One of President Obama’s 2008 campaign promises was to reach out to and work with Republicans. That obviously never happened as he’s now back-peddling on calling some American citizens — Republicans — the “enemies” of Latino voters. Doi, Mr. Obama, but most of the Republicans I’m voting for are Hispanic/Latino.

A day before the pivotal midterm elections, President Barack Obama pulled back from remarks he made last month when he called on Latino voters to punish their “enemies” on Election Day. In an interview Monday with radio host Michael Baisden, Obama said he should have used the word “opponents” instead of enemies. …

Republicans were quick to criticize the president’s remarks. House Minority Leader John Boehner was expected to use Obama’s words in an election eve speech in Ohio to paint the president as a staunch partisan.

“Sadly, we have a president who uses the word ‘enemy’ for fellow Americans, fellow citizens. He used it for people who disagree with his agenda of bigger government,” Boehner said, according to prepared remarks released in advance of his speech.

Obama’s original comments came during an interview with Eddie “Piolin” Sotelo, a Hispanic radio personality. Piolin questioned how Obama could ask Latinos for their vote when many don’t believe he’s worked hard to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

Obama responded: “If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s gonna be harder.” …

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From an article in the POLITICO entitled, “The twilight of Harry Reid?:”

… Asked how he could be so confident when polls have consistently shown his opponent ahead for weeks, Reid’s frayed nerves came to the surface. “I’m not going to get into this poll stuff, OK?” he snapped, pale eyes flashing. “We’re satisfied where we are. We’re fine, OK? So, I’m not going to get into polling with you. All you have to do is look at early voting.” …

Poor Harry and his frayed nerves.

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Of course, I’m being facetious when I say, “Dark Side.” Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid have done so much damage in 2 years that Democrats are sick and tired of their own party, as well as incumbents in general. Time for the “change” to be changed:

Republican Susana Martinez had a double-digit lead over Democratic Lt. Gov. Diane Denish heading into New Mexico’s gubernatorial election Tuesday, a new Journal Poll found.

Martinez’s lead had widened to 10 percentage points compared with the last poll, in late September, when she had a six-point lead.

One of the reasons for Martinez’s lead was that one-fourth of Democrats surveyed crossed over and said they would vote for her. …

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This morning, MSNBC posted a note on why Democrats probably will lose the House in November’s elections. MSNBC’s list of reasons was prioritized backwards, leaving the most salient reason Democrats will get pounded as a footnote. This first statement should have started their headline paragraph (shown below):

… And there’s this: Democrats, after two years in FULL control, were unable to deliver on their biggest thematic promise to change the way the Washington works. …

Here’s the whole paragraph — to put things… in context (oh, that phrase!):

… Why Dems are on the verge of losing the House: Over the last two days, we’ve explained how Republicans could win control of the House, or how Democrats could be able to hold on to their majority. Today, we turn to the why. Here’s why Democrats are on the verge of losing the House and maybe (though much less likely) the Senate. Part of it would be history (a president’s party almost always loses seats in a midterm cycle). Part of it would be the nation’s disinclination of one-party control. Much of it would be due to the nation’s high unemployment rate (9.6%), and the economic stimulus’ inability to reduce it substantially over the past two years. Just those four items in one stew would be enough to put Democrats on the verge of a loss in House control, but it doesn’t end there. Another culprit would be Democrats’ inability to sell the public on the health-care law and their inability to fire up their base. Outside GOP money has played a role, too, by expanding the playing field. And there’s this: Democrats, after two years in FULL control, were unable to deliver on their biggest thematic promise to change the way the Washington works. …

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By Fern Sidman

On Sunday evening, October 24th, GOP candidate Jay Townsend challenged incumbent Charles Schumer (D) for the coveted US Senate seat in New York in an hour long televised debate sponsored by the cable channel NY1. The debate was held at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY and was carried on the YNN channel for upstate New York viewers.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Never mind just the poll numbers (see here and here), you can feel it in the air. Americans are pissed — mostly at Obama and his Democratic congress. Even our “great” media outlets are admitting that Democrats are in trouble, but to varying degrees. Take the LA Times and NY Times. The former is desperately trying to put lipstick on the pig, while the latter is basically admitting the truth, though reluctantly:

The LA Times cries, “Conservatives struggle to unify for voter outreach:”

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By Janice Kephart, CIS.org

The border area between New Mexico and Mexico is sparsely populated and has limited natural or man made barriers to illegal crossing. This, coupled with an extensive road network that traverses the state in all directions, makes New Mexico a haven for the transshipment of illegal drugs from Mexico to destination points throughout the United States.

Current enhanced enforcement operations by the Department of Homeland Security in Arizona will most likely force drug traffickers and alien smugglers to shift their smuggling efforts from Arizona to New Mexico. This, in turn, will have a serious impact on enforcement operations and judicial proceedings in New Mexico. While additional enhancements for Border Patrol agents in southern New Mexico has somewhat mitigated the increased use of southern New Mexico as a viable route for alien smuggling, there has been a marked increase in the number of drug seizures and apprehensions of illegal aliens.

- DEA New Mexico Report (2008)

Obviously, the impact of the [Wilderness] policy is severe on our operations. When you can’t drive in those areas, it makes it impossible to patrol and enforce the law, and it transforms it into a sanctuary for illegal aliens.”

- T.J. Bonner, President, National Border Patrol Council, the union representing more than 12,000 Border Patrol agents (July 2010)

To date, discussion of the porous Southwest border has largely left out New Mexico. That is about to change if Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources, and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) are able to pass an otherwise innocuous bill that changes which laws apply to a stretch of federal land on the New Mexico border. The bottom line is, if S. 1689, the “Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Wilderness Act,” becomes law, New Mexico will likely become the next staging ground for drug cartel and illegal alien smuggling activity, tracking what happened in Arizona. Why? The bill would change the designation of Department of Interior lands, managed by the Bureau of Land Management, from “public lands” to “wilderness,” severely curtailing the Border Patrol’s ability to conduct preventative, ongoing, and necessary operations due to the stringent nature of wilderness laws that are now four decades old. New Mexico would suffer the same results as those documented by the Center in the “Hidden Cameras on the Arizona Border” three-part series showing the waste, destruction, and unsafe circumstances that borderlands suffer when wilderness laws (and poor federal government policy) create a vacuum of law enforcement presence.

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Michael Lumish explains the current, leftwing double-think/double-speak of people who claim to be “progressives,” “tolerant,” and “raging against the machine” while being rank bigots — anti-Semites:

… They are, for the most part, leftists who claim to hate war, favor environmental regulation, women’s rights, gay rights, and the entire hodge-podge of issues, including an anti-racist agenda, that makes up what we call the “progressive movement.”

And, yet, on the foremost website devoted to electing Democrats, with over 250,000 registered users, they allow a malicious and vocal minority to drive the Israel-Palestine discussion in such a way as to create hatred, and thus violence, toward Jews. As if that’s not bad enough in itself, they also do so in a manner that echoes anti-Jewish Nazi propaganda from the 1930s. Again, my criticism of Daily Kos is not that they’re a bunch of anti-Semites, but that they provide a venue for a bunch of anti-Semites.

These people represent the grassroots / netroots of the Democratic party, yet they comfortably share a “home” with people who are little more than modern day Nazis. …

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

President Obama is losing political support on all fronts — and, “Now comes evidence that the war in Afghanistan cannot be won — certainly not with the effort and constraints now in place,” according to Dick Morris:

Having already lost all Republicans and almost all independents, Obama is shedding Democrats these days. According to a Fox News poll, his job approval among them has dropped from 84 percent at the end of June to 76 percent in mid-July. A combination of the Afghan War, the oil spill, Guantanamo and his failure to act on immigration reform have all eroded his credibility with his liberal constituents.

Now comes evidence that the war in Afghanistan cannot be won — certainly not with the effort and constraints now in place. It is obvious that Obama and Hillary Clinton are being duped by the Pakistani government and the Afghan leadership is awash in corruption. With Pakistan offering the Taliban sanctuary next door and the government in Kabul staying in office in order to steal American aid, the Afghan war is looking more and more like Vietnam.

And now we have the equivalent of the leak of the Pentagon Papers discrediting the war effort from the inside. …

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A briefing by Steven J. Rosen*

Steven J. Rosen is the director of the Forum’s Washington Project. From 1982-2005, he was a top official in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Prior to 1982, he taught political science and international relations at the University of Pittsburgh, Brandeis University, and the Australian National University. On 21 April, he addressed the Middle East Forum via conference call on the subject of U.S.-Israel relations.

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by Steven J. Rosen*

Anxiety about Barack Obama has afflicted Israelis since his meteoric rise to the White House. Here was an untested president, one whose agenda in the Middle East could only be imagined. Would Obama’s America be Israel’s lifeline in a dangerous and often hostile world? Or would this American president experiment with mistaken or even unfriendly ideas that could wreak havoc for Israeli security?

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