The ObamaMedia High-fives ObamaCare

Michael Reagan / Townhall Columnist

 

Watching the president doing his ObamaCare victory lap in the Rose Garden the other day made me feel so sick to my stomach I had to call my doctor.

But seeing the mainstream media join the celebration like a pack of liberal lapdogs made me wonder if I was watching a channel from North Korea.

The uncritical reaction of the New York-Washington Axis of Journalism to the announcement that ObamaCare had miraculously hit its magic sign-up number was a new low for a profession that is already a national embarrassment.

It's not a newsflash that passing along the propaganda of the Obama administration to the American people has become the main job of the media.

But come on. Are there no Sam Donaldsons and Helen Thomases in the Age of Obama?

An assistant editor of a high school paper could have seen through the White House smoke on Tuesday.

And the freshest intern on the "The Daily Show" could have been ready with better questions when Obama started boasting that 7.1 million Americans had signed up for his mandated government healthcare fiasco.

Questions like:

"Excuse me, Mr. President.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your high-fiving session with Dr. Emanuel and the editors of the New York Times, but could you break down that suspiciously vague 7.1 million number for us?

"Does it include people who used to have their own insurance until your program took it away from them -- after you promised them they'd always be able to keep it, I mean?"

"Can you tell us how many of those ObamaCare signees previously did not have health insurance?"

"Have they all paid their first premium? And a follow up question, please: How can you tell?"

"What happens if someone never pays or stops paying their monthly premiums? Will they still get their eye exams, birth control pills and vasectomies paid for by the government if they're in jail?"

"Can you explain, sir, why you think that signing up 7.1 million people for a mandatory healthcare plan in a nation of 315 million is a great victory for America?"

"No disrespect, Mr. President. But can you provide us with proof that your 7.1 million number is, ah, really true and not a dumb April Fools joke your administration is playing on the 99 percent of Americans who live on the wrong side the information gap?"

Don't hold your breath waiting for questions like those from the MSM.

It will take until after the fall election before the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and Rachel Maddow stop cheering for President Obama.

And they'll start investigating Rand Paul's cousins' catering business or Jeb Bush's gardener's immigration papers long before they find time to look into which Solyndras of the insurance industry are getting the biggest bailouts for collaborating in Obama's shell game.

In the meantime, from now until November 4 the ObamaMedia will be telling us 7.1 million upbeat stories about how their hero has saved lives, improved health care and made America a better place to get sick in.

What if Secrecy Trumps the Constitution?

Judge Andrew Napolitano / Townhall Columnist

 

What if the National Security Agency (NSA) knows it is violating the Constitution by spying on all Americans without showing a judge probable cause of wrongdoing or identifying the persons it wishes to spy upon, as the Constitution requires? What if this massive spying has come about because the NSA found it too difficult to follow the Constitution?

What if the Constitution was written to keep the government off the people's backs, but the NSA and the president and some members of Congress have put the NSA not only on our backs, but in our bedrooms, kitchens, telephones and computers? What if when you look at your computer screen, the NSA is looking right back at you?

What if the NSA really thought it could keep the fact that it is spying on all Americans and many others throughout the world secret from American voters? What if Congress enacted laws that actually delegate some congressional powers to elite congressional committees -- one in the Senate and one in the House? What if this delegation of power is unconstitutional because the Constitution gives all legislative powers to Congress as a whole and Congress itself is powerless to give some of its power away to two of its secret committees? What if the members of these elite committees who hear and see secrets from the NSA, the CIA and other federal intelligence agencies are themselves sworn to secrecy?

What if the secrets they hear are so terrifying that some of these members of Congress don't know what to do about it? What if the secrecy prohibits these congressional committee members from telling anyone what they know and seeking advice about these awful truths? What if they can't tell a spouse at home, a lawyer in her office, a priest in confessional, a judge when under oath in a courtroom, other members of Congress or the voters who sent them to Congress?

What if this system of secrets, with its promises not to reveal them, has led to a government whose spies have intimidated and terrified some members of Congress? What if one member of Congress -- Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat from West Virginia -- wrote to then-Vice President Dick Cheney and voiced fears that totalitarianism is creeping into our democracy? What if he wrote that letter in his own hand because he feared he might be prosecuted if he dictated it to a secretary or gave it to his secretary for typing? What if he was terrified to learn what the spies told him because he knew he could not share it with anyone or do anything about it?

What if the NSA's chief apologist in Congress -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California -- took to the only safe place in the world where she could reveal what she learned from the spies and not be prosecuted for violating her oath of secrecy and there revealed a secret? What if that place is the Senate floor, and what if, while there, she revealed that she approved of the NSA spying on all Americans but disapproved of the CIA spying on her staff? What if it is unlawful and unconstitutional for the CIA to spy on anyone in the United States -- whether private citizen, illegal alien or member of a Senate staff?

What if the equality of the branches of government is destroyed when one of them spies on the other?

What kind of a president spies on Congress? What kind of members of Congress sit back and let themselves become victims of spying? What if Congress could stop all spying on all Americans by a simple vote? What if Congress could stop the president from spying on its own members with a simple vote? What if Congress is afraid to take these votes?

What if secret government is unaccountable precisely because it is secret? What if the people's representatives in government have a moral obligation to reveal to their constituents that the president's spies are spying on all of us, and they -- members of Congress -- have not lifted a finger to stop it? Would we all vote differently if we knew the secrets the government has shared with a select few but kept from the rest of us? What if your own representatives in the House and the Senate are lying to you because of fear of the consequences of revealing secrets?

What if the NSA chief claimed to a congressional committee -- one of those with which he secretly shares secrets -- that all this spying has stopped 57 terror plots? What if the next day he changed that number to three plots? What if he has declined to say what those three plots were? What if a federal judge found that all this spying has not prevented any identifiable plots?

What if all this spying doesn't work? What if the NSA has too much data about all of us? What if the president knowingly declined to uphold the Constitution and instructed his spies to do the same?

What if the NSA is so accustomed to spying on all of us all the time that it lacks the ability to obtain probable cause and to identify the persons upon whom it needs to spy? What if the government's culture of secrecy and spying has taken on a life of its own? What if even those who started it are afraid to stop it?

What if the NSA missed the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, the Ft. Hood massacre, the Times Square bomber, the Boston Marathon bombers, the coup in Kiev and the Russian invasion of Ukraine? What if the NSA wasted its time spying on Aunt Tillie in Des Moines and the Pope in Rome and Chancellor Merkel in Berlin, instead of Vladimir Putin in Moscow?

What if secrecy has replaced the rule of law? What if that replacement has left us in the dark about what the government knows and what it is doing? What if few in government believe in transparency? What if few in government believe in the Constitution?

What do we do about it?

4 dead, 14 injured in Fort Hood Shooting 
Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs 

Shooter identified:  Spc. Ivan Lopez, 1st Battalion, Warrior Transition Brigade, ties a fly during an instructional class Nov. 3, 2010 at Fort Hood.

UPDATE: 4 dead, 14 injured.

ABC News: The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said four people were killed, including the gunman, and 14 were injured in a shooting incident today at Fort Hood in Texas.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, told CNN he had been briefed on the deadly incident and said authorities were concerned another shooter might be at large. So far, no nexus to terrorism has been discovered, the lawmaker said.

There is a shooting in progress, leaving several people injured, has been reported Wednesday afternoon at Fort Hood, the large military post in Killeen, Texas, site of the jihad massacre in 2009.

One dead, several reported injured in ‘active shooter’ situation at Fort Hood The shooting broke out about 4:30 p.m. and killed at least one person at the military post in Killeen, Texas. The shooter is still at large and believed to be inside the post’s Medical Brigade Building, according to reports. The installation is on lockdown. 

The shooter is still on the loose, KCEN-TV reported, and it’s unclear how many people have been shot. (NY Daily News)

The shooting comes one day after the U.S. Marine Corps confirmed an FBI search is underway for a former Army recruit, identified as Muhammed. They knew this was coming down. An alert was issued, confirmed by military and law enforcement officials, that a man had told friends of his “intention to commit jihad.”

The FBI later backpedaled and claimed earlier today that there was not a threat, and that there never was a manhunt.

Standing by ……

In the wake of the mass murder buy jihadist Major Hasan, here is how the military advised our soldiers to defend themselves ….. with three-ring binders.

We are being betrayed by our “betters.”

Attached is the Official Tyndall AFB Plan called “How to Survive an Active Shooter.” This is in response to the Fort Hood jihadi’s wholesale  slaughter of US soldiers, the largest attack on a US army base in American history. This report/response is a pathetic and embarrassing surrender to barbarians. Read it and weep.

As you know, service members are not allowed to carry firearms on base. So what is the remedy?

Our precious servicemen and women are instructed to dial 911 while playing dead (p. 18), and to attack the shooter with a three-ring binder or paper cutter (p. 19). Think I am kidding? Read the report — Download Military



“It is important to remember there is no “standard” for random shooting events and no profile of the shooters”

Instead of reversing the ridiculous restriction on our military from carrying firearms on our bases, our servicemen and women are advised to make use of three ring binders …………. or any other “makeshift weapon.”

See more here.

Muslim Capitol Day 2014: The Taliban in Tallahassee?

  By Tom Trento

 

March 19, 2014 marked the 6th annual Florida Muslim Capitol Day (MCD) in Tallahassee. From now on MCD will be referred to as “The Taliban in Tallahassee Day!” Why? Because of comments made by Ahmed Bedier captured during the MCD event. This video provides an intriguing insight into the psychological makeup of MCD organizer Bedier, a self described civil rights advocate and community organizer.

See the video of the speech here:  
http://drrichswier.com/2014/03/27/muslim-capitol-day-the-taliban-in-tallahassee/                                        

Mr. Bedier described Imam Azhar Subedar as a person that if you saw him “walking down the halls of the Capitol he was like gliding. People were not sure if they saw Jesus or someone from the Taliban.”

If this comment was uttered by anyone else (Christian, Jew, politician, concerned citizen) the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) would have filed an anti-Muslim hate speech complaint in a New York minute.

Ironically, CAIR-FL Directors Hassan Shibly and Nezar Hamze were standing next to Ahmed Bedier and said nothing. This example exposes CAIR’s selective use of “anti-Islamic” comments as a problem only when a non-Muslim says something offensive.

Ahmed Bedier’s offensive comments are legendary so nobody was surprised what came out of his mouth in a public setting.

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser.

CAIR-FL Director’s Hassan Shibly and Nezar Hamze were both silent regarding Mr. Bedier’s offensive remarks – so I guess they both were in full agreement. Mr. Bedier said exactly what was on his mind in this video without any filters because he did not see us filming or he is just does not care. Mr. Bedier couldn’t have been more arrogant, anti-Muslim, anti-women, anti-Christian and inappropriate bundled up into one short public outing at the Florida Capital.

For a complete dossier on Ahmed Bedier go to:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joe-…

People should be listening to devout Muslim Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and Tawfiq Hamid, Senior Fellow and Chair for the Study of Islamic Radicalism at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, rather than Ahmed Bedier.

We need caring voices like that of Jasser and Hamid to speak for the Muslim community at large.

Ohio Mission-April 2014

Hello Tea Teams Ohio....I am in Ohio to see John Boehner defeated in the May 6th primary election.  If Tea Teams works together, we can do what has never been done before....remove the Speaker of the House.

Mr. Boehner has declared war on the Tea Party and by extention, us as well.  Mr. Boehner declares himself to be a champion of conservative values, but has betrayed the citizens with alarming regularity.  The policies of Obama are wreaking havoc with our nation and Mr. Boehner gives little, if any, resistance.

I am currently in Dayton, very close to Boehners district so please join with me for Tea Teams USA special missions to disrupt John Boehners relection campaign.

There are over 300 Tea Team USA members in Ohio so we can do this.

If you are ready to take action on this, email me at wb4a@reagan.com and lets get this party started!

Bill Finlay, Founder, Tea Teams USA

Ahmadinejad urges Iranians to “raise the flag of martyrs over the White House”

Robert Spencer / Jihad Watch

 

 

The former Thug-In-Chief’s reappearance and new bellicose rhetoric is yet another indication that the “moderate” stance that the Iranians appeared to take for awhile has served its purpose, and can now be discarded like a new pair of shoes that doesn’t turn out to fit well, as the mullahs slip into their familiar and comfortable old genocidal-hate-rhetoric shoes.

“Ahmadinejad Urges Iranians to ‘Raise the Flag of Martyrs Over the White House,’” by Adam Kredo for the Washington Free Beacon, April 2:

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad emerged from hiding on Wednesday to deliver a rare public speech in which he told Iranians, “We can rest the day that we raise the flag of martyrs over the White House,” according to an independent translation of Persian language media reports.

Ahmadinejad, most notorious for his Holocaust denial and militaristic rhetoric, visited war zones in southern Iran just a week after Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei made a similar visit to the region.

The comments were initially reported by Iran’s Basij News Agency, an official state organ controlled by the country’s powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Ahmadinejad’s reappearance on the public stage comes as Iran continues to negotiate with Western powers over its contested nuclear weapons program. The former president’s violent rhetoric is being viewed as a sign that Iranian hardliners are making a political comeback in Tehran.

“This was Ahmadinejad’s first political comment after a long silence, more importantly it is reported by a news agency controlled by [Iran’s] powerful Basij forces, the Iranian version of SS forces,” Saeed Ghasseminejad, cofounder of Iranian Liberal Students and Graduates, told the Washington Free Beacon.

“Ahmadinejad also got the chance to sit close to Khamenei, as Khamenei’s website and IRGC-run Fars News reported,” Ghasseminejad said.

This may be seen as “a significant sign in Iran’s politics showing that Ahmadinejad’s relation with Khamenei is improving,” he said. “It seems that Khamenei and powerful forces in his office have decided not to keep Ahmadinejad totally out of the loop.”

Khamenei exerts total control over Iranian politics and its figureheads, meaning that if the Supreme Leader gives the go-ahead, Ahmadinejad could regain political power.

“If Khamenei’s office gives Ahmadinejad the permission to become more active, it is a sign that Khamenei is planning to strengthen the revolutionary hardliner’s position, who surprisingly lost the presidential election to a coalition of reformists and conservatives,” Ghasseminejad said.

“Khamenei’s recent speeches and Ahmadinejad’s return show that hardliners are planning to strike back, of course after Khamenei’s permission,” he said.

Ahmadinejad’s violent rhetoric and public appearance with Khamenei may also be a signal to Iran’s political elite, particularly the Larijani brothers, who have warred with Ahmadinejad in the past and attempted to discredit him….

Op-ed:
The sellout of America continues
By: Diane Sori

“BP is very pleased at the prospect of adding to our leading leasehold position in this key U.S. offshore region.” 

- Brett Clanton, Houston based BP spokesperson

We all know the Obama administration LIES...we all know they're experts at subterfuge and covering-up their many wrongs...and we know that when they need help in keeping a story hidden from the American public they will do so by turning to the main-stream media to keep what they want hidden off the front page.

And this is exactly what they did when a few short weeks ago the ban against new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico was lifted.

For years Republicans and even some blue-dog Democrats have been trying to get America off its dependence on foreign oil...muslim controlled oil. For years we Republicans and TEA Party members have been touting the words 'Drill Baby Drill' and 'Build the Keystone Pipeline NOW' to NO avail. And after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and ensuing ecological disaster, Barack HUSSEIN Obama placed a moratorium on deep water drilling off America's coastlines.

But now due to the continuing high demand for energy...in the form of oil and natural gas...that ban was recently lifted in full, but lifted with one quite questionable caveat as to why were American oil companies given lesser contracts to deepwater drill off our shores than were foreign companies. Foreign companies like BP (British Petroleum)...the very company that plead guilty to criminal charges resulting from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill off the coast of Louisiana. NOT only did BP NOT get one of the standard contracts, they got a specific contact that allowed them to drill in 24 deepwater gulf tracts to a tune of bids valued at $41.6 billion. And BP secured this contract less than one week after federal authorities...as in the EPA...lifted a ban that had prevented them from bidding on drilling contracts until they agreed to implement stronger safety and corporate governance rules, along with being monitored by an EPA-approved independent auditor for the next five years...which of course they agreed to.

Quite fishy I'd say...just like Monday's ObamaCare final enrollment numbers.

And are you ready for this...another company indirectly 'secured' gulf contracts for themselves through their ties to an American owned company...and that company is Russia's state- owned multinational petrochemical giant Rosneft, and the American company is petrochemical giant ExxonMobil. And these too giants have developed a very close...maybe too close for comfort... relationship. In fact, during a June 2012 meeting with Vladimir Putin...YES 'that' Vladimir Putin...ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson touted his company's 'close relationship' with Rosneft, and in return for their praise Putin awarded ExxonMobil the Russian Order of Friendship.

And there were added perks to this so-called 'close relationship' between the two including Rosneft acquiring a 30% stake in 20 ExxonMobil-owned offshore oil and gas blocks in the gulf along with a 30% stake in ExxonMobil’s share in the La Escalera Ranch project...a project which consists of oil exploration fields in the Delaware Basin of West Texas.. Also, Rosneft got a 30% stake in a portion of ExxonMobil's stake in Alberta’s Cardium Shale formation.

So now we have an American company totally in bed with a Russian company who is acquiring bit by bit stakes in their American counterpart's company. NO wonder Barack HUSSEIN Obama has backed down to Vladimir Putin in regards to Crimea. In fact, ExxonMobil's CEO Tillerson recently said that the events in Crimea and Ukraine will have NO "expected impact" on his company's 'partnerships' with Rosneft.

Gee...let me guess why...of course sarcastically said.

And it gets even better partnership wise...in late 2013, ExxonMobil and Rosneft announced an partnership to drill in the Arctic for oil and gas with their forming of the Arctic Research and Design Center for Continental Shelf Development...with Rosneft owning 66.67% of the project and ExxonMobil owning but 33.33% of the project. Also, ExxonMobil gave Rosneft a 25% stake in Alaska's Point Thomson natural gas field. Translation in simple terms...Russia...therefore Putin...now owns drilling rights in the Arctic and in the US (Alaska and Texas) through their partnership with ExxonMobil.

And here's the ultimate kicker of all...British Petroleum...BP...who was mentioned in the above paragraphs after recently securing the contracts to drill in the gulf...now is the owner of a 20% stake in Rosneft, So basically when BP drills in the gulf Rosneft drills in the gulf...meaning for all intents and purposes that the Russian state-owned company Rosneft will now be drilling for oil off the coast of the United States of America as well.

And so the circle is complete.

Bet that was part of what was always Barack HUSSEIN Obama's plan...part of what he meant when he was caught off-mike saying to then Russian President Demitri Medvidev, "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility," for his words had NOTHING to do with the missile defense system as many surmised, but had everything to do with having more flexibility to sellout the United States of America where it hurts the most...in the pocketbook through our dependency on oil for our energy needs.