24th Annual Litchfield Beach Vacation With Dear Friends, A Review Of The News and Pray for America!

For the last 24 years we have vacationed at North Litchfield Beach, S. Carolina with dear friends from our Atlanta neighborhood days.

In the early years our kids came with a friend of their choice but now they are all married, except for one, and with kids, except for two, so the parents continue the tradition.

We just returned from our special week and were fortunate to have good weather, plenty of beach time, some excellent meals always accompanied by wine and assorted beer  and  challenging tennis .
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The Couples! Gil/Mary Ann-Susan/Bob -
Me and Lynn - Gail/Drew
                                                                                      The Guys! Bob, Gil, Me and Drew

Lynn and Your's Truly!                      The Girls! Lynn, Susan,Mary Anne and Gail!
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While I was away Putin bent over and Obama sent Sec, Kerry to kiss his behind which he dutifully did.

Meanwhile, Obama was dissed by most of the Middle East leaders he invited to Camp David where he proceeded to pledge, in the weakest fashion, that America stood with them should they be attacked by the very terrorists Obama refuses to name, other than  to call them JV'ers. (See 1 below.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Foeg9xnqPyE


Hillarious continues to avoid the press and media so she will not have to respond to questions about her incompetency (Benghazi and Russian Reset Button to name a few) , the  destruction of her computer, questionable, if not unlawful, behaviour while Sec of State as she continued to engage in self dealing and enrichment.



ABC's prize newscaster was found to have ignored a matter that called into question his integrity and Jeb Bush got caught up in being confused regarding a hypothetical question involving  Iraq.

Meanwhile, China continues to expand their ownership of the waters in their part of the world by building bases to service their expanding naval fleet while we shrink ours.

From a domestic standpoint Obama continues to engage in back handed praise of the nation's police , questions the religious faith of Americans and attacks Sen. Warren for expressing herself.


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Elliot Abrams will be  here in February 2017, as the honored guest speaker at the SIRC President's Day Dinner. (See 2 below.)

We are fortunate that a person of  Elliot's broad experience has agreed to be with us.

As you know, our 2016 President Day speaker is Allen West and we are delighted he is coming as well.

Also, before I leave for our over two month drive coast to coast (bus man holiday) I again remind you we have two excellent TRUE PERSPECTIVE meetings coming up in July and August . (See 2a below.)
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This TRULY  is the last memo before we go on our coast to coast trip beginning May 20.

Have a great summer.

Pray for our nation as Obama continues to bring about radical change, shreds our Constitution and Republicans get blamed for trains running of their tracks!
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Dick
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1)

• Guess Who Is NOT Coming to Camp David For Dinner?

Amb. Marc Ginsberg  Fmr. U.S. Ambassador to Morocco; White House Middle East Adviser

When it comes to this White House's much-maligned Middle East policy the chickens are coming home to roost as their eggs crash onto President Obama's face.

In the wake of reaching a so-called Iran nuclear framework agreement (I prefer the more apt "Memorandum of Misunderstanding") Obama came out to the Rose Garden and declared his intent to convene a "Camp David Security Summit" among the U.S. and the eight Sunni Arab members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The goal of this Thursday's summit was to assuage Gulf states that the U.S. was not blind to their security concerns as it negotiated a nuclear agreement with Iran. It was part and parcel of the Administration's vaunted diplomatic offensive to neutralize critics of its Iran nuclear handiwork - the Saudis and its Sunni Arab allies being quite vocal skeptics. The White House even penciled in before the gathering a face-to-face meeting between the President and newly Saudi crowned King Salman - to manifest the durability of U.S. - Saudi friendship.

Guess who's not coming, even after they had all RSVP? Six out of the eight Sunni Arab leaders, including King Salman (only the Kuwaiti and Qatari monarchs are currently planning to attend, along with lesser officials from the other GCC states).

That's quite the Shanda! (a Yiddish expression for "embarrassing!")

In the annals of official diplomatic snubs this is the equivalent of a ten point on the Richter scale no matter how the White House clumsily spins the debacle. John Kerry was just in Riyadh last week meeting with King Salman supposedly obtaining the King's blessing for his participation. Although Kerry reportedly secured the King's attendance, something clearly went very wrong over the weekend. Although the Saudis had warned Kerry that a Camp David summit would only be as good as its achievements...not its instagrams, Kerry assured the Saudis that President Obama would be "open" to new security guaranties and more sophisticated arms transfers. As it turns out, one could drive a Mack truck through the word "open."

As Kerry was flying around Europe the White House leaked over the weekend that the President had no intent (or would it even try to seek Congressional approval) to enter into any formal mutual defense agreement with the GCC at the Camp David summit, nor to seriously consider anti-Iran ballistic missile cooperation, nor agree to Saudi and Emirati requests to transfer sophisticated Air Force F-35 jet fighters to GCC members.

To make matters worse, the already skittish Israelis and their Congressional allies made it clear they would never agree to a formal mutual defense agreement between the GCC and the U.S., especially when the U.S. and Israel do not have any formal security agreement of their own. Just think of the optics here: Israel's very existence is at risk by Iran's nuclear program and export of terror weaponry to Hamas and Hezbollah and the Obama Administration is caught straying into conjecture whether it would enter into some form of a mutual defense agreement with Sunni Arab states!

Kerry assured National Security Adviser Rice he had his Saudi ducks lined up for the summit. But Kerry has proven time and again to be a very poor interpreter of Arab intent -- even with a good translator in tow. This is, after all, the Secretary of State who promised to produce a final Palestinian-Israeli peace in 9 months, and who assured the world that Syria would never again use chemical weapons again against its people - assurances he privately conveyed not only to the Saudis, but to the Jordanians and Israelis, as well. The Saudis and their allies are tiring of Kerry's happy talk. Aren't we all?

So instead of a kiss on the cheeks the Saudis and their allies just slapped Obama on the face.

After seven excruciating years of Obama-orchestrated fallow summits (counter-terrorism, Muslim outreach, Africa leaders, to name just a few) it is so, so clear this White House simply cannot muster the wherewithal to undertake the equivalent of diplomatic "mise en place" or to make sure the heavy policy lift occurs afterwards. So the Camp David summit symbolic collapse is emblematic of what chronically ails Obama's foreign policy - proper preparation and proper execution - with credible strategy in between. Committing the same errors over and over again and expecting different results...that's the defining trait of Obama's Middle East policies.

Why should anyone be surprised? After all, who is fooling who here? The Saudis and their Arab allies had made it very clear in recent weeks that a Camp David summit which fails in its core mission to produce tangible security agreements to impede Iranian post-nuclear deal designs (and not a nice little, empty communique) is simply a waste of good food. The laundry list of Sunni Arab apprehensions about U.S. Middle East policy just keep piling up. Iran seizes unarmed merchant vessels in the Arabian Gulf and U.S. nuclear negotiators keep on plugging away. Syria's Assad is caught once again using chemical weapons against his people - hardly a yawn from the Rose Garden despite Obama's vaunted red line. And Tehran is significantly increasing its flow of arms and more money into the hands of Hamas in the West Bank and in Gaza, and Kerry accuses his critics of being "hysterical" about a deal. Moreover, the Saudis are facing a real debacle in Yemen and the U.S. is simply unable to translate American support into positive, durable Yemeni facts on the ground, in the air, or on the seas.

The fundamental problem is not mistimed invitations or diplomatic snubs. The crisis in the Middle East has devolved into a duel pitting Saudi Arabia and the Iran against each other in regional theaters of competition: Yemen, Gaza, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Persian Gulf. The Saudis (and their apprehensive Gulf allies) have every reason to fear Washington's lack of resolve, and White House communiques have proven hollow in the past.

Keen Middle East observers assert the Obama Administration is just playing for time with the Saudis and their GCC allies: that once a nuclear agreement is reached with Iran and Team Obama does its end-of-term undeserved victory lap Sunni Arab states will have to step up to the plate and fend for themselves against an Iranian adversary more or less free to assert its regional aspirations without check. That is the trajectory Obama's inexperienced foreign policy team has - by default and by design - created for the GCC, Israel, and the next U.S. president. When Obama agreed to straightjacket the U.S. into a single-minded nuclear negotiation with Iran at the expense of any other Iranian misconduct it lost all leverage - leverage to influence Iran's conduct in Yemen, Syria, Gaza, much less to gain the release of American hostages -- so assuring the GCC states, particularly the Saudis, that the U.S. will remain a strategic partner in the face of Iranian duplicity and U.S. inaction is a formula for diplomatic snubbing -- or worse. Iran's conduct during each stage of the nuclear dossier only magnifies Washington's miscalculation - everything is off the table with Iran except reaching a nuclear deal. Whether there is or isn't a nuclear agreement with Iran, what is Obama's real alternative to allay GCC and Israeli concerns as Iranian Revolutionary Guards romp across the region -- nothing I have seen so far from this White House constitutes an alternative.

It is a fundamentally flawed legacy as those chickens now come home to roost.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2)Council on Foreign Relations

Reminders About Iran

by Elliott Abrams

During the three-month period between April 2 and June 30, Iran and the P5+1 are supposed to negotiate a comprehensive agreement about Iran’s nuclear program. The United States has been careful not to exacerbate relations with Iran, with the Obama administration trying hard not to upset any apple carts. The theory seems to be that there are hardliners in Iran (who are just like our own hardliners, the administration appears to believe) and we mustn’t annoy them.

So it is interesting to see how Iran is conducting itself during this period. The answer is clear: it is practicing no restraint whatsoever. The best example of this may be its seizure of the cargo ship Maersk Tigris which was plying the waters of the Gulf. This seizure has forced the United States to provide naval escorts to some American and British ships, and it served notice on the world that Iran would use military force when it pleased, negotiations or no negotiations.

A second example is the espionage charge against the imprisoned Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian. He has been in an Iranian jail since July, 2014, and the ludicrous espionage charge is not simply a reminder of the nature of Iran’s “legal” system; it is also a slap in the face of President Obama. There was really no reason for Iran to charge an American journalist with espionage during this three-month period except to show Americans and their president how little they think of us–and how confident they are that nothing, nothing at all, will lead President Obama to back away from doing this nuclear deal.

Yesterday came another reminder of the nature of the Iranian regime. Here’s the AP story, from The Washington Post:

One of Iran’s most prominent human rights activists, Narges Mohammadi, has been arrested by state security forces and detained in Tehran’s Evin Prison, her husband said Wednesday.

Mohammadi is close to Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. Her activism includes promoting women’s rights and campaigning to end the death penalty.

Her husband, Taghi Rahmani, told The Associated Press that about 10 people showed up at Mohammadi’s house early Tuesday morning to detain her — a show of force he called “very provocative.”

“Narges is a human rights activist. … She hasn’t done anything wrong,” said Rahmani, who lives in exile in France.

Mohammadi was a vice president of Ebadi’s now-banned Defenders of Human Rights Center. Ebadi herself left Iran after the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009, which touched off unprecedented protests and harsh crackdowns by authorities.

Rahmani said his wife suffers from a health condition, made worse by confinement in small spaces, that causes temporary muscular paralysis.

Mohammadi previously was imprisoned in April 2012 to begin serving a six-year sentence following a 2010 conviction related to anti-government crimes. She was released on medical grounds in July 2012.

Last week, she told the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that an Iranian court had charged her with a number of national security crimes related to her activism.

The group said she is accused of propaganda against the state, assembly and collusion against national security, and establishing an illegal group, the “Step by Step to Stop Death Penalty” campaign.

So in the course of a mere three weeks, Iran has given us these powerful reminders of the nature of its regime, its defiance of international law, and its contempt for the United States and President Obama. Meanwhile Foreign Minister Zarif travels the world, offering assurances of Iran’s good faith and pacific intent. Zarif is a salesman, or put more nicely a diplomat, but not a policymaker, and the policymakers are showing us week after week the true nature of the regime. If we pay more attention to Zarif’s speeches and interviews than to the actual conduct of the regime, we have nothing and no one to blame but ourselves and our illusions about the Islamic Republic.


2a) VERY IMPORTANT: MUST ATTEND  True Perspective Presentations!!!!

The purpose of The SIRC's   "True Perspective " program is to inform the public on topics of keen current interest. We work hard at seeking experts on the topics presented.

July 14,  James Van de Velde speaks at The Landings.  Jim's talk will be on cyber security and how ISIS is using the social media to convey their message. His presentation is at  5PM at The Plantation Club

Jim's talk is open to the public and I encourage 'Townees' to attend as well as Landings residents.

This is Jim's resume: "

James Van de Velde, Ph.D., a Lecturer Johns Hopkins University and Adjunct Faculty at the Georgetown University, is also a Lieutenant Commander in the US Naval Intelligence Reserves where he teaches at the National Intelligence University. He is also an Associate for the consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton. He is a former White House Appointee in the US Department of State for nuclear weapons arms control under President George H. W. Bush, a former Lecturer and Residential College Dean at Yale University, and a former career Foreign Service Officer for the US State Department of State.  Dr. Van de Velde currently consults with US Cyber Command on US cyber strategy. He has consulted previously on national security affairs with Special Operations Command, the Open Source Academy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Counter Proliferation Center, the National Counter Terrorism Center, the US Joint Staff, and the US Department of Treasury.  Dr. Van de Velde is an Associate Member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies and has held fellowships at the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University and the US-Japan Program at Harvard University.  Dr. Van de Velde received his B.A. from Yale University in 1982 and his Ph.D. in National Security Affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1988."

Then, on August 11, Professor Robbie Friedman, will discuss the proposed  Iran Agreement and matters relating thereto, including the impact on regional nations, America, Europe etc.

Robbie's resume is:

• "Georgia State University

• Robert_Friedmann

  ​​International terrorism, Incitement and terrorism, Challenges to Israeli society

  
  

  
  

  ​​Dr. Robert R. Friedmann is director of the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange and Professor Emeritus of Criminal Justice at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies.​ He was the Distinguished Chair of Public Safety Partnerships (2007-2010) and served as Chair (1989-2002) of the Criminal Justice Department at Georgia State University. Dr. Friedmann received his B.S. (Sociology and Anthropology, and Philosophy) from the University of Haifa, Israel (1974); his M.A. and Ph.D. (Sociology) from the University of Minnesota (1978); and his M.S.S.W. (Social Work) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1981).
  

  
  

  His interest and published work focus on community policing, terrorism, and crime analysis. His books include: Community Policing: Comparative Perspectives and Prospects, (1992), Criminal Justice in Israel: An Annotated Bibliography of English Language Publications, 1948-1993 (1995), Crime and Criminal Justice in Israel: Assessing the Knowledge Base toward the Twenty-First Century (1998), A Diary of Four Years of Terrorism and Anti-Semitism: 2000-2004 (2005; two volumes), and 28 Letters (2012). He also authored numerous articles and research reports on crime and criminal justice focusing on policing and public safety. He was the recipient of several federal grants to improve crime data. 

  
  

  Dr. Friedmann chaired the Georgia Commission to Assess State Crime Laboratory Needs into the 21st Century; he is a Member of the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police (GACP), and a Member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and its Community Policing Committee. He assisted in security planning and preparation for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, and for the G-8 in Sea Island, Georgia. He served as a member of the Fulton County Court House Security Commission and he serves on the advisory board of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Herzliya, Israel, the Research Institute for European and American Studies, Athens, Greece, and is a member of the executive committee of The International Counter-Terrorism Academic Community. 

  
  

  Dr. Friedmann works closely with a number of police departments, in the U.S. and internationally, on community policing and homeland security.
• ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No More White House Prayer Breakfast For You Ben!

Our new Attorney General was asked by the Baltimore Mayor to look into the city's police department to determine whether there is a pattern of misdeeds and Attorney General Lynch is apparently going to do so.

I believe Hillarious has an established pattern of shaking down contributors for their foundation while serving as Sec. of State and we know her husband has a pattern of misdeeds involving self enrichment, pardoning a crook etc. but I doubt the new Attorney general will investigate the Clinton's.

After all, they are Democrats, and liberal ones at that, and that places them beyond the bounds of law and our corrupt IRS.

In fact, it apparently makes Hillarious believe she is  qualified to run our nation.

After Pelosi, Reid, Holder and Obama she may be correct.

When all else fails, lower your standards and the "Dims" seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel.
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Obama continues to lie so he can radically alter the world scene as he said he would.  (See 1 below.)

Dr. Carson gets it. However, no more prayer  breakfast at The White House for you, Ben! (See 1a below.)
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I was asked to write something pertaining to Foreign Policy. This is what I wrote. (See 2 below.)
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What difference does it make they are only veterans.  (See 3 below.)
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Dick
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1)Iran is Lying and We Know It!

If the White House doesn’t pull the plug on negotiations, Congress must.

By Harold Rhode & Joseph Raskas
National Review

The most frustrating part for a rational observer of the P5+1 negotiations with Iran is this: There is little doubt that Iran is lying, and will continue to lie, but that doesn’t seem to matter to those negotiating with it.

Rather than cause Tehran to capitulate by ratcheting up the pressure, the White House and its negotiating partners first eased the sanctions that had been compelling Tehran to negotiate and then effectively tabled the military option. Since then, they have made a seemingly unending catalog of tangible and irreversible concessions, to which the Iranians have responded with increased hostility. Yet, still the talks go on.

Last month, in just a week’s time, the P5+1 reportedly relented on three key demands: that Iran must come clean on its past nuclear-weapons work, that it must dismantle its plutonium-production plant, and that it must cease its uranium-enrichment activities. Not only has the White House folded on these important criteria, it is also employing an array of experts to cook up more schemes to keep the talks alive. The White House has signaled added flexibility by moving to offer sanctions relief immediately after a deal is signed, rather than waiting until Iran meets its obligations. Given that Iran has for decades refused to come into compliance with its international obligations, has sought to destabilize the Middle East, and has waged a deadly war against America and its allies when pressure was in place, it stands to reason that when that pressure is removed Iran will ramp up its illicit nuclear activity, tighten its grip on the Middle East, and intensify its attacks against Western targets.

Negotiating does not mean accepting the opponent’s position as your own, particularly when it comes to serious matters of statecraft. In the lead-up to Operation Desert Storm, President George H. W. Bush gave a careful lesson in diplomacy when, on January 9, 1991, he dispatched his secretary of state, James Baker, to meet with Saddam Hussein’s foreign minister, Tariq Aziz.

Baker handed Aziz a letter, in which Bush bluntly offered Hussein two options: Either he must comply with a dozen U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding the peaceful withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait, or those troops would be expelled by force. As Baker’s assistant secretary of state, John Kelly, later reported, “the tension was visible in Tariq Aziz.” Although he was a tremendously accomplished diplomat, “his hands trembled slightly as he held the letter. I remember seeing a small trough of perspiration running down his temple.” It was precisely because President Bush defended the integrity of the United States and of the U.N. Security Council that he was able to present a united domestic and international front and restore the balance of power and global order.

In contrast to Bush’s ironclad dictates to Saddam, the secret correspondence from Obama to Khomeini constitutes a humiliating concession. Rather than confront Iranian aggression across the region, President Obama rewarded the leading terrorist sponsor by raising the specter of effective cooperation with Tehran. It is commendable that the Obama White House is applying creative thinking to a complex problem that has bedeviled many successive administrations. And it is understandable that it has sought to bridge gaps with operational adjustments that the Iranian negotiators could spin politically in order to satisfy their leadership’s domestic constraints. But it is unacceptable that the Iranians have been allowed to outmaneuver the West simply by wielding against us our willingness to negotiate. The White House has become captive to its own desire to achieve a deal, and that has caused Iran to make even greater demands.

Horrified by what they perceive as deepening acquiescence to Iran’s demands, America’s traditional Arab allies — Muslim and otherwise — are taking matters into their own hands, most notably in Yemen, where a coalition of Sunni states is countering Iranian efforts to reinforce the rebels. The Iranian patrol boat’s seizing of a cargo ship that was under U.S. protection last week in the Persian Gulf is merely the latest in a steady stream of indicators that American concessions have only bolstered the determination of the clerical regime in Tehran to pursue anti-American policies. When President Obama originally presented his plan to the American public, he said its purpose was to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran, not to contain it. Yet now the world stands on the brink of a deal that would, at best, legitimize an industrial-sized Iranian nuclear-weapons program and, at worst, spark a nuclear-arms race across the Middle East.

For members of Congress weighing the issue, it is time to honestly confront this question: Has the White House truly done everything possible to stop Iranian aggression, or has it given Iran — and other enemies — reason to underestimate American resolve? If the latter is the case, Congress must do its utmost to kill the deal before an already corrosive Middle East, and other conflict-stricken areas around the world, descend further into chaos. — Harold Rhode served for 28 years as an analyst covering Iranian and Middle Eastern affairs at the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Joseph Raskas is a combat veteran of the Israel Defense Forces and a consultant for the Friends of Israel Initiative, founded by former prime minister of Spain José Aznar.


1a)Ben Carson Defends Comments Comparing Obama to 'Psychopath'
By Melanie Batley

Conservative presidential candidate Ben Carson has unapologetically defended his comments comparing President Barack Obama to a psychopath. 

In an interview with CNBC's online series "Speakeasy with John Harwood," the retired pediatric neurosurgeon said the description was justified because the president appears to brazenly lie to the American people about the unemployment rate. 

"Obama, you referred to him as a psychopath," Harwood said. "What did you mean by that?"

"I said he reminds you of a psychopath," Carson corrected.

"And tell me how," Harwood pressed.

"Because they tend to be extremely smooth, charming people, who can tell a lie to your face with complete — it looks like sincerity, even though they know it's a lie," Carson replied.

"Do you think he's a liar?" Harwood asked.

"Well, I think he knows full well the unemployment rate is not 5.5 percent," Carson said. "He knows that. He knows that people who are not well-informed will swallow it hook, line, and sinker, even though they're sitting there in the city and can't find a job."

In the wide-ranging interview, Carson also talked about his political philosophy and adjusting to life in the public eye.

"I have come to understand that if you say something that keeps people from being able to hear your actual message, then there's no point in saying it," said Carson, who has been a vocal opponent of what he says is political correctness in politics and the media.

He stressed his commitment to the constitutional conservatism.

"We think the only people who can handle the kinds of decisions that need to be made ... are people who are steeped in politics," he told Harwood. 

"When I go back and look at the Constitution and I look at the writings of the people who put all this together, they never thought there should be this political class or this political pedigree that was necessary. I think what they felt was necessary was wisdom and a love for our Constitution and a love for our country and common sense."

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2)The time is fast approaching for the final showdown with Iran and, from all indications, three things are increasingly apparent:

1) Obama, as usual, is not telling the truth about Iranian violations nor should we expect otherwise.

2) Senators have overwhelmingly passed a resolution that has little teeth but at least gives those who voted for the overview political cover.

3) Obama said he wanted to change the world and he has been as good as his word in that regard. By allowing the modification of sanctions he has given a boost to both Iran's nuclear ambitions and economic capability of fulfilling them. The Middle East will never be the same as a result of America's retreat.

Consequently, we now are hearing from the new Saudi leadership they, as predicted, will be seeking nuclear status.

The recent stitching together of another Netanyahu government leaves Israel in a more precarious position in terms of stability because Netanyahu only has a one or two vote majority. That said, Israelis do not trust Obama and will rally around the flag should Obama try and apply pressure on Netanyahu who still knows how to play a better game of chess than our president who does not even understand the strength and value of pawns.

Putin remains a thorn in NATO's side and there is growing evidence Russian planes and subs continue to probe, most particularly in territorial waters surrounding Sweden, Norway and Finland. Their governments have not been inattentive to these probes and have responded in kind by sending planes and patrol boats to monitor Russian intrusions.

A new Chief of Staff will soon replace Gen. Dempsey, whose thinking reflected the president he dutifully served, ie. avoid any appearance of a display of strength, simply continue the training of ineffective Iraqi and Afghanistan troops, fly sorties that drop bombs which fuse desert sand, and allow ISIS to pretty much roam at will achieving their territorial acquisitions in furtherance of their desire to rebuild a radical Islamic Caliphate.

Should the Republicans recapture The White House, the incoming president, after succeeding years of Democrat administrations, will find himself (doubt Fiorina will win) circumscribed by excessive expenditures spent on ineffective entitlements and other outrageous commitments to pacify Greens and other assorted voter constituencies, leaving little for rebuilding our depleted military.  

There is also that pesky deficit Obama will have more than tripled and all of this in the face of rising interest rates as The Fed begins grappling with de-leveraging. 

Why anyone wants to be president validates my belief they should be subjected to a Ror-schach Test giving voters grater insight.

Have a pleasant summer and pray.

Off to Litchfield tomorrow. Weather not looking good, back on 16th then off again on 20th for two month cross country drive around.

===

Dick

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3)

The Scandals We Don’t Know About

Ten posts for inspectors general—including at the CIA and Export-Import Bank—stand vacant. One can’t help but wonder why.

ENLARGE

The Veterans Affairs medical facility in Tomah, Wis. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

We’re about a year out from the uproar over Department of Veterans Affairs patient waiting lists, and a few months into a new VA scandal. The new scandal is that we don’t know what other scandals there are.

Congress is trying to find out, teeing up an unprecedented battle between the Senate and an investigator who in theory exists to help the Senate: the VA’s inspector general. At issue are thousands of pages of documents that may well reveal significant new areas of department dysfunction, but which the current acting inspector general is point-blank refusing to turn over to congressional overseers. The moment ought to be inspiring a debate over President Obama’s willful obstruction of rigorous IG oversight.

This saga begins in 2011, when the Veterans Affairs’ IG was alerted by members of Congress and whistleblowers to the potential of dangerous overprescription of opiates at the VA’s Tomah facility in Wisconsin. The IG’s office commenced a plodding, three-year investigation. Today’s acting IG, Richard J. Griffin (who took over in 2013), closed that investigation in March 2014, but he did not alert Congress to the fact or make the report public. Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who runs the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, didn’t even find out about the existence of the report until this January, and only to discover it was a mere 11 pages and said claims of wrongdoing could not be substantiated.

This finding was mind-boggling given an account in January from the Center for Investigative Reporting showing that the number of Tomah opiate prescriptions had quintupled over eight years, despite fewer patients. Veterans refer to the facility as “Candyland.” Mr. Johnson at a field hearing in March heard from Marvin Simcakoski,whose 35-year-old son died of an overdose there in August 2014. The hearing revealed three additional deaths and included testimony by Tomah employees who had been fired after raising concerns about—or refusing to fill—narcotics prescriptions. One psychologist committed suicide after being terminated.

Even the VA was more critical of itself than was the IG. The department released its own internal investigation of Tomah in March, finding opiate prescription rates 2.5 times the national average, higher average doses, “unsafe clinical practices” and “patient harm” as the result of over prescription.

Mr. Johnson, determined to get to the bottom of Tomah, asked the IG in February to turn over its broader investigative file. The IG’s office has to this day refused to do so, initially (and belligerently) claiming Congress has no “legitimate oversight purpose” for the file, and throwing up all kinds of excuses about statutory bars (including privacy laws) to its release. This is all nonsense, given that inspectors general exist to aid Congress in oversight and that the laws in question therefore have express exemptions for disclosing information to legislators.

Then again, nondisclosure seems to be a habit with this IG office—ranging across years and different officials. USA Today reported in March that the office has conducted 140 health investigations since 2006 that had never been made public. Under growing pressure, the IG finally released them late last week, and the newspaper ran a follow-up noting that the cases ranged from “missed diagnoses” to “failures during surgery” to “misuse of funds” to “personnel issues” to yet more facilities that may be giving “questionable amounts or combinations of narcotics.” In many cases, said the newspaper, “the department’s chief watchdog trusted the VA to correct problems on its own.” Really?

The devotion to secrecy suggests a jarring problem in the entire culture of the Veterans Affairs’ IG office, one that is a little too cozy with the object of its investigative mandate. The whole point of an IG is to blow the whistle on executive-branch failings. Most inspectors general border on fanatic in their oversight, are big into transparency, and have strong working relationships with congressional investigators. By contrast, Mr. Johnson last week was forced to take the extraordinary (and potentially unprecedented) step of issuing a subpoena for IG documents.

The episode is also raising questions about whether President Obama perhaps likes it this way. Mr. Griffin has been the supposedly temporary acting IG at Veterans for more than two years, an uncertainty that may in itself be feeding into office problems. He’s still there because Mr. Obama has failed to appoint a permanent head. In March, all 16 members of Mr. Johnson’s committee—Republicans and Democrats—wrote to Mr. Obama noting that there were 10 IG vacancies, including for such not-so-minor posts as Interior, the CIA and Export-Import Bank. They noted that there were nominations pending for only two of the 10, and requested he move quickly to fill the rest.

Then again, if you are the president, wracked by scandals and mismanagement in your administration, it might be convenient to put IG nominations on the back burner. The conduct of the VA is one of those big scandals, and the cursory evidence suggests the department could still harbor a lot of secrets.

The next time Democrats complain that a GOP Senate isn’t acting on an Obama nomination, Republicans might point out the more important nominations that they are still waiting for.

TWO Must Attend Programs - Open To The Public and Educational! Bonnie and Clyde At It Again and Alive and Well! Two State Death Sentence?

Because I will be gone until July 5th or so, I wanted to remind you of two important, OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, informative meetings The SIRC is hosting under the True Perspective Banner.

They are open to the public and are very topical and the speakers are beyond excellent.

The first presentation by Jim Van de Velde, is on Tuesday, July 14 at 5 PM at The Plantation Club at The Landings, and will be on cyber warfare and the various cyber technology issues facing our nation and the world.

The second presentation by  Professor Robbie Friedmann ,will focus on The Middle East and What Next After Iran Goes Nuclear and will be on Tuesday , August 11 at 5 PM and at The Plantation Club.(See 1 below.)
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Obama the evil doer? (See 2 below.)

For shame! (See 2a below.)
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Just another day for Michelle at tax payer's expense while she is busy making sure we eat correctly.  (See 3 below.)
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Is the two state solution a solution or a death sentence? (See 4 below.)

Obama's eagerness to knock off Netanyahu always backfires and will again. (See 4a below.)
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Dick
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 Jim' Van de Velde's resume: 

James Van de Velde, Ph.D., a Lecturer Johns Hopkins University and Adjunct Faculty at the Georgetown University, is also a Lieutenant Commander in the US Naval Intelligence Reserves where he teaches at the National Intelligence University. He is also an Associate for the consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton. He is a former White House Appointee in the US Department of State for nuclear weapons arms control under President George H. W. Bush, a former Lecturer and Residential College Dean at Yale University, and a former career Foreign Service Officer for the US State Department of State.  Dr. Van de Velde currently consults with US Cyber Command on US cyber strategy. He has consulted previously on national security affairs with Special Operations Command, the Open Source Academy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Counter Proliferation Center, the National Counter Terrorism Center, the US Joint Staff, and the US Department of Treasury.  Dr. Van de Velde is an Associate Member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies and has held fellowships at the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University and the US-Japan Program at Harvard University.  Dr. Van de Velde received his B.A. from Yale University in 1982 and his Ph.D. in National Security Affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1988."

Robbie Friedmann's resume :

• 
  
• "Georgia State University
• 
  

  Robert_Friedmann

  ​​International terrorism, Incitement and terrorism, Challenges to Israeli society

  
  

  
  

  ​​Dr. Robert R. Friedmann is director of the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange and Professor Emeritus of Criminal Justice at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies.​ He was the Distinguished Chair of Public Safety Partnerships (2007-2010) and served as Chair (1989-2002) of the Criminal Justice Department at Georgia State University. Dr. Friedmann received his B.S. (Sociology and Anthropology, and Philosophy) from the University of Haifa, Israel (1974); his M.A. and Ph.D. (Sociology) from the University of Minnesota (1978); and his M.S.S.W. (Social Work) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1981).
  

  
  

  His interest and published work focus on community policing, terrorism, and crime analysis. His books include: Community Policing: Comparative Perspectives and Prospects, (1992), Criminal Justice in Israel: An Annotated Bibliography of English Language Publications, 1948-1993 (1995), Crime and Criminal Justice in Israel: Assessing the Knowledge Base toward the Twenty-First Century (1998), A Diary of Four Years of Terrorism and Anti-Semitism: 2000-2004 (2005; two volumes), and 28 Letters (2012). He also authored numerous articles and research reports on crime and criminal justice focusing on policing and public safety. He was the recipient of several federal grants to improve crime data. 

  
  

  Dr. Friedmann chaired the Georgia Commission to Assess State Crime Laboratory Needs into the 21st Century; he is a Member of the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police (GACP), and a Member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and its Community Policing Committee. He assisted in security planning and preparation for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, and for the G-8 in Sea Island, Georgia. He served as a member of the Fulton County Court House Security Commission and he serves on the advisory board of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Herzliya, Israel, the Research Institute for European and American Studies, Athens, Greece, and is a member of the executive committee of The International Counter-Terrorism Academic Community. 

  
  

  Dr. Friedmann works closely with a number of police departments, in the U.S. and internationally, on community policing and homeland security.
• -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2)The Obama Deceit Doctrine

By Ed Lasky  

Americans (at least those paying any attention) know that Barack Obama routinely lies to fulfill the one promise he has not broken: to “fundamentally transform America.”  But what he has done to empower Iran and pave its way to develop nuclear weapons trumps even that boastful claim: Obama wants to, and probably will, fundamentally transform the world.

When he campaigned in 2008 Barack Obama dismissed concerns over Iran: it is just a “tiny” country that doesn’t pose a threat to us the way the Soviet Union did during the Cold War.  This was absurd.  Singapore is tiny; Andorra is tiny; the Vatican is tiny; Iran is not tiny.  There are at least 80 million Iranians and the nation itself sprawls over key geographic territory (being able to project its power over important oil-producing nations and shipping lanes; its warm weather ports have always been a tempting target for the Russians). 

But then again, Obama is a geographically challenged president (there are not 57 states in America , Hawaii is not in Asia; they don’t speak Austrian in Austria; Illinois is closer to Kentucky (they share a border) than Arkansas (they do not share a border).  Iran has also been consistently held to be the number one terror-sponsoring nation in the world, responsible through its proxies, such as Hezb’allah and Shiite militias in Iraq for the deaths and injuries of thousands of Americans.  Given the economics of terrorism, violence against America can be done on the cheap, so a comparison between America’s military budget and Iran’s, something Obama is wont to do, is meaningless.

Obama’s political handlers quickly realized the gaffe about Iran in 2008 had to be erased from memory.  Barack Obama shifted his tone: declaring he would do “everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.  Everything.” http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/06/obama_tells_aipac_i_will_do_ev.html .  He periodically repeated this promise when he thought it could pay political benefits to him.

Well…words are cheap (like terrorism).

Once he became president, the deceitfulness of his promise became clearer -- especially in his second term when he reminded us he would never be on a ballot again and when he could go Bulworth and do whatever he wants as president . 

Indeed, deceitfulness has become his standard operating procedure-especially when it comes to helping the mullahs of Iran-who hate America with more loathing than even Israel-get nuclear weapons.

Michael Doran recently wrote in his superb “Obama’s Secret Iran Strategy” that Barack Obama, from the inception of his presidency, pursued “détente” with Iran.  All else, especially allies in the region, were sacrificed to this goal.  Ben Rhodes, Obama’s foreign policy guru (quite a role for a failed short-story writer with zero diplomatic or national security experience) likened an Iranian nuclear deal to the passage of ObamaCare:

This is probably the biggest thing President Obama will do in his second term on foreign policy.  This is healthcare for us, just to put it in context.

As Rick Richman wrote, Obama is using some of the tactics employed to pass ObamaCare to pass an Iran deal.  Among those tactics is a resolute refusal to allow Congressmen (as well as the rest of America) to know any details of the deal.  Shades of “have to pass the bill to know what is in it” -- this, from the administration that declared it would be the most transparent in history.  The deal with the mullahs would be presented as a fait accompli.

But that tactic would be mild compared to the deceit that would follow.

Very early in his presidency, the White House had information that Iran had been operating a secret underground nuclear plant.  The White House kept this secret for them for months until “Mr. Obama’s hand was forced” (as the New York Times reported) when the Iranians realized other western intelligence sources had this information and disclosed it themselves.  The White House recently engaged in the same practice when it cast doubt on reports of yet another secret Iran nuclear facility.

To backtrack, there is a group of nations called the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany) that has been negotiating with Iran.  The Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) was the first step taken.  This was purportedly a way to freeze the Iranians’ nuclear work while negotiations continued on a more comprehensive deal. 

Barack Obama and John Kerry have repeatedly declared that the JPOA has succeeded and the nuclear program has been frozen.  This is deceitful. 

One key provision of the JPOA was that any enriched uranium that Iran produced after the JPOA was signed had to be chemically converted to a less dangerous form.  This was not done.  Furthermore, while Obama claimed, “we have halted the progress of the nuclear program” he was wrong.  Iran’s centrifuges were allowed to continue to spin as rapidly and repeatedly as Obama spun the “success” of his deal with Iran.  He even repeated the claim in a State of the Union Address, during which he also claimed that “unprecedented inspections” under the JPOA had “helped the world verify every day that Iran is not building a bomb” and won some more Pinocchios to add to his burgeoning collection from Glenn Kessler, the fact-checker at the Washington Post.

This is just one example of how the White House seems to be working in tandem with the mullahs to suppress evidence of their cheating.  This deceitfulness began early, buttressing Doran’s view that there was always a secret plan to appease Iran.

Barack Obama has repeatedly claimed that Iran has abided by all the terms of the JPOA (Obama: ”Iran has met all its obligations”).  Just as repeatedly, the Iranians have violated the terms of the JPOA.  As Michael Makovsky writes in the Weekly Standard (Iran’s Cheating: Can’t Trust, Can’t Verify):

In the past year alone Iran has violated its international agreements at least three times.  First, even though the interim Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) prohibited Iran from enriching uranium in any centrifuges that were not in use at the time the deal went into effect in January 2014, last November the IAEA caught Iran operating a new centrifuge—worse still, it was an advanced IR-5 model.  Second, the JPOA required Iran to process any low-enriched uranium it produced during the deal’s term from the gaseous form used for enrichment into a solid that can be used as reactor fuel, so that it would not be readily available for further enrichment and potential breakout.  As of February 2015, Iran had an excess of some 300 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, in violation of the deal’s terms.  Third, in parallel to the JPOA, the IAEA and Iran signed a Framework for Cooperation under which Iran agreed to answer outstanding IAEA concerns about the possible military dimensions of its nuclear program.  Iran answered only one question to the IAEA’s satisfaction and, for the past six months, has been stonewalling on the rest.  This recent record of cheating, while Iran was negotiating a comprehensive arrangement and thus incentivized to be good, bodes poorly for the future under a new accord.

The White House routinely dismisses evidence of Iranian cheating. 

When Iran was caught testing an advanced centrifuge (a violation under the JPOA), the White House said it was just a “mistake” by some low-level employee, as if some Iranian scientist tripped and accidentally injected UF6 into an advanced IR-5 centrifuge, as a friend sarcastically wrote.  The excuse beggars belief, especially since it was not Iran spinning but the American president.

Is the White House doing more than just serving as a defense lawyer for the mullahs?

Reuters recently reported that Iran has continued to actively procure equipment for its nuclear program but that member states seem to have halted reporting these violations to avoid “undermining the delicate nuclear talks.”  Is this a deceitful way to aiding and abetting the Iranian regime by actively suppressing evidence that Iran has continued to develop its supposedly frozen nuclear program?

Isn’t suppressing information that casts aspersions on Iran a key part of the Obama doctrine?  Tom Jocelyn speculates the White House refuses to release documents found in the Bin Laden raid because they would show Iranian ties to Al Qaeda.   Iran and its proxy Hezb’allah were quietly removed from a list of terrorism threats this past February by Obama’s Director of National Intelligence.  Iran’s role in the genocide occurring in Syria is never mentioned.  Iran’s nefarious role South of the Border is complacently dismissed, and its violating of a wide range of other agreements is dismissed as a non-factor in any nuclear deal because a nuclear deal is distinct from other deals in being “aspirational” ((http://www.c-span.org/video/?325740-1/state-department-briefing-at the 5:20 mark) -- whatever that means.  Does the White House believeany of this nonsense?

For years, the administration has been claiming the mullahs can be trusted because their Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa forbidding the development of nuclear weapons.  As Scott Johnson writes at PowerLine, the supposed fatwa is a hoax.  Yigal Carmon of the well-regarded Middle East Research Institute has investigated and reports, “There is no such fatwa.  It is a lie from the Iranians, a deception, and it is tragic that President Obama has endorsed it.”

It does not exist and, even if it did, it could be revoked on a moment’s notice.  Experts have looked for the supposed fatwa and it is a myth.  But Obama and Kerry continue to peddle it.  Again, the Deceit Doctrine in action.

But that is not the only myth they are peddling.

The White House apparently is promoting an Iranian Disinformation Claim, Hassan Dai recently wrote in the Iranian American Forum:

Proponents of the nuclear deal with Iran, including those within the U. S.  government, have repeatedly argued that pressing Iran’s dictatorial regime to give up its nuclear program completely is futile, because the enrichment of uranium is wildly popular with the Iranian people.  Hassan Dai explains that the deal’s supporters have been snookered:

This claim [about the program’s popularity] is part of the Iranian regime’s disinformation campaign, which started in 2003 and includes a total ban on opposing the program, jailing the critics, holding state-organized rallies in support of the program, and fabricating public-opinion polls in Iran for a U.S.  audience.  The majority of these polls are conducted by a Tehran-based center tied to the Iranian security forces.  These polls are publicized and promoted by pro-Tehran groups in Washington, many of them close allies of the Obama administration.  .  .  .

The claim that the majority of the Iranian people support the regime’s nuclear program, or that this program—largely unknown to the vast majority of Iranian—has become an issue of national pride, as well as the ridiculous allegation that Iranians “prefer to forgo an agreement and muddle through under existing sanctions rather than accept the halt to enrichment,” are baseless.

White House officials know a thing or two about disinformation. 

Ever since Hassan Rouhani was elected President of Iran, the administration has promoted the view that he was a moderate that could be trusted.  Both are false claims.  He is not a moderate and he has boasted of successfully lying and deceiving the West in the past about the Iranian nuclear program.  More importantly, he is a figurehead, a front man, for the distinctly non-moderate Supreme Leader.  Even this White House could not burnish Khamenei’s image, so they just ignore his role and deceive Americans into believing Rouhani rules Iran.

The disinformation does not stop there.

For example, for years they have reassured Americans that Iran was not even close to having enough enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb.  However, Energy Secretary Moniz recently acknowledged that the White House has known for years that Iran was far closer to this point than officials, including the president, had been publicly stating.

Eli Lake writes in Bloomberg News:

When Obama began his second term in 2013, he sang a different tune.  He emphasized that Iran was more than a year away from a nuclear bomb, without mentioning that his intelligence community believed it was only two to three months away from making enough fuel for one, long considered the most challenging task in building a weapon.  Today Obama emphasizes that Iran is only two to three months away from acquiring enough fuel for a bomb, creating a sense of urgency for his Iran agreement. 

Back in 2013, when Congress was weighing new sanctions on Iran and Obama was pushing for more diplomacy, his interest was in tamping down that sense of urgency.  On the eve of a visit to Israel, Obama told Israel's Channel Two, "Right now, we think it would take over a year or so for Iran to actually develop a nuclear weapon, but obviously we don’t want to cut it too close." 

What is obvious is that Obama and his team have been deceitful.

White House officials have not just been deceitful to Americans.  They take pride in having been deceitful to one of America’s closest allies, Israel.  White House officials somewhat notoriously promised the Israelis they would deliver a good nuclear Iran deal if only the Israelis held off on attacking Iranian nuclear infrastructure -- and then turned around and publicly boasted about having sandbagged Netanyahu, whom they labeled a chickens**t coward for believing them .  That must mark a new low in American history: openly boasting of successfully deceiving one of our closest allies facing the prospect of another Holocaust.

 Perhaps the most recent example of deceit was Obama declaring that a “historic” agreement has been reached with Iran over its nuclear program.  Obama stated that the agreement would impose rigorous verification programs on the Iranian nuclear program (including searches on military bases), would permit only a phased removal of sanctions on Iran, and would contain snapback provisions that would automatically re-impose sanctions if the Iranians were found cheating (of course, the White House turns a blind eye to cheating anyway).  The Iranians have, as has been widely reported, denied any of these provisions were part of the agreement, as have the Russians.  In fact, there is no deal-as even John Kerry admitted this week.  So Obama’s spiking of the football was not just premature but apparently a fabrication to derail Congressional actions on Iran.  It was a faux “deal.”  This is deceit.

So the Obama Doctrine has been uncovered and can be summarized in one word: deceive.

2a)

There’s Money to Be Made

For eight years, Bill wasn’t paid to speak in Nigeria. Once Hillary became secretary of state, he got $700,000 for a single talk.

By

JAMES FREEMAN

The last time Bill and Hillary Clinton occupied the White House, it wasn’t easy to identify a guiding principle of U.S. foreign policy. But if Americans allow them to move back in, the former first couple will bring along a standard that is clear and consistent. Based on the evidence marshalled by Peter Schweizer, the new Clinton Doctrine seems to hold that wherever freedom and the rule of law are threatened, wherever corruption reigns and individual liberties are denied—there is money to be made. In such places, big windfalls can accrue to Clinton friends, who are nothing if not grateful and shower donations upon the Clinton Foundation and speaking fees upon the Clintons themselves.

Almost every page of the fascinating “ Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich” will be excruciating reading for partisans on both sides of the aisle. Mr. Schweizer, a former speechwriting consultant for George W. Bush, will have conservatives trying to imagine a Republican appearing to do so many favors for business allies and getting away with it. Liberals will wonder why they have to nominate someone whose friends and associates are getting rich in some of the world’s poorest countries.

“The Clintons’ most lucrative transactions originate not in places like Germany or Great Britain, where business and politics are kept separate by stringent ethical rules and procedures,” writes Mr. Schweizer, “but in despotic areas of the developing world where the rules are very different.” He then takes us on a world tour of business magnates writing large checks to the Clintons or their foundation and receiving favorable treatment from various governmental bodies—including the U.S. Department of State where Mrs. Clinton served from 2009 to 2013. Where the particular government required to help a Clinton associate was of the less democratic variety, the favorable treatment was sometimes accompanied by Bill Clinton effusively praising the local strongman for his enlightened rule.

ENLARGE

CLINTON CASH

By Peter Schweizer
Harper, 243 pages, $27.99

Take Kazakhstan, where Mr. Clinton presented himself in 2005 as an ambassador for low-cost treatment of HIV/AIDS. Mr. Schweizer notes that it was an odd place to focus such an effort, since Kazakh infection rates were very low. But the country did have plenty of uranium. And a Canadian company with little experience in the uranium business—but led by a generous Clinton donor—scored a coup when it gained lucrative stakes in Kazakh uranium mines. After a series of deals, the resulting company controlled uranium mines all over the world and was eventually sold to the Russian atomic energy agency. This last deal required the approval of a U.S. government committee that included Mrs. Clinton’s State Department and resulted in Russian control of sizable uranium supplies in the U.S.

The story has generated major headlines, in part because Mr. Schweizer discovered more than $2 million in donations to the Clinton Foundation from the foundation of Canadian mining magnate Ian Telfer, who was among those profiting from the deal. These donations were not reported by the Clinton Foundation, breaking disclosure promises made to the Obama administration when Mrs. Clinton became secretary of state.

The uranium deal is among the biggest, ugliest transactions in the book—not just because of the millions that flowed to Clinton-related entities but also because it gave Vladimir Putin control of much of the world’s supply of an essential ingredient for nuclear energy and weapons. Yet it’s just one float in the global parade of Clinton pals engaging in politically connected investments in exotic locales.

Opinion Journal Video

‘Clinton Cash’ Author Peter Schweizer on the evidence suggesting that the former First Lady and the Clinton Foundation misled Congress, the State Department and the IRS. Photo credit: Getty Images.

In one chapter, there’s Clinton foreign-policy adviser Joseph Wilson joining a company known for striking deals with Sudanese warlords. Then along comes Stephen Dattels,another Canadian investor whose foundation’s donation also was not disclosed by Team Clinton, getting help from the State Department in 2009 for a mining venture in Bangladesh, according to a cable posted on WikiLeaks. And there’s Swedish mining magnate Lukas Lundin, whose organization pledged $100 million to a Clinton Foundation initiative in 2007. Mr. Schweizer reports that the Lundin operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo remained highly profitable thanks in part to the fact that Secretary Clinton implemented none of the key reforms in a 2006 law to promote Congolese democracy that she backed as a senator.

Another high-dollar Clinton Foundation donor, Saudi sheik Mohammed al-Amoudi,derived much of his wealth “from his close relationship with Ethiopia’s repressive government,” writes Mr. Schweizer. And even though State Department staff determined that Ethiopia failed to meet the transparency requirements of a country receiving U.S. aid, Mrs. Clinton granted a waiver.

Not all the benefits of African engagement went to Clinton friends. Some went directly to the Clintons. According to the book, “In his first eight years on the global lecture circuit, Bill had never been paid to speak in Nigeria. But once Hillary was appointed secretary of state, he booked two of his top three highest-paid speeches ever by traveling to Nigeria, pulling in a whopping $700,000 each.”

Far to the northeast, another group was also suddenly eager to hear wise words from the former president. Mr. Schweizer could find no evidence that the royals in the United Arab Emirates had ever paid for a Clinton speech before 2011. But that year the Obama administration designated U.A.E. shipping companies for economic sanctions for doing business with Iran. And just one day before the U.A.E.’s foreign minister met with Hillary Clinton in the U.S. that year, Mr. Clinton was in Abu Dhabi receiving $500,000 for a speech.

One can only imagine how much Mr. Clinton will charge if his wife wins in 2016. But the fact that even liberal media outlets are taking the book seriously suggests that a post-election payday is getting harder to achieve.

Mr. Freeman is assistant editor of the Journal’s editorial page.

2b)

How the Clintons Get Away With It

The Clintons are protected from charges of corruption by their reputation for corruption.

ENLARGE

PHOTO: MARTIN KOZLOWSKI

By

PEGGY NOONAN

117 COMMENTS

I have read the Peter Schweizer book “Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.” It is something. Because it is heavily researched and reported and soberly analyzed, it is a highly effective takedown. Because its tone is modest—Mr. Schweitzer doesn’t pretend to more than he has, or take wild interpretive leaps—it is believable.

By the end I was certain of two things. A formal investigation, from Congress or the Justice Department, is needed to determine if Hillary Clinton’s State Department functioned, at least to some degree and in some cases, as pay-for-play operation and whether the Clinton Foundation has functioned, at least in part, as a kind of high-class philanthropic slush fund.

I wonder if any aspirant for the presidency except Hillary Clinton could survive such a book. I suspect she can because the Clintons are unique in the annals of American politics: They are protected from charges of corruption by their reputation for corruption. It’s not news anymore. They’re like . . . Bonnie and Clyde go on a spree, hold up a bunch of banks, it causes a sensation, there’s a trial, and they’re acquitted. They walk out of the courthouse, get in a car, rob a bank, get hauled in, complain they’re being picked on—“Why are you always following us?”—and again, not guilty. They rob the next bank and no one cares. “That’s just Bonnie and Clyde doing what Bonnie and Clyde do. No one else cares, why should I?”

Mr. Schweizer announces upfront that he cannot prove wrongdoing, only patterns of behavior. There is no memo that says, “To all staff: If we deal this week with any issues regarding Country A, I want you to know country A just gave my husband $750,000 for a speech, so give them what they want.” Even if Mrs. Clinton hadn’t destroyed her emails, no such memo would be found. (Though patterns, dates and dynamics might be discerned.)

Mr. Schweizer writes of “the flow of tens of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation . . . from foreign governments, corporations, and financiers.” It is illegal for foreign nationals to give to U.S. political campaigns, but foreign money, given as donations to the Clinton Foundation or speaking fees, comes in huge amounts: “No one has even come close in recent years to enriching themselves on the scale of the Clintons while they or a spouse continued to serve in public office.” The speaking fees Bill commands are “enormous and unprecedented,” as high as $750,000 a speech. On occasion they have been paid by nations or entities that had “matters of importance sitting on Hillary’s desk” when she was at State.

From 2001 through 2012 Bill collected $105.5 million for speeches and raised hundreds of millions for the foundation. When she was nominated, Hillary said she saw no conflict. President Obama pressed for a memorandum of understanding in which the Clintons would agree to submit speeches to State’s ethics office, disclose the names of major donors to the foundation, and seek administration approval before accepting direct contributions to the foundation from foreign governments. The Clintons accepted the agreement and violated it “almost immediately.” Revealingly, they amassed wealth primarily by operating “at the fringes of the developed world.” Their “most lucrative transactions” did not involve countries like Germany and Britain, where modern ethical rules and procedures are in force, but emerging nations, where regulations are lax.

How did it work? “Bill flew around the world making speeches and burnishing his reputation as a global humanitarian and wise man. Very often on these trips he was accompanied by ‘close friends’ or associates who happened to have business interests pending in these countries.” Introductions were made, conversations had. “Meanwhile, bureaucratic or legislative obstacles were mysteriously cleared or approvals granted within the purview of his wife, the powerful senator or secretary of state.”

Mr. Schweizer tells a story with national-security implications. Kazakhstan has rich uranium deposits, coveted by those who’d make or sell nuclear reactors or bombs. In 2006 Bill Clinton meets publicly and privately with Kazakhstan’s dictator, an unsavory character in need of respectability. Bill brings along a friend, a Canadian mining tycoon named Frank Giustra. Mr. Giustra wanted some mines. Then the deal was held up. A Kazakh official later said Sen. Clinton became involved. Mr. Giustra got what he wanted.

Soon after, he gave the Clinton Foundation $31.3 million. A year later Mr. Giustra’s company merged with a South African concern called Uranium One. Shareholders later wrote millions of dollars in checks to the Clinton foundation. Mr. Giustra announced a commitment of $100 million to a joint venture, the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative.

It doesn’t end there. When Hillary was secretary of state, Russia moved for a bigger piece of the world uranium market. The Russians wanted to acquire Uranium One, which had significant holdings in the U.S. That meant the acquisition would require federal approval. Many had reservations: Would Russian control of so much U.S. uranium be in America’s interests? The State Department was among the agencies that had to sign off. Money from interested parties rolled into the foundation. The deal was approved. The result? “Half of projected American uranium production” was “transferred to a private company controlled” by Russia, which soon owned it outright.

What would a man like Vladimir Putin think when he finds out he can work the U.S. system like this? He’d think it deeply decadent. He’d think it weak. Is that why he laughs when we lecture him on morals?

Mr. Schweizer offers a tough view of the Clinton Foundation itself. It is not a “traditional charity,” in that there is a problem “delineating where the Clinton political machines and moneymaking ventures end and where their charity begins.” The causes it promotes—preventing obesity, alleviating AIDS suffering—are worthy, and it does some good, but mostly it functions as a middleman. The foundation’s website shows the Clintons holding sick children in Africa, but unlike Doctors Without Borders and Samaritan’s Purse, the foundation does “little hands-on humanitarian work.” It employs longtime Clinton associates and aides, providing jobs “to those who served the Clintons when in power and who may serve them again.” The Better Business Bureau in 2013 said it failed to meet minimum standards of accountability and transparency. Mr. Schweizer notes that “at least four Clinton Foundation trustees have either been charged or convicted of financial crimes including bribery and fraud.”

There’s more. Mrs. Clinton has yet to address any of it.

If the book is true—if it’s half-true—it is a dirty story.

It would be good if the public, the Democratic Party and the Washington political class would register some horror, or at least dismay.

I write on the eve of the 70th anniversary of V-E Day, May 8, 1945. America had just saved the world. The leaders of the world respected us—a great people led by tough men. What do they think now? Scary to think, isn’t it?

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WOW! SHE IS WHAT I CALL "HIGH MAINTENANCE!" Mary Lincoln was taken to task for purchasing China for the White House during the Civil War. And Mamie Eisenhower had to shell out the salary for her personal secretary from her husband’s salary. Total Personal Staff members for other first ladies paid by  you the taxpayers: Mamie Eisenhower:  One-- paid for personally out of President's salary.  Jackie Kennedy: One Rosaline Carter: One Barbara Bush:    One Hilary Clinton:    Three   Laura Bush:       One  Michele Obama: Twenty-two How things have changed!  If you're one of the tens of millions of Americans facing certain destitution, earning less than subsistence wages stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart or serving up McDonald cheeseburgers, prepare to scream and then come to realize that the benefit package for these servants of Mrs. Obama are the same as members of the national security and defense departments and the bill for these assorted lackeys is paid by YOU, John Q. Public:  Michele Obama's personal staff:   One..               $172,200 - Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff) Two..               $140,000 - Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Policy And Projects For The First Lady) Three..             $113,000 - Rogers, Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the President and White House Social Secretary for Mrs. Obama) Four..               $102,000 - Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for the First Lady) Five..                $100,000 - Winter, Melissa (Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady) Six..                   $90,000    Medina  , David S. (Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)  Seven..               $84,000 - Lilyveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to the First Lady) Eight..                $75,000 - Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance for the First Lady) Nine..                 $70,000 - Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Project for the First Lady) Ten..                   $65,000 - Burnough, Erinn (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary) Eleven..              $64,000 - Reinstein, Joseph B.(Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary) Twelve..              $62,000 - Goodman,  Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and Events Coordinator For The First Lady) Thirteen..            $60,000  Fitz, Alan O.(Deputy Director of Advance and Trip Director for the First Lady) Fourteen..           $57,500 - Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the First Lady) Fifteen..              $52,500 - Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press Secretary To The First Lady) Sixteen..             $50,000 - Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special Assistant f or Scheduling and Traveling Aide To The First Lady) Seventeen..         $45,000 - Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of Correspondence For The First Lady) Eighteen..           $43,000 - Tubman, Samantha a (Deputy Associate Director, Social Office)  Nineteen..           $40,000 - Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)  Twenty..             $36,000 - Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social Secretary) Twenty-One. .     $35,000 - Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant) Twenty-Two.  .    $35,000 - Jackson, Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lady) Total               $1,591,200 in annual salaries all for someone we did not vote for, and apparently have no control over. There has NEVER been anyone in the White House at any time who has created such an army of staffers whose sole duties are the facilitation of the First Lady's social life.  One wonders why she needs so much help, at taxpayer expense. Note: This does not include makeup artist Ingrid Grimes-Miles, 49, and "First Hairstylist" Johnny Wright, 31, both of whom traveled aboard Air Force One to Europe ... Copyright 2009 Canada Free Press:  canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/12652  The Canadian Free Press had to publish this. I wonder why the US media has not brought this to light???  Too scared that they might be considered racist or suffer at the hands of Obama???

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4)

THE 'TWO-STATE SOLUTION' DECEPTION

Author:Sha'i ben-Tekoa

On April 27, the media quoted Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman — the foreign policy wizard who engineered the fiasco of the North Korean nuclear deal under Pres. Clinton and who is now working her diplomatic legerdemain on Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran — threatened Israel.  She said that if Prime Minister Netanyahu’s new coalition government does not pledge allegiance to the Two-State Solution (TSS), the U.S. will “find it difficult” to back Israel in the U.N. Security Council as U.S. administrations have in the past scores of times by casting a veto.

With the U.N’s roster of member-states almost one-third officially Muslim, if not for the United States the Council would long ago have crippled Israel with sanctions like those passed against Apartheid South Africa that helped bring that racist system down.  In 1975, the General Assembly judged Zionism in UNGA Resolution 3379 to be “a form of racism” too.  That resolution was repealed in 1991 but not the fifty-three other General Assembly resolutions passed over the years that explicitly liken Israel to Apartheid South Africa.

Fortunately, the General Assembly is a powerless, hot air factory.  In its lifetime since 1945 it has drafted and voted on thousands of resolutions on world issues that are no more than opinion pieces that have no enforcement power.

Not so the Security Council. And now President Obama is warning Netanyahu that he had better not follow through on what he said on election eve, March 16, about not allowing on his watch the emergence of a so-called “Palestinian” state.

Obama is functionally threatening to throw Israel into the lions’ den that is the Security Council if he does not support the TSS, which, as we will show, is a prescription for a catastrophe as horrendous as the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.  On July 30 of that year, hundreds of thousands fled either on foot westward into Portugal or eastward to Spain’s Mediterranean ports to hire boats to take them to another country.  To remain in Spain after that day, a Jew could be legally murdered by any pious Roman Catholic.

The “Two-State Solution” is, as we will see, a euphemism for the creation of a “Palestinian” state on the hills of Biblical Judea and Samaria whose birth would dwarf for Jews the misery of the Spanish Expulsion.  As imagined by the PLO and its leader Mahmoud Abbas, the TSS will require the eviction of all Jews currently living and working in those hills and the transfer of all political authority on the ground to the government of a new, Jew-free State of Palestine.

This vision thus calls for driving some 500,000 from their homes.  That is a rough estimate of the size of the Jewish population on this real estate captured from Jordan in June 1967, territory Jordan had overrun in 1948 and formally annexed in 1950.  At that time, Jordan gave citizenship to the Arabs there and for the next nineteen years neither King Abdallah nor his successor, grandson King Hussein, ever considered these Arabs to be members of “Palestinian” nation different from “Jordanians” who were entitled to their own independent state.  

This contrasts with the Two-State Solution that does see them as a separate nation entitled to self-rule in their (allegedly) ancient homeland.  It demands that Israel hand over these territories captured in self-defense to this “Palestinian” nation that is their real, legitimate, authentic, national owner — and never mind that the Hashemite kings of Jordan, direct descendants of the Hashemite Prophet Muhammad, never thought so.

Not to worry, for no Israeli leader of any party will ever agree to such a “two-state solution” if only for the most mundane of reasons.  Where would such a prime minister move these 500,000 Jews? Where in the rest of tiny Israel are they going to be resettled?  Israel isn’t what it used to be terms of available land, and who is going to pay for the building of new homes for them, schools for their children, synagogues and places of employment and livelihoods to re-settle this fresh batch of a half-million Jewish refugees?

On July 30, 1492, the number who fled on foot into Portugal is estimated at 200,000.  Perhaps the same number ran to the Mediterranean seaports.  Some honest seamen took them aboard and sailed for southern Italy.  Others carried escapees across to North Africa.  But other evil men would welcome a Jewish family aboard, take their money, set sail, then captain and crew would murder them and slice open their stomachs before throwing their bodies overboard, for Jews throughout history have been known to swallow their jewels when being chased by homicidal maniacs from one country to another.

No Israeli leader is ever going to propose driving this twelve per cent of the Jewish population of Israel from homes they have every legal and moral right to continue living in; houses they paid for, gardens they cultivated, the synagogues they pray in.  

Neither will any Israeli strategic thinker ever argue that Israel’s security will be enhanced by surrendering the high ground overlooking the center of the country and its one major airport.

The Two-State Solution is one of those abuses of language that George Orwell warned us about in 1984 when he skewered the abysmal verbal dishonesty of the Soviet Union and its apologists.  Read as well his famous essay “Politics and the English Language.”  The TSS points to a “solution” to the violence that foresees Israel retreating to being once again 9-15 miles wide, from the Mediterranean seashore to the hills of Samaria.

It calls for Israel to, so to speak, bare its throat to its savage Arab neighbors with their head-choppers and sex-crazed suicide freaks dreaming of eternal, drunken orgies in Muslim paradise with 72 virgins that the martyr gets to violently deflower again and again, for after each rape the virgins reconstitute their hymens.  To such people, according to the TSS, Israel should turn over this land.

The plan is plainly inhuman, even anti-Semitic for dehumanizing Israel’s Jews by demanding that they behave as no other human beings would in their predicament. Israel evacuated Gaza in 2005 and turned 10,000 of their own people into refugees inside their own country in the belief that this would please the Arabs.  Israelis were told that the evacuation would make the Arabs smile on them and become grateful and good neighbors.

Instead, since then, the Arabs in Gaza have launched literally tens of thousands of rockets into Jewish neighborhoods, smashed into apartments, sent thousands of people to the hospital in shock. These projectiles have landed in children’s playgrounds, destroyed businesses, forced their owners to go on welfare, seen their families fall apart; parents divorce, kids get into drugs. Last summer for fifty days, hundreds of thousands of people in Israel heard air raid sirens several times daily and had to run for shelter.  And now the TSS says Israel must turn over Judea and Samaria as well to these same people.

Obama, Sherman, Kerry & Co and much of the media tell Israelis that they should inhumanly not learn from the experience of leaving Gaza.  Obama tells Netanyahu he must evict hundreds of thousands from their homes and turn all the roads, supermarkets, gas stations, power lines, cell phone towers built and paid for by Israel, and hundreds of synagogues destined to be turned in mosques, over to the Arabs.

This is the Orwellian “Two-State Solution” in practice.

For Israel, it is no solution. It is a death sentence.

4a)

Bibi’s Coalition and Obama’s Temptation

By Jonathan S. Tobin 

This time President Obama didn’t keep Prime Minister Netanyahu waiting. The administration kept the Israeli leader waiting for days before the president made a begrudging congratulatory call after Netanyahu’s decisive election victory in March. But the day after Netanyahu finally pulled together a razor-thin 61-vote coalition to official take office for his fourth term in office, the White House  issued a prompt, if businesslike statement congratulating him. But unlike the election which disappointed the administration’s hopes for a Netanyahu defeat, it’s likely that Obama isn’t entirely displeased by the fact that the prime minister was forced to accept a narrow right-wing government rather than the broader coalition he sought. Just as in 2009, when the president hoped for Netanyahu’s government to quickly fall, Washington is hoping that their Israeli nemesis will soon be out of power. As I wrote yesterday, that may not happen. More important, the question now is if the administration will have learned its lessons from six years of failed attempts to undermine Netanyahu. If instead of backing off they try again to topple him, all that will be accomplished is strengthening the prime minister.

In the aftermath of the Israeli election and the agreement on a framework nuclear deal with Iran that Netanyahu opposed, the administration has sent signals about wanting to patch over its differences with Israel. The latest Jewish charm offensive is being led by Vice President Biden rather than Obama and may well succeed in helping to defuse Jewish opposition to the Iran deal. Most American Jewish organizations and their leaders are too timorous to launch a tough campaign to stop Obama’s appeasement of Iran. But the Israeli government isn’t fooled. Instead rightly listening more closely to the thinly veiled threats emanating from senior administration figures about isolating Israel at the United Nations in the next year. That almost certainly won’t happen until the Iran deal is safely signed this summer and then ratified one way or another via a Congressional vote mandated by the toothless compromise passed today by the Senate.

Netanyahu, who has also been informed he won’t be allowed into Obama’s presence until the nuclear deal is finished, realizes that although the administration is concentrating on getting its way on Iran, his turn will soon come. Given the inherent weakness of his coalition, it’s likely the administration views the right-wing cast of the new coalition as an invitation to pressure on the prime minister.

Netanyahu understands that yet another round of futile peace talks with the Palestinians present no real danger to Israel. That’s because, as they have repeatedly demonstrated over the past 15 years, neither the “moderates” of Fatah running the Palestinian Authority nor the extremists of Hamas ruling Gaza will ever sign a peace deal with Israel. But if Netanyahu bends to American demands for talks or gestures aimed at enticing the Palestinians back to the table, some in his coalition, particularly the Jewish Home party, will bolt. That could force new elections if the Zionist Union opposition sticks to its refusal to accept Netanyahu’s standing invitation to join the government. If Netanyahu refuses to offend his right-wing allies and doesn’t budge, then Obama can lower the boom on the Israelis at the UN, leading to a crisis that might also oust the prime minister. Or so the administration may think.

It looks like a foolproof plan for Obama to finally get rid of a head of government that he has seen as a thorn in his side for his entire term of office. But just as past attempts to topple Netanyahu failed, so, too, may this one and for the same reason.

Every previous fight picked with Israel by the administration has backfired. The reason for that is Obama has always staked out ground that enabled Netanyahu to rally the support of Israeli public opinion, whether it was defending the unity of Jerusalem or forcing the Jewish state back to the 1967 lines. No matter what provocation Washington puts forward for a decision to abandon Israel at the UN, it will seen by seen by most Israelis as a craven betrayal by their sole superpower ally. Though some will blame Netanyahu for worsening the relationship with the U.S., it’s likely that such a turn of affairs will be blamed more on Obama’s animus for the Jewish state than on the prickly prime minister’s lack of tact.

Moreover, provoking a crisis in the U.S.-Israel relationship might make it easier for Netanyahu to go back to the electorate with confidence in another victory. It could also place pressure on Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog to accept Netanyahu’s offer of the post of foreign minister. Despite Herzog’s rhetoric about support for the peace process, that won’t bring an agreement with the Palestinians any closer. Heightened tension between the U.S. and Israel will only goad the PA to be even more obdurate about refusing to make peace on terms that won’t guarantee the destruction of the Jewish state.

Obama’s only hope of outlasting the prime minister in office is to leave Israel alone and let the internal tensions of coalition politics undermine Netanyahu. Yet after more than six years of thirsting for his downfall, it’s not likely that the prime minister can resist the temptation to try and knock him off. The one thing such a course of action will guarantee is Netanyahu’s job security. So long as the U.S. is applying unfair pressure on Israel, the prime minister will always be able to count on keeping his majority in the Knesset and a grip on the support of the public. That’s a lesson Obama has yet to learn.

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