In the Wake of the Plethora of Obama Scandals, I Have to Ask: So OSU, Are You Still Buying Obama's "Don't Listen to the Voices Worrying About Government Tyranny" Thing?

"So remember kids you should never worry about tyranny coming from the American government when I'm in charge of it. Oh, and also don't worry when newspapers start publishing pictures of me like this-- ones that make me look like a messiah/deity/wizard. It's totally normal and healthy."

This hasn't been Obama's best couple of weeks. The Benghazi issue isn't going away, the IRS was caught leaning on Obama's enemies (probably being punished), and Obama's Department of Justice has admitted to seizing phone records from the press.

And this is in addition to a few under reported scandals.

First, the Federal government has mandated a speech code that is clearly unconstitutional on college and university campuses. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection has been keeping up with it while it has passed under most other people's radar.

From Jacobson:

The FIRE [The Foundation of Individual Rights in Higher Education] is not an organization prone to hyperbole.

So when I received this email late this afternoon from FIRE Senior Vice President Robert Shibley, it got my attention:

THIS. IS. OUTRAGEOUS. The government has mandated speech codes on all campuses. I hoped I would never see this day, but I feared I would.

This press release was linked in the email:

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT MANDATES UNCONSTITUTIONAL SPEECH CODES AT COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES NATIONWIDE

WASHINGTON, May 10, 2013—In a shocking affront to the United States Constitution, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education have joined together to mandate that virtually every college and university in the United States establish unconstitutional speech codes that violate the First Amendment and decades of legal precedent.

“I am appalled by this attack on free speech on campus from our own government,” said Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which has been leading the fight against unconstitutional speech codes on America’s college campuses since its founding in 1999. “In 2011, the Department of Education took a hatchet to due process protections for students accused of sexual misconduct. Now the Department of Education has enlisted the help of the Department of Justice to mandate campus speech codes so broad that virtually every student will regularly violate them. The DOE and DOJ are ignoring decades of legal decisions, the Constitution, and common sense, and it is time for colleges and the public to push back.”

In a letter sent yesterday to the University of Montana that explicitly states that it is intended as “a blueprint for colleges and universities throughout the country,” the Departments of Justice and Education have mandated a breathtakingly broad definition of sexual harassment that makes virtually every student in the United States a harasser while ignoring the First Amendment. The mandate applies to every college receiving federal funding—virtually every American institution of higher education nationwide, public or private.

The letter states that “sexual harassment should be more broadly defined as ‘any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature’” including “verbal conduct” (that is, speech). It then explicitly states that allegedly harassing expression need not even be offensive to an “objectively reasonable person of the same gender in the same situation”—if the listener takes offense to sexually related speech for any reason, no matter how irrationally or unreasonably, the speaker may be punished.

This result directly contradicts previous Department of Education guidance on sexual harassment. In 2003, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) stated that harassment “must include something beyond the mere expression of views, words, symbols or thoughts that some person finds offensive.” Further, the letter made clear that “OCR’s standards require that the conduct be evaluated from the perspective of a reasonable person in the alleged victim’s position, considering all the circumstances, including the alleged victim’s age.”

Among the forms of expression now punishable on America’s campuses by order of the federal government are:

• Any expression related to sexual topics that offends any person. This leaves a wide range of expressive activity—a campus performance of “The Vagina Monologues,” a presentation on safe sex practices, a debate about sexual morality, a discussion of gay marriage, or a classroom lecture on Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita—subject to discipline.
• Any sexually themed joke overheard by any person who finds that joke offensive for any reason.
• Any request for dates or any flirtation that is not welcomed by the recipient of such a request or flirtation.

There is likely no student on any campus anywhere who is not guilty of at least one of these “offenses.” Any attempt to enforce this rule evenhandedly and comprehensively will be impossible….

As Jacobson observes: "This is a continuation of the reign of politically correct terror on campuses, in which conservatives and men inevitably will be the ones singled out, a point we made in Kangaroo courts for men on campus. [...] Now everything is a speech crime on campus, and the administrators get to pick and choose who is guilty."

No tyranny here. Nope. None. Just protecting the rights of the easily offended by denying the right of free speech to all-- or maybe not all.

Second, Secretary of Health and Human Services, aka the Master/Mistress of ObamaCare, Kathleen Sebelius has been seeking to extort of money from the health industry to pay for ObamaCare.

From The Washington Post:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has gone, hat in hand, to health industry officials, asking them to make large financial donations to help with the effort to implement President Obama’s landmark health-care law, two people familiar with the outreach said.

Her unusual fundraising push comes after Congress repeatedly rejected the Obama administration’s requests for additional funds to set up the Affordable Care Act, leaving HHS to implement the president’s signature legislative accomplishment on what officials have described as a shoestring budget.

Over the past three months, Sebelius has made multiple phone calls to health industry executives, community organizations and church groups and asked that they contribute whatever they can to nonprofit groups that are working to enroll uninsured Americans and increase awareness of the law, according to an HHS official and an industry person familiar with the secretary’s activities. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk openly about private discussions.

An HHS spokesperson said Sebelius was within the bounds of her authority in asking for help.

But Republicans charged that Sebelius’s outreach was improper because it pressured private companies and other groups to support the Affordable Care Act. The latest controversy has emerged as the law faces a string of challenges from GOP lawmakers in Washington and skepticism from many state officials across the country.

“To solicit funds from health-care executives to help pay for the implementation of the President’s $2.6 trillion health spending law is absurd,” Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said in a statement. “I will be seeking more information from the Administration about these actions to help better understand whether there are conflicts of interest and if it violated federal law.”

Federal regulations do not allow department officials to fundraise in their professional capacity. They do, however, allow Cabinet members to solicit donations as private citizens “if you do not solicit funds from a subordinate or from someone who has or seeks business with the Department, and you do not use your official title,” according to Justice Department regulations.

HHS spokesman Jason Young added that a special section in the Public Health Service Act allows the secretary to support and encourage others to support nonprofit groups working to provide health information and conduct other public-health activities.

Yeah, Sebelius was just asking people for money on her own time. I do that myself. I often call acquaintances on the phone and suggest that they give me money. It's a hobby.

So once again, no tyranny here. Move on. Just move on.

Oh, and then there's also the St. Louis anchorman who claims that the IRS leaned on him and his station after a tough interview with Obama.

Larry Conners, a veteran local news anchor at KMOV Channel 4 in St. Louis, says that the Internal Revenue Service has been targeting him since an April 2012 interview he conducted with President Obama -- a fact that he dismissed as coincidence until the recent reports about the IRS targeting conservative groups.

"Shortly after I did my April 2012 interview with President Obama, my wife, friends and some viewers suggested that I might need to watch out for the IRS. I don't accept 'conspiracy theories', but I do know that almost immediately after the interview, the IRS started hammering me," Conners wrote on his Facebook page late Monday night.

Nothing to see, kids. No tyranny. Nope. Just hope and change!

And finally there's the claim that Obama's EPA waives fee requests for friendly groups, and denies them to conservative groups.

The Washington Examiner piece by Michal Conger:

Conservative groups seeking information from the Environmental Protection Agency have been routinely hindered by fees normally waived for media and watchdog groups, while fees for more than 90 percent of requests from green groups were waived, according to requests reviewed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

CEI reviewed Freedom of Information Act requests sent between January 2012 and this spring from several environmental groups friendly to the EPA’s mission, and several conservative groups, to see how equally the agency applies its fee waiver policy for media and watchdog groups. Government agencies are supposed to waive fees for groups disseminating information for public benefit.

“This is as clear an example of disparate treatment as the IRS’ hurdles selectively imposed upon groups with names ominously reflecting an interest in, say, a less intrusive or biased federal government,” said CEI fellow Chris Horner.

For 92 percent of requests from green groups, the EPA cooperated by waiving fees for the information. Those requests came from the Natural Resources Defense Council, EarthJustice, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, The Waterkeeper Alliance, Greenpeace, Southern Environmental Law Center and the Center for Biological Diversity.

Of the requests that were denied, the EPA said the group either didn’t respond to requests for justification of a waiver, or didn’t express intent to disseminate the information to the general public, according to documents obtained by The Washington Examiner. CEI, on the other hand, had its requests denied 93 percent of the time. One request was denied because CEI failed to express its intent to disseminate the information to the general public. The rest were denied because the agency said CEI “failed to demonstrate that the release of the information requested significantly increases the public understanding of government operations or activities.” Similarly, requests from conservative groups Judicial Watch and National Center for Public Policy Research were approved half the time, and all requests from Franklin Center and the Institute for Energy Research were denied. “Their practice is to take care of their friends and impose ridiculous obstacles to deny problematic parties’ requests for information,” said Horner. Freedom of Information Act requests from CEI forced the EPA to release emails under the the “Richard Windsor” alias former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson used to conduct government business. CEI has also filed FOIA requests for emails, text messages and instant messages from Jackson and EPA nominee Gina McCarthy. Horner said he believes the EPA has denied CEI’s requests because his think tank is the most active group seeking to hold the agency accountable. “This is a clear pattern of favoritism for allied groups and a concerted campaign to make life more difficult for those deemed unfriendly,” he said. “The left hand of big government reaches out to give a boost to its far-left hand at every turn. Argue against more of the same, however, and prepare to be treated as if you have fewer rights.”

Just coincidence. Conservatives don't fill out forms right and wear tinfoil hats. Move on. Nothing to see. Move on.

And all this comes just barely more than a week after Obama advised Ohio State University student to reject the voices that warn of government tyranny, because this democracy is ours. I guess when he meant ours, he meant the government belonged to Left now.

So I just have to wonder, in light of all these scandals and abuses of power that have sprung up in the last several days, are you still buying it OSU students?

If so, I gotta bridge in Brooklyn you might like. Real cheap.

UPDATE: Huh. It seems like Tom Blumer at Bizzy Blog is wondering the same thing.

Eric Holder: I Know Nothing About DOJ Grabbing AP Phone Records

"The AP? The name's vaguely familiar, but I don't really know anything about what goes on in my department. Besides it was all the fault of the Deputy Director who is a mean, racist man who eats trans-fats and drinks cocktails seasoned with the tears of children."

Attorney General Eric "We're a Nation of Cowards" Holder held a press conference regarding the AP phone record seizures. Holder bravely claimed he recused himself from the subpoenas and knows nothing about anything and wasn't even around anyway when all of this happened.

From Fox News (h/t Jacobson at Legal Insurrection):

Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that his deputy "ultimately authorized the subpoena" to secretly obtain phone records from The Associated Press, and said he had recused himself early on in the related investigation into leaks of sensitive information that "put the American people at risk."

Word that Deputy Attorney General James Cole is directing the FBI probe came as the White House expressed confidence in Holder and the department following revelations that it had seized phone records involving as many as 20 AP reporters and editors in an effort to find out who leaked confidential information to it.

Holder said Tuesday that the leak in question, which the AP has suggested involved a foiled terror attack originating in Yemen, was "very, very serious," but declined to elaborate. He said it was among the most serious he'd seen in his career and that it "required very aggressive action."

"It put the American people at risk," he told reporters during a press conference Tuesday.
Holder said he recused himself to avoid a conflict of interest. He said the investigation followed "all of the appropriate Department of Justice regulations."

"As the Attorney General testified in June 2012, he was interviewed by the FBI in connection with the investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of classified information," a DOJ official told Fox News earlier.

"To avoid any potential appearance of a conflict of interest, the Attorney General recused himself from this matter," said the official, who spoke on background. "Since that time, this investigation has been conducted by the FBI under the direction of the U.S. Attorney and the supervision of the Deputy Attorney General, who has served as the Acting Attorney General overseeing this investigation. The decision to seek media toll records in this investigation was made by the Deputy Attorney General consistent with Department regulations and policies."

It really seems that the only thing the Obama Administration excels at-- aside from spreading poverty, reducing wealth, raising gas prices to an unbearable level, handing out public money to friends and campaign donors, and keeping unemployment unacceptably high-- is knowing nothing about anything and then blaming others for the fallout.

Man, Obama and his people must be just running and ducking for cover like crazy. Holder's explanation that he deals with the media too much, so had to recuse himself is beyond pale. Holder's taking a page from Obama's campaign and tossing another beneath the bus.

I have a hard time believing that Holder's "I know nothing about nothing" excuse is really going to fly or that it will take people's attention off of the unfolding scandal. Now if they could find a way to blame Bush, Congressional Republicans of the Tea Party...

Obama's Justice Department Obtained Massive Amounts of Press' Telephone Records

"Look, let's not make a big deal out of nothing. Okay? Or else I'll sick the IRS on you-- Oh, wait. I didn't say that. It was just a joke."

When it rains it pours.

The AP is reporting that Obama's Justice Department "obtained" extensive phone records of the news agency.

From the AP (via Drudge):

The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.

In all, the government seized those records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices whose phone records were targeted on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

[...]

Prosecutors have sought phone records from reporters before, but the seizure of records from such a wide array of AP offices, including general AP switchboards numbers and an office-wide shared fax line, is unusual and largely unprecedented.

In the letter notifying the AP received Friday, the Justice Department offered no explanation for the seizure, according to Pruitt's letter and attorneys for the AP.

Hmm. I wonder if the AP is going to continue to carry water for Obama now. Probably. They're like that.

IRS Began Targeting Conservative Groups in 2010

"The IRS's behavior is outrageous and I will find the scapegoats whose reprimands will cause the least political damage to myself and do my utmost to make this go away. Oh, and Benghazi too. But that was Hilary's thing."

The Inspector General's report has revealed that the IRS was targeting conservative groups back in 2010.

From ABC News:

The targeting of conservatives by the IRS started earlier and was more extensive than the IRS acknowledged last week, according to a draft IRS inspector general report obtained by ABC News.

As we reported on “Good Morning America” this morning, the IRS began targeting “Tea Party or similar organizations” in March 2010. That was when the Cincinnati-based IRS unit responsible for overseeing the applications for tax exempt status starting using the phrases “Tea Party,” “patriots” and “9/12″ to search for applications warranting greater scrutiny.

During this first phase, 10 Tea Party cases were identified. By April of 2010, 18 Tea Party organizations were targeted, including three that had already been approved for tax-exempt status.

By June 2011, the unit had flagged over 100 Tea Party-related applications and the criteria used to scrutinize organizations had grown considerably, flagging not just “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in group names, but also groups that were working on issues like “government debt,” “taxes” and even organizations making statements that “criticize how the country is being run.”

The report, done by the Inspector General for the IRS, also shows that senior IRS officials in Washington was aware of what was going on as early as August 4, 2011 when, according to the report, the IRS chief counsel held a meeting with the IRS’s Rulings and Agreements unit “so that everyone would have the latest information on the issue.”

Huh. So maybe it wasn't just some low-level worker out of Cincinnati. Shocker.

And equally as shocking is the fact that the IRS was also targeting groups that criticized the government and were teaching the Constitution. I guess you can't have an informed citizenry when trying to "fundamentally transform" America now, can you?

From The Washington Post:

At various points over the past two years, Internal Revenue Service officials targeted nonprofit groups that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution, according to documents in an audit conducted by the agency’s inspector general.

The documents, obtained by The Washington Post from a congressional aide with knowledge of the findings, show that on June 29, 2011, IRS staffers held a briefing with senior agency official Lois G. Lerner in which they described giving special attention to instances where “statements in the case file criticize how the country is being run.” Lerner, who oversees tax-exempt groups for the agency, raised objections and the agency revised its criteria a week later.

But six months later, the IRS applied a new political test to groups that applied for tax-exempt status as “social welfare” groups, the document says. On Jan. 15, 2012 the agency decided to target “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform movement.,” according to the appendix in the IG report, which was requested by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and has yet to be released.

Obama is in full damage control right now. He's calling the IRS's beahavior "outrageous." And of course that is being reported by his primary water carriers at NBC news, because, you know it was that mean old IRS that's responsible. Certainly not their guy Obama.

From NBC News:

 Amid outcry over revelations that Internal Revenue Service specialists specifically targeted conservative groups for scrutiny before the 2012 elections, President Barack Obama said Monday that the tax agency employees' reported conduct was "outrageous" and "contrary to our traditions." [Obama is a great admirer and an expert at our traditions. Yeah.]

Appearing at a White House press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, the president said he does not want to judge the findings of an Inspector General investigation "prematurely" but said that if the reports of political targeting are found to be correct, those responsible must be held "fully accountable." [Maybe a lot of paid vacations are in order.]

"If in fact IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that’s outrageous and there’s no place for it," he said. [Except in Chicago politics where Obama has used just about every dirty trick his people could think of to advance his career.]

"I've got no patience with it," he added. "I will not tolerate it and we will make sure that we find out exactly what happened on this."

I can't wait for Obama's people to find out that Bush is responsible because he hates conservative groups and he really wanted Obama to win his re-election bid.

And forgive me if I don't revel in the idea that Obama's got no patience for that. The only time Obama talks tough is to his fellow countrymen or our international allies. When it comes to an actual scandal or real enemies, then Obama's got plenty of patience, and also plenty of excuses and doubletalk to justify his dithering or lack of action and spine.

This is going to be some bad years for Obama. The Benghazi scandal seems to get deeper and deeper. The revelations of the IRS's intolerable behavior is getting worse and worse. The economy's recovery is extremely weak and likely to be stalling-- or getting ready for another recession. And the worst of ObamaCare is getting ready to be unveiled to the general public, and ObamaCare's effects are beginning to be felt across the country.

In fact, I think the year will be almost as bad for Obama as it will be for the American people.

UPDATE: Now The IRS is being accused of leaking confidential donor information. The IRS indulging in political shenanigans? I don't believe it.

From The Daily Caller article by Matt K. Lewis:

A little over a year ago, I reported that, ”It is likely that someone at the Internal Revenue Service illegally leaked confidential donor information showing a contribution from Mitt Romney’s political action committee to the National Organization for Marriage, says the group.”

Now — on the heels of news the IRS’s apology for having targeted conservative groups — NOM is renewing their demand that the Internal Revenue Service reveal the identity of the people responsible.

“There is little question that one or more employees at the IRS stole our confidential tax return and leaked it to our political enemies, in violation of federal law,” said NOM’s president Brian Brow, in a prepared statement. “The only questions are who did it, and whether there was any knowledge or coordination between people in the White House, the Obama reelection campaign and the Human Rights Campaign. We and the American people deserve answers.”

Recent reports indicate the IRS may have begun targeting conservative groups as early as 2010.

In a 2012 speech, Sen. Mitch McConnell noted, “The head of one national advocacy group has released documents which show that his group’s confidential IRS information found its way into the hands of a staunch critic on the Left who also happens to be a co-chairman of President Obama’s re-election committee. The only way this information could have been made public is if someone leaked it from inside the IRS.”
 

The hits just keep on coming for the Obama administration.

IRS Admits to Targeting Conservative Political Groups

"Hey it's not my fault that conservative groups can't take a joke. I mean, it was all the fault of low-level workers in Ohio. I had nothing to do with it. I just benefited from it."

During an election no less.

From the AP:

The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday.

Organizations were singled out because they included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.

In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

"That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That's not how we go about selecting cases for further review," Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.

"The IRS would like to apologize for that," she added.

Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. After her talk, she told The AP that no high level IRS officials knew about the practice.

I love the idea that this was all the fault of low-level workers. You know, it was just some office workers in Cincinnati that were being overly officious. No big deal. Uh-huh.

But the biggest laugh is the idea that it wasn't politically motivated. Specifically conservative political groups are target during a contentious election, and we're supposed to believe that it wasn't politically motivated? Are they trying to go for ironic humor here?

Oh yeah, back in 2009 Obama was joking about auditing his enemies. Probably for "punishment" and "revenge," two of this president's favorite concepts when dealing with Americans.

From the 2009 Glenn Reynolds piece in The Wall Street Journal (via Instapundit):

Barack Obama owes his presidency in no small part to the power of rhetoric. It's too bad he doesn't appreciate the damage that loose talk can do to America's tax system, even as exploding federal deficits make revenues more important than ever.

At his Arizona State University commencement speech last Wednesday, Mr. Obama noted that ASU had refused to grant him an honorary degree, citing his lack of experience, and the controversy this had caused. He then demonstrated ASU's point by remarking, "I really thought this was much ado about nothing, but I do think we all learned an important lesson. I learned never again to pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA brackets. . . . President [Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS."

Just a joke about the power of the presidency. Made by Jay Leno it might have been funny. But as told by Mr. Obama, the actual president of the United States, it's hard to see the humor. Surely he's aware that other presidents, most notably Richard Nixon, have abused the power of the Internal Revenue Service to harass their political opponents. But that abuse generated a powerful backlash and with good reason. Should the IRS come to be seen as just a bunch of enforcers for whoever is in political power, the result would be an enormous loss of legitimacy for the tax system. 

[...]

One reason why Americans don't act like Italians [famous for their tax evasion] is that they see the income-tax system as basically fair in execution. A tax audit or a tax-fraud prosecution is still seen, usually, as evidence that someone has done something wrong. If it comes instead to be seen as "just politics" then the moral component of the system will be gone. For the system to work, people have to believe that it is fundamentally fair.

This is why the IRS is so strict with its own employees. Paul Caron, a professor at the University of Cincinnati who writes the TaxProf blog, noted in response to Mr. Obama's remarks that the law calls for the termination of IRS employees who make audit threats for illegitimate reasons. He suggested that Mr. Obama's "joke" might be grounds for firing if he were an IRS employee. 

[...]  

The notion that people who are audited are probably just "enemies of the regime," coupled with the idea that big shots get a pass -- that, as Leona Helmsley is reputed to have said, "taxes are for the little people" -- is a recipe for widespread tax evasion. That's how things work in Italy, and in many other countries around the world. But do we want things to work that way here?

It wasn't a joke this time. And indeed "enemies of the regime" were targeted and harassed during an election.

This is banana republic crap-- or Chicago political machine crap. Either way, it cannot be tolerated nor ignored.

Left-Leaning Media Push Administration's Incompetence but Deny Cover Up Regarding Benghazi Attack

"Hey, I never said that I wouldn't make some mistakes that cost American their lives and then lie about it. I mean there's no cover-up. I just don't know what the heck I'm doing. Oh, and it was Hilary's fault."

It's all about the protection. The media's a flak jacket for Obama.

It's just wonderful to watch the media deflate our expectations from this presidency. I mean at one time Obama was the "light-bringer" and savior who was ushering in our post-racial era of endless prosperity. That's all gone. Now they just trumpet about about how cool Obama is and how many Hollywood friends he has-- along with endless excuses, fudged economic numbers, and smearing the Right.

And now we get their latest attempt at saving their guy. You see Benghazi was just a matter of incompetence, not dreaded a cover-up, according to the National Journal. Of course, that doesn't really explain why Obama and his people put the blame on a filmmaker and tried to play off the terrorist assault as an overly enthusiastic protest. More incompetence?

Four deaths, lying to the public-- including at the funerals, and a scapegoating all during an election year... but don't worry about it. It's nothing nefarious like a cover-up. It's just incompetence.

UPDATE:

Thought I'd add Joel B. Pollack's five key points from the Benghazi hearings so far:

1. Two "stand-down" orders were given while the Benghazi attacks were in progress.

2. The "protest" about a YouTube video was a complete fabrication by the Obama administration.

3. Cheryl Mills, Clinton's lawyer at the State Department, told witnesses not to speak to House investigators.

4. The diplomatic personnel on the ground acted with incredible, unheralded heroism.

5. Democrats came to rebut the eyewitnesses with talking points.

American Left Circulating False Story to Save Obama from Benghazi Fallout

"Whoa. Now Benghazi was a Hilary thing. You can't blame me for things that go in my administration. It just makes no sense."

Would you expect anything else? Looks like they're already trying to insulate Obama and leave Hilary Clinton out in the cold.

From a Breitbart piece by Joel E. Pollack:

Yet the fundamental problem remains the fact that the president did not order a rescue--and did not, apparently, take any interest as the fight went on.

The left apparently believes otherwise--that President Obama was engaged throughout the evening of September 11, 2012 and issued specific orders to Special Operations forces to intervene.

One article that has been making the rounds in left-leaning foreign policy circles is a guest post at Thomas E. Ricks’s “The Best Defense” blog at Foreign Policy, written by Georgetown graduate student and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Billy Birdzell.

Birdzell argues that the Special Operations whistleblower interviewed by Fox News on May 2 was incorrect to suggest that an immediate intervention would have saved lives.

[...]

Birdzell makes another, more interesting, claim--that the president specifically “gave the launch order at 0239” [8:39 p.m EDT] to send Special Operations into Benghazi.
He cites the Pentagon’s own timeline of events, posted by CNN in November, which reports:

2:39 a.m. to 2:53 a.m. [Benghazi time] -- The National Military Command Center gives formal authorization for the deployment of the two special operations force teams from Croatia and the United States.
 

Note that the Pentagon cites the National Military Command Center (NMCC), not President Obama, as the source of the orders.

The NMCC serves the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs. Typically, if the President were to give an order, it would likely go through the NMCC.
The problem for Birdzell--and Obama--is that we know President Obama gave no such orders--neither to Secretary Panetta nor to General Dempsey. They testified before the Senate in January that they had no communication with the president after 5:30 p.m.

The fact remains that President Obama did nothing after that initial briefing. He did not even call the Pentagon to check on the progress of whatever efforts were under way.
He claims he gave “directives” about “securing our personnel,” but no evidence of those directives has been produced. If he did issue them, it was before 5:30 p.m. on 9/11--or the following day, when the attacks were over and he was off to a Las Vegas fundraiser.

What Birdzell, and the left-wing foreign policy establishment eagerly circulating his post, cannot escape is that the Commander-in-Chief did nothing while U.S. citizens were under attack. They prefer to focus the debate on minor points of contention--such as whether Special Operations could (in hindsight) have arrived in Benghazi in time, or whether Secretary Clinton really signed a communication that bears her “signature.”

And worse yet, the fact is that Obama then falsely blamed a filmmaker for the attack (while knowing it was a terrorist attack and not some protest that got out of hand). His administration then, in all likelihood, pressured attorneys to arrest filmmaker/scapegoat, and then went jet setting to Nevada to a campaign fundraiser, confident that the media would downplay the whole incident-- which, of course, they did.

From Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit posted May, 6 2013:

But the Administration still blamed filmmaker Nakoula, who is still in jail. They did this to keep the Benghazi debacle from exploding before the election. It worked. And filmmaker Nakoula is still in jail.

Related: Dem Rep. Stephen Lynch on Benghazi Talking Points: ‘It Was Scrubbed … It Was False Information. There’s No Excuse For That.’

UPDATE: Benghazi Plot Thickens.

(Above reposted from yesterday.) But here are some further lines of investigation. Some Obama-defenders will note that Nakoula was jailed for probation violations, of which he may have even been guilty. But, as I note in my Due Process When Everything Is A Crime piece — to be published next month, in substantially revised and updated form, by the Columbia Law Review — prosecutors can always find a reason to put someone away if they really want to. The question is, why, exactly, were they so eager to put Nakoula away?

The fast-tracking of Nakoula’s jailing was highly irregular. Among other things, I’d like to see the Congressional investigators get Nakoula’s prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Dugdale — and perhaps his boss, U.S. Attorney André Birotte Jr. — under oath about communications from the White House or the Justice Department regarding this case.

Because what it’s looking like is that Nakoula was targeted and jailed so as to provide a scapegoat/villain in a politically motivated cover story that the White House knew was false. If that’s the case, it’s extremely serious indeed, and in some ways more significant than whatever lapses and screwups took place in Benghazi. I’d also be interested in hearing from Nakoula’s attorney, Steven Seiden, about any threats made by the government to secure a plea deal.

If there’s an impeachable offense anywhere in the Benghazi affair — and at this point, I’m not saying there is — it’s more likely in what happened with Nakoula than in the problems abroad, which by all appearances are simple incompetence, rather than something culpable. Railroading someone in to jail to support a political story, on the other hand, is an abuse of power and a breach of trust.

My prediction: Obama will throw Hilary Clinton under the bus-- it's hard to believe that after so much blood was spilled during the 2008 primary that they ever actually got along-- and then smile, blame the whole thing on Bush and the Iraqi war and then rely on the media to spread his talking points as they invariably do.

Will it work? Maybe.

But I have to believe that at some point people will have had enough the media's glossing over of Obama's gross incompetence and his complete lack of leadership and governing skills.

I suppose that the whole Benghazi affair illustrates two of Obama's worst qualities-- incompetence and political scapegoating.

First we see the incompetence and naivety of his State Department in dealing with the unpredictable and intensely violent situation in Libya. Their failure to provide adequate security for political reasons (so as not to offend the "allies" they were courting, the Libyan rebels), and then their failure to mount any sort of support for their beleaguered embassy. Obama's personal disinterest in the affair, aside from the the potential bad press of a terrorist attack, is also noteworthy.

Secondly we see Obama's scapegoating of a filmmaker who was absolutely blameless for the Benghazi attack. I guess without an ability to blame Bush directly, Obama instead publicly blamed the filmmaker Nakoula. The man was then arrested the next day, after Obama promised punishment for those responsible, and then had his people whip up a batch of false talking points to mislead the American public. All for the sake, or perhaps "greater good," of the Obama campaign.

Is Obama really the best we can do with now, America? Really?

ObamaCare Fallout: Slashed Working Hours in Retail Industry

The patron saint of crappier health care, higher insurance rates, and a cruddy job market. Let us all give thanks (and taxes).

Is anyone who was paying even the slightest attention surprised?

From Investors Business Daily:

Retailers are cutting worker hours at a rate not seen in more than three decades — a sudden shift that can only be explained by the onset of ObamaCare's employer mandates.
Nonsupervisory employees logged an average 30.0 hours per week in April, the shortest retail workweek since early 2010, Labor Department data out Friday show.

Even as retail payrolls have kept rising, with rank-and-file employment up 132,000, or 1%, over the past year, aggregate hours worked have fallen 0.9% over that span.

The average retail workweek was 2% shorter in April than a year earlier, the steepest sustained decline since 1980, an IBD analysis found.

The retail workweek recovered steadily as the job market strengthened from the start of 2010 until the spring of 2012. Since then, it has been all downhill, with the apparent pace of decline accelerating in recent months.

This reversal doesn't appear related to the economy, which has been consistently mediocre. Instead, all evidence points to the coming launch of ObamaCare, which the retail industry has warned would cause just such a result.

Starting in 2014, large employers will face nondeductible fines of up to $3,000 per full-time worker who gets subsidized coverage via ObamaCare exchanges because qualifying coverage isn't available via the workplace. Next year's fines will be influenced by staffing levels in the second half of 2013.

One way for employers to minimize the costs of providing "affordable" coverage to modest-wage workers is to shift more work to part-time, defined as less than 30 hours per week under ObamaCare.

A multitude of companies have said they're considering a shift to more part-time work. Now, beyond the anecdotal reports, the ObamaCare effect is becoming evident in official data.

[...]

This could reflect a shift to part-time work and decisions to no longer provide health benefits to part-time workers, which are both ways to shift more of ObamaCare's costs to the government [more "unexpected" costs stemming from ObamaCare, but don't worry it won't cost us a dime-- Obama promised us that".

April's employment report also included other possible evidence of ObamaCare's impact, though it's premature to conclude how strong those effects will be.

Temporary jobs rose by 30,800 in April and 83,800 over the last three months. Staffing firms are expected to benefit as companies look for ways to minimize the cost of complying with ObamaCare.
 

Welcome to Obama's brave new world based on European socialist-democracy models. It's a land of under-employment, temp jobs, a stagnant economy, a permanent government connected upper class, a permanently stifled under-class, and huge costs passed on to the government-- and, of course, then on to us.

Hope and Change baby!

Obama to Grads: Reject Voices Warning of Government Tyranny

"Americans are too good to indulge in  tyranny. That's something for the lesser peoples."

Because there's no such thing in America-- and it's impossible or something. And as usual Obama uses the ideas of America and the federal government interchangeably... because, you know, they're the same thing.

From Real Clear Politics:

U.S. President Barack Obama gives the commencement address to the graduating class of The Ohio State University at Ohio Stadium on May 5, 2013 in Columbus, Ohio.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Unfortunately, you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works. They'll warn that tyranny always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, and creative, and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can't be trusted.

We have never been a people who place all our faith in government to solve our problems. We shouldn't want to. But we don't think the government is the source of all our problems, either. Because we understand that this democracy is ours. And as citizens, we understand that it's not about what America can do for us, it's about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government. And class of 2013, you have to be involved in that process.

It's classic "Obama drivel"-- straw man arguments against caricatures of what he's opposing coupled with lies whose falsehoods are proven by his own actions.

First the straw man argument: "You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, and creative, and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can't be trusted." Yup. These mysterious voices that warn of tyranny are basically coming from anarchists who believe that there should be no government.

What is so amusing in this statement is that clearly Obama can't be referring to the government that preceded him. After all, a fair amount of the Constitution is designed to create roadblocks in the government, and the Bill of Rights is designed to protect individual rights from government tyranny by Americans. I guess that these anarchist voices warning of tyranny must be coming from people like James Madison and the Founders.

But don't worry we have liars like Obama to trust. Which of course brings us the second portion of "Obama drivel"the lies whose falsehoods are proven by his own actions portion. Obama actually has the temerity to say: "We have never been a people who place all our faith in government to solve our problems. We shouldn't want to... And as citizens, we understand that it's not about what America can do for us, it's about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government."

Really? This coming from the man who pushed for and signed ObamaCare into law. This coming from the man who has pushed America to record levels of food stamp usage and disability claims.  This coming from the man who has sought to make our medical records available to the IRS, and various forms of federal law enforcement. This guy has been telling for four years that government can handle our health care, health insurance, save the planet from global warming and rising seas, and give us free food and free money when we're "disabled," and he's matched it with incredibly expensive governmental action. Yeah, this guy has the temerity to say that.

We also get that overwhelming arrogance that the Left and Obama love to display. I mean, tyranny is a problem that can't happen in America-- because we're too smart or something. Or because this abstraction called democracy is ours.

According to Obama, tyranny is for what he must consider to be "lesser" peoples, I guess. The Chinese and Russians and North Koreans and Greeks who in ancient times killed many citizens due to popular demand-- generals, philosophers, etc. Yup, Mexico, Central and South America, which has faced tyranny numerous times, and continues to do so, is full of non-Americans who don't understand that their democracies is theirs. They don't understand that that it's not about what their government can do for them, it's about what can be done by them, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government. The fools! If only they could be more like us!

This American Leftist declaration that tyranny can't happen here in America because we're just too good for it is both insulting and dangerous.

Such arrogance. I can't decide if Obama speaks this way because he's foolish enough to actually believe it, or whether he thinks he's pandering to the crowd. Obama's life has been made up of pandering and conforming himself to other people's-- mostly white people by the way-- idea of what he should be. So maybe the second is more likely.

The Founders were under no illusion of Americans being incapable of tyranny. I mean read the freakin' Constitution, not some Leftist analysis of a "living document," but the actual words. Yet this exact and very dangerous illusion is precisely what the "light-bringer" is telling our grads.

And Obama's supposed to be some kind of Constitutional scholar. Well, that's a scary thought.

New Tone: News Editor Wants NRA Members Sent to Guantanamo

Because we all know who the real terrorists are...

From The Aurora Sentinel piece by Dave Petty (h/t Instapundit and Tom Blumer at Bizzy Blog):

WE CAN ONLY SAVE OURSELVES FROM KIDNAPPERS AT THE NRA 

I’m talking about the real terrorist threat here in America: the National Rifle Association

I have seen the light. After all these years, I now agree that it’s fruitless to give the benefit of the doubt to people who are so obviously corrupt, so clearly malevolent, so bent on hurting innocent people for their own sick gain.

No more due process in the clear-cut case of insidious terrorism. When the facts are so clearly before all Americans, for the whole world to see, why bother with this country’s odious and cumbersome system of justice? Send the guilty monsters directly to Guantanamo Bay for all eternity and let them rot in their own mental squalor.

No, no, no. Not the wannabe sick kid who blew up the Boston marathon [notice the wording. Not "terrorist" or "Muslim terrorist" but "sick" as though he's just mentally ill] or the freak that’s mailing ricin-laced letters to the president. I’m talking about the real terrorist threat here in America: the National Rifle Association.

I’m not laughing. What the NRA did last week was no laughing matter. Aurora is a community that knows only too well the downside of prolific guns, of military weapons in the hands of crazy people, of a nation that’s gone so far off base when it comes to firearm regulations that common sense is beyond our reach.

[...]

Well some people estimate that 1 in 4 Americans now own a gun. That would be about 76 million people. How many “belong” to the NRA? About 4.5 million. [actually 5 million. Obama and the Dems have done a bang-up job of increasing membership as well as selling guns and ammunition.] You know how many Americans don’t answer to the NRA goons? 309 million Americans. You know who dropped his membership to the NRA? George W. Bush after NRA freaks bought paid ads calling the government “jack-booted thugs.” [I had no idea that Left-leaning newspaper editors loved George W. Bush's so much. Oh that's right, just when they can use him to attempt to reinforce their point, or to blame him for Obama's economic failures-- and anything else. Other than that he's the Devil incarnate.]

By using the weapon of choice for all terrorist organizations, extortion, the NRA has forced the action of about 45 ineffectual U.S. senators, a clear act of terrorism and treason [LOL]. And Wayne LaPierre and his arrogant cronies are laughing about it [LOL]. They’re laughing at 9 out of 10 [Once again, a number pulled out the database suspended in the thin air] of you and your insistence that Congress do something reasonable to stop the insanity in this country [This "insistence" doesn't seem to be backed up by the results of an April 2013 Gallup poll. Only 4% listed "Guns/Gun Control" as "the most important problem facing this country today." And that 4% isn't even necessarily pro gun control. A number of those people could feel that gun-grabbing is the most important problem, and thus answer that gun control is the problem facing America and not a solution. So I guess when Perry uses the phrase "you and your insistence that Congress do something" he's actually referring to other newspaper editors and members of the media. They're insistence is undeniable.].

It’s time for the majority of Americans to fight the battle cowards in the Senate are too gutless to handle. If you have a relationship with the terrorists at the NRA, end it. Insist your political heroes do the same and turn back NRA blood money from gun makers. If you really stand behind the spirit of the American Constitution [LOL. Except for the 2nd Amendment I guess. Oh, and that idea of not relying on government to solve all your problems and tell you what to believe and stuff. All that is outdated... And remember freedom of religion was designed to protect the government from religion not the other way around, and so on and so forth...], push back against the cancerous threat that seeks to undermine it for the sake of U.S. gun makers [Yup, U.S. gunmakers-- an industry that probably has the highest percentage of American military veterans owning and working within their ranks-- are trying to destroy the American Constitution for their own greedy blood money-- through their terrorist wing of the NRA no less. *sigh* I miss the good old days when people merely called me racist and ignorant for disagreeing with their views that Blacks are inferior and that generally people are responsible for their own actions. Now I'm a terrorist and murderer for believing that law-abiding citizens should be able to own guns.].

The skipped parts are mostly Perry listing various liberal newspapers (while claiming they're not liberal i.e. Leftist because they're in places like Dallas where liberal i.e. Leftist newspapers are outlawed under pain of death or something) while dabbing away the froth coming from the corners of his mouth.

Rather amusingly-- and in an unfortunate turn of events for newspaper editor Dave Perry-- according to Gallup, the NRA's popularity remains quite high.

From Gallup (my own write up here):

Fifty-four percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the National Rifle Association, while 38% have an unfavorable opinion. The public's ratings of the NRA have fluctuated since first measured by Gallup in 1993 -- from a low of 42% favorable in 1995 to a high of 60% in 2005.  

The NRA's positions on guns and gun control legislation have received significant attention from media and politicians during the last week after the association's top lobbyist, Wayne LaPierre, held a press conference in the wake of the Newtown school shooting. LaPierre denounced the idea of additional gun control legislation and instead called for armed guards in the nation's schools. The press conference came midway through the field period of this Dec. 19-22 USA Today/Gallup poll.

This poll was done in December 2012 immediately after the media's concerted efforts to paint LaPierre as a buffoon and the NRA as evil.

At around the same time (Sept. 2012) Gallup polls showed America's distrust of the media-- and that includes you hyper-ventilating editor Dave Perry-- at an all-time high:

Americans' distrust in the media hit a new high this year, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. Distrust is up from the past few years, when Americans were already more negative about the media than they had been in years prior to 2004.

The record distrust in the media, based on a survey conducted Sept. 6-9, 2012, also means that negativity toward the media is at an all-time high for a presidential election year.

Huh. Distrust in the media?! America is distrusting of editors writing eliminationist rhetoric spiced with vitriol?! Shame and more shame shall be heaped upon you commoner America; shame for distrusting your betters that know what is important and best for you.

But all of Perry's sputtering rage aside, his rant and venom is absolutely typical of the anti-gun crowd. Shall we remember newspaper editor Donald Kaul in Des Moines who wished that the NRA to be declared a terrorist orginization, gun owners believing in rights granted by the Constitution to be summarily executed, and for key Republicans to be tortured? I quote: "Declare the NRA a terrorist organization and make membership illegal. [...] Make ownership of unlicensed assault rifles a felony. If some people refused to give up their guns, that 'prying the guns from their cold, dead hands' thing works for me.[...] I would tie Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, our esteemed Republican leaders, to the back of a Chevy pickup truck and drag them around a parking lot until they saw the light on gun control."

These people are not uncommon. Their publicly-aired violent fantasies (oh, but they were just kidding or something...) for torturing political opponents, summary executions, and tyrannical decrees are everyday. They're countless. Want to scare yourself? Look on Twitter for some of the tweets regarding Wayne LaPierre, Sarah Palin, Stacy Dash (a Black woman and actress daring to support Romney in 2012), or just the NRA.

It's only fitting that I came across Barry Snell's opinion piece at Iowa State Daily (via Instapundit) today. Click on the above link and read it all, but some of the lines that struck me are below.

From Snell:

In the gun debate, I’ve discovered that one cannot be expert enough about guns. Indeed, when it comes to the gun issue, opinion rules. There doesn’t seem to be any opportunity for any genuine, honest debate on guns, and even liberals would agree with that. I’ve often wondered about this over the years. Is it because my side of the debate is actually loony? I don’t think so; at least, I think I’m pretty normal. Sure, we’ve got some oddballs we all wish would go away, just like any group does.

But all the pro-gun people I know are normal people too — people so normal that nobody knows they’re gun people until they’re told. In fact, there are so many gun owners that if we are all crazy like some suggest, the daily crime rate in America would look more like our crime rate for the entire decade combined, and CNN would actually have something to report on other than the latest gossip.

 

That is to say, there’s a hundred million of us, owning a few hundred million guns combined, and we contribute to society peacefully every day. Many of us even literally protect society for a living, or used to.

 

I’ve come to realize after the Sandy Hook shooting that the reason we can’t have a rational gun debate is because the anti-gun side pre-supposes that their pro-gun opponents must first accept that guns are bad in order to have a discussion about guns in the first place. Before we even start the conversation, we’re the bad guys and we have to admit it. Without accepting that guns are bad and supplicating themselves to the anti-gunner, the pro-gunner can’t get a word in edgewise, and is quickly reduced to being  called a murderer, or a low, immoral and horrible human being.

You might think that’s hyperbole too, but I’ve experienced it personally from people I considered friends until recently. And every day I see it on TV or in the newspapers, from Piers Morgan to the Des Moines Register’s own Donald Kaul, who among others have actually said people like me are stupid, crazy or should be killed ourselves. YouTube is full of examples, and any Google search will result in example after example of gun-owning Americans being lampooned, ridiculed and demonized by the media and citizens somewhere.   

[...] 

Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because anti-gunners always talk about 90 percent of Americans supporting this gun control measure, or 65 percent supporting that one, as if a majority opinion is what truly matters in America. We don’t trust anti-gun people because you think America is a democracy, when it’s actually a constitutional federal republic. In the American system, the rights of a single individual are what matters and are what our system is designed to protect. The emotional mob does not rule in America. 

Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because they keep saying they “respect the Second Amendment” and go on about how they respect the hunting traditions of America. We don’t trust you because you have to be a complete idiot to think the Second Amendment is about hunting. I wish people weren’t so stupid that I have to say this: The Second Amendment is about checking government tyranny. Period. End of story. The founders probably couldn’t have cared less about hunting since, you know, they just got done with that little tiff with England called the Revolutionary War right before they wrote that “little book” called the Constitution.

Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because they lie to us. President Obama directly says he won’t tamper with guns or the Second Amendment, then turns around and pushes Congress to do just that. We don’t trust anti-gunners because they appoint one of the most lying and rabidly (and moronically) anti-gun people in America, Vice President Biden, to head up a “task force” to “solve” the so-called “gun problem,” who in turn talks with anti-gun special interest groups instead of us to complete his task.
 

Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because they tell us they don’t want to ban guns, only enact what they call “common sense gun laws.” But like a magician using misdirection, they tell everyone else they want to ban every gun everywhere. While some are busy trying to placate us with lies, another anti-gunner somewhere submits a gun ban proposal — proposals that often would automatically make us felons for possession. Felons, for no good reason. And you anti-gunners can roll up your grandfather clauses and stuff them where the sun don’t shine. If it ain’t good enough for our grandchildren in 60 years, it ain’t good enough for us right now.
 

Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because they make horrifying predictions about how there will be blood in the streets, gunfights on every street corner and America will become the Wild West again if citizens are allowed to carry concealed firearms. We don’t trust anti-gun people because we know that despite the millions of Americans who have carry permits, those who carry guns commit crimes at a much lower rate than people who don’t. We know because we know ourselves and we’re not criminals. We know because concealed carry is now legal nearly everywhere, and guess what? Violent crime continues to go down. What a shocker.  

[...]  

Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because they are purposely misleading to rile the emotions of the ignorant. We don’t trust anti-gunners because they say more than 30,000 people are killed each year by guns — a fact that is technically true, but the key piece of information withheld is that only a minor fraction of that number is murder; the majority is suicides and accidents. We don’t trust anti-gunners because we know accidents and suicides don’t count in the crime rate, but they’re held against us as if they do. 

[...]  

Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because not only is the violent crime rate approaching historic lows, but mass shootings are on the decline too. We don’t trust anti-gun people because they fail to recognize that mass shootings happen where guns are already banned — ridiculous “gun-free zones” which attract homicidal maniacs to perpetrate their mass shootings.   

[...]  

Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because anti-gun people put us down with dismissals like “just another dumb redneck with a gun.” We are told all over the Internet that we deserve to be in prison for being awful, heartless people; baby-killers and supporters of domestic terrorism, even. We don’t trust anti-gun people because even our own president says people like me are “bitter” and “cling to our guns and religion.” One need only go to any online comments section of any recent gun article in any of the major newspapers to see all this for themselves.  

[...]

Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because when things like the Boston Marathon bombing happen, everyone correctly blames the bomber, not the bomb. Nobody is calling for bomb control because killing people with bombs is already illegal — just like killing people with guns is illegal too.

Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because they’re fine with guns protecting the money in our banks, our politicians and our celebrities, but they’re against us using guns to protect ourselves, our families, or even our children in schools. Legislative trolls like Dianne Feinstein cry havoc about me protecting my life, while standing comfortably behind armed guards —and the .38 Special revolver she got a California carry permit for. We don’t trust anti-gunners because they tell us our lives aren’t important, or at least are less important than the life of some celebrity like Snooki, who can have all the armed guards her bank account can afford.
 

Bravo,  Mr. Snell. He has summed up, rather succinctly, many of my own feelings on the matter. And the experiences he describes are not unlike some my own experiences with anti-gun people both online and in person. Except he has described it better than I could, and I'm sure he has had to deal with this crud more than I have-- although I have had my fair share of run-ins. 

But what Barry Snell seems reluctant to admit is that people like Perry and Kaul do truly believe that our lives are less important than theirs. The Left's strategies often involve the dehumanizing of opponents and the elevating of themselves. And these strategies work first and foremost on themselves.

The Left is well convinced that all who publicly stand against their tyrannical crusades (whether for gun-grabbing, or health care, or green energy initiatives whose failure to implement threatens to end all life on earth) are ignorant and stupid. Obama truly believes us to be "bitter clingers" and is dumb-founded at our failure to embrace ObamaCare and his ruinous economic policies. And that's from a man in constant concern about his public persona blessed with a very friendly media helping to control his image.

One step passed that and the Left gives us the accusations of stupidity and ignorance, the Twitter and comments section death threats, the public fantasies of torture and dictatorial tyranny.

The gun debate and the emotions they stir just gives us all a less contrived and controlled glimpse into the Left's true nature. It should be remembered that the Left's basic doctrine-- whether it's known by those who follow it or not-- is that (1) regular people are stupid, ignorant and awful, and they must be controlled by their betters who know the "truth" as reflected in Marxism, and (2) that these people must be tyrannically controlled until some-- those not killed-- can "reeducated" to think like them, and then all will be well with this world.

With this in mind, is it really that surprising that people like Kaul and Perry give us their published violent and vitriolic fantasies?

Unemployment Percentage Down-- Work Hours Drop Sharply However

CLICK TO ENLARGE
And let's not forget the Obama unemployment gap after the "stimulus.". Far worse, by their own numbers, then doing nothing at all. Possibly the most expensive failure in history. Put that in the history books...

"I give unto you the shorter work week and fudged economic statistics. Enjoy. And good luck paying those bills."

Man, this economy is just bad news layered upon bad news. But now the bad news in wrapped in a shiny, thin veneer of apparently optimistic news. It's like getting a really beautifully wrapped  Christmas present that's actually an empty box with the electric bill in it.

From the MarketWatch piece by Rex Nutting:

 The April employment report exceeded expectations, with 165,000 jobs created and a welcome drop in the unemployment rate to 7.5%. 

But there was a dark side to the report: Total hours worked fell sharply, and the total amount of money earned by U.S. workers actually declined from the month before.

“Aggregate weekly hours” is an obscure series of data in the jobs report, but it’s vital to understanding how strong the economy is performing. As the name implies, it measures the total number of hours worked, which is what matters for sizing up overall growth in the economy.

Usually, we focus just on the number of new jobs created and the unemployment rate, but the number of hours we work matters just as much, if not more, to our economic well-being.

Think of it this way: If companies had hired all 12 million unemployed people in April, but had cut everyone’s hours in half, the unemployment rate would have fallen to zero, but we’d be much worse off. Our paychecks would be much smaller, and the economy would contract violently.

In April, companies hired 165,000 more workers, but they cut everyone’s hours (on average) by 12 minutes. That doesn’t sound like much of a decline, but spread out over the 135 million-strong work force, the decline in hours worked is the equivalent of firing more than 500,000 workers while keeping hours steady.

The 0.4% decline in hours worked in April means the economy isn’t quite as strong as you’d think on first glance.

For instance, some analysts applauded the 29,000 gain in retail-sector jobs in April as a sign that consumer spending is holding up well in the face of the fiscal drag caused by the tax hikes and government spending cuts.

But aggregate weekly hours worked in retail plunged by 0.7% in April, which is the equivalent of cutting 11,000 jobs. Suddenly, the report doesn’t look so rosy.
 

This could be a statistical glitch. However, taking into account the cut hours resulting from the looming ObamaCare regulations and the general uncertainty most business owners feel in the current climate, I'm betting it's not a glitch. It will be something intentionally overlooked so Obama can't trumpet about unemployment rates falling and then (as usual) blame the GOP, greedy wall street types, small business owners George W. Bush, and probably gun violence and obesity for the sluggish and cruddy economy.

When the people who have simply given up work (Hard to say the true number but 9.5 million have left the workforce since Obama became president!), and thus not counted as being unemployed, the reality of this economy is truly frightening. This is what happens when amateurs and people ignorant of real (read non-statist/Marx-based) economics start playing nanny with the economy.

More "Smart Diplomacy" I Guess-- Bolivia, Angered by Kerry, Prepares to Eject U.S. Aid Agency

"Woo hoo! Suck it Bolivia! You're in our backyard, baby!"

"Smart Diplomacy" in action... again.

If only the Muslim Brotherhood was in Bolivia... I bet then things would be smoothed over quick-- maybe after an attack on the US embassy or something.

From the L.A. Times article by Emily Alpert (via Drudge):

Bolivian President Evo Morales declared Wednesday he was expelling the U.S. Agency for International Development from the country, accusing the aid agency of conspiring against his government.

“Surely to think that you can still manipulate us economically, politically -- those times are past,” Morales said at May Day celebrations in La Paz, according to the Bolivian national news agency.

The Bolivian leader asserted that USAID had sown divisions and destabilized the country and his government. Ejecting USAID was also a message to U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry, “who says that Latin America is the backyard of the United States,” Morales said.

Kerry referred to the Western Hemisphere as “our backyard” during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last month. Though Kerry went on to say that the region was "critical to us" and stressed the U.S. should reach out to countries there, Morales and other leftists [only Leftists? I wonder...] saw his words as an condescending sign of disrespect from Washington.

In light of his words, “we are going to have to seriously analyze the presence of USAID and the U.S. Embassy," Morales was quoted as saying in the Pagina Siete newspaper last month. Their presence is "an open provocation ... to countries that have liberated themselves from imperialism."

It's odd how Latin America can still be real sensitive to certain phrases-- despite the fact that the Democrats control the executive and a (sort-of) Black man is the president. It's almost like those guys down south don't care or something. I can't believe how racially insensitive all of them are. Get with the program guys!

Of course Bolivia won't really eject USAID. They want the money.

Bad News for ObamaCare-- Study: Medicaid Has No Effect on Health Outcomes

"You can all thank me for ObamCare with your immediate adoration. Kissing the feet of my statues is optional. And also use this picture of me in the future history books. Or that photo of me with the golden halo. I like that one too."

Oops.

More bad news for ObamaCare. This smelly piece of legislation is just piling on the good times.

From the piece at Reason.com by Peter Suderman (h/t Instapundit):

This is huge, and stunning, even for critics of Medicaid: A randomized-controlled studypublished in the New England Journal of Medicine by a group of nation's top health policy scholars has found that Medicaid has no measurable effect on any of the objectively measured physical health outcomes the study examined.  

In its second-year results, the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment, which randomly assigned Medicaid to 10,000 people in Oregon, and compared them with a randomly selected control group, found that those who got Medicaid did not on average have healthier blood pressure, cholesterol levels, or diabetic blood pressure control than those who did not get Medicaid. Those with Medicaid did see some reduction in out of pocket health expenses. They were also less likely to be diagnosed with depression. 

The Medicaid recipients also ended up utilizing a lot more health care—care that has to be paid for—than those who didn't get coverage. But they didn't use the emergency room any less than the control group.

This study is perhaps the best and most important study of Medicaid's health effects ever conducted, and it has huge implications for public policy—in particular for Obamacare's Medicaid expansion, which is supposed to account for about half of the law's increase in health coverage. Obamacare supporters had used the results from the study's first year, which showed large gains in self-reported health, to argue that the law's expansion of Medicaid was justified. The second-year results significantly complicate that argument.  

But there was always good reason to be skeptical that the study would not reveal that Medicaid coverage improves health on the health markers measured. As I noted when the first results from the study were published, even though it is true that self-reported health status rose amongst the population assigned Medicaid, the bulk of the improvement in self-reporting occurred prior to the provision of any care. Just because the Medicaid recipients said they felt better, in other words, did not necessarily suggest that they were measurably healthier. And now, it turns out, they weren't, at least not by any measure the study examined.

Yeah, it's weird but giving more people cruddy health insurance through Medicaid doesn't automatically make you healthier. In fact, pretty much anybody familiar with actuarials would've been able to tell you that, but better to have a scientific study to fall back on.

The more we find out about ObamaCare and health care, the more we see that this expensive law was written by people who were ill-informed, ideologically driven, and arrogant enough to believe that they could just legislate reality. This is just one more example of why you don't cowardly rush through grand, far-reaching laws in the middle of the night-- right around Christmas as I recall. There's a reason for thoughtful deliberation, but the Democrats believe that they're above all that.

And we're all going to pay for it. Justice Roberts made sure of that when he cut some deal with the Left Justices and gave us this brave new way of coercing citizens to buy a product. Which fits nicely into the definition of economic Fascism, by the way.

What a law...

New Poll Suggests Wealthy and Not Middle Class Support Obama

"Bring me the arugula. And let the proles eat ObamaCare."

Gee, I wonder if Obama's growing unpopularity with the middle class has something to do with Obama's budget that hits the middle class hardest, or the shrinking median income of average households, or soaring gas prices, or an agenda driven by Leftist ideology rather than the problems this country actually faces, or his constant and petty attacks against political opponents, or record unemployment. So much to choose from...

From The Examiner piece by Paul Bedard:

President Obama's approval numbers are starting to mimic Mitt Romney's.

According to a new Economist/YouGov poll, it's the rich -- not the poor or middle class -- who back Obama more despite his 2012 campaign attacking the rich.

The poll found that fewer than half of those with incomes less than $100,000 per year approve of Obama's performance, while he enjoys a 54 percent approval rating among those with incomes higher than that.

Those earning less than $40,000 a year disapprove of the president's performance, 51 percent to 45 percent. Those earning $40,000 to $100,000 disapprove by a rate of 50 percent to 48 percent.
 

This seems to be pretty much the typical result of Leftist policies worldwide. The politically connected wealthy make more and more money, like Sen. Feinstein's husband for instance, while the middle-class is forced to shoulder more of the bill and get less in return, and the lower class fails to receive what they were promised.

And this is just domestic policies. This doesn't even factor in Obama's lies about Benghazi and Fast & Furious, his betrayal of our allies in Poland and Israel, his allowing and even openly supporting Islamist regimes to take control in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries.

Obama's list of accomplishments is daunting.

ObamaCare's Popularity Sinks Further

"You will enjoy your higher health insurance rates and tax increases. I, the Leftist messiah, deem it so."

Another shocker.

From the CNS News article by  Gregory Gwyn-Williams, Jr:

Support for Obamacare has hit the lowest level since the bill was passed, the latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll shows.

Overall, just 35 percent have a favorable view of Obamacare while 40 percent have an unfavorable view, which ties October 2011 poll for the lowest level ever.

Twenty-four percent have no opinion on the law which, according to Kaiser, continues a recent trend of Americans offering no opinion.

The Kaiser poll finds that, in the month of April, Americans are more divided than ever on their evaluations of the health law. Opinion remains deeply divided along partisan lines with 57 percent of Democrats favoring the law and 67 percent of Republicans opposing.

Half of the public (49 percent) say they do not have enough information to fully understand how Obamacare will impact their own family.

Sixty-five percent of Hispanics say they do not have enough information to understand the law compared with 48 percent of blacks and 45 percent of whites.

More than half of Americans (53 percent) support efforts to change or block the law, while only a third (33 percent) believe opponents should accept Obamacare as the law of the land, down from 40 percent since the beginning of the year.

Yeah, and Obama and the Dems are already making excuses. It's not the law, don't you know, it's the implementation of the law. Yeah, it's not a jerk pushing you off a cliff that's the real problem, it's hitting ground that sucks.

I want to see the numbers when ObamaCare gets fully implemented and people see unemployment and under-employment figures shoot through the roof, and when everyone's tax rates skyrocket in 2014. And all this so Americans can get worse health insurance and worse health care.

But it's the GOP's fault-- or Bush. Or greedy bankers. Or racists. Or the Tea Party. Or Emmanuel Goldstein...