Boker tov, Boulder!

Obama issued a statement Sunday...

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is stepping up his criticism of Syria's crackdown on protesters, charging that the Syrian president is "completely incapable and unwilling" to respond to what Obama calls the legitimate grievances of the Syrian people.

Dozens of people were reported killed Sunday as Syrian security forces escalated their response to protests against President Bashar Assad. In the city of Hama, a barrage of shelling and gunfire left bodies scattered in the streets.

Obama issued a statement Sunday saying he is "appalled" by the violence and brutality the Syrian government has aimed at its own people. He calls the reports from Hama "horrifying" and says they demonstrate the true character of the Syrian regime.

 

So why doesn't he recall our ambassador?!

 

You might remember the [Dec. 2008] Princeton Policy Workshop Plan for CHANGE in the Middle East: Achieving an Arab-Israeli Peace Settlement. The "recommendations" of a dozen graduate students "working under the direction of... Daniel Kurtzer," were as follow:

The pursuit of an immediate, comprehensive, end-of-conflict, end-of-claims settlement to the ArabIsraeli conflict should be a central component of the Obama Administration’s foreign policy. The Obama Administration can fundamentally alter the context in which the United States deals with other regional and global challenges by pursuing three tracks to achieve Arab-Israeli peace:

1. Lead the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli final status negotiations to fruition;
2. Facilitate the conclusion of a Syrian-Israeli peace treaty that transforms the United States’ relationship with Syria; and
3. Channel the momentum behind the Arab Peace Initiative (API) into an active facilitating role for Arab states in the peace process. 

A conflict-ending peace will advance vital U.S. national interests by y reducing extremist violence, discrediting radical ideologies, and stabilizing a region whose conflicts have drained U.S. attention and resources for too many years.  

 

You might also remember that Obama started "engaging" Syria within months of taking office.

04/04/2009: SYRIA CALLING: The Obama Administration's chance to engage in a Middle East Peace (by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker)

02/17/2010: US appoints first ambassador to Damascus since 2005

April Fool's Day 2010:

"President Barack Obama's administration considers Syria a key player in Washington's efforts to revive the stalled Middle East peace process, U.S. Senator John Kerry said in Damascus...

"Syria is an essential player in bringing peace and stability to the region," Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a speech after meeting President Bashar al-Assad.

02/26/2010: Assad holds trilateral meeting with Ahmadinejad, Nasrallah in Damascus

06/24/2010: Obama Helps Syria Market Itself as... Western Paradise

12/30/2010: Republicans blast Obama for posting new Syrian envoy

05/19/2011: Obama: Syria must stop 'murder and mass arrest' of citizens

07/11/2011: Syrian crowds attack US embassy, ambassador's residence

07/31/2011: Obama "appalled" by "horrifying" Syria violence:

Obama said in a statement: “I am appalled by the Syrian government’s use of violence and brutality against its own people. The reports out of Hama are horrifying and demonstrate the true character of the Syrian regime.  Once again, President Assad has shown that he is completely incapable and unwilling to respond to the legitimate grievances of the Syrian people. His use of torture, corruption and terror puts him on the wrong side of history and his people. 

“Through his own actions, Bashar al-Assad is ensuring that he and his regime will be left in the past, and that the courageous Syrian people who have demonstrated in the streets will determine its future. Syria will be a better place when a democratic transition goes forward.  In the days ahead, the United States will continue to increase our pressure on the Syrian regime, and work with others around the world to isolate the Assad government and stand with the Syrian people.

Syrian security forces killed at least 62 people Sunday in an escalation of the crackdown on protests ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to activists and residents, the Associated Press reported.  Most died in raids on the flashpoint city of Hama, where a barrage of shelling and gunfire left bodies scattered in the streets.

Let's hope Durbin is right!

Huffington Post reports:

WASHINGTON -- The Republicans are killing Keynesian economics with their attempt to cut spending as the economy rebounds from a recession, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a floor speech on Sunday.

"I would say ... that symbolically, that agreement is moving us to the point where we are having the final interment of John Maynard Keynes," he said, referring to the British economist.

"He normally died in 1946 but it appears we are going to put him to his final rest with this agreement."

 

R.I.P. (I looked for a pic of Keynes' gravesite, but there is none. He was cremated and his remains scattered. How very fitting.)

Long Live Hayek, to whom we owe this bit of wisdom:  

"Conservatism is only as good as what it conserves."

 

As Carl would say, let's go to the videotape.

 

Not to be missed

Kudos to One Jerusalem, the JCPA and Rogatka Ltd.  This is excellent.

 

 

 

Definition of the Day: Liberalism

John Hinderaker at Power Line:

 

Liberalism is a sort of parasite that feeds on the wealth that free enterprise creates.

Liberalism exists for two reasons: 1) to stuff the pocketbooks of those who have learned to live at the taxpayers’ expense, and 2) to feed the moral vanity of those who can’t resist meddling in other peoples’ lives.

When times are good, the economy can drag a fair amount of liberalism along behind it. But when times are hard, liberalism is a luxury we can’t afford.

 

Perry: The sky is NOT falling

 

"I'm frustrated along with the rest of Americans, but the fact of the matter is ... we've spent too much money, we've gotten our house in bad shape and we need to stop spending."

 

 AP via Townhall:

Predictions of gloom and doom gripping the economy if the federal debt ceiling is not extended are overblown, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday...

"They're not going to shut down the collection of fees and taxes, I'm thinking," Perry said... "There is still going to be revenues flowing in. I think this threat that somehow or another the world's going to come to an end and the threat of we're not going to be able to pay our bills is a bit of a stretch."

... Perry called the gridlock political theater....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

((( Soundtrack ))) courtesy of Power Line

The NEW New Deal

I've probably posted this before, but what the heck.

 

Over 5000 years ago, Moses said to Israel, "Pick up your shovels, mount your asses and camels, and I will lead you to the Promised Land."

Roosevelt said, "Lay down your shovels, sit on your asses, and light up a Camel; this is the Promised Land."

Now Obama has stolen your shovel, taxed your asses, raised the price of Camels and mortgaged the Promised Land to China.

 

The Cowardice of the Mind

Daniel Greenfield at Sultan Knish: Lynching Herman Cain

 

.... So let's talk about bigotry. Talk to the Copts of Egypt, the Christians of Pakistan and Malaysia, or the Jews of Iran. Learn about bigotry from them and what happens when political power is vested in the hands of members of a cult that preaches the absolute political dominance of their theocracy.

Do you want bigotry? The cemeteries of the world are filled with the victims of the Koran. And their number grows year by year. Go the graves of the murdered and the dead, and mumble to them about bigotry. Tell them that singling out Muslims isn't nice. It's not proper. It's not the American Way-- or that flavor of the American Way cooked up by liberals around 1965.

When Orwell wrote 1984, few Americans imagined being too afraid to speak their minds. Now it's 2011 and we are learning to be afraid. And when someone stands up to speak what we know is the truth, then we shiver and bring out the rope. We lynch him as a sacrifice. The way that Europeans denounce Israel, and prosecute Koran burning. An offering for the Dhimmi altar.

This isn't about Cain, who has backtracked his earlier comments. This is about cowardice. Not physical cowardice, but the cowardice of the mind. The timidity of stepping beyond a reasonably safe opinion and following it to its logical conclusion. Of even raising the subject. And the glee of destroying the man who steps slightly to the right of you. Who dares to say what you do not.

 

 

In Egypt: Islamist Summer replaces the 'Arab Spring'

It's hard to believe that February was only five months ago.

... Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he’s fed up and wants to resign, but he “cannot for fear of the country falling into chaos.”

Now, who do you suppose is responsible for that? Perhaps the same person who is responsible for eliminating democratic opposition in Egypt and who has insisted, for 30 years now, that the choice the United States faces is either supporting the dictator Mubarak or the ascension to power of the Muslim Brotherhood."

 

Today, Brother Jack sends us this MEMRI video at Big Peace - showing "Egyptian cleric" Safwat Higazi explaining how the "real" conflict is "between two religions" - that is, the Arab-Muslim Ummah (what Obama refers to as "the Muslim World") and the "foreign riff-raff" in the Middle East who claim to be Israeli Jews.

Meanwhile - also in the wake of Egyptians having said No to Pharoah - you might be shocked to hear that Muslim terrorist organizations have hijacked the "revolution."

 

... Friday’s chants in Tahrir, the cradle of the Egyptian revolution, must have made some knees shake in Washington before anywhere else across Egypt and the region.

 

al Reuters via daylife : Protesters carry a banner reading "There is no God but God" as they chant religious and nationalist slogans in Tahrir square in Cairo July 29, 2011.

 

“Islamic. Islamic. Not Western or Eastern. No liberal or secular,” demonstrators chanted. “With our soul and blood we defend you Islam.”

Islamist groups will triumph in parliamentary and presidential elections because they are the best organized political forces in Egypt today and because the will of the majority that will vote may be on their side, irrespective of whoever was the force behind the uprisings. 

 

At this Bikyamasr blog, some Egyptians are wondering if this might not be Egypt's 'Iran Moment.'  About the "liberal" heroes of Tahrir Square revolutionary fame, Joseph Mayton writes:

... those revolutionaries, in the end, failed to maintain the momentum of the uprising... A semblance of “we know best” pervaded their movement, which ultimately fractured the country and allowed for the extremist Islamic state to take form.

The Egyptian protesters, who returned to Tahrir on July 8, have done such a poor PR job that much of the country views them as pariahs attempting to disrupt the country and foment their “suspicious plans.” The military has done an excellent job of shifting sides in gathering anti-Tahrir protest support and raising antagonism against them....

...the fact that the Egyptian left has cornered itself through its poor judgments and failure to listen to the people, it is disappointing. Let us not forget that the protesters believe they left too early following Mubarak’s departure. They are most likely correct in their arguments, but the military and others have leveled a campaign against them that has been difficult to overcome.

The reality is that it is no longer about the ideology of the revolution, it has become political, a game played well by the military and the Islamists, who have years of experience, while the true activists of the revolution are too new and are thinking in ideas...

 

These descriptions of "liberals" in Egypt immediately brought to mind current discussions in the U.S. about the conservative TEA party.  (How ironic is that?)

 

"poor PR job"

"too new and ... and thinking in ideas"

"pariahs attempting to disrupt the country and foment their 'suspicious plans'”

"campaign against them ... difficult to overcome" in a "game played well by [those with] years of experience"

 

 

A longtime friend of BtB writes that perhaps Obama will "advise the Egyptians that any political solution should be bipartisan. Yeah, that's the ticket."

 

Whose side are we on?

         President Barack Obama offers a toast as he and first lady Michelle Obama host Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Mexico's first lady Margarita Zavala at a State Dinner at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, May 19, 2010. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

 

ATF: The White House Knew

 

Scandal: A former ATF special agent tells Congress a National Security Council staffer was informed about Operation Fast and Furious before guns allowed into Mexico wound up at the murder scene of a U.S. agent.

The latest evidence that both the White House and attorney general knew and approved of Project Gunrunner and its deadly offshoot, Operation Fast and Furious, came this week in the testimony of William Newell, ATF special agent in charge of the Phoenix office, before Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

That the "stench of cover-up," as Fox News analyst Brit Hume described the administration's handling of the matter, may reach even into the Oval Office itself was evidenced by Newell's testimony that he communicated with Kevin O'Reilly, a staffer on President Obama's National Security Council, about Operation Fast and Furious in September 2010.

O'Reilly was national security director for North America tasked with monitoring the activities of Mexican drug cartels. We are asked to believe he inquired about a program that was providing the cartels with guns but kept what he found out to himself.

That date, by the way, is three months before weapons permitted to "walk" into Mexico were found at the scene in Arizona were U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered. Newell said O'Reilly had inquired about the status of Project Gunrunner to brief administration officials before a trip to Mexico....

 

The complete editorial is HERE.  See transcript of pertinent testimony HERE. 

Meanwhile, the LA Times assures us that the White House didn't know:

An ATF supervisor who was asked to provide information on efforts to stop weapons trafficking to Mexico did not mention Fast and Furious, a botched operation that let guns reach drug cartels.

 

Texas on the Potomac has an interactive map that shows the locations - ranging as far south as Acapulco - where authorities have so far recovered 122 weapons that "the ATF allowed to be trafficked into Mexico."

"What If" Quote of the Day

Maureen Dowd in the New York Times:

.... Consider what the towel-snapping Tea Party crazies have already accomplished. They’ve changed the entire discussion. They’ve neutralized the White House. They’ve whipped their leadership into submission. They’ve taken taxes and revenues off the table. They’ve withered the stock and bond markets. They’ve made journalists speak to them as though they’re John Calhoun and Alexander Hamilton.

Obama and John Boehner have been completely outplayed by the “hobbits,” as The Wall Street Journal and John McCain called them.

What if this is all a cruel joke on us? What if the people who hate government are good at it and the people who love government are bad at it?