It’s Tuesday, September 3rd, 2013…but before we begin, two sterling examples of the tortured logic which doesn’t begin to plumb the depths to which modern Progressives will sink in defending the indefensible. First, from Iowa, words we guarantee the good Lord won’t view as a prayer, but as self-incrimination:
Second, nothing other than patent prevarication in the purposeful pursuit of protecting this President can explain this bit of twisted reasoning from Andrea Mitchell:
In all seriousness, if Der Obafuhrer were captured on video ordering the break-in of the RNC’s offices, Andrea Mitchell, along with most of the rest of the MSM, would be happy to explain why, unlike Nixon, Obama’s intentions or character somehow mitigated his guilt.
Which is why you can’t spell “Liberal” without an “L-I-E”!
Now, here’s The Gouge!
Leading off the first edition of September, courtesy of Breitbart.com‘s Mike Flynn, what would you do as the Leader of the Free World after detailing a threat grave enough to essentially ask Congress to declare war and put Americans in harm’s way?
Obama Hits Golf Course After Announcing National Emergency
President Obama and Vice-President Biden held a rare press event Saturday in the Rose Garden to address the escalating tensions with Syria. President Obama said he was convinced Syrian President Bashir Assad had ordered a chemical weapon attack on his citizens and that the US, and the world community, must act in response. Obama called on Congress to authorize a military attack against Syria. A new foreign policy crisis now faces the US. After the press event, Obama and Biden went golfing.
I’m not an expert in foreign policy, but I can think of a few things a President ought to do after requesting authority for a military strike on a sovereign nation. There are probably some Congressional leaders who ought to be briefed. There are likely one or two world leaders who would appreciate a chat about the US plans. No doubt generals in the military would have a thought or two about how things should proceed.
An hour after announcing a potential new military venture in the Middle East, with unknown consequences, “5 Wood or 2 Iron” is the last thing I want on a President’s mind.
As Victor Davis Hanson notes in today’s Money Quote…
“He seems as bored by Syria as he was on the night of the bin Laden raid when he stepped out to play cards with Reggie Love or during the Benghazi debacle when he retired early given the next day’s Las Vegas urgencies. Why doesn’t it all just go away?“
A number of Conservative writers and pundits, including Pete Dupont at that WSJ, continue to give The Obamao the benefit of the doubt as to his intentions in this self-imposed crisis. We, on the other hand, can only assume the basest of motives: personal political advantage over national security.
And please don’t anyone waste their breath trying to convince us the sickening sycophants in the Pentagon have suddenly seen the light.
Though we believe the real answers somewhat more convoluted and complex, what follows are two likely explanations for The Dear Misleader’s latest high crime and misdemeanor. First, writing at the Washington Times, Joe Curl suggests…
Obama’s 2014 calculation: Let’s have a war
“Yo, BO! Make it quick; we got a 1230 tee time.”
Make no mistake: The president couldn’t care less about the plight of Syrians, the 1,500 gassed to death — including nearly 500 children. It’s all about 2014. Win the House, reign supreme. Consider this: Mr. Obama made his dramatic Rose Garden statement Saturday — then headed to the golf course. Congress has no plans to cut short its 30-day vacation, and the president did not call lawmakers back. So much for urgency.
The conventional wisdom is, as usual, wrong. Losing the congressional vote won’t be an embarrassment for the president, as all the talking heads are still parroting. A loss would be a double win. First, because a “No” vote would allow the foreign policy neophyte to walk away from his blundering “red line” declaration on chemical weapons (“I wanted to go in, but Congress said no”). And second, should Republicans who voted for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars now oppose Syria, the president would be armed with clear “evidence” that their opposition is purely political.
Keep in mind: This president knows no way to campaign other than to blame others. He’ll batter Republicans for all of 2014 as obstructionists should they be the reason the effort fails.
But the bloviating politicos are also wrong that the “Republican-controlled House” could reject the plan for partisan reasons. It is Democrats who seem most squeamish — and they were the most vocal in demanding their say before intervention in Syria. Remember, two years ago, as the president prepared to bomb Libya, 70 Democrats joined Republicans in voting against military operations. Mr. Obama bombed anyway.
Still, the entire fiasco has been hard to watch, “Amateur Hour” indeed. The president declares a “red line,” then sees the Syrian dictator cross it again and again. The Nobel Peace Prize winner declares he’ll take America to war — but only then does he seek partners and only to find a “Coalition of the Unwilling.” The United Nations says no, the Arab League says no, China and Russia say no — even the United Kingdom says no (mainly because Brits did not want to have another U.S.-led war jammed down their throats).
Back home, polls find 80 percent of Americans want Congress to decide, and nearly half oppose intervention. So the president — hoping to appear magnanimous — declares he’ll seek authorization (read: share the blame). (Or, more correctly, shift it!)
Still, the president and his secretary of state are absolutely right. “The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity,” John F. Kerry said. Mr. Obama, in his most powerful passage, said: “Here’s my question for every member of Congress and every member of the global community: What message will we send if a dictator can gas hundreds of children to death in plain sight and pay no price?”
Of course a firm response is the correct action. (A position with which we respectfully disagree.) And Mr. Obama doesn’t need authority to do so in Syria, just as he didn’t in Libya. While Republican support on the Hill now would help Mr. Obama save face after his “red line” throw-down, striking Syria with a few cruise missiles — however fleeting and ineffectual that would be to the course of its 2-year-old civil war — also would send a signal to the real target: Iran. That’s why, most likely, Republicans will support the president after rewriting the White House’s draft resolution.
Now, it is up to Mr. Obama’s own party: Does he still hold sway over Democrats? Will they bend to his will? Many already seem to be running for the hills. And if they don’t, will the president have the temerity to order strikes anyway?
Whatever happens, this much is clear: We’re no longer talking about the IRS targeting tea party groups, the Justice Department tapping reporters’ phone lines, the NSA’s surveillance programs, Benghazi. The president has smartly changed the subject to the most important decision a commander in chief makes: war.
And the most presidential. That, he knows, will play better in the midterm elections, whichever way Congress votes.
As Fred Thompson so famously observed…
Neither does this Administration; depend on it. And the WSJ‘s Kimberly Strassel knows what it is:
The Politics of the Obama Delay on Syria
Betting that the focus on a GOP rift will divert attention from how many Democrats won’t support the president.
The most telling line in President Obama’s Saturday Syria address came near the end, when he (once again) lectured Congress about its duty to rise above “partisan differences or the politics of the moment.” Having put America’s global credibility at risk, Mr. Obama defaulted to the same political cynicism that has defined his presidency.
The commander in chief is in a box. His desperation to avoid military entanglement in Syria last year—in the run-up to the presidential election—inspired Mr. Obama to fumble out his “red line” warning to Bashar Assad on chemical-weapons use. The statement was a green light to the dictator to commit every atrocity up to that line and—when he received no pushback—to cross it.
Now trapped by his own declaration, Mr. Obama is reverting to the same strategy he has used in countless domestic brawls—that is, to lay responsibility for any action, or failure of action, on Congress. The decision was made easier by the fact that Congress itself was demanding a say.
That proved too tempting for a president whose crude calculus is that Congress can now rescue him however it votes. Should Congress oppose authorizing action against Syria, he can lay America’s failure to honor his promises on the legislative branch. Obama aides insist that even if Congress votes no, the president may still act—though they would say that. The idea that Mr. Obama, having lacked the will to act on his own, would proceed in the face of congressional opposition is near-fantasy.
Mr. Obama must figure that if he gets authorization, he nets two political wins. He provides himself cover for taking action, while simultaneously presenting Congress’s vote as affirmation of his flawed plan to lob a few missiles and call it a day. When that pinprick bombing has no discernible effect on Assad’s murderous campaign, Mr. Obama will note that this was Congress’s will. As he said in his Saturday speech, “all of us should be accountable” for Mr. Obama’s actions.
A congressional vote is all the more tantalizing to a president who lives and breathes rough politics, and who knows that this Syria debate will be particularly punishing for Republicans. The coming weeks will highlight the growing rift in the GOP between the traditional defenders of national security and the party’s libertarian-isolationist wing. (Though what, given the nature of the two sides, the Syrian civil war has to do with national security remains unclear, at least to us.) While the latter does not yet occupy a large space in the GOP, its members are loud and wield much influence among the cranky conservative grass roots.
Those Republicans who might be expected to vote for a military strike will be pressured by the threat of primary challengers using that vote against them. They will likely be accused of helping Mr. Obama extract himself from his box. The president is going to enjoy this show, all the more so if it results in upheaval for Republicans in next year’s midterms.
Likewise, he will enjoy putting on the spot the GOP’s hawks, like Sen. John McCain, who have been merciless in their criticism of an Obama military strategy that will do nothing to end Syria’s civil war or depose Assad. With the authorization Mr. Obama has sent to Congress, he is forcing Republicans to choose between an inconstant strategy and a “no” vote that harms American interests. When did a U.S. commander in chief last so cynically play politics with American credibility?
Finally, Mr. Obama is betting that the GOP rift will divert attention from the most pertinent aspect of this debate: the extent to which his own party abandons him. The president’s withdrawal from the world stage—his exit from Afghanistan and Iraq, in particular—has nurtured the Democratic Party’s worst instincts and left it even more resistant to a call for military action. Mr. Obama is counting on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to corral votes for him, but the liberal Democratic wing is not a sure bet.
Americans do not want to think that the president is making grave decisions about military action and U.S. standing on the basis of political calculation. Yet Mr. Obama has treated Syria as a political problem from the start, viewing it almost solely as a liability to the administration’s public-opinion polling, its presidential electioneering and its rival domestic priorities. Viewing Mr. Obama’s punt to Congress as anything but political is almost impossible. And yet the president again lectures Congress to rise above the “partisan” politics that he has, with great calculation, dumped on them.
The challenge for Republicans is to do just that, to remember (no matter how painful) that this is not a vote about the president or his machinations. The only question before Republicans is this: Will they send a message to the world’s despots that America will not tolerate the use of weapons of mass destruction? If they will not send that message, they risk complicity in this president’s failed foreign policy.
We know how the majority of Americans view intervention in Syria; what about the folks who’ll be putting their lives behind Barry’s feckless foreign policy?
If it comes to that, Dimocrats will have absolutely no one to blame but themselves!
For an alternative theory of The Obamao’s duplicitous diplomacy, we turn to this headline from The Hill via Drudge:
U.S. military action in Syria could give the White House an advantage in the looming fiscal showdown with congressional Republicans, according to defense and budget experts. They said the Syria crisis could boost calls by President Obama and defense hawks to reverse the automatic spending cuts to the Pentagon known as sequestration.
Steve Bell, a budget expert at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said if the U.S. moves forward with military action, it will underline the arguments of those who say keeping the sequester in place impairs U.S. military readiness. “I think it has the possibility of advancing fiscal talks, I really do,” he said. He argued that if strikes against Syria are launched, it will be “very, very difficult to insist” on the defense sequester. “Under those circumstances, I can see a [2014 continuing resolution] that would contain full funding for defense,” he said.
The White House has been banking on defense hawks within the GOP breaking ranks with Tea Party conservatives and embracing a debt deal that includes some higher taxes and reverses cuts to domestic programs. Their hope is that the cuts to the Pentagon will grow so painful, some defense-minded lawmakers will accept more tax revenue as part of a deal to end the defense cuts.
That effort needs a shot in the arm.
And McCain and his ambiguously-sexed sidekick
…are just stupid enough to aid the effort.
Regardless, as Joe Curl so knowingly noted…
Whatever happens, this much is clear: We’re no longer talking about the IRS targeting tea party groups, the Justice Department tapping reporters’ phone lines, the NSA’s surveillance programs, Benghazi. The president has smartly changed the subject to the most important decision a commander in chief makes: war.
Moving on to the 2nd Amendment segment, check out the Constitutionally-questionable positions posited by the mindless myrmidon featured in this video shot at a Texas Starbuck’s; the best part comes around about the 4:30 point:
We must admit our admiration for the way these three patriots handled themselves…along with utter contempt to the craven cowardice displayed by John Q. Law.
Then there’s this bit of commentary from James Taranto on what was, by any rational definition, a dismal failure for organized labor:
Fast Food, Slow Death
Then might we suggest you find alternative employment…and prove it?!?
It’s like “Lysistrata” with the sexes reversed: Fast-food workers staged a nationwide “strike” yesterday. Here’s a report from a Chicago radio station:
WBBM Newsradio’s Mike Krauser reports a couple hundred fast food and retail workers chanted “we can’t survive on $8.25” as they rallied outside and inside the Rock N Roll McDonald’s in the River North neighborhood. The workers said they’re fighting for a raise to at least $15 an hour.
Tyree Johnson said he’s worked at McDonald’s for 21 years, but is still earning minimum wage–$8.25 an hour in Illinois for workers 18 and older; and $7.75 for those under the age of 18, or older employees on the job less than 90 days.
“Every time I ask for a raise, they tell me ‘You shouldn’t have joined that union, we’re not giving you no raise,’ ” he said.
Why stay at a job for 21 years at minimum wage? “With the help of this union, I’m going to overcome this,” he said.
And here’s a first-person story from Willietta Dukes in London’s Guardian, titled “Why I’m on Strike Today: I Can’t Support Myself on $7.85 at Burger King”:
I’ve worked at fast-food restaurants in North Carolina for the past 15 years. I’ve spent more hours at Church’s Chicken, McDonald’s and now Burger King than I can remember. I work hard–I never miss a shift and always arrive on time.(Unlike, we must assume, those employed in any other industry or business!)But today, I’m going on strike.
I make $7.85 at Burger King as a guest ambassador and team leader, where I train new employees on restaurant regulations and perform the manager’s duties in their absence. Before Burger King, I worked at Church’s for 12 years, starting at $6.30 and ending at just a little more than $8 an hour.
I’ve never walked off a job before. I don’t consider myself an activist, and I’ve never been involved with politics. I’m a mother with two sons, and like any mom knows, raising two teenage boys is tough. Raising them as a single mother, on less than $8 an hour, is nearly impossible, though.
So here we have two people who have worked at or near minimum wage for 36 years between them and are claiming, as the slogan has it: “We can’t survive . . .” That is true only in the sense that, as Paul Newman observed in “Hud”:
“Happens to everybody. Nobody gets out of life alive.”
And who ever intended, let alone envisioned, anyone would be content to spend their life working at minimum wage?!? Mickey D’s has created more success stories than Horatio Alger; yet you’d think from what’s “reported” in the MSM they were the second coming of Simon Legree!
On the Lighter Side…
Then there’s this perfect portrayal of Progressive Paradise, courtesy of Balls Cotton:
And since we’re on the subject of Crime & Punishment, here’s another sordid story ripped from the pages of the Crime Blotter…
Mich. minister who allegedly killed fiancée’s daughter to have sex with dead body kills self
The former minister of a small Michigan church who allegedly told police he killed his fiancée’s 24-year-old daughter because he wanted to have sex with a dead body has killed himself. Department of Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan told the Morning Sun of Mount Pleasant that 56-year-old John D. White hanged himself in his cell at the Michigan Reformatory in Ionia. He says White was pronounced dead early Wednesday after efforts to resuscitate him failed.
Talk about getting off easy; we only hope his passing was agonizingly and slow…and they didn’t really try that hard to revive him.
In a related story courtesy of the Just Desserts segment…
Papua New Guinea: ‘Cannibal Cult Leader Black Jesus’ Hacked to Death by Villagers
A Papua New Guinea cult leader known as ‘Black Jesus’ has been hacked to death by villagers in the Madang province. Steven Tari was found dead after he escaped prison in March during a mass break-out with other convicts. He had been serving a 20-year sentence for raping four girls.
According to AFP, Tari was widely known as a Lutheran pastor and ran a Christian-based sect. At his peak, he had thousands of village followers, including armed warriors who protected him. His followers became known as a ‘cargo cult’ in Papua New Guinea and he preached that young girls should be married to him, as it was God’s prophecy.
Tari, believed to be 42, was captured in 2007 and as well as the rape charges, he was accused of cannibalism. human sacrifice and blood rituals, but he was never charged with these crimes.
Finally, courtesy of Jim Gleaves, we’ll call it a wrap with the John Blutarsky Memorial…
…Peeping Tom Award…
Peeper who hid in portable toilet gets 3 year-sentence
A Colorado man who hid in the tank of a portable toilet at a yoga festival to spy on women has been sentenced to three years in prison and 10 years of probation. Luke Chrisco’s sentence was handed down Friday in Boulder. The 31-year-old pleaded guilty in July to attempted unlawful sexual contact and two burglary counts.
Police arrested Chrisco in 2011 after a woman at a yoga festival in Boulder noticed something moving in the tank of the portable toilet, then saw a feces-stained man emerge and run away. Police say he also was suspected of hiding in other bathrooms around Boulder to watch women use the toilet.
Magoo
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