Armageddon or change?

If the root causes of the events now unfolding in the Middle East are not clear to the vast majority of Americans, then we we witness the end of this Republic within the next 60 days.  What might come after is anyone's guess, but if history is our guide, it may not be pretty.  This cartoon captures the various issues involved at this moment in time better than thousands of words.  

Churchill's read on Mohammedanism

 ONE OF CHURCHILL'S MANY INSIGHTS.

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!  Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.  The effects are apparent in many countries.  Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.  A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.  The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property—either as a child, a wife, or a concubine—must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.  Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities.  Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die.  But the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it.  No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.  Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proseltyzing faith.  It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science—the science against which it had vainly struggled—the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.

Hugh Hewitt strikes again

From Hugh Hewitt here's a record of Obama's "achievements" and why he wants you to give him four more years.

A shameful record of dissembling

Here is the video record of Obama's lies, mostly involving Obamacare, since the beginning of his campaign for the presidency through its passage into law:

The original fraud

Bill Clinton struts around the world making speeches and raking in millions for his efforts never saying or doing anything remotely helpful to anyone other than his own accountant. And yet he is the darling of all Democrats wowing them all at the recent party convention.  Personal acquaintances and friends who have met Clinton have been charmed by his personality and erudition.  In the country today he is probably the most popular ex-president alive and would probably be considered one of the all time great presidents by most historians.

In truth Clinton is a cad, a fraud, a phony, and probably one of the five worst presidents ever. What's more, he was elected on a fluke.  Democrats love to nominate smooth talking professional politicians who have perfected the art of winning the vote of the millions of gullible people looking for a savior.  In Clinton's case his background of serial mistreatment of women and questionable real estate machinations while Governor of Arkansas was covered up by his campaign staff and his wife, making him at least acceptable to middle America.  He got his party's nomination because the Democrat Party poobahs would nominate Saddam Hussein if they thought he could win a general election.  Clinton won the general because Ross Perot carved out 20%  of mostly Republican votes from H.W. Bush enabling Clinton to eke out a victory with less than a majority.  Mid term voters in his first term rejected his standard socialist policies -- Hillarycare, et al. -- causing him to pivot to the right by passing the welfare and balanced budget reforms of Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" and the Republican House of Representatives. This opportunistic move in turn saved his presidency and assured him a second term.  In foreign affairs Clinton benefited from the Reagan-Bush ending of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union.  He did, however, managed to make a major contribution to the tragedy of 9/11 by failing to take out Bin Laden when he had a golden opportunity to out of concern for the "collateral damage" of some of the people in Osama's proximity.  A failure of will analogous to Neville Chamberlain failing to take out Hitler in 1939 for fear of hurting some of the "innocent" staff members in his proximity.

Perhaps Clinton's most devastating contribution to our present economic circumstances was his appointment and support for Andrew Cuomo as head of HUD.  It was Clinton's policy of making home ownership affordable for lower income Americans that led inevitably to the housing boom and bust and  implosion of the financial sector.  Thomas Sowell, an historian and an economists, opines on this major Clinton policy mistake here.  Books and books and books have been written about the cause of this implosion but in the end it comes down to the government policies that pressured banks to make home loans to families who could not afford the monthly payments.  This whole sordid mess we find ourselves in now was caused by the Democrat Party's attempt to control and direct the private sector's allocation of resources.  Bill Clinton's fingerprints are all over the tragedy of the 23 million unemployed in our country today and yet he is extolled by many as one of our greatest presidents.  Sowell's column should be required reading for all Americans.

ADDED:  This from Bretbart today.

It seems only fair, then, to remind the American public that not only does Obama skip most of his daily intelligence briefings, but also that the Clinton administration bears some of the blame for allowing 9/11 to happen. The 9/11 commission identified several Clinton failures, including four missed chances to kill Osama bin Laden, and a failure to adopt “a more aggressive counterterrorism posture” after Al Qaeda’s initial attacks.

The Clinton administration sent a signal to Al Qaeda that terrorism would succeed in pushing the United States out of the Middle East when, in response to the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the U.S. pulled back its diplomatic presence in the region. Clinton answered with an ineffectual cruise missile attack on Afghanistan and Sudan; Al Qaeda followed up with its deadly attack on the U.S.S. Cole in October 2000.

That is not the only failure of the Clinton administration that the media has chosen to forget. Clinton is campaigning against his own record of economic liberalization, telling delegates at the Democratic National Convention that Mitt Romney would “get rid of those pesky financial regulations” and recording an ad in which he attacks Republicans for wanting to “go back to deregulation. That’s what got us in trouble in the first place.”

So, effectively, Clinton is blaming himself for our economic “trouble.” And so he ought to--because he also re-authorized the Community Reinvestment Act, a law that pushed banks to offer housing loans to people who could not afford them, leading directly to the subprime mortgage crisis that nearly imploded the global financial system in 2008, and which helped kick off the recession that Obama’s statist policies has failed to undo.

President Obama complains a great deal about the “mess” he inherited from Bush, but Clinton also bequeathed his successor an economic muddle, and you didn’t hear Bush complaining much. In fact, Clinton’s last year in office was marked by the bursting of the dot-com bubble--an event from which the high-tech industry has never fully recovered, but which has been airbrushed out of the media’s rosy recollections of the Clinton era.

The reason Clinton presided over a long period of job creation, economic growth and budget surpluses was because he embraced the same free-market, small-government policies that Romney is running on today--and stood up to the labor unions and the far-left of the Democratic Party, where a young Obama chose to plant his flag. Just weeks ago, he was opposing Obama’s taxes and praising Romney’s “sterling” business career.

Suddenly, with his wife’s 2016 ambitions in mind, Clinton has changed his tune. In 2000, when Hillary first ran for office, Clinton was persona non grata to Al Gore’s presidential campaign. The stain of the Lewinsky scandal, and the subsequent impeachment, were simply too much for voters to bear. Over a decade later, Clinton is hailed as a savior by his party and the media. But we are still living with his legacy--and not the better parts.

ADDED:  John Stossel does a mostly complete and accurate account of Clinton's actual record of accomplishments while he was president.  Not only did Clinton take credit for accomplishments for which his predecessors were responsible, but those "accomplishments" for which he was responsible turned out to be disastrous for the economy.

Koch vs. Stern, Trumka, SEIO, and AFL-CIO

The entrepreneur liberals most like to malign, Charles Koch, provides a very clear exposition here of the effects of crony capitalism.  Mr Koch's company is a hugh family owned, world wide conglomerate in the energy industry.  His company and others like it are the engines of our economy's success.  Mr. Obama should be inviting the likes of the Koch family members to visit the White House for lunch on a regular basis in order to pick their brains on how his policies are helping the economy.  Instead he demonizes them, accuses them of damaging the environment, exploiting the workforce, greed, and on and on.  Instead of inviting the Koch brothers, Obama invites Andrew Stern, and Richard Trumka, leading labor organizers in the country in order, presumably, to help him unionize more companies along the lines of the automobile industry.  Lest we forget, the bulk of the blame for the failure of Detroit has been the result of excessive wages and work rules, both union driven. Four more years of Obama means four more years of the Stern/Trumka policies and four more years of economic stagnation.  We're headed for a replay of the '30's when it took 11 years to get unemployment under 15%.  This is patently unfair to younger generations.  To create wealth and jobs we need a return to pure capitalism.