Catching Up

Here are some updates to a bunch of recent events that I thought were worth passing along. Enjoy!

Obama votes present on Afghanistan, breaks campaign promise

President Obama graciously gave his top Afghanistan general 25 minutes of his time aboard Air Force One after flying for 10 hours to promote Chicago to the IOC.

The British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told Obama to back your generals and send more troops to Afghanistan.
The Times Online reported:

David Miliband urged President Obama to embrace a renewed “hearts and minds” strategy in Afghanistan as ministers indicated that they would not send more British troops unless the US adopted such an approach.

The Foreign Secretary did not mention America by name but called on every government in the coalition to back troops, aid workers and diplomats in support of a clear plan. “We came into this together. We see it through — together,” he told the Labour conference in Brighton.

His words reflect a growing concern in the Government over Mr Obama’s apparent reluctance to garner political consent for a troop “surge”, which commanders say is needed to build up the Afghan Army and defeat the Taleban insurgency. General Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, wants a revamped counter-insurgency — more forces on the ground engaging civilians and persuading the Taleban to switch sides — as opposed to a counter-terrorism strategy focused on al-Qaeda — reducing troop numbers and attacking militants mostly with drone missile strikes.

The head general of the British army also warned of the 'terrifying prospect' of failing to achieve victory in Afghanistan because of the 'intoxicating effect' it would have on militant Islam.


ACORN in the Obama White House

So where does a far left political operative land after his organization is fined $775,000 for election violations that included hiring rapists and burglars to register voters?
Inside the Obama White House, of course.

Obama's ACORN operative in the White House Patrick Gaspard is helping shape domestic policy--

There have been several articles written lately about Barack Obama's ACORN advisor, Patrick Gaspard, who is currently serving in the White House. Gaspard has a long history of working with ACORN-affiliated organizations.
Erick Erickson at RedState reported on Gaspard's close ties to ACORN:

The story in a nutshell:

•Bertha Lewis is the CEO of ACORN.
•In a review of Lewis’s contacts list, which was leaked to RedState, Bertha Lewis has the office, cell phone, home number, and private personal email address of Patrick Gaspard.
•Patrick Gaspard holds Karl Rove’s position in the White House and was Obama’s Political Director during the campaign.
•In addition to Patrick, Bertha has Patrick’s brother Michael in her rolodex. She lists Michael as working at the Advance Group.
•The Advance Group is ACORN’s lobbying organization.
•In other words, besides having Obama’s political director’s contact info, the political director’s brother works for ACORN via its lobbying shop

Matthew Vadum at The American Spectator has more on Patrick Gaspard.

Newly discovered evidence shows the radical advocacy group ACORN has a man in the Obama White House.

This power behind the throne is longtime ACORN operative Patrick Gaspard. He holds the title of White House political affairs director, the same title Karl Rove held in President Bush's White House.

Evidence shows that years before he joined the Obama administration, Gaspard was ACORN boss Bertha Lewis's political director in New York.

Lewis, the current "chief organizer" or CEO of ACORN, was head of New York ACORN from at least 1994 through 2008, when she took over as national leader of ACORN. With Gaspard at work in the White House, Lewis might as well be speaking to President Obama through an earpiece as he goes about his daily business ruining the country.

But that's not all.
In 2008 Barack Obama hired Patrick Gaspard, a top official of the powerhouse New York-based healthcare workers union 1199, an SEIU affiliate and the largest local union in the country. In 2004, Patrick Gaspard Served As National Field Director For 527 Organization America Coming Together, a group that was later fined $775,000 in civil penalties by the federal government.

I'm glad that someone is shining the light on the radical aides Obama has on his staff, but I think it's kind of like clipping the toenails off a lion. I mean, really, why are we paying attention to the radical Leftist aides in the White House when we should be worrying about the radical Leftist President in the White House?

Anyway, Gaspard was fined because he used convicted felons -- including convictions for rape and murder -- in their get out the vote campaign.


On the Olympics

Or, more specifically, Obama's failure on the Olympics:

Maybe the apology tour wasn't such a good idea, huh?


On Iran...hey, wait, maybe they're trying to build a nuclear weapon!

Two years ago, American intelligence agencies published a detailed report [i.e. the 2007 NIE] concluding that Tehran halted its efforts to design a nuclear weapon in 2003. But in recent months, Britain has joined France, Germany and Israel in disputing that conclusion, saying the work has been resumed.

A senior American official said last week that the United States was now re-evaluating its 2007 conclusions.

The atomic agency’s report also presents evidence that beyond improving upon bomb-making information gathered from rogue nuclear experts around the world, Iran has done extensive research and testing on how to fashion the components of a weapon.

But don't worry...Obama gave Iran two weeks to fully disclose their nuclear program. Surely, that's a great thing, and a definite sign of hard-ball from Obama, right? Wellllll...

A State Department spokesperson on Friday signaled the president’s mandate that Iran has two weeks to permit inspections of its recently unveiled uranium refinement plant was not “written in stone.”

“I don’t think that there’s a hard-and-fast deadline,” State Department Spokesperson Ian C. Kelley said during Friday’s press briefing, after a reporter asked what the consequences of Iran’s inaction might be.

“I think that we’ve made it quite clear this was a matter of some urgency; that we expected [Iran] to take urgent and concrete steps to open up this facility, and not only just open it up but also make sure that we were able to — or that the IAEA would be able to — talk to some of the engineers there and see documents and plans,” Kelly added.

Some hard-ball. Thanks for protecting America, Mr. President.

There's my two cents.