op ed review 9/21
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
Top military official opens door to ground troops in ISIS
fight, despite Obama pledge of “no boots on the ground”
Retired Head Of Marine Corps says “Obama’s ISIS Strategy
Doesn’t Have ‘A Snowball’s Chance In Hell Of Succeeding’”
Reports Warn Of ISIS Terrorist Cells Coming Across The Mexican
Border
Four known terrorists were apprehended at the US border in
Texas on September 10 – the day before the 13th anniversary of the 9-11
attacks.
What will this do for recruitment?: “In response to the growing Ebola crisis, the
U.S. says it will send 3,000 troops to Liberia to “fight the disease.”
President Obama has declined to attend a dedication ceremony
in October for a new memorial honoring American veterans who have been disabled
fighting for their country in wars.
Obama Fundraises Every Five Days
This will only get worse:
“A new report has found nearly 1 in 10 Americans are showing up to work
high on marijuana.”
Politico reports that "long-simmering doubts" and
a renewed lack of confidence in DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz from the
White House, congressional Dems and other Washington Democrats has Schultz
struggling to try and hold onto her job.
How perfectly Clintonian: “While a crowd of several thousand
Democrats waited on a sloping, grassy field below, Mrs Clinton, her husband and
Senator Harkin staged a mini-grilling of steaks for the press at a single
barbecue grill in a fenced-off enclosure, framed by a handsome tree and a
picnic table filled with some patient Iowans. Mrs Clinton gamely posed,
pretending to grill a steak that had been pre-cooked for her.”
More Biden gaffes: Vice
President Joe Biden drew fire from a prominent Jewish group on Tuesday after he
described unscrupulous bankers who prey on servicemen and servicewomen deployed
overseas as “Shylocks” — a
term frequently condemned as an anti-Semitic caricature.
Hours after
apologizing for his anti-semitic slur, Biden described Lee KuanYew of Singapore
as “the wisest man in the Orient.” The terms “orient” and “oriental” are considered
widely outdated and offensive to Asians.
The US energy industry has been warning for years that the
Obama EPA’s caps on carbon emissions will lead to several bad outcomes for
Americans, including skyrocketing energy prices and even brownouts and
blackouts. The EPA’s Janet McCabe was testifying in the House today on the
agency’s plan to cap carbon emissions. And then the power went out….
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants Democratic
candidates to win, but it may be more important that Republican candidates
lose. That may explain why Democrats in two key races with implications for
Senate control have dropped their bids, strengthening the odds for third-party
candidates while creating tougher contests for Republicans.
Although state polling shows the GOP slipping some in the
Republican quest to win the U.S. Senate, a New York Times/CBS News poll reveals
that President Obama is polling worse than George W. Bush on issues important
to voters, while the GOP is gaining strength.
Hillary Clinton confidants were part of an operation to
“separate” damaging documents before they were turned over to the
Accountability Review Board investigating Benghazi security lapses.
“..senior aides convened an after-hours boiler room
operation to sift through Benghazi-related documents and separate out those
that might be damaging to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.”
Pelosi is furious: ‘We never treated President Bush the way they treat President Obama’
This sounds a little creepy:
Department of Justice is launching a new program that will train
"community leaders" like teachers and social workers to monitor their
communities and watch for “radicals.”. Targets will be “those who would sow
intolerance, division, and hate in the homeland.”
Gov. Bobby Jindal says Americans are clamoring for a
“hostile takeover” of Washington, D.C. That means not just talking about
repealing Obamacare, Jindal continued, but taking measures to repeal and
replace it.
“John Kerry Says 40
Countries Have Joined Obama’s Coalition Against ISIS – But Nobody Knows Who
They Are” By comparison, former President George W.
Bush put together a 48 member coalition for the Iraq War in 2003 and everyone
knew who they were. Despite these numbers the liberal media continues to push
the lie that Bush “went it alone” in Iraq.
_________________________________________________________________________
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Mark Alexander
Losing the Half-Century War on Poverty
We were only a few short years into the War on Terror when
the Left demanded we pull the plug because of a lack of results. Yet 50 years
into the War on Poverty declared by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, we’ve
spent an estimated $22 trillion trying to alleviate poverty with
little to show for it.
One in seven Americans still live in poverty, roughly the
same rate as when the policies began to take effect in the late 1960s. The 2013
poverty rate of 14.5% was the first decline in the year-over-year rate since
2006, as the 2012 rate was 15%. But even during flush economic times, we’ve
never driven the poverty rate below 10%.
Despite the stagnation in the poverty rate, the changes
wrought by Johnson’s “Great Society” have manifested themselves in a number of
societal ills that were uncommon five decades ago. Many of those stem from an
out-of-wedlock birthrate that has skyrocketed from single-digits in 1964 to
over 40% today. With the marriage rate in steep decline, we could call it the
era of the “baby daddy” – despite recent U.S. Census reports indicating a
female-headed single-parent family is five times more likely to be poor than a
married-couple one. Marriage really does matter.
On the other hand, to be poor in this day and age carries
with it a number of advantages even middle-class families could only dream of a
generation or two ago. Contrary to popular perception, the average
poverty-level family likely has a car (and perhaps two) as well as their own place
to live, whether a single-family home or apartment – less than one in 10 live
in a mobile home or trailer. Just 4% of those considered poor are homeless at
some point during a calendar year, according to Census Bureau statistics. (The
Heritage Foundation has done an outstanding study detailing these and other
facts about our poor.)
The dirty little secret about America’s “poor” is that most
of the dozens of means-tested government programs aren’t considered income for
recipients. If these programs were given an income equivalent, only a tiny
percentage of the 45.3 million Americans who fall below the poverty line would
be considered poor and the perceived need for these programs would decrease.
Last year the Cato Institute put out a controversial study claiming that
welfare programs in many states paid more than minimum wage jobs, providing a
disincentive to work but a tremendous incentive to vote in such a way as to
assure the gravy train will continue to roll. The more people who are touched
by government assistance, the easier it is for politicians distributing the
“help” to maintain power. As the saying goes, those who rob Peter to pay Paul
can always count on the vote of Paul.
In short, the Great Society has created the great dependent
underclass, a massive voting bloc that is now beholden to statists. No longer
do we hear of the generation too proud to accept “relief” from the government.
And no longer do we subject our dependent class to the humiliation of cashing
welfare checks or counting out food stamps – now it’s as easy as swiping a
credit card, only with no payment due. Meanwhile, those from the faith-based
community who used to provide for society’s less fortunate by providing a hand
up rather than a handout are more and more shut out of the process.
The stated intention of the Great Society was to
simply provide the tools to bring people out of poverty – they still had to do
the work. But work is hard and handouts are easy, and that simple truism has
brought us to the unsustainable situation we’re in today, with no end in sight
unless radical change comes from the very government that has become the
vote-gathering provider to so many. It won’t be under this regime, of course,
as Barack Obama has put us on a path to throw another $13 trillion at the
problem over the next fruitless decade.
________________________________________________________________________
FROM OTHER COLUMNS
"The demographic groups that voted most heavily for
Barack Obama in 2012 have suffered the most from this president’s economic
policies. … I looked at the most recent Census Bureau data as analyzed by
statisticians from Sentier Research. … According to the Sentier research,
single women with and without children present saw their incomes fall by
roughly 5 percent. Those age 25-34 experienced an income decline of 4.4
percent. Black heads of households saw their income tumble by 7.7 percent,
while the income of Hispanic heads of households fell 5.6 percent. In other
words, many of these groups experienced double the income fall than the average
voter. Oh and by the way, the poor and unskilled that Mr. Obama says he cares
so much about saw their incomes fall by 7.4 percent for those with less than a
high-school diploma and 8.2 percent for those with only a high-school diploma.
… Income redistribution isn’t an economic strategy for growth. It’s a lifeboat
strategy. … The poor and minorities have taken the big hit – and that’s the
real injustice of Obamanomics.”
-Stephen Moore
“Bill Clinton and George W. Bush spoke onstage together at
the Newseum in Washington to launch a scholarship program. They have a great
act. George W. Bush talks about the importance of faith and family for thirty
minutes and then Bill Clinton delivers the rebuttal.”
-Argus
Hamilton
________________________________________________________________________
LEFTIST WATCH
Hillary in trouble from Left? Emails sent by liberal activists and
obtained by The Hill reveal significant dissatisfaction with Hillary Clinton,
the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016.
____________________________________________________________________________
GLOBALONEY
A Broadway-styled musical play has gone down to disastrous
failure both critically and from audiences, despite having been funded by tax
dollars to push global warming. "The Great Immensity," was just as
advertised; immense. Not just an immense bomb, but according to one Congressman
an immense waste of the $700,000 in tax dollars spent to float the production.
____________________________________________________________________________
BOOKS
There they go again. The New York Times Book Review, which
has a history of belatedly recognizing conservative bestsellers, has banished
conservative legal author David Limbaugh’s latest, Jesus on Trial, from its
upcoming best seller list despite having sales better than 17 other books on
the list.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/omg-limbaughs-jesus-banished-from-nyt-best-seller-list/article/2553612
______________________________________________________________________
ISLAM
Islamist police in Saudi Arabia have stormed a Christian
prayer meeting and arrested its entire congregation, including women and
children, and confiscated their bibles. The
raid was the latest incident of a crackdown on religious minorities in Saudi Arabia
by the country's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of
Vice. The 28 Christians were said to be
worshipping at the home of an Indian national in the eastern city of Khafji,
when the police entered the building and took them into custody. They have not
been seen or heard from since, raising concerns among human rights groups as to
their whereabouts.
“We have a profoundly serious problem of illegal
immigration, but we also have a problem of legal immigration, Unfortunately, it
is a problem that can barely be discussed. Is there anyone who thinks the
continued stream of Muslim immigration from countries with active jihadist
groups is a good idea?”
___________________________________________________________________________
ARTICLES
“Stop Glorifying Football Players
and Start Glorifying Soldiers”
Are conservative cities better than cities run by liberals? “As
the great Democratic-run cities across the country—Chicago, Detroit, Los
Angeles—face fiscal calamity, America’s conservative cities are showing that
there’s another way.”
There’s a lot of competition for Barack Obama’s biggest lie.
The man who could assure the American public with a straight face over thirty
times that they could keep their doctor under his health plan, when he knew
that to be completely false, is one hellluva fibber. But execrable as that
serial prevarication may have been, it doesn’t hold a proverbial candle to his
most recent whopper — that the Islamic State is not Islamic — not to mention
its corollary, or perhaps subsidiary lie, that real religions do not indulge in
murder. Islam has been doing that pretty much straight
_________________________________________________________________________
NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
Not so popular anymore: Obamagear is being marked down to fire sale
prices. Get your Obama diapers here.
__________________________________________________________________________
WISE WORDS
“The natural cure for an
ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of
men.”
-Alexander Hamilton
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