It’s been six months since Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi gave his “I am still in charge” speech, ranted about rats and drugged-up children, and appealed to his “son” Barack Obama for help.

Now, it finally appears Libyans are done with him — freedom-fighters are celebrating across the Twittersphere, though the identity of the “rebels” on the ground is still somewhat murky as always with these revolts.

Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi’s four-decade-long rule over Libya was crumbling at breakneck speed Sunday as hundreds of rebel fighters swept toward the heart of Tripoli and dissidents said they had secured control of many parts of the capital.

With rebel leaders saying that Gaddafi’s compound was surrounded, that his son Saif al-Islam had been captured and that his presidential guard had surrendered, the six-month-old battle for control of Libya appeared to be hurtling toward a dramatic finale.

In an audio statement broadcast on state television late Sunday, Gaddafi made what came across as a desperate plea for support. “Go out and take your weapons,” the Libyan leader said in the brief broadcast. “All of you, there should be no fear.”

By late Sunday, rebel fighters had converged on the capital from four directions, and opposition flags were fluttering over buildings across the city. Thousands of people poured onto the streets in areas under rebel control to celebrate, stomping on posters of Gaddafi, setting off fireworks and honking horns, even in the symbolically significant Green Square in the heart of the city, previously the scene of near-daily pro-Gaddafi rallies.

Among many unresolved questions:

Has anyone seen Islamofascist tool Cynthia McKinney?

Where is that damned Lockerbie bomber?

And has Leon Panetta turned on the cable TV news yet?

***

Update 10:16pm Eastern…News outlets reported that the vacationing President Obama held a phone conference with his national security team for a Libya briefing. Which reminded me of the classic IMAO spoof Obama phone call photo…

The White House also released a written statement:

“The future of Libya is now in the hands of the Libyan people”…”The universal pursuit of dignity and freedom is far stronger than the iron fist of a dictator.”

Oil prices tumbled $2 a barrel.

The White House says it has “no reason to believe” Gaddafi is dead.

But given how CIA director Leon Panetta gets his intelligence — quick, get him the TV remote control! — there’s no reason to believe the White House knows anything more than you or I do at this point.

Stay tuned…

***

Zing! Doug Powers: “Why would Gaddafi be shot? Jay Carney just said this has nothing to do with specific leaders.”

Meanwhile, Foggy Bottom gets a clue. Too little, too late:

Loony-tunes dictator Muammar Gaddafi refused to step down in a trademark bizarro Libyan TV address this morning.

He babbled hysterically about druggie kids instigating terror, blamed American planes for bombing innocent civilians, and ranted about the devil.

He blamed the unrest on “cowards and traitors” who were seeking to portray Libya as a place of chaos and to “humiliate” Libyans.

The protesters had been given drink and drugs, he said.

He called on “those who love Muammar Gaddafi” to come on to the streets in support of him, telling them not to be afraid of the “gangs”.

“Come out of your homes, attack them in their dens. Withdraw your children from the streets. They are drugging your children, they are making your children drunk and sending them to hell,” he said.

He added: “If matters require, we will use force, according to international law and the Libyan constitution.”

All that was missing were Hugo Chavez-like references to “sulfur” and Noam Chomsky…

…and a Bed Intruder/Auto-Tunes soundtrack.

For his next address, Gaddafi will emerge from a golden egg with Lady GaGa’s pointy shoulders!

New fashion feature idea: Who wore it better — Gaddafi or Sheila Jackson Lee?
***

Gaddafi vowed to stay in the country and “die a martyr.”

May he get his bloody wish.

Video clip here from Real Clear Politics, via Ian Schwartz.

***

Flashback August 2009:

How much more suffering does the Obama administration want to inflict upon American relatives of Lockerbie bombing murder victims?

Watching Lockerbie terrorist Abdel Baset al-Megrahi walk free after serving a measly eight years of a life sentence was cruel enough. Next, Lockerbie families endured the despicable hero’s welcome party thrown for Megrahi by Libyan thug Moammar Gadhafi. Soon after came reports that al-Megrahi, released by Scotland for “compassionate reasons” due to terminal prostate cancer diagnosed by a lone anonymous doctor, may not actually have less than three months to live.

And now? Now, the Lockerbie families must prepare for the sight of Gadhafi jetting to New York City for a thug-of-the-month speech at the United Nations General Assembly in September – topped off by a planned jaunt to Englewood, New Jersey, where the murder-stained jihadi financier wants to pitch a swank, air-conditioned Bedouin tent to greet well-wishers.

The civil liberties crusaders who fret over America’s “inhumane” treatment of Gitmo detainees with smoke in their eyes have shown no compassion for the loved ones of Lockerbie murder victims getting kicked in the teeth.

New Jersey was home to 38 of our fellow Americans who lost their lives on Pan American Flight 103 in 1988. Fifty-nine of those murdered in the bomb attack called New York home. A total of 189 Americans perished over Lockerbie. And as we will soon commemorate two weeks from now, New York City, Shanksville, Pa., and Washington, D.C. witnessed 3,000 men, women, and children slaughtered in the name of Allah firsthand.

Could there be a more twisted form of torture for terror victims’ families then being forced to watch a silk-clad Gadhafi celebrate in their backyard as Islamic jihadists worldwide snicker?

…Gadhafi feigned the renunciation of terrorism during the Bush years while pursuing weapons purchases from Iran, chemical warfare stockpiles, and almost certain jihadi underwriting activities. In Italy last week, the stubbornly un-rehabilitated Libyan dictator blamed American “arrogance and disdain” for generating “the terrorism which they now suffer.”

Barack Obama promised not to deliver another four years of Bush policies. The Bush State Department granted visas to America-bashing autocrats Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad But instead of bringing an end to the dictator welcome wagon, Obama’s feckless bureacrats at Foggy Bottom are scurrying to accommodate Gadhafi’s camping trip while respecting the “raw sensitivities” of the Lockerbie victims’ families.

Cape May, New Jersey resident Susan Cohen, whose 20-year-old daughter died over Lockerbie, cut through the diplomatic bull: “This is what happens when you have the path of appeasement,” she told the press this week.

It is a path paved with blood, tears, lies, and craven obeisance to “world opinion” at the expense of American innocents.

(Note: Everybody spells his last name differently, so I’m going to spell it a different way each time it’s mentioned and hope I get it right at least once)

The situation in Libya with Gaddafi continues to deteriorate:

Deep rifts opened in Moammar Gadhafi’s regime, with Libyan government officials at home and abroad resigning, air force pilots defecting and a bloody crackdown on protest in the capital of Tripoli, where cars and buildings were burned. Gadhafi went on state TV early Tuesday to attempt to show he was still in charge.

Amid reports that Gadhafi fled Tripoli for Venezuela and an inevitable power lunch with Sean Penn, Quadaffi chose an unusual setting to reassure Libya that he was still in the country and in charge. He appeared in a car wearing a Cousin Eddy hat holding an umbrella and speaking into a microphone swiped from Bob Barker:

That doesn’t exactly scream “the palace is secure.”

The video clip of Kadafi’s address lasted less than a minute, which for Qhaddaphi is about nine hours shorter than it usually takes him to give a waiter his lunch order, let alone deliver a speech — so something’s up.

And as the bombs fell, people revolted, gunshots rang out and hundreds were being killed in the violence, what prevented Kadaffy from delivering a more formal address?

he told an interviewer that he had wanted to go to the capital’s Green Square to talk to his supporters, but the rain stopped him.

Rain. At least everyone now knows his weakness.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

And another iconic photo via Twitpic (click on photo for full size)…

They’re calling it “Angry Friday.” Protesters in Egypt may have been cut off from the Internet, but information will always find a way to free itself. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is presiding over a violent crackdown against opponents who have joined a region-wide revolt against autocracy:

As night fell and the government announced a curfew, protesters showed no signs of letting up in Cairo and other Egyptian cities on Friday as tens of thousands intensified their campaign to oust President Hosni Mubarak, pouring from mosques after noon prayers and clashing with police who fired tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons.

The curfew went into effect at 6 p.m. security officials said, and CNN said that President Mubarak was expected to deliver a televised address.

The protests came after weeks of turmoil across the Arab world that toppled one leader in Tunisia and encouraged protesters to overcome deep-rooted fears of their autocratic leaders and take to the streets. But Egypt is a special case — a heavyweight in Middle East diplomacy, in part because of its peace treaty with Israel, and a key ally of the United States. The country, often the fulcrum on which currents in the region turn, also has one of the largest and most sophisticated security forces in the Middle East.

In what protesters called a “day of wrath,” a crowd of at least 10,000 people moved east from Cairo’s Mohandeseen neighborhood, trying to reach the central Tahrir Square that has been an epicenter of protest. The demonstrations were on a scale far beyond anything in the memory of most residents.

Over the years, I’ve chronicled the critical role that Egyptian bloggers have played in the freedom movement (see here here here here here here). They will not and cannot be silenced for long.

Video of the brutal shooting murder of one peaceful protester:

Via Allahpundit: The Egyptian ruling party’s headquarters are in Cairo after massive protests . He adds: “In Iran, however, the media is as pleased as can be by what’s happening. The end of Mubarak means the end of the cold peace between Egypt and Israel in all likelihood, plus lots of new arms smuggled to Iran’s proxy in Gaza. What’s not to like? And speaking of cold peace, there are now reports of small protests breaking out … in Jordan.”

***

Defying the Internet blackout, information-seekers in Egypt have found a way to circumvent the ban, via WaPo:

Despite the blackout on most Internet servers, there are still people able to access the web. PC World reports that Noor Data Networks, a provider used by the Egyptian Stock Exchange, is unaffected. Some users are subverting the ban by using dial-up access that reroutes them through other countries. Others are relying on virtual private networks, or VPNs, that mask the location of Internet access. CNN links to Kristian Johansson’s Facebook page where she has uploaded photographs of the riots, supposedly through a VPN.

***

Update: Mubarak addressed the nation around midnight, Egyptian time, and announced plans to have everyone under him resign.

Obama delivered his own do-as-I-say remarks, calling on Mubarak to listen to his nation’s people, keep his promises, and enact reforms.

Here’s spinmeister David Axelrod patting his boss on the back for more post-achievement achievement — Axelrod: President Obama Has “On Several Occasions Directly Confronted” Mubarak on Human Rights for the Past 2 Years “To Get Ahead of This”.

Lori Ziganto retorts: “Obama: ‘Governments must listen to their people’ – or call them racist tea baggers. Either one.”

The White House: “All Governments Must Maintain Power through Consent, Not Coercion”.

We’ll remember that.

***

Fresh on Flickr, the LEADERSHIP photo-op:

At least he kept his foot off the desk this time.

President Barack Obama talks on the phone with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in the Oval Office, Jan. 28, 2011. Vice President Joe Biden listens at left, and the President’s National Security team confer in the background. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.

***

GOP Rep. Thaddeus McCotter illuminates the underlying concerns about events in Egypt:

hough many will be tempted to superficially interpret the Egyptian demonstrations as an uprising for populist democracy, they must recall how such similar initial views of the 1979 Iranian Revolution were belied by the mullahs’ radical jackbooted murderers, who remain bent upon grasping regional hegemony and nuclear weaponry.

In this crisis, the American people deserve candor and action from President Obama, and President Hosni Mubarak and General Tantwai.

This is not a nostalgic “anti-colonial uprising” from within, of all places, the land of Nassar. Right now, freedom’s radicalized enemies are subverting Egypt and other our allies.

Inexcusably, this crisis has been hastened and exacerbated by the U.S. Administration’s refusal to whole-heartedly embrace Iran’s truly democratic 2009 Green Revolution. Make no mistake: strategically and cynically, freedom’s radicalized enemy is exploiting a real religion to undermine liberty and true reform just as Soviet communism posed as a secular creed to obtain the same illegitimate ends.

If we fail to meet today’s enemy on the same determined, principled terms, we will too late awake in a nightmare world. But, if today’s enemy is steadfastly met and bested, liberty and the rule of law will be unleashed for millions throughout the world.

This is the crisis; such are the stakes; and I stand ready to assist President Obama in the pursuit of of a policy that defends our invaluable ally; and advances Eyptians’ inalienable, peaceful aspirations.

Ambassador John Bolton on the stakes:

I think what’s clearly happened today [in Egypt] is that the Muslim Brotherhood, the radical Islamist party in Egypt has called its supporters into the street. I don’t think it was present on the first two or three days.

I think after the Friday prayers the Brotherhood brought its people out. That’s why the protests are even more extensive today. That constitutes no doubt about it a direct threat to the military government, and I think the failure of the other security forces to bring the demonstrations under control also now explains the presence of the military.

Let me be clear here, this is not just the Mubarak-family government. The military has ruled Egypt since Gamal Nasser and they over through King Farook.

It’s the military that is the real government and they are not going to go peacefully.

I think the question is whether and to what extent the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islamists have infiltrated the leadership. If the military holds firm it’s entirely possible, although bloody, that the government can hold onto power. That doesn’t necessarily mean Mubarak will be in power, but the military will be, and I think that is why this contrast makes it so important for people to understand, this is not a choice between the Mubarak government on one hand, and sweetness and light, Jeffersonian democracy on the other.

I don’t think we have evidence yet that these demonstrations are necessarily about democracy. You know the old saying, “one person, one vote, one time.” The Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t care about democracy, if they get into power you’re not going to have free and fair elections either.

And I think there is substantial reason, for example, to worry the minority Coptic Christian population, about 10% of the population will be very worried if the Muslim Brotherhood came to power.

Let’s be clear what the stakes are for the United States. We have an authoritarian regime in power that has been our ally. We don’t know at this point what the real alternatives are.

The latest wave of violence came over the New Year’s Day holiday in Egypt and follows increased Muslim persecution of Christians in Nigeria, the Philippines, Baghdad, and across the Middle East:

For Christians in the Middle East, there is no doubt that daily life has become more difficult. Many complain of attacks and persecution, forcing hundreds to flee their homes. Among the different Christian groups in the region, the Coptic Christians in Egypt is the largest, numbering some six million.

Attacks have also taken place on the homes of Iraqi Christians in recent months. Two people were killed and at least 16 wounded in attacks in Baghdad on New Year’s Eve. Al Qaeda-linked militants are suspected. This just two month after 52 people were killed when gunmen stormed the Syrian Catholic Cathedral in Baghdad.

There are some 15 million Christians in the Middle East and North Africa. In Lebanon, they represent a large slice of the population and have considerable political power. Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Israel and the West Bank are also among those with significant Christian populations.

The result of the persecution is an exodus. In Iraq, churches have gone from full to three-quarters empty in just a few years. Iraqi Christians once numbered about 1.5 million but are now believed to have fallen to less than half that.

The pope has urged Christian communities to “persevere in a non-violent manner”. He has condemned the bomb attack in Egypt as a “vile gesture of death … which offends God and all humanity”.

What does the White House have to say? Here’s the full statement, but this is all you need to read:

I strongly condemn the separate and outrageous terrorist bombing attacks in Egypt and Nigeria. The attack on a church in Alexandria, Egypt caused 21 reported deaths and dozens of injured from both the Christian and Muslim communities.

Er. As Gadi Adelman points out:

I’m glad our President was so much quicker condemning this act of terror while on vacation than he was last year with the ‘underwear’ bomber.

Just one problem, just a little mistake in his sentence. He stated “deaths and dozens of injured from both the Christian and Muslim communities”. Wrong!

There was not one Muslim death, not one, unless of course you count the suicide bomber. Each person that died was a Christian; the bomb went off outside a Coptic Church.
As far as the injured, only 8 out of the 79 were Muslim.

More whitewashing of jihad here.

New year, same old reckless political correctness run amok.

***

Via Ed Morrissey: 3, 2, 1..Cue the Blame the Jews propaganda!

The Chinese government isn’t too happy with the Nobel Peace Prize recipient this year:

Since Liu Xiaobo’s selection, China has vilified the 54-year-old democracy advocate, called the choice an effort by the West to contain its rise, disparaged his supporters as “clowns,” and launched a campaign to persuade countries not to attend Friday’s ceremony in Oslo. The government is also preventing Liu — who is serving an 11-year sentence for co-authoring a bold appeal for political reforms in the Communist country — and his family members from attending.

To retaliate against the unfairness, the country that is holding the Nobel Peace Prize winner in prison decided to offer their own peace prize — I’m calling it the “Golden Mao”:

Amid the flurry of action came a commentary published on Nov. 17 in a Communist Party-approved tabloid that suggested China create its own award the “Confucius Peace Prize” — to counter the choice of Liu.

Three weeks later, The Associated Press has learned, China is doing just that.
[...]
The first honoree is Lien Chan, Taiwan’s former vice president and the honorary chairman of its Nationalist Party, for having “built a bridge of peace between the mainland and Taiwan.”

Who were the other nominees for the Golden Mao (also affectionately referred to as the “Zedonger”)? Think “Nobel” any other year:

billionaire Bill Gates, former South African President Nelson Mandela, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and the Panchen Lama, the second-highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism.

While China regularly disparages the Dalai Lama, the religion’s spiritual leader, the current Panchen Lama is a 20-year-old who was hand-picked by Beijing.

Somewhere out there, Al Gore is staring at his phone wondering why he didn’t get a phone call from Beijing this week.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Today’s syndicated column builds on my weekend post about Foggy Bottom foghorn Michael Posner. If you thought the State Department’s handling of Posner’s Arizona-bashing, China-pandering couldn’t get worse than ignoramus P.J. Crowley’s clueless defense yesterday, think again. As Allahpundit points out, Posner is in full spin cycle, playing the “taken out of context card.” Next thing you know, he’ll say it was all just a misunderstood joke between regimes. Tee-hee.

Gird your loins, meanwhile, for the full State Department pander-fest scheduled for Thursday, when Arizona-bashing, U.S.-bashing Mexican President Felipe Calderon marches to Washington with one hand demanding more foreign aid while the other hand smacks America around for failing to grant more amnesty and other taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal aliens from his misery-racked, violence-plagued country — which, I remind you again, has no qualms about enforcing its own southern border and sending illegals home in a heartbeat. Will anyone speak truth to open-borders power in the Beltway when Calderon comes calling? He has been granted the rare honor of speaking to a joint session of Congress.

Don’t forget what Calderon said in his first inaugural address in 2007:

President Felipe Calderon blasted U.S. immigration policies on Sunday and promised to fight harder to protect the rights of Mexicans in the U.S., saying “Mexico does not end at its borders.”

“We strongly protest the unilateral measures taken by the U.S. Congress and government that have only persecuted and exacerbated the mistreatment of Mexican undocumented workers,” he said. “The insensitivity toward those who support the U.S. economy and society has only served as an impetus to reinforce the battle … for their rights.”

He also reached out to the millions of Mexicans living in the United States, many illegally, saying: “Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico.”

I hope Joe Wilson is ready to call him out if and when needed. Here’s how to do it right.

***

The U.S. Department of Blame America First
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

Back in 1984, when the late Jeane J. Kirkpatrick gave her famous “Blame America First” speech to the Republican National Convention, liberals at least waited for something bad to happen before blaming America.

Today, Obama Democrats have now mastered the treacherous art of the pre-emptive global apology. Foggy Bottom is crammed with so many “human rights” zealots embarrassed by the country they serve that the State Department mission statement should be replaced with a condolence card.

Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Michael Posner is probably not the first Obama State Department official to badmouth America in front of foreign delegations. He was just dumb enough to get caught.

Last week, the former head agitator at the transnationalist outfit Human Rights First trashed our country’s human rights record to Chinese government officials.

Posner is an unrepentant open-borders radical who has long fought immigration enforcement and vociferously opposed post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism measures to detain enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay. He was active in supporting the establishment of the International Criminal Court, an American sovereignty-undermining tribunal that would trump U.S. judicial authority over war crimes and “crimes of humanity.”

And New Yorkers may recall that he joined with Human Rights First board member Tom Goldstein, far-left billionaire George Soros and other American self-loathers in the failed effort to turn the Sept. 11 Ground Zero Memorial into a national guilt complex to showcase how George W. Bush-era counterterrorism policies were curtailing civil liberties.

In short, Posner views our homeland security policies as unforgivable sins of discrimination. And he couldn’t wait to let China know it.

From Posner’s press briefing on Friday:

Q: Did the recently passed Arizona immigration law come up? And if so, did they bring it up? Or did you bring it up?

MR. POSNER: We brought it up early and often. It was mentioned in the first session and as a troubling trend in our society, and an indication that we have to deal with issues of discrimination or potential discrimination. And these are issues very much being debated in our own society.

The Arizona law is indeed being “debated in our own society” — mostly by a parade of willful ignoramuses from Homeland Security Department Secretary Janet Napolitano to Attorney General Eric Holder to State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, who have all gone on television to attack the Arizona law and then admit they have yet to read the legislation.

At least all the know-nothings in Washington who voted to cram the health care and stimulus bills down our throats without reading them had a semblance of an excuse. Those mammoth packages were thousands of pages long. The Arizona law is a mere 10 pages.

The betrayal of America’s interests by the Obama State Department cannot be understated. Posner proactively brought up the Arizona law “early and often” as an issue of “discrimination or potential discrimination” to smear his own countrymen in front of one of the world’s leading repressive regimes — so repressive, in fact, that Posner’s own boss, Hillary Clinton, once demanded that former President Bush boycott the ChiComs over their miserable human rights record. Posner had nothing publicly to say at the briefing about China’s own draconian immigration enforcement measures, let alone how it treats its own citizen political dissidents.

But this extreme moral equivalence is par for the course. Remember: The State Department’s legal adviser is former Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh, who believes that America is such a flagrant violator of international law that it belongs in an “axis of disobedience” with totalitarian regimes like North Korea and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq — and that U.S. Supreme Court rulings should “tip more decisively toward a transnationalist jurisprudence.”

And remember: One of President Obama’s closest foreign policy advisers is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Harvard law professor and State Department transition team leader Samantha Power, who pooh-poohs the threat of nuclear Iran and praises Obama’s commitment to “crossing boundaries” and “talk[ing] to dictators,” as the New Statesman reported.

Then there’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is busy coddling another government that has been bashing Arizona’s law while unapologetically policing its own southern border and kicking out illegal immigrants without a shred of due process: Mexico.

Instead of voicing concern about endangered American citizens, Clinton fretted about the political well-being of Mexican President Felipe Calderon: “We don’t want to make his life any harder,” Clinton said. I guarantee you he won’t show any of the same concern when he comes to Washington on Thursday to beg for more U.S. aid while attacking America as a racist, fascist country.

Foggy Bottom isn’t just stuck on stupid. It’s stuck on American self-sabotage.

Actually, I phrased the title question wrong.

Question: Who the hell is Michael Posner, and why the hell is he apologizing to China?!

Answer: Michael Posner is the former head agitator at the transnationalist Human Rights First, who represents the textbook State Department mindset of pandering to the worst America-bashers without hesitation or shame. Foggy Bottom isn’t just stuck on stupid. It’s stuck on American self-sabotage.

Longtime readers of this blog will recall that Posner had a significant role in the attempted George Soros-ization of Ground Zero in 2005.

Moreover, Discover The Networks reports:

Michael Posner has been the executive director of Human Rights First since its founding in 1978. HRF describes itself as a group that “works in the United States and abroad to create a secure and humane world by advancing justice, human dignity and respect for the rule of law.” In practice, HRF is an open borders group that opposes all government efforts to control illegal immigration and strengthen American national security. Posner received his B.A. in history from the University of Michigan and his J.D. from UC Berkeley; before coming to HRF, he worked for the law firm of Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal. He has taught at Yale Law School and is a visiting Lecturer at Columbia Law School.

In September 2009, Posner became a key deputy of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s:

Michael H. Posner
Assistant Secretary
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
Term of Appointment: 09/23/2009 to present

Michael H. Posner was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor on September 23, 2009.

Prior to joining State Department, Mr. Posner was the Executive Director and then President of Human Rights First. As its Executive Director he helped the organization earn a reputation for leadership in the areas of refugee protection, advancing a rights-based approach to national security, challenging crimes against humanity, and combating discrimination. He has been a frequent public commentator on these and other issues, and has testified dozens of times before the U.S. Congress. In January 2006, Mr. Posner stepped down as Executive Director to become the President of Human Rights First, a position he held until his appointment as Assistant Secretary.

With all that background in mind, open-borders radical Posner’s trashing of Arizona’s immigration law at a meeting in China should come as no surprise. No surprise at all. The “Human Rights First” is to Blame America First. Posner has not disappointed his far Left colleagues in his new governmental position of authority.

The transcript via Lexis-Nexis:

Q Was there any areas in which China sort of turned the tables and raised its own complaints or concerns about U.S. practices around the globe or at home? Can you give some examples there –

MR. POSNER: No, that was not raised.

So: American diplomat Michael Posner, on a taxpayer-subsidized trip to Red China supposedly representing the best interests of Americans, proactively brought up the Arizona law “early and often” as an issue of “discrimination or potential discrimination” to smear his own countrymen in front of one of the world’s leading repressive regimes — so repressive, in fact, that Posner’s own boss, Hillary Clinton, once demanded that former President Bush boycott the Chicoms over their miserable human rights record.

Jay Nordlinger is rightly aghast: “Did we, the United States, talking to a government that maintains a gulag, that denies people their basic rights, that in all probability harvests organs, apologize for the newimmigration law in Arizona? Really, really?”

Yes, really.

Oh, and like Mexico (see “How Mexico Treats Illegal Aliens”), China has no qualms cracking down on illegal aliens:

For years, African traders seeking cheap goods direct from the source have flocked to Guangdong, the manufacturing province known as the “world’s factory.” For the most part, the African community in Guangzhou, Guangdong’s capital, has thrived. Markets are devoted to African buyers and whole neighborhoods cater to them. What was a community of a few hundred traders a decade ago now includes as many as 20,000.

But Guangzhou’s African community, China’s largest, is at a breaking point.

The country’s faltering economy is putting the squeeze on “Little Africa,” or “Chocolate City,” as locals call it. Numbers are down and business is suffering. All-important visas are being denied or granted only for the short term. Africans who allow their visas to expire — and many do — are often imprisoned and forced to pay a hefty fine.

In January, the Chinese government announced a crackdown on foreigners living illegally in Guangzhou, and, according to interviews with more than two dozen Africans working in the city, the community is facing increased persecution at the hands of police.

At the markets, talk of the crackdown is common.

“The knock on the door came very early in the morning and I knew straight away it was the police,” recalled Hugo, a 29-year-old trader from Aba City, Nigeria, who leans on a cane as he describes his most recent run-in with police.

“They’d been raiding homes and taking people away since August, so I knew they’d found me. I jammed the door shut and jumped out of the apartment window,” he said.

So when will the Soros-funded/Human Rights First mob be taking to the streets of Guangzhou with their “Stop the raids! Stop the deportations!” signs and condemning China’s immigration police in the middle of Tiananmen Square and hounding Chinese President Hu Juntao at his next public appearance as the new Hitler?

Oh, wait. They can’t do that, can they, Mr. Posner?

President O-bow-ma?

Anyone?

Like the Tea Party sign says:

Authorities in Iran intensified their drive to snuff out the opposition movement overnight by arresting the relatives of prominent activists, including the sister of the Nobel laureate and human rights campaigner Shirin Ebadi.

The arrests came as the Iranian foreign ministry summoned the British ambassador in Tehran, Simon Gass, to complain that western countries, including Britain, had fomented renewed protests on Sunday that left at least eight people dead.

Ebadi – winner of the 2003 Nobel peace prize – said her sister, Dr Noushin Ebadi, a lecturer in medicine at Tehran Azad university, was arrested at her home last night by four intelligence agents. She was taken to an unknown location. Shirin Ebadi, who is currently in London, said the arrest was intended to pressure her into giving up her human rights work.

“During the past two months, [my sister] has been summoned by the intelligence ministry several times and ordered to persuade me to stop my human rights activities,” Ebadi said in a statement posted on the reformist website Rah-e Sabz. “She was also ordered to vacate her home, which adjoins my apartment. She was threatened that if she failed to comply with these two demands, she would be arrested.”

The arrest coincided with the detentions of relatives of other prominent figures, including Shapour Kazemi, brother-in-law of the reformist leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Leila Tavassoli, niece of the former foreign minister Ebrahim Yazdi, who has also been detained. It was the second time Kazemi, the brother of Mousavi’s wife, Zahra Rahnavard, has been arrested since June’s disputed presidential election.

The latest detention came after Mousavi’s nephew, Ali Mousavi Khamane, was killed on Sunday in what his family allege was an assassination by security forces. At least 20 prominent figures, including journalists, have been arrested since Sunday’s clashes, which took place on the Shia holy day of Ashura.

The son of Iranian opposition figure Ebrahim Yazdi speaks out.

And the son of another leading opposition figure, Mahdi Karroubi, says his movements have been limited.

FrontPageMag: Iranians’ Cry for Freedom – by Lisa Daftari

President Obama isn’t traveling abroad to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago today.

Of course not. There’s nothing in it for his Chicago cronies.

Also: There’s nothing for America to apologize for there today.

Guess which U.S. celebrity is in Germany to mark the anniversary? David Haselhoff.

When David Haselhoff is doing a better job of representing America than its own commander-in-chief, you know you are in trouble.

Der Spiegel headline: “Barack is Too Busy.”

World leaders in attendance:

Chancellor Angela Merkel called it the “happiest day in German history.” French President Nicolas Sarkozy drove all the way from Paris to witness it, and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said it helped build trust.

World leaders are gathering in the German capital today to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago, an event that precipitated the collapse of communism across eastern Europe, the end of the Cold War and led to German reunification within less than a year.

“This day changed the lives of many people, mine included,” Merkel, who grew up in East Germany, said in a video message to the nation posted on the Chancellery Web site two days ago.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are among those who will be at the Brandenburg Gate, which once loomed over the barbed-wire barrier that divided East and West Berlin for 28 years until the night of Nov. 9, 1989.

Merkel and the representatives of the four powers that controlled Berlin from the end of World War II until then — Britain, France, the U.S. and Russia — will symbolically walk through the gate at the climax of the “Fest der Freiheit,” or Freedom Festival.

“The wall that had imprisoned half a city, half a country, half a continent, half a world for nearly a third of a century was swept away by the greatest force of all: the unbreakable spirit of men and women who dared to dream,” Brown will say in a speech tonight, according to excerpts e-mailed by his office.

Lech Walesa

The party will feature 1,000 giant dominoes made to look like Wall segments lining a 1.5 kilometer (0.9 mile) stretch of the original. Lech Walesa, leader of the Solidarity movement who went on to become Polish president, is due to topple the first domino, setting off a chain across the city.

CSM has a moving timeline of the events that led to the fall of the wall.

Thank you, Ronald Reagan:

Here’s an excellent video tribute from CEI. Watch this one with your kids:

The latest in Commie Chic: “Oba Mao” t-shirts!

Nope, not manufactured by RAAAACIST Tea Party protesters. Manufactured in China and sold by the Chinese for the rest of the Citizens of the World.

Mao-cheerleading White House communication director Anita Dunn has already put in a special order (via Breitbart TV):

***

On a related note, Bill Gertz reported last week:

President Obama recently shifted authority for approving sales to China of missile and space technology from the White House to the Commerce Department — a move critics say will loosen export controls and potentially benefit Chinese missile development.

The president issued a little-noticed “presidential determination” Sept. 29 that delegated authority for determining whether missile and space exports should be approved for China to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

Commerce officials say the shift will not cause controls to be loosened in regards to the export of missile and space technology…

…Henry Sokolski, director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said restoring Commerce Department control over the sensitive experts is a “step backward.”

“It’s as though Commerce’s mishandling of missile-tech transfers to China in the 1990s never happened,” said Mr. Sokolski, a former Pentagon proliferation specialist. “But it did. As a result, we are now facing much more accurate, reliable missiles from China.”

Mr. Sokolski said he expects the U.S. government under the new policy to again boost Chinese military modernization through “whatever renewed ‘benign’ missile technology” is approved.

“It was foolish for us to do this in the 1990s and is even more dangerous for us to do now,” he said.

More reasons why you should be worried? Read my Gary Locke archives and see also the Locke section in Culture of Corruption.

Here is your reminder of what courage, determination, and standing up for freedom look like:

Twenty years ago, a Chinese tank pummeled into student athlete Fang Zheng as he fled Tiananmen Square. He lost his legs and his livelihood as he was reduced to selling cigarettes at a street stall.

With the help of US supporters, Fang is once again on his feet through a pair of prosthetic limbs. And in his first public act, he did something he had never tried before — he asked his wife to dance.

Before an audience including members of the US Congress and exiled leaders of the Tiananmen pro-democracy protests, the 43-year-old Fang on Tuesday set aside his crutches and took his wife, Zhu Jin, by the hand.

…The effort to fit him with prosthetic legs was supported by advocacy groups including China Aid, which fights for the rights of Christians in the communist country, along with Michael Horowitz, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Terrence Sheehan, who treated him at the Adventist Rehabilitation Hospital in suburban Washington, hailed Fang for his resilience.

“Most of the folks come to me to get their prosthetics within two or three weeks or months. They don’t wait 20 years,” Sheehan said.

Chinese dissidents plan to put a video of Fang’s first dance on YouTube, hoping it will become a symbol of hope.

“This is a great moment of salvation,” said Yang Jianli, another US-based Tiananmen leader who spent another five years in prison after sneaking back into China in 2002.

“In the past 20 years, in his spirit, Fang Zheng has been standing — even without legs,” he said.

At around 12:30pm Eastern, Barack Obama will put down his ice cream cone and boldly condemn repression in Iran.

Why now?

Andrew Malcolm explains the timing:

You don’t need to be a basketball-loving president of the United States to know that if you’re trying to block opponents’ shots in your end, you sure aren’t increasing your own totals. You can’t score points on D.

So Obama’s news conference this morning Pacific time is his bid to steal the ball from his opponents and scoot down the court for his own layup. It’s a classic political reset of the play clock. At 9:30 a.m. Pacific (12:30 p.m. Eastern, 4:30 p.m. GMT), Obama will make a statement in the White House Rose Garden and then take questions.

Obama has lost some mojo in recent days on this month’s pressing issues, especially Iran’s ongoing protests and healthcare reform. Obama’s printed Saturday statement about Iran on his way out the White House door for ice cream with his daughters was insufficient media competition for the appallingly graphic video of the young woman Neda dying on a Tehran street. Some called the presidential statement ineffective and “mealy-mouthed.”

On Father’s Day, while the president played golf out of camera-sight, others were on TV declaring the U.S. must say more to support the unarmed protesters in Iran.

…Sen. John McCain’s angry Senate Neda speech Monday, also reported and analyzed here with a video, dramatically changed that equation, forcing Obama to talk today more powerfully about the power of talk.

It was just last month that Obama was forced to scramble in response to another Republican, Dick Cheney, to organize dueling speeches on homeland security.

Obama-come-lately strikes again.

“Leadership.”

***

But, of course, Obama’s Cairo speech inspired the freedom activists in Iran that he is only now speaking out for, you know.

***

Update: Obama’s press statement this afternoon was rather unemotional and obligatory-sounding. Included an odd set-up question with Huffington Post writer Nico Pitney, who has covered Iranian election extensively. Obama anticipated his question and basically telegraphed what Pitney would ask — a question solicited from Iranians communicating across the Internet.

Major Garrett at Fox News asks the obvious question: “What took you so long?”

Obama blathers.

Garrett asks if invitation to Iran to meet on July 4 is still on.

“That’s up to Iran.”

Translation: Invitation — and “path” to engagement — still open.

***

Question: Were you influenced by McCain/Graham speaking strongly on Iran?

Obama snarks: What do you think?

Reporters laugh.

Are you laughing?

***

Chuck Todd: What about consequences for Iranian repression?

O refers to Neda again: A young woman getting shot on the street as she’s getting out of her car is a “problem.”

The International Olympic Committee has ordered an investigation into mounting allegations that Chinese authorities covered up the true age of their gold-medal winning gymnastics star because she was too young to compete.

An IOC official told The Times that because of “discrepancies” that have come to light about the age of He Kexin, the host nation’s darling who won gold in both team and individual events, an official inquiry has been launched that could result in the gymnast being stripped of her medals.

The investigation was triggered as a US computer expert claimed today to have uncovered Chinese government documents that he says prove she is only 14 – making her ineligible to compete in the Olympics – rather than 16, as officials in Beijing insist is her age.

Mike Walker, a computer security expert, told The Times how he tracked down two documents that he says had been removed from a Chinese government website. The documents, he said, stated that He’s birth date was January 1 1994 – making her 14 – and not January 1 1992, which is printed in her passport…

…Giselle Davies, an IOC spokesperson, said tonight that because of troubling new developments, the committee had instructed the International Gymnastics Federation, the sport’s governing body, to investigate.

Hackers are stripping away the ChiComs’ whitewash:

Hackers have unearthed more compelling evidence that China’s dual-gold medal winning gymnast He Kexin is underaged and should have been barred from competing at the Olympics.

A US-based internet security consultant and part-time hacker calling himself “Stryde Hax” has trawled through the search results on Google, Google China and the Chinese search engine Baidu, unearthing numerous examples of cached official Excel spreadsheets showing He Kexin listed as being born on January 1, 1994…

…Stryde Hax claims to work for the US-based Intrepidus Group, a provider of information security consulting services. His findings have been meticulously laid out in his blog with links and screenshots to prove and preserve his findings.

“Much of the coverage regarding Kexin’s age has only mentioned ‘allegation’ of fraud, and the IOC has ignored the matter completely. I believe that these primary documents, issued by the Chinese state, directly available from China by clicking on the links above rise to a level of evidence higher than ‘allegations’,” he writes.

“How official are these documents? Pretty dang official – they were issued by the General Administration of Sport of China.”

Here’s the Stryde Hax blog.

***

Related: The ChiComs vs. the press.