NHS "death pathway" isn't just for old people

Sick children are disposable, too, and their NHS "caregivers" employ dehydration and starvation to move them along the "pathway" to death. Often, they aren't as easy to kill as one would imagine.

Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor's haunting testimony reveals how children are put on end-of-life plan

One doctor has admitted starving and dehydrating ten babies to death in the neonatal unit of one hospital alone.

Writing in a leading medical journal, the physician revealed the process can take an average of ten days during which a baby becomes ‘smaller and shrunken’.

The culture of death isn't pretty, is it?

Hat tip to friend and Daily Mail fan AS.

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Obligatory Christmas gift post

Kind reader Walt has encouraged me to encourage you all to SHOP HERE for Christmas. Purchases you make after clicking through to Amazon from the various links on this site will earn us a few groats and cost you nothing. Walt advises: "Don't be shy - everybody's got shopping to do now, and they'll appreciate a good steer." Well, all right, if he says so --

Bah dah boom.

Or, um . . .

Yes, really. Also this.

Anyway. I've put together some things that will get you and your loved ones through the chilly months in a state of cozy, domestic oblivion. Who cares about fiscal cliffs or cultural decline when you've settled in with a nice hot beverage, some comforting comestibles, a warm blanky, and a book from a previous century? It will be April before you know it.

When it comes to escapism, formulaic mysteries are hard to beat. Agatha Christie did not write great literature but poison-pen letters, suspect tins of fish-paste, and the occasional corpse tucked into the cupboard under the stairs can make for a delightful way to spend a chilly winter afternoon. My favorites:







(I think that's the one which opens with an incompetent typist annoying everyone in the office by making tea with water that's not boiling. That's a crime in itself.)

Joephine Tey's mysteries were more literary, like the excellent Franchise Affair (see sidebar on left). Feel free to make your own classic mystery suggestions in the comments.

Non-mysteries:
PG Wodehouse: Bertie and Jeeves, natch, but we also love the golf stories (drat, The Golf Omnibus is not in print) and the irrepressible Psmith (four titles).

EM Delafield: Her "diaries" are charming. I've read Diary of a Provincial Lady and two of the three sequels, but not the wartime one. Too sad.

Children's books:
Speaking of comfort, you can't go wrong with this hardback edition of The Hobbit featuring Tolkien's original cover, or this gorgeous annotated version:

That's a pretty good deal.

My kids have loved Swallows and Amazons, The Moffats, Tin-Tin, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, and so many more. Browse here and here. If you have a favorite you'd like to suggest let us know in the comments.

I like the looks of this:

It comes in lots of colors.

Tea time: I'm shopping for an electric kettle for someone on my list and have gotten lost in the morass of  reviews. Bottom line: None sounds perfect but several of them get four stars. I'll probably go with this one:

or this one:

I was originally attracted to this one because it stays cool on the outside, but some reviewers say it dribbles. But others like it a lot:

To go with all that boiling water, Earl Grey and company:

Ghirardelli hot cocoa mix:

Swedish angel chimes: I got these for a friend last year and was pleased to see the image on the box hasn't changed since my mother-in-law gave me some about 25 years ago:

That's all for now. Many thanks to those who have "shopped" here in the past. You know who you are (unless you clicked through by accident, but that's fine, too). And thanks to everyone for putting up with the sales pitch. 

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Injunction issued against HHS mandate

Yes:

A federal appeals court today issued an order granting a motion for a preliminary injunction that temporarily blocks the implementation of the HHS mandate against a Missouri business owner.

Read on for details. It's very good news.

In case you missed it, read Kathryn Jean Lopez's piece from yesterday: Politico Notices the Americans Suing the Obama Administration to Protect their Religious Freedom

A bit:

Of course, anyone who didn’t make it beyond the third graf, where it is explained that “dozens of lawsuits have been filed in protest of the Obama administration’s policy that most employers include no-cost coverage of FDA-approved prescription contraceptives in health plans” might miss that the cost to employers like the evangelical Wheaton College, Hobby Lobby, a Protestant Bible publisher, and the University of Notre Dame is not to their wallets but to their consciences, which the president once said he would protect, in South Bend, Ind., on the very campus of one of the plaintiffs, as you may recall.

There are also crippling fines that will hit schools and other faith-based social-service organizations who refuse to comply with the mandate when the one-year grace period the administration gave the likes of the Catholic Archdioceses of New York and Washington, D.C. (both plaintiffs), is up.

Anyone who makes it to the third page is met with this caricature of the debate:

Body or soul? Women’s health versus free exercise of religion

It’s a wee bit more complicated than that, of course. Does “women’s health” necessarily mean forcing religious entities and individuals with moral objections to abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and female sterilization? When did we have the vote on treating fertility as a disease and pregnancy as a “Preventative Service,” as the Department of Health and Human Services does with this regulation.

Read the rest.

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Something beautiful

I've had little enthusiasm for blogging of late but if I never link to another piece of writing this would be a beautiful one to finish up with:

Loving a Child on the Fringe by Cristina Nehring

Cut to: Paris, fall 2012. I am sitting next to my cherry-lipped, porcelain-skinned daughter, now 4 years old. I step out of the medical transport van that has ferried us home from her preschool and heave her onto the sidewalk. She giggles and extends two fingers to stroke my cheek. Before the driver can pull away from the curb, I gather her against my heart, draw back a few inches, smile in wonder into her radiant smile, and kiss her face and hair and temples as holiday shoppers stop and stare.

Eurydice’s and my walks through town are punctuated by spontaneous remakes of Doisneau’s “The Kiss”—except with toddler and mother switched in for boy and girl. Not that things are easy . . .

And they are not. Read the rest and pass it on.

Hat tip to @jpodhoretz , whose very next tweet linked to a sharply contrasting item, though it claimed to be about -- of all things! --unconditional love.  The world is upside-down, no?

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Steyn audio: "All effective story-telling is conservative"

Thanks to Jeff Poor for posting this healthy chunk of audio from Mark Steyn's stint on Rush yesterday. It's about winning back the culture from the default liberalism in which (to use Steyn's words) we all swim:

Click for a partial transcript, including this:

“If you just say we’re going to retreat, and we’re just going to discuss getting this or that congressman elected, then the sea that your children swim in and the sea your grandchildren swim in will be liberal, and it will be impossible to elect genuinely conservative candidates,” Steyn said.

Steyn says we haven't lost the war yet but we've got to fight back by "playing big."

Here's something I've wondered myself:

What's the point of picking Paul Ryan as your running mate and not fighting a big-picture election on where America is? 

Shaking my head. The choice of Ryan felt a little like a bait-and-switch move to lure in disaffected conservatives. Maybe it would have worked better if Ryan had been more Ryan-y.

If you can stand to contemplate 2016:

The next time round we deserve a candidate who fights a big national campaign on the existential questions facing the United States.

Sooooo . . . who's psyched for President Jeb Bush? [Insert primal scream here.] (I don't want to get into 2016 talk at all, except to say this: Mike Pence.)

Back to Steyn, about four minutes into the audio:

It's absurd that the Left has managed to take over Hollywood. It's one of the reasons, by the way, that Hollywood is in the toilet, it's kaput. I said on this show a couple of months back that I think in the end all effective story-telling is conservative, because it's about consequences. You make a decision, you make a choice, and you have to live with the consequences of that choice. And the Left says no, no, no, there are no consequences to anything. 

Listen to the rest. You can read more bits and pieces from yesterday here. Okay, one more:

They say there's nowhere to cut to avert the fiscal cliff. Really? The cost of flying, staffing and entertaining Barack Obama is more than every European royal house combined. This isn't even a partisan thing. When you're broke, the guy in charge should cut back. Why does Obama have full-time movie projectionist on staff around the clock? Is it in case he wakes up at 2 a.m. and wants to watch 'The Ice Follies of 1939' 

Mark likened this absurd presidential perk to the British monarchy's Groom of the Stool. Viva Steyn!

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More on the importance of story-telling: After the Crack-Up

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One way to fight Obamacare: "Go limp" [updated]

In case you missed it a week or so back, here's an item from Mario Loyola on whether the states should set up Obamacare exchanges:

States Should Absolutely Refuse to Set Up Obamacare Exchanges

Proponents of Obamacare are making one argument that some conservatives may find appealing — namely that it is much better, from a states’ rights point of view, to set up state-based exchanges than to let the feds come in and do it themselves. This argument is absolutely wrong. Allowing your states to be deputized as instruments of federal policy is just as bad as bowing to federal commandeering of state agencies, which is unconstitutional. [. . .]

State governors should be under no illusions: You are not preserving one iota of state autonomy by setting up your own Obamacare exchange. On the contrary, you are letting the feds deputize you as instruments of federal policy. Let the feds set up the exchanges themselves; they can pay for them and be accountable for the results. That will impose a real limit on federal power, and provide leverage for rolling back some of Obamacare. In the meantime the message of state governments to the Department of Health and Human Services should be an absolute and unequivocal “NO.”

Read the rest. See also Wesley Smith, author of NR's Human Exceptionalism blog and Corner contributor, who concurs:

After an appalling and incoherent Supreme Court ruling and the recent election, it does seem now that utter legal non cooperation is the only way remaining to impede the Leviathan.  Here’s another suggestion: Senate Republicans should filibuster confirmation of the soon-to-be-nominated members of the Independent Payment Advisory Board. No board, no IPAB autocracy. Of course, the president might then make a non-recess recess appointment, but that opens any action taken by IPAB to legal attack.

So, stalwart Obamacare opponents, time for some good old fashioned passive resistance. Go limp.

RTR.

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I just noticed this excellent piece by John Hayward: Obamacare in Crisis as 2013 Approaches. A chunk of it:

. . . Perhaps the most damning indictment offered by the recalcitrant governors is that ObamaCare’s regulations are still largely unwritten.  The governors felt they were being asked to sign a contract that still contained a shocking number of blank pages and penciled-in notes.

An article in The Hill on Sunday shed more light on point number 3.  ”The Obama administration faces major logistical and financial challenges in creating health insurance exchanges for states that have declined to set up their own systems,” noted author Elise Viebeck, who went on to say it was “a situation no one anticipated when the Affordable Care Act was written,” because “the law assumed states would create and operate their own exchanges, and set aside billions in grants for that purpose.”

What?  ”A situation no one anticipated?”  How could that be true?  The governors resisting President Obama’s health-care takeover are not seceding from the Union.  ”Rebellious” is a description of their attitude, not their legal status.  They’re not breaking, or even challenging, any laws; they’re exercising a provision written into ObamaCare, and it’s one of the relatively few sections of that disastrous law that actually was written in ink, at the time of passage.  State governors were always given the option of asking the federal government to run the exchanges in their states.

Is it possible that the power-hungry bureaucrats, clueless central planners, and back-room dealmakers who cooked up ObamaCare truly believed they would get nearly 100 percent compliance from state governors – many of whom were well-known limited-government Republicans – and didn’t really have a “Plan B” for dealing with a sizable number of governors exercising an option that was always present in the law?  If that’s true, it’s another demonstration of the dangerous incompetence of ObamaCare’s authors and signatories.
 
The surprises just keep coming in the Hill article.  Jennifer Tolbert, director of state health reform at the Kaiser Family Foundation, is quoted as saying, “You can’t simply deploy one federal exchange across the board.  Each state is different – their eligibility systems are different, their insurance markets are different.  [HHS is] going to have to build these exchanges to fit into the context of each state.”
 
You mean you can’t run the national health insurance system out of Washington? Now they tell us!  Chalk up another win for ObamaCare’s critics!

What an ungodly mess. RTR.

***
Many thanks to Michelle Malkin and Doug Ross for linking.

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Adult onesies?

Friend AS sent me the following email:

IT'S FAR WORSE THAN WE EVER IMAGINED.
Re: 'Irony'.  Do you believe this infantile silliness?

Sure I do. It seems adult onesies (we used to call them Dr. Dentons) are the next big thing in the UK and aren't just for wearing to bed or lounging around one's drafty flat anymore. Click for pics.


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Steyn stuff

Well, I'm disappointed. It has become apparent that Santa won't be bringing me a new Christmas CD from Mark and Jessica this year. But there is some compensation: Steyn is making his two-hour The Mark Steyn Christmas Show available and it's really great. Here's what I said about it in 2009:

Aside from its intrinsic appeal as a Steyn production, it contains some authentic musical gems by Dorothée Berryman, Monique Fauteux, and Elisabeth von Trapp. I'm looking for Berryman recordings but there isn't much out there. The carol by Fauteux is gorgeous, with the added interest that its lyrics were composed by one of the awesome North American Martyrs, St. Jean de Brebeuf.

Update 12/26: I've since listened to the entire two hours of Steyn's Christmas show (some parts more than once) and need to mention a few more highlights:
- Mark's interview with Hugh Martin, composer of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, featuring the composer's own poignant rendition of the song.
- Berryman, Fauteux, and Steyn's performance of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: Ooh-la-la!

Assuming the recording is the same as the one originally offered as a podcast, other features worthy of note:
- Mark and Rob Long discuss the best sitcom ever, The Dick Van Dyke Show. 
- Mark and Jessica do a rollicking extended version of "It's De-Lovely." I can testify that it holds up to compulsive repeated listening, a la "The Christmas Glow Worm."
- Dorothée Berryman performs a beautiful winter medley which includes the neglected "Winter Weather." (Hey Mark, how's about you and Jessica do a full version of that next year?)

("Winter Weather" was written by Ted Shapiro in 1941. Here's Peggy Lee's version.)

Speaking of Christmas shopping, we'll be posting our annual children's books suggestions soon. For now, here's last year's list. More recommended titles here. As always, we greatly appreciate any shopping you do through out site.

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Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to you all. I'm in the middle of preparing the feast, which I've done for twenty-nine out of the last thirty years. I told a non-American friend that today is all about the cooking. #2 son corrected me -- it's about the eating. Point taken. Here's where we'll all be by the end of the day:

Okay, it's not really that bad. Here's a much nicer image:

I think it's pretty cool that we still have a national holiday about giving thanks to God for all our blessings, even if some choose to dumb it down.

A few Thanksgiving-related items:

President Obama added his own special touch to this year's turkey pardon. SMH.

Michelle Malkin showcases America's givers.

In keeping with the current fervor for pandering to identity groups for votes, check out Stan Freberg's 1961 classic Take an Indian to Lunch This Week.

Mark Steyn is celebrating a birthday and has created a SteynOnline 10th anniversary iPhone case with which to commemorate it. (I don't have an iPhone. It would be too pathetic to buy one anyway, wouldn't it? Asking for a friend.)

Speaking of Steyn, I've been checking his site for signs of a new Christmas CD. Nothing yet. I'm hoping he's just doing the decent thing and waiting till after Thanksgiving for the unveiling. I'm not a fan of leap-frogging over today's holiday into Christmas but I've had to make an exception this year. The post-election blues prompted me to break out last year's masterpiece, The Christmas Glow Worm. It's impossible to feel glum while singing "When you gotta glow you gotta glow!" I don't know how Mark and Jessica will top that this year, if they've done a record, that is. And if they haven't, well, they should have prepared us.

I'm also looking forward to @HonestToddler's observations on today's feast. I'm expecting problems with scary foods (stuffing!), attention-hogging infants, and gluttonous adults.

Thanks as always for reading. Have a great day with your families and friends.

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How ironic

Today's must-read is Christy Wampole's How to Live Without Irony. Every word rings true for me. A few excerpts:

The ironic frame functions as a shield against criticism. The same goes for ironic living. Irony is the most self-defensive mode, as it allows a person to dodge responsibility for his or her choices, aesthetic and otherwise. To live ironically is to hide in public. It is flagrantly indirect, a form of subterfuge, which means etymologically to “secretly flee” (subter + fuge). Somehow, directness has become unbearable to us.

How did this happen? It stems in part from the belief that this generation has little to offer in terms of culture, that everything has already been done, or that serious commitment to any belief will eventually be subsumed by an opposing belief, rendering the first laughable at best and contemptible at worst. This kind of defensive living works as a pre-emptive surrender and takes the form of reaction rather than action. 

Excuse me while I hop on my hobby-horse for a minute and add that the flight from vulnerability and embrace of defensiveness are found not only in hipsters but in insecurely attached children as well. Gordon Neufeld, co-author of my favorite parenting book, has written:

But there’s the rub: the heart is also a place of great vulnerability. To care about someone is to set the stage for getting hurt if the caring is not reciprocated. To seek to matter to someone is to be wounded by signs of not mattering. To give ones heart away is to risk it being broken. To share the secrets of ones heart is to chance being misunderstood and abused. A child can bear only so much vulnerability. When attachments aren’t safe, the vulnerability is overwhelming. [. . .]

The flight from vulnerability involves a numbing out of vulnerable feelings, a tuning out of perceptions that lead to vulnerable feelings, and even a backing out of attachment. It is this flight from vulnerability that is at the heart of the matter with children who have problems learning and behaving. It is this flight from vulnerability that we are witnessing when we see children divesting of caring, protesting of boredom, no longer feeling shame and embarrassment, no longer experiencing felt fear.

You can read portions of Neufeld's book on Amazon. I especially recommend  Chapter 7, "The Flatlining of Culture." But back to Ms. Wampole:

What would it take to overcome the cultural pull of irony? Moving away from the ironic involves saying what you mean, meaning what you say and considering seriousness and forthrightness as expressive possibilities, despite the inherent risks. It means undertaking the cultivation of sincerity, humility and self-effacement, and demoting the frivolous and the kitschy on our collective scale of values. It might also consist of an honest self-inventory.

Okay, I'll come clean. I have a pair of ironic chairs in my living room. Here's one of them:

I like to think of them as Mad Men chairs. I got them at the thrift store for $15 each (talked-down from $20!) and I do actually like some things about them -- they're comfortable, not too large, and pleasing in shape. But then there's the fabric. The only way to live with that is ironically. Not only is it really shiny, but the glaring gold can sometimes take on an unwholesome greenish tint. Maybe I'll take Wampole's advice and demote my finds to a less visible location. Or throw a couple of discreet brown blankets over them.

Anyway, read the whole thing. Hat tip goes to husband @Campion1581 who tweeted a couple of great excerpts from the piece.

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So ugly

Good grief:



Hat tip: Jonah Goldberg

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This just in . . .

Joe Biden is still an ass.

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Music break: Not Sinatra

Fitz and the Tantrums. It's kind of a retro sound:



Hat tip: @Michaelbd. Tons more music at Live from Daryl's House.

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Archbold: Choosing love

If you'd like a break from politics (can you believe we're already talking about frontrunners for 2016?) you might enjoy Matthew Archbold's NCR piece, I Choose Love. As a fellow Catholic convert and mother of a large family, I smiled at this part:

Believe me, nobody in the world was more upset to read Humanae Vitae in college than me.

I guess I should put that in context:

When I finally got my act together enough to attend college I found the woman of my dreams. She astounded me the first time I saw her. Unfortunately, she was a wonderful Catholic girl. But I stuck it out anyway. I chose love.

Believe me, nobody in the world was more upset to read Humanae Vitae in college than me. I finally found the girl of my dreams and then I had to read that wonderful document which hit me the way only truth can. On reading it, I was presented with a choice. Do I do what just about every part of me is telling me to do or do I choose love. I chose love.

One more excerpt:

I watched my father comfort my mother as he lay dying by patting her hand. Sometimes that's all we can do, comfort those whom we afflict.

His dying father was comforting his mother, not the other way around. Kind of beautiful, right? Read the rest here.

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National farce, cont'd

Assorted commentary:

VDH: A Country Unhinged

Nothing seems real anymore, not preelection federal data on jobs or food stamps or the release of such “facts”; not foreign-policy information like an Iranian attack on a drone; not the supposedly competent federal relief in response to Hurricane Sandy. Even Saddam Hussein’s plebiscites could not achieve margins like the 19,605 to 0 we saw in 59 Philadelphia precincts. Does anyone care? [. . .]

How did a single Jill Kelley warrant hundreds of hours of chat time from our highest generals, engaged in a life and death struggle in the war against terror and Afghanistan? Who was not consulted, not advised, not ordered — in order to free up time for Kelley and Broadwell? [. . .]

Is there one honest person in Washington left?

Don't look at Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta -- he knows nothing about anything:

I'm reading the papers like you are . . . .

LOL. Speaking of liars, Jay Carney: It’s a ‘simple fact’ the White House wasn’t informed about the Petraeus mess until the day after the election

Bill Kristol: A source tells me Petraeus wasn’t completely honest in his Benghazi briefing to Congress 

Charles Krauhammer: Petraeus Testimony On Benghazi Possibly Influenced By WH Knowledge Of Affair

I think the really shocking news today was that General Petraeus thought and hoped he could keep his job. He thought that it might and would be kept secret and then he could stay in his position. I think what that tells us is really important. It meant that he understood that the FBI obviously knew what was going on. He was hoping that those administration officials would not disclose what had happen and therefore hoping that he would keep his job. And that meant that he understood that his job, his reputation, his legacy, his whole celebrated life was in the hands of the administration and he expected they would protect him by keeping it quiet. 

Washington Post: Petraeus hoped affair would stay secret and he could keep his job as CIA director

Mark Steyn finds some bitter irony in Jill Kelley's 911 call requesting "diplomatic protection" for her yard: Forget Benghazi: What About Our Diplomats in Tampa?

On the one hand, a real ambassador at a real consulate under siege calls Washington for help and gets crickets chirping.

On the other, a fantasy ambassador who declares her own home her personal consulate gets untold hours of attention from the U.S. commander in Afghanistan and the director of the CIA, both of whom also have time to intervene in her twin sister’s custody case.

John Podhoretz:

If Jill Kelley gets diplomatic immunity as an honorary consul, do I get to have an affair with Paula Broadwell b/c I'm a Kentucky Colonel?
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) November 14, 2012

Via DSMW, some background from Tampa, where the air is rarefied: Petraeus and CENTCOM Sex Jets?

Exit question from Laura Rosen Cohen:

Is Kelley really "37"?
Because if she's 37, then I'm the Queen of England. 

We demand to see the birth certificate!

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Breaking from Hot Air: Petraeus will testify.

So far this is only a breaking headline at Fox News, but the word on Twitter is that former CIA Director David Petraeus has agreed to testify in both House and Senate intelligence committee hearings about the terrorist attack that killed four Americans and sacked our consulate in Benghazi.  That reverses the previous announcements that Petraeus would decline to testify and have acting DCI Michael Morell handle Congress in his stead.

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Yesterday's post here.

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Farcical plot thickens

Where to begin? Let's start off with a picture:

From left to right, that's Natalie, the "unstable" twin (an adjective that doesn't seem quite fair, all things considered), Petraeus, Jill's husband Dr. Joe Schmoe, Jill herself, and Holly Petraeus. (Note the Michaele Salahi head-tilt employed by Jill-1 and Jill-2. It's de rigueur among ladies who schmooze with the powerful.)

Still can't tell the players without a scorecard? See Andrew Malcolm.

Not pictured: Jill Kelley's three young children and Paula Broadwell's two. Unfortunately for them, their interests don't seem to mesh too well with their moms' pursuit of power, fame, self-gratification, or what ever it is they're going after so aggressively. Tough break for the kids, huh?

It has been reported that:
- Mrs. Kelley has hired some very expensive lawyers.
- General Allen sent her tens of thousands of emails.
- The FBI agent to whom Jill turned when she received threatening emails from Mrs. Broadwell texted the irresistible Mrs. Kelley a shirtless photo of himself.
- Last night, the FBI conducted a four-hour "consensual search" (their term) of Mrs. Broadwell's home. According to reports, all of the agents were wearing shirts.

(Re that penultimate item, I read somewhere that Special Agent Shirtless sent his photo to Mrs. Kelley before she asked him for help with the scary emails. So there's that.)
 
Some commentary:

If you draw a Venn diagram of the Petraeus scandal and stare at the center for 60 seconds, the face of Austin Powers will appear.
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) November 13, 2012

Mark Steyn has an idea for a movie. So does John Hayward:

It’s a pity Blake Edwards isn’t around to film a swinging-Sixties sex comedy about the rapidly expanding Petraeus scandal.  It would have been a great movie, with mistresses shoved into closets, generals diving under desks at the approach of their wives, FBI agents suddenly tearing off their shirts to chase comely female witnesses around the interrogation table, and a climactic moment of hilarity when CIA Director David Petraeus (played by Peter Sellers) realized that every senior officer in the Pentagon was having an affair with at least one of his mistresses. The cast could take a bow amid a shower of balloons and subpoenas.

Read the rest of that. See also Greg Pollowitz on those thousands of emails:

If true, that’s a teen-girl level of emailing. Unbelievable.

We have troops risking their lives and their leaders are screwing around like this? Criminal dereliction of duty maybe?

Lost in the tragi-comic death throes of our corrupt, sinking republic is that little back-story, the burning and bombing of our consulate in Benghazi and the murders of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods.

Back to Andrew Malcolm, the Broadwell affair has brought another question to light:

Now we learn that in a subsequent Denver speech last month, long after Petraeus has said he broke off the affair, Broadwell told her audience that not many people knew the CIA had been holding two Libyan militia members as prisoners in the Benghazi consulate. Freeing them may have been a reason for the attack.

That information was not public knowledge. The CIA has denied it. But if true, it would be a violation of a 2009 Obama executive order forbidding the agency from detaining people in secret jails. Petraeus was to testify Thursday, but said after his resignation he would not. Committee chairs have suggested he will, under subpoena if necessary.

Stay tuned.

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Many thanks to Mark Steyn for linking in his follow-up post, The Missing Piece of the Puzzle.

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Belated hat tip to Sissy Willis for the photo.

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Many thanks also to Michelle Malkin for the Buzzworthy link.

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Updates on the continuing national farce here.

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Obama assault on religious liberty rolls on

Today's must-read comes from Tim Carney: Re-elected, Obama takes aim at religious liberty. A bit:

Green and his family own Hobby Lobby, a chain of arts-and-crafts stores. They sued the administration on the grounds the contraception mandate prohibited their free exercise of Christianity by forcing them to pay for abortifacient morning-after pills.

The Greens weren't arguing that morning-after pills should be illegal. They weren't even trying to keep their employees from using them. They just didn't want to implicate themselves in what they saw as immoral activity.

The administration responded with an unsettling argument: The Greens aren't protected by the First Amendment's "free exercise" clause in this case because they operate a secular business. "Hobby Lobby is a for-profit, secular employer," the Obama administration wrote in a brief, "and a secular entity by definition does not exercise religion."

Part of the administration's argument is that the mandate controls the corporation's actions but it does not apply to individual owners.

So, people have First Amendment protections as long as they don't start businesses. If they do, and if they operate their businesses according with their own consciences, they "become laws unto themselves," as the Obama administration puts it.

So this is who the Left has in mind when it says conservatives are trying to legislate morality: people who dare to follow their moral and religious beliefs, as opposed to a code devised by bureaucrats regulating a secular state. 

Read the entire piece. Carney makes it all very clear. (And in the process, he reminded me of the Washington Post's Lisa Miller and her disdain for the "smugly fecund." I commented on that here.)

To state the screamingly obvious, the majority of voting "Catholics" (they keep using that word) have no problem with the state trampling all over religious rights, including their own, or with the left's anti-life agenda in general. "Free" contraceptives, morning-after pills, and sterilizations, paid for by you and me and even by the Little Sisters of the Poor, whom the mandate will destroy, apparently trump all that blather about the culture of life.

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Literary quote of the day

This:

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tower high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.

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Kurtz on the coming crisis

Stanley Kurtz has a good question:

What lessons for family life and the welfare state will be drawn by a society of isolated and impoverished oldsters supported by shrunken generations of overtaxed young workers?

Push will come to shove in ten years or less. I'd quote a little more but I'm writing on my shiny new tablet and haven't quite gotten the hang of it yet. So go read Dr. Kurtz's thoughts on the always-fascinating subject of demographic suicide. :)

Related: Baby-boomers failed to plant their gardens

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Not so electable after all

I hate to sound overly bitter but this is just laughable: Hey, maybe we need, like, a stronger candidate next time. Ya think? Let's review:

Weak
Romney's biggest weakness
Romney's the one because, um . . .
"Not worth getting angry about"?!
Is it wrong to be angry about Obamacare?
Summing up a Romney candidacy

The people with the money backed Romney from the start and foisted him on us as "inevitable" and as the "most electable" candidate. His weaknesses and lack of conservative core values were glossed over. Pundits from both sides trashed all the other candidates, whom they belittled and dismissed as a bunch of bungling idiot/extremists who couldn't possibly beat Obama. We'll never know whether any of them could have done so (and I tend to think not, the tipping point having been reached) but it might have been instructive for the electorate to hear some arguments for limited government (remember that?) and see some real anger about Obamacare, now virtually set in stone. But a real conservative might have frightened those skittish PC soccer moms and single ladies. So primary voters cravenly swallowed the "electable" line and dutifully nominated the RINO.

And all the worst predictions came true. Romney lost big. Analysts are still sifting through the rubble, looking for the missing votes that might have put Mitt over the top. If it does turn out that Republican voters stayed home because they weren't enthusiastic about Romney, well, that's not exactly a surprise, right?

And back to the top, from what enchanted realm will spring that magical candidate who will save us in 2016? He (or she) can't be, what's the word -- severely conservative because that will scare too many people off. And he can't be too much of a RINO because that will turn off the base. So that's going to be tricky. We do know for sure, though, that he or she will have to be cool because we're so past electing a boring Father-Knows-Best type of guy, even if he does know best, or at least better.

Meanwhile, as America goes into the darkness, Congress prepares to raise the debt ceiling again and our vice president does a guest spot on a sitcom. FORWARD!

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Update:
You were warned: Obama's layoff bomb goes BOOM!
Layoff bomb detonates; Large corporations join small businesses in announcing mass cuts

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Video: Steyn on debt and dependency

Here -- now you don't have to go to Media Matters to watch this:



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"An entirely new people"?

I think so. Here's some excellent analysis from George Weigel (and Alexis de Tocqueville):

That half the country was prepared to reelect a manifestly failed president whose personal incapacities, like the incapacities of the bloated governmental bureaucracies over which he presided, were on full display in the weeks before the election, and in venues ranging from North Africa to Staten Island, is a very disturbing “indicator,” as the pollsters like to say. That a goodly proportion of that half of America seemed susceptible to the Obama campaign’s class warfare is also disturbing. But perhaps most disturbing of all is the exit-poll data showing that a healthy majority of the electorate believed Obama more capable than Romney of handling foreign crises: and this, after the lethal fiasco of Benghazi, itself the embodiment of an ideologically driven pusillanimity in foreign policy that has been on display since the president’s apologize-for-America tour at the beginning of his first term. “Missing greatness,” it turns out, is not just a function of who’s in charge. It’s a result of democratic citizens’ not paying attention. Or worse, it’s the result of citizens’ suffering such severe ideological glaucoma that they cannot see what is in front of them.

What has obviously changed, in other words, is American political culture: and it is hard to make a case that that change has been for the better. Shortly after Ohio sealed the deal on Election Night, a friend (who earlier in the evening had said that she was having a hard time recognizing the country she grew up in) sent me an e-mail with a salient Tocqueville quote:

In the United States, the majority rules in the name of the people. This majority is chiefly composed of peaceful citizens who by taste or interest sincerely desire the good of the country. . . . If republican principles are to perish in America, they will succumb only after a long social travail, frequently interrupted, often resumed; they will seem to be reborn several times, and they will disappear without return only when an entirely new people has taken the place of the one that exists in our day. 

Read the whole thing.

David Gelernter has a partial explanation for the degradation of the electorate. It's the schools, stupid:

. . . you can’t graduate class after class after class of left-indoctrinated ignoramuses without paying the price. Last night was a downpayment.

Mr. Gelernter goes on to make a hopeful statement about righting our education system. I don't share his optimism at all. Our public school system is a deeply-entrenched leviathan. And most parents, products of it themselves (and unable to imagine their lives without state-sponsored daycare) aren't all that unhappy with it. Where will all this big change come from?

If you want your kids to arrive at adulthood un-co-opted by liberal group-think, be a radical and homeschool them.

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Tweet of the day

From my husband:

The fun part of the roller coaster is the steep drop, right? So this should be awesome.
— Campion1581 (@campion1581) November 7, 2012

Runner up:

Hope all the construction noise didn't wake you. Needed to get an early start on my bunker.
— Campion1581 (@campion1581) November 7, 2012

Honorable mentions here, here, and here.

What was that phrase? Oh yeah, Get Ready for Armageddon.

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Tipping point reached

I keep seeing headlines about assisted suicide and think they're referring to what the voters did last night to the United States of America.

The tipping point has been reached. Obama's disastrous policies and glaring failures, domestic and foreign, are acceptable to more than half of the electorate. Back in August Mark Steyn wrote:

This election represents the last exit ramp before the death spiral.

And with their eyes wide open, voters chose to keep the foot on the accelerator and fly past the exit. To quote Steyn again, from last night:

A lot of the telly chatter is about how Republicans don’t get the shifting demographics: America is becoming more of a “brown country,” as Kirsten Powers put it on Fox. But New Hampshire is overwhelmingly white — and the GOP still blew it. The fact is a lot of pasty, Caucasian, non-immigrant Americans have also “shifted,” and are very comfortable with Big Government, entitlements, micro-regulation, Obamacare and all the rest — and not much concerned with how or if it’s paid for.

If this is the way America wants to go off the cliff, so be it. But I wish we’d at least had a Big Picture election. The motto of the British SAS is “Who dares wins.” The Republicans chose a different path. A play-it-safe don’t-frighten-the-horses strategy may have had a certain logic, but it’s unworthy of the times. 

Emphasis added. Romney was never my candidate but I'm not up for sorting through all that again.

Footnote: A choice quote from Ace of Spades:

A hurricane. I can't believe it. A hurricane a week before an election, in which the president doesn't do anything but place a few phone calls and get his picture taken with a fat baby who's in love with Bruce Springsteen, swings the most important election of our time. 

I don't agree about the storm being a real factor -- I think the problem is that liberals outnumber conservatives -- but he expresses my thoughts about Christie pretty well there.

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Finally

I know you all don't need any reminders from me to vote today. We've been looking forward (FORWARD!) to this for a very long time. Anecdotally, turnout is heavy here in Virginia. My husband, voting around 8:30 this morning, testified to the longest lines he's ever seen in the eight years we've lived in Loudoun County. Reports on talk radio from around the area tell of unusually long lines. Jim Geraghty and Michael Barone say Loudoun is a key county to watch.

I plan commit my urgent act of political hygiene later today with my 18 year old son. After that I'll prepare some goodies to enjoy as we all watch the results come in. I'm not 100% confident but I'm feeling pretty good about things. How about you?

While we wait, a couple of diverting campaign tidbits from yesterday:

1) President Obama yesterday in Madison, Wisconsin:

So this should not be that complicated.  We tried our ideas; they worked.  The economy grew.  We created jobs.  Deficits went down.   

Guess I missed that. So did Rush.

2) Bill Clinton -- Bill Clinton -- asks:

Who wants a president that will knowingly, repeatedly tell you something he knows is not true?

Exit question: Who is the bigger liar, Clinton or Obama?

***
Oh man. Look at this: Obama Mural in Philadelphia Polling Place

***
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Planned Parenthood ad: Surviving daughters for Obama

Wow. If this is what it means to love your daughters, I'll pass.



The elephant in the room here is that all of these beautiful, living, breathing girls and young women are actually abortion survivors. Thousands of their peers, girls who might have been their playmates, BFFs, frenemies, sorority sisters, co-workers, or next-door neighbors, didn't make the cut. Their voices will never be heard and their faces will never appear on YouTube or anywhere else. The odds against survival were even greater for the babies of black women. (You may recall the 2011 billboard which highlighted the grim reality in NYC.)

Barack Obama is perfectly in sync with Planned Parenthood and their anti-life mentality. So yes, if you  consider retaining the option to destroy your own children, and for your daughters, if you're blessed with any, to do the same, a high moral value, he's definitely your guy.

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Obama's "focus" (when he's not campaigning)

Laser-like:

Graphic courtesy of Pseud O'Nym.

Yes, she really said it.

In case you missed them, here are some before-and-after photos of the storms's devastating effects on New Jersey.

Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg got an earful from desperate New Yorkers in the Rockaways. Too bad he hadn't been willing to put his money where his global-warmist mouth was and actually do something constructive to mitigate the predictable damages caused by this kind of storm. But that's liberalism for you.

See also New York's free gas fiasco.

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Barone's prediction

Michael Barone predicts a big win for Mitt Romney. Of RCP's 11 toss-up states, he gives only two,  Michigan and Nevada, to Obama. All the rest go to Romney:

Florida (29)

Iowa (6)

New Hampshire (4)

North Carolina (15)

Ohio (18)

Pennsylvania (20)

Virginia (13)

Wisconsin (10)

Colorado (9)

The state he's least sure of is Pennsylvania ("Wobbling on my limb") but he notes that, according to this scenario, Romney could lose Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and still win the election. Mr. Barone's reasoning:

North Carolina (15 electoral votes). Obama has abandoned this target. Romney.

Florida (29). The biggest target state has trended Romney since the Denver debate. I don't see any segment of the electorate favoring Obama more than in 2008, and I see some (South Florida Jews) favoring him less. Romney.

Ohio (18). The anti-Romney auto bailout ads have Obama running well enough among blue-collar voters for him to lead most polls. But many polls anticipate a more Democratic electorate than in 2008. Early voting tells another story, and so does the registration decline in Cleveland's Cuyahoga County. In 2004, intensity among rural, small -town and evangelical voters, undetected by political reporters who don't mix in such circles, produced a narrow Bush victory. I see that happening again. Romney.

Virginia (13). Post-debate polling mildly favors Romney, and early voting is way down in heavily Democratic Arlington, Alexandria, Richmond and Norfolk. Northern Virginia Asians may trend Romney. Romney.

Colorado (9). Unlike 2008, registered Republicans outnumber registered Democrats, and more Republicans than Democrats have voted early. The Republican trend in 2010 was squandered by weak candidates for governor and senator. Not this time. Romney.

Iowa (6). The unexpected Romney endorsements by the Des Moines Register and three other newspapers gave voice to buyer's remorse in a state Obama carried by 10 points. Democrats' traditional margin in early voting has declined. Romney.

Minnesota (10). A surprise last-minute media buy for the Romney campaign. But probably a bridge too far. Obama.

New Hampshire (4). Polls are very tight here. I think superior Republican intensity will prevail. Romney.

Pennsylvania (20). Everyone would have picked Obama two weeks ago. I think higher turnout in pro-coal Western Pennsylvania and higher Republican percentages in the Philadelphia suburbs could produce a surprise. The Romney team evidently thinks so too. Their investment in TV time is too expensive to be a mere feint, and, as this is written, Romney is planning a Sunday event in Bucks County outside Philly. Wobbling on my limb, Romney.

Nevada (6). Democratic early-voting turnout is down from 2008 in Las Vegas' Clark County, 70 percent of the state. But the casino unions' turnout machine on Election Day re-elected an unpopular Harry Reid in 2010, and I think they'll get enough Latinos and Filipinos out this time. Obama.

Wisconsin (10). Recent polling is discouraging for Republicans. But Gov. Scott Walker handily survived the recall effort in June with a great organizational push. Democrats depend heavily on margins in inner-city Milwaukee (population down) and the Madison university community. But early voting is down in university towns in other states. The Obama campaign is prepared to turn out a big student vote, but you don't see many Obama signs on campuses. Romney.

I'm nervously optimistic but can't pretend to be objective. What do you think?

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What Benghazi tells us about Obama's ability to handle a national security crisis

A fuller picture is emerging of what went on in the White House on the night of 9/11/12 and it's one of confusion, indecision, and gross incompetence. Sharyl Attkisson reports:

CBS News has learned that during the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, the Obama Administration did not convene its top interagency counterterrorism resource: the Counterterrorism Security Group, (CSG).

 "The CSG is the one group that's supposed to know what resources every agency has. They know of multiple options and have the ability to coordinate counterterrorism assets across all the agencies," a high-ranking government official told CBS News. "They were not allowed to do their job. They were not called upon."

Information shared with CBS News from top counterterrorism sources in the government and military reveal keen frustration over the U.S. response on Sept. 11, the night Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in a coordinated attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya.

The circumstances of the attack, including the intelligence and security situation there, will be the subject of a Senate Intelligence Committee closed hearing on Nov. 15, with additional hearings to follow.

Counterterrorism sources and internal emails reviewed by CBS News express frustration that key responders were ready to deploy, but were not called upon to help in the attack.

CBS News has agreed not to quote directly from the emails, and to protect the identities of the sources who hold sensitive counterterrorism posts within the State Department, the U.S. military and the Justice Department.

As to why the Counterterrorism Security Group was not convened, National Security Council Spokesman Tommy Vietor told CBS News "From the moment the President was briefed on the Benghazi attack, the response effort was handled by the most senior national security officials in governments. Members of the CSG were of course involved in these meetings and discussions to support their bosses."

Absent coordination from Counterterrorism Security Group, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official says the response to the crisis became more confused. The official says the FBI received a call during the attack representing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and requesting agents be deployed. But he and his colleagues agreed the agents "would not make any difference without security and other enablers to get them in the country and synch their efforts with military and diplomatic efforts to maximize their success."

Another senior counter terrorism official says a hostage rescue team was alternately asked to get ready and then stand down throughout the night, as officials seemed unable to make up their minds. 

A third potential responder from a counter-terror force stationed in Europe says components of AFICOM -- the military's Africa Command based in Stuttgart, Germany -- were working on course of action during the assault. But no plan was put to use.

"Forces were positioned after the fact but not much good to those that needed it," the military source told CBS News.

"The response process was isolated at the most senior level," says an official referring to top officials in the executive branch. "My fellow counterterrorism professionals and I (were) not consulted."

My emphasis. Even more at the link. Obama, Hillary, and whoever else was "in charge" didn't know what to do or whom to call.

You may recall then-candidate Joe Biden warning us four years ago that Barack Obama would be "tested" by an "international challenge" and promising that "they're going to find out this guy's got steel in his spine." Though he was off on the timing, Joe was right about the testing. But the steel spine was a no-show. The terrorists who destroyed the mission in Benghazi and killed four Americans, including our ambassador to Libya, apparently never bought the man-of-steel hype, and in the passivity marking the attack's aftermath, they likely see the horse as weaker than ever. And now they know we've got a president who goes to bed in the middle of a national security crisis, leaving a gaggle of incompetents to "handle" it in his absence.

Biden reiterated the "steel spine" line at the Democratic Convention, just a few days before the Benghazi attack. His exact words:

This man has courage in his soul, compassion in his heart and a spine of steel. 

None of the above were in evidence during the Benghazi crisis. 0 for 3.

President Obama believed his mere presence in the White House would make the world a kinder, gentler place. But he was dead wrong, and the successful attack on Americans in Benghazi has likely whetted our enemies' appetites for more. Contrary to what Obama keeps repeating at campaign rallies, he does not have terrorism "on the run." That's what's known as a big lie, and bigger "tests" may be coming our way. Does anyone have confidence in this administration's ability to defend our national security? May God help us if Obama and his collection of elite incompetents aren't removed from office next week.
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Many thanks to Michelle Malkin for the Buzzworthy link.
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The same to Bad Blue.
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Cable: Attack on Benghazi feared and predicted by embassy staff

Catherine Herridge reports:

The U.S. Mission in Benghazi convened an “emergency meeting” less than a month before the assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, because Al Qaeda had training camps in Benghazi and the consulate could not defend against a “coordinated attack,” according to a classified cable reviewed by Fox News.

Summarizing an Aug. 15 emergency meeting convened by the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, the Aug. 16 cable marked “SECRET” said that the State Department’s senior security officer, also known as the RSO, did not believe the consulate could be protected.

“RSO (Regional Security Officer) expressed concerns with the ability to defend Post in the event of a coordinated attack due to limited manpower, security measures, weapons capabilities, host nation support, and the overall size of the compound,” the cable said.

According to a review of the cable addressed to the Office of the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Emergency Action Committee was also briefed "on the location of approximately ten Islamist militias and AQ training camps within Benghazi … these groups ran the spectrum from Islamist militias, such as the QRF Brigade and Ansar al-Sharia, to ‘Takfirist thugs.’” Each U.S. mission has a so-called Emergency Action Committee that is responsible for security measures and emergency planning.

The details in the cable seemed to foreshadow the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. compound, which was a coordinated, commando-style assault using direct and indirect fire. Al Qaeda in North Africa and Ansar al-Sharia, both mentioned in the cable, have since been implicated in the consulate attack.

In addition to describing the security situation in Benghazi as “trending negatively,” the cable said explicitly that the mission would ask for more help. “In light of the uncertain security environment, US Mission Benghazi will submit specific requests to US Embassy Tripoli for additional physical security upgrades and staffing needs by separate cover.”

Read the rest.

You may recall that President Obama, on the campaign trail in Vegas on the day immediately following the murders of four Americans in Benghazi, made a pretty appalling comparison:

Image courtesy of Pseud O'Nym, who has posted a collection of his work on a FB page. Check it out here.

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