The Deal with Iran

This is one time I can understand the skepticism about trusting the Iranians to discontinue their development of a nuclear weapon. I don’t trust them either, but we’ll learn more in six months. We haven’t really spoken to them in 34 years. They have a new leader so why not give it a shot?

It didn’t surprise me that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not like this deal because anything short of dismantling all the centrifuges would have been unacceptable to him. I also expected Senator Lindsey Graham, Bill Kristol, the GOP and even a few Democrats to be against anything other than more sanctions. The Israeli lobby will be in full force trying to persuade Congress to balk at this deal. It’ll be interesting to see if Harry Reid brings up a bill calling for more sanctions in the next six months.

Joe Scarborough didn’t surprise me, when he said that the Iranian deal was a terrible, and he hurled another charge of competency at President Obama. Joe cracked me up when said some unnamed sources, his Arab connections, told him that they don’t know what side President Obama is on. Mr. Scarborough doesn’t understand why Sunni Arab countries don’t like the United States negotiating with Shiite countries like Iran. It’s like teenage girls not liking their best friend talking to someone outside their little clique. Joe was also upset because the administration did not tell Israel or Saudi Arabia about their secret talks with Iran five months ago. He said that it was unconscionable and disrespected our allies. I don’t think so because they would have disagreed with the meetings. It’s one of those “it’s easier to say you’re sorry than to ask for permission.”

Bill Kristol was furious, saying that the sanctions were working, and we should do more. In 2003, Iran had 164 centrifuges under really tough sanctions. Today, they have 19, 000; you do the math. Things got kind of heated until Richard Haas, president of the Council Foreign Relations, asked Bill point blank, “what would you do short of starting a war, to get all those centrifuges dismantled?” “Bill Kristol said that some targeted strikes would not be considered a war.” I think it’s important what Iran would consider an act of war.

I remember the 2008 presidential campaign when Obama was labeled naïve for saying that we should negotiate with Iran. It was during that same campaign when Obama said he would go into Pakistan and get Osama bin Laden if he had information he was there. Those are two naive campaign promises that he kept. The Iranian deal may go awry but at the very least, we will know what they have been up  to and what they are capable of doing.

The Sunday Talk Shows

All the talk shows minus Fox centered on gun control issues, Obama's first 100 days of his second term, the immigration standoff, Syria, and Al Qaeda and its relationship to the Boston marathon bombers. Fox News Sunday continued with their obsession over Benghazi. The conservative broadcast station wants to find that smoking gun that pins the first scandal on President Obama.

As it is every Sunday, conservative republicans outnumbered the democrats as guests. Republicans are allowed to continue pushing their background check talking points without opposition. They continue to say background checks would not have prevented Sandy Hook, without a Democrat saying that it's about the past shootings and future ones and not only about Sandy Hook. The tragedy that took place in Sandy Hook was the basis for a call to action. There are not enough people on the left who will stand up and say that background checks is merely the starting point and work towards an agreement from that point of view. This argument started with a watered down background check bill and will only get passed in the House after it's weaken even further. Everything is being played on the GOP's home turf because this tactic of governing as though you've won the last two elections seems to be working for them.

The hosts and guests all agreed that the president is off to a shaky start but they also had to admit that he has a lot of tools at his disposal to be considered irrelevant. I think President Obama is playing the long game; losing some battles along the way to win the war.

The base of the GOP has already gotten over the shock of losing two consecutive presidential elections, so they don't feel a need to change their views. They still believe that a policy that does not deport 11 million people who are here illegally is indeed amnesty. The base would rather that the 30 GOP governors impose some more voting repression laws instead. Despite what Senator Rubio says, they know that if the immigrants become citizens, most of them will vote for Democrats and the win will go to the president. The Senate would have to pass a bill with at least 75 vote margin to have any king of leverage on John Boehner and the Tea Party coalition.

Republican representative, Tom Cotton of Arkansas didn't waste any time on Meet the Press to go after what he perceives to be a weak president in Barrack Obama. He continues to talk about the five attacks on the homeland since the president was elected. That's what's wrong with a Sunday's talk show where no one wants to confront a controversial person or subject because of a national audience. Tom Cotton, Peter King, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz don't mind saying controversial things because their base eats it up. Let's take the misfits who wanted to blow up the Sears building in Chicago. In reality they couldn't find Chicago using a GPS, the same goes for the Manhattan bomber who locked himself out of his car and couldn't ignite gasoline. Timothy McVeigh and the terrorist who hijacked the airplanes to attack our country are the real deal and not be put into the same category as the losers and wannabe jihads. I don't know where to put one of the Boston Marathon bombers, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his three friends who tried to dispose vital evidence. I do think that they should all be tried in a Federal court and be punished accordingly. Dzhokhar was obviously brainwashed by his older brother but there's still not any evidence that shows he was affiliated with a radical Islamic group. I think a Congressional hearing on the events that led to the bombing is in order.

The GOP controlled House will hold another of many Benghazi hearings because they think the whistleblowers will shed some more light on the horrific event eight months ago. Supposedly the whistleblowers were threatened by the State Dept. to withhold crucial testimony. I'm pretty sure that the government gave a stern warning to the employees, as any large bureaucracy would. We'll see what it amounts to. For example, I imagine a petrochemical company would warn an employee about his testimony to the EPA. The Republicans remind me of what the democrats had to go through to get classified and non-classified 9/11 documents from the Bush White House. Yesterday, the GOP guest on Fox News was complaining of the State department looking over their shoulder as they looked over documents. The State Dept. probably remembers how Sandy Burger tried to stick documents in his socks a few years back.

I think Cokie Roberts hit the nail on the head when she said “there are a lot of people criticizing the president because he's not intervening in Syria but they don't really offer an alternative because there's not a good one.” Oh sure, now that Israel has struck the Syria a couple times people like John McCain can mock our current military leaders for their reluctance to set up a no-fly zone because  of  Syria's air defense system. I'm pretty sure the president regrets his “Red Line” statement but I seriously doubt that it weakens our country if we don't follow up on our threats. It's like a 6'5” 365 pound who gives you a stern warning but some reason choose not to beat you beat you up at the moment. Does a 5' 0” 110 pound person really feel emboldened after that or does he consider himself lucky?

It was quite an eventful week end

There's so much to write about such as the GOP drawing line- in- the sand and challenging the president to lead but only on their terms. They seem to think that revenues are off the table now and its time for austerity measures. Mitch McConnell said that Congress does not have time to tackle gun control because we have to reduce spending. We have a couple of republican senators suggesting that we have to consider shutting down at least half the government if necessary. How short sighted is that? A shut down of government just to say we are not going to pay the bills that we incurred and it will downgrade our credit rating, increase our interest rate and destabilize the world economy. I rarely agree with Newt Gingrich, but yesterday he was right when he said that the GOP needed to increase the debt ceiling without any fanfare because they have two more bites at the apple coming up in their continuing resolution and the sequester cuts. Sure the republicans want the president to lead because that way they don't have to make any hard decisions. They can set back and use  the president's words against him in the 2014 midterm elections.

The deficit and the debt are serious problems, and I will use the illustration from yesterday's Meet the Press as proof. We have this family making $24,000 but owes $38.00 leaving them with a $14,000 deficit which they put on their already overextended $164,000 balance. The recent fiscal cliff paid $385 toward that bill. If it's a family budget, we are talking about, and then I don't think we would make serious cuts to our basic grocery bill, start canceling our children's doctor visits or quit paying for grandma's meds. In the absence of government support, `many of our nation's poor children could not afford basic health care and nutrition, let alone education to acquire the skills necessary to improve their condition. Right now, it would make more sense to get rid of farm subsidies because this is just a big payout to millionaire farmers, for the most part. In 2011 and 2012 farmers income went from $133 to $135 billion. We could also stop subsidizing the drug companies with noncompetitive contracts. We should allow our hospitals, clinics, and taxpayers to purchase cheaper foreign drugs or least allow our government to buy in bulk and pass the savings on the taxpayers. There's more than one way to approach the deficit and the debt. I don't think you can reduce the deficit and create jobs at same time, and that's what's missing from the conversation. The current republicans remind me of our old anonymous posters who abused their privilege in our local forum. They were allowed a comeback but only if they used their real names. The banned posters did that, but then they went on a rampage insisting that everyone use their real names.

I still get a good chuckle when I hear Senator Lindsey Graham say that the president's nominee for secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, is out of the main steam. Hello Mr. Graham, is anyone home? It's clear and simple; republicans have been angry at Chuck Hagel since January 2007, when the republican senator denounced the war in Iraq. It was about that time that I started admiring to Chuck Hagel. It doesn't help his cause that he endorsed John Kerry and probably voted for President Obama twice. I think the president is lining up his ducks for a smooth transition out of Afghanistan. Today, it was announced that John Brennan is the president's choice to head the CIA. Lindsey Graham said that the president was poking a finger in the eyes of republicans with his nomination of Chuck Hagel but the president is very comfortable with those three picks to carry out his agenda of a peaceful resolution first, the withdraw in Afghanistan and scaling back the bloated defense budget. Chuck Hagel has two purple hearts and still suffers from wounds he acquired in Vietnam. The generals' and the neo conservatives will not be able to look Hagel in the eye and convince him that we need to stay in Afghanistan  for 20 more years.

The other issue is an attitude of winning at all cost. It pained me to watch the Washington Redskin quarterback being allowed to play a very violent game at less than 50% of his capability because of his injured ankle. Robert Griffin III sustained an ankle injury several weeks ago and was withheld one game for that injury, yet in the big game, the coach Mike Shanahan chose to listen to a rookie who said he was hurting but not injured. The Redskins have one of the best team doctors who did not clear him to play. The coach has been around for several years, and he knows a 22-year-old always thinks he's ready to go. I hope RGIII completely recovers (even thou I don't like the Redskins) because it would be terrible to end a promising career when responsible people should know better.

Finally…I Get It

I finally put the pieces together, and I now think I know why the right thinks the Benghazi incident is a political winner for them. It's not that unusual for the opposition party not trusting the White House but this time, they are trying to lay out a narrative of deception for political gain.

The Republican legislators have sided with the president on foreign policy matters when he stuck to the methods used by the previous administration. President Obama deviated from the Bush doctrine when he decided to enforce the Status of Forces Agreement that was signed by President Bush to exit Iraq. He again angered the right when he decided that the United States was not going to intervene in Libya alone. The president's team initiated the bombing of Libya but then quickly turned over the combat operations to the League of Arab Nations and Europe. We still supported the effort with our sophisticated radar systems and logistics. At the same time, the president was getting credit for killing Al Qaeda leaders and dismantling their operations. The neocon wing of the Republican Party never warmed up to Obama because they thought that he should've done more when the Iranian people started protesting. They won't tell you that the leader of that protest now supports a nuclear Iran.

The president's campaign rhetoric of “Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive" alienated the opposition so much that they were looking for ways to give him little or no credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden. Last month, the attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi left the administration open for legitimate criticism on foreign policy. There's no question that the communication effort by the administration left a lot to be desired. The Republicans are trying to say that the administration did not want to say it was an al Qaeda operation because that would show al Qaeda has resurfaced and not on the run as the administration has said. There's an obscure boundary in saying that elements of Al Qaeda are still out there and saying that, realistically we must accept  that we will never be completely safe. A couple of days ago the FBI caught a terrorist who wanted to blow up the Federal Reserve. The Republicans are even more frustrated because the investigation probably won't come to any conclusion until after the election. That reminds me of the 2004 election, but the shoe was on the other foot.

I can understand why Mitt Romney introduced his 20% cut across the board tax plan in the primaries, but I don't understand why he's sticking with it. The 20% tax cut across the board, like Herman Cain's 9-9-9, is the shiny object voters cling to. Everyone wants a simple tax plan that fits their definition of tax fairness. It's too late for Mitt Romney to abandon his tax plan, so he's hoping that the media and voters don't realize that his plan is mathematically impossible. He wants to run out the clock knowing that his party just wants to win. You will see his campaign change the subject when a question is asked about the details of the plan or his stance on controversial issues.

The polls are all over the map; if you don't like the results of one poll, it's not that hard to find one that's more favorable. This morning Lawrence O'Donnell said the same-old people are being questioned because in the days of caller ID, "who answers unsolicited calls?” Even an avid poll watcher like me is starting to become a skeptic. Joe Scarborough said no one believes the Gallop Poll, which has Mitt Romney ahead by seven points. Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell agreed and said that some polls had Mitt Romney within the margin of error in Pennsylvania, but the campaign long pulled their ads knowing that Obama will win that state.

It's funny how  how things change. When I first joined the VA forum Bill & Hillary Clinton were the most vilified politicians in American and on our forum. Today,they are the most admired.

The president went on the Daily Show last night emphasizing that we need to send more Democrats to Washington. While it's true, that Texas will give their electoral votes to Mitt Romney, that's not a reason to stay away from the polls. We still have a say in sending Rose Meza Harrison to Washington instead of Tea Party Republican Blake Farenthod. It's the same way for the senate if we really want to stop obstructionism. We have a chance of sending Paul Sadler to represent us as a United States senator instead of another Tea Party Republican like Ted Cruz. This election will be really close, so let's send a message by giving President Obama the victory on electoral votes and the popular vote.

Round II

It's all starting to sink it after all these months of trying to decipher talking points. I'm pretty sure I know what the Mitt Romney's tax strategy is and what's behind his foreign policy. Mitt Romney's sudden shift to the middle is being masked by having his surrogates telling the media that the debates allowed the country to see Romney in a different light, other than the one painted in the Obama ads. Since he made a strong showing in the debates, his base didn't make any noise about him moving to the middle. The Romney camp has Tony Perkins on speed- dial assuring him that Mitt Romney is severely pro-life. It's been said that Mitt Romney is rehearsing his" connect with the crowd" technique since a lot of tonight's debate questions will come from undecided voters. He is being prepped on how to smile and feel the questioner’s pain. President Obama already knows how to deal with a crowd, so he is being drilled on countering Mitt Romney's statements without seeming too aggressive.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are saying that their tax plan is the framework of a 20% across the board tax cut. They use the words" broaden the base and growth" which is basically saying," make more people pay income taxes and believe me this will work" because six studies, I have selected said so. Paul Ryan said that this had been done twice before, but that's not true. The tax brackets under President Reagan and Kennedy were a lot higher than they are today. Republicans will go to their graves saying that cutting taxes will promote growth because it puts more money into the hands of the people and job creators but that is not a proven fact. President Clinton raised taxes in the 90s ,and those years were known to be prosperous. There are no studies (only assumptions) that prove rising or lowering taxes will automatically lead to growth. Mitt Romney will not talk about eliminating the home-mortgage deduction because it will be political suicide, so he'll allow Congress to put it out there. He will then have the cover Congress to cover a campaign promise that went unfulfilled. I have to give credit to Chris Wallace for telling a Romney spokesman that of the six studies Romney is claiming, two of them are bloggers and one is a former George W. Bush staffer, and another comes from an editorial not a study. We might hear another version tonight.

Mitt Romney's foreign policy so far has been that he will do what the current administrations doing, but he will be more boisterous about it. He says that the Obama's Syria response is reprehensible, but he doesn't say what he'll do besides arm the rebels. There's a front-page story of the New York Times, stating that the arms that are meant for the Syrian rebels are falling into the hands of Islamic extremists.

I still think the White House is vulnerable to charges of incompetence in handling the deaths of our ambassador and three other Americans. We still don't know why our ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice,was sent out to the Sunday talk shows to say that a video caused the deaths of four Americans. Yesterday, Senator Lindsey Graham said that the White House was in a mist of a giant cover- up and tried to emphasize that Al Qaeda in is now larger than they have ever been. That's all Fox News wants to talk about. There are a lot of misleading claims out there because our Marines guard embassies because of information that stored there not consulates or outposts. We know that Ambassador Christopher Stevens, was stationed in Tripoli  and was visiting Benghazi when the attacks occurred. We also know that the State Dept gets requests for more security all the time, and that is a bureaucracy request that probably wouldn't filter up to the White House. It's more likely to go through an appropriation committee in Congress. On the other hand, the fact that a CNN correspondent found Ambassador Stevens journal is a sign that the investigation was handled poorly. That whole area should have been sealed. I'm sure the president will be asked about all this tomorrow night because this issue is being politicized. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has taken blame for the whole incident, but some conservatives are saying that the White House has thrown Clinton under the bus.

The president mustn't let the Republicans say that Social Security is going bankrupt because it's not and can't. Social Security is and has always has been a promise to supplement seniors when they retire. It was always meant that the younger workers would contribute, so the retirees could benefit from the program, and the cycle would repeat itself. As we know, the Social Security tax revenue was put into the general fund, and no administration ever stopped the practice, and we are living longer today which in itself and has a crippling effect on the Social Security trust fund.

Will this be the debate of debates? I don't know, but it's a well-known fact that some people have already voted, and the majority have already made up their mind. I have to go along Saturday Night Lives’ skit describing those people who were still undecided. You have to tell those people who's running, where to vote, and the day of the election because there's more than enough information out there.

A Pew Research Center poll stated that 20% of social media users had been recently unfriended someone because of political discourse. I can believe that and I think it's going to increase as we get closer to Election Day. I just read a response to a local newspaper article from someone who describes himself as a white, bible beating gun- toting red neck. The poster had the audacity to lecture black voters because they supported President Obama. The poster would've loved to vote for black man (wink*wink) of his own choosing who met all his qualifications, but black people aren't allowed to do that. In the year where 16 voter suppression laws were either stopped or temporarily blocked; the poster doesn't think that black people need support groups like the NAACP. Matthew Courage (if that's his right name) said black people will never have a man of honor serve as president. If the Republican Party doesn't purge its ranks of those who think like Matthew Courage; it will go the way of the Whig Party.

I encourage everyone to view Jon Stewart's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkljREAaDa8 on the VP debate. I was not aware that Fox News got so upset over the antics of Joe Biden. If you do watch it, you won't have to believe the two out of the three polls that stated Joe Biden was the winner because Brit Hume and Charles Krauthammer both said “if you would've listened to the debate on the radio, you would come away thinking that Joe Biden was the clear winner.” This was not a high school debate where a style is given a preference over substance. I have not heard the opposition arguing about Joe Biden's facts and fact checking; just his laughs.Fox brought out a doctor that said he could not evaluate Biden by viewing the tape of the debate but said he could be showing signs of dementia. Jon Stewart came back and said "yeah,the kind where he remembers facts."

I can't help it, even though I have full confidence in the president, I will be nervously watching tonight's debate. I've started watching the debates while following my Twitter feed. The comments are hilarious and insightful.People are quick on their feet and up on the issues ,which gives me feed back I might not of had. This is the future because people no longer trust the press to give us up to date information and the pundits rarely challenge the politicians. 

Romney is starting to scare me

A few months ago, I said I would not fear a Mitt Romney presidency because Congress would be somewhat of a deterrent for his most irrational policies. I've changed my mind because of his bellicose rhetoric as a potential Commander in Chief. I now see him as a person who would "shoot first and ask questions later."

About four months ago, Mitt criticized the Obama administration for endangering the family of the blind Chinese activist, Chen Guagcheng, seeking asylum in the United States. He did not know that Hillary Clinton was working behind the scenes with China to work out a successful deal from the Chinese government that they eventually received.

Recently, Mitt drew fire from some Republican leaders for interjecting his political criticism of the administration's handling of the recent death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other American's deaths in Libya. Mitt Romney has been trying to paint President Obama as an appeaser and being weak on terrorism. Pundits thought that the cowboy rhetoric was coming from the neocons on his staff, but a reporter said that most of the hot air was coming from Mitt himself. Mitt Romney is used to being in charge, and he doesn't like being painted as being weak on foreign policy. Mitt says that he would have a strong military which would demand respect around the world. How naive, we can't bring in the Marines to start indiscriminately shooting protesters in a foreign country. We took the rational approach and sent in the FBI who quickly arrested four suspects. The suspects may not be the ones who attacked the U.S. Consulate, but they might lead us to the ones who did. It's in the hands of the FBI, where it should be. The president has dispatched two navy warships to the coast of Libya, as a show of force. The situation in the Middle East is very unstable right now, but it can only be handled by one Commander in Chief at a time.

I really don't mind Mitt questioning the latest actions of the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, who recently started a new round of bond-buying, known as quantitative easing or QE3. Mitt Romney and the Republicans think this move is a political one, even though the Federal Reserve is an independent entity. Ben Bernanke is a conservative Republican who thinks our economy is in dire need of more stimulus. He knows the risk of inflation, but these actions will keep the interest rates low enough to help the housing market and small businesses with hiring and training costs. The stock market immediately rose after the chairman's decision. We'll have to wait and see the aftermath, but it's a step in the right direction. Consumer confidence has started to pick up.

I know President Obama is up by six points nationally and is leading in all the critical swing states but the Republicans desire to remove Obama from office might outweigh any question they might have answered in a poll. The Democratic voters might just say that the presidents got it in the bag, so it's not imperative for them to vote. I even saw where Pennsylvania's voter ID law might be overturned or at least put on hold until after the election, but that state is too important for Democrats to start getting complacent. They need to keep registering voters as if the law will be upheld. I got a kick out of one of the Republican judges saying that his ID card could open any Federal courthouse, but it would not entitle him to vote because it does not have an expiration date on it. He also said something to the effect that steps should be taken to ensure elections are free of fraud but can a law that was enacted overnight really assure us of its true intent. For example, it took Georgia up to five years to work out all the kinks before presenting it for a successful vote.

I'll be watching because, as predicted this election will be one to behold. It might even surpass the 2002 Bush V Gore fiasco.

Meanwhile, I'm going to keep up with that 77-year-old Texas grandmother who was caught speeding and refused to show the police officer, her driver's license, so she got yanked from her car and thrown to the ground. Of course, all this was caught on the police video, and the broadcast went viral. I don't really know what the correct procedure should have been but in hindsight, I think the police officer should've called for backup, disabled her car because you don't want a speeder to take off again; putting herself in danger. It's a good thing that these confrontations with old people are rare. It was just a speeding ticket, and the police knew where she lived, so it's not like the police didn't have the ability to give her a summons at her home. Perhaps this is a lesson for old people...:-)