◼ Obama’s Fault - Bill Keller/New York Times
◼ Barack Obama: The Man Behind the Mask - Steve McCain/American Thinker
...there remains a stubborn unwillingness on the part of many to recognize the essential Barack Obama. Perhaps it is unfathomable to them that they could be wrong about someone who was the epitome of their superficial ideal candidate. They are blinded to the danger by their belief that this country, the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of mankind, could never be brought to its knees by anyone.
...Barack Obama is someone who would willingly inflict pain and suffering on the American people in order to permanently destroy his political enemies and accumulate near dictatorial power for the government he controls. His megalomania does not allow him to care a whit for the citizenry or the long-term future of the country he is pushing into bankruptcy or the nation's ability to survive in a hostile world.
...The sequestration tactics by Barack Obama are but the latest manifestation of his mindset. In order to have a free hand to achieve his tyrannical ambitions, he must make certain the Republican control of the House of Representatives is overturned in the 2014 mid-term elections. This is his current and only objective and he will stop at nothing to accomplish that goal. After all this is who Barack Obama is.
◼ White House’s false sequester claims prompt media pushback - Neil Munro/Daily Caller
◼ Big Government Likes To Inflict Pain To Avoid Cuts - Thomas Sowell/IBD
Back in my teaching days, many years ago, one of the things I liked to ask the class to consider was this: Imagine a government agency with only two tasks: (1) building statues of Benedict Arnold and (2) providing life-saving medications to children. If this agency's budget were cut, what would it do?
The answer, of course, is that it would cut back on the medications for children. Why? Because that would be what was most likely to get the budget cuts restored. If they cut back on building statues of Benedict Arnold, people might ask why they were building statues of Benedict Arnold in the first place.
The example was deliberately extreme as an illustration. But, in the real world, the same general pattern can be seen in local, state and national government responses to budget cuts.
At the local level, the first response to budget cuts is often to cut the police department and the fire department. There may be all sorts of wasteful boondoggles that could have been cut instead, but that would not produce the public alarm that reducing police protection and fire protection can produce. And public alarm is what can get budget cuts restored.
The Obama administration is following the same pattern. The Department of Homeland Security, for example, released thousands of illegal aliens from prisons to save money — and create alarm....
◼ Tom Brokaw Pounds Obama For Spending ‘Entirely Too Much Time’ Campaigning, Not Negotiating With GOP - Noah Rothman/Mediaite
◼ Hume: Obama tack on sequester ‘the most peculiar behavior I have ever seen by a president’ [VIDEO] - Jeff Poor/Daily Caller
“A normal president would be trying to reassure the public that this, after all, is not a large sum of money compared to the budget overall,” Hume continued. “The president seems prepared to let the public suffer almost as much as possible, as long as he can blame somebody else. This is not what we expect of presidents. Presidents in the end are supposed to be the people who put their big boy pants and prepare to shoulder responsibility. … It’s very unusual for a president.”
