The circus surrounding the  Obama fast track trade bill has come full circle.  You can’t make this up.  The Republican establishment is pushing to give Obama more power to make secret trade deals and Democrats are blocking it.  So far, the politician who got this right is Rick Perry.  He said that free trade is a good idea, but the problem is that we can’t trust President Obama.

Democrats are opposed to the trade bill because they are owned lock, stock and barrel by the unions.  The Republican establishment is for the trade bill because they believe that free markets benefit everyone.  A lot of Republicans joined with Democrats to block the trade agreement because they don’t trust Obama.

This is what the Republican establishment cannot understand.  It is irresponsible to make any legislative deal with a President who has zero intention of upholding his end of the bargain.  No deal is a good deal if it requires good faith action by this President. If Republicans want to stay in power, they need to block Obama at every opportunity.  When Nancy Pelosi is willing to stand up to Obama, there is zero excuse for Republicans negotiating with him on anything.

The Obama Presidency will be officially over in just over 18 months.  He is already the ultimate lame duck President with virtually no support from either party on any issue.  Today was just a sign of things to come.  It is time to remember that liberals have a nasty habit of turning on their leaders.  That is why the liberal leaders in Great Britain resigned after the last election.  Liberals, who are incapable of realizing that they are wrong about nearly everything always blame piss poor results on their leaders.  Obama is learning that the hard way.

TDM

George W. Bush had a vision of the future when he saw the World Trade Center collapse.  It was a terrifying vision of terrorists using weapons of mass destruction to cause mass casualties in the U.S.  Bush realized that if terrorists gained access to WMD the world could face unthinkable horror.  Terrorists cannot just purchase WMD off the shelf.  These types of weapons require enormous amounts of cash and they require very expensive scientific expertise.  The most dangerous situation would be if a country, with significant assets, was a willing sponsor of terrorists.

The problems with Iraq were well documents.  Saddam Hussein even sent a squad to try and assassinate a President George H.W. Bush under Clinton’s watch.  The nine Iraqis jailed for this failed attempt were released in August of 2011.

http://www.newsweek.com/saddams-files-84273

The connections between Iraq and terrorism were also well documented.  Incredibly many in the liberal life still believe there was no relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda.  A curious conclusion when Clinton indicted Osama bin Laden for conspiring with Iraq to conduct terrorist attacks against the U.S:

http://fas.org/irp/news/1998/11/98110602_nlt.html

Additionally, the indictment states that Al Qaeda reached an agreement with Iraq not to work against the regime of Saddam Hussein and that they would work cooperatively with Iraq, particularly in weapons development.

The problem with the arrogance and naivety of the main stream media is that the threat from terrorist with WMD is a very serious matter.  Bush understood that.  Obama does not.  Now we learn that ISIS may already have the material for a dirty bomb and thanks to the failure of our policy, they have billions of dollars available to buy even more exciting toys.  In addition, ISIS over ran areas where Saddam Hussein had WMDs in facilities so dangerous that 10 years later no sane person dared even inspect them.  ISIS, of course, has no problem finding people willing to take on such an assignment.  They are most likely to kill themselves in the process but that will be small comfort if they managed to get their hands on this stuff.

Condoleezza Rice once said that the Bush administration was afraid that if they waited for a smoking gun it might turn out to be in the form of a mushroom cloud.  I still doubt that we will see a nuclear explosion set off by terrorists any time soon, but we definitely may a devastating terrorist attack with catastrophic consequences.  I wonder how the liberal left will figure out it was Bush’s fault.

TDM

There is an explosive report on the Daily Caller.  Just when you think the Clinton’s have sunk to an all-time low, they manage to exceed expectations.

http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/02/exclusive-house-committee-knows-of-hillary-email-server-whistleblower/

While this story by itself is earth shattering, the real significance is that whistle blowers are finally finding a way to safely come out into the light.  All it takes is one.  If even a small percentage of the numerous rumors about Bill and Hillary Clinton are true, we could be on the verge of an unprecedented media feeding frenzy.  Imagine a massive surge of whistleblowers all trying desperately to join the “trash the Clintons” bandwagon.  This will be similar to what happened when one girl finally spilled the beans about Bill Cosby.

The Clinton machine is desperate to change the subject.  Enter the white rabbit, Dennis Hastert.  I won’t even pretend to support Dennis Hastert.  You don’t spend $3.5 million to cover up something minor.  But even if Hastert is a scumbag, the press is using the Hastert story as another excuse to ignore the elephant in the room.  The problem for the Clintons is that there aren’t nearly enough rabbits.

TDM

To the tune of “Nowhere Man”

She’s a real nowhere (wo)man

Sitting in her Nowhere Land

Making all her nowhere plans for everybody.

No realistic point of view

Knows not where she’s going to

Isn’t she a lot like liberals everywhere?

Nowhere (wo)man, she won’t listen

Won’t discuss all that’s missing

Nowhere (wo)man thinks the world is at her command

Hopes that we’re as blind as she

That we simply cannot see

Nowhere (wo)man isn’t there at all

Nowhere (wo)man don’t worry

Take your time, don’t hurry

The liberal left will lend you a hand.

No realistic point of view

Knows not where she’s going to

Isn’t she a lot like liberals everywhere?

Nowhere woman, she won’t listen

Won’t discuss all that’s missing

Thinks the world is at her command

She’s a real Nowhere (wo)man

Sitting in her Nowhere Land

Making all her nowhere plans for everybody

Making all her nowhere plans for everybody

Making all her nowhere plans for everybody

I watched the press coverage of Hillary Clinton today and the following came to mind.

1.  She may just replace Nancy Pelosi as the poster child for failed plastic surgery.  She now has the same wild-eyed, I can’t shut my eyes anymore Pelosi look.
2. She has this incredibly fake smile where she bobs her head at people pretending to listen.
3. When asked a tough question, she breaks out this absurd horse laugh.

Seriously?  This is the best candidate the Democrats can gin up?  Please?  She couldn’t even beat Barack Obama.  Keep in mind that he didn’t exactly overwhelm super stars, he beat John McCain and Mitt Romney.  But at least he beat someboy.  Hillary is running against nobody and nobody is winning.

TDM

So far none of the Republican candidates for President have given the right answer to the following question:

Question:

 Knowing what you know now, would you have authorized the invasion of Iraq.

Answer:

Hell No.  Top Democrats in congress not only voted to authorize that invasion; they gave strong speeches supporting that decision and promised that they would stay the course.  We now know that at the first sign of difficulty these same Democrats developed amnesia and pretended they had somehow been tricked into an unnecessary war.  We now know that the next President of the United States, Barack Obama, decided the war was not worth the effort and withdrew our troops against the advice of his military advisors  with no regard to the consequences of that decision.  We now know that as a result of this failure to maintain even a minimum troop presence Iraq has descended into chaos and ISIS is threatening the entire Middle East. 

It would be the height of irresponsibility for a President to order our troops into battle only to see their sacrifice thrown away in the future by irresponsible Democrats in congress and an even more irresponsible Commander in Chief.

TDM

Ronald Reagan once said the following:

“It isn’t so much that liberals are ignorant. It’s just that they know so many things that aren’t so.”

That has never been more obvious than today.  All the cultured elite prognosticators in the UK believed that David Cameron was in serious political jeopardy.  Most predicted that Ed Milibrand, the leader of Labour would be the next prime minister.  At best, they considered the election too close to call.  If Cameron somehow managed to stay Prime Minister, he would be too weak to effectively govern.

The following article in the Guardian UK was published just two days ago:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/06/pollsters-polled-cameron-miliband-prime-minister-election

The following predictions were spectacularly wrong:

“The final stretch and we find ourselves pretty much where we started at the beginning of the campaign – in stalemate. This election represents what happens when a country is unconfident about its economic future, unsure of its place in the world, and fed up with the state of its politics.” 

Or

“the only scenario where Cameron would remain in place would be if Labour have an awful night, combining a bloodbath of losses to the SNP with a failure to take large numbers of seats from the Lib Dems and Tories.”

Conservatives not only won, they won big and now have a solid majority.  It was exactly the liberal bloodbath the prognosticators believed to be impossible.

Liberals always believe that everyone with any intellect will agree with them.  They can’t fathom the possibility that some really smart people think they are wrong about nearly everything.  That is why liberals often underestimate Republican candidates as being naïve and uninformed.  The reality is that every Republican currently running or considering running for President is smarter than Hillary Clinton.

In the UK the polls did not now show the results liberals expected, so they adjusted the polls.  One will note that the same thing happened last fall here in the U.S.  .  No pollster predicted the sweeping victory by Republicans in the 2014 election. This was not because the data was not there, it was.  It was because the data was adjusted, incorrectly, to reflect the liberal world view.

There is a lesson here for all of us.  The cultured liberal elite are wrong about nearly everything.  It would be foolish to expect them to be brilliant at predicting elections.  They aren’t.  Hillary Clinton is a fatally flawed candidate.  That is really obvious to anyone paying attention.  If the Democrat establishment doesn’t pick up on the obvious pretty soon, Hillary is likely to take the few remaining shreds of the Democratic Party down with her.

Liberals in the UK are reeling from an unexpected and unprecedented slaughter at the polls. At least in Great Britain liberal recognize defeat when they see it.  The current leaders have resigned and there is a desperate search for new liberal leadership.

We should point out that even the liberals who just resigned in the UK are all a lot younger than liberal Democrats here in the U.S.  Hillary Clinton who is not exactly a spring chicken with fresh ideas.  If she fails, the names mentioned most often are…wait for it…John Kerry and Bernie Sanders.  Who said liberals don’t believe in fossil fuel.

TDM

It is increasingly obvious that the Hillary Clinton campaign for President has been mortally wounded.  The end is now inevitable.  My prediction is that Hillary will come down with an undisclosed illness and she will announce, on twitter, that she is reluctantly withdrawing from the race.  Then she and Bill will make a desperate effort to disappear.  This illness is also likely to prevent her from testifying before the Select Committee on Benghazi and it will prevent Hillary from complying with any requests for interviews and/or documents.

There are just too many scandals to ignore.  The stench is so overwhelming that even the far left can no longer ignore it.  Hillary will be lucky to avoid prosecution.   The handful of liberal Democrats with some residual brain cells has already started distancing themselves from Hillary.

That leaves the most important question of all.  Why did anyone ever consider her to be a good candidate for President?  She has no qualifications other than being a female.  Her willingness to tell absurd lies is well documented.  She has no discernable personality.  Now we know that the level of corruption is even worse than we imagined. The most shocking thing about all this is that none of this is shocking.  This was all too predictable.

Of course some of the true believers will always believe that the vast right-wing conspiracy destroyed Hillary for purely political purposes.  They will mourn the loss of a great leader.  The truth, of course, is that no vast right-wing conspiracy was required.  Hillary turned out to be Hillary’s own worst enemy.

At this point it is important to avoid gloating.  We need to remind ourselves that love and hate are not opposites; they are two sides of the same coin.  The proper response to someone like Hillary Clinton is not outrage, it is apathy.  We are very near the point where she can be safely ignored.  That is exactly where she belongs.

TDM

In 1965 congress approved completion of the Auburn Dam.  Construction began in 1968.  The river canyon was carved on both sides to anchor the dam, by-pass tunnels were constructed and a huge cofferdam was built to divert the water.  The dam was originally designed to be completed in 1970.  Then there was an earthquake nearby, which scared everyone.  The environmental lobby seized the day.   The Auburn Dam project came to a screeching halt.

It’s a really good thing we didn’t build that dam, because now we would have 2.8 million more acre feet of water available.  Just think of the environmental damage from that.  Why there would be no justification for building enormous tunnels designed to divert even more Northern California water to La La land.

Some naïve and irresponsible people, like Tom McClintock, think we should take another look at building the Auburn Dam. How stupid can you get?  This makes me think that perhaps, gasp, McClintock might have been negatively influenced by the story of Joseph in the Bible.  How could we possibly trust a politician who read the Bible?  Ok, Joseph did warn Pharaoh that there were good times and bad times and that Pharaoh needed to store up grain during the good times.  Perhaps that did save a lot of lives, but at what cost.  Just think about all the environmental damage from building all those storage facilities.  In addition, what kind of population control is that?  It’s not like ancient Egyptians could have solved the population problem by giving away free abortions.

I know there are some misguided people who believe that California actually has enough water if we found a way to store it instead of watching 70% of it just flow into the ocean.  How short sighted can you get?  The obvious solution is for the state to monitor how long people take in the shower.

This summer, when you  are taking your weekly shower with one gallon of water under close supervision by Governor Brown’s water Nazi corps take a moment to thank the environmental activists who made this all possible.  When you find the cost of groceries has doubled and the average grape starts to look like a raisin, thank them for that too.  When you start paying $5 a gallon for gas because of the increased gas taxes needed to fund the high speed rail between Modesto and Fresno, well you know who to thank.

Just think of how awful it would be if the Auburn Dam had been built.  Salmon in the American river would have to learn how to swim in all that fresh, cold water.  People would be expected to shower again.  We would be inundated with noise from lawnmowers cutting all that green stuff.  We might even be forced to eat fresh vegetables again.  All of this would be proof positive of global warming and the need to cut greenhouse emissions.

It’s a good thing we didn’t build the Auburn Dam, because that would be a Dam shame.

TDM

Congress passed a bill with bi-partisan support advising President Obama that congress has the right to approve or disapprove any deal with Iran.  That is a very good thing.  Unfortunately, there is more to the story.

The following New York Post article explains:

http://nypost.com/2015/04/14/senate-panel-reaches-compromise-on-bill-over-iran-nuclear-deal/

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said Democrats say they will withdraw their support of the legislation if Republicans successfully push amendments that would pull the bill as it’s written “sharply to the right.”

 He was referring to amendments proposed by Republicans to make the administration certify that Iran is not supporting terrorism and had publicly renounced its threat to destroy Israel — two hurdles that would be nearly impossible to clear.

Seriously?  Democrats don’t have a problem with Iran continuing to support terrorism.  They also aren’t concerned about a little thing like Iran promising to destroy Israel.  This  insane.  Even if this deal somehow slows down Iran’s march toward a nuclear weapon, which is far from clear, it doesn’t solve any problems.  In 1994 Bill Clinton thought he had negotiated a deal that would stop North Korean from getting nuclear weapons.  How’d that work out?  At least some military experts think Korean is getting close to the point where they can launch nuclear armed missiles at the United States.

Incredibly Senator Coons, like a lot of liberal Democrats, is more focused on being politically correct than in protecting the country.  What, exactly, is the point of signing any deal with a country that won’t even agree to stop funding terrorism?  Why, exactly, would Israel accept any deal with a country that won’t even acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.  The real question is not whether or not congress should approve a deal.  The question is why isn’t congress prohibiting the President from signing such a deal. Liberal Democrats in congress had no problem prohibiting President Gerald R. Ford from using military force in Vietnam. It was the Democratic congress, not our military forces who lost the war in Vietnam.  A war that had been won, inspite of Democratic opposition, by President Richard Nixon.  Now liberal Democrats are supporting this administration’s mad rush to sign a deal that makes the Neville Chamberlain “Peace in our time” agreement with Hitler looks like a diplomatic masterpiece in comparison.  This is not just insane, it is criminally insane.

TDM.

TDM

During the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich Islamic terrorist kidnapped and ultimately killed 11 Israeli hostages.  Jim McKay took the job of reporting events live.  I will never forget when he reported the sad news that all 11 hostages had been killed:

When I was a kid my father used to say “Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized.” Our worst fears have been realized tonight. They have now said there were 11 hostages; two were killed in their rooms yesterday morning, nine were killed at the airport tonight. They’re all gone.

—McKay, 1972

There are only a few times when we experience our worst fears or greatest hopes.  I would really like to believe that by some miracle this administration has negotiated an agreement that will prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.  The problem is that neither President Obama nor Secretary of State John Kerry has ever successfully negotiated a significant agreement about anything with anyone.  Our foreign policy is lurching from disaster to disaster.

One is reminded of when Neville Chamberlain told the British people that he had negotiated “peace for our time.”  The following BBC article explains what happened:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/30/newsid_3115000/3115476.stm

The British Prime Minister has been hailed as bringing “peace to Europe” after signing a non-aggression pact with Germany.

PM Neville Chamberlain arrived back in the UK today, holding an agreement signed by Adolf Hitler which stated the German leader’s desire never to go to war with Britain again.

The two men met at the Munich conference between Britain, Germany, Italy and France yesterday, convened to decide the future of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland.

Mr Chamberlain declared the accord with the Germans signaled “peace for our time”, after he had read it to a jubilant crowd gathered at Heston airport in west London.

The German leader stated in the agreement: “We are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference and thus to contribute to assure the peace of Europe.”

Eventually Chamberlain left office in disgrace to be replaced by Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill who was absolutedly despised by the cultured elite of the day.  Today those speeches by Winston Churchill are considered to be masters of inspiration. But in 1940 many establishment members of the British Parliament were still too busy clapping for Neville Chamberlain to notice.  Unfortunately, a lot of innocent people paid a terrible price because of the incompetence of Neville Chamberlain:

Less than one year later, on September 1, 1939 Hitler derided the agreement as just “a scrap of paper” and invaded Poland.  The result was World War II.  Between 50 and 80 million ple died during World War II.  Civilian deaths are estimate between 38 to 55 million.  Military deaths were between 22 to 25 million.

The difference between Neville Chamberlain and Barack Obama is that at least Hitler pretended to negotiate a real deal.  Iran isn’t even pretending.  Iran is alreadying telling its own people that the deal is nothing more than a scrap of paper. In addition, if Obama is wrong the human cost could be significantly worse than what was experienced during World War II.  It is increasingly difficult to be optimistic about this.  We can only hope we have gotten this very wrong.

TDM