Headlines

All from Internet news sites. Guess which from Politico?

Spanish police kill 5 attackers wearing fake suicide belts

Rahm Emanuel rehabs his national profile

Bannon says he hopes Democrats talk about racism every day

Feds refuse to remove memorials ..

Trump stress has business booming for shrinks

Trump dumps CEOs before more could abandon him

College cancels free speech event, cites campus safety concerns

Philippine police kill 32 in 'shock and awe' drug raids ...

Ann Coulter: 'When liberals club people, it's with love in their hearts'

U.S. sets tough tone with Canada, Mexico as NAFTA talks begin

Bannon dismisses white supremacists as a 'collection of clowns'

Brooklyn army base urged to rename streets honoring generals

Defector: Christianity thrives in N Korea, citizens 'no longer respect' Kim

Headlines

All these headlines have been found on Internet news sites. guess which ones cane from Politico.

Schiff criticizes Obama's handling of Russia

Drag queens to visit schools to end intolerance

Woman totally loses her mind over Confederate flag adorned Dukes of Hazard car

Trump in tweet: Clinton colluded to beat Sanders

Ex-president kicks off tropical holiday in Indonesia

CIA Director: Iran still top sponsor of international terrorism

Gowdy: Oversight panel won't pursue Russia, obstruction probes

Rahm Emmanuel: Trump is misreading his base

Female driver plows through crowd of Muslims in UK

White House shows no signs of reopening Paris talks

Republicans agree, Obamacare taxes must disappear

Maxine Waters bars Trump supporters from town hall

Useless Idiots

Stalin had a term for the fifth-column Communists around the world.  He called them "useful idiots." President Trump has a different set of issues ... "useless idiots" ...  a large set of detractors who bend over backwards to undermine his efforts to keep America safe. I know it is early-on, but here are my nominations for the Useless Idiots of the Year ... those stentorian radical-Islam apologists who apear to care more for their own ideologies and election ambitions. I'm sure that some of my liberal readers might have some other names to put forward:

Bill "Big Bird" DeBlasio

Justin "Timber" Trudeau

Elizabeth "Lieawatha" Warren

Barack "Bathhouse Barry" Obama

Chuck "Tiny Tears" Schumer

Hillary "Sir Edmund" Clinton

Rahm "Godfather" Emanuel

Nancy "Botox" Pelosi

Keith "I CAIR" Ellison

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites.

'Godfather' [Rahm Emanuel] flips the bird when asked about 2020 prospects ...

Student threatened with expulsion after recording, posting professor's anti-Trump tirade

Terror at the pyramids: bomb attack at Egyptian tourist spots

[Hillary's] Losing campaign cost record $1.2B ...

Mika [Brzezinski]: Hillary campaign tried to get me 'pulled off the air'

Biden says Trudeau and Merkel last liberal leaders standing ....

South Korean President Park Geun-Hye impeached

Gender-fluid performer eligible in male and female Oscar categories ...

Vietnam begins its own island-building project in South China Sea

Cuba on track for 10,000 politically-motivated arrests by end of year

Caught: Snopes deliberately omits key details to protect Kerry's State Dept.

Washington Post fake news? CIA says Russia intervened in election ...

Another Crisis

Not going to waste. Rahm Emanuel’s working adage is once again in play. President Obama has appointed a “czar” to oversee the Ebola crisis in the United States … and he’s a humdinger. His name is Ron Klain and he working credentials consist mainly of being able to spread taxpayer money adroitly to Democrat operatives while making it appear that he is helping things, Two cases in point … almost a trillion dollars of government “stimulus” money that somehow never found its way into shovel-ready job creation … and over a half of billion dollars of taxpayer money pissed away on that wonderful "green" boondoggle called Solyndra.

To appreciate more of this man's mostly political credentials please read: Powerline Story. I fully expect this slight-of-hand to be repeated as this hack tries to appear to be running things effectively … while using this Ebola crisis to Obama’s and the Democrat party’s monetary advantage.

Another side benefit: President Obama's appointment has obviously burnished his image with the uninformed voter right before the November midterm elections. He might just save a few Senate seats for his party. And I do hope against hope that this potential Ebola outbreak has now been stopped. However, purposely bringing more patients with this dread disease into the American healthcare system … as Obama is now planning to do … might make this hope a wee bit far-fetched … see: Washington Examiner Story.

Can our president treat his fellow Americans with any more cold-blooded cynicism?

Hard Ball

Am I nuts, but does it seem that there is an all-out effort to get conservatives in legal hot water?  We all know of Governor Chris Christie’s troubles in New Jersey.  And former Virginia Governor, Bob McDonnell, is now under federal indictment … see: Washington Post Article … it seems mostly due to his wife’s misdeeds. 

Suddenly, conservative author and filmmaker, Dinesh D’Souza, is under federal indictment for violating federal campaign finance laws … see: Hollywood Reporter Story.  Next conservative activists, James O’Keefe (remember those revealing Acorn videos?), has been targeted by New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, with subpoenas and document requests … see: Fox News Story.

And this is just on the legal front.  New York City Mayor, Bill DeBlasio, apparently just held back plowing the snow from the areas of the city that didn’t vote for him … see: NY Daily New Article.  (How is this any different from closing down three toll booths on the George Washington Bridge?) And a chin-out Governor Cuomo has also invited anyone opposed to abortion to leave New York State … see: National Review Story.

It is quite disturbing to me to see the heavy hand of liberal government being used to try to cower conservative opponents … just as it would be disturbing if New Jersey Governor Christie was involved in the equivalent.  While many independents in this country are frustrated and calling for moderation, the bellicose libs seem to be ratcheting up the political wars.  The only difference is the brand of baseball being reported in the media … liberals get slow-pitch softball … conservatives are getting quite a parcel of fast-pitch hardball. 

What did former Obama Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, say, “If they bring a knife to a fight, you bring a gun?”

2016

The Presidential election is over and Barack Obama has won.  So, what does this mean for the United States over the next four years?  Let me offer a few of my own personal prognostications:

- Iran will have 20+ nuclear weapons. The Unites States (with Israel’s reluctant agreement) will institute a policy of “containment” relative to this threat … much like we did with the USSR during the cold war. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Egypt will either have nukes or be well on their way toward same.

- Joe Biden will take a shot at getting the Democrat nomination for President. This nation’s main-stream media will kill his chances by implying that he is non compos mentis. The Democrat nod will go either to Rahm Emanuel, Chris Christie, or Bill Clinton.

- Two new Supreme Court justices will be confirmed (replacing two other liberal justices), namely Hillary Clinton (with a new hairdo) and Eric Holder.

- The Republicans will nominate an Hispanic for President … and a woman (other than Sarah Palin) for Vice President.

- The U.S. national debt will have topped $20 trillion despite numerous income tax rate increases and all the new taxes imposed under Obamacare.

- The rate of government spending increases will continue apace ... contrary to the early 2013 agreement fashioned under the fiscal-cliff threat.

- Fox News (on cable) will have far outpaced any network news program in terms of audience size and ratings.

- The expansion of Obamacare policies and edicts will have forced all health-care insurance companies out of business.

- An illegal-immigrant amnesty program will have been instituted in 2013. Illegal immigration will commensurately expand dramatically.

- Our nation’s entitlement programs (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Food Stamps, etc.) will not have been reformed.

- The real national unemployment rate will remain stubbornly high ... independent of the reporting-process manipulation at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

- Two new industries will have been nationalized by the Obama regime – the Airline industry and the Health-care Insurance industry (see above).

- General Motors will receive another government bailout of $40 billion +. As a result, Ford Motor will be in an untenable competitive position and may be also forced to take a government bailout.


Sooo ... once again, elections do have consequences ... a lesson still unlearned by the naive U.S. electorate.

Rahm-per Room

I have a negotiation suggestion for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (aka, the Godfather) so that he might solve his city's teachers' strike in fairly short order (scroll down):

Playing Defense

Rush Limbaugh spent almost his entire program today discussing how Mitt Romney should respond to all the salacious attacks that the Obama team is currently smearing him with.  Basically Rush's take was that, if you are on defense, you can't be on offense ... you can never move the ball down the field.  You should not respond to such dirty charges as seen in recent Democrat attack ads (such as Romney effectively killed Joe Soptic's wife because Bain Capital ... after Romney was no longer active there ... shut down GST Steel which caused Soptic to lose his job and health insurance ... which was the reason, five years later, that Soptic's wife died of breast cancer) because it just keeps these charges in the news cycle.

Now, I am not a political consultant ... nor do I play one on cable TV.  However, as I remember it, when Bill Clinton was under assault throughout his time on the national stage ... with a wide variety of charges from bimbo eruptions, to perjury charges, to the Whitewater scandal, to Monicagate, etc. etc. ... he responded using his rapid-response team with rabid attacks on his accusers (remember how Ken Starr was vilified?).  This certainly was effectively offensive defense ... and Clinton is generally attributed with being a consummate politician.  And recall what Rahm Emanuel (Obama's former junk-yard dog) has used as his political modus operandi?  "If they bring a knife, you bring a gun."

Would it sully Romney's pristine image if his team was as belligerent as Clinton's was ... or as Obama's is?  Probably ... however, I still do believe that Romney needs to go on offense with a rigorous defense of his reputation ... much like Clinton and his surrogates (James Carville, Paul Begala, Lanny Davis, George Stephanopolous, etc.) did all those twenty years ago.  Unfortunately, Romney seems to have only one surly cur on his side, John Sanunu.  He needs to surround himself with quite a few more offensive defenders ... ones the likes of Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter, and Chris Christie.

Brier-Patch Politics

In the Joel Chandler Uncle Remus stories (now so politically incorrect that Walt Disney’s great half-animated version, Song of the South, can only be purchased in a pirated version or, English-captioned, from Japan), a just-captured Brer Rabbit beseeches Brer Fox not to “throw me in that brier patch.” And when Brer Fox falls for the ruse, Brer Rabbit hops happily among all sharp thorns and briers singing and taunting Brer Fox with “I was born and bred in the brier patch.”

I think we have a modern day version of this fable in the present tax-rate brouhaha now taking place in Washington. Brer Obama, after years of decrying the Bush tax cuts as ruinous, has (along with many economic advisers) now embraced them as necessary to keep this Nation from suffering a double-dip recession … even including maintenance of the Bush tax rates for couples earning over $250,000 per year (millionaires and billionaires in the Democrat vernacular). Now, if this is the formula for fixing our economic and unemployment problems, why has it taken the Obama administration almost two years to recognize it? And why would Brer Obama ask the Republicans to throw him among all those tax rate nettles and thorns … as it seems his own party might be in open revolt against the idea? I have a few suggestions:

1) The extension of the Bush tax rates doesn’t work to restore economic growth and reduce unemployment between now and the 2012 elections … in which case Obama can repeatedly play “I told you so” in the political debates then. Even though Obama’s Keynesian fire-hose “stimulus” spending over the last two years clearly hasn’t worked, the American electorate will have long since forgotten about this by 2012. So Obama’s political priorities from the beginning seemed clearly to push through as much of his left-wing agenda early on in his administration and the devil take the hindquarters (our Nation’s economic and job growth.) As Rahm Emanuel said, “Never let a crisis go to waste.”

2) If, in fact, there IS the likely turn-around in the economy … but our national debt continues to soar … in which case Obama can appeal to the Tea Partiers that the Republicans and their policies have dug us deeper in debt with the Chinese. (It is not accidental that Obama’s proposal includes this 2 percentage point reduction in employee FICA payments and a 13 month extension of unemployment insurance … both designed to make that brier patch toss even more tempting to the Republicans … but both certain to increase our Nation’s debt burden significantly.)

3) Will the extension of the Bush tax rates stimulate economic growth? Probably not in and of themselves. After all, this will not be a cutting of taxes. It will just extend current tax rates for two more years. However, the 2 percentage point FICA tax reduction probably will help economic growth however damaging this might be to the long-term health of the Social Security System.

4) Strangely, Obama has made this proposal AFTER the November elections when, if made prior to the elections, he might have saved many blue-dog Democrats from electoral defeat. One might even surmise that Obama desired this Republican rout in the House to make it even clearer that Republicans are the ones to blame for whatever happens between now and 2012. In other words, Obama was willing to triangulate himself away from Democrats and to sacrifice his party and even his Nation in order to get re-elected in 2012. Machiavelli, thy name is Obama.

5) The vitriol being heaped on Obama by the left-wing press, bloggers, and Democrat members of Congress effectively makes Obama into a bit of a sympathetic folk hero … one willing (for the first time in two years) to reach across the aisle to accommodate the Republicans.  This also, of course, begins the triangulation of his stance running up to 2012.

Can the Republicans resist the temptation to toss Obama in among all those thorns of the Bush-tax-rate brier patch? I doubt it, nor do I necessarily think that they shouldn't take the bait. But, if they do, the Republicans should be even more draconian in reducing future government spending and in the draining of the Democrat’s honey pot of all those unspent stimulus funds.  Otherwise, if the Republicans don't believe that they can exhibit such discipline, may I suggest some Brer-Rabbit purloo?

Relativity

Recent threats of violence levied against those who voted for Obamacare are to be condemned ... and I herein heartily do. Such behavior is childish and misbegotten. But there have been other public death threats made in the past that were not taken so seriously. Witness Rahm Emanuel's knife-wielding outburst back in 1992 ... see the nutty left. Why is this dismissed as political theater while tea-party activists are chastised for generally more benign expressions of outrage? ... such as: the nutty right. I guess Einstein was right ... everything is relative.

The Piker

U.S. DEFICITS BY YEARS

Yes, George W. Bush took a budget surplus from the latter part of the Clinton administration and turned it into a deficit. This was the result of the bursting of the dot-com bubble, the 9/11 terror attack with its resultant financial meltdown, and then the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was not the result of the Bush tax cuts as these did nothing but encourage economic growth and vigorous employment expansion up until the time of our current financial freeze-up (the reasons for which I will not argue here). But Bush was a piker when it comes to fiscal irresponsibility. As one can see from this chart, the Obama administration, under Rahm Emanuel’s leitmotif that “we should never waste a good crisis,” is pushing social spending and our federal deficits to undreamed-of levels … and this will occur despite a planned gutting of our defense budget. This chart shows the dramatically growth of deficits under the current Obama/Emanuel plan as projected by the White House and also the impartial Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

One picture is worth a thousand words.