Three-and-a-half More Years of Obama!

So the Syria "crisis" is reaching its culmination.  Syria's WMD's are likely to be placed under the control of its patron, Russia, perhaps even with the cooperation of other disinterested, responsible states such as Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela.  The world's only superpower, for its part, will loiter on the curb outside, asking hurried questions while the big boys come and go, stepping aside quickly to avoid being shoved into the gutter by their bodyguards. 

This situation is the sole handiwork of Mr.  Barack H.  Obama, successor in office to Washington, Lincoln, Truman, and Reagan.  Pondering the better part of a day, I can think of no previous episode to compare it with.  It has similarities to the isolationism of the 1920s, with the United States reduced to irrelevance on the global fringes, but that was a deliberate result of policy, while this... this product of ineptness coupled with ideology, is something you can scarcely put a name to. 

There are three-and-a-half years of agony lying ahead. It won't be pleasant, but there is a saving grace. Barack Obama and his childishness, incompetence, and fanatical fixation on dead political ideas constitute the apotheosis of a longer-term conundrum, that of a liberal/left that has infiltrated this country's institutions to a point that state power and interference with individual liberties increases steadily no matter who is in office.

Obama offers us a chance to reject all that decisively. I want every single train of events set in motion by Obama, his administration, and his supporters, down to the last halfwit college undergrad, to play out in full.  I want every disaster that fool and his parade of twitches have triggered to blossom in bleak completion.  I want to see all their trains collide, all their ships sink, all their airships burnt to cinders. 

Via: American Thinker

Continue Reading....

DOCS: JUDGE ALMOST SHUT DOWN NSA DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM BECAUSE OF MISUSE BY GOV’T OFFICIALS

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge who oversaw a secret U.S. spy court almost shut down the government’s domestic surveillance program designed to fight terrorism after he “lost confidence” in officials’ ability to operate it, documents released Tuesday show.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton issued a blistering opinion in March 2009 after discovering government officials had been accessing domestic phone records for nearly three years without “reasonable, articulate suspicion” that they were connected to terrorism.

Walton said the government’s excuse that the program was complicated “strained credulity,” and he ordered the National Security Agency to conduct an “end-to-end” review of its processes and policies while also ordering closer monitoring of its activities.

Later in 2009, a Justice Department lawyer reported to the spy court a “likely violation” of NSA surveillance rules. The lawyer said that in some cases, it appeared the NSA was distributing the sensitive phone records by email to as many as 189 analysts, but only 53 were approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to see them.

Judge Walton wrote that he was “deeply troubled by the incidents,” which he said occurred just weeks after the NSA had performed a major review of its internal practices because of the initial problems reported earlier in the year.

Via: The Blaze

Continue Reading....

Pence and The Revolution: Five reasons he might be the 2016 dark horse to watch

He’s more charismatic than Scott Walker, more conservative than Chris Christie and, unlike so many of the top-tier 2016 Republicans, he has actually run a state.

So why isn’t Indiana Gov. Mike Pence generating the kind of buzz worthy of a top-tier candidate?

Probably because while his opponents have been show horses, he’s been a work horse. And that makes him a dark horse.

Here are five reasons why we should take Pence’s chances very seriously:

1. The résumé’ - “[A]s a former congressman and now a governor, [Pence] has garnered that hard-won ‘two-fer’ status, thus giving him a very credible résumé,” says Cheri Jacobus, a GOP strategist.

Being a governor is important for a variety of reasons, both substantive and symbolic. Before becoming a governor, “Mike Pence’s policy bandwidth consisted of tax cuts,” said one strategist. “But…when you’re a governor, you’re actually in charge of running things.”

Of course, merely being a governor isn’t enough. You have to have governed effectively, and that’s just what he’s done. “Pence comes from a state that is a success story. It’s actually gaining industrial jobs. It’s a right-to-work state now,” added the strategist.

Aside from work experience, it also helps to have had life experience — and a compelling story to tell. Again, Pence has that. “He is an evangelical Midwestern conservative who has the compelling family story to tell of his grandfather being an Irish immigrant who drove a bus in Chicago,” says John Dunagan, a public affairs executive who worked on the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign.

Via: The Daily Caller

Continue Reading....

Morning Bell: What Shoes Are You Wearing Today?

Look down at your shoes. 

Could you break into a run in those if you needed to?Twelve years ago, the men and women getting ready to go to work at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon didn’t know they would be running that day.

For many New Yorkers, the shoes they picked up off the closet floor that morning would later carry them down flights of stairs and through the streets of the city. They would become worn, covered with dust, and perhaps broken in a matter of minutes.

Some would become pieces of history.

Finance executive Michele Martocci was one of the New York survivors. The shoes she woreon September 11, 2001, will be in the National September 11 Memorial Museum, which is slated to open next Spring.

So will Mickey Kross’s helmet. Parade magazine reports:

At 10:28 a.m., FDNY lieutenant Mickey Kross was in the third-floor stairwell of the north tower when he heard a “tremendous roar,” and the building began to crumble. Kross crouched down in a corner. (“I tried to crawl into my fire helmet … to protect myself,” he recalled.) Hours later, Kross and 15 others climbed out of the rubble—among the few survivors of the collapse.

That day will forever serve as a generation’s reminder of the fragility of life. Today, we give thanks for those who survived. We remember those who were lost in the horrific terrorist attacks. And we salute all the heroes who set aside their own safety in the chaos of that day to help their fellow Americans—whether firefighters, police, emergency responders, or strangers in the crowd.

We will never forget.

Via: The Foundry

Continue Reading...

[CARTOON] Hope

Via: California Political Review

Russia 'to renew offer to supply S-300s to Iran'

AFP - Russian President Vladimir Putin will offer to supply Iran S-300 air defense missile systems as well as build a second reactor at the Bushehr nuclear plant, the Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday.

Putin will renew an old offer to supply Iran with five of the sophisticated ground-to-air missile systems at a meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rowhani on Friday, Kommersant said, quoting a souce close to the Kremlin.

Putin is set to meet Rowhani at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation held in Kyrgyzstan on Friday.

Russia in 2007 signed a contract to deliver five of the advanced ground-to-air weapons -- which can take out aircraft or guided missiles -- to Iran at a cost of $800 million.

In 2010, then-president Dmitry Medvedev cancelled the contract after coming under strong US and Israeli pressure not to go ahead with the sale of the weapons system, drawing vehement protests from Tehran.

The source told Kommersant that Russia's offer would depend on Iran's withdrawing a $4 billion lawsuit that it has lodged at an international court in Geneva against Russia's arms export agency.

Via: France 24

Continue Reading...

We Should Never 'Move On' From The Evil, Pain, Loss, Lessons Of September 11

I was living in Los Angeles on September 11, 2001. I remember my first visit back home to New York for Thanksgiving that year. My wife and I made the pilgrimage to pay our respects at Ground Zero -- at that point still very much the pile of rubble with the iconic twisted facade still jutting out.

Posters of the missing were still all around -- the collages of faces of the dead. Even this seemed to be like something out of a movie, much like the falling towers and dust clouds which engulfed lower Manhattan looked like so many special effects.

I remember not wanting to look at any of it. Not wanting to see the faces on the poster board, or look at the dust knowing that indeed there was a certain variety of ash in that dirt on the shoe or store window.

But I did look at all of it.

I looked closely.

I took it all in, and I was hurting.

I was crying. Whimpering right there on Wall Street.

I was nauseous.

I felt it was the very least I could do, for while I personally knew one person who died that day, and grew up with the widow of a fallen FDNY hero, I lost no relatives. No loved ones.

Still, I felt it incumbent upon me, as an American, as a New Yorker, as a fellow child of God to feel some pain, to be at least somewhat uncomfortable. Again, the very least I could do.

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading....

Sen. John Morse ousted in historic Colorado recall, vows to "continue to fight"

COLORADO SPRINGS — In an historic recall election Tuesday, voters ousted state Senate President John Morse over his support of tougher gun laws passed earlier this year.

Morse thanked and urged fellow lawmakers to continue fighting Tuesday after results showed he lost the recall.

"It has been an honor to represent the 11th Senate District," said Morse, who is the first Colorado lawmaker to be recalled and thrown out of office. "It's been hugely rewarding."

With almost 100 percent of votes counted in the historic recall election of Morse, returns show 51 percent have voted "yes" and 49 percent "no."

Morse called the legislative session where he and Democratic colleagues passed stricter new gun laws a successful one.

"We as the Democratic Party will continue to fight," Morse said.

He added: "The highest rank in a democracy is citizen, not Senate President, so soon, along with many of you, I will hold that rank and there's nothing citizens can't accomplish when they put their minds to accomplishing it."

Hugs and tears were plentiful in the ballroom at his election night party Tuesday.

Republican Bernie Herpin, who won Tuesday night's recall election addressed a crowd of approximately 75 supporters in a cramped room in the back room of the El Paso GOP Headquarters.

Via: Denver Post

Continue Reading

Where were you on Sept. 11, 2001 -- when America changed forever?

At 8:46 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, America was changed forever.

A passenger plane which had left Boston bound for Los Angeles crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York. As news crews showed the American Airlines plane sticking out of the iconic building, a stunned national audience initially thought it might be some sort of horrible accident. But when another plane struck the south tower just 17 minutes later, the awful truth could no longer be avoided. This had been an act of terrorism, conducted by terrorist hijackers on unthinkable suicide missions.

Click here to post your 9/11 comments.

One of the darkest days in American history would get worse in the ensuing hours. Yet another plane would crash into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. and a fourth — believed bound for Washington — went down in a field in Shanksville, Pa., at 10:03 a.m., after brave passengers fought with hijackers and forced the plane to crash.

Meanwhile, at the World Trade Center, office workers poured down the smoky stairs of the burning buildings, passing New York firefighters and NYPD and Port Authority police on their way down. As burning jet fuel melted the buildings' steel skeletons, the awful realization sank in that the towers, which terrorists had tried to bring down in 1993, were not going to withstand the attack. Office workers trapped above the point of impact and unable to flee down the stairs jumped out of windows, some holding hands.

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading....

Chicago Lawmakers on Verge of Repealing Gun Registry

Owners of legal guns in Chicago may soon not have to register their weapons if lawmakers back a recommendation to repeal the decades-old requirement.

The Chicago City Council is expected to nullify a law established in 1968 by then-Mayor Richard J. Daley that required guns in the city to be registered, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The move follows last year's ruling by a federal appeals court that ordered Illinois lawmakers to allow the carrying of concealed handguns.

In July, the General Assembly approved a concealed carry law that turned over sole control of gun permits and licensing to the state.

That meant the end of the city gun registry, the Tribune reports.

Todd Vandermyde, an Illinois lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, told the Tribune that the changes were "a start," though he still questioned Chicago's continued bans on gun sales within the city, the sale of certain metal-piercing bullets, and the use of laser sights on guns.

Three years ago, the city had modified its gun registry to require all handgun owners to obtain permits. The move followed a U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down the city's handgun ban, which had been in place since 1982, the Tribune reports.

Via: Newsmax

Continue Reading....

[CARTOON] Secession

Via: California Political Review

If The Sun Doesn’t Blast It, Comet ISON Will Soon Light Up The Sky

Add caption

BALTIMORE (WJZ)— A comet looping behind the sun could emerge this fall as a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle, or it may not. Mike Schuhhas more on what he calls the “intergalactic snowball.”

Educators have a different take.

“It’s called Comet ISON,” said Jim O’Leary of the Maryland Science Center.

NASA provided an image of ISON (agove). It has a small head and a big tail.

“That tail can get tens of millions of miles long, so it’s huge,” O’Leary said.

Three miles is large enough to comfortably fit between the shores spanned by the Bay Bridge and its approach ramps.

“It could be the comet of the century,” O’ Leary said. “That is what some people are calling it, and we’re not that far into the century you know.”

It’s certain to light up the winter sky. That is, unless it doesn’t. They don’t know if the sun will blast it to shreds.

Via: CBS Balitmore

Continue Reading.....

MICHELLE OBAMA TO TOUT WATER IN SODA TOWN

MADISON — Wash this political trip down with a little irony.

When first lady Michelle Obama pays a call on Watertown on Thursday afternoon to urge Americans to choose water over soda, she’ll be making her latest health pitch in a southern Wisconsin community that earns its living, at least in part, on the sweat of soda bottlers.

The corporate office of Wis-Pak Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of Pepsi-Cola and other leading soft drinks, is located in Watertown. Wis-Pak, with production facilities and warehouses throughout the central U.S.,  is the community’s 10th largest employer, according to the Watertown Area Chamber of Commerce.

Watertown also is home to the 7-Up Bottling Co., a family-owned business that for 75 years has provided full-service beverage distribution and supplied equipment to businesses in Dodge, Jefferson, Waukesha and Rock counties.

Susan Dascenzo, executive director of the Watertown Area Chamber of Commerce, could not provide employment figures of the two soda distributors.

Officials from the companies did not return phone calls Monday afternoon from Wisconsin Reporter. But a local Republican brought up the interesting political-business juxtaposition not long after the first lady’s office announced plans to unveil her new health effort at the Watertown High School.

Via: Human Events

Continue Reading...

Obama misunderstands wartime leadership

In 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt told his speechwriter Sam Rosenman, “It’s a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead — and to find no one there.”

For President Obama to have arrived at this place is uncomfortable but not unprecedented. Democratic majorities generally do not clamor for the application of violence in global affairs. Usually it is a president who sees a strategic problem requiring the use of force and must persuade his fellow citizens.

During his news conference following the Group of 20 summit in Russia, Obama’s reference to the example of FDR — trying to persuade a reluctant nation to help the British — was revealing. Roosevelt won the approval of historians by challenging, even circumventing, American resistance to war. His foreign-policy leadership consisted of opposing a shortsighted democratic consensus.

Obama is hardly the first peace candidate to push the nation toward conflict. Woodrow Wilson campaigned in 1916 on the slogan, “He kept us out of war.” During the 1940 election, Roosevelt was still promising, “Your sons will not go to war.” Yet both men skillfully made the transition to wartime leadership.

Obama affirmed in his news conferencethat he “was elected to end wars, not start them.” He then proceeded to show how unsuited his skills and strategies are to the task of beginning an armed conflict. His goal? To maintain an “international norm.” His current options? Not “appetizing.” His future methods? “Limited.” The level of opposition? “You know, our polling operations are pretty good.” His main argument? “I think that I have a well-deserved reputation for taking very seriously and soberly the idea of military engagement.”

Via: Washington Post

Continue Reading....