Tag Archives: political parties

State’s Cynical Distortion

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The State Department accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of taking congressional testimony by Secretary of State John Kerry out of context in Netanyahu’s address to a joint meeting of Congress Tuesday.

What Kerry said in Congressional testimony:

[I]f you have a civilian power plant that’s producing power legitimately and not a threat to proliferation, you could have as many as 190,000 or more centrifuges[.]

What Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said:

He [Iran’s Supreme Leader] says, Iran plans to have 190,000 centrifuges, not 6,000 or even the 19,000 that Iran has today, but 10 times that amount—190,000 centrifuges enriching uranium. With this massive capacity, Iran could make the fuel for an entire nuclear arsenal and this in a matter of weeks, once it makes that decision.
My long-time friend, John Kerry, Secretary of State, confirmed last week that Iran could legitimately possess that massive centrifuge capacity when the deal expires.
Now I want you to think about that. The foremost sponsor of global terrorism could be weeks away from having enough enriched uranium for an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons and this with full international legitimacy.

Out of context? Not so much, FactCheck.org notwithstanding (their statement, Kerry wasn’t saying that “Iran could legitimately possess” 190,000 centrifuges. He was saying that “a civilian power plant that’s producing power legitimately” could have 190,000 or more centrifuges, simply restates what Netanyahu said Kerry said—that Iran could possess as many as 190,000 centrifuges under the Kerry/Obama deal). The Obama/Kerry deal on offer to Iran would allow Iran to have “peaceful,” “civilian” nuclear power plants “producing power legitimately.”

What’s key here is this. Those centrifuges, busily spinning away to produce fuel-grade uranium for peaceful nuclear power plants, could just as easily be spinning away through additional purification cycles to produce weapons-grade uranium. Netanyahu understands that.

John Kerry and Barack Obama just as clearly understand that; their cynicism and crocodile ire over Netanyahu’s speech aside.

See the centrifuges spin. Spin, Centrifuges, spin.

“Missing” IRS Emails

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Investigators said Thursday they have recovered 32,000 emails in backup tapes related to the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative organizations.

But they don’t know how many of them are new, and told a congressional oversight committee that IRS employees had not asked computer technicians for the tapes, as directed by a subpoena from House oversight and other investigating committees.

That admission was in direct contradiction to earlier testimony of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.

Of particular interest, other than Koskinen’s apparent lie, is that

The emails were to and from Lois Lerner, who used to head the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status.

IRS Deputy Inspector General Timothy Camus said, according to Fox News‘ paraphrase at the above link, that

investigators recovered thousands of emails from old computer tapes used to back up the agency’s email system, though he said he believed some tapes had been erased.

It’s early in this batch’s status, though; Camus also said

We recovered quite a number of emails, but until we compare those to what’s already been produced we don’t know if they’re new emails[.]

But it’s not a scandal in any event. This is simply the sort of behavior guys like David Axelrod and Barack Obama think is entirely appropriate.

This is Pretty Clear

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Regarding DHS’ potential shutdown, here’s Speaker John Boehner (R, OH):

We want to get a conference with the Senate. Now, they’ve made clear that they don’t want to go to conference. But they’re going to have a vote.

And

A spokesman for [Senator Harry (D, NV)] Reid said Sunday there will be no negotiations with the House over Homeland Security funding and immigration.

That spokesman, Adam Jentleson, added:

Senator Reid has been clear for days on the fact that there will be no conference[.]

Finally, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D, CA):

We want a clean bill. I see nothing else happening, other than a clean bill.

There you have it. The Democratic Party of No is intent on shutting down DHS in order to support President Barack Obama’s unconstitutional immigration-related “executive actions.”

Mending Fences

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President Barack Obama‘s national security adviser castigated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying the Israeli leader’s plan to address a joint session of Congress next week has been “destructive” to the relationship between the two countries.

Most administrations would take advantage of the visit of a major ally’s head of state to work out programs, resolve differences (at least down to a dull roar), even to mend fences.

Not President Barack Obama and his administration.

This is fence mending ego-ridden style. Obama just can’t stand to have grown adults not saying, “Mother, may I?” to him.

His minions in the Senate are illustrative of how widespread Obama’s poison has become. Some Senate Democrats had “invited” Netanyahu to a private audience with them: Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin (D, IL) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D, CA) among others. Netanyahu declined the secretive meeting, noting (accurately, it turns out)

I believe that doing so at this time could compound the misperception of partisanship regarding my upcoming visit[.]

Durbin was displeased:

His refusal to meet is disappointing to those of us who have stood by Israel for decades[.]

No, Dick. If you were serious, you wouldn’t demand a secret meeting; you would attend the public joint session.

A Thought on Net Neutrality

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…as conceived in secret by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.

The image below, from the AP via USA Today, is…illustrative. The outage about which the article was written was clearly the result of vandalism. Read carefully, those signs taped to the window in the image.NetNeutrality

Think about them. Think about what happens when Government controls the Internet. The concerns presently center of free speech, and those concerns are of extreme importance. But the same control gives Government control over what businesses will be allowed to operate on the Internet, and at what cost—unique, perhaps, to a company of which Government disapproves.