Fox Political Insiders; we are in a revolutionary moment

This video is extremely thought provoking. Are we at a revolutionary moment. Notice that the independants are 2 to 1 against any involvement in Syria while both parties oppose it by about the same margin. The Insiders argue forcefully that his is the greater public versus the Washington establishment. The next election may be very hard on incumbents and in the near term House leadership is shaky.

As White House Pontificates Drone Strike Kills Women and Children

From the New York Times:

The drone strike occurred Saturday afternoon in the Watapur district of Kunar Province, a stronghold for the insurgency ensconced in hard-to-access mountainous terrain. Afghan officials said the drone was targeting four insurgents who were picked up along the road by a truck with civilians in it, though reports differed on the number of passengers. Women and children were among the dead, officials said.

War is a dirty business and normally I would not comment on this but when the nation is supposed to respond to the killing of innocent women and children not only with outrage but with B52 bombers and cruise missiles it ill behooves the commander-in-chief to be personally involved in the same such killings. In this case the number of insurgents targeted was 4 but the number killed was 16. Inasmuch as the White House boasts that Obama chooses drone targets the loss of these innocent lives is on him.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the drone strike on Sunday, calling the attack on women and children against all international norms. The president did not appear to immediately wade into the debate over drones in the short statement.

Fine. It's great when a drug dealer has the moral grounds to lecture us on civilized behavior.

Congresswoman Marcia Fudges on Syria

Just keep your mouths shut until we decide what you should say. That was the gist of an email sent to Congressional Black Caucus members. From The Hill;

CBC Chairwoman Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) sent an email Tuesday – via CBC staff – to CBC members asking them “to limit public comment on the issue,” Fudge spokeswoman Ayofemi Kirby said Thursday.
“The chair believes Congress and the American public need more information, and she awaits more briefings between now and early next week before commenting further,” Kirby said.

But things are more complicated. CBC member Congresswoman Barbara Lee circulated a letter demanding that Obama get congressional approval before taking any military action against Syria. The letter was signed by 64 Democrats, 16 CBC members, and guess who? Congresswoman Marcia Fudge.
So why is Fudge working both sides of the street? Because the White House issued a gag order and the Chair of the CBC dutifully complied.

When asked if the White House requested the partial gag order, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said "the Administration is reaching out to all Members to ensure they have the information they need to make an informed judgment on this issue."

Eventually Obama probably will be able to bring the a large majority of the CBC along but this episode should show all who will see that Fudge's loyalty is to Obama and not the voters or Congress.

Will Obama bomb with only Senate approval?

  Is Obama ready to go it alone? Or with just Senate approval? That's the rumor being floated tonight.
  The other theory that's out there is that Obama got rattled by Iranian threats to the families of Obama and his emissaries around the world, discussed here over at Powerline:

I think we now have the answer. You are no doubt aware of news reports of threatened retaliation by Iran and others in the event of a Syrian strike. In the most horrifying instance, Iranian cleric Alireza Forghani–who, there is reason to believe, spoke with the approval of Iran’s rulers–vowed that in case of an attack on Assad:

  More here at Powerline. Apparently Obama wants to spread the wealth of possible murders around to Republicans and those who approved the strike.
  What a mess Obama has created, explicated at NRO by Victor Davis Hanson, who offers a solid rationale that this situation was not unexpected:

How did Obama get himself into this mess? It was bound to happen, given his past habits. All we are seeing now is the melodramatic fulfillment of vero possumus, lowering the rising seas, faux Corinthian columns, hope and change, the bows, the Cairo speech, and the audacity of hope. Hubris does earn Nemesis.

  Meanwhile we watch and wait, disapproving to no avail. He'll do what he wants, Constitution and American people be damned. 
  He's set to bomb the people of this country with rhetoric on television and, no doubt, all social media. Can't wait to hear hear him touting his bombing plan on Pandora or read a frisky upbeat ad on Facebook.
  Oh, and then he went golfing.
  Again.

Bloomberg; Interracial Families Are Racist

What is racist about this picture? According to Mayor Bloomberg this is part of a racist campaign. The tiny mayor explained that by using his Afro-American wife and his mixed race teenage son in his campaign de Blasio was injecting race into the campaign.
Mayor Bloomberg slammed Bill de Blasio for running a “racist” mayoral campaign, New York magazine reports.
“Class-warfare and racist,” Bloomberg said. “I mean he’s making an appeal using his family to gain support. I think it’s pretty obvious to anyone watching what he’s been doing.”
It could be worse. De Blasio and his wife have two children and they are both racially mixed, if you can imagine that, but only the older son Dante has appeared in the campaign. Why doesn't hiz honor just say, whites only?

Barack's home town: paradise, right?

  Wow!
  Rahm Emanuel, (hated by both the left and the right in Chicago) official extension of Barack Obama and Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste-r, can lay claim to the most restrictive gun laws in the nation.
  And the most murders.
  And vicious attacks on citizens.
  Breitbart has the numbers from Hey Jackass:
  53 murders.
  224 woundings.
  In August.
  I'd say Leftist policies are really working well, wouldn't you?
  We're still waiting for Barack Obama's official statement of concern for the black citizens of Chicago, whose murder rate exceeds Afghanistan's US deaths.
  Leftist blogs say, meh, not so much.
  Never mind the drop out 37% rate for Chicago students. (yay! More graduate than not! Yay!) Never mind the rate of crime exceeds American cities.
  Yet black people continue to be the most murdered.
  But it's conservatives' fault because they blame everything on Obama's home town.
  When will the black FAMILY, Barack Obama and Leftists acknowledge that something's deeply terribly wrong?

Leftists: America as the World Police

  So this Leftist angst over bombing Syria has really been interesting, shocking and revealing.
  (Slightly less interesting to watch are the clueless, spineless, Republican dolts who rushed to cameras to slobber over Obama's equally clueless declaration of war. Bleh.)
  I'm still somewhat shocked (if you can be somewhat shocked) by Eleanor Holmes Norton's frank admission that she really wasn't all about killing people in Syria other than to save Obama's global reputation which, frankly, Eleanor, is already in the toilet. Evan Bayh says it will be a bad thing to "neuter their president" so Congress will probably go along with the whole bombing thing.
  Pelosi's bizarre, intriguing and very intelligent conversation with her anti-war 5 year old grandson was another indication of the Left approaching the edge of the cliff of sanity. 
  You can watch her lipsticked mouth dish on the 5 year old kid's view of war the action Pelosi wants taken to bring the Syrians and the government into the same world view as Obama has.

  She was obviously taken with John Kerry's view of war military action which will have no consequences to the homeland. 
  Rand Paul's confrontation with John Kerry (viewable here) begs for priceless body language analysis.
   Every time Paul speaks, Kerry suddenly becomes intensely interested in writing very important notes on the paper in front of him. He even points at Rand Paul with gun shaped fingers.
  The notoriously anti-war, anti-soldier pompously arrogant and condescending Kerry nasally informs Paul and the world that a few bombs are a "limited action" not "war in the classic sense," though Kerry can't "rule out boots on the ground."
  Not that any of this made any sense; watching Leftists twist political pretzels to justify whatever position Dear Leader takes is both schadenfreudalicious and mournful.
  Over at the Daily Beast, Leftist Michael Tomasky whines that Leftism & militarism can be copecetic to amusing results: his commenters are virulently anti-military action in Syria. "Flapdoodle" expresses anger most eloquently:

It's infuriating to see so-called "liberals" and fauxgressives rooting for an unnecessary war. And why are they? Because their Dem placeholder wants one. Not good enough, in fact, it's a truly despicable reason. Frivolous, pointless, disgusting.
Such utter hypocrisy.

  To which the spelling challenged "Left of Center" responds indignantly:

You know full well their are many on the right opposing intervention for no other reason than Obama is advocating for it.

  Which is, of course, racist rather than a principled position.
  But it's not racist for "Left of Center" to support military action because their guy is black.
  Cognitive dissonance much?
  Gassing, Bayh claims, hasn't been done since "Hitler" or in "almost 100 years." Guess they've forgotten about Saddam Hussein gassing the Kurds, huh. Now THAT wasn't a good reason to go to war! Who are the Kurds anyway?
  Even as Syria busily moves human targets into the path of any of the 52 plans of attack Obama has assembled, Ed Asner & Mike Farrell are now sad they voted for Obama, who they considered would "sacrifice himself" rather than become a "corporatist" which apparently a bad thing. Millionaire Asner whose $1.5 million home just went up for sale apparently doesn' like corporations like the ones who made his career, via Newsbusters:

He feels sad he voted for Obama: "I voted for him, but I'm not proud. He hasn't thrown himself on the funeral pyre. I wanted him to sacrifice himself. Instead, he has proved himself to be a corporatist, and as long as he's a corporatist, he's not my president," Asner said. "A lot of people have lost hope -- with the betrayals, the NSA spying ... People aren't getting active because 'Who gives a shit?' is essentially the bottom line."

   Asner bases his political positions on emotion rather than reality, claiming that in Hollywood...."A lot of people don't want to feel anti-black by being opposed to Obama."
  So it's turns out it's true: Leftists really do base their political stances on looking "anti-black," as lame ass and racist as that sounds.
   Mike Farrell is equally down in the dumps, who laments:

"What he is talking about in Syria is a potential war crime," Farrell said. "It will be illegal, and if citizens are killed it certainly could be considered a war crime....This administration ought to insist that the international community charge [Assad] with a war crime and prosecute him, and in so doing Obama would be following the law instead of flaunting the law."
"It's incredibly improper for the president to call for a strike. I have said it everywhere I can and I suspect a lot of others will do the same, but whether there will be an organized effort, I don't know," Farrell admitted. "I'm frankly deeply disappointed in the president's foreign policy, war-making, his reliance on military rather then diplomatic responses, his use of drones, continued allowance of the Guantanamo prison. He's a disappointment to me and other people I know."

  So here we are again appearing on stage as the World Police, only this time under the direction of the Nobel Peace Prize winning POTUS.
  With no clear direction or purpose other than to fire a "shot across the bow" and no further military entanglement envisioned, America is at the whim of a single narcissist who is increasingly detached from reality.
  Reality bites, though, as I don't ever want to hear peacenik language from these people again. Just like the Occupy protesters who claim peace and love, their real world view includes bullying and abusing people into their world view, with a few bodies and rapes along the way.
  So here we go.
  Hey, too bad about that Eiffel Tower.

Rumsfeld is flabbergasted when told Obama said he didn't draw the red line

Donald Rumsfeld is not your typical man on the street but his reaction when informed of Obama's statement that he did not draw a red line probably mirrors the reaction of that personage. Did he really say that? He is stunned.

What next from Obama? You didn't build that?

Demand The House to Vote on Syria

Is there no limit to Boehner's subservience? Sources on Capitol Hill now say that if the resolution on the use of force in Syria looks as if it will lose it may not be brought up for a vote. Writing at National Review Online, John Fund;

“I just don’t believe that if defeat is certain, the House leadership will want to see a president utterly humiliated on the House floor in a public vote,” one top aide to the Republican leadership told me. Should the full Senate vote to approve an attack on Syria — as still appears somewhat likely — the battle would shift to the House. “An attempt would be made to let the whole thing go away. I don’t think it would be done to give the GOP any extra leverage in debt-ceiling or budget negotiations

Right. House Democrats were so magnanimous when they rammed through Obamacare and the President is always so so gracious and grateful. With no resounding defeat, and it would be resounding, Obama would feel free to intervene in Syria as confirmed by the Uk Daily Mail.

President Obama today refused to rule out attacking Syria without the backing of Congress, as new polls show he faces a crushing defeat in any vote in the House of Representatives.
An ABC News reporter at the G20 meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, tried to pin him down and get a 'direct response' to the question of what he will do if his gamble seeking congressional approval fails.
'I'm not going to engage in parlor games now ... about whether or not it's going to pass,' he said.
'You're not getting a direct response.'
But while he acknowledged knowing his Syria gambit with Congress was 'going to be a heavy lift' all along, the president insisted that he didn't 'put this before Congress just as a political ploy or as symbolism.'
'I put it before Congress because I could not honestly claim that the threat posed by Assad's use of chemical weapons on innocent civilians and women and children posed an imminent, direct threat to the United States.'

We must demand an up or down vote and if Boehner cannot deliver that maybe the man who takes his place can. Now is not the time to pull a punch.

Mystery Media Super Stars

Make up, lights, camera, action. Guess which federal agency treats its help like media super stars.

If Congress does not fix the sequester all of this could end! 

McCain Upbraided at Townhall

This is not partisan, rather it is heartfelt. The woman has relatives in Syria whose sympathies lie with the Assad regime which as the lady points out may not be perfect but looks better than the opposition. Out of touch? Maybe, but that was the position of John Kerry who dined with Assad and Hillary Clinton who called him a reformer.

Brazilian President Rousseff Steamed at Obama

Diplomat extraordinaire Barack Obama was late to dinner at the G20 summit apparently trying to sweet talk Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who has made no secret that she is angry that NSA had intercepted her communication. While the rest of the summit leaders focused on Obama's other faux pas namely his threatened strike against Syria the Brazilian President put Obama through her own private hell. The Wall Street Journal reports;

"Ms. Rousseff also asked for an apology and a written explanation after a Brazilian television news program reported that the National Security Agency had spied on her emails, phone calls and text messages, based on leaks provided by former NSA contractor . The U.S. has so far offered neither.
"A senior Brazilian official said there was now 'reasonable doubt' that the state visit would take place next month. 'No one would expect a partner to do this, and now it is up to the U.S. to explain,' he said. 'Without a reasonable explanation, there could be damage to the bilateral relation.' "

According to Reuters, Rousseff "feels patronized" and also threatened punitive action "including ruling out the purchase of F-18 Super Hornet fighters from Chicago-based Boeing Co. Maybe Obama should explain "smart diplomacy" to her and blow in her ear.

House Opposition To Syrian War Builds

If you're voting yes on military action in #Syria, might as well start cleaning out your office. Unprecedented level of public opposition.
— Justin Amash (@repjustinamash) September 5, 2013

I wonder if the congressman knows how right he is. As Congress is not in session not and all members are in Washington polling the House is impossible but one informal estimate places opposition to the resolution to between 3 and 4 to 1 to those supporting it. Do not despair! This has defeat, as in humiliating defeat written in bold red letters all over it.

From the Politico; Several Republican leadership aides, who are counting votes but not encouraging a position, say that there are roughly one to two dozen “yes” votes in favor of military action at this time. The stunningly low number is expected to grow a bit.
That would mean the remaining yes votes would have to come from the Democrats but quoting further; But Democrats privately say that Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) can only round up between 115 and 130 “yes” votes.
Let's see. Two dozen plus 130 equals 154. That means 281 House members oppose this resolution which is just shy of 2 to 1.
On the Senate side Two Democrats, Tom Udall of New Mexico and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, voted against the measure in committee while ever decisive Ed Markey voted present on his first important Senate vote. Three Republicans voted aye McCain, Tennessee RINO Corker, and Arizona wunderkind Flake.
Manchin has announced his intention to vote no.
Obama may prevail in the Senate with jackasses like McCain, Graham, and Corker helping but the House vote is apt to make the British House of Commons look almost hawkish.

Update: The Washington Post has polled 371 house members finding 24 representatives supporting the resolution, 103 opposing, 102 leaning no and 142 undecided.

Syrian Attack Will Include B1, B2, and B52 Bombers

This not what we were told! Just as wars tend to escalate from say, boarder skirmishes, to all out open warfare so do Senate resolutions. Language added to use of force resolution has been broadened at the behest of Senators John McCain and Chris Coons to do more than make a statement of moral outrage. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a resolution Wednesday saying a goal of U.S. policy will be to "change the momentum on the battlefield''.
The war has escalated and it hasn't even been brought to a vote. And what about the weaponry? According to a Wall Street Journal post it won't be confined to cruise missiles. The Pentagon envisions using B1, B2, and B52 bombers and target now include government buildings such as the Defense Ministry. Previously, officials said the targets would include command-and-control sites, artillery batteries and intelligence facilities. In other words it's going to be all out war. Senator's and Congressmen who vote in support of this resolution need to be hounded out of office and that of course includes the House Republican leadership.

Will NO ONE speak for the American people?

  So according to Eleanor Holmes Norton, this "war" (scare quotes included by John Kerry) which isn't a "war" is only being entertained to prop up the reputation of the pompous FOTUS (Fabulist of the United States).
  From Newsbusters, we quote Norton:

HOLMES NORTON: Oh, and I’d like to say, Bill, that if he [Obama] gets saved at all, I think it’ll be because, it’ll be because of loyalty of Democrats. They just don’t want to see him shamed and humiliated on the national stage.

PRESS: Yeah, right.

HOLMES NORTON: At the, at the moment, that’s the only reason I would vote for it if I could vote on it.

  So let's get this straight.
  These principled peaceniks are going to bomb another country--for the children--to save the reputation of the FOTUS from being "shamed and humiliated on the national stage."
  Of course, Norton cannot vote as a representative of D.C. but her comment is enlightening.
  Even dimwitty Chris Matthews admits that he doesn't know what the objective of the Syria bombing:

“I think the Democrats are going to be forced to sacrifice men and women who really, really don’t want to vote for this,” Matthews concluded. “They’re going to have to vote for it to save the president’s hide. That’s a bad position to put your party in.”

  There is no money for this; the country is running tremendous deficits. Obama does not care, since he never seems to mind spending our grandchildren's money.
  Even the military in the form of General Dempsey cannot state what our objective is in this bombing, since it will be isolated targets with no plan to depose Assad or remove chemical weapons, even as the Syrians move human targets into place as "shields". When asked, Dempsey responded this way:

CORKER: What you’re seeking. What is it you’re seeking?

DEMPSEY: I can’t answer that, what we’re seeking.

  Even Leftist satirists are getting into the act:

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Attempting to quell criticism of his proposal for a limited military mission in Syria, President Obama floated a more modest strategy today, saying that any U.S. action in Syria would have “no objective whatsoever.”

“Let me be clear,” he said in an interview on CNN. “Our goal will not be to effect régime change, or alter the balance of power in Syria, or bring the civil war there to an end. We will simply do something random there for one or two days and then leave.”

“I want to reassure our allies and the people of Syria that what we are about to undertake, if we undertake it at all, will have no purpose or goal,” he said. “This is consistent with U.S. foreign policy of the past.”

  What the hell. 
  Who cares if it's right for the country?
  Who cares if Americans oppose such military action?
  Who cares if we even know who--Iranian government or al Qaeda rebels--used the chemical weapons?
  Now Obama denies he even drew himself into a political corner.
  Obama one year ago:

"A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized," Obama said in August 2012. "That would change my calculus."

    Today the Narcissist Commander in Chief, who can never accept blame for anything, went on camera and said this in a dramatic confrontational moment:

“My credibility is not on the line — the international community’s credibility is on the line,” President Barack Obama said Wednesday in Sweden...[SNIP]the question is how credible is Congress when it passes a treaty saying we have to forbid the use of chemical weapons?"
[SNIP] “I didn’t set a red line. The world set a red line. The world set a red line when governments representing 98%” of the world’s population “passed a treaty forbidding (chemical weapons) use, even when countries are engaged in war,” Obama said in Sweden.

  While McCain plays iPhone poker instead of being attentive in the war debate, Cantor and Boehner rushed to the cameras to support Obama's attack on Syria, before the administration could even articulate an objective.
  VOTE THEM OUT.
  Cantor and Boehner are foolish pawns of a person who cannot remember the truth.   
  The politicians can say what they want to the media, but no one is speaking for the American people who do not want this war and do not want to SHED AMERICAN BLOOD for people who cannot and will not live peaceably.
  The contempt our congressional personnel show the American people is appalling.
  What happened to all the peaceniks who do not believe that America should be the world's policeman? 
  Let us ask the FOTUS this: If Syria decided to bomb our country, would we consider it an act of war, scare quotes aside? 
  Would we do nothing to retaliate?
  Would the citizens of our country not want some action taken to respond?
  What is America's interest in this?
  Kerry claims that Arabs are telling him privately that they will pay for us to go kill the Syrians, that other countries tell him privately they support such an action.
  Really?
  Really?
  Why is everything in secret? Why will Obama not line up UN countries and explain to the people of the United States what our interest is in this bombing?
  Saddam Hussein was one of the most ferocious monsters in the Middle East, yet repeatedly, once they voted for it but turned against it, Leftist congressional representatives and senators used the Iraq war against Bush, again and again.
  Yet here they are campaigning for an inexplicable act of war.
  Who will speak for the American people?
  Fire Boehner. Fire Cantor. Fire McCain.
  And most of all, fire Obama in 2014 with the removal of all the politicos who support this action.
  Make him a lame duck.

Let's Send Boehner His Dear John Letter

Of course I emphatically with my agree with my partner's post, Syria? No. No. NO! It's seldom that we here at TP@P find ourselves in step with the majority of the voters although I'm a little uneasy being on the same side as Ed Schultz, Rep. Trey Grayson, and the code pink crowd. I am conservative both philosophically and tactically. In other words I generally prefer to play a safe hand rather than risk the losses that sometime come from inter party bickering. I chose Lugar over the Tea Party challenger Mourdock as I back Mitch McConnell over his so called Tea Party challenger Bevin. Parenthetically neither Mourdock nor Bevin have any history of championing constitutional, limited government.
As Mrs. Hoosierman can tell you, even my patience has its limits. Push has come to shove and in my estimation it's showdown time. Two critical issues are on the table and Speaker Boehner is on the wrong side of both. The Speaker has a unique opportunity to defund Obamacare and to keep the country out of any military involvement in Syria. In both instances he is capitulating. If not now when? When will the Speaker find a back bone? If the Speaker was willing to trust DOD Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's judgment for 6 years during the Bush years why not now. Both Secretary Rumsfeld and former UN Ambassador John Bolton oppose US involvement in Syria as do 60% of the American voters. A clear plurality in every reputable poll favors the defunding of Obamacare. Political cover abounds to fight these two fights yet the Speaker chooses to side with Obama against not just the Tea party, not just the Republican Party but a majority of the electorate. To borrow a bit of Obama's eloquence, he has to go.
Boehner is not neutral on the Syria question. His spokesman said that he “expects the White House to provide answers to members’ questions and take the lead on any whipping effort”. He will be carrying water for Obama. Republican Whip Rep. Kevin McCarthy has not signed on but Majority Leader Eric Cantor, whom I have disliked since his 2009 vote to unconstitutionally claw back bonuses paid AIG employees, is quite naturally sleeping with the enemy. Who's side are these people on and where the hell are their principles? The more cynical among us think that Obama has turned to the Congress not out of his love for the constitution but simply to spread the blame when the voters unleash their wrath. It is cold politics with all too cute and clever ploy to save the in party from another well earned mid term shellacking.

I once had a principled congressman who served for ten years before being voted out in 2006 in a wave of anti-Republican sentiment brought on by the likes of Boehner and Cantor and other great pragmatists. He scored the hat trick! Congressman John Hostettler voted against the $51.8 billion aid package for relief and recovery from Hurricane Katrina, No Child Left Behind, and the Iraq War.
"In January 1996, Hostettler was one of 17 Republicans who voted against a legislation supported by House Speaker Newt Gingrich that ended a federal government shutdown. After the vote, Gingrich canceled plans to visit Evansville for a fund-raising event for Hostettler. Gingrich offered to reschedule, but Hostettler turned him down, saying "I cannot allow my fund raising to be tied in any way to specific votes."
After leaving office and refusing his pension rather than pursue a career on K Street, Hostettler came home and got his old job back as an engineer for a local utility. We call that principled here.
On the Senate side, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has refused to sign on to military action. To be fair he is facing a primary challenge from faux a Tea Party candidate Matt Bevin and it may be more politics than principle guiding the senator nevertheless he is one the right side of history.
Dumping the Speaker of the House is not a game for sissies. Careers can get cut short. Favored projects can be removed from spending bills. Committee assignments can go awry. There is a broad yearning for more combative political leadership. If Gingrich lost his job for over playing his hand Boehner deserves to lose his for not playing or for playing partner to the opposition. It's time he had something to cry about.

Syria? No. No. NO!

  Why do the last few days seem like a bad movie repeated over and over?
  An indecisive narcissistic leader who likes to place blame on anybody but himself is surrounded by a slobbering slavishly devoted cult.
  He has shown over and over that he does not care what his opposition thinks; in fact, he generally shows contempt for half the population, sneering and snickering at their beliefs, occasionally showing them his middle finger by "scratching" his nose in what he perceives as a sly dig.
  The narcissist is prone to rhetorical flourishes, like claiming his followers should bring a gun to a knife fight. One day he draws himself into a political box. He figures, as in his own country, no one will oppose his decrees.
  His enemies--al Qaeda?--latch onto mistake.
  There is some question. Who released the nerve gas? There are testimonies on both sides.
  So here we are.
  Where did VietNam syndrome go, I'm wondering, which afflicted so many Americans for so many years?
  How bizarre to see those war protesters now clamoring for "war," as Nancy Pelosi declares it.
  Suddenly the soft-voiced dim-witted Boxers of the Senate are full-throatedly declaring that the children! the children! must be saved in Syria!
  There is no clear and defined objective. The goal is not to remove Assad. The goal is not to rid the country of WMD. The goal is....what? 
  To settle Syria's civil war, as the Senate foreign relations resolution states?
  Really? Really?
  Does Obama, who fancies himself The One Who Can Turn Back The Oceans, really think he can put to rest centuries of internecine fighting?
  No. No troops in Syria. No more interaction with these warmongering people. 
  They must solve the problems themselves, otherwise, even if we were able to temporarily stop the carnage, as soon as we leave the war starts again.
  When this POTUS wasn't even willing to rhetorically support the Iranian people or the Egyptian people, why now?
  Indeed. Why now in Syria?
  Too many unanswered questions.

The Sequester is an Indicator of Political Relevance

During the Vietnam War the members of the SDS and fellow travelers would pose the question, what if we declared war and no one showed up? Supposedly that was to be thought provoking but thinking didn't run too deeply in those days so it was just filed away with the peace symbol and the Che Guevara posters. As laughable as that question seems in a way a class war was declared to have been waged and yet no one showed up. We were told, and are still told, that the sequester would evoke the sort of social unrest we have not seen since the 60's yet instead of flocking to the barricades with molotov cocktails in hand the public merely yawns. It may well be Obama's worst idea. What does it say when the programs so dear to the political class are cut and will be cut even more deeply in the future and no one gives a damn? It says that those programs are a patent waste of money. It also says that the Beltway crowd so desperate to fund costly programs that no one wants are so far behind they think they're first. They, like their cherished programs, are both irrelevant and obsolete.
If you can forgive a surd quote from John Maynard Keynes;

...but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest.

In other words the thinking that prevails in Washington today was cutting edge when in 1970, at age 30, Harry Reid was elected Lieutenant Governor of Nevada and Nancy Pelosi was a San Francisco housewife. As the Supreme Court pointed out in the last term when it struck down part of the Voting Rights Act; things have changed in the past 50 years. Yet the thinking has not. It is remarkable that the minimum wage, a New Deal concept that has been debunked by every reputable economist since, is a hot political topic for those living in the past. Any discussion relative to raising the Social Security retirement age is dismissed out of hand notwithstanding the fact that life expectancy has increased to the point that many will spend a quarter of their lives in retirement drawing benefits and not contributing to the fund for future retirees. The sacred cows of the New Deal and its ideological successor, the Great Society, have been milked dry yet one suspects Washington insiders still view Pittsburgh as a steel town and California as model for the country to emulate. Obama is especially challenged as he seems to have  absorbed and held every archaic ideology his mother force fed him, from his father's anti colonialism to her own neo Marxism.
By accident, rather than design, the sequester is an indicator of political relevance. If no one cries about a budget cut except the politicians and the bureaucrat that's all the more reason to cut deeper and if a somewhat diminished national defense is necessary to rein in military adventures and the cold warriors of years past then so be it.

So just what is Obama up to with the whole bombing thing?

  So I'm watching Fox News about the whole Syria entanglement and several commentators--lawyers--said that, since it isn't WAR or anything, it is perfectly Constitutional for Obama to bomb Syria without congressional approval.
  In fact, the lawyers went on to say, it's probably a good idea for Congress to eventually support Obama's desire to bomb Syria because he will lose authority as president if the people don't show a united front. 
  A weakened presidency isn't good for our country; our enemies might get the feeling that because a fancy French poodle is running the show rather than an authoritative, informed and adept Commander in Chief, they can take advantage of us.
  Like maybe talk us into doing something stupid, like giving the Palestinians half a billion dollars to finance their businesses and buy houses. Oh wait. We're already doing that. 
  Do the lawyers know that Obama's dug his own political hole? Do the lawyers know that there is such a thing as separation of powers? Doing what is right for the country, rather than saving face for a narcissist whose ego has a standing appointment with Massage Envy?
  The problem with this logic lawyerly thinking is that the world has already figured out that the guy with the big ears has a proclivity toward Muslim countries and not America; OTOH, we already suspect that what Obama really wants to do is pay back the Assad kid who made fun of him on Facebook.
  (Here are the words of the little punk, whose mother, incidentally, is hoarding the latest couture, fine china and new drapes in a frenzied attempt to convince herself that there's no fox in her hen-house-of-a-country:)

 

  Apparently Mr. Obama thinks a measure like this will have no geo-political consequences; lobbing a few bombs that might kill an innocent bystander should be something he decides on an hour walk on a Friday night or after he goes golfing with the fellas.

  Althouse questions Kerry's Rice-like performance of falling on his sword (he did look terrible, didn't he?), but more interesting to me is the Kerry quote, cited here:

Now why go to Congress? Because the United States of America is stronger when the Congress of the United States representing the people and the President of the United States are acting together. And the president wants that strength represented in this initiative….

  Really? Working together? That always works so well with this POTUS, like with the health care initiative? You mean like siccing the IRS on the Tea Party? You mean like stealing charter school grants from poor kids in failing schools in Louisiana? 
  Anyway Joseph Curl at the Washington Times says this threat of military action is all a political move on the part of Obama to bludgeon the Republicans and eventually regain the House so he can finish off the country his agenda:

Make no mistake: The president couldn’t care less about the plight of Syrians, the 1,500 gassed to death — including nearly 500 children. It’s all about 2014. Win the House, reign supreme.

Consider this: Mr. Obama made his dramatic Rose Garden statement on Saturday — then headed to the golf course. Congress has no plans to cut short its 30-day vacation, and the president did not call lawmakers back. So much for urgency.[SNIP]

Whatever happens, this much is clear: We’re no longer talking about the IRS targeting tea party groups, the Justice Department tapping reporters’ phone lines, the NSA’s surveillance programs, Benghazi. The president has smartly changed the subject to the most important decision a commander in chief makes: war.

  He can flap his feathers all he wants about going to war but a lot people aren't really buying what Mr. Obama is selling anymore, particularly if the sale involves forking over more cash that could be going to their own pockets for new Obamaphones or the like.
  Curl may be right; I listened to c-Span callers' opinions about Mr. Obama's desire to take military action against Syria; like drones, many were approvingly nodding in Obama's direction. Whatever the dear young man wants is right, they're sure.
  What irony, however, to watch the Harry Reids and the Nancy Pelosis turn on their pursed lip ideals against war only to wholeheartedly endorse the bombing of innocent children who were poisoned by Assad.
  If it was Assad who did it.
  Witnesses claim the rebels were responsible for an earlier poisoning.
  Well, it's the usual Leftist argument, I guess.
  Let's do it for the children.
  Lob a few bombs for the children. Eh. Like maybe Hafez Assad.
UPDATE: Hoosierman notes that Kerry, who has been compared to Lurch, looked like his makeup was done by a mortician. Althouse remarks that Kerry has acquired this habit of sticking out his tongue as he speaks, kind of like an unintentional Miley Cyrus. (Probably something to do with the marbles he stores in his cheeks.)

 

  Also take a look at this photo from strangesounds.com of the Kerrys dining cozily with the Assads in 2009, now apparently not so much cozy anymore as Kerry turns on the Assads the way Obama did on Mubarak. 

UPDATE TWO:Michael Ledeen has a few ideas and wonders why no journalists seem to be curious about Obama's abrupt change of mind. Has some kind of deal been brokered? 
UPDATE THREE: Powerline has more on the Democrat tendency to admire dictators like Assad. Wow.

The Utica turns 3

Considering that the first Utica permit was issued by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources on 9/28/2010 the boom is in its infancy but in that short span of three years the ODNR has permitted 487 wells. Chesapeake Energy and its subsidiaries is the dominant player in the Ohio Utica play, with 320 of all wells permitted, followed by Gulfport Energy with 25, Enervest and HG Energy with 16, and Hess Ohio with 14 permitted wells. The boom is centered in Carroll County where there is one well permitted for every 163 residents, compared to 7,057 residents for the remaining top 10 counties.