On Wednesday, Vladimir Putin published his op-ed piece in The New York Times urging “caution from Russia” with respect to U.S. policy in Syria.  The piece is worth reading if you haven’t already, and it is an impressive piece of political theatre.  Although the left is up-in-arms over what they are calling Putin’s hypocrisy, that is completely beside the point.  Few with any wits about them should consider Putin to be anything but a power-hungry Machiavellian, though that is also what makes this performance so noteworthy.  The Op-ed piece is a complete and utter smackdown of Obama and Obama’s failed foreign policy in a very public sphere, and that is what has the political establishment in Washington, DC so hopping mad about it.   Bob Menendez (D-NJ), John McCain and John Boehner were all quoted expressing their displeasure in an article that appeared on Yahoo yesterday.  One wonders which heavy weights will express their dismay next: Harry Reid, perhaps, or Nancy Pelosi, or maybe even Lindsay Graham.  I’m sure Putin is feeling very afraid.

If you haven’t yet read the Putin piece, I urge you to do so, simply to observe the way Putin cleverly throws Obama’s and the left’s rhetoric back at them and calls them dangerous hypocrites and warmongers.  I’d quote the whole thing, but for the purpose of illustrating my point, the last paragraph will more than suffice.  Putin writes:

My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

Some conservatives I know are angry with thuggish Putin for saying that America is not exceptional.  But that is beside the point.  In fact, that completely misses the point.

Putin is simply echoing a point Obama made at a NATO meeting back in April 2009:

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.

Now, the fact that I am very proud of my country and I think that we’ve got a whole lot to offer the world does not lessen my interest in recognizing the value and wonderful qualities of other countries, or recognizing that we’re not always going to be right, or that other people may have good ideas, or that in order for us to work collectively, all parties have to compromise and that includes us.

And so I see no contradiction between believing that America has a continued extraordinary role in leading the world towards peace and prosperity and recognizing that that leadership is incumbent, depends on, our ability to create partnerships because we create partnerships because we can’t solve these problems alone.

As Jim Yardley observes in the article from which I have culled the Obama passage above: “These words of the President are fairly typical of what has passed as thoughtful analysis from the current occupant of the White House.  They are words that would be right at home in the faculty lounge in Chicago or Cambridge, Massachusetts.”  So to return to our present context: Putin has cleverly turned Obama’s words against him for all to see, and in the context of the situation with Syria, he has revealed Obama to be an arrogant, narcissistic, posturing fraud.

Yesterday when I was in the car, I heard a very insightful interview about the Putin op-ed on the Tom Sullivan radio show.  I didn’t recognize the speaker’s voice, but I was impressed with all he had to say about how Putin’s strategy in Syria was all about making Russia and not the United States the dominant power in the Middle East.  He talked about the Reagan years and the fact that, aside from the arms buildup, one way Reagan was able to win the cold war was by keeping oil prices low.   He pointed out that to keep the Russian economy afloat, Putin has an interest in keeping oil prices high.  Likewise, for the sake of energy, Putin has an interesting in forming strong allegiances with as many Middle-Eastern oil producing states as it can.

It turned out the speaker being interviewed was none other than Col. Oliver North.  He called the Putin op-ed piece “brilliant” and said that with that clever op-ed piece, Putin had effectively changed the dynamics in the Middle East by very publicly embarrassing Obama in a way that let the nations of the Middle East see that Obama is weak, vain, and unreliable as a potential ally.  I haven’t been able to embed either the video or the audio here, but if you care to know more about what the future of the Middle East may look like as a result of Obama’s failed policies and posturing, you really owe it to yourself to listen to the whole interview.

At Sovereign Man, Simon Black writes about the rising number of Americans who want to renounce citizenship – and the increasing roadblocks they face.

A massive 1,131 individuals renounced their US citizenship last quarter…Compared to the same quarter last year in which 188 people renounced their US citizenship, this year’s number is over SIX TIMES higher. Not to mention, it’s 66.5% higher than last quarter’s 679 renunciations…

While still embryonic, it’s difficult to ignore this trend– more and more people are starting to renounce their US citizenship…

So what’s driving it? Taxes…and the search for liberty…Particularly for people who spend most of their time outside of the United States and are constantly hamstrung by [U.S.] worldwide taxation and information disclosure[ rules], the burden for many of them has just become too much to bear.

The US government figured this out some years ago and began charging an exit tax…This applies to anyone whose average US tax liability over the last five years was about $150,000 (the equivalent of roughly $500,000 in taxable income in 2012 dollars), and/or has a net worth of at least $2 million on the date of expatriation.

More on the exit tax, here. But it’s not just for rich people; the U.S. government also holds back the poor:

Renunciation of U.S. citizenship was free until July 2010, at which time a fee of $450 was established.

Get it? If you marry your foreign boyfriend and move abroad and join with his people, it is going to cost you – even if you are both minimum wage earners. So decrees President Obama.

Past generations viewed renunciation as a human right. From Simon Black again (and quoted also in a U.S. government document, here):

…in the “[Expatriation] Act of July 27, 1868″, the United States Congress declared that “the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

In other words: Even if renunciation might be a mistake and/or unpatriotic, they thought U.S. citizenship should be your choice. But the current U.S. government does not; in addition to the roadblocks described above, we even get the occasional rumor of people’s applications for renunciation being denied outright.

I remember President Reagan in 1987 saying “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” that had been built to keep East German citizens *in* that country. I also remember left-liberals in the 2004 election cycle, promising they’d leave America if Bush won. (Few of them did, or none.) I wonder what they’d say now?

Khaled Meshaal, Hamas Leader, Vows Never To Recognize Israel

Four years ago, the failed former president met with Meshaal.

I’m 98% sure there is another post in the GayPatriot archives with this exact same headline. Because I must say it to someone EVERY DAY.

The incompetence of Harry Reid is one thing. But now he sounds more like Keith Olbermann than the second highest ranked Democrat in the USA. Reid is either clinically insane or senile — I mean “the word is out,” after all!!

The one thing Reid proves everyday, he is a disgrace to the Senate and the state of Nevada.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from Dan):  Bruce, how many day is it since Harry Reid’s Senate passed a budget?  Is the streak under the Nevada Democrat the longest in Senate history?  Oh, and has he released his tax returns for the past ten years?

Click here for the answer.

So writes Ed Morrissey on commenting on Jimmy Carter’s recent self-assessment:

Former President Jimmy Carter isn’t letting modesty stand in the way of his assessment of his post-presidential life.

“I feel that my role as a former president is probably superior to that of other presidents,” Mr. Carter said in an interview with NBC News.

Morrissey details why the former peanut farmer has failed as an ex-president:

Carter actually started off his post-presidential era well, working with Habitat for Humanity to build homes for the poor. Unfortunately, he rapidly became one of the most destructive former presidents this country has ever had by interfering with American foreign policy long after the voters of this country explicitly told him they didn’t want him conducting it any more. His interference stopped Bill Clinton from dealing more decisively with North Korea, which gave Kim Jong-Il the time he needed to construct nuclear weapons. He has muddied up the Israeli-Palestinian peace process by cheering Hamas, a group that has earned its place on the US list of terrorist organizations.

Read the whole thing.

It seems that in the past whenever Hillary Clinton spoke her mind, she offended conservatives.  But, something happened in the course of her 2008 campaign for the Democratic nomination as it began to dawn on her that the media were no longer covering for her.  She had to learn to fight for herself.  Maybe that experience taught her something else as well — to see the media for what they were — and by extension — to take a skeptical view of their favorites.

This week, after one of those favorites returned from visiting some rogue nations, former President Jimmy Carter, that self-righteous politician joined former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari in “hoping to visit the State Department . . . to brief officials on their recent trip to North Korea, but nobody at the State Department was available to meet“.  Seems the folks there know that Carter doesn’t have much serious counsel or sober observations to offer.   Seems they were acting on the instructions of their boss who did not mince words when asked about a meeting with the Georgia Democrat:

Chris Nelson reported on April 29 that Clinton reacted strongly when asked in a morning meeting if she wanted to meet with Carter. From the Nelson report:

The performance of President Carter and his delegation in N. Korea this week was either shameful or fatuous…or both…and exemplifies why Carter had no…zero…USG support going in, and even less coming out, per an alleged eye witness account of Sec. St. Clinton at the morning meeting the other day:

“Do you want to meet with Carter?” Clinton is looking at papers, and just says “No.” Then she pauses, looks up and adds, “HELL no!!!”

Kudos, Madam Secretary.  You’re one of the few in this administration with any balls.

(Via James Nicholas, via my former left-leaning lesbian friend on Facebook, with former modifying left-leaning, but she’s still a lesbian and always a friend.)

When last we heard from the worst president of the twentieth century, Jimmy Carter was accusing the nation he once led of human rights violations:

Carter also used his trip to North Korea to observe the country’s food rationing system. That the United States and South Korea have chosen “to deliberately withhold food aid to the North Korean people because of political or military issues not related is really indeed a human rights violation,” he said.

Carter had traveled to North Korea to meet with Communist Party leader Kim Jong-il, but that meeting did not take place as he had hoped.  Instead, he met with regime functionaries and came back to the West convinced of their good will.

Guess Jimmy wasn’t aware that the regime has a practice of siphoning off Western food aid to “to support Kim’s military forces.“ Commenting on the Democrat’s visit to North Korea, the editors of the Wall Street Journal mince no wordst:

So let’s see. Kim Jong Il runs a dungeon of a nation whose policies cause repeated famines, but the U.S. and South Korea are morally obliged to alleviate the consequences of those policies even if this means helping the dungeon masters maintain control so they can cause more famines.

Wouldn’t it make more moral sense to try to depose the dungeon masters, or at least speak out against them? But Mr. Carter says he can’t do anything about the North Koreans, so he denounces his own country in sharper language than he dares to use against a regime that murders and imprisons its own people.

Yesterday, the New York Times reported something that a champion of human rights would clearly denounce: “North Korea’s work farms and prison factories” considered by “human rights experts” to “the world’s most notorious” are “massive and growing”:

New satellite images and firsthand accounts from former political prisoners and former jailers in North Korea have confirmed the enormous scale and bleak conditions of the penal system in the secretive North, according to a report released Wednesday by the human rights group Amnesty International. (more…)

First, watch a clip of the immediate past President of the United States.  Note how that good man praises two men his successor will be tapping for key national security positions, including Leon Panetta, who was a leading member of the Democratic congressional caucus when serving in the legislature and a top official in the Clinton and Obama administrations when serving in the executive branch:

(Via Breitbart.tv via a newly trentagenarian reader.) Note further this Republican former president refrains from criticizing the policies of the Democratic incumbent.

Now watch this clip of another former U.S. president.  And read this report:

Wrapping up his visit this week to Pyongyang, former President Jimmy Carter says relations between North Korea and South Korea are “currently at rock bottom.” Nonetheless, he said he believes the North is committed to getting talks underway. . . .

Carter said Thursday at a press conference in Seoul that North Korean officials had “expressed deep regret … for the loss of life” from two military attacks against South Korean targets in late 2010. But they did not apologize and suggested that they wouldn’t, the former president said.

Why does this man always take the enemies of the United States at their word?  Has any other former U.S. President so criticized his country on foreign soil?  Why hasn’t Mr. Carter focused on the real source of the starvation in North Korea, the economic system its Communist leaders have forced into place through their ideological zeal and kept in place with military might and barbaric means, including forced labor, imprisonment and torture? (more…)

As he began the most welcome speech of his political career, then-President Jimmy Carter, conceding the 1980 presidential election, said that in his 1976 bid for the White House, he had promised the American people that he “would never lie to you“.  Seems that his promises like those of another Democrat to whom he is often compared have an expiration date.

Well, perhaps, Mr. Carter assumed that when he left the White House, he no longer needed to keep the promises he once made on the campaign trail.  The former president is being sued for “falsehoods“:

A $5 million lawsuit filed in federal court in New York on Tuesday against former US President Jimmy Carter and publisher Simon & Schuster alleges that Carter’s 2006 book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid contains false information and was intended to deceive the public and promote an anti-Israel agenda. . . .

By claiming to be a Middle East expert, the suit claims, Carter and, by extension, his publisher, intentionally presented inaccurate information that was highly critical of Israel and therefore violated a New York law that makes it illegal to “engage in deceptive acts in the course of conducting business.”

Jimmy Carter, Middle East expert?  Is that like calling the guy who regularly burns your toast an expert chef?

Help Mick Mulvaney GET RID of John Spratt and Nancy Pelosi.  DONATE NOW!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

With those words Philip Klein describe the man whose tenure in the White House helped redeem Millard Fillmore.

He was referring to this comment a failed president made:

In an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams, former President Jimmy Carter, who has been a target of the right through the years, lauded his own post-presidency, telling Williams, “I feel that my role as a former president is probably superior to that of other presidents.”

It is MSNBC, so they would define the Gipper’s predecessor was a “target of the right.”  Why do they have to make him appear a “victim of right.”  [Um, Dan, MSNBC is just playing to their base.  Describing someone as a target of the right makes him more endearing to their viewers.  --Ed.]  They should have said, “who only won six states in his 1980 bid for reelection.”

Un-effin-believeable.  THIS is the “most educated” President evah?

Some may say it was an accident that he left out “Creator”.  But… and this is important, people… by ignoring that our unalienable rights come from Our Creator, he completely misses the mark on what makes America great!  Before 1776, rights were seen to have been granted by Man (Kings, Queens, etc.)  Our Founding Fathers’ brilliance was that they put a new stake in the ground of mankind. 

Obama, our President, is a complete dope.  I guess they forgot to teach the Declaration of Independence to him in his prep schools in Indonesia and at Harvard.

Let’s help him out a bit. 

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Good heavens.  Can’t everyone but the utmost Bush-haters now see what a complete buffoon America has in the Oval Office? 

So is he just stupid, or is he removing God from the DofI because his political philosophy is that rights come from the State, not the Creator?  If we had a responsible media — we’d have known the answer to that question…. in 2007.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

If Barney Frank were a Republican who responded to every question by blaming Democrats, he would become a punching bag for those in the mainstream media.  But, it’s only we right-of-center bloggers who notice the non-answers and mean-spirited rhetoric that this unhappy Massachusetts Democrat offer whenever he’s asked a question not ready made for his left-wing talking points.  He just goes ahead and attacks Republicans, oftentimes demanding that they live up to a standard he could never meet.

Here, we’ve got Andrea Mitchell asking this career politician about SEC officials watching porn on the job and instead of addressing their dereliction of duty, Barney blames Republicans!

Over at Hot Air, Allahpundit sums it up, “Because, see, the GOP favors less regulation of Wall Street, which naturally was all the country’s chief securities policemen needed to know to justify spending thousands of work hours surfing sites like ‘skankwire.’”

Seems Barney’s default answer to any question he can’t answer (or where the answer might conflict with the narrative he’s peddling) is to blame Republicans.  (Guess he didn’t get the memo from the President about the change he’s trying to bring to Washington, you know breaking that pattern “where everybody is always looking for somebody else to blame.“)

Barney keeps trotting out the same old rhetoric, the same old attacks and folks in the media think he’s so smart.  Guess we know what counts for intelligence in their book.

UPDATE: Obama rudely points his finger at Canada’s PM, but bows to ChiComs.  What’s wrong with this guy?  Does our President have any understanding at all of history or any sense of loyalty or protocol?  Does Obama, as Roger L. Simon has suggested lately, have some mental health issues?

Oh wait… bowing to Communists — maybe Obama DOES have a sense of loyalty…

=========

Why does Obama hate being the American President so much?

The Global Warming Hoax Of The Century continues to crumble…

More trouble looms for the IPCC. The body may need to revise statements made in its Fourth Assessment Report on hurricanes and global warming.  A statistical analysis of the raw data shows that the claims that global hurricane activity has increased cannot be supported.

Les Hatton once fixed weather models at the Met Office. Having studied Maths at Cambridge, he completed his PhD as metereologist: his PhD was the study of tornadoes and waterspouts. He’s a fellow of the Royal Meterological Society, currently teaches at the University of Kingston, and is well known in the software engineering community – his studies include critical systems analysis.

Hatton has released what he describes as an ‘A-level’ statistical analysis, which tests six IPCC statements against raw data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric (NOAA) Administration.  He’s published all the raw data and invites criticism, but warns he is neither “a warmist nor a denialist”, but a scientist.

Hatton performed a z-test statistical analysis of the period 1999-2009 against 1946-2009 to test the six conclusions. He also ran the data ending with what the IPCC had available in 2007. He found that North Atlantic hurricane activity increased significantly, but the increase was counterbalanced by diminished activity in the East Pacific, where hurricane-strength storms are 50 per cent more prevalent. The West Pacific showed no significant change. Overall, the declines balance the increases.

“When you average the number of storms and their strength, it almost exactly balances.” This isn’t indicative of an increase in atmospheric energy manifesting itself in storms.

I’d like nothing more than to see Al Gore charged with fraud by an international tribunal…. or economic crimes against humanity.  Either one that lands him in jail the quickest.  Maybe a Saudi jail??

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from Dan): So, where are the global warmists left to be discredited? They’ve been hiding the decline (in temperatures), exaggerating the melting of Himalayan glaciers and the devastation of the Amazon rain forest and now they’ve been doctoring data about hurricanes. Wonder if they made any predictions about tornadoes.

In what may be the best bit of news for gay Americans since the Supreme Court handed down the Lawrence decision (though the Heller decision making it easier for us to defend ourselves against gay bashers was also pretty significant), John Fund (in today’s Political Diary) suggests that the unhappy Barney Frank may be facing electoral problems in Scott Brown’s Masachusetts.

Having called for the abolition of Fannie Mae and Fredddie Mac (Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) he has repeatedly defended in the past), that mean-spirited Democrat is

. . . suddenly sounding a lot more moderate, possibly because he may be the most vulnerable of the state’s incumbents.

Mr. Frank is the most powerful lawmaker in the Massachusetts House delegation given his chairmanship of the banking committee, but he also managed to win reelection by a smaller percentage than any of his Massachusetts colleagues in the blowout Democratic year of 2008. Yes, his 68% tally that year would still be the envy of most pols, but it was his worst showing since 1992. In many years, he ran unopposed, collecting virtually 100% of the vote. And because Mr. Frank’s decline began even before the recent rebellion over health-care reform and deficit spending, a good bet is that he’s been neglecting basic constituent services. Several potential GOP candidates already have expressed interest in the 4th District. Whoever the Republican is, Mr. Frank could be facing his toughest campaign since the early 1980s thanks to the anti-Washington tide.

Let’s certainly hope so. With his consistent refusal to admit his errors, the role he played in obstructing reforms of Fannie and Freddie , his conflict of interest in serving on the committee overseeing Fannie while his partner worked for the GSE, this most prominent gay lawmaker has long been an embarrassment to the gay community.

Should Barney remove himself from the public eye, it could only help improve the image of gay people in America.

Sorry, but I just can’t stop laughing about the fact that John Edwards was secretly screwing around on his wife, his mistress and the millions of doe-eyed liberals who thought he was the Second Coming of Robert Kennedy.

Aren’t you people just stupid?  ROFL.

You are the same people who think that Al Gore is a man of principle who truly wants to save the planet.   (Normal human beings already know that Al Gore is a snake oil salesman who is making hundreds of millions of dollars off the Global Warming Ponzi Scheme).

Once again, liberals’ love for Edwards show that they see the world as they wish it was — not as it truly is.

Oh and by the way — John Edwards is the most disgusting, slimeball of a politician in my lifetime.  He wins the Nobel Prize for Manwhoreness.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

It all sounded good when spouted out of the mouths of MSM babes (Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow and the like) and other children of our time (Joe Biden): $787 Billion to “jumpstart” the economy, and create MILLIONS of jobs!

But just like nearly all of Obama’s principles and promises — this one falls flat in a major way.  3.2 Million Americans have LOST their jobs SINCE the Democrats’ Stimulus Package was enacted into law.

Now in a vain effort to promote all of these alleged jobs “SAVED”, the Obama Administrations PR effort has fallen flat on its face and reinforced the notion that the Federal Government is at best inept. (h/t - Instapundit)

The chairman of the Obama administration’s Recovery Board is telling lawmakers that he can’t certify jobs data posted at the Recovery.gov Web site — and doesn’t have access to a “master list” of stimulus recipients that have neglected to report data.

Earl Devaney, the chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, responded to questions posed by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., late yesterday to say the board can’t vouch for the numbers submitted by recipients of stimulus funding.

“Your letter specifically asks if I am able to certify that the number of jobs reported as created/saved on Recovery.gov is accurate and auditable. No, I am not able to make this certification,” Devaney wrote, in a letter provided to ABC News.

Even powerful Congressional Democrats have faced the obvious and the embarrassing.

However, the website [Recovery.gov] is troubled with inaccuracies, and these problems are undermining its credibility. Wisconsin Democrat Rep. Dave Obey agrees: “The inaccuracies on recovery.gov that have come to light are outrageous and the Administration owes itself, the Congress, and every American a commitment to work night and day to correct the ludicrous mistakes.”

Given that stimulus award recipients are responsible for providing much of the information you see on Recovery.gov, it’s reasonable to expect some errors in the reporting process. Alas, some of the information seems to come out of thin air.

Here’s a novel idea, Congress.  Stop all Stimulus spending for 9 months beginning NOW.  Instead, institute an across the board payroll tax holiday (individuals & small businesses) for those same 9 months.  Let’s see how that idea does for job creation versus your Stimulus’ 9 month track record.  A more substantive tax cut in the 1980s led to 20 million jobs created and the greatest growth period since WWII.  And, Reagan’s tax cuts led to deficit spending that in the context of Obama’s debt – would look like a savings plan now in comparison.

I know, wishful thinking.  Washington doesn’t listen to We, The People anymore.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)