It’s Tuesday, February 12th, 2013….and we begin the day with another imponderable question: if an important milestone occurs, but the MSM fails to report it for political purposes….

Gas prices hit a historic high

Note the date; back then gas prices were news!

….did it ever happen?!?  Okay, it’s a rhetorical question.

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, here’s all you need to know about the utter nonsense The Dear Misleader is going to spout in his Misstatement of the Union propaganda piece:

To borrow a phrase from the immortal Vincent LaGuardia Gambini:

Or, as Webster’s puts it….

….which is to say in a meaningless, purposeless, haphazard fashion.  Like Honest Abe, we’d rather take one behind the ear than listen to more of his innumerable….how did Cordell Hull put it?….infamous falsehoods and distortions.

For more on The Obamao’s insults to America, we turn to “The Few, The Proud, The Unarmed” segment, courtesy today of Townhall.com, as Katie Pavlich demonstrates precisely how BO feels about the sharp edge of America’s sword:

Marines Were Disarmed for President Obama’s Second Inaugural Parade

 I’ve repeatedly violated my oath to uphold and defend the Constitution….and WE helped!

He’s gutted their healthcare, plans to cut their pay and apparently, doesn’t trust them either. David Codrea over at Gun Rights Examiner points out that Marines marching in President Obama’s second inaugural parade recently were carrying rifles without bolts, meaning they were removed.

“Didn’t know the Marines had to take the bolts out of their rifles for the Inaugural,” an email forwarded to Gun Rights Examiner from a United States Marine Corps source observed. “Wonder if someone can explain why [they] would be marching in the inaugural parade with no bolts in their rifles!”

The email linked to a YouTube video of the 57th Presidential Inaugural Parade, embedded in this column, featuring Bravo Company Marines from the Marine Barracks Washington. Sure enough, the observation in the email is confirmed by watching the video, with screen shots provided in the photo and slide show accompanying this article.

This prompted an internet search to see if others had also noticed, and the Blur-Brain blog had.

“The bolts have been removed from the rifles rendering them unable to fire a round,” the post stated. “Apparently Obama’s Secret Service doesn’t trust the USMC. Simply searching each guy to make sure he didn’t have a live round hidden on him wasn’t enough, they had to make sure the guns were inoperable.

Wondering if this may be an inauguration policy of long standing that transcends administrations, Gun Rights Examiner made a cursory search and found something even more curious. In the 2009 Inaugural Parade, the United States Navy marched with rifles that had not been so disabled.

As Gateway Pundit points out, this isn’t the first time Marines have been disarmed for an Obama administration event:

“In a sign of the nervousness surrounding Mr. Panetta’s trip, the Marines and other troops who were waiting in a tent for the defense secretary to speak were abruptly asked by their commander to get up, place their weapons — M-16 and M-4 automatic rifles and 9-mm pistols — outside the tent and then return unarmed. The commander, Sgt. Maj. Brandon Hall, told reporters he was acting on orders from superiors.

“All I know is, I was told to get the weapons out,” he said. Asked why, he replied, “Somebody got itchy, that’s all I’ve got to say. Somebody got itchy; we just adjust.”

Normally, American forces in Afghanistan keep their weapons with them when the defense secretary visits and speaks to them. The Afghans in the tent waiting for Mr. Panetta were not armed to begin with, as is typical.”

Understand, dear readers: these are WWII vintage M-1 Garands; weapons, the possession of which both in terms of appearance and clip capacity even The Obamao claims to support….even by civilians.  But not when HE’S the potential target….even in the hands of our Military.

And since we’re on the subject of disarmament, the WSJ‘s Bret Stephens offers the depressing details of….

Obama’s Nuclear Fantasy

The president is setting the stage for a world with more nukes in the wrong hands.

As a young Soviet military officer, Viktor Esin was stationed in Cuba during the October 1962 crisis, where he had release authority over a nuclear-tipped missile targeting New York. On his first visit to Manhattan in December, I made sure to thank him for not obliterating our city.

Gen. Esin rose to become chief of staff for the Strategic Rocket Forces, and he is now a professor at the Russian Academy of Military Science. So what’s been on his mind lately? Mainly the stealthy rise of China to a position of nuclear parity with the U.S. and Russia. “All in all, they may have 850 warheads ready to launch,” he says. “Other warheads are kept in storage and intended to be employed in an emergency.” He estimates the total size of the Chinese arsenal at between 1,600 and 1,800 warheads.

That is something to bear in mind as the Obama administration seeks to slash the U.S. arsenal to about 1,000 strategic warheads. That would be well below the ceiling of 1,550 warheads stipulated by the 2010 New Start Treaty. The administration also wants to spend less than the $80 billion it promised on modernizing America’s rusting nuclear-weapons infrastructure.

On the strength of that promise 13 Republican senators (or “idiots” if you prefer!) gave President Obama the votes he needed to ratify New Start. Suckers! Now the president means to dispense with the Senate altogether, either by imposing the cuts unilaterally or by means of an informal agreement with Vladimir Putin. This is what Mr. Obama meant in telling Dmitry Medvedev last year that he would have “more flexibility” after re-election.

But what, you ask, is so frightening about having “only” 1,000 nuclear weapons? Surely that is more than enough to turn any conceivable adversary Paleolithic. Won’t we remain more or less at parity with the Russians, and far ahead of everyone else?

It all depends on China. It is an article of faith among the arms-control community that Beijing subscribes to a theory of “minimum means of reprisal” and has long kept its arsenal more or less flat in the range of 240-400 warheads. Yet that is a speculative, dated and unverified figure, and China has spent the last decade embarked on a massive military buildup. Isn’t it just possible that Beijing has been building up its nuclear forces, too?

When I broached this theory in an October 2011 column—noting that the U.S. had, in fact, underestimated the size of the Soviet arsenal by a factor of two at the end of the Cold War—I was attacked for being needlessly alarmist. But one man who shares that alarm is Gen. Esin. In July 2012, he notes, the Chinese tested an intermediate-range DF-25 missile, which Russia carefully tracked. “In the final stage the missile had three shifts in trajectory, dropping one [warhead] at each shift,” he notes. “It’s solid evidence of a MIRV [multiple warhead] test.” A month later, the Chinese launched a new long-range, MIRV-capable missile, this time from a submarine.

The general runs through additional evidence of China’s nuclear strides. But what should really get the attention of U.S. military planners are his observations of how Russia might react. “If China doesn’t stop, Russia will consider abandoning the INF Treaty,” he warns. “Russia cannot afford not taking this factor into account.”

The Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed in 1987 by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, is a cornerstone of the settlement that ended the Cold War. If Russia abandons it and begins building a new generation of intermediate-range missiles, the U.S. would either have to follow suit or lose parity with Moscow. We’d be off to the nuclear races once again.

And not just with Moscow. As North Korea gears up for a third nuclear test, South Korea is eager to begin recycling plutonium—ostensibly for peaceful purposes, in reality as a nuclear hedge against its neighbors.

Then there is Japan, which is scheduled to bring on line a reprocessing plant at Rokkasho later this year. As nuclear expert Henry Sokolski notes, “the plant will produce eight tons of nuclear weapons usable plutonium each year (enough for 1,000 to 2,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs) at a time when Japan has no nuclear reactors to burn the material.”

Like the South Koreans, the Japanese don’t want a nuclear arsenal: They have lived peacefully under the nuclear umbrella of the United States for nearly seven decades. But as that umbrella shrinks, it covers fewer countries. Those left out will look to deploy umbrellas of their own. “The U.S. has obligations on extended deterrence in Asia,” Gen. Esin says. “The problem has to be at the forefront, not avoided.”

President Obama has often said that he wants to live in a world without nuclear weapons. Who wouldn’t? Even Gen. Esin is a “Global Zero” signatory. But the real choice isn’t between more nuclear weapons or fewer. It is between a world of fewer U.S. nuclear weapons and more nuclear states, or the opposite. In his idealism, the president is setting the stage for a more nuclearized world.

Think about it: can you name a single Progressive policy which is any different?  Almost without exception, every Liberal initiative ever enacted has produced results which are counter-productive to its stated goals.  And if The Obamao’s able to effectuate his latest attack on America’s national security, unilateral nuclear disarmament may well prove Progressivism’s pièce de résistance.

In a related item, courtesy of Conn Carroll and The Washington Examiner, Michael Barone relates how….

Obama’s weak policies increase rather than lessen risk of war

http://washingtonexaminer.com/michael-barone-obamas-weak-policies-increase-rather-than-lessen-risk-of-war/article/2521033?utm_source=DITTO%20TEMPLATE:%20Morning%20Examiner%20-%2002/11/2013&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Washington%20Examiner:%20Morning%20Examiner

Meanwhile, out on the Left Coast, Townhall.com‘s Ashley Brooks reports on….

California’s “Solution” To Its Doctor Shortage

Read the 5th line, take two aspirin and call me in the morning.

California has been at the forefront of ObamaCare implementation, but state lawmakers are facing a major obstacle: There aren’t enough doctors in the state to treat the expected influx of newly-insured patients. A government council has recommended a physician-to-population ratio of 60 to 80 primary care doctors per 100,000 residents. Only 16 of California’s 58 counties reach this recommended supply of primary care physicians. With ObamaCare, it’s only going to get worse.

The huge influx of newly-insured patients with ObamaCare is not the only reason for this lack of doctors. In a recent Physicians Foundation Survey, 13,575 doctors were asked how the passage of ObamaCare has affected their feelings about the future of healthcare in America. 59.3% of those surveyed said they were “less positive” about the future of American healthcare.

More than half of these physicians plan to cut back on patients, switch to cash only, or quit in the next three years. In fact, 60% of doctors surveyed said they would retire today if they could.

Yeah….but I worked in a CVS last night!

So, what’s California’s solution to this lack of doctors? Redefine who can provide healthcare. Broaden the definition of “primary care provider” to include physician assistants, pharmacists, and even optometrists.

Doctors say this could greatly threaten patient safety. But, at a meeting for healthcare advocates this past December, Diana Dooley, Secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, said “We’re going to have to provide care at lower levels. I think a lot of people are trained to do work that our licenses don’t allow them to.” What’s more important: access to care or patient safety? (Neither; to Dimocrats, political power trumps both!)

National Conference of State Legislatures has reported about 350 laws altering the scope of practice of health professionals have been enacted nationwide in the last two years. The California Medical Association says healthcare professionals should not exceed their training, but they have a different solution: Increase funding to expand participation in a loan repayment program for recent medical school graduates. The hope is that such a program may provide an incentive for these new doctors to practice in under-served communities in order to pay off their loans.

Regardless, such a program cannot increase the number of physicians in the short-term. According to Paul Hensler, Kern Medical Center’s Chief Executive, California is “going to have to get a whole lot more creative about how care is provided.”

Or, like Great Britain, just deliver less-than adequate levels of treatment and care.

Yeah….

On the Lighter Side….

Finally, in Tales From the Darkside, we learn birds of a feather still flock together:

Second family accuses Disneyland character of racism

Trust us; it’s mere coincidence they’re utilizing the services of the same attorney as the only other family in history whose child suffered irreparable harm through the inattentiveness of a racist cartoon character.

Magoo