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Jon shows this right after playing video of Fox News pundit, after Fox News pundit, ripping into the President for being weak and for allowing Putin to "take his lunch money" and "castrate" him.
At this point I just have to sit back in awe at the President's ability to manipulative these idiots. It is like using a laser pointer to trick a house cat into running into a wall.
By the way USA Today got a source who helped lay out the timeline as to HOW this whole negotiation thing came down:
The idea of coming up with a plan to secure Syria's chemical weapons dates back more than a year, when President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin first discussed the matter on the sidelines of an economic summit in Los Cabos, Mexico.
At the time, the two — as they've been for much of the 2½-year Syrian civil war — remained far apart in their views on the conflict. During their talks in Los Cabos, Obama complained to Russia that its arms sale to Syria perpetuated the bloody conflict, while Putin argued that the sales were part of a longstanding relationship with the Bashar Assad regime, according a senior administration official, who was not authorized to discuss the deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The administration official, who offered a detailed timeline of U.S.-Russian exchanges on how to best contain the chemical weapons stockpiles, said Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavarov first discussed the concept when Kerry visited Moscow in April and then again the following month over a long dinner at the Russian ministry of foreign policy on the eve of Russia's Victory Day, the anniversary of Nazi Germany's capitulation to the Soviet Union.
The two spoke of looking at the dissolution of Libya's nuclear program — Moammar Gadhafi dismantled the program under international agreement in 2003 and 2004.
"At the time, it was more aspirational and less urgent and the regime was not under pressure to cooperate because the world had not yet turned on them," according the official.
But then that latest gas attack happened, the world did turn on Assad, and.....well the rest is soon to be history.
Holy crap!
Okay for the rest of the day I suggest that we only talk positively about the President. I think we may be in the presence of a Jedi master, and I want to make sure we give him the credit he deserves.
He actually used an idea from Roger Ailes, and then sat back while his minions attacked him for it.
That is fucking awesome!
Another Obama Success That Republicans Can’t Handle As Deficit Shrinks to 5 Year Low
ReplyDeleteRepublicans are once again threatening not to pay off Congress’ existing bills by refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless… (insert Tea Party cause du jour). The problem is not only do polls show that the public will blame them much more than they will blame President Obama, but the deficit is on track to be the the smallest it’s been in five years.
The deficit shrank 35% from last year, which puts it on track to be the smallest in five years, according to the AP. “The U.S. government posted a narrower budget deficit in August compared with a year ago, keeping the annual gap on track to be the smallest in five years. The deficit for August was $147.9 billion, the Treasury reported Friday. That brought the annual budget gap through the first 11 months to $755 billion, or 35 percent lower than the nearly $1.2 trillion in red ink for the same period last year.”
The deficit is the yearly difference between what we take in with revenues (taxes) and what we spend, and each year’s deficit gets added to our debt. The debt ceiling gets raised to pay off spending that Congress has already authorized, so not raising it is akin to threatening your credit card company that you won’t pay your bill unless something they give you something totally unrelated, something you have always wanted, like say PS4.
Try it and see how it goes. Your point should be that you will not do what you promised to do unless you get a toy – an incentive – to do your part. You can explain to the credit card company with much smug delight that since they already gave you the money, you hold the upper hand: It’s the Play Station or nothing.
Republicans are threatening not to raise the debt ceiling unless funding for Obamacare is delayed. The thing is, the Tea Party was none-too-pleased with this debt ceiling appeasement because it was only a trick. You see, Republicans were going to crash the economy just to appease the Tea Party and conservative donors who want Obamacare destroyed. But Republicans knew that they could not destroy ObamaCare — thus, they are going to destroy the economy just to save their own face.
Yes, even talking about not raising the debt ceiling creates instability and chaos, neither of which are good for the market. But the last time Republicans did this, it cost us an estimated 18.9 billion dollars.
So their argument is that they are going to hold the debt ceiling hostage at a time when the deficit is at a five year low, because they lack the courage to explain to their base and their funders that the ObamaCare fight is over.
Is it hard to fear-monger a deficit that hit a five year low? Probably not, since Republicans are so good at pretending that Saint Reagan did not raise the debt ceiling three times more than Obama and a large portion of the debt isn’t from two unfunded Bush wars (that Obama put back on the budget, as if he were the fiscal conservative) and unfunded Medicare Part D prescription plan.
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/09/13/republicans-threaten-raise-debt-ceiling-deficit-smallest-years.html
Louie Gohmert Suggests Defunding Executive Branch to Punish Obama
ReplyDeleteLouie Gohmert (R-TX), who is infamous for saying egregiously stupid things, thinks he has the Obama administration by the balls, saying Thursday that “if the administration is not going to be forthcoming with information about the IRS, then it may be necessary to defund part of the executive branch until such time as they become truthful.”
My first thought was of how many times Republicans have thought they had Obama by the balls only to discover it was he who had their nuts in a vise...
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/09/13/louie-gohmert-suggests-defunding-executive-branch-punish-obama.html
I think the three idiot Congresspersons, including Gohmert, who trotted off to Egypt last weekend to make fools of themselves and of the US, should have to pay whatever their jaunt cost out of their own pockets. It was all grandstanding but it backfired and showed how ignorant the trio really is (Bachmann, Gohmert, and King).
DeleteBeaglemom
"It is like using a laser pointer to trick a house cat into running into a wall."
ReplyDeleteExactly! LMAO! I am just in awe of this Administration's ability to make them bite their own asses.
How Obamacare Could Revolutionize Addiction Treatment
ReplyDeleteObamacare’s treatment of alcoholism and other drug addiction as chronic diseases that must be covered by insurance plans could lead to as many as 40 million Americans entering rehabilitation programs, according to California Health Report.
Government data shows that about 24 million Americans aged 12 and older require treatment for a substance abuse issue — but only 11 percent of them received it at a specialty facility. These facilities charge an average of $4,000 for admission, and even outpatient facilities cost an average of $1,500 per course of treatment.
Obamacare could help eliminate those cost barriers for people seeking treatment. “I don’t think there’s another illness that will be more affected by the Affordable Care Act,” said Dr. Thomas McLellan, former deputy director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, in an interview with California Health Report.
Substance abuse and drug addiction haven’t always been perceived as chronic illnesses. But since opiate abuse (which has steadily been on the rise in America), alcoholism, and other addictions cost about $120 billion per year in health care spending, the health law puts special emphasis on both treatment and prevention by forcing insurers to cover rehab and encouraging doctors to screen for potential addictions.
Screening for budding addiction may also prevent other chronic diseases from forming or getting worse, especially since many addicts don’t actively seek care due to the associated stigma and costs. That may also wind up driving up health care costs indirectly by causing other medical problems. For instance, a diabetic American with alcoholism may be less likely to take proper medications, or young Americans who smoke marijuana to excess may end up with asthma. That has doctors hoping that Obamacare’s two-pronged approach to substance abuse could curb U.S. health care costs substantially.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/12/2609501/obamacare-revolutionize-addiction-services/
...She takes nine different medications every day.
Pointing to two bottles, she said, "For these alone, it would easily be $3,000 a month."
Chelsea lives with chronic kidney disease.
She said, "When I got sick, I was 13 and it was kidney failure."
Doctors discovered Chelsea had only one kidney. She spent her teen years in and out of hospitals. Her health stabilized in college, but during her junior year, it took a turn. Chelsea needed a transplant. Her mother was the donor.
Looking at some of the many photographs her father took at the time, Chelsea pointed to one where she and her mom were in their hospital gowns hugging just before going off to surgery.
She recalls, "Both of us were emotional because I was scared I would lose her."
She didn't. Both are fine, but Chelsea's medication does cause tremors.
"Usually it's just shaking hands, but sometimes it goes up my arms and body," she said.
Her biggest concern now? Repeal of the Affordable Health Care Act, which Chelsea knows is highly controversial.
"People bring it up to me and they don't realize, if it goes away, it would be a world of hurt for me, literally," she said.
http://www.wthr.com/story/23419186/2013/09/12/health-care-act-a-lifesaver-for-fishers-woman
If Roger Ailes feels strongly about the Syrian conflict, either way, then he really must have been astounded at reading Sarah Palin's "Let Allah sort it out" mantra. I would imagine that a man like Roger Ailes would have been nauseatingly disgusted at one of his 'employees' using such flippant insensitive and freezing-cold hearted hardedness on this subject.
ReplyDeleteI really think she was fired from Fox because of that particular screed.
Ailes may not have a concern about how Hannity and Coulter and Malkin 'hate-on' the President, but he obviously cares about the plight of innocent children and civilians.
I suppose Fox has a 'boundary' - it can diss POTUS perpetually, but when it shows a lack of caring for the defenseless, then it's time to shut up. I think someone just permanently shut Sarah up.
I hope you're right about Sarah being fired by Faux News but I know she has said "Let Allah sort it out" once before at CPAC (I believe).
DeleteSarah's fans were really pissed that she wasn't chosen to give the rebuttal to President Obama's speech the other day. In fact, she wasn't asked onto any of their programs just to comment and issue her now famous, "Let Allah sort it out."
DeleteLet’s begin with Caribou Barbie, who somehow thought that what AT&T did for 9/11 was a brilliant idea. While the communications giant is getting excoriated for creating and “advermorial,” Sarah isn’t getting any flack at all for doing the same thing. Look carefully at that 9/11 memorial picture at the top of this story. See that in the lower right-hand corner? Yeah, it reads, SarahPac.com. It’s not even her name which, while tacky, could have been seen as a memorial from a private – albeit media-hungry – citizen. No, it’s her political action committee! Way to remember the 3,000+ Americans who died on that day, Sarah. By asking for money for your failed political aspirations. You, Madam, are an unmitigated douchebag.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/09/13/glenn-beck-pat-robertson-sarah-palin-911/
In the year since the attack in Benghazi, Republicans have tried extremely hard to spread as much bullsh*t as they possibly can to make the president look like an incompetent prick.
ReplyDeleteIf you have ever entered into a debate with an outraged right-winger about the attack in Benghazi, one of the first complaints about President Obama’s handling of the situation is that he just sat back and allowed Americans to die.
I’ve been involved in a lot of debates over Benghazi and after all of the nutters’ talking points have been destroyed they go back to that ‘fact’….no help was sent to Benghazi. Brian Kilmeade of Fox & Friends loves to perpetuate Benghazi myths and on Wednesday he was bitch-slapped with the truth on live television.
Fox & Friends hosted the authors of Under Fire: The Untold Story of the Attack in Benghazi, former diplomatic security agent Fred Burton and journalist Samuel M. Katz. Of course, Kilmeade being the uninformed idiot that he is started to attack the administration’s response to the attack; unfortunately for him, he was left battered and bruised when his rhetoric was destroyed.
KILMEADE: When we saw Gregory Hicks last, he said that he did believe that they could have been saved, at least help could have been sent on the way sometime in the hours of the attack that went on. What did your research reveal?
Katz: Help did go to Benghazi, and I think one of the untold stories of the attack in Benghazi a year ago today, was the fact that when word hit the embassy in Tripoli, the CIA staffers, the contractors, as well as two JSOC operators didn’t hesitate for a moment. They made it there under Libyan circumstances, as quickly as humanly possible. … The embassy relentlessly tried to figure out transportation. They used a Libyan air force C-130, and at Benghazi airport, controlled by one of the militias, they were held up in Benghazi for four hours.
KILMEADE: They just couldn’t get anywhere? They were held up by government officials?
KATZ: It wasn’t government. It was militia. Everything was divided among the local gangs and warlords and everybody had to be paid his due, everybody had to be served in the very Byzantine fashion that became post-Gadhafi Libya.
After that excruciatingly painful smack down, in not so surprising Fox News fashion, the segment was ended.
Katz is indeed right, help did go to Benghazi, and it was held up at the airport for hours. As a matter of fact if Kilmeade and other assorted idiots over at Faux News would take ten seconds to do a search on their own website, they’d know this. There’s a nice article explaining all about the rescue efforts and the two SEALS that were killed as a result.
Who are we kidding though; they will never admit that they are wrong. That’s why they ended the segment, to save themselves further embarrassment. The last thing they want is their viewers questioning the lies they’ve been fed for the last year. They can’t lead the informed to slaughter, so they must ensure they remain uninformed.
Well done Fox & Friends, what a lovely way to honor fallen Americans.
Here’s the video:
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/09/12/benghazi-myth-annihilated-on-fox-and-friends-video/
I don't think that people have figured out how well President Obama played that game. If it was a matter of being about to take out some strategic targets with a couple of drones, it would have been done without any advance announcement or authorization from Congress. He never asked permission in the past.
ReplyDeleteInstead, President Obama did not want to look like Cowboy Bush, rushing in to bomb someone just to look tough. He passed the hot potato to Congress, and I do mean that both literally and figuratively. No one wanted to be the one to say, "Let's go bomb them." In handing the power to say yes or no to Congress, President Obama was pretty much betting on the "no" vote because Congress won't do anything that he is for.
We have no idea what went on behind the scenes, between Obama and Putin. For Putin to interfere and take control at the last moment meant that he was the Big Man, and now he was stuck with the problem, the hot potato and the responsibilities. Amazingly, he got Syria to admit that they did have chemical weapons. They never admitted that they ever had them. And, yesterday, Syria signed the no-chemical-weapons-agreement meaning that they are supposed to turn their chemical weapons over to inspectors.
So what happened? Putin got to write the kind of nasty, name calling op ed that Sarah Palin usually writes. He overplayed his hand a little, needing to bolster his own image. He slipped, saying that all men and women are created equally under the eyes of God, when we know how they treat homosexuals in Russia. But here is the bottom line. Putin owns the problem of Syria. Syria admitted that they have chemical weapons and that they will turn them over. And President Obama resolved this by threatening force but never having to fire a shot.
By the way, there is a story behind a similar event, The Cuban Missile Crisis. JFK made a serious speech to the nation, threatening to bomb Cuba if the Russians did not remove the missiles pointing at US. Behind the scenes, the US agreed to remove some missiles in Turkey that the Russians didn't like pointing at them. The Russians removed the missiles in Cuba, all because of some pretty tough talk. Diplomacy instead of a war where no one wins. It's a good solution. And, it was solved by people, not God or Allah. Can you imagine how a President Palin would solve any crisis? She would throw up her hands and turn everything over to the will of God. God forbid!
Just wait for Sunday's news. I'll be taping ABC, George Stephanopolous has an exclusive interview with President Barack Hussein Obama. That montage of fox characters, plus big boy Limpy and Constitutional Scholar, Glenn Beck will be jumping up the walls, their heads exploding that Fox wasn't asked, nor invited.
ReplyDeletePass the popcorn