Congratulations President Obama

[RanchHQ]

Remember back in November of last year, during the Presidential Election, there was that awful Video of some Dudes with baseball bats and clubs standing outside of a Polling Place in the Democratic Controlled Valhalla known as Philadelphia?

Some of the Career Employees, not Political Appointees, of the US Justice Department were ready to bring charges against same Dudes (Dudes are Members of The New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense).

This Article says that some Political Appointee Lawyers, higher up in the Justice Department Food Chain, gave instructions to the Career Lawyers to forget the whole deal, they would handle it.

So, Charges dropped against Two of the Members of The New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and the Third Member can't be taking night-sticks or clubs to Polling Places any more.

I am sure the Voters of Philadelphia will sleep better now.


EXCLUSIVE: Career lawyers overruled on voting case

Black Panthers had wielded weapons, blocked polls

By Jerry Seper (Contact) | Friday, May 29, 2009
Justice Department political appointees overruled career lawyers and ended a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense of wielding a nightstick and intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place last Election Day, according to documents and interviews.



The incident - which gained national attention when it was captured on videotape and distributed on YouTube - had prompted the government to sue the men, saying they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring would-be voters with the weapon, racial slurs and military-style uniforms.

Career lawyers pursued the case for months, including obtaining an affidavit from a prominent 1960s civil rights activist who witnessed the confrontation and described it as "the most blatant form of voter intimidation" that he had seen, even during the voting rights crisis in Mississippi a half-century ago.

YouTube - "Security" patrols stationed at polling places in Philly

The lawyers also had ascertained that one of the three men had gained access to the polling place by securing a credential as a Democratic poll watcher, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Washington Times.

The career Justice lawyers were on the verge of securing sanctions against the men earlier this month when their superiors ordered them to reverse course, according to interviews and documents. The court had already entered a default judgment against the men on April 20.

A Justice Department spokesman on Thursday confirmed that the agency had dropped the case, dismissing two of the men from the lawsuit with no penalty and winning an order against the third man that simply prohibits him from bringing a weapon to a polling place in future elections.

The department was "successful in obtaining an injunction that prohibits the defendant who brandished a weapon outside a Philadelphia polling place from doing so again," spokesman Alejandro Miyar said. "Claims were dismissed against the other defendants based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law."

Mr. Miyar declined to elaborate about any internal dispute between career and political officials, saying only that the department is "committed to the vigorous prosecution of those who intimidate, threaten or coerce anyone exercising his or her sacred right to vote."

Entire Story: EXCLUSIVE: Career lawyers overruled on voting case - Washington Times

[RanchHQ]

More on the Story above:

Oops.

[RanchHQ]

That Lama Lover Bush awarded this dewd The Congressional Gold Medal. He probably pawned it.

Finally we have stopped bowing down to this barefoot lunatic and are treating our Friends in China with the respect they deserve:



For the First Time Since 1991-- Obama Snubs Dalai Lama in Favor of Communist Chinese


CHANGE!
The Tibetans become the latest persecuted group to be rejected by President Obama.


This file photo from 2007 shows the Dalai Lama greeting supporters in front of the Capitol in Washington, DC. The Dalai Lama was sweeping into Washington for a week-long visit that will see him confer with US lawmakers and reach out to ethnic Chinese, but not meet with President Barack Obama. (AFP/Mandel Ngan)

For the first time since 1991, Barack Obama snubbed the Dalai Lama today due to pressure from the communist Chinese government.
Obama will not meet with the Dalai Lama this week in Washington DC.
The Indian Express reporeted:

In an attempt to gain favour with China, for the first time since 1991 the US President will not meet Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama when he visits Washington this week.

President Barack Obama who is scheduled to undertake his first visit to China next month has apparently decided not to meet the Dalai Lama son as not to annoy Beijing.

"The US pressured Tibetan representatives to postpone a meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Obama until after Obama's summit with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, scheduled for next month," Washington Post reported.

The Dalai Lama has met every sitting US president since George Bush senior in 1991. China accuses the Dalai Lama of being a ‘splittist’ aiming to separate Tibet from it.

The last time Dalai Lama was here, in 2007, however, George W Bush became the first sitting President to meet with him publicly, at a ceremony at the Capitol in which he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress's highest civilian award.

Let's see...
Iranians, Hondurans, Poles, Czechs, Colombians and now the Tibetans are the latest group to be rejected by President Obama.
How's that for hope and change?

LINK: Gateway Pundit

[RanchHQ]

Africa Bishops Speak of Obama in Religious Terms

"And the archbishop of Kinshasa, Congo, Monsignor Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, told the formal synod itself that it would be wise to not ignore what he called a "primordial event" in recent times."

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 11:10 AM

African bishops attending a Vatican meeting are speaking about the election of Barack Obama in divine terms -- putting them very much at odds with many of their U.S. counterparts.


Archbishop Gabriel Charles Palmer-Buckle of Accra, Ghana said Wednesday that there was "a divine plan behind" Obama's election.


"It's like the biblical story repeating itself," he told reporters, citing the Old Testament figure Joseph, who after being sold into slavery in Egypt ends up becoming a top official.

"We believe God has his own plans. God directs history," he said of the U.S. election. "We pray that it (Obama's presidency) brings blessings for Africa and the whole world."


He acknowledged that Obama has earned the wrath of many conservative American bishops because of his support for abortion rights. Earlier this year, dozens of U.S. bishops denounced the leading U.S. Catholic university, Notre Dame, for giving Obama an honorary degree.


"We are definitely aware of it," Palmer-Buckle said. "But we feel it our duty to meet him and find out what are the things that unite us more than divide us."


Earlier this week, the Ghanian prelate leading the three-week meeting on the Church in Africa, Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson of Cape Coast, Ghana, cited Obama's election in saying he didn't see any reason why there couldn't now be a black pope.


And the archbishop of Kinshasa, Congo, Monsignor Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, told the formal synod itself that it would be wise to not ignore what he called a "primordial event" in recent times.


"If the election of a black as head of the United States of America was a divine sign and a sign from the Holy Spirit for the reconciliation of races and ethnic groups for peaceful relations ... this synod and the universal church would gain from not ignoring this primordial event of contemporary history which is far from being a banal game of political alliances," he said in his speech.


Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria gave more tangible reasons for praise in meeting with reporters.


"Obama has the authority to talk straight to our bad leaders and tell them they are messing up our countries," he said. Besides, he added, "In Africa we are always happy when our brother is big."

LINK: Africa Bishops Speak of Obama in Religious Terms

[RanchHQ]

Now We Know Why He Passed on the Dalai Lama

Victor Davis Hanson

I am not a big fan of saying that officials should resign for stupid remarks. But interim White House communications director Anita Dunn's praise of Mao Zedong as a "political philosopher" is so unhinged and morally repugnant, that she should hang it up, pronto.

Mao killed anywhere from 50 million to 70 million innocents in the initial cleansing of Nationalists, the scouring of the countryside, the failed Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, Tibet, and the internal Chinese gulag. Dunn's praise of a genocidal monster was no inadvertent slip: She was reading from a written text and went into great detail to give the full context of the remark. Moreover, her comments were not some student outburst from 30 years ago; they were delivered on June 5, 2009. Her praise of Mao's insight and courage in defeating the Nationalists was offered long after the full extent of Mao's mass-murdering had been well documented. Mao killed more people than any other single mass killer in the history of civilization.

So where do all these people, so intimate with our president (Dunn is the wife of his personal lawyer), come from? A right-wing attack machine could not make up such statements as those tossed off by a Dunn or a Van Jones. There seems to be neither a moral compass nor even a casual knowledge of history in this administration. And now we have the avatars of the "new politics" claiming it's okay to praise Mao's political and philosophical insight and his supposed determination ("You fight your war, and I'll fight mine") because Lee Atwater supposedly once evoked Mao too.

Ms. Dunn should simply duck out of her D.C. suburb and ask any Tibetan or Chinese immigrant in his 70s and 80s what life was really like in Mao's China.

[RanchHQ]

"It is time to worry when “Saturday Night Live” makes fun of the president for achieving so little."

The Obama presidency: Where I dissent


By Brent Budowsky - 10/13/09 05:04 PM ET

Recently The Jerusalem Post ran a brilliant and troubling piece by Amir Mizroch titled “Why everyone is saying no to Obama.”


Last Friday the president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing. Don’t blame the president. He did not ask for it, and had the grace to say he did not deserve it.

The Nobel Prize gets to the heart of the matter of the Obama presidency. The prize was not awarded to President Obama, but to the idea of Obama.


Voters may vote for an idea. Prizes may be awarded for an idea. But war and peace, prosperity and joblessness, legislation and treaties, illness and health, are not decided by the idea of the candidate but the actions of the president who is elected.


What made Roosevelt Roosevelt, Kennedy Kennedy and Reagan Reagan was that the idea of their persona during the campaign was followed by their actions during their presidencies.

This has not happened yet with Barack Obama. The difference between the idea and the actions, the persona and the program, the words and the deeds will ultimately define the success or failure of the Obama presidency.


The Jerusalem Post piece was troubling because it is true. There is a pattern that others repeatedly say no to the president. Passing weak legislation and calling it a “W” does not change the pattern of his presidency or satisfy the powerful yearning for change that is not realized by promises, public relations or the cult of personality.

Virtually every player in the Middle East has said no to the president. Banks and Wall Street say no to the president. The Europe that said yes to the Nobel Prize says no to giving more support for Afghanistan. The president even snubbed the Dalai Lama in anticipation the Chinese would say no. The list is long of those who say no and short of those who say yes.


It is time to worry when “Saturday Night Live” makes fun of the president for achieving so little. It is time for alarm when so many power players believe this president can be rolled. Even a Senate where Democrats have 60 votes shows an almost daily disrespect for the president.


The reason so many power centers, at home and internationally, say no to the president is that they do not know his bottom line. They believe he may shift with the winds. They know he accepts a tiny loaf while claiming a big victory. They believe he can be rolled.

Compare the way Johnson fought for Medicare with the way Obama equivocates on the public option. Compare Roosevelt’s 100 days with the lack of financial reform under Obama. Compare Reagan pushing through huge economic policies early in his term with Obama delivering little more than a stimulus written by others.

The president has described himself as a Rorschach in which others with divergent views project their views onto him. This is brilliant politics in a campaign but a disastrous approach to governing. Opponents become energized, supporters become depressed, power centers become disrespectful, and the president who tries to be many things to many people influences very few to do anything of substance for change.

This president who is widely liked is feared by none. The centrifugal forces from inside Washington to combat theaters abroad revert to form in a divided nation and troubled world. Nothing of historical importance gets done.

The history of successful presidents is clear: They fight for major change. They battle complacency and resistance. They risk losing tactical battles for greater victories. They challenge and inspire supporters to fight great battles for great deeds and inspire fear in opponents who resist.


Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan waged hard battles for great change. They imposed their will on the centers of power and at times told their parties in Congress, as Obama has not: Your president needs you.

Rorschach presidents do not change anything. I pray the president will learn the lessons of history and his own experience, but when he does not, I must dissent.

Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen and Bill Alexander, then chief deputy majority whip of the House. He holds an LL.M. degree in international financial law from the London School of Economics. He can be read on The Hill’s Pundits Blog and reached at brentbbi@webtv.net This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

[RanchHQ]

Oops!

"Obama’s 9-point slide between quarters ranks as one of the steepest for a president at any point in his first year in office."

Gallup: First-year quarterly drop in Obama’s approval rating one of the biggest in decades

posted at 9:47 pm on October 21, 2009 by Allahpundit


Not much Hope but a whole lot of Change. ObamaCare plus stagnant unemployment plus dithering on Afghanistan makes for a magical brew indeed, my friends.

In fact, the 9-point drop in the most recent quarter is the largest Gallup has ever measured for an elected president between the second and third quarters of his term, dating back to 1953. One president who was not elected to his first term — Harry Truman — had a 13-point drop between his second and third quarters in office in 1945 and 1946…
More generally, Obama’s 9-point slide between quarters ranks as one of the steepest for a president at any point in his first year in office. The highest is Truman’s 19-point drop between his third and fourth quarters, followed by a 15-point drop for Gerald Ford between his first and second quarters. The largest for an elected president in his first year is Bill Clinton’s 11-point slide between his first and second quarters.

When you think about the last three months and how far his support on major issues has deteriorated, it’s almost miraculous that he’s above 50 percent. The public must simply adore him on a personal level. What has he done for anyone lately? He got a health-care bill that’ll end up being completely rewritten through the Finance Committee and he got Iran to kinda sorta maybe agree to a nuclear deal that’s really just a bunch of hype annnnd … anything else? Winning the Nobel counts as something, I guess, even though a heavy majority thinks he didn’t deserve it. Oh — he chaired that meeting at the UN about ridding the world of nuclear weapons. So there you go. You’re welcome.

Actually, here’s some good news: North Dakota’s showing a net gain of 1,800 jobs since the stimulus was passed in February. Follow the link for the bad news.

LINK: Hot Air Blog Archive Gallup: First-year quarterly drop in Obama’s approval rating one of the biggest in decades

[RanchHQ]

Congratulations President Obama!

Change… Obama Now More Loathed Than Bush at End of His Second Term
Tuesday, December 22, 2009, 6:59 PM
Jim Hoft


A Good Solid B+




Barack Obama’s approval index number dropped to a new low today.
Rasmussen reported:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 25% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-six percent (46%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21 That’s the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President (see trends).

At the end of his second term President George W. Bush had a 43% disapproval rating.

In less than one year Barack Obama managed to pi$$ off more people than George W. Bush.

Nice work, Barack.

We know. It must be Bush’s fault.

SOURCE: Barack Obama’s approval index number dropped to a new low today.

[Maximus]

The numbers are at al time lows for Obama. When W was President, we heard all about it. Does anyone still say the press is fair?

[RanchHQ]

FROM: Americans Give Obama a Mixed Report Card for His First Year - Capital Journal - WSJ

"But the bad news for President Obama is considerable."

January 13, 2010, 7:00 AM ET
Americans Give Obama a Mixed Report Card for His First Year

By Peter Brown



Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, is a former White House correspondent with two decades of experience covering Washington government and politics. Click here for Mr. Brown’s full bio.

A year into his presidency, Barack Obama gets a decidedly mixed report card from the American people. His ratings are trending lower and for the first time as many Americans rate his job performance negatively as positively.

To be sure, they like him personally more than they like his policies. But Americans are split nearly evenly on whether they and the country would be better off if Sen. John McCain had won the election in 2008, and whether President Obama’s first year in office was a success or a failure.

At this point, Mr. Obama’s coalition greatly resembles the one that supports Democrats through thick and thin: strong support from white women, racial minorities, self-described liberals and young people. It’s not the broad base for the post-partisan presidency that Mr. Obama suggested he would deliver during his campaign for the White House.

Missing from his coalition today are many of the independents, white men and political moderates who backed him solidly in 2008, thinking he was not a knee-jerk liberal as Republicans painted him.

Many millions of those “swing voters” who backed him are now dissatisfied with his performance. Support from those voters made Mr. Obama a solid winner, unlike Al Gore and John Kerry who narrowly lost in 2000 and 2004.

Worth considering: his 45% job approval is eight percentage points below the 53% he received in the election.

Comparison With Bush

For the most part, Mr. Obama benefits from the comparison with his predecessor, President George W. Bush. By almost three-to-one, voters still blame Mr. Bush for the lousy economy rather than Mr. Obama. Even then, voters are quite negative about what Mr. Obama has done on the economy, and they think Mr. Bush made them safer than Mr. Obama has.
The American people see Mr. Obama’s biggest problem as a failure to deliver on his two major campaign promises: fixing the economy and overhauling the health care system to their liking.

They also say he comes up short in translating his campaign promise of general change into actual government action. More Americans now say he doesn’t share their views on their major issues than those who think he does.

These findings are the guts of a new Quinnipiac University poll released today that asks the public to evaluate their president after a year, well, 51 weeks, in office. You can read the full poll results here.

The good news for Mr. Obama is that Americans still like and admire him –56% think he is honest and trustworthy; 66% say he is a strong leader.

This is neither surprising nor inconsistent with his much lower overall ratings. History teaches that when presidents see support for their programs and policies slide, their personal popularity generally holds up longer.

Bad News on Economy and Heath Care

But the bad news for President Obama is considerable.

His job approval rating – now 45% approve, 45% disapprove — continues the slide that began last summer and puts him at the lowest point of his presidency, albeit far above the spot Mr. Bush occupied as he left office a year ago.

They key seems to be the economy and health care. He gets thumbs up on the economy from 41% of voters, thumbs down from 54%, and a 35%-58% rating on his handling health care.

Problematic for Mr. Obama is that the 10% unemployment rate is unlikely to drastically improve for some time, according to most economists, and the health care bill he is likely to sign is extremely unpopular, with only about a third of voters favoring the version now in its final stages of congressional approval.

Depending on one’s expectations of the nation’s 44th president, one might fairly categorize the American peoples’ grade for Mr. Obama as clearly passing, but not the kind of report card that most mothers would display on the refrigerator door.