Alan Caruba: Is Obama Brilliant or Stupid?

This are the very words I had been hoping to write because they all need to be said:

Warning Signs

 

..."Playing devil’s advocate, I would argue that Obamacare is the ultimate example of how utterly stupid liberal programs to alter the nation’s economy are. Why would anyone think that the government could possibly take charge of one sixth of the nation’s economy and arguably the finest healthcare system in the world, and not completely ruin it?"

....

"The government took over the nation’s educational system and it has been failing students for decades...The government took over the environment and, instead of being responsible for removing pollution from the air and waters, now have an agency that is undermining all aspects of the economy, from access to energy reserves to increased costs of manufacturing.

..."Obama’s handling of the nation’s foreign affairs has been a dismal failure. Either he is stupid or his advisers are dumber than he is..."

 

But as liberals such as Chris Mathews would claim, all these problems caused by this president would be just fine with us on the right if only Barack Obama were white. TD 

Obama’s sorry story/ The President struggles to salvage his health reform law, and his credibility

NY Daily News  "Desperate times call for desperate measures, so on Thursday one desperate President, Barack Obama, attempted to sell the idea that he had found a way to keep his Obamacare pledge: “If you like your insurance plan, you can keep it.”
"This exuberantly delivered and oft-repeated sales pitch for the program that has dominated his presidency “ended up not being accurate,” as Obama mincingly put it.
"He had no choice — not when health insurers complying with his regulations have canceled policies for millions of Americans."  Read more:

27 Democratic senators who promised you could keep your health coverage

Byron York  "How many Democrats made the promise? There's no comprehensive list of all of them, but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's office has compiled a list of 27 Democratic senators who pledged that Americans could keep their coverage under Obamacare. The list includes the entire Democratic leadership in the Senate as well as Democrats facing tough re-election races in 2014, like Mary Landrieu, Mark Begich, and Kay Hagan. Here is that list, compiled by McConnell's office:"....  The list.

OK, you can say these people all lied, but you must never, never say President Obama lied if you know what is good for you.

Tingles Sees Racism Driving Republicans To Call Obama A “Liar”…
"The “lie” Cheney referred to was Obama’s promise that if people liked their health plans, they could keep them, which turned out to not be precisely the truth."

When a Palestinian teen shed the last traits of humanity

Times of Israel   "I cannot get the vision of Eden Atias, stabbed again and again and again, and bleeding to death in his blue fabric seat on a bus at Afula bus station on Wednesday morning, out of my head. And I’m sure I’m not alone in the abiding sense of horror and despair.
....
 "The main enemy of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation is the hatred for Israel that is being nurtured daily in the hearts of so many in the West Bank and Gaza — the constant peddling of the narrative that says Israel has no right to exist, and that its people are rapacious invaders who must be struck down. Sixteen years filled only with that despicable falsehood brought Hussein Rawarda to the moment, on Wednesday morning, when he shed the last vestiges of his humanity and took away Eden Atias’s life."

UnitedHealth drops thousands of doctors from insurance plans: WSJ

Yahoo News   "UnitedHealth Group dropped thousands of doctors from its networks in recent weeks, leaving many elderly patients unsure whether they need to switch plans to continue seeing their doctors, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
"The insurer said in October that underfunding of Medicare Advantage plans for the elderly could not be fully offset by the company's other healthcare business. The company also reported spending more healthcare premiums on medical claims in the third quarter, due mainly to government cuts to payments for Medicare Advantage services.
"The Journal report said that doctors in at least 10 states were notified of being laid off the plans, some citing "significant changes and pressures in the healthcare environment."...

....
"UnitedHealth is participating in about a dozen new state insurance markets that launched on October 1 to offer subsidized health coverage under President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul."

ISN’T THIS KIND OF AN ADMISSION THAT THE OBAMA “RECOVERY” STINKS?

Via Instapundit;   Obama Pushes To Save The Holiday Season For A Million Unemployed People  "The Obama administration on Friday came out strongly in support of extending long-term unemployment insurance past its current expiration date.
Top economic adviser Gene Sperling said in a statement to The Huffington Post there is "no question" that Congress should extend emergency unemployment insurance for the more than 1 million workers who could be affected when benefits expire between Christmas and the New Year.
" 'We have always done so when unemployment is this high and would make little sense to fail to do so now when we are still facing the burdens of the worst downturn since the Great Recession," Sperling said. "It is high bang for the buck for the economy, reduces poverty and helps workers who lost jobs due to no fault of their own get back on their feet.'"

The Week in Pictures: The Old Fumblerooskie Edition

Powerline  "So while the New York Times is going with “incorrect promise” (a phrase that has never appeared in the paper before that anyone can find) to describe Obama’s “terminological inexactitude” (Churchill’s famous term for “lie”), Obama is going with “we fumbled.”  Fumbled, eh? ...  It’s starting to look more like one of those old Oakland Raider trick fumble plays, isn’t it?"

 

More here.

Theo (The Dog) And Beau (The Toddler) Star In A Naptime Love Story

Huffington Post  " 'We found him tucked together with his two siblings in the back yard of the Santa Cruz SPCA," mom of three Jessica Shyba writes on her blog, Momma's Gone City, of the puppy her family brought home last week."....

... "Their daily naps have turned into "what I can only describe as the most organic and beautiful friendship I have ever witnessed," Shyba writes."

 

Full article.

Friday night posts on Obamacare

National Review Writer: Obamacare ‘The Biggest Mistake That Any Party Has Made in 100 Years’ 
..."Asked first to react to the president’s press conference, Cooke said that it might be “the lowest I’ve ever seen him.”
“ 'He looked broken,” he added. “And he flailed. He filibustered when he was given the Iran question in the middle, for example. He talked at length. He just desperately didn’t want to talk about health care.' ”

39 Democrats Break With Obama to Pass Upton 'Fix'   "The Upton bill now goes to the Senate. Sen. Mary Landrieu is sponsoring legislation that is similar to Rep. Upton's, except that it would require insurance companies to continue offering the individual plans. Upton's bill would allow them to offer the plans, but not require them to do so."
10 Senate Dems Who Should Apologize for ObamaCare

Obamacare: How Is Incompetence a Defense?  "President Barack Obama made several excuses for himself and his party in an attempt to minimize the damage the Obamacare debacle will cause Democrats in the 2014 midterm elections. All of these excuses, however, try to use incompetence to excuse failure."

The Washington Post Pinocchios   "Getting another three Pinocchios from the Post for blaming health insurance companies for people losing their health coverage didn’t do it. But finally, hearing an earful from 16 panicked Democratic senators apparently got through to the president, convincing him that he needed to come clean because their constituents are so outraged over ObamaCare’s failings."

 

Obama channels 'Animal House' at presser   "You screwed up...You trusted us."

The President Is Losing His Plan  "The callous disregard for the very idea of law inherent in this manner of governing is matched by the overt cynicism of the move itself: After having created the circumstances in which millions of people lose their health coverage, the administration imagines this latest move can allow Democrats to say that the president and his health reform are not at fault but insurers and state insurance commissioners are because, after all, although they have had to prepare to follow the law for three years they now have thirty days to prepare to ignore it."

US cancels purchase order of Russian Copters for Afghanistan forces

RIA Novosti:  May 4th, 2013;  Pentagon to Buy Russian Helicopters Despite Ban  ..."The US Department of Defense said Thursday it plans to sidestep a Congressional ban to purchase 30 helicopters from Russian state-owned defense firm Rosoboronexport, despite objections from US lawmakers who allege that the firm has equipped the Syrian government to commit brutal crimes against civilians."...
The above article came with comments including this:

.... "Or consider this. The  United States Air Force is grounding 17 squadrons because of $591 million  dollars in budget cuts. Our Air Force is not able to do its mission because it  lacks the money to fly but we have the money to give Afghanistan $700 million  dollars in Russian helicopters.

And this is where Barack  Obama thinks we should spend our money? Most people reading this story will not  have heard about it. Why?

Because the Obama  Propaganda Media is moving in lock step to make sure there is no bad news that  might damage Obama's presidency.This is a story that should damage him and  outrage every American. "....

This next story is some months later:
Nov 13th, 2013; US Cancels Russian Helicopter Buy Amid Syria Standoff – Senator 
“ 'I applaud the [US] Defense Department’s decision to cancel its plan to buy 15 additional Mi-17 helicopters from Rosoboronexport,” US Sen. John Cornyn said in statement, The Associated Press (AP) reported.
"Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, has been leading a push in Congress to oppose the Pentagon’s purchase of Russian helicopters for deployment in Afghanistan due to Moscow’s weapons shipments to the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad as his forces battle rebel groups in a fierce civil war."

Yet these links from months earlier accompanied the article about the US no longer buying Russian helicopters:

• US to Buy 30 Russian Helicopters for Afghanistan Next Year  June 2013
• Russia to Deliver 12 More Mi-17 Helicopters to Afghanistan May 2013
• U.S. Buys More Russian Helicopters for Afghanistan  May 2013

The article about the cancellation is the most recent of the lot.

Hat tip to John Uhrig; Plano, TX

Obamacare ads by Democrats and by Tony Branco

washingtontimes.com

comicallyincorrect.com

Why liberals are panicked about Obamacare

Charles Krauthammer  ... "The reaction to the incompetence, arrogance and deception has ranged from ridicule to anger. But more is in jeopardy than just panicked congressional Democrats. This is the signature legislative achievement of the Obama presidency, the embodiment of his new entitlement-state liberalism. If Obamacare goes down, there will be little left of its underlying ideology

"Perhaps it won’t go down. Perhaps the Web portal hums beautifully on Nov. 30. Perhaps they’ll find a way to restore the canceled policies without wrecking the financial underpinning of the exchanges.

"Perhaps. The more likely scenario, however, is that Obamacare does fail. It either fails politically, renounced by a wide consensus that includes a growing number of Democrats, or it succumbs to the financial complications (the insurance “death spiral”) of the very amendments desperately tacked on to save it.

"If it does fail, the effect will be historic. Obamacare will take down with it more than Mary Landrieu and Co. It will discredit Obama’s new liberalism for years to come."