‘Barack Obama Is The President That Nixon Always Wanted To Be’

Barack Obama, Bush, Conservatism, Constitution, Individual Rights, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism

As was observed in this week’s column, “Obama’s The Sinner; Holder His ‘Sin Eater,’” Professor Jonathan Turley has been doing the job most liberals and conservatives refuse to do: Argue that, as I put it, “Barack Hussein Obama’s philosophical fingerprints are all over his administration” and its scandals.

Turley has been magnificent, and must be losing many of his liberal pals for refusing to worship at the alter of Obama.

In March this year, Turley made the case, in a USA Today column, that “Barack Obama is the president that Nixon always wanted to be,” and that, “In 2013, Obama wields those very same powers openly and without serious opposition. The success of Obama in acquiring the long-denied powers of Nixon is one of his most remarkable, if ignoble, accomplishments.”

Turley traverses the ugly terrains of Obama’s expansion of the “warrantless surveillance” over his subjects. There is little you can do to oppose such surveillance, thanks to BHO.

As has Obama asserted “his sole authority” “to decide what is a ‘war,’” so that even the cockroaches in congress can no longer control the imperial presidency in the matter of war powers.

Then there are the “attacks on whistle-blowers and Journalists.” This is quite remarkable, but under the Espionage Act of 1917, “Obama has brought twice as many such prosecutions as all prior presidents combined.

Obama has not only openly asserted powers that were the grounds for Nixon’s impeachment, but he has made many love him for it. More than any figure in history, Obama has been a disaster for the U.S. civil liberties movement. By coming out of the Democratic Party and assuming an iconic position, Obama has ripped the movement in half.

This Turley interview with film maker John Cusack is particularly good because so specific.

TURLEY: “That’s exactly right. In fact, President Obama has not only maintained the position of George W. Bush in the area of national securities and in civil liberties, he’s actually expanded on those positions. He is actually worse than George Bush in some areas. …”

MORE.

What a shame that in the universe of a civil libertarian like Turley, individual rights do not extend to the sphere of economics and property rights. That would mean becoming a libertarian. How about that? (See also “Obama And Bush: Partners In Government Giganticism.)

UPDATED: Obama’s The Sinner; Holder His ‘Sin Eater’ (Media in Mutiny)

Barack Obama, Bush, Democrats, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Republicans

“Obama’s The Sinner; Holder His ‘Sin Eater'” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

“BIG media have been willing, even eager, to pass the buck for Barack for the past five years. But the Fourth Estate rose as one on its proverbial hind legs when the president made the mistake of going after their own: members of the media.

For doing their jobs, Associated Press journalists were spied on and had their telephone records and other personal information seized by the head of Barack Obama’s Justice Department, Attorney General Eric Holder. For doing his job, Fox News Channel’s James Rosen was framed by the same department for the crime of conspiracy to leak classified materials.

IRS bloodhounds Douglas Shulman and Steven Miller, likely in charge of hounding conservative organizations unsympathetic to Obama, had practically taken up residence at the Big Dog’s House. Yet, curiously, conservatives have largely avoided linking Barack Hussein Obama to this and to the other scandals reverberating throughout his administration.

Republicans have eddied around the issue, merely describing the president’s stance with respect to the Rosen, AP, Benghazi and the Internal Revenue Service affairs as “disconnected,” “lacking focus.” An “absentee presidency,” surmised the conservative bloggers at Powrline. “The Spectator President,” pronounced Patrick Buchanan. Judge Andrew Napolitano’s brief was equally narrow. He avoided so much as hinting that Holder had likely been carrying out the wishes of his bosom buddy.

Although it’s hard to know what to make of it here, Republican rigor mortis is par for the course. Fortunately, for every mealymouthed Eric Cantor—the House majority leader is responsible for the “disconnected” description—there are progressives like Salon’s Joan Walsh [and professor Jonathan Turley], who, spittle flying, are tying the president to the infractions liberals consider unforgivable. …”

The complete column is “Obama’s The Sinner; Holder His ‘Sin Eater.'” Read it on WND.

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UPDATE: Let’s be clear, the media schmooze Eric Holder has attempted to hold, only to be rebuffed by most news outlets, originated with our original sinner, Obama. Via HuffPo:

President Obama announced last week that Holder would meet with media executives to discuss guidelines concerning journalists caught up in leak investigations. There has been growing concern among journalists and lawmakers about the DOJ’s tactics following the seizure of Associated Press phone records in one investigation and the accusation in court documents that a Fox News reporter may have committed a crime in the course of reporting in another.

The “meeting this week between Attorney General Eric Holder and the Washington bureau chiefs of several media outlets [was ostensibly] to discuss guidelines for journalists in leak investigations.”

Please. Obama wishes to restore the privileges he enjoyed before the media mutinied. A little access, a wink and a nudge; why doesn’t the magic work any more? He also wants surreptitiously to “set conditions” on how reporting is to be done in The Great leader’s America.

And he wants this meeting (ostensibly) about the freedom of the press to take place off the record!

Following Abramson’s announcement, Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse tweeted that President Obama had asked the attorney general “to review how leak investigations are done but some in the media refuse to meet with him. Kind of forfeits your right gripe.”
Journalists would argue that the issue is not about simply refusing to meet with Holder, but that the government shouldn’t set conditions that would prevent news organizations from reporting on what takes place

McCain’s Rebels Lunch On … Enemy Lungs

Democracy, Foreign Policy, John McCain, Lebanon, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Republicans

Senator John McCain is not working with much. He finished 894th out of 899 at the Naval Academy and lost five jets. As IQ ace Steve Sailer once quipped, “To lose one plane over Vietnam may be regarded as a heroic tragedy; to lose five planes here and there looks like carelessness.”

McMussolini wants the US to go to war with Syria to support the ragtag rebels, whoever they are. (Here is a useful history of the US-Syria relationship.)

To that end, earlier this week, “US Senator John McCain,” reported Al Jazeerra, “crossed from Turkey into Syria to meet with rebel leaders in the war-torn nation.”

Via Economic Policy Journal:

When John McCain slipped into Syria the other day to meet with Islamist rebels, Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted “best wishes” to his fellow warmonger and claimed “dibs on his office if he doesn’t come back.” Leave it to Sen. Graham, who has been agitatingalong with McCain for the US to send weapons to the rebels, to joke about the untrustworthiness of the very people he wants to arm. But the rebels’ savagery is no joke: we are, after all, talking about people who eat the lungs of their enemies. …
… Here is a man who is the Republican party’s voice when it comes to foreign policy, a role he has appropriated due to his intimacy with those who book the Sunday talk shows, and yet when it comes to America’s relationship with the rest of the world his utter and complete ignorance is appalling.
He told us the invasion and occupation of Iraq would be “fairly easy.” He pontificated that the anthrax attacks were delivered by the Iraqis. His preferred policy for Afghanistan: we should “muddle through,” rather than withdraw. When the North Koreans started acting out, he averred we ought to threaten them with “extinction.” And when Russia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia got into an armed conflict over the breakaway province of South Ossetia, McCain announced “Today, We Are All Georgians” and demanded we go to war with Moscow. He thinks Iran is training Al Qaeda: he also thinks Iraq shares a border with Pakistan.
In short, McCain doesn’t know s%^*t about foreign policy: he has been wrong, wrong, wrong about absolutely everything. So it isn’t merely ironic that he is leading the charge in demanding we intervene in Syria – it’s downright crazy.

What’s as troubling, but doesn’t surprise in the least, is that the Obama administration has also adopted the position that Assad must be removed.

Rule by Alawite minority (with some nominal power sharing), however, is by far the more civilized of the options facing this country. This, unfortunately, is the reality.

Soon you might be supplying McCain’s rebels with rations.

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Citizens Vs. Criminals (Lawful & Unlawful)

Britain, GUNS, Individual Rights, Islam, Jihad, Rights, The State

There is no doubt that were an American-born Jihadi stupid enough to perform an act of butchery in public, he would not have left the scene alive as Michael Adebolajo, the butcher from Woolwich, did. US police would have arrived on the scene quickly and that would be it.

As was observed in “Disarmed Brits Can Only Shoot Savage … With A Camera,” there is a lot to be said for “an armed citizenry and an unarmed police force.” Although permitted to bear arms, Americans are nevertheless severely limited in how vigorously they can defend their homes and lives without incurring the wrath of the law.

However, since the US police is not unarmed, as it is in the UK, our homegrown Jihadis are a little more circumspect about carving up a countryman in public, a la Adebolajo. They are still perfectly comfortable setting off remote-controlled explosions.

A day after “Disarmed Brits Can Only Shoot Savage … With A Camera” went up on WND, The Daily Caller asked, “Why did British bystanders watch a soldier get hacked to death?

The DC answered its rhetorical question with a list of regulations imposed in the UK which would prohibit any form of self-defense.

According to the United Kingdom government website, the online storehouse of British government regulations, it is illegal to:
sell a knife of any kind (including cutlery and kitchen knives) to anyone under 18
carry a knife in public without good reason – unless it’s a knife with a folding blade 3 inches long (7.62 cm) or less, eg a Swiss Army knife
carry, buy or sell any type of banned knife
use any knife in a threatening way (even a legal knife, such as a Swiss Army knife)
Folding knives, regardless of blade size, with a locking mechanism are illegal in the U.K. for carry in public and are referred to as “lock knives.” According to British law, “The maximum penalty for an adult carrying a knife is 4 years in prison and a fine of £5,000.”
Pepper spray is also illegal under section 5(1)(b) of the Firearms Act 1968, which prohibits “any weapon of whatever description designed or adapted for the discharge of any noxious liquid, gas or other thing.”
It is illegal to import pepper spray or a stun gun because British law expressly states that pepper spray and stun guns are classified as firearms. Blow guns are classified as “offensive weapons” and are prohibited to own, except for veterinarians or registered animal handlers.

The DC neglected to mention that the US also has “bewilderingly complex, startlingly severe” “State and local knife-control laws.”

There can be no doubt that an American is better off than a Brit in as much as he can defend himself in public if he abides by strict laws—rules which do not impede criminals (not that this fact would penetrate Piers Morgan’s skull).

An Englishman attempting the same is pretty much doomed. If the criminal does not get the better of the Brit, the long arm of the law surely will.