"This is sickening, absolutely sickening."

This video is posted at several places today from a speech Dear Leader gave on Wednesday in Quincy, Illinois. It's no wonder that Obama's handlers don't want him going off the teleprompter: when he ad-libs, he's dangerous. And, as Ed Morrissey at HotAir says, he "reveals more about himself than he probably wants":



Obama's ad-lib: We’re not, we’re not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that’s fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or providing good service. We don’t want people to stop, ah, fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow our economy.

Vs. his prepared remarks: Now, we’re not doing this to punish these firms or begrudge success that’s fairly earned. We don’t want to stop them from fulfilling their responsibility to help grow our economy.

Reading over his remarks, even if he had stuck to the teleprompter, what in the love of God is he saying here: "We don't want to stop them from fulfilling their responsibility to help grow our economy." What? First off, Comrade Obama, it's not "your" economy. Are you kidding me? That's not the reason people start a business or work hard at a job--to fulfill Dear Leader's freakish fantasies about what "his people" owe to him. I know he never had a real job; did he ever take a class in economics when he was supposedly going to Columbia? Oh that's right--we can't know that because his transcripts are a state secret. Dear God, is it 2012 yet?

Update. When the WSJ has an opinion piece titled "Smart Aleck-in-Chief?" then maybe you need to take another look at your image. Just sayin'.

Then there's yesterday's piece at Politico, "Why reporters are down on President Obama." Are they really JUST NOW getting it?

Tea Partiers in Quincy, IL vs. Cops in Riot Gear

Our pal at Sharp Elbows has the video of this, as always. Jim Hoft from Gateway Pundit has the photos and story at Big Journalism. Barack Hussein Obama was speaking at the Convention Center in Quincy, Illinois. About 200 Tea Party members showed up to give him what-for. The Quincy police came dressed in riot gear. Seriously.

All I can say is this: if our pal Barry-O is so frightened of these Tea Party patriots in Quincy, Illinois that he needs the cops to show up in riot gear, then the guy really, really needs to stay away from places like Arizona where he might run into some angry leftists.

The commenters at HotAir are having some real fun with this.

Update: Someone pointed to me out that it's possible the Secret Service was concerned that anti-Tea Party people would show up and cause trouble. Since the Secret Service isn't prepared to handle "trouble" in the streets themselves, then they would see to it that the locals were ready. May-be.

I know, we're all sick of saying this, but this deserves just one quick chorus: "What if George Bush had done this?"

Update. "Jacked up" is the word that comes to mind viewing these photos from Quincy.

A sample of the comments from Obama supporters. They think this is fine, evidently. Wait until they come for you.

This was a semi historic event and he should have been shown the respect that his position is deserving of. These tea party lunatics live in a country that has free elections and majority rules when it comes to voting. The majority spoke and now they want a do-over or whatever it is they want. protesting and acting like fools is no way to get your point across. grow your little movement quietly and gather all the old ladies and weak minded people you want. Then at election time pick you best dressed and best speaker and then try to take over. I stand a better chance of winning the lottery than you people do ever getting a real party started.

This video is from Gatewat Pundit.

Obama-Speak

I was walking from one room to another the other day and the TV was on. There was Obama, speaking to Wall Street. I don't normally listen to the guy, because, well, I just can't stand the sound of his voice, plus every time he speaks he flips me into crazy. Sure enough, this time was no different. What I heard him saying to the Wall Street "fat cats" (did he use the term in front of them during the speech, I wonder, since it's one of his favorite rhetorical ploys, as in he "did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street") was this: "We can and must put this kind of cynical politics aside." That's all I needed to hear, since I've heard that one from him over and over: finger-wagging Speech No. 79, where he's telling some group somewhere how he thinks they need to behave. Cynical politics? This guy is the King of Cynical Politics. OK, Barry, you go first. That's called leadership.

The Wall Street Journal had an excellent piece the other day, subtitled "Obama's ad hominem method and the politics of polarization." The gist of the article comes in the first paragraph: "While it takes two to tangle, we think the hyper-polarization owes more than a little to Mr. Obama's own rhetorical habits. More than any President in memory, Mr. Obama has a tendency [tendency?] to vilify his oponents in personal terms and assail their arguments as dishonest, illegitimate, or motivated by bad faith."

One of my favorite examples of Obama-Speak came the other day when he was asking for money in Miami from some "fat cat" Democrats and he decided to mock Tea Party Americans, saying he was "amused" by recent anti-tax Tea Party protests: "You would think they'd be sayin' thank you." Really? Well, we of the Tea Party persuasion are thinking that Obama might not be so "amused" come November. As it is, I find myself quite unamused at the way Obama regularly dismisses, demeans, mocks, and divides millions of Americans who are concerned that he is, indeed, "transforming" our country, in ways that we neither want nor asked for.

The WSJ says that most Presidents leave political attack to surrogates or Vice Presidents, but not Obama. If you're old enough to remember Vice President Spiro Agnew, Nixon's hatchet man, then you can appreciate this line from the WSJ: "Mr. Obama seems to enjoy being his own Spiro Agnew." And that's one of the most disturbing things to me about Obama-Speak: he really does seem to enjoy calling out his oponents in the most cynical, irresponsible way. It's as though President I-Won just doesn't get it--you're not campaigning anymore, Champ. You're IT now, President of all Americans. As the WSJ concludes, "his rhetorical method seems especially discordant coming from a President who still insists, in between these assaults, that he is striving mightily to change the negative tone of American politics."

Netanyahu to Obama: Pound Sand

Thank you, HotAir and Ed Morrissey for posting this. I couldn't improve on your title. Netanyahu has delivered a message to Obama, rejecting Barry's call for Israel to halt construction in East Jerusalem. From Netanyahu: "I am saying one thing. There will be no freeze in Jerusalem. There should be no  preconditions to talks."

From Ed Morrissey: Netanyahu just taught Obama a lesson, which is that a nation that has been surrounded by terrorists and other enemies for decades isn't going to be intimidated by an Ivory Tower academic, even if he sits in the Oval Office.

Commenters at HotAir chime in:

Congrats to our Boy King for losing one of our best allies in the world. Who is next? England? The Aussies?

Smart diplomacy: Appease your enemies, alienate your friends. B+

997 days to go.

Reporting on a related subject, Netanyah urged the White House to stop building in the Phoenix, Arizona area. It appears that the Navaho have a claim to some of the land and Israel fears violence may break out.

Reporting from Tea Party Rallies:
Patriots 4, Alinsky Thugs 0

Gateway Pundit and Sharp Elbows report this morning about fake Tea Partiers being driven from yesterday's Tea Party rallies in St. Louis, San Francisco, Oceanside, and Greensboro.

GP reports that the white supremist plant "scurried off" after he was confronted by several patriots including our own [fearless] Adam Sharp. Writes Gateway: "Unfortunately for the left, their Alinsky tactics backfired at the Tax Day Tea Party rallies. The radical lost on Tax Day."

Michelle Malkin has more: "The Crashers: They came, they saw, they failed.

In related news, President Barack Obama mocked the Tea Party activists Thursday night at a fund raiser in Miami. Calling himself "amused" by the anti-tax Tea Party protests, Obama said, "You would think they'd be saying thank you." Really, Champ?

Update on "Call Me Amused": Obama was again hobnobbing with the elites at the Miami DNC fundraiser where he mocked taxpayers. People paid $30,000-$40,000 to listen to Obama take potshots at the bedrock middle class--you know, those people who actually pay taxes, as opposed to the 50% of the people in the country who don't.

According to Rasmussen, a whopping 34% of the people think this country is headed in the right direction. That's compared, again acccording to Rasmussen, to 24% of the country who say they're part of the Tea Party movement. And among that group, 94% believe the government has become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its won interests, and 96% of the Tea Party group think we're overtaxed.

And as Obama mocks the Tea Party movement, the lamestream media continues its own campaign to disparage and marginalize them. When they found out that ignoring the Tea Party rallies didn't work--didn't make them disappear--then they chose to brand these "angry mobs" as people who simply couldn't deal with the reality of a black man being president. The Media Research Center has come out with their analysis: "TV's Tea Party Travesty: How ABC, CBS, and NBC Have Dismissed and Disparaged the Tea Party Movement.

Here's my favorite sign from yesterday. I don't know where it came from--it's just making the rounds.

We're Having a Tea Party!

St. Louis's Tax Day Tea Party. Hope to see you there! Thursday, April 15, Clayton, MO, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.

A Different View of the Wikileaks "Collateral Murder" Video

Last week a group called Wikileaks put out a video that can be found on YouTube which they titled "Collateral Murder, Wikileaks, Iraq." I'll let Wikileaks describe their thoughts on the video:

WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff. Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded. For further information please visit the special project website http://www.collateralmurder.com/.

This is nothing but pure leftist tripe.

Yesterday there was a post at one of my favorite websites, Missourah.com, that gives a quite different version of what was going on in that film. I'll quote the last part, but the entire post is a must-read, "A Soldier's Response."

I will conclude with an observation in response to the claims that our soldiers are callous child-murderers. At 21:44 in the video you can clearly see a soldier running, carrying one of the wounded children for medical evacuation. Apparently both of the children wounded in the attack survived thanks to the actions of the soldiers on the ground. Terrible things happen in war — but I know the heart of our soldiers fighting overseas and I know that they are good people, doing their best at an extremely difficult job. Serving in the military does not turn you into a bloodthirsty automaton. If anything the military imbues a sense of pride, honor, patriotism and selfless service and provides the opportunity to be part of something greater than yourself.

The United States military is the defender of freedom and a force for good in the world. Malicious, agenda-driven propaganda cannot change that, and we must never forget it.

The contrast between the "Wikifreak" people and our American soldiers couldn't be more stark. Frankly, I wish all these self-hating, America-hating leftist bastards would find themselves somewhere else to live--like maybe Iran. I am seriously so sick and tired of pointing out to these leftists loons that our troops are the people who put themselves on the line so that people like Wikileak (while hiding under their desks) will have the freedom to spew this kind of venom. It's true, but I'm getting tired of pointing it out.

God bless our troops and God bless America.

Bibi to Barry: Stuff It

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won't be attending next week when Barack Hussein Obama holds his international nuclear talent show in Washington, D.C. Netanyahu cancelled a scheduled trip to attend the 47-country (oops--46-country) nuclear security conference hosted by Obama. According to World Jewish Daily, Netanyahu decided to cancel the trip after learning that several Muslim states plan to bring up Israel's failure to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Israel will instead send a deputy who oversees nuclear issues.

Next week's nuclear security summit is part of a plan being pushed by the Obama administration to "highlight the president's efforts," as the WSJ puts it, "to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons, as well as the threat from proliferation and atomic terrorism. . . . Some Muslim countries have complained of a double standard in international pressure on Iran to dismantle its nuclear program while Israel is able to maintain its reported nuclear arsenal."

Israel never signed the 1970 NPT which allows countries to develop nuclear power in exchange for forgoing weapons. Based on estimates of the plutonium production capacity of its Dimona reactor, Israel may have stockpiled 80 to 200 nuclear warheads since the late 1960s, independent experts say. Unlike ObamaTeam, which has thrown out a long-time policy of nuclear ambiguity, Israel prefers not to comment on when or how they would use nuclear weapons, or even if they have them, preferring to maintain an ambiguity policy about nuclear capability. As Ed Driscoll writes at PajamasMedia, "the cardinal rule when it comes to nuclear weapons, is keep ‘em guessing. We want our enemies to believe that we may well be crazy enough to vaporize them, given sufficient provocation; one just can’t tell. There is a reason why that ambiguity has been the American government’s policy for more than 50 years. Obama cheerfully tosses overboard the strategic consensus of two generations."

Others are more critical than Driscoll of Obama's new policy of "disambiguation." CEO of PajamasMedia, Roger Simon, wrote this article: "President Weirdo Goes Anti-Nuke." Comparing Obama to "some looney member of Code Pink," Simon says our president "is abandoning the nuclear deterrent adhered to by every American president since Truman. And he is doing it in a manner that makes absolutely no sense." In a related article, "President Weirdo," Simons says that Obama's behavior makes Nixon seem "almost normal." Ouch.

Update. The Obama administration is now denying U.S. visas to Israeli scientists who work at Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor. WTF? According to the website Joshuapundit, this is a change in a routine policy that has allowed Israeli nuclear scientists and technicians to receive such visas and to study at U.S. universities.

h/t to Joshuapundit for the image.

Along with disambiguating his nuclear policy, it would seem that the Obama regime is also bent on removing any ambiguity about its posture towards Israel. I'm no State Department expert, but it doesn't take a genius to see that Obama's policies are chipping away at relations with one of our best allies in the Middle East. What is Obama doing, and why is he doing it? President Weirdo? Signs are certainly pointing that way.

To the 78% of Jews who voted for Obama: how's that working out for you? Here's a quote at the time of the election from someone named Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of the J Street lobby group, purported to be a "pro-Israel" lobby (with friends like those, who needs enemies?): "Surrogates and right-wing political operatives in our community stopped at nothing in their efforts to sway Jewish voters against Obama. We can only hope that these results put to rest for good the myth that fear and smear campaigns - particularly around Israel - can be an effective political weapon in the Jewish community." Well, Jeremy? What have you got to say now, Champ? Not much, evidently. The J Street website "news" was last updated 26 March. Keep up.

Update. This comes from a post at Friday's HotAir: "Support for Obama among Jewish voters basically unchanged from last year." Really? So you gotta ask:

• do these people read the news? (or rather, do they read anything beyond the New York Times?)
• do they understand Obama's policy towards Israel?
• do secular Jews in the United States give a rip about Israel?
• what would Obama have to do to get a negative rating from these people?

Allahpundit at HotAir explains the support for Obama this way: the sample is 50% Democrat and 15% Republican. But for me that still begs the question: Why do American Jews vote with the Democrats? One of the commenters at HA says that's because Jews are liberal, and that will never change. Have they not noticed the anti-Semitism of the Obama regime? Evidently not. Another commenter says that for many secular American Jews, liberalism is their religion, that these people are completely disconnected from Israel, and the liberal idealology for them is first, second, and third in importance. In fact, support for Israel is higher among American Christian groups than it is among many American Jews.

Here's a quote from a HotAir commenter, who says his is a family of observant Jews who reject leftism "in all of its pernicious guises. . . . Just please know that not every Jew is a half-witted true believer in this absurd jackass who leads you for the moment. I guess, though, that most of the thinking Jews may be in Israel."

And another one: "I know a lot of liberal Jews who square the circle for themselves on loving Israel and Obama at the same time. I think they are deluded, but they're my deluded fellow Jews." That sounds like some sort of mind jiu-jitsu to me. Oof.

Another commenter recommended Norman Podhoretz's book, Why Are Jews Liberals?

More Amateur Hour from the White House Foreign Policy Team

Barack Hussein Obama. Those who voted for this man wanted change, and are we ever getting it--in spades. Maybe next time people will demand something less squishy and ambiguous than a slogan merely calling for "change." Cancer is also "change," but I don't think anyone would vote to have it.

So what sort of "change" has ObamaTeam been up to this week?

For starters, Obama has a "new approach to nuclear security," or at least that's how the New York Times puts it. Here's the money line from the NYT article: For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack. What are these people in the White House smoking? The new policy is known as the Nuclear Posture Review, and it removes all ambiguity from the conditions under which the U.S. would or would not use nuclear weapons. Who is the brilliant strategist who thought up that one?

Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian, examines Obama's "posture review" in his article, "A Noble, Bad Idea," saying that the new nuclear policy is "ill-timed and ill-conceived": Obama’s fallback position has come down to something like this: “Why get a nuke, when we won’t use one against you—no matter what you do to us? But get a nuke—and all bets are off.” He apparently views such reasoning as superior to the existing presumption that could be condensed as: “Don’t dare get a nuclear weapon, much less consider using one, since the consequences for you will be too terrible to contemplate.”

Hanson calls the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) part of Obama's "utopian vision," nobly intended but deeply concerning since it comes, not from an old hawk like Reagan or Bush, but instead from "one who has apologized, bowed, and backpedaled abroad in courting enemies like Syria and Iran while snubbing old friends such as Britain and Israel."

Coupled with the NPR is Obama's nuclear arms control treaty with Russia, which leaves Obama pledging to cut long-range nuclear weapons by one-third. This analysis comes from the Heritage Foundation, which states that the Russians "clearly still see their nuclear weapons as the cornerstone of their defense, no matter how much President Obama wishes it were otherwise. Moscow has no interest in diminishing its own nuclear arsenal, but it is perfectly happy to allow the Obama administration to weaken the U.S. deterrent until it is on equal footing with Russia’s currently mediocre might." Dr. Utopia will not find his dream world of unicorns, rainbows, and a nuclear-free zone. Instead, says Heritage, "President Obama's nuclear weakness will only give America’s enemies every incentive to advance their own programs. The President’s arms control “road” is more likely to lead to a new arms race, rather than to “zero.”

Why is this man smiling? Because he just punked the "leader of the free world." Another article at Heritage refers to Obama's unrealistic agenda and the signing event today of the new START treaty in Prague with Medvedev as "deeply flawed" and one that merely sets the stage for the bigger show, the "theater production" on April 12-13, the non-proliferation summit in Washington. Heritage calls the whole mess "ambition enveloped in naïveté, wrapped in inexperience."

Continuing on (wow, it's been quite a week for ObamaTeam--I think I liked them better when they were bogged down with O-Care), in the "words matter" category, ObamaTeam has decided to ban words like "Islamic extremism" from the central document outlining the U.S. security strategy. Who is responsible for the change in the lexicon? Evidently someone named Pradeep Ramamurthy, head of the administration's Global Engagement Directorate, which according to Fox News is a four-person National Security Council team that Obama launched last May with little fanfare and a vague mission to use diplomacy and outreach "in pursuit of a host of national security objectives." "Do you want to think about the U.S. as the nation that fights terrorism or the nation you want to do business with?" Ramamurthy said. Are you serious?

A Google search doesn't turn up a whole heck of a lot about this important actor on ObamaTeam; I can't even find a photo of him that I can verify as being this Pradeep Ramamurthy. How old is this guy? What's his background? However, I did find this quote from Pradeep from November 2009, posted at America.gov, a statement he made during a webchat with people from places like Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, etc. This is from Pradeep: We are interested in developing a more comprehensive relationship with Muslim communities around the world and pursuing partnerships in areas of mutual interest. This is partly driven by the recognition that many of the challenges we face today can only be addressed through partnership, and we want to be a partner.

Update. I just sent an email to the tipline at Breitbart's Big Journalism, hoping someone either knows something about this guy or will do some research on him.

Update #2. Michelle Malkin's column just reminded me of a bumper sticker I once saw that made me fall down laughing:

"Just a Regular Guy": Big, big White Sox fan can't name a single player

Obama lived in Chicago for 18 years and today claims to be a big White Sox fan: "I'm a South Side kid," he told the interviewer recently after "throwing" out the first pitch in Washington, D.C. Really? Obama was asked to name ONE of his favorite White Sox players. He couldn't do it, nary a one. Instead he bobbed and weaved and dodged the question while still referring to "Kaminsky Field," wherever that is. His excuse: he grew up in Hawaii where he followed the Oakland A's. Huh? I grew up in Denver, but I've lived in St. Louis about as long as Obama lived in Chicago, and I could manage to come up with at least one favorite St. Louis player off the top of my head. Ozzie Smith. There. Had Obama been asked to name ONE baseball player--go ahead, name one--my guess is he couldn't have done it.

This guy is such a fraud. He's about as big a baseball fan as he is a constitutional scholar. Don't mess with our baseball, Champ. Stay home and eat your expensive wagyu steak; the rest of us are happy to go the park and eat hot dogs. [And how soon will those be banned by Obama's Nanny State?]

It's the Soldier

The following passage is from a sermon by John Hagee:

Close your eyes and picture in your mind the soldier at Valley Forge, as he holds his musket in his bloody hands. He stands barefoot in the snow, starved from lack of food, wounded from months of battle and emotionally scarred from the eternity away from his family surrounded by nothing but death and carnage of war. He stands though, with fire in his eyes and victory on his breath. He looks at us now in anger and disgust and tells us this...

I gave you a birthright of freedom born in the Constitution and now your children graduate too illiterate to read it.

I fought in the snow barefoot to give you the freedom to vote and you stay at home because it rains.

I left my family destitute to give you the freedom of speech and you remain silent on critical issues, because it might be bad for business.

I orphaned my children to give you a government to serve you and it has stolen democracy from the people.

It's the soldier not the reporter who gives you the freedom of the press.

It's the soldier not the poet who gives you the freedom of speech.

It's the soldier not the campus organizer who allows you to demonstrate.

It's the soldier who salutes the flag, serves the flag, whose coffin is draped with the flag that allows the protester to burn the flag.

"Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. I ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen."

On this Easter morning, please stop for a moment and say a prayer for our U.S. ground troops in Afghanistan AND all over this world. God Bless our Troops.

Select Crowd of OBots Clap for Obama as He Mocks Half the Country

Barack Obama's idea of humor is to mock those who disagree with him. Hardy-har-har. This fits in with the narcissist theme--narcissists quite simply have no sense of humor. Their idea of "humor" is sarcastic cracks at others' expense. Here he is at a campaign rally in Maine. He mocks the Republicans because OCare hasn't instantly destroyed the American economy. He quite simply is not "my" president--no how, no way. And that's on him.

1,000 Words Not Necessary

From the Los Angeles Times, "Two Presidents Visit U.S. Troops." Frankly, the constrast makes me weep.

"Anybody have a handwipe?"

"Sorry I'm Late"

When I taught writing at the university, one of my pet peeves was students who arrived late to class. They annoyed me not only because they disrupted the other students who had made the effort to get there on time, but also because they had an attitude of such careless entitlement. What if everyone arrived late? Who are you to think the rules don't apply to you? I always told my students that being late was a bad habit that would not transfer well to a "real world" job. This video certainly hasn't done anything to change my mind.

Evidently Freshman Senator Barack Obama had more important things to do than to manage to make it to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on time.