Coming Soon from Democrats: The Republican War on Children!

Bernie Sanders: Keystone XL 'makes no sense to me' (Washington Examiner, 11/18/2014)

RedStateVT: Bernie Sanders 'makes no sense to us' (RedStateVT, 11/18/2014)


Currently
In the current Democratic-controlled Senate, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, has long refused to bring a Keystone bill to a vote for fear that it could hurt the re-election chances of environmental-minded Democrats who might have voted against a project that is popular with many voters. (New York Times, 11/18/2014)

So to fellow bloggers who write endlessly of Republican obstructionism we forward the passage above. Turns out Harry Reid's Senate (which never passed a budget either, by the way) may have doing some obstruction of their own! Also nice to hear that the Keystone pipeline is "popular with many voters." We are guessing that said voters like jobs and low gas prices. 


Starkly
President Obama is poised to ignore stark warnings that executive action on immigration would amount to “violating our laws” and would be “very difficult to defend legally.”

Those warnings came not from Republican lawmakers but from Mr. Obama himself.

For years, he has waved aside the demands of Latino activists and Democratic allies who begged him to act on his own, and he insisted publicly that a decision to shield millions of immigrants from deportation without an act of Congress would amount to nothing less than the dictates of a king, not a president. (New York Times, 11/18/2014)

For any of you cynics out there, remember: Republicans flip flop, Democrats evolve.


Mutually
But since the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010, the relationship between the Obama administration and insurers has evolved into a powerful, mutually beneficial partnership that has been a boon to the nation’s largest private health plans and led to a profitable surge in their Medicaid enrollment. (New York Times, 11/17/2014)

During the Obamacare debate, Charles Krauthammer once famously said: "I care not a whit about the insurance companies." We agree. They sold their souls to Obama for short term profits but given the opportunity Obama will sell them out in a heartbeat.


Surely
As headlines go, “ Obama Moves Close to Calling Russian Action in Ukraine an Invasion,” from a weekend story in the New York Times , must surely rank among the year’s most revealing. The Obama presidency has long been at odds with the obvious. Once this was called hope.

Now it is generally recognized as farce. (Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, 11/17/2014)

Bret Stephens picks up on RedStateVT's recent point!


Extensively
Mr. Gruber wrote a 2011 cartoon book called “Health Care Reform” that aimed to explain the federal law. A note about the author says Mr. Gruber “consulted extensively with the Obama administration and Congress during the development” of the law. (Wall Street Journal, 11/17/2014)

Of all the egregious sins that Gruber has perpetrated, surely this is the worst: he wrote a cartoon book on Obamacare. 


And Then This
Here comes the tea party of the left. (Dana Milbank, Washington Post, 11/17/2014)

Honest column from Milbank. Yes, the Dems have a tea party too.

The Fruit of Man

10 Liberal Rules of War 
1)  Avoid conflict at all cost, appeasing the enemy as much as possible and for as long as possible.

2)  Do not fight if Europeans are opposed. At minimum, get support from France.

3)  If forced to fight, do not call it a war.

4)  Announce publicly what you will and will not do.

5)  Try to avoid putting "boots on the ground." "Boots in the air" or "boots on boats" are OK.

6)  Aim for proportionality; i.e. do not kill more enemy soldiers than they have killed, do not destroy more of the enemy's weaponry than they have destroyed, etc.

7)  No matter what, after a set period of time begin withdrawing while declaring: "It's time to do some nation-building at home."

8)  If a Republican president has taken the country to war, blame him every time that a serviceman or woman is killed in the line of duty.

9)  If a Republican president has taken the country to war, immediately begin asking: "What is the exit strategy?"

10) If a Republican president has taken the country to war, call all Republicans "chickenhawks."

And then there is always: Blame Bush and Cheney


Who Ya Gonna Believe?
His innate cautiousness is now actually a reassurance that he’ll fight this war sensibly, partnering with allies in the region, in a way that doesn’t needlessly exacerbate the United States’ problems with the Muslim world. (David Ignatius, Washington Post, 9/11/2014)

Democrats have a habit of accusing George W. Bush of going it alone in Iraq. According to the Center of Military History of the U.S. Army, Bush had 37 nations with us. They sent more than 25,000 troops. So far, Obama has a coalition of nine: eight NATO members plus Australia. How many of those — or of the much touted Arab coalition behind us — do you think will contribute any troops at all? (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 9/11/2014)

Krauthammer versus Ignatius is just not a fair fight!


Vexed Out
Senator John McCain was one of the earliest advocates of American military action against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. So it has been vexing for Mr. McCain to be battling persistent — and false — Internet rumors that he not only helped invent the group but also knows its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliph of the Muslim world and America’s latest Public Enemy No. 1. (New York Times, 9/12/2014)

The New York Times gives prominent coverage to an obvious fringe issue smear of John McCain. Guess they did not like McCain's complete dismantling of former White House press secretary Jay Carney during the latter's CNN debut. If the Times wants to report on Internet rumors, perhaps they could dig into that question of Obama's birth certificate....

Sue for Peace

Everything Old
The Obama administration is preparing to carry out a campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria that may take three years to complete, requiring a sustained effort that could last until after President Obama has left office, according to senior administration officials. (New York Times, 9/8/2014)

President Obama's proposed military actions in the Middle East were met by boisterous objections from Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, Code Pink and Senator Barack Obama. 

Get it?


Price of Victory
Unilateral action by the president might undermine the prospects for bipartisan agreement on a broad immigration overhaul for years to come.

As the election draws closer, some nervous Senate Democrats have told White House officials that President Obama’s actions could cost them victory at the polls.

It was that concern, shared by members of Mr. Obama’s inner circle as well as other members of Congress, White House officials said, that ultimately prompted the president to break the promise he made on June 30 in the Rose Garden to act on his own before summer’s end to fix the immigration system. (New York Times, 9/8/2014)

Another broken promise! Is anyone out there keeping track...anyone?

And again, Obama will not act - at least for now - to implement a policy that if implemented would cause people not to vote for Democrats. Sounds like another winner.


Pointless
His (new Meet the Press host Chuck Todd) questions to President Obama were succinct and pointed, but Mr. Obama is not a rewarding guest in a one-on-one interview. He tends to give long, meditative and atonal answers that wear down listeners. (New York Times, 9/8/2014)

So Obama is boring and doesn't answer the question asked. Really? The greatest orator of this or any generation?


For Better or Worse
His policy is better than he has articulated it.... (E.J. Dionne, Jr., Washington Post, 9/3/2014)

Does Dionne even recognize the irony of what he writes? Obama the orator (the greatest of this or any generation - see above) is unable to 'articlulate' his foreign policy. 


Round Up
When President Obama addresses the nation on Wednesday to explain his plan to defeat Islamic extremists in Iraq and Syria, it is a fair bet he will not call them the “JV team.”

Nor does he seem likely to describe Iraq as “sovereign, stable and self-reliant” with a “representative government.” And presumably he will not assert after more than a decade of conflict that “the tide of war is receding.”

As he seeks to rally Americans behind a new military campaign in the Middle East, Mr. Obama finds his own past statements coming back to haunt him. Time and again, he has expressed assessments of the world that in the harsh glare of hindsight look out of kilter with the changed reality he now confronts. (New York Times, 9/9/2014)

Yes, that about sums it up. Thank you New York Times. It's true we are hard on you, but it feels so right and so honest when you get it correct.


Heartless
A new ABC News poll has nothing but heartache for Democrats and President Obama. By a wide margin of 52-42%, voters see President Obama as a failed president. Americans also see Obama as more of a divider than uniter. Only 38% believe President Obama is uniting the country. A majority of 55% believe he's dividing the country. (Breitbart.com, 9/9/2014)

And he is not yet halfway through his second term! Just think of how much further Obama has to fall. Let's hope Americans remember the next time they use the polls to elect novelty candidates. 

Wanted: An Apology From Democrats For Giving Us Obama

Twisted
The latest twist came just hours after Benjamin J. Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, told reporters on Martha’s Vineyard, where President Obama is vacationing, that the president was likely to receive recommendations about how to mount a rescue operation in the next several days. He said those recommendations could have included the use of American ground troops.

But Mr. Rhodes made those comments as the secret team of Marines and Special Operations forces were already on Mount Sinjar, in the middle of a 24-hour trip to talk to the displaced people and pesh merga fighters. (New York Times, 8/14/2014)

White House and State Department officials who were leading U.S. efforts to rein in Israel's military campaign in the Gaza Strip were caught off guard last month when they learned that the Israeli military had been quietly securing supplies of ammunition from the Pentagon without their approval. (Wall Street Journal, 8/13/2014)

So now it is official. As these two passages note, the Obama administration left hand does not know what the Obama administration right hand is doing.


Mindful
Mind you, Obama does deploy grand words proclaiming grand ideas: the “new beginning” with Islam declared in Cairo, the reset with Russia announced in Geneva, global nuclear disarmament proclaimed in Prague (and playacted in a Washington summit). But, untethered from reality, they all disappeared without a trace.
...
He thus admits that Russian and other outside support was crucial to tilting the outcome of this civil war to Bashar al-Assad. Yet he dismisses countervailing U.S. support as useless. He thus tells the world of his disdain for the traditional U.S. role of protecting friends by deterring and counterbalancing adversarial outside powers. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 8/14/2014)

Leave it to Charlemagne Krauthammer to expose Obama's foreign policy incompetence. (See the following for more on Obama's incompetence...)


Poll Tested
Senate Republican strategists like Mr. Dayspring cite several recent polls as evidence that the results will turn on doubts about Mr. Obama’s competence, chiefly a late-June survey by Quinnipiac University in which 54 percent of registered voters said the president was not “competent in running the government.” In mid-July, 57 percent said “no” when asked in a CNN/ORC International poll if Mr. Obama “can manage the government effectively,” and 53 percent said in a Pew Research Center poll that he is not “able to get things done.” (New York Times, 8/14/2014)

More than one-half of the people think Obama is incompetent. But that is not even what excites the editors here at RedStateVT the most. What excites us is that the Liberal media is even willing to talk about Obama's competence. 


Logjam
Since becoming secretary of state in February 2013, John Kerry has carved out a deserved reputation as the ultimate road warrior. Before his current diplomatic trip, Mr. Kerry had traveled 519,136 miles to 51 countries, logging 230 travel days. (New York Times, 8/14/2014)

The New York Times has just got to get a new measure of the success of a secretary of state. With Hillary Clinton we got endless recitations of how many countries she visited and how many miles she traveled. 

As if these constitute success. 

Now, coming after his astonishingly dismal performance in the Middle East, the Times touts "road warrior" Kerry. We suspect that Woody Allen was right: 90% of life is just showing up. 


Injection
While opportunistic civil rights leaders and liberal commentators are pretending that policemen not only routinely kill black people but do so for no reason, the New York Police Commissioner decided to inject some common sense into the discussion.

"What we've seen in the past few months is a number of individuals failing to understand that you must submit to arrest. You cannot resist," said Mr. Bratton in a radio interview Tuesday. "The place to argue your case is in the court, not in the street." (Jason L. Riley, Wall Street Journal, 8/13/2014)

Wonderfully stated by Bratton. Award-winning MSNBC host and revered holy man Al Sharpton could save black lives if - instead of ginning up racial conflict - he urged black teens not to confront police. 

Not What You Think

Ventilator
At the end of a week of frustrating developments for the White House, at home and overseas, President Obama took time on Friday afternoon to vent.

The president revealed a long list of gripes in a nearly 50-minute news conference: a recalcitrant Congress that is refusing to deliver the amount of emergency funding he requested for a border bill; crises in the Middle East and Ukraine that defy quick or simple solutions; even a press corps that neglected to wish him a happy birthday. (New York Times, 8/2/2014)

The Whiner-in-Chief.

Note to Liberals: this is what you get when you give the country an untested politician just so that you can feel good about yourselves.


What He Did
“Well, you know what?” the president said. “What we did worked, and the economy’s better. It shows you that if you stay at it, eventually we make some progress.” (New York Times, 8/2/2014)

Almost six years after Obama takes office unemployment is over 6% and the Federal Reserve is forced to keep interest rates at near 0%. 

And then there is this (also from the New York Times):

Here’s an unusual but extraordinarily graphic description of the current state of the labor market: If you lined up all of the unemployed shoulder-to-shoulder, the queue of people looking for work would stretch all the way from New York out past San Francisco. (Justin Wolfers, New York Times, 8/1/2014)


Folksy
"We did a whole lot of things that were right [after 9/11], but we tortured some folks," Mr. Obama said at a news conference Friday. (Wall Street Journal, 8/2/2014)

And, to be clear, by "folks" Obama means violent Muslim terrorists committed to the destruction of America and who wantonly slaughter innocents. Those "folks."


Devotion
...the Democratic Party’s activist core is incurably devoted to identity politics — the proposition that people are whatever their gender is (or their race or ethnicity or sexual orientation or whatever seems stupendously important at the moment). (George Will, Washington Post, 8/1/2014)

Will sums up the guiding principle of Liberals.


Generally
When as respected and scrupulously independent a national security expert as David Ignatius calls Kerry’s intervention a blunder, you know this is not partisan carping from the usual suspects. This is general amazement at Kerry’s cluelessness. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 8/1/2014)

Krauthammer manages to eviscerate both John Kerry and fellow WaPo opinion writer Ignatius in two sentences!

The Level of the Gods

Liberal Logic
The Hamas apologists in the Liberal media are at it again. Today on NPR, one actually defined Israel's actions as genocide. Well Israel knows a thing or two about genocide. Actually it knows 6 million things about genocide...the body count of worldwide Jewry in World War II. Yes, Israel which phones the occupants of buildings it is about to bomb warning residents to vacate the premises... 

The same Liberals call for "proportionality" from Israel which apparently means they should strive to keep the body counts on each side the same. 

This is how Liberals believe wars should be fought.


Bernie Folds
House and Senate negotiators reached agreement during the weekend on a legislative package intended to stabilize the Department of Veterans Affairs’ sprawling and embattled health care system, according to people briefed on the deal.

The leaders in the negotiations — Senator Bernard Sanders, a Vermont independent, and Representative Jeff Miller, a Florida Republican — plan to outline the agreement at a news conference Monday afternoon.

The legislation is expected to include provisions for emergency relief that would allow veterans who live far from a V.A. facility or who face wait times that exceed a certain duration to see private doctors, and have those visits paid for by the government. The measure is also expected to set aside billions of dollars to hire new doctors and nurses; build or lease dozens of additional buildings needed to treat patients; and upgrade the department’s outdated scheduling system. (New York Times, 7/27/2014)

So - if we have this correct - Colonel Bernie Sanders has admitted that government run health care is not the answer and he now endorses a voucher system. So he will also change his vote on Obamacare, right?


Pick One
In Afghanistan and Iran, John Kerry brings some reasons for hope (Headline of David Ignatius column, Washington Post, 7/24/2014)

The world is aflame and our leader is on the 14th green. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 7/24/2014)

OK, which is the more accurate depiction?


Conveyance
The United States has concluded that Russia violated a landmark arms control treaty by testing a prohibited ground-launched cruise missile, according to senior American officials, a finding that was conveyed by President Obama to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in a letter on Monday. (New York Times, 7/28/2014)

Obama has now called for a RE-RESET with Russia. Hillary Clinton could not be reached for comment. 


High Times
The Injustice of Marijuana Arrests
1926: Marijuana ‘Is Reported Safe’
Marijuana Is a Welcome Wedding Guest in Colorado and Washington State

At the New York Times (7/29/2014), it is All Dope - All the Time(s).

And to think this was once the country's premier newspaper...

Soft Disorder

Accidents Will Happen
In 2008, Mr. Obama accidentally thanked Sioux City, a town in Iowa. The only problem: He was in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He also said he had visited 57 states. (New York Times, 6/6/2014)

Six years later, the New York Times reports Obama's gaffes.


Signs
In recent months, the labor participation rate has been hovering at lows not seen since the late 1970s, a sign that increasing numbers of Americans have given up the search for jobs and dropped out of the work force entirely. (New York Times, 6/7/2014)

Is it the Obama Economy...yet?


Promotion
The events will allow Mrs. Clinton to promote her memoir “Hard Choices,” about her time at the State Department, and to lay the groundwork for a possible 2016 presidential campaign. But her packed schedule serves another important function: It projects to the news media, political rivals and voters that she has the energy and stamina required of a presidential candidate. (New York Times, 6/6/2014)

The Times removes health issues as a concern for "inevitable" 2016 Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Next article: Ted Cruz - What Dark Secret is He Hiding?


Forced Error
The Rose Garden stunt wasn’t a messaging failure. It’s a category error. The president seems oblivious to the gravity, indeed the very nature, of what he has just done. Which is why a stunned and troubled people are asking themselves what kind of man they have twice chosen to lead them. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 6/5/2014)

No one dissects Obama better than Krauthammer.


Whiskey
The five hardened Taliban militants were quickly whisked in a fleet of cars to the shoulder of a highway on the outskirts of the capital just as they arrived. There, out of the public eye and under the watchful gaze of Qatari security, they exchanged warm hugs with a welcome delegation and then once more were whisked off into hiding. (New York Times, 6/7/2014)

Under mounting public pressure, the New York Times recategorizes the Taliban Five. Why just a day or two ago the Times called them "aging." Today they are "hardened."

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.

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 Emperor's Inclination

Headlines in Today's New York Times:
Port Authority Official Is Out Amid Scandal Over Shut Lanes
Christie Ally Is Undone by Word in an Email
Potentially Explosive Detail in Bridge Scandal Is Unlikely to Be Confirmed
Today's Editorials: A Christie Appointee Quits, Finally
Collins: A Christie Life Primer
Exchange in Bridge Scandal Unlikely to Be Confirmed
A Christie Appointee Quits, Finally

America's paper of record. Meanwhile, because the New York Times is a non-partisan paper we get this single headline:

Newly Released Clinton-Era Papers Show Damage Control During Scandal

Of course, the Times gives us not a word on gun-running California Democrat Leland Yee. Look away people, no media bias here. 


In This Corner
“No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation.” That’s the kind of sentiment you expect from a Miss America contestant asked to name her fondest wish, not from the leader of the free world explaining his foreign policy. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 3/27/2014)

Obama’s words and actions matter, however, and his handling of the Ukraine crisis has been firm, steady and realistic. (Eugene Robinson, Washington Post, 3/27/2014)

Krauthammer vs. Robinson. It's just not a fair fight. 


Flaky Fluke
Depending on the court’s rulings, the cases’ outcomes could deny millions of women coverage of any or all forms of birth control, limiting women’s ability to control their reproductive health, plan their pregnancies and manage their lives. (Sandra Fluke, Washington Post, 3/24/2014)

America's oldest law student hasn't been heard from in a while, but she is back with her familiar cause: everyone should get free birth control. Never mind that it is well documented that birth control pills are available at Wal Mart pharmacies for $9.99. Less than a couple of vanilla lattes. No, "millions" of women are at risk. Even Liberals should run from this gibberish. 

The Real March Madness

Promises Promises
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. met with Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland in Warsaw to assure allies in Eastern Europe that the United States would protect them against any Russian aggression. (New York Times, 3/19/2014)

Possible responses from Poland:

--Obama sends Biden, what is this, a joke?

--Five years ago Obama cancelled our missile defense treaty. Why should we believe him now?

--Thank you for your concern. By the way, we are moving Polish troops to our eastern border.


Seriously
The alternative to passivity is not war but a serious foreign policy. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 3/13/2014)

Peace through superior firepower.


Dintly
Sanders, a Senator with no private-sector experience and no scientific background whatsoever, declares that there is “no debate” on climate change. None. Simply by dint of him saying so, probably the least-qualified person schlumping down Senate hallways to make a pronouncement on science in any way, shape or form, says debate is over.

The core of science is debate. The core of science is to challenge accepted norms to find the flaws in the argument.  It’s like asking explorers to stop exploring because everything that could be explored has been explored – so stop exploring West in the Pacific, he would have argued, and North America wouldn’t have been discovered by European countries. (Chris Campion, Ethanallen.org, 3/17/2014)

Well put. The core of science is debate...except for Liberals. (Also loved the smackdown of "Bernie the Science Nerdie.")


Rank
Although a poll by the Pew Research Center last October found that 67 percent of Americans believe that global warming is happening, a Pew poll in January showed that Americans ranked global warming as 19th on a list of 20 issues for Congress and the president. (New York Times, 3/20/2014)

The cost of Obama and fellow Democrats focusing on issues like global warming, legalized marijuana, assisted suicide, opening more abortion clinics and gutting the military is Russian aggression, high unemployment, higher taxes and $4 per gallon gas.  


Pull
Guinness passed up a big beer moment this week when it pulled its sponsorship of the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City. But it also sent a message about social change and the leading role that business, in its own interest, can play.

The flap in New York started when parade organizers said gay marchers were welcome but couldn't carry gay-related signs. Guinness called that a "policy of exclusion" and pulled the plug. (Wall Street Journal, 3/19/2014)

Because for the Gay Mafia, it is not enough to be included in the parade, they HAVE to be able to tout their sexual preferences, particularly if it is a family-friendly event. How would they feel, we wonder, about a group of Irish marchers under a banner that proclaims Proud Irish Heterosexuals?


The Brig
Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair received a reprimand on Thursday from a military judge, after he pleaded guilty to charges that included mistreating his mistress, adultery and requesting explicit photographs from female Army officers. (New York Times, 3/20/2014)

The Number One story in Liberal America for several weeks now has not been Crimea or the Malaysian airliner disappearance. No, it has been a sexual misconduct case in the military. We know that Liberals are serious about harassment of female subordinates in the workplace because of the way in which they went after Bill Clinton when he was doing the barely legal interns in the Oval Office. Just kidding!

Liberals are shocked - shocked - that after forcing the integration of the sexes in the military there is now sexual abuse. The military, which throughout the entire course of history has been male and included its share of deviants.

And one more thing, isn't the position of mistress a voluntary one?

Helpful Hints for Increasing Your Carbon Footprint

Challenging
(Obama) also challenged black men to do better themselves, and said they must not make excuses for their failures or blame society for the poor decisions they have already made. (New York Times, 2/28/2014)

Good comment from Obama, but it is not the message that he has been sending for the first five years of his presidency. His message has been that America is inherently unjust, that any group or individual who can claim minority status is not to blame for their situation, and that government through its "tender mercies" will administer relief.


Anticipation
Parsing Governor Peter Shumlin's comments on the latest round of job losses in Vermont (IBM - 100 or so jobs), as reported in the Burlington Free Press, 2/28/2014:

Later in the day Thursday, Shumlin said he had anticipated even worse news.

Shumlin: Great news! It could have been worse. (Only in Vermont is success defined as not going backwards as fast...)

He said he heard from IBM last night and early this morning. “I made clear that when they shared what they were doing with me that I had a responsibility to communicate what I know with Vermonters.”

Shumlin: See how transparent my administration is. I could not - in good conscience - keep this bad news from the public.

The IBM layoffs came up Thursday morning as Shumlin addressed a gathering of Vermont grocers and retailers in the Statehouse....Shumlin told the group that Vermont’s economy is on the rebound. Several in the audience said they didn’t share his optimism, noting the IBM layoffs as well as the announced closing last week of Plasan Carbon Composite in Bennington and pending job losses when Vermont Yankee closes at the end of the year. Several said they were worried about the accumulative impact of legislation in the works to raise the minimum wage, require paid sick leave and adopt a government-funded health care system.

Shumlin: I don't care what anyone says, things are going just swimmingly here in the People's Republic of Vermont. And once we begin collecting taxes on legalized marijuana, just watch out. We may even be able to fund single-payer. 


Everything You Need to Know About Obamacare from the New York Times (3/1/2014)
The Obama administration said Friday that it would allow some people to receive federal subsidies for health insurance purchased in the private market outside of health insurance exchanges. The sudden shift was the latest in a series of policy changes, extensions and clarifications by federal officials trying to help beneficiaries and minimize political damage to Democrats in this election year.

Even one of Obamacare's biggest cheerleaders admits that the whole thing has now been politicized.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that four-fifths of people buying insurance through exchanges will qualify for subsidies, with the government spending an average of $4,700 for each “subsidized enrollee” this year.

Obamacare is Obamacaid. Eighty percent of buyers will receive government aid.

The health law fix this week comes after the administration delayed the requirement for larger employers to offer coverage to employees; extended the deadline for people to sign up for coverage starting on Jan. 1; delayed the opening of online marketplaces for small businesses; and asked insurers to extend individual health care policies that had been canceled for not complying with the new federal law. 

Harry Reid may think that there are no individual health care horror stories, but he is not looking hard enough. The whole law is a horror story. 


The Deep
In unscheduled remarks at the White House Friday afternoon, President Obama said the United States is "deeply concerned" about military movements by the Russian federation inside Ukraine, and warned that "there will be costs for any military intervention." (Washington Post, 2/28/2014)

We'll know that Obama is really really serious if he says "red line." Of course Krauthammer gets it right again:

Putin fully occupies vacuums. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 2/27/2014)

...Obama being the empty space. 


Behind Every Fortune a Crime
After nearly 20 months of celebrity theater and an incalculable amount of effort and courtroom expense, the misdemeanor trial of Kerry Kennedy ended on Friday in breakneck fashion, as jurors took one hour to find her not guilty of driving under the influence of a drug: a sleeping pill that she said she took by accident. (New York Times, 3/1/2014)

As they have for decades, the Kennedy clan runs roughshod over the American judicial system.

Spear in Hand

Baseless
Yet the culture of the professional Left, enthusiastically aided by the establishment media, is going bonkers in pushing active homosexuality (or any one of several exotic variants thereof) as an absolute virtue. One can hardly turn around these days without facing, in fiction or in real life, what amounts to homosexual chic. From the amount of primetime air time afforded to gay Americans, one would think they constitute at least a large minority of the population, rather than the 3 to 5 percent they actually do..... At base, the problem isn’t homosexuality, but public sexuality. There was a time, a better time, when the sex lives of strangers were nobody’s business. (Quin Hillyer, Nationalreviewonline.com, 2/24/2014)

Great article that deserves to be read in its entirety endorsing the RedStateVT doctrine on sexuality: Stop talking about it.


Willful
In the ongoing saga of the Affordable Care Act, oddly referred to by Democrats as the law of the land even as it is amended at will by presidential fiat... (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 2/13/2014)

Krauthammer devastates with a mere phrase.


Bemoaner-in-Chief
In his address, Obama bemoaned the fact that over the past four years, “average wages have barely budged. Inequality has deepened. Upward mobility has stalled.” Put aside for a moment the fact that Obama is describing the economy after five years of his economic stewardship. (Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post, 2/10/2014)

Ouch!


At Fault
A co-founder of Greenpeace told lawmakers there is no evidence man is contributing to climate change, and said he left the group when it became more interested in politics than the environment.

Patrick Moore, a Canadian ecologist and business consultant who was a member of Greenpeace from 1971-86, told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee environmental groups like the one he helped establish use faulty computer models and scare tactics in promoting claims man-made gases are heating up the planet. (Foxnews.com, 2/26/2014)

Repeat after us: "Climate change is settled science, climate change is settled science, climate change is....."


Story Time
Harry Reid spoke about the Obamacare "horror stories" on the Senate floor this morning. He said that "all are untrue." (Weeklystandard.com, 2/26/2014)

A family member has been trying to sign up for insurance in New York for a month. So far, no luck. Does that qualify as a "horror story?"

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....

Visions and Revisions

Ebb and Flow
A Westchester County (New York) attorney with a practice focused on estate planning for high net worth individuals tells us something fascinating: the high-end real estate market in the wealthier suburbs of Manhattan is booming. Why? Wealthy New Yorkers are fleeing Manhattan to get away from the city's mayor-elect, Comrade Bill de Blasio who makes absolutely no secret of his plan to tax the rich to pay for his universal pre-K socialist dream...among other schemes. Which proves once again that as long as we have some semblance of a capitalist economy money will flow to the areas where it can be used most efficiently by the individual...and not the government.


To Err
Insurers said that they had found many discrepancies and errors and that the government was overstating the improvements in HealthCare.gov. (NYT, 12/15/2013)

Insurance companies who chose to partner with Obamacare in the hopes of reaping the spoils are finding that they made a Faustian bargain. They will continue to be Obama's whipping boy when things go badly and they will be forced to deal with the mess that Healthcare.gov has made of the enrollment process. See the following as well:

The government’s overriding message to insurers is: Do whatever you have to do to maximize enrollment and to provide coverage by Jan. 1 to anyone who wants it. Federal health officials have told insurers that they can sort out the details and work out financial arrangements with the government later. (NYT, 12/15/2013)

Translation: make Obama look good on the enrollment numbers and Obama will make you whole. Insurers should believe it at their own risk.


Liberation
Events this week beg the question: where among the 1.56 billion Muslims is our Mandela? Where is our Mahatma? Where is our Mandiba? Where our liberator?

Instead of rearing a Mandela, someone who could bring people of different faiths together to build a more peaceful world, Muslims attempt to assassinate a Malala before maturity. We are undeserving of such great souls and yet the need has never been greater. (Qanta Ahmed, Foxnews.com, 12/13/2013)

Wonderful column which echoes a point that RedStateVT has made in the past. Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?


Rolling
In explaining the disastrous rollout of Obamacare, President Obama told Chris Matthews he had discovered that “we have these big agencies, some of which are outdated, some of which are not designed properly.”

An interesting discovery to make after having consigned the vast universe of American medicine, one-sixth of the U.S. economy, to the tender mercies of the agency bureaucrats at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Internal Revenue Service. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 12/12/2013)

Nobody can dissect Obama quite like Krauthammer. This may be his best column yet on Obama's failures.

Speaking of Matthews, we were recalling his recent nauseating interview with the president. Recall that he said: "I'm going to put you on the spot now." One could see Obama visibly tighten thinking he might actually get a real question (in violation of the rules of engagement no doubt worked out in advance between MSNBC and the Obama press people). The question Matthews asked was this: "Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden?" There was NO way that Chris Matthews was going to ask a question which might jeopardize his invitation to the White House Christmas party. 


School Days
School property taxes may be going up even more than first expected.

The Vermont Department of Taxes warned lawmakers last month that they would need to raise the statewide property tax rate by 5 cents this coming year to meet rising school costs. (WCAX.com, 12/13/2013)

Just one of many tax increases that will be brought to you by Vermont Progressives (Motto: There is NO amount of social re-engineering that we cannot accomplish together ... with your tax dollars!)


Selective
Federal health officials announced on Wednesday that some 1.2 million people selected plans on federal or state exchanges during the months of October and November. That included 803,000 people who applied to the exchanges and were found eligible for Medicaid or a related Children’s Health Insurance Program that provide public insurance for the poor — in addition to nearly 365,000 people who chose private plans. (NYT, 12/16/2013)

It's Obamacaid.

Liberals blew up American health care for all citizens in order to provide free health care to some. A typical Liberal solution to a problem.

Dime Dancing

Egged On
The more honest Obamacare advocates are, in effect, admitting that to make this omelet you have to break 8 million eggs — roughly the number of people with individual plans who are expected to lose them. Obama, however, goes on as if he can conjure omelets out of thin air.

This rather bizarre belief in the unlimited power of the speech arises from Obama’s biography. Isn’t that how he rose? Words. It’s not as if he built a company, an enterprise, an institution. He built one thing — his own persona. By persuasion. One great speech in 2004 propels him to the presidential level. More great speeches and he wins the White House.

But then comes governance. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 11/4/2013)

Krauthammer nails it. Obama is an empty suit with a teleprompter and a so-so speechwriter. He has proven monumentally inept at governing. His signature legislative accomplishment was passed solely because at one brief moment in time he had full control. Now it turns out to be a national joke that even Democrats are running from. 


Emitted
Developing countries want the West — historically responsible for emissions, for the most part — not only to take the lead in reducing the use of fossil fuels, but to put up huge amounts of money to help poorer countries adapt to climatic changes that have already become inevitable. Western governments, which in some cases are already starting to consider their own adaptations to climate change, agree in principle that they should help poor countries. (NYT, 11/12/2013)

And so now we have it in writing. The whole climate change nonsense is nothing more than a wealth transfer scheme. It is designed to work on a large scale as described above and an individual scale (see McKibben, Bill). 


Consumed
Americans are growing more comfortable with marijuana, with 58 percent favoring legalization, according to the latest Gallup poll. At the same time, some researchers believe they have identified a side benefit to increasing availability of the drug: It could lead to decreased consumption of alcohol among young people. (New York Times editorial, 11/3/2013)

Sheer brilliance from the geniuses at the Times. Legal dope will result in fewer drunk teens. 

(Of course, there will be more stoned teens....)

Silence the Critics

Devil's Due
The education proposal reflects the Obama modus operandi. First, identify an American industry that long ago made a Faustian bargain for federal support, such as hospitals and housing. Then describe the subsidy-dependent industry's inevitable bloat and inefficiency in images so stark no reasonable person could disagree. "Burdened with tens of thousands of dollars" in student debt, Mr. Obama said at Binghamton University in New York, "they have to put off buying a home, or starting a business, or starting a family." [Footnote: That was federal student debt.] Then after getting buy-in from the mortified industry, he imposes the solution—on his terms. (Daniel Henninger, WSJ, 8/28/2013)

This is brilliant analysis. We have nothing to add. 


Cause and Effect
Here’s how deterrence works in the Middle East. Syria, long committed to the destruction of Israel, has not engaged Israel militarily in 30 years. Why? Because it recognizes Israel as a serious adversary with serious policies.

This year alone, Israel has four times conducted airstrikes in Syria. No Syrian response. How did Israel get away with it? Israel had announced that it would not tolerate Assad acquiring or transferring to Hezbollah advanced weaponry. No grandiloquent speeches by the Israeli foreign minister. No leaked target lists. Indeed, the Israelis didn’t acknowledge the strikes even after they had carried them out. Unlike the American president, they have no interest in basking in perceived toughness. They care only about effect. They care about just one audience — the party to be deterred, namely Assad and his allies. Assad knows who did it. He didn’t have to see the Israeli prime minister preening about it on world television. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 9/5/2013)

Speaking of brilliant analysis, we have Charles, yet again. 

By the way, for a hoot be sure to read the reader comments in the Washington Post whenever Krauthammer or George Will write. The Liberals go crazy. Usually the commentary runs to personal attacks and complaints that Krauthammer/Will cannot be taken seriously because they never liked Obama. Liberals will NEVER argue based on the facts.  


Torn and Frayed
Congressional Democrats, torn over involving the United States in another unpredictable Middle East war, are emerging as a major barrier to President Obama’s plan to strike Syria. (NYT, 9/4/2013)

Further fueling discontent were Mr. Obama's Wednesday comments that Congress's "credibility" is at stake. Democrats were already frustrated that Mr. Obama had demanded they share his red line. It is one thing for a president to ask his party to support him in a tough moment, but it is quite another for that president to tell voters it is congressional Democrats—not him—who now own his foreign-policy mess. The steam was practically rising from Capitol Hill. (Kimberley A. Strassel, WSJ, 9/5/2013)

After months (years?) of hearing about divisions within Republican ranks, it is interesting to hear the same about Dems.


Tick Tock
He chose his home state as the venue, and did not refrain from ticking off several problems he saw with the law. But former President Bill Clinton on Wednesday made a meticulous, if wonkish, case for Americans of all political leanings to embrace the Obama health care law.
...
Mr. Clinton made the speech at the request of the White House, but on his own terms. He chose to deliver it at the glass building in downtown Little Rock that houses his presidential library. The venue allowed him to lend a hand to Senator Mark Pryor, a Democrat who is facing a difficult re-election fight here...
...
Mr. Pryor did not attend the event for risk of being too closely associated with the health care law, according to one person with knowledge of his plans, but who was not authorized to discuss them publicly. A campaign spokesman has said that Mr. Pryor had a scheduling conflict. (NYT, 9/4/2013)

This is priceless! Clinton endorses Obamacare while lending support to a local politician. Such politician who does not want his support for Obamacare to be widely known in a state where the law is not popular. And who does not show up for the event.


Slights
The nation’s employers added 169,000 jobs in August, slightly below what economists were expecting, and the unemployment rate ticked down to 7.3 percent from 7.4 percent. (NYT, 9/6/2013)

More proof for all you cynics out there that the Obama economic plan is working. Unemployment is now projected to be below 5% sometime during Obama's fourteenth term.


Of Course
Just in case you missed it, the New York Times features a story today called "Putting the Sex Back in Homosexuality." Actually you cannot miss it because it is a featured story with a photo in the INSIDE NYTIMES.COM section and then the lead story in the Arts Section and also the lead story in the Movie Section. The Times continues to be the paper of record for the .01% of the population that is homosexual.