group, after all he's done in opposition to the Catholics over the last five years.  Or did he invite himself?

Obama plans major Obamacare speech.  President Obama will tout his healthcare law Tuesday [6/9/2015] to a Catholic group that has consistently supported the law despite deep divides over its birth control requirement.  In a speech to the Catholic Health Association — which represents hundreds of hospitals and nursing homes across the U.S. — the president will talk about the law's major tenets and make his case that it has improved health plans for virtually everyone, in addition to expanding coverage to millions.  The address comes just days before the Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling that could halt the healthcare law's insurance subsidies to millions of Americans.


Reaction to South Carolina shooting
June 18, 2015.

Obama's defining moment on race.  President Obama's eulogy Friday [6/26/2015] for a murdered black pastor is set to be the most momentous speech of his presidency about America's struggle with race relations.

90% of the Racism in America Comes from the Democratic Party and the Left.  [Scroll down]  Barack Obama is one of the worst offenders in this regard.  Recently, in reaction to the horrid actions of the deranged, but solitary racist Dylann Root, the president claimed racism is in our DNA.  How could he possibly utter such nonsense and who was he talking about?  The majority of Americans are from families that came to this country after slavery existed.  Many of those were escaping oppression of their own.  In my case my family was fleeing the pogroms of Eastern Europe.  Many of the members of my family who stayed behind ended up gassed in Auschwitz or exterminated in Treblinka.  Is Obama telling me that racism is in my DNA?  What a wretched and insulting statement.

Emotional Obama decries mass gun violence in America.  President Barack Obama stood righteous, angry and powerless on Thursday [6/18/2015] as he responded to yet another mass killing by a gunman in America.  "I have had to make statements like this too many times," Obama said, pausing with emotion, referring to similar statements of grief following at least 14 mass killings during his presidency, according to a tally by CBS's Mark Knoller.  Those include shootings in Aurora, Colorado; Tucson, Arizona, and Newtown, Connecticut.  Once again, he said, "someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun."

The Editor says...
The perp may have had little or no trouble acquiring a gun, but apparently he had even less trouble getting his hands on mind-altering drugs.  And incidentally, when you see Mr. Obama "pausing with emotion," it's probably because there's a note in the teleprompter telling him to pause.

Obama Pivots to Gun Control: 'This Type of Mass Violence Doesn't Happen in Other Advanced Countries'.  In remarks regarding the South Carolina shooting, President Obama talked up gun control and said that he recognizes "the politics in this town" may not allow "something" to get done.  [Video clip]

Colin Flaherty, American Witness.  Barack Obama made a curious statement Thursday during his obligatory public lament over the stunning slayings of nine worshippers in an historic Charleston church.  He said:  "I've had to make statements like this too many times."  Obama intended this to bemoan the frequency of fatal shootings in America, which he attributes to the easy availability of firearms.  It would have been too honest and nuanced for the current president of all Americans to note that scores of millions of us have our own firearms easily available to us, yet live peaceful, law-abiding lives under the Constitution that Obama twice swore to uphold.  While a minute scoopful of loonies abuse the power of firearms to live out their hate and inadequacies at the expense of innocents.  And Obama claims he's tried so hard to unite the country.

Actually, President Obama, Mass Killings Aren't Uncommon In Other Countries.  It only takes some quick research to discover that rampage killers, acts of terror (as the Charleston shooting most certainly is), school attacks, spree killers are not unique to the United States.  In 2011, a deranged Anders Behring Breivik killed eight people by setting off a van bomb in Oslo, before going on to murder 69 more people, mostly children, at a summer camp.  This is the single worst shooting spree incident in history.  Obama surely remembers that he left the White House and visited the Norwegian ambassador's residence to offer his condolences.  It takes only a rudimentary search to find out that mentally unstable killers can be found anywhere.

Examples of church shootings in other countries abound: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] as well as an endless series of firebombings, which you can find on this page, but Mr. Obama doesn't mention those attacks because they are being carried out by Muslims.

Obama's 'hopeless' push for gun control.  As Mr Obama clearly understands, if a person can walk into a school, murder 20 children and public policy on this issue doesn't change — as happened in the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut attack — it's just not going to change.  The best he can hope for is that someday in the undetermined future there's a different outlook, "at some point".

Jindal: Obama's Reaction to Charleston Shooting 'Completely Shameful'.  Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) slammed President Obama for his "completely shameful" reaction to the Charleston church massacre.  "At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.  It doesn't happen in other places with this kind of frequency.  And it is in our power to do something about it," Obama said in a gun-control message in the White House briefing room today [6/18/2015].

President Obama Fundraises in Hollywood While Nation Grieves for Charleston.  President Obama on Thursday [6/18/2015] addressed the horrific massacre of nine people in a Charleston, South Carolina church — and then boarded Air Force One to California for a series of high-dollar fundraisers to benefit the Democrat party.  Obama is scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles early Thursday afternoon for a pair of pricey fundraisers to benefit the Democratic National Committee and the DNC's 2016 White House Victory Fund.

As Obama Claims Gun Violence Is Unique To U.S., 160 Are Massacred in Mexico.  So much for President Obama's claim this morning [6/18/2015] that gun violence of the kind that horrified South Carolina Wednesday "doesn't happen in other countries."  This morning, Mexico's Excelsior reported a massacre of 160 Central American migrants in two separate incidents.  The migrants were machine-gunned and left for dead, with just 60 managing to flee for their lives.  One incident occurred in Sonora state near the Arizona border.  The other was in Veracruz state in Mexico's south.

Obama Lies, Says Mass Shootings Don't Happen in Other Countries.  Already rushing to the microphones to try and use the murders in a South Carolina church to undermine the U.S. Constitution and push his loser gun control ideas, Barack Obama lied today saying that the US is the only country with mass murders.  During his press conference today Obama said, "This kind of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries."  But this simply isn't true.  We have but to look to France only a few months ago when Islamists murdered 12 members of the staff of Charlie Hebdo magazine.

Obama Excitedly Leaps to Politicize the Tragic Charleston Church Shooting.  Barack Obama turned a beautiful speech into another politicized attack on gun owners and white people.  He blamed the Second Amendment in part.  "I've had to make statements like this too many times.  Communities like this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times...  Once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun."  "Let's be clear, at some point we will have to reconcile with the fact this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries."  [That's blatantly untrue.  Where's the coverage of people with guns who stop mass slayings?{...}]  He got in his dig at Republicans and other Second Amendment supporters, insinuating we are responsible for this horrible slaughter.

Obama Claims Mass Murders Don't Happen In Other Countries; Here's the Truth.  President Obama yesterday proclaimed that because other countries have strict gun control laws mass murders don't happen in those countries. [...] President Obama is once again using a tragic event to try and rally people behind his radical anti-American agenda.

Obama's Howler.  To gild the point a bit further about how "This type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries," Wayne Laugesen of the Colorado Spring Gazette tallies the numbers for us:
  Behring Anders Breivik killed 75, 2011, Norway
  Mohammed Merah killed 7, 2012, France
  Genildo Ferreira de França killed 14, 1997, Brazil
  Michael Robert Ryan killed 16, 1987, UK
  Eric Borel killed 15, 1995, France
  Friedrich Leibacher killed 14, 2001, Switzerland
  Christian Dornier killed 14, 1989, France
  Ljubiša Bogdanović killed 13, 2013, Serbia
  Derrick Bird killed 12, 2010, UK
  Robert Steinhäuser killed 16, 2002, Germany
  Tim Kretschmer killled 15, 2009, Germany
  Wellington Menezes de Oliveira killed 12, 2011, Brazil
  Bai Ningyang killed 12, 2006, China
  Juhani Matti Saari killed 10, 2008, Finland
  Huanming Wu killed 9, 2010, China
  Ahmed Ibragimov killed 41, 1999, Russia
  Ami Popper killed 7, 1990, Israel
  Antoní Blažka killed 6, 2013, Czech Republic

Serial Lies: PolitiFact Blasts Obama Over Gun Claim About Mass Killings In Other Countries.  Just hours after a racist terror attack took the lives of nine black parishioners guilty of nothing more than attending Bible study at a Charleston, South Carolina, church, Obama stood before America and did what he usually does when standing before America:  He cynically exploited a tragedy to further his political agenda, and he lied.

DHS Clueless About Homeland Security; too busy with supporting Obama's agenda on gun control and immigration.  Dylaan [sic] Roof is another drug-addled loser who's gained infamy through murder and joins other crazed loons like Adam Lanza (26 dead including 20 children) and James Holmes (12 dead, 70 injured).  Yet almost immediately after the murders in Charleston, S.C., the President and the Department of Homeland Security made statements that blamed easy access to guns as the need for more gun control laws.  The president even made the foolish statement that these mass killings do not occur in other developed countries.  Apparently Norway and France which have very restrictive gun laws did not prevent their mass killings of innocent victims — Norway:  77, France (Charlie Hebdo  11).  Obama's teleprompter needs to be updated.


End zone dance after Supreme Court saves Obamacare again
June 25, 2015.

Six Times Obama Insisted In His Speech Today That Obamacare Was Working.  As President Obama delivered his remarks today [6/25/2015] in the Rose Garden, he insisted on making one of his assertions clear:  Obamacare was working.  On six different occasions, Obama insisted that his signature healthcare reform law was working.  [Video clip]

Obama: 'This Has Never Been a Government Takeover of Health Care'.  In a Rose Garden press conference on Thursday [6/25/2015], President Barack Obama reacted to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling upholding Obamacare subsidies, calling it "a victory for hard-working Americans," adding that "this has never been a government takeover of health care."  "This has never been a government takeover of health care despite cries to the contrary.  This reform remains what it's always been — a set of fairer rules and tougher protections that have made health care in America more affordable, more attainable and more about you, the consumer, the American people.  It's working," said Obama in praising the high court ruling.


Eulogy at the Charleston Funeral
June 26, 2015.

Obama breaks into 'Amazing Grace' at funeral.  From the moment President Barack Obama approached the platform to give the eulogy for Clementa Pinckney on Friday [6/26/2015], the organist was ready.  Few people expected Obama to become the Preacher-in-Chief.  And probably no one thought he would sing.  But that's what he did after discussing the importance of the black church's past and the necessity of the community in the future.

Obama eulogizes pastor in Charleston shooting.  President Barack Obama delivered a touching eulogy, a rousing political speech and a thoughtful meditation on race in America when he traveled to Charleston, South Carolina on Friday to speak at the funeral of the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was gunned down last week by a racist terrorist during Bible study.  But the President's speech will be remembered for a moment at the end when the he launched into a solo of "Amazing Grace," that at first stunned the mourners and then brought them to their feet as they joined him in song.

Reckon With This.  After Dylann Roof murdered nine pastors and churchgoers in the course of Bible study in Charleston, President Obama couldn't wait to use the occasion for his narrow political purposes.  "Let's be clear," he said with urgency in his voice.  "At some point we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence ... doesn't happen in other places with this kind of frequency.  And it is in our power to do something about it."  The implication, of course, was that additional gun control legislation was required but that his political opponents refused to see the light.  Now we learn in whose power it was to do something about it, and it wasn't anyone Obama was talking about.

Why Obama chose to sing Amazing Grace during eulogy for Charleston victims.  [M]oments before Obama sang Amazing Grace during the eulogy for Rev Clementa Pinckney, one of the the nine Charleston victims, his wife Michelle and long-time adviser Valerie Jarrett were unconvinced by the idea.  According to Jarrett, he turned to them before addressing a Charleston church last month, and said:  'I don't know whether I'm going to do it, but I just wanted to warn you two that I might sing.  We'll see how it feels at the time.  I think if I sing, the church will sing with me.'

Barack Obama Takes the Charleston Funeral from the Sacred to the Profane.  [Scroll down]  For a minute, I thought he had actually learned a little something from the Christian witness in Charleston.  I could even stomach his cheap jumping on the Confederate flag bandwagon for a minute, as long as he stayed on the grace of God bandwagon too.  But, as Barack Obama implied in his Marc Maron interview, unity just isn't in his DNA.  So after all that, the community organizer — the Divider in Chief — went to work.  We got a laundry list of America's continuing sins.  A reference to the myth of Republican voter suppression being by far the most egregious, because he knows it's a lie from the pit of Hell and in no way true.  And how Johnny gets a call back for a job, but not Jamal.  Then came a long spiel on gun control, even while he admitted that not a single one of his proposals would have prevented what happened at the prayer meeting at Emanuel AME Church.

Obama: Prejudice "Still Infects Our Society".  Delivering the eulogy [6/26/2015] at times in the cadence of a black preacher, Obama went further than I've ever heard him casting problems in this country in racial terms.  His commentary, while no doubt heartfelt, will regrettably focus the country more on its divisions and less on the solutions to the problems facing blacks, which today have little to do with prejudice and much to do with culture.  While Obama may well be correct that what ills the black community stems for the legacy of racism, severe prejudice is no longer widespread, and the problems for minorities and the divisions within society can only be stoked further by providing a false narrative that says others are now holding African Americans back.

Obama's Amazing Disgrace of a Eulogy.  After a perfunctory acknowledgement of the slain pastor's wife, daughters, and church family, the president cracked a few self-deprecating jokes before diving headlong into a discourse on racial and progressive politics.  Pinckney was a Democrat senator representing the "Lowcountry" of South Carolina, so the president began by entertaining the possibility that the senator was unable to get resources to address inadequate schools, poverty, child hunger, and lack of healthcare because he was in the political minority.  From that point forward, the president was in full-on, pedal-to-the-metal racial-injustice mode.

Obama Stakes Black Claim on U.S. History.  Barack Obama's eulogy in Charleston for the Reverend Clementa Pinckney, the South Carolina state senator killed by an avowed racist, put Pinckney's death in the context of Christian grace.  But the speech cast everything else — Pinckney's life, his cause, his church, his politics, his meaning — as part of the long, brutal, sacrificial, triumphant history of black Americans.  Obama wrapped his presidential arms around the black church and black life more completely than he has ever done, pushing black history into the center of the American stage and demanding that it be recognized as a central, undeniable fact.

Obama Channels Reverend Wright.  After 11 years of hiding and hinting, the real Barack Obama is back.  The guy who spent twenty years listening to Reverend Jeremiah Wright preach the gospel of racial hostility has decided it is just too much trouble to keep his black-on-white resentment all bottled up.  So the president put it on full display last week at the eulogy for the pastor who was a victim in the Charleston mass murder.  And what we saw was quite a bit different than the fresh-faced, new-vision, 'put race behind us' guy who electrified the country with his speech to the Democrat National Convention in 2004.


Announcement of normalized relations with Cuba
July 1, 2015.

No, Mr. President, Castroite Cuba Is Not What Change Looks Like.  President Obama's much hailed "normalization" of ties with Cuba is anything but normal.  Cuba is a top violator of human rights and the rule of law.  Normal relations will just entrench the regime, not change it.  With a flurry of the usual cliches about going forward and not being "imprisoned by the past," President Obama hailed his own decision to normalize relations with Castroite Cuba with his trademark "This is what change looks like!" in a speech at the White House Wednesday [7/1/2015].  Problem is, it's one of the most inaccurate statements he's ever made.

Obama on his historic Cuba decision: 'This is what change looks like'.  President Obama on Wednesday [7/1/2015] announced a major step toward "diplomatic relations with the Republic of Cuba" by saying the U.S. and Cuba would reopen embassies in each other's countries.  "This is a historic step forward in our efforts to normalize relations with the Cuban government and people and begin a new chapter with our neighbors in the Americas," Obama said in a statement in the Rose Garden with Vice President Joe Biden at his side.

Despite Mr. Obama's 'engagement,' Cuba continues its repression.  In announcing the reopening of the U.S. embassy in Havana, President Obama said "nobody expects Cuba to be transformed overnight" by his policy of "engagement."  That's just as well because in the first six months of Mr. Obama's normalization of relations with the Communist regime, most indicators of human rights on the island have moved in the wrong direction.  Since December, there have been more than 3,000 political detentions in Cuba, including 641 in May and 220 on Sunday [6/28/2015] alone, according to dissident sources.

More about Cuba.


Press conference
July 15, 2015.

Obama's news conference was a case for American weakness.  President Obama was well into his feisty and freewheeling news conference on the Iran nuclear deal when Major Garrett of CBS News got under the presidential skin.  "As you well know, there are four Americans in Iran, three held on trumped-up charges," Garrett said.  "Can you tell the country, sir, why you are content, with all the fanfare around this deal, to leave the conscience of this nation, the strength of this nation, unaccounted for in relation to these four Americans?" [...] Garrett's question, though loaded, was legitimate; one of those being held on bogus charges in Iran is Jason Rezaian, The Washington Post's Tehran bureau chief.  And Obama's answer was revealing: Full of Sturm und Drang, he ultimately acknowledged that the United States just doesn't have the clout to enforce its will.

Obama angered by question about Americans held by Iran.  President Obama bristled at a reporter's question Wednesday about why he didn't insist on Iran releasing three American prisoners as part of the nuclear deal with Tehran.  Asked why he was "content" to accept the deal without resolving the hostage issue, Mr. Obama told the reporter, Major Garrett of CBS, "That's nonsense.  You should know better.  I've met with the families of some of those folks.  I'm not content."

CNN Blasts CBS News's Major Garrett for Asking Obama Tough Question.  During Wednesday's national press conference about his Iran deal, President Obama played the media like a fiddle.  It was a situation where the media was so compliant the questioners were hand-picked by the White House beforehand, the president filibustered throughout, and Obama ended the event by asking himself the questions he wanted to answer.  Only Major Garrett of CBS News asked a truly tough question, a question that was obviously framed in a way to cut through the president's rigorously-rehearsed talking points.  For daring to question the Lightbringer in the same way the media questioned President George W. Bush for 8 years, CNN went hard after Garrett over two news hours (thus far).

Major Garrett dares to ask Obama about Americans still held in Iran and liberal media freaks out.  Journalists are supposed to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."  Except when the comfortable guy is liberal President Barack Obama and the afflicted are four Americans trapped in Iranian jails.  Then when you ask that question, all hell breaks loose.  That's the bizarre disconnect encountered by CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett when he interrupted the Obama Iran deal press conference with, well, journalism.

Major Garrett Earns A Field Promotion To Lt. Colonel.  Major Garrett of CBS News did what no one else in the White House press corps managed to do on Wednesday [7/15/2015]:  he asked President Barack Obama a real question.  For his trouble, Garrett was rebuked by the president, criticized by his colleagues, and accused of racism by celebrities.  Yet he succeeded in bringing the plight of four captive Americans to the forefront of national debate, and set a rare example of journalistic integrity in what has otherwise been a dark age.

Spinning Out of Control.  It is a safe prediction that for years to come the debate over the Obama Iran deal will rage, with one question looming largest; namely, which was worse... the treaty or the press conference?  Actually, it was not a conference but what is known in Washington-speak as a "press availability."  This refers not to the press being available but to the President making himself available to the press and all its relentless scrutiny.  For once Obama came through, making himself thoroughly available; all his specious sophistry, all his testy narcissism, all his Freudian solipsism, was on display.  To coin a phrase, he had all his centrifuges spinning.


American University
August 5, 2015.

Obama: Iranians Chanting 'Death to America' Share 'Common Cause' with GOP.  Speaking in defense of the international agreement regarding Iran's nuclear development from American University's Washington, D.C. campus on Wednesday afternoon [8/5/2015], President Barack Obama addressed one of the most prominent arguments against diplomacy between the U.S. and Iran:  Why should make deals with a country whose people openly chant, "Death the America"?  "I recognize the resorting to force may be tempting in the face of rhetoric and behavior that emanates from some parts of Iran," the president said of such anti-American sentiments.  "It is offensive.  It is incendiary.  We do take it seriously.  But superpowers should not act impulsively in response to taunts.  Or even provocations that can be addressed short of war."

Liar, Liar, World on Fire!.  His accusation that opponents of the deal are like those who want "to take military action against the Soviets" is dishonest after he had just admitted that even taking out Iran's nuclear program would not lead to a war between Iran and the United States.  But Obama's whole speech is a collection of lies.  He insists that the nuclear deal is "a detailed arrangement that permanently prohibits Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon".  There's nothing "permanent" about it.

Hume Rips Obama's Speech on Iran Deal: 'Dishonest, Partisan, Insulting'.  On "Special Report" tonight, Brit Hume blasted President Obama's speech on the virtues of the nuclear agreement with Iran.  "Just because Iranian hardliners chant 'death to America' does not mean that's what all Iranians believe," Obama said.  "In fact, it's those hardliners who are most comfortable with the status quo.  It's those hardliners chanting 'death to America' who have been most opposed to the deal.  They are making common cause with the Republican caucus."

Obama's terrible Iran speech: My Republican critics are making "common cause" with Iranian hardliners.  The lowest moment from what was probably the lowest speech of his presidency — so far. [...] The GOP opposes the nuclear deal because they think it's too favorable to Iran and not favorable enough to America.  The hardliners in Iran's parliament oppose the deal for the opposite reason.  Insofar as they both want the deal to fail, I suppose that's "common cause."

Josh Earnest tries his hardest to spin President Obama's 'death to America' comments.  White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was left with the thankless task Thursday morning of explaining what President Obama meant when he said earlier this week that Iran's "death to America" crowd shares "common cause" with Republicans.  Earnest's go-to defense:  To argue that Obama didn't really say that Republicans who oppose the White House's nuclear deal with Tehran share a "common cause" with Iranian extremists.

Mr. Obama, your Iran deal will fall apart.  The Framers of our constitution probably would have regarded the nuclear deal with Iran as a "treaty," subject to a two thirds ratification by the Senate.  At the very least they would have required Congress to approve the agreement by a majority vote.  It is unlikely that it would have allowed the President alone to make so important and enduring an international agreement.  If President Obama doesn't treat the Iran agreement with more respect, all his arguments today are beside the point.  The agreement won't have the force of law.

Obama defends comparing GOP to Iranian hard-liners.  President Obama is doubling down on his comparison of Republicans with Iranian hard-liners who oppose the Iran nuclear deal.  "What I said is absolutely true, factually," Obama told CNN's Fareed Zakaria in an interview that will air Sunday [8/9/2015].  "The truth of the matter is, inside of Iran, the people most opposed to the deal are the Revolutionary Guard, the Quds Force, hard-liners who are implacably opposed to any cooperation with the international community," Obama added.

Obama's Speech Selling The Iran Pact Is A Litany Of Lies.  In his Wednesday [8/5/2015] Iran speech at American University in Washington, Obama claimed his bad deal with Islamofascist Iran builds on John F. Kennedy's "tradition of strong, principled diplomacy."  If Obama is going to Kennedy for inspiration, he might want to heed this line from JFK's 1963 "peace" speech at the same locale:  "No treaty ... however tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion."  Deception and evasion are exactly what Tehran will be practicing, as it always has, which is why Kennedy would get nowhere near this Iran deal.

The Most Dangerous Threat America Faces is Barack Obama.  Mark Levin eviscerated Obama tonight saying there will be war thanks to what he and John Kerry are doing with Iran.  He called Obama's speech today 'another Castro-like' speech filled with lies and arrogance and pointed out at the end of his monologue that the most dangerous threat this country faces isn't from China, Russia, or the Islamo-Nazis.  It's Barack Obama.

Obama on Comparing GOP to Iranian Hardliners: 'What I Said is Absolutely True'.  CNN's "New Day" on Friday highlighted a clip from President Barack Obama's interview with Fareed Zakaria set to air in its entirety Sunday in which the president doubles down on his remarks from earlier in the week when he declared Iranian hardliners chanting "death to America" were "making common cause" with Republicans.  Obama said, "What I said is absolutely true factually.  The truth of the matter is inside of Iran, the people most opposed to the deal are the Revolutionary Guard, the Quds Force, hard liners are opposed to any cooperation with the international community.


Las Vegas, Nevada
August 24, 2015.

President Obama Brings His Climate Plan to Your House.  In a speech at a Las Vegas clean-energy summit hosted by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Obama emphasized the growth of the renewable-energy industry down to the household level and its role in meeting his administration's climate-change goals.  And he had a message for Republicans who have fought his energy agenda:  Clean power is here to stay.  "We refuse to surrender the hope of a clean-energy future to those who fight against it," Obama said at Reid's National Clean Energy Summit.

The Editor says...
Mr. Obama apparently read every word of his speech from a teleprompter, the text was almost certainly written by somebody else, and when the speech was over he probably didn't remember what he had just said.

Obama accuses Kochs of un-American campaign to undermine green energy.  President Obama accused conservative opponents of his climate change agenda Monday night [8/24/2015] of carrying out an un-American campaign to protect their fossil fuel interests at the expense of the country.  "They're trying to undermine competition in the marketplace and choke off consumer choice and threaten an industry that's turning out new jobs at a fast pace," Mr. Obama said at a clean energy summit [in Las Vegas].

Obama torches 20,000 gallons of gas to warn of 'fossil fuel interests' conspiring against 'clean energy'.  President Obama went to the Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas on Monday [8/24/2015], and he didn't ride his bike:  [Photo]  After he got to Vegas, Obama alleged that there's some sort of conspiracy to keep consumers from using that which simply does not exist on a broad scale: [...] Entire cities aren't powered by grids that operate on solar, wind or geothermal not because of "fossil fuel interest" conspiracies, but rather for the same reason Obama didn't land at McCarran in a presidential jumbo jet that runs on kumquats:  No such delivery system exists.

Obama rubs elbows with Harry Reid's corporate welfare lobbyists.  The crowd cheered the President's toast to their taxpayer-provided profits, and soon Obama headed off to a $33,000-a-head fundraiser at the mansion of the billionaire owner of the local newspaper.  You, the taxpayer, paid for Obama's flight to Vegas.  This is what Hope and Change looks like seven years after Obama accepted the Democratic nomination.  Obama was the keynote speaker at the National Clean Energy Summit, an annual confab organized by outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid — which tells you a lot about the nature of the event.


Obama goes to Alaska to stop global warming
September 1, 2015.

Obama pleads for Paris climate change deal.  Speaking in Alaska, he said countries including his own were not doing enough to stop global warming.  World powers meet in Paris in December with the aim of agreeing to curb global temperature rises. [...] While the Paris meeting will seek a deal to limit the rise in global temperatures to 2°C, there have been warnings that the goal is unlikely to be achieved.

The Editor says...
Bureaucrats think they can legislate the worldwide average temperature!

Obama Warns of Planet Beyond Repair: 'Submerged Countries. Abandoned Cities. Fields No Longer Growing'.  In a speech in Anchorage, Alaska, on Monday President Barack Obama warned that if nations do not act to stop climate change "we will condemn our children to a planet beyond their capacity to repair."  "Climate change is no longer some far-off problem," Obama said.  "It is happening here.  It is happening now.  Climate change is already disrupting our agriculture and ecosystems, our water and food supplies, our energy, our infrastructure, human health, human safety — now.  Today."  "If we were to abandon our course of action, if we stop trying to build a clean-energy economy and reduce carbon pollution, if we do nothing to keep the glaciers from melting faster, and oceans from rising faster, and forests from burning faster, and storms from growing stronger, we will condemn our children to a planet beyond their capacity to repair," he said.

Obama paints doomsday scene of global warming in Alaska.  President Barack Obama is painting a doomsday scenario for the Arctic and beyond if climate change isn't dealt with fast:  entire nations submerged underwater, cities abandoned and refugees fleeing in droves as conflict breaks out across the globe.

Obama: '...As We Push Our Economy and the World to Ultimately Transition Off Fossil Fuels'.  President Barack Obama said in his weekly address today that four villages in Alaska are in "imminent danger" because of climate change and that safety will be his administration's top consideration in permitting offshore oil and gas drilling "as we push our economy and the world to ultimately transition off of fossil fuels."  "America will lead the world to meet the threat of climate change before it's too late[.]"

Alaska's Biggest Economic Threat Isn't Climate Change, It's President Obama.  Alaska is a remarkable place of immense, even breathtaking, natural beauty.  But it has always been a land of changes.  The hubris of the White House and its fellow travelers in the environmental movement is to assume that Alaska's retreating glaciers and the fluctuations in its Arctic coastline are caused by man-made climate change.  Even worse is the view that we need to ratchet down oil and gas development along the Arctic coast (despite the go-ahead for Shell), forbid drilling in the vast unpeopled plains of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and effectively deprive Alaskans of their major industries.  It wouldn't be so bad if all the president wanted to do was come to Alaska, hang out on a glacier with his celebrity friends and rename the big mountain.  But that's not why he's up there, and Alaskans who rely on the industries he's implicitly targeting with his climate-change rhetoric know it.

Climate Change Stars In Obama's Alaska Theater Of The Absurd.  [Scroll down]  Included in the theatrics was a lot of fiction.  Obama pointed out melting glaciers and rattled off the points written for him by someone else as if he were the author of the profound string of words.  The message:  Humans are burning so much carbon-dioxide-emitting fossil fuel that the planet is warming from the greenhouse effect — and they have to stop.  What a colossal waste of time, effort and resources.  If Obama wanted to visit Alaska as part of his official duties, fine.  But a trip merely to yammer about man-made global warming is a trip that shouldn't have been made.

Obama: Forget Iran, jobs, terror, doom looms from global warming.  The president said addressing climate change is urgent and dismissed fears that more environmental controls and regulations would hurt the stumbling economy and jobs.  The pattern of talking up a crisis as a means to control the nation's political agenda and provide a distraction from other news has been very familiar during these interminable 2,416 days of Obama's White House occupancy.  Even if, in the end, little useful action ever ensues on such issues.  But Obama's remarks in Alaska this week were by far his most apocalyptic to date. [...] "There is such a thing as being too late," Obama warned.  "That moment is almost upon us."  Global warming, he said, is "a challenge that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other."

Obama in Alaska: Climate-change deniers 'are on their own shrinking island'.  "The time to heed the critics and the cynics and the deniers is past," [President Obama] told delegates to an international conference on climate change in the Arctic [8/31/2015].  "The time to plead ignorance is surely past.  Those who want to ignore the science, they are increasingly alone, they are on their own shrinking island."  He used the backdrop of America's only Arctic state to emphasize the need for this country and others to move, and move fast, to reduce carbon emissions, to pursue cleaner energy sources and to stop relying on "unstable parts of the world" for oil.

The Editor says...
If he wants to "to stop relying on 'unstable parts of the world' for oil, why is he opposed to drilling in ANWR, offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the Keystone XL pipeline, and fracking?

Obama's on Thin Ice With Climate Fearmongering.  Last Tuesday, President Barack Obama hiked to Exit Glacier in Alaska with photographers in tow, to send the world a message.  The glacier is melting.  Obama blames it on the increasing use of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, which he wants to restrict not only in the U.S. but also worldwide.  The photo-op was designed to build support for an international climate agreement he's pushing hard to sell, so far with little success.  Trouble is, the president needs to get his facts straight.  Exit Glacier has been shrinking for 200 years — since 1815 — long before widespread industrialization and automobiles.

Where were the polar bears?  Am I the only one who finds it incongruous that President Obama, when on a carefully choreographed trip to Alaska, even manning his own Instagram account to engage young people, to spotlight the effects of global warming — which he says is happening "right now" — announced the accelerated acquisition of ice breakers? [...] But you have to wonder what his speechwriters were thinking to have him asking Congress to spend more on ice breakers on the same trip where he's predicting more warming.  Perhaps he really knows, what many scientists are claiming:  Arctic ice is growing — with updated NASA data showing polar sea ice is approximately 5 percent above the post-1979 (the year satellite instruments began measuring the ice caps) average.  This, despite former Vice President Al Gore's claim that the Arctic ice cap could be completely gone by now.


United Nations
September 28, 2015.

Obama's Surreal U.N. Speech.  President Obama's U.N. speech today [9/28/2015] is filled with nice lines that unfortunately bear no relationship to his seven years of foreign policy — and in some cases, no relationship to reality.

Obama ignored the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his UN speech.  Last year, as he stood at the same podium, Obama assured the international community that as "bleak as the landscape" appeared to be in the Middle East, America would "never give up the pursuit of peace" between Israelis and Palestinians.  But on Monday [9/28/2015], during his 43 minute speech to the UNGA, the president was suddenly silent on the matter, awakening Israeli fears that his attention will be elsewhere in the last year-and-a-half of his presidency.

Doomed to failure, cont'd.  President Obama spoke before the United Nations General Assembly today.  The video runs about 43 minutes.  Listening to it, I would have estimated a Castroite 4 hours and 43 minutes.  It is excruciating.  The tone is professorial, patronizing, obnoxious, and unmanly.  Obama challenged, and was followed by, Vladimir Putin.  Putting the merits of their presentations to one side, the contrast was not to Obama's advantage.  At the United Nations Obama hectors his adversaries and carries a microscopic stick.  He is the un-Teddy Roosevelt.  His adversaries have him sized up correctly for a patsy.  Obama's take on the international order, such as it is, is a left-wing fantasy.  On the world stage he is a loser.

Obama's UN speech: Walk softly and carry a big Nerf stick.  No wonder so much of the world doesn't take President Obama seriously anymore.  Monday he gave another one of his world-stage speeches, a 4,400 word tour d'horizon with the usual vows and rhetorical flourishes signifying nothing.  It was so tiresome even John Kerry was caught yawning.  Of course, Obama's already campaigning to become secretary general of that faded world body, which itself excels at uttering billions of words signifying nothing.


Reaction to (and politicization of) a school shooting in Oregon
October 1, 2015.

Cruz: Obama trying to 'tear us apart' with comments on Oregon shooting.  Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is criticizing President Obama for his comments about a mass shooting at a community college in Oregon that left 9 dead.  "Unfortunately that is the approach with President Obama on every issue, is that he seeks to tear us apart, he seeks to politicize it and it's worth remembering he is ideological and he's a radical," Cruz said on "The Mark Levin Show," as first reported by Buzzfeed News.  "You know, as his former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel said, 'you never let a good crisis go to waste,' and that is sadly his approach."

Obama disgraces himself with rush to politicize Roseburg shooting.  President Obama couldn't wait for the facts to come in before addressing the nation on the Roseburg shootings, openly calling them "something we should politicize."  Eager to distract the country from the collapse of his Syria policy and the triumph of Russia in replacing the U.S. as the dominant force in the Middle East, he seized upon the deaths as means to advance his anti-gun agenda, with absolutely no knowledge of the guns used, or the means by which the shooter acquired them.  He referred to himself 28 times in the course of his 12-minute speech.  It reminded me of his rush to judgment in declaring that the Cambridge Police "acted stupidly" in the arrest of his pal Skip Gates.

With All Due Respect, Mr. President, Fix Your Own Gun Plan.  My usual rule is to refrain from discussing policy in the interim following a tragic situation.  After all, there's nothing more useless than pontificating in the meantime, while tempers are hot, and no one knows what to do.  We all want an easy fix to horrifying situations like the one that played out yesterday in Oregon.  We all want to believe there's one, singular solution that will put an end to senseless violence.  There isn't.  But yesterday [10/1/2015], President Obama used the Oregon shooting to make a political point, openly and unabashedly, before the bodies of the dead had cooled, before knowing the facts of the case, and without, apparently, a modicum of respect for the families and community that is suffering losses today.  As a nation sought help, leadership, prayer and support; President Obama did little but throw a temper tantrum on national television, calling for solutions in the form of "gun control," and "action," without specifiying any concrete legislative agenda, or, even, what he believes the country needs to take action on.

Obama: Never Let a Mass Shooting Go To Waste!  At this point, it is hard to say anything intelligent about the shootings except that they were a horribly evil deed.  That, of course, doesn't stop our president from trying to make political hay.  He immediately took the podium to demand that Congress pass more gun control legislation — any gun control legislation, apparently, whether it has any relationship to this crime or not.

Defiant Obama Calls for America to 'Politicize' Oregon College Shooting.  A frustrated President Obama demanded change on gun control after the Oregon college shooting which grabbed the nation's attention Thursday [10/1/2015].  The president was clearly angry with the frequency of mass shootings in America — and critics who said he was politicizing the issue.  "This is something we should politicize," he said earnestly. "It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic."  Obama offered his sympathy for the victims of the shooting at Oregon's Umpqua Community College before he launched an emotional appeal more gun control, but he didn't hold back when condemning Second Amendment supporters.

Guy who intentionally distributed thousands of assault weapons to criminals offers America lectures on gun control.  To paraphrase Rahm Emanuel, never let a tragedy go to waste.  Such is the situation with Democrats, who have once again attempted to leverage a tragic mass-shooting in Oregon as yet another lever to confiscate America's guns.  The sheer idiocy of such advocacy never seems to cross their addled brains.  After all, nothing short of a time machine will un-invent guns; new 3D printers have made the home manufacturing of firearms a reality; and the idea of confiscating 800 million guns seems rather irrational when Leftists argue that deporting a few million illegal aliens is impossible.  As it turns out, the Oregon shooter asked victims their religion before shooting them.  I don't know, but for me that spells "Militant Quaker terror attack" all the way — not the typical work of a right-wing Constitutionalist.

Obama's Disgraceful Demagoguery.  In his comments last evening on the mass killing at Oregon's Umpqua Community College, President Barack Obama declared we should "politicize" the shooting.  The president achieved his goal.  Just hours after the horrible event, before many of the key facts were even known, Mr. Obama used his remarks to deliver an angry plea for new gun legislation. [...] This claim is morally and intellectually offensive. For one thing, the supposition here — that the type of gun control legislation President Obama has advocated in the past would have prevented the massacre — is false.

Obama urges 'single issue' voting on guns.  President Barack Obama urged Americans who want to see tighter gun laws to become "single-issue voters."  At a press conference on Friday [10/2/2015], Obama predicted that there will be little action in Congress to prevent mass shootings like the one that took place in Roseburg, Oregon, on Thursday until Americans hold elected officials accountable at the polls.

The Editor says...
Voters don't go to the polls to hold politicians "accountable."  If they did, Barack H. Obama would not have been re-elected.  About half of the voters in the U.S. make their choices based on emotional appeals (like the one Mr. Obama was making), public school indoctrination and biased news coverage.  The remainder vote for Republicans.

Top 10 Misleading Obama Statements After Oregon Shooting That Was Praised by ISIS as an Act of Jihad.  This should have been an opportunity for the President to unite a grieving nation. But instead, he chose to foment division.  He even bragged that it was right for him to politicize this tragedy.  Over and over again, on nationwide television, the President misled the American people in an effort to further restrict the rights of law-abiding Americans who have done no wrong.  But to the President, we say:  Shame on you, for leveling so many false accusations about guns and crime in America.

Our President is a Jackass.  In 1,299 words, the President never condemned the killings.  Before he spoke, officials confirmed that the shooter targeted his victims based on their religion.  In 1,299 words, the President never called for religious tolerance.  Before we knew who the gunman was or what his motive was, the President of the United States rushed to the podium to make the case for gun control.  He even admitted he was politicizing it and that the shooting should be politicized.

The More You Politicize Guns, The Weaker Your Case Becomes.  What happened in Oregon is tragic, and the nation should comfort families and look for reasonable and practical ways to stem violence, but there is only one murderer.  Now, if government somehow bolstered, endorsed, or "allowed" the actions of Chris Harper-Mercer — as they might, say, the death of 10,000-plus viable babies each year or the civilian deaths that occur during an American drone action — a person could plausibly argue that we are collectively answerable as a nation.  Then again, when the president asserts Americans are collectively answerable, what he really suggests — according to his own broader argument — is that conservatives who've blocked his gun-control legislation are wholly responsible.

The Oregon shootings and Barack Obama, our politicizer-in-chief.  In 1,299 words, at a press conference at the White House, the president never condemned the killings in Oregon.  Before he spoke, officials confirmed that the shooter targeted his victims based on their religion.  In 1,299 words, the president never called for religious tolerance.  Before we knew who the gunman was or what his motive was, the president of the United States rushed to the podium to make the case for gun control.  He even admitted he was politicizing it and that the shooting should be politicized.

Liberals Trash Christianity Non-Stop, Then Blame The 2nd Amendment When Someone Murders Christians.  Liberals are delighted when there's a mass shooting because as Rahm Emanuel famously said, "You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."  Of course, they'd deny they feel that way, but before the blood even cools on the floor after a mass shooting, liberals are always working en masse to take advantage of the situation.  After the shooting in Oregon, Barack Obama immediately took to the airwaves to declare that, "This is something that should be politicized."  And that's what it is:  pure politics because inevitably, nothing liberals ever seem to suggest would make mass shootings happen less frequently.

Facts Don't Work on Gun Control, so Obama Uses Emotion.  In his speech on the Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon last week, President Obama sounded more upset about America's gun laws than about the horrific massacre.  We barely had the preliminary facts about the shooting, the shooter and the victims, and he was already lecturing the nation again on gun control. [...] What he conveniently omitted is that Oregon had recently strengthened its laws on gun sales and is above average among the states on gun regulation.  It is one of only 18 states that require universal background checks before the sale of any firearm.  Being a proud Chicagoan, Obama is surely aware that his beloved city, which has distinguished itself in recent years for epic gun violence and death, is in a state that has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation.  How, then, can he claim that gun laws work?

Obama: Guns and Poses.  Obama takes extreme pleasure in rhetorically skewering the GOP.  Almost like clockwork, the horrifying events in Roseburg, Oregon provided him with the perfect lead-in to some seriously sanctimonious sermonizing.  Rahm Emanuel raved that no crisis should go to waste.  Obama does him one better by blaming all crises on the Republicans.  So despite his distaste for White House press conferences, the president was more than eager last week to lecture us all on the true and perpetual villains behind America's latest rampage involving guns.  In a long-winded harangue that made me wonder where his once-lauded oratorical gifts had vanished, Obama held forth on the subject of gun control, one of his favorites along with birth control.

In Twelve-Minute Speech to America on Oregon Mass Shooting, Obama Refers to Himself 28 Times.  Less than six hours after the mass shooting today in Roseburg, Ore., President Obama called a press conference to demand new gun laws, a move he predicted would spur critics to accuse him of politicizing the issue.  If they don't accuse him of that, they might accuse him of making the tragedy about himself.

Obama Goes Beyond Mere Gun Control, Hints At Confiscation.  When President Obama spoke in reaction to the heinous October 1 attack on Umpqua Community College, he went beyond his usual calls for more gun control and suggested instead that America consider following the path blazed by Australia and Great Britain.

Guns Don't Kill People, Liberalism Does.  President Obama wants us to politicize gun deaths in America.  I decided to take him up on his invitation.  I hope that no one is surprised that Obama took this opportunity again to attack guns, the gun industry, and those of us who are fans of the Second Amendment.  This is what a community organizing career politician does.  For liberals like Obama, virtually everything is political, or must be made so.  Because political problems require political solutions, and thus, when something is politicized, those in favor of empowering and growing government get to do what they do best:  give speeches, call for legislation, and attempt to stir up the electorate in their favor.

Yes, Obama does want to take your guns.  Within hours of the killings at Umpqua Community College in Oregon last week, President Obama stepped to the White House lectern, admittedly without all the facts of the case, to shamelessly politicize the tragedy.  "Somebody, somewhere will comment and say, Obama politicized this issue.  Well, this is something we should politicize," he said.  Perhaps Obama's open politicizing of the issue wasn't the worst part, but instead it was his intellectual dishonesty when it comes to the "common-sense" gun laws he wants implemented.

President Jackass.  Last week, in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, President Barack Obama took to the microphones to deride anyone who did not agree with his gun control agenda.  Stating that it was only good and right to "politicize" the Oregon shooting, Obama stated, "This is a political choice that we make to allow this to happen every few months in America.  We collectively are answerable to those families, who lose their loved ones, because of our inaction."  Obama then called for "modest" gun regulations, without specifying the nature of those "modest" gun regulations.

Mr. Obama, real leadership requires more than just a torrent of talk.  Before barely any facts were known, there was President Obama on camera (when isn't he?) making a 12-minute address — a relatively short time for him — about the school shootings in Roseburg, Oregon.  The president referred to himself 28 times, according to Grabien.com, again proving that whatever happens in this country, or the world, it really is all about him.  He talked about the need for "common sense" gun laws, and yet in the case of the Oregon shootings, as in so many other similar tragedies, he never mentions the responsibility and moral guilt of the shooter.


Press conference in Turkey
November 16, 2015.

America's Ridiculous Refugee Debate.  Plagued by repeated incredulous questions by usually friendly reporters — "Sir, you can't really think you don't need to change anything, can you?" was the basic gist — Obama finally got a bit heated:  Not at ISIS, of course, but at his critics back home.  Those "pursuing some notion of American leadership or America winning," he declared, were mere sloganeers.  Those who doubted his strategy on the issue of Syrian refugees, meanwhile, were either bigoted or naïve.

Fox News anchor stands by Obama ISIS presser criticism.  The president later took questions from reporters, and that didn't appear to go so well for him:  His answers were terse and increasingly blunt as he repeated again and again that he has everything under control.  Obama tried in a press conference Monday to assure reporters that he has ISIS under control, even after terrorist attacks in Paris last week left 129 people dead and hundreds more injured.

Our Bitter and Graceless President.  We all know people of towering arrogance and we all know people of staggering incompetence, but Barack Obama is quite possibly the perfect package.  No one on the scene today combines these two qualities in quite the same way as Mr. Obama. [...] Now most of us, with this almost unblemished record of ineptness, might feel some embarrassment.  We might show a touch of self-reflection.  And we would at least resist the temptation to lecture others.  But not Mr. Obama.  In his press conference in Turkey earlier this week, the president was prickly, petulant, condescending and small-minded.

Obama gets really angry — at Americans.  Three days after the Islamic State terrorist attacks in Paris, Americans were primed to hear their president express heartfelt anger, which he did in his press conference in Antalya, Turkey, at the end of the G-20 Conference.  And they did hear him describe the Islamic State as "this barbaric terrorist organization" and acknowledge that "the terrible events in Paris were a terrible and sickening setback."  But what really got him angry, as the transcript and videotape make clear, were reporters' repeated questions about the minimal success of his strategy against the Islamic State and Republicans' proposals for more active engagement in Syria and Iraq.  As well as critics of his decision to allow 10,000 Syrians into the United States.

Obama comes under criticism from Dems over Paris rhetoric.  President Obama is coming under criticism from some in his own party over his comments Monday [11/16/2015] about last week's terrorist attacks in Paris.  Influential liberal columnists and Democratic strategists say Obama came off as condescending and scornful during his press conference in Antalya, Turkey — missing an opportunity to show strength and leadership in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

WaPo to Obama: Grow up.  It's safe to say that Barack Obama's press conference from Turkey impressed few and dismayed many, including some among his usual cadre of supporters.  The Washington Post editorial board issued a sharp rebuke to Obama for his churlish attitude at the presser, and for his continued use of straw-men arguments when dealing with critics.

Obama misses his Churchill moment after Paris attacks.  Following the ISIS attacks on Paris, to say that President Obama looks weak on the world stage would be an understatement.  And Monday's [11/16/2015] performance at the G-20 summit in Antalya, Turkey, was an embarrassment.  In tone, his remarks were defiant, arrogant, and dismissive.  In substance, he offered no ideas or proposals for combating the ISIS threat.

16 Of The Worst Ways To Respond To ISIS' Paris Attack.  [#1] Obama's Press Conference:  President Obama made some brief comments on the evening of the attacks.  "We stand prepared and ready to provide whatever assistance the people of France need to respond," he said.  Also, "This is an attack on all of humanity and the universal values we share."  He didn't explain which universal values he was referring to or how the attacks occurred if the values are, in fact, universal.  The attacks took place the day after Obama said ISIS, a group he once dismissed as the "JV" team, was being contained.

He would prefer not to.  President Obama was visibly annoyed by the questions posed to him at his press conference in Turkey today.  They lacked the deference to his majesty that he has grown accustomed to.

Obama and the Office of the Petulancy.  It's difficult to overstate how poorly Barack Obama performed at Monday's press conference from the G20 summit in Antalya, Turkey.  As France deals with the aftermath of an ISIS attack leaving 132 dead (so far), hundreds wounded, and thousands of lives shattered, the ersatz leader of the free world responded with an embarrassing display of indifference, peevishness, and open contempt. [...] As reporters lobbed obvious questions about Obama's dismissive description of ISIS as a JV team, his broken promise to degrade and destroy the group, and the massive intelligence failure that rocked Europe, he seemed annoyed at all the fuss.

ISIS Is Not a Terrorist Organization.  In Turkey on Monday [11/16/2015], President Barack Obama stated that ISIS is not "a traditional military opponent" and labeled it as a "violent extremist group."  His comments cut directly to the heart of why the U.S. has been so ineffectual in defeating this enemy.  If we don't even recognize it for what it is, how can we defeat it?  ISIS is not a terrorist organization.  It is indeed a state.  It is a "traditional military opponent."  Though ISIS uses unorthodox means and barbaric tactics, it has become a "state" — a state that could have been crippled if not wiped out long ago.


Oval Office prime time address
December 6, 2015.

ISIS, ISIL and Daesh: The Administration's Words Matter.  Last week President Obama addressed the nation in a rare Oval Office speech.  The intent was to assuage concerns that the government isn't doing enough to protect us from radicalized jihadists, like the couple in San Bernardino last week.  But the speech may have raised more questions and apprehensions than provided answers or assurances.  And perhaps the largest is in the language used to describe the threat.  The speech made reference to ISIL sixteen times.  This is itself significant.  ISIL is one of the retired acronyms the organization that prefers to be referred to as the Islamic State has used. [...] The President's insistence on using ISIL could well betray his perpetual downplaying of the influence, scope, motives, and successes of the terrorist group.  After the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, the military vacuum in the country began to be filled by ISIS forces in Northern Iraq.  The President called them "jayvee" terrorists at the time they initially encroached into Iraq.  And even while repeatedly saying they were "contained," they have expanded to include 20% of the 169,234 square mile country.

Why did Obama give that terrorism speech?  President Obama reportedly gave his Oval Office address Sunday night in an effort to make up for a seeming lack of sensitivity to the public's concerns about terrorism in the wake of Paris and San Bernardino.  But in the end, Obama's brief speech — immediately after, he donned a tuxedo and dashed to a Kennedy Center gala — contained no new measures against ISIS, and he spent as much time repeating old warnings not to offend Muslim sensibilities as he spent discussing any particular effort to combat terrorism.

Obama's Top Speech Lies, One By One.  [S]ince our factophobic liberal pals who frequent this blog lack the ability to differentiate between facts and lies, let me ease their stress today by highlighting Obama's lies for them.

Cruz: Obama Is Ignoring Jihadist Threat.  Recent polling shows terrorism and national security among the top concerns of Republican primary voters and several candidates have used the moment to offer proposals to change course from the Obama administration's passive approach.  Cruz points to Obama's address to the nation on ISIS last Sunday as an example of his fecklessness.  The president reported that he knows the enemy well because he sees the threat in his daily intelligence briefing.  But seeing it isn't good enough, Cruz will say, because Obama has "chosen to not to deal with the reality" and "has chosen not to confront the actual enemy."

The President's Disability.  [Scroll down]  As the evidence became clear that the perpetrators of this heinous act [in San Bernardino] were Islamofascists, the president steadfastly refused to call them terrorists.  His stubborn reluctance became a diverting sideshow in the days that followed. When would the president admit the obvious and, by the way, why was he obfuscating the obvious?  Was it part of some bizarre ritual known only to members of the White House staff?  On Friday the director of Mr. Obama's FBI identified the crime as an act of terrorism and he went on to say that the two Muslim killers — down from the suspected three killers — gave "indications of radicalization."  Still the White House refused to identify the killers as terrorists.  In fact, our president only admitted to reality on Sunday during a stupendously defensive address to the American people.

President Obama's Umpteenth Tired, Dishonest Speech On Terrorism.  Once again, President Obama emerged from his permanent sabbatical on the war on terror to inform us, in a bizarre address from the Oval Office, that he has things firmly under control and there's no need for us Americans to be concerned.  Excuse me if I'm not comforted.  Obama has made quite clear that he is blind to the threat that radical Islam represents to America and the rest of the civilized world.  He obviously believes that Islam produces no more or worse terrorists than any other religion or cult and that it is wrong to focus on the radical strain of Islam because it leads to discrimination against other Muslims — discrimination he seems to see under every rock.

Dishonesty, Stupidity, Insults, and Other Problems with the Gun Control Debate.  I remain perplexed by the current "debate" over gun laws.  After President Obama's speech on Sunday, a great many pundits seemed to have raced forward with evaluating the political considerations of pitching new gun control laws for 2016.  However, it seems to me that the logical and rhetorical considerations must be dealt with first.  Indeed, the arguments being mounted in favor of gun control are so terrible every way you look at them that assuming the people making them are being honest or rationally motivated seems to be a major mistake.

President Obama's latest pathetic speech on terror.  President Obama tried yet again Sunday night to convince the nation he's serious about fighting terror, and, as usual, proved the opposite.  Days after the San Bernardino attack, he finally called it terrorism, but he's not offering anything new to combat the menace.  He still won't call it Islamist terror, and still wants to fold these attacks in with nonterror mass shootings — and fight them all with trivial tweaks to the gun-control laws.  Ban gun sales to anyone on the terrorism watch list?  [Indeed,] the list didn't include the Fort Hood shooter, the Tsarnaevs or the latest attackers.  How about getting a watch list that's worth [something]?

The Man Who Can't Stop Lying.  As predicted, Barack Obama attempted to misdirect the American people during his prime-time Oval Office address last night.  The absentee President's relatively brief addressed seemed more concerned with protecting his view of the nature of Islam than the lives of American citizens, and he quickly pivoted towards asserting that American gun owners were the real threat.  Toward this end, Obama pushed his call to weaponize his enemies list.  He wants to be able to arbitrarily put American citizens that he doesn't like on one of several list, and then strip them of their constitutional rights by executive fiat.

Obama To America: My Failed ISIS Strategy Will Continue.  If one were to sum up President Obama's Sunday address on ISIS, it would go something like:  "Fear not, America, for I'm not about to change my anti-terrorism strategy that clearly isn't working."  To understand just how tone-deaf Obama's speech was, compare it with French President Francois Hollande's.

Memo to Obama: Please Stop Pretending To Know 'What ISIS Wants'.  Four times in his Sunday night address to the nation, President Obama explained that he wouldn't take this or that course of action because it's just what ISIS — or as he calls it, ISIL — wants.  We can't depend on tough talk, he said, because "that's what groups like ISIL are hoping for."  Send ground troops into Syria?  "That's just what groups like ISIL want."  We can't let the fight be a war of America and Islam because "that, too, is what groups like ISIL want."  We can't target Muslims in the U.S. for added scrutiny because it "plays into the hands of groups like ISIL."

Obama Interrupts Americans' Sunday Evening To Tell Them He's Doing Nothing New At All To Defeat ISIS.  In a much-hyped prime-time speech, Barack Obama told the nation he will do absolutely nothing new to defeat ISIS — except push for more gun control.  In the 15-minute speech, the President outlined "four steps" he claims his administration will take to "destroy" ISIS — except they're the same four "steps" he's already taking.

Exactly what a Muslim president would do:
Obama tries to calm fears about Islamic State attacks, calls for more gun control.  President Obama tried to reassure Americans on Sunday night that he has the right plan to defeat the Islamic State, using a rare prime-time Oval Office address to urge the public not to take revenge on Muslim Americans in the wake of the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. since 2001.  The president didn't lay out any broad new strategies for defeating the Islamic State, saying the U.S.-led coalition is intensifying its airstrikes against the militants in Syria and Iraq and stepping up military aid to local ground forces.  He also called on Congress to approve new restrictions on guns that he said would make it harder for terrorists to get weapons in the U.S., an action that Republican lawmakers have already rejected.

Why the pundits dismissed the terror speech.  The pundits almost universally panned President Obama's Oval Office address on terrorism.  Nothing new, heard it all before, not much passion:  that was the media consensus.  And at 13 minutes, it was strikingly short for an Obama prime-time speech, or any Obama speech.  To be sure, journalists weren't the target group.

Fighting Terror by Self-Reproach.  Nobody who watched Barack Obama's speech Sunday night outlining his strategy to defeat Islamic State could have come away disappointed by the performance.  Disappointment presupposes hope for something better.  That ship sailed, and sank, a long time ago.  By now we are familiar with the cast of Mr. Obama's mind.  He does not make a case; he preaches a moral.  He mistakes repetition for persuasion.  He does not struggle with the direction, details or trade-offs of policy because he's figured them all out.  His policies never fail; it's our patience that he finds wanting.  He asks not what he can do for his country but what his country can do for him.

Obama: Terrorists Have Embraced 'All Too Common' American Style of Violence: Mass Shootings.  In a nationally televised address on Sunday night, President Barack Obama said that while the San Bernardino terrorists — who murdered 14 Americans — had embraced what he described as a "perverted interpretation of Islam" they had also adopted a form of violence that is "all too common" in America:  mass shootings.  As part of the solution to this type of terrorism, Obama called for more gun control in the United States.

President Obama's ISIS speech was about tolerance, not policy.  [Scroll down]  Obama did make one major pivot in the speech — he sought to directly link the violence committed in San Bernardino, at Fort Hood, Tex., and in Chattanooga, Tenn., with the need for further gun control and cast it all under the aegis of national security.  The response was not surprising.  Republicans rolled their eyes at the idea of a speech about national security and terrorism turning to the need for more gun control.  Democrats argued that the connection was direct and obvious.

Obama interrupts Sunday night TV to preach tolerance and gun control.  President Barack Obama used his Sunday night address on terrorism to reassure the American people that the San Bernardino shootings last week appear to be an isolated incident, despite one of the killers pledging allegiance to ISIS.  The president firmly dismissed a change in strategy in the war against the extremists that would require combat troops on the ground in Iraq and Syria.  And while the terrorist group is made up of 'thugs and killers' and is part of a 'cult of death', he again refused to call them 'radical Islamic terrorists'.  Americans must not take out their grievances with the fanatics on followers of Islam, he said.

Terrorism isn't scaring Americans; Obama is.  Sunday night was only Obama's third Oval Office address.  The first was also overdue, about the Gulf oil spill.  The second was a victory lap about withdrawing all U.S. troops from Iraq, which created the inviting power vacuum for the current ISIS problem.  It's one measure of the detached president's willful public cluelessness about terrorism that the big news from Sunday evening's 1,970 words was his admission that last week's San Bernardino attack killing 14 was terrorism.  Is there any sentient American who hadn't figured that out?

Race-hustling Obama fails to channel FDR, Churchill.  "On Wednesday, 14 Americans were killed as they came together to celebrate the holidays.  They were taken from family and friends who loved them deeply.  They were white and black; Latino and Asian; immigrants and American-born."  Seriously?  The worst terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11 and President Obama is still wearing his race-hustler glasses?  This is just another opportunity to divvy up his people by the color of their skin?  What an embarrassment.

The President's Scary Speech.  It's inspiring when a leader meets a moment and takes charge.  President Obama didn't come close to doing that Sunday night in his Oval Office speech.  If it wasn't a letdown to most Americans, that's only because their expectations were so low.  Obama's streak of failing to come to grips with the terrorist threat, both substantively and rhetorically, remains intact.  He retreated to a euphemism to assess the menace of ISIS.  He said it's "evolving."

Obama Actually Thought He Was Being Reassuring Tonight.  President Obama's Sunday night speech was about three-quarters of what the cynics and his critics expected.  The lone bits of good news were the president's belated acknowledgement that the Fort Hood shooting was terrorism — not "workplace violence" — and that he didn't announce any new executive orders dealing with gun control.  For starters, the optics of this speech were very strange — why stand in front of the desk in the Oval Office?  Did he get poked or get makeup in his left eye right before he went on air?  He seemed to be squinting.  The only other time the president addressed the country on Sunday night, he announced the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.  One expected something new, groundbreaking, or different.  Instead, he offered the same proposals and same arguments.

Rubio: Obama is 'completely overwhelmed'.  Sen. Marco Rubio said President Obama's Sunday night speech did nothing to assure people he's handling the Islamic State aggressively, and said instead that it showed Obama has lost control of the situation.  "People are really scared," the Florida Republican and presidential candidate told Fox News' Bret Baier.  "People are scared not just because of these attacks, but because of a growing sense that we have a president that's completely overwhelmed by them."

Obama Lies About Intelligence Briefings in Speech to Nation.  President Barack Obama tried to reassure the American people from the Oval Office on Sunday evening that he takes the threat of terrorism seriously:  "For seven years, I've confronted this evolving threat each morning in my intelligence briefing."  However, as the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) has shown, Obama skips more than half of his daily intelligence briefings.  The data comes from the White House itself, which has admitted Obama's absence but has said he reads the material on his iPad.

Could you imagine FDR saying, 'We were attacked yesterday at Pearl Harbor.  I really don't want to talk about who did it'.  President Barack Obama's refusal to mention Islamic terrorism as he made his Oval Office address last night was condemned by leading Republicans today.  They seized on the timing of the address — on the eve of Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day — to slam Obama for what one described as a 'partisan speech'.  In the address the Commander in Chief promised that the country would 'overcome' the threat of terrorism and it would destroy the 'thugs and killers', 'and any other organization that tries to harm us.'  His pointed refusal to acknowledge the religion of the radicals had Republicans competing to replace him up in arms once again.

Intelligence Official on ISIS: 'If the Public Knew the Truth, Obama Would be Impeached'.  President Obama addressed an anxious nation last night in an instantly-forgettable, perfunctory speech that was largely devoid of news and announced no meaningful changes to US policies or military strategy.  In an effort to reassure Americans that he's confronting the terrorist threat aggressively (his public approval rating on handling terrorism and ISIS is weak) Obama said, "for seven years, I've confronted this evolving threat each morning in my intelligence briefing."  The public learned several years ago that this president skips his in-person briefings far more frequently than his predecessor, though his staff insists that he reads through the written version of the file on a daily basis.  More important than how he ingests this information is what ends up in front of the president.  We've been following serious, credible claims leveled by dozens of current and former US intelligence professionals who allege that their work product was regularly altered and manipulated to downplay the growing threat and alarming advance of ISIS.  The former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency has stated that the current investigation into these accusations should start at the White House, which he says has subordinated accurate information to political narratives.

The Editor says...
The public doesn't have to know everything before the impeachment of Barack H. Obama is commenced.  If Congress knows the truth and has the collective backbone to act on it, that should be enough.

Obama's ISIS Cover-Up Gets Its Own Speech.  Obama began his speech with a cover-up, suggesting that Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik's bloody San Bernardino massacre was not the work of ISIS.  Whatever dignity his Oval Office speech was meant to convey was lost in his opening sentences as his speech became yet another effort to claim that he hadn't made a mistake by assuring Americans they had nothing to worry about from ISIS right before its latest terror attack.  Farook and Malik were "self-radicalized".  Their attack was not part of a "broader conspiracy".  But ISIS and Al Qaeda have both embraced a strategy of empowering local supporters to carry out their own attacks by giving them the tools and strategies to do so.  Malik pledged allegiance to ISIS.  Farook, according to his father, was a supporter of the Islamic State.  The worst terror attacks in America in recent years were carried out by these independent Islamic terror cells in support of the Jihad.  These so-called "lone wolf" attacks are part of the broader ISIS and Al Qaeda conspiracy.

Muslim Group Praises Obama On Islam And Gun Control Speech.  An Islamic group in the U.S. praised President Barack Obama's Sunday night [12/6/2015] speech on Islam and gun control.  The Center on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Islamic advocacy group in the country, lauded Obama's televised speech, in which Obama urged Americans not to associate all Muslims with the terrorist attacks conducted by Islamic extremists like Islamic State.  The president's marks came after the deadly mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. that left 14 dead and 17 injured.  The FBI is investigating the shooting as terrorism after discovering the Muslim shooters' connection to ISIS.

How Obama Thinks About Terrorism.  At the core of Barack Obama's terrorism speech on Sunday night lay a contradiction.  He gave the address to convince an increasingly fearful nation that he takes the terrorist threat seriously.  But he doesn't, at least not in the way his political opponents do.

Fmr. FBI Counterterrorism Agent: We've Received 'Nearly Zero Help' from U.S. Muslim Community Since 9/11.  Though President Barack Obama claimed that America must "enlist Muslim communities" to combat terrorism in his Sunday evening Oval Office address, former FBI Counterterrorism Agent John Guandolo said on Monday's Breitbart News Daily (6AM-9AM EST on Sirius XM Patriot channel 125) that since 9/11, "we collectively have received nearly zero help from the Muslim Community."


The Pentagon
December 14, 2015.

On his third try, Obama manages to sound tough on ISIS.  In his third try in a month, President Obama on Monday [12/14/2015] finally managed to sound somewhat tough on ISIS.  But it was just new words for the same old approach.  He called the enemy "thugs, thieves and killers" and talked of "squeeze[ing]" ISIS's "heart."  He listed by name seven US-killed terror honchos, then said, "The point is, [ISIS] leaders cannot hide, and our next message to them is, 'You are next.'"  And he cited gains like having dislodged ISIS from 40 percent of the densely populated areas it once controlled.  No more talk of "containing" ISIS, either.

Obama Pentagon Photo-Op Asks Americans To Stay Gullible.  Remember when the dominant liberal media complained about Reagan aide Michael Deaver staging photo-ops, such as having the Gipper walk grandly out from behind a state-of-the-art military plane, to drum up patriotism and support?  At least in Reagan's case, there was substance behind the image.  Americans tuning into the news Monday [12/14/2015] saw Obama in the Pentagon press room, flanked by three generals on his left and another to his right.  Some sort of major announcement?  Hardly.  The event was 100% photo-op, 0% substance.

Obama to Americans: Stay gullible, my friends.  President Obama took no media questions after his Monday [12/14/2015] Pentagon photo op on ISIS.  Smart move.  Because Obama's sad little PR offensive against terrorism these days raises more questions every time he tries to talk coherently. [...] Obama is on a terrorism talking tear right now because he's about to disappear into the Hawaii sunshine for another half-month of vacation.  Yes, Obama's get-away trips are very expensive by the standards of normal Americans.  His weekend golf trips alone this year cost taxpayers almost $2 million, or $20,000 per hole.

Obama's Next ISIS Statement to Come After Pentagon Meeting.  President Obama made just his third Oval Office address to the American people this past Sunday to explain the administration's strategy against ISIS — and after meeting with his advisers first thing next week, he'll be back in front of the cameras offering another explanation.  Obama will be at the Pentagon on Monday [12/14/2015] to, according to White House press secretary Josh Earnest, "chair a National Security Council meeting on the counter ISIL campaign."


Gun control speech
January 5, 2016.

Obama and guns: Eleven false or misleading claims from the president's remarks this week.  With tears in his eyes, President Obama pulled out all the stops in pushing his new executive orders on gun control this week.  A Washington Post headline exclaimed, "President Obama's amazingly emotional speech on gun control."  But the president also tried to appeal to people's minds with a barrage of factual claims.  Unfortunately, the president's remarks had a large number of errors.  Here are 11 of the false or misleading claims that the president made.

Obama, Trump and Executive Power.  President Obama is shamelessly, cynically and hypocritically exploiting a mass shooting to advance his gun control agenda.  The executive actions he proposed recently would have had no preventive impact whatsoever on the San Bernardino incident had they been in place a month ago, yet he is skillfully exploiting that tragedy to reframe the debate.  He is trying to shift our national focus away from a rigorous examination of what motivates mass shooters, which is where it should be, to support for a new set of restrictions on gun ownership and expansions of background checks, under the banner of "common sense."  In his news conference, he again employed his favorite rhetorical device — the strawman argument — saying that he was not trying "to take everyone's guns away," when what he is really attempting is to impose new restrictions on guns by executive fiat rather than by proposing legislative action.  Thoughtful citizens should not allow themselves to be drawn into a discussion of his specific proposals.  We should instead expose the president's underlying agenda, which is to undermine the Second Amendment by casting it as an anachronism that is no longer relevant to a twenty-first century America.

Obama's Gun-Control Order Is Dictatorial, and It Won't Work.  Today [1/5/2016], upset that Congress has refused, in his words, to do "something, anything" to stop gun violence, President Obama released executive actions that bring the country closer to his oft-stated goal of "universal" background checks that cover the private transfer of firearms.  The current law is very clear.  Only federally licensed gun dealers are required to conduct background checks, and only sellers whose "principal objective of livelihood and profit [is] the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms" are required to obtain a federal license.  Anyone "who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms" is specifically exempted from the licensing requirement.

The Tears of a Clown.  Apart from the tears, Obama's remarks were utterly standard for him.  I would translate them as follows.  How great I am.  How good I am.  How much I know.  Modest changes in the law would do great good.  Yet evil forces are arrayed against me.  They hold Congress in its thrall.  Congress itself is driven by narrow political considerations.  Not I.  I am impelled by the true vision of the good that has been vouchsafed unto me.  I stand like a colossus above the fray.

The President Who Fell From Grace.  As easily as he slid into office with no qualifications for the post, Obama is falling from grace with fate and the voters.  His dishonesty and incompetence are too patent.  This week, no sooner had his relatively sparsely viewed presser ended and his clearly manufactured tears about gun violence dried, than his central argument — that gun control, not fighting Islamic terrorism, should be our priority — was exposed as nonsense.

On Guns, Democrats Have Nothing Left But Tears.  A free society can't function if its overriding purpose is to ensure that every single person enjoys a risk-free existence.  If Obama legitimately believes government has an obligation to try and save every single life, he would be calling for a 20-mile-per-hour speed limit on highways and a ban on trampolines, bathtubs, and skateboards.  The world gives us plenty to cry about, but free people innately (or otherwise) understand trade-offs.  We weigh rights, utility, and many other factors before coming to a consensus on policy decisions, even if lives are at risk.  Naturally, this doesn't exclude us from balancing those concerns and making life safer for children — we do it all the time.  But progressive utopianism doesn't offer that balance; it can be perpetual mission creep.

Obama cries over guns, then frees more terrorists.  After President Obama cried while announcing a series of "commonsense executive actions" on gun control, his rare display of emotion stirred plenty of debate.  Would the steps he outlined have prevented any of the recent mass shootings?  Why is he circumventing Congress again?  Were his tears even real?  All good questions.  Yet here's another one that we ought to consider:  Why would someone cry over gun control and mass shootings while simultaneously freeing more terrorists?

Obama White House misfires on gun control and mental illness.  President Obama spoke Tuesday about his "Common Sense Gun Safety Reform" and the White House issued a "fact sheet" on new executive orders to reduce gun violence.  Among these is a plan to spend $500 million to "increase access to mental health care" and a reference to increased reporting of "relevant information about people prohibited from possessing a gun for specific mental health reasons."  First of all, $500 million isn't going to change the nation's access to mental health care without fundamental reform in the way that patients are treated (undertreated) by third-party insurers, who act as gatekeepers.

It was Saul Alinsky who taught Obama How to Cry on Cue.  Over the past seven years, Obama has proven he's anything but a man of good will or good heart.  His contrived tears for the children lost to the Sandy Hook massacre came not within days or weeks of the tragedy, but in fact on his way out the door on January 5, 2016 — some three long years later.  Hard to imagine this professional America hater sniffling into his pillows at the White House, or wiping away a stray tear before taking his next golf swing, or while slurping yet another holiday shaved ice.

Obama Administration's Public Gun Comments at Odds With Written ATF Guidance.  [Scroll down]  One former high-ranking ATF official with decades of experience at the agency said that cases involving somebody who sells firearms without a license are rarely pursued.  "Typically you couldn't get a U.S. attorney to take a case like that because it lacks jury appeal," the former official said.  "You're going to prosecute some old guy for selling one gun?  It would have to be some real special circumstance like a major drug trafficker was caught selling a gun before they press that, and how likely would that be?"  The potential confusion caused by the administration's public comments may result in people applying for licenses they do not need.  "It could tie up resources," the former ATF official said.  "It could keep them from doing compliance inspections."

Obama's gun plan: Crocodile tears and a 'crazy list'.  Even for those of us long tired of the false hopes and outright lies from this White House, President Obama's crude gunplay Tuesday [1/5/2016] was pretty shocking.  It was shocking for its hollowness.  Shocking for its low-mindedness.  Shocking for the complete disdain the man has for all the families of victims of gun violence that he trots out to carry his political water.  And what for?  To save a future life?  Prevent a past death?  No.  He even admitted on live national television that his raft of meaningless proposals will do nothing to prevent a single gun crime [...] nor would they have ever prevented one in the past.

Obama's fake tears?  Several readers noted that if a person applies a dab of menthol or camphor to his fingertip, it can induce tears.  Likely many of us are familiar with this when we inadvertently touch or rub our eye after we've used a substance that is irritating.  (Bengay comes to mind.)  It stings and causes one's eye to get red and to tear — our body's automatic response to remove the substance from our eye.  [A blogger by the name of] willmay posted that there are products called "tear stick" and "tear blower" readily available for actors who need to cry on cue.

A commander-in-chief's crying has consequences.  I've never subscribed to that ancient admonition that real men don't cry. [...] I can imagine the tears of frustration shed by those soldiers and sailors who wash out of elite programs like Ranger and SEAL training, especially those dismissed in the latter stages, after they've endured so much — not exactly the kind of people you'd be inclined to dismiss as crybabies except at your own peril.  But what I've never witnessed is a commanding officer going before a parade field of massed troops and wiping away tears as he discusses new regulations he is about to implement and the reasons that necessitate the changes.  That, in effect, is what our commander-in-chief did recently in his speech about the new executive orders regarding gun control he is preparing to issue.

Showman-in-Chief.  It was beautifully choreographed, like a great ballet, and performed with consummate skill and understated eloquence.  First of all, the scene was set with a room full of people who had lost loved ones to gun violence.  A father whose son had been gunned down made a long introduction before the president showed up, walked down the aisle and up on to the stage to growing applause.  As political theater, it put Donald Trump's rantings in the shade.  As for the substance of what Obama said, there was very little substance, and much of it false, but one of the signs of great artistry was that the presentation overshadowed the substance.

AP Analysis: Obama Executive Actions Wouldn't Have Prevented Mass Shootings.  Despite the fact that President Barack Obama pointed to past mass shootings as justification for a series of gun control executive actions, an Associated Press analysis found that none of Obama's new orders would have prevented those tragedies.  The execution actions, AP's Michael R. Sisak rules "would not have prevented the slaughters of 20 first-graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, or 14 county workers at a holiday party in San Bernardino, California," the two mass shootings Obama alluded to in his Tuesday speech.

The Tearful Dictator.  We've now reached the apex of the Feelings Age.  It no longer matter what good policy looks like.  It no longer matters what the Constitution says.  All that matters is that our politicians care about people like us.  During the 2012 election, Mitt Romney won a wide variety of exit polls regarding policy, from leadership skill to values.  But he lost the election because Obama clocked him 81 percent to 18 percent on the crucial issue of "cares about people like me."  And now Obama has come to collect.  But he can't do it without the tears.  That's because the tears grant him the patina of vulnerability.  No one fears the dictator who shows his human side.

Obama's Dream For Gun Control Would Take More Away Than Your Gun.  The struggle for gun control, according to Obama, is just like the movements to abolish slavery and legalize gay marriage — meaning it's going to be a long battle to achieve the wide-ranging restrictions the Left would like to see placed on firearms.  But Obama promises his executive order will be a small step in the right direction to the type of gun control communist China has.  (Yes, he did in fact cite the authoritarian state's lack of guns as something to aspire to.)  What was so noticeable in the president's speech was the lack of any mention for what motivated the last high-profile shooting in America.  San Bernardino wasn't caused by Syed Farook's assault rifles possessing him and his wife to go out and kill — it was caused by radical Islamic ideology.

Obama's Sound and Fury On Guns.  President Obama unveiled his executive orders and legislative proposals on guns today; [...] For as little as his measures amount to, he need hardly have bothered.  At one point, Obama cried, perhaps out of frustration at not being able to come up with better ideas.  The speech was vintage Obama.

Oh, yes.  The old phony crying act:
How to fake cry with Barack Obama.  Want to learn how to fake cry like Barack Obama did today as his fascist gun control speech?  It's really quite simple.  It's all acting 101.  [This article includes] a video of how Obama faked crying that has since sent the media into a swoon.  The same media who routinely mocked John Boehner from crying.

Obama Referred To Himself 76 Times During Gun Speech.  It's all about Obama all the time.  So it's no surprise that President Obama referred to himself 76 times in his 33 minute speech on gun control.  [Video clip]

Obama cries while issuing new gun orders.  [Scroll down]  Ignoring the recent mass slaughters in Paris, at the Charlie Hebdo offices one year ago and more recently at a music hall, bars and soccer stadium, Obama said no other "advanced country" has as much gun violence as America and it was time to lay aside the polarizing political issues that divide rather than provide "solutions."

The Real Reason Obama's Pushing Gun Control.  On Tuesday [1/5/2016], President Obama unveiled his rather minor executive actions on gun control with great fanfare, applause, and tears.  We laughed; we cried; we questioned why exactly he was wasting political capital on a series of initiatives that largely mirror already-present federal law.  Here's the answer:  he's trying to mobilize his hard-core base.  Obama said during his press conference, "I'm not on the ballot again.  I'm not looking to score some points."  But his party is.  Leftist columnist Greg Sargent of The Washington Post explains that the gun control issue drives hard lefties to the polls.

Obama's gun control lies.  In what was surely the most sickening display of presidential demagoguery in the history of the United States, President Obama wept — wept — crocodile tears in a calculated effort to gain the support of the ignorant, the clueless, and the stupid while announcing multiple violations of the Bill of Rights yesterday [1/5/2015].  Obama's speech alternated between effeminate weeping, pleading, and sanctimonious, holier-than-thou indignation as he presented a litany of falsehoods, straw man arguments, and outright lies as justification for his plan to strip the American public of constitutionally enumerated rights.

Obama Claims He "Believes in the Second Amendment" During Gun Control Executive Action Announcement.  During his remarks, President Obama claimed he is a believer in the Second Amendment and that we can reduce "gun-violence" while respecting constitutional rights.  "I believe in the Second Amendment, it's written right there on the paper," Obama said.  But Obama's history shows otherwise.  Not only did he go around Congress today [1/5/2016] to push his gun control agenda, an action the American people condemn on a variety of issues, he supports extreme gun control measures that are contrary to the Second Amendment according to the multiple Supreme Court rulings.

The Five Most Outrageous Facts About Obama's Executive Gun Control.  A January 4 White House executive order fact sheet previews the executive gun controls Obama will announce Tuesday [1/5/2016].  The five most offensive aspects of those controls:  [#1] The main policy would not have stopped any recent mass shootings. [...] [#2] 225 years of precedent, destroyed — without any legislative due process.

Obama cries for the victims of Newtown as he pushes gun control.  Obama pointedly lambasted Republicans decrying his executive actions and told presidential candidates, including Donald Trump, who have characterized the new measures as the beginning of the end, 'This is not a plot to take away everybody's guns.'  'Contrary to the claims of what some gun rights proponents have suggested, this hasn't been the first step in some slippery slope to mass confiscation,' Obama declared in remarks from the East Room of the White House.  To those who are trying to 'twist' his words on the Second Amendment, Obama reminded them, 'I taught constitutional law.'  'I know a little bit about this,' he said.


Town Hall meeting about gun control
January 7, 2016.

I've never owned a gun says Obama as he defends his position on background checks.  President Barack Obama revealed last night that he's never owned a gun but said that doesn't mean he's spearheading a 'conspiracy' to take away other Americans' constitutional right to purchase firearms.  'I respect the Second Amendment,' Obama said during a town hall hosted at George Mason University by CNN.  'I respect the right to bear arms.  I respect people who want a gun for self-protection, for hunting, for sportsmanship.'  The rhetoric around his gun control agenda, Obama said, 'is so over the top, and so overheated.'

The case of David Lewisbey.  Perhaps the most biggest whopper President Obama retailed at CNN's town hall forum on "gun violence" this past Thursday [1/7/2016] was his support for Second Amendment rights. He obviously detests the Second Amendment and obviously believes Americans should not have the right to own guns.  He therefore bashes the foremost organizational advocate of Second Amendment rights in the United States at every opportunity.  John Lott has testified to Obama's opposition to gun ownership as expressed to him personally by Obama at the University of Chicago Law School.  And so on.  Obama bashed the NRA for declining to appear at the forum staged by CNN.  The NRA protests that it would have been restricted to one prescreened question.  They would in any event have reasonably shied away from serving as a foil for Obama at such an event.

Obama gets away with some whoppers on guns at town hall event.  President Obama's appearance at a town hall meeting Thursday night [1/7/2016] on "Guns in America" was an orchestrated performance by invitation only.  But event, hosted by CNN at George Mason University, saw anchor Anderson Cooper continually surprise the president.  Cooper demonstrated a deft command of the facts related to the gun issue and that came through with his guests and in his questions — though, as the evening unfolded, he continually let the president get away with untruths about his past positions.

Obama Mocks 'Conspiracy' at Forum on Gun Control.  In a prime-time, televised town hall meeting Thursday [1/7/2016], Obama fielded tough questions from high-profile gun control opponents and supporters alike, often answering with sympathy and without confrontation as he tried to reassure Americans there is a middle ground on a fiercely divisive issue.

Obama town hall's biggest stinking plant: Here's everything CNN didn't tell you about disgraced Fr. Michael Pfleger.  When your citizen "town hall" is invitation-only and jointly co-produced by CNN and the Obama White House, every participant is a potted plant. [...] [B]oth Obama and CNN have a long history as manufactured-narrative gardeners.  Right on cue, or rather left on cue, one of the chosen people allowed to question Obama was radical, race-baiting nutball Catholic priest Fr. Michael Pfleger from Obama's Chicago.


State of the Union address
January 12, 2016.

Assessing the Obama Legacy — Against His Own Mileposts.  [For example,] "Promoting immigrant and refugee integration and citizenship awareness."  The southern U.S. border is largely unenforced.  Immigration law is deliberately ignored.  The president's refugee policy was unpopular and proved a disaster, as illustrated by the Boston Marathon bombings, the San Bernardino attack, the Orlando nightclub shooting, and the recent Ohio State University terrorist violence.  Note what Obama's staff omitted:  his doubling of the U.S. debt in eight years, the unworkable and soon-to-be-repealed Affordable Care Act, seven years of anemic economic growth, record labor nonparticipation, failed policy resets abroad, and a Middle East in ruins.

Obama delivers the most boring speech of his presidency.  In what was arguably the most boring major speech of his presidency, Obama didn't even attempt to make a consistent argument or prove the case he was making for his presidency and the glorious moment to which he has brought this country.  He began by saying he was going to keep this one short, but, in fact, it ran more than an hour — and don't think that was due to the thunderous applause continually interrupting him.  There was no thunderous applause.  The text and the sound bites were so dull, even the efforts by his fellow Democrats to provide a positive soundtrack seemed forced and halfhearted.

The state of the presidency: spent.  President Obama's Tuesday night address to Congress was less about the state of the union than the state of the presidency.  And the state of this presidency is spent.  The signs of intellectual exhaustion were everywhere.

Obama's last SOTU reminds us why we're angry.  For the sturdy majority of Americans who have disapproved of President Obama's job performance for most of the past seven years, the best that can be said about Tuesday's State of the Union address is that it was his last. [...] Oddly — and this might have been the singular highlight of the hour-long speech — Obama seemed to acknowledge helping topple his top congressional allies when he conceded his role in the ongoing enmity that divides Washington in particular and the nation in general.

Mr. Obama, here's why closing Guantanamo is a big mistake.  In his final State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Obama promised to "keep working to shut down the prison at Guantanamo" and said "it's expensive, it's unnecessary, and it only serves as a recruitment brochure for our enemies."  But he couldn't be more wrong.  Guantanamo Bay is a first-rate detention facility that's kept terrorists off the battlefield and kept America safe.  It's critical role in our national security cannot be overstated.  Early last year, I visited Guantanamo Bay and witnessed prisoner operations.  I saw firsthand that it is not the barebones prison camp President Obama purports it to be.  In fact, it couldn't be further from the picture he's painted for the public.

The befuddled president without a clue.  He seems to understand now, after it was explained to him at some length, that America is indeed the exceptional nation that Abraham Lincoln said it is, but not for the reasons Mr. Obama thinks.  "The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth, period," Mr. Obama told the nation in his State of the Union address earlier this week.  "It's not even close.  We spend more on our military than the next eight nations combined."  That's rich, from the man who has starved the military for resources and has set out to inflict mortal damage on the great fighting machine by remaking it to answer the sighs and whispers of feminist wishes and dreams.

Economic Decline 'Fiction'? Tell That To The Urban Poor.  In his State of the Union speech, Obama declared that "anyone claiming that America's economy is in decline is peddling a fiction."  But a new report from the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution finds that incomes among the poorest fifth of households was significantly lower than it was in 2007.  Of the 100 cities it examined, incomes fell an overall average of 12%, according to the report's data.  In some, the drop was huge — 34% in Stockton, Calif., 31% in New Haven, Conn., and 30% in Lakeland, Fla.

Obama's SOTU Versus Reality.  Obama claimed that there are no existential threats facing this nation, that his economy is robust, that his educational record is stellar, that people who are skeptical that global warming is man-made are fools, that the United States is more respected internationally now than it was before he took office, that Obamacare has lived up to its promises, that the military is overfunded, that ISIS members are just fanatics and killers riding around in pickup trucks, that his "clean energy" programs are superior, that people who support entitlement reform are the irresponsible ones — saying we should actually double down on these bankrupting boondoggles — that proponents of an orderly immigration system are bigots, that Ted Cruz's pledge to aggressively pursue the Islamic State is code for deliberately bombing innocent civilians, that he himself deserves praise for reducing the deficit, that he values bipartisanship and compromise and ideas other than his own, that it's morning in America and that he's just getting warmed up and planning on engineering further transformational change at the expiration of his term.  Can you imagine having this record of failure, bragging about it and promising to deliver more misery into the indefinite future?  It would be like the owner of the Chicago Cubs pledging to keep winning the World Series.

The Best And Worst Of Obama's SOTU.  These are the same policies that Hillary or Bernie would continue, and even make worse. [...] Obama could have made real investments in alternatives, pushing for research and projects that would work, rather than rewarding campaign donors who had projects of a dubious nature.  He could have pushed for next generation nuclear.  He could have put the USA on a true path to renewable energy.  Sadly, no.

Vintage Whine From Divider In Chief.  President Obama's speech Tuesday was less a State of the Union and more of a lamentation over the loss of his popularity, and the failure of the world to understand and appreciate his wonderfulness. [...] He expressed great sorrow and deep sadness over the rancor, suspicion, partisanship, division, cynicism, gridlock, lack of compromise and overall dysfunction that have consumed Washington on his watch.  He was supposed to be the great uniter, but his presidency has left the parties more divided than ever.  And he claims to rue that legacy.

Obama Still Blames ATMs For The Lousy Job Market.  It's almost as if Obama got his last State of the Union speech mixed up with his first, where he listed all those problems.  In his first month in office, Obama could blame his predecessors for the sorry state of working-class America.  And that's exactly what he did.  In his 2009 State of the Union speech, he blamed "an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity," where "regulations were gutted," and "critical debates and difficult decisions were put off."  But after seven years at the helm of the nation's economy, Obama can't blame his predecessors, nor does he want to accept any blame himself.

Obama Brags About Killing Bin Laden As He Frees Bin Laden's Bodyguards.  In his State of the Union speech, the president bragged:  If you doubt my commitment to punishing terrorists, "just ask Osama bin Laden."  So why is he releasing several of bin Laden's bodyguards from Guantanamo?

Obama promises a cure for cancer 'once and for all'.  Last night, the president invoked the Moon landing to announce his initiative to cure cancer — "once and for all."  But someone should have whispered into the president's ear that the idea we can eradicate all cancer is a myth and that despite the government spending more than $200 billion on cancer research since the 1970s, the rate of cancer deaths overall has not fallen in 50 years.

The Editor says...
Yeah, maybe this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.  V2hhdCBhIGRvcGUh  

Obama tasks Biden with 'moonshot' bid to cure cancer.  The United States will launch a "moonshot" effort to cure cancer, President Barack Obama declared, assigning his deputy Joe Biden to lead the effort. [...] "For the loved ones we've all lost, for the family we can still save, let's make America the country that cures cancer once and for all," Obama said in his final State of the Union address.

Obama's last State of the Union address in three words.  For someone as skilled at giving a speech as our forty-fourth president, Mr. Obama failed miserably at either inspiring or informing us of the real State of the Union.  What he did do is give a political campaign speech.  It was disjointed, irrelevant and disappointing.  He is not running for a third term and the agenda he laid out is not what the country wants or feels.  He looked tired and ready to move on.

Obama's SOTU: 'Anyone Claiming That America's Economy Is In Decline Is Peddling Fiction'.  Barack Obama — in his final presidential State of the Union address — claimed that though "a lot of Americans feel anxious," the current state of the American economy is not in decline.  "Anyone claiming that America's economy is in decline is peddling fiction," the president notes in prepared remarks released to the press.  "What is true — and the reason that a lot of Americans feel anxious — is that the economy has been changing in profound ways, changes that started long before the Great Recession hit and haven't let up."

Obama decries 'politics,' downplays terror threat in final State of the Union.  Frustrated by Republican presidential candidates' attacks on his leadership, President Obama urged the nation and his successor in his final State of the Union address Tuesday night to "fix our politics" and complete his agenda of restrained American power abroad and income equality at home.  "The future we want — opportunity and security for our families; a rising standard of living and a sustainable, peaceful planet for our kids — all that is within our reach," Mr. Obama said.  "But it will only happen if we work together.  It will only happen if we fix our politics."

The Editor says...
When he says "fix our politics," is that like "fixing" the election?

Obama Mocks 'Rhetoric' About America Getting Weaker, Joint Chiefs Not Amused.  Because they know the truth, they're not taken in by the Obama lies, and they have a lot to be worried about.  [Video clip]

Top 10 Lies in Obama's State of the Union.  [#7]  "No nation dares to attack us or our allies because they know that's the path to ruin."  Of all the lies in Obama's speech, this was undoubtedly the worst, coming hours after Iran seized two U.S. Navy boats and ten sailors.  Obama did not even mention those Americans in captivity at any point in his speech, declining the chance to reassure the nation that they would come home safely.  It is an omission that will define this address in history.

Obama makes the case for his legacy.  [Scroll down]  And so the tone was optimistic:  "The future we want — opportunity and security for our families; a rising standard of living and a sustainable, peaceful planet for our kids — all that is within our reach."  But that message also served another political purpose.  With the election coming up in November the none too subtle sub-text of that is:  All this is within your reach providing you don't change course.  In other words, don't embrace a Republican candidate.

The Editor says...
A "peaceful planet" is out of the question.  The Bible says there will always be wars, ending with the biggest one of all time.  Armageddon is gonna happen.  A "sustainable" planet is something only an idiot would propose.  We do not sustain the planet.  A rising standard of living is "within our reach" only after socialism (i.e., the Democratic Party) is defeated.

2016 Democrats lavish praise on Obama; Clinton fundraises off speech.  Democratic presidential candidates Tuesday night [1/12/2016] lauded President Obama as he delivered his final State of the Union address, making the case that the progress seen over the last seven years would be undone if a Republican takes the White House.  Even as Mr. Obama was still speaking, Hillary Clinton's campaign sent out a fundraising email praising the president's leadership.

'Few Regrets'.  Full text of the final Barack Obama State of the Union Address.

Obama hangs up his magic wand.  Just at the moment when Hillary Clinton started tearing into Bernie Sanders' warning that there's no "magic wand" to fix Washington, President Barack Obama showed up for his State of the Union to brag about how well he's waved his.  Just at the moment when the Republican primary candidates are out-glooming each other about the country and the world and the last seven years of this presidency, Obama spent an hour of prime-time television insisting that things are better than any of them thinks is true.

Exactly the condition he was in when first elected:
A president out of touch, out of ideas.  What did we learn?  First, the president is either utterly unaware of or unwilling to admit his own role in perpetuating divisiveness and polarization.  After seven years of accusing Republicans of everything from "social Darwinism" to putting party above country, he now insists we "need to fix our politics."  It seems that is what he promised to do seven years ago, and obviously was exceptionally unsuccessful.

President Obama's last hurrah.  In a leaked peek at his final State of the Union address Tuesday night, he says that he wants to focus on "the big things" that will have importance "in the years to come."  Among these are his "successes" in handling of the economy, climate change and gun control.  The president frets over the legacy he will leave a year and 10 days from now, but measured by his job performance ratings after his seven years in office, his accomplishments, as gauged from inside the bubble where presidents live, they're not so thrilling for the American people.  There's not enough pomp and circumstance available even to a president of the United States to change that.

Put an empty cradle on Obama's empty chair.  It's not an empty chair that should be the focus of President Barack Obama's last State of the Union address tonight, but an empty cradle.  In consideration of Obama's intensely pro-abortion presidency; in searing memory of the closing words of his 2013 Planned Parenthood address:  "Thank you, Planned Parenthood, God bless you", the symbolic chair he is having placed center stage to represent those who lost their lives to gun violence, is as phony as the artificial tears he supposedly 'wept' at last Monday's gun control press conference.

State of the Union Winners and Losers: the Special Interests Edition.  In his final State of the Union address Tuesday, President Obama applauded a number of special interests, while criticizing others.  Here's a rundown of who and what initiatives drew praise from the president, and the ones who got the short straw on Tuesday night.


Invited guests

Most of the commentary on Obama's last State of the Union address centered on the invited guests, who were carefully positioned to illustrate dramatic points about left-wing issues.

Obama's Refugee Guest Is Safe — So They All Must Be.  As I reminded people on Monday [1/11/2016], Obama had an illegal immigrant child sitting with Michelle during last year's dog and pony show.  So this is just the guilt-trip du jour.  And this invited refugee is hardly emblematic or remotely representative of the others he wants to bring here.  The invitee is a 55 year old scientist from Syria who's been living in Detroit for the past month.  He claims "his family home was destroyed by a bomb, killing his wife, daughter and five other relatives."  Was it one he made?  Sorry — I couldn't resist.  I guess he is now all alone.  So I found it odd when the refugee scientist Refaai Hamo said, "I was thrilled when I heard that President Barack Obama is welcoming us into the United States."  Us?  Who's us?  I thought his family was killed?  The report neglected to explain this apparent disparity.  They also neglect to reveal what kind of scientist he is.  But no matter.  This guy was hand picked to be the face of the non-threatening Muslim refugee.  And because he is non-threatening — I guess we are to believe they will all be equally.

Leaders of Designated Terrorist Group Invited to State of the Union.  When President Barack Obama takes the stage tonight for his State of the Union address to the American people, he will be doing so with at least two individuals associated with terrorism seated in front of him.  The individuals, Nezar Hamze and Sameena Usman, are leaders of CAIR and have involvement with Islamic Relief, two groups that have been named terrorist organizations by the government of United Arab Emirates (UAE).  Nezar Hamze is the CEO and Regional Operations Director of the Florida statewide chapter of CAIR.  Hamze is attending the State of the Union (SOTU) at the behest of United States Congressman Alcee Hastings, Democrat from Florida.  Sameena Usman is the Government Relations Coordinator of the San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA) chapter of CAIR.  Usman is attending SOTU at the behest of Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, Democrat from California.

Another Dubious State of the Union Guest.  A New Jersey Muslim community leader attending tonight's State of the Union Address with Sen. Cory Booker also serves as treasurer of a political group which strongly supports the Muslim Brotherhood and demands its return to power in Egypt, documents discovered by the Investigative Project on Terrorism show.  Ahmed Shedeed is president of the Islamic Center of Jersey City.  In explaining his invitation, Booker said Shedeed "has spoken out for religious tolerance and mutual understanding" and shows "how the diversity of America makes us all better."  Shedeed also serves on New Jersey's Homeland Security Interfaith Advisory Council.

Muslim Guest of Debbie Wasserman Schultz Also a Democratic Donor.  Debbie Wasserman Schultz's decision to make a Muslim-American doctor her VIP guest at President Obama's final State of the Union address was portrayed by the chair of the Democratic National Committee as sending a "very strong message" against prejudice, but it turns out that she was killing two birds with one stone:  Dr. Mohsin Jaffer has contributed thousands of dollars to Wasserman Schultz and fellow Democrats.  "I conceived the notion of inviting a Muslim-American constituent and encouraging my colleagues to do so, so we can send a very strong message on the most important day of the year," Schultz told reporters.  "The rhetoric and vitriol that has been targeted at this community has been absolutely outrageous and unacceptable."

Rep. Joe Courtney Heeds Call Of Dem Leaders, Invites Muslim Leader to State of the Union.  Connecticut U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) intends to bring the president of the state's chapter of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community as his guest at the State of the Union address.  The invitation comes following a CBS News report in mid-December that Democratic National Committee chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Muslim-American Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) urged Democrats to challenge Donald Trump's recommendation that the United States temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States by inviting a Muslim-American as a guest to the State of the Union address.

Democrats plan show of support for Muslims at Obama's address.  California Rep. Ami Bera chose Sarmed Ibrahim as his guest for President Obama's last State of the Union address.  Ibrahim is one of the engineers who helped set up the first internet and media companies in post-Sadaam Iraq.  He was targeted by Al Qaeda and fled to the United States.  He and his family now reside in Sacramento, California.

Cory Booker Brings Israel Critic, Muslim Brotherhood Defender to SOTU.  Sen. Cory Booker's (D., N.J.) guest of honor at tonight's State of the Union address is an Islamic-American community leader who has publicly lashed out at Israel and once defended the Muslim Brotherhood organization as "misunderstood," according to various reports.  Booker has invited as his guest to the annual speech Ahmed Shedeed, president of the Islamic Center of Jersey City, a community center tied to the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.  While Booker and others have long touted Shedeed as a moderate Muslim voice, the leader has gone on record in the past criticizing Israel and defending the Muslim Brotherhood, according to reports.

In his final act, Obama makes Clint Eastwood's day.  Since Ronald Reagan, presidents have invited a covey of politically-symbolic guests to sit with the presidential spouse in the House gallery during each State of the Union Address. [...] Obama's other 23 politically-correct guests include an ex-con prison reformer, a middle-aged community college student, a soldier, a mayor, a global-warming activist, a recovering substance abuser, an ObamaCare navigator, an Alaskan native tribal member, a homeless advocate and, of course, a Syrian refugee.  They, a nationwide TV audience and new House Speaker Paul Ryan will hear Obama read his last State of the Union Address, boasting of the grand economic progress the nation has enjoyed under his leadership.


The Republican rebuttal

Nikki Haley uses State of Union response to bash Trump and praise illegals.  Longtime readers know that I am not exactly the strongest supporter of Donald Trump.  As a big employer of illegal aliens and a five-time party switcher, his commitment lends itself to some doubts.  But that is no excuse to criticize him in a forum meant to represent the Republican Party response to the Democratic Party.  That is, however, just what South Carolina governor Nikki Haley did.

Busted! — Republican State of Union Response Carried Amnesty Pledge in Spanish Version.  There is a bigger controversy about to break wide-open that's potentially far more significant than Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell approving Nikki Haley's non-subtle attack on GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.  That bigger controversy is the Spanish version of the GOP State of the Union rebuttal containing an "amnesty pledge".

In GOP State of the Union responses, different messages in English and Spanish on immigration.  The Republican Party's immigration split was reflected Tuesday in the two responses hand-picked party members gave — one in English, one in Spanish — to President Obama's final State of the Union address.  The Spanish version, offered by a Cuban-American congressman from Miami, was decidedly softer.


Baltimore mosque
February 3, 2016.

In anticipation of the speech:

WH: Obama Plans to Discuss 'Religious Freedom' and His Own Faith While Visiting Md. Mosque.  "The president is certainly looking forward to his trip to the Islamic Society of Baltimore," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Monday [2/1/2016].  "It will be an opportunity for the president to celebrate the contributions that Muslim-Americans have made to our nation, but to also reaffirm the importance that religious freedom has to our way of life."  It also will be an opportunity for Obama "to talk about the role that faith plays even in his own life."

The Editor says...

The Editor says...
The number one lie about Islam is that it is a "religion of peace."  The number two lie about Islam is that its followers have made great contributions to the United States and to the world at large, throughout history.  Well, you may recall the Muslims made a big contribution to our country on September 11, 2001.  It's because of the Muslims that airline passengers have to get the TSA treatment at the airport.  They are the reason the Department of Homeland Security exists.  They put Garland and Chattanooga and San Bernardino on the map.  Without the Muislims, we would never have heard of Nidal Hasan, Bowe Bergdahl, "honor killing", Allahu Akbar, suicide bombers, or sharia law.  Who knew there were people (outside of a mental hospital) who were willing to commit murder because they were offended by cartoons?  Yeah, they've contributed so much.  Thanks for nothing!

Mosque Obama Visiting Graduated Terrorist Who Targeted Federal Building.  President Obama is conferring legitimacy on a Baltimore mosque the FBI just a few years ago was monitoring as a breeding ground for terrorists, after arresting a member for plotting to blow up a federal building.  IBD has learned that the FBI had been conducting surveillance at the Islamic Society of Baltimore since at least 2010 when it collared one of its members for plotting to bomb an Army recruiting center not far from the mosque in Catonsville, Md.

Obama's mosque visit will counter 'offensive' GOP.  Obama's message to Muslims and all Americans is to underscore "the important role that Muslim Americans play in our society and to affirm our conviction in the principle of religious liberty, that law-abiding Americans should be able to worship God in the manner that they see fit, consistent with their religious heritage and traditions in a way that doesn't subject them to either interference from the government or, frankly, divisive rhetoric on the campaign trail," [White House spokesman Josh] Earnest said.

The Editor says...
What does that mean?  Obama wants to outlaw "divisive rhetoric" pertaining to Islam?  Why is Mr. Obama so eager to defend Islam, when he hasn't shown such support for Christians?  The answer is obvious:  He's one of them, not one of us.


Reaction to the speech:

What Is The Deal With Obama And Islam?  There are those who claim that the president is in fact a Muslim.  Whether Obama is or not I find to be irrelevant, as he has demonstrated his preference for them at every opportunity during his interminable 7+ years in office.  Whenever he has been provided with a choice of what is best for America, or what is best for Islam, he has chosen Islam.  Americans should find that consistency daunting indeed, and it's backed up by several statements throughout his tenure, such as, "there is no future for those who slander the prophet."  The most recent example of this could be observed in a speech Obama gave at a terrorist-supporting mosque in Baltimore two weeks ago, in which he not only extolled the myriad wonders of Islam, but also warned in perilous tones of the rampant Islamophobia of which Americans are guilty.  In this remarkable delivery, he included his oft-used claims regarding one of the greatest of our Founders, Thomas Jefferson and his devotion to Islam.  These are all, of course, complete fabrications though they do seem to actually seem to exist in the alternate universe in which Obama lives.

You Don't Know What Obama Said at the Mosque.  If you seek to understand Barack Obama and his views, the best place to go is his speeches.  But you have to read them in their entirety, not rely on hearing them or on the media's summary of them.  When you do, you come to realize how often what Obama says is morally and intellectually confused and even untrue.  The most recent example was his speech last week at a mosque in Baltimore.  In addition to reassuring Muslim Americans that they are as American as Americans of every other faith — a point that any president, Republican or Democrat, would and should make — President Obama spoke a lot of nonsense, some of it dangerous nonsense.

Barack Hussein Obama: America's First Defender-In-Chief Of Islam.  Obama mouthed no fewer than 20 flagrant falsehoods during his 5,000-word speech, including:  "For more than 1,000 years, people have been drawn to Islam's message of peace.  And the very word itself, Islam, comes from salam — peace."  In fact, Islam means "submission," a very different matter.  Submitting to Allah and obtaining submission from others, if necessary by force, is the great commission of Islam.  Peace, or salam, is achieved when the world submits to Allah's laws.  OBAMA:  "Islam prohibits terrorism, for the Quran says whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind."  FACT:  The Quranic verse the president quotes — 5:32 — actually condones killing those who "murder" Muslims, "wage war against Allah" or spread "mischief in the land."  Mischief is defined as "treason against Allah," and the very next verse — 5:33 — calls for guilty infidels to be beheaded.  Obama glosses over all of this in his edited version.

President Obama takes veiled jab at Trump in speech during his first visit to an American mosque.  President Barack Obama on Wednesday [2/3/2016] slammed what he called 'inexcusable' anti-Muslim rhetoric in the political sphere — a veiled jibe at Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump and others.  Making his first visit to a mosque while in office, Obama praised American Muslims as upstanding citizens and thanked them for helping their community.

Not Who We Are': At Mosque, Obama Laments 'Inexcusable' Anti-Muslim Rhetoric.  President Obama delivered remarks this afternoon [2/3/2016] at a Baltimore mosque in the first visit to a U.S. mosque of his presidency.  The president lamented the fact that he's received letters recently from Muslim-American teens who are concerned about their safety and from Muslim-American adults fearful about their children being mistreated at school.  "I've had people write to me and say:  I feel like I'm a second-class citizen," he noted.

The Editor says...
I suspect that supportive letters to Obama are written by someone in the White House — probably the same person who wrote the rest of his speech.  But even if genuine, the letter is based on an invalid complaint.  Muslims in the U.S. are treated remarkably well, considering how much trouble they have stirred up in the last 40 years.

Obama makes first U.S. mosque visit.  President Barack Obama, in his first visit to a mosque in the United States, said Wednesday [2/3/2016] he was seeking to rebut "inexcusable political rhetoric against Muslim-Americans" from Republican presidential candidates.  Attempting to recast what he said was a warped image of Islam while encouraging members of the faith to speak out against terror, Obama described Muslims as essential to the fabric of America. [...] As he decried GOP counterterror plans that would single out Muslims for extra scrutiny, Obama insisted that applying religious screens would only amplify messages coming from terrorist groups.

The Editor says...
Something tells me the people at that mosque are quite familiar with "messages coming from terrorist groups."

Jasser Slams Obama for Choosing to Visit Baltimore Mosque.  [Dr. Zuhdi] Jasser, an author and founder of the The American-Islamic Forum for Democracy, said he believes Obama is using Muslims as a "political prop."  Jasser said this mosque is "heaped in Salafism and ideology that is really incompatible with Western identity."  He noted that a sermon at the mosque a few years ago featured a speaker who called homosexuals "deviants" and claimed they have a "mental disorder."  "He's basically using Muslims as a prop, who disagree with his own liberal values.  It's bizarre," he explained, adding that the president should have chosen a mosque with more modern views.

Obama At Muslim Brotherhood-Linked Mosque: "Muslim Americans Keep Us Safe".  While Obama has been President, Muslims have murdered non-Muslims, avowedly in the cause of Islam, at Fort Hood, Boston, Chattanooga, and San Bernardino, and attempted to do so in many, many other places.  Imagine if armed Baptists screaming "Jesus is Lord" had committed murder, and explained that they were doing so in order to advance Christianity, in four American cities, and had attempted to do so in many others.  Imagine that those killers were supporters of a global Christian movement that had repeatedly called for attacks on U.S. civilians and declared its determination to destroy the United States.  Imagine how incongruous it would be in that case for the President of the United States to visit a church and say:  "The first thing I want to say is two words that Christian Americans don't hear often enough:  Thank you."  And imagine how unlikely it would be that Barack Obama would ever have done that.

Mosque Obama Visited Under FBI Surveillance Starting in 2010.  Today [2/3/2016], President Barack Obama made the first appearance at a U.S. mosque in his seven-year presidency.  He and the Council on American-Islamic Relations selected the Islamic Society of Baltimore for the big event.  He made some valid points and included some touching moments, but detractors are continuing to rail against his choice of mosques.  In 2010, the Islamic Society of Baltimore was placed under FBI surveillance following the arrest of one of its members.  The member had been planning to bomb an Army recruiting center near the mosque in Catonsville.

Obama's Mosque Speech Was A Dangerous Fantasy.  For eight years now, the president has reprimanded the American people for their attitudes about Islam.  And Barack Obama's big speech to the Islamic Society of Baltimore — granted, filled with many harmless platitudes — was no different, leaving little room for any honest dialogue about ideology or faith.  Many of the president's ideas about "tolerance," in fact, are antithetical to the American experience, not something to celebrate.  Acceptance of outsiders is an American virtue, yes.  Do we have to embrace all ideas, as well?  Obama has conflated tolerance of individuals and groups with tolerance of a select belief system — one that he demands be immune from criticism.

President Obama: "TV Shows Should Have Muslim Characters That Are Unrelated to National Security".  In a direct response to anti-Muslim rhetoric from Republican presidential candidates, President Obama visited an American mosque for the first time during his presidency on Wednesday [2/3/2016].  While there, according to Deadline, he criticized the news media and TV producers for failing to depict Muslims in stories other than ones relating to national security, where they're usually terrorists or refugees rather than the regular people the vast majority of Muslim-Americans are.

The Editor says...
It is unclear if Mr. Obama is attempting to dictate the content of entertainment programming or news coverage.  In either case, he is outside his authority.

In mosque visit, Obama says U.S. Muslims under siege, blames media.  With barely 11 months left in his tenure, Barack Obama has made his first visit to a U.S. mosque.  There, he painted a grim picture of American Muslims under siege by an angry nation fearful of that faith's adherents merely due to popular culture and media depictions of Muslims as terrorists.  He also blamed unnamed political actors for fomenting hate and fear, likely for political advantage:  "You've seen too often people conflating the horrific acts of terrorism with the beliefs of an entire faith.  And of course, recently, we've heard inexcusable political rhetoric against Muslim Americans that has no place in our country.  No surprise, then, that threats and harassment of Muslim Americans have surged."

The Editor says...
If any Muslim in America was ever threatened, would that not be front-page news?  Have you heard of any such case in the last ten years?

Obama, in radical mosque, calls for other religions to be tolerant.  As the body count at the hand of Islamic extremists continues to rise in America, shouldn't the president be trying to come up with a way to defend Judeo-Christian types, who cling to guns and the Bible, from Islamic jihadi types who cling to machetes and the Quran?  Guess not, because for his first visit to a U.S. mosque, Obama chose a congregation where a Sudanese native and former member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Adam el-Sheikh, was chief imam for almost twenty years.  Why would a U.S. president even give credence to a congregation once led by a man who also lent a hand in founding the Muslim American Society, a Muslim Brotherhood-established organization interested in advancing sharia law?

Obama's Islamophobia.  Barack Obama suffers from serious case of the real Islamophobia — fear of telling the truth about Islam.  Even though a "progressive," he says nary a word about the rampant misogyny and homophobia in Islam or about Sharia law whose medieval strictures are preferred by 51% of American Muslims.  Nor does he seem to care that so few of these same American Muslims actively oppose radical Islam.  The president prefers the Hamas-linked CAIR to courageous reformers like Dr. Zuhdi Jasser.  But that's no surprise.  For Obama, radical Islam doesn't even exist.  Instead, he claims American citizens are mistreating their Muslim brothers and sisters when anyone with a web browser can see that simply isn't true and is yet another Obama lie.

Finally, Obama Will Confront America's Most Dangerous Enemy.  All that rhetoric against Muslims has led to exactly zero deaths in the United States, which is less than you would expect to happen just as a matter of overall homicide statistics in the United States.  But still, it's such an important problem that in order to combat it, Obama is willing to enlist the help of some controversial allies:  extremist Muslims who hate America. [...] I don't think that Obama is some sort of secret Muslim at all.  I don't really believe he has any religious authority higher than himself.  But let's ask this:  how would his Presidency have looked different at all if he was?

Reality TV: Obama at the Mosque.  [Scroll down]  Yesterday at the mosque President Obama did not send a message of religious pluralism, but of religious preference.  Pluralism is what we had in this country before the Islamic invasion that is part of Obama's legacy. [...] Obama lectures Americans on how they should respect and revere Islam.  Would it be appropriate to inquire of prospective Muslim immigrants their opinion of Jews and Judaism and of Christians and Christianity?  Can we ask if they believe they would be bound by laws here, rather than by Sharia?  Why doesn't Obama talk about any of this?

Obama: 'I'm not the first' president accused of being a Muslim.  President Obama said Wednesday that he's in "good company" when critics claim that he's secretly a follower of Islam.  "Thomas Jefferson's opponents tried to stir things up by suggesting he was a Muslim, so I'm not the first," Obama said Wednesday [2/3/2016] at the Islamic Society of Baltimore, making him the first president to enter an American mosque.  "It's true, look it up," he said to laughs.

The Editor says...
Did Mr. Obama go to the mosque to deny that he is a Muslim, or to confirm it?

Washington Post Airbrushes Obama's Mosque Visit.  Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post provides a near-worshipful account of President Obama's Wednesday [2/3/2016] visit to a Baltimore mosque. [...] Jaffe describes the Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque as "a simple house of worship."  Post readers are never informed that things at the mosque aren't quite that simple.  As Scott [Johnson] has pointed out, just a few years ago the FBI was monitoring this mosque as a breeding ground for terrorists, after arresting a member for plotting to blow up a federal building.  Agents secretly recorded a number of conversations with a 25-year-old Muslim convert — Antonio Martinez, aka Muhammad Hussain — and other Muslims who worshiped there.  According to the criminal complaint, Martinez said he knew "brothers" who could supply him weapons and propane tanks.

Obama at the Mosque.  Yesterday, the President visited a Mosque in Baltimore to give a speech intended for the greater Muslim community.  That his choice of a location raised some eyebrows even among the "moderate Muslims" the White House so fervently courts was typical of the tone-deaf arrogant ideologues that comprise this administration.  But the real missed opportunity was unsurprisingly in what the President had to say to the American adherents of Islam who gathered to hear him speak.  Naturally there were the typical platitudes:  "Thank you for lifting up the lives of your neighbors, and for helping keep us strong and united as one American family."  There were the usual sob-stories:  "I've had mothers write and say, 'my heart cries every night,' thinking about how her daughter might be treated at school."  There was a banal pean to multiculturalism:  "This is a moment when, as Americans, we have to truly listen to each other and learn from each other."

President Obama's Lecture from the Mosque: The Rest of the Story.  From watching and listening to President Barack Hussein Obama lecture all of us as he spoke at the Balitmore Mosque last week... he not only looks entirely comfortable there, heck, you would have thought he was the main cleric for the Mosque.  He used their language because he knows it.  The teachings of Mohammed flowed naturally off of his lips, because he was raised with it.  Earlier he announced to the world in his book that the most beautiful sound in the world in the Islamic call to prayer.  He also once announced that if political winds ever turned against Islam, that he would stand with Islam... and that is what he is doing. [...] For all the world, the President sounds more like a recruiter or missionary for Islam more than he sounds like a President of the United States.

Obama's Mosque Visit Misstates Both Current Events and History.  Because American opinion is suspicious of Muslims, following various Islamic extremist/terrorist attacks in America and elsewhere, with special attention being given to killing Christians when they can be found, our Obama decided to give moral support and backing to The Islamic Society of Baltimore and give them a word of comfort, even though the FBI has this same Mosque under surveillance following the discovery of one of its members having planned to bomb an Army recruiting center in Catonsville, Maryland. [...] At the Mosque, Obama apologized for America's "inexcusable political rhetoric".  Really, Barry?  Exactly what is this rhetoric and when has it been spouted?


Cuba
March 22, 2016.

Obama's Inglorious Speech.  President Obama's so-called "remarks to the Cuban people" — delivered in Havana and broadcast throughout Cuba on Tuesday the 22nd of March 2016 — were not in the least surprising or remarkable.  It was a classic example of Obamaspeak:  a complex, interwoven tapestry of vague platitudes, potentially inspiring anecdotes, artificial myths, and outright lies, laced with several references to himself and a few strands of actual truth.  Nonetheless, the speech was somewhat memorable, for two reasons, both of which relate to context.

No, Mr. President, 1776 Wasn't Anything Like Castro's 1959 Putsch.  In his Tuesday [3/22/2016] address to the Cuban people, Obama declared that the communist takeover that led to the Castros' 57-year dictatorship was a "liberation movement," same as America's 1776 revolution.  Obama's well-known for his false equivalencies, but this one stands out for its idiocy.  "Here's my message to the Cuban government and the Cuban people," Obama said.  "The ideals that are the starting point for every revolution, America's revolution, Cuba's revolution, the liberation movements around the world, these ideals find their truest expression, I believe, in democracy."  It must have drawn a stifled horse-laugh from Cuban military dictator Raul Castro.

The Man Who Thinks Austrian is a Language Complains Americans Don't Know Languages.  Our Beloved Leader continues his apology tour/vacation by telling foreigners how much America [lacks].  In Argentina, Obama complained that Americans don't speak foreign languages. [...] The term is Dummkopf.  We would also accept Debile.  Which in Austrian means "progressive genius who is always on the right side of history".  Somehow I doubt Obama can find Argentina on a map.

Also posted under Obama's greatly overrated intellect.


Argentina
March 23, 2016.

Obama: Forget The Difference Between Capitalism And Communism, "Just Decide What Works".  "So often in the past there has been a division between left and right, between capitalists and communists or socialists, and especially in the Americas, that's been a big debate," Obama said during a visit to Argentina Thursday [sic]. "Oh, you know, you're a capitalist Yankee dog, and oh, you know, you're some crazy communist that's going to take away everybody's property."

The Editor says...
The Argentina speech was on March 23.

Barack Obama: The Last Communist Sympathizer.  How far we've come since Ronald Reagan stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin and famously demanded:  "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."  Today, President Barack Obama is singing serenades to communism. [...] Have we arrived at a new ideological low that our president feels compelled to defend the evils of communism, a system that left people living under it — from the Soviet Union to China and East Germany to Cuba — in abject poverty, declining health and without the most basic of human rights?  What about the 200 million or more people who were killed after Big Brother decided what worked for them?  Did rulers like Mao and Stalin just get a little carried away?

Obama Finally Embraces His Socialism/Communism.  During a question and answer session after addressing a Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative Town Hall in Buenos Aires, Argentina, President Obama finally embraced his socialist/communist tendencies telling his audience they shouldn't worry about the differences between Capitalism and Communism/Socialism[.]

Riddle: What's the difference between a communist and a capitalist?  If you're Barack Obama, the answer is "none." On Wednesday [3/23/2016], the president shared remarks at the Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative Town Hall in Buenos Aires, where he said: [...]

Obama: Don't Worry If It's 'Socialist Theory or Capitalist Theory... Just Decide What Works'.  Thanks to advances in technology, "You don't have to settle for the world as it is; you can create the world as you want it to be," President Barack Obama told young people in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Wednesday [3/23/2016].  "You have the freedom to build the world in powerful and disruptive ways."  One of the young community organizers at the town hall picked up on that point, saying she honestly believes that the world needs to change.  She asked Obama for his advice on creating social change — in her case, by empowering young people living in poverty.

Obama's Unacceptable Love Affair With Communism.  Many of us warned about Obama's Marxist sympathies before he was first elected president, and we've repeatedly pointed it out during his presidency.  Obama was raised and mentored by communists and spent many years engaged in community organizing (radical leftist activism).  He established himself as the most liberal member of the Senate.  Yet our warnings were met with cries of extremism, irrationality and, of course, racism. I wonder what these scolds would say now.  After playing his fiddle in Cuba and paying homage to the romanticized Marxist Castro regime while Belgium was burning, Obama spoke to a group of young people in Argentina.  He told them, essentially, that there isn't much difference between capitalism and socialism and that they "should be practical."  He said:  "You don't have to worry about whether it neatly fits into socialist theory or capitalist theory.  You should just decide what works."  He praised President Raul Castro in Cuba for his country's universal health care and quality education.  Please don't tell me you find that hard to believe, either.

Obama: Separation of Powers 'Very Frustrating Sometimes for the President,' Like 'Herding Cats'.  President Obama said Wednesday [3/23/2016] it was "very frustrating sometimes for the president" and akin to "herding cats" to have separation of powers in the U.S. government.  Responding to a town hall question in Argentina about the 2016 election, Obama discussed the directions being taken by the Republican and Democratic Parties before expounding on the American political system.  "I also think that one of the great advantages of the United States system, even though it's very frustrating sometimes for the president, is that power is distributed across a lot of different institutions," Obama said.  "It's what we call separation of powers and decentralization."

Press Ignores Obama's False-Equivalent Belief That Some Communist Ideas 'Work'.  As noted in my previous post, the press is determined that the world not learn of profound statements made by world leaders it despises.  The specific reference was to Israeli Prime Mininster Benjamin Netanyahu's five-word admonishment to those who believe that some accommodation can be reached with Islamic terrorists:  "Terrorists Have No Resolvable Grievances."  Meanwhile, the press protects those it likes when they make breathtakingly ignorant remarks.  Such remarks occur with alarming regularity any time U.S. President Barack Obama speaks without the aid of a teleprompter.  In Argentina on Wednesday [3/23/2016], during a question-answer exchange with a youth group, Obama said that debates over the superiority of capitalism compared to communism "are interesting intellectual arguments," but that "for your generation, you should be practical and just choose from what works."  Press coverage of Obama's remarks has been sparse.

Incidentally...
Taxpayers Billed $1.4 Million for Obama's Argentina Trip.  The president traveled to Argentina last week after his two-day stop in Cuba.  The visit racked up substantial costs for hotels, transportation, and advance bathroom maintenance, according to government contracts signed by the State Department and Department of Homeland Security.  Lodging for the president and White House staff totaled $115,588, while conference rooms cost $35,584.  Another contract for hotel rooms cost $31,585.  U.S.  Secret Service costs associated with the trip included $120,782 for hotel rooms at the Hyatt Park in Buenos Aires and $707,801 for transportation. [...] In all, taxpayers were billed $1,394,294 for the Argentina trip and press credentials in Cuba.


Howard University
May 7, 2016.

Obama Targets Trump Campaign Proposals in Highly Political Commencement Speech.  While not directly naming the candidate, President Obama made it clear just what he thinks about Donald Trump's campaign and policy proposals in a highly political commencement speech Sunday [5/8/2016] at Rutgers University.  The president said he would skip giving students the usual commencement banter, and instead run down a list of "suggestions" that turned out to be a stern and direct indictment of everything Trump has built his campaign on.

Obama on Climate Change: 'We Can See it Happening Right Now'.  President Barack Obama told graduates at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., "to insist upon and shape an informed debate" about climate change, adding that climate change is not subject to "political spin."  "Climate change is not something subject to political spin.  There is evidence.&n