Barack Obama: President Pantywaist - new surrender monkey on the block

President Barack Obama has recently completed the most successful foreign policy tour since Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. You name it, he blew it. What was his big deal economic programme that he was determined to drive through the G20 summit? Another massive stimulus package, globally funded and co-ordinated. Did he achieve it? Not so as you'd notice.

Barack is not the first New World ingenue to discover that European leaders will load him with praise, struggle sycophantically to be photographed with him and outdo him in Utopian rhetoric. But when it comes to the critical moment of opening their wallets - suddenly it is flag-day in Aberdeen. Okay, put the G20 down to inexperience, beginner's nerves, what you will.

On to Nato and the next big objective: to persuade the same European evasion experts that America, Britain and Canada should no longer bear the brunt of the Afghan struggle virtually unassisted. The Old World sucked through its teeth, said that was asking a lot - but, seeing it was Barack, to whom they could refuse nothing, they would graciously accede to his wishes.

So The One retired triumphant, having secured a massive contribution of 5,000 extra troops - all of them non-combatant, of course - which must really have put the wind up the Taliban, at the prospect of 5,000 more infidel cooks and bottle-washers swarming into the less hazardous regions of Afghanistan.

Then came the dramatic bit, the authentic West Wing script, with the President wakened in the middle of the night in Prague to be told that Kim Jong-il had just launched a Taepodong-2 missile. America had Aegis destroyers tracking the missile and could have shot it down. But Uncle Sam had a sterner reprisal in store for l'il ole Kim (as Dame Edna might call him): a multi-megaton strike of Obama hot air.

"Rules must be binding," declared Obama, referring to the fact that Kim had just breached UN Resolutions 1695 and 1718. "Violations must be punished." (Sounds ominous.) "Words must mean something." (Why, Barack? They never did before, for you - as a cursory glance at your many speeches will show.)

President Pantywaist is hopping mad and he has a strategy to cut Kim down to size: he is going to slice $1.4bn off America's missile defence programme, presumably on the calculation that Kim would feel it unsporting to hit a sitting duck, so that will spoil his fun.

Watch out, France and Co, there is a new surrender monkey on the block and, over the next four years, he will spectacularly sell out the interests of the West with every kind of liberal-delusionist initiative on nuclear disarmament and sitting down to negotiate with any power freak who wants to buy time to get a good ICBM fix on San Francisco, or wherever. If you thought the world was a tad unsafe with Dubya around, just wait until President Pantywaist gets into his stride.

SOURCE

***************************

Bare-faced lies and sheer abuse from Leftists! How unsurprising

A senior British Leftist shows the form

DOWNING STREET e-mails setting out plans for a vicious smear campaign against the Tories, which last night forced the resignation of one of the prime minister’s most senior aides, are revealed today.

The e-mails, seen by The Sunday Times, expose how Gordon Brown’s head of strategy and planning wrote to a Labour spin doctor proposing a campaign of unfounded personal slurs against senior Tories. The smears, many of a sexual nature, were planned as part of a strategy to “destabilise” the opposition in the run-up to the general election.

The operation was designed to target David Cameron, the Conservative leader, George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, and three other Tory MPs. The messages from Damian McBride, a long-standing Labour aide, were sent from an official No 10 e-mail address. The unfounded smears suggested: “Putting the fear of God” into Osborne by spreading rumours that he took drugs and had sex with a prostitute. Spreading rumours about the mental health of Osborne’s wife. Challenging Cameron to reveal details of an “embarrassing illness”. Accusing a gay Tory MP of promoting his partner’s business interests in the Commons.

McBride’s e-mails were sent to Derek Draper, a former aide to Lord Mandelson and prominent Labour blogger. In an indication of how serious the plan was, McBride wrote about how to “sequence” the stories for maximum impact. The messages discuss “timing and technology” for placing the rumours on the web and contain suggested links to websites and photographs that could make the allegations appear more credible.

The contents of the e-mails, which fell into the hands of Paul Staines, a political blogger, shatter Labour claims yesterday that McBride and Draper were “knocking around ideas” that were merely “juvenile and inappropriate”. At least one of the e-mails was copied to other Labour activists, including Charlie Whelan, who used to work as Brown’s spin doctor.

McBride, who was paid a six-figure salary by the taxpayer, resigned from his post last night as the attempted smear campaign was condemned by politicians from all sides. Labour MPs accused him of disgracing the party. Charles Clarke, the former home secretary, said: “Damian McBride has no place in 10 Downing Street. His actions bring shame to the Labour party.”

The e-mails were sent on January 13. The proposed slurs about Cameron, Osborne, Osborne’s wife Frances and three other Tory MPs, were designed to appear on a website called Red Rag, which McBride suggested should be advertised on LabourList, a website officially backed by the party.

Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, said the proposed smear campaign “beggared belief” and demanded an urgent explanation from the prime minister.

SOURCE

**************************************

U.S. budget deficit triples to $957 billion for year

March deficit hits $192 billion has receipts drop 28%, outlays rise 41%

The U.S. federal budget deficit rose to a record $956.8 billion in the first six months of the fiscal year after the government stepped up spending to cope with a recession that has depressed tax receipts, the Treasury Department reported Friday.

The deficit is well on its way to the $1.75 trillion -- or 12.3% of gross domestic product -- that the White House has estimated for the full fiscal year, which ends in September.

The deficit through the first six months is more than three times higher than it was at this time last year. The government has borrowed $1 trillion from the public so far this fiscal year.

In March, the deficit widened to $192.3 billion from $48.2 billion in March 2008. Outlays rose 41% to $321.2 billion from $227 billion, while receipts dropped 28% to $129 billion from $178.8 billion.

Receipts from individual income taxes fell 27% in March, versus year-earlier figures. Individual refunds are up 14% so far this year. Compared with a year earlier, corporate income tax receipts fell 90% to $3.4 billion.

Much of the increase in outlays in March came from extraordinary investments by the government in banks and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, loans to credit unions, and increased spending from the stimulus package for unemployment insurance and Medicaid. Some of those investments should be repaid over time, but the government is booking them as cash expenses for now.

In March, Fannie Mae received $15.2 billion, Freddie Mac received $30.8 billion, and unemployment benefits totaled $10.6 billion.

Through the first six months of the fiscal year, outlays are up 33% to $1.95 trillion. Receipts are down 14% to $989.8 billion. Corporate income taxes are down 57% to $56.2 billion, while individual income taxes are down 15% to $429.7 billion. Payroll taxes are up 0.3% to $430 billion.

SOURCE

****************************

ELSEWHERE

What the University of Notre Dame conveniently forgot: "Arizona State University has decided not to award President Barack Obama an honorary degree when he delivers the commencement address there on May 13, citing his lack of “lifetime achievement.” An honorary degree is “normally awarded to someone who has been in their field for some time,” university spokeswoman Sharon Keeler told Politico. “Considering that the president is at the beginning of his presidency, his body of work is just beginning.” Obama will receive an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame when he speaks at the Catholic school’s commencement on May 17. On April 5, hundreds of anti-abortion advocates protested on the Notre Dame campus against the school's decision to award the degree to Obama. Speakers at the rally called for the honorary degree to be rescinded because Obama's stances on abortion and stem cell research are counter to Roman Catholic teachings".

The American can-do spirit is still there: "There is a state park on Hawaii's Kauai island. And this Polihale State Park has been closed since December after suffering severe flooding. In fact, the flooding was so bad that it destroyed an access road to the park. So even if you wanted to get to the Polihale State Park, you couldn't. Local residents and business owners started to get nervous. Months went by and our wonderful, all-knowing, all-powerful government did not come to the rescue. The state Department of Land and Natural Resources estimated that it would cost $4 million to fix the damages, including the access road to the park. They also said it would take two years before it would be fixed. And that was if .. in these economic times .. there was money in the budget to do so. So rather than sit around and wait for the government to do something, the people of Kauai came together and did the repairs themselves. It only took them eight days to finish all the repairs. Eight days .. compared to two years. And it didn't cost the taxpayers a dime. One volunteer said, "We can wait around for the state or federal government to make this move, or we can go out and do our part ... Just like everyone's sitting around waiting for a stimulus check, we were waiting for this but decided we couldn't wait anymore." Good for them! The truly amazing of this story is that the government didn't step in and prevent these people from handling the situation themselves."

CBC: Congressional Boot-Lickers for Castro: "Congressional Black Caucus Democrats went to Cuba to see what they wanted to see. Not since New York Times reporter Walter Duranty traipsed around Stalin’s Russia, filing cheery travelogues whitewashing Communist-engineered famine, has America witnessed such disgraceful propaganda tourism. Led around by the nose by the Castro brothers, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver declared “if there is repression in Cuba we didn’t see it.” Somehow, the gulags and slums got left off the itinerary. Go figure. The CBC members saw, instead, a land of milk and honey. Fresh air and freedom. Shiny, happy people cared for by a kindly, benevolent leader"

Internet surveillance is OK when the Left do it: "The terrorist surveillance program initiated by the Bush administration was limited to international communications that involved a terrorist on at least one end. As such, as I argued here, it was well within the President's constitutional powers as delineated by the federal courts. Nevertheless, disclosure of the program drew howls of protest from the Left. For some reason, however, the Obama administration's continuation of the program has drawn no similar protests. Now we have the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, which goes far beyond anything ever contemplated by the Bush administration. The most controversial provisions are Sec. 18 (2), which gives the President authority to shut down all or any portions of the internet that he may designate as "critical infrastructure information systems and networks," and Sec. 14 (b)(1), which gives the Secretary of Commerce access to "all relevant data concerning such networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access." Critics have interpreted this clause as giving the Secretary the ability to access, without any sort of search warrant, any internet communication. That looks like a reasonable interpretation, as long as the President has designated the network "critical infrastructure," which he has unfettered (and unguided) discretion to do."

Gasp! The Episcopal church believes in something other than the wonders of homosexuality!: "The Episcopal Church has defrocked Ann Holmes Redding, the Seattle Episcopal priest who announced in 2007 that she is both Christian and Muslim. Bishop Geralyn Wolf of Rhode Island, who has disciplinary authority over Redding, informed the priest of her decision in a letter today. Wolf found Redding to be "a woman of utmost integrity and their conversations over the past two years have been open, honest and respectful," according to a press release from the Diocese of Rhode Island. "However, Bishop Wolf believes that a priest of the Church cannot be both a Christian and a Muslim." "I am very sad," Redding had said Tuesday. "I'm sad at the loss of this cherished honor of having served as a priest." She also said she was sad at what seems to her to be a narrow vision of what the church accepts."

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

****************************

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

****************************