The Audacity Of Obama’s First 100 Days

By Jon Kraushar Communications Consultant

By Jon Kraushar

Communications Consultant

 

Audacity—boldness—defines Barack Obama. As the president approaches his 100th day in office on April 29, expect his audacity to be on full display in several key ways:

The Audacity of Hope

 

The hope invested in Obama to remedy the economic crisis at home has granted him audacious latitude to push through budgets or proposals to spend, tax, regulate and indebt the country like never before. His agenda has been to enlarge Big Government’s control of health care, energy, education and the private sector while skimping on national security.

Because of people’s fixation on fixing the economy, Obama is backed, for now, by a diminishing but still significant majority of the electorate (mostly those on the extreme left to folks in the center). His cheering squad also comprises many in the mainstream media, they have already announced big plans to mark Obama’s 100th day in office with saturation coverage — a great deal of which will no doubt be laudatory.

 

But like so much about Obama, the audacity of hope has been subject to shape-shifting since he assumed the presidency. The hope he preaches to different audiences at different times at home in the U.S. turned into expressions of remorse and blame for America when he traveled to Europe and Latin America. In France, Obama told an audience of mostly students that, “…there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”

The president’s toughest critics accuse him of naïveté and (borrowing a phrase used by Hillary Clinton when she slandered the brilliant General David Petraeus when he was Commander of Multi-National Forces in Iraq) a “willing suspension of disbelief” when it comes to America’s true enemies and inconstant friends.

Thus we have Obama (literally) bowing to the Saudi king, smiling and handshaking with Venezuelan socialist dictator Hugo Chavez and (figuratively) scraping to the Russians, the North Koreans, the Iranians, the Palestinians, the Cubans and the Europeans. For all his apologizing, appeasing and sermonizing, Obama has not won any major cooperation or compliance from either adversaries or supposed allies. As Obama talks about disarming, sharing financial burdens, and dreams about a “green” world, other countries laugh up their sleeves.

 

The Audacity of Change

When it comes to change, Obama is a paradox. He has honored many of his campaign promises but they remain infected with explicit or implicit bashing of his predecessor: George W. Bush. It’s as  if Obama’s presidential campaign never ended.

First, Robert Gibbs, Obama’s press secretary, said the president wanted to look forward and not support war crimes trials for Bush administration officials who allegedly approved harsh interrogation techniques that now are being characterized as torture. But then, pressured by far-left groups like MoveOn.org, Obama reversed that course and has opened the door to possible future prosecutions by the Justice Department.

Obama alternately praises and then constrains the Central Intelligence Agency in the fight against terrorism, leading The Wall Street Journal to say in an editorial that, “A President can’t placate the left and keep America safe.” At a certain point, blaming Bush for everything won’t cut it for Obama.

 

The Audacity of Responsibility

President Obama’s inaugural address contained a call for “a new era of responsibility,” a phrase repeated as the title of his $3.55-trillion budget for fiscal year 2010.

Obama’s budget would raise taxes by $1.4-trillion over ten years and would double the national debt to over $15-trillion. His budget also provides for a $250-billion “placeholder” for additional bailouts, based on the rosy assumption that the government would be able to recover $500-billion from toxic assets it buys.

When it comes to his taxing and spending plans, President Obama attempts to paper over what is reallyirresponsibility with his own version of Orwellian (or Clintonian) “newspeak.”

According to Obama taxpayer funds aren’t “spent” they are “invested.” A $650 billion health care “reserve fund” is a “down payment.”  We’re not living through a “recession,” it’s a “recovery.” An “earmark” isn’t a pet pork project favored by a member of Congress if it’s already been “reviewed” (i.e.: it’s in the bill). And a government Web site that lacks real detail about how all the bailout money is being spent is a model of  “transparency.”

 

Audacity Has Its Limits

Obama’s audacity is on probation with the American people — who are, at bottom, both smart and pragmatic. The majority of Americans say they want to give Obama a chance to make good on his boundless self-confidence. His first 100 days remain a honeymoon.

But eventually, should his bailouts (Obama calls them “rescue plans”) continue to be flameouts; should his tax hikes (Obama calls them “tax fairness”) turn into job killers; should his mandates (Obama calls them “reforms”) become bureaucratic nightmares; and should a terrorist attack at home (in Obamaspeak it’s a “man-caused disaster”) be a “government-caused disaster,” we will see a different kind of audacity in 2010.

Voters will send a message to Obama in the elections that will make previous protests look like, well, tea parties.

Communications consultant Jon Kraushar is at www.jonkraushar.net.

The longer the recession, the shorter will be Obama’s Presidency. As much as we have become a nation of “kool-aid” drinkers, we still have the patience of a hungry lion. “The Audacity” would be if he thinks he can b.s. his way through 8 years. The “blame Bush for everything” strategy can only last so long. Eventually, its “put up or shut up”!

Sen. Bond: Obama Actions Turning Country into ‘Banana Republic’

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: The top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee today blasted President Obama for his willingness to consider prosecuting the architects of interrogation policies, likening the notion to the actions of a “banana republic” and saying that the discussion over interrogation tactics is “making our country less safe.”

Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., said on ABCNews.com’s “Top Line”Wednesday that the policies now being scrutinized have been and will continue to be reviewed by the appropriate congressional committees, and shouldn’t be probed anew by the Justice Department.

“We have been monitoring this. The leaders of the House and Senate and the intelligence committees at the time were briefed on these techniques. Now, to go back and start penalizing or punishing a previous administration is what a banana republic does,” Bond said. “Our country has never done that, and I think this is a terrible step in the wrong direction.”

Asked whether Obama administration policies are harming national security, Bond said:  “I think the whole operation is making our country less safe.  When it comes to national security, the difference between President Obama’s campaign rhetoric and campaign security could not be more stark.  I think it was a very bad idea to release the memos.  The flip-flops now on whether he’s going to prosecute people create further chaos and uncertainty in the intelligence community and the other national security areas.”

Releasing the memos describing the interrogation practices, he said, “cuts the feet out from our interrogators. Number two, it tells Al Qaeda and other terrorists that you have absolutely nothing to worry about from enhanced interrogation techniques. So, we are much less likely to get information.”

The feeling is growing! Or,  should I say, the “uneasiness”? Something is amiss and more and more are seeing it. As we slide from the United States of America to “Obamastan”. Our “Mullahs” are the Barbara Boxers’ and the Harry Reids’. Sadly, they are as dangerous to our society as Mullah Omar was in Afghanistan. Wake up before our “Taliban” does to our country what the original one did Afghanistan and is, now, trying to do in Pakistan. They both seem to worship a “god” that would have to “ascend” rather then “descend” to get here.

Death of our Freedoms–a prelude to the Obama dictatorship?

Meowww. The claws are coming out.

The Miss USA contestants from the four states that allow same-sex marriage say Miss California should have been more politically correct and socially aware when she was asked for her thoughts on the issue during the nationally televised pageant on Sunday.

Miss Massachusetts Alison Cronin told FOXNews.com she was “shocked” when Carrie Prejean, 21, told Miss USA judge and celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton that she believes marriage should be “between a man and a woman.”

Hilton’s question — “Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit? Why or why not?” — was considered appropriate for the telecast. Prejean, a student at San Diego Christian College, replied that she personally opposes gay marriage — a response that some, including Hilton, said cost her the Miss USA title.

“It’s really hard to think that people still think that way,” Cronin said. “But at the same time, there’s a lot of girls in pageants who wear their religion on their sleeve. If that’s what she thinks, I give her credit for expressing that, but that’s not how I feel.”

Cronin, 22, said she supports gay marriage.

“I’m for it,” she said. “If two people are in a loving relationship, regardless of their sexual orientation, I think they should have equal rights.”

Miss Connecticut Monica Mary Pietzrak, called Prejean a “wonderful girl” but said she should have been more conscious of the national audience.

“In general, when you’re answering a question like that, you have to be politically correct about it,” Pietzrak told FOXNews.com. “I would’ve answered differently to help accommodate all beliefs. It’s a decision between two individuals, and not just a man and a woman.”

Pietzrak said she doesn’t share Prejean’s view that marriage should be limited to opposite-sex couples. “I don’t personally agree with that, but people have a choice to do whatever they want.”

Miss Iowa Chelsea Lynn Gauger, 20, said her state, whose Supreme Court just this month declared a legislative ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, is ahead of the country.

“Being from Iowa, I’m proud to say that our state has interpreted the Constitution to say that gays have the right to marry,” Gauger said. “Whether you agree with [Prejean] or not, to be on national television and say exactly how you feel, it does take strength and faith.”

“People have blown it out of proportion,” Gauger added. “I don’t think people are thinking what it would be like to be up there like she was. It’s sad that people can’t just keep their feelings to themselves.”

Miss Vermont Brooke Werner, who said she was shocked by Prejean’s statement, acknowledged the high-pressure situation that many, including Miss California herself, thought cost her the crown.

“Everyone has a right to their own actions,” Werner said. “But I totally disagree with Carrie. I have a very different perspective on gay marriage and I would have never said what she said.”

Cronin said if Prejean had answered differently, she might be taking promotional tours this week instead of defending her comments.

“Had she gone the other way with the question, she might have won,” Miss Massachusetts said. “I’m surprised that she would say it, knowing the demographic she was speaking to.”

But Prejean’s decision not to compromise her beliefs was admirable, Cronin said.

“She would’ve made herself look more like an idiot if she changed her mind,” she said. “You got to be able to back up your opinion and not become wishy-washy. Good for her for standing by it.”

Prejean has called her experience a “blessing in disguise” and noted that the majority of Californians share her views, citing the passage of Proposition 8 in November that reversed a state Supreme Court ruling and made gay marriage illegal again in the Golden State.

“I am so blessed that I was able to speak my mind, my thoughts, my convictions,” Prejean told FOX News’ Neil Cavuto Tuesday. “What I said is the way I feel. It’s my belief and I’m entitled to my own opinion, just as [Hilton] is.”

Prejean said she feels “sorry” for Hilton and vowed to pray for him.

She also said that she’d “love to know” how the winner, 22-year-old Miss North Carolina Kristen Dalton, would have answered the question.

On Thursday, Prejean found out. During an interview with FOXNews.com, Dalton said: “In short, I would say everyone should be able to enter into a civil union, where they’re legally recognized as a couple and earn the same rights as a married couple.”

Asked if she supports gay marriage, Miss USA replied, “I’m not going to say whether or not I think it should be defined as marriage because that’s up to our politicans and our elected officials.”

The touchstone for liberty, the basic, most essential freedom, is always the freedom of speech. All other freedoms depend on it and are derived from it.–Hans Vogel reporting in………..PRAVDA!

The Russians learn the lesson but now WE HAVE FORGOTTEN??? We are “through the looking glass”.

Freedom of Speech NOT ALLOWED in the ObamaNation….

LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Miss North Carolina Kristen Dalton may have been crowned Miss USA 2009 on Sunday, but on Monday, it was Miss California Carrie Prejean’s answer to a question about same-sex marriage from celebrity blogger and pageant judge Perez Hilton that was the night’s biggest story.

During the show, Perez asked Carrie, “Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit? Why or why not?”

Well I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. Um, we live in a land that you can choose same sex marriage or opposite marriage and, you know what, in my country and in, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman,” Carrie said to a mix of boos and applause. “No offense to anybody out there. But that’s how I was raised and that’s how I think that it should be between a man and a woman.”

Carrie’s answer to the hot button question cost her the crown - at least according to Perez.

“The way miss California answered her question lost her the crown, without a doubt!” Perez told Access Hollywood after the pageant. “Never before that I’m aware of has a contestant been booed at Miss USA.”

Keith Lewis, Co-Executive Director of the Miss California USA and Miss California Teen USA said in statement to Access Hollywood that he respects Carrie’s opinion, even if it differs with his.

“I am proud of Carrie Prejean’s beauty and placement at the 2009 Miss USA pageant. I support Carrie’s right to express her personal beliefs even if they do not coincide with my own,” Keith told Access. “I believe the subject of gay marriage deserves a great deal more conversation in order to heal the divide it has created.”

If there was any of you who doubted it,  when those of us tried to warn you, that the ObamaNation–the New World Disorder-would infringe on your rights, WELCOME TO THE RUDE AWAKENING!  Yes, it is NO LONGER PERMITTED to express an opinon that usn’t “Ultra-Left Wing.” If you are one of those individuals who believe such things as, abortion and gay marriage are wrong, you MUST BE SILENCED PROCLAMITH THE OBAMA-PHILES! 

                        RISE UP AMERICA BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!

Our way of life is under threat. Don’t sit there with your mouth shut. Because, if you do, you won’t be allowed to speak again. Yes, the “price of freedom IS eternal vigilance”. But, part of that vigilance, means to”

FIGHT for that freedom.

FIGHT for you right to speak.

FIGHT for your right to think.

FIGHT for your right to believe

FIGHT against thought supression

FIGHT before that is taken from you too.

Iran to Obama: Don’t Talk About Jailed U.S. Reporter

TEHRAN, Iran —  Iran has urged President Barack Obama not to comment on the case of a U.S. journalist convicted for spying and sentenced to prison before learning the details.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi says Obama’s training as a lawyer does not mean he should comment on Roxana Saberi’s case without the proper context. He spoke to reporters during his weekly press briefing Monday.

Obama said Sunday he was “gravely concerned” about the safety and well-being of Saberi and was confident she wasn’t involved in espionage

Iran announced Saturday that Saberi, a 31-year-old dual American-Iranian citizen, was sentenced to eight years in prison for spying for the United States. Tehran has not released many details of the case.

Now, lets see if the President’s response will be “Yes, sir”. 

The New “Axis of Evil”?

  OBAMA-CHAVEZ-CASTRO

By Jeff Mason and David Alexander

PORT OF SPAIN (Reuters) - PresidentBarack Obama said on Sunday he saw “potential positive signs” of better relations with Cuba and Venezuela, but he called on Cuba to back them up by giving its people more political freedom.

Obama spoke after attending a Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago that he said focused on “launching a new era of partnership” between western hemisphere countries.

Communist-ruled Cuba was excluded from the meeting, but the summit was dominated by speculation over the prospect of an end to the long conflict between Washington and Havana after Cuban President Raul Castro said last week he was open to talks.

Obama also received friendly overtures during the summit from left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose close alliance with Cuba and fierce criticism of U.S. policies in the region had strained relations with Washington.

“For the past few days, we’ve seen potential positive signs in the nature of the relationship between the United States, Cuba and Venezuela,” Obama told a news conference.

“We’re going to explore and see if we can make progress,” Obama added, recalling that Raul Castro had said he was willing to talk about political prisoners and human rights.

Obama added: “But as I’ve said before, the test for all of us is not simply words but deeds”.

Referring to his move last week to ease parts of the 47-year-old U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, he said the policy “in place for 50 years hasn’t worked the way we want it to”.

“The Cuban people are not free and that’s our lodestone, our North Star, when it comes to our policy on Cuba, he said.

He reiterated a call for Havana to reciprocate by freeing political prisoners and addressing freedom of expression and religion. These issues should not be “brushed aside”, he said.

“There are ways that Cuba can send signs that they are serious about real change,” Obama added.

In the past, Havana has rejected placing such conditions on an improvement in ties as meddling in its sovereignty.

Obama’s meetings and contacts during the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain mended broken diplomatic fences in a region where America-bashing has long been accepted and where former President George W. Bush generally was unpopular.

“What we showed here is that we can make progress when we’re willing to break free from some of the stale debates and old ideologies that have dominated and distorted the debate in this hemisphere for far too long,” Obama said.

“PLUNGE INTO LATIN AMERICA”

Although Obama had to field a chorus of calls to lift the trade embargo on Cuba, his cooperative diplomatic style went down well with his Latin American and Caribbean peers.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the summit had created a chance for a new era in relations between the United States and Latin America.

“Obama took a plunge into Latin America … We created a new way of viewing each other and of overcoming our differences by debating them,” Lula told reporters.

Venezuela’s Chavez, who told Obama “I want to be your friend”, also indicated his willingness to cooperate with the new U.S. administration in improving ties. “We have the political will to work together,” Chavez told reporters.’

Obama rejected suggestions that contact with die-hard critics of Washington like Venezuela, which is an OPEC member and major supplier of oil to the United States, was a sign of weakness.

“It’s unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States,” he said.

A draft summit declaration, which stated a commitment to work together to tackle the hemisphere’s economic, energy and security challenges, was issued at the end of the meeting.

But there was no formal joint signing ceremony as a group of mostly leftist presidents led by Chavez had previously rejected the document.

The group, including Bolivia, Nicaragua and Honduras, said it did not address Cuba’s exclusion from the summit or provide solutions to the economic crisis threatening the region.

The summit’s host, Prime Minister Patrick Manning of Trinidad, said the declaration was adopted by consensus even though some refused to endorse it, and Latin American and Caribbean leaders hailed the summit as a success.

In contrast to a previous summit in Argentina in 2005, which ended in discord, the Port of Spain meeting hummed with goodwill.

(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher, Patrick Markey, Guido Nejamkis, Ana Isabel Martinez and Linda Hutchinson-Jafar; Writing by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Paul Simao)

The more I read, the more worried I get! Chavez-Castro-Obama–the “unholy trinity” though, I still wonder if it is because Obama is THAT naive. Either way, NOTHING, repeat, NOTHING good can come out of this. Either, Obama has too much, “lets all sit around, sing kumbaya” b.s. and wanting “group hugs” or, he is a cold calculating, evil, bastard. Either way, we are in danger. To you Mr. President, a question….What redeeming value have mass murders?

“he doesn’t need a water dog…he needs a guide dog.”–Mike Huckabee

From CNN….

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said President Obama should see the grassroots “Tea Party” movement as “genuine” in a letter to supporters of his political action committee on Friday.

“Mr. President the tea parties = real moms, dads, small business owners concerned about a government adrift that is doubling down on spending,” Huckabee said in the letter posted on his web site. “If President Obama is blind to what is happening on his front porch…he doesn’t need a water dog…he needs a guide dog.”

Huckabee is using Huck PAC as a fundraising tool for candidates that he says are committed “to fiscal sanity, lower taxes, a strong national defense, life and traditional marriage.”

The “grass roots movement” maybe just what this country needs right now. We need our federal government to be, what a former employer of mine once used in its marketing, “smaller but friendlier”. Because, the bigger government gets………..the less freedom you have. so remember….

                      ”Smaller is friendlier, bigger is badder”  

The Global Warming Lie…….

    We have heard, since the Clinton years, the bogus story of this great global warming calamity that  we evil humans are creating. One of those things cited, was how the Antarctic was melting away and how sea level would rise and consume both east and west coastlines as we presently see them. Well, anybody who bought into this malarkey, should read the article enclosed below……..

Ice is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.

The results of ice-core drilling and sea ice monitoring indicate there is no large-scale melting of ice over most of Antarctica, although experts are concerned at ice losses on the continent’s western coast.

Antarctica has 90 percent of the Earth’s ice and 80 percent of its fresh water, The Australian reports. Extensive melting of Antarctic ice sheets would be required to raise sea levels substantially, and ice is melting in parts of west Antarctica. The destabilization of the Wilkins ice shelf generated international headlines this month.

However, the picture is very different in east Antarctica, which includes the territory claimed by Australia.

East Antarctica is four times the size of west Antarctica and parts of it are cooling. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research report prepared for last week’s meeting of Antarctic Treaty nations in Washington noted the South Pole had shown “significant cooling in recent decades.”

Australia Antarctic Division glaciology program head Ian Allison said sea ice losses in west Antarctica over the past 30 years had been more than offset by increases in the Ross Sea region, just one sector of east Antarctica.

“Sea ice conditions have remained stable in Antarctica generally,” Allison said.

Ice core drilling in the fast ice off Australia’s Davis Station in East Antarctica by the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-Operative Research Center shows that last year, the ice had a maximum thickness of 1.89m, its densest in 10 years.

A paper to be published soon by the British Antarctic Survey in the journal Geophysical Research Letters is expected to confirm that over the past 30 years, the area of sea ice around the continent has expanded.

Well? Not exactly the Al Gore b.s. that you have been feed over the last number of years is it? Feel like somebody has been “jerking your chain”? The “man made global warming” story is now, and has always been, a lie. No, we hairless apes can’t destroy this planet. This planet can, and will, destroy us if it needs to. So, don’t go getting so full of yourselves in thinking you have so much power as to be a threat to our planets existence. We all are nothing more than an annoyance.

Coleman dodges egg with ‘Bush move’

Politico reports……

Republican Norm Coleman used a quick George Bush-esque move to dodge an egg thrown at him outside his Minnesota home.

Coleman told police that he heard a thumping on his door Tuesday night and walked outside to investigate. Upon seeing Coleman, a man yelled “I [expletive] can’t stand what you represent” and threw an egg at him.

“He said something, some little obscenity, and then he threw another one,” Coleman told the St. Paul Pioneer Press. “I kind of ducked. A George Bush move.”

“I ran after him, but I didn’t get him.”

Coleman remains locked in a legal fight with Democrat Al Franken for Minnesota’s vacant Senate seat. A three-judge panel declared Franken the winner earlier this week, but Coleman has vowed to appeal.

I find it amazing how the “liberal left” loves to accuse the “right wing” and the Republican party of being “mean spirited”, evil, filled with hatred, and then they either say or do things like the above news article. I would like to put forth the notion that they yell, scream, and point fingers so much because they are projecting their own deep seated hatred on to others as a way of, subconsciously, venting on themselves and/or to cover their true nature.

Obama kissing up to despots?

Below are 2 articles featuring our President getting “friendly” with 2 well known “despots”, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad – Presidents Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez have met for the first time, shaking hands as the Summit of the Americas gets under way in Trinidad and Tobago.

Photos released by the Venezuelan government show the two smiling and Obama touching Chavez on the shoulder.

The Venezuelan presidency says Obama initiated the handshake. It quotes Chavez as telling Obama he hopes for better relations between their nations.

Chavez also reportedly said Friday: “With this same hand I greeted Bush eight years ago. I want to be your friend.”

As recently as last week, Chavez expressed a desire to “reset” relations with Washington.

 

By VIVIAN SEQUERA and BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writers – 14 mins ago

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad – Trading their warmest words in a half-century, the United States and Cuba built momentum toward renewed ties on Friday, with President Barack Obama declaring he “seeks a new beginning” — including direct talks — with the island’s communist regime. As leaders of the Americas gathered for a summit in this Caribbean nation, the head of the Organization of American Stateseven said he’ll ask his group to invite Cuba back after 47 years.

In remarks kicking off the weekend gathering of nations — of which Cuba was the only country in the region not represented — Obama repeated the kind of remarks toward the Castro regime that marked his campaign for the presidency.

“The United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba,” he said at the Summit of the Americas opening ceremony. “I know there is a longer journey that must be traveled to overcome decades of mistrust, but there are critical steps we can take toward a new day.”

Analysts cautioned that the week’s developments were encouraging but do not necessarily mean normalized relations are around the corner.

“This is a thaw, but it’s a thaw that’s going to take some time,” said Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. “I wouldn’t look for any dramatic breakthroughs. There’s a lot of distrust.”

Still, President Cristina Fernandez of Argentina, in her remarks to the summit’s inaugural session, won applause when she called on the United States to lift the “anachronism that the embargo means today,” a reference to the nearly half-century-old U.S. ban on trade with Cuba.

“Let’s not miss the chance,” she said, to build a new relationship with Cuba.

The flurry of back-and-forth gestures began earlier this week when Obama dropped restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba, challenging his Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro, to reciprocate. Obama noted those moves and renewed his promise for his administration to engage with the Cuban government “on a wide range of issues,” including human rights, free speech, democratic reform, drugs, immigration and the economy.

“Let me be clear: I am not interested in talking for the sake of talking,” the president said. “But I do believe that we can move U.S.-Cuban relations in a new direction.”

To that end, Obama met with Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez, a Cuban ally and fierce critic of the United States. The two met ahead of the summit’s opening ceremonies. The Venezuelan presidency released a photograph of the pair shaking hands and described it as a friendly encounter.

In a diplomatic exchange of the kind that normally takes months or years, Castro had responded within hours to Obama’s policy changes this week. He extended Cuba’s most open offer for talks since the Eisenhower administration, saying he’s ready to discuss “human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners — everything.” Cuban officials have historically bristled at discussing human rights or political prisoners, of whom they hold about 200.

The United States replied Friday, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton offering: “We welcome his comments, the overture they represent, and we are taking a very serious look at how we intend to respond.”

And OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza said he would ask the 34 member nations to invite Cuba back into the fold. Analysts doubted Insulza — known for his political caution — would have done so without a nod from Washington, which contributes a huge portion of the OAS budget.

“We’re going step by step,” Insulza said. He called on the group to annul the 1962 resolution that suspended Cuba because its “Marxist-Leninist” system was incompatible with OAS principles. If two-thirds of foreign ministers agree at a meeting in Honduras next month, the communist government will be reinstated.

Obama, in his remarks, rejected what he called a false choice “between sticking to inflexible policies with regard to Cuba or denying the full human rights that are owed to the Cuban people.”

However, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs made clear that while Castro’s new openness to change was welcome, the U.S. wasn’t abandoning its demand for Cuba to start making concrete moves toward freedom.

“They’re certainly free to release political prisoners,” he said aboard Air Force One as Obama flew intoTrinidad. “They’re certainly free to stop skimming money off the top of remittance payments as they come back to the Cuban island. They’re free to institute a greater freedom of the press“

And Castro didn’t retreat from his criticism of U.S. policy, recalling Thursday that the United States has long tried to topple the government that he and his brother Fidel have presided over for 50 years.

“That’s the sad reality,” he said.

Said Peter DeShazo of the Center for Strategic and International Studies: “These are very preliminary steps, but they are significant.”

The U.S. severed all diplomatic ties with Cuba on Jan. 3, 1961, just three months before exiles launched their disastrous invasion of the Bay of Pigs.

The last significant effort toward talks were secret negotiations between an aide to then-Secretary of StateHenry Kissinger and an emissary from the Cuban Communist Party at a crowded coffee shop at New York’s La Guardia Airport on Jan. 11, 1975. Negotiators met in New York hotels and private homes over several months, but the move died when Castro sent troops into Angola.

Obama was criticized during his campaign for saying he’d meet with Castro without preconditions, and Castro said during a November interview with actor-director Sean Penn that he would meet with Obama, suggesting the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay as a venue.

Any possible talks are likely to include involvement of senior Cuban diplomat Jorge Bolanos, head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington. Bolanos and Deputy Foreign Minister Dagoberto Rodriguez greeted members of the Congressional Black Caucus when they visited Havana this month.

Although neither side has set conditions to simply talk, Obama insists Cuba make another move before the U.S. takes more action. Castro, meanwhile, demands the U.S. trade embargo on the island be abolished, something Obama has said will not happen without Cuban moves toward democracy.

The U.S. could balk at Castro’s offer to free the about 200 political prisoners held on the island, along with their relatives, and send them all to the United States in exchange for five Cubans serving long sentences on espionage charges. On the list are several people convicted of violent acts, including two Salvadorans sentenced to death for Havana hotel bombings that killed an Italian tourist. Cuba currently has a moratorium on the death penalty.

The number of political prisoners held on the island has dropped by a third since Raul Castro assumed power from his ailing elder brother in July 2006. The Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation then counted 316 prisoners but as of Jan. 30 documented 205 such inmates, including 12 since freed on medical parole.

Another stumbling block toward normalization is the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which forbids U.S. officials from restoring full diplomatic relations with Cuba as long as either Fidel or Raul Castro is in charge.

___

Associated Press writers Christopher Toothaker in Cumana, Venezuela, Bert Wilkinson and Nestor Ikeda in Port-of-Spain and Anita Snow in Havana contributed to this report.

Why is the President of the United States feeling so compelled to “kiss up” to these 2 known, mentally unstable, murders? Could it be because they are of “like mind”? Or is it, our President is so deluded that he, somehow, thinks there is some redeeming value in these 2 monsters? Does anybody else getting an “uneasy feeling”?

Napolitano Apologizes for Offending Veterans After DHS Eyes Them for ‘Rightwing Extremism’

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano apologized to veterans after a report issued by her department said troops returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were at risk for being recruited by right-wing extremists.

“To the extent veterans read it as an accusation … an apology is owed,” she said during an on-air interview on FOX News Thursday, a day after veterans’ groups and members of Congress blasted her for the report, which they said libeled members of the armed forces.

“This was an assessment, not an accusation,” Napolitano continued. “It was limited to extremists those who seek to commit violence within the United States. And all this was meant to do was to give law enforcement what we call ’situational awareness.’”

“The last thing I want to do is offend or castigate all veterans. To the contrary, let’s meet and clear the air,” she said.

A footnote in the report, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” said that while there is no specific information that domestic right-wing terrorists are planning acts of violence, such acts could come from unnamed “rightwing extremists” concerned about illegal immigration, abortion, increasing federal power and restrictions on firearms — and singled out returning war veterans as susceptible to recruitment.

“If there’s one part of this report that I would rewrite … it would be that footnote,” Napolitano said.

American Legion National Commander David Rehbein, who blasted the report earlier this week as incomplete and politically-biased, said he was pleased with Napolitano’s apology.

“I am glad that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has apologized for the language used in the report about ‘Rightwing Extremism,’” Rehbein said in a statement obtained by FOXNews.com. “I look forward to meeting with her next Friday, putting this behind us and discussing critical issues involving Homeland Security and The American Legion.”

At least one veterans group, however, wasn’t moved by Napolitano’s mea culpa.

“It wasn’t an apology in my view,” said Pete Hegseth, chairman of Vets for Freedom. “It was one of those non-apology apologies. She was sorry that veterans were offended. She should either apologize for the content of the report as it stands or they should rewrite the report and reissue it.”

Hegseth, an Army veteran who served in Iraq, said the report represents a “gross misunderstanding and oversimplification” of the country’s service members. He did not call for Napolitano’s ouster, but said he would accept her resignation.

“If she volunteered to step down, that’d be very honorable of her,” Hegseth said. “It would be a recognition of what she did.”

Napolitano defended the report Wednesday, saying it is part of an ongoing series of assessments to provide information to state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies on “violent radicalization” in the United States.

“Let me be clear: we monitor the risks of violent extremism taking root here in the United States,” Napolitano said in a statement. “We don’t have the luxury of focusing our efforts on one group; we must protect the country from terrorism whether foreign or homegrown, and regardless of the ideology that motivates its violence.”

But the unclassified report, which was produced by DHS’ Office of Intelligence and Analysis also cited the case of Timothy McVeigh, a decorated Gulf War veteran who was executed in 2001 after being convicted of killing 168 people during the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

“The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today,” the report reads.

Rehbein criticized the report in a letter sent to Napolitano on Monday.

“The American Legion is well aware and horrified at the pain inflicted during the Oklahoma City bombing, but Timothy McVeigh was only one of more than 42 million veterans who have worn this nation’s uniform during wartime,” Rehbein wrote. “To continue to use McVeigh as an example of the stereotypical ‘disgruntled military veteran’ is unfair as using Osama bin Laden as the sole example of Islam.”

Hegseth said he found it “amazing they would single out veterans as a threat to this country. It underscores a pervasive belief that some are trying to spread that veterans are victims and we’re coming home as damaged goods that need to be coddled instead of celebrated.”

Napolitano acknowledged Rehbein’s letter on Wednesday and said she plans to meet with him sometime next week. But she told FOX News that the report’s reference to the Oklahoma City bombing “rang true” to her.

“Unfortunately [McVeigh] was a vet, that’s where he got his training and so when I was told about the report, it rang true with me, this has happened in the past,” Napolitano told FOX News. “That is a far cry, however, from saying veterans somehow are at risk.”

Hegseth said he was also troubled by the report’s assertion that returning veterans who face “significant challenges reintegrating into their communities” could be easy targets for extremist groups seeking new members.

“If anything, veterans have an allegiance to this country greater than the average citizen,” he said. “Veterans have learned where their allegiances lie and are less prone to extremism. Something’s wrong with the editing process or [DHS officials] just don’t understand veterans. The report demonstrates a true lack of understanding of who veterans are.”

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, also criticized the report, saying its portrayal of veterans was “offensive and unacceptable.”

The report follows a similar DHS assessment released in January that detailed left-wing threats, focusing on cyberattacks and radical “eco-terrorist” groups like Earth Liberation Front, accused of firebombing construction sites, logging companies, car dealerships and food science labs. The report noted that left-wing extremists prefer economic damage to get their message across.

“Their leftwing assessment identifies actual terrorist organizations, like the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front,” House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said in a statement issued Wednesday. “The rightwing report uses broad generalizations about veterans, pro-life groups, federalists and supporters of gun rights. That’s like saying if you love puppies, you might be susceptible to recruitment by the Animal Liberation Front. It is ridiculous and deeply offensive to millions of Americans.”

FOXNews.com’s Joshua Rhett Miller contributed to this report.

This comes from the one who is compiling the “enemies list”. It seems that the Secretary thinks anybody “right wing’ is a terrorist. Guess who is on the list then? Are YOU a registered Republican? The other curious item in this story was the statement that she believes any soldier coming back from Afghanistan or Iraq would now be “right wing”. So, you are telling me that our men and women in uniform, once they experience the real world, realize that your liberalism is full of crap? Guess what? You are RIGHT! 

Enemies of the State

April 16, 2009 by theoriginalgatekeeper

PETER JOHNSON, JR.: Are YOU an Enemy of the State?

By Peter Johnson, Jr.
Attorney/FOX News Contributor

Look in the mirror: you may have been named Public Enemy No 1.  In fact you may not be the only one. Spread the word. Call your neighbor who has just been laid off. E-mail your son in the Army and tell him, too. Write your pastor who spoke from the pulpit of the sanctity of life on Easter Sunday. Warn each and every one of them that their ideology, experience and religious beliefs qualifies them to be right-wing terrorist extremists.  At least, that is according to the Department of Homeland Security and its  Secretary Janet Napolitano. The Secretary originally stood by a  nine page official alert sent to American law enforcement  which points to recession victims, members of the United States military and its veterans and abortion opponents as the next wave of radical terrorists. That’s right, the United States of America has published an enemies list and it’s likely you might qualify for membership under their warped definitions.

Yesterday I spent the better part of the day with would be terrorists under the government’s new guidelines. I sat with  my father, a wounded Iwo Jima Marine veteran who spent a year in the hospital after World War II and  who went on to become one of the nation’s great lawyers  at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Together we witnessed the installation of the new Archbishop of New York — Timothy Dolan — who spoke eloquently from the pulpit about the sanctity of life and the need to protect the unborn.

The United States of America has published an enemies list and it’s likely you might qualify for membership under their warped definitions.

While there I also met a man who lost his job in the financial services industry. Why was I not frightened by their potential for harm to our country?  There they were — the new enemies of the state: the Veteran, the Cleric and the out-of-work Banker.

We haven’t had a lot of experiences in this country with pronouncements about how our military experience and religious beliefs qualify us to be harmful to our way of life.

Even a second grade student understands the notion of liberty of expression and worship as embodied in our federal and state constitutions. But unfortunately it appears that the agency appointed to keep us safe thinks the best way to do that is to make us distrust each other. There’s precedent in history for that though: In  ancient Rome proscription named the enemies  of the state, during the French revolution the Jacobins unleashed a reign of terror and in Russia, Lenin named certain groups as “enemies of the people.” I wondered this morning, if you attended a Anti-Tax Day Tea Party yesterday and your image made the news last night, will your photo show up on your local Post Office  bulletin board tomorrow because of your single minded opposition to higher taxes and greater government  expenditures? Are you “anti-government”? If you are, should you be on a watch list, a no-fly list, a list of those who need to watched lest your belief systems be converted from words and thoughts to the violent actions of  extremists?

As Americans we rightfully must and will always condemn extremists who even consider violence. Our country is all about change through persuasion — the pen is mightier than the sword, the word is more persuasive than the barrel of a gun. A lot of Americans, including this one, have urged our Homeland Security chief to apologize for her fanciful and wrongheaded attack on Americans who may believe and worship differently than our Homeland Security Secretary does.  Even the ACLU has condemned her for inventing threats without factual basis. This morning on the FOX  News Channel  she almost acknowledged her wrongdoing, saying she “owed” an apology for the damning of our veterans and pro life advocates. But the simple words “I’m sorry” have yet to be said.

A lot of Americans are still waiting for that apology from a government official who needs to understand that our experiences and beliefs as Americans are the well spring of our freedom and the greatest attribute of our safety and security. The enemies of America are found not in our unemployment lines, our  Veterans Hospitals and churches. In those lines and beds and pews we find not the death of America but its constant rebirth.

Well, I can’t say I am surprised that Obama’s Homeland Security director is compiling an “enemies list”. When have you seen a socialist leader that hadn’t? Makes you wonder why Obama wants to get all “warm and fuzzy” with Castro? Maybe its because the are cut from the same cloth? Will the same people that railed against Bush’s tactics after 9/11 do the same now? Could it be we no longer have to worry about the “bin Ladens” but the “Obama’s”? Remember………….

“THE PRICE OF FREEDOM IS ETERNAL VIGILANCE”!

You may not be Muslim but, are you anti-christianty?

Georgetown University hid a religious inscription representing the name of Jesus during President Obama’s address there Tuesday, FOXNews.com has confirmed, because White House staff asked the school to cover up all religious symbols and signs while the president was on stage. The monogram IHS, whose letters spell out the name of Jesus, and which normally perches above the stage in Gaston Hall where the president spoke, was covered over with what appeared to be black wood during the address. “In coordinating the logistical arrangements for the event, Georgetown honored the White House staff’s request to cover all of the Georgetown University signage and symbols behind the Gaston Hall stage,” university spokesman Andy Pino told FOXNews.com. Click here for photos. The White House said that the backdrop, which included blue drapes and a host of American flags, was standard during policy speeches and other events. “Decisions made about the backdrop for the speech were made to have a consistent background of American flags, which is standard for many presidential events,” said White House spokesman Shin Inouye in a statement released Thursday. Georgetown is a private Catholic institution founded by Jesuits in 1789. The auditorium where the president spoke Tuesday is adorned with religious imagery, but only the symbols directly on the stage — those likely to be picked up by a television camera — were obscured. Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, accused the university of “cowardice” for acceding to the White House, and criticized Obama’s team for asking a religious school to “neuter itself” before the president made his address. “No bishop who might speak at the White House would ever request that a crucifix be displayed behind him,” he said. The White House insisted that the move was made only to provide a proper setting for the speech — and said that “any suggestions to the contrary are simply false.” Though his advance team asked that the religious signs be veiled, the president himself took up religious discourse and discussed a passage from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount as he outlined his plans for an economic recovery. “We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand,” he said during his remarks, which came two days after Easter. “We must build our house upon a rock.” It was Obama’s first visit to Georgetown since being elected president, but he also spoke at the school on Sept. 20, 2006 about the need for energy independence. A photograph of the event does not seem to indicate that parts of the stage were hidden during that address, which Obama made while still a U.S. senator. Another Catholic university, Notre Dame, came under fire in late March for inviting the president to speak at its May 17 commencement. Obama supports abortion rights, which are considered anathema by the Catholic Church.

I find it rather curious that the President would be so bold as to demand a religious institution cover up or remove its religious symbols for him. This is CLEARLY a “slap in the face” to the Catholic church. Moreover, why is it he never made this demand before? If he goes to a Muslim country, would he demand it too? Would he have the guts too? How about, if and when, he goes to Israel? Will he demand they “de-Jewish” the country while you are there? Mr. President, I find your conduct OFFENSIVE. Or is it you really are an “anti-Christ”?

President Obama’s brother refused entry to Britain over ’sex assault’

April 14, 2009 by theoriginalgatekeeper

The brother of President Obama has been refused a visa to re-enter Britain after being questioned by police over an accusation of attempted sexual assault and receiving a caution for a public order offence.

Samson Obama — one of the US President’s 11 half-brothers and sisters — is alleged to have been living illegally in Britain when he was arrested in Berkshire last November. A group of girls, one aged 13, told police a man approached them and followed them into a café a mile from the home of Samson Obama’s mother in Bracknell.

Mr Obama, 41, was questioned by Thames Valley Police for several hours, during which his fingerprints and a DNA sample were taken. He is alleged to have told detectives that he was Henry Aloo, a genuine asylum-seeker, but gave the address of his own mother, Kezia. Mr Obama denied any sexual assault, but is reported to have accepted an official caution for a public order offence. A caution is an admission of a criminal offence. Police were reported to have also discovered that Mr Obama had been living illegally in Britain for seven years.

Mr Obama was refused permission to re-enter Britain at Heathrow in January while travelling from his home in Kenya to Washington for his brother’s inauguration. An immigration officer used his discretionary powers to allow him to remain “airside” in the terminal overnight before catching his connecting flight to Washington.
A source at the UK Border Agency said that Mr Obama originally applied for a visa at the High Commission in Nairobi in January. He withdrew the application before flying to America for the inauguration. On returning from Washington, Mr Obama reinstated his application for a visa.

President Obama’s stepbrother-in-law, Ian Manners, said that Samson Obama insisted that the allegations linking him to a sex attack were “absolute lies”. Mr Obama told him: “I was involved in a pub fight which had nothing to do with any young girls.”

Mr Obama, who runs a mobile telephone shop in Nairobi, claimed he could not recall why the fight occurred.

“It seems he was drunk but I don’t really know what the truth is,” said Mr Manners “Abo is not married but is in a relationship with a woman. He is a bit of a playboy but would not get involved with 13-year-old girls. It is unthinkable.”

President Obama recalled meeting his half-brother for the first time when visiting Kenya in 1987. The men have the same father.

In his autobiography Dreams From My Father, the future President wrote that his half-brother appeared disappointed that the tape recorder he had brought as a gift was not a Sony.

He added that in half-brother’s eyes was “something that reminded me of young men back in Chicago. An element of guardedness, perhaps, and calculation. The look of someone who realizes early in life that he has been wronged.”

It seems the Obama family isn’t the finest group you would ever want to meet! Rapists, “whore-mongers”.  and ungrateful. Well, at least that is the impression you get from the tidbits we have read on the Internet. In fact, I don’t remember one thing that I have read  that showed anything positive. If there are any positives, do you think the White House would put it out there? Wonder why they don’t? I do.

Obama "bowing down"?

Obama Bow to Saudi King Labeled 'Shocking'

Wednesday, April 8, 2009 5:50 PM By: Jim Meyers Article Font Size

In what's been called a "shocking display of fealty to a foreign potentate," President Barack Obama bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia at the Group of 20 summit meeting in London. "The bow was an extraordinary protocol violation," The Washington Times observed in an editorial on Tuesday. "Such an act is a traditional obeisance befitting a king's subjects, not his peer. There is no precedent for U.S. presidents bowing to Saudi or any other royals," the editorial said. Obama offered King Abdullah a deep and prolonged bow from the waist when he met him at the summit, which brought together the leaders of the world’s largest economies on April 2. The story about Obama’s unusual gesture has gotten scant media coverage in the United States, but a Spanish TV broadcast was picked up on blogs and has created an Internet stir. "No Americans of any station are required to bow to royalty," the Times stated. "It is one of the pillars of American exceptionalism that our country rejected traditional caste divisions." The Times editorial also opined that Obama’s bow "to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques does not help his image with those who believe he is secretly a Muslim, and why he chose to bow only to the Saudi king and not to any other royal remains unexplained." For instance, Obama did not bow to Queen Elizabeth when he first met her last week in London. Subjects of the crown may bow to the monarch but are not required to do so. First lady Michelle Obama also broke protocol during the Obamas’ trip abroad when she put her hand on the queen’s back. The move caused a bit of tempest in the British press, but was quelled when the queen put her hand on Michelle in what a Buckingham Palace spokesman described as a "mutual and spontaneous display of affection and appreciation." See video here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEUif1--r38 I can understand wanting to be respectful however, in the diplomatic rhealm, the smallest things mean so much. The fact the Obamas tried to be "chummy" with the British Royals but, "bowing" to the Saudi's, does mean something. But what? Could it be, simply, the office of protocol doesn't have a clue? Or does it mean something else? Let the debate begin.

So much for “fiscal responsibility”……

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. budget deficit almost hit $1 trillion during the first six months of this fiscal year which began on October 1, according to estimates released on Monday by the Congressional Budget Office.

The government likely recorded $953 billion in red ink from October through March including $290 billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, which was to provide much-needed cash to struggling financial institutions, the CBO said.

Receipts during the six-month period dropped about $160 billion, or 14 percent, over the same period in fiscal 2008. Nearly half of the drop, $73 billion, came from a fall in corporate income tax receipts.

The CBO, the nonpartisan budget analyst for Congress, said the drop in corporate receipts was the largest in more than three decades.

In comparison, the federal deficit for the first six months of fiscal 2008 was $313 billion, roughly a third of the estimated current total.

More red ink is expected to pile up this fiscal year, with CBO projecting the deficit could total more than $1.8 trillion — by far a record. CBO has forecast the deficit would drop a bit in fiscal 2010, to nearly $1.4 trillion.

In addition to dropping revenue and the bailout money for Wall Street, the government has poured more money out the door to try to jump-start the ailing economy, which has been in recession since December 2007.

Congress approved a $787 billion stimulus package in February and most of the funds are expected to hit the street this year and 2010 through tax breaks as well as spending on infrastructure and other projects.

President Barack Obama proposed a $3.55 trillion budget for fiscal 2010, but his fellow Democrats in Congress are trying to trim it to avoid increasing the deficit more. Republicans have complained the budget had too much spending and tax increases.

Washington could recoup some of its investments in financial firms and the CBO calculated the potential cost of the program in a couple of ways. Using an alternate approach, the CBO estimated government outlays under TARP at $140 billion through March, leading to an estimated U.S. budget deficit of $803 billion through January.

The CBO also said $46 billion in federal aid was given in March to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the U.S. mortgage financing companies that were taken over by the government. A total of $60 billion has been paid to the two firms during the six-month period.

An arm of the U.S. Treasury Department also loaned $10 billion to credit unions to help them address recent liquidity pressures, the CBO said.

Net interest on the public debt for the first half of fiscal 2009 did drop compared to the same period a year ago, falling some 35 percent to $84 billion through March compared to $129 billion in the first half of fiscal 2008.

So much money has been spent by Obama that, they will have to add “turbo charge” to the federal debt meter that is located on line. He is spending more money each second then many earn in a year.

Libya’s Gaddafi says fears Obama assassination

From Reuters…

SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi Tuesday calledBarack Obama a “flicker of hope in the middle of the imperialist darkness,” but said he feared the president could be assassinated.

Gaddafi, known for his controversial statements, did not say who might want to kill Obama but gave the examples of the assassinations of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln, as well as black rights leader Martin Luther King.

“I fear that they could liquidate this young man or force him to submit to their imperialist policies,” Gaddafi told a university gathering of his supporters in Sirte, without specifying who might put Obama under pressure.

“Obama is a flicker of hope in the middle of the imperialist darkness,” the Libyan leader said, adding: “There is a fear that they would liquidate him as they liquidated Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Abraham Lincoln.”

Gaddafi, who is the African Union chairman, had offered to work with Obama to sustain security, stability and prosperity in Africa and elsewhere.

Gaddafi praised Obama for breaking with what he said was the previous American foreign policy that dictated to the rest of the world what to do to serve U.S. interests.

“He (Obama) speaks logically. Arrogance no longer exists in the American approach which was previously based on dictating to the rest of the world in order to meet its own conditions,” Gaddafi said in the remarks carried by state media.

Gaddafi, who took power in 1969 in a military coup in his oil- and gas-rich North African state, was shunned for decades by the West, which accused him of supporting terrorism.

His ties with Western countries have improved since Libya announced in 2003 it was scrapping weapons of mass destruction programs and agreed to pay compensation for families of victims of bombings of U.S. and French airliners.

Another crazy, murderous, Muslim in love with Obama. Why do YOU think they all seem to love him? Is it because, to put it in “street vernacular”, “he down wit it”? 

Obama praises Islam……….

Reuters reports……..

By Caren Bohan and Paul de Bendern ISTANBUL (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama ended his trip to Muslim Turkey on Tuesday by calling for peace and dialogue with Islam and the creation of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel. In his first trip as president to the Muslim world, Obama sought to rebuild ties after anger at the invasion of Iraq, the war in Afghanistan and accusations his predecessor George W. Bush was biased in favor of Israel. “I came to Turkey because I am deeply committed to rebuilding a relationship between the United States and the people of the Muslim world, one that is grounded in mutual interest and mutual respect,” Obama said. “I believe we can have a dialogue that is open, honest, vibrant…And I want you to know that I am personally committed to a new chapter of American engagement,” he said at a meeting with Turkish youngsters. Obama’s visit, in which he said America “will never be at war with Islam,” marks a strong shift in U.S. policy after his predecessor Bush upset Muslims with his backing for Israel, invasion of Iraq and branding of Iran as part of an “axis of evil.” Obama will now need to flesh out, through policies, his promises to engage the Muslim world. Amr El-Choubaki, an Egyptian political analyst with the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said Obama differed fundamentally from Bush’s world view and lacked his high-handedness toward Arabs and Muslims. He pleased Muslims with his call to push aggressively for a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, in a challenge to the new Israeli government of right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu. “I believe that peace in the Middle East is possible. I think it will be based on two states side by side, a Palestinian state and a Jewish state,” Obama said. “I think in order to achieve that, both sides are going to have to make compromises. I think we have a sense of what those compromises should be and will be. Now what we need is political will and courage on the part of leadership.” HOPE AND CHANGE “Meeting with the youth symbolizes the expectation of hope and change, because the previous administration had a problem with its image in the Muslim world,” said Salih Altundere, 23, studying international relations at Bogazici University. Obama rejected critics who said his speech in Prague on nuclear disarmament, his calls for Middle East peace and engagement with Iran were too idealistic. “My attitude is that all these things are hard. I am not naive. If it would be easy it would already be done,” he said. “Moving the ship of state is a slow process. States are like big tankers. They are not like speedboats. You can’t just whip them around and go in a new direction. Instead, you slowly move it and eventually you end up in a very different place.” He admitted America had made mistakes. “When it comes to Iraq, I opposed the war in Iraq. I thought it was a bad idea. Now that we’re there, I have the responsibility to make sure that, as we bring troops out, that we do so in a careful enough way that you don’t see a complete collapse into violence,” Obama said. Respecting Muslim sensitivity, he said he would like to wrap up the youth meeting before the call to prayer. (Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Ayla Jean Yackley; Alexandra Hudson and Daren Butler; Writing by Paul de Bendern; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Just another day in the delusional world of “Mr. Obama’s neighborhood”! Where we all get along, love each other, sing kumbaya, and sit around and lament how the only evil in the world are the ones called conservative Republicans. How can you praise a belief that says, if you are not a devotee, you MUST be killed?  Or is it, your early education in the “Madrasas” really did take hold? Is there something deep seated? Is this President that naive or is it more “sinister”?

If you can’t stand the heat………………..

By Judson Berger

FOXNews.com

President Obama’s first few months in office have been more baptism by fire than immersion in executive leadership. 

He’s seen an economic crisis deepen, with unemployment rising to levels unseen in a generation. He’s seen Mexico’s drug war threaten security in America’s Southwest. He’s seen new challenges, both political and military, emerge in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the fight against Al Qaeda. 

And to top things off, North Korea defied the United Nations by firing a ballistic missile, the kind the West fears could be used to deliver nuclear weapons. 

“North Korea, strangely enough, is the least of Obama’s foreign policy problems at this point — and that’s pretty bad,” said Thomas Whalen, a political historian and professor at Boston University. 

As Obama seeks to enact a broad agenda, much of it promised during his presidential campaign, it seems as if every day brings another another challenge. But with the new administration stretched wafer thin, it’s questionable whether the Obama White House, or any White House, could be equipped to handle such an onslaught of problems. 

Whalen said the breadth of challenges facing Obama less than 80 days into his term is “unprecedented” for a new president. 

“FDR, he had the Great Depression, but it wasn’t until his third term until he really dealt with foreign policy issues,” he said. “This is … like it’s all coming at once.” 

Whalen said the magnitude and severity of challenges help explain why Obama is overseas seeking renewed support from European nations and restored relations with countries like Russia and China. Obama also is making fresh overtures to the Muslim world — on Monday, he declared before the Turkish parliament that the United States “is not and will never be at war with Islam” and called for a mutual respect between East and West. 

“He knows the United States can’t do it alone,” Whalen said. 

Terry Sullivan, co-founder of the White House Transition Project, said the only comparable crisis facing a new president in the past century was the botched Bay of Pigs invasion, which happened within the first three months of John F. Kennedy’s presidency. 

But Obama’s facing a whole set of crises, he said. 

“Just everything: North Korea, collapse of the banks, economy teetering, auto industry collapsing. It’s pretty unprecedented,” Sullivan said. 

The full plate, and the pressure that comes with it, also help explain why Obama assumed such a foreboding tone about the economic crisis during his first month in office, while pitching his stimulus plan. 

The president has since ditched that tone —  disliked by a distraught American public — in favor of more reassuring rhetoric. His overseas visit to Europe this past week was punctuated by the kind of hope-filled speeches that defined his presidential campaign. 

But the shift in tone doesn’t soften the hard-edged challenges he confronts. 

North Korea’s rocket firing over the weekend was just the latest test of the president’s mettle — the kind of test then-Sen. Joe Biden seemed to reference to a fundraising audience before Election Day when he said Obama would face a “generated crisis.”  

The Taliban forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan are reportedly teaming up to fight the wave of U.S. troops Obama plans to send into the region. Violence has also overtaken Mexico, with top U.S. officials holding high-level talks with their counterparts south of the border to try to find ways to clamp down on drug trade-fueled chaos. 

Domestically, the titans of the U.S. auto industry are edging ever closer to bankruptcy, with Obama stepping in last week to force the firing of General Motors’ CEO. Unemployment jumped to 8.5 percent in March. 

Obama tried to turn the North Korea crisis into an opportunity Sunday, telling a crowd in Prague that the missile launch only underscored the need to carry out his call for an end to nuclear proliferation. 

“The world must stand together to prevent the spread of these weapons. Now is the time for a strong international response. North Korea must know that the path to security and respect will never come through threats and illegal weapons,” Obama said. 

But as the president seeks global support for his agenda, he also must make sure to spread out the burden of responsibility at home, analysts said. 

Sullivan said Obama would be well-served to continue enlisting the help of outside experts to deal with the crises, so his White House staff can concentrate on his multi-faceted agenda. 

Jeremy Mayer, public policy professor at George Mason University, said Obama will have to delegate effectively. If anything, the mounting challenges are a test to the hundreds of people with whom Obama has surrounded himself. 

“There’s a delicate balancing act that needs to go on here between looking personally involved and also delegating effectively,” Mayer said. He said one of former President Clinton’s problems early on was he did not delegate enough. Former President Reagan mastered the art of delegation, but then ran into the perils of over-delegating in his second term with issues like the Iran-Contra affair, Mayer said. 

By one measure, Obama’s doing an effective job of getting key officials in place, though he has faced criticism for being slow to appoint top-level officials at the Treasury Department. 

The White House Transition Project published a summary last week showing that Obama has sent 111 nominations to the Senate so far. Former President George W. Bush, by comparison, had sent about 50 to the Senate by the same time in his administration. 

For better or worse, Obama is using that staffing to attempt to tackle at once the multitude of challenges facing his administration — he’s pushing a costly agenda to invest in education, alternative energy and health care reform, all the while hitting the economic crisis on all fronts. And he’s reversed a number of controversial Bush-era practices in what was once commonly called the War on Terror as he shifts the theater from Iraq to Afghanistan. 

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has defended the all-at-once approach, saying if your “house is on fire,” you can’t just hose down one room. 

“It’s sort of like being FDR and Truman all at once,” Mayer said. “It’s a hell of a job right now.”

Already we are starting with the “poor Barry” b.s.. If all these “problems” were too much for the” saviour-in-chief”, then he shouldn’t have applied for the damn job!!!  As President, you do NOT get a “give him a chance because its tough”. It’s like the Marines—-do or die! No sympathy, no breaks, no pity. If these problems are so daunting, then maybe you shouldn’t be going on Leno. 

Does anybody think we should be “easy” on the President? If these tasks at hand are,  indeed,  daunting, does he get a “just take your time”?. I submit not. As President, you have to “hit the ground running”. You better be prepared from 12:01 PM, January 20th. No excuses!  Because your enemies look for any weakness at any time. So Mr. President, are you going to “suck it up” or whine? We wait your response.

Delusional and Dangerous

PRAGUE — Declaring the future of mankind at stake, President Obama on Sunday said all nations must strive to rid the world of nuclear arms and that the U.S. had a “moral responsibility” to lead because no other country has used one.

A North Korean rocket launch upstaged Obama’s idealistic call to action, delivered in the capital of theCzech Republic, a former satellite of the Soviet Union. But Obama dismissed those who say the spread ofnuclear weapons, “the most dangerous legacy of theCold War,” cannot be checked.

“This goal will not be reached quickly – perhaps not in my lifetime,” he told a cheering crowd of more than 20,000 in the historic square outside the Prague Castle gates. We “must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist, ‘Yes, we can.’”

Few experts think it’s possible to completely eradicate nuclear weapons, and many say it wouldn’t be a good idea even if it could be done. Even backward nations such as North Korea have shown they can develop bombs, given enough time.

But a program to drastically cut the world atomic arsenal carries support from scientists and lions of the foreign policy world. Obama embraced that step as his first goal and chose as the venue for his address a nation that peacefully threw off communism and helped topple the Soviet Union, despite its nuclear power.

But he said his own country, with its huge arsenal and its history using two atomic bombs against Japan in 1945, had to lead the world. He said the U.S. has a “moral responsibility” to start taking steps now.

“To reduce our warheads and stockpiles, we will negotiate a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the Russians this year,” he promised.

The nuclear-free cause is more potent in Europe than in the United States, where even Democratic politicians such as Obama must avoid being labeled as soft or naive if they endorse it. Still, Obama said he would resubmit a proposed Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to the Senate for ratification. The pact was signed by President Bill Clinton but rejected by the Senate in 1999.

While espousing long-term goals, Obama took care to promise that America would not lower its defenses while others are pursuing a nuclear threat. He warned both North Korea, which has tested a nuclear weapon, and Iran, which the West says is developing one, that the world was against them.

Obama gave his most unequivocal pledge yet to proceed with building a missile defense system in Europe, so long as Iran pursues nuclear weapons, a charge it denies. That shield is to be based in the Czech Republic and Poland. Those countries are on Russia’s doorstep, and the missile shield has contributed to a significant decline in U.S.-Russia relations.

In the interest of resetting ties with Moscow, Obama previously had appeared to soft-pedal his support for the Bush-era shield proposal. But he adopted a different tone in Prague.

“As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven,” Obama said, earning cheers from the crowd.

Hours before the address, an aide awoke Obama in his hotel room to tell him that North Korea had make good on its pledge to launch a long-range rocket. By lunchtime, the president had addressed it publicly nearly half a dozen times.

“Rules must be binding,” he said. “Violations must be punished. Words must mean something.”

“Now is the time for a strong international response,” he said.

After the speech and a round of private meetings with foreign leaders, Obama arrived in Turkey, the final stop of his trip.

On the broader anti-nuclear issue, more than 140 nations have ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. But 44 states that possess nuclear technology need to both sign and ratify it before it can take effect and only 35 have do so. The United States is among the holdouts, along with China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan.

Ratification was one of several “concrete steps” Obama outlined as necessary to move toward a nuclear-free world. He also called for reducing the role of nuclear weapons in American national security strategy and seeking a new treaty to end the production of fissile materials used in nuclear weapons.

Obama said the U.S. will seek to strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation treaty by providing more resources and authority for international inspections and mandating “real and immediate consequences” for countries that violate the treaty.

He offered few details of how he would accomplish his larger goal and acknowledged that “in a strange turn of history, the threat of global nuclear war has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up.”

If the saviour-in-chief thinks this can be accomplished, he is delusional! I can understand being idealistic and want to see such a world however, actually thinking this can occur, is delusional.  It makes you wonder, if this man doesn’t think this is 1967 and we all just want to have a “love-in maaaaaan”. Faaaaaar Out! Well, yes, far out is the correct response to anybody who actually this can come about. Far out—of your MIND!  

Killed “for the sake of God”

Two young Americans who left their homes to join an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group in Somalia held a rare “press conference” in Southern Somalia on Monday, saying they want to be killed “for the sake of God,” according to a U.S. law enforcement official and a video posted on a Somali news Web site.

For several months the FBI has been investigating at least 20 Somali-American men from the Minneapolis area and elsewhere in the United States who traveled to war-torn Somalia to join the terrorist group al-Shabaab, which has been warring with the moderate Somali government since 2006.

Last month, a source familiar with the FBI investigation told FOX News that “several” of the men had returned to the United States, while others “are still there [in Somalia].” Today is the first time any of these men have spoken publicly.

“We came from the U.S. with a good life and a good education, but we came to fight alongside our brothers of al-Shabaab … to be killed for the sake of God,” one man said in the video, as translated by Omar Jamal, the executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minn.

In the video, two men, identifying themselves as Abu-Muslim and Abu Yaxye, say they are “Somali youth” from the United States who are now stationed near the city of Kismayo, more than 300 miles southwest of Mogadishu, according to Jamal. The men say they are talking to media for the first time so others can learn why they joined al-Shabaab, he said.

A spokesman from the FBI Field Office in Minneapolis, E.K. Wilson, said he is “aware of the video,” which was posted on the Web site dowladnimo.com. He said the video was first brought to his office’s attention early Sunday.

Wilson would not say whether the FBI has identified the men in the video.

At their press conference, the men did not say exactly how many other U.S. citizens have joined al-Shabaab, but they insisted that “many” Somali-Americans are now “all over Somalia to join the Jihad,” according to Jamal’s translation.

“Some of us are still in training, others are on the frontline of the Jihad,” Abu-Muslim said in the video, according to Jamal. “Sadly a few of us are dead, one of whom carried out a suicide bombing.”

In October 2008, Shirwa Ahmed — a 27-year-old college student from Minneapolis — became what the FBI calls “the first known American suicide bomber” when he blew himself up in Somalia, killing dozens.

The men in the new video said they want others like Ahmed to fight in Somalia, according to Jamal.

“We are here to invite others to come and join us” said Abu Yaxye, as translated by Jamal.

Asked why any missing Somali-Americans might be speaking out now, Wilson, the FBI spokesman in Minneapolis, said, “We do not want to speculate on the motivation behind it.”

This comes a week after another video featuring an American in Somalia surfaced online.

But unlike the new video, which is essentially a news story covering a “press conference,” the video posted last week is a highly polished production with the primary intent of recruiting foreign youth.

It was a “clear appeal to foreign youth, especially in English-speaking countries, to join the jihad in Somalia,” according to the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which first provided the video to Fox News.

In the 30-minute video, featuring an anti-American hip-hop score and images of Usama bin Laden, a man dubbed “The American” purportedly leads a group of al-Shabaab militants in an ambush of Ethiopian forces, which oppose an Islamic state and have backed the new Somali government.

“If you can encourage more of your children and more of your neighbors, anyone around, to send people like him to this jihad it would be a great asset for us,” the so-called “American” says in the video, which was posted on an Islamist web site.

A law enforcement official confirmed to FOX News that the man, identified in the video as Abu Mansur al-Amriki, is originally from the United States, but said he has been in Somalia “for some time.” The official said the man is in his late 20s or early 30s, and left the United States “many” years ago.

The FBI investigation into how young American men were recruited to join al-Shabaab in Somalia is active in Columbus, Ohio; Cincinnati, Ohio; Boston; Seattle; and San Diego, according to testimony from counterterrorism officials and others at a Senate hearing last month. But, officials said, there is no intelligence to indicate that Somali-Americans who traveled to Somalia are planning attacks inside the United States.

The source familiar with the FBI investigation would not say publicly if authorities know the whereabouts of the men who returned to the United States, nor would the source say if authorities are pursuing arrests in the case. But Muslim leaders in the Minneapolis area told FOX News that they believe arrests are coming.

“It will be a big relief for the community once this comes to an end,” Jamal said.

Lets put to rest the notion the ‘Muslim Extremist” are anything other then extremely mentally ill people who are members of a murder-suicide cult.  To think they are anything  other, is nothing short of delusional. They ONLY want one thing—TO DIE! In doing so, they want to also murder.