President Obama gave Thomas Friedman an hour long interview before heading off on vacation to Martha’s Vineyard.    Within the interview the failure of a cohesive Obama foreign policy shines through despite the attempted cover from liberal reporters.
There’s actually two parts to this interview – the interview as reported – and the opinion piece from Friedman about the interview itself.
Within the Times Article you find the footprints of a dejected President staring boldly into the face of his own failure and shortcomings:

[…]  “We’re not going to let them create some caliphate through Syria and Iraq,” the president said in an hourlong interview with Thomas L. Friedman, a New York Times columnist, as American planes and drones began dropping bombs in Iraq. “But we can only do that if we know that we have got partners on the ground who are capable of filling the void.”

[…]  Mr. Obama offered his justifications for his latest use of military force in Iraq while lamenting the outcome of a similar decision he made to intervene militarily in Libya in 2011. He defended the desire to help oust the Libyan dictator, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, with American air power, but he acknowledged that he had “underestimated” the chaos that would follow after American forces left.

“So that’s a lesson that I now apply every time I ask the question, ‘Should we intervene militarily?’ ” Mr. Obama said. “Do we have an answer the day after?”

Oh that’s nice, as long as he readily admits his failure in Libya now.   Readers will note he’s essentially reaffirming the Bush policy in Iraq by saying the failure in Libya was a failure to stick around and nation build.

This, despite the fact Obama himself worsened the collapse in Iraq by pulling U.S. forces out ahead of structural governance in place which would insure their own security.

So failing to have a plan to stick around in Libya was a mistake, but pulling out from a plan to stick around in Iraq was, well, what exactly ? (more…)

Let’s get the McCain story out of the way first….

Back in May 2013 Republican Senator John McCain made a secret trip to Syria to talk to the forces fighting against Assad.

Press pool given just seconds to shoot photo of POTUS on phone through Oval Office door. (Photo by @Jduckham) pic.twitter.com/thpgmjEXcR

— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) August 8, 2014

Ya don’t say…  It’s as if the Obama cabinet departments have something to hide, or, well, something….

(Via The Blaze) The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services admitted in a Wednesday letter to the National Archives and Records Administration that one its senior executives, Marilyn Tavenner, likely deleted some of the emails subpoenaed by Congress ten months ago regarding the botched Healthcare.gov rollout.

The admission resulted in a scathing response from Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, who called the destroying of government emails a “violation of federal law.”

“Today’s news that a senior HHS executive destroyed emails relevant to a congressional investigation means that the Obama Administration has lost or destroyed emails for more than 20 witnesses, and in each case, the loss wasn’t disclosed to the National Archives or Congress for months or years, in violation of federal law,” Issa said in a statement. “It defies logic that so many senior Administration officials were found to have ignored federal record keeping requirements only after Congress asked to see their emails.”

(more…)

More brilliance from the simultaneously firing synapses of The Harf.

(Via PJ Media) Another classic from the “promise of hashtag” crowd.
During today’s State Department press briefing, deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf addressed the unfolding crisis in Iraq.

That crisis has many sources, but its chief source is ISIL. ISIL has taken hold of a large swath of northern Iraq and is killing anyone and everyone who gets in their way, or who refuses to bow to their take on Islam. Currently ISIL has about 40,000 men, women and children holed up on top of a mountain, starving them to death.
A reporter asked if there is a “confrontation to stop” ISIL’s spread.

Harf: “It’s not just a humanitarian crisis. I mean, that’s certainly a key piece of particularly what we’ve seen over the last 48 hours, certainly. But there’s a huge security challenge – if you talk about the Mosul dam, if you talk about other places.
ISIL is a threat not just because they kill innocent civilians because of their religion, but because they’re a huge security threat to the stability of certain parts of Iraq. And that’s why throughout this conflict you have seen us continue to ramp up our support and continue to look very urgently at other things we could do to help fight this threat, because at the end of the day we can help the Iraqis, but the Iraqis also have to stand up, they have to pull themselves together, with our help, because this is a threat that certainly they but no one else in the region wants to see grow any more.”

.¶…”The wheels on the bike go harf, harf. harf”,….

Fuck, @CNN! I was enjoying The Sixties segment! You better bring it back after Obama's speech!

— ¯_(ツ)_/¯ (@messsolitude) August 8, 2014

https://twitter.com/jasetheman81/statuses/497554980010987522
https://twitter.com/hmb1021/statuses/497555819333156864
(more…)

Yet more convincing evidence of the reality.   Stopping illegal immigration is a winning cross party platform.   The majority of the U.S. people want to see illegal immigration halted – period.   The region holding the highest negative opinion (New England)  of consequences is one of the most liberal regions in the nation. 

(The Hill)  A majority of people in the United States say undocumented immigrants threaten their way of life and even the economy, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Thursday.  [Poll HERE]
Seventy percent said they believe these illegal immigrants threaten U.S. customs and beliefs. Eighty-six percent of Republicans hold that belief.
Nearly two-thirds said illegal immigrants are a burden on the nation’s economy, the poll found. (more…)

Sometimes we finding ourselves asking why do we even bother to point out these contrasting narratives.   The sad reality is that people do that which is important to them, and they avoid that which is unimportant.   The same principle applies to President Obama.

Basketball-fan-in-chief Barack Obama personally took to Twitter on Wednesday to congratulate the San Antonio Spurs on becoming the first team in the NBA to hire a full-time female coach.

The 2014 championship team announced on Tuesday they had hired former Colorado State standout Becky Hammond as an assistant to head coach Gregg Popovich. (link)

Congrats to @BeckyHammon, @NBA's first full-time female coach. When #WomenSucceed, America succeeds — and we know the @Spurs will, too. -bo

— White House Archived (@ObamaWhiteHouse) August 7, 2014

As you can see the “official” Barack Obama “-BO” message was sent shortly following a press conference where he discussed the African Summit and various topics of interest to the media.
In addition to various African Union topics President Obama also mentioned: The ebola virus, Israel and Gaza, fighting in the Ukraine, an intransient congress, immigration reform, freedom of the press and terrorism. (more…)

If the world thinks pretending this is not happening -or worse ignoring it- is going to spare them the same, they are gravely mistaken.  […]  But the UN seeks to prosecute Israelis for “war crimes” for defending themselves against this pox against humanity.  – Pamela Geller 

(Via Pam Geller)  A Filipino Christian nurse in Libya was abducted by Muslims from her home and gang raped by up to six Muslim men. According to one report:

A Filipino nurse has been kidnapped and gang-raped in the Libyan capital of Tripoli.
The woman was seized outside her residence on Wednesday and taken to an unknown location, where she was sexually abused by up to six men, the Philippines’ Foreign Affairs spokesman Charles Jose told reporters.
She was released about two hours later and taken to hospital for treatment.
The incident took place only a few days after a Filipino construction worker was beheaded, amid allegations he was killed for not being a Muslim.
Following the latest incident, the Filipino government called for the evacuation of its 13,000 citizens in Libya, which has been rocked by violence in the last few months.
A recent report explains how the Filipino government is now escorting all of its people from Libya: (more…)

Hypocrisy thy name is….   

(Via Washington Times) Actor Robert Redford is suing the state of New York for what he says are unfair taxes from the sale of the Sundance Channel.

Mr. Redford, a Utah resident, sued the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance in Albany County Supreme Court on July 30, claiming that he’s being doubly taxed on money his company made when it sold off its portion of the channel in 2005, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
New York is taxing the actor-director $845,066 plus $727,404 in interest owed — roughly $1.57 million — for the money he made in the sale, but Mr. Redford said he already paid taxes on the revenue in Utah. (more…)