Meanwhile Back In (And To) Iraq...

For a special segment of our ruling class Iraq was the Bad War, and Obama has always been wary of winning the war but losing the narrative. But we are putting our toe back in the water:

U.S. Sends Arms to Aid Iraq Fight With Extremists

By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON — The United States is quietly rushing dozens of Hellfire missiles and low-tech surveillance drones to Iraq to help government forces combat an explosion of violence by a Qaeda-backed insurgency that is gaining territory in both western Iraq and neighboring Syria.

The move follows an appeal for help in battling the extremist group by the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who met with President Obama in Washington last month.

But some military experts question whether the patchwork response will be sufficient to reverse the sharp downturn in security that already led to the deaths of more than 8,000 Iraqis this year, 952 of them Iraqi security force members, according to the United Nations, the highest level of violence since 2008.

The Times reminds us how we reached this parlous state:

The surge in violence stands in sharp contrast to earlier assurances from senior Obama administration officials that Iraq was on the right path, despite the failure of American and Iraqi officials in 2011 to negotiate an agreement for a limited number of United States forces to remain in Iraq.

In a March 2012 speech, Antony J. Blinken, who is currently Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser, asserted that “Iraq today is less violent” than “at any time in recent history.”

The Times had more in this Sept 22 2012 article which noted the pre-election year posturing:

Mr. Obama has pointed to the American troop withdrawal last year as proof that he has fulfilled his promise to end the Iraq war. Winding down a conflict, however, entails far more than extracting troops.

In the case of Iraq, the American goal has been to leave a stable and representative government, avoid a power vacuum that neighboring states and terrorists could exploit and maintain sufficient influence so that Iraq would be a partner or, at a minimum, not an opponent in the Middle East.

But the Obama administration has fallen frustratingly short of some of those objectives.

The attempt by Mr. Obama and his senior aides to fashion an extraordinary power-sharing arrangement between Mr. Maliki and Mr. Allawi never materialized. Neither did an agreement that would have kept a small American force in Iraq to train the Iraqi military and patrol the country’s skies. A plan to use American civilians to train the Iraqi police has been severely cut back. The result is an Iraq that is less stable domestically and less reliable internationally than the United States had envisioned.

The civil war in Syria was well under way by late 2011 yet the current situation (as described in the original Times story)  seems to be a surprise to Team Obama:

A number of factors are helping the Qaeda affiliate. The terrorist group took advantage of the departure of American forces to rebuild its operations in Iraq and push into Syria. Now that it has established a strong foothold in Syria, it is in turn using its base there to send suicide bombers into Iraq at a rate of 30 to 40 a month, using them against Shiites but also against Sunnis who are reluctant to cede control.

Al Qaeda and other militants takes up residence at the border of weak and failed states? Who knew?

PILING ON: 'Priaire Weather' delivers the sort of progressive bleat I was expecting:

This action is not  expected to have much effect.  It's meant to be life-saving but, our military are saying,  it's not likely to " reverse the sharp downturn in security" in Iraq.  And it certainly suggests that we're doing this to preserve the idea that the Iraq invasion was justified rather than a serious misstep that set Iraq up for Muslim extremists.

Please - Obama's interest in vindicating the initial invasion is less than zero. Fortunately, Obama seems to be looking forward here rather than driving with his eyes locked on the rear-view mirror.

Providing a bit of hope in this holiday season is digby of Hullabaloo:

I don't know when those "birth pangs" of the Iraq democracy are finally going to end, but George W. Bush was probably right when he said we'll all be dead before we know how it comes out. Unfortunately, so will a lot of kids who deserved better.

Can't argue. But here is a blast from the past on Bush's inadequate planning, and a stab at whether the failure was in conception or execution.

 

 

 

Comments

[peter]

Threads a Poppin'!

Does anyone doubt that Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, indeed the entire Middle east is worse off by five years of Obama non-leadership?

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Eric Schmitt-- I know several JOM foreign policy experts don't like Eric Schmitt's reporting/writing, but I do for the most part. His reporting from Panama in '89, and Kuwait in '91 was solid, and his pentagon reporting in the 80s and 90s while appropriately (for the NYT) snarky, was largely factual. The China Missile stuff '98-2000 was fascinating. Jeff Gerth broke the story, and my sense was that Schmitt was put on the story to keep Gerth from taking the reporting to its logical conclusions, but Schmitt wound up breaking news about the funny money Clinton asian donors, who eventually wound up in jail. He's obviously a conventional Lib, but he has a habit of reporting the truth. This is another example.

[jimmyk]

Why limit that statement to the Middle East, Peter? It would be easier to try to list the places that are better off as a result of Obama's presidency, as I have done below.

[narciso,]

Part and parcel of the same problem, the same factions have affiliates all across the Levanr to the Arabian Peninsula

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/16/syria-s-saudi-jihadist-problem.html

Of course we sent two aspiring midlevel AQ executives, just this week

[Comanche Voter]

Well having screwed the pooch on the US Iraqi status of forces [non] agreement, the Bamster bailed out.

Now he's back in doing his usual clumsy Middle East Hokey Pokey.

Meanwhile in a news flash for the kids at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Christians are being slaughtered by bombs in Iraq most every day. Not that the little kiddos particularly care.

[narciso,]

It's curious how they take the Brotherhood at face value;

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/25/us-egypt-hardliners-analysis-idUSBRE9BO07320131225

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Analyzing Obummer's 'Diplomacy', Talleyrand is as good a source as any. Like the Bourbons, Obummer has 'learned nothing, and forgotten nothing." He has failed to learn that everything he 'knew' of the world pre-2009 was wrong, and his failures have merely served to reinforce his erroneous beliefs. Typical pitiful Leftist stuff.... but as he is the POTUS, very dangerous --expecially for America and her allies.

[Ignatz]

So pulling your head back in like a soft shelled turtle while cooing "they like me, they really like me" from one end while shooting the occasional hellfire out the other isn't an effective strategy and has allowed the ME to degenerate further. Who could have foreseen that?
To paraphrase narc, it's idiots all the way down.....

[The Duck of Death]

'Putting our toe back in the water'

Are you suggesting another high-dive into shallow water?

Shall we quadruple down on the carnage with another Surge?

Let's not mitigate the testosterone.

[narciso,]

Turtles all the way down,there's also the kindly
history prof who's been helping out the Nusra front, all the way from downtown Burbank, I mean Doha,

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

No... we should definitely not repeat the Surge. I mean, the Surge unified the Sunni Tribes and the Shia majority government against AQ, and killed thousands of AQ fighters, and drove the others out of Iraq's cities allowing for peace and commerce to grow. No we wouldn't want to repeat that kind of success for our allies and death for the enemies of freedom. Nope we definitely wouldn't want that again.

[narciso,]

Of course, most of the leader of the Sahwa, awakening, have been killed off, who would work with us, ever again,

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Alas, Obummer's surrender in Iraq did cause AQ to assasinate many of the 'awakening' leaders for the brave part they played in the Surge. Chalk up those assasinations of forward thinking Iraqis as another FP 'success' of the Obummer. Gawd what an awful thing Obama is.

[MarkO]

Obama is a clear and present danger.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Not to AQ.

[miss Marple]

Back when Mubarak was thrown out, an Egyptian desk clerk at my hotel in London asked who would ever trust America again.

Shamefully, I. Had to agree.

[The Duck of Death]

Y'all are too deeply invested in the original stupidity to spend low-income self-esteem on an epiphany. We understand.

[Danube on iPad]

What does "turtles all the way down" mean, and what is it's origin?

[narciso,]

The Egyptian Generals like Patton 'read the book' and were able to think ahead,

[Threadkiller]

"The Duck of Death" is the funniest handle you have used.

Made me chuckle.

[rich@gmu]

it is turtles all the way down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Very true, the Egyptian generals had seen that exact MB story play out in Turkey, and the Shia version earlier in The Islamic Republic. They did the right thing for the people of Egypt. Now the test they face is an evolution to a truly representative government, like the military did in Chile and Columbia.

[narciso,]

It's sort of Honduras writ large, but Egypt has more powerful sponsors,

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Turtles-- first time I heard that was from Scalia.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Hey Narciso-- have you seen the Bacardi famiy commercial recently? I see it during NBCsn soccer games. The family isn't.... shy or retiring.

[Ignatz]

Couldn't get going this morning so I turned on the TV from bed and, while I ordinarily can't take too much of Frank Capra's saccharine sentimentality, watched the last 45 minutes of Mr. Smith goes to Washington.
I was struck, seemingly for the first time, at just what an accurate analog for Barry's reign it is.

Entrenched, long term Senators, promote a pork laden, corrupt public works "deficiency" bill for their home state's political machine and politically connected corporatist cronies under the banner of providing jobs during an economic downturn. The term "shovel ready" wasn't used only because Capra wasn't cynical enough to conjure such sophistry, but it might as well have been.
One slight deviation from today is that the political machine and fascist corporatists have to convince all radio news and newspapers to tow the government line and suppress the people's right to know, whereas of course today the hive needs no convincing whose side they serve. The result is the same; a news blackout of any coverage of the government's corruption, as the bill looks like it will be rammed through as brave Senator Cruz,Paul Smith is not only betrayed by slimy home state Senator Paine, but even his own party turns his back on him and walks out.
We all know the story as Jean Arthur and the apple cheeked runts back home save the day as Capra's sentimentality rears its typical head; the bill is derailed and Paine goes outside overcome with guilt and misses his own head with a gun and then pukes his mea cupla all over the floor of the Senate.

Of course in real life porkulus, a type of deficiency bill, is rammed through and a thousand useless dams are built at now bankrupt Solyndras around the country, all the political payoffs are made and later when filibustering Cruz and Paul read the Constitution and the Declaration into Senator Paine's Reid's beady eyes, rather than being overcome with guilt and trying to shoot himself, he guts the filibuster, an institution which the movie celebrates. The non existent Republican establishment turns its back on Cruz and Paul, but unlike the movie keeps it turned.

The only thing stopping a slightly more gory version of Capra's dream coming true is the absence of a program requiring a conscience transplant in congress and enough marksmanship training that they could hit their own temples with a revolver.

[MarkO]

Turtles, maybe.
But, to quote Chico, "Why a duck?"

[rse]

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2013/12/allahu-akbar-and-ho-ho-ho.html indicates Daniel Greenfield has a far more prescient understanding of the ME than our State Dept.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Why not a chee-ken?

[narciso,]

Yes, that notion occurred to me, a few months ago, Cruz sort of has the Stewart mien, and five years ago, writ large,

[rich@gmu]

>>>Theda Skocpol / The Atlantic Online:
Why the Tea Party Isn't Going Anywhere<<<

>>>True, the events of October 2013 helped millions of middle-of-the-road voters—and even quite a few complacent political reporters—grasp the dangers of the sabotage-oriented radicalism in today’s Republican Party.<<<

already looking for scapegoats. yikes.

[Cecil Turner]

Well, at least the enemy is confused too. Nobody knows what we'll do next.

[Kathy Kattenburg]

"Al Qaeda and other militants takes up residence at the border of weak and failed states? Who knew?"

I know! Who knew that war never solves anything -- only destabilizes and sows the seeds for the next (or the continuing) war?

I mean, it's not as if anybody's ever expressed this idea before, is it?

[Ignatz]

Having seen the wonderfullness that ensued when we cut off all meaningful assistance to South Viet Nam in 1975, Barry and the Dems do the exact same damn thing to the Iraqi's who, regardless of what one thinks of the original intervention, we presumably have a duty to help in some way now that we have intervened.

The only difference is the Viet Nam debacle's effects were relatively short lived as it was a catastrophic loss to an enemy that even then was on its last legs, whereas virulent Islam has been around for 1300 years and apparently isn't going anywhere except into our laps.

[MarkO]

It's as if we had Tebow at QB.

[Ignatz]

--Who knew that war never solves anything--

You did.
You knew war would not solve the problem of a Persian army invading and enslaving Greece.
You knew war wouldn't solve the problem of a tyrannical king in 1776.
You knew war wouldn't solve the problem of slavery in 1860.
You, a self described jew, even knew it wouldn't solve the attempt by Nazis to exterminate your own people.

[rich@gmu]

awesome, dudu, kaka, and dana the douchebag...feels like a thirteenth day to Christmas.

[The Duck of Death]

Iraq, Viet Nam.....lessee.....Anti-War.com primarily addresses the excesses of the Peloponnesian Wars, amirite?

[Frau 2. Weihnachtstag]

rich - it's like the Three Wise Acres following a red star.

[narciso,]

No more like Mark Sanchez, Greenfield takes the enemy seriously, which is the only proper thing to do with people who have promised to kill you.

As they say, history doesn't always repeat, but it does rhyme, nearly 90 years ago, in the aftermath of the British pullout from Mesopotamia, the Ikwan raced up out of the Arabian peninsula, and attacked Najaf and Karbala, as they did a century before, this provoked the original Mohammed Ali

[matt]

Welcome to Al Q'uaedastan. A good part of Syria and Iraq are now under Salafist control.

Winning the Future with Smart Diplomacy, baby!

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

--Who knew that war never solves anything--

in Iraq, just ask the family Sadaam Hussein. War solves many issues, but war is diplomacy by other means, a last resort means, but a means. making war is not an end in and of itself. And that's why history is littered with examples of the successful results of wars ruined by the cowardly mistakes foolish successors. History is not a preprogrammed dialectic; the work of brave an wise men is many times undermined by their weak and feckless (or merely traitorous) successors. Obummer in Iraq is the latest such example.

[narciso,]

to send his forces into the Arabian peninsula to bottle up the Wahhabis, in the Nejd.

[matt]

War solved that whole "fascism" problem, I might add.

Sending aid to Maliki is non-viable. He is a stooge of the Iranians. Iran is resupplying Syria using Iraqi airspace at will. If you want to shut down Assad one way to do it would be embargo Iraq and Iran. Instead we are enabling both.

Iran is now freely flouting the UN and US. Yesterday they told the world they want to further enrich uranium to "60%".

Our foreign policy is utterly bankrupt both politically and morally.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Stooge? Too harsh. When the US bailed on Iraq, the military balance in the region tipped decisively to the Mullahs and to AQ. Iraq is near defensely against both-- so Maliki appeases and allows the Mullahs to supply Assad, and AQ to assasinate awakening leaders. What options does he have?-- options that that keep him in power anyway. He's a craven politician so staying in power is job #1.

[Beasts of England]

Some of my best friends are Peloponnesians...

[boatbuilder]

I believe there was a war in '67 which prevented an attempt to "solve" the "problem" of Israel.

[Danube of Thought]

war never solves anything

Tell that to the free and prosperous people of South Korea.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

..defenseless against both...

[jimmyk]

Theda Skocpol / The Atlantic Online:
Why the Tea Party Isn't Going Anywhere

Theda Skocpol is a Marxist revolutionary. Who gives a c**p what she says.

And kaka, bailing out of a war or not seeing it through to unconditional surrender often fails to accomplish anything. The American Civil War are good examples of seeing it through, while Vietnam and Iraq are good examples of not doing so. See a pattern?

[jimmyk]

American Civil War *and WW II* are good examples....

[Thomas Collins]

"“The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make the rest of us wonder at the possibility that we might be missing something.”

CT's 1:00 PM post reminds me of the above quote, which is attributed to Gamal Abdel Nasser.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

TC-- well Obummer does make clear cut stupid moves. 'Stupid' in the sense that they harm American interests and Americans... I guess Obummer is alright with that.

[Ignatz]

He makes moves which seem at odds with past American moves because at his heart Barry isn't exactly American.

He may be a natural born citizen technically or legally but he is in fact the first non American president, philosophically and cognitively, that we've had.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

There's no question, Obummer's actions scream anti-Americanism. He sees America as 'white/western civilization's' citadel that obstructs the Third World from inheriting the earth. With the fall of his beloved Communism, he sees Islam and Big Goverment power (ChiComs, EU, UN) as the best hope to destroy American power and to suppress the liberty God gives us. That is his life's dream. Fortunately for us, he's a fucking incompetent, but he is doing great damage.

[anonamom]

Here's the link to The Atlantic's Tea Party article.
Comments are great---calling out the ridiculous perspective of the author.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/why-the-tea-party-isnt-going-anywhere/282591/#comments

[Threadkiller]

There is a chance he loses on the technical part, though.

Presidential Eligibility Tutorial:

http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm

[narciso,]

Yes, now Copeland and Eichelberger, whose tales of derringdo are illustrated in Wilford's new history, were the ones with the 'cunning, cunning' plan, that fell apart first with Syria, then Egypt and last with Iraq, where they tried the same trick with Baathist exiles in Cairo,

[Threadkiller]

FWIW, I am not trying to start a battle. I am posting the most thorough link on the subject.

Some may find it interesting.

[Threadkiller]

http://dcclothesline.com/2013/12/26/obamacare-reaches-gay-community-ad-featuring-frolicking-underwear-clad-men/

[Threadkiller]

http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/25/kwanzaa-the-holiday-brought-to-you-by-the-fbi/

[Danube of Thought]

Wahoo! From the Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON — Even as President Obama’s health insurance website limps to recovery, at least two states that used the same contractor and are still plagued with malfunctions — Massachusetts and Vermont — are taking preliminary steps to recoup taxpayer dollars. Massachusetts officials are reviewing legal options against CGI Group, a Montreal-based information technology company, and will make recommendations on how to seek financial redress at a Jan. 9 meeting. So far, the state has paid $11 million of its $69 million contract with CGI. It will not pay a penny more until a functioning website has been delivered....

[narciso,]

Well Coulter did take a shortcut, both Karenga's and the Panther outfits received a bit of the Segretti treatmment, ala the Canuck letter,

[Danube of Thought]

I would offer this as the most thorough link on the subject. Excerpt:

The weight of scholarly legal and historical opinion, as well as the consistent case law in the United States, also supports the notion that “natural born Citizen” means one who is a U.S. citizen “at birth” or “by birth.”

[Danube of Thought]

Right on cue:

WASHINGTON – Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus and RNC Co-Chairman Sharon Day released the following statement commemorating Kwanzaa: “I want to extend my best wishes to all who are celebrating Kwanzaa,” said Chairman Priebus. “For families coming together to mark the occasion, I hope it is a joyous time of celebration with loved ones–and a time of meaningful reflection ahead of the New Year.”

[The Duck of Death]

"Some of my best friends are Peloponnesians..."

That was for Ignatz, who likes to swing both ways.

[Old Lurker]

Wonder if Clarence Thomas or Thomas Sowell celebrate Kwanzaa?

[Old Lurker]

or Ben Carson?

[Jim Rhoads f/k/a vnjagvet]

Another small, foolish step "forward" for big tentites Priebus and Day. How many new Kwanzaa voters are now clamoring to join the GOP is left to our imagination.

[Sandy BoxerDaze]

"Iraq isn't working..." is what I heard from several Iraqis, businessmen and ministers (in private) when visiting there two months ago. Many were willing to go with Malaki after the last election, over Allawi--even though Allawi got the greater % vote--just to settle the election results. Malaki had support across a broad spectrum, but that support has all but completely dissolved.
Today, Malaki's residual support (inside Iraq) lies mainly, if not exclusively with those who experience the direct $ benefit of his premiership.
Meanwhile, most of the political opinion in Iraq is firmly opposed to Malaki. The current twist is Malaki trying to have the constitution re-interpreted in the courts to allow him to run for a third term. A third term is not permitted, that is how the constitution was written and intended, but Malaki believes there is some daylight and hence has taken the matter to the courts. Most see this as Malaki's intention to install himself as the new premier-for-life through consolidation of power.
Today most all of the Kurds, the Allawi faction the Chalabil faction, and even many Iraqi Shia, not to mention the Sun'ni, are opposed to Malaki.
Elections are supposed to happen in the March time frame, but will likely be postponed by a few months, begging the question of before or after Ramadan (28 June-27July).

The 'kinetic dialogue' is reaching a fevered pitch. The butchers' bills are great, but it will not stop until Malaki is gone from power.

Hellfires from the USA will do nothing for the current type of activity.

And, hardened government hearts do not even register body counts of less than a hundred.

As to the Christian pogrom in Iraq, it is really no different there than anywhere else in the Middle East. Most Iraqis are loath to see the violence directed against the Christians in their midst, for many Iraqis (shia and sun'ni alike) the Christians are the only ones outside of their immediate family or tribe/clan they can trust.

[The Duck of Death]

Heh. Priebus, Boner and Mac will soon be extolling the virtues of Dios De Los Muertes as evidence of their tolerant pov

[Beasts of England]

That was for Ignatz, who likes to swing both ways.

Most of my girlfriends swing both ways, so I'll pass that along to them...

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Zero-- but it's political base covering to head off bogus attacks of "Whitey" GOP refuses to send best wishes to Third Worlder Kwanza celebrants. Base covering -- a political necessity where 2 political parties control 95+% of the national vote. This is a problem... why?

[The Duck of Death]

"Most of my girlfriends swing both ways"

Lucky stiff.

[Sandy 2626 BoxerDaze]

To recapitulate:

What was it...

Only the dead have seen the end of war?

[Beasts of England]

It isn't luck.

[Sandy BoxerDaze]

At the rate we're going, we'll need it to end the latest ...-ism, too.

[Jim Rhoads f/k/a vnjagvet]

And Merry Christmas to all.

I had my hands full yesterday wrestling with a 10 lb whole ribeye roast after wearing my Santa hat on my trip cross town to amuse some of the grandkids. The grandson staying with us developed acute bronchitis necessitating a trip to a kiddies' urgent care outfit with my daughter who had broken her right arm the day before. Fortunately, I had to tend to the roast, so avoided that drama.

All's well that ended well, though. With the help of the healthy daughters and my wife contributing their specialties, dinner for 13 adults was served and demolished. Then present opening for 6 grandkids.

I was too exhausted afterwards to catch up on threads. Then up at 8 to transport daughter and grandson about 11/2 hours up the road and return.

Just relaxing now, so am following along.

[narciso,]

One bit from Dodson's memoir, the people he was trying to go after, who were above Acosta Coelis, apparently were FBI informants, so turtles all the way down,

[Beasts of England]

Looks like the Rebrend Jackson is going after Duck Dynasty for the sin of 'white privilege'. Maybe someone can go after him for the sin of irrelevance. And irreverence.

[rse]

anonamom-

If you click through to your link and then to what Atlantic says the article originally appeared in, Democracy, a sister pub, you also get this article. http://www.democracyjournal.org/31/capitalism-redefined.php

That plays into the Subjective Well-Being as the new mandate of the US and UK governments, which is a license to meddle in everything. I wrote about it just before Christmas. Atlantic was a sponsor for the CityLab summit in NYC, with Benjamin Barber pushing his ideas of democracy as best hatched by mayors. There is a coordinated dance going on here of pieces that a cut like a jigsaw. They are designed to fit together. It is all in motion, but it is hard to put together unless you know the overall framework. Then the push is unremitting and from every direction.

And the author of your link calls the Tea Party 'radical' for wanting the Constitution to be the barrier it was designed to be. That 2009 commission Stglitz headed at Sarkozy's suggestion is the tip off it is all linked to subjective well-being because that same commission is credited in the new National Research Council report.

[Beasts of England]

Oh. And Happy Kwanzaa!

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Happy Kwanzaa to you as well BOE-- Jessie J's crimes are more straightforward than irreverence, starting with plain old extortion, embezzlement, misappropriation of funds. Those sorts of things.

[The Duck of Death]

"It isn't luck."

Walks like it. Quacks like it.

luck is a duck.

[pagarnow]

http://www.martinlutherking.org/kwanzaa.html

"There is no part of Kwanzaa that is not fraudulent."

[Ignatz]

Some Humpty Dumpties seem to think words mean precisely what they say they mean, no more and no less and that being a libertarian means being a third-world-dictator-loving, blame-America-first isolationist.

[clarice]

If stupid ideas are repeated, you'll know kaka is repeating them. As for Dead Duck, Dios de Las Muertes? Really? Maybe Obama, the linguist (quarto de Cinco) is really posting here.

[The Duck of Death]

According to the Milliman Medical Index, which is a standard measure of health care costs, a typical family of four has seen the amount it pays for health care, including premiums and out-of-pocket costs, rise from about 18 percent of its income in 2002 to 35 percent today.

That’s the equivalent of a 17 percent hike in the payroll tax. If you’ve been buying your own health insurance, you know exactly what we’re talking about. For the majority of Americans who get their health insurance through their employers, the full extent of the tax is not always as obvious, but is no less real.

Workers with employer-provided health insurance have wound up paying this tax largely in the form of foregone wages, pensions, and other benefits. That’s because, in the typical pattern, employers have covered the mounting cost of health care premiums by reducing or holding the line on other forms of compensation. This dynamic almost entirely explains the paradox of how the productivity of American workers can go up year after year but wages no longer do. In effect, all our gains from working longer and smarter have gone to pay for the inflating cost of health care.

Worse is the fact that we get virtually nothing in return for paying this added health care tax. Some 60 to 75 percent of rising health care costs reflects nothing more than higher prices for the same services. As prices rise, many Americans are actually seeing fewer doctors and receiving fewer treatments, even as life expectancy is falling for large segments of the population. Americans consume less of most kinds of health care than Europeans, but pay more for the treatments they get. Meanwhile, a wide range of studies documents that at least 20 to 30 percent of U.S. health services have no benefit to patients. Paying more for unnecessary surgery, redundant tests, and other forms of overtreatment is the ultimate in health care inflation.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january_february_2014/features/after_obamacare048357.php

I've seen the current idiocy of care of late, in conjunction with ridiculous charges to pay legions of middle-men.

[Threadkiller]

(Dec. 26. 2013) — On Thursday, The Post & Email learned that two U.S. Senators, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Orrin Hatch of Utah, requested Sheriff’s Kits produced by Michael Volin of WheresObamasBirthCertificate.com...

 http://www.birtherreport.com/2013/12/two-us-senators-request-obama-identity.html?m=1

[Beasts of England]

Quack!

[Beasts of England]

Yeah, NK, but extortion is such a judgmental word...

[Beasts of England]

Meanwhile, a wide range of studies...'

Be still, my heart.

[matt]

Isn't one of the Seven Days of Kwanzaa the day they dedicate to whatever virtues the reverend Al and JJ display? Jackson hit a new low with his remarks on Robertson.

When to we do the airing of the grievances again?

[Beasts of England]

After the feats of strength, I think.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

BOE-- Judgmental? True, but when one is adjudged to be an extortionist, one usually goes to the Big House for a specified term. No such luck with Jessie J yet.... his son however.

[Danube on iPad]

"What To Do When Obamacare Unravels" (WSJ). Very sensible column. Single-payer fanatics will not be amused.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304866904579265932490593594

[Beasts of England]

JJ's like JEF, NK - Kevlar-coated. There will never be an appropriate punishment bestowed upon those two fools for the damage they've foisted on our country.

[The Duck of Death]

" Single-payer fanatics will not be amused."

Wrong...thoroughly amused. You must think an organ-grinder is a medical device.

[rich@gmu]

>>>After the feats of strength, I think.<<<

Beasts!!!

so I guess the airing of grievances can start after 2 58 PM.

[Extraneus]

I think Sultan Knish needs to learn to economize on words. I like his pieces, but they're longer than they need to be. When I try to read them, I often end up skipping down to the ending at some point.

Btw, do Kwanzaans have Reverends?