G-8 Countries Find America Under Obama No Longer Matters

This is a well written article by Mark Steyn of the respected Investor's Business Daily concerning just how far America has slid under the Obama Administration.

Descending from the heavens for the G-8 summit at beautiful Lough Erne this week, President Obama caused some amusement to his British hosts. The chancellor of the Exchequer had been invited to give a presentation to the assembled heads of government on the matter of tax avoidance (one of the big items on the agenda, for those of you who think what the IRS could really use right now is even more enforcement powers). The president evidently enjoyed it. Thrice, he piped up to say how much he agreed with Jeffrey, eventually concluding the presentation with the words, "Thank you, Jeffrey."

Unfortunately, the chancellor of the Exchequer is a bloke called George Osborne, not Jeffrey Osborne.

Obama subsequently apologized for confusing George with Jeffrey, who was a popular vocal artiste back in the '80s when Obama was dating his composite girlfriend and making composite whoopee to the composite remix of Jeffrey Osborne's 1982 smoocheroo, "On the Wings of Love."

I suppose it might have been worse. When Angela Merkel proposed a toast to a strong West, he could have assumed that was the name of Kim and Kanye's new baby.

At any rate, Obama's mishap had faint echoes of a famous social faux pas during the Second World War. Irving Berlin, the celebrated composer of "White Christmas," was invited to lunch at 10 Downing Street and was surprised to find that Churchill, instead of asking what's that Bing Crosby really like, badgered him with complex moral and strategic questions and requests for estimates of U.S. war production.

It turned out the prime minister had confused Irving Berlin with the philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin, then under secondment to the British Embassy in Washington, and thought it was the latter he'd invited to No. 10.

In the Obama era, any confusion is the other way around. It would be a terrible thing for the president to invite the eminent rapper Jay-Z to lunch only to find himself stuck next to the turgid British philosopher professor Sir Jay Zed.

Although Obama's confusion went largely unreported in America, the BBC's enterprising Eddie Mair got Jeffrey Osborne on the line and inveigled him into singing George Osborne's best-known words — "Tax cuts should be for life, not just Christmas time" — to Jeffrey's best-known tune.

The following day Mangue Obama — whoops, my mistake, Mangue Obama was the prime minister of Equatorial Guinea from 2006 to 2008, and has a way smaller and less incompetent entourage — Barack Obama departed for Berlin (the German city, not the American songwriter or British philosopher). Five years ago at the Brandenburg Gate, he thrilled a crowd of 200,000 with his stirring clarion call to himself, "Ich bin ein Baracker." This time, he spoke to an audience barely a 50th of that size — 4,500, most of whom were bored out of their lederhosen.

As I wrote of Obama's Massachusetts yawnfest in 2010, he went to the trouble of flying in to phone it in. If the BBC's mash-up of Jeffrey Osborne's 1982 Billboard hit and Chancellor Osborne's recent speech at the Mansion House in London was something of an awkward fit, you could slip large slabs of "On the Wings of Love" into Obama's telepromptered pap and none of the 27 Germans still awake would have noticed the difference:

"Peace with justice means extending a hand to those who reach for freedom, wherever they live. Come take my hand and together we will rise, on the wings of love, up and above the clouds, the only way to fly ...

"Peace with justice means pursuing the security of a world without nuclear weapons — no matter how distant that dream may be, just smile for me and let the day begin. You are the sunshine that lights my heat within, and we can reject the nuclear weaponization that North Korea and Iran may be seeking, because we are angels in disguise, we live and breathe each other, inseparable ...

"The effort to slow climate change requires bold action. For the grim alternative affects all nations — more severe storms, more famine and floods ... coastlines that vanish, oceans that rise, you look at me and I begin to melt, just like the snow when a ray of sun is felt ... This is the future we must avert. This is the global threat of our time… That is our task. We have to get to work. We're flowing like a stream, running free, flowing on the wings of love ..."

The wings of love don't seem to carry Obama as far as they used to. MSNBC's Chris Matthews blamed the lackluster performance on the sun's glare affecting his ability to read the text. That's how bad it is: global warming melted his prompter.

But the speech itself was barely distinguishable in its cobwebbed utopian pabulum from the video for a nuclear-free world just released by Michael Douglas and other celebrities. And Douglas, who recently gave a fascinating interview to The Guardian in which he blamed his cancerous walnut-sized tongue tumor upon his addiction to oral sex, at least has a better excuse as to why his silvery tongue doesn't work its magic quite the way it used to. Der Spiegel, which is the very definition of mainstream media in Germany, described the president's Berlin stop as a visit by "the head of the largest and most all-encompassing surveillance system ever invented" — and under the headline "Obama's Soft Totalitarianism".

Obama isn't a "soft" totalitarian so much as a slapdash one. His apparatchiks monitor the emails of both Jeffrey and George Osborne, but he still can't tell one from the other.

Likewise, in Syria as in Libya, "the largest and most all-encompassing surveillance system ever invented" can't tell a plucky freedom fighter itching to build Massachusetts in the sands of Araby from your neighborhood al-Qaida subsidiary whose health care plan only covers clitoridectomies.

His G-8 colleagues have begun to figure out that America no longer matters. To be sure, the trappings of the presidency are a lagging indicator: He still flies in with more limos and Secret Service agents than everybody else, combined.

Then again, the other American story to catch the fancy of the Fleet Street tabloids in recent days is that of the unfortunate Las Vegas man with the world's biggest scrotum, weighing 140 pounds, yet unable to perform.

Of his talks with Vladimir Putin, the president said, "With respect to Syria, we do have differing perspectives on the problem, but we share an interest in reducing the violence." Putin aims to reduce the violence by getting his boy Assad to kill everyone he needs to. Obama aims to reduce the violence by giving a speech about the "intolerance that fuels extremism" — or is it the other way round? The world understands that Putin means it and Obama doesn't — just as in Afghanistan everyone knows the Taliban means it and the fainthearted superpower doesn't.

Thanks to the stork delivering his bundle to Miss Kardashian (see above), Americans seem not to have noticed that the U.S. has just lost yet another war.

But in Moscow, Beijing, Teheran, they noticed, and they will act accordingly. On the wings of love, up and above the clouds, Obama wafts ever higher on his own gaseous uplift. Down on solid ground, the rest of the world must occasionally wonder if they haven't confused the U.S. delegation with the world's most empty-headed boy band.

Taliban Murders Innocents

As reported by the Associated Press, at least a dozen Islamic militants wearing police uniforms shot to death nine foreign tourists and one Pakistani before dawn this last Sunday as they were visiting one of the world's highest mountains in a remote area of northern Pakistan that has been largely peaceful, officials said.

Make no mistake about it, Jihadist's hate everything Christians and Westerners stand for.  There is no reasoning with them.  There is no rehabilitation.  They must be wiped off the face of the earth.

The foreigners who were killed included five Ukrainians, three Chinese and one Russian, said Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. One Chinese tourist was wounded in the attack and was rescued, he said.

The local branch of the Taliban took responsibility for the killings, saying it was to avenge the death of a leader killed in a recent U.S. drone strike.

The shooting was one of the worst attacks on foreigners in Pakistan in recent years and is likely to damage the country's already struggling tourism industry. Pakistan's mountainous north — considered until now relatively safe — is one of the main attractions in a country beset with insurgency and other political instability.

The attack took place at the base camp of Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest mountain in the world at 8,126 meters (26,660 feet). Nanga Parbat is notoriously difficult to climb and is known as the "killer mountain" because of numerous mountaineering deaths in the past. It's unclear if the tourists were planning to climb the mountain or were just visiting the base camp, which is located in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan.

The gunmen were wearing uniforms used by the Gilgit Scouts, a paramilitary police force that patrols the area, said the interior minister. The attackers abducted two local guides to find their way to the remote base camp. One of the guides was killed in the shooting, and the other has been detained and is being questioned, said Khan.

"The purpose of this attack was to give a message to the world that Pakistan is unsafe for travel," said the interior minister in a speech in the National Assembly, which passed a resolution condemning the incident. "The government will take all measures to ensure the safety of foreign tourists."

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the attack, saying their Jundul Hafsa group carried out the shooting as retaliation for the death of the Taliban's deputy leader, Waliur Rehman, in a U.S. drone attack on May 29.

"By killing foreigners, we wanted to give a message to the world to play their role in bringing an end to the drone attacks," Ahsan told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.

At least a dozen gunmen were involved in the attack, local police officer Jahangir Khan said.

The attackers beat up the Pakistanis who were accompanying the tourists, took their money and tied them up, said a senior local government official. They checked the identities of the Pakistanis and shot to death one of them, possibly because he was a minority Shiite Muslim, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

Although Gilgit-Baltistan is a relatively peaceful area, it has experienced attacks by radical Sunni Muslims on Shiites in recent years.

The attackers took the money and passports from the foreigners and then gunned them down, said the official. It's unclear how the Chinese tourist who was rescued managed to avoid being killed. The base camp has basic wooden huts, but most tourists choose to sleep in their own tents.

Local police chief Barkat Ali said they first learned of the attack when one of the local guides called the police station around 1 a.m. on Sunday. The military airlifted the bodies to Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, Sunday afternoon.

"We hope Pakistani authorities will do their best to find the culprits of this crime," the Ukrainian ambassador to Pakistan, Volodymyr Lakomov, told reporters outside the hospital where the bodies were taken.

The Pakistani government condemned the "brutal act of terrorism" in a statement sent to reporters.

"Those who have committed this heinous crime seem to be attempting to disrupt the growing relations of Pakistan with China and other friendly countries," said a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry.

Pakistan has very close ties with neighboring China and is sensitive to any issue that could harm the relationship. Pakistani officials have reached out to representatives from China and Ukraine to convey their sympathies, the Foreign Ministry said.

Many foreign tourists stay away from Pakistan because of the perceived danger of visiting a country that is home to a large number of Islamic militant groups, such as the Taliban and al-Qaida, which mostly reside in the northwest near the Afghan border. A relatively small number of intrepid foreigners visit Gilgit-Baltistan during the summer to marvel at the peaks of the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges, including K2, the second highest mountain in the world.

Syed Mehdi Shah, the chief minister of Gilgit-Baltistan, condemned the attack and expressed fear that it would seriously damage the region's tourism industry.

"A lot of tourists come to this area in the summer, and our local people work to earn money from these people," said Shah. "This will not only affect our area, but will adversely affect all of Pakistan."

The area has been cordoned off by police and paramilitary soldiers, and a military helicopter was searching the area, said Shah.

"God willing we will find the perpetrators of this tragic incident," said Shah.

The government suspended the chief secretary and top police chief in Gilgit-Baltistan following the attack and ordered an inquiry into the incident, said Khan, the interior minister.

States Rights: Federal Nullification Efforts Mounting in States

Federal nullification efforts mounting in states, A state's rights article by David A. Lieb of the Associated Press

Imagine the scenario: A federal agent attempts to arrest someone for illegally selling a machine gun. Instead, the federal agent is arrested — charged in a state court with the crime of enforcing federal gun laws.

Farfetched? Not as much as you might think.

The scenario would become conceivable if legislation passed by Missouri's Republican-led Legislature is signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon.

The Missouri legislation is perhaps the most extreme example of a states' rights movement that has been spreading across the nation. States are increasingly adopting laws that purport to nullify federal laws — setting up intentional legal conflicts, directing local police not to enforce federal laws and, in rare cases, even threatening criminal charges for federal agents who dare to do their jobs.

An Associated Press analysis found that about four-fifths of the states now have enacted local laws that directly reject or ignore federal laws on marijuana use, gun control, health insurance requirements and identification standards for driver's licenses. The recent trend began in Democratic leaning California with a 1996 medical marijuana law and has proliferated lately in Republican strongholds like Kansas, where Gov. Sam Brownback this spring became the first to sign a measure threatening felony charges against federal agents who enforce certain firearms laws in his state.

Some states, such as Montana and Arizona, have said "no" to the feds again and again — passing states' rights measures on all four subjects examined by the AP — despite questions about whether their "no" carries any legal significance.

"It seems that there has been an uptick in nullification efforts from both the left and the right," said Adam Winkler, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles who specializes in constitutional law.

Yet "the law is clear — the supremacy clause (of the U.S. Constitution) says specifically that the federal laws are supreme over contrary state laws, even if the state doesn't like those laws," Winkler added. The fact that U.S. courts have repeatedly upheld federal laws over conflicting state ones hasn't stopped some states from flouting those federal laws — sometimes successfully.

About 20 states now have medical marijuana laws allowing people to use pot to treat chronic pain and other ailments — despite a federal law that still criminalizes marijuana distribution and possession. Ceding ground to the states, President Barack Obama's administration has made it known to federal prosecutors that it wasn't worth their time to target those people.

Federal authorities have repeatedly delayed implementation of the 2005 Real ID Act, an anti-terrorism law that set stringent requirements for photo identification cards to be used to board commercial flights or enter federal buildings. The law has been stymied, in part, because about half the state legislatures have opposed its implementation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

About 20 states have enacted measures challenging Obama's 2010 health care laws, many of which specifically reject the provision mandating that most people have health insurance or face tax penalties beginning in 2014.

After Montana passed a 2009 law declaring that federal firearms regulations don't apply to guns made and kept in that state, eight other states have enacted similar laws. Gun activist Gary Marbut said he crafted the Montana measure as a foundation for a legal challenge to the federal power to regulate interstate commerce under the U.S. Constitution. His lawsuit was dismissed by a trial judge but is now pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"The states created this federal monster, and so it's time for the states to get their monster on a leash," said Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association. The Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that local police could not be compelled to carry out provisions of a federal gun control law. But some states are now attempting to take that a step further by asserting that certain federal laws can't even be enforced by federal authorities.

A new Kansas law makes it a felony for a federal agent to attempt to enforce laws on guns made and owned in Kansas. A similar Wyoming law, passed in 2010, made it a misdemeanor. The Missouri bill also would declare it a misdemeanor crime but would apply more broadly to all federal gun laws and regulations — past, present, or future — that "infringe on the people's right to keep and bear arms."

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sent a letter in late April to the Kansas governor warning that the federal government is willing to go to court over the new law.

"Kansas may not prevent federal employees and officials from carrying out their official responsibilities," Holder wrote.

Federal authorities in the western district of Missouri led the nation in prosecutions for federal weapons offenses through the first seven months of the 2013 fiscal year, with Kansas close behind, according to a data clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Felons illegally possessing firearms is the most common charge nationally. But the Missouri measure sets it sights on nullifying federal firearms registrations and, among other things, a 1934 law that imposes a tax on transferring machine guns or silencers. Last year, the federal government prosecuted 83 people nationally for unlawful possession of machine guns.

So what would happen if a local prosecutor actually charges a federal agent for doing his or her job?

"They're going to have problems if they do it — there's no doubt about it," said Michael Boldin, executive director of the Tenth Amendment Center, a Los Angeles-based entity that promotes states' rights. "There's no federal court in the country that's going to say that a state can pull this off."

Yet states may never need to prosecute federal agents in order to make their point.

If enough states resist, "it's going to be very difficult for the federal government to force their laws down our throats," Boldin said.

Missouri's governor has not said whether he will sign or veto the bill nullifying federal gun laws. Meanwhile, thousands of people have sent online messages to the governor's office about the legislation.

Signing the measure "will show other states how to resist the tyranny of federal bureaucrats who want to rob you of your right to self-defense," said one message, signed by Jim and Arlena Sowash, who own a gun shop in rural Stover, Mo.

Others urged a veto.

"Outlandish bills like this — completely flouting our federal system — make Missouri the laughingstock of the nation," said a message written by Ann Havelka, of the Kansas City suburb of Gladstone.