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A sidebar to my Merkel post

 “The United States keeps trying to restore what is unrestorable – leadership in the world system.” – Immanuel Wallerstein

In yesterday’s post, Merkel’s opinion of Obama revealed, I wrote of the NSA spying on Merkel, the ejection of the CIA’s Berlin station chief, and the souring of the German public on President Obama and the U.S.

Space didn’t permit me to give you details of what has been termed as an “unprecedented breach” in German-U.S. relations.  I am posting this sidebar because the U.S. media has failed to give us the inside “skinny.”

lmerkel and obama ( Charles Dharapak, AP)

President Obama was unwilling to commit to a no-spy agreement with German Chancellor Merkel. While apologizing privately to her, he would not make a public apology. (Charles Dharapak/AP)

“The United States has been stupid and very clumsy,” wrote Immanuel Wallerstein, a senior research scholar at Yale University.  “The basic problem is that the United States is, and has been for some time, in geopolitical decline.  It doesn’t like this.  It doesn’t really accept this.  It surely doesn’t know how to handle it, that is minimize the losses to the United States. So it keeps trying to restore the unrestorable – leadership in the world system.”

Wallerstein says Europeans in general, and Merkel and Germany in particular, see the U.S. as a “very unreliable partner.”  As they lose trust in the U.S., they wonder if they can really trust Russia.  “Today … Germany (Merkel) feels free to criticize openly and even harshly all the powerful nations with which she deals.” Continue reading →

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You got us into this mess, Mr. President, with your 2008 grand plan to fundamentally transform the United States of America.

Now, if you are as smart as your people say you are, you’ll drop the “I’ve got a veto pen arrogance” and allow Republicans to help you salvage your last two years.

… read more
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Merkel’s opinion of Obama revealed

“What puts her off about Obama is his high-flying rhetoric.  She distrusts it.”  – The New Yorker magazine

While Barack Hussein Obama swept into office on a wave of popularity that extended to Europe and the Middle East only to see that acclaim dwindle,  German Chancellor Angela Merkel has quietly gained leadership strength and approval.

“In Obama’s first years in office, Merkel was frequently and unfavorably compared to him (Obama), and the criticism annoyed her,” wrote George Decker in a Dec. l, 2014 piece in The New Yorker.  Quoting Stern, a German publication, Decker writes, “Her favorite joke ends with Obama walking on water.”

merkel (washingtonpost.com)

As this photo seems to convey, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is not an admirer of President Obama (washingtonpost.com)

“She does not really think Obama is a helpful partner,” wrote Torsten Krauel in the publication Die Welt, “She thinks he is a professor, a loner, unable to build coalitions.”

Decker’s major profile, The Quiet German: The Astonishing rise of Angela Merkel, the most powerful woman in the world, was one of two recent articles about her.  Vanity Fair’s feature, Angela’s Assets, appears in its January 2015 edition.  Merkel, however, looks upon “the most powerful woman” label with disdain. Continue reading →

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What has happened to America’s will to win?

“Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser.  Americans play to win all the time.  That’s why Americans have never lost a war and will never lose a war.  Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.”        – Gen. George S. Patton, May 31, 1944.

Patton (dayiii.tripod.com)

Gen. George S. Patton (dayiii.tripod.com)

Oh my, if General Patton were alive today, he wouldn’t recognize today’s America.  Victory eluded us in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. This week President Obama told a gathering of Marines in Hawaii that the war in Afghanistan will come to a “responsible end.”

A “responsible end?”  What is that?  Whatever happened to winning?

In 2007 it was presidential candidate Obama who referred to the Afghan war as the “good war.”  “We did not finish the job against al Qaeda in Afghanistan.  We will wage the war that has to be won.”

Obama (abc30.com)

President Obama told a Marine gathering in Hawaii that he was bringing the Afghanistan war to “a responsible end.” (abc30.com)

Since becoming president, the words, won, win, winning, victory and victorious never seem to get onto the teleprompter.  Instead, sentence bites like “finishing the fight,” “we will finish the job,” “getting the job done,” and “time to prevail” appear.

It was candidate Obama who spoke of the need for a stronger and sustained partnership between Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO, saying “We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as president, I won’t.” Continue reading →

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Where’s the great orator?

During a family discussion on the silence of President Obama about the subject of the recent execution-style killing of two NYPD officers, we recalled how he weighed-in when the victims were black.

lectern (biostate.blogspot.com)

Where is the president when the nation needs a civil response to the blue on black controversy? (biostate.blogspot.com)

Remember how he said the Cambridge, MA police “acted stupidly” in the Louis Gates arrest, and how if he had a son, he would have looked like Trayvon Martin? Following the shooting of Michael Brown, he said “too many young men of color feel targeted by law enforcement,” while directing AG Eric Holder to conduct an investigation.

Most recently he commented on the grand jury decision in the Eric Garner death in New York, saying, “minority communities feel that law enforcement is not working with them and dealing with them in a fair way.”  During that same appearance – unbelievably – he said, “My tradition is not to remark on cases where there still may be an investigation …” Continue reading →

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A $3,000 incentive to hire illegals

“The steps we took early on to rescue our economy and rebuild it on a new foundation helped make 2014 the strongest year for job growth since the 1990s.  All told, over a 57-month streak, our businesses have created nearly 11 million new jobs.”

President Obama opened his last press conference for 2014 with that boastful statement, and when he took questions, not a single White House correspondent challenged him on jobs or the economy, and the fact that the middle class isn’t experiencing the rosy picture he paints.

press corps ()muncievoice.com)

The president held his last press conference for 2014 and again wasn’t challenged by anyone in the press corps. (Muncievoice.com)

They could have queried him about the 70 million Americans who are not working, the miserable unemployment rate being experienced among Blacks, or perhaps, they could have asked him to explain the “new foundation” to which he referred.

I would have liked to have had the opportunity to ask him about the hiring of illegals.  Earlier this month it was revealed that a loophole in the Affordable Health Care Act (ObamaCare) makes the five million illegal immigrants more attractive to businesses as new hires.  Because the illegals are ineligible for ObamaCare, businesses wouldn’t be required to pay the $3,000 penalty for not providing them health coverage. Continue reading →

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Michigan professor slams Republicans

When first I heard that a University of Michigan professor had slandered Republicans, it didn’t come as a surprise since university and college faculties have long been havens for liberals, and conservative students have recently been recording their classroom propaganda.

Susan J. Douglas, a professor of communications at Michigan, decided to take her “hate” to a little-known nonprofit magazine, In These Times.* Her piece later found its way on line.

Susan Douglass

Susan J. Douglas, a professor of communications at the University of Michigan, expressed her hate for Republications in print.

“I hate Republicans.  I can’t stand the thought of having to spend the next two years watching Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Ted Cruz , Darrell Issa or any of the legions of other blowhards denying climate change, thwarting immigration reform or championing fetal “personhood,” she wrote.

Her loathing was couched in a typical feminist rant regarding the question of marrying a Republican.  Her brand of Republican – a moderate dating back to the 1960 and 1970s – is “now extinct,” she wrote.  I say, thank goodness.

She vilified Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the GOP for smearing the Clintons and President Obama, and Republicans for their “complete repudiation” of the Democrat Party as  having any legitimacy at all.

Isn’t it interesting how she has selective amnesia when it comes to the words and actions of liberal Senators Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Alan Grayson, to mention a few. Continue reading →

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China reneges on climate accord

There they were, President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping, all smiles during last month’s APEC summit meeting in Beijing, after signing a commitment to limit greenhouse gas emissions by 2025-2030.

The sight of the two leaders agreeing on the reduction of fossil fuels had to thrill the low-information crowd and, of course, the “greenies.” … read more