Obama: Je suis golfing if anyone is looking for me

Fundamentals
To speak about the most serious terrorist attack on Western soil since 9/11, London and Madrid, in between speeches about his free community college plan demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding for the gravity of the situation in Paris and, indeed, the world.

To this end, it is not surprising that President Obama is the only Western leader who has refused to call this attack Islamic terrorism, even though President Hollande has declared that France is it at war with radical Islam. And to not even send Vice President Joe Biden or Secretary of State John Kerry in his place shows a level of disrespect that makes me ashamed of our nation. (Republican pollster Douglas E. Schoen, Foxnews.com, 1/12/2015)*

Just kidding, Schoen is a Democrat pollster! 


Moved
In Paris on Sunday, the United States really led from behind — so far behind that President Obama and other important U.S. officials stayed stateside as 40 other world leaders joined about 1.5 million Frenchmen in a stirring riposte to terrorism and anti-Semitism. Even Vice President Biden stayed home. He remained in Delaware where, possibly, he stood at attention in front of the TV. It was, I’m sure, a moving moment. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, 1/13/2015)*

Just kidding, column was written by Liberal Richard Cohen!


Unnamed
Antonio Weiss, a senior investment banker at Lazard, withdrew his name from consideration to be a senior Treasury Department official in the face of liberal opposition Monday, and will instead serve as a counselor to the secretary of the Treasury, Jacob J. Lew. 

Mr. Weiss, nominated to be under secretary of the Treasury for domestic finance, had run into a buzz saw of resistance, led by Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, who opposed the nomination of a Wall Street executive for a key financial post.
...
The events underscored the growing power of the Democratic Party’s populist wing, but also its limits. Mr. Weiss had impeccable Democratic credentials, as a donor and an outspoken advocate for liberal economic policies. (New York Times, 1/13/2015)

Liberals eat one of their own.

Who runs Barter Town? Lizzie Warren runs Barter Town!

Broken Ties

Vermont Healthcare Efficiency
From Vermont Health Connect October 6, 2014:
Hello! We are writing to let you know that you have a new notice regarding your bill for health care benefits from Vermont Health Connect. To view your notice, please click on the link below and log in to your account.

From Vermont Health Connect October 7, 2014:
Hello! We are writing to let you know that you have a new notice regarding your bill for health care benefits from Vermont Health Connect. To view your notice, please click on the link below and log in to your account.

From Vermont Health Connect later in the day on October 7, 2014:
Hello! Earlier today and yesterday, some Vermont Health Connect customers received an email that referenced invoices and online payments. We apologize for this incorrect email and any confusion or inconvenience that it caused. 

We have mailed you a paper invoice this week that correctly describes your two current payment options:

1)    Phone...  

2)    Mail... 

Not to worry, all will be better when Vermont adopts single payer!


Weakly
A corollary point, surely not lost on Mr. Putin, Ayatollah Khamenei and other rogues is that they have a free hand at least until January 2017. The conclusion: If ever there was a time to revise their regional orders in ways more to their liking, better to do so now, when there’s a self-infatuated weakling in the White House. (Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, 10/13/2014)

Obama's withdrawal creates a vacuum that the bad guys willingly exploit.


Obviously
It’s not too soon to state the obvious: At this point, the war against the Islamic State can be seen only as failing. (Eugene Robinson, Washington Post, 10/13/2014)

When Obama loses Eugene Robinson you know it is over for our novelty president. 


Measured
(The Iranians) have taken the measure of Obama. He lacks menace. Menace is essential in a world leader if he (or she) is going to be feared as well as admired. (Richard Cohen, Washington Post, 10/13/2014)

Liberals are finally catching on: the world's bad actors will only behave if they fear America's power. Unfortunately, no one fears Obama.  


Safety
He’s called America a country founded on guns, and explained that firearms are just in the nation’s DNA. The 50-year-old also said he doesn’t feel safe without a gun in his house when he’s home with his wife and children. (Dailycaller.com, 10/14/2014)

Who is this fifty year old gun advocate? Why it's none other than Hollywood uber Liberal Brad Pitt! Proving again that when Liberals are threatened they turn to automatic weapons...which they would deny to others!

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.

Patterns on a Screen

Nobody
I can’t think of any individual who had more influence in 2013. Edward Snowden is the person of the year. (Eugene Robinson, Washington Post, 12/23/2013)

Really, Eugene, no one? 

Robinson considers Pope Francis, but then passes. How about Nelson Mandela? A philanthropist? No, Robinson instead chooses a traitor. How very typical. 


War of the Words
To many Americans, the war on poverty declared 50 years ago by President Lyndon B. Johnson has largely failed. The poverty rate has fallen only to 15 percent from 19 percent in two generations, and 46 million Americans live in households where the government considers their income scarcely adequate. (New York Times, 1/4/2014)

We've written about this many times. The Liberal solution to poverty is to give the poor money so they won't be poor anymore. How is that working out...after 50 years?

Let's consider some conservative ideas on the subject. Like first of all, understanding that the poor are often not a static pool. People rise up out of poverty. Others fall back into it. How about work and training requirements for the poor? How about some tough love? These ideas - embraced by none other than Bill Clinton - were undone by Obama. And finally, how about some RedStateVT suggestions? For the poor; no alcohol, no cigarettes, no fast food, no piercings, no tattoos, no smartphones, public transportation, basic cable. The poor need to be trained to spend their money - and the taxpayer's money - wisely. 


Fighting Words
In his first remarks since Islamic militants with Al Qaeda ties overran the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry promised support for Iraq's government, but emphatically rejected any possibility that the U.S. would send troops back into the country, saying of the Baghdad government "this is their fight." (Foxnews.com, 1/5/2014)

Who lost Iraq? Barack Obama lost Iraq. 


Senior Moment
Concurrently, Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), the paradigm of government-controlled health care, turned 65 years old in 2013 and officially entered senior citizenship. The NHS received its review by the British press this past year on an almost daily basis. Headlines blared across the UK, endlessly documenting scandalous patient care, shameful waiting lists, catastrophic hospital practices, and financial debacle. Directly undermining those who advocate for an even stronger role for government in U.S. health care, the British press has instead been documenting the disgraceful state of the NHS. (Scott Atlas, Foxnews.com, 1/3/2014)

Coming to America.

Liberals continue to tell us how wonderful government run healthcare is by citing every country that now has it (including - incredibly - Cuba!) No it's not.


Confidence Man
If the White House was so confident that “the product is good” and Americans are “willing to be patient,” then they would have been eager for a photo op of the president signing up with other happy customers. But there was no photo op.

Then, to add insult to injury, Obama chose the cheapest of the four plans available — the bronze plan costing $400 a month. Not for his whole family, mind you. They don’t need Obamacare. He chose a low-cost plan just for himself. Which makes sense. He’s not going to actually use it, so why pay sky-high premiums like the millions of people he drove out of their individual market health plans? Besides, most Americans stuck with Obamacare plans can get their families covered elsewhere for free, right?

And finally, to cap it all off, Obama waited until the last minute to sign up. If the president was so enthusiastic about signing up for Obamacare, why wasn’t he customer No. 1 when the exchanges opened in October? Or when the government relaunched the Web site in November? (Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post, 12/30/2013)

Good smackdown by Thiessen. 


Ten Times Ten
It is incumbent on me as a columnist to do one of those year-end things — the 10 best of this, the 10 worst of that or, as you will see, who had the worst year in politics. That distinction goes, with some reluctance on my part, to Hillary Rodham Clinton. As has sometimes happened in her life, events got away from her. (Richard Cohen, Washington Post, 12/30/2013)

If you thought based on this opening that Cohen was going to give us an honest rendering of Hillary Clinton's year, you would be sadly mistaken. Why was it a bad year for Hill accordingly to Cohen? Because Obamacare was such a dud that it reminds people of Hillarycare. No kidding, this is Cohen's argument.

And what does he ignore? What does he fail to mention? What else might have made it a bad year for Hill? 

You guessed it. Benghazi! 


History Lesson
Historically, after leaving Mecca, Mohammed moved to Medina, where he established the world’s first Islamic polity. He and his followers then launched military operations to raid the caravans of their opponents. Mohammed’s army eventually conquered Mecca and a large portion of the Arabian Peninsula before the Prophet’s death. Within a century of Mohammed’s passing, his followers had forged a vast empire that crossed North Africa and most of Spain to the west, reaching to the borders of China and India in the east. Just as Mohammed and his followers had conquered much of the known world, the jihadists seek to reconquer this empire and then expand it to encompass the earth. (http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/gauging-jihadist-movement-part-1-goals-jihadists">Gauging the Jihadist Movement, Part 1: The Goals of the Jihadists
is republished with permission of Stratfor.)

From the always informative Statfor. Included here because you can never understand the world unless you know history.

Ghostly Galleon

Lhota’s Years Working for the Dolans (New York Times headline, 10/29/2013)

Next up from the Times: de Blasio's Years Working for the Sandinistas

(Just kidding!)


Today's Funny Brought to You by Healthcare.gov 
However, insurers said they saw the problems as more significant, affecting 25 percent to 30 percent of enrollments. In some cases, they said, the government lists a dependent as the head of a household, with the result that a 10-year-old child is shown as having three or four dependents and is identified as the policyholder for a family. (NYT, 10/29/2013)

Which reminds us again that Saturday Night Live - that bastion of coastal Liberalism - is having a field day with Obamacare. 

Meanwhile over on MSNBC yesterday they were focused on ..... Dick Cheney. Yes, Dick Cheney. Some Liberal writer has written a book about Cheney and MSNBC convened a panel of Liberals to discuss. The majority of the time was spent snickering about the former Vice-President, a frail old man with severe health problems. They even managed to say "Darth Vader." This is the level of professionalism of MSNBC. 


Take Aways
Take away 620 jobs with an average salary of $100,000 at a company that pays $1.15 million a year in local taxes and it’s going to hurt.

Windham County needs help weathering that as the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant shuts down by the end of next year, several local leaders said Monday at a meeting with two legislative committees. (Burlington Free Press, 10/28/2013)

Vermont Progressives, politicians and the media, have just woken up to the economic realities of closing Vermont Yankee. 

OK geniuses, what's the plan?


Contrarians
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer conceded to reporters today that Democrats knew people would not be able to keep their current health care plans under Obamacare and expressed qualified contrition for President Obama’s repeated vows to the contrary.

“We knew that there would be some policies that would not qualify and therefore people would be required to get more extensive coverage,” Hoyer said in response to a question from National Review.

Asked by another reporter how repeated statements by Obama to the contrary weren’t “misleading,” Hoyer said “I don’t think the message was wrong. I think the message was accurate. It was not precise enough…[it] should have been caveated with – ‘assuming you have a policy that in fact does do what the bill is designed to do.’” (Nationalreview.com, 10/29/2013)

Everybody satisfied with that explanation?

Anybody satisfied with that explanation?


Highlights from the Suddenly Engaged Liberal Media
President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years. (NBCnews.com, 10/29/2013)

...the Republicans understated the number of issues on which the president has claimed to be in the dark. A compilation by the Republican National Committee titled “The Bystander President” cited the NSA spying on Merkel, the Obamacare rollout and an investigation of the IRS’s targeting of political groups (the White House counsel knew of the inquiry but said she didn’t inform Obama). The RNC also mentioned the failure of clean-energy company Solyndra, which had received government funding (Carney had said Obama read about it in “news accounts”), and the attempts to go after reporters’ phone and e-mail records (which the president also found out about from reading the news, Carney said).

The RNC didn’t mention that Obama had allegedly known nothing about an FBI investigation of an affair involving David Petraeus that led him to resign as CIA director. Neither did it mention two other claims that conservatives often question: Obama’s ignorance of a guns-on-the-border sting operation called “Fast and Furious” that went awry, and his unawareness of requests for additional diplomatic security in Libya before a U.S. outpost in Benghazi was attacked. (Dana Milbank, Washington Post, 10/28/2013)

Something went wrong. People could not sign up. Why? Not sure. Who’s at fault? Apparently no one. An act of God. Something that could never have been foreseen. Another president might have had someone in the White House calling every day — no, twice a day — to make sure the program was going to work. But no, it was a shock to everyone, and when the White House rolled out its gigantic cake — maestro, some music please — no one jumped out.

Pathetic. (Richard Cohen, Washington Post, 10/28/2013)

Occasionally journalism happens.

Wind of the Plot

Dark Times
Because of Obama’s fecklessness — abetted by a Congress that has turned darkly isolationist — the world is now a less safe place. The policeman has proved to be a bumbler. He is unschooled in foreign policy. Rogues and killers have taken the measure of him. He is smaller than first appeared. 

This editorial from the Wall Street Journal might seem harsh, but it bears consideration.

Oh wait. It's not from the Journal. It's from Liberal Washington Post opinion columnist Richard Cohen (Washington Post, 9/16/2013). 

Pigs fly.


Limits
Federal officials often say that health insurance will cost consumers less than expected under President Obama’s health care law. But they rarely mention one big reason: many insurers are significantly limiting the choices of doctors and hospitals available to consumers. (NYT, 9/22/2013)

Now they tell us. The Obamacare lies continue to be exposed. Next thing you know they will tell us that seniors WILL receive counseling on "end-of-life" options....


No Thanks
...policing is far better than it used to be, thanks to innovations by Mayor David Dinkins and in particular Mr. Giuliani’s police commissioner, William Bratton. (New York Times editorial, 9/22/2013)

There are lies and then there are the editorials of the New York Times. Here we learn of the wonderful period in NYC history known as the Dinkins administration when peace ruled the five boroughs. 

Well that's not the way we remember it and we were there. 

The Dinkins years were characterized by chaos, crime and racial divisiveness. It was only when Sheriff Rudy Guiliani rode into town that things got better. Liberals constantly believe that they can rewrite history to suit their purposes. 

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. 

Knocking Round the Zoo

Asking the Questions That No One Else Will Ask About the Boston Marathon Bombing

Will Joker Tsarnaev be charged with vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of an accident in connection with the death of brother Timberland Tsarnaev?

If not, why not?


Reflections
As I have written before, I remember sitting next to Bush when we were in the same residential college at Yale (Davenport -- he graduated a year after me). I recall an evening when a group of us was sitting in the common room outside the college dining hall after dinner and a fellow Yale student walked by who was known to be gay, but in those days was not "out." Someone said some ugly homophobic slurs. I didn't like it, but sat silently. But Bush snapped, saying something like "Hey, knock it off. Why don't you walk in his shoes awhile and feel what he feels?" (Huffington Post, 4/24/2013)

Bush, however, lacks irony ..... or something. Another man in his position might stare at the ceiling at night, seeing the number 4,486 — the number of American dead in Iraq — blinking on and off. The death toll for Iraqis is much less exact — maybe as high as 1 million, maybe as low as about 100,000, still a pretty big number. (Richard Cohen, Washington Post, 4/22/2013)

For example, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid would phone the White House after he had insulted the president—such as in 2005, when he called Mr. Bush "a liar" and "a loser." He said he didn't know that his speechwriters had slipped "loser" into his remarks until he delivered them, so he wanted to apologize for using that word (but not for calling the president a "liar"). Mr. Bush didn't take umbrage. I did. The president felt he had better things to do, starting with handling threats foreign and domestic. (Karl Rove, WSJ, 4/24/2013)

A sampling of comments about W on the occasion of the dedication of his presidential library. Kudos to Democrat Lanny Davis for his gracious comments. A class act, for sure. And then there is WaPo's Richard Cohen who takes us down a different path. We get to hear again about the WMDs that W (and Hillary Clinton) thought were in Iraq. Cohen is mean-spirited and petty. Shame! Rove's anecdote reminds us of two things: 1) how comfortable Bush is in his skin and 2) how Harry Reid is a despicable person. 


Hoboland
Last year California lawmakers approved a "homeowner's bill of rights." Now in the spirit of social and legal equality, Democrats have proposed a "homeless bill of rights."

The bill's Assembly sponsor Tom Ammiano, who hails from San Francisco (also known as the hobo capital of California), says state legislation is needed to stop businesses and local governments from discriminating against poor people merely because they can't afford housing. (WSJ, 4/25/2013)

Have you BEEN to San Francisco?

Never mind the rights of families to walk down the street without being accosted, San Fran Liberals want to protect the bums.