American Thinker is my favorite place to go for thoughtful conservative commentary. Sometimes, the comments that follow a piece are just as interesting as the article itself. The comment below followed an article by George Picard titled “Obama’s Racial Spoil System.” It is an excellent article, but what really caught my attention was this comment:

Stanley Kurtz coined a term to describe Barack Obama’s modus operandi as a state senator. He gave him the moniker Senator Stealth. One way of understanding Barack Obama’s stealthiness and capacity for hiding and befogging is that he is psychologically Islamic. Christianity calls for a boldness and directness of expression — the yea that is yea. However, Islamic doctrine is less straightforward. For example, the Islamic doctrine of taqiya means concealing or disguising one’s beliefs, convictions, ideas, feelings, opinions, and/or strategies at a time of imminent danger, whether now or later in time, to save oneself from physical and/or mental injury. It is impossible to imagine Barack Obama bravely leading soldiers in battle, but he has demonstrated an affinity for drone weapons. Does this affinity reflect his psychological incorporation of taqiya?

This theme of “otherness” in Obama is nothing new. But when you consider taqiya against the backdrop of Obama’s presidency so far, there are some interesting parallels. Twenty years of Jeremiah Wright had to have some effect.

Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University. They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands. The clues are both alarming and brilliant, a Machiavellian game plan to turn the U.S. into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that needs government to survive by voting for it without the responsibility to pay for it.

1) Universal Health Care. The health care bill has very little to do with health care. It has everything to do with unionizing millions of hospital and health care workers, as well as adding 15,000 to 20,000 new IRS agents who will also join unions. He doesn’t care about the cost. He does care that it cements the dependence of 30 million voters to Democrats and big government.

2) Cap and Trade. Cap and trade has nothing to do with global warming. It has everything to do with redistribution of income, installing government control of the economy and providing a criminal payoff to Obama’s biggest contributors. The powerful and wealthy unions will continue to support everything Obama wants.

3) Puerto Rico A State. Nobody is asking for this, but Obama sees millions of new welfare recipients, two new Democratic senators, five Democratic congressmen and a million loyal Democratic voters who are dependent on big government.

4) Legalize Immigrants. Just giving in excess of 12 million new citizens free health care alone could overwhelm the system and bankrupt America. But they are also in excess of 12 million Democratic voters to continue to support big government. The trillions of dollars for all of their benefits piles on more debt.

More In Two Weeks

Part three in the series of video fisks of President Obama’s “immigration speech.” Lots of squirrels and straw men. Few (if any) substantive policy proposals or solutions to problems.

“We are three counties deep. How is it that you see pictures like these, not American with semi and fully automatic rifles. How is that okay?” asked Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu.  Babeu said he no longer has control over parts of his county.

“We are outgunned, we are out manned and we don’t have the resources here locally to fight this,” he said at a Friday news conference.  Five weeks ago Deputy Louie Puroll was ambushed and shot as he tracked six drug smugglers.  Sheriff Babeu said the ambush mirrored military tactics.

Read more

Doubtful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQFFZJpTmD0

President Barack Obama:

But the thing is though, you have to love some of the pundits in Washington. Everying single day since I signed the [Obamacare] reform law, there’s been another poll or headline that said “Nation still divided on health care reform – polls haven’t changed yet!”

We’ll yeah. It just happend last week. It’s only been a week!

But if polls would have soared through the roof, heh. Well, the president would be everywhere.

Last week, the Tip of Texas Tea Party protested against ObamaCare outside the local office of US Representative Solomon P. Ortiz (D-Corpus Christi, TX). A block away on the corner of FM 802 and Paredes Line Road, Coffee Partiers protested for ObamaCare. Noticing the lack of attention, they joined us.

None other than Democratic Party county chairman Gilberto Hinojosa led the Coffee Party. Does his presence with known Democrat operatives mean the Democrats are the Coffee Party? Recall the meme of Tea Parties consisting solely of angry Republicans and served as basis for Rio Grande Guardian‘s questions to us. Did Republican Chairman Frank Morris protest? No. For the record, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and Independents make up our group.

County Chairman Hinojosa’s protesting is at odds with Democratic National Committee (DNC) member Hinojosa. At the DNC winter meeting held last month in Washington, Hinojosa complained President Barack Obama’s lack of attention on jobs. Since Inauguration Day, the President concentrated on his number two legislative initiative, ObamaCare. 

Liberals, Hinojosa openly endorsed then-Senator Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Texas Primary. According to Politico, the Democrat stated, “You’re not going to worry about whether you have health insurance if you’re looking for a job, or climate change or all those things that have been a part of the agenda.”

Hinojosa went on to misrepresent Rio Grande Valley unemployment figures claiming it was “more than 20 percent.” The Texas Workforce Commission‘s  January unemployment numbers for Hidalgo County was 12.2% while Cameron County came in with 11.5%. In February jobless rate were 11.8% and 11.3% respectively. To end up with Hinojosa’s unemployment rate you have to virtually add Cameron and Hidalgo County together, an interesting form of mathematics.

“Republicans have done [a] good job turning things around and blaming us for the problems they created. We need to get our message out better than we have in past,” argued Hinojosa. He missed the point. People want those in power to take action, not talk about your message. That’s called a press release. Do something that won’t burden future generations with bills we cannot afford.

In “Advocates For and Against Health Care Reform Bill Rally in Brownsville,” the Rio Grande Guardian reported

[Hinojosa] was impressed with the number of people at the rally for health care reform. More than 100 participated. ‘You could hear from the people going by honking their horns how important this issue is. . . Health care is an issue that every family worries about and nowhere else in the country do families worry more about it than in the Rio Grande Valley, because so many people do not have access to health care and lack health insurance.’

There were more of us, and we did not reach fifty. We were more vocal and respectful. We got the honks before, during and after the Democrat shills joined us, but I digress.

To Politico and the nation Hinojosa declared the Valley cared about jobs, not ObamaCare. Nevertheless back home he protested for Ortiz’s support of ObamaCare because the Valley needed it. He contended, “We have close to 50 percent that are uninsured. That is unacceptable.”  With his habitual misleading, are we sure about anything he says including his uninsured statistic?

Obama has gotten away with his blatantly tyrannical, unconstitutional, radical agenda simply because he is black.

The more things change, the more things stay the same. A little over a year ago, President Barack Obama came to office expecting to pass a “big bang” of policy changes all in the first year: health care, cap-and-trade, and banking regulation. With the big-bang strategy officially a failure , President Obama’s State of the Union address last night desperately tried to keep all of these legislative efforts alive while also acknowledging that the country has firmly rejected his policy agenda.

The result was an incoherent mess of promised tax cuts for small businesses coupled with the threat of tax hikes from his health care and energy proposals; more federal money to encourage banks to lend to businesses, coupled with new taxes on banks and individuals; the continued waste of his $862 billion stimulus plan and $2 trillion in new health care spending, coupled with a delayed and temporary spending freeze. As one of the longest State of the Unions in the past 45 years,  we cannot cover everything here. But our crack team of Heritage experts did hit almost every issue last night, and you can read their full reactions here. Highlights include:

The New Hire Tax Credit
The tax credit for new hires is another recycled idea from Washington. Last tried in the 1970s, the tax credit proved to be a windfall for big businesses that were planning to hire anyway. Small businesses, the engine of job growth, did not use the tax credit largely because they were unaware of it and did not understand how to take advantage of the credit. The jobs tax credit proposal will likely also delay hiring since businesses that understand the tax credit now face an incentive to postpone hiring decisions to take advantage of the tax credit. Extending the Bush tax cuts and undoing the heavy taxes in the health care legislation is a better step to job creation than this tax credit.

The Bank Tax
President Obama tonight called for a new tax on banks and other large financial institutions, “a modest fee,” he said, “to pay back the taxpayers who rescued them in their time of need.” That sounds great, but in truth, the new tax would do nothing of the kind. Mr. Obama knows that almost every major bank has paid-back their bailout funds, with interest. Taxpayers made substantial profits on those repayments. On the other hand, most of the companies that still owe billions to taxpayers, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and auto firms GM and Chrysler, would not be subject to the tax. In short, Mr. Obama would tax those that have paid back taxpayers and exempt those who have not.

The Spending Freeze
Obama’s spending freeze would apply to a narrow sliver of spending (somewhere around 1/8th of total spending) and at best, savings would be less than one percent of the total budget. Moreover, it explicitly exempts the very entitlement programs driving future deficits. At a time when the deficit is $1.4 trillion and we face a sea of even worse red ink as far as the eye can see, such a freeze is tantamount to bailing out – forgive the double entendre – the Titanic with a dixiecup. And it would start next year, conveniently after the elections. Freezing spending is the right idea, but this freeze falls short of real action.

Energy Production
His calls for new nuclear power, offshore oil and gas exploration, and other new energy technologies are certainly welcome. The problem is that his program of subsidies, special tax treatment, and government support will not work. While government programs can create jobs in specific sectors, the President ignores the evidence that these programs end up killing more jobs than they create. Spain has already gone down this road, and its experience should give the President caution. Between 2000 and 2008, the Spanish government spent $36 billion in taxpayers’ money on wind, solar and mini-hydro development. Each green job created cost on average $758,471.

Foreign Policy
Many around the world have expressed concern that a U.S. administration so focused on domestic priorities and troubles as the current one will be too inward-looking to be deeply engaged in the world. Judging by its placement in his list of priorities, foreign affairs did seem like an afterthought, briefly addressed. In Afghanistan, allied nations are hardly coming together to support the President’s surge — indeed French President Nicolas Sarkozy very publicly stated this week that he would not be contributing any more troops to the endeavor, this on the eve of the Afghanistan conference in London.

And the fight on terrorism has not, as stated, been advanced by the Obama administration — quite the reverse as the nation has become more vulnerable. Nor has the administration distinguished itself by its support for human rights in Iran — in fact it missed a critical moment to get involved during last summer’s uprisings against the Iranian regime. As for the President’s aspiration to control nuclear materials around the world, a goal to be reached through an international conference — that horse left the barn a long time ago.

In “Government’s End,” Jonathan Rauch writes: “Economic thinkers have recognized for generations that every person has two ways to become wealthier. One is to produce more, the other is to capture more of what others produce. … Washington looks increasingly like a public-works jobs program for lawyers and lobbyists, a profit center for professionals who are in business for themselves.” From complicated new tax credits that small business owners don’t have the time or expertise to take advantage of, to new energy, financial and trade regulations that only large corporations have the lawyers and lobbyists to take advantage of, every policy proposal in Obama’s speech last night is a boon for the lawyer/lobbyist economy in Washington and a hindrance to wealth-creating Americans everywhere. This was a speech only the entrenched interests in Washington could love.

(h/t to L Rodino)