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

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • I pledge?

    1stCavRVN11B sent me this link to a Michelle Malkin post about a Utah elementary school principal who showed this video to 850 of his students;

    According to the Deseret News, parents were pretty upset;

    “I think it’s outrageous. It’s indoctrinating children in a leftist liberal political position,” Utah Eagle Forum President Gayle Ruzicka told the Deseret News Tuesday.

    The video called “I Pledge!” was shown at an assembly of about 850 children on Friday to kick off the school’s annual theme of service, said Davis School District spokesman Chris Williams.

    Parent Jennifer Cieslewicz, of Kaysville, who has a first-grader at Eagle Bay, told the Deseret News, “I am very upset, to say the least. Values are to be taught in the home – not the school. These kids are young and impressionable.”

    The PTA President is shocked at the reaction;

    Eagle Bay PTA President Jennifer Maxwell says she is shocked and surprised by people’s negative reaction to the video. “I thought it was inspirational,” Maxwell said. “It was intended to inspire kids to make a difference in the community. We weren’t trying to be political.”

    Now, I don’t have a problem with the basic content of the video – all of those things that these self-absorbed, condescending Hollywood types talk about are things I’ve been doing for decades. But why all of a sudden are we supposed to do them this year?

    The Right are apoplectic that this typical self-serving crap is being shown in schools. And, to a point I agree with them – but only because the Left would have been just as apoplectic if the exact same slick personality cult crap would have appeared on television last year with George W. Bush as the person we’re supposed to honor with our pledge to be better people. Of course, George Bush would never let this stuff fly related to his visage.

    It’s garbage like this that makes the Far Right’s irrational fears seem less irrational. The video accomplishes nothing except drive a wedge between people – it amounts to gloating over the election. Like that 52 to 48 drivel.

    And showing it in school? In Utah? Stupid, stupid, stupid. I’m trying to hold a moderate line here, Barrack – you’re not making it easy.

  • George Will is wrong, wrong, wrong

    Last night, I wrote briefly about the impending George Will column in the Washington Post in which Will says we should withdraw from Afghanistan. I have nothing against George Will – in fact he and I had a nice short chat one night at the National Press Club several years back and I found him to be an affable and brilliant fellow. But, this is way out of his lane, as Uncle Jimbo wrote last night.

    Will wrote;

    So, instead, forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.

    Oh, Pakistan matters because it has nukes? How very Cold Warrior of you, George. Afghanistan sure mattered in September 2001, didn’t it?

    That’s typical inside-the-Beltway drivel. The best way to get some political cover is to send in some SpecOps guys occasionally to score cheap and meaningless victories against a burgeoning threat just to get the ruling party through the next election. It’s reminiscent of the Clinton aspirin factory/Bedouin tent attacks of the late 90s. Big flashy explosions that shifted little mounds of sand around the desert.

    We’re dealing with an enemy that declares a victory every time one of them successfully farts without getting a Hellfire shot up his bum. Our withdrawal from Somalia is what precipitated this war on terror – pulling our forces “off-shore” (anyone who saw a shore in Afghanistan, please tell us about it) will only embolden those stone age cretins and encourage even more attacks against our interests.

    How many times during the Bush years did we suffer the slings and arrows from the Left about how we didn’t fix Afghanistan in 1988 – now twenty years later, they’re ready to follow the same strategy. And George Will is giving them the political cover to set us up for the next attack as well as rebuild support with Democrats’ far Left constituents just as they are beginning to oppose Obama. Good one, George.

  • Anti-war crowd starving for attention

    cindysheehanpressweb
    There was a New York Times article this weekend that seems to be making the Left warm in their collective crotch area. “American Antiwar Movement Plans an Autumn Campaign Against Policies on Afghanistan” is making the rounds on the anti-war blogs as some sort of clarion call.

    Anticipating a Pentagon request for more troops there, antiwar leaders have engaged in a flurry of meetings to discuss a month of demonstrations, lobbying, teach-ins and memorials in October to publicize the casualty count, raise concerns about the cost of the war and pressure Congress to demand an exit strategy.

    But they face a starkly changed political climate from just a year ago, when President George W. Bush provided a lightning rod for protests. The health care battle is consuming the resources of labor unions and other core Democratic groups.

    (more…)

  • It’s back on, baby!

    The Washington Times’ Christina Bellantoni reports that the “war on terror” is back on. Well, sort of;

    After the Obama administration banned the phrase “war on terror,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs resurrected it Monday when speaking about a expected new report about troop levels in Afghanistan.

    Asked about Mr. Gibbs’ choice of words, White House aides wouldn’t say whether it was a slip of the tongue or intentional.

    So after a few months of struggling inan overseas contingency operation, we’re back in a war on terror. I guess it can’t be because experts are worried about Afghanistan. And, oh, Ace of Spades links to a National Review report that George Will will call for troop pull out from Afghanistan.

    Obama didn’t start the war, but if he doesn’t win Afghanistan, it’ll be decades before a Democrat gets in the White House. Maybe he’ll stop playing word games, stroking the Far Left and finally get down to business.

  • What is your Major (Cook) malfunction, Birther?

    030807ermey_movie

    TSO sent me a link to an article on Military.com in which R. Lee Ermey wonders who the hell these Birthers are – more specifically, the folks in the military who refuse their orders;

    “I haven’t heard about those guys,” Ermey told Military.com during an Aug. 21 interview. “If I do run across them though, trust me, I’ll square them away.”

    Two GIs deployed to Iraq have insisted that Obama isn’t a legal citizen while another Soldier, Maj. Stefan Cook, has been waging a court fight – first in Georgia, then Florida – to force the president to produce a birth certificate that will satisfy his objections.

    Like me, Ermey claims he supports President Obama’s policy in the war against terror, but he claims he’s independent of political affiliations. Obviously, he thinks that politics have no place in the military – like me. These antics of Major Cook can only end up hurting the military in the end – no matter how it turns out.

  • What’s the use?

    You probably read Uncle Jimbo’s post at Blackfive (by way of Mrs. Greyhawk and DVIDS) about a US Navy helicopter taking fire from some Somali pirates the other day. Uncle Jimbo rightly asks why they didn’t return fire.

    Today’s Star and Stripes reports that a ground-based UAV unit is moving to the area.

    About 75 U.S. military personnel and civilians will be headed to the Seychelles islands in the coming weeks to set up the Reaper operations, which could start in October or November. U.S. Africa Command is calling the Navy-led mission Ocean Look.

    The U.S. will base the Reapers — to be used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance — at Seychelles’ Mahé regional airport, Vince Crawley, AFRICOM spokesman, said.

    Two or three months seems like a long time to set up combat operations in a region that is plagued by pirates in little motor boats. The most disturbing part of the article is this line;

    The UAVs would not be armed.

    Then what’s the point? As Jimbo points out, we’re already not willing to let live people shoot at the thugs, so why bother launching more aircarft from which we won’t kill them? We already know that the Left has complained that this type of weaponry that doesn’t get our own troops killed on the grounds that it’s inhumane. Is this more of the Obama Administration pretending to do something about the threats to peace in that region without actually doing what needs to be done?

  • WaPo warns of tax hikes

    Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post demonstrates her keen eye for the obvious this morning as she warns that tax hikes are on their way;

    During last year’s campaign, President Obama vowed to enact a bold agenda without raising taxes for the middle class, a pledge budget experts viewed with skepticism. Since then, a severe recession, massive deficits and a national debt that is swelling toward a 50-year high have only made his promise harder to keep.

    The Obama administration has insisted that the pledge will stand. But the president’s top economic advisers have refused to rule out broad-based tax increases to close the yawning gap between federal revenue and government spending and are warning of tough choices ahead.

    Of course, it’s Bush’s fault, and although Republicans warned during the campaign that Obama couldn’t keep his myriad of patronage purchasing promises without raising taxes, Montgomery writes that Republicans are “already on the attack”. Um, most of Republicans have been on the attack since the campaign. Why do you think Republicans, with the exception of a spineless few, have generally opposed Obama’s budget-busting “stimulous” packages and oppose the healthcare proposal?

    Democrats say Obama is highly unlikely to break the pledge before next year’s congressional election and observe that it would be safer to wait until his second term if a tax increase becomes unavoidable.

    Of course, Montgomery includes that line to demonstrate the Democrats’ political adeptness at fooling voters just one more time. But, most voters know that tax hikes are coming, it doesn’t matter when. We know Democrats won’t make the politically tough decisions – like cut spending – we all know that they’re so good at raising taxes.

    But poor Obama is a victim of the Bush boom;

    Obama not only faces the fallout from the worst economic downturn in 30 years, but also inherited the debt piled up by his predecessor, Republican George W. Bush. Bush invaded Iraq and approved an expensive new prescription drug benefit for the elderly while pushing through one of the biggest tax cuts of the post-war era — worth an estimated $1.6 trillion in foregone revenue by the time the provisions expire next year.

    So the Washington Post, obviously, is wishing that Saddam Hussein was still in Iraq instead of under Iraq and the Washington Post wishes seniors would pay more for their drugs. And I guess the Washington Post wasn’t elated that they kept more of their money during the Bush boom.

  • Is Panetta out?

    I first read of the rumor that CIA chief Leon Panetta offered his resignation on Wednesday at Ace of Spades. The White House denies those reports, however. Fox News wrote that ABC News reported a shouting match in the White House;

    ABCNews.com on Monday cited reports that Panetta, frustrated by several administration actions and discussions with regard to the CIA, got in a “profanity-laced screaming match” with a senior staff member last month and has also threatened to leave. Panetta reportedly was upset over potential plans to open an investigation into alleged CIA abuse of terror suspects.

    Kimberly Strassel at the Wall Street Journal writes this morning that Panetta is the White House’s fall guy for their erratic policy on torture and the CIA agents who followed their orders;

    If the latest flap over CIA interrogations shows anything, it’s that Mr. Panetta has officially become the president’s designated fall guy.

    The title has been months in the making. Mr. Obama is contending with an angry left that’s riled by his decisions to retain some Bush-era counterterrorism policies. He’s facing Congressional liberals still baying for Bush blood. He’s hired Attorney General Eric Holder, who is giving the term “ideological purity” new meaning. Mr. Obama’s way to appease these bodies? Hang the CIA and Mr. Panetta out to dry.

    Actually, it explains Obama’s odd choice of Panetta for the office of CIA Director in the first place. Putting the highly-partisan Eric Holder in the Justice Department and a politician like Panetta at the CIA guaranteed Obama a shot at distracting us from his domestic agenda while the obamistas pursued the Bush Administration’s policies. Who knew that Panetta would take his job seriously?

    Yesterday, Ace reported that the Wall Street Journal quoted the CIA’s IG report that Pelosi did indeed know about interrogation techniques that the CIA employed. So I guess the Obama Administration will eventually have to rid themselves of Panetta since they don’t need him to pass their domestic agenda.

    In the Washington Post this morning, Obama advisers tell the Post that it’s impossible for the President to move forward without looking backward;

    “I think he is determined to make sure we are on the right course going ahead, but you cannot just ignore the past, especially when Congress is doing its inquiries and reviews and we’re going to be facing these issues as a result of court cases, as a result of congressional actions,” [John O. Brennan, an assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism] said. “I think he is making sure that he makes the best decisions, and sometimes you cannot just wipe the slate clean. You have to deal with what the facts are, or you have to actually try to make sure you can ascertain the facts — as opposed to the hyperbole that is out there.”

    Yeah, like we able to deal with the facts from the 9-11 Commission in regards to the Clinton legacy as it related to the September 11th attacks. Remember how Jaime Gorelick was able to block an effective examination of those facts?