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

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • Buying the veteran vote

    Everybody is slobbering all over themselves because President Obama has finally kept two campaign promises to veterans. You can just hear the lust in Paul Reickhoff’s words as he praises the President for his new plan veteran health care in the Huffington Post this morning;

    Today, President Obama has taken action on two key campaign promises to America’s veterans–and two of IAVA’s top legislative priorities for 2009. Advance funding VA healthcare and an overhaul of military and VA recordkeeping will eliminate two of the most significant bureaucratic hurdles that keep veterans from the healthcare and benefits they have earned. Veterans nationwide applaud the Administration for making veterans and their families a priority. And we look forward to continuing to work together on the many other issues facing today’s veterans, including psychological injuries, unemployment and homelessness.

    In the comments section of that article, a HuffPo reader reminds Reickhoff that Obama had to be dragged kicking and screaming into caring for veterans with this link to our post last month. Initially, the administration had planned on funding our health care on the backs of veterans and their insurance companies. But then they discovered how big of a voice veterans have in this country.

    Yesterday, Mr. Wolf from Blackfive emailed me this CNN link about how an “overtired” staffer accidentally forwarded an email discussion about the president’s schedule to the media.

    The last line that CNN quotes is pretty telling;

    In another exchange, one staffer recommended nixing a line about Obama meeting with leaders from the Veterans Service Organizations and Military Service Organizations since the president was now meeting with them before his remarks in an event closed to the media.

    “Can we keep it and just change it to say before. Its good for us to say we are meeting with them,” another replied.

    In other words; “Let’s fool them into thinking we care about veterans”.

    Michelle Malkin picked it up and said this about it;

    “It’s good for us to say we are meeting with them.”

    If this were Bush, of course, the media would pound his administration for cynically exploiting a meeting with veterans for political expediency.

    But since it’s Obama, he’s just “achieving another moment.”

    Actually, it much worse than that – Obama is buying veterans’ votes. If Obama really cared about veteran health, he wouldn’t let us fall behind in the military technology race by cutting weapons programs like he is planning to do with the defense budget. And he certainly wouldn’t have been so adamant about billing service-connected treatment to veterans’ insurance companies.

    Yeah, the HuffPoians are writing over there that Obama only “floated” the idea, but that’s not the way the story goes.

    Emanuel and Obama told the VSO reps that they wouldn’t budge on it – until they heard your voices. And when the Administration finally capitulated, Obama wasn’t even in the room – he sent in Emanuel to tell the VSO reps that the proposal was to be withdrawn. I guess he didn’t have the guts to admit he was wrong and tried to screw veterans to the wall.

    Don’t get me wrong, I applaud Obama’s support for veterans, but I’m not going to be sucked in. There’s another shoe to drop, and I’m just waiting for it.

    ADDED: Pat Dollard is on to IAVA, too, and finds Soros money.

  • Odierno: we may ignore deadline

    OK, who didn’t see it coming that as we approach the artificial deadline to withdraw combat troops from Iraq, violence increases, al Sadr gets antsy and al Qaeda gets a bit stronger (UK Times link);

    The activities of al-Qaeda in two of Iraq’s most troubled cities could keep US combat troops engaged beyond the June 30 deadline for their withdrawal, the top US commander in the country has warned.

    US troop numbers in Mosul and Baqubah, in the north of the country, could rise rather than fall over the next year if necessary, General Ray Odierno told The Times in his first interview with a British newspaper since taking over from General David Petraeus in September.

    He said that a joint assessment would be conducted with the Iraqi authorities in the coming weeks before a decision is made.

    The US commander was confident that the overall timetable for the US pullout would be met. But he added that US combat troops might have to stay beyond June 30 in Mosul and Baqubah, where al-Qaeda retains an active presence. “The two areas I am concerned with are Mosul and then Baqubah and [other] parts of Diyala province,” he said. “We will conduct assessments and provide our assessments when the time is right.”

    I know the left will be apoplectic and see a conspiracy against Obama by General Odierno. In fact, according to Fox News they’re already upset that Obama is asking for $83.4 billion in new spending for Iraq and Afghanistan;

    “This funding will do two things — it will prolong our occupation of Iraq through at least the end of 2011, and it will deepen and expand our military presence in Afghanistan indefinitely,” said anti-war Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif. “Instead of attempting to find military solutions to the problems we face in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Obama must fundamentally change the mission in both countries to focus on promoting reconciliation, economic development, humanitarian aid, and regional diplomatic efforts.”

    They never learn, do they? The Democrats are more interested in ending the war than in winning the war. Politics before security.

  • Biden; serial liar

    Apparently, Biden has been caught in another lie about his derring-do in facing down the evil emporer, George W. Bush according to Fox News;

    “I remember President Bush saying to me one time in the Oval Office,” Biden told CNN, “‘Well, Joe,’ he said, ‘I’m a leader.’ And I said: ‘Mr. President, turn and around look behind you. No one is following.’”

    But according to Bush aides, the scene never happened;

    “I never recall Biden saying any of that,” former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said after reviewing detailed notes of Bush’s White House meetings with Biden, which include numerous direct quotes from Biden. “I find it odd that he said he met with him alone all the time. I don’t think that’s true.”
    […]
    “I remember checking on such a Biden exaggeration while at the White House and no one witnessed the meeting and his comments in remotely the same way,” [Karl] Rove said.
    […]
    “The president would never sit through two hours of Joe Biden,” [Candida P. Wolff, Bush’s White House liaison to Capitol Hill] said. “I don’t ever remember Biden being in the Oval. He was such a blowhard on all that stuff – there wasn’t a reason to bring him in.”

    Yeah, when you put like Ms. Wolff did, I guess it’s easier to believe that no one could stand two hours of Joe Biden’s braggadocio. But that doesn’t stop the Biden team from popping smoke;

    Biden spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify the dates of his boss’s purported Oval Office scoldings of Bush. Nor would he provide witnesses or notes to corroborate the episodes.

    “The vice president stands by his remarks,” Carney told FOX News without elaboration.

    Cuz I said so.

  • Obama the apologizer

    French Prime Minister Sarkozy is tripping over his skirt trying to get close to Obama – and it’s generally the same with most of the leaders of Old Europe. They smell money. Old Europe remembers how Bill Clinton came crawling on his knees with bags of money in each hand, begging forgiveness for being a responsible nation and bailing Old Europe out of every jam they created for themselves. Jon Ward at The Washington Times notices that Obama tries out role as apologizer-in-chief.

    Mr. Obama’s just-concluded eight-day trip abroad, his first major international foray, also marked the debut of a more humble foreign-policy style, one that sought to use cultural concessions and admissions of past mistakes to disarm other countries before challenging their own policies and attitudes toward America.

    Repeatedly on a trip that included stops across Europe and in Iraq, Mr. Obama tried to pre-empt criticism of the United States by expressing it first himself – a sharp break from the practice of President George W. Bush.

    Mr. Obama told Europeans that “America has shown arrogance” toward their continent, conceded that the United States bears much of the blame for the world’s economic plight, and said in a speech broadcast throughout the Middle East that America is still dealing with its “darker” legacies of discrimination and mistreatment of minorities.

    More of the strategy that Obama intends to follow – that strategy is just doing the opposite of George Bush no matter how ridiculous and childish it seems. Why else would pirates wait to seize and American-flagged vessel and crew until we had a president that would apologize to them for interrupting their nefarious plans? Why else would North Korea fire a missile over Japan just now (and threaten Japan for the Japanese search for the Nork rocket’s booster stage)? Because Obama will let them get away with whatever they want to do and then he’ll apologize for things we haven’t done.

    I expected while visiting Germany, he’d apologize for World War II.

  • Obama Administration’s PUSS-E

    Rurik forwarded this picture of the Army’s newest vehicle;

    I’d hate to hear those troops complain if they get sand in their PUSS-E.

    UPDATE: Whoops. Looks like it came from Moonbattery. But at least no one thought of the sand thing yet.

  • Defense budget fight begins

    The Stars and Stripes reports this morning that the arrival of the 2010 defense budget has triggered a battle that the Obama Administration may not have anticipated;

    Virginia Democratic Sen. Jim Webb expressed deep concerns about reductions in Navy shipbuilding. Another group of senators lead by Alaska Democrat Mark Begich sent a letter criticizing proposed cuts in missile defense.

    House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member John McHugh of New York called the budget cuts too drastic for a nation still fighting overseas. Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma called it a plan to “disarm America,” adding “never before has a president so ravaged the military at a time of war.”

    Even supportive lawmakers, who praised Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the White House for making tough fiscal decisions to rein in military spending, emphasized that now they’ll be the ones to determine which programs actually need to be funded.

    Yeah, seein’s how the world has become more dangerous in the last few months and Obama has decided we’re going to kiss everyone’s ass instead of kicking them in the ass, the least he could do is make sure we can still kick their ass four years from now. Think we’ll get help from Republicans in the Senate? I wouldn’t count on it;

    Gates and President Barack Obama may have an unlikely ally in their effort to convince Congress to uphold the cuts: Sen. John McCain.

    The unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate, still the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Monday’s budget plan “a major step in the right direction” and said he strongly supports the decision to restructure the way major defense programs are handled.

    Yeah, we’ll cut future weapons system development and cut personnel costs in defense while adding billions to the coffers of ACORN with the money we save on essential defensive measures and that’s a step in the right direction? Thanks, McCain – keep that in mind when you wonder why you got beat in 2000 and 2008.

    Added: Great opinion piece at Wall Street Journal on the subject.

  • Iran agrees with Obama’s no-nukes policy

    On Sunday, President Obama announced plans to unilaterally disarm our nuclear arsenal. He’ll be pleased to know that his cohorts in Iran think we should disarm, too. (Reuters link)

    “We, like the rest of the world community, are awaiting a world free of nuclear arms,” [Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan] Qashqavi said.

    “Our expectation from the U.S. and others is to take serious and practical measures toward nuclear disarmament and dismantling of weapons of mass destruction,” he said.

    I guess they figure that Iran will finally get their nuclear arsenal at about the time we dismantle ours. Wouldn’t that be convenient for them? And they finally have an American president that can accommodate them. And of course, Eugene Robinson, Washington Post‘s resident Obama apostle, can’t understand why anyone would criticize Obama for being so naive;

    In 1968, the United States was one of the first nations to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — the landmark agreement that has been used, with great success, to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. When the NPT went into force, there were five nuclear powers — the U.S., Britain, France, China and the Soviet Union (now Russia). In the four decades since, the world has added four more — India, Pakistan, Israel (not officially, but that’s the consensus) and North Korea, although the Hermit Kingdom’s damp-squib test weapon and its wobbly ballistic missile make me think that Kim Jong-Il’s nuclear program is more of a threat to Pyongyang than to Portland.

    That’s typical of Robinson’s not-so-veiled racism. So what if North Korea can only blow up yellow people? As long as Obama rids this side of the world of nukes, that’s all that matters. That’s probably why Robinson isn’t too worried about Iran either – they’ll only blow up Jews.

    Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post takes the opposite tack on the same page;

    Which is all very nice — but as the central plank in an American president’s foreign policy, a call for universal nuclear disarmament seems rather beside the point. Apparently, Obama’s intention is to lead by example: If the United States cuts its own nuclear arsenal and bans testing, then, allegedly, others will follow.

    Yet there is no evidence that U.S. nuclear arms reductions have ever inspired others to do the same. All of the world’s more recent nuclear powers — Israel, India, Pakistan — acquired their weapons well after such talks began, more than 40 years ago.

    Using the same data and history two people arrive at different conclusions. That only leaves one factor – Robinson longs for the day that Barack Obama will fart in his general direction so Gene can partake in the olfactory joy of The One. And it doesn’t bother Robinson, or Obama, for that matter, that they agree with the Islamic Republic.

    Here’s the thing that Obama and Robinson don’t understand; as long as we’ve had the nuclear capability to retaliate against any nation which decides to use nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons haven’t been used. Why would we want to change that balance? It’s naive and demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the history of nuclear deterrence.

  • The cold slap of reality

    After our president called for a strong response from the United Nations in reaction to North Korea’s missile launch yesterday, the UN ponders what it can possibly do to punish North Korea (The Washington Times link);

    North Korea’s rocket launch left the U.N. Security Council with few options for punishing the defiant nation at an emergency session Sunday, despite calls for a “strong” response by President Obama and others.

    The session ended after more than three hours with no immediate action other than an agreement to continue consultations.

    Yeah, I asked yesterday what they could possibly embargo besides dust and the wind. Today the UN has come to the same realization. Of course, our president wasn’t much helpful – he called for our unilateral disarmament. That’ll teach North Korea, won’t it? (Fox News);

    Declaring the future of mankind at stake, President Obama on Sunday said all nations must strive to rid the world of nuclear arms and that the U.S. had a “moral responsibility” to lead because no other country has used one.

    Again, it’s the US that’s the problem because we used a nuke twice 64 years ago. It’s our fault. Anyone alive that had anything to do with that decision? Nope – but it’s our fault. We should have let the Germans or Japanese get the bomb first and the president wouldn’t be burdened with that guilt. Maybe we ought to give North Korea one free shot at us to set the score right.

    Of course, that’s entirely possible (Another Fox News link);

    “This kind of action only further isolates the North and the fact that the Security Council is taking a shoe up demonstrates how important it is that we deal with this matter and the need for it to be dealt with and so I would reject any characterization that the North — that this is some kind of a win for the North — it’s not,” he said.

    The United States has so far decided to rely on the U.N. Security Council to dole out an appropriate response….

    Then, for good measure, we’re going to stop staying ahead of the rest of the world in combat technology (yet another Fox News link);

    Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday recommended a broad range of budgetary cuts to high-tech weapons programs, including production of the F-22 fighter jet.
    […]
    The Army’s $160 billion Future Combat Systems modernization program would lose its armored vehicles. Plans to build a shield to defend against missile attacks by rogue states would also be scaled back.

    George Bush tried to get China, Japan and South Korea to handle this problem and they’ve done a bang-up thus far. Just like he tried to let the European nations deal with iran. Isn’t that what everyone wanted? For the US to defer to the rest of the world? And what has the rest of the world accomplished? All Obama had to do to assert himself was shoot down the Nork’s missile – how could they possibly respond? But now he’s shown the world we’re scared of a starving, pushcart nation.