Obama Boasts: 'I Am the Closest Thing to a Jew that Has Ever Sat' in the Oval Office

President Obama once confided to a top adviser that he believes he is “the closest thing to a Jew that has ever sat in this office.”

In an interview by an Israeli TV station, former Obama adviser David Axelrod recalled the president venting in a moment of contemplation about criticisms that he doesn’t support Israel strongly enough, JPupdates.com reported.

“You know, I think I am the closest thing to a Jew that has ever sat in this office,” the president told Mr. Axelrod. “For people to say that I am anti-Israel, or, even worse, anti-Semitic, it hurts.”

White House press secretary Josh Earnest endorsed the sentiment Tuesday, saying Mr. Obama gave a heartfelt speech at a Jewish synagogue in Washington last month that expressed “the kinds of common bonds and common values that are embodied in his administration that are [also] advocated by the Jewish community.”

“The president does feel that kind of kinship,” Mr. Earnest said.

The TV report came out in advance of an exclusive interview that Mr. Obama conducted with Channel 2’s Ilana Dayan, which will be broadcast later Tuesday.

Mr. Axelrod also was critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has had a frosty relationship with Mr. Obama.

“The world of politics everywhere is divided into two categories: the first and more common is the people who run for public office because they want to be somebody,” Mr. Axelrod said. “A smaller group is made of respectable people who run for public office because they want to do something – something positive. Shape the future in a positive way. I think Benjamin Netanyahucompletely falls in the first category. He is a great politician. He knows what he needs to do to get through the next election. But it seems to me that Israel has to think about what they need to do to get through the next generation.”

Martin Indyk, U.S. special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations from 2013 to 2014, told Ms. Dayan that “Israelis are ungrateful to this president.”

“They never appreciated his rule whereby nothing will harm the security of Israel,” Mr. Indyk said. “Obama did not manage to get that statement out so that the Israelis can really feel it. You are an emotional nation, not a rational nation. You work from your gut and not your mind. “

He said of Mr. Netanyahu’s speech to Congress this spring, which the White House opposed: “The prime minister really stuck his finger in President Obama’s eye, and this is a disturbing development.”

Via: The Washngton Times

Continue Reading....

President Obama's Increasing Lawlessness

Obama's fall from grace sets a scary precedent for future presidents

The increasing lawlessness with which President Barack Obama has been acting in his second term is not going unnoticed.

In fact, in a strong rebuke last week to the unilateral actions being taken by the Obama administration, a federal appeals court came down hard on the administration’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission by ruling that delaying a decision on a proposed nuclear waste storage facility was in violation of federal law. In the majority opinion, the judges declared that the administration was “simply flouting the law,” and that President Obama “may not decline to follow a statute or prohibition simply because of policy objections.”

President Obama’s fall from grace as the candidate elected to rein in executive power in 2008 is more than tragic – it sets scary new precedents for the behavior of future presidents from either party.

Just take for example how President Obama has selectively enforced his own health care law:

• In 2011, the Obama administration unilaterally ended the CLASS Act – a long-term care insurance plan included in ObamaCare that proved to be unworkable. Congress would later pass a repeal of this program, but it still signaled a disturbing beginning to the President’s pattern of selectively enforcing his law.

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading....

White House IRS Timeline Shifts Again

The White House explanation of what it knew about the IRS story ahead of the first press reports on the controversy shifted once again Tuesday.

Just a day after telling reporters that chief of staff Denis McDonough had learned of the situation about a month ago, press secretary Jay Carney revealed that White House officials had consulted with the IRS on how to initially present to the public the story that the agency had targeted conservative tax-exempt groups for extra scrutiny.

There was “discussion about the possibility of a speech” by Lois Lerner, who oversaw the IRS’s work on tax-exempt groups, Carney said, and conversation about testimony by the acting commissioner of the agency and “what he would say” if asked about the issue.

Continue Reading

Via: Politico.com

Opinion: Obama’s Fiscal-Cliff Christmas

TAUBE: President responsible for year-end crisis

Who is trying to push the United States off the “fiscal cliff”? Many left-wing commentators predictably have placed the blame squarely on the Republicans. Yet a much stronger case can be made that the fault lies with President Obama.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner announced an astonishing proposal last week that called for a $1.6 trillion increase in taxes. This particular figure is double what most GOP politicians likely would be willing to accept when push comes to shove. If the GOP is still having trouble accepting roughly 50 percent of that amount, how on earth does Mr. Obama expect it ever to agree to this staggering new number?

Incredibly, it doesn’t stop there. Mr. Obama wants to increase the top income tax rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent — exactly what it was during Bill Clinton’s presidency. In other words, it’s a good ol’ “soak the rich” campaign from a tax-and-spend liberal sitting in the Oval Office. There also reportedly will be $200 billion spent on so-called “economic growth” measures (to pay, ultimately, for Mr. Obama’s various spending increases over the next four years, no doubt) and $50 billion on infrastructure projects that likely will never see the light of day.

Mr. Obama also has suggested about $400 billion in cuts to health programs. Big deal. Early estimates for the total cost of implementing Obamacare, the president’s massive state-run health care plan, are in the neighborhood of $1 trillion. That’s why the GOP asked for a total of $600 billion in health savings this week — to offset more of these fiscally imprudent White House proposals.

Via: Washington Times

Continue Reading...

BANKRUPT A 123 SYSTEMS WANTS TO PAY BONUSES TO TOP EXECS

Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported that A 123 Systems, the bankrupt recipient of Obama’s department of energy loan, now wants to pay top executives more than four million dollars.

This is what Dow Jones reported:

“A123 Systems Inc., the electric car battery maker that filed for Chapter 11 last week after receiving nearly $250 million in government grants, wants to pay more than $4 million in bonuses to a handful of top executives.

The company is asking Judge Kevin Carey of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., to sign off on incentive bonuses totaling up to $4.1 million for nine key employees, including several company insiders---namely, corporate officers and directors---pending the sale of its assets at a bankruptcy auction.”

Well done, Mr. Obama. We will use some of the $132 million given to A 123 Systems to reward their top executives, who could never deliver an affordable lithium ion battery!  

But hold on. Was it not Mr. Obama who attacked the bonuses for executives at banks that received bailouts in 2008?  Of course Mr. Obama opined on the matter of these executives being given bonuses. The New York Times on January 29, 2009 quoted Obama as saying:

“There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses,” Mr. Obama said during an appearance in the Oval Office with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.  Now’s not that time. And that’s a message that I intend to send directly to them, I expect Secretary Geithner to send to them.”

Via: Breitbart

Continue Reading...

NY Times Caught Editing Story On Iran Nuclear Negotiations After White House Denial

The White House scrambled late Saturday to deny a New York Times report claiming Iran has agreed to meet directly with U.S. officials to discuss its nuclear program, sending New York Times editors rushing to quietly but substantially revise their initial reporting on a key foreign policy issue for the second time in as many months.

According to the Times, which anonymously quoted senior administration officials, Iran told diplomats it wanted to wait until after the November presidential election to put plans for the meeting in motion.

“It has the potential to help Mr. Obama make the case that he is nearing a diplomatic breakthrough in the decade-long effort by the world’s major powers to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions,” the Times report said.

Within hours, White House officials responded the report was mostly inaccurate.

“It’s not true that the United States and Iran have agreed to one-on-one talks or any meeting after the American elections,” National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement. ”[However, the White House has] said from the outset that we would be prepared to meet bilaterally.”

“The President has made clear that he will prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and we will do what we must to achieve that,” Vietor added. “It has always been our goal for sanctions to pressure Iran to come in line with its obligations. The onus is on the Iranians to do so, otherwise they will continue to face crippling sanctions and increased pressure.”

Meanwhile, a senior administration official told NBC News on background that back-channel talks with Iran were in progress, but confirmed that no definite agreement about a meeting had been reached. (RELATED OPINION: Obama, Iran in secret nuclear deal)

When the New York Times updated its story late Saturday to reflect Vietor’s statement, the paper made no mention of the update or any correction to the story, leaving readers with the impression that the White House’s denial had been in the story all along. In fact, the initial version of the story portrayed the development as a tentative victory for the Obama administration, which has recently been faced with foreign policy crises in the Middle East and Libya.

Via: Daily Caller

Continue Reading...

EDITORIAL: Labor Day Is No Holiday Without a Job

AP Graphics

EDITORIAL: Another bummer Obama day
Labor Day is no holiday without a job

By The Washington Times

For 23 million Americans without jobs, the Labor Day holiday is not a day off but just another day without work. It’s a fitting hash mark for the presidential campaign kickoff, reminding Americans of President Obama’s tragic failure to deliver.

In 2009, Mr. Obama promised to lower unemployment to 5.5 percent by 2012. It’s stuck at 8.3 percent. In his first budget, hopefully titled “A New Era of Responsibility,” he projected current growth in the gross domestic product would be a red-hot 6.3 percent. Instead, the country creeps along at a miserable 1.5 percent. One measure of the Obama administration’s desperation is Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis applauding the latest youth unemployment figures, which dipped all the way to 17.1 percent. When numbers that high make officials “excited,” you know things are terrible.

From the White House perspective, this isn’t all bad news. The Obama administration thinks unemployment actually can be healthy for the economy. Obama press secretary Jay Carney said last year that jobless benefits somehow boost consumption and “every place that, that money is spent has added business and that creates growth and income for businesses that leads them to decisions about jobs, more hiring.” By that confused illogic, Mr. Obama should be cheering the worst sustained unemployment rate since the Great Depression. Congratulations, that’s a heckuva job, Barack. Apparently, the president’s re-election slogan, “Forward,” actually means “Reverse.”

Labor Day also draws attention to the role of organized labor in American public life. A new Gallup survey shows 52 percent of the public approves of unions while 42 percent disapproves. A lot has changed since the 1950s, when old Big Labor — the United Auto Workers, the United Mine Workers, the Teamsters — had a 75 percent approval rating. Back then, workers built things. The new Big Labor — the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Service Employees International Union — represents the service sector and public employees. Their influence grows through securing sweetheart deals from governments populated with the politicians they helped elect. Eventually, the cost of these deals becomes too great for states and municipalities to sustain. Even with these jurisdictions on the brink of bankruptcy, the unions refuse to give on any aspect of their plush compensation packages. Their answer is always the same: Raise taxes and fees; do anything it takes to extract more money from the public to keep alive the government golden goose.

Via: The Washington Times

Continue Reading...

Obama's Guilty Silence On The Economy

No apology for economic sins

The most salient characteristic of the Obama administration’s abject failure to put the American economy back to work has been its deafening silence on the issue in his campaign.

President Obama doesn’t talk about the economy’s painful weaknesses. Democrats in Congress are all but silent on the issue, as if it doesn’t exist. His campaign ads ignore it altogether as if everything’s fine, asking voters to turn their attention to lesser issues — ones that don’t make the top 10 list of major concerns in voter surveys.

Across the Potomac River in swing state Virginia, almost all of the Obama attack ads against Republican rival Mitt Romney are about abortion and contraception, hoping they will be able to woo enough women to vote for Mr. Obama based on a single issue to put the state into his electoral column.

We’re in an election year when the president’s handling of the economy is the No. 1 complaint. High unemployment and the lack of good-paying jobs is No. 2, and unfathomable budget deficits and a nearly $16 trillion debt are Nos. 3 and 4. Mr. Obama believes he can win a second term on abortion, Mr. Romney’s tax returns and bashing his successful career as a venture capital investor. Apparently, he thinks the American people are fools who will fall for the old carnival shell game.

In “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” Hans Christian Andersen tells the tale of two tailors who weave a suit of clothes that is supposedly invisible to anyone who is either stupid or incompetent. When the emperor rides by, no one in the crowd dares to say anything, until a child cries out, “He isn’t wearing anything at all.”

Via: Washington Times

Continue Reading...