The Obama administration has dutifully responded to citizens’ petitions, msnbc.com reported Nov. 7, asking if the government is covering up contacts with extraterrestrial beings. Perhaps little green men, some may think, knowing of Obama’s craze for green.

“The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial has contacted or engaged any member of the human race,” assured a serious Phil Larson of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public eye.”

How could there be even a smidgen of doubt in the public’s mind that the White House would withhold any important findings? The public knows full well that Obama promised full transparency. And every citizen of either political party knows that when Barack Obama makes a promise, it is locked in stone.

But with the administration’s devotion to a “green” American planet, it just seems to many folks so natural to expect some little green men from Mars to participate in this monumental green effort.

The citizen petition asking the White House to disclose all knowledge of and communication with extraterrestrial beings was signed by 5,387 curious people. Furthermore, 12,078 concerned citizens signed the request for a formal acknowledgement from the government whether extraterrestrials have been engaging the human race.

“Hundreds of military and government agency witnesses” have testified convincingly of this extraterrestrial presence, the second petition said with a tone of authority. “Opinion polls now indicate that 50 percent of American people believe there is an extraterrestrial presence and more than 80 percent believe the government is not telling the truth about this phenomenon. The people have a right to know. The people can handle the truth,” the petition said.

The notion that the American people have a right to know all that the White House may know probably seems far-out craziness to the Obama people. Just who do these citizens think they are, anyway?

The Obama administration invented the petition idea, dramatically calling it “We the People.” That has a nice democratic ring to it. The White House initially announced that White House staffers would jump on any issue that received at least 5,000 online signatures within a 30-day period. But apparently that became a bit bothersome. So to cut down on the petitions, the White House raised the number to a required 25,000 signatures.

We all know that aliens are invading the country. But most of them are illegal aliens from Mexico. As for those from outer space, Science Adviser Larson stressed that there is no credible evidence of extraterrestrial presence here on Earth. Some Republicans still believe that Joe Biden’s origin is a mystery and possibly of  extraterrestrial nature, which remains to be clarified once and for all.

Leftists still don’t get the Tea Party, and neither does the Republican party establishment. Reuters recently reported on a private meeting which took place between several Tea Party activists and House Speaker John Boehner. The mood was less than cordial.

One of the 25 or so [Tea Party] leaders, all from Boehner’s district, asked him if Republicans would raise America’s $14.3 trillion debt limit.

According to half a dozen attendees interviewed by Reuters, the most powerful Republican in Washington said “yes(…)”

That answer incensed many of the Tea Party activists, for whom raising the debt limit is anathema.

From the sidelines, the Left snickers and wags a finger.

Boehner, along with much of the GOP, is “stuck between the Tea Party and a hard place.” But, he only has himself to blame for bringing the activists into the fold and over-promising what he could deliver with control of a single chamber of Congress.

Surely, there are Tea Party activists with unreasonable expectations of what Republicans can accomplish with control of the House. However, the major beef Tea Partiers have with Republicans is not their lack of accomplishment. It’s their unwillingness to stand and fight, their apparent lack of principle, and the resulting impotence toward shifting the narrative in Washington.

The crux of the conflict between the Tea Party and Republicans is a choice between short-term pragmatism and entrenched political warfare. Too often, the questions Republicans ask themselves are. Will this work? Can this pass? Will we win?

The Left never asks these questions. They never concern themselves with whether a course is practical. They focus on controlling the narrative, framing the debate, then dominating the conversation. Doing so enables them to affect whether a future gambit, which may not work today, works tomorrow. They’re willing to double-down when the long-term benefit is worth the risk.

Just look at the lengths Democrats were willing to go to in order to shove Obamacare down our throats. They didn’t care how much it cost them in 2010. They only cared about affecting a fundamental transformation which would benefit their cause in the long-run.

That’s what the Tea Party demands of Republicans. Will the debt ceiling be raised? Almost certainly. The point is how. What will Republicans get in return? What will Democrats have to concede? How will the debate be framed? How will conservatives control the narrative? How will Boehner put the Left on the defensive, and strike a counter-blow that will sour their comparatively small victory?

Ron Musilli, 62, a native of Troy, recalls asking Boehner what leverage points the Republicans planned to focus on in debt limit talks with the White House and Senate Democrats.

“We haven’t figured that out yet,” he recalls Boehner replied.

That’s unacceptable. The fear is that Republicans haven’t concocted a strategy against the White House because they are more focused on “managing expectations” among conservatives. That leads the Tea Party to the conclusion that serious changes are due in 2012.

“The Tea Party will almost certainly primary those they want to get rid of,” said Larry Sabato, a politics professor at the University of Virginia. “They are not out to rebuild the Republican Party. They are out to take over the Republican Party and make it more like the Tea Party.”

“If it takes some Republican defeats along the way to make that happen, then that is what they’ll do,” he added.

Believe it. There is a place for pragmatism in political calculations. But like a shield absent a sword, it can’t do much against a fully armed opponent. If Republicans are unwilling to fight, if they lack the courage of their espoused convictions, if they can’t stomach hardcore political warfare, they’ll be replaced by those who can.

In his testimony before the Homeland Security Committee’s hearing on the potential radicalization of the Muslim community in America, Muslim reformer Dr. Zuhdi Jasser warned of the dangers of political Islam and of the unwillingness of many to address the problem of radicalization. It is the primary job of the president of the United States to enforce the laws of the land and to provide security within the borders of America. This also means that there can be no security in America as long as the White House fails to recognize that there is an element within Islam that seeks to destroy us.

It is very troubling to find the White House taking a lead role as apologist for any religion, but especially for Islam. It is not within the realm of the president’s duty to decide and to proclaim for us all what Islam is and what it is not. Unfortunately, the White House has stepped up to the plate to emphatically defend this religion from all who may dare criticize it. We present for you now, the top ten Islamapologists in the Obama Administration.

#10 Tim Geithner Oversees Taxpayer-Funded Sharia.

Tim Geithner may not ‘precisely’ be called an ‘Islamapologist’. More appropriately, he is a financier of it….using your money. Taxpayer money funds Sharia-compliant banking through the AIG bailout.

A U.S. Marine who served in Iraq is suing the federal government for distributing billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to the Shariah-supporting American International Group.

The lawsuit, Murray v. Geithner et al., was brought against the Fed and the Treasury by the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of Kevin Murray, a former Marine who served honorably in Iraq to defend the United States from Islamic terrorists.

Murray argues that he is being forced as a taxpayer to contribute to the propagation of Islamic beliefs and practices predicated upon Shariah law, which he says is hostile to his Christian religion.

According to the First Amendment, Congress may not make any law respecting an establishment of religion. This Administration and a misguided judge not only want you to respect Sharia, they’ve also made you pay for it.

[A] federal district judge ruled it is OK for the U.S. government to fund commercial enterprises that promote the indoctrination of Islamic law, or Shariah, in the United States.

No one in the Obama Administration, including Tim Geithner, has raised any kind of public alarm or objection to this. Islamapologetics reaches a new level when it reaches into your pocket to pay for Sharia Law.

Next: Rasshad Hussein, Obama’s Voice to the Caliphate

Visit Newsreal

On January 27, 1998, Yehuda Bauer, Director of Research at Yad Vashem, concluded his Holocaust commemoration address at the Bundestag in Germany with the following:

“Thou shalt not be a perpetrator.”

“Thou shalt not be a victim.”

“And Thou shalt never, but never be a bystander.”

It is remarkable that Bauer saved the strongest admonition for bystanders.

On Friday May 27, at the White House Jewish Heritage Celebration, Helen Thomas, the “dean” of the White House Press Corps, answered a journalist’s request for an opinion on Israel:

“Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, these people are occupied and it’s their land…not German and not Poland.”

“So, where should they go?”

“Go home. Poland, Germany.”

“So, you think the Jews should go back to Poland and Germany?”

“And America and everywhere else.”

Helen Thomas is a perpetrator.  Perpetrator, because the most important aspect of the War Against Israel is the war to erode American support for Israel, the war for public opinion.  As in Vietnam, the press in America will bring about the fall of Israel and the annihilation of her people long before and more surely than those seeking the physical destruction of the Gaza blockade.

In spite of this, Helen does not fully explain the “why” of the Holocaust.  Within hours of Thomas’ Reichstag-worthy revelation, the video evidence circled the globe.  It is safe to assume that the people who come in daily contact with Helen knew what she said.

These journalists and reporters, as every educated American, have seen pictures of the Holocaust; they have probably looked in horror at images of the selection at Auschwitz, the mass-shootings in Ukraine, the portraits of Eichmann and Mengele.  This contemplation probably led to self-reassuring oaths that, “Had I been there, I would have resisted.  I would have spoken out.  The Nazis were evil monsters. How could this have happened?”

Certainly, the White House Press Corps is full of those who have thus reacted to the Nazi Holocaust.  And yet, they will sit down to dinner with Helen Thomas.  They will continue to say, “Good Morning” to her and will treat her like an icon worthy of respect.  She will stoop in her throne in the Press Corps galley.  She will not be shunned in the halls of the White House, and senators and representatives will still curry her favor or, at the very worst, attribute her rant to notorious spunk.

This is why the Holocaust happened.  A dozen average men and women weighed their careers against the consequence of protest and permitted the penetration of respectable society by anti-Semitism. The looming destruction of Israel is not to be attributed to hate-filled sectarian ideologues like Thomas, but to the reporters and journalists who will avoid nasty personal consequences, and refuse to treat her with the utter contempt she merits.  If ever Eichmann and Mengele and Goebbels deserved to be shunned as enemies of civilization, then likewise, a woman pretending to exemplify investigative excellence while suppressing the truth of the Jews’ tri-millennial claim to a homeland in the Holy Land, ought to be ostracized by anyone with a conscience.

The path to the first Holocaust was that of politically justified anti-Semitism.  Hitler began his crusade against the Jews under the pretext that they had caused, through self-interest, the defeat of Germany in the First World War.  We, fleeing precipitously towards a Second “Final Solution,” witness a similar attempt to disguise racial hatred of the Jews as dissenting political opinion.  We hear words such as “occupation, apartheid, human rights violations,” only because they camouflage an embarrassing, crass hatred.  Penetration of respectable society by this “classy, political” anti-Semitism is the first step to genocide.

The choice to become a bystander faces each member of the White House Press Corps.  Together, they should demand Helen Thomas’ expulsion from their midst, if they wish to retain their integrity and honor.

Should authorities refuse, for the obvious reason that anti-Semitism has been given the green light (no pun intended) by the example of the administration, then it is the personal responsibility of each member to treat the “Queen” and her supporters as they claim they would have treated the last batch of selectors who favored deporting the Jews to their “homeland” in the ovens of Poland.

Last year, White House economists claimed that the $862 billion stimulus would create 3.3 million jobs. Since then, the nation has lost more than 3 million jobs.

That’s a 6.3 million jobs gap. By the White House’s own standards, the stimulus failed.

So President Obama has shifted his argument. Sure, the economy lost jobs, he concedes — but without the stimulus, it would’ve lost nearly 2 million more jobs.

This is nothing but faith-based economics. The White House estimate of “saving” nearly 2 million jobs is based not on observations of the economy’s recent performance — but merely on the administration’s unshakable belief that deficit spending must create jobs and growth.

Specifically, the White House staff’s “proof” that the stimulus created jobs is an economic model that they programmed to assume that stimulus spending automatically creates jobs. How’s that for circular logic?

In other words, even if we’d lost 20 million jobs, their models would basically crank out the conclusion that we’d have lost 22 million without the stimulus.

Worse, the central tenet of this “faith” is false: The premise that stimulus spending must create jobs just isn’t true.

The stimulus theory is that government spending injects new dollars into the economy, thereby raising demand and spurring economic growth. That makes some sense — if you don’t ask where the government got the money.

Congress doesn’t have a vault of cash waiting to be distributed. Every dollar it “injects” into the economy must first be taxed or borrowed out of the economy. No new income, and therefore no new demand, is created: It’s merely redistributed from one group of people to another.

Removing water from one end of a swimming pool and pouring it in the other won’t raise the overall water level, no matter how large the bucket. It’s the same with redistributing dollars from one part of the economy to another.

via Fantasy jobs – NYPOST.com.

…clearly, anywhere but with the big guy himself.

That’s the conclusion Sean Hannity and Mark Steyn drew the other night, in reaction to Virginia’s former Democrat Governor, L. Douglas Wilder, who recently wrote that President Barack Obama “must overhaul his own team, replacing the admittedly brilliant advisers who helped elect him with others more capable of helping him govern” to turn around the Dems’ current political woes:

The changes must go much deeper. Obama’s West Wing is filled with people who are in their jobs because of their Chicago connections or because they signed on with Obama early during his presidential campaign. One problem is that they do not have sufficient experience at governing at the executive branch level. The deeper problem is that they are not listening to the people.

[…]

Obama’s job approval ratings are sliding, but we Democrats are told not to worry. We are told that he remains personally popular with the American people. It would be a grave mistake for the president and those around him to misread the current polls and analyses. They suggest that 1) the American people do not like the direction in which the country is heading; 2) they do not believe that either Democrats or Republicans are showing that they get the message and are doing the business of the people; 3) they hold Congress in very low regard; but 4) they really like the president. Yet, they keep going to the polls to rebuke him resoundingly every chance it is presented.

Acknowledgment of the White House’s dubious personnel choices and tone-deafness is welcome, but as Steyn pointed out, separating these things from Obama himself can only go so far:

STEYN: The king is a failure, so initially you can’t blame the king, you blame his courtiers.  And these four Chicago guys…in the end, you can’t stick them with the blame for what’s happened this last year, because the president is the guy who hired them, and also, it’s the president’s policies that have been disastrous for his popularity.

[…]

And the trouble is, for the first time in his life, he has to get up in the morning, he has to get into the office at nine in the morning, and make executive decisions.  And he’s never had to do that.  The only job he ever really had was at Harvard Law Review, and I gather he just sort of breezed in a couple of days a week and glad-handed a couple of people and then breezed out again.  He’s never had to do a job and make executive decisions, and he’s hopeless at them.

Steyn is right: it’s no coincidence that a far-left politician is pursuing a far-left agenda, nor should it surprise us to see an executive lightweight hire the wrong people.  And while Obama may have let Congress run wild with the stimulus, the fact is that he’s doing pretty much what he promised to do, and no matter how much Wilder and company wish otherwise, there’s only so much “competence” and “experience” can do to mask the fundamental deficiencies of progressive governance.

Whenever things go badly for the Democrats, there’s always an excuse: the American people would have picked John Kerry if only he had articulated his message better.  Scott Brown would have lost if only Martha Coakley hadn’t done stupid things like call Curt Schilling a Yankee fan.  Poor Barack is a thoughtful moderate who just happens to be surrounded by ideologues who don’t know what they’re doing. Somehow, it never occurs to them to reconsider their ideology or their platform.  It may have been a Democratic president who made “The Buck Stops Here” famous, but you’d never know it from looking at his successors.

_____

Hailing from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Calvin Freiburger is a political science major at Hillsdale College.  He also blogs at the Hillsdale Forum and his personal website, Calvin Freiburger Online.

* The administration claims Abdulmutallab is now cooperating. That’s either dishonest or idiotic — or both.

If he is cooperating, jeez, you don’t tell the terrorists. Why on earth leak it that the guy’s blabbing, thus warning the enemy? Could the administration — just possibly — be playing politics?

* Even if he’s talking now, Abdulmutallab won’t provide actionable intelligence. It’s too late: His contacts had time to vacate the premises and alter their modes of operation.

The best information that a low-level operative like the Jockey-shorts jerk possesses is highly perishable — the captive isn’t privy to long-term plans, just the immediate details of his mission and a few basic contacts.

via Miranda wrongs – NYPOST.com.

Katie Couric, a dutiful White House ally among many in the U.S. media, will do a live interview with President Barack Obama during tomorrow’s Super Bowl pre-game coverage on CBS, bringing together two of America’s most notable megalomaniacs – and forever tarnishing the pure joy that is Super Bowl Sunday. Is nothing sacrosanct?

Couric and her crew at CBS are asking viewers, via their website “What should she ask him?” and invite you to email Katie your question.

It seems to me Pres. Obama is pretty transparent – as my vision isn’t impaired by the warping lenses of extreme left-wing ideology. So instead, I would like to ask Couric a few questions. Here’s my draft email –

-

What would you ask the President?

The boys at the George Soros Steno Pool, a.k.a. Media Matters, evidently don’t care about Donny Deutsch explaining to Larry King that gays don’t watch football.

Which is weird because they haven’t ignored Deutsch’s “controversial” statements in the past.

Anyhow: no surprise that Media Matters is pretending to be scandalized by Rush Limbaugh’s “retard” gags on yesterday’s show.

Now look, this is really NOT that hard, even if you went to college.

Reacting to the “Rahm Emanuel said the R-word” demi-scandal, Rush Limbaugh said:

[Emanuel] was getting mad at them about health care.  The liberal activists kept blaming the White House for all this health care debacle not happening and not getting done.  Emanuel’s getting ticked off out there saying, (paraphrasing) “What are you blaming us for?  We didn’t do anything about it, you F-ing retards.”  I think the big news is the crack-up going on. But our politically correct society is acting like some giant insult’s taken place by calling a bunch of people who are “retards,” “retards.”  I mean these people, these liberal activists are kooks.  They are Looney Tunes.  I’m not going to apologize for it.  I’m just quoting Emanuel.  It’s in the news.  I think the big news is that he’s out there calling Obama’s number one supporters “F-ing retards.”

So now there’s going to be a meeting, there’s going to be a “Retard” Summit at the White House, much like the Beer Summit between Obama and Gates and that cop in Cambridge.

Sensing that not everybody would “get it,” Rush felt obliged to explain:

If you want to look at how this is broken down, Emanuel compares Democrat activists to retarded people, then apologizes to retarded people.  Not to the Democrats.

Normally if you call somebody a retard, you apologize to them for calling them a retard.  But he has apologized to the retarded people for daring to lump them with Democrats.  It’s hilarious.

The sarcasm dripping from Limbaugh’s lips obviously doesn’t translate onto the page. But come on: we’ve all heard stuff like, “I’d call you a pig, but that would be an insult to pigs.” Right?

Look: I was a kid back in the 1970s, when “retarded” was a common schoolyard taunt, along with “gay.” (Hence Sarah Silverman’s Gen-X gag: “When I say ‘gay,’ I just mean it like ‘retarded’”.)

However, nobody ever called the actual whateverthewordisthisweek kids in our school “retarded” or “gimp” or “spaz” (and we sure as heck didn’t know what “gay” was, something the Safe Schools Czar would no doubt find scandalous.) Ever. No way. The insults were always aimed at “normal” kids, and were just a palate cleanser after days on end of calling each other “goof.” These words had no “identity politics” connotations. Those connotations were invented by latter-day do-gooders.

That the three-man Limbaugh Listening Team at Media Matters is a) offended, or b) pretending to be offended by Rush’s comments comes as no surprise. Naturally, they are more offended by Rush’s mockery of an enlightened progressive like Emanuel using a politically incorrect word,  than they were by Emanuel uttering the word in the first place. Again, typical leftist tactics on display.

But I expected more brainpower from a guy whose last name is “Schlesinger.” (Yeah, I know. Stop laughing…)

Speaking of undetectable sarcasm, I really can’t tell if Robert Schlesinger (son of Arthur) is playing stupid here:

Rush Limbaugh, [sic] also came to Rahm’s defense, in his own way…

Schlesinger also uses Sarah Palin as a “Judy” puppet, wondering if she’ll scold Rush for these and other comments.

So: Liberal mainstream journalists are not only pretending they don’t “get” perfectly obvious jokes, but now they’re playing alt-fiction “Barbies” in their “columns”, too:

“Ooooh, what if Sarah said to Rush, ‘Hey, I’m mad at you’ and then he said…?”

This is what passes for serious commentary? Really?

WASHINGTON – Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she lacks the votes to quickly move the Senate’s sweeping health overhaul bill through the House, a potentially devastating blow to President Barack Obama’s signature issue.

Pelosi, D-Calif., made the comment to reporters after House Democrats held a closed-door meeting at which participants vented frustration with the Senate’s massive version of the legislation.

Her concession meant there was little hope for a White House-backed plan to quickly push the Senate-approved health bill through the House, followed by a separate measure making changes sought by House members, such as easing the Senate’s tax on higher-cost health plans. Such an approach would be “problematic,” she said, though Democrats haven’t completely ruled out pursuing it.

“In its present form without any changes I don’t think it’s possible to pass the Senate bill in the House,” Pelosi said, adding, “I don’t see the votes for it at this time.”

Pelosi also signaled that advancing health legislation through Congress will likely be a lengthy process — despite Democrats’ desire for a quick election-year pivot to address jobs and the economy, which polls show are the public’s top concern.

“We’re not in a big rush” on health care, Pelosi said. “Pause, reflect.”

via Pelosi: House lacks votes to OK Senate health bill – Yahoo! News.

Please join us at a peaceful demonstration in front of the White House on Thursday January 21, 2010 from 11:00AM to 2:00PM to protest the persecution and violence against the Copts (Christian Egyptians) which are increasing in frequency and brutality.

For your convenience, buses will move to the White House from the parking lots of St. Mark Coptic Church (11911 Braddock RD Fairfax, VA 22030) and St. Mary Coptic Church (8340 Woodward St. Savage, MD 20763) at 10:00 AM. Be there 15-20 minutes earlier.

Thank you and God Bless you.

Obama has not held a full news conference at the White House since July 22, the night he [stupidly] said that the Cambridge Police “acted stupidly” in the arrest of [elitist, race-hustling punk] Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates. More…

For more of my work, please visit my blog.

Related posts:

1. MSNBC: Gates "the Rosa Parks of racial profiling"
2. CNN: Black Cambridge Cops Support Sgt. Crowley, Denounce Gates and Obama
3. Fox News: Gates says "I don't even like the airplane to fly over North Carolina" in 1996 video

In case you missed it, last night Glenn Beck spent a full hour interviewing Sarah Palin.

Their conversation touched on topics not usually discussed these days: God and trust.

See the full interview before the talking heads start putting their own spin on it. You might just regain some of your faith in human nature.

Related posts:

1. Media Matters: Why be critical of Glenn Beck for pushing against the extremists?
2. Glenn Beck Mocks White House War on Fox News
3. Glenn Beck: This Is Just The Beginning of Holding President Obama Accountable

via “Shock” U.S. report due on attempted airline attack – Yahoo! News.

Not anymore.

Yet another Which-Side-Is-Obama-On Alert: "Obama Imperils Intel Briefings," by Theodore Kettle for Newsmax, January 3:

President Barack Obama's executive order last Tuesday to declassify millions of secret U.S. government document delighted left-wing "open government" groups, but it may render impotent one of the intelligence community's most vital tools: the President's Daily Brief, or PDB.

Described as "the most highly sensitized classified document in the government," every one of the overnight-written reports the commander-in-chief receives each morning from the CIA and other spy agencies, going back decades, would eventually be required by law to be revealed under Obama's newly-established National Declassification Center within the National Archives.

As the White House describes the massively lengthy executive order, which approaches 13,000 words, "For the first time, it establishes the principle that no records may remain classified indefinitely and provides enforceable deadlines for declassifying information exempted from automatic declassification at 25 years."

According to the president's order, "No information may remain classified indefinitely." And while much of the order does not take effect until mid-2010, some provisions do, such as the directive that "all classified records that (1) are more than 25 years old and (2) have been determined to have permanent historical value under Title 44, United States Code, shall be automatically declassified whether or not the records have been reviewed."...

Obama's order last week revokes both the Clinton and Bush executive orders, effective by the middle of this year....

Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, in a May 2002 press conference, warned of the consequences of scrapping the rule that PDBs never become public.

Fleischer described "the overall principle about the President's Daily Brief, which is shared with such an extraordinarily small number of people who are in a need-to-know situation, a need-to-know position, so they can use that information to protect the country, to prevent the next possible attack."

Bush, Fleischer added, was "concerned with the fact that if the presidential daily brief, which is a highly sensitized - the most highly sensitized classified document in the government - if that document were to be at risk of public reporting, public release, the people who prepare it will hold back and not give the president of the United States, the person who needs the most information, they will be inclined to give him less, rather than more, because they fear it will get made public, and that could compromise sources or methods."...

Has Obama now constructed a wall between himself and U.S. spy agencies, discouraging them from being candid about terrorism threats in their daily briefings - not only to him, but to future presidents?

If you try to commit jihad murder, and you have the right connections, Barack Obama may have a sweet deal ready for you. "Brennan: Deal 'on the table' for terror suspect," from Politico, January 3 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The U.S. Government is offering the suspect charged with attempting to bomb an aircraft on Christmas Day, Omar Abdulmutallab, some kind of incentives to share what he knows about Al Qaeda, White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said Sunday.

Asked why Abdulmutallab should cooperate given his right, as criminal defendant, to remain silent, Brennan replied: "He doesn't have to but he knows there are certain things that are on the table... if he wants to engage with us in a productive manner, there are ways he can do that."...

Obama believes essentially the same thing: that the jihad is a response to various actions of the West, which if we stop doing, all will be well. In line with this assumption, Paul apparently thinks that the Flight 253 jihad attack was a response to U.S. airstrikes in Yemen. However, according to an unnamed source in the White House quoted by Jake Tapper at ABC News (thanks to Benedict), the Flight 253 jihadist had set his plot in motion before the airstrike. And it certainly seems that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had his mind on jihad for years.

Also, the idea that occupation causes terrorism ignores, as always, the fact that the jihadists may hate us for reasons of their own, arising from their own belief system and ideology, and not dependent upon our actions at all. Oh, and who is occupying Yemen again?

(Video thanks to all who sent it in.)

via William McGurn: Obama Puts the Dis in Dissident – WSJ.com.