John Kerry's Strange Associates

Over the years, Sen. John Kerry has gotten his ideas of how the world works from people ranging from the Viet Cong to Alinsky radicals to Yale professors. Having pretty much successfully worked with his fellow Democrats on making the United States a social democratic government-dependent nation, over the past few years he has turned his attentions to foreign affairs.

Kerry is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Currently he is basking in the warmth of the Arab Spring. Like his counterparts in the executive branch, Barack Obama, Kerry seeks advice from those who can be trusted to tell the truth. Like Obama and his White House free-speech meeting with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Kerry has chosen to get his information on political developments in Egypt from the Freedom and Justice Party. The FJP is an arm of the Muslim brotherhood, which now (along with the even-more fundamentalist Salafists) controls about 70% of Egypt's legislative seats as of the most recent round of elections.

Let's face it. It would have been almost impossible for a man like Kerry to resist getting his advice from men who represent a party that has both "freedom" and "justice" in its name. So Kerry invited three honchos from the FJP to come to his Senate office. It's not as posh as the White House, but not bad. The three are Essam El-Erian, vice chairman of the FJP, Mohamed Saad Katani, Secretary-General of the FJP, and the big falafel, Mohamed Morsi, chairman of the FJP.

These men represent the best of Egyptian secular democracy (irony intended). Day-dreaming a western-style democracy in Egypt (and the Middle East) is a Democratic habit. Despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, back in February the Obama administration announced without even twitching that the Muslim Brotherhood is "largely secular." And Kerry has the quotes to prove it.

As for secularism, Katani agrees with the Salafists (really militant Islamists) that "Nobody dares oppose the application of Sharia law." El-Katani and El-Erian previously issued a joint statement saying: "If you want to know what principles guide our party, let me tell you: the principles of the Islamic Sharia law."

But there's still the "freedom and justice part," right? Says peaceful chairman Morsi: "Israel is a Zionist usurper that has been created by international terrorism and injustice. Israel must be destroyed and any nation that supports it is perpetrating genocide against the Palestinians." Kerry seemed entirely unruffled by that remark, unlike his reaction to Newt Gingrich referring to the Palestinians (correctly) as an "invented people."

Kerry's friendliness toward the Brotherhood was bolstered by an earlier statement from US Special Coordinator for Transitions in the Middle East William Taylor who had said that the US would be satisfied with a Brotherhood victory. Kerry's domestic partner at the meeting was Anne Patterson, US ambassador to Egypt.

Prior to the latest Egyptian elections, the Muslim Brotherhood had at least feigned a moderate stance toward secularism, democracy, and Israel. Since those elections the facade has begun to crumble. Even the liberal and Islamo-friendly The New Republic sensed there was something rotten in the state of Egypt. Correspondent Eric Trager conducted a series of interviews with FJP and Muslim Brotherhood leaders. He concluded: "Far from being moderate, these future leaders share a commitment to theocratic rule, complete with a limited view of civil liberties and an unmistakable antipathy for the West."

Kerry mustn't read TNR these days, or watch TV news stories about new outbreaks of anti-Christian violence and the storming of the Israeli embassy in Cairo. The Islamist masses have been considerably emboldened since their electoral victories. The FJP plans to follow strict Sharia law including, but not limited to, banning interest-bearing banking, banning alcohol, requiring women to wear clothing that covers everything but their faces (covering them will come later), and banning any speech which is critical of Islam or promotes in any way another religion. It's not clear whether they intend to make apostasy a capital offense, but leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood have made it clear they would like to.

Given all this, you might think that the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee might be a little cagey about whom he invites to his office and how far he would go to encourage them. Silly you. After the meetings, Kerry announced that he had learned just how good the intentions of the FJP are. In fact, they're so good, he first praised the "transparency and integrity" of the elections, then pledged his support for Egypt's new government. He also promised that he would do everything he could to get the International Monetary Fund to support the fledgling Islamist government (paid for largely out of the pockets of the US taxpayer).
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Super Committee Not So Super

The debt ceiling agreement requires the formation of a “super committee” of twelve Senators and Congressmen, who will be charged with finding $1.2 trillion in additional deficit reduction. To approve anything, the committee needs 7 out of 12 votes. If it fails, or if Congress does not approve its recommendations, automatic cuts will kick in to make up the difference between what the committee approves and $1.2 trillion. So, how is the committee stacking up? It’s not horrible.

The Good

● Tax Pledge: Every Republican member has signed Grover Norquist’s pledge not to raise taxes.

● Leftist Anger: Leftist bloggers like the Daily Kos are furious at Harry Reid’s picks, which they consider unwilling to defend entitlements.

● Defense Sec. Leon Panetta: Democrat Leon Panetta just undermined the Democratic plan by saying that the super committee should not cut anything else from the defense budget. This will make it hard for Democrats to sell further defense cuts.

● Pat Toomey (R) (McConnell appointee): Toomey is the ultimate Tea Party guy. He’s the former head of the conservative Club for Growth and a Tea Party favorite. In fact, he tried to unseat Arlen Specter before there even was a Tea Party. He’s a solid conservative. Interestingly, he says he would be willing to eliminate deductions and subsidies in exchange for lower income tax rates, but will oppose any sort of “big tax increase.” That puts tax reform on the table.

● Jeb Hensarling (R) (Boehner appointee): Hensarling is a former chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee. He is also a member of the Budget Committee and works closely with Paul Ryan, who asked not to be appointed to this commission. His views are fairly similar to the Tea Party Republicans.

● Fred Upton (R) (Boehner appointee): You might recall Upton from the lightbulb debate. At the time, we weren’t sure if he would be willing to cast off his moderate environmentalism and do a good job of shifting the Energy and Commerce Committee to the right. He has. And he should be a good player here. He seems interested in ending energy subsidies, particularly for wind and solar: “Since I am sure that the industry will never give up its free money voluntarily, now is the time for us to slash it on our terms.” This has freaked out environmentalists.

● John Kyl (R) (McConnell appointee): Kyle is retiring at the end of the year, and wants to be Vice President. He has been a reliable conservative during his time in the Senate. He has a long record of pushing tax cuts and he walked out of the Biden talks because he felt the Democrats only wanted “job-killing tax hikes and new spending.” He also has suggested cutting deductions in exchange for lower rates.

The Bad

● Dave Camp (R) (Boehner appointee): Camp is the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. I know nothing about him (which is a bad thing) except that he is a member of both the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership and the conservative Republican Study Committee. Being a member of the RSC is a good thing and he describes himself as a conservative on fiscal policy, but he has favored extending unemployment benefits and the auto bailout.

● Rob Portman (R) (McConnell appointee): Portman is a former Bush budget director, which is not a good thing. He’s a freshman Senator from Ohio and I know little about him, except that he’s considered the weak link on the Republican side. He too has signaled a willingness to reduce tax breaks, but says that those cuts should be used to lower rates.

The Ugly

● Max Baucus (D) (Reid appointee): Finance Committee Chairman Baucus is a wild card. He has shown an ability to act in a bipartisan manner when he worked with Chuck Grassley on a jobs bill which the Democratic left flank hated because it included tax cuts. But he also came up with Obamacare. He is likely to fight to protect farm subsidies and Obamacare. Interestingly, former Republican Senate Alan Simpson, who chaired Obama’s deficit reduction committee of which Baucus was a member, call him an awful choice. He described Baucus as being lazy, unhelpful and out of touch.

● John Kerry (D) (Reid appointee): Kerry is a troubling pick. First, he lobbied to get on the committee because he’s looking for a legacy. That’s always a bad sign. Secondly, he has proved to be a standard liberal ass. Third, he just accused the Tea Party of being the cause of the downgrade and he made the Orwellian suggestion that the media should ignore the Tea Party. That said, he was one of the first to attack Obama’s Afghanistan policy, claiming that we should not stick with a policy just because it exists. And Alan Simpson strangely suggests that: “Kerry will do good work, he really will. I know him well.” If he wants a genuine legacy, then he will need to move right, but we'll see.

The Ugliest

● Patty Murray (D) (Reid appointee): Patty Murray is the most cynical choice. She is the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. This means that her job is to protect the 22 Democratic senators who are up for re-election in 2012. Their current campaign strategy is to scare old people by slandering the GOP by claiming Republicans are trying to destroy Medicare. Of this pick, one Republican official said: “It is shocking that Harry Reid appointed his chief fundraiser to a committee that will be the central focus of every lobbyist in town.”

● Pelosi: Pelosi has yet to appoint her three clowns, but you can pretty much guess they will be total losers.

At this point, Baucus and Kerry are where we will need to look to get a good deal. At the same time, we will need to watch Portman. My guess is that we end up with a little tax reform, the ending of some deductions and subsidies, a reduction in rates, a trimming of entitlement numbers without an actual plan to cause the cuts, and some minor discretionary cuts.

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Dem Sport - Tea Party Lie-ball (or is it slander?)

"Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but Names Can never hurt me"
             
 - Mother Goose



In the beginning of this game sometime in February of 2009, they ignored us. T.E.A.(Taxed Enough Already) Party groups  in every state held rallies to protest Obama's massive stimulus package.

Just a few spontaneous pick up game in parks and parking lots all over the country. To the outside observer, of which there were very few, we were mistaken for The Little League. Nothing to see here, but amateurs. If they would just ignore us, we would soon get tired and/or bored and go away.

Then came the Tax Day Tea Party on April 15, 2009 where hundreds of groups held more rallies to protest the pending healthcare bill. The word got out through the new media and  hundreds of thousand of people - just regular Joes and Janes from across the country - came out.  That's when the name-calling started. They began with "silly", "stupid", "fat", "old", "redneck", and "ignorant".   They laughed at our amateurish signs and sloppy plays, but we didn't go away.

By the first 9/12 Rally was held in Washington D.C., anywhere from 500 (as reported by CNN) to two million people (as reported by BBC) attended and it was clear that we were not leaving the field so easily. Since and they could no longer legitimately ignore us, they decided to talk real smack. Maybe if they called us worse names, we'd be so intimidated by their greatness that we'd go back to our double-wides and leave the field to the professionals. That's when "astroturf" and "angry mob" were played most famously by Team Captain Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  Surely laughing at us and calling us really bad names would make us go away. Nope. All they got back was righteous indignation and resolve.

What to do, what to do. Their game plan just wasn't working. Surely "redneck" and "ignorant astroturfing mob" should have done the trick. They reviewed all the tapes, but just couldn't think of the magic word or words that would scare us away. Then someone observed that most of our players on their field were white. Eureka! What they needed were the real professionals. The seasoned players or more to the point, race card players. Their next secret play was "racists".

During the March 2010 rally in DC, certain members of the Congressional Black Caucus shouted far and wide that we, TP protesters, hurled racial slurs at them repeatedly as they walked beside the crowd lining the walkway from their offices to the Capital. In an instant, we'd gone from amateur ignoramus' to dangerous racist Klansmen. Ah, but we were wising up right along with them, and had been practicing our own plays. Unfortunately for the CBC, thousands of people brought thousands of video cameras to the rally and used them. Even after Andrew Breitbart of the "Bigs" website offered a reward of $100K, the "racist" moniker couldn't be verified even by the accusers with their own video footage. They shot and they missed the net by a mile.

They weren't counting on was our self-esteem. And what they didn't understand was that most of us were over-40 taxpayers who didn't much move off the couch without a really good reason. We Now we had a reason, and now that we were up, we might as well go for it. As a matter of fact, the name-calling just made us laugh and energizes us even more. At least they weren't ignoring us anymore and every new name and accusation turned into protest signs at the new rally.

After the recently hard battle with the "Debt Ceiling" showdown, they decided to consolidate their resources and brain power to mount their next round by using nouns they won't even use on our real enemies - "terrorists" and "hostage-takers". Whatever. Oddly, it is not the first time in my life that I have been called a "terrorist". (Don't ask...). Each new round of names has produced...nothing.

Finally, it looks like we are coming full circle and perhaps their next play is being signaled by Sen. John Kerry (iDiot/MA).  As he explains on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Friday...well...just read:

"And I have to tell you, I say this to you politely. The media in America has a bigger responsibility than it's exercising today. The media has got to begin to not give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody asserts it or simply because somebody says something which everybody knows is not factual."

 "It doesn't deserve the same credit as a legitimate idea about what you do. And the problem is everything is put into this tit-for-tat equal battle and America is losing any sense of what's real, of who's accountable, of who is not accountable, of who's real, who isn't, who's serious, who isn't?"

They ignored us, they insulted us, they accused us of heinous acts of violence, and now it sounds they are back to wanting to ignore us again.  Well,  all I can say is keep up the good work guys.  Hopefully, by the 2012 elections, we'll have a few names of our own to call you starting with my personal favorite - "former". [+] Read More...

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Obama "Failed to Lead"

Exactly what makes a person a leader is difficult to define. Some people have it, some don’t. But one thing all leaders have is the ability to chart a course and persuade people to follow them on that course. Barack Obama is not a leader. . . and people are starting to notice. People like Sen. Joe Manchin and Sen. John Kerry.

In February, Democratic Senator John Kerry publicly worried that Obama’s Afghanistan policy was failing. His reasoning? At the core of his argument is a lack of leadership. Said Kerry:

“What I don’t want is to be party to a policy that continues simply because it is there and in place. . . that is what I’m determined to try to prevent.”

Translation: there has been no leadership here. Obama is just doing what everybody else has done, and he doesn't have the leadership ability to change course.

But at least he's done something, which is itself unusual. Indeed, compare this to Egypt, where Obama had no idea what to say, so he said nothing, before he said something, before he said something else. At the same time, his “team” was busy contradicting him in every direction. Finally, when the outcome was clear, Obama tried to pretend that this was his plan all along.

Interestingly, his non-leadership on Egypt continues. This week, British Prime Minster Cameron is in Egypt, to meet with the new government and offer support. Obama was golfing.

Or look at Libya, where Obama didn’t say a word for over a week. When he did finally speak, he told us he had to be briefed first. While he was busy arranging a meeting with his staff, the British went to the UN and started working on sanctions against Libya. Then the British, Chinese and others evacuated their people, as Obama issued statements on Wisconsin. Now the British and NATO are working on imposing a no fly zone and/or aiding the Libyan rebels. Obama went golfing.

Now we have West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin ripping apart Obama’s budget proposal. He calls Obama’s budget a failure of leadership:

“Why are we doing all this when the most powerful person in these negotiations — our president — has failed to lead this debate or offer a serious proposal for spending and cuts that he would be willing to fight for?”

Oh Joe, you poor deluded hillbilly. Obama doesn’t lead from the front, he never has. When he came to power, he didn't outline a clear agenda like other Presidents, he spoke vaguely of giving health care to everyone, saving the world from global warming, fixing China, producing millions of jobs, and about two dozen other quasi-policy platitudes. And when the Democrats asked, “what do we work on first?” He said, “that’s up to you.” When they plowed into healthcare and the cracks emerged between moderate and liberal Democrats, and they asked him “help us decide who is right,” he said “hey, I’m not going to decide for you.” When they asked him to decide how to pay for ObamaCare and whether a single payer should be used, he got angry and told them to do the right thing. Then he went golfing.

Immigration reform and cap and trade died because he refused to get involved.

Financial reform? “Go ahead Sen. Dodd, I’ll sign whatever you and countrywide send me.”

Stimulus spending? “Sure, send it on over, I’ll sign it. . . whatever it is.”

You don’t want to approve my appointments? “Ok, whatever.”

When BP tried to destroy the Gulf of Mexico, Obama went golfing. He waited weeks before he even said the words "BP." Then he whined that his handlers hadn’t told him yet “whose ass to kick.” Leaders usually know those kinds of details.

He failed to respond to a terrorist attempt to blow up an airplane over Detroit, because he was on vacation. He failed to respond to Haiti until others showed him the way. The Chinese and other BRIC countries blew him off in Copenhagen because they saw him as irrelevant. The pirates in Somalia see him as a joke. He had to send Bill Clinton to save some journalists in North Korea, and he was nowhere to be seen when the North fired artillery shells at the South. He hasn’t even been able to find the American border with Mexico.

When the Republicans took over the House and a budget war started, he sold out the Democrats before the negotiations even began. Heck, even his State of the Union speech was just a list of things prior Presidents have done and a whiny request that everybody try harder. . . at stuff.

Obama is not a leader. He lacks the brain power to have an ideology, i.e. he has no ideas what he wants. He lacks the savvy to persuade people. And he lacks the willpower to stand in a fight.

So poor Joe Manchin better get ready for a lot more disappointment.

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