HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA?

Glenn Reynolds writes at Instapundit:  

"It is symptomatic of the national condition of the United States that the worst humiliation ever suffered by it as a nation, and by a US president personally, passed almost without comment last week. I refer to the November 20 announcement at a summit meeting in Phnom Penh that 15 Asian nations, comprising half the world’s population, would form a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership excluding the United States.
"President Barack Obama attended the summit to sell a US-based Trans-Pacific Partnership excluding China. He didn’t. The American led-partnership became a party to which no-one came.
"Instead, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, plus China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, will form a club and leave out the United States.

I’m not sure Barack minds this diminution in U.S. power and prestige.

Asia Times; Post-US world born in Phnom Penh  
"It is hard to fathom just what President Obama had in mind when he arrived in Asia bearing a Trans-Pacific Partnership designed to keep China out. What does the United States have to offer Asians?

"It is borrowing $600 billion a year from the rest of the world to finance a $1.2 trillion government debt, most prominently from Japan (China has been a net seller of Treasury securities during the past year).
"It is a taker of capital rather than a provider of capital.
"It is a major import market but rapidly diminishing in relative importance as intra-Asian trade expands far more rapidly than trade with the United States.
"And America's strength as an innovator and incubator of entrepreneurs has diminished drastically since the 2008 crisis, no thanks to the Obama administration, which imposed a steep task on start-up businesses in the form of its healthcare program. "

Isn't this what Rev. Wright, Bill Ayres Bernie Sanders, Maxine Waters, et. al. wanted for the United States?  We deserve the kind of government we got. My regret is that those who voted for this leftist regime are generally too ill-informed to comprehend the damage taking place before their very eyes.

Lesson for Warren Buffett: British Millionaires’ Response to Tax Increases

Heritage  "As the fiscal cliff approaches, Congress and President Obama continue to debate tax increases, even though spending is the problem. Investor Warren Buffett recently opined that tax hikes on the wealthy would not curtail investments or hurt the economy. His logic, like President Obama’s, assumes that incentives don’t matter.
"Oh really? News that Great Britain saw its number of millionaires decline by two-thirds due to a steep top tax rate tells a different story.
"The year after former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown introduced a 50 percent top income tax rate, the number of people filing as millionaires dropped 63 percent, from 16,000 to 6,000. Tax revenue also declined by nearly £7 billion.
"No single reason explains the drop. Some millionaires probably earned less money due to the slow-growing European economy, or they may have simply worked less. Others may have shifted the timing of their income or moved it to less-taxed forms. Still others might have physically left the country.
"Here’s the bottom line: All these reasons are economically important and show that incentives matter."....

So what should be done, given the fiscal problems? Heritage offers these solution, if only Obama can get over his visceral dislike for business and the rich and his desire to wreak revenge on them: 6 Fixes to America’s Fiscal Crisis
"President Obama made his first offer to congressional Republicans yesterday in negotiations over the “fiscal cliff”—an economic catastrophe of tax hikes just a few weeks away.
"The White House’s proposal? $1.6 trillion in tax increases, $50 billion in new stimulus spending, and a change that would make it easier to raise the debt limit—so that all this spending could continue.
"Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) couldn’t contain his laughter at these suggestions.
"One congressional aide said the offer “amounts to little more than reiterating the President’s budget request—which failed to get a single vote in the House or Senate.” "
Read the list here:...

http://snunes.blogspot.com/2011_09_01_archive.html

Bill and the hoodie

Washington Times  "Two decades have passed since nightclub entertainer and blond bombshell Gennifer Flowers stepped before cameras and announced she had a 12-year affair with then-Gov. Bill Clinton, joining a roster of attractive women who reported similar dalliances, wanted and unwanted. Miss Flowers has stepped forward once again to reveal that in 2005, Mr. Clinton offered to come visit her once again.

"“I picked up the telephone, and it was him. I said, ‘No, you can’t come over here. No way.’ I said ‘No, you can’t come to my house.’ He said, ‘I’ll put on a hoodie and jog up there.’ He used to do that. I said ‘No. No. And I want you to leave me alone.’ And that was the end of it,” said Miss Flowers, now 62, as she sipped wine and laughed languidly through an interview with WGNO, an ABC affiliate in New Orleans."

Seattle Pilot

If this nation goes over the fiscal cliff, Obama will be sunning himself in Hawaii

Rick Moran  "The Hawaii Reporter says the 20 day trip will cost taxpayers $4 million.
"But that's a small price to pay for our Dear Leader's comfort."
Keith Koffler:

President Obama is reportedly scheduled to be vacationing in Hawaii on January 2, the date billions in spending cuts - and untold consequences for the economy - will kick in if a deal is not reached on the "fiscal cliff."

According to the Hawaii Reporter, residents who live in the area of Oahu where Obama and his family vacation have been told that the usual restrictions on their movements during an Obama stay will be in place for 21 days, from December 17 through January 6.

Stick with me on this: The Case for Palestinian Independence

This may be the last guy to put this idea forth with a straight face.
Jewish World Review  "Israel's case against a UN-sanctioned Palestinian independence isn't wrong. The initiative all but scuttles the Oslo peace process and, newly reinforced by a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Egypt, very likely scuttles Camp David as well. It is not a two-state, but a one-state solution the Palestinians have in their sights.

"Doubters need only listen to Palestinian Authority (PLO) President Mahmoud Abbas at the UN last fall: "They talk to us about the Jewish state, but I respond to them with a final answer: We shall not recognize a Jewish state."
"Responding to Abbas, senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (who rejects the UN process) doubled down: "[We] do not beg for a state. States are not built on UN resolutions. States liberate their land and establish their entities." "

President Corleone is watching, General

COMMUNIST PARTY USA CELEBRATES OBAMA WIN

WND  "Praises blacks, Hispanics, women for working together to defeat 'white people'"
An enormous people’s victory.”
"That’s how the political party of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels jubilantly celebrated the results of the 2012 presidential election in the United States, which will put Barack Obama in the White House for another four years."

http://iowntheworld.com/blog/

5 People FOX News Should Kick to the Curb

American Glob 
5. Alan Colmes

"I’ve heard that Alan and Sean Hannity are still good friends and I think that’s great. Even so, I don’t care what Alan Colmes thinks about national politics."

See who the rest are here. Of course, once you name Alan Colmes, you've named all you need as far as I'm concerned. I can't stand him on Fox News Watch. And I'm sure you remember this incident.

Never give up!

Tony Branco, CDN

Fried Rice; with many cooks chipping in

Hope n' Change  "With ...Susan Rice's "less than satisfactory" testimony yesterday about her clear attempts to mislead the American public on the terrorist murders in Benghazi (for purely political purposes), we present the following hard-to-swallow image..."

Obama Calls Rice ‘Extraordinary,’ as Another Republican Voices Concerns
...."After an hour-long meeting, Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said she remained deeply troubled that Ms. Rice did not seem to have a good answer for why the White House did not immediately classify the attack as an act of terrorism.
" “I continue to be troubled by the fact that the United Nations ambassador decided to play what was essentially a political role at the height of a contentious presidential election campaign,” Ms. Collins told a throng of reporters after the meeting concluded."

WH: Obama 'Is Not Particularly Concerned' Whether Susan Rice Misled the American People
"In response to a question from reporter Major Garrett on whether the Obama administration's mishandling of Benghazi raises "core questions of basic competency," press secretary Jay Carney revealed that Barack Obama "is not particularly concerned" about whether Susan Rice misled the American people:" Video at the link

Republican senators say Rice meeting just leaves more questions unanswered  “I am more disturbed now than before,” said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who met with Rice for about 90 minutes on Capitol Hill.
"Graham was joined at the meeting by acting CIA Director Michael Morell and Sens. Kelly Ayotte, of New Hampshire, and John McCain, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"“I’m significantly troubled by the answers we got and didn’t get,” said McCain, R-Ariz.

MAKE THE DEMOCRATS OWN THE OBAMA ECONOMY

Ann Coulter   "One bright spot of Barack Obama’s re-election was knowing that unemployment rates were about to soar for the precise groups that voted for him — young people, unskilled workers and single women with degrees in gender studies. But now the Democrats are sullying my silver lining by forcing Republicans to block an utterly pointless tax-raising scheme in order to blame the coming economic Armageddon on them.

"Democrats are proposing to reinstate the Bush tax cuts for everyone … except “the rich.” (Why do only tax cuts come with an expiration date? Why not tax increases? Why not Obamacare? How about New York City’s “temporary” rent control measures intended for veterans returning from World War II?)"

Oh, We Forgot to Tell You . . .

Victor Davis Hanson  "The second-term curse goes like this: A president (e.g., Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, etc.) wins re-election, but then his presidency implodes over the next four years — mired in scandals or disasters such as Watergate, Iran-Contra, Monica Lewinsky, the Iraqi insurgency and Hurricane Katrina."
...."Coincidentally, right after the election we heard that Iran had attacked a US drone in international waters.
"Coincidentally, we just learned that new food stamp numbers were "delayed" and that millions more became new recipients in the months before the election.
"Coincidentally, we now gather that the federal relief effort following Hurricane Sandy was not so smooth, even as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Barack Obama high-fived it. Instead, in Katrina-like fashion, tens of thousands are still without power or shelter two weeks after the storm.
"Coincidentally, we now learn that Obama's plan of letting tax rates increase for the "fat cat" 2 percent who make over $250,000 a year would not even add enough new revenue to cover 10 percent of the annual deficit. How he would get the other 90 percent in cuts, we are never told.
More "coincidentally's" at the link....."The resulting mix is toxic, and it may tax even the formidable Chicago-style survival skills of Obama and the fealty of a so far dutiful media."

usnews.com