DANIEL GREENFIELD: OBAMA’S TIRED SONG AND DANCE ****

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/obamas-tired-song-and-dance/print/

There comes a time in a pop star’s career when the songs that enthralled fall flat, the lyrics that seemed daring grow stale and the atmosphere that tied it all together blows away into thin air. A time when everyone knows the words to all the songs because there are no more new songs, only the old songs that no longer touch the emotions of the audience and the new songs that are poor pastiches of the old.

There comes a time when the fans grow restless and the lead singer whose voice once moved millions begins to sweat, sensing that the music has betrayed him and that the audience hears every false note.

Last night was that moment.

Obama opened his State of the Union address, full of its old familiar riffs on green energy, education, infrastructure and an end to war, with unity. Not a call to unity, but a presumption of unity. With his approval ratings underwater, his sixth State of the Union was about claiming credit and shifting blame.

Ted Cruz: The Imperial Presidency of Barack Obama ****

In the nation’s history, there is simply no precedent for an American president so wantonly ignoring federal law. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304632204579338793559838308?mod=Opinion_newsreel_2 Of all the troubling aspects of the Obama presidency, none is more dangerous than the president’s persistent pattern of lawlessness, his willingness to disregard the written law and instead enforce his own policies via executive fiat. […]

Obama’s Sixth Year Pitch Trying to Address the Economic Insecurity His Policies Have Caused.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304691904579349442905233718?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop The State of the Union address in the sixth year of any Presidency is rarely compelling. The White House tries to portray a renewed sense of vigor and perhaps a fresh proposal or two, while the public has begun to tune the familiar man out and Congress has its eyes on November. Perhaps that […]

Obama Has Made it Impossible for Israel to Strike Iran By Karin McQuillan

http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/01/obama_has_made_it_impossible_for_israel_to_strike_iran.html   I called a hardheaded realist, a Harvard trained PhD who has been watching the Middle East professionally for decades, to ask him about Obama’s Iran deal.  This is what he told me.   It’s done.  Iran will get a bomb.   They want a bomb and they will not be denied unless somebody […]

THE TOTUS WHO CAN’T LOOK AMERICA IN THE EYE:RUSS VAUGHN

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/01/the_totus_who_cant_look_america_in_the_eye.html

Not once — not even once — did the man who claims to be the legitimate leader of our nation ever look me, and all the other watching citizens of this nation, in the eye during his State of the Nation speech. He was a dash-top bobble-head, swinging back and forth from prompter to prompter.

Good grief! The man can’t uncouple himself from his comfort-zone technology for even a moment to look Americans in the eye just once, and give us some sense of our comfort that he is sincere.

For those of us who endured the entire speech, it was painfully obvious that our nation is being led by a man who lives and dies by the teleprompter — Teleprompter Rex. It would be exceedingly interesting to see what would transpire should that teleprompter technology crash in the midst of a major speech like this one. Perhaps America would be treated to the real Obama, without the technological defenses that wall him off from we, the unworthy.

Reality is, this affirmative-action president, a man elevated far beyond his capabilities by those who would use him for their own ends, has failed. He’s failed himself, and he’s failed America. Deliciously, he’s failed those who put this puppet into the role of power. He’s failed them because he hasn’t been able to enact their great socialist takeover of America.

Obama’s Mismatched, Misfit State of the Union Is In the Books By Bryan Preston

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/01/28/obamas-fifth-state-of-the-union-is-in-the-books/?print=1 How does one critique a speech like tonight’s? It’s like trying to find rational structure in cotton candy. Poke it too much and it’ll just get all over you and make a big mess. Obama is like an actor stepping into a role that is larger than himself  – a Brendan Fraser trying to […]

Idaho Firm that Beat EPA in Court Now Targeted by the Army Corps of Engineers? By Bryan Preston

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/01/28/idaho-firm-that-beat-epa-in-court-now-targeted-by-the-army-corps-of-engineers/?print=1

Nearly two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court smacked down the Environmental Protection Agency in a landmark property rights case. The court ruled that the EPA was overstepping its bounds in going after the Sackett family of Idaho. In 2007 the Sacketts wanted to build their dream home on their own land, but the EPA swept in and tried to stop them, arguing that their land was a “wetland.” It wasn’t a wetland, the Sacketts tried to go to court to win their property rights back, but the EPA ruled that they had no right even to defend themselves in court. The EPA staked out the position that the Sacketts could only deal with the EPA, which had already ruled against them.

The Supreme Court ultimately disagreed with the EPA, and the Sacketts won.

Well, over the course of their suit, the Sacketts worked with an Idaho environmental consulting firm, Kagel Environmental LLC. Kagel provided evidence that the land in question was not a wetland. The DTN Progressive Farmer reports that Kagel Environmental has been subjected to targeting by federal authorities since they worked on the Sackett case.

MSNBC’S ANDREA MITCHELL THINKS IRAN WAS A U.S. ALLY UNTIL BAD OLD BUSH CAME ALONG- BRYAN PRESTON

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/01/28/msnbcs-andrea-mitchell-thinks-iran-was-a-us-ally-until-bad-old-bush-came-along/

So, this happened today.

Washington Post reporter Chris Cillizza said that the “Axis of Evil” address was among the most important State of the Union addresses delivered in recent memory. “That speech, arguably, turned this country in a direction on foreign policy,” Mitchell concurred. “Those words, Axis of Evil, I was standing there in Congress and called the control room, I said ‘This is a big deal.’”

“State Department, with all due respect, Colin Powell did not focus enough on those words and get them taken out of the State of the Union,” she continued. “Up until that moment, Iran was cooperating with the United States on the border of Afghanistan, it was post 9/11, Iran was more or less an American ally.”

“But being included in the Axis of Evil, it turned the Iranian government in a completely different direction,” she concluded. “And it was a turning point in American politics and foreign policy.”

Try “less,” Andrea Mitchell. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza proceeds to agree with Mitchell, that Iran was “more or less an American ally” until the “axis of evil” speech.

It’s just not true. Iran had been an enemy of the United States since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. What part of “Death to America!” and “Death to the Great Satan!” do Mitchell and Cillizza not understand?

Update: Roll the video tape.

These people are the leading lights of political journalism? Seriously, MSNBC and Washington Post, you can’t do better?

11-Year-Old Girl’s Cupcake Business Shut Down by Madison County Officials-Joe Holleman

http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/columns/joe-holleman/year-old-girl-s-cupcake-business-shut-down-by-madison/article_bc209e8a-bb8f-5b6f-b6cc-09852ad2e458.html After-school jobs are tougher to keep, apparently, than they used to be. On Sunday, a Belleville News-Democrat story featured 11-year-old Chloe Stirling of Troy, Ill., a sixth-grader at Triad Middle School who makes about $200 a month selling cupcakes. On Monday, the long arm of the law — in this case, the Madison County […]

GABRIEL GARNICA: AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL GREATNESS

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/american-presidential-greatness One cannot look at the faces on Mount Rushmore without thinking about what makes a great president.  Certainly, a review of the list of those who have held that office reminds us that one does not have to be a genius, a saint, a motivational speaker, a model, a hero, or even law-abiding to […]