"Hope"? Nah. "Change"?

Yep...

Someone posted this on Twitter

Democratic Leadership: A Study in Smarmy

Henry A. Waxman, U.S. Representative (33rd Congressional District, California)

 Don't you just love Democrats? 

“These people have to ridiculed,” explained Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI). . . They have to be run out of town rhetorically . . . "

Waxman added that Obama might take unilateral action on climate change. “He’s not running for re-election."

 Nice, gentleman. That's exactly how we Americans want our elected leaders to govern.

"Dem Strategy: Climate Change Opponents Must be Ridiculed" (Breitbart News).

Time to Diet, Ms. Latifah

Now that the American Medical Association has declared obesity a disease, it will be hard to look at people (like the beautiful Queen Latifah) without wondering if her doctor has had "the talk" with her and whether she'll comply with Uncle Sam's expectation that she lose weight. 

"AMA Declared Obesity a Disease," by Melissa Healy and Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times (June 18, 2013).

Sarah Palin Was Right

Remember when Sarah Palin was mocked for suggesting that ObamaCare contained what she called death panels?



It appears Miss Henny Penny was right all along. Here are a few excerpts from an article that appeared this week in the Wall Street Journal, written by David Rivkin and Elizabeth Foley ("An ObamaCare Board Answerable to No One")"

Signs of ObamaCare's failings mount daily, including soaring insurance costs, looming provider shortages and inadequate insurance exchanges. Yet the law's most disturbing feature may be the Independent Payment Advisory Board. The IPAB, sometimes called a "death panel," threatens both the Medicare program and the Constitution's separation of powers. At a time when many Americans have been unsettled by abuses at the Internal Revenue Service and Justice Department, the introduction of a powerful and largely unaccountable board into health care merits special scrutiny. . . 

The ObamaCare law also stipulates that there "shall be no administrative or judicial review" of the board's decisions. Its members will be nearly untouchable, too. They will be presidentially nominated and Senate-confirmed, but after that they can only be fired for "neglect of duty or malfeasance in office" . . . 

The IPAB's godlike powers are not accidental. Its goal, conspicuously proclaimed by the Obama administration, is to control Medicare spending in ways that are insulated from the political process. . . 

The power given by Congress to the Independent Payment Advisory Board is breathtaking. Congress has willingly abandoned its power to make tough spending decisions (how and where to cut) to an unaccountable board that neither the legislative branch nor the president can control. The law has also entrenched the board's decisions to an unprecedented degree. . . 

ObamaCare mandates that the board impose deep Medicare cuts, while simultaneously forbidding it to ration care. Reducing payments to doctors, hospitals and other health-care providers may cause them to limit or stop accepting Medicare patients, or even to close shop. These actions will limit seniors' access to care, causing them to wait longer or forego care—the essence of rationing. ObamaCare's commands to the board are thus inherently contradictory and, consequently, unintelligible. 

Once again, the Obama people speak from both sides of their mouths: no, you may not ration; yes, you will in all likelihood be forced to ration. 

Read full article here. And below is an ad where Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman is seen essentially concurring with Sarah Palin, albeit from a cynically leftist point of view. 

I don't expect any apologies to Ms. Palin will be forthcoming; I do, though, expect Congress to take the WSJ writers' advice to "act quickly to repeal this particular portion of ObamaCare or defund its operations." That would be a start. 

Recommended Reading: "Night," by Elie Wiesel

You cannot read this book and not ask the question: Why? Not just, Why did this happen? (in part, we know: evil men do evil deeds) but, Why did people let this happen? And not just people. The Jews themselves. Why didn't they rise up, fight, resist, before these great horrors could be realized? 

On page 11, Mr. Wiesel writes about how the Jews of Sighet, Transylvania, were ordered to wear the yellow star, and his father, a well-respected member of the community, tried to calm the fears of the community by saying that it was not all bleak. "The yellow star? So what? It's not lethal." 

Shortly thereafter, the members of the community were sealed off from the rest of Sighet in two ghettos from which they were not permitted to leave. This is not right. This is not normal. Why didn't they fight, resist? Instead, they tried to live their lives as normally as possible. "The barbed wire that encircled us like a wall did not fill us with real fear. In fact, we felt this was not a bad thing; we were entirely among ourselves." 

Even worse: "People thought this was a good thing. We would no longer have to look at those hostile faces, endure those hate-filled stares. No more fear. No more anguish. We would live among Jews, among brothers."

In the margin on page 11, I wrote: Why didn't they revolt? Why passively comply?

On page 12, Wiesel answers: "Most people thought that we would remain in the ghetto until the end of the war, until the arrival of the Red Army. Afterward everything would be as before. The ghetto was ruled by neither German nor Jew; it was ruled by delusion." 

Yes, delusion. 

Later, he described his family's preparation for transport (by cattle car) to the concentration camps: "It was already four o'clock in the morning. My father was running right and left, exhausted, consoling friends, checking with the Jewish Council just in case the order had been rescinded. To the last moment, people clung to hope." 

Yes, that's it. Hope. Earlier in the book, referring to the spring of 1944, before the Germans arrived in Hungary, he explains:

The trees were in bloom. It was a year like so many others, with its spring, its engagements, its weddings, and its births. The people were saying, "The Red Army is advancing with giant strides . . . Hitler will not be able to harm us, even if he wants to . . ."

Yes, we even doubted his resolve to exterminate us. Annihilate an entire people? Wipe out a population dispersed throughout so many nations? So many millions of people! By what means? In the middle of the twentieth century?

The idea was absurd, so absurd that even as they were surrounded and isolated and tagged and rounded up and herded like animals and stuffed inhumanely into cattle cars, carrying their belongings, they clung to hope. Just a temporary inconvenience, it will be over soon and things will go back to the way they were.

My signed copy (a gift from my brother)

It wasn't until they stepped off the cattle cars (that first "journey" itself was torture) at Auschwitz and saw the fires and smelled the burning flesh that they understood: "The beloved objects that we had carried with us from place to place were now left behind in the wagon and, with them, finally, our illusions."

Meanwhile, the world "remained silent." That was the name of the book in its Yiddish iteration: And the World Remained Silent. 

You read the rest of the book wondering how he, how anyone, survived. Any one of these experiences would be enough to kill: starvation, illness, bitter cold, infections, sores, bacteria, beatings, physical labor, the arbitrary "selection" process sending some to the crematoria. Even at the end, as the war neared its end and the liberators were closing in and the camps were being evacuated and the prisoners were rounded up and made to run to the next camp. Running, running, running for miles and miles in the bitter cold, the driving snow, running in pitch darkness, goaded along by SS guards who called them "filthy dogs" and shot anyone who stumbled; this was pure senseless torture, forced to run for miles, some of them barefoot, all of them starved but given no food, no water. Elie Wiesel himself had an infected foot, recently operated on. How did he survive? His father, up until that point, was still alive, though barely. Wiesel describes how, after arriving at last in Buchenwald, many many more would die simply by lying in the snow and falling asleep. He himself welcomed the idea of sleep, of death, of feeling nothing. He resisted, thinking of his father.

His father died there in Buchenwald on January 28, 1945, and the camp was liberated three months later on April 11. Even after liberation, Elie nearly died of what he said was a form of poisoning. But somehow he survived, along with thousands and thousands of others who suffered similar horrors: men, women, children. 

Their bodies survived, but did their faith? I'm not sure. Before the camps, Wiesel had been a pious Jew, but very early in the book, he tells of losing his faith. It was before death and dying had become commonplace, and someone began reciting Kaddish for those who had died in the crematoria. "For the first time, I felt an anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank him for?" 

I don't know if Elie Wiesel ever returned to his faith, if he ever resolved the contradiction between Almighty God acquiescing to Undiluted Evil, but here he is, speaking with Oprah Winfrey, about the afterlife. He obviously believes in an afterlife and genuinely expects to see his parents and his younger sister, who perished in the concentration camps, again someday.

The President's Speech Commemorating D-Day

Yesterday, June 6, 2013, was the 69th anniversary of D-Day, the day the Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy to fight a great evil. Our current president did not commemorate this historic day. Apparently he did not commemorate it last year either, nor the year before. 

Listen, then, to the eloquent words of former president Ronald Reagan on June 6, 1984, remembering "the boys of Point du Hoc." 

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

I think this is bigger than we initially thought (new acronym: PRISM, which stands for. . . ?). 
  Some initial reports: 

From The Guardian: "NSA Taps into Internet Giants' System to Mine Users Data."

From The Washington Post: "NSA Slides Explain the PRISM Data-Collection Program."

From The Washington Post: "U.S. Mining Data from 9 Leading Internet Firms; Companies Deny Knowledge."

Here are a couple of screen shots of the no-longer "top secret" slides from NSA:

New York Times Scolds Obama While Conservatives Shrug: What's Going On?

Bad boy, tsk tsk. Thus saith the Grey Lady. Some excerpts: 

The administration has now lost all credibility. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it.

Mr. Obama clearly had no intention of revealing this eavesdropping, just as he would not have acknowledged the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, had it not been reported in the press. Even then, it took him more than a year and a half to acknowledge the killing, and he is still keeping secret the protocol by which he makes such decisions. 

We are not questioning the legality under the Patriot Act of the court order disclosed by The Guardian. But we strongly object to using that power in this manner. It is the very sort of thing against which Mr. Obama once railed, when he said in 2007 that the Bush administration’s surveillance policy “puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide.”  

All of this in response to the scoop by The Guardian (would it be asking too much for the American media to get a scoop about the Obama administration?) in which we (Americans) learn that "the National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April." 

The interesting thing about this latest scandal is that conservatives don't seem too worked up about it. I listened to Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, and Hugh Hewitt basically say so what? I read in National Review Online that this is basically no big deal. Andrew McCarthy explains that "telephone record information (e.g., the numbers dialed and duration of calls) is not and has never been protected by the Fourth Amendment." So McCarthy makes a distinction between the records (numbers called, etc.) and the content of the discussion (not recorded, no wire-tapping, etc). 

I don't know. I'm not sure I'm convinced. I listened to Jake Tapper interview Glenn Greenwald, who was the reporter from The Guardian who wrote the story, and if you listen to what Greenwald is saying, it's pretty alarming. You can listen to the interview here. I think what's bothering me is the fact that this isn't a selective use of the Patriot Act. I mean, if the administration had reason to believe that someone--a person who was a Verizon subscriber--was a suspected terrorist, then yes, I agree, the Patriot Act would give the administration authority and power to examine his or her phone records. But to cast this huge, wide net--all Verizon subscribers, including my sister, my daughter, etc.? And probably (we'll soon hear) AT&T customers (including yours truly)? 

Really, Mr. Obama? You? You who criticized President Bush when he used the same authority in the aftermath of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks?  

Still Crazy (on him) After All These (Lies)?

(With apologies to Heart and Paul Simon...)

Sadly, I know the answer to this question. No matter what he does, doesn't do, says, retracts, lies about, distorts, Barack Obama can do no wrong. 

I still remember the argument (yes, sadly, argument) between me and a family member after the election. I was (sad shocked depressed upset) about Mitt Romney's loss and s/he called to "see if I was OK" (so condescendingly kind of this person to call). Rather than be gracious and knowing I would be picking a fight, I said "nope," and then went full frontal assault. This had the desired effect of putting this relative on the defense, which quickly mutated to offense, at one point declaring that he/she was "further to the left than Obama." 

Further to the left of the most leftist president we've ever had? Maybe this was said to score points, or as a barb, meant to hurt. Logistically it puzzled me. There's not much room to the left of Obama, yet there, triumphantly, smugly, perched this family member. 

Needless to say, the "conversation" (such as it was), ended in short order. Yes, I called back a few minutes later to apologize, and all is well and forgiven though surely not forgotten. 

At least I have not forgotten. How far left can these people go before they realize how truly corrupt and unscrupulous their guy is? 

"The most transparent administration" is . . . not, at least according to Katherine Meyer, a Washington D. C. lawyer who specializes in the Freedom of Information Act law. Here's what she said a year ago (quoted here in Politico): 

Obama is the sixth administration that’s been in office since I’ve been doing Freedom of Information Act work … It’s kind of shocking to me to say this, but of the six, this administration is the worst on FOIA issues. The worst. There’s just no question about it. This administration is raising one barrier after another … It’s gotten to the point where I’m stunned — I’m really stunned" (Read full article here).

Jack Gillum of the Associated Press (posted here at Breitbart.com) reports that high level members of the Obama administration are using "secret government email accounts they say are necessary to prevent their in-boxes from being overwhelmed with unwanted messages." 

How convenient. Not only are their in-boxes clear of annoying clutter, they're also free from annoying scrutiny. Gillum writes: 

The secret email accounts complicate an agency's legal responsibilities to find and turn over emails in response to congressional or internal investigations, civil lawsuits or public records requests because employees assigned to compile such responses would necessarily need to know about the accounts to search them. Secret accounts also drive perceptions that government officials are trying to hide actions or decisions.

So despite claims to the contrary, Barack Obama's administration is the least transparent administration (hello, liberals, are you listening? This includes Richard Nixon's). You'd think this would be enough to give any well-meaning liberal pause, but no. It seems nothing can dim the sheen off their adored president: Fast and Furious, multiple terrorist attacks on our soil, drone attacks on U.S. citizens, IRS bullying of conservative Americans, intrusion on the right of the press to do their job, the still unresolved mystery that terrible night in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9 /11 when four Americans were killed and ODL (our dear leader) was AWOL. And let's not forget the "Affordable" (hahahaha) Care Act, which will be impossible to implement, especially in California, and is based on untruths and manipulation of data (see Wall Street Journal article, "ObamaCare Bait and Switch" here). 

Doesn't matter! They voted for him! He's their guy! So, even though Barack Obama is deceptive, duplicitous, arrogant, condescending, narcissistic, and political in the truly worst sense of the word...they're still crazy on him. 

"Obama's Scandalous Second Term," by Brian and Garret Fahy (Town Hall)