Disregard The Cost

RedStateVT's Thought for the Day
Liberals shout at Conservatives to get out of private bedrooms on issues like homosexuality and birth control. Making it somewhat ironic - actually making it enormously ironic - that Liberals in California (and now elsewhere) have come up with the bizarre rules for consensual sex on college campuses. 


Historical
Before his 2008 presidential campaign, Mr. Obama had little history of managing anything larger than a Senate office. To his critics, the breakdowns in various agencies are the natural result of that inexperience, a conclusion that really began taking hold with the botched rollout of his own health care program last year. (New York Times, 10/22/2014)

Six years in, the New York Times finally admits what many of us have said all along: Obama was not qualified to be president.


The Best Thing You Will Read Today on the Minimum Wage
Entry-level fast-food jobs have never been intended to support an entire family. So-called quick-service restaurants provide opportunities to lots of young people with few skills and limited experience. (Wall Street Journal, 10/21/2014)

Second best is this from Chris Christie (quoted in the New York Times): “I don’t think there is a mother or father sitting around a kitchen table tonight in America who are saying, ‘You know, honey, if my son or daughter could just make a higher minimum wage, all our dreams would be realized.’ ”


Remains of the Day
There are 149 prisoners remaining at Guantánamo. As a result of Mr. Zahrani’s change in status, 80 are now recommended for transfer if security conditions can be met, the majority of whom are from Yemen; 59 are recommended for continued indefinite detention without trial as wartime prisoners; and 10 have either been charged or convicted before the military commissions system.

Ten low-level prisoners were transferred in late 2013. But the process appears to be faltering again; it has transferred just one low-level prisoner in 2014. (New York Times, 10/21/2014)

There is something the New York Times is neglecting to mention in this article on prisoner transfers from Gitmo. What could it be? Oh, now we remember... Obama's release of five high risk Taliban prisoners! Probably an honest omission.


Excess
Tom Steyer, the billionaire hedge fund founder who has pledged to spend $50 million of his own money to defeat Republican candidates in Senate and governor’s races this campaign cycle, exceeded that mark in September.

Mr. Steyer’s “super PAC,” NextGen Climate Action Committee, reported on Monday night that it received $15 million from him last month, putting his total contributions to the committee since June 2013 at $55 million.

That makes Mr. Steyer the largest super PAC donor, putting him ahead of the casino magnate Sheldon G. Adelson, who gave $49.8 million to super PACs during the 2012 campaign. (New York Times, 10/20/2014)

Liberal hedge fund fossil fuel 1%er gives millions to Dems. Elizabeth Warren silent. Speaking of Liz:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren says she isn’t running for president. At this rate, however, she may have to. (Eugene Robinson, Washington Post, 10/20/2014)

Run Liz, Run! As we have said many times, it is only on a national stage where the moonbat ideas and multiple hypocrisies of Warren and Vermont's Colonel Bernie Sanders can really get the attention they deserve.


Unseen
Obama is President Pariah in these final weeks of the 2014 midterms. Vulnerable Democratic candidates don’t want to be seen with him. Three Democratic senators have run ads distancing themselves from him, and Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Democratic Senate candidate in Kentucky, has refused — absurdly — to say whether she voted for Obama. Obama’s support is 40 percent nationally and lower in the Republican states where many of this year’s competitive races are taking place. (Washington Post, 10/20/2014)

Tough column by Charles Krauthammer on Obama. Oh wait. It's not Krauthammer, it's Liberal Dana Milbank!


At Least
Democrats accuse the opposition of mindless obstructionism, deliberately sabotaging government, or at least tearing down belief in it, out of ideological fervor and political ambition. (New York Times, 10/22/2014)

Mindless obstructionism, ignoring, of course, Harry Reid's refusal to bring ANYTHING up for a Senate vote. Now that is some kind of obstructionism!


Instinctual
Although we believe that the president has many progressive instincts, he has shown an inclination to seek consensus rather than to fight. (Katrina vanden Heuvel, Washington Post, 10/21/2014)

Kat is disturbed that Obama sometimes seeks consensus. Funny, when Republicans are in charge all Liberals can talk about is the need for consensus. 

Cure All

Overwhelmingly
White House officials, fearful that the federal health care website may again be overwhelmed this weekend, have urged their allies to hold back enrollment efforts so the insurance marketplace does not collapse under a crush of new users. (NYT, 11/27/2013)

So the message from the Obama administration is as follows: 

--As promised, Healthcare.gov will be fixed by November 30th.
--Please do not use the website on November 30th as it may crash.
--Nonetheless, we have fixed the website as promised.
--Trust us.


Elemental
The Obama administration is expected to announce on Wednesday a one-year delay in another major element of the new health care law, which allows small businesses to go online and get insurance for their employees through the website of the federal marketplace.
...
The announcement of the delay, just before Thanksgiving, is reminiscent of the way the White House announced, just before the Independence Day weekend, a one-year delay in the requirement for larger employers to offer health insurance to employees. (NYT, 11/28/2013)

Obama pardons turkey, announces delay in Obamacare. There has GOT to be a joke in here. 

How about: Obama pardons Obamacare. 

Or maybe: Another Obamacare turkey.

Perhaps: Sign up for health care; get a turkey.

Readers are invited to submit entries.

Meanwhile, while this news was breaking, RedStateVT checked in with MSNBC. They were doing a story on Guantanamo. 

We are not kidding. 

This and More

Low Down
One of Mr. Obama’s ambitions on taking office was to forge a new, more positive American image in the Muslim world. But the drone strikes, along with the president’s failure to carry out his promise to close the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba, have helped drive the United States’ approval rating to new lows in many Muslim countries. In Pakistan, for instance, 19 percent of those surveyed by the Pew Research Center had a positive view of the United States in the last year of George W. Bush’s presidency. By last year, the approval rating had fallen to 12 percent. (NYT, 5/21/2013)

We could cite this as yet another failure of the Obama presidency, but that misses the real issues. First, a foreign policy should not be built around "getting other countries to like us." Second, Muslims in the Middle Eastern countries are never going to like us. 


Starstruck
Anthony D. Weiner, once a rising star of New York politics whose career cratered over revelations of his sexually explicit life online, announced an improbable bid on Wednesday for the job he has long coveted: mayor.
...
In the new campaign video, Mr. Weiner describes himself as a champion of the city’s middle class, and decries rising rents, inadequate schools, overregulated neighborhood businesses, and a paucity of “good jobs with benefits.”
...
Last year, though, Mr. Weiner moved from Forest Hills, Queens, to Gramercy Park in Manhattan, where he lives in a four-bedroom luxury apartment with Ms. Abedin and Jordan. (NYT, 5/22/2013)

How excited are you that Weiner is back? Us, too. It should be just a very short time before new pictures of Weiner's awesome pecs show up.

New Yorkers are understandably thrilled that Weiner is going to fight for the middle class....from his four bedroom luxury apartment.


Ghostly
Even the panel’s fiery chairman, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, after blasting Apple for creating “ghost companies” that diverted billions of tax dollars from American coffers and caused needy seniors to go without meals, had some kind words for Mr. Cook and his company.

“We love the iPhone and the iPad,” Mr. Levin said, going on to commend Mr. Cook and two other executives for voluntarily appearing before the Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations. “I know it’s not easy to come in front of a spotlight but it’s important for us.” (NYT, 5/21/2013)

Next up before Levin, the Koch brothers, who can expect similar praise from the chairman. Just kidding!


Limits
The claim that the ongoing IRS scandal is limited to low level employees is falling apart. 
...
Former Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller… retires

Joseph Grant, Commissioner of Tax Exempt and Government Entities... retires.

Lois Lerner, Head of Exempt Organization…says she will invoke her 5th amendment right to not incriminate herself when called before Congress on Wednesday.

Holly Paz, Director of Exempt Organizations, subpoenaed to Washington to be interviewed by members of Congress.

All of this IRS leadership, in Washington D.C. 

Then one level down is Cindy Thomas, the highest ranking employee in Cincinnati in this Tax Exempt and Government Entities Department that no one in Congress is talking to... yet.  (Fox19.com, 5/21/2013)

The Washington Post's Richard Cohen wrote an entire column yesterday claiming that Republicans were picking on the IRS when it was really all about overworked low level employees (there's that phrase again) who he - using a fictional composite - named Mitzie. No word from Cohen today yet. 

Central Plank

Trashy
President Obama is a gifted politician, but sometimes he tries to exceed even what his spinning can accomplish. Witness this week's spectacle of the President denouncing his own antiterror policies.

Mr. Obama renewed his vow to shut down Guanatanamo during his Tuesday press conference, and to transfer or release the 166 military combatants still held there, details to follow. Then he trashed the larger antiterror program that he continues to execute using the rhetoric of a rookie ACLU lawyer: "The idea that we would still maintain forever a group of individuals who have not been tried, that is contrary to who we are," he said. "It is contrary to our interests and it needs to stop." Note the passive voice. (WSJ, 5/1/2013)

We actually disagree with the Journal's contention that Obama is a "gifted politician." The Journal's Taranto, we believe, has it right (see below). 

Obama has been called out in the past on his use of straw men to advance whatever argument he is trying to make. Sometimes he is his own straw man!

On another note, we did some channel surfing last night. There was lots of coverage of the new suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing as expected. Until we got to CNN which decided instead to highlight Guantanamo! Christiane Amanpour had her large violin out for the gentle souls in Gitmo who are on a principled hunger strike against their detention. She attempted to bully Rudy Guiliani by guffawing and talking over him. 

You don't bully Guiliani.

Mr. Mayor laid out the case in simple and stark terms. Some released prisoners have returned to the battlefield and killed Americans. Indefinite detention may be unfortunate, but the solution lies not with America, but with the larger Muslim world. It was a bravura performance. Amanpour was left whimpering. 


Adversarial
Every time we write a column making note of Obama's deficiencies of political skill, our small gaggle of fanboy adversaries on Twitter honk away at the "obstructionist Republicans" they believe are to blame for all that is wrong. Of course one man's obstructionist is another's valiant defender of the republic, but to insist on the former designation begs the question anyway. The Republicans in 1995 were no less "obstructionist" than today's, but Clinton was able to master the problem. (James Taranto, WSJ, 5/1/2013)

A fellow blogger constantly chides us about "Republican obstructionists." (By the way, these are the same as "obstructionist Republicans.")  Our response usually includes some combination of the following:

- We don't recall Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi being noted for their willingness to advance George Bush's agenda.
- Obama has demonstrated time and again that he has little interest in working with the other side; indeed his expectation is that the other side should agree with him.

The larger issue, of course, is that Obama is now into his fifth year as president and continues to beat the same drum: blame Republicans and tax the rich. This is what his presidency has become. (Forget the "transformational presidency.") It's official. Obama fatigue has set in.  


Anticipation
"Obamacare is extremely problematic, it is expensive, it is a $500 billion [higher] cost than we originally anticipated, it's cutting into Medicare benefits and it's having companies lay off their employees because they are worried about the cost of it. That is extremely problematic, it needs an enormous fix." (South Carolina congressional candidate Elizabeth Colbert Busch quoted by Kimberley A. Strassel, WSJ, 5/1/2013)

Never mind not campaigning with Obama, Democrat candidates are now campaigning against Obamacare.