Joe Biden, The Expert on Iran?
Joe Biden, the Expert on Iran?
Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School, has written an article titled: “Biden’s Blink on Iran” which was published by the Washington Post. In the article Rubin says: “As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden is well versed in policy debates and carefully choreographed trips. But his record on the Islamic Republic of Iran — perhaps the chief national security threat facing the next president — suggests a persistent and dangerous judgment deficit”.
Oh, my! This sounds serious! I assure you… it is. You must read Rubin’s article. You’ll find it here:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/25/AR2008082502337_pf.html
Obama signals that he believes Foreign Affairs is extremely important in his run for the Oval office. Then he makes the mistake of choosing Biden as his running mate.
We mentioned Iran… didn’t we? Well, on Iran… Biden wants to talk… and talk… and talk… a la Jimmy Carter. Remember him? (I try very hard not to!) Biden seems to be saying that the “nuclearization” of Iran is unacceptable, and yet when “going to war” is mentioned as a possibility, to thwart the Iranian’s obvious drive for “The Bomb”, he immediately cries foul (or, “time out”) and calls for sanctions. But… what if sanctions fail? Then what does he do? He seems ready to accept that which he has already referred to as… unacceptable! See, this is what the elite democrats refer to as “nuance”. We have another word(s) for it down South! Bovine Scatology!
The good Senator, from Delaware, is about as inconsistent as they come. Israel is already upset with him because they see him as unpredictable. I must tell you… I think Israel has it about right!
In a piece titled: “What Would Biden’s Middle East Policy Look Like?” over at “Slate”, author Shmuel Rosner, apparently thinks Joe Biden is an erratic pragmatist. You will find his commentary here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2198517/
So, why did we choose Biden’s views on foreign policy as it relates to Iran? It’s simple, really. No matter who the next President is, Iran is a menace LOOMING HUGE on the horizon. The US is going to have to deal with Iran, at some point, in the very near future. It matters greatly (and even now, I am understating the danger) who the American voters place in the position to decide how the US will act, or react, toward Iran.
There are people concerned about Biden’s ability to make the right decisions about Iran, and especially Iran’s intentions toward Israel. The Executive Director of the Republican Jewish Coalition (The RJC), Matt Brooks, released the following statement a few days ago:
“With the selection of Senator Joe Biden as Senator Obama’s vice president, the Democrat’s ticket has now become an even greater gamble for the Jewish community. Throughout his career, Senator Biden has consistently been wrong on Iran and his voting record on Israel has been inconsistent. Like Obama, Biden fundamentally misunderstands the threat posed by an Iran determined to obtain nuclear weapons. Biden has continuously demonstrated poor judgment on Iran. He has voted against significant legislation that would pressure Iran to stop pursuing nuclear weapons. Biden has failed to recognize the serious threat that Iran poses to Israel and the US and its allies in the Middle East,” said RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks.
Mr. Brooks continues: “In 1998, Sen. Biden was one of only four senators to vote against the Iran Missile Proliferation Sanctions Act, a bill that punished foreign companies or other entities that sent Iran sensitive missile technology or expertise. Biden was one of the few senators to oppose the bipartisan 2007 Kyl-Lieberman Amendment labeling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. In a December 2007 debate, Biden said “Iran is not a nuclear threat to the United States of America.” On MSNBC’s “Hardball,” Biden said he “never believed” Iran had a weapon system under production.”
Mr. Brooks went on to say: “The Jewish community was already gravely concerned with Senator Obama’s naive understanding of the Iranian threat. An Obama-Biden ticket has proven that it is ill-equipped to deal with this threat. By selecting Senator Biden to join his ticket, voting for Senator Obama has now become an even greater risk.” You’ll find the entire article here:
http://blogs.jta.org/politics/2008/08/23/782/jewish-republicans-bidens-soft-on-iran/
Mr. Biden, it would seem, is going to have some difficulty convincing voters of his expertise in Middle Eastern affairs and is certainly leaving open, for questioning, whether he has the qualifications to service as the Vice President of the US, an office that holds a tremendous amount of “sway” over the Foreign Policy of the US.
Mr. Biden has served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for over twenty-five years, including during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. He has been either the ranking member, or the chairman of the committee, for over a decade, now. Could it be that he has been using his position to gain even higher office? I mean, career politicians do it all the time. Certainly, if that were true, it still would not disqualify him for consideration as Vice President of the US, now would it? Of course not! But, having said that, we hasten to add that claiming some sort of expert status on Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy, especially in the Middle East, is a difficult thing, indeed, these days, given the state of, shall we say… “flux”… in which that region finds itself practically every hour. Mr. Biden would do well to carefully measure his words and his “pronouncements” (even more so) now that he is being considered, by the American people, for a “government position” that he absolutely must convince us he is prepared for.
J. D. Longstreet
Conservative+Biden+US+Iran+War+policy
Comments Off on Joe Biden, The Expert on Iran?
Who Can Be President of the US?
Eligibility to Be President of the US
By: J. D. Longstreet
I have been following this and watching this story develop since picking up on it, a while back (June ’08), on an Israeli site Israeli Insider. The article is titled: “As Obama stonewalls on uncertified birth certificate, official doubts mount”. You’ll find the story here:
http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/12944.htm
Back on June 27th, 2008, the American Thinker had this piece titled: “Obama birth certificate mystery still unsolved”. You’ll find the article at:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/06/obama_birth_certificate_myster.html
It is just now coming to the fore and I suspect if will soon hit the mainstream media which, as we all know by now, trails behind the “New” media by anywhere from several days to several months!
So why bring this up now? Well, let us see what has happened and what is happening:
Currently, a prominent Democrat is suing Obama in a Philadelphia Federal Court. The title of the piece at Americas Right is: “Obama sued in Philadelphia federal Court on grounds he is constitutionally Ineligible for the Presidency”. Philip Berg, the filing attorney, is a former gubernatorial and senatorial candidate, former chair of the Democratic Party in Montgomery (PA) County, former member of the Democratic State Committee, and former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania. (From Americas Right.com) As you can plainly see, Mr. Berg isn’t a lightweight! You’ll find the story here:
http://www.americasright.com/2008/08/obama-sued-in-philadelphia-federal.html
Sounds bad, right? Well, not so fast! Over at World Net Daily, they have another take on this whole mess. The article is entitled: “Democrat sues Sen. Obama over fraudulent candidacy”. You’ll find it at:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/?pageId=73214
We also found an article from June ’08 at The Swamp, which says flatly that Yes, Obama is a citizen of the US. You’ll find it here:
www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/
2008/06/is_barack_obama_a_us_citizen_y.html (You may have to copy and past this URL into your browser if the line is broken.)
So what difference does all this make? Not much, really. I just find it interesting that we get so caught up in this sort of thing. I think it all derives from our never-ending Presidential campaigns, instituted, if memory serves, by the Clintons. It seems we have had one long, never-ending, (I said that already, didn’t I?) campaign for the office of President since Bill Clinton set foot on the carpet of the Oval office… and I, for one, am tired of it.
The Constitution of the Confederate States of America limited a president to one six year term, period. I could support amending the US Constitution to one term for the President… not to exceed six years… and that would be for a lifetime… no coming back, after a few years out of office, and be eligible to run again.
So let’s cut through all the smoke and mirrors stuff and see what the Constitution actually says about the qualifications to be President of the US:
Article II says: “Article II. – The Executive Branch
…”No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”…
That’s it! That’s all there is to it. So… can we dispense with all the diversions and get this election over with? I am sooooo ready for it to end!
J. D. Longstreet
Comments Off on Who Can Be President of the US?
Next Up… Controling the Flow of Information
Control the Flow of Information and You Control the Lives of Americans!
That’s where America is headed. Until the Fairness Doctrine was trashed, in the late 1980’s the Left in America controlled the flow of information to Americans. Daily Newspapers, radio news, TV news, Public Affairs programs on the broadcast media, all the major news outlets espoused views to the left of the views of average Americans.
Consumers of news, in the US, were covered up with left wing news and views and leftward slanted editorializing… even with what would have been legitimate news stories.
Then the country actually allowed freedom of speech on the broadcast media and the tidal wave of conservative news and views and opinion swept all before it. The power of conservative ideas mauled the left wing media, badly. Conservative broadcasters, alone, can move the conservative giant in America to action unlike anything the left wing has seen. They knew the conservative giant was there but they kept it in a state of slumber with their monotone left wing mutterings. They knew that once the power of conservatism was loosed it would wreak havoc on their left wing propaganda machine. And it did!
When the right wing “talkers’ roared aloud on the AM broadcast spectrum… the conservatives… who had been slumbering in a left wing induced stupor, awoke and shrugged off the mantle of doom and gloom and pessimism and began to flex muscles they had forgotten they had. For the first time since the 1940’s conservative Americans had a voice. A voice in the public square! And they USED it!
Soon it became apparent that conservative spokesmen on the airwaves welded immense power…the power to move Americans to action… the power to influence elections… the power to influence legislation in the Congress and far more dangerous… the power to disseminate the truth to a truth starved nation. Conservative talk radio became the moving force in America. With some 70% of Americans holding conservative views, to one degree or another, on politics, religion, and social practices, the left wing suddenly found itself struggling to be heard above the booming voices from the right. Every attempt at re-establishing a beachhead on the broadcast spectrum was crushed save for one government sponsored broadcast system, paid for by tax money from conservatives as well as liberals.
The one area in American life where the left still holds the reins of power is in the various government agencies. The American government is run by liberals who train from the crib to college for lives as bureaucrats holding power over the masses. That kind of job is anathema to conservatives. As a result, few real conservatives work in government. But for those liberals who do, the writing has been on the wall for sometime. The conservative talkers on the broadcast media are thwarting them and those powerful conservatives must be stopped!
But… what to do? Ahhh. That is the question. Re-imposition of the Fairness Doctrine… plus, add on the Equal Time Rule. (By the way, for those of you not familiar with broadcasting… the “Fairness Doctrine” and the “Equal Time Rule” are separate things… not one and the same… as many people think.) The left knows the Fairness Doctrine alone will squash right wing talkers and the Equal Time Rule will bury them.
And… it is pay back time! After the right wing talkers moved their audiences to crush the Amnesty Bill in the US Senate, the left wing began to gear up to crush the upstarts on the right.
It has been said there is no conservative leadership in Washington DC, in the US government. That is true. So… where does the right wing leadership come from? Of course, the conservative leadership comes for the right wing radio hosts and TV hosts. The seat of power for the right wing in America is on the Broadcast spectrum! On the Internet, conservative bloggers are catching up, and quickly.
The Conservative Internet? Well, it is young and suffering the pangs of youth but… it IS growing and… it IS becoming stronger on a daily basis. Blogs, such as this one, and millions of other right wing blogs are carrying the “Conservative Message” to the entire world… not just to the US! The left knows they cannot hope to vanquish the “conservative movement” in America by silencing right wing radio and TV alone. To be effective they MUST silence both the right wing broadcasters and the right wing bloggers. They are two sides of the same coin.
Conservatives must not relax during this time of “pull-back” by the left. They’ll come roaring back in a few weeks and silencing the “conservative message machine” will second on their minds only to winning the election in ’08!
Be ready.
J. D. Longstreet
Comments Off on Next Up… Controling the Flow of Information
Without the American Family, There Is No America!
Will America Survive Without Her Families?
By J. D. Longstreet
***************************
What has happened to the American family? It doesn’t exist, anymore. Oh, we have something we like to call “family”, often times living beneath the same roof, but it’s not family… not in the true sense of the word.America has redefined Family until we have defined it out of existence. I think that was intentional. Our socialist brothers and sisters, on the left, want to control this country and to do that they must destroy the basic building blocks of this republic and reassemble those blocks to suit themselves. The single most important building block of any nation is her families. Destroy that and you can easily lay claim to a nation’s soul. And that is exactly what has happened.
I saw, a short time ago in the press, that families with unmarried parents now out number families with married parents in America. In the first place, the group of people with unmarried parents, at its head, is NOT a family… in the true sense of the word. So the entire report was based upon the flawed assumption that a family is a group of people with the authority figure either married or unmarried. That is not the classic family. That is a mob.
Americans, look around you and consider that we have a society rotten at its core. The core of civilization is the family and when that core does not exist, or is mortally wounded, as ours in America is, then a country’s entire society is in peril. If there is any doubt that America’s society is in danger, pick up any newspaper, turn on any TV news channel, or just stand still for a moment and look around you.
We have failed, as a people, to protect our families. We have, through social programs, and such, made it much easier to dissolve the family and to create something acceptable to the “socialist shadow government”, working behind the scenes in America, in order to provide the necessities for that group, without actually working for it, nor providing the guidance of a nuclear family. The children coming out of such a “mock-up” of a family have no way of knowing that their experience was anything less than normal and they create their own… and in so doing… perpetuate the rot at our core.
Here in America we have an entire underclass, and entire segment of American society, who are wards of the US government.
We have so may children, and grown young people, now, who were “raised by a village”, and not a family, that they lack those “familial ties” that anchor all humanity to the core of a family and that core is… love for one another. It isn’t there… and they are empty. Their souls are just barely attached to their bodies.
We look around us in awe, and wonder, when some child, or young adult, armed to the teeth, walks into a school and begins to pump round after round into innocent children. We gaze at the vivid stories on TV news of heinous murders committed by a young person who looks just like the boy, or girl, living down the street from us. And… we still don’t get it.
Americans, look around you and consider that we have a society rotten at its core. The core of civilization is the family and when that core does not exist, or is mortally wounded, as ours in America is, then a country’s entire society is in peril. If there is any doubt that America’s society is in danger, pick up any newspaper, turn on any TV news channel, or just stand still for a moment and look around you.
We have failed, as a people, to protect our families. We have, through social programs, and such, made it much easier to dissolve the family and to create something acceptable to the “socialist shadow government”, working behind the scenes in America, in order to provide the necessities for that group, without actually working for it, nor providing the guidance of a nuclear family. The children coming out of such a “mock-up” of a family have no way of knowing that their experience was anything less than normal and they create their own… and in so doing… perpetuate the rot at our core.
Here in America we have an entire underclass, and entire segment of American society, who are wards of the US government.
We have so may children, and grown young people, now, who were “raised by a village”, and not a family, that they lack those “familial ties” that anchor all humanity to the core of a family and that core is… love for one another. It isn’t there… and they are empty. Their souls are just barely attached to their bodies.
We look around us in awe, and wonder, when some child, or young adult, armed to the teeth, walks into a school and begins to pump round after round into innocent children. We gaze at the vivid stories on TV news of heinous murders committed by a young person who looks just like the boy, or girl, living down the street from us. And… we still don’t get it.
It’s OUR fault. We destroyed the American family. Why? … Because… it was expedient. A tight nit family is nearly impossible to manipulate. But as with any organization, break it apart… and you can destroy it, piece by piece, and that is what we have done.
Our children are sent to nurseries, as sucklings, because the mother must report for work at the end of the allotted family leave period. The children don’t see their parents, save for short periods in the morning, as they are prepared for daycare, in the evenings as they are prepared for bed, and on the weekend when parents are worn out from their daily jobs and have no time to spend with them.
Then those same children are sent off, at the age of six, to the public school system run by a government intent on molding their minds in the way it would have them go… and they spend 12 years in that system. The tie with their parents remains about the same, but becomes even more tenuous as the years speed by. Then… there is college. And there the finished product is rolled out. The liberalities of the college instructors and professors further mold those young minds into automatons of the socialist agenda.
The process is now complete and the product is a near heartless, soulless, individual who believes his upbringing was NORMAL!!!
We have at least two generations of these automatons walking among us. They are now in positions of power in our government, in our universities, in our public schools, and in our churches… and America is the worse for it.
That bright shinning city on a hill has been corrupted and has become dull and all it’s luster is gone. No longer does it stand as a shining beacon to the remainder of mankind as the promise of a nation, which seeks after God and liberty for its people.
It is said that all great nations commit suicide. Consider the Greeks and the Romans, from which America drew so much in founding this republic. Those great civilizations have been tossed into the dustbin of history. Soon, America will join them.
When a society defines its families… it defines itself. The American family has been ruled, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant. We no longer even understand what a family is.
The family is the bedrock upon which the pillars of this great society stand. That bedrock has crumbled and our society is showing the effects.
It is said that change is inevitable. That may be, but change can be guided and channeled in the direction a society wants to travel. In America’s case, we channeled change in the wrong direction. We replaced America’s reliance upon God with reliance upon the Federal Government. We replaced the Ten Commandments with a code of laws developed by man and loosely based on the Ten Commandments, but… we deny that. We replaced God in our public schools with school councilors, and policemen, and metal detectors… and murder. Our religion has gone weak in the knees with many of America’s mainline churches, saying openly, that the scriptures, which have served us for well over 2000 years, are no longer relevant, that God doesn’t actually matter anymore.
The plain truth is, dear reader, we have condemned ourselves.
Can we turn it around? I don’t think so. America is racing toward the apocalypse, the final hour when all will be irrelevant. Nothing will matter any longer. “The End” will have been writ large across the pages of history and America will be but a footnote.
The scriptures tell us that God’s Spirit will not always strive with man. At some point God will pull back that protecting hand, that guiding hand, that gracious hand. America has grown fat and arrogant and, like the builders of the tower of Babel, we have taken it upon ourselves to “be like God”. And, frankly… we’re not big enough.
Man’s instructions were simply enough. A man and woman should cling to one another and be fruitful and multiply… and create families. Children were admonished to honor their fathers and mothers. The parents, likewise, were admonished to not provoke their children to anger. In other words… love one another. Love was the basic building block of the family and the family was the basic building block of man’s society.
Now, here in America, we have destroyed the family. Our foundation is gone, our anchor is gone, and we are adrift, soon to slip beneath the waves… as history sails on… without America.
J. D. Longstreet
Then those same children are sent off, at the age of six, to the public school system run by a government intent on molding their minds in the way it would have them go… and they spend 12 years in that system. The tie with their parents remains about the same, but becomes even more tenuous as the years speed by. Then… there is college. And there the finished product is rolled out. The liberalities of the college instructors and professors further mold those young minds into automatons of the socialist agenda.
The process is now complete and the product is a near heartless, soulless, individual who believes his upbringing was NORMAL!!!
We have at least two generations of these automatons walking among us. They are now in positions of power in our government, in our universities, in our public schools, and in our churches… and America is the worse for it.
It is said that all great nations commit suicide. Consider the Greeks and the Romans, from which America drew so much in founding this republic. Those great civilizations have been tossed into the dustbin of history. Soon, America will join them.
Can we turn it around? I don’t think so. America is racing toward the apocalypse, the final hour when all will be irrelevant. Nothing will matter any longer. “The End” will have been writ large across the pages of history and America will be but a footnote.
Comments Off on Without the American Family, There Is No America!
Putin Threats Aimed At America!
Bristling at Being Threatened by Putin
by: J. D. Longstreet
The US has just been challenged to a duel. Hey, I’m a Southerner! I’m a throwback to the days of defending one’s honor on the field of honor by a duel! Yep, I’m a hopeless romantic, I suppose.
That doesn’t change the fact that Putin is threatening us through Poland. Secretary of State Rice can “dismiss” Putin’s threat if she dares, and apparently she does dare, but I have to tell you, it will be at our peril and the peril of the good people of Poland if we do. If Putin says he will attack Poland… Putin WILL attack Poland. (See: Georgia!) To her credit, Dr, Rice did say this: “When you threaten Poland, you perhaps forget that it is not 1988,” Rice said. “It’s 2008 and the United States has a … firm treaty guarantee to defend Poland’s territory as if it was the territory of the United States. So it’s probably not wise to throw these threats around.”
Look, the deal to place Interceptor missiles in Poland is a done deal. It is going to happen. If Putin sends troops into Poland by land or by air, there will be hell to pay. If Russian air forces, missiles, or ground assault troops, take the lives of American troops and/or American civilian support personal, the proverbial “ship will hit the sand”! The US Military WILL respond. Most likely, the Russian airbases, from which the attacking Russian aircraft took off for their raid on Poland, will cease to exist… in short order.
Somehow, the world has come to believe the US military is fighting at it’s maximum in the Middle East today. That is far from being true. We have military assets that have not been committed to battle in the Middle East and are standing by for such an eventuality as an attack by, oh, say… Russia. Our enemies should not believe all they read, hear, and see in our leftist mainstream media today. The US Military is, even at it’s weakest, a force to be reckoned with. The Russian military may be a mile wide, but look past the width and you will quickly see it is only an inch deep.
I sincerely hope the Administration is taking Putin seriously. I happen to think that Putin WILL carry out his threat. It may come in a way we least expect, but, rest assured Mr. Putin does not make idle threats.
Poland is a member of NATO. If there is indeed a Russian strike on Poland, according to the NATO compact, it will be considered an attack on all the nations of NATO and ALL the Nations of NATO will respond with Military attacks on Russia. I have an idea that US subs are making their way to stations off Russia even as I write this and they are “loaded for bear” with everything from cruise missiles to the big boys, the boomers, the nuclear ballistic missiles. Those black bat-wing bombers are ready, at a moment’s notice, to take to the skies in retaliation.
Putin has been stretching the envelope recently, anyway. It is as though he is deliberately tweaking the nose of the US. Rumors of Russian nuclear bomber refueling bases in Cuba, more in Venezuela, and probing our air defenses, and Great Britain’s, as well, would indicate that he is up to something.
If it sounds scary, that’s because it is! If this “dust-up” with Russia causes you concern, it should. I would expect, and I would hope, any US strike against Russia would be limited to those Russian assets having made the raid on Poland. After that, the next step by the US would be determined by Putin’s reaction.
These are, indeed, perilous times. It is not a stretch to say we could be on the threshold of a war with Russia. An American of my generation can hardly forget it was Germany’s attack on none other than Poland that kicked off The Second World War. I remember, also that American military forces, totaling some 8,000 US troops, landed, once before in Russia, (in August of 1918) in defense of the 40,000 man strong military force of Czechoslovakia trapped by Russian forces as they tried to make their way to the “Western Front”. It is said that history repeats itself. Note, if you will, that… as it happens… Putin is currently exorcised about (Who else?) Czechoslovakia becoming one of the recipients, or “hosts”, of our defensive missile shield. US troops finally left Russia, in April of 1920. I think it is safe to say US forces are in no hurry to return to Russia.
Nevertheless, one of the costs of freedom is “eternal vigilance”… that is simply another way of saying… we cannot take our eyes off Putin’s Russia.
J. D. Longstreet
Comments Off on New Orleans Awaits the Coming Hurricane