Walks out of meeting to go have dinner with the family

From Eric Dondero:

According to various reports, mostly from the foreign press, Obama snubbed Israeli President Bejamin Netanyahu on his two-day trip to Washington earlier this week. Half-way through the meeting Obama got up and announced he was leaving to have dinner with "Michelle and the girls."

At issue, Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, and unwillingness of the Israelis to make further concessions to the Palestinian Authority as demanded by the White House.

The London Times quotes an un-named Congressman who witnessed the event:

"It was awful,” the congressman said. One Israeli newspaper called the meeting “a hazing in stages”, poisoned by such mistrust that the Israeli delegation eventually left rather than risk being eavesdropped on a White House telephone line. Another said that the Prime Minister had received “the treatment reserved for the President of Equatorial Guinea”.

Left to talk among themselves Mr Netanyahu and his aides retreated to the Roosevelt Room. He spent a further half-hour with Mr Obama and extended his stay for a day of emergency talks to try to restart peace negotiations. However, he left last night with no official statement from either side. He returned to Israel yesterday isolated after what Israeli media have called a White House ambush for which he is largely to blame.

Geller - American Jews can no longer ignore Obama's anti-Semitism

Liberty activist Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs had this response:

Obama shamed and humiliated the Jewish Prime Minister of Israel, while demanding we respect sharia and Islam. Jewish self-defense against virulent, genocidal Islamic anti-Semitism repels the leader of the free world.

Now here we are. Jews may then have tried to avoid Obama’s anti-Semitism, but they cannot now avoid the consequences of avoiding Obama’s anti-Semitism. He has unleashed an evil in this world the extent of which we are only now beginning to see. He has made the world safe for haters and killers.

The Jewish people, both in Israel and the diaspora, seem to be suffering from the Stockholm Syndrome. There can be no logical reason why an American Jew could intellectually excuse Obama’s twenty-year friendship and closeness with the anti-Semitic Farrakhan acolyte Jeremiah Wright.

There is no way an American Jew could explain away or rationalize Obama’s connections to Rashid Khalidi, Ali Abunimah, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, and know about those connections without knowing what was coming. These Jews (and our history is plagued with them) love ideas, not people. They are so married to their dogma, their ideology, that they cannot, will not, see what is right in front of them. They worship at the church of human secularism. That is their religion. They have no G-d. They merely wearing a Jewish coat, but do not speak for Jews. It is the curse of the Jewish people historically to be betrayed by our own. This is the deepest cut of all.

Are we so broken a people that they shall have died in vain, for nothing? The six million looked like you, laughed like you, denied like you. The six million loved their country -- some were war heroes for Germany in World War I. They too thought the fringe would stay relegated to the margins of society. Fringe, meet White House.

On Thursday Geller had a piece published at Andrew Breitbart's BigJournalism.com titled "Obama's War on Israel."

Obama marching US towards Socialism; Netanyahu moves in free market direction

Since Netanyahu's election nearly 2 years ago, he's taken Israel on a decidedly different course. He is a considered an "ardent advocate" of the libertarian economic view, who has "championed welfare cuts and free-market practices."

From Ashbrook Center bio:

Benjamin Netanyahu became the youngest prime minister in Israeli history. He transferred the Israeli economy towards free market principles and brought recognition to Israel as one of the most sought after high-tech markets in the world. At the same time he drastically reduced the deficit, cut inflation to a 35-year low and brought foreign investment to Israel in unprecedented levels.

Aaron Korman of Israel Newsletter wrote on Netanyahu's practical implementation of free market ideals:

Netanyahu's economic plan... tax cuts and privatization taking a leading role... As the rest of the world is marching towards socialism, Israel appears to be headed in the other direction, embracing free market principals

Further info - "Netanyahu's free market reforms: Hong Kong in the desert" at WorldwideLiberty.

Obama administration preparing to Nationalize Educational decision-making

Texas Board of Education stalwart member Cynthia Dunbar was a guest on the Bill Bennett in the Morning show on the Salem Network, Wednesday morning. Dunbar explained in detail how charges that the right-majority Board sought to remove Thomas Jefferson from the State curiculum were completely and utterly false. TPM, Daily Kos and other leftwing blogs spread this story last week, which was picked up by major media outlets.

Dunbar detailed how the Board recommended moving the main body of discussion of one of America's "greatest Founding Fathers," from the chapter on the Englightenment to the chapter on the founding of the Republic.

This has prompted some Texas Democrats into calling for the elimination of the elected board. Additionally, liberal Democrats are calling for the decision making process of educational curiculuum to be moved under the auspices of unelected bureacrats.

From a release by the libertarian-leaning Americans For Prosperity (AFP):

AUSTIN – The Texas chapter of Americans for Prosperity denounces the promise of State Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa (D-Dist. 20) to abolish the elected Texas State Board of Education.

"State Board of Education members are elected, and last election, while Rep. Hinojosa received 124,456 votes, the average number of votes cast for a single SBOE member was more than twice that – 335,207," said AFP Director Peggy Venable.

"To suggest eliminating an elected body because you don’t agree with their decisions is un-democratic,” said Venable.

Americans for Prosperity’s members are pleased with the SBOE’s decisions regarding the social studies curriculum standards. We are disappointed that Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Bill White and others on the left have grossly misrepresented the board’s actions,” said Venable. “Sen. Hinojosa apparently thinks that if the voter-elected Board makes rulings that don’t fit his liberal agenda, then the Board should be eliminated.

Sen. Hinojosa is attempting to defy our state constitution and deny voters their right to have an elected body represent their interests regarding the public education of our children," Venable said.

The Texas curriculum battle is very important nationally, for other States follow Texas's lead. Dunbar was asked by Bennett what she felt might be the next move by the Left. She responded that the Obama administration may now seek to nationalize the process and standardize curriculum selection as a result of the Texas controversy.

Melding industry with the State

Qwest is going for a healthy chunk of Obama stimulus funds. The large Rocky Mountain West firm is wanting the federal government assistance to extend its service into rural areas of Colorado.

The details from The Denver Business Journal bizjournals.com "Qwest seeks $350M from stimulus for rural broadband" March 25:

Qwest now will ask for the stimulus funds to cover 75 percent of the cost of a planned $467 million project to extend broadband service with download speeds of 12 to 40 megabits per second (Mbps) to more than half a million homes, schools, businesses and hospitals in rural communities in Qwest's 14-state service territory. Qwest would cover the remaining $117 million itself.

The stimulus funds would come from the "Broadband Initiatives Program" administered by the Rural Utilities Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The $7.2 billion program's goal is to promote efforts to expand access to tens of millions of people who lack broadband and who live within 60 miles of a city or town.

Originally, Qwest would have been eligible to have only half of its broadband infrastructure expansion project funded. Now, in the second round of funding, stimulus funding would cover up to 75 percent of the project if Qwest's application is OK'd.

The Libertarian Party of Colorado issued a statement on their blog:

There is no reason that tax payers should be forced to subsidize rural internet services. It is nice for farmers and other rural dwellers, but it is not really fair that they should pay less than the cost of service to them at the expense of the taxpayer. If they want this service than the only fair and right thing for them to do is either pay a premium and make it worthwhile for providers like Qwest to provide service in their area or to create a community co-op type of arrangement to get service by pooling resources with other rural people living nearby. the answer is not to turn to welfare to subsidize relatively well off people, and relatively rich corporations like Qwest.

Qwest is one of the largest employers in Colorado. They also do business in Montana, Utah, Wyoming and Nevada.