Iraq then and now: Bush was right, and Obama was wrong

comicallyincorrect.com

Silvio Canto, Jr.  "We recall this week the 13th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War II.  It's a moment to reflect on a decision that still looks correct to me a decade later.

The first question we should ask is, what if President George W. Bush had not invaded Iraq?   

"The problem is that we always know what did happen as a result of a war, but we will never know what didn't happen.

"What if President Bush had not made the decision?  Let me suggest this scenario:   

1. Saddam Hussein would have become a bigger threat to the region and the U.S.  Saddam Hussein had clearly come to the conclusion that the West would not stop him and was acting as such. 

2. Iraq would have continued shooting at U.S. and U.K. planes enforcing U.N. resolutions.  How many times do you allow someone to fire missiles at your aircraft without interpreting it as an act of war?

3. What about Israel?  Saddam was not a friend of Israel.  What would the Middle East look like with Iraq and Iran threatening Israel?  Maybe Iran and Iraq would have gone to war again.  Or maybe they would have attacked Israel.  We do know today that Iraq won't be attacking Israel, nor does it have WMDs to threaten its neighbors.  We can thank President Bush for that.

"Yes, Bush's critics need to answer one simple question: what if Bush had not invaded Iraq?

"So far, I have not heard anyone explain to me how the region would have been better if we had left Saddam in power.  All I hear is that we lost 4,400 men and lots of treasure.  Yes, that's a serious cost, especially since one of my fellow ushers at church lost a son in Iraq.    

"Or they say "knowing what we know now," a silly question at best.  Leaders don't make decisions that way.  They have to make a call based on what we knew then.  What we knew in September 2001 is that the Twin Towers had been brought down, Saddam Hussein was behaving very badly, and no one wanted a nuclear 9/11.

"It's very easy to say that nothing would have had happened.  We knew Saddam's intentions to push his weight around the region.  If Americans have learned anything since 9/11, it is that when people say they intend to kill you, please take them seriously.

"The second question is, what if President Obama had left a force in Iraq in 2011 to protect our gains?  This is a more relevant question, and the Middle East is Exhibit A of what our retreat accomplished.

"For the moment, President Bush gets all of the criticism about Iraq, and President Obama gets a free pass from friendly media.  Over time, it will change, and President Bush will get credit for leadership, and President Obama will be blamed for retreating and forcing his successor to have to go back in." 

Oops! CNN accidentally confirms story that Brit intell passed along Trump communications to Obama admin

Thomas Lifson  "Lawyers are trained never to ask a question of a witness if they don’t already know the answer. But it is quite different in journalism – at least in principle, if the principle is getting at the truth. But alas, in these days of fake news and fanatical dead-ender opposition to President Trump, those MSM TV networks committed to driving Trump from office might want to consider retraining for their talking heads. Make them more like lawyers and avoid embarrassnents like that suffered by CNN’s Brian Stelter.

"Courtesy of Grabien, here is a disastrous interview in which the guest, Larry Johnson, confirmed the story that Judge Andrew Napolitano told on-air about British intelligence passing along surveillance data involving the Trump administration." . . .

"Here is the rush transcript:

STELTER: “Let me ask you about this thing.”
JOHNSON: “Sure.”
STELTER: “So my sense is that on Monday, Napolitano says this on TV, he says he has Intel sources who believe this is true. You’re saying you were one of those sources, but you didn’t know Napolitano was going to use you like that?”
JOHNSON: “What happened was I communicated, when Donald Trump tweeted what he did Saturday two weeks ago, the next day I was interviewed on Russia today. I had known about the fact that the British, through ghcq were information back channel, this was not at the behest of Barack Obama, let’s be clear about that. But it was done with the full knowledge of people like John Brennan and Jake clapper. Two people I flow within the intelligence community in January, they were very concerned about this because they saw it as an unfair meddling in the politics, but it was a way to get around the issue of American intelligence agencies not collecting.”
STELTER: “To be clear, you have this secondhand? So you didn’t get this information directly, you’re hearing from others.
JOHNSON: “I’m hearing it from people who are in a position to know, that’s correct.”

Trump’s Wiretap Allegation Was a Self-Inflicted Wound

The White House is quickly discovering that the rest of the government won’t back up any old accusation the president levels.

National Review  "Can a bombshell be completely expected? Testifying in front of Congress this morning, FBI Director James Comey said he has seen no evidence to support President Trump’s accusation, first leveled weeks ago on Twitter, that the Obama administration wiretapped Trump Tower during the 2016 general election: “We don’t have any information that supports those tweets,” he declared flatly. 

"By refusing, over and over again, to back down from Trump’s original, farfetched charge, his administration has inflicted a lot of completely unnecessary damage upon itself, and even upon the so-called special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. This is what happens when the White House prioritizes winning the daily news cycle above all else. This is the natural result of an amazingly shortsighted approach to governing. 

"Recall that all this began, as so many Trump controversies do, with an early morning tweet:" . . .

Was Chelsea Clinton's new book, She Persisted, inspired by Paula Jones?

Ed Straker  "Chelsea Clinton has written (or at least someone has written) a new book calledShe Persisted about great people in history who didn't give up – as long as they weren't men.  You have to wonder what the inspiration for this book was (besides money).

Some thoughts:

1) Do you think Chelsea was moved by the story of Paula Jones?  Ms. Jones accused Chelsea's dad, Bill Clinton, of sexually assaulting her.  Mr. and Mrs. Clinton assaulted Jones's character, but she sued and settled for $850,000 from the Clintons.  She persisted!2) If Chelsea had written a biographical account of her father's sexual conquests, do you think instead of "She Persisted" it would have been entitled "She Resisted"?  If she did write the book about President Clinton, do you think it would have been most appropriately done as a pop-up book for kids?3) If Chelsea had written the book about her mother, do you think it might have been entitled "She Persisted (but not in Michigan, Ohio, or Wisconsin)"?4) Do you think Chelsea will have read the book's contents before it is published?5) Below is what is allegedly a photo of Chelsea as well as a photo of a young Princess Leia from Rogue One.  Can you guess which photo is computer-generated (CGI)?

6) If you put the photo of Chelsea in front of a brick wall and come back two hours later, will the brick wall have two holes bored through it?7) Can we ever expect Chelsea to write a book that will have men in it?8) How many of the female "she persisted" stories do you think will feature Muslim women?9) I noticed that Hillary Clinton is not featured in the book, which is about "13 women who changed the world."  Do you think Mrs. Clinton could have been in the book if it had been about "13 women who almost changed the world"?

Endquote.

'Toon-worthy Maddow has been pretty well mocked over her, well, fake news Trump report

She has delivered the Motherlode to political cartoonists. Sure, the TW is overblowing the subject, but there is so much fun material it is a regret to pass over it.

. . . Rachel Maddow’s much-hyped big tease of “Trump’s tax returns.“ . . . "Despite the massive buildup, Maddow’s report was one long-winded conspiracy theory-filled presentation that ultimately regurgitated what the Trump White House had already revealed — that the President paid the IRS $38 million in taxes in 2005."

"It’s not MY fault that the public went into a frenzy. THEY overhyped it. Not me."

“Because I have information about the president doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily a scandal,” she said. “It doesn’t mean that it’s damning information. If other people leapt to that conclusion without me indicating that it was, that hype is external to what we did.” —AP

"Her AUDIENCE over-hyped it? MSNBC had a COUNTDOWN clock!" . . .

Mocked in social media . . . "Instead of getting right to her big scoop about a 2005 Trump tax return she obtained, Maddow opened her show with a rambling 20-minute rant outlining her often tangential theories regarding Trump’s connections to Russia.

"Maddow did not unveil the relevant tax documents until 23 minutes into the show, revealing that Donald Trump had made more than $150 million in income in 2005 and paid $38 million in income taxes that year."

Maddow’s big nothingburger

. . . "You knew what you had was a couple of pages of a 12 year-old 1040, but you claimed “We’ve got Trump tax returns. Tonight, 9pm ET. MSNBC. (Seriously).” You knew David Cay Johnston, a partisan scribbler from the left wing blog The Daily Beast, was a hack, but you presented him like he was Woodward and you were Bernstein." . . .

Liberals Are So Desperate To Take Down Trump They’re Paying Thousands For Fake Docs

Well, as Bubba said to Forrest Gump, "...That's about it."

Plaintiff behind Trump travel ban runs Muslim Brotherhood ...

WND

Imam Ismail Elshikh, a native of Egypt, leads a Muslim Brotherhood-tied mosque in Honolulu, Hawaii, and
 claims he is suffering ‘irreparable harm’ by President Trump’s temporary travel ban.

. . . "The irony is hard to miss: Trump has talked about declaring the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, and now it is a Brotherhood-backed imam who is playing a key role in blocking his executive order on immigration.

"Imam Ismail Elshikh, 39, leads the largest mosque in Hawaii and claims he is suffering “irreparable harm” from the president’s executive order, which places a 90-day ban on travel to the U.S. from six countries.

"One of those six countries is Syria. Elshikh’s mother in law is Syrian and would not be able to visit her family in Hawaii for 90 days if Trump’s ban were allowed to go into effect.

"Hawaii’s Obama-appointed federal judge, Derrick Watson, made sure the ban did not go into effect, striking it down Wednesday while buying Hawaii’s claim that it amounts to a “Muslim ban.” The state’s attorney general, along with co-plaintiff Elshikh, claims the ban would irreparably harm the state’s tourism industry and its Muslim families." . . .

His mosque has about 5000 members.

We're not laughing at Rachael Maddow; we're laughing WITH her.

The real world of Obamacare repeal

Charles Krauthammer  "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, but for governments it’s not that easy. Once something is given — say, health insurance coverage to 20 million Americans — you take it away at your peril. This is true for any government benefit, but especially for health care. There’s a reason not one Western democracy with some system of national health care has ever abolished it.

"The genius of the left is to keep enlarging the entitlement state by creating new giveaways that are politically impossible to repeal. For 20 years, Republicans railed against the New Deal. Yet, when they came back into office in 1953, Eisenhower didn’t just keep Social Security, he expanded it.

"People hated Obamacare for its highhandedness, incompetence and cost. At the same time, its crafters took great care to create new beneficiaries and new expectations. Which makes repeal very complicated." . . .

Obama's legacy

The mentee of America-hating Bill Ayers and the white-america-hating Jeremiah Wright left behind all we who voted against Barack Obama expected. TD

What the Obama era's memorial to veterans looks like  . . . "Rosebrock is set to stand trial with his co-defendant: the American flag.  Obama's VA took a swing at this veteran for displaying national flag, and as a result, Old Glory will have to prove it is not "a placard."

"So after decades of unmasking corruption and cronyism, Captain Rosebrock has "finally" committed a "crime" so serious that he is threatened with six months in jail?  Betcha local swamp dwellers would prefer to commemorate Bob with a golden statue, too, to dealing with him alive and kicking. 

"What is the final message of Obama's VA to American veterans about this flag trial?  "You will be jailed if you love your Old Placard"?" . . .

conservatoons

U.S. airlines flee Castro's island hellhole  . . ."Doing business in Cuba is so dodgy and money-losing that just doing it now involves reputational risk, according to Control Risks consultancy.

"No wonder airlines don't want to be there – the U-turn they are making is rather visible.  And they are not alone.  According to the FT:

... about 60 per cent of the businesses established here by foreigners since the fall of communism in eastern Europe have closed, according to government statistics. Some of them – analysts and diplomats say – were forced out by the Cuban government.

"What a dump. Best thing out there is to just say no to the hellhole so touted by President Obama."

whatdidyousay.org

President Trump should abandon his predecessor’s feckless policy toward the Castro regime  . . . "It is precisely a continuation of Obama’s feckless Cuba policy that would help lock the Cuban people into a North Korean–style dynasty. President Trump would do well to explore a different path, a more principled stand, on behalf of democracy and human rights, that would empower the Cuban people and give them more opportunities than merely the opportunity to persevere."

Russian Cartoons On Obama’s Legacy  The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) published Russian Cartoons addressing President Obama’s legacy.  

"The following are cartoons published in pro-Kremlin media outlets on U.S. President Barack Obama’s legacy and future after the U.S. elections. The cartoons envision Obama inter alia working as a waiter at McDonald’s and as a pizza delivery, once his term of office as U.S. president expires."

. . . "Caption: What will Obama work at after he retires from office?"

Choice No. 1: A waiter at McDonald’sChoice No.2: A gangster Choice No.3: A poker playerChoice No.4: A farmer

Suppose the Russians know who Joe Wilson is? 

Much more here.

Parts of Los Angeles ethnically cleansed of white people have a new look

Ed Straker

"The heavily Hispanic neighborhood of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles declared victory recently when they managed to drive a "white" art gallery from the neighborhood.  Community groups have been battling to drive out art galleries out of fear of "gentrification," the code word for white people. 

Almost from the moment it opened its doors last year Pssst, a nonprofit gallery, and its creators, have been the focus of protests and criticism on social media.

Last month, they announced they could no longer tolerate it. They were closing up shop.

"This persistent targeting, which was often highly personal in nature, was made all the more intolerable because the artists we engaged are queer, women, and/or people of color," they said on their website. "We could no longer continue to put already vulnerable communities at further risk."

Defend Boyle Heights, one of the activist groups that has called for a boycott of the galleries, said that it considered the closing a victory and that it hoped other galleries would soon follow suit." 

 . . . "Questions for discussion:

1) Having driven out the art gallery, do you think Latinos will come to regret losing a convenient source of "queer art"?

2) Can a "queer art" gallery coexist with check-cashing places and taco trucks?

3) How come businesses in English-speaking neighborhoods don't have bars on their windows?  Is this a cultural thing?

4) Do you think residents of Boyle Heights were right to be alarmed about what an influx of white people might do to their beautiful neighborhood?

Rachel Maddow Blames Her Viewers For Her Tax Reveal Dud

Van Jones: Tax Return Leak a ‘Good Night for Donald Trump’   "The White House soon preemptively released Trump's 2005 taxes ahead of Maddow, showing that the president earned $153 million and paid $36.5 million in income taxes that year."

Weasel Zippers
"How dare the viewers assume that she had anything important given this breathless tweet:" . . .

From MRCTV:  "If only it'd been true.

"What Maddow and the fine folks over at MSNBC actually managed to do was get part of a copy of Trump’s 2005 tax return. Which was already 12 years old. And which the White House had already released.

"And which the Wall Street Journal had already reported on – a year ago.

"Needless to say, the Twittersphere wasn’t all too happy as Maddow droned on...and on...and on during her open monologue, bashing Trump (and throwing out all manner of random, unsubstantiated speculations regarding his finances) without actually giving anyone any new information. Here are a few of the best reactions we found from the less-than-enthused:" . . .

When Obama Compared Slaves to Immigrants, He Got Applause; Carson Gets Called 'Uncle Tom'

Larry Elder



"Dr. Ben Carson, in a speech before employees of Housing and Urban Development, the department he now runs, likened slaves to "immigrants": "That's what America is about, a land of dreams and opportunity. There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder, for less. But they, too, had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great­grandsons, great­granddaughters, might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land." 
"Carson got hammered." . . .
. . . 
"Why the silence over Obama's many slave­equals­immigrant comments versus the desk pounding by the same critics when Carson says the same thing? Carson represents an existential threat to the left. He is deadly to their cause ­­ a black man, raised in poverty by a hardworking, welfare­abstaining single mom who taught her children to embrace hard work and education. The left believes that blacks are perpetual victims of slavery, Jim Crow and racism. It is vital for the existence of the Democratic Party to convince blacks to vote like victims in need of protection from the racist, sexist retrogrades known as Republicans. So black conservatives like Carson, who argues that welfare creates dependency, who demands choice in K­12 education and who believes hard work wins, must be attacked, marginalized and dismissed as "against their own people."