On November 24, 2015,
in Uncategorized,
by magoo1310
It’s Monday, November 23rd, 2015…but before we begin, a couple of quick thoughts: first, if you haven’t tuned in before, you HAVE to check in with Hope n’ Change today, and on a regular basis going forward.
Second, Hillary has provided Republicans the subject matter for a dynamite ad when Campaign ’16 finally hits full stride:
As James Taranto notes at Best of the Web:
“…The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway responded with this paraphrase: “ ‘Know your enemy.’ — Sun Tzu.‘Don’t know even the first thing about your enemy. See how that works out!’ — HRC.””
Oh, we almost forgot; make that two ads…thanks to Lerch’s idiotic imitation…
…of his boss’s boneheaded braggadocio.
Now, here’s The Gouge!
First up, Jonah Goldberg waxes eloquent about Hillary’s latest bout of foot-in-mouth disease:
“Yesterday, Hillary Clinton said: “Let’s be clear, though. Islam is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.”
Now, unlike some people who e-mail me in ALL CAPS, I have no problem with politicians saying, “Islam is not our adversary.” In fact, I think it would be disastrous if our political leaders went around saying anything like “Islam is our enemy.”
It’s the second part of that Hillary quote that I have trouble with. Yes, some — most! — Muslims are peaceful. And while peacefulness and tolerance don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand (just look at opinion polls in the Muslim world on questions of sharia, homosexuality, women’s equality, free speech, and, of course, the Joooooooz), let’s stipulate that a great many Muslims are tolerant in their own fashion, too.
But it is simply a lie — an obvious, glaring, indisputable, trout-in-the-milklie — that Muslims have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.
Simply put, this is nonsense. But it’s not just nonsense.It is highly refined nonsense.If nonsense were radioactive, you could dump a barrel of it in a centrifuge, wait a few weeks, and out would come the claim that Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. Just off the top of my head is my hair. But figuratively speaking off the top of my head: The jihadists say they are motivated by Islam. They shout “Allahu akbar!” whenever they kill people. “Moderate Muslims” in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have been funding Islamic radicals around the world for nearly a century. This morning in Mali, terrorist gunmen reportedly released those hostages who could quote the Koran. The leader of ISIS has a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies and openly talks about restoring the Caliphate.
Oh, one other thing: The Islamic State is called the Islamic State. I used to eat at a restaurant called “Burrito Brothers.” Saying the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam is like telling someone eating a burrito they bought at Burrito Brothers that Burrito Brothers has “nothing whatsoever” to do with burritos.
And like many other highly enriched radioactive substances, this nonsensical notion is weaponizable.It is dangerous. I would like to think that if you had an honest conversation with Hillary Clinton away from the cameras, she would say something like, “Of course, Islamic terrorism has a lot to do with Islam. But we can’t say that publicly because we have to isolate the radicals, not radicalize the moderates.”
That is an entirely defensible position intellectually. But that doesn’t make the “This Isn’t Islamic” claim any less of a lie.And what makes the lie dangerous — very dangerous — is the possibility that, to borrow a phrase from Barack Obama, these people believe their own bullsh***.The danger is twofold. On the one hand, if you engage an enemy without actually understanding its motivations and ambitions, you will inevitably screw it up because you’ll be constantly surprised by the facts on the ground. As Irving Kristol once said, “When we lack the will to see things as they really are, there is nothing so mystifying as the obvious.”
On the other hand, if you are trying to rally political support for your strategy, while at the same time giving the public every reason to believe you’re operating from a home-base in fantasyland, only fellow bullsh***ers and fools will rally to your banner. And, you’ll lose the confidence and trust of those people who see through the fog of bovine excrement.
In other words, the majority of the country who aren’t inclined to savor Hillary’s new Feminazi-flavored Kool-Aid, and are no longer drinking the dregs of The Obamao’s.
Since we’re on the subject of The Dear Misleader’s waning influence, we present two items of interest, the first from Walter Russell Mead via The American Interest…
Another humanitarian crisis of Biblical proportions brought to you by BHO!
“…To see the full cynicism of the Obama approach to the refugee issue, one has only to ask President Obama’s least favorite question: Why is there a Syrian refugee crisis in the first place?
Obama’s own policy decisions—allowing Assad to convert peaceful demonstrations into an increasingly ugly civil war, refusing to declare safe havens and no fly zones—were instrumental in creating the Syrian refugee crisis. This crisis is in large part the direct consequence of President Obama’s decision to stand aside and watch Syria burn. For him to try and use a derisory and symbolic program to allow 10,000 refugees into the United States in order to posture as more caring than those evil Jacksonian rednecks out in the benighted sticks is one of the most cynical, cold-blooded, and nastily divisive moves an American President has made in a long time.
Moreover, many of those “benighted” people were willing to sign up for the U.S. military and go to fight ISIS in Syria to protect the refugees.Many Americans who now oppose the President’s ill-considered refugee program have long supported the use of American power to create “safe zones” in Syria so the refugees could be sheltered and fed in their own country. If President Obama seriously cared about the fate of Syria’s millions of displaced people, he would have started to organize those safe havens years ago. And if he understood the nature of America’s role in Europe, he would have known that working with the Europeans to prevent a mass refugee and humanitarian disaster was something that had to be done.
Not even President Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq has been as destructive for Europe or as damaging to the Transatlantic alliance as President Obama’s hard-hearted and short-sighted Syria policy. The flood of refugees is shaking the European Union to its core, and Obama’s policy has cemented perceptions among many around the world that the United States is no longer the kind of useful ally that it once was. France didn’t even bother to invoke NATO’s Article 5 after the Paris attacks; nobody really thinks of President Obama as the man you want at your side when the chips are down.
…To think that conspicuous moral posturing and holy posing over a symbolic refugee quota could turn President Obama from the goat to the hero of the Syrian crisis is absurd. Wringing your hands while Syria turns into a hell on earth, and then taking a token number of refugees, can be called many things, but decent and wise are not among them.You don’t have to be a xenophobe or a racist or even a Republican to reject this President’s leadership on Syria policy.All you need for that is common sense and a moral compass.
…If President Obama really had the superior moral insight and wisdom that he believes makes him so much more humane and far-seeing than the ignorant rednecks who keep on opposing him, he would have approached the refugee issue with less arrogance and more self-awareness. It is not given to the sons (or even to the daughters) of mortals to be right about everything all the time; Presidents make mistakes, even in the Middle East. A little humility, a little acknowledgement of responsibility, a little self-reflection could go a long way.
For no one, other than the Butcher Assad and the unspeakable al-Baghdadi, is as responsible for the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria as is President Obama.No one has committed more sins of omission, no one has so ruthlessly sacrificed the well-being of Syria’s people for his own ends, as the man in the White House.In all the world, only President Obama had the ability to do anything significant to prevent this catastrophe; in all the world no one turned his back so coldly and resolutely on the suffering Syrians as the man who sits in the White House today—a man who is now lecturing his fellow citizens on what he insists is their moral inferiority before his own high self-esteem…”
…and the second again from Jonah Goldberg writing at NRO:
“‘‘You’re all suckers.’That has to be what Barack Obama is thinking as the country falls for his head-fake.
Let’s recap. George W. Bush’s surge reduced the Islamic State’s precursor, al-Qaeda in Iraq, to a paltry 700 members, according to CIA director John Brennan. Its membership has grown by something close to 4,000 percent. As it metastasized, Obama yawned, calling it the “JV team.” When Syrian president Bashar al-Assad violated Obama’s “red line,” Obama yawned again, and the refugee crisis was born.
…That brings us to Monday’s press conference in Turkey. For a moment, it seemed like the press had finally grasped the staggering failure of Obama’s strategy. One reporter after another asked the dyspeptic and defensive president why we weren’t making better progress against these rapists, slavers, and murderers. They repeated the question because Obama kept saying his strategy was working. He described the slaughter in Paris as the kind of “setback” we should expect from a successful strategy. Even liberals were aghast at Obama’s failure to appreciate the “theater” of his job.
Oh, but he gets it. Put aside the fact that his “strategy” was always theater to begin with.His phony war on the Islamic State was always more about seeming to do something while running out the clock until his successor inherits his mess.
Obama knew the media would take their eye off the ball if he distracted them with a passion play about GOP bigotry. He ridiculed Republicans for their cowardice and cruelty in raising concerns about the potential security threats posed by Syrian refugees. Never mind that such caution is informed in part by warnings from the heads of Obama’s CIA, FBI, and DHS. Obama ludicrously mocked the idea that we prioritize Christian refugees — victims of Islamic State genocide — as an Islamophobic “religious test” that was “not American,” even though his administration already gives special preference to Yazidi refugees from Iraq and federal law requires taking religion into account when screening refugees.
For Obama, politics ends at the water’s edge, unless he’s speaking abroad. Obama’s dithering sparked the refugee crisis. He’s now using a smattering of refugees as a cynical prop to prove he’s the hero of his own morality tale. The reality is that he’s a villain in his own theater of the absurd.And we’re the suckers in the audience falling for it.
No, not “we”; rather…
…thee! If we couldn’t stomach the man before he took office, the subsequent 7 years of his obfuscation, misdirection and deliberate deception certainly haven’t served to inoculate our constitution against his blatant bullsh*t.
As for the self-righteous, MSM-annointed religious “leaders” who seem to believe their supposed spiritual expertise extends into the realm of the corporeal…
…we’d offer the wisdom of The Stranger in High Plains Drifter:
In a related item, here’s a radical idea: before wasting the time, effort and money to legislate, formulate and administrate a new, “comprehensive” immigration system, howz about we try (a) effectively, physically sealing our southern border; then, (b)…
…ENFORCING THE IMMIGRATION LAWS CURRENTLY ON THE BOOKS!!!
WTF ever happened, inquiring minds want to know, to common sense in government?!?
Which brings us, appropriately enough, to today’s installment of Your Tax Dollars At Work, and this just in from The Washington Times via Drudge:
“When the U.S. Labor Department’s Center for Civil Rights wanted to celebrate its accomplishments last week, its managers threw the staff a football-themed tailgate party in the office parking lot.
…There was only stipulation: no Washington Redskins jerseys, paraphernalia or memorabilia.
“It has been respectfully requested that employees voluntarily refrain from wearing clothing or other sports memorabilia that promote Washington D.C.’s professional football team, the Redskins, or other teams that use names, characters, etc. that may portray American Indians or other cultures in a derogatory manner,” an asterisk-marked note at the bottom of the invitation reader.
…The Labor Department invite was sent to The Washington Times by a reader who works for the agency who found the entire event took political correctness to a new level. Labor officials confirmed the invite and the event, which occurred Friday. They said no tax dollars were spent on the tailgate party, and the agency does not have a formal policy on the Redskins team name.
“The Civil Rights Center is a small office, and the food was paid for by the managers, out of their pockets,” spokesman Stephen G. Barr said. “There is no DOL policy on sports teams.”…”
Though (a) since we’re paying their salaries, it technically was our tax dollars being spent; and (b) it’s safe to assume had other government managers of equal rank paid out of their pockets for food or anything else associated with an event even remotely connected with Christianity the reaction of the federal agency would have been radically…diverse!
And in the Environmental Moment, courtesy of Climate Depot, more damning dismissals of the massive scam which is the “theory” of anthropogenic global warming from the pesky “3%”:
Prominent Scientists Declare Climate Claims Ahead of UN Summit ‘Irrational’ – ‘Based On Nonsense’ – ‘Leading us down a false path’
MIT Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen: ‘Demonization of CO2 is irrational at best and even modest warming is mostly beneficial.’ – ‘When someone says this is the warmest temperature on record. What are they talking about? It’s just nonsense. This is a very tiny change period.’
Princeton Physicist Dr. Will Happer: ‘Policies to slow CO2 emissions are really based on nonsense. We are being led down a false path. To call carbon dioxide a pollutant is really Orwellian. You are calling something a pollutant that we all produce. Where does that lead us eventually?’
Greenpeace Co-Founder Dr. Patrick Moore: ‘We are dealing with pure political propaganda that has nothing to do with science.’
A team of prominent scientists gathered in Texas today at a climate summit to declare that fears of man-made global warming were “irrational” and “based on nonsense” that “had nothing to do with science.” They warned that “we are being led down a false path” by the upcoming UN climate summit in Paris. The scientists appeared at a climate summit sponsored by the Texas Public Policy Foundation. The summit in Austin was titled: “At the Crossroads: Energy & Climate Policy Summit.”
Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen, an emeritus Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT, derided what he termed climate “catastrophism.” “Demonization of CO2 is irrational at best and even modest warming is mostly beneficial,” Lindzen said. Lindzen cautioned: “The most important thing to keep in mind is – when you ask ‘is it warming, is it cooling’, etc. — is that we are talking about something tiny (temperature changes) and that is the crucial point.”
Lindzen also challenged the oft-repeated UN IPCC claim that most of warming over past 50 years was due to mankind. “People get excited over this. Is this statement alarming? No,” Lindzen stated. “We are speaking of small changes 0.25 Celcius would be about 51% of the recent warming and that strongly suggests a low and inconsequential climate sensitivity – meaning no problem at all,” Lindzen explained.
“I urge you when looking at a graph, check the scales! The uncertainty here is tenths of a degree,” he noted. “When someone points to this and says this is the warmest temperature on record. What are they talking about? It’s just nonsense. This is a very tiny change period.And they are arguing over hundredths of a degree when it is uncertain in tenths of a degree,” Lindzen said.
“The UN IPCC wisely avoided making the claim that 51% of a small change in temperature constitutes a problem. They left this to the politicians and anyone who took the bait,” he said.
Lindzen also featured 2006 quotes from Scientist Dr. Miike Hulme, Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, and Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, admitting that claims of a climate catastrophe were not the “language of science.”
“The discourse of catastrophe is a campaigning device,” Hulme wrote to the BBC in 2006. “The language of catastrophe is not the language of science. To state that climate change will be ‘catastrophic’ hides a cascade of value-laden assumptions which do not emerge from empirical or theoretical science,” Hulme wrote.
“Is any amount of climate change catastrophic?Catastrophic for whom, for where, and by when? What index is being used to measure the catastrophe?” Hulme continued.
Lindzen singled out Secretary of State John Kerry for his ‘ignorance’ on science. “John Kerry stands alone,” Lindzen said. “Kerry expresses his ignorance of what science is,” he added.
Lindzen also criticized EPA Chief Gina McCarthy’s education: “I don’t want to be snobbish, but U Mass Boston is not a very good school,” he said to laughter.
Lindzen concluded his talk by saying: “Learn how to identify claims that have no alarming implications and free to say ‘So what?’”
On the Lighter Side…
Then there’s this proof, courtesy of our son Mike, even rednecks can be clever:
Finally, we’ll call it a day with Yet Another Politically-Correct Sign the Apocalypse Is Upon Us, brought to us today by the WSJ and the Educated Idiots at the University of Ottawa:
Yoga as ‘Cultural Appropriation’
The heightened sensitivities on one campus stretch in a new direction.
Student leaders have pulled the mat out from 60 University of Ottawa students, ending a free on-campus yoga class over fears the teachings could be seen as a form of “cultural appropriation.”
Jennifer Scharf, who has been offering free weekly yoga instruction to students since 2008, says she was shocked when told in September the program would be suspended, and saddened when she learned of the reasoning.
Staff at the Centre for Students with Disabilities believe that “while yoga is a really great idea and accessible and great for students . . . there are cultural issues of implication involved in the practice,” according to an email from the centre.The centre goes on to say, “Yoga has been under a lot of controversy lately due to how it is being practiced,” and which cultures those practices “are being taken from.”
The centre official argues since many of those cultures “have experienced oppression, cultural genocide and diasporas due to colonialism and western supremacy…we need to be mindful of this and how we express ourselves while practising yoga.”
No, we have to mindful of the PC-inspired insanity which is dividing us along lines of race, culture and ridiculous levels of sensitivity, creating the Progressive utopia of “Ex Uno Plures” rather than the Founding Fathers’ “E Pluribus Unum”.
Or, as the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1:22: In eorum sapientia, stulti facti sunt.
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