from Curt at F.A.

Is the Age of Obama the beginning of the end of America, the last best hope of earth?

President Obama’s curtsy to the Saudi king and his reverential bow before the Japanese Emperor was one of those “right-wing” criticisms that I thought, at the time, was mostly much ado about very little of substance. I now take that back. It was emblematic of what is taking place now.

While all hands on deck have been focused on the healthcare “debate” and Christmas family matters, President Obama last week quietly signed an amendment to Executive Order 12425 (signed by Reagan in 1983, but with restrictions in place to protect the Constitutional rights of our citizens), effectively eroding American sovereignty by immunizing INTERPOL activities within the U.S.

Andrew McCarthy:

for no apparent reason, President Obama issued an executive order removing the Reagan limitations. That is, Interpol’s property and assets are no longer subject to search and confiscation, and its archives are now considered inviolable. This international police force (whose U.S. headquarters is in the Justice Department in Washington) will be unrestrained by the U.S. Constitution and American law while it operates in the United States and affects both Americans and American interests outside the United States.

Interpol works closely with international tribunals (such as the International Criminal Court — which the United States has refused to join because of its sovereignty surrendering provisions, though top Obama officials want us in it). It also works closely with foreign courts and law-enforcement authorities (such as those in Europe that are investigating former Bush administration officials for purported war crimes — i.e., for actions taken in America’s defense).

Steve Schippert:

By removing language from President Reagan’s 1983 Executive Order 12425, this international law enforcement body now operates - now operates - on American soil beyond the reach of our own top law enforcement arm, the FBI, and is immune from Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Much more at Threat Watch

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Dennis Prager wrote a very good article on how President Obama regards “American exceptionalism”. Basically, he doesn’t put much regard into the concept, at all:

As the passage of the bill that will start the process of nationalizing health care in America becomes almost inevitable, so, too, the process of undoing America’s standing as The Last Best Hope of Earth will have begun.

That description of America was not, as more than a few Americans on the left believe, made by some right-wing chauvinist. It was made by President Abraham Lincoln in an address to Congress on Dec. 1, 1862.

The bigger the American government becomes, the more like other countries America becomes. Even a Democrat has to acknowledge the simple logic: America cannot at the same time be the last best hope of earth and increasingly similar to more and more countries.

Either America is unique, in which case it at least has the possibility of uniquely embodying hopes for mankind — or it is not unique, in which case it is by definition not capable of being the last best hope for humanity — certainly no more so than, let us say, Sweden or the Netherlands.

Indeed, President Obama acknowledged this in April, when asked by a European reporter if he believes in American exceptionalism. The president’s response: “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

The president was honest. In his view, as in the view of today’s Democratic party, America is special only in the same way we parents regard our children as “special.” We all say it and we all believe it, but we know that it is meaningless except as an emotional expression of our love for our children. If every is child is equally special, none can be special, in fact. If every country is exceptional, then no country is exceptional, or at least no more so than any other.

With the largest expansion of the American government and state since the New Deal, the Democratic party — alone — is ending a key factor in America’s uniqueness and greatness: individualism, which is made possible only when there is limited government.

Read the rest.

also:

Pelosi and Reid to Override Legislative Conference and Write Final Version of Health Bill in Secret?

Was this what Obama meant when he promised to end the old Washington ways of secret backroom deals?

For Their Next Trick . . .
The latest example of violating principles of transparency and accountability in the single-minded pursuit of legislative victory
By John Fund
Wall Street Journal
DECEMBER 23, 2009

Look for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to try to circumvent the traditional conference committee process by which the different versions of health care reform passed by each house will be reconciled. If so, it will be the latest example of violating principles of transparency and accountability in the single-minded pursuit of legislative victory.

Conferences involving members from both houses are messy things. They are usually conducted in public and often televised, and can produce a compromise version of the bill that leaves rank-and-file members tempted to vote against the final version. That could be perilous in the case of health care since it’s likely to pass without a vote to spare in the Senate and the House’s version passed by only five votes.
…
Mr. Reid and Ms. Pelosi would love to come up with a way to bash heads in private and skip any public discussion that further reveals just how incoherent and unworkable both the bills are. Luckily, there is a subterfuge readily available that wouldn’t require the House to swallow the Senate’s bill unchanged but also ducks the traditional give-and-take of the conference committee.

When Democrats took over Congress in 2007, they increasingly did not send bills through the regular conference process.
…
[S]erious dialogue isn’t what Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid are interested in right now. Look for the traditional conference committee to be replaced by a “ping-pong” game in which health care is finalized behind closed doors with little public scrutiny before the bill is rushed to the floor of each chamber for a final vote.

ACTION ALERT: Call, fax email or mail your Congressional Representative or Senator and let them know that you’ve had enough of these secret backroom deals that shortchange the American people! If you think they are not listening, then write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper (check their web site for email contact and letter length guidelines).

One way or the other, we must stop these anti-democratic tactics and hold Democrats responsible for their actions in 2010!

from Flopping Aces