Tag: Jay Carney

The Shutdown: Does Obama View Himself as the “Real Victim”?

On By kingsjesterIn Politics7 Comments

Obama-Shrinks-2Boys and girls, as the Government Shutdown wanes on, the inner workings of the Obama Administration more clearly resemble a Mack Sennett Comedy Pie Fight Scene, with every new crisis they have to deal with.

First, “Jaybird” Carney said that there was no reason for the President to sign the bill passed by the House and Senate which would restore Military Death Benefits.

Then, Obama signed it, as Fox News reports…

President Obama signed a bill late Thursday to pay death benefits to families of fallen soldiers during the partial government shutdown.

The move came after the White House drew heavy criticism from Republicans over White House press secretary Jay Carney’s comment earlier in the day that it was “not necessary” to sign the bill since a charity already had stepped in to foot the expenses.

The Senate approved the bill Thursday afternoon, after it cleared the House a day earlier. The bill reinstated the $100,000 “death gratuity” payments to military families and resumed funeral and burial expenses.

The funding had been suspended as a consequence of the partial government shutdown.

Carney claimed the bill was “not necessary,” noting that charity group The Fisher House Foundation had just entered into an agreement with the Pentagon a day earlier to provide the benefits in the short-term.

“The legislation is not necessary,” Carney said, adding that the Defense Department had already agreed to reimburse the Fisher House.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who pushed the bill in the Senate, blasted the White House over Carney’s remark.

“Now, we’re learning the president has taken his political obstinacy to a new low and believes the legislation Congress has passed to right this wrong is ‘not necessary,'” he said in a written statement. “Not only is this legislation necessary it’s the moral obligation of this nation and it’s the spoken will of Congress that we deliver immediate assistance to the families of fallen service members.

“I call on the president to sign this necessary legislation without delay. Anything less would represent dereliction of duty by our commander in chief,” he said.

By voice vote Thursday, the Senate approved the measure that would reinstate benefits for surviving family members, including funeral and burial expenses, and death gratuity payments. The Pentagon typically pays out $100,000 within three days of a service member’s death.

Twenty-nine members of the military have died on active duty since the government shutdown began last Tuesday.

The Pentagon infuriated congressional Republicans and Democrats and touched off a national firestorm when it claimed earlier that a law allowing the military to be paid during the partial government shutdown did not cover the death benefit payments. Congress passed and Obama signed that measure into law before the partial government shutdown last Tuesday, and lawmakers insist that the benefits shouldn’t have been affected.

Despite the Senate vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., sided with the White House. He said the voice vote was “for show” and the Pentagon had essentially resolved the problem. He said the issue was moot, but he didn’t object to passage of the bill.

Uh huh. Tell us another one, Dinghy.

As I have observed in previous blogs this week, Obama has not acted like an American President at all, in dealing with this Government Shutdown. His behavior has more closely resembled a petulant child.

Dr. Keith Ablow, seen on Fox News, has a theory about Obama’s “issues”…

President Obama’s rhetoric is finally coming closer to what appears to be his psychological truth: Because America victimized him and countless millions of others, any person or party or movement that opposes his views and does not yield to him is not just his adversary, but abusive, predatory and even threatening.

…It is exceedingly difficult to come to terms with a person who sees you as his oppressor, his kidnapper, and someone terrorizing him who might well destroy him. You aren’t likely to consider whether your assailant and jailer and would-be killer has a few good ideas, after all.

A victim mentality would explain why the president immediately allies with anyone else he thinks might be a victim, too.

Seeing Barack Obama as someone who has a victim mentality would explain a lot. That mentality relies on believing one has been harmed, that one was not responsible for the injuries that occurred, that one could not have prevented what happened and that the person’s suffering makes that person morally right and deserving of sympathy.

As a young boy, Obama was, indeed, helpless.

He was helpless to stop his father from abandoning him.

He was helpless to stop his mother from leaving him with his grandparents.

He was helpless to stop his white grandmother and caretaker from communicating to him her fears of black people.

I’m not sure the president ever got over it.

Dr. Ablow’s theory definitely seems to have a basis in fact.

That chip that Obama continuously carries on his shoulder would certainly go along with the diagnosis of “victim Mentality”.

If Obama views the world as being “out to get him”, the defensive, non-negotiable stance he has taken since the Shutdown started, would definitely make sense, psychologically.

The problem is, American does not need a thumb-sucking , Little Lord Fauntleroy, siting at the President’s Desk in the Oval Office. We need a leader of men. One who is willing to protect the citizenry from “enemies foreign and domestic”.

And, in the situation we’re in right now, we do not need a President who views the citizens he is supposed to be serving, as brutish, victimizing louts, who deserved to be punished, because it makes him feel better about himself and his lack of leadership skills.

We need a President who is not only a people person, but also a shrewd negotiator, with Real World experience in business negotiations.

Unfortunately, we have Obama, instead.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Little White Lies, Bald-Faced Lies, and Benghazi

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

jay carney 2I was going to start today’s post with some sort of pithy quotation, like “The best-laid plans of mice and men…” or “Oh, what a tangled web we weave…”, but trite quotations seem woefully ineffective in describing what America witnessed yesterday, starting with “Good Morning, America” on ABC and culminating with a Daily Press Briefing which was an amazing spectacle in which the Liberal Main Street Media turned on the hand which fed them Talking Points.

Yesterday morning, Jonathan Karl reported for ABC News that,

When it became clear last fall that the CIA’s now discredited Benghazi talking points were flawed, the White House said repeatedly the documents were put together almost entirely by the intelligence community, but White House documents reviewed by Congress suggest a different story.

ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.

White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department. The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.

That would appear to directly contradict what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking points in November.

“Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened,” Carney told reporters at the White House press briefing on November 28, 2012. “The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”

Summaries of White House and State Department emails — some of which were first published by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard — show that the State Department had extensive input into the editing of the talking points.

…The significant edits – deleting references to al Qaeda and the CIA’s warnings – came after a White House meeting on the Saturday before Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five Sunday shows. Nuland, a 30-year foreign service veteran who has served under Democratic and Republican Secretaries of State, was not at that meeting and played no direct role in preparing Rice for her interviews.

If Fox news had reported this, it would have gone unnoticed by the MSM. However, since it was one of their own who broke the story, they were forced to actually begin to cover this Muslim Terrorist Attack, which they had assisted the Administration in covering up, for months.

Before the before-mentioned Daily Press Briefing, which was delayed until late Friday afternoon, the Administration held a “Deep Background” meeting with 14 selected members of the Press Corps.

“Deep Background” means that the info presented by those who brief the Press can be used in reporting but the briefers can’t be quoted.

Can you say “Talking Points”? Sure you can.

Well..that little confab didn’t seem to help Benghazi Jay a whole heck of a lot during the Press Briefing. The way the members of the Fourth Estate attacked him was reminiscent of a sick, old gnu being savaged by a pride of lions on the Serengeti Plains.

It was both brutal and fascinating at the same time.

The survival instincts of the reporters drove them to actually resemble professional journalists for the first time in many of their careers.

Benghazi Jay Carney ineffectively attempted to defend his boss and the rest of the Administration, seemingly recycling every single lie that Obama and his minions have ever told about that horrible night at the American Embassy Compound in Benghazi.

And, yesterday, he threw in some new ones, which made him appear to be holding a shovel in both hands, digging a hole in which to bury the Obama Administration…a hole of their own making.

The imbecilic excuse for a Presidential Press Secretary actually had the nerve to try and attack failed Republican Presidential Candidate, Mitt Romney, whom, he claimed “put out a press release to try and take political advantage of these deaths.”

Carney quickly corrected himself: “Of the attack in Benghazi.”

Carney also insisted, over and over again, that the CIA was solely responsible for the editing of those emails, which took out all references to al Queda and Muslim Terrorists.

And, of course, he blamed Republicans, over and over again, for  “politicizing” this “tragedy”.

Speaking of  “politicizing”…

On September 25, 2012, appearing before the United Nations General Assembly, United States of America President Barack Hussein Obama said,

In every country, there are those who find different religious beliefs threatening; in every culture, those who love freedom for themselves must ask how much they are willing to tolerate freedom for others.

That is what we saw play out the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world. I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity. It is an insult not only to Muslims, but to America as well – for as the city outside these walls makes clear, we are a country that has welcomed people of every race and religion. We are home to Muslims who worship across our country. We not only respect the freedom of religion – we have laws that protect individuals from being harmed because of how they look or what they believe. We understand why people take offense to this video because millions of our citizens are among them.

The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. Yet to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied. Let us condemn incitement against Sufi Muslims, and Shiite pilgrims.

When he gave this speech, in front of representative of countries all over the world, Obama already knew that the murders of Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods were committed by members of al Queda.

Let that sink in a moment.

The President of the United States intentionally lied about the murders of American citizens to further hia own Political/Religious Ideology and Political Machinations.

And, for this, both He and His Administration, who are supposed to be working for us, need to answer to us for their Dereliction of Duty and the sacrificing of 4 Brave Americans for Political Expediency.

Until He Comes,

KJ

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Obama: “Soul Searching” for Gun Control

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

The horrible actions of one lone psychopath at a Sikh Temple in Minnesota, has American Liberals on the Gun Control Warpath…again.

Reuters.com has the story:

President Barack Obama said on Monday that mass killings like the shooting rampage at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin were occurring with “too much regularity” and should prompt soul searching by all Americans, but he stopped short of calling for new gun-control laws.

“All of us are heart-broken by what happened,” Obama told reporters at the White House a day after a gunman opened fire on Sikh worshippers preparing for religious services, killing six before he was shot dead by a police officer.

But when asked whether he would push for further gun-control measures in the wake of the shootings, Obama said only that he wanted to bring together leaders at all levels of American society to examine ways to curb gun violence.

That echoed his pledge last month in a speech in New Orleans to work broadly to “arrive at a consensus” on the contentious issue after a deadly Colorado shooting spree highlighted the problem in an election year.

But like his earlier comments, Obama offered no timetable or specifics for such discussions and did not call outright for tighter gun control laws.

Talk of reining in America’s gun culture is considered politically risky for Obama, who is locked in a tight race against Republican challenger Mitt Romney for November election.

“All of us recognize that these kinds of terrible, tragic events are happening with too much regularity for us not to do some soul searching to examine additional ways that we can reduce violence,” Obama said at an Oval Office ceremony to sign an unrelated bill.

But he added, “As I’ve already said, there are a lot of elements involved in it.” The Democratic president has made a point of emphasizing his support for the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment, which covers the right to bear arms.

White House spokesman Jay Carney reiterated, however, that Obama remained in favor of renewing an assault weapons ban but pointed out “there has been reluctance by Congress” to pass it.

Obama said the FBI was still investigating the temple shooting, but if it turned out it was ethnically motivated, the American people would “immediately recoil.”

“It would be very important for us to reaffirm once again that in this country, regardless of what we look like, where we come from, who we worship, we are all one people,” he said.

Uh huh.

Meanwhile, in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee:

Lt. Joe Scott stands at the master board that tracks homicides for the Memphis Police Department.

91 homicides this year so far.

Scott says, “This year has been extremely busy. Its been the busiest year I can recall.”

Its not record pace. That was 213 in 1993. Memphis is on pace for 180.

But surprisingly… Memphis’ Homicide Rate is more than four times what New York City’s was last year.

Last year in New York… One in every 15,079 people were murdered.

In Memphis this year… Its one in every 3,734.

So what are people in Memphis killing each other over?

Scott continues, “This year there just seems to be a lot of neighborhood arguing.”

Argument is the number 1 motive this year… A third of homicides, 30… Started with an argument… One over five dollars… Another between two brothers arguing who was the better parent.

“And just people that for whatever reason cannot resolve conflicts in a civil manner.”

The second most common motive is robbery. 18 homicides this year began with a robbery. Up 25 percent from last year. Scott says more people are resisting.

Scott says, “And that seems to be a growing trend to resist the robber not give them what they demanded during the course of the robbery.”

That is proving deadly.

The average age of victims this year in Memphis is 30.5…. Older than some might think. Chances are you’ll know your killer… 71 percent this year have.

But the way Memphians are dying is no surprise…. by gunfire… 72 of 91 homicides so far were committed with a gun.

And that’s one of the reasons folks like me left Memphis for DeSoto County, Mississippi years ago…but, I digress.

Memphis, like Chicago, has a big problem with black-on-black homocide.  But, no one will talk about it.

Why is no one trying to come to grips with this epidemic of violence going on in America’s cities, including Obama’s adoptive hometown?

In April, theblaze.com reported

More than 500 people under the age of 21 were killed in Chicago in 2008. This figure fell only slightly in 2009 and 2010 and, of course, does not represent the many others who have been shot or injured as a result of these attacks. Records reveal that nearly 80 percent of youth homicides occurred in 22 black or Latino communities on Chicago’s South and West sides.

In just the first three months of 2012, 109 people have already been murdered in the city of Chicago.

…A 2007 special report released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, reveals that approximately 8,000 — and, in certain years, as many as 9,000 African Americans are murdered annually in the United States. This chilling figure is accompanied by another equally sobering fact, that 93% of these murders are in fact perpetrated by other blacks. The analysis, supported by FBI records, finds that in 2005 alone, for example, African Americans accounted for 49% of all homicide victims in the US — again, almost exclusively at the hands of other African Americans.

To put these number in perspective, recall that over 6,400 U.S. service men and women have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined over the course of a decade-long war fought in those nations. During the Vietnam War, which lasted nearly 13 years, some 58,000 Americans were killed — nearly 13 percent of whom were African American.

Mr. President, before you come and try to get the guns from law abiding citizens, why don’t you deal with the problem in your own backyard, first?

Spinning Obama’s Supreme Court “Gaffe”

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

You can take a president away from Chicago Politics, but you can’t take the practice of Chicago Politics away from a president.

Per foxnews.com:

Obama, during a joint press conference Monday with the leaders of Canada and Mexico, said he’s “confident” the law will be upheld, but cautioned the “unelected” court against reaching any other conclusion. In doing so, Obama invoked what he described as conservative concerns about judicial activism.

But Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, called it a “fantasy” to think “every law you like is constitutional and every Supreme Court decision you don’t is ‘activist.'”

“Judicial activism or restraint is not measured by which side wins but by whether the Court correctly applied the law,” he said.

The president’s challenge to the high court drew widespread attention, on the eve of the Republican presidential candidates’ next round of primaries — Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia are voting Tuesday. All the candidates oppose the health care law, though front-runner Mitt Romney has come under fire for his role in passing one with similar provisions while governor of Massachusetts.

Romney, who describes the federal law as an overreach, also slammed Obama for his Supreme Court comments on Tuesday.

Romney, in an interview on Fox News, said an activist court is one that “departs” from the Constitution and legislates from the bench. In this case, he said, the judges simply are weighing whether a law is constitutional.

“That will not be an activist court — that will be a court following the Constitution,” Romney said.

Now, the Obama Administration is spinning faster the turnstile at Disney World.

White House press secretary Jay Carney tells the press corps that President Obama’s attack on the Supreme Court was misunderstood because he was speaking in “shorthand” since he is a former professor of law.

Henry: The president is a former constitutional law professor. One of his professors is Laurence Tribe. He now says, in his words, the president “obviously misspoke earlier this week”, quote “he didn’t say what he meant and having said that in order to avoid misleading anyone, he had to clarify it.” I thought yesterday you were saying repeatedly that he did not misspeak. What do you make of the president’s former law professor saying he did?

Carney: The premise of your question suggests that the president of the United States in the comments he made Monday, did not believe in the constitutionality of legislation, which is a preposterous premise and I know you don’t believe that.

Henry: Except this is from Laurence Tribe, who knows a lot more than you and I about constitutional law.

Carney: What I acknowledged yesterday is that speaking on Monday the president was not clearly understood by some people because he is a law professor, he spoke in shorthand.

Former Obama Law Student Thom Lambert wrote the following article, My Professor, My Judge, and the Doctrine of Judicial Review, which was posted on foxnews.com:

Imagine if you picked up your morning paper to read that one of your astronomy professors had publicly questioned whether the earth, in fact, revolves around the sun. Or suppose that one of your economics professors was quoted as saying that consumers would purchase more gasoline if the price would simply rise. Or maybe your high school math teacher was publicly insisting that 2 + 2 = 5. You’d be a little embarrassed, right? You’d worry that your colleagues and friends might begin to question your astronomical, economic, or mathematical literacy.

Now you know how I felt this morning when I read in the Wall Street Journal that my own constitutional law professor had stated that it would be “an unprecedented, extraordinary step” for the Supreme Court to “overturn[] a law [i.e., the Affordable Care Act] that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.” Putting aside the “strong majority” nonsense (the deeply unpopular Affordable Care Act got through the Senate with the minimum number of votes needed to survive a filibuster and passed 219-212 in the House), saying that it would be “unprecedented” and “extraordinary” for the Supreme Court to strike down a law that violates the Constitution is like saying that Kansas City is the capital of Kansas. Thus, a Wall Street Journal editorial queried this about the President who “famously taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago”: “[D]id he somehow not teach the historic case of Marbury v. Madison?”

I actually know the answer to that question. It’s no (well, technically yes…he didn’t). President Obama taught “Con Law III” at Chicago. Judicial review, federalism, the separation of powers — the old “structural Constitution” stuff — is covered in “Con Law I” (or at least it was when I was a student). Con Law III covers the Fourteenth Amendment.

Okay.  So how do Obama’s Law Professors feel about his shorthand?  One of them seems to be spinning as hard as the Administration.

President Obama’s former law-school professor said yesterday the president “obviously misspoke” when he challenged the authority of the US Supreme Court to overturn his historic health-care law.

“He didn’t say what he meant. . . and having said that, in order to avoid misleading anyone, he had to clarify it,” Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe told The Wall Street Journal.

Tribe, who called Obama one of his best students, tried to downplay the president’s remarks by insisting everyone already knows he wants the law to survive.

“I don’t think anything was gained by his making these comments and I don’t think any harm was done, except by public confusion,” Tribe said.

By the way…

Lawrence Tribe is an American constitutional scholar and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at the Harvard Law School. A longstanding proponent of liberal jurisprudence, in 2001 Tribe helped found the American Constitution Society a supposed liberal counterweight to the conservative Federalist Society and was long considered a possible Supreme Court nominee by a Democratic administration.

This situation has me singing an old Blood, Sweat, and Tears song:  Spinning wheel got to go ’round…The Attorney General is singing too:

“The longstanding, historical position of the United States regarding judicial review of the constitutionality of federal legislation has not changed,” Attorney General Eric Holder wrote in a letter filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. “The Department has not in this litigation, nor in any other litigation of which I am aware, ever asked this or any other Court to reconsider or limit long-established precedent concerning judicial review of the constitutionality of federal legislation.”

Methinks Justice Kagan has spilled the beans to her former boss and things aren’t going to go Obama’s way when the Supreme Court’s decision is given.

In the meantime…pray.