There are always two sides to every issue.
On the one hand there are those who rightfully can argue it was unwise for Netanyahu to diss Obama. First, because it can be seen as rude and second, Obama does not like to be crossed, holds grudges and will find a way to cause Netanyahu more pain.
The other side of the coin is that Netanyahu may not have handled the acceptance of the invitation well but he has every right to address America and the world about his legitimate concerns regarding Iran and that is far more important than the snit caused Obama and some of his staff.
There are bigger issues at stake and it takes a small person to focus on the smallness of things.
Obama is a petty person and has staffed it with his equals in that regard.
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In a more moral and principled world I suspect Tea Partyers would be more successful in achieving some of their more worthy goals.
The Tea Party concepts have been effectively demonized as was New Gingrich's "Contract With America" and Sarah Palin, among others.
In a less intense, more dispassionate and rational world Newt's ideas not only were relatively benign but, when read today, make a lot of sense and the same is true for Palin. She got destroyed by some of her wacky comments and the media and press who could easily do the same to Madam Pelosi were they so inclined but they would never destroy one of their precious own. (See 2 below.)
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New England Patriots and their deflated problem sponsored by CIALIS: http://youtu.be/vd3D2gsPUR0
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One of the quickest way to self-defeat is to engage in denial of the meaning of words.
In the case of Obama he may have a rational reason for doing so but if so he has failed to articulate it. Perhaps he intentionally does so in order to send a not so subtle signal he aligns himself with Muslims. You decide! (See 3 below.)
Another way to pursue self-defeat is to craft policies that send an unmistakable message you do not know what you are doing and which empirically fail time and again.
Nothing demonstrates this better than Obama's Middle East Policies. He seems never to learn from his mistakes. Again, you decide. (See 3a below.)
We were warned but did not pay attention because we did not believe he could be so bad and/or dangerous. (See 3b below.)
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Obama assisting in Netanyahu's defeat? (See 4 below.)
If Obama cannot defeat Bibi then does he make nice if he is re-elected? (See 4a below.)
Obama appeasement tentacles extend far and wide? (See 4b and 4c below.)
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Now for a little humor:
A public school teacher was arrested today at John F. Kennedy International airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a compass, a slide-rule and a calculator. At a morning press conference, Attorney General Eric Holder said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement.
He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.
'Al-Gebra is a problem for us', the Attorney General said. 'They derive solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in search of absolute values.' They use secret code names like "X" and "Y" and refer to themselves as "unknowns" but we have determined that they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philosopher Isosceles used to say, "There are 3 sides to every triangle."
When asked to comment on the arrest, President Obama said, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes." White House aides told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by the President. It is believed that another Nobel Prize will follow.
Blonde at the Super Bowl –
Of all the blonde jokes, this one has to be one of the best -- because it makes football make sense!
A guy took his blonde girlfriend to the Super Bowl game.
They had great seats right behind their team's bench.
After the game, he asked her how she liked it.
"Oh, I really liked it," she replied, "especially the tight pants and all the big muscles, but I just couldn't understand why they were killing each other over 25 cents."
Dumbfounded, her boyfriend asked, "What do you mean?"
"Well, they flipped a coin, one team got it and then for the rest of the game, all they kept screaming was...
'Get the quarterback! Get the quarterback!'
I'm like...Helloooooo? It's only 25 cents!"
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1) Netanyahu is Not Obama’s Problem, Just His Conscience
By Sherwin Pomerantz
Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution of the United States of America, referring to presidential powers and responsibilities, states:
“He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur ."
In a word the President does, indeed, have the power to negotiate an agreement with another country, in this case with Iran, on behalf of the United States. However, the Constitution makes it perfectly clear that any such agreements are subject to the advice and consent of the Senate of the United States which is defined as a 2/3 majority (i.e.67 of the 100 member body assuming everyone votes).
The Senate therefore, in coordination but not dependent upon, the House of Representatives, is carrying out its constitutional duty in letting the President know that it has serious reservations about the ongoing deliberations with Iran by the P5+1 of which the US is a member. How it chooses to let the President know this is an internal matter within the US and, of course, it would be better if this concern were resolved behind closed doors. But in the President’s State of the Union address last week he clearly stated that if the Congress passed legislation in favor of reinstating broad sanctions on Iran should the current talks fail, that he would veto such legislation. That left the Congress little choice but to do whatever it could to bolster its campaign to pass such legislation.
It was under this scenario that House Speaker John Boehner issued the invitation to Israel’s Prime Minister to address a joint session of congress, an invitation rarely issued to heads of state except in extraordinary circumstances. Speaker Boehner wanted to bring the world’s most outspoken critic of the negotiations to the floor of that chamber, who also happens to be the leader of the nation that runs the highest risk of devastation should Iran acquire nuclear weapons……Israel.
So, in effect, Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu are simply bit players in an internecine fight between a lame-duck president who believes he is beholden to no one and a Congress that correctly takes as its mandate that which was enshrined in the Constitution ratified in 1788.
President Obama may feel that inviting our Prime Minister to speak to a joint session of Congress is a slap in his face, as one pundit put it. But he himself had no qualms about asking British Prime Minister David Cameron last week to lobby congress against the Kirk-Menendez Bill as the sanctions legislation is known. Frankly, one of the strengths of US politics is that freedom of expression and urging people to vote one way or the other is a significant part of the democratic tradition and, of course, what’s good for the goose should be good for the gander.
I have many problems with our Prime Minister and the way he has or has not handled many of the socio-economic issues confronting Israel as we edge towards the mature age of 70. But when it comes to the security of this country, when it comes to understanding the ramifications of living 600 miles away from the capital of nuclear-capable country whose stated aim is to see us destroyed, and when it comes to letting the world know the risks of appeasement, there is no one else I’d rather see make that case. And, of course, Speaker John Boehner clearly feels the same.
This will be the third time that Prime Minister Netanyahu has been invited to address a joint session of Congress. The only other person to whom that honor has been accorded is Winston Churchill. Two of his pronouncements would be well to note:
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”
President Obama would do well to ponder those words which are as applicable today as they were 70 years ago when they were first uttered. We can only hope that these words will penetrate what can only be described as the arrogance of power.
1a)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, once slandered by an unnamed White House official as a “chickens***,” does not seem so timid anymore. The White House did not feel that it was especially necessary to even investigate who made those insulting comments in an interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, and they will almost certainly not investigate recent controversial statements made by another unnamed White House official. But they should. Whoever in the administration gave Haaretz their most recent set of quotes has cast this White House in a distinctly unflattering light.
1a)
Obama White House in meltdown over Netanyahu’s proposed speech to Congress
BY NOAH ROTHMAN
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, once slandered by an unnamed White House official as a “chickens***,” does not seem so timid anymore. The White House did not feel that it was especially necessary to even investigate who made those insulting comments in an interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, and they will almost certainly not investigate recent controversial statements made by another unnamed White House official. But they should. Whoever in the administration gave Haaretz their most recent set of quotes has cast this White House in a distinctly unflattering light.
Speaking to the center-left Israeli newspaper, one unnamed source said that congressional Republicans’ decision to invite Netanyahu to speak before an upcoming joint session was an affront to the dignity of the administration. When Netanyahu travels to the United States in March, he will not have the privilege of meeting with either President Barack Obama or Vice President Joe Biden. They will have their revenge against Netanyahu by completely yielding to him control of the national stage. That ought to show him.
According to Haaretz, one official says they have more ammunition to deploy against the leader of one of America’s strongest allies, and they intend to use it.
“We thought we’ve seen everything,” a senior American official said. “But Bibi managed to surprise even us. There are things you simply don’t do. He spat in our face publicly and that’s no way to behave. Netanyahu ought to remember that President Obama has a year and a half left to his presidency, and that there will be a price.” [emphasis added]
Someone in the White House has been watching far too many episodes of House of Cards and thought that the casual casting about of petty and impotent threats makes the issuer seem tough and appear in command. In fact, it just sounds juvenile.
It’s almost like the White House has no interest in reining in supposedly rogue elements within their ranks who are more than happy to provide the press with inflammatory quotes designed to sour the president’s bilateral relationship with Netanyahu’s government.
Who benefits from this quarrelsomeness? Surely, the administration, which has taken to governing for the left from the left, seems to think that it benefits from alienating America’s Israeli allies. But if Obama really wanted to hurt Netanyahu’s electoral prospects, he would embrace the Israeli leader. As of last year, 70 percent of Israelis said they had no confidence in Obama to safeguard their national interests. For most of the president’s first term, his approval rating in Israel was persistently stuck in the single digits. Netanyahu could only benefit domestically from being seen as a figure nobly standing opposed to the hostile administration temporarily occupying a historically friendly American government.
What’s more, Obama’s decision to sideline himself during an Israeli Prime Minister’s visit to Congress does not seem to be particularly well-considered. For the day, ascendant Republicans will take hold of the reins of American statecraft and foreign policy. Optically, congressional Republicans will be elevated to global statesmen and will assume equal footing with the President of the United States. Meanwhile, Obama and his aides will nurse their wounds behind closed doors in the West Wing. The contrast between the petulant White House and bold Republican majorities in Congress will be stark.
The administration does have a point when it protests this proposed visit to Congress by an Israeli leader facing an upcoming election. Republicans abandoned protocol when they invited Netanyahu to speak without consulting the administration first, and the claim that Republicans may be interfering in Israeli politics has merit. The White House’s decision to take this affront out on the Israeli prime minister is an odd one, though, and it underscores just how little control Obama now has over the affairs of state. Contrary to all the pageantry and bluster of a supposedly emboldened and uncompromising Obama, the president is still very much a lame duck. Actions speak far louder than State of the Union addresses.
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2) The Issue With The Tea Party , Mr. Speaker
By Jenny BethMartin
“The issue with the Tea Party isn’t one of strategy. It’s not one of different vision … It’s a disagreement over tactics, from time to time,” said Speaker of the House John Boehner, on 60 Minutes Sunday night.
More than a year ago, Speaker Boehner took serious offense when conservative groups criticized a budget deal he favored. They had “lost all credibility… I don’t care what they do.” So irrelevant is the Tea Party movement that the Speaker took to 60 Minutes to complain about its criticism of him Sunday night.
The Speaker trivializes the differences that led to the biggest intraparty rebellion against a sitting Speaker since the Civil War. His first problem isn’t with outside groups, it’s his own GOP colleagues in the House. When one out of every ten takes the extraordinary step of standing before his colleagues and calling out the name of someone else for his job, he should realize he’s got a problem.
As for us, our opposition to his leadership centers on our belief that we do NOT, in fact, share visions and strategies.
For example, we oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants because we believe it would not be fair to the millions waiting in line to get into America legally, nor to the millions who already arrived legally after waiting in line. Amnesty rewards lawbreaking, and only serves to incentivize further lawbreakers..
The Speaker, on the other hand, dances to the tune of the Chamber of Commerce, whose members and supporters want cheaper labor, and are, consequently, major proponents of the kind of comprehensive amnesty legislation that passed the Senate in 2013 and which the Speaker clearly wanted to put on the floor of the House last year before Dave Brat’s stunning upset of the former Majority Leader put the kibosh on those plans.
Moreover, we seek a federal government that is actually smaller than the one we have now, not merely one that is smaller than the one Barack Obama would prefer. We note with disdain the Speaker’s willingness to sign off on budget and debt ceiling increase “deals” that appear to have been negotiated by Popeye’s J. Wellington Wimpy — he will gladly give the president a spending/debt ceiling increase now, in exchange for the promise of spending cuts to come Tuesday. And when Tuesday arrives, somehow the spending cuts never materialize.
Similarly, we seek the repeal of Obamacare because we believe it tramples the fundamental liberties guaranteed us by our Constitution, destroys patient choice, degrades the quality of health care delivered, increases costs, and will ultimately break the bank. The Speaker, on the other hand, seems perfectly content to tinker at the margins (1099 repeal? Medical device tax repeal?) secure in the knowledge that many of his major funders — the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies who support Obamacare because of its mandates, which lead to a massively growing client base, and, hence, increased profits — don’t actually want him to fight to repeal the legislation.
Here’s a test of the Speaker’s assertion that our differences are merely differences in degree, not kind: Why has he refused to lead his GOP Conference to vote in favor of the bill introduced by his colleague Ron DeSantis of Florida, which seeks to overturn the August 2013 OPM ruling granting generous employer subsidies to Members of Congress and their staffs for the purchase of health insurance through the Obamacare exchanges, in clear violation of the law? That legislation is a fundamental part of a strategy designed to raise the temperature inside the offices of the Democrat Members of Congress whose votes are needed to build the necessary majorities for repeal in both House and Senate; yet, given multiple opportunities to put the bill on the floor, he has refused to do so.
Finally, I would note one other difference with the Speaker’s view, specifically regarding his assertion that the Tea Party’s opposition is manufactured for fundraising purposes: Every dollar we raise is contributed voluntarily, by donors whose only interest is seeking to influence their government to tax less, spend less, and stop running up a massive debt. They seek little from the government other than to be left alone, and we have nothing to offer them other than our promise that we will use the resources they contribute to do the best job we can to achieve our shared vision of greater personal freedom, economic freedom, and a debt-free future.
Contrast that with the Speaker, who raises tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from people who seek favors from government in the form of contracts, grants, tax loopholes, and the various assorted tricks of Washington’s trade. They don’t give contributions so much as they offer tribute, and they often seek specific government action, either to advantage themselves or to cripple their competition, using our hard-earned tax dollars to create these deals.
The Tea Party movement exists to hold elected officials accountable; in the last six years, this scrutiny has made a lot of politicians uncomfortable. Mr. Boehner takes issue with our tactics; we have concerns with a GOP leadership that has all too often cut deals with the administration based on empty promises. Fresh off historic midterm wins, the Speaker whipped votes with the president in December to get the government funded through 2015. This was weeks after the Speaker warned the president he could “get burned” if he enacted executive amnesty.
Forgive our skepticism.
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3) Obama and the Refusal to Call a Cat a Cat
In French, we have an expression: “Call a cat a cat.” Appeler un chat un chat. That is exactly what French Prime Minister Manuel Valls did after the horrific terrorist attacks that hit my country on Jan. 7, when he identified “radical Islam” as our enemy. In France, most rallied to this clear acknowledgment of the threat we are dealing with, because it is simply impossible to deny.
3) Obama and the Refusal to Call a Cat a Cat
For the French, it is almost surreal to see how the White House avoids using the phrase ‘radical Islam.’
By
In French, we have an expression: “Call a cat a cat.” Appeler un chat un chat. That is exactly what French Prime Minister Manuel Valls did after the horrific terrorist attacks that hit my country on Jan. 7, when he identified “radical Islam” as our enemy. In France, most rallied to this clear acknowledgment of the threat we are dealing with, because it is simply impossible to deny.
That is why it has sounded almost surreal when the Obama administration and many observers in the U.S., despite their heartening support for the French, go to great lengths to insist that the terrorist attack had nothing to do with Islam.
The intention is good: President Obama doesn’t want to mix Islamist terrorists and the wider community of Muslims around the world. He is trying to appeal to Muslims, to prevent them from feeling ostracized. More than ever, the world needs Muslims who wish to live in harmony with non-Muslims.
But ask Flemming Rose how the Obama approach sounds to someone who knows too well the Islamist threat. Mr. Rose, now the foreign editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, was its cultural editor in 2005 when he had an idea for a series of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad. Their publication sparked deadly protests in several countries and has made him a marked man. “There is something nearly Orwellian in this refusal to call things by their names,” Mr. Rose tells me. “If we say that the terrorists are not radical Islamists, we might as well say that truth is lie, that right is wrong, that black is white.”
To put a fig leaf over the threat doesn’t make the problem go away, and doesn’t help us understand that the radical Islamist attacks are precisely about the House of Islam and who can speak for it.
Joshua Mitchell, a professor of political philosophy at Georgetown University, says: “This is a battle about who is going to define Islam: the radical Islamists, who try to convince the world that someone can be assassinated if he dares draw a mocking cartoon representing the Prophet, or who ridicules fanatics of all sorts; or the democratically inclined Muslims who accept that religion cannot be an encompassing whole that dictates all the rules of everyday life in the earthly realm.”
By denying that this is about Islam, “President Obama does us a disservice, because doing so deprives the Muslim community of its responsibility to fight this radical monster,” says Muslim democrat Naser Khader, a former member of the Danish Parliament, now at the Hudson Institute in Washington. “By doing that, the West fails to understand that the Muslims will be the most crucial soldiers to fight this Islamic terrorism.” Mr. Khader calls for a revolution in Islam that would reinterpret the sacred texts in a way that is “compatible with modernity.”
The same self-deceiving approach seems to be affecting the debate about the limits of free speech. Anxious not to offend Muslims, many in America and in France distanced themselves from Charlie Hebdo after its post-attack publication of an issue showing Muhammad in tears, wearing an “I am Charlie” T-shirt and saying, “All is forgiven.” The drawing seems hardly disparaging, but it alarmed those who think silence is preferable to the risk of offending. A fellow French journalist confided to me: “We should establish some kind of self-censorship, because we don’t want that a cartoon published in France leads to the burning of churches in Niger.”
That kind of thinking could jeopardize freedom of speech itself. Will this hard-won freedom, so precious to the West, be sacrificed because a village imam in the Middle East or Africa incites people to violence during Friday prayer? Many in the West seem tempted to capitulate, in the name of “peace.” They are allowing themselves to believe that it is our fault if the churches burn. That is what the radicals are betting on.
Where will we draw limits? Will we also give in when radical Islamists say they are offended to see European women wearing bikinis or going to swimming pools while men are present? The latter question is already being raised in some French cities.
The answer will define our future. Americans have some difficulty understanding the depth of the European challenge. Given the marginal size of the Muslim community in the U.S., Americans are not confronted by the same questions or urgency. In France, as in much of Europe, these daunting challenges are rapidly becoming existential, despite the fact that we have been promoting different models of integration, some as in Great Britain or the Netherlands much closer to those in the U.S. Only if we are sure of the values worth defending will we be able to convince our Muslim compatriots to fight for France, its liberal order and magnificent heritage.
That heritage includes Voltaire, our most cherished satirist and polemist, Montaigne, Montesquieu, Tocqueville and innumerable others to whom, in times of crisis, we turn for comfort and wisdom. They enumerated many of the freedoms that the modern world enjoys; and in this dark moment their lessons are worth remembering.
In France, or anywhere Islamism is taking root, we must renew our commitment to teach and inspire young people, particularly in the disenfranchised French suburbs, by explaining the complexity and beauty of freedom and tolerance. We must teach them to distinguish between the realm of God and the realm of Caesar, a distinction that has been one of France’s great achievements.
We must also instill pride in the French flag and anthem, much as Americans do. Otherwise, our children will be left to face the unbearable lightness of a postmodern and consumerist void, which could open the way to the most dangerous ideological attempts to “re-enchant the world,” as the saying goes. In the 20th century, the re-enchantment movements that nearly brought down the West were called fascism, National Socialism and Communism. In the 21st century, the re-enchantment movement that threatens us—from within and without—is called radical Islam.
Mrs. Mandeville is the U.S. bureau chief for the French newspaper Le Figaro.
3a)Our Man in Damascus
The White House leaks that it is tilting toward Assad and Iran.
President Obama is cutting short his visit to India to stop in Saudi Arabia to pay his respects on the death of King Abdullah and no doubt try to repair what has been a fraying relationship. It’s a good move, but he’ll need an explanation for the latest stories that the U.S. is suddenly prepared to live with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
For several years Mr. Obama has said Assad must leave power as part of ending Syria’s four-year civil war. But Administration sources are now leaking that the President thinks Assad and his Alawite regime may be part of the solution. The thinking seems to be that the priority now is defeating Islamic State, and Assad is an ally in that effort.
Where to begin? As the Saudis will point out, the first problem with these leaks is that they send a confusing signal about U.S. policy. When he unrolled his anti-Islamic State (ISIS) strategy in September, Mr. Obama promised to support anti-Assad rebels who aren’t aligned with ISIS or al Qaeda. This is hard enough given Mr. Obama’s failure to protect the rebels against Assad’s air force. But it will be impossible if the world thinks Assad is our man in Damascus after all.
Aligning with Assad will also undermine the anti-ISIS coalition that Mr. Obama said in his State of the Union address is broad and stalwart. Apart from the Iraqis and Kurds, the two most important nations in that coalition are Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Both are enemies of Assad and have been urging the U.S. to more actively assist in his ouster. The Turks in particular have offered only tepid support because Mr. Obama won’t assist the anti-Assad rebels with some kind of no-fly safe haven.
Assad and Iran also aren’t doing all that much to defeat Islamic State, which continues to hold major chunks of Syria. Instead they have focused on defeating the non-jihadist rebels that Mr. Obama has said the U.S. supports. This makes strategic sense for Assad, who wants to become the only alternative to ISIS so the West will have nowhere else to turn.
The longer-term worry is that propping up Assad will assist Iran’s strategy to become the dominant regional power to the detriment of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and Israel. Those U.S. allies fear that this is precisely what Mr. Obama is moving toward—an entente with Iran that starts with a nuclear accord that leaves Tehran on the cusp of having the bomb whenever it chooses. Then the U.S. winks at Assad’s survival in Syria.
In return, Iran doesn’t interfere with the U.S.-Baghdad-Kurdish offensive this year to reclaim Iraqi territory from ISIS. Islamic State might be diminished, but the price would be an arc of Iranian influence from the Persian Gulf through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean.
How this helps America’s long-term interests is hard to see. The U.S. would have degraded one radical jihadist threat, ISIS, in return for empowering another one, Shiite radicals backed by the bomb. Congress should ask the Administration to clarify if Assad really is Mr. Obama’s man in Damascus.
3b) Obama, the Comic Book Villain
Encouraged by the Democrat Media complex to write his own narrative, President Obama has apparently decided to deliver it in the form of a comic book supervillain monologue.
Obama’s “swagger” has led us beyond the realm of “laughingstock” status and straight into comic book adventure territory. The classic elements are there: the villain with his faithful yet bumbling sidekicks, his plan to “transform” the world, monologues where he lectures and justifies. The superhero, however, has yet to make his
entrance.
In this series, the Democrat Media complex edits the script, and try as they might to cast Obama as the superhero, his mask is slipping. Joseph Curl, in his recent column titled “Be afraid: this is the real Obama,” wrote: “We all knew that an unrestrained Obama would be dangerous, but we never thought he’d be this dangerous…and he’s just getting started. Scary, isn’t it?”
“[W]e’re not just scared, observed Bill Whittle, “we’re scared senseless. We see the American nightmare of not just single-party rule but actual illegal dictatorship unfolding before our eyes.”
Apparently, even some in the media have begun to notice the resemblance to comic book villainy. That might explain this photograph of Obama with “horns” (instead of the usual halo) from his September 2014 speech, reprinted across several major publications.
Click on the linked video at the NY Times or other pictures taken at the same time and spot, and note the unusual editing.
It’s not difficult to imagine the comic-book version of Obama’s presidency:
A secluded tower with an Oval Office, its desk equipped with the most powerful pen and phone in the world. The Constitution lying crumpled in the wastebasket alongside the blindfold of Lady Justice, who’s tied up in the corner and force-fed lectures on empathy. An army of agencies with miles of red tape at the ready. Loyal sidekicks standing at attention, as our villain stands tall in a rotating bully pulpit that he aims toward his target of the moment.
His chin is raised and brow tortured with every “I” and “me” uttered. He tells stories of victims he must save. He inspires with descriptions of a newly transformed world, while sparing his audience the dirty details of his plan -- the laws that must be broken, the cronies who will gain, and the “who” and the “what” that must be destroyed in the process.
His preferred weapons: speeches, memoranda, and veto pens. With them, he blasts open holes in the nation’s borders. Wrecks its health care system. Puts the economy teetering at a precipice. Destroys bipartisan legislation. Releases captured terrorists while aiming kill drones at others. Energizes brutal regimes. Disses allies. Mocks and belittles his opposition. Organizes citizens and stirs them to riot in the streets.
And with a flick of his “uber-presidential” cape in a grand exit worthy of the best comedic villains, he is off -- to another fundraiser. Or golf game. Or luxurious vacation. Or interviews with the “Pimp with a limp” and a woman wearing green lipstick.
In movie versions of superhero comics, the villain’s monologue is often the most memorable part, where he lectures “on honor, ethics, and why he’s better than the hero.” And unless a sequel has been advertised, it also marks the point at which the audience may truly wonder who will prevail.
With that monologue, the supervillain is completely unmasked and his agenda revealed.
Obama, as Townhall’s Guy Benson recently noted, “molded his message to elide and disguise his core character…and has proceeded to allowed the mask to slip further and further as his presidency wears on,” leading up to his “defiant” posture at the 2015 SOTU address.
It was during that address that the “defiant” Obama’s mask fell, at the precise moment -- mere seconds after he was offering to reach across the aisle -- when he wolfishly smiled like the best of the baddest of the baddies during their movie monologues and obviously off-teleprompter, growled: “I know, because I won both my elections.”
The transformation was complete: The address was no longer presidential. Superhero became Supervillain. It was part of the bad guy monologue. The stuff of comic books. Only it was real.
“America was warned, early on,” wrote Michael Walsh, “that beneath the smiling facade of Barack Hussein Obama was a very angry man.” Walsh described the upcoming years of this presidency as the “inflection point” – where no one can stop Obama as he leads us “straight down, to realms never before charted in the American experiment.”
Obama also leads our debt projections, described by Mark Steyn back in 2012, along “a straight line going straight up before disappearing off the top right-hand corner of the graph in the year 2084 and continuing northeast straight through your eye socket, [and] out the back of your skull.”
Just as comic book villains would justify their actions, Obama had no choice but to take us there. He couldn’t wait. “We can’t wait.” He is the One we’ve been waiting for. He has dreams from his father to fulfill. A nation to organize. Health and wealth to redistribute. The environment to protect. Justice to redefine. A government to transform. A legacy to write.
Obama is, as Jonah Goldberg noted, “merely hastening the inevitable, doing what History requires of him.” He must remake America, because he knows best “who we are” and has identified and targeted the “who we are not.”
And now, since Congress won’t “pass a bill” on immigration, authorize the right treaty, or bring other legislation to his liking to his desk, he must go solo. Obama works as a “loner,” insulated from reality -- but still he believes in himself. He has a “gift.” And he is after all, the “smartest guy in the room.”
Like another fictional baddie who admitted to being “the smartest man in the world,” he would bristle at the thought of being labeled “a comic book villain.” Neither is he a “crook.” No -- he “hears” the silent, non-voter
who needs him. And above all, he cares.
About the law, though -- not so much. As Victor Davis Hanson observed, “For this administration, the law is a drag…[Obama] not only does not tell the truth, but also seems to be saying to the public, ‘I say whatever I want, so get over it.’”
Other supervillains would be envious. Instead of living in obscurity, Obama won popular elections twice, with the media complex at his beck and call. He is protected by its force field, reinforced by the race card. Congressional threats and lawsuits bounce off; talk of impeachment fizzles away when it nears his protective bubble.
Obama harbors far grander plans than to spend the last two years of his term as a lame duck, and the usual presidential work is much too boring. Visions worthy of a comic book character of super proportions invades Obama’s mind and directs his ambition -- he’s after a legacy.
The author of the book, The Forgotten Presidents, encouraged President Obama to “take his image back from his critics and define his legacy.” But Prof. Gerhardt needn’t worry that Obama will be forgotten. Like the best of comic book villains, how could he be -- for who could forget the president who culminated the transformation from Constitutional republic to tyranny?
“It’s not every day,” noted Roger Kimball, “that you get to have a ringside seat at the birth of despotism. The entertainment value is likely to be quite high, though I predict the story will not have a happy ending.”
That is, unless a superhero flies in to save the day. Congress doesn’t appear to be up for the job, the current slate of 2016 GOP candidates leaves room for doubt, and the media complex still runs the show.
But perhaps in his quest not to be forgotten, Obama will have energized the Forgotten Man -- described perfectly in 1883 by William Graham Sumner -- the “very life and substance of society.” “He works, he votes, generally he prays -- but he always pays[.]” The independent, patriotic producer, the one who values and thrives in liberty, not “one over whom sentimental economists and statesmen can parade their fine sentiments …Therefore, he is forgotten. All the burdens fall on him[.]”
Our superhero, still working behind the scenes, is the Forgotten Man. He needs a leader to faithfully represent him in Washington. And hopefully he (or she) will step into the spotlight before the bad guy monologue is over
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4)
Foreign Funding Bankrolls Anti-Netanyahu Campaign – Flies in 5-Man Obama Team |
| By Dr. Aaron Lerne Haaretz reporter Roi Arad revealed in an article in the Hebrew edition today that the foreign funded organization, “One Voice”, is bankrolling the V-2015 campaign to defeat Binyamin Netanyahu’s national camp in the March 2015 Knesset Elections. One indication of the generous financing is that it has now flown in a team of five American campaign experts (including Jeremy Bird, the Obama campaign's national field director) who will run the campaign out of offices taking up the ground floor of a Tel Aviv office building. V-2015 is careful not to support a specific party - rather “just not Bibi”. As such, the foreign funds pouring into the campaign are not subject to Israel’s campaign finance laws. The latest twist in the long-running feud between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu has reached a new stage.
After days of ill-concealed umbrage about the prime minister accepting an invitation to speech to a joint session of Congress about Iran sanctions without so much as a by your leave from the administration, the White House decided to fire its own shot across the bow of Israel's government.
A "senior U.S. official" told Haaretz that the president and his staff think Netanyahu "spat" in the president's face with his actions and vowed "there would be a price" to be paid for his effrontery.
But whatever one may think about the decision to accept the invitation — and I think it was a mistake — Obama's threats shouldn't impress anyone in either country.
After six years of insults, provocations and staged spats aimed at Israel by the Obama administration that did nothing to advance U.S. interests or the cause of Middle East peace, it's not clear that they can do much to hurt Netanyahu that would not hurt the president more.
Though his American fans are thrilled with the idea of Netanyahu addressing Congress and rallying it to the cause of stopping Iran, the prime minister did the White House a favor by accepting Boehner's invitation without going through the normal protocol of consulting with the State Department and/or the White House.
Instead of the focus being on Obama's illogical opposition to any pressure on an Iranian regime that has been stonewalling him and running out the clock in nuclear negotiations, attention has been focused on the prime minister's chutzpah. There is already a strong majority in both Houses of Congress for more sanctions on Iran, a step that would strengthen Obama's hand in negotiations, and the controversy over Netanyahu's appearance gives some weak-willed Democrats an excuse to do the president's bidding and sink the proposed legislation.
Obama's claim that he is willing to impose more sanctions if diplomacy fails, as he supposedly told Netanyahu, rings false. This administration opposed every major piece of sanctions legislation against Iran including the ones that it now boasts of having brought Iran to the table.
Nor is there much chance that Obama would ever admit failure.
The rumors that the current talks will be extended for a third time in June, despite the president's promises a year ago that the negotiations would be finite in length so as to prevent the Iranians from playing their favorite delaying games, gives the lie to the administration's credibility on this issue.
Obama's goal in the talks is not so much preventing the Islamist regime from becoming a threshold nuclear power — an objective that went out the window with the signing of the interim pact in November 2013 — as it is to create an entente with Tehran that would give a U.S. seal of approval to Iran's ambition for regional hegemony while ending 35 years of confrontation between the two countries.
But Obama's dire threats of revenge on Israel are just as insubstantial as his promises about Iran.
The talk of Netanyahu and his country paying a "price" is mere administration bluster whose purpose is to cover up their own agenda of détente with a nation that has repeatedly threatened Israel with annihilation. As he has shown over the last six years, the White House has the power to poison relations with its sole democratic ally in the Middle East if it so chooses.
This is the same White House, after all, that just a couple of months ago used journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to hurt insults like "coward" and "chickensh-t" at Netanyahu. Obama has consistently tilted the diplomatic playing field in favor of the Palestinians (though without it being enough to get them to actually negotiate in good faith, let alone make peace), undermined Israel's position in Jerusalem in a way no predecessor had dared, wrongly blamed Netanyahu for the collapse of peace talks although it was the Palestinian Authority that torpedoed them and even cut off the flow of ammunition resupply during the war with Hamas last summer.
It is true that the U.S. could do far worse than that. Obama could seek to hold up all military aid despite Congressional protests. It could also cease opposing Palestinian attempts to use the United Nations to make an end run around the peace process, further isolating the Israelis. Administration sources speak of Secretary of State John Kerry's hurt feelings after doing so much to protect Israel's interests around the world leaving open the possibility that he won't be so eager to play that role in the future.
But as Obama has already concluded prior to the current Palestinian campaign at the United Nations, any abandonment of Israel in international forums will hurt the U.S. as much as the Jewish state.
Obama and Kerry aren't opposing the Palestinian attempt to gain UN recognition without first making with Israel to be nice to the Israelis. They're doing it because they rightly concluded that ending the peace process would damage U.S. interests and prestige and lead to further instability and violence in the region. Obama would, in effect, be cutting off his nose to spite his face if he were to allow his feud with Netanyahu to go that far.
Although his antipathy for Israel and its government is no secret, he has already shown that he's not interested in going down that path.
So what can we expect over the next two years if Netanyahu is re-elected?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4b) Obama administration intervened in Argentine probe of Iranian leader, Jewish center bombing
Friday, January 23rd, 2015
LONDON — The United States pressed Argentina to end its investigation of Iranian complicity in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in which nearly 100 people were killed.
Western diplomatic sources said the administration of President Barack Obama urged Argentina on several occasions to either stop or limit the investigation into the bombing of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association in Buenos Aires. The sources said the U.S. appeals marked one of the demands by Iran for a reconciliation with Washington.
“Argentina had hard evidence against at least one Iranian leader, which prevented him from traveling abroad,” a source said.
A key Iranian suspect was identified as Ali Akhbar Velayati, foreign minister from 1981 until 1987, and deemed close to supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Velayati has been on the official wanted list of Interpol since 2007 and a subject of an international arrest warrant by Argentina.
“One of the first demands by Iran to the administration was that Argentina be pressed to drop the warrant,” the source, close to the Argentine leadership, said. “Within months, the U.S. followed up with a high-level meeting in which Argentina was asked to lay off.”
The sources said Buenos Aires eventually complied. In 2013, Argentina and Iran signed an agreement for a joint investigation of the AMIA bombing, deemed a cover-up by Buenos Aires.
On Jan. 18, a leading Argentinian prosecutor assigned to investigate an alleged government cover-up on AMIA was found shot to death in his home. The prosecutor, Alberto Nisman,had been scheduled to appear in front of Congress and present evidence that President Cristina Kirchner and Foreign Minister Hector Timerman shielded Teheran in connection with the bombing.
“[They] took the criminal decision of inventing Iran’s innocence to satisfy commercial, political and geopolitical interests of the Argentine republic,” a 289-page report by Nisman said.
It was not clear whether the report contained evidence of U.S. intervention in the alleged plot to clear the Iranians. The 51-year-old Nisman, appointed in 2005, had presented evidence that Iran sponsored the bombing, conducted by its main proxy, Hizbullah.
On Jan. 21, the ranking Democrat of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Obama has become the leading defender of Iran. Sen. Robert Menendez suggested that the administration was coordinating with Teheran in efforts to block U.S. sanctions on Iran.
“The more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Iran,” Menendez said. “And it feeds to the Iranian narrative of victimization, when they’re the ones with original sin.”
For her part, Ms. Kirchner said Nisman was killed by opponents of the president. Earlier, officials asserted that Nisman committed suicide.
“I’m convinced that it was not suicide,” Ms. Kirchner said. “They used him when he was alive but then they needed him dead.”
4c)
WHY THE MULLAHS LOVE OBAMA
Our diplomacy is at work with respect to Iran, where, for the first time in a decade, we’ve halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material. Between now and this spring, we have a chance to negotiate a comprehensive agreement that prevents a nuclear-armed Iran; secures America and our allies — including Israel; while avoiding yet another Middle East conflict. There are no guarantees that negotiations will succeed, and I keep all options on the table to prevent a nuclear Iran. But new sanctions passed by this Congress, at this moment in time, will all but guarantee that diplomacy fails — alienating America from its allies; and ensuring that Iran starts up its nuclear program again. It doesn’t make sense. That is why I will veto any new sanctions bill that threatens to undo this progress. The American people expect us to only go to war as a last resort, and I intend to stay true to that wisdom.
– U.S. President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address, January 20, 2015
Our relationship with the world is based on Iranian nation’s interests. In #Geneva agreement world powers surrendered to Iranian nation’s will.
– Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s tweet on January 14, 2014
There is a very good possibility that the entire global balance of power will be profoundly altered within a relatively short interval of time. For the last 14 centuries, a war has been waged within the Islamic world over which version of Islam, Shiite or Sunni, will carry the mantle of the true heirs to the Prophet Muhammad’s crown. This ancient, primordial conflict is now being felt in Yemen, in Syria, in Iraq and the repercussions are being felt throughout the Middle East and northern Africa.
One direct and easy path to influence the balance of power is to be the first Muslim state in the region to possess nuclear weapons capabilities. Iran has made it fundamentally clear for decades now that they are on an unwavering race to be the winner in the Muslim nuclear arms race. This prospect put the Sunni Arab world in a state of sheer terror.
The hatred between the Sunnis and Shiites carries within it the intensity of a family conflict. As any law enforcement official knows, most violent crimes are crimes of passion, committed not between strangers but between close family members. The Sunnis that the Iranians regard as “apostates” are despised by them, and the feeling is mutual. Both sides would like to see the other eliminated, and now a nuclear arms race has been introduced into an already volatile Middle East.
But make no mistake: The Iranians have been working assiduously to achieve not just regional, but global hegemony. They have a long list of enemies, and the United States, “the Great Satan” is on the very top of the list.
Every November 4, the Iranians hold an annual “Death to America Day” and celebrate the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran and the capture of 52 American hostages for 444 days. This past November, the crowd was larger than any before, and that was while the United States and the other P5+1 nations (Russia, Germany, China, Great Britain and France) were in the midst of nuclear negotiations with Iran. It was Iranian-made improvised explosive devices with Farsi imprinted on them that killed and tore off the limbs of American servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was Iran that was responsible for the 1983 bombing of the Marine army barracks in Lebanon which left 241 U.S. servicemen killed.
It is absolutely incomprehensible how U.S. President Barack Obama can overlook all this. Not only does he insist on framing the issue as having to do only with Israel, but he also seems to believe that once a deal is signed, sworn enemies become fast friends. Does he not remember the sorry experience with North Korea, which signed a nuclear arms treaty but has already conducted four nuclear missile tests? The Iranians are now perilously close to the nuclear breakout point, if they haven’t passed it already.
In a Jan. 26, 2014 interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani declared that Iran “will not accept any limitation” on its nuclear technology in the context of a comprehensive agreement between Tehran and the West, and that the Iranians will not “under any circumstances” agree to destroy any uranium enrichment centrifuges. This led Zakaria to the conclusion that the negotiations with Tehran were “headed toward a diplomatic train wreck.”
Contrary to what Obama said in his State of the Union address, the Joint Plan of Action agreed to in Geneva never “halted the progress of [Iran's] nuclear program and reduced its nuclear stockpile.” The JPA allows the Iranians to continue enriching uranium to 3.5% and, according to the Institute for Science and Security, Iran has produced enough enriched uranium in the past year for at least two nuclear bombs.
Just last week, Tehran announced it was building two new nuclear reactors in the Bushehr region, and the U.S. State Department covered for Iran, saying this was not in violation of the JPA. It is also transferring its nuclear infrastructure and materials into Syria to build a nuclear facility; Syria is currently hiding 50 tons of enriched uranium, which went missing from the Iran.
It is obvious that these negotiations are intended as a smokescreen, behind which Iran is sprinting toward its deadly goal.
The U.S. Congress must weigh in. What Senators Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and others have valiantly tried to do is to re-introduce biting sanctions, if, and only if, no deal is reached. The bill imposes no new sanctions while the talks are ongoing. If no deal is reached by June 30th, the deadline that Obama himself set for the talks, then the sanctions kick in. Rather than spoiling the talks, this should incentivize the Iranians to reach a deal. Yet, the president insists that the legislation will guarantee the failure of the talks.
As Menendez, who has courageously stood up to the president from his own Democratic Party on this, said on January 16, “It is counterintuitive that somehow Iran will walk away because of some sanctions that would never take pace if they strike a deal.”
It is necessary to impose sanctions in the event that the talks fail, but it is not sufficient. In the past, Iran made the greatest amount of progress in their nuclear program while under the most stringent sanctions. Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani once declared, “I would rather let a million people starve then stop work on the Iranian nuclear project.”
What must be done does not require new legislation. All that is necessary is to implement the 1972 Case Act, which is already a standing act of law (1 U.S. Code § 112b — United States international agreements; transmission to Congress). This law stipulates that “the secretary of state shall transmit to the Congress the text of any international agreement (including the text of any oral international agreement, which agreement shall be reduced to writing), other than a treaty, to which the United States is a party as soon as practicable after such agreement has entered into force with respect to the United States but in no event later than sixty days thereafter. However, any such agreement the immediate public disclosure of which would, in the opinion of the president, be prejudicial to the national security of the United States shall not be so transmitted to the Congress but shall be transmitted to the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate and the Committee on International Relations of the House of Representatives under an appropriate injunction of secrecy to be removed only upon due notice from the president.”
Anyone who is concerned that the Iranians are using the negotiations to hoodwink the rest of the world, and that should include anyone with eyes who can see, should acquaint themselves with this act and take action to ensure that the letter and the spirit of this law are implemented.
Be that as it may, bad behavior should not be rewarded. The lifting of the sanctions has infused approximately $20 billion into the Iranian economy. In addition, before the talks began the U.S. unfroze at least $8 billion in assets that had been frozen during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Now that the Iranians have agreed to a second six month extension of the talks, the U.S. will be giving them an extra $700 million per month, just to come to the table.
No wonder Menendez, who has really emerged as a hero in this, stated at a hearing on Tuesday that “the more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran. And it feeds into the Iranian narrative of victimization, when they are the ones with original sin, an illicit nuclear weapons program going back over the course of 20 years that they are unwilling to come clean on. So I don’t know why we feel compelled to make their case.”
Which brings me to the quarrel reported last Friday by The New York Times wire service between Obama and Menendez: “In the course of the argument, which was described as tense but generally respectful, Mr. Obama vowed to veto legislation being drafted by Mr. Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, and Senator Mark Kirk, Republican of Illinois, that would trigger sanctions after multiparty talks are set to end this summer. … According to one of the senators and another person who was present, the president urged lawmakers to stop pursuing sanctions, saying such a move would undermine his authority and could derail the talks. … The president said he understood the pressures that senators face from donors and others, but he urged the lawmakers to take the long view rather than make a move for short-term political gain, according to the senator. Mr. Menendez, who was seated at a table in front of the podium, stood up and said he took “personal offense.”
Menendez told the president that he had worked for more than 20 years to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions and had always been focused on the long-term implications. Menendez also warned the president that sanctions could not be imposed quickly if Congress waited to act and the talks failed, according to two people who were present.
This is part of the classic anti-Semitic canard that Jews control the world through their money. For the president of the United States to echo this claim is not only a personal insult to his fellow Democrat, Menendez, but also a shockingly incendiary and irresponsible statement toward the Jewish community. Obama must know that anti-Semites both within and outside of the U.S. will repeat this charge ad nauseam, and use it as “evidence” for their conspiratorial delusions that American Jews control U.S. foreign policy.
Unfortunately, the president has this backwards. Iran is deep at work on a nuclear enrichment and a missile program which is designed to reach the eastern seaboard of the continental U.S. Menendez and Kirk, and those who will sign onto a renewed sanctions program, should be commended for taking the long-term view rather than just looking to a short term “foreign policy victory” of a deal with Tehran that will not last until the ink on the paper has a chance to dry.
In the meantime, all of us who realize the true intentions of the Islamic Republic of Iran should fully acquaint ourselves with the Case Act.
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