Most Popular Question at Healthcare.gov: How to Get Exemption From Lack-of-Coverage Penalty Fee?

Most Popular Question at Healthcare.gov: How to Get Exemption From Lack-of-Coverage Penalty Fee?

One day away from the launch of the Obamacare marketplaces, the question most on the minds people visiting the Healthcare.gov website is not about coverage, but rather about avoiding the penalty, or tax, for not having health insurance. As of Monday morning, here is how the website listed its "Most Popular" items:

1. How do I get an exemption from the fee for not having health coverage
UNFORTUNATELY, PROVING YOU VOTED FOR OBAMA 2 OR MORE TIMES DOES NOT QUALIFY FOR AN EXEMPTION

NUDGE, SHOVE, SHOOT The Obama Administration way

NUDGE, SHOVE, SHOOT The Obama Administration way
PATHETIC: Issa feared targeted by terrorists after Democrats revealed secret Libya trip. “A leaked State Department email indicates that officials were worried about the safety of House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa after Democrats revealed his plans for a secret trip to Libya this week. . . . Before Issa’s trip, Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, issued a press release asking Issa to postpone his trip until he allows Democrats to join him.” Typical. Though in Cummings’ defense, who would have expected anyone to read one of his press releases?
ESPECIALLY GOOD IF SOMEONE ELSE DOES THE SHOOTING FOR YOU.

“spend less than you earn, you’ll never be in debt?”

Who knows that if  you “spend less than you earn, you’ll never be in debt?”  No liberal Democrats, not Obama.  Not our leader who wants to raise again the debt ceiling and claims that doing so will not raise our debt!  Another government shutdown fiasco looms on the horizon. Who does know about living in the black?  The Amish, according to one of their tenets of Christian living.  Who also knows?  Dave Ramsey in his debt-free crusade.  Who cares?  

OBAMA: RAISING THE DEBT LIMIT DOESN’T INCREASE OUR DEBT.!!

OBAMA: RAISING THE DEBT LIMIT DOESN’T INCREASE OUR DEBT. Stephen Green: “I think he was stoned, and I’m not kidding.”

TOWNHALL.COM:
Spitting on Their Graves: Democrats Leave Benghazi Hearing Before Testimony From Families of Victims
Katie Pavlich | Sep 19, 2013

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: IRS Surveilled Tea Parties Until Two Weeks Ago.

Related: Lois Lerner: Signed letter rekindles debate on IRS official’s status. “Lois Lerner has been on paid leave from the Internal Revenue Service since May, after invoking her Fifth Amendment rights in refusing to answer questions from Congress about her handling of Tea Party cases. So why was she still sending letters to groups applying for tax exemptions as recently as August?”

ANNALS OF SMART DIPLOMACY: The Economist: The weakened West: The deal over Syria’s chemical weapons marks a low for those who cherish freedom. “The deal looks good only because the mess Mr Obama had got himself into was so bad. Step back, and the outcome looks rotten.” Ya think?
UPDATE: Sarah Palin: “I can see Putin’s shoe print on Obama’s behind from my house.”

Bad language

Bad language

   “Sufficient political latitude” - Who could speak this ... what does this mean...when will we not hear this ... why talk this way...where does this occur...how will we stop this...?
    This phrase is meaningless to a rational listener, yet, this kind of stupidity exists amid praise and respect.  

“The mess he inherited”

“The mess he inherited”
No, not Obama still dumping on Geo..  Bush; I mean the mess Kerry has inherited from Hilary Clinton.  As summarized by Victor Davis Hanson:
 “Yet all that said, Kerry inherited and made worse this mess, but did not create it. It was Hillary Clinton, not Kerry or even Obama, who first issued empty red lines that she either had no intention of enforcing or should have known that Obama had no desire to honor.

It was Clinton who grandly announced to the world that Kerry and other senators were right in declaring Assad a “reformer” and a “moderate.” It was Hillary who oversaw, along with Samantha Power and Susan Rice, the debacle in Libya. It was Hillary who explained why Gaddafi —the clever monster in rehabilitation doing all that he could do to massage Western oil-hungry and petro-dollar-grabbing elites—had to go, but why the suddenly now satanic Assad should be left alone to reform.

It was Hillary who was the architect of “lead from behind,” which proved nothing. Hillary thundered callously “what difference does it make?” over the four dead in Benghazi. Her State Department both stonewalled the Benghazi inquiry and, before the attack, refused to consider requests for more security.

It was Hillary who chortled in crude fashion “we came, we saw, Gaddafi died,” and in cruder fashion lied to the families of the dead that a right-wing video, not Islamist militias attacking a poorly defended consulate engaged in secretive arms smuggling, had led to the deaths of their sons.  And, yes, it was Hillary who jumped ship to avoid the consequences of her own disastrous tenure, while she hit the lecture circuit to cash in and prep for her 2016 presidential run.

Kerry is incompetently cleaning up the wreckage of Hillary Clinton’s disastrous tenure.”

Revenge of reality

    Revenge of reality

A nasty little man, William Chancellor tried to prevent the election of Warren Harding in 1921. Through his lies, however,  peers this truth that the Republican National Committee “began the most deliberate lying of a continued and systematic kind that America ever saw in any Presidential campaign.”   Check history out when it relates to Harding and his election and administration and you find that this is true.

But we have the revenge of reality with the election of Barack Obama in 2008. The Democrat machine surpassed even Chancellor’s wildest imaginings of lies and misdirecton.  One teeny proof of non-reality perpetrated on us citizens today is the claim that we have “food insecurity”, “food deserts”  and “poverty in America.”  As a share of total consumer expenditures per person last year, Americans spent 6% on food, the least amount on food consumed at home of the 85 countries analyzed by the government.

Revenge of reality

Revenge of reality
   Now that animals have reached equal status with people for therapy and companionship, reading about a “wall of wishes’ in Wasilla, Alaska for a cat attacked by a dog is NO surprise, just an expected outcome of compassionate correctness.  Don’t get me wrong, I approve of pets as pets. I’m just glad that poverty has been erased in so many place across the globe that $1000's of dollars present no obstacle to bringing an  injured animal back to health.
   

IF ONLY OBAMA KNEW! [or substitute Hitler, Stalin or Mao]

IF ONLY OBAMA KNEW! [or substitute Hitler, Stalin or Mao]
Is the FBI Investigating the IRS Scandal?
Comments68

House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa and subcommittee chairman Jim Jordan want to know just how seriously the FBI is investigating potential violations of the law perpetrated by IRS agents involved in the agency’s targeting of tea-party groups. In a letter to newly confirmed FBI director James Comey, Issa and Jordan requested all documents and communications relating to the IRS’s evaluation of applicants for tax-exempt status as well as a briefing on the FBI’s own inquiries into two conservative groups, the King Street Patriots and True the Vote.

They may not get much. Gene Kapp, a spokesman for the American Center for Law and Justice, which represents 41 tea-party groups targeted by the IRS, tells National Review Online that the ACLJ has had “no contact from the FBI or any other investigative agency.” Likewise, Cleta Mitchell, an attorney for six tea-party groups targeted by the IRS, says that neither she nor any of the groups she represents have heard from the FBI since news of the scandal broke.

Days after embattled IRS official Lois Lerner disclosed the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups in mid-May, attorney general Eric Holder told CNN that the FBI would launch an investigation into the agency’s targeting of tea-party groups. “The FBI is coordinating with the Justice Department to see if any laws were broken in connection with those matters related to the IRS,” Holder said. “Those were, as I think everyone can agree, if not criminal they were certainly outrageous and unacceptable.”

The following month, those tracking the unfolding scandal began to wonder how seriously the Bureau was looking into potential legal violations when FBI director Robert Mueller was unable to tell a congressional panel either who was leading the investigation for the FBI or how many investigators were on the case.
By  Eliana Johnson
September 13, 2013 5:51 PM

“unsettling words and images associated with the event”

“unsettling words and images associated with the event”

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Concord-Carlisle ( Massachusetts) official backs 9/11 Muslim poem reading:
A Concord-Carlisle School Committee member is defending a high school principal who read a Muslim poem on Wednesday’s 9/11 anniversary — but failed to line up anyone to recite the pledge of allegiance that morning.
“I’m disappointed at the reaction that some of my community,” said School Committee member Philip Benincasa. “I think what the principal was doing was an attempt to offer young people a glimpse of what binds us together as people. This was an attack carried out by extremists, not by a religious group that is as peace loving and valued member of our community, our culture, and our world as any other.”
In response to complaints, Concord-Carlisle High School principal Peter Badalament apologized for not having a student available to read the pledge on the morning of 9/11, according to school spokesman Tom Lucey. A student who was supposed to read the pledge was at a scheduled internship and Badalament had failed to find a replacement. The poem was read later in the day, not in lieu of the pledge, Lucey said.
“We had the well-being of students at the forefront of our thinking when we chose to acknowledge 9/11 by reading a poem that focused on cross-cultural understanding rather than unsettling words and images associated with the event,” the principal’s statement read. “We greatly respect all those who died and suffered loss on 9/11, the responders who gave their lives, as well as those who have served and continue to serve our country. We remain grateful for these heroic citizens.”
The poem, “My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears” by Syrian poet Mohja Kahf examines the clash of cultures that happens in a midwestern bathroom when her grandmother prepares for the “wudu,” a daily prayer ritual, awkwardly washing her feet in the bathroom sink.
- See more at: http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/09/concord_carlisle_official_backs_911_muslim_poem_reading#sthash.OnstGyCo.dpuf

No man has ever promised more and delivered less!

No man has ever promised more and delivered less!
ED DRISCOLL: Hitting the Ejector Seat on the Clown Car Presidency.

Related: Peter Wehner: The Collapse Of The Obama Presidency.
In the first year of his second term, the president has failed on virtually every front. He put his prestige on the line to pass federal gun-control legislation–and lost. He made climate change a central part of his inaugural address–and nothing has happened. The president went head-to-head with Republicans on sequestration–and he failed. He’s been forced to delay implementation of the employer mandate, a key feature of the Affordable Care Act. ObamaCare is more unpopular than ever, and it’s turning out to be a “train wreck” (to quote Democratic Senator Max Baucus) in practice. The most recent jobs report was the worst in a year, with the Obama recovery already qualifying as a historically weak one. Immigration reform is going nowhere. And then there’s Syria, which has turned out to be an epic disaster. (To be sure, Mr. Obama’s Middle East failures go well beyond Syria–but Syria is the most conspicuous failure right now).

In watching the Obama presidency dissolve before our eyes, there is a cautionary tale to be told. Every presidency falls short of the expectations that the candidate sets. But no man has ever promised more and delivered less than the current occupant of the Oval Office.

IT’S A CLOWN POLICY, BRO: Obama’s Foreign Policy Legacy: Anti-Americanism is back in Egypt and Germany.

Is “collapse” too strong? Well, when you’re held up by styrofoam columns. . . .

THE HILL: Forty-three House Republicans back bill to defund ObamaCare. ObamaCare is an unpopular dog. It’s good strategy to force Democrats to vote on it again.

Related: White House: “We will not accept anything that delays or defunds ObamaCare.” That’s rich, given how many times Obama has delayed it already himself. And all the waivers and exemptions for favored constituencies.

“SMART DIPLOMACY:” Obama’s “Red Line” Remark Was Not A Gaffe, It Came From Hillary.

“Drink Up”

   “Drink Up”

    Dipping down into the Viet Nam war in 1962, I quote from an Army Capt. who  said: “My rationale is pretty standard.  This is the point where we chose to draw the line.  I agree that the line  had to be drawn here. I didn’t have any hand in choosing it, but if they chose this one, more power to them.”  What happened subsequent to 1962 after the line was drawn in the fight against Communism?  Death and destruction, disgust and disengagement in due course.
    Now we have Michelle Obama’s “Drink up” initiative. It’s time to draw another red line against liberal insanity.  How can we ( they) drink more water when they ( we ) have already swallowed the ‘Kool-Aid’ by electing Barack Obama and his nanny Muchelle?  Michelle should pitch this politically-correct and agenda-driven nonsense about taking in more water drinking to instead encourage conscientious citizens to pitch their water bottles and  help the poor in other nations obtain fresh, safe drinking water.  How about this rhyming couplet expressing  (I’m sure) most Americans’ sentiments on this latest insanity.
 “Give up this water bottle crap/
                           And drink safely out of the tap.”
    Any  “red line” drawn by Obama  means nothing. When a Viet Nam village held an election in 1962, the people being illiterate, chose between either a sugar cane candidate or a spade.
Hopefully, in 2014 voters choosing  between the water bottle and the gun, make the sane choice.

Obama’s an even bigger laughingstock than he was on Monday

Message to Obama

 
Yes, Obama’s an even bigger laughingstock than he was on Monday, which is saying something. It would be funny, if it weren’t bad for the country.

UPDATE: Joe Klein: Obama’s ‘Damaged His Office and Weakened the Nation.’ Yeah, pretty much.

Related: Michael Barone: Obama’s wing-it diplomacy undermines US credibility.

“SMART DIPLOMACY” BEARS MORE FRUIT: Anti-Americanism Spreads in Syrian Refugee Camps.
Ahmad Hasan:  After cursing the American president in Arabic, he continued, “Obama is ‘Hussein’ – son of Muslims. If he were a Christian he would support us. But he’s a Muslim.” He shakes his head and his eyes tear up. “It’s always Muslims against Muslims.”

SO WHAT’S THIS, PIVOT NUMBER 18? Obama signals shift back to economic focus. “The White House is signaling it wants to shift back to the economy after two weeks in which the Syrian crisis has dominated President Obama’s schedule and workload. Obama will be ‘focusing’ on issues related to the economy in the coming weeks, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday at his daily briefing.”

Two thoughts: (1) So nothing about Syria is solved, he just wants to shift focus because Putin has been eathing his lunch; and (2) He can focus, but he can’t focus “like a laser beam” because laser beams are coherent.

UNLIKE, SAY, PUTIN: Bob Corker: Obama ‘uncomfortable’ as commander in chief.
“He just cannot follow through,” the senator said. “He cannot speak to the nation as a commander in chief. He cannot speak to the world as a commander in chief. He just cannot do it. And I don’t know what it is.”
And while there may be some pleasure in seeing Obama’s foreign-relations fecklessness chickens coming home to roost, there’s nothing good about seeing our greatest geopolitical foe putting it to an American President this way. Such are the wages of “smart diplomacy.”
HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Obama Hoped to Sway Opinion Abroad and He Flunked. Ya think?

3DAZED AND CONFUSED: Slate: If your foreign policy has to be rescued by a dictator, you are doing it wrong. Ya think?


FREE-FALLIN’: Poll: Obama Collapses to 38% Approval with ‘All Adults.’ “The conventional wisdom is that when you poll ‘all adults’ as opposed to a tighter screening for “registered voters,” Democrats generally do better. If that is the case, the latest poll from The Economist/YouGov is the worse news yet for a president obviously in over his head with the Russians and Syria. Obama currently sits at 38% approve/56% disapprove with all adults.”

    Message to Obama from the Possum Lodge:  “I’m a man, I can change, if I have to, I guess.”
What constitute the problem?  1. We need a man.  2. We need change from the change that has already been implemented.  3. We need hope ( I guess).  What represents the solution?
    Let Rev. Jones burn 3000 Koran’s to represent those lost to radical Islam on 9/11.  Free speech belongs to every American.  Right? Need proof?  Protesters of the wars in Viet Nam and Iraq burned the American flag. Why can’t Rev. Jones exercise his God-given right too?
   Message to Obama from America’s liberation front -  Bring back God and reason follows.

Message to Obama

Message to Obama

    Message to Obama from the Possum Lodge:  “I’m a man, I can change, if I have to, I guess.”
What constitute the problem?  1. We need a man.  2. We need change from the change that has already been implemented.  3. We need hope ( I guess).  What represents the solution?
    Let Rev. Jones burn 3000 Koran’s to represent those lost to radical Islam on 9/11.  Free speech belongs to every American.  Right? Need proof?  Protesters of the wars in Viet Nam and Iraq burned the American flag. Why can’t Rev. Jones exercise his God-given right too?
   Message to Obama from America’s liberation front -  Bring back God and reason follows.  

“Give ‘em heck,” Obama

“Give ‘em heck,” Obama
   Yes, recent turns of events show that America will never give anyone Hell anymore.  Kerry brays that our military deterrent to Syria will be incredibly small. Then Obama claims our threat of force was a deterrent to Assad and encouraged him to agree to relinquish chemical weapons.        Yes, we are supposed to believe that a pinprick of military force can frighten our enemy. In reality ( always a contradiction from this Presidency) we receives a taste of Hell every day from the liberal’s totally transforming America.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER CALLS FOR WAR - SORT OF

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER CALLS FOR WAR - SORT OF

If I were Obama, I’d knock back a stiff one before delivering it. . . .
GRADE INFLATION: Historians Give President Obama a B- Grade.
HEADLINE OF THE DAY: Desperate man tries to convince world he has faintest idea of what he’s doing.
THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED FOR MITT ROMNEY, BRITPUNDITS WOULD SCORN OUR PRESIDENT’S BUMBLING. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Nile Gardiner: Barack Obama’s Syria speech was an incoherent mess – he is outperforming Jimmy Carter as the most feeble US president of modern times.

JOSH BOAK: Why The Bully Pulpit Can’t Save Obama On Syria. “Obama’s past speeches have been less than persuasive. The Fiscal Times examined three of his most prominent addresses: his 2009 remarks to Congress about health care, his 2011 speech about the economy, and his meditation last year after the Newtown shootings. As compelling as Obama can be from the stump, his presidential speeches have seldom had a lasting impact on public opinion.”

The only really effective speech he’s given is the one he gave in 2004. And that speech was fundamentall
Now, of course, with the Syria debacle, it seems like we’ve gone from tragedy to farce. Obama tried to channel W. last night, but he didn’t have it in him, and Syrian gas attacks on Syrians aren’t the same as Al Qaeda attacks on Americans. But a farce, however farcical, at least isn’t a tragedy. Yet, anyway.
OUCH: Obama’s Syria speech: An illogical argument from a paralyzed president.

Meanwhile, I’m watching a devastating video montage of the Administration’s mixed messages, but what strikes me most is how weird Kerry’s face looks. Speaking of “paralyzed,” I don’t think the work he had done was a good idea.

UPDATE: Peggy Noonan: “Obama, a self-besotted charismatic who can’t tell the difference between showbiz and strategy, and who enjoys unburdening himself of moral insights to his peers.”

Plus: “Another problem, and there’s no nice way to say this: It is hard to believe such a chill man has such warm feelings about the sad end of strangers far away.”

And yet, Peggy, you backed him and looked down on those who saw through him from the beginning.

ET TU, AP? AP FACT CHECK SHATTERS OBAMA SYRIA SPEECH.
Plus, tweet of the night: “The president’s problem tonight is he had to give a speech with John Kerry’s foot in his mouth.”
And to paraphrase Napoleon: If you set out to take Damascus, take Damascus.

“SMART DIPLOMACY:” Foreign Policy: Did The World Just Legitimize The Assad Regime It Spent Years Discrediting? Yes.

Warning, warning...

    Warning, warning...

   “My own count of our war effort  in Vietnam showed 68 Americans wounded in action and 27 killed in action to date ( we sent our first MAAG representatives down here in 1957).”   Oh really?  When journalist, reporter and diarist Richard Tregaskis spoke in 1962,  he could not know where America would go wrong as the death toll rose for years in Vietnam. Approximately 60,000 dead in the final count.
    The death tolls of the horror 9-11 ( and Benghazi) pale in comparison but who knows where we are heading under world-wide Al-Qaida terrorism so unlike the Communism of the Viet Cong.      Especially now that the ‘modern’ Communist, Putin has solved the Syrian chemical warfare situation and Communist Kim Jong Un has become a ‘friend’ of Dennis Rodman.  

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE:

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: Investor’s Business Daily: IRS Gave Black Nonprofits Preferential Treatment.
At the same time the IRS harassed Republican nonprofit groups during the 2012 political campaign, it selectively advised black churches and other Democrat nonprofits on how far they can go in campaigning for President Obama and other Democrats.

This raw exercise in political favoritism has not been reported in the context of the still-smoldering IRS scandal, in which the agency in 2012 audited big GOP donors and blocked Tea Party groups trying to obtain tax-exempt status as part of what House investigators suspect was an effort to re-elect the president.

But that same year, top officials with both the IRS and Justice Department — including the IRS commissioner and attorney general — met in Washington with several dozen prominent black church ministers representing millions of voters to brief them on how to get their flocks out to vote without breaking federal tax laws.

The “summit” on energizing the black vote in houses of worship was hosted by the Democrat-controlled Congressional Black Caucus inside the U.S. Capitol on May 30, 2012.

It’s pretty obvious that the IRS has been taking sides. (Bumped).

Subject: 2700 pages of Health Care explained in 1 page!!!

Subject: 2700 pages of Health Care explained in 1 page!!!

FROM FRED AUGUSTIN:
                Trumps; take!!



             This is coming to everyone in one way or another very soon and this will give you an idea of what to expect from Medical Insurance,
             Trump Explains Dumbo Care

             No one can sum it up better than Trump

             Let me get this straight . . ..
             We're going to be "gifted" with a health care
             plan we are forced to purchase and
             fined if we don't,
             Which purportedly covers at least
             ten million more people,
             without adding a single new doctor,
             but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, who have recently demonstrated their objective and professional integrity
             written by a committee whose chairman
             says he doesn't understand it,
             passed by a Congress that didn't read it but
             exempted themselves from it,
             and signed by a Dumbo President who smokes,
             with funding administered by a treasury chief who
             didn't pay his taxes,
             for which we'll be taxed for four years before any
             benefits take effect,
             by a government which has
             already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, and the Post Office
             all to be overseen by a surgeon general
             who is obese,
             and financed by a country that's broke!!!!!

             'What the hell could possibly go wrong?'
             Wow, you mean someone besides me noticed this!

EARL PITTS

Inspired by our country greatest living philosopher, Earl Pitts, “here’s what drives my gears.” - a never-restful enquiring mind.  The problem, however, is that the more you know the more you get depressed; you will constantly be challenged to remember to flip the coin of life.  Remember to look for the good after you hear, see, feel, smell and touch only the evil around you.    

DITHER OBAMA

NORMAN PODHORETZ: Is Obama Wrecking Our Foreign Policy On Purpose? “The president may look incompetent on Syria. But his behavior fits his strategy to weaken America abroad.” Well, we’re certainly seeing fundamental transformation.

ROGER KIMBALL: Fundamentally Transforming The United States of America. “Remember when candidate Barack Obama promised his acolytes that they were only ‘five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America’? That was back in October 2008, when the hectic flush of Obamamania was at its peak. To be fair, it’s took a bit longer than five days, but here we are, five years into the most destructive presidency in the country’s history and we can see that fundamental transformation at work just about everywhere.”

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Constitution, the Sour Spot, and the Great Syria Train Wreck. “During his time in the White House, President Obama has repeatedly demonstrated a style of decision making that gets him in trouble. Especially when the stakes are high and the issue is complex, the President overthinks himself and tries to split the difference between tough policy choices. He comes up with stratagems that work beautifully on paper and offer well reasoned, moderate alternatives to stark choices. Unfortunately, they usually don’t work all that well in the real world, with the President repeatedly ending up in the ‘sour spot’ where his careful approaches don’t get him where he needs to go. This style of strategy is what’s boxed him in and tied him in knots over Syria. “

ROGER SIMON NO LONGER FAVORS AN ATTACK ON SYRIA: “I overlooked — or more exactly chose to ignore — the obvious. We would be going to war with a blind man as our commander-in-chief. And I don’t mean a physically blind man like the Japanese samurai Zatoichi, whose heroic exploits were magnificent despite his infirmity, if you remember the film series. I mean a morally, psychologically and ideologically blind man incapable of coherent policy, action or even much logical thought on any matter of significance, let alone on such a crucial one with life and death at stake.”

OBAMA’S SYRIA LOBBYING CAMPAIGN NOT GOING SO WELL: How Not to Win Over Congress: Sending Susan Rice, on the Benghazi anniversary, to argue for Syria is one of many missteps.

MOE LANE ENDORSES MY SUGGESTION: Attention, Republican legislators: let the Democrats vote FIRST. Yep. Not one Republican in the House or Senate should cast a vote until all the Democrats have voted.

MAUREEN DOWD: In his head, is Barry at war with the commander in chief? But note that she manages to try to blame Bush, too.

ITS ALL ABOUT ‘FEEELINGS’.
WAR AND DOMESTIC POLITICS: The Hill: Fears of wounding Obama weigh heavily on Dems ahead of vote.

WELCOME TO THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE:

WELCOME TO THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE: What Happens When You Can’t Believe A Thing The President Says?
Posted at 7:06 am by Glenn Reynolds  
SEPTEMBER 7, 2013

“SMART DIPLOMACY:” Collapse of American Influence Recalls Dis-Integration of Soviet Union, Fall of France.
Posted at 11:04 pm by Glenn Reynolds  

PROF. JACOBSON: Contemplating Three Years Without A President.

Bushwhackers

   Gangs from Missouri that supported the Confederacy and raided Kansas were known as Bushwhackers; their counterparts in Kansas, called Jayhawkers, brought death and destruction in to Missouri.  Aug. 21, 1863, 450 men of Quantrill’s Raiders entered Lawrence, Kansas, where they killed more than 150 men and boys and burned down 182 buildings and departed with anything of value they could carry away.  So... what’s new?
   North vs. South.  Sunni vs. Shiite. Al-Qaida vs. Muslim Brotherhood. Jihadists vs. Christians.  Tutsis vs. Hutus. Serbs vs. Croats. Liberals  vs. conservatives.  Supply raping; remove raping. Add beheading, subtract beheading.  Lies masquerading as truth. War is Hell is the normal way of life.
   The anniversary of Sept. 11th, 2001 again approaches.  Make of it what you will. A day of service will change nothing until you change minds and hearts.  Ho,Ho,Ho!.    

Reductio ad Obama

Reductio ad Obama

JAMES TARANTO: Reductio ad Obama: The logic of the president’s incapacity to lead.
“Obama loves to speak in the first-person singular; he seems oblivious to the obnoxiousness of his habitual references (including one in today’s press conference) to “my military.” But suddenly it’s a matter of whether we mean what we say.

It’s the same dodge as “I didn’t set a red line.” In reality, as we noted Wednesday, Obama did introduce the idea of “a red line,” and his subordinates later affirmed that he had thereby set such a line. Obama is using the first-person plural to obscure what he’s really doing by asking lawmakers for approval: demanding that they say that they mean what he said. He blundered into a policy by speaking carelessly, waited months before thinking through its implications, then made a decision. He believes he has the authority to carry out that decision on his own, but apparently is unwilling to do so unless Congress affords him political cover.

I’m beginning to think that this President Obama fellow just isn’t up to the job.”

PEGGY NOONAN: WHY AMERICA IS SAYING NO. Syria and Obama: Wrong time, wrong place, wrong plan, wrong man.

SYRIA: “It’s hard to find a precedent for a president imploding on something this big.” More fundamental transformation!
Posted at 7:39 am by Glenn Reynolds

P.J. O’ROURKE: I Came, I Saw, I Skedaddled: Decisive moments in Barack Obama history.

Then and Now

Then and Now


    My,  how America has changed.  Remember back when if a person hanged himself, it was obvious he committed suicide?  Now it takes an autopsy to determine cause of death ‘alleged’ to be a suicide.  Why have we descended into a society of uncommon sense?
    In the old days, nature lovers concerned themselves with the endangered status of  salmon,  wolves, water and trees. 21st century Americans do not even concern themselves with recent ethnic cleansing in Darfur or present slaughter of Coptic Christians in Syria.  Pro Choice means we lobby for babies to be aborted.
   Back when, welfare payments hardly existed.  Now 30% of Americans receive some type of  welfare payments.  In 1974, virtually no disabled children were on SSI, but in 2010, 1.25 million recipients received 11 billion dollars of assistance at the taxpayers’ expense.
    What once were motion pictures as visual literature have now  morphed into a modern art form  catering solely to the eye and ear.
    Traditionally,  public education taught Christian values and the facts about America’s history.   Grading usually formed a learning curve.  Some students excelled (and they were encouraged to excel),  most put in C performances and the predictably lazy or less-gifted fell to the bottom of the achievement pile.  Now most students excel, receiving A’s and elite leftists opposed to American exceptionalism, indoctrinate pupils with textbooks revising history and perverting truth.
    Remember parents who saved to purchase a home and dreamed of living in it as a symbol of security?  They sacrificed to make payments to a bank that charged a reasonable rate of interest ( in order to make a profit).  Today, interest rates are virtually free and  foreclosure means little more than a chance for a second start after defaulting on mortgage payments.   I recently heard that one bank will not only sell you a new home but also  maintain the vacated home ( until sold) by mowing the lawn and performing other upkeep duties.
     Citizens can no longer tour the White House or enjoy some national parks and public monuments because of the sequester.  Federal employees, however,  will receive a pay raise and paid furloughs ( vacations) on  the 1st of the year, 2014.  
    Government spending beyond its means of repayment to the tune of  trillions of dollars would have blown the minds of our ancestors.  Now we just borrow from China and  raise the debt ceiling.  
    A balanced budget used to refer to home finances because citizens assume federal and state fiscal responsibility.  Not now.  Union, federal and state employees’ pensions threaten the solvency of  many municipalities - to the point of bankruptcy.        
    Was not the marriage vow until death traditionally  between a man and a woman?  Not now.   Too many states already legalize gay marriage ( so far between human beings).  Also, no ‘red line,’ stops them from fostering the discovery of your sexual orientation.
    Further examples are mostly pathetic.  Gangs are not on the streets but in the schools. The Pledge of  Allegiance with words ‘under God’ is challenged by atheists in the courts. “Designer packaging and wrappers” for Tampons are openly  advertised not held to be unmentionable.  Popular fads and panics have been replaced by drug, hunger or obesity epidemics.
    Cars used to be parked in garages; now they are storage lockers.   Parents once told children  they must earn success;  free stuff would not be prized. Now fewer  homes have two parents, getting rich is evil and everything should be free.   Once a contact sport, the NFL now resembles touch football. Old-fashioned dating has morphed into hook-ups.
    If the current situation is so bad, how do we find the good?  Our culture and public discourse do not embody truth and consequences; they have been replaced by lies and irresponsibility.  Where do we look?   Let’s replace a false urgency of despair with a true urgency of hope.  I say  flip the U.S. coin.
     The most popular cable TV show in its history, “Duck Dynasty” champions hard work, solid values and a sense of humor.  Decency is not a lost cause.   We can still believe like Anne  Frank that people are “good at heart.”
     A foundation called Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) sponsors truth to power workshops for young adults.  Not all God’s creatures succumb to the temptations of an irrational and reckless life.  Most Americans do not subscribe to an alternative Allah or Gaia as gospel truth.            Teddy Roosevelt wrote: “It is essential that a man should have in him the capacity to defy his fellows if he thinks they are doing the work of the devil and not the work of the Lord, but it is even more essential for him to remember that he be most cautious about mistaking his own views for those of  the Lord.”   True, but even Rough Rider Teddy sometimes violated his own advice.        Mother nature offers us Faith, Chicken Soup for Souls’ books offer us hope, friends offer us love. God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world.  

The Obama Way

The Obama Way
Tom Bethell’s important 1998 book, The Noblest Triumph:
“Nationalization has been discredited, but it has been replaced by a more insidious philosophy.  The owner retains title, but is saddled with taxes, impositions, and regulations that might in some cases have seemed excessive to feudal tenants.  Contract is here and there yielding it crucial gains to status.  Individual rights are threatened by the privileges associated with group membership.”

OUR HOPEY-CHANGEY ECONOMY: “Our drop from 8.1% unemployment to 7.3% is analogous to losing 20 pounds by cutting off a body part.”

IF THEY BAN DISCRIMINATION AGAINST UGLY AND DUMB I FINALLY STAND A CHANCE IN SOCIETY

IF THEY BAN DISCRIMINATION AGAINST UGLY AND DUMB I FINALLY STAND A CHANCE IN SOCIETY
Boston Globe tackles attractiveness discrimination
by WALTER OLSON on SEPTEMBER 4, 2013
The article, by Ruth Graham in the Boston Globe “Ideas” section, takes more or less for granted that private parties’ liberties of free association and contract must be curtailed in order to right the “galloping injustice of ‘lookism’”:

Tentatively, experts are beginning to float possible solutions. Some have proposed legal remedies including designating unattractive people as a protected class, creating affirmative action programs for the homely, or compensating disfigured but otherwise healthy people in personal-injury courts. Others have suggested using technology to help fight the bias, through methods like blind interviews that take attraction out of job selection.

“to unilaterally widen the circle of responsibility.”

 “to unilaterally widen the circle of responsibility.”
MEDIA CONTORTS ITS SELF TO DEFEND OBAMA
Republicans also have reason to suspect that Obama’s decision to request congressional approval was an effort to put them on the spot–and his ludicrous denial yesterday that he “set a red line” or that his credibility is at stake reinforces that view.

The fierce watchdogs of the press, confronted with this brazen falsehood, show themselves once again to be Obama’s pet hamsters. Instead of giving a “pants on fire” rating, PolitiFact.com’s Jon Greenberg claims Obama was “reframing comments rather than denying them.” Greenberg can’t even say the statement is half true, so he withholds a rating altogether. Peter Baker of the New York Times has his own euphemisms, writing that Obama was “citing longstanding international norms” and “trying to break out of his isolation.” The funniest dodges come from Shawna Thomas of NBC News, who on Twitter calls Obama’s whopper “a definite change in tone” and an attempt “to unilaterally widen the circle of responsibility.”

That last one is priceless. Next time someone accuses you of trying to weasel out of a commitment, say you’re just trying to widen the circle of responsibility.

The press will abandon Obama last. Their loyalty is their honor.

SAY, I NOTICE THAT JOE’S BEEN KEEPING KIND OF A LOW PROFILE LATELY. Flashback: A year ago, Biden accused Romney of wanting war with Syria.
Posted at 8:01 am by Glenn Reynolds

LOUSY JOBS NUMBERS:

LOUSY JOBS NUMBERS: “The August jobs numbers are disappointing. The economy gained 169,000 non-farm payroll jobs, below the estimated figure of 175,000. Much worse, however, were the downward revisions for past months. July’s job numbers went down 58,000. The total revision for June and July is 74,000 less than previously expected. Then there is the labor participation rate: It dropped to 63.2 percent. It hasn’t been this low since 1978. Because so many people have left the work force, the percent of unemployed (i.e. those who haven’t checked out of the job market) went down to 7.3 percent. It is long since past the time that we can attribute feeble job growth to the financial collapse in 2008. The ‘recovery’ started in the second half of 2009. What we see now is the Obama economy — more people out of the job market, minimal growth and tepid job creation.”

Posted at 10:46 am by Glenn Reynold

Carter Redux

Carter Redux

    We know today that America has the lowest labor force participation in 35 years. 1978 is 35 years ago.  Draw you own conclusion about Carter in ‘78 and Obama is 2013.   We can hope - can’t we - that another Reagan is on the horizon?

Clint Eastwood’s “empty chair” Come True!

Clint Eastwood’s “empty chair” Come True!
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: If Obama Doesn’t Bomb Syria Now, He’s Toast.
It is precisely the President’s credibility as a spokesman for the “international community” (whatever that is) and for US foreign policy that is glaringly and horribly on the line. An effective leader would have consulted with key people in Congress and made sure of his backing before making explicit threats of force. Now the President is twisting lonesomely in the wind, and the question is whether Congress will ride to the rescue. If it doesn’t, it will be the closest thing the American system has to a parliamentary vote of “no confidence”, where Congress explicitly declares to the world that the President of the United States does not speak for the country.

That would be very dangerous. Foreigners will no longer know when and whether to take anything this President says as representing American policy rather than his own editorial opinions. We hate to say it, but that is so dangerous that there’s a strong argument for Congress to back the Syria resolution simply to avoid trashing the credibility of the only President we’ve got.

If Congress declines to support what even proponents of a Syria strike must agree is a massively screwed up policy, then the President will face another choice. He can do a “Clinton” (President Clinton bombed Serbia in the teeth of congressional disapproval), or he can fold like a cheap suit. If he chooses the latter course, Clint Eastwood’s “empty chair” stunt at the 2012 GOP convention will look eerily prophetic.

Oh, it already does. And Obama’s problem is that if he does bomb Syria, it will either do nothing much — underscoring his irrelevance — or it will topple Assad, which will likely lead to an Islamist Syria hostile to the United States. He really shouldn’t have departed from the teleprompter with that “Red Line” comment.
Posted at 10:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

Bread

   “A saving of $20.00 each year is what home baking means to the average family”   This is a quote from an exhibit by a Minnesota 4-H Club, a club of girls in 1935.  Each member baked on the average of 500 loaves of bread a year ( from scratch).  Unbelievable?  Unbelievable is how far we in the civilized world have come since 1935.
  An example is that there are only 114,000 gay couple nationwide but the goal of legalizing gay marriage and granting benefits to gay couples is to break the back of social conservatism nationwide.

HYPER ACTIVE GOVERNMENT

HYPER ACTIVE GOVERNMENT
You should take more seriously Mr. Coase’s warnings against hyperactive government – perhaps by pondering his wise admonition that ”To ignore the government’s poor performance of its present duties when deciding on whether it should or should not take on new duties is obviously wrong.”*
Why do you suppose that the same government that fails so regularly at home will succeed abroad?  What reason, do tell, justifies government humility only in domestic affairs or only for bureaucracies not housed in pentagon-shaped buildings?
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics

Plus: The Magical, Mysterious, Disappearing Obama Red Line.
YOU CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT’S NOT THERE: McClatchy: Many in Middle East struggling to understand Obama’s Syria policy.

I IMAGINE A LOT OF BUSH ALUMNI ARE LAUGHING UP THEIR SLEEVES: Democrats Dragooned Into Supporting War: The president relies on party loyalty, not policy arguments.
Chris Matthews of MSNBC, who served on Capitol Hill for years as a top Democratic aide, put the party’s dilemma in stark terms on Wednesday: “I think the Democrats are going to be forced to sacrifice men and women who really, really don’t want to vote for this. They’re going to have to vote for it to save the president’s hide. That’s a bad position to put your party in.”

One reason it’s especially awkward is that on the substance, the White House isn’t doing well.

Related: Professor Or Not, Obama Repeatedly Flunks Constitutional Law Tests.

OBAMA’S FAVORITE VOTE:
MOCKERY ENSUES: U.S. Sen. Ed Markey votes `present’ on key Syria resolution.

“PEACE IN OR TIME”

“PEACE IN OR TIME”
Neville Chamberlin. 1937 Munich
Baack Obama, 2nd Inaugural 2013

AS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER TRAVELS, HE LEAVES CONGRESS TO ARGUE ABOUT THE MESS HE MADE ABOUT IRAQ
AUSTIN BAY: Obama’s Smart Diplomacy: Keystone Kops, Emily Litella and Kabuki. “Obama promised to restore America’s international reputation. Has he?” Hey, he’s trying his best.
Posted at 8:04 am by Glenn Reynolds  
DON’T BE CRITICIZING PRESIDENT OBAMA: “He’s trying his best.” This from his defenders.
THIS MESS IS HIS BEST!

UH, REALLY? Obama on Syria: ‘I didn’t set a red line’ … ‘My credibility is not on the line.’ “That claim directly contradicts Obama’s remarks in August of last year, when he announced his ‘red line’ for action in Syria during a White House press conference.”

Of course, as several wags on Twitter are noting, you can’t “put on the line” what does not exist. . . .
UPDATE: “President Pass-The-Buck.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Obama on the ‘red line’: I didn’t draw that. Somebody else made that happen.
OUCH: Conan: Syria’s Assad called Pres Obama “weak.” Obama was so angry he plans to ask Congress for permission to think up a good comeback.

UPDATE: Rand Paul’s Syria Amendment Throws Obama’s Words Back In His Face. “The amendment quotes from a response Obama gave The Boston Globe back in 2007 as a Senator, in which Obama said that ‘the President does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.’”

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Debbie Wasserman Schultz says ‘dozens’ of countries stand with US on Syria, can’t name them.

COLBERT KING:” Obama’s Pathetic Syria Strategy. “He is only seeking buy-in from Capitol Hill because of public pressure to do so, not because he reached that conclusion on his own, either in anticipation of a serious Assad regime challenge or as part of a larger administration strategy for dealing with Syria and its enablers in the region. Obama’s decision was wholly reactive. That’s not reassuring behavior from a superpower’s commander in chief.”

And Barack Obama, who in his first term was known as the vanquisher of Osama bin Laden, could come out of his second looking more like Neville Chamberlain.

I don’t want to overstate things. Bashar al-Assad, a tinpot dictator who is fighting only for his own survival, is no Hitler. He’s not set to overrun an entire continent. And the “lessons of Munich” and the dangers of appeasement are generally overdrawn. But, after all, it was Secretary of State John Kerry who lumped Assad with the Fuehrer on the talk shows Sunday, saying that he “now joins the list of Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein [who] have used these weapons in time of war.” (Technically, Hitler’s only use of gas was not on the battlefield but to kill millions in extermination camps.)

These are also the clear implications of the president’s own words.
It was either an embarrassing slip, or a frightening revelation of the president’s true worldview. Either way, the words “peace in our time,” made infamous by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain as he promised an illusory peace with Adolf Hitler in 1938, should never have been in President Barack Obama’s second inaugural address. Yet they were, and went virtually unnoticed until caught by conservatives on social media.

The phrase appeared in a passage on foreign policy, in which the president pledged to defend the nation while resolving differences peacefully [emphasis added]:

And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice–not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice.”

SEQUESTOR AS ‘STIMULUS’

SEQUESTOR AS ‘STIMULUS’
The intellectual bankruptcy of macroeconomics (by Russ Roberts)
Posted: 03 Sep 2013 10:41 AM PDT
Gregg Easterbrook in an excellent essay on the NFL’s legal problems and lots of other stuff, digresses on the sequester:
Last week’s word that the GDP grew at 2.5 percent in the second quarter is strong economic news; the jobs report due Friday may signal if the recent mild decline in unemployment will accelerate.
The good news about the second quarter applies to the period the sequester went into effect. Widely predicted to cause awful economic distress, instead across-the-board spending cuts have been accompanied by economic improvement. When the sequester began, unemployment was 7.9 percent and the most recent quarter had shown only 0.4 percent GDP growth. Now unemployment is down to 7.4 percent while growth has climbed to 2.5 percent. Perhaps these improvements would have happened anyway; perhaps trends would be even better without the sequester. All that can be known is that politicians and pundits said the sequester would be terrible for the economy, and instead so far it’s been a positive.
Let’s review some predictions:
“Sequester Will Sock A Vulnerable Economy” — Washington Post banner headline on the midwinter day the sequester started. “The sequester is already hurting our economy,” President Barack Obama said a few days later. Since these statements, the GDP is up about 3 percent, the stock market is up about 5 percent, unemployment is down half a percent and the housing market has become so strong there is talk of a new bubble. Three months into the sequester, American household net worth hit an all-time high.
Unnamed “experts” predicted that the sequester “will cost 700,000 jobs. Instead about 1 million new jobs have been added.
Early in the sequester, the New York Times’ lead editorial declared that Ohio “could lose 30,000 jobs” while approving of a claim that federal spending restrictions could bring the University of Cincinnati’s medical school “to its knees.” Three months later, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported, “The largest over-the-month increases in employment occurred in Ohio.” The latest figures show Ohio having 37,000 more jobs than in the same month of the previous year. Rather than kneel, the University of Cincinnati’s medical school announced a $100 million expansion.
Of course it might be that the economy would have done even better if the sequester hadn’t happened. That’s why Easterbrook writes:
Perhaps these improvements would have happened anyway; perhaps trends would be even better without the sequester. All that can be known is that politicians and pundits said the sequester would be terrible for the economy, and instead so far it’s been a positive.
The New York Times didn’t mention the source of the 700,000 job loss. Was there more than one? I don’t know but Macroeconomic Advisers, a well-know consulting firm was one source. Krugman cited their analysis approvingly. So were they wrong? I assume Macroeconomic Advisers and Krugman would say that they meant that there would be 700,000 more jobs now if there hadn’t been a sequester. But then it wasn’t a prediction. It was a seance. Or a mood. Or a hope. Or a fear. Or something. But when your prediction can’t be falsified, it’s not a prediction.

CAN OBAMA BE TRUSTED WITH LIVE AMMUNITION?

CAN OBAMA BE TRUSTED WITH LIVE AMMUNITION?
VARIOUS HEADLINES:
JOHN FUND: President “Present:” Hillary Had It Right in 2008 On Obama’s Indecisiveness.

Related: Why Many Republicans Won’t Support Obama On Syria Attack. Key bit:
The lack of confidence in Barack Obama. There’s no doubt the president has been extremely reluctant to take action in Syria. He also showed terrible judgment by painting himself into a corner with his 2012 “red line” comments on chemical weapons. For those reasons, and more, some Republicans will argue that they simply cannot entrust special warmaking powers to a president who they believe is not competent to use them.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Politico: Obama Allies Say He’s Misread Capitol Hill — Badly.

Related: Charlie Rangel: “Of course it’s embarrassing.”
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) on Monday said “of course it’s embarrassing” that President Obama warned Syria of a red line for using chemical weapons but then didn’t move forward immediately with a military strike.

Rangel, who opposes a military strike against Syria, also said Secretary of State John Kerry must be even more embarrassed after making an aggressive speech calling for a military strike on Friday, and then seeing Obama delay it to ask Congress for authorization a day later.
Speaking on MSNBC, Rangel said “I love Obama” and you’ll “never find a truer Democrat than me.”
But he said the idea that a president could draw a red line and push the nation into war was “unheard of.
“So of course it’s embarrassing, I wish it didn’t happen. I guess Secretary Kerry is even more embarrassed than me after making his emotional speech that this was urgent.”

Obama’s mouth has been writing checks that it looks like his body politic can’t cash. I guess that’s what they call “smart diplomacy.”
IMMIGRATION: ICE Union Head Wants Congressional Investigations Into Obama’s ICE Policies—Obama Acts “Like A Dictator”, “Overstepping His Authority.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How the NSA Misleads the Public Without Technically Lying.

ROLL CALL: Will Congress Follow Its Leaders On Syria? I don’t think they should even vote unless Obama promises to abide by the result — something he’s quite pointedly refused to do.

OBAMA’S “DENSE PACK” SCANDAL STRATEGY STRIKES AGAIN: Looming fiscal fights threaten IRS probes. “Republicans on Capitol Hill are acknowledging that the fall’s looming fiscal fights could peel attention away from their investigation into the IRS’s singling out of conservative groups.”

Obama’s Organizing For America front organization

PAPER TIGER: OFA’s ( Obama’s Organizing For America front organization)pro-amnesty rally in Columbus reportedly draws crowd of SIX.
Reporter Jesse Hathaway managed to get up close to the action to grab some photos; check Media Trackers Ohio on Tuesday for more angles on this underreported rally, as well as OFA Westerville’s same-day press conference with representatives of Mayors of Illegal Guns. We’re told that event was actually smaller.

HEH: Ohio Gun-Control Rally Quickly Becomes Pro-Gun Event.