If the senses of the American people had not been dulled by the lies and actions of this administration and disconnect of the news and media lap dogs we should all be seeing purple!(See 1 below.)
IT ALL STARTED IN 1958.
All Americans should see this video. Unfortunately, even many of those who see it will not believe it.
Tragically, this is part of the reason our morality is in a cesspool today. Morality is only one part of the master plan which is well under way to their stated success.
All this started a little over 50 years ago, and they have made significant progress. Watch....
http://www.therightscoop.com/
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'Obamascare' exemption is the last straw! (See 2 below.)
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Obama went to Egypt and apologized for America's hubris now Obama dictates to Egyptians how to behave.
Can't the Secret Service keep Obama on the golf course and take away his cell phone for the next three years and save us and the world a lot of grief? (See 3 and 3a below.)
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Where there is Will there might be a way! (See 4 below.)
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We are gone for the next two weeks seeing our TV reporter grandson in Little Rock, then to the new Walton Art Museum near Bentonville, then Branson to mingle with middle America and see some shows, back by way of Memphis to locate Elvis and finally Birmingham to spend an evening with some
friends and several of my father's former partners etc.
Once again I am giving you a reprieve from these memos but hope you will stay informed from other sources.
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Dick
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1)Hasan vs. victims -- Obama White House betrays Ft. Hood heroes
ByJay Sekulow
The Obama administration is turning its back on America’s heroes.
There are few symbols more powerful than the Purple Heart. Whether displayed next to a carefully-folded flag on a mantle, on a fraying old uniform at a veteran’s parade, or even on a license plate designating the driver as “combat-wounded,” the Purple Heart is synonymous with service and sacrifice.
For the families of the slain, Purple Hearts are treasured heirlooms, not only preserving the memory of the fallen but providing deep meaning to their sacrifice, a meaning that hearkens back to the Gospel of John: “Greater love hath no man than this, that one lay down in his life for his friends.”
For the combat-wounded living, the Purple Heart is more than a symbol, entitling veterans to health care and benefits a grateful nation provides those who’ve bled in her service.
So it is both a moral and practical betrayal that the Pentagon has thus far denied a Purple Heart to the casualties of Nidal Hasan’s November 5, 2009 terrorist attack. Hasan murdered 13 people and wounded dozens of others that day
No credible person can deny that it was, in fact, an act of terrorism. Hasan described himself as a “Mujahideen,” declared that he switched sides in the war, and even communicated with a senior Al Qaeda cleric, the now-deceased Anwar al-Awlaki, prior to the attack.
The National Counterterrorism Center listed the Fort Hood shooting in its 2009 report on terrorism
.
.
But political correctness cares not for facts.
Incredibly, the official military report on the Fort Hood shooting does not even mention Islam.
.
Just as incredibly, the military classifies the incident not as terrorism but as a mere act of “workplace violence” -- a designation that the Pentagon says prevents it from presenting this treasured award to our military heroes at Fort Hood.
” -- a designation that the Pentagon says prevents it from presenting this treasured award to our military heroes at Fort Hood.
The Pentagon justifies this designation on the grounds that calling Hasan’s attack an act of terror would prejudice his right to receive a fair trial.
As an attorney who’s practiced for more than 30 years in both civil and criminal court, I have a one-word response: Nonsense.
Complete and total nonsense.
There is a simple solution: if the judge is concerned that awarding a Purple Heart would prejudice the trial, then she should exclude evidence of the award.
Juries are required to consider the evidence presented at trial and only the evidence presented at trial. A military jury is
more than capable of discharging its duty according to the law.
If evidence of the Purple Heart award or terrorism designation did leak into the trial, then the judge could simply admonish the jury and remind its members that such determinations are made under different standards of evidence and have no bearing on the legal guilt of the accused.
Yet Hasan’s own actions have rendered even these simple cautions moot. Beginning with his opening statement, he confessed responsibility so clearly that a court-designated defense counsel tried to take over Hasan’s defense (Hasan is representing himself), convinced that Hasan is seeking the death penalty.
The stubborn refusal to award Purple Hearts is not the only way that the military is protecting Nidal Hasan’s interests over his victims. Despite the fact that he’s still an active-duty officer in the United States military, he’s been permitted to grow and maintain the jihadist beard that so many members of our armed forces have seen overseas.
This action is a direct insult to the uniform, to the victims, and to the court, yet we don’t even have the strength of will to impose our own uniform standards on a turncoat soldier.
By betraying our own soldiers and bending over backwards to accommodate their betrayer, what do we hope to accomplish? Our enemies sneer at our weakness and exploit our political correctness. In the meantime, our troops suffer the consequences.
Even though our own government denies reality for the sake of political expediency and through political cowardice, we must never forget the heroism and sacrifice of that dreadful day.
As Hasan attacked unarmed soldiers, men and women on the ground responded with extraordinary bravery: shielding casualties with their bodies, rushing Hasan, and using chairs and other objects to try to interrupt his attack. As ordinary citizens, we have no medals we can bestow, but we can give them our gratitude.
We can also give you them voice – a united and loud call for the Obama administration – specifically Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel – to drop the pretense, embrace the truth, and honor the fallen.
It’s past time for Purple Hearts for the casualties and heroes of Fort Hood.
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2) Obamacare exemption — none dare call it treason
By Charles Hurt
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Even by the standards of Washington, this is one sick, twisted and deceitful
deal. Quite possibly, it is a whole new low, even for the federal
government.
deal. Quite possibly, it is a whole new low, even for the federal
government.
Had we innocent, taxpaying citizens not long ago lost our capacity to be
outraged by the disgraceful manner in which this place operates, we would
already be in all-out political revolt. Against President Obama. Against
Democrats in Congress. And, especially, Republicans.
outraged by the disgraceful manner in which this place operates, we would
already be in all-out political revolt. Against President Obama. Against
Democrats in Congress. And, especially, Republicans.
Literally, revolutionary wars have been fought over less.
Last week, while many Americans spent hard-saved money on long-overdue
vacations, the snakes and weasels inside the federal bureaucracy schemed
until they hatched an evil plan. It would feather their own nests with more
of your money, protect themselves from the ravages of the laws they foist
upon us, desecrate our Constitution and then smear us with insult so putrid
it would make a roadside vulture gag.
vacations, the snakes and weasels inside the federal bureaucracy schemed
until they hatched an evil plan. It would feather their own nests with more
of your money, protect themselves from the ravages of the laws they foist
upon us, desecrate our Constitution and then smear us with insult so putrid
it would make a roadside vulture gag.
All the legal, constitutional and parliamentary maneuvering is enough to
confuse Albert Einstein, but here is the bottom line: Congress and staff
managed to get themselves exempted from the single, most-punishing aspect of
Obamacare.
confuse Albert Einstein, but here is the bottom line: Congress and staff
managed to get themselves exempted from the single, most-punishing aspect of
Obamacare.
Yes, you should be sharpening the tines of your pitchforks.
Back when the president and his henchmen rammed Obamacare through Congress,
Republicans inserted a key provision requiring that whatever Frankenstein
healthcare boondoggle got yoked upon the hardworking American people would
also be yoked around the necks of every congressman and staffer on Capitol
Hill. Mr. Obama, being the slick fellow that he is, made sure it did not
apply to him or anybody working for him in the White House.
Republicans inserted a key provision requiring that whatever Frankenstein
healthcare boondoggle got yoked upon the hardworking American people would
also be yoked around the necks of every congressman and staffer on Capitol
Hill. Mr. Obama, being the slick fellow that he is, made sure it did not
apply to him or anybody working for him in the White House.
The noble idea was that if they were seizing control of our titanic — yet
still largely functioning — health care system and started ramming into
every passing iceberg, then, by God, they were not going to get to be first
in line for the life boats. No, they were going to go down with the ship.
If Obamacare was good enough for the American people, it should be good
enough for Congress.
still largely functioning — health care system and started ramming into
every passing iceberg, then, by God, they were not going to get to be first
in line for the life boats. No, they were going to go down with the ship.
If Obamacare was good enough for the American people, it should be good
enough for Congress.
Well, that was before the bill passed, when they still needed to get it
through. Now, it simply will not do.
through. Now, it simply will not do.
It turns out that the health care packages currently provided to Congress
and their staff are so generous and the squalor that will be caused by
Obamacare is so terrible that the health care law simply cannot be applied
to such precious people.
and their staff are so generous and the squalor that will be caused by
Obamacare is so terrible that the health care law simply cannot be applied
to such precious people.
The thought is so terrifying that staffers from both parties in both
chambers of Congress declared they would quit if forced to endure Obamacare.
chambers of Congress declared they would quit if forced to endure Obamacare.
To those of us paying the bills around here, this sounded like a great idea.
But the federal bureaucracy blanched in terror. There would be a mass exodus
of "talent," they shrieked. There will be a "brain drain!"
But the federal bureaucracy blanched in terror. There would be a mass exodus
of "talent," they shrieked. There will be a "brain drain!"
After all, without these people, who would come up with all these fantastic
new laws like, say, Obamacare?
new laws like, say, Obamacare?
I mean, if it was "talent" and "brains" that got us into this mess, maybe
it's time to try something else. Like letting them all quit. Or exempting
all Americans from Obamacare.
it's time to try something else. Like letting them all quit. Or exempting
all Americans from Obamacare.
Instead, after personal pleas made directly to Mr. Obama, his administration
quietly ruled last week in the dead of August that Congress and staff would
be exempted.
quietly ruled last week in the dead of August that Congress and staff would
be exempted.
Now they will dispute this and say that, indeed, they are being forced out
of their cushy government health insurance plans and into the Obamacare
health exchanges. This much is true. But there is a dirty, dirty secret. You
are still paying for their insurance.
of their cushy government health insurance plans and into the Obamacare
health exchanges. This much is true. But there is a dirty, dirty secret. You
are still paying for their insurance.
If a regular citizen makes $100,000 a year working for a private company and
loses his insurance because of Obamacare, he must pay out of his pocket for
the insurance he will be forced to purchase from the exchanges.
loses his insurance because of Obamacare, he must pay out of his pocket for
the insurance he will be forced to purchase from the exchanges.
However, if you are a sainted congressional staffer earning $100,000 a year
and enter the exchanges, guess who picks up the tab for your new insurance
plan? That's right, your employer, the federal government, the lowly
taxpayer.
and enter the exchanges, guess who picks up the tab for your new insurance
plan? That's right, your employer, the federal government, the lowly
taxpayer.
In other words, under Obamacare, the only people forced into the exchanges
whose insurance will still be paid for by their employer will be members of
Congress and their staff.
whose insurance will still be paid for by their employer will be members of
Congress and their staff.
Not only is this sneaky, self-dealing and cynical, it is a dishonest
bait-and-switch. And once again, we lowly taxpayers are the suckers who get
stuck with the bill, get chained down by their terrible laws and laughed at
all the way to the hospital.
bait-and-switch. And once again, we lowly taxpayers are the suckers who get
stuck with the bill, get chained down by their terrible laws and laughed at
all the way to the hospital.
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3)US-Egyptian relations on the rocks. El-Sisi wouldn’t accept Obama’s phone call
When the clashes between Egyptian security forces and pro-Morsi protesters were at their peak in Cairo Wednesday, Aug. 14 – 525 dead and 3,700 wounded to date - President Barack Obama put in a call to Egypt’s strongman, Defense Minister Gen. Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi. The US president wanted to give the general a dressing-down much on the lines of the call he made to former president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011 at the high point of the Arab Spring Tahrir Sq demonstrations against his rule, namely: Stop repressing the protesters and firing live ammunition. Step down!
3)US-Egyptian relations on the rocks. El-Sisi wouldn’t accept Obama’s phone call
When the clashes between Egyptian security forces and pro-Morsi protesters were at their peak in Cairo Wednesday, Aug. 14 – 525 dead and 3,700 wounded to date - President Barack Obama put in a call to Egypt’s strongman, Defense Minister Gen. Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi. The US president wanted to give the general a dressing-down much on the lines of the call he made to former president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011 at the high point of the Arab Spring Tahrir Sq demonstrations against his rule, namely: Stop repressing the protesters and firing live ammunition. Step down!
When Mubarak asked for a three or four days’ grace to break up the massed rally, Obama shot back that he has to quit NOW!
And indeed, on Feb. 11, the army announced the president’s resignation.
Realizing what was coming, Gen. El-Sissi decided not to accept President Obama’s call. The Egyptian officials who received it informed the US president politely that the right person for him to address was Egypt’s interim president Adly Mansour and they would be glad to transfer the call to him. The White House callers declined.
This anecdote shows that the military strongman is not only determined to avoid the pitfalls which brought Mubarak down but is equally determined to keep the US administration from interfering in his plans for driving the Muslim Brotherhood out of Egyptian politics.
Diplomatic condemnation of those plans is building up in Western capitals. Wednesday night, the Obama White House issued a statement strongly condemning “the use of violence against protesters in Egypt” and the state of emergency. Egyptian ambassadors in Paris, London and Berlin received denunciations and expressions of concern from their host governments, and Turkey demanded a UN Security Council emergency session on the situation in Egypt.
Sources report that harsh international condemnation of Gen. El-Sissi’s crackdown will do more harm than good. The backlash will come in three forms:
1. The Muslim Brotherhood will be encouraged to pursue increasingly extreme measures to fight the Egyptian army in the expectation of international applause.
2. The generals will be encouraged to escalate their steps for repressing the Brotherhood.
3. The Saudis and the Gulf Emirates will redouble their support for the Egyptian general and his campaign against the Brotherhood. This will widen the rift between those Arab rulers and the Obama administration.
Intelligence sources also disclose , while President Obama was trying to get through to Gen. El-Sissi, the general was on the phone with Prince Bandar, Director of Saudi Intelligence.
On July 31, Bandar arrived in Moscow and was immediately received by President Vladimir Putin for a conversation that lasted four hours. The Saudi prince next received an invitation to visit Washington at his earliest convenience and meet with President Obama.
Bandar has still not responded to that invitation.
Clearly, the US president’s problem with the Egyptian situation is a lot more complicated than pulling the army off the Muslim Brotherhood’s backs. He needs to somehow snap the strategic alliance unfolding between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and the rapport between the Egyptian general and the Saudi prince.
3a)Obama Trips Over Himself Again on Egypt
The best defense I can muster for Team Obama's pathetic response to the events of the last month in Egypt is that the men and women in charge of American foreign policy simply don't mind looking foolish. No, really: Obama has espoused the generally astute opinion that the immediate reaction of the American president is not the most important aspect of every worrying development on the planet. Not all problems can be fixed by a show of American strength or outrage or willpower. And really, in the grand scheme of things, whether the administration looks silly or weak is less meaningful than whether it is effective.
Alas, this quasi-defense doesn't apply in the case of Egypt, where the death toll from the last 24 hours stands above 500. (Injuries are at about 3,700.) Not only has the administration looked weak and unprepared, but it looks unintelligent, too. The New York Times had several superb articles on the "crisis" today—as an aside, I wonder if people would use words like "crisis" if the Iranian mullahs had just slaughtered hundreds of people—but the one that caught my eye concerned the comments from the admistration yesterday. As Mark Landler and Michael R. Gordon somewhat snidely (and appropriately) put it:
[Secretary of State] Kerry announced no punitive measures, while President Obama, vacationing here on Martha’s Vineyard, had no public reaction. As his chief diplomat was speaking of a “pivotal moment for Egypt,” the president was playing golf at a private club.
Today, however, President Obama made a longish statement, but he sounded just as vacillating as ever. He began by saying, "The relationship between the United States and Egypt goes back decades," adding pointlessly that Egypt was "an ancient center of civilization." He then said that "the United States strongly condemns" what has happened in the last day, and continued by saying, "We have sustained our commitment" to Egypt, which I assume means aid. The big moment of the speech: when he said he was "cancelling a joint military exercise" with Egypt and was going to "assess implications" with his national security team. "America cannot determine the future in Egypt," he concluded.
It was not an impressive performance. The president kept tripping over himself, first claiming that America follows its values, then talking about American interests, and making no attempt to synthesize the two. His announcement about the military exercise must have the junta in Egypt laughing to themselves, especially if the exercise consisted of shooting unarmed people in the head, which is something they seem good at even without (more) American training. But again, the problem is not that Obama looks weak per se; it's the policy behind the weakness. He hasn't tried to use aid as leverage (and still refuses to use the word "coup"), he hasn't (one assumes) put much pressure on American allies who are backing the Egyptian military, and he hasn't even attempted to lay out the reasons that military rule in Egypt might, in the long term, play against American interests. One need only look to the Middle East and Pakistan to see how military repression can lead to extremism, and rampant anti-Americanism. It was notable that Obama took time to mention that Morsi's undemocratic actions undermined his case for rule, but not that the military's much more violent and undemocratic actions did the same.
Finally, there is the sheer shame. As the administration dithers—and continues to send money to the people committing the actual violence—Egyptian state media is lashing out at America! Here is how Mike Giglio, a reporter for Newsweek and The Daily Beast in Cairo, described the media scene to the Times' Brian Stelter:
"I think a big part of this is the product of the rabid information wars going on right now: Western journalists, and America in general, are being portrayed as enemies — by politicians, by anti-Morsi activists and in the state and private media," Mr. Giglio said, referring to the ousted leader Mohamed Morsi. "People are being told not to trust the international press, because what it’s reporting doesn’t always fit with the government’s media narrative, and that narrative is extremely important to them right now. I think this is fueling intense paranoia and anger toward the international media in Egypt, and I think I saw an effect of that today, whatever else may have also been at play."
Americans should ponder why they are helping to pay for the state media's content, and the men who are responsible for airing it.
Isaac Chotiner is a senior editor at The New Republic. Follow him @IChotiner.
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4)
Obama’s unconstitutional steps worse than Nixon’s
President Obama’s increasingly grandiose claims for presidential power are inversely proportional to his shriveling presidency. Desperation fuels arrogance as, barely 200 days into the 1,462 days of his second term, his pantry of excuses for failure is bare, his domestic agenda is nonexistent and his foreign policy of empty rhetorical deadlines and red lines is floundering. And at last week’s news conference he offered inconvenience as a justification for illegality.
Explaining his decision to unilaterally rewrite the Affordable Care Act (ACA), he said: “I didn’t simply choose to” ignore the statutory requirement for beginning in 2014 the employer mandate to provide employees with health care. No, “this was in consultation with businesses.”
He continued: “In a normal political environment, it would have been easier for me to simply call up the speaker and say, you know what, this is a tweak that doesn’t go to the essence of the law. . . . It looks like there may be some better ways to do this, let’s make a technical change to the law. That would be the normal thing that I would prefer to do. But we’re not in a normal atmosphere around here when it comes to Obamacare. We did have the executive authority to do so, and we did so.”
Serving as props in the scripted charade of White House news conferences, journalists did not ask the pertinent question: “Wheredoes the Constitution confer upon presidents the ‘executive authority’ to ignore the separation of powers by revising laws?” The question could have elicited an Obama rarity: brevity. Because there is no such authority.
Obama’s explanation began with an irrelevancy. He consulted with businesses before disregarding his constitutional dutyto “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” That duty does not lapse when a president decides Washington’s “political environment” is not “normal.”
When was it “normal”? The 1850s? The 1950s? Washington has been the nation’s capital for 213 years; Obama has been here less than nine. Even if he understood “normal” political environments here, the Constitution is not suspended when a president decides the “environment” is abnormal.
Neither does the Constitution confer on presidents the power to rewrite laws if they decide the change is a “tweak” not involving the law’s “essence.” Anyway, the employer mandate is essential to the ACA.
Twenty-three days before his news conference, the House voted 264 to 161, with 35 Democrats in the majority, for the rule of law — for, that is, the Authority for Mandate Delay Act. It would have done lawfully what Obama did by ukase. Hethreatened to veto this use of legislation to alter a law. The White House called it “unnecessary,” presumably because he has an uncircumscribed “executive authority” to alter laws.
In a 1977 interview with Richard Nixon, David Frost asked: “Would you say that there are certain situations . . . where the president can decide that it’s in the best interests of the nation . . . and do something illegal?”
Nixon: “Well, when the president does it, that means it is not illegal.”
Frost: “By definition.”
Nixon: “Exactly, exactly.”
Nixon’s claim, although constitutionally grotesque, was less so than the claim implicit in Obama’s actions regarding the ACA. Nixon’s claim was confined to matters of national security or (he said to Frost) “a threat to internal peace and order of significant magnitude.” Obama’s audacity is more spacious; it encompasses a right to disregard any portion of any law pertaining to any subject at any time when the political “environment” is difficult.
Obama should be embarrassed that, by ignoring the legal requirement concerning the employer mandate, he has validated critics who say the ACA cannot be implemented as written. What does not embarrass him is his complicity in effectively rewriting the ACA for the financial advantage of self-dealing members of Congress and their staffs.
The ACA says members of Congress (annual salaries: $174,000) and their staffs (thousands making more than $100,000) must participate in the law’s insurance exchanges. It does not say that when this change goes into effect, the current federal subsidy for this affluent cohort — up to 75 percent of the premium’s cost, perhaps $10,000 for families — should be unchanged.
When Congress awakened to what it enacted, it panicked: This could cause a flight of talent, making Congress less wonderful. So Obama directed the Office of Personnel Management, which has no power to do this, to authorize for the political class special subsidiesunavailable for less privileged and less affluent citizens.
If the president does it, it’s legal? “Exactly, exactly.”
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