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Thomas Sowell on the president’s speech.

… When it comes to matters of life and death, that is no time for the kind of glib, politically correct rhetoric that Barack Obama specializes in.

Obama may think of himself as a citizen of the world, but he was elected President of the United States, not head of a world government, and that does not authorize him to gamble the lives of Americans for the benefit of people in other countries. …

… Like so much that President Obama says, his talk of “stronger screening” of people coming into the United States is sheer fantasy, when even his own intelligence officials and law enforcement officials say that we have no adequate data on which to base a meaningful screening of Syrian refugees.

When Obama spoke of the danger of our being “drawn once more into a long and costly ground war in Iraq or Syria,” that was yet another fantasy, that wars are optional.

When terrorists are at war with us, we cannot simply declare that war to be over, whenever it is politically convenient, as Obama did when he withdrew American troops from Iraq, against the advice of his own generals. That is what led to the rise of ISIS. …

Streetwise Professor posts on the San Bernadino aftermath.

… Although Obama has seen fit to lecture us in the aftermath of Charleston, Sandy Hook, Ferguson, and even Louis Gates, for Christ’s sake, his statements in the aftermath of San Bernardino were limited primarily to his weekly radio address, recorded before he went to party down at the White House holiday party, with, among others, BLM (Black Lives Matter) luminary Deray McKesson. Priorities, you know.

One of the obvious early tells of the Islamist nature of the attack was that mere hours after Farook had been identified, his family members were participating in a press conference with Muslim Brotherhood front organization CAIR. Another tell came yesterday, when the Farook family’s scumbag lawyers gave a press conference that can be summarized as: “Who is the real victim here?” Hint: Farook, Malik and Muslims generally. After all, somebody teased Farook about his beard, and that might have set him off.

The administration picked up the victimhood narrative, with Attorney General Lynch saying that  her “greatest fear” is the “incredibly disturbing rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric” and promising to prosecute speech that “edges towards violence” (whatever the hell that means). So, along with trashing the Second Amendment, the administration has its sights set on the First. No doubt the 5th can be jettisoned too, if guns or politically incorrect speech are involved.

No doubt the administration’s denial of reality and its attempt to suppress speech has many causes. For one, San Bernardino totally contradicts the administration’s narrative on terrorism. …

Andrew Malcolm on the speech.

News Flash for Barack Obama: Americans are not afraid of terrorism. We’re afraid of you.

Your chronic diffidence, dismissal and downplaying terrorism — especially from radical jihadi extremists, in both word and deed — is scaring the hell out of your countrymen.

Get over it! It’s not cool. Nor is it presidentially-composed to disregard the palpable fear that permeates America today. Even if we’re all so ignorant, naive and unworldly as to elect you twice.

Leading from behind does not work as United States commander-in-chief.

Sunday night was only Obama’s third Oval Office address. (Scroll down for the C-SPAN video.) The first was also overdue, about the Gulf oil spill. The second was a victory lap about withdrawing all U.S. troops from Iraq, which created the inviting power vacuum for the current ISIS problem.

It’s one measure of the detached president’s willful public cluelessness about terrorism that the big news from Sunday evening’s 1,970 words was his admission that last week’s San Bernardino attack killing 14 was terrorism. Is there any sentient American who hadn’t figured that out? The clues were as abundant as empty shell casings. And a garage pipe-bomb factory did not speak of global warming. …

The blog Pre-Occupied Territory thinks ISIS has found a way to get the president’s attention – they have renamed themselves “Global Warming.” 

… After years of attempting to directly engage with what it calls the Great Satan in a fateful, apocalyptic showdown, the Islamic State intends to rectify its failure to date to provoke the US into all-out warfare by renaming itself Global Warming in order to convince US President Barack Obama that it must be confronted seriously. …

Nile Gardiner in Cap X says our leader is weak and delusional.

Barack Obama’s primetime address from the Oval Office last night will do nothing to reassure the American people in the wake of the biggest terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11. After 14 Californians were slaughtered by Islamist radicals in San Bernardino last week, President Obama offered nothing in the way of a new strategy for defeating the mounting threat posed to the US homeland and to the West by Islamist terrorism. His speech was defiant, defensive and delusional, at a time when the free world badly needs leadership from the world’s superpower, and as the Islamic State continues to expand its presence across the globe.

There was no overarching vision offered by President Obama for defeating the ISIS menace, both at home and abroad. The tone from the White House was dismissive of criticism and hugely complacent. This was not a Churchillian call for the free world to stand up to the forces of evil, but more of a whimper from a president who prefers to lead from behind rather than project strength and resolve in the face of our enemies. …

Turning our attention to Chicago, Ron Fournier says it’s time for the Hillary and the president to send a dead fish to Rahm. 

Pres­id­ent Obama needs to mail Rahm Emanuel a dead fish in a box. Hil­lary Clin­ton should de­liv­er it. For the in­teg­rity of the party that rep­res­ents a vast ma­jor­ity of black voters, Demo­crat­ic lead­ers every­where need to send the Chica­go may­or a mes­sage: You’re dead to us.

A long­time lieu­ten­ant for the Clin­ton fam­ily and former chief of staff in the Obama White House, Emanuel nev­er hes­it­ated to muscle weak or dis­loy­al Demo­crats out of power. It’s time to flip the script on the en­for­cer nick­named “Rahmbo.”

Emanuel once sent a poll­ster who was late de­liv­er­ing a sur­vey res­ult a dead fish in a box. The night Bill Clin­ton won the 1992 pres­id­en­tial elec­tion, his aides were cel­eb­rat­ing around a pic­nic table when Emanuel picked up a knife and shouted the names of politi­cians who had “f****ed us.” After each name, Emanuel de­clared, “Dead man!”

I’ve got noth­ing against Emanuel. I’ve known him since 1992 and be­nefited from his stra­tegic leaks in the Clin­ton White House. And I know this: Emanuel epi­tom­izes a brand of polit­ics that puts loy­alty and elect­or­al suc­cess above all else. He was edu­cated in the school of Clin­ton, where the ends jus­ti­fy the means, and ruled the Obama White House when it ca­pit­u­lated to the cul­ture of Wash­ing­ton that his boss had vowed to fight.

And then off he went to Chica­go, a his­tor­ic­ally cor­rupt city with a po­lice de­part­ment known for hid­ing mis­con­duct and bru­tal­ity.

On Oct. 20, 2014, po­lice of­ficer Jason Van Dyke fired 16 times at 17-year-old Laquan Mc­Don­ald, killing him. The next day, a po­lice de­part­ment state­ment claimed the teen­ager was shot while ap­proach­ing po­lice of­ficers. That was a lie. …

Late Night from Andy Malcolm.

Meyers: A self-driving Google car was pulled over. The company touted the cars as having the human equivalent of 90 years behind the wheel. Which also explains why the left blinker was on for 17 miles.

Meyers: A pair of zebras escaped from a circus in downtown Philadelphia. They were chased down and captured almost immediately by Eagles fans who mistook them for referees.