Bergdahl Classification Isn’t What Matters – Don’t Miss the Larger Picture

All over the media there is horror and consternation in regards to the Bergdahl return.  He is being called a traitor and I have seen many calls for the death penalty floating about.  You are missing the bigger picture here.  First and foremost, the military never classified Bergdahl as a deserter.  That makes a huge difference in how the military should behave in trying to find and free him.  The military had an obligation to do so.  Secondly, the bigger picture seems to be getting missed here.  President Obama broke the law in order to get his return.  It doesn’t matter what the standing of the soldier is.  The law would be broken even if there were not serious questions about Bergdahl’s actions.

Now from the media reports I have read the sequence of events in this “trade” is that a video was made in December of 2013.  The White House was made aware of the video the following month.  In this very short video (I believe it is under three minutes) it reportedly shows Bergdahl in bad health.  In the statements made by the administration, as well as the president himself, the narrative that they are using is that they saw that his health was deteriorating and knew something had to be done.  Does that make sense to you?

If his health was so dire why did they wait close to five months to do something about it?  If his health was the reason for the “prisoner swap” wouldn’t they have done it in late January or early February?  This is one among many questions that must be answered.

Another one of the narratives that the White House is laying out there is the need for absolute secrecy.  Everyone knows that there are leaks coming out of Capitol Hill.  That can’t be denied.  But this is also the same institution that knew about the bin Laden raid months in advance.  Nothing of that leaked.  One would like to think that members of congress take national security seriously.  There are many who look at Bergdahl as a traitor, some of those people are members of Capitol Hill.  But that doesn’t mean that they would voluntarily risk the life of that man by leaking the information.  This is just a ginned up excuse that the administration is floating to direct attention away from the fact that he has clearly broken the law.  A law, I might add, that he signed.  It isn’t like he wasn’t aware that the law existed.  It seems like the touted Constitutional law professor has left those ideals behind.

This administration has emboldened the Taliban to take additional Americans hostages.  Not to mention many other rogue nations across the world such as North Korea, Iran, and a whole host of others.  We are now known for negotiating with terrorists.  We have crossed that line and there will be no going back.

Conservatives need to do themselves a favor and let the military justice system do what needs to be done and let them handle Bergdahl, we have much bigger fish to fry.

Impeachment must be discussed in this context.  I have never called for that before during the Obama administration because I don’t think incompetence is grounds for impeachment.  But this is a situation where multiple laws were broken, our national security has been endangered, and our troops all over the world have had a target put on their backs forever more.  That should not be allowed to stand.  This is the fight we should be waging.  Bergdahl is only a small cog in the wheel.  Let the Department of Defense handle him.

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President Obama is Disappointed in the World Says Biographer

A biographer has told the world that he feels that President Obama is disappointed in the world.  Really?  Well my most obvious response is that many in the world are very disappointed in him as well.  But there is more to this.  He is disappointed in the world because he views with rose-colored glasses on how the world should be instead of what it actually is.

He truly believes that if we just make the minimum wage a little higher people will get lifted out poverty.  Although we have raised the minimum wage throughout the years and we still have poverty.  So the latest is a “living wage”.  Which is just another myth that will never work on a national level.

If the government just gets involved we can make the world more “fair”.  He doesn’t seem to understand that life isn’t fair, nor will it ever be.

If the rich just give more of their money, the poor will get more.  Again, this is just another myth.  President Obama is a perfect example of that.  He has made less money in 2013 than he did in 2014, I didn’t get more because he has less.  Nor has anyone else.

He never seems to understand that many of the people who are stuck in cycles of poverty are so because they make bad choices.  Now, I have this crappy part-time job.  Many of the people I work with are on some type of public assistance.  Yet they have smart phones.  I don’t have a smart phone.  I can’t spend over a hundred month on the bill.  I don’t live in the projects because I spend my money differently than they do.  I make different choices.  I am not trying to disparage the poor, but studies have shown over and over again that they very successful people makes choices in their lives that allow them to become that way, while the poor make very different choices that also allow them to stay in their circumstances.  It may not be the way it should work, but it how it works.  This is reality.  You want to change the cycle of poverty, teach them how to make better choices.  Giving them enough money to survive does nothing except allow that cycle to continue.

Obama thinks if the U.S. is just nicer the problem of radical Islam will magically disappear.  No it won’t Mr. President.  These are people who are true believers in the ideology.  Most of them are willing, no eager, to die for what they believe in.  They look at becoming a martyr as the very best thing that Allah has to offer.  Until that is marginalized within the Islamic community it won’t change.  You cannot “Co-exist” with someone who wants you dead.  This is reality.

President Obama doesn’t seem to think that real evil exists in the world.  Putin may not be evil, but he certainly does believe that Mother Russia should rise again.  He and buddies on the left scoffed at Gov. Romney when this came up at the debate.  The running joke was the 80’s wants their foreign policy back.  It was Romney who saw the reality and those on the left that see the world as they think it should be instead of how it is.

Yes the world disappoints President Obama.  Maybe, just maybe, if he stopped seeing those rosy hues, he can begin to understand that life isn’t fair.  Evil does exist and those evils have to be confronted with strong leadership, not the moving red lines that those in Syria are laughing about all the while killing their own people completely unabated.

Photo of the Day – Pope Francis Meets President Obama Edition

Oh my.  He looks like he wants to be anywhere else but there.

Maybe Pope Francis just got the answer as to why Catholics must choose between their faith and their business in America now.

Quote of the Day – Rand Paul Edition

“He ought to explain to the Pope why he is telling businesses in America they can’t remain true to their faith and stay in business.”

Rand Paul and the upcoming meeting between President Obama and Pope Francis.

I would love to be a fly on the wall during that conversation, wouldn’t you?

President Obama Celebrates Superbowl With What Else But a Picture of Himself

I have better throwing form than that.

State of the Union Bingo

It is this time again.  The night we conservatives sit and watch the POTUS lies to tell the American people about the current state of the union and his solutions to those problems.  He then will proceed to blame the GOP for everything that he fails at.  It should be a long evening.

I would suggest dropping out of the drinking game if you get the term Income Equality.  You likely won’t survive.

Just remember, “investment” is really just code for higher taxes.

The Myth of a “Living Wage”

This is the new war that the democrats are fighting to retain political power.  The others, such as the “War on Women”, will be trotted out as needed, but this is the one that they are concentrating on this election season.  The mid-terms are now just 10 months away.

The President and his ilk are talking about a raise in the minimum wage and income equality with vigor.  There is also a push for the workers at McDonald’s to get a rate of $15 per hour, so they can live on it.  Wonderful.  But what does a “living wage” really mean?  I relocated a year ago to just outside of New York City from just outside of Washington, DC.  While I was growing up in Fairfield County, CT it was then the most expensive county in the country to live in.   Now that county is the one I just left,  Fairfax County, VA.  Another words I have spent almost my entire life living in very high cost of living areas.  My cost of living is much higher than someone who lives in say rural Nebraska or Wyoming.

In Virginia, I could have gone say thirty miles south and my cost of living would have dropped, considerably in fact.  The rents in Fredericksburg, VA are substantially lower.  But I wouldn’t have made nearly the same amount of money.  The same holds true in Connecticut.  I could go live in the “valley” and the housing is much cheaper.  A smaller percentage of my income would go to housing.   But the better paying jobs are closer to New York City.  I could commute that distance I suppose, but then I would then be spending my money on transportation instead of housing.  I would also have fewer hours to live a life outside of work.

Making a national minimum wage that is a “livable wage” may sound good on the surface, but it won’t work.  You can’t compare the cost of living of very rural areas of the country to large cities.  They are just not the same.  Buzzfeed did a comparison between two twenty-somethings who made virtually the same salaries, but live in very different areas of the country.  The way they live is very different.

Twenty-two-year-old Madeleine Harrington of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, makes slightly less than Brooklyn’s average median income of $32,135, racking in $31,000 a year working two part-time jobs. Harrington also pays less in rent than Brooklyn’s average: Her home costs only $2,000 a month. Still out of her price range, the two-bedroom apartment has been converted into a three-bedroom, although the additional room is “questionable.” There are no walls, and you have to walk through it to reach the bathroom.

While this might be standard for a NYC lifestyle, it is an anomaly in other parts of the country: In Waco, Texas, for example, the average cost of a two-bedroom apartment is just $683. Mia Francis, 22, of Waco, makes well over her city’s average of $26,264, pulling in $33,000 a year, and is able to live in a spacious three-bedroom, two-bathroom house, equipped with a backyard, patio, washing machine, and a driveway for her car. The monthly rent is $900, and she splits it evenly with her fiancé.

Madeleine will have to make a really good bank to live in New York the way Mia lives in Waco.  Many people who live in New York aren’t really all that interested in owning a large single family home with a backyard, when it  doesn’t have a great deal to offer in terms of entertainment and cultural activities.  Many people who live in Waco  want no part of the all the noise and congestion that comes with living in a large city.  Different people have different needs and that dictates how they live.  I personally would never want to live on a farm or in the middle of nowhere.  I have friends who recently relocated to a small town in New Hampshire.  While I like going to visit them on occasion, the desolate nature of that town is not for me.  I am a ‘burbs girl.  I live living close to large city, but not actually living in one.  I want access to a 24 hour store, but one single CVS works just fine for me.

How can we possibly pass legislation on the federal level that addresses all of these issues?  The short answer is that we can’t.  The country is far too diverse to say that this is a “livable wage” for the entire country.  Small rural areas of the country couldn’t possibly support paying the wages it costs to live in a large city.

If this is to be done, which I am not advocating at all, it would have to be done on a state level.  Even then it wouldn’t work, because the costs from one part of the state to another can differ just as widely.  Another issue that is not being really being addressed is how do we define “livable wage”?

Does this wage mean that you can live with four roommates in a tiny cramped apartment or does it mean that you can afford a single family home?  Does everyone have to able to afford a car?  If so, a Hyundai or BMW?  What foods does this wage need to cover?  Does everyone have to eat rice and beans or do they get surf and turf?  I personally am a big fan of Salmon.  Should I be able to afford to buy it daily, weekly, or monthly?  Does my television have to have WiFi, as many of the brand new models now have?  A laptop, desktop, or I-Pad?  After all, we had disgraced, and currently jailed, former Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr, talking about how I-Pads are a right.  So that must fit into the equation of “livable” does it not?  We have had other progressive elected officials saying that homeownership is a constitutional right.  In my neck of the woods a single family home can, and normally does,  cost over a million dollars.

All of this opens up all kinds of questions about who gets to decide what “livable” means.  Does some politician I have never met, that lives off a tax payer salary, get to decide what foods I need to be able to afford to call my way of living “livable”?   What if I prefer to eat beans & rice and pasta every night instead of filet mignon and arugula.

This is the problem with politicians making broad statements about “inequality”.  They never define what it really means nor does anyone explain how we get there.  Yes, we can have the federal government force businesses to pay a higher wage all across the country.  But that doesn’t mean that people will live “better”.  Those increase costs in labor will show up in costs to the consumer.  That is simple economics.  President Obama doesn’t tell us how a much a bar of soap will cost in this utopia he is trying to create.  Yes, people will make more, but they also will be spending more on goods and services.  We also find that certain businesses will have fewer people doing more, as that is what they can afford to pay out in labor costs.  So we will find fewer available jobs and fewer hours.  That will not help people live better.

Many of the goals of progressives can be described as laudable.  That doesn’t mean that in the real world they will work.  While I am not making light of the people who live with limited means.  It is a difficult life to be sure.  The reality is that today in America, what we define as poverty is still rich in comparison to the poverty that we see around the world.  With few exceptions in America, we have electricity, we have indoor plumbing, we have potable water, and access to basic needs of life.  If we are truly looking to address poverty in the world, America really isn’t the place to be doing so.  We should be looking at the huts that people live in South Africa and India.  Most of Africa lives in poverty that very few in this country can understand.  We can even move much closer to home to Mexico and South American countries and see what real poverty is.  We hear that people in the richest country in the world shouldn’t be living in poverty.  When you go and look at the rest of the world, we aren’t.  A “livable wage” is a myth and won’t address the real issues of why people in this country live in “poverty”.  But government never really addresses the real issues, do they?

Photo of the Day – Fake Sign Language Interpreter May have Gotten One Sign Right

You may have heard that the leader of the World Deaf Federation is saying that the man who was signing during the speech given at the Mandela funeral yesterday was a fake.  I think he may have gotten one sign right though.  

 Too funny. 

 

 

President Obama Keeping it Classy at Mandela Funeral

We should all be so proud.  Seriously?  A selfie at a funeral?  That goes for you too,  Mr. Cameron.

Another Tribute, Another Picture of President Obama

He really seems to believe that everything revolves around him.  It is beyond comical at this point.  We have just come to expect that it will be a picture of him, and we are right.

President Obama Pays Tribute to Mandela. Yes, Of Course it is a Picture of Him

President Obama Pays Tribute to President Kennedy With What Else But Picture of Himself

Yep, the man child does it again.  He can’t seem to grasp the concept that it isn’t all about him.

H/T Weasel Zippers.

Hey, There is Something That President Obama is Aware Of

See if you look hard enough you can find almost anything.

Quote of the Day – President Obama Edition Part 17

“During the course of my presidency, I have bent over backwards to work with the Republican Party. And have purposely kept my rhetoric down.”

BWAAAAAAAAAA  HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I can’t decide who needs mental health counseling more, him or the people who believe this crap.

Quote of the Day – Arab Diplomat Edition

“I have to tell you, I miss President Bush, I disagreed with almost every political decision he made. But I knew where he stood and what his views are. He told us personally and he told the world at the U.N. General Assembly. We could disagree and move on with it. With Obama not only don’t I know, I just don’t understand.”

Well that makes two of us.

Why I Say No To Syria

Many on the right are being called hypocrites for supporting Iraq under President Bush, but not supporting President Obama about Syria.  There is some truth to that.  Just as there was Bush Derangement Syndrome, Obama Derangement Syndrome exists as well.  The problem is that both sides are being hypocritical about it.  Barbara Boxer and President Obama were both very loud in their disagreement about going into Iraq.  Hussein used chemical weapons on the Kurds.  Those people are just as dead.  But the outrage was totally different, another party had The White House when that happened.  So needless to say politicians are doing what they do, playing politics.

The American citizens are the ones that are left to wonder what is really going on,  We obviously can’t trust the politicians to do what is right for the country because they are busy being just that and playing partisan party games.  We don’t get to see the intelligence.  We only get parts of the story.  So we are left to wonder what is true, what the real threats are, was it Assad that really used the WMD’s or was it the resistance making it look like Assad did it to draw international outrage?

Now, the UN is feckless and useless.  I have known that for years.  Russia and China could care less and for whatever reason they feel it is in their best interests to vote no at any security council meeting that could put useless sanctions on the Assad regime or send in peace keepers, or weapons inspectors, or whatever useless thing that they would do.  So as usual the world is looking to the U.S. to solve the problems.

Well you know what, just say no.  I am sick to death of the U.S. getting forced into handling these things when all we get in return is blame and more hatred from the Muslim world.  I am not even going to get into the costs of this, because human rights shouldn’t be looked at in dollars and cents.

France is all too willing to say hey we will help you out U.S.  I am sure they are willing to send about five troops and say that they are helping to protect human rights.  As soon as it gets messy they will turn tail and run as long as they know the U.S. is there.

The Muslim world has told us over and over again we need to mind our business and stop telling them how to live their lives.  Well Arab League stand up and handle your darn problems then and leave us out of it.  The Saudi’s have a military that includes an airforce, let them go drop some bombs on Assad.

It will be the same old song and dance.  The U.S. bullies trying to tell the rest of the world what to do.  You know what, screw you and the camel you rode in on.  Take care of your own damn problems for once in your lives.

I have come to the very sad conclusion that for whatever reasons, the Middle East and the Muslim world is not ready for “freedom”.  Look at Iraq.  After all the blood, sweat, tears, treasure, and lives we gave to the citizens of that country to give them a chance to choose their own destiny they are on the brink of a civil war.  We gave that country close to ten years to get their s*&t together and form the infrastructure necessary to rule themselves.  It is being thrown all away based on century old vendettas and tribal nonsense.  You want to stay in the dark ages, go ahead.  I am through caring about your problems.

Now I would really respect President Obama if he got up and said some of this.  Tell France, go ahead, you handle this one.  Tell the Arab League, you want us to butt out of your business, OK, take care of it.  Remove Assad, by any means that you see fit.  But that won’t happen.  France would run if we said that, and the Arab League is just as useless as the U.N.  is.  They talk a good game, but they are just as feckless.

Using chemical weapons on your own people is a crime against humanity.  It violates international law set into place after the first world war.  It is a tragedy.  I feel for the people of Syria, I really do.  But if we were smart, we them let be and sort it out for themselves.  There is no good outcome that is in the interests of the United States.  If Assad stays we get the status quo.  If he goes we end up with an equally, if not even more,  hostile government to its own people, Israel, and of course to us.  Why bother?

Obama would show true leadership if he just admits the truth.  The French are not willing to do what it really takes to stop Assad, the rest of the world is not even willing to give it lip service, and the Arab League isn’t going to do anything except of course blame the U.S. when it goes bad.   Lets save everyone the time and the trouble.  If the leaders in the Middle East want to act like barbarians, let them.  Maybe they will finally kill themselves off.

Kris Jenner Goes After President Obama for Slamming Kim and Kanye

I don’t like any of the people involved in this little cat fight, but it is interesting.  There is a part of me that agrees with the President about our children looking up to people like Kim and Kanye, they are no role models.  Where I disagree is that the size of their home has anything to do with why they are not good role models.

Quote of the Day – Der Speigel Edition

If Barack Obama is our friend, then we really don’t need to be terribly worried about our enemies.

Many in this country have been saying this for years.

You can read the rest of this blistering OP-ED here.

But, But I thought Guns Were Bad? White House Father’s Day Photo

I know that this is silly, but it just part of the hypocrisy of it all.  If he truly believes that guns are so bad, why is playing with them with his kids?

Quote of the Day – President Obama Edition Part 16

“If people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress, and don’t trust federal judges, to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution with due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here.”

I think the horse has long ago left the barn on this one.