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

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • Sequester lies

    Yesterday, the president surrounded himself with first responders while he lectured the American people on the impending spending cuts in the government known as “sequester”. from the Washington Examiner;

    “Emergency responders like the ones who are here today — their ability to help communities respond to and recover from disasters will be degraded,” he said. “Border Patrol agents will see their hours reduced. FBI agents will be furloughed. Federal prosecutors will have to close cases and let criminals go. Air traffic controllers and airport security will see cutbacks, which means more delays at airports across the country. Thousands of teachers and educators will be laid off. Tens of thousands of parents will have to scramble to find child care for their kids. Hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose access to primary care and preventive care like flu vaccinations and cancer screenings.”

    Since when are teachers, child care providers, doctors and nurses, police and fire fighters federal employees? Those services are paid for with local taxes, not federal funds. Of course, that’s the kind of scare tactics to which we’ve become accustomed over the last few decades. I noticed that the President didn’t bother to mention that the whole sequester thing was one of those bright ideas which came out of his White House, yet somehow it’s Congress’ fault.

    The Defense Department is staring down the barrel of 700,000 job losses 495,000 of those jobs are in the DC area, which might be uncomfortable for the White House. The Washington Post says that the sequester might result in a quarter-point jump in the unemployment rate.

    Of course, it’s all because the Administration is holding out for higher taxes instead of meaningful spending cuts. And, oh, yeah, they think that they can depend on savings from withdrawal from Afghanistan for spending reductions. You know like that savings we were supposed to have from the withdrawal from Iraq – no one is talking about that magical surplus which never materialized.

    Congress isn’t ready to raise taxes again, so Obama is stuck playing the blame game. From the Washington Times;

    GOP House Speaker John A. Boehner said Tuesday the House has twice passed a plan to replace the so-called sequester with “common sense cuts,” but Mr. Obama has so far been unwilling to find enough savings from overhauling Medicare and Social Security. The president, he said, is relying too heavily on plans to increase taxes again.

    “Just last month, the president got his higher taxes on the wealthy, and he’s already back for more,” Ohio’s Mr. Boehner said in a statement. The Democrats’ “new-found concern about the president’s sequester is appreciated, but words alone won’t avert it.”

    Also from the Times, sequester is forcing defense contractor to send jobs overseas;

    First Line Technologies of Chantilly, Va., makes cooling vests for troops to wear underneath their body armor and employs about a dozen people. Having experienced rapid growth last year, it was readying to hire about a dozen more workers before the uncertainty over sequestration developed, company President Amit Kapoor said.

    Now, First Line Technologies is looking to market its products overseas and will hire employees abroad. Its strategy is to move quickly into overseas markets to avoid layoffs or having to close.

    We still have 47 months of this shit ahead.

  • 6 votes for Obama

    Fox News reports that one woman, Melowese Richardson, in Cincinnati may have voted six times and she’s one of 19 people being investigated, but don’t worry, she says while admitting the six votes, that she did so without meaning to defraud anyone;

    Richardson claimed she had submitted an absentee ballot, but was afraid her vote would not count so she also voted in person. She also said she voted in the name of her granddaughter and yet another person.

    “There was absolutely no intent on my part to commit any voter fraud,” she insisted.

    So she was worried that her vote wouldn’t count so she made sure that five other people’s votes didn’t count, either. Nice.

    “I’ll fight it for Mr. Obama and for Mr. Obama’s right to sit as president of the United States,” Richardson vowed when asked about the voter fraud investigation that is now under way.

    So, Obama’s right to be president (looking for that right in the Bill of Rights now) supersedes the right of the rest of us to have a vote. Ok, thanks, Melowese.

  • Downsizing Defense with a Trojan Elephant

    Can anyone seriously doubt that when we have an anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, Euro-socialist president serving as the commander-in-chief of our armed forces, that America’s military, as currently constituted, is in serious trouble? While fundamentally changing America’s economy to follow the downward trajectory of those various but failing socialist experiments collectively known as the European Union, do you suppose it hasn’t occurred to the nomenklatura of the Obama regime that those countries have downsized their military forces to help fund their workers’ paradises? The biggest, Britain, France and Germany, have significantly reduced their forces since embarking on their socialist paths.

    The shrinking of those formerly powerful militaries is the major reason for America’s being policeman to the world. Consider for a moment that our current president doesn’t even want to police our borders, much less the world. Why then, if he wants to emulate Europe economically, would he not duplicate their military policies and shrink our standing forces leaving the world’s policeman role to some other country, one with a growing economy and military, say China for instance?

    Beginning with the Bolsheviks, the Left has always realized that many of their goals are not palatable to the ordinary folks, so deception and manipulation are necessary to implement their policies. Blaming your own misdeeds on the political opposition is a proven tactic and made infinitely easier with a gullible and compliant media eager to do precisely that. As Sequestration, with its huge military budget cuts, looms, Obama and the Democrats, aided by the media, are trying to convince Americans that evil, intransigent Republicans are entirely responsible for whatever hardships befall our armed forces. When you have the New York Times giving you cover, it becomes much easier to carry out your blatant deceptions right under the collective nose of the American people.

    Speaking at the Brookings Institution, Army Chief of Staff, General Ray Odierno, has outlined what is in store for our Army; from Army Times:

    Odierno told Congress earlier this week that sequestration might force the Army to cull another 100,000 troops from its ranks. Speaking at Brookings he went further, estimating that beginning with the 80,000 already scheduled, “in the end, it’ll be over 200,000 soldiers that we will have to take out of the active duty component National Guard and Army Reserve” if sequestration is implemented for the long term.

    “We’ll take almost a 40 percent reduction in our brigade combat teams once we’re finished,” he cautioned.

    When looking at the Army’s bottom line, Odierno said that if the fiscal 2014 budget is implemented without sequestration, the Army will have taken a 45 percent reduction in its budget since 2008, a number that rises to over 50 percent with sequestration.

    And that’s just the Army; the other branches are to get hammered as well. Those are reductions of European proportions, exactly what the left wing of the Democrat party has long sought. So what better way to accomplish all this than put a useful idiot Republican in charge of the Defense Department to preside over the debacle? Is there any other possible reason why such a totally partisan president as Obama would pick a totally unqualified, former Republican senator with absolutely no large institution executive experience, like Chuck Hagel, other than the fact he will make an excellent scapegoat when at some future date America finally wakes up and realizes she’s been neutered? If you were truly concerned with America maintaining her military readiness during a downsizing of such huge proportions, wouldn’t you want the best executive you could find, perhaps someone with experience in such reductions in force? Wouldn’t strong managerial skills be the pre-eminent qualifier for the job? Aren’t there plenty of Democrats out there with the requisite credentials, far better qualifications than the current nominee? Yet Obama insists on Hagel? Shouldn’t alarm bells be going off all over Washington as to why?

    It is for that reason Senate Republicans should be opposed to Hagel, not the content of his past speeches in which he expressed views inimical to Israel or favorable to Iran. Obama and Harry Reid are trying to roll a huge Trojan elephant right through the doors of the Pentagon to tear down the walls of our national defense from the inside, and our team is focused on the usual political nit-picking. Don’t misunderstand me, Hagel’s positions on Israel and Iran, as well as getting at the truth of Benghazi, are important, but they are nothing compared to the damage Hagel will do as Obama’s inside-the-Pentagon hatchet man.

    Can’t you just picture what’s coming? Suppose Israel is attacked by enemies emboldened by America’s military weakness and lack of commitment to our long-time ally? And we’re caught totally unprepared to respond. Who’s going to be the fall guy do you think? Even if that catastrophe never occurs, every time Republicans and conservatives complain about another announced military reduction, the media will provide the true culprits, Obama and the Democrats, cover by pointing out that the SECDEF, who recommended the cut, just happens to be a Republican.

    But you can bet the farm they’ll never acknowledge that he’s a deliberately planted Trojan Elephant.

  • Defense cuts may extend combat tours

    Fox News reports that Army chief of Staff Ray Odierno announced that troops may have their combat tours to Afghanistan extended next year so that the Defense Department can save some money;

    “We will try to divert money so we do not have to extend people in Afghanistan,” Odierno told a conference at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “That’s a very big concern of mine.”

    He said that right now the Army is facing a shortfall of as much as $8 billion in operating funds for Afghanistan, and there could be an additional $5.4 billion in cuts if Congress can’t resolve a budget standoff and automatic reductions — called sequester — go into effect.

    Yeah, that whole “we won’t balance the budget on the backs of veterans” thing is looking more like complete bullshit everyday. Maybe they’ll come up with a shiny new medal for folks who were screwed because our government can’t balance the budget.

  • Chuckling Contentedly, Deep in the Heart of Texas

    When Rick Perry flubbed his presidential chances so badly on the national stage, there were many among his supporters who were bewildered at his seeming inability to transfer his many successes in Texas to the national stage. Although just as frustrated as those folks were, some of us were not quite as baffled because there was a suspicion within us that Rick Perry simply didn’t want the job nor the heat and heartbreak it entails. There was a sense that Perry was simply contented with being the popular and longest serving governor of the world’s 14th or so largest economy. He was a big frog in a big luxuriant pond who didn’t really see any advantage to becoming a bigger frog in the admittedly larger, but stagnating swamp the first four years of Obama’s reign had produced.

    If Perry did indeed self-destruct it was probably not consciously; but there’s an inescapable feeling that he certainly did not give it his best shot. He had to well know how contentious national governance had been for the last Texan president, George W. Bush, with such an unrelentingly hostile media, and that his own occupation of that office couldn’t really offer a future any sensible politician would eagerly embrace. Especially when he could just go back to Texas and bask in the role of being the popular, down-home, chief executive of one of the world’s most successful economies. Ask yourself, given that choice, what would you do?

    So here we are many months down the road and Barack Obama is saddled with all the problems of an idling economy, a steadily rising China, a crumbling Middle East situation and a renascent Al Qaeda on the African continent, and where do we find Rick Perry? How about touring taxed-to-damned-near-dead California businesses, touting the hugely friendlier and vastly more favorable business environment in his flourishing Lone Star state than in Guv Moonbeam’s headed-for-default disaster which lamely still calls itself golden?

    Similar enticing offers are being made to the many huge economic engines in New York and Illinois with the tempting message that not only will you be taxed far less in Texas, you’ll have legal protections against frivolous lawsuits and when you invest your hard-earned profits in your business, your home and your family, you can protect them with all the firearms you choose to have at hand because Texans damned well believe in the inalienable 2d Amendment right of defense of self, loved ones and property.

    So you tell me who’s having more fun: a supremely confident Rick Perry who knows how to govern, out there in California gathering even more low-hanging fruit for an already flourishing Texas economy or that desperate amateur in the White House who’s spinning his wheels in an office he’s clueless to occupy? Perry’s walking the walk, adding jobs by the thousands while the guy who won the big contest is still just talking the campaign talk about doing something. Look at their respective pics: the loser Rick, the older of the two, has a little grey around the temples, unchanged from the campaign, while the victor is going big-time grey from forehead to neck nape and from one huge ear to the other. Somehow I think I can hear Rick Perry chuckling contentedly, deep in the heart of Texas.

    And probably in his jaunts up and down the Left Coast as well.

    Crossposted at American Thinker

  • A Case of Real Military Injustice

    ABC, one of the of the usually lame-stream media networks, has a real story about denied military benefits that all the media should be following instead of the fabricated Esquire article that has garnered so much attention. Amazingly, ABC is actually reporting on the inability of the victims of the Fort Hood shooting to obtain needed medical care because of political games being played by the Obama administration.

    It seems that the White House’s insistence that the attack by Major Nidal Hasan was not a terrorist attack but rather an incident of workplace violence is creating bureaucratic difficulties for the victims of the shooting and their families. One of the two Fort Hood police officers who confronted Hasan, former Sgt. Kimberley Munley, who was seated next to FLOTUS for Obama’s SOTU three years ago, is mincing no words in an ABC interview. She says Obama broke his promise to see that the victims would be well cared for.

    “Betrayed is a good word,” former Sgt. Munley told ABC News in a tearful interview to be broadcast tonight on “World News with Diane Sawyer” and “Nightline.”

    “Not to the least little bit have the victims been taken care of,” she said. “In fact they’ve been neglected.”

    According to the report, even in the face of evidence that Hasan was communicating with the now droned dead terrorist leader, Anwar al Awlaki, who encouraged Hasan to carry out his mission of Jihad, the government’s word games have had very serious consequences, so serious that Munley and dozens of others have filed suit. They claim that because of that workplace violence designation they are not receiving the care they would be were the attack properly identified as what it was, a terrorist attack. Because of political semantics, they claim they are being denied combat-related care and benefits they would be entitled to were the shooting properly classified.

    One of the victims, who was shot six times and still has two bullets lodged in his body says:

    “These guys play stupid every time they’re asked a question about it, they pretend like they have no clue.”

    “It was no different than an insurgent in Iraq or Afghanistan trying to kill us,”

    Manning’s injuries were initially ruled combat related by a medical review board but that was overturned by Army brass higher up in the command structure, Manning says that has cost him $70,000 in lost benefits.

    To get the full effect of how this administration’s politically-correct insistence on denying the obvious go read the full article at ABC News website. Whereas the dubious Esquire story is being roundly denounced by military personnel, their response to this blatantly unfair treatment will likely be much more supportive and be readily seen as political interference originating at the very top of the chain of command.

    Crossposted at American Thinker

  • Bite Me depending on “legitimate media” for gun control

    The Washington Examiner reports that Vice President Joe Bite Me told the “legitimate media” that he’s depending on them to dissuade the American public from believing that this administration is going to take our guns from us;

    “To be very blunt with you, we’re counting on all of you, the legitimate news media to cover these discussions because the truth is that times have changed,” Biden added, warning that people would continue to “misrepresent” the White House’s plans for gun control.

    “The social media that exists out there, the tragedies that have occurred, the Supreme Court decision affirming that its an individual right to bear arms – all give a lie to the argument that what we’re trying to do is somehow unconstitutional, or somehow goes after the legitimate right to own and bear arms and to hunt and protect yourselves,” Biden added.

    Yeah, the same legitimate media who doesn’t know the difference between clips and magazines, the same media that warns us about grenade launching sling swivels. The same media that wrings their hands for days about the “rocket propelled grenade launchers” being bought by the LAPD in gun buy back programs. The same media that doesn’t know the difference between semi-automatic weapons and fully-automatic weapons. The same media that doesn’t report on the folks who save their families and homes from criminals with firearms nearly every day in America. The same media that calls Glocks a “plastic gun” and still thinks that it can pass through TSA’s magnetometers.

    If that’s the “legitimate media” I’ll stay out here in this empty field as a blogger, thank you.

    Thanks to UpNorth for the link.

  • Pelosi; no spending problem

    Pelosi no problem

    I agree with Nancy, the folks in DC seem to have no problem spending our money. I don’t know what gave anyone the impression that they did. Well, other than the fact that they’re running out of our money and they need raise taxes in order to ease their craving;

    “We have to recognize that, which cuts really help us and which cuts hurt our future? And cuts in education, scientific research and the rest are harmful, and they are what are affected by the sequestration,” she said on “Fox News Sunday.” “So, it is almost a false argument to say we have a spending problem. We have a budget deficit problem that we have to address.”

    See, that’s what a “budget deficit problem” means – they’re going to raise our taxes, because you know, after Jimmy Carter created the Education Department, our children are fricken geniuses, so no cuts there – and since he created the Energy Department, we’ve weaned ourselves off of foreign oil and gas is so much cheaper now than it was then, so where can we cut there? So the only thing we can do is raise taxes because, aside from the Defense Department, there’s really nothing else we can do balance the budget. No. Really.

    And John McCain fully supports raising taxes. See? That’s why I didn’t want to raise taxes on the rich – it’s like chum in the water for Congress.