Who, by his own confession in the waning paragraphs of the fourth page of this opinion piece in the New York Times, reveals himself to have been yet another rube. Ladies and gentlemen, this piece demands to be fisked, but four pages is beyond my ability, not to mention fair use.
If we took the time to fisk every rube who is only now coming to see that Obama is a shallow, weak man and merely a mirror onto which the rubes projected their innermost authoritarian desires, Fred would have to rename the blog. Nevertheless, you ask and we deliver:
The most charitable explanation is that he and his advisers have succumbed to a view of electoral success to which many Democrats succumb -- that "centrist" voters like "centrist" politicians. Democrats co-opt centrist views to win election and then tack left to push their agenda. They've been doing it since FDR. If you read history, you'd know that.
Unfortunately, reality is more complicated. No, it ain't. The only thing complicated for the left is how to explain massive wealth transfers from those working to those who don't.
Centrist voters prefer honest politicians who help them solve their problems. The implication here is that left and right voter prefer dishonest politicians. Way to smear a larger large of the electorate other than the elusive centrist voter
"The public was desperate for a leader who would speak with confidence, and they were ready to follow wherever the president led."
Drew Westen
Jobs? Balanced budget? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?
A second possibility is that he is simply not up to the task by virtue of his lack of experience and a character defect that might not have been so debilitating at some other time in history. Ya think? You mean to tell everyone else who don't read the Times you are just now glomming on to that glaring fact?
Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography; and that, before joining the United States Senate, he had voted "present" (instead of "yea" or "nay") 130 times, sometimes dodging difficult issues What a weinie. "Chose to ignore?" Really? If you took the whole election thing seriously, as you didn't, sources aplenty were to be had to tell a reader just what kind of huckster Obama and his Obamanation really were.
I think we pointed it out once or twice here at the Burg. Well, okay, once, I'm sure once...
Gawd, it must stink up in there!
It's pathetically amusing that a "a practicing psychologist with more than 25 years of experience... a scientist and strategic consultant", at a top-20 university no less, should be on display this way. Then again, he's among friends in a friendly territory.
#1
So, what the hell use is your "news" paper if you constantly will lead the public away from the truth when you ""chose to ignore the utter lack of any credible experience that makes a man ready to be President of the United States of America?
The NY times is the disgraced toilet paper of a few Pollyanna that really think utopia is available to them on earth.
Nothing happened to Obama, he has always been a stupid idiot. And so has that idiot paper you write for.
#2
I believe we are seeing this repeated in leadership elsewhere in the world: "When it becomes serious, you have to lie," Juncker, who as the chairman of the regular meetings of eurozone finance ministers is one of the currency union's key spokesmen, said in recent remarks"
Perhaps the only thing more unimaginable than needing 4 pages to ping 30+ emotives (skimmed that last page and a half like a greasy broth) is that this, uhum, piece was published.
Y'all elected a car salesmen. Don't like the banana in the tailpipe? Bought and sold.
#5
Nothing happened to Obama, other than he was himself. Which is plenty bad enough.
Posted by: Silentbrick - Halliburton Lost Drill Bit Division ||
08/08/2011 3:29 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Obama was ELECTED. What does that tell you about the wits of over half of the American people?
One: That they are poor judges of human character? They are willfully blind or deliberately obtuse? You could listen with your ears and see with your own eyes. Something is WRONG with the ability of a LARGE number of Americans to SEE what is right there to see. He was there and you couldnt see it?
And you made more than a simple mistake. You let the creepy slimy thing into the house.
His wonderful speeches? Quote me a single line from any of them. Quote me his Fourscore and seven....its slipped your mind? You cant remember a line just of ANY of his speeches....how about the one he made in Cairo? He blew air up your empty minds and your ears are worthless because your minds arent really there.
Half of the population of the United States are SUCKERS. You dont GET something for nothing. You dont get a free ride. No one is to blame but you yourselves. You were PUNKED.
And you were punked because you are functionally and personally BLIND dicked. You CAN fool some of the people ALL of the time. And over HALF of the American people were. F.O.O. L.S.
Now you are wearing toilet paper for a hat.
And you literally ARE, arent you?
Now let's turn and look at Congress. What do you see?
And let's look at the list of GOP Political Candidates for the next Presidency. Inspired? if you cant see it...try and smell it.
That is who you are....that line of mediocrities is you. And its your Future....yeah. tap that bell with your finger nail and tell me what you hear? Pure gold?
You are going to need to buy a gun, I am sorry. Dont lie to yourself that everything will somehow work out. One out of every two people you see on the street is headed for a date with Darwin. They arent going to make it and you better pay attention to where the stuff goes down the drain.
Posted by: de Medici ||
08/08/2011 4:49 Comments ||
Top||
#7
To the average American, who was still staring into the abyss, the half-stimulus did nothing but prove that Ronald Reagan was right, that government is the problem.
He should of stopped right there instead of going on and on about how the rich are destroying to country. And the poor, to boot.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/08/2011 6:15 Comments ||
Top||
#8
The average voter is far more worried about jobs than about the deficit, which few were talking about while Bush and the Republican Congress were running it up.
See? It's all those rich Republicans! The top one percent who have all moved to D.C. to make the poor suffer!
I can't read anymore of this dribble. I wonder how much this NY psychologist pays in taxes? I expect he pays enough!
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/08/2011 6:20 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Nothing happened to Obumble, as Silentbrick noted. Many of us saw exactly what he was (and wasn't) before the election. If you really want to know what the problem is, rube, just look in the mirror. We could have done better by picking a name at random out of the phone book.
The pouty admission of "I'm not that bright after all" from the NPR-listening, NYT-reading, credentialled but not truly educated, bigoted against authentic Christians, pseudointellectual twits that comprised the critical mass of white Obama voters is a long time coming, and quite welcome.
But perhaps a bit too late.
Hey, rube......
Posted by: no mo uro ||
08/08/2011 8:09 Comments ||
Top||
#11
What does that tell you about the wits of over half of the American people?
It's says Americans are lazy. They'd rather have the crap burger feed to them then make the effort to be a real engaged citizen. As another theme on another blog repeats, if we held the ruling class to the same standards of ethics and truth which they pass legislation regularly for businesses and communities and the rest of us, they'd all be following the career model of the Illinois governors, a term in office followed by retirement in the pen.
The whole purpose of the Constitution was to do just enough to allow the country to survive/exist but to prohibit the growth and centralization of power. That control was thrown out when the courts decided 'reinterpretation' could over come the daunting requirements of 'amending' the Constitution. It was compounded by the assumption of international security by the United States in the post-WWII. The need to raise and maintain a large standing military created dynamics which demanded power and money commensurate with the task. That meant further centralization. Centralization develops a life of its own drawing more and more into its realm.
Really, you think people were that concerned with who ever was President much before then because the office never had that much power except in times of extreme emergency. Even in such dire times, as soon as the danger passed, it pretty much went back to business as usual.
Now being lazy means not having to pay attention to a lot of things that don't impact our daily lives. That is now changing. It's the attention getting phase. Or as an old mentor of mine would say "You really don't want my attention". The pols are about to realize what that meant.
#13
Since we're piling on here: I think one takeaway from the S&P downgrade is that Obama has so little credibility left that he couldn't back down one chickenshit domestic rating agency. (Imagine S&P's response to Dwight Eisenhower: "When and how high, Mr. President?") That doesn't give me a lot of confidence in our future dealings with Iran, Russia and China.
Posted by: Matt ||
08/08/2011 10:52 Comments ||
Top||
#14
O is a symptom of the greater problem of the lack of responsibility of half the electorate. We have had 40+ years of liberal claptrap and class and race division in our country, mainly by the dems to exploit real or perceived divisions in order to get votes and ultimately power.
If we are to survive, we better collectively take responsibility ourselves. The Con-gress can't. They can not even pass a budget. The game is over except for the crying. The grasshoppers have taken over everything, they think. But the ants know what to do, and winter is coming, ya know.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/08/2011 11:25 Comments ||
Top||
#15
Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his biography:
#18
Drew should have read the fine print when he purchased that enchanted monkey paw.
Posted by: Charles ||
08/08/2011 13:19 Comments ||
Top||
#19
I have no idea what Barack Obama and by extension the party he leads believes on virtually any issue.
None of the rest of us do either. Whenever something happens or someone questions his policies, he sends out a donk reactionary force who all sound surprisingly the same. None of them think for themselves; they just parrot the talking points of the far left-wing part of the Democratic Party. They are not willing to debate ideas or programs but are out to promote class or political warfare. If someone questions anything regarding this administration, they find someone to blame. It's Bush, the Tea Party, the Japanese tsunami, the European market, the Gulf spill, the Chamber of Commerce, racism, the American people, etc. never manning up and accepting responsibility for their failed big government, big spending policies, anti-business policies.
#20
JohnQC- Ditto you said it. About blaming others I saw a cartoon where his card was denied. Do you have another sir? how about my race card.( I am close on that recall). Wait I found it. It's in there just page down just after Free Radicals New Democratic logo:
* WND > IRAN SAYS US "WILL BE TAUGHT THE MOTHER OF ALL LESSONS" | [KAYAHN Newspaper] EDITORIAL WARNS OF IMPENDING CYBER-ATTACK AGZ [US] ELECTRICAL GRID.
Revenge for STUXNET.
* FREEREPUBLIC > [NOAA]SEVERE SOLAR STORM TO CREATE GLOBAL CHAOS + COMPLETE DARKNESS.
SGT SCHULTZ = US-Global GPS + CIS, etc. to be potentially disrupted or knocked out = "FLAT AS A PANCAKE" LIKE BERLIN AFTER ALLIED BOMBINGS.
* RENSE > {Military.com] ARMY PREPARES FOR "COMPLEX CATASTROPHES" STATESIDE.
E.g. MAG7.7 Quake scenario along New Madrid faultline.
[YELLOWSTONE SUPER-CALDERA + "GREAT ASIA-PACIFIC SLUSHY = NEW/MINI-ICE AGE here].
#27
"I do believe that the problem is that the President lacks the communication skills necessary to exposit the correct operations of our world, which rides on the back of a giant tortise."
But the budget deal does reflect national priorities, for good or ill. It's mostly a triumph of the welfare state over the Pentagon. Shocking. Drastic military retrenchment seems unwise. It would threaten readiness, training and the replacement of aging weapons. Many planes, ships and vehicles are approaching or have passed their planned service lives, says Heritage Foundation defense analyst Mackenzie Eaglen. To take one example: F-18s were designed to fly for 6,000 hours; now, many are headed toward 10,000, she notes. Why can't they fly as long as the B-52s? Crappy military contractors! (Hint: Does it have something to do with the stresses of takeoffs and landing, pressurizing, and un-pressurizing?)
The defense cuts show how, contrary to conventional wisdom, the budget deal reflects liberal preferences. No, no, NO! They - and the rest of the good, normal, regular people of the US of A were screwed by the Tea Party! Screwed, I tell you!
The liberal agenda came in three parts: First, raise taxes on high-income Americans to limit domestic spending cuts; second, protect the social "safety net," especially Social Security and Medicare; and finally, cut defense spending to spare (again) domestic programs. Liberals got two of three.
The conventional wisdom holds that Republicans, hostage to the Tea Party, prevented a larger and more "balanced" deal by their rejection of any tax increases -- ever. Not so. It's true that Republicans were unbending on taxes and, at times, reckless in their rhetoric. It's also true that, even with sizable spending cuts, tax increases will ultimately be needed to balance the budget. But it's not true that only the right blocked a more comprehensive agreement.
Although Obama said he was willing to trim "entitlements" -- presumably, Social Security and Medicare -- he never laid out specific proposals or sought public support for them. There was more talk than action. Even if Obama had been more aggressive, he probably wouldn't have carried most liberals, who adamantly oppose cuts. They regard Social Security and Medicare as sacrosanct. Not a penny is to be trimmed from benefits. Not even from my friend's father - 25 years in the Navy, 20 years with the Post Office, and somehow, he is also drawing social security.
This is an extreme, even fanatical stance. Social Security and Medicare do create a safety net for many millions of poor and near-poor retirees. But for millions of wealthier retirees, they are handouts. Liberals' unwillingness to admit and act on this distinction has long stifled meaningful budget debate. This would have doomed a bigger agreement. Ah, but the new commission - unlike all the other commissions - will actually do something. The One said so!
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/08/2011 18:47 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
D *** NG IT, clearly only the Chinese PLA + Motherly Russian Airborne can save future OWG HISPAMERICA = HISPAMERIKA? from China's vassal the wily North Koreans???
#2
ION SIASAT DAILY > US WARS [ + Govt. Overspending = Political $$$ Profiteering] IS ROOT OF FIANCIAL CRISIS.
* FOX NEWS AM > [Neil Cavuto Show, Fox Five] FANNIE MAE + FREDDIE MAC DOWNGRADED.
* FOXNEWS > FOX FIVE = [Off the Record] S&P Chief has appar indic that a BALANCED BUDGET will help greatly toward restoration of the US' former "AAA+" rating.
See also Below.
* TOPIX > GOP: US NEEDS BALANCED BUDGET TO FIX DEBTS, + restore AAA* Credit Rating.
* SAME > VARIOUS > S& P: US RATING DOWNGRADE DUE TO DEBT SIZE [US$14.0Trilyuhn-N-Rising], GOVT/POLITICAL INABILITY TO CONTROL SPENDING.
AND
Lest we fergit ...
To wit,
* CHINA DAILY FORUM > S & P OFFICIAL: US COULD BE DOWNGRADED AGAIN BY NOVEMBER [2011].
* SAME > S & P: US MAY LOSE EVEN EVEN "AA+" RATING.
* SAME > [Obama] WHITE HOUSE CALLS FOR END TO [GOP-Dem] BICKERING AFTER "AAA" RATING LOST.
* XINHUA > DEBT FINANCING WON'T HELP WESTERN ECONOMIES.
Again, CHINA + wants the US to cut back on USDOD + ENTITLEMENT SPENDING [Social Programs].
The machine that controls Los Angeles these days consists of an alliance between labor and the political leadership of the Latino community, the area's largest ethnic population. Once virtually powerless in the region, Latinos elected to office now control many of the smaller municipalities along the industrial belt that stretches from downtown to the county line. But since they serve at the whim of labor interests, they seldom speak up for the area's many small businesses and homeowners. It's a familiar story: because Democrats are almost assured of victory in L.A.'s general elections, candidates must win only the low-turnout, union-dominated party primaries. John Pérez, a longtime union political operative and now speaker of the California State Assembly, won the Democratic nomination in 2008 with fewer than 5,000 votes and then easily crushed the GOP candidate. Pérez's predecessor as speaker was Fabian Núñez--another L.A. labor official. No wonder the Sacramento Bee's Dan Walters calls the labor movement "the closest thing to an omnipotent political machine anywhere in the state."
From a force of about 37,000 in the early 1990s, Special Operations Command personnel have grown to almost 60,000, about a third of whom are career members of SOCOM; the rest have other military occupational specialties, but periodically cycle through the command.
Growth has been exponential since September 11, 2001, as SOCOM's baseline budget almost tripled from $2.3bn to $6.3bn. If you add in funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has actually more than quadrupled to $9.8bn in these years. Not surprisingly, the number of its personnel deployed abroad has also jumped four-fold. Further increases, and expanded operations, are on the horizon.
Lieutenant General Dennis Hejlik, the former head of the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command - the last of the service branches to be incorporated into SOCOM in 2006 - indicated, for instance, that he foresees a doubling of his former unit of 2,600.
"I see them as a force someday of about 5,000, like equivalent to the number of SEALs that we have on the battlefield. Between [5,000] and 6,000," he said at a June breakfast with defence reporters in Washington. Long-term plans already call for the force to increase by 1,000.
During his recent Senate confirmation hearings, Navy Vice Admiral William McRaven, the incoming SOCOM chief and outgoing head of JSOC (which he commanded during the bin Laden raid) endorsed a steady manpower growth rate of 3 per cent to 5 per cent a year, while also making a pitch for even more resources, including additional drones and the construction of new special operations facilities.
A former SEAL who still sometimes accompanies troops into the field, McRaven expressed a belief that, as conventional forces are drawn down in Afghanistan, special ops troops will take on an ever greater role. Iraq, he added, would benefit if elite US forces continued to conduct missions there past the December 2011 deadline for a total American troop withdrawal. He also assured the Senate Armed Services Committee that "as a former JSOC commander, I can tell you we were looking very hard at Yemen and at Somalia". Article is expansive, and unusually objective, coming from Alternet via Aljazeera.
#1
Lieutenant General Dennis Hejlik, the former head of the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command - the last of the service branches to be incorporated into SOCOM in 2006 - indicated, for instance, that he foresees a doubling of his former unit of 2,600.
That's if he can continue to hire enough former 18's contractors out of Bragg to work at Quantico and provide the necessary training and career development.
"I see them as a force someday of about 5,000, like equivalent to the number of SEALs that we have on the battlefield. Between [5,000] and 6,000,"
Telling statement I'd say.
SOF has become a TOOL of OGA, who will eventually turn on them. Expansion is not about mission, it's about DOLLARS! Just my humble opinion.
#2
One of its key components is the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, a clandestine sub-command whose primary mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists. Reporting to the president and acting under his authority, JSOC maintains a global hit list that includes US citizens. It has been operating an extra-legal "kill/capture" campaign that John Nagl, a past counterinsurgency adviser to four-star general and soon-to-be CIA Director David Petraeus, calls "an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine".
Has that certain Al Jizz hyperbole and bias that one usually expects from Al Jazeera.
#5
JSOC maintains a global hit list that includes US citizens
Which would include anyone with the sobriquet "al-Amriki" and that Yemeni prodigy (although admittedly he's gotten a bit long in the tooth for prodigy status) Anwar al-Awlaki, imam to the Pantibomber, Faisl the Fizzle Bomber, and Maj. Dr. Hassan, the convicted paraplegic. I have to admit I don't have a problem with this.
[Dawn] In a recent statement, Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Näwaz Shärif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. came down hard on the Tablighi Jamat (TJ), claiming that the Islamic evangelical movement has become a breeding ground of
Through the sectarian turmoil that the country faced in the 1980s and 1990s, the TJ was free to preach and recruit. It was always believed to be a harmless movement that had no political, sectarian or Islamic exemplar motives. However, some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them... since the country's Sunni majority remains Bareilvi -- an 18th century sub-continental Mohammedan concoction built from elements of Sufism and 'folk-Islam'--a parallel evangelical movement emerged from within this fold.
Called the Dawat-i-Islami, it claims to represent the Barelvi majority's spiritual interests. Also seen as non-political, the Dawat however has been accused of containing members that have graduated to becoming members of the Barelvi Sunni Islamic exemplar organization, the Sunni Tehreek A Brelvi political group founded in bloody Kärachi in 1992 by Muhammad Saleem Qadri. Its political wing is the Pakistan Inqilabi Tehreek. As the MQM's power declined it became the primary opposition to the Deobandi Binori Mosque hard boyz in the heyday of Nizamuddin Shamzai. By coincidence, Muhammad Saleem Qadri was bumped off by Deobandi button men of the SSP in 2001. Even more coincidentally, SSP's funding comes from Kärachi, where‐also strictly coincidentally‐Binori Mosque is located. Go figure. . The guard who rubbed out Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer (for 'blasphemy') was also a former member of the Dawat. It is also staunchly anti-Deobandi creed.
What Malik spouted about the TJ may be the first time a member of a sitting government in Pakistain has accused the outfit of breeding possible recruits for various hardcore Islamist organizations. Alarms in this respect were first raised by some western observers when in the mid and late 1990s the radical anti-India/Hindu and anti-West chief of the ISI, Major Javed Nasir, became a staunch member of the TJ. This was also the time the TJ was making great headway in the Pakistain army.
The event was seen as being only incidental and the TJ continued to recruit and preach freely--now more than ever after making deep inroads into Pakistain's showbiz scene and the cricket team as well. But the accusations (though suppressed in Pakistain) kept coming. The TJ's name came up in connection with terrorism plots such as in October 2002 in the US (the 'Portland Seven case') and the September 2002 'Lackawanna Six case' (also in the US).
Eh? The Lackawanna Six were Yemeni. It's a Yemeni emigrant community.
The TJ was mentioned again in the August 2006 in a plot to bomb airliners en route from London to the United States and in the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005. Most of those accused in all these cases were said to be members of various violent Islamist organizations, but they were also said to have been a part of the TJ at some point before their final radicalisation.
In 2008, the Spanish police tossed in the slammer fourteen Asian Mohammedans for allegedly planning to attack various places in Spain. Twelve were Paks. A Spanish Mohammedan leader claimed that all of these men had once been members of the TJ. Though counter-terrorism experts have understandably focused their studies more on the Islamic exemplar groups like Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, in the last five years or so, many of them have now begun to also study the dynamics of evangelical groups like the TJ.
They believe that in spite of the fact that the TJ's primary function remains non-political, its rather secretive organizational structure and the goodwill that it enjoys among most Paks allows elements from terrorist organizations to use it as a way to recruit members for more violent purposes. They say that many young men joining the TJ are more vulnerable to the Islamists' propaganda due to the TJ's conservative social orientation.
Rehman Malik was not shooting in the air. He was merely pointing out yet another area of concern in a country being torn apart by men committing violence in the name of faith. His statement only became controversial because very few Paks are aware of the potential of the TJ polluting its pond with rotten fish.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/08/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[16 views]
Top|| File under: Tablighi Jamaat
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Drastic military retrenchment seems unwise. It would threaten readiness, training and the replacement of aging weapons. Many planes, ships and vehicles are approaching or have passed their planned service lives, says Heritage Foundation defense analyst Mackenzie Eaglen. To take one example: F-18s were designed to fly for 6,000 hours; now, many are headed toward 10,000, she notes.
