Mr. Obama, funny you don't look Jewish

Obama’s Cynical Synagogue Speech  " President Obama’s speech a week and a half ago at Washington D.C. synagogue Adas Israel was alternatively promoted as both an opportunity to address the scourge of anti-semitism, and a chance to reach out to American Jews. The speech did nothing to advance either goal and was tone-deaf to any Jews, or Americans for that matter, who don’t buy into the president’s foreign policy."

 

 What kind of Jew is President Obama?     "Mr. Obama is a frustrated man: "Obama's close advisor David Axelrod ... recalled Obama venting in a moment of contemplation, telling him, 'You know, I think I am the closest thing to a Jew* that has ever sat in this office. For people to say that I am anti-Israel, or, even worse,  anti-Semitic, it hurts.'"

"Clearly, Mr. Obama, while perhaps "the closest thing to a Jew," is not sufficiently Jewish to know that a Jew is a thing that comes in many forms. 

"Isn't a member of J Street a Jew?  Of course – a Jew who condemns Israel for engaging in self-defense, and demands that Israelis do not respond to rockets fired at them from Gaza. 

"Isn't a member of Jewish Voice for Peace a Jew?  Yes – a Jew belonging to the organization designated by the Anti-Defamation League as one of the top 10 anti-Israel groups in the U.S.     

"Any such self-hating Jew is undeniably a Jew – but what's the use? 

"What good is a Jew who is, to quote Mr. Obama, "anti-Israel, or, even worse, anti-Semitic"?
And what good does it do to Israel and the Jews to have in the White House the "next thing" to such a Jew?"

* remember Henry Kissinger?

The "Lie of the Century"

http://terrellaftermath.com/

 Divider in Chief: ‘I Will Never Engage in a Politics in Which I’m Trying to Divide People…’ 

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.”

Bing

 . . . "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." . . .

.... Read more...

The Alarmist-in-Chief Rallies the Troops against Climate Change

 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

 

On Democrats

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:

Video: MSNBC panel stunned at lack of enthusiasm for coronation

. . . "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." . . .

Americans gave their lives to defeat the Nazis. The Dutch have never forgotten.

 Much appreciation for this article goes to the milblog Blackfive and their post,  Never Forgotten

WaPo

 

"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.

Please read all of this moving article.

 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.

 The Drill Sergeant posted these thoughts:   "One of the saddest sights I ever saw was near Arnhem, while touring Market Garden Locations in the late '70's.

"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."

Comedian Argus Hamilton on the Clintons

"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

No army in Mid East is challenging ISIS. Iran regroups to defend S. Iraqi Shiites, Assad to save Damascus

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." . . .

Brace yourself for Obamacare sticker shock.

 

Instapundit/ PJ Media
" BUT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO SAVE $2,500 PER YEAR!: Brace yourself for Obamacare sticker shock."

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.

"Gosh, what happened to that $2500 per year savings we were promised? Same thing that happened to the “if you like your plan/doctor, you can keep it/him.”  I think we need trigger warnings for all Obamacare-related news items, since it inevitably causes painful flashbacks of these promises.  It’s like intellectual rape over and over again."

 

As Obama's Economy Falls, White House Excuses Boom

http://terrellaftermath.com/

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."

 

 Read More At Investor's Business Daily

 

Bush did it. 

Picture how other nations respect the US under Obama

Obama’s Delusions Continue   "America has become “the most respected country on earth” under his watch!"

"Today, this sentiment is even more true.
"You may recall last week that a Fox News pundit referred to President Obama as “delusional” over his claims that climate change was a national security issue.
"Obama’s most recent statements clearly show he has left the junction of reason and sanity:"

 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

Muslim world reacts to Obama's latest speech

Hat tip to Harley Standlee; Placerville, CA

Progressivism on Campus Takes a Summer Vacation

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 

RELATED: Seven Things That Have Been Declared ‘Unsafe’ at Colleges

Face paint is one.

The word "Freshmen" is another.

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." . . .

The tyranny of political correctness.

Rand Paul Just Alienated Even More Voters

 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.

"The Daily Caller had it first. Watch:"

 (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?

Andrew McCarthy looks at the Ron Paul accusations this way:
Rand Paul Has a Point about Republicans and ISIS 

"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.