Krauthammer: Emptiness at West Point (Updated)

Charles Krauthammer   "As for Obama’s interventionists, they are grotesquely described as people “who think military intervention is the only way for America to avoid looking weak” while Obama courageously refuses to believe that “every problem has a military solution.”
Name one person who does.

“ 'Why is it that everybody is so eager to use military force?” Obama recently and plaintively asked about Ukraine. In reality, nobody is. What actual earthlings are eager for is sending military assistance to Ukraine’s woefully equipped forces."

From the UK: President Barack Obama's national security flops just keep coming ; A strange obsession with setting out his national security agenda is backfiring for President Barack Obama

... "The reception for the speech was dire.

"The Washington Post declared that he had “marshaled a virtual corps of straw men,” in making an argument for an “Obama doctrine” that was at odds with every US president since the Second World War.

"Aside from the very serious real-world consequences, Obama’s foreign policy failure also has serious political consequences."
...
"And his foreign policy doctrine is unprecedented in modern America, somewhat arbitrary, ill-conceived, and utterly lacking in moral clarity. More and more, it appears he has reverse engineered a foreign policy, based primarily on doing the opposite of George W. Bush did, as opposed to overtly crafting a wise and coherent foreign policy strategy going forward."

Life in the land of the free under this oppressive administration

School Car Wash Fundraisers Banned in Virginia County  These people will not leave us alone to live our lives. 

"Charity car washes and car wash fundraisers are now banned on school property there, after the Department of Environmental Services issued new rules for stormwater and water runoff.

"The county pins the blame on the Virginia General Assembly, which approved more stringent water regulations last year."

Obama Is Bypassing Congress Again. This Time It's Going to Cost You.  " Leading the charge, unsurprisingly, is the Environmental Protection Agency, which will release its carbon-dioxide regulations for existing power plants on Monday. The plan will drive up energy prices for American families and businesses without making a dent in global temperatures."


The One Policy That Would ‘Devastate’ Restaurants...   "Puzder listed several government actions that have stymied growth in the restaurant industry: higher taxes, increasing health-care costs, rising fuel prices and an “unnavigable regulatory maze.' ”

5 Reasons Michelle Obama's School Lunch Program Is a Giant Fail  ... " But the goal of this program is not to actually lower childhood obesity. It’s to remove responsibility from parents for parenting. Kids are not fat because of school lunches, which have been available for decades. Kids are fat because of lack of parenting. And the First Lady’s insistence that she can parent in place of actual parents – with our tax dollars – is not just bound to fail but to undermine personal responsibility."

Thomas Sowell; Kangaroo Courts on Campus?  "But those who are whipping up the lynch mob mentality have shown far less interest in stopping rape than in politicizing it. Many of the politically correct crusaders are the same people who have pushed for unisex living arrangements on campus, including unisex bathrooms, and who have put condom machines in dormitories and turned freshman orientation programs into a venue for sexual "liberation" propaganda.

 "They laughed at old-fashioned restrictions designed to reduce sexual dangers among young people on campus. Now that real life experience has shown that these are not laughing matters, the politically correct still want their sexual Utopia, and want scapegoats when they don't get it."

Liberal bureaucracy rules with an iron fist

http://sago.com/2012/07/28/a-funny-look-at-obamas-you-didnt-build-that-comment/

  

Government Expands Its Power Into Hundreds of Millions of American Homes    "The government will now collect and share your most intimate financial and personal details and they will be available on yet another government database. There will be no secrets, no privacy, no Fourth Amendment for individual Americans as this database is established under the false flag of American safety and security."

 

More EPA diktats: How low will it go?    "All this, plus the EPA's estimate that the lower standard could cost businesses up to $90 billion annually, [prompts] the question: When is too much too much? When a tighter, costly pollutant rule won't enhance health but is imposed anyway — for no discernible reason but radical anti-growth politics." "Begs the question" means to avoid answering it.

Obama’s Police Force: Militarized Government Agencies

 

"It’s not enough that our government agencies have become rogue governments-within-a-government, they are now arming themselves. At the same time, Mr. Obama is decimating the military. The U.S.D.A. is the latest agency to heavily arm themselves. Can you see the problem here?"...

 

Just where in this USDA mission statement do you see a need for SWAT teams?

The Department of Agriculture works to improve and maintain farm income and to develop and expand markets abroad for agricultural products. The Department helps to curb and to cure poverty, hunger, and malnutrition. It works to enhance the environment and to maintain production capacity by helping landowners protect the soil, water, forests, and other natural resources. Rural development, credit, and conservation programs are key resources for carrying out national growth policies. Department research findings directly or indirectly benefit all Americans. The Department, through inspection and grading services, safeguards and ensures standards of quality in the daily food supply

From the EPA: Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)  (A federal bureaucracy). Why they must be feared:  New Clean Water Act rule threatens family farms   "My children will be the sixth generation on the same ranch to ride the tide of commodity price fluctuations, decades-long droughts and the rising costs of farming. As if these challenges were not enough to test one's resolve, now the EPA wants to use the Clean Water Act to make our job nearly impossible."

EPA staging a 'water grab'?

 

Competency pictured

http://liberallogic101.com/?p=11408

Fighting talk amid the shrinking of American might

Another Obama "red line"?    "Using unusually strong language, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel took aim at Beijing's handling of territorial disputes with its Asian neighbors."

Financial Times   "Obama is seeking to scale back US global responsibilities without signalling a retreat."
... "Mr Obama’s feelings on the matter may explain the uncharacteristic* gracelessness with which he sometimes criticises Mr Bush."

*"uncharacteristic"? Where on earth did they come up with that term for this petulant, vengeful man?

 

Some new and very rare color footage of WWII was released this week:

Weasel Zippers

Cartoons for May 30, 2014

http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/05/branco-cartoon-operation-enduring-weakness/

 

 

Barking Crayon

The true villains behind the Gibson Guitar raid are revealed

Human Events

 

"Time to revisit an old abuse-of-power scandal from President Obama’s first term: the utterly bizarre raid on Gibson Guitars by a paramilitary unit of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  Nothing about this caper ever smelled right: a raid coming from out of nowhere, without warning, to kick Gibson’s doors down, ostensibly because they violated some vaporous provision of import laws when bringing hardwood into the country.  It wasn’t even American law they were supposedly violating, but an American law that said they were in hot water for violating the laws of India and Madagascar, which came as something of a surprise to authorities in India and Madagascar.  In a delightful inversion of American legal principle, the folks at Gibson were never allowed to see the sealed warrant that supposedly authorized the raid.  Guilty until proven innocent!  We’ll get back to you later on what you’re allegedly guilty of." ... 

...

"Gibson Guitars is hardly the only company on union target lists to find itself in trouble with the Obama Administration." Emphasis mine, TD

More...

Lumber Union Protectionists Incited SWAT Raid On My Factory, Says Gibson Guitar CEO

The Steady Drip

..." Up until that point Gibson had not received so much as a postcard telling the company it might be doing something wrong. Thus began a five-year saga, extensively covered by the press, with reputation-destroying leaks and shady allegations that Gibson was illegally importing wood from endangered tree species. In the end, formal charges were never filed, but the disruption to Gibson’s business and the mounting legal fees and threat of imprisonment induced Juszkiewicz to settle for $250,000—with an additional $50,000 “donation” piled on to pay off an environmental activist group." ... 

Jay Carney resigns

Major Garrett         ✔ @MajorCBS Follow

Meet your new White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest - he's the one smiling broadly.

Thomas Lifson   ... "Two thoughts occur to me in evaluating the move. One is that Carney has looked increasingly stressed as he pressed daily to defend the indefensible, evade questions, and otherwise cover the president’s derriere. He holds a high-pressure job that has gotten more and more difficult as the taboos against criticizing or even looking closely at the failures of Obama have dissipated with [time]. I could easily picture acid eating away at his stomach as the stress mounted.

 

"But the other thought is that Carney sees the Obama ship sinking, and is getting out when he can, before more damage is done to his already tattered reputation.

 

"It’s been a tough week for Obama administration spokesmen and women, as the derisive laughter and mockery that greeted his State Department counterpart Jen Psaki yesterday indicates."

 

...

... "We know that it is long past time for he and his wife, ABC’s Claire Shipman, to redecorate their home and get rid of the student dormitory Soviet propaganda posters."

2011: The Netherlands to Abandon Multiculturalism

OK, this was 2011 and it is now 2014; what, if anything, has the US learned from this?

barenakedislam/

Gatestone Institute   "The Dutch government says it will abandon the long-standing model of  multiculturalism that has encouraged Muslim immigrants to create a parallel society within the Netherlands.

"A new integration bill (covering letter and 15-page action plan), which Dutch Interior Minister Piet Hein Donner presented to parliament on June 16, reads: "The government shares the social dissatisfaction over the multicultural society model and plans to shift priority to the values of the Dutch people. In the new integration system, the values of the Dutch society play a central role. With this change, the government steps away from the model of a multicultural society.' "
Hat tip to John Paul Curnutt; Madras, Oregon

 January 13, 2014 The Islamization of Belgium and the Netherlands in 2013   ... "From now on, school calendars within Belgium's French speaking community will permanently use the following terminology: the Christian holiday previously known as All Saints Day will now be referred to as Autumn Leave; Christmas Vacation is now Winter Vacation; Lenten Vacation is now Rest and Relaxation Leave; and Easter is now Spring Vacation." ...

Steve Hayes: Excuses Excuses

Weekly Standard    "Since 2009, the world has been trying to make sense of America’s foreign and national security policies under Barack Obama. Allies and enemies, historians and scholars, the president’s critics and his supporters—all have struggled to define, or even discern, an Obama Doctrine. So last week, the man optimally positioned to elucidate the president’s vision sought to provide some clarity.
...
"That’s a tough sell. Our allies are confused and dispirited, our enemies are unquestionably emboldened. The Russian reset failed. The Asia pivot never happened. The Middle East peace process collapsed. The Syrian leader once embraced as a “reformer” has slaughtered more than 150,000 of his own people. Libya is a mess. Iraq is regressing. Obama’s own top intelligence officials acknowledge that al Qaeda is amassing territory and gaining strength.

 

"Rather than defend or explain these policy failures, the president chose instead to attack critics, real and imaginary. He challenged “critics who think military intervention is the only way for America to avoid looking weak,” though no one actually thinks this. He rejected as “naïve and unsustainable” any “strategy that involves invading every country that harbors terrorist networks” despite the fact that there are no advocates for such a strategy."

Emphasis added.

Shinseki resigns after VA scandal

WaPo    "President Obama said Friday he accepted the resignation of embattled Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki.

"He made the announcement shortly after Shinseki apologized publicly Friday for what he called an “indefensible” lack of integrity among some senior leaders of the VA health-care system and announced several remedial steps, including a process to remove top officials at the troubled VA medical center in Phoenix."

 

From the AP via CNS   ... "Those attending Shinseki's speech in a downtown Washington hotel were overwhelmingly friendly, supportive because of his work in sharply decreasing homelessness among veterans. Shinseki at one point noted that the number of homeless veterans has fallen by nearly 25 percent since 2013. The audience gave him a long, standing ovation, whistling and hooting, when he entered the room and again before and after he spoke."

Don't get too excited until we find out what type of person Obama picks for a replacement.