Hotel for President Obama's Ethiopia Visit Cost $412K

President Obama visited Kenya and Ethiopia during his recent trip to Africa, and the hotel bill for the president and his entourage totaled approximately $412,390.86 for the Ethiopia stay alone. A contract with the Hilton in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa was posted online recently:

 

The president arrived in Addis Ababa on Sunday, July 26 and departed on July 28. The government also spent $7,540 for cell phones for the president's Ethiopia visit. The White House did not respond to a request for an explanation.

Via: Weekly Standard

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[VIDEO] Hillary Clinton Put on Southern Accent for South Carolina Democratic Chairman

Hillary Clinton recently sat down for a "Chair Chat" with the chairman of the South Carolina Democratic party, Jaime Harrison. During the interview, as in many of her speeches to people who live in the South, she put on a Southern accent that is absent from her speeches to Northerners.

We made a mashup of some of the most painfully pandering moments, and ranked the intensity of her accent with cowboy boots (1 = lowest, 5 = strongest).

Via: Weekly Standard

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They Hate Your Guts (Democrats and their voters).

I would like to address myself to the poor, the huddled masses, the wretched refugees teeming to America’s shore, the homeless, the economically, socially, and mentally tempest-tossed. Also, I’d like to address the young, the hip, the progressive, the compassionate, and the caring. I’d like a word with everyone who votes for Democrats.

GARY LOCKE

Democrats hate your guts.

Democrats need your vote and they’ll do anything—no matter how low and degrading—to get it. They hate you the way a whore hates a john.

All politicians hate people. Politics is a way to gain power over people without justification for having that power. Nothing in the 11,000-year history of politics—going back to the governing elites of Mesopotamia—indicates that politicians are wiser, smarter, kinder, more moral, or better skilled at any craft (aside from politics) than we are.

But political rulers need the acquiescence of the ruled to slake the craving for power. Politicians hate you the way a junkie hates junk.

Politicians gain power by means of empty promises or threats, or both when they’re on their game. Should you vote for people who are good at politics? No. You should vote for Republicans. We’re lousy.

Believe me, I know why you don’t vote for Republicans. You see the Republican candidates and they look so .  .  . Bush-League, Dog Walker, Rubio Rube, Get-Outta-the-Carson, Hucka-Upchuck, Ap-Paul-ling, Cruz Control, Fat-Fried Christie Crispy, Son-of-a-Kasich, Dingleberry Perry, Flee the Fiorina, Sancta-Santorum, Graham Cracker, and Nervous 7/11 Night Shift Manager Jindal.

And never mind the busted flush Trump Card who should be spray-painted with Rust-Oleum primer, have a squirt gun super-glued to his hand, and kicked through the front door of the Ferguson, Mo., police station.

You think, “I don’t want to vote for these people.”

Just between you and me, we Republicans think the same thing.

Republican politicians stink. This is because real Republicans don’t go into politics. We have a life. We have families, jobs, responsibilities, and it takes all our time and energy to avoid them and go play golf. We leave politics to our halt, our lame, and our feeble-minded. Republican candidacies are sinecures for members of the GOP who are otherwise useless and/or retired.

Democrats, on the other hand, are brilliant politicians. And I mean that as a vicious slur. Think how we use the word “politics.” Are “office politics” ever a good thing? When somebody “plays politics” to get a promotion, does he or she deserve it? When we call a coworker “a real politician,” is that a compliment?

“But,” you say, “Republicans don’t love us either.” And we don’t. As voters you are demographic groups. Republicans do not love demographic groups. Actually, Republicans do not love groups at all, with a few exceptions: The guys in the combat unit they commanded. Blood relations old enough to have been dead for years. Intimates of their private clubs. Golf buddies. Fellow guests at the Alfalfa dinner. And everybody in Bohemian Grove. But this love is proclaimed only after copious drink has been taken.

Loving you would mean Republicans are paying attention to you. We aren’t. Republicans pay attention to only a few people:

* Members of their golf foursome

* Business-associate members of their golf foursome

* Investment adviser members of their golf foursome

* Members of other golf foursomes at the 19th hole

* Their spouses (that is, their most recent spouses, married for being rich or hot)

* Their children (except the artisanal pot grower in Mendocino who’s shacked up with a holistic dance therapist—he’s cut out of the will)

And in that order.

Democrats pay a lot of attention to you. They offer you all sorts of trick-or-treat giveaways.

Benefits are the way government is expanded. The more government expansion, the more opportunities for politicians to get power. (Beware of razor blades in the candy apples.)

Democrats offer you regulations to make your life safer from razor blades in candy apples. Regulations expand government with unelected regulatory bodies so that politicians can get power without bothering about your vote.

Via: Weekly Standard

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[VIDEO] Boehner to Hillary: 'Immediately' Turn Over Email Server

Speaker of the House John Boehner is calling on Hillary Clinton to turn over her private email server "immediately."

“Two inspector generals appointed by President Obama have now called on the Justice Department to investigate Secretary Clinton’s mishandling of classified email. If Secretary Clinton truly has nothing to hide, she can prove it by immediately turning over her server to the proper authorities and allowing them to examine the complete record," Boehner says in a statement to the press.

“What these reports demonstrate is the inherent risk of conducting our nation’s diplomacy and foreign policy on your home email and personal server. Secretary Clinton has repeatedly claimed that the work-related emails on her private home server did not include classified information, but we know that is not true. She has claimed she is well-aware of what matters are classified and what are not, and yet she set up a personal email server to discuss matters of national security despite guidance to the contrary from both her State Department and the White House. Her poor judgement has undermined our national security and it is time for her to finally do the right thing.”

In the statement to reporters, the speaker of the House's office reminds reporters of Clinton's March 10, 2015 statement, “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material. So I’m certainly well-aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material."

Via: Weekly Standard

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Hillary Forbids Young Supporters From Talking To Press

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!!!

"Here's what struck me," said Susan Page of USA Today, "when I read the coverage in the Des Moines Register this morning. Jennifer Jacobs, who's been on your show, was covering this last night. Big demonstrations outside of young people for O'Malley and Hillary Clinton. She went up to the Clinton supporters -- these are protesters for Clinton -- and they were told they were not allowed to [speak to] a reporter."

Page continued, "Now, why in the world would the campaign tell their own supporters who came out to campaign in favor Hillary Clinton ... these are the young people, college kids, for Hillary, and they've been told not to talk to reporters.

Via: Weekly Standard

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Press Roped Down By Aides at Hillary Event

The press was roped down by aides today at Hillary Clinton event in New Hampshire. Photos of the press corps following Clinton at a July 4 parade were shared today on Twitter and Snapchat.

Clinton reporters being roped down a parade route via @JaxAlemany snaps

• RETWEETS385
• FAVORITES123
• 

12:33 PM - 4 Jul 2015

Maggie HabermanVerified account‏@maggieNYT

Clinton advance aides create a rope line for the press, moving with the candidate

• RETWEETS753
• FAVORITES299
• 

11:21 AM - 4 Jul 2015

Via: Weekly Standard

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Obama: Memorial Day 'Especially Meaningful' Because Wars Over

AS THE DELUSION CONTINUES!!!!

By William Kristol, The Weekly Standard

As I was looking around online Saturday, I happened to come across the text of President Obama's Memorial Day weekend radio address. Here's how it begins:

Hi, everybody. This weekend is Memorial Day-a time to pay tribute to all our men and women in uniform who've ever given their lives so that we can live in freedom and security. This year, the holiday is especially meaningful. It's the first Memorial Day since our war ended in Afghanistan.

There are a couple of things in that first paragraph I found off-putting. (I'll acknowledge I tend to find many things President Obama says off-putting).

First of all, "Hi, everybody?" Really? For a Memorial Day tribute?

More important, think about the President's claim that "This year, the holiday is especially meaningful." He's wrong. Memorial Day is equally meaningful whether we're conducting combat operations in Afghanistan or not.

VIA: The Weekly Standard

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Kristol Dismisses Filibuster ‘Dysfunction’: Real Problem is Why Senate Won’t Take Up House Bills

On This Week With George Stephanopoulos Sunday morning, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol criticized Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) so-called “nuclear option”— that eliminated the non-talking filibuster to prevent GOP senators from blocking judicial nominations—arguing that Reid had created the dysfunction he just changed the rules to prevent.

“I think we’re being too nice here,” Kristol said, referring to the “both sides are to blame” tenor of the conversation. “Harry Reid agreed with Mitch McConnell (R-KY) that this would not happen in this session. They actually negotiated something at the beginning of the session. So, he’s simply breaking his word because Republicans were not confirming every appellate court judge as quickly as the administration liked, and were holding up some executive branch appointees longer—”

“A lot of them,” Cokie Roberts corrected.

RELATED: MSNBC’s Kornacki on Hardball: GOP ‘Secretly Relieved’ Reid Went with Nuclear Option

“168 filibusters in the history of the country,” Donna Brazile said, “82 under President Obama.”

“A lot of those filibusters were because Harry Reid introduced the bill, filled the tree, as they say, with amendments, and invoked cloture, and it’s called a quote ‘filibuster,’” Kristol said. “Reid’s behavior as majority leader has been pretty amazing. The House routinely passes legislation the Senate simply doesn’t take up. It’s fine: bring it to the floor. If they want to filibuster, filibuster; if the Democrats have the votes to beat it, beat it. But they don’t even take up stuff that the House passes.”

“But there are more than 200 nominations sitting there not confirmed,” Roberts said. “That is dysfunctional, certainly.”

Watch the full clip below, via ABC News:

Via: Mediaite.com

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The Man Who Called It Right

Jim Capretta saw the Obamacare debacle coming when it was months away.

On July 5, the Obama administration released a 600 page regulation announcing a one-year delay in part of Obamacare’s implementation. States would not have to check the income of people applying for subsidies, according to the administration’s guidance. The administration simply would not be ready in time.

“This announcement is another indicator—as if we needed one—of the complete fiasco that is Obamacare implementation,” Capretta wrote the following Monday for the Weekly Standard.

It wasn’t the first delay, as a few days earlier the administration had let all big businesses off the hook for providing adequate health insurance to their employees. But Capretta saw in this latest delay a portent of the rollout disaster that America has witnessed since Oct. 1.

Capretta again called for a delay in the law, as he had been doing for months.

“Everyone should now understand that, if there is not a delay, next year will be the scene of an epic disaster for American health care,” Capretta, along with National Affairs editor Yuval Levin, wrote in April.

Via: WFB

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Who Will Fact Check the Fact Checkers?

I give fact checkers five Pinocchios. They invariably prove more dishonest than the worst political Joe Isuzus that they skewer. In their feigned, above-it-all objectivity, they lie every time they investigate whether the “facts” are factual.

PolitiFact initially rated Barack Obama’s “if you’ve got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it” campaign promise as a solid “true.” They’ve subsequently “fact checked” five additional iterations of that pledge, never judging it anything worse than “half true.” One would have to judge that a half truth—at least the half about the promise being untrue passes muster.    

The Washington Examiner’s Sean Higgins asked PolitiFact whether it stood by its rosy assessment of Obama’s rosy assessments of his health care plan. In the fashion of BS artists, they responded but not to Higgins’s query. Don’t say they withheld comment! “Apparently,” Higgins concluded, “Politifact thinks accountability is something that only applies to other people.”

The Weekly Standard’s Mark Hemingway deems PolitiFact’s puzzling judgments “indefensible at the time they were made. And in light of what we know now about millions of Americans losing their health insurance, these ratings should be a four-alarm trouser conflagration. Yet, PolitiFact hasn’t updated their rulings to acknowledge that the president’s repeated promise is demonstrably untrue.”

Is the public really incapable of fact checking political spin without the aid of spin-doctor fact checkers? The self-appointed judgers of truth, seeking to decide as well as report, think so.

Via: The American Spectator

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Pelosi: No Reason to Delay Obamacare If Healthcare.gov Still Isn't Working in December

At a Thursday afternoon press conference, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi was asked by THE WEEKLY STANDARD if Obamacare should be delayed in whole or in part if healthcare.gov still isn't working in November or December.

"No, no," Pelosi replied. "It has nothing to do with the programmatic part. It's about technology." 

But some experts have warned that if the technology isn't working weeks or months from now, Obamacare's federal insurance exchange could be thrown into a "death spiral." To function, the exchange needs enough young and healthy people to sign up, and if the healthcare.gov website isn't working, the people most likely to take theadditional time and effort to sign up will be old and sick. 

On Thursday, Pelosi dismissed concerns about the continued failure of healthcare.gov causing a health insurance "death spiral," saying, "No, no, I don't think so."

It isn't entirely clear how long the administration has to fix the website without causing serious problems. "For now, the failure [of healthcare.gov] has mostly been a PR nightmare for the administration. But it has the potential to cascade into a crisis for real people if challenges continue too long," Politico reported Wednesday. "Some industry officials point to Nov. 1 as a potential test for the system. That’s the day when the federal exchange is due to transfer thousands of Medicaid applications to state agencies."

Via: Weekly Standard

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America: A Nation of Red and Blue Families

In this bizarrely politicized environment, even the preservation of the most basic institution of society – the family – is morphing into a divisive partisan issue. Increasingly, the two parties are divided not only along lines of economic and social philosophy, but over the primacy of traditional familialism.

Increasingly, large portions of the progressive community are indifferent or hostile to the idea of the nuclear family, while many on the right argue that it’s key to a Republican revival. Observers such as the Weekly Standard’s Jonathan Last see familialism as key to the demographically challenged GOP.

“Start a family, vote Republican,” he suggests. Long-term, Republicans can look forward to the rise of what New York Times columnist David Brooks cleverly calls “red diaper babies.”

In the long term, the logic seems impeccable. Salt Lake City is creating a new generation of what may tend to be more conservative voters; when San Francisco’s largely single and childless populace passes, their legacy ends with them – game over. Indeed virtually all areas of the country with the fastest projected growth in households are located in red states. Houston, Atlanta and Dallas are expected to add more households than true-blue New York City, Los Angeles or Chicago. New York, California and Illinois are losing children as a share of population, while deep-red Texas, Utah, Idaho, as well as Nevada, have increased their tyke population.

Others on the right take a more racially oriented tack. Linking lower fertility rates, particularly among Caucasians, Pat Buchanan warns of “the end of white America.” Steven Sailer, a staunchly anti-immigrant conservative theoretician, links Republican fortunes to “white fertility rates,” pointing out where whites choose to have children, particularly those who are married. George W. Bush, Sailer points out, won all 19 states with the highest rates of white fertility, as well as the 25 states where white women have been married the longest, on average.

Via: California Political Review

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Obama Golfs with Buddy Busted for Soliciting Prostitute

President Barack Obama is in Hawaii for Christmas. Right now, he's golfing with White House chef Sam Kass, staffer Marvin Nicholson, and friends Mike Ramos and Bobby Titcomb, according to the White House pool report.

Titcomb was arrested in Honolulu last year for soliciting a prostitute.

As ABC reported at the time of Titcomb's arrest:

One of President Barack Obama's oldest friends has been arrested in Honolulu on suspicion of soliciting a prostitute.

Robert "Bobby" Titcomb was one of four men arrested in an undercover prostitution sting operation Monday evening and later released on $500 bail, according to Honolulu police.

Titcomb, 49, attended Punahou School with Obama in their hometown of Honolulu in the 1970s. The president graduated in 1979, a year before Titcomb.

Since their time together in school they have remained close. Titcomb has visited the White House on numerous occasions to see the president, most recently during Obama's August birthday when he was included in a round of golf with Obama's closest friends at the links of Andrews Air Force Base. Afterwards Titcomb, among other friends, joined the president for a barbeque at the White House.

The fivesome is golfing at at the Kaneohe Clipper course at the Marine Corps Base Hawaii.

The Obamas are in Hawaii for Christmas.

Via: Weekly Standard

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Sessions: Obama's 'Secret' Plan 'Increases Spending by More than $1 Trillion'

Senator Jeff Sessions, the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, is releasing a statement this evening that claims President Barack Obama's "secret" plan "increases spending by more than $1 trillion above the current baseline."

"In other words," Sessions adds, "spending will increase $1 trillion above the already projected growth after enactment of the Budget Control Act as part of the last debt deal. It achieves not one dollar in net spending reduction or debt reduction, and it continues the country on a dangerously unsustainable debt path."

The senator's comments come in response to a series of interviews Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner conducted on the Sunday morning talk shows. The top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee is also basing his remarks on reports of details of President Obama's proposal, which he narrows down to these bullet points:

The President proposes growth over and above the BCA baseline, which already calls for spending growth every single year. Specifically, President calls for:

· More than $170 billion in stimulus spending, including $26 billion for extended unemployment benefits, $50 billion for transportation spending, and $90 billion for an extension of the payroll holiday (which is considered on-budget spending)

· The elimination of the $1.2 trillion sequester (half of the spending cuts exchanged in 2011 for the $2.1 trillion in previous debt limit increase) without corresponding spending cuts, resulting in a $1.2 trillion spending increase

· The unpaid-for ‘doc fix’ or Medicare reimbursements ($394 billion)

· Only $600 billion in mandatory ‘savings’ primarily achieved through further reductions in provider payments beyond those in the President’s health law, which do nothing to enhance the long-term sustainability of entitlement spending

Via: Weekly Standard

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MSNBC President: 'This Channel Has Never Been the Voice of Obama. Ever.'

In an interview with the Huffington Post, MSNBC president Phil Griffin tries to push back against the notion that his channel has become a mouth-piece for President Barack Obama.

"This channel has never been the voice of Obama. Ever," Griffin tells Michael Calderone of the Huffington Post.  But, Calderone writes, "Griffin acknowledges that his hosts are more likely to agree with Obama on policy matters than with Republicans, but rejects comparisons to Fox News."

"People want to talk about Fox. Fox is the voice of the Republican Party," says Griffin to Calderone.

Griffin does, however, acknowledge to the left-leaningHuffington Post that many folks working at MSNBC have a "progressive sensibility."

"We hire smart people with a progressive sensibility. ... I tell them to go think for themselves. We don't have talking points," says Griffin.

The MSNBC president pledges to make sure Obama keeps "his campaign promises."

"We're going to hold Obama to his campaign promises," says Griffin. "And the fact is, there are many things that some of our hosts support him on. But basically, we have a standard, whether it's the war on terror or getting out of Afghanistan: Is he going to live up to his campaign promises?"

And Griffin compliments his employees for being "really smart" and not going "over the top" during the 2012 presidential campaign.

"What I really believe is we analyzed this election in a really smart way and we didn't go over the top,"Griffin tells Huffington Post. "We weren't just shilling for Obama. We were really smart. And people are responding to that now."

Via: Weekly Standard

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JUST MORE WORDS: They Said It! Dem Pollster Says “Voters Still Don’t Know” What Obama’s Plans Are

Rasmussen Reports, the first polling outfit to release a survey from Ohio taken after the third and final presidential debate, shows that Mitt Romney has now pulled even with President Obama among the state’s likely voters — at 48 percent support apiece.  This is the first time since the summer that Rasmussen doesn’t show Obama ahead in Ohio.  In four previous polls released this fall, Rasmussen had always shown Obama ahead in the Buckeye State — by one point each time. 

Today’s release is the first Ohio poll in which Rasmussen shows each of the two candidates’ net favorability ratings, which can sometimes seem to provide an early indication of future polling movement.  The poll shows Romney with a net favorability rating of +5 points (51 percent favorable, 46 percent unfavorable) and Obama with a net favorability rating of zero points (49 percent favorable, 49 percent unfavorable). 

Ohio voters trust Romney over Obama on the economy (51 percent trust Romney more; 44 percent trust Obama more).  

In addition, as Ohio voters have shown in the past, they can’t stand Obamacare — which could give Romney an advantage if he presses that case (in person and especially on the airwaves) in the final fortnight of the race. 

Via: Weekly Standard

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