It’s Friday, August 15th, 2014…but before we begin, submitted for your perusal, courtesy of Balls Cotton and the brilliant Bill Whittle, a little taste of the evil America’s been facing down since we became the Arsenal of Democracy:

Then consider whose finger is currently controlling the trigger…

…which is the only counter to such evil.  Afraid?

You certainly should be!

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, as Weasel Zippers notes…

Fun Fact: It Took Obama Only 7 Minutes To Get On Golf Course After Giving Remarks On Ferguson And Iraq…

 

The only time he has a sense of urgency is when his golf game is on the line.

Wow!  Are we the only one touched by the time he took away from his busy vacation schedule to deal with the planet’s problems?!?  Does no one in this narcissistic nitwit’s entourage of slavish sycophants really not see how such conduct plays to both the nation and the world…particularly those who might wish us ill?!?

As Commentary Magazine‘s Seth Mandel reports, in a move guaranteed to warm the cockles of self-hating Jews and other Liberals across the fruited plains, The Dear Misleader also made time to overturn a long-standing arrangement between the Pentagon and the Israeli Military:

The Last, Desperate Defense of Obama on Israel Just Evaporated

 

“There is much to say about the latest Wall Street Journal report, noted earlier by our John Podhoretz, on the further deterioration of U.S.-Israel relations under President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu–and it’s worth noting that the Journal has really been owning this ongoing story lately. But there’s one aspect in particular that stands out. And that is the fact that if the basic structure of arms transfers from the U.S. to Israel is described accurately in the story–and it appears it is–the last refuge of Barack Obama’s defenders on his attitude toward Israel has evaporated.

…Obama’s defenders have always had an uphill climb because the president’s diplomatic hostility is not unconnected to Israel’s security. But now we know that the president is not fully committed to Israel’s security–and, since the general process of how Israel procures ammunition goes around the president, the public is left to wonder if he ever was.“

Uhhhh…given he was willing to sell F-16s to the Muslim Brotherhood, we’d have to go with…

…”no”!

In a related item, writing at the AEI, Marc Thiessen details…

The (latest) Obama Doctrine: ‘No victor/no vanquished’

 

It’s been hard to keep up with all the Obama Doctrines that have emerged over the past five years.

First, the Libyan war gave us the doctrine of “leading from behind.”

Then, in Syria, we saw the birth of a new Obama Doctrine: military action “just muscular enough not to get mocked” (though, Obama backed off of even those miniscule strikes, taking that one out of contention).

Then earlier this year, Obama claimed the guiding principle of his foreign policy was “Don’t do stupid shi*t.”

Now, in an interview with The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman, Obama unveiled yet another Doctrine – one, he says, that guides both his domestic and foreign policies: “No victor/no vanquished.” Said Obama:

We have so many things going for us right now as a country — from new energy resources to innovation to a growing economy — but we will never realize our full potential unless our two parties adopt the same outlook that we’re asking of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds or Israelis and Palestinians: No victor, no vanquished and work together.

It’s hard to fathom just how inane – and hypocritical – this is. Domestically, Obama didn’t exactly follow the “no victor/no vanquished” approach when he controlled both houses of Congress and rammed the stimulus and Obamacare through on party-line votes. House Republican Whip Eric Cantor gave President Obama a list of modest proposals for the stimulus at a White House meeting, but Obama told the assembled Republicans that “elections have consequences” and “I won.” In other words, he was the “victor” and they were the “vanquished.” Deal with it.

Internationally, does he really believe that we should follow a doctrine of “no victor/no vanquished” when it comes to the fight with the Islamic State – a movement so radical it has been crucifying its opponents? Apparently so. For a year, he rejected repeated calls by the Iraqi government for drone strikes to prevent the advance of the Islamic State. Now that the Islamic State has taken control of large swaths of Iraq, Obama has launched limited strikes – only to protect US diplomatic facilities in northern Iraq (for fear of another Benghazi) and prevent the massacre of Yazidi minorities, but not to defeat the Islamic State or drive it from its strongholds.

So it seems our policy when it comes to the Islamic State is a hybrid of the Obama Doctrines: “no victor/no vanquished” and strikes “just muscular enough not to get mocked.” That explains a lot.

We can only imagine the scene as Tick-Tock Barack questioned his minions following the Friedman interview:

Only an educated idiot of similar stupidity…like Thomas Friedman…could listen to such drivel with a straight face.  And only a self-absorbed Socialist like Hillary could believe she can distance herself from responsibility after personally conducting this foreign-policy fiasco.  As Peggy Noonan notes…

“…Everyone knew that Mrs. Clinton would have to detach herself politically from Mr. Obama, an increasingly unpopular president. But she was his secretary of state for four years, so the distancing would have to be done with some deftness and delicacy, and deeper into the election cycle, not now. Instead, it was done with blunt force. In the interview Mrs. Clinton went square at the president’s foreign-policy vision, or lack of it. “Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff,’ is not an organizing principle.” This is both true and well stated, but it is remarkable to hear it from, again, a person who until February 2013 was his secretary of state, presumably an intimate and part of the creation of his foreign policy.“

And in national news of note, courtesy of the WSJ, Jason Riley offers NYC Police Commissioner Bill Bratton’s thoughts on what’s really behind the flames in Ferguson, MO:

Bratton Pushes Back

 

“…“What we’ve seen in the past few months is a number of individuals failing to understand that you must submit to arrest. You cannot resist,” said Mr. Bratton in a radio interview Tuesday. “The place to argue your case is in the court, not in the street.”

…Mr. Bratton also said that police find themselves in black neighborhoods more often because that is where most of the 911 calls originate. So while liberals complain that these neighborhoods are “over-policed,” the reality is that the law-abiding residents of those communities want the police there.

Black arrest rates reflect black criminality, not racial prejudice. The black crime rate in the 1950s was lower than it is today. Was there less racism back then? Data consistently show little if any difference between the rate at which police arrest blacks and the rate at which victims of crime identify blacks as their attackers. The problem is black behavior, a topic that the race hustlers and their media enablers studiously avoid.“

Which brings us to this amazingly even-handed editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Governor Must Let Ferguson Be Where Better Begins

 

As soon as the unrest in Ferguson is over — and let it be soon — there must be a thorough, independent and timely investigation into how and why it happened and the police response to it. This inquiry would go beyond the parallel criminal investigations and get into the root causes of this madness.

Yes, the immediate cause — the “tipping point” they call it in the literature of civil unrest — was the fatal shooting Saturday of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a still-unidentified Ferguson police officer. (By the way, the failure to identify the officer violates every principle of transparency recommended by law enforcement experts. Society grants police officers the right to use deadly force. That right carries special obligations, one of which is strict public accountability. The longer the officer stays anonymous, the more public confidence is undermined.)

…One big problem with convening such an investigative panel is that it’s not clear who has jurisdiction. The same problem plagues the entire response in Ferguson: Who has command authority? Who is accountable for the decisions that are being made?

…It will have to be Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, a man whose every instinct is to dodge bad news whenever possible. Sorry, governor. But you asked for the job.

Which begs the question where on earth the decision-dodging Dimocrat’s been…

…during this crisis.  Hunter Walker of Business Insider has part of the answer:

While Ferguson Situation Goes Out Of Control, Missouri Governor Tweets About School Board Meeting

 

Citizens of the sovereign state of Missouri are threatened and killed, and the governor is MIA?  Who does Nixon think he is…

…the President of the United States?!?

Meanwhile, here’s a laugher in The Pot Calling the Kettle Black segment…

Feds alarmed at ‘militarized’ response to Missouri protesters

 

Attorney General Eric Holder said the sight of police in Ferguson, Mo., garbed in riot gear and using military vehicles to quell protesters, some of whom were seen throwing Molotov cocktails, was troubling. “At a time when we must seek to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the local community, I am deeply concerned that the deployment of military equipment and vehicles sends a conflicting message,” said Holder.

Really, Eric; REALLY?!?  Where was this concern during Rudy Ridge…

…Waco…

…Elian Gonzalez…

…or the purely political arrest of an obscure filmmaker?!?

Holder’s concern has nothing to do with the armaments displayed by the police, only the predominant skin colors of the opposing parties.

And for those of you wondering whether the MSM is reporting the facts behind what happened in Ferguson, if recent history’s any guide at all…

…don’t bet on it!

Turning to the Health Section, writing in the WSJ, Bill Bennett and Robert White relate a harsh truth behind the push to legalize pot:

Legal Pot Is a Public Health Menace

Public opinion is moving in favor of marijuana, even as medical research raises fresh alarms.

 

“The great irony, or misfortune, of the national debate over marijuana is that while almost all the science and research is going in one direction—pointing out the dangers of marijuana use—public opinion seems to be going in favor of broad legalization. For example, last week a new study in the journal Current Addiction Reports found that regular pot use (defined as once a week) among teenagers and young adults led to cognitive decline, poor attention and memory, and decreased IQ…

…The disconnect between science and public opinion is so great that in a March WSJ/NBC News poll, Americans ranked sugar as more harmful than marijuana. The misinformation campaign appears to be succeeding.

Here’s the truth. The marijuana of today is simply not the same drug it was in the 1960s, ’70s, or ’80s, much less the 1930s. It is often at least five times stronger, with the levels of the psychoactive ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, averaging about 15% in the marijuana at dispensaries found in the states that have legalized pot for “medicinal” or, in the case of Colorado, recreational use. Often the THC level is 20% or higher…”

Bunny and Junior had it right:

Since we’re on the subject of undeniable menaces to public health, courtesy again of the WSJ, Scott Atlas offers a roadmap of…

Where ObamaCare Is Going

The government single-payer model that liberals aspire to for the U.S. is increasingly in trouble around the world.

 

“Americans diagnosed with heart disease receive treatment with medications significantly more frequently than patients in Western Europe, according to Kenneth Thorpe in Health Affairs in 2007. In Lancet Oncology in that same year, Arduino Verdecchia published data demonstrating that American cancer patients have survival rates for all major cancers better than those in Western Europe and far better than in the U.K.

Similar examples concerning the deadliest and most significant diseases abound in medical journals…

…Yet even as the single-payer system remains the ideal for many on the left, it’s worth examining how Britain’s NHS, established in 1948, is faring. The answer: badly. NHS England—a government body that receives about £100 billion a year from the Department of Health to run England’s health-care system—reported this month that its hospital waiting lists soared to their highest point since 2006, with 3.2 million patients waiting for treatment after diagnosis. NHS England figures for July 2013 show that 508,555 people in London alone were waiting for operations or other treatments—the highest total for at least five years.

Even cancer patients have to wait: According to a June report by NHS England, more than 15% of patients referred by their general practitioner for “urgent” treatment after being diagnosed with suspected cancer waited more than 62 days—two full months—to begin their first definitive treatment…“

Put another way, here’s where the Unaffordable Care Act is taking America:

On the Lighter Side…

And last, but certainly not least:

Magoo