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These are the kind of idiots we elect and who are ruining our nation:
"PRICELESS AND BRIEF
In a bid to stem taxpayer losses for bad loans guaranteed by federal housing agencies Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) proposed that borrowers be required to make a 5% down payment in order to qualify for a loan.
His proposal was rejected 57-42 on a straight party-line vote because, as Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn) explained, "Passage of such a requirement would restrict home ownership to only those who can afford it."
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What's up in Egypt? (See 2 below.)
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Obama is finally accomplishing another of his misguided dreams - gutting our military to pay for his insane social spending.
I have lived to see liberals gut the military many times only to blame conservatives for the extraordinary cost of rebuilding.
Nothing will invite outbreaks and challenges faster than Obama's running down our military.
As a famous and beloved baseball player once said "De Ja Vu all over again."
Between Obama's outrageous raping of medicare, to pay for his wasteful "Affordable Health Care Act," and his destructive legislative agenda, Obama is rapidly accomplishing his goal of tearing the fabric of our society apart while pitting segments of America against others.
And, if that isn't enough, we have all this 'fairness crap.' (See 3 ,3a, 3b and 3c below.)
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Gov. Jindal says it like it is and horrified Democrats at White House Function. Yeah, the truth pinches! (See 4 below.)
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DickGov. Jindal says it like it is and horrified Democrats at White House Function. Yeah, the truth pinches! (See 4 below.)
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1) The Iranian Power Play
By Yisrael Ne'eman
Today Iran is fighting a two and a half front war in a power play for Middle Eastern hegemony. The chances for victory are quite good. Iran's nuclear front is the most manifest and rightly receives massive media attention, but at the expense of Iranian imperial plans for further penetration throughout the Middle East. The nuclear emphasis serves as a deception from the real issues at hand, those on the ground, both in the Levant and the Persian Gulf. The Syrian-Lebanese arena is fully developed as evidenced by the heavy Iranian involvement on the side of the Assad government in Damascus and the power projected by Tehran's Lebanese Hezbollah military proxies. Hezbollah is far more powerful than the Lebanese army and acts as an Iranian foreign intervention force, sending thousands of fighters into Syria to aid Assad's government against the Sunni and/or Jihadi rebels. At the moment Iran is "only" threatening instability in the oil rich Persian Gulf, hence this "half front" is not developed even if it may become the most decisive of all the Iranian regional initiatives.
Many wonder whether the Iranians will come to terms with the West over their nuclear program. Obviously they will, but only in the short to intermediate term. There will be much haggling and noise, all in the name of the "great distraction" so the world will concentrate on Tehran's compliance with what will become a series of agreements to curtail their ability to become a nuclear power in the military sense. The Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is savvy enough to keep the agreement just long enough to enable victory in both Syria/Lebanon and an infiltration into the Persian Gulf, challenging or even dislodging Saudi influence. The nuclear arrangement with the West is being done "hudna" or Islamic cease-fire style. It is not a western cease-fire seeking conflict resolution, but rather the opposite whereby the breather is uses to rearm, reload, reorganize and restart. The Iranians know very well what happens when the West "digs in its heals" – they need only look at the North Korean nuclear success and the recent agreement with Damascus to eliminate all chemical weapons - only 11% of these WMDs have been removed and any other serious progress is doubtful. The Iranians are only delayed in their nuclear program and will continue when conditions improve.
After three years of war Assad's Syria is not longer an ally but far closer to a satellite (remember Soviet dominated Eastern Europe 1945-89?). Dependent on Iranian military might and the projection of force either directly or through a third party non-state actor such as Hezbollah, once the dust settles whatever remains of Syria will be given to Iranian dominance. One can expect Iranian-Hezbollah-Syrian control to extend from Aleppo in the north, through Homs, Hama, Damascus and to Deraa on the southern border with Jordan. The western Alawite coastal region including the ports of Latakia, Banyas (oil terminal) and Tartus (Russian Mediterranean fleet anchorage rights) will certainly remain secured while we can expect defensive positions will be held running 50 to 100 kilometers east of the Aleppo – Deraa line. The less important Sunni tribal eastern desert region may very well be relinquished. The present systematic destruction of Syria's opposition cities and neighborhoods is a warning to all the Lebanese communities to adhere to the Iranian-Hezbollah dictates or suffer similar consequences. Tehran will offer a re-stabilization and development of Lebanon under Iranian hegemony or threaten a devastating conflict to achieve such goals. From here Iran may continue challenging Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians, in particular making efforts to reassert itself with its former Hamas clients.
Iranian chances of success are good despite the large number of Sunni Jihadi opponents. The Syrian opposition is very fragmented, suffers from infighting and has no central voice or policy. Iranian dominated Syria will suffer low intensity attacks but they can be expected to overcome the Jihadis. The Irano-Syrian counter-attacks cleansing all regions of civilian opposition began with the barrel bombings on apartment buildings months ago and will continue until there is virtually no one left to challenge Iran and/or Assad. The Russians stand solidly behind Assad's minority regime representing Christian interests alongside those of the Alawites and Druze. Moscow will guarantee the arms and ammunition supply while vetoing any condemnations in the UN. After Pres. Vladimir Putin's failure to re-couple the Ukraine to Russia he can be expected to dig in even deeper on the Syrian front.
Eastern Shiite Iraq led by Pres. Nuri el-Maliki is a very willing and reliable ally sharing hundreds of kilometers of a common frontier with Iran. When the Americans left, the Iranians quickly moved in. Iraqi Shiite battles for Falluja and into Sunni dominated western Iraq may not be successful now or in the future. Most of western Iraq may well be conceded to the Sunni tribal desert inhabitants similar to the eastern Syria policy. Iran will not waste resources on regions of peripheral importance. Full consolidation of power over the Shiite dominated oil region is an immediate policy imperative at a time when Iranian oil still suffers sanctions.
But this is only the beginning. Iranian dominance over the Persian Gulf region is the overall objective and that means challenging the Arab Gulf States and in particular Saudi Arabia. Shiites in the Persian Gulf suffer the heavy hand of discrimination and terrible abuse under the Arab Sunni regimes. Many Shiites lean towards Iran despite their Arab cultural backgrounds. Bahrain has a Sunni monarchy but a majority Shiite population while Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have sizable Shiite minorities. The minority Shiites in Saudi Arabia are often the majority in regions of the oil rich eastern province bordering the Persian Gulf. The Iranians may well attempt to foment unrest among Arab Shiites in the hope of weakening the Arab Gulf regimes.
Traditionally the Americans with their oil interests would have none of this but US oil dependency on the Gulf States is diminishing as domestic oil development allows for much more independence. Saddam Hussein of 1991 was a definite threat to US economic interests, but is an Iranian push into the Arab Gulf in the 2010s similar? Iran is several times larger, boasts a powerful military and has serious ballistic missile capabilities. There is a different set of circumstances a generation later, especially when considering US oil production (and the pipeline from Canada) accompanied by the isolationist atmosphere gripping America as of late. In other words, will the US fight for the Saudis once again? Probably not. The West can consistently boycott Iran but the Chinese and Japanese will continue their desperate need of petroleum for years to come and will feel no obligation to American foreign policy dictates. And do not forget the Russians – already de facto Iranian allies in Syria, Pres. Putin can always be expected to oppose western interests as a matter of course (the Ukraine also being a case in point). Russian and Iranian influences coincide in their joint effort to defeat Sunni Jihadi fanatics and hence they can be expected to work together.
Most likely the Americans are heading for a reconciliation with Tehran to include Iranian dominance in Syria/Lebanon and increased influence in the Gulf. One should not expect the Iranians to initiate hostilities in the Gulf but rather work slowly and surreptitiously to undermine overall Arab Sunni and western interests in the region. A war might break out eventually but by then the die will be cast. The Saudis are aware of the slow moving American retreat and are said to have commissioned the Pakistani army to bring in two divisions to help in their defense – but in the meantime they are nowhere to be seen.
So while everyone is focusing on the nuclear talks with Iran the West is and will be losing the battle on the ground, both in Syria/Lebanon and the Persian Gulf. President Rouchani and Foreign Minister Zarif provide the perfect "smile offensive" so badly needed by the West and in particular the Obama Administration to prove the Iranians are serious about halting their nuclear program and engaging in a new type of détente. The West focuses on the nuclear issue since there is no counterbalance to rising Iranian influence and victories on the ground. There is a deliberate image and media shift – the Iranians are seen in a more positive manner. They are being portrayed as true partners in peace despite the horrific massacres in Syria and continuing repression in Iran itself. The Americans prefer not to contemplate out loud what steps Iran may take on its way to Persian Gulf dominance.
At least in the immediate future we can expect the Iranians will keep their end of the nuclear bargain and work to have the sanctions lifted. Pres. Obama and EU Foreign Affairs Chief Catherine Ashton will be able to declare success or even victory in their dealings with Iran. But the victory will be pyrrhic, only having delayed the Iranian nuclear program while on the ground Tehran's dominance continues to expand. The central question remaining is whether the West is involved in a deliberate trade off by allowing for the expansion of Iranian Middle Eastern influence in exchange for what they believe to be a halt of their nuclear weapons program? Quite possibly, but that of course is a different discussion.
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February 15, 2014: Textile workers strike to demand a minimum wage, the removal of their company's head and the head of the firm's holding company, and back pay of yearly bonuses in Mahalla al-Kobra, Egypt.(AP Photo/Sabry Khaled, El Shorouk Newspaper)
CAIRO – Egypt's interim prime minister announced Monday the resignation of his Cabinet, a surprise move that could be designed in part to pave the way for the nation's military chief to leave his defense minister's post to run for president.
Hazem el-Beblawi's military-backed government was sworn in on July 16, less than two weeks after Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the defense minister, ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi after a year in office. Its ministers will remain in their posts in a caretaker capacity until the president picks a prime minister to form a new Cabinet.
The government's resignation, announced by el-Beblawi in a live TV broadcast, came amid a host of strikes, including one by public transport workers and garbage collectors. An acute shortage of cooking gas has also been making front page news the past few days.
Egypt's political system gives most powers to the president. The prime minister usually handles day-to-day economic management, but does not set key policies. Under deposed President Hosni Mubarak, who had ruled Egypt for nearly 30 years until his 2011 ouster, the prime minister was perceived as a scapegoat for government failings.
It was not immediately clear whether el-Beblawi will stay at the helm of a new government or will step aside for a new prime minister. Local media has repeatedly reported that he planned to reshuffle his government but not resign.
He said the Cabinet's decision to resign was made during Monday's weekly government meeting, but he gave no details.
El-Beblawi has often been derided in the media for his perceived indecisiveness and inability to introduce effective remedies for the country's economic woes. He has also been criticized for the security forces' inability to prevent high-profile terror attacks blamed on militants sympathetic with Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood.
The outgoing prime minister acknowledged the difficult conditions in which his Cabinet functioned, but suggested that Egypt was in a better place now that it was when he first took office. He also pointed out that while members of his Cabinet may not have represented the nation's top talents, they were experts in their fields who accepted Cabinet posts at a very difficult time.
“The Cabinet has, in the last six or seven months, responsibly and dutifully shouldered a very difficult and delicate burden and I believe that, in most cases, we have achieved good results,” he said.
“But like any endeavor, it cannot all be success but rather within the boundaries of what is humanly possible,” el-Beblawi said. The goal, he added, was to take Egypt out of a “narrow tunnel” brought about by security, political and economic pressures.
Commenting on the flurry of strikes, the outgoing prime minister cautioned Egyptians that this was not the time for making demands. “We must sacrifice our personal and narrow interests for the benefit of the nation.”
A presidential bid by the popular el-Sissi has been widely anticipated and leaving him out of the next Cabinet will most likely be accompanied or soon followed by an announcement by the 59-year-old soldier that he is running.
El-Sissi has already secured the support of Egypt's top military body, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, to launch a presidential bid.
Already, the career infantry officer trained in Britain and the United States has been acting in a somewhat presidential manner. He paid a highly publicized visit to Russia earlier this month, when he secured the Kremlin's goodwill, its blessing for his likely presidential bid and negotiated a large arms deal.
Last week, his wife made her first public appearance since Morsi's ouster, seated next to him in a military ceremony.
The resignation followed the adoption last month of a new constitution drafted by a mostly liberal and secular panel and two months ahead of a presidential election, now expected to be held in April. The charter gives the military the exclusive right to pick the defense minister for the next two, four-year presidential terms.
In Egypt, the defense minister is routinely the armed forces' commander in chief, so if el-Sissi is left out of the next Cabinet, then he would be left in a vacuum unless he announces his presidential candidacy simultaneously as or just before the new government is sworn in. Newspapers and broadcasters with ties to the military have tipped Chief of Staff Gen. Sedki Subhi to be the next defense minister.
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3 ) Grandmaster Putin plays chess while Obama's stuck on checkers
By Michael Goodwin
Around the world, there’s no good news. As it continues its savage bombardment of civilians, Syria shows no signs of keeping its promise to destroy its chemical weapons.
As Ukraine neared a civil war, its military leader refused for more than a week to return phone calls from U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.
Iran insists negotiations over its nuclear program will not involve its ballistic missiles. One official took a dig at President Obama, saying the missiles are a “red line.”
The bad guys have figured out that “leading from behind” isn’t leading at all.
Welcome to global disorder. You know America’s power is waning when the mullahs mock our empty threats.
The bad guys have figured out that “leading from behind” isn’t leading at all. Russia’s Vladimir Putin is acting like a grandmaster of chess while Obama stumbles at checkers.
But Obama’s fecklessness offers one advantage — it’s easier to see why he keeps bullying Israel.
The tiny Jewish state gets singled out because nobody else listens to America anymore. Once the Israelis figure that out, we’ll really be alone.
3a)‘ What the hell is Barack Obama's presidency for?
His ascent to power had meaning, but now his interventions are too rare and too piecemeal to constitute a narrative
By Gary Younge
A few days after John F Kennedy's assassination, Lyndon Johnson sat in his kitchen with his key advisers working his first speech to Congress. It was the evening of Kennedy's funeral – Johnson was now president. The nation was still in grief and Johnson, writes Robert Caro in The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power, was not yet able to move into the White House because Kennedy's effects were still there.
He had been a hapless vice-president; now he had to both personify and project the transition from bereavement to business as usual. In the midst of the cold war, with Vietnam brewing, the Kennedy administrationhad been trying to get civil rights legislation and tax cuts through Congress. There was plenty of business to attend to. Johnson's advisers were keen that he introduced himself to the nation as a president who could get things done.
For that reason, writes Caro, they implored him not to push for civil rights in this first speech, since it had no chance of passing. "The presidency has only a certain amount of coinage to expend, and you oughtn't to expend it on this," said "one of the wise, practical people around the table". Johnson, who sat in silence at the table as his aides debated, interjected: "Well, what the hell's the presidency for."
"First," he told Congress a few days later, "no memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honour President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long." Over the next five years he would go on to sign the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, launch the war on poverty and introduce Medicaid (medical assistance for low-income families) and Medicare (for seniors). That's what his presidency was for.
Barack Obama has now been in power for longer than Johnson was, and the question remains: "What the hell's his presidency for?" His second term has been characterised by a profound sense of drift in principle and policy. While posing as the ally of the immigrant he is deporting people at a faster clip than any of his predecessors; while claiming to be a supporter of labour he's championing trade deals that will undercut American jobs and wages. In December, even as he pursued one whistleblower, Edward Snowden and kept another, Chelsea Manning, incarcerated, he told the crowd at Nelson Mandela's funeral: "There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba's struggle for freedom, but do not tolerate dissent from their own people."
If there was a plot, he's lost it. If there was a point, few can remember it. If he had a big idea, he shrank it. If there's a moral compass powerful enough to guide such contradictions to more consistent waters, it is in urgent need of being reset.
Given the barriers to democratic engagement and progressive change in America – gerrymandering, big money and Senate vetoes – we shouldalways be wary of expecting too much from a system designed to deliver precious little to the poor. We should also challenge the illusion that any individual can single-handedly produce progressive change in the absence of a mass movement that can both drive and sustain it.
Nonetheless, it was Obama who set himself the task of becoming a transformational political figure in the mould of Ronald Reagan or JFK. "I think we are in one of those fundamentally different times right now where people think that things, the way they are going, just aren't working," he said. It was he who donned the mantles of "hope" and "change".
It was obvious what his election was for. First, preventing the alternative: presidential candidates in the grip of a deeply dysfunctional and reactionary party. His arrival marked a respite from eight years of international isolation, military excess and economic collapse. He stood against fear, exclusion and greed – and won. Second, it helped cohere and mobilise a new progressive coalition that is transforming the electoral landscape. Finally, it proved that despite the country's recent history Americans could elect a black man to its highest office.
So his ascent to power had meaning. It's his presence in power that lacks purpose. The gap between rich and poor and black and white has grown while he's been in the White House, the prospects for immigration reform remain remote, bankers made away with the loot, and Guantánamo's still open. It's true there's a limit to what a president can do about much of this and that Republican intransigence has not helped. But that makes the original question more salient not less: if he can't reunite a divided political culture, which was one of his key pledges, and his powers are that limited, then what is the point of his presidency?
This should not deny his achievements. He scaled down one major war, is winding down another, and helped save the US car industry. If he's on the hook for growing inequality, then he can take credit for the deficit shrinking and unemployment falling. But together, this amounts to an extended period of triage before sending the patient back out into the world without any plan for long-term recovery. The underlying impulses, policies, priorities and structures that made the wars and economic collapse possible are still in place.
Finally, there's healthcare reform. The brouhaha over its botched rollout will scarcely be remembered a few years hence. But with roughly 31 million people set to remain uninsured and little changing for many, its undeniable benefits are not likely to be remembered as transformational. All in all, there's precious little that Obama has done that any of his primary opponents would not have done.
Occasionally, he either gives a lead – like after the shootings at Newtownwhen he advocated for gun control – or follows one, as in his support for gay marriage or preventing the deportation of young undocumented immigrants, which helps to set a tone or establish a moral marker. But these interventions are too rare, and their remedies too piecemeal, to constitute a narrative.
"If you're going to be president, then I guess you obviously want to be in the history books," said Susan Aylward, a frustrated Obama supporter in Akron, Ohio, shortly before the last election. "So what does he want to be in the history books for? I don't quite know the answer to that yet." Sadly, it seems, neither does he.
3b) When Failure Is Success
For Obama’s supporters, what matters is not what he does, but what he says and represents.
Losing a job is freedom from job lock. A budget deficit larger than in any previous administration is austerity. A mean right-wing video caused the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi. Al-Qaeda was long ago washed up. The Muslim Brotherhood is secular. Jihad is a personal journey. Shooting people while screaming Allahu akbar! is workplace violence. Unaffordable higher premiums and deductibles are the result of an Affordable Care Act. Losing your doctor and your health-insurance plan prove you will never lose your doctor and your health-insurance plan — period! Being a constitutional lawyer means you know how to turn the IRS and the FCC on your enemies. Failure is success; lies are truth.
Yet after all the 24-hour outrages, and all the op-eds pointing out that a self-described constitutional-law professor has been the worst adversary of the Constitution since Richard Nixon, and after perhaps even a slide in the polls of a point or two, we will soon forget Ms. Clyburn and her idiotic attempts to diversify the news by seeking uniform expression in the media.
And we have forgotten former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner — of failing-to-pay-his-taxes fame — who went back through the revolving door after threatening Standard & Poor’s for downgrading the U.S. credit rating.
3b) When Failure Is Success
For Obama’s supporters, what matters is not what he does, but what he says and represents.
Losing a job is freedom from job lock. A budget deficit larger than in any previous administration is austerity. A mean right-wing video caused the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi. Al-Qaeda was long ago washed up. The Muslim Brotherhood is secular. Jihad is a personal journey. Shooting people while screaming Allahu akbar! is workplace violence. Unaffordable higher premiums and deductibles are the result of an Affordable Care Act. Losing your doctor and your health-insurance plan prove you will never lose your doctor and your health-insurance plan — period! Being a constitutional lawyer means you know how to turn the IRS and the FCC on your enemies. Failure is success; lies are truth.
President Obama’s polls are creeping back up again. They do that every time the latest in the series of scandals — the IRS, AP, NSA, Benghazi, and Obamacare messes — recedes into the media memory hole. The once-outrageous IRS scandal was rebranded as psychodramatic journalists being outraged. The monitoring of AP reporters and of James Rosen is mostly “Stuff happens.” The NSA octopus was Bush’s creation. You can keep your doctor and your health plan — period — begat liberation from “job lock” and the ability to write poetry because you don’t have to work.
There will be more momentary outrages on the horizon, as a president who would fundamentally transform America continues to circumvent the Constitution to do it. The latest are the failed efforts of acting FCC director Mignon Clyburn — daughter of a Democratic stalwart, Representative James Clyburn. She dreamed about monitoring news outlets to ensure that they prove themselves correct in matters of race/class/gender thinking.
After all, we have forgotten EPA Director Lisa Jackson — former right-hand woman to former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine — who mysteriously disappeared from the EPA after creating a fake e-mail persona, “Richard Windsor.” The latter nonexistent crusader won an award from none other than Lisa Jackson’s EPA.
And we have forgotten Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who suddenly disappeared from the Cabinet after the FBI inquired into her Obama fundraising activities as secretary, and who is currently being sued over her mysterious freebie use of a union-owned luxury jet to hop between the coasts.
And we have forgotten Lois Lerner, who focused the IRS on tea-party groups, took the Fifth Amendment, retired, and is no longer “outrageous.”
And we have forgotten former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner — of failing-to-pay-his-taxes fame — who went back through the revolving door after threatening Standard & Poor’s for downgrading the U.S. credit rating.
All these activists spoke a little too candidly about their ideology, crossed the line a bit too much in the defense of progressivism, and then receded as if they had never existed — until the next anonymous progressive hoplite in the phalanx of the hard Left steps up over the corpse into the fray and for a moment or two appears on our television screens. In response, President Obama always seems to take the attitude, What does it matter, and who cares? And so he goes along blaming either President Bush or Fox News, when not citing the conspiracy of ATM machines, earthquakes, and tsunamis that combined to thwart his populist efforts.
Who cares that fiscal discipline is now defined as raising taxes so as to borrow only $600 billion rather than borrowing $1 trillion a year for six straight years? And who cares that millions will lose their doctor, their health-care coverage, and most likely their jobs because of Obamacare?
Ditto foreign policy. Who cares that Obama issued five deadlines to Iran to cease enrichment and, when rebuffed, unilaterally dropped sanctions in favor of negotiation? Who cares that he declared a red line in Syria, and when the regime crossed it and gassed its own people, he announced that he had never issued a red line in the first place? Who cares that he issued a step-over line to President Yanukovych of Ukraine, as if anyone would not step over anything because Obama warned him not to?
Ditto also leading from behind in Libya, the flip-flopping from the radical Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood to the junta in Egypt, the reset with Putin, the friendly initiatives to the late Hugo Chávez that ignored the near collapse of Venezuela, as Latin America goes back to the late 1970s in another failed round of coerced statism.
In short, Obama will always poll around 45 percent. That core support is his lasting legacy. In a mere five years, by the vast expansion of federal spending, by the demonizing rhetoric of his partisan bully pulpit, and by executive orders and bizarre appointments, Obama has so divided the nation that he has created a permanent constituency that will never care as much about what he does as it cares about what he says and represents.
For elite rich liberals, whose money and privilege exempt them from the consequences of Obama’s policies, and their own ideology, he will always be their totem. He is iconic of their own progressivism and proof of their racial liberalism, and thus allows them to go on enjoying their privilege, without guilt and without worrying too much about how they got it or whether they might lose it.
For the vast new millions on federal disability insurance, food stamps, and other entitlements, Obama is their lifeline to government support. Who would risk losing that by worrying that the world is becoming a very dangerous place? If the IRS has to become politicized, better that it become politicized by going after right-wing tea-party types who would cut government. And if the media are to be investigated, at least the target might be Fox News, which — as the president just complained again to Bill O’Reilly on Super Bowl Sunday — is a thorn in the side of the president’s progressive agenda. And if the country is going broke, at least those who will raise taxes are preferable to those who might cut government.
In short, there can be no scandals, or even good or bad news, just what Obama represents — an exemption from normal protocols of public and media scrutiny of his actual record. And so he has established two legacies. He will probably never win back a majority of inductive Americans again, and he will rarely lose his deductive base.
— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author, most recently, of The Savior Generals.
3c) The 'Fairness' Fraud
It seems as if, everywhere you turn these days, there are studies claiming to show that America has lost its upward mobility for people born in the lower socioeconomic levels. But there is a sharp difference between upward "mobility," defined as an opportunity to rise, and mobility defined as actually having risen.
That distinction is seldom even mentioned in most of the studies. It is as if everybody is chomping at the bit to get ahead, and the ones that don't rise have been stopped by "barriers" created by "society."
When statistics show that sons of high school dropouts don't become doctors or scientists nearly as often as the sons of Ph.D.s, that is taken as a sign that American society is not "fair."
If equal probabilities of achieving some goal is your definition of fairness, then we should all get together -- people of every race, color, creed, national origin, political ideology and sexual preference -- and stipulate that life has never been fair, anywhere or any time in all the millennia of recorded history.
Then we can begin at last to talk sense.
I know that I never had an equal chance to become a great ballet dancer like Rudolph Nureyev. The thought of becoming a ballet dancer never once crossed my mind in all the years when I was growing up in Harlem. I suspect that the same thought never crossed the minds of most of the guys growing up on New York's lower east side.
Does that mean that there were unfair barriers keeping us from following in the footsteps of Rudolph Nureyev?
A very distinguished scholar once mentioned at a social gathering that, as a young man, he was not thinking of going to college until someone else, who recognized his ability, urged him to do so.
Another very distinguished scholar told me that, although his parents were anti-Semitic, it was the fact that he went to a school with many Jewish children that got him interested in intellectual matters and led him into an academic career.
All groups, families and cultures are not even trying to do the same things, so the fact that they do not all end up equally represented everywhere can hardly be automatically attributed to "barriers" created by "society."
Barriers are external obstacles, as distinguished from internal values and aspirations -- unless you are going to play the kind of word games that redefine achievements as "privileges" and treat an absence of evidence of discrimination as only proof of how diabolically clever and covert the discrimination is.
The front page of a local newspaper in northern California featured the headline "The Promise Denied," lamenting the under-representation of women in computer engineering. The continuation of this long article on an inside page had the headline, "Who is to blame for this?"
In other words, the fact that reality does not match the preconceptions of the intelligentsia shows that there is something wrong with reality, for which somebody must be blamed. Apparently their preconceptions cannot be wrong.
Women, like so many other groups, seem not to be dedicated to fulfilling the prevailing fetish among the intelligentsia that every demographic group should be equally represented in all sorts of places.
Women have their own agendas, and if these agendas do not usually include computer engineering, what is to be done? Draft women into engineering schools to satisfy the preconceptions of our self-anointed saviors? Or will a propaganda campaign be sufficient to satisfy those who think that they should be making other people's choices for them?
That kind of thinking is how we got ObamaCare.
At least one of the recent celebrated statistical studies of social mobility leaves out Asian Americans. Immigrants from Asia are among a number of groups, including American-born Mormons, whose achievements totally undermine the notion that upward mobility can seldom be realized in America.
Those who preach this counterproductive message will probably never think that the envy, resentment and hopelessness they preach, and the welfare state they promote, are among the factors keeping people down.
and then:
Quite an eye opener...
These 11 States now have More People on Welfare thanthey do Employed! Last month, the Senate BudgetCommittee reports that in fiscal year 2012, betweenfood stamps, housing support, child care, Medicaid andother benefits, the average U.S. Household below thepoverty line received $168.00 a day in government support.What's the problem with that much support? Well, themedian household income in America is just over $50,000,which averages out to $137.13 a day.To put it another way,being on welfare now pays the equivalent of $30.00 an hour for a 40-hourweek, while the average job pays $20.00 an hour. **********************************
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4) Gov. Jindal speaks truth at White House; Democrats horrified!
The nation's governor's emerged from a meeting with President Barack Obama Monday claiming harmony, only to immediately break into an on-camera partisan feud in front of the West Wing.
4) Gov. Jindal speaks truth at White House; Democrats horrified!
The nation's governor's emerged from a meeting with President Barack Obama Monday claiming harmony, only to immediately break into an on-camera partisan feud in front of the West Wing.
Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal lashed out first, saying if Obama were serious about growing the economy he would approve the Keystone XL pipeline project and take other executive actions.
Instead, Jindal said, Obama "seems to be waving the white flag of surrender" on the economy by focusing on raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10, up from $7.25. "The Obama economy is now the minimum wage economy. I think we can do better than that," Jindal said.
Jindal's statements were the kind that Republicans often make on television appearances or at partisan events. But his colleagues had been instead expressing wide agreement and appreciation for the president's time. Some of the governors began shaking their heads, and Hawaii Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie began audibly mumbling to others around him even as Jindal was speaking.
Connecticut Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy took over the microphone from Jindal and responded sharply, "Wait a second, until a few moments ago we were going down a pretty cooperative road. So let me just say that we don't all agree that moving Canadian oil through the United States is necessarily the best thing for the United States economy."
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican who chairs the National Governors Association and supports Keystone, earlier said she asked Obama when the administration would decide whether to allow it and he told her there would be an answer in the next couple months.
Malloy said the white flag statement was the most partisan of their weekend conference and that many governors support a minimum wage increase.
"I don't know what the heck was a reference to white flag when it comes to people making $404 a week," Malloy snapped. "I mean that's the most insane statement I've ever heard."
Jindal did not the back down. "If that's the most partisan thing he's heard all weekend, I want to make sure he hears a more partisan statement," Jindal responded. "I think we can grow the economy more if we would delay more of these Obamacare mandates."
As the news conference broke up, Colorado Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, vice chair of the governors association, called Jindal a "cheap shot artist."
The public dispute came after Obama addressed the group in the State Dining Room and appealed for their help to advance his economic policies that stand little chance of winning passage on Capitol Hill.
"Even when there's little appetite in Congress to move on some of these priories, on the state level you guys are governed by practical considerations," Obama told the governors during a meeting at the White House. "You want to do right by your people."
The president pressed in particular for states to act on their own to raise the minimum wage and expand access to early childhood education, two initiatives that have gained little traction in Congress since Obama first introduced them last year.
Several governors are seen as potential presidential candidates in 2016. Obama made light of the speculation about the race to replace him, saying he "enjoyed watching some of you with your eyes on higher office size up the drapes, and each other."
Not every governor met Monday with the president.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie left the NGA meeting early to attend his daughter's birthday and prepare for a budget address.
Facing multiple investigations in a political-retribution probe in New Jersey, the Republican leader also skipped a Monday news conference by the Republican Governors Association, which he leads.
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Associated Press writers Nedra Pickler and Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.
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