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Milwaukee, WI - So far since Wednesday, Milwaukee Police haven't been fully using its Intelligence Center publicly to profile, discriminate and kick people (Harley bikers) out of the Summerfest grounds for no wrong doing during the Harley-Davidson 110th Anniversary,  according to inside sources.

The Incredible Shrinking President
A Humiliating Debacle For America
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
*****************

Well, Obama just finished off what little was left of America's credibility around the world.

As we have said so often before, he is the least qualified President we have ever had.  He just proved it.

No amount of excuses from the left will cover the fact that Obama blinked. Hell, he didn't just blink, he ran.  Putin and Assad must be bent double in laughter at Obama's high-stepping, backwards, away from a fight.

The national honor of the US has just suffered a tremendous blow.  We will pay for it for decades to come. 

I sincerely hope Bibi Netanyahu and the nation of Israel understand they are on their own with Iran.  Any influence Obama may have had in any kind of negotiations with Iran is totally gone. Now that Iran has seen just how serious a threat from this administration really is, they have zero fear and, I suspect, perceive this all as a green light for the go ahead to compete their nuclear program so they can attack Israel and the US with nuclear weapons as soon s possible. (When a US coastal city goes up in a mushroom cloud Americans will know where to place the blame.)

I hope the Israelis will take the bit firmly in their teeth now and go ahead and do what must be done to save the world from Iran.  It is clear there is no longer a US with the character, the intestinal fortitude, the guts, the cahones, to lead the world any longer.

It is fairly certain the Congress will NOT give Obama the OK to attack Syria.  Why? Well, it might be because some 80% of Americans don't want to attack Syria.  Most of us cannot define a single American interest in Syria.  Most of us understand there would be no victory in Syria.  And, frankly, many of us are tired of having our military used as some sort of political bludgeon.

And how must Secretary of State John Kerry feel now?  I mean, his boss just made a complete blithering fool of him before the entire world.  Does he resign?  Should he resign?  And he gave up a safe seat in the US Senate to become Obama's fool.  

In any event, Congress will not return to Washington for about another week.  Understand, nothing says thy must place a debate on military action against Syria at the top of their "to do" list.  You can bet the phone lines and the Capitol Hill switchboard  will be red hot as will their email inboxes.

In the meantime, a President the press is already trying to paint as the target of all sorts of humiliation, did not retire to the Oval Office to contemplate his next move to gain congressional approval for an attack on Syria. No.  He sped off to the golf course at Ft. Belvoir.  See, he is sure he WON'T get Congressional approval and with this move he can extract himself from the corner he painted himself into months ago with his over active mouth pronouncing "red line" markers.

It is extremely difficult for those of us on the right side of the political spectrum to believe that a president could deliberately make such wrong-headed decisions.  It is hard to wrap our minds around the possibility that a man could deliberately do what Obama has done to America.  And yet, there it is. He has taken America from the pinnacle to the gutter in four and a half years -- and played golf or was on vacation for a good portion of the time.

Can there be any doubt, any doubt at all, that under Obama's leadership America is headed down the same route as the city of Detroit?  When a nation's leader treats the nation as a banana republic, that nation will become a banana republic. 

I am shamed by the actions of my President today.  Shamed and humiliated.  I am also angry.  I'm angry that the electorate saw fit to give the man another four years to destroy the work it has taken some 238 years to build. 

Up to this past weekend, Americans had decades of work ahead of us repairing the damage Obama had already done.  After his cowardly actions of backing down from Assad and Putin, it will take at least a century to claw our way back. -- if we ever can.

© J. D. Longstreet

The following chart shows the ratio of service-providing employees to all non-farm employees.


Click to enlarge.

More than 86% now work in the service-providing industries! Hurray! Never healthier!

The next chart shows the year over year change in the total nominal amount we're collectively spending on services.


Click to enlarge.

There is still 2.5% growth!
Our service economy is therefore still healthy!
The present is still bright!
I still gotta wear shades!

I have mercifully spared you the pain and suffering of short-term and long-term trend lines. Oops. I probably should not have mentioned that. Sorry!

Hey, at least I didn't point out that the current 2.5% growth is almost entirely made up of smoke and mirrors inflation. That really won't add much to "real" services job growth from here if it continues. Oops. I did it again. Sorry!

I'm drawing the line. No amount of torture could make me confess what would happen to services employment if the growth rate in services continues to fall like it did as the dotcom bubble was popping or as the housing bubble was popping. @#$%! There's nothing I can say now to adequately express my remorse over implying the obvious. Shame on me!

I'm determined to end on an upbeat note though, so trust me on this. The future is still so bright! I gotta wear moonshades!

“I guess I just prefer to see the dark side of things. The glass is always half empty. And cracked. And I just cut my lip on it. And chipped a tooth.” - Janeane Garofalo

See Also:
Still Investing

Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Service-Providing Employees / Total Nonfarm Employees
St. Louis Fed: Personal Consumption Expenditures: Services (YoY)

Believing His Own BS
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
***********************

Oh, this is embarrassing! Our wimp of a President trying to fit into the hat of the Commander-in-Chief.  Geez!  He could at least take the "Kick Me" sign off his back.

Look.  This is what you get when you put a guy in an office for which he is not suited, not ready for, and does not have the cahones to make hard decisions.  And believe me, Mr. Obama is decision averse!  He hates making decisions of any kind but he hates hard decisions the most dragging his feet hoping he can outlast the problem, run out the clock, and not have to make a decision at all.

I've known other people just like that.  It strikes me that the people who delay making decisions are the very same people who condemn the final decision maker if the slightest thing goes wrong. 

See,  here's where I am having an immense problem with Obama's feckless behavior.  Our national honor is now at stake and he, Obama, has caused it to be called into question and that just stinks!

We have this expression down south that covers situations like this.  It is something like this:  "It's is really bad to run a man down and THEN HAVE YOUR BUTT WHIPPED!"

Mr. Obama's mouth has written a check his butt cannot cash!  The man is folding like a wilted suit before the gaze of -- NO -- not Assad!  Putin! 

Anyone running their mouths as often as our motor-mouth President must be prepared to stick his foot in it fairly often.  Occasionally, he may step so deeply into it, that he must be willing to fight to back up his spoken rhetoric.  If he isn't willing to go all out to preserve his honor, and the honor of those he represents, well then, he isn't much of a man.

The thing is this:  You cannot take a nation like the US to the brink of war with threats unless you are willing to carry through.  Apparently Obama, as is his wont, believed his own BS.  He apparently believed that his just uttering the words would so fill the hearts of the enemy with fear and dread that they would shut-up and slink away with their collective tails between their legs. 

Didn't happen. 

Those of us who live out here in the real world never thought it would and said so publicly. All he has accomplished is to make America look like a paper tiger -- a reflection, perhaps, of its leader.

Oh, and he has emboldened our enemies the world over.   By his feckless action, or lack there of, he has made the situation exponentially worse. 

Whereas, a few days ago, a pinprick, surgical, strike might actually have served a purpose, done some good,  (The operative word in the preceding sentence is "MIGHT.") now, however, a pinprick, surgical, strike will do absolutely nothing besides provide a propaganda victory to the enemy. 

Now, the US Forces must make a major strike, seriously damaging the command and control centers of Assad's government, his airfields, his harbor(s), his transportaion modes, his communications, take out his air forces, his navy -- in other words,  we have to throw that ole "shock and awe" at Assad, or -- do nothing at all.

Oh, dear reader, how many times have we reminded America that liberal's have no understanding of military force nor its application.  You are seeing it play out right before your eyes today.  No matter how this Syrian adventure of Mr. Obama's plays out, it will not be good for the US.

Normally, I would say that calling off the attack would do the US less harm than if we carry through with a strike so surgical as to be perceived as a face-saving slap on the wrist.  Not now. 

Our national honor has been laid upon the alter of Obama's over inflated vanity by his words, vacuous words that demonstrated a distinct lack of intelligence or thought; that were, in fact, stupid and even silly  It is a sacrifice we cannot afford to make.  No nation can.

Obama made this bed, now America must lie upon it.

Personally, I didn't want this war.  I can find no definable US interest in Syria. Frankly, it appears (to me) to be more of a "micturition contest" between Obama and Putin than anything else. 

Obama has brought us to the stage at which anything less than a full scale attack will be interpreted by the remainder of the world as turning tail and running. Sorry, folks, but that's the way it is.

As a conservative commentator has said so many times:  "Words mean things."   A President has a responsibility to measure his every utterance. 

Someone once said: "A man is never so empty as when he is full of himself."  I am very much afraid we have a Commander-in-Chief who has suddenly found himself backed into a corner by his own rhetoric.   Unfortunately, he has forced the country into the same corner with him and that is unacceptable in the extreme.

© J D. Longstreet

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty-vs-Tyranny

Life is Grand! If You're a Multi- Millionaire Collectivist Progressive

Hot damn! A great thing for the nation... ! Looking to the likely future realities (based on the recent past) of the no doubt Republican failure to reclaim political relevancy.

NationalJournal - NJ Do you want to be speaker again?

PELOSI No, that's not my thing. I did that. {Read the Full Interview Here }

Perhaps we will be so lucky as to see her next announce retirement? Naw, likely not. She's a power broker and no doubt loves the rush.

Via: Memeorandum

By Findalis of Monkey in the Middle

Over a week ago President Bashar al-Assad of Syria launched a gas attack on his own people.  Hundreds of civilians are dead and thousands are wounded.  Now to follow up such a hideous act, Assad has launched an incendiary bomb into the city of Aleppo.

Citizens from the area of the city of Aleppo in northern Syria, suffering from burns most likely caused by a incendiary bomb similar to napalm, were shown on Friday on a BBC network broadcast.

According to the report, 10 were killed and many more injured in a bombing on a school.

The broadcast shows a man, identified as a teacher in the bombed school, suffering from burns in most of his body.

The broadcast shows a man, identified as a teacher in the bombed school, suffering from burns in most of his body.

Wounded from the attack:

Click here if the video fails to load.

"The plane bombed a residential area in Orum a-Kubra," he said. "We tried to evacuate quickly, but it appears that fate had the upper hand today."

"The students gathered in one place, and then the plane got us," he added.

In another video, taken after the attack, a doctor who treated the wounded said that 10 students were killed and about 50 injured, most of them suffering from severe burns caused by napalm.

The BBC report described the scene and said the wounded looked like "walking dead."

A BBC reporter at the scene estimated the bomb contained either a napalm type explosive or thermite.

A British medic, Dr Rola, who was in Syria with the charity Hand In Hand, treated the victims at the hospital.

She said: "It is just absolute chaos and carnage here. We have had a massive influx of what looks like serious burns, seems like it must be some sort of, not really sure, maybe napalm, something similar to that.

"But obviously within the chaos of the situation it is very difficult to know exactly what is going on."

She said later: "We feel like some sort of, not even a second class citizen, like we just don't matter. Like all of these children, and all of these people who are being killed and massacred, we don't matter.

"The whole world has failed our nation and it is innocent civilians who are paying the price.".

Meanwhile, the NBC network released a survey which shows 50% of Americans oppose an US strike against Syria. Close to 80% of the surveyed said the President Barack Obama must have the Congress' go-ahead before a military intervention against Assad's regime.

SOURCE

On September 6, 2007 Israel destroyed Syria's nuclear reactor. Could you imagine Assad with a nuke or two?  Would he use it on his own people?  I do believe he would use a nuke on his own people.  He has already used Sarin gas and now an incendiary bomb.  Syria has descended into Hell.  A Hell of their own making.  How this will end is not known to the future, but it will not be a good ending for the Syrian people.

The only thing better than heading into a weekend is knowing its a three-day weekend. Summer is slipping through our fingers so soak up every last minute of it.


For those in the US - happy labor day! And for all of my other friends, happy weekend!

Domestic Barbarians Destroy America
The Barbarism Within
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
*************
“We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creed refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.”   …   Hilaire Belloc

How many times have you heard someone say that when liberals are out of power their antics are funny …  but when they are in power they are dangerous?  My guess is you have heard it many times.  Most of us are quite familiar with it, in fact.

Today America is living the nightmare … disguised by the Left as the American dream.  It has been pathetically named "The New Normal."   It's not new and it's NOT normal.

“In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”
— Edward Gibbon

Mr. Gibbon could easily have been describing modern day America rather than ancient Athens.  America’s coffers are empty largely to provide Americans a comfortable life.  And, just like the Athenians, we are losing everything, our security, our comfort, and most important, our FREEDOM. 

We have a government ruled by those barbarians America used to laugh at.  And they are solidifying and tightening their grasp on the throat of America’s freedom squeezing it out of existence. Viewing the constitution as nothing more than a speed bump, they are determined to drag America from the pinnacle to the cesspool -- and they are enjoying great success in their strivings!

In a recent commentary I noted how the peoples of a number of states have become so alarmed at the Obama government that they are harkening back to their rights as sovereign states and employing state nullification laws to countermand federal mandates intended to yoke them with federal laws to which they disagree and find overbearing, and massive financial costs they cannot bear.

Thomas Jefferson, one of the founders of America, said the following:  “Whenever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.”  He was there, at the birth of this nation, so he ought to know!

Thomas Paine, one of America’s great pamphleteers, author of “Common Sense,” and certainly one of the great rabble-rousers of all time -- and in many ways responsible for the American colonists’ revolution against Great Britain commented thusly: “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worse state, an intolerable one.”  No truer words were ever spoken. 

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), the renowned French historian, in writing about what we call today “Big Government” said the following: “It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

After reading de Tocqueville’s words above your brain happens to form the words “OBAMACARE” on the TV screen of your mind… then you, sir/madam, GET IT! 

Today we have first-hand knowledge of the destruction out-of-control big government can levy on a nation – even the most powerful nation on the globe.  Americans are weighted down, yoked to government as oxen were once yoked to the plow. Heads down, shoulders hunched forward we are pulling the weight with the near debilitating knowledge that our efforts only make the yoke stronger and will, eventually, end in our demise.

"And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works.”  Thus wrote Frederic Bastiat a French economist, statesman, and author in the 1800’s.

Freedom is slowly being crushed in America.  As an American, now in my eighth decade of living in America, I can tell you, with no hesitation at all, that I am not nearly as free as I was only a decade or two ago. Freedom, once lost, is nigh impossible to regain.  That’s why free peoples should fight every attempt to take from them even the smallest and seemingly least important freedom.

The man who has done more to diminish America and set her on a course to becoming another third-world dung heap asked Americans for -- and received -- four more years in which to complete the job.  Unbelievable -- but true.

I remain convinced nothing short of divine intervention can halt the wholesale destruction of a free America led by Barack Hussein Obama.

© J. D. Longstreet 

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny

This is a day I have long waited for. A day that gives me great satisfaction. Reasoned and reasonable liberals and conservatives in a bi-partisan fashion have sent a strong and constitutionally correct signal to the President.

Perhaps most rewarding for me is that these conservatives are finally acting like conservatives ought to be acting every time it comes to ordering military action against another sovereign nation. With extreme skepticism and caution.

Liberals, to their great credit are "bucking" their party leader. Good news from both sides of the aisle. Perhaps the ultimate outcome will be as the President seems to favor. If the President listens to the peoples representatives, whether they give or withhold Congressional approval for intervention the people have won. Just as our Founders intended.

Maybe this mood will take hold and last? Naw, not likely given the republican tendency to be the consummate party of the contrary.

The Hill - The opposition to President Obama launching unilateral military operations in Syria exploded on Thursday when dozens of liberal Democrats joined scores of conservative Republicans in warning the administration that any strikes without congressional approval would violate the Constitution.

In a letter to Obama, 53 liberal Democrats — including a long list of Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) members — argued that, while the human rights atrocities being committed by the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad are "horrific," they alone "should not draw us into an unwise war – especially without adhering to our own constitutional requirement."

"While we understand that as Commander in Chief you have a constitutional obligation to protect our national interests from direct attack, Congress has the constitutional obligation and power to approve military force, even if the United States or its direct interests (such as its embassies) have not been attacked or threatened with an attack," reads the letter, which was spearheaded by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), a former head of the CBC.

"As such, we strongly urge you to seek an affirmative decision of Congress prior to committing any U.S. military engagement to this complex crisis."

The message comes on the heels of a similar letter, released Wednesday by Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.), warning Obama that "national interests" alone are not enough to authorize military force without Congress's stamp of approval.

"If you deem that military action in Syria is necessary, Congress can reconvene at your request," reads the Rigell letter, which has been endorsed by 140 House lawmakers, including 21 Democrats.

There is some overlap between the two campaigns; 12 of the Democrats signing the Rigell letter have also endorsed Lee's message.

The congressional pushback highlights the dilemma facing Obama as he tries to bring an end to Syria's bloody and long-running civil war.

On one hand, Obama faces increasing pressure to intervene on behalf of civilian victims amid escalating attacks, particularly since last week's alleged toxic gas assault by Assad's forces. On the other, Obama ran his first campaign for president largely on a platform of ending conflicts, not starting them. And an attack on Syria risks alienating the voters who are still holding him at his word — especially if it's done without congressional approval. {Read More}

Removing All Doubt
Obama's Syrian Slip-up
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
*******************

"It is better to remain silent and allow others to wonder if you are a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." ... A. Lincoln, President of the United States.

Mr. Lincoln was making an attempt at  paraphrasing the Bible, Proverbs 17:28 to be exact, which says: "Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding."

It seems to me that the US President would do well to take to heart Proverbs 17:28 -- especially after his "Syrian Slip-up."  

I have often thought , and said as much, that our President talks to much, far too much. 
For most of my working life, I was paid to talk.  Not for showcasing my, uh, brilliance, but for the ease with which the ability to express myself seemed to come.  I can report to you now, that it did not come easy for me.  It was LEARNED BEHAVIOR. See, I figured out, as a kid, that a fellow with a good vocabulary and the power to,persuade -- plus the ability to speak in public would never go hungry.   I've been hungry.  Believe me, well-fed is much better.

So, where am I going with all this?  I expect you can guess. 

Our President doesn't know when to shut up! 

Look, there are two things you can always count on:  One, you will not always be the smartest fellow in the room, and two, there will always be someone ready, willing, and able to call your bluff.

Oh, and there is a third thing (when dealing with despots and terrorists.)  You can't bluff a person willing to lay down his life for his belief.  He has nothing to lose and, he BELIEVES, anyway, that he has everything to gain by dying.  Therefore, you cannot defeat him.  Yes, you can deconstruct his organization, demonize his cause, and kill him.  But you cannot defeat him. 

Endeavoring to totally defeat terrorism is akin to squeezing a balloon only to see it bulge in another location.  Squeeze that bulge and another appears.  Thus it is with terrorist organizations.

You would think that after nearly five years of the Obama administration we would no longer be surprised at the administration's amateurish efforts at foreign policy.  About the time we thought we were immune to any more infantile like surprises, Obama went and drew a red line and dared Assad to step over it.  Of COURSE,  Assad stepped over it.  Hell, he had to.  It is basic psychology.  When you are a "strongman" leader and you are challenged, you MUST rise to the challenge. Otherwise you risk being dispatched by your own people and replaced with another strongman who WILL rise to the challenge.

Obama should never have drawn that red line.  However, being the amateur that he is, he did, and now we have no choice but to back it up by going to war (in the middle of a civil war) in a country where there are no US interests and where the outcome, no matter what it is, will not be advantageous for the US.   It doesn't get much crazier than than this.

I can't speak for you but, I must tell you, I am fed-up with my country involving itself in "nation building" especially in the Middle East where it is a lost cause from the git-go. 

(By the way, this is a glimpse into what the entire world would look like under global governance.  Constant, never-ending war.)
But, the red line has been crossed and Obama must, repeat, MUST strike.  If he does not follow through,  all the implied threats, going forward, will be seen as hollow, worthless, gestures made by a country that talks big but hasn't the cahones to carry out it's threat. THAT will loose all sorts of mischief on the globe.  US foreign policy, such as it is today, will be a laughing stock. (Not that it isn't a laughing stock today.  Only MORE people will be laughing and a lot louder!)

One must consider what Russia and Iran will do the moment the first US missile or bomb slams into Syrian soil.  Personally, I expect terrorist attacks on Americans in diverse places around the globe.  There have already been rumors that orders have been given for Islamic terrorists to take American hostages forthwith in the event of US military action against Assad.  

It is also likely, there may be some jostling of Russian and American naval vessels and combat aircraft. 

Oh, did I say AIRCRAFT?  I did.  Once we learn that cruise missiles can't get the job done alone, expect US manned aircraft to be launched against Assad's forces. (If bomber aircraft are not a part of the original raid.)  There are reports, unconfirmed by this scribe, that US bomber aircraft have been seen flying into British air bases in the immediate area.

Some sources have made much of the fact that the US has not sailed an aircraft carrier into the eastern end of the Med.  It isn't necessary.  The British have military bases, including airbase(s) on the island of Cyprus just off the coast (Approx. 100 miles) of Syria. 

Another question:  Will Obama be able to withstand the withering criticism bound to come rolling in over the deaths of civilians as a result of our bombing and missile strikes?  Does he have the steel to stay the course once he has committed our forces to the task?  All we know of Obama's military prowess so far is his ability to retreat, as in Iraq and Afghanistan.
At the bottom of all this mess, I feel sure, is that damnable UN initiative of "The responsibility to protect" designed to prevent and stop genocides, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.  Of course, it is just more leftist feel good policy which doesn't do anything toward alleviating the problem, but cost a great many lives of US servicemen and women.

Obama has climbed way out on a limb with his Syrian adventure.  It is almost impossible for it to end well.  Look how Libya ended. Syria stands to be far worse than Libya.

All America can look forward to from our Syrian adventure is more flag draped coffins ... and for what?  No, I mean -- FOR WHAT?

© J. D. Longstreet