If you find my memo efforts of interest and maybe even challenging , whether you agree or not, then please support my effort to raise money for The Wounded Warrior project and buy my book expressing my thoughts on raising children.
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Former CIA head sets the record straight. (See 1 below.)
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After the last debate it appears Obama is going with painting Romney as out of touch with foreign policy matters and wants to take us back to buggy whip and bayonet days. That dog will not hunt because uncommitted voters are learning that Obama is a liar and his portrayal of Romney does not square with reality.
Obama's credibility is so low that whatever he says now is no longer taken at face value as it if were gospel.
Obama will be beaten by his own words, his own failures, his amateurish and petulant behaviour and his own lack of credibility.
His likeability is now under a microscope and lo and behold there is really not much to like. (See 2 below.)
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Libyan response from a military perspective and where the failure lays. (See 3 below.)
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Edmund Wright sees a wave breaking the Liberal Bubble and those within will not recognize it. Yes, it has been long in coming but the signs can no longer be ignored. (See 4 below.)
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Israel suspends war games with U.S. as rockets rain in from Gaza. (See 5 below.)
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More of the same a second time in order to lock in government spending at 45%of GDP. (See 6 below.)
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Time is not a luxury we can afford. (See 7 below.)
And then we now learn the White House knew but still sent Amb. Rice out to filibuster.
(See 7a below.)
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Dick
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1)CIA’s Hayden: Romney Right On Iran
By Jim Meyers and John Bachman
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden tells Newsmax that Mitt Romney was right — and President Obama wrong — when the GOP candidate said during the Monday debate that a nuclear Iran and not a terrorist attack was the biggest threat to America’s national security.
The retired 4-star Air Force General also says he is “not very hopeful” that negotiations with the Iranians will dissuade them from developing nuclear weapons. And he predicts that a President Romney would “review” Obama’s exemption of some of Iran’s major trading partners from imposing sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Story continues below.
Hayden served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from May 2006 until February 2009, shortly after Obama’s inauguration. He also served as Director of the National Security Agency from 1999 to 2005, and is now on the Advisory Board of LIGNET.com, a Washington, D.C.-based intelligence analysis and forecasting service affiliated with Newsmax.
During Monday’s presidential debate, President Obama stated that the biggest national security threat was an attack by a terrorist organization, and Romney said it was a nuclear-armed Iran.
In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV, Hayden states who he thinks was right.
“I was advising the [Romney] campaign, but I did not advise the governor on this question. But I can tell you, I have been giving speeches now for three and a half years since I left the government. The general theme of the speech is what things keep you awake at night, and for three and a half years I have begun with Iran, a nuclear Iran, and pointed out that of all the things I left when I left the government, the one that has gotten increasingly dark, increasingly problematic, has been Iran.
“The governor’s choice was the one that I have been saying since I left government, and I frankly think it is the most destabilizing trend out there, should it come to fruition and the Iranians get the nuclear capability.”
The New York Times at the weekend reported that the United States may soon be in talks with Iran to slow down or stop its nuclear program. The president said last night during the debate that the report was “not true.”
Commenting on the possible negotiations, Hayden says: “If I recall, the source of the story in the Times was in the United States and not in Iran. That makes it a bit curious.
“Generally when I talk to public audiences, I say this is like one of those little white boards where you put two Venn circles on it. One Venn circle I label ‘what the Iranians are willing to give’ and the other Venn circle I usually label ‘what we in the West are willing to accept.’ I point out that I have great difficulty finding circumstances in which those two Venn circles overlap.
“I would not throw the opportunity to negotiate away, but I also would not use negotiations for an end point. I would continue the tough sanctions and even increase Iran’s diplomatic isolation. But frankly I am not very hopeful that we are going to get to where we need to be with Iran.
“I was struck yesterday that people actually asked ‘what does the deal look like’ and the president did not answer that.”
Hayden also comments on Iran’s progress on its nuclear program over the last four years.
“When we left, coming after the Bush administration four years ago, we did not leave any easy solution set for the incoming Obama team. This has been the devil’s own problem for three successive administrations.
“What I think the governor pointed out, what I know Congressman Ryan pointed out in his debate with the vice president, is granted that the sanctions are hard, granted the isolation of Iran is greater, but granted they have more centrifuges spinning now than they ever had and they have been able to produce four years’ worth of fissile material while we are lining all these things up.
“One thing that shocked me in the debate last night was a thought I believe should have been mentioned, that the goal is not to punish Iran, the goal is to make Iran change its mind. If you understand that is your goal, you are no closer to that than you were a week, a month, a year, or four years ago.
“Yes they are suffering, but they have not changed their minds. That’s the only relevant measure.”
President Obama has exempted some of Iran’s major trading partners, including China, from imposing economic sanctions on Iran.
Asked if Mitt Romney would end those exemptions if he wins the White House, Hayden responds: “I’m not in a position to predict the governor’s actions. But what I do think: Any prudent look at the sanctions would call you to review all of the exemptions that you currently allow.
“The objective here, as it was stated by the president yesterday, we have international unity and we are punishing Iran [but] every time you offer an exemption, that is not quite punishing Iran, and it is certainly not a reflection of international unity. So I would expect the governor to work long and hard at each of these.
“Back to point: They have not changed their minds yet and we need to continue to ratchet it up.
“A point that was not mentioned last night was that the severity of these sanctions is in at least some measure the product not of the executive branch, not of the president, but of the Congress. They have really held the president’s feet to the fire with regard to some of the sanctions.”
In Monday’s debate, Romney responded to Obama’s boast that under his watch Osama bin Laden has been killed and terrorist organization severely damaged. Romney said: “We can’t kill our way out of this mess.”
Hayden observes: The "can’t kill our way out of this" reference actually echoes.
“I have not shared this with the governor but that is very close to a thing I had while I was Obama’s CIA chief for the first three weeks of his administration.
"We had just had an operational success and I had briefed it at a National Security Council meeting, and after the meeting Rahm Emanuel, then Obama’s chief of staff, came over and poked me in my shoulder and said, ‘Hey, that’s a good job, Hayden thank you.’
“That one ‘thank you’ was [for] a counterterrorism success. But unless you are prepared to do this forever, you have to change the facts on the ground. That is going to require a completely different kind of effort. I think that was the thought the governor was trying to share yesterday.”
In his exclusive Newsmax interview, Hayden also discusses Romney’s handling of the Benghazi issue during the debate, America’s relationship with Israel, and Obama’s comments about the downsizing of the Navy.
And he charges that the president’s claim that he did not want to keep residual forces in Iraq after America’s withdrawal “doesn’t square with the historical record.”
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2Cantor Takes Obama to Task for Imperial Presidency
!
)House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has produced an 8,000-word report assailing President Barack Obama for instituting an imperial presidency.
Even The New York Times noted recently on its front page “an increasingly deliberate pattern by the administration to circumvent lawmakers,” Cantor writes.
Pieces appearing over the course of the past several months in The Washington Post, National Review, and The Wall Street Journal have talked about his "imperial presidency."
The Obama administration’s lack of respect for the law is hampering economic growth and individual prosperity, particularly the jobs market, he says.
“Property rights and rule of law are essential for the proper and efficient functioning of society and the economy,” Cantor states.
“When ‘laws’ are created without going through Congress; when laws are selectively executed; when an administration intervenes into the normal judicial process and diminishes an individual's property rights; and when the normal regulatory process is circumvented, the rule of law is eroded.”
That’s exactly what has happened under Obama, Cantor says.
“While administrations of both political parties have been known to test the bounds of the limits of their power, the breadth of the breakdown in the rule of law in recent years has reached new levels,” he writes.
Cantor’s report cites more than 40 examples of the White House’s lack of respect for the law.
This includes:
• Ignoring Advise & Consent, such as through recess appointments;
• Creating laws outside of the Congressional process, such as changing the unionization process, telling businesses where they are allowed to locate, imposing propaganda mandates on employers, telling federal contractors who they have to hire, regulation of hydraulic fracturing, establishing a national ocean regulatory policy, creating a new land regulation program, global warming regulations, network neutrality regulations, auto efficiency mandate, claiming the power to define what constitutes religious employment, draconian regulation of coal;
• Ignoring the Plain Letter of the Law & Failing to Faithfully Execute the Law, such as waiving work requirements under welfare; the contraception mandate and the rights of religious employers, expansion of the refundable tax credit providing for premium assistance, Medicare Advantage quality bonus demonstration, medical loss ratio requirement for health insurers, termination of Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, rewriting bankruptcy law, failing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, recognition of Jerusalem, lobbying for abortion overseas, halting the airport screening partnership program, expedited airport screening for members of the Armed Forces, DREAM Act deferred action, administrative amnesty for illegal immigrants, withholding critical information about counterfeit goods, Medicare Solvency Requirements;
• Circumventing the Normal Regulatory Process, such as abuse of sue and settle tactics, re-write of coal regulations, abuse of guidance documents, refusing to disclose regulatory agenda, failing to list essential health benefits, Gulf drilling moratorium; banning uranium mining in Arizona;
• Government By Waiver, such as education policy by waiver and healthcare law waivers;
• Creating New Programs Not Authorized by Congress, such as the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation, new “super” agencies, the healthcare Independent Payment Advisory Board, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
“There is no excuse for this continuous disregard of legislative authority and the Constitutionally-required separation of powers,” Cantor writes.
“This is no way to govern. The President has set a precedent that even his supporters should find troubling. . . . The Founding Fathers wisely gave the President many powers, but making law was not one of them.”
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3)Libyan Response
The notion that because we had military assets only an hour away (fighter jets) or three hours away (soldiers) we could have and should have intervened militarily is not a convincing reason to claim the tragedy is due to Obama’s failure to act. You can’t just send warplanes in to bomb willy nilly without a lot of target information which I am sure was unavailable at the moment. Who are you going to bomb and what are you going to bomb? Bombs cause collateral damage. Without precise information about the target you can do more harm than good. What if it was simply a popular reaction to the video? In those early moments I doubt anyone had a real handle on who was doing the attacking, especially since the same thing was going on in Egypt at the time. Sending troops in would have been more surgical but it would have taken more than three hours to get them into place. They have to be outfitted, loaded aboard transports and the raid would have to be coordinated with Libyan authorities to avoid a real problem going forward with the new government. You can’t just send troops in blindly. Again, you need intelligence and in those early hours it is clear that there was a lot of confusion. You could have lost more Americans than just the four. What if, for instance, the terrorists figured we might try to intervene and had placed men to ambush our rescuers. It would have been easy. It takes a degree of planning before you engage in a battle.
The more compelling argument is the fact that the State Department ignored repeated requests for more security. That was the real failure. Certainly one can also criticize Obama for missing security meetings and going off on campaign trips and meeting with rappers while the embassy was still burning. His behavior was lamentable but not surprising. After all, he is simply a third rate Chicago ward politician in love with the trappings of the presidency and not the work or statesmanship.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4)The Wave That Breaks the Liberal Bubble
By C. Edmund Wright
Can you feel it?
The wave, that is. I speak of one that will wash away far more than just a failed presidency. This wave will have the torque to rock the entire liberal bubble -- the political/media/crony bubble -- leaving it forever exposed. Ironically, those inside this bubble will be the last to know -- which is precisely why it will happen. Those who would rule over us, and insult us with outrage over Big Bird, academic debate-scoring, "binders" memes, and specious jobs statistics know nothing about us. This includes those inside the bubble who purport to represent our views.
But we know them well. For the record, "we" refers to the quarter of the country that never bought into the fraudulent vapor of Obama and who lost respect for anyone who did. Even post-election, when 70% plus of the nation was in this stupor, we knew it was Marxist voodoo that could not last.
It did not. Early in 2009, per Rasmussen, another 25% got over the phony high of Obama's election. Since then, Obama's been underwater on approval .
Millions more have joined this narrow majority in the past weeks. Debates have been the catalysts, but this epiphany has been building for much longer -- and now it's reached critical mass. There is now understanding of the shallowness of Obama and of liberalism. Everything said by the supposedly racist, mean-spirited conservatives has been validated.
Doggone it...I think they've been right all along.
We were, and not just about Obama. We've been right about the academia elites, the Jurassic media, the elitist conservative pundits, the establishment, the "obama foam" class, and Occupy and union thugs, too. This includes anybody who makes his living from government -- and the reporting thereof. It encompasses those who live inside the bubble, plus those who depend on them. These people are all intertwined, co-dependent, and out of step with America. Recent events have finally connected dots for a lot of people in ways they can no longer deny.
Consider a quick history:
Rush Limbaugh opened his show that day saying that "the new tone has come home to roost" and, seconds later, "I'm already on the field." Many scratched their heads, yet others knew exactly what he meant. The diluted conservatism of Bush, Karl Rove, and John McCain was destined to fail -- allowing a fresh start to take its place. This was explicitly Rush's point. Game on!
It mattered not that Bush and McCain couldn't stand each other; reaching across the aisle and the new tone were different names for the same perception failure. Thus, the end of Bush/McCain felt like termination from a bad job. Awful, and yet liberating. Many were "on the field" with Rush that day. The wave began.
Yes, Romney uses some McCain language -- and Rove is part of efforts to defeat Obama. Consider them collateral beneficiaries of a wave they don't understand.
The wave grew in February 2009, when Rick Santelli reintroduced the term "Tea Party" into our vernacular on CNBC -- and his rant went viral thanks to Matt Drudge and Limbaugh. The phrase "Tea Party" was everywhere.
Thus, when people connected in spring '09 at town hall meetings opposing ObamaCare, Tea Party groups organically sprang up. David Axelrod, who has never been part of any movement that he was not paid to dream up and fabricate, immediately projected his counterfeit style onto the Tea Party. He still doesn't get it.
In November 2009, Jon Corzine was decisively beaten by Chris Christie, and Bob McDonnell won Virginia big. People were seeking refuge from Obama in the safety of Republican governors. In the bubble, they ignored these and bitterly clung to an oddball race in New York 23. Hey, no big deal -- you won two, but we won one. Nothing to see here. By the way, did we mention that Obama is personally popular?
The wave then crashed at Hyannis months later and washed the Ted Kennedy seat out of Democrat hands. Scott Brown is no Reagan, but his campaign was anti-ObamaCare and pro-Tea -- even as he avoided the term. The excuse from the bubble? Martha Coakley was a poor candidate. True, but poor libs win safe seats all the time. Those in the bubble missed the point and passed ObamaCare anyway.
They even promised to read it...if Nancy Pelosi would take her 200-pound gavel off it.
Then came 2010, which, like 1994, was fought ideologically. With Pelosi predicting victory, Democrats lost 69 seats in Congress, 700 state seats, lots of governors -- and damned near every dogcatcher. Pelosi lost her gavel, too.
Undeterred, the bubble-dwellers then put all their chips on the table in Wisconsin, where they had unions, a hack judge, and the sacrosanct teachers on their side. This was their slam-dunk. They were sure they could sink Scott Walker, and the world would be right again.
Uh-oh. Walker won the absurd recall easily. The bigger story is the damage done to public unions. The infantile behavior of so-called dedicated educators was seen nationwide. "Public servants," greedy? Who knew?
In the bubble, they dismissed this. They said the problem was simply their messaging and the evil Koch Brothers. Forget Brown, Christie, McDonnell, 69 seats, 700 legislators, lots of governors, and Walker (twice). Forget that the entire nation watched the Democrats flee the state to avoid a vote! Obama is still inevitable. Everyone (in the bubble) knows it.
They really believe this, and they really believe that the world revolves around them. For years, it did -- as most power, communication and information originated inside the bubble. Three networks, two wires, one cable, and three dailies ruled the bubble and the opinions of the world. We know the rest: along came Rush, Drudge, Fox, Hannity, Levin, Savage, Beck, and the conservative websites. Breitbart emerged and inspired millions to embrace tech toys to expose the "racial Marxism" of the Democrat-media complex. Thanks to the delightful capers of O'Keefe and Giles, we all know ACORN.
Liberal mischief was exposed. A union thug fakes racism at a Tea Party -- it goes viral. SEIU members confess to being paid to protest -- and it goes viral. A Democrat congressman insults a youngster -- it goes viral. Chris Matthews wets his pants, and it goes viral. Weiner...well, you know -- and it goes viral. The entire bubble is intellectually naked, and everyone sees the political porn without the networks, cable channels, or newspapers that once controlled access.
In the bubble, where politics is but a game, they miss the cumulative effect of all this. They have no sense of the undertow pulling on many.
Fast forward to last week. As Candy Crowley and the pundits are finding out, winning the optics of the moment is no longer enough. Now events are won and lost in the days following. It's not over 'til the fat lady goes viral. She went viral, and now Crowley, Obama, and the entire media coterie are being exposed on the web.
Those in the bubble never see these tectonic shifts. They were in denial after Drudge nearly brought down Bill Clinton. They stayed in denial after bloggers retired Dan Rather. Everyday reality brings down more newspapers and magazines, and the pioneer of cable is now only airport fare.
Hello? Anyone in the bubble spot a trend here?
No, and this includes some good guys. Limbaugh and Mark Levin hammered Charles Krauthammer and George Will last week on their groupthink. Even bubble conservatives speak of four-dollar gas and dead ambassadors as mere debate topics. How can they miss that four-buck gas, soaring food prices, and 11% unemployment are ruining lives? These are not points awarded because a guy sounds elegant.
Crowley's antics are a sample of incidents that cause light bulbs to go off for voters who may not know the issues but who do know that a president who has to be rescued by a B-list journalist is indeed an empty chair. They know that the B-list journalist is not worth listening to, either. This is the kind of event that can put the last four years into instant perspective for someone.
Different dots connect for different people. For some, it may be Obama snarking, "Can you say that a little louder, Candy?" after blaming the video for weeks. Add this to Big Bird, binders, and contraception for middle-aged students, and even unserious voters can tell that Obama is unserious.
For others, it may be the pipeline and gas prices. Or the cancer ad, the phony Harvard Cherokee, or fat union perks. Whatever the dots, they all connect those inside the liberal matrix of Obama, all Democrats, the media, unions, Occupy, and the pundits. Nothing they have said for years is actually true.
If such realizations have hit critical mass, we have a wave.
Gone will be Obama and the Democrat Senate. More than that, however, will be the exposition of the entire liberal myth. Obama has been the face of liberalism, and the bubble has been his support system. When this vapor gets blown away, the propagators will see their credibility blown away as well.
Even at this late date, many assign credence to polls with laughable 2008 turnout models. This includes Fox, Rasmussen, and the Wall Street Journal, as well as the liberal outlets. (Gallup excluded this week.) It will be fun to watch the horror, the denial, and then the spin after election day.
That's why the wave will be so satisfying. Oh, saving the country from four more years of Obama will be important, too, of course. But that will be challenging at the same time. Remember that John Boehner was a collateral beneficiary of the 2010 elections, and he still does not understand the movement that gave him the speaker's gavel. The same might be true for Romney and Paul Ryan. Rove will also get more credit, more airtime, and more wealth as a result. He may think he is driving the wave, but he is merely riding it. These winners are very likely to miss the message of this election, just as the liberals have misinterpreted every election since 2009. Inside the bubble, they always miss it.
All of this will present challenges and frustrations, of course, going forward. To paraphrase a sentiment of Levin's, we'll "deal with all of that later." And we will. In the meantime, enjoy the wave. It's coming. You can feel it, too. I know you can.
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5)Israel halts war games to deploy troops, resources in escalating Gaza sector
Following this decision, another 13 rockets were fired at Ashkelon early Wednesday afternoon.
military sources report that the two exercises were effectively halted – “reduced” according to the official communiqué - after a wide range of towns and villages within range of the Gaza Strip, including Ashkelon, took a heavy beating from round after round of rockets, including Grads.
military sources report that the two exercises were effectively halted – “reduced” according to the official communiqué - after a wide range of towns and villages within range of the Gaza Strip, including Ashkelon, took a heavy beating from round after round of rockets, including Grads.
Two Thais working in the fields of the Eshkol district were flown to hospital in critical condition. Several properties were seriously damaged and local schools and work places remained closed.
The concentrated assault on Ashkelon, against which 7 rockets were intercepted by Iron Dome batteries, is taken by Israel’s top commanders as the opening shot of a major Hamas offensive, with worse to come.
Officials in Washington and Jerusalem are in tense discussions over what to do with the 1,000 US troops, the American Patriots and the US warship standing by with an Aegis anti-missile battery, assigned to the three-week joint exercise which started Sunday.
On the one hand, the joint exercise’s mission was to practice the defense of Israel against potential Iranian, Syrian, Hizballah and Hamas missile attack. The current Hamas assault would seem to be an appropriate operational pitch for the American soldiers to practice tactics in real combat.
But the last thing President Barack Obama wants at this time is direct US military involvement in any Middle East war arena, certainly before the Nov. 6 vote. Using the Gaza scene for practice holds the potential of drawing US soldiers at some point into spiraling combat against the Palestinian Hamas and ultimately the Lebanese Hizballah.
In September, the two terrorist organizations signed mutual defense pacts under Iran’s aegis, obligating Hizballah to open a second front against northern Israel if Hamas comes under Israel attack in Gaza. The defense minister warned Wednesday that while Israel is not eager for ground action in the Gaza Strip, its army is committed to doing everything necessary to restore calm and security to southern Israel.
President Shimon Peres was the first statesman to connect the rising Hamas aggression to the visit of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani of Qatar in Gaza City Tuesday with a fat check for “development constructon”.
No sooner had he departed, than the Islamist group ruling Gaza let loose with salvoes of rockets against Israel.
Peres commented WEdnesday said that it is intolerable for the rulers of Gaza to receive millions of dollars form the Emir of Qatar and shoot rockets. Nowhere in the world, whether London or New York, would it be acceptable for money awarded for building materials to be spent on rockets. Israel cannot put up with any more of this, said the president. "It is up to Gaza to choose between development and terror and murder."
The Qatari ruler’s motives in his visit were not exactly constructive. He came to extend the regional ambitions which found expression in his intervention in the Libyan revolt and the Syrian conflict. Now, he is bidding to shore Hamas up as a force for reining in Salafi and al Qaeda lawlessness in Sinai before it cuts into Qatari influence in Libya. Israel may find itself not only up against Islamist terrorists but their Qatari sponsor too.
Our military sources predicted then that his visit would encourage Hamas to flex its muscles against Israel to impress its new patron.
The Gaza terrorist crisis ties in with a parallel alert declared by Israeli, US, Egyptian and Jordanian counterterrorism agencies for the coming Eid al Adha festival starting Oct. 25. Our sources revealed that Salafi and al Qaeda cells in Egyptian Sinai are poised to unleash coordinated terrorist attacks on US and Egyptian targets in Sinai and in Israel to avenge Israel’s targeted killing of two senior commanders of the Salafi-al Qaeda Sinai-Gaza network. Perpetrators of the Benghazi murders of 4 US diplomats are among the jihadi reinforcements coming in from Libya.
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6)A Second First Term
Meet Obama's new agenda, same as the old agenda, only less.
Barack Obama won the Presidency in 2008 as the anti-George W. Bush and in 2012 he's been trying to win again as the anti-Mitt Romney, without elaborating much of a second-term agenda. Two weeks before Election Day, we now know why. His new ambitions look a lot like his old ambitions, except stuck on repeat.
On Tuesday Mr. Obama finally tried to give the future more definition with a new plan, except it isn't new and barely qualifies as a plan. "I've laid out a plan for jobs and middle-class security," he claimed in Delray Beach, Florida, brandishing a 20-page brochure titled "A Plan for Jobs and Middle-Class Security" and going on to invoke his "plan" another dozen-odd times. "I won't be running the okey doke on you," he added.
Voters may okey doke themselves if they believe this document, which is heavy on backward-looking and discredited factoids and light on economic specifics. For example, Mr. Obama wants to spend money to hire 100,000 math and science teachers for public schools. Isn't that what happened in 2009? And didn't his own Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, say that class size barely matters to education outcomes?
The President says he'll use community colleges to train another two million workers "for good jobs that actually exist," perhaps to distinguish these from the jobs he said the 2009 stimulus would create but actually didn't. And he says he'll create a million new manufacturing jobs by 2016 via a new temporary tax credit for U.S. companies that expand domestic hiring.
All of this is merely a kind of Junior Achievement version of the stimulus, trying to create jobs with more government spending that isn't affordable, or temporary tax favors that fail because they are, well, temporary. Businesses hire based on total employee costs, not one-off tax benefits. Since 2009 the country has lost 610,000 net manufacturing jobs, despite such preferences.
The only thing close to a real new idea is Mr. Obama's pose as Cheerleader in Chief for oil and natural gas production. But what's new is Mr. Obama's support, not the production, which he has had nothing to do with. He's now climbed aboard the caboose of this train because he can see that it's been a winning issue for Mr. Romney.
He's doing so even though the single biggest risk to this expanded production is his own Environmental Protection Agency, which is desperate to regulate fracking at the national level. States do the job now, and for the most part very well, but Mr. Obama won't say if he'd stop the EPA in a second term. Want to bet a billion-dollar chemical plant on that?
He also says he'll open up millions of acres for development, but his booklet includes far more discussion of a mandate for 80% of U.S. electricity to come from "clean" energy sources by 2035. Such a renewable portfolio standard, as it's called, would limit demand for the very oil-and-gas surge he wants to take credit for.
Mr. Obama's pamphlet doesn't have the heart to mention immigration reform, perhaps because the President knows he has poisoned the political well and any plan is probably dead on arrival. His rhetorical attacks and lawsuits against Arizona and this summer's executive-order fiat on young illegal immigrants (a policy we support as legislation) have ensured GOP hostility.
Perhaps you've heard that the President wants to raise taxes on the top 2% of U.S. taxpayers. If you haven't, well, the pamphlet mentions that once or twice. Left unsaid is that this plan increases revenue only between $50 billion and $80 billion a year, a rounding error in the $1 trillion-plus deficit era. Mr. Obama does claim to have a plan to reduce the gap by $4 trillion over the next decade. Mostly this comes from unwinding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that are already being unwound and assorted budget gimmicks.
But what about a grand budget bargain? Won't that be Mr. Obama's crowning second-term achievement? The pamphlet's sections on health care and entitlements show that his real budget priority is to preserve all of the government he expanded in the first term.
He promises to protect the Affordable Care Act from repeal or Republican amendments. He also says he'll "protect retirement security" by opposing "efforts to gamble Social Security in the stock market"—which no one is proposing—and "stop proposals to turn Medicare into a voucher system." Having thus stopped serious entitlement reform, he'll be left to fiddle around the edges with the usual cuts to providers or reducing benefits for seniors he thinks are "rich."
Mr. Obama's real agenda is to lock in the historic spending levels of 24% or 25% that he achieved in his first term, with ObamaCare spending set to grow by leaps and bounds after he's left office. Taxes and spending are already set to rise unless Congress acts to stop it, and the President won't let House Republicans do that.
One of Mr. Romney's most effective arguments is that Mr. Obama's second term will reprise his first. The President's new-old pamphlet with new-old ideas proves Mr. Romney's point. The guy is tapped out.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7)Countdown to the Red Line in Iran
After the 'cripple date,' it will likely take six months for the regime to truly feel the bite
AND MARK DUBOWITZ
Iran's oil exports have been halved by economic sanctions, but that still leaves the regime with around $50 billion in oil income this year, according to calculations by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Nevertheless, the Iranian economy has taken a substantial hit from sanctions. After the rial lost nearly half of its value in a week earlier this month, Tehran began severely restricting access to dollars and euros.
That's a welcome sign for anyone who hopes that international sanctions will cause the Tehran regime to abandon its nuclear-weapons program. But the currency restrictions were also a warning: In all probability the regime is battening down the hatches, husbanding foreign-exchange reserves, and preparing for a long ordeal. Given the progress that Tehran has already made with its nuclear plans—still-hidden centrifuge manufacturing plants, enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow, a likely weaponization facility at Parchin, and an extensive ballistic-missile program—the regime faces a short, relatively inexpensive dash to the nuclear finish line.
How close it is to that finish line, and how much more time should be allowed for sanctions to work before it's too late, and a pre-emptive military strike becomes essential?
The first task in answering the question is to make a solid guess about the Islamic Republic's economic cripple date. That will arrive when its hard-currency reserves are insufficient to cover its hard-currency payments; when the import of foreign goods is no longer possible; when the rial becomes worthless paper; and when precious metals and barter become the only means of exchange.
There is no way of knowing whether Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, and his Revolutionary Guards will ever relent in their nuclear ambitions—there is always the possibility that the economy could crater disastrously but the regime would keep enriching uranium anyway. For those who want to give sanctions every chance of succeeding, though, the working assumption must be that a collapsed economy will cause the mullahs to relent.
Common sense would suggest that the cripple date should arrive at least six months before Iran could go nuclear; six months would likely be required for the economic disaster to fully affect the regime. Fear and depression would need time to ripple through the Islamic Republic's formidable political system—Mr. Khamenei and his praetorians are, after all, serious revolutionaries.
In his recent speech to the United Nations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described when he considers that the red line for a nuclear Iran will have been reached: late spring/early summer 2013, when the regime will have enough 20%-enriched uranium to make one bomb. For those who take the Israeli threat of a pre-emptive strike seriously and believe it would be a mistake, then the economic cripple date would have to occur within the next three months—by mid-January—for the Iranian regime to be staring at imminent economic collapse before the Israelis' red line in June.
President Obama has avoided citing a red line that he would not allow Iran to cross. He has said that Iran must not go nuclear, but he clearly doesn't subscribe to the Israeli view that a nuclear-weapon capability is in itself a casus belli. Mr. Obama instead has suggested that the Iranians' clear intent to assemble a bomb, not just acquiring the ingredients, is what he regards as a red line that would require pre-emptive force. By that definition, military action could be avoided until the Iranians were caught in flagrante delicto.
And they might be caught. Iran's nuclear program is different from that of the Soviets, Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis and North Koreans. They all went nuclear clandestinely, surprising the Central Intelligence Agency. Since Iran's secret program was revealed, Tehran has kept its enrichment plants—though not suspected weapons-design facilities—open to U.N. inspection. Although the regime may have become more proficient at deception, it is generally assumed that the plants at Natanz and Fordow are the only enrichment sites. Prudence should lead us, however, to challenge this assumption since the regime tried to hide both sites and cheats rapaciously.
If they are the only sites, then a crucial issue arises: At what point does the stockpiling of 20%-enriched uranium so diminish the time for processing weapons-grade material that—even if the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency could rapidly detect the diversion—Iran could become a threshold nuclear state in less than 30 days? After all, IAEA inspections currently occur about once a month.
It's not certain when that moment will arrive, given Iranian secrecy. But a reasonable guess, based on the increasing number of centrifuges, is that Tehran will be there by the end of 2013. Once the regime processes medium-enriched uranium into weapons-grade, then militarily stopping the program isn't practical. That's because designing nuclear triggers or warheads for the country's ever-growing supply of ballistic missiles could be done in small, undetectable facilities. If we assume January 2014 as the nuclear drop-dead date (by the U.S. standard), then American and European sanctions would need to collapse the Islamic Republic's economy by July 2013.
By that calculation, and leaving a minimum of six months for economic collapse to ripple through the Iranian system, the U.S. and its allies have nine months from today to crater Iran's economy. With $50 billion a year still pouring in from oil sales, and Tehran likely to have stockpiled additional foreign-exchange reserves in anticipation of sanctions, the government seems capable of lasting well past next summer.
It is incumbent, then, on the Treasury Department (the most creative source of sanctions ideas within the executive branch), the State Department, the National Security Council and CIA to determine what steps need to be taken to accelerate the grip of sanctions on Iran, and to more rapidly deplete those reserves, if a red line—Israel's in June or America's in January 2014—is not going to be crossed, necessitating military action.
One immediate step the administration could take would be to finally blacklist Iran's central bank for supporting proliferation and terrorism, shutting the bank off completely from the international financial system. The administration could prohibit all nonhumanitarian commercial exports to Iran and use the threat of sanctions to encourage compliance by Iran's export partners; at a minimum, the administration should remove waivers that currently allow countries reducing their purchases of Iranian oil to increase their commercial sales to the Islamic Republic. And it could target Iranian government assets held by international financial institutions to cut off Iran's access to its foreign-exchange reserves.
Finally, the administration could ban foreign tankers carrying oil products to or from Iran from calling at U.S. ports, and designate all of Iran's energy industry as a zone of proliferation concern—including the Iranian tanker company NITC—which would allow sanctions to strike more Iranian and foreign companies that bring in hard currency.
It is astonishing that these steps have not already been taken. In their absence, Iran's economy has been allowed to remain healthy enough to leave a vanishingly short time for sanctions to do the work that would head off military action, whether sooner by Israel or later by the United States.
Mr. Gerecht, a former CIA case officer, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Dubowitz is FDD's executive director and heads its Iran sanctions project.
7a)White House told of militant claim two hours after Libya attack: emails
- Officials at the White House and State Department were advised two hours after attackers assaulted the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 that an Islamic militant group had claimed credit for the attack, official emails show.
The emails, obtained by Reuters from government sources not connected with U.S. spy agencies or the State Department and who requested anonymity, specifically mention that the Libyan group called Ansar al-Sharia had asserted responsibility for the attacks
The brief emails also show how U.S. diplomats described the attack, even as it was still under way, to Washington.
U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the Benghazi assault, which President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials ultimately acknowledged was a "terrorist" attack carried out by militants with suspected links to al Qaeda affiliates or sympathizers.
Administration spokesmen, including White House spokesman Jay Carney, citing an unclassified assessment prepared by the CIA, maintained for days that the attacks likely were a spontaneous protest against an anti-Muslim film.
While officials did mention the possible involvement of "extremists," they did not lay blame on any specific militant groups or possible links to al Qaeda or its affiliates until intelligence officials publicly alleged that on September 28.
There were indications that extremists with possible al Qaeda connections were involved, but also evidence that the attacks could have erupted spontaneously, they said, adding that government experts wanted to be cautious about pointing fingers prematurely.
U.S. intelligence officials have emphasized since shortly after the attack that early intelligence reporting about the attack was mixed.
Spokesmen for the White House and State Department had no immediate response to requests for comments on the emails.
MISSIVES FROM LIBYA
The records obtained by Reuters consist of three emails dispatched by the State Department's Operations Center to multiple government offices, including addresses at the White House, Pentagon, intelligence community and FBI, on the afternoon of September 11.
The first email, timed at 4:05 p.m. Washington time - or 10:05 p.m. Benghazi time, 20-30 minutes after the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission allegedly began - carried the subject line "U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi Under Attack" and the notation "SBU", meaning "Sensitive But Unclassified."
The text said the State Department's regional security office had reported that the diplomatic mission in Benghazi was "under attack. Embassy in Tripoli reports approximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well."
The message continued: "Ambassador Stevens, who is currently in Benghazi, and four ... personnel are in the compound safe haven. The 17th of February militia is providing security support."
A second email, headed "Update 1: U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi" and timed 4:54 p.m. Washington time, said that the Embassy in Tripoli had reported that "the firing at the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi had stopped and the compound had been cleared." It said a "response team" was at the site attempting to locate missing personnel.
A third email, also marked SBU and sent at 6:07 p.m. Washington time, carried the subject line: "Update 2: Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack."
The message reported: "Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and has called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli."
While some information identifying recipients of this message was redacted from copies of the messages obtained by Reuters, a government source said that one of the addresses to which the message was sent was the White House Situation Room, the president's secure command post.
Other addressees included intelligence and military units as well as one used by the FBI command center, the source said.
It was not known what other messages were received by agencies in Washington from Libya that day about who might have been behind the attacks.
Intelligence experts caution that initial reports from the scene of any attack or disaster are often inaccurate.
By the morning of September 12, the day after the Benghazi attack, Reuters reported that there were indications that members of both Ansar al-Sharia, a militia based in the Benghazi area, and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the North African affiliate of al Qaeda's faltering central command, may have been involved in organizing the attacks.
One U.S. intelligence official said that during the first classified briefing about Benghazi given to members of Congress, officials "carefully laid out the full range of sparsely available information, relying on the best analysis available at the time."
The official added, however, that the initial analysis of the attack that was presented to legislators was mixed.
"Briefers said extremists were involved in attacks that appeared spontaneous, there may have been a variety of motivating factors, and possible links to groups such as (al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Ansar al-Sharia) were being looked at closely," the official said.
(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Mary Milliken and Jim Loney)
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