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APRIL 15,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 10:24 P.M. ET: 

IT'S STARTING UP AGAIN – From CBS:  "NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Sources said two officers were injured Tuesday night, as police clashed with demonstrators on the streets of Brooklyn in a protest against police-related deaths and violent incidents throughout the country.  As CBS2’s Valerie Castro reported, the demonstrators started in Union Square and marched down Broadway before targeting the Brooklyn Bridge, 1010 WINS reported. They blocked traffic on the bridge in an effort to bring awareness to what they called police brutality."  When New York clocked more than 2,000 murders a year, these people, and their ideological ancestors, were not demonstrating.  I wonder why.

NOTHING TO SEE, NOTHING TO SEE – From PJ Media:  "Yesterday, President Barack Obama announced that the United States would be removing Cuba from the U.S. State Sponsors of Terror list as part of his push to normalize relations with the communist dictatorship. But just hours later, a terror group long fostered by Cuba — even today, the Castro brothers are harboring several wanted members of the group — murdered 10 Colombian soldiers and wounded 17 others in a terror attack on a military base."  A misunderstanding, I'm sure.

NOBLE WORK – From Fox:  "HONOLULU – Tom Gray's family has waited for more than 70 years to bring home the remains of his cousin who was killed in the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941.  On Tuesday, they got a step closer when the military announced it would exhume and attempt to identify the remains of almost 400 sailors and Marines from the USS Oklahoma who were buried as unknowns after the war.  Gray's cousin, Edwin Hopkins, of Swanzey, New Hampshire, was a 19-year-old fireman third class on board the USS Oklahoma when the battleship was hit by nine torpedoes and capsized on Dec. 7, 1941. His remains weren't identified and his family was told he was missing...All together, 429 sailors and Marines on board the Oklahoma were killed. Only 35 were identified in the years immediately after."   We hope this work can be completed while at least some friends and relatives who knew the servicemen are still living. 

SOUNDS RIGHT TO ME – From Daily Caller:  "With environmentalists calling for divestment from fossil fuels, the former United Nations climate chief has gone against the grain and defended using the 'Green Climate Fund' to finance coal projects.  'There are massive challenges in terms of poverty eradication where coal is a logical choice from a cost effectiveness point of view, and you really have to be in a position to offer those countries an economically viable alternative before you begin to rule out coal,' Yvo de Boer, the former head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, told the news site Responding to Climate Change (RCC)."  I wonder how long it will be before this guy's reputation is destroyed.

April 15,  2015     Permalink

FROM BRITAIN, WITHOUT LOVE – AT 11:25 A.M. ET:  Hillary Clinton will soon have another serious charge to contend with.  "What difference does it make?" may not cut it as an answer.  From Fox: 

A former British diplomat has claimed that Hillary Clinton oversaw a "dysfunctional" U.S. diplomatic mission in Iraq during her tenure as Secretary of State in a book due to be published next month.

Britain's Daily Telegraph reported late Tuesday that Emma Sky, a former political adviser to U.S. Gen. Ray Odierno, writes that Clinton's choice as the Obama administration's first ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill, had "lacked regional experience and was miscast in the role in Baghdad. In fact, he had not wanted the job," but was persuaded to accept it by Clinton. Sky writes that Odierno told her that Clinton had admitted as much when she met the general in Washington in early 2010.

Sky continues that Hill's main focus while ambassador appeared to be monitoring the activities of the U.S. military, as opposed to engaging with Iraqi leaders or his fellow diplomats. In fact, Sky claims that Hill repeatedly "made clear how much he disliked Iraq and Iraqis." She also says that Hill tried to get the fortified embassy to look more like a "normal" U.S. diplomatic mission, a task which apparently required importing rolls of sod "on which the ambassador could play lacrosse".

Sky's book, called "The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq," covers her seven years in Iraq beginning in 2003. Her thesis is that the hasty U.S. withdraw overseen by President Obama thrust then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki into the arms of Iran and exacerbated sectarian tensions that boosted support for what she calls "extreme sectarian actors, including the Islamic State, [who turned] local grievances over poor governance into proxy wars."

COMMENT:  We will await Clinton's answer to these serious charges.  But, of course, she'll have allies.  Book review editors in the mainstream media will do their part for the Clinton cause by assigning hostile reviewers to the book, or ignoring the book altogether.  Believe me, that's done.  I've seen it. 

April 15, 2015       Permalink

MARCO – AT 10:20 A.M. ET:  The contrast is beginning to show between Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio, who immediately emerged as an important contender for the Republican nomination. 

Clinton is on her magical mystery tour to Iowa, desperately trying to assert that she's human.  She's having a tough time proving the impossible.  By contrast, Marco Rubio is conducting a grown-up campaign, discussing, for example, the challenge of dealing with Russia.  From The Hill: 

Rubio called for the U.S. to reinvigorate a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe and consider deploying additional troops in Western Europe. He also said the U.S. should arm Ukrainian forces facing Russian-backed separatists, something that President Obama has ruled out so far.

"At some point this spring, you mark my words, and you keep this recording, there is going to be at some point separatists moving on a spring offensive again," he warned.

"They’re going to try to seize key towns like Donetsk and Luhansk, and you’re going to see that happen here fairly soon. So we need to be prepared for that," he said.

Rubio said Russia's success in Ukraine was inviting further aggression, possibly against Eastern European NATO members, which the U.S. would have to protect.

Rubio also called for increased U.S. defense spending in 2016, and explained his decision to support increasing spending by $20 billion next year, without finding offsets.

"I have no problem offsetting it if it is possible," he said, but added, "The cause of our national debt is not military spending or discretionary spending in general.

"We need to fund national defense, because that is the priority of the national federal government, and that’s the reason, the primary reason why we have a federal government, is to provide for our national defense," he said.

He said the U.S. needed the Ohio-class nuclear submarine and a long range strike bomber, and that it should modernize nuclear stockpiles.

He also said the U.S. needed 12 or 13 aircraft carrier groups, over the current 10, to fill carrier availability gaps in the Asia Pacific.

He warned that although the U.S. had a military edge over China, it would be "not for much longer" unless the U.S. continued to improve its capabilities.

COMMENT:  That is a grown-up talking, and it's refreshing to hear.  Rubio would be a giant of a president compared to Obama, who, as we've said before, is more of a glorified town councilman.

Watch Rubio.  Americans are tired of mush, and he's not mush.

April 15, 2015       Permalink

HOW IT HAPPENED – AT 9:41 A.M. ET:   Yesterday's committee vote on the Iran nuclear program didn't come about by accident.  The brilliant work of Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, shaping the legislation to achieve bipartisan support, was a major factor.  But other events conspired against the president's rigid opposition to Congressional action.  From Jennifer Rubin at WaPo: 

We can trace events to Speaker of the House John Boehner’s decision to invite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to Congress. The White House’s overreaction and openly expressed venom followed by Netanyahu’s masterful speech turned the national discussion, for the first time, to the substance of the Iran deal. Once the president was forced to fess up that there would be a sunset clause and that we would be leaving Iran with its nuclear infrastructure — facts that were only revealed in an Obama interview on the eve of (and in anticipation of) Netanyahu’s speech — the scene was set for a full explication of the dangers of such concessions. Observers could also see that the administration had slid from dismantling Iran’s nuclear capability to managing it.

And...

The next nail in Obama’s coffin was the framework itself. It was a fig leaf, unilaterally presented to conceal a lack of agreement on numerous key issues. But once again it had the effect of shocking the body politic and raising real concerns about the president’s judgment. The administration announced it as an “historic” deal, but over the weeks that followed the White House had to acknowledge there were lots and lots of fundamental issues to resolve.

Obama’s position was further eroded by an op-ed from former secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George P. Shultz, who dissected the framework. That caught the attention of Democrats and of the foreign policy community, rendering ridiculous the president’s claim that opposition was simply unhinged partisanship. And finally, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s public repudiation of the U.S. fact sheet and public insistence on unattainable concessions laid bare a reality Democrats had deflected: The president was wildly casting concessions at the Iranians, getting nothing and systematically making it easier not harder for Iran to both lift sanctions and preserve the option of a nuclear breakout.

COMMENT:  I think that's a fair summary.  Even Democrats have to admit, although few will do so publicly, that this administration is grossly incompetent.  Either that, or grossly deceitful.  I'd imagine that many sane Democrats, and there are some left, can't wait for Obama to leave office. 

April 15, 2015       Permalink 

THE STUNNING MOMENT – AT 8:56 A.M. ET:  I don't think we've yet absorbed the stunning significance of the unanimous vote of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to approve a bill giving Congress a say in the Iran nuclear deal.

It was a dramatic rebuke to the president, who tried to stop the legislation, which, of course, must still be approved by both houses of Congress.  The withdrawal of the White House's veto threat, in the face of the unanimous vote, makes passage likely, unless the legislation is torpedoed by either side along the way.

Max Boot comments on the significance, and the brilliant role of committee Chairman Bob Corker, in Commentary:

Corker managed to convince every member of the Foreign Relations Committee to endorse a bill that would give Congress the right to approve any lifting of sanctions as a result of the nuclear deal. So thoroughly did he manage to win over Democrats that Obama, facing a veto-proof majority, had no choice but to concede that he would sign the legislation. How did Corker do it? It’s hard to know exactly from the outside but it sounds as if, in negotiating with committee Democrats, he made some cosmetic changes, such as shortening the congressional review period from 60 to 30 days and not requiring Obama to certify that Iran has gotten out of the business of supporting anti-American terrorism. Such changes will spark criticism from some on the right, but the essential point appears intact—namely, that Obama will have to allow Congress to weigh in, something that he has so far adamantly resisted doing.

And...

The basic message, from Democrats and Republicans alike, is that there is deep unease in Congress, as well as in the country at large, about the terms of the accord that Obama is negotiating. And for good cause: As former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger have noted, “negotiations that began 12 years ago as an international effort to prevent an Iranian capability to develop a nuclear arsenal are ending with an agreement that concedes this very capability, albeit short of its full capacity in the first 10 years.” Those concerns were only exacerbated by Russia’s announcement yesterday that it will move ahead with the delivery of a sophisticated S-300 air defense system to Iran that will make its nuclear plants much harder to hit from the air in the future. Now at least there will be a fighting chance for Congress to try to stop a bad deal, even if the odds still favor the president, given his enormous leeway in the conduct of foreign affairs.

COMMENT:  All true.  As Boot points out elsewhere, the bill, if passed by Congress, could actually strengthen Obama's hand in negotiations with Iran, if indeed he wants his hand strengthened.  By pointing out that any agreement must pass Congressional muster, he can try to get some concessions out of Iran, which needs a deal more than we do.

As the bill makes its way through Congress, the negotiators will return to Switzerland to iron out the actual details of an agreement with Iran.  The deadline for these new talks is June 30th, some two and a half months away.  We should know by then if we have a real deal, or an illusion.  I'm betting on the latter.

April 15,  2015     Permalink

APRIL 14,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:57 P.M. ET: 

ERASED – President Obama has removed Cuba from the US.'s terror-state list, which will allow the resumption of diplomatic relations with Castroland.  As usual with the brilliant negotiators we have running the country, we got nothing in return.  And there doesn't appear to be much evidence supporting the removal.  Castro's thousands of political prisoners could not be reached for comment.

GOOD STUFF – Thanks to the brilliant negotiating skills of Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, that committee unanimously endorsed legislation giving Congress an important say in any formal agreement we make with Iran on its nuclear program.  Secretary Kerry testified vigorously against the bill this morning, but, later in the day, when it was clear it would pass the committee overwhelmingly, the White House hung Kerry out to dry and announced that Obama wouldn't veto it if it eventually arrives at his desk, which it probably will.  The fact that all Dems went along indicates that they're reading the handwriting on the wall, and probably their constituents' letters.  Polls show overwhelming public support for a congressional role in any Iran agreement.

THE NEW (OR NEWEST) HILLARY – Hillary Clinton's rollout of her 2015 version ain't goin' so well.  In her meetings with groups of small, regular, genuine people – the kind she'd never talk to in real life – she's coming off as minor, uncomfortable, and ineffective.  Meanwhile, it is reported that the small, regular, down-to-Earth van in which she's traveling actually is a Secret Service van with a large, flat-screen TV and a bed.  Polling in the next few months will show whether Hillary is making any impression in Iowa, where her campaign is now centered.  If not, look for the possibility that she may get some competition.

ON THIS DAY – This is the 150th anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater in Washington.  Historians are quick to note that he did not actually die until the next day.  It is unlikely that Lincoln, with his awkward, rural speaking style, high-pitched voice and lack of formal education could be elected today.  Can you just imagine him on the Today Show?   But he was probably our wisest president, and he never used a teleprompter.  You can visit Ford's Theater in Washington, and the wonderful museum that houses items from the night of the murder.  There are no direct descendants of Lincoln alive today.  There was an Abraham Lincoln II, the son of Lincoln's only son to live to adulthood, Robert Todd Lincoln, but Abraham Lincoln II died at the age of 16 in 1890.  He had two sisters, Mary Todd Lincoln, who died in 1938, and Jessie Harlan Lincoln, who died in 1948.  The last direct descendant, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, died in 1985. 

April 14, 2015       Permalink   

WILL HILLARY DEFEND THIS? – AT 10:33 A.M. ET:  Hillary has many serious obstacles to overcome in her race for the White House.  One of the most serious is that she was a secretary of state who oversaw a foreign policy increasingly seen as a disaster.  Ed Rogers, in the Washington Post, states well the extent of the disaster and its impact on the American electorate.  How will Hillary explain this away? 

Over the next 20 months, how many enemies of the United States can President Obama outright lose to or accommodate? He has embraced Cuba, acquiesced to Iran and gone silent on Syria and continues to be ignored by Russia; he has done much to embolden our adversaries. Meanwhile, our allies — from Britain and Canada to Japan, Egypt and Israel — are at best bewildered and at worst disgusted with how this administration has conducted foreign policy over the past six years.

And the disillusionment doesn’t end there. The current RealClearPolitics average of the president’s foreign policy job approval is dismal, with 53 percent of Americans expressing disapproval of Obama’s handling of foreign policy and only 37 percent approving of the job he is doing. It doesn’t appear there is anything about a “more of the same” message on foreign policy that will sell during the 2016 campaign. In fact, things are so bad that foreign policy has broken through the American consciousness in a way that it seldom does. In the annual Pew Research survey on the public’s policy priorities, “For the first time in five years, as many Americans cite defending the U.S. against terrorism (76%) as a top policy priority as say that about strengthening the nation’s economy (75%).” Voters are worried and they want a wholesale change and a new direction.

To make matters worse, the rolling train wreck of Obama’s foreign policy could be the gift that keeps on giving. Our adversaries know they only have about 20 months left under Obama before they potentially face a more formidable opponent. The pace of their challenges to the United States might be quickening. Just in the past week, we saw Russian President Vladimir Putin approve the sale of missiles to Iran and Iran’s supreme leader publicly lecture Obama on what is and is not in the Iran nuclear framework agreement, while eager-to-please Obama gave a wet kiss to Cuba even as Raúl Castro looked bored sitting next to him.

COMMENT:  What does Hillary say?  Barack, I hardly knew ye?  Any Republican presidential candidate is going to roll the clips of her as secretary state, failing and failing.  And the failures appear to be continuing.

And yet, if Hillary distances himself from Obama, he could retaliate, especially if there's competition for the Dem nomination.  I really don't know how she can navigate this with any credibility.  Maybe she can just say, "Credibility is overrated."  She probably believes it.

April 14, 2015       Permalink

OH, THE ANGUISH – AT 9:51 A.M. ET:   Hillary's roll-out, or tweet-out, was less than spectacular, drawing as much ridicule as praise.  And now she's embroiled in a needless battle with the mayor of New York, who'd been her campaign manager when she was in the Senate.  Once again her campaign looks amateurish and petty, as in 2008.  From the New York Post: 

He’s Benedict Bill.

Democratic leaders are fuming after Mayor Bill de Blasio turned his back on mentor and megasupporter Hillary Clinton by not endorsing her presidential bid.

A party source told The Post on Monday that Hizzoner has rankled the top echelon so much that donors may pull support for him when he’s up for re-election.

“Some of Hillary’s biggest bundlers are like, ‘WTF?’ ” the source said.

A city Democratic insider said he fielded furious calls and texts from Clinton’s people all day Monday, the day after de Blasio sniffed on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that it was too early to endorse any candidate.

“I need to see any actual vision of where [candidates] want to go . . . We need to see the substance,’’ said de Blasio, who has landed political jobs thanks to Clinton and her husband, Bill, and even served as campaign manager during her 2000 Senate bid.

A Clinton source scoffed: “He’s known her for, like, 20 years! He doesn’t know what her philosophy of government is?”

The Democratic insider added: “The Clinton people are really angry. They’re furious.”

COMMENT:  That's Little League ball on the part of the Clinton camp.  I mean, who cares what the mayor of  New York does?   Everyone knows he'll eventually endorse his old partner.  By blowing up at the fact that he isn't fawning all over the queen on her first day out, the Clintonians show, once again, their smallness and arrogance.  And you may be sure that these attitudes come from the top.

I just hope Hillary doesn't blow up at her new granddaughter for not being out on the campaign trail already.  That would get noticed.

April 14, 2015       Permalink

OUTRAGEOUS – AT 9:22 A.M. ET:  Wow, it certainly didn't take long.  Russia is already moving to take advantage of the nuclear "agreement" with Iran, and in a way that is disastrous for us.  From Reuters:   

(Reuters) - Russia paved the way on Monday for missile system deliveries to Iran and started an oil-for-goods swap, signaling that Moscow may have a head-start in the race to benefit from an eventual lifting of sanctions on Tehran.

The moves come after world powers, including Russia, reached an interim deal with Iran this month on curbing its nuclear program.

The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin signed a decree ending a self-imposed ban on delivering the S-300 anti-missile rocket system to Iran, removing a major irritant between the two after Moscow canceled a corresponding contract in 2010 under pressure from the West.

One of the most effective anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems in the world.  Possession by Iran would be devastating to any military threat the West or Israel might make.  Nice going, John Kerry.

A senior government official said separately that Russia has started supplying grain, equipment and construction materials to Iran in exchange for crude oil under a barter deal.

Sources told Reuters more than a year ago that a deal worth up to $20 billion was being discussed and would involve Russia buying up to 500,000 barrels of Iranian oil a day.

Officials from the two countries have issued contradictory statements since then on whether a deal has been signed, but Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Monday one was already being implemented.

"I wanted to draw your attention to the rolling out of the oil-for-goods deal, which is on a very significant scale," Ryabkov told a briefing with members of the upper house of parliament on the talks with Iran.

"In exchange for Iranian crude oil supplies, we are delivering certain products. This is not banned or limited under the current sanctions regime."

COMMENT:  Have you noticed that only two forces in the world have grown more powerful since Obama took office?  I'm referring to Communism and militant Islam.

Coincidence?

April 14, 2015       Permalink

CRUNCH TIME – AT 8:55 A.M. ET:  Today the Senate Foreign Relations Committee takes up the Corker-Menendez bill, which would give Congress a say, by law, in the Iran nuclear deal.  There is intense negotiating going on behind the scenes.  From Fox: 

How much say Congress has on a possible nuclear deal with Iran will be tested Tuesday as a controversial bill goes up for a vote in the Senate Foreign Relations committee.

The Obama administration has been very critical of legislation that would give Congress a final say in approving or rejecting a deal.

In an interview with The New York Times, Obama said the newly agreed on framework of a nuclear deal with Iran represents a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to prevent Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon and to move toward stabilizing the Middle East.

On Monday, the administration stepped up its lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill.

"The way the legislation is currently written is something that we strongly oppose," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said. "But, again, we continue to have extensive conversations with members of Congress on Capitol Hill."

Secretary of State John Kerry postponed a foreign trip to meet with members of the House to discuss the negotiations. Kerry, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and senior officials in the intelligence community were holding classified briefings Monday and Tuesday with members of the House and Senate.

Earnest said some Republicans are "rigidly partisan" and will reject any deal just because Obama supports it. He said that while there is some Democratic opposition, administration officials will continue to talk with members of his party. So far, the president and other senior administration officials have made more than 130 telephone calls to members of Congress to discuss the negotiations.

COMMENT:  Some news sources say that Democrats and Republicans in the Senate are moving toward agreement on the final shape of the bill, but I'm skeptical that Democrats will provide the votes to override a presidential veto.   You can hear the question that the Democratic establishment will put to them:  "Do you want to humiliate the first black president?"  That's the way the game is played.  You'd never know we're dealing with an issue that could affect the very survival of millions of people.

Now comes crunch time. 

April 14,  2015     Permalink