End Wars Quickly - Allow The Military Not Politicians To Fight Them. Ignore Obama and Drive Him Nuts! Europe Fragmenting!

Obama cannot bring himself to find the proper word(s) to identify them as Islamist Terrorists (See 6 below.)
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Sent to me by my friend and fellow memo reader from his friend Greg Govan who was the former Defense attache to Russia.

Thucydides is one of the required readings at St John's College , The Great Books College on whose board I served for 8 years.

This is why the military should be allowed to fight wars not politicians because the sooner the war  won the greater the public support which allows the military to win.(See 1 below.)
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I posted this before but it was sent to me by a good friend, fellow memo reader and my former tennis pro and is worth re-posting. (See 2 below.)
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Stratfor's George Friedman, on the fragmentation of Europe.  (See 3 below.)
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 Some terrorist(s) is/are playing with fire and will get burned. (See 4 below.)
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Ignore the narcissist and drive him nuts! He is not worth paying attention to.  Doing so only strengthens his ego.(See 5 below.)
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Those who are against Israel's existence, which is a subtle way of expressing anti-Semitism, I thought this worth posting.

And so it goes:https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1421914688&feature=player_embedded&v=rpGPzoaNVCU&x-yt-cl=84503534
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The Democrat Party under and because of  Obama has allowed a certain degree of poison to seep into  its core thinking.

Yes, money talks in politics as it does in other aspects of a Capitalistic World.  Some times it become corrupting and sometime it  simply provides an opportunity to express and inform.

AIPAC lobbies to continue and strengthen the unique relationship between America and Israel.  Were it not for Truman, there would be no Israel. Were it not for Israel, America would not have a strong and democratic friend in The Middle East. The above video tells it like it is.  Yes, in a raised voice angered by hypocrisy but you cannot deny its factual content.

That is what distinguishes America from the animalistic  and uncivilized behaviour of Arab and Muslim countries towards, not only their own peoples, but peoples everywhere.  Until Arabs and Muslims speak out against their own who believe killing and  beheading those they disagree with is not insane, I am not buying the argument  I should feel compassion for their silence. (See 6 below.)
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Dick
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1)"Think, too, of the great part that is played by the unpredictable in war:  think of it now before you are actually committed to war.  The longer a war lasts, the more things tend to depend on accidents.  Neither you nor we can see into them:  we have to abide their outcome in the dark.  And when people are entering upon a war they do things the wrong way round.  Action comes first, and it is only when they have already suffered that they begin to think."

— Thucydides, c. 460 – c. 395 BCE, Athenian historian, political philosopher and soldier; writing in The Peloponnesian War, Book One, Chapter Six.

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2)1.The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country and can read, reason and think for themselves.

   2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

   3.The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country, and who are very good at

    crossword puzzles

   4 USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times.  They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts

   5.The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.

  6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a poor job of it, thank you very much.

  7.The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

  8.The New York Post is read by people who don’t care who are running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

  9.The Chicago Tribune is read by people that are in prison that used to run the state,& would like to do so again, as would their constituents that are currently free on bail.

 10.The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country, but need the baseball scores.

 11.The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for.  There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are gay, handicapped, minority, feminist, atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans.

 12.The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

 13.The Seattle Times is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something to wrap it in.

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3) The New Drivers of Europe's Geopolitics

By George Friedman

For the past two weeks, I have focused on the growing fragmentation of Europe. Two weeks ago, the murders in Paris prompted me to write about the fault line between Europe and the Islamic world. Last week, I wrote about the nationalism that is rising in individual European countries after the European Central Bank was forced to allow national banks to participate in quantitative easing so European nations wouldn't be forced to bear the debt of other nations. I am focusing on fragmentation partly because it is happening before our eyes, partly because Stratfor has been forecasting this for a long time and partly because my new book on the fragmentation of Europe — Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe — is being released today.

This is the week to speak of the political and social fragmentation within European nations and its impact on Europe as a whole. The coalition of the Radical Left party, known as Syriza, has scored a major victory in Greece. Now the party is forming a ruling coalition and overwhelming the traditional mainstream parties. It is drawing along other left-wing and right-wing parties that are united only in their resistance to the EU's insistence that austerity is the solution to the ongoing economic crisis that began in 2008.

Two Versions of the Same Tale

The story is well known. The financial crisis of 2008, which began as a mortgage default issue in the United States, created a sovereign debt crisis in Europe. Some European countries were unable to make payment on bonds, and this threatened the European banking system. There had to be some sort of state intervention, but there was a fundamental disagreement about what problem had to be solved. Broadly speaking, there were two narratives.

The German version, and the one that became the conventional view in Europe, is that the sovereign debt crisis is the result of irresponsible social policies in Greece, the country with the greatest debt problem. These troublesome policies included early retirement for government workers, excessive unemployment benefits and so on. Politicians had bought votes by squandering resources on social programs the country couldn't afford, did not rigorously collect taxes and failed to promote hard work and industriousness. Therefore, the crisis that was threatening the banking system was rooted in the irresponsibility of the debtors.

Another version, hardly heard in the early days but far more credible today, is that the crisis is the result of Germany's irresponsibility. Germany, the fourth-largest economy in the world, exports the equivalent of about 50 percent of its gross domestic product because German consumers cannot support its oversized industrial output. The result is that Germany survives on an export surge. For Germany, the European Union — with its free-trade zone, the euro and regulations in Brussels — is a means for maintaining exports. The loans German banks made to countries such as Greece after 2009 were designed to maintain demand for its exports. The Germans knew the debts could not be repaid, but they wanted to kick the can down the road and avoid dealing with the fact that their export addiction could not be maintained.

If you accept the German narrative, then the policies that must be followed are the ones that would force Greece to clean up its act. That means continuing to impose austerity on the Greeks. If the Greek narrative is correct, than the problem is with Germany. To end the crisis, Germany would have to curb its appetite for exports and shift Europe's rules on trade, the valuation of the euro and regulation from Brussels while living within its means. This would mean reducing its exports to the free-trade zone that has an industry incapable of competing with Germany's.

The German narrative has been overwhelmingly accepted, and the Greek version has hardly been heard. I describe what happened when austerity was imposed in Flashpoints:

But the impact on Greece of government cuts was far greater than expected. Like many European countries, the Greeks ran many economic activities, including medicine and other essential services, through the state, making physicians and other health care professionals government employees. When cuts were made in public sector pay and employment, it deeply affected the professional and middle classes.
Over the course of several years, unemployment in Greece rose to over 25 percent. This was higher than unemployment in the United States during the Depression. Some said that Greece's black economy was making up the difference and things weren't that bad. That was true to some extent but not nearly as much as people thought, since the black economy was simply an extension of the rest of the economy, and business was bad everywhere. In fact the situation was worse than it appeared to be, since there were many government workers who were still employed but had had their wages cut drastically, many by as much as two-thirds.
The Greek story was repeated in Spain and, to a somewhat lesser extent, in Portugal, southern France and southern Italy. Mediterranean Europe had entered the European Union with the expectation that membership would raise its living standards to the level of northern Europe. The sovereign debt crisis hit them particularly hard because in the free trade zone, this region had found it difficult to develop its economies, as it would have normally. Therefore the first economic crisis devastated them.

Regardless of which version you believe to be true, there is one thing that is certain: Greece was put in an impossible position when it agreed to a debt repayment plan that its economy could not support. These plans plunged it into a depression it still has not recovered from — and the problems have spread to other parts of Europe.

Seeds of Discontent

There was a deep belief in the European Union and beyond that the nations adhering to Europe's rules would, in due course, recover. Europe's mainstream political parties supported the European Union and its policies, and they were elected and re-elected. There was a general feeling that economic dysfunction would pass. But it is 2015 now, the situation has not gotten better and there are growing movements in many countries that are opposed to continuing with austerity. The sense that Europe is shifting was visible in the European Central Bank's decision last week to ease austerity by increasing liquidity in the system. In my view, this is too little too late; although quantitative easing might work for a recession, Southern Europe is in a depression. This is not merely a word. It means that the infrastructure of businesses that are able to utilize the money has been smashed, and therefore, quantitative easing's impact on unemployment will be limited. It takes a generation to recover from a depression. Interestingly, the European Central Bank excluded Greece from the quantitative easing program, saying the country is far too exposed to debt to allow the risk of its central bank lending.

Virtually every European country has developed growing movements that oppose the European Union and its policies. Most of these are on the right of the political spectrum. This means that in addition to their economic grievances, they want to regain control of their borders to limit immigration. Opposition movements have also emerged from the left — Podemos in Spain, for instance, and of course, Syriza in Greece. The left has the same grievances as the right, save for the racial overtones. But what is important is this: Greece has been seen as the outlier, but it is in fact the leading edge of the European crisis. It was the first to face default, the first to impose austerity, the first to experience the brutal weight that resulted and now it is the first to elect a government that pledges to end austerity. Left or right, these parties are threatening Europe's traditional parties, which the middle and lower class see as being complicit with Germany in creating the austerity regime.

Syriza has moderated its position on the European Union, as parties are wont to moderate during an election. But its position is that it will negotiate a new program of Greek debt repayments to its European lenders, one that will relieve the burden on the Greeks. There is reason to believe that it might succeed. The Germans don't care if Greece pulls out of the euro. Germany is, however, terrified that the political movements that are afoot will end or inhibit Europe's free-trade zone. Right-wing parties' goal of limiting the cross-border movement of workers already represents an open demand for an end to the free-trade zone for labor. But Germany, the export addict, needs the free-trade zone badly.

This is one of the points that people miss. They are concerned that countries will withdraw from the euro. As Hungary showed when the forint's decline put its citizens in danger of defaulting on mortgages, a nation-state has the power to protect its citizens from debt if it wishes to do so. The Greeks, inside or outside the eurozone, can also exercise this power. In addition to being unable to repay their debt structurally, they cannot afford to repay it politically. The parties that supported austerity in Greece were crushed. The mainstream parties in other European countries saw what happened in Greece and are aware of the rising force of Euroskepticism in their own countries. The ability of these parties to comply with these burdens is dependent on the voters, and their political base is dissolving. Rational politicians are not dismissing Syriza as an outrider.

The issue then is not the euro. Instead, the first real issue is the effect of structured or unstructured defaults on the European banking system and how the European Central Bank, committed to not making Germany liable for the debts of other countries, will handle that. The second, and more important, issue is now the future of the free-trade zone. Having open borders seemed like a good idea during prosperous times, but the fear of Islamist terrorism and the fear of Italians competing with Bulgarians for scarce jobs make those open borders less and less likely to endure. And if nations can erect walls for people, then why not erect walls for goods to protect their own industries and jobs? In the long run, protectionism hurts the economy, but Europe is dealing with many people who don't have a long run, have fallen from the professional classes and now worry about how they will feed their families.

For Germany, which depends on free access to Europe's markets to help prop up its export-dependent economy, the loss of the euro would be the loss of a tool for managing trade within and outside the eurozone. But the rise of protectionism in Europe would be a calamity. The German economy would stagger without those exports.

From my point of view, the argument about austerity is over. The European Central Bank ended the austerity regime half-heartedly last week, and the Syriza victory sent an earthquake through Europe's political system, although the Eurocratic elite will dismiss it as an outlier. If Europe's defaults — structured or unstructured — surge as a result, the question of the euro becomes an interesting but non-critical issue. What will become the issue, and what is already becoming the issue, is free trade. That is the core of the European concept, and that is the next issue on the agenda as the German narrative loses credibility and the Greek narrative replaces it as the conventional wisdom.

It is not hard to imagine the disaster that would ensue if the United States were to export 50 percent of its GDP, and half of it went to Canada and Mexico. A free-trade zone in which the giant pivot is not a net importer can't work. And that is exactly the situation in Europe. Its pivot is Germany, but rather than serving as the engine of growth by being an importer, it became the world's fourth-largest national economy by exporting half its GDP. That can't possibly be sustainable.

Possible Seismic Changes Ahead

There are then three drivers in Europe now. One is the desire to control borders — nominally to control Islamist terrorists but truthfully to limit the movement of all labor, Muslims included. Second, there is the empowerment of the nation-states in Europe by the European Central Bank, which is making its quantitative easing program run through national banks, which may only buy their own nation's debt. Third, there is the political base, which is dissolving under Europe's feet.

The question about Europe now is not whether it can retain its current form, but how radically that form will change. And the most daunting question is whether Europe, unable to maintain its union, will see a return of nationalism and its possible consequences. As I put it in Flashpoints:

The most important question in the world is whether conflict and war have actually been banished or whether this is merely an interlude, a seductive illusion. Europe is the single most prosperous region in the world. Its collective GDP is greater than that of the United States. It touches Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Another series of wars would change not only Europe, but the entire world. 

To even speak of war in Europe would have been preposterous a few years ago, and to many, it is preposterous today. But Ukraine is very much a part of Europe, as was Yugoslavia. Europeans' confidence that all this is behind them, the sense of European exceptionalism, may well be correct. But as Europe's institutions disintegrate, it is not too early to ask what comes next. History rarely provides the answer you expect — and certainly not the answer you hope for.

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4) Syrian Rockets Hit Israeli Golan

At least two rockets fired from Syria landed in the Golan Heights, prompting the IDF to return fire. No injuries or damages reported. According to the IDF, the rockets didn’t appear to be errant. The IDF hasn’t indicated who it holds responsible.

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5)  How to fight Obama (and Hillary Clinton)
By Ed Lasky
The strategy is a simple one: ignore Obama. He will respond in ways that will further damage the Democratic Party and the prospects of a Clinton presidency.

Conservative pundits have responded to Republican control of Congress by suggesting myriad ways to attack Obama and derail his agenda. These tactics range from the simple (power of the purse -- already exercised in the case of the IRS, for example) to the more procedural (subpoenas and more oversight to gum up his plans) to the more arcane -- use of the Congressional Review Act to prevent Obama from using regulations to fulfill his boast that he would “fundamentally transform America” (see GOP finds its secret weapon). But they are just that: tactics.

Strategies win wars; tactics are tools. So what should be the strategy going forward in dealing with Barack Obama?

Ignore him.

My friend and frequent American Thinker contributor, Herb Meyer, suggested at dinner one night that conservatives had to “smash the paradigm” when operating against Democrats. Since Herb worked closely with Ronald Reagan to bring about the downfall of the Soviet Union and its colonies in Eastern Europe, his wisdom is to be respected.

Conservatives should stop making-nice to Barack Obama. True, most presidents respond well to people showing respect for the office and cordiality to them personally. Manners can build relationships across the aisle and across ideologies. But, as Barack Obama is wont to remind us, he is not like most presidents. He relishes his role as an outsider. He “really does not like people” a close aide admitted and does not respect most Americans -- as if that were not obvious to any sentient observer of Obama over the years. He considers Republicans (“bomb-throwers and hostage takers”) beneath contempt and has trumpeted his ability to ignore them (“I have a pen and a phone”) and, for that matter, the priorities of the American people. Those priorities do not include his favorite ones: climate change, Obamacare, and surrender to our enemies.

Why work with him anyway? There is no triumph of hope over experience to be had. And his arsenal of executive powers is nearing its limits.

When Republicans have tried to deal with him he ambushes and humiliates them for the cameras (see Abuser-in-Chief); when Republicans reached a deal with him on taxes, entitlements and deficit-cutting, Obama pulled a fast one at the last minute and demanded huge increases in taxes. He simply is not trustworthy; when ideas he proposed turn out politically poisonous, he blames Republicans (there is a long list of examples that certainly includes his proposal for sequestration).

He and his henchman in the Senate , Harry Reid, abolished the filibuster (something they had sacralized when the Democrats were the minority party) in order to fill federal benches with liberals for life, making those so-called “moderate” Republicans who had compromised with Reid in the past (to avoid his pulling the trigger on the nuclear option) look naïve as best. Accommodation is a fool’s errand because expecting fairness from these Democrats (the ones who would weaponize the IRS) is obtuse.

Barack Obama, after all, is a man who says he brings a gun to a knife fight.  Does that sound like a man who can be trusted to play fairly or one that would cheat, lie and steal to win? (That was a rhetorical question.)

So Republicans would be wise not to waste their time in dealing with President Obama. It is a sucker’s game with a man who repeatedly sucker punches. He will, as John Podhoretz has written, act as a troll by ramping up his leftism to provoke Republicans into fits of embarrassing frenzy or bait them into doing something stupid that will damage them politically.

Instead, Republicans should not play his game. Smash the paradigm.

Check him when necessary, as the American people by the millions elected you to do.

Then just ignore him.

Presidents like to feel important; they revel in being players. Bill Clinton plaintively said back in 2005 when Republicans swept Congress that “The president is relevant here”; even Barack Obama expressed the same sense of helplessness – briefly -- in April 2013 when his agenda seemed to be going nowhere after the Republicans won control of the House.

Republicans should make the lame duck even more helpless by just saying no to suggestions that they should work with Barack Obama. He has shown no inclination to work with them.

Barack Obama is unmoored by reality, as shown by his State of the Union speech last week and his refusal to respectfully nod to the Republican sweep, as other president have gracefully done when their party went down to defeat (memo to Obama: here is a video that shows how presidents, in this case George W. Bush, displays such grace). He churlishly said after the massive midterm loss of the Democratic Party that he intended to represent the people who did not vote. He has not shown willingness to admit that this was his defeat nor respect the will of the voters. He will not pull a Bill Clinton and triangulate.

Perversely (and this is a word that can be used often when judging Barack Obama’s presidency) he seems determined to take the opposite tack and go full Bulworth as he said he would in his second term when voters no longer mattered.

To which Republicans should respond “Booyah!”  Game On!

Barack Obama will not react well to being sidelined. His ego will not tolerate being treated as a bit player. Given his fragile emotional state (anatomically he has both a glass jaw and thin skin) he will seethe and have more temper tantrums. He does not have a fine temperament and Republicans can use this character flaw to their benefit.

Republicans can show they will further the agenda of the American people. What the American people want is not unbridled liberalism but unleashed American talent. The person and party humiliated in the midterms were Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. The magnitude of their defeat across all levels of government across America was stunning (see Thank you, Mr. President). The people voted against liberal policies and therefore prospects of compromise that tilt in any way, shape or form in Obama’s way should be rejected.

What can Congress do?

They can pass budgets, carefully write and pass legislation that clearly delineates regulations-thereby depriving Obama of one source of his executive power; reject Obama’s nominees who do not pass muster; vote down treaties that do not serve America’s interests.

One factor that has been helping Obama’s popularity of late:  gasoline prices. He has had absolutely nothing to do with that and hectored us that we could not drill ourselves to $2 a gallon gasoline (wrong again! any one keeping count?). Republicans should not let him get away claiming this success was his success.  Cheap gas is a Republican triumph that was a victory despite of Barack Obama.

Conservatives should point out how he has acted in ways to deprive America of cheap gas (closing off federal lands to exploration -- as he did just days after boasting about gasoline prices; killing Keystone; slowing permits) but they should also realize how politically important is cheap gas. It is a daily picker-upper. Dealing with national debt, deficits, and the like are too abstract and distant to have widespread political appeal.

Cheap gas benefits everyone -- except Obama’s green scheme cronies and donors. Every gas sign is a billboard that favors whatever party or politicians that can claim credit.  Republicans should seize that ground, rightfully theirs.

What else can Republicans do that will meet with favor?

One idea would be to push for unbundling of cable services. Every month customers get inflated bills because they are forced to purchase packages for coverage they do not like or want (reminiscent of ObamaCare). Cable companies are very unpopular for a reason. Republicans should tackle this topic with gusto since Comcast (owner of MSNBC and NBC, two the most Obama-besotted media outlets) so clearly are allied to the Democratic Party and run one of the most sophisticated lobbying operations in Washington. Brian Roberts, who heads Comcast, and his team of execs are huge bundlers for Obama and other Democrats. Roberts golfs with Obama on Martha’s Vineyard and hosts parties for Obama on his island estate.  Republicans should be in the forefront of forcing cable companies to heel to the will of the American people. That would be a symbolic action in more ways than one.

So would push for tax reform, and the most beneficial move the Republicans could make is to simplify taxes so tax returns could fit on one page, as one of my favorite Republicans, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, proposed years ago when he was in Congress. 

Obama will tack further to the left and veto bill after bill.  He will become the bitter clinger. He will gather some Democrats to support those actions.  Americans will finally realize which party couldn’t care less about their priorities.  Every Democrat who votes to support Obama will pay a price -- just as they did in 2014, when those votes show up in political ads.

Republicans should welcome this coming conflict. Obama is and always was a man of the far left, and now that he no longer will run for office he can vent his spleen all he wants and keep using whatever power he still has to push his agenda. Should he and his minions support further street protests, they will backfire. Did Occupy Wall Street and the Ferguson riots help the Democrats or hurt them?  Last November 4th is the answer.  His policies lost the Democrats the vital center of American politics and Middle America, the hoi polloi, the people of flyover country, the bitter clingers who finally came to their senses.

Since he is still the leader of the Democratic Party his moves will further tarnish his fellow Democrats.  The Democrats have shifted to the left over time anyway; Barack Obama and his big donor base (unions, gentry liberals, leftist billionaires, Hollywood celebrities) has accelerated this trend. Ronald Reagan’s declaration that, “the Democratic Party left him” now rings true for millions of people.

Senator Elizabeth Warren is now a viable candidate for the party’s presidential nomination and her momentum is having ramifications.  Her increasingly populist rhetoric is forcing Hillary Clinton to become more vocal with her own leftward inclinations (Saul Alinsky was her mentor, too) to win the primary. Videos of her lecturing Americans to “empathize with enemies” and this “You Didn’t Build That”-like gem

“Don’t let anybody tell you that it's corporations and businesses that create jobs. You know that old theory, trickle-down economics. That has been tried; that has failed. It has failed rather spectacularly,"

exemplify her latest metamorphosis and will haunt her presidential run.

So Republicans should invoke the KISS principle: Keep it simple, stupid.

Check Obama when necessary, pass policies the majority of Americans want, but otherwise ignore Obama.

It will drive him nuts.

Booyah!

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6)"It seems that President Obama and Congressman Yarmuth live in some parallel universe where any support for the state of Israel is the result of "donors" or "fundraising" and not genuine concern and support for Israel and its security. Despite the tradition of bipartisan support for Israel in Congress, these troubling episodes are occurring more and more frequently from Democrats, including the President. No wonder the GOP continues to make inroads with the Jewish community, increasing Republican support in 6 of the last 7 elections. If Democrats want to continue to be taken seriously by American Jews they should condemn these outrageous remarks."
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