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----This in response to my recent posting about Lefist ideology reaching West Point.
Dick, Re your email regarding West Point; I forwarded to a person in a responsible position at USMA. His reply below.
D... E------
"- this, unfortunately, is taken way out of context. 148 pages - and w/o having the full sense of it, does not tell story."
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Obama's ratings beginning to tell a different story!
Has the bully in the pulpit been uncovered? (See 1, 1a, ib and 1c below.)
These four articles go a long way to explain why I consider Obama not only a fraud, a liar, untrustworthy and a divisive president but why he is a disaster when it comes to leadership.
I am currently reading Amity Shlaes' biography of Calvin Coolidge He may have been silent but his actions , his decency and integrity, his care for the nation's fiscal sanity spoke legions and were deafening in their clarity.
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This is food for thought but do not choke on the logic posed! (See 2 below.)
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Obama tells Jewish leaders he can be trusted but is not engaged in chest beating nor should they. (See 3 below.)
Time will tell.
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Sent to me by one of my dearest Christian friends:
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"A Jew and an Arab go into a bakery.
The Arab steals 3 pastries and puts them in his pocket. He says to the Jew, "See how good I am? The owner didn't see anything!"
The Jew says to the Arab, "I am going to show you there is nobody better than a Jew." He goes to the owner and says, "Give me a pastry and I will show you a magic trick.''
Intrigued, the owner accepts and give him a pastry. The Jew swallows it and ask for another one. The owner gives him another one. Then the Jew asks for another one and swallows it just the same.
The owner is starting to wonder where the magic trick is and says, "What have you done with my pastry? Are you trying to fool me?"
The Jew answers, "Look in the Arab's pocket."
Facts like Irish Spring is both refreshing and the aroma is wonderful! (See 4 below.)
We were present at the luncheon when the Britain’s Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks made this fabulous address which was so good I wanted to share it with you: Just click on the link.
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Dick
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1)Is Obama Down For the Count?
By Kurt Schlichter
We always knew that Obama has a glass jaw, that he can’t take a punch. But it’s a little surprising that he’s started staggering around the ring so soon after November, his approval numbers bleeding away, desperately counting the seconds until the bell rings at election time in 2014 to save him from further pummeling. It’s also hilarious.
On paper he’s a bruiser. This is a guy who won a knockout reelection bout even though the economy was in the toilet. He hit the GOP with an uppercut over the Fiscal Cliff. He’s got an awestruck media in his corner that is so enamored of him that after his speeches they need cigarettes and cuddling. And his most powerful asset is the fact that his opponent is the GOP, an organization whose recent track record of success compares unfavorably with that of the French Army of 1941.
And yet now he’s losing. Big time.
The Sequester turned out to be a big nothing. We were told to expect The Road Warrior but instead we got Wall Street. Who would have thought that the market might respond positively to news that the government was borrowing slightly less money from China to subsidize lay-about Democrat constituents’ Cheeto-munching,
Judge Judy-viewing, couch-centric lifestyles? Instead, he engaged in a frenzy of overwrought, dire predictions of zombie apocalypse-level doom if bureaucrats were forced to pare their annual budget increase by a couple percent. But nothing happened. Back before liberals took over the children’s’ books industry and made them all stories about gender-neutral teddy bears that their share feelings regarding global warming, kids’ stories usually had a point.
There was this one about a boy who cried wolf with a lesson the President could have learned from. Compounding this losing streak is the reality that he lost to the Congressional GOP. Think about that. He lost to the Congressional GOP. No one even thought that was possible. Of course, all the GOP had to do was…nothing. It just had to sit there and let the cuts happen. But most observers were pretty sure they would manage to screw that up anyway.
Then Eric Holder got in front of Congress and tried to avoid giving a straight answer to what is just about the no-brainiest of no-brainer questions anyone could ever ask the nation’s highest law enforcement officer: “Hey, is it cool for the government to whack U.S. citizens with Hellfire missiles here in the States?” Holder’s subsequent tap-dancing around to avoid answering with an unequivocal “No” led to Rand Paul’s remarkable filibuster, an event made even more remarkable by the fact that a lot of people who usually suck up to the POTUS came down on the side of the Tea Party hero.
Even the media is starting to get a tiny bit feisty, or at least what passes for feisty considering today’s low bar for press sycophancy. The press got pouty that The One picked Tiger Woods over them. Then Bob Woodward dared defy the narrative, and even a few others came forward with tales of clumsy thuggery by White House pipsqueaks. If these trends continue, sooner or later some reporter may ask him a tough question.
It’s only the beginning of Round Two and already Obama is running out of political capital as the fails just keep on coming. He nominated a guy for Secretary of Defense who managed to both force Senate Democrats to take a vote that their opponents will hang around their necks in 2014 and inflame the Republican squish caucus. The courts dissed him by requiring that when he makes recess appointments, the Senate has to, you know, actually be in recess.
Hell, he even lost at the Oscars when the movie about Jimmy Carter, Argo, took best picture over the one he thinks is about him, Lincoln. Yeah, in the last month he lost to both the Congressional GOP and to President Peanut. Think about that. And, best of all, his crusade against guns remains the conservatives’ gift that keeps on giving. Obama really thought that his exploitation-fueled campaign against the troublesome Second Amendment was going to succeed and scatter his opponents to the four winds. No longer would liberal legislators be constrained by fear of accountability to voters nostalgic for their Constitutional rights! Wrong. Obama ignored the desperate signals of Democrats from the land outside the coastal cities that maybe this was one hornet nest he shouldn’t poke.
Relying upon his vast experience with mainstream America gained from years attending cocktail parties with Bill Ayers in Chicago, Obama embraced a radical agenda of banning various guns, standard magazines and registration. But the high-fives among the gun-grabbers were premature. He might get some background checks, assuming the feds aren’t allowed to keep records of them that could facilitate future stages of the plot to disarm America. He will get some red state Senate Democrats fired, assuming the GOP can nominate candidates whose sole opinion on rape is that they oppose it.
Best of all, Joe Biden took the opportunity to hold forth on his own unique views regarding tactical close combat techniques. Sure, Joe managed to sound borderline insane with his advice to randomly fire buckshot into the air and through closed doors, but in doing so he also reaffirmed the basic principle that individual Americans should use their weapons to protect themselves. Way to go, Joe. Now the President is reduced to hitting the campaign trail again, repeating his hackneyed lines about a “balanced approach” in front of staged tableaus of uncomfortable-looking cops and hardhats and…the Village People.
Yes, even Saturday Night Live managed to stop sucking-up long enough to satirize his Sequester scaremongering with a parody of “Y.M.C.A”. It would have been “In the Navy”, except all the ships are in port. Could it be that the President has no clothes? Obama has always benefited from the respect and deference of his supplicants in the media and popular culture to maintain the illusion of competence. But it’s all an illusion. He’s President Oakland – there is no there there.
He’s failed on the economy, he’s failed on the deficit, and he’s failed in foreign policy. His approval ratings are dropping, as is the GDP. He has swollen the national debt and his fecklessness has led to a Middle East that, against all odds, he has somehow managed to make even worse than before. His sole legacy is a disastrous health care monstrosity that the American people hate and will come to hate even more when it drives their premiums through the roof.
And, worse for him, the House GOP is finally waking up to the fact that it can say, “No.” No to more taxes. No to a cap and trade racket. No to helping Obama win. The GOP hasn’t yet scored a knockout, but there’s no doubt it’s winning on points. There’s no coming back. Obama just can’t take a punch. He never could. He dances and darts away from his opponent, never engaging directly, not winning himself but waiting for his opponent to self-destruct. It’s time for the GOP to drive him into the ropes and keep working the gut until the 2014 bell rings.
1a)A New Obama?
The Republican response should be don't trust but verify.
The big story of the moment is that President Obama has suddenly decided to talk with lesser political beings. The famously aloof President who began his second term as if the 2012 election campaign wasn't over is inviting Members of Congress, and even some of its evil Republicans, to lunch and dinner. The question is whether this is merely a tactical feint or if Mr. Obama really wants to accomplish something in the next two years and realizes he needs Republicans to do it.
He certainly has ample reason to conclude his bash-Republicans strategy has stopped working. His campaign to portray the modest sequester budget cuts as Apocalypse Now has backfired, and the GOP isn't budging on his demand to raise taxes again. Even the docile White House press corps has caught the Administration in numerous factual distortions, and the decision to shut down White House tours for grade-schoolers on their spring break looks petty and mean.
Mr. Obama's approval rating has fallen below 50%, and Democrats are beginning to realize that the sequester's spending cuts will continue to bite if a broader budget agreement can't be worked out. Mr. Obama faces two more years of budget warfare with little to show for it if he can't come to some agreement.
On the other hand, Mr. Obama and his White House aides have made clear that their highest priority is to return Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker in 2015. He and 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina are already mobilizing donors toward that goal, and his inaugural address, State of the Union speech and budget proposals have framed the issues in a way that suggests his priority is a grand liberal finale in his last two years.
The appearance of a new bipartisanship is perfectly consistent with such a partisan 2014 strategy. The more reasonable he appears today, the better positioned he might be to blame Republicans for failure next year. Independent voters love to see politicians working together, however haplessly, so Mr. Obama may figure he has nothing to lose by dropping his Democrats-only strategy for now. He can always sandbag the GOP again later. In particular, he'd love to carve out deals in the Senate that isolate House Republicans.
Our advice to the GOP opposition in the meantime is—adapting the Reagan arms-control maxim—don't trust but verify. Mr. Obama has repeatedly demonstrated that he can't be trusted in backroom negotiations where he can later claim to support something he really didn't. Republicans need to test his seriousness in the sunlight where voters can better see who is the real obstructionist.
Republicans have already taken one useful step in stressing what they call "regular order" in Congress. That means working legislation through committees, where the details can be debated. Republicans can then set about pressing their priorities, including small policy victories that reform the federal fisc or kill bad programs even if they fall short of a "grand bargain."
This strategy has the added virtue of pressing Senate Democrats to pass legislation too, starting with its first budget outline in four years. It will be educational watching Budget Chairman Patty Murray wrangle Democratic votes for a huge tax increase. No doubt Harry Reid will also be thrilled to take all those votes on gun control that his liberal wing is demanding.
Meantime, the real measure of Mr. Obama's seriousness isn't whether he's willing to spar over dinner but what kind of specific policy compromises he's willing to make. Here are three specific policy tests:
• Will he drop his demand for a tax increase outside of tax reform? This has no chance of passing, and his continued insistence will poison the chance of any budget deal. On tax reform he has willing GOP partners in Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp and Ohio Senator Rob Portman, but the formula has to be lower rates in exchange for fewer loopholes. Any additional revenue will have to come from the faster economic growth that will follow.
• Will he agree to a flexible, generous guest-worker program on immigration? The AFL-CIO wants a restrictive program with a political body determining when there is a labor shortage and how many visas can be granted in specific industries. Anything close to the AFL-CIO plan won't stop the flow of illegal immigrants coming to the U.S. for work, but it ought to kill reform in Congress.
• Will he put more than token entitlement reforms on the table? As we wrote last week ("Obama's Not So Grand Offer," March 8), the President's Medicare proposals don't begin to solve the health-care spending problem. Short of Paul Ryan's premium-support plan, the only chance for reform worth the name is "comprehensive cost-sharing" that forces individuals to confront at least some of the costs of their own care.
Count us as skeptical that Mr. Obama is willing to do any of this. He has shown no such inclination in five years, and his Administration is loaded with the likes of advisers Valerie Jarrett and Jack Lew who put partisan victories above solving problems. But the proof will be in the policy.
1b)The Chicago Roots of President Obama's Leadership Style
By Michael Bargo Jr.
Speaker Boehner and the Republican House are frustrated that they can't get President Obama or Senate leader Reid to compromise with them.
The regular rules of order in Congress are that the committees hold hearings, both parties have input into the writing of legislation, and eventually the Senate and House leaders have a conference to come to mutually agreeable terms. This conference report results in a bill that is submitted to the president for signing.
But the president doesn't seem to follow the old established rules. He wants the speaker to visit the White House, meet with him and his inner circle, and, particularly with regard to issues of spending, sign an unconditional surrender.
Analysts have seen this as proof of Obama's totalitarian ambitions or an inflated political ego. Others characterize it as a sure sign that he is pursuing socialism.
While the president's behavior can be used to support all of these descriptions, the real answer may be none of these. Those who seek to understand President Obama may benefit from studying the governing tactics of Chicago's Mayor Daley I. These have been thoroughly described in biographies of Daley.i
Chicago's Mayor Daley I gained absolute power by gaining absolute control over the budget. The way he did this was that he "arranged for the Chicago Home Rule Commission to recommend shifting responsibility for preparing the city budget from the City Council to the Mayor."ii The Commission also "called for ending the long-standing requirement that the City Council approve all city contracts over $2,500."iii Once these recommendations "arranged" by Mayor Daley became law, the City Council then became "little more than an advisory body.iv No one in the City Council complained, since all the members owed their jobs to Daley I. This astounding coup was accomplished without a shot being fired, lawsuits filed, or media outrage.
Congress's authority to write a budget is determined not by a Home Rule Commission, but by the Constitution. But President Obama was able to cleverly subvert Congress's power of the purse this way: the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate has not passed a budget in four years. One can reasonably ask if President Obama enlisted, in the early months of his first term, the cooperation of Senate Leader Reid in suspending the constitutionally mandated responsibility of the Senate to pass a budget. Since Harry Senate Majority Leader Reid has the power to refuse to consider a budget bill, this is not a far-fetched idea.
Once the Senate refused to pass a budget, the House then had no input into budget decisions and, as a consequence, policy-making. A policy that is not funded may as well not exist. The GOP-controlled House is reduced to going along with continuing resolutions.
In effect, Obama cleverly usurped congressional budget authority, with the added benefit of eliminating a budgetary paper trail. The real reason for this strategy is to weaken the legislative power of Congress, just as Mayor Daley I weakened the power of Chicago's City Council.v The fawning news media have not discussed this power-grab. Budgets reveal "who gets what,"vi and Obama doesn't want the public to know the details.
The Chicago mayoral paradigm of governing President Obama is accustomed to is very simple: in his view, the Republicans in the House have no "clout,"vii to use an old Chicago term. Clout refers to the influence necessary to get things done -- the ability to influence spending.
President Obama has a small group of insiders, mainly from Chicago, who decide what the policy shall be and the language of bills. The president was most content during his first two years, when he had the power to send money to all the units of government throughout the U.S. run by Democrats. The government website recovery.gov shows where the tens of thousands of grants and loans went throughout the U.S.
This spending is not blind; it has gone toward public-sector unions and units of government largely controlled by Democrats. Like Daley I, Obama is using federal dollars to assure the long-term electoral security of his party. Consequently, he does not want Republicans to have any input; it would only interfere. The only constraint President Obama faces is that he desperately wants to raise the debt limit, but for that, he needs House cooperation.
Since the House refuses to raise the debt limit, Obama seeks to turn the voters against the Republicans and win the House back. Here lies his weakness: Chicago is so small by comparison that once the mayor gets elected, he need not worry about losing power. He always controls everything. Obama has to compromise with the House, but he has no experience doing so. The only strategy he can use now is rhetorical: he makes outrageous policy statements, such as extreme statements on gun control or doomsday predictions regarding the effects of sequestration.
President Obama is confined by this paradigm, because he has no understanding of, or inclination to engage in, the legislative process. He made a mistake when he assumed that the Republicans would panic at the sequestration of Defense Dept. spending. He assumed they would give in and not allow any of their defense lobbyists' programs to be cut. This is primarily because he assumes that the GOP thinks the same way he does: that rewarding campaign contributors takes the highest priority.
President Clinton worked with Speaker Newt Gingrich and was able to accomplish many notable legislative milestones; Obama has no interest in doing so.
President Obama's weakness, then, derives from what he thinks is his strength. Because he does not have to deal with the legislature, he does not understand politicking. In his view of governing, his only hope is to raise the debt limit and once again achieve majority control of the House. This may be unlikely, but his governing paradigm won't allow any other option.
President Obama did not become president with the intention of ruling as an autocrat. It is more accurate to say that autocracy is the only style of political leadership he knows. The frustration he feels toward Speaker Boehner
has two causes: he sees Boehner as refusing to acknowledge his role as the ruler of government, and secondly, he sees Boehner as interfering with his primary goal of achieving electoral security through spending. Their standoff is that Obama feels that Boehner has no clout, while Boehner feels that Obama is not playing by the rules of order -- that Obama is not allowing Republicans and their constituents to have any input into federal government.
1c)Why Florida Persists in the Zimmerman Prosecution
By Jack Cashill
Prodded by a president with a weakness for racial agitation and enabled by a politically complicit media, the State of Florida persists in a prosecution that can come to no good end.
The defendant is neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman. The charge is the second-degree murder. The potential outcomes range from major injustice, if Zimmerman is convicted, to mayhem in the streets, if he's acquitted. And the state plods on as though the angels were on its side. They are not.
The witnesses to the February 2012 shooting of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin are proving even more troublesome than the angels. The state's case took a hit last week when Witness #8, Martin's alleged 16-year-old sweetheart "Dee Dee," was caught in falsehoods so flagrant that even the Trayvon-friendly Orlando Sentinel noticed them. Conceded the headline, "Lawyer: State's main witness in George Zimmerman murder case lied."
When Dee Dee was first introduced to the world last March, the state and the media presumed her testimony would nail Zimmerman's coffin shut. She had been on the phone with Martin during the incident. "Trayvon Martin told her that someone was following him," said CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin on March 20. "He was nervous. He was concerned. She explained to him that he should run."
According to Hostin, Dee Dee heard Martin say to Zimmerman, "Why are you following me?" Right after this exchange, "She felt that someone had pushed or tackled Trayvon and, at that point, the phone call dropped." Hostin summarized that this "was the last conversation that Trayvon Martin had with anyone, and it also, in my view, dispels the notion of self-defense."
CNN then cut to a press conference featuring Benjamin Crump, attorney for the Martin family. "She couldn't even go to his wake she was so sick," Crump said of Dee Dee."Her mother had to take her to the hospital." Given the trauma and the fact Dee Dee was a "minor," Crump asked the media to respect her privacy. The media did not need to be asked. Dee Dee, as filtered through Crump, provided the confirmation they needed to establish the narrative they wanted: racist thug kills innocent Skittles-bearing black boy.
As it turns out Dee Dee was neither hospitalized nor a minor. This did not surprise the blogging collective at theconservativetreehouse.com. The "Treepers" had begun deconstructing "Dee Dee" within days of her debut and were predicting months ago that she would never appear in court. The major media, as is their custom with contrary facts, chose not to look in places they might find them.
The State of Florida had no interest in looking either. On April 11, 2012, Angela Corey, the special prosecutor in the case, filed an affidavit of probable cause against Zimmerman for second-degree murder. Corey took Dee Dee's word that Martin "attempted to run home" but that Zimmerman stalked and "confronted" him. As to the screams, Corey relied solely on the insights of Martin's mother, "who reviewed the 911 calls and identified the voice crying for help as Trayvon Martin's."
To come to these conclusions, Corey had to ignore Zimmerman's account and all the corroborating, on-the-scene testimony from eyewitnesses. "The dispatcher told me not to follow the suspect & that an officer was on the way," Zimmerman wrote on the night of the shooting. "As I headed back to my vehicle the suspect emerged from the darkness and said, 'You got a problem?'"
When Zimmerman answered "No," the suspect said, "You do now." Zimmerman tried to grab his phone to dial 911, but Martin punched him in the face."I fell backwards onto my back," Zimmerman continued. "The suspect got on top of me. I yelled 'Help' several times. The suspect told me, 'Shut the f*** up.' As I tried to sit upright, the suspect grabbed my head and slammed it into the concrete sidewalk several times. I continued to yell 'Help.'"
Witness #11 heard the ruckus and called 911. When the call starts, the desperate cries of "help" are clearly audible on the recording. They continue for 42 seconds until they promptly stop with a gunshot.
Zimmerman provided the detail. "As I slid the suspect covered my mouth and nose and stopped my breathing. At this point I felt the suspect reach for my now exposed firearm and say, 'Your (sic) gonna die tonight Mother F***er.' I unholstered my firearm in fear for my life as he had assured me he was going to kill me and I fired one shot into his torso."
An hour after the shooting, Witness #6 told the Sanford Police Department (SPD) that he saw a "black man in a black hoodie on top of either a white guy. . . or an Hispanic guy in a red sweater on the ground yelling out help." According to #6, the black man on top was "throwing down blows on the guy MMA [mixed martial arts] style."
"The person calling for help would be the person underneath, you think?" asked the SPD officer.
"Yes, that was the one getting beat up," said Witness #6. "He was the one with the red sweater on."
As a side note, soon after the shooting, bloggers uncovered ample evidence in Martin's social media accounts of his keen interest in MMA style fighting. The media have ignored that too.
According to autopsy reports, Martin was 5' 11" tall and weighed 160 pounds at the time of his death. Zimmerman was about 5' 8" and 185 pounds. The facts notwithstanding, Eyewitness News 9 in Orlando described Martin as "an unarmed teenager half [Zimmerman's] size." On his MSNBC show Al Sharpton talked about a "hundred pound" disparity in their respective weights. The reporting was that reckless.
Witness #13 waited until the fighting ended, went outside, and saw Zimmerman walking towards him. "Am I bleeding?" Zimmerman asked. Witness #13 answered affirmatively. He also noticed "blood on the back of his head" and took a picture of it.
Not surprisingly, the only witness to appear on TV was the one who supported the State's story, Witness #5, Mary Cutcher. She first appeared ten days after the shooting on local Eyewitness News 9. Its host introduced her as the witness who "heard a Sanford vigilante gun down a teenager on February 26." As this perversely loaded language suggests, the media had already established its narrative.
According to Cutcher, who would later appear on Anderson Cooper's CNN show as well, the SPD initially "blew me off." If they did, it was likely because she saw and heard so little. On her 9-11 call, for instance, she insisted that there was "a black guy standing up over [the shooting victim]" and offered no other useful information.
In an interview with the SPD four days after the shooting, Cutcher claimed, "I didn't pay much attention to [the altercation]. I didn't hear any words. It sounded like someone was struggling or hurt or something." She clarified that to say, "I heard nothing but a little kid scared to death or crying." She added on her TV interview, "The cries stopped when the gun went off so I knew it was a little boy." She had likely seen the omnipresent photos of Martin as a 12 year-old and made this errant connection.
Martin, of course, was not a little boy. He was a fully mature seventeen year-old. He could easily have outrun Zimmerman but chose to attack instead. He was obviously the one applying the beating. He had no reason to cry. Other than bruises to his fists and the bullet wound, he was unmarked -- at least physically.
Spiritually, however, Martin was a mess. As his social media accounts make clear, his life had collapsed into a morass of drugs, violence, theft, vandalism, truancy, parental abandonment, and borderline homelessness. No longer a little boy and not yet a gangster, he was a statistic waiting to happen.
Martin, however, defied the statistics in one crucial way. Of the roughly 9,000 blacks murdered each, thirteen of every fourteen are murdered by other blacks. Martin was the one of fourteen who was not. More usefully still, he was murdered by what Tom Wolfe memorably called the "Great White Defendant."
"If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," President Barack Obama said on March 23 of that year. In so saying, Obama gave the White House imprimatur to a politically irresistible campaign, one that both stoked the grievances of his racially sensitive base and energized his party's gun control advocates. That the shooting took place in Florida, the most highly contested state in that year's presidential election, made its politicization all the more inevitable.
It would take the media nearly two weeks to learn that their great white defendant was Hispanic and a registered Democrat at that, but by that time the train had long since left the station, and the railroading had irreversibly begun. Zimmerman would have to do.
Jack Cashill is working on his latest book, If I Had A Son: Race, Guns, and the Railroading of George Zimmerman.
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2)Food for thought...
* If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for being in the country illegally ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.
* If you have to get your parents' permission to go on a field trip or take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.
* If the only school curriculum allowed to explain how we got here is evolution, but the government stops a $15 million construction project to keep a rare spider from evolving to extinction ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.
* If you have to show identification to board an airplane, cash a check, buy liquor, or check out a library book, but not to vote who runs the government ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.
* If the government wants to ban stable, law-abiding citizens from owning gun magazines with more than ten rounds, but gives 20 F-16 fighter jets to the crazy new leaders in Egypt ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.
* If, in the largest city, you can buy two 16-ounce sodas, but not a 24-ounce soda because 24-ounces of a sugary drink might make you fat ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.
* If an 80-year-old woman can be stripped searched by the TSA but a woman in a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head searched ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.
* If your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.
* If a seven year old boy can be thrown out of school for saying his teacher "cute," but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.
* If children are forcibly removed from parents who discipline them with spankings while children of addicts are left in filth and drug infested "homes"... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.
* If hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more government intrusion, while not working is rewarded with EBT cards, WIC checks, Medicaid, subsidized housing, and free cell phones ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.
* If the government's plan for getting people back to work is to incentivize NOT working with 99 weeks of Unemployment checks and no requirement to prove they applied but can't find work ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.
* If you pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big screen TV while your neighbor buys iPhones, TV's and new cars, and the government forgives his debt when he defaults on his mortgage ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.
* If being stripped of the ability to defend yourself makes you more "safe" according to the government ... you might live in a country founded by geniuses but run by idiots.
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3)Obama to Jewish Leaders: Stop 'Chest-Beating' over Iran
President Barack Obama promised a group of Jewish leaders that he would stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons but said he’s refraining from “extra chest-beating” as he pursues a diplomatic solution.
The hour-long meeting with some two dozen American Jewish leaders Thursday was closed to the press, but the Israeli daily Haaretz managed to nevertheless get comments from those who met with the president in advance of his upcoming trip to the Jewish state.
Israel and the United States share the same intelligence on Iran and therefore have a good understanding of how close the Islamic Republic is to having a functioning nuclear weapon, Obama told the leaders. Still, the allies are divided over where to draw the “red line” from which there is no choice but to attack Iran, Obama reportedly said.
Obama also reportedly quoted a Chinese saying attributed to military strategist Sun Tzu, according to Haaretz: “Build a golden bridge for your opponent to retreat upon.”
When one leader told him that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israelis said they wanted more “clarity” concerning the U.S. position on Iran, Obama replied: “But that isn’t because we haven’t been clear,” Haaretz stated.
The president also was adamant in that he was not bringing any kind of a peace plan to unveil on his trip. There would be no surprise policy announcements, White House officials told Haaretz on background. Instead, there will be a wide-ranging discussion on a wide variety of issues: Iran, Syria, the situation in the region, and the Palestinian peace process.”
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations, told Haaretz the meeting with Obama was a positive one and that he believes the president will have an excellent visit in Israel.
In addition to his meetings with Netanyahu, Obama will hold talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. He told the Jewish leaders Thursday that he would emphasize to Abbas that peace remains possible, though very difficult given the current climate in the region.
Pursuing sweeping peace talks now would be premature, given that Israel is still working to form a new government, Obama said. But he added that doesn't preclude him from launching a peace effort in six months or a year, according to the person in attendance, who was not authorized to discuss the gathering publicly and requested anonymity.
The White House has not announced the dates for the president's trip, although Israeli news media have reported he will arrive on March 20. Obama will also make stops in the West Bank town of Ramallah, and Jordan.
The president sought to restart peace talks in 2011, but the effort collapsed within weeks. Palestinians refuse to resume negotiations unless Israel stops building settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Netanyahu says talks should resume without any preconditions, and he has allowed stepped-up construction in the territories since the United Nations moved to recognize a de facto state of Palestine in November.
The White House did not put the meeting with Jewish leaders on the president's public schedule. A White House official later said Obama sought input from the leaders on his trip and underscored that it would be an opportunity for him to speak directly to the Israeli people.
Marc Stanley, chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council, was among those who attended Thursday's meeting. He said Obama reiterated his "unshakeable support for Israel and explained that his upcoming trip will be focused on discussing with his Israeli counterparts the critical issues facing the Jewish state, including Iran, the peace process and Syria."
While in Israel, Obama is also expected to note that Israelis live in an increasingly dangerous region, given the instability in Syria and the potential nuclear threat from Iran. He'll likely reiterate that all options, including military force, remain on the table for the U.S. when it comes to dealing with Iran, while also touting the impact of strict economic sanctions.
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4) Anti-Israel propaganda foiled by the facts
Social media, university campuses and newspapers around the world overflow with statements by self-proclaimed “human rights activists.” They tweet day and night, labeling Israel as a racist apartheid state which discriminates against Arabs based on their ethnic background.
They call Israel's security barrier an “apartheid wall,” in spite of the fact that both Jews and Arabs live on both sides of it. They call roads in Judea and Samaria “apartheid roads,” in spite of the fact that both Jews and Arabs drive on them freely. They call on Jewish residents of the region to move out, while at the same time, they accuse Israel of racist policies. Is there a better definition of hypocrisy and lies? From their disinformation, you would never learn that Israel manages constant security threats from internal and external terrorist operations. Israel goes to great effort to ensure security considerations don't affect the lives of the civilian population, regardless of those citizens' ethnic affiliation.
This past week, Jerusalem witnessed a new level of this hypocrisy. Egyptian blogger/dissident Maikel Nabil came to Israel to give a speech at the Hebrew University. This invitation, in itself, should challenge to the racism claim. But there is more. Nabil, who has been jailed in Egypt for being a conscientious objector, when asked by the press if he came to Israel in support of Netanyahu, said that on the contrary he “came to Israel to convince people not to vote for Netanyahu.” He refused to be interviewed by Israel's army radio, posting to his Twitter timeline: “I refused to give interview to IDF Radio today; I want soldiers to leave the army and become farmers and artists.” If you think that that might put into question claims that Israel limits freedom of expression to Arabs who oppose its policies, consider the following.
News services reported that Palestinian students at Hebrew University staged a protest against Nabil's talk there. They heckled his speech by shouting out that he brings shame on the Egyptian revolution by calling for peace with Israel. So much for the “apartheid” claim. It turns out that during the time Palestinian students achieve their academic accreditation at Israel's flagship university (while enjoying Israeli subsidies for their studies), they are free to not only openly criticize the policies of the State of Israel, but to openly mock those who call for peace between Israel and the Arab states.
It is about time that the anti-Israel propaganda movement get their story straight. If Arab students study and are free to voice their opinions in Israeli universities, what are they talking about when they call Israel “apartheid”?
To quote Mandy Patinkin in The Princess Bride: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
David Ha'ivri is an Israeli writer and speaker. He is the director of the Shomron Liaison Office which deals with international affairs on behalf of the Jewish communities in the West Bank.
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