Republicans poised to capture the Senate

To quote the poet laureate of our generation, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." In a September 20 post Chris Cillizza who writes The Fix blog at the Washington Post opined that the Republicans were primed to capture the Senate. He noted that briefly the momentum had gotten away from the GOP but after a pause the party had regrouped and now was favored by three election models to take the Senate.
In his post Cillizza stated that the  Washington Post's Election Lab was the most bullish with a 65% probability of a Republican majority while the Times' LEO model pegged the chance at 55% and Nate Silver's Five Thirty Eight put it at a shade under 55%.
As of today WP's Election Lab has raised the GOP's probability to 77%, LEO gives it 67% and Five Thirty Eight has moved to 61% Republican.
The models are reflecting the polls which are moving toward Republicans. All 3 models predict Republicans will win in Montana, South Dakota, West Virginia, Louisiana and Arkansas meaning the Senate would be evenly split. To gain a majority the GOP must pick up one more seat and hold onto Kansas, Kentucky and Georgia. Kentucky and Georgia are probably secure wins for the GOP but Pat Roberts stands a chance of losing Kansas to faux independent Greg Orman.

As of September 20: Alaska:  Five Thirty Eight 56 % Republican, LEO 62 % Democratic, Election Lab 81 % Democratic

Today: Alaska:  Five Thirty Eight 71 % Republican, LEO 72 % Republican, Election Lab 81 % Republican

Sept.20: Colorado: Five Thirty Eight 50 % chance for both sides, LEO 55 %t Democratic, Election Lab 67% Democratic

Today: Colorado: Five Thirty Eight 57 % chance for Republican, LEO 61% Republican, Election Lab 66% Republican

Sept 20: Iowa: Five Thirty Eight 52% Democratic, LEO 53% Republican, Election Lab 70% Republican

Today: Iowa: Five Thirty Eight 57% Republican, LEO 61% Republican, Election Lab 82% Republican

Sept 20: Kansas: Five Thirty Eight 64% Independent, LEO 54% Independent), Election Lab 73% Republican

Today: Kansas: Five Thirty Eight 57% Independent, LEO 56% Independent), Election Lab 79% Republican

The elections are more than a month away which should give Robertson with his 5 to 1 spending advantage time to recover. About 10 days from now I'll revisit the data. Three more seats that a currently rated as Democratic wins could turn around.

Michigan: Five Thirty Eight 81% Democratic, LEO 81% Democratic, Election Lab 99% Democratic

New Hampshire: Five Thirty Eight 82% Democratic, LEO 82%, Election Lab 99% Democratic

North Carolina: Five Thirty Eight 77% Democratic, LEO 81%, Election Lab 97% Democratic

Emergency room doctors: not covered by your insurer?

  Another consequence of Obamacare--in addition to being booted off your insurance, rising overall rates, limited doctor choices and higher deductibles--appears to be developing in hospital emergency.
  You may have noticed more doctors are joining hospital staffs, something they've had to do in response to being squeezed out of private practice by onerous regulations. One doctor told me then because of insurance, he will now be required to hire 9 people to run his office as opposed to the 2 he would normally hire.
  Regulations have increased many times over; indeed, many doctors are looking at retirement rather than deal with the new coding, described here:

The other complicated “innovation” of Obamacare is ICD 10 coding system.  This new coding system replaces ICD-9. It has increased the number of codes from 18,000 to 68,000 for coding in-patient and out-patient care. Effective implementation of these codes will be very difficult.
The implementation of these two “innovations” will add billions of dollars to the cost of healthcare.

  So that increase from 18,000 to 68,000 will surely put some doctors out of business.
  Now we learn that emergency room doctors are quite often private contractors; thus, even though the hospital you frantically ran into for treatment may be in your network, the doctor who treats you may not be. NYT:

But even the most basic visits with emergency room physicians and other doctors called in to consult are increasingly leaving patients with hefty bills: More and more, doctors who work in emergency rooms are private contractors who are out of network or do not accept any insurance plans.

When legislators in Texas demanded some data from insurers last year, they learned that up to half of the hospitals that participated with UnitedHealthcare, Humana and Blue Cross-Blue Shield — Texas’s three biggest insurers — had no in-network emergency room doctors. Out-of-network payments to emergency room physicians accounted for 40 to 70 percent of the money spent on emergency care at in-network hospitals, researchers with the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin found.

  [SNIP] This is a result of Obamacare, according to the NYT. Up to 65% of hospitals employ contracted ER physicians:

   Regulations created by the Affordable Care Act specify that insurers must use the best-paying among three methods for reimbursing out-of-network physicians dispensing emergency care: pay the Medicare rate; pay the median in-network amount for the service; or apply the usual formula they use to determine out-of-network reimbursement, which often depends on “usual and customary rates” in the area.

But in most states, doctors can then bill patients for the difference between their charge and what the insurer paid.

  In fact:

Just because a hospital in "in-network" with your insurance, that doesn't mean the emergency room doctor is. In fact, there's a good chance that an emergency room doctor doesn't take any insurance at all, and that could lead to big out-of-pocket expenses for you.

  The solution? Yeah, no:

There isn't much you can do, if you are in a life/death emergency, you should go to the closest emergency room.  But if it is not life/death, ask the emergency room staff if the physician on duty takes your insurance, if not, assess if you can go elsewhere.

  It's called "balance billing." How are the fees determined?

"UnitedHealthcare uses rates determined by Medicare Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) Fee Schedules to process claims," said Kim Whitaker, spokeswoman for UnitedHealthcare.

<   According to Physicians' Weekly:

Many health insurers are shrinking their networks for health insurance exchange programs in an attempt to secure deeper discounts from participating hospitals. Consequently, the number of out-of-network hospitals is likely to rise, and the number of payment disputes for these emergency services will increase. One of the lesser known provisions of the ACA attempted to establish payment metrics for services provided in out-of- network hospital EDs.

  A list of states that regulate balance billing is here. Ohio is not one of them.
  You'll be happy to know that the ACA set limits on the amounts consumers have to pay....for in-network care.

And the law's new limits on how much consumers must pay out of pocket — $6,350 for an individual and $12,700 for a family this year — apply only to in-network care.

  It appears Medicare and Medicaid patients are exempt from the billing:

Medicare bans balanced billing for providers who accept Medicare payments, yet even Medicare patients routinely receive "You Owe Us This Much More" bills in the mail, even when the debt is not truly owed. Those "nickel and dime" balanced billing debts, (wherein a patient is only charged a few dollars more than their actual co-pay), are routinely paid by the patient who doesn't take the time to calculate what his or her share really should be. Across the country, those seemingly insignificant amounts add up to billions of dollars in revenue that health care providers receive but are not entitled to.

Then there are the providers who see a patient in the emergency room and ask the injured or ill patient to sign a document that states that the patient will pay the medical providers their full fee, regardless of what the insurance pays. This creates, in effect, a new contract that supersedes the insurance policy, and it changes everything for the patient.

  This article advises:

It's just so easy to pay a bill without first investigating it, especially if the overage being billed is small enough that we don't readily notice. We should all check our bills with an eagle eye and compare what should be paid with what the provider is asking us to pay.

UPDATE:
  So basically this problem is because 1) emergency room services are contracted out to ER doctors, not all of whom work with the insurance companies the hospital uses 2) somebody's got to pay the ER doctors, who donate a lot of services to people who don't have any insurance.
  IOW, YOU, the one who works, has insurance, responsible citizen, have to pay for those who don't or won't pay, an example being all the illegals in California.
  Here:

Emergency care providers have a burden that comes with a disproportionate responsibility for the care of the under- and uninsured, and they cannot shoulder this burden if they are unable to receive sufficient and fair payment for the care of those who are insured.  The emergency care safety net is already unraveling, and a prohibition against balance billing with no requirement that health plans pay fairly is a prescription for the failure of this safety net.

  One wonders if we could do anything else to destroy the best health care system in the world.

The Leftist fascination with the Culture of Death, Part Two

  My previous post presented various aspects of the American Leftist Culture of Death with regard to Islamic sensibilities.
  Specifically, the Boston bombers did not commit a terrorist act, as determined by the US Treasury, though even the Russians warned that they were volatile, dangerous and corresponding with Russian terrorist groups.
  Culturally the Left responded with Rolling Stone Magazine's publication of a dramatically sympathetic photograph and story about the remaining--and the hottest perhaps because he's the only warm one--Tsarnaev brother.
  At Fort Hood, a US Army psychiatrist murdered 13 soldiers and wounded numerous others, so the Obama administration, in keeping with their al Qaeda is on the run because Obama is so fierce lie,  was quick to label Major Nidal Hassan's slaughter of American soldiers as "workplace violence," even though the FBI had ignored the warning bells that had been going off repeatedly concerning Hassan's proclivities.
  Rather than acknowledge that terror has come to our shores, Leftists continue to diminish the lives of the people who've died and the impact and significance of these acts of Islamic terrorism.
  Now a horrific beheading by an Islamic terrorist of an elderly woman has again been quickly and tentatively labeled "workplace violence," because the murderer was at work, which is where people who work spend most of their time. 
  A local imam labeled the beheading as an act of "foolishness."
  This murderer spent work time trying to convert his peers to Islam and was fired because of his arguments over Islam with his co-workers that women should be stoned for acts of disobedience.
  In these incidents of terrorism, the Left seeks to diminish the value of life itself by downplaying murder and punishment. 
  This is part of the attack on our Western way of thought based on Judeo Christian thinking, which is linear. Bad behavior leads to a consequence. Eastern thought is circular, such as the act of the kamikaze pilot for the good of the nation.
  The desire to avoid consequence is also partly why the Left worships abortion, even late term abortions, which the Left laughingly calls "post birth abortion," aka murder.
  This worship of abortion is unrelenting, elevated to a religious principle, as if there is no life form more important than the "woman's right to choose." A woman might wax eloquently over a baby kitten or newborn rabbit, yet a preborn--or even born alive--human infant? 
  Not part of the spiritual package.
  During the Obamacare discussion, Leftists and so-called pro-life so-called Catholics like Kaptur and Stupak capitulated; Americans' principled resistance to government funded abortion will not be tolerated. Too bad if we think it's murder.
  Forces have been creating this Culture of Death for many years, twenty years ago in particular in the case of Terry Schiavo, whose parents wanted desperately to care for her but whose husband mysteriously wanted to move on and let her starve to death. He won.
  Now this Culture of Death is moving from the preborn to the elderly. Already England's NHS is  refusing care for people over 75. 
  It's too expensive, they say, for the health care industry to medically treat the elderly, a problem that will grow since we are all living longer these days.
  An Obamacare architect--a prominent doctor and Obama loyalist, made of money and 57 years old--has fired the first salvo against health care for the elderly.
  He now openly declares that Americans should be happy to refuse treatment and kick the bucket by the age of 75, which would be somewhat amusing if he were the only one considering such measures, but given his stature and affluence--like diCaprio's jets and Gore's mansions--it is unlikely our country's health care system will ever call upon Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel or any of his family to give up the ghost any earlier than he wants.
  Not so lucky for those of us who've paid into the health care system for decades: no, for us, it'll be curtains, sort of like the house insurance you pay for 30 years but cancels as soon as you file a claim for a broken chimney or the like.
  From the American Spectator, we learn the details of Emanuel's plan in an article entitled "Obama Architect Finds Cure for Old Age":

Emanuel is a notorious proponent of medical rationing, and has long advocated denying care to the elderly. In fact, just prior to his 2009 appointment to President Obama’s Coordinating Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research, he co-authored an article in the Lancet which promotes allocation of health care resources according to the age of the patient. In its introduction, he and his co-authors recommend a rationing system that would prioritize “people who have not yet lived a complete life” yet go on to claim, “Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination.”

  Not that the unborn are considered "people who have not yet lived a complete life." 
  Actually they fall into the under five years of age category, another expensive age group the Obamacare architects disparage.
  Yes, Sarah Palin's "death panels" have transitioned into "Independent Payment Advisory Boards," a concept now approved by Leftists such as Robert Reich and Paul Krugman, who delicately refers to it as "controlling medical costs."

  So in this Leftist Culture of Death, which refuses to acknowledge a citizen's right to refuse payment for government funded abortions, 
      ~which attributes terrorists' beheading and acts of slaughter as "workplace violence," 
      ~which spends billions of dollars fighting Ebola but refuses to protect our own borders, 
      ~which encourages doctors to counsel the elderly in options regarding death.
  This Culture that requires hardworking citizens to pay for government mismanagement, administrative vacations, 
      ~million dollar studies about unbelievable stupid and meaningless topics, 
      ~this Culture says this to the elderly: "Hey, you're too old. We can't afford to give you the health care you think you need. But relax. It's called palliative care, which means it won't hurt much because we're going to drug you up to the point that you won't care if you live or die.
  Cuz, hey, death is a cure for old age and you've earned this.
  Respect for the elderly? Yeah. You bet.
  The truth is that Leftists are moving toward totalitarianism: what is good for the collective should determine individual behavior, and only a few VIPs like Emanuel, Gore and Hillary at the top decide what is good for everyone. 
  They want us to be like the favorite high school senior who returns from four years of college, fully indoctrinated and has become part of the mass of walking dead who spout without rational argument the typical Leftist causes like abortion, gay marriage, drug legalization, government giveaways, federal control, anti-Christianism, global warmism with no room for dissent. 
  And you are despicable if you don't think the way the collective does.
  So, all you fellow grey panthers, let's contrast our current belief about death with the government's push to encourage death at the age of 75.
  This contrast particularly struck me when I saw this commercial the other day. How different Leftists' hardened hearts are toward life itself from this gauzy, pretty commercial about elderly home care.
  Is it too hard to imagine our overlords tweaking this commercial just a little? 
  The government health care worker enters your home, where you're reminded with a friendly chat that you're doing your duty for your country if you take the pill, inhale the gas, put your arm out for the injection.
  It's for the good of the collective and, even though you've spent a lifetime financially supporting the feds' various expenditures including others' health care, it's time.
  Now that you're 75, don't worry. Be happy.
  You've earned this.

The Culture of Death, Part One

  Weeks like this one are increasingly difficult to digest intellectually. Such inconceivable horror as the situation in Oklahoma is not something in which we wish to invest our spirits or our minds. 
  But the Culture of Death cultivated by many citizens in this country is rapidly evolving; even now we are not really surprised to learn that an Islamic native born terrorist beheaded an elderly woman in the heartland of this country. 
  It's already happened repeatedly overseas, and not just in the primitive cultures of the Middle East. 
  We saw video of a man rather casually discussing his motive for beheading a man in a London street, his hands and large knife dripping with the blood of his victim, a soldier.
  Did you know an Islamic terrorist beheaded an elderly woman in London, right on her front lawn in her flower garden?
  She was 82. He was 25, "frenzied."
  And then there were the years and years and years--sixteen years in all--of authorities who knew about the sexual abuse and torture of 1400 young white girls as young as 11, by numerous Pakistani men.
  This took place in a London community of 250,000, a community in which many of them knew what was happening but refused to do anything based on fear of appearing racist.
  To this day no one has been punished. No social services. No police. No politician who covered it up.
  Now we come to Oklahoma, where an Islamic terrorist beheaded a 54 year old woman after being fired for arguing that women should be stoned if they did not abide by Shariah law. Obey the men who do the beheading, as it were.
  The standard response will be these:
  ~Outrage from the Muslim community to be painted with this broad brush of violence. 
  ~Screaming from Leftists that not all Muslims are terrorists and how dare anyone discuss the significance of Islamic training on once and future terrorists. There is absolutely no connection between the two.
  ~Capitulation that we want to make our Islamic brethren comfortable in this country, regardless the aberrant violent incident. This is also called dhimmitude.
~ More calculated subtle attacks on Western life & tradition, like screaming about bacon signs, forcing the removal of parents singing songs about pigs to their toddler, more "no-go" zones around Europe and even the US, and more pushes to institute forms of Shariah law, or least garner acceptance of its tenets parallel to Western laws.
  ~An even more virulent push by atheists to eradicate Christianity from the schools and our towns, while protecting Islamic interests.
  And, as Juan Williams protested today, absolutely no attempt to protect our borders, accompanied by the laughable claim that our borders have never been more secure. (Really, Juan?)
  Apparently few people see a connection between the carefully cultivated Culture of Death and what's currently happening in our country and around the world. Only certain life is protected; the rest are disposable.
  If only the unborn could speak.

Rosie O'Donnell: Another Leftist embarrassment in one ridiculous week

  In keeping with my contention that this was a pretty darned embarrassing week for Leftists, let me point out Rosie O'Donnell's sullen comments on her new revised View that the lust for oil and financial gain is at the bottom of O'bama's decision to bomb Syria.
  One problem.
  Syria doesn't have much, um, oil.
  In fact, as the Powerline blog daddies point out, they provide one half of one percent of the world's oil, not to mention that the US sits on top of more oil than any other country if we'd only access it.
  And then there's that problem if you bomb the oil wells, you're not going to get much oil out of it, eh.
  So here she is, in all her glory.
  Presenting Ms. Rosie O'Donnell, Messenger of Peace. Oh, wait. That's Leo DiCrapio.
  Never mind.
  That these people openly say such stupid uninformed things on national tv reveals their not only their bodaciousness but also their panic because few people believe them anymore. Climate change is failing as a global religion because it's too expensive, it accomplishes little and even if all the proposed measures were in place, these measures would only hurt poor people and line the pockets of the "one percent" elitist David "crease in the pants" Brooks so wants to maintain. 
  O'Donnell has a history of making wackadoodle comments dating back at least to the "first time in history steel has melted" on 9/11, a point so ridiculous that Popular Mechanics wrote a book about it.
  But, see, you can say stupid stuff like this when you're Leftwing.

Nearing the end of an embarrassing week

  Well, it's been quite a week so far.
  We have the POTUS standing up in front of the UN claiming we aren't on the verge of WW3 while he bombs buildings in Syria, apparently avoiding actually killing the beheaders but really, really hurting their buildings so the problem of ISIS will be the next POTUS's.
  Somehow establishing moral equivalency between the Ferguson mess with the beheaders' favorite pastime, Obama encouraged the world to work together to find solutions to these messy problems . Jutty chin lifted high above the skinny chest, ears flapping in the stultifying UN air, Obama was at his former best.
  You know, the best that the Obamabots love. The activist, the lover, the hope and changer.
  Old Leo was also up on the stage, looking fairly greasy, plump and sporting a pinky sized pony tail and claiming our greatest threat is cow farts global warming. So eloquent, claiming the science is all settled and everyone who is anyone agrees.
  But lest you think AlGore, Robert Kennedy, Leonardo DiCrapio or any of those 400,000 100,000 marchers are hypocrites for flying, driving or limo-ing to NYC to protest the use of carbon, let's take a look at the new excuse they've come up with to remove any responsibility for their massive houses, numerous personal jet trips and limousines:

  To be clear, this is not about just telling people to change their light bulbs or to buy a hybrid car. This disaster has grown BEYOND the choices that individuals make. This is now about our industries, and governments around the world taking decisive, large-scale action.

  So it's not the choices these people make; as Robert Kennedy croaks, it's about all those nasty industries we've driven out of the country handicapped by overregulation  who are so guilty of spewing nasty gases into the atmosphere. And we need laws to punish the people who disagree with him, something Leftists are fond of doing. Boston:

Radio host and activist Kennedy was asked why he had a cellphone if he was aware of the “damage” that “electricity generation” does to the environment, causing him to become visibly agitated. Fields asked Kennedy, with a wry smile creeping across her face, “Shouldn’t you lead by example?”
[snip]
“One of the biggest canards that the press has fallen for is by blaming individuals for their own choices. That’s not the issue,” Kennedy fired back before raising his voice and grabbing the microphone to admoniosh Fields for her “inane questions.”

  DiCrapio, aka the Messenger of Peace, himself recently purchased a few goodies for himself, because every prominent one percenter needs at least 3 (three) houses:

He has bought three properties since February: a $10 million apartment in New York’s Greenwich Village, an $8 million apartment adjacent to his existing $4 million one in the city’s Battery Park, and a $5.2 million, six-bedroom, 1.34 acre mansion in Palm Springs. He also owns a large waterfront home in Malibu.

  The Daily Mail has done some pretty good research (why do the British papers always beat the American ones? Hmmmm?) about DiCrapio's lifestyle, which includes some very showy bike rides around town:

MailOnline can report that DiCaprio took at least 20 trips across the nation and around the world this year alone - including numerous flights from New York to Los Angeles and back, a ski vacation to the French Alps, another vacation to the French Riviera, flights to London and Tokoyo to promote his film Wolf of Wall Street, two trips to Miami and trip to Brazil to watch the World Cup.

  The Mail also makes note that the actor prefers his private jets to commercial, though he has been known to fly commercial, keeping an eye on his publicist's Tweeter.
  Y'all will be glad to Obama doesn't want Africans to have these same privileges: the privileges AlGore, DiCraprio and the Kennedys have.
  Remember when he said this:

“Ultimately, if you think about all the youth that everybody has mentioned here in Africa, if everybody is raising living standards to the point where everybody has got a car and everybody has got air conditioning, and everybody has got a big house, well, the planet will boil over -- unless we find new ways of producing energy.”

  Whew! We can't have the hoi polloi riding in private jets, or even air conditioning or a big house!
  As Hoosierman once wrote, I'm afraid to go to sleep at night! Who knows what they'll think of next?

Lerner, after admitting what she did was wrong, now says she didn't do anything wrong

  Politico's love piece for the "complicated" "fierce" and "unapologetic" Lois Lerner today is absurd.
  Fox's Bret Beier expressed his surprise at her claim that she's innocent of any wrongdoing, not sorry and would do everything she did again.
  Politico's writers begin with the travail Lerner has suffered since she started this snowball rolling downhill by apologizing for targeting conservative groups.  They detail epithets that have supposedly been hurled at poor Lois, including a claim she's been called a "dirty Jew," (who knew?).
  The mean Republicans are at the bottom of all this angst, we learn, but there seems to be a real disconnect between reality and Politico's version of Lerner's work performance.
  For example, while Lerner now says she "didn't do anything wrong," and Politico makes a point to include the information that Lerner loves puppies (no, really!) , is loyal to her Leftist friends who, not oddly, consider her "apolitical." 
  While Lerner admits planting a question to get the info out about her illegal shenanigans regarding conservative groups, Politico carefully words the information that Lerner lied, planted information regarding wrongdoing, tried to deflect blame by redirecting investigators and withholding information and purposely delayed the function of the government based on the groups' names.
  Initially in her apology, Lerner admitted what she did was wrong, then she pled the Fifth Amendment, refusing to incriminate herself, even though she now says she did nothing wrong. Politico:

Within days, lawmakers in both parties were calling for her resignation, furious that IRS leaders, including Lerner, had withheld information when asked by lawmakers for months about the matter. Top officials also blamed Cincinnati, when, in fact, Washington was also handling the cases.

Called to testify before the House Oversight Committee, Lerner decided to take the Fifth and read a defiant speech declaring her innocence — one that Republicans argued waived her rights. She says she’d do it again.

 Lerner complains that she's being scapegoated because of refusing to incriminate herself by telling the truth, which has given her detractors the opening to "say anything they wanted" about her. 

  Well, duh. I guess you can't have it all.

  Yet the "apolitical" Lerner swearing in emails against conservative groups, calling them obscene names.

  Lerner also tells Politico she believes it is unrealistic to expect government employees, even in the IRS, to have no political opinions, as if what she engineered was simply the result of a competent ruthlessly efficient federal employee.

  Politico:

Although she wouldn’t discuss these issues at the behest of her lawyers, Lerner said it is unrealistic to expect public servants not to have opinions: “What matters is that my personal opinions have never affected my work.”

  Lerner's friends are eager to declare that she is "non-partisan," claiming she rarely discussed politics but may have been somewhat insensitive. 
  Of course,  when you're all hammers, there can be little sin in providing the function of pounding what y'all see as nails.
  Politico's writers complain that **still** Republicans are "suspicious" about all those disappearing emails, to which Lerner responds, indignantly:

Lerner scoffed at the notion that she would crash her own computer to hide emails: “How would I know two years ahead of time that it would be important for me to destroy emails, and if I did know that, why wouldn’t I have destroyed the other ones they keep releasing?”

  Politico doesn't seem interested that Lerner and all her friends' hard drives mysteriously disappeared after they were subpoenaed, many of the emails missing or excessively redacted. 
  Why does the IRS need to significantly redact documents in an attempt to be transparent?
  Well, she may have been a bit "stern" her peers claim but she has a "big personality" which lets loose with a "short temper" now and then. No mention of the selectively of the objects of that short temper.
  Politico's writers repeatedly pump Lerner's so-called good points, her love for animals and her friends and her commitment to causes important to her, apparently unable to decipher how that behavior might translate against those she considers her political opponents.
  Though Politico does admit Lerner has some culpability, she should not be the only one to blame just because her name is the only one out there and the "GOP is taking advantage of" the "kerfuffle" including Lerner's unlikeability factor.
  Still, Lerner lives in a $2.5 million house in an affluent neighborhood with a husband who works and somehow she gets by on a $100,000 pension from the taxpayers. 
   She and her husband look "tired," have become friends with their lawyers, have suffered greatly from the persecution she's received.
  Politico appears to have boundless compassion and sympathy for Lerner's situation, using specific adjectives and verbs to draw a more positive than negative picture of Lerner, regardless of the lies, the misdirection, the mysterious destruction of government documents.
  When a taxpayer from Ohio reads this kind of hogwash propaganda from a major "news" website such as Politico, he or she certainly has to wonder where the articles are about the taxpayers who were maligned for simply holding a view contrary to Leftist political think running the IRS.
  Where are the stories about the IRS, FBI, ATF harassment of True the Vote's founder.
  Where are the stories about the "invasive" questions the IRS asked to engender fear, such as the names and addresses of people who attend your meetings, the "derivation of your group's name" or your "connection with Justin Binik-Thomas" (?), "your youth outreach to local schools," or the names of "donors, contributors and grantors ."
  Where are the Politico (and its ilks') long sympathetic articles about why the IRS felt it necessary for groups to "detail the content of your members' prayers"?
  If Lerner is so innocent, why did she apologize in a planted question in May 2013 for her behavior in targeting conservative groups?
  Why did she then ADMIT that what she did was wrong?
  And admit that she had purposely stalled the function of government based on the names of conservative groups seeking IRS approval?
  Why did she plead the Fifth?
  Let's revisit that admission, in part here, from Lerner's apology itself:

They used names like Tea Party or Patriots and they selected cases simply because the applications had those names in the title. That was wrong, that was absolutely incorrect, insensitive, and inappropriate — that’s not how we go about selecting cases for further review.  [SNIP]

The other thing that happened was they also, in some cases, cases sat around for a while. They also sent some letters out that were far too broad, asking questions of these organizations that weren’t really necessary for the type of application. In some cases you probably read that they asked for contributor names. That’s not appropriate, not usual, there are some very limited times when we might need that but in most of these cases where they were asked they didn’t do it correctly and they didn’t do it with a higher level of review. As I said, some of them sat around for too long.

  So which is it, Lois?
  Was it wrong or wasn't it?
  Was it inappropriate or wasn't it?
  Were the questions unnecessary? The onerous demand for document after document?
  The intentional delay of  government function based on political affiliation?
  It appears Lerner--and Politico for her--want both exoneration and rehabilitation for things Lerner now claims not to have done.
   Wow.
  Just wow.

I heard the news, today, oh boy

  Here's your morning cheer up. 
  While New Yorkers spend their time lining up for the new iPhone, our military serve their country cheerfully.

Terrorists apprehended at our border September 10: do Democrats care?

  The revelation that terrorists were apprehended at our border on September 10 is shocking, yet most of the traditional media and Democrats are uninterested in this story, just as they are not interested in what happened in Benghazi.
   Nor are they interested in the testimony forthcoming from 5 individuals who have revealed State Department lack of concern for the welfare of the Americans stationed there.
  Nor are the press and Democrats interested in the subsequent purging of State documents regarding Benghazi that might prove damaging to Hillary Clinton's future presidential prospects.
  This Megyn Kelly interview describes the incident of Middle Eastern terrorists at our border and DHS unwillingness to acknowledge the capture, even as we arm our Border Patrol agents with cameras to protect the illegals entering the country.
  Gateway Pundit has more. 
  To say that the Democrat party and their ilk are uninterested in the security of this country is an understatement. Indeed, many of their policies encourage bad or illegal behavior.
  But likewise, where are the Republicans--other than the few like Chaffetz--warning of the dangers of this unparalleled invasion of our shores?
  Where are the ads--like the 30 second ads the NRA runs--warning of the lower wages we can all expect with the influx of the cheap labor Democrats and the Chamber of Commerce want to import through mass illegal immigration?
  Where are the warnings about the massive long term debt we are accumulating?
  Instead we hear Obama's people say that Obama has lowered the debt more than any other president, even though he's the one that ran it up higher than all presidents through Clinton.
  The people who are running this country are living in a fantasy, a dream world in which there are no consequences, long or short term, for consistently bad behavior.
  They do not and will not face reality. Instead they make it government practice to hide the truth from the very people they are hired to defend and protect.
  Instead secrecy has become the hallmark of the Democrat party. 
  You can bet they'll backtrack if and when another 9/11 happens. Suddenly Democrats'll be the party who've always been worried about national security, even though they've actually encouraged this dangerous environment.
  And in case anyone thinks the Democrat party has a "hawk" in Hillary Clinton's possible presidential run, let me remind that the Clintons are well known for obfuscating and covering their tracks, including the event of Sandy "Burgler" repeatedly entering the National Archives to steal damaging documents in his underwear to protect the Clintons' reputation.
  That kind of behavior continues to this day.
  State Department is and was a mess under Hillary, notwithstanding her erroneously translated "reset button" with Putin. Yeah, that worked out well.
  Sharyl Atkisson, the unwelcome CBS reporter who is now part of The Daily Signal, broke the story that one weekend Hillary!'s State Department purged Benghazi documents to protect her, regardless government regulations for transparency. Ignoring the illegality of what they were doing, her employees were "ordered" to destroy any documents that reveal the truth:

“She told me, ‘Ray, we are to go through these stacks and pull out anything that might put anybody in the [Near Eastern Affairs] front office or the seventh floor in a bad light,’” says Maxwell. He says “seventh floor” was State Department shorthand for then-Secretary of State Clinton and her principal advisers.
“I asked her, ‘But isn’t that unethical?’ She responded, ‘Ray, those are our orders.’ ”

  Democrats and the press are also uninterested in the burgeoning State Department scandals, including a commitment to pedophilia and prostitution:

According to the documentary, Higbie’s court filings and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints reveal a major scandal in the Clinton State Department, including interference with investigations of drug use, sexual assault, and pedophilia on the part of senior officials—including at least one U.S. ambassador. 

  This story of State Department misbehavior regarding drugs, sexual abuse and sexual escapades has been out there for well over a year.
  Yet nothing.
  Instead we have Democrats on camera either silent or raging that any questions exposing such behavior are disrespectful and untrue. Whistleblowers are ostracized and punished.
  And as far as protecting our borders go, apparently interest in security will occur only after the fact.
  Then they'll find another "burgler" just as Bill and Hillary Clinton did to steal damaging documents, rewrite history and run commercials about how much they really care about the future of this country.

Connecticut Tea Parties show Joe Visconti the door

As I've written before and as all Tea Party members know, there is no test for membership and no copyright on the label. To be a Tea Party candidate all one must do is state that he or she represents the values of the Tea Party. Two recent "Tea Party" candidates that come quickly to mind are Richard Mourdock and Matt Bevin. Mourdock could best be described as a social conservative with a penchant for big government conservative solutions. Matt Bevin ran a hedge fund and did a superb job of concealing his true political convictions. Both candidates enjoyed the backing of some Tea Party members which only divided the party.
Connecticut's so called Tea Party candidate for governor Joe Visconti is a snake oil salesman of the first water and it looks as if the Connecticut Tea Parties have united to ride him out of the movement. A scathing FaceBook post reads;

Perhaps this is truly the most important point for you to consider. For five years we have stood together, rallied together, protested, plotted and planned together. We’ve grown from a few dozen to several thousand strong. We’ve moved from the street corner into the political process. We are now members of Town Committees, Boards of Education, Boards of Finance, City and Town Councils, State Representatives, and even a State Senator or two. We have managed to work our way into every level of politics and government. We have changed the conversation in this state in a profound way. Since 2010 every single political conversation has had to consider our ideals, our goals, our message. One of our steepest learning curves over these years is that we have to both keep our energy and our supporters focused on principle and avoid flaming out over singular elections. If we have learned anything over the last five years, it’s that this is a marathon, not a sprint.
We will get into the Governor’s Mansion in due time. We must live to fight another day, but your candidacy is tearing us apart. Consider what is happening on social media. We are sniping at each other in full view of the public. Friends and allies are no longer speaking in civil tones, if they are speaking at all.

And then the Dear John moment!

While we admire and respect your efforts, and those of your dedicated volunteers, if you continue in this race, you do so without the support of the majority of tea party, conservative and grassroots groups. We all stood together for over five years now. Today, we are standing together against your candidacy in this race.

Bravo! Right through the heart! That's about as clear as a non endorsement as one could ask for and reflecting a united Tea Party it is signed by everybody who is anybody in the Nutmeg State's Tea Party movement.

• Tanya Bachand, founder, New Haven Tea Party
• Bob MacGuffie, founder, Right Principles
• Art McNally, AKA Joe The Voter Woodbury, Former Member of the Hartford Tea Party
  Dale Dauphinais, Chairman, Quiet Corner Tea Party Patriots
• Jen Ezzell, founder, 2nd District Tea Party Patriots
  
• Pamela Kurtz, founder, Brookfield Tea Party
• Robin and Stan Emond, co-founders, Southington Tea Party
• John Beidler, co-founder, Southington Tea Party
• Cheryl Lemos, founder, Stratford Tea Party
• John Pepper, founder, Cheshire Tea Party
• Jerri MacMillan

I read the news today oh boy

President Petulant: If I were an adviser for ISIS

  It's nice to know Obama could pull himself away from the golf course long enough to grant an interview to one of his sycophants in the press.
  It appears that all the sniping (most of which hasn't been particularly vicious) about Obama's foreign policy, vacationing ("It's always a challenge when you're supposed to be on vacation" which means that, for Obama, it's always challenging) has really gotten to President Thin Skin I was raised by grandparents who worshiped me.
  He granted an audience to some slobberingly loyal NYT reporters (who then outsourced the writing to another NYT reporter who wasn't even at the interview????).
  The interview is, as such political events go, hackmanship on display, served with a great big huge plop of extra sharp cheddar cheese of self-pity.
  So indecisive that he can't won't make up his mind about anything, a pattern he established when he was a senator in Illinois, Obama took potshots at his critics, claiming that he's being martyred for being "deliberate" and "careful" in not rushing to war.

  “Oh, it’s a shame when you have a wan, diffident, professorial president with no foreign policy other than ‘don’t do stupid things,’ ” guests recalled him saying, sarcastically imitating his adversaries. “I do not make apologies for being careful in these areas, even if it doesn’t make for good theater.”

  The information culled for this article came from "a group of foreign policy experts and former government officials.......and a separate group of columnists and magazine writers for a discussion on Wednesday afternoon."  Apparently Obama was the "relaxed" talker, regardless other political stars like Biden being in the room, described as "ambivalent....at peace"...."calm and confident, well versed on the complexities of the ISIS challenge and in no evident rush to end the discussions" which certainly comes as no surprise for those of us who've been objective about Obama's proclivities.
  Obama revealed that he's pissed at the French and any critics who dare challenge him:

It was clear to the guests how aware Mr. Obama was of the critics who have charged him with demonstrating a lack of leadership. He brought up the criticism more than once with an edge of resentment in his voice. 

  Resentment? How big of him. What gravitas. What a big brain Obama has, who's bored with the world around him, as Valerie Jarrett once complained.
  But to me what was probably most shocking about this interview is Obama's statement about giving advice to ISIS.

If he had been “an adviser to ISIS,” Mr. Obama added, he would not have killed the hostages but released them and pinned notes on their chests saying, “Stay out of here; this is none of your business.” Such a move, he speculated, might have undercut support for military intervention.

  What leader thinks like this? 
  What great leader sees his or her enemies--in this case the most evil of evil--in terms of having "advisers" who would even think of returning hostages with pinned notes on their chests?
  And what American president could even envision himself--in thought or interview--as an "advisor to ISIS"?  It almost sounds like a statement of identification with ISIS rather than outrage against ISIS.
  This is a serious statement of foreign policy?
  These comments by Obama are followed immediately by assurances that Obama is not a "softy." Whoo, no, he's not a "softy."
  Why would anyone think he is?
  Could it be the KICK ME signed pinned on his back that's revealed his "softyness" to ISIS?
UPDATE: So I ask myself if Obama would have advised this?
  "If I were an adviser for Hitler,I woulda said, Hey don't gas all those Jews.Pin a note on 'em instead. Yeah, that'll do it."
  "If I were an adviser for Che Guevera, I woulda said, "Hey, prolly don't use those firing squads to murder your opponents. Pin a note on your opponents instead. Yeah, that'll do it."
  "If I were an adviser for Stalin, I woulda said, "Hey, why you usin' massacres to run Russia? Pinning notes on your enemies is much more effective. Yeah, that'll do it."
  "If I were an adviser for Ted Bundy, I woulda said, "Yo, Ted! You think about puttin' post it notes on those chicks instead? Yeah, that'll do it."

Obama's devil horn picture reveals crumbling devotion

  Informed voters knew what was coming with the election of Barack Obama but wow. Watching the empire crumble has been really, really embarrassing and painful.
  In fact, it's hard to watch or listen to news reports or even go to sleep without worrying what the Obama clown machine is going to do next.
  I think most hard working citizens have given up in exasperation watching relatives, neighbors and mooches around the country collect undeserved disability, welfare benefits, supplements for this and that, expanded free phone programs, $800 billion worth of "stimulus" programs that weren't job ready haha isn't that funny.
  The last couple weeks have been excruciating really.
  And now we have the unbelievable debacle of Obama striding up to the camera and giving a buffoonish speech which had very few elements of truth or reality in it.
  Not to mention his crooked flag pin which caused a Twitter uproar and the traditional media halo which has somehow turned into devil horns recently. Note:

  John Kerry's pronouncement that we don't need to get into "war fever" over the bombs we're dropping around the world. 
  Mind you, I have no problem with dropping bombs on the filthy perps who beheaded those Americans. 
  It's the incitement Kerry is engaging in similar to Obama called ISIS "JV." If you want to really, really dare them to keep it up and worse, just incite the sympathizers of these monsters by claiming airily you're not really at war with those you are bombing.
   John Kerry. You know. That peacemonger who works for the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

  Then ask the White House spokesman what victory looks like, only to have him respond by smirking and retorting smugly, "I didn't bring my Webster's dictionary with me" as if this question was completely irrelevant and outrageous.
  As Instapundit says, we are in the best of hands.
  The fancy pants elitist worms are turning, it appears, as (in addition to allowing the devil horns silhouetted on the back of The Prince's head) the MSM and its minions are turning on their Prince.
  For example, there's David Frum in The Atlantic:

Qua speech, Barack Obama’s address Wednesday on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria was surprisingly terrible: a disorganized mess, insincere and unconvincing. To appreciate just how bad and bizarre it was......

  And Yale professor (et tu, Bruce?) Bruce Ackerman in the NY Times who apparently hasn't been shocked at Mr. Obama's previous flouting of Constitutional law:

But for now the president seems grimly determined to practice what Mr. Bush’s lawyers only preached. He is acting on the proposition that the president, in his capacity as commander in chief, has unilateral authority to declare war.

In taking this step, Mr. Obama is not only betraying the electoral majorities who twice voted him into office on his promise to end Bush-era abuses of executive authority. He is also betraying the Constitution he swore to uphold.

  And thinly veiled Democrat shill Karen Tumulty at the Washington Post:

Both Cole and Richardson were surveyed in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll and represent one of its most striking findings: the degree to which the president’s approval has slipped among key parts of the Obama coalition — the women, youth and Latino voters most responsible for putting him into office.

Women surveyed said they disapprove of Obama by a 50 percent to 44 percent margin — nearing an all-time low in the poll. It’s almost the reverse of the 55 percent to 44 percent breakdown for Obama among female voters in 2012, according to exit polls.

  Not to mention Maureen Dowd, who actually had the audacity to criticize Obama for his golfing behavior.
  Unlike Rush, I do not believe Obama knows what he's doing. Yes, he's getting much of what he wants simply through autocratic commands, but he's also in danger of doing Jimmy Carter damage to the Democrat party, a comment orange Chuck Todd made recently.
  What's so astounding is that Obama would prance up to that podium and announce that he's bombing Syria, has supporters (9?) and then we find out it's Albania. Or whatever.
  He has lost support around the world. Our allies do not trust Obama. I believe they trust America, but not its current leadership.
  Indeed, Obama was formerly a master of the theater of politics, Greek columns aside.
  Now, he's just a bit player on an ever shrinking stage.

NRA ads ROCK! The Left squees!!!

  I have to admit every time one of these new NRA ads flip on the TV, if I'm out of the room I pop back in to watch because they are so compelling.
  They appeal to the better part of our natures and face down the tyranny we face from the nanny staters, fascists and would be kings.

  Of course, the Left is furious about the NRA's "despicable" new ad campaign, The Daily Beast citing several anecdotal incidents where people have been killed by gunfire either accidentally or criminally.
  They don't mention that the cities that have the strictest gun control have the highest rates of crime.
  Indeed, even the new Detroit police chief encourages citizens to carry guns, as it makes their work easier. By the time you call the police, you won't be able to protect yourself.
  The Left also doesn't cite the number of incidents in which citizens carrying guns protect the public against criminals, who always mysteriously seem to be able to get weapons for themselves regardless the law.
  Logically, Charlie Rangel claims that anyone wanting to legally own a gun in a place like Chicago where criminals and the innocent are murdered daily is "an insult to the American people’s intelligence for them [the NRA] to continue to do this.” 
  Actually, Charlie, it's not hard to see who's lacking in intelligence there. 
  The Left also sees these ads which point out hypocrisy, the need for self defense and the fact that the last thing tyrants do before they completely own you is take your weapons of self defense.
  Well, I'm sure old Charlie won't like Colion Noir then, an outspoken NRA proponent.
  There's this one :

The most Fabulist POTUS evah gives a Fabulist speech

  Well, I watched the POTUS and his little echo-y speech tonight. I admit there is no way he could convince me he knows what he's doing.
  Two things were most astounding to me.
  First, he lies so easily, so fabulously, so completely that he makes it look like a learned skill, one everyone knows is happening but don't wish to emulate because, well, everyone knows he's lying.
  Like, what the heck was that business about how great our economy is. 
  And then there's the part about 
  Second, what was that detritus about ISIL(S) not being Islamic. Everyone knows it is. It's their name and they have many followers so, yeah, I guess they ARE Islamic.

Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not Islamic. No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim. And ISIL is certainly not a state. 

  Which again amounts to a defense of a religion that needs more sensible peaceful leaders to speak out, leaders like Dr. Zuhdi Jasser.
  And this, which stuck in my craw, I must confess:

This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven."

  Does anyone believe that? that it is a core principle of his presidency if you threaten America? All they have to do is run through our border to a "sanctuary city", apply for welfare like the very healthy Tsaraov murderer brothers did.
   He lies one thing, then changes it a few weeks later, at the same time asking you not to remember what the very firm clear stands he's taken
   Then there's that disturbing notion that Obama, in his own Nobel Peace Prize way, is trying to get the mileage and backbone out of a speech that Prime Minister David Cameron did.
  THAT's another fabulist dream.
   And take a look at this black and white dramatic photo of our dear little POTUS before the speech released, of course, by Mr. Obama's personal White House photographer who's the only one allowed to photograph him on a regular basis with permission.'

   This is the way the photographers on the White House beat (not the official WH Photo) behave when they're allowed access for about 30 seconds, according to Keith Koffler from White House Dossier, who's noticed the cattle mentality more than once when it comes to the White House allowing them to actually do their jobs.

   All in all, I don't think it was worth watching. He's not sending troops in he says and instead will just drop bombs. 
  The boots on the ground will be the Free Syrian Army he scorned a few months ago. 
  Now how's that gonna work.
  I have concluded from his speech tonight that Obama is a fabulist whose words flow like honey out of his month.
  And I'm imagining those terrorists over there are laughing their asses off from watching it.
  We're safer now?
  That's like saying ISIS is a JV team. He's thrown down a gauntlet, daring them to prove their cavemanhood.
   Blessings and safety to all tomorrow, September 11, 2014.
  Keep your eyes and ears open, my friends.

Republican look smart for a change

The Republicans, frequently billed as the Party of Stupid, do occasionally exhibit some tactical prowess. Senate Democrats have made campaign spending reform the centerpiece of their fall election strategy with a constitutional amendment that would allow states and the federal government to write laws that would limit campaign spending. Republicans could have blocked the amendment on a procedural motion but led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell allowed the bill to move forward. This is a fight the Republicans want.
Aside from getting the debate that they relish Republicans will jam up the legislative calendar thereby preventing Democrats from introducing more election year nostrums such as student loan repayment scheme the country cannot afford and pay check fairness measures that would address unfounded claims of gender discrimination.
“They know we’re getting out of here fairly shortly and they want to prevent discussion on other very important issues,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). “I would love to be proven wrong. But if the end of this week, we end up getting 67 votes, you can tell me I was too cynical.” ... Democrats’ argument would be made simpler if the GOP simply rejected the constitutional amendment on the first vote, rather than opening debate on it. But now the amendment will be on the Senate floor for several days — allowing perhaps the last substantive debate of the election season...
Oh! They didn't want a vote? It was just a charade that backfired badly. As Cleta Mitchell pointed out Democrats have no intension of following the election laws they write.
Senator Mike Lee lays out the case against the amendment.

The middle class is sinking fast!

Unless one earns $75,000 or more he or she, especially she, is likely to feel lost in an economy that works for the rich but not the middle class. Six years into the purported recovery 56% of Americans feel they are losing ground. Among women the figure is 60% while 52% of men feel financially pinched. In the Pew Research survey the respondents are aware of the rise in the stock market and the job market but those indices matter little unless one owns a hefty portfolio. The point is wages are not keeping up with inflation. Food prices have risen by 22% over the last year and the larger percentage of ones income spent on food the greater the burden. Milk and beef prices are at historic highs along with stock prices and there is evidence that the Federal Reserve's qualitative easing is responsible for both. Democrats have sought to blame this rise on the drought in California but milk and meat prices are regionally driven.
Among those making over $100,000 fifteen percent respond that their income is rising faster than living cost but among those earning less than $30,000 seventy percent are falling behind. The falling standard of living is directly correlated to age with 59% of those over 65 falling behind.
About a quarter of the population experienced some sort of financial problem in the last year.


Notice that 5 years after Obamacare was passed more people had trouble getting or paying for medical care.
It may be unfair to call the dire economic environment deliberate but it is the logical result of Obama's slow growth policies. Rising food prices can be linked not only to Fed policy but to the ethanol mandate that has driven corn prices higher. Corn is the feed stock of almost all U.S. meat and poultry. Health insurance cost have risen because of Obamacare. Utility rates have risen and will rise even more with the EPA's war on coal.
In times past rising prices were often mitigated by the extra interest savers earned on money. In the world of Obama and Yellen that middle class hedge is gone.
When more than half the country feels hopeless things are apt to change dramatically; if not this election then the next. Ronald Reagan did not create "Reagan Democrats"; Jimmy Carter did. Carter's failed policies both foreign and domestic resulted in 14 lost senate seats for the Democrats and ushered in 12 years of Republican dominance.

ISIS or ISIL?

  A friend asked recently why "our" President insists on referring to ISIS as ISIL.
  Well, that's simple. Calling this vicious terror group ISIL rather than ISIS is a form of respect, acknowledging that their goal is regional, far larger than just Iraq and Syria.
  This topic entitled "Obama’s use of ISIL reveals his true allegiance, and animus towards Israel"
was recently visited by Allen West, who contends that Obama's choice indicates his sympathies lie with Islamist Muslims' attempt to build a caliphate and a slam toward Israel as an "occupying" nation.
  West explains:

if you choose to refer to this group as ISIL, you have basically rewritten the map of the Middle East and fallen into the trap of not recognizing the existence of Israel and also Lebanon. If you use ISIL you are then validating the Islamic totalitarian and jihadist claim that the modern day Jewish State of Israel is an occupation state and does not exist in the eyes of Muslims.

What are words for? They’re for realizing what is a declared and recognized state as opposed to a terrorist organization that doesn’t deserve validation.

  From Wikipedia:

n 14 May 2014, the United States Department of State announced its decision to use "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) as the group's primary name.The debate over which acronym should be used to designate the group, ISIL or ISIS, has been discussed by several commentators.

A derogatory term for this group is cited here:

Some Arab media outlets and politicians have meanwhile started using the term Da'ish. It appears to have originated from posts by Syrian opposition activists and social media users.

Da'ish is not an Arabic word and the use of acronyms is not common in Arabic. Furthermore, the jihadist group objects to the term and has advised against its usage.

  One can't help but remember George H. W. Bush's repeated and deliberate pronunciation of Saddam Hussein's name as Sad-dum, an act that indicated Bush's provocation of the dictator and made "uncomfortable" Leftists observing it:

Still, a vague sense of discomfort is felt by some editors, who worry that perhaps they are being manipulated by a White House seemingly intent on war, as they were 12 years ago when the president's father, George H.W. Bush, deliberately mispronounced Saddam Hussein's name. Putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable, experts say the first President Bush also converted the meaning of the name in Arabic, from sa-DAM, which means one who confronts, to Sad-um, which means a barefoot beggar.

    Yes, there we are at that comparison again. An accommodating Obama versus a defiant Bush.
    Huh.
    We'll wait for Obama to call the terrorists Da'ish.