On matters such as whether to spend $800 billion on “stimulus” projects, $1 trillion on health care “reform,” or billions of dollars to build stadiums in the “city” of Chicago, President Obama is all about the now.  When it comes to approving a months-old request from his beleaguered general in Afghanistan to increase troops in an eight-years-and-running war to support the dying soldiers already there, Obama engages in leisurely stargazing.

Never mind that only a wee percentage of funds are seeping out eight months after the stimulus bill was passed, health care legislation wouldn’t start until 2013, and the 2016 Summer Olympics don’t take place for seven years.  Those items were all at the top of Obama’s to-do list.

The war in Afghanistan just entered its ninth year.  Obama formulated his grand strategy for Afghanistan in March, and replaced his former commander there with General Stanley McChrystal in June.  McChrystal, as requested, made his assessment of what was necessary to implement Obama’s counterinsurgency strategy, including adequate troop levels, and has been waiting since August for Obama to give him what he needs.

Now Obama tells us that before troops can be approved, we need to make sure we have a strategy.  As George Will recently asked, didn’t Obama formulate his strategy in March?  Has it changed since then?  If not, then why the delay in sending troops to carry it out?  read more »

Sunset on the American Dream? Don't count on it. Over 2000 Defenders of the American Dream are gathering at Arlington Virginia's Crystal Gateway Marriott to make sure it is a rising not a setting sun. They will be storming Capital Hill this afternoon to remind our representatives that we expect them to defend the dream also and not be drawing the curtains.What is the American Dream? In a word freedom. Freedom for ourselves and our children. Freedom to succeed or learn from our failures. Freedom to achieve, grow and prosper. Freedom to pursue happiness, an inalienable right, which along with life and liberty form the basis of our republican ideals.The Defending the American Dream Summit will be underway today and tomorrow sponsored by Americans for Prosperity. Following visits to Capital Hill, this evening's highlight is the 'Tribute to Ronald Reagan' Dinner with Laura Ingraham, Congressman Mike  Pence (R-IN), Dr. Jim Miller, former Reagan administration budget director, and American's for Prosperity Chairman Art Pope.The VirginianFederalist is live blogging from the conference's blogger's row. Follow updates here, and on twitter (#dad09).Defend the American Dream!

For the consideration of the International Olympic Committee, here are 16 reasons to host the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro instead of Chicago:

(1) President Obama wants them in Chicago. Really badly. More important than his wanting them in Chicago is his decision to drop everything in the middle of a recession, a health care debate, and two wars to head to Copenhagen on separate jumbo jet junkets with his wife to make a special entreaty for his home city. Obama has taken a stronger stand on the Windy City than he has on, say, any particular health care provision or whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. Even more important than Obama’s not having his priorities straight is his obvious, calculated presumption that because the world loves him so much, it would be the diplomatic equivalent of kicking us out of the UN not to award Chicago the Olympics after his in-person plea.

(2) Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of building contracts and infrastructure development would be required in a city known for construction payback schemes, money laundering, insider dealing, gang activity, an overloaded transit system, and general public corruption, incompetence, inefficiency, and interruption of service.

(3) Numerous Obama cronies own property near Washington Park, the proposed stadium site, and would profit from the games being held there.

(4) No one actually wants to be in Chicago in the summer—or any time of the year, for that matter, except for about three hours in late spring. Dozens of Chicago residents die heat-related deaths every summer, and they’re not even competing in decathlons.  read more »

An Op-Ed By Heather™

I wanted to do a re-posting from an excerpt of an op-ed I had written in my old blog site, as well as the comment and reply sections of Washington Post and the New York Times, it received praise from conservative bloggers, although it was trashed by liberals which in and of itself is high praise for a core Christian Conservative and blogger like myself. The reason I wanted to repost this is because liberal neanderthals... men like Carter, Clinton, and women like Pelosi seem to want to play the race card and play upon the needless plague of white guilt that infects America today. Many on Twitter™ may not have had the opportunity to read and comment on it, so please feel free to do so

If you remember back during Obama's campaign for the presidency he had an overly hyped speech on race that was severely flawed, and lacking in substance. In a hurry to kiss up to African Americans the mainstream media ridiculously had the audacity to compare that speech to Abraham Lincoln's [Chris "thrill up my leg" Matthews] Gettysburg Address, it was not even close to the quality, honesty or integrity of Lincoln's speech, the reason I say honesty is because Obama made his speech as a campaign ploy while Lincoln's Gettysburg Address came from the heart to heal a nation not as a campaign strategy to win over votes  read more »

In the event that the imminent failure of Democrats’ socialized medicine bill leads them to some soul-searching—perhaps listening to what their constituents have been telling them all summer or taking GOP advice to start from scratch—it’s worth noting that Republicans in the House have introduced 32 health care reform bills since the spring, all stuck at the referral stage.

Many of these lonely bills deal with just one or several aspects of health care reform, rather than presenting grand, sweeping Ten-Year Plans that will change Health Care as we know it.  Not all the bills are knockouts; a couple are downright stinkers.  But virtually all contain some good ideas, and some of them contain nothing but good ideas—which means that no Democrat will ever for a moment consider any of them.

For those desiring ammunition to counterattack the liberal charge that conservatives criticize everything they hear from Democrats but have no ideas of their own, here’s a primer on the legislation prepared by our devoted GOP servants in the House:

•    Several bills are flat-out winners: Clifford Stearns’ Health Care Tax Deduction Act, Michele Bachmann’s Health Care Freedom of Choice Act, and Rodney Alexander’s Sunset of Life Protection Act.  These laws provide for income tax deductions of health insurance premiums and prescription drugs; medical expenses; and long-term care premiums, respectively.  All three bills are so short they could fit onto a cocktail napkin together and still have room for a list of Obama’s failed Cabinet nominations.  This is not surprising: bills covering what individuals are allowed to do require less verbiage than bills mandating what individuals are required to do for the government.  read more »

Those who have bent their knee in homage to our nation's magnanimous liege will no doubt one day denounce me in a People’s Court (not the TV show but rather a Soviet-style show trial) for daring to nitpick the Chosen One to this extent. However, it is their beloved leader, ladies and gentleman, that insists that the COMMUNITY play a prominent role in your every life decision.

In a campaign speech, Barack Obama lamented that, during the Dark Ages before his ascent to the throne, Americans were able to drive around in SUV’s, eat what they wanted, and kept their homes climate controlled at 70 degrees. Liberals, Communitarians, and other related socialist types who think that only those agreeing with them should be permitted to open our mouths will shriek, “You’ve already made this point in previous commentaries.” And I am going to keep making it whenever Comrade Obama violates these key tenets of leftwing dietary policy.

On 5/6/09, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden motorcaded to an eatery in Northern Virginia where our wondrous benefactor and one of his foremost disciples supped upon the finest of ground bullock for their midday meal. When average Americans engage in these kinds of activities, few give it second thought and pretty much the same response would be elicited if other occupants of the Oval Office such as Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush engaged in this gastronomic act. However, seldom did these Chief Executives blatantly declare their enmity to the minutest details of the American way of life and vowed to remake the nation along new lines.  read more »

With the Obama agenda, the New Age mindset shares the perspective that you are not so much a distinct individual worthy as such but rather a mere component emanating outward into larger and larger groups. For example, at the lowest level you are part of the COMMUNITY.

Note that the family has been skipped over entirely as the prerogatives of the reactionary fecund union between a monogamous man and woman must be overridden by the preferences of the bureaucracy administering the larger group. At the highest level, all identity is subsumed into an absolutist holism. Obama prophesizes, “...the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself.”

Chesterton, or someone nearly as wise, once remarked that one shouldn’t take down a fence unless you know why it was put up. Ladies and gentlemen (especially ladies), if we are to live as one common humanity, do you really want a Pakistani tribesman with Taliban sympathies to have a say over how you live your life in terms of whether or not you can go outside without a bag over you head, be permitted to drive a car, or even have windows in your home not painted over so that you can look outside.

A world without distinctions was also a dream shared by Communists. And as has happened in all regimes that sought to obliterate all distinctions save those imposed by the all powerful state such as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union or Red China, the attempt here will result in a wide-scale abridgement of basic human rights.

For example, throughout his inaugural address, Obama made the attempt to depict himself as no respecter of persons on the basis of race or ethnicity by denouncing segregation and the like as a “dark chapter” of our nation’s history. However, from an examination of the other rhetoric employed by the new President, like the pigs in Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, it is quite evident that Obama views some racial groups as being more equal than others.  read more »

At President Obama's latest media extravaganza (I have to write this quickly before that line becomes outdated), Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouted out at one point what many of his fellow Americans were thinking, "You lie!" (Video) I'd say he's a great example to the rest of us, but unfortunately he quickly apologized. Even so, Vice President Joe Biden said that Wilson had "demeaned the institution" of the US Congress. Biden and other Democrats repeatedly said they were "embarrassed." Republicans, including Senator John McCain (R-AZ), said it was "inappropriate" and "disrespectful." House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) even discussed taking punitive action against Wilson.

It seems like some perspective is in order here. Plenty of bloggers have pointed out Democrats' hypocrisy. Sharon Soon has a great piece here. Many point to Youtube videos like this one from 2005 where Democrats showed Bush the same level of respect that Republicans showed Obama last night.

But the truth is, if Bush couldn't handle some boos from his fellow countrymen, there was no way he'd be able to handle Saddam Hussein or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong-Il, and the same goes for Obama. The office of the President is the most powerful office in the free world, and the policies of the President affect every American and many non-Americans as well. If the President can't even take as much in-your-face criticism as comedians do, how is he going to justify those policies to the American people and to the world with any kind of clarity and strength of purpose?  read more »

Obama wants to defame September 11th by highlighting the occasion as a day of service and downplaying the attack upon America. So if one questions compulsory voluntarism, one will be anathematized as a contingency operation instigator. We’re not suppose to use the word “terrorist” anymore.

Sean Hannity said he wouldn’t go down the road of criticizing Ted Kennedy so soon after the Senator’s death. I recall reading of Ted Kennedy driving off one of the roads he went down.

It has been reported that the healthcare reform legislation being considered will order the IRS to hand your tax records over to health commissioners. It was observed that apparently it’s OK to collect information in the name of universal healthcare but not to prevent terrorism. If it’s wrong to ascertain the legal status of immigrants as to whether or not they should be here, then on what grounds do government agencies have to be passing this information back and forth regarding actual citizens? There are already concerns about disparities of treatment among various groups and classes. Just think how much worse it will be when your chart reads, “Middle class. Do not resuscitate.”

The Healthcare reform bill also plans to spend over a billion dollars for jungle gyms, bike trails, and farmers markets. Guess the Chinese want fit slaves for when they take over after the United States defaults on the loans from the Maoists.

In embracing the Lockerbie bomber, Qaddaffi proves he is still human scum. Makes you wish for the good old days of the Bush Doctrine where, if you sided with America’s enemies, you were considered one of America’s enemies.  read more »