Create Your Own Foreign Policy Reality

Declare Victory 
“This is an attempt to come up with an Obama doctrine that looks at how do we think about the world now that the war against the Taliban and its allies is won,” said Peter L. Bergen, a national security scholar at the New America Foundation and one of several foreign policy specialists invited to lunch with Mr. Obama this week. (New York Times, 5/29/2014)

Someone should get the news to the Islamofacists that they have been defeated. Apparently they do not know and hence, continue to blow things up and kill innocents.


The Veteo-er
And Mr. Brown, a Democrat and gun owner himself, has vetoed gun control legislation in the past, including bills last year that would have done more to limit the sale of semiautomatic rifles and further limited gun ownership. (New York Times, 5/29/2014)

Who would have thought it? Governor Jerry Brown, the original moonbat, is packing heat!


Considerations
Edward J. Snowden said that he still considered himself to be an American patriot even after leaking thousands of classified documents, and that he was frustrated to be “stuck in a place” — Russia — that did so little to protect individual rights when he was trying to help protect American freedoms. (New York Times, 5/28/2014)

Finding Russia to be less the free and open country that he imagined, Snowden longs to return home. Humbly he says “I’m not going to give myself a parade.” So here is a perfect opportunity for Obama to patch up his rift with Vlad "the Impaler" Putin. He should convince Putin to relocate Snowden to Siberia for say, five years, before returning this "American patriot" back to face justice in the country he claims to love. 

Thank You for Your Service

Say What?
It is important to recognize that not everyone experiences the types of threat responses Cuban does based on race, attire and tattoos — and as far as we can tell from his comment, without articulated attitudes or demonstrated hostility. This casual ascribing of intention, based solely on appearance, draws on deep-seated suspicions constructed over a lifetime of subtle and sometimes overt racial conditioning. This, too, must be acknowledged and accounted for. It is the same sort of suspicion that set in motion the events that led George Zimmerman to shoot Trayvon Martin. (Charles M. Blow, New York Times, 5/26/2014)

Deep thinker Blow weighs in on the Mark Cuban brouhaha to explain....well, we are not sure. "Casual ascribing of intention, based solely on appearance?" Well maybe when every single criminal on the 6 o'clock news is either a gang-banger wearing a hoodie and jeans hanging about his ankles or a skinhead with neck tattoos than there is something more than "casual" going on. And before Blow says what we know he is going to say we will answer. Yes, middle class black and white kids emulate criminal attire. So society is then supposed to differentiate between the kid making a fashion statement and the criminal? Sorry, if there is doubt, just to be safe we are thinking criminal. You want to dress like a criminal, you take your chances. 


No Show
CNN’s John King said the tone among Democrats behind closed doors on President Obama’s handling of the V.A. scandal is “scathing.”

“Forget for a moment that Republican outrage,” he said Sunday morning. “More and more Democrats in key 2014 races are calling for the president to get a spine, they say, and fire his Veterans Affairs secretary. And what more and more Democrats are saying privately is scathing, calling the president and his team detached, flat footed, even incompetent.”

King then turned to Politico panelist Maggie Haberman and said “what strikes me, what Democrats are saying privately in the wakes of the healthcare.gov problems, they see a president who doesn’t want to take command, doesn’t want to act fast – raising the competence question. Some Democrats, who believe in government, [are saying] this White House doesn’t appear to have its hand on the lever.”

Haberman agreed, citing several other mishaps including President Obama purportedly missing a Senate foreign policy meeting many expected him to attend. “All of this adds up to somebody who just doesn’t seem at all involved,” she said. (Washington Free Beacon, 5/26/2014)

We quote this at length because it is so much fun to read.

Valerie Jarrett once talked about Obama being so brilliant that he gets bored with the job. We agree with the second part.


Stashed
Even in California, with some of the strictest gun control laws in the country, Elliot O. Rodger was able to amass a stash of weapons and ammunition, despite having struggled with mental health issues for years. (New York Times, 5/26/2014)

Why are we hearing less Liberal outrage about the latest horrific shooting? Could it be that it happened in Liberal land where the gun laws are already tough? Is there a thought perhaps that the issue is less about guns and more about mental illness? We refer to the Ann Coulter quote: "After every one of these shootings you will find someone who said beforehand, trust me, this guy is nuts."

Mark Cuban: Truth Teller

Viva La Cuban
“If I see a black kid in a hoodie and it’s late at night, I’m walking to the other side of the street,” he said in a video interview for Inc.’s GrowCo Conference in Nashville. “And if on that side of the street, there’s a guy that has tattoos all over his face — white guy, bald head, tattoos everywhere — I’m walking back to the other side of the street.”

At a business conference in Nashville on Wednesday, Mark Cuban admitted to being less than enlightened. “I know I’m prejudiced and I know I’m bigoted in a lot of different ways.” It is one thing to initiate a dialogue about racism but something else to spew tone deaf ignorance in an interview. The shooting death of Trayvon Martin in 2012, the acquittal of George Zimmerman and the miscarriage of justice that the not-guilty verdict represented are wounds that, for many, have not healed. (New York Times, 5/24/2014)

Being a self-made billionaire is not enough to insulate you against political correctness as Mark Cuban recently discovered. Cuban incorrectly confessed to bigotry because he admitted to being wary of black gang-bangers wearing hoodies and white, skin-head, neck-tatooed neo-Nazis. We'd call Cuban sensible, not prejudiced. His sin apparently was using the word "hoodie" which opened the door to relitigating the whole Trayvon Martin tragedy. (Note that the New York Times news department has officially concluded that the Zimmerman not guilty verdict was a "miscarriage of justice." This is how the Liberal media creates history, by the way. Climate change is fact; Bill Clinton is a senior statesman; and George Zimmerman got away with murder.)

Quick! What is the natural reaction that anyone would have to seeing youths in hoodies or with shaved heads? Answer: concern for one's own personal safety. In a stunning admission many years ago, no less of an authority on the subject of race than Jesse Jackson confessed to feeling relief when realizing that the people walking behind him on a city street at night were white not black. 

Is Cuban is wrong? We don't think so. He has nothing to apologize for.


Fractionally
As of Friday, the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.66, a fraction of a cent lower than last year. (New York Times, 5/24/2014)

One of the wonderful things about the Obama presidency is the endless list of things that - whenever we next have a Republican president - can no longer be blamed on that president or even discussed. A partial list includes the following:

- the price of gasoline
- that president's past drug use
- the president's foreign policy experience
- the number of war dead
- the unemployment rate
- the economy in general 
- the president's golf outings

How to Waterboard a Terrorist

Despicable Him
Sanders, who chairs the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, has been one of the most outspoken defenders of the VA against allegations of misconduct. When asked about reports of multiple deaths related to long wait times at the VA healthcare system, Sanders told CNN: “People die every day.” (Freebeacon.com, 5/23/2014)

Thanks to the Washington Free Beacon for reminding us of this despicable comment by 2016 presidential candidate - and Vermont's own disgrace - Colonel (Bernie) Sanders. Of course, no Vermont media is reporting the Colonel's remarks. This is why you have RedStateVT. 

Here are a couple other of our favorite recent comments about the Obama administration's V.A. scandal:

This is precisely why President Obama’s VA scandal is the most serious and damaging of his presidency. It is the Obama administration in sum and in miniature: incompetent management of a health system, defended by crude media manipulation. (Michael Gerson, Washington Post, 5/22/2014)

As recently as November 2011, Paul Krugman praised the VA as a triumph of "socialized medicine," as he put it: "What's behind this success? Crucially, the V.H.A. is an integrated system, which provides health care as well as paying for it. So it's free from the perverse incentives created when doctors and hospitals profit from expensive tests and procedures, whether or not those procedures actually make medical sense." Ah, yes, the VA lacks the evil profit motive. (Wall Street Journal, 5/23/2014)


GM is Alive and Osama bin Laden is Dead
"We just went through the opening of the 9/11 museum. I know they will come after us if they can. I see the intelligence. Terror is not down in the world. It is up. Both deaths, injuries in many, many different places. Al Qaeda has metastasized. The question becomes how do we prevent an attack in this country." 

Guess who said this?

Give up?

Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein!  (As quoted in Daniel Henninger's column in the Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2014) 

And from the same column, there is this:

Here's a save-our-girls conundrum. If you asked their parents if they would waterboard a Boko Haram captive to find where the girls are, what do you think they'd say?

Here's an idea. Let's ask Bernie Sanders!

Secrets of Obama's Choom Gang Revealed!

Rarely
The requirement that doctors have admitting privileges has emerged as a new tactic of the anti-abortion movement, which says it is intended to protect women’s health. But major medical groups have said that the rule has no bearing on safety since, in the rare cases of emergency, hospitals will accept and treat women experiencing complications from abortion regardless. Abortion providers and many medical experts call the requirement a thinly disguised effort to shut down clinics and undermine the right to abortion under Roe v. Wade. (New York Times, 5/22/2014)

Other "rare cases" include pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, but the pro-abortion crowd screams about that every time that someone tries to place any restrictions whatsoever on abortion. Of course, it is not rape and incest that they are really concerned about. What they are obsessed with is free and unfettered access to abortion for any women at any stage of her pregnancy whether she can pay for it or not.


Nobody is Madder Than Him
The White House fought on Tuesday to contain the growing political furor over allegations of misconduct at the nation’s veterans hospitals as Republicans, eager to use the issue in the midterm elections, seized on the reports as new evidence that President Obama is unable to govern effectively. (New York Times, 5/20/2014)

Of all the myriad of scandals surrounding Obama, we were inclined to give him a pass on this one. Until we read this:

As a candidate for president, Mr. Obama denounced delays and poor care for veterans at hospitals run by the Department of Veterans Affairs and vowed that his administration would address the backlogs and greatly improve care. He pledged in a 2008 campaign speech to build “a 21st-century V.A.” and to confront what he called “the broken bureaucracy of the V.A.”

So, we have yet another Obama screw-up. But we wanted to know why...and then we found the answer:

The president is also sending Denis R. McDonough, his chief of staff, to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to consult with the chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont. 

Obama puts Colonel Bernie Sanders, the pride of Vermont and the least competent person in the Senate in charge. No wonder the V.A. is a mess.

The Perplexing Search for Proof of Obama's Brilliance

Possibilities
But while it sure is possible to move those 1700 unsold ELRs, Cadillac will need about two years to finish the job if it can’t find more than 60 people a month who want a $76,000 two-door plug-in hybrid. Cadillac, in the AN report, attributes the inventory buildup to a heavy production cycle ahead of a summer and fall slowdown. (Caranddriver.com, 5/19/2014)

We recently wrote about the Cadillac ELR, extolling its ability to travel a full 37 miles on a single charge. Others have taken notice which explains the fact that GM now has only a two year backlog. Go green!


The Hype
“This is not a hypothetical thing for governors on the West Coast — this is fire alarms and floods,” Mr. Inslee said Monday in a telephone interview. “It’s not a next-century issue. This is a next half-hour issue.” (New York Times, 5/20/2014)

Liberal sages such as Al Gore have - in the past - told us that we have only (fill in the blank) years to save the planet. Now things have apparently reached crisis proportions. We are down to mere hours. If RedStateVT does not publish again, you will know that it is because time has run out. Go green!

Lamentations

Histrionics
Mr. Baquet becomes the first African-American to serve as The Times’s executive editor. Ms. Abramson’s hiring also made history — she was the first woman to run the newspaper. Her dismissal, after less than three years in the job, was met with disappointment by some women in the newsroom, and could be perceived as a step backward in the cause of female leadership at The Times and elsewhere in the industry. (New York Times, 5/15/2014)

At the Times, the recent management change is all about checking off the boxes to prove how open minded they are. The first lesbian is replaced by the first African-American, presumably to be eventually replaced by the first transgendered individual. Only then will we know that the Times is serious about equality!

We will know that the Times is serious about running their business as a business when they announce that they have hired "the most qualified person for the job."


College Daze
In a story that only a Liberal newspaper could or would write about higher education in America, the New York Times asks the question: Who Gets to Graduate? Yes, who GETS to graduate, as though graduating from college is not the result of hard work, but rather of privilege. Helpfully, the Times tells us this: 

"...whether a student graduates or not seems to depend today almost entirely on just one factor — how much money his or her parents make. To put it in blunt terms: Rich kids graduate; poor and working-class kids don’t." (New York Times, 5/15/2014)

We are not sure how that works. Rich kids buy their diplomas maybe? Helpfully, the Times presents us with a poor victim, Vanessa. Here are a few facts about Vanessa:

....Vanessa’s mother, then a high-achieving high-school senior in a small town in Arkansas, became pregnant with Vanessa.....Vanessa’s parents divorced when she was 12.....And then, a month into the school year, Vanessa stumbled. She failed her first test in statistics, a prerequisite for admission to the nursing program. 

Call us crazy, but maybe there is something else besides wealth going on here. 


Liberal Contributions to Culture
Speaking of higher education, read below what one Professor Victor Corona of FIT has to say about one Michael Alig who was released from prison:

Victor P. Corona, a sociology professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, said that Mr. (Michael) Alig is a bona fide fashion icon, one who paid his debt to society and made a lasting contribution to culture. In a planned book, “Downtown Superstars: Inside Three Generations of New York Fame,” he makes the case that Mr. Alig is a bridge between Andy Warhol’s Factory and Lady’s Gaga’s fashion and music. (New York Times, 5/15/2014)

Wow, a bridge between Andy Warhol and Lady Gaga! But, we are still skeptical, what exactly did this cultural icon do to land himself in prison? Oh, this:

On a Sunday night in March 1996, Mr. Alig and Robert Riggs, known as Freeze, killed Mr. Melendez during an argument over money and drugs in Mr. Alig’s apartment on West 43rd Street. During a scuffle, Mr. Riggs hit Melendez with a hammer. Mr. Alig then suffocated him with a sweatshirt and poured Drano down his throat, he said, before dumping the body in the bathtub, pouring ice over it and abandoning the apartment for the next nine days. Then, high on heroin, Mr. Alig dismembered the corpse to get rid of it.

Got it. 

Maybe Vanessa and others are better off NOT going to college....

Full Swing

They Can See Clearly Now
In the midst of all the turmoil in health care these days, one thing is becoming clear: No matter what kind of health plan consumers choose, they will find fewer doctors and hospitals in their network — or pay much more for the privilege of going to any provider they want. (New York Times, 5/12/2014)

The New York Times makes a startling discovery about Obamacare! Such discovery that was predicted months - if not years - ago by EVERY single Republican who opposed Obamacare.


The End is Near
A large section of the mighty West Antarctica ice sheet has begun falling apart and its continued melting now appears to be unstoppable, two groups of scientists reported on Monday. If the findings hold up, they suggest that the melting could destabilize neighboring parts of the ice sheet and a rise in sea level of 10 feet or more may be unavoidable in coming centuries.

Global warming caused by the human-driven release of greenhouse gases has helped to destabilize the ice sheet, though other factors may also be involved, the scientists said. (New York Times, 5/12/2014)

Ah yes, "other factors."

Let's read further:

Scientists said the ice sheet was not melting because of warmer air temperatures, but rather because relatively warm water that occurs naturally in the depths of the ocean was being pulled to the surface by an intensification, over the past several decades, of the powerful winds that encircle Antarctica.

And while the cause of the stronger winds is somewhat unclear, many researchers consider human-induced global warming to be a significant factor.

'Naturally occurring warm waters' and stronger winds, the cause of which is "somewhat unclear."

This is the "science" of climate change. 


Navel Action
His preference for navel gazing over action was on full display last week. As Russia and China menaced their neighbors and Islamist terrorists set off bombs in a half-dozen countries, Obama accepted an award from Hollywood pal Steven Spielberg for fighting genocide. Passing up a chance to give a full-throated defense of freedom and Western civilization, the president lapsed into what The New York Times called a “meditation” on the limits of his power. (Michael Goodwin, Foxnews.com, 5/12/2014)

The single most powerful man in the world unilaterally disarms......creating chaos on the world stage. 

Imperial Templates

Obama Motors
With a full battery charge, the ELR has an E.P.A.-estimated driving range of 37 miles — roughly the average American round-trip commute — in all-electric mode. That charge takes from 12.5 to 18 hours with a standard 120-volt outlet, and about five hours at 240 volts. (New York Times, 5/9/2014)

Liberals' favorite car company announces the Cadillac ELR. You read that right, it can go 37 miles on one charge. Which takes one-half day. 

Why can't conservatives get behind these wonderful green energy initiatives?


Sound the Trumpets
President Barack Obama on Friday trumpeted new executive actions and public- and private-sector commitments aimed at cutting carbon pollution and improving energy efficiency, saying that climate change is real and must be addressed now.

In a speech at a Wal-Mart store in Mountain View, Calif., the president laid out a list of clean-energy objectives he can accomplish without Congress's help and touted corporate pledges to expand the deployment of solar power. He lamented the lack of cooperation from lawmakers on clean-energy issues but said he would make sure the federal government does its part. (Wall Street Journal, 5/9/2014)

No humility, none at all when it comes to wasting more taxpayer dollars on these green energy sinkholes. Obama and his Legitimate Media sycophants do not even remember what Solyndra was all about. 


Dress Rehearsal
The reasons Benghazi is important do not have to be rehearsed here. An American outpost, virtually undefended, was attacked by armed and organized al Qaeda-associated militants on the anniversary of 9/11 and four were left dead, including the U.S. ambassador. It happened eight weeks before the 2012 presidential election. From day one White House management and leadership focused on spin and an apparent fiction. Did they deliberately mislead and misdirect? Why was there no military response? Who is responsible? (Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, 5/9/2014)

Good piece by Noonan which is incorrect only in the first line above. Democrats apparently do have to be reminded. 


Neither Nor
Yet others—until now not often quoted in news accounts—see Mr. Snowden as neither a hero nor a whistleblower. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified to the House Armed Services Committee on March 13, 2014, that "The vast majority of the documents that Snowden . . . exfiltrated from our highest levels of security had nothing to do with exposing government oversight of domestic activities." (Edward Jay Epstein, Wall Street Journal, 5/9/2014)

Epstein posits that the Snowden case is really more about espionage. We were fascinated to learn the information above: the bulk of what Snowden stole were national security secrets. Which means that when we get him back in the U.S. and he is tried and found guilty, the proper sentence is either life imprisonment...or execution. We would support either. 

Turn Like a Wheel Inside a Wheel

Write Off
Ukraine has already been written off. But Eastern Europe need not worry. Obama understands containment. He recently dispatched 150 American ground troops to Poland and each of the Baltic states. You read correctly: 150. Each. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 5/1/2014)

If Obama reads Krauthammer's devastating piece on his foreign policy failures and if he had any humility, he would resign the presidency. 

Obama has no humility and he will not resign. Whether it is Syria, or the broader Middle East, or the Ukraine, he thinks he is winning. Obama's solution to these issues is to "pivot" to Malaysia.


Feelings
The effects of human-induced climate change are being felt in every corner of the United States, scientists reported Tuesday, with water growing scarcer in dry regions, torrential rains increasing in wet regions, heat waves becoming more likely and more severe, wildfires growing worse, and forests dying under assault from heat-loving insects.

Such sweeping changes have been caused by an average warming of less than 2 degrees Fahrenheit over most land areas of the country in the past century, the scientists found. If greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane continue to escalate at a rapid pace, they said, the warming could conceivably exceed 10 degrees by the end of this century. (New York Times, 5/7/2014)

George Will had a wonderful piece a month or so ago. He related how a hundred or more German scientists, supported by the Nazis, denounced Albert Einstein's work. Will quotes Einstein as saying "if I were wrong, they would only need one." And so it is with climate change, or whatever Liberals are calling it now. The gist of the Liberal argument is that XX% of scientists agree. Of course, no mention is made of the conflicts of interests, e.g. the funding received by these scientists, their political affiliation, etc. 

Oh, and then there is this:

According to the RSS satellite data, whose value for April 2014 is just in, the global warming trend in the 17 years 9 months since August 1996 is zero. The 212 months without global warming represents more than half the 423-month satellite data record, which began in January 1979. No one now in high school has lived through global warming. (Climatedepot.com, 5/4/2014)


Projectile
Premiums were soaring, they declared, when they have actually come in below projections. (Paul Krugman, New York Times, 5/5/2014)

Krugman declares victory for Obamacare. And shame on those Republicans who do not acknowledge it! 

Note his deceit, however. "Premiums have come in below projections." Not, premiums are lower because of Obamacare and everyone is paying less for healthcare. If Krugman was honest he would say that premiums are higher, but not as high as was feared. 


Non-Qualified
As I’ve argued before, Benghazi doesn’t qualify as a scandal because the Republican allegations, even if true, don’t amount to much. (Dana Milbank, Washington Post, 5/5/2014)

Well, the Republican allegation is that the Obama administration sought - immediately before the 2012 presidential election - to deflect attention away from their claim of success in dealing with Al Qaeda by blaming an Al Qaeda attack (that cost the lives of four Americans including an ambassador) on an internet video and "not a foreign policy failure." In doing so, Republicans allege that the Obama administration misled the American people...again immediately before the presidential election.

Dana Milbank believes that this does not "amount to much." 

What price, we wonder, does someone like Milbank place on his journalistic integrity?

The (Heartless) Conservative View of Poverty

Americans - even many of the poorest - enjoy a level of material abundance unthinkable just a generation ago. (New York Times, 5/1/2014)

Despite this promising opening, the New York Times - in its latest discussion of poverty in America - reverts to true form and serves up three victims of poverty. Let's meet them.

First up we have Tammie Hagen-Noey age 49. What do learn about Tammie? Well, according to the Times, she "tapped at an iPhone as she sat on the porch of the group home where she lives..." Yes, Tammie has an iPhone. We know wealthy people who do not have iPhones, but apparently Tammie deems it a bare necessity. Readers can easily do the math to figure what the purchase and ongoing fees cost Tammie. Just a thought, but would it be cheaper for Tammie to have a basic cell phone without a data plan? Apparently an expensive smartphone is de rigueur for some of today's poor. Next we learn that Tammie "is trying to rebuild her finances, which have been decimated by divorce, government liens and addiction." Sounds like Tammie has made some bad choices along the way. How much, we wonder, has Tammie spent along the way on her addiction? And finally, we see a picture of Tammie in her group home bedroom. Wearing a sleeveless shirt we note that Tammie is sporting a large tatoo. How much did THAT cost? Yes Tammie is a victim. A victim of her own poor decisions, maybe?

Next we meet Tiffany Beroid who is 29 and works at Walmart. Good for her! Tiffany is married and her husband also works. Good for them! So far so good. There is a problem, however. Tiffany and her husband are getting pinched financially the Times tells us because of the high cost of child care. So while we applaud both Tiffany and her husband for their work ethic, we do have to question their decision to have child. An entirely voluntary decision. We know many working couples over the years who have delayed having children until they could afford to do so. Is it the responsibility of taxpayers - including those with no children or those with grown children or the elderly - to subsidize those who have children that they apparently cannot afford?

Finally we meet the also hard-working 38 year old Bobby Bingham. Bobby works three jobs and seven days a week. In that sense, Bobby is our hero. He gets up every morning, puts his boots on and gets to work. There is (again) a problem though. Bobby owes $30,000 in student loans and has $12,000 in credit card debt. How did THAT happen? What caused Bobby to rack up such massive debt? We don't know because the Times does not tell us, but there is, no doubt, some explanation which deserves further examination. Did Bobby too make some poor decisions along the way?

And so while President Obama and fellow Democrats talk incessantly about income inequality, RedStateVT again asks: to what extent are the poor in America responsible for their own condition? Our Judeo Christian heritage calls for compassion for those in need and we heartily embrace (and practice) lending a hand to the less fortunate. Oh, and we also embrace the concept of "tough love."