Obama's Legacy

Biden held an online fundraiser yesterday featuring an appearance by President Obama.

Perhaps you saw the video clip of Biden, apparently forgetting the questions were prerecorded and apparently unable to assimilate that info, which was on the screen in front of all of us, attempting to engage the questioner in conversation. I can't find it now but will keep looking. Hilarious.

This one is also a hoot. Another Biden word salad. Obama's face is interesting as he tries to unpack the salad.

But that is not the point of this post.

I mentioned in my previous post the concept of "failing upward". Other than John Kerry and Hillary Clinton there is, in my opinion, no better example of this malign trend than Barack Hussein Obama.

After doing nothing notable, as far as I know, as an Illinois State Senator he managed to get himself elected to the U.S. Senate where, as far as I know, he did...nothing notable other than run for President.

He won. That is the one apparent exception to my "failing upward" indictment. It is a huge one.

One would not be unreasonable to assume that given such an enormous accomplishment good or great things would follow. One would be wrong, unfortunately. That one success was an aberration.

He had 8 years to work towards improving race relations in this country. Eight long and squandered years.

All he did was make them worse, as all polls during his tenure showed.

His legacy is Antifa, BLM, riots, arson, looting and shooting.

If he had a conscience he would be begging our forgiveness for the absolutely awful legacy that he owns.

Guns Again, Again

We are all very well aware of the children's crusade in support of "ending gun violence". Is there any sane person who would prefer the perpetuation of gun violence? I know, but they can be forgiven for failing to see the obvious. They are, after all, children who by definition know very little about anything. Which explains why we call them "children" not "adults".

The gun control advocates, adults who are enabling and using them, are not so blameless.

Typical among the signs these poor kids are being told to carry is the evergreen "Ban Assault Rifles". There is no weapon that is so described by weapons manufacturers.

It is almost impossible for a US resident to buy a firearm of any description that fires more than one bullet per trigger pull.

"When silly people like Seth MacFarlane and Susan Sarandon say they want to ban “automatic weapons,” what they mean is that they want to ban guns that look scary. They don’t understand that you can’t walk into a gun store and walk out with a military-style assault weapon (one that can fire multiple rounds with a single trigger pull). That’s because 1) most gun dealers don’t carry the military version of the scary looking gun, 2) you have to jump through an obscene number of hoops with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to even obtain a tax stamp that says you may purchase such a weapon (a process that takes months, if not years), and 3) the actual versions of rifles used by the military are really expensive and unaffordable for the vast majority of prospective gun owners.

What you can buy from your local gun dealer, after that licensed gun dealer has confirmed that you passed a federal background check (yep, that’s required by existing law), is a semi-automatic rifle. And now, a bunch of gun controllers who don’t understand the slightest thing about guns have decided that rifle needs to be banned. Not because it’s more deadly than a typical hunting rifle (it’s absolutely not), but because it looks scarier."

In 1994 Bill, Clinton signed into law a federal "assault weapons ban".

"...The 1994 assault weapons law banned semi-automatic rifles only if they had any two of the following five features in addition to a detachable magazine: a collapsible stock, a pistol grip, a bayonet mount, a flash suppressor, or a grenade launcher."

All of the items listed are cosmetic. They do not alter the operation of the device. They don't make it shoot any more than one bullet per trigger pull which is the only metric by which a semi-automatic gun becomes more destructive than it already is. Try getting your hands on a grenade to mount on the launcher. No, gun dealers do not sell those either.

There is a device called a "bump stock" which allows for much more rapid fire of a semi-automatic (one bullet per trigger pull) rifle. The Las Vegas shooter is said to have used these devices to increase his rate of fire and destruction. President Trump has called for their banning and I see no reason to disapprove of that position. Unlike the list of items referred to above, this one actually does make a rifle more destructive and does not appear to serve any useful purpose.

17 people really did die as a result of a gunman's attack in Florida last month. A tragedy of impressive proportion even though no bump stock was used. Examination and evaluation are required by any responsible society in the face of such carnage.

In order that useful conclusions are reached the examination and evaluation of policies which made this disaster possible must be conducted in good faith and those participating must have some understanding of what they are talking about.

Such good faith and knowledge are in extremely short supply among the advocates of more anti-gun laws.

For example.

As I wrote in my previous post, that tragedy was completely preventable. Every single adult with responsibility for the shooter and those murdered failed completely, for years in many cases. There are no gun laws that will fix this.

The only fix is to refuse to be side tracked into a discussion  of just how much we should deprive law abiding Americans of their 2nd Amendment rights and demand that the people responsible for promoting the culture in which this shooter and so many like him evolved are held accountable. That might prompt others pursuing similarly stupid policies with respect to school discipline and gun free zones to re-think their positions.

As we are only too aware the Florida shooter was spared from responsibility for many of his previous transgressions by the Obama administration's "guidance" on discipline.

Note how this absurdity begins,

"The Office for Civil Rights together with the Dept of Justice released a Dear Colleague letter on January 8, 2014 on (sic) to help schools administer school discipline without discriminating on the basis of race, color or national origin."

So now we are to believe that teachers and school administrators, among the most liberal people in the country, are racists. Right. Here is a link to the causes their union, NEA, supports. Obviously a bunch of racist rednecks.

The "guidance" produced by Obama's department of Justice  had a single goal. Force schools to stop disciplining minority students, consequences be damned.

Well now you have your consequences and somehow I am to blame for that lunatic..

I am not his parent, his teacher, his social worker, the local cops who failed to arrest him, the FBI agents who failed to act on information they received or the idiot who suggested that it is racist to discipline students or the even bigger idiots who bought into such nonsense.

I will  not be shamed into accepting the narrative that guns are the real problem here. You shouldn't either.They are not.

You have heard no doubt of a term made popular recently; Intersectionality.

Here is a great example of it. We find ourselves at the intersection of mind-numbingly stupid politically correct policy choices and the carnage their pursuit predictably produces.

It really is not that complicated after all. Too bad 17 people had to die to prove it.

Friday Document/News Dumps

I love Friday. No, not because it generally marks the end of the work week, I am retired.

I love Friday because the juiciest news tries to dribble out quietly.

No doubt you have heard that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russian election meddling grand jury indicted 13 people yesterday. Big news! Trump is finally going down! His whole family is going down with him! It wasn't a hoax after all!

Or not. 13 Russians! Not a Trumpian among them, only person currently within our jurisdiction and he was indicted for money laundering and identity theft. It is just too funny. Read the article to enjoy the outrage and surprise expressed by the writer at the discovery that Russians attempted to make mischief in the USA. Who knew!

Then there is this gem from Deputy AG Rosenstein,

"Rosenstein noted that there is no allegation in the indictment that Americans had any knowledge of the operation.

"There is no allegation in the indictment on the outcome of the election," he also stressed." (Emphasis added)

It gets better.

"In addition, the defendants allegedly promoted allegations of "voter fraud" in the Democratic Party beginning in the summer of 2016, through their personas on social media and political advertisements."

Really. Was Donna Brazile part of the Russian operation?

"Brazile writes the DNC was rigged (emphasis added) in Clinton's favor because her campaign was largely financing the party early on in the presidential election."

Sure sounds like voter fraud to me.

Speaking of making mischief you may have forgotten, or perhaps never knew about this,

" The Obama presidential election team has set up camp in Tel Aviv with the mission to defeat Netanyahu in our upcoming election.

The “Anyone but Bibi” mission is headed by Jeremy Bird, Obama’s National Field Director in his successful presidential campaigns."

Here is a beaut I never knew about courtesy of  Instapundit contributor Charles Glasser.

"According to The Week, the Most Qualified Candidate Ever said, regarding Palestinian elections:

“And if we were going to push for an election,” Clinton went on, “then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win.” (Emphasis added)

Whatever it is, meddling in elections included, it is ok when they do it.

I think I have mentioned before that if it was not for situational ethics the left would have no ethics at all.

"...With the intent to have a fair basis for judgments or action, one looks to personal ideals of what is appropriate to guide them, rather than an unchanging universal code of conduct,..."

What could go wrong!

This and That # 5

As I mentioned in an earlier post I watched some of the NBA finals. Thanks to Obama, Black Lives Matter, people of color only spaces at universities, people of color only dormitories at universities, and toxic racialists who seem to be everywhere, I am now seeing things through the prism of skin color.

During game 1 a huge white Golden State player set a legal, non moving pick. It was perfect. Feet solidly beneath him well before the black offensive player arrived at the spot. Black guy bumps the white guy, black guy falls down. Foul on white guy, natch. Oh, black referee, I almost forgot.

There was a Nissan commercial dissing girls on Barbie bikes.  Girl on black Boys bike is the big thing while mom imitates a man in her black Nissan and leather jacket. Really?  Barbie girls look on disapprovingly. What happened to toxic masculinity? I swear I can't keep up.
                                                                    &

In the first "This and That" post  I mentioned that the inspiration for the format came from Steven Hayward's "Loose Ends" series. He has another series, The Week in Pictures. He publishes it every Saturday and many of the offerings are very, very funny. Here are a couple from today's post for your consideration.









Well, I know I said a couple but I couldn't resist this.





     
                                                                      &

I have mentioned before my search for "moderate" Muslims condemning the mayhem practiced in their name and that I have had very little success finding them. I did post a photo of Muslims demonstrating outside Trump Tower in New York. Unfortunately they were protesting us.

I got to thinking about the possibility that the reason "moderate" Muslims were not holding Not in My Name rallies after any of their coreligionists' atrocities is because such demonstrations are not part of their culture.

Turns out I was wrong. Again.

 

Wither that "vast majority" of Muslims who are "moderates"?
                                                                   
                                                                          &

For my legion of fans north of the border, this one is for you.

"Canada passed a law Thursday making it illegal to use the wrong gender pronouns. Critics say that Canadians who do not subscribe to progressive gender theory could be accused of hate crimes, jailed, fined, and made to take anti-bias training." (Emphasis added)

This appears to be a law that says if a girl identifies as a boy and you insist on acknowledging reality by referring to her as "her" after being informed (not sure how) that she prefers to be referred to as "he", you may be subject to prosecution. Prosecution.

Some years back I had a conversation with an especially eminent member of my legion of Canadian fans about the advisability of labeling anything a hate crime. Aside from being awfully close to criminalizing thoughts, the practical problem is who is controlling what gets named a hate crime. This episode is a very clear example of the potential for catastrophe. Lunatics running the asylum. See cartoon above regarding transgender access to what, in any sane universe, would still be called the lady's room.




                                                                            

This and That

Steven Hayward at Powerline occasionally publishes posts titled "Loose Ends" full of tidbits that have accumulated over time.

I have decided to do a similar thing using the title "This and That", a phrase I often use interacting with my immediate family.

So here is the first post in what will become a series.

I am traveling without my laptop so writing on an iPad. My skill set is such that I am not willing to try and install links so you are going to have to accept my assertion of facts unsupported. Or not.

I speculated a few weeks ago that Obama, ignoring the tradition that former presidents remain out of sight for a while following the end of their term, would be running a parliamentary system style shadow government constantly attacking the Trump administration.

For a few weeks after the inauguration I read similar speculation here and there.

Now Barry seems to have disappeared. I am hoping the reason is that he can't peek out of his bunker for fear of being caught up in the Susan Rice, NSA surveillance mess. I guess we'll see.

Mrs. Clinton opined a few days ago that misogyny was "absolutely" one of the reasons she lost the election. She is probably correct. She is such an abhorrent and corrupt harridan that she even managed to turn large numbers of women into misogynists.  
 
I am familiar with the notion of anti-Semitic Jews but have never heard of a female misogynist. Good job Mrs. Clinton, you have created a new subspecies.

You may have noticed that we bombed the Syrian air base thought to be the source of the chemical weapons Syria used a few days ago. Jim Geraghty of WSJ's The Morning Jolt summed things up, with respect to Russia's reaction best, I think.


"Somebody didn't get their money's worth out of election meddling".

President Trump Does It Again

I have mentioned before that I have been thoroughly enjoying watching Mr. Trump bait the left. In an earlier post or two I borrowed a phrase from Powerline's John Hinderacker to the effect that being a liberal means you don't ever have to learn anything. Well, they are certainly proving him right again.

As everyone on the planet now knows, DJT launched a series of tweets on Saturday morning claiming that Obama tapped his phones during the elections. Predictably the left has set their hair on fire over this one.

There are so many stories on the subject that it is difficult to chose one to link to so I will stick with Mr. Hinderacker .

As you read the details of the various stories a very insightful comment from, if I recall correctly, Glenn Reynolds , is useful to explain what is going on here.

What Mr. Reynolds said, more or less, is that Trump's critics take him literally but not seriously and his supporters take him seriously but not literally.

We know, despite the aggressive wording of his tweet, that he did not mean, literally,
that Obama tapped his phones. To us it is perfectly clear that he means the Obama administration, in one form or another, did.

The press, meanwhile, is dealing with his tweets as though he meant, literally, every word in them and is trying desperately to disprove a case that Trump never intended to make, which is a very difficult thing to do.

Great fun indeed.

Good Job Mr. President

Donald Trump is President of the United States.

I have written before about my reluctant vote for him and subsequent approval of his appointments.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he appears to have meant what he said all through the campaign and then during the post-election period.

He has barged into the lions' den and informed the lions that they are being evicted, he, having already evicted both of America's political dynasties.

"Today's ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one Administration to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People.

For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.
Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth.

Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed.
The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.
Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation’s Capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.

That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.

It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America.
This is your day. This is your celebration.

And this, the United States of America, is your country.

What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people."

I did not  expect anything so aggressive. Obama looked as though he was trying not to throw up when congratulating Mr. Trump after the speech. Everything in the speech was a complete repudiation of him and his policies. Bill Clinton looked furious.

I thought it particularly comical when the camera showed Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell smiling, clapping and nodding vigorously. They appear not to understand that they are part of the problem and will either acquiesce to the new regime or be driven from office.

The pitchforks have been delivered, let the stable cleaning begin.

Obama

I have written often of my complete disrespect for the soon to be ex-President.

His thin skinned narcissism, disdainful attitude, apparent lack of any knowledge of history and tenuous relationship with the truth are legendary. His legacy will consist simply of his betrayal of our allies and his serial lies to the American public. Well, his enabling of a nuclear Iran might figure in there as well if the new administration and Israel are unable to effectively counter his egregious policy.

I had written last summer of my concern that there would be no Presidential election in 2016. Happily I was wrong.  I remain concerned that the inauguration may still be postponed by some artful maneuvre on Obama's part, but the concern is a small one.

What I am more concerned about is that his decision to live in Washington post-presidency actually means that he intends to run a shadow government in opposition to the Trump Administration.

In the parliamentary political system that dominates the countries that were part of the British Empire, the "loyal opposition" appoints members of their party(s) as a "shadow cabinet" whose members are tasked to examine and critique the Government Ministers of each department.

We have a history of relatively quiet (at least for a respectable period of time) ex-Presidents. It is something of a tradition. Of course we have a lot of traditions that Obama actively disrespects. The Rule of Law, for example.

How many unlawful orders did Obama issue with respect to illegal immigration? I don't know. One is enough to demonstrate the point.

How many times did he amend the Obamacare act without benefit of Congressional action? I don't know. At least five.

The rule of law is, in my view, the most fundamental tradition of the United States. A President with no respect for it is a serious problem. Normalizing that lack of respect produces very predictable results. Sanctuary cities anyone? Check. A weaponized IRS. Check, got that too. A Justice Department whose chief meets secretly with the husband (a former President himself, found guilty of perjury) of a woman under investigation by the FBI? Check.

Convening a shadow government to relentlessly attack his successor will be no great surprise coming from Obama. A truly awful American with no respect for anything or anybody but himself.

Cuba

Obama's betrayal of the people of Cuba in favor of their dictators is business as usual for him as we all know, to our profound regret. What did he get for America in exchange for abandoning the Cubans stuck on that prison island? Nothing, as far as I can tell. About the same as he got from Iran for releasing them from their sanctions regime. Well to be fair, he seems to think that this betrayal of America, Israel and the entire Middle East, will come to be viewed as a great diplomatic triumph, burnishing his "legacy". Right.

In his usual manner, he did though, accomplish something for himself:

"The decision, formalized in a joint statement issued by both governments Thursday, comes as Obama tries to cement his historic opening of diplomatic relations with Cuba and one week before President-elect Donald Trump takes office."

Yes, no problem sentencing Cubans living in that giant prison to life there, he has "cemented his historic opening...". A complete disgrace.

Of course, giving everything away for nothing is Obama and his administration's preferred negotiating strategy. In fact, they are also willing to give away things that belong to others, including their lives:

Credentialism

Shaun King graced the pages of The New York Daily News recently with a lengthy article on the lack of graduate college degrees earned by the Trump cabinet nominees.

His piece begins with this revealing transcript:

"On Tuesday night, Ta-Nehisi Coates made a guest appearance with Trevor Noah on “The Daily Show” to discuss “My President Was Black” — his brilliant reflection on the Obama presidency. On Wednesday, The Daily Show posted a memed quote from Coates that has been liked over 230,000 times.
It says this:
If I have to jump six feet to get the same thing that you have to jump two feet for — that’s how racism works.
To be President, Obama had to be scholarly, intelligent, President of the Harvard Law Review, the product of some of our greatest educational institutions, capable of talking to two different worlds.
Donald Trump had to be rich and white. That’s the difference."

Quite revealing of Mr. King's racialist view of things and his apparent inability to differentiate between having acquired several degrees from a prestigious institutions and actually being "scholarly and intelligent". Having observed Obama closely for eight years he is neither scholarly, nor particularly intelligent, in my opinion. We still have not seen his transcripts. No doubt full of high grades, that is why they are concealed. He doesn't want the rest of us to know just how smart he is. We might suffer a blow to our self-esteem. Very thoughtful of him.

Of course all Trump had to do is be rich and white. A 40 year career and the amassing of enormous wealth was effortless. He is white, after all. It is truly a catastrophe that these accomplished black men, King, Noah and Coates, choose to believe such nonsense and worse yet, endorse it for other like minded victims of America's obvious, persistent and systemic racism.

Among the many things this collection of over-hyped, over paid young men do not understand is that many of us have come to understand that degrees are just credentials. They certainly indicate the ability to pass examinations and suggest the possibility of intellectual ability and scholarship.

Many of us have observed over the years that credentials are offers of proof of competence and we have also observed that they are no more than unreliable indicators. One need look no farther than Obama, Hillary Clinton, Kerry, Ben Rhodes and Robby Mook. All highly credentialed, all laughably and sometimes catastrophically incompetent.

Mr. King goes on to recount, in despair, the woeful lack of graduate degrees among Trump and his nominees.

Mr. King, this is a feature, not a bug. We are tired of the credentialed lecturing us on every conceivable subject while demonstrating their complete lack of practical knowledge. Remember Obama and his "shovel-ready jobs"? For those of us in the real world that notion was dead on arrival since the left has been making it more and more difficult to get a project underway for 40 years. Obama figured that out in only a year! Genius.

Donald Trump, with his lack of graduate degrees, actually knows what is required to get a project underway.

Rex Tillerson, with his lack of graduate degrees, actually knows what it takes to run a gigantic organization like the State Department.

Rick Perry, with his lack of graduate degrees, actually knows how to run a giant organization and a great deal more about the business of energy than former 
 "Secretary of Energy was Steven Chu — a Nobel Prize winning physicist who is currently the Professor of Physics and Professor of Molecular & Cellular Physiology at Stanford University. He has a B.A. in Math, a B.S. in Physics, and a Ph.D. in Physics from Berkeley." to whom King chooses to compare him. Chu, infamously, suggested that we should have $8/gal gas. Neither Mr. Chu nor I would suffer from such a disaster, most Americans would.

Mr. King, somehow, in this racist nation you have managed to become part of an educated elite that sneers at those of us without graduate degrees who still have the temerity to aspire to public service.

Donald Trump was elected, in part, as a reaction to the obvious contempt in which you and your cohort hold the rest of us. Well, I guess I am not among the contemptible since I have two graduate degrees. Most of the rest of us do not and demonstrate daily that we are very, very practical and competent people.

The Curious Case of James Comey and Donald Trump/Updated

 On Tuesday July 5, 2016, FBI Chief James Comey gave a speech. As many others have mentioned, there seemed actually to have been two, unconnected, Comey speeches.

https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b.-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clintons-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system

 The first speech gave us a detailed description of lawless activity clearly in violation of  18 U.S. Code § 793 - Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information. 
(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence* permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. (Emphasis added) https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793

Comey, in the first speech, characterized Clinton and her associates as having been "extremely careless" in their handling of her emails in general and classified ones in particular. As far as I know "extremely careless" is not a legal term, although "carelessness" is defined in Black's Law Dictionary in part as,

"...The careless person is the person who does not take the care he ought to take: never mind whether he felt careful. He can be held to be negligent in making a perfectly honest mistake". Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edition, P. 205. (Emphasis in the original).

When used by an experienced lawyer like Mr. Comey, it may or may not be a euphemism for gross negligence. From all I have read and from my own viewing experience I had the impression that he intended it to convey the depths of his contempt for Clinton and company's disregard for the norms of behavior in the handling of state secrets.

The reason for his use of the expression in lieu of gross negligence became clear to me in the second speech, the one that said, essentially, nothing to see here. Had he used "gross negligence" in the first speech he would have materially reduced the already limited coherence of drawing the no prosecution conclusion in the second. An already incoherent conclusion would have been rendered more incoherent.

As you can see from the statute above, the intentions of the subjects being investigated have no relationship to the breaking of the law in subsection (f). This contrasts (f) with (a) and (b) which require intent as part of the crime.

In his second speech Comey said:

 In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.

Far more authoritative voices than mine have called foul on this. It just doesn't ring true. Andrew McCarthy at NRO http://www.nationalreview.com/article/437643/fbi-director-james-comey-testimony-clinton-defense-crumbles-under-scrutiny
demolishes Comey's assertions in detail.

We are left to wonder why Mr. Comey, of apparently spotless reputation, chose to humiliate himself in this manner.

None of the wondering leads anywhere we want to go.

 The presidential election of 2008 ushered in, in my opinion, our Emperor's New Clothes era (ENC). Mr. Comey continued it, in grand style, with his speech.

We elected a black President, have had two black Attorneys General, a black man sits on the Supreme Court, a black man heads Homeland Security, we have dozens of black mayors, congresspersons, thousands of black state legislators, city council members and judges (I found no firm figures but extrapolated from this http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/3/29/1372225/-Just-how-many-elected-officials-are-there-in-the-United-States-The-answer-is-mind-blowing )and descend into racial chaos because we are racists.

We know we are not racists and the evidence is everywhere and overwhelming, but, we must admire the ENC. Among the most overwhelming evidence we have of this is that at 13.125% of the population, black people cannot elect anyone without a great deal of help from us racists. source

We  are told of a great new deal with Iran that will stop them from building a nuke, but we aren't allowed to see the whole deal...because it is so good. But, we must admire the ENC.
UPDATE: Now we know that the part we weren't supposed to see will allow Iran to halve, to six months, the time it will take them to build a bomb when the deal expires . Who could have guessed?

We are told how brilliant our President is but we cannot see his college transcripts...because they are so great. ENC.

Unemployment is at pre-2008 levels Hooray! Not! ENC source  

Everybody knows that right-thinking Americans have always supported gay marriage, and not agreeing makes you a neanderthal.
Right. source  Note the relationship between Obama's change of heart and the 2012 election. ENC.

The list goes on forever. Black is white, white is black. ISIS is not an Islamic organization. We are not sure what motivated Mateen. Hillary didn't do anything she should be prosecuted for and, according to Mr. Comey, a statute that says gross negligence is the required level of responsibility to complete the crime doesn't really mean that.

Which brings us to Donald Trump. I am, at the moment, an extremely reluctant supporter. Among the reasons for my reluctant support is that I can't take being told black is white and white is black anymore.

As I have written before, good luck to all of us.

*Gross Negligence is defined in part as ...A conscious, voluntary act or omission in reckless disregard of a legal duty and of the consequences to another party. Black's Law Dictionary, 7th edition, P. 1057

A lot has been written about conservatives' discomfort with the threshold of gross negligence as sufficient for a criminal conviction. The reason for the discomfort is the exploding number of new crimes being minted by government agencies. Using gross negligence as the replacement for criminal intent places ordinary citizens in jeopardy.

Hillary Clinton is not an ordinary citizen. She signed several documents confirming that she understood the rules. She was grossly negligent in carrying out her duties and should be prosecuted for that malfeasance.




  








      

Election 2016

I have mentioned to a few family members and friends over the last few years that I believe a series of events may unfold that will culminate with the 2016 Presidential election postponed and Obama continuing in office for an indefinite period of time. This notion did not result from anything other than Obama's re-election in 2012 and my assessment of his character and actions.

As the election approaches I am, to my amazement, beginning to think I may be on to something.

I believe the disclosure by the AP that Clinton hid 75 meetings with donors and other private individuals during the time she was SS  will prove to be the last straw for her. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article85708367.html On top of the ever uglier mess her email issue is becoming, this latest is just not tolerable and even she will not be able to overcome it.

Over the last few months I have been thinking about scenarios in which Trump disappears from the race. Among the triggering events I have been considering is his assassination. Apparently someone tried just that a few days ago. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/trump-assassination-attempt-las-vegas-224643

It will take a while for HRC to give up, but I don't see how, even in 2016 America, she can hold on for long.

So, it's September, she is indicted or forced out of the race by a combination of humiliation and ill-health, Trump is killed.

Obama, as he has demonstrated constantly, has reached the reasonable conclusion that, except for the Supreme Court, no one has the nerve to stop him and the Court has no power of enforcement. He is not constrained by the Constitution. He has nothing but contempt for it. http://www.sunbeamtimes.com/2016/02/15/obamas-contempt-for-constitution-disqualifies-him-on-supreme-court-appointment/

That being the case he will declare a state of emergency and halt the election.

Sounds crazy, doesn't it. I know. On the other hand, look around you. It seems that every federal government agency is armed to the teeth. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/376053/united-states-swat-john-fund

Democrats in the House of Representatives are staging an illegal sit-in. Apparently they are so far gone that the irony of using a 60's style civil rights type sit-in to promote their intention to gut the 1st, 2nd and 4th amendments has not occurred to them. Nonetheless, whatever their tactics, these are elected members of the US House of Representatives and they want the 1st, 2nd and 4th amendments vitiated. They will certainly not complain should Obama put another tear in the Constitution. I think they might welcome it, makes accomplishing their goal that much easier.

The country's legions of social justice warriors, minted during Obama's reign, are on a rampage, intent on destroying every vestige of our history on the theory that the people, white men, almost exclusively, who are responsible for the most astonishingly successful culture in human history, are bad. The President is in their corner. Yes, I know.

Local police forces are now armed with military weapons. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments.html Why do they need these? I don't know why either. Read the whole thing.

Good luck to all of us.

Refugee "Women and Children"

Mr. Obama assures us in his customary condescending manner that we are ridiculous, not to mention cowardly, for expressing concern about these "women and children".

Migrants queue on a street to enter the compound outside the Berlin Office of Health and Social Affairs (LAGESO) for their registration process in Berlin, Germany Photo: REUTERS

Hmm. I have noticed that our language has deteriorated in the recent past although I doubt it has descended to such depths that even the most progressive of newspeak language architects would apply the description of "women and children" to those in the photo above.

Meanwhile, it seems a few "women and children" are unaccounted for in Germany.

"German authorities are reportedly searching for 12 people who entered the country illegally as refugees using fake Syrian passports and then disappeared."

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/12064943/Germany-searching-for-migrants-who-entered-Germany-using-same-passports-as-Paris-attackers.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

The story never does get around to declaring the genders and/or age of the missing.

SOTU 2013

Back in January 2013 I was surprised to hear from my daughter (a 21 year old college student at the time) that she and her boyfriend had decided to watch Obama's SOTU speech. She told me what a wonderful speaker he is and that he had some good ideas. I was shocked. Below is my deconstruction of several parts of the speech written for her benefit.

"Verbatim excerpts from 2013 State of the Union speech with my annotations in italics. http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-02-12/politics/37059380_1_applause-task-free-enterprise

In 2011, Congress passed a law saying that if both parties couldn't agree on a plan to reach our deficit goal, about a trillion dollars' worth of budget cuts would automatically go into effect this year. These sudden, harsh, arbitrary cuts would jeopardize our military readiness. They'd devastate priorities like education, energy, and medical research. They would certainly slow our recovery, and cost us hundreds of thousands of jobs. That's why Democrats, Republicans, business leaders, and economists have already said that these cuts, known here in Washington as "the sequester," are a really bad idea. A really bad idea proposed by Obama, not that he would do other than pretend he had nothing to do with it. http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/sperling-admits-obama-misled-debate-president-did-propose-sequester_705015.html

After years of talking about it, we are finally poised to control our own energy future. We produce more oil at home than we have in 15 years. Yes we do. However this is in spite of, rather than because of Obama. We are producing less oil on Federal Lands which he controls access to. The increase has come exclusively from state and private land production. http://eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2012/02/27/4 We have doubled the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas, and the amount of renewable energy we generate from sources like wind and solar – with tens of thousands of good, American jobs right  http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/13/us-usa-campaign-green-idUSBRE83C08D20120413 to show for it. We produce more natural gas than ever before – and nearly everyone's energy bill is lower because of it. And over the last four years, our emissions of the dangerous carbon pollution that threatens our planet have actually fallen. Yes, they have fallen without any need for Kyoto or any other climate change nonsense regulation. Our emissions have fallen because the economy stinks and we have found and produced fantastic amounts of cheap natural gas causing the conversion of many factories from coal (dirty) to gas (much cleaner) http://news.yahoo.com/ap-impact-co2-emissions-us-drop-20-low-174616030--finance.html  Keep in mind that most of the new gas is available because of fracking which Obama and his minions oppose! Does that stop this lying piece of crap from taking credit for it? Of course not.

But for the sake of our children (the use of the preceeding phrase should always cause you to become more vigilant. It actually means that we are going to propose limiting your freedom and you would never go for it unless we invoke “the children”) and our future, we must do more to combat climate change. Yes, it's true that no single event makes a trend. But the fact is, the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15 ( Maybe. There are a lot of questions about the baseline data and since the world leaders in this research refuse to release their raw data, in stark violation of non-proprietary scientific endeavors,  who knows. There is one thing we do know if we concede the assertion. 11 of the 12 took place between 1998 and 2007 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071213101419.htm which means that only one has occurred in the last 6 years.   Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods – all are now more frequent and intense complete nonsense http://www.prisonplanet.com/global-warming-doublespeak-snowmageddon-blizzards-are-part-of-heating-trend.html . We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades nonsense http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drought_in_the_United_States , and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science – and act before it's too late.

As long as countries like China keep going all-in on clean energy, so must we. Right. Researchers from Harvard University and Tsinghua University have found that the People's Republic could meet all of its electricity demands from wind power by 2030.^[5]
Despite this, Wen Jiabao Premier of China stated in a March 5, 2012 report that China will end the "blind expansion" into wind and solar energy, instead developing nuclear power, hydropower, and shale gas.^[6]  Why? Because solar and wind are unreliable and unpredictable. We don’t know when the sun will shine or when the wind will blow.

That's why my Administration will keep cutting red tape and speeding up new oil and gas permits. More lies.  http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/04/politics/fact-check-oil-gas/  . Whenever Obama talks about this stuff you must keep in mind that his stated goal is that energy prices of all kinds should rise dramatically. Here he is talking about electricity http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlTxGHn4sH4 )

Indeed, much of our new-found energy is drawn from lands and waters that we, the public, own together. ( As stated above, almost none of the new production comes from Federal Land and, overall production is down on Federal lands that “we, the public, own together”.

Study after study shows that the sooner a child begins learning, the better he or she does down the road. But today, fewer than 3 in 10 four year-olds are enrolled in a high-quality preschool program. Most middle-class parents can't afford a few hundred bucks a week for private preschool. And for poor kids who need help the most, this lack of access to preschool education can shadow them for the rest of their lives. enough said on this in our earlier communication.

Through tax credits, grants, and better loans, we have made college more affordable for millions of students and families over the last few years. But taxpayers cannot continue to subsidize the soaring cost of higher education. (Costs are soaring because of tax credits, loans and grants. It is the same phenomenon as we see in the medical care business. Government money skews the economics of the market. If there were fewer students able to “afford” college then the colleges would be forced to be more competitive. Easy government money means they do not have to be competitive so they hire more and more people to do less and less work. Ultimately, it is these poor saps taking out these loans who pay the price for “affordable” college”.

But today, a full-time worker making the minimum wage earns $14,500 a year. Even with the tax relief we've put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. Minimum wage is paid for entry level jobs. Your first job might be minimum wage but if you are a decent employee, an employee your employer considers valuable, your wages will increase steadily. You saw that dynamic in action yourself at City Tan. You did a good job and got raises because your employer didn’t want you looking elsewhere for a better paying job. As a high school student working part-time or a recent graduate working full-time at an entry level job you should not be married with two kids! So, if you spend year after year making minimum wage it is your fault, not the fault of the minimum wage and making that wage more “livable” will make the problem worse, not better. Also note the real agenda here, as with mandatory pre-school. Most union contracts define wage levels as a function of the minimum wage http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061111000556AAr0KHu  so a raise in the minimum wage means an increase for almost all union members, a democrat constituency. I negotiated a union contract years ago and this is exactly how it works.

Tonight, let's declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour. This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families. Indeed. It will also raise prices on many things, including many that this guy now making $9/hr will have to buy since business owners do not take the money for the increase out of their pockets, they charge more for goods and services to make up for their increased costs.

When any Americans – no matter where they live or what their party – are denied that right (to vote) simply because they can't wait for five, six, seven hours just to cast their ballot, we are betraying our ideals.

We should follow the example of a North Miami woman named Desiline Victor. When she arrived at her polling place, she was told the wait to vote might be six hours. And as time ticked by, her concern was not with her tired body or aching feet, but whether folks like her would get to have their say. Hour after hour, a throng of people stayed in line in support of her. Because Desiline is 102 years old. And they erupted in cheers when she finally put on a sticker that read "I Voted." ( Wow, what a story. Ancient woman goes to vote on election day and stands in line for hours and hours. Terrible. Of course, that is not what happened. What happened was that some democrat booster wanted to make sure this woman voted and so took her to a polling station on the first day of early voting, not election day. There was no reason for her to be there at all. Early voting was intended to allow people who would not be in their district on election day to cast their ballots early. Dems have since used early voting to ensure as many of their voters as possible cast their votes without the excuses for failing to vote on election day coming into play. “had to work late; kids had a soccer game” etc. There are very few polling places open for early voting and even they would be adequate but for democrats taking advantage of the system. If they had an ounce of decency they would have arranged an absentee ballot for this 102 year old woman and she could have voted without ever leaving her home. By the way, what sort of people stand in line for hours ahead of a 102 year-old women? Would you not have given up your place to her? Do you know anyone who would not have done the same? Me either.  http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/a-102-year-old-face-of-voting-delays-at-the-state-of-the-union/ 

In the linked article you will see that the longest wait times in the country on election day were actually in Florida. How long? 3 hours, no; 2 hours, no; 1 hour, no; 45 minutes, yes and that was the longest wait time in the entire country! The article does say that blacks and Hispanics had the longest wait times. Big surprise since a much greater proportion of them live in urban areas which are, by definition, more crowded.

So, that’s all for now. Please note that links to CNN, Reuters and AP are links to media wildly in favor of Obama so they do their best to minimize his transgressions but even they, as you have seen from reading the links, have to reluctantly concede that he is lying.

Love…Me

Confessing to Strategic not Moral Errors

Obama confessed to a "mistake" today. He will quickly learn that the leader of the free world does not make such confessions.

In reading MSM coverage of the Daschle debacle it is noteworthy that nowhere (as far as I have seen) is his "mistake" called what it is: A willing, knowing effort to illegally avoid paying income taxes. Can anyone really believe that after a million years in Congress he wasn't aware of the rules? Nonsense. How much time do Senators spend crafting ethics laws and dealing with what is and is not income to them so that they can endeavor to pay as little income tax as possible? How long was he a Senator. What a lying sack of crap.

Obama actually is admitting only to a strategic error, not the moral error of considering a tax cheat an appropriate candidate for a US cabinet position. Of course, we already knew that, didn't we.

Mr. Geithner also made a "mistake". Yes, of course he did. After having signed an agreement with his employer, IMF, that clearly stated that he understood he was being paid a sum that was to be passed on to the government in payment of Social Security and Medicare taxes he kept the money. His Turbo Tax error argument has been strongly rebutted by Turbo Tax and a zillion "experts".

Here too, Obama admits to a strategic error, not the moral error of considering a tax cheat an appropriate candidate for a US cabinet position. Irony of ironies, we now have a willful, knowing tax cheat as the Treasury Secretary.

Now that is Change!

What Obama voters don't know

I have been thinking a lot about the election. Trying to find a suitable answer to a simple question: How could voters (other than those voting to confiscate for themselves some of the wealth of those more successful than them) possibly vote for Obama if they knew anything about him? The only answer I could come up with is that they couldn't. They must know little about him. As has been obvious for some time the MSM didn't bother to do much educating of the electorate where Obama was concerned.

A recent study by Zogby http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.cfm?ID=1641#Anchor-37902 makes three things clear:

1) Obama voters know (or care to know) little about him;
2) Almost half of them are so ill-informed that they are unaware that the Democrats have controlled Congress for the last two years. Bring back the poll tax please. There has to be a way to stop these people from voting.
3) An overwhelming majority of these same voters were very well informed about various Republican ticket "scandals". No surprise there thanks to an in the tank MSM.

The study was commissioned by the people who made this video http://howobamagotelected.com/ Watch it. Its worthwhile, if a bit tedious.

Racism

Eugene Robinson had a column published in our local rag, The Arizona Republic, yesterday. In it he makes the usual assertions that people who call Obama arrogant or presumptuous are racists.

His piece got me to thinking about stereotypes. He doesn't realize that he is dealing not in white racist stereotypes but in black stereotypes. White people, in my experience, don't think much about race. There is no reason they should. Their race or color doesn't adversely affect their lives, generally speaking. Its a non-issue.

Black people, it seems to me on the other hand, are constantly aware of their color. It is an essential element of their self image. Unfortunately they seem not to understand that racial identity does not motivate white people, particularly not conservative white people.

We refer to Obama as arrogant and presumptuous because he is, independent of his skin color. He lectures us about things that we are all well aware of. For example, inflating tires. Are you driving around on half-inflated tires? Of course not, you aren't an idiot. He believes you are. Arrogant.

Has any other presidential candidate had his own seal? No. Arrogant. Presumptuous.

Has any other presidential candidate replaced the American Flag on the tail of his airplane with his own campaign logo? No. Arrogant.

Has any other presidential candidate ever gone on a world tour giving campaign speeches in foreign countries? No. Arrogant.

What being arrogant and presumptuous has to do with race is precisely nothing. Those who believe it does are projecting their own race based self-identification on white people. Its misplaced.

The syndrome is no different than many of my fellow Jews blaming any set-back and/or insult on anti-Semitism; homosexuals blaming any set-back and/or insult on homophobia; fat people blaming any set-back and/or insult on fatophobia. You get the picture.

Barack and the Truth Revisited

In an earlier post I had declared that he is a liar. I am more convinced than ever he is one of the most cynical and devious politicians to run for national office in my adult lifetime.

In recent correspondence with a Dem acquaintance I mentioned that it appears Obama, although a lecturer in Constitutional Law, is unfamiliar with the opening words of the Declaration of Independence.

I wrote, "On June 30, 2008 Obama gave a silly "patriotism" speech. This was a prepared speech. I assume his regular speechwriters wrote it, with or without his help. Obama is a Columbia and Harvard educated Constitutional Law lecturer. Apparently he doesn't know that his statement regarding the Declaration of Independence is wrong:

"I remember, when living for four years in Indonesia as a child, listening to my mother reading me the first lines (emphasis added) of the Declaration of Independence--"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Reproduced below is the actual language of the Declaration.
"The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
Presented by the Indiana University School of Law—Bloomington
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen ColoniesIn CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve..."

Obama's "first lines" are actually the first lines of the second paragraph. In the ordinary course of things this wouldn't be very important. Here it is and I will tell you why.

In the first place he is supposed to be a Constitutional Law scholar. Lack of familiarity with the DofI makes one wonder what he doesn't know about things he has not spent years studying.

There is a more important aspect to this. Imagine your mother had read you something when you were 10 years old or so that was so important that you remembered it 36 years later at 46 years old. Likely you would also have remembered it when you were 25 years old and studying Constitutional Law or 14 years old studying High School Civics.

As with all of us, regarding memories so important, when you read the DofI for yourself you would have said to yourself, "Gee, Mom got it wrong". You would never forget that would you? No, you wouldn't.

What all this means is that Obama made the story up. He is a liar of the first order.

Obama and the Truth

Barak Obama has demonstrated repeatedly throughout his campaign that he is among the most cynical politicians we have seen in a long time. His message is Hope and Change. The only thing he really Hopes is that we are all too stupid to listen to what he is saying. The only thing he wants to Change is his status, from Senator to President.

His most recent demonstration of Hope is that he Hopes we will not notice that when confronted about his pastor's outrageous anti-americanism he claimed it was news to him. The reason he Hopes we won't notice is that a few days later when his original explanation became completely untenable he confessed to being aware of it, but said that he didn't agree with it.

His most recent manifestation of Change is the changing description of his grandmother's comments about being afraid of black men on the street. The recent Change differs in very important ways from his description of the same event in his autobiography. In that telling she was afraid of one black man who she felt threatened by because of his particular actions. Which is the truth? Who knows and it doesn't matter.

What does matter is that Obama is a liar with Clinton-like loyalty (see earlier posts) who is perfectly happy to try and further his political career by trashing his still living grandmother's reputation branding her as a racist. The grandmother, by the way, who was his primary parent and support, according to his autobiography, in his growing up years. Disgusting.