Monday, March 18, AD 2024 9:47pm

Back When We Had A Real President

When the Soviets downed KAL Flight 007 on September 1, 1983 it felt to most Americans that the world was spinning out of control and that we might well be headed towards war.  With the above speech the nation was reassured that President Reagan was in charge of the situation and would make certain that the Soviet government would not escape the blame for this atrocity.

Yesterday in the wake of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over the Ukraine we had this:

President Barack Obama provoked fury in the U.S. on Thursday by casually devoting less than a minute to the deaths of 295 people aboard a Malaysian airliner, as he began an often jokey 16-minute speech about the need to expand America’s transportation infrastructure.

There are no confirmed American dead and the White House issued a statement on Thursday evening which said they were still seeking any ‘information to determine whether there were any American citizens on board’.

An earlier Reuters report claimed that it was feared that as many as 23 U.S. citizens had perished.

Obama declared in Wilmington, Delaware that ‘it looks like it may be a terrible tragedy,’ but not before enthusiastically declaring that ‘it is wonderful to be back in Delaware.’

Go here to read the rest.  An empty suit would be a better president for this country than Barack Obama.  I tremble for this nation, if, as I fear, we face a serious war before this useless fool and his clown administration are out of office.

 

Clint Eastwood seems like a prophet now in his depiction of Obama as an empty chair:

 

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Don the Kiwi
Friday, July 18, AD 2014 4:18am

It appears that rebel Ukraine insurgents are responsible, mistaking the Malaysian Airlines plane for a Ukrainian military transport – tape is on you tube apparently.

Don the Kiwi
Friday, July 18, AD 2014 4:25am

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znjJzBvfAtA

Don – here’s the you tube link.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Friday, July 18, AD 2014 7:14am

The only man on the planet that is happy about this is Jimmy Carter. He is (by far) no longer the worst POTUS in history.

Paul W Primavera
Friday, July 18, AD 2014 7:14am

The question is: can the Republicans muster a real President again? The Democrats with their open advocacy of baby murdering and sexual perversion are clearly disqualified. That their President would think so lightly of a terrorist act against a civilian jet liner is simply consistent with their overall disregard for the sanctity of human life – that is to say, every human life but their individual own.

Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Friday, July 18, AD 2014 9:25am

Paul, most of the Republicans at the national level are just as compromised as the Dems. If we get a real president again, he will have to come from an independent political movement not controlled or compromised by either party.

Mary De Voe
Friday, July 18, AD 2014 9:34am

Stephen E Dalton: “If we get a real president again, he will have to come from an independent political movement not controlled or compromised by either party.”
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My thoughts exactly for many months.

Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Friday, July 18, AD 2014 10:25am

Don, the Republican Party is a dying party. The leadership is totally out of touch with its base. Any candidate who dares to run as a traditional American is either ignored or shot down by the national leadership. Even the Tea Party groups are disillusioned with the GOP. It’s the suicidal policies of the GOP, if continued, that will ensure it will never have a truly American president in the White House again. So why even bother to vote GOP if all they’re going to do is offer us a donkey in an elephant’s skin?

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Friday, July 18, AD 2014 10:44am

Which is why we should elect a liberal Republican like Jeb Bush or Chris Christie, so we can (maybe) teeter on the brink instead of plunging over the cliff with a progressive Democrat like Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren? Yeah, that’ll work.
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I realize I’m getting ahead of events, what with a midterm still coming up. Still, I’d rather have somebody in office I could actively oppose that somebody I’d have to passively not support.

Philip
Philip
Friday, July 18, AD 2014 11:29am

If Republican’$ we’re focused and united in beliefs would there of been a movement such as the Tea Party?

Was not the birth of the mvt. brought about by weak divided Republicans that caved into the liberals mentality. I am asking seriously speaking. Not sarcastically.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Friday, July 18, AD 2014 11:37am

I would happily vote for Romney Ryan. If the republicans could unite, we could stand a chance. Some are so in the clouds ( or maybe the weeds) That they don’t use their common sense.
Romney Ryan are two honest people who love. Obama and the people around him lie and manipulate. They don’t have that good foundation of truth and love. They are Self serving. Prone to lies, seek power for power sake. Romney Ryan are the polar opposite of Obama people.
O’reilly not in favor of Romney, neither rove nor buchanan nor Krauthammer – what if God sent us good people for these particular times and we refused to recognize them because of intra-conservative bickering. If conservatives would agree to bury their high minded hatchets once and work together! They could elect their tea party or their Paul next time. Right now we need a competent president. We could rely on Romney Ryan but I don’t think republicans will do it . It would be sensible.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Friday, July 18, AD 2014 11:46am

A new party can gather momentum very quickly and an established one can collapse spectacularly.

The Labour party, formed in 1900, won 28 seats in the 1906 election, mainly because of a 1903 pact that the Liberals and Labour would not oppose each other in that election.
In 1910, they won 42 seats, but in 1922, they won 142. In 1924, they won 191seats, against the Liberal’s 158, with whom they formed a coalition government, under the first Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald; the Conservatives won a mere 258 seats.
In a snap election that year, the Conservatives won a landslide with 412 seats and Labour won a mere 151.
The really significant result in that election was that the Liberal party, the party of Palmerstone and Gladstone, of Asquith and Lloyd George, won a mere 40 seats and a rump party it remained for the rest of the century. In 1935, they held on to only 17 seats, 174 fewer than they had won only 11 years earlier and, in 1945, to only 12. In that election, Labour won 393 seats and the Conservatives 197. By contrast, 8 Independent candidates were elected.
In 1951, the Liberals won a mere 6 seats, in five of which they Conservatives did not field a candidate. It is said that, on one occasion, they shared a taxi from the House of Commons to the Reform Club.

Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Friday, July 18, AD 2014 11:56am

Don, that fact that the GOP has all these people in the state houses and in Congress is meaningless if they don’t vote right. Besides, where were all these people when we needed them in2012?
The GOP not out of touch? Yeah, they were so in touch they gave us a Mormon candidate for President, sometime that really went over well with evangelical Protestants and Catholics. At least the Dems had a candidate who was not out of touch with his base of queers, socialists, abortionists, welfare clients, and other deviants.
“Take control of the party”. The big money, country club people hate the Tea Party type people, and have done their worst to neutralize anything they have tried to do. They’re not going to allow us to have any say in the GOP. Oh, they will court us at election time, but when it’s all over, they will ignore us for the next four years like they have been doing all along. And you say 3rd parties are a waste of time? Well Don, what’s your winning strategy?

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Friday, July 18, AD 2014 6:47pm

The utter callousness of this public appearance of Mr Obama yesterday, where in about 40 seconds he dispensed with the instantaneous erasing of 295 or so lives and preferably proceeded to his more suited inanely superficial cocktail-style jollity, only highlites even more his supremely self-adoring coldness with regard to others’ lives. This is evident whether seen in regards to those men and women whom he daily disregards being blown up in distant Afghanistan, or to those military now frantically being re-missioned to a situation called “dire” by the head military commandant in Iraq, or to his frank abandonment of 4 lives (it should have been a score or so more) in Benghazi, Libya.
Only the Great Supreme Coryeanth’s life is of import; only the spotlight and focus should be on the Immortal Leader; only the nation cannot live without him.
Usquequo, Domine?

slainte
slainte
Friday, July 18, AD 2014 7:07pm

If immigration reform regularizes the status of illegal aliens who will then become eligible to vote (this assumes they aren’t already voting), will it matter which candidate traditional Americans select to run for the Presidency or any other political office?
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Catholic apologist Michael Voris has suggested that the heavy influx of illegal aliens into Texas will alter the electoral college vote of that state which will then permanently swing election results in favor of the Democrat Party.

Philip
Philip
Friday, July 18, AD 2014 7:28pm

Steve Phoenix.

Great observation regarding his (Obama ) nonchalant segue into Biden humor.

Might it be his years of blood stained hands supporting the murder of innocent lives? After all, life is cheap in the pro-death camp. What’s 298 more?
Just a drop in the bucket for old Barry.

Prayers for the heartless Nero coming.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Friday, July 18, AD 2014 7:57pm

Obama commented in May that he was going to turn Texas blue

Barbara Gordon
Barbara Gordon
Sunday, July 20, AD 2014 9:35pm

“Don, that fact that the GOP has all these people in the state houses and in Congress is meaningless if they don’t vote right.”

Many of those not voting right in our state are RINOs and/or neocons. Several of them were Democrats until recently when it became obvious that they would have to have an R by their name or would not get elected to their coveted political position. Changing the capitol letter by their name does not change their political positions/personal convictions–hence the less than conservative votes.

“The great deal of pro-life legislation that has passed in the states the GOP gained control of in 2010 indicates that most of them are voting right. As for Congress we control only one of the chambers.”

In our state there have always been state elected Democrats who would vote with Republicans to pass moderate pro-life and pro-family legislation. Now that many of the Rs are really Ds in R clothing, they are still willing to vote pro-life. In our state, the Republican Party was unable to achieve majority party status for the first time since reconstruction only with the fire power of the TEA Party working in the trenches along side the Republicans. Having the majority status allows the Republicans to have the chairmenship of relevant committees as well as the majority of the membership of given relevant committees–as well as a greater number of pro-life legislation being run. When the Ds were in the majority in both chambers in the past–thereby controlling the bills that were passed out of committee for votes by the full state house and state senate–pro-life bills were simply voted down in committee out of the sight of the public usually with no vote records of how each legislator voted in committee.

I am finding that many of these new Rs call themselves conservative, when in reality the new Rs don’t have a real understanding of conservative political philosophies–they are really just Democrat-lights.

There are a few, truly conservative matters outside of abortion where the Rs in our state vote correctly as a whole–but not many.

Our Republican US Senator and US Congressmen also fail to vote consistently conservative.

Barbara Gordon
Barbara Gordon
Monday, July 21, AD 2014 2:32am

Sorry.

I meant to say:

In our state, the Republican Party was ABLE to achieve majority party status for the first time since reconstruction only with the fire power of the TEA Party working in the trenches along side their side.

Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Monday, July 21, AD 2014 9:53am

Barbara, thanks for elaborating on what I already knew to be true. The GOP is nothing more than a slightly conservative liberal party. The last half way conservative that we had in the White House was Reagan, and it’s been downhill ever since.

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Monday, July 21, AD 2014 12:24pm

“If immigration reform regularizes the status of illegal aliens who will then become eligible to vote (this assumes they aren’t already voting), will it matter –which candidate traditional Americans select ..”— Slainte.

Back in Phoenix, Arizona in the 2000’s, an in-law family member who is quite identifiably Mexican-American (because she is, but a legal US citizen, if it matters these days) sidled up to several Spanish-speaking, Mexican mothers (they said so in their conversation with her) meeting at the local elementary school up the street before a school bond election. They admitted in the course of their conversation that each of them were Mexican citizens and not legal US citizens or residents, but since they had children in the schools, the school district personnel “had invited them to vote” in the election.

Our in-law, Diana, asked them how it was that they could vote: they explained that the school showed them how to obtain voter registration, ostensibly when they signed up for a drivers’ license; or, a second means were the many Democratic party registration workers who completed and turned in voter registration forms for them. It was all so easy. And once on the voting system, they were rarely purged. This is still why in one or two of the congressional districts in Arizona a reliably D. candidate will always be elected.

So, look out, Texas: coming your way next.

slainte
slainte
Monday, July 21, AD 2014 1:00pm

I admit to being perplexed by those who strongly advocate for the elimination of producing proof of identity at voting precincts. It seems a reasonable measure to ensure the integrity of the voting process.

Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Monday, July 21, AD 2014 1:09pm

I don’t know if Barb is from the Tarheel state, but one thing that is overlooked about these victories is that a federal judge can declare some or all or these victories unconstitutional, just like all the state laws forbidding same sex marriages that were recently overturned by judicial fiat. So, what will the Tarheel GOP do then? Nullification anyone?

Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Monday, July 21, AD 2014 2:00pm

Don, I didn’t even mention 3rd parties in my latest post. Besides, since federal judges are appointed for life, voting for any party wouldn’t get rid of them. And I doubt the GOP has enough clout to impeach a single one of them. The only possible ways I can see to deal with this ongoing mess is nullification and if worst comes to worst, secession. The GOP will continue to ‘listen’ to it’s conservative base every election time, and turn around and betray the base by not doing anything about the current problems or helping to passing laws like the so-called Homeland Security Act that left us with fewer liberties that we had before.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Monday, July 21, AD 2014 3:40pm

I’m mildly shocked that no liberal/progressive has jumped on all this and called you “racists!”

Of course, the definition of “racist” is someone that wins an argument with a liberal.

Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Monday, July 21, AD 2014 4:58pm

Don, the voting demographics changed the last presidential election. Obama was elected by what amounted to a coalition of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities that our flawed immigration policies made possible. The Government giveaway programs will also insure that no matter who gets in power, if his party want to stay in power the freebies will have to continue to appease the minorities. The minorities are also increasing in population, while the British, German, Scandinavian, and French descended population is decreasing. Unless something’s happen to change this picture, the type of people who support the Republican party now will have no power or influence by 2050.

Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Monday, July 21, AD 2014 7:19pm

Don, the people coming into this country right now don’t want to assimilate into our culture. They want to impose their third world culture on us. I don’t see large groups of Muslims wanting to join our churches or eat a pork chop. Rather, I have a mosque in my neighborhood, and halal food featured at the local restaurants. The Indians who have moved into our area have their temple in my neck of the woods. I don’t think large numbers of them are going to be eating a beefsteak or showing upo for baptism any time soon either. And these people who are coming across our border, may be nominally Catholic, are not here to become good Americans, but to make our southwestern states a part of what they call Aztlan. And based on what I’ve heard, they tend to drift away from even nominal Catholicism in a few years and become secular. Just what we need more of in America, eh? Assimilation was only possible when the founding stock was the majority population in this country. We are no longer the majority, and unless our population increases, assimilation will go the other way. BTW, how’s that Republican outreach to minorities doing? From what I’ve heard, they don’t give a damn about becoming GOP members. You don’t have any free stuff.

Tamsin
Tamsin
Monday, July 21, AD 2014 8:18pm

@slainte, I realize your question is likely rhetorical, but since you are a lawyer, you tell me: Those who seek to enfranchise all, are playing off the ideal that voting is so important, such a sacred right, that to accidentally disenfranchise one person for lack of identification at the polling place would be tantamount to civic murder. ?

Somehow based on the principle that “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” The presumption of innocence. ?

We’re never going to turn this thing around until a statesman or stateswoman stands up to defend the ideal that voting is so important, such a sacred right, that to accidentally enfranchise one person who is not a citizen is… stupid? Which requires a heartfelt defense of citizenship and sovereignty. But really, can it be so hard to say: Why should Mexican citizens vote in US elections? Why should US citizens vote in Mexican elections? And so forth.

Politicians are too afraid to say this, even though it might appeal to legal immigrants of all nationalities, including legal immigrants from Mexico et al.

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Tuesday, July 22, AD 2014 5:39pm

Of course, the focus of this article is on Ronald Reagan, “Back When We Had a President..”; and the contrast, with smoothly arrogant, cocktail-joking Barry is painfully evident, meanwhile as military personnel are trying to hold the fort at Afghanistan and their counterparts are getting the consolate roofs ready for a Miss Saigon exit in Iraq, bargaining with their lives in the process.

And what about who is next in line? Well, consider this excerpt from Ronald Kessler’s newest book, “The First Family Detail”, soon to be released:
Kessler also reveals that Hillary is routinely rude to the agents who are sworn to take a bullet for her.

‘”Because she is so nasty to agents and hostile to law enforcement officers and military officers in general, agents consider being assigned to her detail a form of punishment,” Kessler wrote.’ (Pagesix, Richard Johnson, 7/22/2014)

slainte
slainte
Wednesday, July 23, AD 2014 2:45pm

Tamsin,
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I think many would agree that the integrity of the voting process depends on a careful balancing of a qualified voter’s “right to vote” subject to the state’s enacting measures reasonably calculated to minimize fraud and other abuses at polling precincts.
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In light of the intentional disenfranchisement of members of the African American community (mostly in the southern states) in the 20th century, it makes sense that courts should carefully scrutinize the reasonableness of such security measures to ensure that they don’t, directly or indirectly, act to dissuade or disenfranchise any qualified voter from voting.
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That said, however, laws requiring production of identification at polling precincts (ie., a driver’s license, a passport, employee photo identification, or a state issued ID from the Department of Motor Vehicles) constitute measures which don’t unduly burden or disenfranchise individuals or classes of persons. People routinely produce proof of identity to open bank accounts, cash checks, register their children with schools, and conduct a myriad of commercial transactions, why then would producing ID at a polling precinct be deemed oppressive? The integrity of the voting process trumps the small inconvenience experienced by the qualified voter’ some Courts disagree.
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Producing ID at voting precincts might also help dissuade those who are not “qualified voters” from engaging in an illegal act by casting a vote he or she is not authorized to do.
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Unfortunately there are some within the national political sphere today whose political philosophy is more closely aligned with that of 19th century NYC politician Boss Tweed (head of New York’s infamous Democrat club Tammany Hall) who, with his fellow political operatives, reminded beholden immigrant constituents of the 1850s and 1860s to “Vote Early and Vote Often”; whether Tweed was suggesting that his constituents cast multiple, rather than single votes is open to conjecture
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But there is no doubt that Tammany paved the way to pressure large numbers of immigrant constituents (then the famine Irish) to follow the direction of political operatives. History does repeat.
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National Public Radio recently interviewed author Terry Golway who claims that Tammany, corrupt to the core, has now been reinterpreted and found to have advanced progressive principles which historically benefitted immigrant communities thus qualifying it to be placed on the “right side of history”. What happened in New York in the 1800s is re-occurring on a national scale.
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Here’s NPR’s interview of Terry Golway.
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http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=286218423&m=286383330

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Wednesday, July 23, AD 2014 3:33pm

“The party that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on Paul’s support.” G. B. Shaw
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In other words, Golway is saying, “The end justifies the means.”
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Zero Hedge: “What is the shelf life of a system that rewards confidence-gaming sociopaths rather than competence? Those in power exhibit hubris, arrogance, bullying, deception and substitute rule by elites for the rule of law. The status quo rewards misrepresentation, obfuscation, legalized looting, embezzlement, fraud, a variety of cons, gaming the system, deviousness, lying and cleverly designed deceptions.
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“Our leadership was selected not for competence but for deviousness. What’s incentivized in our system is spinning half-truths and propaganda with a straight face and running cons that entrench the pathology of power.”

tamsin
tamsin
Wednesday, July 23, AD 2014 3:34pm

Yes, a free photo ID is not oppressive. Given there are so many other ways to stuff ballot boxes, amazing that Democrats resist this one measure to improve (at least the appearance of) ballot box integrity. They must figure it is a greater benefit to them, now and forevermore, to use this one facet of voting to scare black people, and soon enough brown people. The cynicism makes me sad.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Thursday, July 24, AD 2014 2:29am

In the UK, at polling stations, the clerk, having found the voter’s name and address in the Electoral Register, asks for the date of birth, which appears on the Returning Officer’s copy of the Register, but not in the published editions.

The Register is updated annually, by returning a form sent to each household, or on-line, using a serial number on the return form. Anyone moving between return dates can still register individually.

Most scandals have occurred around postal voting and properties in multiple occupation, where the names of former occupants have been kept on the register by the landlord. Jury citations provide a sort of (unintended) random check on this practice.

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