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?