Still voting present;
President Obama endured a 50-minute diatribe from socialist Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega that lashed out at a century of what he called terroristic U.S. aggression in Central America and included a rambling denunciation of the U.S.-imposed isolation of Cuba’s Communist government.
Obama sat mostly unmoved during the speech but at times jotted notes. The speech was part of the opening ceremonies at the fifth Summit of the Americas here.
This is the same man who “endured” twenty years of hate-America-first diatribes from his “spiritual mentor” Jeremiah Wright. Of course he took notes. You never know when you’ll need a new book title.
(Besides, it’s all Kennedy’s fault).
Thanks for your ongoing comments, ET. Your assessment of Obama is showing itself to be more and more astute with each passing day.
In this recent case, some tin-pot revolutionary excoriates the USA on the world stage while Obama sits there listening to it, then later says “I’m grateful that President Ortega did not blame ME for things that happened when I was three months old.”
Translation: “Okay, okay, Ortega, it’s true, but to be fair, I wasn’t the President back then.”
As a commenter at Ann Althouse’s blog put it,
“Obama is the President of the United States. But when his country is insulted, his first (and second and third) impulse is not to defend the honor of his country, but accept the insult, divert it to what to him is a foreign entity — the United States — and then elevate himself above his country.”
I find it mildly disturbing that Obama’s defenders can’t see through him. He is a narcissist of the highest order who does not see himself as a public servant. Rather, it’s all about him — his *country* is about him, at this point. He grins strangely during grim times, and when his country is excoriated by another leader his response is “Whoa, whoa, it’s not my fault,” as if HE, and not his country, was being denigrated.
Even an average citizen of dull-normal intelligence would not respond to a flag-burning with “Hey, it’s not *my* fault what the flag stands for.” He’d oppose, or agree, or say nothing, but he wouldn’t make it about himself.
An influx of American money, consumer goods and tourists would finish off the Castro regime.
enjoy!
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/media_having_trouble_finding_right
Barry comes from the hate America, global socialist subculture so hearing his nation slandered means nothing to him.
Is there really any doubt he’s neither a legal citizen nor American patriot?
Pillboy: “Aside from the fact the tepid tea parties were promoted and sponsored by Fox “News” and Republican operatives, what were these “grassroots” really protesting.”
Sneer all you like, Pillboy. It doesn’t change reality. The vast majority of ‘protests’ are lefitst events and it’s there that you see the stock signs of International Answer.org, Move.On org, various union groups and of course the socialist groups. Talk about your special interests.
‘Conservative minded’ people are not typically joiners. Their much more individualistic minded. I would suggest that most would feel vaguely embarrased, even chagrined, to take part in public displays of emotion. Thus the ‘tea-parties’ become a true expression of deeply felt – dare I say – ‘grassroot’ emotion.
“Are they really willing to put an end to entitlements to special interests that are part of the Republican constituency?”
Again, you’d better check your mirror. Bailing out of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG and the UAW -for that is to whom the Detroit money is ultimately being directed – are not creatures of the Republican party or republican supporters.
“In the same way in Canada, are those bleating about big government and high taxes willing to give up THEIR entitlements? Until they are, that angry right fringe hypocrisy is deserving of nothing but contempt and derision.”
I’m bleating about big government and high taxes, and frankly as a retiree, I don’t pay high taxes. But I have children who do and grandchildren who will. And none of us are getting good value for money spent.
If you had only one retail store and found that you were paying more than you think a product is worth and getting poor service to boot, would you be ‘hypocritcal’ in pointing out their shortcomings? Would you be pleased if after complaining about high prices and poor service that they then treated you with contempt or derision?
And ultimately, that’s the problem with gov’t. They are the only store in town and you can’t take your business elsewhere. The power of taxation is their lever, while the power of elections is ours and in the U.S. the tea parties are an effective and legitimate expression of the people’s power.
Hence the left’s desperate attempt to de-legitimatize what they cannot control.
I’m getting the picture that philboy doesn’t pay taxes.
Phil now you are taking the directions of the Botox Queen Pelosi. There were Reps, Dems, Libertarians in total a half million Americans. I watched a Rep Senator told to go home for 6 minutes. Bambam has run up a debt more than all the other Presidents combined…combined. Someone has to pay that intrest and it isn’t the 50% that pay no taxes yet. I say yet because if the World Bank has to step in it is going to be what you like, universal. Suck some oxygen and try again. The next set of tea parties are going to be bigger. If Fox were behind it they would have promoted it..they didn’t. Cnn and NBC sent morons to try to shape the spin. After they played the tsk tsk game on Cnn, the ‘reporter’ was confronted by a woman that read her the riot act. She is on leave and Cnn had the vid removed from Youtube. Truth seekers afraid of the truth. Sounds like your idea of Eden. Fox is number one because they come closest to the truth.
I think that TOTUS should have got up and went to the loo for a ciggy.
BTW, I find rather curious that some people never ever tell us exactly what THEY think about the current event.
They always start off by badmouthing other people’s ideas/comments according to their script.
Can we conclude that maturity comes far later in life to the lefties?
Or are they just not allowed to think for themselves ever?
“The next set of tea parties are going to be bigger”
You’re, right, Speedy. People who think this is all about entitlements are as dullwitted as the “reporter” from CNN who was baffled that a citizen wouldn’t be mollified by a handout from the government. This is about the overnight expansion of the government and horrendous deficits for generations.
BTW, I find rather curious that some people never ever tell us exactly what THEY think about the current event.
I find it refreshing that Obama is acknowledging American malfeasance in Latin America (terroristic U.S. aggression in Central America is accurate, albeit understated) and is warming to Cuba. The Uncle Sam boogeyman has served the Castros very well.
In many ways he’s a business as usual POTUS and will prove to be a disappointment. Personally I’d like to see some sanity in the war on drugs and a few indictments handed down for some of the Wall St. swindlers.
The deficit is indeed a legitimate concern as it is here in Canada. Part of that calculus is special interest preferential tax treatment as well as special interest entitlement spending. Now I did see a few tea party signs calling for fair taxation, and I am all for that, and for opening up the tax system and getting rid of a whole lot of crap. But I can assure you that there are a lot of vested interests in Conservative and Republican constituencies who very much do not want that to happen.
Those teabaggers who were not Fox News/Republican manipulators are, at best, useful idiots.
Right – these tea parties are about the expansion of government – in its bureaucracy; in its expanding role in the economic transactions of citizens; in its expanding demand for money via taxes from its citizens – which it then distributes, without their approval; in its assumption of trillions of debt, again without citizen approval; in its socialist welfare policies that take money from workers and give it to those who don’t work thus rendering work irrelevant and without compensation..as you see your money taken from you.
These Tea Parties are about the insularity and arrogance of Congress – and that includes representatives from both political parties; a Congress that passes pork filled bills; a Congress that passes bills without reading them; a Congress that will not stand up to a President who bullies them to pass these same bills by his threats of ‘dire crisis consequences’ unless they are immediately passed.
These Tea Parties are a rejection of government manipulation – where Obama promises ‘refunds’ or money taken from others..and given to those who pay no taxes; they are a rejection of threats of crisis if these bills are not passed.
Note how the government treated these Tea Parties.
Obama utterly ignored them; for him, they didn’t happen.
The government? That DHS ‘report, which defined people who criticize such policies as abortion, immigration etc – as ‘right wing extremists’; and returning war veterans as ‘susceptible to violence’. This report was released the day before the Tea Parties – a week early. Obviously, the agenda was to define any criticism of Obama and his govt as ‘right wing extremism’.
Obama and his government are making enormous errors in trying to reduce or divert criticism. In this day of the Internet, the people have regained their power to speak, to gather facts rather than fictional tales, they have regained the ability to find out valid information, and to spread this to millions – and to critique and reject being fed false tales and to being deprived of their democratic power.
“Those teabaggers who were not Fox News/Republican manipulators are, at best, useful idiots”
ET, your subsequent response to the comment above – while admirable – is as chaff before the wind.
Phillboy, a comment such as yours hints at a very limited level of understanding of basic economics. I suggest, as a kindness, that you visit your local library and read Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. It will show you why those who object to big government and overtaxation are hardly “useful idiots”. It may also serve to illustrate why the unprecedented socialist spending south of the 49th is doomed to make the situation worse, not better (unless pushing the US towards rampant nationalization of its private sector and increased socialism is the goal). In fact, to make it simpler, there is an online version of this classic economic text, online here. Focus on Bastiat’s “broken window” theory in Ch2 as a good starting point.
Happy reading.
mhb23re
at gmail dot calm.
Apparently, neither Rev. Wright, Hugo Chavez or Obama understand the thrust behind the Tenth Commandment.
The sin against the Tenth Commandment is envy. It’s the idea of wanting something that belongs to somebody else that transforms itself into an evil deed.
Like redistribution. Or class warfare. People inherently understand this is happening in the US to an extent they have never experienced before.
Pillboy: “of that calculus is special interest preferential tax treatment as well as special interest entitlement spending.”
I’m convinced that cognitive dissonance is a real problem for those who embrace socialist thinking.
For example, I could point Pillboy to graphs illustrating that ‘the rich’, of which there are only a relative few, provide the vast majority of all tax collected, which is then of course ‘re-distributed’ (through services, rebates, welfare etc.) to those who pay substanially less or even no taxes at all.
Yet despite the evidence, he will continue to ‘feel’ – because the facts refute his world view – that “the rich” receive preferential tax treatment. Nothing but enough tax to reduce the rich to his own level, will suffice in making the tax system fair.
And whom are really the groups getting the “special interest entitlement spending”?
Is it the guy who is either trying to keep more of what he has lawfully earned? Or the person who demands some level of service for the taxes he/she pays?
Or is it the activist/social workers running places like InSite in Vancouver? Or the people who choose not to work and pay no taxes, yet expect subsidized housing, health care, social assistance and a plethora of nanny state services?
Ooops. There I go again being a rational but heartless middle-class conservative.
BTW, for Pillboy and others who insist that more government involvement and programs would benefit us all, I’d recommend a quick exercise. Pretend you have a small business and you’ve misplaced your GST remittance form.
Then go to the Gov’t of Canada web site and try to find and order another one. Go ahead, I dare you.
You’re not a customer to the gov’t, you’re a nuisance. Bureaucrats have no concept of ‘the customer’ as they have only ever dealt with other bureaucrats.
Pillboy: “of that calculus is special interest preferential tax treatment as well as special interest entitlement spending.”
I’m convinced that cognitive dissonance is a real problem for those who embrace socialist thinking.
For example, I could point Pillboy to graphs illustrating that ‘the rich’, of which there are only a relative few, provide the vast majority of all tax collected, which is then of course ‘re-distributed’ (through services, rebates, welfare etc.) to those who pay substanially less or even no taxes at all.
Yet despite the evidence, he will continue to ‘feel’ – because the facts refute his world view – that “the rich” receive preferential tax treatment. Nothing but enough tax to reduce the rich to his own level, will suffice in making the tax system fair.
And whom are really the groups getting the “special interest entitlement spending”?
Is it the guy who is either trying to keep more of what he has lawfully earned? Or the person who demands some level of service for the taxes he/she pays?
Or is it the activist/social workers running places like InSite in Vancouver? Or the people who choose not to work and pay no taxes, yet expect subsidized housing, health care, social assistance and a plethora of nanny state services?
Ooops. There I go again being a rational but heartless middle-class conservative.
BTW, for Pillboy and others who insist that more government involvement and programs would benefit us all, I’d recommend a quick exercise. Pretend you have a small business and you’ve misplaced your GST remittance form.
Then go to the Gov’t of Canada web site and try to find and order another one. Go ahead, I dare you.
You’re not a customer to the gov’t, you’re a nuisance. Bureaucrats have no concept of ‘the customer’ as they have only ever dealt with other bureaucrats.
Mea culpa for the double post – sometimes the ole’ laptop seems to get hung up, causing me to re-start and thus, re-post.
By distancing himself from U. S. history, TJ telegraphs his mindset remains in thrall to “the [imaginary] man.” What a pathetic metrosexual you elected.
Upon the upbraiding from Ortega, Obama shrugged his shoulders with hands splayed and muttered, “Wuzn’t me.”
Ortega is right to complain about the United States. The U.S. financed countless terrorist attacks on his country.
Second, Hugo Chavez is not a Marxist dictator. He has won several presidential elections freely and fairly, something that G.W. Bush never managed.
Third, Cuba is economically impoversihed. However, so are the vast majority of the U.S. backed capitalist countries of Latin America. Yet I never, ever hear conservatives express any concern whatsoever for the corruption and human rights abuses in the capitalist countries of Latin America.