Wednesday Afternoon - The Front Page Cover

The Front Page Cover
"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened"
 
Featuring:
A Republic of Disrespect
Peggy Noonan
"Know who you are standing with"
"Show me your friends and I'll show you your future"
~~~lll~~~
 

 LOUSY LINGO TRAPS WHITE HOUSE ON ISLAMISTS 
The White House has been doing a tremendous job of kicking its own backside on foreign policy of late. The latest and best example came as the president’s press secretary sought to
explain how the Taliban can be on a government list of terrorist groups but not be terrorists. The reason for the semantic gymnastics is that President nObama would not like to be the one who gets credit for establishing the new standard that the U.S. negotiates with terrorists, as his administration did in swapping five high-ranking Taliban prisoners of war for an American soldier. And since a determination of the desertion charges against the soldier in the trade is expected soon, the administration is feeling extra pressure. Five terrorist for one deserter would not exactly sound like the deal of the century. Five “armed insurgents” for one prisoner of war, on the other hand, sounds like at least a slight improvement.  -Fox News 

 IRAN SANCTIONS BILL PASSES SENATE PANEL 
The Hill: “Members of the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday passed a bill that would impose sanctions on Iran if a comprehensive agreement to roll back its nuclear program is not reached by June 30. The bill, co-authored by Sens. Mark Kirk [R-Ill.] and Robert Menendez [D-N.J.], passed in the committee by an 18-4 vote. All 12 Republicans on the committee voted for the bill, as did six Democrats…The bill, which is softer than one proposed last year by Kirk and Menendez, would allow the president to waive sanctions indefinitely for 30 days at a time.”
          [In the latest Fox News poll, 70 percent believe President nObama has not been tough enough on Iran and 62 percent believe that military force will be necessary.]
         “The notion that the Iran sanctions effort can be stopped was killed by the American people at the ballot box when they elected a Republican Senate. This is going to move forward in the Senate regardless of what the president’s feelings are on it.” --Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., said in an interview with Bloomberg   -Fox News 

 nOBAMA SERVES UP PIE IN THE SKY FOR HOUSE DEM RETREAT 
Fox News: “President nObama called for an end to ‘mindless austerity’ on Thursday as he announced his desire to end ‘sequester’ spending cuts in his budget for 2015. The across-the-board cuts, agreed to by both parties, have been in effect since 2013, after lawmakers were unable to produce a more strategic deficit-cutting plan. Members of both parties have problems with the cuts, which indiscriminately affect both domestic and defense programs. nObama's proposed $74 billion in added spending, about 7 percent, would be split about evenly between defense programs and the domestic side of the budget.”
          “We need to stand up and go on offense, and not be defensive about what we believe in...And I promise you, I'm not going out the last two years sitting on the sidelines.” President nObama at House Democratic Conference in Philadelphia Thursday  -Fox News 

 AMNESTY APPLICATIONS OPEN FEB. 18 
Reuters: “The United States will begin accepting applications on Feb. 18 for temporary legal status from children of undocumented immigrants who came to the United States with their parents, under a plan announced by President Barack nObama last November. The U.S. Customs and Immigration Service [USCIS] said on Thursday the applications for the program to defer deportation and obtain a 3-year legal status would be available to undocumented immigrants who entered the country as children before 2010. They will be the first group of immigrants who will benefit from nObama's sweeping immigration reform announced on Nov. 20. The plan will let up to 4.7 million of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States stay without threat of deportation, including about 4.4 million who are parents of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.”
          [Byron York writes that the nObama administration has left public opinion, which overwhelmingly opposes increased immigration, out of the debate: “With Republicans now in control of Congress, it's an open question whether GOP lawmakers can craft legislation that moves the nation's immigration policy forward while still respecting public opinion.”]
-Fox News 

 Hilly still slipping among Democrats -   Fox News: “Among Democratic contenders for their party’s nomination, Clinton still dominates -- although her numbers continue to slip. She now comes in at 55 percent among self-identified Democrats, down from 62 percent last month and a high of 69 percent in April 2014. Vice President Loose Lips Joe Biden makes gains in the new poll. He comes in second with 17 percent. That’s up from 10 percent last month. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is third with 12 percent -- unchanged from December.”  -Fox News 

 
 
 
1.
 Egypt Labels Hamas' Military Wing Terrorists  
(John Rossomando) - An Egyptian court has labeled the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing, a terrorist organization. "The court ruled to ban the Qassam Brigades and to list it as a terrorist group," Judge Mohamed al-Sayid said Saturday in an interview with Reuters...The decision came as a result of a suit brought by Egyptian attorney Samir Sabri that accused the Qassam Brigades of financing and participating in attacks in Egypt against police, military and other targets. Hamas has diverged from its goal of fighting Israel and now aims to undermine Egypt's internal security, according to the Egyptian court. The court's decision centered on the Qassam Brigades' alleged involvement in a series of terrorist attacks, including one in October that killed 31 Egyptian soldiers. Sabri's suit also claimed that Hamas' armed wing smuggled weapons and funds into Egypt through a network of tunnels.       http://www.investigativeproject.org/4767/egypt-bans-labels-hamas-military-wing-terrorists#
2.
 Lt. Col. Ralph Peters: Time To Play Whack-A-Mole  
(nicedeb) - Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (Ret.), on Fox News yesterday, was asked what the right response to Islamic terrorism throughout the world. “There is only one answer,” he began. “You kill the terrorists – these Islamic fanatics...and you keep on killing them for years and decades. You kill them in large groups, you kill them in small groups. And you kill them in onesies and twosies. Peters noted that in Washington DC, the group-think is ‘you can’t play whack-a-mole.’ “Well, if you’re not going to play ‘whack-a-mole’ and kill them wherever you find them, you will lose.”       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5eG94xeco4&x-yt-ts=1422579428&x-yt-cl=85114404
3.
 Millions Of Illegals Already Given Illegal Documents By nObama  
(Rick Wells) - There seems to be no limit to the criminality the nObama regime is willing to engage in in the pursuit of their national transformation objectives. The socialist Democrats have once again returned to one of their favorite crime scenes, our immigration system, for the most recently discovered scheme...It’s a ploy that utilizes the bureaucracy of the system, the guise of poor management, and cumbersome oversight as a protective cover. In many respects it is not unlike the duplicate waiting list fraud which was perpetrated under the current regime to deny veterans medical care and defraud the citizens of the United States. The violations were discovered through a freedom of information request issued upon the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the component of DHS which is responsible for the issuance of work permits to aliens in the U.S., when the lawful issuance is warranted. It is the same agency which is being utilized under the illegal amnesty declaration by Hussein nObama to for the mass issuance of “legal” documents to millions of illegal squatters in America. The FOIA request was filed by the Center for Immigration Studies and they are to thank for the revelations.       http://www.rickwells.us/millions-illegals-already-given-illegal-documents-obamas-dhs-shadow-amnesty-since-2009/
4.
 Senator Sessions Demands Investigation Into Criminal DHS  
(Rick Wells) - At a minimum two million illegal aliens appear to have been given work permits in direct violation of the law and criteria upon which such documents are to be issued...The abuses of power in this specific instance have been taking place since Janet Napolitano took over DHS in 2009 and continue to this date under DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), no stranger to challenging the regime on their illegalities, is demanding an investigation into what he calls a “shadow” work authorization system. The probable criminality was discovered as the result of a FOIA request by the Center for Immigration Studies.       http://www.rickwells.us/outraged-senator-jeff-sessions-demands-investigation-criminal-dhs-shadow-amnesty-program/
5.
 nObama Budget An Entirely Political and Partisan Document  
(Rick Wells) - Charles Krauthammer starts off with a side note, that in spite of  the millions who were supposedly going to lose their jobs as a result of the sequester, only one person actually did, out of all of those employed in the United States federal government...He then continues on the topic of the nObama budget proposal, saying, “I don’t mind if the ‘president’ sends a budget which he knows is not going to achieve anything. But when he prefaces his remarks as we just saw by saying we have to put politics aside, posing again as the one person in the country who rises above partisanship and party, speaks for the national interests, it’s really grating.” Krauthammer says, “The budget he gave he knows is not going to pass, it’s not a real document. It’s entirely a political and partisan ideological document. It’s a way to present liberal budget choices in a way that are completely unacceptable but a way to frame the debate in the future.”    http://www.rickwells.us/krauthammer-obama-budget-an-entirely-political-and-partisan-document-pushing-liberal-ideology/
6.
 nObama’s Taliban tools and treachery  
(Michelle Malkin) - To call President nObama’s Afghanistan policy a mess is a colossal understatement. To call it a coherent “policy,” for that matter, is a gut-busting exaggeration. It’s a bloody, incompetent and treacherous disaster...Our military heroes and families, God bless them, refuse to stay silent about the consequences. Consider these three national security fiascos: 1. Washington is awash in conflicting reports this week that the Pentagon may — or may not — charge Taliban tool Bowe Bergdahl with desertion. I first reported on Bergdahl’s betrayal and abandonment of his post in July 2009. A military source tells me that the nObama administration has “slow rolled” the investigation and prosecution — while withholding vital intelligence gathered from Bergdahl’s debriefing last summer. As the nObama administration dithers on the desertion charges, at least one of the five Taliban terrorists the president exchanged for Bergdahl has reportedly returned to jihad. The news comes this week as the White House adamantly refuses to call the Taliban a terrorist group.       http://humanevents.com/2015/01/30/obamas-taliban-tools-and-treachery/
7.
 Secret emails to finally nail nObama in major scandal? 
(Bob Unruh) - The new GOP majority in the U.S. Senate is turning up the heat on its investigation of allegations the Internal Revenue Service shared private taxpayer information with President nObama, demanding nObama turn over communications he and his staff had with the agency...The Washington Times reported it obtained a copy of a letter signed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and the 13 other Republicans on the panel. Addressed to nObama, the letter asks for his communications with the IRS since 2010 for their investigation into whether the agency has been engaging in illegal distribution of private taxpayer information. Republicans have accused the nObama administration of using the IRS as a political weapon since discovering the agency obstructed the applications for tax-exempt status of conservative organizations critical of nObama’s policies.       http://www.wnd.com/2015/01/gop-senate-tells-obama-to-cough-up-emails/
8.
 Unions urge president not to veto Keystone  
(Sean Higgins) - Union leaders urged President nObama not to veto the the Senate bill authorizing the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline...They argued the project, which would build an oil pipeline from Canada's tar sands to the Gulf of Mexico, would a boon for jobs and the economy. The bill passed the Senate on Thursday, 62-36, but the president has said he'll veto it if lands on his desk. The 62-vote Senate majority is not sufficient to override a veto. "North America's Building Trades Unions urge President nObama to listen to both the will of the U.S. Congress, where significant bipartisan majorities support the construction of Keystone XL, and to the findings of his own Department of State, which has concluded, on several occasions, that the construction and operation of the Keystone pipeline does not represent any significant increase in atmospheric carbon levels," said Sean McGarvey, president of the coalition group.       http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/unions-urge-president-not-to-veto-keystone/article/2559566
9.
 Polls Show Public Opposes nObama's Executive Action  
(Joel Himelfarb) - Two new polls will provide new ammunition for critics of President Barack nObama's executive amnesty policies and supporters of lower immigration levels...The new GOP-led Congress "has the green light to defund President nObama's executive actions, especially his bid to grant worker amnesty" to millions of illegal immigrants, the Washington Examiner reported in summarizing the results of a new poll released Thursday by Paragon Insights. By 58 percent to 36 percent, registered voters oppose President nObama's executive action permitting millions of illegal immigrants to remain in the United States, according to the poll. It also found that 53 percent of voters back Republican efforts to defund nObama's executive order to that effect, and that more than 70 percent of respondents support congressional passage of new legislation strengthening laws making it illegal for U.S. firms to hire illegal immigrants.       http://www.newsmax.com/US/Barack-Obama-defund-immigration-executive-action/2015/01/29/id/621598/
10.
 Bipartisan vote boosts Iran sanctions bill  
(Charles Hoskinson) - By a strong bipartisan vote, the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on Thursday approved legislation that would impose new sanctions on Iran if it does not agree to limit its nuclear program by the June 30 deadline set by international negotiators...The committee voted 18-4 to approve the bill by Sens. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and Bob Menendez, D-N.J., on the understanding that it will not go to the floor before March 24, the self-imposed deadline negotiators have set to reach a political framework for a final agreement. Six Democrats joined all 12 Republicans in voting to approve the bill. Kirk and Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., also joined the panel's Democrats to beat back several attempts by their GOP colleagues to toughen the legislation as part of a deal to maintain the bipartisan coalition behind it.       http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/bipartisan-vote-boosts-iran-sanctions-bill/article/2559483
A Republic of Disrespect
Peggy Noonan

     (peggynoonan.com) - It’s odd in Washington now. There’s a lot of claiming of authority and no taking of responsibility.

     The president gave his State of the Union address, and of course the TV ratings were bad—Nielsen put viewership at 31.7 million, the lowest since Bill Clinton ’s last State of the Union, in 2000, when America had 38 million fewer people. Although the low ratings are generally attributed to President nObama’s no longer being new and a symbol of hope, there’s more to it, such as a lack of credibility.

     Mr. nObama sturdily declared that pages have been turned and crises surmounted. He has become a better actor in his presidency, with better command of and engagement with his material, but the material reflected nothing new in terms of his essential attitudes. He quickly glossed over the Islamic State: “In Iraq and Syria, American leadership—including our military power—is stopping ISIL’s advance.” I liked the “including our military power,” but: Really? Few on the ground see anything but an Islamic State on the move. Literally as the president spoke, Yemen’s government was falling to Iranian-backed groups whose takeover is assumed to be good news for an al Qaeda branch poised to fill the void. The president’s habit of detaching from what is actually happening—of declaring in fact that the opposite is happening—is a marvel to behold. History will speak of it.

     After forgetting to be gracious to the victors of the 2014 election, or even to note there’d been a significant election, he referred to his relations with Congress. “Imagine if we broke out of these tired old patterns. Imagine if we did something different,” he said. “A better politics isn’t one where Democrats abandon their agenda or Republicans simply embrace mine.” It is instead one “where we appeal to each other’s basic decency instead of our basest fears.” Well, OK, but before this sweet hectoring he had sternly threatened to veto Republican-backed legislation. ( CBS News ’s Mark Knoller counts nine veto threats since the new Congress was sworn in Jan. 6.) Somehow Mr. nObama’s olive branch always looks like a blunt instrument. He has spent the past six years blaming Republicans when he wasn’t ignoring or dissing them, and despite some nice touches in the speech, his essential disrespect for his political adversaries shone through.

He hates them. They hate him back.

     On the Republican side we see disrespect toward the president—and, more consequentially, toward the presidency—in the decision of GOP Hill leaders to invite, without conferring with the White House or the State Department, a foreign head of government, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to address a joint session of Congress next month.

     On hearing of this I got the same sinking feeling I did last week when Mr. nObama met with British Prime Minister David Cameron at the White House and, during their joint news conference, Mr. Cameron acknowledged to reporters that he’d personally lobbied U.S. senators to back Mr. nObama on Iran sanctions. Should a foreign leader be on the phone jawboning with members of the American Congress about what they should or should not do? Um, no. It’s a breaching of diplomatic form and tradition. You go run your country, we’ll run ours, and then, because we’re friends and allies and love each other, we’ll meet and talk and see if we can’t get into agreement.

     But the Netanyahu invitation seems to me worse. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports the idea was “cooked up” behind the back of the American president, that the White House, the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Israel “were totally excluded from these contacts,” that they had been neither consulted nor informed before the invitation was issued by the Republican leadership. (Haaretz also noted that Mr. Netanyahu faces an election in two months.)

     Mr. Netanyahu is welcome to visit and speak to Americans anytime he wants, but Congress’s invitation, like Mr. Cameron’s lobbying, is a violation of diplomatic form, tradition and expectation. The United States has an elected president who serves a four-year term, and in that time he gets to conduct the nation’s formal diplomatic efforts and policy and to oversee its foreign-affairs apparatus and agencies.

     Does Mr. nObama deserve to be embarrassed in this way? Of course he does! In his long years in the presidency he has demonstrated no regard for the Republicans of Congress, and now they are showing no regard for him.

     But it is still a bad move, a damaging snub that makes divisions more dramatic, and not only between Congress and the president. Mr. nObama is forced to decide whether to invite Mr. Netanyahu to visit the White House while he is in Washington. The White House announced it will not, pointedly attributing the decision to “the proximity to the Israeli election.” This too is a snub, and it is hard to see how it does anything to fortify U.S.-Israeli relations.

Worst of all is the costly precedent the invitation risks setting.

     When the Democratic Party wins a majority in Congress, and someday it will, it can do the same thing to a Republican president—bring over for a great joint session address, at a dramatic moment, a foreign leader with whom that president is in opposition or deep tension.

     Congress has the authority to do what it’s doing, but is it the responsible thing? Congress and the White House are supposed to work together on foreign affairs, as a matter not only of politesse but practicality. If this scenario becomes the norm—an angry Congress embarrassing or putting in a poor position a sitting American president—it would make

*   *   *

     I close with an admittedly odd jump, but it’s about something I couldn’t get out of my mind when I thought of the conspicuously odd moments in Washington this week.

     At a congressional hearing on Wednesday, someone decided it would be amusing or helpful to unleash a small drone. The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology was meeting and suddenly the drone was flying around the front of the wood-paneled room, released by a young marketing executive from a company called 3D Robotics. The committee’s chairman seemed startled on the C-Span recording, though it appeared he gave permission for the display.

     The drone was a flat, plastic thing with an evil little buzz. What I thought as I watched was: It would be nice if Washington would do one big thing in the next few weeks—see to it that since everyone now has recreational or commercial drones, we can come up with a way to control their use in and around airports. Actually, what I thought was: Someday one of them will fly one into the engine of a 757 like a gaggle of New York airport geese, and we’ll all hope Sully Sullenberger is at the controls.

They could do that if they were willing to take responsibility.

http://www.peggynoonan.com/a-republic-of-disrespect/



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