What Evil and Destruction Hath Barack Obama Rought?

The Stillborn Legacy of Barack Obama

by

Charles Krauthammer

National Review

2016 October 6

His signature domestic legislation and his foreign policy of preening disengagement are both coming apart at the seams. 

Only amid the most bizarre, tawdriest, most addictive election campaign in memory could the real story of 2016 be so effectively obliterated, namely, that with just four months left in the Obama presidency, its two central pillars are collapsing before our eyes: domestically, its radical reform of American health care, a.k.a. Obamacare; and abroad, its radical reorientation of American foreign policy — disengagement marked by diplomacy and multilateralism.

Obamacare

On Monday, Bill Clinton called it “the craziest thing in the world.” And he was talking about only one crazy aspect of it — the impact on the consumer. Clinton pointed out that small business and hardworking employees (“out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week”) are “getting whacked . . . their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half.”

This, as the program’s entire economic foundation is crumbling. More than half its nonprofit “co-ops” have gone bankrupt. Major health insurers such as Aetna and UnitedHealthcare, having lost millions of dollars, are withdrawing from the exchanges. In one-third of the U.S., exchanges will have only one insurance provider. Premiums and deductibles are exploding. Even the New York Times blares, “Ailing Obama Health Care Act May Have to Change to Survive.”

Young people, refusing to pay disproportionately to subsidize older and sicker patients, are not signing up. As the risk pool becomes increasingly unbalanced, the death spiral accelerates. And the only way to save the system is with massive infusions of tax money. 

What to do? The Democrats will eventually push to junk Obamacare for a full-fledged, government-run, single-payer system. Republicans will seek to junk it for a more market-based pre-Obamacare-like alternative. Either way, the singular domestic achievement of this presidency dies.

The Obama Doctrine 

The president’s vision was to move away from a world where stability and “the success of liberty” (JFK, inaugural address) were anchored by American power and move toward a world ruled by universal norms, mutual obligation, international law, and multilateral institutions. No more cowboy adventures, no more unilateralism, no more Guantanamo. We would ascend to the higher moral plane of diplomacy. Clean hands, clear conscience, “smart power.”

This blessed vision has just died a terrible death in Aleppo. Its unraveling was predicted and predictable, though it took fully two terms to unfold. This policy of pristine — and preening — disengagement from the grubby imperatives of realpolitik yielded Crimea, the South China Sea, the rise of the Islamic State, the return of Iran. And now the horror and the shame of Aleppo.

After endless concessions to Russian demands meant to protect and preserve the genocidal regime of Bashar al-Assad, we finally capitulated last month to a deal in which we essentially joined Russia in that objective. But such is Vladimir Putin’s contempt for our president that he wouldn’t stop there.

He blatantly violated his own cease-fire with an air campaign of such spectacular savagery — targeting hospitals, water-pumping stations, and a humanitarian aid convoy — that even Barack Obama and John Kerry could no longer deny that Putin is seeking not compromise but conquest. And he is prepared to kill everyone in rebel-held Aleppo to achieve it. Obama, left with no options — and astonishingly, having prepared none — looks on.

At the outset of the war, we could have bombed Assad’s airfields and destroyed his aircraft, eliminating the regime’s major strategic advantage — control of the air.

Five years later, we can’t. Russia is there. Putin has just installed S-300 antiaircraft missiles near Tartus. Yet, none of the rebels have any air assets. This is a warning and deterrent to the only power that could do something — the United States.

Obama did nothing before.  He will surely do nothing now.  For Americans, the shame is palpable.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea may be an abstraction, but that stunned injured little boy in Aleppo is not.

“What is Aleppo?” famously asked Gary Johnson. Answer: the burial ground of the Obama fantasy of benign disengagement. 

What’s left of the Obama legacy?  Even Democrats are running away from Obamacare.  And who will defend his foreign policy of lofty speech and cynical abdication? 

In 2014, Obama said, “Make no mistake: [My] policies are on the ballot.” Democrats were crushed in that midterm election.

This time around, Obama says, “My legacy’s on the ballot.” If the 2016 campaign hadn’t turned into a referendum on character — a battle fully personalized and ad hominem — the collapse of the Obama legacy would indeed be right now on the ballot. And his party would be 20 points behind. 

— Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2016 The Washington Post Writers Group.

CAN THIS COUNTRY WITHSTAND 4 (or 8) MORE YEARS OF THE OBAMA CORRUPTION, DECEIT, AND CAPITULATION?

Newsweek Magazine Final Gets it Right!

Newsweek rips into President empty suit like never before!

Newsweek Closed Its Doors with a Slam at Obama.  Newsweek Is Now History.  The liberal Newsweek Magazine is going out of business, but not before it attacks the President.  This is quite an article, even more so when you consider that NEWSWEEK finally had the guts to admit it. WOW!  Newsweek COVER!!!  It is their last cover before they fold.  Also read the article at the end. AMAZING!!!

Finally, Matt Patterson and Newsweek speak out about Obama.  This is timely and tough.  As many of you know, Newsweek has a reputation for being extremely liberal.  The fact that their editor saw fit to print the following article about Obama and the one that appears in the latest Newsweek, makes this a truly amazing event, and a news story in and of itself.  At last, the truth about our President and his Agenda are starting to trickle through the protective wall built around him by the liberal media...


By Matt Patterson

(Newsweek Columnist -- Opinion Writer)

Years from now, historians may regard the 2008 election of Barack Obama as an inscrutable and phenomenon, the result of a baffling breed of mass hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the Middle Ages.  How, they will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world's largest economy, direct the world's most powerful military, execute the world's most consequential job?

Imagine a future historian examining Obama's pre-presidential life: ushered into and through the Ivy League, despite unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a cushy non-job as a "community organizer;" a brief career as a state legislator devoid of legislative achievement (and in fact nearly devoid of his attention, less often did he vote "present"); and finally an unaccomplished single term in the United States Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential ambitions.

He left no academic legacy in academia, authored no signature legislation as a legislator.  And then there is the matter of his troubling associations: the white-hating, America-loathing preacher who for decades served as Obama's "spiritual mentor;" a real-life, actual terrorist who served as Obama's colleague and political sponsor.  It is easy to imagine a future historian looking at it all and asking: how on Earth was such a man elected president?  There is no evidence that he ever attended or worked for any university or that he ever sat for the Illinois bar.  We have no documentation for any of his claims.  He may well be the greatest hoax in history. Not content to wait for history, the incomparable Norman Podhoretz addressed the question recently in the Wall Street Journal: To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers, would have lasted a single day.

But because Mr.  Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberal Dom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were 'a bit' extreme, he was given a pass.  Let that Sink in: Obama was given a pass - held to a lower standard because of the color of his skin.  Podhoretz continues: And in any case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also so articulate and elegant and (as he himself had said) "non-threatening," all of which gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest? Podhoretz puts his finger, I think, on the animating pulse of the Obama phenomenon - affirmative action.  Not in the legal sense, of course.  But certainly in the motivating sentiment behind all affirmative action laws and regulations, which are designed primarily to make white people, and especially white liberals, feel good about themselves.  Unfortunately, minorities often suffer so that whites can pat themselves on the back.

Liberals routinely admit minorities to schools for which they are not qualified, yet take no responsibility for the inevitable poor performance and high drop-out rates which follow.  Liberals don't care if these minority students fail; liberals aren't around to witness the emotional devastation and deflated self-esteem resulting from the racist policy that is affirmative action.  Yes, racist.  Holding someone to a separate standard merely because of the color of his skin - that's affirmative action in a nutshell, and if that isn't racism, then nothing is.  And that is what America did to Obama.  True, Obama himself was never troubled by his lack of achievements, but why would he be?  As many have noted, Obama was told he was good enough for Columbia despite undistinguished grades at Occidental; he was told he was good enough for the US Senate despite a mediocre record in Illinois ; he was told he was good enough to be president despite no record at all in the Senate.  All his life, every step of the way, Obama was told he was good enough for the next step, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary.

What could this breed if not the sort of empty narcissism on display every time Obama speaks?  In 2008, many who agreed that he lacked executive qualifications nonetheless raved about Obama's oratory skills, intellect, and cool character.  Those people - conservatives included - ought now to be deeply embarrassed.  The man thinks and speaks in the hoariest of cliches, and that's when he has his Teleprompters in front of him; when the prompter is absent he can barely think or speak at all.  Not one original idea has ever issued from his mouth - it's all warmed-over Marxism of the kind that has failed over and over again for 100 years.  (An example is his 2012 campaign speeches which are almost word for word his 2008 speeches)

And what about his character?  Obama is constantly blaming anything and everything else for his troubles.  Bush did it; it was bad luck; I inherited this mess. Remember, he wanted the job, campaigned for the task.  It is embarrassing to see a president so willing to advertise his own powerless-ness, so comfortable with his own incompetence.  (The other day he actually came out and said no one could have done anything to get our economy and country back on track).  But really, what were we to expect?  The man has never been responsible for anything, so how do we expect him to act responsibly?

In short: our president is a small-minded man, with neither the temperament nor the intellect to handle his job.  When you understand that, and only when you understand that, will the current erosion of liberty and prosperity make sense.  It could not have gone otherwise with such an impostor in the Oval Office.

Two Americas!

Two Americas
By Bob Lonsberry

The Democrats are right, there are two Americas. The America that works and the America that doesn't. The America that contributes and the America that doesn't. It's not the haves and the have nots, it's the dos and the don'ts. Some people do their duty as Americans, obey the law, support themselves, contribute to society and others don't. That's the divide in America.

It's not about income inequality, it's about civic irresponsibility. It's about a political party that preaches hatred, greed and victimization in order to win elective office. It's about a political party that loves power more than it loves its country.

That's not invective, that's truth, and it's about time someone said it.  The politics of envy was on proud display a couple weeks ago when President Obama pledged the rest of his term to fighting "income inequality."  He noted that some people make more than other people, that some people have higher incomes than others, and he says that's not just. That is the rationale of thievery.  The other guy has it, you want it, Obama will take it for you. Vote Democrat.  That is the philosophy that produced Detroit .

It is the electoral philosophy that is destroying America.  It conceals a fundamental deviation from American values and common sense because it ends up not benefiting the people who support it, but a betrayal. 

The Democrats have not empowered their followers, they have enslaved them in a culture of dependence and entitlement, of victim-hood and anger instead of ability and hope. The president's premise “ that you reduce income inequality by debasing the successful“ seeks to deny the successful the consequences of their choices and spare the unsuccessful the consequences of their choices. Because, by and large, income variations in society are a result of different choices leading to different consequences.  Those who choose wisely and responsibly have a far greater likelihood of success, while those who choose foolishly and irresponsibly have a far greater likelihood of failure.

Success and failure usually manifest themselves in personal and family income. You choose to drop out of high school or to skip college and you are apt to have a different outcome than someone who gets a diploma and pushes on with purposeful education.  You have your children out of wedlock and life is apt to take one course; you have them within a marriage and life is apt to take another course. Most often in life our destination is determined by the course we take.

My doctor, for example, makes far more than I do.  There is significant income inequality between us.  Our lives have had an inequality of outcome, but our lives also have had an inequality of effort.  While my doctor went to college and then devoted his young adulthood to medical school and residency, I got a job in a restaurant.  He made a choice, I made a choice, and our choices led us to different outcomes. His outcome pays a lot better than mine.  Does that mean he cheated and Barack Obama needs to take away his wealth? No, it means we are both free men in a free society where free choices lead to different outcomes.

It is not inequality Barack Obama intends to take away, it is freedom. The freedom to succeed, and the freedom to fail. There is no true option for success if there is no true option for failure.  The pursuit of happiness means a whole lot less when you face the punitive hand of government if your pursuit brings you more happiness than the other guy.  Even if the other guy sat on his arse and did nothing.  Even if the other guy made a lifetime's worth of asinine and short sighted decisions.

Barack Obama and the Democrats preach equality of outcome as a right, while completely ignoring inequality of effort.  The simple Law of the Harvest “as ye sow, so shall ye reap“ is sometimes applied as, "The harder you work, the more you get."

Obama would turn that upside down.  Those who achieve are to be punished as enemies of society and those who fail are to be rewarded as wards of society.  Entitlement will replace effort as the key to upward mobility in American society if Barack Obama gets his way.  He seeks a lowest common denominator society in which the government besieges the successful and productive to foster equality through mediocrity.  He and his party speak of two Americas, and their grip on power is based on using the votes of one to sap the productivity of the other.  America is not divided by the differences in our outcomes, it is divided by the differences in our efforts.

It is a false philosophy to say one man's success comes about unavoidably as the result of another man's victimization.

What Obama offered was not a solution, but a separatism. He fomented division and strife, pitted one set of Americans against another for his own political benefit. That's what socialists offer. Marxist class warfare wrapped up with a bow. Two Americas , coming closer each day to proving the truth to Lincoln 's maxim that a house divided against itself cannot stand.

"Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it." 

Islamism Comes to the United States of America

ALL Of A Sudden ... Seven Short Years Have Passed!

Before Obama there was virtually no outlandish presence of Islam in America.

• All of a sudden, Islam is taught in schools. Christianity and the bible are banned in schools.

• All of a sudden we must allow prayer rugs everywhere and allow for Islamic prayer in schools, airports and businesses.

• All of a sudden we must stop serving pork in prisons.

• All of a sudden we are inundated with law suits by Muslims who are offended by American culture.

• All of a sudden we must allow burkas to be worn everywhere even though you have no idea who or what is covered up under them.

• All of a sudden Muslims are suing employers and refusing to do their jobs if they personally deem it conflicts with Sharia Law.

• All of a sudden the Attorney General of the United States vows to prosecute anyone who engages in "anti-Muslim speech".

• All of a sudden, Jihadists who engage in terrorism and openly admit they acted in the name of Islam and ISIS, are emphatically declared they are NOT Islamic by our leaders and/or their actions are determined NOT to be terrorism, but other nebulous terms like 'workplace violence."

• All of a sudden, it becomes Policy that Secular Middle East dictators that were benign or friendly to the West, must be replaced by Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood.

• All of a sudden our troops are withdrawn from Iraq and the middle east, giving rise to ISIS.

• All of a sudden, America has reduced its nuclear stockpiles to 1950 levels, as Obama's stated goal of a nuke-free America by the time he leaves office continues uninterrupted.

• All of a sudden, a deal with Iran must be made at any cost, with a pathway to nuclear weapons and HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars handed over to fund their programs.

• All of a sudden America APOLOGIZES to Muslim states and sponsors of terror worldwide for acts of aggression, war and sabotage THEY perpetrate against our soldiers.

• All of a sudden, the American Navy is diminished to 1917 Pre-World War I levels of only 300 ships. The Army is at pre-1940 levels. The Air Force scraps 500 planes and planned to retire the use of the A-10 Thunderbolt close air support fighter.  A further draw down of another 40,000 military personnel is in 
progress.

• All of a sudden half of our aircraft carriers are recalled for maintenance by Obama rendering the Atlantic unguarded, NONE are in the Middle East.

• All of a sudden Obama has to empty Guantanamo Bay of captured Jihadists and let them loose in Jihad-friendly Islamic states.  He demands to close the facility.

• All of a sudden America will negotiate with terrorists and trade FIVE Taliban commanders for a deserter and Jihad sympathizer.

• All of a sudden there is no money for American poor, disabled veterans, jobless Americans, hungry Americans, or displaced Americans but there is endless money for Obama's "Syrian refugee" resettlement programs.

• All of sudden there is an ammunition shortage in the USA.

• All of a sudden, the most important thing for Obama to do after a mass shooting by two Jihadists, is disarm American Citizens.

• All of a sudden, the President of the United States cannot attend the Christian Funerals of a Supreme Court Justice and a former First Lady because of previous (seemingly unimportant) commitments.
                                                         
All of a sudden, I’m sick to my stomach.  I’m not sure the majority of Americans recognize the seriousness of the situation and how much “progress” has been made by Islam these last 7 years, a very brief time compared to a 75 year lifetime!

It's a sad state today in the USA.

The World As We Know It Today

I am sick that our President spent more time justifying the murders than eulogizing the slain.

by

Ben Stein

2016 July 15

Ha! I bet you wonder why you haven’t heard from me for a while. It’s because I have been sick.

I’m sick of athletes who are paid millions of dollars per month to run up and down a wooden court and throw a ball blasting, slandering, sliming police officers who get paid in a year what the athletes get paid for a few minutes. The athletes are superbly well trained and skillful and their performances sell a lot or cars and soap. And beer.

But the athletes who get paid tens of millions of dollars a year don’t leave their kids behind with their wives going off into a combat zone the way the police do. The athletes are wildly famous but they don’t put their lives on the line the way the police do every time they pull over a speeder or approach a man who refuses to show his hands.

That’s it. That’s what I’m sick with: the viral insanity of these men who live in gigantic mansions libeling the police officers who risk their lives to patrol the black community based on incidents in which it’s already been well established that the officers acted reasonably and lawfully.

I have been sick, still am sick, at the idea that the thin blue line who stand between decent people and murderers and rapists and thugs gets slandered by the Beautiful People in sports and Hollywood and politics and the media while the slanderers eat their caviar and ride in their Bentleys and pretend to be brave fighters for social justice.

I have news for you, gentlemen. There is only one group consistently offering up their lives for social justice and decency — and they are called the POLICE.

I have been sick to death that when our President, Mr. Obama, spoke at a memorial for five police officers murdered by a black psychopathic racist, the President of all of the people spent far more time trying to justify the murders than to eulogize the slain.

Mr. Obama kept insisting it was all about racism. And Mr. Obama was right: It was all about the racism of a creature sick with evil who was jacked out of his mind by miscreants who simply make up “facts” of a white racist assault on black America. I am sick that these people, who go by names like Black Lives Matter and the New Black Panthers, completely ignore the truths about how so many young blacks die at each other’s hands and how few die from police bullets even once a confrontation has begun. I am sick that the prestige media lets these liars get away with it.

I am sick that a movement that was once based with dignity on allowing grown men and women to be able to vote has devolved into a movement to allow drunken sailors to urinate in a bathroom next to my five-year-old granddaughter — and the President of the United States is so foolish that he actually believes this is a meaningful cause.

I am down with a fever that the President ignores the murder with knives of Israeli children by Arab terrorists but calls the leader of the only democracy in the Middle East a ‘chickens–t’ — especially when that leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, is the bravest head of government of any nation in the last hundred years, with more combat heroism than Mr. Obama could even read about.

The world has gone crazy. Just plain crazy. We have a mass murderer killing the innocent in Orlando, calling 9-1-1 to say he’s acting as an agent of the Islamic State — and the President says we don’t know his motives. We have the racist police killer in Dallas killing the police who protect the blacks at will and the next day the streets are choked with college students and bums attacking the police. And no one calls this insane. I will. It’s insane.

All right. No, it’s not all right. We have a political party whose leaders and cadres literally scream with frenzied delight at the thought of mothers killing their own children — while at the same time piously denouncing the manufacturers of guns. The toll from semi-automatic rifles is about one hundredth of one percent the toll from abortions. And this is something for women to scream about with ecstasy.

God help us.

And meanwhile, up here in North Idaho, the skies are blue. The clouds are fleecy white. The water tonight when I went to dinner over in Hope was like a mill pond. No craziness here. Just wooden ships on the water, very free, as the song goes. But once you leave this enchanted kingdom, it’s the jungle damned quick. And I start to feel sick. But then I am not terribly important. Al Sharpton, now he’s important. Mr. Obama, he’s important. God help us.

Obama to Visit U.S. Mosque Tied to Extremism

On February 3, President Barack Obama will visit a U.S. mosque for the first time during his presidency. Curiously, the president chose a mosque to visit that is deeply tied to Islamist extremism and terror funding.

The Islamic Society of Baltimore, the mosque Obama will visit, is part of a network of mosques of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). In 1991, a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood memo placed ISNA at the top of a secret list of “our organizations and the organizations of our friends.” The document said the organization’s “work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within…”

In 2007, federal prosecutors named ISNA an unindicted co-conspirator in the terrorism-financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation, another U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity housed in the ISNA building.

See Clarion Project’s profile of ISNA

The U.S. government’s identification of ISNA as a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity was upheld in 2009 due to “ample” evidence linking ISNA to Hamas.

As if the Islamic Society of Baltimore’s association with ISNA wasn’t bad enough, the mosque’s imam for 15 year, Mohammad Adam el-Sheikh, also has deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. In addition, el-Sheikh served as the regional director of the Islamic American Relief Agency, a group which, according to the U.S. Treasury, funneled funds to Osama Bin Laden, al-Qaeda and Hamas, among other terrorist organizations.

El-Seikh is on record as defending and justifying Palestinian suicide bombing against Israelis.

This is not the first time Obama endorsed and supported the Brotherhood-linked ISNA. In 2013, Obama addressed the 50^th annual ISNA convention via videotape, praising ISNA for its partnership with his administration.

To the conference participants, Obama said, “Over the last half-century, you’ve upheld the proud legacy of American-Muslims’ contributions to our national fabric and this gathering is a testament to that tradition.”

Yet, the gathering was anything but a testament to American tradition. A Clarion Project report showed the convention's roster of speakers included many known extremists, including Zaid Shakir and Siraj Wahhaj.

Shakir has preached that the U.S. Constitution is flawed because it grants equality to Muslims and non-Muslims and Wahhaj, a main speaker at the conference, has a history of anti-American preaching and envisions the day when sharia law will control America.  As a current strategy, he advises Muslims to avoid discussion of Sharia because “we are not there yet.”

Ironically, the White House said one of the purposes of Obama’s visit to the Baltimore mosque is to “reaffirm the importance of religious freedom to our way of life.”

Religious freedom is hardly a concept promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood and those associated with it.

In fact, Muslims who are genuinely interested in religious freedom for all people have found Obama’s visit to the Islamic Society of Baltimore highly offensive.

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and vice chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, called the visit was “insulting.”

“It’s disgraceful that this is the mosque he’s picked to be the first to visit,” Jasser said on “Fox and Friends” Sunday. “This mosque is very concerning...Historically, they are basically a radical, extreme mosque and not representative of the modern Muslims in America.”

Jasser is right. According to a 2011 Gallup poll, only 4% of Muslim-American males and 7% of females chose ISNA as the organization that most represents their interests.

If one of the purposes of visiting a U.S. mosque is to “celebrate the contributions Muslim Americans,” as stated by the Obama administration, he could have started by choosing a mosque and its congregants that are have truly done so.

Meira Svirsky is the editor of ClarionProject.org

Copyright © 2013 Clarion Project, Inc. All rights reserved.

Obamacare Revealed

“Weeks after leaving office, Obama discovers a leak under his sink so he calls a plumber to fix it…”

The Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, is a socialist scheme that does nothing more than funnel money away from the successful and into the hands of the not-so-successful.

While it might sound charitable at first glance, be very wary, for socialism in any form always produces the most horrific of results, as this example demonstrates:

Only weeks after leaving office on Jan. 20, 2017, former President Barack Obama discovers a leak under his sink, so he calls Troy the Plumber to come out and fix it.

Troy arrives and takes his tools into the house. He is led to the guest bathroom that contains the leaky pipe under the sink. Troy assesses the problem and tells Obama that it’s an easy repair that will take less than 10 minutes. Obama asks Troy how much it will cost. Troy checks his rate chart and says, “$9,500.”

“What?! $9,500?!” Obama asks, stunned, “But you said it’s an easy repair. Michelle will whip me if I pay a plumber that much!”

Troy says, “Yes, but what I do is charge those who make more than $250,000 per year a much higher amount so I can fix the plumbing of poorer people for free. This has always been my philosophy. As a matter of fact, I lobbied the Democrat Congress, who passed this philosophy into law. Now all plumbers must do business this way. It’s known as the ‘Affordable Plumbing Act of 2014’. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it.”

In spite of that, Obama tells Troy there’s no way he’s paying that much for a small plumbing repair, so Troy leaves. Obama spends the next hour flipping through the phone book calling for another plumber, but he finds that all other plumbing businesses in the area have gone out of business. Not wanting to pay Troy’s price, Obama does nothing and the leak goes un-repaired for several more days. A week later the leak is so bad Obama has had to put a bucket under the sink.

Michelle is not happy as she has Oprah and guests arriving the next morning. The bucket fills up quickly and has to be emptied every hour, and there’s a risk the room will flood, so Obama calls Troy and pleads with him to return.

Troy goes back to Obama’s house, looks at the leaky pipe, checks his new rate chart and says, “Let’s see, this will now cost you $21,000.”

Obama quickly fires back, “What? A few days ago you told me it would cost $9,500!”

Troy explains, “Well, because of the ‘Affordable Plumbing Act,’ a lot of wealthier people are learning how to maintain and take care of their own plumbing, so there are fewer payers in the plumbing exchanges. As a result, the price I have to charge wealthy people like you keeps rising. Not only that, but for some reason the demand for plumbing work by those who get it for free has skyrocketed! There’s a long waiting list of those who need repairs, but the amount we get doesn’t cover our costs, especially paperwork and record-keeping. This unfortunately has put a lot of my fellow plumbers out of business, they’re not being replaced, and nobody is going into the plumbing business because they know they can’t make any money at it. I’m hurting too, all thanks to greedy rich people like you who won’t pay their ‘fair share’. On the other hand, why didn’t you buy plumbing insurance last December? If you had bought plumbing insurance available under the ‘Affordable Plumbing Act,’ all this would have been covered by your policy.”

“You mean I wouldn’t have to pay anything to have you fix my plumbing problem?” asks Obama.

“Well, not exactly,” replies Troy. “You would have had to buy the insurance before the deadline, which has passed now. And, because you’re rich, you would have had to pay $34,000 in premiums, which would have given you a ‘silver’ plan, and then, since this would have been your first repair, you would have to pay up to the $21,000 deductible, and anything over that would have a $7,500 co-pay, and then there’s the mandatory maintenance program, which is covered up to 17.5%, so there are some costs involved. Nothing is for free.”

“WHAT?!” exclaims Obama. “Why so much for a puny sink leak?!”

With a bland look, Troy replies, “Well, paperwork, mostly, like I said. And the internal cost of the program itself. You don’t think a program of this complexity and scope can run itself, do you? Besides, there are millions of folks with lower incomes than you, even many in the ‘middle class’, who qualify for subsidies that people like you must support. That’s why they call it the ‘Affordable Plumbing Act’! Only people who don’t make much money can afford it. If you want affordable plumbing, you’ll have to give away most of what you have accumulated and cut your and Michelle’s income by about 90%. Then you can qualify to get your ‘Fair Share’ instead of giving it.”

“But who would pass a crazy act like the ‘Affordable Plumbing Act’?!” exclaims the exasperated Obama.

After a sigh, Troy replies, “Congress… because they didn’t read it.”

This anecdote, while amusing, is also extraordinarily truthful, in that Obamacare functions just like the fictional “Affordable Plumbing Act.”

It inflates the costs of health care, drives providers out of business and reduces the incentive for hard work — because why should one work hard when he or she can get healthcare (or plumbing) for absolutely free?

Socialism basically does to the country the same thing it did to it in Ayn Rand’s classic novel, “Atlas Shrugged” — it turns it upside down.

It also does nothing to fix the real problem, much like the “Affordable Plumbing Act” did nothing whatsoever to help poor Barry with that awful leak in the bathroom!

Barack Obama and America

"The danger to America is not Barack Obama, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency.  It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America.  Blaming the prince of fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince.  The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool.  It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their President."

Attribution Unknown

DONALD TRUMP: ‘They Will Kill Him Before They Let Him Be President’

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is attributed to William J. Bennett, host of Bill Bennett’s Morning in America Show.  It is yet to be determined, however, if the following is, in fact, Bennett’s work. Regardless, the message is a must-read.

They will kill him before they let him be president. It could be a Republican or a Democrat that instigates the shutting up of Trump.

Don’t be surprised if Trump has an accident. Some people are getting very nervous: Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett, Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton and Jon Corzine, to name just a few.

It’s about the unholy dynamics between big government, big business, and big media. They all benefit by the billions of dollars from this partnership, and it’s in all of their interests to protect one another. It’s one for all and all for one.

It’s a heck of a filthy relationship that makes everyone filthy rich, everyone except the American people. We get ripped off. We’re the patsies. But for once, the powerful socialist cabal and the corrupt crony capitalists are scared. The over-the-top reaction to Trump by politicians of both parties, the media, and the biggest corporations of America has been so swift and insanely angry that it suggests they are all threatened and frightened.

Donald Trump can self-fund. No matter how much they say to the contrary, the media, business, and political elite understand that Trump is no joke. He could actually win and upset their nice cozy apple cart.

It’s no coincidence that everyone has gotten together to destroy The Donald. It’s because most of the other politicians are part of the a good old boys club. They talk big, but they won’t change a thing. They are all beholden to big-money donors. They are all owned by lobbyists, unions, lawyers, gigantic environmental organizations, and multinational corporations – like Big Pharmacy or Big Oil. Or they are owned lock, stock, and barrel by foreigners like George Soros owns Obama or foreign governments own Hillary and their Clinton Foundation donations.

These run-of-the-mill establishment politicians are all puppets owned by big money. But there’s one man who isn’t beholden to anyone. There’s one man who doesn’t need foreigners, or foreign governments, or George Soros, or the United Auto Workers, or the teacher’s union, or the Service Employees International Union, or the Bar Association to fund his campaign.

Billionaire tycoon and maverick Donald Trump doesn’t need anyone’s help. That means he doesn’t care what the media says. He doesn’t care what the corporate elites think. That makes him very dangerous to the entrenched interests. That makes Trump a huge threat to those people. Trump can ruin everything for the bribed politicians and their spoiled slave masters.

Don’t you ever wonder why the GOP has never tried to impeach Obama? Don’t you wonder why John Boehner and Mitch McConnell talk a big game, but never actually try to stop Obama? Don’t you wonder why Congress holds the purse strings, yet has never tried to de-fund Obamacare or Obama’s clearly illegal executive action on amnesty for illegal aliens? Bizarre, right? It defies logic, right?

First, I’d guess many key Republicans are being bribed. Secondly, I believe many key Republicans are being blackmailed. Whether they are having affairs, or secretly gay, or stealing taxpayer money, the National Security Agency knows everything.

Ask former House Speaker Dennis Hastert about that. The government even knew he was withdrawing large sums of his own money from his own bank account. The NSA, the SEC, the IRS, and all the other three-letter government agencies are watching every Republican political leader. They surveil everything. Thirdly, many Republicans are petrified of being called racists, so they are scared to ever criticize Obama or call out his crimes, let alone demand his impeachment. Fourth, why rock the boat?  After defeat or retirement, if you’re a good old boy, you’ve got a $5 million-per-year lobbying job waiting. The big-money interests have the system gamed. Win or lose, they win.

But Trump doesn’t play by any of these rules. Trump breaks up this nice, cozy relationship between big government, big media, and big business. All the rules are out the window if Trump wins the Presidency. The other politicians will protect Obama and his aides but not Trump. Remember: Trump is the guy who publicly questioned Obama’s birth certificate. He questioned Obama’s college records and how a mediocre student got into an Ivy League university.

Now, he’s doing something no Republican has the chutzpah to do. He’s questioning our relationship with Mexico; he’s questioning why the border is wide open; he’s questioning why no wall has been built across the border; he’s questioning if allowing millions of illegal aliens into America is in our best interests; he’s questioning why so many illegal aliens commit violent crimes, yet are not deported; and he’s questioning why our trade deals with Mexico, Russia and China are so bad.

Trump has the audacity to ask out loud why American workers always get the short end of the stick. Good question! I’m certain Trump will question what happened to the almost billion dollars given in a rigged no-bid contract to college friends of Michelle Obama at foreign companies to build the defective Obamacare website. By the way, that tab is now up to $5 billion. Trump will ask if Obamacare’s architects can be charged with fraud for selling it by lying. Trump will investigate Obama’s widespread IRS conspiracy, not to mention Obama’s college records. Trump will prosecute Clinton and Obama for fraud committed to cover up Benghazi before the election. How about the fraud committed by employees of the Labor Department when they made up dramatic job numbers in the last jobs report before the 2012 election?

Obama, the multinational corporations, and the media need to stop Trump. They recognize this could get out of control. If left unchecked, telling the raw truth and asking questions everyone else is afraid to ask, Trump could wake a sleeping giant. Trump’s election would be a nightmare. Obama has committed many crimes. No one else but Trump would dare to prosecute. He will not hesitate. Once Trump gets in and gets a look at the cooked books and Obama’s records, the game is over. The jig is up. The goose is cooked. Holder could wind up in prison. Jarrett could wind up in prison. Obama bundler Corzine could wind up in prison for losing $1.5 billion of customer money. Clinton could wind up in jail for deleting 32,000 emails or for accepting bribes from foreign governments while Secretary of State, or for misplacing $6 billion as the head of the State Department, or for lying about Benghazi. The entire upper level management of the IRS could wind up in prison.

Obamacare will be de-funded and dismantled. Obama himself could wind up ruined, his legacy in tatters. Trump will investigate. Trump will prosecute. Trump will go after everyone involved. That’s why the dogs of hell have been unleashed on Donald Trump.

Yes, it’s become open season on Donald Trump. The left and the right are determined to attack his policies, harm his businesses, and, if possible, even keep him out of the coming debates. But they can’t silence him.  And they sure can’t intimidate him. The more they try, the more the public will realize that he’s the one telling the truth.

Obama Is A Racist

The Wages of Racial Discord

The president will leave office with race relations at their lowest ebb in decades. His politics of division bear much of the responsibility.

By JASON L. RILEY
Wall Street Journal
Aug. 4, 2015

One great irony of the current presidency is that Barack Obama won the support of so many seasoned political journalists—not to mention otherwise-skeptical voters—who thought that a black president would improve racial unity. David Remnick of the New Yorker called him “the bridge.” Time magazine’s Joe Klein assured readers that Mr. Obama, who “transcends the racial divide so effortlessly,” would help America turn the page on race. But six years in, that hasn’t happened.

According to a CBS News/New York Times poll in July, nearly 60% of Americans, including large majorities of both blacks and whites, say race relations “are generally bad.” Almost 40% say they are getting worse. Other surveys back those findings. CNN pollsters reported in March that the share of people who think race relations have improved on Mr. Obama’s watch had fallen to 15% this year from 32% in 2009, while the share who think relations have worsened grew to 39% from 6%. A Gallup survey in January reported that 62% of respondents are “somewhat dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied” with the state of race relations in the country, versus 40% in 2008.

The press has dutifully reported this racial retrogression but is reluctant to lay any blame on Mr. Obama. The president obviously isn’t responsible for the racially charged incidents that have occurred on his watch, from Ferguson, Mo., to Baltimore, to Charleston, S.C. Still, he ought to be held accountable for the racial impact of his reactions, his polices and his political bedfellows.

Mr. Obama campaigned as a racial conciliator, someone who believed, as he said in a speech to the Democratic National Convention in 2004, that “there is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America. There’s the United States of America.”

But that is not how he has governed. As president, he has repeatedly—and often prematurely—taken sides in local police matters involving black suspects.

He has supported college-admissions policies that favor black applicants over their white and Asian peers. He has dispatched his attorney general to accuse advocates of voter ID laws of trying to disenfranchise blacks and Hispanics. He has pressured wealthy suburbs to change zoning laws and build low-income housing so that he can shoehorn minorities into neighborhoods where they otherwise can’t afford to live. He has leaned on local school districts to discipline students differently based on their race and ethnicity rather than solely on their misbehavior. He has appeared before activists at the NAACP to denounce the criminal-justice system as racially skewed.

When Mr. Obama first ran for president, he went to such lengths to distance himself from professional agitators such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson that “Saturday Night Live” ran a cartoon parody that featured then-Sen. Obama sending Messrs. Sharpton and Jackson off to places like Botswana and Paraguay so that they couldn’t interfere with the campaign.

These days, Mr. Obama has the reverend on speed dial. Mr. Sharpton is a frequent White House visitor and the president’s point man on civil-rights issues. Given that the president is keeping company with someone who monetizes racial conflict for a living, is it any wonder that so many people believe race relations have regressed?

In the CBS News/Times poll, 77% of respondents said that race relations in their own community were generally good, but only 37% said they were good nationwide. One explanation for the disparity could be that the president’s emphasis on race in general and racial conflict in particular has made things seem worse than they really are. Presidents—especially the ones who can count on mostly favorable mainstream-media coverage—have the ability to control the narrative. And racial strife, or the perception of it, works to the political advantage of Mr. Obama and the political left.

The Black Lives Matter movement may be built on a falsehood—that cops shooting blacks is somehow a bigger problem than blacks shooting each other—but the falsehood will be indulged by politicians like Mr. Obama because the last thing Democrats want is for black people to stop seeing themselves as helpless victims of systemic racism.

“A central problem—perhaps the central problem—in improving the relationship between white and black Americans is the difference in racial crime rates,” observed the late political scientist James Q. Wilson. “The high black crime rate cannot be wished away by talk of racism, over-arresting, excessive punishment, or whites having allegedly drugged or armed blacks.”

Race relations under Mr. Obama haven’t soured by accident, and so long as a wisher-in-chief occupies the Oval Office, there is little chance of improvement. Community organizers specialize in creating social divisions, not bridging them. So do presidents who profit politically from racial anxiety. 

America has learned these lessons the hard way.

Mr. Riley, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow and Journal contributor, is the author of “Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed” (Encounter Books, 2014).

The Vilification of Donald Trump Over Illegal Immigration

The Vilification of Donald Trump Over Illegal Immigration by Bill O'Reilly 2015 July 6 Does the truth hurt? Or did Mr. Trump unfairly malign Mexico and millions of Mexican illegal aliens? Talking Points will now answer those questions. The primary mistake Donald Trump made in his campaign kickoff speech was speaking too generally about the border problem. Most Mexicans who sneak into the USA or overstay their legal visitation status do so because they are economically deprived.  They are largely under-educated folks who are trying to feed their families. Also, the vast majority of illegal aliens do not commit crimes while on American soil, apart from their immigration offense. But there are big problems stemming from Mexican illegal immigration, and the statistics tell the story. As we all know, Mexico is the major supplier of illegal drugs to the USA.  The drug cartels down there have corrupted the police and many politicians. They are brutal thugs who commit mass murder, torture and generally shame their nation. ISIS has nothing on these drug cartels; they are both savage enterprises. The government of Mexico is not capable of defeating the drug lords and rejects direct American intervention. U.S. drug agents are not allowed to carry firearms in Mexico, thereby putting themselves at great risk assisting Mexican authorities. For decades Mexico City has allowed organized crime to brutalize its own people and Americans, as well. Some of the drug organizations have branched out into people smuggling, charging money to get desperate migrants across the border. In the process many, perhaps most, migrant women are sexually molested, and that was the rape situation Donald Trump mentioned. But it's not ordinary Mexicans doing the raping.  It's the gangsters, and Trump should have made that clear. The truth is there is little supervision on the Mexican side of the border.  Cities like Juarez and Nuevo Laredo are literally run by the drug cartels. Border security in Mexico is non-existent and has been for decades. That situation will not improve. So Trump is correct in saying that only a massive wall will stop the chaos.  And even then, drugs and people will get through, although not to the extent they do now. Washington knows all this but has turned away from securing the border ever since President Reagan promised to do so after he signed an immigration amnesty in 1986. Mr. Reagan did not keep his promise, and every single president since has failed to secure the southern border.  Every one. Now what about the immigrants themselves? Fifty-nine percent of Mexican residents and illegal aliens have less than a high school education. Only four percent have a college degree. Sixty-eight percent are poor or near poor. Fifty-seven percent receive means-tested welfare of some kind. Fifty-six percent do not have health insurance.  Many of those will receive Obamacare subsidies. So, Trump's analysis is correct.  The majority of Mexicans coming to the USA are not achievers in the economic sense. To be fair, that was the case with the Irish, Italian and European immigration waves of the past … hard-working people trying to improve themselves. But here is the dangerous part. According government statistics, 71% percent of non-American citizens in federal prisons are from Mexico.  Colombian nationals are second, just 4%. Mexican criminals represent a whopping 16% of all convicts serving time in federal penitentiaries. That is a huge burden on the American taxpayer, and a dangerous situation for ordinary Americans like 32-year-old Kate Steinle. Last Wednesday Kate was walking with her father in San Francisco when she was shot dead on the street for absolutely no reason at all. Police say 45-year-old Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, an illegal alien from Mexico, murdered Kate. Apparently Sanchez has seven felony convictions and had been deported five times. Yet he was still walking around the streets of San Francisco. That's because Mayor Ed Lee and the eleven members of the San Francisco City Supervisors refuse to cooperate with the federal government on criminal aliens. The feds asked the city of San Francisco to keep Sanchez in custody; the city refused.  Ms. Steinle paid for that irresponsible and unconstitutional decision with her life. San Francisco is a sanctuary city, and violent crimes committed by criminal aliens have happened before. City authorities refuse to say how many because they know this is a huge scandal -- a black mark on the history of San Francisco, the most tolerant of cities. The family of Kate Steinle is asking for calm, not vengeance.  But Talking Points is not as charitable. In 1996 President Bill Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act, which stipulated that local and state authorities were to cooperate with the feds in apprehending illegal aliens, especially criminals. In 2007 then Mayor Gavin Newsom issues an Executive Order stating that as a Sanctuary City, San Francisco would not cooperate with federal authorities on illegal immigration matters and would protect even criminal aliens. The feds did nothing. In 2010 the Obama administration openly said it would not punish cities that refuse to obey the 1996 law. So here's the deal. The mayor and city supervisors of San Francisco are directly responsible for the death of Kate Steinle and the Obama administration is complicit. Attorney General Loretta Lynch could order FBI agents to arrest Mayor Lee and the supervisors for violating federal law.  She is within her authority to do that. I know that will never happen because racial politics drives the law these days, which is why Trump caught so much hell. The Constitution demands that the federal government protect Americans from foreign intruders. Obviously, that responsibility is not being met.  And if you point that out as Trump did, you are a racist, a piñata for the open-border crowd to bash. The fact that a felon could be deported five times and still be walking around the USA should shame Congress. Where is a law that says if you are deported one time and come back you serve five years in prison.  Where is that law? Congress should pass it, and if President Obama doesn't sign it, everything will then be on the table. That legislation should be called the Kate Steinle law, much like Jessica's Law. So who will sponsor the new law?  Please let me know.  We are looking for some legislators of courage.  Are you out there? Talking Points is disgusted with the cowardice of our elected officials, from the crazy left San Francisco people to the president to the Congress. Most of them are rich folks who could not care less about the violence and chaos out of control criminal activity south of the border is creating here. If Mexico does not crack down hard on border intrusions and drug trafficking, we should punish them economically.  Period. This entire disaster has been going on for far too long. The excuse that America is at fault because we use drugs and do not secure the border on our side is valid. We are at fault. But that does not excuse Mexico's rampant corruption and abuse of its own people. Drug and people smuggling injure millions and cost lives.  It's the dirtiest of crimes. Finally, the poor people sneaking in here to paint your house are not the problem. The cowardly politicians who will not uphold the law and the Constitution of the United States are the problem. That's what Donald Trump should have said. And that's the memo.