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Paul Merrell

Obama's NSA Speech Has Little Impact on Skeptical Public | Pew Research Center for the ... - 0 views

www.people-press.org/...tle-impact-on-skeptical-public

surveillance state NSA NSA-blowback polls Obama Snowden Obama-speech

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • President Obama’s speech on Friday outlining changes to the National Security Agency’s collection of telephone and internet data did not register widely with the public. Half say they have heard nothing at all about his  proposed changes to the NSA, and another 41% say they heard only a little bit. Even among those heard about Obama’s speech, few think the changes will improve privacy protections, or make it more difficult for the government to fight terrorism.
  • The new national survey by the Pew Research Center and USA TODAY, conducted Jan. 15-19 among 1,504 adults, finds that overall approval of the program has declined since last summer, when the story first broke based on Edward Snowden’s leaked information. Today, 40% approve of the government’s collection of telephone and internet data as part of anti-terrorism efforts, while 53% disapprove. In July, more Americans approved (50%) than disapproved (44%) of the program. In addition, nearly half (48%) say there are not adequate limits on what telephone and internet data the government can collect; fewer (41%) say there are adequate limits on the government’s data collection. About four-in-ten Republicans (39%) and independents (38%) – and about half of Democrats (48%) – think there are adequate limits on the information that the government can collect.
  • Reflecting the limited impact of Obama’s address, overall approval of the program and opinions about whether adequate safeguards are in place were no different in three nights of interviewing conducted after the speech (Jan. 17-19) than during the two nights of interviewing conducted prior to the address (Jan. 15-16). Overall, the public is divided about whether Edward Snowden’s leak of classified information, which brought the program to light, has served or harmed the public interest: 45% say it has served the public interest while 43% say it harmed it. Nonetheless, a 56% majority wants to see the government pursue a criminal case against Snowden, while 32% oppose this. This is little changed from June, shortly after Snowden’s first leaks of information about the program.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The public is split on whether Edward Snowden’s leaks served the public interest, with 45% saying they did and 43% saying the leaks harmed public interest. But by 56% to 32%, most think that the government should pursue a criminal case against Snowden. These opinions are largely unchanged from last June, when Snowden first disclosed classified information to news organizations. There is a large age gap when it comes to views of the NSA revelations and the public interest. More adults ages 50 and older believe that the leaks harmed the public interest (49%) than served the public interest (37%). Among adults 18-29, sentiment is reversed, with 57% saying Snowden served the public interest and 35% saying he harmed it. There are no significant differences on this issue by party, as both Republicans and Democrats are divided.
  • Obama’s proposed changes to the NSA’s data collection program did not register widely with the public. Just 49% say they heard about the proposed changes, with little difference across partisan groups. Among those that did hear about the proposals, large majorities of Republicans (86%) and independents (78%) say these changes will not make much difference when it comes to protecting people’s privacy. Among Democrats who have heard of the changes, 56% say they won’t make much difference. There is little concern that the changes to the NSA’s surveillance activities will hurt the government’s ability to fight terrorism. Overall, 79% of those who have heard about the proposals say they won’t make much difference in the government’s ability to fight terrorism; this view is shared by 85% of independents, 77% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans.
  • Democrats remain more supportive of the NSA surveillance program than Republicans, though support is down across party lines. Today, Democrats are divided (46% approve, 48% disapprove) in their view of the program. Last June, they approved by a 20-point margin (58% vs. 38%). Republicans now disapprove of the program by a 56% to 37% margin. Approval is down eight points among Republicans from 45% last June. There continues to be a substantial divide within the Republican base: Republicans and Republican leaners who agree with the Tea Party are overwhelmingly opposed to the NSA program, while those who do not identify with the Tea Party are more divided. The decline in approval of the NSA surveillance program spans most demographic groups, though the drop in support is particularly evident among minority groups. Last June, 60% of both blacks and Hispanics approved of the government’s surveillance program. That has fallen to 43% among blacks and 40% among Hispanics today. Among whites, 39% approve of the program today, little changed from 44% in June.
  • Those who attended college are more likely than those who didn’t to see the leaks as serving the public interest. About half of college graduates (49%) and those with some college experience (51%) say this, compared with 38% of those with no more than a high school degree.
  • While most of the public wants the government to pursue a criminal case against Snowden, young people offer the least support for his prosecution. Those younger than 30 are divided, with 42% wanting a criminal case against Snowden and 42% saying the government should not pursue one. Support for prosecution is much higher among those 50 and older, who think the government should pursue a case by more than two-to-one. Both Democrats (62%-27%) and Republicans (54%-28%) think the government should pursue a criminal case. About half of independents (51%) want a criminal case against Snowden, while four-in-ten (39%) say the government should not pursue one. Fully 70% of those who approve of the government’s surveillance program favor Snowden’s prosecution. Those who disapprove of the program are divided: 45% say the government should pursue a criminal case against Snowden while 43% are opposed.
  • Barack Obama’s job approval rating has shown little change from last month. In the current survey, 49% disapprove of how he is handling his job and 43% approve. Obama’s ratings had steadily declined from May to November of last year, before he regained some ground in December. In the last month, there have been no significant changes in partisan approval. About three-quarters of Democrats (77%) approve and 17% disapprove; among Republicans, 12% approve and 84% disapprove. Independents, on balance, continue to view his job performance negatively — 37% approve and 53% disapprove.
Gary Edwards

The Speech That Rocked Virginia | E.W. Jackson for Lieutenant Governor - 1 views

www.jacksonforlg.com/he-speech-that-rocked-virginia

EW-Jackson Virginia-Candidate Patriot

shared by Gary Edwards on 23 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • E.W. Jackson’s vision inspired and united Richmond and his words have rocked Virginia. We need your help to continue to spread the agenda to help keep Virginia the best state to do business in America, to empower our families to have a choice in how their children are educated, and to bring all Virginians together based on the very shared values that founded this great nation.
  • The Democrats and their allies are scared. They’re afraid of voices that seek to inspire and unite instead of deride and divide. They’re afraid of people who are willing to stand up and fight for the values that matter most to them and their communities.
  • They’re afraid of YOU. They want you to give up. Let’s tell them that we’re not going anywhere!
  • Gary Edwards on 23 Jul 13
     
    WOW!  Want to feel good about your fellow citizens?  Then listen to this incredible speech.  Guaranteed you will be moved to jump up and shout - even to write a check.   It's hard to believe that the Repubicans have a Tea Party Candidate that can give an awesome, beyond inspiring speech.  But EW Jackson is for real.  Incredible!!!  A true American Patriot.
Paul Merrell

Canadian government attempts to end free speech and silence this list | The Fifth Column - 0 views

thefifthcolumnnews.com/...e-speech-and-silence-this-list

tyranny free-speech BDS anti-BDS Zionists Harper CBC

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 May 15 - No Cached
  • The Canadian government, under Prime Minister Harper, is signaling that it intends to use Hate Crime laws against those that would boycott Israel, meanwhile the blockade of Gaza remains intact and this empty suit says nothing.  What this boils down to is the fact that the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) coalition has been too effective in placing pressure on Israel for their actions in the occupied territories.
  • For a government to bar its citizens from peacefully asking other citizens to not shop at a location is nothing short of tyrannical. It is an affront to free speech. It is an attack on the natural rights of every Canadian. No free nation can exist without the right to express an opinion, even if it is a negative opinion about a lobby that provides you with money
  • You wanted to craft a legacy on the back of Israel. Well, you’re going to be able to do that. You will succeed in bringing media outlets around the world together to accomplish two things: to publicize the list of companies that should be boycotted that you want suppressed so badly and to mock the arrogant wannabe dictator that believes he has the authority to tell people where they can shop. Your political handlers didn’t think this one through. Banning free speech only fans the flames of its message as it spreads. It’s a unwritten rule of publishing that if a book is banned, it becomes a best-seller. You’ve succeeded in making a list that is relatively unknown outside of the activist community into dinner conversation for every Canadian and every American.
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  • The staff of The Fifth Column will spend the day contacting every media outlet in our phone books to make this the story of the day. We will do our best make the list of companies to be boycotted viral on every social media outlet in existence. Instead of silencing free speech, you’re going to learn what it is. The companies currently on the BDS list are listed below:
Paul Merrell

What Obama Told Us At West Point -- Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org - 0 views

www.paulcraigroberts.org/...-west-point-paul-craig-roberts

war & peace Obama West-Point U.S.-foreign-policy rule-of-law war crimes

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • At West Point Obama told us, to the applause of West Point cadets, that “American exceptionalism” is a doctrine that justifies whatever Washington does. If Washington violates domestic and international law by torturing “detainees” or violates the Nuremberg standard by invading countries that have undertaken no hostile action against the US or its allies, “exceptionalism” is the priest’s blessing that absolves Washington’s sins against law and international norms. Washington’s crimes are transformed into Washington’s affirmation of the rule of law. Here is Obama in his own words: “I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it is our willingness to affirm them through our actions.” Actions indeed. In the 21st century “American exceptionalism” has destroyed seven countries in whole or in part. Millions of people are dead, maimed, and displaced, and all of this criminal destruction is evidence of Washington’s reaffirmation of international norms and the rule of law. Destruction and murder are merely collateral damage from Washington’s affirmation of international norms.
  • “American exceptionalism” also means that US presidents can lie through their teeth and misrepresent those they choose to demonize. Listen to Obama’s misrepresentations of the Putin and Assad governments: “Russia’s aggression towards former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe . . . In Ukraine, Russia’s recent actions recall the days when Soviet tanks rolled into Eastern Europe .” Obama misrepresents Assad as “a dictator who bombs and starves his own people.” Did any of the cadets in Obama’s West Point audience wonder why, if Assad is a brutal dictator who bombs and starves his own people, the Syrian people are supporting Assad instead of the American-backed “liberation forces,” the combination of imported jihadists and al Qaeda fighters who object to Assad’s government because it is secular? The US military is taught to respect its civilian commander-in-chief, but if West Point cadets actually do obtain an education, it is remarkable that Obama’s audience did not break out in laughter.
  • Obama’s speech is probably the most disingenuous ever given by a Western politician. We could have fun for hours with all the crimes that Washington commits but buries in rhetoric directed at others. Perhaps my favorite is Obama evoking a world in which “individuals aren’t slaughtered because of political belief.” I am sure Obama was thinking of this just world when he murdered without due process of law four American citizens “outside of areas of active hostilities.” Another favorite is the way Obama flushed the US Constitution of its meaning. Obama said, with reference to bringing the Guantanamo prisoners to the US, that “American values and legal traditions don’t permit the indefinite detention of people beyond our borders.” No, Obama, the US Constitution prevents the indefinite detention of US citizens by the US government anywhere on earth, especially within our borders. By detaining and by murdering US citizens without due process of law, Obama has violated his oath of office and should be impeached. It was only a short time ago that President Bill Clinton was impeached by the US House of Representatives (the Senate saved him from conviction) for lying about his sexual affair with a White House intern. How times change. Today a president who violates his oath of office to protect the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic gets a free ride. The Constitution has lost its power to protect citizens from the arbitrary power of government. The US is the Constitution. Without the Constitution the US ceases to exist, and the country becomes a tyranny, both at home and abroad.Today the US is a tyranny cloaked in the garb of “freedom and democracy.”
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  • Instead of laughing our way through Obama’s ridiculous speech to what apparently was a dumbed-down West Point graduating class, lets pay attention to Obama’s bottom line: “America must always lead on the world stage. . . . The military is, and always will be, the backbone of that leadership.” In other words, Washington doesn’t use diplomacy. Washington uses coercion. The favorite threat is: “Do as you are told or we will bomb you into the Stone Age.” Obama’s speech is a justification of Washington’s criminal actions on the grounds that Washington acts for the exceptional Americans whose exceptionalism places them and, thereby, their government above law and international norms. In this way of thinking, only the failure to prevail constitutes failure. Americans are the new ubermensch, the new master race. Inferior humans can be bombed, invaded, and sanctioned. Obama’s West Point speech asserts American superiority over all others and Washington’s determination to continue this superiority by preventing the rise of other powers. This arrogant hubris was not enough for the Washington Post editorial board. The newspaper’s editorial damned Obama for binding US power and limiting its use to “a narrow set of core interest,” such as direct threats to America.
  • The American “liberal media” object that Obama’s claim of exceptionalism is not broad enough for Washington’s purposes. Obama’s address, the Washington Post wrote, bound “US power” and “offered scant comfort” to those militarists who want to overthrow Syria, Iran, Russia, and China. The world should take note that the most militarily aggressive American president in history is considered a wimp by the neoconized American media. The media drives wars, and the American media, firmly allied with the military/security complex, is driving the world to the final war.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Jun 14
     
    Obama's speech at West Point was indeed a gigantic slap in the face at international law and at the Constitution. http://goo.gl/icJGDz The Rule of Law is no longer a guiding light in the White House, now only an obligatory nod of nominal respect. The Imperial Presidency has announced that we are now citizens of post-constitutional America.  
Paul Merrell

FBI demands new powers to hack into computers and carry out surveillance | US news | Th... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...hacking-computers-surveillance

surveillance state FBI Fed.R.Crim.P.-41 roving-warrants

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • The FBI is attempting to persuade an obscure regulatory body in Washington to change its rules of engagement in order to seize significant new powers to hack into and carry out surveillance of computers throughout the US and around the world. Civil liberties groups warn that the proposed rule change amounts to a power grab by the agency that would ride roughshod over strict limits to searches and seizures laid out under the fourth amendment of the US constitution, as well as violate first amendment privacy rights. They have protested that the FBI is seeking to transform its cyber capabilities with minimal public debate and with no congressional oversight. The regulatory body to which the Department of Justice has applied to make the rule change, the advisory committee on criminal rules, will meet for the first time on November 5 to discuss the issue. The panel will be addressed by a slew of technology experts and privacy advocates concerned about the possible ramifications were the proposals allowed to go into effect next year.
  • “This is a giant step forward for the FBI’s operational capabilities, without any consideration of the policy implications. To be seeking these powers at a time of heightened international concern about US surveillance is an especially brazen and potentially dangerous move,” said Ahmed Ghappour, an expert in computer law at University of California, Hastings college of the law, who will be addressing next week’s hearing. The proposed operating changes related to rule 41 of the federal rules of criminal procedure, the terms under which the FBI is allowed to conduct searches under court-approved warrants. Under existing wording, warrants have to be highly focused on specific locations where suspected criminal activity is occurring and approved by judges located in that same district. But under the proposed amendment, a judge can issue a warrant that would allow the FBI to hack into any computer, no matter where it is located. The change is designed specifically to help federal investigators carry out surveillance on computers that have been “anonymized” – that is, their location has been hidden using tools such as Tor.
  • Were the amendment to be granted by the regulatory committee, the FBI would have the green light to unleash its capabilities – known as “network investigative techniques” – on computers across America and beyond. The techniques involve clandestinely installing malicious software, or malware, onto a computer that in turn allows federal agents effectively to control the machine, downloading all its digital contents, switching its camera or microphone on or off, and even taking over other computers in its network.
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  • Civil liberties and privacy groups are particularly alarmed that the FBI is seeking such a huge step up in its capabilities through such an apparently backdoor route. Soghoian said of next week’s meeting: “This should not be the first public forum for discussion of an issue of this magnitude.” Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at the Stanford center for internet and society, said that “this is an investigative technique that we haven’t seen before and we haven’t thrashed out the implications. It absolutely should not be done through a rule change – it has to be fully debated publicly, and Congress must be involved.” Ghappour has also highlighted the potential fall-out internationally were the amendment to be approved. Under current rules, there are no fourth amendment restrictions to US government surveillance activities in other countries as the US constitution only applies to domestic territory.
  • Another insight into the expansive thrust of US government thinking in terms of its cyber ambitions was gleaned recently in the prosecution of Ross Ulbricht, the alleged founder of the billion-dollar drug site the Silk Road. Experts suspect that the FBI hacked into the Silk Road server, that was located in Reykjavik, Iceland, though the agency denies that. In recent legal argument, US prosecutors claimed that even if they had hacked into the server without a warrant, it would have been justified as “a search of foreign property known to contain criminal evidence, for which a warrant was not necessary”.
  • Paul Merrell on 01 Nov 14
     
    This rule change has been in the works during the last year.  "The change is designed specifically to help federal investigators carry out surveillance on computers that have been "anonymized" - that is, their location has been hidden using tools such as Tor."  Are we dizzy yet? The State Department is pushing the use of TOR by dissidents in nations whose governments State and the CIA intends to overthrow. Meanwhile, Feed Bag, Inc. wants use of TOR to be sufficient grounds for installing malware on anyone using it to make their systems and all their systems can see or hear be an open book. Let's see. There's the First Amendment right to anonymous speech just to begin with. McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n, 514 US 334 (1995). ("Under our Constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent. Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation-and their ideas from suppression-at the hand of an intolerant society. The right to remain anonymous may be abused when it shields fraudulent conduct. But political speech by its nature will sometimes have unpalatable consequences, and, in general, our society accords greater weight to the value of free speech than to the dangers of its misuse.") (Internal citation omitted.) And of course there's the Natural Law liberty to whisper, to utter words in a way that none but the intended recipient can hear. So throw on the violation of the Fifth Amendment's Liberty clause. Then there's the plain language of the Fourth Amendment warrant clause, "particularly describing the *place* to be searched." Not to mention the major reason for the Fourth Amendment, to abolish the "general warrant" that had enabled the Crown to search wherever the warrant's executor's little heart desired.  And th
Paul Merrell

Netanyahu vows to scuttle world powers' Iran deal | The Times of Israel - 0 views

www.timesofisrael.com/scuttle-world-powers-iran-deal

war & peace Iranian-nukes-myth Netanyahu-speech boycott

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • A Channel 10 news report Saturday indicated that some 60 Democratic legislators were expected to stay away from the address.
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Feb 15
     
    The Democratic boycott of Netanyahu's speech is gaining strength. Republicans need to get on board too. 
  • Paul Merrell on 11 Feb 15
     
    The Democratic boycott of Netanyahu's speech is gaining strength. Republicans need to get on board too. 
Paul Merrell

The Clintons' Paid-Speech Bonanza | Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...e-clintons-paid-speech-bonanza

Auction 2016 Hillary paid-speeches Wall-St. banksters

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • With primary voting set to start next month, one of Hillary Clinton’s remaining hurdles is convincing Democratic voters that she is not beholden to Wall Street and other wealthy interests that have fattened her family’s bank account with tens of millions of dollars for paid speeches, writes Chelsea Gilmour.
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Jan 16
     
    Someone finally really dug into Hillary's income and campaign donations from big business. One might suspect that Hillary's campaign trail promises to rein in Wall Street were accompanied with private assurances that she has no true intent to do so, given that the Wall Street speeches for profit and for campaign donations continued to roll in. Hillary: the wrong woman for the first female U.S. president. 
Gary Edwards

Political Editors: Dick Morris Corrects the Record on Hillary Clinton - The Patriot Post - 0 views

patriotpost.us/44049

Hillary Political-Corruption

shared by Gary Edwards on 30 Jul 16 - No Cached
  • Then Bill discusses Hillary’s legal career at the Rose Law firm. He doesn’t mention that she made partner when he was elected governor and was only hired when he got elected as attorney general. "He makes as if it was a public service job — it wasn’t. Her main job was to get state business, and she got tens-of-millions of dollars of state business, then hid her participation and the fees by taking an extra share of non-state business to compensate for the fees on state business that she brought in. Her other job was to call the state banking commissioner any time one of her banks got into trouble to get them off.
  • "Bill speaks at length how Hillary was a mother, juggling career and family, taking Chelsea to soccer games and stuff — that’s non-sense. Hillary was a mother but Chelsea in the Arkansas governor’s mansion had a staff of nannies and agents to drive her around and people to be with her, and Hillary didn’t have to bother with any of that. All of that was paid for by the state. "He says she became the warrior in chief over the family finances and that was true, and the result is she learned how to steal. "She accepted a $100,000 bribe from the poultry industry in return for Bill going easy on regulating them, despite new standards. Jim Blair, the poultry lobbyist, gave her $1,000 to invest in the Futures Market and lined up seven to eight other investors and their winnings were all deposited into Hillary’s account. She made $100,000 in a year and she was out. That essentially was a bribe.
  • ”[She did] a phony real-estate deal for Jim McDougal and the Madison Bank to deceive the federal regulators by pretending someone else was buying the property. She was called before a grand jury in 1995 about that but, conveniently, the billing records were lost, couldn’t be found and there wasn’t proof that she worked on it.
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  • “Bill talks about her work on the health care task force but doesn’t say the reason it didn’t pass was the task force was discredited because the meetings were all held in secret. A federal judge forced them open and fined the task force several hundred thousand dollars because of their secrecy. "He says that after the health care bill failed in 1994, Hillary went to work on adopting each piece of it piecemeal — mainly health insurance for children. "That is completely the opposite of the truth. The fact is when that bill failed, I called Hillary and I suggested that she support a proposal by Republican Bob Dole that we cover children, and she said, ‘We can’t just cover one part of this. You have to change everything or change nothing.’ Then in 1997 when I repeated that advice to Bill Clinton, we worked together to pass the Children’s Health Insurance Program. I found a lot of the money for that in the tobacco settlement that my friend Dick Scruggs was negotiating.
  • "Then Bill extols her record in the U.S. Senate. In fact, she did practically nothing. There were seven or eight bills that she introduced that passed; almost all of were symbolic — renaming a courthouse, congratulating a high school team on winning the championship. There was only one vaguely substantive bill, and that had a lot of co-sponsors of whom Hillary was just one.
  • "Then he goes to her record in the State Department and manages to tell that story without mentioning the word Benghazi, without mentioning her secret emails, without mentioning he was getting tens of millions — $220 million in speaking fees in return for favorable actions by the State Department.
  • "Also totally lacking in the speech was anything about the war on terror — terror is a word you don’t hear at the Democratic Convention. "Bill says that Hillary passed tough sanctions on Iran for their nuclear program. The opposite is true. "Every time a tough sanction bill was introduced by Senators Menendez or Kirk, Hillary would send Deputy Secretary Wendy Sherman to Capital Hill to testify against it and urge it not to pass, and it was over Hillary’s objections that those sanctions were put into place.
  • ”[Liberal columnist] Maureen Dowd called the speech by Bill Clinton “air brushed.” “It was a hell of a lot more than that — it was fiction. (Also see Morris’s comments after Clinton’s DNC acceptance speech. "It’s strategy and message will be interdicted by reality at every turn. … She basically has no message. … Her entire campaign is, ‘I’m a woman and I am running against Donald Trump. … She bean her speech by saying let’s compromise and work together. Is there any woman in the world less likely to compromise?”)
  • Gary Edwards on 30 Jul 16
     
    "Dick Morris is a nationally recognized political campaign adviser, analyst and author. He was the senior political adviser to Bill Clinton before and after his occupation of the White House. He was campaign manager of Clinton's 1996 re-election, and the architect of his successful "triangulation" rhetorical ruse. Clinton's communications director George Stephanopoulos said of Morris, "No single person had more power over [Bill Clinton]." This week, in a message entitled "What Bill Left Out, Morris corrected the record regarding Clinton's glowing remarks about Hillary Clinton, her personal attributes and professional achievements. Morris's insights into the Clintons are priceless. What follows is a transcript of Morris's comments: "Bill Clinton talked at length about Hillary's idealistic work in college and law school, but he omits that she was defending the Black Panthers who killed security guards; they were on trial in New Haven. She monitored the trial while she was in law school to find evidence that could be grounds for reversal in the event they were convicted. "That summer she went to work for the True-Haft (SP) law firm in CA, headed by True Haft who is the head of the CA Communist Party and that's when she got involved with Saul Alinsky, who became something of a mentor for the rest of her life. "Then Bill says that she went off to Massachusetts and he went to Arkansas, and eventually Hillary followed her heart to join him in Arkansas. He omits that she went to work for the Watergate Committee and was fired from that job for taking home evidence and hiding documents that they needed in the impeachment inquiry. Then she took the DC Bar exam and flunked it, she went to Arkansas because that is the only bar exam she could pass. "He talked about how in the 1970's she took all kinds of pro-bono cases to defend women and children. In her memoirs, she cites one which was a custody case and that's it. In fact, in 1975 she represen
Gary Edwards

Romney's Best Speech Yet - 0 views

townhall.com/...video_romneys_best_speech_yet

Romney Reaganesque Obammunism

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Jul 12
     
    Guy Benson at Townhall.com posted an excellent dissection of Romney's incredible response and counterpunch to Obama's calling him a liar and a felon. Looks like it's game on. The dissection includes lots of links, including a link to the full Romney speech. Reaganesque!!!! Bravo! excerpt: (Guy Benson) I dissected Obama's "worst speech yet" back in April (he hasn't topped it since, though he's come close), so why not write the uplifting companion piece? Romney does most of the heavy lifting for me, taking a rhetorical battering ram to the president's insulting and demeaning "you didn't build that" remarks in Virginia over the weekend. The presumptive Republican nominee hit the trail in Irwin, Pennsylvania yesterday afternoon and just unloaded on his opponent, savaging the president's ubiquitous strawmen and mounting a spirited defense of merit, individual accomplishment and American entrepreneurship. Working from loose notes, Romney appeared to warm to his task, connecting with the gathered crowd in a way that he's struggled to pull off throughout much of the campaign. If yesterday's Mitt Romney continues to show up on the stump, he'll win:
Paul Merrell

The Surveillance Speech: A Low Point in Barack Obama's Presidency - Conor Friedersdorf ... - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...278565

surveillance state NSA lies Obama

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • On Friday, President Obama spoke to us about surveillance as though we were precocious children. He proceeded as if widespread objections to his policies can be dispatched like a parent answers an eight-year-old who has formally protested her bedtime. He is so proud that we've matured enough to take an interest in our civil liberties! Why, he used to think just like us when he was younger, and promises to consider our arguments. But some decisions just have to be made by the grownups. Do we know how much he loves us? Can we even imagine how awful he would feel if anything bad ever happened while it was still his job to ensure our safety? * By observing Obama's condescension, I don't mean to suggest tone was the most objectionable part of the speech. The disinformation should bother the American people most. The weasel words. The impossible-to-believe protestations. The factually inaccurate assertions.  They're all there.
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Aug 13
     
    The Atlantic dissects Obama's recent surveillance speech, line by line, pointing to the lies and misleading statements, pointing to references to more truthful reports.
Paul Merrell

Lies and Truth: Obama's UN General Assembly Speech Dissected | Global Research - Centre... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5480566

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Obama U.N.-speech

shared by Paul Merrell on 08 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • To those who bothered to listen to President Obama’s UN General Assembly speech without falling asleep like Secretary John Kerry clearly wished to do, there was a stark contrast to that speech which followed from the Russian President. First before Barack Obama completed his first sentence we could feel his emotion. It was projecting a contempt and arrogance of a special variety: “We have the biggest, baddest military; we call the shots, you peons of the nations of the world.” Going through the official Obama text it’s difficult to find even one sentence where he speaks honestly. It’s an example not of grey propaganda but black. I cite several of the most egregious instances.
Paul Merrell

United States v. United States Dist. Court for Eastern Dist. of Mich., 407 US 297 - Sup... - 0 views

scholar.google.com/scholar_case

surveillance state 4th Amendment constitutional law

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • But a recognition of these elementary truths does not make the employment by Government of electronic surveillance a welcome development—even when employed with restraint and under judicial supervision. There is, understandably, a deep-seated uneasiness and apprehension that this capability will be used to intrude upon cherished privacy of law-abiding citizens.[13] We 313*313 look to the Bill of Rights to safeguard this privacy. Though physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed, its broader spirit now shields private speech from unreasonable surveillance. Katz v. United States, supra; Berger v. New York, supra; Silverman v. United States, 365 U. S. 505 (1961). Our decision in Katz refused to lock the Fourth Amendment into instances of actual physical trespass. Rather, the Amendment governs "not only the seizure of tangible items, but extends as well to the recording of oral statements . . . without any `technical trespass under . . . local property law.'" Katz, supra, at 353. That decision implicitly recognized that the broad and unsuspected governmental incursions into conversational privacy which electronic surveillance entails[14] necessitate the application of Fourth Amendment safeguards.
  • National security cases, moreover, often reflect a convergence of First and Fourth Amendment values not present in cases of "ordinary" crime. Though the investigative duty of the executive may be stronger in such cases, so also is there greater jeopardy to constitutionally protected speech. "Historically the struggle for freedom of speech and press in England was bound up with the issue of the scope of the search and seizure 314*314 power," Marcus v. Search Warrant, 367 U. S. 717, 724 (1961). History abundantly documents the tendency of Government—however benevolent and benign its motives —to view with suspicion those who most fervently dispute its policies. Fourth Amendment protections become the more necessary when the targets of official surveillance may be those suspected of unorthodoxy in their political beliefs. The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect "domestic security." Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent. Senator Hart addressed this dilemma in the floor debate on § 2511 (3):
  • "As I read it—and this is my fear—we are saying that the President, on his motion, could declare— name your favorite poison—draft dodgers, Black Muslims, the Ku Klux Klan, or civil rights activists to be a clear and present danger to the structure or existence of the Government."[15] The price of lawful public dissent must not be a dread of subjection to an unchecked surveillance power. Nor must the fear of unauthorized official eavesdropping deter vigorous citizen dissent and discussion of Government action in private conversation. For private dissent, no less than open public discourse, is essential to our free society.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • As the Fourth Amendment is not absolute in its terms, our task is to examine and balance the basic values at stake in this case: the duty of Government 315*315 to protect the domestic security, and the potential danger posed by unreasonable surveillance to individual privacy and free expression. If the legitimate need of Government to safeguard domestic security requires the use of electronic surveillance, the question is whether the needs of citizens for privacy and free expression may not be better protected by requiring a warrant before such surveillance is undertaken. We must also ask whether a warrant requirement would unduly frustrate the efforts of Government to protect itself from acts of subversion and overthrow directed against it. Though the Fourth Amendment speaks broadly of "unreasonable searches and seizures," the definition of "reasonableness" turns, at least in part, on the more specific commands of the warrant clause. Some have argued that "[t]he relevant test is not whether it is reasonable to procure a search warrant, but whether the search was reasonable," United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56, 66 (1950).[16] This view, however, overlooks the second clause of the Amendment. The warrant clause of the Fourth Amendment is not dead language. Rather, it has been
  • "a valued part of our constitutional law for decades, and it has determined the result in scores and scores of cases in courts all over this country. It is not an inconvenience to be somehow `weighed' against the claims of police efficiency. It is, or should 316*316 be, an important working part of our machinery of government, operating as a matter of course to check the `well-intentioned but mistakenly overzealous executive officers' who are a part of any system of law enforcement." Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S., at 481. See also United States v. Rabinowitz, supra, at 68 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting); Davis v. United States, 328 U. S. 582, 604 (1946) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). Over two centuries ago, Lord Mansfield held that common-law principles prohibited warrants that ordered the arrest of unnamed individuals who the officer might conclude were guilty of seditious libel. "It is not fit," said Mansfield, "that the receiving or judging of the information should be left to the discretion of the officer. The magistrate ought to judge; and should give certain directions to the officer." Leach v. Three of the King's Messengers, 19 How. St. Tr. 1001, 1027 (1765).
  • Lord Mansfield's formulation touches the very heart of the Fourth Amendment directive: that, where practical, a governmental search and seizure should represent both the efforts of the officer to gather evidence of wrongful acts and the judgment of the magistrate that the collected evidence is sufficient to justify invasion of a citizen's private premises or conversation. Inherent in the concept of a warrant is its issuance by a "neutral and detached magistrate." Coolidge v. New Hampshire, supra, at 453; Katz v. United States, supra, at 356. The further requirement of "probable cause" instructs the magistrate that baseless searches shall not proceed. These Fourth Amendment freedoms cannot properly be guaranteed if domestic security surveillances may be conducted solely within the discretion of the Executive 317*317 Branch. The Fourth Amendment does not contemplate the executive officers of Government as neutral and disinterested magistrates. Their duty and responsibility are to enforce the laws, to investigate, and to prosecute. Katz v. United States, supra, at 359-360 (DOUGLAS, J., concurring). But those charged with this investigative and prosecutorial duty should not be the sole judges of when to utilize constitutionally sensitive means in pursuing their tasks. The historical judgment, which the Fourth Amendment accepts, is that unreviewed executive discretion may yield too readily to pressures to obtain incriminating evidence and overlook potential invasions of privacy and protected speech.[17]
  • It may well be that, in the instant case, the Government's surveillance of Plamondon's conversations was a reasonable one which readily would have gained prior judicial approval. But this Court "has never sustained a search upon the sole ground that officers reasonably expected to find evidence of a particular crime and voluntarily confined their activities to the least intrusive means consistent with that end." Katz, supra, at 356-357. The Fourth Amendment contemplates a prior judicial judgment,[18] not the risk that executive discretion may be reasonably exercised. This judicial role accords with our basic constitutional doctrine that individual freedoms will best be preserved through a separation of powers and division of functions among the different branches and levels of Government. Harlan, Thoughts at a Dedication: Keeping the Judicial Function in Balance, 49 A. B. A. J. 943-944 (1963). The independent check upon executive discretion is not 318*318 satisfied, as the Government argues, by "extremely limited" post-surveillance judicial review.[19] Indeed, post-surveillance review would never reach the surveillances which failed to result in prosecutions. Prior review by a neutral and detached magistrate is the time-tested means of effectuating Fourth Amendment rights. Beck v. Ohio, 379 U. S. 89, 96 (1964).
  • But we do not think a case has been made for the requested departure from Fourth Amendment standards. The circumstances described do not justify complete exemption of domestic security surveillance from prior judicial scrutiny. Official surveillance, whether its purpose be criminal investigation or ongoing intelligence gathering, risks infringement of constitutionally protected privacy of speech. Security surveillances are especially sensitive because of the inherent vagueness of the domestic security concept, the necessarily broad and continuing nature of intelligence gathering, and the temptation to utilize such surveillances to oversee political dissent. We recognize, as we have before, the constitutional basis of the President's domestic security role, but we think it must be exercised in a manner compatible with the Fourth Amendment. In this case we hold that this requires an appropriate prior warrant procedure. We cannot accept the Government's argument that internal security matters are too subtle and complex for judicial evaluation. Courts regularly deal with the most difficult issues of our society. There is no reason to believe that federal judges will be insensitive to or uncomprehending of the issues involved in domestic security cases. Certainly courts can recognize that domestic security surveillance involves different considerations from the surveillance of "ordinary crime." If the threat is too subtle or complex for our senior law enforcement officers to convey its significance to a court, one may question whether there is probable cause for surveillance.
  • Nor do we believe prior judicial approval will fracture the secrecy essential to official intelligence gathering. The investigation of criminal activity has long 321*321 involved imparting sensitive information to judicial officers who have respected the confidentialities involved. Judges may be counted upon to be especially conscious of security requirements in national security cases. Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act already has imposed this responsibility on the judiciary in connection with such crimes as espionage, sabotage, and treason, §§ 2516 (1) (a) and (c), each of which may involve domestic as well as foreign security threats. Moreover, a warrant application involves no public or adversary proceedings: it is an ex parte request before a magistrate or judge. Whatever security dangers clerical and secretarial personnel may pose can be minimized by proper administrative measures, possibly to the point of allowing the Government itself to provide the necessary clerical assistance.
  • Thus, we conclude that the Government's concerns do not justify departure in this case from the customary Fourth Amendment requirement of judicial approval prior to initiation of a search or surveillance. Although some added burden will be imposed upon the Attorney General, this inconvenience is justified in a free society to protect constitutional values. Nor do we think the Government's domestic surveillance powers will be impaired to any significant degree. A prior warrant establishes presumptive validity of the surveillance and will minimize the burden of justification in post-surveillance judicial review. By no means of least importance will be the reassurance of the public generally that indiscriminate wiretapping and bugging of law-abiding citizens cannot occur.
  • As the surveillance of Plamondon's conversations was unlawful, because conducted without prior judicial approval, the courts below correctly held that Alderman v. United States, 394 U. S. 165 (1969), is controlling and that it requires disclosure to the accused of his own impermissibly intercepted conversations. As stated in Alderman, "the trial court can and should, where appropriate, place a defendant and his counsel under enforceable orders against unwarranted disclosure of the materials which they may be entitled to inspect." 394 U. S., at 185.[21]
Paul Merrell

Netanyahu arrives in U.S., signs of easing of tensions over Iran speech | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...a-israel-idUSKBN0LX13D20150302

war & peace Iranian-nukes-myth negotiations Netanyahu speech

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Mar 15 - No Cached

  • (Reuters) - The United States and Israel showed signs of seeking to defuse tensions on Sunday ahead of a speech in Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he will warn against a possible nuclear deal with Iran.

    Policy differences over the negotiations with Iran remained firm, however, as Netanyahu arrived in the United States on Sunday afternoon for a speech to Congress, which has imperiled ties between the two allies.

    Israel fears that U.S. President Barack Obama's Iran diplomacy, with an end-of-March deadline for a framework accord, will allow its archfoe to develop atomic weapons, something Tehran denies seeking.

     
     

    By accepting an invitation from the Republican Party to address Congress on Tuesday, the Israeli leader infuriated the Obama administration, which said it was not told of the speech before plans were made public in an apparent breach of protocol.

  • Netanyahu did not repeat those remarks as he departed on Sunday. The Israeli prime minister, who is running for re-election in a March 17 ballot, has framed his visit as being above politics and he portrayed himself as being a guardian for all Jews."I’m going to Washington on a fateful, even historic, mission," he said as he boarded his plane in Tel Aviv. "I feel that I am an emissary of all Israel's citizens, even those who do not agree with me, and of the entire Jewish people," he told reporters.
  • Hard-line U.S. supporters of Israel say Netanyahu must take center-stage in Washington to sound the alarm over the potential Iran deal, even at the risk of offending long-time supporters.But a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the "politicized" nature of his visit threatened "what undergirds the strength of the relationship".As one former U.S. official put it: "Sure, when Netanyahu calls the White House, Obama will answer. But how fast will he be about responding (to a crisis)?"Last month, U.S. officials accused the Israeli government of leaking information to the Israeli media to undermine the Iran negotiations and said this would limit further sharing of sensitive details about the talks.
Paul Merrell

Israelis are more concerned about the economy than Iran | GlobalPost - 0 views

www.globalpost.com/...yahus-speech-congress-playing-

war & peace Iranian-nukes-myth U.S.-foreign-policy Netanyahu-speech Israel-election polls

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • After six weeks of hype, the morning after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress feels a bit anticlimactic.
  • Here in Israel —well, how much is left to say? Every aspect of the speech has been discussed for weeks, except for its substance, and it was fairly light on that. With an early election looming on March 17, politicians have already staked out their positions. Hundreds of retired generals and security officials came out this week in sharp opposition to Netanyahu. The key question in Israel now is not what Netanyahu said, but how long everyone keeps talking about it. Despite the controversy, the prime minister wants to keep the story in the headlines. Recent polls have not been encouraging for his Likud party. A Knesset Channel survey released hours before the speech showed him winning just 21 seats; his main center-left competitor, the Zionist Camp, was polling at 24.
  • Two weeks before the election, voters are defecting for centrist parties focused on the economy, which remains their top priority: 56 percent of Israelis told the Knesset Channel they will vote on socioeconomic issues, compared with 30 percent on Iran’s nuclear program. Likud is keen to avoid these issues; indeed, it hasn’t even bothered to release an economic platform. After six years in office, Netanyahu is widely seen as responsible for the skyrocketing cost of living. The party believes that it can win an extra seat, perhaps two, by keeping the focus on Iran. It sounds trivial—but in a 120-seat legislature divided amongst eleven parties, that small boost could give Netanyahu the margin he needs to form the next government. Isaac Herzog, the main challenger for the premiership, delivered a brief rebuttal last night from a town near the Gaza border. “The painful truth is that, behind the applause, Netanyahu remains alone. And the negotiations with Iran will continue without any Israeli involvement,” he said.
Paul Merrell

Responding to Failure: Reorganizing U.S. Policies in the Middle East | Middle East Poli... - 0 views

mepc.org/...nizing-us-policies-middle-east

war & peace Mideast Israel Arabs Shia-nations U.S.-foreign-policy recommendations

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • I want to speak with you today about the Middle East. This is the region where Africa, Asia, and Europe come together. It is also the part of the world where we have been most compellingly reminded that some struggles cannot be won, but there are no struggles that cannot be lost. It is often said that human beings learn little useful from success but can learn a great deal from defeat. If so, the Middle East now offers a remarkably rich menu of foreign-policy failures for Americans to study. • Our four-decade-long diplomatic effort to bring peace to the Holy Land sputtered to an ignominious conclusion a year ago. • Our unconditional political, economic, and military backing of Israel has earned us the enmity of Israel’s enemies even as it has enabled egregiously contemptuous expressions of ingratitude and disrespect for us from Israel itself.
  • • Our attempts to contain the Iranian revolution have instead empowered it. • Our military campaigns to pacify the region have destabilized it, dismantled its states, and ignited ferocious wars of religion among its peoples. • Our efforts to democratize Arab societies have helped to produce anarchy, terrorism, dictatorship, or an indecisive juxtaposition of all three. • In Iraq, Libya, and Syria we have shown that war does not decide who’s right so much as determine who’s left. • Our campaign against terrorism with global reach has multiplied our enemies and continuously expanded their areas of operation. • Our opposition to nuclear proliferation did not prevent Israel from clandestinely developing nuclear weapons and related delivery systems and may not preclude Iran and others from following suit.
  • • At the global level, our policies in the Middle East have damaged our prestige, weakened our alliances, and gained us a reputation for militaristic fecklessness in the conduct of our foreign affairs. They have also distracted us from challenges elsewhere of equal or greater importance to our national interests. That’s quite a record.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • One can only measure success or failure by reference to what one is trying achieve. So, in practice, what have U.S. objectives been? Are these objectives still valid? If we’ve failed to advance them, what went wrong? What must we do now to have a better chance of success? Our objectives in the Middle East have not changed much over the course of the past half century or more. We have sought to 1. Gain acceptance and security for a Jewish homeland from the other states and peoples of the region; 2. Ensure the uninterrupted availability of the region’s energy supplies to sustain global and U.S. security and prosperity; 3. Preserve our ability to transit the region so as to be able to project power around the world; 4. Prevent the rise of a regional hegemon or the deployment of weapons of mass destruction that might threaten any or all of these first three objectives; 5. Maximize profitable commerce; and 6. Promote stability while enhancing respect for human rights and progress toward constitutional democracy. Let’s briefly review what’s happened with respect to each of these objectives. I will not mince words.
  • Israel has come to enjoy military supremacy but it remains excluded from most participation in its region’s political, economic, and cultural life. In the 67 years since the Jewish state was proclaimed, Israel has not made a single friend in the Middle East, where it continues to be regarded as an illegitimate legacy of Western imperialism engaged in racist removal of the indigenous population. International support for Israel is down to the United States and a few of the former colonial powers that originally imposed the Zionist project on the Arabs under Sykes-Picot and the related Balfour Declaration. The two-state solution has expired as a physical or political possibility. There is no longer any peace process to distract global attention from Israel’s maltreatment of its captive Arab populations. After years of deference to American diplomacy, the Palestinians are about to challenge the legality of Israel’s cruelties to them in the International Criminal Court and other venues in which Americans have no veto, are not present, or cannot protect the Jewish state from the consequences of its own behavior as we have always been able to do in the past. Israel’s ongoing occupation of the West Bank and siege of Gaza are fueling a drive to boycott its products, disinvest in its companies, and sanction its political and cultural elite. These trends are the very opposite of what the United States has attempted to achieve for Israel.
  • In a stunning demonstration of his country’s most famous renewable resource — chutzpah — Israel’s Prime Minister chose this very moment to make America the main issue in his reelection campaign while simultaneously transforming Israel into a partisan issue in the United States. This is the very opposite of a sound survival strategy for Israel. Uncertainties about their country’s future are leading many Israelis to emigrate, not just to America but to Europe. This should disturb not just Israelis but Americans, if only because of the enormous investment we have made in attempts to gain a secure place for Israel in its region and the world. The Palestinians have been silent about Mr. Netanyahu’s recent political maneuvers. Evidently, they recall Napoleon’s adage that one should never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake. This brings me to an awkward but transcendently important issue. Israel was established as a haven from anti-Semitism — Jew hatred — in Europe, a disease of nationalism and Christian culture that culminated in the Holocaust. Israel’s creation was a relief for European Jews but a disaster for the Arabs of Palestine, who were either ethnically cleansed by European Jewish settlers or subjugated, or both.  But the birth of Israel also proved tragic for Jews throughout the Middle East — the Mizrahim. In a nasty irony, the implementation of Zionism in the Holy Land led to the introduction of European-style anti-Semitism — including its classic Christian libels on Jews — to the region, dividing Arab Jews from their Muslim neighbors as never before and compelling them to join European Jews in taking refuge in Israel amidst outrage over the dispossession of Palestinians from their homeland. Now, in a further irony, Israel’s pogroms and other injustices to the Muslim and Christian Arabs over whom it rules are leading not just to a rebirth of anti-Semitism in Europe but to its globalization.
  • The late King `Abdullah of Saudi Arabia engineered a reversal of decades of Arab rejectionism at Beirut in 2002. He brought all Arab countries and later all 57 Muslim countries to agree to normalize relations with Israel if it did a deal — any deal — with the Palestinians that the latter could accept. Israel spurned the offer. Its working assumption seems to be that it does not need peace with its neighbors as long as it can bomb and strafe them. Proceeding on this basis is not just a bad bet, it is one that is dividing Israel from the world, including Jews outside Israel. This does not look like a story with a happy ending. It’s hard to avoid the thought that Zionism is turning out to be bad for the Jews. If so, given the American investment in it, it will also have turned out to be bad for America. The political costs to America of support for Israel are steadily rising. We must find a way to divert Israel from the largely self-engineered isolation into which it is driving itself, while repairing our own increasing international ostracism on issues related to Israel.  
  • Despite Mr. Netanyahu’s recent public hysteria about Iran and his efforts to demonize it, Israel has traditionally seen Iran’s rivalry with the Arabs as a strategic asset. It had a very cooperative relationship with the Shah. Neither Israelis nor Arabs have forgotten the strategic logic that produced Israel's entente with Iran. Israel is very much on Daesh’s list of targets, as is Iran. For now, however, Israel’s main concern is the possible loss of its nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. Many years ago, Israel actually did what it now accuses Iran of planning to do. It clandestinely developed nuclear weapons while denying to us and others that it was doing so. Unlike Iran, Israel has not adhered to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or subjected its nuclear facilities to international inspection. It has expressed no interest in proposals for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East. It sees its ability to bring on nuclear Armageddon as the ultimate guarantee of its existence.
  • To many, Israel now seems to have acquired the obnoxious habit of biting the American hand that has fed it for so long. The Palestinians have despaired of American support for their self-determination. They are reaching out to the international community in ways that deliberately bypass the United States. Random acts of violence herald mayhem in the Holy Land. Daesh has proclaimed the objective of erasing the Sykes-Picot borders and the states within them. It has already expunged the border between Iraq and Syria. It is at work in Lebanon and has set its sights on Jordan, Palestine, and Israel. Lebanon, under Saudi influence, has turned to France rather than America for support. Hezbollah has intervened militarily in Iraq and Syria, both of whose governments are close to Iran. Egypt and Turkey have distanced themselves from the United States as well as from each other. Russia is back as a regional actor and arms supplier. The Gulf Arabs, Egypt, and Turkey now separately intervene in Libya, Syria, and Iraq without reference to American policy or views. Iran is the dominant influence in Iraq, Syria, parts of Lebanon, and now Yemen. It has boots on the ground in Iraq. And now Saudi Arabia seems to be organizing a coalition that will manage its own nuclear deterrence and military balancing of Ir
  • To describe this as out of control is hardly adequate. What are we to do about it? Perhaps we should start by recalling the first law of holes — “when stuck in one, stop digging.” It appears that “don’t just sit there, bomb something” isn’t much of a strategy. When he was asked last summer what our strategy for dealing with Daesh was, President Obama replied, “We don’t yet have one.” He was widely derided for that. He should have been praised for making the novel suggestion that before Washington acts, it should first think through what it hopes to accomplish and how best to do it. Sunzi once observed that “tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." America’s noisy but strategy-free approach to the Middle East has proven him right. Again the starting point must be what we are trying to accomplish. Strategy is "the discipline of achieving desired ends through the most efficient use of available means" [John Lewis Gaddis].Our desired ends with respect to the Middle East are not in doubt. They have been and remain to gain an accepted and therefore secure place for Israel there; to keep the region's oil and gas coming at reasonable prices; to be able to pass through the area at will; to head off challenges to these interests; to do profitable business in the markets of the Middle East; and to promote stability amidst the expansion of liberty in its countries. Judging by results, we have been doing a lot wrong. Two related problems in our overall approach need correction. They are “enablement” and the creation of “moral hazard.” Both are fall-out from  relationships of codependency.
  • Enablement occurs when one party to a relationship indulges or supports and thereby enables another party’s dysfunctional behavior. A familiar example from ordinary life is giving money to a drunk or a drug addict or ignoring, explaining away, or defending their subsequent self-destructive behavior.  Moral hazard is the condition that obtains when one party is emboldened to take risks it would not otherwise take because it knows another party will shoulder the consequences and bear the costs of failure. The U.S.-Israel relationship has evolved to exemplify codependency. It now embodies both enablement and moral hazard. U.S. support for Israel is unconditional.  Israel has therefore had no need to cultivate relations with others in the Middle East, to declare its borders, or to choose peace over continued expansion into formerly Arab lands. Confidence in U.S. backing enables Israel to do whatever it likes to the Palestinians and its neighbors without having to worry about the consequences. Israel is now a rich country, but the United States continues to subsidize it with cash transfers and other fiscal privileges. The Jewish state is the most powerful country in the Middle East. It can launch attacks on its neighbors, confident that it will be resupplied by the United States. Its use of U.S. weapons in ways that violate both U.S. and international law goes unrebuked. 41 American vetoes in the United Nations Security Council have exempted Israel from censure and international law. We enable it to defy the expressed will of the international community, including, ironically, our own.
  • We Americans are facilitating Israel's indulgence in denial and avoidance of the choices it must make if it is not to jeopardize its long-term existence as a state in the Middle East. The biggest contribution we could now make to Israel's longevity would be to ration our support for it, so as to cause it to rethink and reform its often self-destructive behavior. Such peace as Israel now enjoys with Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinians is the direct result of tough love of this kind by earlier American administrations. We Americans cannot save Israel from itself, but we can avoid killing it with uncritical kindness. We should support Israel when it makes sense to do so and it needs our support on specific issues, but not otherwise. Israel is placing itself and American interests in jeopardy. We need to discuss how to reverse this dynamic.
  • Moral hazard has also been a major problem in our relationship with our Arab partners. Why should they play an active role in countering the threat to them they perceive from Iran, if they can get America to do this for them? Similarly, why should any Muslim country rearrange its priorities to deal with Muslim renegades like Daesh when it can count on America to act for it? If America thinks it must lead, why not let it do so? But responsible foreign and defense policies begin with self-help, not outsourcing of military risks. The United States has the power-projection and war-fighting capabilities to back a Saudi-led coalition effort against Daesh. The Saudis have the religious and political credibility, leadership credentials, and diplomatic connections to organize such an effort. We do not. Since this century began, America has administered multiple disappointments to its allies and friends in the Middle East, while empowering their and our adversaries. Unlike the Gulf Arabs, Egypt, and Turkey, Washington does not have diplomatic relations with Tehran. Given our non-Muslim identity, solidarity with Israel, and recent history in the Fertile Crescent, the United States cannot hope to unite the region’s Muslims against Daesh.  Daesh is an insurgency that claims to exemplify Islam as well as a governing structure and an armed force. A coalition led by inhibited foreign forces, built on papered-over differences, and embodying hedged commitments will not defeat such an insurgency with or without boots on the ground.
  • When elections have yielded governments whose policies we oppose, we have not hesitated to conspire with their opponents to overthrow them. But the results of our efforts to coerce political change in the Middle East are not just failures but catastrophic failures. Our policies have nowhere produced democracy. They have instead contrived the destabilization of societies, the kindling of religious warfare, and the installation of dictatorships contemptuous of the rights of religious and ethnic minorities. Frankly, we have done a lot better at selling things, including armaments, to the region than we have at transplanting the ideals of the Atlantic Enlightenment there. The region’s autocrats cooperate with us to secure our protection, and they get it. When they are nonetheless overthrown, the result is not democracy or the rule of law but socio-political collapse and the emergence of  a Hobbesian state of nature in which religious and ethnic communities, families, and individuals are able to feel safe only when they are armed and have the drop on each other. Where we have engineered or attempted to engineer regime change, violent politics, partition, and ethno-religious cleansing have everywhere succeeded unjust but tranquil order. One result of our bungled interventions in Iraq and Syria is the rise of Daesh. This is yet another illustration that, in our efforts to do good in the Middle East, we have violated the principle that one should first do no harm.
  • Americans used to believe that we could best lead by example. We and those in the Middle East seeking nonviolent change would all be better off if America returned to that tradition and forswore ideologically motivated hectoring and intervention. No one willingly follows a wagging finger. Despite our unparalleled ability to use force against foreigners, the best way to inspire them to emulate us remains showing them that we have our act together. At the moment, we do not. In the end, to cure the dysfunction in our policies toward the Middle East, it comes down to this. We must cure the dysfunction and venality of our politics. If we cannot, we have no business trying to use an 8,000-mile-long screwdriver to fix things one-third of the way around the world. That doesn’t work well under the best of circumstances. But when the country wielding the screwdriver has very little idea what it’s doing, it really screws things up.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Mar 15
     
    Chas Freeman served as US ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the war to liberate Kuwait and as Assistant Secretary of Defense from 1993-94. He was the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on "diplomacy" and is the author of five books, including "America's Misadventures in the Middle East" and "Interesting Times: China, America, and the Shifting Balance of Prestige."  I have largely omitted highlighting portions of the speech dealing with Muslim nations because Freeman has apparently lost touch with the actual U.S., Saudi, UAE, Kuwait, and Turish roles in creating and expanding ISIL. But his analysis of Israel's situation and recommendations for curing it seem quite valid, as well as his overall Mideast recommendation to heed the First Law of Holes: "when stuck in one, stop digging."   I recommend reading the entire speech notwithstanding his misunderstanding of ISIL. There is a lot of very important history there ably summarized.
Paul Merrell

What is Khamenei thinking on removing sanctions? - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle ... - 0 views

www.al-monitor.com/...-speech-sanctions-nuclear.html

war & peace Iran Iran-negotiations sanctions Khamenei

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • The issue of removing international sanctions on Iran is one of the most important aspects of the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1). While the nuclear talks are confidential, there have been conflicting reports about how the sanctions can and should be removed in return for Iran reducing their nuclear program. During his March 21 Iranian New Year's speech, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader who has final say on the nuclear program, discussed his positions on the nuclear talks and sanctions removal.
  • “What the Americans repeat, ‘We’ll sign the contract with Iran, then we’ll see if they act upon the contract, then we’ll remove the sanctions’ — this is wrong and unacceptable," Khamenei said. "The removal of sanctions is part of the negotiations, not the result of negotiations. Those people involved [in the talks] know well the difference between the two. “The removal of sanctions should happen without any distance [delays] when an agreement is made.” Sa’adollah Zaeri, an Iranian analyst whose work is published on the supreme leader’s website and in the hard-line Kayhan newspaper, spoke to Tasnim News Agency about the issue. “One of the important statements of the supreme leader is that the removal of the sanctions be in the text of the negotiations.” Zaeri said, “However, the last few months, the West tried with cleverness to avoid its commitments and introduce the sanctions as an issue of time and connected to Iran’s commitments.” Zaeri said that the West tried to make sanction removal a “marginal issue” and that they had proposed “Iran reduce the nuclear program for 10 years and afterward if the West gives Iran a passing grade, then the sanctions will be removed.” There have also been reports that there could be a multistep removal of sanctions, which Khamenei has rejected in the past. Given that there are numerous UN, US and European Union sanctions against Iran, the nuclear negotiators have to at least to include specific language on the removal of sanctions in a final nuclear agreement.
  • During his Nowruz speech, Khamenei also rejected the possibility of cooperation between Iran and the United States in the Middle East. The idea that both countries have a common interest in fighting the terrorist group the Islamic State and can cooperate on this issues has been floated by some in Washington and even by members of President Hassan Rouhani’s administration. On this, Khamenei said: “The negotiations with America are about the nuclear program and nothing else, everyone should know this. We will not negotiate with America over regional matters. The goals of the Americans on regional matters are exactly the opposite of our goals. We want security and calm in the region … the policy of the US in the region creates instability. “We definitely do not speak or negotiate with the Americans on regional, domestic or weapons matters. The negotiations are merely on nuclear matters and how we can reach a conclusion on the nuclear negotiations through diplomacy.” 
Paul Merrell

Occupy Hillary Clinton's Wall Street Speeches. What Did She Tell the Banks? | Global Re... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5511198

Auction 2016 Hillary bankster-speeches transparency

shared by Paul Merrell on 03 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Hillary Clinton refuses to make public the transcripts of her speeches to big banks, three of which were worth a total of $675,000 to Goldman Sachs. She says she would release the transcripts “if everybody does it, and that includes Republicans.” After all, she complained, “Why is there one standard for me, and not for everybody else?” As the New York Times editorial board pointed out, “The only different standard here is the one Mrs. Clinton set for herself, by personally earning $11 million in 2014 and the first quarter of 2015 for 51 speeches to banks and other groups and industries.” Hillary is not running in the primaries against Republicans, who, the Times noted, “make no bones about their commitment to Wall Street deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.”
  • She is running against Bernie Sanders, “a decades-long critic of Wall Street excess who is hardly a hot ticket on the industry speaking circuit,” according to the Times. Why do voters need to know what Hillary told the banks? Because it was Wall Street that was responsible for the 2008 recession, making life worse for most Americans. We need to know what, if anything, she promised these behemoths. I Scratch Your Back, You Scratch Mine Hillary has several super PACs, which have recently donated $25 million to her campaign, $15 million of which came from Wall Street. Big banks and large contributors don’t give their money away for nothing. They expect that their interests will be well served by those to whom they donate. Hillary recently attended an expensive fundraiser at Franklin Square Capital, a hedge fund that gives big bucks to the fracking industry. Two weeks later, Hillary’s campaign announced her continuing support for the production of natural gas, which comes from fracking. Bernie opposes fracking. He said, “Just as I believe you can’t take on Wall Street while taking their money, I don’t believe you can take on climate change effectively while taking money from those who would profit off the destruction of the planet.”
Paul Merrell

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : The Real Meaning of President Obama's... - 0 views

ronpaulinstitute.org/...ational-security-speeches.aspx

war & peace Obama empire ron paul

shared by Paul Merrell on 28 May 13 - No Cached
  • This past Thursday and Friday, President Obama delivered two speeches designed to outline his new thinking on national security and counter-terrorism. While much was made in the media of the president’s statements at the National Defense University and the US Naval Academy suggesting that the most active phase of US military action overseas was coming to an end, this “new” approach is but the same old policy wrapped in new packaging. In these addresses, the president panders to the progressives, while continually expanding and solidifying the "enabling act” principle.
  • President Obama’s speech is not at all what it seems. It is a call for more empire and more power to the executive branch. The president promises that “this war, like all wars, must end.” Unfortunately the war on the American taxpayer never seems to end. But end it will, as we are running out of money.
Gary Edwards

Stasi in the White House - Paul Craig Roberts - 0 views

www.thedailybell.com/...berts-Stasi-in-the-White-House

Paul-Craig-Roberts End-of-America Obammunism Stassi ruling-class-elites

shared by Gary Edwards on 25 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • On June 19, 2013, US President Obama, hoping to raise himself above the developing National Security Agency (NSA) spy scandals, sought to associate himself with two iconic speeches made at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy pledged: "Ich bin ein Berliner." In 1987, President Ronald Reagan challenged: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Obama's speech was delivered to a relatively small, specially selected audience of invitees. Even so, Obama spoke from behind bullet proof glass.
  • Obama's speech will go down in history as the most hypocritical of all time. Little wonder that the audience was there by invitation only. A real audience would have hooted Obama out of Berlin.
  • Obama spoke lofty words of peace, while beating the drums of war in Syria and Iran. Witness Obama's aggressive policies of surrounding Russia with missile bases and establishing new military bases in the Pacific Ocean with which to confront China.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • This is the same Obama who promised to close the Guantanamo Torture Prison, but did not; the same Obama who promised to tell us the purpose for Washington's decade-long war in Afghanistan, but did not; the same Obama who promised to end the wars, but started new ones; the same Obama who said he stood for the US Constitution, but shredded it; the same Obama who refused to hold the Bush regime accountable for its crimes against law and humanity; the same Obama who unleashed drones against civilian populations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen; the same Obama who claimed and exercised power to murder US citizens without due process and who continues the Bush regime's unconstitutional practice of violating habeas corpus and detaining US citizens indefinitely; the same Obama who promised transparency but runs the most secretive government in US history.
  • The tyrant's speech of spectacular hypocrisy elicited from the invited audience applause on 36 occasions.
  • Here was Obama, who consistently lies, speaking of "eternal truth."
  • Here was Obama, who enabled Wall Street to rob the American and European peoples and who destroyed Americans' civil liberties and the lives of vast numbers of Iraqis, Afghans, Yemenis, Libyans, Pakistanis, Syrians − and others, speaking of "the yearnings of justice."
  • Obama equates demands for justice with "terrorism."
  • Here was Obama, who has constructed an international spy network and a domestic police state, speaking of "the yearnings for freedom."
  • Obama has turned America into a surveillance state that has far more in common with Stasi East Germany than with the America of the Kennedy and Reagan eras. Strange, isn't it, that freedom was gained in East Germany and lost in America?
  • Here was Obama, president of a country that has initiated wars or military action against six countries since 2001 and has three more Muslim countries − Syria, Lebanon, and Iran − in its crosshairs and perhaps several more in Africa, speaking of "the yearnings of peace that burns in the human heart," but clearly not in Obama's heart.
  • At the Brandenburg Gate, Obama invoked the pledge of nations to "a Universal Declaration of Human Rights," but Obama continues to violate human rights both at home and abroad.
  • Obama has taken hypocrisy to new heights. He has destroyed US civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.
  • In place of a government accountable to law, he has turned law into a weapon in the hands of the government.
  • He has intimidated a free press and prosecutes whistleblowers who reveal his government's crimes. He makes no objection when American police brutalize peacefully protesting citizens.
  • His government intercepts and stores in National Security Agency computers every communication of every American and also the private communications of Europeans and Canadians, including the communications of the members of the governments, the better to blackmail those with secrets.
  • Obama sends in drones or assassins to murder people in countries with which the US is not at war, and his victims on most occasions turn out to be women, children, farmers and village elders.
  • Obama kept Bradley Manning in solitary confinement for nearly a year assaulting his human dignity in an effort to break him and obtain a false confession. In defiance of the US Constitution, Obama denied Manning a trial for three year
  • On Obama's instructions, London denies Julian Assange free passage to his political asylum in Ecuador. Assange has become a modern-day Cardinal Mindszenty.
  • Gary Edwards on 25 Jun 13
     
    Wow.  I remember Paul Craig Roberts writing on the backpage of NewsWeek Magazine, back in the late 1960's.  Wow, we've come a long way since the days of protesting the Vietnam War, the socialism behind LBJ's Great Society, and the outrageous coup d'état that took place with the in-your-face-America assassination of JFK.  The circle is almost complete. The American Constitution hangs by a thread.  The anger and heart ache of Paul Craig Roberts says it all. I wonder who will win this years "Dancing with the Stars" competition?
Gary Edwards

The End Of The Obama World Order - 0 views

www.blacklistednews.com/...M.html

Obama

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Jan 17
     
    "For the past eight years, Barack Obama has been using the power of the U.S. presidency to impose his vision of a progressive world order on the entire globe.  As a result, much of the planet will greatly celebrate once the Obama era officially ends on Friday.  The Obama years brought us the Arab Spring, Benghazi, ISIS, civil war in Syria, civil war in Ukraine and the Iran nuclear deal.  On the home front, we have had to deal with Obamacare, "Fast and Furious", IRS targeting of conservative groups, Solyndra, the VA scandal, NSA spying and the worst "economic recovery" since the end of World War II.  And right at the end of his presidency, Barack Obama has committed the greatest betrayal of Israel in U.S. history and has brought us dangerously close to war with Russia. So is the end of the Obama world order worth celebrating? You better believe it is. Of course Obama and his minions are in a great deal of distress that much of their hard work over the past eight years is about to be undone by Donald Trump.  On Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden warned the elitists gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos that their "liberal world order" is in danger of collapsing…     Vice President Joe Biden delivered an epic final speech Wednesday to the elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.   The gist of his speech was simple: At a time of "uncertainty" we must double down on the values that made Western democracies great, and not allow the "liberal world order" to be torn apart by destructive forces. And without a doubt, we definitely want it to collapse. During his time in the White House, Barack Obama has used the full diplomatic power of the government to promote "abortion rights", "gay rights" and other "liberal values" to the farthest corners of the globe.  Here at home, the appointment of two new Supreme Court justices under Obama paved the way for the Supreme Court decision that forced all 50 state
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