During remarks before a group of Southeast Asian leaders visiting the White House today, the president told what some are calling “the lie of the century.”
“One of my core principles is that I will never engage in a politics in which I’m trying to divide people,” Obama told the group with a straight face.
This president has based his entire career — from his community organizing days to his time in the White House — on the politics of division.
Employing the Alinsky model,Obama has established a long track record of “rubbing raw the resentments of the people” and exploiting divisions on class, race, ethnicity, and sex. By the Spring of 2012, Charles Krauthammer had dubbed him “the Divider In Chief.”
. . . "Discover the Networks has
an extensive compilation of Obama’s tendency to pit populations and
interests against each other for political gain. This tendency to fan
the flames of division has been an unhealthy scourge on the nation for
six and a half years.
This president has told a lot of lies throughout his tenure, but this
one has to be his “most in your face” and obnoxious whopper yet." . . .
If climate change were a true enemy of the United States, President
Obama would extend a hand of peace, or declare victory and go home.
Rich Lowry at NRO"President Barack Obama is less than stalwart in the fight against
ISIS and doesn’t seem overly concerned about Vladimir Putin’s predation
in Ukraine or China’s aggression in the South China Sea. It is the fight
against climate change, an allegedly dire threat to the nation’s
security, that brings out his inner Churchill.
In remarks at the Coast Guard Academy commencement, Obama pledged his
undying hostility to climate change and his determination to fight it on
the beaches and in the fields.
""He called it “one of the most severe
threats” we face and “an immediate risk to our national security.”
President Obama is to climate change what Cato the Elder was to
Carthage.
"He hailed the Coast Guard for building more fuel-efficient cutters,
and the Marines for deploying with portable solar panels. It was one of
the most insipid calls to arms ever made by an American
commander-in-chief, and there is unlikely to be much competition until
President Elizabeth Warren rallies the U.S. Navy against income
inequality." Full article
What is wrong with Democrats?. . . "Regulations and the overseers who impose them on us add to my misery, as do tax forms that are needlessly complicated and filled with loopholes that the rich can afford to exploit. I find the fruits of our labor are harvested and enjoyed by others. "I see the Constitution trampled to advance agendas I do not share. Free speech is all too often rejected as “hate speech” while watchers for “trigger words” are all too ready to censor the speech of others. "I see unions corrupt politics and teachers’ unions protect their interests and the future of their pensions over protecting the future of our children we place in their care. The work ethic is being eviscerated. People who build things are derided by President Obama as having not built things or dismissed as “lottery winners.” Doctors do not heal, they are greedy people who yank out tonsils and lop off legs solely for profit -- or so says the Democrats’ leader, Barack Obama, and the Democrats who cheer him. People who work in finance are “fat cats” and “one- percenters” who must be “toppled” -- or so sayeth the one percent of one percenter, Hillary Clinton, probably the most hypocritical person in America. Why do Democrats worship her? "So I have come to just throw my hands in the air and ask, “What is wrong with Democrats?” Let’s begin the inquiry.". . . Read more:
. . . "In fact, Hillary can’t fire up enough enthusiasm to find 125 women for a
fundraiser — in New York City. At the last minute, organizers had to
expand access to men after only 50 women bought tickets for the max-contribution event … but Jazz had more on that earlier today, so you already know that." . . .
"They haven’t forgotten. For 70 years, the Dutch have come to a verdant U.S. cemetery outside this small village to care for the graves of Americans killed in World War II. "On Sunday, they came again, bearing Memorial Day bouquets for men and women they never knew, but whose 8,300 headstones the people of the Netherlands have adopted as their own. "For the American relatives of the fallen, it was an outpouring of gratitude almost as stunning as the rows of white marble crosses and Jewish Stars of David at the Netherlands American Cemetery. Each grave has been adopted by a Dutch or, in some cases, Belgian or German family, as well as local schools, companies and military organizations. More than 100 people are on a waiting list to become caretakers." . . .
..... . . . "Roebroeks’s 84-year-old mother, Gerda Roebroeks-Nelissen, keeps a photo of one American soldier, Ohioan Henry Wolf, on a mantelpiece by a lit candle. Wolf and a few other soldiers stayed with her family after the liberation, when she was 13 years old. “ 'For my father, Henry was like a child of his,” she remembered. "He was devastated after Wolf was killed in Germany on June 11, 1945. The private’s body was brought back to Margraten, where he was buried in Plot K, Row 2, Grave 22. Roebroeks-Nelissen’s family has cared for Wolf’s grave ever since." . . .
Some silent footage of the 1945 Memorial Day events.
Now, many Dutch adopters can find a soldier’s next-of-kin through
Ancestory.com. In the United States, relatives of soldiers seeking their
Dutch adopters often contact the American World War II Orphans Network, which organizes periodic trips to the cemetery.
"West of town there is a British Army cemetery. Probably on the DZ's.
"A little piece of England" as the story goes. Unlike the beautiful
golf course lawns of the American locations, this was like a UK country
Church cemetery, down to the black wrought iron fence and the
individualized headstones with inscription by the families.all good... "Next to it was the cemetery of the 1st Polish Para Brigade. Run down
and forgotten. For those who don't know, there were London Poles and
Moscow Poles and the Red Army installed Moscow Poles in Warsaw. Any
London Poles foolish enough to return after the war went to the Gulag,
in a later day Katyn Forest. And of course, the Polish families could
not visit the West. "Brave Men, who died fighting Nazi's, but who ended up on the wrong side of the cold war."
"Bill Clinton is reported Friday to have accepted donations from FIFA on behalf of the Clinton Foundation while he was lobbying FIFA to allow the U.S. to host the World Cup tournament. Let's just enjoy him while we can. It's a little late in life to be asking Bill Clinton to reject an international body.
"Bill Clinton accepted a five hundred thousand dollar fee from a small charity called Happy Hearts last year. It raises money for Indonesian kids victimized by the tsunami. He gave the half million to the Clinton Foundation, which raises money for Arkansas kids victimized by the vast right- wing conspiracy.
"Hillary Clinton's campaign revealed she'll announce for president at a rally next week in New York. She'll kick off the day by giving an interview to George Stephanopoulos of ABC News. The announcement was made by Hillary Clinton's press spokesman, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News." . . .Comedian Argus Hamilton
DEBKAfile"The Iraqi army, for its part, has been virtually wiped out,
along with the many billions of dollars the US spent on training and
weapons. There is no longer any military force in Iraq, whether Sunni or
Shiite, able to take on ISIS and loosen its grip on the central and
western regions.
"The Kurdish peshmerga army, to whom President Barack
refused to provide armaments for combating the Islamists, has run out of
steam. An new offensive would expose the two main towns of the
semi-autonomous Kurdish Republic – the capital Irbil and the oil city of
Kirkuk – to the depredations of the Islamist belligerents."
. . .
"The Obama administration can no longer pretend that the pro-Iranian
Shiite militias are the panacea for the ISIS peril. Like Assad, Tehran
too is being forced to regroup. It is abandoning the effort to uproot
the Islamists from central and western Iraq and mustering all its Shiite
military assets, such as the Badr Brigade, to defend the Shiite south -
the shrine towns of Najef and Karbala, Babil (ancient Babylon) and
Qadisiya – as well as planting an obstacle in the path of the Islamists
to Iraq’s biggest oil fields and only port of Basra." . . .
Health insurers are proposing to raise Obamacare rates
more than in the past — some by more than 70 percent — now that they are
finally equipped with all the information they need to price those
plans. Plans wanting to raise rates by at least 10 percent next year posted
the proposed increase online Monday, as required by the 2010 healthcare
law. Insurers are allowed to raise rates each year, but they must
publish significant increases ahead of time. Insurers have sold plans in the law’s new insurance marketplaces for
two years in a row. But the difference in 2016 is that for the first
time, they have a full year of claims data from enrollees that tells
them how high or low to set the price tag. . . . While plans and rates vary by state, a look at rate increases
published Monday on healthcare.gov shows many hovering around 10 to 30
percent in many states. But there’s also a sprinkling of even bigger hikes. Blue Cross wants
to raise its most expensive “platinum” plan in Alabama by 71 percent
next year. Aetna wants to charge 59 percent more for one of its small
group plans in Virginia. Time Insurance Co. is proposing a 64 percent
hike for an individual plan in Georgia.
IBD Editorials"Economy: They must be getting pretty desperate in the White House economic shop these days. When the revised GDP numbers showed a first-quarter decline of 0.7%, they started blaming the estimates themselves.
"On the list of excuses for President Obama's ongoing failure to produce decent economic growth, we hadn't heard this one: A "seasonal adjustment" problem at the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which compiles the GDP estimates.
"White House chief economist Jason Furman says that, despite its seasonal adjustments, the BEA might not be accurately accounting for the effect of winter weather on growth."
This next bit of ingenious snark may hit much closer to the way things could actually be. Whoever did this is as good as the people who do the "Hitler finds out..." videos. TD
George Will "Commencement season brings a respite from the sinister childishness rampant on campuses. Attacks on freedom of speech come from the professoriate, that herd of independent minds, and from the ever-thickening layer of university administrators who keep busy constricting freedom in order to fine-tune campus atmospherics.
"The attacks are childish because they infantilize students who flinch from the intellectual free-for-all of adult society. When Brown University’s tranquility of conformity was threatened by a woman speaker skeptical about the “rape culture” on campuses, students planned a “safe space” for those who would be traumatized by exposure to skepticism. Judith Shulevitz, writing in the New York Times, reported that the space had “cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies.”
"The attack on free expression is sinister because it asserts that such freedom is not merely unwise but, in a sense, meaningless." . . .Read more
Chris Rock Explains Why He Doesn’t Want to Perform on College Campuses . . . " Just as college campuses are meant to be “marketplaces of ideas”
generally, they should be places where comedians and other performers
are especially able to play with new acts. It’s disappointing to see
that this is not so, and that the atmosphere for freedom of speech and
comedy in particular on campuses has gotten bad enough that noted
comedians are avoiding student audiences altogether. That is a real loss
for them—after all, everybody could use a laugh." . . .
Rand Paul Slams Establishment Republicans, Declares Victory Over NSA . . . “The president has been told in no uncertain terms—and by the end of the week this will be in writing—that he can no longer illegally collect all of Americans’ phone records and keep them in Utah,” Paul said." . . .
Legal Insurrection
"Yesterday, I posed the conundrum of Rand Paul as an investment for major donors. From my perspective, the ratio of risk to reward tilts too heavily toward the former, and is a major cause of Paul’s fundraising troubles. I floated the idea that, contrary to some commentary from the pro-Paul camp, these troubles aren’t necessarily due to policy differences, but are a direct result of just how different Paul is from other candidates on a personal level.
"One of my commenters decided to keep it 150% more real when he said, Let me make this simple–he’s a jerk.
. . .
"Yesterday, Paul proved just how true that platitude rings when he accused his colleagues and peers on the Hill of “secretly wanting there to be an attack on the United States” out of spite over policy differences.
(Emphasis mine)
. . . "People here in town think I’m making a huge mistake. Some of them, I think, secretly want there to be an attack on the United States so they can blame it on me.
"Seriously, man?"
. . . "I’ve heard a lot of garbage come out of the mouths of politicians, but nothing—literally nothing—pisses me off more than an “I bet you hope everyone DIES” tantrum.
I
"t’s lazy. It’s cheap. It detracts from your point—which I can’t imagine he would want unless achieving a Constitutionally-friendly method of conducting surveillance wasn’t really the point of this whole thing."
We've had to put up with Obama's straw-man attacks for six years, and now this?
"Seems like Rand Paul always goes too far. He could have made a perfectly respectable argument that the NSA’s metadata program is illegal because it exceeds the Patriot Act’s authority. Instead he speciously insists that the Patriot Act shreds the Fourth Amendment and the program is akin to Nixon-era “domestic spying.”
"He could also have made a perfectly respectable — I would say, irrefutable — argument that there was strong bipartisan support for some reckless policies that significantly contributed to the rise of the Islamic State — the jihadist organization that now controls much of Iraq and Syria. Instead, the Kentucky Republican speciously claims that “hawks” in his own party “created” ISIS.
"ISIS is a creation of Islamic-supremacist ideology, which is drawn directly from Muslim scripture. Part of the reason that Senator Paul is no improvement over the Republicans he often derides is that he is just as wrong as they are about the threat we face.
" In their infatuation with Muslim engagement, Beltway Republicans imagine a monolithic, smiley-face Islam — a “religion of peace” that seamlessly accommodates Western liberalism . . . except where it has been “hijacked” by “violent extremists.” Indeed, long before President Obama came along, it was the Bush administration that endeavored to purge terms like “jihadism” from our lexicon, even assuring us: “The fact is that Islam and secular democracy are fully compatible — in fact, they can make each other stronger.” Read more
This is not materially different from the “blame America first”
cast of mind that Jeanne Kirkpatrick diagnosed and Barack Obama
instantiates. Nor is it far from the mindset that blames Pamela Geller
or Charlie Hebdo when Islamists respond to mere taunts with lethal
violence — as if sharia gives Muslims a special mayhem dispensation that
American law must accommodate.
"West of town there is a British Army cemetery. Probably on the DZ's. "A little piece of England" as the story goes. Unlike the beautiful golf course lawns of the American locations, this was like a UK country Church cemetery, down to the black wrought iron fence and the individualized headstones with inscription by the families.all good...
"Next to it was the cemetery of the 1st Polish Para Brigade. Run down and forgotten. For those who don't know, there were London Poles and Moscow Poles and the Red Army installed Moscow Poles in Warsaw. Any London Poles foolish enough to return after the war went to the Gulag, in a later day Katyn Forest. And of course, the Polish families could not visit the West.
"Brave Men, who died fighting Nazi's, but who ended up on the wrong side of the cold war."