John Kerry, who?

This guy has been as effective as Hillary... which is an embarrassment. The same one-world, uni-socialistic view and all of their actions have supported this view. Just like Barry, we'll see them for who they are and where their allegiances lay as they fade and their media shields drop.

U.S. scrambling to explain support for anti-Israel UN resolution

John Sexton, Hot Air

As I noted yesterday, Israel has not backed away from its claim to have “ironclad” evidence that the U.S. supported and pushed a UN resolution condemning Israel. Today, Adam Kredo at the Free Beacon has a follow up story saying the Obama administration is struggling to explain reports that they played a bigger role in the resolution than simply refusing to veto it:

Jonathan Schanzer, a Middle East expert and vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Free Beacon that he spoke with U.S. officials in September who admitted that “a U.N. measure of some shape or form was actively considered,” a charge that runs counter the White House’s official narrative. 

“We know that this administration was at a minimum helping to shape a final resolution at the United Nations and had been working on this for months,” Schanzer said…

“The fact is, the administration has been flagged as being an active participant in this U.N. resolution,” Schanzer said. “Now they wish to try to spin this as inconsequential. This was an attempt by the administration to lead from behind, as they have done countless times in the past and which has failed countless times in the past.”

Schanzer’s claim is backed up by a Washington Post report which says the first inkling of a UN resolution aimed at preserving the two-state solution was being considered by President Obama himself back in September:

The first public hint of the move came in the heat of the U.S. presidential campaign in September, just after nominees Trump and Hillary Clinton held meetings with Netanyahu in New York. In an Israeli television interview, Dan Shapiro, U.S. ambassador to Israel, said Obama was “asking himself” about the best way to promote a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“This could be a statement we make or a resolution or an initiative at the U.N. . . . which contributes to an effort to be continued by the next administration,” he said.

Shapiro clearly anticipated a Clinton victory, reflecting thinking within the administration that if Obama took the heat for a critical statement or resolution, she would be in a better position to play the “good cop” and move Israel toward substantive negotiations.

So this was part of a plan predicated on Hillary winning the election. When that didn’t happen it seems no one thought to pull back on the administration’s “bad cop” routine. Instead, as noted yesterday, there are reports the U.S. discussed a “balanced” resolution with the Palestinians and that Vice President Biden urged Ukraine to vote for it. Both of those reports have been denied by the Obama administration. After similar denials about the transfer of $400 million in cash to Iran, which was linked to a release of U.S. prisoners, it’s difficult to take those claims at face value.

The best response to the Obama administration’s claims regarding the UN resolution comes at the end of the Free Beacon story:

One veteran foreign policy insider and former government official who requested anonymity in order to speak freely described senior Obama administration officials as “lying sacks of s**t” who routinely feed the press disinformation.

Another anonymous source, described only as a senior congressional aide, tells the Free Beacon the administration, “got caught red handed, and now they’re talking out of both sides of their mouth.” The echo chamber used to manufacture support for the Iran deal doesn’t seem to working as well this time around.


More on this traitorous buffoon.... here

OBAMA’S PARTING SHOT AT ISRAEL

Finally a lasting legacy, an attempt to unwind Israel's right to exist. (Update) I have read in several places that members of Barry's UN team were the originators of the resolution and helped configure.

TOM COTTON ON OBAMA’S PARTING SHOT AT ISRAEL

Paul Mirengoff, Powerline

Our friend Sen. Tom Cotton issued this statement about President Obama’s decision to “abstain” from voting on the U.N. Security Council’s anti-Israel resolution — a decision that enabled the resolution to pass:

President Obama is personally responsible for this anti-Israel resolution. His diplomats secretly coordinated the vote, yet he doesn’t even have the courage of his own convictions to vote for it. This cowardly, disgraceful action cements President Obama’s richly deserved legacy as the most anti-Israel president in American history. 

This resolution hurts the prospects for a secure and just peace by targeting Israel for building homes in Jerusalem, its own capital, while not specifically addressing Palestinian incitement of and financial support for terrorism. That’s why President Obama vetoed a similar, but less anti-Israel resolution in 2011—back when he still needed pro-Israel voters for his reelection. Moreover, as a Security Council resolution with the imprimatur of the United States, this resolution surpasses even the infamous “Zionism is Racism” General Assembly resolution in its irrational obsession with the Jewish state.

The United States provides considerable financial assistance to the United Nations and Security Council members. The UN and nations supporting this resolution have now imperiled all forms of U.S. assistance. I look forward to working with President-elect Trump and members of both parties in Congress to decide what the consequences for this action will be.

If the consequences include ending all financial assistance to the U.N., that would be a nice coda to the Obama presidency.

OBAMA AGONISTES

Trully Nixonian pose!

OBAMA AGONISTES

Scott Johnson, Powerline

Reader Martin Karo is a Philadelphia attorney. As President Obama prepares to depart office, Mr. Karo offers optimistic thoughts on what he believes to be Obama’s ultimate failure:

Watching Hillary Clinton’s sad soiree, and the shrinking Obama persona displayed in his latest PBS interview, make the Democratic titans seem enmeshed in a sort of Greek tragedy. Hillary’s self-destruction is all too obvious; but Obama’s strikes me as equally tragic, and equally apparent on reflection. And it reminded me of parallels from another tragic self-defeating President. But his is over; Hillary’s is almost over; Obama’s is just beginning its third act. One could title the play:

Obama Agonistes

Barack Obama will be the first President ever to not literally depart the scene after his successor is sworn in. It is a powerful image and metaphor, the act of the former President boarding the helicopter (think Nixon and his defiant “V”s) or the Presidential jet to leave Washington, to literally leave the scene to his successor. Even the perennial gadfly, Jimmy Carter, took that one last ride on the Presidential jet to return to Georgia. Washington belongs to the elected President, not the retired one.

But Obama will not do that. He will drive (well, be driven) a few scant miles to a house in the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, where he can watch at close range as his legacy is revealed not to be one. From his front-row seat, he will watch his eponymous healthcare plan be gutted, watch his foreign policy be repudiated, watch his bureaucratic overreaches be reeled in (please God!), watch conservative judges take the bench, watch his immigration policy melt, watch the military cheer his successor as they never cheered him, watch infrastructure funds build highways and bridges (that will not be named after him) instead of disappearing into the pockets of government union members, watch the American energy revival kick into high gear.

As he watches all this, one wonders whether Obama will appreciate the curious posture he has imposed on the Democratic Party. It is too much to expect Obama to blame himself for the decline in the Party’s presence, at every level of government; but unless he is delusional, he must at least see it. He probably does, given his remarks in his Friday NPR interview that his organizing work “didn’t translate to” Congressional candidates. In the same interview he noted the future of the Democratic Party is the unnamed mass of young people who helped his campaign, omitting reference to any current politician.

Indeed, there are very few Democrats in power at any level who have any plausible claim to be up-and-coming party leaders. The current crop are septuagenarians, and uninspiring ones at that (who would follow Nancy Pelosi into a foxhole? who would fall on a grenade to save Elizabeth Warren? who would be pushed to a microphone by Chuck Schumer?).

With the dismantling of Obama’s signature initiatives, what does the Democratic Party stand for, other than to pine for Obamaism? Numerous Republicans plausibly champion the GOP position on any issue that matters; there are dozens of party leaders on immigration, energy, foreign affairs, national defense, sane budgeting, tax reform, education reform, who are not named Trump. Other than Warren’s identification with big bank harassment, the Democrats have no counterparts. Après moi, le vacuum.

The other curious thing about Obama’s remaining on the scene is that he has no visible friends on it, despite his dominance of his party. He has many toadies. He has his entourage. He even has many sincere admirers. But friends? Name three. Name one.

And in that characteristic, he is very much like the Democratic Antichrist, Richard Nixon. The quintessential Nixon photograph is of him walking on the beach in San Clemente, in a full suit and tie and wingtip shoes, alone except for his dog. Nixon’s post-presidential isolation derived mainly from the political disgrace that led to his resignation; no doubt Obama will have acolytes inviting him to events and interviewing him and basking in his presence. But who will come just to have a drink and talk about the old days or the White Sox? Every visit will be business, every caller seeking something rather than bringing something.

Obama is like Nixon in other ways as well, probably in more ways than the Democrats would ever admit. Both Nixon and Obama were self-made men. Nixon started as an obscure Congressman, Obama was an obscure community organizer (whatever THAT is). Both thrust themselves into the spotlight and into power, and ironically both by allegedly playing dirty (Nixon dubbed “Tricky Dick” by “the Pink Lady,” Helen Gahagan Douglas; Obama escaping criticism altogether despite having his state senate opponents disqualified and having his Republican opponent Jack Ryan’s divorce records mysteriously unsealed in his US Senate race).

Both relied far more on their ability to operate the levers of power than their ability to persuade others to follow them. Both were heavily criticized during their first terms, yet easily won re-election. Both depended far more on the personal loyalty of their staff, less on their experience or counsel. Both reveled in the trappings of the office. Both were very expensive to send on vacation, though to be fair Nixon barely knew the meaning of the word.

Ultimately Obama suffers from the Nixon comparison, for the reasons he will see at close range. Nixon was sought out post-retirement for his counsel; Obama will be asked for his presence, not his wisdom. Nixon’s electoral success was a general one, regionally and culturally, and very much set the scene for the Age of Reagan; Obama’s politics of division manifestly fail for anyone not named Obama. Nixon´s policies, domestic (e.g., creation of OSHA and the EPA, ending gold-backing of Dollars, the Endangered Species Act) and foreign (e.g., the SALT treaty, rapprochement with China, backing Israel) are still with us forty years later. Obama´s will be gone forty weeks later.

And that is where the Agonist tragedy lies. Obama is staying in Washington for two reasons: because he doesn’t truly have friends elsewhere, or any other place he considers home; and because if he doesn’t stay in DC he descends into obscurity. The latter is a struggle he is likely to lose anyway; if ever there were a personality suited to dominate the stage and put his predecessor in the shade, it is Trump.

But Obama will continue the struggle. He will help raise funds, in a social environment where funding matters less. He has no appointment power, so he will have few toadies. Any emerging Democratic leader will be wary of him, as he will only draw attention to himself. He still considers himself the smartest man in any room, despite abundant proof to the contrary. He will never improve in his ability to persuade people to his viewpoint, because he lacks introspection; a man who suffers as many failures as he has in eight years, yet still can’t think of any serious errors he has made, is by definition not learning from his mistakes. And absent holding the levers of power himself, persuasion is the only tool Obama has.

So Obama will soldier on, speaking to any reporter or power player who seeks (or will accept) an audience, pressing his increasingly chimerical policies in a political and legal landscape increasingly tilted against them, sucking the air and vitality away from any of his successors who actually have a chance of implementing them. Due to his own ego, Obama’s struggles will ultimately be self-defeating.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH IN ONE PARAGRAPH

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH IN ONE PARAGRAPH

Steven Hayward, Powerline

Paul Light of New York University passes along this interesting tidbit about the growth of the executive branch in his Wall Street Journal op-ed today:

In 1961, according to my analysis, John F. Kennedy oversaw 450 political and career executives who occupied 17 bureaucratic layers at the top of government. Mr. Trump will soon oversee more than 3,000 executives in 63 layers. This leads to a Washington hallmark: titles like chief of staff to the deputy assistant secretary. Such complexity distorts information as it travels up the chain of command, and then thwarts guidance on the way down.

If you don’t think this state of affairs favors the bureaucracy you’re not paying attention in class.

Obama’s Precisely-Worded Boasts

Obama’s Precisely-Worded Boasts about Stopping Terrorists

by Jim Geraghty, National Review

President Obama, yesterday, contending his administration has been quite successful in fighting terrorism and protecting Americans.

We should take great pride in the progress that we’ve made over the last eight years.  That’s the bottom line. 

No foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland.  (Applause.)  And it’s not because they didn’t try.  Plots have been disrupted.

Foreign terrorist organizations haven’t executed an attack on our homeland, but far too many terrorists have. I’m not sure Obama’s words will be so reassuring to the students at Ohio State University who were attacked late last month, the 29 people injured in the Chelsea bombing in September, the ten people stabbed in a shopping mall in Minnesota in September, the 50 killed and 53 injured in the attack on the Orlando nightclub, the 16 killed and 23 injured in San Bernardino, California, the 6 killed and 2 injured on the attacks on servicemen in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the 3 killed and 264 injured at the Boston Marathon, the 13 killed and 44 injured at Fort Hood, Texas…

 Kudos and applause to everyone involved in disrupting attempted terrorist attacks and investigating, targeting, and taking out the perpetrators, whether it’s through arrests, raids, or drone strikes. But stopping terrorist organizations is only part of the fight. Once a bomb goes off, it doesn’t matter that much if the perpetrator was one person or a group.

Efforts to fight ISIS the organization mean a lot less when ISIS-inspired lone wolves kill innocent Americans with any regularity. No counterterrorism policy is going to be perfect; as many have said since 9/11, the good guys have to prevent an attack every day to have a great success; the bad guys just have to succeed once to have a great success.

Put the BUTT out...

That is about 60 years too late...

OBAMA’S BLAME GAME SHIFTS

OBAMA’S BLAME GAME SHIFTS, Patriot Headquarters

Following more than six years of failed domestic policies and embarrassing foreign relations maneuvers, President Obama has found a new target for blame. Even he realizes that he can’t keep blaming former President George W. Bush for all the problems the nation is now facing and so his new target is…drum roll, please…Fox News.

That’s right. The media is to blame. Or, more specifically, Fox News. Failing to take into consideration that approximately 85 percent of mainstream media are liberal – by their own admission – he picks on one of the few news outlets that refuses to toe the line when it comes to sucking up to him and reporting whatever he wants reported in whatever way he wants it presented.

Obama said that if he’s going to be able to change the way people like Representative John Boehner and Senator Mitch McConnell think (good luck with that, by the way), then he’s going to have to change how the media reports on things. Then he singled out Fox News for its biased coverage.

I guess when you have a vast majority of the news media in your back pocket, it must be infuriating to have one popular news outlet willing to tell the truth about you and your failures.

Currently, it’s just talk. Right now he’s only “saying” that Fox News should change the way it reports. But if he decides to start following in the footsteps of other dictators, don’t be surprised to see his people try to enact laws that control how and what the media reports. And if it’s not Obama, it will be the next president from the Democratic Party.

Laura Ingraham writes...

Obama Infantile... Foxnews

Fox News contributor and LifeZette Editor-in-Chief Laura Ingraham blasted President Obama Wednesday night for refusing to take any responsibility for Democrats losses in the November elections.

"Almost seven in 10 people routinely say the country's going in the wrong direction, wages have basically been flat since 1999, and yet this president comes out and in a very infantile manner blames cable news without any sense of personal responsibility," Ingraham said during a panel discussion on Fox News' "Special Report."

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine published on Tuesday, Obama did indeed have plenty of blame to lay at the feet of Fox News and the Clinton campaign's ground game for Trump's win, but apparently felt that his own record had absolutely nothing to do with Trump's stunning election victory and the Republicans' success in maintaining control of Congress.

"In this election, [voters] turned out in huge numbers for Trump. And I think that part of it has to do with our inability, our failure, to reach those voters effectively. Part of it is Fox News in every bar and restaurant in big chunks of the country, but part of it is also Democrats not working at a grassroots level, being in there, showing up, making arguments," Obama said.

"They say Trump can be immature at times, [but] what was that?" Ingraham asked. "And he goes over to Europe and he goes, "well you know I'm actually very popular, look at the polls, my policies are actually very popular," [but he] just got shellacked, [his] party just got shellacked," she said. "At least do what Bill Clinton did and say you know, that was a drubbing, we really took it."

Of course, Obama has spent his entire time in office blaming other people -- President Bush, closet racists, Fox News, conservative talk radio -- for his own failures and unpopularity, so it's hardly surprising that with less than two months left in office his blame-everyone-but-himself game is still going strong.

Laura Ingraham joined FOX News Channel in 2007 and currently serves as a contributor, providing political analysis and commentary to FNC's daytime and primetime programming. She is the Editor-in-Chief of LifeZette.com.  In addition to her role as a contributor, Ingraham is a frequent substitute host on FNC's "The O'Reilly Factor." As the host of the radio program "The Laura Ingraham Show," she is also the most listened-to woman in political talk radio in the United States, heard by hundreds of radio stations nationwide. Ingraham previously served as a litigator and Supreme Court law clerk.

Snowflake power...

Snowflake power, a vague view of what can and should be done efficiently.