The Worst President Ever – Tea Party Nation

The Worst President Ever – Tea Party Nation.

By Alan Caruba

All through George W. Bush’s two terms, the Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi and others claimed that they represented “a culture of corruption” and yet I cannot recall any significant examples, nor does a look back at those years reveal any scandals resulting from his administration’s governance. It was not perfect, but it was not corrupt.

This term, however, marked Barack Obama’s first term and now his second which is currently imploding from a confluence of scandals involving Benghazi-Gate, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Department of Justice. Let’s not forget “Fast and Furious.”

The very first example of the changes that would mark his administration was the announcement of Obama’s “czars”, a shadowy group of advisors whose power to set and influence government policy without any congressional oversight appears to have transcended that of his cabinet members, many of whom would contribute to lengthening the recession he “inherited” as the result of the 2008 financial crisis while increasing the national debt and deficit to heights never before seen in the history of the nation.

What we have come to learn in his first term was that Obama had scant regard for the Constitution, the guiding instrument of governance. It was in his view an “imperfect” instrument and yet, with amendments, it has guided the nation to superpower status since its ratification in 1791, a process that took four years from the 1786 Annapolis Convention that called for a Constitutional Convention.

What we learned though in his first campaign and first term was that Obama lies about everything, starting with his personal life. What we have learned is that his answer to everything is to give another speech, hold another press conference, issue another executive order, and to dismiss any criticism as “a sideshow”, and to host a number of dinners to give the impression he is willing to work with Republicans in Congress. In truth, he rarely interacted even with Democrats in Congress.

In short, Obama has never addressed his duty to govern. He has instead maintained a non-stop process of campaigning and fund-raising. It did not work in 2010 when voters returned power to the Republicans in the House and now he is doing everything he can to regain Democrat control there in 2014.

His priority on September 11, 2012, the night in which he was informed of the attack on the Benghazi consulate in Libya, was to go to bed in order to get a good night’s sleep before flying off to Las Vegas for more fund-raising the next day, skipping his daily intelligence briefing. An American ambassador had been killed along with three other personnel, but it did not alter his schedule.

This is a President who spent his entire first term blaming his predecessor, George W. Bush, for every problem that crossed his desk and demanded his attention.

This is a President whose foreign policy in the Middle East failed to address events there while delegating responsibility to his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton who as of 2 AM the morning of September 12th knew that it was an orchestrated attack by al Qaeda. And then, in concert with the White House, told Americans that it was the result of a video and was a “spontaneous” event.

This is a President who has withdrawn U.S. troops from Iraq, a nation now wracked with daily bombings and has set in process the withdrawal from Afghanistan, a nation that will fall once again under the control of the Taliban. The alleged ally of America, Pakistan, now fears for its stability from the same threat. Both wars, the longest since the Vietnam War, were and remain unpopular, but both were intended to reduce the role of al Qaeda in the Middle East. That role has now expanded into the Syrian civil war and was manifest in Mali.

His response was to depend on isolated drone attacks in Yemen and elsewhere, and of course his authorization of the assassination of Osama bin Laden for which he took total credit despite the fact that the effort had begun in the Bush years.

In the years prior to Benghazi-Gate we have now learned that Obama was using the Internal Revenue Service to harass organizations associated with the Tea Party movement, that identified themselves as “patriots”, or had a pro-Israel agenda. In a similar fashion his Environmental Protection Agency was denying Freedom of Information inquires to organizations opposed to its policies while granting access to those who supported it.

In his first term, his Department of the Interior pursued policies that denied access to drilling for oil and natural gas on federally owned lands and while his Department of Energy wasted billions on “renewable energy” companies manufacturing solar panels no one wanted to purchase, going bankrupt one after another. At one point the President advocated using algae—pond scum—as a source of energy.

This is a President who promised his “stimulus” program would put Americans back to work and revive the economy.

This is a President who has continued to tell Americans that global warming is the greatest threat to the nation and the world despite a sixteen-year cooling cycle in progress.

The current scandals, derided as being “politicized” by Republicans, suggest that impeachable offenses have been authorized and committed by branches of the administration he leads. The current makeup of Congress in which the Senate is still controlled by Democrats suggests that impeachment would be difficult to pursue, but the 2014 midterm elections could and should change that.

The worst of his offenses is Obamacare, described by members of his own party as “a train wreck”, and a program to be administered by the IRS!

It is not hyperbole to say Barack Obama is the worst President in the history of the nation.

Ask the millions of Americans who are still unemployed more than four years since his first inauguration.

Ask the millions of new graduates from colleges and universities who cannot find jobs commensurate with their degrees.

Ask the millions of Americans unable to retire due to the agonizingly slow recovery of the economy.

And ask the mainstream media, after years of ignoring his failures have suddenly awakened to the seizure of Associated Press phone records after acting as mere stenographers for his daily “talking points.”.

The question is how long before he is either impeached or forced to resign as the dream of “hope and change” has turned to hopelessness and the change has become the “transformation” of America from the greatest economy the world has ever known to a debtor nation disrespected by allies and enemies alike.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

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The President as Sergeant Schultz – Tea Party Nation

The President as Sergeant Schultz – Tea Party Nation.

By Alan Caruba

How is it that, time and again, the most powerful man on the planet doesn’t seem to have a clue what is happening in his own government? Famed for never accepting blame for anything, the more I see President Obama these days, the more I am reminded of Sergeant Hans Schultz of the TV sitcom, “Hogan’s Heroes”, that ran from 1965 to 1971.

The wonderful Hans Banner the actor who played the prisoner of war guard left an indelible legacy with his repeated denials, “I know nothing. I hear nothing, and I see nothing”; often all three at the same time to avoid being implicated in Col. Robert E. Hogan’s manipulation of Werner Klemperer’s Col. Wilhelm Klink, the camp commandant of Luftwaffe Stalag 13.

Obama’s way of dealing with everything has been to talk it to death and he has been responding to questions from the press, claiming that the accusations are all “a sideshow” or that “there’s no there, there.” It is not working. In the case of Benghazi-Gate, his lies are so blatant that it has gone from an embarrassment to a full-fledged cover-up.

Similarly, the Attorney General, Eric Holder, has relied on claiming ignorance and putting distance between himself and his Department of Justice’s increasing list of scandals, from Fast and Furious that earned him a citation for contempt of Congress in June 2012 for his lack of candor. His latest “I know nothing” testimony regarding the DOJ’s seizure of the phone records of Associated Press editors and reporters makes one wonder why the President continues to retain him in office or, for that matter, why he isn’t in jail for stonewalling about Fast and Furious, an ATF gun-running scheme that got a border patrol and ICE agent killed.

Those of us who follow the President closely know that he has been lying consistently before and since being elected–twice. His two “memoirs” have been picked apart by reporters who have written their own books on the subject. It would appear that Obama picked up the habit of lying early on in life as the son of a Kenyan who had abandoned his mother, the step-son of an Indonesian whom his mother also divorced, and a man who remarkably was a friend or associate of a long list of shady characters you might more likely find in a detective novel.

He dismissed his close friendship with former 60s Weatherman terrorist, Bill Ayers, as someone who lived in his Chicago neighborhood. He had to throw his longtime pastor, Jeremiah Wright, under the bus when it became known he said many bad things about America over the course of the many years Obama was a member of his church. The man who conducted Obama’s wedding and christened his children said of 9/11, “the chickens have come home to roost” as if it was America’s fault it was attacked.

Even so, this is small potatoes compared to the way the many “renewable energy” companies received billions in government loans and rapidly went bankrupt. It turned out that many of the many of the men who created those companies where major “bundlers” and contributors to his 2009 presidential campaign. Of the most famous bankruptcy, Solyndra, Obama said, “That was not our program, per se. Congress-Democrats and Republicans—put together a loan guarantee program…” Maybe so, but we have not seen such a program lose so much money in such a short time, betting on solar and wind power projects. The taxpayers got stuck with the bill. The number of actual “green” jobs ended up costing over a million dollars each to create.

Of his failed “stimulus” package, Obama said “Apparently there weren’t as many shovel ready jobs as we thought.” Before spending millions to allegedly revive the economy, you are supposed to know such things.

If not Benghazi-Gate, than the IRS targeting of conservative, patriot, and constitution education groups could provide the fulcrum to bring down Obama’s presidency. Despite his denials of knowledge about the program within the IRS to harass and deny these groups non-profit status, vital to raise donations and funding, and the firing of the IRS commissioner, this is a scandal with which ordinary taxpayers can identify, fearful of audits. Imagine now as the realization sinks in that it is the IRS that will be administering Obamacare!

Up to now Obama could count on the mainstream media to ignore much of the blunders, failures and lies that characterized his first term, but the scandals coalescing as his second term begins have a weight that includes the growing unhappiness of the White House press corps who are tired of being lied to or having to listen to press secretary Jay Carney speak to them as if they were a bunch of witless clowns.

It is said that “the fish stinks from the head” and what we are witnessing is an administration whose corrupt political practices have seeped deep into the government agencies for which Obama is responsible.

It is still too soon to know which scandal or combination of scandals will bring down his presidency, but it will only take a few more eye-witnesses and whistle-blowers to turn Obama into the Wizard of Oz, hiding behind the curtain and pulling the levers to fool Dorothy and her pals or, in our case, those of us who still believe laws should be obeyed and power should not be abused.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

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A massive case of double standards – Tea Party Nation

A massive case of double standards – Tea Party Nation.

Posted by Judson Phillips

As the IRS scandal bursts upon America, there is a lot to talk about.  Tea Party and conservative groups are ordered to produce reams of evidence to support their request for non-profit status.  Some of the requests go well beyond what the IRS needs to determine if a group is a legitimate non-profit.

While the IRS is putting conservative groups through the wringer, there is one gigantic example of double standards at the IRS.   This case alone is compelling enough to demand at the very least a lot of IRS employees be fired or perhaps even the IRS be disbanded.

 What is it?

 While the IRS causes as many problems for conservative organizations as possible, liberal organizations get a completely free pass on everything. 

 Liberal groups or groups with connections to Obama are quickly approved for non-profit status.  Liberal groups that violate the rules governing their non-profit status get a free pass.

 No group more exemplifies this problem than Media Matters for America.

 Media Matters for America is a 501c3.  As such it is described as an educational non-profit, which means that its purpose must be to support the public good and it must, for the most part, avoid partisan activities.

 Media Matters has been nothing but partisan.  In fact, one would be hard pressed to find anything Media Matters has done that a sane person could call educational.

 Instead Media Matters has led a coordinated attack on Fox News.  It has colluded with the Obama Justice Department to smear anyone who dares to speak against the Obama Regime. 

 Media Matters engaged in a war against Fox News, that was called a guerilla warfare campaign of sabotage against Fox.

 edia Matters is one of a number of left wing tax-exempt groups that should be investigated for a violation of their tax-exempt status. 

 When Media Matters coordinated with the Justice Department to spin coverage of the Fast and Furious scandal, many experts viewed that as a complete violation of their status as a non-profit organization.

 Unfortunately for America, we will not see an investigation anytime soon.  The left has a simple philosophy.  The government exists to help the left grab power, maintain power and punish those who would oppose the left.

 The other culprit here is the tax code itself.  Neither Media Matters nor many of these other left wing groups would exist but for the fact the tax code allows for the creation of these non-profits.    The left learned long ago how to control and use non-profits to their advantage.

 The tax code is seven times longer than the Bible and unlike the Bible; there is no good news to be had.  It is time we abolished the entire Byzantine tax code.  If groups like Media Matters want to survive, let them do so without taxpayers subsidizing them. 

 While conservatives also use non-profits, that is still no reason to keep non-profits or the tax code.

 A tax code that gives someone like Barack Obama the tools to oppress those who disagree with them, is a tax code that is antithecal to liberty. It is a tax code that must be abolished in favor of a tax code that embraces and expands liberty.

It is time for the IRS to be disbanded.

 

Democrats poke real Americans in the eye – Tea Party Nation

Democrats poke real Americans in the eye – Tea Party Nation.

Posted by Judson Phillips

The level of outrage from the action of the Obama Regime doesn’t seem like it could get any higher.

 Then they do something else. 

 Conservatives accuse the Obamas of acting like they are royalty not the family of the elected leader of this nation.  Is there some truth to this and if there is will the Republicans finally do something about it?

 The Obama’s have been outdoing themselves on vacations.  They have been averaging more than one a month.  Now, they have done two in one week. 

 The Obama daughters (possibly with Michelle Obama, though the coverage on this has not been clear) started the week at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas.  Now they have gone to the slopes of Idaho for skiing.

 Must be nice to be able to take two vacations in one week. 

 Barack Obama could certainly afford for his family to take two vacations in one week.  He is a millionaire.  The problem is not the family going on vacations.  The problem is the millions of dollars it costs to protect them while they are on vacation.

 Not to be out done, Vice President and brain donor Joe Biden has gone on vacation to the beach as well.

 Cost to the taxpayers?  Unknown.

 It would never occur to the Obamas, the Bidens or for that matter any member of the Party of Treason to lead by example.  In case they don’t remember, real America, namely America that is outside of the Washington DC bubble, is still suffering from the Great Obama Depression.

 If you believe the statistics from the Obama Department of Labor, unemployment is around 8%.  The labor force participation rate is a better indicator of how the economy is doing.  It is at an all-time low.

 Millions of Americans are out of work or are forced into part-time work because of the Obama Regime’s policies.  Millions of Americans can’t even do a weekend getaway much less a full fledged vacation. 

 What does Obama do?

 He does not care.

 After all, he thinks he is royalty. He thinks he is entitled to this.

 With millions of Americans unemployed and a stagnant economy, the question is, are the Republicans ever going to do anything about this?  Are they ever going to fight?

 The Obama White House costs Americans  $1.4 billion a year.  This includes a quarter of a million dollars a year for calligraphers and over $100,000 a year for the Presidential dog groomer.

 Why can’t those positions be eliminated?

 And while those positions are being eliminated, perhaps the GOP should pass a rider to the budget that says Obama gets one vacation a year.  If he wants more than that, he foots the bill for all of it.  He pays for Air Force One.  He pays for the hotels.  He pays for his own security.

If someone were doing a real job as poorly as Obama is doing his, do you think he would even get one paid vacation, much less several?

 There are millions of real Americans who are suffering.  To watch the Obamas vacation like royalty, on their tax dollars is adding insult to injury.

Bipartisan group set to take Keystone decision out of Obama’s hands – Washington Times

Bipartisan group set to take Keystone decision out of Obama’s hands – Washington Times.

By Ben Wolfgang – The Washington Times

President Obama has often used executive authority to get around Congress — and he has promised to continue that approach in his second term.

But now a bipartisan group of lawmakers wants to turn the tables on the White House.

Late last week, Rep. Lee Terry, Nebraska Republican, introduced a bill to take approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline out of the president’s hands. The measure has the support of at least two Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The bill eliminates the need for a presidential permit and would officially green-light the 1,700-mile pipeline, designed to transport oil sands from Canada through the U.S. to refineries on the Gulf Coast. It also would create thousands of jobs in the process.

“The time is up. No more delays. It’s time to build the Keystone pipeline,” Mr. Terry said at a Capitol Hill news conference Friday.

The move comes on the heels of a similar proposal in the Senate. Sen. John Hoeven, North Dakota Republican, and Sen. Max Baucus, Montana Democrat, have put forth legislation to approve the project using Congress‘ authority under the Commerce Clause.

Other Democratic senators, including Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, are co-sponsoring the bill, as are a half-dozen Republican senators.

“The Keystone pipeline is the perfect opportunity to put Montanans, and folks across the country, to work right now,” Mr. Baucus said in a statement last week, after the measure was introduced. “American workers cannot afford to wait any longer for Keystone jobs, and there is absolutely no excuse for further delay.”

Of course, both pieces of legislation would need to be signed by the president whose powers it would strip. While it appears both bills could easily pass in their respective chambers, it’s unclear whether either could garner enough support to overcome a potential veto by Mr. Obama.

At the very least, the bills once again demonstrate the growing sense of frustration in Congress over the administration’s handling of the project.

Mr. Obama has continually put off a final decision on the pipeline, even in the face of growing pressure from lawmakers, the oil and gas industry and even the Canadian government, which has begun to make clear that it intends to do business with China and in other Asian markets if the U.S. refuses to build Keystone.

The president reportedly told lawmakers last week that he is nearing a decision, but it’s still unclear exactly when the White House will give an answer.

The answer isn’t expected until summer, at the earliest, after the State Department finalizes its comprehensive environmental impact review of the project.

A draft of that report, released earlier this month, seems to pave the way for approval of the project. The long-awaited study found that the pipeline will have little or no impact on greenhouse gas emissions, one of the most frequent complaints raised by environmentalists and other opponents of the project.

Specifically, the study said that the fuel eventually will be developed and made into burnable fuel by someone — if not by the U.S., then by China.

The study also found that Keystone would have little, if any, impact on American demand for crude oil. Environmental groups have dismissed the report and ramped up pressure on Mr. Obama and Secretary of State John F. Kerry — formerly one of Congress‘ loudest voices on climate change and the environment — to kill the project once and for all.

The study, had it been a damning indictment of the project, could have been used by the White House as environmental justification for rejecting Keystone. Instead, it is being held up as proof that the pipeline should be built immediately.

“All of this unnecessary delay has done nothing to improve our energy security or our economy,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska Republican and co-sponsor of the Senate bill. “If the White House can’t see that, then it’s time for Congress to act.”

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Wannabe Dictator – Tea Party Nation

Wannabe Dictator – Tea Party Nation.

By Alan Caruba

When President Obama said, “I’m not a dictator” on the day the sequester was activated, March 1st, he should have finished the sentence, “but I intend to be one.”

Obama has never treated the office of the presidency as his predecessors did. They knew it was a temporary job, based on one term or two. They understood it was political in that they were expected to work with both parties and that involved compromise. Obama has shown no desire to compromise on anything and routinely has changed the terms of various agreements in order to negate them.

In politics, especially at that level, a man’s word is his bond and Obama’s word is dirt. He cannot be trusted. This may account for Speaker of the House John Boehner’s barely concealed contempt for the President. It does not help when virtually all the Democrats join in the festival of lies that passes for political dialogue these days or their rote repetition by a supine media, though this is beginning to decrease as even their adoration diminishes.

On taking office in 2009, Obama created a shadow government of “czars” answerable only to him. His cabinet choices have implemented policies that led to the first reduction of the nation’s credit rating, reductions in access to the nation’s vast oil reserves on federally controlled land, and social engineering within the military including women in combat roles.

Obama has no real interest in the “give and take” of politics. Bypassing Congress at every opportunity, his favored form of “rule” is the executive order. Current executive orders grant Obama total power over every aspect of life in America in the event of an emergency or attack.

Where does one start with this President? Like all wannabe dictators, Obama has made it clear even when he was campaigning in 2008 that he is anti-gun ownership and, after the Newtown shootings, he issued 23 gun control executive orders. Ensuring that citizens have no means to protect themselves or pose a threat to a regime, dictators take guns away.

On July 2, 2008, speaking in Boulder, Colorado, Obama advocated a “Civilian National Security Force” that would be “just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded as the U.S. Military.”

Alarms are rising about the unprecedented purchase of ammunition of the Department of Homeland Security. An astonishing 1.6 billion bullets are stockpiled, mainly 40 caliber and 9 millimeter. News of the purchase of 2,700 light-armored tanks suggests that the Obama federal government anticipates an armed rebellion by the citizenry.

Writing in Investors Daily, Andrew Malcolm noted that is enough “to shoot every American about five times, including illegal immigrants.” Other government departments, including Social Security, are reportedly being armed in a similar fashion.

Nationalizing all power in the central government, Obama’s Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, did that for the nation’s healthcare system, requiring everyone to purchase insurance or pay a fine if they do not. Though patently unconstitutional, the Supreme Court ruled that ACA was “a tax” and permitted it to go forward. Government bureaucrats will now decide who gets medical care and how much.

Obama has consistently rid the top ranks of the U.S. military of any generals who are seen to oppose or disagree with his policies and politics. The heaviest budget cuts have affected the Department of Defense, increasing the vulnerability of America to attack and restricting its ability to project power globally.

The power to tax is also the power to impoverish Americans and Obama has never ceased to demand increased taxes while refusing to offset government funding with reductions in government spending. Americans have seen their personal wealth diminished due to his economic policies. Millions remain unemployed.

Obama has never accepted blame for any of his policies such as the multi-billion, failed “stimulus.” Instead he spent his first term blaming former President George W. Bush and as his second term begins, he is blaming Republicans who control the House of Representatives, but have seen their economic and other measures defeated or ignored in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

If the nation survives Obama’s second term without martial law or its equivalent, historians will look back on him as the worst President to have ever held that office.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

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Barack Obama’s war on America – Tea Party Nation

Barack Obama’s war on America – Tea Party Nation.

Posted by Judson Phillips

Barack Obama and the Party of Treason hate America.   It is no longer a policy difference.  With Obama and the far-left shills for the Democrats, it has never been about policy.   They do not want to debate issues and let the best idea win.  They want to defeat anyone who disagrees with them at all costs. 

 Now the Obama Regime is showing its total contempt and hatred for those who disagree with it.

 How are they doing this?

 In advance of the Budget Sequestration that is set to start on March 1^st, the Obama Regime is releasing illegal aliens into American communities. 

 The sequestration has not even hit yet and the Obama Regime is trying to hurt Americans.

 The illegal aliens being released are not simply illegal aliens, but these are criminal illegal aliens.    These are illegal aliens who have been charged or convicted of criminal offenses.  Usually it is more than one. 

 

Instead of deporting these criminal aliens, the Department of Homeland Security is literally turning them out of the prisons.    Where is most of this happening?

 Arizona.

 That is no accident.

 Arizona is a red state.  Arizona dared to defy Barack Obama and even took him to the Supreme Court and won.

 Over the weekend, in Pinal County, Arizona, DHS released hundreds of criminal illegal aliens.  They did not even notify the local sheriff they were releasing these criminals.

 The Obama Regime claims they must do this because of the upcoming budget sequester.

 The sequester is not causing the release but the Obama Regime is desperate to create a crisis.

 Why?

 What happens if the modest 2% cut in spending goes through? 

 Probably nothing.  Most Americans will not see any change.

 That is the great fear of the Obama Regime.

 If the world does not end with this modest spending cut, then the Republicans and the American people will start asking, what else can we cut.  Where else can we cut?

 For Barack Obama who is determined to bankrupt America before the end of his second term, this is unacceptable.

 So Barack Obama is releasing criminal illegal aliens onto the streets of at least one red state. 

 How many people will die because Obama is releasing criminal illegal aliens?  How many people will be injured?   How many crimes will be committed?

 Obama doesn’t care.  Arizona is a red state.

 He doesn’t care because for Obama, the ends justify the means.   Obama does not care that he took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution because the Constitution means nothing to him.    Obama does not care because he hates America and Americans.

 Instead of being responsible, Barack Obama is trying to make the spending cuts as painful as possible.  Instead of stopping a few of those crony grants to “green energy” projects, he is keeping the Navy tied up in port.  Instead of cutting advertising to promote food stamps, he is releasing criminals on the streets to rampage and make the people of America pay for daring to elect Republicans to try and stop him.

 Barack Obama is hell bent on destroying America.  Americans will die because of his desire to punish those who disagree with him.

 The question is will the Republicans in Washington ever stand up to him?

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Obama shoots himself in the foot with disputed claim of skeet-shooting – Tea Party Nation

Obama shoots himself in the foot with disputed claim of skeet-shooting – Tea Party Nation.

Posted by Victoria Knox

After President Barack Hussein Obama told The New Republic that “up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time,” everyone across the political spectrum did a double-take. Even the normally incurious Washington press corps pressed White House spokesman Jay Carney for details. When Carney had none (“I’m not sure how often he’s done that. … “There may be (a photo), but I haven’t seen it.”), even CNN was openly skeptical.

Media skepticism deepened into something appropriate to the level of suspicion usually triggered by stonewalling about a cover-up  involving gun-running to insurgents in Syria via Turkey Iran-Contra, say, FOX News interviewed a source who had been at the presidential retreat with Obama on six occasions:

“The only time he shot skeet was for President’s Cup,” said the source, referring to a shooting competition tradition involving the presidential Marine guards. “I was there. He stayed for about five minutes, and couldn’t leave fast enough.”

Skeet shooting “is very hard,” said the source. “Especially for someone not used to guns … He couldn’t have been more uncomfortable.”

 

And then, the unthinkable: Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler felt the need to look into “the White House’s curious silence about Obama’s claim of skeet shooting” and found that during the 2008 campaign, Obama never mentioned shooting any type of firearm, and that was a no-show at a campaign event featuring skeet-shooting. Further, the president made no reference to skeet-shooting at Camp David when he hosted Olympic skeet-shooting champions Kim Rhode and Army Sgt. Vincent Hancock But at the White House in September – though one article quotes a member of the Texas Christian University‘s national championship rifle team saying that Obama claimed to practice shooting a rifle with the Secret Service when they were greeted by him at the White House. Finally, there were no press reports of skeet-shooting being a recreational activity that Obama engaged in at Camp David.

 

Kessler’s verdict: “The evidence suggests that until Obama had access to a shooting range as president, he never went skeet shooting. He certainly did not speak like a politician who had once used a firearm.” In response, the White House released this photo purporting to show Obama skeet-shooting:

The WaPo reports that the photo was disseminated because “White House aides were trying to end a growing distraction just as the president plans to make a fresh push to rally public support behind his ambitious agenda to tighten gun laws,” and adds these details about the provenance of the image:

On his 51st birthday last August, President Obama hit the links with a group of buddies and then flew by helicopter to Camp David. There, he changed into jeans and picked up a shotgun. And then, before it got too dark, he started a round of clay target shooting.

The photo, taken by White House photographer Pete Souza, depicts a sunglasses-wearing Obama firing what appears to be a Browning Citori 725, the shotgun wedged against his left shoulder, a pillow of white smoke emerging from the barrel. …

The “over and under” design [of the shotgun] features two barrels, one on top of the other, allowing the gun to hold and fire two shotgun shells.

The smoke in the photo is emanating from air vents in the barrel, a feature known as “porting” that reduces recoil shock and allows for steadier aim. …

According to the Browning Web site, some of the Citori models are made in a left-handed version, with a slight bend near the butt – though it was not apparent from the photo whether the left-handed president was using one of those.

As the WaPo predicted, “the release of the photo seemed more likely to inflame passions around the issue than douse them.” For one thing, in the photo Obama is pointing the gun straight ahead, as though aiming at a stationary target, rather than towards the sky where the skeet would be sailing overhead. Adding more fuel to the social media firestorm, when the White House released the photo, it included the standard admonition that it is not to be used for commercial or political purposes and “may not be manipulated in any way.” All fine and proper, and normal procedure. But then Obama adviser David Plouffe tweeted an invitation – some say a dare – to manipulate the image using Photoshop.

The Blaze includes a selection of doctored photos, including two depicting Obama shooting the U.S. flag and Constitution. A Facebook page was also created to collect Photoshopped images of Obama’s skeet-shooting prowess that put him next to former presidential candidate Mike Dukakis in a tank, outside Usama bin Laden’s compound alongside members of Seal Team Six who killed the terrorist and riding along with the Beverly Hillbillies in their jalopy. The page includes a greenscreen shot that masks the background in the White House photo so other people can make their own visual puns. For its part, Before It’s News published a photo of Obama shooting White House Press Secretary Jay Carney for not diffusing the “distraction” before it got out of hand.

But as funny as these images of Obama are – in an LOL sort of way – the media’s ignorance about guns is equally funny – in a farcical sort of way, considering that the most powerful news organizations in the nation are simultaneously inveighing against “assault weapons” and pushing draconian NYC-style gun control laws from coast to coast. Both liberal news outlets (The New York Times and Gawker, among them) and conservative ones (notably, New York Post and FOX News) referred to the gun Obama was holding as a “rifle,” and The Associated Press described the protective gear the president wore as “headphones” and “sunglasses.” Journalists’  command of firearms is as questionable as Obama’s. 

As The Stiletto noted on Facebook, it’s galling that people who don’t know the difference between a rifle and a shotgun presume to weigh in on gun control without having the expertise to differentiate  between military assault rifles and civilian sport rifles cosmetically altered with various accessories that make them look like a military weapon without affecting function or caliber. This is analogous to a journalist who covers automobile racing looking under the hood and mistaking the performance-enhancing tweaks to the cylinder heads, camshafts and valve train of the street legal production version of the 2013 Chevy SS with the highly modified small block V-8 engine that powers its NASCAR counterpart.

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• “Obama skeet shooting action figure” now for sale (redalertpolitics.com)
• President Obama’s skeet shooting photo: A staged political lie? (capitolhillblue.com)
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A Cabinet of Dunces – Tea Party Nation

A Cabinet of Dunces – Tea Party Nation.

By Alan Caruba

A President reveals a lot about himself by his choices of his cabinet members to head various government departments and agencies. Some choices turn out to be historically significant such as Truman’s Secretary of State, George Marshall or Nixon’s choice of Henry Kissinger, but since the President sets policy, the blame or approval belongs to him.

Nor is it unusual for cabinet members to leave after a first term if a President is reelected. What has been unusual for President Obama’s first term has been the appointment of an entire shadow government of advisors known as his “czars”; people who functioned behind the scenes with unknown levels of power to influence and even determine policy.

One, Van Jones, was an avowed Communist and, when that became known, he resigned. The obvious problem with the czars is the total lack of transparency they represent and the fact that their appointments—not being cabinet-level, but deemed to be only advisory—by-passed the requirement of Congressional approval.

As of this writing, his most famous appointment, Hillary Clinton, has stepped down as Obama’s Secretary of State to be replaced by one of the greatest dunces to serve in the Senate, John Kerry. He began his career in politics as a Vietnam veteran who testified before Congress that his fellow veterans had engaged in acts that violated the Geneva Convention. When he ran for President, his fellow Swift Boat veterans revealed the scope of his lies about his own service. Kerry’s judgment has proven wrong on so many foreign policy issues it would take a book to chronicle them. In his first two days in office he saw the delivery of fighter jets to an Egypt that is no longer an ally and now in the hands of avowed enemies, the Muslim Brotherhood. Hillary traveled incessantly, but Obama’s foreign policy—mostly isolationist—concluded with the cover-up of the Benghazi attack that got a U.S. ambassador killed.

Most certainly, the nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel has raised the issue of competency to a whole new level. It is hard to imagine a nominee less capable of running the Pentagon and less in tune with events in a very dangerous world. Given his past votes and statements, he reflects the President’s views. It’s bad news for Israel and good news for our adversaries. Watch now as the Democrats, despite misgivings and doubts, once again line up with the President to impose another bad decision on the nation.

Among those leaving his cabinet is Dr. Steven Chu, who actually wanted the price of a gallon of gasoline to rise to those in Europe in order to curb American’s desire to hop in the car for any reason. He will be best remembered for having swiftly ushered a $528 million loan to Solyndra, a solar panel manufacturer whose company just as swiftly went bankrupt, sticking the taxpayers with the loss. Other similar “investments” also failed. Ignoring America’s vast reserves of coal, natural gas and oil—enough to make the nation energy independent—Chu favored the expansion of solar and wind energy, lavishing millions on its producers even though it provides barely three percent of the electricity Americans use to function.

Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, is also departing and he never saw a square inch of the nation’s landmass that he did not want to acquire as property of the federal government. Salazar, so green that he glows in the dark, was a tree-hugger deluxe. While touting the expansion of oil drilling and the extraction of natural gas, he conveniently neglected to mention that most of it occurred on privately held land and his department did what it could to delay or simply not issue the leases necessary to extract oil, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. Together with Dr. Chu, these two did more to interdict or retard the provision of energy to the nation than any of their predecessors.

Departing as well is Ray LaHood as Transportation Secretary. A Wall Street Journal editorial noting his departure said he is likely to be remembered “for presiding over a transportation policy predicated on the best the 19th century had to offer: railroads and bicycles.” Railroads served well in the 1800s and early 1900s. The federally owned Amtrak has never turned a profit. As for cars and trucks, in 2010 he wrote “This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.” It doesn’t get more stupid than that and his department shelled out $8 billion in grants to support this stupidity including the San Francisco-to-Anaheim bullet train whose first leg will connect Merced to Bakersfield in the sparsely populated Central Valley.

The worst of the President’s appointments was Lisa Jackson who has resigned from her position as director of the Environmental Protection Agency in the wake of revelations that she used a phony name for emails with which she conducted agency business. Transparency, let alone adherence to the law that forbids this practice, was not favored by Ms. Jackson, nor by her predecessor, Carol Browner, one of Obama’s czars. Browner had served as a commissioner of the Socialist International, an umbrella group for 170 social democratic, socialist, and labor parties in 55 countries. Under Ms. Jackson, the EPA has issued a mountain of regulations, some of which forced utilities around the nation to shut their doors and coal mining companies to cease production. The total number of jobs lost is still being calculated.

The decision to delay the Keystone XL pipeline has not only cost 20,000 jobs at a time when millions of Americans have dropped out of the labor market was also supported by the Interior Department and the EPA. The pipeline, by the way, would not have cost taxpayers a dime as it is privately financed and would be just one of a huge network of pipelines that serve America’s energy needs.

Janet Napolitano—Big Sis—remains on at Homeland Security, possibly the most under-reported department, despite occasional reports that it appears to be arming itself for an insurrection purchasing lots of ammunition and a lot of rapid-fire rifles.

Still presiding at the Department of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sibelius, is the Cruella de Ville who oversaw the passage of Obamacare and its implementation. She will have blood on her hands as senior citizens in particular are denied vital medical care and will be vilified by Americans who discover that their insurance rates have skyrocketed. Many companies are either not hiring or laying off employees, putting some on a part-time status to avoid its strictures and fines. Others are just shutting their doors.

The departing Secretary of Treasury, Tim Geithner, presided with the President over the greatest accumulation of debt in the nation’s history, as well as its first credit rating reduction. Jack Lew who will replace him holds no promise of slowing this process toward the destruction of the value of the dollar and the continuation of the Great Recession.

This deliberate destruction of jobs, delaying access to traditional sources of energy, resistance to the actual transportation needs of the nation, a failed foreign policy, and panoply of other policies pursued by the out-going cabinet members will be continued by President Obama’s new choices to replace them.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

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Obama Could Not Pass a Background Check – Tea Party Nation

Obama Could Not Pass a Background Check – Tea Party Nation.

By Alan Caruba

President Barack Obama could not pass a background check if he was applying for a gun permit or a job. Why has this man been allowed to remain in office or take the oath for a second time?

During the 2008 campaign, it was known that:

His official, long form birth records were SEALED.His Occidental College records were SEALED.His Columbia College records were SEALED.His Harvard College records were SEALED.His College thesis – SEALED. His Harvard Law Review articles – SEALED. His Indonesian adoption records – SEALED. His passport file – SEALED. His medical records – Unavailable. His baptism records – Unavailable. His papers from his service in the Illinois legislature – Unavailable. His Illinois State Bar Association records – Unavailable.

The birth certificate that the White House released is reputed by document experts to be false.

The Social Security number he has used was issued to someone else. He could not pass an E-Verify test. The first three numbers of his Social Security ID are reserved for applicants with Connecticut addresses, 040-049. The number was issued between 1977 and 1979. Obama’s earliest employment reportedly was in 1975 at a Baskin-Robbins in Oahu, Hawaii.

Many of the “facts” he cited in his two memoirs have turned out to be questionable, if not outright lies; particularly as regards his birth father, a citizen of Kenya at the time of his birth.

A job applicant with Obama’s paper trail would not even pass the smell test, but this man was elected and reelected. The role of journalism is to vet the credentials of anyone running for public office, let alone the highest office in the land. Instead, he has been protected against all inquiries and those making them have been called “birthers” or simply ignored.

Obama so routinely lies that keeping track of them would require a team of full-time archivists.

In August 2009 he said, “I have not said I was a single-payer supporter”, but in June 2003, as an Illinois state senator, he said, “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care system.”

In March 2006, he said “Leadership means the buck stops here…I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.” He is now into his second political battle to raise the debt limit. In July 2011, he said “It is not acceptable for us not to raise the debt ceiling and to allow the U.S. government to default.”

In response to a 1996 questionnaire he said “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages, but in November 2008 he said, “I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage.”

He spent his first term blaming the nation’s economic ills on his predecessor, George W. Bush, saying in July 2008, that “he added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion in debt that we are going to have to pay back. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.” Today, the debt stands at more than $16 trillion because Obama added more to the debt than all previous presidents combined. For the first time in U.S. history, our credit rating was reduced and rating services are warning they will reduce it again.

He has a record of using executive orders to bypass the constitutional powers and duties of Congress. His most recent effort was 23 such orders regarding gun control at the same time Americans are buying guns as fast as they can, fearing the loss of the right to own and bear arms. This is the same President who just signed a law granting him and his family lifetime Secret Service protection.

He used “executive privilege” to cover-up the “Fast and Furious” scandal in which guns were allowed to be purchased and transported for use by Mexican drug cartel members.

He lied about the attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed a U.S. ambassador and encouraged members of his staff to spread the lie that it was “spontaneous” and the result of a video no one has seen.

He and the Democratic Party imposed “Obamacare” on the nation and its passage is already undermining the provision of healthcare services, driving up the cost of health insurance, and causing physicians and the providers of testing and other services to leave the profession and close their doors.

He no longer can blame President Bush, so now he blames the Republican Party that has offered solutions to the nation’s economic crisis that has worsened every day he has been in office. His foreign policy has consisted of apologizing for America and standing aside while one nation after another in the Middle East and northern Africa has fallen under the control of Islamist radicals. He is doing nothing to avoid the sequestration cuts that would harm national defense and a range of other government functions.

He has failed us. Congress has failed us.

It has taken four years for a case challenging his right to hold office and the Supreme Court has scheduled a “conference” in February that might decide to ignore a current case.

The mainstream media has failed us and we only hope the courts will not fail us.

He should not be administered the oath of office for a second time.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

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