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Ben Stein wants to know why obama can’t tell the truth.
I have been observing President Obama for a few days and a number of questions have occurred to me:
1. In the President’s State of the Union address, he bragged about how U.S. oil production has surged thanks to shale drilling. Question for Mr. Obama: Does he not recall that he and his followers have been fighting and harassing the oil companies that are finding and producing all of that oil? Does he believe he deserves any credit at all for acts and successes done by people against whom he has waged war since he was a child? …
… Now, I think it’s just great that he has offbeat African Americans interviewing him at the White House. They are citizens, too. But on the day Yemen falls, this is how he’s spending his time? He wants respect as President. Hard to believe he gets it frolicking with this green lipstick creature. Hard to believe he has time for the green lipstick comedienne and not time for reaching a better arrangement with Mr Netanyahu (who is by no means perfect himself). Israel is facing an existential threat from Iran. Sanctions are on the table. This is a huge subject and Netanyahu is coming to town. Can they really not find an hour taken away from Green Lipstick for Mr. Obama to discuss how to prevent a second Holocaust? Or maybe Mr Obama really does think he is a character in a frat house comedy. I guess he sees himself as everything.
But how sad that this delusional little man is our President. And how Mr. Putin must sneer when he considers who he is up against. God help us.
And Noemie Emery says he’s reality challenged.
… If he dislikes facts, he ignores them and substitutes others, which he finds more attractive.
As he did in the State of the Union last week.
“In Iraq and Syria, American leadership … is stopping ISIL’s advance,” the president told us. “Instead of getting dragged into another ground war in the Middle East, we are leading a broad coalition, including Arab nations, to degrade and ultimately destroy this terrorist group.”
This isn’t true. Two thousand American troops have gone back to the war that Obama claimed he had ended; the Islamic State has extended its hold over Syria; Yemen and Libya, which Obama claimed as showcases for his brand of diplomacy, are going to pieces; Iran is dominant in much of the region (and closer than ever to nuclear status); and Russia is threatening the Soviet Union’s former possessions, in Eastern Europe and in Ukraine.
“There’s a real world out there he didn’t really talk about,” said Christopher Matthews. “His projection of success … is not close to reality,” said Andrea Mitchell. When the choir rebels, you know you’re in trouble.
“It sounds like the president was outlining a world that he wishes we were all living in, but which is very different than the world you described,” Richard Engel informed NBC’s Brian Williams. “So there was a general tone, maybe even suspended disbelief, I think, when he started talking about foreign policy. There’s not a lot of success stories to be talking about in foreign policy right now.” …
Conrad Black posts on the state of the union.
The president’s State of the Union message was in many respects, and as has been much remarked upon, an appalling document. It was verbose, stylistically grating, and largely fraudulent, as it took credit for benign developments that have not occurred and unctuously denounced political practices of which he has been the chief practitioner. …
… Mr. Obama claimed huge credit for job-creation figures that were very inferior to those of the Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy-Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton years, and claimed that this success was based on the reversal of outsourcing. It wasn’t. He took credit for reducing dependence on foreign oil, though his docility before the eco-radicals caused him to fight against much of what has produced the increased domestic production of which he now boasts.
He claimed credit for reduction in oil, gasoline, and other fuel costs, though the reduction is due to the increased production he obstructed and Saudi production increases motivated largely by Obama’s failure to take effective action against the Iranian nuclear military program, Iran’s support of Hamas and Hezbollah, and Iranian and Russian meddling in Syria. He was taking credit for the success of developments he opposed and the actions of countries motivated by his failure to act.
In domestic affairs, the president gave a menu of blissfully unattainable legislative ideas clearly designed to enable him in his memoirs to claim that he was sandbagged by Republican reactionaries from transforming Jeremiah Wright’s racist and exploitive America into a serene, law-abiding, uniformly prosperous commonwealth. He proposed seven days of sick leave for everyone. …
Stephen Hayes reports on a hard hitting speech from the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Lt. General Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, blasted the Obama administration’s approach to the War on Terror in a hard-hitting speech to a meeting of intelligence professionals. “The dangers to the U.S. do not arise from the arrogance of American power, but from unpreparedness or an excessive unwillingness to fight when fighting is necessary,” Flynn said, in an unsparing critique first reported by the Daily Beast.
The Obama administration doesn’t understand the threat, Flynn said, noting that the administration refuses to use “Islamic militants” to describe the enemy.
“You cannot defeat an enemy you do not admit exists,” he said.
The administration, he continued, wants “us to think that our challenge is dealing with an undefined set of violent extremists or merely lone-wolf actors with no ideology or network. But that’s just not the straight truth.”
Flynn left government last summer, a year before scheduled. He did not provide a reason for his early departure, but sources close to Flynn told THE WEEKLY STANDARD that he was forced out after years of making arguments the Obama administration did not want to hear.
Flynn, and many of the analysts who worked for him, consistently reported on the global nature of the jihadist threat and the interconnectedness of the groups driving it. They mapped overlapping networks of al Qaeda and its offshoots and rejected arguments, pushed primarily by the White House and the CIA, that killing leaders of “core al Qaeda” inevitably meant a diminishing threat. …
John Hinderaker posts on the self-obsessed prez.
Many commentators have noted how frequently Barack Obama’s speeches focus on himself. It is true: for Obama, no matter the topic, it turns out to be mostly about him.
Earlier today, Obama delivered a farewell speech in New Delhi, wrapping up his trip to India. The speech was only 33 minutes long, and yet…Barack managed to work in references to himself no fewer than 118 times. The folks at Grabien write:
“Today in New Delhi, the president of the United States delivered an address to the people of India. Topics ranged from Obama’s pride in being the first U.S. president to visit India twice, to the historic nature of his attendance at India’s Republic Day Parade, to his grandfather’s occupation as a chef, to his graying hair, to his daughters … to his struggles against political critics back home. If this is starting to sound like the president spoke quite a bit about himself, that’s because he did. Somehow in the span of just 33 minutes, Obama referenced himself 118 times. (For those keeping score at home, that’s 3.5 Obama references per minute.)”
During the Cold War, you could count on the American Left marching in lock-step with Russian interests. It’s passing strange to see them carrying water for the Russian interest in killing fracking. The Free Beacon has a long article on the Russian funds that find their way to groups like the Sierra Club.
A shadowy Bermudan company that has funneled tens of millions of dollars to anti-fracking environmentalist groups in the United States is run by executives with deep ties to Russian oil interests and offshore money laundering schemes involving members of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.
One of those executives, Nicholas Hoskins, is a director at a hedge fund management firm that has invested heavily in Russian oil and gas. He is also senior counsel at the Bermudan law firm Wakefield Quin and the vice president of a London-based investment firm whose president until recently chaired the board of the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft.
In addition to those roles, Hoskins is a director at a company called Klein Ltd. No one knows where that firm’s money comes from. Its only publicly documented activities have been transfers of $23 million to U.S. environmentalist groups that push policies that would hamstring surging American oil and gas production, which has hurt Russia’s energy-reliant economy.
With oil prices plunging as a result of a fracking-induced oil glut in the United States, experts say the links between Russian oil interests, secretive foreign political donors, and high-profile American environmentalists suggest Russia may be backing anti-fracking efforts in the United States.
The interest of Russian oil companies and American environmentalist financiers intersect at a Bermuda-based law firm called Wakefield Quin. The firm acts as a corporate registered agent, providing office space for clients, and, for some, “managing the day to day affairs,” according to its website.
As many as 20 companies and investment funds with ties to the Russian government are Wakefield Quin clients. Many list the firm’s address on official documentation. …
Jennifer Rubin advises Scott Walker to resist responding to attacks. Attacks that will come from the right; from goofball GOP candidates like Huckster, Cruz, Paul, Trump, Santorum, etc.
The Post reports: “Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, whose speech to activists in Iowa last weekend drew strong reviews, has taken the first formal step toward a presidential candidacy in 2016, establishing a committee that will help spread his message and underwrite his activities as he seeks to build his political and fundraising networks in the months ahead.” Indeed, there is no candidate who helped his cause more or who has more momentum than Walker, which is why he is going to face a pack of lesser candidates nipping at his heels. It is the obvious play, especially for freshman senators with no record, to take on the conservative with an impressive record and support from a wide array of Republicans.
Walker would be smart to resist the urge to “punch down” to engage with lesser candidates or to be pulled into the marshes of the right-wing fever swamp with Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and others. You can spot their attacks a mile away. …
It’s tough to end the week with lots of items about President Trainwreck. To make up for that, here’s Andy Malcolm with late night humor.
Meyers: Joe Biden says he can “do a good job as President.” And if that doesn’t work out, he wants to be an astronaut or a fireman.
Conan: After his State of the Union speech Obama talked with three YouTube celebrities. Right, the president met with a cat, a bear and a water-skiing squirrel.
Meyers: Here’s a new drinking game for Obama’s State of the Union address. Instead of watching the speech, drink.