The Collapsing Obama Doctrine

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Photo Credit: ReutersAs the terrorists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) threaten Baghdad, thousands of slaughtered Iraqis in their wake, it is worth recalling a few of President Obama’s past statements about ISIS and al Qaeda. “If a J.V. team puts on Lakers’ uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant” (January 2014). “[C]ore al Qaeda is on its heels, has been decimated” (August 2013). “So, let there be no doubt: The tide of war is receding” (September 2011).

Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many. Too many times to count, Mr. Obama has told us he is “ending” the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—as though wishing made it so. His rhetoric has now come crashing into reality. Watching the black-clad ISIS jihadists take territory once secured by American blood is final proof, if any were needed, that America’s enemies are not “decimated.” They are emboldened and on the march.

The fall of the Iraqi cities of Fallujah, Tikrit, Mosul and Tel Afar, and the establishment of terrorist safe havens across a large swath of the Arab world, present a strategic threat to the security of the United States. Mr. Obama’s actions—before and after ISIS’s recent advances in Iraq—have the effect of increasing that threat.

On a trip to the Middle East this spring, we heard a constant refrain in capitals from the Persian Gulf to Israel, “Can you please explain what your president is doing?” “Why is he walking away?” “Why is he so blithely sacrificing the hard fought gains you secured in Iraq?” “Why is he abandoning your friends?” “Why is he doing deals with your enemies?”

In one Arab capital, a senior official pulled out a map of Syria and Iraq. Drawing an arc with his finger from Raqqa province in northern Syria to Anbar province in western Iraq, he said, “They will control this territory. Al Qaeda is building safe havens and training camps here. Don’t the Americans care?”

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Horowitz: Fight for GOP Has Just Begun

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Photo Credit: APThe defeat of Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) last week was unparalleled in modern electoral history. Dave Brat, a man with almost no campaign, yet a powerful message, crushed the sitting majority leader while being outspent 42 to 1.

And even while the political carcass of Eric Cantor was still warm, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) – Cantor’s next-in-line as whip and a man who share’s the Virginian’s ideological profile – sewed up the nomination for Majority Leader.

McCarthy is generally regarded as a political animal: a shrewd operator without any particular loyalty to any of the ideological factions of the House GOP conference. On immigration, the issue that dominated the debate in the Brat-Cantor race, McCarthy shares Cantor’s support to grant amnesty to illegal aliens brought into the U.S. as minors if they enlist in the military, and is seen by the tech sector as a champion of increasing high-skill visas.

Yet, even with regards to politics, he was widely criticized for signing off on a redistricting plan for California that helped defeat six fellow Republicans. And he’s faced complaints about his whip operation during a tumultuous four years since the Tea Party wave of 2010 swept Republicans into control of the House.

House GOP leadership, anxious to return stability after Cantor’s shocking defeat, ordered the election for the vacant Majority Leader slot about as quickly as feasible. During the one week campaign, McCarthy was never forced to vouch for his position on immigration, especially in light of Cantor’s defeat. He never publicly forged a visionary plan for how he will deliver on the change in direction demanded by the party rank-and-file. He never explained how he plans to use the power of the purse manifest in the House to prevent a lawless president from fully shredding the Constitution in his last two years.

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Is America Over?

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Photo Credit: National Review Recently, my 91-year-old father-in-law and I were talking about the dire state of our nation, and he said, “I am sure glad I will not be around to see the end.”

My father-in-law is a great American patriot, who, as an Albanian immigrant, was processed through Ellis Island at the age of six. He often says the greatest gifts of his life were his family, his Catholic faith, and the opportunity to be American. In World War II, he was an engineer stationed at the Washington Navy Yard, where he worked on electronic circuitry for mines and torpedoes. After the war, he was recruited by the CIA. During several tumultuous decades he was a field operative fighting the Cold War in Europe, and then Vietnam and Laos. At his 90th-birthday party, he expressed utter astonishment that he had reached that milestone, given how many times he had cheated death during his career.

Considering his life experience, I was shaken to the core by his gratitude at the prospect of “not seeing the end” of America — not because I was surprised he said it, but because I totally agree that “the end” is coming and that my husband and I probably will be around to see it.

We are dismayed at the increasing secularization of a nation founded on Judeo-Christian principles, coupled with political, social, cultural, economic, moral, spiritual, and infrastructure decline everywhere we turn. During the 2012 presidential election, there was much discussion among Republicans to the effect that if Obama won reelection it would signal “the end of our nation as we know it.” The theory was that our nation would not be able to withstand another four years of President Obama’s “transforming” policies. The biggest fear of all was that, since his name would never again be on the ballot, Obama would be empowered to do whatever the heck he wanted.

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President Obama vs. George Washington on Prisoner Exchange (Part 2)

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Photo Credit: TownHall Last week, I spoke about how President Barack Obama justified his prisoner swap of five senior Taliban leaders for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl by saying former military leaders and presidents, including George Washington, have engaged in prisoner of war exchange, too.

Obama’s exact words were: “This is what happens at the end of wars. That was true for George Washington; that was true for Abraham Lincoln; that was true for FDR; that’s been true of every combat situation — that at some point, you make sure that you try to get your folks back. And that’s the right thing to do.”

From that statement alone, I revealed how Obama’s made grievous errors in judgment by concluding that 1) the war is over and 2) he was engaging in a prisoner exchange like George Washington — to take just a single example among his list of stellar leaders.

What Obama didn’t tell you regarding Washington and prisoner exchange during the Revolutionary War is that both countries — England and the U.S. — exchanged prisoners of war because both had “few facilities to accommodate large numbers of prisoners,” according to the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, whose mission it is “to preserve, restore, and manage the estate of George Washington to the highest standards and to educate visitors and people throughout the world about the life and legacies of George Washington.”

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The Would-Be Peace President Will Leave Behind a Legacy of War

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Photo Credit: EPAPeople blame the new horrors in Iraq on the American-led invasion in 2003. But the exact reason why the country is in civil war today is because the Americans are not there. If US troops were still present, the fanatical ISIS, the “Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham”, would not have swept through the north of the country and now be threatening Baghdad.

The US constitution forbids the President to have more than two terms in office. This may be a valuable restraint on power, but it also means that any two-term president stops governing quite soon after his re-election. Instead he tries to secure his “legacy”. The more he thinks about this, the more it trickles away.

Barack Obama had a legacy earlier than any other American president. He was the first black president before he was even inaugurated. Very shortly after that, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. From the start, he was supposed to go down in history as “the Peace President”. This has all turned into a tremendous disadvantage.

Mr Obama was right about the need to change tone after the presidency of George W Bush. Some of the fierce antagonisms of the Bush era dissolved in his rhetoric. Europeans, in particular, felt what it said on the poster – “Hope”. But in the Muslim world, the people who were bitterly anti-American for reasons way beyond the invasion of Iraq were not converted or even appeased. Nor did anti-Western wolves like Vladimir Putin want to lie down with the new American lamb. They watched and waited to see what Mr Obama would do.

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In Today’s America, “Mainstream” Means Left

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Photo Credit: TownHall Just when Tea Party obituaries were being sounded around the country, Washington fixture of 42 years, Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran, loses to upstart Tea Party candidate Chris McDaniel.

And one week later, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, in the blockbuster of this year’s political season, is booted out of office in the Virginia Republican primary by an economics professor from Randolph-Macon College, total undergraduate enrollment – 1,312 students.

Turns out that reports of the death of the Tea Party are greatly exaggerated.

According to the New York Times editorial page, writing about Cantor’s defeat, the Tea Party is “producing candidates who are light-years from the mainstream.”

Many continue to harbor and sell the illusion, nurtured by media sources like the New York Times, and reaching sometimes to even the Wall Street Journal, that somehow there is a “mainstream” in American politics today and that anyone with strongly held conviction, who actually cares about that conviction, is an “extremist” or “ideologue” and not part of this “mainstream.”

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Obama Thinks You’re Stupid, that’s Why

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Photo Credit: RedState The latest scandals from the White House have prompted speculation trying to determine why President Obama screws up so much. There is a simple answer.

Obamacare, a failed trillion dollar stimulus, sky-high food stamp usage, disability rolls soaring, our national debt mortgaging America’s future, our adversaries and enemies on the march. Obama has compiled quite a list of “accomplishment” as he fulfills one promise — to fundamentally transform America. Tragically, it has been a very damaging transformation.

Some ascribe these failures to Obama’s inability to manage the presidency, to lead; others to a work ethic problem; others to a lack of experience (only on the fictional West Wing TV show would academia be seen as qualifying one for the presidency) and a sparse record of ever accomplishing anything of significance other than being …Barack Obama.

All these failures have been justified, explained away or caused by lies (you can keep your insurance, doctor, and save $2500 on premiums; ObamaCare will add not a thin dime to the deficit; a red line that was Orwellian-erased when it became an embarrassment; Al Qaeda was on the run; Benghazi was caused by a video; there was not a “smidgen of corruption” at the IRS). The lies are too numerous to list (here is a partial list from last year of 252 examples of lies, law-breaking and corruption) and that list ever-expanding because, as Victor Davis Hanson wrote, a man who would lie about his mother’s death will “fudge” the truth about anything. And so he has and will, indeed must, continue to do so.

George Will wrote two years ago that “that “Barack Obama’s intellectual sociopathy — his often breezy and sometimes loutish indifference to truth — should no longer startle.” If journalists had only fulfilled their responsibilities as the fourth branch of government perhaps Obama’s career would have never led to the presidency, because his lying started at the very beginning of his national career. His memoir was riddled with inaccuracies. In a prime example of projection he repeatedly has warned Americans not to listen to his critics and opponents as they were trying to “bamboozle “people, while he bamboozled his way to the Oval Office.

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UPDATE: Outside-Controlled, Alaska Media Hits Miller Again with Outrageous Headline

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The Fairbanks Daily News Miner published a misleading headline regarding Joe Miller’s Facebook post on his fan page today. This Outside-controlled paper used an Associated Press story word-for-word, but then changed the headline from “Miller cited for taillight violation” to “Miller says taillight citation part of ‘political games’ against him.” The deceptive headline suggests that Mr. Miller is accusing the Alaska State Troopers of political games. The News Miner’s assertion is unequivocally false.

Here’s the AP headline, reprinted in the Anchorage Daily News:

And here’s the News Miner headline:

However, Mr. Miller’s Facebook post stated, “As a former US Magistrate Judge, State Acting District Court Judge, and State Magistrate, I have many friends in law enforcement. This post is not intended to be an indictment of law enforcement . . .”

During the stop, the trooper explained to Mr. Miller that he was pulled over not because of a taillight problem, but because of a REDDI report by a trucker. That false report – made on Mr. Miller’s vehicle transporting campaign signs and covered with Joe Miller campaign stickers on virtually every side of the vehicle – was the political games Mr. Miller was clearly talking about.

According to Joe Miller’s senate campaign spokesman, he demanded that the News Miner change the false headline, but had received no response as of the time this article was published.

This is not the first time that the News Miner, owned by families who established Colorado’s MediaNews Group, has been used as a weapon against Mr. Miller. In 2010, not only did the News Miner repeatedly publish biased, misleading, and sometimes false stories about Mr. Miller, it also was involved in litigation against Mr. Miller but failed to disclose this bias in many of its stories.

After almost completely ignoring Mr. Miller for the last several months, including his U.S. Senate launch that attracted hundreds of Alaskans from all over the state (dwarfing both Sullivan’s and Treadwell’s launch events), the Outside-controlled News Miner has apparently decided to attempt a replay of its smear approach to Miller in 2010.

Why? Because biased-spin is how an outlet like the News Miner hopes to influence the 2014 Alaska election. Alaskans have seen this before and are getting sick of it. And given what recently happened with Majority Leader Cantor’s defeat in Virginia, this Outside effort to attack the only constitutional conservative running for US Senate will fail.

What it boils down to is this: the Outside-controlled press doesn’t want Alaskans to hear the real news about the only true conservative in the 2014 race like Joe Miller’s positions on demilitarizing federal agencies, protecting the 2nd Amendment, repealing and defunding Obamacare, stopping the amnesty push, abolishing the IRS and reforming the tax code, protecting the right to life, returning power to the states, ending the surveillance state, and taking on the out-of-control spending in Washington.

Shame on the News-Miner for its deliberate attempt to influence voters through deception and distraction. Its insinuation that Joe Miller is against one of our great law enforcement agencies is despicable.

_____________________________________________________

Let the Outside-controlled Fairbanks Daily News-Miner know that this type of “reporting” is not acceptable to Alaskans.

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner Contact Info:

Publisher: Marti Buscaglia
907-459-7511

mbuscalia
@newsminer.com

Managing Editor: Rod Boyce
907-459-7585

editor
@newsminer.com

Features Editor: Gary Black
907-359-7504

gblack
@newsminer.com

_____________________________________________________

UPDATE

This afternoon – after the print edition was distributed and multiple complaints were received – the News Miner revised the online article as follows:

You Won’t Believe What Groups are Waging War on GOP Conservatives

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Photo Credit: APMost Republicans prefer to vote for the most conservative candidates in elections. Lets face it, nobody is inspired by moderation, compromise, and beltway-style politicking.

Yet somehow establishment Republicans continue to get elected.

One of the reasons is their money advantage. Another is the apathy of ignorant voters who perform the “civic duty” they learned about in school by dutifully checking “R” on the ballot box. But most voters are at least mildly interested in where a candidate stands on the issues. They aren’t motivated enough to actually peruse the voting records of incumbents (lets face it, it is a bit complicated), so instead they look towards endorsements for assurance.

The majority of Republicans aren’t tuned into the fine details of politics. They aren’t aware of specific bills and strategic alliances that occupy Washington. What they mostly care about are core issues, such as the economy, gun rights, and abortion. If a candidate, particularly an incumbent, stands with them on those issues, they will support them.

So it is really detrimental to grassroots-backed, constitutional conservatives when groups like the Chamber of Commerce, National Right to Life, and the National Rifle Association throw their weight behind establishment and/or moderate Republicans.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Second Amendment Should Trump State Lines

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Photo Credit: TownHallI have two state-issued permits in my wallet.

My state-issued driver’s license allows me to get into a car and drive to visit friends in other states. If I decide to drive to visit my friend Pablo in Arizona, or Jacqueline in New York, my North Carolina-issued license will be honored by every law enforcement agency I may encounter along the way.

If I were to visit Pablo, I would not need to obtain additional driver’s licenses to drive through Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. If I were to visit Jacqueline, I would not need to obtain additional licenses for Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York. No matter where I drive in the United States, I have reciprocity with my driver’s license, under the presumption that if I am deemed competent to drive in one state, then I am competent enough to drive in every state.

If I even brought up the idea that I might need a driver’s license in each individual state, reasonable people would look at me as if I might need my current license revoked, at least until I’m checked over thoroughly by mental health professionals.

The other kind of state-issued permit that I have in my wallet is my North Carolina concealed carry permit, which enables me to carry a concealed handgun in the state of North Carolina, and a number of other states, but not all of them. While North Carolina has logically and automatically recognized the concealed carry permits of every other state issuing a concealed carry permit since 2011, only 36 states have reciprocity with North Carolina.

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