Such A Deal!! Trinidad and Tobago Offers To Swap Toilet Paper For Venzuelan Oil

The inevitable consequence of Venezuelan Chavismo Economics…

From Bloomberg:

Venezuela, plagued with shortages of basic goods, was offered a reprieve by the Prime Minister of neighboring Trinidad & Tobago: exchange oil for tissue paper.

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar suggested an oil-for-tissue swap in a news conference Tuesday following a meeting in Port of Spain with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. She said the deal would benefit both countries.

“The concept of commodity sharing is simple -– the Government of Trinidad and Tobago will purchase goods identified by the Government of Venezuela from T&T’s manufacturers, such as tissue paper, gasoline, and parts for machinery,” Persad-Bissessar said.

In Venezuela, which has the world’s largest oil reserves, citizens line up outside supermarkets for hours seeking a bag of clothing detergent, toilet paper or cooking oil. Price controls and a lack of dollars for importers have emptied stores of many basic goods, a situation Maduro blames on hoarders conducting an “economic war” against his socialist government.

Officials at Venezuela’s Information Ministry declined to comment.

------

No surprise there. What can you say, without looking even more ridiculous than the moment before you open your mouth?

But, OS wishes to offer a comment:

The American Left, including Himself and Mizz Hillary just looooooove Chavez's model. They fell all over themselves to accommodate the Castro regime last month. 

The formula is simple: corruption which creates poverty which feeds corruption with feeds poverty. Anyone who disagrees is an extremist, a hoarder, a saboteur. Not too long before the police arrive in the night to disappear these pesky types. 

Argentina under Peronismo, anyone? Mizz Hillary thinks Argentina is just the bomb, can't wait to throw the Falkland Islanders under the bus of Argentinian chaos.

So, when we run out of toilet paper, with whom will be be able to barter, and with what?

When Even Chris 'Thrill Up My Leg' Matthews Is Incredulous, Duh' Prezident Has Lost His Last Shred Of Credibility

Chris Matthews listens incredulously while some blondie 30-something with an East Coast Liberal Arts Degree Paid For By Grandaddy's Trust Fund patiently explains that if all those 17-year-old Muslim boys just had good jobs or the ability to start their own businesses--well then all our ISIS troubles would just melt away. He can't believe what he's hearing, and for the first time in his groveling career, actually grows a pair and seriously questions one of Massah Obama's minions. Blondie does not fare well…

OS listens incredulously, because he remembers how Massah Obama's sycophants excoriated Condaleeza Rice for outlining her own vision for fundamental transformation of the Middle East. They, including Matthews, were merciless toward her, and their contempt was directed at her very person.

At least her boss, with all his faults, did have an understanding of who Islamic Jihadists are, and that often the solution is to kill them, and always to identify who they are by what drives their behaviors.

When he left office, Iraq was a highly imperfect situation with some real pockets of hope. Syria was rein by a repressive dictator who basically kept himself to himself--a bad guy, but not a daily source of crisis. Libya was run by an egomaniac, but it was not in chaos. Ditto Egypt. Not a great situation, but not in complete chaos.

If Blondie is the best this administration can recruit, and her vision of a McDonald's job for every young jihadist is the best idea they can float, then all of us everywhere are in a boatload of trouble. And the people most at risk from the jihadists are young women, at the mercy of a violent ideology that looks upon them as chattel.

Of course, that little fact wasn't covered in the Wimmen's Studies curriculum of her  East Coast Liberal Arts Degree Paid For By Grandaddy's Trust Fund…therefore not worthy of consideration.

Heaven help us. Our President is useless at best, and we have two more years of Himself ahead of us.

An Obama Speechwriter Explains What Himself Really Meant...

Really, you just can't make this up!

Jon Lovett, a former Obama speechwriter, explains what Himself REALLY meant when he claimed repeatedly 'If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance!'

It was an ObamaMantra, endlessly hammered home.

Any and all who pointed out that this would not be the case were derided, considered to be racist, or at least someone who enjoys watching sick people suffer.

Really, the problem has been that we were not sufficiently clairvoyant to understand what Himself really really really meant.

Silly us. Click on the image in order to find out what we should have known all along.

The Bad News, The Really Bad News, And The Really Really Bad News About The ObamaCare Failure To Launch...

The folks at CNBC aren't known for being wild-eyed crazy Teeeeee-Party, 'baccy-chewin', cousin-marryin', mouth-breathin', Newt-lovin', Neanderthals: i.e., in the eyes of Obama, anyone who thinks this whole ObamaCare thing is not a great idea.

So, when they have this to report, it may be worth reading:

First, the bad news:

As few as 1 in 100 applications on the federal exchange contains enough information to enroll the applicant in a plan, several insurance industry sources told CNBC on Friday. Some of the problems involve how the exchange's software collects and verifies an applicant's data.


"It is extraordinary that these systems weren't ready," said Sumit Nijhawan, CEO of Infogix, which handles data integrity issues for major insurers including WellPoint and Cigna, as well as multiple Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliates.


Experts said that if Healthcare.gov's success rate doesn't improve within the next month or so, federal officials could face a situation in January in which relatively large numbers of people believe they have coverage starting that month, but whose enrollment applications are have not been processed. 

This, folks, is a formula for chaos, with thousands of patients hitting the door of the doctor's office needing care, claiming to be covered, because after all, they signed up, or were signed up they think, for ObamaCare. Think about it. How many people do you encounter at the local fast-food joint, the convenience store, pass by on the road as they man the traffic flag at a construction zone, etc. A lot of these folks struggled to get through high school, or didn't manage to. Now, they are adults, struggling to survive, and they need medical care! They are just as human, just as deserving to not live in chronic pain, or with untreated diabetes or cancer, as any university president. They go through the struggles to attempt to sign up, think they've done it, but information is missing, or the miserably designed system malfunctions, or their application is lost by an insurer, or, or, or....

The Really Bad News:

One insurer reported a better, but still stunningly low, rate of enrollment applications containing enough data to process for coverage. 

"It's about half of what we've received," a source at that insurer said.

"We're getting incomplete data—about half of the applications we haven't been able to process," said the source, who used the term "corrupted" to describe the batch of applications received. 

Which means, in real terms, that applicants will have to be contacted individually to complete applications (how many employees, how many hours, who pays for them?), sending them back to the starting gate in many cases. And, remember, the system has already proven it cannot handle traffic...

The Really Really Bad News:

Experts said that if the lag in processing enrollments continues on a large scale, insurers expect the federal government to tell them that they must provide benefits to people even as applications are still being processed. 

"In talking to some of the insurers, they pretty much assume that even if there are issues, the feds will say, 'You know what, it's your problem, they've signed up,' " said Koritala. 

In other words--insurers will be compelled to pay claims on patients that may or may not actually be included in their coverage! Hmmm....at what point will they be able to say 'No' to patients who never complete their applications, or imaginary patients created by dishonest providers, or patients created by identity theft, or patients who never pay premiums because they don't know their coverage status, or....

And, who pays for this? Where does the cash flow come from to actually issue paychecks to all those employees hired to complete those enrollments, and claim checks to all those providers?

Now, let's contrast these facts with Massah Obama's comments last week that Republicans don't want Americans to have health care, heartless souls that they are.

If someone were to devise a system designed to bring health care to a halt for everyone in the country, it would look like the Byzantine disaster that Duh Prez insisted be launched last week.

Yes, the US could really use an efficient, sane, cost-effective way of making sure as many people as possible have health care that doesn't bankrupt their families.

And no, ObamaCare is not the means to accomplish this. That's what we wild-eyed crazy Teeeeee-Party, 'baccy-chewin', cousin-marryin', mouth-breathin', Newt-lovin' Neanderthals have been saying all along.

The Best Explanation To Date About The Gubb'mint Quasi-Shutdown...

HT: Doug Ross

OS Calls 1-800-318-2596, Just Like Mr. Obama Urged The Country To Do

It was, well, an interesting half-hour, calling ObamaCare Central.

OS decided to celebrate this great day in American history by calling that number that Massah Obama told us all to call.

He was, naturally, routed into a phone answering tree service. Not surprising. After asking for a representative and telling the computer which state he was calling from, he was put on hold.
Again, no surprise, no offense taken.

In a few minutes, the line opened up to a representative's desk, only OS found himself not speaking to a representative. He kept repeating, 'Hello, anyone there?' Never an answer....

Only the line was open, and OS realized he was overhearing conversations between the customer service reps. No one was doing any customer servicing. OS overheard laughter, references to schedules (work schedules? fee schedules? No way to tell...) and he heard references to training manuals. The voices sounded young. They sounded like young employees who had reached some sort of impasse, didn't have any guidance on what to do next, and were standing around chatting with one another.

It was eerie. OS stayed on the line for 33 minutes, and then moved on.

Again, nothing incriminating or offensive was overheard--just the sound of a bunch of kids waiting for the boss to tell them what to do next.

Welcome to our new health care system.

One would think, with so much money on the table, so much blood spilled to arrive to this day, the reputation and legacy of a presidency on the line, and a White House and Senate demanding no delay in launching this initiative...that they would make certain they had checked the system out before a general launch. Or that they would roll it out in phases, region by region perhaps. Beta test it, test-drive the model with some initial units like a car company does, before putting them in the showrooms.

But not this President. Not this administration. They're waaaaay toooooo clever for that.

This battle is not over, folks. It may just now be getting underway, given that the administration has demonstrated its arrogance, incompetence, and willfulness to the world.

John Kerry (That Great Agitator For Peace) Calling For Airstrikes In The Syrian Civil War: Winner of OS's WTF Award

Really, ya'll, just can't make this stuff up.

At a principals meeting in the White House situation room, Secretary of State John Kerry began arguing, vociferously, for immediate U.S. airstrikes against airfields under the control of Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime -- specifically, those fields it has used to launch chemical weapons raids against rebel forces. 

(Wait a second! Wasn't this the guy who tossed someone else's medals (certainly not his own!) over the White House fence in protest of the Viet Nam War, and testified to the Senate that his fellow soldiers were murderers? Wasn't this the guy who gave GW Bush unshirted grief over the chemical weapons that weren't found in Iraq--because a lot of them had been secreted to Syria!)

It was at this point that the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the usually mild-mannered Army General Martin Dempsey, spoke up, loudly. According to several sources, Dempsey threw a series of brushback pitches at Kerry, demanding to know just exactly what the post-strike plan would be and pointing out that the State Department didn’t fully grasp the complexity of such an operation.
Dempsey informed Kerry that the Air Force could not simply drop a few bombs, or fire a few missiles, at targets inside Syria: To be safe, the U.S. would have to neutralize Syria’s integrated air-defense system, an operation that would require 700 or more sorties. 

At a time when the U.S. military is exhausted, and when sequestration is ripping into the Pentagon budget, Dempsey is said to have argued that a demand by the State Department for precipitous military action in a murky civil war wasn’t welcome.

(Um, scuze me, Massah Seceretahry Uv State, but all 'dem Syrian anti-aircraft sites? Dey beez Russian anti-aircraft sites! Yew don't think the Russians are so stupid as to just ship boatloads of advanced weapons to a chaotic situation like Syria, off-load them and hand over the owners' manuals to whoever greets them on the docks? Those are complex systems, and required trained people, that means Russians, to run them. We're the ones who just drop off ordinance and wish everybody well...)

Remember Viet Nam, the tragedy that helped launch your career Massah Kerry? It happened because a trigger-happy egomaniac named Lyndon Johnson decided to get us hip-deep in a civil war on the ground in Asia!

Now here we are again, with you demanding the fleet sail and the planes fly and damn the torpedos. No real entrance strategy, no exit strategy, no real goals in mind, no contingency plan if things go pear-shaped, nothing.

And to think you almost became President!! Holy Cow!!

So, Massah Secruhterry, if'n yew wanna go make yoh'self feel bettah by shootin' off ordinance, c'mon on down South. All the fireworks stands are up and running, and you can buy yoh'self all sorts of stuff that will will go boom and flash. Just stand clear when yew light dem fuses, ok? And remember, keep the pointy end of 'dem rockets pointed up and away from people and pets.

The Great Cyprus Haircut: Going After Depositers To 'Save The System'

Reuters carries a polite account of what is about to happen to the citizenry:

In a radical departure from previous aid packages, euro zone finance ministers want Cyprus savers to forfeit a portion of their deposits in return for a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout for the island, which has been financially crippled by its exposure to neighboring Greece.

The decision, announced on Saturday morning, stunned Cypriots and caused a run on cash points, most of which were depleted within hours. Electronic transfers were stopped.

The originally proposed levies on deposits are 9.9 percent for those exceeding 100,000 euros and 6.7 percent on anything below that.


Say what? The proposal is to keep the stockholders and bondholders of the banks and sovereign debt 
intact by administering a haircut to small depositors. This will not go over well...

To be noted: As always, news like this is announced after the end of business hours on Friday. And Monday is a bank holiday. If you live on Cyprus and have a bank account there, well, it sucks to be you.  Of course, if you were among those privy to the news ahead of time, there was plenty of time to get out of Dodge, get your funds tucked away in Switzerland, and wait for things to come unwound around you while you have a wad of cash in your pocket. Distressed people end up selling distressed assets for a couple of dimes on the dollar. In that case, it's sweet to be you.

Of course, all those folks in places like Greece, Spain, Italy, France, Ireland, Protugal--they're watching this like a hawk. They know if the central bankers get away with this, they're next.

Therefore, short-term, OS expects the T-bill to go to a negative rate of interest, as people will actually pay Uncle Sam a fee to hold their cash for them.

The US stock market will get a new influx of hot money, as those who can get their money out will park it there as well.

Gold and silver will move a leg up, and...

there will be unrest on a lot of high streets in a lot of towns all over Europe.

Chin-straps on.

'Scuze Me Miz Hilary...Could You Tell Where Those 150,000 Landmines And Crates Of Semtex Ended Up?'

It's the stuff of John LeCarre novels.

While the Obama and Cameron administrations were giving one another the 'High-Five' for helping dispatch Ghadaffi, they seem to have missed a couple of details.

Telegraph reporter Richard Spencer was led to a field outside Tripoli in September 2011, and reports...

When I read the story of Steven McFaul, the hostage from Belfast who did a runner from the jihadis in southern Algeria with a Semtex suicide belt around his neck, I was taken back to a slightly nerve-racking, sweltering afternoon spent in a field on the southern edge of Tripoli, Libya, at the beginning of September 2011.

The city had just fallen to the Libyan rebels, and journalist colleagues and I were being regularly alerted to evidence of atrocities committed by Gaddafi's elite 32nd or Khamis Brigade around their base in Salaheddin suburb. We found the bodies of a hundred men cremated in a barn, after being machine-gunned and blasted to death; decomposing bodies of other victims, hands tied behind their backs, in ditches.

Perhaps the most extraordinary find, though, was something Heathcliff O'Malley, the Telegraph photographer, two New York Times colleagues and I stumbled across almost by chance. We climbed into a field where we were told there might be a mass grave only to discover something even more startling: pile upon pile of landmines, neatly stored in their boxes. I made an initial, conservative calculation that there were 60,000 of them. I now learn that it was two and a half times that: 150,000.
We picked our way nervously through the field, into an orchard. Here there were boxes containing rubbery and plasticky blocks, their lids off and exposed to the harsh summer sun. They were clearly marked: Semtex and TNT. In a guardhouse, carelessly scattered around, were a couple of bags full of hand grenades.

Nothing was done to secure this ammo dump, or destroy it, and all that stuff that goes BOOOOM and kills people in large numbers simply...disappeared...

Now, Miz Hilary, we know you're on the way out, and you're feeling poorly, and have no interest in talking to anyone about anything, especially not the Senate about the Benghazi debacle (By the way, that was not a riot, that was an organized assault, and you and yours did nothing except watch while those poor people fought for their lives,) or much of anything else. Egypt. Syria. Libya.

But, it would be nice to know where all that stuff that goes BOOOOM and kills people in large numbers ended up. Your successor may need to know, at least.

The 'Gun Violence Epidemic', Brought To You By Barack Obama

One hardly knows where to begin, so OS decided he should begin by actually looking up and reading the documents Himself signed today.

He's just getting underway.

The first one seems to be more about coordinating the information at hand into the NICS criminal identification system. 

Standard stuff--form committees, issue memos, burn money, issue press releases, burn money, go on research junkets to London, burn money, hold conferences in warm locations, deliver papers, listen to papers being delivered, burn money.

The second one borders on the bizarre:

In addition to being a law enforcement challenge, gun violence is also a serious public health issue that affects thousands of individuals, families, and communities across the Nation. Each year in the United States there are approximately 30,000 firearm-related deaths, and approximately 11,000 of those deaths result from homicides. Addressing this critical issue requires a comprehensive, multifaceted approach.

Recent research suggests that, in developing such an approach, a broader public health perspective is imperative. Significant strides can be made by assessing the causes of gun violence and the successful efforts in place for preventing the misuse of firearms. Taking these steps will improve our understanding of the gun violence epidemic and will aid in the continued development of gun violence prevention strategies.

The language sounds high-flown and noble, unless it is actually read.

Influenza is a public health issue, like smallpox once was. There was an influenza epidemic in 1918-1920 which killed millions.  A real virus was transmitted person-to-person which created sickness for 500 million, and death for some 20 million.

That, friends and neighbors, is an epidemic.

People committing violent crime with any sort of weapon  is not an epidemic-it's delinquent behavior. To even utter the phrase 'gun violence epidemic' is a crime against the English language, against moral sensibility, against common sense.

This is Orwellian DoubleSpeak, pure and simple. Think back to Bill Clinton's famous summation of his presidency: 'It Depends Upon What Your Definition Of "Is" Is'. Words have no objective meaning, but are sounds produced in order to get one's way today.

'Gun violence epidemic'.

There is no such thing.

There are, however, amoral thugs with all manner of weapons, guns included, who fear neither God nor man. They are responsible for over five hundred murders in Obama's home turf of Chicago in 2012. Baltimore, Detroit, Philly, D.C, New Orleans...the list goes on. All of them strongholds of the Democrat Party power base, all of them killing fields for the citizens.

And, today, the mayors of those cities gathered in Charleston to hear and cheer Joe Biden as he lectured the rest of us on why we should all be disarmed. 

Take a few minutes, listen at the link...

Joe also dismissed any plans to have armed guards in schools by declaring 'We don't want rent-a-cops in schools'. Ass. Hole.

Williamson County Tennessee, blessedly, won't be heeding his advice.

'Gun violence epidemic' indeed.

Obama In The Twilight Zone: 'I won the election, I have no need to negotiate with anyone about anything...'

It is a strange thing to watch this man spend five minutes not answering a direct question, as if the question were merely a prompt to allow Himself to pontificate. There was no conversation per se, simply Himself declaring that, having run the deficit to Olympean heights, never operating off a budget since He took office, having spent all his energies finding new ways to spend money we don't have...

Members of Congress who insist on restraint are holding the economy hostage.

This is a classic Gino and Vito scenario, the local thugs who shake down the local shopowners, and then blame them for the crime wave.

This is The Twilight Zone, pure and simple.

Your Tax Dollars At Work: National Endowment for the Arts Burns 100,000 Dollars On A Politically Correct Video Game

Can't make this stuff up. It's really happening.

'Never Mind...': This Week's Jobless Claims Report Was An Inaccurate Anomaly After All, Because...

California failed to report several trainloads of jobless claims in time to be included in the report.

If something appears too good to be true, it is because it is...too good to be true.

If something looks, walks and quacks like a duck...it's a duck!

If  a BLS report smells like last week's Limburger cheese left in a hot car....

To quote the late great Gilda Radner: 'Never mind...'
 

BTW, OS managed to watch the House hearings yesterday on the Bengahzi debacle, and actually heard the PersonInCharge of embassy security worldwide (a dumpy-looking lady of not-sparkling intellect) claim that they had sufficient resources in place to defend the ambassador and the compound, to which an incredulous panel of Reps kept asking, 'So, tell me--why did our people get killed?'

The dumpy-looking lady had actually watched the attack real-time on State Department screens, which must have been agonizing. She was asked if she had any opinion at the time, or even later, whether this event was an organized assault or just a demonstration of angry Muslims pissed about some obscure YouTube video. She stated she had none then, or now. It was an amazing performance, to say the least.

The two people who had been pleading with the dumpy-looking lady for months to beef up security lest a tragedy occur detailed how they had been repeatedly ignored and denied the resources needed.

They were sitting beside the the dumpy-looking lady. She kept telling the Reps that she had done her job, that she and her superiors (whose names she reluctantly gave up) hadn't been given notice that a potential problem was brewing. When asked if she had ever been to Libya, the answer was 'No'.

It was dark, dark theatre.

Only it wasn't theatre, it was reality. Our reality.

You Just Can't Make This Stuff Up: The 'Violence Tax' Proposal In Chicago

Honestly, no matter how diligently comedy writers slave at their craft, the politicians trump them by just walking around and blabbering.

Chicago's murder rate is skyrocketing. Now, this could not possibly be attributed to the fact that Mayor Rahm(bo) Emanuel, former Obama Chief of Staff is not remotely up to the job of actually running anything, only in manipulating the system to get himself and his kind elected.

Governance, what's that?

It has to be SomeoneElse's fault, preferably George Bush, but blaming Bush for this particular tragic mess won't even pass the laugh test amongst the most rabid Chicago Democrats.

Sooooo.....if we can't stop the craziness, let's......make money from it! That's the ticket! We'll just tax the bejeezuz out of every gun and round of ammo sold in Cook County!!  That'll solve the problem, by golly!

Right?

Huh? 

What do you mean, people will just drive to St. Charles or Geneva or Wisconsin to purchase guns and ammo?  They wouldn't dare!

What's that you say? The gang-bangers who shoot up entire neighborhoods aren't interested in obeying gun laws? You mean to say they're criminals, not victims of a racist society? You don't think the tax will matter to them, but that it might discourage the law-abiding from defending themselves?

Nooooo....no chance of that.....

No, Virginia, GW Bush Did Not Create Obama's Deficits: That Was Obama's Doing

One of the more absurd moments for DuhPrez last Wednesday nigh occurred when he pontificated that the deficits of his administration were inherited, 'And we all know what caused that!', going on to cite two wars fought, increased domestic spending and that Evil Tax Cut.

This chart provides a reality check, and proof from the public record that Obama was, once again, making things up as he went along. He probably even believes the stuff he spouts, which is saddening to contemplate.

Next week's New Yorker cover tells the tale in one image. OS plans to buy a copy and frame it.

It May Not Matter Who Wins In Syria, Given The Toll The Fight Has Extracted

There are people in this world, as Jesse reminds us from time to time, who are completely willing to burn the world down around them, just so they can claim to rule the ashes.

He, as usual, is correct.

This BBC slideshow give a glimpse of the ancient market in Aleppo, destroyed in this week's episode of Madness Overtakes Syria.

The next time we hear TheWinnerOfTheNobelPeacePrize describe these tragedies as a 'bump in the road', OS thinks it would be good if we asked a simple question:

To Where does this Road lead?

The Obama Administration Moves Our Southern Border To Guatemala: So Says Alan Bersin Of DHS

Really, can't make this stuff up.

While we spend our energies obsessing about what Mitt blurted out while answering a question at what he thought was a private fund-raiser, we might wish to give a bit of our attention to what Alan Bersin says at a public and official function, a reception hosted by the United States-Mexico Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday evening.
 
Bersin is currently Assistant Secretary of International Affairs and Chief Diplomatic Officer for the Department of Homeland Security. He oversees the Department's international engagement and serves as the principal advisor to Secretary Janet Napolitano on all international affairs.

Says Assistant Secretary Bursin at Homeland Security:

“The Guatemalan border with Chiapas is now our southern border,” Bersin said. He cited a study by Pew Research which showed that last year more Mexicans left the United States than entered it. This, he said, ended six decades of illegal immigration from Mexico.

Bersin said the change in the flow of migration is not a “flash in the pan.” He said economic conditions have played a part in reducing illegal immigration. But so, too, has border security, he argued. 

“The economy contributes to it but the enforcement posture in the United States has increased since 1993 in a way that was absolutely unforeseen. One of the great bipartisan accomplishments of the last generation, some would say the greatest accomplishment, Republicans and Democrats alike, was restoring the rule of law to the U.S.-Mexican border,” Bersin said.

Whew--glad we got that cleared up! We've restored the Rule of Law to the US-Mexican border!

Which really doesn't exist anymore...

The Embassy's Apology For Our Tradition Of Free Speech--An Administration In Complete Disarray

So--the rabble decides to attack the US Embassy in Cairo over some indy film-maker's obscure film critical of the prophet Muhammed, and the Embassy girds up its loins in response to the outrage...and issues an apology....from which the White House (which undoubtedly had earlier blessed the statement) begins back-pedaling furiously away.

This administration is in complete, hopeless disarray. This is Jimmy Carter helping to depose the Shah only to have the US Embassy held hostage by Muslim nut-jobs all over again.  OS is old enough to remember this debacle clearly. It was completely humiliating, and completely needless. That self-righteous old fart never has explained himself, continues to pontificate from Atlanta, and the press continues to lap up every word of his nonsense.

So, here we go again...

From Politico:

The Obama administration is disavowing a statement from its own Cairo embassy that apologized for anti-Muslim activity in the United States.

"The statement by Embassy Cairo was not cleared by Washington and does not reflect the views of the United States government," an administration official told POLITICO.

The U.S. embassy in Cairo put out a statement early Tuesday that apologized for an anti-Muslim film being circulated by an Israeli-American real estate developer.

"The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions," the embassy said in a statement published online. According to the Wall Street Journal, the film depicts the Muslim prophet Muhammed as a "womanizer, pedophile and fraud" — a depiction bound to offend many Muslims.

The embassy came under widespread criticism for failing to defend free speech in the face of threats of violence. Egyptian protesters rioted anyway, breaching the embassy walls and tearing down the American flag.

"Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet.  The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.  Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation.  But let me be clear:  There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a Tuesday statement.

The Romney campaign accused the Obama administration of sympathizing with the protests in a statement released after the administration statement. “I'm outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi.  It's disgraceful that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks,” Romney said.

Just In Time For The DNC: Debbie Wasserman Schulz's Parents Are Headed To Jail For Tax Evasion And Corruption

File under: You just can't make this up.

Imagine: Had Rence Preibus's folks been sent to the clink the week before the RNC, that would be alllllllllll......we would have heard about.

The media's silence on this debacle is deafening.

More On The Roberts Fiasco At SCOTUS from CBS--Holy Cow What A Mess...

And remember, ya'll. We're stuck with this amoral cowardly turkey for life.

Which makes electing a fire-breathing conservative Senate imperative, so that the next appointments make Roberts irrelevant. He can play golf, go to cocktail parties, give commencement speeches, but he needs to be put in a position where he never ever influences public life again.

CBS News reports the shameful episode--linked above, excerpted a bit below.

Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court's four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama's health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations.
Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy - believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law - led the effort to try to bring Roberts back to the fold.

"He was relentless," one source said of Kennedy's efforts. "He was very engaged in this." 

But this time, Roberts held firm. And so the conservatives handed him their own message which, as one justice put it, essentially translated into, "You're on your own."

The conservatives refused to join any aspect of his opinion, including sections with which they agreed, such as his analysis imposing limits on Congress' power under the Commerce Clause, the sources said.

Instead, the four joined forces and crafted a highly unusual, unsigned joint dissent. They deliberately ignored Roberts' decision, the sources said, as if they were no longer even willing to engage with him in debate. 

But, why would he do this, and how did he accomplish the coup? Read on, ya'll. It jes' keeps gittin'
slimier and slimier:

Because Roberts was the most senior justice in the majority to strike down the mandate, he got to choose which justice would write the Court's historic decision. He kept it for himself.

(In other words, he hijacked the process, and performed a 'switcher-oonie' on his colleagues. A classic three-card monte.)


Over the next six weeks, as Roberts began to craft the decision striking down the mandate, the external pressure began to grow. Roberts almost certainly was aware of it. 

Some of the conservatives, such as Justice Clarence Thomas, deliberately avoid news articles on the Court when issues are pending (and avoid some publications altogether, such as The New York Times). They've explained that they don't want to be influenced by outside opinion or feel pressure from outlets that are perceived as liberal.

But Roberts pays attention to media coverage. As Chief Justice, he is keenly aware of his leadership role on the Court, and he also is sensitive to how the Court is perceived by the public. 

There were countless news articles in May warning of damage to the Court - and to Roberts' reputation - if the Court were to strike down the mandate. Leading politicians, including the President himself, had expressed confidence the mandate would be upheld.

The Fix Was IN, ya'll. Roberts voted to strike down, then hijacked the process, then revealed his true intentions. This explains why several colleagues will no longer engage him in debate. From this point on, they have to assume when his lips are moving--he's lying.

The Executive Branch is in the hands of lawless hustlers. The Senate is in the hands of Obama's enablers. The House is breathing fire, but can't get much done, and the Supreme Court is about to grind to a standstill. The Chief Justice is a duplicitous, vain hack, and the other Justices know it.

This is a recipe for really, really, really bad trouble. Until grown-ups retake the Senate, and pay freaking attention to the people they appoint to lower courts, we are in for a world of hurt.