If Obama loves America, he sure does have a funny way of showing it

Our hopelessly corrupt left-wing media is apoplectic over comments that Rudy Giuliani made expressing doubt in President Obama's love of country.  Of course, these same media hacks were just fine with Obama questioning Bush's patriotism whenever it suited him. (And somehow they never seem to notice that if Obama held himself to the same standard on debt he held Bush to, he'd have to call himself the most unpatriotic president ever.)

Obama's early life was filled with communists and anti-colonialists who harbored a deep resentment of the West in general and of America in particular.  As a young man, Obama specifically sought out Jeremiah Wright and chose him as a spiritual mentor, and he sat in the pews of that church for over 20 years while Wright spouted all sorts of anti-American nonsense; at one point Wright even explicitly blamed America for 9/11.  Obama's political career began in the living room of Bill Ayers, a domestic terrorist whose terror group bombed the Pentagon on Ho Chi Minh's birthday.  After all that, why should anyone just automatically assume that America gives Obama the warm fuzzies?

Michelle Obama openly admits that she wasn't proud of her country until her husband was elected president.  This is the woman he chose to spend the rest of his life with?  This is his soul mate?  What does that say about him?

One of the first things Obama did as president was go around the world apologizing on behalf of America.  Obama apologizes for America, yet he jumps to the defense of Islam again and again.  Bizarrely, he even tried to credit Islam with being part of the fabric of our country from America's inception, yet somehow he neglects to ever mention the Barbary Wars.  Obama refuses to call Islamic terrorists what they are because he refuses to believe they might actually be motivated even in part by Islam.  And Obama's apparent anti-Semitism causes him to spurn Israel, America's greatest ally in the Middle East, over and over again.  Are these the priorities of a man who loves America?

Whenever Obama speaks about American exceptionalism he either seems to dismiss it outright or he gives an answer that demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the term.  (Once, he even tried to offer himself as proof of America's exceptionalism, which is just the sort of thing you'd expect a malignant narcissist to do.)  As president, Obama has always placed far more importance on the advancement of his own far-left agenda than he has on the constitutional principles of popular sovereignty. republicanism, federalism, separation of powers, checks and balances, limited government, and individual rights.  Even the lectures he gave at the University of Chicago Law School were never much more than a series of "social justice" talking points dressed up as lectures about constitutional law.  Can you really say that you love America when you don't love any of the things that make America special?  Can you really say that you love anything that you've promised to fundamentally transform into something completely different?

Merry Christmas!

One World Trade Center

I like the look of the new One World Trade Center building.  Here's some video of it that someone took recently:

I like the shape of it.  The top is shaped like a square, and the bottom is shaped like a square, but the building ends up having eight sides because of the way it tapers.

Daniel Libeskind was the original architect for the building, but he was eventually forced to collaborate with David Childs.  It was probably for the best, I've seen what happens when Libeskind is left to his own devices.  Libeskind is a deconstructivist, so most of his designs tend to be rather bizarre; his design for the Jewish Museum in Berlin is one of the strangest things I've ever seen:

Jesus.  Can you imagine being in one of the surrounding buildings and having to look at that god-awful shitty mess all day?

What's in a name?

For some reason people are still arguing about whether ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) or ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) is the appropriate name to use, and some are even accusing President Obama of using the name ISIL only because he doesn't think Israel has a right to exist.  It's true that Obama has never seemed very fond of Israel, but there's a good chance that he tends to use ISIL only because it's a more accurate translation of the group's Arabic name. The term al-Sham predates any modern concept of Syria the country; what al-Sham refers to is something that would more accurately be described today as Greater Syria, or the Levant.

I call them ISIL not to give their territorial claims any credence, but because that's just the most accurate translation of what they've been calling themselves.  I call them ISIL because I think it's just plain silly to act like these terrorist scumbags plan on staying within the borders of Iraq and Syria when we know damn well that that's not true.  We know what ISIL's goals are, and we know what they call themselves, so let's just be honest about it.  What disturbs me is not that Obama calls them ISIL, but that he so often treats ISIL as if it were a problem for only Iraq and Syria to solve.  They would wipe out Israel if they could, and they'd happily wipe us out too--why wait for them to make a serious attempt at either?

( Lately, ISIL seems to simply be calling itself the Islamic State instead.  I'm not clear on whether that's just supposed to be a shortened version of their name, or if now they are trying to claim the territory of the entire world, or what.  Maybe instead of debating the ISIS vs ISIL thing, we should be debating ISIL vs IS?  I think eventually it will reach the point where I just give up and start calling them The Terrorists Formerly Known as ISIL. )

Obama throws Iraq under the bus

An especially militant offshoot of Al-Qaeda called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, has taken control of several cities in Iraq.  They took Fallujah earlier this year, Mosul and Tikrit both in the past few days, and now it's looking like Baghdad might be next on their list.  The prime minister of Iraq has asked for help, but President Obama has yet to offer any.  Drone strikes may or may not still be on the table, but Obama has completely ruled out sending any ground troops back into Iraq.

Obama seems to want to have it both ways by taking all the credit for "ending" the Iraq War while still counting on all the blame for the inevitable horrors that follow to be laid at Bush's feet.  The thing is, Obama has already had a hand in creating these horrors for years.  The maniac currently running ISIL is someone that Obama set free when he needlessly shut down the Camp Bucca prison in 2009.  Obama also gave ISIL a head start when he took it upon himself to supply Syrian rebels with weapons and training without giving much thought as to how radicalized the rebels were becoming or how the weapons or training might be used against us later.

Some people refer to ISIL as Islamic State in Iraq and Syria instead, or ISIS, which can be misleading.  Not only does ISIL want to control Iraq and Syria, but also Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Cyprus, and part of Turkey; since President Obama always makes a point of referring to the group as ISIL instead of ISIS, I have to assume that he knows this.  The leader of ISIL has even specifically threatened the United States, and yet Obama would have you believe that ISIL is a problem that we should leave to the Iraqis to figure out for themselves.