Barack Obama has become the Anti-cop President

City Journal's Myron Magnet points out that Obama had a chance to use his good fortune as the first black President to correct the impression that in the United STates blacks will always be an underclass of victims. It is so sad that he chose instead to stoke resentment among hate groups, even inviting representatives of one of them to the White House.

It seemed to me that Obama had a unique opportunity to speak about values and virtues to this minority of African Americans—to tell them that his own life exemplified how in twenty-first century America you could get an education, work hard, get married, be an attentive husband and father, and maybe even become president of the United States. How disappointing that he chose the other tack, stoking grievance and resentment over supposed victimization by all authority, whether from teachers, cops, or potential employers. He and his attorneys general went sniffing out evidences of racism everywhere, and demonizing the police. Even after five officers were assassinated by an enraged black murderer in Dallas, he said, inaccurately, falsely, and callously: “There are legitimate issues that have been raised, and there’s data and evidence to back up the concerns that are being expressed by these [Black Lives Matter] protesters. And if police organizations and departments acknowledge that there’s a problem and there’s an issue, then that, too, is going to contribute to real solutions. And, as I said yesterday, that is what’s going to ultimately help make the job of being a cop a lot safer. It is in the interest of police officers that their communities trust them and that the kind of rancor and suspicion that exists right now is alleviated.”

Obama was offered this chance, and he blew it....

The Obama Legacy

Bruce Haynes accurately paints a picture of the Obama Legacy by using the current election season as the palette. Excerpt:

In Iowa and New Hampshire, the two states where the most campaigning has been done, I give you the respective leaders for their parties’ nominations:



Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

Think about that. This is what two terms of Barack Obama has wrought. In Iowa and New Hampshire, two Purple states, swing states that decide presidential elections, the Democrats want a declared Socialist and the Republicans want an angry Populist.

Obama’s legacy could actually be a Sanders vs. Trump general election. Yes, I realize that there are miles to go in this race, and yes I have the humility to realize I might have a better chance of winning the Powerball than to explain right now who will win this race. But to be here, in this place, three weeks out from the night of the Iowa Caucuses, is truly extraordinary.

The Permanent Thangs

No to be confused with The Permanent Things. Whatever they are.

Long after our current President is known as "that dark-complected guy who talked too much" I hope people remember the blond, white chick with the smart-girl glasses who epitomize his presidency. One of the thangs to remember her by is this hashtag.

She is truly unbelievable. We are truly dumbfounded to find anyone this dumb.

The Voice of Dreher and his Commenters

What do you do with Dreher's commenters? I mean besides laughing at them after they leave the room. In our emperorography, those which agree with him play the parts of the townsfolk at the end of fable.

However there is a passage which may have even more applicability to the commenters on Dreher's blog. It comes from the second volume of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Two Towers, and is a description of the attempt of the defeated, evil wizard Saruman to use the power of his voice to mesmerize his enemies.

Suddenly another voice spoke, low and melodious, its very sound an enchantment. Those who listened unwarily to that voice could seldom report the words that they heard; and if they did, they wondered, for little power remained in them. Mostly they remembered only that it was a delight to hear the voice speaking, all that it said seemed wise and reasonable, and desire awoke in them by swift agreement to seem wise themselves. When others spoke they seemed harsh and uncouth by contrast; and if they gainsaid the voice, anger was kindled in the hearts of those under the spell. For some the spell lasted only while the voice spoke to them, and when it spake to another they smiled, as men do who see through a juggler's trick while others gape at it. For many the sound of the voice alone was enough to hold them enthralled; but for those whom it conquered the spell endured when they were far away. And ever they heard that soft voice whispering and urging them. But none were unmoved; none rejected its pleas and its commands without an effort of mind and will, so long as its master had control of it.

I've often wondered if this is where George Lucas got the concept of the Jedi mind trick. It is very similar, especially in that the trick only works on the weaker minds, and there appears to be a certain magic which imbues the speaker's voice. It would explain why someone like Erin Manning continues to support Dreher even though he constantly bashes her religion and never once has pimped her books the way he has with Charles Featherstone. Maybe her nickname should be Wormtongue.

This analogy of some people being conquered by subtle writing also explains why people have become so irritated with us, going the whole way back to the Contra-Crunchies. When others spoke they seemed harsh and uncouth by contrast; and if they gainsaid the voice, anger was kindled in the hearts of those under the spell. We were stating long-form the words of Gimli the Dwarf who said of Saruman "The words of this wizard stand on their heads!" and we were receiving back insults not unlike "If we speak of poisoned tongues what shall we say of yours, young serpent?" which was Saruman's retort to Prince Eomer. (Except we were called incredible fools and nematodes rather than "young serpents".)

And, as always, we continue to receive the epitaph "obsessed" from people who show up over and over again to elaborate on their fierce agreement with Dreher's designer brand of paleoconservatism. And ever they heard that soft voice whispering and urging them...

The history of Dreher is also very much like the character Saruman the Wizard. He starts off as an up-and-coming "power" in the world of conservative commentating, but then he begins cashing in friendships and doing things secretly which are later exposed, arousing his anger. "When the plot is ripe it remains no longer secret," as Gandalf reminds us. He ends up stuck in an old "tower" called TAC—long deserted by the "greater men" of the West who built it—viewing wreckage all around him.

By no means should anyone think that I'm suggesting that Voice-of-Saruman analogy can only be applied to Dreher. Sullivan's minions act in much the same way, as if he himself has wound them up. You can almost see the keys sticking out of their backs. And reading the Daily Kos is revealing of how deep the brainwashing rabbit-hole goes. And I would be remiss not to mention our current President whose ability as an orator is probably his only real talent. It is just sad to see educated people who really should know better fall under this sort of wordsmith spell.

"A divider and an obstructionist"

Yep, that describes President Barack "I'm going to veto your first bill" Obama. Excerpt:

Obama has the ability to rhetorically present both sides of every issue. But he also has a habit of ultimately coming down on the left side. He's a liberal at heart. But there's more to it than that. Obama fans are loathe to admit it, but the president can be a divider, and an obstructionist.

If Obama were really concerned about bridging the gap, he wouldn't reflexively promise to veto the first piece of legislation presented to him by this new Congress. Doing so doesn't exactly demonstrate that he heard the message voters sent him in November when, yes, his policies were on the ballot, and yes, they were rejected. But perhaps more importantly, passing Keystone would be a gesture of goodwill to a new Congress. It might actually restore some small modicum of hope in the American people that their government can get something done — that we aren't predestined to suffer gridlock and obstructionism. And heck, half his party already wants Keystone, anyway.

Obamacare: The Olestra of Government Programs

St. Peter's Cross and the virtue of Hope

I obviously think the relentless captioning of the Joe Biden window photo is humorous. I wonder if anyone else has noticed what to me was the main feature of the picture. Joseph Biden is the first Catholic occupant of the White House since JFK, 51 years and a couple weeks ago. And here he is being presented with an image of St. Peter's Cross. That's a Catholic symbol. Most Protestant Christians don't use it in their art or architecture, thinking it's satanic or too Catholic. So I think that it is significant enough for a sort of meditation.

I imagine that Simon Peter had a look similar to the one in the photo on his face when he was told by the Resurrented Christ that he was going to be crucified. The Catholic Answer's piece I linked to notes "In the ancient world — particularly in the Christian tradition — “to stretch out one’s hands” was a common reference to crucifixion."

And yet it is possible that this thought of impending martyrdom may have given Peter some hope. He had denied his Lord in the most cowardly way just to get out of a little bit of uncomfortable questioning. I imagine that if the servant girl had a Twitter account she might have tweeted something like "That Simon dude is sooooo one of those #jesusfreaks and he smells like fish." As Peter wept bitterly, he may have prayed like mad to get a chance to make up for his denials.

And the answer came during he reinstatement after the Resurrection. You're going to get martyred, Peter. It will be excruciatingly painful, but then you get to spend Eternity in glory. You get the better end of the stick—no pun intended—so don't despair, persevere in Hope.

Despair is a sin against hope, and that appears to be the sin of Judas who hung himself when he became aware of his sin and the consequences. This picture of our Catholic VP and the contemplation of St. Peter's Cross should give hope to Joseph Biden and to other Catholics who have denied Christ by their words or actions, i.e., all of us to one degree or another. There would be nothing funny about a picture of Joe Biden staring at a donkey halter.

Some of you might say, "Hey! why are you grimmin' us out talking about Crucifixion and Resurrection in the middle of the season of Advent on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception?" Busted — smack me with a ruler, sister. But I did find out that even though the picture has just undergone a type of resurrection on Twitter, the picture was taken on September 18. That is, of course, the feast day of a saint named Joseph who wasn't very bright and had a quick temper. Maybe the Vice President will even learn to fly someday like St. Joe of Cupertino without his private plane and spare a lot of jet fuel.

Obama is a terrible boss

Kim Strassel runs down the list of evidence. Excerpt:

These days, what able-minded Democrat would want to work for a boss who asks hires to check their brains at the door and then read from the talking points? Respected economist Christina Romer came in as Mr. Obama’s first head of his Council of Economic Advisers; she left after 18 months, tired of putting out imaginary numbers in support of the stimulus. Former Marine Commandant Jim Jones lasted about the same duration as national security adviser, until he wearied of saluting the political gurus.

The experienced Bill Daley came in 2011 as the chief of staff tasked with repairing Mr. Obama’s relations with the business community. He left a year later, having been stripped of many duties and trashed by the White House to the press. The sage Leon Panetta stepped up as defense secretary in 2011; he too left after 20 months of getting his head patted. The folks who look smartest now are those who fled early, while the fleeing was still relatively good—Rahm Emanuel, Austan Goolsbee, Larry Summers, Peter Orszag, Vivek Kundra.

Who would want to work for a boss who micromanages everything but takes no responsibility when things don’t work out?

"I'm not the Emporer of the United States."

President Obama presents the case against the forthcoming unilateral amnesty declaration.



"We're also a nation of laws; that's part of our tradition."

Well!

Hat tip, Commentary.

Charles M. Blow, Race-hustler and Professinal Whiner

I could post a commentary on Charles M. Blow's latest three articles which are even worse in the race-hustling and black victimhood department than normal. But it would actually just make everybody stupider to read them. So I'm going to post something much more intelligent and uplifting which my kids recently showed me.

Jonathan Gruber Tries To Hide His Remarks

Props to Patrick Howley for uncovering this bit of video from Jonathan Gruber, one of the primary architects of Obamacare.

I decided to post this video, even though many people have already seen it. Shakespeare said "at the length truth will out" so we must be at the length vis-à-vis Obamacare because the truth is beginning to gush out.



Here's the text of the clip:

“Mark [Pauly] made a couple of comments that I do want to take issue with, one about transparency in financing and the other is about moving from community rating to risk-rated subsidies. You can’t do it politically. You just literally cannot do it, okay, transparent financing…and also transparent spending.” Gruber said. “In terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in—you made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed, okay. Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass…Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.”

Of course there were a lot of people who predicted the truth. Avik Roy from Forbes has this to say:

Gruber made an argument that many of Obamacare’s critics have long made, including me. It’s that the law’s complex system of insurance regulation is a way of concealing from voters what Obamacare really is: a huge redistribution of wealth from the young and healthy to the old and unhealthy. In the video, Gruber points out that if Democrats had been honest about these facts, and that the law’s individual mandate is in effect a major tax hike, Obamacare would never have passed Congress.

So this is all sort of infuriating, if you have any fury left. But now we get to the fun stuff.

The University of Pennsylvania which had originally hosted and posted this has now pulled down the video from their site. But this is an attempt on the part of Jonathan Gruber and company to pull their pants up after they got caught. It's already on Youtube, and I downloaded it last night via Keepvid as I'm sure many other conservative geeks did, "just in case". I think it's comical that these people still believe they can say whatever they want in public, but then flip out if anyone quotes them. This story goes hand-in-hand with the story of Lena Dunham sexually abusing her little sister as reported by Lena Dunham in her book. (I like to refer to the incident as "Lena Done-her".)

But that's not all. It appears that the Snopes.com mafia has been called in to cast doubt upon the incident as conservatives have reported it. Here's how they phrase the claim:

"Obamacare architect" Jonathan Gruber recently said Obamacare only passed due to the "stupidity" of the American voter and a lack of "transparency," and video footage of his remarks was deleted from the internet.

Then they call this claim a Mixture of true and false. They accomplish this by pointing out that a Daily Signal article refers to the clip as a "newly surfaced video", which I don't see anything false about, but they paint as a mischaracterization, and refer to the clip as a "newly-circulated video" in their lame conclusion.

While the newly-circulated video of Gruber's remarks is unedited, the comments are neither recent nor complete, and whether the originating source attempted to pull them from the Internet at one point remains unclear.

What in the world remains unclear about what happened? The Snopes page, which is marked 10 November 2014, is pretty high up in the Google search results for Jonathan Gruber currently, about the 7th entry on the first page. Bing has it on the 4th page. Of course I don't have evidence, but this just feels like an attempt at damage control. Snopes has formerly been exposed as untrustworthy and biased, but hilariously the best Gruber and company can get from them is a rating of "Mixture" on the propaganda piece. It should get a rating of Mostly True which they sometimes give out if they're being generous to Gruber, but it appears that even Snopes won't damage their cred further by giving it a False. Factcheck.org doesn't have anything up yet.

Gruber is the fat kid trying to hide behind the phone pole during a hide-and-seek game. His remarks will live on and place him permanently on the elite social-planners' Hall of Shame for calling the American populace stupid, and as a leftist poster child for the ends justifying the means.

Insightful Truth from a Pollster

The New Republic explains that the reason the Democrats had such lousy election results is because they "forgot" the message they won with in 2012. I forget what that message was as well, what was it? It was "we're on your side". Oh, yeah, thanks for reminding me. I guess that why I voted for Romney/Ryan; I've heard that whopper too many times before.

The anecdotal guy waiting for the bus at the beginning of the article is obviously not representative of the wave of people voting in the 2014 mid-terms. Mr. Anecdote credits the U. S. Dept. of Labor for getting him trained for a job. Did Obama establish the Department of Labor? No. Were Romney and Ryan promising to close it down? No. So here is the quintessence of the low-information voter who we usually only see during Presidential elections. (Thank God for mid-terms.)

In the following paragraph, the article quotes award-winning pollster named Mark Mellman explaining why the message doesn't always connect.

But all of the other aforementioned Democrats lost, not least because of their startlingly paltry support among non-college-educated white voters, precisely those who stand to benefit most from policies like raising the minimum wage and expanded health coverage. This is causing great consternation for Democratic strategists and pollsters, who, as Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent noted on Wednesday, blame a “failure to connect with these voters’ economic concerns.” Democrats may have campaigned on issues like the minimum wage and pre-K education, "but these didn’t cut through people’s economic anxieties, because they didn’t believe government can successfully address them." Pollster Mark Mellman told him, “People are deeply suspicious that government can deliver on these problems. And they are not wrong. We’ve been promising that government can be a tool to improve people’s economic situation for decades, and by and large, it hasn’t happened.”

Emphasis is mine. People are deeply suspicious that government can deliver on these problems. And they are not wrong. We’ve been promising that government can be a tool to improve people’s economic situation for decades, and by and large, it hasn’t happened. This is the money quote. What I take away from this article as a whole is that if Democrats can deceive enough people by making them think that they are "on the people's side" then they can win. Otherwise they can't. If all comes down to salesmanship; a slickster like Barack Obama succeeds whereas buffoons like Davis and Udall fail. The second part of Lincoln's famous quote about when you can fool people was operative for the 2014 mid-terms. Fortunately.

New York Times starts crying

Oh, the agony! Such a deep, deep sadness has come over Jay Sullivan and David Schanzer that they are compelled to write this article: CANCEL THE MIDTERMS. Here's the key paragraph, in my opinion:

The realities of the modern election cycle are that we spend almost two years selecting a president with a well-developed agenda, but then, less than two years after the inauguration, the midterm election cripples that same president’s ability to advance that agenda.

How absurd. Could it be that the crippling of the agenda is possibly the fault of selected president? If the star receiver is selected to catch the ball on the final play and he drops it, should we cancel the football game? I'm pretty sure there was no similar article written for the Times in 2006.

Republican wonks like to talk about political capital, but I think the concept of the Divine Right is operative among liberals and democrats. The way most of us see it is that Obama has burnt all his capital, squandered his good will and used most of his trump cards. If you are one of the leftists at the New York Times you shout "Not fair! He gets a do over!" If you're a conservative you simply say "Well, time to punt, big guy."

Millennials turning away from #OBOLA

Looks like Obama is helping his democrat friends lose the millennial vote.

Released by the Harvard Institute of Politics, the poll shows that 18 to 29-year-olds who say they will "definitetly be voting" next week plan to support Republicans by a margin of 51 to 47 percent.

In September 2010--just two months before the Republican landslides in those midterm elections--Republicans only had "43 percent" support among millennials.

Regarding Obama, only "43 percent" of millennials in general approve of the job he's done--"53 percent" disapprove. But when approval/disapproval questions are asked to millennials who will "definitely be voting" next week, Obama's approval slips down to "42 percent" and his disapproval jumps to "56 percent."

One of the biggest concerns for millennials is terrorism against the US. "61 percent" of millennials said they are "a great deal" or "somewhat" concerned with the prospect of another attack against the US. They also support the plan to "expand the US air campaign against ISIS" by a margin of "39 percent" to "20 percent."

Byron York explains why there is no Surgeon General

The Ebola scare has raised awareness that there is currently no one serving as Surgeon General. Is it all the Republicans fault like some liberal pundits claim? Of course not; they don't control the Senate explains Byron York. Excerpt:

There is, however, an Obama nominee for surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, who has not been confirmed by the Senate after more than a year of waiting. Why hasn't Murthy won Senate approval in all that time?

To hear some of the president's advocates tell it, it's the Republicans' fault. "GOP blocks Surgeon General nominee," tweeted Eric Boehlert of the pro-Obama group Media Matters. "After blocking surgeon general nominee, Republican blames Obama for surgeon general vacancy," added another pro-Obama group, ThinkProgress.

Before getting into the details, here is the basic fact about charges that Republicans are blocking the surgeon general nominee: There are 55 Democrats in the Senate. Since Majority Leader Harry Reid changed the rules to kill filibusters for nominations, it would take just 51 votes to confirm Murthy. Democrats could do it all by themselves, even if every Republican opposed. But Democrats have not confirmed Murthy.

Why haven't they confirmed him? It turns out that the guy is embarrassingly political and obsessed with guns. He's behind the whole "Guns are a health care issue" nonsense, you know, asking Jimmy where daddy keeps his revolver when he's getting a check-up.

In 2008 Murthy, a Yale-trained physician currently affiliated with Harvard, founded a group called Doctors for America. Actually, he first called the organization Doctors for Obama; after Obama's victory, Doctors for Obama became Doctors for America. The group devoted itself to lobbying for passage of Obamacare.

The organization's political focus continued after the Obamacare battle was won. In 2012, Murthy got a lot of attention when he expressed frustration with opponents of his preferred gun control policies. "Tired of politicians playing politics w/guns," he tweeted, "putting lives at risk b/c they're scared of NRA. Guns are a health care issue."

In January 2013, after the Sandy Hook shootings, Doctors for America sent a letter to Congress advocating an assault weapon ban, universal background checks, mandatory waiting periods, a gun buyback program, and other proposals favored by gun control groups.

If nothing else, the letter showed that Murthy's approach to his profession remained deeply political. In any event, Murthy's activism came back to haunt him in November of 2013, when the president nominated him to be surgeon general.

So this guy is poison to Democrats seeking re-election in "red" states.

The National Rifle Association took a strong stand against Murthy, a position that caught the attention not only of Republicans but of red-state Democrats seeking re-election.

"Murthy's previous statements about gun control being a public health issue made him toxic to Democrats in cycle like [Mary] Landrieu, [Mark] Pryor, and [Mark] Begich," says one senior Republican aide.

So the truth is that there is bi-partisan opposition to confirming Vivek Murthy, and anyone who blames the Republican minority — who cannot filibuster under the new Senate rules — is lying.

"We are creating a cultural shift in how we live and eat!"

"If we keep pushing forward, we have the potential to transform the health of an ENTIRE GENERATION!!"

Well, sort of. As long as they eat all their meals at school.



There's all kinds of reasons why liberals don't want to touch SNAP, EBT or any of those programs. They know what it's really about: vote buying and control.

This video is cute, sort of funny and instructive of a double standard. But I don't think the interviewees see any double standard at all, even after they have it revealed to them. That's because they see the two things entirely differently; to them it's an "apples and oranges" situation, excuse the healthy food metaphor. Making a school lunch healthier at the expense of yumminess is fine for one reason: the kids don't vote yet. However, someone with an EBT card in their hand is going to be miffed if they can't buy what they want with it and it's going to be perceived as the deprivation of an entitlement. This might very well be reflected at the ballot box. If you've spent any time with welfare recipients you know this for a fact. Any real understanding of the power of the modern day liberal left relies on this welfare-pawn machinery.

Obama-Ebola Image Files

Here are a few in different formats. Click for full size.

PNG

JPG

GIF

Ohhhh.... you're welcome.

He's not the only one who's unhappy

Speaking of "sad face"...

Gallup reports that voter opposition to Obama is at 16-year high.

It Takes One

It's painful for me to read hand-wringing like this article about how military action is problematic for the image people have of President Obama and his poor, wittle wegacy. Excerpt:

But make no mistake: Obama’s escalation of airstrikes and the use of U.S. personnel to help “degrade and destroy” the extremist Sunni group represents a major setback for a commander in chief whose early international appeal was built on a pledge to remove the United States from “permanent war footing.”

“How did this group that came in determined to remedy the Bush administration’s overreach . . . end up embroiled in a far more open-ended conflict that has just as far-reaching consequences?” said Rosa Brooks, a former Obama administration official who served at the Pentagon from 2009 to 2011. “This is a legacy issue for him.”

Trying to be "not like Bush"—or not like anybody else for that matter—is not a successful strategy for leadership. Unfortunately that was a successful campaign strategy for getting Obama elected, and it's hard for Democrats to see the difference.

There is actually a great deal more hubris in thinking you can quit fighting a war somewhere and that will suddenly bring peace, love and a big legacy prize as an added bonus than in thinking that you better start fighting when your enemies attack you like President Bush did. That's how all this started, lest we forget. We had war declared on us.

An illustration comes to mind. I took my four oldest kids to see Indians when we got stomped by Detroit 12-1 on Labor Day. I was explaining to my 10-year-old son that the pitcher, Corey Kluber, would get credit for the loss. He responded, "I think it's the Detroit Tigers' fault that the Indians lost." He had a point. Osama Bin Laden declared war when he attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, not George W. Bush. This is not a "tango"; it only takes one to instigate a war.

Instead of responding to polls showing "war weariness" on the part of the public, I would like to see our leaders confronting the real issue. That issue is that the war against Islamic Jihad is going to require that the populace increase their fortitude and their resilience to defeat these enemies however long it takes. Wars are won or lost. If you leave, if you take your ball and go home, well, that's a loss.

Barone on Obama: Transfixed with his self-image

Great article. Best one I've seen on the difference between Obama and a more traditional, successful American politician like Bill Clinton. Excerpt:

Reagan deployed that ability in establishing productive relations with allies such as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, with whom he was by no means always in agreement, and with adversaries such as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, whose character, strengths and weaknesses he shrewdly assessed.

The ability to read other people comes more easily if you're interested in others, curious to learn what makes them tick. It comes harder or not at all if you're transfixed with your image of yourself.

Which seems to be the case with Barack Obama. Not only is he not much interested in the details of public policy, as Jay Cost argues persuasively in a recent article for the Weekly Standard. He is also, as even his admirers concede, not much inclined to schmooze with other politicians, even his fellow Democrats.

That goes double for Republicans. House Speaker Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, is one of the most transparent and least guileful politicians I've encountered. The late Sen. Edward Kennedy and liberal Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., had no difficulty reaching agreement with him on the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act.