The Grinding Wheel

Warning
Obama administration officials said on Sunday that the president had warned for more than a year of the danger that Islamic State fighters pose to Europe, the United States and beyond. (New York Times, 11/15/2015)

So what say Liberals who have blamed Bush for 9/11 saying that he should have heeded the warning that Al Qaeda was determined to strike the U.S? Obama apparently was warned in the same way. Is Obama to blame for Paris? You decide. 


It's Working
Many Say High Deductibles Make Their Health Law Insurance All but Useless (New York Times headline, 11/15/2015)


Lowly
By all means, read Bill McKibben’s victory proclamation on Keystone XL posted by the New Yorker, first for its infantile analysis. He sees Keystone as a harbinger, which it surely is: President Obama waited seven years to kill the pipeline, then did so when he no longer had to face voters and when gasoline prices are near an all-time low in real terms. If abundant fossil fuels is what it takes to afford Mr. McKibben such victories, well, you can see the paradox. (Holman Jenkins, Jr., Wall Street Journal, 11/15/2015)

We'll admit that we enjoy it when Middlebury College's Bill McKibben gets batted about by his intellectual superiors. It happens quite often. 


Dazed and Confused
Abedin: Have you been going over her calls with her? So she knows singh is at 8? [India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh]

Hanley: She was in bed for a nap by the time I heard that she had an 8am call. Will go over with her

Abedin: Very imp to do that. She’s often confused. (Judicialwatch.org, 11/16/2015)

Prediction: The Washington Post, New York Times and MSNBC will ignore this admission by Hillary Clinton's closest aide that she is mentally impaired. The business of electing the first woman president is too important. 

Get Ready to Blame the Gun

Ding-a-Ling
Other emails suggest the secretary of state’s lack of technological prowess. In one, Mrs. Clinton tells Ms. Abedin that she cannot turn on her phone’s ringer. (New York Times, 9/30/2015)

One of the Bush presidents - we don't remember which one - once expressed surprise at the technology of a grocery store price scanner. To Liberals this was proof that he was unfit to be president. They now say what?


Assigned
In oral history interviews released on Wednesday, Senator Edward M. Kennedy talked about how Scotch helped him get subcommittee assignments in 1963. (New York Times, 9/30/2015)

Why does the New York Times continue to report news that every American already knows?


Below Norm
Ms. Richards does make a lot of money relative to the rest of the American work force. Her pay puts her in the top 1 percent of all earners in the United States. But her salary is actually on the low side when it is compared with executive pay at other large nonprofits. When compared with the pay for hospital executives running nonprofit health care organizations of similar budgets, it is actually well below the norm. (New York Times, 10/1/2015)

So the head of Planned Parenthood is a 1 percenter! Where are Liz Warren and Bernie Sanders railing about outrageous executive pay? Are Liberals outraged that the head of a non-profit healthcare company is making all that money? You know the answer. 


Recovery
About two months of emails from the start of Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state are missing, and federal officials haven’t been able to recover them. (Wall Street Journal, 9/30/2015)

Honest mistake, probably.


Scrutiny
For starters, it’s implausible that a majority of Democrats would ever investigate Hillary Clinton on their own, no matter what she’d done or hidden or lied about, because of the dominant incentive to defend their partisan interests. Republicans will scrutinize Hillary whenever they can because they have different incentives. Both postures are comparably partisan. Neither precludes the committee from finding out the truth—a goal both parties once claimed. (David Harsanyi, thefederalist.com, 10/1/2015)

Is the Benghazi investigation political? Of course it is. Harsanyi explains why that is not an issue. Well done!

Anchor Baby Anchor Baby Anchor Baby

Note to Pope Francis: It is Capitalism, not Socialism, which creates the wealth that supports the poor ... and the Church.


Evident
There is no evidence that any of the emails — a small portion of some 60,000 that Mrs. Clinton sent or received as secretary of state — were hacked or caused any harm to American interests, and law enforcement officials have said she is not a target of their investigation. But one of the questions they are seeking to answer is whether her aides or other State Department officials broke federal rules or laws when they sent her information. And arriving at an answer will not be simple, given the complex and often conflicting views of just how diplomatically fragile the information conveyed in the emails actually was. (New York Times, 9/25/2015)

So the final strategy for containing the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal is now in place:

--Hillary did nothing illegal.
--Her aides will take the fall for any criminal acts.
--The whole question of what is and is not classified is just so darn confusing anyway.

The path to the nomination is now clear.


Huma Watch
Hillary Rodham Clinton was directly involved in arranging a new government position for a top aide that allowed the aide to begin working for a private consulting firm while remaining at the State Department, according to documents released on Thursday.

The documents, released by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, show that Mrs. Clinton personally signed forms establishing a new title and position for the aide, Huma Abedin, in March 2012. The forms were part of a broader process in which Ms. Abedin, then Mrs. Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, was transitioning to a role as a “special government employee,” which allowed her to collect salaries from the State Department, the Clinton Foundation and the private firm, Teneo, which was co-founded by a former aide to President Clinton. (New York Times, 9/25/2015)

"....which allowed her to collect salaries from the State Department, the Clinton Foundation and the private firm, Teneo..." 

Wow! Well done Huma. Nothing about this will make anyone cynical about either government or the Clintons. Of course, Hillary previously denied any involvement in Huma's unique job arrangement. 

Remind us again why most of America views Hillary Clinton as untrustworthy?


Fishy
“Liberals and progressives will spend inordinate amounts of time and money protecting fish, frogs and flies,” Mrs. Fiorina said, adding: “They do not think a 17-week-old, a 20-week-old, a 24-week-old is worth saving. This, ladies and gentlemen, is hypocrisy, and it goes to the core of the character of our nation.” (New York Times, 9/25/2015)

Just as Liberals think it is OK to kill granny, but not a death row murderer. Well put by Fiorina.  We like this "character of our nation" dialog. 


Squishy
Despite the criticism from the right of Mr. Boehner as a “squish” or a Republican-in-name only, he was actually a strong conservative with the two-decade voting record and beliefs to match. He was someone who knew how Washington worked and wanted to keep it working as much on Republican terms as possible, given a Democratic president and for a time, a Democratic Senate. (New York Times, 9/26/2015)

Exactly as predicted by conservative commentators, the Liberal press now begins to heap praise upon the departing John Boehner. Why he was so much more reasonable than those radical Tea Partiers!


Cold Steel
Her silver tongue honed by decades in corporate marketing, Carly Fiorina has used two debates, and a steely determination on the campaign trail, to climb near the top of the polls for the Republican nomination.

But Americans should pause on her biggest professional credential for our highest office: a short, disastrous stint atop one of America’s iconic technology companies, Hewlett-Packard. (Steven Rattner, New York Times, 9/26/2015)

Steven Rattner REALLY does not like Carly Fiorina. She was - according to him - a bad CEO. Remind us again, who Steven Rattner is? Oh, that's right, he's this guy:

Quadrangle paid $7 million in April 2010 to settle the SEC investigation, and Rattner personally settled in November for $6.2 million without admitting or denying any wrongdoing. (Wikipedia)

And who does Rattner think was a good CEO? Why none other than Mitt Romney, that rapacious capitalist who plundered companies:

However, the lack of public service or sustained business success makes Mrs. Fiorina unqualified for the nation’s highest office. By comparison, Mitt Romney had built an extraordinarily successful investment firm and served for four years as governor of Massachusetts.

Liberals are just TOO much.