Category: Obama

On Obama’s Iraq Airstrikes

I was away on personal business and I did not have a chance to comment on what’s happening in Iraq.

Here’s the video of the announcement from President Obama: (via The White House)

Now, there are doubters. Via the Daily Beast:

Friday morning, with a humanitarian mission already underway, the United States began airstrikes on ISIS in northern Iraq. What had been the U.S. policy—to rely on local forces to contain ISIS while waiting for a new Iraqi government to reach a political solution—is finished. The new policy is still taking shape, but it may eventually lead to more involvement from the special operations troops who have been in Iraq for weeks.

President Obama said Thursday night he had authorized airstrikes to protect American personnel and the Yazidi minority group stranded by ISIS on top of Mt. Sinjar. A senior administration official later stressed to reporters that U.S. forces were not launching a “sustained campaign” against ISIS in Iraq.

But with the Kurds, America’s closest allies in the fight, recovering from heavy losses, some analysts and military veterans say that airstrikes alone may not be enough to turn the tide. A sustained—if small-scale—campaign may be the only way to achieve that.

…..and, of course, the neocon hawks:

President Obama’s limited strikes on ISIS in northern Iraq are “pinpricks” that are “meaningless” and “worse than nothing,” according to one of his fiercest foreign policy critics, Sen. John McCain.

By committing U.S. military forces to fight again in Iraq while explicitly limiting the mission to protection of American personnel and Iraqi minorities, Obama has failed to come up with a plan that has any hope of stopping the ISIS advances across Iraq and Syria, said McCain. It’s a position that puts him somewhat at odds with other Republicans, who are offering cautious support for the airstrikes in Iraq – and concern that the president doesn’t have a comprehensive strategy to combat the growing threat of ISIS..

McCain, a consistent advocate for the application of American military power around the world, has long pushed for greater U.S. involvement in Iraq. But these strikes Friday were not what McCain had in mind.

“This is a pinprick,” McCain told The Daily Beast in an interview Friday, about the two 500-pound smart bombs U.S. airplanes dropped on ISIS convoys Friday. The vehicles were approaching Erbil, the capital city of Iraqi Kurdistan, were many U.S. diplomatic and military personnel reside.

Now, honestly, I am going to give the President the benefit of the doubt and I am going to hope like heck, that the President knows just what the heck he is doing. As for what the President is doing and whether it will be enough or not — I have one thing to say about it — We will soon find out.

Because if it is not enough and we do kill some of those ISIS members; and it does not wipe them out and only strengthens them, we could very well find ourselves in another protracted battle in Iraq. I would hope that this would not be the case; but I have my doubts. I will say this: I highly doubt that President Obama will be as careless and reckless in his fighting this battle, as Bush was during the Iraq War that lasted for 8 years.

I just hope that I am right; for the sake of America.

Others: The American Conservative, Hot Air, Business Insider, his vorpal sword, Washington Post,National Review, Democracy in America, Informed Comment, The Moderate Voice, The Dish, Saudi Gazette, Spectator, VodkaPundit, Associated Press, Talking Points Memo and McClatchy Washington Bureau (Via Memeorandum)

Brutal: Salon’s Thomas Frank Calls Obama Presidency, a “ineffective and gutless” failure

…and this guy is a left-winger too.

Via Salon:

Predicting the future course of American politics is a lively and flourishing vocation. Guessing how future generations will commemorate present-day political events, however, is not nearly as remunerative. In the interest of restoring some balance to this tragic situation, allow me to kick off the speculation about the Obama legacy. How will we assess it? How will the Barack Obama Presidential Library, a much-anticipated museum of the future, cast the great events of our time?

In approaching this subject, let us first address the historical situation of the Obama administration. The task of museums, like that of history generally, is to document periods of great change. The task facing the makers of the Obama museum, however, will be pretty much exactly the opposite: how to document a time when America should have changed but didn’t. Its project will be to explain an age when every aspect of societal breakdown was out in the open and the old platitudes could no longer paper it over—when the meritocracy was clearly corrupt, when the financial system had devolved into organized thievery, when everyone knew that the politicians were bought and the worst criminals went unprosecuted and the middle class was in a state of collapse and the newspaper pundits were like street performers miming “seriousness” for an audience that had lost its taste for mime and seriousness both. It was a time when every thinking person could see that the reigning ideology had failed, that an epoch had ended, that the shitty consensus ideas of the 1980s had finally caved in—and when an unlikely champion arose from the mean streets of Chicago to keep the whole thing propped up nevertheless.

The Obama team, as the president once announced to a delegation of investment bankers, was “the only thing between you and the pitchforks,” and in retrospect these words seem not only to have been a correct assessment of the situation at the moment but a credo for his entire term in office. For my money, they should be carved in stone over the entrance to his monument: Barack Obama as the one-man rescue squad for an economic order that had aroused the fury of the world. Better: Obama as the awesomely talented doctor who kept the corpse of a dead philosophy lumbering along despite it all.

I know that he is making the case that Obama was not progressive enough; still it is shocking to see the left turn on him in this way. He does have some good points though. Especially about the jobs part; Obama did not do nearly enough to create a climate for job creation. The article is an interesting read, check it out.

Others: Liberal Values, Washington Monthly, Booman Tribune, CANNONFIRE,Lawyers, Guns & Money, No More Mister Nice Blog, Power Line and NewsBusters

Progressive Obama apologist blogger attacks Sharyl Attkisson

There are no depths or limits that these progressives jerks will not go to, just to defend that marxist moron in the White House.

Via Gateway Pundit, who I rarely, if ever, link to anymore for some very good reasons. But this one warrants mentioning:

Josh Marshall, the editor and publisher of the leftists media site Talking Points Memo, attacked former CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson in an article published Monday morning that reeks of sexism.

Attkisson is in the news for her interview with CNN on Sunday in which she revealed that the Democratic Part front group Media Matters for America helped produce news reports for CBS News.

Attkisson also speculated that Media Matters is being paid by donors to wage an attack campaign against her over her reporting that was critical of the Obama administration.

Marshall’s article is headlined How To Make Yourself Sound Nuts 101.

As every feminist knows, the quickest way for a man to dismiss an inconvenient woman is to question her sanity in public.

Marshall insinuates that Attkisson is paranoid because she claimed her computer was hacked. Then after noting her speculation about Media Matters, Marshall says she has,“serious temperament issues.”

Ah, yes, the woman doesn’t know that her place is being subservient to the Soviet States of Obama.

Marshall closes his sexist hit piece with a sneering reference to the Ingrid Bergman film, Gaslight, in which Bergman is slowly driven crazy by her murderous husband by his surreptitious adjustment of the gaslights in their home, among other devices he employs to drive her around the bend.

“Again, if Media Matters’ intention was to gaslight her, they appear to have succeeded in spades.”

Despicable.

This, my friends, is how far the left has gone amuck. If they cannot win the argument against the Conservatives, they stoop to attack them and try to discredit them. I ought to know; I was once among that crowd, and I once did this very sort of a thing towards the right, when I ran my first blog.

I knew it would happen; back in 2007, when I saw Barack Obama jumping ahead in the primary and when I saw how the others were being taken off the ballots, due to some of the stupidity in the State of Michigan, I knew it was coming. I knew that the media was going into the tank for Obama and I knew that the left wing blogosphere would follow and they did.

The Democrats and the progressive blogosphere knew that they could not stop the Iraq War. So, they did the next best thing. They got behind a black man and used that to win the White House. They will do anything to defend him from any sort of a legitimate attack. if playing the race card does not work. They will use this sort of demeaning attack towards women. Because this how the progressive left works, this is their game. The problem is, you have neoconservative bloggers, who do the same very thing. Which is sad, because the right is supposed to be different.

This goes well beyond right versus left; this is about the left protecting something that they worked hard to get; and defending it has no boundaries. What will be interesting to see, is if Hillary gets the nomination; how these same people will cry “Sexist!” if someone goes after Hillary during the primary and/or the general election in 2016.

UPDATE: I just wanted to add some more to this post. There was a time when I actually respected Josh Marshall. His work during the Bush administration era was excellent. However it seems now that Obama is in office, Josh Marshall has taken to writing partisan hit pieces.

I also want it be known, that I normally don’t go around tossing the sexiest card. Because I’m not much into identity politics when it comes to females, nor do I believe in special treatment of the fairer sex. However, this piece by Josh Marshall goes well beyond that. This piece was nothing more than a slander piece against a professional journalist, who happens to be a female.

Josh Marshalls wordage in this piece was nothing more than a flagrant slam against someone of whom he disagrees with politically. It was juvenile, it was uncouth, it was libelous, and it could very well get him sued. Again, I am NOT into tossing around entitlement cards or using wordage like sexist, racist, or anti semetic. However, this piece went overboard in a big way and I think Josh Marshall should be ashamed of himself and apologize to this woman for what he wrote.

Sam Clovis dares to speak the truth about Obama’s impeachment

God Bless Him for daring to speak the truth:

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sam Clovis, a firebrand northwest Iowa conservative, says he believes many congressional Republicans want to impeach President Obama. The only thing standing in their way, Clovis said in an interview, is the color of the president’s skin.

“I would say there are people in the House of Representatives right now that would very much like to take the opportunity to start the process,” Clovis said of impeaching the nation’s first African-American president. “And I think the reason that they’re not is because they’re concerned about the media.”

In an interview with the Daily Times Herald, Clovis, who did not provide reasons for why the president would be vulnerable to impeachment, said the media would cover the issues surrounding such proceedings differently with a black president than a white one with the same record.

via Clovis: Obama’s race shields him from impeachment – Daily Times Herald – Carroll, Iowa.

He is correct, of course. If the House tried to impeach President Obama, there would be a full-on race-riot in this Country and you can guess which race would be targeted — and I do not mean Latinos either! 😯 Every white man who lived in the cities and in the suburbs would be a target. This is why the Republicans in the House have not decided to do this; because it would cause chaos.

Good for him for telling the truth. Of course, the liberal left is attacking  the man for having the gall to speak such a thing; but it is the truth.

Is the US getting ready to perform a false flag to drag us into World War 3?

It sure does seem so.

Check out this video, by Susan Duclos who blogs over at Wake Up America.

Now the story via Susan Duclos over at Before It’s News:

If this is true and since the hacker group Anonymous is famous for hacking into high level documents and emails, it most likely is true, then this is a blockbuster bombshell!

 

Hacked emails to and from US Army Attache Assistant in Kiev Jason Gresh with Ukrainian General Staff Igor Protsyk, discuss plans to arrange a massive attack on transport hubs and Ukrainian military bases in order to “frame-up the neighbor,” and “create favorable conditions for Pentagon to act.”

 

The emails from Igor are in Russian, so the link is here for anyone that reads Russian but the email from US Army Attache Assistant in Kiev Jason Gresh is in English and the ramifications of it are enormous.

 

Events are moving rapidly in Crimea. Our friends in Washington expect more decisive actions from your network.
I think it’s time to implement the plan we discussed lately. Your job is to cause some problems to the transport hubs in the south-east in order to frame-up the neighbor.
It will create favorable conditions for Pentagon and the Company to act.
Do not waste time, my friend.

Respectfully,
JP

Jason P. Gresh
Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army
Assistant Army Attaché
U.S. Embassy, Kyiv
Tankova 4, Kyiv, Ukraine 04112
(380-44) 521 – 5444 | Fax (380-44) 521 – 5636

http://ukraine.usembassy.gov/
http://usembassykyiv.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/usdos.ukraine
http://www.youtube.com/user/USEmbassyKyiv
http://www.flickr.com/photos/usembassykyiv

Then, there’s this via KyivPost: (H/T to Before It’s News)

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States General Martin Dempsey has claimed that in the case of an escalation of unrest in Crimea, the U.S. Army is ready to back up Ukraine and its allies in Europe with military actions. 

According to the Web site of the Atlantic Council, Dempsey said that “he’s been talking to his military counterparts in Russia, but he’s also sending a clear message to Ukraine and members of NATO that the U.S. military will respond militarily if necessary.”

“We’re trying to tell [Russia] not to escalate this thing further into Eastern Ukraine, and allow the conditions to be set for some kind of resolution in Crimea. We do have treaty obligations with our NATO allies. And I have assured them that if that treaty obligation is triggered [in Europe], we would respond,” Dempsey said.

According to the General, the incursion of Russian troops into the Crimea creates risks for all the countries of Europe and NATO allies.

“If Russia is allowed to do this, which is to say move into a sovereign country under the guise of protecting ethnic Russians in Ukraine, it exposes Eastern Europe to some significant risk, because there are ethnic enclaves all over Eastern Europe and the Balkans,” Dempsey said. 

If I were the MSM, I would be all over this one. I would hate to think that the Obama Administration would pull something this bone-headed; seeing that his popularity, even among liberal Americans is not that great. But, then again, stranger things have happened with this President.

 

Trader Joe’s drops plan to build store in Portland, Oregon because of black racism

No, this isn’t a joke.

This story comes via TopConservativeNews.com, who notes the following:

Notice that it is perfectly acceptable for black people to oppose the demographic change of their neighborhood. If the races had been reversed, the national media would be screaming “RACISM!”

Consider this statement from the Portland African American Leadership Forum. They “remain opposed to any development in N/NE Portland that does not primarily benefit the Black community.” This would be a national controversy if the races were reversed. They would be denounced as the Ku Klux Klan.

The story via AP:

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The Trader Joe’s grocery-store chain has dropped a plan to open a new store in the heart of the city’s historically African-American neighborhood after activists said the development would price black residents out of the area.

 

The grocer, whose stores are found in urban neighborhoods across the nation, said Monday it wouldn’t press its plan, given community resistance, The Oregonian (http://bit.ly/1n7Jyqb ) reported.

“We open a limited number of stores each year, in communities across the country,” it said in a statement. “We run neighborhood stores, and our approach is simple: If a neighborhood does not want a Trader Joe’s, we understand, and we won’t open the store in question.”

The Portland Development Commission had offered a steep discount to the grocer on a parcel of nearly two acres that was appraised at up to $2.9 million: a purchase price of slightly more than $500,000. The lot is at Northeast Alberta Street and Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and has been vacant for years.

So, why did Trader Joe’s decide not to build there, well for two reasons:

Critics said the development would displace residents and perpetuate income inequality in one of the most rapidly gentrifying ZIP codes in the nation.

…and the biggest reason? This:

The Portland African American Leadership Forum said the development commission had in the past made promises about preventing projects from displacing community members but hadn’t fulfilled them.

It sent the city a letter saying it would “remain opposed to any development in N/NE Portland that does not primarily benefit the Black community.” It said the grocery-store development would “increase the desirability of the neighborhood,” for “non-oppressed populations.”

Mayor Charlie Hales and the urban renewal agency’s executive director, Patrick Quinton, signed a letter in January that described what they said was the commission’s contributions “to the destructive impact of gentrification and displacement on the African American community.“

Translation:

We don’t want no honkeys in our neighborhood! If you ain’t black, we don’t want your business here!

Now, could you imagine, if a business, who was owned by a black man, wanted to open a store, say in like Troy, Michigan or Rochester Hills, Michigan; which are, for what it is worth, predominantly upper middle class/wealthy class, white neighborhoods and a group of white people starting complaining about it and starting saying that it would cause the neighborhood to go into decline? Man, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson would be all over it!

There would huge protests and it would be all over the media. However, because this is a black thing, and the company is white owned; it is no big deal, nothing to see here, move along. 🙄

This is why I continue to run this blog; regardless of the fact that I make little or nothing on this blog at all, despite the fact that I make little or nothing on this blog, since Google Adsense dropped me. Because this sort of stuff is NOT reported by the national media; least of all by MSNBC and CNN. Fox News most likely will not touch it either, because of the taboo subject.

Furthermore, I believe that the Conservative right just will not touch this one; because they are afraid of being called racists. I do not have such issues. I simply do not care what blacks really think of me; least of all black liberals. Considering what happened to my cousin and myself; I think I’ve earned the right to point this stuff out.

By the way; these are Obama’s people and don’t you ever forget it. 😡

 

Obama to announce overhaul to NSA program

This should be really interesting….:

(Reuters) – President Barack Obama will announce on Friday a major overhaul of a controversial National Security Agency program that collects vast amounts of basic telephone call data on foreigners and Americans, a senior Obama administration official said.

In an 11 a.m. (1600 GMT) speech at the Justice Department, Obama will say he is ordering a transition that will significantly change the handling of what is known as the telephone “metadata” program from the way the NSA currently handles it.

Obama’s move is aimed at restoring Americans’ confidence in U.S. intelligence practices and caps months of reviews by the White House in the wake of damaging disclosures about U.S. surveillance tactics from former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden

via Exclusive: Obama to announce overhaul to controversial NSA program | Reuters.

This is the part of President Obama’s job that I would not do, even if they offered me a million dollars a day to do it. Doing the balancing act between national security and privacy is not an easy task. On one hand, you have the people who want to protect America from terrorist attacks; on the other, you have those who want to keep the privacy of Americans safe.

The article goes on to say what Obama has in store. I highly recommend that you go read it. Because needless to say; this is going to make many people, on both sides of the argument, very unhappy.

 

Obama’s alarming similarities to Bush

This is a very interesting article and it is written fairly, I believe:

Claiming a mandate he never had, the newly reelected president foisted a bold agenda upon Congress and the public, then watched it collapse within months—a victim of scandal, cynical opponents, and his own hubris. One despairing adviser declared, “This is the end of the presidency.”

That was George W. Bush in 2005. Or was it Barack Obama this past year? Reading Peter Baker’s extraordinary account of the Bush-Cheney era, Days of Fire, I found a striking number of parallels between Bush’s fifth year in office and the atrocious first 12 months of President Obama’s second term.

My takeaway: Obama needs to shatter the cycle of dysfunction (his and history’s) or risk leaving office like Bush, unpopular and relatively unaccomplished.

via ‘This Is the End of the Presidency’ – NationalJournal.com.

I suggest you go give that one a read. It is very interesting; and almost eerie to read.

Now the partisans on both sides will object to the piece and that is to be expected. But those of us, who do not suffer from such illness, will read it and agree.

What astounds me is that the American people actually allowed themselves to be fooled by the President who promised a change of business with his new Presidency. Only to find out that it was the same old Washington business as usual. For that, America is a less great Country. Sad how our Nation has become a people of useful idiots.