The World's Most Powerful People 2013 (UPDATED)

Forbes

"Who’s more powerful: the autocratic leader of a former superpower or the handcuffed commander in chief of the most dominant country in the world? This year the votes for the World’s Most Powerful went to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He climbs one spot ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama, who held the title in 2012."....

UPDATE: Is Putin Really More Powerful Than Obama?   "The second and far bigger point is that Barack Obama is weak internationally by choice. At home he’s amassing immense, unprecedented powers over the economy."...



....
"Internationally, however, Obama is the weakest President of the post-World War II years."  (Emphasis added, TD)

The President Who Has Done the Most Damage

"The only question is whether it can ever be undone. "

iowntheworld.com

Dennis Prager   ...."But I have never written or broadcast that our country was being seriously damaged by a president. So it is with great sadness that I write that President Barack Obama has done and continues to do major damage to America. The only question is whether this can ever be undone."....

"....Nearly everything he has touched has been made worse.
"He did, however, promise before the 2008 election that “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” That is the one promise he has kept."

The bystander president

More Photosnark from Rich Terrell

Terrell Aftermath

NY Times: Where the Buck Stops, Some See a Bystander  "President Obama finds himself under fire on two disparate fronts these days, both for the botched rollout of his signature health care program and for the secret spying on allied heads of state. In both instances, his explanation roughly boils down to this: I didn’t know."

Controversies show how Obama’s inattention to detail may hurt his presidential legacy    From Hot Air: "Let’s start with the latter example from Scott Wilson, whose posits that talking big and having no interest in doing the necessary work forms a coherent management philosophy:"....

 

Reposted from an earlier TW:  Victor Davis Hanson: Is Obama Still President?   "His cadences soar on, through scandal after fiasco after disaster."

 

­What didn’t the president know, and why didn’t he know it?   "Once you lose a reputation for competence, it is hard to get back. And much of the media are now depicting Obama as less than a hands-on leader.
"Take this slap in the face:
“ 'For a smart man, President Obama professes to know very little about a great number of things going on in his administration.' ”  Dana Milbank of the WaPo.

Obama just got used to saying things that were never challenged  "President, and before, candidate Obama had the benefit of saying things that the media never challenged.  It's true that they were challenged by the GOP but that is partisan.  What we did not have was an aggressive, but respectful media."

A Deficit of Stories

National Review Online  

"How did it happen? How did we wake up one day to find ourselves cast as the bad guys for trying to save future generations from a lifetime of indebtedness? Why are we punished for pointing out that if we keep spending more money than we take in, we won’t continue to be a great country? Why do Americans view the Republican party more negatively than they view Democrats, when it’s Democrats who gave us Detroit? And Democrats who might soon turn America into Detroit?"

Comment on this article in Freedomworks:

MR: "Holding the government hostage attempting to blackmail Congress is a valid reason for people to dislike any party."

Tunnel Dweller: "But it was the Obama administration that spent great amounts of our money to build spite fences around monuments. Whether Republicans were right or wrong to lead the shutdown, that cannot be denied."

Obama's Military Coup Purges 197 Officers In Five Years

Investors.com "What the president calls "my military" is being cleansed of any officer suspected of disloyalty to or disagreement with the administration on matters of policy or force structure, leaving the compliant and fearful.
...."Yet what has happened to our officer corps since President Obama took office is viewed in many quarters as unprecedented, baffling and even harmful to our national security posture." Watch him say it

 

politelypatrician.blogspot.com
 

strangemilitary.com

Is Obama Still President?

"His cadences soar on, through scandal after fiasco after disaster."

 

Victor Davis Hanson  "We are currently learning whether the United States really needs a president. Barack Obama has become a mere figurehead, who gives speeches few listen to any more, issues threats that scare fewer, and makes promises that almost no one believes he will keep. Yet America continues on, despite the fact that the foreign and domestic policies of Barack Obama are unraveling, in a manner unusual even for star-crossed presidential second terms.
"Abroad, American policy in the Middle East is leaderless and in shambles after the Arab Spring — we’ve had the Syrian fiasco and bloodbath, leading from behind in Libya all the way to Benghazi, and the non-coup, non-junta in Egypt."....

....
"Second, the other half of Americans gladly accept that Obama is an iconic rather than a serious president. Given his emblematic status as the nation’s first African-American president and his efforts to craft a vast coalition of those with supposed grievances against the majority, he will always have a strong base of supporters."....

 

The Environmental Enemies of Energy

Alan Caruba  "....there is another threat to our future as environmental groups like the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth continue their assault on the provision of electrical energy, the lifeblood of the nation’s economy and our ability to function at home and on the job."

"Coal, oil and natural gas are labeled “dirty” for propaganda purposes, but what the Sierra Club and others do not tell you and will never tell you is that they account for most of the electricity generated in America, along with nuclear and hydropower. Wind and solar power provide approximately 3% of the electricity and require government subsidies and mandates to exist. Their required use drives up the cost of electricity to consumers."

Operation Market Garden, Sept 1944

Market Garden 1944  "On this website we will not try to provide you with an all-inclusive report about the battle that took place. We will try to give you an impression through the recollections of men and women that where involved in this battle. We will not focus only on the battle."

Coming in 2014: 70th Commemoration of Market garden 1944-2014
You can find the info about the 2014 commemoration here.
 800 photos from market garden here in Dutch archives.

UK Daily Mail: 'All ranks now exhausted': Desperate telegram that spelled end of 'A Bridge Too Far' battle when 9,000 British airmen launched bid to break into Germany is found

"Now, the desperate telegram calling for reinforcements has come to light."

"The main problem the British men faced was the unexpected encounter of two elite German Panzer tank divisions that happened to be resting in Arnhem."More here.
 

Another video: World War Two: Operation Market Garden 1944

(Photo, right) British prisoners captured in the suburbs of Arnhem, September 26, 1944

The book, "A Bridge Too Far"

Below: Short clip from the TV series, Band of Brothers



http://www.csupomona.edu/~rosenkrantz/paratroop/newspaper.htm

The trailer from the film A Bridge Too Far

Several eyewitness accounts of the Waal crossing in the book, Strike and Hold

Press account: NAZIS DIED LIKE FLIES IN BATTLE OF NIJMEGEN BRIDGE, over the river Waal.
Tuesday October 10, 1944, by the Indianapolis Times Foreign Correspondent.

Rosenkrantz, with a machine gun squad, was in position at the northern end of the bridge when suddenly a whole battalion of German infantry, unaware that the crossing had been made and intent on escaping back toward Germany, started across in marching formation, three abreast. The small band of paratroopers, outnumbered more than 10 to one, waited until the bridge was clogged with Germans from end to end and then, revealing their commanding position, called on the advance foe to surrender. Instead, the Germans began throwing hand grenades.

German units opposing the British at Arnhem were the 9th and 10th SS Panzer Divisions. Here are history summaries of these two units:
The 9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen

10th SS Panzer Division "Frundsberg"   German WW2 documentary on Frundsberg
 

Tourist video of the Waal crossing site 

A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

Katie Pavlich

"I would like to point out that the percentage of the population actually involved in or supporting the "20-year-olds in 2011" is small, but the entitlement attitude in America is completely out of control. This also gives us an opportunity to thank the 20-year-olds in 2011 who are opposite of the occupiers: our young men and women serving voluntarily in our armed forces in the fight for freedom against radical Islam. In an age when true sacrifice is rare, we should be thanking them even more."



Ms. Pavlich thanks I am the 53% for this post:

 

15 Pop Culture Jack O’Lanterns That You Wish You Made Yourself

Buzzfeed    "How do you make a pumpkin more delightful? Carve in your favorite fandom. After that, you’ll be happier than Dracula at a blood bank! And just as happy as a person calling GEICO customer service."

Barack Obama: The Most Uninformed President in History

Big Government  ...."This weekend, we learned that President Obama "didn't know about" NSA spying on world leaders, especially German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He also "didn't know about" the posthumously obvious problems with the rollout of the ObamaCare website exchanges. According to the New York Times, these problems were evident eight months ago. Yet, it seems, they never made it to the President's desk.

"President Obama was also completely unaware that the IRS was subjecting conservative organizations to undue scrutiny on their tax-exempt applications. At the time of the alleged targeting, the IRS Commissioner visited the White House more than almost any other federal official, but, apparently, never disclosed his agency's targeting of political opponents of Obama."....
But wait! There's more!
And: "President Obama also, presumably, was unaware of the Justice Department's program to allow Mexican drug gangs to purchase military-grade arms from the US."....
 And: "President Obama also, apparently, didn't know that his spy agencies were monitoring millions of phone calls...."
 And: "President Obama also didn't know that his diplomatic mission in Libya had requested more security and felt threatened by rising tension in the war-torn country."....
....
So: He has advisors, right? He gets regular briefings, I assume. None of this ever comes up?...."

politics.ie/forum

Has Your Health Insurance Plan Been Canceled?

http://terrellaftermath.com/

Below is the text of a letter I wrote in the Tillamook, Oregon Headlight-Herald in 2012. It was titled, "Liberal solutions bring about mediocrity"

     My own father died nearly destitute, largely because of my hypochondriac mother who required bags-full of prescriptions and a schedule filled with doctor appointments.

      Another good friend was forced out of his home due to the oppressive expenses of caring for his wife with Alzheimer’s. The same happened to another relative whose wife had dementia. I see what long-term illness can do to a family’s finances and desperately wish something could be done to help.

     But I also see how the present solution of Pelosi-Obama’s vast plan can reach into every corner of our lives; and make no mistake about it, this government or one like it will. Liberal solutions unfailingly bring about mediocrity in everything they touch and you can be sure this will happen to medical practice. I saw socialized medicine during a three-month stay at the Camp Lejeune hospital where dependents of Marines seeing doctors were given the standing appointment time of 0800.
     There the room was filled with mothers and children, waiting in folding metal chairs for their turn with a doctor to come. Their numbers gradually grew smaller through the day while the remaining children grew more and more restless with no place for them to play, only to run around the rows of steel chairs where their mothers continued to wait.
     By the afternoon, there were only a couple of families left, waiting since 8 a.m. All this because the hospital was government-run and had no incentive to encourage patients’ selection of them as medical provider.
     I desperately wish those mentioned here could have been taken care of, but never by committed socialists whose supporters hang Che posters and communist flags in their offices.   The Tunnel Dweller
 Now, on to the subject of cancellations:

 Heritage  “Before, I had a plan that I had a $1,500 deductible,” she told CBS News. “I paid $199 a month. The most similar plan that I would have available to me would be $278 a month. My deductible would be $6,500, and all of my care after that point would only be covered 70 percent.”

"The cancellations are still being announced in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Maryland. Over the next year, NBC News reports, between 50 percent and 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy insurance on the individual market could get cancellations."

From Godfather Politics: "We know that Nancy Pelosi never read the Act she voted for. Her response has become six seconds of liberalism stripped naked: “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.' ”

The Liberal blog Think Progress gives us this opinion: Here Is What’s Wrong With That Story About Obama Knowing That Your Health Care Policy Would Get Cancelled  "The goal of grandfather regulations is to allow a consumer to keep their existing policies, while also ensuring that there are some basic patient protections built into these plans. If insurers make changes that significantly burden enrollees with lower benefits and increased costs they have to come into compliance with all consumer protections."....

"So yes, individuals can keep the plans they have if those plans remain largely the same. But individuals receiving cancellation notices will have a choice of enrolling in subsidized insurance in the exchanges and will probably end up paying less for more coverage."

 

But what changes with regard to the deductible?

Does the failure to reach proper standards have to do with the fact that my wife and I -both in our seventies - do not have prenatal coverage?