The newspapers are reporting that President Obama has signed a secret directive to overthrow Muhammer Khadaffi. Citing a government source, Reuters says:
President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, government officials told Reuters on Wednesday … Such findings are a principal form of presidential directive used to authorize secret operations by the Central Intelligence Agency. This is a necessary legal step before such action can take place but does not mean that it will. The CIA and the White House declined immediate comment.
Recently Donald Trump brought condemnation down on himself by wondering out loud about why anyone would shout out private events from a rooftop. “Someone takes an ad out in the paper announcing his birth days later? How many people do you know who take an ad out in the paper to announce a birth, and then won’t show anyone the birth certificate?” Who, well someone who’ll sign a secret directive so it can be announced a few days later in the newspapers. Old habits die hard. But it all makes sense in a way. From a certain point of view secrets must signposted above all or else the intended people might not find them because they’re so hard to locate. And then if they get lost you might be sued.
Do you promise not to tell? Doo-wah-wah.
Some things just have to be spelled out.
Who's the Enemy?
Like “I didn’t tell the truth when I said it was only going to be a No-Fly-Zone, but I want you to know, up front that I lied so that you don’t accuse me of dishonesty.” But don’t worry. Everybody has already figured out some kind of bait and switch was going down in Libya. When President Obama said “the only people who don’t want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide” everyone immediately understood that what he really meant is that “the only people who tell the truth are people too stupid to govern”.
We’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. And the other… and the other …
But there’s no impropriety involved. As David Wiegel in Slate explained, everything in government works on a wink and a nod. “Why Obama Doesn’t Need to Ask Congress Before Attacking Libya? It’s simple: Most of Washington doesn’t want him to. To coin a phrase: If they want the president to do it, that means it’s legal.” Got that. If nobody in capital cares it’s jake. The ruling class recursively justifies itself. That’s why you want to enter the inner circle, be the right kind of people. So that the players will make sure that you are counted among those whose indifference matters. Time Magazine during Obama’s campaign wrote about how big a deal “we” had become.
And yet there was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism — “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” — of the Super Tuesday speech and the recent turn of the Obama campaign. … Rather than focusing on any specific issue or cause — other than an amorphous desire for change — the message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is.
The entire theme of the administration’s Libyan policy is “we don’t need no steenkin’ badges”. Not from the Congress, not even from the UN Security Council. For authority they can just write a little secret finding and as long as Washington insiders let him get away with it, it’s a done deal. Hillary can reinterpret the UN arms embargo to whatever she wants it to mean. Things are infinitely elastic, which is to say, they can do anything they want. It marks the final emergence of an incipient aristocracy from the cocoon of a Republic. It has no obligations to anyone. Not even to tell the truth to itself.
There is probably nothing inherently wrong with the decision to remove the Duck of Death. But the process through which this decision was reached leaves much to be desired. We should be glad of it the way Dorothy was glad a tornado carried her to Oz. It could have carried her to hell. That it didn’t — well should we thank God or our betters? Dorothy remarked, “we’re not in Kansas any more.” True enough. Chicago is in Illinois.
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With all these new orwellian terms being invented, where is the term for compounded stupidity? Stupidity Cubed? Stooopid piled on stoopid until it’s a hazard to low orbit satellites? Why doesn’t the administration ask Iraq for some Special forces to train the rebels? Why is that a bad idea?
As far as Syria, Syria and Turkey have almost yearly border scirmishes. Some up to battalion sized, which means they are ‘official’.
http://www.theestimate.com/public/102398.html
So if Turkey was the US Ally Victor thinks it is, they would more then happy to conduct a little humanitarian war in Syria.
The first twinkling of this license was in the TARP imbroglio. Once the money was in hand, it didn’t matter where we said it would go…
I am starting to hope Texas will leave the Union. Washington D.C. is a swamp full of slimy creatures sucking the blood out of the Nation so that they can make themselves feel important. I would really tell you what I though of them if I wasn’t restraining myself.
We’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. And the other… and the other …
The clown prince has more left feet than a centipede.
So, the Great Satan, under command of the obamination, volunteers to do wet work for the muslim brotherhood.
Kafka has been trumped: This is beyond irony or parody.
Where is the Republic? I shouldn’t be saying this but, where are the Americans in Congress and in the Senate? This is total BS.
The administration has brought utter lawlessness to this country. If a conservative majority votes for a law in California or Wisconsin a liberal judge strikes it down. I don’t know if Texas has the will to leave the union but in the climate of lawfare the law is anything you want it to be and are willing to back with violence. I will join them if they do. The US is being run by terrorists with mortar boards on their heads.
Once you piss in the soup by broadly ignoring the intent of the constitution then anything goes. Our federal government attacked Arizona over the rule of law and has gone entirely rogue. They are a feral government. There are no rules now, just illegal combatants with illegal orders spouting off about justice in the name of a paranoid ethnic hatred for the founding fathers. My god, we are losing our country to criminals. God save us all.
When the Devil turns around:
” Alice More: Arrest him!
More: Why, what has he done?
Margaret More: He’s bad!
More: There is no law against that.
Richard Roper: There is! God’s law!
More: Then God can arrest him.
Roper: Sophistication upon sophistication.
More: No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what’s legal, not what’s right. And I’ll stick to what’s legal.
Roper: Then you set man’s law above God’s?
More: No, far below, but let me draw your attention to a fact– I’m not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can’t navigate. I’m no voyager. But in the thickets of the law– oh, there I’m a forester. I doubt if there’s a man alive who could follow me there, thank God.
Alice: While you talk, he’s gone!
More: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!
Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast– man’s laws, not God’s– and if you cut them down—and you’re just the man to do it—do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.”
So Obama’s speech the other night had a secret protocol.
My guess is they made it public because the rebels are in such bad shape they will need such a massive infusion of aid — and soon — that the CIA would not be able to conceal it. Also, they’ll need boots on the ground for calling in air strikes and training their forces.
Others will likely help Gadaffy, just to tie down the US and embarrass the US (the pitiful giant rap). So we might get a genuine proxy war going. In the meantime, the Duck should negotiate with Turkey to reach an agreement on alleviating the distress of the Populations in the West of Libya. He can then demand that the US butt out while a coalition of Muslim states moves in to provide stability — and maybe gets the UN to agree.
Badges? I think they’re handing them out over at Oyster Bay.
We can provide rebels with MANPADS that have self destruct chips we can program for a life of days weeks or months, then they need to handed in to the US forces to be brought back to effective capability.
How many trained, disciplined fighters do the rebels have?
They seem to be a very rag tag mob
–their mistake in the beginning was to take up arms
–to late for that now
–the dice have been cast
–Daffy has to die along with his dynasty-we can do that in hours-with some inevitable collateral deaths–such is war.
The longer the quagmire goes on the more power goes the organized bad guys, Italian Mafia– etc–?–choose your gang, criminal or fundamentalist.
Never point a gun at a man unless you intend to shoot him
–never shoot unless you intent to kill him–then make sure he is dead.
We could easily cripple every electronic component in Libya, stopping tanks, cars, telecomms and all electric power–unfortunately we would also take out the power to hospitals without careful focus–these weapons are in our arsenal-we can do this when we get the mission clear.
Annoy Mouse:
Agreed.
Holder “Justice” Department one of the Crown Jewels of Institutionalized Lawlessness.
—
Video:
Did Obama Call the Libyan Situation a ‘Turd Sandwich?’ (NBC Anchor Says ‘Yes’)
Don’t call it a Kinetic Military Action!
Yet another neck-snapping moment provided by one of the MSNBC anchors.
Savannah Guthrie was part of the ‘panel’ on Meet The Press this past Sunday and she gave us all one for the video clip file. This was all happening in advance of the President’s Monday night address to the nation.
‘And the President is obviously not happy with his set of choices. One person told me, in a meeting he called this military action in Libya a ‘turd sandwich’ but he was quoting one of his national security aides who likes to use that term.’
One person told me, in a meeting he called this military action in Libya a ‘turd sandwich’
It’s one explanation for his habitual s–t-eating grin.
Turd sandwich, that about says it. John Bolton called it a ‘dog’s breakfast’. Either way we’d have been advised not to step in it but here we are. We should have wound down Afghanistan too. Just say sorry for the gore, hope things work out for you, thanks for the poppies!
THE PRESIDENT PLEADS FOR UNDERSTANDING
To all my friends at Belmont Club
Please let me state my case
All presidents would do the same
Were they now in my place
The constitution is quite clear
Before we go to war
A vote in congress is a must
But that was long before
My polling numbers took a dive
I needed a quick spark
And what was more inviting than
A war to make my mark
A war against an evil man
Who dressed in women’s clothes
Who lived the sybaritic life
That every Bedouin loathes
He’d gorgeous nurses from Kiev
Young girls to fight his wars
And dashing women cavalry
Known as Kaddafi’s whores
Or maybe that’s Kaddafi’s Horse
We know he slurs his words
Whatever, this war’s nothing like
A sandwich made of turds
The world will little know or note
What we do here today
It only matters that I win
And for that let us pray
Re Dogs breakfast
In the US– commercial pet food has to be fit for human consumption–at an earlier point the poor and destitute were buying pet food for human food–thus the regulations.
Trust the Presider to get us into a war just as it’s being lost…
It all depends on what the definition of “secret” is. Once in Get Smart a tailor said something like “Oh you are looking for the Secret Headquarters? Next Tailor shop over, go in the back and ask for Morris.”
The government of Libya is a McGuffin. No one really cares who is charge there as long as somebody answers the phone when the EU places an order for gas and oil. The purpose of this operation is not to install a functioning government in Libya. As for engaging in this operation because of a sudden concern for the Jeffersonian Rights of Libyans, please excuse me while reflect on the mirth that idea must have produced around Turtle Bay. So what is the point of this?
1. Getting al-Qaeda recognized as a negotiating partner? ……………….. Game
2. Getting R2P established as a precedent for intervention? ……………. Set
3. Getting the US military tied down and rendered useless in Asia? .. Match
I’d watch China closely now. All the goats are tethered and bleating.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master _____ that’s all.”
“I am starting to hope Texas will leave the Union.”
When did they join? Last I heard the TExas Legislature refused to ratify Texas joining the USA. Technically, They are still a nation, the Republic of texas. I haven’t lived there since 92 or so. Did they finally ratify the articles of incorporation?
Victor, give me one of those old Stingers. It is fairly easy to wire in a new EPROM.
Actually, it might be faster to rest the date on the old chip. You do know that they make devices to read and re-program chips, right. If you can set a dead date in the first place, you can change that dead date.
I got my night vision gear that way. it is old soviet gear that used a odd battery. So I built a little board to cut a Black & Decker drill battery down to the proper volts and amps. Now instead of 4,000 $US and a lot of paperwork, I have less then 100 $US and something unique.
So NOW, while heavily tied up in the fog of
warkinetic military operations, his administration suddenly becomes transparent. Another FAIL.There’s more. The NYT is reporting that Obama has sent secret agents to Libya, where unbeknownst to the enemy, they are engaged in a confidential mission.
Now I wonder what the secret agents are doing there?
If Scooter Libby had only the wit to expose Valerie Plame by telling the New York Times he would have saved himself a jail sentence and the Special Prosecutor a lot of time. Especially since Richard Armitage fessed up to exposing to danger the CIA’s top operative in Washington DC, which as everybody knows is not a state and therefore a dangerous foreign posting.
I’m beginning to feel bad even for Bradley Manning, especially since published reports say that the reason Julian Assange can’t be punished for leaking thousands of secret cables is that any prosecution would involve the NYT. Q: Why is Bradley Manning guilty of treason apart from the fact that he released classified docs? A: Because he’s too dumb to release it to the NYT.
Maybe things are secret only in the cinematic sense; in the sense with which we know James Bond is a “secret agent” in spite of the fact his likeness is plastered all over the streets. Like the secrets we are told in TV on the X-Files. Maybe we’ve become characters in some bad movie.
Wretchard @22:
What you say about Washington being a foreign country — more than a few of my Foreign Service colleagues used to mutter that their worst foreign posting was D.C., because the locals (we always referred to the nationals of the country we were serving in as “locals”) were such a stupid and surly lot. F
Secrets are things that the elite leak to the NYT, sell to the Russians and Chinese, and keep from the American taxpayer. I don’t know how to build a W88 but China does. I don’t know Britain’s nuclear secrets but Russia knows. Secrets are things that Democrats use to defeat Republicans. A pox upon them all.
The Rosenberg’s were executed. Daniel Elsberg became a star. If he embarrassed LBJ instead of Nixon he’d of gotten the Kennedy treatment.
20. stoicheion
well done with your USSR NVG–but
Times have changed–as you know–we can end of life any device we want–and any attempt to fix it will destroy the whole system
Do you fancy pulling the the trigger on a MANPAD that kills the operator and his whole platoon?
Our only constraint is that we do not want China do know our current capability in cyber /electronic warfare.
so we will use the old systems–which will also close down hospitals–but as we know which ones are critical we can fly in teams of medic and engineers in time.
Cisco, Intel, HP, MSFT, Face Book, Apple, My Space, Google, Twitter- etc are now American intelligence assets
You can run–maybe–but you certainly can not hide–nor can your “friends”
Again–our only limitation in Libya is how much we want to hide from China.
The MENA/Levant has changed dramatically
–Israel is now irrelevant to US interests in the region–in fact it is a liability rather than an asset–as Gen Petreaus pointed out clearly
http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/03/14/the_petraeus_briefing_biden_s_embarrassment_is_not_the_whole_story
and
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/29/red_team?page=full
The Democrats are not getting sufficient credit for their tremendous accomplishments, efficiency, and attention to detail. They act, they implement, they sign secret orders, and they interpret whatever they want to support their actions. This is in the grand tradition of FDR in the 1930′s. The public respects action, especially when they don’t understand what is going on.
Democrats have passed amazing legislation. They certainly have enacted into law more words in fewer bills than any other Congress in history.
More amazing is that those bills are so intuitive and natural in what they accomplish, that it is not even necessary to read them. The President and his viziers can now decree what is necessary and right, confident that this power to do good is contained somewhere in these documents. And, there is more good news to come.
The “Do the Right Thing” Bill
========
Future news:
“Do The Right Thing” will give us open, consistent, dynamic government. It grants President Michelle Obama (now in her 3rd term in office) all principles and powers to consider all matters and then “Do the right thing”. The Congress retains the important function of advising on the President’s actions should she desire this.
The Congress is now free to do what it does best, arrange for hospital admissions, allocate liquor licenses, and grant carbohydrate waivers to restaurants.
=========
We have a choice in the next few elections. Vote out any legislator, Pub or Dem, who wants to increase control over your life without the clearest necessity. Or, embrace a government which will Do the Right Thing for you, in detail.
There were those that thought Japan was irrelevant to the financial health of the US. Now we are finding out differently as production lines stutter in the US. In Texas an auto-parts manufacturer suffers because it can’t get vinyl plastic from Japan. Does anybody have any idea of how many specialty products we purchase from Israel? Think software, electronics, and defense industry stuff.
the secret agents are many of those sensors that are being fused, and may do a little freelance fusing on their own.
Bojemoi, Victor, you certainly do stick to your task. Do you ever post anything on any topic without trying to stick a knife into Israel? It makes one wonder just how much a threat Israel can pose to your Russian masters.
I can’t see the CIA or any other organization supplying the rebels with MANPADS- they don’t really need them. If any secret weapon supply is ongoing, I think it would be more along the lines of tools that could be handy for them. Things like spare parts and 122mm unguided rockets.
As a brief digression, I’ve been doing more and more reading lately about the Bronze Age Collapse. I can’t help but feel some connection with the things I’ve been reading (the over-centralization of the palace economies making them vulnerable to trade disruption for example, or the climactic cooling around that time) with events around the modern era. We think to the fall of Rome as a yardstick to measure the modern world against, but I think that the earlier collapse has more to teach us, especially as it involved all the major civilizations around the Med simultaneously (even the Egyptians didn’t escape without serious harm).
“The appearance of the Law must be upheld, especially while it’s being broken.”
Yes, clearly Israel is a liability now. Because if Israel were to disappear, suddenly all the nations in the MidEast would be very pro-West, would immediately cease all support to terrorist organizations, and would actively work to ferret out all those within their borders who did support terrorist organizations.
Oh, and Gaza would become a garden spot.
there seem to be fewer and fewer rules left in the DC game, and it looks like the Left both the near and the far are willing to resort to “By any means necessary”
Politics has always been a blood sport but it seems now to have entered new territory where the no rules apply other than raw power and speaking truth iOS a sign of weakness or stupidity. The really scary thing is this comes on the heels of one of the worst drubbings a party has ever received in a midterm election. If they are this arrogant in defeat what will the do if the win in 2012? There is something not quite right with these Democrats, something truly dangerous in their contempt for the law and the rules and simple decency.
Libya is a turd sandwich and if we needed to act the moment came and went. Now regardless of what ultimately happens to the Duck the civil war will continue and that means we are in a no win not war overseas contingency operation in response to a man caused disaster.
Because if Israel were to disappear, suddenly all the nations in the MidEast would be very pro-West, would immediately cease all support to terrorist organizations, and would actively work to ferret out all those within their borders who did support terrorist organizations.
This is the big lie. Israel is no doubt at the center of a significant set of issues. But they are second-order problems. The major cause of instability in the Middle East is despotism plus a reliance on natural resource extraction.
This has fueled a demographic explosion based on absolutely nothing more than the redistribution of wealth earned from sales to the west by a corrupt set of rulers. The Middle East is primarily a monster created by grafting Western banking legs to a body of oil with tribal arms and an Islamic head.
From time to time they get bothered by a pimple called Israel and want to pop that zit, but their tribal arms are too short and their head can’t direct the arms with any accuracy. So it sits there, this vast, seething, grotesquely huge yet strangely impotent thing, bathed in its own bad breath, which threatens to poison even itself.
It is a tormented monster, in terrible, pitiful agony. In some sense it truly is a victim. Oil afflicts it like dropsy; it lends it mass while keeping it immobile. It is chained to its malignant pocketbook. Something in it longs to be free, but the conception of freedom comes hard. It blinks, tries to see. It stretches out those short arms groping for something indistinct. And we fill those babylike paws with yet another squadron of Mirages it will never learn how to fly to any effect; or serve up another batch of luxuries which it simultaneously hates and has learned to yearn for.
It’s teeth are rotten from those terrible candies, but it gums them down in an embarassing display.
But like the terrible creature in Shelley’s story, this cannot continue. One day it will smash itself in its crazed sufferings; and will probably smash Europe and maybe damage the US into the bargain. And it thinks that all its troubles come from this zit — if it could only pop it then all its sufferings would be over — the fixed idea in the foggy head. It gropes and gropes … simultaneously ridiculous yet fearsome.
It isn’t the Jew that has created this beast. Not alone, anyhow. And the reckoning will be terrible to see.
What history may find unforgivable in the long view is not the thrashings of this monster, which are somehow pathetic, but the cool and malign opportunism of the Western intellectuals, who like some terrible circus-master think they can control this exhibition and make this freak stumble through hoops. They have lived handsomely off this spectacle for too long. That is unforgivable and they will not be forgiven.
It sounds like Obama has discovered that he can do whatever he wants. After all, who is going to stop him?
“Times have changed–as you know–we can end of life any device we want–and any attempt to fix it will destroy the whole system”
WE? Who is this we that controls the laws of physics? I want to put in a request. Reduce the force of gravity so my 45 year old girlfriends tits don’t sag as much. Not to zero, but just a little. A little sag is attractive.
Where did you read that anyway? SOF magazine? EMP doesn’t destroy ANYTHING. What it does is flip PNP to NPN and vice versa. That clears all the data by turning ones into zeros and zeros into ones. It is like rebooting your computer. Only the pattern of 1′s and o’s is destroyed.
IN Uncle Sams big gray canoe club, we had special drawers that a master boot disk( not the real name but close enough for civilians) was stowed in. It was some sort of non-conducting ( dielectric) material. Not sure if it would have worked. I never served on a ship that got nucked. Don’t even know anyone that has.
I don’t know who told you that nonsense but when they left the room, I hope you checked your wallet.
One of the young guys prolly knows more about the precautions the military takes nowadays. I know they were working on large scale shielding. Don’t know if they ever figured it out.
They were working on a directed energy device (EMP) to shoot down airplanes. The range never got much beyond 20 meters. That was from a box about 20 ft x 20 Ft.
Like the crowd control “heat ray” ( microwave) that the Army built. Works great, got about 50 meters range and enough power to set tissue paper on fire. The only drawback is the power supply and signal generators take up 2 tractor trailers. Requires hours to set up. Maybe you can feed and entertain the crowd long enough to set up and flash them? Then again, if the mob is that co-operative, ask them to leave.
It isn’t the Jew that has created this beast. Not alone, anyhow. And the reckoning will be terrible to see.
No, oil companies did. When you graft a rental industry onto a political culture that is based upon rent-seeking in the first place, this kind of beast is the natural result. Most mining industries need bodyguards. Rental income always does. And let’s face it – Mohammed himself sought rent from plunder and tribute, and most Islamic states have been organized as extortion rackets ever since. Petro-Islam is a marriage made in Hell.
It isn’t just about Islam, though. Remember Hugo Chavez? This jerk aligns himself with one bad guy after another, and he doesn’t have Islam as an excuse. When one relies upon petroleum rent, one doesn’t need any excuse to be a jerk. Remember South Africa? It doesn’t have petroleum, but it does have gold and diamonds. It first gave the world Apartheid and now the African National Congress. The South African government doesn’t need Islam as an excuse to support Robert Mugabe to the hilt.
Islam is a symptom rather than a cause. Would it be an improvement if Arabs believed in Aztec human sacrifice instead? Or Communism? Or Nazism? Or Jacobinism? What if the problem were not the religion they adhere to, but rather their traditional propensity to consistently choose the most vicious and bloodthirsty ideology available to them?
Rental economies regularly turn out nasty because rental income is a form of loot.
Israel could have been the Singapore of the MENA–instead it chose to be the apartheid South Africa of MENA.
Maybe it was the Russian immigrants–
Israel has changed–now it is irrelevant to American fundamental interest in the region.
The key actors are Egypt, Turkey, KSA and Iran
The current regime in Israel is a liability for the US in relation to those key states–it is what it is now–not 70 years ago in the eastern Europe Holocaust
China does not care about the East European Holocaust–Japan killed 10 + million in China
– nor does Russia
–they lost even more people in their own Holocausts
Israel is like old Prussia. Like old Prussia, Israel has an excellent military and very little strategic depth. This means Israel has little to no margin for error.
It is a compliment if you please that the Kremlin takes this little talking shop seriously. For almost three years now we have had Minders and agents provacateur as part of the scenery. Some were better than others. The best were literate and entertaining and others were merely script kiddies. You could always tell what the assigned message in their weekly briefing was. Everything else is just chatter. We should all take it for granted that being here has put us on lists. For most of us that is just a tag on our virtual identity but if they bother to the professionals can find you. I know the Russians subscribed to my Twitter feed at the time of the Georgian War. Like clockwork a couple of times a week someone from Russia and someone from China looks at my blog. Occasionally others from those regions do too. The sane thing to do is acknowledge it and not let it interrupt your life.
I’m just waiting for the line from the administration, “We didn’t put troops on the ground in Libya. We deployed ‘strategic assets’”.
It’s a good thing we’re smarter now than back in the old days. If World War 2 were being fought today, I’d fully expect to see the following headlines:
Cold Fury’s blogpost from today (March 30th) is worth quoting at length. He rebuts those who say that Obama is a screwup and failure. Au contraire, Fury says, “Obama’s winning.”
“He’s gotten the first big step towards government health care implemented, and the Republicans are either unwilling or incapable of doing anything at all about it. He’s institutionalized previously unimaginable levels of federal spending, and has the Republicans dithering ineffectually over whether to cut a hundredth of one percent out of it or hold the line at a Draconian tenth of one percent, having conceded without argument that any truly meaningful reduction in the size of the federal government, even back to its Leviathan 2008 status, is just out of the question.
“He’s effectively destroyed the domestic oil industry, resulting in gas prices that are around four dollars a gallon and will most likely be approaching five by the end of the summer, just as he said he wanted back during his campaign. He’s running a large chunk of the domestic auto industry and influencing the business decisions of the rest of it through Zombie GM. He’s rewarded his friends on Wall Street and at GE while wrapping their competitors in reams of new red tape, playing the corporate-fascism card to advance his own nefarious agenda.
“He’s pissed all over the Constitution at every step, ignoring various court orders to cease and desist in his mission to destroy America That Was and set up the United Soviet Socialist States of America in its place, and not one damned thing has been done about any of it. He’s unleashed goon squads to defy reason and overturn election results in Wisconsin, where the only repercussion has been the plummeting of public support for the few sane, responsible leaders left there. He’s given carte blanche to armed thugs intimidating voters in Philadelphia, and the only repercussion from that was a “nothing to see here, move along” whitewash from the federal agency charged with guaranteeing the sanctity and legitimacy of free, open, and fair elections, an agency now irretrievably politicized and turned into a compliant support arm for the regime.
“He’s undermined allies of long standing he doesn’t happen to like, and supported despots and Islamist revolutionaries without regard for either his own subjects or the legitimate Congressional role in declaring war. He’s put American troops at the capricious disposal of European governments and international organizations protecting their own narrow interests, sending them into harm’s way under the orders of foreign commanders under the flimsy rubric of a “moral obligation” he refuses to recognize in similar but less convenient circumstances, in countries where America’s national interest is at least discernible. Again, no repercussions as of now, and there likely won’t be any beyond milquetoast Republicans waiting in vain for even a pretense of Constitutionally mandated consultation, murmuring softly so as not to offend anyone about their desire for an “explanation,” neither of which is or will be forthcoming.
“He’s presided over a massive expansion in the ranks of the unemployed, and the slow throttling of the entrepreneurship the American economy depends on to create jobs, and instead of doing what everyone knows is necessary to get a semi-capitalist economy back on its feet again, has doubled down with even more choking restrictions via edicts from unelected federal bureaucracies such as the EPA and the FCC that exceed all prior understanding of their mandates, and will strangle the wheezing, colicky “recovery” in its crib. Again, no repercussions.
“At every possible pass, his actions have done grievous harm to this nation and its legitimate interests; given aid and comfort to our enemies; and left our traditional allies rethinking their reliance on and trust in us. He has accomplished almost everything he has set out to do, and he has been called to account for none of it. And still people bitterly cling to the belief that A) he couldn’t possibly be doing all this on purpose, and B) he’s been wildly unsuccessful.
“He has moved this country so far to the Left it would take a generation to right ourselves, assuming we had an opposition party dedicated to doing so. We do not. With a handful of notable exceptions, what we have instead is a clown-car posse of weak-willed hacks and electioneering blatherskites who are too steeped in the status quo to even think in the counter-revolutionary terms required to make a real start at fixing this.”
Israel is in big trouble. Look at their excursion into Lebanon a few years ago. They roll over the border and BOOM! the Merkava tank blows up thanks to Hezbollah insurgents.
I remember the invasion of Lebanon back in 1982. The Israelis kicked ass probably due to still relying on veterans of the war for independence back in 1948. Now they’ve got a bunch of candy asses that can’t dig a foxhole.
Israel is in big trouble in the future. The Arabs are outbreeding them and their military is shit. They better hold on to their nukes…they’re going to need them.
Now, as I understand it, folks like Kaddaffy (who, among his other transgressions can’t seem to have a single spelling for his name) are bad people because they rule by fiat, ignoring the will of the people in order to reward a favored few by pillaging the treasury for their cronies, and when people protest this they are either rounded up and imprisioned (perhaps in a closet?), or else beat up by the regime’s enforcer thugs (who usually technically have jobs working for the regime, but rarely actually do the work they’re officially paid for) while the police stand by pretending not to notice. If they have elections, the elections are rigged, and if any elected body should ever pass a law the regime doesn’t like, it simply decrees the law invalid, or simply ignores it.
Jeez, I’m glad I don’t live in a country like that run by a rambling incompetent nutcase with a wierd name, or else the International Community might be demanding a no fly zone over Washington D.C.
“I am starting to hope Texas will leave the Union.”
Won’t do any good if Austin will be the capital.
“Brack Obungle scores one for Richard Fernandez: The differences between a society which organizes itself around stern lessons administered by bureaucrats preaching to schoolchildren and a society of free men who hire bureaucrats to take out the garbage is profound.
Posted by: james wilson at March 30, 2011 9:16 AM”
“The Metrosexual-In-Chief Reporting on Our Efforts in Labia”
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/enemies_foreign_domestic/our_efforts_in_labia.php
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/016430.html#comments
No, Donny. There’s nothing to be afraid of. These men are nihilists. They’re cowards.
Obama is trying to surpass Carter as the Idiot President and he seems likely to get there.
Nobody can predict the final outcomes of the fall of the old dictators, and you could cut our so called foreign policy experts some slack for not staying ahead of the curve, but nobody should be missing the opportunity to decrease the ability of Iran to influence events in the ME.
Bashar Assad operates with impunity in promoting Iranian interests by supplying Hizbullah with heavy weapons and generally mucking up the chance of Lebanon of ever becoming a stable and productive state. If it were my call there would be a Hizbullah man hanging from every tree between Beirut and Damascus, and Lebanon would be an R&R center for 6th Fleet Marines.
Obama and the Valkyries either doesn’t know who the enemy is, or they don’t care.
A@37: Islam is a symptom rather than a cause.
It reaches a point where the difference disappears from the distinction.
Is Islam one of the three great Abrahamic religions or the most vicious and bloodthirsty ideology available?
If the ME analogy is anthropomorphic, as per the monster described by wretchard @34 (if I may be excused, but Yikes!), then one must deal with the head.
The fact of a Chavez or a Mugabe dissociated from Islam is not evidence of the symptomatic so much as it is evidence of the persistence of humanity in overcoming constraints that lead to civilized existence, in which case, if Islam is still to call itself a religion, then front and center as causation it remains. If Islam is no longer a religion, then it becomes just another symptom in humanity’s journey through history.
So it sits there, this vast, seething, grotesquely huge yet strangely impotent thing, bathed in its own bad breath, which threatens to poison even itself.
Gosh, did you actually mean for ‘em to take you literally?
http://debka.com/article/20811/
The key actors are Egypt, Turkey, KSA and Iran
Um, that’s quite a line-up you got yerself there. Victor, is you a betting man?
“What’s with all the negativity Morrity”
Mad Dog in ‘Kelly’s Heroes’ Quoting from The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan.
Gilbert and Sullivan seem appropriate for the general topic of Oboma’s not so excellent Libyan adventure.
Meanwhile, It’s a beautiful day out and the Cubs and Nats are still tied for first place, the season not having started yet. My Braves have the second baseman they have been looking for the last couple of decades and ALL the pitchers still have strong arms, nobody is in a slump and the Manager hasn’t been ejected yet over a real bad call.
So cheer up, the Republic will survive. There WILL be an opening day in 2012. 2013 too.
After all, it’s said that the lord watches out for fools, children and America.
Uh Victor, the phrase dog’s breakfast doesn’t refer to kibbles and bits. By the time nature take’s it’s course and you get to see what the dog had for breakfast, it smells a lot worse…
It is not possible to overstate the error implied by thinking that Islam is a symptom or a side issue in what is happening in our world. It,like leftism, is a virulent religion predicated on deeply flawed theology and antithetical to the world’s two great Abrahamic religions, which are, in fact, one and the same.
What we have is the New Israel against the two-pronged contemporary version of the Serpent’s original subterfuge. Any other template is an abuse of the truth. It separates some detail from the whole and acts as though it is self-sufficient.
What we appear to be seeing is the principalities and powers setting up for the big one. The alternative would be some sort of Atlantis-like wiping clean of the great Etch-a-sketch in the sky and a subsequent do-over. I know of no example in history that has involved the complete devolution of gains such as the one upon which we have unwittingly embarked.
It’s time to be very clear about the face and nature of the enemy, to choose sides, and to get about trying to salvage humankind or minimize the damage that will be involved should our rescue be in the cards.
#20, 29
Nichevo, we know Victor is Turk, but maybe working for the Russians too? Someone somewhere said Israel has a team in Moscow with a pre-positioned strategic weapon, but I don’t buy that. I think Vic just hates Israel for the same reasons your average Turks do, mainly tribal ignorance.
If Vic is smart he will start ending all his posts with a little pro-China angle as well. I heard PRC is paying 50 cents a post.
38. Victor
Vic, you know that Arabs (even the women!) vote in Israel. In real, fair elections for candidates of their choosing. They also hold office as judges in the Supreme Court. Arabs, Christians, and Jews even share buses to the same beaches.
Do your Kurds vote? Do you have any Kurds on your Supreme Court?
How about Armenians?
Losing democratic candidate gets big boost from declaring war on Libya.
32. exhelodrvr
The ongoing crises demonstrate that Israel is the only stable ally we have in the region. Everyone else is at serious risk of subversion, or is happily lurching into Iran’s Islamist embrace.
The ‘palestinians’ are soiling their pants since “Arab Spring” is showing the world that Israel is not the source of regional instability. Hamas has been trying to remind the world that they still matter by rocketing civilians again, but Israel didn’t take the bait.
34. wretchard
“The Middle East is primarily a monster created by grafting Western banking legs to a body of oil with tribal arms and an Islamic head”
You are a poet.
As we possibly lurch towards World War III, it is interesting to reflect on the fact that, contrary to the myth of the MSM, it is the pseudo liberals who are taking us there.
The Democrats seem to have become the party of staying in power, but perhaps that was the fore-ordained result of universal suffrage. If everyone can vote then someone will try to build a constituency out of many, mutually contradictory groups. These contradictions will most likely become too hard to paper over … but perhaps not before we enter WWIII as the Democrats try to stay in power.
Reform in Libya: Chimera or Reality?
As Saif al-Islam declared on August 20, 2007 there are four red lines in Libya that cannot not be crossed. These are Islam and the application of sharia law, the security and stability of Libya, national unity, and Muammar Qadhafi.
….
As Libyan academic Professor Zahi Mogherbi has commented, “The main problem in the reform process in Libya lies in the absence of clear political will towards economic reform…
….
As a result of this lack of vision, Libya’s political and economic future looks set to be as dominated by uncertainty as it has always been and there are few indications that the regime has sufficient political will or courage to overcome these constraints and to transform the country into a modern functioning state that can meet the needs of its citizens.
43. beverly, Thanks for hitting the nails on the head! Yes the Clown posse is only interested in keeping their seat at the table, only the blood of Patriots will return the tree of Liberty to its bloom once again, other wise it remains in its dominant state ready for the final axe man (0bama) to chop it down! is this, will this be the fin?
Whether by skulduggerous intent or bumblenacious clownfoolery, Obama has obtained a licence to wreck the joint. I’m wondering what will it take for Obama to lose his licence?
What has to happen for the licence to be taken away? Is it simply Obama’s defeat in the 2012 election?
44. Dack Thrombosis
Israel is in big trouble. Look at their excursion into Lebanon a few years ago. They roll over the border and BOOM! the Merkava tank blows up thanks to Hezbollah insurgents.
Nahh. Israel lost 2 tanks in that war. The first went on a brave blind charge to try and rescue the captured soldiers and hit a prepositioned IED ambush.
In comparison Israel lost over 100 tanks, near its entire Golan force, in the first 3 days of the 1973 war on the Golan front.
There is now a credible tank defense which may make those antitank rockets obsolete, and it has now been battle tested: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/20/c_13788971.htm
The ground units acheived all of their objectives, problem was they werent given any until late in the game and those were limited. Israel command was infected with the same dumb idea Obama has about doing it all with air power. They will not make the same mistake again.
Israel has always been outnumbered. They have maintained a qualitative edge and a superior tactical doctrine. From the looks of things Hezbolla has learned a lot about fighting from studying the Israelis though, using a “mission oriented” doctrine, giving local units and commanders greater control and innovative use of tactics and weapons.
Because Hez only has missiles and light infantry they can never mount an offensive war inside Israel. The idea that Israel ‘lost’ is pure propoganda like the Egyptian celebration of their ‘victory’ in 1973. I do not think that Hez will be kidnapping any soldiers soon.
From Hot Air:http://hotair.com/archives/2011/03/31/libyan-rebels-number-less-than-1000/
A New Yorker reporter says there are less than 1000 rebels, and only a few hundred fighting.
I want to be the first to congratulate our Dear Leader on his superior planning and intelligence for his first historic kinetic military action. It has been magnificent. He has truly put Dubya and Rummy to shame.
Look on the bright side, it will be easier this for the CIA to train just a few hundred soldiers. And maybe, there may be a few dozen that are actually good guys.
Michael Totten has a hard-hitting interview with Susanne Tartowski Templehof (yes, that Susanne Tartowski Templehof) who assures him that the rebels — at least the ones she’s met — are “mainly young, educated, middle class, urban people with a powerful wish for democracy.”
http://pajamasmedia.com/michaeltotten/2011/03/30/who-are-the-libyan-rebels/
I’ve thrown away my toys
Even my drum and train.
I wanna make some noise
With real live aeroplanes.
Some day I’m going to fly.
I’ll be a pilot too.
And when I do, how would you
Like to be my crew…
On the good ship lollipop.
Its a sweet trip to a candy shop
Where bon-bons play
On the sunny beach of Peppermint Bay.
Lemonade stands everywhere.
Crackerjack bands fill the air.
And there you are
Happy landing on a chocolate bar.
See the sugar bowl do the tootsie roll
With the big bad devils food cake.
If you eat too much ooh ooh
You’ll awake with a tummy ache.
On the good ship lollipop
Its a night trip into bed you hop
And dream away
On the good ship lollipop.
Courage!
I don’t understand why everyone is being so hard on the President. You don’t go to kinetic military action with the rebels you want, you go to kinetic military action with the rebels you’ve got.
Seems that Ms. Tempelhof has ways of getting information!
And now Hillary when asked about her “Assad a reformer” statement:
Yesterday, when asked about her statement at a press conference, Secretary Clinton said, “Well, first, Jay [Solomon], as you rightly pointed out, I referenced opinions of others. That was not speaking either for myself or for the administration.”
From:
Contentions
The Obama Administration’s Ineptness
Peter Wehner 03.30.2011 – 4:25 PM
maineman:
It is not possible to overstate the error implied by thinking that Islam is a symptom or a side issue in what is happening in our world. It, like leftism, is a virulent religion predicated on deeply flawed theology and antithetical to the world’s two great Abrahamic religions, which are, in fact, one and the same.
Okay, what causes people to choose the Left or Islam? Why would people prefer a “virulent religion” rather than its alternatives?
Before Islam, the Middle East had other horrors. Child sacrifice. Sanctified torture. Wars demanded by “the gods”. Okay, the latest pretext is Islam. Yet, if all Muslims converted to being Communists, would that be an improvement? Would it be better if all Muslims converted to being Nazis? If all Muslims converted to a belief in the rituals of human sacrifice used by ancient Aztecs, how would that be an improvement?
I postulate that there are people – and societies – that choose the most vicious and bloodthirsty ideology available because they are vicious and bloodthirsty. Their culture is vicious and bloodthirsty, so they choose a bloodthirsty religion. Such people like to have some religious teaching that tells them to do what they wanted to do anyway.
65. ex
You’re kidding right?
#33 Joe Hill
there seem to be fewer and fewer rules left in the DC game, and it looks like the Left both the near and the far are willing to resort to “By any means necessary”
Politics has always been a blood sport but it seems now to have entered new territory where the no rules apply other than raw power and speaking truth iOS a sign of weakness or stupidity. The really scary thing is this comes on the heels of one of the worst drubbings a party has ever received in a midterm election. If they are this arrogant in defeat what will the do if the win in 2012? There is something not quite right with these Democrats, something truly dangerous in their contempt for the law and the rules and simple decency.
Politics, by definition, is how a society tacitly or overtly agrees to resolve conflicts in the allocation of power, authority, and resources SHORT of brute force and violence. If one side deliberately goes outside the system of laws and constraints imposed by politics and resorts to force; the sole means of survival for all others is to also resort to the use of brute force and violence. And since all universally accepted legal and moral constraints have already been discarded by the initiating side; there is no constraint on the level of the eventual violence. The resort to extra-political means by the initiator only works so long as those who are their victims submit themselves to extra-legal violence in place of law. When the coercive organs of government power [law enforcement, the courts, and the regulatory powers of the Executive] openly ally themselves with those outside the bounds of accepted politics; there is no longer an appeal to law possible. Eventually it comes down to the first verse of Jefferson and Liberty.
#40 Blast From the Past
I assume that we are being watched [with attempts to manipulate] not only by the Служба Внешней Разведки ‘s “Directorate PR”; but also by their domestic counterparts in and out of government. Devotion to reason, logic, and the Constitution tends to draw fire. Not only are there the obvious agents of both, but one can assume there are more skilled practitioners and lurkers involved.
#45 JMH
Now, as I understand it, folks like Kaddaffy (who, among his other transgressions can’t seem to have a single spelling for his name) are bad people because they rule by fiat, ignoring the will of the people in order to reward a favored few by pillaging the treasury for their cronies, and when people protest this they are either rounded up and imprisioned (perhaps in a closet?), or else beat up by the regime’s enforcer thugs (who usually technically have jobs working for the regime, but rarely actually do the work they’re officially paid for) while the police stand by pretending not to notice. If they have elections, the elections are rigged, and if any elected body should ever pass a law the regime doesn’t like, it simply decrees the law invalid, or simply ignores it.
Jeez, I’m glad I don’t live in a country like that run by a rambling incompetent nutcase with a wierd name, or else the International Community might be demanding a no fly zone over Washington D.C.
Well played. Sounds like Wisconsin [All unions are now directly threatening businesses to support them and the Democrats, or else. No neutrality is allowed. Unionized law enforcement and fire personnel are ignoring any legal violations by the unions and their Leftist supporters.] which is what they have in mind for the rest of the country, forever.
Subotai Bahadur
1. stoicheion: I heard the term Weapons Grade Stupidity, and it seems to apply here.
3. Forgotten Man: I think the only way to get back to American values is a taxpayer revolution; Succession may be the first step, meaning, we will not support Washington D.C. anymore with our treasure until it gets back on track. The Federal Government could not survive that action if widespread enough. The day Texas becomes independent, call me a Texan.
22. wretchard: The CIA apparently forgot the first rule of Fight Club. A clandestine organization can not be effective when so much of its operations is leaked daily. Hopefully, they have become a front for the organization whose name must not be uttered, doing the real work. I can dream.
25. Victor: Could not they still harvest the explosives for IEDs? Still a bad idea in my book.
63. Unsk: Not sure if you are being sarcastic but if not, the fat lady has not even taken the stage yet.
“with attempts to manipulate”
Yes, you could create your own community of personalities with varying degrees of political belief and when the big cyber war hits, get all of your Manchurian bots to all tacitly agree tothe big lie, trying to bend the meme to fit their evil plans. I’d say though that the BC group is a pretty tough group to infect. The BL/mrX dust ups are particularly hilarious. Some troll operative in the Lubyanka must be scratching their heads over how some US hicks are apparently better read than others.
71.
There is No Such Agency?
What i’ll never ever be able to understand is that people such as Samantha Powers can straight-facedly tell such gargantuan lies about a people who –just for one thing –have done her no harm, who BTW through western cultural contributions going back to the front edge of our shared recored history have so measurably improved her own life.
And it’s not that she lies on religious grounds –she offers none to argue from –and it can’t be that she lies for partisan political advantage because her lies are off-scale and dwarf the context.
The lies beam outward from her own fount of fame and intellect (the study of genocide) but aim backward not at its elimination, but at its expansion, at its justification, inescapeably at its ultimate glorification, if –if only –it can be directed to finish the work of 20th century philosopher monstrosity Adolf Hitler.
Hyperbole? I hope and pray.
–or Evil, Captain E smiling sweetly from that comely face, not as trope or topic, but as a carnival barker sweeping the gulls and marks into the tent for a physical penetration of their being.
Because she must know exactly what she is doing, she must know she is excluding herself from ”forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do” –the grace of salvation spoken from the cross.
But who am i to judge. This whole thing is getting way Biblical, so, i can’t judge, i guess –though i damn sure feel like doing it.
Perhaps the fact that so many women are in positions of power, especially on the “Western” side of this little adventure, is cause for concern.
This is because it is to be expected that women do not understand how to deal with males in military confrontation situations. Indeed, women tend to be more confrontational than males and tend to escalate beyond reason and perhaps beyond repair. Thus we could stumble into a monumental conflagration because of some player’s inability to read the other players in the game.
(There are evolutionary reasons to believe that males have a gut-level, genetically programmed, understanding of lethal confrontation and when to stand-down that females do not have.)
Typically you want leaders to be good at poker. (because there you have to read people very accurately under pressure for stakes and make decisions based on that.)
Good administrators are people who ideally are good at statistics. That is they are able to assemble numbers in a meaningful pattern to make decisions.
“There are evolutionary reasons to believe that males have a gut-level, genetically programmed, understanding of lethal confrontation and when to stand-down that females do not have.”
It is called the western legal system. I don’t think they have the problem in Libya.
bl/74, (note to self, intensity error, must calm down. road is long)
***
am/72, Thanks for that! Yes, Mr.X, as personable and ingratiating as he is, was clearly possessed of a no-fault slant on Russia vs Georgia 2008. A certain amount of history had to be marshalled in that support, and at least early on, one would’ve thought Normandy was barely above inconsequential, and the Anglo/American air offensive was sweet of us to do, but, well, you know. It was ALL Red Army. To which we said “Dodge trucks made Red Army” –and then, off to the races.
71. SpeakEasy:
I think the only way to get back to American values is a taxpayer revolution
You mean like demand an end to automatic witholding? Remember, since WWII they take our money first and then have us go through the Form 1040 formalities.
Buddy @74: Bud, the esteemed Ms. Power (is it Powers or Power?) is first and foremost a hard Left academic. For reasons that are probably innumerable and go back to the snake in Eden, the academic Left has been virulently anti-Israel for decades. Methinks it originates way back via orders from the Kremlin, and the good old Red Profs are just keeping that fire burning. The fact that so many of these Lefty profs are themselves Jewish only further highlights how diseased they are, how divorced in every way from their pasts and their peoples. And let’s remember that Obamabus is, first and foremost, a far Left academic, albeit an especially ignorant and unaccomplished one.
Sometimes I think the motivation is not any deeper than keeping up with the cool kidz on campus. But then when you see that flash of Beelzebub in their eyes — they are just TOO excited at the idea of Israel getting whacked — then I think something deeper and darker is afoot. What rough beast and all that jazz.
When you have lost the Vatican you have lost the world?
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?ID=214560&R=R1
Things seem to be building to a climax. Maybe things always seem that way, I dunno. But as someone who loves the literature and worldview of J.R.R. Tolkien, I can’t help but see similarities between current events and the period just leading up to the outbreak of the War of the Ring. I get this sense that the forces of Darkness are massing and, in places, already on the march. I get a sense that millions of people in the West live in the Shire of their minds, oblivious to the evil that is crowding their borders. I get the feeling that a terrible reckoning is nearly at hand–that even though there is no Dark Lord, per se, and that Melkor has been banished into the outer darkness, Melkor’s will still moves in the world and still moves many to do its bidding.
Boy, I hope I’m wrong.
p/80, that’s got to be the source code –the tribe as the longest-running highest-recognition show of success attaching to the life of trying to keep the Word, as opposed to Communism’s demand to accept “the words”. If the Israeli tribes can be driven or scattered, there goes the competition –USA, the angloshpere, and the western tradition would follow down the drain very soon, the follow-on memetic attack will have yanked the rug out from beneath individuals everywhere whose way of thinking had just been proven false –or irrelevant to the NWO future, where all of humanity is just the one meta-being, with the elites as the central nervous system and everyone else just the cells of the single organism.
i guess north America with its food production will be the creature’s mouth. i suppose the logic will make the most dependably dedicated and authority-accepting area, the realm of Islam, the other end of the alimentary canal.
O’bombo busted: From CIC to private.
H/T O’s Harvard buddy Liberal Count Ignatieff.
…-
“Obama gets openness award in private”
“WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama accepted an award for making the government more open and transparent – presented to him behind closed doors with no media coverage or public access allowed.
The discrepancy between the honor and the circumstances under which it was delivered bothered open-government advocates in attendance, they said Thursday. They were even more perturbed when they discovered later that the meeting hadn’t even been listed on Obama’s public schedule, so there was no way for anyone to know about it.
“To have such a meeting not be transparent is the height of irony. How absurd can that be?” said one participant, Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, which keeps tabs on the White House Office of Management and Budget.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2697748/posts
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/016447.html
78. buddy larsen
Your posts earn my highest praise…
So what’s with the mistake:
“It was ALL Red Army. To which we said “Dodge trucks made Red Army” –and then, off to the races.”
Let’s try STUDEBAKER trucks made the Red Army.
Fords went to the Mediterranean Campaigns; GMC went to the NW European Campaign; Dodges went to the Pacific/Burma-Indian Campaigns.
Even the post war Stalin Organs / BM-13s used a plainly Studebaker design scheme. And the name Studebaker has gone into Soviet military lore — the Russofied name means ‘military truck.’
Until Nixon and Ford – the auto giant, not the President – built the Kama River Plant the USSR was still using knock-offs of their WWII Studebakers!
The only nation to beat that record is Cuba. It’s still 1959 in Cuba.
If you promise to make no more mistakes…
You have permission to leave your room.
Sentence reduced to time served.
79. Don Rodrigo: That is a good first step. I want more though like paying only for services I use and not subsidizing some college drop-out turned “artist” to create crap and call it art. I want charity to run through independent non-taxable organizations and end entitlements from the Fed. Bring back soup kitchens; If you are truly starving, you don’t care where you get your food and we will stop paying for their junk food, cigarettes and liquor (and don’t even try to tell me this is not happening, its all over the internet in first hand accounts- I have seen it first hand as well). I want poor people to make the choice of buying food and housing and forego the cell phones, designer basketball shoes and spinning rims. I want ALL Americans to pay a basic tax to fund those programs designated by the eighteen enumerated powers of the Constitution. When everyone pays taxes you will finally discouver just how much government they want (or how little). Remind them they have a right to life, liberty and the PURSUIT of happiness only. Notice healthcare is not in there and BTW can not be a guaranteed right since everyone dies and the government would be liable when that day comes. Okay, rant off. Thank you, W; Your blog probably adds years to my life as an outlet for my angst.
“To have such a meeting not be transparent is the height of irony. How absurd can that be?” said one participant, Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, which keeps tabs on the White House Office of Management and Budget.”
WHOA! Get that man another glass of Kool-aid.
OT
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=183337
Carl has posted a shocker of a pleading.
It is now established that the Resident’s SS# was issued to a girl born in 1890 — at least one of them; he has apparently others.
Proof of birth – period – has not been found anywhere.
Hawaii’s law INRE establishing birth records has holes the size of football stadiums.
BTW, is there any record of Stanley getting married, ever?
I recommend reading the whole pleading — it won’t take long.
Another tid bit: the Wan resided in Pakistan more than a year according to what records are available.
m/84, the phenom was first mass-witnessed the weekend that began on a Friday with Obama’s frantic “Depression is on us IMMEDIATELY unless we pass the stimulous bill TODAY” speech, when after the sucessful vote, he lit out without signing it for a four day vacation in Chicago. i read somewhere recently, the Russian people under USSR had a humor magazine, using satire, named Krokodil –satirizing the powerful’s making fun of the powerless.
Obamans use ‘inside’ krokodil –crocodile –humor all the time, i think.
***
b/85, ah hell –no wonder ole X used to get so mad –
a@68: I postulate that there are people – and societies – that choose the most vicious and bloodthirsty ideology available because they are vicious and bloodthirsty.
Sounds like a nature vs nurture argument.
From that discussion:
What these pathologies show is that one’s experience of the world does not have to be linked to a sense of a self at the center of it. “But that is not to say that the self doesn’t exist.” Baggini tries to illustrate this with a Buddhist analogy that likens a person to a cart. “There is no cart, only the wheel, the axle, the flat bed and so on. In the same way, there is no self, only experiences, thoughts, and sensations. But, of course, there is a cart—it’s just that it is nothing other than the ordered collection of parts. In the same way, there is a self—it is simply no more than the ordered collection of all our experiences.”
The road out of serfdom will be generational, as noted many, many times, with progress along multiple fronts, as noted far fewer times. Civilization as “the ordered collection of all [collective experience]” probably lacks the requisite specificity to form a foundational basis for policy, but it allows pressure to be maintained along certain vectors of corruption, not excluding religious belief, and without engaging the neck-wrenching segue into the intractability of specific “natures.”
90. YBR: When faced with a jackal it is not necessary to understand why he wants to tear out your throat, only that he does want to tear out your throat. You can either ponder it or shoot the bastard. The other jackals will note the action for what it was, not ponder the why.
SpeakEasy: Yes, But, It is the nature of diplomats to make policy. They can’t help themselves.
The definition of diplomacy is saying ‘Nice doggie, nice doggie.’ until you an find a stick.” -Will Rodgers
(Might want to brace your eyes for some radioactive neon – but the content is funny – I thought.)
blert@88
The Social Securtity Administration does not reissue ss numbers. If a duplicate number is in use, it wasn’t because it was issued.
MSO…
Read the full pleading…
The big picture is spelled out.
And, yes, we all know that SS#s are unique — which makes it more than passing strange that the Wan used someone else’s number.
It’s not as if he’d be denied one… unless he had citizenship issues of some sort.
The more you think on it the less sense it makes. I sure can’t figure out the jumble that is the Wan.
Why Pelosi favored the Wan over Hillary is a marvel. Clinton was certain to blow McCain or whomever out of the water in 2088. She could have simply blocked Obama and left him in the Senate where he could reign on and on, voting present.
Instead Pelosi performed magic for the Wan. Perhaps that’s why he let her run policy from the Speakership.
——–
At one time I thought that birthing in Kenya made zero sense for Stanley.
Now I realize that bearing a mulatto baby — as a minor — would mean that Frank Marshall Davis faced prison.
In 1961 Honolulu there were simply not enough Negroes to deflect the obvious fatherhood away from Davis.
Davis has written of three-way sex with his wife, a minor and himself. It was not fiction.
Obama, Sr. — as a muslim and already married to wife number one — was most suitable as a beard. Polygamy is legal in his home country.
If anyone can find records of Stanley’s marriage ceremony to Obama, Sr. I’d love to see them.
By birthing in Kenya all of the legal headaches went away.
There is irony here. Both of Barry’s biological parents were 100% American. The ruse to protect Davis is now stinking up Barrack’s story line.
And since Davis was a card-carrying Communist — admitting you’re his spawn is no blessing — especially since he spent his last years indoctrinating Barry and setting him on a course towards Chicago.
——-
All of the twisting and turning has been done to hide just how weird and radical his life-long associates and mentors are. There is NO ONE to the left of the Wan — it’s just impossible.
And we see the result.
At one time I thought that birthing in Kenya made zero sense for Stanley.
There’s the norm and there’s the outlier. Maya Soetoro-Ng, Stanley’s daughter was born in Jakarta, Indonesia. Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo, Barack Obama’s half-brother, son of Ruth Nidesand and Barack Obama Sr. was born in Kenya. Ruth’s other son with Obama Sr was David, also born in Kenya.
Two of Barack Obama Sr.’s wives were American. All of Ruth’s kids were born in Kenya. Stanley Dunham had two husbands. One was Barack Obama Sr and the other Lolo Sotoro, by which she had one child each. One was born in Indonesia and the other, as we all know, was born in Hawaii. Neither of the two American women felt compelled to deliver in the USA, except in Barack Obama Jr’s case.
So, what’s the problem, then, one wonders.
We’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. And the other… and the other …
It’s a Unicorn designed by a (Central) Committee?
in come fly a mystery Stork
in beak carry newborn Dork
in sky channel Yogi Berra
(New York Yankee, bygone Era)
“Always take it, when road Fork”
Obama, ‘Shaver’
ach, should never re-read. Else come retake:
***
in come flying mystery Stork
carry in beak newborn Dork
in sky channel Yogi Berra
(Yankee, New York golden era)
who say “Take it, when road Fork”
Obama, ‘Shaver’
***
there. cure for insomnia. insom? nyah!
“Yet even in those days Caligula could not control his natural brutality. He loved watching tortures and executions; and, disguised in wig and robe, abandoned himself nightly to the pleasures of feasting and scandalous living.
“Tiberius was ready enough to indulge a passion which Caligula had for theatrical dancing and singing, on the ground that it might have a civilizing influence on him. With characteristic shrewdness, the old Emperor had exactly gauged the young man’s vicious inclinations, and would often remark that Caligula’s advent portended his own death and the ruin of everyone else.
“‘I am nursing a viper in Rome’s bosom,’ Tiberius once said. ‘I am educating a Phaethon who will mishandle the fiery sun-chariot and scorch the whole world.’” –Suetonius
That’s an amazing catch, beverly –stupifying, really.