Obama wrote secret letter to Iran on Islamic State

Mary Greeley

America Faces Most Dangerous Two Years in 150 Years

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By Charles Hurt

If President Obama suffered a "shellacking" in the 2010 elections, then what he endured Tuesday night was nothing short of a vicious gangland beatdown the likes of which have rarely been seen before in the history of electoral politics.

This, of course, is a wonderful and well-deserved outcome. But beware: America now enters the two most dangerous years of her existence — or certainly the most dangerous since the Great Depression and possibly going all the way back to the Civil War.

Not to dismiss the promising results of Tuesday's election.

Voters clearly and forcefully rejected the party, politics and policies of President Obama. They slapped his socialist agenda back into the days of Soviet gulags, where it belongs.

His grand visions of mighty government ruling unchecked over desperate ghettos have been snuffed out.

Gone, too, were the so-called "low-information voters" who have been coaxed to the polls since 2008 on lies and false promises that the federal government would solve all their problems.

They are used up and wrung out.

Even the onslaught of threats and desperate accusations in endless emails to their Obamaphones couldn't motivate those people to the polls one more time.

Voters rejected the craven, crass and mafioso tactics of Senate Leader Harry Reid.

Voters stripped him of his baldly partisan use of the United States Senate as a graveyard for all House legislation in order to protect his Democrats from tough votes and insulate the President from reality.

The little man with giant fists got staggered by a nasty uppercut from voters even though Reid saw it coming for weeks. Now, the ex-boxer stumbles on the canvas all tangled in the ropes, waiting for the bell.

And voters also rejected the loony-toon delusions of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. Honestly, the woman should be running a hat and wig shop in Haight-Ashbury, selling weed and prescription pills on the side. How it is that Democrats in Congress have taken her so seriously for so long will baffle historians for decades.

The silver lining for Democrats today is now they now have the perfect excuse to bounce both of them out of leadership forever.

And this is where things get very, very dangerous for America. President Obama still has two more years left in his final term.

Already, he has demonstrated again and again that he has no regard for the constitution or the legitimacy of laws when they do not suit his agenda. He flaunts his disregard for the constitutional process, dismisses laws he doesn't like and rewrites others.

He mocks the powers of Congress. The Supreme Court has slapped him down more than any president in recent times. All of this as he tells us he is an expert on constitutional law.

Now come his very explicit threats to pass more illegal and unconstitutional presidential edicts to grant amnesty to illegal aliens already in the United States. This, in turn, will issue invitations for millions more illegals to come streaming across the border.

It will not end at immigration. Unchecked power is addictive.

Disowned by Democrats and made to feel irrelevant in this election, President Obama's enormous and unjustified ego is deeply wounded. He is frustrated and feels caged, cornered. This is when people like him are most dangerous.

Buoyant Republicans will make an effort to engage him.

But President Obama is not a listener. He is not a negotiator. He is not a learner. He will just take what he wants. It is easier that way.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's court-packing scheme during the Great Depression was nothing like the strains this president has put on Constitution. Indeed, not since the Civil War has America faced such a dire threat to her existence as a lawful, constitutional republic.

The difference in leadership between then and now could not be more striking.

To bind the union, Abraham Lincoln took an economic and political war and elevated it into something higher. He made it about emancipating slaves and won. And saved the Republic.

This president does the opposite. He got elected promising to elevate politics but instead finds unity and sows discord, often inciting racial divisions.

America's only hope today is that President Obama finally turns to the bust of Lincoln he keeps in the Oval Office and listens.

USA Today Bureau Chief: Obama Most 'Dangerous' President Ever for Media Freedom

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President Obama in big trouble

Obama Could Lift Sanctions Against Cuba After Next Week’s Election, Says Congressman

cubaconfidential

By Michael E. Miller, Miami New Times

President Obama and Raul Castro

The Cuban expression "mañana, mañana." is often interpreted by Anglos as an excuse for laziness. In fact, the saying speaks volumes about its island of origin. In a country that has been led by one Castro or another for more than half a century, what hope can there be that tomorrow will be any different from today?

Earlier this month, that question brought several dozen experts, academics, and journalists to Columbia Journalism School in Manhattan. Optimism was evident in the conference's title -- Covering Cuba in an Era of Change -- as well as in the presentations, which included strong hints that the embargo's days are numbered.

Gregory Craig, former White House counsel under Barack Obama, said the president already has the legal power to lift most of the sanctions that have crippled Cuba since the fall of the Soviet Union. Although Congress probably would refuse to officially overturn the embargo, Obama could -- and should -- instantly normalize diplomatic relations and allow Americans to travel to the island, Craig said.

Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern outlined a six-month window in which Obama is most likely to make a move, beginning after next week's midterm elections and concluding with the Summit of the Americas in late April.

If Obama and Raúl Castro both attend as predicted, it will be the first official meeting between two countries' leaders since Raúl and Fidel swept down from the Sierra Maestra.

"We are reassured [by the White House] that people are working on it," McGovern said of a U.S.-Cuba policy change. "The stars seem to be aligned."

Many roadblocks remain, however. McGovern warned that any rapprochement would require dealing with both Alan Gross -- the USAID contractor imprisoned in Cuba since 2011 for distributing satellite phones without a permit -- and the three surviving members of the "Cuban Five," the Castro agents who spied on Miami's exile community.

Easing the embargo would also cost Obama politically. "I think part of the reluctance is that [the administration] will get some pushback from people who are in pretty serious positions," McGovern said, including Miami's hard-line Cubans.

Perhaps the most concrete evidence that things are already changing on the island was the presence of three Cuban journalists at the conference. Miriam Celaya, Elaine Díaz, and Orlando Luís Pardo Lazo have all been allowed to leave under recently relaxed travel restrictions. Celaya is scheduled to return to Havana this week, while Díaz and Pardo are on yearlong academic fellowships.

But Celaya and Pardo hardly painted a promising picture of their homeland. Celaya said she had been blocked from entering the library because of her journalism. Other reporters had been beaten and imprisoned, Pardo said. Both described having to share articles via paquetes, or troves of documents on flash drives. And Pardo said Cuba's infamous state security apparatus remained intact despite the growth of internet on the island.

"Our own [Edward] Snowden would not survive, would not escape," he warned. "Our own Snowden would be shot on the spot."

Ultimately, despite the talk of Obama ending the embargo and ushering in change in Cuba, Pardo feared that the solution was still, as it has been for 50 years, "biological."

In other words: when the Castros kick the bucket.

Ivan Eland on Ranking US Presidents

The Independent Institute

White House Sends 'Thank You' to Beheader's Oklahoma Mosque Congregation

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by Jordan Schachtel

The White House has reportedly sent a top Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official to the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City (ISGOC) to “present a special thank you to the Muslim congregation,” Oklahoma’s KFOR reports.

The beheader's mosque, the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City, was founded by a sibling of a U.S.-designated Hamas terrorist, and in the past has welcomed an Imam who was a close confidant to al-Qaeda mastermind Anwar al-Awlaki.

David L. Myers, who serves as director of the DHS Center for Faith-based & Neighborhood Partnerships, was tasked with presenting a personal message from President Barack Obama. It read, "Your service is a powerful example of the powerful roots of the Abrahamic faiths and how our communities can come together with shared peace with dignity and a sense of justice.”

Two days before proud ISGOC congregation member Alton Nolen (AKA Jahkeem Yisrael) ruthlessly beheaded an innocent woman while reportedly shouting Islamic slogans, ISGOC Imam Imad Enchassi made unproven claims about multiple death threats, specifically beheadings, against Muslims and their children in Oklahoma. Breitbart News investigated Oklahoma state hate crime databases and found no record of widespread anti-Muslim persecution in the state. Over the past five years, a total of seven anti-Islamic hate crimes have been documented in the state of Oklahoma.

Breitbart News found that Suhaib Webb, the former Imam of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City had been a close confidant of al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki. Breitbart News also discovered that other radical Islamists, such as convicted terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, had attended the same mosque. In addition, it was discovered that the mosque was founded by Mufid Abdulqader, the half-brother of the chairman of Gaza Strip terror group Hamas. In 2009, the mosque’s founder was sentenced to 20 years in prison. According to the Department of Justice, Abdulqader was “convicted on one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, one count of conspiracy to provide goods, funds, and services to a specially designated terrorist, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.”

Breitbart News learned that shortly after ISGOC congregation member Alton Nolen executed his jihadi attack, the mosque responded by removing its two most-recent sermons from its website. The first sermon, dated September 19th, revealed the mosque’s close connection with the Muslim Brotherhood-founded Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Additionally, the Breitbart investigation found that the current ISGOC Imam, Imad Enchassi, falsely claimed that a Republican Oklahoma state representative had said that “American Muslims are a cancer that need to be eliminated.” The second sermon, dated September 26th, showed that the mosque had tasked CAIR with handling the damage control.

In the past, Imad Enchassi has accused America of “creating more terrorists” with its foreign policy. Enchassi, who considers himself a perpetual “3rd generation refugee” of Palestine, although he grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, has wildly accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” during its recent 50-day war with terror group Hamas.

Raúl Castro propuso a Obama un ‘canal de comunicación secreto’

cubaconfidential

By Chris Simmons

By Nora Gámez Torres, ngameztorres@elnuevoherald.com

La administración del presidente Barack Obama utilizó al embajador español Miguel Ángel Moratinos en el 2009 para hacer llegar un mensaje a Raúl Castro y pedir una acción que reciprocara su decisión de eliminar, tras llegar a la Casa Blanca, las restricciones a los viajes de los cubanoamericanos.

En el libro Back Channel to Cuba, The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana, Peter Kornbluh y William LeoGrande reproducen el mensaje enviado a Castro: “Diga a la autoridades cubanas que entendemos que las cosas no pueden cambiar de la noche a la mañana, pero que a lo largo del camino, cuando miremos atrás, deberá quedar claro que este fue el momento en que las cosas comenzaron a cambiar”.

Raúl Castro envió de vuelta una propuesta de abrir un “canal de comunicación secreto”, pero la Casa Blanca replicó que cualquier conversación debía entablarse a través de los “canales establecidos”.

Los autores del libro, que recoge la historia de las negociaciones secretas entre Cuba y Estados Unidos en los últimos 55 años, señalan que aunque Obama ha reconocido que una política hostil es fútil, no ha tenido más voluntad que sus predecesores en romper este impasse. Las razones quizá están en las “lecciones” que los autores resumen casi al final del texto: “Estados Unidos se ha contentado con vivir en un ‘antagonismo perpetuo’ hacia Cuba porque los costos han sido relativamente bajos, y cambiar la política supone riesgos políticos domésticos que los sucesivos presidentes han juzgado como muy grandes”.

Pero Kornbluh aseguró a el Nuevo Herald que las “lecciones” tienen que ver con lo que ha sucedido en los últimos 55 años, y no con el contexto actual.

“La política doméstica sí es un gran impedimento desde el fin de la Guerra Fría pero hay cosas que están cambiando en términos de la opinión pública en Miami y Florida”, en parte como resultado de la propia política de Obama de permitir viajar más libremente a los cubanoamericanos a Cuba, señaló.

Otro factor mencionado por el autor es que Obama es un presidente demócrata en su segundo mandato, por lo que no está tan preocupado por las repercusiones de un cambio de política.

“Florida claramente no está siendo considerada por Hillary Clinton como un estado con un voto decisivo y ella ha hecho pública su posición de que el embargo es una mala idea para la política exterior estadounidense. Estados Unidos tiene también imperativos regionales para cambiar su política. Mira por ejemplo lo que ha pasado con la Cumbre de las Américas, en la que es Estados Unidos el que está aislado y no Cuba”, agregó.

Read more here: Back Channel

While Refusing to Support Hong Kong's Democracy, Obama Strongly Condemns Israel

www.channelnewsasia.com

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By Thomas Rose 

Hong Kong's pro-democracy demonstrators protesting China’s attempts to quash their rights to self government appear to be only the latest pro-Western group forsaken by the Obama administration. Meanwhile, its high volume criticism of Israel continues unabated. 

First, Hong Kong. Protests in that former British colony have grown massively since they started last Friday. The demonstrators-- and, if opinion polls are correct, also the overwhelming majority of Hong Kong People-- oppose the communist government in Beijing’s refusal to stand by provisions of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration that spelled out the conditions under which Hong Kong would be governed after its return to China from Britain. Hong Kong’s constitution, or Basic Law negotiated as part of the of Joint Declaration, guarantees Hong Kong’s right to govern itself on all non-defense or foreign affairs matters through 2047.

Protestors claim that China reneged on that agreement in June when it announced that Beijing would decide which candidates would be permitted to run in the 2017 elections to pick the self governing city’s next Chief Executive thereby insuring it would have full control over all the candidates that seek that office.

As up to a quarter million protestors peaceably took to Hong Kong streets demanding freedom last weekend, neither President Obama nor any other senior administration official said anything at all. It wasn’t until Tuesday that the US consulate in Hong Kong got around to issuing its first statement and it sided not with the protestors or their freedom cause:

We do not take sides in the discussion of Hong Kong's political development, nor do we support any particular individuals or groups involved in it... We encourage all sides to refrain from actions that would further escalate tensions, to exercise restraint and to express views on (Hong Kong's) political development in a peaceful manner.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was again forced to downplay harsh criticism against the Jewish state leveled by President Obama and other members of the administration during their White House visit Wednesday. Media reports claim that Obama harshly condemned the recent issuance of building permits for 2,610 apartment units inside the Israeli capital city, without seeming to understand that those decisions are made at the local, not the national level.

A Jerusalem real estate developer recently purchased seven apartment buildings in the predominantly Arab neighborhood of Silwan and purchased advertising to encourage Jewish families to buy them.

Netanyahu pushed back hard against the President’s condemnation. He told Spanish language Univisión TV that “Jews buy apartments in Arab neighborhoods. Arabs buy apartments in Jewish neighborhoods. I wouldn’t dream of interfering with that, and couldn’t even if I wanted to." "It is a municipal issue,” he said.

Pointing out President Obama’s hypocrisy of siding with those who seeking to prevent Jews from certain neighborhoods in Israel’s capital city, Netanyahu pointed out “there would be an uproar” if neighborhoods in the US, Mexico, or anywhere but Israel tried barring Jews from moving in. In comments that also appeared aimed at the Obama Administration, Netanyahu seemed to chide the White House and State Department for thinking they were empowered to micromanage the Jewish state down its most granular bureaucratic level: “It would be worth at least learning the correct information before jumping to take a position like that.”

Both the White House and State Department issued harsh condemnations of the new Jewish housing units, going to so far as to threaten the Jewish state with abandonment if it continued allowing Jews to move into neighborhoods that are predominantly Arab.

Former Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky writes and speaks regularly about how vital it is for freedom movements to know their struggles are neither desperate nor lonely. That they fight for values espoused by and embodied in the United States of America. When that support is not forthcoming, as in so many recent cases where President Obama has refused to offer even strong verbal support for freedom demonstrators in Iran and Venezuela, the effect can be devastating. Telling this author of the moment he heard of President Reagan’s denunciation of the Soviet Union as the ‘evil empire’ destined to fail while himself suffering a tortuous prison sentence in the Soviet Gulag abuses, Sharansky said: “It was one of the most important, freedom-affirming declarations, and we all instantly knew it. For us, that was the moment that really marked the end for them, and the beginning for us. The lie had been exposed and could never, ever be untold."

Eric Holder Finally Throws In the Towel

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Attorney General Eric Holder will resign on Thursday, several media outlets have confirmed. “Attorney General Eric Holder will on Thursday announce his plans to leave his post at the Justice Department once a successor is confirmed, a Justice Department official said,” Politico reported. "Holder has been in the job for nearly six years, since the start of the Obama administration.”

“Eric Holder Jr., the nation's first black U.S. attorney general, is preparing to announce his resignation Thursday after a tumultuous tenure marked by civil rights advances, national security threats, reforms to the criminal justice system and five and a half years of fights with Republicans in Congress,” National Public Radio added.

Holder was voted on a bipartisan basis into both criminal and civil contempt of Congress for his failure to comply with a congressional investigation into the gun walking program Operation Fast and Furious, run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) with oversight from senior Department of Justice (DOJ) officials. A total of 130 members of the House of Representatives called for him to resign in 2011 and 2012, as did eight U.S. Senators and every GOP presidential candidate in 2012, including the eventual presidential nominee Mitt Romney and vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan.

As the House Oversight Committee voted to hold Holder in contempt on both the criminal and civil citations, President Barack Obama asserted executive privilege over the Fast and Furious documents that Holder refused to provide to Congress pursuant to subpoenas from chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ron Machen, declined to prosecute Holder on the criminal contempt of Congress citation, but the House of Representatives is currently pursuing ongoing legal action against the administration using the civil contempt citation to fight to have the president’s executive privilege overturned.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Issa have both argued the president’s privilege assertion over those Fast and Furious documents is invalid and illegal because he used the lower form of the two types of executive privilege—deliberative process privilege—rather than presidential communications privilege. If Obama used the higher form, it would have meant that either he or his senior White House staff was aware of the gun walking tactics employed in Operation Fast and Furious, something that both Obama and Holder have denied. Usually, deliberative process privilege claims are considered invalid when there is even a suspicion of government wrongdoing—something Issa and Grassley have noted time and again—and in this case the government has admitted to wrongdoing.

Nonetheless, President Obama continues to hide these documents from the American people and from Congress.

Holder accused this reporter in November 2011 at a White House press conference of being “behind” the calls for his resignation because this reporter had contacted various members of Congress, asking if they agreed with the surging calls for him to resign.

"You guys need to — you need to stop this. It’s not an organic thing that’s just happening. You guys are behind it,” Holder said of this reporter’s efforts while working for The Daily Caller.

Calls for Holder’s resignation have continued since 2011 for reasons other than Operation Fast and Furious.

Holder’s press team also coordinated against various media outlets using far left-wing advocacy groups like the George Soros-funded Media Matters for America (MMFA). MMFA, which is led by pro-Hillary Clinton activist David Brock, used talking points and direction provided by then-Holder spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler to smear this reporter, Issa, Breitbart News reporters, ex-DOJ officials and whistleblowers, and reporters from across the media.

Emails recently uncovered via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by The Daily Caller found that Holder's press aide Schmaler specifically singled out and targeted this reporter.

“As revealed in the FOIA docs, Media Matters Deputy Research Director Matt Gertz sent a post concerning the NRA’s growing contributions to Holder’s critics to DOJ spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler, Holder’s top press flack who resigned in March, 2013,” the Daily Caller’s Betsy Rothstein wrote.

In response to that email, Schmaler wrote back to Gertz: “Thanks, you know boyle has been doing robo calls to top members right? This is campaign mounted by daily caller. He has called 60 offices and gotten to 8 last week.”

“Yeah, that was what my original piece on the story was about,” Gertz replied.

The terminology that was provided to Media Matters by the Department of Justice about this reporter—the word “campaign” specifically—appeared in subsequent Media Matters posts about this reporter.

The efforts to silence reporting on Fast and Furious are not the only questionable activity Holder and his team have been involved in with regards to the media. The DOJ labeled Fox News’ James Rosen a “co-conspirator” in an effort used to monitor him and targeted the Associated Press by monitoring the news agency’s communications.

Holder has been a lightning rod for scandal since he was confirmed in 2009. Right off the bat, he declined to prosecute the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) for voter intimidation at voting stations in 2008 in Philadelphia, despite efforts by career prosecutors at the DOJ to do so. He has been involved in the Trayvon Martin case in Florida in 2012, the Michael Brown case in Missouri this year, and in allegations by whistleblowers that Holder stopped the prosecution of alleged financial criminals, politicians, and DOJ officials who are accused of having taken bribes in connection with a U.S. Virgin Islands telecom cooperative. Just like how the DOJ originally denied guns were walked in Fast and Furious and has since retracted that denial, the DOJ denied the Virgin Islands scandal’s early report.

Obama Defends Islam, Smacks Israel, American Racism at UN

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By Ben Shapiro

On Wednesday, on the first anniversary of President Barack Obama’s speech to the United Nations in which he called for ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, Obama attempted to rally support for his airstrikes against Assad’s terrorist opposition. Taking on issues ranging from Iran to Russia, from Ukraine to Syria, from global warming to Ebola, Obama pledged to utilize American might in service to the United Nations, speaking grandly of the beauty and power of the world’s least effective and most morally bankrupt international institution.

Obama opened with a Dickensian world of Manichean opposites:

Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, fellow delegates, ladies and gentlemen: we come together at a crossroads between war and peace; between disorder and integration; between fear and hope.

He then offered delegates a choice between paper and plastic.

Actually, he stated that the world has never been better off, praising the increase of member states at the UN and the decrease in poverty (neglecting, of course, that that decrease in poverty is a direct result of the rise of global capitalism), as well as the iPhone. “I often tell young people in the United States that this is the best time in human history to be born, for you are more likely than ever before to be literate, to be healthy, and to be free to pursue your dreams,” Obama said, apparently forgetting the last two decades of human history.

But, said Obama, there are a few problems with which we have to contend: Ebola, Russian aggression, “brutality of terrorists” in Syria and Iraq. And those problems, Obama continued, are “symptoms of a broader problem – the failure of our international system to keep pace with an interconnected world.” Incredibly enough, the rise of disease, Obama believes, is because we haven’t invested enough in the United Nations, not because incompetent regimes upheld by the UN have failed their people. In amazingly hypocritical fashion, Obama – a man elected on the basis of his undercutting of George W. Bush’s Iraq war, a war based almost entirely on enforcement of UN resolutions -- said that terrorism has flourished because “we have failed to enforce international norms when it’s inconvenient to do so.”

Obama said America chooses “hope over fear.”

According to Obama, that choice entails standing up to Russia – presumably, by doing nothing. Obama stated that Russia’s worldview was that “might makes right,” that their vision was of a “world in which one nation’s borders can be redrawn by another, and civilized people are not allowed to recover the remains of their loved ones because of the truth that might be revealed.” Obama then contrasted that vision with America’s:

America stands for something different. We believe that right makes might – that bigger nations should not be able to bully smaller ones; that people should be able to choose their own future.

Right, of course, does not make might. To believe in that vision is idiotic. Right must build might in order to enforce right. But Obama’s unceasing belief in the power of his own verbiage means that he thinks he can simply talk Russia into backing off:

We call upon others to join us on the right side of history – for while small gains can be won at the barrel of a gun, they will ultimately be turned back if enough voices support the freedom of nations and peoples to make their own decisions.

Obama went on to suggest that Russia should use “the path of diplomacy and peace,” citing our signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Russia has been routinely cheating. “That’s the kind of cooperation we are prepared to pursue again,” Obama said.

To which Vladimir Putin has formally responded: “ROFLMAO.”

Obama then turned to Ebola, stating that we’re sending troops to West Africa; he turned to Iran, where he said that “we can reach a solution that meets your energy needs while assuring the world that your program is peaceful.”

To which the mullahs have formally responded: “LOLWUT.”

Obama next addressed China’s aggression in the South China Sea, suggesting that America will insist “that all nations abide by the rules of the road, and resolve their territorial disputes peacefully, consistent with international law.”

To which China has formally responded: “SMDH.”

Then Obama went on his world-beating rant: he said that America would help “eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.” Not through capitalism, mind you: through foreign aid. He said that America would cut our own carbon emissions. He spouted trite slogans: “On issue after issue, we cannot rely on a rule-book written for a different century. If we lift our eyes beyond our borders – if we think globally and act cooperatively – we can shape the course of this century as our predecessors shaped the post-World War II age.”

Finally, he turned to the actual pressing issue of the day, Islamic terrorism. And he proceeded to explain that Islam is a religion of peace, no different from any other, and defend his reactive foreign policy as somehow proactive.

I have made it clear that America will not base our entire foreign policy on reacting to terrorism. Rather, we have waged a focused campaign against al Qaeda and its associated forces – taking out their leaders, and denying them the safe-havens they rely upon. At the same time, we have reaffirmed that the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. Islam teaches peace. Muslims the world over aspire to live with dignity and a sense of justice. And when it comes to America and Islam, there is no us and them – there is only us, because millions of Muslim Americans are part of the fabric of our country.

He stated that America rejected “any suggestion of a clash of civilization.” Our opponents have not done the same, of course. But Obama stated that we could fight those “religiously motivated fanatics” – fanatics who have nothing to do with Islam, of course, even if they are universally Muslim – by providing food and water and jobs. Obama’s Marxist foreign policy has never wavered: he believes that inequality, not religious conflict, lies at the root of Islamist enmity for the West.

Obama laid out a four-pronged plan for fighting terrorism.

First, he said that ISIL had to be “degraded, and ultimately destroyed.” And once again, he emphasized that ISIL was not Islamic, and once again, he ruled out utilizing American troops.

Second, Obama said that Muslim communities had to “explicitly, forcefully, and consistently reject the ideology of al Qaeda and ISIL.” In the process, he praised Islam as part of a family of religions that “accommodate devout faith with a modern, multicultural world,” and added that “All religions have been attacked by extremists from within at some point, and all people of faith have a responsibility to lift up the value at the heart of all religion: do unto thy neighbor as you would have done unto you.”

His solution: talking about how ISIL and al Qaeda and Boko Haram are bad. Obama’s faith in words is absolutely unshakeable, as he made clear: “The ideology of ISIL or al Qaeda or Boko Haram will wilt and die if it is consistently exposed, confronted, and refuted in the light of day.” Hilariously, Obama explained that the UN Security Council would pass a resolution about combating “violent extremism,” but refused to explain what steps would actually be taken to do so, instead putting that discussion off for “next year.”

Third, Obama stated, sectarian conflict must end. How? Obama didn’t say. But he did pooh-pooh Muslim sectarian conflict as the religious norm:

There is nothing new about wars within religions. Christianity endured centuries of vicious sectarian conflict. Today, it is violence within Muslim communities that has become the source of so much human misery. It is time to acknowledge the destruction wrought by proxy wars and terror campaigns between Sunni and Shia across the Middle East. And it is time that political, civic and religious leaders reject sectarian strife. Let’s be clear: this is a fight that no one is winning.

Flipping through his trusty rhetorical playbook, Obama neglected any realistic solution to these sectarian conflicts, but did come up with this hackneyed chestnut:

Cynics may argue that such an outcome can never come to pass. But there is no other way for this madness to end – whether one year from now or ten. Indeed, it’s time for a broader negotiation in which major powers address their differences directly, honestly, and peacefully across the table from one another, rather than through gun-wielding proxies. I can promise you America will remain engaged in the region, and we are prepared to engage in that effort.

Fourth, Obama proposed, Arab and Muslim countries had to focus on “the extraordinary potential of their people – especially the youth.” He said that young Muslims “come from a great tradition that stands for education, not ignorance; innovation, not destruction; the dignity of life, not murder. Those who call you away from this path are betraying this tradition, not defending it.” That is the same message Obama and his minions have been braying for years at this point. No one, apparently, is listening.

And then Obama dropped the other shoe. After spending fifteen minutes blabbering about the glories and wonders of Islam, even as he decried extremism and sectarianism, Obama proceeded to blame Israel for conflict in the Middle East:

         Leadership will also be necessary to address the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. As bleak as the landscape appears, America will never give up the pursuit of peace. The situation in Iraq, Syria and Libya should cure anyone of the illusion that this conflict is the main source of problems in the region; for far too long, it has been used in part as a way to distract people from problems at home. And the violence engulfing the region today has made too many Israelis ready to abandon the hard work of peace. But let’s be clear: the status quo in the West Bank and Gaza is not sustainable. We cannot afford to turn away from this effort – not when rockets are fired at innocent Israelis, or the lives of so many Palestinian children are taken from us in Gaza. So long as I am President, we will stand up for the principle that Israelis, Palestinians, the region, and the world will be more just with two states living side by side, in peace and security.

The Israelis may not be the “main source of problems in the region,” but by pressuring Israel before the entire world just weeks after Hamas continuously fired rockets into Israel and shielded its own rockets with children, Obama demonstrates his distaste for the Jewish State, and his desire to cast them as a bleeding abscess leading to more violence. The moral equivalence here was stunning, unjustifiable, and purely disgusting.

As Obama moved toward his conclusion, he finally turned inward, apologizing for America yet again:

I realize that America’s critics will be quick to point out that at times we too have failed to live up to our ideals; that America has plenty of problems within our own borders. This is true. In a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, I know the world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri – where a young man was killed, and a community was divided. So yes, we have our own racial and ethnic tensions. And like every country, we continually wrestle with how to reconcile the vast changes wrought by globalization and greater diversity with the traditions that we hold dear.

Ferguson? Really? This is just the latest incident in which President Obama has condemned a private citizen before the world. In 2012, it was a filmmaker who guilty of provoking Islamic rage; today, it’s Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, who has provoked America’s racial conflict. The United Nations has become a wonderful place for President Obama to convict American citizens.

Obama concluded with his campaign stump speech:

After nearly six years as President, I believe that this promise can help light the world. Because I’ve seen a longing for positive change – for peace and freedom and opportunity – in the eyes of young people I’ve met around the globe. They remind me that no matter who you are, or where you come from, or what you look like, or what God you pray to, or who you love, there is something fundamental that we all share.

America shares virtually nothing with the other member states at the UN. But President Obama shares a lot with them: a desire for America to take a secondary role in the world affairs, a desire for Israel to surrender in the face of its enemies, a desire for talk rather than action, a desire to demean the United States on the global stage.

On Wednesday, on the first anniversary of President Barack Obama’s speech to the United Nations in which he called for ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, Obama attempted to rally support for his airstrikes against Assad’s terrorist opposition. Taking on issues ranging from Iran to Russia, from Ukraine to Syria, from global warming to Ebola, Obama pledged to utilize American might in service to the United Nations, speaking grandly of the beauty and power of the world’s least effective and most morally bankrupt international institution.

Obama opened with a Dickensian world of Manichean opposites:

Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, fellow delegates, ladies and gentlemen: we come together at a crossroads between war and peace; between disorder and integration; between fear and hope.

He then offered delegates a choice between paper and plastic.

Actually, he stated that the world has never been better off, praising the increase of member states at the UN and the decrease in poverty (neglecting, of course, that that decrease in poverty is a direct result of the rise of global capitalism), as well as the iPhone. “I often tell young people in the United States that this is the best time in human history to be born, for you are more likely than ever before to be literate, to be healthy, and to be free to pursue your dreams,” Obama said, apparently forgetting the last two decades of human history.

But, said Obama, there are a few problems with which we have to contend: Ebola, Russian aggression, “brutality of terrorists” in Syria and Iraq. And those problems, Obama continued, are “symptoms of a broader problem – the failure of our international system to keep pace with an interconnected world.” Incredibly enough, the rise of disease, Obama believes, is because we haven’t invested enough in the United Nations, not because incompetent regimes upheld by the UN have failed their people. In amazingly hypocritical fashion, Obama – a man elected on the basis of his undercutting of George W. Bush’s Iraq war, a war based almost entirely on enforcement of UN resolutions -- said that terrorism has flourished because “we have failed to enforce international norms when it’s inconvenient to do so.”

Obama said America chooses “hope over fear.”

According to Obama, that choice entails standing up to Russia – presumably, by doing nothing. Obama stated that Russia’s worldview was that “might makes right,” that their vision was of a “world in which one nation’s borders can be redrawn by another, and civilized people are not allowed to recover the remains of their loved ones because of the truth that might be revealed.” Obama then contrasted that vision with America’s:

America stands for something different. We believe that right makes might – that bigger nations should not be able to bully smaller ones; that people should be able to choose their own future.

Right, of course, does not make might. To believe in that vision is idiotic. Right must build might in order to enforce right. But Obama’s unceasing belief in the power of his own verbiage means that he thinks he can simply talk Russia into backing off:

We call upon others to join us on the right side of history – for while small gains can be won at the barrel of a gun, they will ultimately be turned back if enough voices support the freedom of nations and peoples to make their own decisions.

Obama went on to suggest that Russia should use “the path of diplomacy and peace,” citing our signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Russia has been routinely cheating. “That’s the kind of cooperation we are prepared to pursue again,” Obama said.

To which Vladimir Putin has formally responded: “ROFLMAO.”

Obama then turned to Ebola, stating that we’re sending troops to West Africa; he turned to Iran, where he said that “we can reach a solution that meets your energy needs while assuring the world that your program is peaceful.”

To which the mullahs have formally responded: “LOLWUT.”

Obama next addressed China’s aggression in the South China Sea, suggesting that America will insist “that all nations abide by the rules of the road, and resolve their territorial disputes peacefully, consistent with international law.”

To which China has formally responded: “SMDH.”

Then Obama went on his world-beating rant: he said that America would help “eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.” Not through capitalism, mind you: through foreign aid. He said that America would cut our own carbon emissions. He spouted trite slogans: “On issue after issue, we cannot rely on a rule-book written for a different century. If we lift our eyes beyond our borders – if we think globally and act cooperatively – we can shape the course of this century as our predecessors shaped the post-World War II age.”

Finally, he turned to the actual pressing issue of the day, Islamic terrorism. And he proceeded to explain that Islam is a religion of peace, no different from any other, and defend his reactive foreign policy as somehow proactive.

I have made it clear that America will not base our entire foreign policy on reacting to terrorism. Rather, we have waged a focused campaign against al Qaeda and its associated forces – taking out their leaders, and denying them the safe-havens they rely upon. At the same time, we have reaffirmed that the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. Islam teaches peace. Muslims the world over aspire to live with dignity and a sense of justice. And when it comes to America and Islam, there is no us and them – there is only us, because millions of Muslim Americans are part of the fabric of our country.

He stated that America rejected “any suggestion of a clash of civilization.” Our opponents have not done the same, of course. But Obama stated that we could fight those “religiously motivated fanatics” – fanatics who have nothing to do with Islam, of course, even if they are universally Muslim – by providing food and water and jobs. Obama’s Marxist foreign policy has never wavered: he believes that inequality, not religious conflict, lies at the root of Islamist enmity for the West.

Obama laid out a four-pronged plan for fighting terrorism.

First, he said that ISIL had to be “degraded, and ultimately destroyed.” And once again, he emphasized that ISIL was not Islamic, and once again, he ruled out utilizing American troops.

Second, Obama said that Muslim communities had to “explicitly, forcefully, and consistently reject the ideology of al Qaeda and ISIL.” In the process, he praised Islam as part of a family of religions that “accommodate devout faith with a modern, multicultural world,” and added that “All religions have been attacked by extremists from within at some point, and all people of faith have a responsibility to lift up the value at the heart of all religion: do unto thy neighbor as you would have done unto you.”

His solution: talking about how ISIL and al Qaeda and Boko Haram are bad. Obama’s faith in words is absolutely unshakeable, as he made clear: “The ideology of ISIL or al Qaeda or Boko Haram will wilt and die if it is consistently exposed, confronted, and refuted in the light of day.” Hilariously, Obama explained that the UN Security Council would pass a resolution about combating “violent extremism,” but refused to explain what steps would actually be taken to do so, instead putting that discussion off for “next year.”

Third, Obama stated, sectarian conflict must end. How? Obama didn’t say. But he did pooh-pooh Muslim sectarian conflict as the religious norm:

There is nothing new about wars within religions. Christianity endured centuries of vicious sectarian conflict. Today, it is violence within Muslim communities that has become the source of so much human misery. It is time to acknowledge the destruction wrought by proxy wars and terror campaigns between Sunni and Shia across the Middle East. And it is time that political, civic and religious leaders reject sectarian strife. Let’s be clear: this is a fight that no one is winning.

Flipping through his trusty rhetorical playbook, Obama neglected any realistic solution to these sectarian conflicts, but did come up with this hackneyed chestnut:

Cynics may argue that such an outcome can never come to pass. But there is no other way for this madness to end – whether one year from now or ten. Indeed, it’s time for a broader negotiation in which major powers address their differences directly, honestly, and peacefully across the table from one another, rather than through gun-wielding proxies. I can promise you America will remain engaged in the region, and we are prepared to engage in that effort.

Fourth, Obama proposed, Arab and Muslim countries had to focus on “the extraordinary potential of their people – especially the youth.” He said that young Muslims “come from a great tradition that stands for education, not ignorance; innovation, not destruction; the dignity of life, not murder. Those who call you away from this path are betraying this tradition, not defending it.” That is the same message Obama and his minions have been braying for years at this point. No one, apparently, is listening.

And then Obama dropped the other shoe. After spending fifteen minutes blabbering about the glories and wonders of Islam, even as he decried extremism and sectarianism, Obama proceeded to blame Israel for conflict in the Middle East:

         Leadership will also be necessary to address the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. As bleak as the landscape appears, America will never give up the pursuit of peace. The situation in Iraq, Syria and Libya should cure anyone of the illusion that this conflict is the main source of problems in the region; for far too long, it has been used in part as a way to distract people from problems at home. And the violence engulfing the region today has made too many Israelis ready to abandon the hard work of peace. But let’s be clear: the status quo in the West Bank and Gaza is not sustainable. We cannot afford to turn away from this effort – not when rockets are fired at innocent Israelis, or the lives of so many Palestinian children are taken from us in Gaza. So long as I am President, we will stand up for the principle that Israelis, Palestinians, the region, and the world will be more just with two states living side by side, in peace and security.

The Israelis may not be the “main source of problems in the region,” but by pressuring Israel before the entire world just weeks after Hamas continuously fired rockets into Israel and shielded its own rockets with children, Obama demonstrates his distaste for the Jewish State, and his desire to cast them as a bleeding abscess leading to more violence. The moral equivalence here was stunning, unjustifiable, and purely disgusting.

As Obama moved toward his conclusion, he finally turned inward, apologizing for America yet again:

I realize that America’s critics will be quick to point out that at times we too have failed to live up to our ideals; that America has plenty of problems within our own borders. This is true. In a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, I know the world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri – where a young man was killed, and a community was divided. So yes, we have our own racial and ethnic tensions. And like every country, we continually wrestle with how to reconcile the vast changes wrought by globalization and greater diversity with the traditions that we hold dear.

Ferguson? Really? This is just the latest incident in which President Obama has condemned a private citizen before the world. In 2012, it was a filmmaker who guilty of provoking Islamic rage; today, it’s Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, who has provoked America’s racial conflict. The United Nations has become a wonderful place for President Obama to convict American citizens.

Obama concluded with his campaign stump speech:

After nearly six years as President, I believe that this promise can help light the world. Because I’ve seen a longing for positive change – for peace and freedom and opportunity – in the eyes of young people I’ve met around the globe. They remind me that no matter who you are, or where you come from, or what you look like, or what God you pray to, or who you love, there is something fundamental that we all share.

America shares virtually nothing with the other member states at the UN. But President Obama shares a lot with them: a desire for America to take a secondary role in the world affairs, a desire for Israel to surrender in the face of its enemies, a desire for talk rather than action, a desire to demean the United States on the global stage.

On Wednesday, on the first anniversary of President Barack Obama’s speech to the United Nations in which he called for ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, Obama attempted to rally support for his airstrikes against Assad’s terrorist opposition. Taking on issues ranging from Iran to Russia, from Ukraine to Syria, from global warming to Ebola, Obama pledged to utilize American might in service to the United Nations, speaking grandly of the beauty and power of the world’s least effective and most morally bankrupt international institution.

Obama opened with a Dickensian world of Manichean opposites:

Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, fellow delegates, ladies and gentlemen: we come together at a crossroads between war and peace; between disorder and integration; between fear and hope.

He then offered delegates a choice between paper and plastic.

Actually, he stated that the world has never been better off, praising the increase of member states at the UN and the decrease in poverty (neglecting, of course, that that decrease in poverty is a direct result of the rise of global capitalism), as well as the iPhone. “I often tell young people in the United States that this is the best time in human history to be born, for you are more likely than ever before to be literate, to be healthy, and to be free to pursue your dreams,” Obama said, apparently forgetting the last two decades of human history.

But, said Obama, there are a few problems with which we have to contend: Ebola, Russian aggression, “brutality of terrorists” in Syria and Iraq. And those problems, Obama continued, are “symptoms of a broader problem – the failure of our international system to keep pace with an interconnected world.” Incredibly enough, the rise of disease, Obama believes, is because we haven’t invested enough in the United Nations, not because incompetent regimes upheld by the UN have failed their people. In amazingly hypocritical fashion, Obama – a man elected on the basis of his undercutting of George W. Bush’s Iraq war, a war based almost entirely on enforcement of UN resolutions -- said that terrorism has flourished because “we have failed to enforce international norms when it’s inconvenient to do so.”

Obama said America chooses “hope over fear.”

According to Obama, that choice entails standing up to Russia – presumably, by doing nothing. Obama stated that Russia’s worldview was that “might makes right,” that their vision was of a “world in which one nation’s borders can be redrawn by another, and civilized people are not allowed to recover the remains of their loved ones because of the truth that might be revealed.” Obama then contrasted that vision with America’s:

America stands for something different. We believe that right makes might – that bigger nations should not be able to bully smaller ones; that people should be able to choose their own future.

Right, of course, does not make might. To believe in that vision is idiotic. Right must build might in order to enforce right. But Obama’s unceasing belief in the power of his own verbiage means that he thinks he can simply talk Russia into backing off:

We call upon others to join us on the right side of history – for while small gains can be won at the barrel of a gun, they will ultimately be turned back if enough voices support the freedom of nations and peoples to make their own decisions.

Obama went on to suggest that Russia should use “the path of diplomacy and peace,” citing our signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Russia has been routinely cheating. “That’s the kind of cooperation we are prepared to pursue again,” Obama said.

To which Vladimir Putin has formally responded: “ROFLMAO.”

Obama then turned to Ebola, stating that we’re sending troops to West Africa; he turned to Iran, where he said that “we can reach a solution that meets your energy needs while assuring the world that your program is peaceful.”

To which the mullahs have formally responded: “LOLWUT.”

Obama next addressed China’s aggression in the South China Sea, suggesting that America will insist “that all nations abide by the rules of the road, and resolve their territorial disputes peacefully, consistent with international law.”

To which China has formally responded: “SMDH.”

Then Obama went on his world-beating rant: he said that America would help “eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.” Not through capitalism, mind you: through foreign aid. He said that America would cut our own carbon emissions. He spouted trite slogans: “On issue after issue, we cannot rely on a rule-book written for a different century. If we lift our eyes beyond our borders – if we think globally and act cooperatively – we can shape the course of this century as our predecessors shaped the post-World War II age.”

Finally, he turned to the actual pressing issue of the day, Islamic terrorism. And he proceeded to explain that Islam is a religion of peace, no different from any other, and defend his reactive foreign policy as somehow proactive.

I have made it clear that America will not base our entire foreign policy on reacting to terrorism. Rather, we have waged a focused campaign against al Qaeda and its associated forces – taking out their leaders, and denying them the safe-havens they rely upon. At the same time, we have reaffirmed that the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. Islam teaches peace. Muslims the world over aspire to live with dignity and a sense of justice. And when it comes to America and Islam, there is no us and them – there is only us, because millions of Muslim Americans are part of the fabric of our country.

He stated that America rejected “any suggestion of a clash of civilization.” Our opponents have not done the same, of course. But Obama stated that we could fight those “religiously motivated fanatics” – fanatics who have nothing to do with Islam, of course, even if they are universally Muslim – by providing food and water and jobs. Obama’s Marxist foreign policy has never wavered: he believes that inequality, not religious conflict, lies at the root of Islamist enmity for the West.

Obama laid out a four-pronged plan for fighting terrorism.

First, he said that ISIL had to be “degraded, and ultimately destroyed.” And once again, he emphasized that ISIL was not Islamic, and once again, he ruled out utilizing American troops.

Second, Obama said that Muslim communities had to “explicitly, forcefully, and consistently reject the ideology of al Qaeda and ISIL.” In the process, he praised Islam as part of a family of religions that “accommodate devout faith with a modern, multicultural world,” and added that “All religions have been attacked by extremists from within at some point, and all people of faith have a responsibility to lift up the value at the heart of all religion: do unto thy neighbor as you would have done unto you.”

His solution: talking about how ISIL and al Qaeda and Boko Haram are bad. Obama’s faith in words is absolutely unshakeable, as he made clear: “The ideology of ISIL or al Qaeda or Boko Haram will wilt and die if it is consistently exposed, confronted, and refuted in the light of day.” Hilariously, Obama explained that the UN Security Council would pass a resolution about combating “violent extremism,” but refused to explain what steps would actually be taken to do so, instead putting that discussion off for “next year.”

Third, Obama stated, sectarian conflict must end. How? Obama didn’t say. But he did pooh-pooh Muslim sectarian conflict as the religious norm:

There is nothing new about wars within religions. Christianity endured centuries of vicious sectarian conflict. Today, it is violence within Muslim communities that has become the source of so much human misery. It is time to acknowledge the destruction wrought by proxy wars and terror campaigns between Sunni and Shia across the Middle East. And it is time that political, civic and religious leaders reject sectarian strife. Let’s be clear: this is a fight that no one is winning.

Flipping through his trusty rhetorical playbook, Obama neglected any realistic solution to these sectarian conflicts, but did come up with this hackneyed chestnut:

Cynics may argue that such an outcome can never come to pass. But there is no other way for this madness to end – whether one year from now or ten. Indeed, it’s time for a broader negotiation in which major powers address their differences directly, honestly, and peacefully across the table from one another, rather than through gun-wielding proxies. I can promise you America will remain engaged in the region, and we are prepared to engage in that effort.

Fourth, Obama proposed, Arab and Muslim countries had to focus on “the extraordinary potential of their people – especially the youth.” He said that young Muslims “come from a great tradition that stands for education, not ignorance; innovation, not destruction; the dignity of life, not murder. Those who call you away from this path are betraying this tradition, not defending it.” That is the same message Obama and his minions have been braying for years at this point. No one, apparently, is listening.

And then Obama dropped the other shoe. After spending fifteen minutes blabbering about the glories and wonders of Islam, even as he decried extremism and sectarianism, Obama proceeded to blame Israel for conflict in the Middle East:

         Leadership will also be necessary to address the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. As bleak as the landscape appears, America will never give up the pursuit of peace. The situation in Iraq, Syria and Libya should cure anyone of the illusion that this conflict is the main source of problems in the region; for far too long, it has been used in part as a way to distract people from problems at home. And the violence engulfing the region today has made too many Israelis ready to abandon the hard work of peace. But let’s be clear: the status quo in the West Bank and Gaza is not sustainable. We cannot afford to turn away from this effort – not when rockets are fired at innocent Israelis, or the lives of so many Palestinian children are taken from us in Gaza. So long as I am President, we will stand up for the principle that Israelis, Palestinians, the region, and the world will be more just with two states living side by side, in peace and security.

The Israelis may not be the “main source of problems in the region,” but by pressuring Israel before the entire world just weeks after Hamas continuously fired rockets into Israel and shielded its own rockets with children, Obama demonstrates his distaste for the Jewish State, and his desire to cast them as a bleeding abscess leading to more violence. The moral equivalence here was stunning, unjustifiable, and purely disgusting.

As Obama moved toward his conclusion, he finally turned inward, apologizing for America yet again: 

I realize that America’s critics will be quick to point out that at times we too have failed to live up to our ideals; that America has plenty of problems within our own borders. This is true. In a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, I know the world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri – where a young man was killed, and a community was divided. So yes, we have our own racial and ethnic tensions. And like every country, we continually wrestle with how to reconcile the vast changes wrought by globalization and greater diversity with the traditions that we hold dear.

Ferguson? Really? This is just the latest incident in which President Obama has condemned a private citizen before the world. In 2012, it was a filmmaker who guilty of provoking Islamic rage; today, it’s Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, who has provoked America’s racial conflict. The United Nations has become a wonderful place for President Obama to convict American citizens.

Obama concluded with his campaign stump speech:

After nearly six years as President, I believe that this promise can help light the world. Because I’ve seen a longing for positive change – for peace and freedom and opportunity – in the eyes of young people I’ve met around the globe. They remind me that no matter who you are, or where you come from, or what you look like, or what God you pray to, or who you love, there is something fundamental that we all share.

America shares virtually nothing with the other member states at the UN. But President Obama shares a lot with them: a desire for America to take a secondary role in the world affairs, a desire for Israel to surrender in the face of its enemies, a desire for talk rather than action, a desire to demean the United States on the global stage.

Obama, Cuba y la Cumbre de las Américas 2015

Cuba Encuentro

Eugenio Yáñez

Debemos anticiparnos a los temas y problemas que serán de actualidad en los próximos tiempos. En este caso, a finales de abril del 2015.

La Cumbre de las Américas es una reunión de jefes de Estado del continente americano que se celebra cada tres o cuatro años, donde participan Estados Unidos, Canadá, y los países de América Latina y el Caribe. La séptima cumbre está pautada para Ciudad de Panamá en abril de 2015.

La primera se celebró en Miami, 1994; la segunda en Santiago, Chile, 1998; la tercera en Quebec, Canadá, 2001; la cuarta en Mar del Plata, Argentina, 2005; la quinta en Puerto España, Trinidad y Tobago, 2009; y la sexta en Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, 2012. Hubo además dos cumbres extraordinarias: una sobre desarrollo sostenible, en Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, 1996, y otra en 2004 en Monterrey, México.

La de Panamá podría ser, sin dudas, la Cumbre de la Discordia. Desde la primera Cumbre de Miami en 1994 quedó definido que participaban en ese evento los países miembros de la Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA). Posteriormente, tras la aprobación de la Carta Democrática de esa organización, adoptada en Lima, Perú, en 2001, los miembros de la organización se comprometieron a respetar esa Carta y cumplir sus postulados.

No siempre han cumplido, aunque el secretario general de la OEA parece no enterarse. El depuesto presidente Mel Zelaya, de Honduras, la violó reiteradamente pretendiendo establecer el “socialismo del siglo 21” en su empobrecido país; Hugo Chávez la violaba continuamente, y Nicolás Maduro no se queda atrás. Para Evo Morales y Daniel Ortega la carta es paisaje que adorna una pared, nada más. Rafael Correa, más culto que todos los violadores anteriormente mencionados, también la viola, pero de manera más elegante y sofisticada: más que violación parece estupro. Lula da Silva, Dilma Rouseff y Cristina Fernández de Kirchner continuamente bailan samba y tango en los bordes de la Carta Democrática. Los socialistas más respetuosos del estado de Derecho en sus países han sido, hasta ahora, José Mujica, Michelle Bachelet y Mauricio Funes, de Uruguay, Chile y El Salvador respectivamente.

En ninguna de las cumbres celebradas ha participado el gobierno cubano. Cuba no es miembro de la OEA, y mucho menos firmante de una Carta Democrática alérgica para el régimen de los hermanos Castro. Aunque a veces, cínicamente, la dictadura ha firmado declaraciones finales de cumbres iberoamericanas que llaman al multipartidismo y elecciones libres, como hizo Fidel Castro en su momento, o Pactos de la ONU que después no ratifica, como hace Raúl Castro, parece difícil que el régimen se arriesgue a firmar, aunque no la cumpla, una Carta Democrática cuyos principios fundacionales son absolutamente contrarios a la razón de ser de la dictadura cubana.

Sin embargo, nuestros dizque hermanos que gobiernan en América Latina y el Caribe, insisten en invitar a la dictadura cubana a la próxima cumbre. Más preocupados por ser “antiimperialistas” que demócratas, no desean perder tiempo en superficialidades sobre el carácter democrático o dictatorial del gobierno cubano, al que todos admiran, aunque sea en secreto, porque “se enfrenta a los yanquis”. Además, no resulta muy elegante recibir decenas, centenares o miles de médicos cubanos en sus países para ofrecer servicios de salud pública que esos mismos mandatarios son incapaces de garantizar a sus ciudadanos, y después tener la “descortesía” de criticar al régimen de La Habana por violar derechos humanos o no respetar normas democráticas.

Así que el presidente Obama tendrá que tomar una decisión muy clara. Acepta la participación de Raúl Castro en la Cumbre de Panamá o declara sin ambigüedades que Estados Unidos no participaría si invitan a Cuba.

Antecedentes existen. Cuando Ronald Reagan era presidente de Estados Unidos, se planificaba una Cumbre Norte-Sur de jefes de Estado en Cancún, México, para el 22 y 23 de octubre de 1981, a la que el gobierno mexicano quería invitar a Fidel Castro. Reagan fue muy claro, agudo y preciso: si Castro participa, Estados Unidos no asistirá. Punto.

Firmeza. Dureza. Prepotencia imperial. Soberbia. Guapería. Lo que quieran ladrar los sicarios verbales del régimen. Pero Fidel Castro no participó, porque México y Naciones Unidas sabían perfectamente que aquel cónclave, sin Estados Unidos, sería una reunión social para platicar un rato, tomar tequila, y nada más. El entonces presidente de México, José López Portillo, invitó a Fidel Castro a Cozumel, a donde fue en “su” yate “Pájaro Azul”, y tras once horas de conversaciones y “acordar lo que a nuestra amistad corresponde”, como dijo el mandatario mexicano, Castro regresó a La Habana desbarrando de Reagan, del imperio y de todo lo que quiso, tuvo que ver la reunión por televisión y saber de lo que se habló por las agencias de prensa o sus servicios de inteligencia.

Barack Obama tendrá que tomar su decisión: esto no es lo mismo que darle la mano a Raúl Castro en Sudáfrica cuando se cruzó con él en el funeral de Mandela. Esta vez tendría que decir, simplemente, que si se invita a Cuba a la Cumbre de las Américas Estados Unidos no participaría, con lo que tal reunión se degradaría a algo así como un foro más de CELAC. O soportar la humillación para Estados Unidos de sentarse en un cónclave definido para países democráticos en el que estaría participando en la misma mesa nada menos que Raúl Castro.

En manos de Obama está. Veremos si la historia puede absolver al presidente de EEUU en este tema.

Obamas Go on 12-Day Martha's Vineyard Vacation Amid Global Crises

breitbart

By Wynton Hall 

Amid an international ebola health emergency, U.S. airstrikes in Iraq, and the illegal immigration crisis surging on the southern border, President Barack Obama leaves on Saturday for a lavish Martha's Vineyard twelve day vacation at the 8,100-square foot mansion of Democratic Party donor Joanne Hubschman.

The timing of Obama's swank vacation has even the president's supporters worried.

"Even some of Obama's most ardent supporters are questioning the wisdom of this summer's sojourn as war roils Gaza and a wave of families and children are crossing the southwestern US border illegally," reports the Boston Globe.

The White House announced Thursday that Obama will briefly interrupt his vacation by returning to Washington on Sunday, August 17, for a few meetings and then jetting back to the Massachusetts island retreat on August 19 to continue his vacation until August 24th.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said there is no need to worry that Obama is disengaged from the duties of his office because he travels with "an array of communications equipment" that enable him to carry out his presidential duties..

"He travels with an array of communications equipment and national security advisers that will allow him to perform all of the functions that are required of America's commander in chief," said Earnest."

Obama has vacationed at the wealthy Martha's Vineyard retreat every year of his presidency save 2012 when he was busy campaigning for re-election.

The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds Obama hitting a new all-time low approval rating of just 40%.