There’s a reason the American left idolizes quasi-Socialist France.

PARIS (Reuters) – The French are more opposed to free market capitalism than the inhabitants of Communist China and other advanced economies, an opinion poll published on Wednesday showed.

The survey by pollster IFOP published in La Croix newspaper showed that 33 percent of French people believe it is time to abandon capitalism, the highest proportion among the 10 countries surveyed.

In China, which is ruled by the Communist Party but has embraced its own brand of capitalism, just 3 percent of those questioned thought that the market system was working badly. China posted economic growth of more than 10 percent last year.

Some 65 percent of the Chinese surveyed said the current system was working well and should not be changed, the highest percentage in the poll, followed by Australia with 63 percent, Brazil with 57 and the United States with 55 percent.

The survey, conducted between Dec. 8 and 23 from some 600 respondents in each country, also showed that the Chinese were the most convinced that wider international trade was in their interest, with 90 percent answering “yes”.

The United States was the most negative about the impact of expanding international trade on their economy, with just 39 percent of those surveyed in favour of it.

This clip is from a new anti-Israel movie being shown on American college campuses.

Allah is the greatest.
He who thanks Allah will be rewarded.
Oh Allah, loosen your power and strength on the Jews. (Amen.)
Please Allah, kill them all…
And don’t leave any of them alive. (Amen.)
Oh Allah, with your great power. Allah!
We are asking you with your infinite power, dear Allah. Allah!
Please dear Allah, take revenge for our martyrs’ blood. Allah!
Please Allah, get rid of the Jews.
Bring them down.
They are not as powerful as you.
Please Allah, make the earth shake and destroy the pillars of their civilisation.
Please Allah, cast fear and terror into their hearts….

What a delightful “religion”…

HT: Jihad Watch

WASHINGTON (AP) — The ledger did not appear to be adding up Tuesday night when President Barack Obama urged more spending on one hand and a spending freeze on the other.

Obama spoke ambitiously of putting money into roads, research, education, efficient cars, high-speed rail and other initiatives in his State of the Union speech. He pointed to the transportation and construction projects of the last two years and proposed “we redouble these efforts.” He coupled this with a call to “freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years.”

But Obama offered far more examples of where he would spend than where he would cut, and some of the areas he identified for savings are not certain to yield much if anything.

For example, he said he wants to eliminate “billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies.” Yet he made a similar proposal last year that went nowhere. He sought $36.5 billion in tax increases on oil and gas companies over the next decade, but Congress largely ignored the request, even though Democrats were then in charge of both houses of Congress.

A look at some of Obama’s statements Tuesday night and how they compare with the facts:

OBAMA: Tackling the deficit “means further reducing health care costs, including programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which are the single biggest contributor to our long-term deficit. Health insurance reform will slow these rising costs, which is part of why nonpartisan economists have said that repealing the health care law would add a quarter of a trillion dollars to our deficit.”

THE FACTS: The idea that Obama’s health care law saves money for the government is based on some arguable assumptions.

To be sure, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated the law will slightly reduce red ink over 10 years. But the office’s analysis assumes that steep cuts in Medicare spending, as called for in the law, will actually take place. Others in the government have concluded it is unrealistic to expect such savings from Medicare.

In recent years, for example, Congress has repeatedly overridden a law that would save the treasury billions by cutting deeply into Medicare pay for doctors. Just last month, the government once again put off the scheduled cuts for another year, at a cost of $19 billion. That money is being taken out of the health care overhaul. Congress has shown itself sensitive to pressure from seniors and their doctors, and there’s little reason to think that will change.

Rest Here>>>

Obama’s birth certificate hardest hit.

A plan in Arizona to require presidential candidates to prove their eligibility to occupy the Oval Office is approaching critical mass, even though it has just been introduced.

The proposal from state Rep. Judy Burges, who carried a similar plan that fell short last year only because of political maneuvering, was introduced yesterday with 16 members of the state Senate as co-sponsors.

It needs only 16 votes in the Senate to pass.

In the House, there are 25 co-sponsors, with the need for only 31 votes for passage, and Burges told WND that there were several chamber members who confirmed they support theplanand will vote for it, but simply didn’t wish to be listed as co-sponsors.

The proposal,which also is being taken up in a number of other states, is highly specific and directly addresses the questions that have been raised by Barack Obama’s occupancy of the White House. It says:

Within ten days after submittal of the names of the candidates, the national political party committee shall submit an affidavit of the presidential candidate in which the presidential candidate states the candidate’s citizenship and age and shall append to the affidavit documents that prove that the candidate is a natural born citizen, prove the candidate’s age and prove that the candidate meets the residency requirements for President of the United States as prescribed in article II, section 1, Constitution of the United States.

The critical phrases are “natural born citizen” and the requirements of “article II, section 1, Constitution of the United States,” which imposes on the president a requirement not demanded of other state and federal officeholders.

Rest here>>>

NYT video report on the 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry, 10th Mountain Division serving on the front lines in Afghanistan.

Partisan hacks to the very end.

(Weekly Standard)- Senator Chuck Schumer of New York has taken the role of lead Democratic attack dog in the renewed campaign against Paul Ryan’s fiscal Roadmap, but it’s not clear that he’s fully aware of what the plan lays out. Asked today in the Capitol if he had read the Roadmap, Schumer gave no response to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

While Schumer was silent, some of his Democratic colleagues openly admitted they haven’t read Ryan’s plan. “I haven’t had a chance to look at anything,” Ben Nelson of Nebraska told me. “I looked at it briefly when it came out last fall, I think,” said Mark Pryor of Arkansas. “I didn’t master the details.”

“I use Google Maps,” was all Richard Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate, would say when asked if he’d read the plan.

Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, said he has read the Roadmap. “I don’t think it does nearly enough to deal with the debt,” Conrad said. “It doesn’t balance until 2063, and in the meantime it runs up trillions of dollars in additional debt.” When asked what the Democratic plan for dealing with debt was, Conrad referred to the president’s debt commission proposal.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is defending his landmark health care overhaul bill against Republican efforts to repeal it.

Obama says he knows there’s opposition to the bill extending insurance coverage to 30 million people. But he said he’s not willing to go back to the days when insurance companies could deny coverage.

The Republican-controlled House repealed the bill last week but it’s not expected to go anywhere in the Senate.

In remarks prepared for delivery in his State of the Union address Tuesday, Obama said he wants to work with Congress to further reduce the cost of health care, including state reforms to the medical malpractice system.

But he didn’t endorse capping payouts in malpractice lawsuits.

That’s a GOP idea that would yield big savings but is opposed by trial lawyers.

Let me think about it…NO.

Geneva (AP) – The U.N. chief is asking nations to be as generous as possible to deliver $7.4 billion in emergency aid this year to 50 million people grappling with conflict and disaster in 28 nations.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told diplomats Tuesday at U.N. headquarters in Geneva that the aid is needed despite financial pressure on national budgets. He praised donors like the European Commission, the United States and Sweden that announced their intentions early so the U.N. could plan better.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says tens of millions of people will need emergency aid in 2011. It said that in a rare year of two mega-disasters – the Haiti earthquake and the Pakistan floods – donors pledged a record $13 billion last year.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Confronting the new reality of divided government, President Barack Obama implored lawmakers of both parties Tuesday night to rally behind his vision for creating jobs for an anxious nation, declaring: “We will move forward together, or not at all.”

In excerpts of his State of the Union address, released in advance by the White House, the president cast the challenges facing the United States as bigger than either party.

His message came as Obama himself was adjusting his agenda to the shifting power dynamic in Washington, with voters having given Republicans control of the House and a stronger voice in the Senate and as the 2012 presidential campaign was ready to start.

Sadly for Tingles it wasn’t a one-on-one, fellow MSM lapdogs Diane Sawyer, George Snuffleupagus and Brian Williams were also told what to say about him tonight.

President Obama met with several top news personalities and pundits on Tuesday before his State of the Union Address.

Per a White House pool report, the president met with the group for lunch at the White House this afternoon.

Among the figures reported to be meeting with the president were CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos from ABC, Brian Williams from NBC and Chris Matthews from MSNBC. It wasn’t clear whether there were more attendees at the meeting.

The president has been known to meet with journalists occasionally for informal chats. The discussions are typically off the record, meaning that the content of Tuesday’s discussion will likely remain unknown.

Rest here>>>

If this was a Republican the knuckleheads on MSNBC would be foaming at the mouth.

(Daily Caller)- Behind closed doors, California Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez has proposed removing Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords from the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) until she recovers from injuries sustained after being shot in the head on Jan. 8 in Tucson, The Daily Caller has learned.

The proposal sparked an outrage, according to those in the room — including from those in Sanchez’s own party.

“It’s not appropriate,” Texas Democratic Rep. Silvestre Reyes told The Daily Caller, adding that there was outrage among some members in the room when Sanchez made the suggestion. “It’s bad for morale during her recovery period.”

Reyes and Rep. Adam Smith of California put up most of the fight against Sanchez, and helped squash the idea.

“From a woman who memorialized her cat, you’d think she’d show a little more compassion for a woman shot in the face,” said one GOP aide, referring to Sanchez’s 2010 Christmas card that paid tribute to her late cat, Gretzky.

Sanchez told her Democratic colleagues on the committee that every vote would be crucial, and since there was little indication Giffords would return soon, they should seek a replacement. A spokesman for Sanchez defended her proposal and called the criticism “ludicrous.”

Hands off Dingy’s pork, that’s how he pays his union goons back for “getting out the vote.”

(Politico)- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blasted President Barack Obama on earmarks in advance of his State of the Union address Tuesday, when he’s expected to call for a ban.

“I think this is an issue that any president would like to have that takes power away from the legislative branch of government,” said Reid. “I think it’s the wrong thing to do. I don’t think it’s helpful. It’s a lot of pretty talk, but it only gives the president more power. He’s got enough power already.

No.

(The Hill)- The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday that a proposal to increase the total number of American troops in Afghanistan is being considered by President Obama and the Secretary of Defense.

Speaking after a trip to the Middle East, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), flanked by Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.), said Tuesday he had mentioned to Obama a proposal to increase the total number of troops in Afghanistan by about 70,000. The president confirmed he was considering the idea, Levin said.

“I urged the president strongly and with very direct words that this needed to be done to enhance the possibilities of success of our mission and to speed up the reduction of our forces so that that important part of our mission, which is the build-up of Afghan forces to take responsibility for their own security, can be improved and enhanced,” Levin said. “He told me that it was under consideration at that very time. As a matter of fact, I believe Admiral [Mike] Mullen told me yesterday that it was being considered yesterday afternoon.”

The U.N. is a pathetic joke, this just brings more attention to it.

Via Jeffrey Goldberg:

It turns out that “Palestine expert” on the UN Human Rights Council, the law professor Richard Falk, is something of a 9/11 Truther (sorry, Troofer). Here is what Falk had to say about 9/11 on his blog:

The arguments swirling around the 9/11 attacks are emblematic of these issues. What fuels suspicions of conspiracy is the reluctance to address the sort of awkward gaps and contradictions in the official explanations that David Ray Griffin (and other devoted scholars of high integrity) have been documenting in book after book ever since his authoritative The New Pearl Harbor in 2004 (updated in 2008). What may be more distressing than the apparent cover up is the eerie silence of the mainstream media, unwilling to acknowledge the well-evidenced doubts about the official version of the events: an al Qaeda operation with no foreknowledge by government officials. Is this silence a manifestation of fear or cooption, or part of an equally disturbing filter of self-censorship? Whatever it is, the result is the withering away of a participatory citizenry and the erosion of legitimate constitutional government. The forms persist, but the content is missing. 

This has brought forth a strong condemnation from Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations:

I am appalled by the recent personal blog written by Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.”

In this blog post, dated January 11, 2011, Mr. Falk endorses the slurs of conspiracy theorists who allege that the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were perpetrated and then covered up by the U.S. government and media.

Mr. Falk’s comments are despicable and deeply offensive, and I condemn them in the strongest terms.  I have registered a strong protest with the UN on behalf of the United States. The United States has in the past been critical of Mr. Falk’s one-sided and politicized approach to his work for the UN, including his failure to condemn deliberate human rights abuses by Hamas, but these blog comments are in another category altogether.

In my view, Mr. Falk’s latest commentary is so noxious that it should finally be plain to all that he should no longer continue in his position on behalf of the UN. I would note that U.S. and many other diplomats walked out in protest in September 2010 when Iranian President Ahmadinejad made similarly slanderous remarks before the UN General Assembly.

The United States is deeply committed to the cause of human rights and believes that cause will be better advanced without Mr. Falk and the distasteful sideshow he has chosen to create.

Rest here>>>

Tough call here, even if the bulk of the protesters want a more democratic system, there is absolutely no question whatsoever the Muslim Brotherhood would assume power in the unlikely event the Mubarak regime is overthrown.

(BBC)- Police in Cairo have been using tear gas and water cannon to try to quell rare anti-government protests.

Thousands have joined the protests after an internet campaign inspired by the uprising in Tunisia.

They marched through Cairo and other areas chanting anti-government slogans, after activists called for a “day of revolt” in a web message.

Weeks of unrest in Tunisia eventually toppled President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali earlier this month.

Protests are uncommon in Egypt, which President Hosni Mubarak has ruled since 1981, tolerating little dissent.

The events in Cairo were co-ordinated on a Facebook page – tens of thousands of supporters clicked on the page to say they would take part.

Reports said the social networking site Twitter had been blocked in Egypt and that mobile phone networks in the Cairo area were down.

The BBC’s Jon Leyne in Cairo said rallies had been held in several parts of the capital, and the turnout had been more than the organisers could have hoped.

Police were taken aback by the anger of the crowd and let protesters make their way to the parliament building, he says.

There police regrouped in full riot gear with tear gas and water cannon and temporarily drove the crowd back. However, protesters threw stones and stood their ground, pushing the police back until they were on the run.

Our correspondent says there was a lot of of blood but no sound of gunfire. The scale of the clashes will surely come as a shock to President Mubarak, he adds.

Protests also broke out in other areas, including the eastern city of Ismailiya and the northern port city of Alexandria.

HT: D. Austin

De-fund this pig.

(Politico)- Public opposition to the health care reform law spiked to a record high in a new poll out today — but Americans don’t necessarily want Republicans to spend time trying to dismantle it.

Fifty percent of Americans have unfavorable views of the law, according to a joint survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health. Opposition to the law jumped 9 percentage points from last month and is the highest since April, when Kaiser began asking the question every month.

…The new opposition to President Obama’s biggest domestic policy initiative has been driven largely by independents. Fifty-seven percent of independents had an unfavorable view of the law this month, up sharply from 41 percent in December.

Note to the GOP, I wouldn’t chance it, bring your anti-cootie spray.

It’s been said Congress is like high school all over again.

Well, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is making clear she is embracing the idea of sitting next to a Democrat during Tuesday’s State of the Union address, saying members of the opposing party do not have “cooties.”

“Maybe we do need to get out of our conventional skins every now and again and come out and do something that indicates to the rest of the country that we are not afraid to sit next to each other, that there are no cooties to be had, Republican between Democrats that together we can join together in this very important speech that the president will deliver to us tonight,” the Alaska Republican told reporters Tuesday.

Rest here>>>

Another dead fish?

(Chicago Sun Times)- The Illinois Supreme Court has ordered the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners to put Rahm Emanuel’s name back on the mayoral ballot, attorneys for Emanuel said Tuesday.

The court has not decided whether to hear Emanuel’s appeal of Monday’s Illinois Appellate Court ruling that tossed him out of the race to replace Mayor Daley. The Supreme Court granted Emanuel’s motion for a stay of the ruling, Emanuel attorney Mike Kasper said Tuesday.

The state appellate court ruled Monday that Emanuel did not meet the one-year residency requirement to run for mayor of Chicago.

Emanuel’s attorneys, heavily citing the dissenting opinion in that case, are hoping to convince the seven justices of the Supreme Court to allow Emanuel to run.

Am I the only one who find this “bring a date” to the SOTU address to be extremely irritating?

Hopefully Cantor can restrain her from repeating last year’s jack-in-the-box routine.

(Politico)- House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has invited his Democratic counterpart Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to sit with him at Tuesday’s State of the Union.

Cantor’s office said he made the ask last night. Pelosi’s office didn’t respond to an email asking if the former speaker would cozy up next to Cantor.

The two hardly are pals. Cantor Monday blasted Pelosi for not meeting with Republicans — a contention that the Californian’s office says is not true.

Update: Exactly when did Congress turn into “Saved by The Bell” (with Rep. Anthony Weiner playing Screech)?

(The Hill)- House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) invited Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to sit next to him at the State of the Union address — but the former House Speaker says she’s already committed.

“I thank @GOPLeader for his #SOTU offer, but I invited my friend Rep. [Roscoe] Bartlett from MD yesterday & am pleased he accepted,” Pelosi tweeted.

The invitation from Cantor was made Monday evening through staffers for the two leaders, spokesman Brad Dayspring said.