Bienvenida a Los Estados Unidos

Ann Coulter's latest smash best seller is entitled Adios America. The sub-title is The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole. The topic is America's immigration policies and Coulter's exhaustively researched analysis presents a truly frightening picture of how under the banner of diversity Liberals have endangered the country by admitting hoards of foreign welfare recipients and criminals. We have only one quibble with Coulter. Based on our recent experience returning to the U.S. at New York City's JFK airport recently, it may already be too late. JFK is already a Third World Hellhole, albeit one with marginally cleaner toilets. Here is what we found.

At JFK Customs and Immigration one enters a large brightly lit room with modern looking kiosks to scan your passport. But before you get to them you are forced to snake through miles of aisles. When one finally reaches the aforementioned kiosks, it is a free-for-all. Personnel from Customs are present, but they are quite obviously diversity hires. English does not appear to be their native language, they provide no direction, and they simply mill about in groups talking among themselves. You will long for the higher level of courtesy and efficiency found at the average post office. After you get your passport scanned... well you are basically on your own. There is a line that weaves randomly around and between the scanners, but it is not marked, the end of the line cannot be found, and there is no indication of where the line goes or what it is for. 

As luck would have it, this line eventually heads in the direction of the U.S. Immigration stations. It is worth noting that there are approximately ten or more such stations. Approximately eight are dedicated to handling non-U.S. citizens entering the country. Only two are solely for returning Americans. By our estimation, English speakers on the line for residents totaled no more than 40%. 

The entire experience reminds one of what movies depict of airports in the third world backwaters of Africa and the Middle East. The only thing missing were the AK-47 wielding armed guards.

Welcome to America. Or should we say Bienvenida a Los Estados Unidos. 

Contents Under Pressure

Inside the Mind of Our Dear Leader
Obama doesn't care what Republicans in America think of him or his policies. He cares a lot, however, about what Muslims in the Middle East think. 


Uninspiring
The new timeline suggests that the couple were considering violent action before the Islamic State rose to prominence in 2014 and began trying to inspire sympathizers to carry out attacks in the West.

And the disclosures raise questions about how thoroughly American law enforcement and immigration officials vetted the wife before giving her a visa to enter the United States from Pakistan a year before the shooting, which left 14 dead and 21 wounded. (New York Times, 12/10/2015)

President Obama asked why Republicans who oppose letting 100,000 Syrian refugees into the country were so afraid of "women and children." 

Now you know. 

Another presidential ooops! And so we can add "women and children" to "JV team" and "contained" for inclusion in the foreign policy pronouncement blunders of President Foot-in-Mouth.


Right On
The rest of the world does not have a civil right to move here. We're under no moral imperative to allow any immigration at all. We don't owe citizens of other countries anything. 

But as long as you brought it up: They owe us. America runs around saving other countries from tsunamis, earthquakes, pirates, disease, starvation, warlords, dictators, Nazis, communists -- then their citizens show up full of grievances, as if we owe them. (anncoulter.com, 12/10/2015)

Liberals may just be the dumbest people on the planet. In the face of terrorism committed on American soil by Muslims, their solution is to demand that more Muslims be allowed to come here. It would be fine if insane Liberal ideas only affected Liberals, but they don't. They are putting the whole country at risk. 

Obama: All Straw Men, All the Time

The Best of Coulter (This Week)
Successful countries must allow themselves to be overrun by backward cultures so that no country thinks it's better than another....While liberals' idea of retaliation is to post the French flag on their Twitter profiles, Republicans think the way to get tough is to go to war in Syria. ...The West's importation of Stone Age people is a completely self-inflicted wound. (Ann Coulter.com, 11/18/2015)


Plowed Under
Asked whether Mr. Obama had underestimated the Islamic State when he referred to the group as the “J.V. team,” Mrs. Clinton said, “I don’t think it’s useful to go back and replow old ground.” (New York Times, 11/20/2015)

She then said "Mission Accomplished" fourteen times.


Not Good with Numbers
University of Vermont economist Art Woolf has suggested that Vermont could accept as many as 5,000 Syrian refugees. When asked if he thinks the state can support that number, Shumlin said, “I’m not an expert on the numbers, I know that Vermont can take more than seven.” (VTDigger.org, 11/17/2015)

Shumlin - self-proclaimed non-expert on number (see his budget) - waves in Syrian refugees including embedded ISIS terrorists. We're guessing they are not going to be housed next door to him in Montpelier.


Checkmate
...the president repeated his promise to “provide refuge to at least 10,000 refugees fleeing violence in Syria” after passing “the highest” security checks. (New York Times, 11/20/2015)

Of course, Obama didn't give a d**n about the Syrians when Assad was gassing them. Now he is Mr. Compassion and Republicans concerned about terrorists leaking in are the evil ones. There has NEVER been a president as duplicitous as Obama. 

Wait! We thought Bernie Sanders was an Independent

Rejection
Mr. Obama angrily rejected the idea that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is challenging American leadership by using fighter jets and missiles in Syria.

“If you think that running your economy into the ground and having to send troops in, in order to prop up your only ally, is leadership, then we’ve got a different definition of leadership,” Mr. Obama said. He added later: “The fact that they had to do this is not an indication of strength.” (New York Times, 10/12/2015)

This is the essence of Obama's worldview: a strong military does not equate to strength. In a world of dangerous characters: ISIS, Putin, Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-whoever. Obama's weapon of choice to combat these dangerous foes is his own self-righteous oratory. How's that working for him?


Discouraged
CNN's Anderson Cooper will moderate the first Democratic presidential debate this week, and unlike the previous Republican debate hosted by CNN, Cooper said he won't be encouraging confrontations between the candidates.

"I'm always uncomfortable with that notion of setting people up in order to kind of promote some sort of a face off," Cooper said Sunday on CNN's "Reliable Sources." "Look, these are all serious people. This is a serious debate. They want to talk about the issues and I want to give them an opportunity to do that."

Cooper's suggested style is a departure from the GOP debate hosted by CNN and moderated by Jake Tapper in September. Before that debate, Tapper had said he was "trying to craft questions that, in most cases, pit candidates against the other." (washingtonexaminer.com, 10/12/2015)

Republican candidates are asked to spell the names of the every world leader, to critique Donald Trump and to confess their experiences with illicit drugs. But Democrats are serious people, so AC360 will take a different approach and allow them to "talk about the issues." Is he still mad at Republicans about that whole gay marriage thing?

There is no LIBERAL media bias. 


Sweaty
Other reporters and Clinton associates have remarked upon Clinton’s remarkable ability to not sweat, even when working the rope line on a hot Iowa day. “I don’t mean sweat because you’re nervous,” said host Tracy Clayton. “I just mean physically. I’m genuinely curious what your deodorant is.” (vanityfair.com, 10/2015)

Ann Coulter once noted that Republican candidates have to memorize the names of the past three leaders of Swaziland. The Clintons are asked about their underwear and deodorant choices.

There is no LIBERAL media bias. 


Civil Servant
“Good morning, ma’am,” a member of the uniformed Secret Service once greeted Hillary Clinton.
“F— off,” she replied. (nypost.com, 10/10/2015)

Meanwhile, the LIBERAL media takedown of Carly Fiorina is in full swing.


Feel the Burn
In Debate Preview, Bernie Sanders Criticizes Hillary Clinton for Iraq Vote (New York Times headline, 10/11/2015)

Bernie gets dirty!

It's Working! Health Insurance Premiums in Vermont Go Up Again!

The Best of the Best
Two great points recently from Rush Limbaugh: 
1-The U.S. military accidentally bombs a hospital in Afghanistan. Obama's name is never mentioned. Had the same thing happened when George Bush was president, Democrats would have called for him to be impeached!
2- Four Americans are killed in Benghazi and Democrats blame the killings on a video. Nine people are killed in Oregon and Democrats blame guns. 

Two great quotes from Ann Coulter's best seller Adios America:
1- Britain used to have an empire, meaning that it wiped out exotic diseases, ended tribal bloodshed, expanded literacy, and generally dragged primitive societies into the nineteenth century.
2- Perhaps we should consider qualifications (for immigration) more stringent than "lives within walking distance."


Reversal
Mrs. Clinton’s position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership represents a reversal of her earlier support for the agreement. She backed the pact while serving in the Obama administration, calling it the “gold standard” for trade deals during a trip to Australia in 2012. As a senator from New York in 2002, Mrs. Clinton described NAFTA as one of the accomplishments of her husband, former President Bill Clinton. (Wall Street Journal, 10/8/2015)

Question: Did Hillary Clinton "flip-flop" or did she "evolve?"

Answer: RedStateVT, why do you always ask this same question? Don't you know by now that Republicans flip-flop and Democrats evolve?

Here's another question, and it is a troubling one. Given what we have often heard from the likes of Eugene Robinson (Washington Post) and Charles Blow (New York Times) about those who oppose Obama, is Hillary Clinton a racist?


Headlines
Nobel Prize Awarded to Tunisian Coalition (New York Times headline, 10/9/2015)
Obama's Nobel Prize Repeat Thwarted by Tunisian Coalition (RedStateVT headline, 10/9/2015)

In Debate, Hillary Clinton Will Display Skills Honed Over a Lifetime (actual New York Times headline, 10/9/2015)
Setting Bernie Sanders Apart From the Field: A Palpable Sense of Conviction (actual New York Times headline, 10/9/2015)
Has Ted Cruz Done Anything Illegal? (possible New York Times headline, 10/9/2015)

#ConservativeLivesMatter

Avoidance
This video features Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountains VP & Medical Director Savita Ginde discussing the practice of procuring baby parts as well as how to avoid media scrutiny of their organ harvesting.

Toward the end of the video, the cameras get inside the abortion clinic’s pathological laboratory. Medical assistants are heard and seen cracking skulls, and extracting brains. “Here’s some organs for you,” a Planned Parenthood employee said. “Here’s a stomach, kidney, heart.” A medical assistant exclaims: “And another boy!” (Mollie Hemingway, thefederalist.com, 9/29/2015)

Has Barack Obama seen the Planned Parenthood videos? Bernie Sanders? Hillary Clinton? Have ANY Democrats seen the videos. We doubt it. No person with an ounce of humanity could support Planned Parenthood after watching the videos depicting the aftermarket dealing in fetal body parts. So supporters willfully choose to ignore the barbarism in order to garner votes from Liberal women and lecture Republicans on "women's health."


Secreto
Pope Francis met secretly in Washington last week with Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who defied a court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, her lawyer said in a telephone interview Tuesday night. Francis gave her rosaries and told her to “stay strong,” the lawyer said. (New York Times, 9/30/2015)

Today, even the papacy is political. Francis goes long on decrying capitalism and climate change, but meets in private with Kim Davis and the Little Sisters of the Poor. 

Jesus wept.


Extension
“To the extent that the expanding welfare state allows more people to live without working—and therefore without earning income or developing their own human capital—supporters of the welfare state are contributing to the very income disparities they so much decry,” writes economist Thomas Sowell in his new book, “Wealth, Poverty and Politics.” (Jason Riley, Wall Street Journal, 9/30/2015)

Call this a daily double. Jason Riley AND Thomas Sowell. Hats off to both.


Reflections of a ‘Master Legislator’ (New York Times headline, 9/30/2015)
The Master Legislator? None other than Teddy "Scotch and Soda" Kennedy! Among the Tedster's accomplishments described herein: immigration reform resulting in the current flood of Mexicans into the U.S. Read Ann Coulter's "Adios America" for a detailed analysis of how that is working out.

And then there is this:
But one of the withheld transcripts dealt with the death of Mary Jo Kopechne in a car Mr. Kennedy drove off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island in 1969. James Sterling Young, the professor of government and foreign affairs who led the oral history project and conducted the Kennedy interviews, said in 2009 that one interview dealt with Chappaquiddick. 


Lesser
History will remember Barack Obama as the president who conducted foreign policy less as a principled exercise in the application of American power than as an extended attempt to justify the evasion of it. (Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, 9/29/2015)

That's it, isn't it?

Supreme Court Makes It Official: Words No Longer Mean Anything

“The system that our founders put together, which was follow the Constitution and three equal but separate branches of government that each have their own specific role, is over. We no longer live in that America. That is done now.” 
Glen Beck


"We live in a different country, and I don't remember moving."
Ann Coulter, channeling Ronald Reagan


"I dissent."
Justice Anton Scalia

Democrats Sell Out America, Again

Never Ever
I’m bemused that the Senate could devote so many resources to studying the interrogation program and yet never once speak to any of the key people involved in it, including the guy who ran it (that would be me). (Jose Rodriguez, Washington Post, 12/5/2014)

Rodriguez is a patriot and an American hero. Democrats hate that.

These are the same Democrats who first blamed intelligence agencies for not stopping 9/11; then received briefings on the measures taken by these same intelligence agencies to find the people responsible for 9/11 and prevent another attack; and who now claim amnesia while blaming the intelligence agencies for...what? Doing too much?

Ann Coulter says it all the time: Democrats cannot be trusted with national security. They should not be allowed to hold power for forty years. 


Their Trauma
Over the weekend Columbia Law’s interim dean, Robert Scott, announced that exams would be postponed for students who feel traumatized over the two grand jury decisions not to indict white police officers in the deaths of Brown and Garner, both of whom are black. (dailycaller.com, 12/8/2014)

Those crazy kids will do ANYTHING to get out of finals!


Worst Case
Administration officials acknowledged that the briefings given to lawmakers included worst-case scenarios. They say that is a legacy of the attack on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, which erupted after the posting of a satirical video about the Prophet Muhammad. State Department officials were faulted for inadequate security and for not responding quickly enough when the assailants overran the complex. (New York Times, 12/9/2014)

After having been thoroughly discredited, the Obama administration and the New York Times are back to touting the "bad video" as the reason for Benghazi. This is propaganda that Joseph Goebbels would admire. 


No Mystery
While the names of these countries are redacted in the declassified report, their identity is scarcely a mystery. Poland, for example, has been cited by a court for its involvement in the program, which has been highly controversial among both opponents inside Poland and international human rights activists for more than a decade.

“We have suspected that Polish authorities knew about the black sites and that the C.I.A. had planned for them from the very beginning,” said Adam Bodnar, vice president of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. “Hopefully, it will allow this issue to be finally resolved, and make sure those in Poland who are guilty are brought to justice.”

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in July that Poland was complicit in the interrogation program and awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages to two men: Abu Zubaydah, suspected of running a Qaeda facility in Pakistan, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, believed to have planned the attack on the U.S.S. Cole.

“Poland, for all practical purposes, facilitated the whole process, created the conditions for it to happen, and made no attempt to prevent it from occurring,” the court ruled. Polish officials have steadfastly denied the country was involved in the secret prison program. (New York Times, 12/9/2014)

America has no more stalwart ally than Poland. Which pains us at RedStateVT when - once again - the Obama administration throws Poland under the bus. RedStateVT apologizes to the Poles on behalf of all fair-minded Americans. 


Run Run Run
Some Democrats are “Ready for Hillary.” MoveOn.org is ready for Elizabeth Warren.

The liberal group is poised to spend $1 million on a campaign to draft Senator Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, into the 2016 presidential race, an indication of an appetite among some activists for a more progressive alternative to Hillary Rodham Clinton. (New York Times, 12/9/2014)

Can you imagine a Democratic race which included Hillary Clinton, Lizzie Warren and Colonel Bernie Sanders? It would be a RedStateVT dream come true! We would easily have a year's worth of material. 

For The Last Time: His Hands Weren't Up And He Wasn't Surrendering

All Good
Only liberals look at blacks looting and say, See what white Americans made them do? (Anncoulter.com, 11/26/2014)

Ann Coulter argued that body cameras on police officers would "shut Al Sharpton down" in an interview on Monday's "Sean Hannity Show." (Breitbart.com, 12/1/2014)

Ingraham: Put body camera on Obama (foxnews.com, 12/2/2014)



The Key
“The true story came out from the grand jury testimony,” Barkley said, adding that he was made aware of “key forensic evidence, and several black witnesses that supported Officer Darren Wilson’s story…” He continued, “I can’t believe anything I hear on television anymore. And, that’s why I don’t like talking about race issues with the media anymore, because they (the media) love this stuff, and lead people to jump to conclusions. The media shouldn’t do that. They never do that when black people kill each other. ”  (Hotair.com, 12/1/2014)

The wonderful Charles Barkley. The only braver blacks in America were the ones who testified before the Ferguson grand jury and corroborated the version of events told by Officer Wilson. 


All the Facts
The Ferguson case, with its fiercely disputed facts, has posed a particular dilemma for Mr. Obama, forcing him to balance his sympathy for the anger it has aroused among African-Americans with his commitment to the rule of law. (New York Times, 12/2/2014)

Actually, New York Times, the facts are the facts. There are no longer two sets of "facts." And the "facts" are only "fiercely disputed" by those - like the New York Times - who refuse to recognize the truth and who want to make the death of Michael Brown into a civil rights issue instead of what it really was: an assault on a peace officer. The grand jury heard expert testimony from forensic specialists and from unimpeachable witnesses who - in telling the truth - put themselves at great risk. Now there are only the facts and discredited falsehoods. 

Watching the World

Ooops!
And when Mr. Obama took office in January 2009, the Secret Service recorded an alarming surge in threats against him. (New York Times, 10/3/2014)

Finally, The Washington Post's Carol Leonnig is doggedly pushing the hoax about Obama getting more threats than any previous president....Even after being corrected by an MSNBC host, Frances Rivera, last Sunday, Leonnig plowed ahead with her thoroughly disproved thesis, based on what someone had told her -- it was at either a DNC fundraiser or a Volvo dealership. (Ann Coulter, 10/1/2014)

And in fact, the agency assigned agents to guard him starting in May 2007, the earliest a presidential candidate has ever been provided protection. (New York Times, 10/3/2014)

(Washington Post writer Carol) Leonnig even recycled the old folk tale about Obama's receiving Secret Service protection "much earlier than other candidates." How many times do we have to disprove this gibberish? The reason Obama's Secret Service protection started earlier than usual is that campaigns start earlier than usual. Obama declared he was running for president on Feb. 10, 2007. Three months later, he got Secret Service protection. (Ann Coulter, 10/1/2014)

We knew Ann Coulter was great, but now we are starting to believe that she has magical powers. She refutes a New York Times story two days before the story is published!


Standard of Care
Thirteen abortion clinics in Texas were forced to close immediately after a federal appellate court on Thursday sided with Texas in its yearlong legal battle over its sweeping abortion law and allowed the state to enforce one of the law’s toughest provisions while the case was being appealed.
...
The ruling gave Texas permission to require all abortion clinics in the state to meet the same building, equipment and staffing standards as hospital-style surgical centers, standards that abortion providers said were unnecessary and costly, but that the state argued improved patient safety. (New York Times, 10/3/2014)

We are confused. For decades proponents of abortion have raised the specter of dangerous "back-alley abortions" as justification for why it should be legal. They said it so many times that "back-alley abortion" is now part of the lexicon. Now Texas requires abortion clinics to meet minimum standards for care and the pro-abortion crowd is aghast. 


Alarming
“When alarms go off somewhere in the world, this is who the world calls — America,” the president said in a speech that lasted a little less than an hour. “They don’t call Moscow. They don’t call Beijing. They call us. We welcome that responsibility and leadership. That’s who we are.” (New York Times, 10/3/2014)

After six years of purposefully reducing America's influence in the world Obama suddenly feels a surge of American exceptionalism. Now that is hypocrisy. 


Who Said It?
 “President Obama this week committed professional suicide.” 
...
He called Obama’s throwing of the intelligence community under the bus a “shameless, reprehensible display of buck-passing” that will result in some analysts’ exacting “cold-blooded revenge on Obama by drip-feeding negative stories about him until he’s gone.” (John Fund, Nationalreview.com, 10/3/2014)

Who is the "he" above? Give up?

Piers Morgan!

Come back to America, Piers! All is forgiven.

Fitful Echoes

Just Because
The president thinks people are depressed because they don't understand how good the economy is. Actually right now they are depressed because he is president. (Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, 9/18/2014)

Loyal readers know that RedStateVT holds Ann Coulter in high esteem for her brilliant political analysis and superb wit. Here she gets a run for her money from Peggy Noonan. 


Great Moments from the Obama Presidency
If you like your health plan you can keep it

The 1980s wants their foreign policy back

There is not a smidgen of scandal at the IRS

Tell Vladimir I will have more flexibility after the election

I did not set a red line on Syria

ISIS is a JV team

We do not have a strategy yet

No boots on the ground


Shutdown
Nearly a year after its bungled rollout subjected thousands of Vermonters to a state mandated health insurance marketplace that was more expensive, nearly impossible to navigate and never fully functional, Governor Shumlin today announced that Vermont Health Connect will be shut down for repairs until after the November elections. (VTGOP.org, 9/16/2014)

In the private sector, you get fired for this level of incompetence. In Vermont, Burger Boy Shumlin will get re-elected.


Declaration
Gov. Peter Shumlin declared $721,445 in income on the 2013 federal income tax return he filed last spring. Nearly half the money came from real estate income. Shumlin also released a list of $10.3 million in assets that includes 16 properties valued collectively at $3.86 million. (Burlington Free Press, 9/19/2014)

Another Liberal 1%er!

Occupy Shumlin!


Unsettling
...the climate lobby should return to the climate science and explain the hiatus in warming that has now lasted for 16, 19 or 26 years depending on the data set and which the climate models failed to predict even as global carbon dioxide emissions have climbed by 25%. Their alibi is that the new warming is now hidden in the oceans, an assertion they lack the evidence to prove. (Wall Street Journal, 9/22/2014)

To which climate liars (i.e. the opposite of climate deniers) say...what?

RedStateVT's Health Insurance Cancelled! Obama, Shumlin are Mum

What, Him Worry?
If Mr. Obama hoped to show America’s enemies that they cannot hijack his schedule, he also showed many of his friends in America that he disdains the politics of appearance. He long ago stopped worrying about what critics say, according to aides, and after the outcry over Wednesday’s game, he defied the critics by golfing again on Thursday, his eighth outing in 11 days on the island.

It was all the more striking given that Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain canceled his vacation after the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria released the video showing Mr. Foley’s death because the accent of the masked killer suggested he came from Britain....But the criticism went beyond the usual political opponents. Privately, many Democrats shook their heads at what they considered a judgment error.  (New York Times, 8/22/2014)

Too Cool for School Obama. Even Democrats must be silently wishing that his term would just end. If the mid-terms do not go the Dems way, it will only get worse. You think he is checked-out now? Just wait. 


Live Fire
Russian Forces in Ukraine Are Firing Artillery, NATO Says
The Russian military has moved artillery units manned by Russian personnel inside Ukrainian territory in recent days and is using them to fire at Ukrainian forces, NATO officials said on Friday. (New York Times, 8/22/2014)

Which, of course, takes us back to the famous Hillary Clinton reset button with Russia. Somewhere a Republican strategist is already writing the campaign commercial...

Which also reminds us of the Ann Coulter adage that Democrats can NEVER be trusted with national defense. 

Everyday Moods

He's Got the Fever
In part, of course, that depends on what Republicans do in the next two years. Mr. Obama has been frustrated by his inability, even after a decisive 2012 re-election victory, to “break the fever” of hard-core Republican opposition. With control of both chambers of Congress, Republicans might feel a greater responsibility to join Mr. Obama in governance by striking politically appealing compromises. (New York Times, 8/21/2014)

After George W. Bush was re-elected, Democrats immediately began advising him that now was the time to compromise. Whereupon HRH Ann Coulter said something to the effect of: "Compromise? Why should Bush compromise? He has Dems in a cage. He should be poking them with a stick!"

Anticipating a shellacking in the coming elections, Dems are already urging Republicans....to compromise!


Touchy
Darren Wilson, the Ferguson, Mo., police officer whose fatal shooting of Michael Brown touched off more than a week of demonstrations, suffered severe facial injuries, including an orbital (eye socket) fracture, and was nearly beaten unconscious by Brown moments before firing his gun, a source close to the department's top brass told FoxNews.com. (Foxnews.com, 8/20/2014)

And so it unfolds as it always does. A black teenager coming home from choir practice is killed by a racist white cop. Slowly we learn that the teen had marijuana in his system, had just robbed a convenience store and busted the cop's face. The details change slightly from incident to incident, but the basic pattern is the same. Maybe the cops should sue claiming racial profiling.....


Kill Them Before They Kill Us
But Foley is dead and his killers won't fail on their own. They will not fail because Barack Obama reached out his hand in peace on Inauguration Day. They will not fail because of a progressive vision that mankind has finally in the 21st century reached some higher level of being. Like every evil in human history, ISIS will stop only when it is forced to stop. This means only when enough of its fanatics have been killed. (Wall Street Journal, 8/21/2014)

Our favorite paragraph from today's WSJ editorial.

But the lesson of the last century is that a coalition of the willing forms only when America leads. The main reason that ISIS has advanced so far has been the U.S. failure to act against it. Mr. Obama's refusal to intervene in Syria created a breeding ground for jihadists. And his total withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 created a vacuum for those jihadists to spill over and occupy Sunni Iraq.

No, this is our favorite.

Even if Mr. Obama absolves himself and still blames George W. Bush for his Middle Eastern troubles, that does him and the world no good now. Disorder is spreading while he is the world's ostensible leader. ISIS is marching while he is Commander in Chief.

Or maybe this one...

It does not matter, the point is that the lesson that Liberals like Obama have not learned and may never learn is that evil exists in the world and it must be eradicated by force and only by force. 

We have to kill them. 

Withdrawal, reset buttons, and vacillation only allow the cancer of evil to spread until it is at our doorstep. We have seen that movie before.
  

Devil's Bargain
Economic growth is nonpartisan. But inner-city public education is totally partisan. Democratic politicians made a Faustian bargain with the teachers unions, and the souls carried away have been the black children in those doomed schools. (Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal, 8/20/2014)

Dems have sold their souls in exchange for the votes and campaign contributions of unions. That is a fact. 

Catching Up with the Taliban 5

A RedStateVT Exclusive
RedStateVT recently caught up with the Taliban 5, celebrating their release from Gitmo at the Jihadi Disco in Qatr. The group, known informally now as the T-5, were relaxing after a night of bogeying with the locals. What did you like least about Gitmo, we asked? The food, Mohammed said immediately. The other four jihadists, also named Mohammed, all nodded in agreement. 

How much goat can you eat they asked rhetorically. 

So what was the first meal you had once you were back on sacred ground we wondered. In unison, the Mohammeds shouted out: KFC!!!

How soon do you think you will be back fighting the infidels?

Mohammed said: "Well today is our eighth free day, so 365 minus eight is 357. Call it 357 days, Allah willing."

We asked, what do you think Obama should do in the Middle East? Exactly, what he has been doing, said the T-5.


Raggedy Andy
The platoon was, an American military official would assert years later, “raggedy.”

On their tiny, remote base, in a restive sector of eastern Afghanistan at an increasingly violent time of the war, they were known to wear bandannas and cutoff T-shirts. Their crude observation post was inadequately secured, a military review later found. Their first platoon leader, and then their first platoon sergeant, were replaced relatively early in the deployment because of problems. (New York Times, 6/8/2014)

Rising in defense of Obama's release of five "aging" or "hardened" Taliban (the paper cannot decide which), the Times decides to "swift-boat" Bowe Bergdahl's platoon. Their crime? They wore "bandannas and cutoff T-shirts." 

Oh the humanity....

In another apparent breach of military discipline the platoon also apparently "might have made it too easy for him to walk away.." Wait, isn't that desertion?


Hardly
In an apparent cost-savings move, the New York Times asks the Hillary "Inevitable" Clinton 2016 presidential campaign staff to review her book "Hard Choices." 

It's kinda like grading your own paper. 

Here is what they had to say: 

--The book itself, however, turns out to be a subtle, finely calibrated work that provides a portrait of the former secretary of state and former first lady as a heavy-duty policy wonk.

-- “Hard Choices” is a statesmanlike document intended to attest to Mrs. Clinton’s wide-ranging experience on national security and on foreign policy. 

--Mrs. Clinton displays a pragmatic, case-by-case modus operandi. 

--Mrs. Clinton’s main legacy lies in reorienting American foreign policy in a globalized, tech-savvy 21st century, and in helping restore the country’s image abroad in the wake of the Iraq war and the unilateralism of President George W. Bush’s administration.

--One of the few things this book shares with “Living History” is its emphasis on Mrs. Clinton as someone capable of growth and change

--Mrs. Clinton has always been a conscientious A-student

--she provides the lay reader — and potential voter — with succinct and often shrewd appraisals of the complex web of political, economic and historical forces in play around the world

This is the kind of hard-hitting analysis loyal readers have come to expect from that bastion of journalistic integrity, the New York Times. 

Next up from the Times, another cost-savings move wherein they have the Hillary "Inevitable" Clinton 2016 presidential campaign staff review Ann Coulter's latest book. 

Continuing Outreach Obama to Challenge Five Released Taliban to Pick-Up Hoop Game

Who Said It?
All along, Obama’s weakness has been the lack of a worldview. Problems are approached individually — unconnected to anything else — and often left to languish. We pivot to Asia . . . in a speech. We applaud the Arab Spring and promise hugs and kisses . . . in a speech. We call recent developments in Ukraine a success for U.S. policy, but Russia’s seizure of Crimea stands. Sure, this was not Obama’s fault, but it is not his success, either — and certainly not something to boast about.

What can be done? Although Obama is by nature a prudent man, there’s always the chance that he will overreact, attempt to show he is strong by doing something a tad reckless. In the meantime, no more speeches. They no longer work because they are no longer believed. They are coming attractions for a movie that never opens and merely reminds us all — the world’s bad guys most of all — of the president’s intellectually chaotic and bumbling foreign policy. Fix the policy, then give the speech. (Washington Post, 6/2/2014)

Was it: 
1) Charles Krauthammer
2) Ann Coulter
3) George Will
4) Liberal Washington Post Op-ed Writer Richard Cohen

If you guessed 4) you are today's winner!


Old and in the Way
Issues that had bitterly divided the Obama administration — about the wisdom of the prisoner swap and the risks of releasing a group of aging Taliban commanders from Guantánamo Bay — were swept aside in the rush to secure Sergeant Bergdahl’s release. (New York Times, 6/5/2014)

This is how the New York Times shills for the Obama administration. Those five terrorists that Obama released? They are "aging." In all likelihood they just want to go home and play dominoes. Call us skeptical, but we're guessing they still have some of the old jihad in their bones.

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. 

Stones of the River

With and Without
Millions of people facing the cancellation of health insurance policies will be allowed to buy catastrophic coverage and will be exempt from penalties if they go without insurance next year, the White House said Thursday night.

The New York Times headline should read: 
OBAMA ALLOWS MILLIONS TO BUY JUNK POLICIES FROM BAD APPLE INSURERS!

Will MSNBC's hosts react with outrage? After all, they said over and over again that these policies were evil. What will they say now? If history is any guide, they will ignore the issue entirely and run stories on Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz.

The Times is good enough to remind us of previous, ahem, delays:

On July 2, the White House abruptly announced a one-year delay, until 2015, in a provision that requires larger employers to offer coverage to their workers or pay penalties. 

On Nov. 27, it deferred a major element of the law that would allow small businesses to buy insurance online for their employees through the federal exchange.

Earlier, in April, the administration said that the federal exchange would not offer employees of a small business the opportunity to choose from multiple health plans in 2014.

And in October 2011, the administration scrapped a long-term care insurance program created by the new law, saying it was too costly and would not work. (New York Times, 12/19/2013)


Slip Sliding
But Mr. Obama must decide whether such a recalibration would unreasonably increase the risk of terrorists slipping through the surveillance net. For all of his campaign speeches, that was a risk he was not willing to take once in office. Yet in recent months, he has discussed eventually ending the war on terrorism. (New York Times, 12/20/2013)

War ends when one side surrenders. 


Inheritance
Mr. Obama came into office having run against Mr. Bush’s first term but inheriting his second. Before leaving office, Mr. Bush had already moderated his counterterrorism program in hopes that it would survive his presidency. He stopped waterboarding, emptied secret C.I.A. prisons, transferred many prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and secured bipartisan legislation on detention, interrogation and surveillance. (New York Times, 12/20/2013)

The Times looks back kindly and nostalgically on W. 
After spending years savaging him. 
Hypocrites.


Softie
President Obama, expanding his push to curtail severe penalties for drug offenses, is expected on Thursday to commute the sentences of eight federal inmates who were convicted of crack cocaine offenses. Each inmate has been imprisoned for at least 15 years, and six were sentenced to life in prison. (New York Times, 12/19/2013)

Liberals are not soft on crime. 
Liberals are not soft on crime. 
Liberals are not soft on crime. 
Liberals are not soft on crime. 
Liberals are not soft on crime. 
Liberals are not soft on crime. 
Liberals are not soft on crime. 
Liberals are not soft on crime. 
Liberals are not.....


Trust
In every one of these mass shootings, there was someone in a position to say before the attack, "Trust me, this person is a psycho." Try getting Jared Loughner or James Holmes through any mental illness hearing in which they're required to speak. (Though both might end up being offered their own shows on MSNBC.) 
...
Democrats absolutely will not address the one thing that was screaming out from all of the mass shootings: a crazy person committing the crime. We can't medicate them and we can't lock them up because the ACLU has handcuffed society's ability to deal rationally with the mentally disturbed. 

Not only will Democrats refuse to address the problem of the mentally ill on their own, but they will fight to the last ditch to protect any crazy person's right not to take his medication. (AnnCoulter.com, 12/18/2013)

The great Coulter takes up RedStateVT's cause celebre: mental illness, Democrats and mass shootings.


Deliverance
Trying to harness the widespread electoral and celebrity support that delivered him to City Hall, Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio on Thursday unveiled his newest campaign, to win a tax on high-earning New Yorkers to vastly improve the city’s prekindergarten and after-school programs. (New York Times, 12/20/2013)

Despite numerous long-term scientifically controlled studies showing absolutely no long term benefit to early education, Comrade Bill and his Liberal cohorts push on. They are so invested in their own moral superiority that they ignore the facts.

Preconditions

Blame Game
Obama is blaming the insurance companies for discontinuing policies that he made illegal. (At least he isn't blaming the cancellations on a guy who put a movie trailer on the Internet this time.) 
...
The best we can hope for is that influence-peddlers and government bureaucrats make wise decisions about our health care, just as they did with Solyndra, Social Security, public education and the Amtrak food service. Oops! (Only the government could lose billions of dollars with a monopoly.) From the people who brought you the Postal Service ... here's Obamacare! (AnnCoulter.com, 11/6/2013)

Actually, first Obama called them junk policies, then he criticized insurers for sending cancellation notices!

By the way, the mockery of Obamacare grows daily. First the late night talk show hosts, then Saturday Night Live and, last night, the Country Music Association award show... seen by millions. 


Zeroed Out
Millions of people could qualify for federal subsidies that will pay the entire monthly cost of some health care plans being offered in the online marketplaces set up under President Obama’s health care law, a surprising figure that has not garnered much attention, in part because the zero-premium plans come with serious trade-offs. (NYT, 11/3/2013)

Liberals love the news that more people are getting stuff for free from the government. It is, for them, proof positive that government is working and is compassionate and that as supporters, they are special people. Witness the recent joy in Vermont when Progressives determined that because of their largess, some 40% of all students in the state are getting free meals. Conservatives look at the same facts and say something is broken. 


Left Out
New York City voters stepped decisively to the political left on Tuesday, turning their collective back on two decades of Republican-backed mayoral rule. (NYT, 11/6/2013)

And so New York City will descend into chaos. Unleashed, unions will run roughshod; police will be prevented from doing their job; and New York's professional grievance-mongers will line up row upon row of victims to receive their spoils. The results will mirror those of the Dinkins years when befuddled incompetence reigned, now to be replaced by the destruction of Liberal activism. 


Gay Day
The Senate passed historic legislation Thursday to bar discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in the workplace, another victory for the gay rights movement that has been gaining favor in the courts and electoral politics. (Washington Post, 11/7/2013)

Let the lawsuits commence!


Whether or Not
Brown University will investigate a protest last month that forced the cancellation of a speech by the New York City police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, and decide whether anyone should be disciplined, the university said on Wednesday. (NYT, 11/6/2013)

Count us shocked. Not that nit-wit Liberal students would shout down an ideological opponent (they do that constantly, all the while chanting: "Free speech, free speech"), but that the far Left administrators at Brown would investigate the incident. 

Reasonable Doubt

Book Him
The campaign gave him less flattering national attention for his Twitter exchanges with a dancer in a vegan strip club, and renewed old questions about whether he embellished an oft-told story about a moving encounter with a drug dealer, who may or may not have existed (Mr. Booker called him “an archetype”). He had to resign from a media company that Silicon Valley investors had paid him millions to start — but not before the resignation of the 15-year-old son of a television executive, whom Mr. Booker had put on the company’s board. (NYT, 10/16/2013)

Congratulations to New Jersey's new Democrat senator! Well done to New Jersey voters for electing another black celebrity politician! (You get what you voted for.)

And from the same article there is this:

Having started his political career by moving into a Newark housing project, Mr. Booker spent the final days before his Senate election beating back stories in the conservative news media that he did not actually live in the city; the fact that this story could catch hold at all suggested the level of suspicion aimed at the mayor in the city where he began his rise. And he had to call off campaign events during a nearly two-week spree of murders in Newark this summer, underscoring the layoffs of police officers during his tenure, and a complaint that has long made him bristle: that he is a better orator than manager.

Kinda reminds us of someone else......


Clearly
Obamacare wasn't passed because the nation changed its mind. We got Obamacare because, at a brief moment in time, the Democrats happened to have aberrationally large majorities in the House and Senate, as well as the presidency. It was quickly and unconstitutionally enacted on a strictly party-line vote.

In the very next election, the American people elected 63 new Republicans to the House of Representatives -- the largest sweep of Congress for any party since 1948. Even liberal Massachusetts elected a Republican senator solely because of his vow to vote against Obamacare.

This is why the duly elected Republican majority in the House keeps funding the entire federal government -- except Obamacare. Or except Congress' exemption from Obamacare. Or except the individual mandate that Obama has already waived for his big-business friends. (Anncoulter.com, 10/16/2013)

Lest yea forget.


The Fix Is In
Discussing the new online insurance market during a visit to Cincinnati on Wednesday, Ms. Sebelius acknowledged the problems with the exchanges, but said that fixes were in the works.

“I am the first to admit that the launch was rockier than we would have liked,” she said. But after two weeks, she added, “there are vast improvements,” and people who were frustrated should “come back” and try again.

Some consumers who did so said they were still unable to log in and shop for insurance on Wednesday. (NYT, 10/16/2013)

OK, now can she be fired?

The Fever Swamps

Refusniks
Obamacare is such a disaster that the people who wrote it refuse to live under it themselves. That's right, Congress won a waiver from Obamacare. 

Responding to the people's will, House Republicans first voted to fund all of government -- except Obamacare. Obama refused to negotiate and Senate Democrats refused to pass it. 

Then the Republicans voted to fully fund the government, but merely delay the implementation of Obamacare for one year. Obama refused to negotiate and Senate Democrats refused to pass it. 

Finally, the Republicans voted to fully fund the government, but added a requirement that everyone live under Obamacare. No more special waivers for Congress and their staff, and no waivers for big business without the same waivers for individuals. 

Obama refused to negotiate and Senate Democrats refused to pass it. So as you can see, Republicans are the big holdup here. (AnnCoulter.com, 10/9/2013)

The official response issued jointly by the Obama administration and the office of Senator Harry Reid is as follows:

"Ted Cruz...hostage-takers...anarchists...Ted Cruz...Ted Cruz...blackmail...Ted Cruz."


Crash Test
The administration claims the Obamacare online exchanges crashed because the Web site got more than 8 million hits in the first week. Please. You know how many people visit Amazon.com every week? More than 70 million. The difference is: 1.) Amazon seldom crashes, and 2.) on Amazon, people actually buy something. (Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post, 10/14/2013)

And yet somehow Kathleen Sebelius continues to have a job.

(Killer point by Thiessen.)


Tipped Off
But ObamaCare is the tipping point, the tea party believes. Unless the law is defunded, the land of limited government, individual liberty and personal responsibility will be gone forever, and the new America, dominated by dependent minorities who assert their "rights" without accepting their responsibilities, will have no place for people like them.

For the tea party, ObamaCare is much more than a policy dispute; it is an existential struggle. (William A. Galston, WSJ, 10/15/2013)

You may love the tea party, you may hate it, but you need to understand it.


What's for Lunch?
ObamaCare promised a free lunch: universal (or near-universal) coverage at lower cost without any diminution of quality or choice. It's a perpetual-motion machine. But even the Supreme Court can't strike down the laws of physics. If a large number of people benefit from ObamaCare--itself a big if--somebody has to pay. Much of the burden was supposed to fall on young, healthy people, who frequently do not have medical insurance. To compensate for price controls on premiums for patients with pre-existing conditions, their premiums would be jacked up. Somehow higher prices are supposed to induce them to get insured. (James Taranto, WSJ, 10/15/2013)

And you were cynical about today's youth!

(Killer point by Taranto.)


Threat Level
In response, Republicans threatened to default on America’s debts to force agreement on the Budget Control Act, which cut nearly $1 trillion in spending over 10 years with no tax increases. (Katrina vanden Heuvel, Washington Post, 10/15/2013)

Trying to find the logic in a vanden Heuvel column is like...well, don't bother. The whole point of Republican spending cuts is to cut spending. It is not to cut spending and then raise more revenue so that spending cuts could be reversed. As RedStateVT has said a thousand times, the Liberal answer is ALWAYS taxes, more taxes.