What Happens If Russia Refuses to Fly U.S. Astronauts?

Popular Mechanics  

 

 

"Russian Soyuz flights are NASA's only way to get astronauts to and from the International Space Station. What happens if they cut us off?"

 

"With tensions escalating between Russia and Ukraine, the pressure is on President Obama to do more than issue stern warnings to the Russian government. Economic sanctions are one possible action, but one that could put the squeeze not only on Russia but also the U.S. manned space program."

 

A story showing everything that’s wrong with bureaucracies: rules have replaced morals and human decency

Bookworm Room  "If you want to know everything that’s wrong about a Big Government world (which also means a multi-rules, heavily bureaucratic world), you need look no further than a recent news report out of Minnesota.  It took place at Como Park High School and involved teachers who, because of their bureaucratic training, completely abandoned human decency.

"It all started out on a very cold day in Minnesota, with the temperature ranging between -8 and +12 degrees Fahrenheit.  The high school has an indoor pool, and that’s where 14-year-old Kayona Hagen-Tietz was swimming when a school alarm went off.  Before she could get to the locker to get her clothes, the teacher rushed her out into the cold.  Let me rephrase that:  A teacher in thrall to rules sent a soaking wet 14-year-old girl out into sub-freezing temperatures, clad only in a swimsuit. " ... 

Why Obama Got Russia Wrong (and Romney Got It Right)

Slate

 

"To peer into the conservative media and blogosphere as it covers Russa's invasion of Crimea is to risk a fatal dose of schadenfreude. There are reports about how Sarah Palin totally called that Putin would invade Ukraine (she will be on Fox News tonight to remind us), about how Mitt Romney was unfairly mocked for calling Russia the greatest "geopolitical threat" to the United States, about Hillary Clinton's "reset button" gaffe. Even the Liberal New Republic (tm) has admitted that Mitt Romney was right about the Russians and their ambitions.

 

"And he was. Why did Barack Obama blow it? Let's revisit the final 2012 presidential debate, the moment Romney explained himself and the president went for the lulz. Here's Obama." Full article. 

White House To Announce Another Major Obamacare Delay To Help Democrats In The Midterm Elections…

Weasel Zippers

 

"Another day, another illegal Obamacare delay."

 

"Via The Hill:

The Obama administration is set to announce another major delay in implementing the Affordable Care Act, easing election pressure on Democrats.

As early as this week, according to two sources, the White House will announce a new directive allowing insurers to continue offering health plans that do not meet ObamaCare’s minimum coverage requirements.

Prolonging the “keep your plan” fix will avoid another wave of health policy cancellations otherwise expected this fall.

The cancellations would have created a firestorm for Democratic candidates in the last, crucial weeks before Election Day....

The Real ObamaCare Horror Story and a counterpoint to consider

Gary Varvel

 

Jim Angle:  Reid managed to ignite a firestorm when he accused those who complain about canceled policies and higher rates under ObamaCare of flat-out lying.  

 

Nancy Van Deest   "Recently, Senator Harry Reid addressed the American people from the Senate floor and solemnly claimed that “there’s plenty of horror stories being told,” about ObamaCare. “All of them are untrue, but they’re being told all over America.”

"In essence, the senator called me and numerous other Americans being impacted by ObamaCare liars. I have been called many names before, but liar was not one of them. My most recent title before Harry accused me of being a liar was Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patient."

....

"Bad news about ObamaCare just keeps coming. Dr. Hal Scherz, Founder and President of Docs4Patient Care and Dr. Jeff English Director of Clinical Research at the MS Center of Atlanta have written a piece titled, “ObamaCare: We need an Earmark to Treat that Disease” to alert patients about the rationing of vital services by government. According to the article,"....

....

"Compared to MS that I battle every second of every minute of every day, Reid, Obama and the rest of their lot are small potatoes that would be unable to stand in my shoes for even a moment. God willing, I will continue to stand tall and warn my fellow Americans about ObamaCare. The question is, who will Americans believe?"

 

Writing in defense of Obamacare: Who are the people willing to identify themselves as casualties of the Affordable Care Act — and did they really 'shop' in the exchanges?   ..."But when “victims” step forward, reporters need to investigate these claims. If newspaper editors and television producers are willing to put them in the media spotlight – in front of a huge local or even national audience – they also have a duty to give their readers and viewers the facts they need so that they can judge the validity of the allegations."

http://granitegrok.com/blog/2013/09/you-go-cruz

Obama gets lecture on peace talks from Netanyahu in White House meeting

Jerusalem Post 

 

... "Netanyahu called for a “real peace... based on mutual recognition,” and chided his Palestinian counterparts for promoting “incessant violence” against the Jewish state.

“ 'Israel, the Jewish state, is the realization of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination,” Netanyahu said. “I think it’s about time they recognized a nation state for the Jewish people.

"We’ve only been here for about 4,000 years.' ” ...

Jonathan S. Tobin: Netanyahu Doesn’t Take Obama’s Bait  "The last time President Obama ambushed Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, the Israeli gave as good as he got. This time he turned the other cheek. The reason for this turnabout by the normally combative prime minister tells us everything we need to know about the relative strength of the positions of these two leaders."

The vindictive, borderline treasonous malevolence of the Left and the inept, borderline imbecilic impotence of the Right are emerging as the gravest threat to...to...ISRAEL?

You were sure this was going to be about America, weren't you?

 

Jerusalem Post   "Of course the “water libel*” against Israel is nothing new. Totally unfounded – indeed, outlandish – accusations that it is denying the Palestinians access to adequate water supplies have been leveled against it for years. But in the case of the furor over Schulz’s remarks two points should be made." .... Full article

..."However, the fact that the water issue continues to remains a topic that can still be used to denigrate Israel, without the malefactor being scorned and shamed, bears lamentable testimony to the vindictive, borderline treasonous malevolence of the Left, which makes cynical use of it to further its political credo; and to the inept, borderline imbecilic, impotence of the Right, which has failed to totally discredit this practice.

"This lethal combination is emerging as, arguably, the gravest threat to the sustainability of Jewish political independence."

Martin Sherman (www.martinsherman.net) is the founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies. (www.strategicisrael.org)

*The author makes reference to the term "Blood libel", something Israelis are acutely aware of because of it's use as reason to persecute Jews since antiquity.  More concise definition here.

And this definition comes from our own "malevolent left".

 

Anti-Israel cartoon from the Arab Media Friends of the American and -apparently - the Israeli left.

Pundits write of a Feckless Presidency

Pity the next president for the mess that they will inherit from this administration.

Stephens: Anatomy of a Feckless Presidency Gone are the days when the American president was capable of articulating the American interest. 

... "Give the Russian president this much: He pursues Russia's national interests, baldly and expediently, as he sees them. The American president, by contrast, does nothing more than patronizingly lecture other countries about where their respective interests should lie.

"Yet at no point in his statement did Mr. Obama make an effort to define, much less explain, the U.S. interest in all this. Why should Americans be alarmed that Russia is carving territory from a country they know little, and care even less, about? It would be good to hear the president give an account of just what is at stake for the American people...."

 

IBD Editorials; Obama's World Without America Looks A Lot Like Ukraine  "The brazen seizure of Crimea by Putin's Russia has brought into bold relief how the world would look if America is unable or unwilling to project power and influence. Is this what our diplomatic president wanted?"

Elliott Abrams; How We Can Make Putin Pay, and Why We Must

"...  there is more than Putin to think about. Tyrants in places from Tehran to Beijing will also be wondering about the cost of violating international law and threatening the peace and stability of neighbors. What will China do in neighboring seas, or Iran do in its tiny neighbor Bahrain, if actions like Putin’s go without a response?"

....

"The combination of zero action on Syria despite our own declared “red line” and the weakening of the American military sent a dangerous message, and not just to Putin."

 

Kerry Blasts Putin’s ‘Brazen Act of Aggression’  

 

"Pressed on whether Putin would pay a price for his incursion into sovereign territory, Kerry said, “We’re busy right now coordinating with our counterparts in many parts of the world.” He emphasized that “we don’t want this to be a larger confrontation” and that the administration is “not looking for a U.S.-Russia, East-West redux.' ”

Standing up to aggressors appears to be above Obama's pay grade. 

 

WaPo: Obama’s Foreign Policy Is Based on ‘Fantasy’  ... "China has interests in Asia and off the coasts that it wants to advance, but the United States and our alliances stand in the way. China is paying close attention to Barack Obama’s actions on Ukraine, or lack thereof.

"For all the talk of a “new economy,” nations still need fuel, raw materials, access to ports, and the ability to impose their will on occasion. Obama either still doesn’t understand, or he does but doesn’t deem America’s interests as worth advancing."

 

Pirro Scolds Obama on Ukraine: 'Being Dictator in the United States Doesn't Make You King of the World'   

Some perspective: Obama Finds a Country to Threaten. Too Bad It’s Israel.

 

 

Obama's military

Gay and lesbian troops perform in drag on American military base  "Troops based at the Kadena Air Base in Japan know how to party. On Saturday, six gay and straight service members applied some of their finest makeup and lip synced to "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" in what is believed to be first drag queen and king show on an American military base. The show was thrown in support for the base's recently formed OutServe-SLDN chapter, a nonprofit advocacy group for the army's LGBT community." 

 

.... "Just a few years ago, performances like these would have been grounds for a possible discharge. The repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell has made it possible for events like this to occur. --Jordan Valinsky"

 

There will be open season on any true career sergeants who believe in a warrior culture and think this is a travesty. How will this ever be undone?

What's this about "standing" preventing this president from acting in rebellion against the Constitution?

Volokh Conspiracy; How liberals learned to stop worrying and love standing doctrine    

"In an op-ed in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times, I discuss the Obama Administration’s embrace of standing doctrine:

President Obama’s proclaimed strategy to “bypass Congress” — most conspicuously his broad rewriting of the Affordable Care Act — has given unusual prominence to a fairly arcane legal doctrine: standing. Standing is what is preventing a potential blizzard of litigation against the president’s unilateral decrees, and ironically, it’s a doctrine liberal jurists have long decried.

Republicans: Obama violating Constitution, but little can be done about it   "Washington Republicans on Sunday restated their argument that President Obama has violated the Constitution by using executive orders to alter the Affordable Care Act but acknowledged they likely have no recourse or ability to stop another incident." ...

 

There seems to be a consensus pictured here:

 

http://obamacartoon.blogspot.com/2011/10/executive-orders-or-how-to-screw.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anti-Left Street Posters Mocking Obama (and Oscars) Can’t Be Making Academy Awards Folks Happy

Note the O above is the Obama logo.

 

We the People

"Also why didn’t Sandra Bullock win for Gravity?  Not liberal enough? Perhaps.

"Bullock’s politics are as mysterious, if not more so, than her religion. Here, there are conflicting reports.

 

"Allegedly, Bullock self-identified herself as a conservative on her Facebook page at one point.

 

"Then again, she is reported to be a Democrat, but has said she has “as many Democratic ideas as she does Republican.”⁷

 

Academy Awards Anti-Leftist Street Art: 32 images

Pro and con of the Obama/ Democrat foreign policies

TD has done an internet search to find positive assessments of the Obama administration's foreign policy achievements. These are among the top five that Google came up with. Two others were White House links, so, well, you know...

From Madame Noire:  Top 8 Foreign Policy Achievements of the Obama Administration

CBS praises Obama's foreign policies Norah O'Donnell, just before the 2012 election.

You knew you the posts above would be placed next to these didn't you? Weigh the arguments of the above against these:

Why Russia No Longer Fears the West  The "West" meaning to me the democracies of Western Europe as led by the major democracy, the United States (referred to by Winston Churchill in World War 2 as the enormous power of the New World that would overcome the Nazi conquerors of Europe).
Sadly, today's Democrats will not overcome anything but academia, the media and Republicans.
This Politico columnist holds western business just as culpable as liberals.

... "When Russia sees Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal outbidding each other to be Russia’s best business partner inside the EU (in return for no mention of human rights), they see America’s control over Europe slowly dissolving…"

But Ben Judah at Sweetness and Light does not let left-leaning Politico's opinion above go unchallenged:

"This article is 1,575 words long. Obama’s name is not mentioned once. Which is simply ludicrous. The reason Russia no longer fears the West is be due to one person alone: Barack Hussein Obama.
 

"And that is because after decades of Russia nearly being frozen out of the Middle East, Obama invited the Russians back in to help with Syria. It is because Obama is gutting our military, while Russia and China are building up theirs. It is because Obama gave away our missile defenses in Europe and those at home. And he even gave the Russians our missile secrets for good measure." ...  Full article here. 

Video: Did Obama's foreign policy stumbles lead to Ukraine crisis?
  
"If Ukraine likes their sovereignty, they can keep it"    "Once again, America's chicken has come home to roost. Barack Obama's utterly spineless response to Russian military action in Ukraine has pretty much signaled to the world that the United States is officially no longer a meaningful player in foreign affairs and no advocate for freedom or democracy."