Late commentaries on the Ferguson ambush

Andrew C. McCarthy: In Ferguson, Guilt Should Not Be Collectivized, But It Should Be Apportioned  (Commentary on the article following this one)
. . .  "To say that the mayor, the attorney general, and the president are not guilty of last weekend’s murders of two police officers is not to say they are blameless. To distinguish them from the murderer is not to pronounce them suitable for the weighty public trusts they hold. There is guilt here to be apportioned. Apportioning it is not collectivizing it — it is not engaging in the same convoluted demagoguery that blamed Sarah Palin’s electioneering for a mass-murder in Tucson by a man with a history of mental illness, or that blamed bourgeois America for the killing of John F. Kennedy by a Communist." . . .

PowerLine: THE FERGUSON SHOOTING: BLAME THE ASSASSIN, NOT POLITICIANS

[The two police officers] were not shot by Barack Obama. They were not shot by Eric Holder. And they were not shot by “the media” or by the Democratic party. The shooter wasn’t forced to pull the trigger by “the protests,” and nor was his crime commissioned by our latent “political culture.” Al Sharpton was nowhere to be seen. Rather, a man who was in possession of his own agency made a terrible, disastrous decision. Observers who have today attempted to indict the entire post-Ferguson activist movement for his crime should know better than to imply otherwise.

Legal Insurrection:  #Ferguson is a no-win for the police

. . . "I’m not entirely sure where a group of racist twenty-something idiots comes into a discussion about police officers getting shot and/or using deadly force to protect themselves, but hey, might as well drag everything into the pot while the fire’s hot.

"MSNBC’s Ed Schultz isn’t helping, either. On Monday, he suggested disarming the Ferguson PD entirely, and today, he asked whether or not police really needed to be at these protests to begin with." . . .

Springtime for Chaos in Ferguson

. . . "Anonymous is not the only far-left group that has tried to turn Ferguson into the American Bastille. As the Daily Beast and the Blaze reported last year, well-known Communist agitators flooded into town following the death of Michael Brown with the goal of keeping emotions high and the revolution roiling. But the most-effective left-wing activist in Ferguson has got to be Eric Holder’s Justice Department. " . . .H/T to Instapundit

Barack Obama Banters With Jimmy Kimmel About Life In The White House, Ferguson

HuffPo

"LOS ANGELES (AP) — President Barack Obama read "Mean Tweets" on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" Thursday night, but he was unfazed.

"After enduring the routine — in which celebrities read hostile Twitter comments about themselves — Obama told Kimmel, "You should see what the Senate says about me."

"The president also joked about the perks and restrictions he faces, revealing that he's not allowed to use cellphones that have recorders in them. (Hence his ever-present BlackBerry.) He also noted that he can visit the dentist in the White House basement but doesn't text and can't drive." . . .

Obama's legacy takes shape: 2 officers shot in 'ambush' outside Ferguson PD. Rioters celebrate

Two officers were shot in front of the Ferguson Police Department early Thursday while demonstrators were gathered across the street

. . . "In amateur video accessed by the Associated Press, two shots ring out and a man is heard screaming out in pain.

"Someone at the scene, unseen and unidentified in the video, says: "Acknowledgement nine months ago would have kept that from happening."

"Marciay Pitchford, 20, was among the protesters. She told The Associated Press that the protest had been mostly peaceful until she heard the shots.

" 'I saw the officer go down and the other police officers drew their guns while other officers dragged the injured officer away," Pitchford said. "All of a sudden everybody started running or dropping to the ground.' ". . .

FERGUSON SUPPORTERS CELEBRATE SHOOTING OF POLICE OFFICERS

. . . "In video footage which captures the moments before and after the shooting, one protester is heard to say, “Acknowledgement nine months ago would have kept that from happening,” a reference to the death of Michael Brown.

"Further justification of the shooting emerged on Twitter, with some even expressing their satisfaction that the officers were targeted." 

The Reverend @Kelemchrist

#ChiefJackson steps down and two pigs get shot? Best day #Ferguson has had in years

Blistering! Why Greta Van Susteren, others are nailing Obama for ‘pathetic’ Ferguson shooting tweet/

"Yet another evergreen statement about Barack Obama. Since it is a day ending in “y,” President Incompetent pulled a pathetic move. As Twitchy reported, he offered up a pitiful tweet about the shooting of officers in Ferguson and rightly received some backlash. This tweet had summed it up and it bears repeating:"

The White House        ✔ @WhiteHouse

Violence against police is unacceptable. Our prayers are with the officers in MO. Path to justice is one all of us must travel together. –bo

Greta Van Susteren        ✔ @greta

Pres Obama tweeted, but no oral statement, about cop shooting-headed off to Calif for @jimmykimmel and fundraiser

In case you are looking for President Obama ….here is where he is…

Rapper Method Man On Ferguson Cops Being Shot: “You Reap What You Sow”…

Navy Caves to Pier Pressure

Tony Perkins  "If you think chaplains have some of the safest jobs in the military, think again. Men of the cloth are under some of the heaviest fire -- and it's coming from their own side! In the Navy, the message is clear: get on board with political correctness or lose your job. Like most Christians, Lt. Commander Wes Modder knew the military was changing. But he didn't know how much until the battle landed on his doorstep. For years, Modder had served some of the most elite fighting forces in the military: Navy SEALs.

"I say "had," because the 19-year veteran has been stripped of his duties for sharing the good news he was hired to share. In a stunning turn of events, the chaplain was sabotaged by one of his own men, who secretly gathered enough information on Modder's beliefs and private counseling sessions to file a formal complaint. Believe it or not, he was targeted by his own assistant -- who Modder didn't realize was gay. Looking back, the chaplain says the young officer asked a lot of questions about homosexuality, which Modder answered as most would expect: in accordance with the Bible's teachings." . . .

Hat tip to Joy Roeder; Garibaldi, OR

Alan Caruba: Obama's Legacy of Failure

Warning Signs

"Is it too soon to begin to sum up President Obama’s “legacy”? Possibly, but after six years we know enough to draw some conclusions.

. . .

"It is clear that Obama has virtually no interest in foreign affairs, preferring to tell lies about Islamic terrorism and to ignore Russia’s seizure of Crimea and its support of insurgents in eastern Ukraine. Instead he has devoted most of his time, when not vacationing and playing golf, to his domestic agenda. It has proven to be a failure.

"The failure of ObamaCare, introduced with a series of lies, is the most dramatic feature of his legacy. " . . .

. . .

"We can, however, as Obama’s term of office recedes with every passing day, know that his “transformation” of America into a socialist state will end in failure. When gone, whoever replaces him will have a huge job of reestablishing America as the leader of the free world."

Read the entire article

Black Mob Violence Spreads as the President Preaches Victimization in Selma

American Thinker   "The President celebrated black victimization at his recent speech in Selma, but around the rest of the country, black people were making the successful transition from victim to predator.

"Within a few days of the President’s Selma speech, black mob violence and black on white crime proceeded apace, much of it on video. None of it acknowledged as racial violence in local media.

. . . "Many of the examples of black mob violence in suburban D.C. malls are documented in that scintillating best seller, Don’t Make the Black Kids Angry: The hoax of black victimization and those who enable it."

Hillary Clinton’s deleted e-mails? Almost certainly.

Washington Post

. . . "But, we wondered, what are the odds any of those 31,000 deleted e-mails would be found if the server is turned over? So we called We Recover Data, a straightforwardly named outfit in New York City, and spoke to engineering supervisor Tom Hakim and director of digital forensics Scott Gibbs. We asked them to consider the setup, which appears to be a boxrunning Windows Server 2008 and using Microsoft Exchange as its e-mail system, neither of which is unusual, and both of which were probably in place at the outset.

"Gibbs felt confident that an examination would turn up something. "If I had to put a percentage of success on this, it would be anywhere from 90 to 95 percent successful typically," he said, referring to finding those e-mails. That is: "If no other steps were taken to go in and otherwise make the data inaccessible." . . .

The Federalism Fallacy in King v. Burwell

A new interpretation claims to protect the states, but would actually hurt them.

dailysignal.com/

Politico  "Last Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in King v. Burwell, the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The case centers on a provision of Obamacare that authorizes federal tax subsidies for individuals only if they purchase health insurance through an “Exchange established by the State.” If an individual purchases insurance through a federal-run exchange (in the event that the state opts out of setting up its own exchange), can she still qualify for Obamacare subsidies? The Obama administration says yes; the King plaintiffs say no.

"A great deal is at stake here. If the plaintiffs win, individuals in 34 states—the states that have opted not to operate a state insurance exchange—will still be subject to Obamacare’s individual mandate, but they won’t qualify for federal tax subsidies." . . . Read more...

Earlier this week, we ran a Q&A with Heritage experts Ed Haislmaier and Andrew Kloster about the King v. Burwell case, which was heard by the Supreme Court Wednesday:

FORMER DOJ FOI EXPERT OF 26 YEARS SAYS HILLARY IS TOTALLY IN THE WRONG

THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS. Entire post quoted below:

News conference 'grossly misleading' 

Hillary Clinton's defenders say she's sufficiently explained why she set up a do-it-yourself home email system when she was secretary of state, insist there's nothing to see here, and it's time to move on. 

You know who disagrees? 

The senior-most freedom-of-information official in the executive branch of the United States government for over a quarter-century, whose job it was to help four administrations — including the Clinton White House — interpret the Freedom of Information Act, offer advice, and testify before Congress on their behalf. 

Daniel Metcalfe doesn't buy her explanation. In fact, he calls it laughable. 

"What she did was contrary to both the letter and the spirit of the law," says Metcalfe, the founding director of the Justice Department's Office of Information and Privacy, which advised the rest of the administration on how to comply with the law. Metcalfe ran the office from 1981 to 2007. 

"There is no doubt that the scheme she established was a blatant circumvention of the Freedom of Information Act, atop the Federal Records Act." 

Metcalfe says he doesn't have any partisan axe to grind. He's a registered Democrat, through steadfastly non-partisan. He says he was embarrassed to work for George W. Bush and his attorney general, and left government for American University, where he now teaches government information law and policy.

Clinton was required to sign document claiming she turned over emails in 2013

BARACK OBAMA: A MAN FOR THE AGES!

Ann Coulter  "Everyone says President Obama is a feckless commander, weak in statecraft, especially compared to the great leaders of the Western world, such as Reagan and Churchill. 

"I believe this does Obama a great injustice. It's so easy to react the way a great leader would. Sure, Obama could have left a small contingent of American troops in Iraq, preserved America's victory, and prevented the entire region from collapsing into chaos and terror. He could have refrained from issuing empty "red line" threats to Syria. He could call ISIS "Islamic." But anybody could do that -- even ISIS calls itself "Islamic." (Note for scholars: That's what the first "I" stands for.) 

"These are the obvious answers. Obama could do it, too. But let me hasten to add: Those guys -- unlike Obama -- never won a Nobel Peace Prize. The genius of Obama is that he takes a much more nuanced view of the world. 

"Rather than lament that Reagan, Churchill and other great men aren't our leaders in this increasingly dangerous world, we should really be lamenting that Obama wasn't in charge in their day. " . . .Read the full article

http://www.wnd.com/2015/03/neville-in-the-mirror/

Let us not sell Chamberlain too short. In the end, and too late for millions, he saw the true nature  of his enemy and it was he who declared war on Germany after Hitler ignored the red line set by the British. However the judgement passed on him by Winston Churchill was biting and immortal:

 “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.”

 "Churchill’s remark after Chamberlain returned from signing the Munich pact with Hitler"

Iran Declares Pre-emptive Victory in Nuke Talks

Washington Free Beacon  "Iran’s foreign minister and chief negotiator in nuclear talks with the West declared victory for his country, stating that no matter how the negotiations end, Tehran has come out “the winner,” according to remarks made on Tuesday and presented in the country’s state-run press.

"Javad Zarif, the Islamic Republic’s foreign minister, stated in remarks before the country’s powerful Assembly of Experts, which recently installed a hardline new cleric as its leader, that the nuclear negotiations have established Tehran as a global power broker." . 

. .

How the Obama-Sharpton Alliance Began

NRO

"Near the end of 2007, Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett met with Al Sharpton in New York City and began to cement a relationship that would eventually make the inflammatory activist the president’s “go-to man” on race, according to multiple sources.

"The backdrop to the incipient Obama-Sharpton alliance was the then-senator’s 2008 presidential campaign, which still hadn’t locked away the black vote, and the political cross-currents created by two other controversial reverends, Jesse Jackson and Jeremiah Wright.

"That tentative relationship has now grown into a full-blown partnership that has vastly increased the once-shunned Sharpton’s influence and prestige and elevated him into a key White House ally at a time of heightened tension over policing and race." . . . 

Al Sharpton Empowered   "Eric Holder’s legacy: Enabling Sharpton’s “I have a scheme” civil-rights agenda"