Blogs For Victory

Is Obama an idiot?

…the flip side is I think that the United States and the West generally, we have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam. And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslims Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.

We have 57 States and we’re one of the largest Moslem nations in the world…this from the supposed genius known as Barack Obama. Ok, I’ve played along for a while now, but I don’t want to play anymore – I want to know if Obama is just a moron who can read a speech well off the teleprompter. I want him given an IQ test, in public. I want to quiz him, personally, on some of the basic facts of history. I don’t trust this guy to know poop from shinola, anymore.

This certainly would be a rather large man-caused catastrophe:

U.S. counterterrorism officials have authenticated a video by an al Qaeda recruiter threatening to smuggle a biological weapon into the United States via tunnels under the Mexico border, the latest sign of the terrorist group’s determination to stage another mass-casualty attack on the U.S. homeland.

The video aired earlier this year as a recruitment tool makes clear that al Qaeda is looking to exploit weaknesses in U.S. border security and also is willing to ally itself with white militia groups or other anti-government entities interested in carrying out an attack inside the United States, according to counterterrorism officials interviewed by The Washington Times.

The officials, who spoke only on the condition they not be named because of the sensitive nature of their work, stressed that there is no credible information that al Qaeda has acquired the capabilities to carry out a mass biological attack although its members have clearly sought the expertise.

We’ve got AG Holder telling Georgia they can’t ensure voters are citizens, we’ve got a Secretary of Homeland Security who take a weak view of border security, and we’ve got a President who insists that making nice-nice will cause our enemies to give up the fight. Meanwhile, Mexican drug cartels daily send massive amounts of human and material contraband through our southern border. Anyone want to take bets on the chances these cartels will refuse to work with terrorists? Anyone want to take bets that American white supremacist groups won’t work with their fellow anti-Semites from al-Qaeda? Essentially, we’re back to 9/10 and we’re opening ourselves wide to another mass casualty terrorist attack. As long as we go down this road it isn’t a matter of if we’ll be hit, but when.

In the end, what we may end up doing is bringing the “overseas contingency operations” home. The murder of Private William Long might be a mere precursor to larger and bloodier deeds – and it will be unless Obama acts decisively to get his head out of the sand.

Aren’t you glad the stimulus worked?

U.S. private employers chopped more than half a million jobs in May, signaling job conditions remain tough and dashing some hopes the economy was not deteriorating as rapidly as thought, a report on Wednesday showed.

U.S. companies axed 532,000 jobs last month, though this was fewer than the revised 545,000 jobs lost in April, according to the ADP National Employment Report.

The April figure was originally a decline of 491,000.

The median forecast of economists surveyed by Reuters for the ADP Employer Services report, jointly developed with Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, was for a loss of 520,000 private-sector jobs in May.

Obama said the stimulus would prevent the unemployment rate from going over 8 percent. It hit 8.9% according to the last jobs report… So, once again, we spent a whole lot of money that did a whole lot of nothing… But hey, don’t blame me… I voted for McCain.

Nicholas Guariglia thinks so:

Things on the Korean peninsula are heating up by the hour. This latest round of nuclear and missile tests should come as no surprise, given President Obama’s non-response to North Korea’s missile provocations several weeks ago. This time, however, Pyongyang detonated a 20-kiloton device — the ground shook 130 miles away — which is an estimated 20 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb North Korea tested in 2006.

Predictably, the international community bemoaned with platitudinous reprimands — Obama: “gravely concerned”; the United Nations: “deeply worried” — and even more predictably, North Korea responded by threatening war against South Korea, disavowing the 1953 armistice, and swearing to continue production of nuclear weapons. Surprise, surprise…

…Having spent way more time in “diplomacy school” than anyone’s mental health should allow, I can personally attest: active diplomats, retired diplomats-turned-professors, and aspiring would-be diplomats refuse to recognize that some things in this world fall outside of their professional purview. Could we imagine any other profession — say, anesthesiology or lumberjacking — making that same bold claim about itself?

Kim has made a mockery of our diplomacy with him for nearly two decades. He soaked President Clinton for all he was worth, clicking champagne glasses with Madeleine Albright all the while perfecting the art of plutonium production. During the Bush administration, Kim reneged on every preliminary agreement before the preliminary agreement could get its trousers off. And now he’s manhandling Mr. Obama to the point of embarrassment…

…Enough is enough. Kim Jong Il has proven he will stop at nothing to produce and proliferate nuclear weapons, and that is a no-no. Diplomacy has failed. Talking for the sake of talking is not working. Serious powers ought to be emphasizing results, not process. “Soft power” is a problem cured by Cialis — not a national security strategy for North Korea. It’s time we started working to bring that twisted, Lilliputian, Chia Pet miscreant down.

Within the linked article are suggestions on ways and means of bringing Kim down – including allowing Japan to build nuclear weapons, a course of action which does not commend itself to me (call me paranoid, but I like a rich, powerful Japan which lacks nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers…just makes certain there’s no desire in Tokyo for a re-match). My view is that Kim’s regime is moribund already and we don’t need to push it to extinction – it totters that way, already. With Kim’s apparent selection of his youngest son as successor, we see the opportunity for a change…will the third Kim be able to exercise the ruthless power necessary to keep a starving population under subjection? I’m betting he won’t be able to do it – the sort of sick inhumanity required to maintain a Stalinist regime is very hard to transmit from one generation to another, and I’m figuring it can’t be done to a third generation in North Korea.

While I don’t expect the NK regime to collapse immediately upon the elder Kim’s demise, I do believe that the NK leadership will take stock and try to figure out a way to feather their nests, and then allow the regime to fall. It will be a complicated dance which will require the cooperation of China (and, likely, a complete US withdrawal from Korea), but the thing can be managed – once the elder Kim is dead. We hope, of course, that Kim will be sent for final judgment in a short span of time – but that might still be years away. Meanwhile, our job is to ensure against NK exporting nuclear capability or thinking that it can blackmail us with nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

This does call for diplomacy – but not the way Obama and Co view diplomacy. Diplomacy isn’t just talking and making nice. At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Russia and England were at loggerheads and war was imminent. England had various demands which Russia had to accept or war would result. Russia was thinking that England was bluffing. The German Chancellor, Bismarck, wanted to find out if England really was – and so Bismarck went to meet with the British Prime Minister – Benjamin Disraeli – and talked and talked for hours…just relentlessly pressing Disraeli to come clean and admit that it was all a bluff, that England wouldn’t go to war…over and over again, Disraeli carefully and patiently kept re-stating the British position – Russia backs down, or there will be war. After a long while, Bismarck was 100% convinced that England wasn’t bluffing and advised the Russians – who couldn’t sustain a war against Britian – to back down. Peace secured – but only at the forthright and stout assurance that if one side didn’t back down, there would be war. We must tell NK to back down, at the threat of war, and make China understand that we are serious – NK gives up the nukes, or we fight. Once China is convinced we are deadly serious, they’ll get NK to cool it. End of crisis – and then we just wait for Kim to kick the bucket.

We’ll find out swiftly if Obama has any real sense of diplomacy – or whether he’s just another Chamberlain who thinks you can shake hands with barbarians and get them to love you.

As we all need a bit of repairs to our souls and courage in adversity:

O my God, in thee I trust, let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me.

Yea, let none that wait for thee be put to shame; let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

Make me to know thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths. Lead me in thy truth, and teach me, for thou art the God of my salvation; for thee I wait all the day long.

Be mindful of thy mercy, O LORD, and of thy steadfast love, for they have been from of old.

Remember not the sins of my youth, or my transgressions; according to thy steadfast love remember me, for thy goodness’ sake, O LORD!

Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the way.He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way. – Psalm 25:2-9

Not in Cairo:

…I now propose to Obama in good faith: change the venue to New Delhi. After all, India’s Muslim population is the world’s third-largest at 158 million, just under Pakistan’s 175 million and Indonesia’s 200 million. Speaking from an Indian podium, Obama could say something like this:

I have come hear to address the Muslims of the world on Indian soil to emphasize that there is life after the end of Islam’s status as a state religion. As a minority, Indian Muslims have had to maintain their communal life without a link between mosque and state, and by and large they have succeeded. It has not been easy. On occasion Indian Muslims have been provoked to violence against their more numerous Hindu neighbors, as in the state of Gujarat in 2002, and the Hindu response was horrendous. India’s Muslims have learned that extremists in their ranks will call vengeance down upon their communities. They demonstrated sagacity in their refusal to bury in consecrated ground the Muslim terrorists killed last year in Mumbai.

Muslims around the world should look to India as an example of moderation and co-existence. Whether they like it or not, Muslims will remain a minority in the world, a minority that cannot defend itself against the superior technology and military culture of other countries. Its legitimate aspirations must lead it to moderation and compromise. The alternative could be quite nasty.

That sort of speech would get the undivided attention of the Muslim world. Anything else will lend credibility to the Islamists and foster triumphalism.

Obama believes that the “Moslem World” (so-called) will change its tune on the theory that the “Moslem World” was mad at us because of President Bush and other heinous American crimes. Obama is being taught that his belief is wrong – thus far, however, Obama hasn’t picked up the clues (you know, like Iran going bonkers with nuclear programs and the Palestinians assuming Obama will help turn out the current Israeli government), but if Obama were to change the venue and see the reaction, he’d understand.

He’d get a good reaction among our friends among the Moslems – ie, those who have bled along side us in Iraq and Afghanistan – while he’d get a bad reaction from just the sort of people who think he’s a patsy…the Islamo-fascist terrorist we’ve been fighting against for years now…in a war, not in an “overseas contingency operation”. Let us hope that Obama finally opens his eyes.

Otherwise known as Obama’s program to have government run GM:

Only 21% of voters nationwide support a plan for the government to bail out General Motors as part of a structured bankruptcy plan to keep the troubled auto giant in business.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 67% are opposed to a plan that would provide GM with $50 billion in funding and give the government a 70% ownership interest in the company.

Even when presented with the stark choice between providing government funding or letting GM go out of business, only 32% of voters support the bailout. Most voters (56%) say it would be better to let GM go out of business.

All we’re doing is providing sinecures for liberal Democrats and keeping afloat that huge source of Democrat funding and support, the United Auto Workers. Obama’s plan isn’t just one of those mistaken things, it’s downright stupid. For America, that is. For Democrats, it will work out pretty well – they’ll be able to insert surplus liberals into the GM corporate structure while at the same time ensuring a continuing flow of political donations. The only people getting screwed in this are the American people – and we know what Democrats think of them (hint: they think that those Americans who return from war should be considered potential terrorists).

I love my Chevy Malibu, but I won’t buy another GM vehicle as long as I live – just can’t trust that any money I spend on GM products won’t merely be used to support politicians I oppose.

Nevada’s other Senator – the good one – John Ensign is showing up in Iowa:

As the Des Moines Register pointed out, it barely mattered that Sen. John Ensign (R., Nev.), visiting Iowa yesterday, said flatly, “I’m not running for president in 2012.” It barely mattered that he failed to contact or meet with the state GOP chairman. His appearance in Iowa nonetheless set off a wave of 2012 speculation.

If Ensign is indeed running-by-not-running (which is not unprecedented — Barack Obama did the same thing beginning in November 2004), then he needs to show his face early on in Iowa.

“I think he’s doing the right thing,” says Matt Leonardo, an Iowa campaigner from last year, of Ensign’s (R., Nev.) trip to the heartland. Leonardo’s firm, Revolution Media Group, hasn’t taken a side yet for 2012, but he says that his 2008 client, Fred Thompson, learned the hard way what Ensign (perhaps), Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R), and other early Iowa visitors seem to grasp.

“You have to be there, to make the positive connection,” he said. “You can’t just drop in around election time with a huge media campaign. People in Iowa expect you to meet them, to shake their hands.”

Senator Ensign is a good man and has ably represented the people of Nevada in the United States Senate, but I don’t know of any grand theme he would have for a Presidential run – other than not being part of the power structure in the public mind, which might be the whole point. After all, I know of at least one other guy who is planning a political campaign partially on the theme of not being one of “them” who have screwed up the whole country. We’ll have to see where this leads.

As the pro-abortion fanatics attempt to use the murder of Tiller to label the Culture of Life “terrorist”, it is good to remind one and all what we’re fighting against – its not just abortion, but the whole Culture of Death:

Lionel Roosemont told his story at the Second International Symposium on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, held May 29-30…

…Roosemont says he came face-to-face with the euthanasia culture in Belgium upon learning that his unborn daughter Tikvah, now 13 years old, would suffer severe disabilities related to hydrocephalus. Encouraged to abort Tikvah, Roosemont says he and his wife Renate decided to “swim against the current,” and gave birth to their daughter.

Despite lacking most of her brain, the girl proved capable of movement, sight, and hearing, contrary to her doctors’ dire forecasts. Though harrowed by the fight to preserve Tikvah’s life from ending in abortion, said Roosemont, “it was some of the training we needed to [fight] the equally horrible monster called euthanasia.”

In 2002, Belgium passed a law allowing euthanasia as requested by a patient under “constant and unbearable physical or psychological pain” who has issued written consent. A third doctor’s opinion must be sought if the illness is not terminal, and a one-month waiting period is mandatory for patients suffering from depression.

Roosemont described the prejudice Tikvah received in a society that, he says, “changed dramatically since [the] euthanasia law was adopted.”

“Life is more and more losing its value,” said Roosemont. “Can you understand why our daughter is never left alone in a hospital?”

In an interview with LifeSiteNews.com, Roosemont insisted that the actual practice of euthanasia in Belgium disregards the “safeguards” attached to the law. “We have a huge problem with lawlessness,” he said. Roosemont claimed that the law is commonly transgressed “without there being any consequences.”…

…”The problem with us is that it’s almost become a law [to disregard the safeguards],” said Roosemont.

In his speech to the conference, Roosemont showed a video interview of one of his elder daughters describing an encounter with a teacher concerning Tikvah. Upon seeing Tikvah for the first time, the teacher said that she ought to be euthanized.

“The actual words: ‘She’s just a euthanasia child,'” Roosemont told LSN. He said he has heard the sentiment twice.

While the loose application of euthanasia restrictions is widely known among Belgians, said Roosemont, the true depth of abuse is little understood. One such abuse he claimed occurs routinely is the administration of lethal drugs at one Belgian hospital to elderly, seriously ill patients – known as the “weekend cleanup” – as described to him by a nurse who worked there.

“It is logical,” he said. “It is very logical. We live in the time of instant coffee. What that means is that nobody wants to suffer.” Most of the time, he said, elderly victims of euthanasia are not themselves suffering from great pain, but are killed at the request of family burdened with their care.

Death never takes a holiday – and once you sign on to the concept that human life is not inherently valuable regardless of its condition, you’ll eventually have a “weekend cleanup”. Or does anyone out there want to assert that if we get socialized medicine that pressure won’t be applied to ensure that end-of-life costs are kept down? Take care of the geezer for six more months, or just off her this afternoon with an overdose…and have a doctor sign the death certificate and no one will ever be the wiser…

Abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, infanticide – we’re doing all of these things, and there are those among us who are asserting that they are morally equally to someone devotedly caring for the suffering. Dr. Kevorkian and Mother Theresa are just doing it different ways, and Mother’s way is actually not the best: so goes our modern, liberal thinking.

As times grow worse and you start pondering why you have to go through them:

To the servant of God . . . every place is the right place, and every time is the right time. – St. Catherine of Siena