Sunday, July 31, 2011

Reid signs off on debt deal as negotiators get close

Politico  "Opening the Senate at noon, Reid had proceeded with an attempt to cut off debate on an alternative package he put forward. That motion failed 50-49, as expected, but Reid kept his options open to force a second cloture vote if he so chose. Timing was crucial with financial markets reopening Monday, one day before the threat of default.
"While both sides stress that nothing is final yet, the contours of the would-be agreement suggest a more practical approach by Republicans, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, to achieve many of the party’s goals without pushing Obama and the nation into default."

Reid signs off on bipartisan debt deal but Boehner holds out  "But the emerging deal may be imperiled by last-minute reluctance from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) who worries the proposal cuts too much from future Pentagon budgets."  More here.
You have to endure a 30-second commercial first.

Krauthammer: Why the Boehner Plan must pass " I have every sympathy with the conservative counterrevolutionaries. Their containment of the Obama experiment has been remarkable. But reversal — rollback, in Cold War parlance — is simply not achievable until conservatives receive a mandate to govern from the White House."

CNN anchor to Rand Paul: I hope you’re happy with yourself, Mr. Tea Party  "From that perspective, this is actually a dynamite sneak preview of how the media will react on Wednesday if today’s deal falls apart and we end up hitting the ceiling. If you want to ask someone why they’ve resorted to desperate measures, at least let ‘em explain why they think these are desperate times, no? Especially since, per Paul, these measures aren’t as desperate as they might be."
http://www.worldmag.com/editorialcartoons/
....Defense has already taken hugely disproportionate cuts under President Obama, and there is simply no basis for expanding those cuts further. Republican negotiators must hold the line, since the Obama Administration plainly will not.
Mark Steyn on Nancy Pelosi and the debt fight: Decline starts with the money, but it doesn’t stop there.   "That thoughtful observer of the passing parade, Nancy Pelosi, weighed in on the “debt ceiling” negotiations the other day:
“What we’re trying to do is save the world from the Republican budget. We’re trying to save life on this planet as we know it today.”
"It’s always good to have things explained in terms we simpletons can understand. After a while, all the stuff about debt-to-GDP ratio and CBO alternative baseline scenarios starts to give you a bit of a headache, so we should be grateful to the House minority leader for putting it in layman’s terms: What’s at stake is “life on this planet as we know it today.” So, if right now you’re living anywhere in the general vicinity of this planet, it’s good to know Nancy’s in there pitching for you."

Fort Hood Suspect Had Left-Wing Fan Base

Alana Goodman in Commentary  "When Pfc. Naser Abdo applied for CO status last year, the utterly discredited Iraq Veterans Against the War organization posted a message in support of him on its website, and asked readers to donate to his legal defense fund. And Kimber Heinz, a writer for the far-left website Truthout, unluckily chose to profile Abdo in a 2010 article entitled, “One Year After Fort Hood: The Missing Story of Muslim Peacemaking.”
" “We must lift up the stories and ongoing work of Muslim peacemakers like Naser Abdo,” Heinz wrote."

Truth in pictures



Hat tip to Ronbo over at Freedom Fighter's Journal  for these.

Moody's: Neither debt plan protects the nation's AAA rating

The Hill   ""Reductions of the magnitude now being proposed, if adopted, would likely lead Moody's to adopt a negative outlook on the AAA rating," the credit rating agency said in a new report. "The chances of a significant improvement in the long-term credit profile of the government coming from deficit reductions of the magnitude proposed in either plan are not high."
"It added that "prolonged debt ceiling deliberations" have increased the odds of a downgrade, but that the firm is still confident policymakers will avoid a default."

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/garyvarvel

Saturday, July 30, 2011

What’s so wrong with Reid’s bill?

Hot Air  "Finally, as has been repeatedly pointed out, the savings in Reid’s bill aren’t exactly real. Reid touts dollar-for-dollar savings, but that’s a ruse. The bill actually delivers just $1 trillion in cuts in exchange for that unprecedented $2.7 trillion increase. The Global War on Terror savings are a gimmick. The administration has never requested current levels of funding for the war for the next ten years (i.e. the administration has never planned to spend $160 billion each year on the war for the next 10 years).  Not funding what the administration was never going to fund doesn’t qualify as a cut."

House Kills Reid Plan  "Per reports on Twitter, the vote was 246 to 173, with bipartisan opposition to the plan.


"UPDATE: House roll here. I believe 11 Democrats voted against: Barrow, Boren, Braley, Loebsack, Matheson, McIntyre, C. Peterson, Ross, Schrader, Viscloskey, Wu. (Yeah, Wu.)

"So we have Boehner plan killed by Senate and Reid plan killed by House.
"What now?"

The BBC, Breivik, the EDL and Islam

Gates of Vienna "The BBC regards itself as a politically impartial organisation, but their behaviour in the fallout of the Breivik atrocity shows them to be nothing other than the unapologetic propaganda arm of the hard Left and Islam." ....
At the siege of Vienna in 1683 Islam seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe. We are in a new phase of a very old war.

...."I have written before that a future religious civil-war will be preceded by tit-for-tat small scale atrocities, and now we have seen the start. By shamefully closing down a desperately needed debate in order to pursue perverse and politically-driven objectives, Paxman, the BBC and the entire political liberal/left have ensured the inevitability of potential carnage and thus have the blood of future innocents on their hands alongside those of the inevitable psychopathic perpetrator."  Paul Weston

The English writer and former UKIP parliamentary candidate Paul Weston weighs in on the state of the BBC, as evidenced by the treatment of Tommy Robinson by Jeremy Paxman on a recent Newsnight program.

Gaffe: when a politician accidentally tells the truth

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/chipbok
While this cartoon captures the nature of Obama's politics, there is one perhaps insurmountable obstacle for those running against the man; he is viewed not as a leftist politician but a celebrity.
 Consider:


From the Obama Collector Shop: Barack Obama Magazines
This pretty well sums it all up: 2006-2008 Magazine Covers

 Fawning:  –verb (used without object) Dictionary.com
1. to seek notice or favor by servile demeanor: The courtiers fawned over the king.
2. (of a dog) to behave affectionately.

Hey, Who Wants to Talk About Wisconsin’s Economic Miracle?

Pajamas Media  "If one listened to the violent rhetoric of the public employee unions, one would have expected today to be a dark day for education in Wisconsin. “This is a disaster,” said Wisconsin Senate Democratic leader Mark Miller in February after Governor Scott Walker first proposed Act 10. Miller predicted catastrophe if the bill were to become law, a charge repeated thousands of times by his fellow Democrats, union officials, and protesters in the streets. Now the bill is law, and we have evidence of how wonderfully it is working. Instead of a catastrophe, it is a day of miraculous optimism, balanced budgets, educational improvement, and fiscal recovery."

But it took the political and personal courage of Governor Walker to stand up to demagoguery such as this:


And this:



Obama, Geithner Hold All the Face Cards in Debt Ceiling Fight

Jazz Shaw  "The president could also reduce checks or simply fail to pay any number of defense contractors for work already performed or scheduled. This would hit a lot of major Republican donors, not to mention potentially leading to layoffs in that industry for lack of work. And once again, Jay Carney will be out on the White House lawn every day at noon with his big, sad puppy dog eyes detailing how it’s all the fault of the GOP.
"Next up we find a clever way to get the seniors out in the streets. As previously noted, Obama would obviously send out all of the Social Security checks, but he doesn’t have to pay everything associated with Medicare."
I think we can all be sure all cuts will be designed to make Republicans look bad and most people will buy into it.  Conservatives should begin now to inoculate public opinion against this, but that would require a press that was objective, wouldn't it?

Norway: Lessons from a Successful Lone Wolf Attacker

STRATFOR  "While Breivik’s manifesto indicated he planned and executed the attack as a lone wolf, it also suggests that he is part of a larger organization that he calls the [Knights Templar], which seeks to encourage other lone wolves ... and small cells in other parts of Europe to carry out a plan to “save” Europe and European culture from destruction.
"Because of the possibility that there are other self-appointed Justiciar Knights in Norway or in other parts of Europe and that Breivik’s actions, ideology and manifesto could spawn copycats, we thought it useful to examine the Justiciar Knights concept as Breivik explains it to see how it fits into lone wolf theory and how similar actors might be detected in the future."

You knew this was coming didn't you?  Google  Justiciar Knights and the left-leaning search engine will direct you to at least one to the JN as the equivalent of the TEA Party, such as here.

Other perspectives here and here.The following quote is from the latter:
To facilitate the new Crusades, Breivik and a group of others refounded the Knights Templar in April 2002. On page 817 of his tome, he notes that the 12 founding members included an “English Christian atheist,” a “German Christian atheist,” a “Russian Christian atheist,” a “Dutch Christian agnostic,” and three people with no religious description. That is, seven of the 12 founders do not feign any religion whatsoever.


While the TW attempts to diligently warn of the dangers inherent in socialism, liberalism and Islam, in the final analysis it is the God of Creation who puts "hooks into the jaws" of nations to bring about His purposes, no matter what we do.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Birthdays, Peaceful Protests and Code Pink Loonies


Big Peace  "One of the distinguished people I have met through my travels supporting the troops has been Ambassador Bolton. I saw him walking down the sidewalk and went over to say hello. We chatted for a few minutes and then he was on his way."

"As I went to pick up my sign, I noticed Medea Benjamin and her Code pink Cronies approaching Ambassador Bolton. This couldn’t be good I thought to myself. She introduced herself and it wasn’t long before she started her rant."
....




"They had their bullhorn with them and they started ranting about Ambassador Bolton being a war criminal. Criminal … These are the same despots who gave $600,000.00 to the terrorists in Fallujah, and they have the audacity to accuse Bolton of a crime.....
"I went up to him and put the two signs I had between Bolton and the Code Pink loonies, sheltering him from these vile and despicable individuals. Soon Bev Perlson from the Band of Mothers, and Chad Longel a longtime supporter and Army Vet did the same protecting Bolton from the antics of these attention seeking hippies who hate our military."
....
"Bolton continued to thank us, over and over, for standing with him until his ride arrived. He was stunned at how wacko these pathetic individuals were."
Posted by Debbie Lee  On Aug 2, 2006 she received a knock on the door that would forever change her life. She was notified that her son Marc Alan Lee had been killed in action becoming the first Navy SEAL killed in Iraq. Since that day Debbie has dedicated her life to honoring our troops and the families of the fallen, defending our defenders and fighting to keep the freedoms that our troops have fought for.

Comment in this post from one of the Patriot Guard Riders.
Great job! I am a Patriot Guard Rider and have encountered a few of these cowards. Fortunately I am 6'4" and weigh 225 lbs. My presence cuts down a lot of useless conversation often without a word being spoken. Of course the leathers help as does the motorcycle I ride complete with dual exhaust off a big two cylinder motor with headers. No match for their bullhorn. Wish I could have been there to cover your "6". Sounds like your friend did a fine job.
You rock, Debbie. Thanks for your Patriotism and the sacrifice of your hero son. Keep the faith.     
                                             Below: Patriot Guard Riders logo

And you rock too, Riders. God bless you all. TD

Europeans Losing Patience with Washington Gridlock

Big Peace  "European leaders have long expressed confidence that the US would find a resolution to its ongoing debt impasse. But now there is growing concern that it won’t, according to Spiegel. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble says, “Everyone in the US should be aware of their responsibility for the global financial markets.” "
Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schäuble in June (AP)
Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schäuble in June (AP)

The Protocols of the Elders of Liberalism

American Thinker  "So now Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen, Newt Gingrich, Peter King are all the equivalent of Breivik and Osama Bin Laden; monsters itching to kill! kill! kill! Subhuman brutes on the verge of genocide. And any attempt to defend ourselves is an act of aggression against a harmless people who just happen to cut off heads, blow up pizza parlors and airplanes, etc. No! The real villains are those E-VIL right wingers who say "you will not destroy us".
"We have seen this in liberals at least since the assassination of John Kennedy; Lee Harvey Oswald was a communist, yet liberals have invented all manner of conspiracy theories pinning his murder on the Right. Yet when John Hinckley Jr. shot Ronald Reagan it was a disturbed man to the media. We've had Timothy McVeigh pinned on Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk radio, yet Major Hassan's little Allah Akbar! moment was said to have nothing to do with radical Islam."

"The New York Times downplayed the arrest of an AWOL Muslim soldier charged in connection with a plot to attack Fort Hood soldiers. The newspaper all but ignored the role Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo’s religious faith may have played in the alleged plot.
"Abdo was arrested in Killeen, Texas, near Fort Hood. He was found with weapons, explosive, and jihadist materials. Sources said he was attempting to purchase more weapons at the same gun store where Maj. Nidal Hasan purchased weapons allegedly used to gun down 13 people and would 30 others in a 2009 terrorist attack at the military base."

Speaker Boehner, Please Stop Saying 'How High?'

Sara Goss  "Speaker Boehner: please stop trying to draft any further legislation. Change two words in the Cut Cap and Balance bill and re-send it to the Senate. Then dismiss the House members and tell them that you'll call them back when the Senate has submitted a response for consideration. Period. And make sure that every single Republican emphasizes that they have done their job and the Senate Democrats have not. They still haven't put anything in writing! Shout that from the rooftops! Stop playing nice and start saying it like it is."

Boehner's credibility gap  "There's perhaps a not-so-nagging suspicion among grassroots conservatives that even if the GOP captures Congress and the White House in 2012, the sort of far-reaching, fundamental reform that the nation needs will not be realized, much less seriously attempted. Washington's GOP leaders would no doubt make honest efforts to fix big government - straighten out the books, so to speak. But engaging in historic reforms that dramatically shrink the national government, sun-setting its authority in many areas and returning much authority to the states - the confidence among conservatives is lacking."
....
"How -- or if -- Speaker Boehner repairs his credibility problem with conservatives is a very good question, indeed."
http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/michaelramirez

Kerby Anderson: Cultural Captivity

Probe Ministries  "This is our challenge in the twenty-first century. American Christians cannot merely look at Christians in other countries and shake their heads about their captivity to their particular cultural values. We too must be aware of culture captivity in our midst and “see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception” (Colossians 2:8). We have been assimilated into the American culture and should “not be conformed to this world” but instead should be “transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2)."
Kerby Anderson is National Director of Probe Ministries International.


Ideals vs. Realities; Point/ Counterpoint (updated)

Thomas Sowell  "Now that the Republicans seem to have gotten the Democrats off their higher taxes kick, the question is whether a minority of the House Republicans will refuse to pass the Boehner legislation that could lead to a deal that will spare the country a major economic disruption and spare the Republicans from losing the 2012 elections by being blamed - rightly or wrongly - for the disruptions.
"Is the Boehner legislation the best legislation possible? Of course not! You don't get your heart's desire when you control only one house of Congress and face a presidential veto."

We've Been Played for Saps, Folks: Boehner Bill Will Become Reid Bill   "There's no Obama bill. There's nothing set down on paper. So the Reid bill will become the Obama bill. The Boehner plan will become the Obama plan. I think that's the trap. And, of course, the establishment, Republicans are all gung ho. "Gotta get this done. It's the best we can get." Because they're telling themselves there aren't any tax increases in it, and there aren't. There aren't any tax increases in the Boehner bill. And there are spending cuts and there are caps, but what happens when that goes over to the Senate and Reid says, "You know what, I like some of this and I don't like that. Let's take some of this out and put some of this in," and gets his votes for it and the Boehner bill becomes something unrecognizable, then goes back to the House, what are they going to do? They've already passed the Boehner bill under the guise that we can't wait any longer, that AAA credit rating is in jeopardy, all this rotgut BS." Rush Limbaugh

Demagoguery exemplifiedThat Daily Caller article  referred to by Rush.

Andy McCarthy: Against the Boehner Plan "Ask any rational person: “When a government is so addicted to reckless spending that it has run up a crushing $14.3 trillion debt that it has no plan to pay back — when it is borrowing $180 million per hour because it has taken on more obligations than it could ever hope to satisfy — would it be better to extend that government’s credit line another $2.5 trillion so it can continue heedlessly along, or to take every available opportunity to force it to alter course dramatically?” There is only one right answer to that question."

  : The great divide   "I have every sympathy with the conservative counterrevolutionaries. Their containment of the Obama experiment has been remarkable. But reversal — rollback, in Cold War parlance — is simply not achievable until conservatives receive a mandate to govern from the White House."

Raging Elephants; G.O.P. is the New Black

Email to Tunnel Dweller from friends in the DFW area with the enclosed commentary about this man:
Claver
J----, S----- and I attended a tea party meeting last night and wanted to share with you. The man speaking was a young black named Apostle Claver (don’t let the name bother you). He is a strong conservative Christian who is trying to reach out to blacks and turn them Republican (conservative). His message was strong—the Republicans have lost the black vote and although many blacks live their lives as conservatives, they continue over and over to vote Democrat. I wish I could give you his message as to why they continue to do that, but perhaps if you go to his site and listen to some of his speeches you’ll find out. He contends that our nation is (what he calls) turning brown and in 25 years, the white people will be the minority. He contends that if conservatives don’t capture a percentage of the black vote, we’re in danger of losing our conservative movement in elections. He gave us a lesson on how our demographics and trends have changed over the past few years and it was scary. ...

Some articles in this site from July 28th:

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Obama's Iraq Abdication

MARISA COCHRANE SULLIVAN   "Upon taking office in 2009, President Obama inherited a winning hand in Iraq—and yet his administration has played it like a losing one. I recently returned from three weeks in that country, where I had dozens of meetings with Iraqi officials from across the political spectrum. They agreed on very little, except that the Obama administration is dangerously disengaged from the situation in their country.
""U.S. influence is waning," one senior official told me glumly. "Iran and Turkey now have more influence and they are taking advantage of what the U.S. has sacrificed for in Iraq." Another prominent leader joked that Iraq must have disappeared from every White House map."
....
"Failing to sign a new U.S.-Iraqi security agreement would redound to Iran's great benefit. The Obama administration has a fleeting opportunity that it cannot afford to squander." Article

The only adult in the room

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/ericallie
Obama an easy mark on debt ceiling  "“Vintage Obama!” rejoiced Democrats. “I, for one, am happy with a president who is seemingly the last adult in the room,” read a letter to The New York Times. Obama, the thinking went, was following the wisdom of Kenny Rogers: He knew “when to fold ‘em.”
"The problem is that Obama tipped his hand. His professed unwillingness to see hostages harmed — even when polls showed public support for his position — told Boehner that all he needed to do was raise the stakes and Obama would concede."

Why I Read the New York Times



Bruce S. Thornton  "That culture-wide assumption that combat veterans are victims to be pitied rather than heroes to be admired inhibits their reintegration into civilian life as much as the alleged societal myopia about the “horrors of war.” And beyond the impact on veterans, this exclusive focus on the evils of war and its crippling traumas can have a pernicious impact on foreign policy. The obsession with the horrors of World War I led to a “never again” mentality that helped paved the way for the policy of appeasement in the Thirties. A similar brooding over the alleged horrific crimes of Vietnam made our abandonment of South Vietnam more politically palatable, which in turn facilitated American retreat and Soviet expansionism in the 70s. And today the same sort of coverage of Iraq and Afghanistan may camouflage an over-hasty withdrawal from those countries."

New York Times Reader Kills Dozens in Norway

Ann Coulter  "Had anyone at the Times actually read Breivik's manifesto, they would have seen that he uses the word "Christian" as a handy moniker to mean "European, non-Islamic" -- not a religious Christian or even a vague monotheist. In fact, at several points in his manifesto, Breivik stresses that he has a beef with Christians for their soft-heartedness. (I suppose that's why the Times is never worried about a "Christian backlash.")
"A casual perusal of Breivik's manifesto clearly shows that he uses the word "Christian" similarly to the way some Jewish New Yorkers use it to mean "non-Jewish." In this usage, Christopher Hitchens and Madalyn Murray O'Hair are "Christians.""

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg
Norway PM: After attacks, make country more open
"Stoltenberg strongly defended the right to speak freely - even if it includes extremist views such as those held by Anders Behring Breivik, the 32-year-old Norwegian who has confessed to the attacks and claimed they were necessary to fight what he called Muslim colonization and multiculturalism."
""We have to be very clear to distinguish between extreme views, opinions - that's completely legal, legitimate to have. What is not legitimate is to try to implement those extreme views by using violence," he said in English." World Magazine

But be in no doubt whatsoever that Mother nature will demand they pay the heaviest price for their arrogance and she will not care one iota if the entire white race has to pay too. Mother nature knows not pity as even self-righteous Liberal-Multiculturalists will find to their cost, you can be completely assured of that. From his "manifesto".

Families toss wrench in 'gay' indoctrination plan

WND  "Family leaders in California have thrown a wrench in the public school system's newest "gay" indoctrination plan, with the filing of the paperwork for a referendum on SB48, approved by the Democrats in the legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, in recent days. "
....
""This effort will require us all to sacrifice and work together. We cannot afford to stay silent or stand on the sidelines. Californians are extremely tolerant, but we draw the line when history is revised to please a special interest group," he said"


Hat tip to the California Chronicle

Obama's balanced approach

Blitz Britain: Amazing colour pictures of London under siege from Nazi bombers during World War II

UK Daily Mail  "For many, photographs from the World War II have only been seen in grainy black and white. But now, new colour images have emerged that show the full horror of the destruction inflicted by Nazi bombings across London.
"The powerful images were released to mark the 70th anniversary of the launch of Winston Churchill's 'V for Victory' campaign on July 19, 1941." Via National Review Online

White House Switchboard Swamped

American Thinker  "President Obama's speech last night called for Americans to contact their Congressional representatives in an effort to demonstrate their displeasure with the progress of the debt ceiling negotiations."
....
"President Obama may have been hoping that Congress would be bullied by a cascade of phone calls to Congress making demands for higher taxes on their fellow citizens. As an orchestrated tactic, it appears to have worked. Unfortunately for the President, it seems that his call to his dwindling supporters has also rallied those who oppose him and Speaker Boehner didn't even have to plot a phone call mob on his behalf."
Political Cartoons by Michael Ramirez
http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/michaelramirez
Obama Shameless as Debt Crisis Looms  "While factually correct, this is bad economic policy, policy that Obama should accept the blame for just as much as he tried to claim credit for it when he and his administration were pretending their efforts to fix the economy were working."

President Obama and the Debt Crisis: Detached, Alone, and Passive   "Politico’s Thrush identified this key vulnerability on Sunday when he wrote:"
Can anyone envision a more devastating line than “Barack Obama, the man who lost America’s AAA credit rating — and brought you 9 percent unemployment”?

•Class warfare, complete with evil corporate jets - check. •One sided shared sacrifice - check. •Blame Bush - check.

Another Black Conservative   "No where in Obama's 15 minute speech did Obama offer a clear cut path plan of action. Instead, it was the usual dump it all in Congress' lap and then take to the podium to play the role of college professor. Of course in doing so, Obama made his usual massive contradictions. Like this gem:"...

"And Boehner mocked Obama's rhetoric: "The president has often said we need a 'balanced' approach--which in Washington means we spend more, you pay more." One might observe that the partisan sniping was mutual. But the president is the higher-status player. He diminishes himself by punching down."

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Identifying a Psychopath

Warning Signs  "Anyone who would blow up a government building and gun down children, thinking that he was going to ignite a revolution against Muslims in Europe is not dealing with a full deck.
"The event initiated a torrent of news coverage and comment. Much of the initial coverage was wrong. Breivik was not a “fundamentalist Christian” and he was not linked to any particular group. He was the classic lone wolf. Like the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, Breivik had his own “manifesto.” "
....
" “What distinguishes psychopaths from normal people? Principally, it is a total absence of what we typically take to be moral qualities; sympathy, empathy, compassion, guilt, remorse, conscience, loyalty, truth telling, and a sense of fairness.”
"“Psychopaths are highly narcissistic. Not only are they extremely self-centered, but they also think of themselves as being of a higher nature than the rest of us,” " By Alan Caruba

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney Beclowns Himself Spinning Obama's AWOL Stance

Joshuapundit  "This has to be one of the most pathetic examples on record of someone openly lying in public since Baghdad Bob during the invasion of Iraq."


....
"Here's Jay Carney, the president's press secretary actually being sneered at by the normally servile White House press corps as he tries to cover up for the president's total lack of leadership."
....
There's no real leadership here because frankly, the president is incapable of it.He's an empty suit, and in over his head.

Kinda like lipstick on a pig

Obama's latest speech

I’m not going to be ignored, John, or blamed.
                               Legal Insurrection

Obama Keeps Mum On A Word Dirtier Than 'Compromise'  "That Obama didn't promise to veto Boehner's bill signals that Obama may already know the sweet spot between divided government and dysfunctional government. He may not sign the Boehner bill, but the absence of a veto threat is a tell-tale sign that, in the end, Obama may tolerate something much closer to it than Monday night's speech conveyed."

New York Times Blames Conservative U.S. Bloggers for Oslo Massacre

Newsbusters  "Yet when a pair of homegrown terrorists were arrested in Seattle last month before a planned attack on a military facility, the Times chose not to inform readers that the duo were Muslim-converts and the ringleader idolized Osama bin Laden.
"Now, roughly four weeks later, a sadly successful attack happened thousands of miles away, and the Times was more than happy to point fingers - prominently on its front page! - at American conservatives.

:In June of 2011, when Muslim Yonathan Melaku was caught in Arlington Cemetery with suspicious material and a notebook praising the Taliban, the networks him simply as "the suspect," "a 22-year old Ethiopian American” and a “lone wolf.”"

Pinning Breivik on critics of Islamization  "Islam's enablers are already trying to take advantage of the situation. They are trying to take away our freedom of speech and freedom of expression by shutting down criticism of Islam and Islamization... to further their agenda, which is to make Islam and Islamic law supreme in the West. In that sense Breivik's actions must have seemed like a great gift and a great opportunity to them because it gives them a chance to use our revulsion in the heat of the moment to strip away our right to freely criticise Islam and Islamization, which would of course be a real boon to them as they try and turn Western countries into Islamic states."

Euro-killer ripped off peaceful Euro-critic  "We will find out very soon if peaceful conservative bloggers in Europe are now going to be the targets of a hysterical smear campaign, or whether some of them will even be arrested.
"This is therefore a very serious smear, since the Politically Correct elite in Europe is quite willing to prosecute peaceful dissidents like Geert Wilders, who was just found innocent by a court of law in the Netherlands, on a charge of hate speech. De Wilders is a peaceful, sober, polite, anti-PC politician, a Member of Parliament in the Netherlands -- but you know what can happen to dissenters from the EU Orthodoxy."

Wisdom from Media Matters on scoring political points from violence  "This was the tweet sent out by Media Matters when a radical environmentalist took hostages at the Discovery Channel in September 2010, and there was a concern about how violence by a “liberal” would be portrayed in the media:"...

Cal Thomas: And Now Norway 
"Would Anders Behring Breivik have thought twice about his killing spree if he had known in advance that someone would shoot back? That is impossible to know. But if someone on Utoeya Island had returned fire, there's a possibility that far fewer would have been killed."

Monday, July 25, 2011

Obama’s Dangerous Debt Ceiling Strategy

Heritage  "Never mind that the financial security of hundreds of millions of Americans and others would be injured in the process. The Administration needs what it has already dubbed “the Boehner drop”—named after Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner—to try to get its way in the debt ceiling negotiations.
"The attempt by senior members of the Administration, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, to make markets even more nervous than they are was noticed by other journalists. Veteran financial journalist Charles Gasparino vented his frustration on ABC’s This Week with Christian Amanpour by saying “it’s irresponsible for Geithner to go out there to talk about default. If he’s worried about the Asian markets tonight, why does he mention default? We are not going to default. We have cash on hand to pay bond holders.”
"But that is the political game the White House is playing—and it’s a dangerous one. Investment adviser James Rickards wrote to Politico‘s Playbook, “Geithner and Obama are foolish to try to ‘scare’ markets over the debt ceiling. Markets are already scared. They’re looking for reassurance and a more mature dialogue.”  Emphasis added.

The Manifesto Behind the Horror in Norway

The Weekly Standard  "The Norwegian terrorist seems to have penned a long Unabomber-style manifesto, "2083: A European Declaration of Indpendence," which can be downloaded, for now at least, at   this link.
"The author is listed as "Andrew Berwick," which seems to be an anglicized pen name for Anders Breivik. But Mein Kampf may be a better analogy than the Unabomber manifesto. The man is a mass-murdering sociopath, responsible for a horrific bloodbath yesterday. He is an extremist, but he is not incoherent. Here is part of a long Q&A from the manuscript, in which he attempts to justify his radicalization:"



Taliban hangs 8 year old boy in Afghanistan

Rick Moran  " 'An 8 year-old boy was hanged by militants in Afghanistan's Helmand province after the boy's father -- a police officer in the southern city of Gereshk -- refused to comply with militants' demands to provide them with a police vehicle, officials said.' "
....
"Needless to say they are barbarians. And they are winning."

Obama and the left want to cede the battle to these people. Code Pink and their yokefellows of the anti-war movement praise the Taliban for killing American soldiers.  "For years, Code Pink has viciously harassed wounded veterans and their families outside Walter Reed Hospital, even telling the mother of a slain Navy Seal that her son "deserved to die." Code Pink actively supports terror groups such as Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, Hezbollah and al Qaeda."