01/29/15

Obama ad Nauseum

By: Alan Caruba
Warning Signs

I made a promise to myself that I would not write about President Obama’s State of the Union speech because that would require me to watch him deliver it. Like many others I can barely watch him under any circumstance because, to my mind, that means having to watch a psychopathic liar. The problem with that is that he is the President for two more years.

And then I read an article on Politico.com, “Republicans outfox Democrats on climate votes” subtitled “The GOP accepts the notion of climate change, but not in the way the Democrats wanted them to.”

In a rational world, politicians voting on whether the climate changes or not is an absurdity. Of course the climate changes. It always has and always will. But when Democrats use the term “climate change” they really mean “global warming.” And global warming has been the greatest hoax of the modern era, getting its start in the late 1980s and becoming a huge academic industry generated by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Global warming put billions in the pockets of “scientists”, universities, and any think tank that would lie about it, telling the nation and the world that carbon dioxide, a gas that is barely 0.04% of the Earth’s atmosphere was warming it when, in fact, the Earth stopped warming some 19 years ago at the same time the Sun entered a natural cycle of lower solar radiation.

Few of these “scientists” bothered to tell the public that, without carbon dioxide, we and all other life on Earth would die as it is critical to the growth of all vegetation. The fact that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has actually been increasing at the same time the Earth has been cooling is proof enough that all the warming claims were and are pure hogwash.

It turns out that all the computer models that they and others have generated to predict a catastrophic global warming have been wrong, wrong, and wrong.

Obama didn’t have a word to say about al Qaeda and the other Islamic fascists eager to destroy modernity and drag the world back to the Dark Age, but he did lie about 2014 as “the planet’s warmest year on record.”

That lie was initially put out by NASA and National Oceanic and the Atmospheric Administration, (NOAA) two government agencies that shortly thereafter admitted that they might be wrong, seeing that their assertion of the 0.02 degree Celsius increase wasn’t even outside their own margin of error. They could have taken a look at their own satellite data and saved themselves from looking like idiots.

Obama said, “I’ve heard some folks try to dodge the evidence by saying they’re not scientists; that we don’t have enough information to act. Well, I’m not a scientist, either. But you know what—I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA and NOAA, and at our major universities. The best scientists in the world are all tell us that our activities are changing the climate, and if we do not act forcefully, we’ll continue to see rising oceans, long, hotter heat waves, dangerous droughts and floods, and massive disruptions that can trigger great migration, conflict, and hunger around the globe.”

This is lying on a galactic scale. The United States doesn’t need to do a single thing to reduce “greenhouse gas emissions”, nor should it bother to do so. Obama’s claims of catastrophic change bears no relationship to the fact that in recent years the planet has had a record low in the numbers of tornadoes and hurricanes, and a record gain in Arctic and Antarctic ice. There has been no change of any significance in the sea levels. Those who study such things note that “Until about 7,000 years ago the rate of rise was about 100 mm/decade. Since then rate of rise has averaged 10 mm/decade.” That’s “mm” as in millimeters.

In late December, the world’s second largest reinsurer, Swiss Re, reported on the losses from natural events in 2014 and, despite predictions that climate change would cause more frequent natural catastrophes due to man-made worsening of the climate, it saw “markedly less damage claims than in previous years” and far less loss of lives.” In terms of the dollars it cost the insurance industry, Swiss Re estimated that costs insurers covered were USD $113 billion in 2014, down from USD $135 billion in 2013. Losses were down 24% from 2013.
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That, of course, doesn’t matter to Obama. It should, however, matter to the rest of us because the Environmental Protection Agency has been using those computer models and abjectly phony “science” to wage Obama’s war on the nation’s providers of the energy on which we all depend. From coal-fired plants to drilling for oil and natural gas, anything that might provide energy is under attack by the EPA.

As Katie Tubb, a research assistant for the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, responded to Obama’s claim saying that “The EPA’s proposed regulations would have almost zero impact on global temperatures, but will certainly impact Americans now and for future generations.”

So, when you read about a bunch of U.S. Senators, only one of whom, Oklahoma’s Sen. James Inhofe (R) has a grasp of the real science, spent time voting back and forth over amendments and their language regarding the climate, you were in fact really reading about the debate leading up to the passage of the bill that would remove Obama’s authority to prevent the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Between a President who lies about global warming and climate change, and a Congress composed mostly of lawyers who are clueless about the actual science, the best we can hope for is a Republican Party determined to rein in the EPA and other government agencies; the reason they were voted into office.

01/28/15

Obama’s Economic Shell Game

By: Bethany Stotts
Accuracy in Media

Whether in his State of the Union or his recent campaign-like visits to the states, the President has been touting an economic recovery that his policies have supposedly fostered after he inherited a dire recession from George W. Bush. This narrative, repeated over and over through the years, is filled with half truths and exaggerations. Yet a complicit media is more than willing to look the other way from Americans suffering at the hands of a weak recovery with any numbers it can get its hands on.

To add insult to injury, the President’s proposed $320 billion in new tax increases makes it obvious that he’s “not serious about governing,” according to a Washington Post opinion piece by former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen. But, he argues, this political ploy will only work if the right is distracted by it.

Similarly, John Podhoretz writes for the New York Post that Obama gleefully “trolls,” or enrages his political opponents, to elicit ad hominem, spittle-filled disgust regardless of policy merits and the Democratic Party’s health. So when Americans hear the President proposing new taxes and claiming the country boasts a healthy, recovering economy, they may assume he’s tone deaf. However, he’s deliberately “trolling” for political effect.

The President is also fond of touting that the federal deficit has fallen from 10 percent of GDP to three percent of GDP, but such a claim couldn’t even fool Politifact, which rated the assertion as “half true.” “Obama is laying the blame for the high deficit-to-GDP ratio entirely on Bush, when the figure covers time in office for both presidents,” they say. “The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details, so we rate it Half True.”

From where I come from a “half truth” is really a lie. Add to the list of false assertions the evergreen claims by President Obama that a) he has made the best of a terrible recession, and b) that our economy is now going strong because the unemployment rate is now below six percent.

“The widely publicized unemployment rate, eagerly awaited each month by pundits and policy wonks, has become little more than a shell game in which officials keep the public guessing about the real state of the economy,” pointedly wrote Jay Schalin of the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy back in 2012.

Reporting by The New York Times exposed that where once someone would have qualified as officially unemployed, they may now remain uncounted as “out of the labor force.” “In particular, there seems to have been an increase in the number of people who once would have qualified as officially unemployed and today are considered out of the labor force, neither working nor looking for work,” reported David Leonhardt last August.

Yet the Times, after the State of the Union last week, congratulated the President for his efforts to “cement an economic legacy that seemed improbable early in his first term, when the country was in near-economic collapse.” What then, is the President’s economic legacy of recovery to date?

Millions of people are not being counted in the most recent official unemployment rate of 5.6 percent. Schalin pointed his readers to a more accurate barometer—the labor participation rate. It currently sits at a 36-year low.

The falling labor participation rate, reports Jeffrey Scott Shapiro for The Washington Times, “translates to more than 7 million fewer workers in the workforce.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that a “U.S. economy that suddenly looks healthy” isn’t “luring back many of the millions who dropped out of the labor market during the down times.”

The outlook for America’s jobless and uncounted is dismal. “Over the past three months, an average of 6.8% of those outside the labor force either found a job or began looking for one,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “That means people are entering the labor force at the lowest pace in records kept since 1990, down from more than 8% in 2010.”

But the media instead carefully misinform the public to boost presidential credibility. The Washington Post, after the State of the Union address, called our President “cautious over the past two years not to gloat over news of fitful economic growth, mindful that the economy remained tenuous and public confidence uneasy.” Now, however, “with the jobless rate well below 6 percent, the stock market nearing record highs and his job-approval ratings rebounding, Obama on Tuesday night dropped his veneer of reserve and appeared to delight in having proved his critics wrong.”

What exactly is the proof?

“Jobs are up, but wages are down,” noted Politico’s Timothy Noah about December’s job numbers. “In five-and-a-half years of economic recovery, the median income should have increased. Instead, it is lower. … Stagnating wages have displaced unemployment as the nation’s chief economic concern, and wages are becoming a central political concern too.”

Ironically, the Post’s own fact-checkers, after taking apart the President’s speech, found that “it is too early to say that this positive response from small businesses means ‘wages are finally starting to rise again.’” In other words, our President lied—again.

“Politicians can lower the U-3 [unemployment] rate—and make things seem better than they are—by making it easier for people to leave the workforce,” noted Schalin.

At a national level, welfare dependency is at higher levels now than under George W. Bush, millions of Americans are signing up for Obamacare subsidies, the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer, and median income is now comparable to 1995 levels. “Today median income is on par with where it was in 1995, which is one of the reasons many Americans still don’t feel the economy has truly improved,” reported CNN Money in December in the last line of its article.

The first line touted more positive Obama-centric news: “The Obama recovery was looking a lot better on Friday after a particularly strong jobs report made 2014 the best year for hiring since 1999.” CNN must have thought it could put some positive spin on this official numbers game.

In the last year of Bush’s presidency, 17.1 percent of Americans received welfare assistance. That figure now stands at nearly one in four—23 percent—according to Shapiro.

“A 2013 Pew Research study of U.S. Census Bureau data found simply that the rich got richer and the poor got poorer during the Obama economic recovery,” reports Shapiro. The study stated that our recovery boosted the incomes of the upper 7 percent by over a quarter, while the “mean net worth” of households in the remaining 93 percent “dropped by 4%.”

Chuck Todd of NBC News’ deserves a veritable medal for media bias. He opened his co-authored article, “Telling the Recovery Story: Obama Hits the Road to Tout Economy,” by pointing to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s (D) criticism of the President that “one problem I think that the president has is that he doesn’t tell that story [the “explosive growth in corporate profits, in stock market returns, employment that’s come back strong”] very well or very regularly.”

“Well, Obama is now trying to tell that story a bit better,” comment Todd and his co-authors.

“One reason why the White House feels more confident in touting the economy is that the country has seen its longest stretch of good economic news during Obama’s presidency,” he and his co-authors wrote. “And that’s been reflected in a media that usually emphasizes bad news over good news.”

Todd has said in the past that he found his off-the-record conversations with President Obama “very nourishing.”

Simply put, a lot of Americans can’t—and won’t—swallow economic spin of such mammoth proportions, either from the media or from our President.

01/27/15

Sarah Palin Too Toxic for 2016?

By: Lloyd Marcus

Sarah Palin saying “Of course” she’s interested regarding running for the presidency in 2016 has people buzzing. http://abcn.ws/1xPVFhj During that interview, Palin said we need a candidate who is ready for Hillary. I agree. Romney would be Mr. Nice Guy/gentleman unwilling to attack the girl.

As for Palin running, a woman wrote: “I have never given up on her (Sarah Palin). I am sooooooo hoping that she will be our spokesperson. My husband says the press and Obama have tainted her so much that it would be impossible for her to run. I say that ‘with God,’ all things are possible.”

To this woman, I say, “Right on sister!” No offense to her husband, but I find his mindset frustrating. We complain that there are far too few politicians with the cojones to push back against Obama’s unprecedented arrogance, lawlessness and tyranny. Despite their newly acquired control over the House and Senate, the GOP appears to be attempting to pull the wool over our eyes regarding amnesty. In their Spanish response to Obama’s SOTU, the GOP brought up immigration, desiring to “create permanent solutions” without mentioning immigration in the English version. What is up with that? http://bit.ly/1yWGNjU

So tell me folks, how many politicians on our side truly are who they say they are; standing up for our principles and values – fighting for freedom and the Constitution? We lament that many politicians on our side are obsessed with winning an approving pat on the head from the MSM; reduced to political impotence. Oh if only there was a little blue pill for dis-functioning Republicans/conservatives.

Palin has proven that she does not give a rat’s derriere about what the MSM thinks of her. We pray for a voice on the big stage with the guts to stand up for Conservatism.

Sarah Palin fills the bill in spades; one of the few unafraid to get into Obama’s grill. I love it! Unapologetic to the Left (Democrats, Hollywood and MSM) Palin’s attitude is, “Say it loud. I’m conservative and proud.”

Not too long ago, a conservative savior arrived on the scene, exciting and inspiring millions. I remember being on the Tea Party Express national tour bus. We kicked off the tour in a dust bowl, Searchlight, NV with Sarah Palin as our headliner. Twenty five thousand people showed up, many camping out days ahead to reserve their spot. I witnessed the moving scene of seniors who had to park almost a mile away approaching the event using walkers; all coming to see their Sarah.

The Left launched an over the top vicious shock and awe champion to crucify Sarah Palin, her family and her disciples. When the Left sought after Palin supporters, sadly, many cowardly said, “I never knew her.” There is something deja vu about this scenario.

So, Palin courageously comes along and does everything patriots have been longing and praying for someone to do. Her reward is patriots distancing themselves from her. Classy. Real classy.

Since taking the national political stage by storm with her amazing VP nominee acceptance speech, the Left as gone crazy, insane with pure unadulterated hatred for Sarah Palin; no attack was too evil or too low. Every Palin family member was in-play including Trig Palin, her Down Syndrome child. http://bit.ly/1BTSIQc

Intellectually challenged actress Pamela Anderson said, “I can’t stand her. She can suck it!” http://bit.ly/1p3IlBB

Obama supporters showed up at Palin events wearing t-shirts which read, “Sarah Palin is a C***” in huge letters. The t-shirt was even featured on Obama’s website with no rebuke from the MSM or Democrats. http://bit.ly/1sCgoly

Howard Stern idiotically blamed Palin for the AZ shooting and called her a “F***er and a c***!”

http://bit.ly/1p3K7T3

HBO show host Bill Maher called Palin a “dumb twat” http://bit.ly/1yjq64E Maher has used the c-word when referring to conservative women including Palin. http://bit.ly/1o90BcB This vile little man has also called Palin a MILF (Mother I’d Like to F***). http://bit.ly/1yjquA2

Despite the Left’s best efforts to humiliate and destroy her, Palin has hung tough, remaining faithful to the mission of the Tea Party; the preservation of our freedom, liberty and culture — traditional conservative principles and values; God, family and country.

And yet, there are those on our side who suggest that we kick Palin to the curb because she has become “too toxic”.

The field for 2016 is pretty crowded. I am not ready to select a candidate. However, if Palin throws her bonnet into the ring, my heart is with her 100%. We need a hero.

Lloyd Marcus, Unhyphenated American
Chairman, Conservative Campaign Committee

01/26/15

Priorities

Arlene from Israel

There is a colossal danger to the world coming down the road: A nuclear Iran. It’s scary as hell because of the radical jihadist intentions of the Iranian mullahs.

Right now the president of the United States and the Congress of the United States are at odds regarding how to respond to Iran. Currently there is a “Joint Plan of Action” (JPOA) in place – an agreement between Iran and P5 + 1 (US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany – those nations in negotiations with Iran). This is a temporary agreement, scheduled to end on June 30, 2015 (having been extended from its prior expiration date of November 24, 2014).

JPOA outlines restrictions placed on Iran, and sanctions relief provided to Iran, for the course of negotiations regarding final understandings on Iran’s nuclear status. It is theoretically the case that all negotiations are to be completed by that June deadline.

~~~~~~~~~~

Obama, in his State of the Union address, pledged to veto any legislation that imposes sanctions on Iran – a statement which is a direct challenge to the Congress. The president claims that such sanctions would be destructive to negotiations. What he has done is to misrepresent the position of Congress – for the legislation that is being advanced calls for additional sanctions ONLY IF and ONLY AFTER negotiations had failed.

The bill – sponsored by Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) – has bi-partisan support. In fact, it was Menendez, ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who has voiced the most vociferous criticism of the administration position. Addressing administration officials in the course of a hearing on Iran, he said:

“I have to be honest with you, the more I hear from the administration…The more it sounds like talking points coming out of Tehran. And it heeds to the Iranian narrative of victimhood, when they are the ones with original sin: an illicit nuclear weapons program over the course of twenty years that they are unwilling to come clean on. I don’t know why we feel compelled to make their case…They get to cheat in a series of ways, and we get to worry about their ‘perceptions.’”

You can see him making this statement in a video here:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/01/21/dem_sen_menendez_obama_statements_on_iran_sound_like_talking_points_straight_out_of_tehran.html

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Against the background of this Congressional frustration with Obama, Speaker of the House Boehner invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress.

Why Netanyahu? It’s obvious. He is the world leader, bar none, when it comes to speaking out on the dangers of a nuclear Iran and the importance of sanctions. What an honor, that the Congress wants to hear what he has to say on the matter. Israel is not a minor league player here. How significant, that he should speak out.

But do commentators notice any of this? Nahh…

In the US, the charge is that Boehner is “using” Netanyahu to “get back at” Obama. Here, the criticism is that Bibi is “using” Boehner to help him get re-elected (as he will get a boost in the elections from this talk before Congress). What a furor has ensued.

In the course of all of these charges and counter-charges, forgotten is the possibility that Netanyahu might help keep Congress strong – perhaps even strong enough to over-ride a veto. Overlooked is the fact that stopping Iran is the ikar – the heart of the matter.

~~~~~~~~~~

The left here in Israel is accusing Bibi of “destroying” our relationship with Washington. However, “Washington” also includes the Congress.

What is more, I have noticed that already the Obama administration is backtracking on this matter: The US has an “unshakable” alliance with Israel, the White House has declared. And on Meet the Press today, Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said that:

”Our relationship with Israel is many-faceted, deep and abiding. It’s focused on a shared series of threats, but also on a shared series of values that one particular instance is not going to overwhelm.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/white-house-downplays-impact-of-netanyahu-speech-on-ties/

Well now… Can we please go back to talking about Iran and sanctions?

~~~~~~~~~~

From Omri Ceren of The Israel Project, I offer the following information:

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano spoke on Friday at the University of Indonesia. His talk included this statement (emphasis in the original):

“As far as Iran is concerned, the Agency is able to verify the non-diversion of nuclear material declared to us by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement. But we are not in a position to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.”

https://www.iaea.org/node/10995
The Obama administration has made two basic arguments about the success of the JPOA interim agreement.

The first is that Iran’s program has been “halted” and its nuclear stockpile “reduced.” But this simply is not the case. The JPOA allows Iran to enrich to 3.5% purity, which is about 60% of the effort needed to get to weapons-grade levels, provided the new material is stored as oxide. They’ve used the last year to create at least one bomb’s worth of enriched uranium and will use the rest of the extension to enrich enough for another one.

The second claim is that the JPOA provides “unprecedented” access/insight/monitoring/inspections into Iran’s nuclear facilities. But the statement above from the IAEA Director General makes it clear that this is not the case.

~~~~~~~~~~

On January 15, 2015, Iranian president Rouhani announced that Iran was building two new reactors. The State Department clarified that this is not prohibited by any Security Council resolutions, and is not in violation of the JPOA agreement.

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/state-dept-iran-allowed-to-build-new-nuclear-reactors/

Clarified Omri Ceren:

The JPOA was supposed to freeze the Iranian program to prevent them from improving their position as talks proceeded. It failed. Instead the Iranians spent the last year building up their nuclear program – and their leverage – across all areas.

~~~~~~~~~~

Fervently do I wish that those who claim to be serious thinkers on the issues would get as excised over the dangers of Iran and the damage that Obama is doing to his own nation, Israel, and the world, as they do over imagined political intrigues.

Much more to come.

I close here with Caroline Glick’s latest piece on this issue, “Iran, Obama, Boehner, and Netanyahu.”

“The role of an Israeli leader is to adopt the policies that protect Israel, even when they are unpopular at the White House. Far from being ostracized for those policies, such an Israeli leader will be supported, respected, and relied upon by those who share with him a concern for what truly matters.”

http://carolineglick.com/iran-obama-boehner-and-netanyahu/

01/24/15

The Shadow of Crisis Engulfs the United States

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

In case anyone missed it, the worst case scenario – a trifecta from hell – just occurred. Yemen has fallen to the rebels; the King of Saudi Arabia just passed away and Iran now has the capability to drop nuclear missiles in our laps. The shadow of crisis hasn’t passed… it’s engulfed us in its stormy, dark depths.

On Tuesday, as Obama bloviated on about how, “The shadow of crisis has passed and the state of the Union is strong,” Iran was testing their new toys and Yemen was coming apart at the seams. You remember Yemen… that success story that Obama touted last fall, just like Biden clucked on about Iraq. The shining example for all the world to see on how Obama’s fight against terrorism was working. Except, as with every other lie Obama has put forth on the foreign policy front, it has failed. Now we are evacuating the embassy in Yemen – in fact, during Obama’s speech, we had three US Naval warships off the coast of Yemen ready to evacuate the embassy. Think about that. Just like Libya, another embassy is being emptied. At least this time, no dead American bodies are being left in its wake.

The Yemeni government fell to the Houthis, who are big on death to America and Israel just like all of these murderous Jihadists are. Tens of thousands are in the streets protesting and chaos reigns. The really fantastic part of all this is that they are Shiite and backed by Iran, with whom Obama has been spooning ever since he got into office. Why wouldn’t he, when he’s got an Iranian Valerie Jarrett calling the shots? Yemen is home to the most vicious sect of al Qaeda on the planet – al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). These are the same Jihadists who were linked to the Paris attacks two weeks ago. With the death of the King of Saudi Arabia and the fall of Yemen – the door to Iran seizing more territory and power has swung wide open and it is a very real possibility. Al Qaeda will have a field day as well.

And it gets worse. ISIS is now expanding into Yemen and al Qaeda has pledged their allegiance to ISIS. It is widely said that the Houthis and al Qaeda don’t get along, but in the violent furtherance of Islam, I wouldn’t count on that score if I were you.

From Allen West:

And the Obama administration just announced it would send 400 advisors/trainers to Syria. But we’re allowing Iran to pursue its nuclear program, 10,000 centrifuges,– and the Washington Post just gave President Obama three more Pinocchios for his SOTU assertion that Iran’s nuclear program has slowed down. And as you know, Obama threatened to veto congressional action to sanction Iran.

Why should we kinda care? The Yemeni government was pro-American and was aiding in the fight against Islamists within their borders. Now, not only has the Yemeni government been toppled, it has been replaced with the specter of Iranian influence in the vicinity of a chokepoint entering the Red Sea — and not far from Somalia — yet another hot bed of Islamism.

Now, add on top of this hot fudge sundae the fact that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia just passed away. Yemen is the southernmost country on the Arabian Peninsula where chaos now abounds at a time of a transition of leadership in Saudi Arabia.

Faced with upheaval and self-preservation, the Saudis could very well step up their support of Sunni Islamic terrorists to combat Iran and the Houthis.

Iran is now the big boy on the block and he’s packing heat. With the new Axis of Evil formed between Iran, Russia and China, I would not be surprised — at all — if Iran already has the bomb.

Iran’s latest coup de gras came this week:

Iran has apparently produced an intercontinental ballistic missile whose range far exceeds the distance between Iran and Israel, and between Iran and Europe.

On Wednesday night, Channel 2 showed satellite imagery taken by Israel’s Eros-B satellite that was launched last April. The imagery showed new missile-related sites that Iran recently constructed just outside Tehran. One facility is a missile launch site, capable of sending a rocket into space or of firing an ICBM.

On the launch pad was a new 27-meter long missile, never seen before.

The missile and the launch pad indicate that Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is an integral part of its nuclear weapons program, is moving forward at full throttle. The expanded range of Iran’s ballistic missile program as indicated by the satellite imagery makes clear that its nuclear weapons program is not merely a threat to Israel, or to Israel and Europe. It is a direct threat to the United States as well.

So, tell me again why our President is threatening to veto any new sanctions against Iran? Why our Marxist leaders are insisting that Iran has a right to nuclear power, which in reality is nuclear warfare capability? Are we on the wrong side, suicidal or both? Obama is knowingly releasing the worst of the worst from Gitmo to go back and actively command and assist these terrorists. This isn’t some far off battle that doesn’t affect us. Iran’s missiles can now reach the United States! And it isn’t just them – it’s Russia and China too. They are literally salivating at the thought of taking us down and Obama is helping them. Please give me one shred of evidence he is not aligned with our enemies, given that he is gutting our military at a time when the world is on fire and an Islamic Caliphate is rising, waging global war and conquest. Weakness is sensed by all our enemies around us and it acts like an aphrodisiac in wartime. I might also remind everyone that there is a Russian naval warship docked in Cuba, while our diplomats are over there cuddling with dictators. You are known by who you associate with. You might ask yourself why Obama has such a fondness for Islamo-fascists and dictators.

Syria has basically fallen apart. Assad has a nuclear program and it could easily fall into the hands of ISIS or the Iranians. We all know how brutal and barbaric ISIS is, but try to imagine those monsters with nukes. This development is significant in light of the Iranians’ announcement two weeks ago that they intend to build two new nuclear reactors and the Obama Administration’s insistence that such a clear expansion of the Iranian nuclear program does not constitute a violation of the Joint Plan of Action to “freeze” the program while its ultimate status is being negotiated. Take that along with this:

The P5+1, AKA The U.S., France, Britain, Russia and China plus Germany came up with something even worse. As Reuters and other sources are reporting, not only did they they give the Ayatollahs another 4 months to ‘negotiate’ while the centrifuges spin, but they actually bribed them with a further release of $2.5 billion in frozen funds just to keep the faux negotiations going. So not only does Iran get another 4 months for weapons development, they get the badly needed funds to continue!

If you throw into the mix that Israel took out an Iranian Revolutionary Guard General and some Hezbollah scum to boot, you have the makings of Armageddon. Next, Iran’s parliament has started to draft a law that would allow the country’s nuclear scientists to intensify their uranium enrichment, a step that could complicate ongoing talks with world powers. That’s tit for tat because of threatened sanctions from the US they say. It wouldn’t matter, any excuse will do… Iran would step up enrichment regardless because they are looking to bring the apocalypse on, pure and simple. And Obama, of course, is proclaiming he will steamroll Democrats (that’s right – Democrats) who get in his way and try to impose sanctions on Iran. Democrat Robert Menendez said during a committee hearing: “The more I hear from the Administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran.” That’s because they do, Bob.

This comes to light as Obama and the White House claim that John Boehner was out of line by inviting Netanyahu to speak before Congress in March without clearing it first. Then the White House lied about a Mossad report and said that Israel had spat in their face. See where this is going? Obama will stand against Israel all the way and do all he can to make sure that Iran finishes becoming a nuclear power and a world threat.

The shadow of crisis is now engulfing the US. If you pray, now is the time. Two years is a long time for Obama to finish destroying us. I keep reflecting on the fact that you don’t see the US mentioned in end times eschatology. I really hope that is an oversight, because the path Obama is taking us down leads right into the arms of our worst enemies.

01/23/15

Obama’s ‘rosy scenario’ and the man that could fill his boots

Watchdog.org

Shutterstock Image PROSPECTS NOT SO ‘ROSY’: A potential contender for the 2016 presidential race uses the same rhetoric and has produced similar policy results as President Obama.

By James Simpson | Watchdog Arena

Following his State of the Union addresses, former President Ronald Reagan was routinely chided by the national press regarding his “rosy scenarios” projected for the economy and the federal budget. But at that time, our nation was experiencing an unprecedented economic boom and most of Reagan’s “rosy scenarios” were being realized. In contrast, Tuesday night, President Obama laid out a “rosy scenario” for the economy that was built on a bed of flagrant inaccuracies.

One cannot chalk this up to ignorance. Evidence of economic malaise is everywhere. The labor force participation rate is at its lowest since 1978. The unemployment rate has declined at least in part because so many people have given up looking for work that they are no longer counted in official unemployment statistics. Many more have been forced into part-time positions as employers seek to avoid heavy Obamacare costs.

Furthermore, marginal improvements in the economy have been fueled by the domestic oil boom, which Obama has fought tooth and nail. But food stamp utilization is perhaps the most blatant illustration of our still-sclerotic economy.

Now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program(“SNAP”), in 2014, fully 46.5 million Americans were enrolled at a cost of $73.8 billion. For each of President Obama’s six full years in office, food stamp use has been higher than at any time in history—almost double its highest previous rates—and more people have been added to the rolls than during any other presidency.

Food stamp usage declined last year for the first time since Obama was elected, a meager 2 percent. The number of people on food stamps, however, remains over 18 million higher than during President Bush’s highest year, and 19.5 million higher than the previous record set in 1993. (See chart below).

These indicators are not the sign of an economic recovery; but rather an indication that the American economy has moved into a new normal—one of chronically high unemployment and welfare utilization.

Everything in Obama’s SOTU address promised more of the same. Obama said it was time to “turn the page.” As Dave Greenfield at Front Page Magazine quipped, “When everything on the last page looks so bad, then it’s time to turn the page…”

Despite his penchant for prevarication, Obama has his disciples. Like Obama, outgoing Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who has set his sights on higher office, has built his reputation on fiction. When former Republican Gov. Bob Ehrlich left office in 2006, Maryland’s state budget stood at $25.8 billion. O’Malley claims he cut the budget to the bone, but in his eight years in office, it grew to $37.3 billion, an increase of 45 percent.

While claiming to champion “green” environmental policies, O’Malley repeatedly raided trust funds earmarked for Chesapeake Bay cleanup to the tune of at least $135 million since 2009. He doubled Maryland’s infamous “flush tax” to refill the fund, raided it again, and passed the uniformly unpopular “rain tax.” He also raided the highway trust fund repeatedly to the tune of $868 million between 2009 and 2011 alone, despite receiving $771 million in stimulus funds for infrastructure projects. When this wasn’t enough, he repaid trust funds by issuing new bonds. Maryland’s current structural budget deficit stands at $1.2 billion.

Despite the fact that Maryland floats on federal dollars more than any other state, between 2004 and 2012, Maryland’s food stamp utilization grew 162 percent– a rate exceeded by only three other states (See FGA SNAP document). Over 13 percent of Maryland’s population is currently using food stamps. In 2010, the depth of the recession, only 9.7 percent of Marylanders used food stamps. Most of this can likely be credited to Governor O’Malley’s sanctuary state policies.

Larry Hogan is the newly-elected governor of Maryland, only the third Republican elected to that position since 1960. Hogan has identified the cost of O’Malley policies. “Under O’Malley and [Lt. Gov. Anthony] Brown, Maryland has lost 8,000 businesses and unemployment has nearly doubled,” he said. “In fact, 26 percent of our manufacturing base, and with it 25,000 jobs, has disappeared. Today, Maryland is dead last in the nation in manufacturing.” In his inaugural address delivered on Wednesday, Hogan said, “Together, let’s make Maryland a place that we can all be proud of again.” He has his work cut out for him.

This article was written by contributors of Watchdog Arena, Franklin Center’s network of writers, bloggers, and citizen journalists.

01/23/15

Mendacity is Still the State of the Union

By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media

Following last year’s State of the Union address by President Barack Obama, I titled my column “The State of the Union is Mendacity.” It is quite remarkable how little within it would need to be changed to have it apply to this week’s State of the Union. From the recovering economy, to negotiations with Iran, to the containment and defeat of “violent extremism,” to equal pay for women and the need to combat climate change, to a call for a minimum wage hike—there is little difference between the laundry lists presented by President Obama in 2014 and 2015.

But there is a major difference in the political climate.

“The most important omission [in the President’s State of the Union] was the fact that there were 83 fewer Democrats in the chamber this year than the first time he gave a State of the Union speech and dozens less than the number of his fellow party members that were there last year,” writes Jonathan S. Tobin for Commentary magazine. “The historic rejection of both the president’s party and his policies in last November’s midterm elections was treated in the speech as if it had never happened.”

Instead, America was treated to a laundry list of liberal agenda items, right after President Obama first said he would “focus less on a checklist of proposals, and focus more on the values at stake in the choices before us.”

“When we looked at what Obama actually proposed, all we found was a musty laundry list of liberal programs, most of which already got huge boosts in spending and failed to deliver on their promises,” comments Investors Business Daily.

Yet President Obama’s worn-out list was greeted with praise from the mainstream media. NBC Today Show co-host Savannah Guthrie cheered Obama as “displaying renewed swagger in his sixth address to the nation as he outlined a vision for the final two years of his presidency.”

The New York Times said that “It was hardly surprising that a president who expects so little from Congress devoted some of his speech to celebrating the things that he has accomplished against considerable odds.”

“In fact, he seemed so confident you would have thought he had just won another election,” asserted Jonathan Karl of ABC News.

President Obama’s comment that he has “no more campaigns to run” was greeted with applause and laughter, to which he retorted, “I know because I won both of them.”

Rather than pointing to how the 2014 election could be seen as a referendum on President Obama’s failed policies, Matt Lauer, co-host of NBC’s Today Show, asked Vice President Joe Biden whether he saw “that as a moment of disrespect? Was it a symptom of the very pettiness that the President was referring to?” He also salivated over a potential 2016 Biden presidential bid, asking, “You’re known as a guy who can work a room. Boy, are you good at that. Do you think you could work that room, Vice President Biden?” Lauer didn’t ask a single question challenging any of Obama’s claims or assertions from the night before.

While the mainstream media cheer, others have a more critical view of what Tobin calls Obama’s credibility gap “that is as wide as the Grand Canyon.”

“What Obama has delivered is not an address, but a black hole of lies in which each lie clusters next to a dozen more until it is impossible to see the light,” writes Daniel Greenfield. For example, “Obama insists on taking credit for an energy revolution that he battled every step of the way and continues to fight with his Keystone veto threat,” writes Greenfield. “Instead of admitting that fracking and cheap Saudi oil made the difference, he went on touting his solar and wind boondoggles that have cost a fortune.”

President Obama also touted such green energy “successes” in his 2014 address.

“Obama also claims to have beaten Putin,” writes Greenfield. “There’s only one minor problem with that. In the real world, Russia still controls Crimea. While in the unreal world, Obama controls CNN.”

And The Washington Post editorial board concluded the day after President Obama’s State of the Union, that there is a “pervasive disconnect in Western thinking about the regime of Vladimir Putin”—and that “Russian forces, after several weeks of relative calm” had just “launched a new offensive in eastern Ukraine.”

President Obama also asserted in his speech that “we’ve halted the progress of the nuclear program” in Iran and “reduced its stockpile of nuclear material.” He then threatened to veto any sanctions bill “that threatens to undo this progress.” He is referring to a likely bipartisan bill calling for additional sanctions if negotiations with Iran fall apart. The idea is to incentivize Iran to make a deal wherein it agrees to end its nuclear weapons capability, but President Obama says that if Congress were to pass such a bill, “the risks and likelihood this ends up at some point a military confrontation is heightened.”

“The more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran,” said Democratic Senator Robert Menendez (NJ) the day after the President’s speech.

The Washington Post’s Fact Checker column took a look at the claims by the President of having “halted the progress of the nuclear program” and of having “reduced its stockpile of nuclear material,” and gave those claims three Pinocchios, meaning, “Significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.”

Regarding the President’s refusal to refer to “Islamic” terrorism or extremism, another Democrat took exception. She is Rep. Tulsi Gabbard who is and has been in the Army National Guard for more than a decade. She served a one-year combat tour of duty in Iraq starting in 2004, and a second tour in the Middle East a few years later. Gabbard is the first American Samoan and the first Hindu to serve in the U.S. Congress—now in her second term—representing a district in Hawaii. Gabbard was on Neil Cavuto’s show on the Fox News Channel, and told Cavuto:

Terminology in the use of this specific term is important…last night the President came and talked to Congress about coming to request an authorization to use military force. By his not using this term, Islamic extremism, and clearly identifying our enemy, it raised a whole host of questions in exactly what congress will be authorizing. Who will we be targeting? Who is our enemy? And unless you understand who your enemy is, unless you clearly identify your enemy, then you cannot come up with a very effective strategy to defeat that enemy. So this is what’s giving me great concern as we look specifically at this authorization, but also as we look at this overall issue of how do we defeat this threat of Islamic extremism that’s not just occurring in the Middle East, that isn’t just about this one group called ISIS, or another group called al Qaeda. It’s a much larger war, really, that is as much an ideological war as it is a military war.

Amidst the dangerously conciliatory stance that the President has adopted toward Iran, and the weak military effort to “degrade and defeat ISIL,” the media should praise Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) for inviting Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to Congress about the growing Iranian threat. Instead, Politico criticizes that “the Speaker didn’t consult with the administration before inviting Netanyahu to address Congress,” and the Speaker is “setting up his most dramatic foreign policy confrontation with President Barack Obama to date.” The speech is scheduled for March 3rd.

Not only is Congress a co-equal branch of government, with the ability to invite whomever they want, but President Obama made the highlight of his last State of the Union executive action—and going around Congress when they won’t comply with his agenda.

“He expects us to stand idly by and do nothing while he cuts a bad deal with Iran. Two words: ‘Hell no!’ … We’re going to do no such thing,” said Speaker Boehner.

The Speaker’s move is a show of support for Israel, and the Western leader who, more than any other, faces the daily threat of Islamic jihadist terrorism, and the very real threat of an Iranian regime that has explicitly stated on numerous occasions their plans to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

The White House has already announced that the President won’t be meeting with Netanyahu on that trip, saying that it’s too close to Israel’s election, also slated for March. It will be interesting to see what, if any, pressure the Obama administration puts on Netanyahu to cancel his planned address. Speaker Boehner is betting that Netanyahu has more credibility in this country on Iran and Islamic jihadi terrorism than President Obama does. And there is probably no one who can better speak to these matters with such authority and eloquence.

It should certainly make for a better speech than this year’s policy prescriptions recycled from last year, even if the media were determined to shower President Obama with undeserved, fawning praise for simply showing up.