This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • Just More “Joe Being Joe”

    The Vice President gave a speech recently.  He talked about the deadly 2011 tornado in Joplin, MO.

    But he made a small error during his remarks.

    The Vice President talked about the “161,000 brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, grandparents lost” in that natural disaster.  The actual death toll was 161.

    For comparison, the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 – after which parts of Tokyo burned for two days – had a death toll of approximately 142,000.

    Given the speaker, I think we can blame this one on cluelessness vice mendacity.

    But that’s OK, he’s in good company.  At one time, his boss apparently thought there were 58 states (and he’d visited 57 of them!).  And their “patron saint”, Jimmy the Clueless, claims he could have beaten Reagan in 1980 if he’d been “more manly”.  (smile)

  • “Eager to Rid Itself of Iraq”

    “. . . the President’s team at the White House pushed back, and the differences occasionally became heated. … and those on our side viewed the White House as so eager to rid itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw rather than lock in arrangements that would preserve our influence and interests.”

    No, that’s not a quote from Charles Krauthammer, Ann Coulter, or another Conservative political commentator.  It’s not a quote from some politician with an “R” after his name, either.

    As Jonn noted earlier today, that quote is reportedly from former SECDEF Leon Panetta’s upcoming memoir.

    Panetta goes on to state his opinion that White House engagement would have resulted in an agreement for some residual level of US forces to remain in Iraq post-2011.  He further states his belief that those forces would have made a critical difference in the recent situation there.

    But what would Panetta know?  After all, he’s only the former SECDEF and DIR CIA.

    My take on this is somewhat different from Jonn’s.  Panetta’s job as SECDEF wasn’t to make the decision on Iraq.  Rather, his job was to advise the POTUS regarding the ramifications of either option – then to implement the decision made by the POTUS.  Sounds to me like he did precisely that.  My issue here is very different than Jonn’s.

    The current Administration has been trotting out the “we really wanted to keep some forces there, but the Iraqi government wouldn’t let us”      bunch of bullsh!t      load of horsesh!t      baldfaced lie      whopper      flight of fantasy      tall tale       revisionist history recently concerning the 2011 US -Iraq negotiations.  With all due respect:  quit trying to “rectify” history again, Mr. President.  Because as they might have said where I grew up:  “Now, that dog just don’t hunt.”  Your attempts to “blame Bush” here are being disavowed by people who saw what your Administration actually did – from the inside.  Everyone can see the attempt to “blame Bush” this time is bull.

    Panetta is saying essentially the same thing here as the former US Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker has said elsewhere.  So Panetta’s account would seem to have support from someone else who was in an excellent position to know “ground truth” in Iraq.

    How about you quit trying to blame the current situation in Iraq on your predecessor, Mr. President.  In 2011, your hands weren’t tied.  You had your chance to prevent the current problems there from developing – and your Administration consciously chose not to.  Instead, you played Pontius Pilate and “washed your hands of the matter”.

    Fine. But the subsequent rise of ISIL and it’s takeover of much of Iraq is a direct consequence of that “hand-washing”.  That means that the situation in Iraq today with ISIL is your responsibility – yours, not someone else’s.  You and your Administration are the ones who “screwed the pooch” here.

    You own this.  Time to “man up” and admit it – for once.  (Hey, a guy can dream – can’t he?)

     

  • The whole Secret Service discussion is a distraction

    The whole Secret Service discussion is a distraction

    I’m so sick of all of this discussion in the media about how the Secret Service is putting the President’s life in danger. It’s not that I wish harm to him or to the First Family – exactly the opposite, I wish them health and well-being. Truly. But, I also would hope that they wish the same for me and my family despite ample evidence to the contrary.

    Yeah, some criminal fellow was armed and in an elevator with the president the other day and the Secret Service missed that. But, you know what? There are thousands of criminals crossing the border everyday who will probably end up in an elevator with me someday. There are jihadists living in our neighborhoods that the law enforcement agencies virtually ignore.

    The entire country has become more dangerous in the last few years, in case no one noticed. The feds sting terrorists about once a week lately. One fellow gets into the White House and we have to hear about it for weeks afterwards.

    During the Clinton Administration, I walked from my local smoke shop to the subway station with a box of La Gloria Cubanas under my arm – when I went past the White House, a Secret Service guard shadowed me on the other side of the fence because of my suspicious package, I assume – but then I fit the profile of a crazed vet who smokes cigars. So I don’t know how that guy got over the fence and across the lawn and inside the White House. I don’t think anyone could get across my lawn and into my house unscathed, but then, I pay attention.

    Arguably, the White House grounds have more armed guards than any place else on the planet and if criminals can get past them, maybe the rest of us aren’t as safe as the government tells us. Mostly, that’s because prosecutors won’t prosecute criminals, like the fellow who is calling my wife’s friends and telling them that he’s going to kill them because they know me. You know, the fellow who we had dead-to-rights on death threats last year and the prosecutor wouldn’t prosecute.

    But, yeah, the media sees a squirrel and would rather chase that than chase after real issues that have real consequences to the well-being of the entire nation.

  • ABC: Obama was warned about ISIS

    ABC is starting to impress me. They have an article which refutes the President’s claim on 60 Minutes the other day that the intelligence services were caught off guard by the ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State folks.

    At the White House daily briefing, Press Secretary Josh Earnest cast the net quite a bit wider.

    “Everybody was surprised to see the rapid advance that ISIL was able to make from Syria across the Iraqi border,” said Earnest. “To be able to take over such large swaths of territory in Iraq did come as a surprise.”

    But for nearly a year, senior officials in the U.S. government have been warning about the alarming rise of ISIS, or ISIL as the terrorist group is also known, and the inability of the Iraqi government to confront the threat.

    Here are three examples:

    I’m not going to C&P the rest of the article, but you should click over and read how intelligence officials in the Obama Administration warned the administration about the exact outcome that we’re witnessing. And here’s the press conference where the conversation above took place;


    More ABC news videos | ABC Entertainment News

    The truth of it all is that the Obama Administration ignored the evidence hoping the problem would go away like so many other things going on in the world that they’d wished would go away, but only became more unmanageable.

  • Obama: US misjudged Iraqi army, militants’ threat

    Obama: US misjudged Iraqi army, militants’ threat

    Obama misjudged

    Yeah, that’s the headline on an Associated Press article about the President’s interview on 60 Minutes later today;

    President Barack Obama acknowledged that U.S. intelligence agencies underestimated the threat from Islamic State militants and overestimated the ability and will of Iraq’s army to fight.

    Questioning Obama’s strategy to destroy the group, House Speaker John Boehner said the U.S. may have “no choice” but to send in American troops if the mix of U.S.-led airstrikes and a ground campaign reliant on Iraqi forces, Kurdish fighters and soon-to-be trained Syrian rebels fails to achieve that goal.

    Good to see Boehner getting ready to put boots on the ground, ain’t it?

    But, in regards to that headline, no, the US didn’t misjudge, it was the Obama Administration that misjudged. The rest of us out here could see it without the benefit of his intelligence assets. The Obama Administration ignored the signs because that’s what they chose to do. That’s what they do about everything. Immigration. Ebola. Russia. North Korea. Boko Haram. Iraq. Afghanistan. Somalia. Syria. I probably left out some of the other things that this administration did nothing about until the situation got out of hand while all of the time they were hoping that the problem would go away or get handled by someone else. Someone competent and not worried by the political repercussions of doing the right thing in a timely manner.

    He noted that his director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has acknowledged that the U.S. “underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.” Obama also said it was “absolutely true” that the U.S. overestimated the ability and will of the Iraqi army.

    The Obama administration has cited its intelligence weaknesses before.

    It’s probably because of those Tea Party people who infiltrated the intelligence services and undermine the nation’s security because they don’t like the President. Or it could be because this administration is willfully blind to anything that takes their attention away from fundamentally changing this country they claim to love.

  • Holder resigns

    Holder resigns

    Eric Holder

    Well, I’ve been out of town and of course, my phone crapped out – so I was woefully disconnected all day. I get home and find my email inbox full of elation over the news that Eric Holder has resigned about five years too late. So I’m watching the President waxing nostalgically over Holder’s accomplishments during his term. He says that the crime rate and the incarceration rate have gone down – yeah, well, if you ignore crime, that’s what happens.

    I’m just glad he’s gone, but cautiously concerned about who will replace him. It’s hard to imagine, but it can get worse.

  • That salute thing

    That salute thing

    Latte Salute

    Yes, everyone has been emailing me this video;

    Post by Washington Free Beacon.

    While I understand what motivates the outrage, I’m running low on outrage. If you weren’t outraged until just now, you haven’t been paying attention the last several years.

  • NYT: Obama’s rush to war

    NYT: Obama’s rush to war

    last convoy out of Iraq

    You know you’ve lost the country when the New York Times‘s Editorial Board turns on the Democrat President and criticizes him for his rush to war;

    The administration…claims that the airstrikes are legal under international law because they were done in defense of Iraq. In a Sept. 20 letter to the United Nations, Iraq complained that the Islamic State was attacking its territory and said American assistance was needed to repel the threat. But the United Nations Security Council should vote on the issue.

    Meanwhile, Congress has utterly failed in its constitutional responsibilities. It has left Washington and gone into campaign fund-raising mode, shamelessly ducking a vote on this critical issue. That has deprived the country of a full and comprehensive debate over the mission in Syria and has shielded administration officials and military commanders from tough questions about every aspect of this operation — from its costs to its very obvious risks — that should be asked and answered publicly.

    I don’t agree with them at all, by the way, just like I didn’t agree with Obama Administration while it sat on it’s hands for six months while ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State cut it’s bloody swath across Iraq and Syria. The president should have acted without the UN and Congress back in January when IS captured Fallujah and maybe it wouldn’t have reached the crisis tipping point where we are perched now.

    But at least everyone is finally admitting that President Bush had authority for war in Iraq. But, something I’d like to point out; this whole idea about preempting an attack on the US by the use of force is all part of the “Bush Doctrine” that was derided, by the Left – including the current president.

    So, I’m watching the President addressing the UN General Assembly and there’s hope for him yet. He just told the assembled delegates that there’s no reasoning with the Islamic State – that the only thing they understand is force. I may be ready to support him at this point, if his actions match his words.