“Some in Washington would like us to start leaving Iraq NOW. To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we are ready would be dangerous, for Iraq, for the region, and for the United States. It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to Al Qaeda. It would mean we’d be risking mass killings on a horrific scale. It would mean we allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan. It would mean increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous.” ~ Bush
Larry Elder (and Paul Bremer) dismantle older as well as new mantras flying around via our friends on the left. In the interview that is the centerpiece of the segment[s] here via Larry Elder, Erin “Monkey” Burnett gets all of her talking points smacked down. The only thing Miss Burnett accomplished was showing her bias/sarcasm well.
Ronald Reagan did nothing. Barack Obama saved the nation from total collapse.
How else to explain the absence of jobless pitchfork-wielding Americans storming the White House? How else to explain the contrast between the explosive Reagan Recovery and the dud on our hands right now? Fortunately, the left is up to the task. “The secret of the long climb after 1982 was the economic plunge that preceded it. By the end of 1982 the U.S. economy was deeply depressed, with the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression. So there was plenty of room to grow before the economy returned to anything like full employment,” said left-wing economist, Nobel laureate and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman in 2004. Oh.
An economy that is “deeply depressed,” Krugman insists, or at least he did seven years ago, naturally comes back strong. To what principal factor did Krugman point to in calling the 1982 economy “deeply depressed”? Unemployment. It peaked in the early ’80s at 10.8 percent, even higher than during “The Great Recession” (aka the economy “inherited” by President Barack Obama). In 2010, the unemployment rate hit 10.2 percent, which means the early ’80s still holds the record for the “worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression.”
What most people care about are jobs. By that standard, Reagan faced an even tougher economy. Throw in a higher rate of inflation — 1980’s 13.5 percent average vs. 2011’s 2.6 percent — and much higher prime interest rates — 20 percent vs. 3.25 percent — and the early ’80s looked even grimmer than The Great Recession.
Krugman gives no credit to the Reagan policies of lower taxes, deregulation and a slowdown in the rate of government spending. He believes Reagan’s policies (SET ITAL) harmed (END ITAL) the economy. Krugman approvingly quotes Bill Clinton, who, as a presidential candidate, said: “The Reagan-Bush years have exalted private gain over public obligation, special interests over the common good, wealth and fame over work and family. The 1980s ushered in a Gilded Age of greed and selfishness, of irresponsibility and excess, and of neglect.”
Enter President Barack “Hope and Change” Obama, with a Democratic majority in the House and a supermajority filibuster-proof Senate. Out went policies like reductions in income taxes, corporate taxes, capital gains and dividends. In came transfers of money from one pocket to another to “spread the wealth.”
Under ObamaCare, the Democrats placed the entire health care system under the command and control of the federal government. Through a nearly $1 billion “stimulus” package, Democrats spent money on “shovel-ready” projects with a promise to “save or create” 3.5 million jobs. To rein in “greed” and to fight “climate change,” the Obama administration imposed billions of dollars’ worth of new regulations on businesses. Through “quantitative easting,” the Federal Reserve effectively printed money to keep interest rates low, a widely disputed policy designed to encourage banks to lend and businesses to borrow.
So where is it? When do we see the massive bounce-back from this “deeply depressed” economy, at minimum the kind of bounce-back that occurred in the ’80s in spite of the allegedly harmful policies of Reagan?
Krugman’s analysis of the Reagan recovery — a deep recession equals sharp recovery — tells us that the economy should be storming ahead, especially given Obama’s enlightened leadership. But in the seven quarters following the end of this recession, gross domestic product growth has averaged 2.8 percent. In the seven quarters following the Reagan recession, GDP growth averaged 7.1 percent.
President Barack Obama’s approval rating is higher among Muslims than any other religious group, a new poll says.
According to a Gallup poll released Friday that tracked responses for the first six months of 2014, 72 percent of Muslims said they approve of the president, compared with just 20 percent who disapprove.
Mormons were the least approving religious group, with 18 percent of Mormons approving and 78 percent disapproving of the president. Mormons in the past have ranked as the most conservative major religious group in the U.S.
The survey underscores a religious divide when it comes to presidential approval — Obama is more popular among non-Christians and less popular among Christians.
Those who classify as “Other non-Christian” gave the president a 59 percent approval rating, while Jewish Americans gave Obama a 55 percent approval rating and atheists or those who subscribe to no religion have a 54 percent approval rating.
Catholics, on the other hand, have only a 44 percent approval rating of Obama, compared with 51 percent disapproval. Protestants and other Christians are more critical, with 37 percent approving and 58 percent disapproving….
In fact, a poll the left (ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and the like) was VERY vocal about was President Bush [43] getting top grades in this poll. Now, I don’t hear a peep from NEWS (yeah right) organizations.
(Breitbart) The winner of America’s best president since World War II is Ronald Reagan, who beat second and third place combined. A full 35% of voters chose Reagan. Bill Clinton and John Kennedy won 18% and 15%, respectively. Obama only received 8% in the best presidents poll.
Did you all hear the latest? A new undeniably racist poll from Quinnipiac University shows people think Barack Hussein Obama, the first black president — actually the first half black president — is the worst president since World War II.
Well, you can be certain the NAACP, National Urban League, Congressional Black Caucus, MSNBC, and other liberal progressive media outlets will decry this as proof that America is still a racist nation. We simply don’t want to accept the “hope and change” of their self-proclaimed progressive socialist messiah.
(Washington Times) …Quinnipiac found 45 percent of voters say the country would have been better off if Mr. Romney had been elected, while just 38 percent say Mr. Obama remains a better choice. Even Democrats aren’t so sure — just 74 percent of them told the pollsters Mr. Obama was clearly the better pick in the last election.
Voters also rated the man who swept into office in 2009 with a promise of “hope and change” as worse than even his predecessor, Republican President George W. Bush, who left office with terrible approval ratings.
“Over the span of 69 years of American history and 12 presidencies, President Barack Obama finds himself with President George W. Bush at the bottom of the popularity barrel,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll….
Here are some examples from the biased media for comparison:
On January 22, 2006, the late Tim Russert asked then-Senator Obama, “Will George Bush be considered one of the worst presidents in history?”
On May 21, 2006, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos profiled then-Senator John Edwards. He wondered, “You’ve also said the President is the worst President of our lifetime…Worse than Richard Nixon?”
On Wednesday, MSNBC downplayed the bad news for Obama. Chuck Todd dismissed, “These great and worst lists, they’re terrible…because they always reflect the moment in time.” Yet, in 2006, the same network hyped a “devistating” poll finding the same result for George W. Bush.
Think your gas cost a lot now Prius owners? With the new restrictions on coal plants and coming taxes on electric cars… you eco-fascist liberals will get a bigger bite than most driving to work. Karma’s a bitch!
Retired United States Army Lieutenant Colonel and author Ralph Peters says the recent Al-Qaeda victories in Iraq are the greatest Islamist conquests since the 12th Century.
“Patty Ann, this is President Obama’s real legacy. The creation of the first jihadi state in modern history stretching from central Syria to Central Iraq and now approaching Baghdad all because President Obama saw everything through a political lense. He’s gonna end the War in Iraq. He refused to negotiate seriously for residual US presence.
And now, just to put this in perspective for viewers, with this jihadi conquest of Mosul and jihadi forces approaching Baghdad, this is shaping up to be the biggest Arab jihadi victory since the 12th Century, 1187, and the fall of Crusader Jerusalem. This is momentous.”
The Iraqi government asked the United States for airstrikes in western Iraq on surging Al-Qaeda groups. But, Barack Obama has turned them down.
Bush wanted a base in Iraq to be able to stop such incursions. Obama is handing the keys of the Middle-East over to radicals.
In an appearance on CNN with Jake Tapper on Tuesday, former Army Sgt. Evan Buetow, U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s team leader on the night he disappeared from his base in Afghanistan, asserted that he had access to radio intercepts which indicated that Bergdahl actively sought out the Taliban. Following Bergdahl’s capture, Buetow alleged, the Taliban’s attacks on Americans became “far more directed.”
Buetow told CNN that, within days of Bergdahl’s disappearance, military teams monitoring radio communications intercepted radio chatter and telephonic communication which indicated that an American was searching for Taliban members who spoke English.
“When we heard that, it told us, okay, he’s actively seeking out the Taliban,” Buetow said. “And, yes, over the next couple of months, all the attacks were far more directed.”
“I heard it straight from the interpreter’s lips as he heard it over the radio,” Buetow told Tapper. “There’s a lot more to this story than a soldier walking away.”
Colonel David Hunt told Bill O’Reilly tonight that Bowe Bergdahl was a deserter.
“Bowe Bergdahl was a deserter. Bergdahl on June 20, 2009 crawled underneath a wire at his fire base with water, food, a change of clothes, a knife and a cell phone. He called his unit the day after he deserted to tell his unit he deserted… Bill, we lost 14 soldiers, killed, searching for a deserter. He left his unit in combat. It’s non-arguable… We don’t know yet if he joined the Taliban or not. But, there’s no question he deserted.
And according to liberal extraordinaire, Jeffry Toobin, CNN legal analyst, says Obama clearly broke the law (The Blaze):
CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin claimed on Monday that President Barack Obama “clearly broke the law” by failing to provide notice to Congress at least 30 days before trading five Taliban members from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
Swatting down the Obama administration’s justification, Toobin argued that a presidential signing statement doesn’t mean the commander-in-chief no longer has to comply with the law.
“I think he clearly broke the law. The law says 30-days’ notice. He didn’t give 30-days’ notice,” Toobin said. “It is true he issued a signing statement, but signing statements are not law. Signing statements are the president’s opinion on what the law should be.”
(Compare the above remarks [around the 1:08 time marker] to that of the video of Richard Armitage [below-right])
What a difference a sitting President makes. I wonder if my old (“old” – in years and history) nemesis thinks of this? We may never know. Anyhew, the Obama White House released a name mistakenly included in a list meant for the media. The Washington Examiner explains WHY this is relevant.
Valerie Plame doesn’t deny that blowing the cover of the CIA station chief in Afghanistan is a serious matter. It’s just that, discussing the issue at a Wednesday evening forum sponsored by The Atlantic, Plame seemed to view the outing of the CIA’s top spy on the front lines in the Afghan war as more of an embarrassment than an outrage.
“My understanding is … it was a military aide who compiled this list of those that were greeting the president when he came,” Plame said. “Colossally stupid, but I think it was inadvertent. It was an error … really stupid. The White House apparently has said that they’re going to do an investigation, and they’ll find someone who’s really embarrassed at the end of it.”
The leak, if that’s what it can be called, happened over the weekend as President Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan. In a routine email to the press, the administration included a name with the description “Chief of Station” after it — a clear reference to the ranking CIA official in Kabul. It’s hard to imagine a more sensitive assignment in a more dangerous place, and blowing the station chief’s cover — in an email to 6,000 reporters, no less — will surely have repercussions.
The White House quickly explained that a mistake had been made, but did not offer any details. Top officials announced that White House counsel Neil Eggleston, a veteran of many Washington investigations, will “look into” the matter. “It shouldn’t have happened,” deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken told CNN on Tuesday. “We’re trying to understand why it happened. In fact, the chief of staff, Denis McDonough, asked the White House counsel to look into it, to figure out what happened and to make sure it won’t happen again.”
Many observers seem satisfied with the White House’s explanation that the incident was just a regrettable error. And that is indeed what it appears to be. But such assessments represent a remarkable change in tone from the discussion several years ago, when the George W. Bush administration leaked Valerie Plame’s identity as part of a bitter fight over the origin and direction of the Iraq war. Back then, it was quite common to hear the words “traitor” and “treason” used to describe top Bush officials involved in the controversy.
There’s no doubt the Bush officials deliberately revealed Plame’s CIA connection, if not her name, to the press. But the Plame leak could be characterized as inadvertent in one sense: the leakers, both in the State Department and the White House, did not know that Plame’s status at the CIA was classified when they mentioned her to reporters. That is why no one was ever charged with leaking her identity; they did not knowingly and deliberately reveal classified information. So in that sense it was all a mistake. Yes, it was inadvertent, colossally stupid, an embarrassment — but it was a mistake.
In fact… so relevant is this case, that Plame herself has hit the circuit (she and her husband gravitate towards press) saying there is no comparison. Hmmmm.
…This is a man [Colin Powell] who allowed the spending of millions of dollars in a witch-hunt of a law-enforcement investigation even while personally knowing that his own top aide had been the one who inadvertently leaked the name of a second-tier CIA agent with a dishonest and histrionic husband. One word from Colin Powell, and the “Valerie Plame” case would have come to an end with no prosecutions, but with a few days, maybe just one or two news cycles, of public admonishment of his office for its carelessness. But no… Powell remained silent, thus settling some score with vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and his boss, Vice President Richard Cheney — letting Libby twist in the wind for an alleged cover-up of a non-crime for which Libby himself wasn’t even responsible, but for which Powell’s aide Dick Armitage was culpable instead. (Libby was convicted on a highly dubious perjury charge, based on a years-old conversation with newsman Tim Russert that Russert remembered differently. This was the same Tim Russert whose own memory had been shown to be horrifically wrong in another major court case, but who suddenly was supposed to be perfectly inerrant. Meanwhile, famed newsman Bob Woodward produced notes that Woodward himself said might tend to support Libby’s recollection — but no matter.)…
Valerie Plame chided the Obama White House for being “colossally stupid” in accidentally releasing the name of the CIA station chief in Kabul.
“What an error of huge proportions with tremendous consequences,” she said Wednesday on CNN.
But Plame, the CIA operative outed during George W. Bush’s administration, warned against those drawing a “false equivalency” between her situation and the recent press office mistake.
“Apparently some low-level either military and diplomatic officials put the name down on this list that was given to a reporter who submitted it as a pool report,” she said of the Obama failure, whereas “my name was intended to be leaked in retaliation against my husband, who was a fierce critic of the Bush administration and the Iraq War.”
State Department official Richard Armitage is believed to have been responsible for leaking Plame’s status as a covert operative to the press in 2003. Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby was convicted of obstructing the federal investigation into the disclosure but no individual was actually convicted of leaking the classified information that blew Plame’s cover.
Secondly, while this is an old story and review of a 2010 movie, “Fair Game.” The White House’s recent outing of a CIA covert operative and how the media and White House reacted to it. Why? Because when the shoe was on the other foot, or more specifically, Bush’s foot, the media went MAD!
Libertarian Republican reports on the recent poll that shows Bush hold sway over veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars. Duh.
It’s not even close. Bush destroys Obama by 33 points.
From RCP, “Iraq-Afghanistan Veterans Give Obama Poor Grades”:
Just 32 percent of military veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan approve of the job Barack Obama is doing as president, according to a new poll from the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation.
In a related question, only 42 percent of those surveyed said they believe Obama is a “good commander-in-chief of the military.” Forty eight percent said he is not.
Veterans were asked a similar question about former President George W. Bush. Sixty-five percent said they felt he was a good commander-in-chief, while 28 percent responded he was not.
[….]
Editor’s comment – Can anyone picture Obama visiting with military troops after he leaves office? Participating in bike marathons with Iraq or Afghanistan war veterans? Visiting military hospitals? Not a chance. He’ll be just as bad of an ex-president, as he is as current occupant of the White House.
The Miami Heraldreported in 2002 that Jeb Bush initially attended the public Grady Elementary School in Houston before mother Barbara enrolled him in the private Kincaid School closer to where they lived.
Brother George W. attended public schools in Midland, Texas – Sam Houston Elementary and San Jacinto Junior High – before being enrolled at Kincaid when the family moved to Houston.
As such, would you like some salt for that shoe, Mr. Damon?
Update: Tweep @bzaz points out that George W’s kids Jenna and Barbara both attended public schools – Preston Hollow Elementary in Dallas and Austin High School in Austin – and Jenna a few years after graduating college worked as a teacher’s aide at Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School in Washington D.C.
Real men, even when they fail, carry their own umbrellas… and do not force Marines to break their code of dress (http://tinyurl.com/bdtk66a). But, if you needed someone to stand in for your manhood, a Marine is a good choice. In fact, I know gay men who are more manly than Obama! @GayPatriot
I am on the fence about this… as much as I dislike Eric Holder and even think he could have done this particular job of national security a different way than taping records of hundreds of phones… you have to admit he was trying to stop a leak of major proportions. Powerline has an interesting take on the matter, and even with the egregious leaks against Bush, his attorney general did not investigate the pres:
….Yesterday former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said that the Bush administration once considered issuing the type of subpoena that the Justice Department issued against the AP, but ultimately opted against it. Did any Bush administration leak investigation expose the wrongdoers (other than those whose names appeared in the bylines of the Times articles)? I don’t think so.
The notorious national-security leaks that were featured on page one of the Times during the Bush administration seem to me to pale in comparison to the leaks involved in the AP story. Here is the original AP story of May 2012 that appears to have triggered the leak investigation in which the AP phone records were subpoenaed. (I found the AP story via Max Fisher’s comments on the investigation.) Here are the key paragraphs about the AP’s communications with the White House:
The AP learned about the thwarted plot last week but agreed to White House and CIA requests not to publish it immediately because the sensitive intelligence operation was still under way.
Once those concerns were allayed, the AP decided to disclose the plot Monday despite requests from the Obama administration to wait for an official announcement Tuesday.
The White House confirmed the story after the AP published it on Monday afternoon. Caitlin Hayden, the deputy national security council spokeswoman, said in a statement that Obama was first informed about the plot in April by his homeland security adviser John Brennan, and was advised that it did not pose a threat to the public.
Conor Fridersdorf takes a look at the subpoena of the AP phone records in the context of Holder’s characterization of the leak investigation. It seems to me that Friedersdorf raises a good question about the alleged harm caused by the AP story….
Here’s how the conversation went down [h/t Hot Air]:
Congressman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said Wednesday during an interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show that the Justice Department’s investigation of the Associated Press involved obtaining phone records from the House of Representatives cloakroom.
HH: The idea that this might be a Geithner-Axelrod plan, and by that, the sort of intimation, Henry II style, will no one rid me of this turbulent priest, will no one rid me of these turbulent Tea Parties, that might have just been a hint, a shift of an eyebrow, a change in the tone of voice. That’s going to take a long time to get to. I don’t trust the Department of Justice on this. Do you, Congressman Nunes?
DN: No, I absolutely do not, especially after this wiretapping incident, essentially, of the House of Representative. I don’t think people are focusing on the right thing when they talk about going after the AP reporters. The big problem that I see is that they actually tapped right where I’m sitting right now, the Cloak Room.
HH: Wait a minute, this is news to me.
DN: The Cloak Room in the House of Representatives.
HH: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
DN: So when they went after the AP reporters, right? Went after all of their phone records, they went after the phone records, including right up here in the House Gallery, right up from where I’m sitting right now. So you have a real separation of powers issue that did this really rise to the level that you would have to get phone records that would, that would most likely include members of Congress, because as you know…
HH: Wow.
DN: …members of Congress talk to the press all the time.
HH: I did not know that, and that is a stunner.
DN: Now that is a separation of powers issue here, Hugh.
HH: Sure.
DN: And it’s a freedom of press issue. And now you’ve got the IRS going after people. So these things are starting to cascade one upon the other, and you have the White House pretending like they’re in the clouds like it’s not their issue somehow.
For those of you who don’t know what a congressional cloakroom is, it’s where U.S. lawmakers go to mingle, socialize, and relax between sessions. House and Senate cloakrooms have their own phone numbers. So if AP reporters were making calls to the House cloakroom, it appears the DOJ looked into those records, according to the congressman.
