Emma Darvick, Our Oldest Granddaughter and Edgy Artist Makes Vogue On LIne! I Do Not Trust Obama . Yes, Call Me Radical! BAMA!

Our oldest granddaughter, Emma Darvick, lives in New York City and she is a very talented and creative, edgy artist.

Her wall paper designs were just noted by Vogue On Line Magazine. Click on  (VOGUE (slide #2) to see one of her wall paper designs and the article featuring her work :

(10 Easy Ways to Update Your Home in 2016)

You can go to EmmaDarvick.com to see her art work.

Emma also has a line of greeting cards.  

We are very proud of what she has accomplished since graduating from Trinity College in Hartford with a BA in Art.

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Obama decided to cozy up to Khamenei and called the CIA off - why?. (See 1 below.)

I have no proof but it is my sincere belief Obama must believe that by supporting Iran one of two things and maybe three will occur:

1) It will be a way to downgrade our relationship with the Saudis and reduce their power

2) It will be a way to threaten Israel with annihilation and get them to bend their knee to his will

3) It will weaken and ultimately threaten America and make us more submissive to the demands of others and the U.N.

I know these are radical, even heretical, thoughts but I have no other explanation. Why would Obama allow, and even assist, a renegade nation like Iran achieve nuclear status and follow in Bill Clinton's foot steps vis a vis failing to curb  N.Korea's nuclear ambitions?

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Also, why would Obama weaken America's military at this crucial time?  Again, my views are radical but I believe he wants to see America weakened. (See 2 below.)

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Finally, since I have a deep distrust of just about everything Obama has done ,and is likely to do, this article questions the timing of why he conjured up a false narrative and resurrected the  gun control issue at this time. (See 3 below.)

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Before last night's game:  "GO BAMA."

After last night's game: "BAMA DID"

Bothe teams gave it their all and in many respects Clemson outplayed BAMA but BAMA held on and both teams showed "TRUE GRIT."
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Dick

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.1)Obama ordered CIA not to support 2009 Green Movement in Iran because he wanted to court Khamenei

As demonstrations and revolts swept the Muslim world during Obama’s first term, he was enthusiastic. He had encouraging words for the “Arab Spring” demonstrators in Egypt and Tunisia, and even gave military assistance to their Libyan counterparts. During the third and last debate of the 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney and Obama sparred over which could express support for the Syrian rebels (who are dominated by Islamic jihadists) more strongly, and as Obama’s second term began, his administration was inching ever closer to military aid for those rebels. Yet there have now been three large-scale demonstrations in Muslim countries that Obama did not support — and those three exceptions are extraordinarily revealing about his disposition, as well as his policy, toward Islam.

The three pro-democracy revolts that Obama refused to support were arguably the only three that were genuinely worthy of the pro-democracy label: the demonstrations against the Islamic regime in Iran in 2009, the anti-Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations in Egypt in winter 2013, and the pro-secularism demonstrations in Turkey in recent weeks. There is a common thread between these three that distinguishes them from all the others: in Egypt in late 2012 and early 2013, as well as in Iran in 2009, the demonstrators were protesting against Islamic states; in Turkey, they were protesting against the Erdogan regime that is working hard now to establish an Islamic state. All the other demonstrations were not against pro-Sharia forces, but were led by pro-Sharia forces, and led to the establishment of Islamic states. To be sure, the Iranian demonstrators in 2009 contained many pro-Sharia elements that simply objected to the way the Islamic Republic was enforcing Sharia, but they also included many who wanted to reestablish the relatively secular society that prevailed under the last Shah. Whether the Sharia or the democratic forces would have won out in the end is a question that will never be answered — in no small part thanks to Barack Obama.

In every case Barack Obama has been consistent: in response to the demonstrations and uprisings in the Islamic world, he has without exception acted in the service of Islamic supremacist, pro-Sharia regimes.

“Nuclear Deal Fuels Iran’s Hard-Liners,” by Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal, January 8, 2016:

The Obama administration’s nuclear deal was intended to keep Iran from pursuing an atomic bomb, and raised hope in the West that Tehran would be nudged toward a more moderate path.

But there are growing fears in Washington and Europe that the deal—coupled with an escalating conflict with Saudi Arabia—instead risks further entrenching Iran’s hard-line camp.

Since completion of the agreement in July, Tehran security forces, led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have stepped up arrests of political opponents in the arts, media and the business community, part of a crackdown aimed at ensuring Mr. Khamenei’s political allies dominate national elections scheduled for Feb. 26, according to Iranian politicians and analysts….

But the ranks of reformists in Iran have been depleted. Many activists are angry at the Obama administration for failing to support them six years ago in a rebuff that hasn’t been previously reported.

Iranian opposition leaders secretly reached out to the White House in the summer of 2009 to gauge Mr. Obama’s support for their “green revolution,” which drew millions of people to protest the allegedly fraudulent re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The demonstrations caught the White House off guard, said current and former U.S. officials who worked on Iran in the Obama administration.

Some U.S. officials pressed Mr. Obama to publicly back the fledgling Green Movement, arguing in Oval Office meetings that it marked the most important democratic opening since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Mr. Obama wasn’t convinced. “‘Let’s give it a few days,’ was the answer,” said a senior U.S. official present at some of the White House meetings. “It was made clear: ‘We should monitor, but do nothing.’ ”

The president was invested heavily in developing a secret diplomatic outreach to Mr. Khamenei that year, sending two letters to the supreme leader in the months before the disputed election of Mr. Ahmadinejad, said current and former U.S. officials.

Obama administration officials at the time were working behind the scenes with the Sultan of Oman to open a channel to Tehran. The potential for talks with Iran—and with Mr. Khamenei as the ultimate arbiter of any nuclear agreement—influenced Mr. Obama’s thinking, current and former U.S. officials said.

U.S. officials said the White House also was getting conflicting messages from Green Movement leaders. Some wanted Mr. Obama to publicly warn Mr. Khamenei against using force. Others said such a declaration would give Iran’s supreme leader an excuse to paint the opposition as American lackeys.

Mr. Obama and his advisers decided to maintain silence in the early days of the 2009 uprising. The Central Intelligence Agency was ordered away from any covert work to support the Green Movement either inside Iran or overseas, said current and former U.S. officials involved in the discussions.

“If you were working on the nuclear deal, you were saying, ‘Don’t do too much,’ ” said Michael McFaul, who served as a senior National Security Council official at the White House before becoming ambassador to Russia in 2012.

After a week of demonstrations, Iran’s security forces went on to kill as many as 150 people and jail thousands of others over the following months, according to opposition and human rights groups. Mr. Khamenei accused the U.S. of instigating the uprising. Iran denied killing protesters.

Some of Mr. Obama’s closest advisers, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton , said in retrospect the U.S. should have backed the Green Movement. “If we could do it again, I would give different counsel,” said Dennis Ross, Mr. Obama’s top Mideast adviser during his first term. At the time, he said, he argued against embracing the protests.

A senior U.S. official said this week that the Obama administration argued against covert support for the Green Movement because it risked undermining its credibility domestically, not out of fear of Mr. Khamenei’s reaction. “We did not want to tar the movement,” the official said.

Mr. Obama pursued nuclear diplomacy with Iran using a two-track approach: ratcheting up economic sanctions while leaving the door open for direct negotiations.

Over the next four years, international sanctions cut Iran’s oil exports in half, and the value of its currency, the rial, dropped by two-thirds. The U.S. also succeeded in shutting off most of Iran’s financial institutions from the global economy, including Iran’s central bank.

In 2012, the White House, working through Omani intermediaries, set up the first direct talks with Iran. A year later, Mr. Rouhani was elected, and the negotiations moved more quickly toward an agreement.

Mr. Obama’s advisers said the White House’s cautious handling of Iran’s political opposition was the best course in 2009. The Green Movement wasn’t unified, they said, and didn’t have much of a chance to overthrow the regime.

Former presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who led the protests, remain under house arrest in Tehran, despite pledges by Mr. Rouhani to release them. Thousands of student leaders and democracy activists who took to the streets six years ago were exiled to Turkey, Europe and the U.S., fearing arrest if they return home.

At a recent oil conference in Tehran, Mr. Rouhani’s energy minister, Bijan Zanganeh, answered questions about oil production and job promotion in the wake of the nuclear agreement. When pressed about the status of political prisoners, which include Messrs. Mousavi and Karroubi, he didn’t answer and instead jumped into a waiting SUV.

“A historic opportunity was missed” six years ago, said former Green Movement leader Heshmat Tabarzadi in an interview via Skype in Tehran. He has served intermittent jail terms there since 2009.

“There isn’t much of a Green Movement left,” he said.

=================================================================================2)Special Report: State of Defense 2016

Defense One's annual year-ahead assessment of each military service finds a force ready to fight, but feeling the strain from all they are being asked to do — still.

Can you feel the strain? The Army wants more troops. The Air Force wants more money and newer planes. The Navy wants more ships and is battling over what to do with the fleet it has. And the Marines — well the Corps isn’t sure what comes next, but they’re staying in the fight.

Spend big, fight small. Be ready to roll everywhere, but stay out of a big war anywhere. Destroy the Islamic State, check down Russia and China, prepare for nuclear war, buy long-range bombers, defend cyber networks and satellites, patrol the seas, and expand covert special ops missions to capture and kill Islamic State leaders. And while you’re at it, modernize the workforce, open up to women, honor commitments to families, and do a better job connecting with the American public.

The state of defense, from top to bottom, is everywhere. It’s a time of changes, to the force and its mission. But there is clear priority at the Pentagon: the war against ISIS.

In December, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told Congress the military already had made nine changes to “accelerate” the counter-ISIS fight in response to President Barack Obama’s order. Already, there are some signs of success, from retaking Ramadi to killing scores of high-value targets with drone strikes. But Obamarefused to strike early and now ISIS’s influence has outgrown its territory. Carter warned Congress that he’d be asking for more ways to defeat ISIS in the months ahead, including boosting international support, and 2016 should prove pivotal. It could see more ground successes, if U.S.-backed coalition forces retake Mosul and the rest of Iraq’s major cities, and move Syria (and Russia) toward a peace process, while increased special operations raids continue to decimate and pressure ISIS leaders. But without an ideological defeat of ISIS, the group’s influence — now inspiring individual attacks in Chattanooga, San Bernardino, and Philadelphia — the fight will continue far into the future. In January, the administration announced it was revamping its fledgling counter-propaganda campaign. That should be welcome news to military leaders who continue to be the first to remind Washington — and the American public — there is “no military solution” to the problem of ISIS.

Beyond that, in this last year of the Obama administration, Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work will try to solidify their efforts to keep America’s technological edge over its adversaries and field the most diverse and ready force yet. It’s the “offset strategy,” or as Work describes it, “a significant and hopefully enduring effort to extend our military, technological and operational edge well into the future.” The Pentagon is worried that rivals are developing their capabilities faster than the U.S. is rolling out new ones. The edge is shrinking, they argue. So expect to see Carter continue on his tech-heavy personal mission.

There are many new minds ready to lead their services into the new era — a new Joint Chiefs chairman and new chiefs of the Marine Corps, Navy, and Army, and a new Army secretary — all with new plans, budgets, and priorities. They know there is little public appetite for major bumps in defense spending, yet they they want more: more troops, more money, more equipment, more training. And they have some creative ideas about how to get it, with a “Force of the Future” plan to open side doors to military service, mid-career breaks, and modernized benefits.

Why? The fight is not ending. In the Middle East, Obama and his war cabinet promised increased special operations raids, air strikes, and intelligence operations. Those will require the full support of the conventional armed forces, frequently forward deployed, and always at the ready. In Afghanistan, Obama already halted his draw down plans and now Gen. John Campbell may ask for additional troops as the Taliban has roared back into regions thousands of Americans already died to reclaim, and as Kabul is under a siege of bombings. In Asia, the pivot continues as China’s new islands expand it’s borders and North Korea remains a nuclear threat.

Meanwhile, the president still hopes to close the prison at Guantanamo.

Oh, and it’s the 2016 presidential campaign year. There is not much nuance from most candidates, who offer plenty of fear and excitement. “The world is on fire,” said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, in January. “Where’s America?” Just ask anyone in the “finest fighting force the world has ever known” and they already know the answer: everywhere.

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3)

Were Obama's Gun-Control Measures Timed to Help Hillary Clinton?

BY BRIDGET JOHNSON 

Bernie Sanders laughs with Hillary Clinton after a Democratic presidential primary debate Nov. 14, 2015, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

President Obama announced his gun-control executive actions as soon as he got back from his Hawaii vacation in January -- in time to boast of his action in his final State of the Union address Tuesday, but also just a few weeks out from the Iowa caucus and first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary.

Before he even announced a word of his proposals, Hillary Clinton was singing the praises of the executive orders on the campaign trail in New Hampshire.

"When I came out with my proposals for common sense gun safety measures, I did say that in the absence of congressional action, I would use executive authority to go as far as would be possible under the law and I applaud the president for taking a hard look at that and I believe he will take some actions to require more gun sellers to do background checks," Clinton said Jan. 3.

Her campaign stressed that she had "stood up to the gun lobby" throughout her career -- with swings, predictably, at Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for supporting gun rights.

Sanders has slashed his deficit against Clinton in Iowa from an 18 point margin in a December Gravis poll to the latest NBC/WSJ/Marist poll within the margin of error: Clinton 48 percent, Sanders 45 percent. In the same poll in New Hampshire, Sanders leads Clinton by 4 points.

And Sanders leads Clinton in electability: the NBC poll showed Sanders beating Donald Trump by 13 points in Iowa and 19 points in New Hampshire, while Clinton led Trump by 8 points in Iowa and edged him out by 1 point in New Hampshire. Clinton lost to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), while Sanders walloped him.

"We started at national polls at about 3 percent. I think most of the recent polls have us ahead in New Hampshire," Sanders told ABC on Sunday. "I think we're gaining steam here in Iowa. I think we have an excellent chance to win here... We're doing much better with Independents. We even draw a little bit better with Republicans."

But Clinton was conveniently handed a high-profile issue with which to cudgel her closest competitor in a last-minute campaign blitz -- even though Sanders came out in support of Obama's plan.

Sanders voted against the Brady Bill when he was in the House, and his votes as senator have included joining with Republicans on the Veterans Second Amendment Protection Act, which would have guaranteed veterans due process rights in being deemed "mentally defective" by the VA and having their ability to own a gun stripped away.

He's been questioned about his position on guns on the campaign trail, and hasn't swayed. “If somebody has a gun and somebody steals that gun and shoots somebody, do you really think it makes sense to blame the manufacturer of that weapon?” he said at a July forum when asked about his vote to protect gun manufacturers from lawsuits. “If somebody assaults you with a baseball bat, you hit somebody over the head, you’re not going to sue the baseball bat manufacturer.”

Clinton began fresh attacks on Sanders' gun record last week, prompting his campaign to noted that she "has a record of flip flops on – among other issues – gun safety."

“Today she’s attacking Bernie on guns. Eight years ago she attacked Barack Obama on guns," said Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver.

She called Obama “elitist and out of touch” over what she called his “demeaning remarks” about gun owners and sent out a campaign mailer attacking his gun-control record. Obama fired back that she was acting like Annie Oakley.

“Maybe Secretary Clinton should apologize for attacking the president in 2008 because he was too strong on gun control,” Weaver said. “As is the case with so many issues on which she has flip flopped, voters have to ask themselves which Hillary Clinton is asking for their vote."

Clinton responded Sunday on CBS, charging that when she and Obama and Sanders were all serving in the Senate "two of us voted against what the NRA says was the most important piece of legislation in 20 years for the gun lobby."

"I think he has been consistently refusing to say that he would vote to repeal this absolute immunity from any kind of responsibility or liability. It's the only industry in our country where we have given that kind of carte blanche to do whatever you want to do with no fear of legal consequences," she said.

"...And he often says, 'Well, look, I'm from Vermont and it's different. It's not like being in New York City.' Well, in fact, the other senator from Vermont, Senator Leahy, voted with President Obama and myself. I think that the excuses and efforts by Senator Sanders to avoid responsibility for this vote which the NRA hailed as the most important in 20 years, points at a clear difference."

Sanders stressed on ABC that the immunity bill "was a complicated piece of legislation."

"There were aspects of it that were absolutely right. There were aspects of it of -- that were wrong," the senator said. "But as the secretary knows, that for many weeks now, I said of course I'll be happy to take a look at that complicated piece of legislation and deal with it and get rid of those parts of it that are wrong."

"I will vote to revise that bill. There are parts of it that made sense to me... If you have a small gun shop owner in Northern Vermont who sells a gun legally to somebody and then, you know, something happens to that guy, he goes nuts or something, and he kills somebody, should the gun shop owner be held liable? I think not," Sanders continued.

"On the other hand, if you have a manufacturer that is sending guns into an area and really knows that those guns are not being used by the people or bought by the people in that area but are being sold to criminals, should we hold that manufacturer liable? Absolutely."

By Sunday afternoon, Clinton was sending out a record of Sanders' votes on food-industry, telemarketer and health insurers immunity.

“Senator Sanders' record shows he is willing to hold most industries accountable for their abuses, but not gun manufacturers. It makes zero sense to provide an exception for the gun industry,” said campaign chairman John Podesta. “If Senator Sanders wants to make good on his pledge to support commonsense gun safety measures, he ought to commit to fully repealing the immunity he voted to extend to the gun manufacturing industry. The NRA said this was its biggest priority in 20 years, and Senator Sanders still refuses to admit he got it wrong.”

Clinton's camp then followed that up by announcing the endorsement of gun-control advocates Mark Kelly and former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.). Both were at the White House for Obama's announcement of his executive actions.

“As President Obama said last week, we must hold our leaders accountable for continuing to put the interests of the gun lobby ahead of the safety of American families," Clinton said in a statement, adding a shot at Sanders: "We need a president who will hold gun makers and sellers accountable, not provide them with sweeping immunity from lawsuits."

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