The Australian Leftist government can say "jihad" and "terrorism". Why can't Obama?

Could Obama say ANY of the things below? Americans eat your heart out!


Prime Minister Rudd, above, is a committed Christian, and, unlike Mr. Obama, is not known to believe that the Muslim call to prayer is "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset"

THE Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, will today try to regain political momentum with the release of the Counter-Terrorism White Paper which warns of an increased threat from people born or raised in Australia who have become influenced by a "violent jihadist message". The paper, commissioned after the Mumbai terrorist attacks in November 2008, finds successes in fighting terrorism, such as the diminution of al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and other groups in South-East Asia, have been offset by the rise of movements in Yemen and Somalia.

Mr Rudd will accompany the launch by pledging to spend $69 million over the next four years for the introduction of biometric checks on visa applicants from the 10 top suspect countries. Anyone applying for a visa will have to present in person to be fingerprinted and photographed. The information will be used to prove the applicant's identity, in part by matching it against information held in the databases of other nations. Mr Rudd will not reveal the identity of the 10 countries until the measures in each are implemented over the next year....

The paper found terrorism had "emerged as a persistent and permanent feature of Australia's security environment". "The main threat to Australia's security comes from a global jihadist movement, including al-Qaeda and those inspired by a similar world view," it says.

The new white paper says the threat has evolved to incorporate one that is more home-grown in nature. "There has been an increase in the threat from people born or raised in Australia who have become influenced by the violent jihadist message," it says.

More here

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Destruction of the world's money

The U.S. dollar and the British pound have lost value and now the Euro is way down too. Only minor currencies such as Swiss Francs and Australian dollars have kept their value. People with savings have already lost a lot with more to come -- all because most governments printed a heap of new money during the GFC

Derivative traders are signalling that the euro's slump to a nine-month low will continue even if European Union leaders bail out Greece. Short-term rates for borrowing in euros in the forwards market are the cheapest relative to loans in dollars since September. The 50 per cent collapse in that spread this month signals investors are betting the European Central Bank will keep its target interest rate at a record low, sacrificing euro strength to prevent deficit cutting by debt-laden economies in the region from stymieing growth.

"Investors have already started to think about the next likely phase of the present crisis, and it appears that all they are finding are new reasons to sell the euro," said David Woo, global head of foreign-exchange strategy at Barclays Plc in London. "Aggressive fiscal tightening by Greece, Spain and Portugal are likely to plunge their economies back into recession. All else being equal, this calls for a looser monetary policy."

The shift underscores a turnabout in the two most-traded currencies. In the last three quarters of 2009, the euro outperformed the dollar relative to 15 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg, with Deutsche Bank AG's euro index gaining 1 per cent and the IntercontinentalExchange Inc.'s Dollar Index down 9 per cent. Since Nov. 25, the dollar is up 8.3 per cent and has outdone all but four major currencies as the euro lost ground against them. The euro traded at $US1.3613 in New York, unchanged from Feb. 19. The currency is down 5 per cent against the U.S. currency this year.

More here

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Worried Democrat governors turn on Obama

BARACK Obama has copped a political hiding from state governors in his party who believe he has failed to connect with voters and needs to rethink his strategy. At a meeting of the National Governors Association in Washington yesterday, many Democrats said the US President had lost the communications battle with his Republican opponents over the past year. Worried about their future and their party's prospects in mid-term congressional elections in November, Democrat governors pointed the finger at the head of their party.

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell said the White House strategy needed to be better thought out after Republicans successfully tarnished last year's $US787 billion ($874bn) economic stimulus package to combat the recession. "Ironically, the best communicator in the history of political campaigning turned out, in his first year in office, not to communicate very well," Mr Rendell said. "They let the Republicans take the spin right from the beginning. The stimulus got beat up before one dollar was spent."

Bill Richardson, the Governor of New Mexico and an Obama supporter, urged the President to quickly decide on the future of the healthcare legislation, which is stalled by the Republicans in the Senate, and then move on to jobs and the economy.

The Democrats' tough advice comes as Mr Obama tries to revive his health legislation by proposing a pared-back version at a bipartisan summit with party leaders later this week. Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell confirmed yesterday that his party would attend the summit, to be televised nationally. Mr Obama is expected to offer a trimmed-down proposal to overhaul US healthcare with limits on premium increases by the health insurance firms to help stop a costs blowout.

After a year of acrimony on the health reforms, Senator McConnell yesterday lashed out at the White House and signalled a rough year ahead in the lead-up to the mid-term congressional elections at which his party expects to win back many seats and possibly regain majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The White House hopes Mr Obama's oratory and debating skills will help win public support in the televised health summit. But Senator McConnell said: "The fundamental point I want to make is the arrogance of all this. You know, they are saying, `Ignore the wishes of the American people. We know more about this than you do, and we're going to jam it down your throats no matter what'."

Mr Obama sought support from both parties for his stimulus package, which has been revised upwards to $US864bn. Speaking to the governors, he said the economic crisis had forced urgency and extraordinary measures to "right the ship". While many Obama opponents have blasted big government spending, California's Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, praised the stimulus package as positive

SOURCE

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Obama the philosopher king

President Obama is readying to unleash a variety of executive powers to circumvent Congress and push his agenda. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said that a review of mechanisms was under way to "get the job done across a front of issues." The president claims he has to resort to extraordinary methods because of partisan gridlock, but he has learned the wrong lessons from his failed freshman year in office. Mr. Obama's initiatives haven't stalled because of partisanship but because they are transparently bad for America.

It's odd that the president and his apologists blame partisanship for his legislative problems. Mr. Obama came into office with a filibuster-proof Democratic Senate majority, the largest since the Jimmy Carter era, and the most Democratic House members since the early 1990s. Those comfortable majorities should have meant smooth sailing for Mr. Obama's legislative agenda, and some of his early initiatives, such as the so-called stimulus package, passed fairly easily. Republicans were shunted aside unceremoniously and could not stop the liberal juggernaut.

The reason Mr. Obama began to run into problems had less to do with partisanship than with public opposition to his ideological agenda.

When the ambiguous "hope and change" theme was replaced with a series of hard-left policies, America balked. A Feb. 8 Gallup survey shows that Mr. Obama suffered 60 percent or worse disapproval ratings on his economic policies, health care proposals and budget deficit management. Resistance in Congress reflects the mood of the electorate, and the critical push-back comes from within the Democratic Party. Previously safe congressional seats are suddenly in play, and many members of Congress wonder if they will soon be joining the swelling ranks of the unemployed.

A prudent president would understand that his policies are the problem and move to the center to give moderates in his party room to breathe. Instead, Mr. Obama is seeking ways to advance his agenda by circumventing Congress, even though Democrats will bear the brunt of the blame in November.

Exploiting executive power is nothing new for Mr. Obama. He has appointed more executive-branch policy "czars" than any of his predecessors. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a liberal West Virginia Democrat, sent a letter to the White House in February 2009 expressing concern that a surfeit of czars can "threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances." But last fall, Mr. Obama pressured Democrats in the Senate to kill legislation that would have brought his czars under congressional oversight.

Mr. Obama claimed emergency powers to reshape two of the Big Three auto manufacturers. He has sought the authority to assume extraordinary powers to deal with cyberthreats and purported climate change. He has used executive orders to pursue pet causes, such as EO 13502, which effectively banned nonunion labor from federal construction projects, and EO 13509, which established the Soviet-sounding Council on Automotive Communities and Workers. Even Mr. Obama's liberal supporters have blanched at his claims of power regarding extraordinary rendition, surveillance, state secrets, signing statements and executive privilege.

Mr. Obama seems to have basic problems with democracy. He doesn't like it when people disagree with him; he resists compromise, and he seems to think he should be free to reshape the country to suit his vision. Those who challenge him are ignored, mocked or told to shut up.

During his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama said, "Let me be perfectly clear: I have taught the Constitution, I understand the Constitution, and I will obey the Constitution when I am president of the United States." As president, however, he seems increasingly to view himself as a philosopher king. If Mr. Obama seeks to exploit executive power to ram through policies the American people oppose, they will hold him and his party accountable. There will be a lot for his successor to undo in 2013.

SOURCE

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Coverup! Obama Administration Denies Public Access to Fannie and Freddie Documents

Judicial Watch has been digging hard into the scandals behind the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their role in helping trigger the global financial crisis. A key component of this investigation involves the role political corruption played in the failure of adequate congressional oversight and the catastrophic collapse of these "government sponsored entities" in 2008. That's why we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Obama administration to get hold of documents related to Fannie and Freddie's campaign contributions over the last several election cycles.

We figure since American taxpayers are on the hook for trillions of dollars, potentially including $400 billion alone for Fannie and Freddie, we deserve to know how and why this financial collapse occurred and who in Washington, D.C. is responsible. Unfortunately the Obama administration disagrees. Just last month the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the agency responsible for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, responded to our FOIA lawsuit by telling us that all of the documents we seek are not "FOIA-able"!....

So there you have it. You and I are paying the tab for the collapse of Fannie and Freddie, but we are not allowed to ask any questions about why it happened. The Obama administration is saying, in effect, "None of your business."

This is an outrage! Obama administration officials and their lawyers can argue until they are blue in the face that Fannie and Freddie are not federal agencies. But their reasoning is straight out of Alice in Wonderland.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Va. Episcopalians narrowly vote not to recognize gay marriage: "The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia hedged on recognizing same-sex unions Saturday, instead voting to form a committee to set standards for church-sanctioned blessings of such unions once they are approved by the entire 2-million-member Episcopal Church. About 346 delegates to the dioceses annual council meeting at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria narrowly voted -- by a show of hands -- to form the committee. It was a less radical choice for the 80,000-member Virginia diocese, the largest in the Episcopal Church. A substitute amendment suggesting the diocese allow openly gay clergy and same-sex blessings failed after a lengthy debate."

Lawmakers to press military on fate of homosexual ban: “Lawmakers this week will press the military’s top uniformed officers for the first time on whether they think repealing ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ makes sense or would be too disruptive. The testimony from each of the service chiefs on Capitol Hill will be crucial to the debate in Congress on whether to repeal the 17-year-old law, which bans gays from serving openly in the military.”

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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)

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