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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday rebuffed U.S. calls to impose a freeze on all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, setting the stage for friction with President Barack Obama. "We do not intend to build any new settlements, but it wouldn't be fair to ban construction to meet the needs of natural growth or for there to be an outright construction ban," Netanyahu told his cabinet, according to officials. The note of defiance came less than a week after Netanyahu held talks in Washington with Obama, who wants Israel to halt all settlement activity, including natural growth,...

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she won't talk any more about her charge that the CIA lied in 2002 about using waterboarding on terrorism suspects. "I have made the statement that I'm going to make on this," she told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference. "I don't have anything more to say about it. I stand by my comment." But Republicans aren't letting this one slide. Ken Spain, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, issued a statement after the news conference calling Pelosi a political liability to the Democratic party.

One image alone was released from the expensive photo op that terrified New Yorkers last month. Out of God only knows how many images taken during the mission, only one was chosen. It speaks powerfully to the American public -- in symbolic language. The ominous and imposing aircraft dominates the scene in such a way that, in gestalt parlance, no one could mistake the figure for the ground. The figure is an aircraft that serves as Air Force One, representing the Messianic omnipotence of the Obama presidency. Below it, part of the background -- a small and less relevant thing...

U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington May 9, 2009. President Barack Obama laughs during his comic monologue during the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington May 9, 2009. This is where he said he was going to way something off the cuff, from the heart...and the teleprompters come up from the floor... Actors Ashton Kutcher (R) talks to US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (L) at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington, May 9, 2009. US first lady Michelle Obama (L) hugs comedian Wanda Sykes (R) at the White House...

Obama has asked that no tourists be allowed to tour Normandy that day because HE will be there. It's the 65th anniversary of D-Day and he doesn't want to let anybody else in. You have Wanda Sykes at the Nerd Prom last night telling people that Rush Limbaugh ought to be tried for treason because he said he hopes Obama fails. Okay, she's a comedienne and can say crap like that. But when a President of the United States releases documents that endanger troops and national security, when he releases terrorists onto United States soil, when he alienates longtime allies...

Supreme Court Justice David Souter's impending retirement has triggered another tired debate over whether Barack Obama, in the President's replacement choice, will finally reveal his essentially moderate, pragmatic, and bipartisan proclivities. Based on his "get in their faces" style of governing over the last 100 days however, Mr. Obama will probably select a jurist bearing radical and divisive credentials. If Obama's campaign promises last year are to be taken seriously, here is what the current president intends to use as a litmus test for filling vacancies on the court: "We need [judges] who've got the heart, the empathy, to recognize...

I think it's time for Gates to step down as Sec. Of Defense, clearly towing the Obama line of America making mistakes and being arrogant, Gates talks to the Obama supporter posing as a journalist Fareed Zakaria on Cnn. I don't think hinting at America's arrogance should come from the lips of a Defense Secretary when thousands of soldiers are away from home defending the lives of complete strangers...burns me up...

Congratulations, Democrats. You've got the pilot, the co-pilot, a majority of the passengers and, with Arlen Specter, 60% of the stewardesses on Flight 2009-2010. Don't fly it like Air Force One on a postcard mission. Democrats, being Democrats, don't usually think in such small time frames. Barack Obama promised to wean America off foreign oil in the next 10 years, or midway through his third term. But James Carville has raised him by a factor of four, suggesting Obamaism is in place until 2049 in a curious book entitled "40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation."...

Come on, who's surprised? The White House-engineered photo-op of low-flying Air Force aircraft that caused terror in New York City this week epitomizes the Age of Obama. What better way to mark 100 days in office than with an appalling exercise in pointless taxpayer-funded stagecraft? The superficiality, the unseriousness, the hubris, the obliviousness to post-Sept. 11 realities: They were trademarks of the Obama campaign, and they are the tattoos on his governance. He never leaves home without his teleprompter. All the Obama world's a stage. Or a world ready to be staged. So is it any wonder he would staff...

President Obama said his prime-time press conference on Day 100 of his presidency was intended as a "look forward to ... all of the hundreds of days to follow," but it turned into more of a look back in anger, complete with finger-pointing. Throughout his hourlong session in the White House East Room on Wednesday, the candidate who vowed a new post-partisan Washington, free from the rancorous bickering that often grinds the city to gridlock, ripped Republicans as the members of a do-nothing party of no. He began at the top, calling his predecessor, the former head of the Republican...

The most remarkable, or certainly the least remarked on, aspect of Barack Obama's first 100 days has been the infectious arrogance of his presidency. There's no denying that this is liberalism's greatest opportunity for wish fulfillment since at least 1964. But to listen to Democrats, the only check on their ambition is the limits of their imaginations. "The world has changed," Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York proclaimed on MSNBC. "The old Reagan philosophy that served them well politically from 1980 to about 2004 and 2006 is over. But the hard right, which still believes ... [in] traditional values...

Across the nation, Obama Kool-Aid drinkers in the mainstream media are attempting to put the best possible face on Obama’s first 100 days in office. It’s not an easy task. For example, on Friday, April 24, the Associated Press carried a story by writer Liz Sidoti that is so far removed from reality that it bears closer analysis. In her piece, Ms. Sidoti assures us, “It didn't take long for Barack Obama – for all his youth and inexperience – to get acclimated to his new role as the calming leader of a country in crisis.” Reality: Yes, Obama has...

For his latest book about Democrats ruling Washington for the next 40 years, consultant James Carville laid his thesis out to Republicans. "They said, 'Yeah, it's horrible,' " he says. In 40 More Years, How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation, he presents the facts about the last two elections in his "ragin' Cajun" style. The GOP lost the youth and Hispanic vote and is credibility-starved. Then he kicks the party's faves: Sarah Palin, the 2008 veep nominee, for once running an Alaskan city hall that "looks just like a Louisiana bait shop," and Fox's Bill O'Reilly as stupid,...

Bubbling with self confidence, President Barack Obama gave himself a laudatory assessment of his first 100 days in office. “I would have to say that, in my view, this has got to be the most outstanding performance ever for a new administration,” Obama boasted. “I’ve assembled a top notch team that has helped me make strides in every important sector. I’ve calmed the troubled waters of foreign policy. I’ve set in motion initiatives that will restore the economy to health. I’ve begun the steps necessary to achieve social justice.” The president acknowledged that it is possible that “the depths of...

Former White House political czar Karl Rove has a history of referring to Barack Obama as "arrogant." As the race between the Democratic senator from Illinois and Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain geared up last year, Rove went out of his way to attach the scarlet A for arrogance to Obama. The man who managed George Bush into the White House -- with an assist from partisan Republicans on the Supreme Court -- said on Fox News last July: "I will say yes, I do think Barack Obama is arrogant." ABC News reported that he had told a Republican gathering...

Kanye West has told fans he's working on playing down his "crazy ego" after being ridiculed in a new episode of "South Park." In a blog on his official site, Kanyeuniversecity.com, the 31-year-old rapper wrote: "South Park murdered me last night and it's pretty funny. It hurts my feelings but what can you expect." The episode of the merciless Comedy Central cartoon, entitled "Fishsticks," has a character based on West attempt to tap into his "genius" superpowers to solve a schoolyard joke that only he doesn't find funny. Famous for his over-the-top rants and temper tantrums, West finally appears to...

After four days of floating at sea on a raft shared with four Somali gunmen, Richard Phillips took matters into his own hands for a second time. With the small inflatable lifeboat in which he was being held captive being towed by the American missile destroyer USS Bainbridge, and Navy Special Warfare (NSWC) snipers on the fantail in position to take their shots at his captors as soon as the command was given, the captive captain of the M.V. Maersk-Alabama took his second leap in three days into the shark-infested waters of the Indian Ocean. This diversion gave the Navy...

In the panoply of human ailments, few compare to chronic nausea, the overwhelmingly sickening feeling that you’re going to throw up at any minute. So revolting is this gagging-in-the-throat feeling that anything associated with it – a hamburger, a chicken dish, or even yogurt that made you sick – is enough for anyone to forswear this-or-that food forever. Memories of the hot sweats, the bile in the esophagus, the retching into the toilet, and then the clean-up are etched into one’s consciousness forever. Added to the horror is the impossibility of staving off the inevitable outcome. Deep breaths, a cold...

Apparently, there is no story small enough for the right to try and discredit the President with. Prominent conservative blog Ace of Spades really lays into Barack Obama for, of all things, ordering pizza. I wish I was kidding. Unfortunately, he left out some important facts. Here's the thrust of Ace of Spades' Pizza-Gate: What a douchetool. How much does Obama love his pizza? So much that he is willing to fly a chef 860 miles to Washington D.C. to make him a personal pizza. When you're the president of the United States, only the best pizza will do -...

With many top notch pizza restaurants in the Washington DC area, people have been questioning the propriety of flying a chef all the way from St. Louis to bake 20 pizzas for a bash thrown at the White House by President Barack Obama. The added expense during these times of financial crisis strikes observers as unnecessarily ostentatious. “Well, you know that the President is the ruler of all the United States,” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs reminded critics. “It is his prerogative to exploit all of the resources of the realm. It just so happens that he took a fancy to...

Flatten and horribly insult your country abroad and get nothing for it. No more troops for Afghanistan. Our allies lined up to say no with respect to helping us fund and fight the war on terror...Hark! What am I smoking?...I mean “the overseas contingency operation.” This is the achievement President Obama will take home, a big fat nothing but shredding his own country, in the name of what, international stupidity? I think yes. Obama’s covered and notable quotes from the G20 meeting seemed to be nothing but bad mouthing America at every turn. In a speech to France, where we...

BAGHDAD — Six years after the U.S. overthrew Saddam Hussein's government, tens of thousands of Iraqis gathered in the rain in Iraq's capital Thursday to mark the anniversary and renew calls for an American withdrawal. The demonstrators came in response to calls by Muqtada al Sadr, the influential Shiite cleric who's long decried the U.S. military's occupation, but there were also Sunni Muslims in the crowd. Draped in Iraqi flags and chanting, protesters packed Baghdad's Firdous Square, where six years ago a crowd cheered the destruction of a statue of Saddam. "No, no to America," demonstrators repeated Thursday. "No, no...

Many observations have been made regarding President Barack Obama’s recent trip overseas. Most of them have been quite severe and rightly so. His many “appearances” bore a striking resemblance to his nauseatingly long campaign for the presidency; a campaign devoid of specifics and substance and rich with swagger and rhetoric. Note to President Obama: The campaign is over and – as you like to throw in the faces of the Republican opposition in Washington DC – you won. It’s time to lead. Perhaps the most disappointing element of President Obama’s overseas failure was the fact that his handlers kept redefining...

New viral video star and Harvard Grad student Joel Pollak joins EC to talk about how the video of Joel asking Frank a simple, direct question and Barney Frank's hysterical and intimidating response has become an instant symbol of the government's heavy-handed elitism, and what light his prior experience writing speeches for the opposition party in South Africa sheds on this conflict. Get the LAST WORD on the day's news and events direct from EC every night. The hottest grass-roots radio show in America delivers the last word on politics and news straight from the streets of New York City...

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi Tuesday called Barack Obama a "flicker of hope in the middle of the imperialist darkness," but said he feared the president could be assassinated..."He (Obama) speaks logically. Arrogance no longer exists in the American approach which was previously based on dictating to the rest of the world in order to meet its own conditions,"...

The great, and thankfully not late Hal Lindsey once said around the start of the Iraq War, "We live in fascinating times. The world's greatest golfer is a black man; the world's greatest rapper is a white man; the Germans have finally found a war they don't want to fight; and France is actually calling someone else 'arrogant.'" Ah, the French: the world's greatest connoisseurs of snobbery. Hal Lindsey pointed out the gigantic joke that is France labeling ANYBODY as "arrogant." But, sadly, that joke is completely lost on Barack Obama. The joke is on him - and on the...

OK, Barack and Michelle – it's my turn now. As long as you seem to be on the road of informality, throwing tradition, etiquette, proper diplomacy, protocol and common sense out the window and replacing it with 21st century casual, I'm taking the liberty, as an American citizen, to give you a message from my heart: stop it! For two people of your political and diplomatic level, your breezy disregard for proper behavior is embarrassing. Just a reminder: On Jan. 20, you were sworn in as president of the United States of America and your wife became first lady. It's...

For the first time in my adult life, I am really embarrassed for my country as President Obama refers to our nation as arrogant and divisive. Has Obama ever looked into a mirror? I thought we hit a low point in the office of the presidency when a girl in a blue dress named Monica was reported to have frequented the Oval Office for unofficial visits. Or when Nixon resigned in the disgrace of Watergate. Those events are nothing in comparison to a president who is openly attacking and disrespecting the nation he allegedly loves on foreign soil. Obama walking...

Does anybody else think this guy is shockingly ignorant? I wonder if he has every really talked to a concentration camp survivor, or a Cuban refugee, or a boat person from Vietnam? Or a Soviet dissident. Or a survivor or Mao's purges. Not to mention families with fallen American soldiers in the graveyards. Yes, he's going to Normandie, but will he apologize for our arrogance there, too? Does he really understand anything beyond the PC history of the world? Or will he just lie in his photo op at the American Cemetery at Normandie? Ahhh, those arrogant Americans. First they...

We have a rock star president who for the first time in American history fired the President of a private corporation, General Motors, then immediately flew to Europe with an entourage of 500 courtiers and a worshipful media, bowed waist-deep to the King of Saudi Arabia, and proceeded to accuse his own country of arrogance. In Paris, of all places. Does anybody else think this guy is shockingly ignorant? I wonder if he has every really talked to a concentration camp survivor, or a Cuban refugee, or a boat person from Vietnam? Or a Soviet dissident. Or a survivor or...

Obama is arrogant. There is no way around it. There is no doubt in my opinion that he is too unapologetically, too unforgivably arrogant to effectively lead America. That is not to say he will not express regret. He does it all the time. Whether he is apologizing to those involved in Special Olympics for his unintelligent gaffe where he said of his bowling, "I bowled a 129. It's like - it was like Special Olympics, or something." Or when he apologized to Nancy Reagan for commenting that he "didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about doing...

This has to be the most revealing photo of the 2 biggest curses ever bestowed on this country. Im pretty sure the word is "smug"

While in Strasbourg, President Barack Obama told an audience in a townhall meeting that America needs to change its attitude toward Europe. He said America was wrong for not celebrating Europe’s “dynamic union” and not seeking “to partner” with them to better address the “common challenges” that face our nations. He even went so far as to say past American policy was misguided because it had “shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive,” an obvious rebuke of former President Bush. The president made these highly critical comments of his own country on foreign soil in an effort to “rebuild” the...

A contrite President Barack Obama apologized to Europeans for what he called “a history of American arrogance.” “I am told by my advisors that the United States’ Army twice invaded the European continent during the 20th century, obliterating many cities by aerial bombardment, and destroying many precious artifacts” Obama said. “For this, let me express my sincere regrets on behalf of the American people.” The President said he was shocked and appalled to learn that the US still has troops and weapons stationed in Europe. “The continued occupation of what should be sovereign nations is, indeed, a stain I will...

Might as well clear this up: I'm an arrogant American. Big time. Mostly because I read things like, you know, history. We've long known that there is an infinite amount of space underneath the Obama Bus and that seemingly everyone but Michelle and the kids were in danger of finding themselves there. Hell, he even threw one of his grandmothers under the thing during the campaign. Still, even a hardcore, practiced cynic like me didn't expect him to throw the whole damn country under the bus when he became president. In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading...

Here in the Rhenus Sports Arena in Strasbourg, I've just witnessed what is surely a very important - I hesitate to say historic - moment in transatlantic relations. Barack Obama went further than any previous president in apologising for American behaviour. "In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world," he said in a prepared speech delivered before a campaign-style town hall meeting in which he took questions from mainly French and German students. "Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where...

PRESIDENT OBAMA:Extended cheers and applause. Hey! Thank you! Thank you so much. Good afternoon. Bon apres-midi-cheers, applause {cut} We also know that the pollution from cars in Boston...are melting the ice caps in the Arctic. {cut} And the United States certainly shares its - shares blame for what has happened. {cut} ...there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive. {cut} I've sent a clear message to the leaders and peoples of Iran.. And it is in that spirit that America and Europe must reach out to the vast majority of Muslims in our nations,...

The bankers struggled to make themselves clear to the president of the United States. Arrayed around a long mahogany table in the White House state dining room last week, the CEOs of the most powerful financial institutions in the world offered several explanations for paying high salaries to their employees — and, by extension, to themselves. “These are complicated companies,” one CEO said. Offered another: “We’re competing for talent on an international market.” But President Barack Obama wasn’t in a mood to hear them out. He stopped the conversation and offered a blunt reminder of the public’s reaction to such...

bam-bam and michelle gave the queen an I-pod , a frikkin' I-pod .... among the uploaded were: Photos from President Obama's Inauguration Audio of then-state senator Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and Audio of President Obama 2009 Inauguration Address

RICHMOND -- While his Democratic rivals confined their travels to Virginia, gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe quietly slipped out of the commonwealth a dozen times in recent weeks to attend fundraisers in his honor hosted by some of the nation's top Democratic donors. One day this month, he dashed from a morning roundtable in Roanoke, caught a United Airlines flight to Phoenix and landed in time for an evening event hosted by an Arizona Democratic activist. On another, he left on a pre-dawn U.S. Airways flight that required a plane change in Charlotte to get from a Chicago fundraiser to a...

A top European Union politician on Wednesday slammed U.S. plans to spend its way out of recession as "a way to hell." Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, told the European Parliament that President Barack Obama's massive stimulus package and banking bailout "will undermine the stability of the global financial market." A day after his government collapsed because of a parliamentary vote of no-confidence, Topolanek took the EU presidency on a collision course with Washington over how to deal with the global economic recession. Most European leaders favor tighter financial regulation, while the U.S....

I'm tempted to think of a door hitting b. Hussein in the ass, but, in this case, it's more like him hitting the bulkhead in a submarine. (Would it actually knock some sense into him?) Or maybe he's still just too giddy over having his Rolls Royce helicopter. (Vid of b. Hussein hitting his head as he enters "his" helicopter.)

BRISTOL, Conn. - Barack Obama picked North Carolina to defeat Louisville for the NCAA championship, a relatively safe selection for a trailblazing president. SNIP.................................................................. “Now, for all the Tar Heels who are watching, I picked you last year — you let me down,” Obama said. “This year, don’t embarrass me in front of the nation, all right? I’m counting on you. I still got those sneakers you guys gave me.”

For main street conservatives as well as many moderates, it is inarguable that the title “The Age of Arrogance” best describes the post-fifties environment shaped by liberals. Indeed, hubris afflicted liberals who mock the wisdom accumulated over millennia as either quaint or patently stupid have been so annoyingly ubiquitous over the past half century that given the human brain’s stratagems against foolishness and hypocrisy, non-liberals have become inured to their droning. But defense mechanisms come at a cost because they often produce denial, repression, or complacency, explaining why some conservatives as well as a frightening number of moderates and independents...

...So what does Gordon Brown do? He comes to meet with the president and he gives him a set of pens made from the wood of the USS Resolute to match the desk that should be in a museum. He gives him a matching set of pens. Barack Obama hands him a basket -- I'm not kidding you, hands him a basket of DVDs that he can't play....Michelle Obama goes downstairs, grabs a couple of boxes of Marine One helicopter models and gives them to Mrs. Brown: "Here, this is for you." ....And the worst part of it is the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama is the everywhere president. Turn around and there he is on TV. In a motorcade headed to Capitol Hill, the State Department, the Pentagon, the Kennedy Center. Announcing new members of his administration. At a prime-time news conference. In Indiana and Florida, stumping for passage of his $787 billion economic stimulus package. In Denver, signing it. In Phoenix, announcing a home foreclosure rescue plan. In Canada, schmoozing on his first foreign trip as president. Giving his first address to Congress and an anxious nation at large.

President Barack Obama listens as Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, not pictured, speaks during their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009 Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso meets with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009. U.S. President Barack Obama takes a question at the Fiscal Responsibility Summit at the White House in Washington February 23, 2009.

Abortion is SUPER FUN!!

Dr. Vaknin has written extensively about narcissism.Dr. Vaknin States "I must confess I was impressed by Sen. Barack Obama from the first time I saw him.  At first I was excited to see a black candidate.  He looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident - a wholesome presidential package.  I was put off soon, not just because of his shallowness but also because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling.  His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words. Obama's speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in...

Much has been written in recent weeks concerning the Obama Administration’s early struggles and stumbles, particularly in matters such as properly vetting prospective cabinet nominees, differentiating between campaigning and governing, and staying on message during a rambling press conference. Some commentators have tried to downplay or dismiss these difficulties, while others have chalked them up as the inevitable errors of an amateur who has been pushed too far, too fast. What many of the pundits tend to overlook in their analyses of President Obama’s first weeks is that these early misadventures illustrate the petulance and arrogance that stand as the...