President Obama's halo reflects off the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in this official White House photo by Pete Souza

When I heard that President Obama had planned to honor our fallen soldiers on Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery and the Vietnam Memorial, I was admittedly cynical.

After all, this was the president who, in 2010, took a Chicago vacation rather than attend the annual wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns. That same year, Obama chose to chose to forgo Veterans Day ceremonies in favor of meeting with communists in India. After having been properly criticized for his apparent disregard for our honored war dead as well as our veterans, a chastened President Obama made sure to lay a Memorial Day wreath at Arlington last year…before heading out to the golf course for the ninth weekend in a row.

So it looked to me like President Obama had learned his lesson from previous years and would now mark this somber occasion in a more respectful way.

I should have known better.

This year, our president chose to use his Memorial Day speech as an occasion to pander to veterans for their votes by making a rather shocking implication:

Marking Memorial Day at both the black granite wall honoring more than 58,000 soldiers who died in the Vietnam War and earlier at Arlington National Cemetery across the Potomac River from the capital, Obama noted that for the first time in nine years, “Americans are not fighting and dying in Iraq,” and the nation was winding down its role in the conflict in Afghanistan.

“After a decade under the dark cloud of war, we can see the light of the new day on the horizon,” Obama said to an audience gathered at the Arlington amphitheater lined with American flags under a warm, brilliant sun.

In this election year, Obama said the nation must remain committed to providing for the families of fallen soldiers and help returning service members seeking a job, higher education or health care benefits.

“As long as I’m president, we will make sure you and your loved ones will receive the benefits you’ve earned and the respect you deserve,” Obama said. “America will be there for you.”

Translation: if I don’t get re-elected, you might not receive the veterans’ benefits you’ve earned.

Our president must certainly must believe that anyone who has worn our country’s uniform has a short memory, indeed. He’s clearly hoping that veterans and active-duty soldiers have forgotten 3+ years of his actions, and will focus instead on his campaign rhetoric.

Maybe he thinks our veterans will forget that just a few months ago, Obama proposed hiking healthcare premiums for active-duty and retired military and their families while leaving unionized defense workers at current levels.

The Obama administration’s proposed defense budget calls for military families and retirees to pay sharply more for their healthcare, while leaving unionized civilian defense workers’ benefits untouched. The proposal is causing a major rift within the Pentagon, according to U.S. officials. Several congressional aides suggested the move is designed to increase the enrollment in Obamacare’s state-run insurance exchanges.

The disparity in treatment between civilian and uniformed personnel is causing a backlash within the military that could undermine recruitment and retention.

The proposed increases in health care payments by service members, which must be approved by Congress, are part of the Pentagon’s $487 billion cut in spending. It seeks to save $1.8 billion from the Tricare medical system in the fiscal 2013 budget, and $12.9 billion by 2017.

Maybe our Commander-In-Chief hopes that veterans have forgotten that he attempted to saddle military personnel with additional healthcare fees in order to help pay for his Obamacare boondoggle.

Veterans will also be hit with a new annual fee for a program called Tricare for Life, on top of the monthly premiums they already pay, while some benefits will become “means-tested” in the manner of a social program – treating them like welfare instead of benefits for military service.  Naturally, this is all timed to begin next year and “avoid upsetting military voters in a presidential election year,” according to critics.

Maybe President Obama hopes veterans won’t notice that his plan siphons off $1.8 billion from the Tricare medical system in the fiscal 2013 budget, and reduces it by $12.9 billion in 2017.

Significantly, the plan calls for increases between 30 percent to 78 percent in Tricare annual premiums for the first year. After that, the plan will impose five-year increases ranging from 94 percent to 345 percent—more than 3 times current levels.

According to congressional assessments, a retired Army colonel with a family currently paying $460 a year for health care will pay $2,048.

The new plan hits active duty personnel by increasing co-payments for pharmaceuticals and eliminating incentives for using generic drugs.

Maybe President Obama hopes that our troops have forgotten his 2009 plan to charge veterans for their combat-related injuries.

Veterans groups are angry after President Obama told them Monday that he is still considering a proposal to have treatment for service-connected injuries charged to veterans’ private insurance plans.

And maybe President Obama hopes that our troops have forgotten when his administration cut combat pay (Imminent Danger Pay) for deployed U.S. soldiers.

To add further insult to yesterday’s disingenuous suggestion regarding benefits, Obama’s 15-minute speech at the Vietnam Memorial caused “The Wall” to be blocked off by Secret Service for 7 hours while Obama got some photos of himself.

Families and veterans who had come to pay their respects to fallen loved ones were forced to stay hundreds of feet away from The Wall while he posed with.

I understand that this is the 50-year anniversary of the Vietnam War and President Obama would be expected to commemorate the occasion, I also understand that any presidential speech requires extensive Secret Service protection. But given the emotional importance of The Wall to those who lost friends and family in the war, I would think our Commander-In-Chief could be a bit more sensitive to others, especially on Memorial Day.

But no. Teh Won needs him some campaign photos!

I suppose this kind of selfishness should come as no surprise. All the behavior listed above is from President “you guys make a pretty good photo-op” Obama, who seems to be developing a feckless habit of exploiting the deaths of our valiant US troops for his own personal aggrandizement.

Didn’t the left used to loose their shit over President Bush’s DoD refusing to alllow photographs of the caskets of dead soldiers? So now Obama’s DoD says that 19 of the 30 families did not approve coverage, so there would be a total media blackout, and that’s OK with the left and the media? The lefty blogs are silent, but the media is indeed outraged.

But this being the Obama White House, the story gets weirder and even more macabre. As Jim Hoft notes, the White House said there would be no lasting images from the transfer ceremony. Everyone at the Pentagon was behind them on that, and the media was pissed, but then the White House managed to piss everyone off my creating that lasting image and making it their White House Photo Of The Day…

So the only picture taken of this off-limits event were by the official White House photographer. Nice work there guys…

With all this in mind, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that 58 percent of veterans prefer Romney, compared to 34 percent who support Obama. No wonder he’s now so desperate to ingratiate himself to those he so carelessly sends into harm’s way on a whim.

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RELATED: In Memorial Day Tributes to Vietnam Vets, Obama Avoids Why They Fought: To Defeat Communism.

Barack Obama paid tribute to veterans of the Vietnam War with a Memorial Day speech at the Vietnam War Memorial and in an op-ed published in military oriented publications. Missing in action from the president’s words of praise for the veterans was why they fought for over ten years in Southeast Asia: to defeat communism.

A transcript of Obama’s speech given at the Wall, as the memorial is commonly known, published at Fox News shows no mention of the words ‘communism’ or ‘communist.’ Nor is there mention that the veterans fought to keep South Vietnam, and by extension the whole of Southeast Asia, free from communist subjugation as part of America’s global fight against communism. Likewise for Obama’s op-ed posted by the White House and published Monday by Stars and Stripes, Military Times and Miltary.com.

Obama did not mention the gratitude of the South Vietnamese to America for fighting the good fight for as long as we did. He did not mention the million-plus human beings slaughtered by the communists in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam when Obama’s Democrat party forced America to abandon the fight in Southeast Asia in 1975. Nor did he mention the eventual triumph of America over global communism within the following two decades.

Read more…

Staff Sgt. Tim Chambers exchanges a salute with a Vietnam veteran. – Photo by Cpl. Scott Schmidt

Over the Memorial Day weekend, one of my most-visited posts is the “The Lone Marine holds salute to Rolling Thunder vets for over 3 hours” post from last year, which notes that despite his broken wrist, retired Marine Staff Sergeant Tim Chambers holds his salute to the 400,000+ veteran of Rolling Thunder for over 3 hours!

But that wasn’t just a one-time thing.

Every year for the past ten years, SSGT Chambers stands at attention in full dress uniform, honoring our fallen soldiers with his salute for three to five hours during the Rolling Thunder demonstration held in Washington, D.C., each Memorial Day. This man is an inspiration!

This weekend, we take time to give thanks to the brave men & women who showed their devotion to America by standing against evil and willingly laying down their lives to preserve the freedoms of this great nation.

To those who served and gave all so that we might live our lives in liberty and prosperity, we salute you.

Mary McHugh mourns her slain fiance Sgt. James Regan at "Section 60" of the Arlington National Cemetery May 27, 2007. Regan, a US Army Ranger, was killed by an IED explosion in Iraq in February of this year, and this was the first time McHugh had visited the grave since the funeral. Section 60, the newest portion of the vast national cemetery on the outskirts of Washington D.C, contains hundreds of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Family members of slain American soldiers have flown in from across the country for Memorial Day. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

On Facebook and Google+, I keep seeing that “If Aliens Came…” meme which demonizes corporations as if they were destructive alien invaders. So I decided to create my own parody to describe Obamacare, which is far more insidious and hostile to individual liberty than any corporate entity.

Sauce for the class warfare goose.

click to embiggen

*** Scroll down for updates***

Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker grabbed headlines this weekend when he veered off the Democrat narrative by criticizing President Obama’s campaign ad attacking Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital, calling the ad “nauseating to the American public.”

“It’s nauseating to the American public,” Booker said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity. Stop attacking Jeremiah Wright.”

“As far as that stuff, I have to just say from a very personal level I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity,” he added. “To me, it’s just we’re getting to a ridiculous point in America. Especially that I know I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people invest in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, they’ve done a lot to support businesses [and] to grow businesses. And this, to me, I’m very uncomfortable with.”

Less than 24 hours after Booker’s remarks, the White House had a “conversation” with Booker, after which he released a YouTube video to “clarify” his remarks:

“I used the word ‘nauseating’ on ‘Meet the Press’ because that’s really how I feel when I see people in my city struggling with real issues,” said Booker in the video. “I get very upset when I see such a level of dialogue that calls us to our lowest common denominators and not the kind of things that can unify us as a nation and move us forward as a nation.

“I also expressed on ‘Meet the Press’ my profound frustration with the kind of campaigning which I think is becoming too much of the norm in our nation, which is generally negative campaigning,” Booker continued.

The White House denies “leaning on” Booker to rescind his comments.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker‘s YouTube walkback of comments criticizing President Obama’s campaign has been dubbed a “hostage video” by some, implying that Booker was leaned on to reverse himself. During an interview with CNN’s Brooke Baldwin, however, Obama/Biden Press Secretary Ben LaBolt denied that the campaign had any contact with Mayor Booker prior to the release of the YouTube video, despite David Axelrod’searlier non-denial.

Mayor Booker made waves Sunday when he criticized President Obama’s campaign over an ad attacking Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital, then quickly walked those comments back in a YouTube video. Some wags have dubbed the walkback a “hostage video.”

In an interview with Andrea Mitchell this afternoon, senior Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod was asked if anyone from the campaign or the White House had reached out to Mayor Booker about walking his comments back. Axelrod responded, “He probably heard from a lot of people who feel that it’s a legitimate issue.”

At about the same time, Obama/Biden Press Secretary Ben LaBolt was telling CNN’s Brooke Baldwin that no one from Team Obama had contacted Mayor Booker. “Did anyone from the White House or the Obama 2012 campaign reach out to Booker, make him reel his words in?” Baldwin asked.

“We did not,” LaBolt responded. “These are his own views in the video…”

Baldwin pressed LaBolt. “Hang on, I know Cory Booker is a rising star, he’s a superstar on Twitter. You’re telling me no one within the Obama 2012 campaign in any way reached out to Cory Booker to fix this?”

“He released that video of his own volition,” LaBolt responded. “We did not ask him to do so. We did not, no.”

Apparently, Booker failed to get that memo. While the White House was busy denying they had anything to do with Booker’s “clarification,” he went on MSNBC to confirm that he had, in fact, had “good conversations” with the Obama campaign just prior to releasing his video.

“I certainly did talk with campaign officials, but they didn’t force me to do anything,” Booker told Rachel Maddow last night. “They had good conversations with me, and after having good conversations with them… all of those things made me say, you know what, I need to go on and clarify.”

Of course the Obama administration didn’t threaten Cory Booker! Whatever would give someone the idea that our president would employ Chicago-style coercion, threats, intimidation, and bullying?

Isn’t it more likely that a rising star in the Democrat Party makes an appearance on “Meet The Press” and has an accidental brush with honesty, then decides to call up the White House and preemptively apologize for making the President look bad? Suuuure.

It couldn’t possibly be that someone in the Obama White House called Booker immediately after his remarks, chastised him for speaking out of turn and told him something along the lines of “Hey, that’s a nice city you’ve got there. It’d be a shame if something bad were to happen to it.”

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UPDATE: This video points out the obvious lies from the White House regarding their intimidation of Cory Booker. None may dare to criticize Dear Leader!

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RELATED: This Monty Python sketch about mafiosos Luigi and Dino Vercotti is probably what the “good conversation” between the White House and Newark mayor Cory Booker must have sounded like.

Via American Crossroads: “President Obama’s campaign slogan may be ‘Forward,’ but our new video shows how he has moved this country backward.”

Eva Green is a French actress who starred in Casino Royale and Dark Shadows, and she’s this week’s Rule 5 beauty.

***UPDATED — Please scroll down for new photobombs***

In a move of  sheer arrogance and audacity, President Obama has inserted himself into the biography pages of nearly every past president since Woodrow Wilson on the official White House website. Conservatives on Twitter responded with the sarcastic hashtag #ObamaInHistory, and the Republican National Committee created a new Tumblr, “Obama In History: World Changing Events You Didn’t Know Obama Played A Part In,” which depicts Obama Photoshopped into historic scenes.

Here at Full Metal Patriot, we’ve taken our own spin on the subject:

“Mr. Gorbachev, Barack Obama wants you to tear down this wall”

President Obama was the first black president in space!

No wonder Obama thinks he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. He invented it!

Obama helped Edison invent the fluorescent light bulb

Obama criticized Lincoln's Gettysburg Address for its lack of personal pronouns

30,000 Americans died on the Oregon Trail due to lack of health insurance.

In Greek mythology, Narcissus gazed into a pond and saw Obama’s face.

At the end of 150 days the water had receded. And Obama spake unto Noah, saying “You're welcome.”

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h/t: @huds_d for the original tweet about Narcissus, @EthanMyers007 for the one about the Oregon Trail

In ancient Egypt, Pharaohs often attempted to aggrandize themselves by removing their predecessor’s names from the statues and monuments which had been erected in their honor. Erasing a foe’s name from the historic record was another common way of changing the past to control the present.

In George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, protagonist Winston Smith works in the Ministry of Truth, rewriting old newspaper articles so that the historical record is congruent with the current party propaganda. All traces of politically inconvenient documents and records were then dropped into “the memory hole.”

I find it particularly ironic that a President with the re-election campaign theme “Forward” is engaging in the age-old totalitarian tactic of history revisionism. This week, it was discovered that the White House has edited the biographies of many past presidents on whitehouse.gov to insert President Obama into each historical narrative.

My first thought was, he must be joking. But he wasn’t—it turns out Obama has added bullet points bragging about his own accomplishments to the biographical sketches of every single U.S. president since Calvin Coolidge (except, for some reason, Gerald Ford). Here are a few examples:

• On Feb. 22, 1924 Calvin Coolidge became the first president to make a public radio address to the American people. President Coolidge later helped create the Federal Radio Commission, which has now evolved to become the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). President Obama became the first president to hold virtual gatherings and town halls using Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.

• In a 1946 letter to the National Urban League, President Truman wrote that the government has “an obligation to see that the civil rights of every citizen are fully and equally protected.” He ended racial segregation in civil service and the armed forces in 1948. Today the Obama administration continues to strive toward upholding the civil rights of its citizens, repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, allowing people of all sexual orientations to serve openly in our armed forces.

• President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare signed (sic) into law in 1965—providing millions of elderly healthcare stability. President Obama’s historic health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, strengthens Medicare, offers eligible seniors a range of preventive services with no cost-sharing, and provides discounts on drugs when in the coverage gap known as the “donut hole.”

• On August 14, 1935, President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. Today the Obama administration continues to protect seniors and ensure Social Security will be there for future generations.

• In a June 28, 1985 speech Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multi-millionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule.

This is just so much FAIL. Obama’s “me too” additions are highly deceptive. They attempt to normalize his radical Marxist policies by implying similarities with past presidents.

How paradoxical for a President with a so-called “Truth Team” to so egregiously distort history for his own selfish purposes. Heritage.org‘s Rory Cooper takes Obama to task over his blatant distortion of Reagan’s record and the disgraceful misappropriation of the White House Historical Association:

This is not only a complete fabrication of what President Reagan said (even The Washington Post‘s ‘fact checker’ gave this familiar line two Pinocchios) but it is also a glaring example of the President putting himself ahead of the sacred institution he is sworn to protect for the nation as well as his predecessors and successors.

Heritage Distinguished Fellow Ed Meese who served as President Reagan’s Attorney General said: “They should not use the biographies of past presidents as campaign vehicles. What they have done is to spoil the integrity of the historical narrative. At the very least, the Reagan biography should be restored to the accurate version provided by the White House Historical Association. I’m sure those associated with other past presidents would feel the same.”

This is not the first time the Obama White House has engaged in this behavior. In March 2009, they were caught editing President Bush’s biography to soften his listed accomplishments. They quickly reversed course. In the Bush Administration, biographies were directly supplied by the White House Historical Association without addendums or qualifiers.

Former White House Internet Director David Almacy explained to The Heritage Foundation that under Bush, this editing practice would have been unthinkable, saying: “It was our intent to preserve the history of the White House as an institution as well as those who served as president from a non-partisan historical perspective.” Almacy added: “It was ingrained in Bush Administration staffers from day one that our time in service to our nation was a privilege and that we must separate political promotion from the institution as a whole.”

It should surprise nobody that our Narcissist-In-Chief is engaging in such gross self-aggrandizement. Obama can’t run for re-election on his own record, so he has to misappropriate of the accomplishments of his predecessors in order to embellish his own. When we finally vote this SCoaMF out of office, it’s clear we’ll need to correct more than just our economy and foreign policy.

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RELATED: The Daily Caller has since discovered other historical sketches the president has been written into. Here are the 10 best:

10.) In 1941, Standard & Poor came into being after H.V. and H.W. Poor Co. and the Standard Statistics Bureau merged. In 2011, Barack Obama became the very first president in American history to preside over the down-grade of America’s credit rating when S&P changed its rating of America’s creditworthiness from AAA to AA+.

9.) After warning of the Nazi menace during 1930s, Winston Churchill became prime minister of Great Britain in 1940. Perhaps no single person was as valuable as Churchill in winning World War II and saving Western Civilization. Upon taking office in 2009, Barack Obama returned a bust of Winston Churchill that sat in the Oval Office to the British Embassy, even though the British government offered to allow the president to keep it through his administration.

8.) On his desk in the Oval Office, President Harry Truman had a sign that read, “The Buck Stops Here.” After three years in the White House, President Obama’s 2012 campaign has internalized a similar motto: “The Buck Stops with George W. Bush.”

Read more: 

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RELATED: American Crossroads wasted no time in lampooning the “fourth greatest president of all time” for his hubris…

This new ad from the RNC shows there’s no need to sling mud at Dear Leader, just play his own sound bites over and over to demonstrate what a SCoaMF he is.

We've heard the same empty promises from President Obama before.

Whose policies are draining America dry?

President Obama’s campaign has just launched a dishonest new ad called, “Steel,” which twists the truth in order to attack former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s record on job creation.

The ad attempts to blame Mitt Romney for the 750 workers who lost their jobs at GS Technologies, a steel mill in Kansas City, Mo., that was bought by Romney’s private equity firm Bain Capital.

The ad paints Romney as out of touch with the needs of the local workers and concerned only with Bain’s own profits.

“We view Mitt Romney as a job destroyer,” says one former mill worker in the ad. Another calls Bain “a vampire. They came in and sucked the life out of us.”

What the Obama campaign intentionally omits is the fact that these job losses occurred two years after Rommey left Bain Capital to manage the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Furthermore, Bain didn’t just seize and drain GS Technologies; the owners approached Bain Capital because “it had earned a sterling reputation for turning companies around.”

But not every company can be saved with an infusion of cash. And it would appear that Bain made some mistakes in how GST was handled. But rather than simply swallowing Obama’s class warfare dogma, voters would be wise to take a quick refresher in how private equity firms work:

Private-equity firms make significant investments in companies, mainly U.S. companies. Most of their investments are in companies that underperform industry peers. Frequently these firms are on the brink of failure.

Because private-equity firms are, by definition, equity investors, they make money only if they improve the performance of their companies. Private equity is last in line to be paid in case of insolvency. Private-equity firms don’t make a profit unless their companies can meet their obligations to workers and other creditors.

The companies in which private-equity investors are able to turn a profit generally grow, rather than shrink. This is because the preferred “exit strategy” by which private-equity firms profit is to take the private companies in which they invest and enable them to go public and sell shares that will help the company grow even stronger. As for turnaround success stories, Continental Airlines, Orbitz and Snapple have all benefitted at some time from private-equity investment. [read more…]

Even Obama’s “car czar” couldn’t help but notice the blatant anti-capitalist bias of this new ad:

The new ad drew immediate fire from a former economic adviser to the president, Steven Rattner, dubbed the “Car Czar” because he oversaw the administration’s automobile industry overhaul. Interviewed on MSNBC, the investment banker and private equity financier bluntly declared “I think the ad is unfair.”

Noting the video’s focus on lost jobs, Rattner said, “This is part of capitalism, this is part of life, and I don’t think there’s anything Bain Capital did that they need to be embarrassed about.”

Perhaps most glaring is the hypocrisy that it was Jonathan Lavine — a top Obama bundler who raised more than $100,000 for Obama’s 2011 campaign — who was a managing director at Bain during GS Technologies’ collapse in 2001. NRO’s Robert Costa points out the hypocrisy:

So according to the Obama team’s logic, Romney, who had left Bain, is responsible for GST Steel’s demise, but Lavine, who was there, is not?

Meanwhile, as Dear Leader tries this latest distract-and-divide tactic, his campaign is silent as the grave about the real facts of the Obama economy:

• 342,000 workers left the workforce completely because they can’t find a job at all. And that’s just for the month of April!
• America has experienced a net decline of 1.8 million jobs so far in 2012.
• 22.8 million Americans are either unemployed or underemployed (that’s 14.8% unemployment, according to BLS)
• The U.S. economy is currently 10 million jobs short of the number needed to get back to pre-recession levels; and 80% of jobs created since June 2009 have been purely temporary in nature.
• Of the few jobs that have been added, most of them are low-wage jobs, which likely explains the declines in payroll taxes which Obama has been trying to spin in his argument to raise taxes.

 
Maybe someone could tell me how President Obama has the gall to accuse Romney of being a jobs “vampire” costing hundreds of jobs when the President’s own policies have been responsible for millions of jobs lost? Sounds to me like the pot calling the kettle black gay.

(image via The Mega Independent, h/t: Proof)

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

And with the President polling behind or even with Romney, Obama’s handlers must have done some focus groups and decided that he should shore up his support in the gay community by announcing his endorsement of same-sex marriage.

President Obama endorsed same-sex marriage on Wednesday, capping days of frenzied speculation about his views and intensifying pressure from gay campaign donors that began with a surprising endorsement of marriage over the weekend by Vice President Biden.

Any way the wind blows...

The announcement marked an apparent end to Obama’s self-described “evolution” on the issue.

“I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama told Robin Roberts, in an interview to appear on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday.

The president has been under intense pressure for his self-described “evolving” position on the issue since Sunday, when NBC aired an interview in which Vice President Biden said he was “absolutely comfortable” with gay marriage.

Biden’s comments put Obama on the spot, exposing the president’s position to ridicule among gay-rights activists who see it as a wink-and-nod stance to avoid alienating conservative swing voters as well as African-Americans and Latinos key to Obama’s reelection.

“…for me personally” obviously means “if I want to get elected this year.” (And did you notice that our Narcissist-In-Chief mentioned himself five times in that one sentence?)

This is in stark contrast to Obama’s 2008 position:

Obama told MTV he believes marriage is “between a man and a woman” and that he is “not in favor of gay marriage.”

At the same time, Obama reiterated his opposition to Proposition 8, the California ballot measure which would eliminate a right to same-sex marriage that the state’s Supreme Court recently recognized.

“I’ve stated my opposition to this. I think it’s unnecessary,” Obama told MTV. “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that’s not what America’s about.”

Today’s announcement also contradicts his 2004 position:

Q: “Mr. Obama, you’ve said that your religious faiths, your religious faith, dictates that marriage should be between a man and a woman. Would you elaborate on that?”

OBAMA: “Well, what I believe is that marriage is between a man and a woman, but what I also believe is that we have an obligation to make sure that gays and lesbians have the rights of citizenship that afford them visitations to hospitals, that allow them to be, to transfer property between partners, to make certain that they’re not discriminated on the job. I think that bundle of rights are absolutely critical.”

Q: “Excuse me, but as far as, why? What in your religious faith calls you to be against gay marriage?”

OBAMA: “Well, what I believe, in my faith, is that a man and a woman, when they get married, are performing something before God, and it’s not simply the two persons who are meeting. But that doesn’t mean that that necessarily translates into a position on public policy or with respect to civil unions. What it does mean is that we have a set of traditions in place that, I think, need to be preserved, but I also think we have to make sure that gays and lesbians have the same set of basic rights that are in place. And I was glad to see, for example, that the president today apparently stated that he was in favor of civil unions. This may be a reversal of his position but I think it’s a healthy one. I think, on this, President Bush and I disagree, apparently, with Mr. Keyes on this, because I think that that kind of basic ethic of regard towards all people, regardless of sexual orientation, is a valuable thing.”

Q: “Let me ask you, let me interrupt and ask you a very quick follow-up question. Do you believe homosexuality is a choice?”

OBAMA: “No. I don’t. I–I—I…”

Q: “You think it’s innate.”

OBAMA: “I think that, for the most part, it is innate. I think that, obviously, it may vary in certain circumstances, but I think that it is something that is a part of their identity. Now—but…”

Q: “That being the case, Mr. Obama–that being the case, if something is not a choice, if something is innate, then why isn’t it a civil right, and why isn’t your support of…”

OBAMA: “Well, I think that…”

Q: “…civil unions, as opposed to marriage…”

OBAMA: “…I think that…”

Q: “…does that amount to ‘separate, but equal’?”

OBAMA: “No. I think there are a whole host of things that are civil rights, and then there are other things–such as traditional marriage–that, I think, express a community’s concern and regard for a particular institution.”

Q: “So, marriage is not a civil right, as far as you’re concerned.”

OBAMA: “I don’t think marriage is a civil right, but I think that being able…”

Q: “Is it a human right?”

OBAMA: “But I think that being able to transfer property is a civil right. I think not being…”

Q: “Do you think marriage is a human right?”

OBAMA: “I think that not being able to, not being discriminated against is a civil right. I think making sure that we don’t engage in the sort of gay-bashing that, I think, has unfortunately dominated this campaign–not just here in Illinois, but across the country–I think, is unfortunate, and I think that that kind of mean-spirited attacks on homosexuals is something that the people of Illinois generally have rejected.”

But according to the administration, today’s announcement isn’t a flip-flop. Obama has “evolved” his position.

Riiiiight.

Personally, I don’t have a problem with gay marriage. I know this puts me at odds with some of my conservative brethren, but this issue doesn’t affect me in the slightest and I don’t think gays should be discriminated against because of who they choose to love. I think North Carolina’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage goes way too far, outlawing not only gay marriage but legal civil unions as well. To me, that’s excessive, even for those disagree for religious reasons or somehow feel otherwise threatened by homosexual couples who want the same legal protections as heterosexual couples. It’s giving more power to the state in the name of bigotry.

Don’t even get me started on “the sanctity of marriage.” Neither Elizabeth Taylor nor Newt Gingrich nor Kim Kardashian have destroyed the institution.

Two guys or two girls getting married doesn’t devalue anyone else’s marriage unless they choose to be diminished by absolute strangers. Marriage, from a civil perspective, is about two people who choose to commit to one another and in return they receive certain benefits and protections from the state for the purpose of strengthening our society. Sexual orientation has nothing to do with it. From a religious perspective, nobody is telling churches that they must perform marriages that violate their beliefs. If that were to occur, I’d be against it.

So for me, I’m perfectly fine with Obama endorsing gay marriage. I just think he’s a huge hypocrite for switching his stance for political expediency.

Exit question: Seeing as how North Carolina has been debating their gay marriage ban for quite a while, why did Obama wait until the day after they passed the ban to finally speak on the subject? And if this was truly an “important” issue to him, why is the 2012 Democratic National Convention taking place in a state which has been intent on banning gay marriage and civil unions? The Amendment One bill was passed by the North Carolina General Assembly in September 2011, so the President has had plenty of time to “evolve” his position on the subject.

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UPDATE: Obama’s position on gay marriage hasn’t really “evolved” so much as it’s reverted back to what he claimed to believe in 1996. Via Pajamas Media:

In 1996, Obama filled out a gay group’s questionnaire saying that he supported gay marriage. He was running for the state Senate at the time, in a liberal district, and could not afford to offend a liberal constituency. So he didn’t. […]

The president said that his stance is personal, and he favors states being the ultimate deciders. He opposes states deciding on their border security policies, or voter ID, or abortion, or energy policies.

In 2004 and 2008, Obama cited his faith as the reason he opposed gay marriage. So…has he changed his faith?

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UPDATE: Surprise! This whole new distraction is all about the money. Today’s announcement was made in response to gay donors who were threatening to withhold funding for Obama’s Super PAC.

President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage less than 48 hours after the Washington Post reported that prominent political donors were threatening to withhold donations over the president’s position on gay rights.

Left-wing blogger Greg Sargent reported on Monday that “leading gay and progressive donors” were angry with Obama over his increasingly convoluted position on gay rights and same-sex marriage, and were refusing to donate any more money to Priorities USA, the pro-Obama Super PAC. Sargent cited Paul Yandura, a political adviser to prominent Democratic donor Jonathan Lewis, who emailed that:

A number of gay and progressive donors, unsolicited, have indicated to us that they aren’t considering requests to donate to the Obama SuperPac because of the president’s refusal to the sign the order. And those are high-dollar asks, some in the seven digits. We have heard from at least half a dozen major gay and progressive donors that they stand united with us.

The Washington Postnoted on Tuesday that roughly 20 percent of Obama top campaign bundlers—who are responsible for arranging $500,000 and up—“publicly identified themselves as gay.”

Obama’s announcement fits a pattern of changing positions on major issues for what appear to be financially motivated reasons.

Obama's always willing to “change” his mind...for donations

Another “unprecedented achievement” for our current President:  41% of Democrats in West Virginia would rather vote for a federal prison inmate than re-elect Barack Obama.

Inmate Keith Judd, 53, is serving 17 years for extortion at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution. He was sentenced in 1999 for making threats against the University of New Mexico and is due to be released on June 24 next year.

With 93 per cent of precincts reporting, Obama was receiving just under 60 per cent of the vote to Judd’s 40 per cent. [UPDATE: Judd won 10 counties and 41% of the final vote — FMP]

For some West Virginia Democrats, simply running against Obama is enough to get Judd – or Inmate Number 11593-051 – votes.

‘I voted against Obama,’ said Ronnie Brown, a 43-year-old electrician from Cross Lanes who called himself a conservative Democrat.

‘I don’t like him. He didn’t carry the state before and I’m not going to let him carry it again.’

When asked which presidential candidate he voted for, Brown said: ‘That guy out of Texas.’

Judd was able to get on the state ballot by paying a $2,500 fee and filing a form known as a notarized certification of announcement, said Jake Glance, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s office.

According to the Charleston Gazette, Judd circulated his political standpoints to local media. These include opposing national health care reform on the grounds that it violates the 10th Amendment.

He also cites the U.S. Constitution, saying that incarcerated felons should not be disqualified from voting.

Judd is housed at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Texarkana, a low-security facility for male prisoners. It is located in northeast Texas near the Arkansas border, 175 miles east of Dallas.

Attracting at least 15 per cent of the vote would normally qualify a candidate for a delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

But state Democratic Party Executive Director Derek Scarbro said no one has filed to be a delegate for Judd.

The state party also believes that Judd has failed to file paperwork required of presidential candidates, but officials continued to research the matter, Mr Scarbro said. There may also be issues because the man is an inmate in federal prison.

It’s a little surprising that anyone would want this mullet-wearing felon for president, but given Obama’s “war on coal,” it’s easy to see why Democrat voters chose Judd over the current occupant of the White House.

Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state. West Virginia regularly votes in Democratic officials at the state level (its governor and all of its statewide elected officials are Democrats) and narrowly supported Bill Clinton in 1996. But the very rural state has never warmed to the current White House occupant.

“President Obama has no strong political allies in this state. A couple leading Democrats grudgingly support Obama, but say that only when they are asked,” said West Virginia radio host Hoppy Kercheval. “Several are openly hostile to him.”

Obama, not surprisingly, rarely visits the state.

The president angered voters with new Environmental Protection Agency policies, which some see as a “war on coal” and have stalled mining permits for the state’s coal mining industry. Both Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and Sen. Joe Manchin, both Democrats, have clashed with Obama on the issue, and neither has committed to supporting him in the fall.

Anyone but Obama, indeed. FORWARD!

The ladies of the Lingerie Football League are this week’s Rule 5 beguilement.

After the jump, several animated gifs of King Joffrey Baratheon getting his face smacked. You’re welcome.

Queen Cersei starts off Season 2 in grand style!

A three-fer from Tyrion!

“And now I struck a king, did my hand fall from my wrist?”

 
In all seriousness, Jack Gleeson is an excellent actor for being able to make us hate his character so thoroughly!

This is another of many reasons why we should completely abolish the IRS: An investigative report from Indiana television station WTHR points out a “loophole” in IRS tax code which is costing U.S tax payers billions by enabling illegal immigrants to claim tax credits for children not even living in the U.S.  (h/t: The Western Center for Journalism)

Each spring, at tax preparation offices all across the nation, many illegal immigrants are now eagerly filing tax returns to take advantage of a tax loophole, using their ITIN numbers to get huge refunds from the IRS.

The loophole is called the Additional Child Tax Credit. It’s a fully-refundable credit of up to $1000 per child, and it’s meant to help working families who have children living at home.

But 13 Investigates has found many undocumented workers are claiming the tax credit for kids who live in Mexico – lots of kids in Mexico.

“We’ve seen sometimes 10 or 12 dependents, most times nieces and nephews, on these tax forms,” the whistleblower told Eyewitness News. “The more you put on there, the more you get back.”

The whistleblower has thousands of examples, and he brought some of them to 13 Investigates. While identifying information such as names and addresses on the tax returns was redacted, it was still clear that the tax filers had received large tax refunds after claiming additional child tax credits for many dependents.

And the IRS is doing nothing to stop this rampant abuse of the system. WTHR received a statement from the IRS after the story aired:

The law has been clear for over a decade that eligibility for these credits does not depend on work authorization status or the type of taxpayer identification number used. Any suggestion that the IRS shouldn’t be paying out these credits under current law to ITIN holders is simply incorrect. The IRS administers the law impartially and applies it as it is written. If the law were changed, the IRS would change its programs accordingly. The IRS disagrees with TIGTA’s recommendation on requiring additional documentation to verify child credit claims. As TIGTA acknowledges in this report, the IRS does not currently have the legal authority to verify and disallow the Child Tax Credit and the Additional Child Tax Credit during return processing simply because of the lack of documentation.

Why is the IRS paying tax refunds to illegal immigrants? Furthermore, why is the IRS paying tax refunds for children who don’t even live here in the United States?

The WTHR story describes this as a “loophole,” but the IRS rules governing the Child Tax Credit are pretty clear that “the child must be a U.S. citizen, U.S. national, or U.S. resident alien.” Given that the returns shown by the CPA in the news story all contain children who live in Mexico, this is a pretty clear-cut case of tax fraud. And since the IRS seems to have no interest in enforcing the law with regards to tax fraud by illegal immigrants, this is another strong argument to simplify our tax code and eliminate loopholes like this.

Two days ago, President Barack “we don’t need to spike the football” Obama traveled to Afghanistan to “spike the football” on the one-year anniversary of the Navy SEALs’ successful mission to kill Osama bin Laden, using the event as a campaign photo-op and announcing his vague plan to “wind down” the war just in time for the election.

In response, Veterans for a Strong America has released an excellent ad which takes President Obama to task for politicizing the killing of Osama Bin Laden for the purpose of reelection:

It shouldn’t really surprise anyone that our Community Organizer in Chief would try to take credit for a mission that was started before he came into office. The Wall Street Journal‘s James Taranto suggests another historic event for which a president could have claimed credit for work that was started before his term.

Imagine if President Nixon had decided to base his 1972 re-election campaign on the boast that he landed on the moon. His predecessors tried and failed for eight years. It wasn’t an easy decision–what if something went wrong? But that’s why you hire a president, to make those gutsy calls. Which path would George McGovern have taken?

The fact is, the “gutsy call” to get Bin Laden wasn’t even made by Dear Leader. Time Magazine has obtained a CIA memo which details a CYA move by the administration and reveals who was really making the all the decisions.

MEMO FOR THE RECORD Apr. 29, 2011, 10:35 a.m.

Received phone call from Tom Donilon who stated that the President made a decision with regard to AC1 [Abbottabad Compound 1]. The decision is to proceed with the assault. The timing, operational decision making and control are in Admiral McRaven’s hands. The approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the President. Any additional risks are to be brought back to the President for his consideration. The direction is to go in and get bin Laden and if he is not there, to get out. Those instructions were conveyed to Admiral McRaven at approximately 10:45 am.

Ben Shapiro, at Big Peace, gets right to the heart of the weaseling behind Obama’s so-called “gutsy call.” [emphasis added below]

…the memo doesn’t show a gutsy call. It doesn’t show a president willing to take the blame for a mission gone wrong. It shows a CYA maneuver by the White House.

The memo puts all control in the hands of Admiral McRaven – the “timing, operational decision making and control” are all up to McRaven. So the notion that Obama and his team were walking through every stage of the operation is incorrect. The hero here was McRaven, not Obama. And had the mission gone wrong, McRaven surely would have been thrown under the bus.

The memo is crystal clear on that point. It says that the decision has been made based solely on the “risk profile presented to the President.” If any other risks – no matter how minute – arose, they were “to be brought back to the President for his consideration.” This is ludicrous. It is wiggle room. It was Obama’s way of carving out space for himself in case the mission went bad. If it did, he’d say that there were additional risks of which he hadn’t been informed; he’d been kept in the dark by his military leaders.

Finally, the memo is unclear on just what the mission is. Was it to capture Bin Laden or to kill him? The White House itself was unable to decide what the mission was in the hours after the Bin Laden kill, and actually switched its language. The memo shows why: McRaven was instructed to “get” Bin Laden, whatever that meant.

President Obama made the right call to give the green light to the mission. But he did it in a way that he could shift the blame if things went wrong. Typical Obama. And typical of him to claim full credit for it, when he didn’t do anything but give a vague nod, while putting his top military officials at risk of taking the hit in case of a bad turn.

None of this comes as any surprise. After three years of an Obama presidency, the American economy is still in shambles, gas prices have doubled, America’s standing in the world is worse than ever, and our President continues a deliberate course of action to degrade our liberties and weaken our security. Barack Obama has no real record of achievement to run on, so when he’s not busy dividing our nation, he distracts from his record by stealing credit from others to prop himself up (his speech at Bagram Air Base credited himself numerous times, yet made no mention of SEAL Team Six).

Obama is, in word and deed, a SCOAMF.

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UPDATE: I’m not the only one outraged at our President’s vainglorious crowing. [emphasis added below]

The blowback continues from President Obama’s overreaching attempt to turn the killing of Osama bin Laden into a weapon with which directly to attack Mitt Romney. First, some Navy SEALS, the outfit whose members risked their lives to kill bin Laden, took exception. Then, a key operative at the CIA, who helped secure intelligence that led us to bin Laden using practices opposed by Obama, balked.

Now former Attorney General Michael Mukasey has weighed in. Mukasey makes three important points. First, although Obama approved the killing of bin Laden, he attempted before hand to cover his rear end…

Obama’s self-congratulation over this affair is unpresidential – it represents a radical departure from the self-effacing approach of past presidents who, unlike Obama, knew how to behave with class and dignity. Mukasey points to Abraham Lincoln. “On the night after Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender ended the Civil War, [Lincoln] delivered from the window of the White House a speech that mentioned his own achievements not at all, but instead looked forward to the difficulties of reconstruction and called for black suffrage. …”

Mukasey also cites George W. Bush. Following the capture of Saddam Hussein, Bush praised the members of the armed forces serving in Iraq, the intelligence analysts who found Saddam’s footprints, and the folks who actually carried out the operation. He used the word “I” only twice – when he concluded his remarks by saying, “Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate them.”

Read the whole thing!

RELATED: Over at Flopping Aces, blogger Dr. John does a great job documenting Obama’s repeated attempts to co-opt the efforts of others; “The Man Who Shot Liberty Bin Laden.”

Today, the Obama administration released a seven-minute campaign video making their case for the President’s reelection, glossing over the ongoing malaise of the Obama economy and overlooking the tyranny emanating from the Obama White House.

• When Barack Obama became president, the number of “long-term unemployed workers” in the United States was 2.6 million.  Today, it is 5.3 million.
• Back in 2007, about 10 percent of all unemployed Americans had been out of work for 52 weeks or longer.  In the Obama economy, that number is over 30 percent.
• Since Barack Obama occupied the White House, the price of gasoline has risen more than 100 percent.
• In November 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, over 46 million Americans are on food stamps.
• The U.S. national debt has risen by more than 5 trillion dollars since the day Barack Obama took office.  In just over three years, Obama has added more to the national debt than the previous 41 presidents combined.

 
This isn’t exactly progress, as measured by most Americans. Not. Better. Off.

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough claims that the administration’s new campaign slogan “Forward” was taken from MSNBC’s slogan, “Lean Forward.”

 
Scarborough’s claim is ludicrous.

Both MSNBC and President Obama are simply borrowing a tried-and-true buzzword from Communist propaganda posters.

Communism moving “forward,” circa 1920

“Under the leadership of the great Stalin - forward to Communism!” (1951)

Communist pamphlet from Britain, circa 1970

“Let's march forward under the banner of Mao Zedong!” (1950s)

“Follow Mao closely forward through the storm.”

“Chairman Mao leads us forward”

Modern communists still use “forward” to describe Marxism

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” ~George Santayana

 
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UPDATE: Francesca Chambers does a fine job deconstructing several of the dishonest claims made by the Obama administration’s video.
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Hot Air’s Ed Morrisseyoffers a critique of Obama’s new video, particularly noting the irony between the campaign slogan and where the administrations focuses their attention for most of the video:

It takes over three minutes looking backward, including the first minute of what took place before Obama took office.  After a brief shot at Republicans who “tried to tear this President down” — by, er, opposing his policies, which didn’t seem to bother Democrats while George W. Bush was in office — we get a couple of minutes of ball-spiking over the deaths of Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki.  When does the video get to the “Forward” part?  Er … when there are 50 seconds left in the video, and even then, it doesn’t offer any specific policy goals — just platitudes:

Ed also points out Obama’s dishonest swipe at the Tea Party movement:

You have to love the attack on the Tea Party, too.  The entire point of the Tea Party was that the policies of the Obama administration — and some of the Bush administration’s too — was pushing America in the wrong direction, not that “our best days are behind us.”

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Instapundit highlights the additional irony in Obama’s choice to ride the coattails of Bill Clinton:

Of course, any commercial where Bill Clinton is talking about honor and integrity is automatically a joke.

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Mitt Romney’s campaign released a video of their own today, called “Broken Promises.” And it didn’t take seven minutes to point out three years of Obama’s incompetence:

President Obama’s budget projects that the deficit for the current year will total $1.33 trillion, the fourth straight year of deficits over $1 trillion. Under President Obama, the nation’s total public debt has reached a record $15.6 trillion.

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RELATED: In response to Obama’s other campaign video, “The Road We Traveled,” Bill Whittle and Andrew Klavan raise some inconvenient facts in a cross between  Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Pop-Up Video, entitled “The Road We Really Traveled.” (h/t: Michelle Malkin)

In response to DemocraticUnderground’s duplicitous agitprop, “It’s A Hard Life Being A Romney: The College Years,” I thought a little perspective was in order.

Below is the original bit of disinformation, which cherry-picks Ann Romney’s description of their college years for the purpose of generating envy and hatred of the wealthy. This DU hack job conveniently glosses over the facts that Mitt Romney didn’t receive an inheritance, and he’s earned every penny he owns through hard work and smart investment. In contrast, the IRS reports that “poor Barack Obama” was already making $272,759 in 2001, By 2005, the Obamas’ combined earnings were $1.6 million. They could have paid off their student loans LONG ago, but that doesn’t fit the Democrat Party narrative of jealousy.

Ann Romney’s full quote regarding their college years paints a far different picture than what Liberals would like you to believe. I’ve bolded the sections selectively edited by DU. (And, for what it’s worth, the story was told by Ann Romney in 1994, not 2012)

“They were not easy years. You have to understand, I was raised in a lovely neighborhood, as was Mitt, and at BYU, we moved into a $62-a-month basement apartment with a cement floor and lived there two years as students with no income.

It was tiny. And I didn’t have money to carpet the floor. But you can get remnants, samples, so I glued them together, all different colors. It looked awful, but it was carpeting.

We were happy, studying hard. Neither one of us had a job, because Mitt had enough of an investment from stock that we could sell off a little at a time.

The stock came from Mitt’s father. When he took over American Motors, the stock was worth nothing. But he invested Mitt’s birthday money year to year — it wasn’t much, a few thousand, but he put it into American Motors because he believed in himself. Five years later, stock that had been $6 a share was $96 and Mitt cashed it so we could live and pay for education.

Mitt and I walked to class together, shared housekeeping, had a lot of pasta and tuna fish and learned hard lessons.’

We had our first child in that tiny apartment. We couldn’t afford a desk, so we used a door propped on sawhorses in our bedroom. It was a big door, so we could study on it together. And we bought a portable crib, took the legs off and put it on the desk while we studied. I had a baby sitter during class time, but otherwise, I’d hold my son on my lap while I studied.

The funny thing is that I never expected help. My father had become wealthy through hard work, as did Mitt’s father, but I never expected our parents to take care of us. They’d visit, laugh and say, “We can’t believe you guys are living like this.” They’d take us out to dinner, have a good time, then leave.

We stayed till Mitt graduated in 1971, and when he was accepted at Harvard Law, we came east. He was also accepted at Harvard Business School as part of a joint program that admits 25 a year, so he was getting degrees from Harvard Law and Business schools at the same time.”

The thing is, I really don’t care if Mitt Romney came from money or not. Sure, his father worked hard and earned a lot. It sounds like Mitt did the same thing. I don’t begrudge either one their wealth.

What matters more to me is “What kind of President will Mitt Romney be? And does he have the skills to successfully guide our nation to recovery and prosperity?” From what I’ve seen so far, I’d say the answer to both questions is probably “yes.”

I’m still not a big fan of Mitt Romney. But I think he’ll make a far better President than the pretender we currently have in the White House.

It seems that, in order to be a Democrat, one must place one’s hand on Das Kapital and swear to hate anyone who has more than what the Democrat Party says is “fair.”