Price Point

Easy
High energy costs, declining industrial competitiveness and a recognition that the economy is unlikely to rebound strongly any time soon are leading policy makers to begin easing up in their drive for more aggressive climate regulation.

On Wednesday, the European Union proposed an end to binding national targets for renewable energy production after 2020. (New York Times, 1/23/2014)

Whenever Liberals want to justify a kooky idea, they point to Europe where it has usually already been adopted...and is failing (witness: socialized medicine, confiscatory taxes, unlimited welfare state benefits, unchecked immigration, and "renewable" energy). So, taking a cue from Europe, will Liberals now back off on their moonbat energy policies? No, they will claim that the policies work...and point to Europe!


No Need
What we didn't need was to destroy the market for the many in order to give aid to the few. (John Goodman, Wall Street Journal, 1/23/2014)

This is precisely the (brilliant) point that RedStateVT made several months back in one of our many posts deconstructing the Liberal argument for Obamacare. Loyal readers will recall that we peeled back the talking point that Obamacare was essential because "millions" were without insurance. In fact, millions of the uninsured were voluntarily uninsured. The remaining pool amounted to 10% or (very probably) less. Hence, Obama, Pelosi and Reid blew up the American healthcare system in order to deal with a problem affecting less than 10% of the entire population. 

As Goodman notes, it did not have to be done that way. 


Windy
No one's really listening to the president now. He has been for five years a nonstop wind-up talk machine. Most of it has been facile, bland, the same rounded words and rounded sentiments, the same soft accusations and excuses. I see him enjoying the sound of his voice as the network newsman leans forward eagerly, intently, nodding at the pearls, enacting interest, for this is the president and he is the anchorman and surely something important is being said with two such important men engaged. (Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, 1/23/2014)

Noonan makes a point that we suspect at least a handful of Democrats might agree with in private: people are just tired of listening to Obama's speeches. He gives too many and they are filled with the same old same old. 

We stopped listening to the State of the Union speeches long ago. They are simply ridiculous and it is embarrassing to watch grown men and women jump to their feet every time the Presidential Pavlovian bell is rung. More money for education!!! Raise the minimum wage!!! Rebuild the infrastructure!!!

Forward in the Queue

It's Back
“Republicans have turned the floor of the House into the battleground for their relentless war on women’s health care and freedoms,” said Representative Steve Israel of New York, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Every time they launch another extreme attack against women’s rights, they lose more ground with women voters.” (New York Times, 1/21/2014)

Loyal readers know that RedStateVT has been wondering what happened to the Republican War on Women. Well this being an election year, Democrats have dusted off this gem just in time. Just a reminder of the horrible things that Republicans want to do to punish women:

- They want to deny a woman's right to an abortion after 5 months. (Just doing the math, that is 55% into a normal term of pregnancy.)

- They want to insist that a doctor performing abortions have admitting privileges at a local hospital.

- They want to abolish partial birth abortion wherein the baby's life is terminated as it is being delivered. 

Instead of running scared on the issue of abortion, Republicans should force Democrats to defend it.


Own It
In fact, three out of four Americans killed in Afghanistan have died under Barack Obama’s command. That’s ownership enough. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 1/16/2014)

A fact unknown by Americans because a directive issued by the Democrat party forbade the non-Fox media from reporting casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan when Obama became president. 


The Peril
America's most worrisome problem may not be the failed takeover of our healthcare system. It may not be our languishing economy or even the massive federal debt hanging over future generations. As dangerous as these problems are, perhaps more perilous is just how far our nation has fallen in the eyes of our allies and the lack of caution our feckless foreign policy inspires in our adversaries. (Pete du Pont, Wall Street Journal, 1/21/2014)

Exactly the point, that RedStateVT has long made. Many of Obama's domestic blunders can eventually be undone or mitigated. The havoc he wreaks in foreign policy, however, has long-lasting consequences. Anti-democratic forces are emboldened, people die, and the world is a more dangerous place. 

Witness:

Mr. Obama boxed himself in with his vow to stop Iran from achieving nuclear breakout on his watch. He doesn't want his promise tested. And in return for a generous payment, Ayatollah Khamenei might well find it worthwhile not to flaunt any nuclear progress during Mr. Obama's remaining 36 months. Iran would likely be getting paid for a time-out it would have taken anyway. After all, in the past three decades, when have the mullahs felt more confident and secure in the face of external threats than they do right now? (Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., Wall Street Journal, 1/21/2014)


High Times
Mr. Obama is now the President, not a stoned teenager riffing with his Choom Gang, and he might have set a better example. Parents trying to teach their kids to make better choices than getting high are at a disadvantage when the person in charge of upholding the law says breaking the law is no big deal. (Wall Street Journal, 1/21/2014)

Why Obama would risk talking about legalizing marijuana given his own inglorious, smoke-filled high school years is certainly a subject that demands deeper scrutiny. He is either feeling very confident or very reckless. His message to America's teenagers is apparently as follows: dope should be legal, but don't smoke dope. Makes perfect sense....

Meanwhile, Vermont Progressive Senator David Zuckerman introduces a bill to legalize marijuana. He takes his cue from Governor Peter Shumlin who is already on record in support, at the same time that he decries opiate addiction in the state. Makes perfect sense....

The Education of Chris Christie

An article in today's New York Times discusses New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's break with MSNBC, a network that he had assiduously courted to burnish his credentials as a Republican who could reach across the aisle. MSNBC has been running daily 25 hour coverage of the New Jersey Conegate scandal and Christie understandably objects. Christie now joins McCain and past Republicans who MSNBC championed only to villify once it was in the interest of the Democrat party to do so. 

The original deal in these cases is structured as follows: MSNBC gets to portray itself as an objective news organization (we don't hate ALL Republicans!) and, of course, the Republican gets to appear as someone who Liberals can perhaps tolerate (if they must). In EVERY instance, however, the Republican eventually gets burned. Put your hand too close to the crocodile's mouth and, sooner or later, it will get bitten. 

Here, MSNBC recognized that the only thing that was going to deflect attention from the recent damning report claiming State Department culpability in the Benghazi tragedy - and the negative impact on Hillary Clinton - was something big. No doubt MSNBC would have preferred to defer wall-to-wall coverage of the Conegate scandal until Christie became the Republican nominee, but they simply could not wait. And it has worked. What report on Benghazi?

Christie will survive Conegate and has hopefully learned an important lesson. Never trust the Legitimate Media (Joe Biden's characterization of the non-Fox media). Keep your guard up at all times. Never trust MSNBC. They are not your friends. 

The Mirrored Dusk

Profiles in Stupidity
The Justice Department will significantly expand its definition of racial profiling to prohibit federal agents from considering religion, national origin, gender and sexual orientation in their investigations, a government official said Wednesday.

The move addresses a decade of criticism from civil rights groups that say federal authorities have in particular singled out Muslims in counterterrorism investigations and Latinos for immigration investigations. (New York Times, 1/16/2014)

And so, because terrorism is inextricably tied to radical Islam and illegal immigration to Latinos, profiling is now prohibited. This makes perfect sense if you are a Liberal. We already know, of course, what will happen the very next time an Islamist succeeds in blowing something up and killing Americans. Liberals will demand a Congressional investigation while demanding to know how this could have happened. 


Uncivil
More than six years later, the onetime constitutional lawyer is now the commander in chief presiding over a surveillance state that some of his own advisers think has once again gotten out of control. On Friday, he will give another speech, this time at the Justice Department defending government spying even as he adjusts it to address a wave of public concern over civil liberties. (New York Times, 1/16/2014)

Dick Cheney smiles...

Yet it is hard to express indignation at actions of the government after five years of running it, and some involved in surveillance note that it was Mr. Obama who pushed national security agencies to be aggressive in hunting terrorists. “For some, his outrage does ring a little bit hollow,” said a former counterterrorism official. (New York Times, 1/16/2014)

...and smiles again.


The Sting
A stinging report by the Senate Intelligence Committee released Wednesday concluded that the attack 16 months ago that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, could have been prevented, singling out the State Department for criticism for its failure to bolster security in response to intelligence warnings about a growing security crisis around the city. (New York Times, 1/16/2014)

Twenty-eight paragraphs on Benghazi and 2016 Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's name is mentioned exactly twice. (Those who follow Washington closely may recall that Clinton was Secretary of State at the time of the Benghazi attacks.) One of the citations references a Republican addendum to the report criticizing Clinton. So, of course, that is entirely political.

Meanwhile, studies have shown that the average number of times that Chris Christie's name is mentioned in articles on Conegate is forty-seven.


Uninspired
An accountable democracy doesn’t work without real information, gathered from the ground up, about people in power, everywhere. Be inspired by the beleaguered but unintimidated reporters of Chris Christie’s New Jersey: Whatever your partisan affiliation, or lack thereof, subscribe to your local paper today. It’s an act of civic virtue. (Rachel Maddow, Washington Post, 1/15/2014)

Maddow celebrates the small town Jersey reporters who doggedly pursued the Christie-Conegate scandal shedding a light on political corruption. It is this same dedication and perseverance that Maddow employed in her quest to get at the truth about Benghazi and the IRS targeting of conservative groups. 

Or are we remembering that wrong?

The Utter Hypocrisy of Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin

“It is a crisis bubbling beneath the surface that may be invisible to many, but is already highly visible to law enforcement, medical personnel, social service and addiction treatment providers and too many Vermont families. It requires all of us to take action before the quality of life that we cherish so much is compromised.” (Peter Shumlin)


So Vermont's governor is concerned about opiate abuse in the state. In fact, he made it the centerpiece of his recent State of the State address. Congratulations, governor, for shining a light on a critical problem. 

Also, you are a hypocrite.

We are referring, of course, to your comments indicating that you are now "open" to legalizing marijuana. Already with your support, possession of marijuana has been decriminalized and "medical" marijuana is now legal in Vermont. Before you decided to go down this path, perhaps you studied California's experience in mainstreaming marijuana. If you did, you would have learned that things did not go well there, prompting even some who had been in favor to call for a re-evaluation. Apparently dope dispensaries opened on every other corner and getting a note from your doctor to buy cannabis was as easy as getting a library card. Meanwhile, have you seen what is going on in Colorado?  In that state, legislators apparently just said: what the heck, let's skip the whole medicinal ruse and just legalize it for everyone! There is even talk there of "marijuana tourism." Let's hope that is not what you have in mind as the next logical step for growing Vermont tourism. 

By the way, did you really call up the folks at The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (ironically known as NORML) and volunteer to be a spokesperson as was widely reported? Do you see any disconnect between your concern about opiates and your chill attitude toward weed?

Young people are masterly at rationalization. Just talk to them. If adults send signals that possession of marijuana is not such a big deal, teenagers will not focus on the nuances. The message that kids hear is that smoking marijuana is OK. And they will do it before school, during school, after school. It is disappointing that you do not get that.

Here is the thing, governor. Experts tell us that the percentage of people who are now abusing opiates and who first started out smoking dope rounds to ... 100%. Did anyone on your staff ever discuss with you the concept of a "gateway" drug? Marijuana is THE gateway drug for all illegal drug abuse. To draw an analogy, yes, there IS a difference between petty shoplifting and burglary. But failing to punish the shoplifter creates later consequences for society. So while your focus on opiates is admirable, reasonable people may question how that squares with your relaxed attitude about marijuana.

A final thought: before you take the next step and legalize marijuana please check in with the dedicated folks who work at the various organizations in the state who deal with drug abuse. No doubt they have sad stories to tell of the carnage that illicit drugs have had on individuals, families and society. These stories all have a common starting point.

The Random is at Work

Gates Of Delirium
Then came an exchange that is seared into my memory. Biden said he was ready to move forward, but the military "should consider the president's decision as an order."

"I am giving an order," Obama quickly said.

I was shocked. I had never heard a president explicitly frame a decision as a direct order. With the U.S. military, it is completely unnecessary. As secretary of defense, I had never issued an "order" to get something done; nor had I heard any commander do so. Obama's "order," at Biden's urging, demonstrated the complete unfamiliarity of both men with the American military culture. (Robert M. Gates, Wall Street Journal, 1/12/2014)

The Legitimate Media, providing 24 hour coverage of Conegate in New Jersey, missed this gem from Robert Gates's new book. Actually, they did not miss it, they just ignored it. To our ear, it should go down as one of the all-time most memorable Obama quotes along with "They cling to guns and religion", "You can keep your plan", and "I did not set a red line." 

Speaking of Conegate or Bridgegate, here's a good one on the difference between Christie and Obama:

Accountability update: More heads have rolled over ‘Bridgegate’ than the IRS scandal, Benghazi and botched Obamacare rollout combined (Doug Powers, MichelleMalkin.com, 1/9/2014)


Victim Alert!
To spend time alone with the man she married four months ago, Ebony Fisher, 25, drives nearly three hours through the flat cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta until she pulls into a gravel lot next to the state’s rural penitentiary.

She joins her husband, who in 2008 began serving a 60-year sentence for rape, aggravated assault and arson, in a small room with a metal bunk and a bathroom. (New York Times, 1/13/2014)

The Times bemoans the end of conjugal visits for prisoners in Mississippi. What exactly did Fisher's hubby do? Well the article explains: 

"He is serving time for molesting his former wife’s daughter..."

OK, got it.


Tendencies
People signing up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s federal and state marketplaces tend to be older and potentially less healthy, officials said Monday, a demographic mix that could cause premiums to rise in the future if the pattern persists. But officials expressed optimism that more young people will sign up in the months ahead, calling it “solid, solid news” for the health care law. (New York Times, 1/13/2014)

We are confused. Less younger, healthier people sign up, but it is "solid news." Reading on we learn: 

So far, 24 percent of private plan enrollees are ages 18 to 34, a percentage that is lower than what officials had hoped for this group. 

Where is the "solid news?" Perhaps it is this:

Nearly 80 percent of those who selected a plan qualified for federal subsidies to reduce their premiums, officials said.

That MUST be it! Eighty percent of enrollees getting government goodies certainly qualifies as "solid news" for Liberal redistributionists.


Declare Victory
Despite the treasured right-wing talking points, it’s increasingly clear that Obamacare is a success. (Harold Meyerson, Washington Post, 1/8/2014)

There is delusion. And then there are Liberals. And finally there is Meyerson.


Minimalism
The next item on Gesture Liberalism’s agenda is to raise the minimum wage for the 23rd time. Less than 3 percent of the workforce earns the minimum; more than 60 percent of those who do earn it get a raise within a year; more than half of minimum-wage earners are students or other part-time workers from households with average incomes of $53,000. Never mind. Raising the minimum is a gesture of devotion to “equality.” (George Will, Washington Post, 1/8/2014)

Will reveals more facts about the minimum wage. Which Liberals will ignore. So they can paint opponents as uncaring. This is getting old. 


Strictly Speaking
With the United States and Iran about to embark on a critical phase of nuclear talks, President Obama is waging an intense rear-guard action to prevent Senate Democrats from supporting strict new sanctions that could upend his diplomatic efforts.

Sponsors of the bill, which would aim to drive Iran’s oil exports down to zero, have secured the backing of 59 senators, putting them within striking distance of a two-thirds majority that could override Mr. Obama’s threatened veto. Republicans overwhelmingly support the bill. So far 16 Democrats have broken with the president, and the bill’s sponsors hope to get more. (New York Times, 1/14/2014)

Obstructionist Democrats! 

Patterns on a Screen

Nobody
I can’t think of any individual who had more influence in 2013. Edward Snowden is the person of the year. (Eugene Robinson, Washington Post, 12/23/2013)

Really, Eugene, no one? 

Robinson considers Pope Francis, but then passes. How about Nelson Mandela? A philanthropist? No, Robinson instead chooses a traitor. How very typical. 


War of the Words
To many Americans, the war on poverty declared 50 years ago by President Lyndon B. Johnson has largely failed. The poverty rate has fallen only to 15 percent from 19 percent in two generations, and 46 million Americans live in households where the government considers their income scarcely adequate. (New York Times, 1/4/2014)

We've written about this many times. The Liberal solution to poverty is to give the poor money so they won't be poor anymore. How is that working out...after 50 years?

Let's consider some conservative ideas on the subject. Like first of all, understanding that the poor are often not a static pool. People rise up out of poverty. Others fall back into it. How about work and training requirements for the poor? How about some tough love? These ideas - embraced by none other than Bill Clinton - were undone by Obama. And finally, how about some RedStateVT suggestions? For the poor; no alcohol, no cigarettes, no fast food, no piercings, no tattoos, no smartphones, public transportation, basic cable. The poor need to be trained to spend their money - and the taxpayer's money - wisely. 


Fighting Words
In his first remarks since Islamic militants with Al Qaeda ties overran the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry promised support for Iraq's government, but emphatically rejected any possibility that the U.S. would send troops back into the country, saying of the Baghdad government "this is their fight." (Foxnews.com, 1/5/2014)

Who lost Iraq? Barack Obama lost Iraq. 


Senior Moment
Concurrently, Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), the paradigm of government-controlled health care, turned 65 years old in 2013 and officially entered senior citizenship. The NHS received its review by the British press this past year on an almost daily basis. Headlines blared across the UK, endlessly documenting scandalous patient care, shameful waiting lists, catastrophic hospital practices, and financial debacle. Directly undermining those who advocate for an even stronger role for government in U.S. health care, the British press has instead been documenting the disgraceful state of the NHS. (Scott Atlas, Foxnews.com, 1/3/2014)

Coming to America.

Liberals continue to tell us how wonderful government run healthcare is by citing every country that now has it (including - incredibly - Cuba!) No it's not.


Confidence Man
If the White House was so confident that “the product is good” and Americans are “willing to be patient,” then they would have been eager for a photo op of the president signing up with other happy customers. But there was no photo op.

Then, to add insult to injury, Obama chose the cheapest of the four plans available — the bronze plan costing $400 a month. Not for his whole family, mind you. They don’t need Obamacare. He chose a low-cost plan just for himself. Which makes sense. He’s not going to actually use it, so why pay sky-high premiums like the millions of people he drove out of their individual market health plans? Besides, most Americans stuck with Obamacare plans can get their families covered elsewhere for free, right?

And finally, to cap it all off, Obama waited until the last minute to sign up. If the president was so enthusiastic about signing up for Obamacare, why wasn’t he customer No. 1 when the exchanges opened in October? Or when the government relaunched the Web site in November? (Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post, 12/30/2013)

Good smackdown by Thiessen. 


Ten Times Ten
It is incumbent on me as a columnist to do one of those year-end things — the 10 best of this, the 10 worst of that or, as you will see, who had the worst year in politics. That distinction goes, with some reluctance on my part, to Hillary Rodham Clinton. As has sometimes happened in her life, events got away from her. (Richard Cohen, Washington Post, 12/30/2013)

If you thought based on this opening that Cohen was going to give us an honest rendering of Hillary Clinton's year, you would be sadly mistaken. Why was it a bad year for Hill accordingly to Cohen? Because Obamacare was such a dud that it reminds people of Hillarycare. No kidding, this is Cohen's argument.

And what does he ignore? What does he fail to mention? What else might have made it a bad year for Hill? 

You guessed it. Benghazi! 


History Lesson
Historically, after leaving Mecca, Mohammed moved to Medina, where he established the world’s first Islamic polity. He and his followers then launched military operations to raid the caravans of their opponents. Mohammed’s army eventually conquered Mecca and a large portion of the Arabian Peninsula before the Prophet’s death. Within a century of Mohammed’s passing, his followers had forged a vast empire that crossed North Africa and most of Spain to the west, reaching to the borders of China and India in the east. Just as Mohammed and his followers had conquered much of the known world, the jihadists seek to reconquer this empire and then expand it to encompass the earth. (http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/gauging-jihadist-movement-part-1-goals-jihadists">Gauging the Jihadist Movement, Part 1: The Goals of the Jihadists
is republished with permission of Stratfor.)

From the always informative Statfor. Included here because you can never understand the world unless you know history.

RedStateVT Presents the Worst of 2013

Here it is! Our annual list. Happy reading.

President Obama
Readers may be surprised to learn that Obama does NOT appear every year on RedStateVT’s annual list. (See, we are an objective blog!) “If you like your health plan, you can keep it” will go down as one of the biggest (maybe THE biggest?) presidential lies of all time. Of course, “I didn’t set a red line” was a good one as well….


Obamacare
Twenty thousand pages of sheer madness. 


Kathleen Sebelius 
“Hold me accountable for the debacle. I’m responsible.” 

Done.  We hold Sebelius accountable for the debacle.  Then she does not even have the decency to resign!


Wendy Davis
Urged on by Dems, Davis seeks to build a race for Texas governor (and a national profile) on a filibuster of modest requirements to abortion in the state. For example, the abortionist has to have an affiliation with an area hospital. In case, you know, something goes wrong. 


The Kardashians
Everything that is wrong with America encapsulated in one dysfunctional family. Wait; don’t we say the same thing every year?


Gay
No doubt as Gay looks back on 2013 it has much to be happy about. In fact, it was a marvelous year. Same sex marriage is out of the closet and well on its way to national legitimacy. But as always, Gay overplayed its hand. In 2014, this may come back to bite Gay on the backside. Average Americans who – like RedStateVT – believe that people should be free to love who they love are nonetheless getting fed up with the vilification of anyone who dares to disagree with Gay.  Fundamentalist Christians, Jews and Muslims all live by a moral code passed down for hundreds (if not thousands) of years. Society is better because of their focus on morality, charity and fellowship. What to do about their rejection of homosexuality? How about stop talking about your sexual preferences all the time?

As usual, Coulter gets it right:
The first time someone stands up to a bully and the sky doesn't fall, the tyranny is over. The gay mafia was out of control, drunk with power. This time, they got their wings clipped. (AnnCoulter.com, 12/31/2013)


Chris Matthews
Matthews makes the list for one action and one action only. (Yes, we ignore the daily nonsense he spews because it is expected.) We cannot, however, ignore his infantile and fawning interview with President Obama last month.  It was journalism at its most embarrassing. 


Hillary Clinton
Hill makes the list for one issue and one issue only: Benghazi. The death of brave Americans should never be politicized and never callously dismissed.  She did both.  “Who cares what caused it?” goes down as one of the most abominable utterances by any U.S. public figure…ever. 


Detroit Democrats
It took decades, but through hard work Democrats registered their biggest score. 

They killed a city.


Peter Shumlin and Vermont Progressives
Here is what Shummy and the Progs focused on in 2013: decriminalizing marijuana, assisted suicide, closing Vermont Yankee (with its 650 jobs and cheap, reliable power), single payer healthcare (no info on how to pay for it), drivers licenses for illegals, taxes on soda and more taxes.  In short, a grab bag of fringe Lefty issues. 

Too bad they did not spend any time figuring out how to attract more companies to the state and grow the job base. 

Heart and Hand Accomplished

Rigor
Supporters of President Obama’s health care law had predicted that expanding insurance coverage for the poor would reduce costly emergency room visits because people would go to primary care doctors instead. But a rigorous new experiment in Oregon has raised questions about that assumption, finding that newly insured people actually went to the emergency room a good deal more often.
...
The findings cast doubt on the hope that expanded insurance coverage will help rein in emergency room costs just as more than two million people are gaining coverage under the Affordable Care Act. And they go against one of the central arguments of the law’s supporters, that extending insurance to large numbers of Americans would reduce emergency room use, and eventually save money. (New York Times, 1/3/2014)

Well it is just all falling apart, isn't it? 

If you can't keep your doctor, and you may not be able to keep your hospital, and you pay more (unless you get a government subsidy), and it does not reduce emergency room visits, and it will not reduce health care costs, isn't it time for a time-out? What brave Democrat out there will stand up and say that the president should suspend Obamacare unless and until these issues are resolved? That Democrat could practically be guaranteed re-election.


Lab Rats
Liberals across the country are looking to Bill de Blasio, who was sworn in as mayor early Wednesday, to morph New York City’s municipal machinery into a closely watched laboratory for populist theories of government that have never before been enacted on such a large scale. (New York Times, 1/1/2014)

Detroit. What is it that Liberals don't understand about Detroit?


Deflection
Democratic Party leaders, bruised by months of attacks on the new health care program, have found an issue they believe can lift their fortunes both locally and nationally in 2014: an increase in the minimum wage. (New York Times, 12/29/2013)

It's "Wag the Dog" time for Democrats. Look for them to ramp up their usual grab bag of fringe issues as the 2014 elections near. Next thing you know, they'll declare that Republicans are engaging in a "War on Women."


Law-Abiding
Judge Rules N.S.A. Phone Surveillance Is Lawful in Case Filed by A.C.L.U.
A federal judge in New York on Friday ruled that the National Security Agency’s program that is systematically keeping phone records of all Americans is lawful, creating a conflict among lower courts and increasing the likelihood that the issue will be resolved by the Supreme Court. (New York Times, 12/27/2013)

Here is a good rule of thumb for RedStateVT readers: If the A.C.L.U. is arguing a position, it is usually something that is bad for America. 


Compounded
The September 2012 attack on the United States diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans was led by fighters who had benefited directly from NATO’s extensive air power and logistics support during the uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. And contrary to claims by some members of Congress, it was accelerated in part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam. (New York Times, 12/28/2013)

The single biggest issue that could haunt a Hillary Clinton run for president is Benghazi. First, Hillary investigated herself and found that she was not at fault. However that did not make Benghazi go away, what with those pesky journalists at Fox News. Now the Hillary Clinton for President campaign office at the New York Times steps in to squash the concern. And so we are back to: It was the video all along!

This is truly pathetic. 

Avoid Disappointment and Future Regret!

Snow Day
Considering the enormous value of the information he has revealed, and the abuses he has exposed, Mr. Snowden deserves better than a life of permanent exile, fear and flight. He may have committed a crime to do so, but he has done his country a great service. It is time for the United States to offer Mr. Snowden a plea bargain or some form of clemency that would allow him to return home, face at least substantially reduced punishment in light of his role as a whistle-blower, and have the hope of a life advocating for greater privacy and far stronger oversight of the runaway intelligence community. (New York Times editorial, 1/2/2013)

And so the New York Times finally comes clean and reveals itself as not just far Left, but as anti-American. Edward Snowden engaged in traitorous acts and the Times declares that "he has done his country a great service." Accordingly, with the moral relativism that only Liberals can conjure, the Times suggests for Snowden a slap on the wrist...and a parade.


Beastly
President Clinton, who swore in the new mayor, deregulated the financial industry, and possibly helped to unleash the animal spirits that led to the recent Great Recession. (New York Times, 1/2/2013)

The far Left New York Times says it so it must be true. 

George Bush and will now accept all apologies.


Kinship
More broadly, the new mayor’s speech underlines that those conservatives who cast a querulous eye and accuse New York City of floating closer to Europe than to North America are not entirely mistaken. It can seem more akin to a Social Democratic nation-state than to a typical American city. (New York Times, 1/2/2013)

Prediction? By the time Sub-Commander Bill de Blasio is done, it will be - New York City: meet Detroit. 


Grandiose
Mr. de Blasio’s hopes are grand. “When I said we would take dead aim at the Tale of Two Cities, I meant it,” he said. “And we will do it.” (New York Times, 1/2/2014)

Sub-Commander Bill needs to go back and read his Dickens. The two cities of his novel were London and Paris, the latter depicted during the time of the French Revolution which overthrew the monarchy. Undoubtedly de Blasio likes the analogy of the people taking power from the elites. After all that is essentially what his campaign was all about. Read (or re-read) the book to learn of the horrors that occurred AFTER the revolution when the people controlled the jails...and the guillotines. 


High Times
They lined up before dawn and in the snow on Wednesday, baby boomers from Nebraska, retirees from Denver and a young man who had driven all day from Ohio. Some were longtime marijuana users. Some had been arrested for marijuana possession.

They were among the hundreds of tourists and residents across Colorado who eagerly took part in the country’s first-ever sales of state-regulated recreational marijuana. (New York Times, 1/1/2014)

And so, little by little America dies.


Silver Lining
Ms. Hornbach, who has had breast cancer and retired early from the technology industry, said that insurance companies in Arizona had refused to cover her until about two years ago, when she got a policy with monthly premiums of $285 and a deductible of $5,500 a year. Last month, using the federal insurance exchange, she bought a midlevel silver plan with lower premiums and deductible. (New York Times, 1/2/2014)

We wish Ms. Hornbach nothing but the best.

We also note that she bought a silver level plan which makes her eligible for generous government subsidies. The New York Times does not explore this because to do so would undermine the puff piece they wanted to write on the wonders of Obamacare.