Does the Democrat party buy Vogue covers?

  I wouldn't ask because I really didn't give a rat's ass what or who is on the cover of Vogue until I read this interesting little nugget over at the British Daily Mail, describing how Syrian President Assad's wife Asma is completely detached from reality by spending wads of cash while the country burns (sound familiar?). A glowing article about Assad and their "wildly democratic" views of their leadership in Syria in the March 2011 issue.
  What's most revealing is that the (British?) Vogue caught flak for an obsequious attitude toward Mrs. Assad but later removed the article because it was such a lie.

It is a far cry from March, 2011, when Vogue magazine published a fawning piece in which the Assads were portrayed as a ‘wildly democratic’ couple who had made Syria ‘the safest country in the Middle East’.

The article, arranged and managed by an American PR company, paid for by the Syrian government, revealed Asma’s love of crystal-encrusted Christian Louboutin shoes and Chanel dresses and painted her as a fragrant, caring first lady, in the style of the late Diana, Princess of Wales.

It claimed she cared about art, children, and ‘women’s issues’, and implied she was breathing new life into the region. 

Yet at the time of the interview, Syrian police had just fired live rounds and tear gas at up to 4,000 demonstrators in the southern city of Deraa.

Local reports claimed hundreds of protesters were killed. The piece was pilloried and withdrawn from Vogue’s website.

  Now what's most interesting about this is the people who've been on the cover of Vogue recently. Let's consider.
  Beyonce. Uh huh. Her issue outsold Michelle Obama's. And before that? All Leftists. 
  Then there's the lovingly air brushed Vogue September cover featuring Democrat Senator Wendy Davis, the pro abortion at all ages crusader.
  So I wonder, given the above information.
  How much does the Democrat Party pay magazines and maybe even newspapers for positive coverage?
  Just wondering. 
  UPDATE: Powerline wonders about that "stunningly stupid" Assad Vogue cover and why so many Democrats were over cozying up to the Assads.

What CAN Obama do?

  Well, he's no good at the economy.
  He's no good at understanding the Constitution.
  He's no good at winning over the opposition.
  He's no good at recreating health care.
  He's no good at foreign policy.
  What IS he good at?
  Speeches?

Obama announces bombs for Syria, goes golfing

  I've started a post several times in the last two days, only to halt myself in disgust. This is not because I have nothing to say about the MLK50 event or the prospect of entering another war front in Syria.
  It's because I've reached a point where I'm so saturated with bad news, whining Leftists and Nannies who are trying to run my life that I just need to step back, hands up, and declare, "You all suck. I want nothing to do with you."
  Around here, to be honest, all anyone cares about is the kickoff of The Ohio State football season so to get myself all worked up about, I dunno, getting involved in war in the Middle East seems like Tyrannosaurus Rex's squiggly little arms trying to box with the many armed Indian goddess Kali.
  So today we watched the COCKiest POTUS in the history of the United States swagger--cowboy like-- toward a podium and announce that, when he feels like it and after he travels Sweden and the world on AF1 at $180,000 per hour--and when Congress decides it's time to end their vacation on foreign beaches, he's going to drop a few bombs on Syria because--though he doesn't NEED to ask anyone about dropping those bombs-- he feels it is inkeeping with who we are as Americans. 
  The protesters in the background might disagree.
  But why would Obama do this, particularly after sending Kerry out to solemnly proclaim a strike is imminent? Is it because this way he can shift blame and scold the Congress, which requires 60 votes, when they turn him down?
  Or is it because he is in thrall to his buddies the Muslim Brotherhood, who have put him in a difficult situation by demanding assistance? It appears that Obama has direct ties to the Muslim Brotherhood which some have called conspiracy theory.
  Human Events describes earlier connections to the Brotherhood, a known terrorist group which Obama has supported in Egypt:

So why isn’t Obama working to limit the Brotherhood’s scope and influence?  Maybe because he doesn’t really have a problem with the Brotherhood, despite its hostility to America.  He made sure to invite Brotherhood leaders to attend his notorious speech to the Islamic world in Cairo, Egypt, in June 4, 2009.  Starting in the earliest days of his administration, he showed an intense desire to establish friendly ties with Brotherhood-linked organizations—despite the Brotherhood’s stated goal of “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.”

Obama first reached out to the Brotherhood when he chose the leader of a Muslim Brotherhood-linked group that had been named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case to give a prayer during his inauguration ceremonies.  Ingrid Mattson, then-president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), offered this prayer at the National Cathedral on Obama’s Inauguration Day—despite the fact that the ISNA has admitted its ties to the Brotherhood.  The previous summer, federal prosecutors rejected a request from the ISNA to remove its unindicted co-conspirator status.

  This situation of using WMD on Syrian citizens is now so urgent that WE are going to give the Syrians plenty of time to hide their weapons and further abuse their own people before we take action to stop the terrible abuse.
  And it's so nice to know that 5 of our ships are sitting offshore, waiting for the Commander in Chief to get back from his Sweden trip, and that Marines are on those ships in spite of the "no ground forces" guarantee.
  We're broke? So what. It's a half a billion dollars to launch this strike; every day we wait costs more money. One and a half million dollars per bomb. 
  It appears at this time that we are not certain that the Syrian government even launched the WMD; indeed it may have been the Muslim Brotherhood.  
  Even al Jazeera has been caught faking "strikes" by Israel or others on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Syria or wherever it was politically expedient. To assume that the terrorist branches of the Islamic "faith" are naive about Western sympathies and emotions is to be naive yourself. Islamists are experts at twisting political correctness to their advantage and utilizing cyber warfare to bring down the economy or acquire intel. (This is not to say the attacks were faked-simply that extreme dishonesty and a casual treatment of life are characteristic of the Muslim Brotherhood who are, well, terrorists.)
  Considering that Assad was winning, what would be the motivation of the Syrian government to use WMD? 
  Isn't it more likely that, as Walid Shoebat says, the Muslim Brotherhood are responsible for having committed this execrable act on the Syrian people?
  And what the heck's the point of "firing a shot across the bow" when the world knows Obama will never do more?
   The American people should be leery of any government entity pushing to take dramatic and drastic action immediately...before the truth and consequences are completely known. Witness the Oct 2008 bailouts, which have only served to lengthen our current recession and decay the structure upon which this capitalistic economy is based.
  The truth is that once again this president is assuaging the desires of an important constituency, in this case the Muslim Brotherhood, who have spent considerable time courting this president in addition to his natural proclivities.
  Heck, when even Liberal Marxists decry the influence of Muslim Brotherhood terrorists on this White House and Obama, we know we're in trouble.
  So in keeping with his philosophy that he is presiding over a diminished United States, Obama has not only painted himself into a corner with his "red line" comments, but has decided that the way to really drive home his point that the Syrians better be scared--really scared--is to go golfing with Biden.
  No, really.

  We mean what we say, intones John Kerry.
  It's just that we keep saying different things.
  It's heartwarming that the Nobel Peace Prize winner was greeted with protesters, clearly screaming in the background of Obama's announcement.
  He's going over the deep end. We just don't want to go with him.
  What a mess.
  He needs his diaper changed. 
Update: 
  And BOOM:
  What did I say?
  This is why he changed course after a long walk, from CBS:

His reasoning, according to officials who were in the room? He wants members on the record, rather than simply criticizing from outside whatever action he takes.  

See, he didn't want the justifiable grief from Congress. He wants to whine and blame them for anything that goes wrong. It's blame (fill in the blank) all over again.

Turkey Seized Sarin from Syrian Rebels

Why do we have to go abroad to find out the truth? Why has not one US news agency reported that the Syrian rebels are suspected by the UN of having used Sarin. In a BBC post dated May 6 Carla Del Ponte of the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria told Swiss television;
"According to their report of last week, which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated." and "I was a little bit stupefied by the first indications we got... they were about the use of nerve gas by the opposition."
From the same post;
On Monday, Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said it was deeply concerned by "signs that world public opinion is being prepared for possible military intervention" in Syria.
On the question of whether chemical weapons had been used, he called for an "end to the politicisation of this issue" and to the "whipping up of an anti-Syrian atmosphere".
Evidently the Russian spokesman's fear was well founded.
From the Russian news agency RT.com dated May 30.
Turkish security forces found a 2kg cylinder with sarin gas after searching the homes of Syrian militants from the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Nusra Front who were previously detained, Turkish media reports. The gas was reportedly going to be used in a bomb.
The sarin gas was found in the homes of suspected Syrian Islamists detained in the southern provinces of Adana and Mersia following a search by Turkish police on Wednesday, reports say. The gas was allegedly going to be used to carry out an attack in the southern Turkish city of Adana.
On Monday, Turkish special anti-terror forces arrested 12 suspected members of the Al-Nusra Front, the Al-Qaeda affiliated group which has been dubbed "the most aggressive and successful arm” of the Syrian rebels. The group was designated a terrorist organization by the United States in December.
None of this proves Assad's innocence but accusations from some members of Congress that the Obama administration is only telling one side of the story are certainly true.

San Bernardino is Bankrupt

A federal bankruptcy judge has ruled that the city of San Bernardino is insolvent and that the procedure will continue. CALPERS, the California state pension fund had argued that the city should be forced to meet its obligations to the employee pension fund insolvency notwithstanding. The message to take away from this case is that there is no Santa Clause and that the courts will not abet municipal unions in their attempts to wring the last dollar out of over burdened taxpayers. CALPERS has promised to appeal the case.
Here is where liberal political rhetoric meets not only federal law but the iron law of economics as dictated by the late Milton Friedman. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Eventually the bill comes due and as the court in this case is saying the holders of secured debt are first in line. The courts can hardly rule otherwise unless they intend to put an end to municipal borrowing altogether. Without the rule of law to enforce agreements commerce cannot exist beyond the bartering stage. When a political entity such as the city San Bernardino pledges the full faith and credit of its government and its taxpayers it is bound by that promise and cannot choose to put unsecured creditors ahead of unsecured creditors.
In this instance California has taken, for once, a states' right stance. It argues that state law should prevail over federal bankruptcy law and the law enacted by the hooligans in Sacramento would favor CALPERS. Not quite. The state of California and its municipalities are free to issue subordinated debt but it is not their right to misrepresent it as secured debt. Ad populum arguments don't pay the rent. As the bankruptcy proceeds and bond holders are paid CALPERS will be reduced to scrambling with the other unsecured creditors such as the vendors that the city has stiffed with empty promises and bad debt. Prosperity cannot be legislated. Future labor contracts must include one hundred percent funding of less generous pension plans rather than pie in the sky plans of dubious soundness.

Sen Pryor skips appearance with Clinton, trails Cotton in recent poll

"Sen. Pryor has a previously scheduled engagement out of town that day, so he won't be able to attend the event at the Clinton Presidential Library," said the Senators spokesperson. The event the Senator would be missing is that of Bill Clinton extolling the benefits of Obamacare. An internal poll conducted in Arkansas for the National Republican Senatorial Committee puts Congressman Tom Cotton ahead of incumbent Senator Pryor by 2 percentage points and the Senator would just as soon not remind the voters that he voted for Obamacare.
Tom Cotton could be an incredible candidate and a senate standout. He was endorsed early by the Tea Party express in his bid for congress. The freshman congressman can boast of degrees from Harvard and Harvard Law School and well as a combat military career. He was an infantry officer and platoon leader with the 101st Airborne in Iraq. He also served in Afghanistan and was awarded the bronze star.

Speaker Boehner could learn from Dennis Kucinich

Yes, I do miss Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Whether I agreed with him or not at least I knew beforehand what his position would be on a controversial issue. Consistency of opinion indicates a reliance on principles to guide one's decision making process.The former congressman is one of the few principled actors in the Syrian crisis.
“So what, we're about to become Al Qaeda's air force now?” Kucinich said in a Hill post. He went on to question the whether the chemical attacks had actually occurred.
Kucinich raised doubts about rebel forces' allegations that Assad's forces used poison gas to kill more than 1,300 people last week. He said the administration is “rushing” to what could becoming “World War Three” based on questionable evidence.
“This is being used as a pretext,” he said. “The verdict is in before the facts have been gathered. What does that tell you?”

Larry Johnson, at No Quarter who has a CIA background has articulated similar misgivings.

I wonder if the Nobel Committee now realizes how badly Barack Obama duped them. Did not do a goddamn thing and yet got the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, eight years later, Obama is going to try to start a war in Syria, using the pre-text of a highly questionable chemical weapon threat. But Obama’s impending use of military force is far more cynical and far more dangerous than anything George W. Bush did. A man of peace? I think not.

In another post Johnson comments on a video purporting to show the victims of a nerve gas attack.

Note–NOT A SINGLE PERSON INSPECTING THE SCENE IS WEARING PROTECTIVE SUITS OR MASKS. YET, THEY ARE HANDLING ITEMS AND BODIES AND SHOWING NO ILL EFFECTS. If there had been Sarin or Mustard Gas, the folks inspecting the site would need to wear protective clothing and be able to disinfect themselves. Zero evidence of that.

The same administration that fooled the nation into believing that a YouTube video was the root cause for the attack on the Benghazi consulate now will act unilaterally with little independent evidence- so far neither the CIA nor the United Nations have confirmed the use of chemical weapons. If Congress were given a vote on intervention in Syria it is doubtful that even with a preponderance of evidence showing the use of WMD's it would approve a use of force. Reuters confirms there is very little public support for intervention notwithstanding the use of chemical weapons.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll, taken August 19-23, found that 25 percent of Americans would support U.S. intervention if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces used chemicals to attack civilians, while 46 percent would oppose it. That represented a decline in backing for U.S. action since August 13, when Reuters/Ipsos tracking polls found that 30.2 percent of Americans supported intervention in Syria if chemicals had been used, while 41.6 percent did not.

The post goes on to say that a mere 9% would back unilateral intervention by Obama.
This brings me to my other concern, namely the lack of congressional leadership. The silence from Speaker Boehner has been deafening. The Speaker has the power to reconvene Congress to debate the issue. My sense is even with support from the Speaker and minority leader Pelosi a resolution permitting the impending attack on Syria would not carry. Congress and the Speaker are missing in action.

DOS attacks continue on websites

  I've been hearing about this issue the last few weeks and wondering what's up.
  Did you hear that NASDAQ was down last week for 3 hours? Shut down because of a "glitch"?
  And Google?
  And Amazon?
  Ebay?
  And the New York Times?
  Concern is mounting over the frequency of attacks on websites in recent days.
  Today alone the following major websites have been down:

• Capitol One
• Netflix
• Bank of America
• Home Depot
• ESPN
• Pinterest
• Comcast
• Pandora
• Walmart
• Go Daddy
• AT & T

  You can find a complete list of reports of websites that are down each day here, not to mention the Chinese internet.
  From USA Today:

But the incident had all the earmarks of the three waves of denial-of-service attacks that have bedeviled U.S. financial institutions, including stock brokerages, since last September.

An Iranian hacking collective — Cyber Fighters of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam — has claimed credit for orchestrating sophisticated attacks that have overwhelmed the expensive security systems U.S. banks have put into place to keep their online banking services up and secure.

  There's a lot of crazy stuff going on in the USA Today article above.
  Forbes has concerns:

By some estimates, network-based attacks, such as DDOS (short for Distributed Denial of Services), which have the ability to take down large computing networks, have increased by 700 percent this year.
Targeted DDOS attacks against internet service providers, domain registrars, web hosting providers, and individual businesses have been known to cripple thousands of websites simultaneously for extended periods of time.

  You can see Akamai's real time web monitor of hacker attacks here.
  Also JohnGaltFla.com wonders why web traffic was down 40% on August 22.
  Daily Mail UK:

A wave of denial-of-service attacks started last September, knocking several banks offline including Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and PNC Bank. 

The attacks were attributed to Cyber Fighters of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, an Iranian hacking collective.

LOL Ambassador Rice confirms chemical weapons used in Syria

No dispute in intl community that CW used in August 21 attack. Not even Iran and Russia deny this fact.
— Susan Rice (@AmbassadorRice) August 27, 2013

Gee, we all thought it was the YouTube video that killed them. But whatever Ambassador Rice says you can take to the bank.

The Onion warned Miley Cyrus would "drained of entertainment value" by 2013

We should have seen the Miley Cyrus catastrophe coming but her father has gone further on even less talent. Little did I know this was all predicted by The Onion in 2008. Onion warned by 2013 Cyrus would be "drained of entertainment value". Spot on! Right through the heart!

Crossroads GPS enters Obamacare video contest

As everyone surely knows by now the Department of Health and Human Services has funded an exciting video contest to promote Obamacare.

"The administration will partner with Young Invincibles, a non-profit youth issues organization, to run the contest, with the goal of reaching those younger Americans who are skeptical of the need for health coverage. Participants will be encouraged to submit three different types of videos advertising the benefits of the exchanges: a song, an animated short, or a video designed to convince viewers that they aren't invincible. Using funds from the Affordable Care Act's education and outreach budget, HHS will award $3,000 each to the creators of the three most popular and persuasive videos, while second and third place winners will get $2,500 each...The contest is designed to dispel the notion that even young and healthy individuals would be better off simply not purchasing health insurance. It may seem like an odd choice of battlegrounds. But attracting the young demographic is key to the effectiveness of the exchanges, providing insurers with the type of low-risk customers that will help lower premiums across the board. It's no coincidence that many conservative opponents of the Affordable Care Act are actively urging young people to skip the exchanges altogether, even though doing so would mean incurring the tax penalty for not having insurance coverage."

I'll wager that the Young Invincibles did not have much trouble getting past Lois Lerner. According to their website there a prize pool worth up to $30,000 with over 100 prizes to be won. Below is an entry from Crossroads GPS which I would rate as an extreme long shot.

Miley Cyrus loses even the 20 something crowd

  An advantage of being an old geezer is that you miss all the hot stuff on tv; by the time it's on, you're passed out sound asleep in your easy chair, mouth open, smacking your lips over that giant plate of ribs you had earlier.
  So what to my surprise when I look at Facebook this morning and see--plastered all over FB--disparaging remarks of revulsion for the VMA awards (which is not about sexual diseases but the acronym MTV's Video Music Awards).
  Disparaging remarks from young people in their 20s.
  Now you KNOW something's wrong when people in their early to mid 20s are grossed out.
  Watch Miley Cyrus's performance (if you can) and make up your own mind why this particular sexcapade of a show is so utterly disgusting.
  Plus, hey, that's some off key singin' and bad dancin,' not to mention scrawny, um, limbs.
  All involving a 10 feet teddy bear, a onesie, a foam finger and humping an old guy wearing prison stripes.
  Not to mention keeping your stupid tongue in your stupid mouth.
  I suppose it's just a matter of time before we see the bleary eyed mug shot, the hidden face frog march and the sad story about how it all went wrong.

Get More: 2013 VMA, Artists.MTV, Music, Miley Cyrus

  For the geezers, I should have added the definition of "twerking," which is the slang term for what Cyrus is doing here. From Wikipedia: 

Twerking is a dance move that involves a person shaking the hips in an up-and-down bouncing motion, causing the dancer to shake, "wobble" and "jiggle." To "twerk" means to "dance in a sexually suggestive fashion by twisting the hips

  And I should have added the picture of the Will Smith family (no strangers to sexually suggestive children's behavior) as they watched Cyrus's "performance." Photo from Philly

original photo from VMAs Twitter feed

   Given Hoosierman's recent excellent posts on the success of the Utica Shale in Ohio and the NSA, I felt compelled to make sure that this blog appeals also to the low information voter.
  I'm also guessing any blog post with the name Miley Cyrus in it will get more hits than Syria or Yosemite today.

More good news from the Utica.

 A Cleveland State University study finds sales receipts in key Utica counties in Ohio, mostly to the northeast of the state, rose 20% in 2012 which far out paces the rest of the state. Drilling permits in the second quarter of 2013 rose to 164 which is a 321% increase from the second quarter a year ago.
The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services reports that about 1,300 workers last year found employment in Ohio's Utica and Marcellus Shale. That is good but  natural impediments such as bottle necks due to the lack of an energy infrastructure and trouble hiring specialized help have retarded job growth.
The 20% rise in sales tax revenues logically comes from a similar rise in consumer disposable income. Royalty checks to land owners don't create direct employment but prosperity is contagious. Retailers in those lucky counties saw a 20% rise in sales and one can imagine the exuberance a retailer feels when his top line grows by one fifth in a single year.

NSA Spooks Spy on Loved Ones

So now what? General Alexander is going to compete with the National Inquirer. The latest revelation in the long, and getting longer by day, list of abuses coming from the NSA is that the reason most employees violate the rules is love. Low lifes at the spy agency use the resources of the taxpayers to spy on their love mates. There is even a code for such misbehavior, LOVEINT. The good news from NSA is they only do it when the loved one is abroad.

The LOVEINT violations involved overseas communications, officials said, such as spying on a partner or spouse. In each instance, the employee was punished either with an administrative action or termination.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein said NSA told her committee about a set of “isolated cases” that have occurred about once a year for the last 10 years. She also said in the beginning of the scandal that no abuses have occurred but now we are expected to be happy that the abuses are "very rare". She said “in most instances” the violations didn't’t involve an American’s personal information which means, I guess, ones love life is not personal or that only employees involved in international relationships are prone to abuse the system.
Not to worry. The NSA has a "zero tolerance" policy for such malfeasance, the same policy that has worked so well in the nation's public schools. More.

Aubrey McClendon comes home to the Utica and Magnum Hunter Resources cashes out of the Eagle Ford to drill in the Utica

Sid Richardson was a legendary Texas wildcatter with an insatiable appetite for risk. Leveraged right up to the cup of coffee in front of him, Richardson made and lost three fortunes. Stories abound of him with egg stains on his shirts living in a boarding house not only when he was down on his luck but also when he was in the chips. He died before he could lose his fourth fortune. A bachelor, with no time for anything but drilling wells in his younger life, he devoted time to philanthropy and bank rolling Texas politicians especially Lyndon Johnson in his later years. He bequeathed his estate to his nephew Perry Bass and that is how the famous Bass family of Fort Worth made its fortune. The oil industry has produced more unforgettable characters than Readers Digest. Names such as Armand Hammer, who took tiny Occidental Petroleum from a tiny over-the-counter stock to the twelfth largest company in the country after he had retired from his previous career. T. Boone Pickens, who for a long time ran an independent drilling company, Mesa Petroleum and H.L. Hunt the bigamist who inflicted his own brand of anti-communism on the country through his Life Line radio broadcasts are recognized by average Americans not so much for their wealth but rather their achievements and eccentricities but what all of them have in common is the ability to take incredible risks and  being clever enough to prevail. There are legions of unknown and drillers who, like Pickens, Hammer, and Hunt took grave risks and died broke. This brings us to Aubrey Kerr McClendon, the founder and former CEO of Chesapeake Energy who shares the dubious honor with Steve Jobs of being fired out of the company he created. He agreed to retire from Chesapeake in April of this year.

McClendon is anything but risk adverse. Forbes Magazine describes him as "America's most reckless billionaire". His tolerance for risk exceeded that of both the shareholder and the board of directors at Chesapeake but he believes in the Utica Shale. He said that Ohio's Utica Shale could be the "biggest thing economically to hit Ohio, since maybe the plow" and that it could be worth "half a trillion" dollars. He also went on to say that the play "is likely most analogous, but economically superior to the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas." That is a mouthful! Being of the "go big or go home" school of thought he insisted that Chesapeake go big on the Utica to the tune of $20 billion. Chesapeake is now unwinding some of it Utica exposure but not McClendon. He is back with a vengeance with money raised from fellow oil men. He has already acquired through his new company, American Energy Partners 50,000 acres from Shell in the Ohio portion of the Utica and maybe about to acquire another 22,000. American Energy Partners is about the ruthless business of stealing McClendon's brain trust from Chesapeake. This week Chesapeake’s new CEO Doug Lawler announced the immediate departures of operating chief Steve Dixon, production chief Jeff Fisher, drilling head Steve Miller and HR boss Martha Burger. Chesapeake’s  general counsel Henry Hood left in May, along with public affairs chief Tom Price. Price reportedly said he intended to go to work with McClendon. T. Boone Pickens once quipped in a television interview I happened to see that you could go broke betting against Aubrey McClendon.
Magnum Hunter Resources of Houston, Texas seems to be betting with McClendon. It cashed in its chips in the Eagle Ford and is shifting its money to the Utica. Its CEO Gary Evans stated;

We've taken that money, and we've paid down our debt. But we've also made a strategic decision to significantly enhance our existing position in the Utica ... And we've strategically been accumulating acreage in these plays for the past 3 years ... And we have derived a comfort level of the acreage that we already owned, and we have felt and our board has felt that we needed to increase that position ... So what we see with respect to this region of the Utica is extremely exciting to us.

After about three years of exploration, the Utica is showing that it will not be another Eagle Ford in oil production but the mixture of oil, gas, and those very valuable natural gas liquids, propane, butane and ethane that it has a lot to offer drillers who aren't looking for big oil production. The Marcellus Shale located under Pennsylvania is a straight natural gas play and lower gas prices have hurt drilling in the Keystone state. Last week there were 52 rigs working in Pennsylvania; a year ago there were 66. In Ohio it's 34 working last week as opposed to 17 a year ago.
To me, Aubrey McClendon is cast in the same mold as Pickens, Hammer, Hunt, and Richardson. He's not afraid of winning and losing is not an option. It's good to see him back.

Obama admin plays while world burns

   So, hey, wow.
  We've been wondering where Samantha Power's been, having been recently appointed as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, which only seem to be united against the United States.
  Appointed 19 days ago with great flourish and during several great crises, snarky State Department spokesman Jen Psaki got ugly when FNC inquired as to the UN ambassador's whereabouts. 
  In keeping with the Obama administration's effort to be as darkly opaque as possible, she snipped that (as a government official in the smartest administration evah) she didn't need to give out any more information than what she'd already given.
  So the UN security council met in a rare emergency meeting without her, pondering what to do about the hundreds (thousands?) of suspected victims of nerve gas of the Assad regime in Syria.
  Where was she?
  Now we learn she had a prearranged personal trip which superseded any government business such as misery in the Sudan or chemical warfare in Syria. 
  Ohhhhhh! Okay. 
  She was vacationing in Ireland.
  Which, to be honest, seems to be a pattern for her considering she's been avoiding actually working at the UN in preference to giving speeches and going on vacation.
  And why was she in Ireland?
  Well, she was at a Charlie Chaplin film festival.
  So let's get this straight.
  During an emergency UN meeting concerning man-caused disasters, our ambassador is attending an urgent Charlie Chaplin film festival.

  While Egypt burns and the Middle East conflagrates, our Secretary of State is kiteboarding.

 And never mind Syria OR Egypt, our national leaders have their priorities straight! VACATION!!!

  Huh.
  Wonder why former US communications director for the UN Richard Grenell would lament that US credibility around the world has suffered.
  But apparently Power fits right in.

Freaking Fracking Hypocrites

Anthony Watts is the most famous climate change skeptic in the blogosphere. As demonstrators gathered in England to protest planned fracking Watts pointed out the hypocrisy of the greens. Almost all of their possessions in this picture are made of synthetic materials derived from petroleum or natural gas.

Majority of Maine Republicans Want Obama Impeached

A majority of Maine Republicans on the first night of our poll support impeaching President Obama
— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) August 24, 2013

What can I add other than so do I?

The IRS Takes Up The War On Veterans

“The IRS now requires American Legion posts to maintain dates of service and character of service records for all members… The penalty for not having the required proof of eligibility is, apparently, $1,000 per day,” the American Legion stated. The VFW is also bound by the same dictate from the tax code. This would appear to be under “Exempt Organizations Examination Guidelines,” which is the jurisdiction of Exempt Organizations head Lois Lerner.
Excuse me but where does the IRS find the chutzpah to demand that the American Legion and VFW reveal private information about its membership? Has not the Department of Homeland Security done enough to demean veterans by labeling them as potential terrorist?
Yes indeed veteran groups have been singled out for audits. From Weaponsman;

All of the tax-exempt veterans’ organizations in one large state were audited. All of them. (This requires a huge expenditure of government resources. ) That includes the state organizations and, where the real focus of IRS hostility has landed, the individual local posts. Yes, one organization at least has had every one of its posts in this populous blue state audited, and the audits have been brutal.
Over half of the audited posts have had their tax-exempt status yanked, and have had to pay tens of thousands in back taxes, penalties, fees and, of course, accountants’ and lawyers’ expenses.
In at least one case, the IRS has gone back eight years on one local chapter, the nature of which is that the leaders and treasury managers from 2005 may now rest in Arlington.

The large blue state that weaponsman referred to may have been Maryland. The Baltimore Sun, hardly a right wing publication reported;

Dozens of veterans groups across Maryland are threatened with the loss of their tax-exempt status and may owe the government hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes as a result of an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service.
In an aggressive sweep that began in Maryland more than two years ago and is now being watched nationally, investigators with the IRS district office in Baltimore have audited at least 29 Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion posts across the state.

There is some discussion about illegal gambling in some of the posts but the IRS has never taken such extreme measures in the past. The Sun goes on to report that the IRS investigation may have spread to Pennsylvania and beyond.

A national VFW spokesman in Kansas City said the group was monitoring the Maryland investigation because some of the issues raised could have implications for posts across the country.
"The IRS is stepping into something they have not addressed previously," said spokesman Steve Van Buskirk.
Although the findings vary from post to post, the IRS investigators found similar alleged tax violations at many of the clubs.
The agency found, for example, that all 17 VFW posts that were audited should have been paying taxes on the proceeds from their bar operations -- concluding that many groups have become little more than taverns for their members.
Membership questions
The IRS also took issue with the membership policies at many posts. Eleven of the 17 VFW posts accepted so-called "social members," who wouldn't normally qualify for membership as war-time veterans, investigators found.
God forbid veterans should a quiet place to drink and maybe even smoke. If any fraternal groups such as the Moose, Owls, or Eagles have been the target of the IRS it has not been reported.

Jane Fonda continues her anti-Americanism

  I was really honked off the other day when Bill O'Reilly didn't know that, while advertising her role as Nancy Reagan in "The Butler", Jane Fonda wore a t-shirt depicting her arrest 40 years ago, a mug shot in which she is holding her fist in a black power salute after being arrested for drug smuggling. 
  O-Reilly, in his "magnanimous" RINO mode, seemed to think Fonda has changed, that somehow she's adapted her anti-American message and resolved her place of privilege and wealth in society.
  I watched the interview and noticed the shirt; Fonda also claimed to know that Nancy Reagan was happy to have Fonda play her in such a role.

 

  It'll be a cold day in hell before I wear a shirt with a picture of myself emblazoned on it, much less behaving in such a disgraceful manner.
   Naturally some people are still upset with Fonda, whose complete history of war crimes can be found here. She was 34 when she posed on the Vietcong tank and spread her anti-American propaganda.
  Fonda sells t shirts and other paraphernalia  on her website with the mug shot printed on it.
  Of her fraternizing with the enemy, Fonda said this:

“I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me. … It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanized such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless.”

  Yet she still bears the grudges of those years, as evidenced by her Leftist agenda. It is, once again, astounding that people such as this woman, who has had nothing but privilege and bounty heaped upon her, continue to disparage this country.
  She knew her presence in the film would cause controversy, so she said this:

Fonda roused even more ire with an inflammatory statement to the Hollywood Reporter about the issue, which went viral among people who see her as a traitor and liberal blowhard. “If it creates hoopla, it will cause more people to see the movie,” she said, adding, “I figured it would tweak the right. Who cares?”

  Fonda is said to be worth $120 million dollars. She recently sold her house for $7.5 million and bought another for about the same amount in Beverly Hills.

  I really don't care how much money she makes or is worth but it is indeed galling that those Americans who have had the best of what this country has to offer think they can try to turn the rest of us against it.
  "The Butler" appears to be another of those attempts, including drama that portrays Reagan as the usual heartless monster and Leftists as pro-civil rights and pure.

The film, however, portrays Allen's exit as a principled stand against Reagan's policies. In the film, Allen, portrayed by Forrest Whitaker quits his job over Reagan's indifference to civil rights and his alleged support of the South African apartheid government.

  The real butler left the service of the government in 1986 during Reagan's tenure,
  Even Weinstein admits that Reagan was close to the butler who inspired the film.
  From Breitbart :

A Washington Post profile in 2008 noted that Allen and his wife kept framed photos of Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy in their living room. Pictures of the other presidents Allen served were hung in the basement. Why would the real-life Allen keep pictures of Reagan in the most prominent place in his home if he had quit his job over policy disagreements with the Administration? 

The closeness between Allen and the Reagans is evidenced by another anecdote in the profile. Allen was the first butler to attend a state dinner as a guest. The Reagans invited Allen and his wife to attend a state dinner for West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

  The truth about the presidencies of Reagan and Obama is this:

***Under Reagan, adult black unemployment fell by 20 percent, but under Mr. Obama, it has increased by 42 percent.
***Black teenage unemployment fell by 16 percent under Reagan, but has risen by 56 percent under Mr. Obama.  LINK

  The Left never gives up.
  And we'll never forget.

R.I.P. Shorty

  Thank you for your service, old man; rest with Jesus.
  Then go out into the universe and kick their asses.

Top New Media Minion Disses Obama

Every president has his critics but when the most acerbic criticism is coming from people who voted for him the president has a major problem. Jeff Jarvis of The Guardian;

What are you thinking, Mr President?
Is this really the legacy you want for yourself: the chief executive who trampled rights, destroyed privacy, heightened secrecy, ruined trust, and worst of all, did not defend but instead detoured around so many of the fundamental principles on which this country is founded?
And I voted for you. I'll confess you were a second choice. I supported Hillary Clinton first. I said at the time that your rhetoric about change was empty and that I feared you would be another Jimmy Carter: aggressively ineffectual.
Never did I imagine that you would instead become another Richard Nixon: imperial, secretive, vindictive, untrustworthy, inexplicable.
I do care about security. I survived the attack on the World Trade Center and I believe 9/11 was allowed to occur through a failure of intelligence. I thank TSA agents for searching me: applause for security theater. I defend government's necessary secrets. By the way, I also defend Obamacare. I should be an easy ally, but your exercise of power appalls me. When I wrote about your credibility deficit recently, I was shocked that among the commenters at that great international voice of liberalism, the Guardian, next to no one defended you. Even on our side of the political divide, I am far from alone in urgently wondering what you are doing.

Hmm. Is one of those academic, esoteric, arguments that Chris Christie worries over? Jarvis isn't through.

As a journalist, I am frightened by your vengeful attacks on whistleblowers – Manning, Assange, Snowden, and the rest – and the impact in turn on journalism and its tasks of keeping a watchful eye on you and helping to assure an informed citizenry.
As a citizen, I am disgusted by the systematic evasion of oversight you have supported through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts; by the use of ports as lawless zones where your agents can harass anyone; by your failure on your promise to close Guantánamo, and this list could go on.
As an American often abroad, I am embarrassed by the damage you have caused to our reputation and to others' trust in us. I find myself apologizing for what you are doing to citizens of other nations, dismissing the idea that they have rights to privacy because they are "foreign".
As an internet user, I am most fearful of the impact of your wanton destruction of privacy and the resulting collapse of trust in the net and what that will do to the freedom we have enjoyed in it as well as the business and jobs that are being built atop it.
And as a Democrat, I worry that you are losing us the next election, handing an issue to the Republicans that should have been ours: protecting the rights of citizens against the overreach of the security state.

Jarvis then goes on to prescribe the steps Obama must necessarily follow to get right with the left but I think the days of kiss and make up are long past. Just as many of us feel betrayed by Gang of Eight Rubio, Jarvis feels betrayed and his trust will be as elusive to Obama as ours will be to Rubio.

Killing Comcast

The Tea Party strikes back! Freedom Works will be making ad buys in areas where Comcast is a major cable provider and it has put up a Stop Comcast web site which reads;

Comcast’s news organizations, especially MSNBC, have aggressively promoted President Obama’s political agenda through its biased news coverage. MSNBC’s hosts have consistently gone beyond responsible journalism by manipulating news events to advance a left-wing political agenda. Comcast cable subscribers can take action against Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and his biased media empire by changing their cable TV service provider. By exercising marketplace choice, consumers can prevent their money from supporting media propaganda and paying the salaries of Al Sharpton and Chris Matthews.

Red States, Blue States, and Duck Dynasty

Click to enlarge Okay, this will be my last post on Duck Dynasty until at least next week. As you can see from the above heat map the premier of Duck Dynasty did well in the South and Midwest but not so well in the wussified areas of the country, ie New England, South Florida, and California. San Francisco San Diego and Los Angeles positively hated it but what would you expect from an area that would elect a Bob Filner, Nancy Pelosi, or Henry Waxman? DD did score a 16 in Washington which is not too bad. And what's with Lima, Ohio? The numbers are over the top in that market. Charleston, West Virginia and Evansville, Indiana are the only other markets outside of the South that hit the top 15. In the hometown market, Lake Charles, Louisiana 52% of television sets zeroed in on DD.
The political implications? Most probably the blue state blue noses will say it's dividing the country but aside from that it's a great indicator of where Republican political ads should be bought as they were about 50% more likely than Democrats to have watched last week's episode. For Congressman Jim Jordan, who represents Lima this should be a great place to make an ad buy next year.

Image: Obama hard at work--again

  In case you were worried that Syrians have been attacked by their leaders with nerve gas, or all the Christian Copts in Egypt are undergoing a Krystallnacht or there's something drastically wrong with today's youth--particularly black youth who are attacking white individuals--rest assured that Dear Leader is on the case.
  He's working on the economy, too, which some folks are trying to tell us has magically improved, along with the unemployment rate, which Gallup tells us has jumped from 7.7% to 8.9% in 30 days.
  Yes, he's visiting the women's grievance museum in Seneca Falls, preparing to crank up the sob machine to make sure no good crisis goes to waste.
  So don't worry.
  Everything's under control by the smartest constitutional lawyer in the United States, the great uniter in chief who has a real solid Middle Eastern policy.
  If you doubt that, here's visual proof from Twitter.
  God.

Jase and Missy Robertson's Speak About Their Devotion to God

Duck Dynasty harkens back to the days of Lawrence Welk and Walt Disney. In this interview Jase and Missy Robertson spell out their Christian views in no uncertain terms. Where do they get these ideas? Maybe they come from the patriarch of the family, Phil Robertson who has this uncompromising position on abortion.

“You have a God-given right to live inside your mother, to debate whether it’s right or wrong to rip you out of your mother’s womb? What in the world has happened to us?…I’ll tell you it doesn’t take 150 years – we start ripping babies out of wombs,” Robertson said. “They should’ve listened to Thomas Jefferson. You have a God-given right to live, for crying out loud…We debate whether some woman has the right to tear you out of there a piece at a time? Come on!”

Update: Here is Jase solo.

This Tea Party Blogger is Sticking with Mitch McConnell

I opposed Richard Mourdock's challenge to Senator Dick Lugar not because I loved Lugar but because I knew Mourdock. Mourdock had no right to claim the Tea Party label. Before hitting a hot streak by winning the Indiana State Treasurer seat twice he had lost 5 elections in in the first 16 years of his political career including a fifth place finish in a six candidate field for county commissioner. I warned on this blog that he would lose a safe Senate seat in the general election if he got past Lugar and sure enough he did just that. He is a career politician who wore the Tea Party label when it suited his needs and took it off when it was to his advantage. Hell, Lugar was right better than 50% of the time.
Not all career politicians who have been adopted by the Tea Party are failures. Congressman Daniel Webster who represents Florida's 10th district served 28 years in both state legislative houses before taking on the Tea Party label. He defeated the obnoxious Alan Grayson and has for the most part been a reliable conservative vote. No, he did not lose the last election. Grayson now represents the 8th district.
Senator Mitch McConnell is now facing a Tea Party challenger and if his opponent, Matt Bevin, was another Rand Paul I would have no misgivings. Bevin is an unknown quantity in Kentucky politics with a business background and no political record to defend. Living in Southern Indiana, I occasionally pick up on Kentucky campaign ads. The latest charge coming from the McConnell camp is that Bevin fudged his resume and to me it shows a flaw in his character. Bevin’s LinkedIn page was misleading, to be charitable, before it was altered. Bevin had listed Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the top of the education section in the headline section of the LinkedIn page. Looking further down the page one sees he earned a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Washington and Lee. He stated he was a 2008 graduate of the Entrepreneurial Master’s Program at the MIT Endicott campus. He described it as a “renowned executive education program sponsored by the MIT Enterprise Inc. Magazine and the Entrepreneurs Organization.” MIT officials say the program has no connection to their university.

Kate Anderson, the director of marketing and enrollment at MIT’s Sloan Executive Education program, told The Hill earlier this year that the program Bevin attended was “not an official program offered by MIT, MIT Sloan or MIT Sloan Executive Education.”

“It is not a Masters program, certificate or any other kind of MIT program and does not bear any MIT credit whatsoever,” she said.
Anderson added that MIT does not have an Endicott campus although she noted there is a conference center called the MIT Endicott House, which is rented to outside groups.

According to Bevin it's all a misunderstanding brought about by McConnell's lack of experience in the private sector.

“Clearly, Mitch McConnell — not being part of the real world — doesn't understand how people in the private sector work," Bevin said. "This isn't even a resume. It's an online basically database of information of things people have done and where they currently are."

Yeah, and without a degree in East Asian Studies how does McConnell find his way to his office? Luckily The Hill did a screen capture of Bevin's web page before the revision.
Whatever one may think of McConnell his seat is safe notwithstanding Democratic delusions. Consider the following; Probably 25% of Kentucky's counties mine coal and they are not about give Obama's EPA anymore support. Obama lost Kentucky by 16 points. In the Democratic primary Obama barely edged out "uncommitted".
Yes, it would be nice if Kentucky could produce another Rand Paul but Matt Bevin is no Rand Paul. He isn't even a Richard Mourdock. Yes, character does count. I'm sticking with Mitch.

Randy Barnett; NSA Snooping a fundamental challenge to popular sovereignty.

Randy Barnett would make a great Supreme Court Justice. The libertarian law professor teaches at Georgetown and was an early critic of Obamacare and provided much of the intellectual heft in the legal challenge to the individual mandate. He calls the NSA snooping a fundamental challenge to popular sovereignty.


"There is a real fundamental challenge to having popular sovereignty if the people can't know that the government is collecting data on them and...confiscating it from private companies.

NBC Worries More About Angering The Clintons Than The Republicans

It's not only Reince Priebus and the Republicans who are giving NBC News heartburn over NBC's plan to produce a Hillary Clinton miniseries. It's the thought of an angry Bill and Hillary Clinton that makes Chuck Todd's blood run cold.
"It's a bit rich for Todd and Mitchell to cry foul now about their journalistic purity being contaminated by commercial and ideological considerations," says independent TV news analyst Andrew Tyndall. "As if the MSNBC lineup where Todd and Mitchell ply their trade every day is not shared with activist ideologues such as Al Sharpton and Ed Schultz."
To that end, sources at NBC News say that it was not simply Republican ire that set the news division on edge. Rather, it was the specter of retaliation from the former first lady and secretary of state, who very well could be a leading 2016 presidential candidate. The Clintons' penchant for grudges is legendary. And Hillary in 2008 threatened to boycott an MSNBC-sponsored debate over former anchor David Shuster's comment that Chelsea Clinton had been "pimped out" for her mother's campaign. Any scripted Clinton project almost certainly would include content objectionable to Bill and Hillary. "The Clintons are the ones to worry about," says an NBC source. "Who needs those headaches?"
I've always thought Hillary looks most natural when she throw back a shot. Sarah Palin could never do that. No glass ceiling here Hillary drinks like a man but here is where the gossip gets interesting. While NBC frets about angering Hillary the former Secretary of State is negotiating a $25 million deal with Simon and Schuster to write a Washington tell-all. The thinking is Hillary can inoculate herself against untimely revelations by telling them herself. The National Inquirer reports A "family insider" says that the former secretary of State will "admit that she’s bisexual and has had lesbian relationships" and reveal that "a veterinarian who treated the family cat Socks at the White House stumbled upon her locked in a steamy embrace with a woman. Also there are rumors that Hillary will out Barack Obama as an alcoholic and opine upon the rumored marital strife in the Obama's marriage. This could be fun!Now imagine if you are writing NBC's miniseries. What is safe to write about? Do you portray Hillary as Tammy Wynette, the good wife, while her autobiography dwells on sex and alcohol?

The IRS's Orwellian Love of Labels

It's not an earth shaking scandal but it is indicative of a lawless bureaucracy that flouts the law while demanding strict compliance on the part of the public for the laws it wishes to enforce. The Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 forbids the IRS from employing such pejorative labels such as "tax protestor" and "constitutionally challenged" and ordered the agency to purge taxpayers' records of such labels so as not to prejudice future interactions. Now, 15 years later the IRS has yet to fully comply.
According to an audit just released by TIGTA (Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration) auditors found 54 such instances by 45 employees where the verboten nomenclature was still used. Will we, 15 years from now, find "tea party" and "patriot" used to denote troublemakers?

What's up with Mark Levin?

  Yowza. Hoosierman was right; something's up with Mark Levin's new book and the public's reaction to it. Double yowza.
  Watch this remarkable video of the line at Long Island just waiting to get an autograph from the great Mark Levin.

Clown Obama goes after Republicans, avoids Egyptian chaos

  I just assume everyone's as tuned in as I am to the latest news but then I talk to some of my friends and realize, um, no. 
  Christians molested, murdered, tortured in Egypt? Nuns paraded through the streets of Cairo as prisoners of war?
  Meh. Gotta go to lunch.
  Obama bad mouthing Republicans with open faced lies again?
  Bah. What's new.
  So let's go there. 
  Let's interrupt lunch and yoga for a little talk about what's happening in the world today and how our government is responding.
  Egypt is falling apart, on fire, undergoing a revolution in the midst of what the clever wags like Bill Krystal initially called their "Arab Spring." 
  The world--minus our helmeted golfer POTUS & wakeboarding SofS-- is shocked by the devastation of the Muslim Brotherhood on law enforcement, Christians and their historic priceless museums, and taking action rid their evil influence as the MB threaten to attack European rail lines. 
  We won't even mention the horror our media evinced when the Baghdad museums was supposedly ransacked, yet little is said about this.
  Instead, we hearing cooing about Obama's vacation and all the skootchy things they've been doing. 
  Goochy goochy goo!!
  But back to Egypt.
  From my limited viewpoint, it appears that the Egyptian military is trying to clean up the MB, as horrific as it seems, wholesale shooting the rioters in the street or executing them as they are caught. 
  And as Mubarak is acquitted of corruption charges, our leaders--who were quick to desert Mubarak and support the MB--are nowhere to be found on the golf course, bicycle path and the ocean, apparently unconcerned, even unaware, of the extreme violence and anti-Obama sentiment developing in Egypt.
  From The Blaze, we have exclusive photos of the concerned Kerry (who's doing a bang up job, btw!), who also lied about where he was during the coup initial interruption in Egypt's leadership. Well, at least no one's been killed. Oh wait.

  And again from The Blaze, who is doing great work with original reporting these days, we see the hugely involved and concerned POTUS:

  Of course, this administration has deep ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, including the inclusion of Hillary Clinton's closest confidante Huma Abedin, the "Muslim Brotherhood princess" in high level meetings and separate meetings in the White House with MB officials and other White House officials.
  Admittedly Obama has never been concerned with optics. In fact, he seems to enjoy poking his opponents in the eye with his lavish vacations in contrast with closing of the White House tours.
  So rather than have any kind of policy opposing the Brotherhood or supporting freedom, apparently Obama's new foreign policy is to act shocked! shocked! that any country is undergoing such violence!
  In fact, Obama, whose legendary snooping policies have turned even some Hollywooders against him, is fantastically claiming that he just found out Thursday through a phone call how bad the situation is in Egypt, according to Jake Tapper. 
  Hence, to Egypt's dismay, Obama rushed to the cameras as soon as he heard about the violence to stamp his little feet and lisp that violence is not an option he will tolerate, in spite of his previous vicious claims that if the opposition brings a knife to a fight, he'll bring a gun. Indeed Gateway Pundit has meticulously recorded Obama's frequent calls for violence in America to win his argument.
 But this claimed ignorance in Egypt is in keeping with Obama's policy of leading from his behind, and letting nothing that happens during his administration reflect back on him in any way.
  Unless, of course, he can claim to have killed bin Laden, even if he was really golfing and then playing cards with Reggie Love to avoid the stomach churning activities of the Navy Seals, whom he later betrayed by disclosing publicly who participated in the raid.
  Now there's a real leader!
  Yet this Dear Leader is not above lying about his own people, excoriating Republicans in his weekly address Saturday, no doubt filmed a week earlier so he wouldn't have to be bothered with the tiresome duties of the office during his vacay:

“But there’s also a group of Republicans in Congress working hard to confuse people, and making empty promises that they’ll either shut down the health care law, or, if they don’t get their way, they’ll shut down the government,” Obama said Saturday during his weekly address.

“Think about that. They’re actually having a debate between hurting Americans who will no longer be denied affordable care just because they’ve been sick – and harming the economy and millions of Americans in the process and many Republicans are more concerned with how badly this debate will hurt them politically than they are with how badly it’ll hurt the country,” he said.

He later added, “A lot of Republicans seem to believe that if they can gum up the works and make this law fail, they’ll somehow be sticking it to me. But they’d just be sticking it to you.”

   Setting aside the fact that Obama himself has eliminated many of the Obamacare provisions because they are simply unworkable, apparently conservative views that Obama is ruining the health care system and economy (borne out statistically but discarded by the Left if the facts originate from a rightwing source) are a form of "sticking it to" Dear Leader.
  Yet one has to wonder what kind of mind conceives such speeches and then actually goes on television to record the phrase "sticking it to me," using this rough code language as a way to anger Dear Leader's acolytes to riot in the streets because our rodeo clown of a POTUS is being so badly treated by the riffraff.
  Gird your loins. Grit your teeth.
  The more difficult it gets for Dear Leader--and it's going to get really difficult--the rougher the language and more vicious attacks on those of who've realized (now or much earlier) that the Emperor has no clothes whatsoever.
  And that's a darn skinny carcass we're lookin' at, partying all the way to Hawaii's best golf courses in the sunset.