* Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, was in Canada last week. She criticized Ottawa for not inviting aboriginal groups to a meeting on the Arctic, and for not including the facilitation of abortion in the Canadian government’s “maternal health” initiative to developing countries. These might seem curious priorities for the global superpower at a time of war, but, with such a full plate over at the State Department, it’s no wonder that peripheral matters like Iranian nuclear deadlines seem to fall by the wayside. (Mark Steyn, NRO)* But having just read his memoir, Courage and Consequence, I am forced to conclude that Rove, perhaps more than anyone else, was responsible for the election of Barack Obama in 2008. (Joseph Shattan, American Spectator)
* [Barack Obama's] “energy plan” will not increase U.S. energy supplies…it will reduce them. His actions on energy will not help the hard working supporters of Cesar Chavez, but they will do wonders for Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan dictator who will be able to sell the U.S. more of his oil because of the president’s dangerous neglect and misunderstanding of U.S. energy production’s importance to our economic and national security.
Obama did not open up new areas for drilling in the OCS – he closed them. He didn’t make new supplies of energy available; he embargoed them from use by American citizens. He didn’t take steps to lessen dependence on foreign oil; he increased our dependence.
In short, his actions did not match his words, and Americans will pay the price for years to come. (Daniel V. Kish, Washington Examiner)
* President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid - the troika that controls America today - have long had designs to shove America into the abyss of socialism. Their philosophy, political power and cynical effort to expand the dependency class all lined up to make Obamacare the law of the land. The highest price every generation of Americans will pay is not measured in dollars but in lost liberty. (Rep. Steve King)
* Regarding President Obama's claim in the State of the Union speech that “we’ve excluded lobbyists from policy making jobs.” Matt Welch said -- In fact, more than 40 former lobbyists work in the administration...When Carney confronted a White House spokeswoman with the falsehood, she conceded nothing. “As the President said,” she wrote, “we have turned away lobbyists for many, many positions.” Just not all of them.
As such defiance suggests, this was no isolated slip of the tongue. The president, who promised in both word and style to usher in a “new era” of Washington “responsibility,” routinely says things that aren’t true and supports initiatives that break campaign promises. When called on it, he mostly keeps digging. And when obliged to explain why American voters are turning so sharply away from his party and his policies, Obama pins the blame not on his own deviations from verity but on his failure to “explain” things “more clearly to the American people.”
* The Chicago Tribune has an editorial that shocks for the outrageousness that is the corruption and overcharging that unions have forced upon the convention business at Chicago’s McCormick Place. It is so bad, the costs are so outrageously higher in Chicago, that conventions are fleeing the city in droves...But even though we understand as a matter of course that unions are bad for everyone, it is still shocking to see just how bad they are in Chicago. In fact, the [Chicago Tribune] notes that convention organizers are charged fully 40% more in Chicago than they are anywhere else. Yes, it’s almost half again as much to put on a convention in Chicago than anywhere else in the nation... (Warner Todd Huston)
