Democrat Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016 is a GOP Dream!

I don’t care how brilliant you may think she is. Or how qualified you might consider her to be. You can claim she has had many successes as First Lady, US Senator, and Secretary of State – the mountain of evidence to the contrary. It is hard to deny that Hillary is the darling of the liberal media and they are already hard at work trying to rehabilitate her tarnished image following the Benghazi scandal. They would love to have her as the Democrat Presidential nominee for 2016 and so would I! This woman is lugging around more baggage than a skycap at BWI but listing her numerous disasters as a public servant, her involvement in countless personal and professional scandals, and her significant list of non-accomplishment won’t be enough to keep her from being elected our next president. No, there are enough low information voters in New York and California, dead people in Chicago, non-Ohio resident voters in Ohio and illegal aliens … well everywhere else to steal the election for her. But to them and anyone else who might consider voting for her, I offer the following. If you are a mother or father, brother, sister, friend or neighbor to anyone, would you really want someone who could say this about somebody else’s loved ones to be your next president?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR3XTOjZPfg
If I was Chairman of the Republican National Committee in the run-up to the 2016 election, this would be my ad campaign against Hillary and I’d pay to have it run on a continuous loop! If she still managed to get elected, then America is in far worse shape then even I imagined.

Reader comments and thoughts are welcome! Click on comments below the post.

Who Will Liberals Blame Healthcare Problems on Then?

The Republican House sent a bill over to the Senate that funded the entire government but contained language that defunded Obamacare. The Senate could vote to approve the bill and avoid a government shutdown but instead they most likely will strip out the defunding portion of the bill and send it back to the House. This would force the House to either accept funding of a disastrous program that 70% of Americans are firmly against, most of those in Congress who voted for it hadn't read (and probably still haven't) and could only get jammed through using a parliamentary procedure trick or can allow the government to shut down. If this happens, of course the Republicans will be blamed. Obamacare is universally acknowledged to be a train wreck in the making. It is already causing people to lose their current coverage, pay more for coverage, and work fewer hours as employers make them go part-time to avoid having to pay for the very expensive government mandated coverage. Except for a handful of States, health insurance premiums are expected to increase an average of 24%. The graph below by the Society of Actuaries gives another revealing view of the coming increases.

So much for the president’s promise that the average family will save $2500 a year!

When this legislation was passed, not a single Republican voted for it because no one was given an opportunity to read, let alone try to understand the 2800+ page behemoth. This program is riddled with problems that are causing all sorts of unforeseen negative consequences. It is a jobs killer. It is going to cost billions more than what we were promised. It is going to cause a doctor shortage as doctors retire or leave the field of medicine in order to not have to deal with the government bureaucracy. The system will be bogged down as thousands of new patients flood the system for their free healthcare for every sneeze or sniffle. "Why not? Don't cost nothin'?" The president has already (and illegally I might add) delayed implementation for his pals in "Big Labor" because the program isn't ready. Before it has even been fully implemented, Obamacare has missed 41 of its 82 legally required deadlines according to the Library of Congress’s Congressional Research Service. And yet, liberals insist on pushing forward with this ill-conceived law. So liberals, I ask you: When your medical insurance premiums skyrocket; when you have to wait months for routine procedures; when your 401K tanks because the economy is in ruins; when you lose your job because your employer can’t make a decent return on their operations because of the high cost of their mandated employer provided healthcare; when your kid can’t get the operation or medicine she needs because the government has decided her chances of survival doesn’t merit the expense or when you have to figure out how to live on a part-time salary because your hours get cut back to below 30 hours a week, who are you going to be able to blame? You won’t be able to blame the Republicans!

Rep Nancy Pelosi - Majority Liar of the House

Nancy Pelosi is a shameless liar. In her typical hyperbolic way, she claims that Republicans are taking food out of the mouths of children, seniors, veterans, etc. by cutting the budget for food stamps. The Republicans have proposed cutting $40 billion over the next ten years from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP which sounds like a lot of money until you consider that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the program will cost $746 billion between 2013 and 2024. That is less than a 5% cut and just as with any government program, we know that there is plenty of waste, fraud and abuse. Why not try to target that? Cutting the budget forces the government to be better stewards of these funds to make sure those truly deserving get the help they need.

Now that food stamps are given in the form of funds on an Electronic Benefits Transfer card, abusing the system is much easier. We have all either seen for ourselves or heard from others about people buying tobacco, alcohol, cosmetics and many other non-nutritional or non-essential items or using the cards properly but them paying cash for lottery tickets. These people aren't taking food out of the mouths of children, seniors, veterans, etc.? Apparently not in Pelosi's addled mind. Or maybe she just doesn't want to upset one of her big constituencies - food stamp cheats. The rest - illegal alien voters,  welfare recipients and cheats, the dead, and miscreants of every description might not be enough to keep getting her reelected. Given that she represents the 12th district in California which covers much of the area in and around San Francisco, I really don't think she need worry!

In Defense of American Exceptionalism

The concept of American Exceptionalism is back in the news again and as usual it is creating a stir. For many non-Americans and especially Europeans, it raises hackles. "How dare those braggarts declare themselves superior. Those young upstarts!" While it is true, many of my fellow countrymen believe American Exceptionalism does mean that we are better than the rest of the world, they are mistaken just as are those citizens of other countries that view the phrase as a demonstration of Yankee conceit. Even President Obama got it wrong when he said in his speech outlining the case for attacking Syria,

“But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. ... That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional.” This was met with the following, rather ironic quote by Russian President Putin in a September 12, 2013 Op-Ed in the New York Times. Putin wrote:

"...I would rather disagree with a case he (President Obama) made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is 'what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional' It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal."

It is easy to forgive Mr. Obama's mistake - after all, he is a relative newcomer when it comes to believing in American Exceptionalism. It was not too long ago when he declared that “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” Putin's mistake, piggy-backing off of Obama's, is also understandable (though I find it strange to hear references to God, the Lord and democracy coming from a former Soviet KGB officer.) If Putin, Obama and so many others keep getting it wrong, then what is American Exceptionalism?

American Exceptionalism is the notion that the United States of America (not Americans themselves) is special; unique. Our Founding Fathers codified in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution that the rights of man come from God and the rights of government come from the governed. This led to America’s unique ideology that, according to Seymour Martin Lipset (late political sociologist and recognized expert on the subject) is based upon the ideas of liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and laissez faire. Jefferson, Franklin, Madison et al didn't invent these ideas. They learned them from reading the writings of the great European philosophers John Locke, Adam Smith and Montesquieu among others and applying them. The result was a new country with an economic and political environment that allowed ordinary citizens from every corner of the world to come and create, achieve and prosper to levels that were impossible for them in their native lands. Perhaps one of the greatest examples of the exceptional nature of America is that a little boy, who only 150 years might have been consider someone else's property based on the color of his skin; essentially abandoned by his hippie mother and foreign Kenyan father, could grow up to become president. If that isn't exceptional, I don't know what is!

Putin Saves Obama's Political Bacon Over Syria

I don't know if President Obama has one or not but if he doesn't, I nominate Vladimir Putin for Obama's BFF after Vlad saved his political bacon this week over Syria. To say that Obama mismanaged the situation with Syria is a mistake because it suggests he tried to manage the situation with Syria. He did not. What happened was a series of missteps that has become the trademark of the Obama Administration - this inept team of amateurs. Fortunately for them and everyone else, it is often better to be lucky than to be good. Here is what I mean.

What started the sequence of events that had the Administration careening toward what appeared to be yet another blunder was President Obama's statement back in 2012 that if Syrian President Assad used chemical weapons that would be crossing a "red line." The off-handed and off-teleprompter remark placed the United States in the position of having to either take action against Syria or losing credibility when on August 21st of this year, someone (allegedly the Assad regime) fired rockets armed with chemical warheads into eleven neighborhoods in the Damascus suburbs killing 1500 civilians - 400 of which were children. Over the next several days, President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry tried to make the case for attacking Syria to let Assad know there are consequences to violating international law regarding the use of gas. Initially, Mr. Obama claimed he didn’t need the approval of Congress in order to strike Syria but as his efforts to build the support of the international community failed, he pivoted and said he would ask for Congressional approval. As the Administration tried to convince lawmakers and the American public that attacking Syria was in our national interest, the president began to receive criticism for “drawing the red line.” True to form, Mr. Obama denied drawing the red line and tried to blame everyone else - the world and Congress - despite the video of him clearly using the words “red line.” It was soon very apparent that this effort was also doomed to failure.

While answering the question, ‘Is there anything that Syria can do to avoid being attacked?’ during a CNN interview, Sec. Kerry made his own off-handed remark. Kerry flippantly replied, ‘Well of course they could give up all their chemical weapons within the week but that’s not going to happen.’ Kerry made this remark never dreaming anyone would take it seriously. However, when Russia and Syria indicated that they might be willing to discuss this proposal, he soon began backtracking and even the liberal press recognized this to be a major screw-up. With an address to the nation scheduled to take place within two days, things were looking pretty bleak for Team Barry. Suddenly it must have occurred to Obama and Company, that they had just been thrown a “life line.” What had initially been universally seen as a blunder was now being hailed by Kerry, Obama, and liberals everywhere as a great secret plan that had been weeks in the making. You know what they say, ‘Success has many parents; failure is an orphan.’ In his Tuesday night address, the president said he would delay asking for Congressional approval to strike Syria and that he would allow time to see if diplomacy might still lead to a peaceful solution. The president did however say that a military strike was not off the table if the weapons turnover proposal failed. President Obama was ‘off the hook.’

Since his speech, Mr. Obama and his administration have been patting themselves on the back for getting Russia to take the lead on Syria. Barack Obama has slipped comfortably back into his preferred leading from behind mode. In his new role as world leader, Mr. Putin wrote an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times that chastised President Obama for his handling of the crisis in Syria and warned him not to take military action. Not fully recovered from having so narrowly dodged a bullet, Obama and the gang that can’t shoot straight hasn’t had time to realized that they should be humiliated.

There is a saying, “There are three kinds of people in the world: Those that make things happen; those that watch things happen and those who say, ‘What just happened?’ I’ll leave it to you to decide for yourself which one is Obama; which one is Putin and which one is Kerry.

Pelosi and the Advice of Five Year Olds

Is it any wonder our country and so many of our children are such a mess? Consider the following. Apparently Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s five year old grandson took valuable time away from his daily perusal of the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times, and the Washington Post (liberal rags all) to see his grandmother off on her return trip to DC and chat about geo-politics. According to the Congresswoman, the following conversation took place: REP. NANCY PELOSI: …My five-year-old grandson, as I was leaving San Francisco yesterday, he said to me, Mimi, my name, Mimi, war with Syria, are you yes war with Syria, no, war with Syria. And he's five years old. We're not talking about war; we're talking about action. Yes war with Syria, no with war in Syria. I said, 'Well, what do you think?' He said, 'I think no war.' I said, 'Well, I generally agree with that but you know, they have killed hundreds of children, they've killed hundreds of children there. ' And he said, five years old, 'Were these children in the United States?' And I said, 'No, but they're children wherever they are.' (www.realclearpolitics.com, 3 Sep 13). Pelosi then went on to ramble something about our interests which was completely incoherent. Ironically, it seems to me that the five year old gets it whereas grandma doesn’t. More importantly though is, “What kind of adult engages in a conversation like this with a child?” The answer is a liberal Democrat of course! Whatever happened to talking to little boys about their pets, dinosaurs, turtles; Batman, Spiderman and Superman, cars and trucks, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc.? Lord willing, a five year old boy in America can currently expect to live to be 79. So that means he has 71 years of being an adult. Can’t liberals allow a kid even 5 years to be, well, a kid, before they begin the, ‘It Takes a Village’, socialist, global consciousness, multiculturalism, ‘make a difference’, blah, blah, blah, clap trap indoctrination? After all, you have them as a captive audience from K-12 in our public school system. Isn’t that enough? Maybe next time, Ms. Pelosi might try saying something to her little grandson like, “Sweetie you don’t need to worry about that. We grownups in Washington are going to take care of that. Listen to your Mommy and Daddy and be a good boy while I’m gone. Love you!” Perhaps with regard to the “We grownups in Washington..” she might be a little reluctant to say that for fear of lying.

Syria: Heads the Bad Guys Win; Tails America Loses

30 months and 100,000 deaths into the civil war, there are no good choices for the US regarding Syria. Instead of supporting the original, pro-American, moderate opposition in the beginning, the United States stayed on the sidelines while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisted 'Bashar al-Assad is a reformer.' This from the woman President Obama called, "... one of the finest secretary of states we've had."[sic] (I guess proper English wasn't stressed at Punahou, Occidental College, Columbia University or Harvard Law School!) But I digress. While the Obama Administration hung on to the notion that Assad was a reformer, Assad went about destroying the moderate opposition which was soon replaced by a collection of radical, al Qaeda affiliated, extremists. To make matters worse, President Obama, in order to appear tough during his re-election campaign, painted the US into a corner with his "red line" regarding the use of chemical weapons. Now we are faced with having to choose between the brutal dictator, Assad, and the America-hating Islamists but choose we must. Further complicating our decision is the fact that it isn't completely clear exactly who used the gas against the mostly civilian victims. Most likely it was Assad but there is also the possibility that it was the extremists. Assad clearly had the greater capability to use chemical weapons but he also had the least to gain. He is winning his fight against the opposition without using chemical weapons and using them would only draw the ire of America. On the other hand, the rebels are far less capable of deploying chemical weapons but the Islamists have demonstrated a willingness to kill civilians if it leads to their ultimate goals. If Assad gets the blame and the US attacks his military capability, it just might turn the tide of the war in favor of the extremists. All this has the makings of a "good Democrat" war - one in which the US has very little national interest, has little to gain, has little support from our allies and is opposed by the United Nations. Unlike the case for war against Iraq (ADMITTEDLY IT PROVED TO BE A BAD DECISION) which had the support of a coalition of over 40 countries, 17 UN resolutions condemning Saddam Hussein and his regime, the support of the UN, authorization from the Congress to use force, and the belief by nearly every world intelligence service that Iraq possessed WMDs, the case for attacking Syria is far weaker. While not insignificant, Assad allegedly killed about 1500 people with chemical weapons as opposed to the thousands of Iranian soldiers during the Iran-Iraq War and thousands of his own citizens during the Kurdish uprisings known to have been killed by Saddam using chemical weapons. Further, unlike the build-up to the Iraq War, Obama has managed to assemble a coalition of only 5 countries - France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar. These are good allies but certainly not without their own motivation which is probably vastly different from ours. As a result of his failed effort to gain wide international support, the US was embarrassed when British Prime Minister, David Cameron, was denied authority to use force against Syria by the British House of Commons after pledging to help. Humiliation loves company! Lastly, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has warned that any military strikes against Syria would be illegal unless in self-defense under the UN charter or if approved by the UN Security Council. Since Syria is unlikely to attack the US directly and Security Council members, Russia and China, are opposed to any military action against Syria, these criteria will not likely be met. Congress may ultimately approve the president's use of force but only because the country has been put into a position where unless we act, its credibility will be damaged by yet another inept Obama Administration foreign policy blunder. So this is where things currently stand: Heads the Bad Guys Win; Tails America Loses!