SIRC Feb. 15, President's Day Dinner Speaker!
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Israel does what it has to do in view of the fact Obama has become Rip Van Winkle!
As "Ole Bill" Once said: 'you gotta do what you gotta do."' ( See 1 below.)
and
Obama might be doing the same. (See 1a below.)
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I hope the Pope understands: "Without Capitalism, more poverty. With Socialism, more economic blight and less personal freedom."
Obama, Bernie and Hillarious do not understand this or if they do, they do not care.
This from a close friend and fellow member reader:
"A $50 LESSON: Recently, while I was working in the flower beds in
the front yard, my neighbors stopped to chat as they returned home
from walking their dog. During our friendly conversation, I asked
their little girl what she wanted to be when she grew up. She said she
wanted to be President someday. Both of her parents, Democratic Party
members, were standing there so I asked her, "If you were President
what would be the first thing you would do?" She replied... "I'd give
food and houses to all the homeless people." Her parents beamed with
pride! "Wow...what a worthy goal!" I said..."But you don't have to
wait until you're President to do that!" "What do you mean?" she
replied.
So I told her, "You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull
weeds, and trim my hedge, and I'll pay you $50. Then you can go over
to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can
give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house."
She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight
in the eye and asked, "Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do
the work, and you can just pay him the $50?" I said, "Welcome to the
Republican Party."
"Her parents aren't speaking to me anymore."
And
This from another dear friend and fellow memo reader who escaped from the Castro brothers and knows of what he speaks!
"
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I responded, since he considered himself to be a Christian therefore, he was a Christian. In my eyes , he may be a Christian but he appears to have a Muslim mind set.
While the Pope was spreading the word of peace and good cheer in our Eastern Corridor, apparently
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the angry face of the Demwits, was going ballistic over Sen. Rubio's appearance at a fund raiser home of a man who owned some world memorabilia that includes items of dictators. He was also doing so on Yom Kippur Eve so she accused him of being anti-Jewish. This from the woman who voted in favor of Iran building a nuclear bomb that could eliminate Israel.
What hypocrisy.
But then Demwits have proven, time and again, they will go to any length to smear, to get in the gutter. We saw that with Sen. Reid. At least, unlike Romney, Rubio will not take it lying down. The sympathetic dolts in the press and media will give Wasserman cover so Rubio can expect nothing from them because they are busy beating up on sidekick Carson, for believing a radical Islamist Muslim is not worthy of becoming president.
Get ready for the nastiest campaign in American history and hopefully it will backfire on the slingers!
DWS is a first class mudslinger and if the Demwits had any since of fair play they would force her resignation but I hope she stays around because her intemperance simply works against her.
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Posted once before but worth re-posting. This was sent by a dear friend and fellow memo reader:
"A well done, short video explaining WHY the Government won't cut Spending...
===This is a good one to watch no matter which side you favor, whether you're a Democrat or Republican.
Detente - how's it doing? (See 2 below.)
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Dick
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'Azerbaijan allows Israel to use its air bases near Iran border’
Foreign Policy quotes U.S. diplomats as saying “We’re now watching what Israel is doing in Azerbaijan. And we’re not happy about it” • A series of quiet political and military understandings have won
Israel access to these air bases, senior U.S. sources explain.
Close to Tehran? Foreign Policy says Israeli F-15s, like the one seen here, might be utilizing runways in Azerbaijan.
Senior American diplomats and military intelligence officers have told Foreign Policy magazine that the United States now believes that Israel has been granted access to air bases in Azerbaijan, which shares a border with Iran. “The Israelis have bought an airfield,” a senior official told Foreign Policy in early February, “and the airfield is called Azerbaijan.”
According to the Foreign Policy report, Israel’s embassy in Washington, the Israel Defense Forces and the Mossad spy agency were all contacted for comment but did not respond.The Azeri Embassy in the U.S. also withheld a response, but a U.S. military intelligence officer has noted, according to Foreign Policy, that when posed with the question in the past, Azerbaijan’s Defense Minister Safar Abiyev had not explicitly said his country would bar Israeli bombers from landing there after an attack on Iran. Nor did he rule out granting Israel permission to station search-and-rescue units in the country, according to the report.
Israel’s ties with Azerbaijan, a Muslim country that became independent with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, have grown as its once-strong strategic relationship with another Iranian neighbor, Turkey, has deteriorated. For Israeli intelligence, there is also a possible added benefit from Azerbaijan: its significant cross-border contacts and trade with Iran’s large ethnic Azeri community.
Speaking to Foreign Policy, one of the U.S. sources said, “We’re watching what Iran does closely. But we’re now watching what Israel is doing in Azerbaijan. And we’re not happy about it.”
The Azeri military - based on a report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance 2011 and brought forth by Foreign Policy - has four abandoned, Soviet-era airfields that could be made available to the Israelis, as well as four air bases for its own planes.
The U.S. intelligence and diplomatic officials told Foreign Policy that Israel, through a series of quiet political and military understandings, has won access to these air bases. “I doubt that there’s actually anything in writing,” one senior retired American diplomat with rich experience in the region told Foreign Policy, “but I don’t think there’s any doubt -- if Israeli jets want to land in Azerbaijan after an attack, they’d probably be allowed to do so. Israel is deeply embedded in Azerbaijan, and has been for the last two decades.”
In February 2012, Israeli defense officials confirmed the completion of a $1.6 billion deal to sell drones and anti-aircraft and missile defense systems to Azerbaijan, bringing sophisticated Israeli technology to Iran’s doorstep.
Israel Hayom reported at the time that it was not clear whether the arms deal with Azerbaijan was connected to any potential Israeli plans to strike Iran, but that Israeli defense officials spoke to Israel Hayom on condition of anonymity because they were not at liberty to discuss defense deals.
Danny Yatom, a former head of the Mossad, said the timing of the deal was likely coincidental. “Such a deal ... takes a long period of time to become ripe,” he told The Associated Press.
He said Israel would continue to sell arms to its friends. “If it will help us in challenging Iran, it is for the better,” he said.
Former CENTCOM Commander Gen. Joe Hoar explained Israel’s calculations regarding a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities to Foreign Policy by saying, “They save themselves 800 miles of fuel. That doesn’t guarantee that Israel will attack Iran, but it certainly makes it more doable.”
Israel’s motivation for using Azeri air bases could be about more than simply saving fuel in a possible attack on Iran, it could be because, according to the report, one senior U.S. military intelligence officer described Israel’s mid-air refueling capabilities as “pretty minimal,” adding, “They’re just not very good at it.”
However, according to the Foreign Policy report, it is “precisely what is not known about the relationship [between Israel and Azerbaijan] that keeps U.S. military planners up at night.”
One former CIA analyst told Foreign Policy that the U.S. had its doubts that Israel would launch an attack from Azerbaijan, describing it as “just too chancy, politically.” The source didn’t rule out the option that Israel could use Azeri airfields for “follow-on or recovery operations,” but added, “Of course, if they do that, it widens the conflict, and complicates it. It’s extremely dangerous.”
Two weeks ago security services in Azerbaijan arrested 22 people they say were hired by Iran to carry out terrorist attacks against the U.S. and Israeli embassies as well as Western-linked groups and companies.
Early last month, Iran’s Foreign Ministry accused Azerbaijan of allowing the Mossad to operate on its territory and providing a corridor for “terrorists” to kill Iranian nuclear scientists. Azerbaijan dismissed the Iranian claims as “slanderous lies.”
1a)
Report: Evidence US Is Backtracking on Iran Stance, Restarting Negotiations With Islamic Republic
The U.S. could be easing its policy on sanctions relief for Iran and restarting negotiations with the Islamic Republic, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reported on Monday.
According to the report, the fact that foreign ministers of the P5+1 and Iran are set to meet with their Iranian counterpart in New York next week to “examine the recent developments of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)” is evidence of this potential shift.
At a joint press conference in Berlin on Sunday with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced that he would meet Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on September 28 – on the margins of the UN General Assembly – to discuss “Iran and other matters.”
This, MEMRI points out, comes on the heels of statements emerging from Tehran, which cast doubt on whether the JCPOA was actually finalized.
For example, on Saturday, the head of Iran’s Center for Strategic Research, Ali Akbar Velayati, one of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s close advisers, said that the “nuclear negotiations are not over yet.”
Velayati’s assertion was a more diplomatic and abbreviated version of remarks made by Khamenei at the beginning of the month.
In a speech he delivered on September 3 to the Assembly of Experts – the body of Islamic theologians tasked with electing, supervising or removing the supreme leader from power – Khamenei said he did not accept the terms of the agreement as they have been touted by the P5+1 powers, particularly the United States.
“We negotiated [with the Americans] in order to have the sanctions lifted, and the sanctions will be lifted. Now, if we are supposed to uphold this framework… this completely contradicts the reason for Iran’s participation in the talks to begin with. Otherwise, what was the point of our participation in the talks? We would have continued to do what we were doing [prior to the talks]… The fact that we sat down and held talks and made concessions on certain issues was mainly in order to have the sanctions lifted. If the sanctions are not going to be lifted, there will be no agreement… [Our] officials [i.e. Rouhani’s government and his Ministry of Foreign Affairs] should make this clear…
“Freezing or suspension [of the sanctions] is unacceptable to me… If they suspend [the sanctions], we too will suspend [what is incumbent upon us]. If we are to implement what [is required of us], the sanctions must be [actually] cancelled. True, the other side says that some of the sanctions are not [up to them entirely] to be lifted. We say in response that [with regard to those sanctions] we will use our legal rights to freeze them. But regarding [the sanctions that are] in the hands of the American and European governments – those must be totally lifted.”
According to MEMRI, “The apparent meaning of all the above is that the nuclear negotiations, which Iran considers unfinished, will be reopened, with the aim of achieving the complete lifting of sanctions – instead of a mere suspension of them as was agreed in the JCPOA and adopted in U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231.”
In the immediate aftermath of Khamenei’s speech, White House spokesman Josh Earnest stated:
“We’ve been crystal clear about the fact that Iran will have to take a variety of serious steps to significantly roll back their nuclear program before any sanctions relief is offered — and this is everything from reducing their nuclear uranium stockpile by 98 percent, disconnecting thousands of centrifuges, essentially gutting the core of their heavy-water reactor at Arak, giving the IAEA the information and access they need in order to complete their report about the potential military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program. And then we need to see Iran begin to comply with the inspections regime that the IAEA will put in place to verify their compliance with the agreement.
“And only after those steps and several others have been effectively completed, will Iran begin to receive sanctions relief. The good news is all of this is codified in the agreement that was reached between Iran and the rest of the international community. And that’s what we will be focused on, is their compliance with the agreement.”
But now, with Iran refusing in retrospect to acknowledge the above, “The expected meeting between the P5+1 foreign ministers and Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif may be evidence of a shift in the White House position and also evidence that it intends to discuss the Iranian demand for further concessions from the superpowers,” MEMRI stated. “It should be clarified that agreement on the part of the U.S. to lifting the sanctions would constitute a fundamental change to the JCPOA. This is because lifting the sanctions, rather than suspending them, will render impossible a snapback in case of Iranian violations, and the guarantee of a snapback is one of the central justifications for the JCPOA, according to President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry.”
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