Every week on Monday morning, the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum with short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture or daily living. This week’s question: What Advice Would You Give The Presidential Candidate Of Your Choice?
Don Surber: My advice to Marco Rubio: Smile more and be positive. Resist the temptation to play to the reportorial bleachers; they hate you and want to destroy you. Be kind to your fellow Republicans. Never say an unkind word about any of them. Ever.
GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD: Currently in limbo – I really dig Marco. And GOV Perry and to a little lesser extent SEN Cruz and GOV Walker. I also dig how the Donald fired off blistering cuts on many of them. The guy has a point.
Just saw a bit on the telly where SEN Rick Santorum rather unnimbly ducked, weaved and dodged specifics on handling ISIS. It was painful to watch and listen.
While the good Sen is not my cat thus far – it does bring up a raison d’etre for gooder advice – especially on ISIS.
1. Make it big.
Loudly and proudly declare the goal will be to chuck their carcasses onto the same pile as Waffen Ss and Kamikazees. Terms like Annihilation, utter destruction mixed in with picturesque prose about repeatedly raining destruction on them sans modesty or restraint.
Also make it clear, internat’l borders in this case are only pretty lines on a map. There is no where ISIS will be able to raise the flag without American military power being in their face.
2. Go big.
Party it up. Announce their will be massive Bar B Ques
(beef, chicken and pork) held in Raaqa the very day their HQ falls, that American troops will be on the ground in newly acquired turf in the ME for eons if needed.
LOL any and all ME nations fear about the American military seizing oil wealth, bases and turf. After all, America was invited back into the Middle East – simply because the nations there are too weak, too disorganized and unserious about destroying ISIS.
3. Mean and Scary
American combat troops in large numbers on the ground killing ISIS for the duration and afterwards
4. If ISIS is truly a threat – then treat it like one with all the disproportionate force available.
Laura Rambeau Lee, Right Reason: Unfortunately, I have yet to find the presidential candidate of my choice. But I would like to tell “The Donald” to just go away.
JoshuaPundit: I have no presidential candidate at this point, but I admit to leaning towards Scott Walker simply because the floor beneath governor’s chair in Wisconsin is littered with the skulls of his enemies who did everything they could to destroy him. The idea of someone in the White House with actual successful executive experience and real accomplishments intrigues me, I admit.
Aside from telling most of the candidates in both parties to go find honest work instead, what I’d advise anyone who wants the job to do is to level with the American people. That doesn’t mean ridiculous sound bite applause lines guaranteed to make headlines – the last thing we need is another Ross Perot – but real solutions to real problems… and that’s also going to mean attacking Mrs. Clinton head on and linking her to the Obama regime’s failures. Politics, after all, is war by other mean.
The Independent Sentinel: I’d like to give advice to Hillary Clinton. Democrats are always very generous about giving advice to Republicans which they feel compelled to follow and the least I can do is pay it back.
The first thing Hillary should do is promise to approve the Keystone Pipeline with an Executive Order the day she takes office. She should follow that up by approving every nuclear plant application and canceling all new climate change rules, especially now that we know an Ice Age is coming.
If I were her, I’d promise to fill up GITMO with all these terrorist wannabes we keep growing at home.
Her agenda should include lowering taxes on the wealthy, declaring all 50 states right-to-work and she should admit the war on women and the whole pay equity issue are bogus.
Oh, and she should immediately promise to close the borders.
Finally, she should do away with minimum wages, right after she says she plans to declare war on a few countries.
Ask Marion: My advice to the person that was not exactly my first choice for the GOP presidential nomination until lately is to “keep doing what you are are doing!!”.
The Donald knows business and finance; he knows many of both the political and business leaders from around the world; he has the guts to say what he thinks and what a lot of Americans want to hear; he has name recognition; he is actually pro enforcing American law and securing the borders; he can self-finance so he won’t owe anyone favors if he is elected; the media hates him so you know he is on to something; and Trump loves America and Capitalism. Sounds like a great presidential candidate to me!!
Trump has guts and understands showmanship. So while the liberal media kept trying to feed everyone the idea that his trip to Los Angeles and Arizona would be disastrous, it turned out exactly the opposite.
Donald Trump is looking less and less like a wild card and more and more like he could win!
Well, there you have it.
Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council and the results are posted on Friday morning.
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The story of Russia’s El Presidente for Life (apparently), Vladimir Putin, is intriguing, to say the least. For over 15 years, Vladimir Putin has been the de facto supreme leader of the Russian Federation.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has been the President of Russia since 7 May 2012, succeeding Dmitry Medvedev. Putin previously served as President from 2000 to 2008, and as Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012.
The people (i.e. “the family”) behind Putin’s rise to power remain in the shadows, and are a mystery to many.
At around the 43:30 min. mark is a clip of Vladimir Putin stating he will ask the Duma to “reinstate Aleksandrov’s music”—meaning, he asked the Russian Parliament to reinstate the national anthem of the Soviet Union, originally written for Josef Stalin.
One Russian political party that put its support behind Putin was known as the “Fatherland” party. An interesting twist (i.e. dialectic), considering the “former” Soviet Union has long been known as the “Motherland.”
[OBP] was formed from the movement Fatherland, chaired by the Mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, and the movement All Russia, chaired by regional Presidents of the Republics of Tatarstan, Mintimer Shaimiev, of Bashkortostan, Murtaza Rakhimov, of Ingushetia, Ruslan Aushev, and the Governor of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Yakovlev. In his founding Congress, that took place on 28 August 1999, their first chairman elected were Yevgeny Primakov and Yury Luzhkov.
The party took part in the 1999 State Duma election, being led by Yevgeny Primakov, Yury Luzhkov and Vladimir Yakovlev. During the pre-election debates, the block suffered from ‘black public relations’ campaign in Boris Berezovsky-controlled media and competition with the rival conservative Unity Party of Russia. ‘Fatherland’ supported the election of Vladimir Putin as President of Russia in 2000.
In 1 December 2001 a joint congress of rival party Unity and Fatherland-All Russia decided to merge both parties into a single new political party, United Russia. In the IV Congress of Fatherland, at 9 April 2002, it was decided to disband the organization.
Who would’ve ever thunk that the gay rights movement and the “Fatherland” have something in common?
Well, if anything, it makes for a colorful tale … does it not?
The usually brilliant and stalwart Kevin D. Williamson of National Review appears at last to have fallen victim to the virus known as Beltway Insider-itis. In doing so, he joins the likes of David Brooks and Jen Rubin, so-called “conservatives” who act as the unofficial PR wing of the Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove, and the Republican National Committee.
We do not expect the likes of Williamson, however, to channel Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Karl Rove and Tom Donohue and slam the very group of Americans who handed the Republican Party massive midterm wins at every level of government in 2010 and 2014.
Never mind the Democrats, economic realities, Putin, ISIS, the geographical facts of the U.S.-Mexico border — all would be well and all manner of things would be well if not for the behind-the-scenes plotting of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and their enablers, who apparently can be bribed with small numbers of cocktail weenies. The WHINO is a Republican conspiracy theorist, in whose fervid imaginings all the players — victims, villains — are Republicans.
Why the vitriol (and patently false vitriol at that)?
Williamson, like many Beltway insiders, has panicked at the latest polls showing Donald Trump (no, not Donald Trump!) atop the current GOP field.
Recall, however, that at this same moment in the prior election cycle, Rudy Giuliani sat in Trump’s position.
Williamson also insists Romney was a wonderful candidate and anyone who couldn’t see the difference between the former Massachusetts governor and Obama was either a “fanatic or extraordinarily ill-informed”. Or perhaps nominating the Godfather of Obamacare made the dominant policy issue of 2012 a moot point?
And why do I call Williamson’s insipid arguments patently false?
He need look no further than his own website to read the sobering wisdom of Andrew C. McCarthy (“Republicans Have Needlessly Undermined their Ability to Resist the Iran Deal”), which effectively shreds every last molecule of Williamson’s diatribe.
In fact, on the most important national security question in possibly all of American history, the Obama-Kerry nuclear Iran agreement (McCarthy terms it “a disastrous deal that would end sanctions against the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism while paving its way to a nuclear-weapons arsenal”), John Boehner and Mitch McConnell conspired with Barack Obama to simply cede Congressional oversight of a deal that will reward Iran with $150 billion and allow it (easily) to build nuclear weapons.
That legislation … enacted as the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, shifts the burden of persuasion away from President Obama and onto opponents of the Iran deal, thus making the deal virtually impossible to stop or undo…
…Iran, of course, is not just an accused party; it is an incorrigible recidivist. In overt contempt for our nation and president, Tehran is already in flagrant violation of the “Joint Plan of Action” it agreed to with the administration. The mullahs see that, even as they systematically flout this interim deal, Obama is hell-bent on looking the other way. It is therefore certain that they will violate the final deal — which will be so frontloaded with carrots (e.g., a $150 billion signing bonus in the form of immediate sanctions relief) that the sticks can be laughed off…
…Under the Constitution, the president must persuade a two-thirds supermajority of senators to approve an agreement with a foreign power. That is, as I’ve repeatedly contended in connection with the Iran negotiations, the Constitution’s presumption is against legally binding international pacts…
…Under the Constitution’s burden of persuasion, then, the Iran deal did not have a prayer of becoming law … In the final Iran deal, the burden of persuasion is key. Enter the Corker legislation. It undermined the Constitution’s presumption against international agreements by shifting the burden of persuasion: Rather than forcing the president to persuade two-thirds of the Senate to approve the deal, it imposes on opponents the burden of persuading two-thirds of the full Congress to reject it.
In other words, the Corker bill (and, remember, Bob Corker is simply a puppet of Mitch McConnell in this and many other matters) surrendered full control of the most dangerous deal imaginable — handing cash and nuclear weapons to a terror state whose unofficial slogan is “Death to America” — to Barack Hussein Obama.
I don’t know whether McCarthy wrote his piece as a direct assault on Williamson, but suffice it to say that it appears purpose-built.
Williamson must also ignore the fact that, in order to get elected, men like Boehner and McConnell pledged fiscal responsibility, a full repeal of Obamacare, and investigations of Barack Obama’s high crimes and misdemeanors.
In fact, a Republican Congress has aided and abetted the most massive expansion of government since World War II; an act of fiscal irresponsibility so unhinged and detrimental to society that Mark Levin’s new book on the topic (Plunder and Deceit) is already a #1 bestseller weeks before it hits the shelves.
In fact, a Republican Congress has done nothing of import to repeal the disastrous Obamacare law, even as the Supreme Court and the Department of Health and Human Services rewrites it at will.
In fact, a Republican Congress has failed to name a Select Committee to investigate the weaponization of the IRS (the mere suggestion of which was outlined in Richard Nixon’s prospective articles of impeachment); it has permitted Hillary Clinton to destroy her government records that were under subpoena with virtually no repercussions; and it has failed to diligently pursue any one of dozens of other scandals (e.g., Fast and Furious, Solyndra, the UAW bailout, the violation of the War Powers Act, etc.) that should be front and center every single day.
Is it any wonder that the conservative base is frothing at the mouth?
Williamson concludes with the pithy phrase “[w]hining is no substitute for winning”; unfortunately his beloved Establishment has done very little winning, whether in general elections or on the most important policy questions of the day.
In order to win, Kevin, you have to fight.
Feckless, cowardly boobs like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell have surrendered at every opportunity without even considering a fight, insisting before the battle is even joined, for instance, that they’ll never shut down the government.
The American people need a Presidential candidate who will fight. Whether that man is Donald Trump or, more realistically, someone like Ted Cruz, Americans want a candidate who will not hesitate to face our enemies, whether they be foreign or domestic.
Fundamentally: JPOA: Comprehensive nuclear deal would “produce the comprehensive lifting of all UN Security Council sanctions.” That includes arms embargo. As the deal is being broadcasted in coming hours, Tehran has a flag burning. So has the signing bonus been delivered?
TEHRAN (FNA)- A source privy to the talks between Iran and the six world powers said in case Iran and the six world powers agree on a final deal, the text of the agreement will include the following points.
“In case the opposite side shows political will and the final agreement is signed, the text of the agreement will include the following points,” the source said.
“According to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, all sanctions against Iran are terminated and Iran will no more be recognized as a sanctioned nation,” the source said, and added, “The JCPA only envisages a set of temporary restrictions that will be removed after a limited and logical period of time, as stated earlier by the Iranian Supreme Leader.”
“All economic, financial and banking sanctions against Iran will be terminated for good on day one after the endorsement of the deal, again as the Iranian Supreme Leader has demanded.”
“Iran will no more be under any arms embargo, and according to a UN Security Council resolution that will be issued on the day when the deal is signed by the seven states, all arms embargos against Iran will be terminated, while its annex keeps some temporary restrictions on Iran for a limited period,” the source disclosed.
He said the JCPA is, in fact, a collection of multiple agreements that all fall within the redlines specified by the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, and includes a set of temporary and limited measures that will remain valid for different periods of time.
“The upcoming UN Security Council resolution – that will call all the previous five resolutions against Iran null and void – will be the last resolution to be issued on Iran’s nuclear program and withdraws Iran’s nuclear dossier from under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. This last resolution will remain valid and will be implemented for a specifically limited period of time and will then automatically end at the end of this period,” the source added.
“This is the first time that a nation subject to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter has managed to end its case and stop being subject to this chapter through active diplomacy,” he concluded.
Iran, powers near to historic deal; U.S. says tough issues remain
By Parisa Hafezi and Arshad Mohammed
VIENNA (Reuters) – After more than two weeks of marathon negotiations, Iran and six world powers were close to nailing down an historic nuclear deal that would bring sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on Tehran’s atomic program, diplomats said on Sunday.
But Iranian and Western officials said it was unlikely they would be able to finalize an agreement on Sunday, saying the earliest an agreement could be ready was more likely Monday.
“We are working hard, but a deal tonight is simply logistically impossible,” Alireza Miryousefi, a spokesman for the Iranian delegation, said on Twitter. “This is a 100-page document, after all.”
A Western official said Tehran and Washington would need time to consult their capitals once an agreement was reached.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry cautioned that some difficult issues remained on the 16th day of ministerial negotiations between Iran, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China.
“I think we’re getting to some real decisions,” Kerry told reporters in the Austrian capital. “So I will say, because we have a few tough things to do, I remain hopeful. Hopeful.”
Several diplomats said an agreement that would end more than a year and a half of negotiations was so close that it could come as early as on Sunday. In a sign that something might be in the works, both Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi were also due to join the talks on Sunday.
However, a senior U.S. official played down speculation that an agreement was in the works on Sunday, and reiterated Kerry’s point that “major issues remain to be resolved in these talks.”
French Foreign Minister Laurent said he hoped the high-stakes negotiations were finally drawing to a close.
“I hope, I hope, that we are finally entering the final phase of this marathon negotiation,” Laurent Fabius told reporters.
“I believe it,” he added. “France’s position has been one of constructive firmness and I hope it will allow is to reach the end now, quickly, for a satisfying result.”
A senior Iranian official also said an agreement was close.
“Some 99 percent of the issues have been resolved and the agreement is ready,” said an Iranian diplomat. “With political will, we can finish the work late tonight and announce it tomorrow. But still there are at least two issues to be resolved.”
IRAN LEADER SETS NO NEW ‘RED LINES’
Iran and the six powers involved in the talks have given themselves until Monday to reach a deal, their third extension in two weeks, as the Iranian delegation accused the West of throwing up new stumbling blocks to an accord.
Among the biggest sticking points this week has been Iran’s insistence that a United Nations Security Council arms embargo and ban on its ballistic missile program dating from 2006 be lifted immediately if an agreement is reached.
Russia, which sells weapons to Iran, has publicly supported Tehran on the issue.
However, a senior Western diplomat said earlier in the week the six powers remained united, despite Moscow’s and Beijing’s well-known dislike of the embargos.
Western powers have long suspected Iran of aiming to build nuclear bombs and using its civilian atomic energy program to cloak its intention – an accusation Iran strongly denies.
The goal of the deal is to increase the time it would take for Iran to produce enough enriched uranium fuel for a single weapon to at least one year from current estimates of 2-3 months – the “breakout” time.
If there is a deal, the limits on Iran’s enrichment program are expected to be in place for at least a decade.
Other problematic issues in the talks are access for inspectors to military sites in Iran, answers from Tehran over past activity and the overall speed of sanctions relief.
Kerry and Zarif have met nearly every day since Kerry arrived in Vienna more than two weeks ago for what was intended to be the final phase in a negotiation process that began with an interim nuclear deal clinched in November 2013.
Experts and senior officials from Iran, the United States and the other powers have been meeting non-stop for months, often working into the early hours of the morning, to finalize an accord that will include five technical annexes.
An agreement would be the biggest step toward rapprochement between Iran and the West since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, although both sides are likely to remain wary of each other even if a deal is concluded.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Tehran would continue its fight against “global arrogance” – referring to the United States. But Khamenei did not set any new “red lines” for his negotiators as he did in a tough speech two weeks ago.
In Washington, the top Republican in the U.S. Senate cast doubt on whether President Barack Obama will be able to win approval in Congress for any deal.
“I think it’s going to be a very hard sell, if it’s completed, in Congress,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the “Fox News Sunday” broadcast. “We already know it’s going to leave Iran as a threshold nuclear state.”
Pope Francis has applied his authority and the Catholic Church altering Catholic doctrine and message to high stakes politics. He has solicited high stakes policy wonks on the matter of Climate Change and his team is mobilized.
His shepherds, his Bishops, his Cardinals will install United Nations approved language and actions into all sermons, visits and religious message.
What a shame, there was such hope for renaissance of the Vatican yet it was short lived.
Note: Naomi Klein is a social activist who is against corporate capitalism, and has the DNA of peace activism and her grandparents were communists. She admits to being labeled a red-diaper baby where social justice and racial equality is her continued bent. Climate change is her mission. Klein is an acolyte of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky proven by the third book she authored titled The Shock Doctrine.
Hence, she successfully gained the attention of Pope Francis.
Social activist ‘surprised but delighted’ to join top cardinal in high-level environment conference at the Vatican
She is one of the world’s most high-profile social activists and a ferocious critic of 21st-century capitalism. He is one of the pope’s most senior aides and a professor of climate change economics. But this week the secular radical will join forces with the Catholic cardinal in the latest move by Pope Francis to shift the debate on global warming.
Naomi Klein and Cardinal Peter Turkson are to lead a high-level conference on the environment, bringing together churchmen, scientists and activists to debate climate change action. Klein, who campaigns for an overhaul of the global financial system to tackle climate change, told the Observer she was surprised but delighted to receive the invitation from Turkson’s office.
“The fact that they invited me indicates they’re not backing down from the fight. A lot of people have patted the pope on the head, but said he’s wrong on the economics. I think he’s right on the economics,” she said, referring to Pope Francis’s recent publication of an encyclical on the environment.
Release of the document earlier this month thrust the pontiff to the centre of the global debate on climate change, as he berated politicians for creating a system that serves wealthy countries at the expense of the poorest.
Activists and religious leaders will gather in Rome on Sunday, marching through the Eternal City before the Vatican welcomes campaigners to the conference, which will focus on the UN’s impending climate change summit.
Protesters have chosen the French embassy as their starting point – a Renaissance palace famed for its beautiful frescoes, but more significantly a symbol of the United Nations climate change conference, which will be hosted by Paris this December.
Nearly 500 years since Galileo was found guilty of heresy, the Holy See is leading the rallying cry for the world to wake up and listen to scientists on climate change. Multi-faith leaders will walk alongside scientists and campaigners, hailing from organisations including Greenpeace and Oxfam Italy, marching to the Vatican to celebrate the pope’s tough stance on environmental issues.
The imminent arrival of Klein within the Vatican walls has raised some eyebrows, but the involvement of lay people in church discussions is not without precedent.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, delivered the keynote address at a Vatican summit in April on climate change and poverty. Anticipating the encyclical, he said he was depending on the pope’s “moral voice and moral leadership” to speed up action.
When it came to the presentation of the document itself, the pontiff picked a five-strong panel, including a Rome school teacher and a leading scientist. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, who heads the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, used the time to give churchmen a lesson in climate science.
The pope has upset some conservatives for drawing people from outside the clergy into the heart of the debate, while critics have also argued the Catholic church should not be involved in an issue that should be left to presidents and policy-makers.
But Klein said the pope’s position as a “moral voice” in the world – and leader of 1.2 billion Catholics – gives him the unique ability to unite campaigners fighting for a common goal. “The holistic view of the encyclical should be a catalyst to bring together the twin economic and climate crises, instead of treating them separately,” she said.
Much of the pope’s discourse focuses on the need to give developing countries a greater voice in climate change negotiations, a view that sits uncomfortably among some in developed nations. “There are a lot of people who are having a lot of trouble in realising there is a voice with such global authority from the global south. That’s why we’re getting this condescending view, of ‘leave the economics to us’,” said Klein.
She views the rise of Francis as an environmental campaigner as marking a welcome shift not only in the international sphere but also at the Holy See: “We’re seeing the power base within the Vatican shift, with a Ghanaian cardinal [Turkson] and an Argentine pope. They’re doing something very brave.”
While the upcoming conference is centred on the pope’s encyclical, delegates will also be looking ahead to decisive international meetings this year. Before the Paris talks comes a UN summit, where states are due to commit to sustainable development goals, which will inevitably affect the environment.
The pope will fly into New York on the first day of the meeting and address the UN general assembly, reinforcing his message and emboldening countries worst affected by climate change.
For Klein, the papal visit will mark a much-needed change in the way negotiators discuss the environment. “There’s a way in which UN discourse sanitises the extent to which this is a moral crisis,” she said. “It cries out for a moral voice.”
