Potpourri, Mish-Mash, And Illumination

The floodgates have been opened lately, and there are a bunch of things you need to know about, so this post will hit a wide variety of topics.  Here we go!

One of the things Obama frequently used as a stick to poke in Republicans' eyes on the campaign trail was the idea that Bush made the rest of the world hate us.  While the fact remains that there are some people and some countries that will hate us no matter what we do or who's in charge, there are some countries who definitely take their cues from our leaders.  That's why it's puzzling, then, that the Obama administration is continuing down a path toward less free trade with ally nations:

During her confirmation hearings, Hillary Clinton asserted that Colombia would remain on friendly terms with the US whether we approved a free-trade agreement with them or not.  The Colombians beg to differ, as Investors Business Daily points out in an editorial today.  They look around Latin America and see themselves treated as a second-class friend, and given their efforts on our behalf, they're starting to get mightily unhappy about it...

At the moment, Colombia sends its goods to the US free of tariffs, while Colombia collects a billion dollars on tariffs on imports from America.  However, that would be chump change ccompared to the level of US investment possible under a free-trade agreement.  They hope to convince investors to build business in their country, which would have the secondary effect of employing people outside of the drug trade, against which they've spent billions on our behalf.

The Obama administration will probably say that investors should focus on the US rather than Colombia in these troubled economic times.  However, they probably won't cancel the other FTAs in the region, putting our closest ally in South America at a competitive disadvantage to other, less cooperative trading partners.  That will eventually push Colombia away from the US at a vital time when we need them as a counterweight to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, and the FARC terrorists that both men fund and support.

After years of difficult reforms and fighting the drug trade and FARC simultaneously, Colombia deserves better treatment than this.

Way to go, Obamessiah.  Nicely done.  You're already making people around the world love us, and your administration isn't even a week old.

Regarding Obama's choice for Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, some people have done some additional investigation on Geithner's statement that he simply made a 'mistake' on his taxes.  He supposedly used TurboTax, but some people are saying that what Geithner did required him to manually and deliberately ignore a warning from the popular tax software.  As I mentioned before, Al Capone practiced tax evasion and went to jail for it.  If you or I did what Geithner did, we'd go to jail for it.  In Obamaland, Geithner is going to run the IRS.  Naturally.  By the way, we know the Dems are going to support Geithner, but here are the GOP Senators who stood up against this appointment:

Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, Jon Kyl of Arizona, Jim Bunning of Kentucky, Pat Roberts of Kansas and Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming

Those who bent over for the Obamessiah:

Mike Crapo of Idaho, Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, John Cornyn of Texas, Olympia J. Snowe of Maine and John Ensign of Nevada

Cornyn and Ensign are big defections - they're normally pretty staunch conservatives.  There must be some back room deals going on.  Shameful.

In a follow-up to my earlier post about how Obama is determined to close Gitmo, just read this:

Yesterday, Barack Obama signed an order pledging to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay within in a year, but without offering a solution for the current detainees.  That little detail takes on a little more significance after today's report in the New York Times about the career of a released Gitmo inmate.  After getting sprung from Gitmo, Said al-Shihri became a leader of the al-Qaeda network in Yemen.

How did Shirhi get released?  He told the Gitmo tribunals that he only traveled to Iran and Afghanistan to get carpets for his family's store.  The Pentagon's dossier on Abu Sayyaf showed that he trained at a terrorist camp outside of Kabul, went to Iran to bring extremists into Afghanistan, and wanted to assassinate a writer on which a mullah had placed a fatwa for his writings.  Shihri was fortunate that his review came at a time when the Bush administration was getting enormous pressure to reduce the number of inmates at Gitmo, and Shihri went into the Saudi rehab program.  A year later, Shihri disappeared — and now he's running the AQ network in Yemen.

And yet...Obama is still determined to close the place down.  Terrific!  Is this the kind of protection and defense that we really want?  Unfortunately, it's the protection and defense we've got.

Some not-so-shocking news (for those of us who have been paying attention over the past couple years) on immigration:

During the last presidential campaign, some believed conservative Republicans' opposition to comprehensive immigration reform turned off Hispanic voters toward the GOP. But this new survey from Pew suggests the issue ranks a little lower in the minds of Latinos than suggested by conventional wisdom. Pew released the poll last week and wrote:

Only three-in-ten (31%) Latinos rate immigration as an "extremely important" issue facing the incoming Obama administration, placing it sixth on a list of seven policy priorities that respondents were asked to assess in a nationwide survey of 1,007 Latino adults conducted from December 3 to December 10, 2008 by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.

Well, DUH!!!  Latinos don't vote Democrat because of amnesty, they vote Democrat because they're Democrats.  So, there's absolutely no reason for the GOP to capitulate on amnesty, is there?  I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again.

Britain is serving as a preview for us on oppressive climate change legislation.  The Jawa Report has the story:

To fight global warming, the British government has launched a pilot project to reduce household waste, specifically leftover food, by dispatching food police officials known as "food champions" to individual homes.

The seven-week, £30,000 trial scheme is funded by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to be carried out by a private firm called Waste Watch.

The project is part of WRAP's "Love Food Hate Waste" campaign, which has so far cost £4 million. The organisation says food waste has a significant environmental impact, in terms of the carbon generated to grow, transport and package items and the cost of having to dispose of them. [...]

The "food champions", who will be employed by a private contractor, will advise householders to plan their shopping carefully so that they do not over-cater. They will explain the difference between "best before", "use by" and "sell by" dates, and will give out tips for home composting.

According to one Waste Watch food police official, Tim Burns, "Food waste has such a high impact on climate change and it is something we can all do something about." Consequently, householders will have to sit down and listen to government representatives tell them how to run their kitchens.

Thankfully, food policemen will receive a day's-worth of training which the government believes makes them experts.

Show of hands for everyone who thinks this will be a good idea...?  That's what I thought.

Here are some more words of wisdom regarding current events in America.

You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
-- Adrian Rogers --
(h/t The Jawa Report)

"History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy... These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed; whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened."
-- Benjamin Franklin --
(h/t Patriot Post)

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."
-- James Madison --
(h/t Patriot Post)

It's no wonder Obama thinks the Founding Fathers had a fundamental flaw - they were completely anti-collectivism (i.e. socialist), and he's completely pro-collectivism.  With the Democrat supermajority in Congress now, he is also approaching what Madison defined as tyranny...

In other news, the Obamessiah has already done a total about-face on another issue with which he frequently clubbed McCain during the campaign: lobbyists.

Josh Rogin reports:

President Obama's new lobbying rules are fueling the concerns of senators from both parties regarding the nomination of William Lynn to become deputy defense secretary.

Obama signed an executive order Wednesday strengthening the restrictions on lobbyists and former lobbyists entering his administration.

"If you are a lobbyist entering my administration, you will not be able to work on matters you lobbied on, or in the agencies you lobbied, during the previous two years," Obama said in a press conference.

Lynn lobbied on behalf of defense contractor Raytheon Co. until last year and now stands to be in a position to make decisions on a plethora of the defense giant's programs as the new manager of the Pentagon.

After vilifying lobbyists during the campaign, Obama is finding out how difficult it is to manage the government without their help. The most absurd part of this is that Obama, a man who puts such great emphasis on expertise as to have no less than 300 foreign policy advisers, has created a system that allows lobbyists in his administration but only in those fields in which they have no experience and no expertise. As Harry Reid said this Tuesday, "People should understand that lobbyists, per se, are someone's father, mother, son, daughter." Or in this case, someone's nominee.

You know it's bad when even Democrats raise questions about it.  Not only has Obama been on record complaining about lobbyists -- which he is using himself -- but he is also following a stupid policy that puts them into his administration in positions where they are completely unqualified.  You know, that's the kind of thing that an inexperienced, untested rookie would do.  ***GASP***  Hey, why didn't someone mention that Barack Obama was inexperienced and untested before the election...?

Finally, get this interesting story:

Missiles fired from a suspected U.S. spy plane killed seven people Friday on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border, a lawless region where al-Qaida militants are known to hide out, officials said.

The strike was the first on Pakistani territory since the inauguration of President Barrack Obama.

Pakistani leaders had expressed hope Obama would halt the attacks, more than 30 of which have been launched since the middle of last year, reportedly killing several senior militants.

Now, what about this seems strange to you?  Hmmm...  Allow the Jawa Report to illuminate:

I expect a full investigation into this atrocity against human rights. WTF? I mean, we're not even at war with Pakistan and we're launching missiles into it. We are losing our standing in the world. When will the killing end?

OBAMA = WARMONGER

Hope!  Change!

There's my two cents.