Barry In Charge: Driving Muslims To Hate Us In Indonesia

So this is what "repairing our image around the world" looks like, eh?

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Thousands of followers of a conservative Islamic group held peaceful demonstrations Sunday in several Indonesian cities against the planned visit of President Barack Obama.

Witnesses and police said members of the Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir protested in East Java's provincial capital of Surabaya, South Sulawesi's capital of Makassar and three other cities. The group, an international network which believes Muslims should unite in a single global state governed by Islamic law, urged the Indonesian government to reject the American leader's trip, scheduled for late March.

"We know Obama spent his childhood in Indonesia, but as president his policy contradicts the people's interests in Indonesia," protest organizer Nasrudin said in Makassar.

Hundreds of police monitored the protests, which drew around 2,000 people outside the U.S. Consulate in Surabaya and another 2,000 in the streets of Makassar. No violence was reported. Dozens of demonstrators also rallied in the Java city of Yogyakarta, the West Kalimantan town of Pontianak and the eastern town of Mataram.

Men and women wearing black veils held up yellow banners reading "Reject the visit of Obama" as they marched in the streets of the two larger cities.

"He doesn't work for a peaceful world ... on the contrary, Obama is the same as George Bush, who has destroyed the Muslim world in Iraq and Afghanistan. Therefore we have to reject the visit of Obama to Indonesia," said Nasrudin, who, like many Indonesians, uses only one name.

Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation. Most of its nearly 200 million Muslims practice a moderate form of the faith.

The country's largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, and its second largest, Muhamadyah, have both welcomed Obama's visit. (source)

Netanyahu Regrets Settler Homes ‘Incident’

The Israeli prime minister expressed regret on Sunday for the announcement last week during a visit by the US vice-president of a plan to build Jewish settler homes in mostly Arab East Jerusalem.

But, in his first public remarks since the proposal was unveiled last Tuesday, Benjamin Netanyahu gave no indication of cancelling the construction. He also played down the growing confrontation with Washington that the proposal and the timing of its disclosure – made while Joe Biden was in Israel – have triggered.

Mr Netanyahu told his cabinet: “There was a regrettable incident here, which occurred innocently. It was hurtful and certainly it should not have happened.”

The announcement to build 1,600 houses in the Jewish neighbourhood of Ramat Shlomo in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, which Palestinians view as the capital of their future state, appears to have spurred the biggest crisis between Israel and the US, its closest ally, in years.

Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, on Friday used unusually harsh words by blasting the Israeli disclosure as “insulting” because it took place during a visit by Mr Biden that was aimed at boosting a new round of US-mediated Middle East peace talks.

The same day, Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to Washington, was summoned to an unscheduled meeting with James Steinberg, US deputy secretary of state, according to Israeli media.

Mr Netanyahu has said he did not know of the approval of the construction plan by the interior ministry, which is controlled by the ultra-orthodox, pro-settler Shas party that is a key member of his governing coalition.

He tried to deflect media reports of a growing confrontation between his predominantly pro-settler government and the Obama administration. “I suggest not to get carried away and to calm down,” he said.

Nevertheless, he added that he has appointed a group of senior officials to probe into the events that led to the announcement “to ensure procedures will be in place to prevent those kinds of incidents in the future”.

A US envoy is due in the region later in the week to try to restart peace talks that have been suspended since December 2008. The Palestinians have resisted restarting negotiations without a total Israeli settlement freeze.

The settlement plan has prompted a torrent of condemnation of Mr Netanyahu by influential Israeli media commentators.

In a front-page editorial titled Time to Panic in the mass-selling Maariv newspaper, Ben Caspit, a veteran political correspondent, wrote on Sunday: “The crisis is still in full force and is reaching new heights. It seems to be much worse than anything we have known in the past decade.”

Yaron Ezrahi, a political scientist at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, said the US might try to take advantage of the situation.

He added: “The people in the White House are thinking of how to exploit this crisis to extract more concessions from Israel for the peace negotiations.”

Such concessions, he added, might be a cancellation of last week’s approval of the building plan or an extension of the 10-month partial freeze on construction in the occupied West Bank, which expires in September.

David Axelrod, a senior aide to Barack Obama, US president, yesterday told NBC’s Meet the Press programme that Mr Netanyahu’s comments in response to US criticism showed “the message was received”, Reuters reported from Jerusalem.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web. (source)

House Vote Counter Hunting For Health Care Votes

Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina

WASHINGTON — The Democrat's chief vote counter in the House says that right now there aren't enough votes to pass President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

But Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina says he's confident that the legislation will pass. He says the White House and Democratic leaders in Congress have gotten to a point where there's a way to send the measure to the president's desk for his signature.

Clyburn tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that "a comfort level" has been reached among the House, Senate and White House on details about the sweeping legislation. But he concedes that House supporters don't have the necessary votes right now.

House Democratic leaders are pressing for a vote on their bill as early as this coming week. (source)

Pelosi Confident House Will Pass Health Care Bill

SAN FRANCISCO – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Saturday she's confident the House will pass health care legislation and dismissed Republican criticism that she did not have enough votes for the measure.

"We're very excited about where we are and will not be deterred by estimates that have no basis in fact," she said during a dedication of the renamed Lim P. Lee Post Office in San Francisco. The post office was renamed after the nation's first Chinese-American postmaster.

Pelosi declined to say when House members would vote on a health care bill, or how many votes that she had secured. Although she added that lawmakers were "on the verge of making history."

She also dismissed criticism by House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio that she did not have sufficient votes.

"I'm never dependent on Congressman Boehner's count. I never have," she said to a smattering of laughter from the crowd.

House Democratic leaders are pressing for a vote on their bill as early as this coming week.

The legislation would provide health care to tens of millions who currently lack it. It would require almost everyone to obtain coverage and subsidize the cost of premiums for poor and middle-income Americans.

It would also ban insurance companies from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions.

The health care bill appeared to be on the verge of passing in early January before Democrats lost a special election in Massachusetts to fill the seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy and with it, their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

In the weeks since, the White House and Democrats have embarked on a rescue strategy that would require the House to pass legislation that cleared the Senate in December before both houses approve a second bill that makes changes to the first.

But some anti-abortion Democrats in the House have balked at the bill, and it's not clear they will vote for final passage. The bill needs 216 votes to clear the House.

Lesson On Progressives: Globalism And Soros

Mexico Gunmen Kill American Consulate Staff

View of the US Consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua State, Mexico on March 2.

As the third world experience we call "Mexico" spills into our country, will Barry use this as an excuse to extend health care to all Mexicans?

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Gunmen in the drug war-plagued Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez killed two Americans and a Mexican linked to the local U.S. consulate, an attack U.S. President Barack Obama said "outraged" him.

An American woman working at the consulate in Ciudad Juarez, just over the border from El Paso, Texas, and her U.S. husband were fatally shot by suspected drug gang hitmen in broad daylight on Saturday as they left a consulate social event, U.S. and Mexican officials told Reuters.

A Mexican man married to another consulate employee was killed around the same time in another part of the city after he and his wife left the same event, a U.S. official said.

The U.S. official, who asked not to be identified, said it was not clear if the victims had been specifically targeted, and the motive for the attacks was unknown.

Bloodshed has exploded in recent months in Ciudad Juarez as the head of the Juarez cartel, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, fights off a bloody offensive by Mexico's No. 1 fugitive drug lord, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, at the worst hotspot of Mexico's three-year-old drug war.

"The president is deeply saddened and outraged by the news," said White House National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer. He said Obama "shares in the outrage of the Mexican people at the murders of thousands in Ciudad Juarez and elsewhere in Mexico."

The U.S. State Department updated its warning on travel to Mexico to say it had authorized the departure of dependents of U.S. government personnel from consulates in Ciudad Juarez and five other northern border cities.

Nearly 19,000 people have been killed since President Felipe Calderon came to power in Mexico in late 2006 and launched a military assault on the country's powerful drug cartels, sparking a surge in violence that has alarmed Washington, foreign investors and tourists.

Most victims are rival traffickers and police, and to a lesser extent soldiers, local officials and bystanders. It is rare for drug gang hitmen to target foreigners.

"The Mexican authorities are determined to clarify what happened and bring those responsible to justice," the Mexican Foreign Ministry said of Saturday's attacks.

CHILDREN SURVIVE SHOOTING

The attack on the U.S. couple began with a car chase and ended in front of the main border crossing into El Paso, an area heavily patrolled by soldiers, local newspaper El Diario reported. The couple's baby girl survived the attack.

The Mexican spouse was murdered in an upscale neighborhood of the city when gunmen boxed in his car with other vehicles and shot him, according to a local newspaper photographer who soon arrived at the scene. His wife, who was following in a second car, was unhurt, but their two children were wounded.

Calderon was already scheduled to visit Ciudad Juarez on Tuesday, his third trip there in a month, as he scrambles to find a way to deal with a surge in killings that 8,000 troops and federal police on the ground have failed to curb.

The drug war has killed more than 4,600 people in the key manufacturing city in two years, and constant scenes of bullet-ridden vehicles and bodies lying in pools of blood have prompted many middle-class residents to flee.

Across Mexico, drug war violence is at its worst level ever, and many U.S. students have heeded warnings not to cross the border this year for their annual "spring break" vacation.

A burst of drug gang clashes killed at least 27 people -- including four who were beheaded -- this weekend in or near the Pacific resort of Acapulco, one of many popular with spring breakers.

At least 13 were killed on Saturday and at least 14 on Sunday, police said, including nine men who were killed in a shootout and a young woman shot as she drove by in a taxi.

Obama voiced his support for Calderon's drug war during a visit to Mexico last year, but the rising violence along the border with Mexico has become a big concern for Washington.

(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan; writing by Noel Randewich; editing by Catherine Bremer and Mohammad Zargham) [source]

Obama Supports DNA Sampling Upon Arrest

Cloward-Piven Strategy

Ever get arrested, but not convicted? If not, don't act so smug. It happens a lot in our judicial system, which I still believe to be the best in the world. Sure there are corrupt judges, politicians, jury members, cops, etc, here and there in our justice system, but the beauty of it is that we can elect those who control these things. In time, the corrupt actors get exposed more effectively than in ANY other country of 300 million people as diverse as America.

That being said, it is worth noting the continued exposure of the useful idiots on the Left who are acting squirmish and anxious at the path their messiah has been on of late.

Guantaunomo Bay still exists.

The Patriot Act had its sunset laws extended.

He let the Navy kill those Somali teenagers.

He fired Van Jones for his political views.

Now this.

You can feel the breath being sucked out of their weak hearts. Loudmouth, jubilant, self-righteous one year, then this the next:

Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties knight in shining armor many were expecting.

Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, “It’s the right thing to do” to “tighten the grip around folks” who commit crime.

When it comes to civil liberties, the Obama administration has come under fire for often mirroring his predecessor’s practices surrounding state secrets, the Patriot Act and domestic spying. There’s also Gitmo, Jay Bybee and John Yoo.

Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told Walsh he supported the federal government, as well as the 18 states that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said.

The American Civil Liberties Union claims DNA sampling is different from mandatory, upon-arrest fingerprinting that has been standard practice in the United States for decades.

A fingerprint, the group says, reveals nothing more than a person’s identity. But much can be learned from a DNA sample, which codes a person’s family ties, some health risks, and, according to some, can predict a propensity for violence.

The ACLU is suing California to block its voter-approved measure requiring saliva sampling of people picked up on felony charges. Authorities in the Golden State are allowed to conduct so-called “familial searching” — when a genetic sample does not directly match another, authorities start investigating people with closely matched DNA in hopes of finding leads to the perpetrator.

Do you wonder whether DNA sampling is legal?

The courts have already upheld DNA sampling of convicted felons, based on the theory that the convicted have fewer privacy rights. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that when conducting intrusions of the body during an investigation, the police need so-called “exigent circumstances” or a warrant. That alcohol evaporates in the blood stream is the exigent circumstance to draw blood from a suspected drunk driver without a warrant. (source)

Health Care Summit: When Owning 2 Branches Of Federal Gov't Ain't Enough

Rush Has A Heart Scare

HONOLULU (AP) - A Honolulu television station is reporting that conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was taken to a hospital with chest pains.
KITV reported Wednesday that paramedics responded to a call at 2:41 p.m. from the Kahala Hotel and Resort where Limbaugh is vacationing.

The station, citing unnamed sources, said paramedics treated Limbaugh and took him to The Queen's Medical Center in serious condition.

Queen's spokesman N. Makana Shook says the hospital is unable to comment on the report.

Limbaugh was seen golfing at Waialae Country Club earlier this week. The country club is next to the Kahala Hotel and Resort. [source]

After hearing of this news, I got caught up in thought over the contribution that Rush has made to America and how easily that could be taken away; how soon he would be forgotten (except, of course, to those of us who like to read and listen to things), as his name is swallowed up in the memory hole. The mainstream media have performed already as a blackout of Rush amongst their own signals, only begrudgingly bringing up his name when a salacious or embarrassing angle is employed.

I thought it only proper to offer an ode to a Thomas Paine of our times, Rush Limbaugh, at my favorite political watering hole, Sweetness & Light:

I first learned about Rush when I ETS’d out of the Army back in 1990. My political philosophy was already firmly in the Conservative realm, but I had spent my adolescent years smothered in Democrat-controlled, Appalachian mountain ignorance. My people lived like Conservatives as we stayed within our budgets, found enjoyment in the little things, and realized that Earthly pleasures don’t lead to salvation. But as rural people, many of whom still get their drinking water from a nearby mountain spring, desperation and generations of inadequate education lead even good, God-fearing people to fall for the Senator Byrds of this world. Eating nothing but chestnuts and old apples for a few winters in a row could do that to you, of course.

But if you think that people like my Scots-Irish father voted Democrat all the time because he was a Dixiecrat, then you don’t understand southern white men. Even though my father was a pure redneck cracker, we never heard the word nigger used in my household. He wasn’t like that. As a drinker, he had several friends who drank with him on a regular basis throughout his 64 years. A few of those were black men from our backwoods county, and my dad never acted like there was anything strange about it. He laughed and had a good time with them, so there was nothing to it.

But my father, like much of the men from that area, had a superstitious distrust of anyone who spoke well and was educated. As my brother and I used to ask deeper questions about politics of my drunk father, and the questions contained more logic, the only thing he would finally seize upon is, “My dad always told me that the common man does better when Democrats are in control, and I’m for the little man, dammit!” and the conversation was inevitably shut down at that point, as he stormed off to his bedroom.

It took my entry into the Army for my own personal philosophy to crystalize. At 18, I thought I was an Independent: “I vote the man, not the party”, blah, blah. That’s the kind of thing you say with a steely look in your eye and a mind full of pride that you aren’t “controlled” by any outside groupthink. I said that kind of thing because I was immature in my understanding of the world.

By the end of my 4-year hitch in 1990, I had become a voracious reader of all things current events. My impulse came from the need to know where the next punch was coming from. As an 82nd Airborne Infantry soldier, I constantly did “fly-aways”, where one minute you’re in the barracks thinking nothing is planned except for tomorrow’s formation, and the next minute you’re mustered up, crammed into a C 141 with all of your unit, rigged for your jump into El Salvador, Panama, or Egypt. We didn’t have the internet at that time, of course, so I became very well acquainted with the major dailies around the country. I wanted to know a little about the possible places and reasons that might end my life.

I finally woke up to what the Democrats represented in the late 1980’s. It could have been a number of issues, but what really sticks in my mind is the luxury tax that Tip O’Neil’s Congress came up with. Big pleasure boats were targetted in the items to receive the extra tax, and when the reports came out not long afterwards, I think I grew up a little, politically.

What the tax did, of course, was nothing but put hundreds of ship builder employees out of a job and ruined their skillset’s marketability. Imagine being a man who isn’t good at anything but the one job he’s known for 20 years-the same job his father did, that his father did, etc., and now, thanks to some greedy, fat, Boss Hog-type politicians in Washington who’ve never had to live honestly for a living like the boat maker does…you’re ruined. The Democrat Congressmen pat themselves on the back and exclaim that they’ve “stuck it to the rich” while more lives get dashed against the rocks, people flailing along in the aftershock, dying a slow death of always trying to reclaim that job, quality of life, and place in the world.

Just when I was coming to this maturity, along came Rush. When I got out of the military the world was consumed with political correctness. Greenpeace and MTV had jelled pretty well. Live Aid had already spawned so many different “message rock” events that it was cliche’. 45 years of Cold War readiness had really brought out the malcontents and “anti-establishment” crowd, and there were NO cultural outlets that allowed for a conversation of what it meant to be a Conservative. Larry King was the only syndicated daily talk show that reached a considerably-wide audience, and it was overnight on the Mutual Radio Network, with the much-more talented Jim Bohanon filling in for him ocasionally. Larry conducted more of a celebrity-driven show, though, and bore NO resemblance to what this iconoclast named Rush Limbaugh was doing. Here it was, 12 o’clock in the afternoon, and people were actually rediscovering the AM band of their radios!

Phrases like ‘baseline budgeting’ were finally being disected by this man on the radio who broke it down piece by piece for you, allowing you to come to your own conclusion about how you think that Congress should look at the task of spending your money. This was a FIRST! Sure, there had been individual tv or radio broadcast segments which may have tried to discuss this in their brief 30-minute show one time in America’s past, but here was a man who was breathlessly rolling this kind of display for you daily, for 3 hours, and doing it with a laugh.

When complex thinkers who talk to the rest of us who aren’t as steeped in that particular knowledge, they usually eventually slip up if you listen to them long enough (who wouldn’t?). Not Rush. Granted, he has had a gallery of political thinkers around him since birth, (father, brother, uncle, etc in the legal profession), and was smart enough to employ Mark Levin as his fact-checker for the first decade of his national show. But frankly, that just adds to his appeal: Rush got it honestly. No Larry King, Rachel Maddow, or Katie Curic could speak extemporaneously for three hours a day and keep you listening the way Rush does.

Nor could they make sense the way Rush does. Rush’s mind makes such sense with bedrock Americans that it is almost scary. He could use his skills the way a sophist does, but he doesn’t.

A sophist seeks to decieve you; to close your eyes to a certain truth while leading you to another. Rush starts any discussion with a full hearing of the oposition’s precedent. Most of the time, he uses the exact words (in full context) of whoever authored the argument. Not only does he use many sources to cite the opposing side of view, but he invites you to call him on any given day to prove his argument wrong. Many try, but Rush politely refines his argument before our very ears, and we are left to decide who was right or wrong. No sophists could perform that long with any consistency, much less for 20 years.

I actually got on Rush’s show back in 1995. I was a FM radio jock, doing my afternoon drive shift one day, and I decided to give it a try. In between breaks and prepping, I was hitting Rush’s show number on the studio phone’s speed dial. After an hour of this, I finally made it. It was 5 till 3pm on a Friday, and so Rush’s “open line Friday” allowed for any topic I chose to speak about on his show.

After a quick, pleasant exchange with The Godfather (it was about Ted Kopell’s performance the night before. I didn’t like the way Kopell treated a GOP Senator during the interview, and Rush defended Kopell as someone he’d always liked, so he wouldn’t join in my bitchfest about it, lol), I asked if it would be ok if I said “hi” to my father and brother in Virginia. He said sure, so I did. It was a great experience.

One of my distant cousins from Texas happened to be listening ( I was calling from Ohio), and she recognized that the caller had to be me because I mentioned their jobs and what part of Virginia they were from. Otherwise, this cousin had never talked to me, and I was introduced on Rush’s show by only my first name, so that was special that she knew it was me, I thought. My father also happened to be listening, as he always loved to scream at the radio while listening to Rush. My Texas cousins were calling my folks’ house immediately, and the buzz reached me in Ohio before I left the station that night.

It is a GREAT memory of mine, and I have Rush to thank for it.

I also want to thank Rush for affecting the political climate in America (the world?) the way that he has. His voice has been a rallying cry for those of us who feel as if we are alone in the world. Rush’s words, passion, and steady dedication serve as an example to us all. As all of the S&L community here has expressed, “God be with you, Rush.” (source)

Barry In Charge: Ft Hood Slayings Don't Move The Coldhearted

President Obama didn't wait long after Tuesday's devastating elections to give critics another reason to question his leadership, but this time the subject matter was more grim than a pair of governorships.

After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that the president would speak about the incident prior to a previously scheduled appearance. At about 5 p.m., cable stations went to the president. The situation called for not only his trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective.

But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a "shout-out" to "Dr. Joe Medicine Crow -- that Congressional Medal of Honor winner." Three minutes in, the president spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms. Who is advising him?

Anyone at home aware of the major news story of the previous hours had to have been stunned. An incident like this requires a scrapping of the early light banter. The president should apologize for the tone of his remarks, explain what has happened, express sympathy for those slain and appeal for calm and patience until all the facts are in. That's the least that should occur.

Indeed, an argument could be made that Obama should have canceled the Indian event, out of respect for people having been murdered at an Army post a few hours before. That would have prevented any sort of jarring emotional switch at the event.

Did the president's team not realize what sort of image they were presenting to the country at this moment? The disconnect between what Americans at home knew had been going on -- and the initial words coming out of their president's mouth was jolting, if not disturbing.

It must have been disappointing for many politically aware Democrats, still reeling from the election two days before. The New Jersey gubernatorial vote had already demonstrated that the president and his political team couldn't produce a winning outcome in a state very friendly to Democrats (and where the president won by 15 points one year ago). And now this? Congressional Democrats must wonder if a White House that has burdened them with a too-heavy policy agenda over the last year has a strong enough political operation to help push that agenda through.

If the president's communications apparatus can't inform -- and protect -- their boss during tense moments when the country needs to see a focused commander-in-chief and a compassionate head of state, it has disastrous consequences for that president's party and supporters.

All the president's men (and women) fell down on the job Thursday. And Democrats across the country have real reason to panic. (source)