Obama the Silver Spoon Story Teller………..Stories Fondly of His ‘working’ Days

OBAMA TO WEALTHY;   “You can’t just relax and go count your money”, the  snot  in Obama came out and said.

It may sell as honesty in the black inner city community, among the bigot-gays and lesbians, the Marxist Jews, feminists and the rest of the Obama victimhood alliance, but how many Americans really think that is what families who make over $150,000 a year do……I don”t know by experience.   I have never had an annual  salary over $35,000 in my life……all 76.5 years of it.   My parents left me nor my sister any money.   Hence, one of the reasons I still work in my landscape business.   No complaints….these are points of information only.

For the last few days  this College KID  president with plenty and plenty of gifts throughout his life, has been  on the trail gathering millions of dollars playing the role of the downtrodden.   He wants to command America  four more years to disrupt and pillage its laws, its abilities to defend itself and its borders, to spread hate among his tribes of bought voters….hate against America and anyone not on board with Obamanation, and further bankrupt the Nation.

The following is an article found at The Daily Caller from CNN:

“Reno, Nevada (CNN) — Over and over Thursday, President Barack Obama told workers at a renewable energy company that he is like them.

He remembers pumping gas when high oil prices ate a hole in his budget, he said. He knows he wouldn’t have made it through college without scholarships and loans.

And now as president, he promised that he won’t let the current debate on deficit reduction deny others the chance for the American dream he has lived.

“We can’t ignore future deficits, but just as ignoring deficits would mortgage our future, failing to invest in our kids and our infrastructure and our basic research and clean energy, that would be mortgaging our future, as well,” he said to applause. “And I’m not willing to do it.”

[...]

Repeating past calls for ending subsidies for oil companies and restoring higher tax rates for the highest-income Americans, Obama defended what he called his balanced approach to deficit reduction and depicted the Republican stance as favoring the well-to-do.

“I’m rooting for everybody to get rich,” he said. “But I believe that we can’t ask everybody to sacrifice and then tell the wealthiest among us, well, you can just relax and go count your money, and don’t worry about it. We’re not going to ask anything of you.”

Snake Oil Salesman Obama on Sales Tour while U.S. Faces Debt Crisis

 

The Obama Watch

The Traveling Obama Show

By Andrew Cline       at the American Spectator

In the first few moments of his speech at Northern Virginia Community College on Tuesday, President Obama gave the game away.

He said he ventured to the campus, a mere 17 miles from Washington, to “get out of the immediate environs of Washington and hear directly from voters and have a conversation with them.”

Voters?

The election is 19 months away. The government’s collision with its debt ceiling is about one month away, maybe less. How is Obama spending the first of the four weeks (if that) he has left before the government — over which he allegedly presides — hits its credit limit? He is campaigning for reelection.

Obama’s three-stop trip to California and back “has all the markings of a campaign swing,” according to Bloomberg News. That’s because it is one. Los Angeles-based Democratic strategist Bill Carrick told Bloomberg that the trip was not really campaigning, but, well, with it the White House will “start focusing on swing states early so you can broaden the electoral map.”

Two of Obama’s three stops are in the swing states of Virginia and Nevada. After his speech in Palo Alto, Calif., he attended fundraisers in San Francisco and Los Angeles — which is what Democrats running for national office do in Democratic states.

In the trip’s public speeches, Obama has portrayed Republicans as cold-hearted agents of the greedy rich who work to squeeze a few more dimes from the peasants by “cutting children out of Head Start.” Not a campaign trip? Sure, and Donald Trump has a lovely flaxen mane.

If this story sounds somewhat familiar, that’s because in only two years the president has repeated it incessantly. When the stimulus bill was making its way through Congress, Obama took to the road to sell it to the people. His budget? Ditto. The health care bill? Months of the Traveling Obama Show.

On the day of Obama’s September 2009 speech to a joint session of Congress urging the passage of health care reform, Politics Daily columnist Walter Shapiro wrote, “Obama has been constantly singing a downbeat chorus about the burden of rapidly escalating health care costs.” That was an understatement. By March 3, 2010, Obama had given 35 “major” speeches on health care reform, according to a tally by the Washington Post.

The man loves to talk. He loves the performance and the attention it brings. But at this point in the Obama presidency, it should be obvious to someone in the West Wing that this is an enterprise of rapidly diminishing returns. What is gained from the expulsion of so much wind from the president’s overtaxed lungs?

Passage of major legislation? Obama’s nearly three dozen speeches actually hurt the cause of health care reform. The health care bill, which he let Congress craft as he flew around the nation talking, was passed through the old-fashioned back-room arm twisting of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, not the persuasive powers of the president. The stimulus bill passed because it was a traditional Congressional goodie bag, not because the president converted reluctant lawmakers into Keynesians.

The president’s appeal among independents might be a good indicator of his persuasiveness. These are the Americans most susceptible to a good argument. Obama won 52 percent of independents in the 2008 election, according to CNN exit polls. One year later, CNN exit polling showed that independents broke 60 percent for Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie in New Jersey and 65 percent for Republican Bob McDonnell in Virginia. A year after that, CNN reported that 57 percent of independents voted Republican in the 2010 mid-term elections. Obama’s support among independents today? Thirty-five percent, according to the latest Gallup poll.

How can Obama win the future if he can’t even win independents? Obama’s answer: Give more speeches! The right answer: Park Air Force One, unplug the teleprompter, roll up the sleeves, and govern.

Americans see a nation falling apart around them. Home values continue to drop while inflation, gas prices, government spending, and the national debt are shooting so high, even Charlie Sheen would look at them and say, “Dude, I think you have a problem.”

Yet instead of sitting at his desk and fixing these problems, the president has spent the last two years doing the same thing he spent the previous four years doing: giving speeches. Is it too much to ask that the president stop talking and start working?

OBAMA Deficit Plan SPENDING SPREE TO COST only $7,000,000,000,000 MORE!

Report: Obama deficit plan ‘falls short’ of fiscal

commission, House GOP targets

 by Lori Montgomery at Washington Post w Bloomberg

“President Obama’s deficit-reduction plan “falls short” of targets set by House Republicans and Obama’s own fiscal commission and would be unlikely to stabilize borrowing, according to a new independent analysis.

The analysis, by the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, found that the plan Obama unveiled in a speech last week would require the nation to borrow another $7 trillion during the next decade, compared with about $5.5 trillion under the House Republican budget and about $5.3 trillion under the recommendations offered in December by Obama’s fiscal commission.

 

The new outline is a significant improvement over the budget request Obama submitted to Congress in February, which would have required $9.5 trillion in fresh borrowing through 2021. However, the framework is unlikely to reduce deficits as much as Obama suggested, the analysis found, and would therefore permit the portion of the national debt held by outside investors to continue rising, when measured against the size of the economy, to just less than 80 percent of gross domestic product by the end of the decade.

By contrast, the budget blueprint adopted last week by the House matches the fiscal commission’s plan “dollar for dollar” with new savings, according to the analysis. While the total debt would keep growing under both proposals, the rate of borrowing would slow dramatically and the debt would slowly begin to diminish when measured against the size of the economy, settling at less than 70 percent of GDP by the end of the decade.

“By presenting his own framework for deficit reduction, the President has done a substantial service in moving the ball forward,” the analysis says. “Not only is the President’s Framework a significant improvement over his February budget proposal, it represents a balanced approach to begin improving the nation’s finances — a move we praise.”

“At the same time, when compared to the House budget and Fiscal Commission plan, the President’s Framework falls short,” the analysis says, adding that the level of savings achieved by both the GOP plan and the fiscal commission “is the minimum level of savings policymakers should aim for.”

The committee’s analysis was based on the proposed savings offered in Obama’s framework through 2021, including $130 billion in cuts to defense and security spending, $450 billion in cuts to domestic programs, more than $600 billion in cuts to entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid and nearly $800 billion in fresh revenue from an overhaul of the tax code. The committee did not take into account the “debt fail-safe” Obama proposed, a sort of trigger that would force additional cuts if deficit targets were not met by 2014.

White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage defended the president’s plan, arguing that the committee’s analysis relies on economic forecasts by the Congressional Budget Office that are less optimistic than forecasts by the White House budget office.

“Under the administration’s estimates, the president’s framework saves $2.9 trillion over 10 years and $4 trillion over 12 years,” Brundage said. Plus, she said, if the CBO’s projections are used, “the president’s framework would save more not less than these totals” because the debt fail-safe would be triggered, resulting “in the additional savings needed to reduce the debt as a share of the economy.”

“Even with the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s shifting of the goal posts and failure to factor the fail-safe in their analysis,” Brundage said, “they still confirm that the president’s plan would reduce the deficit substantially and prevent a large increase in the debt.”

The fail-safe could be a powerful and useful tool for managing the nation’s finances, the committee’s report says. But unless it is triggered, “it appears unlikely that the policies proposed in the President’s Framework would be sufficient to reduce or even stabilize debt levels. . . . We believe significant additional savings will be needed.”

While the president’s plan would deliver on his promise to save about $4 trillion, compared with current policies, during the next 12 years, the analysis found that much of those savings are loaded into the final two years. Savings over the next decade, a more common budget timeline, would amount to about $2.5 trillion compared with current policies, the report says.

 

Vacuous, Dippy, Lefty Kloppenburg Almost Became a State Supreme Court Judge!

View the video below.    Is this woman as dazed and empty as she sounds and looks answering questions at a press conference?   Could it be possible she earned a law degree some place in any conceivably honest way?

In the interview  she reaches for the moon to pluck at  answers that only romance, ignorance  and a fanatic  female could stir  from a dream or a bed time fairy story to an innocent child. 

 Not that in Unionized Wisconsin the recount might find enough votes to make her dream a success.   State Democrat political machinery has a habit of rallying in such state counts where government workers are heavily Democrat voters.   But  does this  loony have any idea what the nation will conclude  of  her and her Union thug backers  when just the right amount of numbers are cooked up to  secure  another Democrat Party recount victory?   Click here:

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/04/21/comedy-gold-the-13-second-pause/

In case you think that she just had a bad moment or two…..how about this press converence testing her honesty and abilities to understand numbers?

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/04/20/unbelievable-despite-trailing-by-7000-votes-kloppenburg-demands-a-recount/

Does Obama really know what facts are?”

Obama’s Permanent Spending Binge

If government got by with 20% of GDP in 2007, why not

in 2021, when  GDP will be substantially higher?

“Americans are clamoring for a fact-based debate about the budget, but the numbers they’re hearing from Washington are terribly confusing. Here’s an example: Speaking at a Facebook town hall meeting here on Wednesday, President Obama sometimes talked about saving $4 trillion, at other times $2 trillion, and he varied whether it was over 10 years or 12 years, never mentioning any one year.

A simple chart, like the one nearby, would greatly clarify the debate. It shows total federal government spending year-by-year for the two decades starting in the year 2000. Spending is shown as a percentage of GDP, which is a sensible and quite common way to assess trends: When the percentage rises, government spending rises relative to total income or total goods and services produced in our economy.

For the past decade, the chart shows the recent history of government spending. For the next decade—the window for the current budget—it shows three different spending visions for the future.

The uppermost line shows outlays under the official budget submitted by Mr. Obama to Congress on Feb. 14. The lowest line shows the House Budget Resolution submitted by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan on April 5, while the third line shows year-by-year outlays I estimated from the 12-year totals in the new budget proposed by the president on April 13.

The chart clearly reveals a number of important facts that are not coming up in town hall meetings. Most obvious is the huge bulge in spending in the past few years. In 2000 spending was 18.2% of GDP. In 2007 it was 19.6%. But in the three years since 2009 it’s jumped to an average of 24.4%.

Second, and perhaps even more striking, the chart shows that Mr. Obama, in his budget submitted in February, proposed to make that spending binge permanent. Spending would still be more than 24% of GDP at the end of the budget window in 2021. The administration revealed its preference in the February budget for a much higher level of government spending than the 18.2% of GDP in 2000 or the 19.6% in 2007.

Third, the House budget plan proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) simply removes that spending binge—it gradually returns spending as a share of GDP back to a level seen only three years ago.

 

 

When I show people this chart they ask why Washington is even having the debate. They say: If government agencies and programs functioned with 19% to 20% of GDP in 2007, why is it so hard for them to function with that percentage in 2021, when GDP will be substantially higher and with many opportunities for reforms and increased efficiencies? And if GDP and employment grow more quickly, as they would if private investment increased as a result of lower government spending and debt, then that 19% to 20% share of GDP could provide much more in the way of public goods.

Fourth, the chart shows that the second Obama administration budget, submitted a week after the Ryan House budget, is substantially different from the first administration budget. It is highly unusual for an administration to decide to submit a second budget, and the effect of this revision is to move the administration’s spending vision closer to that of the House. But it still leaves a big chunk of the spending binge in place.

Fifth, and perhaps most important for economic growth, the chart shows that the House budget effectively deals with the deficit and brings the debt down as a share of GDP without a tax increase. Under the current tax system, revenues as a share of GDP were 18.5% in 2007, so that the budget deficit was only 1.1% of GDP that year. With higher real incomes moving people into higher tax brackets, it is quite likely that under the current tax system revenues will be higher as a share of GDP when the economy fully recovers, perhaps in the 19% to 20% range.

This means that the House budget plan, with spending in the same range, approximately balances the budget with no increase in taxes. This is good news for economic growth. In contrast, balancing the first or even the second Obama budget requires substantial tax increases—more than the administration has yet to propose.”

by John B. Taylor…….Wall Street Journal

Mr. Taylor, a professor of economics at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, is the author of “Getting Off Track: How Government Actions and Interventions Caused, Prolonged and Worsened the Financial Crisis” (Hoover Press, 2009).

Charles Krauthammer’s Scorecard of GOP President Hopefuls for 2012

My favorite guru on things requiring political analysis may be slumming a bit in this article  aiding the Daily News to be more profitable……..but we all have our down moments.   Sometimes we regret them for days after the deed.  But  not Mr. Krauthammer.   He’s too skilled a thinker and therefore too skilled a writer.

I seek Krauthammer words regardless of their pronunciations and/or moods.   He has a special sense of humor……bright, quick, trustful…and  conservative…

Last evening on Fox news he reported he got a call from Donald Trump that very day.  Charles has been negative about the Trump maybe, maybe not stump  in the Republican race for the nomination to battle Obamanation.  Trump was polite, sensible, reasonable, mature and as sharp as ever…..(my words except for the ‘polite’)………only because I can’t remember the Krauthammer version of them.  

(Much later I happened to find a video of the Fox News Charles Krauthammer review of the above event below:)

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/04/21/oh-my-trump-phones-krauthammer-and-convinces-him-that-hes-running/

Even if I can’t see Krauthammer’s maps of face matching his wisdom  which of course is a benefit of watching television, this hero’s choice of words and how they are placed in his art pieces called sentences are far better for learning with joy than from any other venue in town or country.   Even without his facial contours, they rank as runner up as can be read in this Daily News composition whether one agrees with him or not.

Krauthammer confessed to the maybe-candidate that he had written another Trump-blast for today’s world readership, but did not identify the vehicle of communication.    Let’s see what one of my favorite Americans writes about in this article in the foreign, “Daily News.”

Krauthammer writes:   “Unified Field Theory of 2012, Axiom One: The more the Republicans can make the 2012 election like 2010, the better their chances of winning.

The 2010 Democratic shellacking had the distinction of being the most ideological election in 30 years. It was driven by one central argument in its several parts: the size and reach of government, spending and debt and, most fundamentally, the nature of the American social contract. The 2010 election was a referendum on President Obama‘s experiment in hyper-liberalism. It lost resoundingly.

Of course, presidential elections are not arguments in the abstract but arguments with a face. Hence, Axiom Two: The less attention the Republican candidate draws to him/herself, the better the chances of winning. To the extent that 2012 is about ideas, about the case for smaller government, Republicans have a decided edge. If it’s a referendum on the fitness and soundness of the Republican candidate – advantage Obama.

Which suggests Axiom Three: No baggage and no need for flash. Having tried charisma in 2008, the electorate is not looking for a thrill up the leg in 2012. It’s looking for solid, stable, sober and, above all, not scary.

Given these Euclidean truths, here’s the early line. (Remember: This is analysis, not advocacy.)

Long shots

Michele Bachmann: Tea Party favorite. Appeals to Palinites. Could do well in Iowa. Hard to see how she makes her way through the rest of the primaries. A strong showing in debates and a respectable finish would increase her stature for 2016. But for now: 20-1 to win the nomination.

Donald Trump: He’s not a candidate, he’s a spectacle. He’s also not a conservative. With a wink and a smile, Muhammad Ali showed that self-promoting obnoxiousness could be charming. Trump shows that it can be merely vulgar. A provocateur and a clown, the Republicans’ Al Sharpton.

The major candidates

Mitt Romney: Serious guy. Pre-vetted (2008). Tons of private- and public-sector executive experience. If not for one thing, he’d be the prohibitive front-runner. Unfortunately, the one thing is a big thing: Massachusetts‘ Romneycare. For an election in which the main issue is excessive government (see Axiom One), that’s a huge liability. Every sentient Republican has been trying to figure out how to explain it away. I’ve heard no reports of any success. Romney is Secretariat at Belmont, but ridden by Minnesota Fats. He goes out at 5-1.

Newt Gingrich: Smart guy. A fountain of ideas. No, a Vesuvius of ideas. Some brilliance, lots of lava. Architect of a historic Republican victory in 1994. Rocky speakership. Unfortunate personal baggage. 12-1.

Haley Barbour: Successful governor. Experienced Washington hand. Abundant charm. Baggage: Years of lobbying, unforced errors on civil rights, early isolationist deviations. Rarely without a comeback, however. 7-1.

Tim Pawlenty: Formerly, unassuming, unprepossessing, solid two-term Minnesota governor. Currently, mouse that roars. Up-tempo style, middle-of-the-road conservative content. Apparently baggageless. Could be the last man standing. 5-1.

Mitch Daniels: Highly successful governor. Budget guru. Delightful dullness satisfies all axioms (see above). Foreign policy unknown, assuming he has one. Alienated some conservatives with his call for a truce on social issues. If he runs, 6-1.

Likely not running

Mike Huckabee: Has a good life – hosting a popular TV show, making money, building his dream house in Florida. He’d be crazy to run. Doesn’t look crazy to me.

Sarah Palin: Same deal. Showed her power in 2010 as kingmaker and opinion shaper. Must know (I think) she has little chance at the nomination and none in the general election. Why risk it, and the inevitable diminishment defeat would bring?

Even less likely to run – the 2016 bench

A remarkable class of up-and-comers includes Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Nikki Haley. All impressive, all new to the national stage, all with bright futures. 2012, however, is too early – except possibly for Ryan, who last week became de facto leader of the Republican Party. For months, he will be going head-to-head with Obama on the budget, which is a surrogate for the central issue of 2012: the proper role of government. If Ryan acquits himself well,  he could emerge as a formidable anti-Obama.

One problem: Ryan has zero inclination to run. Wants to continue what he’s doing right now. Would have to be drafted. That would require persuasion. Can anyone rustle up a posse?”

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Charles Krauthammer‘

Further comment:    I cannot argue with anything analyzed above by this “Krauthammer”.   At today’s evening light, it all appears rational and well  laid out like so many plans originating in this wonderful America except for its Marxist cancers.    I especially like Krauthammer words regarding Paul Ryan.

I hope Donald Trump is serious about his candidacy.   Bama’s birthing isn’t a problem for me.  Bama’s lying, his Marxism, his devious character ARE .    A truth in lending law  is what is needed to regulate  Obama.  Donald Trump will not be the wuss that John McCain was in exposing the Truths about the Barack Hussein Obama, the political friend, a colleague  of  terrorist Bill Ayers, of Jeremiah Wright teachings, of America’s blessings.  

Donald Trump’s wusslessness may stir some heart and headbeat for all Republicans enough to rally any candidate coming out of the primaries to face America’s most devious Leftwinger, Barack Hussein Obama.   If that happens, and it might, Donald Trump will contribute much to his beloved America.

Islam’s CAIR Thugs Threaten Liberty

CAIR’s Strong-Arm Tactics in the Cradle of Liberty

The latest victim of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is a Philadelphia-based libertarian writer who fears for his life.

(This article was written by Hillel Zaremba at Pajamas Media:)

Aaron Proctor, a Philadelphia-based libertarian writer, can count himself the latest victim of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization that ironically claims to work for civil rights.

Proctor, a colorful commentator for the Philadelphia version of Examiner.com, had the temerity to investigate CAIR’s dubious background in connection with its Philadelphia branch’s planned fundraising dinner on March 12 at a municipal facility, the Springfield Country Club. CAIR-PA invited Johari Abdul-Malik to deliver one of the evening’s main addresses. Abdul-Malik works at the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, which has the distinction of being the former base for an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and for Anwar al-Awlaki, mentor to Fort Hood murderer Nidal Malik Hasan and underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

In keeping with these associations, Abdul-Malik declared in 2001:

I am gonna teach you now. You can blow up bridges, but you cannot kill people who are innocent on their way to work. You can blow up power supplies … the water supply; you can do all forms of sabotage and let the world know that we are doing it like this because they have a respect for the lives of innocent people.

When Islamist Watch notified various local citizens’ groups of the Springfield Country Club event, Proctor picked up the topic. He titled his first posting on the subject “CAIR, an Islamic terrorism group, coming to Delaware County next month” and then challenged Congressman Pat Meehan, in whose district Springfield Township lies, to speak out about the banquet. Meehan responded cautiously, supporting CAIR’s “right to peacefully assemble” while addressing its questionable history:

CAIR has recently made a series of statements accusing the FBI of falsely entrapping Muslim-Americans and advocating that Muslims not cooperate with law enforcement and the FBI. … As a former U.S. attorney, I am extremely concerned about the message that this kind of rhetoric sends to the community.

CAIR-PA then attacked both Proctor and Meehan and strong-armed the Examiner with accusations of defamation and publishing “hate speech.” Brazenly lying about CAIR’s status as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial, it claimed that there was “zero court-admissible evidence to suggest that they are in anyway [sic] related to terrorism.” In fact, CAIR practically admitted it was a “terrorist-supporting front organization” when it backed off a 2004 defamation lawsuit it had initiated, for fear of the discovery process. Further, as recently as July 2009, U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis found “ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR … with Hamas.”

Setting its sights on the weaker adversary, CAIR-PA sent the local police Proctor’s photograph and accused him of being a potential “security threat.” In a letter to a senior staffer at the Examiner, CAIR-PA charged Proctor with “hate speech,” “bigotry,” and “slander” and issued a strongly worded request for the writer’s dismissal.

The letter also fudged the truth about the Philadelphia chapter’s link to the terrorism-tied national group, stating: “Although CAIR-Philadelphia licenses the use of the name CAIR, we are legally distinct entities.” The claim of a wall separating the national organization from its local branch is ludicrous; CAIR-PA employs the same logo as the national organization, carries the same news alerts as the national organization, and responded to Meehan by citing the national organization’s alleged crime-fighting credentials.

Frightened by CAIR’s threats of libel proceedings and references to “hate speech,” the Examiner folded. On February 11, management suspended Proctor from work while it reviewed the legalities of his anti-CAIR articles.

In an email sent on February 14, Proctor wrote about his tangling with this supposed champion of civil liberties:

To say that I wasn’t scared not only for my life but for my loved ones due to the threats from CAIR would be a gross understatement. It’s scary when you read someone has emailed the police about you when you haven’t even made a threat to them and wouldn’t do anything more than write about them.

Proctor disclosed that although he had won back his job at the Examiner, the experience left him shaken:

I have been reinstated on Examiner.com today. … As a precaution (and of my own free will, not suggested to be [sic] by anyone), I’ve taken down my CAIR articles … and will no longer focus on any further stories about Islam or CAIR. I guess that’s the end game [sic] of terrorism: scaring people into [not] speaking out and keeping people away from seeking out their livelihood.

Did CAIR win? It would certainly seem that way, for there is now one less individual willing to question its behavior. The story, however, need not end there:

• Pat Meehan serves as chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence and should hear from citizens who oppose those who use the liberties afforded by the Constitution to muzzle criticism and stifle debate.

• Citizens of Springfield Township should ask their elected officials why a facility they own continues to be used by a group that admires someone who has recommended sabotage.

• Examiner.com, “the fastest-growing local content network in the U.S.,” should be true to its name and examine, closely and objectively, the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Proctor may not always have chosen his words about CAIR wisely or well, but he left an eloquent appeal before descending into his self-imposed silence:

Please stand with me and stand with free speech and don’t let these people twist the arms of America any more. Those of you who have dedicated much of your lives and free time to fighting the lies and propaganda and “lawfare” that CAIR seeks to implement in the U.S., please do not stop fighting.

Aaron Proctor has become yet another victim of the dangerous trend of CAIR stifling public discussion of Islamism. Who will be next?

Hillel Zaremba is associate director of Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.

Daniel Henninger Writes About Obama With Temper

If it is true, as Michelle Obama said in February, that her husband isn’t smoking anymore, maybe he’d better start mellowing out with the cigs again before it costs him the presidency.

The Barack Obama we’ve been seeing lately is a different personality than the one that made a miracle run to the White House in 2008.

Obama.2008 was engaging, patient, open, optimistic and a self-identified conciliator.

Obama.2011 has been something else—testy, petulant, impatient, arrogant and increasingly a divider.

Never forget: That historic 2008 victory came with 52.9% of the total vote and 52% of independent voters. David Axelrod recently noted “how small the margin for error is.”

Presidential personality is well inside the margin of error for 2012, but the one on display recently has not been attractive. And it’s happening a lot.

This Monday, after wrapping up a White House interview with a Dallas TV reporter, the station reported that Mr. Obama said: “Let me finish my answers the next time we do an interview, alright?

This self-referencing, snappish tone tracks with the president’s “open mic” comments last week at a Chicago fund-raiser. Dismissing the GOP as “nickel and diming” him on budget negotiations, he asked, “You think we’re stupid?” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the president wasn’t embarrassed. But he should be. Not because his comments were caught, but because suddenly he’s sounding more like Travis Bickle (“You talkin’ to me?”) than the president of the United States.

The Obama migration from the high road to the low road is evident even in nonpolitical settings. Here he is last weekend talking about the White House phone system: “You know the Oval Office always thought I was going to have like real cool phones and stuff. I’m like ‘come on guys, I’m the president of the United States.’ Where’s the fancy buttons and stuff, and the big screen comes up? It doesn’t happen.”

I’m like? Real cool phones and stuff? Would Franklin Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy ever have affected whatever their generational equivalent was of “Where’s the fancy buttons and stuff?”

Some will say that this is making a mountain out of a molehill, that polls show independent voters like his proposals to tax the rich and keep every entitlement intact. But if we have learned anything in the media age, it’s that molehills can send anyone to a destructive fall, even presidents. Ask George W. Bush about just two defining words: mission accomplished.

In 2007-08, Obama’s high-toned, consistent persona was everything. What else was there? Barack Obama took a blank slate and wrote a masterpiece of a presidential campaign across it. From nothing, this fresh Obama persona defeated the familiar, experienced Hillary Clinton in the primaries. In the general election, he ran famously on “hope and change,” gave a stirring speech on race in America, and persuaded enough moderate and independent voters to turn 2008 into a “historic” American election.

Barack Obama had levitated himself above the usual, dispiriting muck of politics. This new person seemed to be precisely what a disgusted electorate wanted. Candidate Obama embedded that image in the American psyche. He built it. He fed it.

Now he’s deconstructing himself into another Obama. The latest Obama, which seems genuine, routinely ridicules and mocks his opposition. He mocks pretty much anyone who disagrees with him about anything.

Getty ImagesWhatever happened to this man?

 

Last week, official Washington gathered at George Washington University to hear the president make his contribution to the fiscal-policy debate. What they got was something else (just as the members of the Supreme Court got something else at last year’s State of the Union speech). The person who said memorably in 2008 that there were no red states or blue states gave a speech essentially reading the Republicans out of the American political system. “This is not a vision of the America I know.”

The political left lapped it up. Finally, wrote the progressive punditariat, Barack Obama was acting like their guy, willing to get in the face of the American right. At last, an American president was calling out conservatism as nothing less than a violation of “the basic social compact in America.”

Gallup just reported that the Obama approval rate among independent voters stands at 35%. The conventional reply to this is that the American people fundamentally “like” Barack Obama, or that the GOP candidate will make the election an unlikability Olympics.

What voters like is the memory of the historic Obama they voted into the office of the presidency. The person they voted for in 2008 is different than the person who kicked off his presidential campaign last week by personally stomping his opposition.

Somehow voters are apparently expected to “like” whichever version Mr. Obama chooses to give them. It is asking a lot. By definition, this is a gap, and it’s looking like it could be a dangerous one for the incumbent.”

Written by Daniel Henninger at the Wall Street Journal.

The Many Faces of Minneapolis’ Representative in Washington, Keith Ellison

“The Ellison Hustle”  the article by Scott W. Johnson at PowerLine  is appropriately titled.   Yes, that is Kenwood and St. Louis Park’s  political  sun in the House of Representatives, Keith Ellison, defending the poor people of World Islam, expecially the ones in the good old USA who are so terribly abused and….well….misunderstood.

Scott has discovered a little extra in the Keith Ellison personna, shown in his public personality, but kept off of his curricullum vitae he sends out to the  Lefty press.   Scott writes:

“Although Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Keith Ellison claims to have converted to Islam as an undergraduate, he appears to have arrived in Minneapolis for law school as an acolyte of the Nation of Islam. Betweeen 1989 and 1998 Ellison adopted names including Keith Hakim, Keith X Ellison, and Keith Ellison-Muhammad while promoting Nation of Islam doctrine, representing the Nation of Islam, and holding himself out as a member of the Nation of Islam running for office. When Ellison first ran for office in 1998 he did so as a self-proclaimed member of the Nation of Islam under the name Keith Ellison-Muhammad.

Insofar as one can observe in the public record, the Farrakhan shtick was Ellison’s hustle at least until 1998. Today it’s his Muslim faith combined with his radical politics.

I think I’ve had Ellison’s number for a while. I took a shot at sizing him up for Weekly Standard readers in “Louis Farrakhan’s first congressman,” just before Ellison was elected to Congress in 2006.

Ellison is a Democrat and was of course the first Muslim elected to Congress. We await his identification of the branch of Islam that is aligned with Democratic Party doctrine on gay rights, abortion, feminism, and the other articles of the liberal faith.

Last night Sean Hannity broadcast an interview with Ellison in which you could see a bit of the Ellison hustle on display. In the segment below, Ellison shows what an ecumenical guy he is. Ellison explains: “We are at war with violent extremists who would kill Americans. And some of those people might be Muslim, they might be white supremacists, they might be people who would kill at abortion clinics. They might be of any description.”

Lest you feel left out, Ellison added: “We don’t stop at one particular group. We are trying to stop Americans from any extremist group; Muslim, Christian, Jewish, any kind.” This kind of clarity is only one of his many contributions to our public.”

Comment:  It is comforting to know that our Nation’s number one Muslim in  Congress is such a cosmopolitan guy.   Be sure to check him out when next features on television and tell us whom he most resembles, Barack Hussein Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton……poliically and by personality, I mean.