With Team Obama, Incompetence Trumps Intelligence

"I believe there are two Iranian warships or, I mean, I don't know what kind of ships they are. There are two ships in the Red Sea. What their intention is, what their destination is, I don’t – I can’t say. Look, there are reports that there are a couple of ships in the Red Sea. What they do, where they go, we’ll follow this with some curiosity."

This stumbling statement does not come from a Saturday Night Live satire. They are the actual words given in a public State Department briefing and they come (5 days after the information was released by news sources) from Assistant Secretary of State Philip Crowley.

Can you believe this stuff? Yeah, okay; the sad and terrible thing is that you can. For two years of the Obama administration have proven it is long on gaffes, long on bows to foreign potentates, long on high-sounding (if empty) rhetoric but woefully short on intelligence, discretion and wisdom.

But Crowley's performance was remarkable even for a member of Team Obama: "I don't know what kind of ships they are." He doesn't know their destination or intention. He pledges to follow the matter with "some curiosity."

Yipes.

But author Barry Rubin is an adult and he is not only better informed of what's happening here but he's also more aware of the dangers posed by the new unrest in the Middle East. Check out his take on Mr. Crowley's remarks over at The Lid.

And while we're at it, we should also draw attention to how clueless the Obama administration has been about Egypt. Yitzhak Benhorin over at ynet News describes some very troubling revelations from a U.S. Senate hearing about America's ignorance of the situation there as well.

Biofuels vs Food

Researcher Tim Searchinger reports for the Washington Post how the huge amounts of grain set aside for the production of biofuels (especially ethanol), is a major factor in the developing food crisis. One wonders just when this bad science is going to be exposed and the expensive, counter-productive experiment shut down.

For more, see these Vital Signs Blog posts:

Let's Stop the Ethanol Scam and Al Gore Flips on Ethanol; Admits He's a Political Phony

Entitled Democrats' "Snit Fit" Will Not Sit Well with the Public

Most Americans have to go to work in order to get pay and benefits. Therefore, the sorry spectacle up in Wisconsin involving teachers and other public union employees -- who a lot of folks get perturbed at anyhow; I mean, have you had dealings with a DMV clerk recently? -- is not going to sit well with John Q. Public.

Indeed, John Q. is appalled at the sight of teachers and government bureaucrats involved in selfish, raucous and obnoxious demonstrations. Especially when schools have closed because teachers have joined these boorish demonstrations in mass. Very ugly, very childish behavior.

And, after all, John Q. knows the government coffers are empty and spending must be cut everywhere. So where do these unions come off insisting everybody's ox gets gored but theirs?

Barack Obama, showing again that his vaunted political skills are a thing of mainstream media myth rather reality, is taking the side of the Democrats throwing tantrums. It's a very bad move, Mr. President, for it's one that will emphasize to the public that your recent boasts of tightening the federal budget are as bogus as they were before.

Obama should have listened to wiser voices before weighing in on this sad affair. He should at least have read the editorial from the Democrat-friendly Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Democrats in the state Senate threw a temper tantrum Thursday - essentially they took their ball and went home. Actually, they didn't go home. They apparently went to Illinois, just out of reach of their obligations...
 
The Walker plan is deeply divisive. We're not supportive of some aspects of the bill, either, including those that will make it nearly impossible for unions to negotiate. And we think that police and firefighter unions should not be excluded as they are now. But public worker benefits need to be reined in, and Walker is right to target them...

One leading Democrat - Obama was his name, as we recall - put it well after winning the White House in 2008: "Elections have consequences," he told Republicans at the time. Indeed they do. The Democrats' childish prank mocks the democratic process.

Meanwhile, some Wisconsin teachers decided to make a mockery of their own profession by penalizing their students after an irresponsible call to action by Mary Bell, the chief of the state teachers union."On Thursday and Friday, we are asking Wisconsinites to come to Madison," Bell, president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, said Wednesday. She then claimed disingenuously that she wasn't telling the union's 98,000 teachers to walk off their jobs.

Unfortunately, that's what many of them did. There were no classes in Madison schools. Port Washington High School had to close. The same was true at other schools around the state. Do these teachers care more about their jobs than their kids? We wonder.

Both Senate Democrats and teachers should get over their snits and get back to work.

The President isn't the only one putting his chips on a losing bet. The Democratic National Committee is heavily involved in this thing as are government-addicted Democrats in other states who are already planning similar protests, disruptions, closures and other unattractive temper tantrums. The government workers' long history of entitlements have put them out of touch with economic reality. And now their rage at having those entitlements pared (as the lack of money requires they must) is putting them out of sorts with the public.

Republicans, here's your opportunity. Be fair. Be wise. Be cool. But hold your ground. For this runaway spending that has ruined our economy must be reined in -- reined in hard and reined in now. John Q. isn't happy about the situation. But he understands. And he wants responsible adults in charge of the necessary process. He's had more then his fill of whining brats.

Today's Posts

Abortion Zealots Crank It Up In Campaign Against Pro-Life AG

It's All About The Children -- Not! Teachers Desert Classrooms for Union Lobbying

"A Nation of Dunces"

Ah, Democrats!

CBS Spikes Story; Doesn't Fit the Theme They Wanted

Abortion Zealots Crank It Up In Campaign Against Pro-Life AG

Jill Stanek gives you a quick review here of the bizarre and corrupt campaign being waged by abortionists, pro-abortion politicians and reporters, and even kangaroo court judges against former Kansas Attorney General Phil Kline. You see, Kline was responsible enough to to try and require abortionists to obey the law. And for this all hell has been unleashed against him.

And over at American Thinker, Jack Cashill gives a more detailed look at this story as well as an explanation of why it is important to pro-life advocacy everywhere. Read Cashill's "Why Prosecutors Fear the Abortion Industry" right here. 

Phil Kline needs our prayers and our support.

It's All About The Children -- Not! Teachers Desert Classrooms for Union Lobbying

That didn't stop thousands of protesters from clogging the hallway outside the Senate chamber beating on drums, holding signs deriding Walker and pleading for lawmakers to kill the bill. Protesters also demonstrated outside the homes of some lawmakers.

Hundreds of teachers called in sick, forcing a number of school districts to cancel classes. Madison schools, the state's second-largest district with 24,000 students, closed for a second day as teachers poured into the Capitol...

And here:

The state's largest teachers union Wednesday night called on all 98,000 of its members to attend rallies in Madison on Thursday and Friday, which led school districts — including Madison — to cancel classes for Thursday.

"This is not about protecting our pay and our benefits," Wisconsin Education Association Council President Mary Bell said at a press conference on the Capitol Square. "It is about protecting our right to collectively bargain."

In an interview, Bell said her message stopped short of endorsing the kind of coordinated action that closed Madison schools Wednesday. She asked teachers who "could" come to the rally to come.
As of press deadline, several Madison-area districts had canceled Thursday's classes. Middleton-Cross Plains union president Chris Bauman said she was encouraging all members to come to the Capitol at
8 a.m. Thursday.

Schools and teachers were a central focus at a third day of protests at the Capitol on Wednesday as Madison teachers and students joined thousands of public union workers to blast a plan to strip them of collective bargaining rights. Madison canceled school Wednesday after about 1,100 union teachers — almost half of its staff — called in sick by late Tuesday.

"A Nation of Dunces"

And you thought the dumbing down of education was a new problem? Check out these two paragraphs from an essay entitled “Democratic Education” written way back in 1944.

Apparently, we must also abolish all compulsory subjects and make the curriculum so wide that every boy will get a chance at something. Even the boy who can’t or won’t learn his alphabet can be praised and petted for something – handicrafts or gymnastics, moral leadership or deportment, citizenship or the care of guinea pigs, hobbies or musical appreciation. Anything he likes! Then no boy and no boy’s parents need feel inferior.

And education on those lines would be pleasing to democratic feelings. It will have repaired the inequalities of nature but it is quite another question if it will breed a democratic nation which can survive or even one whose survival is even desirable. The improbability of a nation thus educated could survive need not be labored. Obviously it can only escape destruction if its enemies are so obliging to adopt the same system. A nation of dunces can be safe only in a world of dunces.

Oh yes. Did I forget to mention the author of this confrontational essay? It was a fellow you may have heard of -- C.S. Lewis.

Ah, Democrats!

Is it a new episode of the Gong Show? Jerry Springer?

No, it's just post-modern Democrats doing their thing.

Here's the Obama administration getting ready to dis Israel at the United Nations, thinking this might finally endear the U.S. to Muslim jihadists. And over here the President is out and out lying about his what's in his budget proposals as well as making the (deliberate?) mathematical error of ignoring altogether the interest payments on the national debt.

But it's not just the Democrat White House.

Out in California, Jerry Brown is juggling numbers too, claiming the bankrupt state is due to haul in over $4 billion that, in fact, it won't. Over here is Jimmy Carter assuring the American public that the terrorist-promoting Muslim Brotherhood is "nothing to be afraid of." And Nancy Pelosi is criticizing Republicans as putting "women and children last" for what? For their move to de-fund Planned Parenthood, the nation's #1 abortion-providing, abortion-promoting organization that has repeatedly been caught on video tape protecting statutory rape!

And I can't forget to mention the rage, the irresponsibility and the lawlessness which the Democrat lawmakers and public employee unions are revoltingly demonstrating in Wisconsin today.

Harry Truman, Scoop Jackson, even John Kennedy wouldn't recognize the Democrat Party as it's been done over by these guys.

CBS Spikes Story; Doesn't Fit the Theme They Wanted

Dateline — Egypt:

“[60 Minutes] correspondent Lara Logan was repeatedly sexually assaulted by thugs yelling, ‘Jew! Jew!’ as she covered the chaotic fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo’s main square Friday.”

Powerful reporting on an important story. Two problems: It didn’t run until yesterday, and CBS didn’t run it. The quote is from the New York Post. And it was The Wall Street Journal that reported “the separation and assault lasted roughly 20 to 30 minutes.”

But CBS? They sat on their own story. For five days, as reporters reveled amid giddy celebrations in Tahrir Square, and as President Obama praised President Obama’s handling of the Egyptian crisis, CBS reported nothing...

Watching the same complicit media we all saw, Cohen notes most journalists covered the mobs “as if they were reporting from Times Square on New Year’s Eve, stopping only at putting on a party hat.”

Even CBS’s own statement said Logan was “covering the jubilation” and was attacked “amidst the celebration.”

Having 200 “good guys” gang assault a female reporter while screaming “Jew! Jew!” doesn’t fit the narrative. Is that why CBS sat on the story?

Or is it the cultural issue? A rape in a bar is a sex crime. But a pack of political protesters who rape a “Jew” in public is a story about culture.

Rapes happen everywhere, it’s true. And political protests are a global phenomenon, too. But as Slate.com’s Rachel Larimore says, “there’s a huge difference between flipping over a truck and spraying friends with beer and prying a woman away from her security detail and sexually assaulting her.”

Larimore wonders if “Logan’s attack [is] an anomaly, or is it to be expected from men raised in a culture that treats women as lesser citizens?”

I would point her to the 2008 broadcast on the Al-Aribiya network of a female (!) lawyer arguing that it’s OK for Muslim men to sexually assault Israeli women, because the Jews have “raped the land.” Or this week’s story of Hena, the 14-year-old Bangladeshi girl raped by a family member, then sentenced to 100 lashes by Muslim authorities for having sex out of wedlock. After 80 lashes, Hena died.

There are stories like this — and Logan’s — every week, all with the same cultural denominator.

For the record, Logan isn’t Jewish. And because she’s not Muslim, there’s no possibility she’ll face the lash.

But Lara Logan is a story. Why did CBS work so hard not to tell it?

(Michael Graham, "CBS complicit in news coverup," Boston Herald)

Today's Posts

Austrian Court Convicts Woman for Speaking Against Islam

CBS Reporter Attacked By Cairo Thugs: Story Delayed & Underplayed

Just How Big Is The U.S. Debt?

Dead Dogs, Knives and Robbery: Your Airport Snoops At Work

The U.S. Government's Inexplicable Blindness to Radical Islam

 

 

Austrian Court Convicts Woman for Speaking Against Islam

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff is a young mother living in Vienna, Austria. But she is also the daughter of a diplomat who has lived and worked for several years in places like Iran and Libya. So she has some personal experience when she talks about of the treatment of women and the practice of jihad in such places.

But for telling of those things in a public lecture, including the use of the term "pedophile" in describing Mohammed's marriage to a six-year old girl ("consummated" when she was 9), she was convicted yesterday under section 283 of the Austrian penal code for vilifying religious teachings. Her fine was 480 Euros but the cost to free speech, to religious freedom and to common sense is much greater.

Here is a speech about her case which Mrs. Sabaditsch-Wolff gave to the English Defense League a couple of weeks ago. It's enlightening reading.

CBS Reporter Attacked By Cairo Thugs: Story Delayed & Underplayed

During the Cairo "celebrations" of Hosni Mubarak's resignation, a crowd of men tear an American reporter from her CBS crew and security team. They then terrorize her, beat her and sexually assault her for a half hour before a group of Egyptian women and soldiers rescue her. But the news of this savage attack doesn't come out until yesterday, five days after the event! And even then, it's a story which has several elements most of the MSM is avoiding.

1) First of all, why the delay?

Was it because such brutal violence didn't "fit" with the theme the mainstream media is spinning; namely, that the Egyptian crowds were just a peaceful, innocent and joyful party of freedom-loving citizens? It makes you wonder what else about the demonstrators' motives and behavior is being kept out of the news?

Here is this terse statement CBS finally released yesterday:

On Friday, Feb. 11, the day Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down, CBS chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan was covering the jubilation in Tahrir Square for a "60 Minutes" story when she and her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration. It was a mob of more than 200 people whipped into frenzy.

In the crush of the mob, she was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers. She reconnected with the CBS team, returned to her hotel and returned to the United States on the first flight the next morning. She is currently home recovering.

There will be no further comment from CBS News and correspondent Logan and her family respectfully request privacy at this time.

An obvious question, of course, is "whipped into a frenzy by what?" The report doesn't mention the answer. Nor does it reveal that Ms. Logan's injuries were extensive and she had to spend time in the hospital. And even this brief statement came only after CBS realized other news sources had discovered the story and were ready to report it.

2) Is the media protecting the Egyptian army? Earlier this month, Logan and her crew were grabbed by the Egyptian army at gunpoint and interrogated overnight under brutal and very frightening conditions. For instance, she was kept blindfolded and in an upright position all night. As a result, Logan vomited so much that she required intravenous fluids before the army released her and her crew. But that terrible night is being underplayed by the MSM today. In fact, hardly any of the stories even mention Logan's earlier experience. Could it be that reporters and news editors would rather not show the Egyptian army in such a negative light? After all, most of the Western news stories have portrayed the army as the good guys stepping in to save the country from Mubarak's villainy.

3) Ignoring the obvious. The tragic fact is that women are routinely subject to mistreatment in Egypt. From discrimination to unwanted attentions to beatings and sexual assault, women are routine victims. And what happens on the street starts first in the home -- domestic violence was estimated in 2005 to occur in a third of all Egyptian homes. But, given modern media's reluctance to report any negative elements whatsoever about Islam, it's not too surprising that the religion's overarching subjugation of women has not even been mentioned in most coverage of Ms. Logan's ordeal.

4) Another uncomfortable and politically-incorrect detail going unmentioned by the media is an anti-Semitic element in the story. Fox News reports that the men crowding around Logan just before she was grabbed were yelling, "Jew! Jew!"

5) Let me cite two exceptions to the omissions I mention above. One was the New York Post. The other was Washington Post's Richard Cohen. In his brief column, Cohen criticizes CBS' delay in reporting the story, the problem of how the assault interfered with the media's theme, and the troubling reports of "Jew!" being yelled before the attack. Here's a particularly appropriate observation of Cohen's: "As I'm sure even Logan would admit, the sexual assault of woman by a mob in the middle of a public square is a story. It is particularly a story because the crowd in Tahir Square was almost invariably characterized as friendly and out for nothing but democracy. In fact, some of the television correspondents acted as if they were reporting from Times Square on New Year's Eve, stopping only at putting on a party hat. In those circumstances, a mass sexual assault in what amount to the nighttime version of broad daylight is certainly worth reporting."

Just How Big Is The U.S. Debt?

You might want to have your blood pressure medicine at hand before you watch this little video clip.

It contains a brilliant (and alarming) illustration from Duquesne University economics professor Antony Davies of the U.S. federal government's debt and unfunded obligations. Davies breaks it down into parts and then compares them with the size of the GDP of other countries around the world. The result reveals the horrific magnitude of America's fiscal crisis.



Want to give that graph a closer look? Prof. Davies has made it available on his website here. I suggest you pass this on to friends, family, news sources and politicians. After all, the Democrats want to continue to spend like...well, like Democrats!

And we're the only ones who can put a stop to that. We must let people know what's really happening to our nation's economy and what the stakes are if we don't get some fiscal sanity now.

Dead Dogs, Knives and Robbery: Your Airport Snoops At Work

How are things going with the TSA, those snoops whose groping and gaping and bullying of innocent air travellers goes hand in glove (pun intended) with remarkable inefficiency in the very purpose of their job; namely, security?

Well, the Democrat-controlled Senate just approved the agency's right to collective bargaining which, of course, will only help to entrench their power. And that came on the heels of the Obama administration denying airports the right to hire private security screeners.

So the TSA is flying high and free. Indeed, the Democrats have made the agency so secure they're not even bothered by the reports making headlines today.

But you should be.

* TSA officials confirm string of Newark airport security lapses

NEWARK — There was the dead dog that eluded screening; the knife that made it past the checkpoint in a carry-on; and the two passengers who strolled off despite problems with their full-body scans.

These incidents were among a string of five security lapses in 30 days at Newark Liberty International Airport, according to two officials with the Transportation Security Administration. Normally, according to one source, the airport averages about one security lapse every couple of months.

The TSA officials requested anonymity because agency employees are prohibited from disclosing security breaches...

* Ewing TSA worker: I stole cash from Newark Airport passengers

A corrupt township man confessed in federal court to operating as a lawbreaking employee of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration.

Michael Arato, 41, on Monday admitted in U.S. District Court he illegally sought and received stolen cash that belonged to airline passengers at Newark Liberty International Airport, according to federal officials.

Employed as a TSA supervisory security officer, Arato pleaded guilty to an information charging him with accepting bribes...

In explaining the crime, New Jersey’s U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said Arato between the months of September 2009 and October 2010 accepted bribes and kickbacks from a co-worker who stole money regularly from passengers during security screenings...

The U.S. Government's Inexplicable Blindness to Radical Islam

In a month of momentous change, it was easy to overlook the significance of another revolutionary event. Who would have believed that in the space of a few weeks the leaders of the three major European powers would publicly denounce multiculturalism and declare, in so many words, that it was a proven disaster and a threat to society?

One after another they announced their findings—Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, Great Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron, and France's President Nicolas Sarkozy. Multicultural values had not only led to segregated communities: They had, Mr. Cameron noted, imposed policies of blind toleration that had helped nurture radical Islam's terrorist cells.

There can be no underestimating the in-so-many-words aspect of these renunciations. This was multiculturalism they were talking about—the unofficial established religion of the universities, the faith whose requirements have shaped every aspect of cultural, economic and political life in Western democracies for the last 50 years. Still, they were out there—words coolly specific, their target clear.

They came at a fitting moment, just as Americans had been handed a report providing the fullest disclosures so far about the multiculturalist zeal that had driven Army and medical school superiors to smooth Nidal Malik Hasan's rocky way through training, promote him, and, despite blatant evidence of his unfitness, raise not a single concern. Maj. Hasan, U.S. Army psychiatrist, would be assigned to Fort Hood where, in November 2009, he opened fire, killing 12 fellow soldiers and a civilian employee, and wounding 32 others.

In this report, titled "A Ticking Time Bomb" and put out by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, there is a detail as dazzling in its bleak way as all the glowing misrepresentations of Dr. Hasan's skills and character, which his superiors poured into their evaluations of him. It concerns the Department of Defense's official report on the Foot Hood killings—a study whose recital of fact made no mention of Hasan's well-documented jihadist sympathies. Subsequent DoD memoranda portray the bloodbath—which began with Hasan shouting "Allahu Akbar!"—as a kind of undefined extremism, something on the order, perhaps, of work-place violence.

This avoidance of specifics was apparently contagious—or, more precisely, policy. In November 2010, each branch of the military issued a final report on the Fort Hood shooting. Not one mentioned the perpetrator's ties to radical Islam. Even today, "A Ticking Time Bomb," co-authored by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I., Conn.) and Susan Collins (R., Maine), reminds us that DoD still hasn't specifically named the threat represented by the Fort Hood attack—a signal to the entire Defense bureaucracy that the subject is taboo...

Today's must-read article comes from Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal. It's definitely a "Wow."

Today's Posts

Even Ron Paul's Friends Are Dropping Him

"Cuba Is No Egypt"

Obama Is Talking Like Reagan...But Still Spending Like Obama

Alliance Defense Fund Video Update

Need STD Testing? Go Donate Blood, Says Planned Parenthood.

Responding to Chuck Smith's Abortion Advice

Specific Prayer Requests for Persecuted Christians

 

 

Even Ron Paul's Friends Are Dropping Him

Young Americans for Freedom have had it up to here with Ron Paul.

And that's no small matter. For Ron Paul served on YAF’s board of advisors for more than two decades. They have extravagantly praised one another for years. He was once given the YAF's most distinguished honor, the Guardian of Freedom award.

But Ron Paul's over-the-edge isolationism finally became too much for the organization, a conservative powerhouse since its creation at Bill Buckley's home in 1960. In a dramatic move occurring the very week of CPAC (a week when Ron Paul's aggressive teenage fans dominated the once-important conservative event), Young Americans for Freedom got a little aggressive too and publicly blasted Paul as they kicked him off their Board.

Citing his "delusional and disturbing alliance with the fringe Anti-War movement," YAF’s Senior National Director Jordan Marks explained why Paul had been "purged" from the organization: "Rep. Paul's refusal to support our nation’s military and national security interests border on treason, aside from his failure to uphold his oath to the United States Constitution and defend our country and citizens against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

“Rep. Paul has strayed to the left of Obama and allied himself with the radical anti-war left by laying the blame on America for the unprovoked attacks of Sept. 11th. Additionally, Rep. Paul has not condemned the 9/11 "Truther" conspiracy theorists that support him, and he has repeatedly insisted, that the United States not bring justice to those who have murdered thousands of our civilians and soldiers at home and abroad. This is simply unacceptable. Clearly Rep. Paul cares more about a doomed presidential run than he does our country,” Marks added.

YAF National Chairman Michael Jones also issued a statement on the matter:

"The United States is in a time of economic crisis, but this is no excuse to abandon the principles that have built this great country and spread its ideals to the darkest recesses of the planet. The United States is the world's leader--a beacon of light for the wretched and the oppressed. God has blessed the United States with liberty and the strength and heart to spread that liberty to all of his children. Rep. Paul has abandoned this mission, abandoned the United States' citizens, and abandoned the citizens of the world in their quest for their God-given natural rights."

And, about the CPAC straw poll that once again put Ron Paul at the top? As an arbiter of true conservative opinion, it is completely bogus. Indeed, if the libertarian yahoos who have begun to invade CPAC are not brought under control, the entire conference will become worthless. For more on this particular angle, including the rowdy Paulites and the impact of a lewd libertarianism on CPAC, check out Kevin McCullough's Fox News report, "Disrespectful Libertarians Hijack CPAC Poll -- And Its Mission" and Warner Todd Huston's blog post, "CPAC 2011: Ron Paul’s Last Straw With YAF (Time for Paulies to Grow Up)."

"Cuba Is No Egypt"

A superb editorial from the Miami Herald explains why the popular eruption the world witnessed in Egypt will not be happening any time soon in Cuba. It's a very perceptive and sobering piece.

Somewhere in Havana, Fidel Castro is probably laughing out loud to see Hosni Mubarak lose his grip on power after 30 years of undisputed leadership. In Castro’s eyes, no doubt, the octogenarian Mr. Mubarak brought a world of trouble on himself by trying to mollify Western critics through the creation of a phony democracy that would give his regime a veneer of respectability...

Cuba is a different place.

In Cuba, none of the trappings of democracy have existed for half a century. It is not part of the Castro playbook to permit any activity that would nurture the popular aspiration for liberty.

Access to the Internet for everyone – are you kidding? There is no opposition press, real or make-believe, no opposition parties, foreign reporters are closely monitored and the average citizen has practically no access to independent sources of information. Egypt’s business class is reported to be in anguish over the turmoil because it’s hurting the economy. In Cuba, there is no business class – the military runs the economy. Nor is there any civil society to speak of...

Fidel Castro has no use for the trappings of democracy because he has no interest in democracy. His is a zipped-up, no-nonsense totalitarian regime, designed to perpetuate one-man rule, brooking no opposition and making no concessions to foreign or domestic critics...

Fidel and Raul Castro have had 50 years to hone the apparatus of Cuba’s paranoid tyranny. Crushing dissent has been their principal preoccupation.

If the streets of Havana do not burst forth with protest, it is not because Cuba’s people are any less thirsty for liberty than the people in Cairo. But, unlike Hosni Mubarak – and Sadat and Nasser before that – the Castro brothers have foreclosed every avenue of rebellion and taken every conceivable step to stifle the longing for freedom. Like the Sun King, Louis XIV, Fidel Castro has been able to proudly proclaim that he is the state.

Obama Is Talking Like Reagan...But Still Spending Like Obama

Standing in front of a Baltimore County middle school yesterday, President Barack Obama said, “Even as we cut out things that we can afford to do without, we have a responsibility to invest in those areas that will have the biggest impact in our future. And that’s especially true when it comes to education.” Accordingly, the President’s budget includes a $13 billion increase in Department of Education spending from the 2010 budget. But this is hardly the first time a White House has significantly raised education spending.

In fact, since 2001 federal education spending has already increased by 100 percent. And going back to 1970, it has almost tripled. And what have been the results of this federal “investment” in our future? Nothing. Department of Education spending has completely failed to raise student achievement over the past 30 years. This is the story of President Obama’s budget: too much spending, too much taxes, and too much borrowing—all of which has already failed to create jobs today and will make it harder for our children to find jobs in the future.

Since President Barack Obama was sworn into office, total entitlement spending has grown 4 percent, total discretionary has soared 16 percent, and the national debt has exploded 43 percent. Over that same time the United States economy has lost 3.3 million jobs. President Obama cannot be blamed for the most recent recession, but he can certainly be held accountable for the failure of his deficit spending policies in response.

The fiscal year 2012 budget released yesterday by the President doubles down on this failed record. The White House is trying to portray this document as a spending cut. Specifically, they claim the President’s budget reduces 2012 discretionary spending by 5 percent. But as Heritage Foundation scholar J. D. Foster details, these “cuts” are made possible only by three gimmicks: (1) redefining Pell grants as mandatory spending, (2) reclassifying $54 billion of surface transportation spending from discretionary spending to mandatory spending, and (3) reducing funding for Iraq and Afghanistan by $38.2 billion in 2012. Reversing these budget tricks not only wipes out the entirety of President Obama’s claimed $77 billion in spending cuts; it actually reveals them to be a $31 billion increase in discretionary spending. This is moving the ball in the wrong direction, and the American people know it....

Read the rest of Conn Carroll's enlightening article here at the Heritage Foundation. And then please pass the word to others. The MSM is spinning Barack Obama as a changed man, a fellow moving to the center, willing to work with Republicans -- hey, they're even likening him to Ronald Reagan!. So we must make it clear to them that Obama not only remains an unrepentant big spender but that he's playing dirty politics again to get his way. Pass this post on.

Alliance Defense Fund Video Update