Centreville, Virginia you will love it !

 

-------Original Message------- From: leon Humphreys Date: 9/1/2012 4:12:01 AM To: ReagansConservatives@yahoogroups.com Subject: Fw: Centreville, Virginia you will love it ! Subject: Fwd: Centreville, Virginia I have no idea who was in the black SUVs. No matter watch it and heed the advice at the very end!! God Bless America Because IN GOD WE TRUST. Amen The news and photos of this happening were censored by liberal power houses like George Soros, who controls all media including, print and TV. After a lot of searching, I came up with this site and thought you might like to see it and perhaps pass along to your friends. When I inserted "Centreville, Virginia visited by Obama", all I got was a blank page. I rooted around using different subjects and ran into this one. The liberals with George Soros on their side, are doing a lot of censoring of the Internet search engines. Below is the note from the circulator to my friend who FWD"ed it to me. Good ole YouTube came through though. This happened in VA near where we lived, But didn't see anything on the news about the people lining the street... LOVE THOSE RESIDENTS IN CENTREVILLE!!!!!!!!   President Obama held a campaign event in Centreville, Virginia on July 14th, 2012 prompting about 250 local residents to welcome him. Here's a short video of that event with music by Randy Travis...

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http://www.thedailysheeple.com/16-facts-that-show-how-members-of-congress-and-federal-workers-are-living-the-high-life-at-your-expense_082012

16 Facts That Show How Members Of Congress And Federal Workers Are Living The High Life At Your Expense

by Michael Snyder

Once upon a time, working for the federal government was considered to be a sacrifice and it often involved a significant reduction in pay. Millions of Americans felt that serving their country and making a difference more than made up for the reduced wages that they would receive. Unfortunately, those days are long gone. Today, the federal government is the place to go if you want a cushy, high-paying job with tons of benefits. It is incredibly hard to be fired from a federal job, and if you stick around long enough you will be guaranteed a huge pension for the rest of your life.

The laziness at some federal agencies is absolutely legendary. Trust me, I used to work in Washington D.C. and I have seen the mindset firsthand. Some federal buildings are absolute ghost towns at 5:01 PM. Hordes of federal workers are just putting in their time, collecting their fat paychecks and counting down the days until retirement.

And members of Congress are some of the worst offenders when it comes to milking the American people. Yes, members of Congress have fat salaries and enormous pensions, but it is the host of “funds” and “expense accounts” that they have access to where the worst abuse takes place. For example, did you know that more than $33,000 was spent in 2010 on the hair care needs of U.S. Senators? That comes to more than $300 per Senator. The truth is that most members of Congress and most federal employees don’t really care that other Americans are absolutely breaking their backs to pay the taxes that fund this system. Most of them enjoy milking the American people and most of them have absolutely no intention of changing the system that has been so incredibly good to them.There is a reason why the median household income is higher in the Washington D.C. area than anywhere else in the nation. The U.S. government is the goose that just keeps laying golden eggs. Over the past 40 years there has been an incredible economic boom in the areas of Virginia and Maryland bordering our capital. But it is not because those areas have added value to our economy. Rather, it is because the federal government has been sucking the lifeblood out of the rest of the country and has been showering it on millions of parasites that are living the high life at our expense.

Nobody is saying that we should shut the government down. All societies need government. However, the cold, hard truth is that our bloated federal government has gotten wildly out of control.We desperately need to change course, because our federal government has become a deeply corrupt monster that just keeps getting larger and larger no matter which political party is in control.

The following are 16 sickening facts that show how members of Congress and federal workers are living the high life at your expense….

#1 Nearly 500,000 federal employees now make at least $100,000 a year.

#2 In 2006, only 12 percent of all federal workers made $100,000 or more per year. Now, approximately 22 percent of all federal workers do.

#3 If you can believe it, there are 77,000 federal workers that make more than the governors of their own states do.#4 In 2010, the federal government spent $33,387 on the hair care needs of U.S. Senators.

#5 In 2010, U.S. Senators pulled $72,370 out of the “Senate Restaurant Fund”.

#6 In 2010, U.S. Senators took $166,673 out of something called the “Senate Gift Shop Revolving Fund”.

#7 In 2010, an average of $4,005,900 of U.S. taxpayer money was spent on “personal” and “office” expenses per Senator.

#8 Cooks working for the Bureau of Prisons make an average of $66,225a year.

#9 During 2010, the average federal employee in the Washington D.C. area received total compensation worth more than $126,000.

#10 During 2010, compensation for federal employees came to a grand total of approximately 447 billion dollars.

#11 According to the Heritage Foundation, federal workers on average make 30 to 40 percent more money than their counterparts in the private sector.

#12 The U.S. Department of Defense had just nine civilians earning $170,000 or more back in 2005. When Barack Obama became president, the U.S. Department of Defense had 214 civilians earning $170,000 or more. By June 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense had 994 civilians earning $170,000 or more.

#13 If you are a federal worker, you are 13 times more likely to die of natural causes than you are to get laid off by the federal government.

#14 Insider trading is 100% legal for members of Congress, and they refuse to pass a law that would change that.

#15 At this point, more than half of those “serving the American people” in Congress are millionaires.

#16 Nearly 15,000 retired federal workers are collecting federal pensions for life worth at least $100,000 annually. The list includes such names as Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, Dick Gephardt and Dick Cheney.

Meanwhile, much of the rest of the nation is deeply suffering.As I have written about previously, 77 percent of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck at least part of the time, and a whole host of statistics show that the middle class in America is in a deep state of decline.

Median household income has declined by 8.1 percentsince the year 2000, and 14 million more Americans have been added to the food stamp rolls since Barack Obama became president.

It is not right for members of Congress and federal employees to be living the high life while the rest of the country is experiencing tremendous economic pain.

What makes all of this even worse is that the U.S. national debt has now reached the 16 trillion dollar level.

If we could pay for all of this wild government spending that would be one thing, but the truth is that the U.S. national debt is now more than 22 times larger than it was when Jimmy Carter became president.

We cannot afford this kind of spending.We need to totally change the culture in Washington.

We need a government that is lean and efficient and that is full of people that have a passion for serving the public.

So do you think that we will ever get there?

Please feel free to post a comment with your opinion below….

This article first appeared here at the The Truth. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here.

Delivered by The Daily Sheeple

Obama’s guilty silence

 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/30/obamas-guilty-silence/

LAMBRO: Obama’s guilty silence

No apology for economic sins

The Washington Times

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Enlarge Photo

Illustration Obama Money by Alexander Hunter for The Washington Times

The most salient characteristic of the Obama administration’s abject failure to put the American economy back to work has been its deafening silence on the issue in his campaign.

President Obama doesn’t talk about the economy’s painful weaknesses. Democrats in Congress are all but silent on the issue, as if it doesn’t exist. His campaign ads ignore it altogether as if everything’s fine, asking voters to turn their attention to lesser issues — ones that don’t make the top 10 list of major concerns in voter surveys.

Across the Potomac River in swing state Virginia, almost all of the Obama attack ads against Republican rival Mitt Romney are about abortion and contraception, hoping they will be able to woo enough women to vote for Mr. Obama based on a single issue to put the state into his electoral column.

We’re in an election year when the president’s handling of the economy is the No. 1 complaint. High unemployment and the lack of good-paying jobs is No. 2, and unfathomable budget deficits and a nearly $16 trillion debt are Nos. 3 and 4. Mr. Obama believes he can win a second term on abortion, Mr. Romney’s tax returns and bashing his successful career as a venture capital investor. Apparently, he thinks the American people are fools who will fall for the old carnival shell game.

In “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” Hans Christian Andersen tells the tale of two tailors who weave a suit of clothes that is supposedly invisible to anyone who is either stupid or incompetent. When the emperor rides by, no one in the crowd dares to say anything, until a child cries out, “He isn’t wearing anything at all.”

Like the naked emperor, Mr. Obama appears oblivious to the dismal state of the economy. Or he thinks not enough of his voters will care that the economy is now in a sharp decline in the fourth year of his presidency if he can keep them distracted by other issues. He is also counting on the base of his party and its leadership not to utter a word about the 23 million Americans who can’t find good-paying, full-time jobs. So far, the Obama administration has done a good job of gagging Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill. They’re counting on the national news media to focus their fire power on the Romney-Ryan ticket, while burying the economic news stories — as the networks have been doing for the past four years. They did it again Wednesday by ignoring the Commerce Department’s report that the economy was barely growing at 1.7 percent and, economists say, will remain below 2 percent for the rest of this year.

It was left to vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan to say the obvious Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., “I have never seen opponents so silent about their record.” Mr. Obama’s cronies are silent because they know the economy during his time in office has not really recovered and is to a large degree much worse than it was in 2009 when he was sworn in. They are silent, too, because they have nothing to say about how to strengthen the economy, create jobs, raise middle-class incomes, expand overseas export markets, boost energy supplies to reduce gas prices and save an unsustainable Medicare program from insolvency.

Their last shot at trying to jump-start the economy was Mr. Obama’s $800 billion-plus spending stimulus plan in 2009 that was an abysmal, wasteful failure. He can point to nothing he has done since then that has worked.

“They’ve run out of ideas,” Mr. Ryan said in his electrifying acceptance speech. “Their moment came and went. Fear and division are all they’ve got left. With all their attack ads, the president is just throwing away money — and he’s pretty experienced at that.”

Mr. Ryan’s speech crowned a lineup of inspiring speeches delivered at the convention Wednesday. Especially welcome was the determination by the party’s younger rising stars to aggressively rebut the fallacious, flimflam hucksterism peddled by Mr. Obama. One excerpt from Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s address should be broadcast in a 30-second ad for the duration of the campaign. “Mr. President, you say the rich must pay their fair share. But when you seek to punish the rich, the jobs that are lost are those of the poor and middle class,” Mr. Paul said. He’s boiled down a complicated economic reality to a sound bite. Mr. Obama knows that the top 25 percent of income earners pay 87.3 percent of all federal income taxes, according to the Internal Revenue Service. But he’s betting most Americans don’t know that or don’t believe it. Meanwhile, the truth is that over the past four years, the middle class has been shrinking and has born the brunt of the severe unemployment levels under Mr. Obama’s failed economic policies.

The Republican National Convention has put an end to the four-year honeymoon the president has had with most of the national news media. A newly energized GOP campaign has begun punching back with some effective firepower.

A major target was Mr. Obama’s unending excuses: He “is the first president to create more excuses than jobs. In his view, it’s [George W. Bush’s] fault. It’s the bank’s fault. It’s Europe’s fault. It’s Congress’s fault,” said former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. “Mr. President, if you want to find fault, I suggest you look in the mirror.”

Besides the economy, no Obama statement took more of pounding from the convention podium than his “you didn’t built that” claim, which placed the government at the center of everything Americans have accomplished in their lives. Mr. Ryan, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez and others struck down that preposterous claim with a vengeance in a counter-attack that revives a deeply held political belief in the American electorate.

Americans still believe that persistence, hard work and the opportunity to compete in the open marketplace in a free-enterprise society is the surest path to success. They just want the government to get out of their way.

That’s the economic revival Republicans were selling in Tampa this week. Next week, however, Mr. Obama and the Democrats will meet in North Carolina — where the jobless rate is 9.7 percent — peddling more government.

Read more: LAMBRO: Obama's guilty silence - Washington Times

Obama's Incuriosity and 'Confident Ignorance' Make Him Dangerous As A President

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-viewpoint/083112-624284-obama-know-it-all-no-curiosity-about-reality.htm?p=full

Obama's 'Confident Ignorance' At Root Of His Failure

Confident ignorance is one of the most dangerous qualities in heads of state — especially if he or she is also blessed with rhetorical skills....

After reading Barack Obama's book "Dreams from My Father," it became painfully clear that he has not been searching for the truth, because he assumed from an early age that he had already found the truth — and now it was just a question of filling in the details and deciding how to change things.

Obama did not simply happen to encounter a lot of people on the far-left fringe during his life.

As he spells out in his book, he actively sought out such people. There is no hint of the slightest curiosity on his part about other visions of the world that might be weighed against the vision he had seized upon.

As Professor Richard Epstein of the University of Chicago Law School has pointed out, Obama made no effort to take part in the marketplace of ideas with other faculty members when he was teaching a law course there.

What would be the point, if he already knew the truth and knew that they were wrong?

This would be a remarkable position to take, even for a learned scholar who had already spent decades canvassing a vast amount of information and views on many subjects.

But Obama was already doctrinaire at a very early age — and ill-informed or misinformed on both history and economics.

His statement in "Dreams from My Father" about how white men went to Africa to "drag away the conquered in chains" betrays his ignorance of African history.

The era of the Atlantic slave trade and the era of European conquests across the continent of Africa were different eras.

During the era of the Atlantic slave trade, most of Africa was ruled by Africans, who sold some of their slaves to white men.

European conquests in Africa had to wait until Europeans found some way to survive lethal African diseases, to which they lacked resistance. Only after medical science learned to deal with these diseases could the era of European conquests spread across sub-Saharan Africa. But the Atlantic slave trade was over by then.

There was no reason why Barack Obama had to know this. But there was also no reason for him to be shooting off his mouth without knowing what he was talking about.

Denial Isn't Just A River

This is similar to Obama's characterization of the Nile as "the world's greatest river." The Nile is less than 10% longer than the Amazon, but the Amazon delivers more than 50 times as much water into the Atlantic as the Nile delivers into the Mediterranean. The Nile could not accommodate the largest ships, even back in Roman times, much less the aircraft carriers of today that can sail up the Hudson River and dock in Midtown Manhattan.

When Obama wrote that many people "had been enslaved only because of the color of their skin," he was repeating a common piece of gross misinformation. For thousands of years, people enslaved other people of the same race as themselves, whether in Europe, Asia, Africa or the Western Hemisphere.

Europeans enslaved other Europeans for centuries before the first African was brought in bondage to the Western Hemisphere.

The very word "slave" is derived from the name of a European people once widely held in bondage, the Slavs.

Economic Errors

As for economics, Obama thought that Indonesians would be worse off after Europeans came in, used up their natural resources and then left them too poor to continue the modern way of life to which they had become accustomed, or to resume their previous way of life, after their previous skills had atrophied.

This fear of European "exploitation" prevailed widely in the Third World in the middle of the 20th century. But, by the late 20th century, the falseness of that view had been demonstrated so plainly and so often, in countries around the world, that even socialist and communist governments began opening their economies to foreign investments.

This often led to rising economic growth rates that lifted millions of people out of poverty.

Barack Obama is one of those people who is often wrong but never in doubt. When he burst upon the national political scene as a presidential candidate in 2008, even some conservatives were impressed by his confidence.

But confident ignorance is one of the most dangerous qualities in a leader of a nation.

If he has the rhetorical skills to inspire the same confidence in himself by others, then you have the ingredients for national disaster.

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Americans Shot in Mexico Were C.I.A. Operatives Aiding in Drug War

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/world/americans-shot-in-mexico-were-cia-operatives-aiding-in-drug-war-650983/#ixzz25867oc70

August 29, 2012 1:03 pm

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD and ERIC SCHMITT / The New York Times

MEXICO CITY -- The two Americans who were wounded when gunmen fired on an American Embassy vehicle last week were Central Intelligence Agency employees sent as part of a multiagency effort to bolster Mexican efforts to fight drug traffickers, officials said on Tuesday.

The two operatives, who were hurt on Friday, were participating in a training program that involved the Mexican Navy. They were traveling with a Mexican Navy captain in an embassy sport utility vehicle that had diplomatic license plates, heading toward a military shooting range 35 miles south of the capital when gunmen, some or all of them from the Federal Police, attacked the vehicle, Mexican officials have said.

The Mexican Navy said Tuesday in a statement that an American was driving the vehicle and that during the attack the captain, who was handling logistics and translating for the men, remained in the back seat calling for help on his cellphone.

The men were wounded, the Navy said, when the rain of bullets managed to tear through the car's protective armor. It was unclear if the Americans, who officials said were unarmed, were specifically targeted, if the shooting was a case of mistaken identity or if there was some other reason that the vehicle was ambushed. Mexican prosecutors have detained 12 federal police officers and have said no theory can be ruled out.

The C.I.A. declined to comment. But American officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release information, said no evidence had emerged so far that the Americans were targeted because of their affiliation.

American investigators are working with Mexican authorities to determine what happened and whether the police officers involved were corrupt.

The notion that a squad of federal police officers would attack an embassy car could be another blow to the developing trust and cooperation between American counternarcotics personnel and their Mexican partners.

Through programs like the $1.6-billion Merida Initiative, the United States has spent millions of dollars on training and equipping the federal police.

Eric Olson, an expert at the Woodrow Wilson Center's Mexico Institute in Washington, said the shooting could only sow some doubts about the police, and at best pointed to a lack of communication among Mexico's military and the police.

"This seems to suggest there isn't better communication between the various elements of the Mexican government," he said. "One fundamental issue is the lack of trust."

In his first public comments on the shooting, President Felipe Calderón, speaking Tuesday at a security forum attended by the American ambassador, Anthony Wayne, promised a thorough investigation.

"Be it from negligence, lack of training, lack of trust, complicity, these acts cannot be permitted and they are being investigated absolutely rigorously," Mr. Calderón said.

The presence of C.I.A. employees, and indeed all American operatives, on Mexican soil has long been a prickly subject here.

In his nearly six years in office, Mr. Calderón has allowed a much larger role for American counternarcotics operations, including the use of unarmed American drones deep in Mexican territory. C.I.A. operatives and retired American military personnel have also worked with American law enforcement agencies and the Mexican military on training and intelligence-gathering.But Mexico has ruled out allowing the Americans to carry out arrests or deploy troops on its soil, and even their limited role has provoked a political outcry over whether the nation's sovereignty has been put in jeopardy.

Lawmakers, instigated by the left, have hauled Mexican government officials before Congress for sometimes testy hearings and after the newspaper La Jornada first reported the C.I.A. involvement on Tuesday, some politicians said they would ask for a thorough explanation of the American role here.

"It's is time to speak clearly and for us to know what institutions are intervening in what specific way in our country in regard to security,' said Iris Vianey Mendoza, a senator from the left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution.

The office of Enrique Peña-Nieto, who won Mexico's presidential election in July and has promised to maintain close ties with American law enforcement agencies, declined to comment.

The shooting was reminiscent of an attack on American immigration and customs agents last year in which one was fatally shot and another wounded when their embassy sport utility vehicle was ambushed on a highway north of Mexico City. A Mexican man was extradited and is awaiting trial on murder charges in Washington.

This latest episode has caused Mexicans to reflect on the quality of the federal police force, which had achieved growing respect but which has been tarnished by recent corruption scandals.

"The thing that really worries me," said Gabriel Guerra, a political analyst who has worked with the three major parties here, "is that we are seeing the unraveling of what was supposed to be the main achievement in the fight against organized crime, which was the creation of a trustworthy national police."

Randal C. Archbold reported from Mexico City and Eric Schmitt from Washington. Karla Zabludovsky contributed from Mexico City.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
First Published August 29, 2012 1:01 pm

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/world/americans-shot-in-mexico-were-cia-operatives-aiding-in-drug-war-650983/#ixzz25EZ9xb6m

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/31/13597578-feds-end-probe-of-americas-toughest-sheriff-joe-arpaio-no-charges?lite
or
http://preview.tinyurl.com/cbqberk

Feds end probe of 'America's toughest sheriff' Joe Arpaio; no charges

By NBC News staff and wire services

The federal government has closed a criminal probe of alleged financial misconduct by Arizona lawman Joe Arpaio, who styles himself as "America's toughest sheriff," and no charges will be filed, the U.S. Attorney's Office said on Friday.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images file

Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio is shown attending Republican National Convention on Wednesday in Tampa, Fla.

A separate federal investigation relating to allegations of civil rights abuses by Arpaio's office is continuing. 

The announcement on Friday marked the end of an investigation that began in November 2010 at the behest of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to examine alleged financial improprieties by the county sheriff and his deputies.

A federal criminal inquiry into several of those matters was concluded last summer with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona declining to initiate criminal charges. 

Maricopa County authorities were informed on Friday that federal prosecutors had likewise declined to bring charges in connection with allegations that the sheriff's office had misused county credit cards or misspent money from jail facilities excise taxes.

In addition, the U.S. Attorney's Office declined to prosecute two former officials of the county attorney's office who were accused of wrongfully prosecuting a local judge.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Birmingham Scheel said in a statement that her office "is closing its investigation into allegations of criminal conduct by current and former members of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and the Maricopa County Attorney's Office."

Arpaio, who returned from the Republican National Convention on Friday night, said he was "very happy" with decision.

"I send my appreciation to the federal government for their hard work in clearing my office," he said in a news briefing. 

Arpaio, 80, who is seeking re-election to a sixth term as sheriff in November, has been under a separate federal inquiry since 2008 over allegations that he and his deputies engaged in an extensive pattern of civil rights abuses.

 

Arpaio denied any wrongdoing, and said he would cooperate with investigators.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Birmingham Scheel, acting on behalf of the United States due to the recusal of U.S. Attorney John S. Leonardo, commended the joint investigative efforts of the prosecutors and the FBI special agents who conducted the investigation.

Scheel said her office advised Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery of the decision.

Arpaio, first voted into office in 1992, has been elected five times and is seeking a sixth term.

Also in July, Arpaio denied in testimony in a class-action lawsuit that his deputies targeted people because of the color of their skin.In July, Arpaio said that volunteer investigators working for him concluded that President Barack Obama’s birth certificate is not legitimate.

"At the very least," he said at a news conference, "I can tell you this, based on all of the evidence presented and investigated, I cannot in good faith report to you that these documents are authentic."

He was testifying whether police can target illegal immigrants without racially profiling Hispanic citizens and legal residents.

"I am against anyone racial profiling ... today as in my 50 years in law enforcement," Arpaio told the court during cross-examination. 

Arpaio is also known for outfitting county jail inmates in pink underwear, claiming the pink shorts are less likely to be smuggled out of jail and sold on the black market, and for housing inmates in a Tent City jail in Phoenix, even when Sonoran Desert summer temperatures soar to 115 degrees.

NBC's Jim Gold and Reuters contributed to this report.report

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Warm Regards

DOC

http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/31/obama-speech-to-soldiers-met-with-silence/?print=1

Obama speech to soldiers met with silence

4:43 PM 08/31/2012

President Barack Obama was greeted with fleeting applause and extended periods of silence as he offered profuse praise to soldiers and their families during an Aug. 31 speech in Fort Bliss, Texas.

His praise for the soldiers — and for his own national-security policies — won cheers from only a small proportion of the soldiers and families in the cavernous aircraft-hanger.

The audience remains quiet even when the commander-in-chief thanked the soldiers’ families, and cited the 198 deaths of their comrades in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The audience’s reaction was so flat that the president tried twice to elicit a reaction from the crowd.

“Hey, I hear you,” he said amid silence.

The selected soldiers who were arrayed behind the president sat quietly throughout the speech.

CNN and MSNBC ended their coverage of the speech before it was half-over.

The president’s speech to the soldiers is part of his constitutional duties as commander-in-chief.

But Obama and his wife are also trying to reach out to military families in several critical swing-states, including Virginia and Florida. (RELATED:That outreach, however, has been damaged by repeated flubs from the White House, including its public emphasis on soldiers’ wounds rather than on their accomplishments, and Obama’s effort to distance himself from the anti-jihad campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For example, Obama gave Vice President Joe Biden the task of developing a post-war agreement with Iraq’s government in 2009. The effort failed, reducing U.S. gains from the campaign that killed almost 4,500 troops, and as well as thousands of jihadis and Sunni insurgents seeking to regain power. The subsequent withdrawal of nearly all U..S. troops has allowed Iran to increase its influence in Iraq. In turn, that influence helps it support Syria’s dictatorship against Sunni insurgents.

White House officials are trying to avoid additional flubs. On Friday, for example, White House officials rushed to debunk a report that the president had used an autopen to sign condolence letters to soldiers’ families.

Throughout Friday’s speech, the loudest reactions came when the president name-checked the nicknames of the soldiers’ brigades. Major military units have their own rival cheers, and those could be heard from portions of the audience when he referred to individual units.

The troops’ silence continued through several obvious applause-lines.

There was isolated cheers when Obama said his withdrawal policy would ensure “fewer deployments … more time to prepare for the future, and it means more time on the home front, with your families, your home and kids.”

The silence deepened when the president lauded his strategy of withdrawal from the war. “Make no mistake, ending the wars responsibly makes us safer and our military even stronger, and ending these wars is letting us do something else; restoring American leadership,” he said amid complete silence.

When he said demobilized soldiers would find jobs because “all of you have the skills America needs,” he got little reaction.

There was no reaction when he promised stepped-up recruitment of soldiers for police jobs.

He won some applause when he announced his support for soldiers injured in combat.

The most enthusiastic applause came when he lauded the soldiers’ military mission, and promised continued support for that professional task.

An anecdote about his meeting with a wounded soldier was met with a tepid response, until he described the soldier’s determination to recover and return to his unit. “He’s where every soldier wants to be – back with his unit,” Obama said, generating applause.

Similarly, his declaration that “around the world there’s a new attitude toward America, a new confidence in our leadership” yielded only silence, while his next sentence — “When people are asked ‘Which country do you admire most?’ one nation always comes out on top, the United States of America” — prompted relative enthusiasm.

The White House’s video-feed cut off 10 seconds after the president finished his speech, before the audience’s reaction overall could be gauged by viewers.

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