The Foreign Policy Conversation Democrats Would Rather Not Have

Legal Insurrection

"That would be defending the indefensible foreign policy of the Obama administration"

"If you receive Morning Insurrection, you would have seen Prof. Miriam Elman’s recommendation to read Jonah Goldberg’s piece on the importance of foreign policy in the upcoming election. . . . 

"Goldberg wrote:

"We can debate how much blame Obama deserves for Syria’s civil war, but almost no one outside his paid staff disputes that he’s only made things worse. The conflict there has set off the worst humanitarian crisis in Europe since the end of World War II — that’s John Kerry’s own assessment — which may yet tear the European Union asunder.

"The instability closer to the fighting is even more dangerous. Russia and Turkey may soon go to war with one another, as Russia mercilessly and indiscriminately massacres anyone standing in the way of its pet, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The Jordanian monarchy may crumble, in part for a lack of assistance from the United States.

"And yet, the gravity of the situation has yet to enter into the presidential contest in a serious way. As a co-author of Obama’s disastrous foreign policy, Hillary Clinton has no interest in calling attention to the global catastrophes unfolding around us. Bernie Sanders doesn’t want to talk about anything he can’t blame on billionaires, and Donald Trump doesn’t want to talk about anything other than his poll numbers, his insults, and the fraudulent claim that he predicted all of this before Bush launched the war in Iraq."

. . .  "A Pew poll in December showed that, in the wake of the Paris and San Bernardino terror attacks, terrorism is now the top concern among Americans at 18%. National security is third at 8%. A year ago those issues were listed by 1% and 2% of Americans, respectively. Worse for the Democrats, the same poll showed that American trust Republicans more on matters of national security over Democrats by a margin of 46% to 34%." . . . 

OBAMA SPENDS LESS THAN 2 MINUTES AT SCALIA’S WAKE

According to the White House pool report, Obama spent approximately 15 minutes in another room “meeting with others.”

Infowars

"Friday, the Obamas spent approximately 35 seconds in front of the casket and then approximately 67 seconds in front of the portrait of Scalia.

"The Obamas will not be attending Scalia’s funeral on Saturday. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill will be attending.

"According to the White House pool report, Obama spent approximately 15 minutes in another room “meeting with others.' ”

Take WILD Guess What Obama Did on a Sunny Saturday Instead of Scalia’s Funeral   . . . But, by Sunday, the urge to put work and remembrance aside and play some golf was just too strong to ignore.

A 10:00AM White House call-time for the press pool was bumped up two hours to 8:00AM—Secret Service were spotted wearing khakis and baseball caps—it was clear, the president wanted to hit the links.

Read more: IJ Review

Executive Penmanship

. . . Mr. Obama will (sarcasm alert!) also visit the grave of Che Guevara as part of a solemn ceremony which involves leaving a large briefcase of cash behind the headstone, feeling that "somehow I owe it" to the revolutionary's sole surviving granddaughter, Texas judge Cinderela Guevera.

"Still, Barry isn't completely stiffing Scalia's funeral (so to speak). No, he's sending...

Obama calls Kalamazoo officials over shootings, pleads for more gun laws

Washington Times

"President Obama called local officials in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Monday morning to pledge federal resources for their probe of a mass shooting, and said the tragedy highlights the need for more gun laws.

. . . 

"Mr. Obama said he took executive actions on gun control earlier this year “that will make it harder for dangerous people like this individual [inKalamazoo] to buy a gun.” But he called on the governors “to partner and think about what we can do in a common-sense way, in a bipartisan way, without some of the ideological rhetoric that so often surrounds that issue.”

"Local authorities haven’t revealed yet how the alleged gunman, James B. Dalton, obtained the handgun used in the shootings. Six people were killed at random and two others seriously wounded." . . .

If Obama Fills Scalia’s Seat With Recess Appointment Who’d Dare a Challenge?

NY Sun  "WILL IT BE A FIGHT OR A TRAP? THAT’S THE CHOICE FACING PRESIDENT OBAMA AS HE LOOKS FOR A CANDIDATE for what is likely to be his final nomination to the Supreme Court.

"Republicans who control the Senate have already signaled their preference and intention to wait until after the presidential election to confirm a nominee. President Obama has said he will go ahead with a nomination anyway. The decision facing Mr. Obama, then, is whether to go for a fight that would mobilize the Democratic base, or instead choose a candidate who has some distantly plausible chance of getting confirmed, or at least of making Republicans seem unreasonable to independents or swing voters for failing to confirm him. In the base ­rallying category, two candidates that you may not have read much about, but who would definitely do the trick, are Pamela Karlan and Goodwin Liu." . . .
By IRA STOLL, Special to the Sun 

Why So Many Millennials Are Socialists

"Septuagenarian presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has been capitalizing on young people’s lack of knowledge and life experience to sell them a bill of rotten goods."

The Federalist

. . . "It’s easy to contrast the difference in convenience, quality, and speed between calling a customer service line at Visa to report a card stolen or fraudulent activity versus calling the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles to request a new license card or to report a stolen identity. Government is slow, rigid, and outdated, while businesses have to compete with each other and only make money if they serve the needs and desires of their customers, so businesses have to be more innovative, quick, and flexible. If not, they fail. Government does not face those same constraints.

"Why don’t millennials know what socialism is? First, Democratic leaders, whom millennials tend to trust, don’t seem to have any idea themselves. Take Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Sander’s primary rival. Despite saying she’s not a socialist, Clinton found herself unable to explain how Democrats and socialists are different in a recent MSNBC interview:"

YEAH, LIKE WE’RE GOING TO SEE THAT FROM OBAMA: Why the US Should Stand Up for Hong Kong:

Instapundit
"The UK’s Foreign Secretary has accused Beijing of a “serious breach” of its agreement over Hong Kong."

Now that Great Britain has said the treaty is breached, the United States must go beyond its February 1 expression of “deep concern” over Lee and the fate of the other men. It should now be more difficult for the Obama Administration to avoid implementing the key provision of the U.S.-Hong Kong Policy Act. That law directs the President to withdraw Hong Kong’s separate treatment in some economic and trade matters if he finds it to be insufficiently autonomous.

"Don’t hold your breath. You can generally count on Obama to side with the tyrants in confrontations of this sort."

Liberals who politicize Kalamazoo shooting: "racist morons!"

Six people were killed and two others wounded in a series of random shootings in Michigan Saturday evening, police said. A 14-year-old girl was shot and very seriously injured. Authorities earlier said that she’d died.Jason Brian Dalton, 45, was taken into custody early Sunday and was being questioned over shootings at three different locations in Kalamazoo County, police said.“There is no connection between any of them, this all appears to be random,” Kalamazoo County Undersheriff Paul Matyas said. “This is the worst-case scenario that any community can have.”

 . . . "A time which should be focused on mourning and collecting of the facts, you instead decide to politicize, obfuscate and yes, flat-out lie about the travesty at hand. You dishonest, hobbling bags of human excrement.

“ 'Gun control!”  “White terrorism!”  “BlackLivesMatter!”  “More outrage, more hashtags!' ”

. . . "You simpletons sure do have a short memory. San Bernadino was actually the opposite of that. It took nearly an entire day before San Bernadino was declared terrorism. As a matter of fact, hours after the shooting, the police commissioner held a presser “declining to declare it terrorism” at that time. We went out of our way to refrain from calling it terrorism. It took last names, bombs, neighbor reports, citizenship and yes, direct ties to ISIS to be discovered for that declaration to be officially made to the public.  

"So then why do you leftists insist on lying about it? I wonder."

black history heaux ‎@localblactivist

why must the media always demonize mental illnesses

         for the sake of generating excuses for white terrorists?

#KalamazooShooting

9:59 AM - 21 Feb 2016

Thanks to “Superdelegates,” Hillary Might Be Assured of Nomination

 Infowars

"Question: with Hillary Clinton’s win in Nevada, 53-47, but only squeaking by Bernie Sanders in Iowa and getting spanked by him in New Hampshire, how is it that Clinton has a seven-to-one delegate advantage (502-to-70) over Sanders?

"Answer: Because one-sixth of the approximately 4,763 delegates who will be headed to Philadelphia in July to pick the Democratic Party’s nominee are “superdelegates," beholden to no one, least of all the voters. Seven hundred and twelve of those delegates are “unpledged” and include

20 party leaders (current and former presidents, vice-presidents, congressional leaders and chairs of the DNC (Democratic National Committee);

20 Democratic governors including territorial governors and the mayor of Washington, D.C.;

47 Democratic members of the U.S. Senate, including the “shadow” senator from Washington, D.C.;

193 Democrat members of the U.S. House of Representatives; and

432 elected members of the DNC.

"Five hundred and two of them have already said they would vote for Clinton — although it should be noted that superdelegates can change their pledges at any time, especially if Hillary is indicted or if Sanders wins more popular votes." . . .Entire article here.

The future of originalism after Scalia

Volokh Conspiracy  . . . "First, it is premature to conclude that the death of Scalia portends a major decline in interest in originalism among Supreme Court justices. It is quite possible that Senate Republicans will succeed in blocking President Obama’s nominee from replacing Scalia. If so, and a Republican candidate (at least one other than Donald Trump) wins the election, Scalia might well be replaced by a like-minded originalist. Originalism is now the dominant constitutional theory on the political right, and a GOP president would feel some pressure to replace Scalia with an adherent of the same worldview.

"Even if Obama is able to replace Scalia with a nonoriginalist liberal, originalism might still rebound from that setback in the near future. There are three other relatively elderly justices who might well leave the Court in the next few years, all of them nonoriginalists: Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Anthony Kennedy. Depending on who wins the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, it is quite possible that some or even all of these justices might be replaced by successors more sympathetic to originalism. " . . .

'Harmless Curiosity': Media Downplay Muslim Women Casing Florida Synagogues

"If you see something say something." Or not.

Truth Revolt via South Florida Jewish Community News:

"If you see something, say something" - then have your legitimate concerns trivialized and dismissed outright by authorities and local media alike.

That is precisely what is happening right now in the Miami metro area where a pair of Muslim women (we are unclear if it is the same pair or different pairs) -- donning hijabs and carrying a Quran -- have been casing multiple synagogues -- at least three to date -- asking suspicious questions about when large crowds gather for different kinds of services.

Below is how the incident was first reported by the local CBS affiliate on February 17: 

Hat tip to Weasel Zippers

Obama says Trump's tv reality shows declare him not to be a serious candidate

This man declares Trump to be non-serious, and certainly not as presidential as he himself pictures that he is.

Newsweek’s Thomas: ‘Slightly Creepy Cult of Personality’ Around Obama

. . . "ROSE: Watching him last night -- that speech when he’s out there alone, and watching him in Denver, same thing -- when he's making a speech. He -- he knows the power of his ability to speak, and there is at the end, when he finishes it -- you know, with certain speakers, there's a kind -- they're overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the moment.
MEACHAM: Right, right.
ROSE: You know? And that they're walking from -- and his is a much more -- he finishes, and he sort of -- it’s almost like he then ascends to look at the circumstance --
MEACHAM: He watches us watching him.
ROSE: Exactly. He does --
MEACHAM: It's amazing." . . .

From way back in 2009 this was spotted: Obama's reality-show presidency   . . . "This is the first administration, however, to fuse iterative, real-time lifestyle coverage with the star power of a true celebrity politician. The White House is deftly serving the huge public and media interest in President Barack Obama, not only as a leader and celebrity but also as a character in a fascinating story far beyond politics . . ."

Win one for Nino

Charles Krauthammer

Let’s understand something about the fight to fill the Supreme Court seat ofAntonin (“Nino”) Scalia. This is about nothing but raw power. Any appeal you hear to high principle is phony — brazenly, embarrassingly so.

"In Year Seven of the George W. Bush administration, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) publicly opposed filling any Supreme Court vacancy until Bush left office. (“Except in extraordinary circumstances.” None such arose. Surprise!) Today he piously denounces Republicans for doing exactly the same for a vacancy created in Year Eight of Barack Obama."

. . . 

"As I said, this is all about raw power. When the Democrats had it, they used it. The Republicans are today wholly justified in saying they will not allow this outgoing president to overturn the balance of the Supreme Court. The matter should be decided by the coming election. Does anyone doubt that Democrats would be saying exactly that if the circumstances were reversed?

"Which makes this Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (Ky.) moment. He and his cohorts have taken a lot of abuse from “anti-establishment” candidates and media for not using their congressional majorities to repeal Obamacare, defund Planned Parenthood, block executive orders, etc." . . .