THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR
Does Obama Doom America?
by Quin Hillyer
November 14, 2012
The refrain started many weeks, even months, before the election, but its frequency and intensity has increased nearly exponentially since Nov. 6.
"I don't know if we can survive another four years of this," people say. Or, "do you think we can survive four more years of this?" Even Bill Kristol, not prone to defeatism, speculated on what might happen "even if America can survive the next four years of Obama." [Emphasis added.] The words aren't coming from alarmists. They come in face-to-face conversations, or in emails, or on the phone. They come from Washington, from New York, from New Jersey, from Minnesota, from Alabama, from New Orleans -- from all over. Serious, ordinary people, some of whom live and breathe politics and some of whom pay almost no attention to current affairs, aren't panicking or exaggerating. They are really worried about what this man in the White House will do now. And they're really worried about whether America as we know it can survive.
It is not an idle worry. Barack Obama and his minions play for keeps. And they are playing for a vastly different America than the one with which we have been accustomed for 224 years of this constitutional republic. Fight a war in Libya without even asking for a congressional resolution? No problem. Appoint executive officers without Senate approval, when the Senate is still in session? Sure. Issue executive orders directly contrary to law, on multiple occasions? Of course. Refuse to enforce duly constituted laws? Check. Repeatedly question the very legitimacy of the Supreme Court? Check. Refuse to honor congressional subpoenas and legitimate Freedom of Information requests? Ignore court orders (about offshore drilling) so flagrantly that you are found officially in contempt of court? Insult or even abandon allies? Whisper to foreign leaders of traditionally adversarial lands that you will have "more flexibility" after re-election? Deliberately cover up deadly mistakes on the Mexican border and in North Africa? Check, check, check, check, and check.
This man runs a vote-fraud-enabling, military-vote-suppressing, domestic-energy-destroying, debt-exploding, credit-limit-undermining, defense-gutting, abusive-regulation-promulgating, power-centralizing, religious-liberty-attacking, crony-corporatism-expanding, Constitution-trampling administration. He politicizes everything and demeans politics and the presidency simultaneously. His opponent (according to his closest political associates) was a "felon." The opponent was proximately responsible for a woman's cancer death, deliberately outsourced jobs, and led a "war on women." Women, meanwhile, should look to government for sustenance from cradle to grave, should vote as if giving up their virginity, and should "vote like [their] lady parts depend on it." Attack, attack, attack; demean, demean, demean; trivialize, trivialize, trivialize; and never once outline a second-term agenda other than demonizing the wealthy and confiscating their wealth. This is a man using the presidency to serve his own power, no matter what the cost, rather than honoring the power of the presidency by the restraint inherent in treating the office as greater than the man who holds it.
Obama discards promises with astonishing regularity, prevaricates about the past with impunity, uses race as a cudgel while claiming to unite us, taxes the middle class (e.g., on medical devices) while saying he would never do so, and guts welfare reform while claiming he's strengthening it. His mentor was a Communist; his top aide's in-laws and grandfather were major Communist activists; his chief political strategist worked for Communist-linked journalists; he started his political career with a fund-raiser at the house of domestic terrorists; he repeatedly and enthusiastically said the man who most deeply influenced his faith was a preacher in whose pews he sat for 20 years while the preacher spread racial hatred and anti-American venom (after which, according to the preacher himself, a close Obama associate offered to "buy" the preacher's silence); he got a sweetheart deal on his mansion via a financial alliance with a crook named Rezko; and he himself wrote that he made a conscious decision while still a very young adult to embrace racial grievances and hang out with hard-left counter-culturists.
Is there the slightest thing in that background to suggest that he loves the same America most Americans love?
"Voting is the best revenge," he said. How instructive. Revenge for what? Is it revenge against "bitter," middle class Americans who "cling" to "guns and religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them"? Is that why we need to "spread the wealth"? Or why we must not reform America but "transform" it?
And that's just Obama's person. His policies are worse. This nation absolutely cannot survive much more of his deliberately created debt. Our economy is being stifled by 68 regulations per day -- 6,125 regulations or regulatory notices in just the 90 days leading up to Nov. 12. Our medical system cannot survive Obamacare -- with doctors retiring at record rates, or refusing to accept Medicare or Medicaid patients, with premiums rising through the roof, with medical-device companies already cutting back on research and development, and with increasing numbers of companies dropping insurance coverage of their employees.
And that's not even to mention the horrifying dangers of a desperately weakened defense force, a refusal to call terrorism by its name or fight it accordingly, and a betrayal of allies combined with kowtowing to powers antagonistic to everything about the American nation.
Can we survive all this? Well, as Ronald Reagan would say, we are, after all, Americans. We are a rather hearty people, and an inherently decent people too. But never, ever, not even under Jimmy Carter, were we led by a president who thinks the United States has been anything but an overwhelming force for good in the world. Until now. And that should frighten us.
Read more: http://goo.gl/2JMjM
1.6 Trillion? Obama Doesn't Want a Deal
by Joel Pollak
November 13, 2012
President Barack Obama has responded to House Speaker John Boehner's gesture last week towards reaching a deal to avoid the Jan. 1 "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and spending cuts, putting a specific demand on the table: $1.6 trillion in new tax revenues, reached by raising tax rates on the wealthy in addition to other "tax revenues." The offer is twice as high as a deal Obama scuttled last year, suggesting he may be prepared to let talks fail again.
Last week, Boehner proposed raising "revenues," but not "rates"--the same position he took during negotiations on raising the debt ceiling in the summer of 2011. Then, Boehner had agreed on raising revenues by $800 billion--all without raising tax rates. The White House had been prepared to agree on the deal, until President Obama decided to demand an additional $400 billion from increased tax rates, destroying the "grand bargain."
The day after the 2012 election, Boehner essentially repeated his principles for a deal, without offering a specific number. In a stage-managed speech in the East Room of the White House, complete with a standing ovation by and a multicultural tableau of staffers behind the President, Obama welcomed the gesture and repeated the word "revenues" without mentioning "rates," suggesting that he might be prepared to accept Boehner's terms quickly.
Obama's actual offer, however, indicates that he is spoiling for a fight. He clearly hopes to use his re-election to assert greater leverage within the talks--though Boehner's Republicans, too, were returned to power by the same electorate. His goal is not merely to reach a compromise at a higher number than the $800 billion deal that fell through last time; rather, his aim is to force Republicans to agree to the higher tax rates necessary to reach that number.
Read more: http://goo.gl/v0Jnt
Is One of the Women in the Petraeus Scandal a Spy? You’ll Never Believe Who’s Making the Case
by Erica Ritz
November 13, 2012
Ever since it was revealed that Jill Kelley, the woman arguably at the center of the currently-unfolding drama rocking the U.S. government, is of Lebanese origin, Twitter users have asked whether she and CIA Director Petraeus’ mistress Paula Broadwell should be investigated for potential national security leaks.
Kelley first came into the public eye after Broadwell began sending her “threatening” emails regarding getting too close to Petreaus. But she really piqued the public’s interest after it was revealed that General John Allen also sent her thousands of pages of “inappropriate” emails, and an FBI agent even sent her shirtless photos of himself.
Now, Orcas George at the extremely left-leaning Daily Kos has begun building the case that Kelley’s actions are suspicious at best, and that if she was not in the employ of a foreign intelligence service, “the world’s spy agencies have collectively suffered a dereliction of duty.”
Mind you, The Daily Kos is the same site that called Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s investigation into Huma Abedin a “witch hunt,” despite tangible connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The article explains:
It probably goes without saying that both General Petraus of the CIA and General Allen would be top targets for foreign intelligence operations — especially by countries in the Middle East. Knowing details of US actions there would be of benefit to many countries; some allies, some nominal allies and some considered to be enemies. The fact that socialite Jill Kelley’s maiden name is Khawam and that she was born in Lebanon to Maronite Christian parents should raise eyebrows a bit. (Note that the Maronite Christians were allies of Israel in the Lebanese Civil War/Lebanon invasion.) The fact that she and her husband were willing to go into debt to throw lavish parties for high level officers who are involved in the Middle East should make even the most resolute anti-CTers among us pause. The further fact that she is identified as an unofficial liaison between top American Generals and unspecified Middle Eastern contacts, well…[Emphasis added]
Using supplementary details from a Washington Post article, the Daily Kos then proceeds to detail Kelley’s access, motivations, connections, opportunity, and ability.
Read the entire Daily Kos article here.
Again, that comes from one of the most liberal sites out there — not some wild conspiracy theory outlet.
“OK, this is getting weird,” the article notes. In so many ways.
Read more: http://goo.gl/h3lkR
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