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Politics : How Quickly Can Obama Totally Destroy the US? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: The1Stockman who wrote (7812)2/6/2014 10:39:41 PM
From: joseffy  Respond to of 16547
 
White House Announces 7 Regional Climate Hubs

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New York Times ^ | February 5, 2014 | By CORAL DAVENPORT




To: The1Stockman who wrote (7812)2/7/2014 3:01:39 PM
From: joseffy1 Recommendation

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Worse Than Munich

In 1938, Chamberlain bought time to rearm. In 2013, Obama gives Iran time to go nuclear.

By Bret Stephens Nov. 25, 2013
online.wsj.com

Churchill : Never in the field of global diplomacy has so much been given away by so many for so little.

Britain and France's capitulation to Nazi Germany at Munich has long been a byword for ignominy, moral and diplomatic. Yet neither Neville Chamberlain nor Édouard Daladier had the public support or military wherewithal to stand up to Hitler in September 1938. Britain had just 384,000 men in its regular army; the first Spitfire aircraft only entered RAF service that summer. "Peace for our time" it was not, but at least appeasement bought the West a year to rearm.

The signing of the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973 was a betrayal of an embattled U.S. ally and the abandonment of an effort for which 58,000 American troops gave their lives. Yet it did end America's participation in a peripheral war, which neither Congress nor the public could indefinitely support. "Peace with honor" it was not, as the victims of Cambodia's Killing Fields or Vietnam's re-education camps can attest. But, for American purposes at least, it was peace.

By contrast, the interim nuclear agreement signed in Geneva on Sunday by Iran and the six big powers has many of the flaws of Munich and Paris. But it has none of their redeeming or exculpating aspects.


Neville Chamberlain after signing the Munich Agreement, Sept. 30, 1938. © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORB



Consider: Britain and France came to Munich as military weaklings. The U.S. and its allies face Iran from a position of overwhelming strength. Britain and France won time to rearm. The U.S. and its allies have given Iran more time to stockpile uranium and develop its nuclear infrastructure. Britain and France had overwhelming domestic constituencies in favor of any deal that would avoid war. The Obama administration is defying broad bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress for the sake of a deal.

As for the Vietnam parallels, the U.S. showed military resolve in the run-up to the Paris Accords with a massive bombing and mining campaign of the North that demonstrated presidential resolve and forced Hanoi to sign the deal. The administration comes to Geneva fresh from worming its way out of its own threat to use force to punish Syria's Bashar Assad for his use of chemical weapons against his own people.

The Nixon administration also exited Vietnam in the context of a durable opening to Beijing that helped tilt the global balance of power against Moscow. Now the U.S. is attempting a fleeting opening with Tehran at the expense of a durable alliance of values with Israel and interests with Saudi Arabia. "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People" is the title of a hilarious memoir by British author Toby Young —but it could equally be the history of Barack Obama's foreign policy.

That's where the differences end between Geneva and the previous accords. What they have in common is that each deal was a betrayal of small countries—Czechoslovakia, South Vietnam, Israel— that had relied on Western security guarantees. Each was a victory for the dictatorships: "No matter the world wants it or not," Iranian President Hasan Rouhani said Sunday, "this path will, God willingly, continue to the peak that has been considered by the martyred nuclear scientists." Each deal increased the contempt of the dictatorships for the democracies: "If ever that silly old man comes interfering here again with his umbrella," Hitler is reported to have said of Chamberlain after Munich, "I'll kick him downstairs and jump on his stomach."

And each deal was a prelude to worse. After Munich came the conquest of Czechoslovakia, the Nazi-Soviet pact and World War II. After Paris came the fall of Saigon and Phnom Penh and the humiliating exit from the embassy rooftop. After Geneva there will come a new, chaotic Mideast reality in which the United States will lose leverage over enemies and friends alike.

What will that look like? Iran will gradually shake free of sanctions and glide into a zone of nuclear ambiguity that will keep its adversaries guessing until it opts to make its capabilities known. Saudi Arabia will move swiftly to acquire a nuclear deterrent from its clients in Islamabad; Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal made that clear to the Journal last week when he indiscreetly discussed "the arrangement with Pakistan." Egypt is beginning to ponder a nuclear option of its own while drawing closer to a security alliance with Russia.

As for Israel, it cannot afford to live in a neighborhood where Iran becomes nuclear, Assad remains in power, and Hezbollah—Israel's most immediate military threat—gains strength, clout and battlefield experience. The chances that Israel will hazard a strike on Iran's nuclear sites greatly increased since Geneva. More so the chances of another war with Hezbollah.

After World War II the U.S. created a global system of security alliances to prevent the kind of foreign policy freelancing that is again becoming rampant in the Middle East. It worked until President Obama decided in his wisdom to throw it away. If you hear echoes of the 1930s in the capitulation at Geneva, it's because the West is being led by the same sort of men, minus the umbrellas.



To: The1Stockman who wrote (7812)2/7/2014 3:02:57 PM
From: joseffy1 Recommendation

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The1Stockman

  Respond to of 16547
 
"How to Lose Friends and Alienate People" is a memoir by British author Toby Young —but it could equally be the history of Barack Obama's foreign policy.



To: The1Stockman who wrote (7812)2/7/2014 10:17:01 PM
From: joseffy  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 16547
 
Israeli Radio Host Proves Roger Waters' Hypocrisy

Israeli radio host responded politely to Roger Waters' Facebook post calling to boycott Israel.

Waters deleted the post.


By Elad Benari, Canada: 2/7/2014


Roger Waters
Reuters

Anti-Israel musician Roger Waters proved this week that he supports freedom of speech, but only as long as it is his opinion that is presented.

Waters published a post on his Facebook page in which he attacked actress Scarlett Johansson and Canadian musician Neil Young for their refusal to boycott Israel.

He directed most of his post at Johansson, who refused to back down from an advertising campaign for SodaStream, an Israeli company with a factory in Ma’ale Adumim, a Jerusalem suburb located over the 1949 armistice lines and which employs Palestinian Arabs.

Ben Red, who hosts a daily music program on Kol Yisrael radio station 88FM, responded to Waters in a polite post. He wrote:

“Mr. Waters,

“Music is supposed to act as a bridge between people and cultures and not create a gap between them. Your attitude doesn't help to break the wall, it only makes it higher.

“The impression you make is that you're not really interested in bringing peace and co-existence in the Middle East and that's too bad because many of us here are…

“Maybe you've succeeded in convincing Pearl Jam not to come here, because you're sort of a ‘father figure’ for them, but Neil Young is not a child and he will be here because he knows that music lovers are the same anywhere in the world.”

Red’s response to Waters received almost 3,000 “likes” from other Facebook users and was widely quoted in both the Israeli and international media.

It was at that point, however, that Waters deleted Red’s comment from his Facebook page.

“This just proves that he understands that we can be a counterbalance to the boycott he is trying to impose on other artists...” Red wrote on his own Facebook page Thursday.

He encouraged other users to “click on share and distribute this all over the place, maybe it will reach foreign journalists again who will see exactly who Roger Waters is...”

In December, Waters compared Israel to Nazi Germany, saying in an interview, “The situation in Israel/Palestine, with the occupation, the ethnic cleansing and the systematic racist apartheid Israeli regime is unacceptable.”

He previously released a giant balloon pig bearing the Star of David during a concert in Belgium
. Concert-goers said the Jewish star was among several symbols representing various corporations and fascist movements.

Waters has also falsely testified to the UN that Hamas “is open to permanent peace with Israel” - a direct contradiction of Hamas’ own statements.


(Arutz Sheva’s North American Desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)



To: The1Stockman who wrote (7812)2/11/2014 11:55:41 AM
From: joseffy1 Recommendation

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Shirley Temple Black, who as the most popular child movie star of all time lifted a filmgoing nation’s spirits during the Depression and then grew up to be a diplomat, has died. She was 85.

Hollywood recognized the enchanting, dimpled scene-stealer’s importance to the industry with a “special award” -- a miniature Oscar -- at the Academy Awards for 1934, the year she sang and danced her way into America’s collective heart.

After she sang “On the Good Ship Lollipop” in “Bright Eyes,” the song became a hit and the studio set up Shirley Temple Development, a department dedicated to churning out formulaic scripts that usually featured the cheerful, poised Shirley as the accidental Little Miss Fix-It who could charm any problem away.

Her most memorable performances included four films she made with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson,a black dancer 50 years her senior and a favorite costar.

They were first paired as foils for cantankerous Lionel Barrymore in 1935’s “The Little Colonel,” in which 7-year-old Shirley tap dances up and down the staircase, remarkably matching the veteran Robinson step for step.

“I would learn by listening to the taps,” Temple told the Washington Post in 1998. “I would primarily listen to what he was doing and I would do it.”

Their dance routines in such films as the Civil War saga “The Littlest Rebel” (1935) and “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” (1938) reflected their off-screen rapport.

Two of her films released in 1937 were among Temple’s favorites -- the John Ford-directed “Wee Willie Winkie,” in which she wins over a British outpost in India, and “Heidi,” a hit film that became a classic.

In her first film aimed squarely at children, Shirley sang “Animal Crackers in My Soup” to fellow orphans in 1935’s “Curly Top.” She danced with Jack Haley in “Poor Little Rich Girl” (1936), one of her best films.

A country desperate for relief from the excruciating economic hardships of the Depression fell in love with Shirley and her infectious optimism in “Baby Take a Bow,” the 1934 film that was her first starring vehicle.

By 1935, lookalike Shirley Temple dolls, complete with her trademark curls, were selling at the rate of 1.5 million a year, part of a merchandising onslaught that included Temple-endorsed dresses and dishes.

Although the 1930s origins of the non-alcoholic Shirley Temple cocktail have been debated, Temple told The Times in 1985 that the Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood had named the drink after her.

To learn her lines, Shirley essentially memorized the script as her mother, Gertrude Temple, read it aloud. When Barrymore forgot his lines while filming 1934’s “Carolina,” Shirley sweetly told him what to say, causing the star to “roar like a singed cat,” actor Robert Young later recalled.

latimes.com



To: The1Stockman who wrote (7812)2/11/2014 9:47:38 PM
From: joseffy  Respond to of 16547
 
Lefties Want 100% Leftwing Judiciary
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Alliance sees more lack of diversity on bench--Wants broader backgrounds

The Washington Times ^
| February 11, 2014 | Dave Boyer
Not satisfied with President Obama for appointing record numbers of gay, female and minority judges, liberal groups and labor unions are now pressuring the president to nominate more jurists who have backgrounds working for unions and public-interest organizations.

The Alliance for Justice, a coalition of more than 100 liberal groups, is lobbying the White House to “broaden the bench” with more judicial nominees who represent what it calls “professional diversity” — judges who are more likely to be aligned with the coalition’s liberal agenda.

“We face a federal bench that has a striking lack of diversity,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat, said at an alliance event in Washington last week. She said Mr. Obama’s nominees have been “largely in line” with the professional backgrounds of previous presidents’ judicial candidates.

Although Mr. Obama has surpassed his predecessors in diversifying the federal bench along racial and gender lines, his liberal critics say he has selected too many candidates who have worked either as corporate lawyers or federal prosecutors.

The latest campaign is aimed at installing more judges who have served as public defenders, civil rights advocates and personal injury lawyers.

The alliance said in a report that 85 percent of Mr. Obama’s judicial nominees have worked as corporate lawyers or prosecutors. Less than 4 percent “have significant experience representing workers in labor and employment disputes,” the group said.

Four of the top 10 political donor groups in this year’s campaign cycle are labor unions, and roughly 90 percent of their $9 million in contributions go to Democratic candidates, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. In the 2012 presidential race, single-issue groups donated more than $31 million, 55 percent of contributions, to Mr. Obama’s campaign.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ..