A Coalition Government Is Formed in Iraq

Max Boot  "Painful as this government-formation process was, the good news is that Iraq hasn’t gone to pieces. There have been occasional, horrific terrorist acts, but overall violence has remained low. Economic development has continued, with the Wall Street Journal reporting today on how Basra has become an oil boomtown. Expect even greater oil riches to be tapped once the new government takes office and ensures some political stability."   Thank you, Mr. Bush



Pat Oliphant,Newsmax



Obama, a 'Strategic Catastrophe' / Israeli officials say it's not Iran that is Israel's greatest threat (Updated)

Israel Today  "President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have drawn a clear line, supporting the Palestinian position at the expense of Israel," said one Netanyahu confidant. "It is insane, it is sick. Relations between Jerusalem and Washington are simply disastrous; the situation has never been so dangerous. This US President wants to establish a Palestinian state at any price and hand them Jerusalem on a silver platter."

Andy McCarthy:   Obama Knocks Israel in a Budding Sharia State "Such a relationship [with Indonesia], Obama stressed, should be a natural for two nations “bound together by shared interests and shared values.”....
"It also turns out that this exemplary Islamic nation has about as much tolerance for Israel as the Palestinians do. Like Hamas and Fatah, Indonesia does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. To be sure, the national motto is “Unity in Diversity” — inducing Obama to compare it favorably with America’s E Pluribus Unum. But it ought to come with an asterisk: Israelis are not permitted to enter Indonesia, nor are Israeli aircraft permitted to fly in its airspace."

The Presidency and the Constitution

Mike Pence, U.S. Representative  "A president who slights the Constitution is like a rider who hates his horse: he will be thrown, and the nation along with him. The president solemnly swears to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. He does not solemnly swear to ignore, overlook, supplement, or reinterpret it. Other than in a crisis of existence, such as the Civil War, amendment should be the sole means of circumventing the Constitution. For if a president joins the powers of his office to his own willful interpretation, he steps away from a government of laws and toward a government of men." Imprimus

Health Care in a Free Society (Updated)

Imprimus, Feb. 2010  "Americans understand that the problems facing our health care system today, real as they are, can be addressed without nationalizing one-sixth of the American economy and moving us past the tipping point toward a European-style social welfare state. They know that we can solve these problems while at the same time remaining a free society and acting consistently with the principles that have made us the greatest and most prosperous nation on earth. It is our duty now as their representatives to come together and do so."  Paul Ryan, Member, U.S. House of Representatives

Did the Dems pass Obamacare for 8,000 people? "Mr. Obama declared at the time that "uninsured Americans who've been locked out of the insurance market because of a pre-existing condition will now be able to enroll in a new national insurance pool where they'll finally be able to purchase quality, affordable health care-some for the very first time in their lives."

"So far that statement accurately describes a single person in North Dakota."...  Rick Moran

WaPo op-ed urges Obama not to run in 2012

Rick Moran "Not only has he lost the "consent of the governed" as the authors point out in the article, but his ability to drag his party along with him ...would be extremely iffy due to the unpopularity of his policies. The people may give him high marks for his selflessness, but that doesn't mean they would support another stim bill, or a continuation of the Obama agenda.
"Nevertheless, a wall has been breached and the notion is out in the open. We'll see after the first of the year if there are any Democrats who will challenge the president in 2012 primaries."...  Weasel Zippers photo

Repealing Obamacare and Getting Health Care Right

Heritage Insider   "There are many policy options Congress should consider, after repeal of PPACA, to begin moving the system in the right direction and put the country on the right path toward market-based health care change that gives people better choices and allows them to take account of the price and value of health care. For example, Congress should:"...

• Provide individual tax relief for all persons purchasing private health insurance, regardless of where they work;
• Eliminate barriers to individuals purchasing health care coverage that best suits their personal needs across state lines;
• Allow employers to convert their health care compensation from a defined benefit package to a defined contribution system;
• Promote new group purchasing arrangements based on individual membership organizations and various associations, including union, fraternal, ethnic, and religiously based groups;
• Improve consumer-directed health options (such as health savings accounts, health reimbursement arrangements, and flexible spending accounts) that encourage greater transparency and consumer control over health care decisions;
• Extend rational pre-existing condition protections in the non-group health insurance markets for those with continuous creditable coverage, thus rewarding responsible persons who buy and maintain coverage;
• Set up a fair competitive bidding process to determine government payment in traditional Medicare fee-for-service and Medicare Advantage programs;
• Review Medicare rules and regulations and eliminate those that unduly burden doctors and patients, such as the restriction preventing doctors and patients to contract privately for medical services outside of the traditional Medicare program;
• Encourage the states to set up mechanisms such as high-risk pools and risk transfer models that help lessen the problems of individuals who are difficult to insure;
• Expand states’ ability to develop consumer-based reforms that enable states to customize solutions for their citizens;
• Strengthen premium assistance in Medicaid to enable young families to obtain private health insurance coverage;
• Improve patient-centered health care models for those on Medicaid;
• Make the ban on taxpayer-funded abortion permanent and government-wide and extend a similar permanent policy to ensure protection of the right of conscience among medical providers and personnel; and Stop new tax increases and promote tax cuts that would expand private insurance coverage and grow the economy.
• Increase federal and state efforts to combat fraud and abuse in Medicaid, including tightening eligibility loopholes in Medicaid for long-term-care services; Encourage personal savings and the development of a robust private insurance market for long-term-care needs;

The Obama Fabulists

Victor Davis Hanson   "The same flight of logic explains the Obamians’ weird post-election political triumphalism about the first two years of unpopular legislation promoted or passed by the administration. The takeover of healthcare, passage in the House of cap-and-trade, bailouts, expansions of entitlements, and huge deficits should — given their low poll ratings — have been something to hide rather than parade. Yet Obama and his loyalists point to these very accomplishments as proof that a now unpopular administration should be proud of its unpopular record."

Throw Carol Browner Under The Bus

Investors.com "It was Browner's office behind the hatchet job. After cutting, pasting and tweaking the drilling moratorium report, one of Browner's staff members sent a 2 a.m. e-mail back to the Interior Department on May 27 with edited versions that implied that the outside scientists endorsed the moratorium."

A question

American Thinker  "If the government can force photos of dead bodies onto a package of cigarettes so as to save lives, then, why couldn't a state mandate that pictures of aborted babies be put on the walls of all waiting rooms of abortion clinics? You know, to save lives."
Blondie blogs at So the Blond Says

Obama's Slave Ship (Updated)

Robin of Berkeley  "One must wonder: by Obama's choosing Trinity, a church where his own mother wouldn't have been welcome, was he trying to exorcise the evil white spirit in him? And by joining that church, did he finally leave his repugnant white side behind at Trinity's door?"
A frequent American Thinker contributor, Robin is a recovering liberal and a psychotherapist in Berkeley. 

Obama's international strikeout  "The president again casually confirmed his belief in the decline of America's "outsized" influence in world affairs, noting, "We are now seeing a situation where a whole host of other countries are doing well and coming into their own and naturally they're going to be more assertive." The president thinks this greater assertiveness is "a healthy thing" but did not elaborate for whom it was healthy - certainly not the United States. For some inexplicable reason, Mr. Obama welcomes the decline of America's role on the international stage. It is his most notable accomplishment."

The Trip About Nothing  "Unfortunately for the U.S., our friends and foes have gotten yet another close look at President Obama and cannot possibly have been impressed. They know the only thing that is unprecedented about him is his weakness.
"To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “An empty plane arrived in Asia and when the door was opened, Mr. Obama got out.”"

Why President Obama is right about India

"Which is why Obama's dramatic call for India to be elevated to permanent membership on the U.N. Security Council was so important. However useless and obsolete the United Nations, a Security Council seat carries totemic significance. It elevates India, while helping bind it to us as our most strategic and organic Third World ally. "

"China is no enemy, but it remains troublingly adversarial. Which is why India must be the center of our Asian diplomacy. And why Obama's trip - coconuts and all - was worth every penny. "

Scarborough: Top Dems in Senate Have All Told Me That “Obama Has No Idea What He’s Doing” (Video) "“I wish I could give their names because democrats in Washington have been horrified with this president’s handling of things for a year and a half now. Just look at the chart. The top democrats in the United States Senate have all told me he has no idea what he’s doing… That is what the top Democratic senators are saying”"

The Incredible Shrinking President  "Foreign leaders have taken the measure of Barack Obama, and found him a lightweight, a head of state whose proposals can be dismissed as substance-free fantasies, unworthy of serious consideration. American voters should take note of this, for nobody understands a national leader better than his or her peers. Foreign leaders are also immune to the blather of the American propaganda media.
"We have a serious problem when the leader of the free world carries no weight. America has two more dangerous years with this poseur, this dabbler of an ideologue at the helm."

George W. Bush Opens Up on Iran and Obama

Stephen F. Hayes "As president, he contemplated Iran policy by thinking about two clocks – one measured the time it would take for Iran to get nuclear weapons and the other kept track of the time it would take for internal change to take root in Iran. Bush writes that his plan was to accelerate the latter and retard the former."

George W Bush: I’m comfortable about my place in history  "He thinks that it is wrong to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (the self-described mastermind behind the September 11 terrorist attacks) on American soil, “where he’ll have all the rights of a common bank robber”, including access to the evidence — in this case extremely sensitive intelligence material — that led to his arrest.

"“He’d have had a perfectly fair trial in front of a military tribunal,” he says, “without national security being compromised.” "  UK Telegraph via Lucianne