Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Current Events - September 17, 2013

Happy Constitution Day!

Sept. 17 marks the day the U.S. Constitutional Congress signed the Constitution in 1787.

Constitution Day became a holiday in 2004. Prior to that year, the day was known as Citizenship Day.

Along with the name change, it is now law that public schools must provide students with educational programming about the history of the Constitution 
http://freebeacon.com/happy-constitution-day/

The Constitution: Often ignored; never irrelevant

Today marks the 226th anniversary of the Constitution of the United States, and with each passing year, we seem to become more ignorant of its contents and intent. The fact that the subject of Civics has given way to more “politically correct” subjects in our public school curricula may be one of the root causes of the problem, but there is no excuse for our 537 federally-elected officials to be unfamiliar with its substance.  Perhaps it’s time to provide a refresher course for those who need it.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s concentrate on the Preamble:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Notice that it begins with the words “We the People” … not “We the Democrats” or “We the Republicans;” not “We the Men” or “We the Women” or “We the Gays” or “We the Straights” or We the Blacks, the Whites, the Hispanics, the Asians, the Native Americans” or any other category used to separate individuals for political purposes on a basis of otherwise irrelevant characteristics.

It begins with the words “We the People” because it is meant to represent all citizens “of the United States;” not just those who donate to a political campaign or represent a special interest group that can deliver votes to a particular Party.

The Preamble also clarifies that the “People” are “of the United States” to distinguish its formal citizens from those whose allegiance may be affiliated with other countries.

Now, let’s examine the purpose of the Constitution as it is defined by the Preamble.

The Constitution was ordained and established “in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

The first purpose suggests a comparative responsibility. Specifically, “to form a more perfect Union” than the one that existed at the time. Imagine what could be achieved if we were to assume this as the ongoing responsibility of every citizen and, in particular, the responsibility of our elected officials.

What could we achieve if our focus was on the constant improvement of the Union rather than trying to realize increasingly divisive political victories for one Party or another? What if we applied all the time, money and resources that are squandered on maintaining and expanding political power and, instead, redirected them at preserving individual liberties, expanding opportunities, and constructing a society that would serve as a role model for the rest of the world in efficient, effective and representative government?

The Preamble also calls upon us to “establish Justice.” How well are we doing in that regard?

We seem to struggle with the concept of justice particularly since the notion of political correctness entered into the equation. There was a point in our Nation’s history during which the Judicial Branch meted out “tough love” with respect to preserving fundamental rights even when the application was manifestly unpopular. Now, judicial temperament has seemingly given way to what’s “trending.”

A more linear interpretation of the Bill of Rights would help to once again “establish Justice.”

For example: The First Amendment would have more meaning if it weren’t as politically flaccid. The major Parties often argue in favor of one element within the First Amendment while ignoring another.

Case in point: When there was a discussion about the construction of a mosque at Ground Zero, many Conservatives, who normally cite the importance of freedom of religion, temporarily abandoned that position to condemn the mosque. Meanwhile, Progressives, who typically are the champions of free speech, attacked the right of Conservatives to express their point of view.

Just to emphasize the problem, here are a few additional examples.

Consider how your privacy under the Fourth Amendment is permitted to be breached today in the name of protecting the country or enforcing its laws. Your personal correspondence is now subject to governmental examination though little evidence exists to suggest that the magnitude of the exception is necessary to support the associated objective.

Then, somewhat ironically, there’s the fact that the IRS may provide special scrutiny of your tax status if you dare to use the word “Constitution” in your organization’s title or bylaws.

The right to a speedy trial under the Sixth Amendment is almost a thing of the past. Perhaps it’s because we rank as the number one country in the world with respect to per capita prison population, or maybe it’s because our laws have become so complex that almost everyone is technically in violation of some element of the criminal code.

Correspondingly, don’t even bother to read the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. It seems that nearly anything can be justified as being delegated to our federal government at this point.

Now, let’s move on to our responsibility to “insure domestic tranquility.”

Rather than to ““insure domestic tranquility”, we seem more destine to disrupt it. With increasing regularity, our Nation has promoted an emotional environment that can best be described as an attempt to create The Divided States of America. The major Parties use stereotypes to foster a sense of oppression and a “We versus They” mentality for the singular purpose of gaining political advantage.

As an example: Our justice system imposes a higher level of punishment for violent assaults against members of specific categories of our society by identifying those acts as “hate crimes.” Yet, that same justice system often argues that punishment has limited value as a deterrent. Trying to rationalize a legal distinction predicated upon victim characteristics rather than the nature of the crime seems specious at best.

To paraphrase former-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (testifying about the murders in Benghazi): Does it really matter? Isn’t the consequence of the assault the same to the victim, or is it somehow less relevant if it’s perpetrated upon an 87-year old man who had served his country in WWII and earned a Purple Heart as opposed to a person of color or a person with a non-traditional sexual orientation?

Correspondingly, who can forget how well the first post-racial Presidency has been going. While the rhetoric to maintain the politically-advantageous racial divide remains in place, (e.g., the Henry Gates incident, the Trayvon Martin incident, etc.), the education, safety, and economic disparities for minorities have actually gotten significantly worse during the President’s time in office.

Domestic tranquility has not only been overlooked in recent years, it’s been negatively impacted.
Next, let’s consider our obligation to “provide for the common defence.”

While the spelling of “defense” has changed over the years, the core concept hasn’t. Our federal government has a clear responsibility to protect the Union (i.e., the United States). In that regard, it has done an exceptional job.

However, with increasing regularity, our elected officials have broadened that obligation to one that more correctly might be described as providing for the common defense of the world; a position for which the Constitution provides little to no reinforcement.

Most recently, the Executive Branch of our government spent nearly a month campaigning for a “limited military action” that would “send a strong signal” to Syria, which hasn’t directly or indirectly threatened the United States (raising a Constitutional issue itself). Millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours were invested in repositioning our naval resources, petitioning Congress, and appealing to the general public to support the President’s edict in response to a “red line” he had drawn in an impromptu comment over a year before.

Since then, we’ve been informed that the lobbying was part of an elaborate charade to force a diplomatic resolution. In essence, we have been asked to believe that our Secretary of State’s sarcastic answer to a hypothetical question at a press conference was intentionally delivered to outwit our adversaries. Of course, one would have to believe that our Secretary of State knew in advance that the question would be asked. Barring any evidence of that, we are expected to accept the Administration’s word that this was simply the execution of a brilliantly subtle strategy rather than blind luck.

As a result, while our defense capabilities remain strong, the depth of the strategic leadership directing them is somewhat debatable.

On the fiscal side of the issue, Conservatives are aghast that sequestration is forcing cuts in military spending. However, given that the United States spends more on defense than the next 10 countries combined, it is difficult to argue that our nearly-$1 trillion defense budget could not sustain rational cuts; that is, unless we intend to continue occupying other sovereign nations in an attempt to spread “democracy” through the modern, political version of the Crusades known as “nation building.”
Next, the Preamble calls upon us to “promote the general Welfare.”

Of course, “Welfare” doesn’t mean “welfare” in the sense of giveaway programs designed to maintain economic dependence or special favors contrived to placate a political constituency in return for its unwitting support. As is emphasized in Article I, Section 8, the federal government’s responsibility is to provide for the “general Welfare of the United States;” in effect, to address those issue that pertain to the well-being of all citizens.

The right to provide for the welfare of citizens on a non-equal basis is reserved to the States under the Tenth Amendment and to individuals (in the form of charity, etc.) under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments (assuming anyone still pays attention to those provisions). It does not reside within the federal government.
The Preamble then states one final purpose behind the Constitution: to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

This suggests that the Constitution and its Amendments were perceived to be necessary to protect and preserve Liberty. It also reminds us that we have an obligation to not only to focus on the present but on the future as well. We have a fiduciary responsibility to consider the impact of our decisions on generations to come.

This applies to fiscal decisions we make, the political system we nurture, the educational and work opportunities we provide, and the natural environment we leave behind. The Founders did not intend for us to selfishly consume the resources we have been afforded. They did not intend for us to escape a monarchy only to yield our sovereign rights as individuals to a new iteration of a ruling elite; one that not only has created the concept of “Too Big to Fail” but also the apparent corollary of “Too Big to Jail.”

The Founders also recognized that the Constitution would be an imperfect charter for the future. That is why they incorporated Article V to allow the core principles to be amended as needed.

Our elected officials complain that the standard for amendment is too high (even though it’s been successfully invoked 27 times). So they circumvent it altogether by usurping rights from the citizens and the States by egotistically broadening federal power, signing Executive Orders, and bypassing the representatives of the People by permitting agencies to regulate change without legislative authority. Welcome to the new version of an oligarchy in which the bloodlines are defined by Party affiliation.

While it is hoped that this Preamble-based primer will remind us of the grand experiment our Republic represents on this special day, our federally-elected officials should not need it. They share a common thread otherwise known as their Oaths of Office.

The President has sworn to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Every Senator and Member of the House of Representatives has sworn to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Here’s a simple request on this 226th anniversary of that esteemed document: “We the People” would like you to honor your Oaths.

The president’s disdain for his oath

If he doesn’t like a law he just ignores it

By Jim DeMint
There is a reason American soldiers, judges and political leaders must swear to protect the Constitution. America is a free, prosperous republic because of this charter we celebrate today. It is what makes us a country of laws, rather than one ruled by mobs or dictators. Straying from the Constitution will lead only to national decline.

Have we begun that decline already? Not yet. But today, we must defend the Constitution from all-out attacks by courts, legislators and regulators. Just ask Holy Cross Hospital, which will be forced by Obamacare to hire an insurer that will provide tubal litigation and abortifacients to their employees, in clear violation of their constitutionally protected freedom of religion. To keep our republic, as Benjamin Franklin enjoined us to do, we must be perpetually vigilant.

Today, we must also protect it from an unlikely source, the person who should be the main protector of our common charter and who takes a unique oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution”; namely, the president of the United States. Barack Obama has sometimes shown a casual disdain for a document he clearly considers an outmoded infringement on his powers.

Mr. Obama displayed a certain ambivalence even before he became president. In one of his two autobiographies, “The Audacity of Hope,” he wrote that he couldn’t completely reject “the school of thought that sees the Founding Fathers only as hypocrites and the Constitution only as a betrayal of the grand ideals set forth by the Declaration of Independence.”

Why are progressives generally allergic to the Constitution? Mr. Obama himself laid it bare in a 2001 interview he did with Chicago public radio station WBEZ while still an Illinois state senator. In that interview, he averred, “The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.”

That is the crux of the problem, and as president, Mr. Obama has certainly showed zest in getting around the Constitution as he seeks to expand an activist government. Since entering the Oval Office, his constitutional violations have fallen into three main areas: executive overreach, the erection of an administrative state, and the infringement of individual rights.

Among examples of executive overreach, there is the way in which the president blithely ignored the Constitution when, acting through the Treasury Department, he unilaterally suspended in early July the employer-mandate portion of Obamacare. The statute has no provision permitting suspension by a president.

Also this summer and also on Obamacare, Mr. Obama’s administration enacted a rule by that allows members of Congress and their staffs “to use the large, tax-free subsidy that they receive for their current coverage under the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program to pay for their new exchange coverage.” All of this, again, was outside his legal authority.

Obamacare — a law that offers no end to constitutional problems — also offers examples of how the president has trampled on the Constitution in the pursuit of an ever-expanding administrative state. There were, for instance, the excessive waivers that undermined the rule of law. Mr. Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services granted more than 1,000 one-year waivers, especially to special-interest groups that are liberal allies, such as unions.

Obamacare has also been used to trample individual rights, such as the right to refuse to purchase services that violate an individual’s core religious beliefs. The Obama administration has been also contemptuous of our Second Amendment right to bear arms. It has issued no fewer than 23 executive orders curbing that basic right.

Mr. Obama and his administration are by no means alone in their attacks on the Constitution. This August, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protection of free speech and freedom of religion did not protect Elaine Huguenin, owner of Elaine Photography, from refusing to take photographs at a same-sex union event. ‘The message a same-sex commitment ceremony communicates is not one I believe,” she said, to no avail.

If this isn’t trampling on our rights, what is?

What can we do about all this? We must be conscious of what’s happening, for starters. But we also must start thinking seriously about a constitutional-reform movement that will persuade Americans worried about current trends to register to vote. We need self-government, as the Constitution says is its purpose, “to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

Mr. Obama and progressives in general must be put on guard that we will not allow anyone to tread on the source of our blessings.

Naval Yard shooting aftermath went according to script

Yesterday saw the nation's news dominated by continuous coverage of the shooting at the Washington Naval Yard. Twelve innocents were slaughtered, leaving behind grieving family and friends as well as a nation horrified at the carnage.  They deserve, and have, our sympathy and compassion, as do the thousands of people at the Naval Yard and elsewhere nearby who were terrorized.

But for the major political and media actors on the nation's stage, it was a day of following familiar scripts.

Cable news outlets went directly into continuous live coverage, endlessly repeating the few facts that became available, and adding quite a number of non-facts based on police scanners and law enforcement sources passing along raw data that had not been vetted. The old adage from TV news, "If it bleeds, it leads," was the rule of the day, all day.

The alleged killer, Aaron Alexis, shot dead at the Naval Yard, instantly became famous, following in the steps of other villains who perpetrated mass murder. In an era when many hunger for fame, one of the surest tickets to media coverage is the commission of mass murder. Sadly, this allure continues to be offered by media. The names of victims go largely unremarked, but the name and image of the perp achieve lasting visibility.

President Obama also followed a script, delivering his planned speech on the economy shortly after news broke of the shooting. Exhibiting the tone deafness that characterizes his second term so far, he launched a vicious attack on the GOP and offered class warfare rhetoric. The president did concede, however, that some Republicans are "decent folks." The others (the majority, not just "some") obviously are not decent.


As far as the budget goes, it's time for responsible Republicans who share these goals -- and there are a number of folks out there who I think are decent folks -- I've got some disagreements with them on some issues -- but I think genuinely want to see the economy grow and want what's best for the American people.

Does anyone else out there find it shocking that by implication the President of the United States characterizes his opposition party as indecent, with only "a number of folks" in the decent category? And that he would do this in the wake of news of a mass slaughter?

Also behaving according to script are the gun grabbers, with Senator Dianne Feinstein in the lead, demanding regulations to deprive law abiding citizens of the means of defending themselves. The Colorado recall votes last week delivered a heavy blow to the gun grabbers. For them, the slaughter at the Naval Yard was an opportunity, and they are not letting it pass by.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/09/naval_yard_shooting_aftermath_went_according_to_script.html#ixzz2fAFoCgPE

 

AR-15: Anti-Gun Narrative Blows Up In Face of CNN, Daily News

Tuesday's New York Daily News cover story is nothing more than a long-form editorial that attempts to make the AR-15 (a semiautomatic sport rifle) the bad guy in Monday's horrific Navy Yard shooting. Last night, CNN attempted to do the same through blowhard Piers Morgan. But there is just one problem: CNN and The Daily News are 100% wrong. The FBI has just confirmed that a shotgun and two pistols were recovered, and that the "gunman was NOT armed with [an] AR-15."

Tuesday morning's Daily News cover hysterically blared, "Same Gun Different Slay."



Inside, Mike Lupica continued the blare:



This time the shooter is reported to be a Navy reservist named Aaron Alexis and when he is shot dead by law enforcement, taken out before he can put a gun to his own head the way Lanza did, he has his light, handy assault weapon with him, and a semiautomatic pistol, and a shotgun.

But even if the shooter had used a semiautomatic rifle (which we now know he didn't), it would have been one he took from a security guard during the rampage. Maybe the Daily News didn't get it wrong; maybe Lupica and company are so far over the edge that they are now calling for the American military to be disarmed?

Meanwhile, over at CNN, within hours of the shooting, the network allowed Piers Morgan to launch his own sanctimonious attack against the AR-15:

But just a few hours later, CNN had to walk it back. Buried in an article singling out the AR-15, CNN reported that an AR-15 was not found on the scene.

Apparently, sometime yesterday, the talking point went out that said that the anti-gun narrative coming out of the Navy Yard shootings would be to turn the AR-15 into this massacre's convenient left-wing bogeyman  -- all in an effort to get it banned.

The left-wing, anti-science media blows it again by caring more about the agenda than the facts.

This is especially devastating for CNN, a cable network desperate to get off the floor after non-stop debacles involving the Boston Marathon bombing, being caught openly pushing for gun control, and all things George Zimmerman. Eventually, CNN has to see Piers Morgan as the low-rated liability he really is. Straight out of the gate, within hours of this massacre, CNN already is a punchline ... again. 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/09/17/Ar-15-daily-news-cnn-already-blow-anti-gun-narrative 

Military Bases “Gun-Free Zones” Due To Bill Clinton

More people were wounded and died at Fort Hood because of this rule. That is the simple, sad fact.
We have yet to learn all the facts of the Navy Yard case yet. But it is clear that for many minutes after the shooter started, he was still free to shoot. 

How logical is it, in these days of increasing al Qaeda threat, to leave our military unarmed and unable to respond? 

Via PJ Media:
After Nidal Hasan killed 13 and wounded more than 30 in November 2009, John R. Lott wrote about one of the craziest policies to come out of the Clinton era: making military bases “gun free zones.”

Yes, that’s correct. In 1993, President Bill Clinton decreed that US military personnel were to surrender the Second Amendment rights that they swear an oath to support and defend. Lott, writing in 2009, called for that policy to be ended.

Shouldn’t an army base be the last place where a terrorist should be able to shoot at people uninterrupted for 10 minutes? After all, an army base is filled with soldiers who carry guns, right? Unfortunately, that is not the case. Beginning in March 1993, under the Clinton administration, the army forbids military personnel from carrying their own personal firearms and mandates that “a credible and specific threat against [Department of the Army] personnel [exist] in that region” before military personnel “may be authorized to carry firearms for personal protection.” Indeed, most military bases have relatively few military police as they are in heavy demand to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://weaselzippers.us/2013/09/17/military-bases-gun-free-zones-due-to-bill-clinton/

Benghazi Oversight Report Asks Why Patrick Kennedy Was Not Held Accountable

A staff report prepared for Rep. Darrell Issa and released today finds numerous failings in the ARB report on Benghazi released last year. The new report overturns some of the conclusions of the official ARB report. It finds that Under Secretary of State Patrick Kennedy, who was not criticized in the ARB report, should have been held accountable.

The new report is based on public statements but also on transcripts of numerous interviews undertaken since the release of the ARB report. It concurs with some portions of the earlier ARB report and disputes others. For instance, the new report finds that Charlene Lamb was at fault for decisions she made with regard to security in Libya. However the new report also provides a partial basis for exonerating Lamb since evidence suggests that every personnel decisions related to Libya was directly approved (or disapproved) by Under Secretary Kennedy.

A key exchange appears on page 63 of the report when Committee staff interview Deputy Assistant Secretary for Maghreb Affairs Maxwell about the involvement of Under Secretary Kennedy in events taking place in Libya prior to the 9/11 attack [Emphasis in original]:
Q.The DCM, Mr. Hicks, testified that Ambassador Kennedy was very engaged on a minute level about the incidents that were occurring in Benghazi in the months leading up to the attacks.
A.Yep.
Q. Does that surprise you?
A. It does not. We--one of the things that I found interesting was that the Under Secretary approved every person that went in or came out of Tripoli...
*   *   *
A. The DAS Assistant Secretary reports to the Under Secretary for Management. The way the Under Secretary for Management runs things, there is no decision that DS makes that doesn't have his input and his imprimatur, his approval. There is no decision that DS doesn't make that doesn't have his disapproval. DS--the Under Secretary for Management speaks for DS for all practical purposes, and there is no decision that DS makes that the Under Secretary for Management is not involved in.
Q.So, the important decisions about the security posture in Libya leading up to the attacks, if Mr. Boswell was held accountable for those decisions, is it fair to say that the Under Secretary for Management would have had a role in those decisions?
A. Absolutely.
Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Eric Boswell, one of the four individuals named in the ARB report, also told Oversight staff that Kennedy was the "ultimate decisionmaker" when it came to the removal of the SST team from Libya. This was the team of soldiers which Ambassador Stevens and others hoped to keep in Libya but which was removed weeks before the attack. Boswell also told Oversight staffers that "any decision about travel in and out, staffing levels was made by" Kennedy. This included both the assignment of diplomatic staff and security personnel.

Executive Director of the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau Lee Lohman told Oversight that he attended a meeting at which Kennedy personally examined schematics for the villa in Benghazi. Lohman said Kennedy was "heavily" involved in choosing the facility.

The report also points out that Kennedy was the single individual who, based on a staff recommendation, approved keeping the Benghazi post open as a temporary facility for an additional year. It was because the compound was temporary and not a permanent site that its security was staffed on a temporary basis by DS agents on leave from other positions. The temporary staffing system was intended to fill single openings or gaps in staffing on a short term basis, not provide and entire staff indefinitely. As a result, DS never had a full security compliment in place in Benghazi.

The new report also criticizes Kennedy's role in presenting a false image of accountability to the public. Under Secretary Kennedy informed Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Eric Boswell that he had been singled out in the ARB report. Boswell offered his resignation and Kennedy accepted it. However Kennedy simultaneously encouraged Boswell to hang on to another position he held. A few days later, Kennedy told Boswell he was being placed on administrative leave. However, quoting Boswell from the Oversight interview, Kennedy told Boswell "he didn't think it would last long."

The Oversight report strongly suggests that the ARB report should have assigned blame to Under Secretary Kennedy for his involvement in numerous decisions which created the lax security situation in Benghazi.
Under Secretary Kennedy is scheduled to testify at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday. Rep. Issa has scheduled a separate hearing with Adm. Mike Mullen and Amb. Thomas Pickering, the authors of the contested ARB report, for Thursday.

http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/09/16/Benghazi-Oversight-Report-Asks-Why-Patrick-Kennedy-Was-Not-Held-Accountabl


ECOtality Files for Bankruptcy

ECOtality was awarded $115 million in stimulus funds

Taxpayer-backed green energy company ECOtality filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday.
The news followed weeks of turmoil in which the company laid off employees and ceased filling orders for its electric vehicle charging stations.

The Energy Department, which awarded the company about $115 million in stimulus funds to produce those chargers, suspended payments last month.

The company announced the bankruptcy in a Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It also said that Brandon Hurlbut, the company’s director, resigned on Sunday.

The bankruptcy proceedings will take place in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Arizona, the company said.

“It is likely that the Company’s common stock will have very little or no value given the amount of the Company’s liabilities compared to its assets,” the filing noted.

ECOtality trading was halted on Tuesday morning pending the news. Its stock is currently worth $0.23.

http://freebeacon.com/ecotality-files-for-bankruptcy/

The Power of 218

If House Republicans can't hold together, they have no leverage at all.

Perhaps the only war strategizing more inept than President Obama's on Syria are GOP plans for the budget hostilities this autumn. Republicans are fracturing over tactics, and even over the nature of political reality, which may let Mr. Obama outwit them like a domestic Vladimir Putin.

In our view the GOP would be less confused if more House Members appreciated the power of 218. That's the number of votes that makes a majority and it is the only true "leverage" Republicans have while Democrats hold the Senate and a Presidential veto.

The latest GOP internal dispute is over a continuing resolution to fund the government at sequester-spending levels. The current CR runs out at the end of the month, and about 40 to 50 House Republicans (out of 233) want to attach a rider that either delays or defunds the Affordable Care Act for a year and leaves everything else running.

Speaker John Boehner floated a CR with an arcane procedure that would force the Senate to take an up-or-down vote on the anti-ObamaCare component. But pressure groups like Heritage Action and the Club for Growth rebelled and the vote had to be postponed, like so many other unforced retreats this Congress. Here we go again.

These critics portrayed the Boehner plan as a sellout because of a campaign that captured the imagination of some conservatives this summer: Republicans must threaten to crash their Zeros into the aircraft carrier of ObamaCare. Their demand is that the House pair the "must pass" CR or the debt limit with defunding the health-care bill. Kamikaze missions rarely turn out well, least of all for the pilots.

The problem is that Mr. Obama is never, ever going to unwind his signature legacy project of national health care. Ideology aside, it would end his Presidency politically. And if Republicans insist that any spending bill must defund ObamaCare, then a showdown is inevitable that shuts down much of the government.
Republicans will claim that Democrats are the ones shutting it down to preserve ObamaCare. Voters may see it differently given the media's liberal sympathies and because the repeal-or-bust crowd provoked the confrontation.

With his own popularity fading, Mr. Obama may want a shutdown so he can change the subject to his caricature of GOP zealots who want no government. He'll blame any turmoil or economic fallout on House Republicans, figuring that he can split the tea party from the GOP and that this is the one event that could reinstall Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. Mr. Obama could spend his final two years going out in a blaze of liberal glory.

The defunders sketch out an alternative scenario in which Mr. Obama is blamed, and they say we can't know unless Republicans try. But even they admit privately that they really won't succeed in defunding ObamaCare. The best case seems to be that if all Republicans show resolve they'll win over the public in a shutdown, and Democrats will eventually surrender, well, something.

If this works it would be the first time. The evidence going back to the Newt Gingrich Congress is that no party can govern from the House, and the Republican Party can't abide the outcry when flights are delayed, national parks close and direct deposits for military spouses stop. Sooner or later the GOP breaks.

This all-or-nothing posture also usually results in worse policy. The most recent example was the failure of Mr. Boehner's fiscal cliff "Plan B" in December 2012, which was the best the GOP could do because Mr. Obama had the whip hand of automatic tax increases. The fallback deal that was sealed in the Senate raised taxes by more and is now complicating the prospects for tax reform.

The backbenchers are heading into another box canyon now. Mr. Boehner is undermined because the other side knows he lacks 218 GOP votes, which empowers House and Senate Democrats. They want to reverse the modest spending discipline of the sequester, and if the House GOP can't hold together on the CR they will succeed. The only chance of any entitlement reform worth the name is if Mr. Boehner can hold his majority and negotiate from strength.

We've often supported backbenchers who want to push GOP leaders in a better policy direction, most recently on the farm bill. But it's something else entirely to sabotage any plan with a chance of succeeding and pretend to have "leverage" that exists only in the world of townhall applause lines and fundraising letters.

The best option now is for the GOP to unite behind a budget strategy that can hold 218 votes, keeping the sequester pressure of discretionary spending cuts on Democrats to come to the table on entitlements. The sequester is a rare policy victory the GOP has extracted from Mr. Obama, and it is squeezing liberal constituencies that depend on federal cash.

The backbenchers might even look at the polls showing that the public is now tilting toward Republicans on issues including the economy, ensuring a strong national defense and even health care. Some Republicans think they are sure to hold the House in 2014 no matter what happens because of gerrymandering, but even those levees won't hold if there's a wave of revulsion against the GOP. Marginal seats still matter for controlling Congress. The kamikazes could end up ensuring the return of all-Democratic rule.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323846504579073083671216784.html

PK'SNOTE: What we need is the Fed eliminated.

Rules Over Politics at the Fed; It’s the Only Way to Get Out of this Mess.

When Montana Democratic senator Jon Tester announced last Friday that he would vote against Larry Summers’s putative candidacy for Fed chairman if it came before the Senate Banking Committee, he put a dagger in Summers’s Fed career before it even started. Tester would have made it four Democratic nay votes in committee, and it is highly unlikely that Republicans would have taken up the slack to push through a Summers nomination.

So over the weekend, Summers wisely withdrew from the horserace, telling President Obama that the confirmation process would be too political and acrimonious.

Some Democrats blame Summers for financial deregulation during the Clinton-Rubin 1990s. Other Democrats simply want Janet Yellen to be the first female Fed chair. And Republicans blame Summers for authoring the $1 trillion Obama stimulus-spending plan that piled on new debt without generating a real economic recovery.

But actually, President Obama doomed this candidacy months ago with his repeated rebuttals to attacks on Summers. A buzz then developed that a Chairman Summers would be Obama’s guy, sort of the way Arthur Burns was Dick Nixon’s guy years ago. And that turned out to be a disaster.

Fed chairmen have to be independent, ready to make tough decisions. So what would have Obama said to Summers about higher interest rates and slower money growth in the next couple of years? Would Summers have had the independence to pull it off?

We’ll never know. But we do know that stocks markets rallied big time on the Summers withdrawal. Markets think Janet Yellen will be an easy-money dove and that Summers would have been the tight-money hawk. But stocks have no way of knowing this, because neither Yellen nor Summers have suggested a rules-based monetary policy that will prevent serious financial crises while stabilizing inflation and maximizing growth.

In the 1980s and 1990s, a rules-based monetary strategy worked very well. Economists have called the period the Great Moderation. Yet as bright as they are, Yellen and Summers are Big Government and Big Fed fine-tuners, meddlers, and tinkerers. And that’s exactly what we don’t need from the next Fed chair. 
Instead, we need a rules-based approach that will guide the Fed through the difficult period of shrinking a $3.7 trillion balance sheet and a $2.2 trillion volume of excess bank reserves, and raising the zero interest rate.

Can this be done in an orderly manner? Or will financial markets panic over this return to normalcy?
Well, there are a number of monetary rules, all based on market action rather than government action, that can put the Fed back on the right track. For example, if the Fed had used the Taylor rule over the past dozen years, we never would have seen the boom-bust cycle that virtually wrecked the financial system and economy. Stanford economist John Taylor uses a combination of inflation and real growth to target the federal funds rate and the money supply. And his rule warned from 2001 to 2006 that Fed target rates were too low, the dollar was collapsing, and housing and other real assets were ballooning on their way to popping. His rule predicted the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

But other price rules -- driven by forward-looking, inflation-sensitive, market-price signals -- were telling the Fed the same thing. With gold soaring and the dollar plunging, a commodity-price rule -- such as the one Wayne Angell and Manley Johnson instituted while they were Fed governors from roughly 1985 to 1995 -- would have warned Alan Greenspan that he was on the wrong track. 

For most of American history, a reliable King Dollar and sensitive commodity prices including gold have been important market-price signals to guide Fed policy. (More often than not, Ben Bernanke ignored these signals.) And we can now add to that the “market monetarists,” a new group that advocates nominal-GDP targeting, which is a combination of inflation and real growth and is somewhat akin to the Taylor rule.

The key point here is that the next Fed chair should employ consistent targets rather than Big Fed tinkering. Ironically, Janet Yellen, the supposed dove, has talked about the usefulness of a modified Taylor rule. And equally ironic, Larry Summers has written that independent central banks have the best low-inflation track records. Yet Summers was clearly too political to get the job, and Yellen’s dovish feathers follow her everywhere.

I doubt if there’s a single Obama advisor telling the president to appoint someone who believes in monetary rules. That’s too bad. A clear price rule is exactly what the Fed needs to get out of this mess.

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/larrykudlow/2013/09/17/rules-over-politics-at-the-fed-its-the-only-way-to-get-out-of-this-mess-n1701929/page/full

A Very Productive Chemical-Weapons Attack

President Obama has created a U.S. interest in preserving Assad in power to oversee Syria's WMD disarmament.

Bashar Assad may have pulled off the most successful use of chemical weapons in history. For the two years leading up to the Aug. 21 Damascus sarin gas attack, President Obama was saying that the Syrian dictator "must go." No longer. In one month, Assad has risen from outlaw butcher to partner in disarmament.

America's Syria policy today focuses not on mass murder, or on the metastasizing humanitarian and refugee crisis, or on combating the interests of Iran and its Hezbollah proxies in keeping Assad in power. Rather, with Russian President Vladimir Putin's help, U.S. policy under President Obama is concentrating on chemical-weapons disarmament.

Secretary of State John Kerry labors to enlist Assad in an arms-control project even while alleging that the dictator has used nerve gas in violation of Syria's obligations under the 1925 Geneva Protocol. U.S. policy is not to oust the Assad regime or even to encourage the Syrian people to do so. President Obama has now created a U.S. interest in preserving Assad in power.


Pigeons lie on the ground after dying from what activists say is the use of chemical weapons.

This means Assad must stay, not go, for he is needed to negotiate and implement an arrangement to destroy Syria's chemical weapons. The arrangement, if successfully negotiated, will take years to implement. Arms control evidently means never having to say you're sorry.

Meanwhile, the Syrian rebels are exasperated and mistrustful, having seen Washington dangle the prospect of U.S. military strikes, only to back away. The Iranians are drawing comforting lessons about the lengths that the Obama administration will go to avoid military action in the Middle East. The Russians have been promoted from reprehensible accomplices in Assad's evil to indispensable peace negotiators—while they remain accomplices to that evil.

What lesson will dictators around the world derive from all this? They will see that there is enormous utility in creating a chemical-weapons arsenal, and even in using such weapons. Sarin gas, VX, anthrax and the like can be valuable for intimidating one's enemies, foreign and domestic, and for killing them. They can then be traded away at a very high price under the right circumstances. They can serve as a lifesaver for a dictator on the skids.

Clever dictators will realize that they can barter their chemical-weapons arsenals to buy time to crush an insurrection and then rebuild the arsenal after the population has been pacified.

This is what comes of focusing on what Mr. Obama legalistically calls the "international norms" barring chemical weapons use. By choosing not to tackle the difficult strategic and humanitarian challenges posed by the Syrian civil war, the president is now rewarding the very offenses that he said he wanted to punish. In the name of arms control, he is incentivizing the proliferation of chemical weapons. In the name of international law, he is undermining respect for treaties. In the name of U.S. interests, he is emboldening America's enemies.

Bashar Assad must be blessing the sarin gas that killed all those men, women and children on Aug. 21. If he did order that attack, it was a master stroke. The victims of chemical weapons shake in agony. Assad, Vladimir Putin and Iran's Ali Khamanei shake with laughter.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324665604579078940387757478.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

Obama’s Box Canyon

Our Hamlet-in-chief wanted simultaneously to act and not act

By Victor Davis Hanson
...As for the absurd White House spin that Russia now “owns” Syria, Putin never owns anything, much less owns up to anything. To the degree that we are weakened, Assad strengthened, Iran empowered, and the insurgents discredited, Putin prances about the world stage. But if things get even worse in Syria, and if the U.S. is forced to make a messy intervention to save face, then Putin will be happy to walk away, lament the fate of his barnacle Assad, welcome another American entanglement, congratulate himself on the cost/benefit calculus of making Obama look inconsistent and weak — and strut off in pride, quite willing to restart the melodrama with a post-Assad Syria or a soon-to-be nuclear Iran, and to advise plenty of others how it is all done.

Is there any escape from Obama’s box canyon?

Only in the sense that just as there was once a way not to go in, there is also a way to get out: Keep quiet and our powder dry, vet the Syrian opposition, determine to what degree it includes non-Islamist groups that would be better than Assad, and then quietly support them. Doing no more harm is about all that is left.

In theory (and it is a long shot), the victory of the Syrian Free Army would both end the violence and weaken the Iranians and Hezbollah — while adding anxiety for Putin as comeuppance for his machinations. Yet at this point, I doubt that any of those agendas can be realized, or matter much if they were. More likely, the Syrian finale is going to resemble Somalia or the Sudan, perhaps Libya, or what Afghanistan may become after we leave. We, not Putin, will own the embarrassment as the world’s inept and fossilized superpower.

We hope the Iranians do not wish to enter Putin’s negotiating circus. But they already sense that Obama really does want them to cease enrichment and really does not wish to use force to stop them. Our Hamlet-in-chief could get very old fast.

Even such an embarrassing backout assumes that Assad won’t use WMD again just to embarrass the U.S., that the endless negotiations over WMD will eventually take world attention away from Obama’s empty bluster, that Americans can stomach the endless back and forth between savage insurgents and Assad’s vicious security forces on the premise that the violence is something that we had no part in and cannot fix — even as the dare-not-speak-their-name realists whisper that it might be in our long-term interests to see our pro-Hezbollah enemies duke it out with pro-al-Qaeda insurgents.

To paraphrase Tacitus, when they make a mess, they call it diplomacy.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358616/obamas-box-canyon-victor-davis-hanson/page/0/1

Did Obama Just Waive the Ban on Arming Terrorist Groups?

President Barack Obama on Monday announced he would waive the federal law intended to prevent the supply of arms to terrorists groups so the U.S. can provide arms and other military assistance to the Syrian rebels, the Washington Examiner’s Joel Gehrke reports.

As TheBlaze has previously reported, a number of radical Islamic terrorist groups, including al Qaeda, have aligned themselves with the Syrian opposition in the quest to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
US President Barack Obama speaks on economy in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, in Washington on September 16, 2013 to mark the five-year anniversary of the financial crisis.

The president, citing his authority under the Arms Export Control Act, announced today that he would “waive the prohibitions in sections 40 and 40A of the AECA related to such a transaction.”
Those two sections prohibit sending weaponry to countries described in section 40(d): “The prohibitions contained in this section apply with respect to a country if the Secretary of State determines that the government of that country has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism,” Congress stated in the Arms Control Export Act.
“For purposes of this subsection, such acts shall include all activities that the Secretary determines willfully aid or abet the international proliferation of nuclear explosive devices to individuals or groups or willfully aid or abet an individual or groups in acquiring unsafeguarded special nuclear material,” the law continues.
The president of the United States has the authority to waive the restrictions if he “determines that the transaction is essential to the national security interests of the United States.”

It is unclear how arming the Syrian rebels could possibly be interpreted as “essential to the national security interests of the United States.” However, Obama is making the case that Assad having chemical weapons is a nation security threat to the U.S.

Last week, the Washington Post reported on a “major escalation of the U.S. role in Syria’s civil war” after the Obama administration went ahead with its promise to provide “lethal aid” to the rebels.

According to sources, arms shipments of light weapons and other munitions were delivered to the rebels as well as nonlethal gear like sophisticated communications equipment, advanced combat medical kits and vehicles.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/16/did-obama-just-waive-the-ban-on-arming-terrorist-groups/

Obama Flunks Sociology 101

According to the transcript of remarks made by Barack Obama at the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia and released by the White House website, Mr. Obama used the word 'norms' or 'international norms,' eighteen times in his speech.
Sociology terms like folkways, mores, and norms are taught in freshmen sociology courses throughout academia and are considered fundamental. The idea is that all conventional or traditional beliefs and behaviors are the basis from which all nascent laws or societal changes are viewed from or modified.
Mr. Obama's almost excessive use of the term 'norms' leaves an acrid odor in the air when considering that on at least three fundamental levels the use of this noun, even if it is only used to reflect the informal understanding of what society perceives as normal, is ridiculous and obscene.
1. If the Geneva protocol of 1925 is the norm Obama is citing, it must be noted that the protocol for the prohibition and use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases is an international agreement that clearly signifies that such gases will not be used in 'war.' Domestic struggles, civil war, or oppressive and deadly action against the citizens within a state are neither inferred nor suggested in the law. It is an agreement formed to govern fully existing states at war with each other.
If we must use the norm word, we are forced to ask the question, what is normal about a dictator gassing his own citizens? Mr. Assad is clearly a criminal (with or without gas) and negotiating with him on the basis of the 1925 protocol is blatantly absurd.
2. Since neither the 1925 protocols nor the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention have provided any enforcement mechanism, both agreements are essentially a toothless tiger. Over eighty percent of America's stockpiles of chemical weapons have been destroyed, but other nations have largely failed to produce proof that their stockpiles have been eradicated or reduced. The 1993 terms call for complete destruction of all chemical weapons by 2012 -- a deadline no nation has met as of this day.
The rub is that the lawful means of dealing with violators of the treaty is not bombs; it is prosecution by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Those prosecutions must be passed to the court by the Security Council of the UN.
There is no international or domestic law that calls for bombs to alleviate red tape, and nonexistent enforcement machinery. Enforcement measures is also obviously lacking in Obama's imaginary 'international community.'
3. The use of the word 'norm' seems abusive, contradictory, and hypocritical when considering the source. Mr. Obama has disregarded so many economic, social, and moral norms in his domestic policy that the word 'perverted' no longer seems excessive.
Announcing his 'evolved' thinking on same-sex marriage has been a major frontal assault on every norm used to define marriage since the days of the Declaration.
His support of late-term abortions, active support for Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion organizations has produced the continuation of millions of abortions on a daily basis in the United States.
The barest conscience is compelled to ask the question. If 100,000 deaths by conventional weapons and over 1,000 deaths by nerve gas are not 'norms' for Syria -- what sort of 'norm' is 6,920,000 abortions in the U.S. since Mr. Obama took office?
In summary, after considering the source, the use of the word norm is an egregious misuse of the language, and any inference at all to morality.
This writer would strongly advise our floundering President to consider these words spoken by Jesus Christ:
"For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." (Mt 12:37)

House GOP takes step on Internet sales tax legislation

Republicans in the House are taking a step forward on Internet sales tax legislation despite potential opposition from the GOP base.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va) is expected to release his own set of principles on the issue in the next week or two, according to sources who are closely watching the legislation.

The principles are a sign of fresh momentum for online sales tax legislation after Goodlatte and other top Republicans in the House — including Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) — voiced deep skepticism about the Senate-passed Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA).

Goodlatte could have chosen to bury the bill, but his decision to craft the principles shows he is serious about moving some version of the legislation forward.

The principles are expected to be broad policy statements with positions such as maintaining a simple system and not burdening businesses.

A Judiciary aide would only say that “the House is currently examining all of the issues surrounding the collection of online sales taxes and working on alternatives to the bill passed by the Senate.”

Still, supporters of the online sales tax bill face a heavy lift in gaining traction for their issue, with looming fights over government funding and raising the debt limit expected to suck up the oxygen on Capitol Hill.

Goodlatte’s panel is also in the middle of the fight over immigration reform, which has itself been overshadowed by Syria and fiscal matters in recent weeks.

"Nobody on the Hill has a fuller plate than Chairman Goodlatte," said David French, the top lobbyist for the National Retail Federation and a supporter of online sales tax legislation.

Under current law, states can only collect sales taxes from retailers that have a physical presence in their state. People who order items online from another state are supposed to declare the purchases on their tax forms, but few do.

The bill that the Senate passed in a 69-27 vote in May would give states the power to tax the online sales of out-of-state businesses. The bill exempts businesses with less than $1 million in annual out-of-state sales.

Major retail chains are lobbying heavily for the legislation, arguing that the status quo gives an unfair advantage to Internet-only retailers. Amazon, which is expanding its network of physical distribution centers, also backs the bill.

Republican and Democratic state officials hope the bill will give them a new stream of revenue.

"It's not necessarily a question of if but when," French said. "Eventually the size of online retail is going to demand a congressional solution."

Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), the main GOP author of the Marketplace Fairness Act in the House, acknowledged that the online sales tax issue would struggle to find a spot on the congressional calendar.

But, the Arkansas Republican added to reporters on Thursday, “that doesn’t mean that other very meaningful issues facing our country should be set aside and just deferred."

The bill's opponents, led by anti-tax and small-government groups, are ramping up their efforts to kill the legislation.

The National Taxpayers Union (NTU) and the R Street Institute circulated a survey that found that 57 percent of likely voters oppose an online sales tax bill, with even a plurality of Democrats against the measure.

The two groups argue that those findings show that Republicans who oppose the online sales tax measure could have a powerful tool in general elections against Democrats, or even in primaries against fellow Republicans.

“I think these poll results show that the public has seen the MFA, listened to its best arguments, and aren’t buying any of them,” Pete Sepp of NTU told reporters on Friday. “I think they provide a very powerful indication of where the electorate is.”

Two of the most prominent GOP supporters of the online sales tax bill on Capitol Hill — Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) and Mike Enzi (Wyo.) — already have Republican challengers as they seek reelection in 2014. Liz Cheney, a daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, is trying to unseat Enzi.

Andrew Moylan of R Street added that he believed Goodlatte was “appropriately skeptical” of the MFA, and that he didn’t see much chance of the bill surviving in the House in its current form.

“I think they have the basic idea right,” said Moylan, who also said the groups’ new poll “reinforces that this is bad politics.”

The Marketplace Fairness Coalition — which is being helped out by a former Boehner spokesman — criticized the opposition survey as a push poll, and said their own polling showed that voters increasingly support the online sales tax bill the more they hear about it.

The coalition’s poll, released Friday, found that voters backed the idea that the government should not favor Internet retailers over brick-and-mortar shops, and that an online sales tax bill would help local businesses.

Womack told reporters on Thursday that he understands that voters can initially think that the measure is a new tax, as opposed to a measure to help collect taxes already owed. Once voters find that out, Womack says, their take is that “the last thing I want to see is tumbleweeds blowing down Main Street in my community.”

Still, Womack also said that, while he was willing to work with Goodlatte, there were certain provisions he would work hard to keep intact — like the $1 million exemption that eBay and other groups want to see boosted substantially.

“Then you start neutering the effects of the bill, essentially,” Womack said. 

Reid Blames Colorado Floods On 'Climate Change'

Harry Reid used the massive destruction caused by flooding in parts of Colorado on the Senate floor Tuesday morning to slam House Republicans for partisanship and wasting the "taxpayer's time" trying to repeal ObamaCare.

Reid listed numerous issues that Congress should be focusing its time during session this year and lamented that the House Republicans refused to get on board with President's domestic agenda.

"ObamaCare is the law of the land. It's time for Republican's to mature," Reid said, "to grow up ... It's time for Republicans to stop denying reality."

After suggesting that Congress should be addressing issues with infrastructure, Reid focused on "climate change."

"Climate change is here," Reid said. "We're doing nothing about it."

Reid also suggested that Congress should "try passing immigration reform" before listing the economic benefits of ObamaCare.

...Senator Reid's remarks and read the transcript below:


We should be facing the reality of climate change. Look what happened in Colorado. I talked to Senator Bennet yesterday, he said the floods were "biblical." In one part of Colorado, it rained 12 inches in two hours. I can't imagine that. 


Fires all over the West -- climate change is here. I met with the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh. They don't know what they're going to do with the rise of the sea, which is taking place. That country has no place -- no high ground. It's that way all over the world. Martial Islands -- 1,000 islands make up the Martial Islands. Fifty-five thousand people live there. These islands are being washed away with these new waves they've never seen before. 


Climate change is here. We're doing nothing about it. They're spending all our time, the American taxpayer's time, trying to repeal a law that's been in effect for four years.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/09/17/Reid-Blames-Colorado-Floods-On-Climate-Change

Yesterday, Obama Was Not My President--or Yours

On Monday, while the death toll mounted at the Navy Yard, President Barack Obama delivered a strident partisan tirade against Republicans, using the fifth anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse to score political points ahead of the debt ceiling debate. It was an appalling act of division and insensitivity, and unlike George W. Bush's My Pet Goat moment on 9/11, it was a calculated abdication of leadership.

It was also an act that places Obama's passivity during the Benghazi attacks--and his decision to fly to Las Vegas the next day for a campaign fundraiser--in perspective. This is a president who, even as Navy Seals approached Osama bin Laden's hideout, retired to play cards with his pals. The image is of a man with little regard for the lives of Americans in "his" military, or their families, beyond their use as campaign props.

In addition, President Obama--like it or not--leads the entire nation, not just the majority that voted him into office. In moments of terror and tragedy, his job is to bring the American people together, not to split us apart. Conservatives have been willing--eager, even--to embrace Obama on such occasions, as many did after his speech at the memorial for the Tuscon victims in 2011. Yesterday, he foreclosed any such reconciliation.

What we are seeing is partly the result of Obama's political foundation as a community organizer--there is never a crisis to waste, so to speak, in stirring up your core supporters against their contrived opponents. But even Alinsky, who had enough sense to criticize those who called police "pigs," would have counseled against Obama's speech yesterday, which could not have brought more benefit than harm to his cause.

Yes, Obama did begin by acknowledging the Navy Yard attacks. That is, at least, an improvement from how he reacted to the Ford Hood shooting in 2009, which he only mentioned after several "shout-outs" to his supporters in the audience.

Yet the speech itself should have been canceled, or postponed. The fact that the White House never even considered that option shows how out of touch Obama is with his basic duties.

A story comes to mind, told by a friend in Chicago who met Obama during his obscure State Senate years. Obama was at a local function for medical professionals, and my friend, having just met the Senator from Hyde Park, tried to introduce him to a friend from the same neighborhood. In the nervous rush of the moment, he forgot that friend's name. "Well, I guess he isn't your friend, is he," Obama deadpanned.

Obama then presented his business card, said, "You'll be hearing about me," turned, and left, leaving the two men in shock at his rudeness.

That's the real Obama--the one slowly emerging in presidential biographies now that he is safely ensconced in a second term, the one who drops even the most loyal aides when he feels they are no longer of use to him, the man capable of relating to large crowds but not concrete human beings.

Speaker of the House John Boehner said that Obama's speech was a "shame." Charles Krauthammer said that it was in "extremely bad taste." It was worse than that. It was an insult to the victims and their families, a slap in the face to the nation as a whole, a dereliction of the simplest duty of empathy and discretion. He may apologize--he ought to--but what Obama revealed about himself in that moment can never be undone.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/09/17/Yesterday-Obama-Was-Not-My-President

We Shall Call Him “Resident Obama”

Upon winning election to the highest office in the land, Mr. Barack Obama declared that he intended to fundamentally transform America.  Mission accomplished.

America is no longer a model for prosperity as unemployment has only dropped one-tenth of 1 percent every year Obama has occupied the Oval office.

Individual freedoms are no longer more guaranteed here than in any other nation in the world as demonstrated by the draconian law, Obamacare.  It’s a law from which elites have sought and received exemptions.  It’s also a law that a vast majority of Americans has never wanted.

And America is no longer that beacon of freedom, shinning to the world’s oppressed and down-trodden.  Just ask the families of those slaughtered in Iran’s Green Revolution, the people of Libya and Egypt and the real rebels in Syria, if Obama has lived up to the freedom-promoting standards set by previous American presidents.

If only Obama’s transgressions stopped there.  But he has not only transformed America, but he’s tried to redefine the office that he holds.

Let’s just set aside the copious rounds of golf while Americans suffer.  Let’s ignore the numerous opulent vacations taken by the Obama’s.  Let’s forget the party atmosphere at the “People’s House” these last five years with a steady stream of singers, violence promoting rap artists and Hollywood heavyweights.  Let’s focus on how Mr. Obama has approached his job.  Ecclesiastes says, “To everything there is a season,” but not for Mr. Obama.

In fact, even after winning election twice, Obama has consistently stuck to what he does best, campaigning.  This tactic has enabled President Obama to push for, impose and sign into law destructive policies that nobody seems to associate with him.  He’s also been the most partisan president in memory as he never misses an opportunity to belittle, misrepresent and condescend to the GOP, even in situations where past president’s would have been more statesman-like. Imagine being Paul Ryan or a Supreme Court Justice and having the occupier of the Oval Office single you out rather than looking for common ground or remembering the separation of powers outlined in the Constitution.

In his latest address on the economy, dubbed a five year anniversary speech on the economic crisis, Obama just bashed Republicans again.  We were treated to another repackaged speech that has been delivered, in one form or another, throughout Obama’s entire failed term in office.  Obama blamed the results from his policies on Republicans.  A day before Mr. Obama stomped his feet, refusing to address America’s debt crisis saying, “What I haven’t been willing to negotiate, and I will not negotiate, is on the debt ceiling.”

While he bashes Republicans for not seeing things his way, he simultaneously insists he won’t give an inch to Republicans.  Many Obama supporters will gripe that Obama’s detractors have few nice things to say of him.  That may be true.  But those people were not elected president.

Even President George W. Bush, after enduring vile and unfair slurs from the left, knew when it was time to govern.  Mr. Obama hasn’t received the memo.

Obama is under the mistaken impression that it is his job that gives him credibility.  It’s not occurred to him that credibility was an attribute he needed to bring to the job.  No greater example exists of Obama’s attempted reformation of the office of President than an American foreign policy in shambles.

We’ve watched the “lead from behind” approach taken by Obama yield expected results.  For the first time in history we have a person elected to the highest office in the land who doesn’t believe in America’s foundational values.  For the first time we have an alleged leader who views America as a force of “bad” in the world not a force for “good”.

Obama withdrew American troops without a status of forces agreement in Iraq to guard the peace won through President Bush’s surge.  That country has descended into chaos, death and Iranian influence.
Libya is a country in turmoil, a breeding ground and safe-haven for the terrorists who murdered four Americans in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012.

And Obama’s dithering in Syria has robbed the American people the opportunity to influence a hotbed of terror.

Obama missed a shot at dealing a huge blow to Iran and Russia.  His inaction has ensured that the only boots on the ground in opposition to the dictator Bashar al-Assad belong to Al Qaeda.  Obama is so weak that he drew a “red line” for the use of chemical weapons in Syria during campaign 2012.  When weapons were used, his only recourse was to try and convince Americans that he never drew the “red line” to in the first place.

Mr. Obama is too cool.  He’s too cool to be bothered with the traditions and conventions that have governed past presidents.  He has set out to transform America and in turn has attempted to lower expectations for the office of president.

There is nothing special about Barack Obama. He’s a committed extremist liberal. He is a simple politician, a rank partisan and an unserious man who seems content to host parties at the White House and watch America and the world burn.

Unfortunately for Mr. Obama, the Presidency is not his to change.  In fact, the office of President belongs to “We the People.”  It is we who set the standards and expectations for our presidents.  Those expectations extend beyond two election days.

Since Mr. Obama refuses to behave in the manner commensurate with the office of President of the United States, I think we are under no obligation to bestow that honor upon him.  He does deserve the title.  He has three more years to unleash his destructive policies on us.  We can’t very well call him “Obama” the entire time.

I toiled, looking for an appropriate title, for the occupier of the Oval Office.  I thought of “used-car-salesmen.”  It’s been done.  I thought of “Amway salesmen.”  Amway is a successful enterprise, not worthy of Obama.  I credit the audience of the Jay Severin Show for the winning term.  Obama is simply taking up space and being a general nuisance, like the Occupy Wall Street crowd with whom he share much affection and much in common.

Hence forth, Obama will be known as “Resident Obama Occupier of the People’s House,” or “Resident Obama” for short.  If you think about, it fits.

http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/we-shall-call-him-resident-obama/ 

Al Qaeda rises, the economy sinks: What progress, President Obama?

One year after we heard that Al Qaeda was on the way out and economic recovery on the way in, these words from Lev Grossman’s 2009 novel The Magicians spring to mind:

“If there’s a single lesson that life teaches us, it’s that wishing doesn’t make it so.”

You would never know from taking our chief magician at his word, but America is actually sliding backward towards chaos and the economic abyss as we approach autumn. Discontent is rising across the entire political spectrum even after we hear President Obama’s many soothing sentences.

Young adults now rightly fear war without end as they wonder where the decent paying jobs are. It is frightfully dangerous on the battlefield, while college debts are tough to service as a barista or on the unemployment line.

Parents struggle to balance family accounts as politicians spend money with reckless abandon. If only families could print money the way the Federal Reserve has done to fund a deficit that remains monstrous in historical terms, though admittedly below recent peak levels.

Seniors shudder, as they sense Obamacare is closer to Frankenstein than the health care cure-all they were sold. Is it not more than quite concerning that the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, yet we still do not know important details concerning key provisions that go into effect imminently?

In political campaigns, it seems that facts matter little. Yet, when meeting America’s towering financial and military obligations, facts certainly do matter.

One cold truth is that radical Islamic Jihadists are surging back into action against America everywhere they can. Neither bombs nor rhetoric has curbed their determination to dismantle and destroy secular states.
Whatever President Bush and President Obama have tried, will anyone concentrating upon America’s international standing dare to argue that we are winning or that peace is any closer to hand for all our costly sacrifices?

A second is that Americans are worse off in economic terms since the epic peak in 1999 when this nation reaped most financially from winning the Cold War.

Is the American led uni-polar world gone and lost forever? Is President Putin correct that America is not exceptional in a positive sense? Has living a dream exhausted our potential to cope and move beyond mounting challenges in vexing reality?

Today, as President Obama tries to shift focus back to his economic program, the tentative Syrian pact to control their chemical arsenal seems to offer only flimsy assurance that peace nears in the volatile Mideast.
Meanwhile, America cedes leadership regarding the most vexing foreign policy issues in that region to Russia, a nation that defaulted on its sovereign debt fifteen years ago and, until recently, was barely a footnote in calculations concerning the global balance of power in the new millennium.

The American dollar continues to shrink compared to useful commodities (food, energy, timber) and stores of value (gold, silver, platinum). Everyday items and imports cost more while assets are worth less to key foreign investors, If economic progress means more people have more valuable money in their pockets more reliably, where is this the case in America?

Official government statistics show that wage earners at each level of the economy are worse off in real terms. Fierce global competition and the undeniable fact that Americans remain highly paid on world scale means that all private sector incomes are under threat.

As shadows lengthen and light fades in America, words may explain more clearly than numbers can how serious the plight is that we all face.

In September 2013, we are like a young boy seen in August 1976, crossing from Niger, just south of the Sahara, into Benin.

He was perhaps 11 years old, reed thin and unfamiliar with plenty, while we are mature, overweight, and unaccustomed to want.

He knelt down before arrogant border guards who whipped him with a cord, seemingly for sport. We still stand erect, though we are hobbled.

His eyes glistened as he slid his knees from side to side over the thin metal rail upon which his minimal weight rested. We are not yet moved to tears or subject to the excruciating pain he must have felt.

His arms trembled as he struggled to hold large bricks in each hand, for when he lowered an arm but several inches the cruel crack of a supple cord was a certain result. We carry a gigantic debt upon our own backs, but so far the international community is willing to let our nation and the Federal Reserve Bank pretend we can service and ultimately repay our obligations.

He suffered in abject humiliation fastened to a dry corner in a distant part of the earth. There was nothing anyone could do to save him. And here is where the story may differ in the telling.

America in 2013 need not be that poor little boy, shouldering obligations, like bricks. We need not embrace life in futile subservience to tired slogans that never actually work.

Instead, we can start by remembering the distant words of Aristotle that “the worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal”.

We need not pile on debts we may not be able to repay in service to the false dream of attempting equal results after we assure equal opportunity.

We can consider Thomas Jefferson who correctly noted:

“Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition”.

Mr. President, you have run your last campaign. It is time to put platitudes to bed and analyze solid numbers concerning the earning capacity and financial leverage of this nation. Listen to one of your professed idols, Abraham Lincoln:

“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is bring them the real facts.”

Americans are tired of needless fights that serve only to distract and divide us and more than ready to implement solutions.

Terrific: Obamacare Stripping Low-Income Americans of Preferred Coverage, Rationing Access to Care

CNN's putrid Obamacare numbers, which we broke down last week, could have been an outlier.  They were not.  USA Today/Pew:

Opposition hits new highs: 53% disapprove of the health care law, the highest level since it was signed; 42% approve. By an even wider margin, intensity favors the opposition; 41% of those surveyed strongly disapprove while just 26% strongly approve. Fifty-three percent disapprove of Obama's handling of health care policy, an historic high. And Democrats have lost their traditional advantage on the issue. For the first time in polling that stretches back more than two decades, Americans narrowly prefer Republicans in dealing with health care policy, 40%-39%.

Before we move on to the next poll, the write-up by USA Today's Susan Page is a sight to behold.  Her opening paragraph blames the law's unpopularity on Republicans, and the first quote she includes is from a Lefty wonk snottily comparing the GOP's "demonization" campaign to nullification in the pre-Civil War South.  Subtle.  Republicans' role in Obamacare has been to vote en masse against a bill that the American people did not want, and to continue to oppose a law that the public abhors.  While we're on that subject, over to you, NBC/WSJ poll:


A large number of Americans continue to adamantly oppose the nation’s new health-care law and believe it will produce damaging results, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.  Forty-four percent of respondents call the health-care law a bad idea, while 31 percent believe it’s a good idea — virtually unchanged from July’s NBC/WSJ survey.By a 45 percent to 23 percent margin, Americans say it will have a negative impact on the country’s health-care system rather than a positive one.

Rounding things out is Rasmussen:

Most voters still don't like the national health care law and expect it to increase, not reduce, health care costs. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 43% of Likely U.S. Voters share at least a somewhat favorable opinion of the health care law, but 53% view it unfavorably...The passion remains on the side of its opponents: The new findings include 18% with a Very Favorable opinion of the law, but more than twice as many (38%) view it Very Unfavorably.

Why are these negative sentiments so entrenched?  Democrats and their allies in the media are free to console themselves by ranting about the malignant Republican spin machine, or whatever, but the truth is that the law itself is stirring doubts and galvanizing opposition.  A few weeks ago, I highlighted a report detailing how Obamacare's convoluted maze of mandates will hurt low-income workers.  McClatchy follows up with an analysis of how the new law "imperils local medical programs for the poor" -- the very types of people the law was supposed to help.  This is just devastating:


Jennifer Webb works the deli counter at Publix supermarket and has thyroid problems. Her boyfriend, William May, is an artist recovering from colon cancer. The couple has relied on a county program that provides health coverage to the working poor. But their “security blanket,” as Webb calls the Alachua County CHOICES program, is being taken away at the end of December. As new coverage provisions take effect Jan. 1 under the Affordable Care Act, the new health care law, local programs that offered barebones care to the uninsured are in flux – and with them, the lives of thousands who depend on them. A few programs, like CHOICES and HealthShare in northern Minnesota, are shutting down. Others, such as the Appalachian Healthcare Project in Boone, N.C., and Vita Health in Palm Beach County, Fla., are scaling back the number of people they cover. Programs in Lansing, Mich., and Houston are continuing at least for now, but their future is uncertain. As a result, many enrollees are unsure about how – or even if – they will be able to get coverage next year and what it will cost.

"If you like your plan, you can keep it," the president vowed.  Except when you can't. Sorry about that, deli counter worker and artist recovering from cancer. One of the most arresting figures buried within CNN's crosstabs was the extremely anemic support for Obamacare among lower-income Americans.  Perhaps they realize that this law is a raw deal for them, too.  Meanwhile, some liberals are crowing about insurance premiums rising less than they might have in some states (which is still a far cry from the sharply reduced costs we were promised).  How are some states holding intense rate shock somewhat at bay?  By significantly scaling back access and choices for consumers.  The Los Angeles Times reports:

The doctor can't see you now. Consumers may hear that a lot more often after getting health insurance under President Obama's Affordable Care Act.  To hold down premiums, major insurers in California have sharply limited the number of doctors and hospitals available to patients in the state's new health insurance market opening Oct. 1.  New data reveal the extent of those cuts in California, a crucial test bed for the federal healthcare law.  These diminished medical networks are fueling growing concerns that many patients will still struggle to get care despite the nation's biggest healthcare expansion in half a century.  Consumers could see long wait times, a scarcity of specialists and loss of a longtime doctor.  "These narrow networks won't work because they cut off access for patients," said Dr. Richard Baker, executive director of the Urban Health Institute at Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles. 

Health "coverage" does not equal healthcare.  The Examiner's Phil Klein wrote about this form of rationing last week, dubbing it "access shock," and using New Hampshire as a prime example.  I'll leave you with a news account of a troubling story I mentioned yesterday.  As Obamacare rolls out, is your private data secure in the hands of an army of bureaucrats and their bug-plagued computer systems?

"They're investigating how this happened."  Expect to hear a lot of that in the coming weeks.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/09/17/obamacare-polls-n1701657

 Congressman: CIA Employee Who Refused to Sign Non-Disclosure on Benghazi Suspended

A CIA employee who refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement barring him from discussing the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, has been suspended as a result and forced to hire legal counsel, according to a top House lawmaker.

Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.) revealed at an event on Monday that his office was anonymously informed about the CIA employee, who is purportedly facing an internal backlash after refusing to sign a legal document barring him from publicly or privately discussing events surrounding the Benghazi attack.

The revelation comes about a month after several media outlets reported that CIA employees with knowledge of the terror attack had been forced to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDA) and submit to regular polygraph tests.

“The reports on the NDA are accurate. We’re getting people who call,” Wolf said Monday during an event marking the launch of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi, a panel of former military and intelligence officials who are investigating unanswered questions surrounding the Benghazi incident.

Wolf’s office first received the anonymous call earlier in the summer, soon after CNN and Fox News reported on the NDAs and polygraph tests.

The caller told Wolf’s staff that an unnamed CIA employee has been suspended after refusing to sign a Benghazi-related NDA.

“My office received a call from a man saying that he knew a CIA employee who has retained legal counsel because he has refused to sign an additional NDA regarding the Sept. 11, 2012, events in Benghazi,” Wolf said in Sept. 9 remarks at a panel discussion hosted by Judicial Watch.

“I called the law firm and spoke with CIA employee’s attorney who confirmed that her client is having an issue with the agency and the firm is trying to address it,” Wolf said. “Based on my past experiences with the CIA, which is headquartered in my congressional district, I am not at all confident that these efforts will be successful.”

The NDA agreements are meant to instill fear in employees and stop them from speaking “to the media or Congress,” Wolf said on Monday.

The CIA declined to comment directly on Wolf’s charges, but forwarded the Washington Free Beacon a letter sent to Congress from CIA Director John Brennan in which he denies charges that the agency has forced employees to sign NDAs and submit to polygraph tests.

“I want to assure you that I will not tolerate any effort to prevent our intelligence oversight committee from doing their jobs,” Brennan hand wrote at the bottom of the letter.

The CIA reiterated its denial in a Tuesday call to a Free Beacon reporter, calling Wolf’s allegations “categorically false.”

Monday’s Benghazi discussion came on the same day that House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) released a report detailing multiple shortcomings in the State Department’s internal investigation into failures related to the Benghazi attack.

Issa says that the State Department “obstructed” congressional investigators, was “not comprehensive” in nature, “did not conduct thorough interviews,” and that more senior officials were not held to account.
“The ARB was not fully independent,” Issa said in a statement. “The panel did not exhaustively examine failures and it has led to an unacceptable lack of accountability.”

“While Ambassador [Thomas] Pickering and Admiral [Michael] Mullen have honorably served their country, the families of victims and the American people continue to wait for more conclusive answers about how our government left our own personnel so vulnerable and alone the night of the attack,” Issa said.

The newly formed Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi has similar goals as congressional investigators but is not confined by rules governing the legislative body, speakers at the event said.

Retired Air Force Col. Richard Brauer, cofounder of the group Special Operations Speaks, said the committee would aim to find out why U.S. military assets were ordered to “stand down” during the Benghazi attack.

“We’re tired of the lies and the cover-up that continues to this day,” Brauer said. “Who gave the order” to stand down, “to remain in place in Tripoli and the other locations and do nothing. When was this order given and why?”

“Forces were available on that very night, likely champing at the bit, but they were told to stand down,” he said. “These are words that will live in infamy.”

http://freebeacon.com/cia-employee-who-refused-to-sign-non-disclosure-on-benghazi-suspended/?print=1

U.S. History Textbook Guts the Second Amendment

Author John J. Newman has some explaining to do. His textbook, United States History: Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination, literally rewrites the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.

On page 102 of Newman’s book (page 134 of the PDF version), the author cuts the Second Amendment in half and leaves out several key words.
newman-book-1
The truncated Second Amendment is also in the print version.
newman-book-2
The actual Second Amendment reads:
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Newman leaves the second half of the Second Amendment, which guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear arms without infringement by the federal government, completely out.

Newman may defend his editing of the Second Amendment via the sentence that precedes his rendering of the Bill of Rights: “Here is a summary of the rights guaranteed in each amendment.” “Summary,” in that sentence, would be his key word.

But the Second Amendment clearly guarantees the individual’s right to keep and bear arms. Newman has relegated that right only to those who are members of a government militia. That is not how the courts see the Second Amendment. In District of Columbia vs Heller (2008) the United States Supreme Court held that “the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”

Newman’s textbook, therefore, is wrong. His book makes no mention of the Heller decision, and mutilates the Second Amendment in such a way as to remove the core of its meaning, which is that firearm ownership is a civil right on a par with the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press and the right to peacefully assemble to protest government action or policy. Those are guaranteed in the First Amendment; firearm ownership is guaranteed by itself in the Second.

Newman and his publisher, AMSCO School Publications, need to provide some answers. As the book stands, it teaches a wildly incorrect reading of one of the most important civil rights that the Constitution guarantees.

I have reached out to AMSCO School Publications for comment, and will publish their reaction if and when they provide one.

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/09/17/us-history-textbook-guts-the-second-amendment/

Chris Christie, Bully Blowhard

Make that “incompetent bully blowhard.” Don’t get me wrong: I loved watching Christie take apart those pathetic public school teachers as much as anyone. And for about fifteen minutes I thought, “Hey, this guy is pretty cool.”  But then I noticed that he subjected everyone who disagreed with him to the same bully treatment. His only rhetorical strategy, it seems, is throwing his weight around. (Sorry, couldn’t resist that.)

And then there was Christie’s love-in moment with Obama after Hurricane Sandy (The Atlantic called it “the hug seen ’round the world”). Did it cost Romney the presidency? Probably not, but it didn’t help.

He had to engage in that public post-Sandy chumminess, I’m told, in order to do the right thing by New Jersey, which suffered cruelly from the hurricane.  But has Christie done the right thing by New Jersey?  I think the New Jersey Star Ledger may be right: Christie is America’s most overrated governor. Consider:
New Jersey’s economy is a mess, even compared with its neighbors. The property-tax burden is up sharply. Poverty is rising. And the state’s credit rating has dropped on Christie’s watch as the long-range outlook deteriorates. His successor will inherit a bigger mess than he did.
“His successor will inherit a bigger mess than he did.” And I thought Republicans were supposed to be the fiscal adults.

Some are. But I don’t think Christie is among their number. He talks a big game (again, sorry), but what has he actually accomplished?  The Star Ledger  has more uncomfortable stats:
Crime is spiking in several of New Jersey’s hard-pressed cities, where loss of state aid has forced massive police layoffs. The state’s home foreclosure rate is the second highest in the nation and Christie fumbled a federal aid program intended to soften the blow. Yet he tried to raid a fund earmarked for affordable housing until the courts stopped him.
The list goes on. The state’s open space program is essentially dead, with no money and no ideas from the governor on how to fix it. The transportation trust fund is broke as well, so the governor has financed projects mostly by borrowing and by scavenging money that former Gov. Jon Corzine had set aside for the Hudson River tunnel project, which Christie canceled.
Ouch. At least I say ouch. And remember, this is the man who thought the Ground Zero Mosque was just great: lots of Muslims who have to be fed and watered in New Jersey, you know.
Because of the Democrats’ irresponsible policies, many states are at the threshold of bankruptcy. Republicans were supposed to be the chaps who could fix that. Some did. Mitch Daniels in Indiana, for example: a sterling success story. But Christie’s New Jersey is just as much of an basket case as it ever was. More from the Star Ledger:
  • Only 11 percent of New Jerseyans say they are better off than when he took office.
  • Employment is up just 2.2 percent since he took office.
  • Incomes are stagnant: New Jersey ranks near the bottom of the nation again.
  • Home prices are down 6.7 percent, putting New Jersey in the bottom quartile. Only Florida has a higher rate of foreclosure.
So why exactly should conservatives rally around this man?

http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2013/09/16/chris-christie-bully-blowhard/?singlepage=true

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