Happy, like, y'know, New Year from this vindictive president

Nearing exit, Obama seeks to tie Trump's hands  "President Obama has taken a number of unilateral actions in the waning days of his tenure that appear designed to box in President-elect Donald Trump.

"Obama's decision Thursday to sanction Russian entities for election-related hacking is just the latest obstacle he has placed in Trump's way.

"Days before the sanctions were unveiled, the Obama administration allowed the U.N. Security Council to condemn Israeli settlement activity — something that could have an indelible impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Obama has also permanently banned oil and gas drilling across large swaths of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, closed off 1.6 million acres of Western land to development and scrapped the last vestiges of a registration system used largely on Muslim immigrants.

"Those actions, as well as Obama’s claim that he could have won a third term, seem to have irked Trump and his associates as the transition period enters its final weeks. " . . .

Does Al Sharpton owe $4 million in delinquent taxes? Bye-bye passport.

Snopes

UNDETERMINED: The amount of unpaid back taxes that Sharpton currently owes is in excess of $4 million. TRUE: Al Sharpton accrued a significant   amount of delinquent federal and state taxes. Uh Oh, Al Sharpton Can’t Leave the Country "If you owe the IRS more than $50,000, your passport might be worthless. Congress is about to pass a law that will deny or revoke passports for all those delinquent taxpayers in arrears for more than $50,000, according to Wall Street Journal. The first person that comes to the mind of most of us is AL SHARPTON. He won’t pay his taxes. "The bill will take effect in January and is part of the new highway bill. The Congress hopes to collect $358 million in delinquent taxes over the next ten years. They should start with Al Sharpton who owes somewhere in the neighborhood of $4.5 million in state and federal taxes according to an investigation by The New York Times. "It’s not just Sharpton." . . .

Obama, the man and the President, has been judged and found wanting

"If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period."

“I didn’t set a red line. The world set a red line.”

Dershowitz said Obama . . . told him that he “will always have Israel’s back.”

Obama’s final, most shameful, legacy moment

 . . ."People don’t quite understand the damage done to Israel by the U.S. abstention that permitted passage of a Security Council resolution condemning Israel over settlements. The administration pretends this is nothing but a restatement of long-standing U.S. opposition to settlements."

 "Nonsense. For the last 35 years, every administration, including a re-election-seeking Obama himself in 2011, has protected Israel with the U.S. veto because such a Security Council resolution gives immense legal ammunition to every boycotter, anti-Semite and zealous European prosecutor to penalize and punish Israelis.

An ordinary Israeli who lives or works in the Old City of Jerusalem becomes an international pariah, a "potential outlaw. To say nothing of the soldiers of Israel’s citizen army. “Every pilot and every officer and every soldier,” said a confidant of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, “we are waiting for him at The Hague,” i.e., the International Criminal Court.

"Moreover, the resolution undermines the very foundation of a half-century of American Middle East policy. What becomes of “land for peace” if the territories Israel was to have traded for peace are, in advance, declared to be Palestinian land to which Israel has no claim?

Leah Barkoukis, writing at Townhall agrees with Dr. Krauthammer

Anger accumulating toward the UN

Emboldened By Secretary Kerry’s Remarks, PA Leader Willing To Resume Talks On His Terms  . . . "Contradicting Kerry is PA Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, who rejects the statements made by Kerry that the PA is prepared to recognize Israel as a Jewish State. He has no such plans. So much for the Obama administration’s final “comprehensive vision”. "

Leave the UN  "The United Nations is a grand failure that has never worked and will never work.  The idea of the U.N. was invented during the Second World War, when the term "United Nations" actually meant the wartime alliance of certain nations against other nations.

. . . 

"This new organization should not feign real authority to act through sanctions or war, but it should rather be a public forum for the leaders of these free nations to state to the world their intentions and to reach a general understanding on issues that affect the world. 

"What of the United Nations?  America should give it no money, give it no offices in New York, pay it no heed, and leave it where it belongs – in the dustbin of history."

TX Rep. Louie Gohmert Is Drafting A Bill To Defund The UN

. . . "Israel, as the only true democracy in the Middle East, is very open to allowing Arabic people to have a say in their government. In fact, they are well represented within the Israeli government, and non-government areas of Israeli society, alike.

"The Palestinians, on the other hand, would deny the very existence of Israel or the Jewish people, which is what makes the resolution passed last week by the U.N. so reprehensible."  . . .

Kerry, Obama, and their legacy's effects; praised by their useful idiots and Arabs

Hamas Couldn’t Be Happier Obama Let UN Pass Anti-Israel Resolution  . . . "Hamas issued a statement supporting the resolution Saturday, one day after its passage. The Obama administration abstained from voting on the measure, allowing it to pass. The move infuriated Israeli officials who saw it as an abandonment of the historical U.S. policy of vetoing such resolutions.

“ 'We value the position of states that voted in favor of the resolution and welcome this significant transformation in international positions that support the Palestinian people’s rights,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum in a press release." . . .

Hat tip to Sandy Vincent

John Kerry’s Fitting Ending  "Trashing Israel on the way out the door is the perfect capstone to an ignoble career. 

"John Kerry ends his long career in politics the same way he began it: disgracefully.

"Kerry debuted on the national stage in 1971 by telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the American public that U.S. servicemen in Vietnam “raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, [blew] up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan.” 

"It was a stunningly thinly sourced, hotly disputed, and broad accusation, echoing the propaganda of America’s enemies around the world. Perhaps only in the Democratic party of the 1970s could this be the perfect audition for a political career. He would speak for many on the hard left on the day when he declared, “There is no threat." . . .

Obama and Israel: Why Are People Surprised? Several similar opinions

So graceless and sophomoric are Obama and John Kerry, so viciously biased against Israel and Netanyahu, that they planned and plotted how to best humiliate the Jewish State in their last few weeks in office.

 

Jerrold L. Sobel . . . "In answer to the question, there was no outrage. Except for false platitudes, by word and deed Obama has never hidden his bitterness toward Israel. Except to the willfully blind, the record clearly indicates rather than acting as an impartial arbiter, his actions have encouraged Palestinian intransigence and in effect extirpated any chance for a peace deal. Taken in this context, last week’s veto abstention and today’s accusation of complicity should be no surprise to anyone."

Obama at the UN: The mouse that roared  "Obama has been perceived for the better part of the past eight years by many of the world's leadership as a spineless and weak leader, never feeling comfortable or really knowing how to implement the art of statesmanship.  Obama caved in to Putin, the leader of Russia, and caved in to Assad, the embattled leader of Syria.  China, Iran, North Korea, and Libya have all exhibited nothing but contempt for Obama, who always backed down, stood down, and generally did nothing more than wag his presidential tail.

"And then there was Israel." . . .

Obama and Kerry: Poster boys for moral relativism  "So graceless and sophomoric are Obama and John Kerry, so viciously biased against Israel and Netanyahu, that they planned and plotted how to best humiliate the Jewish State in their last few weeks in office."

Behind the scenes of the American betrayal of Israel  "In 1979, then-U.N. ambassador Andrew Young was fired by President Carter for meeting on the sideliness of the U.N. with a representative of the PLO.  The U.S. had promised Israel that it would not meet with the PLO until the terrorists acknowledged Israel's right to exist." . . .

Carter was well-meaning but inept; Obama is petulant and vindictive.

Obama's UN Resolution 2334 advances the boycott of Israel

While purporting to oppose the boycott of Israel, Obama has given the worldwide boycott of Israel a major advancement, and has helped move the UNHRC obsession with destroying Israel closer to reality.

Legal Insurrection

"In all the fury over the anti-Israel UN Resolution 2334 the Obama administration marshalled through the Security Council, with an “abstain” vote providing cover for the perfidy, few people have focused on a particularly pernicious and dangerous provision.

"I’m not talking about the provisions effectively declaring it illegal for Jews to live in Jewish Quarter of the Old City or to worship at the Western Wall.

"Here is the provision I’m talking about in Resolution 2334 (pdf.):

5. Calls upon all States, bearing in mind paragraph 1 of this resolution, to
distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and
the territories occupied since 1967;

"Why is that significant?

"Most of you don’t realize that the UN Human Rights Council, known for its obsession with attacking Israel, voted in March 2016 to create a blacklist of companies that do business, directly or indirectly, with any Israeli or Israeli business located over the 1949 armistice line. The resolution passed with 32 votes in favour and 15 abstentions." .
. . . 
"It’s now up to incoming President Trump and Congress to undo the boycott damage done by Resolution 2334, including by passing and signing into law sweeping anti-boycott legislation, just as Congress did in the 1970s in response to the Arab League boycott. That legislation must address not only companies that support the boycott, but also countries and UN agencies."

Obama Administration Denies ‘Leaked Transcripts’ Claim It Helped Palestinians Orchestrate Anti-Israel UN Resolution

Deborah Danan

. . . "Egyptian paper Al-Youm Al-Sabaa published what it said were transcripts of alleged meetings earlier this month between Kerry and National Security Adviser Susan Rice on the one hand, and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and head of Palestinian intelligence Majaad Faraj on the other. In the transcript, Kerry is quoted as promising that the U.S. will “cooperate” with the Palestinians.

“ 'We are ready to cooperate with you at the Security Council [to ensure] a balanced resolution. We have instructed our representative to the UN, Samantha Power, to maintain contact with the Palestinian representative Riyad Mansour,” Kerry told Palestinian officials according to a translation from the Arabic by Hebrew-language outlet nrg.

"The alleged transcripts purport to reveal the Obama administration’s attitude towards Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with Kerry and Rice quoting as saying that Netanyahu wants to “destroy the two-state solution. Erekat predicted this four years ago and he was correct. Except for minor changes, Netanyahu wants to keep the status quo.' ” . . .

Deborah is a freelance journalist based out of Jaffa, Israel. After moving to Israel from London in 2002, she received her undergraduate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a master’s from Bar Ilan University. She was the founding editor of The Jerusalem Post’s Premium Zone and editor of its Oped page. Her work as an investigative journalist has taken her across the Mideast, from Ramallah to Jerusalem to Cairo to Amman.

Remember the Christian bakers? Liberal dancers who scoff at others’ beliefs, suddenly find their conscience

Can those Christian bakers get their money and their businesses back now?

Washington Times

"A funny thing happened on the way to the Donald Trump inauguration — liberals suddenly became champions of people being allowed to decline participating in something if it violated their conscience. 

"Surprising, indeed, after years of Christian bakers and pizza parlors being targeted for destruction by the gay left for refusing to participate in something because it opposed their conscience and faith.

"Then came the Radio City Rockettes, the world-famous dancers who with one swift move, seem to have illuminated the hypocrisy of some liberals, albeit rather unintentionally.

"It had been announced the Radio City Rockettes, you see, would be performing at the Donald Trump Inaugural. One Rockette vented her distress on Instagram, writing that she was “embarrassed and disappointed,” and that Mr. Trump “stands for everything we’re against.”

"This is the conundrum liberals have created by setting a standard that says Christians should not allowed to decline work due to their values but a liberal dancer should be. The question for liberals now is: Do we want Americans to accept the notion that some people are more equal than others, and deserve more protection and support than those who refuse to conform?

 "What about the Little Sisters of the Poor nuns, who were being forced by the Obama administration to violate their conscience via Obamacare until the U.S. Supreme Court saved them from that unconstitutional fate?

Pontius Obama

Power Line Blog  "Barack Obama is taking abuse from many quarters for his betrayal of Israel in the United Nations, all of it deserved. Michael Ramirez joins in, depicting Obama as Pontius Pilate. "

"Never to be explained, I suppose, is why, if Obama thought the anti-Israel resolution was justified, he didn’t vote for it rather than abstaining."

John Kerry: Israel Can Either Be Jewish Or Democratic, It Cannot Be Both…

Grabien

Has this imbecile not heard of the holocaust, and of the Jews being driven out of virtually every country they had called home? Israel was created to give this persecuted people a place to call home and the day Israel ceases to be Jewish, Israel will cease to be.
How can he and others of Obama's people not know this? The Tunnel Dweller

Weasel Zippers

France’s Foreign Minister Hails Kerry Speech  " . . .France shares Kerry’s belief in a two-state solution that envisions Israel and the new nation of Palestine “living side by side in peace and security.' ” 

Kerry's parting words are unlikely to change anything on the ground between Israel and the Palestinians or salvage the Obama administration's record of failed Mideast peace efforts.

Trump: 'Stay Strong Israel,' I'll Be in Office Soon . . . "A senior Israeli official told CNN Wednesday that Israel will provide Trump with evidence that the U.S. worked in secret to help the settlement vote." . . .

After Israel is overrun by Islam, perhaps Mr Kerry can come out of retirement to console the Israelis with something like this:

Bibi rips Lurch a new one.   Prime Minister Netanyahu gives his response to the Obama/ Kerry speech.

Seceding Pacifica — the national anthem

Volokh Conspiracy  . . . "Ever since November 8th, my wife has been semi-seriously advocating the idea of “Pacifica” a new nation composed of CA, OR, WA, HI, and parts of NV. . . .  On Christmas Day, she was surprised and pleased to find this in her stocking:

"Pacifica" (to the tune of “America, the Beautiful”)

Let’s break away, the whole West Coast
To flee from you-know-who.
We’ll take the states we love the most
We’ll take Las Vegas, too!
Pacifica! Pacifica! A land that’s (mostly) free!
We’ll smoke some weed, get gay-marr-ied
And save de-moc-ra-cy!
The Union was a grand ideal
A pure and righteous thing
But now we need to break the seal —
A conscious un-coup-ling!
America! America! It’s time to call it quits.
But don’t you cry, it’s not goodbye —
We’re friends with benefits!
The Constitution, we adored —
America’s contract.
But now it doth resemble more
A suicidal pact!
America! Pacifica! We’re codependent, see?
We need some “me-time” for ourselves —
And you need therapy!
From San Diego to San Juan
And all the wine country,
With Google and with Amazon,
We’ll do just fine, you’ll see!
Pacifica! Pacifica! A new road we have found.
You’ll find us on the PCH*
Always — with — the — top — down

*Pacific Coast Highway, past Malibu and Muscle Beach