Of the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their kinsmen were at their command — 1 Chronicles 12:32
The world is in an uproar over Israel’s “massacre” of peace activists who only wanted to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The fact that they ignored repeated Israeli warnings that every ship going to Gaza would be subject to boarding for inspection, and the fact that the “peace activists” immediately attacked, beat, stabbed, and shot Israeli soldiers in a completely unprovoked manner, is a trifle to be ignored.
When IDF soldiers attempted to peacefully stop a Turkish-backed flotilla attempting to break the Gaza blockade, they were subjected to a vicious assault, as the above videos show. The “peace activists” were warned that they were in a closed military zone, and there’s no reason they could not have followed the Israeli ships to Ashdod where the supplies they intended to deliver would have been searched for weapons and then trucked to Gaza.
That of course was not their intention. What they wanted was a confrontation.
The IDF had previously been ordered by the commander of this operation to conduct themselves professionally in the face of what was expected to be provocation in the form of spitting, cursing, and perhaps a small amount of physical resistance.
Officials estimated that passengers will show slight resistance, and possibly minor violence; for that reason, the operation’s commander decided to bring the helicopter directly above the top deck. The first rope that soldiers used in order to descend down to the ship was wrested away by activists, most of them Turks, and tied to an antenna with the hopes of bringing the chopper down. However, Flotilla 13 fighters decided to carry on.
Navy commandos slid down to the vessel one by one, yet then the unexpected occurred: The passengers that awaited them on the deck pulled out bats, clubs, and slingshots with glass marbles, assaulting each soldier as he disembarked. The fighters were nabbed one by one and were beaten up badly, yet they attempted to fight back.
However, to their misfortune, they were only equipped with paintball rifles used to disperse minor protests, such as the ones held in Bilin. The paintballs obviously made no impression on the activists, who kept on beating the troops up and even attempted to wrest away their weapons. {…}
The forces hurled stun grenades, yet the rioters on the top deck, whose number swelled up to 30 by that time, kept on beating up about 30 commandos who kept gliding their way one by one from the helicopter. At one point, the attackers nabbed one commando, wrested away his handgun, and threw him down from the top deck to the lower deck, 30 feet below. The soldier sustained a serious head wound and lost his consciousness.
Only after this injury did Flotilla 13 troops ask for permission to use live fire. The commander approved it: You can go ahead and fire. The soldiers pulled out their handguns and started shooting at the rioters’ legs, a move that ultimately neutralized them. Meanwhile, the rioters started to fire back at the commandoes.
“I saw the tip of a rifle sticking out of the stairwell,” one commando said. “He fired at us and we fired back. We didn’t see if we hit him. We looked for him later but couldn’t find him.” Two soldiers sustained gunshot wounds to their knee and stomach after rioters apparently fired at them using guns wrested away from troops.
As the above videos show, the so-called peace activists attacked the IDF soldiers with guns, knives, firebombs and other improvised weapons.From what was discovered on board in terms of weaponry, it’s obvious this was planned in advance.
Two Israeli soldiers sustained gunshot wounds, one was stabbed and a number of them sustained serious injuries at the hands of the ‘activists’. Ten of them were killed, and after what happened, I’m surprised it wasn’t more.
The Israelis couldn’t be more in the right in this situation. But that doesn’t stop the Islamic world from erupting in violent outrage, or the United Nations and European Union making statements denouncing the Israelis.
We live in an age when having the truth on your side – no matter how well documented your proof that you have the truth might be – is nearly irrelevant.
The beast is coming. And a cheering world will joyfully receive his lies.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is showing he is even more fearless and determined to fulfill his promises than he is rotund.
Liberals – the demagogues and haters in this country – are relying on a vicious ad hominem campaign of hate over Christie’s weight because mean-spirited hate and ad hominem demagogic rhetoric is all they’ve got.
My father spent nearly his entire career in public relations at AT&T, so he was always dispensing advice on how to handle personal crises, big and small. And when I would come home from my high school job of stocking shelves at King’s Supermarket, complaining about some ungracious customer, he would remind me:
“AT&T spends millions of dollars trying to shape the public’s opinion of us, but it takes only one rude telephone operator to flush all that money and ruin all of my hard work. The same thing could happen at King’s.”
His lesson was clear: One bad decision, one stupid miscalculation, can wreck years of good will.
Which brings us to the New Jersey Education Association.
In an astonishing fall from grace that has taken only months, teachers have gone from respected and beloved members of the community to some of the most reviled. In a blink, they have trashed years of good will.
Once the patient darlings who nurtured our kids, teachers now look like insensitive, out-of-touch, can’t-think-for-themselves union robots who, when forced to face economic realities, clung to an insulting sense of entitlement, heartlessly sacrificed the jobs of colleagues, called the governor naughty names and used students as political pawns.
All while blaming everyone else.
At Saturday’s rally in Trenton, teachers wondered when the Earth started spinning in the other direction.
“It’s like we woke up one morning and the world had changed,” said Linda Mirabelli, a music teacher in Livingston. “We were liked and respected, and now, overnight, people have turned against us.”
How did it happen? That’s easy: One bad decision, one stupid miscalculation: An overwhelming majority of teachers refused to accept a pay freeze. They could have won taxpayers’ eternal gratitude, but instead demanded their negotiated raises and fought against contributing a dime toward budget-breaking health insurance benefits. Teachers could have pitched in, but they dug in.
They thumbed their noses at taxpayers, who have lost their jobs, had their pay cut, gone bankrupt and fallen into foreclosure. As taxpayers made less, teachers demanded more. You do that, you become a villain. Fast. It doesn’t matter how many stars Junior gets on his book report.
Teachers listened to their overpaid brain trust, the architects of this disastrous public relations strategy. Together, NJEA president Barbara Keshishian, executive director Vincent Giordano and spokesman Steve Wollmer earn more than a million dollars. Keshishian, who has been outmaneuvered by the governor at every turn, earns $256,450 annually. Giordano, with salary and deferred compensation, earned $550,203 in 2009, and Wollmer makes $300,000.
Who says you get what you pay for? Union members are shelling out a lot of money for lousy representation. They should stage a coup. Instead they joined hands at Saturday’s You-And-Me-Against-The-World rally and tried to convince each other they’re doing the right thing.
To compound the troubles, the NJEA does something stupid almost every day. They insult the governor; teachers (and administrators) let kids walk out of class to protest cuts in aid; union members refuse to give up their seats to private-school students at a hearing in Trenton.
And now the NJEA is now running TV commercials, attacking Christie (again), this time using cops and firemen for cover, hoping the public still likes those guys. The firefighters union, realizing the teachers union is now toxic, says it never would have approved the commercial, but the NJEA never asked.
NJEA leadership should have seen the backlash coming. Tenure, raises, pensions, health care benefits and an aversion toward merit pay have irked taxpayers for years. The recession ignited that anger, and no last-gasp advertising blitz will change the perception of insensitive teachers who told taxpayers to eat chalk.
So, the question is: Was it worth it?
The average public school teacher makes $63,000, and the average raise this year was roughly 4 percent, so teachers traded $2,520 for these scars, which never will heal. And because Christie and taxpayers asked only for a one-year pay freeze, it’s money teachers could have recovered next year.
Imagine how differently teachers would be perceived today if they had agreed to a pay freeze and willingly offered a few bucks toward their health policies. They’d be heroes.
Heck, we would have staged a rally for them.
Kevin Manahan is a member of the Star-Ledger editorial board.
Want to hear how the public school teachers are responding to being asked to show some responsibility to a massive financial crisis that is threatening their state with bankruptcy? Want to see how mature and tolerant they are?
HADDONFIELD, N.J. — They’re the kind of obscenity-laced schoolyard taunts that could get a student suspended.
But the target of this tirade is New Jersey’s Gov. Chris Christie – and the perpetrators are the state’s teachers, irate over his calls for salary freezes and funding cuts for schools.
In Facebook messages visible to the world – not to mention their students – the teachers have called Christie fat, compared him to a genocidal dictator and wished he was dead. The postings are often riddled with bad grammar and misspellings.
“Never trust a fat f…,” read one profane post on the Facebook page, “New Jersey Teachers United Against Governor Chris Christie’s Pay Freeze,” which has some 69,000 fans, many of them teachers.
“How do you spell A– hole? C-H-R-I-S C-H-R-I-S-T-I-E,” read another.
The rhetoric has become ever more heated as residents of most of the state’s school districts get ready to vote Tuesday on property tax levies that support district budgets. And while many of the postings are emotional, most aren’t personal attacks.
Christie, a first-year Republican governor who inherited a state in dire financial straits, wants voters to reject the proposals in districts where educators won’t agree to salary freezes for the coming school year.
The acrimony intensified last month when Christie proposed cutting state and federal aid to districts by 11 percent, calling it a way to share sacrifice as the state tries to rein in spending.
That’s when the Facebook attacks really took off. […]
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: these are the loathsome, dishonest hypocrites who have repeatedly attacked the tea party people as being hateful bigots. When THEY’RE the hateful bigots.
TRENTON, N.J. — A teacher union’s memo hinting that New Jersey’s governor should die has escalated a war of words in a state already squabbling about public schools and how much they cost.
The memo from the Bergen County Education Association to its locals reads in part: “Dear Lord this year you have taken away my favorite actor, Patrick Swayze, my favorite actress, Farrah Fawcett, my favorite singer, Michael Jackson, and my favorite salesman, Billy Mays. I just wanted to let you know that Chris Christie is my favorite governor.”
Christie doesn’t care. He knows these people are vile, loathsome, and hateful, and that they are selfish, greedy, little Marxist commissars who demand that the system keep paying them top benefits in their cushy 180-day-a-year jobs even as the people reel from high taxes and unemployment.
Here’s Christie on video confronting a teacher. It’s edited for mainline media news consumption, but Christie still manages to shine through:
I love that exchange. Teacher: “Bitch bitch bitch, whine whine whine.” Christie: “Then quit.”
New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie told a disgruntled teacher that if she doesn’t like the pay, she doesn’t “have to do it.”
Christie was speaking to a small crowd in a church gymnasium in Rutherford on Tuesday when the Bergen County Record caught the exchange between Kearny teacher Rita Wilson and the governor.
Wilson claimed that if she were getting paid only three dollars an hour for the 30 students she teaches, her salary would be $83,000 a year, a much higher sum than her current take.
“You’re getting more than that if you include the cost of your benefits,” Christie pointed out.
The teacher responded by saying that she has a master’s degree and that her current salary isn’t compensating her for the value of her higher education as well as her experience.
To that, the governor responded: “Well, you know then that you don’t have to do it.”
Stop and think about this teacher’s demented, pathologically entitlement-minded demand for $3 an hour per student. Where in the world does this “$3 an hour per child” mentality come from??? Say that she were teaching 15 students, and then started teaching thirty: did she actually double her work load? Does she now spend twice the time preparing her lessons? Of course not. This woman is making $86,000 a year for a 180-day-a-year job. And she thinks she should collect more because of some $3 an hour per kid figure some liberal loon pulled out of her butt? I don’t think so.
But I’d take her up on her offer and have her teach just ONE kid at $3 an hour. Because if you should get $3 an hour for thirty kids, you should get $4 an hour for one kid. And that way she’d only get to destroy only one kid’s life through her socialist indoctrination. Maybe after she left New Jersey could hire a less whiny and less self-centered teacher in her place, who would actually be delighted to teach children 180 days a year for over $86 grand.
Whether America crashes and burns into a failed socialist hellhole, or whether we’re able to pull ourselves up out of a mountain of debt, is up to whether people like union teachers or Chris Christie win the day.
California’s Democrats have forced the upcoming Captain America movie to be filmed in England. Why would that be, Buckey? Because it’s just too expensive to film the movie in California because of the Democrat’s punitive taxes.
For Yahoo Movies, Mike Ryan asks a seminal question: Should We Now Call Him ‘Captain England’? In his lament, Ryan worries over the U.S. film industry as movies and TV shows flee America, specifically California, for the cheaper production rates of Canada and England.
And now Democrats are so concerned with propping up union thugs, forcing themselves on the people at every avenue, and stealing as much money from the rest of us that they can that they’ve even chased Captain America away from America!
On one hand you have to cheer the fact that the Democrat’s criminal enterprise, their mob action with a union thug army under thumb, is about to come crashing down around them. Unfortunately, they are bringing the whole country down with them.
If the failure of Obamaism and Democrat socialism doesn’t convince America that smaller government is the way to go, we will never go back to being the United States of America as it should be and will permanently become the Euro States of America.
Not long ago I wrote how liberal comics writers were trying to turn Captain America from a patriotic American into a left-wing, un-American, traitor and now the new movie based on the character isn’t even being filmed in the US. Leftists truly hate good American heroes. But it isn’t just comic books the left is trying to re-write in their Euro-like image. Democrats and their left-wing cohorts are desperately trying to kill the USA itself. Captain America is only their latest victim.
Of course, it’s not just the taxes that the liberals impose; it’s the unions, and the insane union policies, and all the insane benefits that unions hog for themselves.
Liberals are going to kill America, one job at a time.
The funniest thing about this story is that it is Hollywood doing the job outsourcing. You know, Hollywood, home of all the liberals who demonize everybody else’s capitalism while they make millions doing the same thing they demonize everybody else for doing.
Hollywood. Home of the smarmy elitest arrogant hypocrite liberal who endlessly lectures the rest of us to, you know, not do what they’re doing and care about making profits and stuff like that.
They’re only too happy to join with dictator thug Hugo Chavez to champion socialism “in the name of the people,” as long as they can jetset their way home to their posh Malibu mansions afterward.
Bottom line: you make it too expensive for an industry to operate in America – even liberal liberal liberal liberal liberal liberal Hollywood – and lo and behold, they’re going to outsource their jobs.
Not that they’ll quit lecturing us that we should be more socialist while they get filthy rich taking advantage of the capitalism they both hypocritically and idiotically despise so much.
Anyway, that’s what happened to Captain America I mean England.
It’s really not that big of a deal that Captain American would leave our shores, I suppose. According to our current president, American is basically a bad place, anyway.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee blasts Obama with his own words demonizing Bush for his “halfhearted leadership” during the Katrina disaster, and then cites liberals such as Chris Matthews, James Carville, and others to point out what a disaster of a leader Obama has been before asking the question, “Is This The Change You Had In Mind?”
First of all, the idea that a former president like Bill Clinton would be the go-between between the White House and Joe Sestak, bearing an offer that amounted to the equivalent of an unpaid Pez dispenser of a position, doesn’t pass the smell test.
I mean, who on earth seriously thinks a former admiral and current Congressman would take an unpaid intern-level position in exchange for running for the US Senate?
How many of the other members of Obama’s intelligence advisory board can you name off the top of your head without Googling it? ZERO, just like Obama’s nickname, that’s how many.
Sestak waited until the White House announced their “narrative” in this corruption before telling his own version so they could get their stories straight. Joe Sestak’s brother, who is also Joe Sestak’s campaign manager, gets a phone call to better hone the background details of the White House’s “narrative.” Bill Clinton visits the White House yesterday to receive the details of HIS role in the narrative.
And then the “narrative” gets released to the public on the Friday before the Memorial Day recess and weekend.
Nothing slimy there, folks.
Bottom line: Joe Sestak knows if he’s the guy who brings down the Obama administration, that’s it for his liberal Democrat career; he also knows that he needs Obama and the DNC to help back, fund, and support his campaign if he’s going to have any chance of winning going forward. So he’s basically been saying, “I’m not going to say another word about the White House’s role until they tell me what they want me to say they said.”
Every single player in this disgrace of our national political system has an incentive to lie.
Charles Krauthammer pointed this out today: The documents released by the White House indicate a two month effort to persuade Sestak to drop out of the Senate primary against Arlen Specter. Unless the phone call between Clinton and Sestak lasted something like 86,400 minutes, there were other contacts and other offers. Let’s hear about all those, too.
Like I’ve already stated, I have a very hard time believing that the “job” Joe Sestak says the White House offered him in exchange for withdrawing from the Senate race was nothing but a trivial unpaid advisory position. Nevertheless, even if that’s what it was, it nevertheless WAS a “position.”
Whoever, directly or indirectly, promises any employment,
position, compensation, contract, appointment, or other benefit,
provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of
Congress, or any special consideration in obtaining any such
benefit, to any person as consideration, favor, or reward for any
political activity or for the support of or opposition to any
candidate or any political party in connection with any general or
special election to any political office, or in connection with any
primary election or political convention or caucus held to select
candidates for any political office, shall be fined under this
title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
How was that code not violated??? “Any position.” That would encompass even the unpaid position on the president’s intelligence advisory board. Joe Sestak had repeatedly said that he was offered a “job” (which generally involves compensation) in exchange for dropping out of the Senate race so Obama’s guy could win. That’s a quid pro quo exchange, and it is a clear violation of the law.
Is this going away?
When told about Clinton’s involvement, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who has been leading the charge for more details on the allegation, said, “This is punishable by prison. This is a felony.”
I guess not.
Another question, given the fact that Obama supporters are citing cases involving Bill Clinton and alleging (without any evidence) that Bush did this crap too: Barack Obama promised he’d be a “new politician” who would change the nature of Washington. How has he not just flat-out lied about that in the most cynical way?
One way or another, the law was broken, any claim to the integrity of the Democrat political machine has been demolished, and the Obama White House has been verified to be more Nixonian than “ethical.”
As a final matter, it needs to be pointed out that this corrupt White House now has a PATTERN OF CORRUPTION:
Allegations that the White House offered Joe Sestak a job in exchange for dropping out of the Pennsylvania Senate race echo an earlier report of a job offer to candidate Andrew Romanoff in Colorado.
On Sept. 27, 2009, the Denver Post reported that the Obama administration offered Senate candidate Romanoff a position if he canceled plans to run for the Democratic nomination against incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet.
The paper said the job offer, which specified particular jobs, reportedly was delivered by Jim Messina, Obama’s deputy chief of staff. One position the Post cited was a job at USAID, the foreign aid agency.
And, oh, yeah, that one DEFINITELY violates US Code 600 and a bunch of other laws. Not that the offer to Joe Sestak didn’t, too.
Who would have ever thought we’d see Chicago-style politics from Barack Obama?
Question: what sounds better, “Barack Hussein Nixon” or “Richard Milhous Hussein”?
“Obama will be on vacation in Chicago this Memorial Day, instead of presiding over Memorial Day ceremonies at Arlington. This may be the first time since the Civil War that a president will not pay respect to the veterans passed.”
What a slimeball.
Somebody wrote, “Good! I’m relieved that the graves of brave men and women won’t be desecrated.”
And he might be right. But the paradox here is that the fact that Obama isn’t going is proof that he doesn’t deserve to go in the first place.
Here’s the story, which cites the Washington Post report that Obama will skip the Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington:
President Obama’s Memorial Day Weekend plans include skipping Arlington,vacation in Chicago, you know, because he hasn’t been there in a while. The mainstream media sure has a nifty way of spinning the fact that Obama’s skipping Arlington services on Memorial Day in a time of war no less to vacation in Chicago.
The Washington Post says Obama’s skipping Arlington on Memorial Day to keep a “campaign promise.” One of his many promises during the campaign of 2008 was that he would visit Chicago every six weeks or so. He hasn’t been there for a stay since February of 2009.
Once again Obama’s lack of good decision making shines through. He’s the Commander in Chief whether he or we like it or not. Memorial Day comes but once a year, Arlington is where the President of the United States needs to spend his time. But Obama’s Memorial Day plans, skipping Arlington, vacationing in Chicago.
It’s only Memorial Day. The day when we honor those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms. It’s only Arlington National Cemetery. Quite possibly the most hallowed and sacred piece of realestate in the country. He’s only the Commander in Chief. The leader of our armed forces who commands their respect.
But hey. If you need a break take it when you can get it, right? Obama hasn’t had many opportunities to fly home to Chicago. There was that one time he took Michelle out dancing and to the theater. Oh wait that was New York. Well how about a couple weeks ago when he took the time to spend the weekend there when he should have been attending to the oil spill? Did I miss that one too? You’re right, that was a weekend getaway to a spa in North Carolina.
What about his numerous golf outings, or what about the Obama’s vacation last year to the beach? He couldn’t have taken one of those “opportunities?” Nope. Obama’s Memorial day plans, skipping Arlington , vacationing in Chicago. Priorities Mr. President, priorities.
Obama basically hasn’t kept any of his other promises. Why is his promise to vacation in Chicago more important than his duty to honor the fallen soldiers in wars past as well as the one he’s sending troops to die in now?
The problem is that the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is in Arlington, not in Chicago. Unless Obama wants to have one made out of Styrofoam like those tacky Grecian columns he once used.
And, oh, yeah. That golf thing. After the media criticized George Bush for playing gold while his troops were fighting for their lives, Obama has played golf more in one year than Bush did in eight years. In fact, Obama was playing golf when three of the soldiers under his command were sacrificing their lives on the battlefield.
This is a president who has ordered men to their deaths in Afghanistan. The least he can do for those who’ve died under his direction is lay a freaking wreath on a freaking tomb on one special freaking day of the year.
Shame on him.
Slimeball.
You know if it were Teleprompter Day, Obama would be there to lay that damn wreath to honor the only device that keeps him from looking like the complete jabbering fool that he truly is.
Barack Obama apparently won’t be there (unless political pressure shames him into canceling his “vacation”), but please help me – even if you’ve disagreed with everything I’ve said about Obama – in doing your darnedest to honor our heroic warriors, be they young or old, living or dead.
Update, May 31, 2010. I have been challenged on the claim that Obama is the first president since the Civil War to skip Arlington. I checked into it, and stand corrected. That said, many of those who tell me to check my facts should likewise check their facts.
For instance, Farrow says:
Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II all missed the wreath-laying at Arlington National Cemetery at one time or another
Moreover, President Obama will lay a wreath tomorrow (Memorial Day) at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery.
Well, yeah. But Bush II missed Arlington only one time – when he honored the veterans who had fallen on the beaches of Normandy in France. That’s a pretty good reason to “miss.” Much better than Obama’s promise to vacation in Chicago more.
With the “blame Bush” climate, this is one thing you can’t “blame Bush” for.
George H.W. Bush missed ceremonies at Arlington, but he was a decorated combat veteran of World War II. Barack Obama, by contrast, is not a veteran, did not serve in combat, and has not been decorated for anything.
When Barack Obama is decorated for heroism in combat, like Bush I was when he received the Distinguished Flying Cross, he can skip Arlington, which honors such heroes. Until then, an excuse that cites George H.W. Bush falls apart rather pathetically.
One of the occasions Regan missed as President occurred while he was recovering from wounds incurred after having nearly been assassinated. You might cut him some slack for that one. He also attended a summit meeting, and was out of the country dealing with the Soviet Union, during wreath-laying ceremonies. In 1987, Reagan was in Camp David – working on a nuclear arms treaty with the Soviets. Again, hopefully you’ll cut him some slack for working to end nuclear Armageddon.
As a further update, Obama did not actually participate in the Memorial Day event in Chicago. It was canceled due to rain. Which means that maybe God Himself doesn’t think Obama deserves to honor our warriors. End update.
What do Democrats say when one of the political strategists most responsible for getting Bill Clinton elected argues that Barack Obama has been a total disaster and failure over his non-role in the Gulf of Mexico disaster?
They don’t care. The Democrat mantra is, “If at first you don’t blame Bush successfully, blame, blame again.”
But let’s pretend the truth matters and blame Obama for HIS role in this mega-mess, as I pointed out earlier:
And let’s not forget that, only three weeks before this disaster exploded and spewed millions of gallons of oil all over us, that it was OBAMA saying “Drill, baby, drill.”
Carville is about as angry as I’ve ever seen him. And I spent eight years watching him get lathered up throughout the Bush years.
ABC political strategist, and prominent Democrat, James Carville appeared on Wednesday’s Good Morning America to condemn Barack Obama’s response to the oil spill.
A very emotional Carville surprised host George Stephanopoulos, a friend and former colleague in the Clinton White House, by shouting, “And it just looks like he’s not involved in this! Man, you have got to get down here and take control of this!” [Audio available here.]
Carville, a resident of Louisiana, attacked, “Put somebody in charge of this and get this thing moving! We’re about to die down here!”
Stephanopoulos seemed taken aback by the instensity of his fellow Democrat and tried to spin for Obama: “Well, the President is going down on Friday. He’s announcing these tighter new regulations on Thursday.” The host implored, “What more can the President do here?”
Stephanopoulos, who was also talking to former Bush pollster Matthew Dowd, attempted to direct the conversation away from the spill in the Gulf and towards immigration. He gently pivoted, “Okay. You’ve answered that question.”
But, Carville returned to the topic and, again, snapped, “The Attorney General needs to investigate criminal negligence on the part of BP and what went on at MMS. There are a thousand of things that [Obama] can do. He just needs to get down here and start doing something. People are dying!”
Stephanopoulos reiterated, “Okay. Well, the President is going to be there on Friday.”
With a strong Democrat like James Carville blasting the President’s handling of the oil spill, it may become difficult for journalists to continue covering for Obama on this subject.
A transcript of the May 26 segment, which aired at 7:06am EDT, follows:
STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, the White House denies any political motivation here. But, immigration and this oil spill have become two, big political headaches for the administration. So, let’s bring in our political strategist, James Carville, worked for Bill Clinton. Matthew Dowd, pollster for George W. Bush, also some Democrats, as well. And, James, let’s begin with the oil spill. Last week, even though you’re an ally of President Obama, you blasted the White House. Said it was a lackadaisical response, said they were naive for trusting BP. And you went on to say that this is a disaster of the first magnitude. They have got to go to Plan B. Are we seeing Plan B now?
JAMES CARVILLE: Man, I hope so, George. Because, the political stupidity is unbelievable. Here, you have a situation, where you have some working- 11 working- hard-working people, blown up as the result of corporate malfeasance and maybe criminal negligence, as a result of inept bureaucrats who were part of the- you can actually blame the previous administration for this. And the President doesn’t get down here in the middle of this. This thing should be- his approval should be up seven points right now if he had come down. I have no idea of why they didn’t seize this thing. I have no idea of why their attitude was so hands-off-y here. It’s just unbelievable. Now, I hope he sees it now, because very seldom do you get good politics and the really the right thing to do. And that is to get involved here.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, the President is going down on Friday. He’s announcing these tighter new regulations on Thursday. Matthew Dowd, you lived through Katrina with President Bush. What we are seeing now, for the first time on this issue, a majority disapprove of how he’s handling it. But, do you see this posing a Katrina-like threat, political threat to President Obama?
MATTHEW DOWD: Well, I think this incident that happened, the environmental disaster that happened, is another example for the American public that they can’t trust corporations and big government to protect them. And I think ultimately, it will be a real political problem. It hasn’t affected his numbers yet. But, James is right. In a disaster like this, his numbers should be going up. Not just staying stagnant. And, ultimately, I think the country right now is so frustrated on a lot of things. This is just another example where they say, “What is government doing? And what can they do well?” We have disasters. And we’re seeming to be on Plan G ”
STEPHANOPOULOS: But, let me ask both of you this: What more can the President do here? He didn’t-
CARVILLE: George! George! George! The President of the United States could have come down here. He could have been involved with the families of these 11 people. He could have commandeered the things. We could have sent the Woods Hole people. He could have sent the Scripps on research vessels in the Gulf of Mexico. He could have implemented a plan in anticipation of this. You know, right, he can’t exactly fill the hole up. Last night I was on Larry King, the CEO, the former CEO of the Shell. They said they got 85 percent of the stuff cleaned up in the Gulf of Saudi Arabia. He could be commandeering tankers and making BP bring tankers in and clean this up. They could the deploying people to the coast right now. He could be deploying people to the coast. He could be with the corps of engineers and the Coast Guard with these people in Plaquemines Parish, doing something about these regulations. These people are crying. They’re begging for something down here. And it just looks like he’s not involved in this! Man, you have got to get down here and take control of this! Put somebody in charge of this and get this thing moving! We’re about to die down here!
STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay. You’ve answered that question. Let me turn to Matthew Dowd on immigration. Another big political wave heading toward the President, announcing these new troops towards the border. Will this be enough to stem this political wave that’s coming right at him?
DOWD: No. Not at all. And, I mean, ultimately, this was a political move. He would not have done this but for what happened with Arizona and what’s going on in the rest of the country. It’s not just an Arizona problem. The rest of the country thinks the government is broken and can’t- doesn’t have an immigration policy. So, yeah. I think this is a symbolic act. It’s not going to- 1,200 troops on the border that stretches from California to Texas is not going to do anything to stop drugs from coming over or stop the gang killings and all the things going on. It is symbolic. Presidencies, as James just said- Symbolism is very important. If you show up at a disaster, it’s important. I think the symbolism here, it’s not going to have substantive effect. But it is a political problem when the majority of the country supports what Arizona did.
STEPHANOPOULOS, And clearly, James, the Arizona member of Congress, Gabrielle Gifford, who announces he’s happy with what the President is announcing. But, the President has also got to manage a lot of others in his Democratic base, who are concerned that the push for comprehensive immigration reform may stall.
CARVILLE: He does. It’s a heck of a problem. I’m not exactly sure if you hear conflicting things. Some think that the crime rate in Arizona is down, with the number of illegals into Arizona is down over a period of time. I have no idea what the facts are. But, obviously, they have some problem on their border. They really feel that way. This is an area of great frustration. And he’s doing something. Hopefully this works. But, man, he’s got to- the other thing he needs to do. They need to launch a criminal investigation. The Attorney General needs to investigate criminal negligence on the part of BP and what went on at MMS. There are a thousand of things that he can do. He just needs to get down here and start doing something. People are dying!
STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay. Well, the President is going to be there on Friday. Thank you both for your passion and insight this morning.
Here’s Carville making similar arguments on youtube:
Dowd says it hasn’t affected Obama’s numbers yet. Matthew, you dope, Obama is at 42%, with a whopping 56% disapproving of his performance!!! If the BP disaster and Obama’s complete failure to respond to it haven’t hurt his numbers yet, just how low do you think he’s going to go???
As article author Whitlock points out, George Stephanopoulos is caught doing his darndest to shill for Obama. Which is kind of a weird place for an ABC political journalist and host of ABC’s flagship political program to be, until you realize that just a few years ago he was a liberal Democrat Clinton hack until ABC decided that such demonstrated blatant bias didn’t matter.
But think about it: the overall mainstream media is now basically revealing that it is well to the political left of James Carville now. And that is very, VERY far to the left!!!
When even James Carville realizes that Obama has been an abject failure, he has been an abject failure indeed.
I mean, lest we forget, George Bush at least flew over the Hurricane Katrina devastation.
Now, maybe Obama has an excuse for not showing up in Nashville. Maybe he’s too occupied in doing absolutely nothing to deal with the massive disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
The gulf oil spill catastrophe has entered a new phase, as Washington looks increasingly weak and unable to control the disaster or the political narrative.
Congress will do what Congress does best: hold hearings, express outrage and threaten subpoenas. The White House will continue to do what it’s doing – send out long, detailed memos to the media outlining “the ongoing response” to the oil spill. But BP and the Obama administration are married on this disaster – Coast Guard chief Thad Allen admitted that the federal government can’t take over the cleanup because it doesn’t have the expertise to take over.
And let’s not forget that, only three weeks before this disaster exploded and spewed millions of gallons of oil all over us, that it was OBAMA saying “Drill, baby, drill.”
On Wednesday morning at Joint Base Andrews Naval Air Facility in Washington, DC, President Obama will announce that his administration will allow the lease sale to go forward for oil and gas exploration 50 miles off of the Virginia coast — the first new sales of offshore oil and gas in the Atlantic in more than two decades.
The Department of Interior will also allow seismic exploration for oil and gas in the Outer Continental Shelf from Delaware all the way South to the middle of Florida, to assess the quantity and location of potential oil and gas resources. A White House official says that the president will also approve a lease sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, while canceling another lease sale in Alaska’s Bristol Bay because of environmental concerns. (Lease sales in Alaska’s Chukchi and Beaufort Seas are essentially being suspended pending further scientific review.)
The official says that “To set America on a path to energy independence, the President believes we must leverage our diverse domestic resources by pursuing a comprehensive energy strategy.”
So much for “blame Bush.” Blame OBAMA. His paws are all over this baby.
CARVILLE: “The President of the United States could have come down here. He could have been involved with the families of these 11 people. He could have commandeered the things. We could have sent the Woods Hole people. He could have sent the Scripps on research vessels in the Gulf of Mexico. He could have implemented a plan in anticipation of this. You know, right, he can’t exactly fill the hole up. Last night I was on Larry King, the CEO, the former CEO of the Shell. They said they got 85 percent of the stuff cleaned up in the Gulf of Saudi Arabia. He could be commandeering tankers and making BP bring tankers in and clean this up. They could the deploying people to the coast right now. He could be deploying people to the coast. He could be with the corps of engineers and the Coast Guard with these people in Plaquemines Parish, doing something about these regulations. These people are crying. They’re begging for something down here. And it just looks like he’s not involved in this! Man, you have got to get down here and take control of this! Put somebody in charge of this and get this thing moving! We’re about to die down here!”
I guess you weren’t doing anything that would have kept you from going to Tennessee, after all.
Just imagine if Karl Rove had said that about George Bush’s failure in Katrina. Man, journalists would have been all over that the way Great White sharks get all over bloody meat.
According to the news, Obama has golfed every single weekend since the BP-Gulf disaster hit some 36 days ago. At least he’s doing something, I suppose.
Meanwhile, North Korea is going rabid and escalating saber-rattling war tensions to a level that we haven’t seen in fifty years. And, oh, yeah, Iran is on the verge of having nuclear weapons to go along with their being a terrorist state bent on international jihad.
And Obama’s policies in Afghanistan are bogging down, and only cut-and-run is looming ahead. General Stanley McChrystal says Marjah “is a bleeding ulcer right now.” And the access McChrystal granted to reporters “drove home the fact that President Barack Obama’s plan to begin pulling American troops out of Afghanistan in July 2011 is colliding with the realities of the war.”
Like virtually every conservative and every human being with a functioning brain cell was saying would happen six months ago. Liberals have been arguing for years that we needed to have a withdrawal date so our enemies could know we were going to cut and run, and our friends would be made aware that we weren’t a reliable ally. And whowouldathunk such a brain-dead strategy wouldn’t work???
The McClatchy article which has the above quotes goes on to say:
There aren’t enough U.S. and Afghan forces to provide the security that’s needed to win the loyalty of wary locals. The Taliban have beheaded Afghans who cooperate with foreigners in a creeping intimidation campaign. The Afghan government hasn’t dispatched enough local administrators or trained police to establish credible governance, and now the Taliban have begun their anticipated spring offensive.
“This is a bleeding ulcer right now,” McChrystal told a group of Afghan officials, international commanders in southern Afghanistan and civilian strategists who are leading the effort to oust the Taliban fighters from Helmand.
In other words, Obama, who demonized Bush up one side and down the other, and demonized Bush’s successful strategy that ultimately won the war in Iraq, is failing. And hanging on his own petard.
What’s it like to be such a terrible president that you make George Bush look magnificent in comparison, Barry Hussein???
The disaster isn’t the troops’ fault; it’s the Commander-in-Chief’s. Abraham Lincoln fired general after general until he found Ulysses S. Grant; the problem here is that Obama needs to shitcan Obama, only we all know he won’t.
Weakness is as weakness does. Or, to put it another way, Obama’s foreign policy is “weakness through weakness.”
That didn’t stop Obama from appearing with the President of Mexico – in spite of that countries’ incredibly harsh immigration policies – and join him in demonizing Arizona:
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 24% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -20 (see trends).
The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates are also available on Twitter and Facebook.
Overall, 42% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president’s performance. That is the lowest level of approval yet measured for this president. Fifty-six percent (56%) now disapprove of his performance.
Have you ever noticed how turds tend to sink to the bottom of the toilet bowl before you flush them?
There’s your metaphor for Obama: a turd sinking to the bottom of the bowl.
I’m serious. Are you OK with the tactics the SEIU leadership – and 500 members – took when they headed into a residential area to “protest” at the home of Greg Baer, deputy general council for corporate law at Bank of America? They did not just protest. They surrounded the house, got on the porch, used bullhorns and started screaming. Pure intimidation.
Unfortunately, the teen son of Baer was home alone at the time. He had to lock himself inside the bathroom and wait for help that would not be provided by the police.
The media and talking head liberals have remained quiet about this mob surrounding the home of a bank executive and terrorizing a teenager eight days ago, but they continue to express concern about TEA Party protests around the country and suggest they set a bad tone.
Are they friggin’ kidding me?
These SEUI members are the mob of our time. That’s right, I said members. Sure, leadership gurus like former SEUI president Andy Stern – who by the way now sits on the president’s Fiscal Responsibility Commission – may be egging the members on, but this intimidation purely falls on the membership who did this.
You terrorized a teenage kid in his home. Feel big and powerful? Proud of yourselves? Thugs … all of you.
Nina Easton, Washington bureau chief for Fortune, Fox Contributor and neighbor of Baer, recalls the mob scene and provides us with the image. Click to enlarge.
Waving signs denouncing bank “greed,” hordes of invaders poured out of 14 school buses, up Baer’s steps, and onto his front porch. As bullhorns rattled with stories of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer’s teenage son Jack — alone in the house — locked himself in the bathroom. “When are they going to leave?” Jack pleaded when I called to check on him.
Baer, on his way home from a Little League game, parked his car around the corner, called the police, and made a quick calculation to leave his younger son behind while he tried to rescue his increasingly distressed teen. He made his way through a din of barked demands and insults from the activists who proudly “outed” him, and slipped through his front door.
“Excuse me,” Baer told his accusers, “I need to get into the house. I have a child who is alone in there and frightened.”
Easton sums up…
In the 1990s, the Baers’ former bosses, Bill and Hillary Clinton, denounced the “politics of personal destruction.” Today politicians and their voters of all stripes grieve the ugly bitterness that permeates our policy debates. Now, with populist rage providing a useful cover, it appears we’ve crossed into a new era: The politics of personal intimidation.
Big Government writes about this story here, here, here and here. Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog also writes. Main stream media outlets? President Obama? Democrat leadership? Crickets.
Easton – because she simply took a picture and wrote about what happened – has become a secondary target for the SEIU. Disgusting intimidation.
“The politics of personal intimidation.” When have the tea party protesters done anything like this? How does “never” sound to you liberals? They never done anything like this. They’ve NEVER terrorized a man’s children. That’s something that only Democrats are loathsome enough to do.
When Greg Baer’s terrified 14-year old son called him, Greg called the police. Do you know what they told him? They said that they feared the protest would turn into a violent riot if they showed up, so they wouldn’t show up. And Greg Baer was left with the difficult decision of whether to leave his younger son alone in his car so he could go through the screaming mob gantlet to go into his home to save his older son.
Our society is breaking down into a fuzzy mess of political correctness. We are making ourselves more and more stupid. We seem to dare not deal with dangerous people – such as terrorists, illegal immigrants, and SEIU thugs terrorizing children – while increasing attention is paid to little old ladies who might get so angry they’ll go to the extremes of calling their congressman.
And when the political left and their media representatives demonize the tea parties for their peaceful demonstrations and falsely depict them as “hateful,” we should give them ANY respect whatsoever WHY, exactly?
But they haven’t mentioned the numerous documented recent instances of unhinged leftwing protests. The same media that publishes fictitious demagogic innuendo never seems to care when the left commits actual violence and “hate.”
When pro-illegal immigration Latinos used refried beans to paint swastikas on the Arizona capital, the mainstream media largely ignored it. When hundreds of violent pro-illegal immigration protesters attacked a man and then threw rocks and water bottles at retreating police, the mainstream media largely ignored it. When the American political left demonstrated that it was even less tolerant and more violent than Nazis, the mainstream media largely ignored it. When a liberal mob chased down and physically attacked a pair of Republicans, the mainstream media largely ignored it. And when instance after instance of actual violence has occurred perpetrated by the left, the mainstream media has basically ignored it.
The next time the left and the leftist media criticize conservatives for their protest style, just realize that they are very full of something that is very brown and very stinky.
When President George W. Bush called for a kind of line-item veto four years ago, the top Senate Democrat said it was like getting a “bad sore throat,” and the No. 2 House Democrat called it “a sham.” On Monday, President Obama asked them to reconsider and pass something very similar, for his sake.
With fears of a Greek-style debt collapse roiling a Congress already balking at new spending, the White House on Monday proposed a modified line-item veto that would give the administration another crack at forcing Congress to vote on spending cuts.
But the proposal will have to pass a Congress wary of giving up power over the purse, and would require a reversal by many Democrats who voted against a similar proposal from Mr. Bush.
One who’s already reversed himself is Mr. Obama, who as a senator in 2007 voted along with Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., now the vice president, and almost all of the rest of Senate Democrats to filibuster Mr. Bush’s proposal.
The White House said Mr. Obama embraced line-item powers by the time he won the White House, and that times are bad enough that Congress may now be ready to follow his lead.
“The fiscal context has changed as it became necessary to combat a severe economic downturn and as ongoing deficits have become a growing concern,” Peter R. Orszag, Mr. Obama’s budget director, told reporters. “We are hopeful the Congress will enact this legislation because it will help everyone to reduce unnecessary spending.”
He said the new presidential powers could encourage Congress to scrutinize spending bills more carefully, because lawmakers wouldn’t want to be shamed by having their projects singled out.
What is really amazing is the argument that Obama is giving to justify giving him a line-item veto: we’ve got a growing crisis, and the president needs this tool to avert it.
By Obama’s very own reasoning, he and the Democrat Party are fundamentally responsible for the 2008 economic collapse. Because had they given Bush this power, he could have averted the disaster – but they refused to give him the necessary power he needed.
Seventeen. That’s how many times, according to this White House statement (hat tip Gateway Pundit), that the Bush administration has called for tighter regulation of the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. […]
… But it didn’t prevent them from spewing a huge amount of toxic waste, in the form of subprime and Alt-A mortgages, into our financial institutions from 2004 to 2007. As Stephen Spruiell points out in The Corner on National Review Online, Fannie and Freddie spewed out $1 trillion worth (face value) of subprime mortgages between 2005 and 2007. That’s a whole lot of toxic waste. For more detail, consult the items referred to in my previous blogpost on this subject (most of the comments seem to have been disputes about the plot line of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, which I should think could be settled by consulting a reference work).
Much if not all of that could have been prevented by a bill cosponsored by John McCain and supported by all the Republicans and opposed by all the Democrats in the Senate Banking Committee in 2005. That bill, which the Democrats stopped from passing, would have prohibited the GSEs from speculating on the mortgage-based securities they packaged. The GSEs’ mission allegedly justifying their quasi-governmental status was to package or securitize such mortgages, but the lion’s share of their profits—which determined top executives’ bonuses—came from speculation.
And there’s your 2008 mortgage meltdown, in a nutshell. Bush warned and warned and warned about the impending crisis, to no avail. Because the same Democrats who refused to give Bush the power Obama now says he needs to avert disaster refused to heed Bush’s warnings, and kept pushing us closer and closer and closer to the implosion point. And then we imploded just as Bush had said we would.
I have always believed that the president should have a line-item veto – with the proviso that every line item veto be made a matter of public record so the American people could know what items the president was removing and who had installed those items in the first place.
This is just another of many, many proofs regarding what a gargantuan hypocrite slimeball the current occupant of the White House truly is.
But, for what it’s worth, it is probably unfair to single out Barack Obama as a slimeball, when so many of his fellow Democrats are also slimeballs. Near the conclusion of the Washington Times article, we have this:
House Budget Committee Chairman John M. Spratt Jr., South Carolina Democrat, said he will take the lead in introducing Mr. Obama’s proposal in Congress, calling it “a step forward on the path to fiscal responsibility.”
Mr. Spratt led opposition to the 2006 Bush proposal.
At some point they should just call themselves the Demagogue Party and dispense with the pretenses as to what they truly are.
California’s Democrats have forced the upcoming Captain America movie to be filmed in England. Why would that be, Buckey? Because it’s just too expensive to film the movie in California because of the Democrat’s punitive taxes.
Start Thinking Right 