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

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • Coast Guard Chief wants to slash Homeland Security role

    Remember when they moved the Coast Guard to the Homeland Security Department from the Transportation Department to more accurately reflect their role in the war against terror and bring them under the control of a central authority that could utilize them properly? Well, Obama’s pick to lead the Coast Guard wants to slash funding for incidentals like Guarding Our Coast and Training to Guard Our Coast, according to a memo the Associated Press got in their grubby little hands.

    An internal memo from Vice Admiral Robert J. Papp Jr., Obama’s nominee to become Coast Guard commandant, says that starting in 2012, he would slash funding for programs in the agency’s homeland security plan, including patrols and training exercises.

    The memo, marked “sensitive – for internal Coast Guard use only,” was obtained by The Associated Press.

    Papp’s outline is significant because it could mean major changes for the more than 200-year-old agency that took on substantial homeland security duties after Sept. 11, 2001. Obama’s 2011 proposed budget cuts for the Coast Guard have already caused outrage from some lawmakers.

    According to Papp’s memo, he would scale back the Coast Guard’s counterterrorism priorities in favor of running traditional search-and-rescue operations that save people in imminent danger on the water and maintaining the maritime transportation system.

    So I’m guessing the War on Terror has ended and no one told us.

  • Napolitano FINALLY Admits The Obvious About The Ft. Hood Massacre

    From Fox News (Emphasis my own):

    “Violent Islamic terrorism … was part and parcel of the Ft. Hood killings,” Napolitano told the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday morning. “There is violent Islamic terrorism, be it Al Qaeda in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen or anywhere else, [and] that is indeed a major focus of this department and its efforts.”

    Political correctness has governed the Army’s and DHS’s handling of the Ft. Hood massacre since day one, blatantly ignoring Hassan’s ties to Islamic extremists in this country and overseas. The fact that the Napolitano now admits that this was act of Islamic terrorism does not make up for the fact that the DHS and Army deliberately ignored the obvious for months.

    More importantly, it does not make up for the fact that the Army and DHS bear responsibility for the deaths of those 13 American soldiers at Ft. Hood by repeatedly ignoring the fact that Hassan was an Islamic radical.

  • Mother Jones on Oathkeepers

    In the comments, BOHICATwentyTwo left this link to a Mother Jones article about the Oathkeepers. It was written by Justine Sharrock who visited us last year when she erred in writing an article about Adam Kokesh. Sharrock quotes folks like Glen Beck and Lou Dobbs as they praise the Oathkeepers, but I think Beck and Dobbs don’t know Oathkeepers like we know Oathkeepers.

    In fact, in a companion photo essay of the Oathkeepers, Mother Jones calls them “The Tea Party’s Military Wing” and they tout the participation in the Tea Partys. But on the last last page of the article, she quotes founder Stuart Rhodes, former Ron Paul Congressional staffer on the IVAW;

    After an Oath Keeper who is also a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War touted IVAW repeatedly on Oath Keepers’ Web forum, Rhodes deleted the guy’s online testimonial. “The IVAW have their own totalitarian mindset,” he told me. “I don’t like communists any more than I like Nazis.”

    Yeah, Rhodes didn’t delete the online testimonial voluntarily. It took four days for members of This Ain’t Hell to convince Rhodes to take the testimonial down. It began here and ended here. What hasn’t ended, however is Oathkeepers’ support of Adam Kokesh which Bev Perlson told us earlier today. So, apparently Rhodes gets his marching orders from Ron Paul…still.

    When the Oathkeepers first came to my attention, right after the 2008 election, it smelled a little fishy to me. All of the American servicemembers I know don’t need a group to tell them to uphold their oath – in fact, I take offense that Stuart Rhodes thinks they will not. Supposedly Rhodes was a member of the military – does he honestly think that the mothers’ sons with whom he served needed a boy scout troop to tell them to obey the law?

    Maybe some of the assclowns who Sharrock interviewed in that article need adult supervision, but they are the exception, not the rule.

    The bottom line is this; the Tea Party Movement, Glen Beck, Lou Dobbs, Dick Armey and any other Conservative group needs to back away from the Oathkeepers and their secret alliance with IVAW unless they want to be tainted by that special brand of crazy that comes with being a paulian.

  • Operation New Dawn: WTF?

    The people who came up with the name Operation New Dawn

    When I woke up this morning, I got a message from my friend and paratrooper James who is currently in Afghanistan fighting the good fight. He asked me if I was “ready” for Operation New Dawn. Right away I assumed it was one of two things: 1.) the name of the bar-hopping campaign James and I will conduct when James is on R&R or 2.) the name the DoD is giving to  the operation to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. However, I was wrong. Operation New Dawn will be the new name for Operation Iraqi Freedom, starting September 1st. My reaction to this new name was a combination of laughter, disbelief, and anger.

    (more…)

  • Jimmy Carter once again

    Over the past few years, several bloggers have made the comparison between President Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, and every time Obama has lived up to our comparisons. Well, here we go again. In today’s Washington Times, Joseph Weber writes that Obama is backing the first nuclear power plant construction in decades.

    President Obama on Tuesday announced roughly $8 billion in federal loan guarantees to build the first U.S. nuclear power plant in three decades.

    The president said the initiative was part of his administration’s ongoing effort to develop “safe, clean” energy and reduce the country’s dependency on foreign oil.

    However, he also used the announcement to issue stern warnings about the United States falling behind others countries and about how upgrading the domestic power grid and making high-tech batteries in U.S. factories through the American Recovery Act is not enough.

    Ya know what else happened three decades ago besides the fact that we stopped building power plants? Jimmy Carter, in his “malaise speech”, sensing that he was in political trouble if he didn’t do something about the energy crunch, said this;

    To make absolutely certain that nothing stands in the way of achieving these goals, I will urge Congress to create an energy mobilization board which, like the War Production Board in World War II, will have the responsibility and authority to cut through the red tape, the delays, and the endless roadblocks to completing key energy projects.

    We will protect our environment. But when this nation critically needs a refinery or a pipeline, we will build it.

    Yeah, not one more refinery has been built since the day Carter gave that speech. Our domestic resources remain unused and undeveloped.

    I do not promise a quick way out of our nation’s problems, when the truth is that the only way out is an all-out effort. What I do promise you is that I will lead our fight, and I will enforce fairness in our struggle, and I will ensure honesty. And above all, I will act.

    Yeah, he acted by forming the Energy Department, and then nothing. Democrats have thwarted our energy independence ever since they promised to solve it. What makes this Democrat any different?

  • Catching up on the news

    One weird-ass weekend for news. We had Joe Biden, who had days previously taken credit for the relative calm in Iraq, attack his predecessor, Dick Cheney, for rewriting history. But, that’s what we’ve come to expect from plagerizing, tall-tale-telling Joe.

    The Sam Wurzelbacher (Joe the Plumber) goes off on John McCain for “using” him. Somehow, Wurzelbacher, divorces himself from Sarah Palin simply because she’ll campaign for McCain in Arizona, and says of President Obama “I think his ideology is un-American, but he’s one of the more honest politicians. At least he told us what he wanted to do.” Have you been paying attention, Joe? I guess talking head is another thing you shouldn’t try at home.

    Then this morning, the shocking headline that Hillary Clinton has, after thirty years, arrived at the conclusion that Iran is becoming a military dictatorship. What was all that shit last year when troops and militia took to the streets and beat the snot out protesters?

    And, oh, did I mention – on the heels of Joe Biden telling us that there are no 9-11-style attacks in our future, John Brennan was out telling the public that the recidivism rate for released Guantanamo detainees is only 20% – “not that bad” compared to the rest of American prisoners – even though other American prisoners don’t blow themselves up in crowded marketplaces and fly airplanes into skyscrapers.

  • Of geese and ganders

    Remember when we were supposed to ignore Obama’s connections to Bill Ayers? Remember that Obama chose Ayers’ living room as his venue to launch his political career, but that he was “just a guy” in Obama’s neighborhood? Well, why isn’t what’s good for the goose isn’t good for the gander? The Left, in the personage of Talking Points Memo thinks a crazy in Massachusetts isn’t the same;

    The Massachusetts man charged this week with stockpiling weapons after saying he feared an imminent “Armageddon” appears to have been active in the Tea Party movement, and saw Sarah Palin, who he said is on a “righteous ‘Mission from God,’” as the only figure capable of averting the destruction of society.

    Now, this guy has never met Sarah Palin but somehow we’re supposed to gleen a connection between the two. Even though Palin has never been in Gregory Girard’s living room nor sought his support for a political career. Girard never hurt anyone, but Ayers actually planted bombs, killed and maimed people. Girard’s weapons were largely defensive, but Ayers and his crew plotted to blow up the NCO club at Fort Dix during a dance.

    Girard praised Palin’s “magical combination of charisma, a remarkable reserve of personal strength and committment (sic), and her righteous ‘mission from God’ drive (sic) return this country to its convservative (sic), Constitutional foundation.”

    Yep, scary terrorist stuff – much scarier than Bill Ayers.

  • More Joe Biden prognostication

    I guess Joe Biden has been quiet too long. Fox News reports that yesterday, he took the opportunity to flex his brain on the chance there will be no 9/11-type attack on the US;

    Top intelligence officials told congressional lawmakers early this month that the terror network can be expected to try another attack in the next three to six months. But Biden, interviewed on CNN, downplayed the risk.

    “Look, let me put it this way. The idea of there being a massive attack in the United States like 9/11 is unlikely, in my view,” the vice president said.

    It was the latest in a line of sweeping forecasts Biden has made in recent years.

    I guess it’s time to stock up on bullets and fill sandbags.