POGO Was Right - The Enemy Is Obama! Hillary Becomes A Sham Rock!

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Dagny turns three and celebrates jointly  with two other friends also having their birthdays. Some 30 screaming kids came to a gym with all kind of jumping and sliding apparatus.  Pizza, fruit, birthday cakes and cookies were served.  The kid's parents seemed to have as much fun bouncing on the trampolines etc..
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Hillary receives an honorary SHAM Rock award! Whomever gave it must have been stoned!
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Get the hell out of Dodge but where to go? http://www.theatlantic.com/
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The arrogance and self importance of Obama reminds me of Roosevelt and his WW 2 dealings with Churchill and Stalin.

FDR concluded Great Britain was a declining power and Russia needed to be contained so he set about allowing Russia to control large parts of Europe and for this he obtained an agreement that Russia would assist us fight Japan. Russia did little in that regard and when Truman became president ,shortly after Yalta, he had to contend with Roosevelt's agreements.

Thereafter, the entire world had to deal with FDR's misinterpretation that Stalin could be trusted.

I am also reminded of the "Killing of Patton" and how it is plausible the Russians might have conspired with our government to have him killed because he saw through Russia but no one cared to listen.  Patton was a big thorn in everyone's side.

Confrontations and world tensions often allow lesser men to gain greater stature than they deserve, thus gaining leverage to accomplish goals they otherwise could not.  In the case of FDR, as well as Obama, both refuse(d) to listen to those who have opposite views and this can prove to be very dangerous.

Obama is about to visit a heavy price upon the world because of his arrogance, self absurdness regarding Iran's Ayatollah whose word is no better than Stalin's and whose goal of dominance is probably equal or greater. (See 1 below.)

Meanwhile, focus on protocol! (See 1a below.)

POGO was right - The enemy is Obama!
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Can Putin survive? (See 2 below.)
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I cannot believe women would vote for Clinton simply because she is of the same gender.  To think this demeans women. (See 3 below.)
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Dick
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Obama's Security Council Gambit

The administration should eschew this path and accept what the Constitution requires – Senate approval of the treaty it is now negotiating.

By David B. Rivkin, Jr. and Lee A. Casey

The recent open letter by 47 Republican Senators, putting Iran on notice that the US Constitution fundamentally limits the President’s ability unilaterally to conclude a durable nuclear weapons agreement, has prompted strident criticisms from both the American and Iranian officials, giving some tantalizing hints on how a “nuclear deal” with Iran will be achieved. Despite some carefully-phrased statements to the contrary, it appears that the administration plans to evade the Constitution’s clear requirement that the Senate approve all treaties by having the UN Security Council adopt a resolution implementing the deal.

Indeed, Iranians seem to have been aware of this cynical game plan for quite some time, as evidenced by strong rejoinders in the Iranian state-controlled press, which mocked the Senate letter. Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif stated that any nuclear weapons deal "will not be a bilateral agreement between Iran and the U.S., but rather one that will be concluded with the participation of five other countries, including all permanent members of the Security Council and will also be endorsed by a Security Council resolution." And European diplomats and UN officials also have been aware for quite some time about the administration's Security Council gambit. Only Congress and the American people have been in the dark.

This deception aside, the Security Council-centric approach, while solving some of the Administration’s political problems, would impose very significant long-term costs on the United States, and would not ultimately achieve a binding deal that cannot be altered.

The Constitution’s framers purposely divided the treaty-making power between the president and Senate, requiring that the Senate consent to any treaty by a two-thirds supermajority, both to limit presidential power and to ensure that all such international undertakings by the United States enjoyed broad domestic support. This bedrock requirement cannot be avoided by claiming that an agreement ordering critical aspects of our relationship with another country is somehow not a “treaty,” or by reference to another treaty like the UN Charter.

Ratification of the Charter committed the United States, like other UN members, to comply with certain Security Council resolutions and those resolutions may impose binding international obligations on the United States. Specifically, Chapter VII of the Charter indicates that the “Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace. . .and shall. . . decide what measures should be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.” By invoking Chapter VII, the administration intends to bypass the Senate and Congress as a whole.

The Charter, of course, does not and cannot reorder the Constitution’s division of power between Congress and the president. As the Supreme Court noted in a recent case [5], involving U.S. obligations to implement International Court of Justice decisions under the Charter, where it found that ICJ decisions were not automatically binding as a matter of domestic law “[t]he President may comply with the treaty’s obligations by some other means, so long as they are consistent with the Constitution.” Medellin v. Texas (2008)

Nevertheless, having the Security Council drive an Iranian agreement will have several deleterious legal and policy consequences. First, while the Iranian nuclear deal would not be binding on the United States as a “signatory” to the agreement, rendering Secretary Kerry’s statement to this effect technically correct but utterly misleading, it would bind the United States as a UN member.

Second, as is common with Chapter VII resolutions, the Iranian nuclear weapons resolution would keep the Council seized of the matter. This means that the resolution could be revised only by future Security Council action, which the United States cannot guarantee. For example, the United States and its allies would be unable to extend the proposed 10-year sunset provision, even if that became necessary based on Iranian conduct, since Iran would surely oppose the measure with the backing of Russia and China, who can veto any change.

This point is worth emphasizing, since the administration's main oft-articulated reason for choosing the 10-year time frame for the nuclear deal is its belief that over this time period Iran's regime would lose its revolutionary character and become a responsible regional power. This optimistic assumption has been strongly challenged by Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states, who point out that Tehran hasn't mellowed over the last several decades. The response by administration's supporters has been that the United States will be able to react in the future to evolving Iranian behavior, whether positive or negative; this claim rings hollow, given the Chapter VII resolution that would enshrine the nuclear weapons deal.

And even if Iran's own behavior is impeccable, other developments may well arise that would require changes in the agreement. For example, Saudi Arabia has indicated that it will endeavor to acquire nuclear infrastructure matching Tehran's, thus precipitating a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and beyond. And the administration's erstwhile priority has been to deny uranium enrichment capability to Sunni Arab states.

So, to salvage this goal, it might wish to try changing the Iran nuclear deal, and yet, having chosen the Security Council venue, it would unable to so. This is highly ironic, since the administration's main justification for eschewing the treaty route is to preserve the President’s flexibility to change the deal on a moment's notice, if circumstances demanding the change arise.

Third, it would be up to the Security Council to determine whether or not Iran is complying, and whether any particular violation is material. Even if the United States believes that Iran is in clear violation of its obligations, it could not suspend compliance with its own obligations unless the Security Council agreed. If it threatened to use force without Security Council approval – which remains possible as a self-defense measure under the Charter – the U.S. would certainly be branded an international lawbreaker at a tremendous diplomatic cost.

Indeed, the broader consequence of this whole approach would be to make the Security Council Iran's powerful international protector, buttressing its ambitions as a regional hegemon and inducing Sunni Arab states to propitiate Tehran. While the Security Council has not always been responsive to US wishes---given the veto power wielded by other permanent members---

Washington has at least been able to render it ineffective by exercising its own veto. The transformation of the Security Council into Iran's ally would represent one of the most disastrous failures of American statecraft, a point that the administration seems to have overlooked.

Fourth, the international law consequences aside, the administration may well argue that a Security Council resolution binding on all UN member states, coupled with certain existing delegations of authority from Congress to the president, has a comparable domestic legal effect, giving the President authority to suspend or even cancel the statutory sanction regime now in place against Iran. Although this argument is legally flawed, it might give the administration some political cover to lift sanctions against Iran.

The administration is also likely to claim that, having dismantled U.S. statutory sanctions, it will retain leverage against Iran thru the so-called "snap back scheme," whereby the Security Council, having vitiated some Iran sanctions entirely, will suspend the rest of them on a rolling basis. This would require the Security Council to renew the suspension every 180 days, theoretically enabling the United States to block this by exercising it veto power.

This argument, however, fails to carry the day; since the Security Council would be seized of the compliance issues, it would be exceedingly difficult for the United States to claim that Iran has violated the agreement and unilaterally block the renewed sanction suspension. Moreover, once the sanctions have been relaxed for a protracted period of time and enough Western companies have invested in Iran, re-imposing them would be ever more difficult. And, once the Iranian economy has recovered, it will become resilient to the resumption of sanctions, even if they could be re-imposed.

Overall, it is understandable why by-passing Congress and going directly to the Security Council has appeal to the president and his advisors, who are desperately looking for something that can be portrayed as foreign policy achievement and appreciate the depth and breadth of congressional opposition to any agreement permitting Iran to retain its nuclear infrastructure. But this tactic would also create tremendous diplomatic and national-security costs for the United States in the future, giving Iran the “high ground” as a victim of American lawlessness in future confrontations over its nuclear ambitions.

It would also set a dangerous precedent for future presidents, who may also be determined to achieve their foreign policy ends regardless of Congress and the Constitution’s requirements for treaty-making. This would lead to the aggrandizement of presidential power at the expense of Congress and warping of the separation-of-powers architecture, which is the primary means of protecting individual liberty in our constitutional system.

Moreover, if the purpose of using the Security Council is truly to tie the hands of a future president and Congress who may view the Iranian regime and its geo-political ambitions differently, it will not work. However binding Security Council resolutions may be on the international level, they are not “treaties” and the UN Charter – which is – is not self-executing. Thus, although the U.S. might be in violation of its international obligations, as a matter of domestic law, the president must still obtain congressional assent before he can lawfully lift statutory sanctions against Iran.

A future president could simply begin again enforcing those sanctions against Iranian assets, individuals and businesses that violate them. Perhaps even more importantly, even if the United States were to take a harder line against Iran in the future, violating the anticipated resolution, the Security Council would have to adopt a second resolution imposing enforcement measures against the United States, which the United States could of course veto.

In other words, if the administration does proceed to enshrine a nuclear-arms deal with Iran through the Security Council as a means of cutting Congress out of the process, it will not achieve its ultimate goal of a long-term agreement binding on the United States. It will merely impose additional and avoidable costs on the United States in the future when – as will almost certainly be the case – Iran again moves towards achieving nuclear power status. As a result, the administration should eschew this path and accept what the Constitution requires – Senate approval of the treaty it is now negotiating.

Messrs. Rivkin and Casey are partners at BakerHostetler LLP, specializing in constitutional litigation, and served at the Department of Justice and the White House Counsel’s Office during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations. Rivkin is also a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.


1a)

Obama’s failed Iran policy, not protocol, is the problem

 By Marc A. Thiessen

So let’s get this straight: Iranian-backed rebels have overthrown the pro-American government in Yemen that was helping us fight al-Qaeda’s most dangerous branch. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has deployed its terrorist Quds Force into Iraq, and its infamous commander, Gen. Qasem Soleimani, is on the ground leading the offensive against the Islamic State. Iran is on the verge of getting the world to lift economic sanctions in exchange for a nuclear agreement so bad that it has actually united Arabs and Israelis in opposition.

And Washington is concerned with . . . protocol.

It was a violation of protocol, we are told, for House Speaker John Boehner to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to explain the dangers of the Iran accord to Congress. It was a violation of protocol for Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and 46 other Republican senators to issue an open letter to Iran’s leaders explaining that any agreement they reach with Obama might not survive his presidency.

To hell with protocol. Iran is on the march across the Middle East. The regime in Tehran is turning Iraq (a country thousands of Americas died to liberate) into an Iranian proto-satellite state. It is propping up the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria that has killed some 200,000 people. It is using proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen to conduct jihad against the West. And President Obama is trying to turn Iran into a partner in peace — promising that if Iran cooperates with the United States, it could become “a very successful regional power.”

Iran already is “a very successful regional power.” And it believes it could become even more successful if it had a nuclear weapon.

The Obama administration is negotiating an accord that would bring Iran closer to that objective. The agreement Obama is negotiating would reportedly lift sanctions on Iran without requiring the regime to dismantle a single element of its nuclear program or cease its development of intercontinental ballistic missiles. This means that when the accord expires in a decade (another disastrous concession) Iran could then break out as a nuclear power with missiles that can deliver mass destruction far beyond the Middle East. The result could be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, as the United States’ Gulf allies race to develop a nuclear deterrent of their own to counter a nuclear Iran. And a nuclear Iran would be even more emboldened to destabilize its neighbors and seek to impose its hegemony across the region.

So let’s be clear: With all due respect to Miss Manners, protocol breaches are the least of our problems. To the contrary, we should be thankful there are still leaders in Washington like Cotton who are willing to throw their bodies on the tracks to stop the runaway train of Obama’s failed Iran policy.

On Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry declared Cotton’s open letter to Iranian leaders “unconstitutional.” Apparently Kerry is unfamiliar with a part of that document called the First Amendment. And perhaps Kerry — and all those who are complaining about protocol and constitutional violations — could answer a simple question: Would it be a violation of protocol for the Obama administration to seek the United Nations’ approval of its Iran deal while circumventing Congress? Where in the Constitution does it say that the president can get the U.N. Security Council to make an agreement legally binding on our country without the approval of the elected representatives of the American people?

Apparently the Obama administration is contemplating doing just that — using a Security Council vote on its Iran deal to impose an international legal obligation on the United States, in an effort to prevent the next president from withdrawing from the agreement and reimposing sanctions. Of course, Obama cannot, in fact, use the U.N. to bind the next president. The Constitution trumps the U.N. Charter. Congress must pass legislation implementing Security Council resolutions for them to carry force of law, and it is unlikely Congress would ever do so in this case. But the fact that the Obama administration would even consider such an end run around Congress, while accusing its Republican critics of violating the Constitution, is sheer hypocrisy. And untold damage to our nation’s security will be done, since once the international sanctions regime is dismantled, it will be impossible to reimpose.

Cotton and his GOP colleagues have every right to publicly express their opposition to the Iran accord. And if a simple press release from 47 senators is enough to blow up Obama’s nuclear deal, then good for them. The republic will be safer as a result.

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2) Can Putin Survive?

By George Friedman

Editor's Note: This week, we revisit a Geopolitical Weekly first published in July 2014 that explored whether Russian President Vladimir Putin could hold on to power despite his miscalculations in Ukraine, a topic that returned to prominence with his recent temporary absence from public view. While Putin has since reappeared, the issues highlighted by his disappearing act persist.

There is a general view that Vladimir Putin governs the Russian Federation as a dictator, that he has defeated and intimidated his opponents and that he has marshaled a powerful threat to surrounding countries. This is a reasonable view, but perhaps it should be re-evaluated in the context of recent events.

Ukraine and the Bid to Reverse Russia's Decline

Ukraine is, of course, the place to start. The country is vital to Russia as a buffer against the West and as a route for delivering energy to Europe, which is the foundation of the Russian economy. On Jan. 1, Ukraine's president was Viktor Yanukovich, generally regarded as favorably inclined to Russia. Given the complexity of Ukrainian society and politics, it would be unreasonable to say Ukraine under him was merely a Russian puppet. But it is fair to say that under Yanukovich and his supporters, fundamental Russian interests in Ukraine were secure.

This was extremely important to Putin. Part of the reason Putin had replaced Boris Yeltsin in 2000 was Yeltsin's performance during the Kosovo war. Russia was allied with the Serbs and had not wanted NATO to launch a war against Serbia. Russian wishes were disregarded. The Russian views simply didn't matter to the West. Still, when the air war failed to force Belgrade's capitulation, the Russians negotiated a settlement that allowed U.S. and other NATO troops to enter and administer Kosovo. As part of that settlement, Russian troops were promised a significant part in peacekeeping in Kosovo. But the Russians were never allowed to take up that role, and Yeltsin proved unable to respond to the insult.

Putin also replaced Yeltsin because of the disastrous state of the Russian economy. Though Russia had always been poor, there was a pervasive sense that it been a force to be reckoned with in international affairs. Under Yeltsin, however, Russia had become even poorer and was now held in contempt in international affairs. Putin had to deal with both issues. He took a long time before moving to recreate Russian power, though he said early on that the fall of the Soviet Union had been the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. This did not mean he wanted to resurrect the Soviet Union in its failed form, but rather that he wanted Russian power to be taken seriously again, and he wanted to protect and enhance Russian national interests.

The breaking point came in Ukraine during the Orange Revolution of 2004. Yanukovich was elected president that year under dubious circumstances, but demonstrators forced him to submit to a second election. He lost, and a pro-Western government took office. At that time, Putin accused the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies of having organized the demonstrations. Fairly publicly, this was the point when Putin became convinced that the West intended to destroy the Russian Federation, sending it the way of the Soviet Union. For him, Ukraine's importance to Russia was self-evident. He therefore believed that the CIA organized the demonstration to put Russia in a dangerous position, and that the only reason for this was the overarching desire to cripple or destroy Russia. Following the Kosovo affair, Putin publicly moved from suspicion to hostility to the West.

The Russians worked from 2004 to 2010 to undo the Orange Revolution. They worked to rebuild the Russian military, focus their intelligence apparatus and use whatever economic influence they had to reshape their relationship with Ukraine. If they couldn't control Ukraine, they did not want it to be controlled by the United States and Europe. This was, of course, not their only international interest, but it was the pivotal one.

Russia's invasion of Georgia had more to do with Ukraine than it had to do with the Caucasus. At the time, the United States was still bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan. While Washington had no formal obligation to Georgia, there were close ties and implicit guarantees. The invasion of Georgia was designed to do two things. The first was to show the region that the Russian military, which had been in shambles in 2000, was able to act decisively in 2008. The second was to demonstrate to the region, and particularly to Kiev, that American guarantees, explicit or implicit, had no value. In 2010, Yanukovich was elected president of Ukraine, reversing the Orange Revolution and limiting Western influence in the country.

Recognizing the rift that was developing with Russia and the general trend against the United States in the region, the Obama administration tried to recreate older models of relationships when Hillary Clinton presented Putin with a "restart" button in 2009. But Washington wanted to restore the relationship in place during what Putin regarded as the "bad old days." He naturally had no interest in such a restart. Instead, he saw the United States as having adopted a defensive posture, and he intended to exploit his advantage.

One place he did so was in Europe, using EU dependence on Russian energy to grow closer to the Continent, particularly Germany. But his high point came during the Syrian affair, when the Obama administration threatened airstrikes after Damascus used chemical weapons only to back off from its threat. The Russians aggressively opposed Obama's move, proposing a process of negotiations instead. The Russians emerged from the crisis appearing decisive and capable, the United States indecisive and feckless. Russian power accordingly appeared on the rise, and in spite of a weakening economy, this boosted Putin's standing.

The Tide Turns Against Putin

Events in Ukraine this year, by contrast, have proved devastating to Putin. In January, Russia dominated Ukraine. By February, Yanukovich had fled the country and a pro-Western government had taken power. The general uprising against Kiev that Putin had been expecting in eastern Ukraine after Yanukovich's ouster never happened. Meanwhile, the Kiev government, with Western advisers, implanted itself more firmly. By July, the Russians controlled only small parts of Ukraine. These included Crimea, where the Russians had always held overwhelming military force by virtue of treaty, and a triangle of territory from Donetsk to Luhansk to Severodonetsk, where a small number of insurgents apparently supported by Russian special operations forces controlled a dozen or so towns.
If no Ukrainian uprising occurred, Putin's strategy was to allow the government in Kiev to unravel of its own accord and to split the United States from Europe by exploiting Russia's strong trade and energy ties with the Continent. And this is where the crash of the Malaysia Airlines jet is crucial. If it turns out — as appears to be the case — that Russia supplied air defense systems to the separatists and sent crews to man them (since operating those systems requires extensive training), Russia could be held responsible for shooting down the plane. And this means Moscow's ability to divide the Europeans from the Americans would decline. Putin then moves from being an effective, sophisticated ruler who ruthlessly uses power to being a dangerous incompetent supporting a hopeless insurrection with wholly inappropriate weapons. And the West, no matter how opposed some countries might be to a split with Putin, must come to grips with how effective and rational he really is.

Meanwhile, Putin must consider the fate of his predecessors. Nikita Khrushchev returned from vacation in October 1964 to find himself replaced by his protege, Leonid Brezhnev, and facing charges of, among other things, "harebrained scheming." Khrushchev had recently been humiliated in the Cuban missile crisis. This plus his failure to move the economy forward after about a decade in power saw his closest colleagues "retire" him. A massive setback in foreign affairs and economic failures had resulted in an apparently unassailable figure being deposed.

Russia's economic situation is nowhere near as catastrophic as it was under Khrushchev or Yeltsin, but it has deteriorated substantially recently, and perhaps more important, has failed to meet expectations. After recovering from the 2008 crisis, Russia has seen several years of declining gross domestic product growth rates, and its central bank is forecasting zero growth this year. Given current pressures, we would guess the Russian economy will slide into recession sometime in 2014. The debt levels of regional governments have doubled in the past four years, and several regions are close to bankruptcy. Moreover, some metals and mining firms are facing bankruptcy. The Ukrainian crisis has made things worse. Capital flight from Russia in the first six months stood at $76 billion, compared to $63 billion for all of 2013. Foreign direct investment fell 50 percent in the first half of 2014 compared to the same period in 2013. And all this happened in spite of oil prices remaining higher than $100 per barrel.

Putin's popularity at home soared after the successful Sochi Winter Olympics and after the Western media made him look like the aggressor in Crimea. He has, after all, built his reputation on being tough and aggressive. But as the reality of the situation in Ukraine becomes more obvious, the great victory will be seen as covering a retreat coming at a time of serious economic problems. For many leaders, the events in Ukraine would not represent such an immense challenge. But Putin has built his image on a tough foreign policy, and the economy meant his ratings were not very high before Ukraine.

Imagining Russia After Putin

In the sort of regime that Putin has helped craft, the democratic process may not be the key to understanding what will happen next. Putin has restored Soviet elements to the structure of the government, even using the term "Politburo" for his inner Cabinets. These are all men of his choosing, of course, and so one might assume they would be loyal to him. But in the Soviet-style Politburo, close colleagues were frequently the most feared.

he Politburo model is designed for a leader to build coalitions among factions. Putin has been very good at doing that, but then he has been very successful at all the things he has done until now. His ability to hold things together declines as trust in his abilities declines and various factions concerned about the consequences of remaining closely tied to a failing leader start to maneuver. Like Khrushchev, who was failing in economic and foreign policy, Putin could have his colleagues remove him.

It is difficult to know how a succession crisis would play out, given that the constitutional process of succession exists alongside the informal government Putin has created. From a democratic standpoint, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin are as popular as Putin is, and I suspect they both will become more popular in time. In a Soviet-style struggle, Chief of Staff Sergei Ivanov and Security Council Chief Nicolai Patryushev would be possible contenders. But there are others. Who, after all, expected the emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev? 

Ultimately, politicians who miscalculate and mismanage tend not to survive. Putin miscalculated in Ukraine, failing to anticipate the fall of an ally, failing to respond effectively and then stumbling badly in trying to recoup. His management of the economy has not been exemplary of late either, to say the least. He has colleagues who believe they could do a better job, and now there are important people in Europe who would be glad to see him go. He must reverse this tide rapidly, or he may be replaced.
Putin is far from finished. But he has governed for 14 years counting the time Dmitri Medvedev was officially in charge, and that is a long time. He may well regain his footing, but as things stand at the moment, I would expect quiet thoughts to be stirring in his colleagues' minds. Putin himself must be re-examining his options daily. Retreating in the face of the West and accepting the status quo in Ukraine would be difficult, given that the Kosovo issue that helped propel him to power and given what he has said about Ukraine over the years. But the current situation cannot sustain itself. The wild card in this situation is that if Putin finds himself in serious political trouble, he might become more rather than less aggressive. Whether Putin is in real trouble is not something I can be certain of, but too many things have gone wrong for him lately for me not to consider the possibility. And as in any political crisis, more and more extreme options are contemplated if the situation deteriorates.

Those who think that Putin is both the most repressive and aggressive Russian leader imaginable should bear in mind that this is far from the case. Lenin, for example, was fearsome. But Stalin was much worse. There may similarly come a time when the world looks at the Putin era as a time of liberality. For if the struggle by Putin to survive, and by his challengers to displace him, becomes more intense, the willingness of all to become more brutal might well increase.
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3)

Why Clinton Hypocrisy Should Bother Women

By Sharon Day

Even as the country is rightly focused on Hillary Clinton’s private emails and the impact they have on national security, Clinton has been receiving praise recently from her supporters in Hollywood, the fashion industry, and corporate America for her work promoting women’s equality. Anyone familiar with the work of the RNC Co-Chair would know that I am a strong proponent of the election and promotion of women. But reports that Clinton has historically paid her male staff more than she has paid her female staff have emerged, thereby calling into question her commitment to gender equality.

In her Senate office, women were paid 72 cents for every dollar a man made. And at the Clinton Foundation, the eight most highly compensated employees in 2013 were men.

But this isn’t the only example of her hypocrisy—when it comes to women’s equality as well as ethics in government.

The Clinton Foundation accepted money from at least 60 corporations that lobbied the State Department under her leadership. In some cases, those donations came after she helped the company and others came before. Despite calls for those donations to be returned, none of those corporations has sought to have donations returned.

In fact, the Clinton Foundation even lifted their own ban on international donations and accepted money from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and numerous other countries, despite the ethical questions it raises as she considers a run for president.

It is important to note that many of the countries that made commitments to the Clinton Foundation are also notorious for poor treatment toward women in their own countries. Clinton’s own State Department gave countries like Algeria, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia low ratings for their treatment of women, yet Clinton’s foundation gladly accepted donations from them.

It is Clinton’s “do as I say, not as I do” attitude that is a window into how she might lead as the U.S. president. It also shows the tenacity and commitment she has to win the White House in 2016. She will stop at nothing in her quest for the presidency.

Despite the fact that she faces few—if any—primary challengers, Clinton is still a flawed candidate, as was clear last week. Her press conference at the U.N. in response to her email scandal drew attention from every major news network. But it created more questions than it answered. It also showed just how unwilling she is to be open, transparent, and honest.

The fact that Hillary Clinton has lost touch is undeniable. From her $300,000-a-pop speeches to her demands for private jets to her comments that she was “dead broke” after leaving the White House, she certainly seems to think she deserves only the best.

Still, the Democrats increasingly feel they have no option but to support Clinton. So they’re ready to coronate her. She boasts millions of dollars raised with promises of millions more on the way. Not only does she outweigh everyone in resources, the Clinton team is lining up new staff everyday.

So while in 2014, we elected a record 104 women to serve in the 114th Congress and Republican women made history by electing the youngest woman to Congress and the first female combat veteran woman to the Senate, Democrats are preparing to take a victory lap for nominating a woman for president.

But with Hillary Clinton comes a lot of baggage. When they nominate her, they will have nominated a duplicitous candidate with a history of hypocrisy—one who is so flawed that even her advocacy for women has raised complicated ethical questions. That doesn’t sound like a winning candidate to me.