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Makes sense to me: This is Roger Williams' real ad in his campaign for the 33rd Congressional District of Texas.
And...HE WON!
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Obama has another bad year according to The Washington Post!
And 2015 could be even worse for Obama.
What about America? (See 2 below.)
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Biden meets Hirsi Ali and gets an earful! (See 3 below.)
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This from my astute and long time friend and fellow memo reader. It reveals the shallowness of education you get from even shallower elitist professors and the money you pay for the privilege is very steep and the debts incurred even deeper!
Professor Gruber is interesting, even entertaining and knowledgeable up to a point but, as my friend suggests,seems to believe formulas, not the free market, are the way to seek solutions!
He also never discusses the impact on health care costs because of trial attorneys!(See 4 below.)
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An Italian's perspective on Israel! (See 5 below.)
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Jim Rogers discusses global currency war! (See 6 below.)
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Is Fatah calling for a revenge assassination of Israeli Minister? (See 7 below.)
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1)
For the first time since the Iran nuclear talks were extended for the second time last month, the United States and its allies will meet again with Tehran’s negotiators in Vienna on Wednesday. To listen to public statements from the Obama administration, the allied team will be there to insist on a deal that will prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. But the same factors that have tilted these negotiations in Iran’s direction throughout the process still seem to be pushing the outcome toward an agreement that will be touted as a desperately needed foreign policy triumph for the administration. With both the French becoming more vocal about their dissatisfaction with America’s leadership in the talks, and the Islamist regime making no secret of their unwillingness to make more concessions, the question facing the negotiators is not so much whether a deal is possible, but whether the U.S. is able to resist the temptation to continue giving ground to the Iranians in order to get a deal at virtually any price.
As the next round of talks begin, observers need to think back to the allies’ position prior to the signing of the interim deal to understand just how far the U.S. has retreated from its current perilous position. In 2012 when he was running for re-election, President Obama vowed during his foreign policy debate with Mitt Romney that any deal must end Iran’s nuclear program. The Allies were similarly united behind a position that Iran had no right to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel under any circumstances and that its plutonium plant at Arak must be dismantled.
Since then, the U.S. has accepted the notion that Iran has the right to a nuclear program and that its infrastructure will remain largely in place no matter what the terms of an agreement might say. It has also tacitly recognized Iran’s right to enrichment while claiming that the low levels permitted freeze its progress toward a bomb even though everyone knows these restrictions can easily be reversed. The U.S. has also given every indication it will allow Iran to keep its centrifuges as well as showing no sign that it will press Tehran to give up its plutonium option or stop producing ballistic missiles whose only purpose would be to deliver nuclear warheads. Even worse, the administration seems to be giving up any effort to find out just how much progress the Iranians have made toward weaponizing their nuclear project or to force them to admit International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to get the answers to this vital question.
Based on the experience of the last year and a half of talking with Obama’s envoys, Iran’s negotiators know they only have to stand their ground and its only a matter of time until the Americans give in to their demands one by one until they get terms that will let them become a nuclear threshold power as well as lifting the economic sanctions that continue to cripple its economy.
That the Iranian people are clamoring for an end to the sanctions is clear. As the New York Times reported on Friday, anticipation of the collapse of the restrictions is the talk of Tehran. The eagerness of their would-be European trading partners is just as vocal. In theory, this desire to reconnect Iran to the global economy ought to give the U.S. the leverage to make the Iranians give up their nuclear ambitions. On top of that, the collapse of the price of oil should have Iran even more desperate and the position of the allies even stronger.
But the Iranians know whom they are dealing with. As has become increasingly clear in the last year in which the talks went into two overtime periods despite administration promises that the talks would be finite in length, President Obama’s goal is not so much to fulfill his campaign promise about the nuclear threat as it is to launch a new détente with the Iran. This is a crucial point since it not only makes him more reluctant to stick to Western demands about nuclear issues but makes it impossible for him to contemplate abandoning the negotiations. That means that the Iranians know the president isn’t even thinking, as he should, of ratcheting up the economic pressure with tougher sanctions, or of making the Islamists fear the possibility that the U.S. would ever use force to ensure the threat is eliminated.
Under these conditions the chances of the U.S. negotiating a deal that could actually stop Iran from ever getting a bomb are slim and none. Instead, the only question remains how far the Iranians are willing to press the president to bend to their will in order to let him declare a victory and welcome this terrorist-sponsoring regime move closer to regional hegemony as well as a nuclear weapon.
Rather than the renewed diplomacy being a signal for Congressional critics from both parties of the president’s policy to pipe down, the new talks should encourage them to work harder to pass the sanctions the president claims he doesn’t need. Unless they act, the path to appeasement of Iran seems to be clear.
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2)
President Barack Obama had the Worst Year in Washington … again
Every week, I award someone the least desirable prize in town: the worst week in Washington. If you’re caught in a scandal, fired from a big job or embarrassed by a gaffe, you’ll be sure to read me offering you a hearty “congrats, or something.” But every December comes the biggest recognition of all: the worst year in Washington. For this award, you really had to blow it, and 2014 offered lots of contenders. Here’s who took the honor – along with the people who had a really bad year, a bad year, a not-so-good year, a good year and the best year in Washington..
Worst year: President Obama, for losses at home and crises abroad
In 2014, President Obama's past caught up with him.
His sixth year in office was, inarguably, his worst, when the problems that had been building throughout his second term all came crashing down around him.
The year began with Obama proposing a set of reforms to the National Security Agency, a result of ongoing national security leaks, and ended with midterm elections that saw his party lose its Senate majority largely because of the president's unpopularity.
In between were continued challenges to the Affordable Care Act, America's reentry into Iraq — a war the president had long vowed to exit — and memoirs from former Cabinet officialsquestioning Obama's decision-making and judgment.
Twelve months ago, we also awarded Obama the worst year in 2013, calling 2013 his "lost year" because he spent it salvaging old accomplishments rather than building his legacy. But even then, we saw a possible path back to relevance. Now, all that appears left for the Obama presidency is a narrowing of both vision and accomplishment.
What tied together all of 2014's failures, stumbles and necessary evils was a growing sense among the public that Obama simply isn't up to the job to which he has been twice elected.
Consider this: In CNN-Opinion Research Corp. polling in December 2008, more than three-quarters of Americans said that the phrase "can manage the government effectively" applied to Obama; by March 2014, just 43 percent said the same. (And that was before problems at the Department of Veterans Affairs were revealed later that month.) A late 2013 Washington Post-ABC News poll found a similar result, with just 41 percent of respondents saying Obama "is a good manager." A Pew Research Center survey in July showed that 44 percent of respondents believed that Obama was "able to get things done," a number not far from the 42 percent of people who said the same of George W. Bush at a similar point in his presidency.
Losing records
It's normal for a president's party to lose seats in Congress over the course of his term. But Democrats' losses during President Obama's time in office have been especially large. Among presidents elected to two terms in the past 50 years, no other saw as much erosion of his party in the House through his second midterm election, and only one, Bill Clinton, suffered as many setbacks in the Senate.
Barack Obama
| -69 HOUSE | -11 SENATE |
George W. Bush
| -17 HOUSE | -1 SENATE |
Bill Clinton
| -47 HOUSE | -12 SENATE |
Ronald Reagan
| -16 HOUSE | -8 SENATE |
Richard Nixon
| -49 HOUSE | -6 SENATE |
Sources: Office of the Historian, House of Representatives; Senate Historical Office
The Bush comparison matters enormously. Remember that Obama was elected in large part on his promise to restore basic competence to governing in the wake of Bush's missteps on issues from Iraq to Hurricane Katrina. (This was the president who made "Heckuva job, Brownie" a slogan for federal ineptitude.)
Every early move Obama made — from his campaign promise of "change" to the "team of rivals" idea for his Cabinet — was driven by the notion that this president, unlike the man he replaced, was all about turning the government into a pure meritocracy that would run things right.
But that idea began to unravel with a rapid-fire series of scandals: the revelation that the IRS was targeting tea party groups for special scrutiny, the Edward Snowden leaks about NSA surveillance and the botched rollout of HealthCare.gov, to name three that happened in 2013.
That unraveling sped up over the past 12 months — fueled, interestingly enough, by foreign policy stumbles by the president and his team.
Obama's longtime pledge to "reset" relations with Russia was exposed as frighteningly naive when President Vladimir Putin moved into eastern Ukraine with impunity. Obama's response to Putin's aggression — sanctions — was derided as using a spray bottle to put out a five-alarm fire.
Then there was Iraq, the "dumb war" that Obama was elected in no small measure to end. He seemed to do that once, removing the last combat troops from the country in 2011. But then came the rise of the Islamic State, the militant group that now controls much of Iraq and Syria, made particularly infamous by its heinous tactic of beheading captives.
By June, Obama had approved the deployment of almost 300 new U.S. troops to Iraq. In early September, after the beheading of American journalist Steven Sotloff, Obama approved sending more troops to the region. In November, he authorized the deployment of 1,500 additional troops, bringing the total to roughly 3,000. The cost for this redeployment in Iraq? About $5.6 billion.
As if that weren't enough past-haunting-the-present for Obama, two memoirs released this year by former Cabinet officials cast him as something short of a decisive commander in chief.
Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton struck first, not only deriding Obama's "don't do stupid s---" foreign policy vision as less than visionary, but also blasting her onetime boss for not intervening earlier in the Syrian civil war and thereby potentially reducing the Islamic State threat. Yet even that critique was nothing compared with what former CIA chief and defense secretary Leon Panetta leveled at Obama in his memoir "Worthy Fights." Panetta said the president had "lost his way" in matters ranging from the fight against the Islamic State to the budgetary process. He condemned Obama's "frustrating reticence to engage his opponents and rally support for his cause" and said the president too often "relies on the logic of a law professor rather than the passion of a leader." (Former defense secretary Robert Gates's memoir was also tough — but it went after Vice President Biden more than Obama.)
Then there was the matter of the midterm elections. Republicans badly wanted to nationalize the campaign around the unpopular Obama, even as Democrats, trying desperately to hold their Senate majority, were doing everything they could to make voters forget about the guy sitting in the White House.
Enter Obama at Northwestern University in early October, delivering what was billed as a major speech on the country's economic progress under his leadership. About halfway through that address, he uttered these four sentences: "I am not on the ballot this fall. Michelle's pretty happy about that. But make no mistake: These policies are on the ballot. Every single one of them."
By the next morning, Republicans were using those lines in TV ads bashing Democrats as Obama clones. Already-apoplectic Democratic strategists went bananas, insisting that the president, whom they felt had ignored and underappreciated them for years, was now sabotaging any chance they had of avoiding a horrendous election.
That frustration boiled over the day after the vote — news flash: the Democrats lost the Senate, badly — when David Krone, chief of staff for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's chief of staff, blasted Obama in a Washington Post story. "We were never going to get on the same page," Krone said of the White House and Senate Democrats. "We were beating our heads against the wall."
Way back in March 2008, then-presidential candidate Obama delivered one of his most memorable speeches, addressing the controversial statements of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and reflecting on race in America. In his remarks, Obama drew on William Faulkner's famous line from "Requiem for a Nun": "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
That has never proved truer for Obama's political fortunes than in 2014. The past kept complicating his present — and clouding his future.
President Obama, for becoming a victim of history rather than a writer of it, you had the worst year in Washington. Congrats, or something.
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A funny thing happened when Ayaan Hirsi Ali met Vice-President Joe Biden: he wanted to straighten out her views of Islam.
In a recent interview, Ayaan Hirsi Ali discussed with sharp insight, the left’s willful and subsequently dangerous blindness toward radical Islam and the very real war on women:
They feel all religions are the same, and they’re not. I think if I adopt the position in good faith to multiculturalists and leftists, I would say [they take the position they do] because they see them [Muslims] as victims. They see them as victims of the white man and so they think: ‘Let’s protect them from the white man. Let’s protect them from capitalism.’… That is misguided at best and malicious at worst.
Wherever [Islamists] gain power, you see exactly what they do: The first thing they do is they chase women out of the public space, force them to cover up, beat them up, rape them, sell them into slavery.
Such violence against women needs to be exposed, and Western liberals need to “review their thinking.Noted Islamic scholar Joe Biden begged to differ:
Hirsi Ali recalled meeting Vice President Joe Biden. He informed her that “ISIS had nothing to do with Islam.” When she disagreed with him, Biden actually responded: “Let me tell you one or two things about Islam.”
“I politely left the conversation at that,” Hirsi Ali said, to laughter. “I wasn’t used to arguing with vice presidents.”Ayaan Hirsi Ali: steadily provoking liberals and feminists everywhere because girl doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
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4)-Everyone should review this video of Jonathan Gruber’s presentation at MIT on the Obama health care law. It is very telling for several reasons. (This video is being identified as Gruber talking to his class – it is not just that. This video is part of MIT’s on-line education program. It is MIT-endorsed!)
First, it is absolutely amazing that this kind of drivel passes for education at MIT. I cannot tell whether this is simply for Econ 101 students or whether this is a upper-level class. In any event is not very sophisticated, as you can see.
Second reflects the fact that Gruber himself does not have the curiosity expected someone who would want to understand the economics of the critical policy issue. For example, he says things like the United States spends more than twice on health care as other developed nations without exploring why. He notes that McAllen, Texas has healthcare usage at a rate that is six times the usage in El Paso. He blames that on the greed of doctors in McAllen. Is that accusation of greed a projection?
If Jonathan Gruber knew anything about Texas, he might know that McAllen is on the Mexican border. Mexicans and US citizens living in Mexico frequently come to McAllen to obtain US style services, including healthcare. Similarly citizens from all over the world come to the United States for additional healthcare. That alone leads to some usage and internationally recognized facilities like Sloan-Kettering, Johns Hopkins, M.D. Anderson, and the Mayo Clinic, not counting usage at places like Emory for treating Ebola patients, usage by diplomats and wealthy consumers of health insurance from all over the world, and most of Canada’s population, because they cannot get high-end and speedy health insurance in their country.
If Gruber knows anything about economics, he would know that there are a lot of markets in which people overpay for the services they want – health care is one, but lots of people overpay for golf clubs, purses, etc. The issues are created by the Federal government’s assertion of the role of payor of last resort in the healthcare markets. Yes, we will go bankrupt if the Federal government is responsible for health, education, food, clothing, and housing for all Americans. Well, maybe not bankrupt as such, but it will look like bankruptcy only in the same sense that East Germany and the Soviet Union finally looked bankrupt when they looked across the Wall at the relative prosperity of a free market Europe.
But US academics like Gruber want to take America to places that Europe would never dare to venture – complete government control of the health care markets. In the UK, at least, one can contract for private health care. Not so in Canada or in North Korea – the only two countries in the world where it is illegal to negotiate for private health care. Gruber wants to mimic those models. I would argue that Canada’s model works only because of the safety valve offered by the next door neighbor to the South. I would venture to say that North Korea’s model does not work, although I don’t know much about it.
I wish economists at MIT had more understanding of why the free markets work better – every time they are tried – than state-controlled markets. But it seems like each generation produces its Jonathan Grubers – those power-mad persons with no sense of history, but with an absolute conviction that they can construct a better world if everyone would just do exactly as they say.
Maybe he is a Schicklgruber...
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5) Why Israel is the World’s Best Nation
With all the accusations hurled at us, it is good to see a "righteous Gentile" who appreciates the uniqueness of Israel in the family of nations.
Published: Saturday, August 16, 2014 8:22 PM
I don’t know another nation on earth which, since its founding, less than seventy years ago, had to sacrifice 23,000 soldiers.
I don’t know another nation on earth without recognized borders.
I don’t know another nation on earth whose population lives under a perpetual emotional strain.
I don’t know another nation on earth threatened to be wiped off the map.
I don’t know another nation on earth so threatened by boycotts all over the world.
I don’t know another nation on earth where winners tend to lose wars.
I don’t know another nation on earth which provides its own enemy with water, electricity, food, weapons, and medical treatment.
I don’t know another nation on earth where guests on official visits utter disrespectful and offensive words.
But I also don’t know another nation on earth which has recorded so many miracles. Imagine a helpless, naked Jew at the gas ovens facing a Nazi official, who thinks he will get rid of the “Jewish cancer”, get rid of this unique phenomenon of 2,000 years.
Could that helpless, naked Jew imagine that in 50 years other Jews will be flying F-16’s in the skies over Israel?
Could that helpless Jew imagine that Israel’s population today would be nine times that of 1948, the year of the state’s creation?
Could that helpless Jew imagine that Israel is much happier than all the European countries?
Could that helpless Jew imagine that Israel has the highest production of scientific publications per capita in the world?
Could that helpless Jew imagine that Israel has the highest worldwide publication of new books?
Could that helpless Jew imagine that Israel is the only nation which began the XXI century with a net gain in the number of trees?
Could that helpless Jew imagine that Israel has with largest number of chess grand masters per capita of any city in the world?
Could that helpless Jew imagine that Israel is the nation whose academics produce more scientific papers per capita than anywhere else in the world?
Could that helpless Jew imagine that Israel is the nation with the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world?
Could that helpless Jew imagine that Israel is the country which, in proportion to its population, with the largest number of start up companies in the world?
Could that helpless Jew imagine that Israel is the country with the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita?
Could that helpless Jew imagine that Israel is the nation with the largest immigrant-absorbing model on earth?
Unfortunately, you will not find Israel’s goodness and superiority in the media (also Israeli), because it doesn’t fit in with the stereotype of the colonialist Zionist occupier. In the world’s consciousness, the word “Israel” must be equated with fear. Israel just came out of another war against terrorists whose value is less than that of animals.
Do you know of any animal species sheltering behind its own children?
But the Jewish State, despite its media, its cynical politicians, once again showed the world it is the best humanity has to offer. This hope is impressed in the faces of Israel’s fallen soldiers, its wounded and injured soldiers. In those faces there is joy de vivre, not sadness or hatred.
Terrorists and their Western appeasers want to destroy Israel because it is a light unto the nations. The only one in the world in which we live.
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6) Global Currency War 'Certainly Happening."
By Dan Weil
7) Did Fatah call for assassinationYou can add star investor Jim Rogers to the list of those who see a currency war raging around the world.
Many central banks outside of the Federal Reserve, including the Bank of Japan and European Central Bank, are engaged in major easing programs to boost their economies and depress their currencies.
"Whether it’s an intentional war or an accidental war or side effect, I don’t know, but it’s certainly happening," Rogers told Wall St. Daily. "Just look around, you see that nearly every currency in the world is down a lot against the U.S. dollar, except the Chinese renminbi."
The dollar hit a seven-year high against the yen and a two-year high against the euro last week.
"I don’t know if somebody sat around and plotted, 'Let’s have a currency war,'" Rogers explained. “They just said, 'What we need to do is print a lot of money,' without realizing it’s going to cause currency fluctuations."
That's pushing investors into dollars, including Rogers, despite the fact that he has "no confidence in the U.S. dollar long term."
When it comes to stocks, with major U.S. indices hitting record highs as recently as last Friday and many foreign markets far from their all-time peaks, Rogers prefers markets overseas.
The dollar's strength could represent a problem, says Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz.
"The problem is that exchange-rate shifts now represent the only mechanism for reconciliation, and the divide between certain market valuations and their fundamentals has become so large that prices are vulnerable to bouts of volatility," he writes on Project Syndicate.
"As it becomes increasingly difficult for currency markets to perform the role of orderly reconcilers, friction may arise among countries."
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of Israeli minister?
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
Fatah's military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, publicized a call "to respond in kind" to what they called the "assassination of [PA] Minister Ziad Abu Ein." Calling to "respond in kind" to what Fatah calls an "assassination" of a Palestinian minister could be interpreted as a call to assassinate an Israeli minister.
Abu Ein collapsed and died of a heart attack during a demonstration against Israel last week. The Israeli coroner reported he died of a "stress-induced heart attack" while the Palestinian coroner said the heart attack "was caused by injury" a few minutes after a heated exchange with an Israeli soldier, in which the soldier had grabbed his neck.
Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the Palestinian Authority political establishment has decided to call his death "murder."
Fatah's military wing released this statement yesterday calling to "respond in kind":
"Fatah's military wing, the Al-Aqsa [Martyrs'] Brigades, called on its members in the West Bank to respond to the assassination of MinisterZiad Abu Ein.
In a statement, it said: 'We call on the Al-Aqsa Brigades in the West Bankto respond in kind to the cowardly assassination crime,' noting thatPalestine would be liberated through the barrel of the rifle.
In addition, it demanded the cessation of all security cooperation with this treacherous enemy, and called on the masses of the Palestinian people to expand the Intifada and the resistance to the occupation."
[Ma'an (independent Palestinian news agency) Dec. 10, 2014]
These kinds of threats must be taken seriously. When Israel killed terrorist leader Abu Ali Mustifa, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) during the PA terror campaign in August of 2001, there were immediate calls for revenge. Abu Ali Talal, an executive committee member of the PFLP, said: "Our response will be harsh," and activists in the PFLPs military wing "swore to commit surprising and painful revenge attacks against the Zionists." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Aug. 29, 2001]. Two months later, Israeli Minister Rehavam Zeevi was murdered by the PFLP as he walked to a hotel room in Jerusalem. Ahmad Sa'adat, the leader of the PFLP who replaced Ali Mustafa and planned the killing, admitted it was a revenge murder:
"The assassination of Zeevi is in response to the killing by Israel of the Director General of the PFLP, Abu Ali Mustifa."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 31, 2001]
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