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Naturally Iran does not want any further pressure placed on it with more sanctions and this is the best sign the Senate is correct. After all, sanctions got them to the table.
If Obama's approval rating is going up because gas prices are going down then Professor Gruber is correct - Americans really are beyond stupid.
In the last few days Schlumberger and Baker Hughes have announced they are cutting employment by 16,000. These are high paying, technical jobs and there will be more to come. (See 1 and 1a below.)
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Is ISIS Ready to Attack Lebanon? (See 2 below.)
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And then there is Pat Condell on Islam which has nothing to do with religion :http://youtu.be/N46mIHEGHN0
Finally, See 3 below and ask is this all true! You decide!
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Went out to dinner this evening and did not catch Obama's SOTU until the last few minutes driving home. Did catch Sen. Joni Ernst's brief response.
Obama apparently spoke for an hour and is the smug face of the Democrat Party and Joni Ernst spoke for 8 minutes and is the beautiful new face of the Republican Party.
Even had I been home I suspect I would not have listened to Obama's SOTU because he bores me, after a nice meal I did not want to subject my stomach to the sound of his voice and I find him totally disingenuous.
I do remember listening to Truman whose speaking style and mannerisms were hackneyed and those thick eye glasses accentuated his rather bland face but I still wanted to hear what he had to say because he was "Plain Speaking Harry" and I felt so good about him. I believed in him and thought he was an honest man who did his very best. I could relate to Harry but he was everyone's common man.
Obama is someone I cannot relate to on any level.
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Dick
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1)
Iran Agrees With Obama: Don’t Pressure Us.
Last Friday, President Obama and British Prime Minister Cameron appealed to Congress at a joint press conference to back off on plans for more sanctions on Iran. It’s not clear whether any but the most fervent Obama loyalists were listening to their pleas but there was one party that heartily endorsed their position: Iran.As Agence France Presse noted,Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Zarif said on Saturday night that the talks would succeed if only the “Western countries” would “stop with the pressure” on the Islamist regime. That quote would be considered comical if it didn’t seem to dovetail so nicely with the president’s approach, which seems to prioritize the illusory chances for détente with Tehran while seeking to prevent Congress from strengthening his hands in the negotiations.
Fortunately, the Senate doesn’t appear to be listening to the president’s warnings or Zarif. A bipartisan bill proposing new sanctions on Iran sponsored by Senators Mark Kirk and Robert Menendez has already been drafted (the text can be read here) and will be submitted to the Senate Banking Committee. The key point to remember about this proposal is that the bill doesn’t immediately impose increased sanctions but rather holds them in abeyance until after the current talks fail. All they would do then is to remind Iran of the consequences of their failure to negotiate a deal that even Obama could accept.
Why, then, is the president opposing a measure that would only make an outcome that he supports more rather than less likely? The only answer is that he genuinely seems to fear ruffling the feathers of Iran’s Islamist dictators. Though his rhetoric on Iran’s nuclear threat was always exemplary, he has discarded the tough talk that characterized his statements about the issue when he was running for reelection in 2012 when he vowed that any deal would result in the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program. That went out the window with the interim nuclear deal signed in November 2013 when the West tacitly recognized Iran’s “right” to enrich uranium and allowed its infrastructure and stockpile to stay in place. That agreement was supposed to be followed by a strictly limited six months of talks, but they have since been extended twice with no end in sight. Yet even now, a year after he successfully persuaded Congress (with the help of former Majority Leader Harry Reid who buried an earlier Kirk-Menendez sanctions bill despite the support of a veto-proof majority of both houses), Obama is still singing the same tired tune about not alienating the Iranians and Western allies who are uncomfortable with more sanctions.
But since the president’s goal appears to be a warming of relations with Iran, he thinks anything that pushes them too hard will make it more difficult to conclude even another weak deal. This talk about offending the sensitive feelings of the ayatollahs rings false. As the Washington Post noted in an editorial endorsing more sanctions, the president’s pleas for more patience with the Islamist regime comes not only after the Iranians announced the construction of two new nuclear plants but also after the regime sent the case of Post Tehran bureau chief Jason Rezaiain to a Revolutionary Court for “processing” on some bogus charges that have yet to be announced. Rezaiain has been imprisoned for six months. But as the Post correctly notes, if this unjust treatment of an American citizen is not considered enough of a provocation for Washington to cut off talks with Tehran, then it is impossible to credibly argue that a proposal for potential sanctions would make an agreement impossible.
Nor is there any weight to the argument that the president can always ask for more sanctions if the talks fail.
First, given his decision to keep extending the talks despite his pledges not to do so, there seems little chance that he will ever concede failure and respond appropriately to the Iranian refusal to give up their nuclear ambitions. It should also be noted that despite the president’s boasting of having imposed the sanctions on Iran that brought them to the table, the Obama administration has consistently opposed proposals for restrictions on doing business with the Islamist regime including the ones that are now in place.
So long as this president is more concerned with the illusory chance to, as he stated last month, “let Iran get right with the world” than with preventing them from becoming, at best, a threshold nuclear power, Tehran knows he will never pressure them in a way that will convince them that the West can’t be waited out. Until Zarif starts fearing pressure rather than endorsing Obama’s opposition to it, the Iranian threat won’t be defused. That’s why Congress must act now. Menendez stood up and challenged the president on Iran policy in a meeting with Democratic senators last week. With veto-proof majorities for more sanctions ready to vote for it, the rest of the Senate should show the same courage. The Kirk-Menendez bill should be passed as soon as possible.
1a) Congress Moves Against Obama on New Iran Sanctions
The White House and Senate are headed into a battle over whether to increase pressure on Iran. Lawmakers have completed a new bipartisan bill on Iran sanctions and the Senate intends to vote on it well before President Barack Obama's team finishes the current round of international nuclear negotiations.
Secretary of State John Kerry is in Geneva today meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Jawad Zarif to push toward a comprehensive nuclear deal by the June 30 deadline, a cutoff that has now been extended a second and perhaps final time. The pressure is on and will only increase in the coming weeks, because Congress is set to insert itself into the debate whether the White House likes it or not.
The final language for the updated Iran sanctions bill by Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Robert Menendez was agreed on this week, according to several lawmakers and senior staffers in both parties. The bill, which both senators want to pass as soon as possible, would impose several escalating rounds of increased sanctions on the Iranian economy that would begin on June 30 -- but only if Iran fails to sign on the dotted line of any negotiated agreement or fails to live up to whatever it stipulates.
The Obama team has made it clear they oppose Congress voting on a new law before the negotiations are complete, even though the actual sanctions implementation would be delayed. The new Republican Senate leadership, however, is committed to moving forward, setting up a political brawl that could peak just as the negotiations enter their crucial final stages.
“I don’t think the administration really would like for Congress to weigh in in any regard on any issue relating to foreign policy, but Congress will weigh in on this,” Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told me Tuesday. “In the very near future there will be a markup on a bill that will give the Congress the ability to weigh in.”
In addition to the Kirk-Menendez bill, Corker is preparing his own legislation that would mandate that the Senate vote on a joint resolution of disapproval of any final nuclear deal with Iran. He feels this is necessary in case the White House decides not to designate any new Iran pact a "treaty," and thus avoid a ratification process in the Senate.
“It’s a bill that would allow Congress to have an up-or-down vote on any deal that’s finalized,” Corker said. “There are two tracks. They are parallel. They are different. We’ll assess what route to take.”
Negotiations are still taking place between Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats, as well as within the Senate Republican caucus, as to how the new Iran legislation drive will play out. But several staffers said that new Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is committed to moving the Kirk-Menendez bill to the floor in late February or early March, with the exact timing depending on how things play out in the Senate overall.
Minority Leader Harry Reid has not weighed in publicly on the matter. He will have to choose between obstructing the bill’s progress, as a favor to the White House, or acquiescing to the large majority of senators who want to move forward against the administration’s wishes, even inside his own party. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has also quietly been lobbying Reid to get behind the new sanctions drive, several senior Senate staffers said. Reid's office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Senator Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, told a meeting of Bloomberg reporters Tuesday that he favors moving forward with new sanctions legislation before the negotiations are complete. Many senators think the Iranians are using the long negotiations to change "conditions on the ground" to their advantage.
“I think you have to continue to maintain that pressure. And I worry that … the Iranian regime, they think that they’re scoring points, they’re getting momentum. They look at the international stage and frankly look a lot better maybe than they did months ago because they have been engaged in negotiations and dialogue,” Casey said. “So I worry that, over time, these sanctions, the current sanctions, have less significance.”
On the same day negotiations resumed in Geneva, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced that Iran would be expanding its nuclear infrastructure by building two new civilian nuclear energy plants at its Bushehr facility.
Casey also said he doesn’t buy the administration’s argument that a new sanctions bill in Washington could fracture the unity of the international coalition working to force Iran to make concessions in exchange for sanctions relief.
Some Republicans will be pushing for both the Kirk-Menendez and Corker bills to be moved through the Senate in one drive. Under this scenario, the Senate Banking Committee, under Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, would bring up the Kirk-Menendez bill and Corker would add his bill as an amendment. The whole package would then be sent to the floor.
“I think it’s going to be one bill, but we are going to need both," Senator James Risch, an Idaho Republican, told me. “Recent history tells us both are going to be needed badly.”
The banking committee will hold a hearing on Iran sanctions on Jan. 20.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain told me Tuesday that he wants to see the Corker bill moved first and separate from the Kirk-Menendez legislation. McCain thinks the Corker bill would be tougher for the administration to fight because it is simple and speaks to a clear principle, that the Senate have the prerogative to advise and consent on a major foreign policy deal.
“I want to see the requirement that [any nuclear deal with Iran] be treated as a treaty first, then worry about the additional sanctions,” McCain said. Also, he doesn’t want the Obama administration to be able to point to Congress as the spoiler if a final deal fails to materialize by the June 30 deadline.
The problem with McCain’s strategy is that the Corker bill, when it came up last year, got only Republican votes. Kirk and Menendez have been trying very hard to present the administration with a bipartisan front and craft legislation that can engender broad bipartisan (even veto-proof) support. Yet Corker’s bill risks alienating Democrats.
“Senators Menendez and Kirk are working together on text that is bipartisan and consistent with the Joint Plan of Action,” a framework reached in November 2013 between Iran and world powers, Menendez spokesman Adam Sharon told me. “The bill imposes no new sanctions and fully supports the continuation of negotiations through the P5+1’s self-imposed June 30th deadline, while spelling out in a logical, measured and clear manner what awaits Iran if negotiations fail.”
The Obama administration is never going to agree with Kirk and Menendez's assertion that their new bill helps rather than hurts the ongoing negotiations with Iran. Obama met with Congressional leaders Tuesday at the White House and told them point blank he was opposed to new sanctions legislation, even with the delay of implementation.
“The president also underscored the importance of our diplomatic efforts aimed at preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, reiterating his strong opposition to additional sanctions legislation that could derail the negotiations and isolate the United States from our international coalition,” the White House said in a read-out of the meeting.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power further explained the administration’s opposition Monday at an appearance with McConnell. “Some members of Congress believe that the time has come to ratchet up sanctions on Iran," she said. "We in the administration believe that, at this time, increasing sanctions would dramatically undermine our efforts to reach this shared goal.”
Power pledged that if the negotiations fail or if Iran does not live up to its obligations, the administration is ready to join lawmakers in the effort to increase the pressure, but that any legislation right now would be counterproductive. The Iranians routinely threaten that new sanctions legislation would tank the talks.
The administration has played a shell game with Congress over Iran sanctions for years now. Officials fight the sanctions bills until they become law, and then praise their effectiveness after the fact. Lawmakers, including Democrats such as Menendez, have lost trust in a White House they feel has not consulted them properly and has gone to great lengths to ensure they won’t have a veto over what most are certain will be a bad deal.
“The administration hasn’t consulted Congress properly on the Iran deal for a long time, so their concerns are falling on a lot of deaf ears here,” a senior Republican Senate aide told me. “A substantial majority of the senate has wanted to speak on this issue for a very long time and the majority leadership wants to facilitate that as soon as possible.”
The administration, on the other hand, thinks lawmakers just want to poison the negotiations. Its priority is to preserve the chance to make a historic deal that reinvents the U.S.-Iran relationship. If Kerry gets a deal, White House officials want to present it to their critics as a fait accompli. The question is whether they have enough allies left on Capitol Hill to fend off the majorities in both parties that insist on being a part of that history, whichever way it breaks.
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2) ISIS Massing to Attack Lebanon?
By Carol Malouf and Ruth Sherlock in Arsal
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant fighters in Syria, massed close to the Lebanese border, are threatening to launch attacks across it, the Telegraph has witnessed.
The group has been training new recruits and defectors from smaller rebel factions in Qalamoun, a militarily strategically important province in the south-west of Syria that borders Lebanon.
Several of those smaller rebel groupings, some aligned with the more moderate "Free Syrian Army", have capitulated to the jihadists in recent months with many of their fighters joining Isil.
The growth of the group in the area means Sunni Isil fighters in Syria are now at the edge of the Lebanese heartland of its Shia arch enemy Hizbollah, whose men are fighting alongside the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
“The moderate rebel groups on the border have collapsed, and their men have joined Isil,” said Ahmed Flity, the deputy mayor of Arsal, a Lebanese border town that has effectively been cut off from the rest of the country by security forces, because of the threat from jihadists in the area.
The black flag bearing the Isil logo was clearly visible fluttering only a few hundred yards from the lone Lebanese army checkpoint marking the border between Arsal and Syria when the Telegraph visited last week.
This was once the principal route for smuggling money and satellite phones to Syrian activists opposed to Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, and later to moderate rebel fighters. This newspaper watched the jihadists move with confidence around the rocky mountainous terrain.
They bought weapons and refuelled their trucks with black-market oil sold by smugglers who have set up shop in this no-man's land, far from the reach of any country's laws.
Abbas Ibrahim, the head of Lebanon’s General Security office, has estimated that as many as “700” fighters from less extreme groups have “pledged allegiance” to Isil, swelling its ranks to over 1000 men.
While Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Isil’s leader is not yet interested in seeking to takeover Lebanon, a source close to the jihadist group said, the group is plotting to target a string of Lebanese towns and villages on the country’s border that form a base of support for Hizbollah.
Isil flag in the centre of the Lebanese town of Arsal
Isil flag in the centre of the Lebanese town of Arsal
The jihadists are now the dominant force in the mountains that form a no-man’s land, just miles from these villages, where - sleeping in Bedouin tents - the group is training its new recruits.
To reach these areas, Isil would have to first attack Lebanese army posts on the border - including a series of watchtowers partly funded by the British Government that were built in an initiative to shelter Lebanon from the Syrian war.
Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s wing in Syria, whilst very active in the area, has not condoned targeting the Lebanese military, preferring to keep its fight with Hizbollah, a non-state actor, separate from the Lebanese state.
The differences have opened a dispute between the two groups.
“Now there are two plans for attacking Hezbollah,” the Nusra source in Arsal said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he did not have the authorisation of his emir - leader - to talk to the media.
Fighters from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) marching in Raqqa, Syria
Fighters from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) marching in Raqqa, Syria
“The first plan is to launch a full scale attack in Qalamoun in Syria. The second plan is to attack Hizbollah in its stronghold in Hermel and Bekaa inside Lebanon. Our emir, Sheikh Abu Malik disagrees with the second option."
A wholesale attack on the Lebanese villages and on Lebanese military checkpoints would upset a longstanding, informal non-aggression pact between Jabhat al-Nusra and the Lebanese military and officials in Arsal.
Many fighters in the Nusra Front are originally from the Qalamoun region. When the region was attacked in a joint military offensive by Hizbollah and the Syrian military last year, thousands of family members of the Nusra fighters fled across the border to Arsal.
Whilst checkpoints around the town have prevented the families from leaving the area and travelling deeper into Lebanon, Lebanese officials have, for the moment, tolerated their living as refugees in Arsal.
A Syrian refugee woman is seen in one of the refugee camps in Arsal
A Syrian refugee woman is seen in one of the refugee camps in Arsal
"Abu Malik fears that if Isil attacks Lebanese military posts, there will be a retaliation against our families here in Arsal," said the Nusra fighter.
A Lebanese military source confirmed the informal pact to the Telegraph.
The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, explained that, by the same token, the Lebanese army is not making incursions inside Arsal, for fear that arrests of Nusra members in the area would spark retaliatory attacks, as occurred last year.
Mr Flity said: "Nusra are not interested in attacking Lebanon. They say, don't attack us and we won't attack you."
Last August, when the Lebanese Army arrested Imad Ahmad Jomaa, an Islamist Syrian rebel commander, Nusra showed the limits of its patience. It joined Isil in retaliatory attacks against the army. Temporarily seizing control of Arsal, the groups kidnapped dozens of soldiers, 27 of whom are still being held by the groups.
In contrast to other parts of Syria where Isil and Nusra, though sharing a similar ideology, have become sworn rivals because of disputes between their leaders, on Lebanon’s border the two groups have, as was shown in August, remained cordial.
A reason for the working relationship between them is that Abu Malek al-Telli, Nusra’s leader in Qalamoun had a “personal relationship” with Isil emir Baghdadi even before the war, members of Nusra told the Telegraph.
After the attacks last year, through extensive negotiations, Nusra reinforced its informal ceasefire with the Lebanese military. It had, its fighters said, also succeeded in delaying Isil's attacks inside Lebanon.
But day by day, their power over Isil is weakening.
As Isil grows in numbers, Nusra is, by contrast, being crippled by a lack of funds from its backers.
Senior sources inside Nusra close to Lebanon, claimed that Qatar had been financing the group, but that it had stopped the operation last year because of a row with fellow Gulf states over the issue.
One local resident in Arsal who has dealing with both Isil and Nusra estimated that the former now has five times more followers than the latter.
The imbalance of power is causing increasing friction between the two factions.
In early December Isil's religious scholar Abu-Walid al-Maqdisi visited Qalamoun to persuade Abu Malek al-Telli, Nusra's commander, to vow allegiance to Isil.
"Abu Malik is a man of few words. He did not respond to the scholar's request: he just walked out of the meeting," the Nusra source recalled.
But despite Nusra's defiance, the group is increasingly incapable of defending its turf. Inside Arsal last week, fighters from Nusra were meeting arms dealers to sell their weapons.
"We are doing it because we need money to buy food for our families," one member told the Telegraph.
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3)Did you know that we now have a Muslim government?
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John Brennan, current head of the CIA, converted to Islam while stationed in Saudi Arabia.
Obama's top advisor, Valerie Jarrett, is a Muslim who was born in Iran where her parents still live.
Hillary Clinton's top advisor, Huma Abedin is a Muslim, whose mother and brother are involved in the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
Assistant Secretary for Policy Development for Homeland Security, Arif Aikhan, is a Muslim.
Homeland Security Advisor, Mohammed Elibiary, is a Muslim.
Obama advisor and founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Salam al-Marayati, is a Muslim.
Obama's Sharia Czar, Imam Mohamed Magid, of the Islamic Society of North America is a Muslim.
Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships, Eboo Patel, is a Muslim.
And last but not least, our closet Muslim himself, Barack Hussein Obama. It's questionable if Obama ever officially took the oath of office when he was sworn in. He didn't repeat the oath properly to defend our nation and our Constitution. Later the Democrats claimed he was given the oath again, in private.
CIA director John Brennan took his oath on a copy of the Constitution, not a Bible.
Congressman, Keith Ellison took his oath on a copy of the Qur'an.
Congresswoman Michele Bachman was vilified and almost tarred and feathered by Democrats when she voiced her concern about Muslims taking over our government.
Considering all these appointments, it would explain why Obama and his minions are systematically destroying our nation, supporting radical Muslim groups worldwide, opening our southern border, and turning a blind eye to the genocide being perpetrated on Christians all over Africa and the Middle East.
The more damage Obama does, the more arrogant he's become!
Our nation and our government have been infiltrated by people who want to destroy us. It can only get worse!
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