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APRIL 11,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 8:09 P.M. ET: 

VULGAR – I watched CNN's vulgar coverage today of the meeting between President Obama and Cuba's President Castro, or Castro II, or whatever they call him.  CNN went into full-fawning mode, with anchor Poppy Harlow (I love that Disneyesque name) practically throwing kisses to our heroic president, who announced that all presidents before him had failed in their Cuba policy, so he was going to change it.  Look, how can you argue with a self-appointed god.  Then there was CNN's Rosa Flores, who was beside herself announcing how much Obama is loved in Cuba.  Flores also lamented that there were "still" Cubans who complained of being oppressed.  Silly people.  Who needs free elections, freedom of speech, freedom of the press?  Why can't these traitors appreciate what they're given?  It would have been nice had someone at CNN pointed out that Barack Obama is an elected president who will leave office a year from January, with no troops required in the streets.  Raul Castro is a dictator, appointed by his brother, the senior dictator.  I guess this democracy thing just isn't trendy.

INTERESTING POLL ON CUBA – From the Panama Post:  "A survey by InterAmerican Security Watch (ISW) challenges the notion that normalization with Cuba will enjoy popular support. ISW acknowledges that right now a slim majority of US citizens agree with President Barack Obama’s move to restore diplomatic ties. Their findings, however, suggest that support evaporates as the same individuals learn of the Castro regime’s foreign-policy record and human-rights violations.  ISW, a policy institute that monitors regional security issues, questioned 700 likely US voters by phone from March 16 to 23, including an 'oversample' of 300 Cuban Americans. On March 24 they then published a 51-versus-38 percent tilt in favor of normalization with Havana. However, when respondents were presented with evidence of negotiations between Cuba and terrorist groups, and alliances with Russia and North Korea, levels of approval flipped, to considerable margins of 30-40 percent.  Surveyors emphasized the shipment of 240 tons of weaponry that the regime of Raúl Castro attempted to send to North Korea in 2013. After hearing of this, for example, 64 percent of respondents preferred to maintain sanctions on Cuba until there is progress towards free and multi-party elections, the release of political prisoners, and respect for human rights."  We're cautious about any single poll, but Americans are being told very little about Cuba's current abuse of human rights.  The press has, shock, fallen down on the job.

WHY? – From Fox:  "NEW YORK – A New York City woman is accused of marrying 10 times over an 11-year period without ever getting a divorce.  Liana Barrientos is charged with filing a fake instrument.
The Bronx district attorney's office says she faces two counts of felony fraud charges at her arraignment Friday.  According to a criminal complaint, the 39-year-old woman allegedly obtained two of the marriage licenses in the Bronx. It says the others were obtained in Westchester County and Long Island. The first one allegedly was obtained in 1999.  The complaint says she was arrested following a probe of her most recent marriage in 2010.  It wasn't immediately clear if she had a lawyer."  What happened to the husbands?  Inquiring minds want to know. 

April 11, 2015        Permalink

THE COUNTDOWN – AT 12:08 P.M. ET:  Can you stand the tension, just waiting for Hillary to make her announcement tomorrow?  It will be so wonderful having a fresh face that's only been around for 25 years. 

Oh wait.  I didn't notice.  There's no coronation on the national schedule.  From The Politico: 

House Republicans investigating the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi and Hillary Clinton’s email practices as secretary of state said in interviews that her official entry into the presidential race won’t have any bearing on their probes.

But the political stakes of the Clinton congressional investigations are about to skyrocket. Both parties will be watching the committee’s work intently for ammo to use against Clinton or to call foul on the GOP for attempting to smear a presidential contender.

“Secretary Clinton’s decision to seek the presidency of the United States does not and will not impact the work of the committee,” said Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi. “The Committee needs to and expects to talk with Secretary Clinton twice, as ensuring the committee has all relevant material is a condition precedent to asking specifically about Libya and Benghazi.”

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) said the committee is prepared to take criticism from Clinton allies once her campaign launches but won’t be deterred from fully probing the attacks just because she is running for president.

“I don’t think anybody is going to stop her and her camp from saying anything we do is … political. She’ll use this in her campaign,” Westmorelnd said. “It’s not political. We would have had her in a long time ago if we had her emails. This is something she has brought on herself and the State Department brought on.”

But Democrats would like nothing more than an ongoing spectacle of congressional Republicans looking like they’re tripping over themselves to go after Clinton. Avoiding such an atmosphere amid the heightened attention will be a major political challenge for Gowdy, a former U.S. attorney tapped to head the Benghazi panel and the initial investigation into Clinton’s email use.

COMMENT:  I have confidence that Gowdy can pull it off.  The press will, of course, side with Hillary, portraying her as a helpless victim and grandmother.  And, of course, following the regimen of 2008, every attack on Hillary will be called "sexist."  That's the way the 1960s game is played, and Hillary is still stuck in the 1960s.

The important thing for Republicans is to stand firm, not to make the mistake John McCain made in 2008, when he was far too deferential to Barack Obama, apparently fearing that he'd be called a "racist" if he wasn't.

Hillary may also get some real competition from within the Democratic Party, which would help the Republicans make their case.

I think we might well have the most interesting presidential race since the Reagan election of 1980.

April 11, 2015       Permalink

BLUNTLY STATED – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 11:21 A.M. ET:  What's with this Iran "deal"?  After years of negotiating we were told by the Obamans that a "deal" had been reached over Tehran's nuclear-weapons program.  But was it? 

Andy McCarthy, a first-class federal prosecutor and now a first-class commentator at NRO, has perhaps the most lucid view of what has just gone down:

Is it true, as the president likes to say, that we should never be afraid to negotiate? Only if we enter negotiations with a firm grasp of our bottom-line requirements. Those must be non-negotiable. We should be afraid of “negotiations” that entail abandoning bottom-line requirements. If that’s what “negotiation” means, it’s just a euphemism for selling out our national interests. They wouldn’t be national interests if they could be compromised without fearful consequences.

In the middle of their negotiations with Obama, the mullahs had one of their top military commanders announce that, as far as Iran is concerned, “erasing Israel off the map” is “nonnegotiable.” That is one of their bottom-line requirements. Obama’s job is to move them off their bottom line, not erase ours.

He isn’t even trying. Thus, the details of Obama’s negotiations with the mullahs are beside the point; the fact that we are negotiating becomes a humiliating defeat — an implicit admission that we accept Iran’s aggression. Nevertheless, if we bypass this inconvenient reality for the moment and consider Obama’s “framework,” its chicanery is manifest. In the first five minutes of law school, students are presented with a formal principle that, they quickly realize, they have understood since childhood: An agreement is a meeting of the minds. Absent a mutual understanding by both parties of what each has promised to do, you don’t have a “framework” with some “er . . . details” to be worked out. You have bupkis.

And that’s what Obama will surely end up with. Such disdain does the Iranian regime have for the United States, such contempt for our president and his desperation, that Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei won’t even allow Obama the pretense of a deal. With relish, he mocked the president’s phony “framework” this week, declaring the undeniable truth that there is no agreement, that the parties are not even close on the fundamental elements of a pact, and that the “White House fact sheet” is the product of “lying and breaching promises.”

COMMENT:   Andy McCarthy can always be counted on to strip away the nonsense and get right to the basics.  Read the entire column and send it to friends.  It's worth it.

April 11, 2015        Permalink

IGNORED – AT 11:08 A.M. ET:  It's sad, but former Governor Rick Perry of Texas is being ignored as he tries to get back into presidential politics.  True, he made a mess of his campaign the last time around, but he's learned, and, in fact, he's saying some of the most interesting and provocative things.  For example, he's blunt in noting that the gutting of our national defense hasn't been done exclusively by Democrats.  From the Washington Times: 

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry is calling out both Democrats and Republicans for what he described as depleted armed forces and an aging military infrastructure, saying the two parties have “treated our defense forces as a pawn in a budgetary game of chicken.”

Facing overseas threats, Mr. Perry wrote, the Obama administration has made “grave miscalculations,” accusing the administration of “wishful thinking instead of making sober assessments based on realities on the ground.”

“Moreover, the Obama administration and Congress have failed to prioritize military spending, and our preparedness is suffering as a result. After two grueling wars and a weak economy at home, our military is being decimated by major budget cuts,” Mr. Perry wrote in a piece for the New Hampshire Union Leader. “Because of the failed leadership of both parties — who treated our defense forces as a pawn in a budgetary game of chicken — our armed forces are depleted, our military infrastructure is aging, and our technological advantages are being severely challenged at a time when the world is increasingly dangerous.”

Mr. Perry, who is weighing another run for president in 2016, went on to write that the Republican-led Congress is making some progress on increasing defense spending, but that the defense spending in the current budget is still “insufficient.”

The House and Senate each advanced their respective budget blueprints last month that both boost money for the Pentagon through war spending so as to not break through budget sequester caps. Members return next week, when they will try to reconcile the differences ahead of an April 15 deadline.

“If I were president today, I would reframe the entire defense debate: from what do we have leftover to spend on defense to what we must spend to keep America safe,” Mr. Perry wrote. “It is time to tell the truth to the American people that both parties have gutted our defenses rather than impose spending discipline on other areas of government. It is time to get real about the fact that while our enemies are building ships, we are reducing the size of our fleet. That while fanatics are growing their armies, ours is at risk of being reduced to dangerous lows.”

COMMENT:  I don't hear other candidates speaking so directly.  Perry had a fine record in Texas as the country's longest-serving governor.  His poor showing in 2012 should be ignored, and the press should focus more on what he is saying now.  He makes sense.

April 11,  2015     Permalink

APRIL 10,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:52 P.M. ET: 

GREAT MOMENTS IN EDUCATION – From NJ.COM:  "ORANGE — An Orange elementary school teacher has been suspended for having her third-grade students write 'get well' letters to an inmate convicted of killing a cop, school officials announced today.  In a statement provided by Orange Superintendent Ronald Lee, district officials sharply criticized the assignment given by teacher Marylin Zuniga to write letters to former death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal.  School officials said they 'vehemently deny' having prior knowledge of the assignment, and said Zuniga neither sought prior approval nor notified parents about this 'unauthorized activity.'"  At least the district did the right thing.  But how did a nutcase get hired as a teacher in the first place?

OBAMA CAVES AGAIN – From Fox:  "CARACAS – Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, is claiming 'victory' after President Obama said in an interview earlier this week that 'Venezuela is not a threat.'  Maduro is attributing Obama's supposed change of stance to his initiative of gathering 10 million signatures protesting 'U.S. imperialism.'  'Venezuela is not a threat to the U.S. and the U.S. is not a threat to Venezuela,' Obama told EFE, apparently changing the language used in the March 9 executive order announcing sanctions against seven government officials and calling the situation in Venezuela 'an unusual threat.'"  Hey, who cares about a few words from long ago – March 9th – right?  Once again Obama reverses himself if any foreign dictator merely sneezes at him.  Whatever happened to American leadership?

OH, PLEASE SAVE US – The "humanization" of Hillary Clinton has begun.  We are told that she is a person, just like we peasants.  From London's Daily Mail:  "Hillary Clinton 'whooped' for joy at the birth of her granddaughter before she saw Bill becoming tearful in the hospital waiting room, she has revealed.
The former Secretary of State gave details of her daughter's pregnancy in a new epilogue for her memoir, Hard Choices, released just days before she is expected to announce her presidential run. In the new chapter, shared by the Huffington Post on Friday, she suggested that the birth of her granddaughter made her think about the future of all children and had motivated her political plans."  Oh, right.  Just reading stuff like this will affect my health.  Please suggest remedies.

April 10,  2015     Permalink

MARCO MOVING – AT 11:41 A.M. ET:  We've long had a high regard here for Marco Rubio.  I personally believe that, of all the Republican would-be presidents, Rubio may well make the most attractive, and successful candidate. 

Remember – political parties don't nominate presidents.  They nominate candidates.  You have to win the election first, something that Republicans have occasionally forgotten.  It's not like the Olympics, where they hand out a silver medal if you come in second. 

Rubio has remarkable personal qualities, including the ability to be quick on his feet and have immediate answers.  It is widely expected that Rubio will announce his candidacy within the next few weeks, and his backers are getting organized.  From the Washington Examiner: 

Republicans connected to disparate wings of their party are collaborating to run a super PAC supporting Sen. Marco Rubio's presidential candidacy.

The super PAC is called "Conservative Solutions" and was unveiled by organizers on Thursday, four days before the Florida Republican is expected to kick off his 2016 bid. The group is being led by a quartet of political professionals with roots in the Tea Party, the GOP Establishment, the key early primary state of South Carolina and the crucial swing state of Ohio.

The political diversity of the super PAC's organizers along the GOP spectrum reflects Rubio's political approach as a candidate who would run for the nomination as a unifying candidate, rather than a niche insurgent. The super PAC is to be run primarily by Republican consultant Warren Tompkins out of his Columbia, S.C., office. Federal law prohibits Conservative Solutions and Rubio's campaign from coordinating.

"Support for Marco's positive conservative vision and his potential presidential run is growing every day, and I'm honored to help in that effort," Tompkins said in a statement. "This race will be won by the candidate with the best vision for where to take this nation and the resources to ensure that message is heard. Marco has the vision."

COMMENT:  I like the way Rubio is organizing.   Broadening the base.  Going for victory.  The race is getting exciting.

April 10, 2015       Permalink

ALL HILLARY ALL THE TIME – AT 10:21 A.M. ET:  Well, it's Friday, and can Sunday be far behind?   Hillary's announcement of her candidacy is two days off.   To maintain your sanity, I recommend you stay away from your TV's.  It'll be Hillary and more Hillary.  The Queen will be addressing her subjects.

Bottom line, she'd better do a lot better than she's done.  Almost every story about Hillary recently has been negative.  She can't play the granny game forever.

The Los Angeles Times has some reporting on what her campaign will probably look like:

Clinton’s team will say only that the launch will be light on big rallies and speeches and heavy on the candidate interacting with small groups of voters in such cozy venues as homes and diners.

The first such event will attract the most attention. Nobody close to Clinton will say where it will take place.

Even without much — or any — viable opposition for the Democratic nomination, Clinton will leave nothing to chance. A flawed approach in the 2008 primary played big in her eventual defeat that year to then-Sen. Barack Obama. Clinton built her candidacy then almost exclusively around experience, putting off voters who sought a more personal connection, and possibly a more humble candidate. She avoided highlighting her potential to make history as the first female president, despite polls showing it was a big selling point.

While the announcement for the 2016 election is a chance for her to start fresh, it is also an opportunity for the media to resurrect all the mistakes she made in her last run. Every location where she has a meaningful connection also has drawbacks. Early primary states invite comparisons to 2008. Arkansas suggests she is mounting a bid for a third term of the last Clinton White House. Illinois, her native state, might suggest she is seeking a third term of the Obama one.

COMMENT:  Well, that's one point of view, I guess.  But I think the L.A. Times gets some things wrong.  Hillary was defeated by Barack for one primary reason:  on the political left, race always trumps gender.  The first woman president is kind of inevitable.  It will happen.  But the first black president was exciting, especially to the left wing of the Democratic Party, which has an inordinate voice in presidential primaries. 

Also, despite Hillary's past role as a kind of feminist role model, her policies in 2008 appeared "center left."  Obama's appeared "real left."  That is still a problem for Hillary.  Not quite left enough. 

So, we'll see what happens Sunday.   Hillary has been slipping in the polls, which is probably why her announcement is being made early.  Polling in the next few months will probably determine whether others get into the race seriously. 

April 10, 2015       Permalink

A BIT OF BOTHER – AT 9:37 A.M. ET:  We learn more about the Iran nuclear "agreement" every day.  What we are learning is that there's no agreement at all, simply some working papers put out by different governments, with no one really agreeing with anyone else.  In fact, there may not even be an agreement on June 30th, which is the deadline for achieving one.   From AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Snap back? Not so fast.

The biggest enforcement provision in the preliminary nuclear agreement with Iran is turning into one of the mostly hotly contested elements. And the debate barely involves Iran.

Instead, it concerns the Obama administration’s promise to quickly re-impose sanctions on Iran if the Islamic Republic cheats on any part of the agreement to limit its nuclear program to peaceful pursuits.

This would be relatively straightforward for the sanctions imposed by the US, as Congress is eager to keep the pressure on. But it is far from clear whether President Barack Obama can guarantee such action at the United Nations, which has imposed wide-ranging penalties that all UN members must enforce.

At present, there’s no firm agreement on how or when to lift the sanctions in the first place. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and President Hassan Rouhani said Thursday they want all sanctions lifted on the first day of implementation. That’s not the position of US and other negotiators, a major issue that still must be worked out.

Assuming it can be, that still would leave the big question of possible re-imposition.

The disagreement on this issue is between the US and its European allies on one side, and Russia and China on the other — all countries involved in the nuclear negotiations. And even though all six world powers and Iran agreed last week to the framework agreement that is supposed to be finalized by June 30, the “snapback” mechanism for UN sanctions remains poorly defined and may prove unworkable.

“If Iran violates the deal, sanctions can be snapped back into place,” Obama declared last week.

He went further this week, saying that restoring the international sanctions would not require consensus among UN Security Council members. And Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who helped seal last week’s pact, insisted “no one country could block the snapback.”

That assertion rests on an informal compromise reached at the talks in Lausanne, Switzerland, to bypass the typical UN Security Council process if Iran breaks the agreement.

COMMENT:  I love the term, "informal compromise."  Apparently, there's a lot of "informality" in the "agreement."  The fact is, once sanctions are lifted, powerful economic interests in the West will seek to make fortunes in Iran.  Governments, especially Germany, will be hard pressed to reimpose those sanctions.

And how will we define a "violation"?  Will we announce it, or restart negotiations, which could take years, to "explore" the issue.

Iran announced yesterday that it would never permit inspections of military sites.  Without those inspections, the agreement is meaningless.

It's pretty clear that the "agreement" announced last week is essentially meaningless.  The devil, as usual, is in the details, and the details haven't begun to be worked out, if they can be worked out at all.

April 10, 2015       Permalink

PATHETIC – AT 8:54 A.M. ET:  The usual suspects in the American press are lining up to support Obama's hug-up to the Cuban dictatorship.  The Associated Press reports on the new warmth, with a story clearly tilted to suggest that more than 50 years of estrangement was kind of our fault:

PANAMA CITY (AP) — Turning the page on a half-century of hostility, President Barack Obama signaled Thursday he will soon remove Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, boosting hopes for improved ties as he prepared for a historic encounter with Cuban President Raul Castro.

Hours before his arrival in Panama for a regional summit, Obama said the U.S. State Department had finished its review of Cuba's presence on the list, a stain on the island nation's pride and a major stumbling block for efforts to mend U.S.-Cuba ties. A top senator confirmed that the agency had recommended removing Cuba from the list, all but ensuring action by the president within days.

"We don't want to be imprisoned by the past," Obama said during a visit to Kingston, Jamaica. "When something doesn't work for 50 years, you don't just keep on doing it. You try something new."

With his optimistic assessment, Obama sought to set the tone for the U.S. and Cuba to come closer to closing the book on more than a half-century of estrangement, when he and Castro come face to face at the Summit of the Americas. Obama arrived Thursday evening in Panama City.

COMMENT:  So casually stated, so obvious to the "intellectual" classes.  But what about the people of Cuba, who've lived under the Castro dictatorship for more than five decades?  What happens to them?  How do they benefit from this new warmth?  Why isn't the United States demanding an easing of repression on the island as the price for American recognition?  Why aren't we demanding truly free elections?

The answer is that the Obama crowd, and the political faction it represents, don't really care about human freedom or individual rights.  They demonstrate this over and over.  One day it's Cuba, the next day it's Iran.  North Korean repression?  Why, who cares?  We're building a legacy for Barack. 

And we see where that legacy is taking the cause of human freedom.

April 10,  2015     Permalink