The ‘Buckingham Bonaparte’ is cornered

Spectator
Yesterday’s Times leader could not have been any clearer:
‘Mr Bercow has done some good things as Speaker, and some of these would not have happened without his prickly personality. He has not minded irritating the executive by allowing more time to debate topical controversies. Yet he should beware of thinking that annoying everyone means he must be doing everything right.
‘A Speaker relies on the consent of the Commons to respect his or her authority. They are there to ensure free debate and good decision-making. They should avoid becoming the story itself. There has always been the feeling about Bercow that he rather too much enjoys the attention that his cussedness brings. On this occasion, he should show that he is willing to listen to others and make another appointment.’

The weakest US president ever?

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun (Australia)

A serious question: when the US last have a president this weak?

President Obama returned to his vacation home at Martha’s Vineyard after briefly interrupting his vacation for two days of meetings in Washington, D.C.
Obama met with his economic team Tuesday before leaving the White House at 4:22 pm to return to his vacation home.
He did not react to the news that broke later that evening about an ISIS video that showed the beheading of American journalist James Wright Foley."

----------------------
Ed: Update

• The Obama administration knew James Foley's captors were considering killing him to avenge airstrikes; Foley's family received an emailed warning a week ago and told the White House
• Obama seemed to double down on attacking ISIS after a militant beheaded Foley in a shocking video
• 'One thing we can all agree on is a group like ISIL has no place in the 21st century,' a defiant Obama said
• Secretary of State John Kerry said Foley 'was brave and bold, and no masked coward can ever steal the legacy of this courageous American'
• US Secret Service and UK intelligence are searching for Foley's executioner, who spoke with a British accent in the video
• Nearly a dozen new airstrikes near the Mosul Dam came after gruesome video showed an ISIS militant cutting off photojournalist's head
• ISIS threatened to kill a second American journalist if airstrikes continue; White House has confirmed the footage is authentic
• Foley's parents issued a statement stating their son was 'innocent'
• Obama spoke from his vacation on Martha's Vineyard and played golf immediately after delivering his remarks (Daily Mail)

Why should Obama worry about Iraq when there’s Martha’s Vineyard?

Andrew Bolt Herald Sun (Australia)
A perfect snap-shot of the disengaged presidency of Vacationer-in-Chief Barack Obama:

The U.S. military campaign launched in Iraq Friday could go on for months, President Barack Obama said Saturday from the White House, but noted that he would not provide a specific timeline.
“I’m not going to give a particular timetable,” Obama said before leaving for a two-week summer vacation at Martha’s Vineyard.

Reader cynical1:

Rome, meet Nero.

UPDATE
Even Hillary Clinton is now attacking Obama for his lethal lack of leadership:

President Obama has long ridiculed the idea that the U.S., early in the Syrian civil war, could have shaped the forces fighting the Assad regime, thereby stopping al Qaeda-inspired groups—like the one rampaging across Syria and Iraq today—from seizing control of the rebellion…
Well, his former secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, isn’t buying it. In an interview with me earlier this week, she used her sharpest language yet to describe the “failure” that resulted from the decision to keep the U.S. on the sidelines during the first phase of the Syrian uprising.
“The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad—there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle—the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,” Clinton said.

But I suspect the right call was actually the one Russia took. Hold your nose and back Assad.

[ED: published in full here due to the articles importance. ]

Obama can’t just lift one finger to stop the Islamic State

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun (Australia)
Barack Obama pulled out of Iraq too soon, three years ago, and threw away the victory.
Obama then did not intervene in Syria, allowing the jihadists to grow in strength. (Indeed, what support he gave was to the rebel side.)
Obama then did almost nothing as jihadists from Syria swept into northern Iraq, beheading and shooting civilians.
Obama now belatedly does something but very, very little."

Poorly Managed HealthCare.gov Construction Cost $840 Million, Watchdog Finds

WSJ

The federal agency in charge of building the HealthCare.gov insurance website suffered from poor management and skimpy scrutiny of its contracts, a congressional watchdog is set to tell lawmakers Thursday. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services "undertook the development of HealthCare.gov and its related systems without effective planning or oversight practices, despite facing a number of challenges that increased both the level of risk and the need for effective oversight," said William T. Woods, director of acquisition and sourcing management for the Government Accountability Office, in testimony planned to be delivered before a House panel Thursday. The office is also releasing a report with its findings."

"The Obama administration was not up to the job, and American taxpayers are now paying the price," said Tim Murphy (R., Pa.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight panel. "Despite repeated assurances to our committee that everything was 'on track,' it turns out it was on track to disaster." ..........

Lessons in lies: How the BBC, school text books and even exam boards have twisted history to smear Florence Nightingale and make a saint of this woman

Daily Mail

• Commemorative statue of Mary Seacole was unveiled in London last month
• Seacole has been treated with huge reverence - but is surrounded by myth
• Presented as medical pioneer - though she was never even a nurse
• Even school exams award marks for repeating falsehoods about Seacole
• Florence Nightingale - an actual pioneer - is often denigrated in comparison 

Indeed, Seacole’s supporters, including the BBC, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), reputable publishers and school exam boards, seem determined to elevate this Victorian businesswoman and adventurer almost to the status of a modern-day saint. But the truth is that she was never a nurse.

Although school history books now treat her as an equal to Florence Nightingale, Seacole never nursed in a hospital, did not start a nursing school, never wrote books or articles on nursing. Indeed, she never did anything to rival Nightingale’s truly pioneering work to improve healthcare.

Yet while her modern cheerleaders champion Seacole as ‘the real angel of the Crimean War’, and the RCN parades her as a role model, Florence Nightingale, who founded the nursing profession, is being increasingly undervalued and even denigrated. As an academic who has edited Nightingale’s writings, I have been left baffled, frustrated and wearied by the refusal of the pro-Seacole lobby to recognise historical facts." .......

The less heroic reality is that she went to Crimea in the spring of 1855 to set up a provisions store that sold luxury items (such as tinned lobster) to officers, and a restaurant and bar where they could dine and drink champagne. It was hardly fare for rank and file soldiers. Rather than ministering to the sick and wounded, Seacole’s main work by day was food preparation."

From symbol of hope to incarnation of sleaze, lies and greed: This week marks 20 years since Tony Blair became Labour leader. Now Dominic Sandbrook asks - has any former PM sunk so low?

Daily Mail
Two decades on, Mr Blair’s star could hardly have plunged to lower depths. His story has become perhaps the ultimate political morality tale, and far from being remembered as a symbol of youthful innocence, he now seems the incarnation of spin, sleaze and naked self-interest.

Of course, the journey from saviour to scapegoat is one of the most familiar political trajectories of all. However, the extraordinary thing about Tony Blair’s 20-year odyssey is that it has been so drastic and so complete. Thanks to the endless corruption scandals, the cash for peerages row, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the shameless pursuit of post-premiership wealth, his image is now so tarnished that it takes real effort to recall the atmosphere in July 1994, when he was elected to succeed the late John Smith as leader of the Labour Party.      .........

Of course, talk is cheap. But when he became Prime Minister three years later, Tony Blair had probably the best inheritance of any new government in the 20th century. Not only was the economy buoyant, but the Thatcher governments of the Eighties had taken most of the difficult decisions for him. There was no need to confront the unions, the IRA or the Soviet Union — all had effectively been beaten.  .......Right from the start, he and his henchmen, notably the bullying Alastair Campbell, encouraged a culture of shameless mendacity and obsessive control-freakery. In power, these tendencies became exaggerated. Cabinet government gave way to sofa government and television showmanship took precedence over parliamentary democracy.   .........
Instead, in an apparent bid to prove that he lacks an iota of shame, irony or self-knowledge, Mr Blair decided that it was his mission to bring peace to the Middle East. Well, given that Israel and the Palestinians have spent the past week firing rockets at each other, we all know how that worked out.
On top of that, Mr Blair has spent the past seven years whoring himself around the world. He is now worth an estimated £30 million — although he insisted this week the figure was nearer £20 million — having been said to have taken £125,000 from the Chinese for a  single speech on philanthropy, as well as a reported $13 million from Kazakhstan’s autocratic president Nursultan Nazarbayev in return for unspecified ‘advice’. Blair denied making any personal profit."

This weak and timid President talks big... and does nothing: A devastating attack on Obama by a top Washington insider

Daily Mail

• Clark S. Judge believes Obama's reaction to the tragedy was 'disconnected'
• Immediately 'reverted to script' to praise his administration
• Former adviser to Ronald Reagan says it confirms 'chaos' of foreign policy 

All good scams must end

The Black Steam Train
A few years ago, I casually complained to my local YMCA about their 'Indigenous' display.  I wanted to let them know that what they had done had the potential to offend people, despite how well-meaning they were obviously trying to be.  I expected an answer in the realm of 'we read a history book and that was our inspiration', but was taken aback when instead I was informed that this was the work of a local traditional owner, who oversaw the entire project.

This was the first whiff I had of Scammers posing as Aborigines right under my own nose.  So I started to hunt around, and in my searches, became all too familiar with the name Sonia Murray, aka Scams a'Plenty. ...."

Inside President Obama’s secret schedule

YahooNews

There’s what the White House announces to the world he’s doing. And then there’s what he really does. "

America at the Crossroads on the Fourth of July

Roger L Simon, PJ Media
America is at a crossroads — we always seem to be, but this time we really are.
We are living under the administration of a president that is now the least popular since World War II.  A full one-third  of those polled by Quinnipiac rate Barack Obama the worst president since 1945.  (Reagan is rated the best.) What accounts for this?  There are dozens of reasons that have been detailed on these pages and many others.  The man has lied to us multiple times — and to himself as well, no doubt — and many people now apparently sense this.  But I think the deepest reason, the motivating cause, stems from a time Barack Obama actually didn’t lie, but told an important truth.
Back on July 27, 2004, a then obscure Illinois senator made himself famous by standing in front of the Democratic National Convention and speaking these words: “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America. There is a United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America, a Latino America, an Asian America — there’s the United States of America.”
Did he believe those words?  Maybe. Once upon a time.  But evidently not very deeply. The fact is he betrayed them completely and almost everything he has done wrong has stemmed from that betrayal.  He has acted in the most partisan and deceitful manner, surrounding himself with a tiny group of yes-women and yes-men,  making a mockery of his self-proclaimed transparency, shamelessly exploiting interest groups in a way that could only divide our society while diminishing America’s place in the world,  and allowing evil forces to grow across the globe.
All of this while being convinced he is always doing the right thing. The rest of us are wrong.  He is not the commander-in-chief. He is the moral narcissist in chief.  It’s not “I think, therefore I am.”  It’s “I believe — therefore it is.”
But most of the country seems to realize that now.  And his poll numbers reflect it.  Sometimes it seems as if his only real supporters are government employees, food stamp recipients,  and the editorial board of the New York Times.  Whatever the case, that 2004 speech to the DNC is so far in the rear view mirror we might as well be on Battlestar Galactica."

The Imperial President and the Imperious Idiot

WUWT
The Founding Fathers were very concerned that the President should NOT have this kind of imperial powers, and for good reason. They’d seen the damage that strong-men had done in a variety of monarchies and tyrannies. So they devised a system of “separation of powers”—Congress makes the laws, the President enforces the laws, and the Supreme Court interprets the laws.
Sadly, we have fallen very far from that, and President Obama has done immense damage to that system by “solving” every problem, from glitches with Obamacare to interim appointments to immigration reform to destroying coal plants, by imperial proclamation. At this point, all I can do is fervently hope he doesn’t listen to Lester Brown …
Gotta say … 2016 can’t come fast enough for me."