Obama

This Seems Obvious To All But The Mindless Drones… Rep. Joe Wilson Vindicated!

tiredoflibbs12 Comments

Richard Klein says it all…..

On September 9, 2009, Joe Wilson, Congressman from South Carolina, shouted “You lie!” when President Obama was touting the benefits of his Affordable Care Act, now dubbed “Obamacare.”  Many in America were shocked that anyone would call the President of the United States a liar in such a forum as a presidential address to a joint session of Congress.

But, now, as we look back on 5 years of Barack Obama, we see that Obama and his Administration do lie.  And they lie a lot:

  • Both Eric Holder and Barack Obama stated that “Fast and Furious was a program begun in the Bush Administration”. That was a lie. The Bush Administration had, in fact, shut down any efforts to track illegal shipments of guns to Mexico because it was a dangerous and untenable undertaking.
  • Hillary Clinton, Susan Wright and Barack Obama all stated that the attack in Benghazi was caused by Islamist spontaneous reaction to an anti-Islamist video produced in the United States. We know now – and they knew then – that the attack in Benghazi was a well planned effort by well armed Islamic extremists with connections to Al Qaeda.
  • The President assured us that “….. the IRS targeting of conservative groups like the Tea Party…” was an isolated instance of rogue IRS employees in the Cincinnati office. We now know that the senior levels of the Administration (e.g., the Treasury Department General Counsel, the Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Treasury, and the Office of the White House Counsel) were acutely aware of these plans to target these conservative groups and were worried about these
  • The President and the National Director of Intelligence reassured the American people time and time again that the phone calls and emails of Americans were not being monitored and recorded as part of our intelligence programs. We know that to be false and, further, we now know that our electronic spying is international in scope and technologically sophisticated.

These are but a few of the lies that Barack Obama and his “partners in deception” have pushed upon the American people.  Presidents and Administrations have historically concealed intelligence operations and national security concerns from the American public.  But Barack Obama knows no limits to the lying that he and his Administration concoct to deceive and misdirect Americas.

Recently, the disastrous rollout of Obamacare has provided fertile fields for more lying.

  • “If you like your current insurance plan, you can keep it. Period.”
  • “If you like your current doctor, you can keep that doctor.”
  • “Your premiums will go down an average of $2500 per year.”
  • “The cost of this national healthcare program will be less than $1 trillion.”
  • “Obamacare would not cover illegal aliens.”
  • “Obamacare would not cover abortions.”

These are not just lies.  These are damn lies that the Administration knew would be such, but still foisted them on the American public to divert attention away from the truth about Obamacare and the impact it would have upon us all.

Joe Wilson was right when he said “You lie.”

To my knowledge, the only truth that Obama has ever uttered is that “He would fundamentally change America.”

And he is doing just that with lies and deceit.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/10/rep_joe_wilson_vindicated.html

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On other blogs, the drones are part of the “Cult of Personality”.  No matter what obAMATEUR (from now on will be called pResident obeyme) says or does, these drones will blindly follow him (lemmings at their best or worst).  Here are some examples from a former leftist blogger who posted on this blog regularly:

“I don’t know if the President lied (re. ACA) and I don’t care.”
“I don’t care if the President read the ACA or not.”
(there are many others but I don’t have the time or space to put them all)

Unbelievable!  These people redefine “the low information voter”.  And people wonder why the country is in the poor state that it is in.

Update: It seems I got the lefties panties in a bunch. They are now making shit up about this post making claims I never made and ASSuming that I am in the Tea Party for daring to show the lies coming from pResident obame (obey me). The excuses coming from these LIVs is astounding.

Lies 1, 2, and 3 are reinforced with facts and slams the lefts repeated talking points to the contrary for California’s Middle Class. Some will lose their coverage altogether.

I am sure this is nothing but a coincidence, nothing to see here.

Despite the facts to the contrary with more and more coming out each day, the drones are defending pResident obame (obey-me) or they don’t care if he lies or not, nor if what he says what is in ACA is accurate since he has not read it.  If his aides are briefing him on what is in obamacare then he is intentionally sticking to the campaign mode sound bites for it.  The people will not like the truth that is being revealed each day.

Update II: Well it is official, pResident obame lied… 

Obama admin. knew millions could not keep their health insurance
Wow, from NBC news no less……Once again proving the LIVs (plural for LIV – just like SUVs but the drones are desperate) have no clue. When the pResident says that “You can keep your insurance, period”, it does not mean some mandated minimum plan designed by some bureaucrat is a proper substitute.  It means you can keep the plan you have with no alterations, substitutions or restrictions.  Let’s see the spin these morons will try next.

As predicted the poor excuse-making continues. The LIVs, the Cult of Personality, have again made statements that obame did not lie.  They say the fault lies with the insurance companies for changing their policies.  As usual, they cherry-pick the facts and completely ignore that the ACA MANDATES these changes.  Obame and the Democrats had full knowledge of these changes and still tout the lie  “If you like your current insurance plan, you can keep it. Period.”

From the NBC article:
“Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC NEWS that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law.”

Once again proving that the drones are willfully ignorant (useful idiots) and are among the millions of LIVs that voted for the personality in the White House.

Update III: It is pure comedy to see the left, their fellow looters and the unthinking lemmings stumble all over themselves to cover and make excuses for pResident obame’s LIES on the ACA:

  • “If you like your current insurance plan, you can keep it. Period.”
  • “If you like your current doctor, you can keep that doctor.”
  • “Your premiums will go down an average of $2500 per year.”

Even Stenny Hoyer freely admits that the pResident and his fellow dems knew that millions would lose their coverage when the government’s MANDATED health plans went into affect.   The left is falling all over themselves to cover for the pResident, while deflecting and dodging every chance they get – forgetting what they said before and contradicting themselves in the process.  What is the LIVs supposed to do, when all they do is repeat the party line with no thought or critical thinking.

Government Shut Down We’re All Gonna DIE!!!1!!Eleventy!!1! Open Thread

Mark Noonan103 Comments

As Matt noted on Facebook, the two worst people in America are Harry Reid and Barack Obama…bringing on crisis after crisis because, quite simply, they can’t have regular order in Congress as that would result in the whole Obama-Reid project going down in flames…remember, even Democrats don’t want this nonsense (or, at least, enough of them who are under threat in 2014 don’t want this).

But as we’re all going to die due to lack of government as of October 1st, let us just relax and enjoy our last few moments…and discuss whatever comes to mind.

UPDATE:  Have you ever been to the WWII Memorial in DC?  I have.  So has Matt.  Its a beautiful, moving monument to the men and women who sacrificed so much to win the Second World War.  Its an open park.  There is no “gate”; no entrance, as it were.  It is just there and you are free to wander through it as you will.  But for some reason the Park Service put up barricades to prevent entry this morning.  Why?  I can only surmise to make us all feel bad – in other words, on orders from on high, they decided to be rat bastards and prevent people from visiting the memorial in order to punish us and so get us to blame the bad, old Republicans for Obama and Reid shutting down the government.  Well, the veterans of WWII are equal to any task – and so they just broke down the barricades and went on in, anyway.

UPDATE II: From what I’ve read, what I thought would be a day or two shutdown until the House GOP caved looks like it might go on for a couple weeks.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s still an urge to surrender in the GOP House…but also a dawning realization that surrender won’t help the country or the party.  True, there is a risk of a national backlash against us – but I believe such a risk is small.  Most of the people who are going to really hate us over this already hate us – but, meanwhile, as long as we fight those who love us, will love us even more.  Eventually there will be a resolution of some sort – but I’m willing to go for weeks on this and see what we can get.  I bet if we hold firm we do get at least a year’s delay on the individual mandate and some other reforms.  And a year’s delay on that sets up a situation where we might even get another year’s delay…and so on.  Stand firm, GOP.

UPDATE III:  Ed Morrisey over at Hot Air notes a new CBS poll taken after the shutdown started – it is rather unsurprising.  Overwhelming majority disapproves of the shutdown and more people blame the GOP than blame Obama…but the kicker on that is that during the 1995 shutdown the blame GOP/blame President breakdown was 2 to 1 in favor of the President…now its 44% blaming GOP, 35% blaming Obama, and the poll was taken before the debacle of the WWII memorial and Reid’s comments about kids with cancer made the news in a big way.   Compromise is demanded by overwhelming majorities, and so the Obama/Reid plan to automatically reject everything unless they get 100% of what they want will probably work over time to increasing disadvantage to the President and his Democrats – they are going to have to give ground (so will the GOP, but as we’re already willing to do that, its less of a sacrifice for us).

Remember, this is not 1995 – the MSM does not control things as well as they used to. The New Media is out there.  The longer this goes on, the worse this gets for Democrats.  And, of course, the Democrats know that – which is why we’re getting so much advice that its in our interest to end this as swiftly as possible by a complete surrender.  Democrats wanted the shut down because they figured it worked best for them, and so we got it – Democrats now want this ended quickly with our surrender, because they figure that works best for them.  Don’t fall for the lies.  Stand firm!

UPDATE IV:  Mark Steyn hits a point no one has yet made:

…In fact, government by “continuing resolution” is a sleazy racket: The legislative branch is supposed to legislate. Instead, they’re presented with a yea-or-nay vote on a single all-or-nothing multi-trillion-dollar band-aid stitched together behind closed doors to hold the federal leviathan together while it belches its way through to the next budget cycle. As Professor Angelo Codevilla of Boston University put it, “This turns democracy into a choice between tyranny and anarchy.” It’s certainly a perversion of responsible government: Congress has less say over specific federal expenditures than the citizens of my New Hampshire backwater do at Town Meeting over the budget for a new fence at the town dump. Pace Senator Reid, Republican proposals to allocate spending through targeted, mere multi-billion-dollar appropriations are not only not “irresponsible” but, in fact, a vast improvement over the “continuing resolution”: To modify Lord Acton, power corrupts, but continuing power corrupts continually…

A continuing resolution is essentially a blank check to the Executive to just keep doing whatever it wishes – each department is supposed to have its own appropriation so that Congress can review what the money is going to be spent on, and make changes as appears necessary.  Just continuing things is an abdication of Congressional authority – and a nullification of the Constitution in a lot of ways.  The plain fact of the matter is that the government should be shut down right now – and should stay shut down until the House and Senate agree on a series of funding bills to send to the President…and this will take negotiations between the House and Senate, and therein lies the real reason Reid and Obama don’t want it:  such negotiations would force cuts in various Democrat proposals which are unpopular with the public, but popular with the cronies of the Democrats.

UPDATE V:  Obama kicks out a 77 and 80 year old couple who have owned their house on Lake Mead for decades.  Because it sits on federal land, Obama says “get out”, and, of course, we’re all supposed to blame the Republicans because of this.  I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Lake Mead but its mostly just empty land with a big lake in the middle of it.  It has a gate, of course, and they charge you $10 a car load (which means during this splendid fall weather the government is denying itself a large amount of money in entrance fees) to get in…people do live in private homes in various parts of the Lake Mead area, and there is no risk at all in them being in their homes.  But Obama and Reid just want to be creeps, and so this happens.

We Can’t Spare Ted Cruz: He Fights

Mark Noonan19 Comments

That, of course, is a paraphrase of Lincoln’s answer to critics who demanded he fire Grant after Shilo.  You can say this, that or the other thing about Cruz (and Paul) – but the main thing is that he’s fighting.  He’s doing what the Congressional GOP has pretty much refused to do since Obama became President.  The Congressional GOP is more afraid of how the MSM will characterize opposition to Obama (racist!) than they are of the people…Cruz is putting the fear of the people in to them.  And that’s a good thing.

Obama is the very worst President this nation has ever had (hey, someone even wrote a book about it) – the only rational, patriotic course is to fight him out on every issue.  If by some means this turns against us and the people rally to Obama, then so be it…clinging on to a bit of Congressional power for one more election cycle isn’t worth it if purchased at the cost of our nation.  Fight, fight and then fight some more.  Every issue.  Every vote.  Give nothing.  Shut down the government.  Let Obama and his henchmen know that we’re opponents up and down the line.

House GOP Grows a Backbone?

Mark Noonan18 Comments

Maybe:

House Speaker John A. Boehner said Wednesday that the chamber will pass a resolution this week to continue funding the government but to deny any funds to implement President Obama’s new health care law.

“The law is a train wreck. The president has protected American big business. It’s time to protect American families from this unworkable law,” Mr. Boehner, Ohio Republican, said at a press conference Wednesday morning…

Obama, naturally, has said he’ll reject any bill which defunds ObamaCare.  This, as you might expect, has frightened the RINOs who have been told by the Democrats and the MSM that the shutdown of the government during the 1990’s destroyed the GOP for a generation…except for the fact that the GOP post-shut down managed to hold on to their House and Senate majorities and elected Bush President in 2000.  If we get “crushed” like that because we shut down the government over ObamaCare, then I’m all for it.  It looked for a long time like the House leadership would cave to RINO fears – but, I guess someone on Boehner’s staff decided to step an inch outside the Beltway and discovered (doubtless much to his surprise) that ObamaCare is hideously unpopular with the American people and especially with the GOP base.

This isn’t a gray area – it is a stark fact of life.  ObamaCare is a train wreck and everyone outside the White House and MSNBC can see it’s a train wreck.  People don’t want it.  They might not be sold on a free market solution to ObamaCare; they may, indeed, eventually opt for a very government-run health care system…but ObamaCare is a disaster that people have already seen too much of.  It has to go.  Only Obama’s pride and stupidity prevents him from just saying, “now that we’ve seen the complexities of health care reform, it is time for us to change the law in light of recent experience”.  If he did that, he’d probably wind up with 80% of what he wants…but, as I said: stupid and proud.

I’m just glad we’re fighting a bit…more drift like we’ve had the past 6 months and 2014 could end up a disaster for us.  Fight and win…and, heck, even if you fight and lose its better than “chicken out” and lose.

Obama: The Self-Parody President

Mark Noonan11 Comments

Fresh from having Putin rub salt in his diplomatic wounds, Obama will now pivot for the nth time back to the economy:

The White House is signaling it wants to shift back to the economy after two weeks in which the Syrian crisis has dominated President Obama’s schedule and workload.

Obama will be “focusing” on issues related to the economy in the coming weeks, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday at his daily briefing.

He said the president wants to push forward with economic policies that the White House believes will grow the middle class…

I do wonder – are they just joking around with us in the White House?  Was the whole purpose of Obama merely to give liberal hacks greater scope for graft – and while they’re in there, its just a matter of keeping up the appearance of governance while they loot the Treasury?  Pivot back to the economy?  Don’t we have a few, little things like ObamaCare, the debt limit and the 2014 budget to deal with at the moment?  Obama is going to pick up where he left off two weeks ago and start giving forgetting speeches about growing the middle class?  As if anyone thinks he gives a darn about the middle class?

If you wrote this as a comedy skit it would be spiked because it is too unbelievable – no President facing Obama’s problems would ever be this silly.  This stupid.  This absurd.  The United States and the world are heading down the tubes and Obama is going to start campaigning, again…has no one noticed that the election is over and he can’t be re-elected again?  Or is it just a way for his staff to keep him busy and out of trouble while they continue to steal?

January 20th, 2017 cannot come fast enough.

Oh, good grief:

White House Press Sec. Jay Carney told Fox News Channel’s Senior White House Reporter Ed Henry on Thursday that Americans appreciate President Barack Obama’s shifting approach to the Syrian crisis. He said that the American people “appreciate a president” who “doesn’t celebrate decisiveness for decisiveness’ sake.”

I’m sure of it now – they are just playing with us; seeing how long they can keep up the joke.  Oh, to be sure, they’re mostly playing with the MSM…the people who get leg tingles when they think of Obama.  Back in the Oval Office, it goes like this:

Carney:  So, Mr. President, we’ve kinda topped off on the level of absurdity.  I don’t know if we can push it any further – eventually, even those pinheads will have to figure it out.

President:  Look, I’ve got a bet with Biden on this one.  And, remember, he’s the guy who got the MSM to give him a pass on claiming that we and the French kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon…

Carney:  (laughs).

President: …so you’re going to march out there and say the most ridiculous thing possible and make them swallow it!

Carney:  But, what?

President:  I got it – tell them I’m to be lauded for deliberately being indecisive!  Tell them that its a positive virtue that I dickered around on Syria.  That but for my brilliant indecision, all would have gone to heck in a hand basket.  Better than Horatius at the bridge, I dithered until our enemies retreated in confusion!

Carney:  No way, you’re not getting me out there to say that.  I have a shred of self-respect left, sir.

President:  Oh, really Mr. “Obama welcomes the debate over the NSA”?

Democrats Who Are for Action in Syria Don’t Want the pResident Humiliated

tiredoflibbs20 Comments

Dem Congresswoman: Only Reason I’d Vote for Syria Attack Is Loyalty to Obama

It goes to show that Democrats can’t think for themselves and their actions are a result of partisanship.

HOLMES NORTON: So I think he’ll be in real trouble if he then does it anyway. No president has done that.

PRESS: It’s not an easy decision for any of you, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton.

HOLMES NORTON: Oh, and I’d like to say, Bill, that if he gets saved at all, I think it’ll be because, it’ll be because of loyalty of Democrats. They just don’t want to see him shamed and humiliated on the national stage.

PRESS: Yeah, right.

HOLMES NORTON: At the, at the moment, that’s the only reason I would vote for it if I could vote on it.

Wow, she has said it all.  It is a shame that a pResident who claimed to “restore our world image” is an utter failure at that as well.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan

You want to know just how we got ourselves in to this mess?  Where, here’s the level of stupidity in the Obama Administration:

…Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, hoped that a team of UN investigators — many of whom, presumably, have a longstanding relationship with Iranian leaders — could write a report that would convince Iran to abandon its ally at the behest of the United States.

“We worked with the UN to create a group of inspectors and then worked for more than six months to get them access to the country on the logic that perhaps the presence of an investigative team in the country might deter future attacks,” Power said at the Center for American Progress as she made the case for intervening in Syria.

“Or, if not, at a minimum, we thought perhaps a shared evidentiary base could convince Russia or Iran — itself a victim of Saddam Hussein’s monstrous chemical weapons attacks in 1987-1988 — to cast loose a regime that was gassing it’s people,” she said…

So, here goes the “thinking” – if we can just get the Iranians to see that Assad is a bad guy, they’ll get on board with us against him!  Genius, I tell ya!  Just where to heck to we get such idiots?  Well, Tom Elia on his Facebook page details it:

Yale undergrad; journalist; Harvard Law School; Pulitzer Prize winner (non-fiction book); professor, Kennedy School; diplomat.

We get it from the Ruling Class – the privileged elite who are supposedly just oh, so well educated and oh, so much smarter than us knuckle-dragging teabaggers.  That’s where we get it from.  Ms. Powers, a little clue for ya from the dummies:  people who hang people for being gay and stone women to death because they were raped are unlikely to have an attack of conscience over gassing people.  Its just not that likely, ya see?  In fact, people who do that sort of thing might even be in favor of gassing people…I know, shocking; but there it is.  Some people are just like that.

Update:

Now anti-war Hollywood chimes in with the most unintelligent reason for not opposing action in Syria:

Ed Asner: “They don’t want to feel Anti-Black”

Wow.  Now I have heard it all.  I am 100% positive if the President was a African-American Republican, Hollywood would have no problem “feeling Anti-Black” in that case.  Again according to the left, if you criticize the pResident you are a racist…. a bigot…. a hater.

UPDATE III, by Mark Noonan:

In between bouts of blaming Bush, I guess someone over at Team Obama realized that Team Bush could at least drum up and sustain support for war – even when things got really rough.  And, so, Team Obama sent some former Bush people to lobby House GOPers:

Top Bush administration officials have mobilized to sway a skeptical Republican party to authorize military intervention in Syria. As National Review Online reported, former national security adviser Stephen Hadley and former undersecretary of defense for policy Eric Edelman this week led a briefing on Capitol Hill for Republican legislative directors and chiefs of staff…

…Their argument: If you hope to have a negotiated settlement with Iran, they only way you are going to get there is if the Iranians actually believe the use of force lies behind America’s efforts to negotiate. Hamstringing the president’s effort to use force against Syria now will “absolutely cripple and destroy” the chance to reach a diplomatic settlement with Iran…

The idea is that if we fail to sustain Obama on Syria, then when he does go to talk to the Iranians about their nuclear program, the Iranians will know in advance that there is no credible threat of US action if Iran refuses to forgo nuclear weapons.  Its a nice theory, but it is based upon a premise that to this moment Iran believes that we’ll do something about their nuclear program.  If they do, then they are too stupid to figure out how to build an atomic bomb…or even a firecracker, for that matter.

Obama’s credibility will not be destroyed by failure to sustain him on Syria – Obama’s credibility has been destroyed for ages.  If the Assad government did use chemical weapons it is because they were convinced that no great punishment would be meted out if they did.  And, they’re right – even if we sustain Obama, he’s just going to lob a few missiles in to Syria.  Twenty or thirty more large explosions added to the scores of large explosions happening there every day.  Not exactly the sort of thing to convince a bloodthirsty dictator fighting for his life that he’s in trouble.  No war in Syria – not now; not while Obama is President.

Obama Tosses Syria Ball to Congress – Congress Should Vote it Down

Mark Noonan24 Comments

Obama found out this last week that just setting a foreign policy isn’t the same as carrying it out.  Obama long ago said that use of chemical weapons by Syria would be a “red line” – and then he did precisely nothing to garner domestic and international support for a course of action should Syria cross that red line.  When it became alleged that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons (something I’m not at all convinced about – though, of course, the rat bastards who govern Syria are fully capable of such savagery), Obama found himself all alone.  After blustering a bit about how we can go it alone and he doesn’t need Congressional authorization, Obama backed down – and passed the buck to Congress.

On the left this is being lauded as a brilliant move – it puts the onus, so it is claimed, on Congress.  The idea is that Congress must authorize action – thus getting Obama off the hook for taking an ill-advised action – or bear the blame for refusing to act while Syria’s government murders children with poison gas (amazing how our liberals will still say its all “for the children” while they continue to back abortion which kills millions of children).  In the liberal mind, either way this works out for Obama – we’ll either get the military action and Obama is a hero, or the Congress will look like heartless bastards, and the Democrats will put full blame on the GOP for being the leading heartless bastards. I don’t see it that way.

What Obama is asking for is permission to pointlessly lob a few missiles at sites which will be long-since cleared out of valuable targets by the time we act.  Such strikes will not alter the course of the Syrian civil war, they will not stop the Syrian government from using chemical weapons and, indeed, will probably encourage further use (nothing encourages aggressors more than a weak response to aggression) and such strikes will do nothing to convince the world that America is a power to be feared.  I’d rather take the alleged heat for being a heartless bastard for not acting than bear the odium of participating in a perfectly useless action.  The Congressional GOP should vote this down.

If we vote for anything it should be an act which instructs the President to seek an international coalition for dealing with the Syrian crisis with a mind towards thwarting Iranian and al-Qaeda aims in Syria.  In short, pass a resolution which calls for a rational foreign policy.  In this resolution should be a general authority to use force in defense of the United States and our allies.  Throw the ball right back in Obama’s court – he’s the one who made this foreign policy failure, and he should be stuck with trying to clean it up.

UPDATE:  The case for war is made here – astonishingly at First Things, usually a place where first-rate thinking is displayed.  You can read it, if you like, but the nutshell is that we’d better get a-killing Syrians lest President Obama be shown to be completely ineffectual.  Heretofore, I had always rated The War of Jenkin’s Ear to be the most misbegotten war in human history, but this would displace it:  we’re to go to war to make the world safe for poltroonery.  Because Obama is afraid to lead and at his wit’s end (its a short walk, under the best of circumstances), we’re to send our best and bravest out to kill Syrians in an effort which is to be geared merely to avoid global mockery of Obama.

Sorry, ain’t buying – a great power can survive idiots being in charge, but we can’t survive going to war to cover up for an idiot.

ObamaCare Train Wreck Update

Mark Noonan12 Comments

Three bits of ObamaCare news today:

Half of all ObamaCare statutory deadlines have been missed.

Forever 21 is cutting the hours of some of their employees to 29.5 per week to avoid ObamaCare mandates.  These people were advised yesterday, August 18th, that their health benefits will terminate as of August 31st.

More than 100,000 New Jersey residents in a program for low-cost health insurance will lose their coverage because their plan doesn’t cover all the whistles and bells mandated by ObamaCare.  They’ll be lucky if their replacement plans only cost twice as much.

Did you vote for Obama?  Then be ashamed.  This is just a horrible thing…and it is horrible because Obama and leading Democrats cobbled together a pile of legislation and passed it without reading it or thinking through the consequences.

McCain’s Folly

Mark Noonan1 Comment

From PJ Media:

In the eyes of tens of millions of Egyptians, Senators John McCain’s and Lindsey Graham’s recent words and deeds in Egypt — which have the “blessing” of President Obama — have unequivocally proven that U.S. leadership is aligning with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egyptian media is awash with stories of the growing anger regarding this policy…

…What did McCain do and say in Egypt to earn the ire of millions of Egyptians?

Most offensive to Egyptians — and helpful to the Brotherhood’s cause — is McCain’s insistence on calling the June 30 revolution a “military coup.” In reality, the revolution consisted of perhaps thirty million Egyptians taking to the streets to oust the Brotherhood. McCain is either deliberately misconstruing the event, or believes the story as told by Al Jazeera and Ambassador Anne Patterson. In this narrative, at least an equal amount of Egyptians did support Morsi, and the military simply overthrew him against popular will. Al Jazeera has actually broadcast images of the millions of anti-Morsi protesters and identified them as pro-Morsi protesters, disinformation which was quickly adopted by Western media…

I don’t know what is motivating McCain – lingering belief that “politics ends at the water’s edge” might be it…though you’d figure a man who spent years in the Hanoi Hilton and ended up a veteran of a lost war would understand that its been many decades since the American left (now led by Obama) believed that politics ends at the waters edge.  Continued ire at Rand Paul’s brand of foreign policy – which is considered by McCain to be a replay of the pre-WWII isolationism – is probably playing a role.  And, of course, there is McCain’s desire to shine in the Ruling Class – to be the “Maverick”, which in liberalese is “Republican who will do our bidding”; to be written up in glowing terms in the MSM; to be interviewed by sympathetic MSMers on TV who will give him a chance to take a swipe at fellow Republicans.  But whatever the motivation, it is complete folly.

It is, of course, secondary to Obama’s folly – but that we take as a given until January 20, 2017.  For Republicans the problem is that with McCain and others out there giving cover to Obama, it becomes harder for us to both distance ourselves from Obama’s failures and, more importantly, to craft the radically new approach to foreign policy which is necessary because of Obama’s follies and the rapidly changing conditions around the world.  This isn’t the Cold War (and yet Obama still negotiates arms control agreements with Russia as if it still were); this isn’t even the post-Cold War (a brief moment in time between 1989 and 2001 when we could have re-ordered the world to our heart’s content, but didn’t).  This is a new era – a new ear of international anarchy resultant upon the end of America’s complete predominance.  We are still, by very far, the most powerful nation in the world (any nation  going to war with us – absent Obama as President – would be committing national suicide) but we are no longer able to act as we wish and when we wish and we are confronted with the challenges of Islamism and rising Chinese imperialism.  These elements have the makings in them of World War Three and we need to craft policies which will head that off…or, if that can’t be done, ensure we are in the best possibly position to win the war.  Obama’s policies are working, blindly, towards such a war while at the same time putting us in an ever worse position…McCain coming along and giving Obama cover on this is disastrous.

My view about Egypt is slightly hopeful – I fully understand that a lot of the anti-Muslim Brotherhood people are really just the Even More Muslim Muslim Brotherhood types…people who make the MB look tame by comparison.  But, still slightly hopeful – the last thing we need right now is a policy where we blunder about in Egypt while the people there are working out their destiny.  Quiet support for genuinely secular parties in Egypt, silence on actual political developments, a curtailment of US military aid (though not a complete cut-off…we want to make certain the troops remain paid so that they are less likely to revolt; mostly, stop sending them planes, tanks and other sorts of weapons) and watch developments.  We’ll soon know who winds up on top in Egypt – and if we had played our cards right, we might even have started with good will from an anti-Islamist Egyptian government.  Now we’ve just pissed everyone off..the MB for not firmly backing Morsi; the More Muslim Muslim Brotherhood because they are just creeps; the democratic forces because we are undermining them.

No Republican should have anything to say about Obama foreign policy except criticism – because it is stupid and destructive policy.  But we should hardly spend much time on that – we should spend most of our time thinking about what really needs to be done and then arguing for the changes we want.  It is a pity that McCain has decided to cap his political career – I believe it unlikely he’ll run again – by doing one, last disservice to his nation.  Better to stay home and be silent, Senator McCain, then to bookend a hero’s life with the story of how he helped Obama ruin things.

Is Going Golfing the Normal Response to a Pending Enemy Attack?

Mark Noonan65 Comments

Ok, so just after we learn the NSA is spying on us, that the Benghazi scandal is worse than we thought and that the IRS scandal is right outside the Oval Office door, we get this story that al-Qaeda is about to launch the biggest attack since 9/11…politicians and talking heads are everywhere saying the threat is specific and credible and so specific that we have to close 21 embassies and consulates for a week…so, “specific” means we’ve narrowed the attack down to 21 possible targets over a 7 day period?  Meanwhile, Obama goes golfing and appears on Leno – just the sort of thing you’d expect from a leader who has specific and credible evidence on an impending enemy attack.

With this Administration, our default position has to be that they are lying unless proven otherwise – right now, I see no actual evidence of any particular pending attack (though, of course, the enemy is out there, getting stronger and does want to attack us) which justifies the story that we’re about to be hit 9/11-style and so 21 facilities have to be closed.  Leaving aside the fact that if this is true then the Administration is leaking operational intelligence (you don’t tell your enemy who is about to attack that you are in on the secret – you lay your plans to thwart and counter-attack and then hit him when he’s not expecting it), this whole thing seems to be cooked up (perhaps out of general intelligence which is likely always out there of possible terrorist attacks) to (a) deflect attention from scandals; (b) make it look like the NSA spying program is vital; (c) make Obama – who’s foreign policy is in shambles – appear that he’s on top of things.

The world watches and laughs at the vaunted United States of America…run by fools, crumbling in power and wealth and unable to influence the course of events.