Flopping Aces » Baracks Broken Promises

Fred Thompson: Afghan war ‘has been lost’

Scott — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:55:45 +0000

“It really doesn’t matter how President Obama divides the Afghan baby, how he splits the difference between McChrystal and Biden. Because the war has been lost,” Thompson said on his radio show today. “I say this because of one sad and simple fact. The president does not have the will and determination to do what’s necessary to win it. His heart’s not in it, and never has been. The Taliban knows it. Al Qaeda knows it. Our allies know it. And the American people know it.

He’s probably right

Harvard Medical School Dean: ObamaCare Will “Accelerate” Spending & “Do Little To Improve Quality”

Curt — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:34:23 +0000

The Dean, Jeffrey S. Flier, decimates the the fairytale from the Obama camp: (h/t Roger L. Simon)

Our health-care system suffers from problems of cost, access and quality, and needs major reform. Tax policy drives employment-based insurance; this begets overinsurance and drives costs upward while creating inequities for the unemployed and self-employed. A regulatory morass limits innovation. And deep flaws in Medicare and Medicaid drive spending without optimizing care.

Speeches and news reports can lead you to believe that proposed congressional legislation would tackle the problems of cost, access and quality. But that’s not true. The various bills do deal with access by expanding Medicaid and mandating subsidized insurance at substantial cost—and thus addresses an important social goal. However, there are no provisions to substantively control the growth of costs or raise the quality of care. So the overall effort will fail to qualify as reform.

In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it. Likewise, nearly all agree that the legislation would do little or nothing to improve quality or change health-care’s dysfunctional delivery system.

~~~

Ultimately, our capacity to innovate and develop new therapies would suffer most of all.

Meanwhile, another Harvard alumni weighs in:

Joseph Stubbs, President of the American College of Physicians — the second largest doctors’ group in the country — confirms that “the supply of doctors just won’t be there” for the 30 million new patients Barack Obama wants to cover. Noting that the doctor shortage is “already a catastrophic crisis,” Stubbs said that underserved areas in the U.S. currently need almost 17,000 new primary care physicians even before Obama’s proposals are enacted.

In the meantime, according to Bloomberg News, a 2009 survey by Merritt Hawkins and Associates, a recruiting and research firm in Irving, Texas, found that “the average waiting time to see a family-medicine doctor in Boston … is 63 days, the most among the 15 cities” surveyed. By comparison, in Miami, it was only seven days.

The study noted that Boston’s longer wait was “driven in part by the health-care reform initiative” passed in 2006 in Massachusetts upon which the Obama program is modeled. Bloomberg reported that “as many as half of doctors in the state have closed their practices to new patients, forcing many of the newly insured to turn to emergency rooms for care.”

Alan Goroll, a professor at Harvard Medical School said that “the primary lesson of health-care reform in Massachusetts is that you can’t increase the number of insured unless you have a strong primary-care base in place to receive them. Without that foundation … Massachusetts has ended up with higher costs and people going to emergency rooms when they can’t find a doctor.”

And, a study by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, part of the federal government’s Health and Human Services Department, found that expanding insurance coverage to an estimated 32 million people who now lack it would create a demand for medical services that “could be difficult to meet initially … and could lead to price-increases, cost-shifting, and-or changes in providers’ willingness to treat patients with low-reimbursement health coverage.”

Indeed, the report found that the Medicare cuts contained in the House-passed bill are likely to “prove so costly to hospitals and nursing homes that they could stop taking Medicare altogether.”

Is America at war, or not?

Scott — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:34:05 +0000

Are we at war – or not?

For if we are at war, why is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed headed for trial in federal court in the Southern District of New York? Why is he entitled to a presumption of innocence and all of the constitutional protections of a U.S. citizen?

Is it possible we have done an injustice to this man by keeping him locked up all these years without trial? For that is what this trial implies – that he may not be guilty.

And if we must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that KSM was complicit in mass murder, by what right do we send Predators and Special Forces to kill his al-Qaida comrades wherever we find them? For none of them has been granted a fair trial.

When the Justice Department sets up a task force to wage war on a crime organization like the Mafia or MS-13, no U.S. official has a right to shoot Mafia or gang members on sight. No one has a right to bomb their homes. No one has a right to regard the possible death of their wives and children in an attack as acceptable collateral damage.

The Real Gitmo

Scott — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:13:36 +0000

Trying War Criminals in a Civilian Court

Wordsmith — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:19:24 +0000

So the big announcement is KSM and 4 other Club Gitmo detainees are to be tried in federal court, blocks away from the scene of their (war)crime, while 5 others will see their day before military a commission.

Is this really a good idea? Is it all about keeping a political campaign promise?

Bringing such notorious suspects to U.S. soil to face trial is a key step in President Barack Obama’s plan to close the terror suspect detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama initially planned to close the detention center by Jan. 22, but the administration is no longer expected to meet that deadline.

“For over 200 years our nation has relied upon a faithful adherence to the rule of law,” Holder told a news conference at the Justice Department. “Once again, we will ask our legal system in two venues to answer that call.”

The plan that Holder outlined Friday is a major legal and political test of Obama’s overall approach to terrorism. If the case suffers legal setbacks, the administration will face second-guessing from those who never wanted it in a civilian courtroom. And if lawmakers get upset about terrorists being brought to their home regions, they may fight back against other parts of Obama’s agenda.

Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona called bringing Mohammed to New York “an unnecessary risk” that could result in the disclosure of classified information. Kyl maintained the trial of Omar Abdel Rahman, the so-called “blind sheik” who was tried for a plot against some two-dozen New York City landmarks, caused “valuable information about U.S. intelligence sources and methods” to be revealed to the al-Qaida terrorist network.

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the federal courts are capable of trying high-profile terrorism.

“By trying them in our federal courts, we demonstrate to the world that the most powerful nation on earth also trusts its judicial system a system respected around the world,” Leahy said.

The decision outraged family members of some Sept. 11 victims.

“We have a president who doesn’t know we’re at war,” said Debra Burlingame, whose brother, Charles Burlingame, was pilot of the hijacked plane that crashed into the Pentagon. She said she was sickened by “the prospect of these barbarians being turned into victims by their attorneys,” if the trial winds up focusing on allegations that the suspects were tortured after their capture.

“I don’t think these people should get the benefit of being subjected to our system of jurisprudence,” said Bruce De Cell, whose son-in-law, Mark Petrocelli, was killed at the World Trade Center. “They are terrorists. I don’t think they should be tried in a civilian court.”

The New York case may force the court system to confront a host of difficult legal issues surrounding counterterrorism programs begun after the 2001 attacks, including the harsh interrogation techniques once used on some of the suspects while in CIA custody. The most severe method _ waterboarding, or simulated drowning _ was used on Mohammed 183 times in 2003, before the practice was banned.

Nursery Rhymes, The Keys to Today’s Administration? [Reader Post]

Skookum — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:00:58 +0000

Before you swear and look for a cyber rock to throw, read and contemplate the wisdom of nursery rhymes that have withstood the test of time. Now the can be applied to the Obama administration in frightful clarity.

Obama’s Election:

Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner
Eating a Christmas Pie;
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said, What a good boy am I

Little Barack Obama
Cursed by his mama’s drama
Given the Affirmative Action pie
He admired himself and learned to lie
He won the election plum
I can win, no matter how dumb

A Wartime President’s Confusion:

I’m the king of the castle,
Get down you dirty rascal.
I don’t care if there is a war
I’m so busy, and generals are a boor
I’ve won a Nobel Peace Prize
What’s war to me, but excuses and lies

Yankee Doodle

Yankee Doodle came to town
Riding on a pony
He stuck a father in his cap
And called it macaroni

Before the American Revolution, the British troops ridiculed the American colonials for their country ways and dress. The Americans had a habit of wearing a feather in their hats and their hair was often unruly. The British troops were required to keep their hair tied at the back in a small pony tail, this pony tail was referred to as macaroni and thus the British regular considered it far superior to an American’s typical hairstyle. Thus the song was written by British troops to embarrass the colonials with their rustic hairstyle and appearance.

At the Cornwallis surrender, the American band played Yankee Doodle while the British soldiers surrendered their rifles, in an effort to add insult to injury.

Barack Obama came to DC town
Riding a train like a foolish clown
Pretending he was Lincoln
Right then, I stopped believe’n

Ring Around The Rosie

Ring-a-round the rosies
A pocketful of posies
Ashes, Ashes
We all fall down

This was a game devised by children to make light of people dieing of the Black Plague, in the early 17th century, during the time while Shakespeare was putting on his plays in the Globe Theater. People who contracted the disease would fall ill suddenly, the first indication was an appearance of red rings with pustules in the center, the person would then become dizzy and walk in a circle and fall over dead. To combat the disease, people carried posies and ashes, if these failed, death at least came very quickly. The streets of London were littered with so many dead that special wagons were hired to haul away the bodies. Children will be children and the game is still played today, but without the ghoulish knowledge of the past.

Ring Around Rosie

Obama leads us on a fool’s game
Trust in me, George, he was so lame
I’ve got him to lay all the blame
With lemmings and fools I play, tis all the same

It’s ring around the Marxist
And you be racist if you resist
now we hold hands and sing Obama’s creed
And if you want to be rich or have a need
You can now be a Socialist indeed

Ring around the rosie
Ashes, ashes and we all fall down

Queen of Hearts:

The Queen of Hearts
She made some tarts
All on a summer’s day;
The knave of Hearts
He stole the tarts,
And took them clean away.

Queen of Hearts, Revised:

Our Queen of Hearts
Came to DC to get a head start
Her husband so wily and dull
Can rewrite history in minute detail
Especially if Bill Ayers ain’t in jail
Stand aside, let a woman throw the bull

Bush or Obama: The Quiz

Scott — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:18:38 +0000

1. President Bush was famous for lacking “intellectual curiosity”, while President Obama has been called “the smartest guy ever to become President.” Which one reads more books, Bush or Obama?

2. Bush was often considered to be in the grip of Big Oil. In contrast, Obama was a Harvard educated lawyer. Which industry contributed more than five times as much as the other to politicians: the oil & gas industry or lawyers/law firms?

3. Bush’s Christian faith was at the core of his political identity, and he was considered to be in the grip of the “religious right”, while Obama is considered more open-minded. In fact, Obama has said, “my faith is one that admits some doubt.” Which one refers to Jesus more in public speeches?

4. Bush was criticized for excessive federal spending and running up huge deficits. Bush’s deficit in 2008 was the largest in history. In fact, President Obama said,

“It’s a little hard for me to take criticism from folks about this recovery package after they’ve presided over a doubling of the national debt… What I won’t do is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place.”

Whose deficit was more than triple the size of the other’s: Bush’s 2008 deficit or Obama’s 2009 deficit?

(NYT) U.N.Says Iran Ignoring Nuke Deal; Israeli PM Meets w Barack…no press allowed

Scott — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:02:45 +0000

“If you listen to what the Iranians have said publicly and privately over the past week,” one senior administration official said Sunday, “it’s evident that they simply cannot bring themselves to do the deal.” The administration officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were speaking about delicate diplomatic exchanges.

Washington (CNN) — President Obama will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday evening after a rough stretch in U.S. efforts to settle the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The White House announced the meeting on Sunday.
…
Netanyahu is scheduled to address a conference of Jewish groups in Washington on Monday, but no meetings had been scheduled between the U.S. and Israeli leaders as of late last week, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said Thursday.

Chuck Todd at MSNBC is reporting on Facebook that the press is not being allowed to cover the meeting, and there won’t even be a press corps rep.

Daniel Snyder, President Obama, and Lack of Leadership in Washington, DC [Reader Post]

Brother Bob — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:45:43 +0000

In Washington DC there are three passions that rule this town – politics, football, and politics. Living here has given me front row seats to a pair of leadership trainwrecks in Daniel Snyder and Barack Obama. As both have been experiencing difficult times lately, it seemed like a good time to write about the similarities I’ve noticed between the two.

First off, I moved to the DC area in 1999, the same year that Dan Snyder bought the Washington Redskins. Interestingly enough, the job that brought me here was working for Snyder’s old company, Snyder Communications. Also, I never met the man during my time working there, and from the stories I’ve heard about him that’s not a complaint.

For those of you unfamiliar, Snyder immediately became a big news item from the beginning. He was brash, energetic, and has had no problems making bold moves as owner. Whether it was interrupting summer camp by arriving in his helicopter during practices, expanding Fedex Field’s seating while raising ticket prices, and charging admission to summer camp for one season. Also, despite having no background in football, he became heavily involved in the team. Snyder held post-game meetings with his head coaches, brought in a big name personnel man from the 49ers Super Bowl Dynasty (Vinny Cerrato), has chased down and overpaid big name coaches, and has even micro managed to the point of firing several kickers over the course of a season for blown kicks.

And what has Snyder accomplished as owner? From a financial perspective, he’s done quite well. He’s made the Redskins the second most valuable team in football. But outside of financials, the team has been a disaster. That’s not quite accurate – it’s been a picture of consistent mediocrity, never great, and until this season, never truly bad. Cerrato never proved to be the great personnel man he was hoped to be. Along with Snyder, he helped to bring in overpriced and overrated or over the hill players like Deion Sanders, Bruce Smith, Brandon Lloyd, and most recently, Albert Haynesworth. Snyder has also gone through a carousel of head coaches, and given his heavy handedness over operations, no competent Head Coach wants to lead the Redskins. This has come to a head this season with the team being led by a man who has no business being a Head Coach in Jim Zorn. As of the writing of this article the Redskins are 2-5, and the fans are in open revolt.

Snyder has always been prickly about criticism. Early on, while most of the local media could not stop fawning over him, one local paper, The Washington Times, wasn’t playing ball. They wrote critical pieces on Snyder, and as a result their reporter was banished to covering the games via a TV set below Fedex Field. As things have gotten worse, Snyder has even taken to censoring fans coming to the games. Now, the man who was once hailed as a bright, fresh face has been exposed as a vain, petty individual who has taken on a job for which he had no qualifications.

Which brings us to President Obama. Everyone knows about his meteoric rise since impressing America at the 2004 Democratic Convention with his amazing ability to read aloud. And in 2008, despite having no real accomplishments nor ever having won an election without relying on underhanded tactics, we elected him as our 44th president.

I don’t need to go into every detail over the train wreck that the Obama presidency has been so far, but to quickly review a few major points:

Building on the irresponsible spending of the Bush administration that will send our federal budget deficit into the trillions
Backing a health care bill that will succeed in both ruining the quality of health care while sending costs skyrocketing
Becoming a laughingstock in his foreign policy to the point where even the Prime Minister of France basically called him a naive twit
Reread that last one. I never thought I’d see that in my lifetime
Running historically discredited fiscal policy that will soon send unemployment into the double digit range as America endured under FDR

Obviously there is a lot more, but those are the main points for now. And like Snyder, Obama has had some successes so far. Ironically, both are for things that the people who voted for him were not looking for. First off, Obama has baldly broken his promise to not take national security seriously. Obama is already backing off of an immediate, unconditional surrender in Iraq. If you disagree with this last statement look at it from another angle. If Bin Laden issued a decree for all Al-Queda fighters to leave Iraq by next year how would that be interpreted? Now that Obama is postponing the end of tracking and prosecuting terrorists, he is working to make it up to his base by vacillating on Afghanistan.

The only other major accomplishment of the Obama administration sprang from the law of unintended consequences. Having become so used to the fawning coverage of the press and his own self absorption, it probably never entered Obama’s mind that he could ever face real public opposition to his policies. However, he made the mistake of misinterpreting his lofty “post-partisanship” ideal to mean “shut up and follow my radical left wing agenda”. The Republican party may have been left for dead on the sidelines, but the American people weren’t.

They came out in droves to for the team party protests, and to confront the elected officials at the town hall meetings. And Obama and the media had no idea how to deal with it. With no figurehead to apply the Alinsky demonization tactic, the liberals showed their true contempt for the average American citizen. The left dubbed them “angry mobs”, “unruly” and “astroturfers”, while whining about the level of discourse as they conveniently forgot their own behavior for the last eight years. And of course, the arrogant journalists who condescendingly decry Fox News for its bias (and yes, I know they’re biased.At least they’re honest about their perspective) are oblivious to their own unprofessionalism when they gleefully label the protesters “Tea Baggers”.

To top everything else off, The White House has declared war on Fox News for the crime of being the only major TV news outlet that does not diligently promote the administration’s talking points. This goes hand in hand with Obama attacking Rush Limbaugh earlier this year. The administration probably thought it would help discredit a perceived enemy, when all that it accomplished was giving the opposition some cheap publicity while making themselves look like shallow crybabies. We’ve even gotten to the point where the Attorney General is trying to pressure a DC official to pull an ad critical of Obama’s anti-school choice position.

So here we are today, with two leaders in Washington who came in ready to change the world. Instead, their arrogance and inability to adapt when reality did not meet their rosy visions have left both reeling and looking like two men struggling to do jobs they were never even remotely qualified to take on.

As an Eagles fan I’ve been thoroughly enjoying watching Snyder so ineptly run his franchise. As an American, President Obama’s performance has just been painful to watch.

As Chris Griffin would say, “I need an adult! I need an adult!”

Crossposted from Brother Bobs Blog

Obama Waffles Some More On Afghanistan & Rush Nails Him

Curt — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:12:04 +0000

Rush said earlier that he doesn’t believe Obama really cares what happens in Afghanistan…only what the war can do for him, and now the dithering liberal is dithering some more. 10 months wasn’t enough you see:

Axelrod said Obama would announce a war strategy “within weeks.” A senior U.S. official told The Associated Press that Obama has still not yet decided what to do, and it remains unclear whether he will decide before he goes to Asia on Nov. 11.

Here is what Rush said earlier and it’s dead on accurate:

WALLACE: Let’s talk about a couple of the big issues the president is dealing with now — first of all, Afghanistan. You suggest that he is taking all of this time to decide what to do in Afghanistan to keep his left-wing base on board for health care reform.

RUSH: Well, it’s partly that, but I also don’t think he cares much about it. I think once…

WALLACE: Well, come on.

RUSH: No, I — no, see, this is — I know this is going to sound controversial, but I don’t think he cares that — if he — Chris, if he cared about — we’ve got soldiers and their families worrying about what we’re going to do. The general on the ground said we need some more troops.

The policy that he implemented in March he now doesn’t like and is trying to figure out how best to make everybody happy here politically on his side of the aisle and also for his image. Democrats have a tendency to be seen as weak on defense, so he’s battling with that.

But again, if he cared about victory — remember, he said about Afghanistan victory is not something he’s comfortable with, the concept. It reminds him of the Japanese surrendering on the USS Missouri. It made him very uncomfortable.

He wants to manage this rather than achieve victory. He says these things. I don’t know if people actually listen and have them register when he does.

WALLACE: But you say you don’t know that he really cares. Do you at least give him credit for going to Dover, Delaware to honor the remains of soldiers, dead soldiers, who came back from Afghanistan?

RUSH: You know, see, the politically correct thing to say here would be, “Oh, yes, I am very impressed that President Obama decided to go show his concern for the remains, troops who’ve given their lives for freedom in this country.”

It was a photo op. It was a photo op precisely because he’s having big-time trouble on this whole Afghanistan dithering situation. He found one family that would allow photos to be taken. None of the others did.

And of course, when you have a sycophantic media following you around, able to promote and amplify whatever you want, then he can create the impression that he has all this great concern, but the — Bush did this…

WALLACE: Well, no…

RUSH: … but no cameras.

WALLACE: I don’t know that he ever went to Dover, Delaware.

RUSH: No, he went to see the families.

WALLACE: Yes, he certainly went to see the families.

RUSH: But he didn’t make photo ops out of it. The…

WALLACE: Well, but the argument would be that it was political of Bush not to be seen with the coffins because he was trying to hide it, hide the cost of war from the American people.

RUSH: Well, I have the benefit of knowing George Bush a little bit, and I — I — I’ve seen him cry talking about missions that he’s ordered. I think he has a great, profound, deep respect for the families of all military personnel, and those who have died…

WALLACE: But I don’t disagree with that…

RUSH: … and I — he’s not going to use them.

WALLACE: But you don’t think that Barack Obama has a profound respect for our soldiers and the families that are giving the sacrifice?

RUSH: Chris, throughout the Iraq war, it was Barack Obama and the Democrat Party which actively sought the defeat of the U.S. military. They convened hearings and accused General Petraeus of lying. They said the surge would not work.

Harry Reid stands up, waves the white flag — this war is lost. Jack Murtha is out saying our Marines at Haditha are guilty of rape. John Kerry is accusing our Marines of committing terrorism acts by going into the homes of Iraqis at midnight in the dark terrorizing, looking for Al Qaida or whoever was there.

Yeah. I mean, look. I hate to be honest with you here, but I do question their commitment to national security. I question their commitment to the U.S. military. They’ll put their political survival and their political power being gained over anything else. They’ll use anybody and throw anybody away in order to achieve it.

Full interview of Rush with Chris Wallace below:

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Socialist ObamaCare Getting No Where In The Senate Or The House

Curt — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:56:08 +0000

Man, the lefties must really be hating Liebeman nowadays:

“We’re trying to do too much at once,” Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now.”…

Lieberman did say he’s “strongly inclined” to vote to proceed to the debate, but that he’ll ultimately vote to block a floor vote on the bill if it isn’t changed first…

“I can’t see a way in which I could vote for cloture on any bill that contained a creation of a government-operated-run insurance company,” Lieberman added. “It’s just asking for trouble – in the end, the taxpayers are going to pay and probably all people will have health insurance are going to see their premiums go up because there’s going to be cost shifting as there has been for Medicare and Medicaid.”

Since that statement came out earlier today the Reid camp…or cheerleaders….have tried to spin it so it doesn’t sound as bad as it really is. I mean how can it be bad if Joe will vote to open floor debate on Reid’s bill? Of course they are leaving out the other vote…the one that closes debate and moves the bill to a vote. Joe says he will NOT vote for that if the public option is there.

Good for him.

RINO Snowe says she won’t vote for the public option either….at least today she is saying it:

Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe says she would vote with fellow Republicans to block the Democratic health care overhaul if changes are not made to the version Majority Leader Harry Reid outlined this week.

Karl at Hot Air thinks all this is leading to is Reid being able to say “I tried…but the evil empire struck me down” to his leftist loons.

Reid apparently does not have 60 votes lined up for the public option, though Reid thinks he will have them after the CBO scores it. This move was supposedly forced by the hardcore liberals in the Senate, though this could still be the kabuki by which Reid sheds responsibility for a later failure to include the public option. Either way, the ball is now in the moderates’ court.

But there is more trouble looming for Reid:

U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., said Tuesday she still can’t support a government-funded insurance option, a day after legislation was unveiled that would give states the choice of whether to participate in the program.

“Creating another government-funded option is not where we’re going. We don’t need to go there,” Lincoln told members of the Arkansas Farm Bureau during a video conference. “A government-funded option is something that I think is not the way to go.”

And Robert Laszewski at Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review doesn’t see 60 votes coming anytime soon and does a good job of describing why:

Reid is reportedly going to include a robust Medicare-like public option with a state opt-out. That means there would be a federal Medicare-like public plan but that a state could opt out. Opting out would mean that both houses of a state’s legislature and its governor would have to agree to opt out. That’s a pretty high hurdle and it is not going to appease the moderate Democrats in the Senate, or any Republicans including Snowe, who oppose a robust public option.

We could have a public option only if a “trigger” occurs. That is Senator Snowe’s general idea. OK, define that trigger. Do you think for one moment a liberal’s definition of a trigger will come close to a moderate’s definition of a trigger? It is the last week in October and we’ve been hearing about a trigger for months. Have you seen a definition of it yet?

Then there is the possible course in the House—a public option that has to negotiate with providers just like a private health plan does—“arms’ length negotiations.” For liberals, how is that different than a co-op and its inability to gain any real kind of traction? For moderate Democrats, it will likely be seen as the “wolf in sheep’s clothes.” Maybe a place to compromise but hardly the robust government plan its proponents are looking for and there is no evidence that this idea will attract those moderate Senate Democrats that don’t like the public option.

Then there is the state opt-in. The idea is that both the state’s legislative branches and the governor would have to agree to opt-in. This could well win moderate Democratic support because very few states would do it and it is attractive to states’ rights moderates who would like to see state experimentation. This is a possible place for compromise but hardly a robust public option.

As I have said many times before, there will not be a robust Medicare-like public option or any form of a thinly veiled Medicare-like public option.

And the GOP has found some a backbone:

But before that issue can be joined on the Senate floor, Reid’s first challenge is to gain 60 votes — the number needed to overcome a filibuster by Republicans — just to bring the bill up, a parliamentary maneuver so routine that a vote is rarely required.

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, announced that in this case, members of his party will treat it as though it were “a vote on the merits” of a bill he said would “cut Medicare, raise taxes and increase health insurance premiums.” He suggested Democrats could expect campaign commercials next year on the basis of the vote, and recalled that Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., was ridiculed in his 2004 presidential campaign for having once said he voted for a bill before he voted against it.

For those leftist Democrats the threat means nothing because they were elected in strong leftist strongholds….but the moderates? I think this threat will be taken seriously and some idiot trying to change the name of “public option” won’t help one iota.

All in all, its good news today.

Dithering Democrats Reaching Too Narrow, Too Slow

Wordsmith — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:40:15 +0000

This is the moment….when Senator John Kerry, who served in Vietnam and currently chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Monday that he opposes sending more troops unless conditions on the ground improve in Afghanistan. I’d say that’s the basic gist of it. I think James Dobbins states it very well:

James Dobbins, who served as a special envoy to Afghanistan during the Bush administration and is now at the Rand Corp., said that Kerry had made many “sensible” points in the speech but that he found the conclusion unsatisfactory.

“The argument seems to be that we’re not going to send more troops until we start winning — which seems to me to be an inversion of the usual sequence,” he said.

This is the moment….when on the same day, Nobel Peace Laureate, President Obama, gave an address at the Naval Air Station Jacksonville, in part to offer a statement on the 14 Americans who lost their lives in two helicopter crashes in Afghanistan.

“I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm’s way. I won’t risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary,” Obama said to loud applause. “And if it is necessary, we will back you up to the hilt.”

The problem I have with this, is that we already have troops in theater in “harm’s way”, in what he claimed as a “war of necessity”; and his top general whom he had chosen is requesting reinforcements. And the dithering Democrat appears to want to vote “present”.

This is the moment, when Senator John Kerry says NATO allies and the UN need to step up and do more to support the efforts in Afghanistan. I agree; and so does NATO, which is backing Gen. McChrystal’s request for the counterinsurgency approach and troop increase:

America’s NATO allies signaled broad support Friday for an ambitious counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, adding to the momentum building for a substantial U.S. troop increase.

NATO defense ministers meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia, endorsed the strategy put forward by Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. and allied commander. The alliance rejected competing proposals to narrow the military mission to fighting the remnants of Al Qaeda.

This is the moment when Senator Kerry also said:

“Achieving our goals does not require us to build a flawless democracy, defeat the Taliban in every corner of the country, or create a modern economy-what we’re talking about is “good-enough” governance, basic sustainable economic development, and Afghan security forces capable enough that we can drawdown our forces,”

Can anyone say “duh”? Who has ever said we were attempting to build a western-style democracy that looks like our own? Or that we would spend blood and treasure on Afghanistan until its opium fields were magically transformed into pink daffodils, fuzzy bunnies, and cotton candy clouds floating overhead?

“given the balance of our strategic interests, it should give serious pause to military and civilian strategists alike that the current balance of our expenditure between Afghanistan, where there is virtually no Al Qaeda, and Pakistan, where there is, tallies thirty-to-one.”

Here’s failed presidential candidate John ” I served in Vietnam” Kerry, September 14, 2006 at Howard University:

The central front in the war on terror is still in Afghanistan, but this Administration treats it like a sideshow. When did denying al Qaeda a terrorist stronghold in Afghanistan stop being an urgent American priority? How did we end up with seven times more troops in Iraq – which even the Administration now admits had nothing to do with 9/11 – than in Afghanistan, where the killers still roam free? Why is the Administration sending thousands more American troops into the crossfire of a civil war in Iraq but we can’t find any more troops to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan?

With Pakistan in the midst of cleaning out the hornets nest of Taliban fighters in southern Waziristan, I’d say now would be an ideal time for sending more troops to deny the Taliban any safe havens into Afghanistan and to send out a message that America is resolute in its commitment to see things through.

In regards to the claim of no al Qaeda in Afghanistan, after making big campaign issues out of Afghanistan as being “the good and necessary war” that we had to return to, there might be a minimal al Qaeda footprint there today; but should the Taliban regain power in Afghanistan, is there really any question that the Taliban today is inextricably linked to al Qaeda, and wouldn’t provide it safe haven and continued alliance?

While the Afghan Taliban share many of al-Qaida’s violent goals, including the defeat of the Kabul government, Barrett said, they are more regionally focused and do not hold the same global jihadist views.

Some U.S. military and intelligence officials, however, warn against underestimating the relationship between al-Qaida and the Afghan Taliban.

While the Taliban and al-Qaida may have differences, senior counterterrorism officials say that al-Qaida still has strong historical ties to Mullah Omar and that is not likely to go away. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

Should we cut deals with irreconcilables?

President Barack Obama’s review of strategy in Afghanistan means America will end up making a deal with the Taliban, and tolerating warlords, to end the fighting.

“Moderate Taliban” is rather oxymoronic, isn’t it? And wasn’t it the moment of the third presidential debate in 2004 that John frickin’ Kerry said the following:

When the president had an opportunity to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, he took his focus off of them, outsourced the job to Afghan warlords, and Osama bin Laden escaped.

So it wasn’t ok to do business with Afghan warlords then, but today it’s a practical solution?

The Taliban may not have their sights set on waging a global jihad war; but they are clearly one of those who “If they’re not with us, they’re with the terrorists”. An al Qaeda without safe haven is an al Qaeda made impotent.

Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio also warn against the narrower approach that seeks to draw distinctions between al Qaeda and its allies:

if the US and its coalition partners prevent the Taliban and its allies from returning to power in Afghanistan, then this will necessarily weaken al Qaeda’s allies and, in turn, al Qaeda itself. In the military’s view, al Qaeda is not a standalone problem but instead one head of several on a jihadist hydra.

In the piece below, we take a look at the insurgency in Afghanistan more closely – from al Qaeda’s perspective. We do not think that a shift to a predominately counterterrorism campaign utilizing airstrikes and the like is sufficient to beat back the threat to America’s interests. In fact, we argue that such thinking is rooted in a dangerous ignorance of al Qaeda and our terrorist enemies. Al Qaeda was never a self-contained problem that could be defeated by neutralizing select individuals – even though capturing or killing senior al Qaeda members surely does substantially weaken the network.

Instead, Osama bin Laden and his cohorts deliberately fashioned their organization to be the tip of a much longer jihadist spear.

The previous administration has been criticized by the current one for “taking its eyes off the ball” and diverting resources to Iraq “which didn’t attack us” and failing to catch bin Laden.

The current administration can be criticized for reneging on its campaign warhawk stance in a desire to divert resources from Afghanistan to pursue funding and public support for its domestic agenda of “nation rebuilding”. Shoveling socialism down the throat of “that region of the world” that didn’t attack us and had nothing to do with 9/11. As Steve Schippert puts it:

Though I’ve been screaming this in my own mind for weeks and weeks, actually months, maybe I ahve not said it out loud enough. Because it has a 95% probability of accuracy, with a 5% chance pub pressuer can change Obama’s mind —

We will not see an Afghan Surge (TM) for one simple, yet critical, reason. Do you all recall, post-stimulus, the Obama budget forcasts that were eventually blown out of the water by both the CBO and reality? Do you remember whaere most of the budgetary “savings” came from?

That’s right, a draw down in Iraq. Merely shifting these resources in number and cost to Afghanistan will have an even more devastating impact on the already laughable Obama budget projections, and materialize right in the heat of 2010 election cycles. Deficit beyond imagination and so far off Obama forecasts as to appear wholly mindless. the 2010 elections would be an even hotter Hell to pay for Dems supporting the O nonsense.

This was the reality that I saw from the beginning: That Afghanistan will be starved of resources rather than fed them as Candidate Obama assured in his pledges to fight “the real war” in Afghanistan.

It is domestic budget – NOT intellectually considered counterinsurgency v. counterterrorism strategies – which will dictate how this White House conducts the war in Afghanistan.

The trick for them is how to sell not shifting resources from Iraq to Afghanistan as brilliance rather than the domestic policy trickery that it really is.

Our enemies can take heart: This President and his team have greater and more aggressive designs on the American society and its free market-based economy than on them, the jihadists who would slit our throats quite literally given opportunity.

And this budget elephant in the Situation Room is what makes me so angry when folks consider Biden/Levin/Kerry options as intellectually vetted counterterrorism alternatives.

Bull. Look at the budget. Someone go back to spring ‘09 and dig up the Iraq Drawdown accounting in O’s budget as the source for freed funds. Fighting the enemy in Afghanistan? It was bullshit on the campaign trail, and its bullshit now. Iraq Drawdown funds (created or saved) were never – EVER – accounted for as shifting to another theater of war, “real” or imagined. It was shifted to redistribution schemes here at home.

Go ahead. Prove me wrong. Please. Someone.

For John Kerry, the 2004 presidential candidate who served in Vietnam, he has taken all the wrong lessons he learned from that conflict, and is trying to apply them to this conflict. John Kerry’s Afghanistan plan is the same as his Vietnam plan.

For 2009 Nobel Peace Laureate, President Obama, Afghanistan is a diversion; a distraction. I don’t think there’s any question that Democrats would love nothing better than to return us back to the glory days when Overseas Contingency Operations were largely a law enforcement issue, and we suffered the drip, drip, drip of “small-scale” terror attacks.

This is the moment…

Also blogging:
Brutally Honest
The Radio Patriot

Obama’s Transparency Proven To Be A Lie Once More

Curt — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:16:33 +0000

Ahhhhh, here’s that “transparency” on display once again:

A well-known Democratic strategist in Virginia is blasting the White House for placing anonymous quotes in the Washington Post in a pre-emptive effort to blame Creigh Deeds for what might be a loss in the state’s upcoming gubernatorial election.

David “Mudcat” Saunders, who gained political fame helping Democrat Mark Warner reach out to rural voters during Warner’s successful 2001 gubernatorial bid, told CNN Friday that trying to blame Deeds is “bulls**t” when Democrats around the country are “just tired of politics.”

~~~

In a story published Friday, a senior administration official told the Post that the Deeds campaign ignored their advice to embrace the president, which the official claimed would have boosted the Democratic candidate’s lackluster support among the African-Americans and young voters who supported Obama in 2008.

Saunders rejected that argument. Embracing Obama – who does appear with Deeds on ads running in some parts of the state – might not have hurt the candidate in Democratic-leaning areas, he argued, but with the contentious economic debates going on in Washington, the presidential stamp of approval wouldn’t have turned him into an instant frontrunner. In southwest Virginia, he said, embracing the president would have been a “devastating” political move for Deeds, who is trailing Republican Bob McDonnell in the polls.

“They’re making the assumption Virginia is a blue state, and it’s not,” Saunders said of the administration. “It’s not a red state either. The very best that can be said about Virginia is that it’s light purple. For them to say if he had listened to us they would win, that’s chickens**t. That’s Monday morning quarterbacking.”

~~~

“It’s a goddamn shame when our center of government, the White House, won’t talk on the record. I discount all of it,” Saunders said of the Post article. “It’s a lack of courage. And it goes against transparency that Obama told us last year was going to come out of the White House. Anybody who makes anonymous quotes out of the White House should be fired.”

Ch-ch-change baby!

The Decider and the Ditherer

Wordsmith — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:25:18 +0000

Bookworm Room offers a study in contrast between the Decider-in-Chief and the Waffler-in-Chief who yearns for his glory days of being able to simply vote “present” in his handling of Afghanistan. He certainly talked up a good game….up until the moment when it matters the most.

Lucianne.com:

Every now and then
we like to run this picture

The picture that launched a thousand moonbats:

That’s the decider. That’s leadership.

And the contrast?

Wright men can’t jump!

This is the ditherer-in-chief.

Hmmm….

So many choices…Rocky Road or pralines and cream? Do I go with more sprinkles and nuts? Or a drawdown of toppings for my sundae….?

Threw a strike and liberated 50 million….

Threw it into the dirt and did not show support for democracy in Iran and Honduras and has liberated no one…including gays.

President Obama’s foreign policy expert, Joe Biden:

…And others, more harshly, argue that Mr. Biden’s judgment on foreign policy has often been off base.

They point out that he voted against the successful Persian Gulf war of 1991, voted for the Iraq invasion of 2003, proposed dividing Iraq into three sections in 2006 and opposed the additional troops credited by many with turning Iraq around in 2007.

“When was the last time Biden was right about anything?” Thomas E. Ricks, a military writer, wrote in a blog on Sept. 24. Mr. Ricks is affiliated with the Center for a New American Security, a research organization founded by Democrats.

President Bush’s hatchet man, Darth Cheney:

“Just show me where to point and aim this…”

A show of patriotism:

Refusal to wear patriotism on his sleeve (or on his lapel):

The Marine audience at Camp Lejeune sit in wild, rapturous applause for President Barack Obama. (Photo by Gerry Broome / AP)

President Bush greeted by unenthused U.S. military personnel stationed at the U.S. Army Garrison – Yongsan in Seoul, before departing for Thailand.
Larry Downing-Reuters

“President Bush made this look so easy….What to do? What to do?”

Democrats Attacking Obama and Each Other

Scott — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:26:29 +0000

That beeping sound you hear is your microwave telling you the popcorn is ready.

Healthcare for Christmas: Reid under pressure to slow down
-Turns out moderate Dems will not approve healthcare in Senate if there’s a public option

Whip count shows Democrats lack votes on ‘robust’ public option for healthcare
-Hmph…House Democrats don’t like the far left wingers public option either. Something about it being too expensive to give 300million people a min of $1mil in coverage ($30TRILLION). Who does math in Congress anymore anyways?

Abortion divides House Dems in health care debate
-Geesh, is there anything Democrats can agree on re healthcare? Oh yeah…it’s the Republicans fault somehow. That much they can agree on.

Two Democrats buck Rep. Towns, call for Countrywide probe
-Ask a Dem what caused the Great Recession, and they’ll tell you the DNC talking points (presented by NYT, DailyKOS, and MSNBC): Bush tax cuts for the wealthy investors and business leaders who create jobs, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They’ll ignore the entire Countrywide, homeloans, AIG mess, but….not all Dems will. They all know the reality, and some want it fixed.

Obama hints Afghan decision may wait
-At least on foreign policy the world loves us, right? Um, not so much. Seems the new strategy Obama started in March…in ain’t working. It’s been a few months since his generals in the field asked for more troops and equipment, and despite his promise to the VFW that he’d always provide…Obama’s still clueless on what to do/how to respond to the simplest question ever. Your general tells you he needs more troops and material or the war is lost. What do you do? You send the guy more troops and matl or you lose. Simple

Iran fails to accept UN uranium enrichment plan
-Damn, that open-hand opens a clenched fist thing sounded so cool too. Yeah, no one believed it for a second, but it sounded great….as great as all the other sizzle sans steak. Now what-just let Israel bomb Iran and start a regional or even world war? How will Keith Olbermann respond to a call for war in Iran based on alleged WMD threats and ties to terror? Will we get a countdown every night saying how many days it’s been since Obama threatened harsh sanctions? Please, stop laughing now people as even the Dems are frustrated w Obama’s incompetence here.

Dems face uphill climb on immigration reform
-Guess changing the subject from healthcare to foreign policy to immigration’s probably not a good idea

White House attacks worry moderate Democrats
-Man, you know you’re having a bad week when Democrats give you grief for complaining about FOX News!

The Dem eats Dem list goes on and on. Yeah, they’ll fill 24hrs on MSNBC w White House ordered distraction about how Republicans are to blame, but anyone who knows that the Dems have a supermajority and the WH and the House…those independent minds ain’t buying it. Dems are running the show, and Dems are fouling it up.

Have a GREAT weekend!