[VIDEO] Watch What This Group of Marines Does When Obama Enters the Room

Former President George W. Bush and Barack Obama could not be more different when it comes to how they treat our troops, and consequently, how they are viewed by military members. This video clip depicts that fact perfectly. VIDEO LINK

Watch as Bush enters a room full of Marines who offer him uproarious applause and shouts of support. Then, listen to the crickets chirp as Obama enters another room of Marines. Only a few high-ranking military officials could be seen making an effort to clap.

George Bush didn’t just offer our troops his whole-hearted support as Commander in Chief, either. He has made it his life’s mission after leaving office to give thanks to those who put their lives on the line to defend our freedoms, and frequently makes trips to visit the wounded warriors who nearly sacrificed it all.

Share this video if you’re ready for a Commander in Chief who inspires the respect of our military, not who undermines them at every turn.

Via: BuzzPo

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Hillary's Poll Numbers Continue Slide

Hillary Clinton’s free-falling public image poll numbers have impelled the often rigid and robotic presumed Democratic nominee to adopt a more aggressive tack, according to The Washington Post. 

The former secretary of state’s new posture, according to the Post, has included "almost daily attacks on the better-known contenders among the wide Republican field," the "surprise release of her health and tax information late last month on the same day as a very public airing — in the home state of [former Florida Gov. Jeb] Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) — of her policy reversal on U.S. relations with Cuba," and "a preemptive spin campaign" ahead of the first GOP debate. 

Just before the "happy hour" debate kicked off at 5 p.m. Thursday, Clinton blasted a needling message on Twitter, one that embodied the tone of her new demeanor.

Wrote Clinton in a Twitter message typical of her recent postings:

 

Hillary ClintonVerified account‏@HillaryClinton

“Republicans are systematically...trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting. What part of democracy are they afraid of?”—HRC

• RETWEETS700
• FAVORITES1,171
• 

1:41 PM - 6 Aug 2015

The "elbows-out approach" by the "no-false-moves" candidate is designed to counter critics within her party that "despite posturing as a fighter, she has rarely taken the gloves off," the Post reports.

She’s also been forced to take more risks as a result of the unforeseen popularity of progressive Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and rumblings that Vice President Joe Biden may get into the race.

A recent NBC-Wall Street Journal poll found that Clinton’s favorability rating dropped to 37 percent, from 44 percent, between June and July, according to the Post, while other surveys saw Clinton’s lead over Sanders' diminishing.

A June piece by the Post reported on the results of a Post-ABC poll that found Clinton’s favorability ratings had fallen to their lowest since April 2008, when she first ran for president.

The poll found that 52 percent of Americans said Clinton is not trustworthy, "a 22-point swing in the past year," according to the Post, which noted that Clinton support from both independents and Democrats had diminished. 

In July, The Hill reported on a Quinnipiac University survey of voters in Colorado, Iowa and Virginia. The results were staggering.

When tested against leading Republican contenders — Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — Clinton lost every state to every opponent.

"President [Barack] Obama won all three states in both of his presidential election victories, but they went for former President George W. Bush almost as uniformly in 2004 and 2000," according to The Hill.

Clinton allies tell the Post that the "new injection of energy is partly an effort to counter negative coverage of her email foibles and her falling poll numbers" while her campaign maintains that a decline in polling numbers is expected as the race moves into full swing.

The campaign insists its recent launch of a $2 million advertising campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire — spots that cast Clinton as a "champion for working people and families" — had already been in the works and are in no way a reaction to the falling numbers.

"You’re going to get nicked up a bit" over a long campaign, chief strategist and pollster Joel Benenson said Wednesday. "This is a marathon, not a sprint."

Via: Newsmax

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2016 race takes us toward banana republic status

Which of these Republicans can win swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin? 

John Minchillo AP

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article30436227.html#storylink=cpy

The GOP has won the popular vote only once in the six presidential elections since 1992. That occurred in 2004 when President George W. Bush was reelected with a scant 51 percent of the vote over Democrat, John Kerry. Yes, Bush also won in 2000, but he lost the popular vote in an election that was decided by the Supreme Court. Other than 2004, the Republican nominee has not won more than 47 percent of the popular vote. Nothing suggests 2016 will be any different.

The Democrats have a significant structural advantage in amassing the 270 electoral votes it takes to win. Over the past six elections the Democrats have won 18 states and the District of Columbia every time, netting them 240 electoral votes. The Republicans have been able to carry only 13 states every time. Those states netted them a paltry 102 electoral votes.

LeRoy Goldman

In order to break this pattern the Republicans must nominate a candidate who can carry some of the states that routinely vote Democratic, and they need to be states with more than a trivial number of electoral votes. The obvious targets are in the Rust Belt – Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, which together have 46 electoral votes. That’s more than enough to change the outcome of the presidential election. A Republican who can’t win in one or more of these states will be another loser. And that rules out virtually all of the occupants in the current GOP Presidential Clown Car.

GOP thriving

However, in May Sean Trende and David Byler published an excellent analysis of party strength in Real Clear Politics, and it shows that the GOP is the strongest it has been in decades in Congress and at the state level. Let’s examine this strange, but real, disconnect between a party that can’t win the White House, while reigning supreme everywhere else.

Trende and Byler’s analysis shows the 54 Senate seats the Republicans now control is their second-best showing since 1928. Their 247 House seats is the best since 1928. There are 31 Republican governors, and the GOP controls both houses of the legislature in 30 states.

From 1954 until 1994 the GOP was a permanent minority in the House of Representatives. The picture was almost as bleak in the Senate. During most of that time a Republican was president. And the government worked. The American people wanted the two parties to negotiate with one another to reach compromises, which is exactly what they did.

Health care revolt

In 1994 everything changed. The Republicans came out of the wilderness. They gained 54 House seats and eight Senate seats. And in 2010 and 2014 they struck again, first retaking the House and then the Senate. Why? Hillarycare and Obamacare. Virulent opposition to Hillarycare triggered the Gingrich Revolution in 1994, and Obamacare reignited intense voter opposition to the president’s health program and the partisan manner by which the Democrats rammed it through.

Many of these newly elected Republicans are radicals, unwilling to compromise. Both sides bear major responsibility for paralyzing the federal government. Neither side will back down. Trading in Hillary for Obama next year is a certain recipe for more of the same.

Both parties deserve the public’s contempt. Yet voters continue to perpetuate the impasse. Banana republic, here we come.

Goldman worked on Capitol Hill and at the National Institutes of Health. He has retired to Flat Rock and can be reached at tks12no12@gmail.com.

Via: Charlotte Observer

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Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article30436227.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article30436227.html#storylink=cpy

[VIDEO] ‘19,000 Centrifuges Already Spinning’: Kerry Implies Iran’s Enrichment Capacity Grew Mostly Under Bush

(CNSNews.com) – Secretary of State John Kerry said in a television interview screened Sunday that when President Obama came into office he was “dealt … a hand” of “19,000 [Iranian] centrifuges already spinning.”

In fact, most of the increase in Iran’s centrifuge numbers occurred under the current administration.  And under the just-completed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement, Iran will have the international community’s blessing to keep more centrifuges than it had when Obama entered the White House.

In one of a series of interviews taped Friday as part of the administration’s effort to sell the Iran nuclear deal to the American people and Congress, Kerry told CNN’s State of the Union that Iran has “12,000 kilograms of highly-enriched uranium, and that’s enough if they enriched it further for 10 to 12 bombs.” (Iran in fact has 12,000 kg of low-enriched uranium).

“They had it,” Kerry continued. “That’s what Barack Obama was dealt as a hand when he came in: 19,000 centrifuges already spinning; a country that had already mastered the fuel cycle; a country that already was threshold in the sense that they are only two months away from breakout.”

Kerry’s claim does not align with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) data. Its regular Iran “safeguards reports” show that most of the growth in the number of first-generation IR-1 centrifuges at Iran’s main fuel enrichment plant at Natanz occurred after January 2009, when Obama took office.

Centrifuges spin at high speeds to enrich uranium to varying degrees, providing fuel for nuclear reactors or, in the case of very high levels of enrichment, producing a key ingredient for an atomic bomb.

According to IAEA reports, the number of IR-1 centrifuges at Natanz – including those installed but not operating and those installed and being fed with uranium hexafluoride

 (UF6) – did climb significantly during the George W. Bush administration, reaching 2,132 in May 2007, and then 5,537 by the time Obama arrived at the White House in early 2009.

But within months they had increased to 7,216, and by the end of that year reached 8,692.

By Feb. 2012 the IAEA was reporting 9,156 IR-1 centrifuges at Natanz and by Nov. 2012, 10,414.

By mid-2013 the number had shot up to 15,416, and from May last year until the most recent report, in May 2015, the IAEA has reported an unchanged total of 15,420.

In addition to those centrifuges, Iran has also installed – during the Obama administration years – second generation IR-2m centrifuges at Natanz. It had 180 in place in early 2013, and expanded that quantity to 1,008 by Aug. 2013, the same number it has today.

And at the Fordow enrichment plant, the covertly-built underground facility first made public in the fall of 2009, Iran has installed 2,710 more IR-1 centrifuges, according to the IAEA.

Via: CNS News

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Iran Deal: Andrea Mitchell's Mushy Softball to Kerry About Vietnam

Andrea Mitchell had the chance to ask John Kerry, on live national TV, any question she wanted about the Iran deal. She could, for example, have confronted him over the lifting of the conventional arms and ballistic missile embargoes that were included as a nice little parting gift to Iran. Instead, in a moment of media malpractice, Mitchell lobbed up the mushiest of softballs on today's Morning Joe, asking Kerry "what that moment meant to you" when at the final negotiation meeting, he reminisced about going to Vietnam as a 22-year old "and that you never wanted to go to war without having exhausted the diplomacy."  A shame Andrea and John weren't in the same room so they could have exchanged a heartfelt hug.

Note that Kerry, so diplomatic with his Iranians friends, didn't hesitate in the course of responding to take a gratuitous swipe at George W. Bush regarding Iraq.

ANDREA MITCHELL:  Mr. Secretary, there were so many ups and downs, emotional roller coaster and the 18. 19 days were. There are reports that at that final meeting on Tuesday of all the ministers, they went around the table. And when they came you to, you talked about being a 22-year old going to Vietnam and that you never wanted to go to war without having exhausted the diplomacy. Can you speak to that, to what that moment meant to you? 

JOHN KERRY: Andrea, I believe that the alternative to what we are trying to do here is conflict. If we are not able to hold on to this, then the Iranians will say, well, the United States can't be trusted. You can't negotiate with the United States. And they will feel free to go forward with their program. I can hear everybody clamoring. So what you are going to do now? If they start to enrich, you know that every presidential candidate appearing on your show WILL say it's time for President Obama to show how tough he is and bomb there. There will be no alternative and the president said it the other day. This is a choice between diplomatic solution and war. And military action.

And so, yes, I did talk about the lesson I learned, before you sebd people off to put their lives on the line, you need to exhaust all of the remedies available you to. George Bush promised that there would be a last resort of war in Iraq. And obviously it didn't turn out that way. People are bitter about that. So I really believe that is an imperative of diplomacy and public life and I vowed when I came back and opposed the war that if I ever had an opportunity to be in a position of responsibility, I would fight for that principle.

Via: Newsbusters

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John Kasich to announce presidential bid July 21

Ohio Gov. John Kasich will jump into the crowded Republican presidential field on July 21 at the student union at his alma mater, The Ohio State University, in Columbus, advisers tell POLITICO.

Kasich, 63, who was overwhelmingly reelected in November, will aim to appear less scripted and guarded than the leading candidates. Advisers say he combines establishment appeal with a conservative record going back to his stint as House Budget Committee chairman, during his 18 years as a congressman from Ohio.

Despite his late start, Kasich will be one of the most closely watched candidates — partly because Ohio is such a crucial presidential state, putting Kasich on many short lists for vice president.

Kasich briefly pursued a presidential bid in the 2000 cycle, but got no traction and dropped out in July 1999, endorsing then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

For Kasich’s announcement on July 21, doors will open at 9:30 a.m. at The Ohio Union at Ohio State.

The announcement date puts Kasich a week behind the other Midwestern governor in the race, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who plans to announce the week of July 13.

The July launch gives Kasich a shot at raising his national profile enough to qualify for the first GOP debate, on Aug. 6 in his home state. But participation in the Cleveland debate will be based on national polling, and Kasich advisers admit that qualifying will be tough, even with his announcement bump.

Kasich, who graduated from Ohio State in 1974, can expect an excited crowd in the Buckeye capital. He’ll follow his kickoff rally with an announcement tour that includes Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Michigan.

The GOP talent pool is getting shallow, with so many credible candidates vying for the nomination. But Kasich landed two of the best-known names in Republican politics:

His chief strategist will be John Weaver, mastermind of John McCain’s insurgent campaigns of 2000 and 2008. And the lead consultant for Kasich’s super PAC, New Day for America, will be ad maker Fred Davis, based in the Hollywood Hills, who worked on McCain ’08 and has had several viral hits. Both worked on Jon Huntsman’s presidential campaign in 2012.

Via: Politico

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Obama To Unveil Plan To Bring Overtime Pay To 5 Million More Workers

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama this week will propose a plan to extend overtime pay to 5 million American workers who are currently excluded under federal law, according to sources.

The president will recommend updating overtime rules so that salaried workers who earn less than roughly $50,400 per year would be guaranteed time-and-a-half pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week. Under the current rules implemented by former President George W. Bush, salaried workers must earn less than $23,660 per year in order to be automatically eligible for overtime pay.

The president announced his intention to make overtime reforms last year, but the details of the plan have been kept secret until this week. The president is expected to discuss the proposal later this week during a visit to Wisconsin. Details of the proposal were first reported by Bloomberg.

In a blog post on The Huffington Post Monday night, Obama said that "too many Americans are working long days for less pay than they deserve," and that his proposal would help assure that "hard work is rewarded."

"That’s how America should do business," the president wrote. "In this country, a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay. That’s at the heart of what it means to be middle class in America."

With heavy lobbying by business groups, many progressives feared the White House would recommend only modest changes, thereby impacting relatively few workers and employers. Instead, the White House has proposed a substantial reform that has the potential to change pay and scheduling for millions of people.

Employers whose workers become newly eligible for overtime will now face a choice: Either pay a premium for those extra hours worked, or get the employee's hours below 40 per week, likely by shifting the labor to other workers. The proposal would be robust enough to cut across industries, bringing many workers either more pay or more time off, and forcing many employers to grapple with overtime costs that they never had to before.

The proposal must still undergo a public-comment period before it can be finalized and go into effect, but the release of a concrete proposal will mark a major step in what's likely to be one of the president's most far-reaching reforms undertaken without congressional approval. The changes are expected to go into effect in 2016.

Via: Huffington Post

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Rick Perry Lays Out His Foreign Policy Vision

WASHINGTON, D.C. — If Rick Perry becomes commander in chief, don’t expect his foreign policy to focus much on democracy promotion like the last Texas governor-turned-president.

What do you think?

“I think this whole conversation about, you know, ‘Are we going to go over and bring Jeffersonian Democracy into this country?’ is not the right conversation to be having,” Perry, who officially entered the 2016 presidential race earlier this month, told The Daily Caller Saturday in an extensive foreign policy interview from his suite at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, where he just gave a speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to the Majority” conference.

What do you think?

“We need to be asking, ‘What is in the best interest of the United States?'” he continued. “And sometimes that may not be demonstrated in an individual that is delivering ‘Jeffersonian Democracy’ to that particular country.”

What do you think?

Contra what much of the media predicted back in 2013, the 2016 Republican foreign policy debate is not focused on a fight between hawks and non-interventionists, but rather a battle between varying degrees of hawkishness. A key element of that debate is what role should America play in promoting democracy abroad.

While taking the fight to America’s enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan, George W. Bush also sought to implant liberal democracies in those countries. So far, the success of those projects has not been resounding. Some 2016 Republican contenders, like South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, see this more as a failure of implementation. Others, like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, view the attempt as quixotic to begin with and not a good use of the U.S. military.

What do you think?

Perry is framing his foreign policy doctrine more around the latter view. While he says the “U.S. has a real role to play in maintaining world peace,” the former Texas governor says he doesn’t believe the U.S. should be using its military might to help spread democracy abroad. Indeed, Perry says that if Iraq and Afghanistan stabilized into non-threatening dictatorships, he could view that as a success of America’s missions in those countries.

1

“I think if you’ve got a region of the world that is supportive of America, where we’re not having to expend our treasure, either monetarily or in the blood of our soldiers, is a good thing,” he explained when presented with the scenario

Via: Daily Caller

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NYT: Billionaire George Soros Financing Dems' Voter Rights Lawsuits

Billionaire philanthropist George Soros has agreed to spend as much as $5 million on Democrats' court battles against voting laws passed in recent years by Republican-controlled state governments such as in Ohio and Wisconsin.

"We hope to see these unfair laws, which often disproportionately affect the most vulnerable in our society, repealed," the Hungarian-born investor has said about the legal battles, describing himself as being "proud" of his involvement, reports The New York Times. 

Soros political adviser Michael Vachon said the billionaire has given $1 million so far this year to the liberal research super PAC American Bridge. 

Backers of Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who has made the voting laws a cornerstone of her campaign, have been pushing Soros to commit millions of dollars to her super PAC.  Soros has not done that so far, the Times says.

The lawsuits against the states are being led by attorney Marc Elias, who is the Clinton campaign's general counsel, the newspaper reports. 

This is not Soros' first involvement in voting issues. His first major push in American politics included the America Coming Together voter-mobilization drive in 2004, in an effort to defeat President George W. Bush. 

The lawsuits include attacks on voter ID requirements, time restrictions on early voting that make it difficult to cast ballots on the weekend before Election Day, and rules nullifying ballots that are cast in wrong precincts. 

The Times reports that Soros was in contact with Elias in January 2014, while the attorney was exploring federal lawsuits before the midterms and before the 2016 cycle, said Vachon, Soros'  adviser, Michael Vachon. Elias himself refused comment Friday about the lawsuits' funding.

Soros is supporting lawsuits filed in Ohio and Wisconsin last month, and is helping finance a case Elias and other groups filed in North Carolina last year.

Clinton and Democrats argue that the states' voting laws affect poor, minority, and young voters, but Republicans say the new laws, enacted since 2010, serve as protection against election fraud. 

Via NewsMax

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For First Time in Years, More People Like George W. Bush than Dislike Him

If this poll indicates anything, the days of Americans vehemently disliking George W. Bush are over, replaced by the days of Americans going “eh” over him.

A CNN/ORD poll discovered that for the first time since leaving office, 52% of adults had a “favorable” impression of Bush the Younger, overtaking the 43% who didn’t. For comparison: when he left office in 2008, roughly a third of Americans had a favorable impression of him. (Staying quiet and painting quasi-Hockney-esque portraits apparently makes one popular.)

In contrast, Obama currently has a 45% approval rating and a 52% disapproval rating, which is befitting for a lame duck president slogging through the last year-and-a-half of his administration.

According to CNN, the percentage of Americans who dislike him come from the demographic that already disliked him during his administration, but gained significant ground in other groups:

As of a year ago, 46% had a favorable take on the former president, 51% an unfavorable one. Since then, Bush has gained in esteem among men (up 11 points), Republicans (up 10 points), those with household incomes under $50,000 (up 10 points), younger adults (up 9 points among those under age 50) and suburbanites (up 8 points).

Bush remains broadly unpopular among groups that made up his main opponents during his time in office: Democrats (70% unfavorable), liberals (68% unfavorable) non-whites (54% unfavorable), and those under age 35 (53% unfavorable).

CNN attributes this to the naturally-occurring Warm and Fuzzies Americans often feel about former presidents, which increases the longer they’ve been out of office. (See: Jimmy Carter.)

Via: Mediaite

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Obama Snatched Ramadi Defeat from Bush Victory

The White House description of the fall of Ramadi to ISIS forces we have supposedly been busy degrading and destroying as a “setback” is like the British calling Dunkirk in World War II a strategic withdrawal. Ramadi is a defeat, the result of the precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq by President Obama against the advice of military minds who know better about these things than the former community organizer from Illinois.

It is a defeat for President Obama’s foreign policy, a rebuke of his fundamental transformation of America’s role in the world from a leader who shaped events to one of treating foreign affairs as a spectator sport, with the U.S. “leading from behind” and being left behind in the process.

Critics of our role in Iraq offer the chaos in Iraq as a rebuke of President George W. Bush’s decision to topple the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, a regime that had used weapons of mass destruction against Iran in its war with its equally belligerent neighbor, and which had used these weapons against its own people at Halabja. The successful defeat of Saddam Hussein and liberation of Iraq was done at great expense in lives and treasure.
Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit recalls both our sacrifice and our victory in Ira under President George W. Bush:

The United State lost 1,335 soldiers in Anbar Province during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Another 8,205 soldiers were injured in fighting in Anbar.
More US soldiers and Marines were lost in Anbar than any other Iraqi province.
By 2008, thanks to the successful Bush Troop Surge in Iraq, the insurgents had been marginalized in Anbar. With insurgents “on the run” in western Anbar province, the US was able to draw down forces in area.
But that all changed in 2011 when Barack Obama withdrew all US troops from Iraq. By 2014 ISIS had retaken Fallujah, Abu Ghraib, and more recently Ramadi.

President Bush left a stable Iraq, one where Shiite and Sunnis had learned to coexist and resist a common al-Qaida enemy. There were free and fair elections and we all remember the pictures of Iraqi women holding up their purple fingers indicating they had proudly voted in those elections. Now we have the mass graves of ISIS, beheadings and what can only be called the ethnic cleansing of Christians.

Via: American Thinker

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