I made a New Year Resolution. I told Lynn I would improve and display more affection and tell her all the things she wants to and deserves to hear but I never say.
By the time I told her all of the things I fail to do she had fallen asleep.
Speaking of New Year Resolutions, the New York Times came up with their's. "Print on first page first then retract on back page later."
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We have been at war longer than we think, still are and will be long after I am gone and I hope to be around a few more years.
Since facts form the basis of history and we no longer teach meaningful history we may not believe it when it hits us in the face.(See 1 below.)
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Bolton and Haley regarding Obama's sickening/corrupt/duplicitous Iran Deal. (See 2 and 2a below.)
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Kim discusses the enemies within and alleges there are, at least, three within the Republican ranks.
In her very direct manner, Kim has identified three different reasons why each of the anti-Trump Senators use to explain their actions but , in the end, it comes down to a basic contempt for Trump and disloyalty to their Party's needs, which is to live up to its commitments
"Uge" egos are a troublesome matter.(See 3 below.)
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Trump fired Sec. Price and I commend him for doing so. Price failed the nation, he failed the president and most of all, he failed himself.
You cannot spend your life expressing displeasure about those who engage in wasteful spending and then do so yourself. If you talk the talk you also need to walk the walk. Price cost too much and paid the price. That is what is true justice.
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Dick
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1)
2. In 1972,At the Munich Olympics,Israeli Athletes were KidnappedAnd Massacred by Muslim Males.3. In 1972,A Pan Am 747 was HijackedAnd eventually Diverted to CairoWhere a Fuse was lit on Final Approach.Shortly after Landing,It was Blown up by Muslim Males.4. In 1973,A Pan Am 707 was Destroyed in RomeWith 33 People Killed,When it was Attacked with Grenades by Muslim Males.
5. In 1979,The United States Embassy in IranWas taken over by Muslim Males.6. During the 1980’s,A number of Americans were KidnappedIn Lebanon by Muslim Males..7. In 1983,The United States Marine BarracksIn Beirut was Blown up by Muslim Males.8. In 1985,The Cruise Ship Achille-Lauro was Hijacked,And a 70-year-old American PassengerWas MurderedAnd thrown Overboard in his Wheelchair by Muslim Males.
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12. In 1998,The United States EmbassiesIn Kenya and Tanzania were Bombed by Muslim Males.13. On 09/11/01,FOUR Airliners were Hijacked.Two of the Planes were used as MissilesTo take down the World Trade Centers.
One Plane Crashed into the United States Pentagon,And the other Plane was DivertedAnd Crashed by the Passengers.Thousands of People were Killed by Muslim Males.14. In 2002,The United States fought a WarIn Afghanistan against Muslim Males.15. In 2002,Reporter Daniel Pearl was Kidnapped and Beheaded byYou guessed it - a Muslim Male.(Plus two other American JournalistsWho had just recently been Beheaded.)16. In 2013,The Boston Marathon BombingResulted in Four Innocent People,Including a Child,Being KilledAnd 264 other People injured by Muslim Males.
NO,I really do not see a pattern here to Justify Profiling.
Do YOU?So,to ensure we Americans never Offend Anyone- particularly Fanatics intent on Killing US- Airport Security Screeners will NO longerbe allowed to Profile certain People..So,ask yourself:"Just how Stupid are we?!?!"Have Americans completely lost their Mindsor just their"Power of Reason?"As the writer of the Award Winning story"Forrest Gump"so aptly put it,"Stupid is as Stupid does."As Barack Obama said in his book:"Nothing sounds as Beautifulas the Muslim Evening Prayers from the Tower."
Wake up America!!!
2)The Iran Deal Isn’t Worth Saving
The idea of ‘decertifying’ the agreement but staying in it is too cute by half. Trump should cut cleanly.
‘Cut, and cut cleanly,” Sen. Paul Laxalt advised Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, urging the Philippine president to resign and flee Manila because of widespread civil unrest. The Nevada Republican, Ronald Reagan’s best friend in Congress, knew what his president wanted, and he made the point with customary Western directness.
President Trump could profitably follow Mr. Laxalt’s advice today regarding Barack Obama’s 2015 deal with Iran. The ayatollahs are using Mr. Obama’s handiwork to legitimize their terrorist state, facilitate (and conceal) their continuing nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs, and acquire valuable resources from gullible negotiating partners.
Mr. Trump’s real decision is whether to fulfill his campaign promise to extricate America from this strategic debacle. Last week at the United Nations General Assembly, he lacerated the deal as an “embarrassment,” “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.”
Fearing the worst, however, the deal’s acolytes are actively obscuring this central issue, arguing that it is too arduous and too complex to withdraw cleanly. They have seized instead on a statutory requirement that every 90 days the president must certify, among other things, that adhering to the agreement is in America’s national-security interest. They argue the president should stay in the deal but not make the next certification, due in October.
This morganatic strategy is a poorly concealed ploy to block withdrawal, limp through Mr. Trump’s presidency, and resurrect the deal later. Paradoxically, supporters are not now asserting that the deal is beneficial. Instead, they concede its innumerable faults but argue that it can be made tougher, more verifiable and more strictly enforced. Or, if you want more, it can be extended, kicked to Congress, or deferred during the North Korea crisis. Whatever.
As Richard Nixon said during Watergate: “I want you to stonewall it, let them plead the Fifth Amendment, cover up, or anything else if it’ll save it—save the plan.”
Mr. Trump should not be deceived. The issue is not certification. The issue is whether we will protect U.S. interests and shatter the illusion that Mr. Obama’s deal is achieving its stated goals, or instead timidly hope for the best while trading with the enemy, as the Europeans are doing. It is too cute by half to employ pettifoggery to evade this reality.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231 embodies the deal and includes two annexes: the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action itself, and a statement by the other negotiating parties on “transparency . . . creating an atmosphere conducive” to full JCPOA implementation. Resolution 2231, the JCPOA and the statement were all crafted word-for-word with Iran (with Russia and China acting as Tehran’s scriveners on the statement), as was the cash-for-hostages swap Mr. Obama sought desperately to conceal. This packaging is more than a diplomatic nicety. It means Iran’s ballistic-missile program is integral to the deal—fittingly, since Iran’s missiles would deliver its nuclear warheads.
The ayatollahs have neither the desire nor the incentive to renegotiate even a comma of the agreement. Why should they, when it is entirely to their advantage? Both Resolution 2231 and the statement, for example, “call upon” Iran to forgo activity regarding “ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons.” The U.N. secretary-general recently reported that Iran is violating this provision and implicitly lying about it. But the deal’s language allows Iran to claim solemnly that its missiles are not “designed” to carry nuclear warheads, an assertion whose verification would require polygraphs and psychologists, not weapons inspectors. This is one of many textual loopholes.
If the deal is vitiated, Tehran would not be freer than it is now to pursue nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Not only is the international compliance regime a far cry from Mr. Obama’s promised “anytime, anywhere” inspections, crucial language is vague and ambiguous. Mr. Obama’s negotiators crippled real international verification by pre-emptively surrendering on what were delicately termed “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program.
Moreover, simple economic logic suggests that Tehran’s scientists are probably enjoying Pyongyang’s hospitality, well beyond the International Atomic Energy Agency’s limited capability to detect. Even U.S. intelligence could be in the dark if Iran is renting a uranium enrichment facility under a North Korean mountain. It is specious to assert that the North Korean nuclear crisis should lead to deferring action on the Iran deal. The conclusion should be precisely the opposite: Failure to act decisively on Iran now worsens the global proliferation threat.
The IAEA has interpreted Mr. Obama’s possible-military-dimension concession as requiring new evidence before it attempts to visit Tehran’s military bases, where the real work on weaponization and missiles is taking place—if not under mountains in North Korea. Mr. Obama acquiesced in this emasculation of the IAEA’s will to inspect, making the agency today like the drunk looking for his car keys under a street lamp because the light is better there. This is a sorry caricature of a robust, Reaganesque “trust but verify” regime.
Perhaps the most inane argument is that Congress should decide the deal’s fate and whether to reimpose U.S. sanctions. If a president is unwilling to solve this kind of problem, he shouldn’t have applied for the job. Watching what has happened on failed legislative efforts to repeal and replace ObamaCare, can anyone doubt that Senate Democrats (joined by Rand Paul ) would filibuster any legislative effort to renew sanctions? The only sure way to resume economic pressure on Iran is for President Trump to stop waiving the sanctions, as he did a few weeks ago. The power to act is in executive hands, as it should be.
Mr. Trump knows his mind on Iran. And as Mr. Laxalt said to Marcos, “the time has come” to act decisively.
Mr. Bolton is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of “Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad” (Simon & Schuster, 2007).
American UN Envoy Nikki Haley Says Russia Shielding Iran From IAEA, Warns Nuclear Deal Without Inspections Is an ‘Empty Promise’
American UN Ambassador Nikki Haley took sharp aim on Thursday at Russia’s insistence that the International Atomic Energy Agency had no mandate to inspect Iranian nuclear activities that could include the design and production of a detonation device.
“If the Iran nuclear deal is to have any meaning, the parties must have a common understanding of its terms,” Haley said. “Iranian officials have already said they will refuse to allow inspections at military sites, even though the IAEA says there must be no distinction between military and non-military sites.”
In a reference to the Russian position, Haley added: “Now it appears that some countries are attempting to shield Iran from even more inspections. Without inspections, the Iran deal is an empty promise.”
Haley’s comments are the latest indication of the Trump administration’s impatience with the JCPOA — the nuclear deal agreed to by the Tehran regime and the US and five other world powers in July 2015. Under US law, the president is obliged to confirm every 90 days that Iran is “transparently, verifiably, and fully implementing the agreement.” While President Donald Trump has recertified the deal twice during his time in office, the gaps in the deal’s monitoring regime revealed by the current row with Russia could lead to a different outcome when he announces his assessment on October 15.
On Tuesday, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano told the Reuters news agency that the IAEA’s “tools are limited” when it comes to monitoring “Section T.”The present doubts over the deal’s survival center on “Section T” of the JCPOA, which forbids Iran from engaging in a range of listed activities “which could contribute to the development of a nuclear explosive device.” Prohibited activities include work on detonation systems and the use of computer models to simulate nuclear explosive devices.
“In other sections, for example, Iran has committed to submit declarations, place their activities under safeguards or ensure access by us,” Amano said. “But in ‘Section T’ I don’t see any (such commitment).”
Like Haley, Amano also emphasized that Russia was effectively blocking further IAEA access. “Russia has a different view,” he said. “They believe that it is not the mandate of the IAEA. Others have different views and discussions are ongoing.”
Pressure is growing on Trump from Republicans in Congress who want the president to decertify the deal. Speaking to the Weekly Standard, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) said there were “grounds” for decertification. “Iran has been, at a minimum, in violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the agreement, from the first day,” Rubio stated.
Rubio also expressed concern at the potential for the deal to blunt the US response to Iran’s provocations in the wider Middle East. “The agreement should not be a free pass for them to continue to develop ballistic missile capabilities, sponsor terrorism, conduct cyber attacks, or human rights violations,” he said. “If Iran considers that to be a violation of the deal, then too bad.”
Haley expressed a similar view during a speech on Thursday at a UN Security Council meeting on terrorist threats.
“The United States is…committed to holding state sponsors of terror accountable, especially the number one state sponsor of terror, Iran,” the ambassador said.
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3)
The Never-Trump Triumvirate
What do Rand Paul, Susan Collins and John McCain have in common? Very little.
The press corps is busy quizzing the president, the speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader on their plans for tax reform. The question is why they aren’t chasing after the three people who actually hold all the power.
If the past eight months have proved anything, it is that all the 24/7 news coverage of Donald Trump’s antics, all the millions of words devoted to Paul Ryan’s and Mitch McConnell’s plans, have been a complete waste of space and time. In the end, control of the entire policy agenda in Washington comes down to three senators. Three senators whom most Americans have never had a chance to vote for or against. Three senators who comprise 8% of their party conference. Arizona’s John McCain, Maine’s Susan Collins and Kentucky’s Rand Paul. Forget Caesar, Crassus and Pompey. Meet the Never-Trump Triumvirate.
At least the House Freedom Caucus scuttles GOP legislation based on shared principles. Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee have also led revolts against bills, again based on shared criticisms. But what do the Arizona maverick, the Maine moderate and the Kentucky libertarian have in common? Very little.
Well, very little save motivations that go beyond policy. And that is the crucial point that is missing from the endless analyses of the McCain-Collins-Paul defections on health care. The media has treated the trio’s excuses for killing their party’s top priority as legit, despite the obvious holes in their objections over policy and process. What in fact binds the three is their crafting of identities based primarily on opposition to their party or Mr. Trump. This matters, because it bodes very ill for tax reform in the Senate. Overcoming policy objections is one thing. Overcoming egos is another.
Mr. McCain, who is gravely ill with brain cancer, has decided his final legacy will be a return to the contrarian “straight talk” persona of old, which wins him liberal media plaudits. The Arizonan has never gotten over losing the presidency, and it clearly irks him that Mr. Trump succeeded where he failed. His personal disdain for the president is obvious, and his implausible excuses for opposing the Graham-Cassidy health-care reform are proof that this is personal.
Ms. Collins is reportedly days away from deciding whether she’ll ditch the Senate gig and run for governor. That potential campaign has guided her every move for at least a year now—perhaps her entire career—and was clearly among her reasons last summer to abandon her party’s nominee and publicly excoriate Mr. Trump. It is a basic precept in Washington that Sen. Collins votes in whatever way best serves Sen. Collins. Right now that means being Never Trump.
Mr. Paul worked hard during his first Senate campaign to reassure Kentuckians that he was not his father, and it turns out that’s very true. Because even Ron Paul was to be found with his party’s House majority on issues that truly mattered, and largely saved his defections for the lost causes that produced 434-1 votes. Sen. Paul’s standards for “conservative” policy are as varying as the wind, and lately they blow toward whatever position can earn him the title of purest man in Washington.
The press was fixated this week on Mr. McConnell’s bad week, which is an easy piece to write. But it ignores the obvious reality that the Triumvirate seems to have never had any intention of letting its party succeed. After all, a senator who intended to stand firm on “regular order,” as Mr. McCain said, would have informed his colleagues of that demand at the beginning, rather than allow his colleagues to set up for another vote and then dramatically tank it (again) at the last minute. A senator who voted for “skinny” ObamaCare repeal in the summer on the grounds that anything was “better than no repeal,” in the words of Mr. Paul, would not suddenly engineer an unreachable set of demands for his vote on an even better repeal.
The Senate has no lack of lime-lighters. Nor is it low on Trump critics. Think Nebraska’s Ben Sasse and Arizona’s Jeff Flake. The difference is that the clear majority of the critics aren’t allowing ambition or disdain get in the way of votes for better policy.
But this raises the question of whether the White House understands that the Triumvirate is also the prize on tax reform. Mr. Trump took a shot at Mr. McConnell this week, but the president needs to shift his focus to those who hold the actual power. Those dinner invites to Chuck and Nancy would be better reserved for Ms. Collins. Its internal conversations need to focus on what forms of flattery or policy or misery might appeal to the political motivations of Messrs. McCain and Paul, and get them on side.
Because the Triumvirate made very clear during the health-care debate how it operates. Pretending it won’t do it again is to ignore reality.
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