Friday night former U.S. President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush made a private visit to the victims of the massacre at Fort Hood:

The Bushes entered and departed the sprawling military facility in secret, having told the base commander they did not want press coverage of their visit, a source told Fox News.

Former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura secretly visited Fort Hood last night and spent “considerable time” consoling those who were wounded in Thursday’s shooting spree, Fox News has learned.

The Bushes entered and departed the sprawling military facility in secret, having told the base commander they did not want press coverage of their visit, a source told Fox News.

The couple was described as “deeply concerned” about military families on Fort Hood after Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly opened fire on soldiers and civilians, killing 13 and wounding 38.

The Bushes, who have a 1,600-acre property known as Prairie Chapel Ranch less than 30 miles from Fort Hood in central Texas, spent between one and two hours visiting the wounded and their families.

Contrast the Bush’s behavior with that of Obama who flew to Dover, Delaware to pay his respects to the returning remains of fallen American soldiers making sure he had a full press contingent in tow.

And while we are talking about contrasts, how about Obama’s first public words as this tragedy unfolded? Yes, he did have a statement to make, but he prefaced it with friendly banter and standard boilerplate that was totally inappropriate. As millions of Americans watched and waited for their President to help them deal with this news, this is what they saw and heard:

OBAMA: Please, everybody, have a seat. Let me first of all just thank Ken and the entire Department of the Interior staff for organizing just an extraordinary conference.

I want to thank my Cabinet members and senior administration officials who participated today. I hear that Dr. Joe Medicine Crow (ph) was around, and so I want to give a shout out to that Congressional Medal of Honor winner. It’s good to see you.

(APPLAUSE)

My understanding is is that you had an extremely productive conference. I want to thank all of you for coming and for your efforts, and I want to give you my solemn guarantee that this is not the end of a process, but the beginning of a process and that we are going to follow up.

(APPLAUSE)

We are going to follow up. Every single member of my team understands that this is a top priority for us. I want you to know that, as I said this morning, this — this is not something that we just give lip service to. And we are going to keep on working with you to make sure that the first Americans (ph) get the best possible chances in life in a way that’s consistent with your extraordinary traditions and culture and values.

Now, I have to say, though, that beyond that, I had planned to make some broader remarks about the challenges that lay ahead for Native Americans as well as collaboration with our administration.

Let’s not overlook the fact that Obama awarded Crow the Medal of Freedom, a civilian award, and not the Medal of Honor which is bestowed on extraordinary members of the U.S. military.

Now, many of us realized a long, LOOONNNGGGGG time ago that Obama just reads the words on his teleprompter. Apparently, he doesn’t even think about what he is saying and how tone deaf those words can be. But he was billed as the smartest man ever to hold the office. What a crock!

Remember how the left howled when President Bush was first learned of the September 11th attacks yet continued on for a few more minutes with the reading of “My Pet Goat” to Florida schoolchildren? Erick Ericson at Red State believes this is Obama’s My Pet Goat moment.

But it’s not just right wing bloggers who feel Obama is tone deaf. Today’s editorial in the Boston Globe speaks to those wider concerns:

Obama’s initial remarks came shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday, while Americans were struggling to come to grips with the shocking rampage and its chaotic aftermath. The stage was set for the president to quickly and somberly address the tragedy. Instead, a serene-looking Obama offered light introductory comments, keyed to those attending a Tribal Nations Conference that was hosted by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs. His introduction included a convivial “shout-out’’ to one of the conference attendees.

Several minutes in, Obama finally called the Fort Hood shootings “a horrific outburst of violence.’’ The words he spoke next were respectful and appropriate. But it took him too long to get to the point of delivering them.

It takes more than scripted eloquence for presidents to connect with their fellow Americans. It requires a visceral ability to grasp the scope of tragedy, calculate its impact on the national psyche, and react swiftly to it. Ronald Reagan did it after the Challenger explosion took the lives of seven crew members on Jan. 28, 1986. So did Bill Clinton, after the Oklahoma City bombings of April 19, 1995, left 168 dead and more than 600 injured.

When a gunman fired those shots at Fort Hood, the country immediately felt the pain. Obama missed the first moment to show he understood just how much it hurt.

Barack Obama: Too inexperienced to be elected President and still not to the job!

Meanwhile Senator Gregg reacts to the new CBO estimate:

Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee today commented on the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) more detailed cost estimate of the manager’s amendment to the House health reform bill.

Senator Gregg stated, “The CBO estimate released last night finally sheds light on the smoke and mirrors game the majority has been playing with the cost of their health care reform proposal. Over the first 10 years, this legislation builds in gross new spending of $1.7 trillion – and most of the new spending doesn’t even start until 2014. Once that spending is fully phased in, the House Democratic bill rings up at more than $3 trillion over ten years.

“Additionally, this bill cuts critical Medicare and Medicaid funding by $628 billion, accounts for nearly $1.2 trillion in tax and fee increases and will explode the scope of government by putting the nation’s health care system in the hands of Washington bureaucrats. The $3 trillion price tag defies common sense – we simply cannot add all this new spending to the government rolls and claim to control the deficit.

“If we continue to pile more and more debt on the next generation, they will never be able to get out from under it. The health care system needs reform, but this massive expansion of government, financed by our children and grandchildren, is the wrong way to proceed.”

And listen…this is what our government believes will be the cost. But look at programs our government has run historically and you find decades of added costs and overruns that our forced onto the taxpayer.

Insanity

This from a CNN poll of all places:

Of course CNN spins away with this headline:

CNN Poll: Public wants Congress to keep working on health care

Puhlease….

…only a quarter say those bills should be passed pretty much as is, with a third suggesting that Congress should make major changes. The poll also indicates that one in four say lawmakers should start from scratch and 15 percent want Congress to stop all work on health care reform.

The survey’s release Friday morning comes one day before the full House of Representatives is expected to hold a floor vote on the Democrats health care reform bill.

“Most of the Democrats interviewed support some form of heath care reform, but the divisions within congressional Democrats are reflected in the party nationwide,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Forty percent of the Democratic rank and file want Congress to approve the proposals that have passed through committee with only minor changes. But an equal number of Democrats nationwide want Congress to make major changes to those proposals before approving them.”

~~~

“Six in ten independents say they oppose Obama’s health care proposals,” says Holland. “That’s a nine point increase since October.”

The Obama shine is fading fast and it won’t save his vision of a socialist utopia. What a difference a year makes eh? Charles Krauthammer:

Sure, Election Day 2009 will scare moderate Democrats and make passage of Obamacare more difficult. Sure, it makes it easier for resurgent Republicans to raise money and recruit candidates for 2010. But the most important effect of Tuesday’s elections is historical. It demolishes the great realignment myth of 2008.

In the aftermath of last year’s Obama sweep, we heard endlessly about its fundamental, revolutionary, transformational nature. How it was ushering in an FDR-like realignment for the 21st century in which new demographics — most prominently, rising minorities and the young — would bury the GOP far into the future. One book proclaimed “The Death of Conservatism,” while the more modest merely predicted the terminal decline of the Republican Party into a regional party of the Deep South or a rump party of marginalized angry white men.

This was all ridiculous from the beginning. The ‘08 election was a historical anomaly. A uniquely charismatic candidate was running at a time of deep war weariness, with an intensely unpopular Republican president, against a politically incompetent opponent, amid the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression. And still he won by only seven points.

Exactly a year later comes the empirical validation of that skepticism. Virginia — presumed harbinger of the new realignment, having gone Democratic in ‘08 for the first time in 44 years — went red again. With a vengeance. Barack Obama had carried it by six points. The Republican gubernatorial candidate won by 17 — a 23-point swing. New Jersey went from plus-15 Democratic in 2008 to minus-four in 2009. A 19-point swing.

~~~

November ‘08 was one shot, one time, never to be replicated. Nor was November ‘09 a realignment. It was a return to the norm — and definitive confirmation that 2008 was one of the great flukes in American political history.

The irony of 2009 is that the anti-Democratic tide overshot the norm — deeply blue New Jersey, for example, elected a Republican governor for the first time in 12 years — because Democrats so thoroughly misread 2008 and the mandate they assumed it bestowed. Obama saw himself as anointed by a watershed victory to remake American life. Not letting the cup pass from his lips, he declared to Congress only five weeks after his swearing-in his “New Foundation” for America — from remaking the one-sixth of the American economy that is health care to massive government regulation of the economic lifeblood that is energy.

~~~

…Just last month Gallup found that conservatives outnumber liberals by 2 to 1 (40 percent to 20 percent) and even outnumber moderates (at 36 percent). So on Tuesday, the “rump” rebelled.

Now:

Then:

“Do as I say, not as I do.”

After receiving no answer from emails requesting a town hall health care meeting, I took up Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann’s call to make a house call on our congressional representative.

Despite less than a week’s notice, up to 50,000 Americans from across the country gathered at the steps of the Capitol Building yesterday to send a message to Congress - ’kill the bill’.  Pelosicare is not health care reform, it is a power grab.

At noon, 40 Republican members of Congress filed out of the Capitol building as the crowd shouted ‘Where’s Nancy?’ Madame speaker was not present on Capitol Hill this day, apparently she was too busy breaking arms over her health care scheme elsewhere.

FYI: Due to an overwhelming number of participants at this meet up, I could not get close to the speakers podium during the rally, but had an excellent view of the Capital Building. I chose that view to capture the speeches on video.

Mark Levin, Jon Voight, and John Ratzenberger (Cliff from Cheers) gave rousing speeches, firing up the crowd. It was a sight to behold! Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann sparkled in her speech to the crowds. Several of the speakers and numerous members of Congress walked along the front of the crowd shaking hands and thanking us for participating in the house call.

Cliff..err…John Ratzenberger looks at the philosophical descendants of Abbie Hoffman, Saul Alinsky and Wavy Gravy – Woodstock Democrats :

Michelle Bachmann – Quoting Abigail Adams and encouraging the crowd to “don’t hold back tell them how you really feel!”

Onward to the reason we gathered in DC – a house call on Congress.  Lines quickly formed around the entrances of the buildings housing congressional offices. Chants of ‘Can U Hear Us Now’ and ‘Kill The Bill’ echoed outside the buildings.

Unfortunately for Pennsylvania, Rep Allyson Schwartz (D- Pa) is ready to vote ‘yes’ on whatever health care bill is put forward. She is also eager to levy additional ’sugar’ taxes on to her constituents in order to pay for the ‘budget neutral’ health care scheme. My message to the congresswoman is simple – “Ma’am, if you vote ‘yes’ on any health care bill, your constituents will vote ‘no’ come November”.  Although I was ignored by the staff at Allyson Schwartz office, another constituent was nearly assaulted by Rep. Gerry Connolly’s chief of staff. Should I consider myself lucky that I was not?

You can view more photos from the rally HERE.

Kimberly Munley:

The hero cop who ended the bloody rampage at Fort Hood by pumping four bullets into the crazed gunman even though she was wounded is known for her toughness, friends say.

Before relocating to Texas, civilian police Sgt. Kimberly Munley spent about five years as a cop in North Carolina where she forged a reputation as a no-nonsense officer.

“I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I’m really not,” said close friend Drew Peterson, 27.

“She was born and bread to be a police officer. If you were ever to be in a fight, she’d be the first person to stand up next to you and back you up. She’s a tough cookie.”

Munley’s toughness and grace under pressure were on display Thursday when she and her partner responded within three minutes of reported gunfire, said Army Lt. Gen. Bob Cone.

Munley, who had been trained in active-response tactics, rushed into the building and confronted the shooter as he was turning a corner, Cone said.

“It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer,” Cone said.

Munley could not be reached Friday. In a posting on her Twitter page, she wrote: “I live a good life….a hard one, but I go to sleep peacefully @ night knowing that I may have made a difference in someone’s life.”

Munley was only a few feet from Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan when she opened fire.

Wounded in the exchange of bullets, the 34-year-old Munley was reported in stable condition at a local hospital.

The diminutive Munley – she stands 5-foot-4 and weighs about 120 pounds – served as a cop in Wrightsville Beach, N.C., before she moved to Texas to enlist in the military, friends said.

She is married with two daughters and is no longer in the armed forces.

“She’s the happiest, sweetest, most fun-loving girl you’d ever want to be friends with – and never want to cross,” Peterson said.

The hero cop spent Thursday night phoning fellow officers to let them know she was fine and to find out about casualties in the attack – the deadliest ever on a military base in the U.S., Cone said.

Cone said Munley’s aggressive response training taught her that “if you act aggressively to take out a shooter you will have less fatalities.”

“She walked up and engaged him,” he said. He praised her as “one of our most impressive young police officers.”

Remember that Obama claimed the stimulus bill would save or create millions of jobs. It didn’t. Remember that the Obama Administration said that the stimulus bill would keep unemployment from rising above 8% and that the bill was too important to take the time to read it? Remember that after a slight dip in unemployment in August Obama claimed that he had “rescued our economy from catastrophe?”

Well now reality is starting to set in. As Obama’s chief White House economist testified before Congress last month the stimulus that was to be the cornerstone of Obama’s economic recovery and jobs plan is a bust. A $trillion in new spending that will take a lifetime to pay off and nothing to show for it. It really is, as the Congressional Budget Office warned before the stimulus bill was signed, “worse than doing nothing!”

Opinion polls suggest that more and more voters are blaming Obama, not Bush, for the bad economy. That message was confirmed on Tuesday with voters in New Jersey and Virginia putting the economy and jobs at the top of their list of concerns while voting overwhelmingly for Republican candidates in the big races.

With unemployment expected to remain high, directly due to Obama’s policies which DISCOURAGE job growth, it’s likely that voters will be looking for a different kind of hope and change a year from now and also in 2012!

The Ubermenschen Myth, Obama’s myth designers borrowed heavily from Nietzsche’s concept of Ubermenschen symbolism. In the novel, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, written in 1833, by Friedrich Nietzsch, features Zarathustra the protagonist, who offers his gift to mankind, the idea of Ubermenschen. A literal translation of Ubermenschen from my high school German, translates Uber as over or superior, while menschen would translate to the species of man. Mankind or especially the Middle Class is unaware that a problem exists, let alone that man himself is the problem; therefore, Zaraththustra must convince mankind that man is the problem and that the concept of Ubermenschen is the solution.

Thus says Zarathustra, “I teach you the everman. Man Is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him.”

Using bible verse and prose as a template, Zarathustra proceeds to discredit Christianity and Semitism in an attempt to revise traditional morality. Thus nihilism and existentialism are the precepts of a new meaning of man’s relationship to the earth and rejection of asceticism and spirituality. Rejecting minor details such as a man’s soul being released upon mortification of the body, Zarathustra argues that the soul is merely an aspect of the body. Although Obama spent twenty years in the church of Black Liberation, the emphasis seems to be more towards racism than Christianity. Neutralizing the traditional Judeo-Christian ethics has evolved into a form of secular humanism, with sympathies for Islam, in reverence for a father he never knew, Obama bases his personal and political philosophy on this unexplained and undefined relationship with the earth and the environment in a poorly executed parody of Zarathustra’s quest for a dignified new values of co-existence with the earth. Now with Obama’s pledge of trust and dedication, we the Middle Class are to assume a type of self-flagellating vow of poverty, while the rest of the world is given the chance to participate in the production and marketing that made the US a powerful nation, while disregarding Al Gore’s ascendancy to billionaire status and George Soro’s acquires the wealth he needs to achieve the deity status he craves.

Zarathustra teaches that a new meaning for life will be redefined by new values that unleash a new individuality and an artistic brilliance that will be fine tuned by future generations. The Existentialist must reject standard ideas of academic philosophy, just as Obama has found supposed flaws within the Constitution, in that it is incomplete at best. Thus the Existentialist Obama envisions a new concept of freedom based on a collective individuality of purpose with requisite wealth redistribution. Old ideas of egalitarian modernity are to be replaced by high achievement and artistic brilliance. The phrase “Hope and Change” reflects the promise of high achievement and artistic brilliance tempered with huge stimulus funds to the NEA so that they become propagandists rather than artists. Their artistic brilliance is subverted to reflect the high achievement and artistic brilliance of Obama. Unwittingly, Obama creates himself as a Machiavelian partisan who is trying to crush the egalitarian values of the Middle class and replace them with his own value system, the Obama Collective of Social Justice.

There can be no doubt that he considers himself an Ubermenschen type savior, not only for the US, but possibly for the world. He has stressed his need to redistribute wealth, to take from the wealthy and give to the poor; citing this as one of the fundamental flaws within the Constitution, its fundamental failure to address the basic need to redistribute wealth. Thus he employs the Robin Hood Myth and captures a sycophantic following that is an amalgam of both the poor and lazy. The Robin Hood persona is their only chance for success, thus again the vision of a savior offers an alternative to that ever elusive lottery ticket. Of course they will follow the Robin Hood candidate, what do they have to lose.

Being billed as a great intellect was intriguing in the beginning, yet a few teleprompter malfunctions belied this the first of the myths to crumble. Americans have faith in intelligence; consequently, there has never been a gifted intellect, in the public sector, who felt the need to secure all his academic records. Thus Obama remains an enigma and the question of a free pass from Affirmative Action seems to be a distinct possibility.

The myth of being a gifted writer has disintegrated but for all the most vacuous lemming faithful. First by the analysis of Jack Cashill and later by Michelle’s admission of Ayers duplicity in Anderson’s coffee table book on life with the Obamas, it is obvious that a fraud has been perpetrated and that Bill Ayers wrote the book, Dreams of My Father. This supposition of being a zero at written composition is further evidenced by Obama’s tenure as the editor of the Harvard Law Review, however the position seems to have been an honorary position, because he wrote….nothing.

The myth of a great orator is possibly the only myth with a grain of truth, he can speak well; but only with the aid of a teleprompter, an indisputable fact, after malfunctioning teleprompters exposed a stuttering and dithering speaker.

It is true Obama can direct a campaign audience with skill and whip up enthusiasm bordering on hysteria; yet like Mussolini before him, a population tires of endless campaigns with no tangible results. The Governor races of New Jersey and Virginia confirmed the fact that the public is no longer enthralled with a perpetual campaign.

Basing a campaign on a series of myths with no substance is a dangerous gamble, but to run an administration based on myths with no substance is political suicide. The demographics that are prone to believe such myths based on half truths and innuendos over time and against common sense will lack the courage, intelligence, and integrity to carry a politician through difficult times. To paraphrase Reverend Wright, eventually your chickens will come home to roost.

The myth of Obama as a world visionary and international statesmen has been disintegrating rapidly, since his apologetic attitudes and willingness to negotiate with depots and dictators, without preconditions: while seen by Liberals as an honorable approach, it is regarded as weakness and spinelessness by the international community. Consequently, our enemies laugh at us and our allies are reluctant to trust us.

Epilogue: The concept of an Ubermenschen type Messiah or hero relates at least as far back as the legend of the Greek Titan god Prometheus of the 6th century BC. Prometheus was an ever suffering hero of mankind, who not only created mankind from clay, but gave mankind much comfort in the world. These same acts of benevolence kept him in direct conflict with his boss, Zeus.

His first major infraction was stealing the meat from the gods’ table before a feast and giving it to man; but the final straw was when he stole the fire from the gods and smuggled it to mankind in a fennel stalk. Hard to picture, like Obama posing as an intellectual, but that is the story.

For his benevolence towards man, Zeus sentenced him to be tied to a stake and have his liver eaten by an eagle every day. Eventually, Herakles took pity on Prometheus, released him and what was left of his liver, (some argue that it was the heart, I like the liver story).

Thus Obama’s myth makers have not created a new persona, these Messiah and Robin Hood types who endeavor to save mankind from itself and the whims of fickle gods are over 2500 years old.

With a naïve and intellectually bewildered segment of the population, these same myths can obviously be resurrected occasionally and used to elect a president.

Twelve members of America’s troops are dead, and at least another 31 have been wounded. These 42 soldiers and their comrades were preparing for deployment to the front. This is major calamity, not just because it occurred on American soil, but this crime was committed, it appears, by one some of their own, on an American base. The shock to hundreds of individuals comprising the related families will last a lifetime.

The priority for the Commander In Chief, IMHO, would be to bypass any planned speech and immediately fly to Austin, Texas, act like a Commander In Chief, go to the site of the shootings, meet with senior staff, assess the situation and events that led to the shootings, speak to the troops, particularly the injured, demonstrate concern and take action based on the findings of your assessment. Such actions should include addressing the families of the fallen and the injured. Assure the American people that their military bases and the security of the bases are not compromised and all possible measures will be taken to tighten what already has been established to safeguard the safety of soldiers.

Once satisfied that orders have been issued on all potential fronts of the follow-up, fly back to the White House, and get on with the addressing the challenges of the Nation.

Would you have remained in Washington, and while giving a speech, mentioned the killings in a “by the way,” addendum? Perhaps not.

Crossposted from The Pacific Gate Post

Too bad…..

Also press conference says female who shot Maj. Hasan went thru surgery and in stable condition. Add the official reports to comments for us all, if you please…

ABC News:

At least seven people have been killed and at least 12 wounded in a mass shooting at a Texas military base by what officials believe was carried out by two gunmen.
Fort Hood shooting, map.
Seven soldiers are reported to be dead and at least 12 wounded in a shooting at Fort Hood, Texas.

One gunman is reported to be in custody and a search is on for a second shooter, officials said.

The shooting took place at Fort Hood in Texas, the largest U.S. military installation in the world.

The massacre is said to have taken place at a soldier readiness processiong center where young recruits would be taken to be inducted into the military.

Latest report I’m hearing is on a 3rd shooter.

Possible terrorist attack?

Not much time to blog, so readers are welcomed to build upon this thread (other authors feel free to update and build up this post).

UPDATE @ 2:20pm PST

Check the comments below for realtime updates but the latest is that the shooter is Major Malik Nadal Hasan… a Muslim. 12 dead

Twelve people have been killed and 31 wounded in a shooting spree at a Texas military base by what officials believe was possibly carried out by an Army officer.

The suspected gunman was identified as Major Malik Nadal Hasan. He was killed and two other suspects have been apprehended, Lt. Robert W. Cone said.

The gunman used two handguns, Cone said. He wasn’t sure if the shooter reloaded the weapons during the attack.

UPDATE @ 2:35pm PST

Check out Obama giving shout-outs prior to addressing the shooting…..unbelievable:

UPDATE @ 2:55pm PST

The suspected gunman in the Fort Hood shooting has been identified as Major Malik Nadal Hasan. He was killed and two other suspects have been apprehended, according to Army Spokesman Lt. Robert W. Cone.

There are unconfirmed reports that Major Hasan was a convert to Islam and originally from Virginia. He was reportedly scheduled to deploy to either Iraq or Afghanistan and was unhappy about it.

Then what about the other two suspects? One individual going nuts this does not sound like.

Cheering at the death of our soldiers?

UPDATE @ 3:10pm PST

A defense official speaking on condition of anonymity to the AP says Hasan was a mental health professional — an Army psychologist or psychiatrist.

So true:

You know when it’ll be perfectly PC to speculate about Hasan? When cops find one of Glenn Beck’s books on his bookshelf

UPDATE @ 3:20pm PST

Metroplex Adventist Hospital received seven of the victims. One was under distress in route to the hospital and was later pronounced dead. Two are currently in surgery, one of which is an EMS paramedic. Four have been stabilized. Two were transferred to Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple and two have been transferred to Seton in Round Rock.

Shooter?

Another possible Hasan.

UPDATE @ 3:35pm PST

Source tells Air Force Times that Hasan was a psychiatrist recently reassigned from Walter Reed to Darnall Army Medical Center @Fort Hood.

News Channel 25’s Natasha Chen has learned the suspected shooter Maj. Malik Hasan had “Allah” keyed into his car last week. He reported it as a hate crime.

per Drudge:

Obama’s Pet-Goat Moment

UPDATE @ 3:45pm PST

The general said there were “eyewitness accounts of more than one shooter,” and the others were tracked to an adjacent facility.

UPDATE @ 4:00pm PST

From This ain’t Hell, his ORB:

UPDATE @ 2:00am PST, 11/06/09

This appears to be his blog, according to CNN

Reuters

President Obama’s idea of waging “aggressive personal diplomacy“? Attacking President Bush for blustering belligerence:

But he asserted that Iran’s support for militant groups in Iraq reflected its anxiety over the Bush administration’s policies in the region, including talk of a possible American military strike on Iranian nuclear installations.

Yup. That explains Iranian aggression for the last 30 years against the United States.

Meanwhile, Israel seizes 500 tons of Iranian weapons on Wednesday:

Israel displayed on Wednesday the contents of the ship it seized off Cyprus – crates filled with rockets, missiles, mortars, anti-tank weapons and munitions – the largest such haul in the country’s history. Israel’s claim that the weapons came from Iran were bolstered by Iranian markings on the sides of the containers and what it said was a document proving the ship had set off from an Iranian port.

Israel has not publicly shown the document, however, nor offered evidence to back its assertion that the weapons were headed for Lebanon’s Hezbollah fighters.
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“Hezbollah categorically denies it has any connection with the weapons which the Zionist enemy claims it seized,” the group said in a statement faxed to The Associated Press in Beirut on Thursday.

There was no comment from Lebanese officials.

Israeli defense officials said the arms cache would have given Hezbollah, which fought a monthlong war against the Jewish state in 2006, enough firepower to sustain a full month of fighting on the scale of that war.

However, the officials also said the weapons would not have significantly enhanced Hezbollah rockets’ ability to reach deeper into Israel, as the haul consisted of weapons already in Hezbollah’s possession.

The defense officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the military has yet to formally comment on the potential value of the shipment’s contents to militants.

Iran has never acknowledged giving weapons to Hezbollah. Proof of large-scale Iranian weapons shipments to its proxy forces on Israel’s borders could reinforce Israeli demands for tough action – possibly even a pre-emptive strike – against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Israel sees Iran as its biggest threat because of what it believes to be Tehran’s ambitions to acquire atomic weapons. Iran says its nuclear program seeks only to generate energy.

Anyone believe that?

Apparently, President Obama’s allure is losing its luster from Iranian dissidents themselves. Pro-Democracy protesters are echoing the “you’re either with us, or with the terrorists” language of President Bush:

Today, the fundamentalist government in Tehran held protests to commemorate the event, as usual burning the American flag and encouraging shouts of “Death to America.”

This time, pro-democracy protesters — many wearing the movement’s signature green — were heard to shout, “Death to dictators.”

But the demonstrators, who risked beatings, imprisonment and even death to stage their rebellion, also had a message for the White House.

Witnesses said the protesters could be heard chanting: “Obama, Obama — either you’re with them or you’re with us.”

The Obama administration has so far been reluctant to convey American support for the demonstrators, fearful it would undercut the protest movement and allow President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad (who some claim can be seen in the 1979 photo above as a young revolutionary) to brand the pro-democracy movement as the work of foreign agitators.

So the White House has so far kept its distance from the movement as the West attempts to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear facilities.

Is it too much to ask of our president that he promote peace by showing support for freedom and democracy across the globe? That he take the time out of his busy schedule to recognize historic significance and symbolism in the advancement of democracy?

Munitions seized by Israeli authorities on a ship near Cyprus, are presented in the port of the Israeli city of Ashdod, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009. Israeli commandos seized a ship Wednesday that defense officials said was carrying hundreds of tons of weapons from Iran bound for Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas, the largest arms shipment Israel has ever commandeered.(AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov ) (Tsafrir Abayov – AP)

Remember how Obama accused opponents of the government run health care scheme of telling lies about the plan? Remember how Dems promised abortions wouldn’t be paid for with your money? Guess who is lying?

From House Republican Leader John Boehner:

Health care reform should not be used as an opportunity to use federal funds to pay for elective abortions. Health reform should be an opportunity to protect human life – not end it.

Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi’s 2,032-page government takeover of health care does just that. On line 17, p. 110, section 222 under “Abortions for which Public Funding is Allowed” the Health and Human Services Secretary is given the authority to determine when abortion is allowed under the government-run plan. The Speaker’s plan also requires that at least one insurance plan offered in the Exchange covers abortions.

What is even more alarming is that a monthly abortion premium will be charged of all enrollees in the government-run plan. It’s right there on line 16, page 96, section 213, under “Insurance Rating Rules.” The premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account – and these federal funds will be used to pay for the abortion services.
Section 213 describes the process in which the Health Benefits Commissioner is to assess the monthly premiums that will be used to pay for elective abortions under the government-run plan. The Commissioner must charge at a minimum $1 per enrollee per month.

A majority of Americans believe that health care plans should not be mandated to provide elective abortion coverage, and a majority of Americans do not believe government health care plans should include abortion coverage. Currently, federal appropriations bills include language known as the Hyde Amendment that prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for elective abortions under the Medicare and Medicaid programs, while another provision, known as the Smith Amendment, prohibits federal funding of abortion under the federal employees’ health benefits plan.

Speaker Pelosi’s 2,032-page health care monstrosity is an affront to the American people and drastically moves away from current policy. The American people deserve more from their government than being forced to pay for abortion.

Got Cancer? Wait Six Months Under Obama Care!

Remember too how Dems insisted their plan would cover the uninsurable? In his joint address to Congress Obama used this horror story to illustrate what was wrong with America’s health care system:

“One man from Illinois lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer found that he hadn’t reported gallstones that he didn’t even know about. They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it.”

First of all, that story wasn’t true. Just another Obama fib. Big deal right?

No, it’s worse than that. In the Senate bill Harry Reid negotiated in secret, there is a six month waiting period before people whose private insurance is canceled can get benefits. “If you are a cancer patient and have cancer now, you can’t wait six months to go into a plan because your condition can go from bad to death,” said Stephen Finan, a policy expert with the American Cancer Society.

The outrage Obama stirred up with his phony horror story WOULD happen if the Democrat’s bill passes the Senate.

So again, who is lying about health care?

Rich Lowry points out that:

In his first year in office, Barack Obama has visited more foreign countries than any other president. He’s touched ground in 16 countries, easily outpacing Bill Clinton (3) and George W. Bush(11). But there’s one stop Obama won’t make. He has begged off going to Berlin next week to attend ceremonies commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall. His schedule is reportedly too crowded.

Obama had time to fly all the way over to Copenhagen to plead for Chicago to get the Olympics but no time to attend an anniversary which marks the restoration of peace and freedom to a Europe that was divided and on a knife’s edge in the years following World War II?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel personally invited Obama in June to this historic event and he had accepted. But now he tells the Germans that he’s just too busy.

Yet somehow, Obama will find time to fly to Sweden in a few weeks time and accept a Nobel Peace Prize which he hasn’t earned. Still, he’ll be the center of attention at that event and he’d be just another world leader at the events in Berlin.

Perhaps the problem for Obama is that by attending the Berlin ceremonies parallels will be drawn between him and President Reagan; who didn’t just talk about peace but made it happen. Or maybe Obama just can’t bring himself to recognize an American success. After all, he’s spent the last nine months touring the world apologizing for America’s shortcomings.

Sadly, as Obama snubs yet another of our staunchest allies, he fails to realize that at some point we’re going to need the Germans if we ever decide to get tough with Iran. Skip that. Something tells me Obama has no intention of getting tough with Iran bomb or no bomb!