===
.jpg)
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Maybe he can make Obama and then our deficit ddisappear: http://biertijd.com/
and a little humor
watch til end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
===
Tale of two funerals. (See 1 below.)
===
Some thoughts before watching The Super Bowl!
"The man who complains about the way the ball bounces Is likely to be the one who dropped it.""Gentlemen, it is better to have died a small boy than to fumble the football"
John Heisman
"Show me a good and gracious loser, and I'll show you a failure."
Knute Rockne /Notre Dame
"I make my practices real hard because if a player is a quitter, I want him to quit in practice, not in a game."
Bear Bryant / Alabama
"It isn't necessary to see a good tackle, you can hear it!
Knute Rockne / Notre Dame
Lou Holtz / Arkansas - Norte Dame
"When you win, nothing
"In Alabama , an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in Bear Bryant."
Wally Butts / Georgia
"I could have been a Rhodes Scholar except for my grades."
"I asked Darrell Royal, the coach of the Texas Longhorns, why he didn't recruit me .Duffy Daugherty / Michigan State
==="He said , "Well, Walt, we took a look at you, and you weren't any good."
Walt Garrison / Oklahoma State
John spoke here two years ago,. (See 2 below.)
==
This short Israeli film clip was just released based on this past summer's war with the Hamas.
https://onedrive.live.com/
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How do you win against an enemy you cannot or are not willing to even define? (See 3 below.)
A small gain but can it be replicated the way Obama is going? No and ISIS is spreading and gaining territory elsewhere. (See 3a below.)
====
Pretty much what I have been saying. (See 4 below.)
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Diagnosing Obama! (See 5 below.)
====
Dick===
How do you win against an enemy you cannot or are not willing to even define? (See 3 below.)
A small gain but can it be replicated the way Obama is going? No and ISIS is spreading and gaining territory elsewhere. (See 3a below.)
====
Pretty much what I have been saying. (See 4 below.)
===
Diagnosing Obama! (See 5 below.)
====
1)Tale Of Two Funerals
An amazing display of priorities.
By all accounts, Harold was a bright child.
He grew up in America.
He went to school and had a bright future ahead of him.
Harold’s full life was cut short in a violent moment.
While few people had ever heard of Harold before his death,
many did afterwards. And in death, something shocking happened.
What was so shocking, especially when it is compared
to the death of someone else recently in the news?
.
Harold is Harold Greene, Major General United States Army.
General Greene was killed by a Taliban terrorist.
He was returned to America with full military honors.
It has been a tradition that the President attends the funeral
of flag officers killed in the line of duty. Richard Nixon attended
the funeral of a Major General killed in Vietnam and
George W. Bush attended the funeral of Lieutenant General Timothy Maude, who was
killed in the 9/11 attacks.
.
While Major General Greene was buried, Barack Obama was golfing.
The Vice President wasn’t there either.
Neither was the Secretary of Defense.
Flags were not even lowered to half staff.
Four days after Harold Greene gave his life for America,
Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri. It is safe to say, Brown was at best a thug.
.
The media has repeatedly shown photos of Brown flashing gang signs.
Some media outlets have even associated him with a specific gang.
.
In the minutes before his death, Brown committed a robbery at a local convenience store. According to other reports, Brown struck officer Darren Wilson and shattered his
orbital bone.
Obama sent a three-person delegation to Michael Brown’s funeral!!
Obama would not attend the funeral of the highest ranking military officer killed in the line of duty since 9/11, yet he will send a delegation to the funeral of a thug.
When Margaret Thatcher, one of America’s staunchest allies and Ronald Reagan’s partner in bringing down Soviet communism, died...
Obama sent only a small low-level delegation to her funeral.
The snub was not missed by the British.
.
....
When Chris Kyle, the most lethal American sniper in history was murdered, there was no expression of sympathy from the White House.
There was no White House delegation at his funeral.
..
.
American heroes die and Obama goes to the golf course.
A thug dies and he gets a White House delegation.
.
No wonder real Americans hold Obama in contempt.
He was returned to America with full military honors.
It has been a tradition that the President attends the funeral
of flag officers killed in the line of duty. Richard Nixon attended
the funeral of a Major General killed in Vietnam and
George W. Bush attended the funeral of Lieutenant General Timothy Maude, who was
killed in the 9/11 attacks.
.
While Major General Greene was buried, Barack Obama was golfing.
The Vice President wasn’t there either.
Neither was the Secretary of Defense.
Flags were not even lowered to half staff.
Four days after Harold Greene gave his life for America,
Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri. It is safe to say, Brown was at best a thug.
.
The media has repeatedly shown photos of Brown flashing gang signs.
Some media outlets have even associated him with a specific gang.
.
In the minutes before his death, Brown committed a robbery at a local convenience store. According to other reports, Brown struck officer Darren Wilson and shattered his
orbital bone.
Obama sent a three-person delegation to Michael Brown’s funeral!!
Obama would not attend the funeral of the highest ranking military officer killed in the line of duty since 9/11, yet he will send a delegation to the funeral of a thug.
When Margaret Thatcher, one of America’s staunchest allies and Ronald Reagan’s partner in bringing down Soviet communism, died...
Obama sent only a small low-level delegation to her funeral.
The snub was not missed by the British.
.
....
When Chris Kyle, the most lethal American sniper in history was murdered, there was no expression of sympathy from the White House.
There was no White House delegation at his funeral.
..
.
American heroes die and Obama goes to the golf course.
A thug dies and he gets a White House delegation.
.
No wonder real Americans hold Obama in contempt.
PS: Obama did not even attend the 70th celebration of the freeing of the enslaved from Auschwitz.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)Did Justice “steamroll the truth” in attempt to extort a settlement?
The seemed to be in agreement on these points:
Mr. Kissinger observed that in the Mideast, multiple upheavals are unfolding simultaneously—within states, between states, between ethnic and religious groups. Conflicts often merge and produce such a phenomenon as the Islamic State, which in the name of the caliphate is creating a power base to undo all existing patterns.
How to proceed in creating a helpful and constructive U.S. posture?
When you make a decision, he went on, “stick with it.” Be careful with words. Never make a threat or draw a line you can’t or won’t make good on.
Proceed to negotiations with your agenda clear and your strength unquestionable.
Mr. Kissinger: “In our national experience . . . we have trouble doing a national strategy” because we have been secure behind two big oceans. We see ourselves as a people who respond to immediate, specific challenges and then go home. But foreign policy today is not a series of discrete events, it is a question of continuous strategy in the world.
So we need a strategy, and maybe more than one. We need to know what we’re doing and why. After this week with the retired generals and the former secretaries, the message is: Awake. See the world’s facts as they are. Make a plan.
3a) Islamic State Defeat in Kobani Will Be Hard to Replicate
The near-complete liberation of the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani this week from Islamic State (IS) forces is a remarkable testimony to the tenacity and courage of the Kurdish resistance on the ground. It also showcases the awesome efficacy of US air power, when given a clear mission and properly directed.
Still, the "heartland" of the jihadi entity in Syria's Raqqa province, and the greater part of its conquests in Iraq of last June are not yet under threat.The defeat does constitute one of a series of significant setbacks that IS has suffered in recent days. All of these were at the outer reaches of its advance: Iraqi government forces and Shi'ite militias, for example, took Diyala province; the Kurdish Peshmerga is conquering ground outside Mosul.
As the weeks passed, however, it became clear that a strategic decision that Kobani should not fall had been taken. Evidently, the intention was to crush IS gunmen between the hammer of US air power and the anvil of ongoing stubborn Kurdish resistance; in so doing, a symbol of resistance would be created.
As of now, the Kurds and their allies have succeeded in saving the city of Kobani, very close to the border with Turkey. This area became a symbol, and IS wasted over 1,000 of its fighters trying unsuccessfully to capture it. But the larger task of reconquering the 300 villages and the ground that once was a part of the Kobani enclave remains before the Kurds. One may assume that this effort will be under way in the weeks ahead. Regarding the larger lessons of the Kobani victory, it would be mistaken to jump to the conclusion that it illustrates that in providing support to anti-IS forces on the ground, the West has discovered a winning formula which can now be replicated elsewhere. This would be a rash deduction because of the specific nature of the Kurdish fighting organizations – YPG and Peshmerga.
2)Did Justice “steamroll the truth” in attempt to extort a settlement?
By John Fund
Attorney general Eric Holder (Alex Wong/Getty)
It is well known in legal circles that Eric Holder’s Justice Department has become so politicized, so unprincipled, and so ethically shoddy that Loretta Lynch, President Obama’s appointee to replace Holder, had to assure senators at her confirmation hearing that she was not Eric Holder.
Lynch was properly grilled on her views on immigration enforcement, executive orders, and terrorist prosecutions. But so far no senator has dug deep into some of the most abusive cases that Justice has filed, and asked why lower-case justice hasn’t been done.
One of the most notorious is Justice’s role in California’s “Moonlight Fire,” a conflagration on Labor Day 2007 that burned 20,000 acres of state forest in the Sierra Nevada along with 45,000 acres of federal forest. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection decided that Sierra Pacific Industries, a family-owned company that is the nation’s second-largest timber supplier, was responsible for the damage. Government investigators claim the blade of one of the company’s bulldozers hit a rock, creating a spark that started the blaze. Sierra Pacific pointed out clear holes in that theory, but Cal Fire nonetheless fined the timber company $8 million to pay for related costs. Because the fire burned more than 40,000 acres of national forest, the federal government also went after Sierra Pacific; in 2012, after five years of litigation, Sierra Pacific reluctantly agreed to a settlement that entailed paying the feds $4 million and giving Uncle Sam 22,500 acres of forest land.
But since then, there has been discovery in the related state lawsuit, which has uncovered a shocking claim of dereliction of duty: that Justice’s prosecutors “sat on their hands” and allowed fire investigators to frame Sierra Pacific. The possible motive? Sierra had deep pockets, and any settlement would create substantial revenue. In the state’s case, a substantial chunk of the money would go to an off-the-books slush fund run by Cal Fire, in which some of its official investigators had interests.
The misconduct was so egregious that California Superior Court judge Leslie Nichols threw out the state’s case. Last year, he further ruled that the government’s case was “corrupt and tainted. Cal Fire failed to comply with discovery obligations, and its repeated failure was willful.” The judge charged that the state hid key photographs and tried to “steamroll the truth” in order to pin the fire on the company. Investigators lied under oath about what they knew, and federal prosecutors allegedly knew about their perjury and did nothing.” When Sierra Pacific lawyers questioned the bulldozer driver, he denied making a statement about the blaze’s origins, and he couldn’t have properly signed a document given to him by prosecutors because he can’t read. The U.S. Forest Service had evidence that one of its fire spotters may have been high on pot and missed the fire’s start. His supervisor wanted to fire him, but the supervisor’s superiors covered it all up by insisting the spotter get a satisfactory performance rating and stay on the job.
“The misconduct in this case is so pervasive,” Judge Nichols wrote, “that it would serve no purpose to attempt to recite it all here.”
Nichols also didn’t spare the office of California Attorney General Kamala Harris, now a candidate for Barbara Boxer’s U.S. Senate seat and a national Democratic star. Nichols wrote that he can recall “no instance in experience over 47 years as an advocate and a judge, in which the conduct of the Attorney General so thoroughly departed from the high standard it represents, and, in every other instance has exemplified.” Judge Nichols then ordered the state to pay Sierra Pacific a whopping $32 million in damages and expenses. Cal Fire denies any wrongdoing, while the offices of Harris and Governor Jerry Brown aren’t talking.
The Nichols ruling prompted Sierra Pacific to enter federal court, charging fraud, and to demand that its settlement money be returned. Ben Wagner, the U.S. Attorney responsible for the federal case, insists there is no fire behind all the smoke of a legal coverup, but he hasn’t properly explained why Robert Wright, his top assistant in charge of fire litigation, was removed from the Moonlight Fire case after he stated that he believed it was his duty to disclose material seriously damaging to the government’s case. In fact, Wright was removed by his immediate boss, David Shelledy, because he was honest and would not have gone along with the program. Wagner defends his subordinate Shelledy in part by noting that he was recently given an award for distinguished service by Eric Holder. Color me less than impressed.
Another federal prosecutor, Eric Overby, left the Midnight Fire probe in 2011 because he was shocked at the conduct of his colleagues. In Sierra Pacific’s brief he is quoted as saying: “In my entire career, yes, my entire career, I have never seen anything like this. Never.” He says that as he left he told his colleagues: “It’s called the Department of Justice. It’s not called the Department of Revenue.”
Justice’s response to Sierra Pacific’s demand for its money back has been to demand that U.S. District Judge William Shubb order the removal from the case of all of the company’s lawyers who have even read Robert Wright’s sworn declaration, a document that Justice says includes privileged information. Justice says Wright’s whistleblowing is “inexcusable.”
What’s inexcusable is that Justice has ignored the message of a 1935 Supreme Court opinion that ruled that Justice’s interest is not “that it shall win a case, but that Justice shall be done.” In 2013, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes California, noted that an epidemic of prosecutorial abuse is “abroad in the land”; “Only judges,” he said, “can put a stop it it.”
Not quite right. It should be the responsibility of Loretta Lynch, the likely new attorney general, to address the excesses and ethical breaches in the Justice Department. And it is the responsibility of senators who will vote on her confirmation to go beyond the headline issues of immigration and terrorism and ask her some serious and probing questions about the Moonlight Fire fiasco and other troubling cases on Justice’s plate.
—
John Fund is national-affairs columnist for National Review Online and the co-author of Obama’s Enforcer: Eric Holder’s Justice Department(Broadside Books, 2014).----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)
America’s Strategy Deficit
A haphazard foreign policy makes a complicated world more dangerous.
Former Secretaries of State Madeline Albright, right, and George Shultz, left, look on as Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state, speaks during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. Photo: BloombergByPeggy Noonan
Something is going on here.
On Tuesday retired Gen. James Mattis, former head of U.S. Central Command (2010-13) told the Senate Armed Services Committee of his unhappiness at the current conduct of U.S. foreign policy. He said the U.S. is not “adapting to changed circumstances” in the Mideast and must “come out now from our reactive crouch.” Washington needs a “refreshed national strategy”; the White House needs to stop being consumed by specific, daily occurrences that leave it “reacting” to events as if they were isolated and unconnected. He suggested deep bumbling: “Notifying the enemy in advance of our withdrawal dates” and declaring “certain capabilities” off the table is no way to operate
Sitting beside him was Gen. Jack Keane, also a respected retired four-star, and a former Army vice chief of staff, who said al Qaeda has “grown fourfold in the last five years” and is “beginning to dominate multiple countries.” He called radical Islam “the major security challenge of our generation” and said we are failing to meet it.
The same day the generals testified, Kimberly Dozier of the Daily Beast reported that Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a retired director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, had told a Washington conference: “You cannot defeat an enemy you do not admit exists.” The audience of military and intelligence professionals applauded. Officials, he continued, are “paralyzed” by the complexity of the problems connected to militant Islam, and so do little, reasoning that “passivity is less likely to provoke our enemies.”
These statements come on the heels of the criticisms from President Obama’s own former secretaries of defense. Robert Gates, in “Duty,” published in January 2014, wrote of a White House-centric foreign policy developed by aides and staffers who are too green or too merely political. One day in a meeting the thought occurred that Mr. Obama “doesn’t trust” the military, “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his.” That’s pretty damning. Leon Panetta , in his 2014 memoir, “Worthy Fights,” said Mr. Obama ”avoids the battle, complains, and misses opportunities.”
No one thinks this administration is the A Team when it comes to foreign affairs, but this is unprecedented push-back from top military and intelligence players. They are fed up, they’re less afraid, they’re retired, and they’re speaking out. We are going to be seeing more of this kind of criticism, not less.
On Thursday came the testimony of three former secretaries of state, Henry Kissinger (1973-77), George Shultz (1982-89) and Madeleine Albright (1997-2001). Senators asked them to think aloud about what America’s national-security strategy should be, what approaches are appropriate to the moment. It was good to hear serious, not-green, not-merely-political people give a sense of the big picture. Their comments formed a kind of bookend to the generals’ criticisms.
The seemed to be in agreement on these points:
We are living through a moment of monumental world change.
Old orders are collapsing while any new stability has yet to emerge.
When you’re in uncharted waters your boat must be strong.
If America attempts to disengage from this dangerous world it will only make all the turmoil worse.
Mr. Kissinger observed that in the Mideast, multiple upheavals are unfolding simultaneously—within states, between states, between ethnic and religious groups. Conflicts often merge and produce such a phenomenon as the Islamic State, which in the name of the caliphate is creating a power base to undo all existing patterns.
Mr. Shultz said we are seeing an attack on the state system and the rise of a “different view of how the world should work.” What’s concerning is “the scope of it.”
Mr. Kissinger: “We haven’t faced such diverse crises since the end of the Second World War.” The U.S. is in “a paradoxical situation” in that “by any standard of national capacity . . . we can shape international relations,” but the complexity of the present moment is daunting. The Cold War was more dangerous, but the world we face now is more complicated.
How to proceed in creating a helpful and constructive U.S. posture?
Mr. Shultz said his attitude when secretary of state was, “If you want me in on the landing, include me in the takeoff.” Communication and consensus building between the administration and Congress is key. He added: “The government seems to have forgotten about the idea of ‘execution.’ ” It’s not enough that you say something, you have to do it, make all the pieces work.
When you make a decision, he went on, “stick with it.” Be careful with words. Never make a threat or draw a line you can’t or won’t make good on.
In negotiations, don’t waste time wondering what the other side will accept, keep your eye on what you can and work from there.
Keep the U.S. military strong, peerless, pertinent to current challenges.
Proceed to negotiations with your agenda clear and your strength unquestionable.
Mr. Kissinger: “In our national experience . . . we have trouble doing a national strategy” because we have been secure behind two big oceans. We see ourselves as a people who respond to immediate, specific challenges and then go home. But foreign policy today is not a series of discrete events, it is a question of continuous strategy in the world.
America plays the role of “stabilizer.” But it must agree on its vision before it can move forward on making it reality. There are questions that we must as a nation answer:
As we look at the world, what is it we seek to prevent? What do we seek to achieve? What can we prevent or achieve only if supported by an alliance? What values do we seek to advance? “This will require public debate.”
All agreed the cost-cutting burdens and demands on defense spending forced by the sequester must be stopped. National defense “should have a strategy-driven budget, not a budget-driven strategy,” said Mr. Kissinger.
He added that in the five wars since World War II, the U.S. began with “great enthusiasm” and had “great national difficulty” in ending them. In the last two, “withdrawal became the principal definition of strategy.” We must avoid that in the future. “We have to know the objective at the start and develop a strategy to achieve it.”
Does the U.S. military have enough to do what we must do?
“It’s not adequate to deal with all the challenges I see,” said Mr. Kissinger, “or the commitments into which we may be moving.”
Sequestration is “legislative insanity” said Mr. Shultz. “You have to get rid of it.”Both made a point of warning against the proliferation of nuclear weapons, which Mr. Shultz called “those awful things.” The Hiroshima bomb, he said, was a plaything compared with the killing power of modern nuclear weapons. A nuclear device detonated in Washington would “wipe out” the area. Previous progress on and attention to nuclear proliferation has, he said, been “derailed.”
So we need a strategy, and maybe more than one. We need to know what we’re doing and why. After this week with the retired generals and the former secretaries, the message is: Awake. See the world’s facts as they are. Make a plan.
3a) Islamic State Defeat in Kobani Will Be Hard to Replicate
by Jonathan Spyer
The near-complete liberation of the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani this week from Islamic State (IS) forces is a remarkable testimony to the tenacity and courage of the Kurdish resistance on the ground. It also showcases the awesome efficacy of US air power, when given a clear mission and properly directed.
It is nevertheless necessary to qualify some of the more hyperbolic reactions to the announcement of the IS retreat. The relief of Kobani in no way constitutes a general rout for the IS forces; neither does it signal a "beginning of the end" for the movement and its quasi-sovereign entity.
Indeed, the expulsion of the jihadists from the town does not even conclude the task facing the Kurdish fighters in the immediate vicinity of Kobani, nor does it offer any general lessons regarding the possible efficacy of Western support for armed groups in Syria or Iraq.
Still, the "heartland" of the jihadi entity in Syria's Raqqa province, and the greater part of its conquests in Iraq of last June are not yet under threat.The defeat does constitute one of a series of significant setbacks that IS has suffered in recent days. All of these were at the outer reaches of its advance: Iraqi government forces and Shi'ite militias, for example, took Diyala province; the Kurdish Peshmerga is conquering ground outside Mosul.
Regarding the specific issue of Kobani, the town came close to falling in early October of last year; the fighters of the YPG (People's Protection Units) appeared to be preparing for a last stand.
Civilians were long gone from Kobani, but the YPG also sent out all personnel not essential for the fighting, and all journalists.
The assumption was that IS would surround the town from the north, and the Kurds would then fight to the death – street by street – until the inevitable conclusion.
That this did not happen is attributable, in the first instance, to the commencement of US and allied air attacks on IS forces massing around Kobani. These began in mid-October and have formed by far the most intense aspect of the Western air campaign against the terror movement to date.
Gen. John Allen, the retired US officer responsible for coordinating the campaign, was initially circumspect about the goal of the air strikes, describing them as a "humanitarian" effort intended to buy time for the defenders to reorganize on the ground.
As the weeks passed, however, it became clear that a strategic decision that Kobani should not fall had been taken. Evidently, the intention was to crush IS gunmen between the hammer of US air power and the anvil of ongoing stubborn Kurdish resistance; in so doing, a symbol of resistance would be created.
This appears to have paid off. The reinforcement of the very determined but lightly armed YPG fighters with the artillery and mortar capability of the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who entered Kobani in late October certainly played a role in stiffening the resistance on the ground. Yet the raw courage of the YPG deserves top billing in this regard.
As a result of the Kurdish stand on the ground, the US was able to take a great cull of IS fighters. The jihadists' assault tactics are simple (though often effective), and involve human wave attacks. The US was able to observe the jihadists massing for such attacks on Kobani, and to target them from the air; IS found no effective response to this.
With regard to the movement's armored capacity, the situation was the same; the tanks were visible from the air and IS continues to have no effective defense for them. Hence, the very heavy losses suffered by the jihadists in trying to take Kobani.
Yet the victory is only partial. It is important to remember that Kurdish-controlled Kobani, prior to the IS assault in September, did not consist of Kobani city alone. Rather, "Kobani" constituted an area stretching from Kobani city to Tel Abyad in the east and Jarabulus in the west, plus several tens of kilometers in a southern direction toward the Euphrates. It was this enclave which IS sought to destroy last autumn, because the enclave jutted into northern Syria and prevented the Islamists from rapidly moving forces from east to west. It stood in the way of any future ambition to expand IS territory westward into Aleppo and Idlib provinces – so Kobani had to be destroyed.
As of now, the Kurds and their allies have succeeded in saving the city of Kobani, very close to the border with Turkey. This area became a symbol, and IS wasted over 1,000 of its fighters trying unsuccessfully to capture it. But the larger task of reconquering the 300 villages and the ground that once was a part of the Kobani enclave remains before the Kurds. One may assume that this effort will be under way in the weeks ahead. Regarding the larger lessons of the Kobani victory, it would be mistaken to jump to the conclusion that it illustrates that in providing support to anti-IS forces on the ground, the West has discovered a winning formula which can now be replicated elsewhere. This would be a rash deduction because of the specific nature of the Kurdish fighting organizations – YPG and Peshmerga.
In Syria, as in Iraq, the Kurds have developed organizations which are pro-Western in orientation, committed to the mission and efficient. The problem with the Syrian rebels, as with the Iraqi militias and forces, is that they cannot manage all three of these. If they are committed and effective fighters (like Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria or the Shi'ite militias in Iraq), they will be anti-Western. If they are pro-Western, at least nominally – like the Iraqi-armed forces or the Syrian Revolutionaries Front in northern Syria – they will tend to be corrupt or ineffective.
The reasons for this are manifold and open to debate, but it is a clearly observably empirical reality.
This means that while the West should double down on its support for the reliable, secular and anti-Islamist Kurdish forces, now controlling a long belt of territory stretching from the Iraq-Iran border to deep into Syria, Western policy-makers should be wary indeed of applying any general conclusions from the achievement in Kobani to forces other than the Kurds themselves.
Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, and a fellow at the Middle East Forum. He is the author of The Transforming Fire: The Rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict (Continuum, 2011).
4) Heritage Foundation's Moore: US Economic Recovery Is a 'House of Sand'
While official statistics point to a healthy economy — unemployment at 5.6 percent in December, economic growth at 5 percent in the third quarter — the true picture is quite different, says Stephen Moore, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation.
"The conventional statistics of economic conditions for families aren't measuring the real hardships families are facing today," he writes in a commentary for The Washington Times. "Is there anyone on this continent, who really thinks that the unemployment rate is 5.6 percent?"
Moore lists several problems.
"Americans aren't breaking out the champagne because they instinctively realize that an economic recovery built on trillions of dollars of debt, overspending, and trillions more in easy money is a house of sand," he notes.
"Mr. Obama's only economic idea is to redistribute wealth via ever-rising taxes from the productive class and the job creators to everyone else. If Republicans let him, things will get worse for everyone before they get better."
Meanwhile, Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson says the pervasive economic weakness overseas could spell trouble for the U.S. economy too.
The Eurozone economy grew only 0.6 percent annualized in the third quarter, while Japan's economy contracted 1.9 percent annualized, and China's growth slid to 7.4 percent for all of 2014, its slowest rate in 24 years.
"Think now how this might imperil the U.S. recovery. One channel is weaker exports; other countries buy less of what we make," he says.
"Another is reduced profits from foreign operations of U.S. multinationals. These represent about a third of total U.S. corporate profits. The danger is indirect. Weaker profits might depress stocks, leading to less consumer spending because shareholders feel poorer."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While official statistics point to a healthy economy — unemployment at 5.6 percent in December, economic growth at 5 percent in the third quarter — the true picture is quite different, says Stephen Moore, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation.
"The conventional statistics of economic conditions for families aren't measuring the real hardships families are facing today," he writes in a commentary for The Washington Times. "Is there anyone on this continent, who really thinks that the unemployment rate is 5.6 percent?"
Moore lists several problems.
- "The $1 trillion growth gap. This economic recovery is the slowest in 50 years," he says. An average recovery would have created $1 trillion more in national output and incomes.
- "The raiseless recovery. It's been 10 years since Americans in the middle class got a pay raise that kept pace with inflation," Moore explains.
- "The myth that inflation is dead." The cost of food, energy, tuition and healthcare has been increasing at two to three times the official inflation rate.
"Americans aren't breaking out the champagne because they instinctively realize that an economic recovery built on trillions of dollars of debt, overspending, and trillions more in easy money is a house of sand," he notes.
"Mr. Obama's only economic idea is to redistribute wealth via ever-rising taxes from the productive class and the job creators to everyone else. If Republicans let him, things will get worse for everyone before they get better."
Meanwhile, Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson says the pervasive economic weakness overseas could spell trouble for the U.S. economy too.
The Eurozone economy grew only 0.6 percent annualized in the third quarter, while Japan's economy contracted 1.9 percent annualized, and China's growth slid to 7.4 percent for all of 2014, its slowest rate in 24 years.
"Think now how this might imperil the U.S. recovery. One channel is weaker exports; other countries buy less of what we make," he says.
"Another is reduced profits from foreign operations of U.S. multinationals. These represent about a third of total U.S. corporate profits. The danger is indirect. Weaker profits might depress stocks, leading to less consumer spending because shareholders feel poorer."
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5)-
Think: Have we ever heard Obama speak lovingly of the U.S. Or its people, with deep appreciation and genuine respect for our history, our customs, our sufferings and our blessings?Has he ever revealed that, like most patriotic Americans, he gets "goose bumps" when a band plays "The Star Spangled Banner," no; he gets goose bumps when he hears the ''Muslim call to prayer"(his words) or sheds a tear when he hears a beautiful rendition of "America the Beautiful?"
Away from this country as a young child, Obama didn't delight in being part of America and its greatness.
Mostly, his time seems to be spent causing dissension, unrest, and anxiety among the people of America, rather than uniting us (even though he was presented to us
as the "Great Uniter"). He creates chaos for the sake of keeping people separated, envious, aggrieved and ready to argue. Under his leadership Americans have beenkept on edge, rather than in a state of comfort and security. He incites people to be aggressive toward, and disrespectful of, those of differing opinions. And through such behavior, Obama has lowered the standards for self-control and mature restraint to the level of street-fighting gangs, when he should be raising the bar for people to strive toward becoming more considerate, tolerant, self-disciplined, self-sustaining, and self-assured.Not a day goes by that he is not attempting to defy our laws, remove our rights, over-rideestablished procedures, install controversial appointees, enact divisive mandates,and assert a dictatorial form of government.
- Never has there been a leader of this great land who used such tactics to harm and hurt the people and this country.- Never have we had a President who spoke with a caustic, evil tongue against the citizenry ratherthan present himself as a soothing, calming and trustworthy force.- Never, in this country, have we experienced how much stress one man can cause a nation of people - on a daily basis!Obama has promoted the degeneration of peace, civility, and quality of cooperation between us.
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