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Those who read my memos know I beli
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These are my motivating priorities when I vote for a president.
I believe the first priority of government is to protect citizens. This takes preference over any other single issue(s.)
Second ,once citizens are safe enhancing their life, in an economic sense, should be the next motivation of government and qualification I seek regarding who I vote for president. Commerce cannot be conducted unless contracts are enforced and therefore a sound judicial system, administered by competent and fair minded judges and jurists is my second priority
In the 2016 campaign, I do not believe either Hillary or Bernie will best protect my nation and I certainly fear anyone they might appoint to our courts and most particularly to The Supreme Court.
The president's term is 4 years but Supreme Court appointments and other federal judicial positions are for life. (See 1 below.)
Third, is when I consider social issues and the government's other responsibilities and this is where most everything gets sticky and generally falls apart. Liberals do not want to pay for what they want, their wants never end and their social programs have proven costly and inappropriate unless we want to continue to raise a dependent society incapable and unwilling to do for self.
The Repubs have become simply a go along version of the Liberals. They do make protesting noises but that's about it.
When voters put three ahead of one and two they set in motion problems which have led us to where we are and this is why the train has gone off the tracks.
I understand how important a lot of other tertiary social issues are like abortion, minimum wages,'fairness,' whatever the hell that means, prayers in school and all over the place etc.but unless you are safe and protected from adversaries and the economy is humming along creating jobs, so people can prosper and feel positive about their future, all else is illusive, too open ended and sort of senseless.
In my case, when it comes to , what I call tertiary matters, I am pro abortion because I believe a woman has a right to her body. I do not want the government to use tax dollars to pay for same and I support upholding the current law, ie. Roe v Wade. I also do not believe Obama's suit against The Nuns forcing them to pay for procedures and drugs that violate their beliefs is right.
Prayers in school is a wedge issue that does not protect me from my enemies nor helps improve the economy but I find nothing wrong with a minute of silence for those who wish to say a prayer if that will finally end this matter.
Minimum wage is fine if it is tied to maximum effort but it is generally a way to raise costs which ultimately get paid by someone and it also restrains employment. It was never intended to be a way to support a family and provide a living wage but the progressives have morphed it into another wedge issue to win votes.
When it comes to social issues my basic premise is do not pass laws that create dependency, have no connection to reason and every connection to garnering favor with select voting groups and simply become the foundation for expanding costly demands with no intention of ever paying for them.
I do believe government is the last resort and should respond when the need is truly evident and beyond the scope of the individual because of health issues or interim disasters of a temporary nature, ie. weather related floods, hurricanes, tornadoes etc.
I also believe the federal government should not usurp what local governments should be responsible for doing and all social laws should have sunset provisions.
Kasich, Trump and Cruz may not have solutions and/or answers but they probably would be better at protecting our nation and selecting better justices. At least that is where I am coming from and why I am leaning in their direction.
Our current choices prove what I have come to believe: When all else fails lower your standards.
My reasoning too simplistic for you? Perhaps, but it has served to keep me out of trouble and certainly caused me not to vote for Obama twice and therefore, I believe, remains a good guide for others..
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Will it become inevitable that Iran will be allowed to go nuclear?
I believe the answer is yes and that it has been Obama's intention all along because it threatens The Saudis and Israel and changes the entire shape of the Middle East while reducing America's own influence. Remember Obama's key advisor, Valerie Jarrett. is Persian.
One more piece of evidence that Congress is impotent in the face of a determined president.
Furthermore, I believe more facts will surface revealing Saddam did, in fact, have an active program related to WMD and GW was not totally wrong but the press and media had their own agenda which was to knock his WMD claim out from under him. Sinister thinking, perhaps but I would put nothing past them because I no longer trust our leading newspapers and media sources to be objective and reliable. Sensationalism sells and they are driven by their own pressing entertainment agendas and need to survive in a world where competition threatens their existence.
Thus, their role of oversight is no longer something we can rely upon and that too calls into question the merit of the "fourth" estate. (See 2 and 2a below.)
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More tragic events on the way and Obama remains passive. (See 3 below.)
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Dick
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1)The Supreme Court Vacancies:
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Most important in decades!Justice Scalia's seat is vacant. Justice Ginsberg is 82 years old and she has has cancer, Justice Kennedy is 79, Justice Breyer is 77, and Justice Thomas is 67. Nowadays, the data shows the average age of a Supreme Court Judge retirement or death occurs after 75.Thus, there are 5 vacancies likely to occur over the next 4-8 years. The next President will have the power to appoint his or her choice of Justices. Think about that... 7-2.!!!!!!!!!!!!!If the next President appoints 5 " young" justices ", it will guarantee control of the Supreme Court for an entire generation.And 7-2 decisions will hold up better over time than 5-4 decisions which seem lacking in mandate.Hillary has made it clear she will use the Supreme Court to go after the 2nd Amendment and other liberal causes. She has literally said the Supreme Court was wrong in its Heller decision stating that the Court should overturn and remove the individual right to keep and bear arms. Period.Everyone saying they won't vote for a GOP nominee, please realize, if Hillary Clinton wins and gets to make these appointments, you likely will never see another conservative or middle of the road victory at the Supreme Court level for the rest of your life. Ever.
2) Under Nuclear Deal Iran Can Have Nuclear Detonators
Islamofascist Iran already has missiles that can carry nuclear warheads long distances. On Wednesday, its military chief announced it would produce a powerful explosive that is a standard material used to detonate an atomic bomb. (AP)
Nuclear Iran: Tehran’s defense minister says the terrorist state will produce a massive explosive used to detonate atomic bombs. Obama’s Iran deal is increasingly delivering the opposite of its promises.
Why would Iran want to produce the nuclear weapons detonator Octogen, also known as HMX, or “high melting point explosive,” if it doesn’t have its eyes on becoming a nuclear weapons power?
Moreover, why is Tehran seeking HMX only three months after official implementation of the nuclear pact that the West negotiated with it (without Iran signing it, though)? Clearly, pursuing Octogen earlier would have been a red flag indicating that Iran’s claims of not seeking nuclear weapons were false.
Iran’s military “has put on its agenda the acquisition of the technical know-how to produce Octogen explosive materials and Octogen-based weapons,” Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehqan announced on Wednesday at the formal opening of an explosives production plant in Tehran.
Iran having HMX weakens deal proponents’ persistent argument that the agreement’s “one year or longer breakout timeline” for approximately 10 years means the pact makes the world safer. Having a nuclear detonator ready to go means Iran becoming a nuclear weapons power faster.
A December 2015 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear “watchdog,” concluded that “exploding bridge wire” detonators “developed by Iran have characteristics relevant to a nuclear explosive device” and that Iran was conducting nuclear weapons research all the way into the first year of the Obama presidency.
HMX isn’t exclusively used for nukes, but the seriousness with which the IAEA takes it was on full view early during the Iraq War. As the New York Times reported regarding the disappearance of hundreds of tons of HMX from the Saddam Hussein regime’s huge al-Qaqaa facility in 2004,” Mr. Hussein’s engineers acquired HMX and RDX (rapid detonation explosive) when they embarked on a crash effort to build an atomic bomb in the late 1980s. . . . Weapon inspectors determined that Iraq had bought the explosives from France, China and Yugoslavia, a European diplomat said.”And in February 2003, “nine days after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented his arms case to the Security Council,” then-IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who later won the Nobel Peace Prize, “reported that the agency had found no sign of new atom endeavors” by Iraq, “but ‘has continued to investigate the relocation and consumption of the high explosive HMX,’ ” the Times story noted. “Dr. ElBaradei, a European diplomat said, is ‘extremely concerned’ about the potentially ‘devastating consequences’ of the vanished stockpile.”
The newspaper also pointed out that HMX’s “benign appearance makes it easy to disguise as harmless goods, easily slipped across borders,” and that it is “used in standard nuclear weapons design.”
So not only is HMX of grave concern regarding Iran’s own nuclear weapons ambitions; it could help any of the many terrorist groups Iran finances in their atomic aspirations.
It was already known that Obama’s deal was defective on the issue of nuclear detonators; the HMX announcement makes it clear Tehran is taking full advantage.
2a) More Iran Appeasement on the Way?
Secretary of State John Kerry has heard the complaints of U.S. allies in the Middle East about Iranian provocations and adventurism in the wake of the nuclear deal Tehran concluded with the West. The trouble is, he wants to do something about the problem. Kerry’s meeting this week with the leaders of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council was meant to ease the concerns of Arab states about the way a newly enriched and emboldened Iran was flexing its muscles in the region. But his comments about wanting to seek “a new arrangement” with Iran is likely to make the Arab world, as well as Israel, tremble and to encourage the Islamist regime. Both sides know that, once Kerry starts diving into a diplomatic problem, America’s foes are bound to profit.
The point of Kerry’s visit in advance of a summit that President Obama will attend in Saudi Arabia later this month was to signal that the U.S. takes concerns about Iran’s actions seriously. Kerry acknowledged their worries about Iran’s missile tests in contravention to United Nations resolutions and its arms shipments to terrorist allies around the region. His tour of the U.S. Navy base in Bahrain is meant to draw some attention to the fact that the U.S. has been trying to intercept some of those shipments, such as the ship laden with small arms intended for the Houthis in Yemen that was caught last week.
Yet while Kerry wants the Gulf States to think the administration feels their pain, he can’t seem to let go of the illusions that he and the president fostered about the way the nuclear deal would change Tehran’s behavior. Though he now says “No one made a pretense that other challenges we knew existed were suddenly going to be wiped away,” as the New York Times notes in its article about his visit, “the underlying bet” behind the nuclear deal was a belief that Iran would change its behavior. Having rushed to drop sanctions on Iran ahead of schedule and done everything they can to oppose efforts to take strong actions in response to the missile tests, Obama and Kerry are now confronted with regional partners who feel abandoned and exposed.
But rather than sending a signal to Iran that the U.S. was prepared to take action to ensure its allies would not be intimidated, Kerry is, instead, doing just the opposite. The secretary spoke of taking action at the UN about the missile tests, but we already know that’s a dead end. Kerry agreed to weaken the wording of the resolutions banning the tests last summer. That was just one of the many concession the U.S. felt compelled to make in order to get Iran to buy into the nuclear pact but that particular piece of appeasement is now coming back to haunt Kerry since it is being used by Russia to justify their decision to back up Tehran with a veto that effectively ends the discussion.
But what should really worry American allies is Kerry’s talk of a “new arrangement” in the region. What exactly that means is a matter of speculation. The most he would say was that as part of it Iran would have to “cease these kinds of activities” in order to reassure their neighbors. However, if that is his starting position in talks with Iran, judging by his track record in negotiations, Iran should feel confident that any such “arrangement” would not remove their freedom of action to behave as aggressively as they’d like. Indeed, Tehran is probably justified in concluding that the mere talk of more diplomacy from Kerry is a virtual guarantee that the Gulf States are about to be betrayed.
After all, the U.S. began the nuclear negotiations with a position that demanded an end to Iran’s nuclear program and a full-throated denial of its “right” to enrich uranium. In the end, after two years of haggling, the Iranians won complete Western approval for its nuclear program, the right to enrich, do advanced research, and to keep it’s most sophisticated nuclear infrastructure in place. In return, it had to ship its existing nuclear fuel out of the country and accept some restrictions that could easily be reversed. But considering that all the restrictions will expire in a decade, why should it bother cheating? In return for agreeing to that weak deal, Iran received $100 billion in frozen assets, sanctions were lifted, and an economic gold rush has sent Western businesses to Tehran seeking to make profits from deals that will enrich the regime.
During the course of those negotiations, the U.S. deliberately left non-nuclear issues off the table. Iran’s status as the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world, its ballistic missile productions and its quest for both regional hegemony and Israel’s destruction were treated as side issues not to be raised in the talks. But even if we were to concede that the nuclear issue has been kicked down the road for a few years and can thus be ignored as Kerry insists it must be that still leaves other concerns unaddressed. The U.S. says it is now going to concentrate on Iran’s bad behavior that has the Arab world as scared as the Israelis. But with sanctions lifted and no constituency outside of the U.S. for re-imposing them under almost any circumstances and Russia guarding Iran’s back at the UN, what possible leverage does Kerry have left that will make his “new arrangement” something that the Arabs can live with?
The answer is obvious. Kerry isn’t so much interested in pushing back on Iran as he is in quieting the complaints of those who worry about an America in retreat leaving them under Tehran’s thumb. More Kerry-style diplomacy will inevitably involve more U.S. approval for Iranian actions and ambitions and very little in the way of retreat on the regime’s part.
The only possible answer that would make a difference to Iran demonstrating its enhanced clout in the region would be a sign that the U.S. is prepared to take actions and impose new sanctions, even if had to do so unilaterally. Instead, the administration is preparing to further weaken its position by allowing Iran to use dollars in financial transactions. Moreover, with Iran’s Supreme Leader opposing dialogue about the missiles, Kerry can’t pretend that talk of divisions within the regime offering a meaningful opening for diplomacy. To the contrary, the Iranians read President Obama’s comments in Jeffrey Goldberg’s interview with him inThe Atlantic and know that his administration will not lift a finger to help Arab states that he derides as “free riders” in any conflict with his new negotiating partners.
Though Kerry and Obama now deny it, the nuclear deal only made sense if we assumed that Iran really wanted to, in the president’s words, “get right with the world.” Though Iran likes the world’s money, it has no intention of changing its ways. The recent spurt in arms shipments and the missile provocation was just a test to see how far they can push the Americans. They have gotten their answer. So have the Arab states. Any reassuring rhetoric will be meaningless. Another round of diplomatic engagement with Iran means more Iran appeasement and that the Arabs and the Israelis are very much on their own.
========================================================================3) Terrorists Behind Easter Attack that Killed Dozens in Pakistan Promise More ‘Devastating’ Attacks on Christians
Source: The Blaze
By Carly Hoilman
- See more at: https://specialoperationsspeaks.com/current-news/terrorists-behind-easter-attack-that-killed-dozens-in-pakistan-promise-more-devastating-attacks-on-christians
The Islamic extremist group responsible for the Easter suicide bombing that killed dozens in Lahore, Pakistan has declared that more “devastating” attacks against Christians are on the way.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, the faction of the Pakistani Taliban that carried out the March 27 attack, provided NBC News with exclusive details regarding the suicide bomber, his training, and the group’s plans to keep killing Christians and other religious minorities.
A spokesman for Jamaat-ul-Ahrar confirmed to NBC that Salahuddin Khorasani was the jihadi suicide bomber who detonated himself in a Lahore park where Christians had congregated to celebrate Easter. The group has since labeled Khorasani a martyr who “carried out the attack on the eve of the Christian festival Easter.”
The spokesman, identified as Ehsanullah Ehsan, told NBC that Khorasani was trained in the remote Nangarhar province of Afghanistan before being relocated to Pakistan to carry out the attack that killed 73 and injured more than 300.
Ehsan explained that the targets of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar’s attacks are both Christians and representatives of Pakistan’s central government.
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