Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Spineless Republicans? Gingrey Gets It! Woody Allen and The Keystone Cops or A Deal?


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Sen. Rand makes more sense every time he talks.

Naturally Liberals feel compelled to vilify him because he is not one of them, does not share their loopy views and embraces the Constitution.

Far more frightening to Liberals is the fact that Rand is logical, asks penetrating questions, is consistent, unshakable and responds to questions in ways that are clear and understandable. He has some of Newt's ability in that regard. (See 1and 1a  below.)

Diplomacy is fine and should always be tried before conflict but when diplomacy backs you into a corner and offers impractical solutions that most likely will result in outcomes you are seeking to avoid then, diplomacy is not a sound option nor should it be pursued.

What has happened to our bungling president is that Putin jumped at Sec. Kerry's off hand comment allowing Assad a way out because verification and elimination of chemical WMD are costly, difficult to fully list, perhaps have already been  shipped to Iran, and the effort is difficult under the best of circumstances but during a civil war the prospects of success erode dramatically.  Finally, when the nation that urges you to accept your own misguided  offer, has been your supporter, supplier and protector and has veto power in the U.N. the prospects for success get even gloomier.

Perhaps this is what Obama wishes - a prolonged period of debating the size of the table akin to Kissinger's negotiations in Viet Nam. Obama never has had his heart in making tough decisions,. He has always chosen to lead from behind and talk rather than act - verba non acta!

Whether Norman Podhoretz is totally right, I do agree Obama and his wife have always had a differing view of this nation, one shaped by long and loyal  attendance in Rev. Wright's church. One should not forget her  own remark regarding her lack of pride over being an American and her, hidden from the public, college thesis about our nation.

Obama is enamored with his persona and truly believes he can make thugs and radicals bend to his message. After all look at the  success he had  elevating himself from a community organizer to a Senator , then to President and a Nobel Peace Price on a paper thin record of real achievements. And what of all the lies and denials along the way?

Balance his record of heady success with his abysmal executive accomplishments, his personal laziness and utter disregard for working with those he dislikes and you have a different record - one akin to the disaster we see emanating from The White House on a daily basis.

It has taken the unwashed masses over five years to finally catch up to Obama, to see him for what he has been all along and now that many are there what next?  Will Republicans also have the guts to take him on in a principled way or will they disintegrate in an internal mud fight fearing a public backlash  if they do.

Not voting to extend our borrowing capacity will not shut down government, it will not put our nation in debt default despite the tripe and fear mongering crap from the press and media. It will simply force this administration to re-orient spending priorities placing debt repayment at the top of the list while  cutting government  excess to accomplish this belt tightening.

When the breadwinner of a family gets a pay cut he/she does not keep living on the high and suspends mortgage or car payments.  He/she simply stop going out to dinner, the movies or whatever so they can meet more pressing obligations. Republicans know this to be true. The question is do they have the guts to explain reality and stand on their espoused principles or are they simply spineless politicians as evidenced by their more recent act of ducking the issue of 'Obamascare' by allowing their staff to remain on the health care dole while separating themselves from  the governed? (See 2 below.)
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People are not working. Click on::

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Comparisons can be odious and also accurate and wow.  (See 3 and 3a below.)

Kerry makes an off the cuff comment which he doubts would happen and Obama tells Kerry you are out of line but goes on TV and tells the American people he and Putin had discussed the same thing at the G 20 meeting. Either Obama is lying or Kerry is uninformed. Perhaps both are true, perhaps not.

Then Kerry tells us the attack on Syria will be so insignificant Assad won't even notice yet Obama goes on TV and tells America that her military capability is powerful and awesome.  Once again Kerry is slapped down or out of step.

At least the old  Keystone Cops movies were meant to be funny. Hell not even Woody Allen  could write a scrip like the one we are experiencing if he tried.

That said was there really a deal struck so Assad could survive?  Which is it?  You decide (See 4 and 4a below.)
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I have posted this before but too funny not to do so again: Click here: Vita est Lavorum - YouTube
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Dick
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1)Rand Paul: Assad Deserves Death, but Obama Will Leave Him in Power

By Greg Richter




Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky, said President Barack Obama "didn't quite convince me" on the need to launch a military strike on Syria in his Tuesday night speech.

But Paul said Obama did make a compelling case that Syrian President Bashar Assad is guilty of killing almost 1,500 civilians with poison gas last month.

"If Assad is responsible he deserves death for this," Paul told Fox News Channel after the Tuesday night speech. "But the president's plan is to leave Assad alone," Paul said on a later CNN appearance.

Paul said he thinks Assad will not be held accountable for the chemical weapons attack. And even if the diplomatic solution Russia is trying to broker goes through, Assad still will be left in office, he added. 

Though the video images of children dead and dying showed a clear atrocity, Paul said he couldn't support U.S. action unless there was a compelling American interest. On CNN he listed some of those interests: "American soldiers, American business, American citizens, a direct threat to an ally, NATO ally, Israel."

Paul said he initially thought a congressional vote to authorize the use of force would pass the Senate and be close in the House. Now, he thinks it doesn't have a chance.

"The calls are 100-1" against, he said. "I think rather than risk defeat, there won't be vote."

Paul said he doesn't know whether to trust Russia with its proposal to get Syria's chemical weapons into the hands of international officials, but he hopes Russia is being an honest broker. 

"If they're serious its' a good step forward," he said, "and I'm more than happy to even give the president credit if it actually happens."

 1a)Obama Rescues Assad

The President lets Putin outmaneuver him on Syrian chemical arms.


What could be worse for America's standing in the world than a Congress refusing to support a President's proposal for military action against a rogue regime that used WMD? Here's one idea: A U.S. President letting that rogue be rescued from military punishment by the country that has protected the rogue all along.
That's where President Obama now finds himself on Syria after he embraced Russian President Vladimir Putin's offer to take custody of Bashar Assad's chemical weapons. The move may rescue Mr. Obama and Congress from the political agony of a vote on a resolution to authorize a military strike on Syria. But the diplomatic souk is now open, and Mr. Obama has turned himself into one of the junior camel traders.
What a fiasco. Secretary of State John Kerry, of all people, first floated this escape route for Assad on Monday in Europe where he was supposed to be rallying diplomatic support for a strike. The remark appeared to be off-the-cuff, but with Mr. Kerry and this Administration you never know. In any case before Mr. Kerry's plane had landed in the U.S., Russia's foreign minister had leapt on the idea and proposed to take custody of Assad's chemical arsenal to forestall U.S. military action.
The White House should have rebuffed the offer given Russia's long protection of Assad at the United Nations—a fact noted with scorn on Monday by Mr. Obama's national security adviserSusan Rice. Instead Mr. Obama endorsed the Russian gambit as what "could potentially be a significant breakthrough." The Senate immediately called off its Wednesday vote on the military resolution. By Tuesday Assad had accepted the offer that he hopes will spare him from a military strike.
France will press for a U.N. Security Council resolution supposedly for U.N. inspectors to supervise the dismantling of Syria's stockpiles, though Russia will no doubt try to put itself in the lead inspecting role. On Tuesday Russia was even objecting to a French draft that would blame the Syrian government for using chemical weapons. Mr. Putin also insisted the U.S. must first disavow any military action in Syria, even as he and Iran make no such pledge.

On second thought, fiasco is too kind for this spectacle. Russia has publicly supported Assad's denials that he used sarin gas, but we are now supposed to believe it will thoroughly scrub Syria of those weapons. We are also supposed to believe Assad will come clean about the weapons he has long denied having and still denies using.
Oh, and we can be confident of this because U.N. or Russian inspectors or someone will be able to locate the entire chemical arsenal, pack up arms that require enormous care in transport, and then monitor future compliance in the continuing war zone that is Syria.

Even if you believe this will happen, or is even possible, Assad will emerge without punishment for having used chemical weapons. He can also be confident that there will be no future Western military action against him. Mr. Obama won't risk another ramp-up to war given the opposition at home and abroad to this effort.

Assad will also know he can unleash his conventional forces anew against the rebels, and Iran and Russia will know they can arm him with impunity. The rebels had better brace themselves for a renewed assault. At the very least, Mr. Obama should compensate for his diplomatic surrender by finally following through on his June promise to arm and train the moderate Free Syrian Army. Otherwise he runs the risk of facilitating an Assad-Iran-Russian triumph.

The alacrity with which Mr. Obama embraced Russia's offer suggests a President who was looking for his own political escape route. His campaign to win congressional support has lost ground in the week since he needlessly blundered into proposing it. His effort to rally international support foundered last week at the G-20, where Mr. Putin looked dominant, and Mr. Obama's approval rating has been falling at home.

In his Tuesday speech, Mr. Obama tried to put his best face on all of this. He took credit for it by claiming that his threat of "unbelievably small" military force, as Mr. Kerry advertised it, induced Assad to see the light. He claimed that he had personally floated the idea of international monitoring of Syria's weapons. But this admission merely underscores how eager Mr. Obama is to find a Syria exit short of having to follow through on his military threats. His speech amounted to a call to support a military strike that his actions suggest he desperately wants to avoid.

The world will see through this spin. A British commentator in the Telegraph on Monday called this "the worst day for U.S. and wider Western diplomacy since records began," and that's only a mild exaggeration. A weak and inconstant U.S. President has been maneuvered by America's enemies into claiming that a defeat for his Syria policy is really a triumph.

The Iranians will take it as a signal that they can similarly trap Mr. Obama in a diplomatic morass that claims to have stopped their nuclear program. Israel will conclude the same and will now have to decide if it must risk a solo strike on Tehran. America's friends and foes around the world will recalculate the risks ahead in the 40 dangerous months left of this unserious Presidency.
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2)Subsidy for Congress' Obamacare Payments 'Unfair'
By Sandy Fitzgerald
It's unfair for members of Congress and their staffs to get subsidies for their healthcare premiums, and the payments should be stopped before they begin, Georgia Republican Rep. Phil Gingrey said.

"This is yet another example of the Obama administration changing the law for political gain," said Gingrey, who along with other Republicans say the Office of Personnel Management is giving Congress an unfair advantage, reports The Washington Times. 

Gingrey has introduced a bill to stop the subsidies, which would pay most of the premiums for members of Congress and their staffs who purchase insurance through Obamacare exchanges.

Congress was exempted from the brunt of Obamacare, critics say, because the American public gets less-generous subsidies without employer-based help. 

Under the healthcare law, Congress and staffers must use the state health exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act, even though the exchanges are intended for people who cannot get affordable health insurance through their employers.

Under Obamacare, employers cannot subsidize premiums for coverage purchased through the exchanges. But Congress members and their staffs were exempted by the Office of Personnel Management.

The change was ordered as Congress was heading into the August recess, after House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and others pressured President Barack Obama to make the allowance, reports The Weekly Standard. 

Many members of Congress were angered when they learned they could no longer receive health benefits from the Federal Employee Health Benefit program, but must get their insurance through the exchanges.

Without the federal subsidies, members of Congress were looking at net pay cuts of $5,000 to $11,000 if they had to pay for their own insurance.

"This carve-out is unfair to the American people and must be reversed," Gingrey said on Tuesday.

Louisiana Republican David Vitter is leading a similar fight in the Senate against the special treatment for Congress.
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3)Three-and-a-half More Years of Obama!
By J.R. Dunn


So the Syria "crisis" is reaching its culmination.  Syria's WMD's are likely to be placed under the control of its patron, Russia, perhaps even with the cooperation of other disinterested, responsible states such as Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela.  The world's only superpower, for its part, will loiter on the curb outside, asking hurried questions while the big boys come and go, stepping aside quickly to avoid being shoved into the gutter by their bodyguards. 
This situation is the sole handiwork of Mr.  Barack H.  Obama, successor in office to Washington, Lincoln, Truman, and Reagan.  Pondering the better part of a day, I can think of no previous episode to compare it with.  It has similarities to the isolationism of the 1920s, with the United States reduced to irrelevance on the global fringes, but that was a deliberate result of policy, while this... this product of ineptness coupled with ideology, is something you can scarcely put a name to. 
There are three-and-a-half years of agony lying ahead. It won't be pleasant, but there is a saving grace. Barack Obama and his childishness, incompetence, and fanatical fixation on dead political ideas constitute the apotheosis of a longer-term conundrum, that of a liberal/left that has infiltrated this country's institutions to a point that state power and interference with individual liberties increases steadily no matter who is in office.
Obama offers us a chance to reject all that decisively. I want every single train of events set in motion by Obama, his administration, and his supporters, down to the last halfwit college undergrad, to play out in full.  I want every disaster that fool and his parade of twitches have triggered to blossom in bleak completion.  I want to see all their trains collide, all their ships sink, all their airships burnt to cinders. 
We're talking tragedy and retribution, in the absolute Greek sense -- the Furies howling at midnight. Maybe that's what it takes to cleanse this nation of this doctrinal pestilence.  I want to see every Row A voter reduced to remorse.  I want to see their noses rubbed in it.  I want to hear each victim of this regime cry out to heaven for vengeance.  If all this comes to pass, we may even see Democrats, fearful for their own political hides, wanting to be rid of him.
But if Obama were impeached, none of this would happen.  Instead the focus would shift to Congress and the GOP, who then would be blamed for everything that occurs, no matter who -- likely Smilin' Joe Biden -- inhabits the Oval Office.  When the disasters come -- and they will (most of them are on track at this moment and can't be turned around except through drastic action which Obama and all other visible Democrats are incapable of) -- they will be dumped into the laps of the Republicans.  No other group in modern history has proven more adept at shifting blame than the liberal left, just as no other political party has proven more apt to stumble into the spotlight at the worst possible moment than the GOP. 
Looking back from our fine vantage point here at the edge of the Abyss, we can trace the path clearly.  Despite popular belief, the New Deal solved nothing.  There was a second crash -- one that makes none of the history textbooks -- in October 1937 that wiped out all gains made in the previous four years and left unemployment higher than it had been when FDR entered office.  By January 1938, Roosevelt was reduced to pleading with his advisors "Can no one tell me what to do?" Nobody could, and the country continued its downward spiral. 
It was saved by Adolf Hitler, who in March annexed Austria, rolling into Vienna behind a spearhead of Panzers.  This wakeup call revealed that war was inevitable, and the tariff barriers that had prevented international economic recovery fell as the nations of Europe scrambled to purchase weaponry and supplies.   In the U.S., plants reopened (despite an insane attempt -- by the GOP, no less -- to stifle this using the Neutrality Act), industry began to gain ground, and by 1940 the U.S. was back on its feet. 
Roosevelt found his sweet spot in leading the Allied coalition to victory, something nobody would have believed him capable of even ten years earlier.  The success of FDR the Warlord covered the failure of his economic policies.  The New Deal became a retroactive success due to WW II.  By this means, the legend of liberal triumph entered American consciousness.
Skipping over Harry Truman, the last practical Democratic president, and John F.  Kennedy, the last conservative Democratic president, we come to Lyndon Johnson.  LBJ was a pure ideologue, a product of the New Deal who believed its dogma (which, not coincidentally, fitted his paternalistic, controlling persona to near perfection) implicitly.  Amid the reaction to JFK's murder, LBJ was able to pass a barge load of ultraliberal programs that would never have seen a vote under ordinary circumstances.: Medicare, Medicaid, the War on Poverty, all comprising what he called his "Great Society".   Thanks to Keynesian financing, LBJ managed to suck the life out of the 1960s boom in little more than four years, leaving the nation headed for economic ruin.  Along with the Vietnam War and his fumbling of the racial question, this left him as one of the most despised presidents of the century.  He abdicated office in 1968, having served only one and a third terms. 
But Richard M. Nixon effectively extended Johnson's term in office, continuing his disastrous economic policies ("We are all Keynesians now."), and putting into effect whatever wild-eyed liberal programs Johnson had missed, including affirmative action and establishing the Environmental Protection Agency.  (Tom Wicker, ultraliberal New York Times reporter, later wrote a book examining Nixon's record under the title One of Us).
Elected as a reform candidate in the wake of Watergate, Jimmy Carter proved so incompetent that his ideology scarcely mattered (though he was nearly as much as New Deal liberal as LBJ). 
Reagan, of course, turned the country around in short order with his commonsense conservative reforms carried out in the teeth of opposition from both liberals and his own party.  This set the stage for Bush the Elder, whose liberal tendencies were strong enough to nearly derail the Reagan reforms ("I guess I f***** up in 1980," Reagan responded).  Bush allowed himself to be pressured into raising taxes just as the economy hit a soft patch following the dramatic 1980s expansion.  The resulting shallow recession wrecked his reelection effort despite his personal popularity.
As for Bill Clinton, he began his first term as a typical New Left clown, out to "tame" Wall Street, and inevitably throw the country back onto the skids.  (It was none other than Al Gore who put a stop to this, to give credit where it's due).  At the end of that term, Clinton shifted right under pressure from Newt Gingrich's GOP Congress along with the guidance of political operative Dick Morris.  This bought him a second term, which he spentchasing women, eating cheeseburgers, and paying the consequences.  The country went its own way regardless. 
Despite distinct signs of the family liberalism, George W.  Bush governed well enough to restore prosperity after a brief recession bequeathed to him by Clinton.  His quick action in 2008 was instrumental in saving the economy from complete collapse (the Obama administration added nothing but far huger piles of cash).  Then came Obama.
What we see clearly from this record is that American liberals have always managed to avoid responsibility.  Global war saved Roosevelt and established the myth of triumphant New Deal liberalism.  None of the liberal presidents thereafter -- excepting Clinton -- served two full terms, leaving the consequences of their actions - and the blame -- to be borne by their Republican successors.  Clinton avoided this only by shifting to the right.  Add to this the fact that several GOP presidents -- Nixon and the Bushes -- stumbled along in a "center" that was actually far to the left, muddying the political record considerably, and it's evident how the narrative has been tilted leftward.
Liberals have never had to pay the piper.  They have never had to face their failures or come up with explanations for what went wrong.   Neither Johnson nor Carter served second terms in which their errors would have become manifest.  Instead, Nixon and Reagan had to bear the responsibility.  And of course, the GOP has never made a point of this. 
But now we have Obama.  The first true progressive to achieve a second term since FDR.  There's no "triangulation" needed by the man who knows everything, and no war, it seems, to pull him out of this swamp.  Obama will have to take full responsibility for his policies.  He will have to stand in the dock, and with him, for the first time in seventy years, liberalism as a whole. 
Obama is less lucky than FDR, less competent than Jimmy Carter, and less flexible than Bill Clinton.  With Obama, all the failures of liberalism are coming to a head.  He has put more liberal policies into effect in a shorter period than any other president, but thanks to his unique combination of ineptness, ignorance, inexperience, and arrogance, every last one of them is doomed.  All of them are failing as we watch.  His economic policies have repeated the failures of FDR's New Deal, with worse to come.  His health care "reform" is in a state of collapse before it has even started.  His stewardship of race relations has returned the country to a state of nearly open hostility and panic not seen since 1968.  His Hallmark card foreign policy has killed tens of thousands overseas and will almost inevitably lead to the deaths of millions, as did the policies of Jimmy Carter in countries as unrelated as Nicaragua, Iran, Ethiopia, and Cambodia. 
Do we really want to give him an out? Do we want to release him to a well-paying sinecure position to become the black Jimmy Carter, an international pest and embarrassment? Do we want to allow the liberal left to slide one more time? To scamper out of the line of fire only to return to mock and sabotage the efforts of better men to clean up the heartbreaking mess they left behind, as they did in the early 1970s, the Reagan 80s, the Bush Oughts? Do we want to see them pop back up in 2020 or 24 with the same nonsense programs given different names and the same insults and attacks for their opponents exhausted and in despair at attempting to repair what can no longer be repaired?
I say no.  I prefer that we drink this cup to the dregs, take this road to its lonely end.  The liberals need to undergo the whipping that they have dodged for over seven decades.  The voters of this country, who have treated politics like a reality series, need to be backhanded by the world as it exists.  We require a rude awakening.  This country's pols, both left and right, need to be overwhelmed with worry as to what the next day will bring.  The people of this country need to be buried up to their necks in the results of their own infantilism.  All the fantasy castles need to be demolished to the last stone.  Liberalism must be discredited and humiliated, its adherents defeated and dispersed.  The leader of the whole circus must be tormented to the human limit and beyond, forced to break down in front of the cameras as he begs for help that will not come. 
I am not talking about apocalypse.  I am talking about shock therapy.   There are dreadful days to come, and they are locked in.  We have another recession on its way, perhaps even a stagflation on the 1970s model, which swallowed the entire decade.  Having taken in Obama's disgraceful performance as regards Syria, our enemies will now make a move: Russia, China, and Iran, and possibly all three at once.  We will not win this round.  We have a national security system that is run by wannabe trannies and later-day beatniks.  We are operating under the delusion that major military units can be led in battle by gays, transvestites, and what have you.  We have convinced ourselves that the 21st-century world can be mastered by weapons purchased in the 1980s.  We have sown the wind.  We will reap the whirlwind. 
We have got it coming.  But at the same time, the seeds of resurrection are evident.  As I have said elsewhere, I am a disciple of Adam Smith - "There is a lot of ruin in a nation." But we cannot recover in any meaningful sense as long as the same processes are allowed to continue; as long as any cheap demagogue can trot around mouthing the same old slogans and be taken seriously. 
Liberalism has outlived its time.  Obama is in the process of destroying it.  Let it come down.


3a) Echoing Miley, President Obama Twerks America
By James Simpson

He lies, denies, smears and defies America. He sticks his tongue out at our laws, our institutions, our traditions and our noble heritage. His one-man wrecking crew policies have spiked gas prices and government debt to unprecedented levels, and promise to destroy healthcare. Unemployment remains high, and has only declined due to discouraged workers leaving the labor force entirely. He undermines national defense with agreements that benefits our enemies at our expense, demands confiscatory taxes and illegally legislates through regulation and executive orders. He bans White House visits, then jets off on end-to-end exorbitant vacations.
He glorifies perversion while punishing morality. His foreign policies have caused the murder of American citizens overseas, which his own spokesman calls old news. His defense policies have caused the needless deaths of American servicemen - including the horrifying, inexcusable killing of the Extortion 17 SEAL team - while insuring that the conflicts for which they paid the ultimate sacrifice will be lost. His arrogant, revolting display of contemptuous, conceit is more obscene than a year's worth of Anthony Weiner tweets. He is presiding over the premeditated destruction of American society.
Yet now Obama wants -- nay insists -- that we follow him into Syria. Is he insane? Or maybe we should ask, has our entire DC establishment gone insane?
Congressmen and Senators from both sides of the aisle treat his infantile proposals as though they were the Ten Commandments being delivered by Moses himself. John McCain and Lindsay Graham demand our participation, while John Kerry with his characteristically affected elitist airs issued one gaffe after another. Even the Washington Post, normally a reliable PR outlet for Democrats, couldn't resist catalogingKerry's endless display of stupidity:
House Speaker John Boehner might be forgiven for his stalwart support for the White House. Boehner has an excuse. As the Pink Floyd song says, "I don't know, I was really drunk at the time...."   Actually, we might be able to excuse a lot of them for the same reason. It is high time to revoke their lawmaking licenses, for it seems most of the U.S. Congress could be pulled over at any time, forced to take a field sobriety test and be cited for LUI -- Lawmaking Under the Influence.
How else could we explain their bizarre, surreal support for this President and his unerringly deleterious policies? Boehner may have been too busy downing shooters at Bullfeathers to have read it, but the Syrian opposition is much more likely to have used Sarin gas than the Syrian government. Ken Timmerman has been covering this story and revealed even more:
Shortly after the August 21 attack, the United States claimed it had "high confidence" that the Syrian regime was responsible for the slaughter. Reinforcing that view were YouTube videos posted by opposition sources showing fragments of rockets that were of a kind used only by Syrian government forces, not the rebels.
So now we're justifying American foreign policy with YouTube videos? When did we do that last time? Bueller? Bueller? Oh yes, Benghazi! More from Ken:
But intelligence reports from French and Jordanian military intelligence show that the jihadist al-Nusra front rebels acquired similar rockets and chemical agents earlier this year when they overran a chemical weapons depot in Aleppo on May 17 and captured a rocket unit in Daraa now long afterward, sources privy to the intelligence tell me.
Those intelligence reports concluded there was a strong likelihood the rebels had carried out the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attacks either deliberately or by accident.
Meanwhile recently released Belgian and Italian journalists taken hostage by Syrian repels are now claiming the rebels did it. Pierre Piccinin and Domenico Quirico say they overheard rebels explaining that they did it to trigger an American intervention. Quirico added that he was treated badly while in captivity and that the revolution had become "very dangerous."
And who may have finally pulled Obama's bacon out of the fire from this unbelievable display of ignorance, stupidity and careless negligence? Well, our old friend and former KGB chief, Russian President Vladimir Putin himself! Good old Vlad suggested the whole thing could be avoided if Syria turned over the chemical weapons it holds. Note that he doesn't even mention the rebels, who Russia claims launched the chem. weapon attack in the first place.
Now the Syria vote is on hold in Congress, as Obama "weighs" his "options" in Syria, claiming that, thanks to Putin, we now may have a "breakthrough" solution.
One must wonder what Obama gave away to our one of our greatest world rivals at the G-20 Summit in order to inspire Putin to put forth this "solution." He has virtually exhausted our bargaining chips.
God save us. When will Congress do its job and initiate impeachment proceedings?

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4)Obama promised Putin not to strike Syria after scrapping its chemical arsenal. Russian arms for Assad

President Barack Obama’s two climb-downs on a US strike against Syria over its use of chemical weapons may be part of a deal forged secretly with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Obama is presenting it as a US-Russian accord for stripping Bashar Assad of his chemical arsenal, while Putin is using it as an expedient for saving the Assad regime in Damascus. Both are ready to sacrifice the Syrian rebel movement to their détente.

Intelligence sources disclose that Moscow is pushing for more than a US pledge to back off using force against Syria, demanding that Washington also refrain from diplomatic action against the Assad regime.
The result was a major battle which forced the UN Security Council’s closed-door emergency session 
scheduled for Tuesday night, Sept. 10 to be postponed without a new date.
The French wanted to table a tough, binding resolution placing Syria’s chemical weapons under international control and a timetable for their destruction spelt out - with “extremely serious” consequences for violations including a military option.

Washington warned it would not fall for “stalling tactics.”

Moscow balked, insisting on a declaration – not a binding resolution - in support of international control for the chemical stockpiles – and no sanctions for violations. China and Iran backed the Russian motion.
Addressing a Russian TV Arab broadcast Tuesday, Putin said he had urged Syria to hand over its chemical weapons for them to be destroyed. He added that the handover plan would only work if the US renounced the use of force.
Sources disclose in another part of his deal with the Russian president, Obama did not object to Moscow providing the Syrian army with a fresh supply of advanced weapons in substantial quantities to compensate Assad for giving up his chemical arsenal.
Friday, Sept. Moscow announced Nikolai Filchenko landing craft heading for the eastern Mediterranean would stop off at the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk to pick up a “special cargo” for Syria. This vessel was to carry the first shipment of the fresh arms supplies Moscow was sending Bashar Assad.

4a)Obama’s Syria muddle

By 


What is the Obama administration plan in Syria?
It depends on whom you ask and when.

At 9 p.m. Tuesday, President Obama, in his address to the nation, said that he had “asked the leaders of Congress to postpone a vote to authorize the use of force.”

This contradicted what his secretary of state, John Kerry, had said in testimony to Congress just 11 hours earlier. “We’re not asking Congress not to vote,” Kerry told the House Armed Services Committee. “I’m not asking [for] delay,” he added later.
Kerry can be forgiven for being at odds with the president. The president, in the space of his 16-minute address, was often at odds with himself. He spent the first 12 minutes arguing for the merits of striking Syria — and then delivered the news that he was putting military action on hold.
He promised that it would be “a limited strike” without troops on the ground or a long air campaign, yet he argued that it was the sort of blow that “no other nation can deliver.” He argued that “we should not be the world’s policeman” while also saying that because of our “belief in freedom and dignity for all people,” we cannot “look the other way.” He asserted that what Bashar al-Assad did is “a danger to our security” while also saying that “the Assad regime does not have the ability to seriously threaten our military.”
These are not all contradictions; the president was trying to thread a needle and outlined a highly nuanced and frequently shifting policy. But nuance can sound a lot like a muddle.
Ten days ago, Obama was on the verge of sending U.S. missiles into Syria to punish Assad for using chemical weapons. Then he said he wanted Congress to authorize such a mission in advance. Then it began to appear that Congress would reject the Syria attackand cripple Obama’s credibility. Finally, the president was offered a lifeline by the very regime he was planning to attack, whenSyria agreed to a Russian plan to surrender its chemical weapons.
The administration’s frequent shifts convey the feeling that it is a spectator observing world affairs. Russia is drafting a proposal.France is taking a different proposal to the United Nations. And the people’s House has returned to its previously scheduled program: holding votes undoing Obamacare.
It may turn out that the Russian proposal gives Obama, and the United States, a face-saving way out of an unwanted conflict. It may even be that the possibility of a U.S. attack spurred the Russians and Syrians to act. But it feels as if the ship of state is bobbing like a cork in international waters. This was to be the week the president rallied lawmakers and the public around military action. But in a series of TV interviews Monday and in Tuesday night’s address, he instead explained why any such action is on hold.
Obama’s leadership, particularly in his second term, can most charitably be described as subtle. But he is so subtle that he sometimes appears to be a bystander. He left immigration up to Congress, which put the issue on ice. Congress also buried gun control and efforts to replace the sequester. Obama, meantime, has been reacting to events — Egypt, the National Security Agency revelations — rather than shaping them. He launched a fresh push to sell Americans on the merits of Obamacare — yet more than 4 in 10 remain unaware that the law is still on the books.
The potential agreement on Syria came about by happenstance, when a reporter asked Kerry on Monday whether Assad could do anything to avoid an attack. “Sure,” Kerry said. “He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week.”
State Department officials quickly said Kerry wasn’t floating a proposal. But after Russia and Syria embraced the disarmament idea, administration officials on Tuesday were taking credit for the “outline” Kerry offered.
Obama joined in Tuesday night, saying the Russian proposal came in part from “constructive talks that I had” with Vladi­mir Putin. Obama said, “This initiative has the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons without the use of force.”
Yet moments earlier, Obama told Americans that he decided “it is in the national security interests of the United States to respond to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons through a targeted military strike.”
Which one is it? Ask again in a couple of days.

4b)Who Do You Trust?

By 


Vladimir Putin, who keeps Edward Snowden on a leash and lets members of a riotous girl band rot in jail, has thrown President Obama a lifeline.
The Russian president had coldly brushed back Obama on Snowden and Syria, and only last week called John Kerry a liar.
Now, when it is clear Obama can’t convince Congress, the American public, his own wife, the world, Liz Cheney or even Donald “Shock and Awe” Rumsfeld to bomb Syria — just a teensy-weensy bit — Pooty-Poot (as W. called him) rides, shirtless, to the rescue, offering him a face-saving way out? If it were a movie, we’d know it was a trick. We can’t trust the soulless Putin — his Botox has given the former K.G.B. officer even more of a poker face — or the heartless Bashar al-Assad. By Tuesday, Putin the Peacemaker was already setting conditions.
Just as Obama and Kerry — with assists from Hillary and some senators — were huffing and puffing that it was their military threat that led to the breakthrough, Putin moved to neuter them, saying they’d have to drop their military threat before any deal could proceed. The administration’s saber-rattling felt more like knees rattling. Oh, for the good old days when Obama was leading from behind. Now these guys are leading by slip-of-the-tongue.
Amateur hour started when Obama dithered on Syria and failed to explain the stakes there. It escalated last August with a slip by the methodical wordsmith about “a red line for us” — which the president and Kerry later tried to blur as the world’s red line, except the world was averting its eyes.
Obama’s flip-flopping, ambivalent leadership led him to the exact place he never wanted to be: unilateral instead of unified. Once again, as with gun control and other issues, he had not done the groundwork necessary to line up support. The bumbling approach climaxed with two off-the-cuff remarks by Kerry, hitting a rough patch in the role of a lifetime, during a London press conference Monday; he offered to forgo an attack if Assad turned over “every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community” and promised, if they did strike, that it would be an “unbelievably small” effort.
A State Department spokeswoman walked back Kerry’s first slip, but once the White House realized it was the only emergency exit sign around, Kerry walked back the walking back, claiming at a Congressional hearing Tuesday that he did not “misspeak.”
The president countered Kerry’s second slip with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie Monday night, declaring that “The U.S. does not do pinpricks,” which Kerry parroted at the hearing Tuesday, declaring that “We don’t do pinpricks.” For good measure, Obama, in his address to the nation Tuesday night, made sure the world knew: “The United States military doesn’t do pinpricks.”
Where the mindlessly certain W. adopted a fig leaf of diplomacy to use force in Iraq, the mindfully uncertain Obama is adopting a fig leaf of force to use diplomacy in Syria.
Even as Democrats tiptoed away from the red line, eager to kick the can of Sarin down the road, their own harsh rhetoric haunted them. Kerry compared Assad to Hitler last week, and Harry Reid evoked ”Nazi death camps” on the Senate floor Monday.
Again, an echo of the misbegotten Iraq. Making his hyperbolic case for war, W. was huffy with Germans on a visit in 2002, irritated that they did not seem to grasp the horror of “a dictator who gassed his own people,” as he put it to a Berlin reporter.
Obama cried over the children of Newtown. He is stricken, as he said in his address Tuesday, by “images of children writhing in pain and going still on a cold hospital floor” from “poison gas.” He thought — or thought he thought — that avenging the gassing was the right thing to do. But W., once more haunting his successor’s presidency, drained credibility, coffers and compassion.
While most Americans shudder at the news that 400 children have been killed by a monster, they recoil at the Middle East now; they’ve had it with Shiites vs. Sunnis, with Alawites and all the ancient hatreds. Kerry can bluster that “we’re not waiting for long” for Assad to cough up the weapons, but it will be hard for him to back it up, given that a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll indicates that Joe Sixpack is now a peacenik; in 2005, 60 percent of Republicans agreed with W. that America should foster democracy in the world; now only 19 percent of Republicans believe it.
W., Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld launched a social engineering scheme to change the mind-set in the Middle East about democracy and the mind-set at home about the post-Vietnam reluctance to be muscular about imposing our values through war. They did manage to drastically change the mind-set in the Middle East and at home, but in the opposite way than they intended.
In a crouch after 9/11, the country was happy to punish an Arab villain, even the wrong one. That mass delusion, plus the economic vertigo, has sent Americans into a permanent crouch. And that’s too bad.
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