Northwest Indiana Discussion

The former head of the CIA’s Clandestine Service accused President Barack Obama of hurting the country’s ability to fight the war on terror because he stopped the use of “enhanced” interrogation techniques like waterboarding.

Jose Rodriguez told “60 Minutes” that the techniques, which also included sleep deprivation, slapping and nudity, forced detainees to give up information that allowed the U.S. to stop more than 10 terrorist plots.

“We made some al-Qaeda terrorists with American blood on their hands uncomfortable for a few days,” he told reporter Leslie Stahl during the program set to air Sunday. “I am very secure in what we did and am very confident that what we did saved American lives.”

Obama has called waterboarding “torture” and halted the enhanced interrogation program after he took office.

“It’s contrary to America’s traditions, it’s contrary to our ideals. That’s not who we are, that’s not how we operate,” he told reporters at a press conference in November. “We don’t need it in order to prosecute the war on terrorism. We did the right thing by ending that practice.”

MSNBC political commentator Krystal Ball: “You can’t even say it’s election-year politics because the Republicans have been pounding this thing for over a year now. And not just the Republicans in Congress, the entire right-wing media propaganda empire has really seized on this because President Obama, his administration, has been remarkably scandal free. Really.”

“So they’ve been trying with Solyndra, with Fast and Furious to get something going and the irony here is because of when, when the thing is actually coming to a head it is distracting from what should really be their core message right now when economic numbers are slipping and people are feeling increasingly nervous about our prospects for jobs.”

32 Grieving Parents with Absolute
Moral Authority over Obama
American Thinker, by Stella Paul

I know you're busy writing to your friends to ask them to skip your birthday present this year and send the cash to Obama, but I just want to interrupt you for a minute to introduce you to 32 parents who probably won't be fundraising for Obama anytime soon.

Kent and Josephine Terry are the parents of slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who sacrificed his life protecting ours. Last week, they spoke up for the first time with a message to Obama, who has asserted executive privilege to hide documents on Operation Fast and Furious.

When asked what they'd say to Obama and Eric Holder, Kent Terry replied, "I probably couldn't say on camera what I'd like to say to them. But I'd say get their heads out of their butt anyway."

(Please don't share this quote with the "important" gay activists whom Obama invited to the White House, where they ran riot, kissing and exposing their middle digits to Reagan's portrait. They might get too excited.)

(Please don't share this quote with the "important" gay activists whom Obama invited to the White House, where they ran riot, kissing and exposing their middle digits to Reagan's portrait. They might get too excited.)

Brian Terry was murdered in December 2010 with guns from Obama's Fast and Furious program, which is politely (and fictitiously) described as a botched gun-tracing operation. Somehow this "botching" resulted in the most violent Mexican drug cartels being armed with thousands of assault weapons, which they used to slaughter 300 Mexicans and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

I'm not buying that Obama ever had any interest in reining in Mexican gangs. I think he and Holder looked across the border and said, "Hey, violent drug cartels with a bottomless capacity to launder cash and growing ties to Hezb'allah and Iranian terrorists. Those are our kind of guys!"

Which brings us to Mary and Amador Zapata, the parents of slain ICE agent Jaime Zapata. Last week, the Zapatas filed a $25-million wrongful death claim against the government.

Jaime Zapata was ambushed in a roadside attack in Mexico in February 2011, while working for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Highly informed sources say that Zapata was investigating Fast and Furious at the time of his murder.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/ ... z1yv25vO5H

President Obama has failed to deliver on the high expectations for Middle East peace that his election engendered three and a half years ago, according to the Palestinians’ top envoy to the United States.

Ambassador Maen Rashid Areikat said Obama’s campaign rhetoric and early actions in the White House raised hopes that a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might be within reach.

But with just six months left in the president’s term, and no breakthrough in sight, the chief representative of the General Delegation of the Palestine Liberation Organization to the United States expressed disappointment at where things stand.

“We were hoping that things would be different by now,” Areikat said in a wide-ranging interview with reporters. “We were hoping and expecting to be at a different stage-point today.

“Maybe my expectations were higher than [Obama] was planning to do. But at least the projections early when he took office pointed to some real movement in the right direction, and unfortunately it did not materialize.”

Areikat’s comments reflect broader Palestinian frustrations with the White House.

Two-thirds of likely voters say President Obama has kept his 2008 campaign promise to change America — but it’s changed for the worse, according to a sizable majority.

A new poll for The Hill found 56 percent of likely voters believe Obama’s first term has transformed the nation in a negative way, compared to 35 percent who believe the country has changed for the better under his leadership.

The results signal broad voter unease with the direction the nation has taken under Obama’s leadership and present a major challenge for the incumbent Democrat as he seeks reelection this fall.

The commander-in-chief has a two words of advice for the comeback kid of the NFL: “slide more.”

At a campaign stop in Oakland on Monday, Obama asked Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha, who introduced the president at the event, to transmit a message to his teammate, quarterback Mike Vick.

“He told me to tell Vick to slide,” Asomugha told the Philadelphia Inquirer on Wednesday during training camp. “Promise. We talked about football for about three or four minutes and the one thing that stuck out, ‘Tell Vick to slide.’ He’s a big fan.”

President Obama’s top economic adviser, Alan Krueger, called for Congress to stimulate job creation among state and local governments in order to address the slowing growth of the economy.

Krueger attributed the weak economic growth to a lack of stimulus funding. “Since the Recovery Act funds have been phasing out, however, declining State and local government activity has subtracted from GDP,” the chairman of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers wrote in today’s advance estimate of GDP for the second quarter of 2012.

The White House chose to focus on the positive when it comes to GDP estimates released Friday.

The estimates found economic growth slowed to 1.5 percent last quarter – down from 2 percent the previous quarter and 4.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 — but the chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers said that at least it’s still growing.

“Today’s report shows that the economy posted its twelfth straight quarter of positive growth,” Alan B. Krueger wrote in a statement. “Over the last three years, the economy has expanded by 6.7 percent overall, and the private components of GDP have grown by 9.9 percent.”

Krueger did say that more needs to be done. “While the economy continues to move in the right direction, additional growth is needed to replace the jobs lost in the deep recession that began at the end of 2007.”

This isn't hyperbole or exaggeration:

If we don't win this election, it will be because we didn't close the spending gap when we could.

Because right now we're seeing that voters have a choice between two very different men.

And the only way someone like Mitt Romney—who's asking Americans to put him in charge of their taxes while refusing to come clean about his own, who wants to repeal Obamacare, end Medicare as we know it, and give more tax breaks to billionaires who don't need them—defeats someone like Barack Obama, is if the other side spends us into oblivion.

Tomorrow is the most urgent fundraising deadline of this campaign so far. Will you make a donation today to make sure we can keep this close over the last 100 days?

It's already starting on TVs and radios in swing states, and it's not going to stop.

In the last two weeks of this month, Romney and his allies had an almost 2:1 spending advantage in Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Virginia—and that could be the election right there.

We've got more than 2.4 million grassroots donors building this the right way.

But we're running out of time to close the money gap when it really matters.

Please donate today, and help make sure our message can get through to as many voters as Mitt Romney's does.

Barack and I honestly wish we could thank everyone who contributes to this campaign personally. You're our second family, you know.

Thanks,

Joe

DENVER (CBS4) – As Mitt Romney prepares to visit Colorado this week the campaigns have been arguing over a remark President Barack Obama made about small businesses.

The economy will likely be the topic when Romney visits this Thursday and the numbers aren’t good. But the president isn’t doing anyone any favors either when he makes remarks that some small business owners see as an insult.

Republicans have branded the president as big-government and anti-business, and lately he’s playing right into that.

“If you’re successful, you didn’t get there on your own,” Obama said. “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.”

From ads to press conferences Republicans are having a field day with the president’s “you didn’t build it” blunder as Democrats move to do damage control.

“I did build my business, Mr. President, you didn’t,” Martin Mendez with Splash Publications said.

In a statement posted to his Facebook page, Florida congressman Allen West calls President Obama’s decision “to unleash his campaign cronies against our Military … unconscionable.”

“As a retired Army officer I am appalled at the Obama administration’s actions to bring a lawsuit against the State of Ohio for the early voting privileges it extends to our Men and Women serving in uniform,” West writes. “To have the Commander in Chief make our US Servicemen and Women the target of a political attack to benefit his reelection actions is reprehensible. The voting privilege extended to these Warriors who represent the best among us should not be a part of the collective vision of this inept President who is more concerned about his reelection than sequestration. As a Combat Veteran, for this President to unleash his campaign cronies against our Military is unconscionable….how dare this President compare the service, sacrifice, and commitment of those who Guard our liberties not as special and seek to compare them to everyone else. Barack Obama is undeserving of the title Commander-in-Chief.”