Do you remember when you were a teenager and you wanted to go run around with your friends, but your Mom wanted you to stay home and finish your chores and get your homework done?  Do you remember how you sounded?  It was something like this:

Even though I’m president of the United States, my power is not limitless. So I can’t dive down there and plug the hole. I can’t suck it up with a straw. All I can do is make sure that I put honest, hard-working smart people in place … to implement this thing.

This was on a video released by the White House showing The Magnificent One, Barack Hussein Obama (peace be upon him) slumming with some Grand Isle, LA residents, hand-picked for the photo-op.

Meanwhile, White House energy adviser Carol Browner denied the accusations of  a panel of experts that the administration misrepresented their views to justify a six-month ban on offshore drilling in response to the BP oil rig disaster. 

These experts are saying  that the Interior Department changed the findings of  a report in late May that was used as the basis for the devastating ban on existing drilling and new permits. 

The version of the report that the administration issued claimed the analysts, picked by the National Academy of Engineering, “peer reviewed” the department’s recommendations.  However, the experts say the two paragraphs that called for the moratorium were added after they signed off on it and gave it to the White House. 

The actual opinion of the experts is that such a moratorium could not only harm the economy but make the situation in the Gulf more dangerous. The April 20 oil rig explosion occurred while the Deepwater Horizon well was being shut down — a move that is much more dangerous than continuing ongoing drilling, they said. 

In a letter the experts wrote claiming that Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar’s report “misrepresents” their position, they said:

A blanket moratorium is not the answer.  A blanket moratorium will have the indirect effect of harming thousands of workers and further impact state and local economies suffering from the spill.

We do not believe that punishing the innocent is the right thing to do. We encourage the secretary of interior to overcome emotion with logic. 

Salazar actually acknowledged that the moratorium was his decision, not theirs, and then Browner had the temerity to argue on Fox News  that the administration did nothing wrong: 

No one’s been deceived or misrepresented.   These experts gave their expert advice, and then a determination was made looking at all of the information, including what these experts provided — that there should be a pause, and that’s exactly what there is. There’s a pause. 

According to the experts, the draft report that they looked at called for a six-month freeze on permits for new exploratory wells 1,000 feet or deeper and a “temporary pause” on current drilling. 

The administration changed the report, calling for a six-month moratorium on permits for new wells being drilled using floating rigs and an “immediate halt” to drilling operations on 33 permitted wells. 

Oil expert Ken Arnold told Fox News:

None of us actually reviewed the memorandum as it is in the report.  What was in the report at the time it was reviewed was quite a bit different in its impact to what there is now. So we wanted to distance ourselves from that recommendation. 

The experts also faxed a memo to clarify that they do not believe the report justifies the moratorium to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Louisiana Sens. Mary Landrieu and David Vitter.   They also said that because the floating rigs are scarce and in high demand worldwide, they will not simply sit in the Gulf idle for six months. The rigs will go to the North Sea and West Africa, possibly preventing the U.S. from being able to resume drilling for years. 

According to the experts, the best and most advanced rigs will be the first to go, leaving the U.S. with the older and potentially less safe rights operating in the nation’s coastal waters. 

Brilliant.

Unfortunately, we’ve got another month until they completely close the cap.

Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen told reporters at a briefing in Washington this week that once a “hard cap” containment system is in place by the middle of July, BP’s oil-siphoning capacity will rise to up to 50,000 barrels per day.

Allen said that  BP’s collection capacity is currently about 18,000 bpd, and will increase to about 28,000 bpd once a new oil-flaring rig is activated next week.

Hey, no worries.  The Magnificent One is on top of this disaster.  After all, he’s been on the case since Day One.  He has issued a Royal Summons.

The Obama administration has summoned the chairman of BP to meet with the president and senior White House officials June 16, in order to receive a verbal tongue-lashing about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the company’s financial liability and clean up efforts.

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander on the scene, said in a letter Thursday to BP board chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg in London:

“BP is financially responsible for all costs associated with the response to the spill, including stopping the leak, protecting the shoreline, [as well as supporting] long-term recovery efforts to ensure that all individuals and communities impacted by the spill are made whole.

Time is of the essence in resolving these issues.

It’s a little late for that.

Allen requested, on The Regime’s behalf, that Svanberg and “any appropriate officials from BP” attend the meeting.

Obama’s procrastination in dealing with the Gulf Coast Oil Crisis is reminiscent of a teenager putting off chores and homework.  However, the consequences of this petulant adolescent’s lack of responsibility and leadership are much more severe.  His incompetency is ruining the economy and the ecology of America’s Gulf Coast.  Estimates are that the spill could eventually make its’ way as far up as the coast of North Carolina.  There is no excuse for how badly the President and his administration has bungled the containment of this disaster.  And appearing in photo-ops, whining about the situation, doesn’t look Presidential at all.

Hope and change, indeed.

Sources:  washingtonpost.com, foxnews.com, reuters.com, politicsdaily.com

When the 1980 campaign began, America was becoming fed up with liberal, Democratic big government (sound familiar?).  As it moved forward, the nation was tearing apart at the seams due to high inflation and unemployment, gasoline shortages, and a hostage crisis in Iran in which more than 50 Americans were held captive by radical Muslims.  Carter was a weak and powerless failure.  Voters felt helpless, hopeless, and wondered if bread lines loomed in their future

They were waiting for someone to tell them what they needed to hear.  That man was Ronald Reagan.  He told Americans that it was okay to believe in themselves again.  He proudly declared that the United States was a “shining city on a hill” whose best days were still ahead. The usual pseudo-intellectuals labelled him as too extreme and simplistic. The American people decided not to listen to them.   Reagan defeated Carter in a landslide, winning 44 million votes, or 50.7 percent, and 489 electoral votes to Carter’s 35.5 million votes, or 41 percent, and only 44 electoral votes. It put a sudden halt to the out-of-control locomotive that Franklin Roosevelt rode toward ever-bigger government and tore asunder FDR’s political coalition that had smothered the politics of America for most of the previous half-century.

Reagan never forgot who he was and where he came from. That is what endeared him to the majority of Americans.  On Election Day, when  a journalist asked Reagan what Americans saw in him, he asked:

Would you laugh if I told you that I think, maybe, they see themselves and that I’m one of them? “I’ve never been able to detach myself or think that I, somehow, am apart from them.

Compare that statement to those of the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  I dare you.

He was the oldest person ever elected president for a first term, but in the end Americans didn’t seem to mind because he was in such good health and looked much younger than his 68 years.  From the start, this humble man made his intentions very clear.  He would roll back communism where possible, strengthen national defense, cut taxes, and stop or slow the growth of government. Many disagreed with the details of his policies, but they accepted the direction he was setting and liked his positive, decisive leadership.

It was not coincidental that President Reagan’s rise in politics happened at the same time as the ascension of the religious right, the term given to millions of Christian Conservative voters who held the balance of power in many states.   Under Reagan,these people, like myself, became much more active in politics.

Thirty years later, as we head into the 2010 Mid-term Elections, history seems to be repeating itself.   Only this time, it’s turbo-boosted.  Let’s look at some polls from rasmussenreports.com:

This upcoming election should be a slam dunk for the Republican Party.  The problem is, they have been fighting among themselves since before Obama got elected.   Read these words from the great Thomas Sowell, writing for nationalreview.com in 2009:

The “smart money” says that the way for the Republicans to win elections is to appeal to a wider range of voters — including minorities — by abandoning the kinds of positions Ronald Reagan held and supporting more of the kinds of positions that Democrats use to get elected. This sounds good on the surface, which is as far as many people go when it comes to politics.

Ronald Reagan won two elections in a landslide by being Ronald Reagan — and, most important of all — by explaining to a broad electorate how what he advocated would be best for them and for the country. Newt Gingrich likewise led a Republican takeover of the House of Representatives by explaining how the Republican agenda would benefit a wide range of people.

Neither of them won by pretending to be Democrats. It is the mushy “moderates” — the “kinder and gentler” Bush 41, Bob Dole, and John McCain — who lost disastrously, even in two cases to Democrats who were initially very little known, but who knew how to talk.

Today, the Republicans are doing nothing to help themselves win the confidence of the American public going into November’s elections.  The party seems to want to be squishy Moderates, instead of  Reagan Conservatives.  Right now, those in power want to remain the aloof Beltway Elitists that they have come to love every time they look into a mirror.

They have a problem.   As of yesterday, Rasmussen reports that 65 % of those polled, believe that the Country would be better off if most of those in Congress would be defeated in November.  The public is demanding accountability and will not take “no” for an answer.  Like Rush Limbaugh has been saying for years, Conservatism wins!  Not just fiscal Conservatism coupled with situational ethics and moral relativity, but true Conservatism. 

As President Reagan said:

If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.  

Sources:  usnews.com, rasmussenreports.com, nationalreview.com, brainyquote.com

Who said the following?

I have some good news and some bad news for you.  The good news is that the latest attempt to cap the broken well, one mile down in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, seems to be working.  The bad news is that the Feds said Tuesday that BP  was collecting so much oil that it didn’t have a big enough boat to hold it.

President Barack Obama told NBC News, in an interview aired Tuesday, that he would have fired BP CEO Tony Hayward by now if he worked for him. Brave words.  He hasn’t even had a face-to-face discussion with him yet.

Because Democratic publicity hounds such as strategist and CNN pundit James Carville began yipping at Scooter’s heels for not being tough enough on BP, he is scolding BP, warning the company last week against “nickel and diming” Gulf residents, and appearing in a bunch of televised interviews this week to let American know that he is “furious” about the crisis. Furthermore, the White House is now backing a move to lift all caps on liability oil companies could face for spilling crude.

All this “frustration” is going to be transferred to the oil companies and their consumers in the form of new regulations like the ones revealed Tuesday by the Obama administration as the prerequisite for companies to resume offshore drilling in waters shallower than 500 feet.

The new rules call for more extensive inspection and certification of blowout preventers, the huge devices that are supposed to stop the flow of oil from a damaged well.  A failed blowout preventer is one of the problems in the huge BP spill.

Congressional Democrats met Tuesday, in order to look like they were doing something.  When San Fran Nan came out of the meeting, she declared that they were determined: 

to exploit and enforce the laws that are there; change them if necessary; and pass others to make us stronger in terms of protecting the interest of the taxpayer, the economy, the ecology, the quality of life of the region.

Woo Hoo.  I know the fishermen feel better already.

The industry, and the rest of Americans, could also pay in the form of higher taxes. Senate legislation would increase a per-barrel tax paid by oil companies to 41 cents, up from 8 cents, raising $14 billion over 10 years. The tax is alledgedly in support of a government fund created in 1990 after the Exxon Valdez spill to help fund cleanup projects.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Tuesday that Democrats were raiding the fund to pay for programs not related to oil-spill cleanup.  New revenue raised by the levy “ought to be used to clean up spills,” he said.

Lost or delayed opportunities to drill will also cost the oil companies. Obama proclaimed a six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling and cancelled the sale of oil leases off the East Coast and Alaska. He  had also halted shallow-water drilling pending the issuance of the new rules. Those rules could keep rigs off the water for more days or weeks.

The new rules issued Tuesday require a company’s CEO to personally certify that the operator has complied with all regulations, that drilling equipment has been tested and that personnel are properly trained, among other things. They also call for independent verification for a number of systems, particularly blowout preventers.

The shallow part of the Gulf of Mexico provides about 55% of all natural gas produced in the Gulf and about 20% of all the oil. The deepwater region accounts for more than 80% of the oil produced in the Gulf.

The rest of the world has not issued any regulatory clampdowns like those from this administration…yet.

Yesterday, Norway proclaimed that it was “not appropriate” to allow new deepwater drilling until the Deepwater Horizon incident had been fully investigated, but they also turned around and said they would go ahead with plans to award new exploration licenses in their territorial waters next year.

The U.K. said Tuesday it wouldn’t halt drilling in one of the most promising deepwater sites in Europe, the West of Shetland area north of Scotland. Instead, Officials announced plans to double the number of annual environmental inspections of drilling rigs.

Meanwhile, back in the Gulf, BP’s costs for the disaster are growing quickly. Late Tuesday, the company said it would donate net revenue from the oil it is collecting from the well to organizations working on the Gulf cleanup effort.  BP still faces pressure from the Obama Administration to pay out more money, faster, and to move more rapidly to capture oil from its well.

BP is collecting about 15,000 barrels a day from the well now and plans in the next week or so to expand its oil-containment effort by another 5,000 barrels a day, through the use of another vessel already onsite.  They are also bringing in storage vessels from around the globe, including a tanker from the North Sea.

A new estimate of how much oil is flowing from the well is expected to be released from a group of scientists working for the U.S. government later this week.  The flow rate is now being analyzed by scientists looking at  high-resolution video of the leak using a method called particle image velocimetry.  PIV involves observing separate features in the flow from one frame to the next to measure the velocity of the fluid.

While the administration and Congress are in the process of burdening the oil industry with new regulations and taxes to the detriment of them and the American consumer, and Barack Obama is trying to figure out whose *** (expletive deleted) to kick, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has some advice for POTUS:

Please, sir, for the sake of the Gulf residents, reach out to experts who have experience holding oil companies accountable. I suggested a few weeks ago that you start with Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources, led by Commissioner Tom Irwin. Having worked with Tom and his DNR and AGIA team led by Marty Rutherford, I can vouch for their integrity and expertise in dealing with Big Oil and overseeing its developments. We’ve all lived and worked through the Exxon-Valdez spill. They can help you. Give them a call. Or, what the heck, give me a call.

And,[finally], Mr. President, please do not punish the American public with any new energy tax in response to this tragedy. Just because BP and federal regulators screwed up that doesn’t mean the rest of us should get punished with higher taxes at the pump and attached to everything petroleum products touch.

This sounds like very common sense advice to me.  Unfortunately, this over-his-head president, his Chicago-thug  administration, and our Beltway Elite Congress are as far removed from common sense as a drunk is to sobriety.  Speaking of which, they may drive all of America to drink before this regime is out of power.

Sources:  wsj.com, facebook.com

There has been something that has been tugging at my soul since 52% of  the voting public foisted the man-made disaster named Barack Hussein Obama(mm mmm mmmm) upon us.

There is a palpatable sense of aloofness and undeserved conceit that seems to emanate from him like radiation from a tanning bed.

Remember this quote from a San Francisco Fund Raiser in April of 2008?

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them.  And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

On October 28., 2008, this appeared in Jake Tapper’s Blog:

The respected Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that according to a “senior Israeli government source, the reports reaching Israel indicate that Sarkozy views the Democratic candidate’s stance on Iran as ‘utterly immature’ and comprised of ‘formulations empty of all content.'”

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., met with Sarkozy in July and they are said to have discussed Iran at length.

French authorities are said to be concerned that the international community doesn’t take the Iranian threat seriously enough. French intelligence has concluded that Iran has already obtained up to 40% of the enriched uranium it needs for a bomb, the newspaper reports, and will have obtained the rest next summer.

In April 2009,  in a meeting with American CEOs of American banks, when the CEOs tried to explain that the nature, complexities, and competition of the finance and banking industries required that they continue retention bonuses for their employees, Scooter  interrupted them and said:

Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn’t buying that. My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.

Swapan Dasgupta, writing for the Daily Pioneer, tells us that in the past few months, the international grapevine has been abuzz with stories of a new, abrasive style of diplomacy that has become the style of the Obama Administration.  Smart Power!

This departure from diplomacy would have been understandable if they had only done it in dealing with countries such as Iran and Venezuela that take cheap shots at the US. Instead, Scooter appears to have reserved his Don Rickles impersonation for our allies.

I know you’re thinking that I’m speaking of the way he’s treated Bibi Netanyahu.  It’s not just Israel.   Obama made a sudden visit to Kabul on March 28, partly for a photo-op with the American forces stationed there and partly to meet with President Hamid Karzai.    Obama’s handlers carefully sent out the news that Obama read Karzai the riot act.  Obama told him that the US found his style of governance wasn’t cutting it and the levels of corruption would not be tolerated.  He was told to shape up or ship out.

Obama’s nagging hasn’t gone over well in Afghanistan. Karzai was offended by Obama’s attitude and has lashed out at the West. He has  subsequently sought to befriend Iran, caution the US against any unilateral offensive on Kandahar and even let it be known that sheer exasperation with American arrogance may drive him into the arms of the Taliban.  Obama responded by questioning Karzai’s mental stability and inferring that he is suffering the effects of hallucinatory drugs.  Talk about a relationship going from bad to worse.

The latest example of  Obama’s unbridled arrogance was, of course, last night on NBC’s Nightly News, when he tried to talk tough about the Gulf Coast Crisis:

I was down there a month ago, before most of these talkin’ heads were even paying attention to the gulf. A month ago I was meeting with fishermen down there, standin’ in the rain talking about what a potential crisis this could be. and I don’t sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar, we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose *** (expletive deleted) to kick.

I find Obama’s imperious attitude hauntingly familiar.

Marie Antoinette was the Queen of France during the French Revolution. She has gone down in history as the arrogant monarch who, when told the peasants were starving because they had no bread, said “let them eat cake.”  Marie was despised by the French citizenry for her foreign birth and extravagant lifestyle.   While today,  most scholars dismiss the quote as phony revolutionary propaganda, Marie was truthfully known to have been an out-of-control spender as a young queen. The daughter of Francis I and Maria Theresa, Emperor and Empress of the Holy Roman Empire, Marie left Austria for France in 1770 to marry the prince of France. In 1774 the prince became King Louis XVI and Marie became queen.  The king and queen tried to flee as revolution swept Paris in 1789, but were captured.    Marie and Louis XVI were kept as prisoners at the palace at Tuileries, while the revolutionaries tried to figure out what kind of government France was going to have.  They were arrested and charged with treason in 1792.  Louis was beheaded on 21 January 1793 and Marie was beheaded months later, on 16 October 1793.

In 2008, Obama was on a Campaign appearance in Iowa to speak about rural issues and, in an attempt to fake sympathy for farmers and their economic struggles, he said, anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?  You could have heard a pin drop.  Scooter had no more knowledge of the daily lives of those Average Americans than a penguin would know how to survive in a desert.  He is as out-of-place as an American President as Marie Antoinette was as the Queen of France.

Let them eat arugula!

Sources:  dailypioneer.com, pajamasmedia.com, answers com, glennbeck.com, abcnews.com

Monday evening, it was revealed via NBC’s Nightly News, that the President of the United States still knows how to speak like a wannabe Chicago street thug.  He spoke this way because the White House is desperately trying to rewrite history in order to support the claim that they have been on top of the Gulf Coast Crisis since Day One.  They are trying to change the public’s perception of little Scooter Obama as Barney Fife to Rambo.

Per the POTUS:

I was down there a month ago, before most of these talkin’ heads were even paying attention to the gulf. A month ago I was meeting with fishermen down there, standin’ in the rain talking about what a potential crisis this could be. and I don’t sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar, we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose *** (expletive deleted) to kick.

Classy, isn’t he?

In case you are tempted to buy Scooter’s phony outrage at BP and its’ gulf oil spill, here’s a story that he does not want you to know.   Most of you know that BP was a significant contributor to the record $750-million war chest of Barack Obama’s 2007-08 campaign.

Now, details have surfaced of a BP connection to Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago mayoral wannabe, current Obama chief of staff, ex-representative, ex-Clinton money man, ex-Windy City political machine go-fer and shower stalker.

Shortly after Obama’s coronation,  word got out that, as a House member, Emanuel had lived the last five years rent-free in a D.C. apartment of Democratic colleague Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and her husband, Stanley Greenberg.  This raised a few eyebrows.

Greenberg’s consulting firm just happened to be one of the designers of BP’s  rebranding into a green petroleum company, down to green signs and the slogan “Beyond Petroleum.”

Greenberg’s company is also closely tied to another Democratic outfit — GCS, named after the last initials of Greenberg, James Carville, another Clinton advisor, and Bob Shrum, John Kerry’s 2004 campaign manager.

GCS received hundreds of thousands of dollars in political polling contracts in recent years from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Guess who was the chairman of that Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee dispensing those huge polling contracts to his kindly rent-free landlord?

Scooter, methinks thou dost protest too much.

Last night, President Barack Obama told high school graduates in Michigan not to make excuses, and to take responsibility for failures as well as successes.

At the Kalamazoo Central High School Commencement Exercises, Scooter said that it’s easy to blame others when problems arise.

We see it every day out in Washington, with folks calling each other names and making all sorts of accusations on TV.

He said the high school kids can and have done better than that.

The 1,700-student high school in southwest Michigan won the national Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge.  The White House made the final selection among three finalists picked through public voting on the schools’ videos and essays.

The administration cited Kalamazoo Central’s 80 percent-plus graduation rate, improvements in academic performance and a culturally rich (Liberal) curriculum.

Obama is an expert as to how easy it is to blame others.

July 29, 2008 – Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama yesterday blamed “irresponsible decisions” by the Bush administration and Wall Street for the country’s economic woes as government officials said the budget deficit would soar to record heights next year.

January 25, 2010 – In the first presidential comments on the Massachusetts race last week, Obama blamed Bush right away in an interview with ABC News.

Obama said:

The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office . People are angry, and they’re frustrated. Not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years. 

Scooter and his minions blamed the Bush years later that week as they unveiled new proposals for regulating Wall Street. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that Thursday the country can’t go without stiff financial regulation, or else “we get into the same type of situation that we found ourselves in in September of 2008.” 

Obama, in a Saturday statement backing the creation of a deficit-tackling commission, blamed the “economic downturn we inherited,” the “years of failing to pay for new policies,” and the “trillions of dollars in deficits” the Bush administration created. 

Those themes were bundled up on the Sunday morning talk shows when Scooter’s top advisers over-populated the airwaves with a pre-scripted Bush-centered message in an attempt to justify the administration’s economic approach. 

And now, Obama’s lap-dogs like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Klein have placed the blame for the Gulf Coast Crisis on George W. Bush, even though he left office a year and a half ago.

Yes, because it was the Bush regulations, it was Dick Cheney’s deregulation, and lording over the Minerals Management [Service].

The imam behind the proposed mosque near Ground Zero in New York has been discovered to have ties with the leading sponsor of the pro-Palestinian activists, who clashed with Israeli commandos at sea last week.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a key figure in Malaysia-based Perdana Global Peace Organization, the single biggest donor to the Free Gaza Movement.

This is directly from their website:

Feisal Abdul Rauf has been Imam of Masjid al-Farah in New York City since 1983. Through his sermons and writings, Imam Abdul Rauf seeks to provide spiritual seekers with answers to their eternal questions that often hinder them from developing a personal relationship with the Divine.

He is the founder of the ASMA Society, dedicated to furthering Islamic Art and Culture. He invites non-Muslims to experience the spiritual impulse of Islam, and Muslims to develop on the spiritual path.

Perdana was also a key organizer of the six-ship flotilla that tried to break Israel’s economic blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip last Monday.

Deborah Burlingame, the sister of the American Airlines pilot whose hijacked plane struck the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, said the indirect ties of the imam to the protesters were not surprising.

I think it goes to show he is not the man he represents himself to be. We have two Imam Raufs.

We have the anti-Israel, anti-democratic imam, and we have the smiling, soft-spoken moderate Muslim who says ‘”Why can’t we all get along?”

Imam Rauf is the head of the Cordoba Institute, which is ramrodding the highly controversial project,  a 15-story mega-mosque at the former Park Place Burlington Coat Factory, 600 feet from Ground Zero.

Rauf had earlier said that a mosque at the site would help to “bridge the great divide” between Muslims and the rest of America:

We are Americans, we are Muslim Americans. Many of us were born in the United States. We have no higher aspirations that to bring up our children in peace and harmony in this country.

Freedom of assembly is the right of all Americans.

Let’s take another look at Imam Rauf, shall we? 

On May 25, 2010, Imam Rauf wrote the following for the New York Daily News:

My colleagues and I are the anti-terrorists. We are the people who want to embolden the vast majority of Muslims who hate terrorism to stand up to the radical rhetoric. Our purpose is to interweave America’s Muslim population into the mainstream society. [emphasis added]

March 24, 2010, Abdul Rauf was featured in an article in Arabic for the website Rights4All entitled “The Most Prominent Imam in New York: ‘I Do Not Believe in Religious Dialogue.’”

Right4All is not an unknown blog.  It is the website of the media department of Cairo University, the biggest university in the Arabic-speaking world.

In the article, the imam said the following of the “religious dialogue” and “interweaving into the mainstream society”:

This phrase is inaccurate. Religious dialogue as customarily understood is a set of events with discussions in large hotels that result in nothing. Religions do not dialogue and dialogue is not present in the attitudes of the followers, regardless of being Muslim or Christian. The image of Muslims in the West is complex which needs to be remedied.

Recently, on May 26, one day after his Daily News column –  Abdul Rauf was featured on the popular Islamic website Hadiyul-Islam.   At the same time on that website, a fatwa was being issued forbidding a Muslim to sell land to a Christian, because the Christian wanted to build a church on it.

Responding to a question about his views on Sharia Law and the Islamic State, he said:

 Throughout my discussions with contemporary Muslim theologians, it is clear an Islamic state can be established in more than just a single form or mold. It can be established through a kingdom or a democracy. The important issue is to establish the general fundamentals of Sharia that are required to govern. It is known that there are sets of standards that are accepted by [Muslim] scholars to organize the relationships between government and the governed. [emphasis added]

Current governments are unjust and do not follow Islamic laws.

New laws were permitted after the death of Muhammad, so long of course that these laws do not contradict the Quran or the Deeds of Muhammad … so they create institutions that assure no conflicts with Sharia. [emphasis in translation]

Gosh, how tolerant.

Imam Rauf has held these attitudes for a long time.  He was interviewed on 60 Minutes by host Ed Bradley on September 30, 2001.  Here is a partial transcript:

BRADLEY: Are — are — are you in any way suggesting that we in the United States deserved what happened?

Imam ABDUL RAUF: I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened, but the United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.

BRADLEY: OK. You say that we’re an accessory?

Imam ABDUL RAUF: Yes.

BRADLEY: How?

Imam ABDUL RAUF: Because we have been an accessory to a lot of — of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, it — in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.

In a subsequent interview with Beliefnet on Islam and America, he was asked, “Some Islamic charities are being investigated for terrorist ties. Have you seen what you consider to be reputable Islamic charities being financially damaged?”

He responded:

We believe that a certain portion of every charity has been legitimate.  To say that you have connections with terrorism is a very gray area. It’s like the accusation that Saddam Hussein had links to Osama bin Laden. Well, America had links to Osama bin Laden – does that mean that America is a terrorist country or has ties to terrorism?

So, the Imam claims that America was an accessory to 9/11.  I wonder what he thinks about Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm)?

Rauf wrote the following in The Washington Post:

The historic significance of President Obama’s speech to the Muslim world in Cairo cannot be overstated. Never before has an American president spoken to the global Muslim community. His speech marked a major shift in American foreign policy. … In just a few sentences he demolished the phony theory of the ‘Clash of Civilizations,’ which insists that Islam and the West must always be in conflict. Instead, he declared the United States is not at war with Islam and outlined a plan for how the conflict can be resolved. … He captured the attention of Muslims because, unlike most politicians, he was willing to critique both his own country and Muslims where they fell short of their ideals.

Isn’t that just lovely?

The dapper, gracious, can’t-we-all-just-get-along, Moderate Muslim Cleric, Imam Rauf persona hides the Islamist within.  This planned mosque is nothing but an egregious slap in the face of all the families of the victims of the worst terrorist attack ever on U.S. soil.   Mayor Bloomberg is nothing but an ignorant dupe for allowing this.  And, while you’re thinking about this, please remember under which President this outrageous travesty was proposed. 

Sources:  yahoo.com, perdana4peace.net,  dailycaller.com, pajamasmedia.com, wnd.com

Presidential Schedule for  the Week of May 31, 2010:

Memorial Day Monday, the President planned on pontificating at a Memorial Day Ceremony at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Illinois. However, his speech was redacted by a Higher Power due to Severe Weather and all he could do was to symbolically lay a wreath.  He and his family returned to the White House that evening.

On Tuesday, the President was supposed to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel at the White House, but President Netanyahu cancelled to provide leadership to Israel in the Gaza Flotilla Incident.  Obama instead welcomed President Garcia of Peru for a pre-scheduled meeting at the White House. 

According to Scooter, the two leaders discussed a range of issues, including “continuing to pursue the details” of a free trade agreement, security issues, climate change and a broader international vision of promoting democracy, human rights, press freedoms and economic development.

On Wednesday, the President met with General Odierno to discuss security and political progress in Iraq.  He then traveled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and spoke to students at Carnegie Mellon University.   In his speech, Obama attacked the GOP:

[A] good deal of the other party’s opposition to our agenda has also been rooted in their sincere and fundamental belief about government.   It’s a belief that government has little or no role to play in helping this nation meet our collective challenges. It’s an agenda that basically offers two answers to every problem we face: more tax breaks for the wealthy and fewer rules for corporations.

This from the guy who forced through a Government-run Universal Health Care Plan against the wishes of the majority of Americans?  Hardly a surprising statement.

That night, the Obamas hosted a concert in the East Room honoring Paul McCartney, who was awarded the 3rd Gershwin Prize for Popular Song from the Library of Congress.

Before receiving the award, the Senior Citizen performed with stars including Elvis Costello, Stevie Wonder, Jerry Seinfeld, the Jonas Brothers, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, and Emmylou Harris. McCartney serenaded First Lady Michelle Obama with a rendition of “Michelle” and closed the night with “Hey Jude.” McCartney claimed that he had been “itching” to sing “Michelle” to the first lady at the White House, adding “I hope the president will forgive me.”

I think I’m gonna hurl.

McCartney also offered a glimpse of his politics, sarcastically stating that he was especially happy to get the award from “this president” and saying that it was nice to get the Library of Congress award from “a president who knows what a library is.”

On Thursday, Scooter finally gave 30 minutes to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer concerning the subject of their Illegal immigration law that she signed into existence.    After the meeting, the White House issued an official statement proclaiming that “The president and governor agreed that the lack of action to fix the broken system at the federal level is unacceptable,” and that Obama “urged Governor Brewer to be his partner in working in a bipartisan manner on comprehensive immigration reform”.

That evening, the President spoke at the Secretary of State’s reception in honor of the Indian delegation to the United States-India Strategic Dialogue, which met at the State Department earlier that day.  At the reception, he announced that he would visit India in November because:

I firmly believe the relationship between the United States and India will be a defining partnership for the 21st Century.

Later that evening, The White House announced that the President had cancelled his family’s planned vacation, err, fact-finding trip to Australia and Indonesia, where he grew up attending a Madrassa, err, private school for wealthy families.  The reason originally given for the trip  was that he wanted to show his daughters where he grew up.
On Friday, the President met the Major League Soccer Men’s Champion Real Salt Lake at the White House.  Scooter also went back to Louisiana’s Gulf Coast for his third visit since the disaster began on April 20 with the explosion of an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.  Obama was in Louisiana the Friday before, but his visit did not produce the kind of emotional, connect-with-the-people presidential reaction that Democrats have been praying for.
It was also announced by “Baghdad Bob” Gibbs that President Obama has extended an invitation for a meeting next Thursday with the families of the 11 men who died after the Gulf of Mexico oil rig exploded.  Gibbs said:

The president will offer his condolences in person to those who lost loved ones in the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. The president sent a letter to each of the families extending an invitation to the White House. 

It only took you 46 days, Scooter.

Saturday, Obama announced that James R. Clapper is his choice to  serve as Director of National Intelligence – the fourth since the post was created in 2004 – and wants the Senate to confirm him quickly.  Clapper is the Pentagon’s current intelligence chief.  

In private, Clapper has faced off with lawmakers, sometimes resorting to cussing at them to make a point. Those strained relations may come back to haunt him as he awaits confirmation.

Last night, it was time for the Obama’s to party again.  Per the press release issued ahead of time:

Ford’s Theatre Society will host its annual gala on Sunday, June 6, 2010, at Ford’s Theatre (511 10th Street NW). The evening’s performance, titled “America Celebrates July 4th at Ford’s Theatre,” will be taped for broadcast on the ABC Television Network to air July 2, 2010 (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET). Modern Family cast member Ty Burrell hosts a star-studded program with appearances by Kelly Clarkson, Renee Fleming, George Lopez, Lionel Richie, Robin Roberts, Dick Van Dyke, Laura Michelle Kelly and Gavin Lee from the Broadway Company of “Mary Poppins,” the Soldiers’ Chorus of the United States Army Field Band, and cast members from the Ford’s Theatre production of “Little Shop of Horrors.”

My purpose in reviewing last week was to present a study in style over substance.  This man who was elected president has absolutely no skills as a leader.  The only thing he has ever excelled at is campaigning.   So, despite the Gulf Coast crisis, the economic crisis, two wars, terrorism aimed at Americans on our own shores, and corruption within his own administration, he continues on his perpetual campaign, interrupted only by vacations and trips to basketball court and golf courses…to the detriment of the greatest nation on Earth.

Sources:  drudgereport.com, suntimes.com, abcnews.com, content.usatoday.com, deathby1000opapercuts.com, politicsdaily.com, yahoo.com, nydailynews.com, nypost.com, nashuatelegraph.com

Evidently when Helen Thomas was dating Abraham Lincoln, he never told her that:  

It is better to remain silent and be thought of as a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

The following  jaw-dropping statement hit the internet Friday:

Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress, sharply reacted to the 89 year old representative of Hearst Newspapers:

Shame on Helen Thomas. She is certainly old enough to remember the Holocaust and the Second World War. She owes an apology to all victims of the Nazis.

The grand dame posted the following insincere apology on her personal Web site:

I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.

Thomas, the daughter of Lebanese immigrants, has covered the administrations of 10 Presidents in a career spanning nearly 60 years.  She made her idiotic comments at (believe it or not) a White House Jewish Heritage Celebration on May 27.

This statement was, in her mind I’m sure, a valid response to the Gaza Flotilla incident.

Speaking of the Gaza Flotilla Incident, the group Free Gaza is a major sponsor of that “relief” effort. 

The Free Gaza Movement is a Cyprus-registered charity.  Created on the initiative of six Americans in 2006, it now has a worldwide core group estimated at 200.   Their stated mission is to break Israel’s closure of Gaza, a strip of coastal desert territory blockaded since 2007.

Greta Berlin, a spokeswoman for the movement and a founder member, says:

Israel has no right to imprison 1.5 million Palestinians.  If governments won’t do the job, civil society will.

Free Gaza has been involved in nine seaborne aid missions to Gaza since August 2008, four of which made it to their destination. The flotilla intercepted on May 31 was the largest of the nine. Other boats turned away by the Israeli navy included one damaged in a collision with an Israeli naval vessel in December 2008, which barely made it into the Lebanese port of Tripoli. Israel arrested 21 activists sailing to Gaza from Cyprus in June 2009 and boarded their vessel after they ignored warnings to stop.

The Movement has not used Cyprus as an point of departure since last year, and Cyprus did not allow the latest flotilla to depart from there, citing reasons of national interest.

This organization claims it gets donations from citizens around the world. The largest donation received yet, was 300,000 euros ($366,000) from the Perdana Global Peace Organization in Malaysia. It says it does not receive funding from governments.

Guess who is a member of Perdana?  This is directly from their website:

Feisal Abdul Rauf has been Imam of Masjid al-Farah in New York City since 1983. Through his sermons and writings, Imam Abdul Rauf seeks to provide spiritual seekers with answers to their eternal questions that often hinder them from developing a personal relationship with the Divine.

He is the founder of the ASMA Society, dedicated to furthering Islamic Art and Culture. He invites non-Muslims to experience the spiritual impulse of Islam, and Muslims to develop on the spiritual path.

Does this guy sound familiar?  From my May 16th Blog, “Disrepecting the 9/11 Fallen:

The organization behind this project is the Cordoba Initiative and its leader is Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.

Despite the fact that the Cordoba Initiative’s website calls part of the $100 million-plus project a mosque, Imam Rauf says the project is not a mosque (Liar, liar, burqa on fire.) but will include a community center for all faiths that will include recreational facilities, a prayer space and a 500-seat theater that can be a part of the neighborhood’s trendy (attended by pseudo-intellectual Liberals) Tribeca Film Festival. 

Plans were announced this week to build a 13-story mosque and cultural center on the site of a four-story building that was a Burlington Coat Factory retail store until 9/11, when part of a plane’s landing gear crashed through the roof.   The building, currently housing a mosque, will be torn down.

One more little bit of news and then I’ll tie all this together:

Federal authorities reported the arrests of two New Jersey men late Saturday night, trying to leave the country for terrorist training camps in war-torn Somalia.

The men were identified as 20-year-old Mohamed Hamoud Alessa and 26-year-old Carlos Eduardo Almonte.  They were taken into custody by FBI agents and others at J.F.K. International Airport outside New York City. They planned to take separate flights to Egypt and then make their way to Somalia, where they would join an Al Qaeda-linked group known as al-Shabaab.  This group has been at war with the nation’s fledgling transitional government.

Muslims currently comprise 1 – 2% of the population of America.  Islamic websites claim 5 million out of our almost 300 million, but most experts say that number is an exaggeration.  Muslim leaders claim that fanatics are responsible for acts of terror in America and around the world.  I want to believe that.  However, it is very difficult to when so-called Moderate Muslims will not condemn these actions and the Koran encourages followers to kill “the Infidels”.

Why are pseudo-intellectual Liberals, who do not have a clue as to the significance of Israel, sticking their nose into a sovereign nation’s business?  Why are some Americans defending a bunch of thugs who want to build a symbol of terroristic triumph next to a scene of unimaginable horror?  Why are we having so many terror plots on our native soil being uncovered under this administration?  And some, only after their explosive devices failed?  And finally, why did the American President have to be talked out of making a personal pilgrimage, i.e., another vacation, to Indonesia and Australia, just last week, to stay home and deal with all this, the Gulf  Coast/BP Situation, and our failing economy?

Perhaps Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) is treading water in the deep end of an Olympic-sized pool, when he should have stayed in the kiddie pool.

Sources:  drudgereport.com, youtube.com, nydailynews.com, reuters.com, perdana4peace.com, foxnews.com