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I’ve said for years that the phrase “Determined Weakness” has been the hallmark of Obama’s intentions from from the get go.  His view of his mission to “make this America better” is actually to make it weaker.  Look at the results of his domestic policies (and not his words or “intent”):

• High unemployment still
• Worst labor participation percentage ever
• Putting the Welfare State growth on steroids
• Debt has soared $7 Trillion
• Unconstitutional and illegal (as ruled by several courts) actions
• Attempts to redefine the meanings of the plain language of the Constitution
• The use of Government for retribution for identity groups that oppose him (Christians, TEA Party, Conservatives)
• Unwillingness to work with Congress
• Hollowing out our military

The list goes on and on.

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Heh!  Those scientists – such cards!   From The Corner:

BBC, December 12, 2007:

Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice. Their latest modelling studies indicate northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.

2007 + 6 (using my old ancient math on a slide rule) is 2013.  Why, that’s NOW!  You know, I’m kinda looking up at that picture, and even last year, there was lots of ice (just a lot less than before).  This year?  Heh!

Instead, days before the annual autumn re-freeze is due to begin, an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia’s northern shores.

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Years ago, one of the Left’s favorite bumper sticker said that they would have achieved their goal when instead of schools having bake sales, the Department of Defense had to have one.  The idea was also summed up by the phrase “Make Love Not War”.  Now, education, peace, and love are nice things, important things – but so is the ability to defend oneself. Well, from a great new interactive tool from the CATO Institute comes this chart that shows spending for Federal Departments from 1970 to 2013 that shows that those Leftist nostrums are now coming true.  I picked:

• Social Security Administration (due to the Boomers retiring)
• Department of Defense (to see the effects of Obama as C-in-C)
• Department of Health and Human Services (as I have felt that our welfare state has been growing out of control, especially under Obama)
• Department of the Treasury (to see the effects of the “stimulus” spending and if it has slowed)
• International Aid Programs (because it seems every TEA Party rally has folks railing against this kind of spending)

Big picture after the jump and H/T: Townhall

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Yeah, but this is what happens when it doesn’t work:

RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity’s very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)

It seems, however, that Obama has assumed that everyone would play by his playbook and, well, have “a book” that he could turn against them.  For his fumbling concerning Syria, this may be his Waterloo.  Prattling on about a “Red line” and “moral authority”  Obama has tried to make others just fall into line like good little doobies (no, not the kind that the Choom Gang was familiar with) with his use of RULE 10 (“If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.”).  He tried it with the American people who have rightly seen through it.  He has tried to force the Congress to “live up to its rule book”  but having been ignored, slighted, and bullied by him, it looks like they are growing a few hundred pair.  Plus, all of these elected officials are rightly worried about being seen  as favoring the same people that attacked us, Al Qaeda, and started us into 2 wars – and given how they have or are turning out, they are more concerned with their butts than Obama’s legacy or Presidency.

Or, have the blinders finally come off?

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Yesterday I posted this about the bomb that Anthem laid concerning healthcare under Obamacare rules – and the rules laid down by our own State bureaucrats:

Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield confirmed that nearly half of the hospitals in its network will not be taking part in the program. Understanding what the rules are at the Insurance Department around network adequacy, we determined we had to come up with an appropriate balance between access and affordability,” said Paula Rogers of Anthem.

Well, as I figured, a little more came out today:

“We are well aware the concept of a narrow network is new to New Hampshire,” Rogers said. “Do we need 26 hospitals to serve our plan? We decided we didn’t.” The network for Anthem individual policy holders who do not purchase through the exchange will be limited as well when current policies expire.

I have no problem with a private company making decisions in how it runs that business – after all, it is “private property” which the owners control and the First Amendment gives them the Right to associate with whom they wish – and who they don’t.  If a Free Marketplace truly existed, there would be competition in a heartbeat to fill the vacuum left by this decision to join up the OTHER 1/2 of the hospitals left out of Anthem’s plan.  Unfortunately, as opposed to Progressives trying to mask the government control over healthcare by making it seem that there is a “real marketplace”, there isn’t one and anyone who says otherwise is either woefully stupid or crassly lying to you.  Anthem has this to do CYA:

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“Conservatives believe Liberals are misguided; Liberals think Conservatives are EVIL!“

And old phrase – but when you have been watching not only what Liberals / Progressives say but also what they DO and behave, it is clear that Katrina vandenHeuval is not kidding:

Maybe we could launch intervention in those states which are waging war vs. democracy, rolling back voting rights?

— Katrina vandenHeuvel (@KatrinaNation) September 4, 2013

You see, EVIL must be stamped out – and anyone or ANYTHING that disagrees with them, their agenda (bordering on religious heterodoxy), or their politics must be wiped out completely.  How often have you seen Conservatives hounded and driven out, not only the area in which that Conservative “has sinned” but everything in which that Conservative participates?  And she wants to step that up by using the US Military?

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I guess I was prescient yesterday.

Remember, before now US Senator Jeanne Shaheen, she was the NH State Senator who sponsored SB711 – that godawful bill of healthcare destruction that annhiliated the insurance carrier competition in NH.  From over two dozen companies vying for New Hampshirites’ business and dollars (and forcing them to provide better coverage based on what people were willing to pay), we ended up with two (and change).  This is what Jeanne Shaheen’s Democrat Party calls “goodness” – more regulation ensued and that’s all they cared about – for nothing says “we care” than regulating all choice out of the marketplace.  Even choices that people really liked and wanted.  But, like all good busybody Nanny Staters, Shaheen just couldn’t leave other peoples’ wants to themselves – she just had to step in to “set those citizens right”.  And did it again, being one of the major pushers of Obamacare.

She must be so “HAPPY HAPPY” (a little Duck Dynasty, that) over the latest news that her push to kill competition has resulted in only ONE carrier in the State for the Federally sponsored ObamaExchange (then there will be only 1 company to kill off to get to her penultimate goal – the Federal Govt nationalizing the industry outright.  Quiet Jeanne – only in word for her deeds against her “New Hampshire wards” speak for her.   The news of the day?  That the single company in the NH Exchange, Anthem, has decided that as the only Obamacare representative carrier in the State, it only needs 1/2 the hospitals in the State – and YOU DON’T EITHER!  After all, these are the Smart People and know far better than you that a far away hospital is best (“for the common good”).

And we can directly blame all those Obama voters here in NH for putting everyone into this pickle.

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Or you end up with “how DARE you blame me what what I said” weasel words:

“First of all, I didn’t set a red line,” Barack Obama said today at a press conference in Stockholm. “The world set a red line. The world set a red line when governments representing 98% of the world’s population said the use of chemical weapons are [sic] abhorrent and passed a treaty forbidding their use, even when countries are engaged in war.”

Once again, another politician that has forgotten that the Internet doesn’t:

We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.

No, Prez Wishes-He-Was-Teflon, you can’t withdraw your “War” vote with a “Present” vote by blaming everyone else in the world. 

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“The King is dead, long live the King” – ok, so not so much a monarchy in the NH State Senate (that would be reserved for the current denizen of the Secretary of State (who has been living (politically) the first half of the Vulcan good-bye).  However, Bragdon decided that the LGC position was more preferable to that of being NH State Senate President and so another election was needed (and now will a future election have Bragdon solely concerned with the business of the LGC? There are some names out in the wings on the Republican side that may be biding their time).  Long live [next] King President Chuck Morse; for all of his talk of being conservative, the proof will be in the actions and not the words.  Certainly he has a couple of weighty issues on his placemat – the question will be, what will be the track that will be taken?  Certainly there will be his vote that can show us which but how he handles assignments, interacts with the House and Hassan – let’s go with the political scale:  the fairly moderate Bragdon in the center or more of a truer conservative with Bill O’Brien on the Right?

Pindell has already made his thoughts known:

1. Things are about to get more partisan in Concord
2. Good for gambling
3. Republicans will have more of an in-state leader

For the purposes of this post, I don’t care about #2 but the issues I raised above really depends on #1.  If that turns out that Pindell’s #1 becomes true, it means that Morse has gone Rightward (or, perhaps better stated, walks the talk).  By definition, he will have to disagree with the Progressive Dems of the House, the Progressive Dem in the corner office, and then is willing to do political battle with Dems in the Senate – is that how he will ascend to the throne, to make the split from being simply a colleague to, well, the boss (in a manner of speaking).  As he contemplates this change, will he keep the “Republican bar”:

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As Progressivism is morphing to take over our Constitutional Republic:

That’s a culture under full-scale assault these days. One of the core assumptions of Obama-style technocratic government is that private businesses, customers, and employees cannot be trusted to engage in commerce with each other. The benevolent State must oversee every transaction, from paychecks to purchases. People have been taught to hate and fear their employers, who are portrayed in Obama mythology as heartless predators, scarcely aware of the hapless Little People they gobble up in their quest for outrageous wealth. (“You didn’t build that! Someone else made that happen!”)

In truth, Cruz pointed out, the real divide is between predatory government and its dependents – many of whom are millionaires – versus a rapidly dwindling private-sector working America. The people who cash paychecks should not allow themselves to be manipulated into hating the people who write them. They have a lot more in common than leftist pop culture likes to acknowledge.

– John Hayward, RedState

And as we move from Free Marketplace to a Limited Markeplace to Crony Capitalism, remember that:

• Obamacare is nothing more than a shill for a single payer system: healthcare nationalized
• Student loans – nationalized by Government already, it is now, yet again, in crisis – so Obama wants to start the nationalization of Higher Ed industry.
• EPA is nationalizing what energy sources will be permitted, grabbing for Federalizing water, and determining how we are to live our lives simply because we all exude CO2
• EPA / HUD, DOT’ ustainable Communities Initiative is determining where we can live, how we can live, how we can travel – and where we can no longer go
• Via Common Core – the Federalization of formerly local control of education is moving FORWARD!

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