Nightly Ramble Monday

Welcome, one and all, to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the web… The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

• IT’S LAW, ALREADY….SO WHY ARE THEY STILL TRYING TO SELL OBAMACARE? That’s a question that a reader asked me in email just recently, noting that advertisements (Paid for with tax dollars?) are still trying to sell us this disaster as a GOOD thing. Obama’s out and about doing the same thing…a  week worth of this. The answer is that Obamacare is still wildly unpopular. The Democrats see they’re in trouble… November isn’t all that far off. And by the way… just so you know.. The sales job isn’t helping… or if it is, voter disapproval of Obamacare was far worse than we’re being told.
• WITH SOMEONE LIKE THIS IN THE WHITE HOUSE WHY SHOULD IRAN BACK DOWN? Valarie Jarrett thinks Iran will eventually back down. I hope she’s right, but I’ll tell you this; They simply will not back down so long as they’ve got Obama and company doing their anti-Israel work for them. I think Glenn Reynolds is spot on here:
  

  Possibly Obama just hates Israel and hates Jews. That’s plausible — certainly nothing in his actions suggests otherwise, really.

  It would not all be unfair to say that the far left, of which Obama is a part, has been looking to scuttle the relationship between Israel and these United States for decades. You see, the problem here is that the United States’ relationship with Israel is based largely on shared values, and of course mutual interests in the region.  The problem is, the left doesn’t share those values.  Then, too, some of what we’ve seen the last several years, it gives rise to the idea that we know whose values in the region they do share.  Hint: it isn’t Israel.

  Now,  this is not to suggest that these anti- Israel types constitute a majority of the American public.  Going all away back to 1967 Israel has had the support of the vast majority of Americans.. On average over that time,  about 46% of those polled,  responded they unequivocally supported Israel versus something on the order of 11.5% for the Arab states which would include the “Palestinians”.  Interestingly, that kind of dramatic disparity suggests that a goodly number of the people supporting Israel are Democrats.  So the question becomes, what do these things about the current administration, and perhaps more importantly,  whose interests are being represented by the misbegotten foreign policy of the Obama administration?

  Interestingly enough, this is a question that’s being asked by 327 signatories to a letter to the president, asking him to do a 180 on his policy towards Israel.

  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will continue discussions with his senior ministers in the coming days, looking for a way out of the crisis with the US. He received some badly needed support on Friday from 327 congressmen, who signed a letter expressing concern that “the highly publicized tensions” in US-Israeli ties will “not advance the interests” of either state. …

  Meanwhile, in Washington, [327] congressmen – three-quarters of the House of Representatives – signed a bipartisan letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing solid support for Israel and the expectation that differences between Jerusalem and Washington will be smoothed over quickly and in private.

  “We are writing to reaffirm our commitment to the unbreakable bond that exists between our country and the State of Israel and to express to you our deep concern over recent tension,” the letter read. “A strong Israel is an asset to the national security of the United States and brings stability to the Middle East.

  “We are concerned that the highly publicized tensions in the relationship will not advance the interests the US and Israel share. Above all, we must remain focused on the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear weapons program to Middle East peace and stability.”

  The letter stated that the US’s unswerving commitment to Israel’s security has been essential in forging previous Israeli-Arab peace agreements, “both because it convinced those who sought Israel’s destruction to abandon any such hope and because it gave successive Israeli governments the confidence to take calculated risks for peace.”

  It should be noted that this particular letter was only floating around capitol hill for about three days together this many signatures …. 327 of them … including such luminaries as Steny Hoyer and Eric Cantor. and the bipartisanship here is remarkable given the amount of  partisan vitriol flying around until just now.  All it took to unite Congress is Obama… they’re united against him here. If nothing else, it shows clearly how far out of the mainstream the white house’s on this topic.  I suppose that’s an encouraging sign overall, but still, the White House, misguided as it is, is still the one setting our foreign policy agenda.  And as those 327 congresscritters have seen… that’s a problem.

  Over at Commentary, Jennifer Rubin raises two possibilities as to the current stand of the White House on Israel.  Either this is an intentional affront to Israel, a point which I raised earlier, or it’s a more instinctive, and knee-jerk reaction, reflecting their instinctive dislike for Israel.  That’s a dislike, and frankly, an anti Semitism, that Glenn has already noted.

  In this, we see the intersection of Obama’s multilateralism, his aversion to American exceptionalism, his fetish with his own international popularity, his obsession with engaging despots, his disinterest in promoting human rights, and his hostility toward the Jewish state. They are interlocking pieces in the greater Obama vision — each re enforces the other and makes more precarious the security of not only Israel but also the United States. Obama may suppose he is making America more popular or reducing conflict with rogue states, but instead, he is fueling the ambitions of aggressive despots and frittering away America’s moral standing. We are abetting an international free-for-all as the world’s bullies look for openings to assert themselves and to show just how dangerous it is to be a small democratic ally of the U.S.

  It doesn’t take a great visionary to figure out that Obama’s misbegotten foreign policy is leading us toward another world war.   I hardly think that can be considered an overstatement of the issue.  Indeed, the combination that Jennifer mentions, can hardly lead anywhere else.  It’s interesting that even members of the president’s own party have begun to notice it, too, to the point where they’d sign onto a letter of protest. The question still outstanding, to my mind, it is whether not this stupidity on Obama and companies part is intentional.

  Bill Kristol has some comments as well.

• BRITAIN, TOO? There’s a number of MP’s suggesting that the special relationship between Britain and these United States is also over. It is truly remarkable what hope and change can do, isn’t it?
• HOW THE PUBLIC VIEWS THE TEA PARTY: JammieWearingFool tells us 52% of Americans polled think that the average member of the tea party movement has a better understanding of the issues facing America than does the average member of Congress.  As the Fool says, no wonder the Democrats are in a full court press against the tea party. Oh… and speaking of the Democrats and their frothing over the Tea Party….
• WHY NO COMPLAINTS FROM THE LEFT ON THIS? Oh, wait… it IS the left. BBCT to Founding Bloggers who says:
  

  Supporters of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid staged a counter-protest today in Searchlight, Nevada, the Senator’s hometown.  Reid supporters gathered just down the road from the launching point of the Tea Party Express tour, and when Breitbart happened upon them, he was met with threats of violence.  At least one protester threw an egg at Brietbart, missing him.  Eggs were also thrown at the Tea Party Express bus.

  To add insult to insult, Reid supporters called the police to report that Breitbart had provoked an incident.

  These are the people that were claiming death threats were coming from the tea party are so a while ago.  There’s photos, too. They were also claiming racism, as you will recall. That’s been retracted, too… in the face of the facts.  Trust me, dear reader, what you smell is not an aquarium.

• THE LEFT: THE SOURCE OF RACISM: Now, if you want a real example of racism, all one needs to do is look to one’s left.  Example; Remember, friends, the narrative that the left has been trying to foist off on us about the right, and about the tea party, which these days includes an ever increasing number of rank and file Democrats.  They’re all violent racists… (Chuckle)   And by the way, it’s not like any of that should be a surprise.  Much as they try to cover it, racism is always been part and parcel of the left.  Always.  Consider, as an example, that Margaret Sanger founder of what became Planned Parenthood, and iconic to those on the left, these days, got into the abortion business to control the population of black people. Consider the foundations of the Democrat party, in the post civil war reconstruction south. There are certainly more points along the trend line, but you get the idea.
• MICHIGAN MILITIA: Yes, I saw the bit with the Michigan militia and the FBI doing its thing there.  I confess that my first thought was to the timing of the whole thing. I don’t know if these arrests are politically time to or not, and maybe that the question comes up at all says something about that level of trust most people don’t have in the government, these days.  But I’m going to point up something that I’d like you to think about.   If the White House wanted a diversion from how badly they are going to get mauled on health care next November they could hardly have timed this better.  Apparently Reynolds has been thinking the same thing.