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Chuck Todd: Obama Foreign Policy ‘Doesn’t Seem To Exist’ By Douglas Ernst - The Washington Times - Friday, February 6, 2015 NBC’s “Meet the Press” host teased this weekend’s edition by saying he would talk about President Obama’s foreign policy, which “doesn’t seem to exist.”

There are understandable differences of opinion between the American and Israel leaders on the issue of Islamist terrorism. It is wholly appropriate and desirable that they should be heard in the U.S. Congress. It is therefore painful that some honorable Democratic members of Congress should be so misguided as to declare that they will not attend the Israeli leader’s address. John Lewis (Georgia), a hero of the civil rights movement, G.K. Butterfield (North Carolina), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Eric Blumenauer (Oregon) are among those who are engaging in what is tantamount to a boycott of Israel. According...

President Barack Obama has spent six years getting pilloried by his opponents for his cautious and collaborative leadership on the world stage. But if his second National Security Strategy is any guide, he hasn’t lost faith in his approach. The document, which was signed by the president and released Friday, is used to direct and prioritize the administration’s actions around the world. It analyzes a range of threats and challenges, from the expected (terrorism) to the less so (defending the rights of gays and lesbians). And it reflects how much the world has changed since Obama’s first strategy was released...

Susan Rice pushed back on critics of President Obama's foreign policy Friday as she unveiled the White House’s new national security strategy. Rice, the White House's national security adviser, said in a speech at the Brookings Institution that the nation is “stronger than we have been in a very long time” despite the bitter debates raging in Washington. “Too often, what's missing here in Washington is a sense of perspective. Yes, there is a lot going on. Still, while the dangers we face may be more numerous and varied, they are not of the existential nature we confronted during World...

"We're as free of foreign oil as we've been in 30 years," Obama said. "We've doubled the amount of clean energy that we're producing. A lot of families are saving a lot of money at the gas pump, which is putting some smiles on folks' faces." "You're welcome," Obama said to tepid applause.

The White House has still refused to name the “American Muslim leaders” with whom President Obama met to “discuss a range of domestic and foreign policy issues.” According to a White House statement on the President’s meeting, the domestic issues discussed were the “Affordable Care Act, anti-Muslim violence and discrimination, the 21st Century Policing Task Force, and the upcoming White House Summit on Countering Violence Extremism.” On the foreign policy front, “the President discussed the need to continue countering ISIL and other groups that commit horrific acts of violence, purportedly in the name of Islam,” while also congratulating Muslims on...

Did anyone see Medea Benjamin on O'Reilly tonight? She of course blamed GWB for the Jordanian pilot's execution. She said we never should have gone into Iraq in the first place. Then she said our interventionist policies in Egypt and Libya cause ISIS to act the way they do. I wanted to smack BOR for not pointing out it was OBAMA and his ARAB SPRING interventions that funded and otherwise supported the uprisings in Egypt and Libya.

ISIS murdered a Jordanian pilot today. They torched Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh alive in a cage.Barack Obama responded to the horrific murder by pushing Obamacare. “Should, in fact, this video be authentic, it’s just one more indication of the viciousness and barbarity of this organization. And I think we’ll redouble the vigilance and determination of the a global coalition to make sure they are degraded and ultimately defeated. And it also just indicates the degree to which whatever ideology they’re operating off of is bankrupt. We’re here to talk about how to make people healthier and make their lives better. And...

Once you see what he is trying to accomplish, it all makes sense..... The Obama team — with its foreign policy formulated by President Obama himself...Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry — is not in fact befuddled by the existing world. Instead, it is intent on changing it into something quite different from what it is.... ... current U.S. foreign policy is consistent, logical, and based on four pillars of belief. 1. Readjustments in the global order are long overdue.... 2. All nations and interests act rationally — if given a chance..... 3. Do abroad as we try to...

In his recent trip to India, President Obama repeated a long-standing pattern of his — denigrating the United States to foreign audiences. He said that he had been discriminated against because of his skin color in America, a country in which there is, even now, "terrible poverty." Make no mistake about it, there is no society of human beings in which there are no rotten people. But for a President of the United States to be smearing America in a foreign country, whose track record is far worse, is both irresponsible and immature. Years after the last lynching of blacks...

A court in Egypt has upheld death sentences on 183 supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, on charges of killing police officers. They had been convicted of taking part in an attack on a police station at Kardasa near Cairo in August 2013, in which at least a dozen officers died. The initial sentences were handed down in December but were sent to the Grand Mufti, Egypt’s top religious authority, for ratification. Hundreds of death sentences have been pronounced on Muslim Brotherhood supporters but none has been carried out. Egypt has mounted one of the biggest crackdowns in its modern...

During Wednesday afternoon’s White House press conference, ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl cornered Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz over why the administration does not consider the Taliban to be a “terrorist” organization. In light of a possible Jordanian prisoner swap with ISIS forces, Karl asked Schultz how that government’s actions differ from the United States’ 2014 release of Gitmo prisoners to the Taliban in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. When the spokesman suggested the Taliban is just an “armed insurgency,” and not a “terrorist organization” like ISIS, Karl pounced: “You don’t think the Taliban’s a terrorist group?” In the clip...

During his trip to India, President Obama declared America’s commitment to “help design smart cities” and “bullet trains” in the country. The main selling point for “smart cities” is that they are “sustainable,” a vague but applauded term that often used in context of combating what this author strongly believes is a non-existent problem: man-made climate change. During a speech at the Siri Fort Auditorium in India, Obama, who met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the tour, declared: We are ready to join you in building new infrastructure…roads and airports, the ports and bullet trains to propel India into...

At Wednesday's White House press briefing, deputy press secretary Eric Schultz wouldn't call the Taliban a terrorist group, instead referring to it as "an armed insurgency." Video and transcript at link ...

Media Yawn at Obama and Biden Snubbing Auschwitz Anniversary; Mocked Cheney’s Appearance in 2005 By Curtis Houck | January 28, 2015 Tuesday marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and, naturally, the event attracted plenty of media coverage. In addition to each of the three major networks devoting segments to it on their evening newscasts, the Associated Press, The New York Times, and The Washington Post and published stories on the topic. Over on cable, CNN covered it multiple times throughout the day for a total of 10 minutes and 27 seconds worth of airtime. At the other...

Up to 10,000 Syrian refugees, most of them Muslims, will be resettled in cities throughout the U.S. in 2015, with that figure expected to surge to near 75,000 over the next five years. While some of the planned destinations for these refugees are starting to leak out, the big question is: where will they be going? The U.S. State Department does not announce where it plans to send foreign refugees for resettlement within the United States, although the locations do eventually show up in a government database some weeks after they arrive in their host cities. Word of their anticipated...

Michelle Obama did not look happy today when she had to cut short her visit to India to accompany her husband on a trip to a country where women aren't even allowed to drive cars. The First Lady bowed and beamed as she boarded Air Force One in New Dehli on Tuesday, but by the time she landed in Saudi Arabia a few hours later, she had traded her floral dress for a more conservative long-sleeved jacket and slacks - as well as a new scorned expression. In pictures at the airport and Egra Palace, Mrs Obama pursed her lips...

The US Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen released an emergency message today warning ALL US CITIZENS to “depart immediately.” The embassy went on to say US citizens are responsible for making their own travel arrangements.

U.S. President Barack Obama will travel to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday in order to meet the newly appointed monarch, King Salman, and pay his respects to the family of the late King Abdullah, the White House said Saturday.

More than 40 European leaders and almost every French official turned out for the massive unity rally in Paris Sunday — but there was no sign of the U.S. Neither President Obama or Vice President Biden made the trip to Paris, although dozens of other world leaders and officials put ceremony aside and jostled for space amid the crowds in a stirring show of support against terrorism. The U.S. did send Attorney General Eric Holder to attend a pre-march terrorism summit convened by French President Francois Hollande. Holder, 63, joined with Hollande in condemning the recent Paris attacks in the...