Chilean Protesters Torch US Flag at Anti-Obama Rally

More hope and change…
“This demonstration is to reject Barack Obama’s militaristic policies,” said a protest organizer.

Demonstrators burn a makeshift U.S. flag during a protest against a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama in Santiago March 21, 2011. Obama is in Santiago on the second leg of his five-day Latin America tour to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador. (REUTERS/Cristobal Saavedra)

Emirates 23-7 had more on the protest:

Some 300 people, including influential union leaders and members of Chile’s Communist Party, earlier marched in the downtown Plaza de Armas carrying banners that read “Obama Persona No Grata” and “Gringos Go Home.”

“This demonstration is to reject Barack Obama’s militaristic policies,” protest organizer Ricardo Sole told AFP.

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

Why Did Obama Get The UN’s Authorization For Military Action In Libya But Not Congress’?

This is what then-Senator Obama had to say about the President’s use of military actions four years ago:

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action.

Some might say that Obama was getting in a jab at Bush over the wars in Iraq and Afghanitan, but it’s worth noting that both of those military actions had the explicit authorization of Congress. My libertarian friends would argue that because the Authorization for Use of Military Force bills that passed Congress for Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t really declarations of war as required by the Constitution because they don’t use the words “declare war” or something, but I digress.

The point is, America is now involved in a military action in Libya, and whether you agree that military action should be happening or not, President Obama should have gotten the authorization of Congress before beginning. He didn’t.

He got the authorization of the United Nations Security Council, mind you, but not Congress. Kind of speaks volumes about Obama’s views of our nation’s sovereignty, doesn’t it?

sayanythingblog.com

Protesters Firebomb US Consulate in Brazil Ahead of Obama Trip

Verum Serum asks: “Why is the media not reporting this?”

Protesters firebombed the US Consulate in Brazil today during a massive protest against President Obama’s trip there tomorrow.
AFP reported:

Police fired rubber bullets and used tear gas to break up a demonstration outside the US consulate in Rio de Janeiro on Friday, as US President Barack Obama prepares to visit the country, AFP reports.
Some 300 people had gathered at the site when Brazilian Military Police showed up and tried to break up the demonstration.

Police cracked down on the crowd after protesters hurled a molotov cocktail at the consulate door, the O Globo newspaper reported on its website.

“I was in the center of the protest when people began to run and I heard shots,” said AFP photographer Vanderlei Almeida. “I had to get out of there because it was hard to breathe.”

Almeida was struck by two rubber bullets — one hit him in the leg, and the other in his stomach.
Several protesters were detained, Almeida said.

Verum Serum has more photos.

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

Obama’s Irish Relatives Not Very Happy He’s Their Cousin

Barack Obama’s Irish relatives are not so thrilled that he’s a blood relation.
The New York Daily News reported, via Free Republic:

Obama found out years ago that an ancestor, Falmouth Kearney, fled the potato famine in Ireland and was brought to the United States on the Marmion when he was 19.

Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, was a descendant of one of Kearney’s daughters and a man named Jacob Dunham.

The study further filled out the branches on Obama’s family tree and identified 28 living descendants of Kearney living in the U.S. and abroad.

But despite the prestigious connection, some of the newly discovered relatives aren’t exactly dancing an Irish jig.

“I really don’t like to claim a relationship to Obama,” Roma Joy Palmer, 66, of Mulvane, Kan., told the AP. “He is not my favorite president.”

“I don’t have anything against him personally, but I don’t think we have the same agenda,” she said.

Another relative, 83-year-old Dorma Lee of Tucson, was similarly underwhelmed by the news.

“I’m not a Democrat, so I can’t say I clapped,” said Reese, who lives in Tucson. “I don’t appreciate what he’s done by any means, but I do appreciate that he holds that office.”

Vietnam vet Daniel Dillard, 63, though, said he took pride in “being related to a President of the United States,” even though he didn’t vote for Obama.

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

Mmm, mmm, mmm: NJ shuts down Barack Obama Elementary School

How fitting that a school named after our profligate, post-achievement president is shutting down thanks to fiscal mismanagement and non-achievement.

R.I.P., Barack Obama Elementary School (hat tip: reader Peter):

The state fiscal monitor who oversees financial operations in the school district Thursday morning ordered the closing of the Barack H. Obama Elementary School as of July 1.

Students next year will go to the district’s two other more modern elementary schools — Thurgood Marshall on the east side and Bradley on the west side.

Bruce Rodman, the monitor, made the decision after the school board in recent weeks failed to support a plan by Schools Superintendent Denise Lowe to reconfigure elementary grades to create early childhood learning centers in the district, a plan which would have kept the Obama school open.

Officially renamed early in 2010 after the president, the building was known as the Bangs Avenue School since it was built a century ago. The state School Development Authority had planned to build a new school to replace the historic building, but has pulled back and Lowe said recently the state would not build a new school.

Reader Peter adds: “Asbury Park’s school system was taken over by the state of New Jersey a few years back (along with those of other underachieving municipalities) for gross managerial incompetence. The state has, in the meantime, poured beaucoups bucks into the district. According to Education.com, the district spends nearly $36,000 per student but pulls in the lowest test rating the site offers.”

Yes they can?

Not any more.

Sing it with me: “Mmm, mmm, mmm…”

michellemalkin.com

Chris Matthews: Earthquake, Tsunami an Opportunity for Obama to Remind Everybody He Was Born in Hawaii

“Was this sort of a good opportunity for the president to remind everybody that he grew up in the United States and Hawaii?”

Did I really hear that? Sadly, yes. Was it surprising? Not at all.

Matthews’ concern for the political well-being of Obama is made a little more uncomfortably surreal when accompanied by video of the devastation that killed as yet untold numbers of people:

Sources tell me that Matthews, who is on record as wanting President Obama to release a copy of his birth certificate just to put the conspiracy to rest, offered to personally travel to Hawaii and place the document in a watertight Baggie stuffed deep down the front of his trousers for safe keeping until the Hawaiian tsunami warning expired.

Doug Powers - michellemalkin.com

Applicants Wanted: ‘Win a Commencement Speech From President Obama’ Contest Falling Short

Is there something a little sad about the people working for a man who Oprah once referred to as “The One” essentially resorting to begging?

CBS News:

The White House is ramping up an effort to promote a nationwide competition to decide which high school wins a commencement speech by President Obama.

An internal White House memo indicates that the White House is facing a shortage of applications less than a week before the deadline.

The competition was extended from the February 25 deadline until Friday, March 11 after few schools met the original application deadline. CBS News has learned a White House Communications Office internal memo dated February 22 noted “a major issue with the Commencement Challenge.”

“As of yesterday we had received 14 applications and the deadline is Friday,” the memo said. The memo also urged recipients to, “please keep the application number close hold.”

A follow-up memo on February 28 reported receipt of 68 applications. Noting the competition among more than 1,000 schools last year, the memo said, “Something isn’t working.” It called on staffers to ask “friendly congressional, gubernatorial and mayoral offices” to encourage schools to apply.

The White House is even promising that not as many kids will fall asleep as this year’s commencement as did at last year’s. What gives?

In the spirit of bipartisanship, here’s a suggestion that might help Team Obama get more entries: Threaten any school that fails to submit an application with a mandatory commencement address from Joe Biden.

Doug Powers - michellemalkin.com

Fail. Obama Posts LARGEST MONTHLY DEFICIT EVER… Larger Than Bush 2007 Deficit For Entire Year

Worst. President. Ever.

Barack Obama told Americans Saturday in his Weekly Address,

“We need a government that lives within its means.”

But, that was Saturday.
Today we found out that Obama’s February deficit topped Bush’s Deficit for all of 2007.

Barack Obama tripled the national deficit in his first year in office. In his second year the deficit was again a record $1.29 Trillion. This year the deficit will be even higher.


This chart was updated to reflect the recent news that the deficit this year will reach $1.65 trillion. (The Captain’s Comments)

In Febrauary the Obama Administration posted the largest monthly deficit in US history.
The Washington Times reported, via Free Republic:

The federal government posted its largest monthly deficit in history in February at $223 billion, according to preliminary numbers the Congressional Budget Office released Monday morning.

That figure tops last February’s record of $220.9 billion, and marks the 29th straight month the government has run in the red — a modern record. The last time the federal government posted even a monthly surplus was September 2008, just before the financial collapse.

Last month’s federal deficit is nearly four times as large as the spending cuts House Republicans have passed in their spending bill, and is more than 30 times the size of Senate Democrats’ opening bid of $6 billion.

But don’t worry…
Democrats are willing to cut a .28% from their record budget.

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

Obamacare Waivers Break 1,000

We’re at 1,040 businesses, unions and other organizations getting extra-special exemptions from Obamacare now with the Department of Health and Human Services posting another 126 waivers today.

HHS posted 126 new waivers on Friday, bringing the total to 1,040 organizations that have been granted a one-year exemption from a new coverage requirement included in the healthcare reform law enacted almost a year ago. Waivers have become a hot-button issue for Republicans, eager to expose any vulnerabilities in the reform law.

Wonderful.

We’re all equal under the law. Except in Obama’s America, where some businesses and unions can get special exemptions from the law just because.

Discussion question: If this law is so onerous that thousands of businesses, representing hundreds of thousands of workers and billions in health care payments, have to be exempted from it then why shouldn’t we exempt the whole nation from the idiotic abomination and start the health care debate over?

sayanythingblog.com

Governor Scott Walker Schools Clueless Obama in Press Release

For shame…
Walker completely pwned President Obama today in his press release.
JSOnline reported:

Gov. Scott Walker on Monday afternoon responded to comments President Barack Obama made earlier in the day about the protests in Madison:

I’m sure the President knows that most federal employees do not have collective bargaining for wages and benefits while our plan allows it for base pay. And I’m sure the President knows that the average federal worker pays twice as much for health insurance as what we are asking for in Wisconsin. At least I would hope he knows these facts.

Furthermore, I’m sure the President knows that we have repeatedly praised the more than 300,000 government workers who come to work every day in Wisconsin.

I’m sure that President Obama simply misunderstands the issues in Wisconsin, and isn’t acting like the union bosses in saying one thing and doing another.

gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com

Sacrifice: The Obamas Personal Trainer Flies to DC From Chicago a Few Times a Week

Rest assured, Mike Huckabee will aggressively defend this practice ASAP.

From J.P. Freire at the Washington Examiner:

With a schedule as hectic as President Obama’s it must be hard to stick to a training regimen without help — but why does he insist on having his old trainer fly out from Chicago to D.C. regularly when Obama and his wife exhort the rest of us to drive less? And in a recession? According to Ashley Parker at the New York Times, Obama’s fitness czar Cornell McClellan comes out to D.C. every week:

Mr. McClellan grew up practicing martial arts, eventually earning a black belt, and as a college student realized that he had a knack for working with people. He owns Naturally Fit, a personal training and wellness center in Chicago, and now spends part of his week in Washington at Mr. Obama’s request.

“It was an easy sell for me, because I thought of it as kind of a duty, to serve the president,” said Mr. McClellan, who works out with the first couple, often in the early morning, at the gym in the White House residence. Mr. and Mrs. Obama both try to exercise for at least an hour every day, and Mr. McClellan says he usually sees them two to four times a week, depending on their schedules.

Read the rest here.

The “buy local” campaign the White House pushes must be meant for the rest of us — there are dozens and dozens of personal trainers in the DC area.

The White House has expressed a desire to reduce carbon emissions produced by the government, and Obama recently allowed 40,000 federal employees to telecommute for a week to cut down on travel emissions. It seems as if a trainer a thousand miles away could be just as effective appearing in the gym on a big screen TV.

And if all other workout options failed they could play “where’s my purse” to stay in shape as prescribed by Let’s Move — it’d be cheaper and better for the environment than flying a guy to and from DC several times a week.

Update: I’ve gotten a couple of emails that, to make them sound more politely disagreeable than they actually were, said, “if it’s their own money and not taxpayer money paying for it, it’s really none of your business.”

I’d agree wholeheartedly if this wasn’t coming from a slice of America continually telling us that our drives to and from work — not to mention how much we run our lawnmowers and how far our food had to travel before reaching our refrigerators — are killing the planet, but can find nothing wrong with flying in Richard Simmons from Timbuktu three times a week to supervise pilates and sit-ups.

Doug Powers - michellemalkin.com

Gaddafi: Obama Is of Muslim Descent, He Is a Friend

Libyan tyrant Muammar Gaddafi praises Barack Obama today and acknowledged his Muslim descent.
It’s not the first time he said that Obama was Muslim.

Gaddafi said the whole Arab world is ready to throw their financial support behind this Muslim candidate back in 2008.

YNet News reported:

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi considers the US president a blessing to the Muslim world. In a speech published in London-based al-Hayat newspaper on Saturday, Gaddafi praised Barack Obama, called him a “friend” and said there is no longer any dispute between his country and the US.

Speaking in the Libyan city of Sirt at an event marking the 24th anniversary of an American attack on Libya, he said, “At the time, we were the target of the American cannon, the American navy challenged us in the gulf of Sirt and attacked us all along Libya’s shores. America tested Libya, and the Libyan people resisted the large country, but today, thank God, the difference is great.”

He said, “Now, ruling America is a black man from our continent, an African from Arab descent, from Muslim descent, and this is something we never imagined – that from Reagan we would get to Barakeh Obama.”

Gaddafi stressed that Obama’s presidency is “a major historical gain” and said, “He is someone I consider a friend. He knows he is a son of Africa. Regardless of his African belonging, he is of Arab Sudanese descent, or of Muslim descent. He is a man whose policy should be supported, and he should be assisted in implementing it in any way possible, since he is now leaning towards peace.”

The far left media is REALLY going to hate him now.

That’s weird? Obama’s mentor is linked to Gaddafi too.

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