Not what we ‘hoped for’
Former Nobel secretary Geir Lundestad now admits what many have known for a decade: Awarding new President Barack Obama a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 was a mistake.
Obama was nominated for the award a few weeks after he took office, but officials now admit they did so based on his popularity and not in keeping with the onetime credibility of the prize.
“No Nobel Peace Prize ever elicited more attention than the 2009 prize to Barack Obama,” Lundestad wrote in his memoir, “Secretary of Peace.” “Even many of Obama’s supporters believed that the prize was a mistake. In that sense the committee didn’t achieve what it had hoped for.”
A news release at the time said the new president earned the award based on “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
Lundestad told the Associated Press “the committee hoped the award would strengthen Mr. Obama,” but he allowed terrorism to flourish throughout the Middle East, became the longest wartime president in history and saw wars expanded into Libya and Syria.
Obama is no longer a part of the “Featured laureates” section of the Nobel website, a section that does include figures such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa.
She wants to be president
U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, a senator for all of two years, has announced she is running for president in 2020. But she’s not even aware of the history of the country that’s part of her heritage.
The senator’s mother Dr. Shyamala Gopalan, emigrated from India in the 1960s. But in a recent interview about her book, “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey,” the junior senator was asked about how being half Indian-American shaped her identity and political views.
“I was born who I am,” Harris said, “and I would say that the influence – the Indian influence on my life is really, a lot of it is based on what I described in terms of the experiences that I had in India. The family that I come from was very active. And I know that about – you know, India is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, democracy in the world, and so the idea of debating and discussing what it means to be a democracy.”
Hold on, sister.
India became free of British crown rule only in 1947 and only adopted a constitution creating democratic republican rule in 1949. Its first democratic general elections were in 1951-1952.
The United States, Harris may or may not know, declared its independence in 1776 and became a democratic republic in the 1780s. Other countries claim to have even older democratic roots.
This is who they are
A Colorado school teacher was placed on leave last week after naming an incorrect boy and publishing his photo as one of the students involved in what originally was thought to be a group of students harassing a Native-American in Washington, D.C., recently.
Not only has it been proven that the students were the ones who were harassed, but the boy the teacher “outed” was not in the nation’s capital but was elsewhere playing basketball.
Michelle Grissom, a seventh-grade teacher and an executive board member of the Douglas County Federation teachers union, was placed on leave, her school principal emailed parents. “Please understand that I am unable to share specific details, as this is a personnel matter,” he wrote.
John Jackson, the father of the “outed” boy, asked the teacher multiple times to take down tweets referring to his son as part of the “Hitler Youth,” but she did not do so until the father sent her tweet to the Colorado district. The elder Jackson said his son had been harassed and bullied after the accusations.
“After her vicious treatment of my son and viewing some of her hateful social media posts, I am thankful that she will not be around children until this situation is fully evaluated,” he told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Grissom deserves a fair hearing, but should this type of person be near children at all. We think not.
Whoopi’s bike dislike
Bike lanes in Chattanooga haven’t been the most welcomed innovation to come down the pike, but comedian Whoopi Goldberg said recently on “The View” that the same thing – apparently her pet peeve – has messed up her city, New York. Not only that, but she told that to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio while he was sitting with her and the other gabbers on the show.
De Blasio was attempting to brag about the city’s progressive agenda when Goldberg stopped her fellow far left politico.
“You screwed the city up,” she said. “You’ve built 83 miles of protected bike lanes, OK. And I like bikes, I like people who ride, but I don’t think you understand the impact of taking something like 10th Avenue.”
De Blasio sat stunned and silent.
Nevertheless, there was no report the Big Apple mayor immediately ordered the bike lanes to be razed.