VIDEO: OBAMA TELEPROMPTER FAILS AT FAMILY DINNER

The Onion does it again, making a not-so-big leap, mocking Obama's teleprompter reliance. The report on the teleprompter breaking down at the Obama dinner table comes early on but be sure to stick around to the end of the video because there are some incredibly funny lines that come from the Onion's White House correspondent about Obama having his anger translated into teleprompter-friendly verbiage.

Oh, and there's also that embarrassing moment in the pumpkin patch.


Obama's Home Teleprompter Malfunctions During Family Dinner

h/t to BREITBART

FREE MARKET PRINCIPLES: CHINA HOLDS THE CARDS

This one comes courtesy of Barrackaid #13. Very interesting 'inside baseball' read into what's quite possibly going on between the United States and China. The United States needs China to continue buying our debt and China needs to continue doing so. At issue is whose needs are greater. Based on Joseph Trevisani's take at FX Solutions, all you have to do to determine that is look at who is giving up more?

The answer would be the U.S.

The American President would like China’s cooperation on the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs, a more flexible currency policy for the yuan, open trade and continued Chinese purchase of American debt. He is likely to obtain only the last, the price for which will be all the others.

A little further into the article, it becomes a little clearer why:

President Obama will reassure President Hu that Washington takes its debt obligations seriously, that it is about to become serious about controlling Federal spending and that it holds to a strong dollar policy. President Hu will promise not to withdraw Chinese support from the Treasury market. The Chinese will pretend to believe the Americans and the Americans will not press them on any other topic.

The price for China’s continued support of the US debt market and by extension of the administration’s domestic agenda is American acquiescence in all international topics of importance to China. For the Chinese it is an excellent trade, a chance to neuter its greatest international adversary for the price of an investment it would probably have to make anyway. The basic fact of the trade is that China feels it has choices and the United States fears it does not. As long as a Chinese withdrawal from the US debt markets is more frightening to Washington than to Beijing China will have the upper hand in this relationship.

One would think that Obama is getting a very real lesson in how the free market works courtesy of the Chinese, yet when you couple Trevisani's last sentence with the soaring and record budget deficits Obama has managed to amass in less than one year, it really makes you wonder.

President Obama’s visit to Beijing is an acknowledgement of the new status quo in the world economy. China will set the terms of her trade for the world until the United States regains control of its own budget.

Be sure to read the WHOLE THING.

I wonder what Anita Dunn thinks about all this.

h/t to Barrackaid #13

HASAN AND 9/11 IMAM QUITE CHUMMY

This adds an entirely new dimension to the broader problems relative to not effectively identifying our current enemy. In 2001, Anwar al-Aulaqi was an Imam at the Dar al-Hijra mosque in Northern Virginia. Not only did three of the 9/11 hijackers catch some of his inspirational sermons firsthand but so did Fort Hood Islamic terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan. Aulaqi fled to Yemen in 2002. What happened in 2007 provides a potentially disturbing and at the time, unknown turning point.

A WAPO article paints the picture of Aulaqi being more like a sort of Islamic spiritual mentor over the last year than anything else. In fact, it's quite possible that as Hasan was struggling to accurately interpret the essence of Islam, Aulaqi's counsel may have had some way of pushing him over the edge. Considering that Aulaqi came out and called Hasan a "hero" after the attacks, would it be all that surprising?

Now for the disturbing part. Quoting from the Post article:

The thick-bearded, white-robed Aulaqi, who was born in New Mexico, served as an imam at two mosques attended by three of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers -- Virginia's Dar al-Hijra and another in California. Aulaqi, who is in his late 30s, is also fluent in Arabic. U.S. officials have accused him of working with al-Qaeda networks in the Persian Gulf after leaving Northern Virginia. In mid-2006, he was detained in Yemen, his ancestral homeland, at the request of U.S. authorities. He was released in December 2007.

Hasan began communicating with Aulaqi in 2008 and there are reportedly between 10-20 emails between the two. The logical question just begging to be asked is if Hasan would have carried out the massacre if not for Aulaqi's counsel? What would have happened had Aulaqi not been released?

Be sure to read the entire WAPO article as it is the result of a third party interview with Aulaqi.

h/t to HA