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It is no secret Ga. Sheriffs hold most of the power in our numerous counties. Many of these departments have been found to be corrupt and decades ago, the town of Ludowici was deemed a speed trap and became a national disgrace so the governor had to step in and stop the shenanigans.
My candidate for the First District, Dr. Bob Johnson, is in an uphill fight against the 'good ole boy system' and the 'go along get along candidates' who perpetuate this kind of historic power.
We, in Savannah, have not been subjected to this type of situation because we have had a decent Sheriff's Department but , once again, I urge you cast a vote for Dr. Bob Johnson, who is not a career politician but a Jeffersonian citizen willing to give up a lucrative medical practice because he is concerned about the downward direction of our nation. Bob served 26 years in the military starting out as a Ranger. He is a practicing physician, as is his wife.
Bob is a committed conservative and all the ads and newspaper articles that would suggest otherwise are tripe and intended to confuse and distort! (See 2 below.)
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I have not read Edward Klein's new book and probably will not because I get his gist listening to his many interviews.
Do not get Edward Klein confused with Joe Klein, also an author! (See 3 below.)
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The accusation that Republicans do not compromise is challenged. (See 4 below.)
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John Podhoretz, The SIRC President Day"s Speaker in Feb 2015, writes about the potential Democrat meltdown! (See 5 below.)
Hispanics sour on Obama! (See 5a below.)
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Dick
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1) Alan Johnson is the Editor of Fathom: for a deeper understanding of Israel and the region and Senior Research Fellow at the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM). A professor of democratic theory and practice, he is an editorial board member of Dissent magazine, and a Senior Research Associate at The Foreign Policy Centre.
It's time to stop infantilising the Palestinians
By Alan Johnson
Photo: Getty
The jubilant reaction of many Palestinians to the kidnapping of three Israeli teenage boys has been met in the West with a bit of a shrug. The official daily PA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida has published cartoons mocking the three students and celebrating their capture. The Fatah Facebook page featured a cartoon of three rats dangling from a line.Sweets have been handed out on the streets (a traditional gesture of joy and celebration). Many children have been photographed by their parents, holding up three fingers and smiling.
An internet campaigngathers pace and “popular support for the abduction has continued to proliferate on Palestinian social media” according to the journalist Elhanan Miller. Hamas, of course, is exultant. Yes, Abu Mazen has condemned the kidnap and there have been some brave Palestinian voices raised in defence of the three youngsters, but their voices are isolated; Palestinians calling for the return of the three students have been threatened.
An internet campaigngathers pace and “popular support for the abduction has continued to proliferate on Palestinian social media” according to the journalist Elhanan Miller. Hamas, of course, is exultant. Yes, Abu Mazen has condemned the kidnap and there have been some brave Palestinian voices raised in defence of the three youngsters, but their voices are isolated; Palestinians calling for the return of the three students have been threatened.
And yet, despite all this whooping and cheering about the trauma and possible death of Naftali Fraenkel and Gilad Shaar, both 16, and Eyal Yifrach, 19, the Palestinians will likely pay a very small price in the international community or global public opinion. Why?
In part, because an anti-Zionist mindset that has taken root in the West, and at its heart is unexamined assumption – that Israelis and Palestinians are different kinds of people. Israelis have agency, responsibility and choice, Palestinians do not. In short, the world treats the Palestinians as children – ‘the pathology of paternalism’ it has been called
The unarticulated assumption of anti-Zionism is that Palestinians are a driven people, dominated by circumstances and moved by emotions; qualities associated with the world of nature. Israelis are the opposite; masters of all circumstances, rational and calculating; qualities associated with the world of culture.
This dichotomous thinking has three bad consequences.
First, by granting only one side to the conflict agency and responsibility, the dichotomy distorts key events of the conflict (e.g. the war of 1948, the collapse of the Camp David peace talks in 2000, Gaza after the 2005 disengagement). The Palestinians are cast as passive victims; acompelled people (Haaretz writer Yitkhak Laor claims the second intifada was “instigated” by … Israeli policy); a duped people (activist Tikva Honig-Parnass writes of “Barak’s pre-planned collapse of the Camp David talks in October 2000”); and a people beyond the reach of judgement. Academic Jacqueline Rose views Palestinian suicide bombers as “people driven to extremes” and argues that Israel has “the responsibility for [the] dilemma” of the suicide bomber.
Second, the dichotomous understanding of Palestinians and Israelis distorts our understanding of Israel’s security. The threats Israel faces are discounted and the security measures taken by Israel reframed as motiveless and cruel acts. For example, the writer Shlomo Sand arguesthat Israel falsely “portray[s] itself as a persecuted innocent” and he claims that this portrayal, not real threats, has given Israeli society “a well of deep-seated collective anxieties.” Ilan Pappe, an Israeli academic now teaching in the UK, claims that “Zionists” are “[c]ompelling a nation to be constantly at arms” by stimulating “continual angst” through the abuse of Holocaust memory. He dismisses “useful fabrications about Israelis suffering under intense rocketing” as a “fantasy of apologists.” For the anti-Zionists, then, Israel’s concern with security is either a pathology (an unconscious psychological condition Israelis cannot break out of) or – this a contradiction, note – a case of manipulation (a conscious political ploy).
The third consequence of this dichotomous thinking about the nature of the two peoples is the infantalisation of the Palestinians: they remain perpetually below the age of responsibility; the source of their behaviour always external to themselves, always located in Israel’s actions.
For example, when the Israeli novelist and Left-wing Zionist Amos Oz complained that incitement by Palestinian intellectuals is one reason so many Palestinians are “suffocated and poisoned by blind hate,” Yitzhak Laor responded by accusing Oz of “incitement” against the Palestinians. Oz’s temerity in seeking to hold the Palestinians to account condemned him in Laor’s eyes.
The academic Jacqueline Rose has argued that Palestinian suicide bomber is a person compelled, before admonishing Israel a few lines later for failing to take note of Freud’s warning that “the forcefulness with which a group builds and defends and defends its identity was the central question of modern times.” (That’s just something for the cultured Israelis to worry about, it seems.)
Of course, Israel has to compromise and divide the land, making possible a Palestinian state. But if the Palestinians are treated as children, never held accountable for cultivating a culture of hate, then they will never make their own excruciating compromises for peace. And without those compromises – in a Middle East departing further from the norms of human behaviour by the day – Israel will not take risks for peace. Nor should it.
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2)Dear Dick,
The results coming in from Mississippi last night prove how desperate the establishment is to hold on to power--even to the point of selling out to Democrats in an attempt to silence conservative voices that are sick and tired of the status quo.
The Mississippi sellout also proves that conservative turnout in Republican runoffs isessential. Conservative candidates cannot discount desperate and dishonest attempts by establishment, liberal career politicians like Buddy Carter to appeal to Democrats in order to crush a conservative challenge. Just yesterday, Buddy announced that he was endorsed by the Sheriffs in Georgia's First Congressional District, some of whom are Democrats. Not only is Buddy Carter parading the support of Democrats in a desperate attempt to secure the political promotion he's aimed his 20-year career in state government towards, but it's a culmination of the efforts he's taken to get rid of the Republican Party all together in state elections- especially for Sheriffs, allowing liberals to get elected into important positions in the community.
Don't let what happened in Mississippi last night happen in Georgia's First District. Conservatives must come out to vote on July 22. In addition to courting Democrat votes in Mississippi, the establishment machine spent the weeks after the primary knocking on doors and making phone calls. So in order to turnout the vote, we need to make sure our message is heard. Contact my office to help us get the word out. In this final month stretch before the runoff, your financial support is also so vital. To donate $250, $200, $150, $100, $50, or even $25, click here.
I am not a professional politician like Buddy Carter. As a citizen patriot, Army veteran, former Army Ranger, head and neck cancer surgeon and Christian medical missionary, the tactics liberal, establishment career politicians resort to in order to hang on to power and get promoted disgusts me. That is one of the reasons why I felt compelled to run for Congress--to make sure another liberal career politician doesn't get the promotion he thinks he deserves. I need your help now more than ever in the next 27 days to win the runoff against liberal career politician Buddy Carter and his Democrat allies.
Thank you,
Bob Johnson
Candidate for Congress
The Mississippi sellout also proves that conservative turnout in Republican runoffs isessential. Conservative candidates cannot discount desperate and dishonest attempts by establishment, liberal career politicians like Buddy Carter to appeal to Democrats in order to crush a conservative challenge. Just yesterday, Buddy announced that he was endorsed by the Sheriffs in Georgia's First Congressional District, some of whom are Democrats. Not only is Buddy Carter parading the support of Democrats in a desperate attempt to secure the political promotion he's aimed his 20-year career in state government towards, but it's a culmination of the efforts he's taken to get rid of the Republican Party all together in state elections- especially for Sheriffs, allowing liberals to get elected into important positions in the community.
Don't let what happened in Mississippi last night happen in Georgia's First District. Conservatives must come out to vote on July 22. In addition to courting Democrat votes in Mississippi, the establishment machine spent the weeks after the primary knocking on doors and making phone calls. So in order to turnout the vote, we need to make sure our message is heard. Contact my office to help us get the word out. In this final month stretch before the runoff, your financial support is also so vital. To donate $250, $200, $150, $100, $50, or even $25, click here.
I am not a professional politician like Buddy Carter. As a citizen patriot, Army veteran, former Army Ranger, head and neck cancer surgeon and Christian medical missionary, the tactics liberal, establishment career politicians resort to in order to hang on to power and get promoted disgusts me. That is one of the reasons why I felt compelled to run for Congress--to make sure another liberal career politician doesn't get the promotion he thinks he deserves. I need your help now more than ever in the next 27 days to win the runoff against liberal career politician Buddy Carter and his Democrat allies.
Thank you,
Bob Johnson
Candidate for Congress
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3) The War Raging Between the Obamas v. the Clintons
Former New York Times editor-in-chief and best-selling author, Edward Klein just released his brand new book, Blood Feud: The Clinton vs. the Obamas. In it, he details the dysfunctional and jealousy-ridden relationship between the Clintons and the Obamas.
Trained as an old-fashioned reporter, Klein maintains a hefty rolodex of contacts who give insider information on both the Clintons and the Obamas. The book is filled with insider information and stunning stories including the night of the Benghazi attack. Inside the book, Klein exposes how Hillary called Bill the night of the Benghazi attack - furious that Obama was asking her to claim the attack was the result of a spontaneous demonstration caused by an obscure video on the Internet.
Klein offers a fascinating lok at the rocky relationship between the Obamas and the Clintons! He reports on Obama's fragile ego, why Bill Clinton can't stand Obama and what led Michelle to call Hillary "Hildabeest" behind the scenes.
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4) The Compromise Canard
Barack Obama and many Democrats routinely accuse Republicans of being incapable of compromise. Journalists follow their orders and spread the message. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
4) The Compromise Canard
By Ed Lasky
Barack Obama and many Democrats routinely accuse Republicans of being incapable of compromise. Journalists follow their orders and spread the message. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
In fact, Tea Party members often object that Republicans compromise on too many issues. A big tent leads to such disputation; it is called liberty. Valid arguments can be made to support a variety of positions. But it is a myth propagated by liberals that refusal to compromise is built into the DNA of conservatives. Call it projection or call it propaganda, but liberals -- led by the president -- have been the ones who have repeatedly refused to compromise. They do not respect the will of the American people and have made a mockery of our Constitution.
Barack Obama set the tone and revealed his agenda early in his presidency. A mere three days after his first inauguration, he gathered Republican and Democratic leaders at the White House to discuss the proposed stimulus plan. When presented a list of modest Republican proposals, he told (off) the Republicans that “elections have consequences” and “I won”. As Marc Thiessen wrote in the Washington Post:
Backed by the largest congressional majorities in decades, the president was not terribly interested in giving ground to his vanquished adversaries.
That was an understatement.
What followed was an orgy of spending and debt accumulation unrivaled in history. The regulatory agencies became growth industries, as did crony capitalist boondoggles. The hangover will last decades and has undoubtedly made this recovery weaker than it otherwise would have been. Obama and his Democratic overlords in both Houses of Congress rammed through measures that Republicans could do very little to stop. Not that Democrats cared.
When Scott Brown, a Republican, won the special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s senatorial seat after Kennedy died, Democrats faced the prospect of losing their ability to pass Obamacare in the form they designed. They refused to listen to any talk of compromise or listen to warnings from Republicans that a disaster was in the making. They resorted to extreme actions by passing the bill through an unprecedented “budget reconciliation” tactic. Even then they had to in essence bribe reluctant Democrats through favors granted to them (“Cornhusker Kickback,” “Louisiana Purchase”) to garner their votes. No rewrite, no delay, and certainly no comprise with Republicans. Compromise did not exist in the Democrats’ lexicon.
In the wake of the 2010 Republican takeover of the House, Democrats in the Senate and Barack Obama faced the first real obstacle to their agenda. Rule by decree became the norm. After a history on the campaign trail of castigating George Bush for issuing signing statements when affixing his signature to laws passed by Congress, Obama made liberal use of them to avoid enforcing aspects of the law he considered, in his regalness, to be infringements of his power. Recess appointments were made to work around Republican opposition to his more radical nominations (relative to his merely radical nominations). ObamaCare has been so disfigured by Obama’s waivers, delays, enforcement discretion, obfuscation, twisting of the plain meaning of the law and twisting of regulations, that it taken on aspects of a Rube Goldberg device ready to collapse at any time.
Republicans have made innumerable offers to work with Democrats to repair and “reform this reform” or scrap the whole misbegotten mess so healthcare reform actually works; and they have been met with…no compromise offers in return. Instead this jury-rigged power grab has been so distorted by patches and ploys by Obama and his lackeys that even the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has cried uncle. It is literally impossible for them to assess the fiscal impact of the law. Instead of compromising and working across the aisle, President Obama rewrites laws to decide what they will be. Immigration laws are meant to be ignored, right? Washington has become a banana republic, complete with the humidity.
A lawless president has created an imperial presidency, yet Republicans are tarred for their adamant refusal to compromise with (i.e., submit to) such a leader. Obama announced he intends to circumvent Congress, gutting the second branch of government-and declares he will rule by his pen and his phone, and the media’s position is what? Supine -- when not depicting Republicans as obstructionists who refuse to compromise.
Barack Obama barely deigns to meet with Republicans to discuss policy, despite numerous entreaties by the Republicans that he do so, preferring to discuss his favorite type of peppers with a New Mexican disk jockey; chat with the Pimp with The Limp; pick NCAA Tournament winners on TV; josh with David Letterman; play hoops with NBA superstars; golf with Tiger Woods and his newest BFF, former football great Alanzo Mourning; be serenaded by Paul McCartney and other music legends; humored by Jerry Seinfeld; and make numerous visits to donors in Tinseltown. Has there been any interest in meeting with Republicans despite veritable pleas by them that he do so to formulate policy? Where is the willingness to compromise?
After winning reelection in 2012, Obama did agree to meet with Speaker of the House Boehner to discuss the “fiscal cliff.” Boehner wanted something in return if he agreed to raise income taxes on those earning more than $1 million a year. How did Obama handle that offer to compromise? The Wall Street Journal reported:
Mr. Obama repeatedly lost patience with the speaker as negotiations faltered. In an Oval Office meeting last week, he told Mr. Boehner that if the sides didn’t reach agreement, he would use his inaugural address and his State of the Union speech to tell the country the Republicans were at fault.At one point, according to notes taken by a participant, Mr. Boehner told the president, “I put $800 billion [in tax revenue] on the table. What do I get for that?”“You get nothing,” the president said. “I get that for free.”
How about that for “compromise”?
When journalists accuse Republicans of being incapable of compromise, do they ever question Obama about his rhetoric? Obama routinely taunts and denigrates those who do not follow his orders. Skeptics about climate change are members of the “Flat Earth Society” who think that the moon is made of cheese. Republicans make “stinkburgers” and “meanwhiches” (this from the man who was declared the world’s greatest orator). Republicans want to build moats on the border of Mexico and fill it with alligators to eat Hispanics. Republicans are“hostage-takers” and bomb throwers. Even should Republicans should agree to follow his decrees well…in Obama’s words, “We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for a ride, but they gotta sit in back." When frustrated by congressional and constitutional roadblocks to his agenda, he refuses to “triangulate” a la Bill Clinton and instead muses about going full Bulworth in his second term. Does anything in that rhetoric sound like an invitation to engage with Republicans, to compromise?
Democrats pile on whenever Republicans don’t sit in the back of the bus. Reid called Tea Partiers anarchists who are taking America hostage; Democrats, including their leaders who should but don’t remain civil, call Republicans jihadists, arsonists and terrorists regularly (videos cued up here) and, of course, are racists. Harry Reid again: “I don't know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, OK. Do I need to say more?" ; Republicans are “servants of Satan” (okay, I made the last one up but it sounds like something Harry Reid might say about Republicans in hock to the satanic Koch brothers -- all the while protected from lawsuits by spewing such nonsense from the floor of the Senate).
Does insulting language encourage a meeting of the minds?
Harry Reid has been a faithful servant to Obama, as well as to cronies who have made him a rich man (see Harry Reid's Long, Steady Accretion of Power & Wealth). As Majority Leader of the Senate he has yielded dictatorial powers. What for centuries has been acclaimed as the world’s greatest deliberative body has become a rubber stamp for Obama and the Democrats; a rubber stamp held by Reid. As John Hinderaker wrote at the estimable Powerline, “ Harry Reid is destroying the Senate”
He controls the agenda of the Senate-what comes up for a vote and what doesn’t. What budget is passed and what is shot down. The Do-Nothing Congress critics harp on is really a Do Nothing Senate as the House passes a stream of bills that die at the hands of Dirty Harry. John Boehner, flawed as we all are, was correct when he declared in late 2013 "To date, the House has passed nearly 150 bills that the United States Senate has failed to act on. The Senate (and) the President continue to stand in the way of the people's priorities."
Harry Reid has also ignores Republican senators, when not insulting them. He limits the number of amendments Republicans can attach to Senate bills by engaging in a maneuver called “filling the amendment tree”.
As Brian Darling wrote in “Tyranny in the United States Senate”:
Majority Leader Harry Reid has regularly used a procedural tactic called “filling the amendment tree” to restrict Senators’ right to debate and offer amendments. While previous Majority Leaders have occasionally used this tactic, Senator Reid has used this tactic often—more than all of his predecessors combined.
The world’s greatest deliberative body has been severely damaged because Senators’ right to debate and offer amendments has been severely restricted by Reid. (He has also employed a more arcane tactic to block motions to suspend the rules after debate is completed, further diminishing the ability of Republicans to offer amendments to bills he forces through the Senate).
Does that sound like compromise?
Reid has also abolished the filibuster for certain nominations, exercising even more tyranny.
The filibuster has been an age-old custom that has protected the rights of the minority in the Senate. The filibuster is a procedure where debate is extended. In practice, it has meant most legislation and presidential nominations need a 60% vote to bring a bill or nominee to the floor for a vote. Defenders have called the filibuster ‘The Soul of the Senate.”
When Republicans were in the Senate majority, Reid, then-Senator Obama and many other Democrats hailed the filibuster as playing a crucial role in our democracy and all but demonized Republicans who dared think about abolishing it. Filibusters have been used to ensure radical nominees are not confirmed by the Senate. It has been a tool to encourage compromise.
That was then; this is now. When confronted with GOP opposition to various Obama nominees, Reid pulled the trigger on the “nuclear option” and abolished the filibuster for most nominees chosen by Obama. There went the Soul of the Senate. Since the Democrats control the Senate, Obama has a clear path for his nominees to be confirmed –regardless of Republican resistance. These include federal judges with lifetime appointments, meaning Obama’s agenda will live on through the courts long after he leaves the Oval Office.
Does the abolition by Reid of the filibuster sound like “compromise”?
Has Barack Obama shown any willingness to compromise? Yes -- but with America’s adversaries and enemies. He does keep promises occasionally, such as the one when he promised sotto voce (this from the most transparent administration in history) to Putin’s puppet president that should Obama win a second term he would show more flexibility to Russia’s ruler. Flexibility has certainly followed; or appeasement, if not preemptive surrender.
Crimea has followed, as has the hollowing out of our military. Russia violates arms treaties with America: ho hum. Iran violates agreements regarding its oil exports and sanctions-look away as Obama compromises to mullahs. Obama extends warm greetings not just to the mullahs in Iran (far warmer than anything he has ever said to Republicans) and supported the Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Egypt and the terror group Hamas unifying with the Palestinian Authority, compromising American law prohibiting financial support for terror groups. The red line against Syria’s use of chemical weapons was compromised away (Obama wants us to believe he never even set one.) And “Assad must go” becomes “Assad must stay” at the behest of Putin. He is compromising away: Iraq and Afghanistan --to some combination of Al Qaeda, the sequel; Iranian mullahs; and the Taliban. He compromised our military honor by trading five Taliban murderers for a deserter (at best) and celebrated the happy occasion in the Rose Garden. He compromises away our allies to succor and comfort our enemies. The bow to the Saudi King was a metaphor of things to come.
Will the media ever report that the Democrats are the party that refuses to compromise?
A Republican takeover of the Senate will topple Harry Reid (hopefully once and for all and return him to the Ritz) so he can no longer serve as Obama’s enforcer and smother Republicans. Taking over the Senate will indeed, as Charles Cookewrites, do Republicans a lot of good -- as it will America. A GOP Senate could do significant damage to Obamacare and Obama’s agenda for America. A Republican Congress will make clear to the American people, despite the media firewall, that Obama and the Democrats are the ones who refuse to compromise. After all, why would they compromise on Obama’s dream to “fundamentally transform America” unless compelled to do so by voters?
A man with a plan that is wantonly reckless does not want to compromise with his political foes. America should bend Barack Obama to their will by electing a Republican Senate come November. Then Obama will be taught some lessons about the art of compromise.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5)Donkeys’ disaster? Obama’s policies may doom Dems
J
Are we seeing a full-scale Democratic Party meltdown? We might be.
The most recent polling shows the president at all-time lows. This matters because presidential approval has, in the past, been a key factor in the results of midterm elections.
The Democratic Party is using every bit of Big Data at its disposal to neutralize that presidential drag. This might help, but Big Data isn’t magic.
It might be able to tell Democrats where they’re hurting, but it can’t heal the wounds it diagnoses. Only good policy decisions can.
The president is backing his party into a corner. The health-care rollout has cast a permanent shadow on the 2014 election.
If Democrats in competitive races try to separate themselves from it, they will look weak and vascillatory. Even worse, they may get liberal donors angry.
Those same Democrats are going to have to explain their views on unfolding administration scandals like the supposedly missing and destroyed IRS emails that would tell the story of how conservative groups came to be targeted for their views.
If they carry water for the administration, they will not only be defending the indefensible but will be defending the IRS — never a smart-money move in a close race even when the tax man isn’t behaving in what appears to be a criminal fashion.
But if they attack, they will hear about it from the White House, from their leaders on Capitol Hill and from those same donors.
Then there’s foreign policy. It rarely plays a role in midterm elections.
But a general impression of chaos, incompetence and bad judgment certainly does, and that is what foreign policy has become for President Obama and the Democrats.
The disaster in Iraq caught Obama and his team flat-footed and very likely incapable of serious response.
Given that the president has spent two years praising his administration for pulling our forces out of Iraq, he has constructed a nearly impregnable barrier to a significant effort to reverse the gains of the combined terrorist-Saddamist onslaught.
The president clearly considers the removal of American forces from harm’s way a signal achievement of his administration, and would resist any policy that would alter his reputation as a war-ender.
He also acknowledges that Iraq’s collapse would be dangerous to our national interests and should be prevented. The problem is that he may not be able to have it both ways.
He and his party know voters don’t want Americans back on the ground in Iraq. Voters also don’t want to lose Iraq. So what does he have?
Apparently, he thinks he has an Iran card to play.
That is why he and his team are talking openly about making common cause with Iran to stabilize Iraq — even as Iran helped foment the political crisis that helped strengthen the insurgency and has been a signal contributor to fomenting the hellish chaos in Syria.
Not to mention, of course, the Iranian rush toward a nuke, out of which the Obama administration mysteriously believes it can seduce the mullahs through protracted negotiations.
These suggestions that we can and should play international footsie with Iran may not have a role in the polling that suggests a near-national panic about the collapse of American foreign policy.
After all, the public doesn’t follow the ins and outs of these matters that closely.
But over the past 35 years, Iran has been America’s most consistent ideological foe, and the public does not view that country or its leaders with favor, to put it mildly.
It is true that a great many Americans do not remember the 1979-80 hostage crisis, but a great many also do — and nearly everyone is old enough to remember former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeatedly threatening Israel with literal annihilation during his eight-year presidency.
Add to that the fact that Vladimir Putin recently swallowed another country’s province whole while the West watched helplessly, China toying with Japan in the Pacific and tens of thousands of children pouring over our southwestern border — and you have a portrait of the most important and popular Democrat of the 21st century turning into the portrait of Dorian Gray before our eyes.
Then there are the self-inflicted wounds of his putative successor. Hillary Clinton has now spent two weeks on the book-publicity trail making gaffe after gaffe about her wealth and power.
Clinton has not only revealed herself to be a significantly less formidable candidate for 2016 than anyone thought just six weeks ago.
She has inadvertently exposed a truth about the present-day Democratic Party — which is that its aristocratic ruling class is, if anything, even more out of touch with the everyday lives of Americans than the Republicans are.
None of this is to say the GOP is in good shape. Except there are only two parties, and the Democrats are vastly worse off with Election Day only a little more than four months away.
5a) Hispanics Sour on Obama as Young Illegals Surge Across Border
What should Republican lawmakers do about immigration? That's been a simmering source of controversy ever since George W. Bush's push for so-called comprehensive immigration legislation, with legalization and enforcement provisions, in 2006.
Most liberals and many economic conservatives argued that support for such legislation was a political imperative for Republicans. Otherwise, they would continue to lose Hispanic voters, an inevitably increasing segment of the electorate, by 2-1 margins.
That argument was bolstered by the 2004 exit poll, which showed comprehensive immigration supporter George W. Bush getting 44 percent of the Hispanic vote. That percentage may have been inflated, but if Bush had received the percentages of John McCain (31) or Mitt Romney (27), he would probably not have been re-elected.
Republican opponents of comprehensive immigration respond that granting citizenship to illegals would enfranchise millions of Hispanics who would vote heavily Democratic on economic issues.
And they argued that a nation based on the rule of law should not reward lawbreakers. On that basis most Republicans voted against the comprehensive bill co-sponsored by Chuck Schumer and Marco Rubio that passed the Senate in June 2013.
Meanwhile, as the politicians debated, the facts on the ground changed. Net migration from Mexico, the source of more than one-third of all immigrants and about 60 percent of illegals from 1982 to 2007, fell to zero after that.
And polls showed that most Americans favored legalization of the so-called Dreamers, young adults whose parents had brought them illegally across the border when they were children.
Barack Obama, who didn't push immigration legislation when Democrats had Congressional supermajorities in 2009-10, announced he would no longer deport Dreamers who met certain conditions. As on many other issues, he was not troubled by the fact that the Constitution gives the task of passing laws to Congress and requires the president only to faithfully execute them.
That didn't seem to have any political downside. But the facts on the ground changed again. According to the Obama administration, only 4,000 unaccompanied minors approached the border in fiscal year 2011. That rose to 21,000 in fiscal year 2013 and to 47,000 in fiscal year 2014.
Almost all seem to have come overland through Mexico from the Central American republics of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Reports of this unanticipated surge have been filling television screens.
Instead of being sent back across the border, they have been housed in jammed facilities under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy. Some have been given bus tickets to relatives in the United States, according to CNN.
News of this unexpected surge of illegal immigration seems to have contributed to the surprise defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the June 13 Virginia Republican primary.
And last Friday the administration dispatched Joe Biden on a previously unscheduled trip to Guatemala to tell people there that, "there is no light at the end of the tunnel."
Liberals have argued that these teenagers are fleeing the high rates of crime and violence in their native countries. The implication is that they should be admitted as refugees from oppression.
But there's good reason to believe that many have come to believe that they have permisos to enter and remain in the United States. Once you announce you refuse to enforce one law, people may conclude you won't enforce others either.
The Cantor defeat and the surge of Central American teens make it unlikely that House Republican leaders will advance much in the way of immigration legislation.
Two trends in polling also point in this direction. One is that Hispanic voters don't seem hugely preoccupied with immigration. The Pew Research Center reports that many more focus on education, the economy and health than the one-third who say immigration is "extremely important" to them personally.
The other is that the president's job approval among Hispanics has been falling sharply. He got 71 percent of their votes in 2012, but fewer than half approve his performance today.
It's not hard to see why. The sluggish economy has hurt Hispanics more than most Americans. Obamacare and big government policies have not helped them as they apparently have hoped.
This suggests that non-passage of comprehensive legislation won't hurt Republicans as much as predicted. And inaction, always the easier legislative course, would prevent a debate in which the cries of angry opponents, gleefully highlighted in mainstream media, could antagonize Hispanic voters.
Michael Barone is Senior Political Analyst for the Washington Examiner, co-author of The Almanac of American Politics and a contributor to Fox News.
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