Obama's Recovery In Just 9 Charts
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Will Moynihan to be followed by this Senator from Nebraska? (See , 1a and 1b below.)
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The Buffett Rule. You decide. (See 2 below.)
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Too late to walk into the door that Politico recently opened? (See 3 below.)
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Did Hell just freeze over? (See 4 below.)
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My observations:
Putin lies to America and particularly to Obama.
Russia lies to the world and the IOC.
Hillarious lies to voters as does Obama.
High officials at various Federal Agencies lie to Congress and thus, the American people.
Radicals riot and intimidate police with their lies.
ISIS , at least, tells the truth. They stipulate they are out to destroy Western Civilization and readily admit their beheadings etc.
Lying seems to be the in thing!
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Now let's look at the remaining major and struggling Republican candidates:
Majors:
Trump mostly wrong man at right time. Has many appealing qualities but light on details.
Carson partly right man at right time. Interesting humanist but light on background.
Kasich was right man but no longer. Defeated by looks and how he holds himself. Good record.
JEB right man at wrong time. Good record but lacks fire in his belly.
Carly Fiorina interesting woman and right time. Cannot maintain traction after debate appearances.
Cruz is an ideologue at right time but lacks broad appeal with his slash and burn attitude.
Rubio could be right man at right time but, like Carson, light on background.
Rand mixed but interesting bag when it comes to appropriate thinking for today's challenges.
Minors:
Christie should be higher but has some baggage that hold him back.
Huckabee should go back to FOX.
Jindal wasting his time and someone's money.
Santorum must be deaf and cannot hear the message - 'quit while you are behind.'
Graham shame he could not make the top rung because he is a good man with right ideas.
Can a candidate worthy of being president and undamaged by the tortuous process emerge and also be capable of beating Hillarious? Stay tuned.
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Now let's look at the Demwit Candidates:
Hillarious ia like the battery bunny who just does not stop. She offers rancid fare all over again!
Sanders we would be better off if he ran for Prime Minister of Sweden.
Scary to think Hillarious could follow Obama. Eight years of a plague is one thing but doubt Uncle Sam could survive 4 more years of Obama Botulism.
WOE IS US! (See 5 below.)
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Iran continues to 'diss' Obama, America, our Fifth Fleet and the West! (See 6 below.)
Fighting the JV Team! (See 6a below.)
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Precision is not a lost art: http://www.youtube.com/embed/HW3QVLlK-kE?feature=player_embedded
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Dick
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1) An unusually promising senator's unusual debut
By Fred Barnes
After Senator Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) delivered his maiden speech on the Senate floor last week, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sent a text of his address to every Republican senator. This was unusual. McConnell rarely does anything quite like this.
It was all the more surprising since Sasse is a freshman who declared during his Senate campaign in 2014 that McConnell was one of the problems with Washington. To say the clash with McConnell was overblown is putting it mildly. In any case, friends of Sasse advised him to stifle negative references to McConnell. And Sasse did just that.
Though he was the unofficial Tea Party candidate in the Nebraska race, Sasse now appears to have landed on the good side of the distinction McConnell draws between senators eager to make a point and those who prefer to make a difference.
Sasse belongs on the make-a-difference side. He is not another Ted Cruz, a point maker, and he indicated as much in his speech. For one thing, he revived a long-forgotten Senate tradition by waiting a year from his election before uttering a single word on the Senate floor. Silence is not a Cruz trait.
And Sasse said this: "To the grandstanders who use this institution as a platform for outside pursuits, few believe the country's needs are as important to you as your ambitions." It was seen as a shot at Cruz, McConnell's least favorite GOP senator.
McConnell had another reason for liking Sasse's riveting, richly detailed address. It was in some ways a higher-octane version of a speech McConnell gave last year. Sasse said the Senate has lost its way and "allowed the short-termism of sound bite culture to invade this chamber." McConnell said the Senate "can be better than it has been .??.??. and must be if we are to remain great as a nation."
One phrase stands out, since both used it. McConnell said Senate committees should be relied on more. "That's the best way to end the permanent shirts against skins contest the Senate's become," he said. Sasse agreed there's a problem. Senate rules have been exploited as "shirts and skins exercises," he said.
Despite all this, Sasse is unlikely to become a McConnell lieutenant. His background is not that of a follower. He got a B.A. at Harvard and a Ph.D. at Yale (in history) and studied at St. John's and Oxford. He was a corporate turnaround specialist, a "strategy guy," as he calls it. He worked as chief of staff to a House member and was an assistant secretary of health and human services in the George W. Bush administration. Senator is his first elective office. It's "the least productive" of all the things "I've done in my life," Sasse told me.
He certainly was more productive as president of Midland University from 2010 through 2014. Midland is a small liberal arts college in Nebraska a few miles from his hometown of Fremont. He enlivened its campus and curriculum and doubled its enrollment, as Mark Hemingway chronicled in The Weekly Standard in 2013. He left Midland for the Senate.
Sasse's model senator is Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.). The two never met, but Sasse taught about Moynihan's career as a scholar and politician during a stint in the classroom at the University of Texas's LBJ School of Public Affairs in 2005 and 2006. A Harvard professor by trade, Moynihan was a policy adviser in the Nixon White House, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a senator from New York from 1977 to 2001, and a prolific author. He died in 2003.
"I sit quite intentionally at Daniel Patrick Moynihan's desk," Sasse said in his speech. He "cast a huge shadow around here for a quarter-century. ...He read social science prolifically, and sought constantly to bring data to bear on the debates in this chamber. Like any genuinely curious person, he asked lots of questions—so you couldn't automatically know what policy he would ultimately advocate just because he asked hard questions of everyone. He had the capacity to surprise us."
Moynihan was an old-fashioned liberal, but one can imagine a conservative playing a similar role. Sasse is uniquely capable of playing it. And he intends to. With last week's speech, he's already provided a surprise.
Few rookie senators have the knowledge and moxie to uncork a withering critique of the Senate. Sasse does. He spent months figuring out what he wanted to say. He consulted more than half the senators, plus some former senators. When I interviewed him at Ben's Chili Bowl at National Airport four days before his speech, he said he might be judged too "idealistic." Presumptuousness wasn't a worry of his.
His theme was a Senate that pays too much attention to small issues-of-the-day. "No one in this body thinks the Senate is laser-focused on the most pressing issues facing the nation," he said. And "because we're not doing the job we were sent here to do," the people "despise us all."
Sasse said the Constitution created the Senate to take up big issues, providing "six-year terms; representation of states, not census counts; nearly limitless debate to protect dissenters; no formal rules for political parties." These "shield lawmakers from obsession with short-term popularity to enable us to focus on the biggest long-term challenges our people face," he said.
His subtext was disappointment. Sasse had come to the Senate and was disappointed in what he found. "This is a place that would be difficult today to describe as 'the greatest deliberative body in the world'—something that has often been true historically." When was it true? During the Depression, the civil rights era, and the Cold War, Sasse told me.
Ex-senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), formerly the second-ranking Republican to McConnell, was one of those Sasse sought out for advice on the Senate. Sasse impressed him. "There's no question he will be one of the intellectual leaders in the Senate," Kyl says. And he "will quickly become a leader" on any issue he chooses. That sounds about right to me.
1a)"A great evil has been loosed upon the world"
For video excerpt, click here. For text and audio of the full speech, click here.
1a)"A great evil has been loosed upon the world"
Today is 40th anniversary of UN's 1975 "Zionism is Racism" canard
UN Watch pays tribute to the two great UN ambassadors whose eloquent speeches in the Nov. 10, 1975 debate are remembered more than anything said by the Soviet or Arab delegates who sponsored the resolution, which itself was repealed in 1991 following the demise of the Soviet Union. Today we feature the speech by Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan; tomorrow, that of Ambassador Chaim Herzog.
Speech by U.S. Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan
The United States rises to declare before the General Assembly of the United Nations, and before the world, that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act.
Not three weeks ago, the United States Representative in the Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee pleaded in measured and fully considered terms for the United Nations not to do this thing. It was, he said, “obscene.” It is something more today, for the furtiveness with which this obscenity first appeared among us has been replaced by a shameless openness.
There will be time enough to contemplate the harm this act will have done the United Nations. Historians will do that for us, and it is sufficient for the moment only to note the foreboding fact. A great evil has been loosed upon the world. The abomination of anti-semitism — as this year’s Nobel Peace Laureate Andrei Sakharov observed in Moscow just a few days ago — the abomination of anti-semitism has been given the appearance of international sanction. The General Assembly today grants symbolic amnesty — and more — to the murderers of the six million European Jews. Evil enough in itself, but more ominous by far is the realization that now presses upon us — the realization that if there were no General Assembly, this could never have happened.
As this day will live in infamy, it behooves those who sought to avert it to declare their thoughts so that historians will know that we fought here, that we were not small in number — not this time — and that while we lost, we fought with full knowledge of what indeed would be lost. ...
The proposition to be sanctioned by a resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations is that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” Now this is a lie. But as it is a lie which the United Nations has now declared to be a truth, the actual truth must be restated.
The very first point to be made is that the United Nations has declared Zionism to be racism — without ever having defined racism. “Sentence first — verdict afterwards,” as the Queen of Hearts said. But this is not wonderland, but a real world, where there are real consequences to folly and to venality. ...
What we have here is a lie — a political lie of a variety well known to the twentieth century, and scarcely exceeded in all that annal of untruth and outrage. The lie is that Zionism is a form of racism. The overwhelmingly clear truth is that is it not.
[Here Moynihan discusses at length how the Jewish people includes individuals of different colors and ethnic origins, and that converts become Jewish regardless of race.]
Now I should wish to be understood that I am here making one point, and one point only, which is that whatever else Zionism may be, it is not and cannot be “a form of racism.” In logic, the State of Israel could be, or could become, many things, theoretically, including many things undesirable, but it could not be and could not become racism unless it ceased to be Zionist. ...
The terrible lie that has been told here today will have terrible consequences. Not only will people begin to say, indeed they have already begun to say that the United Nations is a place where lies are told, but far more serious, grave and perhaps irreparable harm will be done to the cause of human rights itself. The harm will arise first because it will strip from racism the precise and abhorrent meaning that it still precariously holds today. How will the people of the world feel about racism and the need to struggle against it, when they are told that it is an idea as broad as to include the Jewish national liberation movement? ...
There is this danger, and then a final danger that is the most serious of all. Which is that the damage we now do to the idea of human rights and the language of human rights could well be irreversible.
The idea of human rights as we know it today is not an idea which has always existed in human affairs, it is an idea which appeared at a specific time in the world, and under very special circumstances. It appeared when European philosophers of the seventeenth century began to argue that man was a being whose existence was independent from that of the State, that he need join a political community only if he did not lose by that association more than he gained. From this very specific political philosophy stemmed the idea of political rights, of claims that the individual could justly make against the state; it was because the individual was seen as so separate from the State that he could make legitimate demands upon it.
That was the philosophy from which the idea of domestic and international rights sprang. But most of the world does not hold with that philosophy now. Most of the world believes in newer modes of political thought, in philosophies that do not accept the individual as distinct from and prior to the State, in philosophies that therefore do not provide any justification for the idea of human rights and philosophies that have no words by which to explain their value. If we destroy the words that were given to us by past centuries, we will not have words to replace them, for philosophy today has no such words.
But there are those of us who have not forsaken these older words, still so new to much of the world. Not forsaken them now, not here, not anywhere, not ever.
The United States of America declares that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act.
1b)
1b)
NGOS, THE EU, AND PRODUCT LABELING: A FIRST STEP IN BDS AGAINST ISRAEL
NGO Monitor- On November 2, 2015, a number of news sitesreported that, on November 11, the EU will issue rules for the labeling of products exported from Israeli communities built over the 1967 ceasefire line (the “Green Line”). Politicized NGOs have been advocating for this move for several years as part of their BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns.
- This EU/NGO policy is a blatant example of double standards made under the facade of human rights and international law. Other areas where the claim of "occupation" is made, such as in Cyprus, Western Sahara, and elsewhere, are not stigmatized by NGO campaigns, nor are they subject to EU labeling requirements.
- NGOs that claim to promote human rights cynically exploit the language of universal human rights to further their anti-Israel political agendas, and the product labeling issue is not exception. Accordingly, the rhetoric of “consumer choice” and “consistent policy” regarding settlement products serves to divert the debate from the real objective of BDS groups, which seek to dismantle Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.
- BDS NGOs and activists push product labeling as a first step toward more punitive measures that go far beyond settlement goods (including wholly legal commercial activity that could be linked, no matter how trivially, to settlements). Their ultimate goal is a comprehensive boycottof Israel:
- In October 2012, 22 European funded NGOs released “Trading Away Peace: How Europe Helps Sustain Illegal Israeli Settlements,” a report repeating the BDS agenda and calling on the EU and national to impose various forms of economic sanctions on Israel. The publication’s “Recommended measures (for national governments and the EU as appropriate)” begin with “correct consumer labelling of all settlement products as a minimum measure” (emphasis added) and increase in severity to “ban imports of settlement products,” “exclude settlement products and companies from public procurement tenders,” and “prevent financial transactions to settlements and related activities.”
- FIDH and one of its Palestinian members, Al Haq, have been working together towards the goal of “Ensuring EU does not stop at labeling products from the settlements: obtain ban.”
- FIDH and other groups authored a “legal analysis” of EU policy regarding settlement products. The analysis concludes that labelling is “not sufficient to meet the international obligation of non-assistance” and that “the products made in settlements should be prohibited for sale.”
- In many cases calls for sanctions are initiated by former European politicians. For instance, in July 2015, the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) a think tank established in 2007 by Martti Ahtisaari (Finland) and Joschka Fischer (Germany), published “EU Differentiation and Israeli settlements,” which calls for sanctions against Israeli entities (and certain individuals) that have activities in or apparent financial contacts with Israeli settlements. The report argues that the EU should extend this policy to the business and sports sectors. They argue that these forms of “differentiation” reflect EU policy, whereas, in reality, the issue was specifically negotiated between Israeli and European senior officials (after the release of the EU’s “Guidelines” in 2013) and was rejected.
- The influence of NGOs on EU policy in this regard is revealing in light of the harm to Palestinian workers in settlements who will be expected to lose their jobs if they close. It has been reported that a top EU official stated that “we are sorry about that, but we must look at the broader picture”. Similarly, a campaign led by Oxfam (an NGO funded by the British government) and other groups, led to the relocation of Soda Streams plant from Mishor Adumim (over the Green Line) to Lehavim junction (in the Negev), leading to the firing of most of the Palestinian employees.
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2)Warren Buffett is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.
3)
Media Opened Door For Request to Investigate Obama College Claims
Unfortunately, many conservatives jumped on the bandwagon of Politico's hit piece to lambast Dr. Carson as Freedom Outpost editor, Tim Brown, pointed out while providing correction to the libelous story usingCarson's own book
. Western Journalism published a piece today indicating the Politico claims have now been turned around by law school professor, Seth Barrett Tillman. In a column originally appearing on TheNew Reform Club, Tillmanrelays his story of his unofficial offer of a scholarship at West Point.
Tillman wrote about taking the PSAT in the tenth grade and checking boxes for colleges to send literature about their school to him. One school that contacted him was the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York. He attended a USMA conference along with hundreds of other high school students. Tillman stated he was pulled aside by a major out of the range of hearing of other students.
"I was told that if I apply, I would get in. It was as simple as that. I had very good standardized test scores and very good grades from my high school. When the major told me that I would get in if I applied, I believed him. I was told that West Point would find a Senator or Representative to nominate me, or I would come in with a number of students the academy could choose itself. I did not inquire about the details of the application process."
Tillman went on to explain, "by any fair-minded description, it was an offer to attend West Point. Albeit, the offer was not in writing; it was an informal oral offer. Surely, many, many other people received similar offers. I expect that large list also includes Ben Carson."
The lame stream enemedia is quick to jump on GOP hopeful Dr. Ben Carson regarding his past experiences and college days, as well as those prior to college. However, in 2008, this same lame stream enemedia, with all their "prize winning" journalists and news shows, failed to ask one question, investigate one claim or question anything regarding the story spun about one Barack Hussein Obama, a Democratic presidential nominee.
As Wayne Allen Root, bestselling author, wrote at The Blaze, "The mainstream media just opened the door for conservatives to demand President Barack Obama release his Columbia University records immediately. How nice of them! Thank You!"
Root pointed out that politicians exaggerate or remember things to their benefit. As has been proven, Carson did neither. What Root pointed out was Carson's claim had cost taxpayers not one red cent as compared to Obama, who has told plenty of whoppers that cost taxpayers dearly.
Obamacare, as Root aptly pointed out, cost taxpayers millions of dollars, "even billions in higher premiums and medical costs." Remember, Obama claimed the cost of premiums would be no more than a cell phone
bill with Americans saving approximately $2,500 in costs. That's a double whopper and significant. Even the architect of Obamacare, Jonathan Gruber, admitted to fraud being committed to fool "dumb voters." But, the issue is the college years of both Carson and Obama.In order to validate Dr. Carson's claims, the media rushed to the phones to contact West Point, and were able to receive information. However, who can contact any university or college Obama claims to have attended as his records have been sealed and remain sealed seven years into his presidency. As Root pointed out, the media believed claims about college 30 to 40 years ago were very significant and important for Dr. Carson. But, the media had little interest in Obama's college years.
In fact, Root points out that no one can prove Obama's claims about his college years. After all, if it's important for Carson, it would be important for Obama.
Root wrote in his commentary at The Blaze:
I graduated Columbia University in June of 1983. According to Obama, not only were we in the same class, we had the same majors, Political Science and Pre-Law. That would mean we took the same classes. I thought I knew every classmate in Columbia's Political Science department.
Yet neither I nor anyone I know ever met, saw, or heard of Obama.
This was reinforced two years ago in 2013 when I attended my Columbia University 30th Class reunion.
I asked everyone -- "Did you ever see Obama at Columbia?" Not one classmate answered affirmatively.
I simply couldn't believe no one claimed to have met a classmate, who supposedly was in our class, and who was later to become president of the United States. So, I tracked down Professor Henry Graff, perhaps the most honored professor in Columbia history and Columbia's Presidential historian.
I interviewed Graff that same year for The Blaze.
As Root wrote, Professor Graff never met or even heard of Obama, indicating it would be impossible to graduate Columbia with a degree in Political Science without taking his history classes. Graff checked his old records and found nothing indicating Obama ever existed at Columbia. Professor Graff even checked with other professors at Columbia. No one remembered Obama being in their classes.
Root contends Obama's existence at Columbia is a rumor.
Root is correct in his calling out of the media. If they feel Carson's college experience 40 years ago is worth a "look-see," then Obama's college experience and records are worthy as well. It's possible Obama slipped ahead of the pile of the "best of the best" from prominent Ivy League universities such as Harvard, Yale or Princeton by claiming to be an Indonesian "foreign student," meaning Obama perpetrated fraud, if that indeed were the case.
Yet, the media has zero interest in Obama, despite his "reign" costing taxpayers millions of dollars and more. If Obama's presidency was built on a lie (I say if, but really mean it is), it would be a more significant discovery than Nixon's bugging of the Watergate offices. That journalistic piece reaped an award to Woodward and Bernstein.
Not only are Obama's college records and claims worthy of investigation, but his use of a Social Security number not his own, issued in Connecticut to a deceased individual is worth investigation as well. Identity theft and fraud is a criminal offense punishable by incarceration if found guilty. Pile on the numerous other criminal offenses, lies, and traitorous actions and whichever lamestream enemedia investigative journalist, if there is one left, breaks the story would be set for a Pulitzer, an Emmy or other journalistic award for exposing the biggest fraud and criminal in American history.
To add insult to injury, the lamestream enemedia ignored a biography on Obama
indicating his birth in Kenya. The biography stood as accurate for years until someone brought up the Kenyan birth making Obama ineligible and that was quickly noted as "an error." That's one more big error to stand for years unquestioned. The fraudulent birth certificate is another area where lamestream enemedia failed.So, to all investigative journalists involved with main stream media who thought Dr. Carson's records and college claims were so important, it's time to investigate Obama's college claims, his use of a Social Security number that clearly was not issued to him, as well as his birth certificate. Fox News, CBS, ABC, Associated Press, NBC, CNN -- what are you going to do? My guess is you'll let it all go and continue to be complicit in the perpetration of fraud against this nation by the Kenyan Muslim occupying the White House. Hopefully, you all got paid handsomely for your accessory to treason.
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4)-
It’s Obama Who Should Apologize
To outward appearances, President Obama appears willing to ease tensions with Israel’s government. Faced with a Middle East that is collapsing in front of him as ISIS dominates Syria and Iraq, with Iran already demonstrating that Obama’s hopes for détente with Tehran were without foundation and Russia seeking to re-establish the old Soviet empire, the last thing the U.S. needs is another fight with Israel. So, at least for the moment, the president’s guiding principle in Middle East relations — creating more daylight between the U.S. and Israel — is not dictating his conduct. Whether this is anything more than a respite or instead reflects a fundamental rethinking of his strategy remains to be seen. But though the president is at least temporarily standing down after seven years of sniping and picking fights with Netanyahu, his cheerleaders on the left have no such compunctions. Liberal animus for Israel and its government remains high and, as Dana Milbank’s column in the Washington Post shows, the left is in no mood to kiss and make up.
Milbank’s piece is interesting in that it gives us a clear view of how the left is abandoning Israel all the while claiming that it is the Jewish state and Netanyahu that are responsible for the breach in the alliance. He thinks the prime minister should have come back to Washington in a penitential frame of mind, asking pardon of Dear Leader for having had the gall to oppose his Iran nuclear deal. More to the point, Milbank is following White House talking points claiming that it was Netanyahu who destroyed bipartisan support for Israel
Milbank is right that liberals and Democrats are not as supportive of Israel as they once were. But where he’s dead wrong is to place the blame on Netanyahu for this.
It should be recalled that a year ago there was a solid bipartisan consensus in Congress for increased sanctions on Iran and against a nuclear deal that would grant Tehran a path to a bomb. The breakdown of that consensus wasn’t the work of Netanyahu. It was President Obama who treated the Iran nuclear deal as a partisan litmus test and strong-armed the overwhelming majority of Democrats in both the House and the Senate to back it.
Netanyahu did walk right into the president’s trap when he decided to accept former House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to address a joint meeting of Congress on Iran. But there was nothing unprecedented about doing so. What was new was the administration’s determination to make Democrats choose between loyalty to Obama and their campaign pledges to ensure Israel’s security.
Moreover, the polls that show Republicans far more likely to back Israel than Democrats have been trending in that direction since the 1990s and have nothing to do with the Obama-Netanyahu feud.
As for the prime minister’s other offenses, while he overstated the case about the Mufti of Jerusalem influencing Adolf Hitler, Milbank shows his own abysmal ignorance by merely putting Haj Amin al-Husseini as a “Palestinian cleric.” The Mufti was a close collaborator with the Nazis and his incitement of religious hatred toward Jews in the 1920s and 30s provides a direct precedent for current Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’s similar incitement in recent months that helped launch the current wave of Palestinian terror.
It’s true that some of the statements coming out of the Likud have been embarrassing for Netanyahu as he tries to manage relations with a hostile Obama administration. But he can start apologizing for everything his supporters say when the president asks forgiveness for the steady stream of insults and taunts emanating from the White House toward Netanyahu (“chickensh*t”) in the last few years.
Are many American Jews alienated from Netanyahu? Yes, they are. But the reason for that is the same explanation that applies to Democrats. Most liberal Jews put party loyalty to the Democrats over any affection for the Jewish state. That’s why so many meekly fell in line behind the president on Iran. That, like Milbank, they also blame Netanyahu for the lack of peace with the Palestinians is merely evidence of their disconnect from the reality of the Middle East. It is the Palestinians who have repeatedly turned down peace offers from Israeli governments, including the one run by Netanyahu. But just to show how detached he is from reality, Milbank cites the protests of far-left Israel-haters/anti-Semites like the ANSWER coalition and crackpot ultra-Orthodox Jews who represent no one but themselves as evidence that the pro-Israel coalition is falling apart on Netanyahu’s watch.
It is true that the gradual takeover of the Democrats by its left-wing base has undermined, though not destroyed support for Israel in the party. And the parallel trend that has led to nearly unanimous support for the Jewish state by Republicans is disconcerting for the left. But bipartisan political support for Zionism is baked deep into the political DNA of this country and not even as adept a politician as Obama is able to completely destroy it. Netanyahu knows that the next president is likely to be a better friend to Israel than the current one and he will patiently bide his time for the next 15 months hoping that Obama will be too overwhelmed by his foreign policy failures to pick another fight with Israel. But if that happens and Democrats again fall into line against Israel, that will be the work of Obama, not Netanyahu.
Apologies will be due for what happened in Washington in the last year. But given the reliance of the president and his apologists on Iran’s good behavior to vindicate their attacks on Israel and its leader, it is they who will, sooner or later, have to account to posterity for the fact that they have undermined America’s alliance with its sole democratic ally in the Middle East in the feckless pursuit of detente with Iran.
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5)-What I Learned at Tuesday's Debate
BY ROGER L. SIMON
It is now nearly a year since US President Barack Obama authorised a low-level, largely high-flying military offensive in Iraq against the black-clad, SUV-driving militants of Islamic State (ISIS). And yet despite America’s might, despite its efforts being aided and abetted by the Iraqi army, a fighting force into which the US has pumped $25 billion, the US military effort has yielded little in return.
5)-What I Learned at Tuesday's Debate
BY ROGER L. SIMON
1. If John Kasich is elected president, I will sell my television set. I’ve already seen The Hunchback of Notre Dame at least a dozen times.
2. Carly Fiorina is a good debater. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are even better debaters.
3. I wouldn’t want to be in a foxhole with Rand Paul.
4. The biggest spendthrifts in America are Jeb Bush bundlers.
5. Ben Carson talks slowly.
6. Donald Trump likes to hang out in green rooms.
In other words, nothing much new. Still it was entertaining. Moderators Neil Cavuto, Maria Bartiromo and Gerard Baker did a fine job, devoid of self-promotion and thus far superior to their predecessors at the other networks. It wasn’t their fault it wasn’t all that substantive in the end. It never is. It’s the nature of the format. Eight is still too many people. How about four or five next time?
Who won? The New York Times said Rand Paul, which means he didn’t. Frank Luntz’s focus group of actual New Hampshire Republican voters gave it to Rubio in a walk. I tend to agree, with Cruz a close second. Marc Thiessen said on The Kelly File that Rubio would be the strongest GOP candidate in the general because he would seem like JFK debating Hillary’s Nixon. Actually, I think Hilary’s worse than Nixon, but he’s got a point.
Which leads me to a slight rejiggering of yesterday’s debate preview post in which I said we have probably already reached the Final Four — Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, with the assumption that Trump, in the number one slot, would never be passed.
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6) U.S. 5th Fleet Commander: Iran’s Naval Aggression Continues Despite Nuclear Deal
By The Tower Org. Staff
Vice Admiral Kevin Donegan, the newly installed commander of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, said that Iran’s “malign behavior” at sea has not changed since the announcement of the nuclear deal this past July, the Associated Press reported Sunday.
Donegan took command of the Dubai-based fleet in September. He told the AP that Iran’s behavior overall has him “concerned … about some of their malign behavior related to other things unrelated to the nuclear issue.”
The AP noted that, in September, a vessel sailing with a multinational force headed by the Fifth Fleet intercepted a boat, believed to be from Iran, that was transporting anti-tank missiles and other weaponry to Yemen. This occurred several months after the U.S. deployed two ships to intercept a convoy of Iranian vessels headed to Houthi rebels in the country. Donegan suggested that the incident in September was not the only recent Iranian attempt to smuggle arms to Yemen.
This past April, Iran illegally seized the Marshall Islands-flagged ship Maersk Tigris and held it for ten days. Shortly afterwards, an Iranian vessel fired on a Singapore-flagged ship in the Persian Gulf.
Donnegan remarked that “U.S. Navy ships continue to face occasional harassment from Iranian patrols,” and added that, “The behavior we’ve seen is about what we’ve come to expect. They’ll like to intercept our ships, especially the combatants, as they’re going through the straits or in other places in the Gulf. They like to show that they can shoot weapons when they’re in proximity.”
Iran has harassed and threatened the American navy in both word and action over the past year. In March, an Iranian surveillance aircraft came unusually close to a Navy helicopter from the USS Carl Vinson in the Persian Gulf. In February, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) sunk a mock U.S. aircraft carrier during military exercises, which were broadcast on state television with the quote, “If the Americans are ready to be buried at the bottom of the waters of the Persian Gulf – so be it.” The quote was attributed to the first leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In 2014, Iran broadcast a simulationof its forces attacking Israel and the American aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on state television.
IRGC leaders have routinely directed threats at American naval forces, with senior commander Ali Fadavisaying in 2014 “that one of the IRGC navy’s operational goals is to destroy the U.S. Navy.”
Iranian naval aggression around international trade routes has been seen by experts as a challenge to American guarantees of safety for global shipping
6a)
Why Can't The West Fight ISIS?
It is now nearly a year since US President Barack Obama authorised a low-level, largely high-flying military offensive in Iraq against the black-clad, SUV-driving militants of Islamic State (ISIS). And yet despite America’s might, despite its efforts being aided and abetted by the Iraqi army, a fighting force into which the US has pumped $25 billion, the US military effort has yielded little in return.
Yes, the town of Tikrit, 140 miles north east of Baghdad, was finally retaken from ISIS by the Iraqi army in March this year. But even that was a qualified success, given the effort and arms expended, the sheer number of inhabitants displaced and killed, and the fact that Iran-backed Shia militias did much of the heavy firing. Elsewhere, rolling back the black-flag-waving blanket covering much of northern Iraq, has proved even more difficult.
In fact, if anything, ISIS seems emboldened rather than in retreat. Last month, a few hundred ISIS fighters managed to take Ramadi, a city of 400,000 people lying just 80 miles west of Baghdad. Many in the West were quick to blame the Iraqi army, which, by all accounts, melted into the near distance as ISIS approached. ‘What apparently happened was that the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight’, said US defense secretary Ashton B Carter. ‘They were not outnumbered, but in fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force. And yet they failed to fight’, he said. Yet to blame Ramadi’s fall on the Iraqi army, which has long been seen by those desperate to join less as a cause than a well-paying career, ignores the fact that Ramadi, situated as it is in the Anbar province, fell under the unofficial auspices of the US, and the Iraqi army it helped to build. No wonder the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force commander, Qassem Soleimani, said that, alongside the Iraqi army, the US also lacked the will to fight ISIS.
That is one of the most arresting features of Iraq’s collapse: the inability of the West, and America in particular, to do anything about it. The West is intervening all right, raining down heavy artillery on ISIS positions, and directing Iraqi ground forces that far outnumber their nihilistic opponents. Yet it’s intervening to no positive effect. It’s present, but impotent. Which is odd. The US army and its allies have never been more highly militarised, and more intimidatingly technologically armed, and yet, before a smallish army, its committed ranks swelled by the might of untrained fighters from Western suburbia, the US and its pals are fumbling, struggling and failing.
The result of the West’s incapacity, and the collapse of its regional proxy, the Iraqi state, has left the fight against ISIS to others: the Kurds in northern Iraq, and, increasingly, Iran-backed Shia militias across the whole of Iraq. Indeed, so key has Iran become in the fight against ISIS that Soleimani has emerged from his long-term location in the shadows to pose for selfies with Iraqi fighters.
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