Krauthammer; In defense of Obama’s drone war

Charles Krauthammer   His main point: this is not a law-enforcement issue; it is war against those who take up arms against the US and - in case anyone cares - I fully support Mr. Obama in this regard.  But this makes one abhor all the more Obama and Holder's attempts to criminalize the Bush administration for their interrogation methods of terrorists  TD

"The nation’s vexation over the morality and legality of President Obama’s drone war has produced a salutary but hopelessly confused debate. Three categories of questions are being asked. They must be separated to be clearly understood.
Mr. Krauthammer proceeds to discuss each of the following questions in turn:
1. By what right does the president order the killing by drone of enemies abroad? What criteria justify assassination? ....
2. But Awlaki was no ordinary enemy. He was a U.S. citizen. By what right does the president order the killing by drone of an American? Where’s the due process? ....
3. Who has the authority to decide life-and-death targeting?
....
"Now, for those who believe that the war on terror is not war but law enforcement, (a) I concede that they will find the foregoing analysis to be useless and (b) I assert that they are living on a different and distant planet.
"For us earthlings, on the other hand, the case for Obama’s drone war is strong. Pity that his Justice Department couldn’t make it."

Remember who the president considers the real enemies:

 

Diming us to death

D.L. Hammack  "During the State of the Union address, as well as many other speeches he's given over the past four years, this President emphatically continues to state that his programs - his investments in America - "should not add one single dime to the deficit".
"Through tears, I watched the SOTU speech and when I heard this statement repeated once again, I was reminded of the scene in the movie Blazing Saddles during which, a posse was riding out after their man.  Coming upon a makeshift toll bridge, the posse stops.  The sheriff then yells out for "someone to go back to town and get a  $#!+  load of dimes.["]
"That, in a nutshell, is America today.  This country, and all of its spending issues, is merely a posse looking for a whole lot of dimes to get across Obama's toll bridge!"

What “medical research” will look like in the age of Obamacare

More reasons to fear today's Democrats and Obama.

Your cancer research funding at work (attacking the Tea Party)
"It is so stupid, and such an abuse of taxpayer funding, that one would have hoped it would die in the laboratory, but it was just the sort of crackpot theory to which the left-blogosphere inevitably would be drawn.  And it has.
"But since I don’t have world enough and time, I’ll quote from the post by Hans Bader (a sometimes guest contributor to Legal Insurrection and College Insurrection) at Openmarket.org, Shades Of McCarthyism: Federal Government Funds Smear Campaigns On Tea Party, Kochs:

"But Al Gore trumpets the study, relying on its taxpayer-funded status to buttress its credibility:

A new study by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institute of Medicine reveals that the Tea Party Movement was planned over a decade ago by groups with ties to the tobacco and fossil fuel industries. The movement was not a spontaneous populist uprising, but rather a long-term strategy to promote the anti-science, anti-government agenda of powerful corporate interests.

 See the demagoguery aimed at the Koch Brothers and conservatives

Some Friday Obatoons

http://terrellaftermath.com/

H2Obama   ..."All of which makes us think that simply taking a sip of water during a brilliant speech isn't much of a crime.

 Maybe the mainstream media should actually try it sometime. It could make a nice break from the president's Kool-Aid.

 

 

 

How Obama's SOTU Hid His Foreign Policy Disasters

By Barry Rubin in Yid with Lid 

“From the coalitions we’ve built to secure nuclear materials, to the missions we’ve led against hunger and disease, from the blows we’ve dealt our enemies, to the enduring power of our moral example, America is back. Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

"Think about the kind of mental construct that could produce this paragraph, which is unintentionally revealing. It shows Obama’s pattern of either refusing to acknowledge legitimate dissent (all the experts agree with me) and that he knows best (Israel doesn’t know what’s good for itself).

"Yes, Mr. President, a lot of people around the world don’t think that America is back or that it still protects their back. And they do know what they are talking about and can cite many specific examples from your administration." 

Can you tell convince us that this man is not a liar of the first magnitude? How can a press with integrity not question this man. After all, didn't they tell us during the Bush administration that it was the job of the press to be skeptical of those running the country?
I have a left-wing relative who can say only this of Obama's presidency:

It's a tired discussion. He was elected and will serve his time in office. You have you(sp) opinions. I have no interest in changing them. Thankfully for this country it is a minority opinion.

Lest Obama claim the US is respected around the world:
From Iran: Iranian Speaker: Era of US Hegemony Over 

Larijani added that today the world Muslims are standing on the threshold of great changes. He said that United States and the Zionist regime have run out of their tricks to weaken the Muslim world.
In relevant remarks in May 2012, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said that developments in the West display that the world's arrogant powers are definitely on the verge of collapse.

Just because we're paranoid since 2008 doesn't mean Obama isn't out to get us.

TheSarcasticConservative

UPDATED: Meteor explodes over Russian Urals, injuring 950 – live updates

Global climate change suspected as the cause.

UK Guardian  Regional governor reports more than 950 injured
• Dramatic pictures show meteor streaking through sky
• Unclear whether it was a single meteor or shower
• Read our latest news story on the meteor
• Read the latest blog summary
Video here. Sorry that the commercial you have to first endure is longer than the clip, but I thought it was worth the wait.

JAWA Report has several videos 

There is an asteroid passing near earth soon and this may be a part of that which broke off. 
"Given that many asteroids have large boulders held by weak gravity and also these events close proximity, I'm speculating that 2012-DA14 could have many companion objects in its orbit, possibly from a prior collision. Obviously the public statements of no danger at all were less than accurate, although we know the large asteroid will not strike Earth. Its possible there are other unknown objects."
This article says it was not related to the asteroid

MSNBC said this is caused by old, tired Republican policies. President Obama will respond to the incident as soon as his work day begins.

UPDATE: Sonic boom caused by meteorite hurtling above Russian town at 33,000mph smashes buildings and injures 1,000 people before the space rock crashes into frozen lake 
Unexpected sight: A terrifying meteorite shower left a thousand people injured, buildings devastated and the mobile network wiped out when it hit Russia this morning
More here.  And here.

Republicans in Senate block vote on Hagel

And Mr. Obama has worked so hard to cultivate friendships in the GOP

Senate Republicans block vote on Hagel nomination 
"Senate Republicans blocked a vote on Chuck Hagel’s nomination as secretary of defense on Thursday, launching an unprecedented filibuster and a severe rebuke to the White House.
"Falling one vote shy of the 60 needed to move forward on the nomination, the Hagel filibuster brought stark condemnations from President Obama and Senate Democrats for its precedent-setting nature -- the first time a defense secretary nominee had been filibustered. The setback came during what many believe is a critical period for the Pentagon as it winds down troops from Afghanistan and implements costly budget cuts.
"It was also a hard slap to a former colleague and member of the chamber."

And this next remark is pure Obama:

He added that “it’s just unfortunate that this kind of politics intrudes at a time when I’m still presiding over a war in Afghanistan and I need a secretary of defense who is coordinating with our allies” on U.S. strategy in the region.

Hagel fails to beat filibuster on day of more troubling revelations
"The Washington Free Beacon reported today about a speech Hagel gave in 2007 — as reported at the time by one of his supporters — that the State Department had become an “adjunct” to the Israeli Foreign Ministry."
"Hagel supporters are fuming, but he was a bad selection.  It’s not over, they can bring it up for another vote, but it’s time for this divisive and bad choice to step aside."

If we didn't laugh, we'd go nuts

All above: The Comical Conservative

Alan Caruba; From SOTU to SNAFU

Warning Signs

"The SOTU was yet another opportunity since 2008 to repeat that “nothing I’m proposing tonight should increase our deficit by a single dime.” I am still waiting for the mainstream media to challenge him on this, but unfortunately everyone will have to wait four years more before we don’t have to listen to it again.
...."The President’s ideological devotion to the notion that government can “fix” every problem and create job growth is a Marxist fantasy that will affect everyone’s life in the decade ahead. The sum total of the CBO projections is that socialism does not work and capitalism, when it is allowed to function, does."

Here's a real piece of work for you: Chris Matthews: Obama’s SOTU Speech Was Like Being At A Black Church 

Journalism is...

TheSarcasticConservative

Victor Davis Hanson on The Decline of America

National Review Online   Hanson writes of the post-war destruction of German industry compared with the relative British industrial survival:

 "Yet Britain missed out on the postwar German economic miracles, in part because after the deprivations of the war, the war-weary British turned to class warfare and nationalized their main industries, which soon became uncompetitive." Hanson continues:

The gradual decline of a society is often a self-induced process of trying to meet ever-expanding appetites rather than a physical inability to produce past levels of food and fuel or to maintain adequate defense. Americans have never had safer workplaces or more sophisticated medical care — and never have so many been on disability.

Hanson sums up his thoughts with these chilling words:
"By any historical marker, the future of Americans has never been brighter. The United States has it all: undreamed-of new finds of natural gas and oil, the world’s preeminent food production, continual technological wizardry, strong demographic growth, a superb military, and constitutional stability.
"Yet we don’t talk confidently about capitalizing and expanding on our natural and inherited wealth. Instead, Americans bicker over entitlement spoils as the nation continues to pile up trillion-dollar-plus deficits. Enforced equality, rather than liberty, is the new national creed. The medicine of cutting back on government goodies seems far worse than the disease of borrowing trillions from the unborn to pay for them.
"In August 1945, Hiroshima was in shambles, while Detroit was among the most innovative and wealthiest cities in the world. Contemporary Hiroshima now resembles a prosperous Detroit of 1945; parts of Detroit look like they were bombed decades ago.
"History has shown that a government’s redistribution of shrinking wealth, in preference to a private sector’s creation of new sources of it, can prove more destructive than even the most deadly enemy."Emphasis added, as you knew it would be.