Obama invokes same rationale for hitting Syria as Bush used for Iraq; media quickly corrects the record

Let me direct your attention to a pair of recent articles from a leftist website that show with unusual clarity the media spin machine at work.  First is from three days ago, when Obama gave an interview to PBS:

“When you start talking about chemical weapons in a country that has the largest stockpile of chemical weapons in the world, where over time, their control over chemical weapons may erode, where they’re allied to known terrorist organizations that in the past have targeted the United States, then there is a prospect, a possibility, in which chemical weapons that can have devastating effects could be directed at us,” Obama said. “And we want to make sure that that does not happen.”

Obama told PBS he’s made no decision on Syria but promised that if military action is taken it won’t be “a repetition of, you know, Iraq, which I know a lot of people are worried about.” Instead, the president said limited strikes would essentially convince Syrian leaders not to use chemical weapons anymore.

“We send a shot across the bow saying, stop doing this, that can have a positive impact on our national security over the long term, and may have a positive impact on our national security over the long term [sic] and may have a positive impact in the sense that chemical weapons are not used again on innocent civilians,” Obama said.

The president said U.S. strikes could be the smack on the hand that keeps chemical weapons off the battlefield, and that could protect allies.

Does any of that ring any bells?  Cuz that's same argument used by...George W. Bush prior to invading Iraq.  Anyone recall the term "WMDs"?   Bush was concerned that since Saddam had demonstrably used nerve gas to kill Iraqi Kurds (google "Halabja"), if he wasn't stopped he could use gas or nuclear weapons against the West.

Ooops!  Hurry, erase, erase, erase!!  We demand a Do-over!  And sure enough, the very next day the record was...um...corrected, as follows:

Obama, meanwhile, appeared Wednesday a page [sic; "to take a page..."?] from Bush’s book, warning that letting Bashir Assad and his regime go unpunished after the chemical attacks could lead to eventual chemical attacks on Americans.

That was a half-hearted gambit. Amid wide skepticism and open hostility who remembered [sic; "from those who..."?] the Bush era warnings not to let the smoking gun come in the form of a mushroom cloud, the White House walked it back. Spokesman Josh Earnest clarified that the president meant “our critical national security interests in the region,” and “American facilities in the region” — not to a danger that chemical weapons could be used against American citizens here.

Good save, Buzzfeed!  Cuz if you hadn't "corrected" the interpretation, Obozo's clearly-stated reason for using armed force against Syria would be exactly the same as used by Bush to justify Iraq!  Which would make leftists' heads explode.  (Not really--they know that 90% of Obozo's utterances are hogwash, designed simpy to fool the Gaping American Public.)

Two hours later ABC joined the defense team, publishing an article entitled "Don't compare Iraq and Syria."

Obama administration officials have rejected comparisons between the buildup to the 2003 Iraq war and the military strikes in Syria the administration is currently contemplating.  [Wow, what a surprise.]

“What we saw in that circumstance was an administration that was searching high and low to produce evidence to justify a military invasion, an open-ended military invasion of another country, with the final goal being regime change,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest said of Iraq on Wednesday.

Earnest told reporters President Obama “has been very clear that he is not contemplating an open-ended military action,” and again drew a distinction between the two scenarios.

State Department Deputy Spokeswoman Marie Harf also rejected any comparisons between the debate over intervention in Syria and the Iraq war.

“I do not think there are any legitimate comparisons between what we were talking about in Iraq and what we’re talking about today,” Harf told reporters.  [She] said the discussion over whether intelligence showed Assad was personally tied to the chemical weapons attack and the discussions about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction are vastly different.

“Nobody needs an intelligence community assessment to know that chemical weapons were used [in Syria],” said Harf. “In Iraq, we were waiting for an intelligence community assessment to determine whether they even existed.”

She added that both the circumstances on the ground and the Obama administration’s goals, if it were to launch strikes against Syria, are in sharp contrast to the Bush administration’s intervention in Iraq.

“What the intelligence is looking at, the situation and the potential responses are of such a grossly different nature,” said Harf.  “Nobody’s talking about boots on the ground in Syria; nobody’s talking about regime change through military options.”

When challenged by reporters over whether the faulty intelligence used to justify the Iraq war has set the bar higher for justification for military action in Syria, Harf again said that the situations are not compatible.

Gosh, is anyone else beginning to sense a vague pattern here?

A week from now no one will be able to prove Obama ever said he was concerned that Syrian chemical weapons might be used on the U.S. 

Meanwhile Buzzfeed sweeps the table with the line, "Obama is stuck in the world Bush left him, playing the role of a war president."  Really?  Is Bush somehow forcing Obozo to strike Syria, thus intervening to support al-qaida fighters (i.e. Muslim extremists, the same folks who brought down the World Trade Center)?  Gee, I don't think so.

And of course what they'd *really* like to erase--but can't, due to the internet--is this:

"The President does not have the authority under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."

That was Obama in 2007.  My, how one's perspective can change in just six short years!

Spin machine begins laying the groundwork for Syria: "It's Bush's fault!"

If Obama does order U.S. forces to attack Syria--which would be merely a "shot across their bow," as Obama put it, and thus presumably not really harmful--do you know whose fault that will be?

Why, George Bush's, of course.  At least that's how the Democrat/Leftist spin machine is gearing up to spin it.

If you think I'm just being facetious, here's the condensed propaganda piece from the leftist rag Buzzfeed:

The shadows of the Iraq War loom so heavily over President Obama’s attempt [??] to attack Syria that he may not be able to pull off the sort of relatively modest intervention that has been routine for American presidents for half a century.

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad...is in some ways a better fit for the role into which Bush put Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, whose worst crimes were behind him.  Iraq War boosters invoked Saddam’s 1980s gas attacks; but Assad stands accused of gassing civilians last week.

...opponents of the Iraq War say Bush has boxed Obama into a corner.

This is such obvious propaganda that it's hard to know where to start.  First is the soothing description of any armed attack on Syria as "relatively modest."  This is reinforced by the assurance that such intervention has been "routine for American presidents for half a century."

See?  Nothing to be concerned about.

Then there's the claim that Syria's Assad regime is "in some ways a better fit" for armed intervention than Iraq's Saddam Hussein regime, since Saddam had used nerve gas on Iraqi Kurds long, long before Bush sent U.S. forces in, while Assad is accused of gassing his opponents last week. 

And all these points lead unavoidably to the writer's conclusion:  that "Bush has boxed Obama into a corner."

See?  If Obama pulls the trigger it's Bush's fault, and you can bet that if he doesn't, it'll still be Bush's fault, since "the shadows of the Iraq war loom so heavily" over him.

Gee, all this time we kept hearing that Bush was inept.  Who could have guessed that he was powerful enough to "box Obama into a corner" five years after leaving office?

This piece is the first round of a propaganda barrage, designed to provide cover for Democrats.  No matter what Obama does, the mainstream media will be able to claim it wasn't his fault.

Because no bad outcome--even if easily foreseeable and prredicted--is EVER Obama's fault.  Or the fault of liberal or Democrat policies.

Whatever happen, citizen, you are to remember that it's all Bush's fault.

DC court declares official White House visitor logs are NOT subject to Freedom of Information Act

The Freedom of Information Act was intended to allow ordinary citizens to see copies of government records that weren't officially classified.  It's pretty much worked as intended.

Ever since the Freedom of Information Act was passed, the official logs of visitors to the White House have been presumed to be just like other unclassified government records, and thus available for public examination.

Ah, but you must remember, citizen, that under the reign of Emperor Obama laws don't mean what they say.   The Emperor can change or simply ignore any laws he likes, at his sole whim.

Thus when a conservative organization learned that certain officials had visited the White House a huge number of times in a short period, right before the agency those officials chaired took some critical lawbreaking action, the organization asked for copies of the official WH visitors log.

The Obama administration told them--politely, of course--to fuck off.  So they sued in federal court.

Guess what?  Last Friday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously ruled that visitor logs for the office of the president are not "agency records" and thus are not subject to FOIA requests.

Yep.  And here you thought Obama had solemnly promised that his administration would be the “most transparent in history,” eh?  Well that's okay, Democrats:  That lofty promise helped get him elected, and that's all that matters.

You may well be wondering how the Secret Service could possibly be considered not a government agency.  Cuz, you know, for the court to rule that the logs aren't "agency records," the SS couldn't be a gummint agency, eh?

Well you'll have to ask the magnificent personages who sit on the DC court of appeals.

Oh, that's right:  YOU CAN'T.  Because you don't have "standing."  According to virtually every higher court in the U.S. NO citizen has the legal standing to sue the government to resolve ANY question--from where Obama was born to whether Obamacare is unconstitutional to whether attacking Syria without getting congressional approval is legal.

Your job, citizen, is to shut the fuck up and pay your taxes like a good serf.

"Mine will be the most transparent administration in history" joins the scores of other famous bullshit statements from Obama, like "If you like your doctor and insurance plan you can keep it," and "Your taxes won't go up one dime because of this law."  And the claim that the "individual mandate" in Obamacare is either a tax (if they need it to be) or NOT a tax but a "penalty" (if they need it to be that instead).

You Dems getting the picture yet?  Nah, probably not.  After all, you clearly subscribe to the notion that all that matters is winning.

Another interracial murder in Florida. But this time the media just yawns

Last Thursday police in Clearwater, Florida announced the arrest of 16-year-old Mychal King, for the murder of 22-year-old Jason Taylor Paul.  The victim was riding his bike home from work when he was killed.

Police said King admitted killing Paul.  The only reason King gave was that he'd had a hard day with his family and “just wanted to kill the first person he saw.”

The killer and the victim are of different races.

SEE???  SEE???  Another "white Hispanic" stalking and shooting yet another poor innocent black child!

What?  You say you didn't hear about this?  But how can that be--it was an interracial murder!  Don't those make headlines all across the country, just like when the "white Hispanic" guy shot Trayvon?

Why in the world didn't this heinous crime make national headlines?

Surely it couldn't have anything to do with the fact that the 16-year-old killer was black, and the victim white.

Of course that wouldn't fit The Narrative.

Remember, kids:  If a story doesn't fit The Narrative, the Lying Media doesn't publish it.

State bureaucrats award $400,000 to cross-dressers who were asked to go to another bar

Example number 3,859,923 of why fewer jobs are "being created" than are needed to reduce the number of unemployed:  In leftist paradise Oregon a group of male transvestites had been frequenting a particular bar every Friday for two years.  But as the group grew, the owner says he began to get complaints from his non-cross-dressing customers.  Business began to decline.

Finally the owner told the cross-dressers they were no longer welcome in his bar.

The group responded by enlisting the help of the state--specifically the "Bureau of Labor and Industries."

Two days ago the state's agents in that bureau ordered the bar owner to pay $400,000 to 11 members of the group for "mental, emotional, and physical suffering damages."  The bureaucrats also slapped the owner with an additional $5,000 "civil penalty" for violating the Oregon Equality Act.
 
When asked about the size of the "award." Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian said the it "allows [the group's members] to feel justice was done and move on in a positive way,"

Awww, isn't that sweet.

Interestingly, the state bureaucrats refused to identify the supposedly-aggrieved cross-dressers by their real names, because under the Oregon Equality Act the state makes the case for the complainants, so the latter can remain hidden.  Moreover, when the defendant sought to take depositions from the allegedly-aggrieved transvestites, the bureaucrats refused to allow it.  (In a deposition, attorneys ask witnesses--in this case including the cross-dressers--a huge range of questions, which the witness must answer under oath.)

So let's review:  The State brings the case, refuses to identify complainants by real name, refuses to allow the defendant to depose the complainants, and then acts as the jury and awards the complainants $400,000.  Is that about it?

I'd always heard that anyone accused had the right to confront the accuser in open court.  Guess that was just a myth.

Now, if you're a cross-dresser you're probably elated by this "ruling."  If you own a business it's a different story, because a $405,000 penalty is a business-killer.

The Oregon Equality Act is similar to laws in many states in giving the state the authority to impose huge penalties on individuals and businesses.  The notion that the defendant isn't allowed to depose the complainants is nowhere in the law, and I suspect it never occurred to the legislators who voted to pass it that a state bureaucrat would make such an outrageous ruling.  But of course bureaucrats always grab more power and authority unless slapped down hard by some judge.

Which almost never happens.

The effect of such rulings on job creation should be obvious:  When bureaucrats (or judges, for that matter) make "rulings" and "orders" like this--which happens almost every day--it's hard to imagine why any rational person would start a business in the U.S. today.

If you're interested in the law, the full "Order" in the case is here.  If you own a business it's a frightening document.

Democrats: "War is never the answer!" Wait...maybe it is. We'll just call it "a shot across their bow."

Who said this?

I would meet directly with Syrian leaders. We would engage in a level of aggressive personal diplomacy.... Iran and Syria would start changing their behavior if they started seeing that they had some incentives to do so, but right now the only incentive that exists is our president suggesting that if you do what we tell you, we may not blow you up.

My belief about the regional powers in the Middle East is that they don’t respond well to that kind of bluster. They haven’t in the past, there’s no reason to think they will in the future.

That would be...then-senator B.H. Obama when he was running for president in 2007. (Search the article for "acting irresponsibly.")

Now who said this?

[By attacking Syria] "we send a shot across the bow and say stop doing this, that can have a positive impact."

That would be Obama yesterday.

Short version:  2007:  president bad for using or threatening force against another nation.  2013:  Hey, it's not really force, it's just "a shot across their bow," and it's a great idea!

Liberals call contradictory statements like this "growing in office."

To liberals/Democrats/"progressives" bombing Iraq was just awful, terrible, unconscionable, unAmerican, inhumane, cruel--because it was undertaken by a Republican president.

A president, by the way, who asked for and received authorization from both congress and the U.N.  By contrast--and it's a huge contrast--a military strike against Syria is a great idea, because Barack Obama.

So far Obama hasn't asked congress for authorization to attack Syria.  But obviously he would before pulling the trigger on Syria--just as he did when he ordered the U.S. military to bomb Libya.

What?  You say Obama never asked congress to authorize that action?  But...but...but...LOOK, Miley Cyrus!!

Well at least Barack got the U.N. to pass a resolution agreeing that an attack was justified, as G.W. Bush did before ordering U.S. troops into Iraq.  Diplomacy.  Smaht diplomacy.  Very...nuanced...diplomacy.  Barack's reeeally good at that, cuz he's got John Kerry as SecState.  And he prolly asked Hillary what she thought about the idea too.

What?  You say he didn't get U.N. approval to attack Syria?

Well in that case don't worry:  He won't order the use of force.  Barry has no qualms about telling congress to fuck off, but he'd *never* go against the U.N.!  So we don't have to worry that he'll actually order U.S. forces to shoot cruise missiles into Syria.  He'd never order the use of force to overthrow another government without U.N. approval.  Cuz he's the Enlightened One.  The Lightbringer or lightworker or something equally deified.

And even if he does order our forces to bomb Syria, you liberals/Democrats will be just fine with it.  Cuz, you know, war is sometimes the answer after all.

Depends on the party affiliation of the guy who orders it, eh?

New study finds strong relationship between gun ownership and murder rate. Unfortunately for libs....

One of the pillars of liberal faith is that allowing ordinary citizens to own guns results in more murders.

Whether this is true or not doesn't seem to be a matter of much concern to liberals--they see guns as eeevil and simply refuse to consider counterarguments or examine facts on this question. 

Liberals point out that European nations generally restrict gun ownership, and have far lower murder rates than the U.S.  So gun ownership must be the problem

In that vein, a recent study examined  murder rates in European nations, and found....

Uh, wait.  This can't be right.

The study found that countries with higher gun ownership had *lower* murder rates???

Can't possibly be...right.

Example:  Russia has extremely tight restrictions on civilian ownership of guns, but has a very high murder rate.  Oh, wait--they must mean "high compared to other European nations but way lower than the gun-owning U.S."  Yeah, dat's it.  I mean, guns kill people in the U.S. at a frightening rate, right?  Just ask anyone.  Guns are the problem.  Media's been telling us that for a couple of decades now.

What??   You say Russia's murder rate is *higher than ours*?  FOUR TIMES higher??

How can this possibly be true?

Maybe Russia is an anomaly.  Let's compare other European nations.  Germany versus Luxemburg, for example.  German has widespread gun ownership, while in Luxemburg handguns are totally banned and ownership of any kind of gun is minimal.

Luxemburg had a murder rate nine times higher than Germany in 2002.

Will this study make liberals rethink their position on gun bans?

Not at all.  Because it cuts against something they've always wanted to do, and have already decided to do : to ban civilian gun ownership.

And for my liberal friends and relatives who are just certain that this story is from Faux News (oooh that is SO clever!) and that the study was done by some cow-college in a gun-lovin' state:  It was published by Harvard.

Yes, that Harvard.

Carney won't give a straight answer when a reporter asks...

Yesterday--Monday, August 26th, 2013--reporters asked White House spokesman Jay Carney about rumors that the U.S. was getting ready to use military force in Syria--an intervention apparently to help Muslim extremists overthrow Syria's government.

Carney's reaction was a masterpiece of evasion, even for him--which is saying a lot. 

The topper was when a reporter asked Carney if the president needed congressional authorization to launch a strike against Syria.  Carney responded by...evading, saying simply that the president was "consulting" with members of congress.

Ah, that makes it just fine, then.  Reporters then asked which members were consulted.  Carney responded by...can you guess?  Evading.

Lying bastards, every one of 'em.

You said members of Congress with a particular interest in this matter have been consulted. The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee -- a spokesman for him told CNN there has been no consultation," the reporter told Carney.
Carney responded, "I didn't say every -- I simpy said -- and I'm not going to go down the path of -- you know, there are quite a number of members of Congress, and even quite a number of members who have a specific interest in this matter, and I can assure you that we will consult with Congress. We have consulted with members and will continue to do that, both here from the White House and from State and other agencies as these days progress."
Carney repeated that "I'm  not going to itemize calls or individuals."
"Why not?" the reporter asked.
"Again, I  think we are consulting with members of Congress -- well, because then we could spend -- you know, there are 535 -- we could spend a lot of time with each individual --"
- See more at: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/wh-were-consulting-congress-syria-wont-name-names#sthash.gKK0KmBd.dpuf

You said members of Congress with a particular interest in this matter have been consulted. The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee -- a spokesman for him told CNN there has been no consultation," the reporter told Carney.
Carney responded, "I didn't say every -- I simpy said -- and I'm not going to go down the path of -- you know, there are quite a number of members of Congress, and even quite a number of members who have a specific interest in this matter, and I can assure you that we will consult with Congress. We have consulted with members and will continue to do that, both here from the White House and from State and other agencies as these days progress."
Carney repeated that "I'm  not going to itemize calls or individuals."
"Why not?" the reporter asked.
"Again, I  think we are consulting with members of Congress -- well, because then we could spend -- you know, there are 535 -- we could spend a lot of time with each individual --"
- See more at: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/wh-were-consulting-congress-syria-wont-name-names#sthash.gKK0KmBd.dpuf

Why is it that the strongest supporters of Obamacare all want to be exempt from its provisions?

Adapted from Mark Steyn:

Last Wednesday the Nevada AFL-CIO passed a resolution declaring that the laughably-misnamed Affordable Care Act "will lead to the destruction of the 40-hour work week.”  That’s quite an accomplishment for something touted as a “health” “care” “reform” law.

The same union bosses who supported Obamacare so strongly are now claiming they should be entitled to the same opt-outs secured by big business and congressional staffers.  It says everything you need to know about a law when virtually everyone who supports it doesn't want to be bound by its provisions.

Meanwhile the University of Virginia announced that it would stop giving health insurance to working spouses of its employees--because the Affordable Care Act has made it too costly to continue doing so.

As Nancy Pelosi famously said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it.”  But one of the unsolvable problems with the Affordable Care Act is that it means whatever President Obama says it means on any particular day of the week.

I am *so* delighted you Democrats passed this monster--and so underhandedly, too.  You own it--every single, ghastly provision.  One of the reasons you supported it was Obama's claim that 40 or 50 or 60 million Americans didn't have health insurance, and the bill would fix that.

And this alleged "fix" was....taxpayers will be forced to *pay for* health insurance for anyone who didn't have it.

Hey, that's SO clever!  Why didn't we think of that earlier?  You can fix problems simply by demanding that the federal government (i.e. taxpayers) pay for it!  Who knew?

Of course, since we have chronic yearly deficits as far as the eye can see, the extra cost really just ups our national debt--on which the gummint must pay interest.  But don't worry, citizen:  It's really none of your concern.  And at current rates the interest only costs us $270 Billion or so a year.  Nothing, really.

Well played, Democrats!

Obama 2011: "The law prevents me from unilaterally halting deportations." One year later he does just that.

Further to my previous post, the Weekly Standard ran a piece entitled "Lawlessness in the Executive."  

The author noted that at a spring 2011 Univision town hall [Univision is a Mexican TV network] Obama was asked why he didn’t simply issue an executive order to halt the deportation of young illegal aliens. Obama replied,

With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case, because there are laws on the books. .  .  . Congress passes the law. The executive branch’s job is to enforce and implement those laws. .  .  . There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply, through executive order, ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as president.

But then just a year later--five months before the election--the Obama administration announced that it would no longer deport illegals under the age of 30 who had been brought into the United States by their parents before age 16. 

That is, it would no longer enforce a valid U.S. law.

This has huge--in fact, staggering--implications.  And media articles suggest that only a tiny fraction of Americans grasp that.  For those of you in the latter group, Obama's order was--by his own admission--pure lawlessness.  His speech to the Univision audience shows he explicitly recognized the law, and that it was illegal--in fact, unConstitutional--for him to use an executive order to ignore it.  But then just a year later he proceeded to do exactly that.

Barely a third of you know this happened.  Of those who know, only a fraction recognized the potentially fatal implications for the nation.  Because if a president intentionally breaks one law, and pays no price, what is to prevent him from doing it again?

The answer, of course, is nothing.  And at that point we are no longer being led by a president, but ruled by an emperor.

And sure enough, just before July 4 Obama unilaterally ordered that the crucial "employer mandate" of Obamacare—its requirement that most businesses give government-approved health insurance to their employees--would not begin on the January 1st, 2014 date specified in that controversial law, but would be delayed for a year.

In refusing to obey this provision of the law Obama invited the question of whether a future Republican president could do the same thing.  When he was asked whether a later president could “pick and choose whether they’ll implement your law and keep it in place,” Obama offered this astonishing--and revealing-- reply: “I didn’t simply choose to delay this on my own. This was in consultation with businesses all across the country.” 

Let that sink in.  Apparently Obama--purportedly a lecturer of Constitutional law at the University of Chicago?--thinks that even though Article II of the Constitution commands the president to "take care that the Laws be faithfully executed," what it really means is "unless I and some businessmen decide that's not necessary."

The Standard article claims that "In truth, Americans do support and believe in the law."  Uh, no.  Most Americans--and almost all Democrats--believe whatever the White House and the Democratic party say.  

For example, in Benghazi someone ordered the military not to respond.  But *supposedly* no one can find the government official who gave that order.  It just "appeared" out of thin air.  Supposedly four state department employees were fired for negligece.  Closer investigation found this was a lie, that the four had merely been transferred.  Now Kerry has quietly reinstated them.  And still no one in government will say what really happened.

And most Americans couldn't care less.

Most Americans have as much understanding of the law and the Constitution as the average cocker spaniel.  And of course this is no accident, but has been the predictable effect of decades of the schools gradually removing all study of the founding principles of this nation, and of the Constitution.

Most Americans believe the Mainstream Media.  If the media dismiss partisan Democrat IRS hacks using the power of the agency against conservative organizations, most Americans couldn't care less.  If the media applauds Obama's breaking of U.S. laws, so do the lemmings.

Example: a couple of weeks after Obama unilaterally declared that Obamacare's employer mandate would be delayed a year, the House of Representatives proposed to actually change the law to do that.  Surely you knew that, right?

Then you also know how the Obama administration responded:  It called the legislation “unnecessary” and said if it was passed, Obama would veto it. 

To review:  Obama was willing to break the law, but when congress offered to ratify his unilateral order by actually going to the significant effort of changing the law to agree, Obama not only said that was unnecessary but also said he'd veto any such act!  This is the act of a would-be emperor.

In fact, 35 Democrats in the House joined Republicans in passing that legislation in the House. 

Now here's the kicker: Several weeks later Obama—acting as if he hadn't rejected the offer by the House, and even threatened to veto it—declared that, in “a normal political environment” he could easily have gotten the House to pass legislation delaying the employer mandate.  But he claimed he had no choice but to act unilaterally because "we’re not in a normal political atmosphere.”

You heard about all that, right?  No, of course you didn't--because the mainstream media only mentioned on page 73, below the ad for used cars.  What you did hear was endless bullshit from the mainstream media about "Republican obstructionism."  And most Americans bought it completely.  Because most Americans are totally clueless about politics, the law and the Constitution.

Funny, funny stuff.  Unless you have kids, of course.

And even most Democrats who have kids don't see any problem with all this.

"Pure lawlessness."

Footnote:  After congressional members of both parties soundly rejected Obama’s claim that a president has the authority to unilaterally change provisions of laws, Obama told the New York Times, “If Congress thinks what I’ve done is inappropriate or wrong in some fashion they’re free to make that case.   But ultimately I’m not concerned about their opinions.  Very few of them, by the way, are lawyers, much less constitutional lawyers.”

This is a pure attempt at intimidation, and vintage Obama:  First, it's bullshit:  More members of the House are lawyers--something like 40 percent--than any other profession.  And his line about few of them being Constitutional lawers was an attempt to trade on his alleged experience as a lecturer in that subject.

But of course he clearly either doesn't know jack-shit about the Constitution, or else doesn't care.  IMHO one of those is grounds for endless derision; the other is grounds for impeachment. 

New Obama directive amnesties illegal-immigrants if they're *parents*

Every predicted step is happening, just as predicted and right on schedule.

A couple of years ago Democrats were pushing for a law called the "Dream Act," that would have legalized non-U.S.-born children of illegal immigrant parents.  They didn't have enough votes to pass it.  But being Democrats they weren't about to let the opportunity pass to add a million more Democrat voters to their ranks.  They were determined that children of illegals were gonna become U.S. citizens and Dem voters, law or no law, and regardless of your objections that this was illegal.

So a year or so ago Obama simply...ordered...federal employees to stop deporting non-U.S.-born children of illegals, as long as the child was under 16 or so when they illegally entered.  Obviously this was ordering government employees to violate U.S. law--one of several Obama has ignored--and should be an impeachable offense.  But of course congress and the media just smiled and congratulated Obama on being so compassionate.

Unfortunately the problem with a president deciding to break one law--especially when done "for the very best of reasons" and cloaked in soaring, feel-good rhetoric--is that there's no reason not to do it again.  And again.  And....

And sure enough, two days ago the Obama administration took the next step in eliminating the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws:  Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a a nine-page memo to its agents instructing them to use “prosecutorial discretion” in considering whether to deport illegal immigrant adults who happen to be parents.

So now Obama has unilaterally stopped enforcing U.S. immigration law against both the children illegal immigrants bring with them, and against the parents of such children.  In other words, if someone illegally entering the U.S. brings their children with them, the Obama administration won't deport the parents. 

In effect, they just gave the green light to anyone wanting to enter, by essentially promising they won't be deported as long as they have minor children.

"Wait," I hear liberals saying, "the directive doesn't say that!"

Yes, it does.  But you have to have enough experience deciphering bureau-babble to recognize the implications of deliberately-evasive language. 

As most adults intuitively recognize, when governments (at any level) are enacting a policy they know a huge chunk of the voters would hate, the politicians cloak the policy in language that is almost indecipherable to the layman.  (Too many examples to bother citing.)   That's what they did here.  The actual directive is called the "Family Interest Directive," and here it is:

FODs shall continue to weigh whether an exercise of prosecutorial discretion may be warranted for a given alien and shall consider all relevant factors in this determination, including whether the alien is a parent or legal guardian of a USC or LPR minor, or is a primary caretaker of a minor.

FODs are field operations directors, LPRs are legal permanent residents and USCs are U.S. citizens.

The first two words that grab the experienced reader are "shall" and "continue."  The first requires no elaboration but is a big red flag for bureaucrats.  It translates, "Not complying will kill your career."

The word "continue" is intended to do two things:  First it lulls the ordinary citizen into believing--erroneously--that this policy isn't new, and thus is nothing to be concerned about.  Second, it's a code word for bureaucrats that says--again, falsely--"this has always been our policy and if you haven't been doing it you somehow missed the memo, so you'd better get with the program NOW."

After getting the employee's attention the directive gives de-facto amnesty to parents of "LPR minors."  To understand the significance of this, recall that a year or so ago Obama unilaterally ordered ICE agents to stop deporting minor children of illegal immigrants.  This granted the children the equivalent of legal permanent residency (even though that exact term was not used, for obvious reasons).  Thus the new directive amounts to granting amnesty to the parents who brought them in illegally.

Only by having a clear understanding of how this trick was done can you hope to see it coming next time:  The Democrats tugged at everyone's heartstrings with "Oh, da poor kiddoes who were brought in by their, uh, not-yet-documented parents at the tender age of two or ten didn't have any choice in the matter, so it's just totally unfair to deport them now."  And then after everyone acquiesced at Obama's unilateral re-write of the LAW to carry out this wunnerful goal, it was no stretch to say "It's cruel to separate families, so we won't deport the parents who brought in these unfortunate children illegally.

Is there anyone who did NOT see that coming?

This amnesty for parents of the children they brought in illegally years ago is another huge re-writing of federal law--and again, should be grounds for impeachment.  But the coup de grace in in the quoted paragraph's very last phrase:  "...or is a primary caretaker of *a* minor." 

The first phrase "only" amnestied parents of those who brought in children years ago.  But the last phrase extends de-facto amnesty to anyone who IS a "primary caretaker of a minor."  In other words, if you enter the U.S. illegally today, and have a kid with you, you get de-facto amnesty.

Well played, Democrats.  Lie, re-write laws to suit your schemes, and violate the Constitution--it's worth it to win elections for the next half-century or so, eh?  Plus, you get to feel so self-righteous while you're doing it.  Cuz "it's for the children," right?

Well, maybe not for the children of American citizens, but who wants to quibble over trivial details, eh?

Oh, and for you Democrats who think I just invented this directive--and who reflexively discounted the link because it was from a conservative site--here's a link to the actual nine-page directive from the government's own website.  The 'graf quoted above is 5.2.1. on page 3.


Footnote:  Since we were once "a nation of laws," ICE agents filed suit in federal court to try to block Obama's first directive.  They couldn't even get the case heard:   Last month a federal judge declared that the case could not properly be tried in federal court.  In his written ruling the judge said that although the plaintiffs (the ICE agents) were probably correct in arguing that U.S. law required that they continue to arrest illegal immigrants, the case could not be heard in federal court because...it was a matter for collective bargaining.

Are you surprised?  The judge's decision to reject would not have made any more or less sense if the judge had cited the phases of the moon, or electromagnetic fields, or the Trayvon Martin shooting, as the grounds for his decision. 

Well played, Democrats!   Remember, all of this has happened because an extra 3 percent of y'all fell for the media propaganda and voted for a guy with zero credentials, near-zero accomplishments and experience, a clear socialist agenda and a promise to "fundamentally change" America.

And I know many of you just *love* the results.  But for the ten percent of y'all who, uh, were willing to overlook the negatives for the guilt-assuaging (or Bush-revenging) thrill of electing a black president...how's that working out for ya?

Government employee runs website advocating killing members of a specified race; still working for gummint

If you're conservative you'll probably find the following story outrageous.  If you're on the other side of the political spectrum you probably won't see anything wrong.

That den of competence
called the "Department of Homeland Security" owns a sub-agency, the laughably-misnamed Dept. of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  (Misnamed because your presnit officially ordered ICE to stop enforcing U.S. immigration laws, by ceasing to deport illegal immigrant kids.)
In theory ICE has an employee policy that prohibits "any type of hateful rhetoric or advocacy of violence of any kind against anyone."  For those on the left who parse words, here's the quote from ICE's Deputy Press Secretary Gillian Christensen:

ICE does not condone any type of hateful rhetoric or advocacy of violence of any kind against anyone.  Every ICE employee is held to the highest standard of professional and ethical conduct. Accusations of misconduct are investigated thoroughly and if substantiated, appropriate action is taken.

If this statement is true, then if an ICE employee was found to be hosting a website calling for killing Americans of a specific race, and bashing gays, you'd think the guy would be fired forthwith.

Yeah, you'd think that all right.

If the guy was white, you'd be right.  On the other hand....

There's an ICE employee by name of Ayo Kimathi.  Guy runs a website, on which we find the following: "Warfare is eminent [sic], and in order for Black people to survive the 21st century, we are going to have to kill a lot of whites."

ICE requires all its employees to get the department's permission if they want to run a website.  Kimathi reportedly got around this by using only the initials of his site ("WOH") when asking for department permission.

Ask yourself:  If Kimathi were white, with the same website, how long would it be before his government employer fired him?  A day?  Two at most?  Of course.

At last report Kimathi was still working in his normal position.

Are you surprised?  Of course not.  It's how the government of Barack H. Obama rolls.

Oh, for you leftoid morons who are convinced all this shit comes from Fox News or similar:  Ya got me.  This is from a flaky site for sure:  The Atlantic.  [And for you leftists in flyover country, the Atlantic is a leftist rag.)

Update:  Following the uproar caused by the article on the leftist "Atlantic," the government has...fired the guy?  Uh, no. 

Okay, reprimanded him?  Uh, no.  Instead they put the guy on "paid leave." 

Paid leave?  Wow, that's just brutal.
 
I'd love to have a white employee start a website advocating killing...let's just say "members of some other race," and see what the gubmint does to him.  I'm betting it wouldn't just be paid leave.

How to fix this f'n mess

We'll never be able to make things better in this country if we can't identify what's causing our problems--i.e. unless a supermajority of Americans agree on what's *wrong* with it.

Even then, of course, it will be phenomenally hard to actually *change* those things, because congress has a huge vested interest in keeping bad programs, but we need to start the process somewhere.

Let's start with something the Left should agree with:  End government subsidies to corporations--a.k.a. "corporate welfare."  Does anyone disagree?

This means no transfer of tax dollars to corporations to do anything--including training unskilled people to possibly eventually be workers.

Whoa!  I just heard a million liberals screaming that someone has to pay to train workers, because that's the only way to put people back to work!

Really?  Bullshit.  The only way to put people to work for longer than a gummint subsidy lasts is for employers to decide they need to hire more workers.  And here's a flash for ya', Sparky:  Successful employers don't hire more workers than they need. 

The only way they'd need more workers would be if businesses were expanding--rolling out new products, for example.  And guess what?  They aren't.

U.S. auto makers were forced by bloated union contract restrictions to try it the other way, keeping thousands more (union) workers on the payroll than they had work for.  It damn near killed all three of the Big Three.  Would have killed GM and Chrysler, except Obama gave the former $60 Billion and sold the latter off to the Italian government.  Lesson: when a company is forced--whether by government diktat or union contract--to employ people it has no use for, it quickly becomes a money-losing proposition.

The next 3 sentences are for our friends who went to Hahvahd, Yale or other Ivies:
  1. "Businesses can't continue operating at a loss for long.
  2.  Government is not a business.
  3.  Less than one percent of government employees know anything at all about what's needed to run an actual business.

And one other thing on that corporate-welfare point:  The government must not bail out *any* failing company, for any reason.  This includes banks, brokerage houses, defense contractors and...auto makers.

While there's no denying that Obama's bailout of GM saved that company--and the jobs of its 68,500 U.S. employees--it was also a vote-buying scheme paid for by taxpayers.  Each job saved cost American taxpayers roughly $250,000, depending on what the gummint realizes from the sale of its remaining GM shares.  From a strictly economic standpoint the bailout probably wasn't worth it--but from a political standpoint was a masterpiece, ensuring millions of votes for Obama and other Dems in 2012.

So let's see what else we can agree on (if anything).

Birth certificates don't matter--unless candidate is Republican

The Washington Post didn't run a single story criticizing Obama's refusal to release his birth certificate.  The only attention the Post gave to the story was to ridicule those who claimed Obama had something he was desperately trying to hide.

Cuz, see, questions about the birthplace or birth certificate of a presidential candidate are so...boring?  Rude?  Intrusive?  Geeky?  Overly picky?  Technical?

Oh, wait...that policy only applies to Democrat candidates.  When a candidate is Republican, the Post has have a totally different policy.  In fact it's the exact opposite...which is why they recently ran 12 stories on senator Ted Cruz's birth certificate--in two days.

Hypocritical, lying bastards, all of 'em.

Something curious going on at Treasury Department: Are they fudging the debt number?

Remember the Obama program called "Cash for Clunkers"?  This was a program--presumably crafted by the best minds in the Democratic party--designed to stimulate the economy by offering car owners up to $4500 to turn in perfectly usable older cars and buy new ones.

The old cars were then destroyed (by putting sand in the engine).

Conservatives claimed this bribe simply caused buyers to make purchases that they would normally have made, just a few months earlier than they would have without the program.  Others noted that the gummint's buying up used cars drastically reduced the supply (and thus increased the price) of affordable used cars that could have been purchased by poor citizens.

Then there was Obama's unilateral order to government immigration agents to stop enforcing laws against illegal immigration.  And Obama's unilaterally ignoring the law passed by congress that no more aid was to be given to the palestinians after they ignored a U.S. restriction on earlier aid and pushed for U.N. membership as a full state.  Obama gave them half a billion dollars of money we didn't have.  Cuz, you know, they're such nice folks.

And of course how can we forget the master-stroke of Barry unilaterally ordering that a few of the crucial but unpopular "mandates" of the laughably-misnamed "Affordable Care Act"--a.k.a. the Obamacare LAW--were no longer operative and were to be ignored?

Well now it seems the Obama administration is determined to top "Cash for Clunkers" in the "We command reality to be what we say it is, regardless of the facts!" sweepstakes.

Seems they've found a perfect way to get away with breaking yet another "law."  This one is the "debt ceiling limit" painstakingly hammered out in congress, passed in a "law" and signed by one lying son of a bitch who claims to be named B.H. Obama.

For the curious, the actual limit agreed on is $16,699,421,000,000.

Now, the U.S. Treasury publishes both daily and monthly summaries of the federal government's expenditures and debt. At the beginning of July the *official* debt figure published by Treasury was $16,699,396,000,000-- $25 Billion below the debt ceiling (i.e. lawfully enacted) limit.  (Go to page 7 of the linked report, Table III-C)

During July, Treasury reported that the gummint spent $98 Billion more than it took in.

Yet for every day of July the total debt number never increased.  This is...curious.

For those who didn't get the significance of that, let me re-state:  Obama and his Democrat henchmen want to keep spending money to buy votes.  But thanks to a razor-thin GOP majority in one chamber of congress, that body managed to pass a LAW--which the lying bastard signed--limiting the gummint to the above-noted figure.  So in order to keep spending without being SEEN to exceed the legal debt ceiling, Obama's Treasury department appears to have simply stopped publishing the *actual* debt.

Now frankly, even I can't believe they'd actually do this--it's too in-your-face even for them.  I suspect it's probably attributable to an error by some low-level staffer in an office in Cincinnati or something of that sort.  But sure is convenient for Obie and the Dems, eh?  Cuz without it, they'd be violating yet another law.  Impeachable offense number...what, 5?  8?  I've lost track.

Obama and the Democrats:  Is there any trick they won't try in their quest to deny reality?

Who killed 25 Egyptian police in the Sinai?

Rafah is a town in the Sinai peninsula, on the border between Egypt and Israel.  Yesterday (apparently) near that town a group of armed men stopped two buses carrying unarmed Egyptian police.  They ordered the police off the bus and proceeded to shoot them all, killing 25.

Hard to know who would benefit by killing 25 Egyptian policemen but it's a fair bet the killers were members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been exchanging fire with Egyptian government forces at all levels for a week or so now.

Okay, muslims killing other muslims in the Middle East isn't news.  Here's the part that makes the story unusual:  A Palestinian group called the Popular Resistance Committees sent a message to a Gaza news agency claiming that the attack was planned and "implemented" by...Israel.

Ya gotta wonder:  Do these folks actually believe the bullshit they spout, or do they cynically push the propaganda thinking the West is stupid enough to believe it?

Hard to decide, eh?

A new take on the rodeo-clown incident

A guy named Matt Walsh wrote the following (I've edited it slightly):

Dear President Obama,

I’m reaching out to you as a friend. I know you must be hurting after what happened at the Missouri State Fair.  You probably try to avoid watching the news while you’re on vacation but the military pilot who flew your dog to your rented mansion on Martha’s Vineyard probably got you up to speed.  That guy is such a chatterbox.

Your jaw must have hit the floor when you heard the news: A rodeo clown in Missouri poked fun at you. Yeah, I know, almost impossible to believe. The gall! The racism!  But don’t worry, the entire country erupted in outrage, with Democrats and Republicans alike issuing statements of condemnation. And now the offender has been banned from the Missouri State Fair--for life.  There will likely be “action taken” against the Missouri Rodeo Clown Association, and I hope justice is visited upon them swiftly. I think we’re all a little sick of the Missouri Rodeo Clown Association causing trouble. It’s something new every week with those freakin’ guys.

But all this is little consolation. The fact is, a rodeo clown in Missouri made fun of you. Nothing can ever ease the pain of that. This sort of crass lampooning of public officials has never happened at a rodeo until now.  I know that because a bunch of people who have never been within 150 miles of a rodeo said so. And then — worse still — the crowd erupted in applause as a guy wearing a mask of your noble face was chased by a rampaging bull. Racists, the lot of ‘em!

I mean, Bush never got this sort of treatment. Nobody ever mocked or satirized him. No crude jokes were told about him. Nobody ever wished violence or death upon him, ever. You know why? Because he’s white. White presidents always get treated nicely, especially white Republicans. Just ask Lincoln. The whole country agreed for over two centuries that we won’t insult presidents, then you get into office and all of a sudden every day is Pick on the President Day. Outrageous!

Besides, you're due some respect. You’ve earned it. You’ve done nothing but serve these people and make their lives better, and this is how they treat you?  I’m especially sick of these punks in the middle class who won’t stop complaining about you. What’s their issue?  OK, unemployment is still high, median household incomes have dropped, fewer businesses are opening, the number of people in poverty has increased while the number of good full-time jobs has decreased--all as taxes are increasing and Obamacare looms, threatening to strangle small business owners and put thousands more out of work. 

But so what? I’ve got two words:  Food stamps. You’ve made this “work” crap obsolete by increasing food stamp "entitlements" more than any president ever in history, adding more than 11 thousand Americans a day!  You’ve got millions of Americans relying on the government for rent, cable, phone, even birth control. I guess this bad-economy stuff would be a bummer if not for all the delicious welfare. Who needs an economy anymore? We’ve got you, baby.

So how could anyone be upset at you, or laugh at the mockery in Missouri? What’s wrong with these rednecks? Are they still sore about you sending the IRS to harass and hinder your political opponents before the last election?  Or the spying on the phone records of every American?  Maybe your arming and funding Islamic Militants overseas and then orchestrating a coverup when a bunch of them murdered your ambassador?

Are folks STILL mad that you funneled weapons to drug cartels and then threatened whistleblowers into silence? Or is it about your Justice Department spying on and attempting to prosecute journalists? Is it the unpopular 2,000-page health care law you've changed twice since it passed? The regulation that forces religious employers to provide abortion-inducing drug insurance to their employees? The millions of tax dollars you’ve given to the abortion industry?  The blessings you wished upon a group of wealthy abortionists? The bailouts? The green energy scams? The massive expansion of government? The corruption? The attacks on our fundamental liberties?

I can’t imagine why anyone would get too worked up about any of that.  You've assured us that stuff didn’t happen. Or if it did, it’s not a big deal. I think your advisors coined the term "phony scandals," which is great.  I just know that you treat anyone who raises any of these concerns with utter contempt and disregard, which clearly shows that they must be wrong.

If you were actually guilty of these things, all Americans would giggle with glee at the sight of your likeness being chased by an angry bull.  But since you're not, I’d like to apologize for the entire state of Missouri and for everyone in the rodeo clown community. 

I think Matt may have a future as a writer--at least until the NSA discovers where he's hiding.

Can a terrorist atomic bomb strike on a U.S. city be prevented?

Let's say you're an average, hard-working, middle-class American.  You're raising kids, or enjoying being a grandparent or similar.  Statistically, you have almost no interest in foreign policy, military strategy or international relations--and fair enough.  Can't do anything about any of it, so all you can do is hope that the folks you elect to run this place don't screw up too badly.

Or that if they do, the price is paid by some city other than where you and your loved ones live.

Again, fair enough.  We live our lives based on where we find ourselves.

With that said:  For some years now I've been concerned about the possibility of a nuclear attack on the U.S. by a terrorist group.  [links]   Given the global forces at work, it seemed to me that such an attack was virtually a certainty.

As it happens, the "assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate" has the same opinion.  (Caveat: Story is two years old and single-sourced.)  In any event, the question is:  Can such an attack be prevented?  That's the purpose of this post.

Short answer:  Can't absolutely prevent it, but we can reduce the ease with which it can be done.  The harder you make it to do, the less likely it is to happen.

Problem:  The strategy for making it less likely involves taking a position totally antithetical to that of all Democrats, liberals, socialists and leftists of all stripes.  And here it is:

The U.S. would need to quietly make it known--unofficially, through unwritten back-channel contacts--that if a nuclear weapon was detonated in the U.S., and we learned the source of the bomb, we would launch a nuclear strike on a city in the source nation, without warning or negotiation. 

Is this harsh?  Ghastly?  "Group punishment?"  Yes to all.  The point is that we need to convince whatever rational intel and police officials may live in such nations to realize it's very, very much in their personal interest to make a maximum effort to monitor and interdict any efforts to buy or transship nuclear weapons.

In this vein the *tone* of the message's delivery is crucial:  Rather than using diplomatic channels I suspect the best way would be military-to-military--something to the effect of "The U.S. military command structure has determined that *regardless of whether the president orders it*, the military will retaliate..." 

If word of the policy leaked (a certainty), the U.S. government would deny that this was policy--which is exactly what one would expect if it *was* the policy.  And of course the Pentagon would refer all questions to the White House.

Of course, given the craven policies of the Obama administration (whose strategy could be described as "bow and run away"), any foreign military chief or intel official hearing such a message probably wouldn't believe it--a very rational response. 

Can that reaction be changed?  Probably, but to do so will take time and some hard-headed responses to future provocations.  Whether the U.S. government can change its policies of appeasement to hard-headed responses is unknown.  At the moment the entire State Department and a large number of civilian officials in the Defense Department seem determined to support Islamic fanatics (Egypt, Syria) at any cost.

If the Islamist supporters could be fired that would make it immensely easier to change U.S. policy "on the ground."  Unfortunately, like the Soviet spies in the CIA back in Angleton's day, Islamist supporters seem to be protected against purges by like-minded colleagues at the highest levels of both agencies.

Throw them all out.

Command the tide to stop: Hey, it always worked before!

Think.  Try to recall all the way back to 2007, when a virtually unknown senator--with a grand total of two years of national experience--was running for president.

According to the U.S. (Democrat-loving) media, at the time the whole world hated the U.S.--solely because of the policies of George W. Bush.  Obama promised to change all that.  By bowing to foreign leaders and making it U.S. policy not to intervene in distant lands, everyone would love us.  Remember?

Oh, I know, and sympathize...it was so long ago that almost no one can remember.

Three weeks after he took office, Obama received the Nobel peace prize.

Remember all the photos of Obama bowing to foreign leaders?   There must have been two dozen, and both U.S. leftists and foreigners must have had a warm feeling to see them.  Of course they didn't get much press back here. 

What?  You say you don't recall seeing any pics of Obama bowing to foreign heads of state?  Hmmm... maybe all the ones I saw were fakes, photoshops.  Or maybe--just maybe--you didn't see any because the mainstream media didn't print many.  You might ask yourself why.

SO...it sure is wonderful that the world loves America again, due to the policies of Barack and the congressional Democrats who wholeheartedly, unreservedly support him and vote to pass his programs.

But of course, the rest of the world still doesn't like America.  Egyptians, in particular, hate America because Obama has signaled his support for ousted ex-president Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.

It should be obvious by now that Obama has had everything handed to him his entire life.  He's gotten it all--all of it--by playing the race card and by selling glowing visions to two factions:  the group of voters euphemistically referred to as "low-information voters," and to rich white elites afflicted with fatal cases of White Guilt.

He created and sold these broad, reassuring visions without giving much thought to the nagging details that would need to be solved to carry them out--if indeed it was even possible to solve those.  Barry didn't bother because he's never needed to before--his modus operandi has always been to sell the vision and then disappear before anyone who mattered discovered his schemes were just vapor.  It's always worked his whole life so it must be reality, right?

The guy seems to really believe he's omnipotent, magical--that he can make the tide stop its advance merely by commanding it.  Want an example?  Consider that epic disaster called Obamacare:  Sweeping vision, the first step to national health care--but the actual legislation was such an unwieldy behemoth that he's had to unilaterally change--that is, break--the law he pushed so hard for twice now, by decreeing that two of its "mandates" would be postponed by a year. 

Which conveniently delays their start until after the crucial mid-term elections.

For those of you unclear on the concept of "laws," unless a law specifically authorizes the president to do so, the Constitution doesn't allow a president to change a law simply by decreeing it changed.  Nor does the Constitution allow a president  to *break* a law.  At one time that was supposedly an impeachable offense.  But you haven't heard a word about that, eh?  Nor will you--because the Democrat/liberal media will continue to cover for him.

Want another example?  The Nobel peace prize.  The committee broke all precedent by awarding it NOT for actions already taken, but for what they believed he WOULD do.  They actually admitted that.

Neat trick, eh?  The committee had never done that before.  But everyone makes execptions for Barack.  They always have.

When Nixon famously said that "If the president does it, it's legal," the Left immediately recognized the fallacy, and had a perfectly justifiable fit.  But when Barack acts with the same logic?  Not a peep of protest. 

The reeally ironic thing is, when the great American experiment crashes--because of the blatant violations of the Constitution engineered by Valerie and Barack, and enabled and supported by Harry Reid and the Democrats--Democrat voters will never make the connection between their party's policies and the disaster.  The mainstream media will help this propaganda by writing an *endless* barrage of stories about how the disaster is really the fault of Republicans.  Due, of course, to racism.

Funny, funny, funny stuff.  As easily predictable as the sunrise.

Obozo announces "independent" investigationi of intel...to be chaired by his director of intel

Man, this just keeps getting funnier!

Well, unless you want the U.S. to survive.  If you don't, the acts of Obozo and company are a real hoot.

Consider:  The "Director of National Intelligence" is a guy named James Clapper. Two months ago--meaning most Americans have forgotten, as intended--Clapper testified before a senate committee, where Dem Sen. Ron Wyden asked him whether the NSA had collected information about millions of Americans. Clapper said no.

Clapper has since conceded that this answer was “clearly erroneous” and that he gave the "least-untruthful answer."

Roll that around a second:  "the least-untruthful answer" will get you past a senate committee--at least if you work for B.H. Obozo and the senate is controlled by Democrats.

And lest you have a doubt:  Of course Obozo didn't fire him--Clapper is still Director.  And of course you never really thought he'd be fired, because the norm in politics nowadays is lie, lie, lie.

Lie like there's no tomorrow.  Lie like you'll never get caught.  Lie like you're working for a greater good.  Transparency?  Why in the world would we want that?

Last Friday B. H. Obozo promised to appoint an “independent group” of “outside experts” to review the government’s surveillance programs.

Just three days after making the above promise, Obama announced the name of the man he was appointing to not only select  the members of this "independent" group but also to chair it:  the same man who lied to the senate, James Clapper.

This is an "independent group" of "outside experts"??

Even the staunchly pro-Obozo Washington Post noted, "The announcement doesn’t inspire confidence that the president is interested in truly independent scrutiny of the nation’s surveillance programs."

In 1975 President Gerald Ford created a commission headed by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to examine allegations of abuses by American intelligence agencies. But the commission’s close ties to the executive branch suggested it was unlikely to do any serious investigating.  Instead, a Democrat-controlled congress appointed its own members--chaired by staunch Democrats--to investigate the matter.

How well is the system rigged?  Consider that the chairman of the senate intelligence committee is a Democrat--Dianne Feinstein.  When asked about the discrepancy between  Clapper’s testimony and the statements by a recent NSA turncoat, Feinstein said Clapper is one of the most honest people she knows and suggested he misunderstood the question.

Feinstein either didn't know--or hoped you wouldn't learn--that her fellow Democrat, senator Whyden, had notified Clapper's office of the question he would be asking Clapper at the hearing.  If he "misunderstood the question" he certainly had both the time and the resources of a gazillion intelligence experts to puzzle out the mysterious language.

Even the WaPo noted that "independent oversight will only come from Congress, not a commission hand-picked by the nation’s top intelligence official."  But of course we've come a long way since 1975.  Democrats in congress will continue to support Obozo as he repeatedly violates the Constitution.

And today's Republicans lack the will to do anything about it.

Amnesty inches closer

For over a year now I've been telling you that amnesty was in the works--that the Democrats were pushing a program that would give citizenship to 11 million aliens who sneaked across our borders illegally.

That legalization, in turn, will open the door to millions more aliens--not yet in the U.S.--being given citizenship.  This will guarantee Democratic control of the government for 30 to 40 years.

Not surprisingly, Democrats are delighted by this prospect.

I've told you the exact legislative trickery the Democrats will use to make this happen.  You didn't pay attention so I'll tell you again:

The senate [spit] passed an amnesty bill some months ago.  But there was no way the senate bill would be passed by the Republican-majority House. 

The loophole is an abomination called a "conference."  If the two chambers pass different versions of a bill, the leadership of each chamber appoints a few selected members to negotiate with appointed members from the other chamber to resolve differences between two versions.

Problem is, this negotiation is held in secret--no transcripts, no independent witnesses, no record.

The House thinks that by refusing to pass a bill even remotely similar to the senate bill, it can achieve needed goals (like increasing staffing on the border to enforce border security better than the one-out-of-ten apprehension rate now) without letting the senate push its version into law.

This is, to put it charitably, utter folly.  The senate plans to take any bill passed by the House and "conference" it into a bill containing essentially all the liberal goals of the senate version.

Sweet, eh?

Because there's no record of who proposed what, the Democrats will be able to deny doing anything that even remotely compromised our sovereignty and security, and who can say they're liars?  Provisions utterly hated by 70 percent of all Americans will mysteriously find their way into the bill, and yet no one will claim authorship.

It's a fool's mission.  But then again, look who the idiots in this country elect as senators.

 bet is that

AP changes quotes by presidents--if the pres is a Democrat and the change will cover a major gaffe

Which president said this?

The Panama [sic] is being widened so that these big supertankers can come in. Now, that will be finished in 2015. If we don't deepen our ports all along the Gulf — places like Charleston, South Carolina, or Savannah, Georgia, or Jacksonville, Florida — if we don't do that, those ships are going to go someplace else. And we’ll lose jobs.

I very much doubt that you know who said that.

You don't know because what was reported by the U.S. media was...different.

Here's what the Associated Press actually reported him saying.  See if you can spot the difference:

"If we don't deepen our ports all along the Gulf — (and in) places like Charleston, S.C., or Savannah, Ga., or Jacksonville, Fla. — if we don't do that, these ships are going to go someplace else and we'll lose jobs."

If you have at least average intelligence you quickly realized that the first statement implied that Charleston, Savannah and Jacksonville were all on the Gulf Coast, when in reality all three are of course on the Atlantic coast.  Did the speaker not know this, or was he just overwhelmed by the daunting task of stringing complex concepts together?

Obviously the AP changed the speaker's words--inside a quote, no less--to make him look better.  And why would they want to cover a gaffe to make a president look better?

You might ask 'em.

The guy who uttered the above quote wasn't Dan Quayle, but the Lightworker, B.H. Obama.

Think the AP would have covered for a Republican president?

Finally:  Do you really believe this is the ONLY thing the AP has changed to protect Duh Won?  Since they're demonstrably willing to re-write his words to cover for him, if he did something really nefarious do you think they'd tell you the unvarnished truth?

Comforting lies

It's said that most people prefer comforting lies to uncomfortable truths.

Of course we all know children do this when the truth is too terrifying to face.  By contrast, we hope that at least a fifth of all adults will be mentally tough enough to name and face uncomfortable truths, whatever they may be.

If we're *reeeally* lucky, those are the folks who will end up leading the country.  

By contrast--again--leaders who refuse to recognize an uncomfortable truth (i.e. reality) would seem to have a hard time formulating policies to deal with that reality.

Of course it's easy to understand why so many adults prefer to embrace the comforting lie instead of an uncomfortable truth:  They believe doing so will make the comfortable lie real.  "Wishing will make it so."

Sure it will, dearie.

Do you know any uncomfortable truths that the U.S. media is ignoring in favor of a comforting lie?

Know any politicians who've supported that deception in order to get re-elected?

Can foreign aid be a bad and corrupting thing?

Just speculating here:

Altruistically helping someone in need is a good thing.  No less an authority than the Bible urges us to help others.  But is it possible that this impulse to help those in need--now commonly called "aid"--could actually be destructive?

At first this doesn't seem possible:  How could any behavior that seems so noble and helpful become destructive?  And if it can, why would it be advocated by the Bible (and other religious tracts)?

Start with this basic premise:  Aid enables recipients to tolerate otherwise intolerably cruel and corrupt rulers.

Example:  Thuggish governments--or simply local thugs--often steal food from hard-working farmers.  Eventually the latter are forced to flee to government camps, where aid workers from other nations give them food.  Even though conditions in the camp are usually hard and impoverished, it's better than working hard every day planting and watering/tending crops only to have them stolen by the thugs (including government).

If food aid were not available, thousands of peasants would be far more likely to take up whatever tools or arms they could and start shooting.  I'm starting to think that in the long run--harsh as it sounds to many--that might well be a better solution.

Consider conditions in places like Haiti and most of Africa after decades of western food aid totalling hundreds of billions of dollars.  While the aid certainly keeps people from starving--a good thing--there's never any improvement in the condition of their hell-hole countries or regions.

Wait...does this mean war might be the answer after all?

Obviously not being entirely serious there but consider:  Which is better?  To overthrow thugs (and thug governments) by revolution now, even if it costs thousands of lives; or to condemn your children and grandchildren to a miserable life indefinitely?

Obozo treasury secretary says Obozo won't negotiate on debt, then warns *Congress* against "creating confrontations"??

Some people seem to be so determined to bluff, bully and bullshit you into denying reality that it's literally hard to believe they're serious.

On ABC’s This Week last Sunday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew threatened that the president would veto any bill that cut domestic spending.  He went on to say that his boss, Obama, would not hold negotiations of any sort on the debt ceiling.

But just a minute later he said "I certainly hope that Congress isn’t looking to create confrontations and false crises."

Wait...you just threatened a veto of any spending bill that cut domestic spending, and said the president wouldn't hold negotiations "of any sort" on the debt ceiling--and you have the gall to say you hope Congress isn't looking to "create confrontations" and "false crises"??

How the hell can anyone be such a brazen hypocrite?

Oh, wait...

Lew went on to say  "The mere fact of negotiating over the debt limit, after 2011, would introduce this notion that somehow there’s a question about whether or not we’re going to pay our bills, whether or not we’re going to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.”

Again, a total denial of reality:  Lew's statement that negotiating over the debt limit raises a question about whether or not "we're" going to "protect the full faith and credit of the U.S." is nothing more than an attempt to force Republicans to surrender on any semblance of fiscal responsibility.  Dems want the GOP to roll over so the Democrats can keep handing out billion-dollar chunks of tax money to every special-interest, including the low-information bloc. 

“Congress can’t let us default,” Lew said. “Congress has to do its work…"  But I don't recall hearing a single word about "letting us default."  This is pure intimidation and scare tactics, aimed at the not-so-bright. 

Lew is clearly a graduate of the Joseph Goebbels school of government:  Tell a lie often enough and most of the population will start to believe it.

Best NY Times story *ever* !!

My all-time favorite story that the NY Times has evah printed:

Today the Times announced it had agreed to sell the Boston Globe for $70 MILLION.

Normally that'd be pretty neat, but the problem is that when the Times bought the Globe in 1993 it paid a tad more than that:  $1.1 BILLION.

Now, there's a lot of evidence suggesting that while liberals do know there's a difference between "million" and "billion," a lot of 'em are sorta hazy on exactly what the difference IS.  So for those playing at home it'll be easier if we convert everything to millions:

The Times bought the Globe for $1,100 Million, and is selling for $70 million.  That's a loss of $1.03 BILLION, or $1,030 Million.

To put it in terms familiar to us flyover folks, it's like you buying a house for $200,000 and selling it 20 years later for $14,000.  Wow, such a deal!

Normally I'd feel a pang of sympathy for a failed business venture, but in this case I'm sorta amused about the story because the Times has been a huge supporter of the Left and Democrats/libs/"progressives" for as long as I can remember.  And their execs/owners believe they know exactly what policies are best for the nation and the economy, and how to make stellar decisions in both areas.

How's that working for ya?  Yeah, about like it's working for the whole country.

Karma, baby.

Is there a pattern here?

Seven women have come forward to accuse the amazingly creepy Democrat mayor of San Diego of groping them, and various other types of harassment.  A couple have sued. 

Now the interesting part:  Not only has the mayor said he won't resign, he's actually asked the city to pay for his legal expenses in defending against the sexual harassment lawsuits.  And his attorney has charged that it's the city's fault that the guy groped women, because it didn't give him any training not to do that.

Seriously.

I haven't seen a politician that brazen since Bill Clinton, during his videotaped deposition to determine if he'd lied to investigators, uttered the famous weasel-line, "It depends on what the meaning of  'is' is."