Saturday, June 9, 2018

Obama’s ‘Red Line’ Debacle From the Inside

James Taranto at the WSJ



"Ben Rhodes worked for eight full years as Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications and speechwriting, a White House position that was inaugurated the same day Mr. Obama was. “Like Obama, Rhodes is a storyteller who uses a writer’s tools to advance an agenda that is packaged as politics but is often quite personal,” journalist David Samuels wrote in a 2016 profile. “Even where the particulars of that story are true, the implications that readers and viewers are encouraged to take away from those particulars are often misleading or false.”
"Is it possible that Mr. Rhodes’s talent for telling tales has gotten the better of him? This week he published “The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House.” A chapter excerpted in the Atlantic magazine tells the story of the 2013 Syria debacle, in which Mr. Obama backed down from his 2012 warning to dictator Bashar Assad that using “a whole bunch of chemical weapons” would violate an American “red line.”
"Mr. Rhodes’s prose is engaging, and his Syria narrative, contrary to his slippery reputation, is astonishingly candid. We can attribute his honesty to a lack of self-awareness. He depicts himself, Mr. Obama and other members of the former president’s team as not only tragically indecisive and irresponsible but self-absorbed to the point of moral insensateness. Yet there is no indication Mr. Rhodes understands that his account is damning. He even writes a happy ending for Mr. Obama." . . .


More Israel Demonizing Likely at Upcoming Presbyterian Church USA’s General Assembly

Legal Insurrection

A shrinking Protestant denomination that’s still obsessed against Israel


"From June 16-23 the General Assembly (GA) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will meet in St. Louis where delegates will consider for passage at least eight Israel-related resolutions.
"By contrast, in terms of its Middle East coverage, the GA is slated to consider only one overture “responding to the current Syrian crisis” and one responding to the devastating humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
"That the PCUSA will be allowing a “concentration of Israel-denunciatory time and energy” throughout its weeklong GA comes as no surprise. As we and others have documented, for nearly 15 years the church has engaged in this “biennial ritual” of obsessive anti-Israel delegitimization:
"As we highlighted, the GA (which takes place every even-numbered year) has long been a “regular scene of controversy” over the denomination’s stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"The problem has emerged on account of the PCUSA’s Israel/Palestine Mission Network (IPMN), a small but well-organized and highly vocal group of virulently anti-Israel activists who have managed to dominate the Middle East-related agenda at the GA. There, they’ve repeatedly pushed proposals targeting Israel for condemnation and advancing the goals of the BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) movement." . . .

Can someone please tell John McCain he can resign now?

Ed Straker 
McCain is refusing to resign.  Out of spite, he's leaving the people of Arizona without full representation in the Senate.  In a tight 51-49 GOP-controlled body, the absence of one senator is critical on many votes.
McCain apparently does not care.

 "June 1 has come and passed.  Everyone can breathe a sigh of relief.


"Under Arizona law, if John McCain had vacated office before June 1 ("vacated" meaning "died"), there would be a special election in November to replace him.  But having passed this June deadline, if McCain resigns, he can be replaced by an appointee of the governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, a conservative Republican, and this appointee will serve until 2020.
"The problem is, McCain hasn't resigned.

"McCain has been so ill that he hasn't been seen in the Senate for months.  He has missed countless votes.  Arizona is without half its representation in the Senate, and that's only if you count Jeff Flake.
"So why hasn't McCain resigned?
"The answer is unclear, but it may boil down to one word: Cindy.
"McCain wants his wife, Cindy McCain, to take his place.  McCain may feel that he is royalty and his Senate seat is like a throne that can be passed down to relatives.
One source close to the McCain family said supporters of the senator have quietly let Gov. Ducey know Cindy is the choice of "Team McCain." . . .  
Why do we think of McCain as spiteful? Let us count the ways:

Senator McCain’s Spiteful Farewell  "Someone should walk up and put in a copy of the Christopher Steele dossier to be with Senator McCain for eternity." 

John McCain Shows Signs of Life With Spiteful Vote to Kill Bad Environmental Bill

Spiteful McCain Doesn’t Bother to Read ‘America First’ Policies . . . "Turns out, John McCain has not even read President Trump’s pro-America immigration reform." . . .

John McCain Bemoans Choosing Palin as Running Mate

"Bitter old man John McCain now says that he regrets picking Sarah Palin as his VP pick. Is he trying to burn every bridge that he has ever built?" said Chuck Woolery
And on and on... 

Transgenders Take 1st And 2nd In Girls Track Competitions; One Sets New Time Record

The death of Western Civilization; we've become a silly, silly people and these are the things we bring about. Mr. Dupree is justifiably disturbed by the lack of resistance, but who will resist and face the loss of their career?
The coach who was so tolerant must have visualized his remarks being played on CNN and MSNBC and outrage from "journalists". TD*






"So many people if they agree this is wrong can push back on this type of cheating and stop it as a majority"

"I know how I feel but women today claim they can do whatever a man can do so I will digress and watch from afar. If the transgenders decide to destroy each woman’s track and field record from here to kingdom come, let them. They do not have the mindset to fight against it, and they complain that they don’t need a man to argue for them, so that lets me know it’s time to watch and stay put."
 Yearwood won the Class M sprint titles last year; Miller competed on the boys’ team during the winter indoor season then joined the girls’ competition."Asked about the two girls who worked for years who got knocked out of the finals by Miller and Yearwood and the two girls who finished seventh and eighth in the finals who were denied a chance to compete in the New England championships, CIAC executive director Karissa Niehoff said, “We do feel for them. Fully agree it doesn’t feel good. The optic isn’t good. But we really do have to look at the bigger issues that speak to civil rights and the fact this is high school sports.”"Hillhouse coach Gary Moore told Hearst Connecticut Media that Miller should be able to compete, but the situation “wasn’t fair to the girls,” adding, something should be done to “level the playing field.” He stated, “I’ve been stopped by at least five coaches, all of them saying they really liked what I said in the paper. How come other coaches aren’t talking? This is a big issue a lot of coaches have, that we’ve got to do something, but how come you’re not saying anything? I’ve said what I needed to say. I’m getting a little annoyed with the coaches that we haven’t been able to get together and do what’s best for everybody.' ” . . .
And that would be what?

* Along these same lines:
Universities marking down students for using banned gender terms
"Gender madness is being enforced with the iron fist of bad grades at some of Australia's leading universities." . . . 

Ex-Ranger: ‘Communism Will Win’ Soldier Discharged from Army

Christina Wong at Breitbart


Communist "war-resistor"? Oh, yes; those people who, in siding with Hitler during the years before he turned against Russia, called the British "war-mongers" for wanting to prepare to resist Hitler and the Nazis. Every effort Britain made to build up their military was opposed by communists in that nation on orders from Moscow.
Thanks to their efforts, evil almost won out because the British were so ill-prepared. The Tunnel Dweller.

"Spenser Rapone — the Army soldier who became notorious after a picture of him in his West Point uniform holding a “Communism Will Win” sign went viral — was discharged from the Army this month, according to social media postings.
"Rory Fanning, a former Army Ranger and conscientious objector, tweeted on Tuesday that he was sitting down and interviewing Rapone for an event called: “Socialism 2018: A War Resister in the Ranks,” scheduled for July 5.
"A description of the event said:

Spenser Rapone is a former Army Ranger and Infantry Officer recently separated from the military for speaking out against its imperialist violence. He enlisted as an infantryman out of high school in 2010, and deployed to Afghanistan in 2011.
After returning from his combat tour, he applied and was accepted into the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY in 2012, graduating and receiving his commission in May 2016. Deciding he could no longer stomach the immorality of US imperialism, he spoke out against the reprehensible actions of the military in September 2017
He ultimately resigned his commission, and was separated from the Army in June 2018 with an Other Than Honorable Discharge. . . . 

Friday, June 8, 2018

'This is the final verdict. My fight is over': Pulitzer Prize-winning Fox commentator Charles Krauthammer, 68, announces he has only 'a few weeks to left to live' in his battle with cancer

UK Daily Mail


  • Fox news contributor Charles Krauthammer, 68, says he just weeks to live
  • The author and former physician announced Friday that despite undergoing surgery to remove a tumor last August, the cancer has returned
  • He said there was no sign of it until one month ago, meaning the cancer is 'aggressive and spreading rapidly'
  • His doctors say he has 'only a few weeks left to live'
  • He was left paralyzed from the neck down following a diving accident at age 22 
  • The writer was awarded the Commentary Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for his Washington Post column
  • He has been married to Robyn Krauthammer for 44 years and they share a 32-year-old son named Daniel
Fox News star Charles Krauthammer reveals he has weeks to live in heartbreaking letter

His fight against liberal influences in America was consistent and unwavering. Obama and his acolytes will not mourn Krauthammer's passing.

Charles Krauthammer: Obama vs. Putin, the mismatch  ". . . Indeed, Obama’s dismissal of Russia as a regional power makes his own leadership of the one superpower all the more embarrassing. For seven decades since the Japanese surrender, our role under 11 presidents had been as offshore balancer protecting smaller allies from potential regional hegemons." . . .

The ladies of The View do not know who Charles Krauthammer is! Yet they call him a narcissist on their gossip show.




No telling which Krauthammer remark calling Obama a narcissist she referred to; it was Charles Krauthammer's consistent assessment of Obama:  Charles Krauthammer on Narcissist Barack Obama Saying "The World Set a Red Line"



Christopher Hitchens called Obama a narcissist as well.

Fox News star Charles Krauthammer reveals he has weeks to live in heartbreaking letter

"This is the final verdict. My fight is over.”
Fox News



"Charles Krauthammer, the beloved and brilliant Fox News Channel personality who gave up a pioneering career in psychiatry to become a Pulitzer Prize-winning political analyst, on Friday revealed the heartbreaking news that he is in the final stages of a losing battle with cancer.

"The 68-year-old’s incisive takes on politics of the day have been missing from Fox News Channel’s “Special Report” for nearly a year as he battled an abdominal tumor and subsequent complications, but colleagues and viewers alike had held out hope that he would return to the evening show he helped establish as must-viewing. But in an eloquent, yet unblinking letter to co-workers, friends and Fox News Channel viewers, Krauthammer disclosed that he has just weeks to live.

“ 'I have been uncharacteristically silent these past ten months,” the letter began.

 “I had thought that silence would soon be coming to an end, but I’m afraid I must tell you now that fate has decided on a different course for me.' ” . . .

"It was in the nation’s capital that Krauthammer trained his mind and talents on political analysis and began penning columns for The New Republic, Time magazine and finally the Washington Post. In 1985, he won journalism’s top prize for his weekly political commentary. In his sobering farewell, Krauthammer said he is “grateful to have played a small role in the conversations that have helped guide this extraordinary nation’s destiny.”

“ 'I leave this life with no regrets,” Krauthammer wrote. “It was a wonderful life – full and complete with the great loves and great endeavors that make it worth living. I am sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended.' ”

The End of Merit; Liberalism brings "sanctioned mediocrity"

Everywhere we look, the principle of merit is compromised or regarded as the worst form of unfairness.  Sanctioned mediocrity is now the order of the day. 

David Solway  . . . "Standards of achievement are diluted, hard work goes unacknowledged, and the desire to excel in one's field or to accept responsibility for one's actions and even for one's failures is in abeyance.  Individual talent, intelligence, entrepreneurial success, and personal discipline are dismissed as unjust advantages deriving from the exploitation of the dispossessed.  "You didn't build that," as Obama notoriously proclaimed.  The inevitable result is the devitalizing of political, intellectual, and professional life to the point where a society finds itself in a state of "progressive" deterioration.

"Examples abound.
"The American (and Canadian) university system is in precipitous freefall, filled with students largely incapable of scholarly ability and civil decorum, professors who do not or cannot teach, gender studies mavens who pollute the curriculum with feminist groupthink, administrators infected by political correctness who propagate "hate speech" laws and shut down controversial debate, and so-called "diversity officers" inimical to diversity of ideas.  In effect, the university has opened its doors, in the name of affirmative action, student empowerment, and equity hiring, to a cohort of self-righteous incompetents and mischief-makers.  The consequence is predictable.  The weak and the undeserving profit at the expense of the shrinking cadre of the committed and the qualified, and society is the worse for it." . . .

The lawless, porn-respecting , MS-13-loving, humorless American left

As the brilliant Salena Zito wrote during the campaign, the left takes Trump literally but not seriously.  His supporters take him seriously but not literally.  Guess who is the smarter group!
American Spectator
Patricia McCarthy  "How does one explain how the party of FDR and JFK now supports all manner of law-breaking by illegal immigrants?  These people defend aliens' illegal entry into the United States and give them sanctuary even after they have committed violent crimes that have taken the lives of innocent American citizens.
"They also love Stormy Daniels and celebrate her ridiculous, attention-seeking, money-grubbing stalking of President Trump.  After Rudy Giuliani dared to say he did not have the same level of respect for her as he would a "woman of substance," the denizens of CNN, NBC, and MSNBC went ballistic.  Apparently she is very much a woman of substance.  The women of The View, including Meghan McCain, defended her "work" (performing a variety of sex acts on film for money with numerous partners).  To hear them sing Stormy's praises, one would think each of them would be proud if her own daughter chose such a profession.  But, as Mark Steyn observed, at the same time, the Miss America Pageant will no longer have a swimsuit or evening gown segment because these are demeaning to women.  Stormy is a woman to be admired for her work ethic, but the bathing suit portion of the Miss America contest is degrading.  The Democrats have boxed themselves into a corner so fraught with hypocrisy that it is stupefying.
"As for Nancy Pelosi's defense of the "spark of divinity" within the members of MS-13, those drug-dealing, sex-trafficking, machete-wielding murderers, she was not alone among her tribe of Democrats.  There is no miscreant, no matter how vile and murderous, whom they will decline to vindicate, to endorse. " . . .

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) Named One of the Most Corrupt Members of Congress

CREW: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington  "In the midst of a national financial catastrophe, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) used her position as a senior member of Congress and member of the House Financial Services Committee to prevail upon Treasury officials to meet with OneUnited Bank.  She never disclosed that her husband held stock in the bank.  This outrageous conduct has led Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to include the congresswoman as one of the Most Corrupt Members of Congress.  Click here to read the full report on Rep. Waters.

“By contacting then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to request a meeting, allegedly for a group of minority-owned banks, but then arranging for only one bank – OneUnited, in which she had a financial interest – to attend, Rep. Waters violated House conflict of interest rules,” said CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan.

"Around the same time Rep. Waters asked the Treasury Department to hold the initial meeting, Rep. Waters spoke to Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) about OneUnited, telling him that her husband previously had served on the board.  Rep. Frank advised her to stay out of matters related to the bank. Nevertheless, Rep. Waters’ chief of staff and grandson, Mikael Moore, continued to actively assist OneUnited representatives in their quest to receive bailout funds, and worked to craft legislation authorizing Treasury to grant OneUnited’s request.

"Rep. Waters was scheduled for an ethics trial on November 29, 2010, but the House Ethics Committee postponed the hearing.  Inconsistent reports have emerged suggesting both potential new evidence and serious misconduct by two of the committee’s attorneys and improper conduct by committee members. In July 2011, the committee hired respected D.C attorney Billy Martin as outside counsel to investigate both the case against Rep. Waters and the committee itself."

Think of the damage this woman and people like Sharpton, Ellison, Kamala Harris and so many others have done to race relations in our society. In meeting a good number of African-Americans I know they have better people than Waters, but what of those who elect her? TD


Thursday, June 7, 2018

Some quick hits:

Trump takes action to improve veterans’ health care via Weasel Zippers . . . "The new law empowers veterans to have more control over their health care and provides more quality choices within their own communities.
"The VA Mission Act takes the first step in delivering what our veterans desperately need: faster and better-quality health care for all who have honorably served our country.
"The new law expands health-care options by removing the barriers in the current Choice Program that requires veterans to have waited 30 days or to live more than 40 miles from a VA health-care facility to qualify for government-funded health-care outside the VA system." . . .


This Maryland Democrat Just Cut The Most Absurd Political Ad In Recent Political History  "Trump doesn’t even know you exist, dude. And he couldn’t give a darn about your sexuality."  Via Daily Wire:


Bill Clinton's safe space: Stephen Colbert and, well anyone else who loves Democrats

But the Colberts and Todays of the world continue to shy away from even asking Clinton about the credible and detailed rape allegation made by Juanita Broaddrick — much less subject him to sustained questioning about it. Given what we know about Bill Clinton, how likely is it that Broaddrick is lying? Why is she the one woman on earth whose rape allegation is simply dismissed out of hand by feminists? *

Stephen Colbert To Bill Clinton: You Want A Do-Over On That Trainwreck NBC Interview On Monica Lewinsky?  . . . "Normally an acidic satirist, Colbert is scrupulously polite here, even agreeing with Clinton co-author/sycophant James Patterson on what a wonderful person Bill is, his treatment of women notwithstanding. That’s the way of the world with America’s late-night heroes: Ivanka Trump’s a “feckless c*nt” while Clinton, one of the most notorious #MeToo malefactors in modern American history, receives the warmest of welcomes because his politics are Correct. But watch and you’ll see that Colbert deserves a little credit, first politely challenging Clinton’s suggestion that this is all in the past and then uncorking this, which made me simultaneously smile and cringe at its bluntness: “You seemed offended to be asked about this thing [in the NBC interview] when, in all due respect sir, your behavior was the most famous example of a powerful man sexually misbehaving in the workplace of my lifetime.” As a matter of basic human nature, it’s hard to sit across from someone whom you respect for other reasons and remind them, with the whole world watching, that they’re one of the most infamous workplace harassers you’ve ever encountered." . . .

National Review: Did the 1998 impeachment set up the domino path leading to the 2016 election?  . . . "If Democrats had abandoned Bill Clinton in early 1998, they and the country would have been way better off. There was no “higher principle” at stake during the national debate about Clinton’s fate after the revelation of the Lewinsky affair, and blind partisan spite prevented Democrats from recognizing that they had been tricked into defending the indefensible." . . .

Bernie Sanders won't cast judgment on Clinton

MSNBC, NBC Anchors Push Back on Bill Clinton’s Attacks on Interview: ‘Baffling,’ Making ‘False Allegations’  
. . . "Clinton said he didn't like Melvin's questioning because it began with the "assertion" he had never apologized for his conduct. Clinton also told the New York Times Tuesday "that young man,"  referring to Melvin, "aggressively" said he never apologized. However, Melvin merely asked Clinton whether he had personally apologized to Lewinsky.


Bill Clinton told the Today Show Monday he paid dearly for the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal twenty years ago. Clinton got angry at the reporter and revealed that the affair with Lewinsky cost him sixteen million bucks. No wonder Stormy Daniels feels so insulted by a hundred and thirty grand.   Comedian Argus Hamilton
*Time’s Up, Democrats. Throw Bill Clinton under the Bus.  . . . "Stop making him the guest of honor at your parties and fundraisers. Stop treating him as an amusing celebrity instead of a despicable human being on your talk shows, stop giving to his foundation, stop attending his speeches, stop being deferential. Denounce him publicly and without equivocation. Exile him. You’ve exiled actors and newsreaders and comedians for doing less than he did. I picture them all commiserating somewhere together, on an Island of Misfit Boys — Matt Lauer and Garrison Keillor and Kevin Spacey and Charlie Rose and Al Franken and Louis C.K. Meanwhile the Big He is still everyone’s darling. All this time, liberals and the media, you’ve been applying a lower standard of character to a former president than you apply to chat-show hosts and jesters." . . .*