Tag Archives: European Parliament

Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan admits he was wrong to support Obama

Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan

You all remember Daniel Hannan, who chastised the Labor Party for spending the UK into oblivion, right?

Here’s a refresher:

Here are more videos dealing with the aftermath of that rant.

But yeah, like the title of the post says, he supported Obama in 2008.

Well not any more. Check out the latest from the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

The credit crunch occurred during the dying days of the Bush administration, and it was the 43rd president who began the baleful policy of bail-outs and pork-barrel stimulus packages. But it was Obama who massively extended that policy against united Republican opposition. It was he who chose, in defiance of public opinion, to establish a state-run healthcare system. It was he who presumed to tell private sector employees what they could earn, he who adopted the asinine cap-and-trade rules, and he who re-federalised social security, thereby reversing the single most beneficial reform of the Clinton years.These errors are not random. They amount to a comprehensive strategy of Europeanisation: Euro-carbon taxes, Euro-disarmament, Euro-healthcare, Euro-welfare, Euro-spending levels, Euro-tax levels and, inevitably, Euro-unemployment levels. Any American reader who wants to know where Obamification will lead should spend a week with me in the European Parliament. I’m working in your future and, believe me, you won’t like it.

But it’s not just domestic policy that infuriates him, it’s foreign policy:

All these things are minor irritants compared to the way the Obama administration is backing Peronist Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands – or, as Obama’s people call them, “the Malvinas”. British troops were the only sizeable contingent to support the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have fought alongside America in most of the conflicts of the past hundred years. Yet, when the chips are down, Obama lines up with Hugo Chávez and Daniel Ortega against us.

Not that we should feel singled out. The Obama administration has scorned America’s other established friends. It has betrayed Poland and the Czech Republic, whose Atlanticist governments had agreed to accept the American missile defence system at immense political cost, only to find the project cancelled. It has alienated Israel and India. It has even managed to fall out with Canada over its “Buy American” rules and its decision to drill in disputed Arctic waters. Never has there been a worse time to be a US ally.

Indeed. Not only are we the economic laughingstock of the world, following quickly along in the footsteps of Greece, but we are despise by our former allies and our emboldened enemies, alike.

Germany leans to the right as Angela Merkel sweeps election

Story from the Globe and Mail. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

The collapse of Europe’s left-leaning political consensus continued Sunday night as Germany’s Social Democrats ended 11 years in coalition governments with a crushing defeat at the hands of a conservative coalition that re-elected Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The vote makes Ms. Merkel the latest in a succession of conservative leaders to win strong support in formerly centre-left countries. Her conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) have governed Germany since 2005 in an awkward power-sharing coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD).

But last night’s vote allows her to form a broadly right-wing government with the libertarian Free Democrats (FDP), who campaigned on a tax-cutting platform.

[…]The risk is palpable. Similar centre-left parties in Italy and France have been driven to near-extinction by conservative votes in recent years, and European parliament elections this year saw nearly every country support a majority of centre-right candidates.

As if to drive the point home, last night also saw Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, a stalwart of the moderate left, lose his parliamentary majority in a humiliating vote.

Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy are hawks on foreign policy. But what about Obama? Does he understand the dangerous world we live in, or is his mind still stuck in the ivory tower?

The Washington Times reports: (H/T Hot Air)

The military general credited for capturing Saddam Hussein and killing the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq says he has only spoken to President Obama once since taking command of Afghanistan.

“I’ve talked to the president, since I’ve been here, once on a VTC ,” General Stanley McChrystal told CBS reporter David Martin in a television interview that aired Sunday.

“You’ve talked to him once in 70 days?” Mr. Martin followed up.

“That is correct,” the general replied.

Maybe he should spend less time meeting with dictators, and more time with his own generals?

MUST-SEE: Conservative British MEP Daniel Hannan trashes Obamacare

You remember Daniel Hannan, don’t you? Well he’s done some interviews this week.

Here he is explaining Britain’s government-run health care system (the NHS) to Glenn Beck. (H/T Moonbattery)

And here he is on Sean Hannity:

Previous videos featuring Daniel Hannan

On Glenn Beck: (March 25, 2009)

On Sean Hannity: (March 27, 2009)

Here was the rant that made him famous, where he spoke the turth to the leftist Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

This guy is not even a real conservative – he backed Obama in the 2008 election! But at least he understands small government and free market capitalism.

Why do we have to make the same mistakes that all the European countries made decades ago?