Community Organizer, Barack Obama, Crashed Country After Democrats Gave Him Keys to the Presidency

Heh, this story at the Smoking Gun reminds us of the dangers of giving responsibility to those who are too inexperienced to handle it.

See "Boy, 8, Crashed SUV After Drunk Dad Let Him Drive."

Boy, 8, crashed SUV into tree after drunk dad let him drive... http://t.co/sWZuuZMrTx

— The Smoking Gun (@tsgnews) October 17, 2014

Our community organizer president, after crashing everything, has put off attempting to pass any further priorities until after the elections, according to the Los Angeles Times, "Obama putting key priorities on hold until after midterm election."

Maybe the Democrats will finally sober up after the shellacking they're going to be handed on November 4th.

World War II Veteran Says 'Fury' Is 'Accurate Portrayal' of Hellish Brutality of the War

I can't get this movie off my mind.

And I can't give this movie a greater recommendation. So, don't take it from me. Listen to one of the men who actually fought tank battles against the Nazis in World War II.

Here's Brad Pitt and the crew of "Fury," interviewed by David Muir on World News Tonight:



More at the U.S. Army, "Soldiers, WWII vets honored at 'Fury' movie premiere":

Among those veterans was Ray Stewart, who recalled his days as a tank gunner.

"I served with 2nd Armor, F Company, 66th Armor Regiment. I loved to drive a tank. I drove a tank from Germany down to the Bulge, which is over 100 miles, and I drove it in the rain, and the cold," he said, in reference to the Battle of the Bulge, which began in December 1944.

"By the time we got down to the Bulge, it was 11 degrees below zero," he said....

Stewart attended the premiere with his family, including his wife of 63 years, Dottie.

"She has been a good wife to me, a beautiful wife," he said.

PREVIOUSLY: "Fury."

This Far-Left Whackjob Has a Pet Chicken --- So I Guess You Aren't Allowed to Eat Chicken Anymore, Or Something

A little late in getting to this, but then again, it's hard to keep up with the endless radioactive meltdown of everything the left gets its hands on.

Via Pat Dollard, "WATCH, MUST-SEE, HILARIOUS: Mentally Ill Woman Storms Restaurant, Claims a Chicken Is Her Daughter."

Children May Get Marijuana-Laced Candy on Halloween

Police warning, via the U.K. Independent.

And remember to thank a prog for making your Halloween a real-life nightmare:

US police warn marijuana sweets may end up in children's Halloween trick-or-treat bags http://t.co/fOHFs74v8h pic.twitter.com/NnyxkyOfbv

— The Independent (@Independent) October 18, 2014

'I’ll check my white male privilege right after you check your arrogant liberal [leftist] assumptions...'

From Frau Katze, at Blazing Cat Fur:

This is what I hate about progressivism. It’s such a dry, gray, joyless thing. It leaves no room for anyone to have an actual identity of their own. It doesn’t illuminate. It doesn’t enlighten. It doesn’t encourage open expression. It simply turns the lights off and tells everyone to shut up and play along.

Indeed, it's a sickness. If Ebola doesn't kill us, the left's secular collectivist totalitarianism most surely will.

Obama Freaks Out as His Administration Proves Its Woeful Unreadiness to Combat Ebola

It's all coming off the rails.

A devastating report, at the New York Times, via Ron Fournier:

Finger-pointing, blame-shifting, under-cutting, spinning: #Obama White House, you should be ashamed of this: http://t.co/BCqzkIgoeA #Ebola

— Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) October 18, 2014

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and its arrival in the United States, is the latest in a cascade of crises that have stretched Mr. Obama’s national security staff thin. As the White House scrambled to stop the spread of Ebola beyond a handful of cases, officials were also grappling with an escalating military campaign against the Islamic State, the specter of a new Cold War with Russia over Ukraine, and the virtual disintegration of Yemen, which has been a seedbed for Al Qaeda.

Senior officials said they pushed Mr. Obama to name an Ebola coordinator as a way of easing pressure on the staff at the National Security Council.

At the meeting on Wednesday, officials said, Mr. Obama placed much of the blame on the C.D.C., which provided shifting information about which threat category patients were in, and did not adequately train doctors and nurses at hospitals with Ebola cases on the proper protective procedures.

On Thursday night, in televised remarks, Mr. Obama sought to reassure the public about the dangers from Ebola. But the sense of crisis that emanated from the White House was in sharp contrast to Sept. 30, when Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian who had traveled to Dallas, tested positive for Ebola. Mr. Obama received a telephone briefing from Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the director of the C.D.C., after which the White House issued a sanguine statement that concluded: “We have the infrastructure in place to respond safely and effectively.”

In the days that followed, Mr. Obama carried on as usual while his aides gamely added Ebola to their bulging portfolios. On Oct. 1, Mr. Obama met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and later had dinner with friends at the RPM Steakhouse in Chicago, where he had traveled for fund-raisers and to deliver an economic speech.

By early October, as questions about the Dallas hospital’s treatment of Mr. Duncan mounted, federal officials began reassessing their response, even as they continued to express confidence.

C.D.C. officials publicly dismissed the effectiveness of screening for Ebola at airports in the United States. But Jeh Johnson, the secretary of Homeland Security, found a way to make it work over the weekend of Oct. 4. Mr. Obama announced the screening protocol the following Monday.

Even after Mr. Duncan’s death on Oct. 8, officials betrayed little sense of a change in approach. Mr. Obama traveled to California for campaign fund-raising and on his return to Washington, received a briefing from his secretary of health and human services about the announcement that a nurse who treated Mr. Duncan had contracted Ebola.

The business-as-usual sentiment at the White House changed abruptly, officials said, when it got word early Wednesday that a second nurse in Dallas contracted the disease. The fact that she had traveled on a Frontier Airlines flight despite having a fever added to the concern, officials said.

“This Frontier thing took it out of the abstract thing and to this level where people could identify with and made them scared,” a senior official said. Within hours, White House aides canceled a planned trip by Mr. Obama to Connecticut and New Jersey. Hours later, Thursday’s trip to Rhode Island and New York City was also scrubbed...

What a nightmare.

More at that top link.

Obama-Democrats' Ebola Evasions Reveal Disdain for the American People

From Peggy Noonan, at WSJ, "Who Do They Think We Are?":

The administration’s handling of the Ebola crisis continues to be marked by double talk, runaround and gobbledygook. And its logic is worse than its language. In many of its actions, especially its public pronouncements, the government is functioning not as a soother of public anxiety but the cause of it.

An example this week came in the dialogue between Megyn Kelly of Fox News and Thomas Frieden , director of the Centers for Disease Control.

Their conversation focused largely on the government’s refusal to stop travel into the United States by citizens of plague nations. “Why not put a travel ban in place,” Ms. Kelly asked, while we shore up the U.S. public-health system?

Dr. Frieden replied that we now have screening at airports, and “we’ve already recommended that all nonessential travel to these countries be stopped for Americans.” He added: “We’re always looking at ways that we can better protect Americans.”

“But this is one,” Ms. Kelly responded.

Dr. Frieden implied a travel ban would be harmful: “If we do things that are going to make it harder to stop the epidemic there, it’s going to spread to other parts of—”

Ms. Kelly interjected, asking how keeping citizens from the affected regions out of America would make it harder to stop Ebola in Africa.

“Because you can’t get people in and out.”

“Why can’t we have charter flights?”

“You know, charter flights don’t do the same thing commercial airliners do.”

“What do you mean? They fly in and fly out.”

Dr. Frieden replied that limiting travel between African nations would slow relief efforts. “If we isolate these countries, what’s not going to happen is disease staying there. It’s going to spread more all over Africa and we’ll be at higher risk.”

Later in the interview, Ms. Kelly noted that we still have airplanes coming into the U.S. from Liberia, with passengers expected to self-report Ebola exposure.

Dr. Frieden responded: “Ultimately the only way—and you may not like this—but the only way we will get our risk to zero here is to stop the outbreak in Africa.”

Ms. Kelly said yes, that’s why we’re sending troops. But why can’t we do that and have a travel ban?

“If it spreads more in Africa, it’s going to be more of a risk to us here. Our only goal is protecting Americans—that’s our mission. We do that by protecting people here and by stopping threats abroad. That protects Americans.”

Dr. Frieden’s logic was a bit of a heart-stopper. In fact his responses were more non sequiturs than answers. We cannot ban people at high risk of Ebola from entering the U.S. because people in West Africa have Ebola, and we don’t want it to spread. Huh?

In testimony before Congress Thursday, Dr. Frieden was not much more straightforward. His answers often sound like filibusters: long, rolling paragraphs of benign assertion, advertising slogans—“We know how to stop Ebola,” “Our focus is protecting people”—occasionally extraneous data, and testimony to the excellence of our health-care professionals.

It is my impression that everyone who speaks for the government on this issue has been instructed to imagine his audience as anxious children. It feels like how the pediatrician talks to the child, not the parents. It’s as if they’ve been told: “Talk, talk, talk, but don’t say anything. Clarity is the enemy.”

The language of government now is word-spew...

More.

Elizabeth Marxs

Cybergirl of the Year 2014, at Playboy:



PREVIOUSLY: "Elizabeth Marxs on Twitter!"

'Fury'

I couldn't wait to see this movie. In fact, I thought it was in theaters on October 10th and ended up waiting another week to see it. It was definitely worth it.

Easily the best World War II movie since "Saving Private Ryan." And Brad Pitt delivers a scorching performance, shorn of leftist political correctness. Indeed, totalitarian progs will hate this film's realpolitik version of morality.

Kenneth Turan has a review, at the Los Angeles Times, "'Fury' treads on war movie expectations as Brad Pitt & Co. kill Nazis."

Sabato's Crystal Ball: Republicans Should Gain 5-8 Seats in the Senate

The latest from Larry's Sabato's election projection outfit, "2014: A Tale of Two Elections: New 2014 Senate and House Ratings."

Ebola Cruise Ship Denied Entry by Mexico

This is starting to look like a Hollywood production.

At the Washington Post, "Amid Ebola concerns, Mexico fails to grant access to cruise ship carrying Texas health worker." (Via Memeorandum.)

Nurse from Texas Health Presbyterian Blasts Ebola Response

Oh man, she's fired up!



Just wow.

More here, "Whistle-blower nurse: 'I feel lied to'," and "Nurse: Ebola gear left neck exposed."

No Reason to Panic About Ebola!

And certainly no reason to panic until after the midterms. The Democrats need to mitigate the political damage. That comes before public health.

Ebola Not Contagious Until After Nov. 4 Election, Says CDC http://t.co/03Q0h3jQlt #TCOT #Ebola pic.twitter.com/s6X4Bnov70

— The People's Cube (@ThePeoplesCube) October 16, 2014

And see Jonathan Last, at the Weekly Standard, "Six Reasons to Panic":

Not everyone is convinced that this Ebola isn’t airborne. Last month, the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy published an article arguing that the current Ebola has “unclear modes of transmission” and that “there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosol particles both near and at a distance from infected patients, which means that healthcare workers should be wearing respirators, not facemasks.”

Lovely.

More.

The Centers for Anything But Disease Control

From Michelle Malkin, at RCP:

So now the federal health bureaucrats in charge of controlling diseases and pandemics want more money to do their jobs. Hmph. Maybe if they hadn't been so busy squandering their massive government subsidies on everything but their core mission, we taxpayers might actually feel a twinge of sympathy.

At $7 billion, the Centers for Disease Control 2014 budget is nearly 200 percent bigger now than it was in 2000.

Those evil, stingy Republicans actually approved CDC funding increases in January larger than what President Obama requested.

What are we getting for this ever-increasing amount of money? Answer: A power-hungry busybody brigade of politicized blame-mongers.

Money, money, it's always the money. Yet, while Ebola and enterovirus D68 wreak havoc on our health system, the CDC has been busying itself with an ever-widening array of non-disease control campaigns, like these recent crusades:

--Mandatory motorcycle helmet laws. CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden appoints a 15-member "Community Preventive Services Task Force" to promote pet Nanny State projects. An obscure Obamacare rule -- Section 4003(b)(1) -- stealthily increased the task force's authority to study "any policies, programs, processes or activities designed to affect or otherwise affecting health at the population level." Last year, the meddling panel extended the agency's reach into transportation safety with a call to impose a federal universal motorcycle helmet law on the country. Is riding a Harley a disease? Why is this the CDC's business?

--Video games and TV violence. At Obama's behest, in the wake of high-profile school shootings, the CDC scored $10 million last year to study violent video games and media images, as well as to assess "existing strategies for preventing gun violence and identifying the most pressing research questions, with the greatest potential public health impact." Whatever that means. Why is this the CDC's business?

--Playground equipment. The CDC's "Injury Centers" (Did you know there are 13 of them?) have crafted a "national action plan" and funded countless studies to prevent boo-boos and accidents on the nation's playgrounds. Apparently, there aren't enough teachers, parents, local school districts, and county and state regulators to police the slides and seesaws. Why is this the CDC's business?

--"Social norming" in the schools. The CDC has funded studies and campaigns "promoting positive community norms" and "safe, stable, nurturing relationships (SSNRs)" in homes and schools. It's the mother of all government values clarifications programs. So bad attitudes are now a disease. Again, I ask: Why is this the CDC's business?

After every public health disaster, CDC bureaucrats play the money card while expanding their regulatory and research reach into anti-gun screeds, anti-smoking propaganda, anti-bullying lessons, gender inequity studies and unlimited behavior modification programs that treat individual vices -- personal lifestyle choices -- as germs to be eradicated.

Here's a reminder of what the CDC does with money that's supposed to go to real disease control...

Continue reading.

Ebola Outbreak: Response Ripples Across Nation

At the Wall Street Journal, "Officials Scramble to Limit Chance of Spreading Infection":

Concerns about the Dallas nurse who flew to Cleveland shortly before being diagnosed with Ebola rippled across the country Thursday, as officials tried to limit the chance of spreading infection by those who came into direct or indirect contact with her.

A handful of schools in Texas and Ohio closed their doors for disinfection. A group of Ohio nurses who flew from Dallas to Cleveland were put on leave, as was a Frontier Airlines flight crew who flew her back to Dallas. And eight people in the Cleveland and Akron area who spent significant time with the nurse, identified as Amber Joy Vinson, put themselves into voluntary quarantine.

Amid the tumult, the Texas Department of State Health Services on Thursday issued new rules barring dozens of health-care workers who treated Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan, the first patient to be diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., from taking public transportation and visiting public places.

Judge Clay Jenkins, the county’s highest elected official, said that although the directions restricting workers’ movements are binding, he’s confident that they will voluntary comply. “These are hometown healthcare heroes who are going to honor that,” he told reporters.

Meanwhile, a Yale student who had traveled to Liberia and checked into a hospital with “Ebola-like symptoms” tested negative for the virus. The student’s symptoms and subsequent hospitalization on Wednesday night set off an urgent reaction among Connecticut health officials, prompting Gov. Dannel Malloy to invoke the state’s authority to quarantine and isolate patients with the virus or suspected of having the virus.

Despite the nationwide agitation, public health officials preached a message of calm. “Just because someone may have been exposed does not mean they are infected,” Dr. Chris Braden of the CDC said at an Ohio news conference.

Ms. Vinson, who helped treat Mr. Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas before he died Oct. 8, was in the Akron area visiting family and preparing for her wedding, local health and law-enforcement officials said. On Thursday, public health officials stressed Ms. Vinson was aware of her possible exposure and kept largely close quarters with family members and friends.

“She was being very distant,” said Summit County Health Commissioner Gene Nixon, adding that she refrained from hugging or kissing anyone.

Another public health official said a relative later reported that Ms. Vinson had appeared lethargic and unwell over the weekend.

Late Thursday night, Ms. Vinson’s family released a statement through Kent State University, where she attended and where several of her relatives work.

“Amber is a respected professional and has always had a strong passion for nursing,” said Lawrence Vinson, her uncle, in the statement. “She followed all of the protocols necessary when treating a patient in Dallas, and right now, she’s trusting in her doctors and nurses as she is now the patient.”

ADDED: "U.S. Ebola Response Is Slammed by Lawmakers: Obama Considers Appointing Czar After Bipartisan Criticism Mounts."

More Americans Support Ground Troops to Fight #ISIS

Boy, does this ever put Obama in a bind.

He's said repeatedly that he won't send ground troops back to Iraq (or into Syria), and more and more he's finding himself on the wrong side of public opinion. What a loser.

At NBC News, "More Americans Back U.S. Ground Troops in ISIS Fight."

5 Takeaways From the October WSJ/NBC News Poll

From Janet Hook, at WSJ:

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds that Republicans enter the final three weeks of the midterm election campaign well-positioned to make gains in Congress. At the same time, the political environment is riddled with volatile elements that could produce surprises. Here are some main takeaways of the new poll.

And got to the full survey, "Republicans Hold Advantage as Midterms Near: Poll Shows Low Interest, Disillusionment Create Room for Surprises."

Polls Show Massive Repudiation of Democratic Party on Election Day

Voters are actually highly dissatisfied with the direction of American politics, but as the party controlling the White House and the Senate, the public is on the verge of dealing a massive repudiation to the Obama-Democrats on November 4th.

Here's ABC News, "Trouble Looms for Obama, Democrats with Election Day 2014 Approaching" (via Memeorandum):

Barack Obama and his political party are heading into the midterm elections in trouble. The president’s 40 percent job approval rating in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll is the lowest of his career – and the Democratic Party’s popularity is its weakest in polling back 30 years, with more than half of Americans seeing the party unfavorably for the first time.

The Republican Party is even more unpopular. But benefitting from their supporters’ greater likelihood of voting, GOP candidates nonetheless hold a 50-43 percent lead among likely voters for U.S. House seats in the Nov. 4 election.

These and other results are informed by an array of public concerns on issues from the economy to international terrorism to the Ebola virus, crashing into a long-running crisis of confidence in the nation’s political leadership. Almost two-thirds say the country is headed seriously off on the wrong track. Even more, three-quarters, are dissatisfied with the way the political system is working.

Scorn is widely cast: Among those who are dissatisfied with the political system, two-thirds say both sides are equally to blame, with the rest dividing evenly between Obama and his party, vs. the Republicans in Congress, as the chief culprits. But as a nearly six-year incumbent president, Obama – and by extension his party – are most at risk.

Beyond his overall rating, Obama is at career lows in approval for his handling of immigration, international affairs and terrorism (long his best issue) in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates. Approval of his handling of the conflict with Islamic State insurgents in Iraq and Syria has plummeted by percentage 15 points in the last two weeks, amid questions about the progress of the air campaign now under way.

Further, while Obama’s negative rating on handling the economy has eased, more Americans say they’ve gotten worse off rather than better off under his presidency; the plurality is “about the same” financially, for most not a happy outcome. Even with the recovery to date, 77 percent are worried about the economy’s future, and 57 percent say the country has been experiencing a long-term decline in living standards – all grim assessments as Election Day looms.

Such views can carry a punch. An analysis conducted for this report shows that presidential approval ratings (in data since 1946) and views that the country’s on the right track (since 1974) highly correlate with midterm gains or losses for the party in power. (The correlations are .68 and .65, respectively; 0 means no relationship and 1 is a perfect, positive fit.)

Moreover, an index of dissatisfaction, also produced for this study, finds that the public’s unease on a range of issues strongly predicts vote preferences; these wide-ranging concerns emerge as a key factor in the 2014 contest. In addition to persistent doubts about the economy, for instance, 71 percent express worry about a terrorist attack and 65 percent say they’re concerned about an Ebola epidemic – disquieting sentiments when confidence in the political system is so weak. (Details of the dissatisfaction index will be covered in a separate report tomorrow.)

History, for its part, offers the Democrats cold comfort. Obama’s approval rating matches George W. Bush’s heading into the 2006 midterms, when the Republicans lost 30 seats. The only postwar president numerically lower heading into a second midterm was Harry Truman, at 39 percent approval, in 1950; his Democrats lost 28 seats. While race-by-race assessments don’t suggest those kinds of losses this year, the comparison adds context to the GOP’s upper hand.

Such results also help explain why Obama is attending his first public campaign rally of 2014 only today, for Gov. Dan Malloy of Connecticut.

More.

Far-Left Ghoul Scott Lemieux: Killing Babies is a 'Positive Social Good'

Just wow.

Let's just kill more babies, as if we haven't killed enough already, with the left's pro-abortion genocide that's cut a murderous swath across America since the Supreme Court so egregiously ruled in 1973.

For as ghoulish at take you're likely to read, here's your go-to wannabe baby-killer Scotty Lemieux, at the regressive hate-site Leftists, Ghouls and Murder, "Abortion Rights Without Apology." (Via Memeorandum.)

Just read it at the link --- and be ready for the most shameless advocacy for the killing of society's most vulnerable, the unborn.

Leszek Kolakowski: The Man Who Killed Marxism

From Mark Michalski, at RealClearReligion, "The Man Who Killed Marxism":

In Main Currents of Marxism, Kolakowski wrote that "Marxism has been the greatest fantasy of our century." According to him, socialism signifies giving the solution which can never exist. "At present," the author pointed out, "Marxism neither interprets the world nor changes it; it is merely a repetition of slogans." And this is because the ruling elite does not represent the society's needs, but places empty ideology above anything else. Clearly the most important premise of the socialist rule is that it can be exercised by those who possess power. The system which exacts stern order and blind obedience may only triumph through violence, fear, and military coercion. At the same time this system generates only alienation, and stagnation. The sad story of our times is that the system which claims to embody the rights, privileges and welfare of the working class is the same system whose biggest enemy is its very citizens. Kolakowski jokes that socialism would be a splendid idea if only there were no people.

An astounding tome, Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders - The Golden Age - The Breakdown.