Krauthammer: Emptiness at West Point (Updated)

Charles Krauthammer   "As for Obama’s interventionists, they are grotesquely described as people “who think military intervention is the only way for America to avoid looking weak” while Obama courageously refuses to believe that “every problem has a military solution.”
Name one person who does.

“ 'Why is it that everybody is so eager to use military force?” Obama recently and plaintively asked about Ukraine. In reality, nobody is. What actual earthlings are eager for is sending military assistance to Ukraine’s woefully equipped forces."

From the UK: President Barack Obama's national security flops just keep coming ; A strange obsession with setting out his national security agenda is backfiring for President Barack Obama

... "The reception for the speech was dire.

"The Washington Post declared that he had “marshaled a virtual corps of straw men,” in making an argument for an “Obama doctrine” that was at odds with every US president since the Second World War.

"Aside from the very serious real-world consequences, Obama’s foreign policy failure also has serious political consequences."
...
"And his foreign policy doctrine is unprecedented in modern America, somewhat arbitrary, ill-conceived, and utterly lacking in moral clarity. More and more, it appears he has reverse engineered a foreign policy, based primarily on doing the opposite of George W. Bush did, as opposed to overtly crafting a wise and coherent foreign policy strategy going forward."

Life in the land of the free under this oppressive administration

School Car Wash Fundraisers Banned in Virginia County  These people will not leave us alone to live our lives. 

"Charity car washes and car wash fundraisers are now banned on school property there, after the Department of Environmental Services issued new rules for stormwater and water runoff.

"The county pins the blame on the Virginia General Assembly, which approved more stringent water regulations last year."

Obama Is Bypassing Congress Again. This Time It's Going to Cost You.  " Leading the charge, unsurprisingly, is the Environmental Protection Agency, which will release its carbon-dioxide regulations for existing power plants on Monday. The plan will drive up energy prices for American families and businesses without making a dent in global temperatures."


The One Policy That Would ‘Devastate’ Restaurants...   "Puzder listed several government actions that have stymied growth in the restaurant industry: higher taxes, increasing health-care costs, rising fuel prices and an “unnavigable regulatory maze.' ”

5 Reasons Michelle Obama's School Lunch Program Is a Giant Fail  ... " But the goal of this program is not to actually lower childhood obesity. It’s to remove responsibility from parents for parenting. Kids are not fat because of school lunches, which have been available for decades. Kids are fat because of lack of parenting. And the First Lady’s insistence that she can parent in place of actual parents – with our tax dollars – is not just bound to fail but to undermine personal responsibility."

Thomas Sowell; Kangaroo Courts on Campus?  "But those who are whipping up the lynch mob mentality have shown far less interest in stopping rape than in politicizing it. Many of the politically correct crusaders are the same people who have pushed for unisex living arrangements on campus, including unisex bathrooms, and who have put condom machines in dormitories and turned freshman orientation programs into a venue for sexual "liberation" propaganda.

 "They laughed at old-fashioned restrictions designed to reduce sexual dangers among young people on campus. Now that real life experience has shown that these are not laughing matters, the politically correct still want their sexual Utopia, and want scapegoats when they don't get it."

Liberal bureaucracy rules with an iron fist

http://sago.com/2012/07/28/a-funny-look-at-obamas-you-didnt-build-that-comment/

  

Government Expands Its Power Into Hundreds of Millions of American Homes    "The government will now collect and share your most intimate financial and personal details and they will be available on yet another government database. There will be no secrets, no privacy, no Fourth Amendment for individual Americans as this database is established under the false flag of American safety and security."

 

More EPA diktats: How low will it go?    "All this, plus the EPA's estimate that the lower standard could cost businesses up to $90 billion annually, [prompts] the question: When is too much too much? When a tighter, costly pollutant rule won't enhance health but is imposed anyway — for no discernible reason but radical anti-growth politics." "Begs the question" means to avoid answering it.

Obama’s Police Force: Militarized Government Agencies

 

"It’s not enough that our government agencies have become rogue governments-within-a-government, they are now arming themselves. At the same time, Mr. Obama is decimating the military. The U.S.D.A. is the latest agency to heavily arm themselves. Can you see the problem here?"...

 

Just where in this USDA mission statement do you see a need for SWAT teams?

The Department of Agriculture works to improve and maintain farm income and to develop and expand markets abroad for agricultural products. The Department helps to curb and to cure poverty, hunger, and malnutrition. It works to enhance the environment and to maintain production capacity by helping landowners protect the soil, water, forests, and other natural resources. Rural development, credit, and conservation programs are key resources for carrying out national growth policies. Department research findings directly or indirectly benefit all Americans. The Department, through inspection and grading services, safeguards and ensures standards of quality in the daily food supply

From the EPA: Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)  (A federal bureaucracy). Why they must be feared:  New Clean Water Act rule threatens family farms   "My children will be the sixth generation on the same ranch to ride the tide of commodity price fluctuations, decades-long droughts and the rising costs of farming. As if these challenges were not enough to test one's resolve, now the EPA wants to use the Clean Water Act to make our job nearly impossible."

EPA staging a 'water grab'?

 

Competency pictured

http://liberallogic101.com/?p=11408

Fighting talk amid the shrinking of American might

Another Obama "red line"?    "Using unusually strong language, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel took aim at Beijing's handling of territorial disputes with its Asian neighbors."

Financial Times   "Obama is seeking to scale back US global responsibilities without signalling a retreat."
... "Mr Obama’s feelings on the matter may explain the uncharacteristic* gracelessness with which he sometimes criticises Mr Bush."

*"uncharacteristic"? Where on earth did they come up with that term for this petulant, vengeful man?

 

Some new and very rare color footage of WWII was released this week:

Weasel Zippers

Cartoons for May 30, 2014

http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/05/branco-cartoon-operation-enduring-weakness/

 

 

Barking Crayon

The true villains behind the Gibson Guitar raid are revealed

Human Events

 

"Time to revisit an old abuse-of-power scandal from President Obama’s first term: the utterly bizarre raid on Gibson Guitars by a paramilitary unit of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  Nothing about this caper ever smelled right: a raid coming from out of nowhere, without warning, to kick Gibson’s doors down, ostensibly because they violated some vaporous provision of import laws when bringing hardwood into the country.  It wasn’t even American law they were supposedly violating, but an American law that said they were in hot water for violating the laws of India and Madagascar, which came as something of a surprise to authorities in India and Madagascar.  In a delightful inversion of American legal principle, the folks at Gibson were never allowed to see the sealed warrant that supposedly authorized the raid.  Guilty until proven innocent!  We’ll get back to you later on what you’re allegedly guilty of." ... 

...

"Gibson Guitars is hardly the only company on union target lists to find itself in trouble with the Obama Administration." Emphasis mine, TD

More...

Lumber Union Protectionists Incited SWAT Raid On My Factory, Says Gibson Guitar CEO

The Steady Drip

..." Up until that point Gibson had not received so much as a postcard telling the company it might be doing something wrong. Thus began a five-year saga, extensively covered by the press, with reputation-destroying leaks and shady allegations that Gibson was illegally importing wood from endangered tree species. In the end, formal charges were never filed, but the disruption to Gibson’s business and the mounting legal fees and threat of imprisonment induced Juszkiewicz to settle for $250,000—with an additional $50,000 “donation” piled on to pay off an environmental activist group." ... 

Jay Carney resigns

Major Garrett         ✔ @MajorCBS Follow

Meet your new White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest - he's the one smiling broadly.

Thomas Lifson   ... "Two thoughts occur to me in evaluating the move. One is that Carney has looked increasingly stressed as he pressed daily to defend the indefensible, evade questions, and otherwise cover the president’s derriere. He holds a high-pressure job that has gotten more and more difficult as the taboos against criticizing or even looking closely at the failures of Obama have dissipated with [time]. I could easily picture acid eating away at his stomach as the stress mounted.

 

"But the other thought is that Carney sees the Obama ship sinking, and is getting out when he can, before more damage is done to his already tattered reputation.

 

"It’s been a tough week for Obama administration spokesmen and women, as the derisive laughter and mockery that greeted his State Department counterpart Jen Psaki yesterday indicates."

 

...

... "We know that it is long past time for he and his wife, ABC’s Claire Shipman, to redecorate their home and get rid of the student dormitory Soviet propaganda posters."

2011: The Netherlands to Abandon Multiculturalism

OK, this was 2011 and it is now 2014; what, if anything, has the US learned from this?

barenakedislam/

Gatestone Institute   "The Dutch government says it will abandon the long-standing model of  multiculturalism that has encouraged Muslim immigrants to create a parallel society within the Netherlands.

"A new integration bill (covering letter and 15-page action plan), which Dutch Interior Minister Piet Hein Donner presented to parliament on June 16, reads: "The government shares the social dissatisfaction over the multicultural society model and plans to shift priority to the values of the Dutch people. In the new integration system, the values of the Dutch society play a central role. With this change, the government steps away from the model of a multicultural society.' "
Hat tip to John Paul Curnutt; Madras, Oregon

 January 13, 2014 The Islamization of Belgium and the Netherlands in 2013   ... "From now on, school calendars within Belgium's French speaking community will permanently use the following terminology: the Christian holiday previously known as All Saints Day will now be referred to as Autumn Leave; Christmas Vacation is now Winter Vacation; Lenten Vacation is now Rest and Relaxation Leave; and Easter is now Spring Vacation." ...

Steve Hayes: Excuses Excuses

Weekly Standard    "Since 2009, the world has been trying to make sense of America’s foreign and national security policies under Barack Obama. Allies and enemies, historians and scholars, the president’s critics and his supporters—all have struggled to define, or even discern, an Obama Doctrine. So last week, the man optimally positioned to elucidate the president’s vision sought to provide some clarity.
...
"That’s a tough sell. Our allies are confused and dispirited, our enemies are unquestionably emboldened. The Russian reset failed. The Asia pivot never happened. The Middle East peace process collapsed. The Syrian leader once embraced as a “reformer” has slaughtered more than 150,000 of his own people. Libya is a mess. Iraq is regressing. Obama’s own top intelligence officials acknowledge that al Qaeda is amassing territory and gaining strength.

 

"Rather than defend or explain these policy failures, the president chose instead to attack critics, real and imaginary. He challenged “critics who think military intervention is the only way for America to avoid looking weak,” though no one actually thinks this. He rejected as “naïve and unsustainable” any “strategy that involves invading every country that harbors terrorist networks” despite the fact that there are no advocates for such a strategy."

Emphasis added.

Shinseki resigns after VA scandal

WaPo    "President Obama said Friday he accepted the resignation of embattled Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki.

"He made the announcement shortly after Shinseki apologized publicly Friday for what he called an “indefensible” lack of integrity among some senior leaders of the VA health-care system and announced several remedial steps, including a process to remove top officials at the troubled VA medical center in Phoenix."

 

From the AP via CNS   ... "Those attending Shinseki's speech in a downtown Washington hotel were overwhelmingly friendly, supportive because of his work in sharply decreasing homelessness among veterans. Shinseki at one point noted that the number of homeless veterans has fallen by nearly 25 percent since 2013. The audience gave him a long, standing ovation, whistling and hooting, when he entered the room and again before and after he spoke."

Don't get too excited until we find out what type of person Obama picks for a replacement.

Left pushes 'trigger warnings' in college classrooms

David Limbaugh    "Have you heard about “trigger warnings,” the latest thought-control lunacy that has found its way onto college campuses? I weep for our children as they try to navigate the insanity in our society fronting as being protective of their interests.

"Trigger warnings are disclaimers that are attached to literature or other content to alert students to potentially traumatic subject matter the literature may contain. The most common types of warnings to date have reportedly involved rape, sexual abuse and mental illness.

"Until recently, the warnings were mostly on feminist-oriented Internet message boards and blogs, but now they’ve gravitated to some of our universities, many of which never found a kooky idea they didn’t embrace." ...

"In addition to expanding their jurisdictional scope, they have also increased in their range of forbidden topics. In many venues, trigger warnings now apply to all kinds of isms – “racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism and other issues of privilege and oppression,” as exemplified by an Oberlin College document concerning triggers."  

Political correctness has taken on frightening proportions.
Video: Dartmouth Student Runs Over Free Speech   "FIRE’s newest video features Dartmouth College student Robert Smith, who talks about the afternoon a fellow Dartmouth student ran over his organization’s pro-life display with his car. The ironic twist? The car was sporting a “Coexist” bumper sticker on the back."

UCI students demand punishment for ‘racist’ fundraiser because students wore grass skirts and coconut bras

‘Hump Day’ event cancelled after students claim bringing a camel to campus was racist

 Silencing U: Five Outrageous Cases of Campus Censorship  

Alan Caruba: The Slow, Sure Death of "Climate Change" Lies

http://terrellaftermath.com/    

Warning Signs    ... "Obama is on record saying that climate change “once considered an issue for the distant future, has moved firmly into the present” and is “affecting Americans right now.” Climate change as studied by climatologists is measured in terms of centuries whereas the weather is what is happening today. It has been happening before and since the rise of civilization. Obama’s claim that “climate-related changes are outside of recent experience” and “have become more frequent and/or intense” is a lie from start to finish."

 

"Climate Change Reconsidered II devoted to biological impact features scientific studies that conclude: ..."

 

Mr. Caruba is an advisor to "The Heartland Institute, a non-profit market-based think tank, responded by creating the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) and by sponsoring a series of international conferences".

Compare And Contrast: Obama Vs. Bush’s Reception At West Point…

Nice Deb   "Here is what the military thinks of  a president who abandons a Marine held in a Mexican prison for taking a wrong turn, neglects the VA, shuts out veterans from national memorials during shut-down theater, forces suicidal RoE on the military, lies about Benghazi, takes full credit for killing Osama Bin Laden after preparing to blame the military if anything went wrong, and then leaks information that leads to Navy Seal deaths, and then sends their parents form-letter condolence notes signed with an auto-pen:" ...

Weasel Zippers
"Obama’s icy reception (first 15 seconds):"

 

"Bush in 2008 getting a standing ovation, having to ask them to sit down (first 35 seconds):"

 

Back to the Nice Deb article above:    "Wow, his speech stunk so bad, Obama even lost the Washington Post editorial board: At West Point, President Obama binds America’s hands on foreign affairs:

PRESIDENT OBAMA has retrenched U.S. global engagement in a way that has shaken the confidence of many U.S. allies and encouraged some adversaries. That conclusion can be heard not just from Republican hawks but also from senior officials from Singapore to France and, more quietly, from some leading congressional Democrats. As he has so often in his political career, Mr. Obama has elected to respond to the critical consensus not by adjusting policy but rather by delivering a big speech.

In his address Wednesday to the graduating cadets at West Point , Mr. Obama marshaled a virtual corps of straw men...

The Left Doesn’t Really Believe in Climate Change

Ricochet

 

... "Every time a real-world solution is provided to a promised calamity, leftist leaders move the goalposts. To be sure, many well-meaning parishioners have bought the con and piously observe the demanding rituals of earth worship. But the high priests still jet around the globe, chasing checks from energy tycoons to build monstrous mansions along doomed coastlines.

"That’s because the Left doesn’t really believe in climate change. Their true religion is raising taxes, increasing government, impeding capitalism and reducing national sovereignty. Climate change is just a temporary excuse to achieve those ends."

Alan Caruba: The Regulatory Death of Energy in America

Warning Signs

 

"Before President Obama took office in 2009, the amount of electricity being produced by coal-fired utilities was approximately fifty percent of the total. Today it is approximately forty percent and, when the Environmental Protection Agency regulations take effect as of June 2, more such utilities are likely to close their doors. The basis for the regulations is utterly devoid of any scientific facts." ... 

...

"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is on record saying that the President’s bogus “climate change” policy could cost the U.S. economy $50 billion a year and force more than a third of coal-fired plants to close by 2030. The Heritage Foundation says “The plan will drive up energy prices for American families and businesses without making a dent in global temperatures.”

"This is a form of regulatory death for the nation and comes straight out of the Oval Office of the White House."

Maya Angelou Gushes Over US-Flag-Burning Palestinian Terrorist Rachel Corrie

Debbie Schlussel  ... "Only a narcissist like anti-American, anti-Israel bigot Maya Angelou would think anyone wants to hear her read from an e-mail from anti-American, anti-Israel bigot Rachel Corrie, who was part of the Palestinian terrorist group International Solidarity Movement (which aided Al-Qaeda terrorists and gave HAMAS terrorists a place to sleep the night before they blew up Mike’s Bar in Tel Aviv, Israel." ...

Below: Rachel Corrie Burning a Facsimile of the American Flag for Smiling Palestinian Muslim Kids in Gaza . . .

 

 "In case you aren’t familiar with Rachel Corrie, she was an America-hating flag burner who was in love with Islam and her Palestinian Islamic terrorist friends for whom she was working. She died when she was accidentally run over by a bulldozer while she was attempting to stop Israelis from knocking down homes shielding tunnels through which her terrorist friends transported weapons and bombs to kill innocent civilians." (some excerpts I felt were unfortunate were deleted from Ms. Schlussel's comments)

 

Maya Angelou’s Students: “Worst Professor EVER! Insults Students, Conceited Creep!”; Gave Her Horrible Ratings   "I’ve already told you what a racist, bigoted, anti-American, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel Marxist the late Maya Angelou was. But, predictably, she sucked as a professor, too. The pretentious Angelou, who never went to college (and may not have even graduated from high school), “taught” (if you can call it that) English at Wake Forest University. Check out what her students had to say about her (one of them noted that she often began class by speaking in Arabic–strange . . . for an ENGLISH class)."...

If you like the VA, you'll love Obamacare

http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/05/branco-cartoon-nothing-to-see-here/

After 100 Years, Europe’s Landscape Is Still Scarred by World War I

100 years after the Battle of Verdun, its land—once a quiet stretch of French farmland—

remains scarred from explosions.

"Even today, a century after the start of the Great War, the countryside still bears scars. In this image by Irish landscape photographer Michael St. Maur Sheil at the site of the Battle of the Somme, in northern France, you can trace grass-covered trenches and pockmarks from exploded bombshells. More than a million men were wounded or killed in the battle, the first major British offensive of the war. “The Germans had been sitting in a deep dugout excavated into the chalk rock,” Sheil says. “British soldiers advancing across the flat landscape were an easy target.” His exhibition, “Fields of Battle—Lands of Peace,” now on display in Paris along the wrought-iron fence of Luxembourg Gardens and later touring the United Kingdom, includes 79 contemporary photographs of World War I battlefields—the artist’s attempt to document the enduring legacy of the war on the landscape."

 

Nearly 70 feet deep, the Lochnagar Crater was formed after an explosive-packed mine was detonated during the Battle of the Somme.

The tiny village of Butte de Vaquois once stood on a hilltop, and was destroyed after three years of furious mining blew away its summit.

More on this last picture here.

Slideshow: World War I in the Trenches

VA Scandal Shows How Government Works

Forbes  "I had to go to the local department of driver services office for a driver’s license renewal this week. While the lady I dealt with was quite helpful and completed the renewal in less than five minutes, I first had to wait nearly two hours.  There were about fifty people waiting and at various times either two or three people working to help them. A normal business would have more employees to help the customers because in a normal business more customers is a good thing. With government in charge, it makes no difference and that is the problem."

"In a for-profit business, serving customers are how one makes money and it is important to keep customers happy. Customers do not like waiting, so businesses work hard to avoid excessive waiting by the customers. They do this in order to make more profit. Government agencies do not have a profit motive. The workers and supervisors have no reason to care about their “customers” except their own pride in doing a good job or perhaps hope of a promotion."

This should sum it all up very well:
"Government agencies like the VA deliver bad service because they have no incentive to do any better. As explained in my e-book, Ending the Era of the Free Lunch, government employees see the politicians and others in charge of their budget as the customer, not the citizens who they are supposed to be serving. "

Did you get that?

politicalincorrectnessrunamuck

Ann Coulter: Don't Stigmatize Murderers!

Townhall

 

... "A family friend, Simon Astaire, described Rodger's flat affect, common to schizophrenics, saying he "couldn't look at you straight in the eye and looked at your feet. It was unbearable."

"It's hard to feel sorry for a mass murderer, but it was cruel to Elliot Rodger to allow him to refuse medication and turn himself into a monster. It was beyond cruel to his innocent victims -- as well as the other victims of psychopathic killers. But liberals are more worried about "stigmatizing" the mentally ill than the occasional mass murder."

 

Earlier in this column, Ms. Coulter snarkily looks at the murderer's delusions of grandeur:

 

Rodger says of himself:

-- "I saw myself as a highly intelligent and magnificent person who is meant for great things."
-- "Becoming a multimillionaire at a young age is what I am meant for."
-- "I am like a god."
-- "This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and the planet began to heal."
(No -- wait ... Last one was Obama.)

 

Voters in California contemplate forming new state

Yahoo News

 

"Tom Knorr, chairman of the Measure A campaign in Tehama County, holds a State of Jefferson flag as he poses for photographs at his ranch house in Corning, Calif., Tuesday, May 27, 2014. The idea of forming their own state has been a topic among local secession dreamers for more than a century in California’s largely rural, agrarian and politically conservative far northern counties. Residents in two counties, Del Norte and Tehama, will decide June 3, 2014, on an advisory measure that asks each county’s board of supervisors to join a wider effort to form a 51st state named Jefferson."

...

"But the loss of millions of dollars for everything from infrastructure to schools is among the biggest worries of residents who oppose the secession movement. The Del Norte County Board of Education, which receives 90 percent of its funding, or $32 million, from the state, voted to oppose the local initiative, known as Measure A."

 

The Presbyterian assault on Israel

Abu Yehuda

 

"Since 2004, the PC(USA) has passed resolutions calling for Israel’s withdrawal from all territory captured in 1967, right of return for Arab refugees, and suggesting that its board divest from companies doing business with Israel until ‘the occupation’ is ended. But the organization stopped short by two votes (333-331-2) of passing an actual divestment resolution in 2012.

"Its resolutions have consistently followed the Arab line in full and placed all the blame for the conflict on Israel. The 2004 resolution is entirely devoted to condemning Israel with the exception of one line criticizing “Palestinian suicide bombings.” This was their response to the Second Intifada which by then had killed 1000 Israelis, almost all of them innocent civilians!"   More here...

And then this week there came Pope Francis...   " From the beginning the Arabs asserted a ‘right’, not only to a state, but to every inch of the land.  More recently, they rejected several additional offers of partition. In each case the grounds for rejection appear to be the insistence on a ‘right of return’ which would in effect bring about Arab sovereignty over all of the land, and a refusal to agree to a final end of the conflict — that is, to admit that the Jewish state is here to stay."
Via Allyson’s Geo-Political Inspections

Dragging along

 Washington Examiner

Reactions to President Obama's West Point speech

 Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations: Obama’s Unclear Foreign Policy Path   ...

"What I would hope is that the president makes a concerted effort to tie our foreign and domestic policies together so that people understand that what happens here in the United States affects our ability to act in the world, and what happens in the world will in many ways affect the quality of life here. That was perhaps implicit in the speech. That has to become explicit in the administration's choice of priorities between now and the end of 2016."

CNN: Obama outlines foreign policy vision of 'might and right'    "Under fire from the political right for what critics call diminishing U.S. global influence, Obama offered a robust defense of his foreign policy as the pragmatic and most effective expression of America's leadership role in the world."

Krauthammer’s Take: Obama’s Foreign-Policy Speech ‘Literally Pointless’

 

"Krauthammer said he spoke with a member of Congress who took issue with President Obama’s “pettiness” during commencement address of taking on his critics, and said the president should have focused on the graduates instead. “There was no response from any of the cadets — it was quiet as a mouse,” he said."

A Sad, Half-hearted Address to the Wrong Audience  " Before a silent graduating class at West Point, Mr. Obama monotonically delivered a defensive foreign-policy address empty of substance. He failed to connect with an audience that responded with polite but tepid applause to a vapid speech more suitable for the United Nations than for the United States."

 

 

The President’s Tired Refrains at West Point    "President Obama’s speech at West Point was not so much an articulation of his foreign policy but a defensive response to critics."
" ... the reputation of weakness is weakness, and despite all of the measures of national power that the president cites, the credibility of American power has diminished on his watch, not out of drift but because of his distinct choices."   Emphasis added

Cliché' alert: "...every fiber of my being"

Obama receives standing ovation from less than 25% of West Point cadets: report
“ 'Receiving tepid applause and a short standing ovation from less than one-quarter of the audience upon his introduction, Obama argued for a contradictory foreign policy that relies on NATO and the United Nations while insisting that ‘America must always lead on the world stage,’  the paper reported."

CNN: Troops gave him an "icy reception".   "CNN’s international correspondent Jim Clancy called the West Point response to President Obama’s meandering foreign policy address “pretty icy” Wednesday.

"Clancy said it was “not really a great speech to give at the U.S. Military Academy,” and the address has drawn bipartisan criticism.

“ 'It was a philosophical speech,” he said. “It was not a Commander-in-Chief speaking to his troops. And you heard the reception. I mean, it was pretty icy.”

Obama Tells West Point Grads That They’ll Be Combating Global Warming   "These future leaders in our military just spent years in college learning about battle strategy, guerrilla warfare, leadership, and how to respond under pressure. They probably should have learned how to reduce their carbon footprint while they were there because the President seems to think that rising CO2 emissions are an emerging threat." Related.

Obama also took a strong stance against … well nobody   ... "This wasn’t lost on the Twitterverse, where writers and pundits provided their alternative to Obama’s “this-stupid-choice versus that-stupid-choice” argument, and they’re hilarious." A sample or two:

 

Ben Shapiro @benshapiro Follow

Obama: "We need to do stuff. And the stuff we will do will not be stuff that a crazy person says we should do. It will be good stuff."

 Lachlan Markay @lachlan Follow    

"Some say we should nuke the entire Asian continent. Others want our capital to be Pyongyang. Unlike everyone else, I'm a rational centrist"

 

 More on this: Obama leads America to glorious victory over straw men at West Point

Public School Kids Rebel Against Michelle Obama's Healthy School Lunches

Public School Kids Rebel Against Michelle Obama's Healthy School Lunches As First Daughters Get Meatball Subs, Ice Cream    ... "Twitchy has done a great job capturing the reactions and photos to some of these lunches and it’s not pretty (click here, here, and here for examples). But CNS News decided to dig a little deeper. What exactly are Michelle O’s daughters eating at lunch? Is it in any way comparable to the lunches in our nation’s public schools?" ...

Michelle O: 'Parents Have Right to Expect Their Kids Will Get Decent Food in Our Schools'
... "Unmentioned in the entire controversy is the fact that for millions of children and their parents, school lunches are a convenience, not a necessity. Schools still permit children to bring food from home into the cafeteria. There is nothing stopping parents who "always put our kids' interests first" from packing a nutritious lunch the night before -- or making sure their children pack their own nutritious lunch." ...

Meanwhile, here is the school menu for Michelle Obama's daughters
Snack: Locally Baked Muffins
Mixed Greens with Avocado & Grapefruit Salad
Housemade Chicken Fingers
Breaded Eggplant w/ Marinara
Steamed Fresh Vegetables
Organic Sweet Potato Fries
Nectarines

 

 

Spring Vegetable Soup
Classic Caesar Salad
Deviled Egg Salad
All Natural Meatball Subs
Spinach Ricotta Phyllo Bake
Roasted Eggplant, Zucchini and Tomato
Bananas

 Hat tip to Harley Standlee; Placerville, CA

Pope Francis’s unfriendly visit

Caroline Glick    ... "Pope Benedict XVI was perceived as a friend of Israel, despite his childhood membership in the Hitler Youth. His opposition to Islam’s rejection of reason, eloquently expressed at his speech at the University of Regensburg in 2006, positioned him as a religious champion of reason, individual responsibility and law – Judaism’s primary contributions to humanity.

"His predecessor Pope John Paul II was less willing to confront Islamic violence. But his opposition to Communism made him respect Israel as freedom’s outpost in the Middle East. John Paul’s visit to Israel in 2000 was in some ways an historic gesture of friendship to the Jewish people of Israel.

"Both Benedict and John Paul II were outspoken champions of the Second Vatican Council and maintained doctrinal allegiance to the Church’s rejection of anti-Judaism, including the charge of deicide, and its denunciation of replacement theology.

"Alas, the Golden Age of Catholic-Jewish relations seems to have come to an end during Francis’s visit to the Promised Land this week." ...
 

About Afghanistan and this president

Krauthammer’s Take: Obama’s 2016 Timing for Afghanistan Withdawal Is ‘Personal Narcissism’     ... "Krauthammer found it contemptible that Obama would orient military plans around the timing of his departure from office, merely to make himself look better."
 

 

Via Lucianne;   A ‘Monumental Mistake’? Obama Details Afghanistan Withdrawal Plan  From John McCain: “The president’s decision to set an arbitrary date for the full withdrawal of U.S. troops in Afghanistan is a monumental mistake and a triumph of politics over strategy. This is a short-sighted decision that will make it harder to end the war in Afghanistan responsibly,” the trio said. “The president came into office wanting to end the wars he inherited. But wars do not end just because politicians say so. The president appears to have learned nothing from the damage done by his previous withdrawal announcements in Afghanistan and his disastrous decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq.”

 

Obama taking on foreign policy critics   "The White House is mounting a concerted defense of President Obama's foreign policy against criticism that he has weakened U.S. influence around the globe. — The full-court press hinges on a speech Obama will give Wednesday at West Point's commencement … "   More here.

Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations:  Fixing Our Foreign Policy: 12 Ideas From a Sometimes Critic  ... "I appreciate that it does not take a whole lot of effort to find fault. In that spirit, here are a dozen proposals -- some likely to be popular, others anything but -- that if adopted would enhance this country's national security. I offer them now in the hope the president and his aides are open to new ideas as they prepare his much anticipated May 28 national security speech at West Point."

 How 21st century wars end under Democratic presidents   ... "A better statement of how 21st century wars end under President Obama (and, one suspects, Democrats in general) would be that they end as soon as the president believes he can end them without politically harmful blowback and no later than dates that are predetermined by the political calendar."

Ballot Snafus Nearly Kicked This Senior Democrat Out Of Congress

 

Politix   ... "Conyers, 85, on Friday lost his appeal Friday to get on the August primary ballot after Michigan election officials found problems with the Democrat's nominating petitions, AP reports. This would have ended his 50-year career in Congress.

"But then a federal judge reinstated Conyers's name on the ballot.

"The problem was that Conyers lacked the 1,000 signatures necessary to get on the ballot. He faces a Democratic primary challenge from the Rev. Horace Sheffield III."

2010; Conyers's wife pleads guilty       ... "Her tenure has been marred by controversy and complaints about her personal behavior. Last year, in a dispute during official council proceedings, Conyers called then-council President Ken Cockrel “Shrek.' ”

Mrs. Conyers in action on the Detroit city council: 

The 5 Stages Of An Obama Scandal

Black Quill and Ink

 

... "Moreover, the VA scandal is opening the eyes of many in the media to the president’s strategy. Columnists are starting to notice the same canned responses, inaction, and smokescreens in this instance and are comparing them with other scandals.

"One can only hope that this will bring a higher level of seriousness to scandals, such as Benghazi and force the president to realize that his scandal playbook is no longer an option."

More at BQI

http://liberallogic101.com/?p=11291

What Obama’s many messes really mean  

"Another week, another scandal.

"From Fast and Furious at the ATF to the Pigford fraud at the Department of Agriculture, the IRS’ political targeting to the State Department’s Benghazi mess, the healthcare.gov debacle at HHS to spying at the NSA and the DOJ, President Obama is running out of agencies and departments to defend in his two years left in office." ...

Three cheers for the RNC’s new debate process

Via Hot Air

 

Hugh Hewitt   "Chairman Reince Priebus has done a lot of great things for the Republican National Committee he heads and the GOP he leads.

"But of all the good work, the three great "Priebus reforms" will be the re-ordering of the primary calendar for the presidential nomination process, the decision to move the nominating convention forward to late June or early July and the decision to seize control of the previously out-of-control debate schedule for the primaries and caucuses, which will choose the 2016 Republican standard-bearer.

"The first two reforms took only the agreement of the members of the national committee. The latter required a thoughtful innovation that, while coercive, is only gently so and is likely to be welcomed by legitimate contenders for the nomination.
...
"Marginal candidates may not be so happy, preferring a long, drawn-out marathon of debates as a means of selling themselves and their brand, and not necessarily with gaining the nomination."
...
"Priebus and the team will make the new rules stick. They have to. The damage from a score of roller derby debates is enormous."

Superpowers Don't Get to Retire

Robert Kagan 

  "Almost 70 years ago, a new world order was born from the rubble of World War II, built by and around the power of the United States. Today that world order shows signs of cracking, and perhaps even collapsing. The Russia-Ukraine and Syria crises, and the world’s tepid response, the general upheaval in the greater Middle East and North Africa, the growing nationalist and great-power tensions in East Asia, the worldwide advance of autocracy and retreat of democracy—taken individually, these problems are neither unprecedented nor unmanageable. But collectively they are a sign that something is changing, and perhaps more quickly than we may imagine. They may signal a transition into a different world order or into a world disorder of a kind not seen since the 1930s. 

Thomas Sowell; How the word 'racism' sways a fool's vote; random thoughts

"Any fool can say the word “racism.” In fact, quite a few fools do say it. But clever people can also say “racism” to get fools to vote their way."

Thomas Sowell   "Everyone was free to be a communist under the Stalin dictatorship, and everyone is free to be a Muslim in Saudi Arabia. Yet whole generations are coming out of our
colleges where only those who are politically correct are free to speak their minds. What kind of America will they create?
...
"If the Democrats retain control of the Senate after this year’s election, Barack Obama can load the federal courts from top to bottom with judges who will ignore the Constitution, as he does, and promote his far-left political agenda instead, long after he is gone." (Emphasis mine, TD)
...
"Those people who want Hillary Clinton elected president, so that we could have our first woman president, seem to have learned absolutely nothing from the current disaster of choosing a president on the basis of demographics and symbolism.

"The old saying that taxes are the price we pay for civilization has long since become obsolete. The amount that the government spends to defend us from foreign attack, or to maintain law and order at home, has been overtaken by the money it spends just to transfer some people’s money to other people who are more likely to vote for the re-election of incumbents.

Any fool can say the word “racism.” In fact, quite a few fools do say it. But clever people can also say “racism” to get fools to vote their way.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/05/how-the-word-racism-sways-a-fools-vote/#AzeZpEZxFk08CrsM.99