TIME MAGAZINE: Sanitized For Your Protection

You learn something every day.

Hey, you know Time puts out four covers for four different areas of the word?

I didn't know that.

But they do. They have a US cover, a Europe/Middle East/Africa cover, an Asia cover, and a South Pacific cover.

Yeah I don't get how they divided the world up myself.

But anyway.

So they have four covers.

Based on the covers, one person is dominating the world's interest... but not in the whole world.

Here's a suggestion for Time: how about different covers for red states and blue states? You could have Obama or Michelle's guns on every cover in the blues and the latest diversion (e.g., Miley Cyrus) in the reds.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

EVERY SINGLE PENNY: The Obamacare Speech a Real Speaker of the House Would Give

Line in the Sand, a speech by Speaker of the House ___________________

The ill-named Affordable Care Act -- also known as Obamacare -- has been a "trainwreck" according to its very architects since day one. From the CLASS Act, to the delay of the Employer Mandate, to exempting Congress from the law, the sheer size and complexity of this partisan bill makes it virtually impossible to implement.

I and my peers, all of us, we took an oath to uphold the Constitution. And today we are going to stand by that oath and defend the Constitution of the United States.

This bill was passed in an unconstitutional fashion -- with bribes and payoffs and other skulduggery -- by a single party that temporarily held power during the 110th Congress. The bill consisted of thousands of pages and not one person was permitted to read the bill before it was voted upon.

This bill fundamentally changes the relationship of the citizen to the government.

This is an unconscionable violation of representative government. Nancy Pelosi famously told us we had to pass the bill to find out what's in it. Now we know, and it's an unconstitutional disaster.

Because a single judge bows to some unknown pressure, and changes his vote at the last minute to rewrite a bill that is clearly unconstitutional... because, unlike every other entitlement program, Democrats had no Republican support for this bill...

Because Democrats used every underhanded tactic -- bribes, payoffs and corporate reacharounds -- possible to pass a bill that not one of them read before voting upon...

Because the IRS, already caught punishing groups based upon their political and religious affiliations, will be the enforcers of Obamacare... because radical, left wing groups like La Raza and ACORN will be hired as "Obamacare Navigators" with access to their political opponents' most sensitive health care data...

Because jobs are being destroyed. Because good jobs are disappearing before our very eyes as small businesses are driven not to hire by the law. Because full-time jobs are turning to part-time jobs. Because employers are slashing benefits for spouses and other family members to adapt to a law no one read.

Because the lies that were told to sell this bill were as awful as they were brazen... Because you can't keep your policy, you can't keep your doctor, you can't keep your plan, you can't keep your insurer, and you will pay far more, not far less...

Because Democrat lobbyists and staffers are raking in million advising companies how to comply with the tens of thousands of pages of regulations that this law has spawned... Because they have built a law so complex that no one can possibly understand its effects without paying off the very people who created it!

Most of all, because the people who want Obamacare most are the very same people who have exempted themselves from the law! Obamacare waivers have been issued for Congress, staffers, unions, special interest groups...

I have a question for President Obama and the Democrats? Aren't the American people the most important special interest group Congress serves? The vast majority of Americans want a waiver from Obamacare, just like the lobbyists and the other Beltway elites.

True to my word, Republicans will not shut down the government. We have passed a continuing resolution that funds every single aspect of the federal government except for Obamacare. Every single penny.

But we are drawing a line in the sand when it comes to the trainwreck of Obamacare. We want at least a year delay in its implementation, just like Congress, just like the unions, just like the employers subject to the mandate, and just like other Democrat special interests got.

So if Democrats want to shut down the government, so be it. The House Continuing Resolution funds the entirety of the government -- every single penny -- just not the trainwreck called Obamacare, which President Obama has already defunded for his pals. The vast majority of the American people have told us over and over again: we want a waiver from Obamacare too, just like Congress got.

Call up your Representative and Senators now and tell them: we want a waiver too. Pass the House Continuing Resolution and delay Obamacare now.

STAR DRECK: EPA plans to shut down coal plants by requiring they use technology from the future that has yet to be invented

Mr. Peabody, does the Wayback Machine have a setting for the year 2030?

This past spring, EPA pulled its first attempt at a greenhouse gas emission standard for new power plants, fearing it was so draconian that it wouldn't stand up in a federal court...

The Washington Post reports that the agency is about to take a second stab at stacking the deck against new coal-fired power plants:

According to those familiar with the new EPA proposal, the agency will keep the carbon limit for large natural gas plants at 1,000 pounds but relax it slightly for smaller gas plants. The standard for coal plants will be as high as 1,300 or 1,400 pounds per megawatt hour.

However, the average coal plant emits 1,768 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour, meaning new plants will need carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology--something that is a long way from being viable. Jeffrey Holmstead, who represents coal-fired power plant owners and is a former EPA official in the President George W. Bush administration, told the Post, “As a practical matter, this means that the new proposal will still stop any new coal-fired power plants for the foreseeable future.”

The International Energy Agency doesn't expect CCS technology to be routinely used by power generators until 2030. That’s years away. In the meantime, we need to continue improving the efficiency of current coal-fired technology and continue investing in CCS research instead of writing off an abundant and economical energy source.

The only campaign promise that President Obama appears to have kept with was his 2008 pledge to make "electricity prices necessarily skyrocket".

"Under my plan of a cap and trade system, the price of electricity would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it — whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was... [t]hey will pass that money on to consumers." --Barack Obama, 1 November 2008

He can run, he can hide, he can evade, he can blame Bush and James Buchanan. But this is one campaign promise Barack Obama actually followed through with. And you. Ain't. Seen. Nothing. Yet.

"A great country finds itself held hostage to the ego of a small man"

Guest post by Daniel Pipes

The Obama administration's diplomatic acrobatics over Syria of the past three weeks prove that the president and his team are in way over their heads, amateurs in the deadly game of war and peace. (One wonders if Valerie Jarrett is making the key decisions in this instance, as in so many others.)

Lurching from self-imposed trap (the "red line" statement) to self-inflicted crisis (the need for congressional approval), the administration erodes the credibility of the U.S. government and increases the dangers facing Americans. Enemies of the United States, its allies, and modern civilization itself will take succor in this ignominious performance and grow in strength.

That Obama seems driven to defend his own honor and credibility, regardless of cost, makes this episode particularly troublesome. A great country finds itself held hostage to the ego of a small man.

In short, Americans are finally starting to see the consequences of electing and re-electing arguably the worst politician in modern times to inhabit the White House, consequences that will only become more apparent in the years ahead.


For more information, visit DanielPipes.org.

IRS-GATE REIGNITES: Left-Wing Hit-Man Lois Lerner Indicted By Her Own Spiteful Words

That's not a typo. Yes, I said "hit-man". I mean, have you seen a picture of Lerner? That's a man, man.

Sorry, that's cruel, I know. But when these despicable hacks use their power and the instrumentalities of government to target political opposition, well, it's clear they are not real Americans. In fact, they despise the American form of government. They loathe free speech. And, most of all, they will use any scheme, no matter how unlawful, to retain their white-knuckled grip on power.

Congress's investigation into the IRS targeting of conservatives has been continuing out of the Syria headlines... [and the latest revelations] raise doubts about IRS claims that the targeting wasn't politically motivated and that low-level employees in Cincinnati masterminded the operation.

In a February 2011 email, Ms. Lerner advised her staff—including then Exempt Organizations Technical Manager Michael Seto and then Rulings and Agreements director Holly Paz—that a Tea Party matter is "very dangerous," and is something "Counsel and [Lerner adviser] Judy Kindell need to be in on." Ms. Lerner adds, "Cincy should probably NOT have these cases."

...Earlier this summer, IRS lawyer Carter Hull, who oversaw the review of many Tea Party cases and questionnaires, testified that his oversight began in April 2010. Tea party cases under review are "being supervised by Chip Hull at each step," Ms. Paz wrote to Ms. Lerner in a February 2011 email. "He reviews info from TPs, correspondence to TPs etc. No decisions are going out of Cincy until we go all the way through the process with the c3 and c4 cases here." TP stands for Tea Party, and she means 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofit groups.

The emails also put the targeting in the context of the media and Congressional drumbeat over the impact of conservative campaign spending on the 2012 elections. On July 10, 2012 then Lerner-adviser Sharon Light emailed Ms. Lerner a National Public Radio story on how outside money was making it hard for Democrats to hold their Senate majority.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had complained to the Federal Election Commission that conservative groups like Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity should be treated as political committees, rather than 501(c)(4)s, which are tax-exempt social welfare groups that do not have to disclose their donors.

"Perhaps the FEC will save the day," Ms. Lerner wrote back later that morning.

That response suggests Ms. Lerner's political leanings, and it also raises questions about Ms. Lerner's intentions in a separate email exchange she had when an FEC investigator inquired about the status of the conservative group the American Future Fund. The FEC and IRS don't have the authority to share that information under section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code...

Ms. Lerner famously invoked her right against self-incrimination rather than testify under oath to Congress. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee reported this summer that its investigation had found Ms. Lerner had sent official IRS documents to her personal email account, and many questions remain unanswered. Democrats want to pretend the IRS scandal is over, but Ms. Lerner's role deserves much more exposure.

Lerner is a disgrace. If we had effective leaders in the House, she'd be serving time in Leavenworth, knitting sweaters for "Big Wanda".


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

AWESOME: Colorado Voters Abort Democrat State Legislators Who Sided With Rapists Over Victims

Guest post by Investors Business Daily


Rights: Colorado voters on Tuesday ousted two leading supporters of stricter gun control laws, saying "ready, aim, fired" to those who would deny movie patrons and college women the right to armed self-defense.

One would think that Colorado, the site of the tragedies at Columbine and the Aurora movie theater, the purple state where President Obama accepted his first nomination amidst faux Greek columns, would be the least receptive of states for the arguments of Second Amendment defenders.

Colorado state Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron found out differently on Tuesday as they were ousted by gun rights advocates in a recall election.

Colorado voters were persuaded that the perils of an unarmed citizenry and the spread of gun-free zones place the public in greater peril at the hands of the unhinged and criminal predators in their midst, and perhaps perceived the common thread in such tragedies — the absence of people willing and able to shoot back.

The National Rifle Association, which donated about $360,000 to support the recalls, in particular hailed Morse's loss, telling the Denver Post it "is proud to have stood with the men and women in Colorado who sent a clear message that their Second Amendment rights are not for sale."

Some would suggest this just demonstrates the power of the gun lobby, but Sen. Lois Tochtrop, an Adams County Democrat and longtime Second Amendment activist, thinks it's just a natural reaction to an overreach by Democrats in messing with gun rights.

Tochtrop feels the recall election was a reaction to seven gun-control measures introduced in the session, including a proposal by Morse. His law would have assigned liability for assault-style weapon damages to manufacturers and sellers.

Morse killed it at the 11th hour because he didn't have the votes to pass it through the Democratic-controlled Senate.

"I feel like all these gun bills have done — to quote the last words in the movie 'Tora! Tora! Tora!' — is to awaken a sleeping giant," Tochtrop said during the debate.

The Colorado legislature was recently the forum for a debate on legislation calling for a ban on concealed-carry on campus — even though such bans elsewhere, such as Virginia Tech, turned those campuses into free-fire zones.

It was at these hearings on the bill that rape victim Amanda Collins testified and was lectured and belittled by condescending Democratic legislators.

Collins was raped at gunpoint in a University of Nevada-Reno parking garage in October 2007. Nevada law prohibited her from carrying a gun on the campus, but her attacker had one.

She was raped 50 feet away from the campus police department office. Her attacker was James Biela, a serial rapist who also raped two other women and murdered another.

He attacked her at gunpoint in a gun-free zone. At the time of the attack, Collins had a concealed weapons permit, but not her firearm, due to university policies prohibiting carrying concealed weapons on campus.

Just such a gun-free zone policy is why the Aurora, Colo., shooter carefully chose the theater he did. And unlike the mall in Clackamass, Ore., where a concealed-carry holder prevented a massacre, there was no one in Aurora to shoot back.

Colorado State Rep. Joe Salazar had pompously responded to Collins' story and advocacy of armed defense by saying, "It's why we have call boxes; it's why we have safe zones; it's why we have the whistles; because you just don't know who you're gonna be shooting at."

Amanda Collins knew, and as she ended her compelling testimony, she asked the committee, "How does rendering me defenseless protect you against a violent crime?" Colorado voters asked that same question on Tuesday.


Read More At Investor's Business Daily

AFL-CIO Looks to Turn All of America Into Detroit

Guest post by Eric Boehm

One of the major themes to emerge from this week’s national conference of the AFL-CIO in Los Angeles is a push to expand union organizing beyond the traditional collective bargaining agreement and into every workplace.

And after some brief flirting, the AFL-CIO is ready to go steady with “workers centers,” which are popping up around the nation to help organize workers in the service sector. Members of the AFL-CIO, an umbrella group for dozens of labor unions, approved a resolution this week to establish a more formal connection between the union and the workers centers that it has, in many cases, helped to start.

“The labor movement cannot be confined within bargaining units defined by government agencies or limited to workplaces where a majority of employees votes “Yes” in the face of a ruthless campaign by their employer to deny them representation,” the resolution reads.

The union said it would seek to organize workers who are not in traditional collective bargaining agreements and would “mobilize these new members in electoral and other political efforts and in support of organizing drives and collective bargaining campaigns.”

To achieve that end, the AFL-CIO pledged to work more closely with “workers centers” and with foundations providing seed money to those centers.

In many cases, these workers centers have morphed into front groups for unions by using Occupy-style tactics and threats of lawsuits to make employers comply with their demands, despite the lack of a collective bargaining agreement.

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, echoed the “big tent” message during his keynote remarks to the conference Monday night.

“All over America, workers are organizing in all kinds of ways, and they call their unity by all kinds of names — workers’ unions, associations, centers, networks,” he said.

As Watchdog.org previously reported, one of those centers – the Restaurant Opportunity Center, or ROC United, which was launched in New York City in 2001 – has been at the forefront of a recent wave of protests in major cities, attempting draw attention to low-wage restaurant workers.

BIG TENT: AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka says the labor movement should not be limited by official agreements between workers and employers.

Saru Jayaraman, co-founder of ROC-United, was a featured speaker at the AFL-CIO conference this week.

Previously, Trumka specifically praised the work of Jayaraman and ROC-United for organizing workers in New York and dozens of other cities.

It’s probably no surprise unions are looking to broaden their horizons. Union membership has been on the decline nationally for a few decades, particularly in the private sector.

“If I were within that organization, I would probably be trying to do the exactly what they are doing,” said Jade West, senior vice president for the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors.

West said the unions’ declining influence has little effect on the daily lives of most employers, but the rise of workers centers and their organizing tactics is a real threat to workers and businesses.

In 2012, about 7 million private-sector workers were members of a labor union, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor. That’s half of the 14 million private-sector labor union members in 1980.

Growth in public sector unions — they now account for more than 50 percent of all union membership, up from just 28 percent in 1980 — has helped the labor movement continue its powerful influence in politics, but it has also changed how the movement works.

Instead of fighting for weekends, better working conditions and a decent wage for industrious, blue-collar workers, unions today are more likely to be defending the right of a 50-year-old white-collar worker to retire early with full pension benefits until death.

In 2009, public-sector unions outnumbered their private-sector counterparts for the first time ever.

The move toward workers centers and other low-pay, long-hours, service-sector employees brings unions back toward their original purpose. Plus, it comes with the added benefit of more workers to mobilize in electoral efforts, as the AFL-CIO indicated in its resolution.

West said many workers are no longer looking for a 25-year job with a single company that ends with a gold watch and a pension, leaving unions to scramble for a new generation of members.

“They have almost become an anachronism,” said West. I don’t think the workforce really sees the need for a union.”

 
Boehm is a reporter for Watchdog.org and can be reached at Eric@PAIndependent.com. Follow @EricBoehm87 on Twitter for more.
 

TAEGAN GODDARD: Deluded Kook -- or Lying Crapweasel?

I know, I know: 'Who or what is a Taegan Goddard?', you may ask. No, it's not an inner thigh rash.

He's a writer for Roll Call, the official periodical of the entrenched Beltway establishment and a dedicated enemy of the American Constitution. If the issue involves promoting big government, no matter how insane, Goddard can be counted on to find a left-wing kook to quote as if that represents a mainstream opinion.

However, if the issue involves promoting normal people -- who live outside the Beltway -- or limited government, Goddard will find a way to ignore or diminish the effort.

Obamacare is one of his favorite programs -- no matter the fact that the entire federal government is teetering on bankruptcy, Cloward-Piven style, as unfunded liabilities near $100 trillion and 40 cents of every dollar the government currently spends is borrowed from generations yet unborn.

Arithmetic was never one of Goddard's strong suits, it would seem.

But when it comes to promoting a program like Obamacare, Goddard is willing to market the most egregious of lies. Consider this classic bit of propaganda -- truly one for the history books -- from earlier this week:

Obamacare Did Not Lead to Increase in Part Time Jobs

The Obama administration contends that since the Affordable Care Act became law, more than 9 out of 10 new jobs created have been full-time.

“The Affordable Care Act continues to improve the functioning of labor markets in a range of ways including helping to slow the growth of premiums, creating affordable new options for small businesses, reducing the ‘job lock’ that can keep workers from taking the best job for them, and generally improving health outcomes and reducing absenteeism. We are already seeing tangible changes in affordability, including premium growth at less than one-third the rate of the late 1990s and early 2000s.”

Jared Bernstein: “You want to hate on Obamacare, I can’t stop you… But the fact is that for now, there’s nothing to see here, folks. Move along, please.”

Now, you have to be a very special kind of ignorant -- or quite a liar -- to rewrite White House press releases as fact. Especially after such gems as "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan", "the average family will see health care premiums will go down by $2,500 a year", and "No one will have to stop seeing their doctor".

Yes, Obamacare has really "improve[d] the functioning of labor markets", that is, if you consider imploding the private sector as "improvement". Got Alinsky?

Take the Obama administration's very own Labor Force Participation Rate, which is the percentage of folks who should be working who aren't. It's now at a 34-year low and still dropping.

And a full one-sixth of the U.S. is now on food stamps, another all-time record.

Yea! The economy's doing swell!

And how about about his ludicrous headline, which is as succinct as it untruthful, "Obamacare Did Not Lead to [an] Increase in Part Time Jobs"?

Goddard, seemingly unfamiliar with new technologies like Google News, failed to use the oh-so-difficult search string health care part-time workers. This would have led him to trip over such stories, written in the last 30 days alone, as:

• Obamacare, tepid US growth fuel part-time hiring (CNBC, Reuters)
• With Eye on ObamaCare, Companies Move to Cut Workers’ Hours (Fox Business)
• Local governments cutting hours over Obamacare costs (Washington Post)
• Trader Joe's To Drop Health Coverage For Part-Time Workers Under Obamacare (Huffington Post)
• Mort Zuckerman on PBS: Obamacare to spike part-time work from 25 percent of all jobs to 50 percent (PBS)
• CFOs Lean on Part-Time Workers (WSJ)
• Some employers cutting hours for part-time workers to avoid new insurance mandate (Winston-Salem Journal)
• Health Reform Turning U.S. Into Part-Time Nation (Fox Business)
• SeaWorld to cut workers’ hours (Tampa Tribune)
• Restaurateurs, wary of health care costs, eye workers’ hours (Dallas Morning News)

And those are just the first ten I found.

So you have to be a special kind of stupid -- or a rank propagandist -- to try and foist articles like this on the American public.

It's sick. And I'm sick. I'm literally disgusted with people like Goddard, who are helping destroy the fabric of this country in pursuit of some insane Utopian fantasy that can't work, won't work, and has never worked in all of human history.

Goddard believes in the supremacy of a few master planners: some bureaucrats in Washington who will reward his misanthropic behavior with accolades, financial rewards or access to all the right parties. Who knows what his true motivations are?

Perhaps he'll offer us his perspective in the comments.

Or perhaps not, since he seems only able to regurgitate the agitprop of a few far Left Marxists controlling the Democrat Party.

Roll Call should be ashamed for publishing these naked lies, Leni Riefenstahl-style, as if Americans are as dumb as Goddard thinks we are.

But then again, based upon its Alexa traffic ranking this year, the market is offering its own solution to Roll Call's Goddard problem.


Related: Roll Call Embarrassment Taegan Goddard Still Shilling for Obamacare While Unions, Congress and Special Interests Bail.

You Risk Touching Off World War III, Mr. President -- And For What?

Guest post by Investors Business Daily


Syria: As a Chinese warship joins Russian ships in the Mediterranean, we should remember a cruise missile attack on an Israeli warship. President Obama should understand that Syria and Hezbollah have missiles, too.

As the Obama administration continues to deploy its comical weapons, with Secretary of State John Kerry promising America any attack on Syria will be "unbelievably small," a Chinese warship deploys off the Syrian coast, joining its Russian counterparts in what used to be an "American lake," the Mediterranean Sea.

The People's Liberation Army has dispatched the amphibious dock landing ship Jinggangshan, a move that follows the announcement that Russia is sending three more ships — two destroyers and the missile cruiser Moskva — to the eastern Mediterranean to bolster forces that already include three other warships dispatched over the last two weeks.

All are a pointed reminder that we are not the only player that has pieces on the board.

Launched in 2011, the 19,000-metric-ton Jinggangshan is a 689-foot-long warship that can carry 1,000 soldiers, helicopters, armored fighting vehicles, boats and landing craft, according to a report in the China Daily.

China is reportedly worried that a Syrian strike and its aftermath could send oil prices skyrocketing, which would be bad news for the Chinese economy.

Russia has a naval base at the Syrian port of Tartus and is a major arms supplier to Syria. Russia is sending its large landing ship Nikolai Filchenkov loaded with "special cargo" towards the Syrian coast, the state news agency Interfax quoted a navy source as saying Friday.

Could that "special cargo" be parts for completing its high-end, Russian-supplied S-300 air defense system?

Earlier last Wednesday Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed to Associated Press that Moscow supplied Syria with components for the state-of-the-art system but that the shipment was not completed: A cruise missile strike might assure its completion.

Syria is not Libya. If the United States strikes Syria, we might be surprised at how hard Syria can hit back. The P-800 Yakhont anti-ship missiles that Russia has equipped Syria with are the most advanced anti-ship missiles that Russia has.

From Syria, P-800 Yakhont anti-ship missiles can cover much of the eastern Mediterranean and can even reach air bases in Cyprus. If the U.S. Navy is not very careful to stay out of range, analyst Michael Snyder observes, we could easily see footage of destroyed U.S. naval vessels sinking into the Mediterranean on the evening news.

And once the American people see such footage, it will be impossible to stop a full-blown war between the U.S. and Syria and its allies, such as Iran and Hezbollah.

In June 2006, as Hezbollah and Israel fought a brief war, an Israeli vessel, a Saar 5-class missile ship, was struck by a Chinese CS-802 anti-ship missile launched by Hezbollah in Lebanon with the assistance of Iranian Republican Guards.

If President Obama thinks he can launch a few Tomahawks in an "unbelievably small" strike and then head off for a few rounds of golf, he may be sadly mistaken.

We hear the argument that U.S. credibility is on the line here, but we also note that U.S. credibility may already be destroyed as a result of repeated betrayal of allies like Poland, the Czech Republic, Britain and Israel, as well by precipitate withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hillary Clinton once defended the proposition that Bashar Assad was a "reformer." John Kerry once casually dined with the man he now likens to Hitler, calling him "generous." President Obama returned a U.S. ambassador to Syria after President Bush had pulled one out for Syria's role in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

An "unbelievably small" strike might not restore our credibility, but it could start our Nobel Peace Prize winner's next war.


Read More At Investor's Business Daily

WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE? One Year Later, the Families of the Benghazi Dead and Wounded Want Answers

Guest post by Investors Business Daily


Scandal: As cruise missiles are readied to aid Syria's al-Qaida-linked rebels, the president has yet to keep a promise to avenge the Benghazi dead and bring the killers to justice.

A year has passed since Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Glen Doherty, Sean Smith and Ty Woods were murdered in a Sept. 11 terrorist attack on our diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

A month later, Obama said of the attack that "my biggest priority now is bringing those folks to justice, and I think the American people have seen that's a commitment I'll always keep."

That depends on what he means by "bringing them to justice." It's not like we don't know who they are or we have failed to finger the suspects. As an Associated Press report detailed in May:

"The U.S. has identified five men who might be responsible for the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year, and has enough evidence to justify seizing them by military force as suspected terrorists, officials say. But there isn't enough proof to try them in a U.S. civilian court as the Obama administration prefers."

So we essentially do nothing while the FBI "continues to investigate." The status of that investigation came up over the weekend as "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace invoked the approaching first anniversary of the attack and asked White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough why the perpetrators hadn't been brought to justice.

Wallace was especially interested in why the U.S. had not brought in Ahmed abu Khattala, who has been charged with the crime but not arrested, despite having given interviews to several news outlets.

"Why is it that reporters seem to be able to find this guy, who the government is charging with involvement in Benghazi, but law enforcement can't find him?" Wallace asked. "It's been a year, sir."

"The United States government does what it says, and we will do what we say in this instance, as we do in every other instance," McDonough said as he tap-danced in response to Wallace's repeated queries as to why the AP can find him, the New York Times can find him, but the U.S. government can't.

At an Aug. 9 press conference, Fox News correspondent Ed Henry reminded the president of his words last year about getting the Benghazi perpetrators. "Eleven months later, where are they, sir?" Henry asked in a question that did not sit well with the commander in chief.

"I also said that we'd get bin Laden, and I didn't get him in 11 months," was Obama's testy response. "So we have informed, I think, the public that there is a sealed indictment. It's sealed for a reason, but we are intent on capturing those who carried out this attack."

By the way, Mr. President, you didn't build that mission. Bin Laden was killed while you were president, not because you were president.

Bin Laden was indicted once, too. But in the end, it was a team of Navy SEALs not intent on reading him his Miranda rights that killed him in a daring raid on his compound in Pakistan. They locked and loaded and left the search warrants behind. It was a mission aided by the very "enhanced interrogation techniques" that President Obama despises.

The president wanted to try Khalid Sheik Muhammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attack on New York City and Washington, D.C., who still enjoys free room and board courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer, in a civil court just blocks from Ground Zero. He wants to try the Benghazi terrorists in civil court as well, instead of just going and grabbing them and bringing them to justice as promised.

Meanwhile, the deaths of Stevens, Doherty, Smith and Woods have not been avenged. Justice has been delayed and therefore denied. Maybe in President Obama's mind he's thinking, "What difference does it make now?"


Read More At Investor's Business Daily

SENDING A MESSAGE: The Comic Strip

Stilton Jarlsberg of Hopenchange Cartoons is as talented an illustrator and writer that we have operating today. This is his latest.

[Regarding] today's cartoon, all we'll say is that if you want to send a message to someone, then you should send them the message - not send it to a random neighbor.

But sadly, we think that Iran has already received Barack Obama's "message" loud and clear: he will not prevent either their acquistion or use of nukes.

Because this president believes that Middle East "peace" will only be achieved when the entire Middle East is under the dictatorial control of radical Islam. And he seems to be doing everything possible to make it happen.

[And t]o make absolutely certain that the "message to Iran" will be unmistakably clear, John Kerry has just announced that any military action taken against Syria for using prohibited weapons will be "unbelievably small."  No doubt to match a foreign policy which is unbelievably stupid.

Bookmark Stilton's site. This guy's the real deal.


Hat tip: R.F.

Hey, Old Media Clowns: If We're Really In a "Recovery", Why Is One-Sixth of the U.S. on Food Stamps?

You can't browse a vintage media newspaper or website without seeing the assertion that the U.S. is in "a recovery".

Really? How so?

The Labor Force Participation Rate just hit a 34-year low.

And food stamp usage continues to explode, the product of rampant fraud, Obamacare's destruction of full-time employment, and the fact that welfare pays better than work.

Food-stamp use grew 2.3% in June from a year earlier, with nearly one-sixth of the U.S. population receiving benefits.

Illinois showed the largest enrollment increase from last year with a 14.7% gain, according to Agriculture Department data released Friday. Wyoming was in second place, with rolls up 11.1% since the same time last year. Utah experienced the largest annual decline in food-stamp use, dropping 11.2%, among a dozen states to post a decrease. (Enrollment also decreased in Arizona, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Washington.)

One of the largest social safety net programs in the United States, food stamps – formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP – expanded substantially during and after the recession, with enrollment rising about 70% from 2007 to 2011. At the same time, the government also temporarily increased benefits and allowed users in the hardest-hit areas to receive aid for longer-than-usual periods of time. The average monthly benefit was $133 last year.

Critics clamor against what they see as a disturbing rise in government dependency. But new economic research suggests the program’s expansion isn’t alarming and can, in fact, be explained by business cycles.

Yo, antique media clowns: it's called The Cloward-Piven Strategy. Look it up. That is, if you want to stop retyping press releases from the White House and doing actual reporting for a change.

I know, I'm a dreamer.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Warning - Obamacare May Be Hazardous to Your Health: Heritage Unveils Massive Times Square Billboard

Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is the single most important legislative research and educational institution in the world. And it is doing yeoman's work educating Americans on the unfolding catastrophe called "Obamacare".

We’ve talked a lot about Obamacare’s costs—how it will hurt the economy, kill jobs, and cost you and your family more when you pay for health care.

But there’s an even more important cost: your health.

Obamacare will affect the quality of care in this country. It will limit the choices we have in doctors, hospitals, and treatments. People are already learning that their trusted doctors aren’t going to be available to them in the new insurance plans Obamacare is forcing them into.

And disrupting your relationship with your doctor is not how health care reform should be.

...Our new billboard in the heart of New York City will be installed this week to get people thinking and to raise awareness about the need to stop Obamacare.

Why? Because we don’t want to see people lose their health coverage—and the doctors they trust.

We don’t want to see access to treatments and procedures determined by government boards, putting bureaucrats between doctors and patients.

We don’t want to see seniors’ care suffer because of Obamacare’s cuts to Medicare.

We don’t want to see millions of Americans dumped into Medicaid—because it is not quality health care... We can’t stand by and watch these threats to our health and our families’ health go unchallenged. We must stop Obamacare.

We need to defund Obamacare so that we can start over on health care reform, with a blank slate, with solutions that leave health care decisions firmly in the hands of individuals and their doctors.

Contract your House Representative now and demand they de-fund Obamacare. The Framers gave the House the power of the purse for a reason: to check and balance an out-of-control Executive Branch.

And that's precisely what we have today. Call your representative now. The clock is ticking on our health care system and lives hang -- quite literally -- in the balance.


Related: HEALTH CARE INSIDER: Obamacare Has Two Fatal Flaws Designed to Kill Health Insurers, Bring About Single-Payer.

"TASTES LIKE VOMIT": Michelle Obama Says Her Anti-Obesity Program is Wildly Successful, But Schools Nationwide Have Kicked It to the Curb

Yea! Three cheers for FLOTUS! Her 'healthy eating' program has saved the country from obesity!

Michelle Obama credited her anti-obesity program with bringing about a “cultural shift” in the way Americans eat.

“Make no mistake about it. We are changing the conversation in this country. We are creating a cultural shift on how we live and eat. And our efforts are having an impact on our children’s lives.”

The first lady touted the success of her Let’s Move anti-obesity program during a visit on Friday to Orr Elementary School in Washington, D.C.

Yet even CBS News reports that school districts throughout the country -- including California -- have abandoned Michelle's "healthy eating" program.

The Laguna Beach Unified School District, in Southern California, is the latest district to rebel against the federal healthy lunch program -- a cornerstone of first lady Michelle Obama's campaign against childhood obesity. The school district announced Tuesday night that it will revise its lunch menus.

The USDA (which administers the program) says growing pains are to be expected, but the complaints from school officials are getting louder; they say kids aren't eating the vegetables and low-fat choices and end up too hungry to learn. And they're saying they're losing money from throwing out all the uneaten food.

The new lunch rules, some districts say, are just unpalatable. Grumblings came from school boards in California to Illinois, Indiana and New York.

In Kentucky, one official said students thought the healthy fare "tastes like vomit."

In fact, things are going so great for Michelle's health eating program that schools in 19 states are measuring kids' BMI for obesity:

...schools in 19 states have started to conduct annual weigh-ins of students that test for their body mass index, the primary measurement used to determine if someone is overweight or obese, and then sending students home with reports – or “fat letters” – of the results.

“We look at growth charts and percentiles. And when a child is at 95 percent of their…we can look at weight for age or weight for height…that child would be considered obese,” Lauren Schmitt, a registered dietitian in California who measures the weight of hundreds of preschoolers in the San Fernando Valley, told CBS Los Angeles.

She added that out of the 900 pre-schoolers she looks at annually, roughly 200 are considered obese.

Success! Only one in four kids are obese!

Oh, and I forgot: the economy is so great a whopping one-sixth of the nation is on food stamps, and we know those are all used for the healthiest food choices imaginable.

Were they not in power, these Leftists would be employable only as comic relief.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

HEALTH CARE INSIDER: Obamacare Has Two Fatal Flaws Designed to Kill Health Insurers, Bring About Single-Payer

Guest post by Tyrion


I was fortunate enough to have a conversation today with one of the country's foremost insurance product experts. She is responsible for the actuarial analysis and design of life and health care products.

She was commiserating about the difficulty of working with state exchanges: in her opinion, it is virtually impossible to find out which companies are going to offer products in the state exchanges.

Remember, enrollment starts on October 1st, so this is a crucial problem for the exchanges. The vast majority of states won't disclose which carriers will participate or, crucially, whether any carriers have even elected to join.

And which consumers are supposed to participate in the state-run exchanges? The intent is to provide affordable coverage for those who are uninsured or for employees who don't receive health insurance through their employer.

Fatal Flaw 1 - When Underwriters are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Underwriting

The first fatal problem with the exchanges, according to this expert, is that the population entering the exchanges is likely to have increased morbidity (higher risk for disease). Her contention is that due to the economic strata of those who use the state exchanges, many health insurers will avoid entering those risk pools.

In other words, since the insurers are forbidden from underwriting (i.e., the backbone of insurance), they will avoid the state exchanges to decrease their risks.

It is therefore likely that the exchanges in many states will be stillborn, with very few insurers participating.

Fatal Flaw 2 - Health Insurance Is Not the Same as Getting Treated

The other problem with the state exchanges, she said, is that people will assume that health insurance is the same as getting treated for health problems.

What if, she asked, you buy a Bronze policy from a small insurer in your state, and find out their network of providers is exceptionally small? You want to see a specialist for a bad knee and you're told you'll need to wait six months?

This is precisely what happens in Canada and the U.K. The expert says that those health care systems do a fine job with the easy, basic tasks of medical care, but specialties must be rationed because central planning can never work as efficiently as a market-based system.

She believes a significant percentage of the population will be outraged when they see firsthand how little treatment they are able to get from the exchanges.

Executive Summary: Obamacare is an Untenable Ruse Designed to Lead to Single-Payer

By removing competition, by designing products for insurers, by prohibiting underwriting, by instituting price controls (e.g., mandated medical loss ratios), she believes that the health care industry as it stands today is doomed.

Obamacare isn't going to collapse, in her opinion, it's going to destroy the health insurance industry and transfer even more control to the federal leviathan. Obamacare is a ruse designed to collapse private insurance.

Scared yet? You should be.

Contract your House Representative now and demand they de-fund Obamacare. The Framers gave the House the power of the purse for a reason: to check and balance an out-of-control Executive Branch.

And that's precisely what we have today. Call your representative now. The clock is ticking on our health care system and lives hang -- literally -- in the balance.


Cartoon: A.F. Branco at CDN.

No Wonder the EPA is Illegally Hiding Its Temperature Data

If the radical Leftists controlling the Democrat Party had even an iota of evidence suggesting the validity of global warming, they would be clamoring to make public its data. Instead, they are unlawfully concealing the data, violating Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests and other demands.

It would seem to be common sense for the data used in a study that guides public policy and the writing of federal regulations to be publicly available. That’s not the case when it comes to EPA and air pollution data.

As J.R. Reed explained on Free Enterprise in July:

During their pursuit of regulations that would cost businesses billions of dollars, EPA officials have refused to reveal the data used to support these proposals – not to White House officials, not to Congress, not to leading environmental experts, and not to the American people. The data sets have not been analyzed by independent scientists or gone through a peer-review process, and, yet, these findings are being used to justify onerous regulations.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Science Committee, sent six letters to EPA asking for the data. In 2011, current EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy promised to do so, but never delivered it. Rep. Smith subpoenaed the agency on August 1.

ScienceInsider reports that EPA continues refusing to turn over the requested data so, Rep. Smith found EPA in default:

“You did not provide the Committee with anything new,” Smith wrote in a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. Instead, Smith wrote, the agency responded to his 1 August subpoena by providing “a file of already public information along with a letter outlining excuses for why EPA did not comply.”

In a statement, Rep. Smith explained,

EPA is using the subpoenaed data to support regulations that could cost the American people trillions of dollars. Yet the agency has refused to make the data available to Congress or the American people. Regulations based on secret data have no place in a democracy.

Ah, there's your mistake, Rep. Smith. We no longer live in a Constitutional republic, the kind in which a virtuous government does its best to hew to the letter of the law. Instead we have an out-of-control administration, with officials laced throughout the bureaucracy defying the courts and Congress.

As for "global warming"? Even the United Nations has been forced to confess the Earth is cooling.

Well, this is awkward. A leaked report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that the world is not warming but actually cooling, and will continue to get colder until the middle of the century.

You remember the IPCC, right? It’s the group whose 2007 report on global warming said that snow would disappear from everywhere but the highest mountains, icebergs would melt, sea levels would rise, deserts would spread, people would die in heat waves and pretty much the earth was going to end if we didn’t immediately destroy our carbon-fueled economy with job-killing government regulations.

Well, that’s not happening. In fact, the Arctic ice cap has grown by 60 percent since 2012.

Thanks to the IPCC’s original predictions, billions of dollars were spent on supposed green measures to curb global warming ... Now, either those measures really, really paid off, or the skeptics were right all along.

There are only three reasonable ways to explain a "belief" in global warming. In order of increasing malevolence, they are hubris, greed, and Marxism. And they are not mutually exclusive; see exhibit A: Al Gore.


Related: Global Warming Comics -- The Fraudulent And The Immoral. Hat tip: Weasel Zippers.

'This Week' Transcript: Benghazi Whistleblower Gregory Hicks

On ABC's This Week earlier today, former Clinton apparatchik-turned-journalist George Stephanopoulos interviewed Benghazi whistleblower Gregory Hicks -- the Deputy Chief of Mission in Libya -- as the anniversary of the deadly attack nears.

And we still can't find out what the President what was doing for nine hours as Americans fought, bled and died.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: We're talking about people being killed by gas and you want to go talk about Benghazi.

REPRESENTATIVE JEFF DAVIS: Absolutely want to talk about Benghazi. Four Americans lost their lives.

SECRETARY KERRY: We don't deserve to drag this into yet another Benghazi discussion when the real issue here is whether or not the Congress is going to stand up for international norms.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: One year later as you can see, the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi is still a political football. But for the Americans there on the ground it was a story of heartbreak and the struggle to survive. Greg Hicks was the Diplomat in Charge that night. The only officer who has spoken out about that harrowing night. This dramatic account is an ABC News exclusive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY HICKS, FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF OF MISSION IN LIBYA: I've been perplexed and frustrated with the way this has all played out. Because to me this is a simple story. Ambassador Stevens went to Benghazi to do his job. To what he knew Secretary Clinton wanted him to do. And he was attacked while he was there.

And the American staff in Benghazi and in Tripoli responded as we've been trained to do, in an amazing way, to save the lives of our people who were in Benghazi. Unfortunately we lost four people in the line of duty.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's take a look back at the events of that night. You're home in Tripoli--

HICKS: Right.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That evening at around what, 9:45?

HICKS: It's at 9:45 Tripoli time, right, 3:45 Washington time. Our regional security officer comes running into the house where I was and yells, Greg! Greg! The consulate's under attack! And I immediately look at my telephone and I see a missed call. I call back on that number, I get the Ambassador.

And the Ambassador says Greg we're under attack.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Chris Stevens.

HICKS: Chris Stevens. And I say, OK and the line is cut.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That's it.

HICKS: And that's all.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We are under attack.

HICKS: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You knew there were a lot of bad, a lot of bad guys in country.

HICKS: We knew that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You were also worried about the overall security situation and the amount of protection both the Embassy and the Consulate had.

HICKS: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And the Ambassador had been concerned about that?

HICKS: He had been concerned. He had sent in a cable in July requesting that our security personnel situation not change.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You had a special security team in place.

HICKS: Right.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Then it was reassigned.

HICKS: Exactly.

STEPHANOPOULOS: On the night of the attack, there were five diplomatic security agents with Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith. There are at least 20 hostile attackers in the compound.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Months earlier the State Department had forged an agreement that in the event of an attack on the vulnerable Benghazi Mission, Security personnel would response from a nearby facility called The Annex, run by the CIA.

I know that you can't say so, but we know it was a CIA facility, and we know that the CIA facility was getting protection and more security than the diplomatic facility.

HICKS: The numbers are clear about twice as many in terms of trained security providers.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What did you tell Washington?

HICKS: I called Washington right after I talked to the Annex Chief and I told them that the consulate was under attack. That the--

STEPHANOPOULOS: You used the word attack?

HICKS: I did use the word attack. That there were at least 20 armed intruders in the compound and that help was on the way from the Annex.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Had you heard anything earlier in the day about any kind of protest or were you worried at all because of these reports of this video?

HICKS: No it was a non-event, the video, in Libya. And we had heard nothing about protests. The building had been set on fire by the attackers and our Diplomatic Security Agents there were heavily outnumbered.

STEPHANOPOULOS: About an hour after the attack began, the heavily armed CIA Team arrives at the mission.

HICKS: They began trying to find the Ambassador and Sean Smith who were unable to get out of the burning building. After tremendous efforts and exposing themselves to serious harm, they did find Sean and pulled him out. Unfortunately he was already dead.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So while all this is happening, what are you saying to Washington?

HICKS: I'm reporting it back to Washington every 15 or 20 minutes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: State Department?

HICKS: State Department Operations Center. Exactly. By this time there's a second wave of attackers and looters coming to the Compound. Many, many poor people than--

STEPHANOPOULOS: Dozens?

HICKS: Yeah dozens. Perhaps hundreds. There's no way that 10 or 11 guys who were there can hold that off. So the decision is made to evacuate. They have to ram their way out of the compound. They are immediately brought under fire including heavy machine gun fire.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The entire group now heads back to the Annex but they have not found Ambassador Stevens.

HICKS: When they get back to the Annex they come under attack there.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So at this point, this is ongoing battle. Did you ask for reinforcements?

HICKS: I had already spoken to the defense attache. I asked what help is coming? And he said there's some fighters in Aviano but it's going to be 2 or 3 hours before they could make an appearance. It was clear it was going to be a long time before any help came. So I made sure that people knew that they were going to have to hold out for as long as they could.

STEPHANOPOULOS: As the battle aged at the CIA Annex, a crowd overruns the now abandoned Mission. Some Libyans locate Ambassador Stevens, clinging to life, and rush him to a local hospital.

Meantime a team of reinforcements from Tripoli, military and CIA security has arrived at the Benghazi airport.

HICKS: About 3am, 9pm Washington, they get the call from the Prime Minister than Ambassador Stevens is dead.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What did he tell you?

HICKS: He just says, I'm very sorry Greg to tell you this, but our friend Chris has passed on. I think those were his words. There was deep remorse in his voice when he said it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And you?

HICKS: For me it, I think it's the saddest moment in my career honestly.

STEPHANOPOULOS: With the news of Stevens' death, the security team from Tripoli heads to the Annex.

HICKS: And soon after they get there the attack on the Annex is renewed. And then the mortars come in. Those are the rounds that killed Ty and Glen.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Since this has all happened we've seen all of the top Pentagon officials at the time, all the top Military officials said there was just no way to respond in time. Military assets could not get there.

HICKS: I don't know exactly what was available. I still don't quite understand why they couldn't fly aircraft over to Benghazi. When I was a kid I grew up watching Western movies. And you know the Calvary always came. I just thought that they would come.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You've had, you know, quite a journey yourself in this last year. Deciding to speak to Congress.

HICKS: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Back in May. Since then it appears you've been in something of career limbo inside the State Department.

HICKS: That's correct. That's true.

STEPHANOPOULOS: State Department this was an assignment you requested, you're getting the same pay as before. But do you feel you're being punished for speaking out?

HICKS: Yes I feel that I have been punished. I don't know why I was punished. I don't know why I was shunted aside. Put in a closet if you will.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Does the State Department know you're speaking out now?

HICKS: No. They don't know I'm here with you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Then why talk?

HICKS: Because the American people need to have the story. And Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Ty Woods and Glen Dohery's names are names that should be remembered by every American for the sacrifice that they made.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Could those four American heroes have been saved?

HICKS: Sadly, I think that Ambassador Stephens and Sean Smith maybe not. Ty and Glen of course were killed in the mortar attack that took place eight hours after the initial attack. It's possible they could have been saved, I think.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And what's the best way we can honor the memory of the four diplomats and security professionals who lost their lives that night?

HICKS: We can't forget them. And we need to make sure that those people who are going out into the world on our behalf have the tools that they need and the resources they need to do the job that they've been asked to do for the people of the United States.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Greg Hicks right there. In response to his contention that he's been punished, the State Department has sent us this statement which reads in part, "The State Department has not punished Mr. Hicks in any way. We appreciate his exemplary service on the evening of September 11th. His departure from Libya was entirely unrelated to any statements he may have made relating to the attack in Benghazi, and we are working with him on his next permanent assignment."


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

The Curse of Liberalism

Guest post by Alan Caruba


“Liberalism has become an ugly blend of sanctimony, self-interest, and social connections,” writes Fred Seigel whose credentials include being a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He has written “The Revolt Against the Masses: How Liberalism Has Undermined the Middle Class”, but you won’t be able to read it until it is published in January. As a reviewer, I received an advance copy from Encounter Books.

It hardly needs to be said that today’s liberals and conservatives loathe one another, nor that the nation is as sharply divided politically as in the days before the Civil War. Politically, America has swung back and forth between liberal and conservative administrations as evidenced by the elections of the previous century and this new one.

Moreover, many have noticed that there is often scant distance between Democrat and Republican administrations. Both have been led by patricians, often the graduates of Harvard and Yale. Seigel refers to them as the “clerisy” defined as educated people being a class unto themselves.

Liberalism has been a very expensive failure

“Liberalism has been a very expensive failure,” says Seigel and points to the Obama administration as an example of “the apparent disdain for the copybook maxims of faith, family, and hard work.” When liberals go to court to force schools to remove a daily prayer or a pledge of allegiance to start the day, support abortion on demand and gay marriage, seek to expand so-called “entitlement programs” and put as many people as possible on some form of government dole, this should be obvious to anyone.

The seizure of one-sixth of the nation’s economy in the form of Obamacare is yet another example and the failure of this program, passed near midnight by a straight party vote by Democratic legislators who had no idea what was in the bill, demonstrates the liberal preference for a massive central government.

“Liberalism has been dedicated to preserving the problems for which it presents itself as the solution.”

Seigel traces the beginnings of liberalism in America. “American liberals don’t like to compare themselves with other twentieth-century ideologues. But, like all ideologies that emerged in the early twentieth century—from communism and fascism to socialism, social democracy, and its first cousin, British Fabianism—liberalism was created by intellectuals and writers who were rebelling against the failings of the rising middle class.”

Among the intellectuals who advanced liberalism was Herbert Croly, the editor and co-founder of The New Republic whose 1909 book, “The Promise of American Life”, was the first manifesto of modern American liberalism. Croly “rejected American tradition with its faith in the Constitution and its politics of parties and courts.” This reeks of the intellectual snobbery that has dominated liberal thinking for more than a century at this point.

A distinguishing element of liberalism has been its admiration of autocratic leaders and this explains its embrace of dictators from the likes of the German Kaiser, Lenin and Stalin, through to men like Fidel Castro and his murderous sidekick, Ernesto “Che” Guevara. The appeal of communism has always played a large role in the ideology of liberalism.

What distinguishes liberalism today in the minds of conservatives is its rejection of the utter failure of communism and its cousin, socialism. One need only look to Russia and Europe for evidence of this, but it is manifest in America as it struggles to deal with the costs of New Deal creations such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, absorbing and redistributing some sixty percent of the national budget. The liberal belief in Keynesian economics whereby the government maintains the economy through massive expenditures has left America today with the largest debt in his history.

Liberalism has been driven by its disdain for America’s middle class

Liberalism has been driven by its disdain for America’s middle class that emerged from the large wave of immigration in the early 19th century and the success it has had in the business sector, entering the professions, and raising incomes. Liberalism has a deep distrust of “the masses” while claiming to represent them.

Liberal ideology produced Lyndon Johnson’s failed “War on Poverty” and embraced environmentalism with its doomsday predictions, none of which has come true. It explains President Obama’s rejection of American exceptionalism. “Liberal interests never reexamined their assumptions, even when faced with social and political failure. They never asked why, despite the vast sums expended, poverty had become worse rather than better.”

At the same time, in the latter half of the last century, liberals invented a laundry list of “rights” you will not find in the Constitution such as women’s rights, gay rights, children’s rights and even the Gaia concept of the Earth’s right to be protected against human activity.

“It was attitude and intentions—not outcomes—that matter to liberals,” says Seigel.

Liberalism is the ideology of intellectuals who looked down on the masses that became America’s middle class and produced the greatest economy the world had ever known. Now they exist to live parasitically off of it.

The great frustration of conservatives is the inability to have a rational debate or discussion with liberals. They don’t make sense. It is the curse of liberalism.

Alan Caruba writes for a variety of periodicals and his daily blog is called Warning Signs.

WAPO: Obama Lied to American People, Had Bush-Era Restrictions on NSA Surveillance of Americans Lifted in 2011

Only a few short weeks ago, President Barack Obama spoke to the American people and said, essentially, that the government's surveillance of Americans' phone records and emails were targeted and had been "ongoing for years".

On the heels of a series of reports detailing the U.S. government's practice of tracking private citizens' phone and internet use, President Obama on Friday sought to downplay the invasiveness of the procedure, assuring a California audience that "nobody is listening to your phone calls," and that any data tracking is governed by comprehensive oversight spanning all three branches of U.S. government...

...But he reminded Americans that these programs have been ongoing for years, and that Congress regularly reauthorizes the programs and receives updates on how they are conducted.

The Washington Post reports today, however, that both assertions appear to be bald-faced lies.

The Obama administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans’ communications in its massive databases...

...the court in 2008 imposed an explicit ban — at the [Bush administration]’s request — on ... searches [of U.S. communications], that officials in 2011 got the court to lift the bar and that the search authority has been used.

Together the permission to search and to keep data longer expanded the NSA’s authority in significant ways without public debate or any specific authority from Congress...

...Officials would not say how many searches have been conducted.

...The court’s expansion of authority went largely unnoticed when the opinion was released, but it formed the basis for cryptic warnings last year by a pair of Democratic senators, Ron Wyden (Ore.) and Mark Udall (Colo.), that the administration had a “back-door search loophole” that enabled the NSA to scour intercepted communications for those of Americans.

The Constitution's Bill of Rights has a Fourth Amendment for a reason.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Americans of all party affiliations should reject this administration's lawless behavior, its unconstitutional maneuvers and all of its many, attendant lies.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

PATIENTLY AWAITING THE APOLOGY FROM THE MEDIA: Syria's WMDs Came From Saddam Hussein's Iraq

Guest post by Investors Business Daily


War On Terror: As the regime of Bashar Assad disintegrates, the security of his chemical arsenal is in jeopardy. The No. 2 general in Saddam Hussein's air force says they were the WMDs we didn't find in Iraq.

King Abdullah of neighboring Jordan warned that a disintegrating Syria on the verge of civil war puts Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons at risk of falling into the hands of al-Qaida.

"One of the worst-case scenarios as we are obviously trying to look for a political solution would be if some of those chemical stockpiles were to fall into unfriendly hands," he said.

The irony here is that the chemical weapons stockpile of Syrian thug Assad may in large part be the legacy of weapons moved from Hussein's Iraq into Syria before Operation Iraqi Freedom.

If so, this may be the reason not much was found in the way of WMD by victorious U.S. forces in 2003.

In 2006, former Iraqi general Georges Sada, second in command of the Iraqi Air Force who served under Saddam Hussein before he defected, wrote a comprehensive book, "Saddam's Secrets."

It details how the Iraqi Revolutionary Guard moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria in advance of the U.S.-led action to eliminate Hussein's WMD threat.

As Sada told the New York Sun, two Iraqi Airways Boeings were converted to cargo planes by removing the seats, and special Republican Guard units loaded the planes with chemical weapons materials.

There were 56 flights disguised as a relief effort after a 2002 Syrian dam collapse.

There were also truck convoys into Syria. Sada's comments came more than a month after Israel's top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Moshe Yaalon, told the Sun that Saddam "transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria."

Both Israeli and U.S. intelligence observed large truck convoys leaving Iraq and entering Syria in the weeks and months before Operation Iraqi Freedom, John Shaw, former deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, told a private conference of former weapons inspectors and intelligence experts held in Arlington, Va., in 2006.

According to Shaw, ex-Russian intelligence chief Yevgeni Primakov, a KGB general with long-standing ties to Saddam, went to Iraq in December 2002 and stayed until just before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

Anticipating the invasion, his job was to supervise the removal of such weapons and erase as much evidence of Russian involvement as possible.

The Russian-assisted "cleanup" operation was entrusted to a combination of GRU and Spetsnaz troops and Russian military and civilian personnel in Iraq "under the command of two experienced ex-Soviet generals, Colonel-General Vladislav Achalov and Colonel-General Igor Maltsev, both retired and posing as civilian commercial consultants."

Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz reported on Oct. 30, 2004, that Achalov and Maltsev had been photographed receiving medals from Iraqi Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmad in a Baghdad building bombed by U.S. cruise missiles during the first U.S. air raids in early March 2003. Apparently they did their job well.

An article in the fall 2005 Middle East Quarterly reports that in an appearance on Israel's Channel 2 on Dec. 23, 2002, Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, stated: "Chemical and biological weapons which Saddam is endeavoring to conceal have been moved from Iraq to Syria." According to the article, about three weeks later, Israel's foreign minister repeated the accusation.

Syria has long had its own chemical weapons program, but the extent it may have been aided by weapons and materials transferred by Iraq before the war has only been the source of conjecture.

We may soon find out what happened to much of Saddam's WMD.


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