Obama vs. the News Media - Are We Venezuela Yet?

The attacks on Bob Woodward for daring to question Obama’s narrative on the sequester are now well known. 

What is not yet so well known is that is part of a pattern of White House intimidation of reporters and news outlets that do not toe the line.  One instance that is now coming out that the White House threatened the Washington Times for running columns by centrist Democrat Lanny Davis.  The threat included the possibility of having their White House credentials revoked.

One would think the White House would be pleased with how cooperative and downright obsequious the vast majority of the “news” media is.  But apparently only complete control of the media would please The Dear Leader.

White House intimidation of news media, complete with threats of banishment. . . .  I thought this was America, not Venezuela.

Have I mentioned Obama and his minions have a totalitarian streak?

Pray for Pope Benedict

I encourage all to join me in praying for Pope Benedict.

And that not only because this is the last day of his pontificate, but also because, as The Anchoress notes, the man is tired at best.

There has been much speculation about the *real* reason he is resigning.  I will not bother to repeat said rumors.  I will say I haven’t yet heard the resignation blamed on the Sequester of Doom, but maybe Obama and the noos media just haven’t gotten around to that yet.

But perhaps we ought instead to take his resignation statement at face value:

After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering.

However, in today's world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the barque of Saint Peter and proclaim the gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognise my incapacity to adequately fulfil the ministry entrusted to me.

Yes, do pray for Pope Benedict.

Obama Runs Away from Illegal Release

Maybe Obama realizes he’s gone too far in his mass release of detained illegals on the public.  The White House is now running away from this as fast as they can.  Uh, huh.

(Housekeeping: I wanted to do this as an update to my previous post.  But blogger is acting up, making it very difficult to do so.)

Downfall VI: Obama Uses Sequestration Excuse to Dump Illegals From Detention on Red States

I have not been one of those calling for the impeachment of Obama, but after this I am getting closer.  His regime, using sequestration “cuts” as a lame excuse, has dumped illegal aliens from detention onto Texas, Florida, Louisiana, and Arizona.  (Three red states and a purple state. I haven’t seen anything that there’s been a release on blue California.  Coincidence?)  Most or all of these were picked up due to (additional) law violations.

This is a willful dereliction of duty by Obama using sequestration, a mild slowdown in federal spending, as an excuse.   Yes, despite the Obama-fed noos media hype, sequestration is a very modest slowdown in federal spending.  If you haven’t seen this charted yet, look at the chart at the above link to get an idea just how modest.  Go ahead, I’m waiting . . .

O. K. Now repeat after me: “Sequestration doesn’t cut spending; it merely slows the growth rate of projected spending. Sequestration doesn’t cut spending; it merely slows . . ."    

Thank you.  Now what we have here is a president trying to make this modest spending slowdown as painful and noxious as possible even before it actually happens instead of making common sense moves to live within it and/or to work with others to adjust it.  Governors got a flavor of that in a meeting with Obama:

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said the governors asked Obama to come up with better cuts, or even to delay future spending, like the Medicaid expansion in Obamacare, if the budget situation is as dire as the administration says. "The answer to everything we got was no," Haley said. . . .

"Everybody has known that this was coming," [Gov. Bobby Jindal] said. "When did [Obama] go to his Cabinet heads and say, 'If you had to make these reductions, what would be the least painful way to do it?' "

There's no indication Obama has done anything to make the cuts easier on the public. To the contrary, it is in his political interest to make the cuts as painful as possible and then blame them on Republicans.

It certainly appears that is exactly what Obama is doing.  If so, that is, again, a willful dereliction of duty for political gain.  It is an outrageous dereliction of duty in any case:

Any way you cut it, this is a dangerous politically motivated maneuver coming from a President who absolutely refuses to not only restrain spending, but also refuses to prioritize spending, public safety be damned.  There is absolutely no grounds whatsoever for prematurely releasing prisoners- especially when the reasoning behind your cuts is based on what are essentially phony budget cuts to a 3.8 trillion dollar budget.

In 1980, it was Fidel Castro. who in an act of spite towards the United States released thousands of prisoners and mentally ill persons in what became known as the Mariel Boatlift.   We now have an American president- Barack Obama – whose extreme malice towards his own country [particularly red states – ed.] is directly responsible for endangering the people he was elected to protect and serve.

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UPDATES:

Rush led off his program this morning with this, stating, “This is an impeachable offense.”  So this is quickly becoming an issue.

I now think Obama’s act and the crime that will inevitably result may eventually cause enough outrage to contribute to bringing down his regime.  Therefore I’ve added this to my Downfall series, and substituted “Downfall VI” for “OUTRAGE”.

I do not think I emphasized enough that Obama took this action before the sequester.  There is no law or budget that required him to release criminals from detention.  He is completely without excuse.

HOUSEKEEPING: Blogger is acting up, messing up fonts, deleting this post and some of the links, etc.  I'm doing the best I can (unlike Obama) to make do.

Sequestration Circus

Thanks to picking up a friend way too late last night, this post may ramble a bit here and there.  But Sequestration is a circus anyway.  So here goes.

Think I was too gloomy yesterday when I said Americans will let Obama skate on his Sequestration antics?  Think again.  According a Pew Poll, 31% blame Obama for the Sequestration situation, whereas 49% blame Republicans in Congress.

Lemme get this straight.  Obama proposes and insists on Sequestration.  House Republicans pass a reasonable bill to avoid it.  Obama proposes nothing but yet more taxes to avoid it.  And instead of negotiating with Republicans, he’d rather travel around to demagogue and smear them (when he’s not playing golf, of course):

. . . he didn’t open a line of communication with House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell until Thursday, a week before the spending ax hits. And when they did finally hear from Obama, the calls were perfunctory, with no request to step up negotiations or invitations to the White House.

That’s because Obama’s all-in on an outside strategy, doing just about everything other than holding serious talks with Republicans. In the last two days alone, he’s courted local TV anchors, called in a select group of White House correspondents to talk off-the-record, chatted up black broadcasters, and announced plans to stump next week at Virginia’s Newport News Shipyard.

BUT about half of the American people blame Republicans.

Well, about half of the American people are idiots now. There, I said it.  However, Guy Benson sums it up a bit more nicely than I do:

This is a great gig, if you can get it. You conceive of a bad idea, demand that it be given the force of law, sign it into existence, and adamantly oppose efforts to alter or undo it — then when it no longer serves your fleeting political purposes, you drop the whole thing in the lap of your adversaries, and most people buy it. Let’s face it: Average people don’t know what sequestration is, what it would do, or why it even exists. If they were briefed on the very basics, these numbers would probably shift a bit, but most Americans have no appetite for following Washington’s endless political brinksmanship. So what do they do when a pollster calls to ask about the latest impending crisis? They use shortcuts. Although he’s not especially popular, the president is viewed much more favorably than Republicans in Congress these days. Between this reality and the supine posture of his battered-spouse media supporters, Obama occupies the public opinion high ground in most of these battles, even before he begins his tendentious bullying. On broad and intuitive issues like guns and Obamacare, his powers of persuasion are limited. But on easily-demagogueable budget minutiae with baffling names like “sequestration,” a lot of people don’t quite understand what’s going, nor do they really want to know. So they pick the guy they like better.

But I would still add that the stupidity of Americans is on the rise.  Most Americans in the 80’s were not idiots like this.

And the stupidity has infected Republicans as well.  Some just want to let the Obama regime choose where to cut spending.  They think that is a smart move politically – let Obama be blamed for the spending cuts.

Let’s see.  You have a demagogue and tyrant.  But to solve supposed problems, you pass an enabling act to let him do whatever he wants.  Hmm.  Where have I seen that before?

O. K. maybe I am being a bit overwrought.  But to just give away the power of the purse to Obama would be the height of irresponsibility.  And God knows what it would lead to.

Why can’t Republicans simply tell it like it is?  Sequestration would only slow the rate of increase in spending and not by much.  It is not a crisis at all, and Obama is only trying to make it one because he is committed to growing the size and the power of the federal government as fast as he can.  Republicans should tell Obama “NO!” and to quit his whining when he doesn’t get his way.

But if Republicans instead cave yet again, I may go Third Party.  I mean it.  And I was a Republican Precinct Chair for 8 years.  I am that fed up with Republicans enabling Obama and Democrats in growing the federal beast. 

But I’m mean.  I support Sequestration because I want to kill pitiful cute doe-eyed seals.

Déjà Vu All Over Again

Does Obama’s latest whinefest about Sequestration sound familiar?  Does it give you déjà vu even?  There is a reason for that.  And Allen Ginzburg summarizes the whining redux so well, I’ll defer to him:

Does this sound familiar?

1) There is an important problem that requires Congress and the President to act. (entitlement reform, viable budget, sequestration, fiscal cliff, debt limit hike, etc.)

2) House Republicans propose and pass a bill with what they consider a good solution to the problem.

3) President Obama and Senate Democrats realize it is easier to attack the Republican plan than propose their own, so they refuse to propose a real bill.

4) President Obama delivers several campaign-like speeches filled with strawmen portraying Republicans as unreasonable, uncaring and somehow responsible for a lack of solution.

5) No permanent solution is achieved.

It should. This cycle has been repeated on every major issue that has come up since Republicans took over the House in 2011.

And the sheer gall of Obama’s act exceeds even Bill Clinton at the height of his lying.

President Obama fails to mention several things in these speeches: First, the idea for the sequester cuts that he claims will be so harmful originated in his White House. Second, House Republicans already passed two bills replacing sequester cuts with other cuts, while Obama has not proposed any specific solution yet. And lastly, President Obama previously promised to veto any attempt to get rid of the cuts he now claims will be devastating.

Funny how the “mainstream” noos media doesn’t mention that much, either.

Ginzburg has a hopeful conclusion, however. I wish I could share his hope.

Someone should inform the President that Americans are tired of this game and the election is over. It is time for him to actually do his job.

Judging from the recent sordid election, I do not think most Americans are tired of Obama’s act.  Not yet anyway.  So enjoy Obama’s smearing and whining.  Because he’ll keep doing it until it backfires. 

And maybe he’ll keep doing it even then.  For when it comes to deficits he’d much rather demagogue than actually do something about them.

Howard Hendricks, R. I. P.

This morning Howard Hendricks departed to be with the Lord.  He was 88.

The man’s teaching had a great impact on a great many men, including me.  He exhorted and encouraged men to get off their duffs and be the ministers God has called them to be.  I know his teaching encouraged me and gave me some backbone during a time I was dealing with a lot of discouragement.

May God bless him beyond what we can even think or imagine and continue to use his good teaching.