Washington Post: Obama’s Never Implemented Syria Strike Plan Was Much Bigger Than Trump’s Or Something

By William Teach April 10, 2017 – 7:29 am

Hardcore leftist and Obama supporting Washington Post writer Josh Rogin attempts a bit of “our guy’s is bigger than your guy’s” when it comes to Syria, ending with a big wif

Obama’s Syria strike plan was much bigger than Trump’s

The Trump administration’s strike on one of Bashar al-Assad’s air bases was similar in style and objectives to the strike plan that President Barack Obama prepared in 2013 — except that Obama’s attacks were to be several times bigger than President Trump’s. At the time, leading Republicans mocked the Obama administration for what it called “pinprick” strikes, calling them ineffective. Today they praise Trump’s smaller strikes as perfectly calculated.

“What we had in mind in 2013 had many more targets and was much more expansive,” a senior Obama administration official involved in those discussions told me.

What they had in mind they never actually did. So, that would make Trump’s strike 100% bigger than Obama’s, wouldn’t you say? The idea here, though, is to say that Obama was a bigger thinker than Trump, and an attempt to take down Trump for this one strike.

“This is different chemical weapons attack and a different president, and the difference is that this president took action,” the [Trump] official said. “It’s more likely to change Assad’s behavior than no action on the part of President Obama.”

Exactly. This was in direct response to a chemical attack by Assad. Will it change Assad’s behavior? Time will tell.

As for Republicans mocking the Obama admin over pinprick strikes? There’s a reason for that

Several of the leading Republicans who praised Trump’s Syria strike had previously said that Obama’s 2013 plan would have been too insignificant to matter. Their criticism was in response to then-Secretary of State John F. Kerry promising that the strikes would be “unbelievably small,” and would not lead to a larger U.S. military involvement in Syria.

Kerry opened up the plan for mocking. Quotes from both Mitch McConnell and Marco Rubio referring to the never-implemented plan as pinprick strikes are provided in the opinion piece, but, context matters. Trump’s strike was meant to send a message of “don’t do it again, because we won’t dither and debate next time, we’ll strike quickly.” Obama’s was meant to be incredibly small and not do much of anything.

Trump administration officials have said they are “ready to do more.” And if Assad does use chemical weapons again, there are already plans they can use — the ones Obama and his team drew up and that Republicans criticized years ago.

Or, Trump can do something different, meant to send an even stronger message that red lines shall not be crossed, rather than incredibly small strikes.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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If All You See…

By William Teach April 9, 2017 – 1:00 pm

…is a rising ocean encroaching on the land, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Knuckledraggin My Life Away, with a post on always reading the fine print.

Read: If All You See… »

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Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

By William Teach April 9, 2017 – 8:57 am

Happy Sunday! A gorgeous day in America. The Sun is shining, the fish are biting, and it’s a great time to get outdoors. This pinup is by Tatiana Doronino, with a wee bit of help.

What is happening in Ye Olde Blogosphere? The Fine 15

  1. The Daley Gator features yet another crazy feminist
  2. 357 Magnum discusses the German bureaucratic failures that led to the Christmas market attack
  3. America’s Watchtower covers nutty conspiracy theories on MSNBC
  4. American Lens notes a bit of irony for the Seattle mayor who wanted to boycott NC over HB2
  5. Chicks On The Right covers what real female empowerment looks like
  6. Creeping Sharia covers yet another honor killing
  7. Flopping Aces discusses Syria’s use of chemical weapons as it relates to Obama’s Iran deal
  8. Gay Patriot notes the Left’s love of transgressive art
  9. The Geller Report notes San Diego making safe spaces for Muslims while requiring non-Muslims to learn about Islam (say, where’s the ACLU and the Freedom From Religion folks?)
  10. House Of Eratosthenes discusses the crackpot history of liberalism
  11. Jihad Watch notes what Muslims in Sweden did as a jihad attack suspect was arrested
  12. Moonbattery covers what Target’s moonbattery has been costing them
  13. Raised On Hoecakes has thoughts on the Syrian strike
  14. The Last Refuge covers a big manhunt for a serious leftist wackadoodle who threatened Trump
  15. And last, but not least, The Lid notes another leftist professor calling for killing Trump and executing Republicans

As always, the full set of pinups can be seen in the Patriotic Pinup category, or over at my Gallery page. While we are on pinups, since it is that time of year, have you gotten your “Pinups for Vets” calendar yet? And don’t forget to check out what I declare to be our War on Women Rule 5 and linky luv posts and things that interest me

Don’t forget to check out all the other great material all the linked blogs have!

Anyone else have a link or hotty-fest going on? Let me know so I can add you to the list. (BTW, since someone asked, the reason I leave links for the previous week up (or you might see a *) is because they are place holders for later in the day or for next weeks. Easier than rewriting all the time. Also, the listing order has to do with how they are added over time, not how good a post is. I just copy and paste from the previous week, then edit. If you see one of the *’s, go ahead and check out the blog anyhow, see if there is an update. I cannot update with my Android during the day.

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New York Becomes First State To Provide Lawyers For Illegal Aliens

By William Teach April 9, 2017 – 7:47 am

On the latest ICE Declined Detainer Outcome Report, the state of New York features illegal aliens who were protected despite being convicted of sex assault – carnal abuse, robbery, selling heroin, larceny, assault, intimidation, fraud, and several other crimes. In previous reports, we see much the same. And ICE has caught plenty of illegal aliens who have committed serious crimes in NY. Yet, NY is more concerned with keeping their population which is unlawfully present

For some reason, this is really important to Elle, which is a women’s fashion magazine. I guess they need the low wage sweatshop work that illegals can provide

The cultural divide widens. While President Trump has restricted Muslim visitors and cracked down on Mexican immigration, the state of New York has announced even more protection of their immigrant population. In their 2018 budget, lawmakers granted $4 million to expand the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, which provides public defenders to immigrants facing deportation who can’t afford other counsel.

New York is the first state in the country to create such a rich system of legal services for immigrants. In a tweet today, NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman confirmed the news, saying, “Every New Yorker deserves a fair day in court. For the first time, every immigrant under threat of deportation will be guaranteed theirs.”

Of course, they’re not actually New Yorkers. They’re Mexicans, Hondurans, from China, the Dominican Republic, Burkino Faso, Ecuador, El Salvador (most like MS-13), India, and other nations.

But, hey, it’s great that New York wants to defend people who commit sex assaults against their citizens who should not even be in the country, eh?

A study has shown that without legal counsel, only 3% of detained immigrants avoid deportation, according to the Vera Institute of Justice. The assistance of a public defender can improve an immigrant’s chance of staying in the United States by as much as 1000%.

“This is a tremendous step toward just and fair results in deportation proceedings, ensuring that no New Yorker will be detained and deported solely because of the inability to hire a lawyer,” Oren Root, director of Vera’s Center on Immigration and Justice, tells ELLE.com. “Countless families will remain intact because of the [New York State Senate]’s leadership on this critical issue.”

The court appearance should go something like “counselor, is your client lawfully present in the United States?” “No, your honor.” “OK, deportation it is.” With or without a lawyer, the illegals have no legal right to be in the U.S., and shouldn’t be able to avoid deportation.

The constant, however, was that [Trump] wanted to increase deportations and immigration enforcement raids, and that’s been borne out by the first months of his presidency. For any immigrants who face this peril in the state of New York, however, there’s now a way for them to secure legal counsel and get the basic help they need to defend themselves.

Why should any illegal prevail in court? There’s no gray area. They are either here lawfully or not. And, if unlawfully, they should be sent packing. If their family wants to come with, that’s on the illegals. They chose to violate U.S. law. If a family is separated because mom and/or dad decided to knock over a liquor store regardless of the reason and is sent to jail, that’s on mom/dad. Illegal actions have consequences.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Liberals Are Trotting Out Weapons Grade Stupidity On Syria Strike

By William Teach April 8, 2017 – 5:46 pm

A couple quick hitters, starting with, get this, cultural appropriation

In case you might think that’s just someone trolling liberalspeak, alas, no, she’s editor-in-chief at Mother Jones.

Then you have CNN trying to bait a Syrian refugee into supporting Hillary. It didn’t work out very well for CNN, who found out

But, hey, good news, suddenly Liberals are Very Concerned over government spending

Remember the good old days when pissing away a half a billion on Solyndra was a pittance? Heck, even the over $800 billion spent on the Stimulus was a tiny amount.

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If All You See…

By William Teach April 8, 2017 – 1:00 pm

…is a baseball stadium for a team that uses lots of fossil fuels to travel, so they should be taxed, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Jihad Watch, with a post on the death of free speech in Germany.

Read: If All You See… »

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Good News: There’s Now A 9 Step Process For Warmists Depressed Over Hotcoldwetdry

By William Teach April 8, 2017 – 10:30 am

Sadly, the 9 step program doesn’t include how members of the Cult of Climastrology can extricate themselves from the cult and back into the real world. Because their own non-science talking points have made them depressed

Depressed about climate change? There’s a 9-step program for that.

One recent weeknight, ten people gathered around a knotty walnut table in a living room in suburban Salt Lake City. Laura Schmidt, a 31-year-old environmental advocate, spoke first. This being the group’s eighth gathering, their discussion centered on seeking beauty and meaning. Schmidt, an athletic woman with a dry sense of humor and shoulder-length brown hair, talked about the importance of exercising the neocortex, the part of the brain that mediates advanced mental functions, in order to access deeper meaning. With the Earth tilting toward climate catastrophe, the capacity to build resiliency through beauty and meaning is critical for preserving the self and planet, Schmidt said. Each member of the group took a few minutes to share. One read a poem by Rilke; another, words by Terry Tempest Williams, the American writer and conservationist. They spoke about their feelings of anxiety and grief, and of finding strength in the natural world. One man told the story of wheeling his terminally ill wife to a hospital room window to watch a final sunset.

What, no bong available?

Imagine Alcoholics Anonymous mixed with an environmental humanities course, and you’ll begin to get a sense of the “good grief” group started by Schmidt. Its goal is to help people cope with what’s been called “climate grief” — anxiety, sadness, depression, and other emotions provoked by awareness of the planet’s march toward a hotter, less biologically diverse, and potentially unsustainable future. The psychological consequences of climate change have been the subject of greater study in recent years, with the Obama White House releasing a report in 2016 that predicted growing numbers of people would experience direct mental-health effects from exposure to weather-related natural disasters as well as indirect stress and anxiety. In March, the American Psychiatric Association approved a policy committing to mitigate the adverse mental health effects of climate change. (snip)

Schmidt reached out to dozens of social-justice activists and environmentalists, people like Derrick Jensen and Bill McKibben, to learn how they were personally affected. What she found was that feelings of sadness and anxiety, and even literal nightmares, were common.

Last year, with the help of her partner, Aimee Reau, Schmidt developed a nine-step program for building resiliency loosely modeled on AA (The steps begin with “admitting there’s a problem,” and include “acknowledging the ways in which we’re complicit,” “taking breaks and respecting your limits,” and “letting go.”) While she initially intended it for environmental professionals, most of those who signed up are employed in other fields but are personally committed to a greener planet. About a dozen people attend each session and 50 subscribe to its mailings. Schmidt, who now works as an outreach coordinator at the environmental group HEAL Utah, hopes to soon evaluate the pilot, incorporate the program as a nonprofit, and potentially expand it to other cities.

Unsurprisingly, none of the 9 steps include “give up your own use of fossil fuels and make your own life carbon neutral.” There’s a lot of reaching inner feelings, demonstrating, doing “inner work”, and the typical squishiness expected from the wackadoodles in the Cult.

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Denver Officials Are Pretty Upset That ICE Detains Illegals In “Sensitive Areas”

By William Teach April 8, 2017 – 8:09 am

According to the their talking points, police should never arrest criminals near schools and courthouses

Denver Officials Want ICE Agents to Back Off Arresting Illegal Immigrants at ‘Sensitive Locations’

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock — along with 18 officials from the Colorado city, local school system, and surrounding county — sent a letter to the field director of ICE in nearby Centennial on Thursday, demanding that the federal immigration enforcement agency not conduct operations at “sensitive” areas, such as schools and courtrooms.

The CBS affiliate in Denver detailed the circumstances surrounding the letter on Thursday. The mayor, who considers Denver an unofficial “sanctuary city,” cited an “ICE enforcement action at a residence directly adjacent” to Colorado High School Charter on March 14, 2017. The school is apparently “located in a Denver neighborhood that serves a large immigrant population.”

In reality, this occurred blocks away from the school. Of course, the Denver officials are upset that any arrest of an illegal alien criminal would occur anywhere near this neighborhood of illegal aliens. ICE, for its part, would think this is great. More on that later.

As far as courtrooms go, those are not part of ICE’s sensitive locations policy, and, really, where better to detain an illegal than at the place where their crimes are being adjudicated and where there will be little chance that the illegal is carry any weapons?

The letter also pointed out how “video taken during the incident shows ICE agents wearing black uniforms with the word ‘POLICE’ in large white block letters. The word ‘ICE’ was much smaller and below the word ‘POLICE.’” The officials claimed that “these types of uniforms lead to confusion and fear within our community as many mistakenly assume that our local police are involved in immigration enforcement actions.”

Mayor Hancock then underlined that “our local police rely on information and cooperation from our immigrant community to protect the entire city. Identifying yourselves as ‘police’ confuses and erodes the trust between our local police and the immigrant community endangering the community at large.”

Shouldn’t police be involved in stopping crime? Shouldn’t criminals look at police and go “oh, crap!” and be scared? Well, except in sanctuary cities, where they’ve decided on this new talking point of whining about ICE law enforcement members wearing “police” on their uniforms.

One has to wonder: are the mayor and officials cool with police not enforcing gun laws and sexual assault laws at schools?

What has all this “fear” being stoked done?

BORDER CROSSING ARRESTS REACH LOWEST POINT SINCE 2000

Arrests at the United States’ southern Border have reached their lowest point in 17 years, according to Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. Fewer than 17,000 illegal aliens were caught attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border last month, compared to more than 58,000 in December, 2016, and 48,150 in March of last year. Contributing to this improvement is a steep decline of Unaccompanied Alien Minors (UAMs) attempting to enter the country. Fewer than 1,000 UAMs were apprehended, compared to 4,209 in March of 2016.

The presumed drop in attempted illegal crossings is “no mistake,” according to Secretary Kelly. In a written testimony submitted to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, he lauded “successful efforts” by border agents and “the support of our leadership in the White House” as primary factors.

Ever since announcing his candidacy, President Trump has spoken strongly in favor of enforcing existing immigration laws. This rhetoric appears to be giving potential illegal aliens second thoughts about trying to enter the United States – at least until they see what policies the administration ends up implementing and/or enforcing.

And you know who is helping with all this? Democrats and their compatriots in the media, who are constantly broadcasting these actions against illegals and yammering about how fearful they are, making them even more fearful, and causing those who think about coming illegally to rethink that action.

Read: Denver Officials Are Pretty Upset That ICE Detains Illegals In “Sensitive Areas” »

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NY Times Finally Figures Out Their Complaints With Trump’s Syrian Airstrike

By William Teach April 8, 2017 – 7:51 am

It took a little bit of time, but the NY Times Editorial Board, the EB for, as you know, one of the leading newspapers in not just the U.S., but the world, finally came up with a line of attack against President Trump, one which includes a graphic of a very big question mark

Big!

After the Airstrikes on Syria, What’s Next?

It was hard not to feel some sense of emotional satisfaction, and justice done, when American cruise missiles struck an airfield in Syria on Thursday. The country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, needed to understand that there would finally be a cost for his brutality, in this case the use of chemical weapons with sarin, a banned nerve agent, that killed scores of civilians earlier this week in one of the worst atrocities of the Syrian civil war.

Can’t you feel the “but” coming?

But it is also hard not to feel unsettled by the many questions raised by President Trump’s decision. Among them: Was it legal? Was it an impetuous, isolated response unrelated to a larger strategy for resolving the complex dilemma of Syria, a nation tormented not just by civil war but also by the fight against the Islamic State? So far, there is no evidence that Mr. Trump has thought through the implications of using military force or figured out what to do next.

As to the last, have they, you know, asked him? Because there’s no evidence he and his team haven’t thought through the implications. The main one seeming to be to show Syria’s leader Assad that the use of chemical weapons is a Bad Idea and will be met with force. And that force will be used quickly. It has also, reportedly, caused North Korea’s resident nutjob leader to go into hiding.

The NYTEB then seems to complain about Mr. Trump changing his mind on what’s going on in Syria from his previous notions of the civil war in Syria, because changing one’s mind when you see children dead from chemical weapons is wrong or something. But, the Times had to find ways to put a positive in a negative light. And they whine about Trump blocking Syrian refugees from entering the U.S., something many, many Leftist pundits have already stated, because this is part of the agreed upon talking points to Bash Trump.

Strangely, none of the Leftists pushing that meme have offered to host Syrian refugees in their own homes.

So what did the 59 missiles accomplish? Militarily, this was a measured response that severely damaged Syrian aircraft and infrastructure at Al Shayrat airfield. Tactically, it may help persuade Mr. Assad (and other problematic leaders, like those in North Korea) that using weapons of mass destruction will not go unpunished. But Mr. Assad still has his chemical weapons, and the civil war endures.

Really? Where was the NY Times when Team Obama was crowing about having removed most of Syria’s chemical weapons, which turned out to be a big lie? Then the EB jumps into another leftist conspiracy theory being bandied about

Whether by design or not, the American military action has also shifted the focus from the scandal over Russia’s interference in the election on Mr. Trump’s behalf and allegations that the president and his allies may have colluded with Moscow.

The old “question the timing” theory.

But the action lacked authorization from Congress and the United Nations Security Council, raising questions about its legality and spotlighting a rich irony. In 2013, Mr. Trump argued that Mr. Obama must get congressional approval before attacking Syria. Congress, with a long history of ducking its war-making responsibility, refused to give it.

They refused to give it because Team Obama wasn’t really asking, and what little they had was essentially a sticky note of a plan.

In all fairness, the legality and Congressional authority memes were briefly brought up by the NYTEB regarding Obama’s Big Libyan Adventure, as well as wondering what the objectives were, but, not to the complaining and bashing extent they go after Mr. Trump.

All that said, what does President Trump do? What he did was legal, per the War Powers Act. If he decides to do more, then, yes, going to Congress is necessary. Regardless, so many Democrats just can’t say “good job.”

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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If All You See…

By William Teach April 7, 2017 – 1:00 pm

…is a fence that will rust from too much extreme rain, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Moonbattery, with a post on Nivea committing a Thoughtcrime.

Read: If All You See… »

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