Friday Free-For-All: The President’s ‘Silly Sexist Defense’ of Susan Rice Fails To Impress

Ramirez cartoon via Townhall

Look who’s sounding more and more like a female version of Pat Caddell, every day:

Kirsten Powers: President Obama’s silly, sexist defense of Susan Rice:

It’s absurd and chauvinistic for Obama to talk about the woman he thinks should be Secretary of State of the United States as if she needs the big strong man to come to her defense because a couple of Senators are criticizing her.

Believe it or not, Rice isn’t the first potential Cabinet nominee to be opposed by members of Congress up on the Hill.  Obama also left out the inconvenient detail that there is another senator who has Rice in the crosshairs:  Sen. Kelly Ayotte.  But perhaps a female Senator holding Rice accountable didn’t sound menacing enough in the era of the “War on Women.”

But it gets much worse.

As the president expressed outrage over the atrocity of members of Congress holding administration officials accountable, he said, “I’m happy to have that discussion with them. But for them to go after the U.N. ambassador? Who had nothing to do with Benghazi?”

Feast on those words for a second:  The U.N. Ambassador had “nothing to do with Benghazi.”  At this point, the White House press corps should have flown into a frenzy, demanding to know why a person who had nothing to do with Benghazi was put on five Sunday talk shows as…the face of Benghazi!

This was an issue that had people scratching their heads the day of the Rice interviews, and plenty of questions were asked as to where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was, and why Rice was put out instead. The administration at the time acted as though there was nothing remarkable about it, even though there clearly was.

But now we know — straight from the lips of the president of the United States — that they sent out a person who knew “nothing” about Benghazi to explain an atrocious attack against the United States that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans serving their country abroad.

The silly, sexist, and I would add racialist defense Susan Rice is meant to shut down inquiry, it’s important to note. That is why Kelly Ayotte is never mentioned in any of the Obamacrats’ counterattacks. It’s weak, but these tactics have worked in the past. I don’t think it’s going to work, this time, though. Republicans have shown no signs of backing down.

Weasel Zippers: Congressional Black Caucus Chair: GOP Criticizing Susan Rice Is Racist And Sexist…

So friggen predictable.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A dozen female members of the House staunchly defended U.N. ambassador Susan Rice against Republican criticism over her remarks on the deadly Sept. 11 Libya attack, suggesting the GOP lawmakers’ comments were racist and sexist.

“It is a shame that anytime something goes wrong, they pick on women and minorities,” Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, the next chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, told reporters Friday at a Capitol Hill news conference.

Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham earlier this week called Rice untrustworthy and unqualified to be the nation’s top diplomat if President Barack Obama chooses her to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The two vowed to block any Senate confirmation if she is nominated.

See what they’re doing? They want everyone to forget about the Regime’s heinous assault on the truth and get offended over phoney strawman issues: racism, sexism!!!

They’re trying to Fluke-ify Susan Rice.

Powerline: Eric Holder comes up short:

If Holder really did not inform Obama of the DOJ investigation into the Petraeus-Broadwell-Kelley matter, then he clearly failed to do his duty.

How many more significant failures will Holder be allowed before Obama replaces him with (one hopes) a competent, honest Attorney General?

JOHN adds: I’m pretty sure Obama doesn’t want a competent, honest Attorney General.

Yeahp.

Sweetness and Light: ‘Shirtless’ FBI Agent, A Hero And Conservative

Buried in this typically long and meandering Times story we find:

Lawrence Berger, the general counsel for the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, who spoke with Mr. Humphries, said Mr. Humphries only received the information from Ms. Kelley and never played a role in the investigation.

Mr. Berger said Mr. Humphries and his wife had been “social friends with Ms. Kelley and her husband prior to the day she referred the matter to him.”

“They always socialized and corresponded,” he said.

Mr. Berger took issue with news media reports that said his client had sent shirtless pictures of himself to Ms. Kelley.

“That picture was sent years before Ms. Kelley contacted him about this, and it was sent as part of a larger context of what I would call social relations in which the families would exchange numerous photos of each other,” Mr. Berger said.

The photo was sent as a joke, he said, and was of Mr. Humphries “posing with a couple of dummies.” Mr. Berger added that it was not sexual in nature.

Two former law enforcement colleagues said Mr. Humphries was a solid agent with experience in counterterrorism. He has conservative political views and a reputation for being aggressive, they said.

Edward Klein: Yes, Obama is still an amateur president:

Coming off an ugly, divisive campaign, America is likely to get not just four more years of Obama, but four worse years. Obama won the election with fewer votes than in 2008. By any measure, it was a status quo election, and yet Obama is now facing a slew of problems that would test the mettle of a far more able chief executive—everything from the debacle in Benghazi and the Petraeus sex scandal to the fiscal cliff and the possibility of a double-dip recession.

What’s more, Obama is entering these dangerous times at the very moment when the team that put him in charge is breaking up. In the coming weeks, key members of his inner circle, including chief strategist David Axelrod, senior adviser David Plouffe and campaign manager Jim Messina, are all departing for the private sector. The only member of his consiglieri who will be back for a second term is Valerie Jarrett, a hard left-winger who is hardly known for her political perspicacity and the quality of her advice.

Because of Obama’s detached and impersonal leadership style, no one in Congress fears him, and the Republicans who control the House are unlikely to roll over and do his bidding. However, if Obama digs in his heels, refuses to compromise and work with the Republicans, goes over the head of Congress and takes his case to the public through a kind of permanent campaign, and then, after all that, fails to get his agenda through Congress, this country is headed for a very dismal next four years.

Weasel Zippers: Hostess Going Out Of Business After Striking Union Workers Refuse To Return To Work…

The parasitic unions claim another victim.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Hostess Brands — the maker of such iconic baked goods as Twinkies, Devil Dogs and Wonder Bread — announced Friday that it is asking a federal bankruptcy court for permission to close its operations, blaming a strike by bakers protesting a new contract imposed on them.

The closing will result in Hostess’ nearly 18,500 workers losing their jobs as the company shuts 33 bakeries and 565 distribution centers nationwide. The bakers’ union represents around 5,000.

via @SaintObama on Twitpic.

Seems like a microcosm of what’s going on in the US economy at large. The parasites are eating the host.

Pirates Cove: People’s Republik Of California Now #1 In Poverty:

The brokeyest broke state in the nation (which means it is also one of the brokeyest broke entities in the world, as it has the world’s 8th largest economy) has long served as the place where the far left has conducted field experiments for their policies. How’s that working out? Neil Munro tells us

(Daily Caller) The Golden State has fallen on hard times, with a poverty rate that is now twice as bad as West Virginia’s and substantially worse than the rates of poverty in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas.

Democrat-run California earned its last-place rank under the federal government’s new measure of poverty, which incorporates more detailed analyses of welfare payments and the local costs of food, gasoline and housing. (View the new census data report)

The state’s costs are boosted by its environmental and workplace regulations, and by 38 million residents’ competition for housing close to the sea.

Hooray, they’re #1, they’re #!!!!!1!!!! I’m betting they really want to lean on the liberal trope that there are no winners and losers, so everyone should get a blue ribbon for competing.

Doug Ross: FORWARD! HOPE! CHANGE! Illinois Youth Called a “Lost Generation” as Unemployment Reaches Record Levels:

How much more misery will Illinois’ beleaguered “middle class” tolerate before throwing out the Democrat bums who led them into this rat-hole?

Quite a bit more, if history’s any guide.

Michelle Malkin: How’s That Obamacare Waiver Workin’ Out for Ya?

Exactly two years ago this week, the Obama administration announced it had issued more than 100 waivers en masse to a select group of companies, unions and other health insurance providers seeking relief from the onerous federal health care law. The Obamacare waiver winner’s club now totals 2,000. Where are they now?

Answer: In the same miserable boat as every other unlucky business struggling with the crushing costs and burdens of the mandate.

Among the first and most prominent recipients of the Obamacare waivers for favors were large restaurant chains that provide low-wage, seasonal and part-time workers with low-cost health insurance plans called “mini-med” plans. An estimated 1.7 million workers benefit from such plans. Obamacare forced companies carrying such coverage to raise their minimum limits on coverage to no less than $750,000 annually. Another Obamacare provision forces all employers to spend at least 80 percent to 85 percent of their premium revenue on medical care.

The social justice Democrats’ goal was to dictate insurance provider spending not just on coverage amounts, but also on executive salaries, marketing and other costs. The regulation punished companies with mini-med plans whose high administrative costs were due to frequent worker turnover and relatively low spending on claims — not “greed.” Complying with the provision would have meant tens of thousands of low-income workers would lose their benefits altogether.

Lisa Benson cartoon via Townhall

Ace of Spades HQ: Congressional Democrats: We’re Fine Going Over The Fiscal Cliff and Plunging the Nation Into Recession:

There are two possibilities here. Both may be true.

The Democrats may simply be posturing in order to wring a complete victory in negotiations. By threatening to take the country over the fiscal cliff, and seeming to mean it, they will force Republicans — whose allegiance is to the nation, and not the progressive ideology — to stop them by giving them everything they want.

The other possibility is that they’re not just posturing and that they do mean it. Charles Krauthammer has been talking about this — the Democrats know that to finance their ever growing welfare state they will have to tax the middle class. What better way to do it than to take us over the fiscal cliff (automatically raising income taxes on the middle class) and simply say “The Republicans did it, they wouldn’t compromise?”

Doug Ross: Americans still free to use money as weapon against Progressives:

Don’t do business with anyone who supported Obama!

AMERICANS CAN NOW DETERMINE WHERE TO SHOP AND SPEND THEIR MONEY

Election Cycle political donations, as reported by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Memorize the lists at the link.

The Daily Caller: Filmmaker Curtis Bowers warns of ‘evil’ in next four years [VIDEO]:

“I think the evil that is capable of happening in the next four years is not a pretty picture,” Bowers, a former Idaho state representative, said. “It’s very sad to think that our country voted — after what he had already done ahead of time — to have another four years of that, but it shows how far we’ve really gone.”

Watch the full Bowers interview here.

Big Journalism: HuffPo Blames Sandy on Global Warming, Meteorologist Responds:

Al Gore, owner of Current TV, took to the airwaves and to the Huffington Post to declare that Sandy may now prove to be “a time when the climate crisis…became a reality.”  In an earlier interview, Gore went so far as to state that Sandy was testament to overwhelming evidence of climate change causing the recent pattern of storms.

The storms are getting stronger. The stronger storms are getting more frequent.  And you know, this is the second time in two years that part of Manhattan has been shut down. And you know, that didn’t used to happen like this.  But the evidence is now so overwhelming…

In that same interview, Joe Bastardi, a noted meteorologist and former Accuweather forecaster who now co-leads long range forecasting at WeatherBell Analytics, challenged Gore’s claims.  Bastardi has been critical of similar claims in the past, so I reached out to him to get his take on some of the claims in Monday’s Huffington Post article.  He points out that we are instead seeing weather history repeat itself, and poses an important question to activists pointing to Sandy as “overwhelming evidence” of global warming as its cause:

“Was it global warming in the 1950’s when the East Coast was consistently devastated by hurricanes more powerful than Sandy?”

The following is Bastardi’s response in its entirety.

The idea that the devastation from Sandy was caused by global warming is wrong for many reasons.  Those pushing this agenda are ignoring meteorological history, or purposefully leaving it out of the discussion.  On top of the fact that we have seen much stronger storms hit these areas before with more frequency, the premise of the argument lacks credence because global temperatures have not increased since the late 1990’s.

Anthropogenic global warming activists claim that all extreme weather events are somehow related to “global warming,” which has been re-termed “climate change” since global temperatures are no longer warming.  The FACT remains that global tropical activity, which can be measured using the ACE Index (Accumulated Cyclone Energy), is near record lows according to peer-reviewed research and even the most recent UN IPCC Special Report on Extremes (SREX 2012).

But one cannot simply equate global conditions with regional weather events, which is a cornerstone of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) arguments.  We are seeing increased tropical activity in the Atlantic because we are in a warm phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO).  We are seeing decreased tropical activity in the Pacific because we are in cold phase of the Pacific Multidecadal Oscillation (PDO).  This SAME situation occurred in the 1950s, when numerous major hurricanes hit the Eastern Seaboard (Carolinas and North) from 1954-1960.

Philip Klein, Beltway Confidential: Israeli ambassador: Arab Spring made it easier for Hamas to import weapons:

Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren on Friday said that the Arab Spring movement that started in late 2010 and swept rulers out of power throughout the region “embolded” Hamas and made it easier for them to import weapons that they are now using to target Israeli civilians.

“Clearly, Hamas has felt emboldened by the changes in the region generally and that has redounded to their benefit,” Oren said in response to a question by the Washington Examiner during a conference call hosted by the Israel Project. “The major problem as far as the Arab Spring’s issues impacts the ability of Hamas to import missiles is the greater accessibility to Gaza from Sudan and Libya. And the flow of arms from Libya has been significant. We’ve encountered arms already that have been fired at us that have been brought in from Libya as well as on the Sudanese route. And the general situation in Sinai and the loss of effective controls in Sinai have facilitated the flow of advanced arms into Gaza.”

Newsbusters: Despite Terror Rocket Attacks on Israel, ABC, CBS, NBC Won’t Call Attackers ‘Terrorists’

Israel was attacked by more than 200 rockets on Nov. 15 by a known terror organization – known by everyone but ABC, CBS and NBC.

Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, was declared a “foreign terrorist organization” more than 15 years ago by the United States. But not one rocket attack story on the network morning or evening news shows called the terrorists anything other than “militants.”

In 61 percent of the stories (8 out of 13) in 2012, the three networks wemt to great pains to avoid calling Hamas terrorists. Instead, they were “militants” with “militant Islamic leaders”

The State Department is very clear on Hamas. “Designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization since 1997, HAMAS has carried out attacks – such as suicide bombings, rocket launches, improvised explosive device attacks, and shootings – against civilian targets inside Israel.”

Weasel Zippers: Obama Allies Accuse Israel Of “Indiscriminate Slaughter” In Gaza…

No surprise given the two groups, CAIR and the ADC.

Via WFB:

Two Muslim advocacy groups closely allied with the Obama administration are aggressively attacking Israel and defending the terror group Hamas as it continues to fire rockets at Israeli civilians.

The Obama-aligned American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) issued a statement condemning “the continuing Israeli aggression and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

The statement omits all mention of terrorism and continued rocket assaults on Israeli citizens that have already claimed the lives of three people. It omits any mention of the week of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel that preceded the Israeli retaliation. More than 500 rockets have been fired at Israel since Saturday. […]

The Blaze: The Pictures Coming Out of Israel Are Chilling — See Our Collection Showing the Aftermath:

We will update this with more photos as they become available. You can read about what led to all this in our stories here and here.

Linked by Michelle Malkin, thanks!