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.

Wind of the Plot

Predisposed
Vermont would require that retailers charge shoppers a 10-cent fee for disposable carryout bags in an attempt to streamline waste management and cut down on litter under a bill being debated in the Legislature, but not all businesses support the measure. (Burlington Free Press, 2/21/2014)

Liberals prove (once again) that there is nothing too small to tax.


Unclear
Five years later, it is clear to all fair-minded economists that the stimulus did work, and that it did enormous good for the economy and for tens of millions of people. But because it fell short of its goals, and was roundly ridiculed by Republicans and inadequately defended by Democrats, who should have trumpeted its success, the president’s stimulus plan is now widely considered a stumble. (New York Times editorial, 2/23/2014)

Proving once again that when Liberals cannot win an argument they declare the argument over: Economists agree the stimulus worked. (Dems just didn't defend it adequately).

And from the same editorial:

It improved 42,000 miles of road, fixed or replaced 2,700 bridges, and bought more than 12,000 transit vehicles. It cleaned up water supplies, created the school reforms of the Race to the Top program, and greatly expanded the use of renewable energy and broadband Internet service. (New York Times editorial, 2/23/2014)

Wow, just look at what $832 billion bought. 

That's EIGHT HUNDRED AND THIRTY TWO BILLION DOLLARS.


Sincerely
While I may share his feelings about the need for additional strictures on guns, having grown up in the Midwest, I know that many people come by their guns honestly and hold onto them dearly for sincere reasons.

Mr. Morgan’s approach to gun regulation was more akin to King George III, peering down his nose at the unruly colonies and wondering how to bring the savages to heel. He might have wanted to recall that part of the reason the right to bear arms is codified in the Constitution is that Britain was trying to disarm the citizenry at the time. (David Carr, New York Times, 2/24/2014)

Great column about the demise of Piers Morgan. Carr sounds like a non-conservative with whom you can have a meaningful conversation.


Inevitably
I’m not sure whether conservatives realize yet that their Plan A on health reform — wait for Obamacare’s inevitable collapse, and reap the political rewards — isn’t working. But it isn’t. (Paul Krugman, New York Times, 2/24/2014)

On the other hand, we have Paul Krugman with whom we doubt it is possible to engage in meaningful conversation.

Declaring Obamacare a success (another argument that Liberals claim has been won, all evidence to the contrary) Krugman echoes a familiar refrain: Republicans have no alternative for Obamacare. Well here is the way Republicans might respond: "You geniuses destroyed the American healthcare system and your only response is that we don't have an alternative?"