Alan Caruba; Obama Encounters an Apex of Anger

Warning Signs

 

"Barack Obama has managed to do something one would hardly imagine a President could achieve by the midpoint of his second term. He has managed to anger most segments of the American populace, including those to the far Left who constitute a significant part of his base.  It has taken time for most people to reach this point.

"Americans are amazingly patient with their presidents, but Obama has pushed them beyond scandal fatigue. The “final straw” appears to be the illegal alien invasion masterminded by Obama.

 "What they are seeing and hearing is not what they were sold; a charming man of allegedly extraordinary intelligence. Friday’s press conference regarding the shoot down of the Malaysian commercial aircraft showed us a man utterly lacking any moral outrage and, as always, “leading from behind” by insisting this was Europe’s problem, not one that would be addressed by an America doing anything more than applying a few economic sanctions.
 

 
 

 "He looked and sounded bored, annoyed that he had to utter a bunch of empty platitudes about Russia; the same Russia with which he and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had declared a “reset” from previous administrations’ relations. Putin took his measure and saw weakness.

 "Obama’s response to the Middle East was to pull out all our troops from Iraq and a muddled series of actions in Afghanistan topped by the announcement of when troops there would leave, always a very bad idea when the enemy is still in the field. The “Arab Spring” became another Obama nightmare of bad decisions."... More...

 

CNN's Sally Kohn implies conservatives racist over border with Canada

Examiner.com

CNN contributor Sally Kohn implies conservatives racist over Canadian border.Screengrab/Huffington Post

"It seems these days that liberals look for any excuse to accuse conservatives of racism, even when there's no reason. If they can't directly make the accusation, then they're certain to imply it. Such was the case Saturday when CNN contributor and Daily Beast columnist Sally Kohn implied racism with a tweet wondering why conservatives aren't worried about the border with Canada, Twitchy reported.

" 'Along US/Canada border for few days, not single border patrol agent. Why aren't conservatives complaining about border security here? Hmm," she tweeted, in what was clearly an effort to foment hate against conservatives.

"Although not directly stated, the implication is quite clear. Conservatives aren't complaining about the northern border because of racism, despite the fact that thousands of illegal immigrants are not pouring over it to get into the country. Kohn's implication was noted by a number of people who took her to task for the offensive message." ...  Read more...

Another incident of the silliness that CNN produces to go with this, and this, to name just two.
Hat tip to Joe Newby at Rush Limbaugh

Happy 30th Birthday, Central American Humanitarian Crisis

Ann Coulter

 

"It's been fun to watch the media discuss the border crisis in real time, improvising their arguments on the fly. Let's try A, and if that doesn't work, we'll try B.

   

"First, they said there was no surge at the border -- it was a phony crisis manufactured by the Drudge Report. The facts on the ground quickly made that argument inoperable.

   

"Next, liberals told us these "undocumented migrants" (the PC phrase for "illegal aliens" -- because we'll never figure out what that means) were mere children fleeing violence and drug cartels.

   

"Then we found out that more than 80 percent of the "children" were teenage males, some being recruited for the homicidal Central American gang MS-13, right there in the detention facilities." ... 

 

Coulter's query: "Living in the Shadows"; really?

 

... "Instead of "living in the shadows" -- the shadows of mass protests, New York Times magazine covers, TV shows, government housing, free schools, free medical care, free food stamps, the Catholic Church, state colleges at in-state tuition rates in 17 states -- "undocumented migrants" seem poised to become full legal residents. " Full article here.

 

Is This The Ultimate in Hillary Clinton Media/Feminist Sycophancy?

Ace of Spades HQ    "The Stylist" is a UK publication".  It bills itself as a "consumer magazine." I do not know what this means. Looking on the web for guidance, it seems to only mean "not a professional or trade magazine; a magazine directed towards the general public's general interests." 
Or something like that.
I think maybe it means "a silly magazine for dumb people."

Stylist photo

"I can only excerpt a little of Andrew Stiles' excerpts. It's all worth reading though.
His excerpts, I mean, not the "consumer magazine" story.

As I crammed years of Hillary's utterly mind-blowing life into just a week, something else dawned on me. I had never--would never--experience busyness like Hillary. Hard Choices details the life of someone special: a woman with a huge capacity for understanding, a woman with an exceptional EQ and IQ (as Secretary of State she needed to remember hundreds of people, understand the intricacies of cultural and societal differences, handle delicate international business negotiations and, more pertinently, fight for people’s lives through peace deals). She was responsible for the most difficult of decisions: those that deal with life and death. It was around that moment of clarity when I stopped telling people how busy I was.
...
Throughout my interview with Hillary, she is fiercely engaged; her eyes--sparkly, wide, alert--remain firmly focused on me. She is warm, considered, talks slowly and thoughtfully and uses--consciously or not--tactics that put me at ease. She frequently answers my queries with the response: "Now, that’s a great question"...

"This reporterette is blown away that a politician flatters her interviewer by saying "Now that's a great question."
She's never seen this tactic before. It's a novelty, a breakthrough. At least for her.
"The Stylist" magazine is not exactly The National Review, I guess.

she litters her answers with colloquialisms that put us on a level and, listening back, I am struck by the amount of times she says, "You know".

"The woman is incredible. She uses "You know" as an opening hesitation instead of patriarchal hesitations like "Well" or "You see."

"And of course there's that charming laugh.

" 'I was going to say the same thing!" emails Pennywise the Clown.

I can see that these natural skills make her the perfect diplomat, the ultimate

leader. These are the skills she believes women bring to business. But it would be naive to think that gender differences still don't present challenges. There's also the matter of the complex, mechanized walker she needs to simulate normal human locomotion.

"I may have added that last part.
"By the way, I did not confirm that this reporter is female. I didn't look at her byline.
"I say that in defense of calling her a "reporterette." I do not know, for a fact, that she's a she.
"But if her girlish squee-ing suggested that to me-- that is rather more on her than on me." 

New York Times Op-Ed Blames Israel for Hamas Violence

Honest Reporting

 

... " These obstacles include preventing the payment of salaries to Hamas appointed civil servants and not easing Gaza’s border restrictions. Hamas itself is conveniently whitewashed as the Palestinian unity government “pledged to comply with the three conditions for Western aid long demanded by America and its European allies: nonviolence, adherence to past agreements and recognition of Israel.”

Thrall cannot begin to contemplate that Hamas itself, still entrenched in the Gaza Strip, has not changed its violent and rejectionist policies towards Israel. And what of the thousands of rockets that have been launched from Gaza aimed at Israeli civilians even before this recent escalation? For Thrall, they are not even worthy of a mention.

Ditto for the kidnapping of three Israeli teens by Hamas-affiliated terrorists. Instead, according to Thrall:

Hamas is now seeking through violence what it couldn’t obtain through a peaceful handover of responsibilities.

... "Ultimately, Thrall cannot tell the difference between cause and effect. It was Hamas violence that prompted Israel to blockade the Gaza Strip, not Israel’s actions that caused Hamas to initiate what has now escalated into a full-on Israeli ground incursion."

CNN Press Room just this morning was doing a story on the angry father of an Arab boy covered in splints and bandages, condemning Israel's actions.

"The Bear" fundraises while Putin runs amok

The "Bear" is Loose   "The president is a bear in his own mind. When he takes a scripted trip outside the White House to mingle with the people he likes to say “the bear is loose”. "

 

Obama fundraises while Putin runs amok  “ 'The bear is loose!” President Obama has been saying, whenever he leaves the White House to visit Starbucks, or sandwich shops, or burger joints, or BBQ shacks, or neighborhood diners, in his increasingly rote and pathetic attempts to “connect” with “real people.” Obama, we have been told, is frustrated, “restless,” bored with the responsibilities and chores of office. He thinks of himself as the bear—intimidating, wild, untamed, roving—escaping his den. But he is flattering himself. Obama is not the bear. He is the cub: aimless, naïve, self-interested, self-indulgent, irresponsible, irresolute. The bear is in Moscow."

 

 

Obama, crises, and the three-am phone calls

Victor Davis Hanson; War Was Interested in Obama

... "One of Obama’s talking points in the 2012 campaign included a boast that he had “ended” the war in Iraq by bringing home every U.S. soldier that had been left to ensure the relative quiet and stability after the successful Petraeus surge. In the world of Obama, a war can be declared ended because he said so, given that no Americans were any longer directly involved. (Remind the ghosts of the recently beheaded in now al Qaeda-held Mosul that the war ended there in 2011.)

 

"Iraq is in flames, as is “lead from behind” Libya, as is “red line” Syria, and as are those places where an al Qaeda “on the run” has migrated. Had Obama been commander in chief in 1940, he would have assured us that the wars in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and France were “over” — as they were in a sense for those who lost them, but as they were not for those next in line."  http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/war-was-interested-in-obama/?singlepage=true

Our Callow Commander-in-Chief;  "Why is insouciance Obama’s first response to international crises?"   "It is at times like these, when he is pushed kicking and screaming into the crucible, that Obama’s callowness shows. For his supporters, that jejune, jocular air has been a plus for almost six years. For the rest of us, it has served as a liability and an irritation. Yesterday, it became a wholesale embarrassment."

...Instead, the president spent a grand total of 38 seconds on the downing of the plane, describing what he knew to have been an atrocity as a “tragedy” that “might” have happened, and then going back to slamming Republicans for refusing to agree with him on infrastructure spending, to joking with his adoring fans, and to suggesting that America needed to stop indulging in what the more traditional among us like to refer to as “politics.” It would, as David Freddoso observed, have been as if George W. Bush had continued to read “Why Daddy Is a Republican” after he had learned of the attacks on the Twin Towers."

... "For the next two years, this is to be our fate. Indifference, drift, diversion, and fatigue. Hello Cleveland! Hello Brooklyn! Goodbye, yellow brick road."

Obama's bizarre and frightening response to the shoot down of MH17



"Some of the reaction to the president's bizarre remarks came from reporters on the scene:"

• Traveling in Denver, this reporter heard gasps from guests watching a hotel lobby television as Obama spoke.
• One remarked: 'A tragedy is when you lose control and fly into a mountainside. This is mass-murder. What a disappointment.'
• 'His distance from reality is just bizarre,' said another.
• Daniel Hannan, the British member of Europe's parliament who has rankled liberals in a series of American speaking tours, tweeted his own disgust.
• 'Listening to Obama's statement [on] the airline tragedy, my mind went back to Reagan 31 years ago,' he wrote.
• 'How America's leaders have shrunk.'
• Obama finished his speech by saying 'Let’s build some bridges. Let’s build some roads. God bless America.'
• Matt Viser, a Boston Globe reporter on the scene, tweeted a devastating reaction.
• 'Obama, in sum: A plane crashed. It may be tragic. We're trying to see if US citizens were on board. Hey, great to be in Delaware!' he wrote.
• The president's next stop after Wilmington was New York City, where he headlines a Democratic Party fundraiser Thursday evening. Tickets for the cozy event go for as much as $32,400...

... "The White House will attribute excessive caution to the president's shocking remarks. But reporters were getting background from administration officials that the plane was shot down with a missile for several hours prior to the president's remarks. And, of course, the fact that he then went merrily on his way to a fundraiser while what amounts to an act of war was committed against US citizens is just one more indication how out of touch this president is." ...

Obama picks non-pilot to head Air Force in Pacific for diversity drive

socio-political commentary

 

"The White House has picked the first female general to head the Air Force in the Pacific, which will make her the first non-pilot to command air power in such a large theater of operation.

 

    "The Pentagon announced this week that Air Force Lt. Gen. Lori J. Robinson has been nominated for promotion to four-star general and as commander of Pacific Air Forces, the Air Force component of U.S. Pacific Command. It is a major combatant command whose air, ground and naval forces have broad responsibility for security in the Asia-Pacific region. Her nomination was sent to the Senate for confirmation.

 

 "Officials said pilots historically have commanded Air Force war-fighting components for the Pacific and for U.S. Air Forces Europe; Air Forces Central, which covers the Middle East and Afghanistan; and the 1st Air Force, which is part of Northern Command and protects U.S. skies."...

 Emphasis added, TW

Your 2014 Iowahawk Earth Week Cruise-In Grand Champion Carbonator

Iowahawk   "All the entries are in, and once again it's been a bang up year for the Earth Week Cruise-In with 70 entries from around the world. Thanks again to all participants for your grassroots climate activism and dedication to horsepower. But only one can stand alone as the Grand Champion Carbonator. The envelope, please!

"And the winner is (drum roll)... "

 

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy!

 

"A hearty congratulations to Gina, whose winnings include a deserving place alongside Barack Obama, Solyndra, James Cameron and Mother Earth herself in our pantheon of previous champions, along with 1 trillion official Iowahawk carbon credits to apply against her future environmental destruction.

" 'What gives, Dave? I didn't bolt a twin turbo and nitrous onto my two-stroke margarita maker to lose your stupid contest to some damn government hippie," you might well be grumbling. OK, Mister Sore Loser, lemme ask you this: did your Earth Week celebration include private jet travel with an entourage of flunkies to New York, Boston, Cleveland, Atlanta and Memphis, all for no apparent reason?

"Gina's did.

"So don't hate the player, hater, hate the game. If you're going to compete in the Carbon Big Leagues, best bring your "A" game and the power to tax your jet fuel bills out of the chumps.

"Until next year... Excelsior!" 

TOP SECRET "STAGING" BASE FOR THE PREPARATION OF THE WW2 INVASION OF JAPAN

 

Warbird Information Exchange   "Its existence kept secret throughout the war, the US naval base at Ulithi was for a time the world’s largest naval facility.

...

...
"In March 1945, 15 battleships, 29 carriers, 23 cruisers, 106 destroyers, and a train of oilers and supply ships sailed from "a Pacific base." What was this base? The mightiest force of naval Power ever assembled must have required a tremendous supporting establishment. Ulithi, the biggest and most active naval base in the world was indeed tremendous but it was unknown. Few civilians had heard of it at all. By the time security released the name, the remarkable base of Ulithi was a ghost. The war had moved on to the Japanese homeland, and the press was not printing ancient history about Ulithi.

"Ulithi is 360 miles southwest of Guam, 850 miles east of the Philippines, 1300 miles South of Tokyo. It is a typical volcanic atoll with coral, white sand, and palm trees. The reef runs roughly twenty miles north and south by ten miles across enclosing a vast anchorage with an average depth of 80 to 100 feet - the only suitable anchorage within 800 miles. Three dozen little islands rise slightly above the sea, the largest only half a square mile in area.

"The U.S. Navy arrived in September 1944 and found resident about 400 natives, and three Japanese soldiers. The natives on the four largest islands were moved to smaller Fassarai, and every inch of these four was quickly put to use. Asor had room for a headquarters: port director, radio station, evaporator (rain is the only freshwater supply), tents, small boat pier, cemetery. Sorlen was set up as a shop for maintaining and repairing the 105 LCVPs and 45 LCMs that became beasts of all work in the absence of small boats. Mogmog was assigned to recreation. The big island, Falalop, was just wide enough for a 3500-foot airstrip for handling the R4Ds (Douglas DC-3s) and R5C Commandos, which would presently fly in from Guam 1269 passengers, 4565 sacks of mail and 262,251 pounds of air freight a week. This took care of a few services - but where were they going to put the naval base?"

 Full article...   Hat tip to  Harley Standlee; Placerville, CA

Stock Footage - World War II: Ulithi, Anchorage

Moral clarity in Gaza

Charles Krauthammer

An Israeli army flare illuminating the sky above the northern Gaza strip on 17 July 2014. Israel and Hamas denied reports 17 July 2014 that they had agreed to a ceasefire, following a brief lull in hostilities for humanitarian reasons and after 10 nights and days of cross-border fighting that killed 231 Palestinians and one Israeli. (Mohammed Saber/EPA)

 

... "Apologists for Hamas attribute the blood lust to the Israeli occupation and blockade. Occupation? Does no one remember anything? It was less than 10 years ago that worldwide television showed the Israeli army pulling die-hard settlers off synagogue roofs in Gaza as Israel uprooted its settlements, expelled its citizens, withdrew its military and turned every inch of Gaza over to the Palestinians. There was not a soldier, not a settler, not a single Israeli left in Gaza.

 

"And there was no blockade. On the contrary. Israel wanted this new Palestinian state to succeed. To help the Gaza economy, Israel gave the Palestinians its 3,000 greenhouses that had produced fruit and flowers for export. It opened border crossings and encouraged commerce.

...

"And how did the Gaza Palestinians react to being granted by the Israelis what no previous ruler, neither Egyptian, nor British, nor Turkish, had ever given them — an independent territory? First, they demolished the greenhouses. Then they elected Hamas. Then, instead of building a state with its attendant political and economic institutions, they spent the better part of a decade turning Gaza into a massive military base, brimming with terror weapons, to make ceaseless war on Israel." ...

 

Just as they will do with all the West Bank if it is turned over to the Arabs. Think what devastation and death they can inflict on the Jewish population from this territory jutting into the very waist of tiny Israel.

 

New “Palestinian” jihad group pledging allegiance to Islamic State claims responsibility for killing the three Israeli teenagers  

"A new Palestinian jihadist group pledging allegiance to the Islamic State (formerly known as ISIL) has claimed responsibility for the killing of three Israeli teenagers last month in the West Bank, as well as other recent deadly attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians.

"In a statement posted on jihadi websites Tuesday, the Supporters of the Islamic State in Bayt al-Maqdis said it was behind the capture and killing of “the three soldiers” in Hebron (actually, it was in the nearby Etzion bloc), sniper attacks in Hebron and Tarqumia, and missile launches from Gaza into Israel a month and a half ago."

 HAMAS TV



We Are All Border States Now

Mark Steyn   "President Obama took it upon himself to dissolve the southern border of the United States (it's a different matter on the 49th parallel, as Canadians or tourists bearing Kinder eggs well know). So, if there is no southern border de jure, where is it de facto? Try Massachusetts:

DARTMOUTH, Mass. - Bristol County Sheriff Tom Hodgson said Monday that he's dealing with a problem in Dartmouth that shouldn't be his responsibility.
It's not a new theme for him. He's sounded the alarm about illegal immigrants before, but now he says it's getting closer and closer to home.
Illegal immigrants come across the border in the American Southwest. When they are detained, the wave of humanity has overwhelmed local capacity. The illegal immigrants are being sent all over the country, including Massachusetts.
"We're all becoming border states now... We know there are going to be more coming here from Texas. We've already got two groups coming off the planes here," Hodgson said.