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

Fareed Zakaria is no fan of the GOP and is well known for bashing George W. Bush.  However, this article confirms the simple fact that George W. Bush understood the Middle East and he had a brilliant plan to change things.  What Zakaria got wrong is that it wasn’t Bush who blew this opportunity, it was Obama.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/where-george-w-bush-was-right/2015/03/26/07a4251a-d3f1-11e4-a62f-ee745911a4ff_story.html

There was a U.S. president who understood the danger of blind support for Arab dictators, no matter that they were admirably secular in their outlook or willing to jail jihadists or to stay at peace with Israel. He said, “Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe.”

His secretary of state was clearer about the connection, explaining that in the Arab world, “there were virtually no legitimate channels for political expression in the region. But this did not mean that there was no political activity. There was — in madrassas and radical mosques. It is no wonder that the best-organized political forces were extremist groups. And it was there, in the shadows, that al-Qaeda found the troubled souls to prey on and exploit as its foot soldiers in its millenarian war against the ‘far enemy.’ ”

That was George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice. The fact that Bush’s administration so botched its remedy — regime change and occupation of Iraq — should not blind us to the fact that it accurately diagnosed the problem. The Arab world provides no easy answers, trapped as it is between repressive dictators and illiberal democrats. But that does not mean that blindly supporting the autocrats is the right answer.

Zakaria omits the part where Iraq was stable and secure when Bush left office.  While Maliki was not ideal, he was a lot better than the alternatives and he was working with the U.S.  Iraq was holding elections and was on its way to becoming a true democracy.  The leader was nowhere near as important as the system itself.  That is the whole point of a democracy.  We get good leaders, we get bad leaders, we get terrible leaders, but we don’t get dictators and all leaders eventually lose power. For example, Harry Reid just announced that he will not seek re-election.  (Ok, stop clapping and read the rest of this.)

As soon as Bush left office and Maliki realized Obama was just going to leave, he quickly aligned himself with Iran. Bush’s dream of a constitutional democracy in the Middle East that would have been a beacon of hope to the entire world was just thrown away.  Obama viewed Iraq as the unnecessary war.  He could not have been more wrong.   Zakaria at least got the point. That alone is a minor miracle.  The question is whether or not anyone in either party is listening.

TDM

If you listened to the main stream media, Benjamin Netanyahu was in serious trouble seeking re-election in Israel.  When I heard that President Obama had dispatched his ace community activists to Israel to campaign against Netanyahu I was pretty sure Netanyahu would coast to victory.  The safest place in any election is to be solidly against Obama.  That is true here.  It is true is Israel.  In addition, Netanyahu jumped way up in the polls by moving hard right just before the election.  The main stream media was horrified.  Liberals are appalled.  The citizens of Israel flocked to the polls in support:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/18/us-israel-election-idUSKBN0MC2G620150318

Netanyahu abandoned a commitment to negotiate a Palestinian state.  It is about time.  Why would Israel continue to pretend there is any possibility for a two state solution when the Palestinians remain committed to destroying Israel?

He also announced that he is going to resume building settlements on occupied land.  Quite simply the nation of Israel sent a strong message that they are not going to continue bending over backwards to accommodate people who have zero interest in accommodating Israel.

This is a total repudiation of President Obama’s vision for Israel.  Netanyahu stood up and said enough with the nonsense.  The result was a huge victory, for Netanyahu.  It was also a huge public slap in the face for Obama.  Obama is responding, as expected, like a spoiled eight year old.  He didn’t even have the class to call Netanyahu and congratulate him on his victory.

Once again the exit polls, apparently conducted by the same clowns who botch exit polls in the U.S., were wrong.  This appears to be another example of the main stream media reporting what it wants to believe rather than what is really happening.

Republicans need to learn from this.  Running a Republican establishment candidate, like Jeb Bush, would be a recipe for disaster.  If Republicans want to win the Presidency, they need to elect a candidate ready, willing and able to effect radical change in this country.  I believe the country will unite behind such a candidate.

If Netanyahu had listened to the wise counsel of the main stream media he would be the former Prime Minister of Israel.  Lesson learned.

TDM

Virtually everyone is missing the point with regard to the open letter to the leaders of Iran signed by 47 Republican Senators.  Democrats responded quickly by literally accusing Republicans of treason. Actually, if you want an example of treason look at John Kerry’s visit to Paris to meet with our enemies during the Vietnam War.  Or check out Ted Kennedy communicating with leaders in the Soviet Union to block Ronald Reagan from negotiating a nuclear weapons treaty.  That is what treason looks like.  The letter may or may have not been a great idea from a political standpoint, but it is absurd to call it treason.

But ultimately none of that even matters.  The important thing is that, once again, the Obama administration failed to even recognize an opportunity.  Anyone who has ever watched a police show knows the good cop, bad cop routine.  The bad cop acts like an out of control maniac.  The good cop intervenes and offers to help.  The good cop is far more dangerous for the suspect than the bad cop.  We see this technique all the time because police use it all the time.  Police use it all the time because it works.

That letter set up the Obama administration to use the “good cop, bad cop routine.”  They could have used it during negotiations with Iran by pointing out that Obama had to sell any deal to a skeptical congress or it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.  He could have done that, but instead he was too self-absorbed to notice or too arrogant to care.  Instead of using the letter as leverage, Obama hysterically tried to pretend that congress doesn’t even exist.  So, instead of good cop, bad cop, we ended up with dumb cop.

This would almost be funny, except that this unforced error has the potential to set up a nuclear holocaust.  The dumb cop is not very amusing when there is this much at stake.

TDM