Like Slimey Cockroaches & their crooked President, Liberals Spread Disease

[Warph]

Obama's National Security Priority: Muslim Rappers, 'Google Ideas'... Inside the Flawed U.S. Campaign to Fight Militant Memes


             

Also known as, this is what the leading counterterrorism experts were doing the day after Benghazi.       http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/10/cve/

       

The day after Islamic extremists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, the nation's top counterterrorists hosted something of a brainstorming session on how to keep violent extremism down in the long term.  While the consulate burned, 100 or so intelligence analysts, military officers, prosecutors, academics and civil rights experts gathered... for a conference on "Countering Violent Extremism / Community Engagement."

Afterward, according to a draft agenda obtained by Danger Room, attendees were invited to a nearby mall for a happy hour at Coastal Flats, a restaurant known for its crab cakes.

A State Department official, Shahed Amanullah, ran through the ways effective al-Qaida propagandists spread their message on the internet, and described how a program he runs, called Viral Peace, seeks to troll the online radicals.

"With CVE, the spectrum starts at prevention, with the regular Joe on the street," explains Humera Khan, who runs a number of such prophylactic programs and who spoke at the Sept. 12 event. "The idea is to increase the barriers to entry, so that he never goes down that radical path."

A national security priority of the Obama White House, CVE is supposed to work by using the various government security branches to "empower" Muslim communities at home and abroad.

As discussed previously, CVE has actually subverted legitimate counterterrorism efforts by making it a priority to win over Muslims domestically, instead of cracking down on terrorists.  The FBI has been neutered by CVE and so have most domestic law enforcement agencies.

Instead of focusing on counterterrorism, the Obama Administration is putting all its weight behind CVE and bringing a lot of Muslims on board to throw around money on their Islamic programming.

Within the Obama administration, CVE has become a staggeringly vast enterprise. Agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools are now part of the CVE push. A team in Foggy Bottom makes parodies of al-Qaida's online advertisements and creates mobile-friendly digital videos that mock the radicals. The U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom spoke at a notoriously extremist London mosque in the name of CVE; the year before, al-Qaida propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki preached from the same pulpit.

One adviser to the U.S. military tells Danger Room that he considers joint exercises with other countries' special forces to be CVE, since it builds relationships between forces for stability. Another officer says that developing the economy of Yemen is a top CVE priority — the country's got an extremely active al-Qaida affiliate, after all — and the Pentagon needs to take a more active role in it.

Now you also understand why the NASA Chief claimed that Obama had told that Muslim outreach was the organization's first priority.  NASA is also a victim of Muslim CVE.

Every government policy is now subservient to CVE.... and the gimmicks never stop.

"Community-based solutions" can mean everything from after-school programs to moderate Islamic rap to viral videos.

The State Department has even sent an Islamic rap group to various Muslim countries as goodwill ambassadors... A major government collection of thinking floats "the use of rock and roll to counter violent Salafi extremism."

Isn't this how we won the War on Drugs? 

An adviser to the U.S. military is more blunt. When asked how to measure CVE, he answered, under condition of anonymity: "You don't, immediately." Any victories will take decades to materialize. "If we're really playing the long game, we have to play long."

Really long.  Like forever.

[Warph]

Obuma Lies about Oil and Gas drilling and land leasing, in 2nd. Debate....

...."Lies"...so, what new about that!

Reminder: Oil and gas production just keep falling under President Obama
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/10/17/romney-calls-out-obamas-distortions-on-decreased-oilgas-leasing-and-permitting/
by Erika Johnsen

President Obama certainly knows how to talk a good game when it comes to energy policy; to the low-information layman, "all of the above" sounds like a superficially excellent plan. Work on green energy development, but keep the traditional fuel production comin' — it's the best of both worlds, right? Except that that's not what the Obama administration has done at all. While the feds have poured billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars into picking economic winners and losers in the clean-energy field, Obama's EPA/Energy/Interior team have waged a regulatory war on the coal industry and only allowed for relatively scant permitting for drilling projects.

Obama & Co. are big fans of taking credit for the increase in oil production that's taking place on the domestic scene right now, but the credit is actually due to permits issued under President Bush (one of the few things he's unwilling to credit to the "previous administration," heh) and increased production on private and state lands. As Daniel Kish detailed in USNews yesterday, the Energy Information Administration recently released its Annual Energy Review 2011, and it demonstrates just how much Obama's policy isn't so much "all of the above" as "nothing from below":


In reality, data shows that oil and gas production is actually falling on federal lands. Offshore oil production was the lowest since 2008, and natural gas production on federal lands was the lowest since 2003. Coal production on federal lands has fallen as well. Coal production was the lowest since 2006. Energy Information Administration also reports that 2011 had the highest average price for gasoline in U.S. history, and 2009-2011 has seen the highest average real electricity prices since the early 1990s.
What the record shows is that energy production is happening in spite of the president's polices, not because of them. Instead, the federal government's policy has been to restrict access to the 2.46 billion acres of onshore and offshore energy lands—lands that hold the greatest untapped resource potential—thereby denying their use to the people who own these resources.


While it is unfair to suggest than any president can control the global demand that's leading to rising gasoline prices, the president could at least mitigate them by signaling to speculators that a greater supply is on the way. What's more, getting in on a larger market share of these rising oil prices and taking advantage of the job creation, economic growth, and government revenue that would come with tapping into our wildly abundant natural resources means that rising gasoline prices wouldn't have quite such a devastating impact.
As it is, the Obama administration's drilling restrictions and regulatory warfare mean that we're in for those "necessarily skyrocketing" energy prices, and if he wins a second term, I suspect that we'll see him start really pushing for a national renewable portfolio standard — i.e., requiring energy supply companies to use a specified supply from renewable sources, despite the expense — which is definitely more bad news bears for our economy.

[jarhead]

Quote from waph:
the federal government's policy has been to restrict access to the 2.46 billion acres of onshore and offshore energy lands—lands that hold the greatest untapped resource potential—thereby denying their use to the people who own these resources.

But---but ---Warph, We are saving those primo drilling spots for Soros and his Brazilian partners and for Macho-Man Hugo.

[Warph]

The 5 Most Misleading Statements from the
Second Presidential Debate



by Lachlan Markay
October 17, 2012


Today's Morning Bell features reaction from numerous Heritage experts. In addition, we've compiled a list of the five most factually-challenged statements made during the debate.



1.) Obama falsely claims he called Benghazi attacks "acts of terror" in Rose Garden speech.
The president's claim that he did, contrary to Governor Romney's critique, call the Benghazi attacks "acts of terror" in a September 12 Rose Garden speech got perhaps the most play of any questionable statement last night. In fact, that claim is FALSE.

In the speech in question, the president vaguely alluded to "acts of terror," but he did not classify the Benghazi attacks as such. Given that the attacks took place on the anniversary of the most notorious terrorist attack in history, there was by no means a clear implication that the phrase referred to the then-ongoing assaults on American diplomatic facilities across North Africa.

Even moderator Candy Crowley, who insisted during the debate that Obama "did in fact" label the Benghazi attacks terrorism in the Rose Garden, walked back that claim in a post-debate interview. She said Romney's critique was "right, in the main," but that he had "picked the wrong word."

CNN itself noted that the White House acknowledged Benghazi was a terrorist attack for the first time a full nine days after the attacks themselves, as Ezra Dulis of Breitbart News pointed out.

Other reporters likewise declared Romney correct on that score after the debate, including Politico's Mike Allen, the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler, and the Washington Times's Anneke Green.



2.) Obama again misleads on job creation numbers.
Obama often insists that 5 million jobs have been created on his watch, and Heritage has addressed that claim before. In order to arrive at this number, the president examines a time frame that is as friendly to his own record as possible. In short, he measures job growth not from the beginning of his term, but from the employment low-point about a year later.

If measured from January 2009, when Obama took office, the country has actually added only about 316,000 jobs. Of course even that overstates the president's record, since obviously the federal government is not responsible for every job created in the private sector (and the 5 million number actually refers only to private sector jobs – government jobs are down even within the timeframe Obama touts.)

Data visualization expert Matthias Shapiro (also known by his Twitter handle @PoliticalMath) created a very informative video – a bit dated, but still highly applicable – to explain the president's chicanery on this issue.

3.) Despite Obama's claims, oil and gas production on federal land is way down.
In an exchange about domestic energy production, Obama claimed that American oil and gas companies are "actually drilling more on public lands than in the previous administration."
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/03/19/production-of-oil-gas-and-coal-on-federal-lands-sinks-to-nine-year-low/

In fact, as Heritage has pointed out, fossil fuel production of federal land hit a nine-year low in 2011. ABC's Jonathan Karl also noticed this disconnect. "Oil drilling permits on public land dropped by 37% in the first two years of the Obama administration, [and] 42% in terms of leases for natural gas," Karl noted.



4.) Romney inflates the alleged effect of Chinese currency manipulation on U.S. job growth.
Governor Romney, who has frequently criticized China for "cheating" through alleged currency manipulation, falsely suggested that that currency manipulation has a significant effect on U.S. employment. As Heritage's Derek Scissors noted in a recent report:
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/06/27/chinese-currency-manipulation-lies-and-statistics/ 

[T]he exchange rate between the yuan and the dollar has no direct effect on American prosperity or American jobs. It never has. Seventeen years ago, China sharply devalued the yuan against the dollar. Yet American unemployment fell for years afterward. Since 2005, the PRC has been slowly raising the value of its currency, which is what protectionists say they want. And American unemployment has soared.



5.) Obama claims he saved the auto industry.  In fact, he just saved the UAW.
The president is fond of inflating the impact of his auto industry bailout, and claimed again last night that his administration "saved an auto industry that was on the brink of collapse."  But government involvement in the General Motors and Chrysler bankruptcies amounted to a bailout not of the companies themselves, but of their largest union, the United Auto Workers, as Heritage's James Sherk has noted.


None of that [bailout] money kept factories running.  Instead, it sustained the above-average compensation of members of an influential union, sparing them from most of the sacrifices typically made in bankruptcy... a bankruptcy they contributed to.[/font][/size]

[Warph]

Quote from waph:
the federal government's policy has been to restrict access to the 2.46 billion acres of onshore and offshore energy lands—lands that hold the greatest untapped resource potential—thereby denying their use to the people who own these resources.

But---but ---Warph, We are saving those primo drilling spots for Soros and his Brazilian partners and for Macho-Man Hugo.

No problemo... China bought 'em out.

[Warph]

   

CNN's Crowley first plays umpire,
then joins Team Obama

By Dan Gainor
Published October 17, 2012
FoxNews.com

How influential was moderator in deciding debate...
Did Candy Crowley give Obama a lifeline? (You bet she did... and probably the questions to Team Obuma before the debate)

In the baseball playoffs, many fans believe the tie goes to the runner. In debates, ties are decided by the moderator and that's what happened during the Tuesday night presidential debate at Hofstra University in New York. CNN's Candy Crowley made her presence felt as a moderator in a major way on two points, but none larger than the issue of Libya.

The terrorist attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and four others in Benghazi has become a sore point for Obama, but Crowley made sure she called Romney out before Obama could tag him.

When Romney said Obama had not called the attack an act of terror for 14 days, Crowley interrupted and said: "It -- it -- it -- he did in fact, sir. So let me -- let me call it an act of terror."

Naturally, Obama asked her to restate her point and she did. "Can you say that a little louder, Candy?" asked the president. "He -- he did call it an act of terror. It did as well take -- it did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea there being a riot out there about this tape to come out. You are correct about that," she continued.

Conservatives were outraged, arguing that Crowley's interruption spoiled a key Romney point. They weren't the only ones. Even Politico's Mike Allen called the Crowley point "arguable" and pointed to the transcript of Obama's statement saying it "generally" referred to "acts of terror." CNN's John King called the Obama statement a "generic" comment about terror, not specifically calling the Libya attack a terrorist act.

Afterward, CNN's post-debate analysis team focused heavily on that point and Crowley herself admitted Romney had been right "in the main." She said Romney "picked the wrong way to go about talking about it." She also emphasized that each point she made also generated applause from one half of the audience, then the other.

But Crowley also admitted she took her cue to intervene from Obama. She said Libya was where Romney "tripped himself up." But she clearly helped. After Romney made his point she cut in. "The president kept looking at me, going you ... and I thought, well, I did know that, I said, he, you, he did, call it an act of terror." She then chastised Romney because "he picked that one wrong fact."

The Daily Caller's Matt Lewis was understated, saying simply: "Candy Crowley seemed to side with Obama." But The Washington Post blamed Romney's reaction on conservative media.

"Romney came off as being shellshocked by the mere suggestion" that he was wrong, wrote Erik Wemple. He continued his attack blaming the right. "Romney revealed that perhaps he'd spent some time inside a coverage bubble on the Benghazi story. In the words of one onlooker, he "[c]onfused conservative spin for the truth."

However, the actual presidential transcript makes it clear that Obama was doing his best to include the word "terror" without actually saying the incident was a terror attack. After mentioning 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan, the president said: "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for." Then he moved on to the Libya attack.

That one moment defined the debate. Crowley, who had come under criticism from both sides prior to the debate, also cut off Romney when he was making a point about the president's "Fast and Furious" gun scandal. And, as in the other two debates, the moderators let the Democratic candidate dominate the clock. This time, according to CNN's own tally, Obama won 44 minutes and 4 seconds to a mere 40 minutes and 50 seconds for Romney.

Libya dominated the after-discussion – left and right. Huffington Post's celebration of Obama included this headline: "Candy Crowley Fact Checks Mitt Romney On Libya." MSNBC Tingler-in-Chief Chris Matthews said Obama had "punched Romney hard," to cheers of the MSDNC faithful.

Conservatives continued to harp on Crowley's interruption. Romney adviser John Sununu summed up those comments with a sarcastic response during a conversation with CNN's Soledad O'Brien Wednesday. After O'Brien thanked Sununu for coming on, he took a dig back saying, "It's always good to come on the groupie channel."

CNN, realizing it was in the midst of a firestorm, continued to follow the issue and have Crowley on again today. "Newsroom" Anchor Carol Costello introduced a discussion with the criticism, explaining, "Conservatives pounced, saying, 'Crowley got it wrong.'"

Crowley was then shown defending herself from earlier in the morning, saying, "I was trying to move this along." "There is no question the administration is quite vulnerable on this topic," she added. But she amended what she said the night before. No longer did she take her cue just from Obama. "There was this point where they both kind of looked at me. You know. And then, you know. Romney was looking at me. Obama was looking at me. What I wanted to do was move this along." She then restated that she fact checked both Romney and Obama.

Then Crowley added a major point. "Now, did the president say this was an act of terror? The president did not say it." Then she explained how she came up with her view. "The president said 'these acts of terror,' but he was in the Rose Garden to talk about Benghazi, so I don't think that's a leap," she concluded.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/10/17/cnns-crowley-first-plays-umpire-then-joins-team-obama/?intcmp=trending#ixzz29ZsCqQ5j

[Warph]

Romney Takes Electoral College Lead for 1st Time:
Romney - 206  Obuma - 201

by Mike Flynn 18 Oct 2012, 12:42 PM PDT

CHECK ELECTORAL MAP: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html#battlegrounds

The Romney campaign reached another milestone this afternoon. For the first time in the campaign, Romney now leads in RealClearPolitic's electoral map. Previously, Obama had a 10-vote edge, but RCP has now moved North Carolina from toss-up to "lean Romney." Romney now edges Obama 206-201 in the electoral college. The other 131 votes are rated "toss-up."
Remember that the Democrats had high expectations for being competitive in North Carolina. They even convened their national convention there, confident that the state would again swing to Obama. The Obama campaign, however, has not visited the state since the end of their convention in early September. Romney RCP average of polls in the Tarheel state is a 6-point lead. 

Florida looks like the next state to move out of Obama's reach. Romney's RCP average lead in the state is 2.5 points. I expect sometime next week RCP will move FL to "lean Romney", followed soon after by Virginia, where Romney has been gaining support steadily since the first presidential debate.

The Obama campaign seems to be retreated to an inner-firewall of OH, NH, NV and IA. If Obama won all four of these states he would win reelection, but retreats can be difficult things to manage. Romney's momentum doesn't show any signs of slowing down. In fact, he is still gaining ground in the Gallup tracking poll.

The trends are not good for the Obama campaign

[Warph]

This Great America

By John Ranson 10/19/2012


The choice that we face today is between freedoms on the one hand, and ruin on the other.

There has never been a generation in our history that has been given more than the generation which was born between 1945 and 1960.

They were given so much by their hard and hardy parents, who by fighting through a real economic depression and a great world war, helped bolster freedom for the free and bequeathed freedom to millions of others who lived in the twilight of tyranny.

I call these sons and daughters of what we know as the Greatest Generation, the Entitlement Generation, these people born between 1945 and 1960.

Many of them literally do not know where they are going or even why, they just know that whatever they have, they deserve it. Whether they built it or not.

And unfortunately they are the ruling class today. They are squandering our birthright.

In the 1960s they told us all we had to do was tune in, turn on and drop out, do drugs and love each other and in foisting this false religion on others they decimated an entire generation.

In the 1980s they discovered Wall Street and gave us junk bonds, worthless paper backed by no credit whatsoever. It was a kind of a dress rehearsal for what they did to the housing market in the last twenty years.

In the 1990s they gave us "feelings" with Jerry Springer, and Oprah and a president whose only restraint against the expression of his feeling was the clasp of the zipper on his pants. And several, great, big credit-enabled asset bubbles.

This is the Entitlement Generation that now governs us.

And the choice they have given us is between freedom on the one hand and ruin on the other.

Formed by the Great Depression, hardened in the fires of the Second World War, when humanity as Eisenhower said, "hung on a cross of iron" their parents bequeathed to them an America that guaranteed or fought for freedom for literally billions of people in the last 70 years.

We do it today in Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan, Great Britain, Germany, the Ukraine, Georgia, Australia, South Korea, Poland, Israel, the Philippines and all of the western hemisphere.

Yet today in President Obama, this Entitlement Generation has finally found their god, as he goes around the world and apologizes to others for the freedom we protect and prints more worthless paper and empty digits backed by no credit that we now call the dollar bill.

Tell me what nation in history has done more than we have in the cause of freedom and prosperity?

1000 years from now historians will write still about this Great America; this empire of the free that often endured the unendurable so others could be free.

But what will they write in our next chapter?

Will they write how instead of merely going into debt, this Entitlement Generation put us in bankruptcy?

Will they write about how this Entitlement Generation gave us so much equality that hate crimes legislation guaranteed that some were in our society were finally, unalterably more equal than others.

Or that under this Entitlement Generation wise Latina women finally got a chance to fix our country after 230 years of misrule by dumb white men?

I know plenty of wise Latina women. But the wisest of them all understand what our Founder's knew: Government serves as a reverse barometer to our greatness.

I do know that whatever historians might write, it will just be a paraphrase, a summary of the sum of actions taken or, if the case may be, not taken, by people just like you reading these words.

Everyday institutions that we have come to count on are being attacked by a new Social Democrat party lead by Pelosi, Reid and Obama; a party that's more European than it is American. This, even as Europe collapses under the failed math of socialism.

Bedrock conservative -and American- principles like, smaller government, free markets and a strong national defense are being replaced by social experimentation, huge government spending and appeasement.

And united as conservatives, we can't let that stand.

I attended the CPAC convention in DC in February of 2009, right after Obama's coronation.

I was amazed at the energy at the convention. Here the country had suffered this grievous defeat; the media was telling everyone that Ronald Regan conservatism was dead.

Newsweek even published that outrageous magazine cover with the line: "We're all socialists now." Do you remember that?

But there at CPAC was a group of patriots, who knew that the cause was not dead, that the fight was not over and that the battle had just begun. They knew then what most realize now: That this emperor has no clothes.

So I got to speaking to a young liberal reporter who had been sent by his elite eastern editor to CPAC to make fun of conservatives. For the reporter it was his first real job. And he told me he was amazed by the energy in the various events; by the determination and the zeal he saw written on every face.

He expected gloominess.

He told me: "I expected that this would be your Valley Forge. This would be your hardest winter."

And I laughed.

I said: "This is why you'll and your liberal friends will never understand America.

"You see Valley Forge and you see privation and hunger and want and death. And you want a government that's going to protect you from that. I see Valley Forge and I see hope and bravery and courage and freedom. And I want a government that's going to allow me to take that risk."

"You say that the worst thing for you is hunger. But I say 'death before dishonor.'"

I have faith in my fellow countryman. They'll take action.

If this were literally Valley Forge, it would be your bloody footprints that would be trailing in the snows. That's why it's difficult to write here today and ask you to do more, when you've done so much for the country already.

But there's work to be done and if you don't do it, who will?

Al Gore and the unions will. That's who.

Because the choice, my friends, is between freedom on the one hand and ruin on the other.

And if you don't do this work, who will?

Thanks to all of you, God bless and keep our country strong.

[Warph]

       


Something very big is going on in the Middle East. This is not about an inflammatory film or a political assassination in Libya. Rather, recent events confirm that throughout the Muslim world, radical Islam is on the march. The radical Muslims have figured out a much better strategy than the Al Qaeda strategy of the past decade. Instead of terrorist acts aimed at directly wounding the "far enemy," namely the United States, Islamic radicals are using democracy and public protest to defeat the "near enemy," namely their own autocratic governments, and seize power.  Remarkably President Obama seems to be responding in a way that helps the Islamic radicals, and the vital question is why.

To understand Obama, we need to back up and observe his Middle East policy since he took office in early 2009. There is a weird double standard in the way that President Obama has been acting in region. In Libya, he used force to prevent "genocide" but he has refused to use force to prevent much greater genocide in Syria. What makes Obama's conduct especially odd is that he undertook Libyan military intervention after a civil struggle in which Muammar Qaddafi had killed around 250 people.  In Syria, however, tens of thousands have been killed by the regime and still Obama refuses to use direct military force.

A similar inconsistency defines Obama's actions in Egypt and Iran. In Egypt, Obama used diplomatic pressure to oust the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, clearing the way for the Islamic radicals, led by the Muslim Brotherhood, to win the subsequent parliamentary and presidential elections. Using the rhetoric of democracy, Obama allied himself in Egypt with the democracy protesters. Yet when there were equally massive demonstrations in Iran a year and a half earlier, aimed at ousting the regime of the mullahs, Obama urged caution and restraint.  He refused to embrace the protesters. Essentially he did nothing. Eventually the Iranian police crushed the uprising and the Iranian rebellion dissolved.

So we have a dual anomaly here. How can we explain why Obama uses force here but not there, getting rid of one ruler but keeping others in place? Even now Obama's conduct in response to the latest Muslim agitation is ambiguous. Far from standing up forthrightly for American interests, Obama seems equally resolute in protecting the reputation of the Islamic agitators and their newly-installed leaders.

To date, the best attempt to account for Obama's strange conduct is Walter Russell Mead's theory that Obama is "the least competent manager of America's Middle East diplomatic portfolio."  In other words, Obama is an amateur and a bungler. Mead notes that "he has committed our forces in the strategically irrelevant backwater of Libya," that he has "strained our ties with the established regimes without winning new friends on the Arab street" and that he has "infuriated and frustrated long-term friends but made no headway in reconciling enemies."

But surely Obama knows that Libya is strategically irrelevant; surely he can see that he is antagonizing America's friends and strengthening America's enemies. So Mead's analysis begs the question: why would Obama continue to act this way when the results are as obvious to him as to Mead and the rest of us?

I believe I can answer these questions and explain Obama's double standards.  The key is to realize that Obama isn't a fool.  He isn't getting results opposite to the ones he intends; rather, he intends the results he's getting.  He said during his inaugural speech that he wanted to remake America and transform its place in the world, and this is exactly what he is doing.

Obama's is an anti-colonialist, an ideology he adopted from his Kenyan father.  Recall that Obama's autobiography is titled "Dreams From My Father."  In that book, Obama details how he got his aspirations, his values, even his core identity, from his absentee father.  In a sample passage, Obama writes, "It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself."

While anti-colonialism may be an unfamiliar word to many Americans, it is a very popular ideology even today in Asia, Africa, South America, and the Middle East. Anti-colonialism is the doctrine that holds that America and the West are the rogue nations of the world. Having adopted his father's anti-colonial way of thinking, President Obama has oriented his foreign policy not so much toward containing Iran or North Korea but rather toward containing America.

I'm not suggesting Obama is a traitor, that he hates America, or that he's anti-American.  Rather, he subscribes to an ideology that considers it a good thing for America's influence to be reduced. Obama wants to reduce America's footprint in the world because he believes we have been stepping on the world.

How is Obama doing this?  Two dictators are out–Qaddafi and Mubarak–and two dictatorial regimes–that of Assad in Syria and the mullahs in Iran–remain in power. What do Qaddafi and Mubarak have in common?  They were both doing business with America.  Mubarak was America's most reliable ally in the region, not counting Israel. Qaddafi was not exactly an ally, but he had been behaving himself since America's Iraq invasion, outing terrorists, paying reparations for the Lockerbie bombing, and so on.

Now both Qaddafi and Mubarak are gone.

In Libya, it's hard to say what the new regime will do. We have heard both Islamist rumblings and secular rumblings, and now the Islamic rumblings are getting louder. But undeniably in Egypt, we are seeing the consolidation of a regime that is vastly more anti-American and anti-Israel.

It's important to realize that in Egypt Obama is actively facilitating the rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood.  No one is suggesting that Obama caused the Arab Spring. The Brotherhood won a free election. But now there is a power struggle under way between the Brotherhood and the Egyptian military.  As a recent AP story reported, the Obama administration has been warning the military: step aside and turn over power to the Brotherhood, or America will cut off military and economic aid.

This could be explained as reflecting Obama's unshakeable commitment to democracy, but this commitment was absent during the massive popular demonstrations in Iran in 2009. Then Obama stayed out, even praising the reaction of the Iranian Supreme Leader, and eventually the democracy movement was crushed. Similarly in Syria, Obama has shown himself clearly reluctant to get involved, providing only modest support to the rebels even in the wake of a massive military crackdown and tens of thousands of casualties.

So Assad continues to hang on, and the mullahs remain secure in power in Iran. What do these regimes have in common?  They are both hostile to the United States, and allied with each other in subverting America's interests in the region. Both are also state sponsors of terrorism. If the regimes in Syria and Iran were to fall, we can't be sure what would replace them, but we can be reasonably confident that the new governments would be less hostile to America than the ones that are there now.

Thus Obama's double-standards in the region can be explained by an underlying single-standard.  He wants to undermine America's allies and leave in place regimes that are indifferent or hostile to America.  This is what the anti-colonial ideology predicts he would do, and this is what his actions show he is doing.  No wonder that in recent days Obama seems more concerned with containing America than with acting decisively against the hostile forces of radical Islam in the Middle East.

Now what?  If Obama gets a second term, what might be the next pro-American regime to fall?  In my view, Saudi Arabia. If Obama is re-elected he could demand that the Saudi royal family put itself on the ballot against the Muslim Brotherhood. That is an election the Saudi royals would most likely lose. If that happens then the three most important countries in the Middle East (Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia) would all be in the grip of the radical Muslims.

We are seeing in the region a powerful bid for the restoration of Islam as a global power. One Muslim Brotherhood official put it bluntly.  What the radical Muslims seek, he said, is "a country called the United States of Islam."  Remarkably this radical Muslim dream going back to the 1920s is now being advanced by President Obama, who seems to think it is somehow consonant with the dream from his father.

Just as history will credit Ronald Reagan with helping to produce the dissolution of the Soviet empire, history might credit Obama with helping to produce the United States of Islam.

[Warph]

Bob Beckel: If Gallup numbers are correct, 'It's over'

                     

http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/18/bob-beckel-if-gallup-numbers-are-correct-its-over

Thursday's Gallup tracking poll giving Republican nominee Mitt Romney a seven-point lead over President Barack Obama sent shock waves throughout the political world. It also may have dampened the outlook of a few Democrats just weeks before the presidential election.

On Fox News Channel's "The Five" on Thursday, Bob Beckel, the show's lone liberal, said the election is over if the poll is accurate.

"If I were looking at the numbers and managing the campaign, I would be upset," Beckel said. "I'm not sure panic. But if the numbers are correct, it's over. It is over. So, I mean you are not going to bring Romney back under 50 percent from 52 percent, not a challenging candidate. If that is correct, I don't necessarily buy it's correct."

Beckel denied doubting the polls, but said the plus or minus four percent margin of error gave him hope Obama would prevail in November.

Hey Obuma, the party's OVER!!!!!!