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What goes around eventually comes around. Is this the story behind Boehner's invitation to Netanyahu to address Congress?
Yes, The White House and Obama are a twit both as to the invitation by Boehner to have Netanyahu address Congress, as well as the surreptitious manner in which it was handled.
I can understand Obama's pique and I also understand Netanyahu's 'alleged'affront will only worsen his personal relationship with Obama.
Obviously, Netanyahu has several reasons to allow himself to become a pawn on Boehner's chess board.
First, Netanyahu believes Congress and the American people understand the special relationship our nation has with Israel - America's staunchest ally in The Middle East.
Second, Netanyahu is doing the world a service to inform about the threat a nuclear Iran would pose to world peace and further regional instability.
Third, Netanyahu could be making a calculated decision that speaking before Congress will enhance his own political standing several weeks before the Israeli election. There is a downside to this decision as well.
Finally, what goes around comes around and Netanyahu, could be using this invitation as pay back for the many personal affronts by Obama. Understandable but unwise if that is his motivation.
Wednesday, January 21st, was the first hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iranian sanctions and it is the first hearing by the new Republican-led Congress.
Obama's Iranian negotiations have been called a farce by Freshman Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and the former chairman of the Committee, Democrat Senator Robert Menendez, has expressed his own deep concerns that Obama is giving away the store.
Certainly, Obama has been played like a violin in virtually every foreign policy scenario so skepticism is warranted!
As for Pelosi's criticism of Boehner, my response is ' Madam you have to hear Netanyahu to find out what he is saying!'
Norman Podhoretz, father of our Feb. 16, SIRC President's Day Dinner speaker, John Podhoretz, wrote a book entitled: "WW Four" and what he wrote is coming to pass. (See 1 1a and 1b below.)
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I know anything Palin does gets lampooned but she can be funny! (See 2 below.)
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Are we heading in the direction of France? (See 3 below.)
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Let's hear it for Obama's signature piece of legislation!http://www.youtube.com/watch?
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Larry Sommers warns of what I have been writing about - potential deflation in Europe and the U.S. (See 4 below.)
Meanwhile, as hysterical Greens warn us about global warming and pollution, after filling the air with fumes from their private jets arriving in Davos Switzerland, New York's Mayor de Blasio is warning New Yorkers they are about to be hit by an historical storm including devastating winds, freezing weather and well over 2 feet of snow.
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Dick
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1)-Wednesday, January 21st, was the first hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iranian sanctions and it is the first hearing of the new Republican-led Congress.
Republicans worry that the Iranians are just buying time so they can continue enhancing their nuclear programs. Freshman Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas has gone so far as to call the negotiations a “dangerous farce.” Republicans and some Democrats argue that having more sanctions lying in wait would push Iran to make more concessions at the negotiating table.
Kirk and Menendez are working hard to muster the 67 votes they would need in the Senate to override an Obama veto. A vote could occur as early as next month.
“The Iranian parliament has to weigh in on any deal they do, so you would think that the United States Congress would want to weigh in on one of the biggest issues that affects our nation’s security,” said Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
1a) Pelosi's Syriana Versus Boehner's Bibi Invitation
By Debra J. Saunders
"I don't believe I'm poking anyone in the eye," House Speaker John Boehner asserted Wednesday. That was after His Speakership told the media that he had invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before a joint session of Congress about "the grave threats radical Islam and Iran pose to our security and way of life."
Of course it was a poke in the eye. Boehner admitted he did not consult with the White House before inviting Bibi. Netanyahu wants Congress to threaten tougher sanctions against Tehran. During his State of the Union address Tuesday, President Barack Obama warned Congress he would veto any such legislation.
Boehner's gambit stunned the White House. Press secretary Josh Earnest called the move a breach of protocol. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said the invitation was "out of order." When she was speaker, Pelosi argued, she coordinated with GOP leaders before inviting heads of state. Netanyahu's speech was moved to March 3, so Pelosi criticized Boehner for inviting a head of state within two weeks of Israel's March 17 elections. "It's hubris," Pelosi charged.
Is it hubris? Or is it payback? The president has no problem doing an end run around Congress as he unilaterally undermines laws that lawmakers duly enacted. Two can play at that game.
"I find it hard to believe the Israel invitation would have been extended if the president hadn't been so nasty," opined Hoover Institution foreign policy fellow Kori Schake. Rather than threaten Congress in the State of the Union address with a veto if lawmakers pass sanctions legislation, Schake argued, Obama should have thanked Congress for not passing said legislation while Secretary of State John Kerry was negotiating.
The irony here is that Pelosi was in a similar position in 2007 when she met with Syrian President Bashar Assad. "We came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace," Pelosi told reporters.
Given that insurgents were crossing from Syria into Iraq to fight U.S. troops, President George W. Bush considered Pelosi's adventure in diplomacy "counterproductive." But with public approval of the Iraq War in the toilet, the San Francisco Democrat's visit was popular with the liberal base. Pelosi's Damascus sit-down was good politics, if dubious policy.
Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill finds any comparison between Boehner's Bibi invitation and Pelosi's Syria trip to be nonsense. Pelosi didn't blindside Bush. Foggy Bottom helped plan the trip. Besides, the White House failed to criticize three Republicans who had gone to Damascus a week earlier, which in Hammill's view makes Pelosi's detractors "hypocrites."
Ellen Tauscher, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security and a former congresswoman from California, agrees with Pelosi's "hubris" assessment. Kerry is involved in negotiating a "six-handed deal" among world leaders and Iran, Tauscher noted. If there is no deal for the Iran nuclear talks by June 30, then tougher sanctions will return. Instead of applying pressure and engaging in "mischief-making," Tauscher believes Boehner should be quiet and give diplomacy a few more months. It is in America's national security interest to coax Iran toward the light.
"My criticism of Speaker Boehner is that this smacks of partisan politics and trying to embarrass the White House," quoth Tauscher. (Sounds like Pelosi's Syrian trip to me.)
Fly in the ointment: This isn't right vs. left. Some Democrats do not trust Tehran. At a recent hearing, Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., scolded Obamaland for spewing out "talking points" that sound as if they "come straight out of Tehran."
Now the politics favor Boehner. Schake believes that a Netanyahu speech could increase the number of senators who, like Menendez, would support a bill to pressure Tehran to stop stalling. If you're a D.C. pol, do you want to be on the side that believes in the honest intentions of Tehran or on the side that advocates tough measures a la Bibi? And what are Democrats going to do, flip off pro-Israel constituents by boycotting Netanyahu's speech? Hammill tells me Pelosi plans to attend.
If a majority in Congress is ready to buck the president on a foreign policy initiative, Schake told me, it's a sign the administration is pushing a bad policy or has failed to lay the groundwork to sell it.
One more thing: In 2007, Syria was abetting Sunni insurgents. Israel is our ally.
1b) Former Top WH Aides: Obama Administration “Weak” – Must Toughen Up Against Iran
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In a stinging public rebuke, a trio of leading foreign policy officials for the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations — including two who served as key Obama White House officials overseeing U.S. policy on Iran — have leveled an unusually blunt assessment of recent U.S. foreign policy setbacks related to the Islamic Republic, charging that “the stalemate over nukes, and now a Tehran-backed coup in Yemen, show that Obama isn’t tough enough.”Writing in Politico former White House and State Department official Dennis Ross, former undersecretary of defense Eric Edelman, and former Obama NSC advisor Ray Takeyh argued that the White House’s current tactics to stop Iran’s growing regional influence, military expansionism and nuclear development are failing and called for President Obama to take a much stronger approach against the Islamic Republic.During the course of the nuclear negotiations over the past year, Iran has been the beneficiary of a generous catalogue of concessions from the West. The [Western nations] has conceded to Iranian enrichment, agreed that Tehran need not scale back the number of its centrifuges significantly or dismantle any facilities and could have an industrial-size program after passage of a period of time. The Iranians have, during the course of the ten years of negotiations, grown accustomed to having their interlocutors return to the table with concessions meant to meet their mandates while offering only limited compromises of their own.Despite that no agreement was achieved at the end of the one year time-frame of the Joint Plan of Action—and the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei continues to signal that Iran can live without an agreement. In fact, his negotiators are pressing for more concessions while not offering any of their own.Hence it is time to acknowledge that we need a revamped coercive strategy, one that threatens what the Islamic Republic values the most—its influence in the Middle East and its standing at home. And the pattern of concessions at the negotiating table must stop if there is to be an acceptable agreement. Iranian officials must come to understand that there will be no further concessions to reach an accord and that time is running out for negotiations.The former officials explain that Iran in the past has changed its policies “only when its leaders saw high costs in not doing so,” and so the United States must work to change the balance of power in Iran-backed Syria, cooperate with Gulf allies to isolate Iran regionally through naval maneuvers in the Persian Gulf, and even “consider a political warfare campaign” by publicizing Iran’s political and human rights violations as well as “all the concessions that [Western nations] have made and how little Iran has moved.”Ross, Edelman, and Takeyh — who during his time in the Obama White House actually authored President Obama’s letters to the Supreme Leader of the Iran — concluded by noting that a “unified domestic American front” will be crucial to achieving American strategic aims in the region, but noted that this will only be possible with continued engagement and “sincere dialogue” with Congressional leaders to ensure that any deal will survive beyond the end of President Obama’s tenure.In Replacement Theory: The Administration’s Crazy New Middle East Illusion, which was published in the December 2014 issue of The Tower Magazine, David Daoud argues that current American strategy in the Middle East is emboldening the Islamic Republic’s most aggressive and anti-Western tendencies:For the Islamic revolutionaries and clerical dictators running the country, this new approach is a welcome change from decades of American efforts to sideline Iran. But Tehran is receptive to Washington’s changes for entirely different reasons. Seizing on what it sees as American weakness under this administration, Tehran believes it can break free of the diplomatic and economic sanctions that have crippled its economy, and freeze Western efforts to stall its regional ambitions. A nuclear deal in Iran’s favor may be with in its grasp, Tehran believes. And they may not even need to make such an agreement, if simply by negotiating with the West they can resurrect their economy and stall any U.S. action against their takeover of Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, removing further obstacles to their regional hegemony.And it is here, in Iran’s very different view of a possible rapprochement with the United States, that the real danger to regional and American interests lies. Contrary to the expectations of many U.S. policymakers, giving Iran free rein in the Middle East would not be a major diplomatic victory, but a strategic nightmare. Replacing the putative caliphate of the Islamic State with the brutal Imamate of the Islamic Republic, the IRGC, Hezbollah and the rest of Iran’s regional proxies, would be a strategic and moral catastrophe.
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Palin On GOP: 'It's Not Just The New England Patriots Who Are Dealing With Deflated Balls'
As SHOT Show (Shooting Hunting Outdoor Trade) wraps up its final day, the copious amount of new guns to hit the market and all the other cool “toys” premiered don’t come close to what Sarah Palin said at the show.
While promoting the new season of her Outdoor Channel show “Amazing America,” Palin held nothing back about the current state of the GOP, going so far as to compare them to the New England Patriots “deflategate.”
“I’m not going to talk politics except to say the GOP had better go on offense," Palin told TheBlaze Thursday. "Man, they are not going to win any game on defense. Being in the majority there in D.C. — we’re blowing it if we just bend our back.”
“That GOP leadership, that establishment, they’ve got to get their stuff together," she added. "I love what they believe in, I believe in it too. But they’ve got to get tough, man. You know what? It’s not just the New England Patriots who are dealing with deflated balls right now."
3) Muslim Immigration on the Rise in America
The United States could be traveling down the same path as France regarding Muslim immigration — a path that ultimately led to the Islamic terror attack at Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris.
For several decades France has invited Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa to enter the country, in part to bolster the labor force following World War II. Other European countries have seen large-scale Muslim immigration as well.
"The United States seems increasingly to be turning toward Western Europe's most undesirable demographic trends," writes Ian Tuttle, a William F. Buckley Fellow in political journalism at the National Review Institute.
In 1992, 41 percent of new permanent residents in the United States came from the Middle East and North Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, or sub-Saharan Africa. In 2002, the percentage was up to 53 percent.
Over that period, the number of Muslim immigrants coming to America each year doubled from 50,000 to about 100,000.
The number of Muslims in the United States is uncertain because religious affiliation is not tracked by the Census Bureau, but the Council on American-Islamic Relations claims there are about 7 million Muslims in the country.
"Whatever the exact level, it can hardly be considered surprising that as the Muslim population in the country has expanded, so has the incidence of radicalism," Tuttle states, citing several examples.
Accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother Tamerlan entered the country as refugees in 2002 and Tamerlan was radicalized at a mosque in Cambridge, Mass.
That mosque was also attended by Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi, who was raised in Yemen and in 2004 was sentenced to 23 years in jail in part due to his role in a plot to assassinate the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
Also attending was Aafia Siddiqui, sentenced to 86 years in prison in 2010 for attempting to kill a U.S. Army officer in Afghanistan.
In 2003, six naturalized citizens in Lackawanna, N.Y., were convicted of providing material support to al-Qaida.
In March 2014, Mohammad Hassan Hamdan of Dearborn, a Michigan city where 40 percent of the population is of Arab descent, was arrested in Detroit on his way to join Hezbollah in Syria.
Last October, Mohammed Hamzah Khan of Bolingbrook, Ill., son of Muslim immigrants from India, and two siblings were arrested in Chicago on their way to enlist in the Islamic State.
Nidal Malik Hasan, whose parents came to the U.S. from the West Bank, fatally shot 13 people at Ford Hood in Texas in November 2009.
It should also be noted, of course, that the 9/11 hijackers were allowed to enter the country with visas.
"Whatever the percentage of Muslims who support or would ever consider supporting jihadism, the raw number obviously increases along with the total number of Muslims," Tuttle points out. "One percent of 10 million is much larger than 1 percent of 1 million."
The most obvious remedy for the increased threat of Islamic militancy in the United States would be to reduce the numbers of immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, he suggests — noting, however, that the move would meet with "fierce opposition from some quarters."
Or, the United States could shift immigration priorities toward English-speaking nations and liberal democracies.
"The potential problems associated with massive Muslim immigration, and potential solutions, must be addressed now," he concludes.
"The attack on Charlie Hebdo was not inevitable, but years of permissive immigration policy made it more and more likely. If we want to reduce the probability of a similar attack inside America's borders, we should recognize France's mistake, and reform immigration policies that simply do not add up."
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4)
Both Europe and the United States are on the brink of a "deflationary spiral," with Europe's economic morass possibly lingering for a decade, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has warned.
The European Central Bank (ECB)'s 1.1 trillion euro ($1.23 billion) quantitative easing (QE) program represents a positive step, but won't be enough to repair the damaged eurozone economy, said Summers, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
"Europe is on the brink of a deflationary spiral that could be gravely threatening to the process of growing standards of living, not for a year, but for a decade," he recently told Bloomberg TV. "Europe is lagging relative to every other region of the world. And the situation is getting worse."
In a deflationary spiral, households and firms cut spending while they wait for prices to fall further, causing the economy to slump, according to the Guardian.
"I am all for European QE. The risks of doing too little far exceed the risks of doing too much," he said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, according to multiple news reports.
"But it would be a mistake to suppose that QE is a panacea in Europe, or that it will be sufficient."
Summers also warned that the United States also faces a similar death spiral and "a depression-trap that would engulf the world if the Federal Reserve tightens monetary policy too soon," the Financial Times reports.
"Deflation and secular stagnation are the threats of our time. The risks are enormously asymmetric," said Summers. (Deflation is commonly defined as a decrease in the general price level of goods and services.Deflation occurs when the inflation rate falls below 0% (a negative inflation rate.)
"There is no confident basis for tightening. The Fed should not be fighting against inflation until it sees the whites of its eyes. That is a long way off," he said.
"Nobody over the last 50 years, not the IMF, not the US Treasury, has predicted any of the recessions a year in advance, never."
Summers contends the global economy is near a pivotal moment, the US expansion enters its seventh year, reaching the typical life-expectancy of recoveries.
The FT reported that Summers warned that "any error at this critical juncture could set off a 'spiral to deflation' that would be extremely hard to reverse. The US still faces an intractable unemployment crisis after a full six years of zero rates and quantitative easing, with very high jobless rates even among males aged 25-54 — the cohort usually keenest to work — and despite America's lean and efficient labor markets."
Meanwhile, the eurozone economy grew an annualized 0.6 percent in the third quarter.
Summers also listed three reasons why QE will probably have less impact in Europe than it did in the United States, the Financial Times reports.
"These are not signs of economic health," he told Bloomberg TV. "This is like a thermometer showing a very high fever and people are against the administration of medicine and it is a very serious problem," he said.
"If the US is in a bad place, we are short of any engine at the moment, so I hope you are wrong," said Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund.
Iconic investor George Soros also offered a mix assessment of the ECB program. While he called it a "very powerful set of measures" at the World Economic Forum, Soros also said it could "reinforce inequality" in the eurozone, BBC News reports.
That reinforcement would presumably come as QE boosts financial markets as much as the economy. The wealthy, of course, hold many more financial assets than the poor and middle class.
"Excessive reliance on monetary policy tends to enrich the owners of property, and at the same time will not relieve the downward pressure on wages," Soros said.On the plus side, he said that if the ECB succeeds in boosting economic growth, that will make it easier for countries such as France to implement restructuring measures to increase economic efficiency.
4)
Larry Summers: Europe, US on Brink of Deflationary Spiral for Next Decade
By Dan Weil
Both Europe and the United States are on the brink of a "deflationary spiral," with Europe's economic morass possibly lingering for a decade, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has warned.
The European Central Bank (ECB)'s 1.1 trillion euro ($1.23 billion) quantitative easing (QE) program represents a positive step, but won't be enough to repair the damaged eurozone economy, said Summers, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
"Europe is on the brink of a deflationary spiral that could be gravely threatening to the process of growing standards of living, not for a year, but for a decade," he recently told Bloomberg TV. "Europe is lagging relative to every other region of the world. And the situation is getting worse."
In a deflationary spiral, households and firms cut spending while they wait for prices to fall further, causing the economy to slump, according to the Guardian.
"I am all for European QE. The risks of doing too little far exceed the risks of doing too much," he said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, according to multiple news reports.
"But it would be a mistake to suppose that QE is a panacea in Europe, or that it will be sufficient."
Summers also warned that the United States also faces a similar death spiral and "a depression-trap that would engulf the world if the Federal Reserve tightens monetary policy too soon," the Financial Times reports.
"Deflation and secular stagnation are the threats of our time. The risks are enormously asymmetric," said Summers. (Deflation is commonly defined as a decrease in the general price level of goods and services.Deflation occurs when the inflation rate falls below 0% (a negative inflation rate.)
"There is no confident basis for tightening. The Fed should not be fighting against inflation until it sees the whites of its eyes. That is a long way off," he said.
"Nobody over the last 50 years, not the IMF, not the US Treasury, has predicted any of the recessions a year in advance, never."
Summers contends the global economy is near a pivotal moment, the US expansion enters its seventh year, reaching the typical life-expectancy of recoveries.
The FT reported that Summers warned that "any error at this critical juncture could set off a 'spiral to deflation' that would be extremely hard to reverse. The US still faces an intractable unemployment crisis after a full six years of zero rates and quantitative easing, with very high jobless rates even among males aged 25-54 — the cohort usually keenest to work — and despite America's lean and efficient labor markets."
Meanwhile, the eurozone economy grew an annualized 0.6 percent in the third quarter.
Summers also listed three reasons why QE will probably have less impact in Europe than it did in the United States, the Financial Times reports.
- The Federal Reserve's QE came when bond yields were higher and thus could be pushed down by QE. The 10-year German government bond yield now stands at just 0.42 percent.
- QE was unexpected in the United States so it was a surprise for the economy.
- U.S. QE went through capital markets, while Europe's is going through banks, where money flows less freely.
"These are not signs of economic health," he told Bloomberg TV. "This is like a thermometer showing a very high fever and people are against the administration of medicine and it is a very serious problem," he said.
"If the US is in a bad place, we are short of any engine at the moment, so I hope you are wrong," said Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund.
Iconic investor George Soros also offered a mix assessment of the ECB program. While he called it a "very powerful set of measures" at the World Economic Forum, Soros also said it could "reinforce inequality" in the eurozone, BBC News reports.
That reinforcement would presumably come as QE boosts financial markets as much as the economy. The wealthy, of course, hold many more financial assets than the poor and middle class.
"Excessive reliance on monetary policy tends to enrich the owners of property, and at the same time will not relieve the downward pressure on wages," Soros said.On the plus side, he said that if the ECB succeeds in boosting economic growth, that will make it easier for countries such as France to implement restructuring measures to increase economic efficiency.
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