And then there was one—Obama

The Obama tornadoes wreak destruction everywhere as he and his minions prune, trim and reshape America. He and his demolition team could care less about broken legs and ripped off arms here and there. The lights are humming and buzzing as the Obama monster is getting ready to get up from the table and finish the job. Will we let him? I won’t insult Frankenstein. I would prefer him to the Obama monster being built.

Schools—There will be only one—Common Core

Everything must be one—controlled and shaped by Obama and his handlers. As in the days of Adolph Hitler, Obama must take over the minds and futures of our children. He will rise up an army of obedient ‘Stepford wives’ happily serving big Government and Obama. They will stop dreaming about becoming a Doctor, Firefighter, Pastor or Teacher. They will only think of their appointed place in the ‘Global Community’ ‘Private-Public Partnerships’ and latest ‘redistribution of wealth scheme ordered by Obama and his staff. Commentator and investigative journalist Sher Zieve (regular on my national radio show each Monday) captured this Nazi spirit beautifully in her article.

Through Common Core—public then charter schools are becoming nothing but deadly indoctrination centers to push porn, the gay agenda, Islam and sustainability. History is rewritten to leave a strong impression of shame and need to submit and apologize to the world. This is obviously inspired by our poser President who does nothing but apologize to the world for America.

Via: Canada Free Press

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Open thread: Obama to make undoubtedly helpful statement about shutdown at 4:45 p.m. ET; Update: “You don’t get to extract a ransom for doing your job”

Two ways he could go with this. One: Something conciliatory designed to make it easier for Boehner to agree to an eleventh-hour face-saving compromise. Two: Tough talk designed to show Republicans he intends to use the bully pulpit every day during a shutdown to make sure they bear the brunt of public discontent. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, of course, but we can all guess where the emphasis will lie. Per Dave Weigel, odds of a “let me be clear” happening shortly: North of 95 percent.

Boehner told reporters within the past hour that there’ll be no clean CR tonight. Stand by for updates.

Update: Wouldn’t surprise me if O uses the bulk of his time to pitch the ObamaCare exchanges opening tomorrow. The shutdown has created an intense media spotlight for him today; he’d be a moron not to use it while people are paying attention to get young adults to log in and sign up in the a.m. That may end up being his core message contra the GOP, in fact — “I’m not going to defund a program that’s starting literally tomorrow.”

For what it’s worth, a new poll shows that only one-third of the public wants Congress to defund, delay, or repeal O-Care. In fact, those who say they want the law expanded outnumber those who want delay/defunding.

Update: You might hear O mention this convenient data tidbit too.

Update: I’m skeptical, but here you go. For what it’s worth:

They’re going to pass it through the Senate when Boehner might not even be able to pass it through the House?

Update: The money line from O’s presser ended up being something about one faction of one party in one house of one branch of the government attempting to dictate terms after losing this fight in the last election. The rest of it was, as expected, a sales pitch for ObamaCare plus a reminder that the law can’t be defunded in the CR since spending for most of its core functions has already been appropriated. In other words, he said, the exchanges will open tomorrow, no matter what happens tonight.

Via: Hot Air

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WHO GETS CREDIT FOR A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN?

The End is Nigh. So say the media, counting down the seconds to a partial shutdown of the U.S. government. Certainly Americans will miss some federal functions, and the media will focus eagerly on victims--real and imaginary--of the impasse (though, curiously, the government clocks out for two days every weekend, and most people seem OK with that). At the same time, we will be reminded that life goes on beyond the state.

The enduring memory of the last shutdown, in 1996, is that the economy hummed right along despite the fact that the federal government was closed. Suddenly, much of government didn't seem so necessary after all. The American people proved quite adept at handling our own affairs in most matters. It was before--not after--that shutdown that President Bill Clinton told the nation that "the era of big government is over." 

Earlier this year, President Barack Obama warned Americans that the budget sequester--his idea, proposed during the debt ceiling negotiations of 2011--would create apocalyptic damage. That is still, basically, the White House line, blaming slow economic growth on spending restraint. No one buys it--and the president did himself considerable political damage by exaggerating the pain Americans would suddenly begin to feel.

The government shutdown may be a repeat. It forces Washington to do what it pretends is impossible--to prioritize among government functions, to designate some programs and even some departments as "non-essential." That causes some hurt feelings, but it is reality. And among those non-essential parts will be new opportunities for savings that Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi recently claimed simply aren't there.

This particular shutdown is complicated by the fact that it coincides with negotiations on the debt ceiling, which could have a direct impact on the stock market and the country's credit ratings. But there are some who are already predicting that the fight over a government shutdown could make a deal on the debt ceiling more likely, not less. And it is hard to measure damage to an economy already badly damaged by bad policy.

Via: Breitbart

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[CARTOON] Obamacare Waivers

Via: California Political Review

Shutdown showdown hits brink as Senate kills House spending bill

House Republicans said Monday they will try to pass a stopgap spending bill that will fund Obamacare, but will delay the individual mandate requiring all Americans to obtain insurance, and will cancel the taxpayer subsidies lawmakers use to pay for their own health plans.

The House was pushing to vote in the late evening on the new plan, which they said would keep government open past a midnight Monday deadline.

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But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has already said he will reject those provisions, leaving the two chambers no closer to a solution that would keep the government open.

“We are not going to change Obamacare,” Mr. Reid told reporters minutes after he led his chamber to kill two other Republican plans, one of which would have been a full one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act and the other which would have repealed the law’s unpopular medical device tax

The Senate’s 54-46 vote broke along party lines, suggesting that despite the misgivings of some Republicans, they are still maintaining unity in the face of a government shutdown.

The latest House offer has been brewing for some days, as Republicans insist there be some conditions attached to the stopgap spending bill. Democrats have said they will not accept any condition.

Sen. David Vitter, Louisiana Republican, said that those in Washington deserve to feel the same pain as the American people if Obamacare is not repealed.

“If [the government shuts down] because Democrats won’t accept treating Washington like it treats America, I think that’s a message that’s important for all Americans to hear,” Mr. Vitter told reporters Monday afternoon.

Via: Washington Times

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Americans Are More Conservative Than They Have Been In Decades

James Stimson knows as much about public opinion as anyone in America. He has been tracking the nation’s policy preferences for more than 20 years using a “policy mood” index derived from responses to a wide variety of opinion surveys involving hundreds of specific policy questions on topics ranging from taxes and spending to environmental regulation to gun control.

The latest update of Stimson’s policy mood series suggests that the American public in 2012 was more conservative than at any point since 1952. (Actually, since mood in each year is estimated with some error, it seems safer to say that the current level of conservatism roughly equals the previous highs recorded in 1980 and 1952.) While the slight increase in conservatism from 2011 to 2012 is too small to be significant, it continues a marked trend that began as soon as Barack Obama moved into the White House.

Via: Washington Post

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The DNC is nearly broke

As the government nears shutdown, the fundraising arm of the Democratic Party is having a budget crisis of its own.

FORTUNE -- There's another budget crisis in Washington, and it's unfolding inside the Democratic party. The Democratic National Committee remains so deeply in the hole from spending in the last election that it is struggling to pay its own vendors.

It is a highly unusual state of affairs for a national party -- especially one that can deploy the President as its fundraiser-in-chief -- and it speaks to the quiet but serious organizational problems the party has yet to address since the last election, obscured in part by the much messier spectacle of GOP infighting.

The Democrats' numbers speak for themselves: Through August, 10 months after helping President Obama secure a second term, the DNC owed its various creditors a total of $18.1 million, compared to the $12.5 million cash cushion the Republican National Committee is holding.

Several executives at firms that contract to provide services to the party -- speaking anonymously to avoid antagonizing what remains an important if troubled client -- describe an organization playing for time as they raise alarms about past-due bills falling further behind. And senior strategists close to the DNC say they worry the organization appears to have no road map back to solvency. "They really thought they could get this money raised by the summer," one said, "but the fact is, from talking to people over there, they have no real plan for how to solve this."

DNC national press secretary Michael Czin says the committee is working with vendors on a case-by-case basis to pay down their tabs. And filings show the organization over the last five months has made $4.5 million in payments to the Amalgamated Bank and appears to be hewing to a $1 million-per-month installment schedule now. "While we work to retire our debt, we're not taking our foot off the pedal and are making the investments that will help ensure that Democrats are successful in 2014, 2016, and beyond," Czin said. He pointed to ongoing work by the DNC's National Finance Committee, which met over the weekend in Colorado to discuss fundraising strategy.

Via: Fortune

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Who Will Blink? Dems, GOP in Shutdown Staredown

WASHINGTON (AP) -- With the government teetering on the brink of partial shutdown, congressional Republicans vowed Sunday to keep using an otherwise routine federal funding bill to try to attack the president's health care law.

Congress was closed for the day after a post-midnight vote in the GOP-run House to delay by a year key parts of the new health care law and repeal a tax on medical devices, in exchange for avoiding a shutdown. The Senate was to convene Monday afternoon, just hours before the shutdown deadline, and Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had already promised that majority Democrats would kill the House's latest volley.

Since the last government shutdown 17 years ago, temporary funding bills known as continuing resolutions have been noncontroversial, with neither party willing to chance a shutdown to achieve legislative goals it couldn't otherwise win. But with health insurance exchanges set to open on Tuesday, tea-party Republicans are willing to take the risk in their drive to kill the health care law.

Via: AP

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Barack Obama, Insurance Salesman

President Obama wants you to buy health insurance. Like, a lot.

The president has undertaken a months-long effort to convince people, particularly the Millennials who populate his political base, to give their business to America’s largest insurance companies. This sounds odd for a guy who used a populist pitchforking of “big insurance” to goose his health law over the finish line in 2010.

But it’s not as odd as you might think. Obama built his law in private in conjunction with the same companies he was skewering in public. The same goes for the drug companies that were the preferred targets of Democrats for most of the pre-ObamaCare era. Why?

Unable to unite his party behind his vision for a government-run insurance program open to all Americans, Obama outsourced the sales job to insurance and drug companies to get the deal done. His pitchfork routine was in part about gaining an upper hand in negotiations with his insurance and PhRMA  partners, but mostly about appeasing liberal lawmakers who were unhappy that Obama’s more liberal vision had vanished. They got Hillary Clinton’s health law even though they elected Obama. But it was insurance and drug lobbyists who did the hard work of squeezing moderates into the already unpopular plan. They sold what Obama could not.

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Top senator calls for scrapping key snooping Patriot Act section

The Senate’s senior lawmaker said Tuesday that its time to end the Patriot Act power that the intelligence community has relied on to collect all Americans’ phone records, saying it isn’t making the country safer.

“In my view, and I’ve discussed this with the White House, the Section 215 collection of Americans’ phone records must end,” said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and chairman of the SenateJudiciary Committee. “It is not making America safer and the government has not made its case this is an effective counterterrorism tool.”

Speaking at Georgetown Law Center, Mr. Leahy said he would hold a classified briefing this week and call an open hearing next week to try to look at the issues at stake.

The intelligence snooping has come under scrutiny since leaks earlier this year exposed that the U.S. government was collecting the time and phone numbers of calls made in the U.S., as well as combing through other electronic communications.

Since then, the intelligence community has admitted it has repeatedly broken its own rules — though officials say they have caught themselves and have generally not found any intentional efforts to abuse the programs.

Mr. Leahy, though, said there aren’t enough checks built into the program to let it continue, particularly with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has grown from a panel that approves wiretaps into a major legal power that decides weighty constitutional issues — all outside the view of the public.

“They are conducting oversight of highly technical programs that even the agency running them apparently did not understand and certainly did not accurately explain to the court. And they are doing all of this entirely in secret and without the benefits of an adversarial process,” Mr. Leahy said.

Via: Washington Times

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Is this the worst New York Times ‘Vows’ column ever written?

Over the weekend, the New York Times published the worst “Vows” column ever written in the history of the Times or the history of history. “Found, a Soul Mate” is a marriage story about two insufferable yuppie-hippies who fell in love over yoga. It was actually published in the one-time paper of record.

These two are your average, yoga-loving Brooklynites, except for that the woman accidentally killed a little girl this one time, a plot point that is explained in just two throwaway sentences that serve to explain her calm presence: “On Aug. 17, 2008, Ms. Halweil was driving on Montauk Highway when a 5-year-old girl rode a red toy wagon down a steep driveway and shot out onto the road in front of Ms. Halweil’s car. When she recounts the accident (the child died and Ms. Halweil was not charged) you can really see her calm, philosophical and open demeanor.”

The column is nearly 2,000 words, but seems like 20,000. And just when you think the author cannot possibly continue to write about the healing power of Ashtanga and womb-colored candles, IT GOES ON FOR A WHOLE OTHER PAGE.

Here are the nine worst/best lines from the column, which — as far as we know — is not a joke.

• “Ms. Halweil, 36, grew up in New York in a tightknit family of four who loved to spend weekends together foraging for elderberries in Central Park”
• “In 2003, while living in a loft in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, he started biking across the Williamsburg Bridge every morning to practice Ashtanga yoga with Eddie Stern, a well-known teacher in SoHo.”
• “He painted the walls dark red, installed almost-black wood floors and put yellow candles everywhere. ‘It was like a womb,’ he said. ‘It took you somewhere else.’”
• “…Mr. De Rosa, who in a single conversation might discuss Hindu deities, the connection between the knees and the ego, an energy healer he admires, Indian spices, juice cleanses and his ideas about love…”
• “Their daughter, Neelu, was born at home on June 15, 2011, shortly after Ms. Halweil drank a concoction of castor oil, pineapple juice, vodka and baking soda prescribed by her midwife to speed contractions.”
• “As 150 guests looked on and bamboo flute music played, Ms. Halweil appeared wearing a backless dress designed by Nili Lotan on a lawn decorated with modern sculptures including an enormous one by Urs Fischer of a yellow teddy bear.”
• “The bride described the color of her dress as ‘pigeon-blood red.’ The groom was the one who wore white. He had on a Nehru-style suit the shade of coconut milk, lined with jewels around the lapels and neck.”
• “Mr. Halsband, who was among the guests, commented, ‘It was just super-solid and super-honest.’”
• “[The officiator] shared several pieces of advice about marriage that he had collected beforehand from family members and friends: think, laugh and love as often as possible; save money; check each other for ticks nightly to prevent Lyme disease.”

Via: The Daily Caller

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MARYLANDERS BUYING 1,000 GUNS A DAY BEFORE NEW GUN LAWS TAKE EFFECT

In anticipation of the implementation of new gun control laws next week, Marylanders have been scooping up 1,000 guns a day. 

According to the Baltimore Sun, 1,000 guns a day have been sold every day for the last two weeks and this week promises to be more of the same. 

Starting next week, bans will prohibit the sale of "assault rifles" and "fingerprints and a license" will be required to buy a handgun. 

State senator Nancy Jacobs (R-Dist. 34) says the new laws go too far and will only "make it...much more difficult for law-abiding citizens to get firearms without jumping through a million hoops."

Jacobs bought two handguns in time to beat the new laws too--and one of them has an "extended magazine."

Maryland State Police say background check requests for all the people trying to beat the sales ban and gun control laws have overwhelmed their system. This month alone background check requests are at "a pace roughly seven times that during the same time last year." 

Moreover, over "102,000 gun purchase applications have been submitted so far this year." A number which represents twice the applications that were coming in during 2011.

Via: Breitbart

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No communion for Nancy Pelosi: Vatican court head

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has no Catholic right to be granted Communion, said the leading cardinal of the highest court at the Vatican.

Mrs. Pelosi should be denied Communion until she changes her advocacy views on abortion, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke said, according to the Western Center for Journalism.

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PHOTOS: Famous quitters: Those who bailed rather than face scandal, scrutiny or stress

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That’s canon law, not opinion, he said. Canon 915 states that Catholics who are stubbornly contrary “in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”

And Cardinal Burke said Mrs. Pelosi fits the definition.

“Certainly this is a case when Canon 915 must be applied,” he said, the Western Center for Journalism reported. “This is a person who obstinately, after repeated admonitions, persists in a grave sin — cooperating with the crime of procured abortion — and still professes to be a devout Catholic.”

The cardinal also said that Mrs. Pelosi is a perfect example of Catholics who separate their faith from day-to-day living.

“This is a prime example of what Blessed John Paul II referred to as the situation of Catholics who have divorced their faith from their public life and therefore are not serving their brothers and sisters in the way that they must — in safeguarding and promoting the life of the innocent and defenseless unborn, in safeguarding and promoting the integrity of marriage and the family,” he said.

The cardinal, an American, is the prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura in Rome, Life News reported.

Via: Washington Times

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BARONE: Under Obama, America Wayward in the World

America has gone back to isolationism, many commentators are saying. Not just the dovish Democrats, but also Republicans who were so hawkish a decade ago are turning away from the world.

There is something to this, but it’s more complicated than that. To understand where we are, it’s helpful to put today’s developments in historical perspective.

One picture of American history has it that this country left the rest of the world alone through most of its history, was pulled into world politics by World War II and the Cold War, and is now just reverting to its norm.

The problem with this picture is that it leaves a lot of things out. George Washington kept Americans out of a world war between Britain and France, wisely, because the early republic was split down the middle on which side to back.

But a few years later, Thomas Jefferson was quite willing to send the U.S. Navy and Marines to quell the Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean. He recognized that we were a maritime and trading nation and had an interest in keeping the sea lanes open for trade.

America has sent missionaries as well as merchants around the world for two centuries. The nation has projected power and acquired territory in the Pacific as well as the Caribbean.

It has participated in international organizations since it ratified The Hague Conventions that set out principles of international law in 1899.

So the proposition that America long isolated itself from the world is laced with exceptions.

The term “isolationist” became common in the years after World War I. It was applied, erroneously, to senators who opposed the Versailles Treaty because it committed the U.S. to go to war without a vote in Congress.

But the heyday of isolationism was not the 1920s, when Republican presidents were heavily involved in European negotiations. It was in the middle 1930s, when Franklin Roosevelt torpedoed the London economic conference and signed a Neutrality Act. He changed course around 1938 when he decided that Hitler was a menace America could not live with.

Since the Founders, Americans have had different approaches to foreign policy — four different approaches named after four statesmen, as Walter Russell Mead explains in his book, Special Providence, and on his blog at The American Interest. They are isolationist to varying degrees, depending on circumstances.

One approach is Hamiltonian, making the world safe for American commerce through global alliances and military power. Another is Wilsonian, relying more on international law and human rights.

George W. Bush started off as a Hamiltonian and after 9/11 added Wilsonian emphases: Military power would be used to serve universal aspirations for freedom.

Via: Fox News

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Obamacare: One blow after another

The Obamacare that consumers will finally be able to sign up for next week is a long way from the health plan President Barack Obama first pitched to the nation.

Millions of low-income Americans won’t receive coverage. Many workers at small businesses won’t get a choice of insurance plans right away. Large employers won’t need to provide insurance for another year. Far more states than expected won’t run their own insurance marketplaces. And a growing number of workers won’t get to keep their employer-provided coverage.

Every branch of the federal government played a role in weakening the law over the past three years, the casualty of a divisive legislative fight, a surprise Supreme Court ruling, a complex implementation and an unrelenting political opposition. The result has been a stark gap between the promise of Obamacare and the reality — one that has fueled a deep vein of skepticism about the law as it enters its most critical phase.

(WATCH: Obamacare timeline)

“Oh, I’ve heard of Obamacare, yes, but I didn’t know all that was involved,” said Cindy Bishop, a part-time worker from Lexington, Ky., who stopped by an Obamacare information booth at the state fair last month. “Everybody that I have ever talked to is totally against it. They’re afraid all the doctors are going to pull out, and you’re going to have to be like Canada and have to be on a waiting list.”

Obama will take a lead role during the six-month enrollment period in trying to convert critics like Bishop. He doesn’t expect to boost the subpar approval numbers, at least not in the near term. Democrats stopped anticipating a bump a long time ago when voters defied prediction after prediction that they would fall in love with Obamacare.

His best defense against Republican repeal efforts is a robust consumer response, and his best hope to soften years of public antipathy is a successful rollout. That’s why Obama is asking millions of Americans to just give the law a chance — go to the Web, sign up for a health care plan starting Oct. 1 and claim a new benefit that’s there for the taking on Jan. 1. It’s also why Republicans are mounting such an aggressive last stand this week to revoke funding for the law.

(Also on POLITICO: Obama's health care conversion)

The early hiccups may not matter in the long run if the Affordable Care Act survives Republican challenges and goes on to become an entitlement as popular as Social Security or Medicare and if the early gaps between hope and practice narrow as more states agree to expand Medicaid.

Via: Politico

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'Duck Dynasty' star Uncle Si talks iced tea, marriage troubles and God

Everyone's favorite uncle, Si, has a best-selling book out, “Si-cology 1,” and it's just like Si, charming, funny and just a bit cheeky. The Tupperware toting “Duck Dynasty” star spoke to FOX411 about the book and some surprising hardships that he's battled.

FOX411: What's with the cups?
Uncle Si: I'm always just carrying a Tupperware cup, ever since my mom went to a Tupperware party and got 'em. I've left them strewn all over the U.S. and Europe. I drink iced tea out of them.

FOX411: Will you have an iced-tea line?
Si: Well, that's in the works I think.

FOX411: Anything you guys have said no to?
Si: (Laughs) They're coming up with new ideas all the time. That's Willie's and Corey's department. I don't get involved in the business end of it.

FOX411: You write very honestly about your wife's difficulty in conceiving.
Si: She went to all the specialists and they all said, “You'll never have kids.” I said, “Don't worry about it.” She said, “Yeah but I know you love 'em so I'm not going to marry you.” I said, “Hey, don't worry about that. The doctors don't have the final word. I believe in a higher power,” and I've got what you call two miracle babies, my daughter and my son and they gave me four grandsons a piece.

FOX411: You were also very honest about your son's mental health issues.
Si: Yeah he had some serious problems. The doctors finally figured out the medicine he needed and then everything was fine. Sometimes it's necessary to medicate.

FOX411: It put a lot of stress on your marriage.
Si: Oh yeah but if you think you're going to go through this life without running into some problems then you need to think again. It's not going to happen.

FOX411: Do you think people get divorced too easily?
Si: Oh definitely. Look the Bible says that you marry for life okay. It's a lifetime decision. They look at it way too trivial.

FOX411: How important is your faith to you?
Si: That's what got me through 65 years of life. My belief in God and what He's done for us and what He will do for us. That's a lot of the problems now. Look a lot of people don't believe there's evil. If there's good in this world, then you're being intellectually dishonest, if you believe there's a good power you've also got to believe there's an evil power too. There are physical laws that are in place. We've got the physical world we see but there's a microscopic world that you have to have special stuff to see, just because you don't see it with your naked eye doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Via: Fox News

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New York: Corrupt — and Set for Life

A corruption conviction doesn’t necessarily stop elected officials from profiting at the taxpayers’ expense. But a new effort led by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara aims to go after politicians’ public pensions when the courts find them guilty.

“Our primary mission is to address and to undo injustice, and, in the public-corruption context, a galling injustice that sticks in the craw of every thinking New Yorker is the almost inviolable right of even the most corrupt elected official — even after being convicted by a jury and jailed by a judge — to draw a publicly funded pension until his dying day,” Bharara, attorney for the Southern District of New York, testified on September 17 at the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption. He added that “convicted politicians should not grow old comfortably cushioned by a pension paid for by the very people they betrayed in office.”

National Review Online has found that since 2008, at least four convicted politicians in New York have drawn pensions, all in excess of $3,000 per month.

Via: National Review Online

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