HALF-FULL REPORT 04/26/13

Here are clues as to how President Barack Obama thinks things went for him this week. He cancelled plans to give the keynote address at Planned Parenthood’s annual fund-raising dinner. (He kissed up to PP today.) Then he was gracious to former President George W. Bush at the opening of his presidential library in Dallas.  The night before, he told Democratic donors that even if it irritates them, he’ll keep reaching out to Republicans. That outreach exists only in his imagination.  But when he thinks he’s winning, he doesn’t pretend to be bipartisan.

After this week’s developments in the Boston Marathon bombing, it’s easy to see why a Marxist sociopath would pretend to be a bipartisan moderate:

*Tamerlan Tsarnaev stayed home collecting welfare benefits and plotting terror while his wife worked 80 hours a week.Tsarnaev’s parents were on the dole, too.The Boston Herald has other questions about how large the terrorists were living on our nickel, but Gov. Deval Patrick has told state agencies not to provide the info on the grounds it would violate the deceased terrorist’s right to privacy.  Allegedly for the same reason, the Feds won’t say if the government paid for their cell phones.

Tamerlan may have supplemented his welfare check by selling dope, CBS reported.  The dude was a stoner, say classmates at UMass.

*The brothers Tsarnaev planned to hit Times Square next.

*Russia warned the FBI repeatedly about Tsarnaev, but the FBI let Tsarnaev’s listing on a terror watch list list expire while he was in Dagestan, where he may have gotten guidance on bomb-making.  The CIA got the same info from the Russkies, and took it very seriously. He remained on a watch list maintained by the Department of Homeland Security, but apparently they don’t share info with the FBI.  Which to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Ia, sounds like déjà vu all over again:

"You get one story from the FBI and another story from DHS, and that’s a major problem – was the same problem we had between the FBI and the CIA before 9/11."

Back then, there were legal barriers to information sharing among intelligence agencies.  Now it’s just bureaucratic incompetence, political correctness run amok, or both, Sen. Grassley said.

"Is the FBI focused enough on the real bad guys?" asked the editors of the Washington Post.  If it’s the Washington Post asking that question, you can be pretty sure what the answer is.  The FBI’s favorite imam can’t bring himself to condemn the bombing.

*Big Sis acknowledges that Tamran Tsarnaev’s trip to Russia "pinged" on the DHS watch list.  So, asks Stewart Baker, why wasn’t he searched when he returned to the U.S.?

*Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was talking to investigators, but clammed up after U.S. District Judge Marianne Bowler, defense lawyers in train, "waltzed up" to his hospital bed Monday and read him his Miranda rights. 

"The FBI was against stopping the investigators’ questioning and was stunned that the judge, Justice Department prosecutors and public defenders showed up, feeling valuable intelligence may have been sacrificed as a result," Fox News reported.

Bryan Preston wonders: "Who organized the judge’s trip to the bomber’s hospital room?"  Attorney General Eric Holder, said Mark Levin. He smells a coverup, says John Hinderaker.  Is the administration  trying to hide the possible involvement of a Saudi student who was injured in the blast? Michelle Obama visited Ali al Harbi in the hospital.  He’s been a guest at the White House.  Treating Dzhokhar as a criminal rather than as an enemy combatant is a dangerous mistake, says John Yoo.

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Gruesome testimony in the Gosnell murder trial, which has gone to the jury, doubtless influenced Zero to back out of the Planned Parenthood gig.  The MSM was shamed into mentioning it this week, but still distorted the key facts.  The exception is Fox News, which is planning a documentary. Fallout from the case may drag down the leading Dem candidate for governor of Pennsylvania next year.

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Zero is still trying to make the (minimal) sequester budget cuts hurt. His latest effort backfired, big time.  The Federal Aviation Administration began furloughing air traffic controllers to save the $600 million – 4 percent of the FAA’s budget for this fiscal year — required by the sequester, causing great inconvenience to air travellers – but not in Washington D.C. where the politicians are. This despite the fact that even after the sequester, the FAA has more to spend than the president originally asked for. Here’s more on the FAA’s extravagance.

The Wall Street Journal.suggested other ways to save the money.  Others  — including some FAA employees – also called foul on this transparent ploy.  Even the Chicago Tribune, which endorsed him twice, unloaded on Zero.

As criticism mounted, Senate Democrats lost their nerve.  Yesterday, the administration threw in the towel. Obama is screwed whether he signs the bill Congress has passed to end the phony crisis, or vetoes it, Bryan Preston thinks. 

The gambit makes clear why we should privatize the FAA, says Peter Ferrara.

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Democrats are nearing full fledged panic about Obamacare.  They fear they’ll pay a price at the polls if the Obamacare rollout next year is messy, Senate Democrats told White House chief of staff Denis R. McDonough yesterday. 

Politico reported yesterday that lawmakers in both parties were angling to exempt themselves and their aides from Obamacare’s provisions.  If there’d been secret negotiations, they were torpedoed when House Speaker John Boehner, R-OH, tweeted:

We’re not sneaking any language into bills to solve Dems’ #hcr problem. The solution to this & other ObamaCare nightmares is #fullrepeal. The fact that Dem leaders want to opt themselves out of ObamaCare shows Sen Baucus isn’t only one who realizes it’s a #trainwreck.

We never ever sought such a thing, Democrats claimed today.  But Ed Morrissey says their denials are Clintonesque.

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Andrew Breitbart was right all along about fraud in the Pigford settlement, in which billions have been paid to black farmers who claimed they were victims of racial discrimination, the New York Times acknowledged (in its usual left-handed way) Thursday, a year after he was smeared as a racist.

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Republicans will rue the day they thwarted him on gun control, President Obama said in his temper tantrum immediately after the Senate vote last week, because an angry public is demanding action.  Not so much, according to this Washington Post/Pew Research Center poll.  Turnout for this anti-NRA march was pathetic.

The Boston Massacre hasn’t helped the gun grabbers. When Boston was in lockdown during the search for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Fox News asked: If you were in that situation, would you want a gun at your side? Sixty nine percent of respondents said yes.

The gun grabbers say they’ll take another run at it in the fall.  I sure hope they try.

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President Obama chose dolts to be his secretary of state and his secretary of defense. I was certain SecDef Chuck Hagel would be the bigger dufus. I was wrong.

Secretary of State John Kerry said the 9 Islamists running guns to Hamas who were killed during a firefight they started with Israeli commandos were like the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing – a comparison many described as "obscene."  The White House had to walk it back.

Then Kerry said Tamerlan Tsarnaev was radicalized during his trip to Russia last year, which isn’t true – all the evidence indicates the Tsarnaevs became radicals in Boston before his trip – and didn’t go down well with the Russians.  Kerry said also that the Russians never replied to requests for information about Tamerlan, which also isn’t true, and didn’t enhance his popularity with the Russians either. 

For the second time in the week, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was compelled to walk back statements by the Secretary of State. The week before, he had to walk back what Kerry said about North Korea.  He’s been saying stupid things from the get-go.  It’s part of a Dem plot to make Hillary Clinton look good, says Instapundit.

* * * *

Hillary could use the boost.  House Republicans issued a detailed, damning report this week accusing her of lying about Benghazi.  President Obama should have been more involved, said 61 percent in this poll.

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The dolts have a potentially very big problem to deal with in Syria. Bashir Assad’s regime used chemical weapons against insurgents, Secretary of State Kerry told reporters yesterday.  But this doesn’t mean the Syrians have crossed the "red line" President Obama set that he said would force him to act, the White House said today.  Yet another walkback?  It has State doing backflips.

"The administration is saying that, although the evidence indicates Syrian use of chemical weapons, the evidence isn’t conclusive," said Paul Mirengoff. "The key point is that Syrian use of chemical weapons shouldn’t be seen as a "game changer," and Obama never should have spoken of a "red line.’"

The president is trying to weasel out of an implied commitment, but I’m glad he is.  It would be insane for us to intervene militarily in Syria, as John McCain wants us to do.  But Max Boot is unquestionably right when he says we’re reaping the consequences of leading from behind.

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Tea Partiers aren’t violent "directly," Dingy Harry Reid said Wednesday.  But they’re anti-government, which means they’re kind of like terrorists,

That’s a leftist canard, Sen. Mike Lee, R-UT, said in a magnificent speech at the Heritage Foundation Monday on "What Conservatives are For." Conservatives aren’t against government, he said, because we know "the free market and civil society depend on a just, transparent, and accountable government to enforce the rule of law."

Conservatives want government to be strong and effective, he said.  But we want it to be limited, and we want it to be federal.  Given the news from Boston, the most timely element of Lee’s speech is this:

"Once the federal government stops doing things it shouldn’t, it can start doing the things it should, better.

That means national defense and intelligence, federal law enforcement and the courts, immigration, intellectual property, and even the senior entitlement programs whose fiscal outlook threatens our future solvency and very survival.

Once we clear unessential policies from the books, federal politicians will no longer be able to hide: from the public, or their constitutional responsibilities."

This was a "bold statement of purpose" conservatives should ponder carefully, said Yuval Levin.  You can read the speech here, watch it here:

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The Boston Massacre will make immigration reform more difficult, said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.  It should, said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky, who told Dingy Harry action should be postponed until the security implications are studied thoroughly.  The "Gang of 8" bill should be modified to take Boston into account, Rubio agreed.

Big majorities of Republicans, Democrats and Independents say they’ll support a bill which does what the Gang of 8 say theirs will, I noted in a column earlier this week.

It doesn’t, the testimony of Kris Kobach and Peter Kirsanow makes clear.  The "Gang of 8" bill is unacceptable.  But that doesn’t mean Republicans should oppose comprehensive immigration reform.

I said last week I’d explain this week why I think Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla, is playing a shrewd long game.  But there was so much stuff going on this week I’ve run out of space and time.  I’ll have to postpone the detailed discussion yet again, but I want to leave you with these thoughts:

There is an absolutely terrible reason for Republicans to support immigration reform, and an equally terrible reason for Republicans to oppose it.

Republicans shouldn’t support a bad bill because they’re afraid, or in what probably would be a chimerical pursuit of Hispanic votes.

But Republicans shouldn’t oppose a good bill because some conservatives never ever will forgive otherwise law-abiding illegals for having snuck into the country in the first place.

Since an overwhelming majority of Americans support what the Gang of 8 says their bill does, the GOP strategy should be to make sure it does what they say it will do.  If we succeed, the benefits for the security of our country and the electoral prospects of our party could be immense.  If we fail, let the blame rest where it belongs – on the Democrats.

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This was a bad week for Zero, punctuated by George W. Bush catching him in the polls.  So I pronounce the glass more than half full.