Barack Obama on DHS Funding

  

 During the lame duck session of the 112th Congress, House Republicans fully funded FY 2015 budget, with the exception of Department of Homeland Security, in which a short term continuing resolution was applied to allow for a rider which would not Congressionally fund President Obama's Executive Action on illegal immigration.

 In the new 113th Congress, Senate Democrats refused to allow cloture to debate the DHS bill, lest the funding bill pass on majority terms.  The Obama White House and lackeys in the Lamestream Media and Senate Democrats are striving to frame Republicans for being obstructionists for not rubber stamping Mr. Obama's extra-constitutional effective amnesty. 

 Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has suggested bifurcating the Executive Amnesty issue from DHS funding.  But this legislative legerdemain was acceptable to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) only if House Speaker John Boehner acceded to Obama's will.  So far, Speaker Boehner holds the attitude that Senate Democrats ought to "get off their asses" and vote on the House bill. 

The GOP opponents seek to claim that Republicans will endanger the nation due to not funding DHS's $38 Billion budget. Alas, 80% of DHS's 240,000 employees are essential workers, who are required to report to work without a guaranteed pay check (even though all workers have routinely been paid after a budget standoff).  So security should not be an issue, even though the Obama Administration has been hyping the Boko Haram and al Shabob threat on the Mall of America and other Jewish owned shopping centers (but this has nothing to do with certain religions). 

So now the Obama Administration's tact has shifted to hardball politics.  During a townhall meeting telecast on MSNBC and Telemundo, President Obama dared the Republicans to pass the House bill, which would merit another Obama veto.   

  

 May the majorities in Congress stick to their principles and not quickly fold to a passive aggressive bully chief executive.  No matter what, the Lamestream Media is ready to repudiate Republicans. But the shutdown is so targeted that the public won't shed tears over the World War II monument being shut down as during the Flying Flip shutdown of October 2013.

h/t: Bruce Plante

Feminists Pols Primed to Use #BringBackOurGirls As Partisan Cudgel

Eleven Democrat Senators jumped on the hashtag diplomacy bandwagon by posing for a #BringBackOurGirls publicity photo.  To follow up, all twenty female Senators signed a letter to President Obama deploring the abduction of 300 Nigerian schoolgirls.  In addition, this letter  urged that the Congregation of the People of Tradition for Proselytism and Jihad, more widely known as Boko Haram (loosely translated "Western education is sinful"), and offshoot group Ansaru to be considered al Qaeda associates and thereby be put on the terror watch list. Senator Amy Klobachar (D-MN) sought to expand awareness to include human trafficking both domestically and internationally. 

This sense of the Senate is interesting as it comes at a time Democrat vehemently claim that the Republicans are on a partisan witchhunt regarding the House Benghazi Select Committee.  Moreover, as prospective Presidential candidates for the 2016 run, these women are strangely silent about former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's decision to keep Boko Haram off the terror watch list during her tenure at Foggy Bottom.  

Realpolitck critics contend that this social media campaign is just an exercise in self-esteem which will have little sway on the barbarians in the wild of Nigeria.  Rush Limbaugh suggested that the hashtag campaign was a cheaper way of advertising that "you care" instead of investing in a cause ribbon  or organizing a benefit concert.

Unlike the 2012 campaign smear, the Boku Haram abductions exemplify a real "War on Women".  Yet if one does not  throw accolades to the Twitter campaigns are condemned as being "out of touch" and not savvy about how digital soft power can work.  Almost inevitably, skeptics of the efficacy of hashtag diplomacy will be cast as the villains. 

Sandra Fluke, the former Georgetown University Law student whose claim to fame was by offering Congressional testimony that she could not afford her own contraception to bolster  Obamacare's Contraception Mandate, she could not afford contraception, now is a Democrat running for California State Senate seat 26.  A satirical site carried  outrageous opinions concerning sexual oppression in America and elsewhere.

Fortunately, Fluke's attributed observations were a spoof.  But considering Fluke's "Two Futures" speech at the 2012 Democrat National Convention, such rhetoric is not beyond the pale. 

 Some celebutards vow if elections do not go their way that they'll leave the country.  Alas, few have followed up on their promises.. If they were true, Fluke's bold statements have made her a candidate for 4P draft status in the War on Terror.

However, progressive news media are poised to use this atrocity as a cudgel for finding favor for their pet causes.  MSNBC's Chris Matthews mocked the the GOP for their sudden concern about Africa.  Of course, Matthews forgot about how widely praised President George W. Bush had been for efforts in Africa during his two terms. Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC wondered aloud if a mostly male administration would have acted sooner if the abductees weren't girls.

It seems that the #BringBackOurGirls social media campaign might have an altruistic origin, but it is showy issue identification which can be refashioned into a cudgel against domestic political "enemies".

{ Editor's Note 5/15 Piece corrected regarding Sandra Fluke}

Mark Steyn on POTUS Potential

Columnist to the World Mark Steyn has been scathing to the lack of personal involvement which Barack Obama has contributed to his successes, including victories during his Presidency.  Steyn recently critiqued the White House involvement in the Twitter campaign against the Boko Haram jihadist terrorists who abducted 276 Nigerian schoolgirls to sell them into sexual slavery. 

Steyn likens social media promotion of #BringBackOurGirls  to political impotency and suggests #BringBackOurBalls.  

Of course will all of the cuts to military readiness applied by sequestration, green energy initiatives et cetera, Twitter campaigns may be the best the Obama Administration can do. But surely there is a way to blame it on Bush.  Or maybe now the bete noir are the Koch Brothers.