Posted once before but could not resist!
and in a world gone mad a little corny humor might help!
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And these were sent to me by a dear friend, fellow Conservative and memo reader:
Why we miss Rodney Dangerfield
He said...
My wife only has sex with me for a purpose. Last night she used me to time an egg.
It's tough to stay married. My wife kisses the dog on the lips, yet she won't drink from my glass!
Last night my wife met me at the front door. She was wearing a sexy negligee. The only trouble was, she was coming home.
A girl phoned me and said, 'Come on over. There's nobody home.' I went over. Nobody was home!
A hooker once told me she had a headache.My wife is such a bad cook, if we leave dental floss in the kitchen the roaches hang themselves.
The other day I came home and a guy was jogging, naked. I asked him, 'Why?' He said, 'Because you came home early.'
My wife likes to talk to me during sex; last night she called me from a hotel.
I could tell my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and radio.
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I'm so ugly my father carried around a picture of the kid who came with his wallet.
When I was born, the doctor came into the waiting room and said to my father, "I'm sorry. We did everything we could, but he pulled through anyway."
I'm so ugly my mother had morning sickness...AFTER I was born.
Once when I was lost, I saw a policeman, and asked him to help me find my parents. I said to him, "Do you think we'll ever find them?" He said, "I don't know kid. There's so many places they can hide."
My wife made me join a bridge club. I jump off next Tuesday.
I went to see my doctor. "Doctor, every morning when I get up and I look in the mirror I feel like throwing up. What's wrong with me?" He said..."Nothing, your eyesight is perfect."
With my old man I got no respect. I asked him, "How can I get my kite in the air?" He told me to run off a cliff.
Now for some serious stuff!
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My friend, John Fund, National Affairs Columnist for the National Review, sent me an e mail about my Harry Reid comment as follows: "great commentary on Harry Reid, thought you might like my new piece on the United States of SWAT." (See 1 below.)
And this from another dear Conservative friend and memo reader (See 1a below.)
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Kerry must not fear Iran, but then, why should he. They are a peace loving nation and only want to deliver nuclear energy to their factories via missiles! (See 2 below.)
American foreign policy towards Iran is driven by eyes wide shut! (See 2a below.)
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George Will has more will than Obama.
And when it comes to courage, Charles Krauthammer has more in his crippled legs than Obama has in his entire body.(See 3 below.)
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I tend to agree. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1)The United States of SWAT?
Military-style units from government agencies are wreaking havoc on non-violent citizens.
Regardless of how people feel about Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s standoff with the federal Bureau of Land Management over his cattle’s grazing rights, a lot of Americans were surprised to see TV images of an armed-to-the-teeth paramilitary wing of the BLM deployed around Bundy’s ranch.
They shouldn’t have been. Dozens of federal agencies now have Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams to further an expanding definition of their missions. It’s not controversial that the Secret Service and the Bureau of Prisons have them. But what about the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service? All of these have their own SWAT units and are part of a worrying trend towards the militarization of federal agencies — not to mention local police forces.
“Law-enforcement agencies across the U.S., at every level of government, have been blurring the line between police officer and soldier,” journalist Radley Balko writes in his 2013 bookRise of the Warrior Cop. “The war on drugs and, more recently, post-9/11 antiterrorism efforts have created a new figure on the U.S. scene: the warrior cop — armed to the teeth, ready to deal harshly with targeted wrongdoers, and a growing threat to familiar American liberties.”
The proliferation of paramilitary federal SWAT teams inevitably brings abuses that have nothing to do with either drugs or terrorism. Many of the raids they conduct are against harmless, often innocent, Americans who typically are accused of non-violent civil or administrative violations.
Take the case of Kenneth Wright of Stockton, Calif., who was “visited” by a SWAT team from the U.S. Department of Education in June 2011. Agents battered down the door of his home at 6 a.m., dragged him outside in his boxer shorts, and handcuffed him as they put his three children (ages 3, 7, and 11) in a police car for two hours while they searched his home. The raid was allegedly intended to uncover information on Wright’s estranged wife, Michelle, who hadn’t been living with him and was suspected of college financial-aid fraud.
The year before the raid on Wright, a SWAT team from the Food and Drug Administration raided the farm of Dan Allgyer of Lancaster, Pa. His crime was shipping unpasteurized milk across state lines to a cooperative of young women with children in Washington, D.C., called Grass Fed on the Hill. Raw milk can be sold in Pennsylvania, but it is illegal to transport it across state lines. The raid forced Allgyer to close down his business.
Brian Walsh, a senior legal analyst with the Heritage Foundation, says it is inexplicable why so many federal agencies need to be battle-ready: “If these agencies occasionally have a legitimate need for force to execute a warrant, they should be required to call a real law-enforcement agency, one that has a better sense of perspective. The FBI, for example, can draw upon its vast experience to determine whether there is an actual need for a dozen SWAT agents.”
Since 9/11, the feds have issued a plethora of homeland-security grants that encourage local police departments to buy surplus military hardware and form their own SWAT units. By 2005, at least 80 percent of towns with a population between 25,000 and 50,000 people had their own SWAT team. The number of raids conducted by local police SWAT teams has gone from 3,000 a year in the 1980s to over 50,000 a year today.
Once SWAT teams are created, they will be used. Nationwide, they are used for standoffs, often serious ones, with bad guys. But at other times they’ve been used for crimes that hardly warrant military-style raids. Examples include angry dogs, domestic disputes, and misdemeanor marijuana possession. In 2010, a Phoenix, Ariz., sheriff’s SWAT team that included a tank and several armored vehicles raided the home of Jesus Llovera. The tank, driven by the newly deputized action-film star Steven Seagal, plowed right into Llovera’s house. The incident was filmed and, together with footage of Seagal-accompanied immigration raids, was later used for Seagal’s A&E TV law-enforcement reality show.
The crime committed by Jesus Llovera was staging cockfights. During the sheriff’s raid, his dog was killed, and later all of his chickens were put to sleep.
Many veteran law-enforcement figures have severe qualms about the turn police work is taking. One retired veteran of a large metropolitan police force told me: “I was recently down at police headquarters for a meeting. Coincidently, there was a promotion ceremony going on and the SWAT guys looked just like members of the Army, except for the police shoulder patches. Not an image I would cultivate. It leads to a bad mindset.”
Indeed, the U.S. Constitution’s Third Amendment, against the quartering of troops in private homes, was part of an overall reaction against the excesses of Britain’s colonial law enforcement. “It wasn’t the stationing of British troops in the colonies that irked patriots in Boston and Virginia,” Balko writes. “It was England’s decision to use the troops for everyday law enforcement.”
There are things that can be done to curb the abuses without taking on the politically impossible job of disbanding SWAT units. The feds should stop shipping military vehicles to local police forces. Federal SWAT teams shouldn’t be used to enforce regulations, but should focus instead on potentially violent criminals. Cameras mounted on the dashboards of police cars have both brought police abuses to light and exonerated officers who were falsely accused of abuse. SWAT-team members could be similarly equipped with helmet cameras.
After all, if taxpayers are being asked to foot the bill and cede ground on their Fourth Amendment rights, they have the right to a transparent, accountable record of just what is being done in their name.
– John Fund is national-affairs columnist at National Review Online.
1a) Nevada doesn't have mad cow disease, it has mad senator disease
Harry Reid says the Patriots who came out to support the Rancher, Bundy, are not Patriots, but are domestic terrorists. This from a man who cannot, or will not, use the word terrorist to describe the Muslim murderer at Fort Hood, or to describe the Boston Marathon Bombers. The man is clearly insane, brought on by too much power, and from being completely out of touch with reality. He has stated that the people who claim injury from the ACA are liars. After a potentially deadly confrontation between the BLM and Mr. Bundy & supporters was all but resolved, Reid has said "this isn't over", simply exacerbating an already tense situation. How is a mentally ill Senator removed from office? If ever there was a need, clearly this is it. Janet Reno was following orders...David Koresch was a gun toting pedophile, and in his case, the Feds had cause. Mr. Bundy is simply guilty of disagreeing with the Federal Government "owning" 86% of the land in Nevada, and abusing the power that comes with the stuardship of such a large area. Harry Reid says Bundy's a domestic terrorist, I suggest Mr. Reid is the only person wishing to cause terror. His declaration that this isn't over, and his description of Patriots as domestic terrorists certainly chills the blood, and causes people to be, rightly so, terrified of the Federal Government...
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their Country. H-- E----
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Just as in Vietnam and Nicaragua, Kerry has once again adopted the viewpoint of the enemy and is using it to make the enemy’s argument to Americans.
By Daniel Greenfield
Sometimes a choice of words can be extremely revealing. That was the case with Kerry’s contentious testimony in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Under pressure, Kerry tends to slip and say revealing things. That was how the infamous, “for it and against it” clip was born.
Kerry dismissed breakout as “just having one bomb’s worth, conceivably, of material, but without any necessary capacity to put it in anything, to deliver it, to have any mechanism to do so, and otherwise.”
He then admitted that “our goal” is not eliminating nuclear capability as much as “proving that this is a peaceful program.”
The first part of that is a preview of the next stage of Obama Inc’s Iran argument. One bomb doesn’t matter. Wait until they have thirty.
The second part however is even more revealing.
“I talked with our team on the ground in Vienna yesterday,” Kerry said. “They are having serious, expert, in-depth, detailed conversations about what it takes to achieve our goal. I mean, of proving that this is a peaceful program.”
Proving the peacefulness of Iran’s program should be its responsibility. It’s not supposed to be our goal to prove that, but to find ways of confirming it.
But Kerry spoke truly. He is out to prove that it’s peaceful. Whom is he out to prove it to? To Americans.
Just as in Vietnam and Nicaragua, Kerry has once again adopted the viewpoint of the enemy and is using it to make the enemy’s argument to Americans.
The Associated Press on Wednesday conveyed remarks from Iran's defense minister doubling down on a long-standing Iranian red line ruling out any discussions of the country's ballistic missile program in the context of ongoing nuclear negotiations between the P5+1 global powers and Tehran. Gen. Hossein Dehghan had told Fars News that the missile program had "nothing to do" with the talks over the Islamic republic's atomic program. The assertion - which has been consistently underlined by top Iranian diplomats for months - is, in a strict sense, false. Multiple binding United Nations Security Council resolutions link Iran's ballistic missile program to its nuclear activities, and UNSC Resolution 1929 has language deciding that "Iran shall not undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using ballistic missile technology." The Iranian posture may prove to be politically as well as substantively problematic for the Obama administration. The interim Joint Plan of Action (JPA) with Iran - providing Tehran with billions in sanctions relief - did not place any restrictions on the country's ballistic missile program. Pushed on the controversy by senators last February, Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman assured the lawmakers that the program would be addressed in any comprehensive deal signed between the parties.
2a)
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Barack Obama does not like to back his diplomacy with military force. He believes there should be a clear sequence of engagement: diplomacy, sanctions, more diplomacy, perhaps more sanctions, and only after all peaceful alternatives are exhausted, the possibility of force. Even then, the administration is loath to entertain such hypotheticals.
This explains why economic sanctions are now the default instrument of American coercive statecraft for confronting challenges to the international order. When Russia invaded Crimea in February, Mr Obama turned to his "favourite non-combatant command" at the US Treasury Department to design targeted sanctions to increase the costs of Russian revanchism.
Financial warfare has become the weapon of choice against Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Syria's Bashar al-Assad, as these men threaten to unwind the nuclear non-proliferation regime and turn Syria into even more of a slaughterhouse.
Iran's sanctions were particularly important to Mr Obama. An American-imposed economic minefield, which both US Congress and the administration deserve credit for developing, persuaded Tehran to engage in more serious nuclear negotiations, leading to an interim nuclear agreement reached in January in Geneva, and more nuclear talks in Vienna this past week.
American officials are now brimming with optimism about the possibility of a final nuclear deal before the summer, based on a complicated technical compromise that will likely permit Iran to retain essential elements of its military-nuclear infrastructure.
Confident that a deal is nigh, Washington has gone from "disclose and dismantle" - insisting that Iran come clean on its military-nuclear activities, coupled with demands to dismantle its military-nuclear infrastructure - to "defer and deter."
This new approach involves punting on some of the tougher issues, such as demands for full disclosure on past nuclear weaponisation activities, and relying heavily on weapons inspectors to stop the regime from achieving its decades-long ambition to build a nuclear bomb.
Meanwhile, however, America's nuclear negotiating partners are splintering. The French, who would undoubtedly like a deal, are quite familiar with Iranian nuclear mendacity. They are much less confident that a technical algorithm can solve what is essentially a strategic problem. They rightly believe that if Iran refuses to come clean on its past nuclear weaponisation activities, there can be no confidence in any Iranian commitments in the future.
The Russians, smarting over US sanctions on scores of Putin's cronies over Ukraine, are reportedly negotiating a massive sanctions busting-deal with Tehran involving the transfer of Iranian oil to Moscow (akin to sending coal to Newcastle) in exchange for Russian military equipment. The Chinese and Germans, for their part, want to look past the current nuclear standoff and get back to their Iranian business ventures.
David Cameron's government, which continues to tack to the left of even the Obama administration on Iran issues, seems content to take a nuclear backseat after its embarrassing failure to rally parliament behind forceful action in Syria last September. Not that anyone blames Mr Cameron after President Obama's own walk-back from military strikes when Assad crossed the chemical redline.
What explains this splintering?
Among other things, it's the White House's panic attack about a recent bipartisan Senate bill mandating more sanctions if the nuclear talks fail or Tehran engages in further terrorism. Iran threatened to walk away from negotiations if the bill moved forward and Mr Obama, anxious to keep Tehran at the table, turned his fire on Senators, including from his own party, for undermining diplomacy and risking war. This anxiety, however, tells everyone, including Iran's Supreme Leader, that Mr Obama is not serious about backing up his diplomacy with real teeth.
But it doesn't end there. Mr Obama also downplays the sanctions relief he's offered to Tehran. Shouldn't one always overvalue the concessions one offers when bargaining? By contrast, Iran's negotiators understand the wisdom of undervaluing their relief package, so that they can ask for more at the end of the first six-month period of the Geneva interim deal, which is set to expire in July.
According to a new IMF report, thanks to de-escalating sanctions, Iran is also experiencing a modest albeit fragile economic recovery, which the Obama administration is loath to admit. Tehran's reprieve from what could have been a more severe sanctions-induced economic crisis (thanks to the de-escalation of sanctions pressure since the first half of 2013) has given the Iranian regime some breathing room.
Despite Mr Obama's claim that he can turn sanctions pressure on and off like "dials," even a modest recovery reduces US negotiating leverage. That leverage is eroding further as international companies test the bounds of Western sanctions relief.
As Juan Zarate, a former Treasury official, warned, "single-mindedly fixated on getting a deal at all costs," can too quickly reduce critical financial leverage without understanding that it can be "impossible to put the genie fully back into the bottle," once sanctions-induced pressure is relieved.
Tehran senses a desire in Washington for a deal at all costs and is pushing its advantage through negotiations to retain enough of its nuclear achievements for an atomic weapon at a time of its choosing. If the president believes that no deal is better than a bad deal, and he has assured the world that he does, then he needs to begin seeing diplomacy as a mailed fist.
Mark Dubowitz is executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and leads FDD's projects on sanctions and nonproliferation.
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By Caroline B. Glick
In Europe, in Asia, in the Middle East and beyond, America's most dangerous foes are engaging in aggression and brinkmanship unseen in decades
In Europe, in Asia, in the Middle East and beyond, America's most dangerous foes are engaging in aggression and brinkmanship unseen in decades
The most terrifying aspect of the collapse of US power worldwide is the US’s indifferent response to it.
In Europe, in Asia, in the Middle East and beyond, America’s most dangerous foes are engaging in aggression and brinkmanship unseen in decades.
As Gordon Chang noted at a symposium in Los Angeles last month hosted by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, since President Barack Obama entered office in 2009, the Chinese have responded to his overtures of goodwill and appeasement with intensified aggression against the US’s Asian allies and against US warships.
In 2012, China seized the Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines. Washington shrugged its shoulders despite its mutual defense treaty with the Philippines. And so Beijing is striking again, threatening the Second Thomas Shoal, another Philippine possession.
In a similar fashion, Beijing is challenging Japan’s control over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea and even making territorial claims on Okinawa.
As Chang explained, China’s recent application of its Air-Defense Identification Zone to include Japanese and South Korean airspace is a hostile act not only against those countries but also against the principle of freedom of maritime navigation, which, Chang noted, “Americans have been defending for more than two centuries.”
The US has responded to Chinese aggression with ever-escalating attempts to placate Beijing.
And China has responded to these US overtures by demonstrating contempt for US power.
Last week, the Chinese humiliated Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel during his visit to China’s National Defense University. He was harangued by a student questioner for the US’s support for the Philippines and Japan, and for opposition to Chinese unilateral seizure of island chains and assertions of rights over other states’ airspace and international waterways.
As he stood next to Hagel in a joint press conference, China’s Defense Chief Chang Wanquan demanded that the US restrain Japan and the Philippines.
In addition to its flaccid responses to Chinese aggression against its allies and its own naval craft, in 2012 the US averred from publicly criticizing China for its sale to North Korea of mobile missile launchers capable of serving Pyongyang’s KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missiles. With these easily concealed launchers, North Korea significantly upgraded its ability to attack the US with nuclear weapons.
As for Europe, the Obama administration’s responses to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and to its acts of aggression against Ukraine bespeak a lack of seriousness and dangerous indifference to the fate of the US alliance structure in Eastern Europe.
Rather than send NATO forces to the NATO member Baltic states, and arm Ukrainian forces with defensive weapons, as Russian forces began penetrating Ukraine, the US sent food to Ukraine and an unarmed warship to the Black Sea.
Clearly not impressed by the US moves, the Russians overflew and shadowed the US naval ship. As Charles Krauthammer noted on Fox News on Monday, the Russian action was not a provocation. It was “a show of contempt.”
As Krauthammer explained, it could have only been viewed as a provocation if Russia had believed the US was likely to respond to its shadowing of the warship. Since Moscow correctly assessed that the US would not respond to its aggression, by buzzing and following the warship, the Russians demonstrated to Ukraine and other US allies that they cannot trust the US to protect them from Russia.
In the Middle East, it is not only the US’s obsessive approach to the Palestinian conflict with Israel that lies in shambles. The entire US alliance system and the Obama administration’s other signature initiatives have also collapsed.
After entering office, Obama implemented an aggressive policy in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere of killing al-Qaida operatives with unmanned drones. The strategy was based on the notion that such a campaign, that involves no US boots on the ground, can bring about a rout of the terrorist force at minimal human cost to the US and at minimal political cost to President Barack Obama.
The strategy has brought about the demise of a significant number of al-Qaida terrorists over the years. And due to the support Obama enjoys from the US media, the Obama administration paid very little in terms of political capital for implementing it.
But despite the program’s relative success, according to The Washington Post, the administration suspended drone attacks in December 2013 after it endured modest criticism when one in Yemen inadvertently hit awedding party.
No doubt al-Qaida noticed the program’s suspension. And now the terror group is flaunting its immunity from US attack.
This week, jihadist websites featured an al-Qaida video showing hundreds of al-Qaida terrorists in Yemen meeting openly with the group’s second in command, Nasir al-Wuhayshi.
In the video, Wuhayshi threatened the US directly saying, “We must eliminate the cross,” and explaining that “the bearer of the cross is America.”
Then there is Iran.
The administration has staked its reputation on its radical policy of engaging Iran on its nuclear weapons program. The administration claims that by permitting Iran to undertake some nuclear activities it can convince the mullahs to shelve their plan to develop nuclear weapons.
This week brought further evidence of the policy’s complete failure. It also brought further proof that the administration is unperturbed by evidence of failure.
In a televised interview Sunday, Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akhbar Salehi insisted that Iran has the right to enrich uranium to 90 percent. In other words, he said that Iran is building nuclear bombs.
And thanks to the US and its interim nuclear deal with Iran, the Iranian economy is on the mend.
The interim nuclear deal the Obama administration signed with Iran last November was supposed to limit its oil exports to a million barrels a day. But according to the International Energy Agency, in February, Iran’s daily oil exports rose to 1.65 million barrels a day, the highest level since June 2012.
Rather than accept that its efforts have failed, the Obama administration is redefining what success means.
As Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz noted, in recent months US officials claimed the goal of the nuclear talks was to ensure that Iran would remain years away from acquiring nuclear weapons. In recent remarks, Secretary of State John Kerry said that the US would suffice with a situation in which Iran is but six months away from acquiring nuclear weapons.
In other words, the US has now defined failure as success.
Then there is Syria.
Last September, the US claimed it made history when, together with Russia it convinced dictator Bashar Assad to surrender his chemical weapons arsenal. Six months later, not only is Syria well behind schedule for abiding by the agreement, it is reportedly continuing to use chemical weapons against opposition forces and civilians. The most recent attack reportedly occurred on April 12 when residents of Kafr Zita were attacked with chlorine gas.
The growing worldwide contempt for US power and authority would be bad enough in and of itself. The newfound confidence of aggressors imperils international security and threatens the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
What makes the situation worse is the US response to what is happening. The Obama administration is responding to the ever-multiplying crises by pretending that there is nothing to worry about and insisting that failures are successes.
And the problem is not limited to Obama and his advisers or even to the political Left. Their delusional view that the US will suffer no consequences for its consistent record of failure and defeat is shared by a growing chorus of conservatives.
Some, like the anti-Semitic conservative pundit Patrick Buchanan, laud Putin as a cultural hero. Others, like Sen. Rand Paul, who is increasingly presenting himself as the man to beat in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, indicate that the US has no business interfering with Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
Iran as well is a country the US should be less concerned about, in Paul’s opinion.
Leaders like Sen. Ted Cruz who call for a US foreign policy based on standing by allies and opposing foes in order to ensure US leadership and US national security are being drowned out in a chorus of “Who cares?” Six years into Obama’s presidency, the US public as a whole is largely opposed to taking any action on behalf of Ukraine or the Baltic states, regardless of what inaction, or worse, feckless action means for the US’s ability to protect its interests and national security.
And the generation coming of age today is similarly uninterested in US global leadership.
During the Cold War and in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the predominant view among American university students studying international affairs was that US world leadership is essential to ensure global stability and US national interests and values.
Today this is no longer the case.
Much of the Obama administration’s shuttle diplomacy in recent years has involved sending senior officials, including Obama, on overseas trips with the goal of reassuring jittery allies that they can continue to trust US security guarantees.
These protestations convince fewer and fewer people today.
It is because of this that US allies like Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia, that lack nuclear weapons, are considering their options on the nuclear front.
It is because of this that Israeli officials are openly stating for the first time that the US cannot be depended on to either secure Israel’s eastern frontier in the event that an accord is reached with the Palestinians, or to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
It is because of this that the world is more likely than it has been since 1939 to experience a world war of catastrophic proportions.
There is a direct correlation between the US elite’s preoccupation with social issues running the narrow and solipsistic gamut from gay marriage to transgender bathrooms to a phony war against women, and America’s inability to recognize the growing threats to the global order or understand why Americans should care about the world at all.
And there is a similarly direct correlation between the growing aggression of US foes and Obama’s decision to slash defense spending while allowing the US nuclear arsenal to become all but obsolete.
America’s spurned allies will take the actions they need to take to protect themselves. Some will persevere, others will likely be overrun.
But with Americans across the ideological spectrum pretending that failure is success and defeat is victory, while turning their backs on the growing storm, how will America protect itself?
In the video, Wuhayshi threatened the US directly saying, “We must eliminate the cross,” and explaining that “the bearer of the cross is America.”
Then there is Iran.
The administration has staked its reputation on its radical policy of engaging Iran on its nuclear weapons program. The administration claims that by permitting Iran to undertake some nuclear activities it can convince the mullahs to shelve their plan to develop nuclear weapons.
This week brought further evidence of the policy’s complete failure. It also brought further proof that the administration is unperturbed by evidence of failure.
In a televised interview Sunday, Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akhbar Salehi insisted that Iran has the right to enrich uranium to 90 percent. In other words, he said that Iran is building nuclear bombs.
And thanks to the US and its interim nuclear deal with Iran, the Iranian economy is on the mend.
The interim nuclear deal the Obama administration signed with Iran last November was supposed to limit its oil exports to a million barrels a day. But according to the International Energy Agency, in February, Iran’s daily oil exports rose to 1.65 million barrels a day, the highest level since June 2012.
Rather than accept that its efforts have failed, the Obama administration is redefining what success means.
As Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz noted, in recent months US officials claimed the goal of the nuclear talks was to ensure that Iran would remain years away from acquiring nuclear weapons. In recent remarks, Secretary of State John Kerry said that the US would suffice with a situation in which Iran is but six months away from acquiring nuclear weapons.
In other words, the US has now defined failure as success.
Then there is Syria.
Last September, the US claimed it made history when, together with Russia it convinced dictator Bashar Assad to surrender his chemical weapons arsenal. Six months later, not only is Syria well behind schedule for abiding by the agreement, it is reportedly continuing to use chemical weapons against opposition forces and civilians. The most recent attack reportedly occurred on April 12 when residents of Kafr Zita were attacked with chlorine gas.
The growing worldwide contempt for US power and authority would be bad enough in and of itself. The newfound confidence of aggressors imperils international security and threatens the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
What makes the situation worse is the US response to what is happening. The Obama administration is responding to the ever-multiplying crises by pretending that there is nothing to worry about and insisting that failures are successes.
And the problem is not limited to Obama and his advisers or even to the political Left. Their delusional view that the US will suffer no consequences for its consistent record of failure and defeat is shared by a growing chorus of conservatives.
Some, like the anti-Semitic conservative pundit Patrick Buchanan, laud Putin as a cultural hero. Others, like Sen. Rand Paul, who is increasingly presenting himself as the man to beat in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, indicate that the US has no business interfering with Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
Iran as well is a country the US should be less concerned about, in Paul’s opinion.
Leaders like Sen. Ted Cruz who call for a US foreign policy based on standing by allies and opposing foes in order to ensure US leadership and US national security are being drowned out in a chorus of “Who cares?” Six years into Obama’s presidency, the US public as a whole is largely opposed to taking any action on behalf of Ukraine or the Baltic states, regardless of what inaction, or worse, feckless action means for the US’s ability to protect its interests and national security.
And the generation coming of age today is similarly uninterested in US global leadership.
During the Cold War and in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the predominant view among American university students studying international affairs was that US world leadership is essential to ensure global stability and US national interests and values.
Today this is no longer the case.
Much of the Obama administration’s shuttle diplomacy in recent years has involved sending senior officials, including Obama, on overseas trips with the goal of reassuring jittery allies that they can continue to trust US security guarantees.
These protestations convince fewer and fewer people today.
It is because of this that US allies like Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia, that lack nuclear weapons, are considering their options on the nuclear front.
It is because of this that Israeli officials are openly stating for the first time that the US cannot be depended on to either secure Israel’s eastern frontier in the event that an accord is reached with the Palestinians, or to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
It is because of this that the world is more likely than it has been since 1939 to experience a world war of catastrophic proportions.
There is a direct correlation between the US elite’s preoccupation with social issues running the narrow and solipsistic gamut from gay marriage to transgender bathrooms to a phony war against women, and America’s inability to recognize the growing threats to the global order or understand why Americans should care about the world at all.
And there is a similarly direct correlation between the growing aggression of US foes and Obama’s decision to slash defense spending while allowing the US nuclear arsenal to become all but obsolete.
America’s spurned allies will take the actions they need to take to protect themselves. Some will persevere, others will likely be overrun.
But with Americans across the ideological spectrum pretending that failure is success and defeat is victory, while turning their backs on the growing storm, how will America protect itself?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4) Yardeni: Stock Correction Just Gives More Juice to Bull Market
The stock market's correction that crested last Friday merely represents more fuel for the five-year-old bull market, says Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research.
"I characterized it as an internal correction," he tells CNBC. "Certainly if you look at the broad averages, the S&P 500 certainly didn't have much of a correction."
The Nasdaq Composite index dropped 8.5 percent from its 13-year high March 6 through last Friday. And the S&P 500 slid 4.3 percent from its record high April 4 through last Friday.
Yardeni sees good coming out of that. "I do think this internal correction actually increases the longevity of the secular bull market," he contends.
"The more we can internally correct this market, the more that high-priced stuff can become a little cheaper and the money doesn't leave the market but actually goes to some of the areas that have been left behind" the better, he argues.
Indeed, stocks rebounded this week, with the S&P 500 gaining 2.7 percent, its best performance since July.
"This is a very broad bull market, it's a very democratic market," Yardeni notes. "It doesn't leave too much behind."
His year-end price target for the S&P 500 is above 2,000.
"This market's not cheap. I've been bullish for five years, but these things don't last forever," he said. "At this point, I think if we can just get stocks to increase at the same pace as earnings — and I think earnings will grow — I think we'll have a pretty decent year of maybe 10 percent increase for the S&P 500."
Several strong earnings reports helped boost stocks this week.
"The market, with the sell-off and some downward revisions to estimates, maybe set itself up for better reactions to earnings than might have been the case earlier," Gerry Paul, chief investment officer of value equities at Alliance Bernstein, tells Bloomberg.
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The stock market's correction that crested last Friday merely represents more fuel for the five-year-old bull market, says Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research.
"I characterized it as an internal correction," he tells CNBC. "Certainly if you look at the broad averages, the S&P 500 certainly didn't have much of a correction."
The Nasdaq Composite index dropped 8.5 percent from its 13-year high March 6 through last Friday. And the S&P 500 slid 4.3 percent from its record high April 4 through last Friday.
Yardeni sees good coming out of that. "I do think this internal correction actually increases the longevity of the secular bull market," he contends.
"The more we can internally correct this market, the more that high-priced stuff can become a little cheaper and the money doesn't leave the market but actually goes to some of the areas that have been left behind" the better, he argues.
Indeed, stocks rebounded this week, with the S&P 500 gaining 2.7 percent, its best performance since July.
"This is a very broad bull market, it's a very democratic market," Yardeni notes. "It doesn't leave too much behind."
His year-end price target for the S&P 500 is above 2,000.
"This market's not cheap. I've been bullish for five years, but these things don't last forever," he said. "At this point, I think if we can just get stocks to increase at the same pace as earnings — and I think earnings will grow — I think we'll have a pretty decent year of maybe 10 percent increase for the S&P 500."
Several strong earnings reports helped boost stocks this week.
"The market, with the sell-off and some downward revisions to estimates, maybe set itself up for better reactions to earnings than might have been the case earlier," Gerry Paul, chief investment officer of value equities at Alliance Bernstein, tells Bloomberg.
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