President's Advisers Seek Protection Before They Abort His Campaign!

Success was once a measure for re-election.

If that is still the case, let's take a look at the administration's success in the area of foreign policy:

1)The administration withdrew from Iraq and the nation's population continues to live under the threat of daily explosions as Iran's shadow looms larger and larger.

2) The administration just closed our Syrian embassy and was thwarted by Russia and China as it sought a meaningless U.N. resolution to stop Assad's butchering of its people. So much for the reset button.

Previously, the president did nothing to support Iranians when they rebelled.

3) The Arab Spring finds Egypt's political  structure overrun by the Muslim Brotherhood and one of the administration's Cabinet's officer's son is in jail awaiting trial. Our former ally, Mubarak, awaits his fate as a result of our pulling the rug out from under him. Adherence to Sadat's Treaty with Israel is questionable.

4) The administration's serial drone bombing in Pakistan has virtually ruptured our relationship with this 'former' ally.

5) The administration signaled premature withdrawal from Afghanistan has caused another rift and Karzai now feels compelled to negotiate with the Taliban as we are also attempting to do. You remember the Taliban? They are the ones who took over Afghanistan and imposed Sharia law on its citizens.

6) Abbas just united with Hamas so that dims the prospects of Israel committing further suicide at the administration's behest.

7)The Saudis are understandably concerned about their relationship with America and whether our word is worth anything any more.

8) Lebanon remains a nation as long as they take orders from Hezballah which is a puppet of Iran and rings Israel with thousands of illegal missiles brought in under the nose of U.N. forces..

9) Iran continues to fund terrorism despite our 'harsh and repeated' warnings to cease and curbs placed on them by various ineffectual sanctions.

10) N Korea may be starving but they are not bending to the administration's wishes and warnings nor have we been able to get China to curb North Korea's bellicosity.

11) Then we come to Iran, which continues blowing smoke in the face of our Sec. of State as they develop their nuclear capabilities which is causing Israel angst because it cannot allow them nuclear weapons much less a deliverable capability.

12) The administration has pandered to Chavez, turned a blind eye towards Iranian moves to establish terrorist bases in his nation and has failed to offer a rational policy vis a vis the illegal immigration problem from Mexico. And don't forget about the earlier bowing and supplicant greetings to assorted Monarchs and apologies etc.

13) We do not have the slightest idea where stolen anti-aircraft weapons are that we issued to Libyan rebels and have little leverage over that nation's 'democratic' future, not that we ever did.

14) The administration is in the process of weakening our military posture as China strengthens theirs.

15) The president, you may recall,  had to be shamed into inviting the Dali Llama.

16) The president, you may recall, pulled the rug out from under Poland when it came to missile defense.

17) The president did authorize the assassination of bin Laden and therefore, this is a basis for re-electing him.


I, therefore, conclude from the above we are neither feared and/or respected but that is my subjective conclusion and you are free to make your own.

The president, however, told you he deserves to be re-elected because he brought about so much change. The more I hear him, the more I hear his voice the more I even watch him the more nauseous I get.I have disliked some presidents - Nixon, Carter, Clinton but this one takes the cake!

In a future memo I will review the domestic picture and the administration's accomplishments if I can find one and/or any other than that of more change..

Meanwhile, Bret Stephens poses some valid questions. Several of which I believe I can answer.

1) Netanyahu is seriously considering he must take action against Iran and will do so if the evidence justifies, and

2) Israel has the capability of doing what it must do, albeit at great risk.

Don't undersell the IAF, the Israeli Navy, and Israel's counter insurgent force capability. They have been training on the assumption they will receive orders to do what they must do and from my own sources am confident they will. (See 1 below.)
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After sticking it too Catholics, the president's advisers decided it was time to use some protection, before they abort his campaign.  (See 2 below.)
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Harry likes being a member of The Senate, because it permits him to do nice things for his friends with your money and also for his own benefit.  (See 3 below.)
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When the government gets involved the cost goes up,  quality goes down and taxpayers are left holding the bag as politicians break their word and faith.

Meanwhile, media and press analysts readily ignore reality when it conflicts with their thinking. (See 4 below.)
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A law suit has now been brought on behalf of captured whales. I realize whales do not get paid minimum wage so I guess some liberal judge will certify they have a right to sue but can they be tried before a jury of their own peers?

We have too many lawyers, litigants and idiots for judges and before too long our court system will become a mockery .
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Dick
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1)(How) Should Israel Bomb Iran?

Diplomacy has run its course, sanctions are too late, and Israel can't cry wolf again.
By BRET STEPHENS

Can Israel attack Iran? If it can, will it? If it will, when? If when, how?

And what happens after that?

On Sunday with Matt Lauer, President Obama said "I don't think that Israel has made a decision on what they need to do." That didn't square with the view of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who's been reported as saying he expects an Israeli attack this spring. Nor does it square with public warnings from Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that the Iranians would soon enter a "zone of immunity" from foreign military attack if nothing is done to stop them.

Yes, these war drums have been beaten before. But this time it's different.

Diplomacy has run its course: Even U.N. diplomats now say Iran uses negotiations as a tactic to buy time. The sanctions are too late: Israel can't afford to wait a year or two to see if Europe's embargo on Iranian oil or the administration's squeeze on Iran's financial institutions will alter Tehran's nuclear calculations.

Covert action—computer bugs, assassinations, explosions—may have slowed Iran's progress, but plainly not by enough. And Israel can only hint so many times that it's planning to attack before the world tires of the bluster-and-retreat routine.

Two additional points. Washington and Jerusalem are at last operating from a common timetable—Iran is within a year of getting to the point when it will be able to assemble a bomb essentially at will. And speaking of timetables, Jerusalem knows that Mr. Obama will be hard-pressed to oppose an Israeli strike—the way Dwight Eisenhower did during the Suez crisis—before election day. A re-elected President Obama is a different story.

That means that from here until November the U.S. traffic light has gone from red to yellow. And Israelis aren't exactly famous for stopping at yellow lights.

But can they do it? There's a mountain of nonsense exaggerating Israel's military capabilities: Israel does not, for instance, operate giant drones capable of refueling jet fighters in midair.

Enlarge Image

AFP/Getty Images
Israeli F-15 fighter jets refuel during an air show.

At the same time, there's an equally tall mountain of nonsense saying that Israel is powerless to do significant damage to Iran's nuclear-weapons complex, as if the Islamic Republic were the second coming of the USSR. In fact, Iran is a Third World country that can't even protect its own scientists in the heart of Tehran. It has a decrepit air force, antiquated air defenses, a vulnerable electrical grid, exposed nuclear sites (the uranium conversion plant at Esfahan, the heavy water facility at Arak, the reactor at Bushehr), and a vulnerable energy infrastructure on which its economy is utterly dependent. Even its deeply buried targets can be destroyed. It's all a question of time, tonnage and precision.

The bottom line is that a strike on Iran that sets its nuclear ambitions back by several years is at the outer periphery of Israel's military capability, but still within it.

As for how Israel would do it, the important point is that any strike that's been as widely anticipated as this one would have to contain some significant element of surprise—a known unknown. What could that be? Here's a hint: Gen. Hossein Salami, the deputy commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, recently warned that "any place where enemy offensive operations against the Islamic Republic originate will be the target of a reciprocal attack." Look at a map: Africa and Central Asia are wide open places.

What happens on the day after? Israelis estimate that between Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Syria and Iran itself, there are some 200,000 missiles and rockets pointed in their direction. They could start falling before the first sortie of Israeli jets returned to base. Israel's civil defenses have been materially improved in recent years. But the country would still have to anticipate that missile and rocket barrages would overwhelm its defenses, causing hundreds of civilian casualties. Israel would also have to be prepared to go to war in Lebanon, Gaza and even Syria if Iran calls on the aid of its allies.

Put simply, an Israeli strike on Iran would not just be a larger-scale reprise of the attacks that took out Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981 and Syria's in 2007. On the contrary: If it goes well it would look somewhat like the Six Day War of 1967, and if it goes poorly like the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Nobody should think we're talking about a cakewalk.

So: Should Israel do it? If the U.S. has no serious intention to go beyond sanctions, Israel's only alternative to action is to accept a nuclear Iran and then stand by as the rest of its neighbors acquire nuclear weapons of their own. That scenario is the probable end of Israel.

Then again, if Israel is going to gamble so much on a strike, it should play for large stakes. The Islamic Republic means to destroy Israel. If Israel means to survive, it should commit itself similarly. Destroying Iran's nuclear sites will be a short-lived victory if it isn't matched to the broader goal of ending the regime.
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3)Sen. Harry Reid (D- Nev). In 2004 and 2005, the Senate majority leader secured$21.5 million to build a bridge over the Colorado River, linking the gambling resort town of Laughlin, Nev., with Bullhead City, Ariz. Reid owns 160 acres of undeveloped land in Bullhead City.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4)Governed by Ignoramuses Smarter than Journalists
By John Ransom


The country’s problems, although very serious, aren’t that tough to solve.

For anyone with a heartbeat and a healthy does of realism, our biggest problem is government intervention.

We have a credit crisis, which, like all other credit crises in the past, have been a function of too much money scattered in too few places.

Eventually, the markets collapse when performance catches up with liquidity.

This crisis has been brought on by federal intervention in various markets that inject liquidity into too few places that give a sustainable, positive return on investment.

Let’s look at three areas where federal dollars dominate: college education; real estate and healthcare.

In college education, the federal government is the only player left. Last year, for the first time ever, student loan obligations exceeded credit card obligations. This year, according to both Heritage and USA Today student borrowing is expected to top $1 trillion.

“Tuition and fees continue to shoot through the roof, now exceeding $17,000 per year, rising on average 8.3 percent at public universities this year,” writes Heritage. “[C]ollege costs have increased 439 percent since 1985, despite a 475 percent increase in federal subsidies such as Pell Grants. In other words, more federal funding hasn’t decreased the cost of attending college.”

In fact, the college inflation rate probably has much to do with the amount of federal aid available to colleges. Colleges, like every other business, raise prices when more money for their products is available.

The cost of a college education is rising so fast that students can’t pay off loans, even with subsidized interest rates from the government. “A recent study by the Institute for Higher Education Policy found that for every borrower who defaults,” writes the New York Times, “at least two more fall behind in payments. The study found that only 37 percent of borrowers who started repaying their student loans in 2005 were able to pay them back fully and on time.”

The government’s solution to the problem of too much money in education is throwing more taxpayer dollars at colleges and universities.

Same is true for real estate.

After three decades of subsidizing home ownership in the United States, the federal government helped fuel real estate prices to speculative levels and encouraged the least able to repay to borrow money with government guarantees.

4th quarter foreclosures rates rose again at the end of 2011.

“Foreclosure starts…increased this quarter,” write the Mortgage Bankers Association, “the first increase in a year after declining for three straight quarters, and is now back up to the levels of the first quarter of 2011. This is largely driven by loans leaving the loss mitigation process and the ending of state remediation programs and foreclosure moratoria.”

In other words, now that the government has stopped interceding in the private contracts between mortgage holders and home owners, foreclosures are resuming the natural course that they could have taken five years ago. But instead the government has intervened and kept the real estate market and home owners sickly, affecting the whole economy.

According to the FDIC, “The government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the government mortgage insurance program Ginnie Mae together account for more than 95 percent of total MBS issuance since 2008.”

That hasn’t stopped Obama from proposing the Federal Housing Authority absorb bigger losses or pressuring private banks to make home loans easier to get in continuation of the failed policies of the past. These are the same banks that the federal government is suing for making loans to people who couldn’t afford to repay them.

Remember too big to fail? There are more toxic assets concentrated in fewer and fewer places, most held by the federal government, guaranteed by you and me. And these policies were deliberately crafted by the Obama administration.

The story for healthcare is much the same.

The largest customer, insurer and payer for healthcare is the federal government.

And government money, combined with demographics have fueled rising costs for healthcare. “The new numbers are consistent with a trend that from August 2000 to August 2010 has seen healthcare inflation rise 48% while overall Consumer Price Index has risen 26% for the same period, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show,” writes HealthLeaders Media.

Again, Obama’s idea of reform is having the government be the only player in healthcare.

You know?

Because that worked so well for real estate and student loans.

But the most maddening part in the tale is that financial journalists won’t cover the story.

Instead of writing about the deleterious effects of federal involvement in healthcare, real estate, student loans, energy and every other area of our economy that is suffering, they often pose as cheerleaders for the administration.

Covering the latest cooked books from Bureau of Labor Statistic regarding unemployment, Don Lee of the LA Times glosses over the fact that real unemployment is at 11.3 percent rather than 8.3 percent the administration claims. Instead he chooses to take issue with Newt Gingrich’s claim that if people hadn’t dropped out of the labor pool that the “unemployment rate would now be 12% or 13%.”

Well, yeah says Lee. Buuuuuut, “while Gingrich has a point that the latest jobless rate understates the pain among workers, the unemployment figure still wouldn't be as high as he says it would be if workers hadn't dropped out. Rather, Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, estimates the unemployment rate today would be 11.3% if the labor force had grown at a ‘normal’ rate since the end of 2007.”

Sure. Gingrich has a point, but his over-estimation of unemployment by over-estimation of unemployment by seven-tenths of one percent is somehow more dishonest than the administration’s undercounting of unemployment by three full points. You have to go to journalism school to be that intellectually bankrupt?

Those idiot Republicans. Would it really kill Lee to admit that conservatives are r-r-r-r-right on this issue? Probably not. But it would kill something more important to him- his world view.

In fairness to journalists like Lee, they are hobbled by their post-modern desire to live in a world that conforms to their vision rather than having their vision conform to the realities of the world.

It’s not their fault.

They are just that dumb.
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