She knows how confused Obama is about what is happening in The Middle East and how it has impacted his golf handicap so she wanted to straighten him out with this missive:
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Subject: FW: The Middle East . "Clarity at last?
Are you confused by what is going on in the Middle East ? Let me explain.
We support the Iraqi government in the fight against ISIS . We don’t like ISIS, but ISIS is supported by Saudi Arabia who we do like. We don’t like Assad in Syria . We support the fight against him, but ISIS is also fighting against him. We don’t like Iran , but Iran supports the Iraqi government in its fight against ISIS .
So some of our friends support our enemies, some enemies are now our friends, and some of our enemies are fighting against our other enemies, who we want to lose, but we don’t want our enemies who are fighting our enemies to win.
If the people we want to defeat are defeated, they could be replaced by people we like even less.
It's quite simple, really. Do you understand now?"And all this was started by us invading a country to drive out terrorists who were not actually there until we went in to drive them out.
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Some prominent Hollywood types are conflicted and are afraid to support Israel because that would ruin their relationship with Obama and then they would not be invited to his fund raisers or to play gold with his highness. (See 1 below.)
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History has shown that Palestinian Arabs never miss an opportunity to shoot themselves in the foot because their hatred is greater than their love for life and their children's safety.
Obama cannot bring himself to comprehend how stupid Palestinian Arabs are and how their every actions are driven by hate disguised as - well - hate!. (See 2 below.)
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Obama is probably the laziest president in recent memory. He is more worried about his golf game than the world and domestic disaster he has helped create.
I am also told he is not even a good golfer.
Victor Hanson tells us Obama also has failed History 101!
Obama's presidency reflects the worst attributes of Affirmative Action, a soft Ivy league education and clueless voters in combination with a dangerous personality disorder including arrogance, narcissism and timidity.(See 3 and 3a below.)
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Meanwhile, back to Obamacare and another impending disaster. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) Notable Names Missing from Hollywood Letter Supporting Israel
Israel has been fighting not only a war with Gaza, but a public relations battle as well. Many have been rightly asking, Where are the Hollywood supporters of Israel who happen to be Jewish? Some of the biggest, most prominent Israel supporters who are also Jewish have remained silent – specifically Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Barbra Streisand. They do not hesitate to speak out on supporting Democrats and their causes, yet they have remained missing in action regarding the latest Gaza conflict.
There have been too few in Hollywood who are willing to stand up for what Israel is doing, but many have spoken out against Israel. Spanish filmmaking icon Pedro Almodovar and hundreds of other Spanish artists joined actors Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem by signing a letter, accusing Israel of Genocide. They stated that Israel "humiliates, detains, and tramples on the rights of the Palestinian population in all of the West Bank every day, also causing many deaths.” The letter also referred to the Israel Defense Forces as the "Israel Occupation Forces."
Did the prominent Jews in Hollywood mentioned above denounce this? No. It was actor Jon Voight who responded, “The Palestinians elected Hamas, a terrorist organization, and they immediately began firing thousands of rockets into Israel. I am asking all my peers who signed that poison letter against Israel to examine their motives. Can you take back the fire of anti-Semitism that is raging all over the world now? You should hang your heads in shame. You should come forth with deep regrets for what you did – and ask for forgiveness from the suffering people in Israel.”
Radio talk show host Howard Stern had stood solidly with Israel. “If you are anti-Israel, you are anti-America," Stern declared last month on his Sirius XM show. “It’s the only democracy over there. It’s the only friend we have who’s willing to fight and stand up for what’s right." And he has asked the question publicly many of us are wondering privately: “I don’t know why more prominent Hollywood people don’t speak out about what’s going on there. They’re all afraid.”
Well, maybe not everyone is afraid to remain silent. On August 23, an ad in the Hollywood Reporter, signed by more than 190 Hollywood notables, issued a pro Israel statement against Hamas. Among those signers were Actors Kelsey Grammer, Sarah Silverman, Minnie Driver, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Seth Rogen, Josh Charles, and Tony Goldwyn; showrunners Aaron Sorkin, Diane English, Mayim Bialik, Doug Ellin and Greg Berlanti; directors Ivan Reitman and William Friedkin; producers Avi Arad, Scooter Braun, Jerry Weintraub, Avi Lerner; execs Ryan Kavaunagh, Sherry Lansing, and Amy Pascal; and mogul Haim Saban. The statement read in part, "While we stand firm in our commitment to peace and justice, we must also stand firm against ideologies of hatred and genocide which are reflected in Hamas' charter, Article 7 of which reads, 'There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!' The son of a Hamas founder has also commented about the true nature of Hamas. Hamas cannot be allowed to rain rockets on Israeli cities, nor can it be allowed to hold its own people hostage. Hospitals are for healing, not for hiding weapons. Schools are for learning, not for launching missiles. Children are our hope, not our human shields."
Yet, as notable as this is, even more notable are the names not present. Barbra Streisand has been a strong supporter of Israel. During the 1967 War she made a speech at the Hollywood Bowl “Rally For Israel’s Survival.” She saluted “Israel At Thirty” by singing the Hatikva in 1978 and in June 2013 visited Israel while performing in a number of concerts. So why her silence now, when Israel needs supporters more than ever?
Steven Spielberg is known for his film Schindler’s List, which is about someone speaking out and taking action in the face of adversity. Maybe Spielberg needs to take a lesson from his own script. Where is the person who, in 2006, during the Second Lebanon War, donated to Israel one million dollars?
Maybe those who say they support Israel should understand that silence in this case is not golden. Israel is being blamed for a war she did not start. They must understand that Israel is dealing with an enemy who will not rest until it violently eradicates the Jewish State. They need to look in the mirror and think about the words of Golda Meir, who, although addressing the European Ministers, could easily have been addressing the Hollywood Jews today about their silence: “In doing so, it brought shame upon itself. Oh, what a victory for terrorism this is.”
The author writes for American Thinker. She has done book reviews and author interviews and has written a number of national security, political, and foreign policy articles.
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2)Weekly Commentary: Double cross at the UN? Security Council Resolution
Indefinitely PostponedDr. Aaron Lerner - Director of IMRA!
Here's the timeline:
Immediately before and at the time that the ceasefire was announced,
Israelis were talking about a United Nations Security Council Resolution
being issued this week, with the help of the United States, that would
include a call for the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.
It was a logical extension of the 15 August Council of the European Union
statement that "All terrorist groups in Gaza must disarm".
The idea is to make it absolutely clear that disarmament is a requirement
for the Gaza Strip - not some kind of Palestinian concession to be made
sometime in the future as part of a package that includes the creation of a
sovereign Palestinian state.
Unfortunately, already the morning after the ceasefire was announced there
were news reports that the United Nations Security Council Resolution was
indefinitely postponed by Washington.
And then on Wednesday evening, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu termed
demilitarization as being a "long run goal".
[As the famous economist, Keynes, quipped, "In the long run we are all
dead".]
Let's put this in context.
#1. Hamas claims it has the right to continue building and holding rockets
and that it has the "right to resistance" to shoot them.
#2. Hamas also takes the position that all of its targets are military
targets.
#3. Most of the international verbiage against attacks relates only to
condemning attacks against civilians.
#4. Almost all the missiles being shot are produced inside the Gaza Strip
rather than smuggled in.
A UNSC Resolution that "All missiles and rockets in Gaza must be removed or
destroyed" could have been an important move in the right direction.
Relegating demilitarization to the status of "long run goal" may leave us
with a "dual use goods" import inspection and monitoring system "cat and
mouse" game with the bizarre situation that any material Hamas manages to
get through the system can be openly used to manufacture missiles since the
ceasefire does not prohibit missile manufacturing activities!!!
It is not too late.
And PM Netanyahu has another argument he can give when he lobbies with world
leaders for the UNSC Resolution: his plummeted ratings in Israel by a
public that, according to the polls, wants to take a radically stronger and
more aggressive approach than he wants to. The public opposed the
ceasefire.
Mr. Netanyahu can argue that he needs the UNSC Resolution to help avoid a
situation in the coming months that at the first violation of the
ceasefire - even by a Palestinian splinter group - the Israeli street will
leave him no choice but to launch a war to crush Hamas. Mr. Netanyahu can
even mention how he found himself already promising a harsh response to even
the slightest attack.
As the saying goes, his weakness can be his great strength.
Again - it is not too late.
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3) Golf Is Not the Answer
By Bob Tyrrell
Immediately after his telephone call consoling the Foley family on their son's grisly murder at the hands of Islamofascists, President Barack Obama took a powder. He headed for the golf course. Yes, the golf course! He had golfed eight times in 11 days, as the world was in tumult the likes of which we have not experienced since the late 1930s. There is something very odd about this man. He seems to think he can duck his obligations by lolling on the golf course. Does he believe no one is looking?
In his brief life, my guess is, he has been posing all along. He had no role model as a father. He had no lasting role model as an adult. Now he has to produce. No one else can serve as his hidden advisor. He has to lead and he has not a clue as to what to do. Thus, to the golf course he goes, no matter how his critics complain or how a growing number of journalists express their dismay.
As he swings his driver and puts his putter, the press seems to sense something is amiss. Yet even the sensible minority in the press corps does not know quite how to respond. Out there on the golf course the president is displaying his emptiness. There has never been such a display of presidential emptiness in American history. Moreover, it is taking place just as the world is gravely menaced by a threat that is at best ambivalent towards destroying the world in the name of Allah. Its adepts have the money and the manpower to strike the modern world a deadly blow. All they need is a bomb. Will they get it?
When communism posed a lesser threat to the world, but a threat nonetheless, we had a range of presidents from President Harry Truman to President Ronald Reagan who had the character and the principles to deal with the threat. They were attended by staff, and for that matter a leadership class, that was up to the task. Today we have President Obama attended by Valerie Jarrett. I think I would like to call for a special election here and now, but quite possibly the President would pull together his old coalition and win again. Some coalitions never learn from experience.
President Bill Clinton could count on the support of his episodic apologists in the press corps. They have always gone through a cycle for him of high expectations, great indignation (owing to an invariable Clinton scandal), and then hope renewed. Even after Monica Lewinsky, and after Pardongate, it took the press only about a year to reach the point of hope renewed. Of course it took the Democratic rank and file much longer to reach the stage of hope renewed. Even in 2008, Bill's endorsement of a candidate was usually the kiss of death. Think of Hillary. But as for the press, most episodic apologists came back to Bill within a year.
Nothing like this has happened with President Obama. He, despite his alleged charisma, is not likable, at least not with the press and not with the Democratic big wigs. They at first thought his candidacy was very historic and they expected to like him. Yet, unlike President Clinton, there was very little joshing it up with President Obama. Nor has he been amusing. In fact, he is condescending. That never ingratiates a politician to the press. Furthermore, there is his record. It has been relentlessly alarming.
For one thing the economy never bounced back, and we have suffered through the weakest recovery of modern times. This is the New Normal? Then there was the roll out of Obamacare. It was a disaster, and Obamacare continues to be a disaster. No one knows what to expect of its outcome. Finally, there have been scandals accumulating around the president, for instance, the VA scandal, Benghazi and the IRS scandal. When will they reach a critical mass? And now there are the foreign policy botches. From Russia and Ukraine to the Middle East, to Africa, and let's forget not the American border, and those ominous noises from the Orient. All this is deadly serious. As I say, I cannot think of anything like it since the late 1930s, though there is no Hitler out there. Only numerous Mussolinis, and this new threat to world peace, Islamofascism.
Something is amiss at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. I think the mainstream press is aware, but what can they do? We are stuck with another two and a half years of golf.
3a) Obama fails History 101
By Victor Davis Hanson
President Obama doesn't know much about history.
In his therapeutic 2009 Cairo speech, Obama outlined all sorts of Islamic intellectual and technological pedigrees, several of which were undeserved. He exaggerated Muslim contributions to printing and medicine, for example, and was flat-out wrong about the catalysts for the European Renaissance and Enlightenment.
He also believes history follows some predetermined course, as if things always get better on their own. Obama often praises those he pronounces to be on the "right side of history." He also chastises others for being on the "wrong side of history" -- as if evil is vanished and the good thrives on autopilot.
When in 2009 millions of Iranians took to the streets to protest the thuggish theocracy, they wanted immediate U.S. support. Instead, Obama belatedly offered them banalities suggesting that in the end, they would end up "on the right side of history." Iranian reformers may indeed end up there, but it will not be because of some righteous inanimate force of history, or the prognostications of Barack Obama .
Obama often parrots Martin Luther King Jr.'s phrase about the arc of the moral universe bending toward justice. But King used that metaphor as an incentive to act, not as reassurance that matters will follow an inevitably positive course.
Another of Obama's historical refrains is his frequent sermon about behavior that doesn't belong in the 21st century. At various times he has lectured that the barbarous aggression of Vladimir Putin or ISIS has no place in our century and will "ultimately fail" -- as if we are all now sophisticates of an age that has at last transcended retrograde brutality and savagery.
In Obama's hazy sense of the end of history, things always must get better in the manner that updated models of iPhones and iPads are glitzier than the last. In fact, history is morally cyclical. Even technological progress is ethically neutral. It is a way either to bring more good things to more people or to facilitate evil all that much more quickly and effectively.
In the viciously modern 20th century -- when more lives may have been lost to war than in all prior centuries combined -- some 6 million Jews were put to death through high technology in a way well beyond the savagery of Attila the Hun or Tamerlane. Beheading in the Islamic world is as common in the 21st century as it was in the eighth century -- and as it will probably be in the 22nd. The carnage of the Somme and Dresden trumped anything that the Greeks, Romans, Franks, Turks or Venetians could have imagined.
What explains Obama's confusion?
A lack of knowledge of basic history explains a lot. Obama or his speechwriters have often seemed confused about the liberation of Auschwitz, "Polish death camps" the political history of Texas , or the linguistic relationship between Austria and Germany . Obama reassured us during the Bowe Bergdahl affair that George Washington , Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt all similarly got American prisoners back when their wars ended -- except that none of them were in office when the Revolutionary War, Civil War or World War II officially ended.
Contrary to Obama's assertion, President Rutherford B. Hayes never dismissed the potential of the telephone. Obama once praised the city of Cordoba as part of a proud Islamic tradition of tolerance during the brutal Spanish Inquisition -- forgetting that by the beginning of the Inquisition an almost exclusively Christian Cordoba had few Muslims left.
A Pollyannaish belief in historical predetermination seems to substitute for action. If Obama believes that evil should be absent in the 21st century, or that the arc of the moral universe must always bend toward justice, or that being on the wrong side of history has consequences, then he may think inanimate forces can take care of things as we need merely watch.
In truth, history is messier. Unfortunately, only force will stop seventh-century monsters like ISIS from killing thousands more innocents. Obama may think that reminding Putin that he is now in the 21st century will so embarrass the dictator that he will back off from Ukraine . But the brutish Putin may think that not being labeled a 21st-century civilized sophisticate is a compliment.
In 1935, French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval warned Josef Stalin that the Pope would admonish him to go easy on Catholics -- as if such moral lectures worked in the supposedly civilized 20th century. Stalin quickly disabused Laval of that naiveté. "The Pope?" Stalin asked, "How many divisions has he got?"
There is little evidence that human nature has changed over the centuries, despite massive government efforts to make us think and act nicer. What drives Putin, Boko Haram or ISIS are the same age-old passions, fears and sense of honor that over the centuries also moved Genghis Khan , the Sudanese Mahdists and the Barbary pirates.
Obama's naive belief in predetermined history -- especially when his facts are often wrong -- is a poor substitute for concrete moral action.
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4) Obamacare's Death of a Thousand Rate Hikes
By Sally Pipes
Get ready to pay more for health insurance next year, compliments of Obamacare.
A new analysis from PricewaterhouseCoopers projects that average premiums for policies sold through Obamacare’s exchanges will increase 7.5 percent in 2015.
In nearly one-third of the 29 states that PwC investigated, premiums will rise by double digits. In Indiana, the average increase will be 15.4 percent. In Kansas, it’s 13.6 percent. Florida’s insurance commissioner says premiums are set to climb 13.2 percent.
For this latest round of premium shocks, consumers can thank Obamacare’s unwieldy mix of taxes, regulations, and mandates.
A Wall Street Journal report surmises that the most popular insurers will levy the largest rate hikes. In the 10 states the Journal examined, the largest insurer had proposed rate hikes of between 8.5 percent and 22.8 percent. Oregon’s Moda Health Plan, which accounts for three-quarters of Obamacare enrollees, is seeking a 12.5 percent boost for 2015.
All these increases in premiums come on top of 2014′s hikes. A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that Obamacare has pushed premiums up by as much as 28 percent this year. A report from the Manhattan Institute put the increase at 49 percent.
So any “good” news about 2015′s premiums must take into account how much they’ve already climbed. California’s premiums, for example, are slated to climb an average of 4.2 percent in 2015. But that’s in addition to the 22 to 88 percent increases that Obamacare saddled individual buyers with this year, according to the state’s insurance commissioner.
In Indiana, the average exchange premium will be $514, according to PwC, which is nearly triple the state average in 2013, the year before Obamacare went into effect.
Meanwhile, those who want to keep their current plans could be even worse off thanks to Obamacare’s Rube Goldberg-style subsidy scheme. The law distributes subsidies after taking into account a consumer’s income and the cost of a “benchmark” plan in the state.Health care consulting firm Milliman found that changes in these variables could turn a 5 percent hike in premiums into a 30-100 percent increase in costs for a consumer who sticks with his current plan.
What’s driving these price hikes? For one, the insurance pool in the exchanges is older and sicker than insurers expected. Many people who initially signed up are no longer enrolled, either because they got insurance through other means, like employment, or because they didn’t pay their premiums.
Aetna AET +1.26%, for example, reported 720,000 signups as of May 20 — numbers included in the administration’s highly touted claim of 8 million enrollees. But by the end of June, the number of paying customers for the Hartford-based insurer had declined to fewer than 600,000.
The young and healthy are most likely to drop coverage, as they may not see the value in paying premiums if they won’t have the occasion to take advantage of their policies.
That’s a problem for insurers, who need the premiums of those individuals to offset the cost of paying for treatment for older, sicker enrollees. If young people leave the pool, then insurers have to raise rates on those who remain in order to stay solvent.
And things could be worse. The coverage available through Obamacare’s exchanges often confines patients to a narrow network of doctors and hospitals in order to keep costs down. Those narrow networks haven’t been popular — but if patients succeed in getting them expanded, premiums will increase accordingly.
Then there’s the possibility of an insurer bailout buried in Obamacare. The law’s “risk corridors” require the federal government to pay insurers if they lose too much money in the exchanges this year, next year, and in 2016.
How might they lose too much money? If the insured pool contains too many old and sick enrollees — and not enough young and healthy ones.
Obamacare’s backers act as if none of this matters. Premiums in the individual market had climbed rapidly in years before, they say, and in any case subsidies make these gold-plated plans affordable.
Obamacare’s backers act as if none of this matters. Premiums in the individual market had climbed rapidly in years before, they say, and in any case subsidies make these gold-plated plans affordable.
But even with billions of dollars’ worth of taxpayer subsidies, 43 percent of enrollees say that their Obamacare-compliant plans are difficult to afford, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey.
In any case, it’s all a far cry from the lower premiums the president promised. Just before signing Obamacare into law in 2010, he said it would “lower rates . . . by up to 14 percent to 20 percent over what you’re currently getting.” Employers he said, would seepremiums drop $3,000 compared with where they’d be without the law.
History has proved otherwise. As long as Obamacare’s many mandates, taxes, regulations, and subsidies are in place, health insurance premiums will continue to rise.
Sally C. Pipes is President, CEO, and Taube Fellow in Health Care Studies at the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is The Cure for Obamacare (Encounter 2013).
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