White House Pretends Taxes Haven't Gone Up on Middle Class After Fiscal Cliff Deal
Despite Americans seeing a two percent jump in their Social Security
taxes and less money in their bank accounts after the fiscal cliff deal
was signed via auto pen on behalf of President Obama last week, the
White House is pretending rates stayed the same. In an email to
supporters yesterday, White House Senior Adviser David Plouffe wrote:
The stories Plouffe won't be putting on the front page of WhiteHouse.gov are those of angry voters wondering why their paychecks are less, after all, the President promised he'd take care of them by only soaking the rich. More from Twitchy:
On another note, notice Plouffe's use of the media to push the White House agenda, "Reporters wrote stories about the way that you were adding your voices to this debate." Still wondering how Obama got re-elected? This is one reason why. Notice how the same reporters aren't talking or writing about the latest tax increase and broken White House promise of helping the middle class.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/01/10/white-house-pretends-taxes-havent-gone-up-on-middle-class-after-fiscal-cliff-deal-n1486213
The Labor Department reported this morning that initial jobless
claims last week rose by 4,000 to 371,000. Economists had been expecting
a decrease in the number of Americans making their first filing for
unemployment benefits. The less-volatile 4-week moving average jumped to
365,750.
Over 5 million Americans are now collecting unemployment benefits. The sluggishness of the job market acts as a brake on economic growth. Consumer spending, which accounts for around two-thirds of economic activity, is strongly correlated with job and wage growth.
For the past two years, the economy as added just around 150,000 new jobs each month. That is barely enough to keep up with population growth. The economy needs to double that monthly average to accelerate economic growth.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/10/unexpected-jobless-claims-rise-to-371k
A bankrupt Massachusetts solar company that received more than $30 million in state funds continues to cost taxpayers money in the form of special unemployment assistance from the Department of Labor, according to a Wednesday press release.
Labor announced a $408,403 National Emergency Grant increment for continued assistance to roughly 320 workers affected by the 2011 closure of Evergreen Solar Inc.
This latest block of aid brings the total funds awarded for the project to $738,179.
“The former workers of Evergreen Solar continue to face significant obstacles in finding good jobs in their region,” Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said in a statement. “This funding will make it possible for these workers to receive training and reemployment services to help them find good jobs.”
Evergreen Solar received an estimated $31 million in state funding from the administration of Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.
Massachusetts taxpayers were left on the hook for nearly $10 million of that aid when the company went bankrupt and laid off roughly 800 employees.
The affected Evergreen workers are also receiving Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) benefits, according to the Labor Department press release.
The TAA program is administered by the Department of Labor and aids workers who lose their jobs or have hours or wages reduced due to foreign competition.
Aggressive competition from China has been blamed for the downfall of a number of domestic solar companies in recent years, including several that received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants as part of President Barack Obama’s green energy initiative such as Solyndra.
The Labor Department approved Evergreen for TAA benefits in March 2011.
Meanwhile, the Boston Herald reported last year that former Evergreen CEO Richard Feldt was selling his five-bedroom, two-plus acre manse for $9.9 million.
That is almost $1.4 million more than the selling price of the company’s factory.
http://freebeacon.com/more-taxpayer-funds-wasted-on-solar-company/
In this the speaker is merely admitting to a little piece of settled science: the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma.
The Prisoner's Dilemma is an arcane piece of game theory that takes forever to explain. But reduced to essentials, it tries to answer the question: should I trust the other guy?
If your answer is "more research is needed," go straight to the head of the class.
But in the real world we want answers, and fortunately, answers have emerged from a famous experiment in the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma conducted by Robert Axelrod. He invited people to submit strategies for an iterated game of Prisoner's Dilemma. The winner submitted a simple strategy, TIT-FOR-TAT, which copied the opponent's every move.
It's obvious, really. If you are in a short-term relationship with another person, then you profit by cheating him. If you are in a long-term relationship, then you should always copy the other person's actions. In other words, you should trust people who demonstrate trustworthiness, and you should not trust people who stiff you.
We can see that Speaker Boehner has been a little slow on the uptake. But now he's learned his lesson, and he won't be fooled by the president again. Fool me once...
It's obvious where the president's cheater tactics come from. They issue from his lefty culture and its formalization in Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. We could say that Rules is a primer on how to act with people you are determined to mistrust. Heck, let's expand the problem and say that the whole point of left-wing politics is to sow distrust. Don't trust the banker; he's greedy. Don't trust the grocer; he's a company store. Don't trust your employer; he's making a profit off your labor. Don't trust Wall Street; it's a casino. Don't trust the family; it's a patriarchy. Don't trust the church; the priests are hitting on little boys. Don't trust the community organizer...no, wait! The community organizer is the good guy!
The end result of all the mistrust is to cut your followers off from all relationships except their relationship to you, the community organizer. Then, of course, your followers are stuck. They have burned all their bridges, and so they must follow you, even if you lead them to national ruin like Hugo Chávez in Venezuela or the Peronists in Argentina.
Ominously, the president's tactics follow precisely the tactics of an enraged female cobra in Kipling's Jungle Books. You'll remember Nagaina telling the Brit colonial exploiters: "If you move I strike. And if you do not move I strike." Hell hath no fury like a widowed snake. She was so angry, you would think that she was upset about cuts to U.S. social programs.
Conservatives just want to get on with the sensible middle-class job of cleaning up the national balance sheet, just as Rikki-Tikki-Tavi wanted to clear the garden of cobras. But instead, it is probably best just to make life miserable for the president and the Democrats, because they still don't get it.
Here's an example. It is Joan Walsh at Salon, burbling on about "Obama's Great Society" and indulging in a little rational factual socialist argument while rearranging the administrative deck chairs on the unsinkable entitlement programs. You see, we need "universal programs for more than just the elderly - universal preschool and higher education, to cite two pressing priorities." Too late, Joanie. We already spent all the money on the elderly.
Anyway, President Obama has made his choice. He believes in mistrust and division. Without trust, there can be no deal on anything, let alone a grand bargain to reform the Democrats' beloved entitlements. But that is all right. We are never going to do anything about entitlements anyway until the inevitable sovereign debt crisis arrives. Maybe, when it does, we'll do what the Liberal Canadian Finance Minister Paul Martin did in the mid 1990s: cut programs.
When we racists, bigots, and homophobes actually do get our teeth in the neck of the administrative welfare snake, it had better be with the grudging consent of the Democrats. Otherwise, they'll be sending their thugs out into the street to start a national conversation.
Until then, conservatives and Republicans should remember the rules of the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. When your opponent shows by his actions that he can't be trusted, it means you shouldn't trust him. Ever.
Every single person who views the Hagel nomination from that perspective is completely missing the big picture, naïve at best, or ignorantly hopeful that an Obama second term will bring kumbaya camaraderie, bipartisanship, "co-existence," and the fulfillment of other left-wing utopian dreams. Alas, if the Hagel nomination does not wake the remaining Kool-Aid drinkers from their slumber, nothing will.
For the answer to anyone who questions why in the world a lame duck President Barack Hussein Obama would nominate an anti-Semitic, gay-hating, dovish, seemingly mullah-supporting, Hezbollah-sustaining, isolationist to head up the Pentagon is beyond obvious. It is because he agrees with Hagel's views! Obama has absolutely no reason to appoint anyone to his cabinet or elsewhere in his administration who is not ideologically aligned with his own worldview. Accordingly, the guy who "won" and who "brings a gun to the fight," who has consistently pitted American against American with the strategy of divide and conquer, and who continually undermines the Constitution in order to expand his own power, no longer feels constrained by the American electorate.
While Americans ignorantly ignored Obama's off-mike comment to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev that, "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility," I venture a guess that many in the international community took notice. As Medvedev responded, "I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir," perhaps Kool-Aid drinking Americans enjoyed a James Bond flashback of some Hollywood produced fantasy they enjoyed on the big screen rather than coming to terms with the true meaning of the friendly exchange. But Vladimir, Ayatollah and Mahmoud, Assad, the Muslim Brotherhood, Kim Jong Eun, and other bad players on the world stage surely took notice. Is it really any wonder that Iran's Press-TV and the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress endorsed Hagel to head up Defense?
Americans are overlooking the spots on the Obama leopard they elected to office not once, but twice. The man they chose to lead America's decline in the 21st century does not like America, abhors Israel, her people and leader, detests his country's military strength and historic accomplishments, loathes economic freedom and individual liberty, and resents those who achieve success in a democratic, capitalist society (aside from himself). Obama never really hid those views from the public although the public never removed its rose-colored glasses through which it viewed their favorite idol. The mainstream media certainly played its role in pulling the wool over the public's eyes, but a failed record after four years in office (and the little information divulged from his pre-White House days) reveals a man with tremendous disdain for everything that this country represents.
Before his first election Obama announced to the world, "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America." And while Obama began that venture in his first term, he recognized the need to have a second untethered term in order to truly accomplish his goals. So no one should be surprised that his foreign policy team will now include the triumvirate of John Kerry (the male-equivalent of Jane Fonda) at State, Chuck Hagel at Defense, and John Brennan heading up the CIA -- and good luck to anyone stupid enough to follow in the selfless and patriotic footsteps of Ambassador Stevens.
(John Brennan is a disaster to the lead the CIA; however, it may be that Obama nominated him simultaneously with Hagel so as to minimize that fight. Brennan is known for, among other things, referring to Jerusalem as "al Quds" [The Arabic name for the city), being called to resign by John McCain who exclaimed that Brennan had "lost touch with reality" when Brennan commented that having a percentage of terrorists return to terrorism after release from Gitmo "isn't that bad," proposing U.S. engagement with Hezbollah, facilitated by the unindicted co-conspirators in the Islamic Holy Land trial, the Islamic Society of North America, meeting with Muslim law students to discuss national security issues, viewing himself as a "citizen of the world" who does not support "profiling" in order to protect Americans, and reportedly having been involved in planning and encouraging the Mavi Marmara convoy to Gaza in 2010.)
Why would Obama risk a controversial choice and invite a political battle at a time when all of Washington seems mired in ugly partisanship? Because he is confident that the few Democrats who do not support the selection will fall in line like good little foot soldiers as they have to date, thus ensuring that his devious plan so too falls into place. Once again his complicit media buddies will label evil Republicans as obstructionist. In the face of honest questions about Hagel's views, Obama's surrogates both in the media and in politics will blame the Hagel-labeled "Jewish Lobby" for being "Israel-firsters" who care little to nothing about America's best interests. And he will finally be set free from having to pretend to feel anything other than disgust at Israel's Prime Minister who he has been stuck having to "deal with every day."
Most significantly, Obama never had any intention of stopping Iran from going nuclear. If Obama had any intention of preventing a nuclear Iran, he would have been an enthusiastic supporter of sanctions from the get go rather than fighting their implementation and passage tooth and nail. Instead he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the signing table only to grant waivers and exceptions that watered down their effectiveness. If he really wanted to prevent Iran from nuclear hegemony, he would have enthusiastically worked with Israel to draw a red line and put the fear of God in the mullahs that pursuing this endeavor would result in the demise of not just their nuclear facilities, but the entire Islamic regime.
Obama does not care less about his foreign policy legacy, as Benghazi, Egypt, and Syria painfully illustrate. Obama's only legacy that he cares about pertains to the transformation of America beginning with Obamacare and ending with European-style socialism. In between, his legacy involves knocking America down a few notches on the international stage, leading from behind, and blaming others for his failures. When Iran goes nuclear, it will not be Obama's fault - it will be that of the global community of which he only wants to play a small role - until he becomes secretary general of the UN.
Elevating Hagel to head up the Pentagon not only sends the palpable message to the Iranians and the rest of the world that they have nothing to fear from America with their deadly pursuits. It also ensures that Israel must now face the hard truth that any expectation of American military support in the face of such an incursion will be the stuff that dreams are made of.
American Jews who supported Obama despite his anti-Israel record will continue to make excuses, stick their heads in the sand, and defend their guy. As the Hagel nomination became official, the National Jewish Democratic Council issued a statement supporting the selection stating that they "trust that when confirmed, former Senator Chuck Hagel will follow the President's lead of providing unrivaled support for Israel." ( The irony in that statement -- given the fact that Obama's "support" for Israel is rivaled by every single one of his predecessors since Jimmy Carter -- has apparently been missed on the organization that exploited Israeli Jews in order to fabricate a pro-Obama video prior to the past election.) Jewish Senators such as Dianne Feinstein and Carl Levin have absolutely no problem with Hagel's nomination and Chuck Schumer looks forward to "exploring [Hagel's] views."
Then there is Obama advocate Alan Dershowitz, who published a column critical of Hagel's selection but stated, "Senator Hagel will have an opportunity to clarify, and hopefully to change, his previous statements with regard to these issues." Dershowitz concluded that he has "hope" that his "concerns can be allayed by the President and his nominee..." And pro-Obama Democrat, Ed Koch, chimed in on Monday with his assessment that, "Frankly, I thought that there would come a time when [Obama] would renege on what he conveyed on his support of Israel," and added, "it comes a little earlier than I thought it would." This is from a man who, despite believing that Obama would renege on his promises to the American people, voted for him anyway.
As I read of John Boehner's recent confrontation with Harry Reid, I cannot help but imagine Obama staring out at the television monitors and the faceless American people watching on the other end and thinking the same thing that Boehner so eloquently stated: "Go f--- yourself." Because that is exactly what Obama is saying to the American people when he nominated Kerry, Hagel, and Brennan. And if these recent appointments do not drive that message home to the electorate, nothing will.
With Obama steering the ship into the perfect storm of a disastrous, yet predictable foreign policy team, his favorite pastor and family friend's claims that, "America's chickens are coming home to roost" never seemed more apropos. Nor more scary.
Hello --The White House also released the following video which like Plouffe's email, says middle class taxes haven't gone up and points out that the fiscal cliff requires "the wealthy to pay their fair share."
I'll tell you what keeps driving me every day: the knowledge that people like you have our backs.
When President Obama asked you to make your voices heard to keep taxes from going up on the middle class, people from all over the country, folks in every state spoke out. More than 130,000 of you sent in stories to the White House website. There were times these past few weeks when our Twitter feeds were positively overwhelmed by people joining the debate using the #My2k hashtag.
So we put your stories on the front page of the White House website. We asked you to stand behind the President when he laid out his position on this debate at the White House. The President went and met with one family who had shared their story. The Vice President sat down with another for lunch.
And people took notice. Reporters wrote stories about the way that you were adding your voices to this debate, and it became impossible to ignore your perspective.
The stories Plouffe won't be putting on the front page of WhiteHouse.gov are those of angry voters wondering why their paychecks are less, after all, the President promised he'd take care of them by only soaking the rich. More from Twitchy:
On another note, notice Plouffe's use of the media to push the White House agenda, "Reporters wrote stories about the way that you were adding your voices to this debate." Still wondering how Obama got re-elected? This is one reason why. Notice how the same reporters aren't talking or writing about the latest tax increase and broken White House promise of helping the middle class.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/01/10/white-house-pretends-taxes-havent-gone-up-on-middle-class-after-fiscal-cliff-deal-n1486213
Unexpected: Jobless Claims Rise to 371k
Over 5 million Americans are now collecting unemployment benefits. The sluggishness of the job market acts as a brake on economic growth. Consumer spending, which accounts for around two-thirds of economic activity, is strongly correlated with job and wage growth.
For the past two years, the economy as added just around 150,000 new jobs each month. That is barely enough to keep up with population growth. The economy needs to double that monthly average to accelerate economic growth.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/10/unexpected-jobless-claims-rise-to-371k
More Taxpayer Funds Wasted
on Solar Company
on Solar Company
Dept. of Labor grants additional $400K to laid off Evergreen Solar employees
A bankrupt Massachusetts solar company that received more than $30 million in state funds continues to cost taxpayers money in the form of special unemployment assistance from the Department of Labor, according to a Wednesday press release.
Labor announced a $408,403 National Emergency Grant increment for continued assistance to roughly 320 workers affected by the 2011 closure of Evergreen Solar Inc.
This latest block of aid brings the total funds awarded for the project to $738,179.
“The former workers of Evergreen Solar continue to face significant obstacles in finding good jobs in their region,” Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said in a statement. “This funding will make it possible for these workers to receive training and reemployment services to help them find good jobs.”
Evergreen Solar received an estimated $31 million in state funding from the administration of Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.
Massachusetts taxpayers were left on the hook for nearly $10 million of that aid when the company went bankrupt and laid off roughly 800 employees.
The affected Evergreen workers are also receiving Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) benefits, according to the Labor Department press release.
The TAA program is administered by the Department of Labor and aids workers who lose their jobs or have hours or wages reduced due to foreign competition.
Aggressive competition from China has been blamed for the downfall of a number of domestic solar companies in recent years, including several that received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants as part of President Barack Obama’s green energy initiative such as Solyndra.
The Labor Department approved Evergreen for TAA benefits in March 2011.
Meanwhile, the Boston Herald reported last year that former Evergreen CEO Richard Feldt was selling his five-bedroom, two-plus acre manse for $9.9 million.
That is almost $1.4 million more than the selling price of the company’s factory.
http://freebeacon.com/more-taxpayer-funds-wasted-on-solar-company/
President Obama and the Prisoner's Dilemma
The word about negotiations is that Speaker Boehner has vowed not to negotiate one-on-one with President Obama anymore. Not after being stiffed twice by the president -- first in the 2011 debt ceiling negotiations, and second in the fiscal cliff deal.In this the speaker is merely admitting to a little piece of settled science: the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma.
The Prisoner's Dilemma is an arcane piece of game theory that takes forever to explain. But reduced to essentials, it tries to answer the question: should I trust the other guy?
If your answer is "more research is needed," go straight to the head of the class.
But in the real world we want answers, and fortunately, answers have emerged from a famous experiment in the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma conducted by Robert Axelrod. He invited people to submit strategies for an iterated game of Prisoner's Dilemma. The winner submitted a simple strategy, TIT-FOR-TAT, which copied the opponent's every move.
It's obvious, really. If you are in a short-term relationship with another person, then you profit by cheating him. If you are in a long-term relationship, then you should always copy the other person's actions. In other words, you should trust people who demonstrate trustworthiness, and you should not trust people who stiff you.
We can see that Speaker Boehner has been a little slow on the uptake. But now he's learned his lesson, and he won't be fooled by the president again. Fool me once...
It's obvious where the president's cheater tactics come from. They issue from his lefty culture and its formalization in Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. We could say that Rules is a primer on how to act with people you are determined to mistrust. Heck, let's expand the problem and say that the whole point of left-wing politics is to sow distrust. Don't trust the banker; he's greedy. Don't trust the grocer; he's a company store. Don't trust your employer; he's making a profit off your labor. Don't trust Wall Street; it's a casino. Don't trust the family; it's a patriarchy. Don't trust the church; the priests are hitting on little boys. Don't trust the community organizer...no, wait! The community organizer is the good guy!
The end result of all the mistrust is to cut your followers off from all relationships except their relationship to you, the community organizer. Then, of course, your followers are stuck. They have burned all their bridges, and so they must follow you, even if you lead them to national ruin like Hugo Chávez in Venezuela or the Peronists in Argentina.
Ominously, the president's tactics follow precisely the tactics of an enraged female cobra in Kipling's Jungle Books. You'll remember Nagaina telling the Brit colonial exploiters: "If you move I strike. And if you do not move I strike." Hell hath no fury like a widowed snake. She was so angry, you would think that she was upset about cuts to U.S. social programs.
Conservatives just want to get on with the sensible middle-class job of cleaning up the national balance sheet, just as Rikki-Tikki-Tavi wanted to clear the garden of cobras. But instead, it is probably best just to make life miserable for the president and the Democrats, because they still don't get it.
Here's an example. It is Joan Walsh at Salon, burbling on about "Obama's Great Society" and indulging in a little rational factual socialist argument while rearranging the administrative deck chairs on the unsinkable entitlement programs. You see, we need "universal programs for more than just the elderly - universal preschool and higher education, to cite two pressing priorities." Too late, Joanie. We already spent all the money on the elderly.
Anyway, President Obama has made his choice. He believes in mistrust and division. Without trust, there can be no deal on anything, let alone a grand bargain to reform the Democrats' beloved entitlements. But that is all right. We are never going to do anything about entitlements anyway until the inevitable sovereign debt crisis arrives. Maybe, when it does, we'll do what the Liberal Canadian Finance Minister Paul Martin did in the mid 1990s: cut programs.
When we racists, bigots, and homophobes actually do get our teeth in the neck of the administrative welfare snake, it had better be with the grudging consent of the Democrats. Otherwise, they'll be sending their thugs out into the street to start a national conversation.
Until then, conservatives and Republicans should remember the rules of the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. When your opponent shows by his actions that he can't be trusted, it means you shouldn't trust him. Ever.
Flexibility Comes Home to Roost
Political analysts, pundits, journalists, and even some lay people across the globe are questioning Obama's choice of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. Hagel's impending nomination has been the subject of radio talk shows, cable news panels, and conservative and liberal columnists for a number of weeks now, reaching a crescendo on Monday when the official nomination was announced. The general consensus seems to be, "What in the world was Obama thinking nominating someone so controversial, who will entail the expense of major political capital when too many more important fights lie ahead, and whose confirmation is so questionable."Every single person who views the Hagel nomination from that perspective is completely missing the big picture, naïve at best, or ignorantly hopeful that an Obama second term will bring kumbaya camaraderie, bipartisanship, "co-existence," and the fulfillment of other left-wing utopian dreams. Alas, if the Hagel nomination does not wake the remaining Kool-Aid drinkers from their slumber, nothing will.
For the answer to anyone who questions why in the world a lame duck President Barack Hussein Obama would nominate an anti-Semitic, gay-hating, dovish, seemingly mullah-supporting, Hezbollah-sustaining, isolationist to head up the Pentagon is beyond obvious. It is because he agrees with Hagel's views! Obama has absolutely no reason to appoint anyone to his cabinet or elsewhere in his administration who is not ideologically aligned with his own worldview. Accordingly, the guy who "won" and who "brings a gun to the fight," who has consistently pitted American against American with the strategy of divide and conquer, and who continually undermines the Constitution in order to expand his own power, no longer feels constrained by the American electorate.
While Americans ignorantly ignored Obama's off-mike comment to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev that, "This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility," I venture a guess that many in the international community took notice. As Medvedev responded, "I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir," perhaps Kool-Aid drinking Americans enjoyed a James Bond flashback of some Hollywood produced fantasy they enjoyed on the big screen rather than coming to terms with the true meaning of the friendly exchange. But Vladimir, Ayatollah and Mahmoud, Assad, the Muslim Brotherhood, Kim Jong Eun, and other bad players on the world stage surely took notice. Is it really any wonder that Iran's Press-TV and the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress endorsed Hagel to head up Defense?
Americans are overlooking the spots on the Obama leopard they elected to office not once, but twice. The man they chose to lead America's decline in the 21st century does not like America, abhors Israel, her people and leader, detests his country's military strength and historic accomplishments, loathes economic freedom and individual liberty, and resents those who achieve success in a democratic, capitalist society (aside from himself). Obama never really hid those views from the public although the public never removed its rose-colored glasses through which it viewed their favorite idol. The mainstream media certainly played its role in pulling the wool over the public's eyes, but a failed record after four years in office (and the little information divulged from his pre-White House days) reveals a man with tremendous disdain for everything that this country represents.
Before his first election Obama announced to the world, "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America." And while Obama began that venture in his first term, he recognized the need to have a second untethered term in order to truly accomplish his goals. So no one should be surprised that his foreign policy team will now include the triumvirate of John Kerry (the male-equivalent of Jane Fonda) at State, Chuck Hagel at Defense, and John Brennan heading up the CIA -- and good luck to anyone stupid enough to follow in the selfless and patriotic footsteps of Ambassador Stevens.
(John Brennan is a disaster to the lead the CIA; however, it may be that Obama nominated him simultaneously with Hagel so as to minimize that fight. Brennan is known for, among other things, referring to Jerusalem as "al Quds" [The Arabic name for the city), being called to resign by John McCain who exclaimed that Brennan had "lost touch with reality" when Brennan commented that having a percentage of terrorists return to terrorism after release from Gitmo "isn't that bad," proposing U.S. engagement with Hezbollah, facilitated by the unindicted co-conspirators in the Islamic Holy Land trial, the Islamic Society of North America, meeting with Muslim law students to discuss national security issues, viewing himself as a "citizen of the world" who does not support "profiling" in order to protect Americans, and reportedly having been involved in planning and encouraging the Mavi Marmara convoy to Gaza in 2010.)
Why would Obama risk a controversial choice and invite a political battle at a time when all of Washington seems mired in ugly partisanship? Because he is confident that the few Democrats who do not support the selection will fall in line like good little foot soldiers as they have to date, thus ensuring that his devious plan so too falls into place. Once again his complicit media buddies will label evil Republicans as obstructionist. In the face of honest questions about Hagel's views, Obama's surrogates both in the media and in politics will blame the Hagel-labeled "Jewish Lobby" for being "Israel-firsters" who care little to nothing about America's best interests. And he will finally be set free from having to pretend to feel anything other than disgust at Israel's Prime Minister who he has been stuck having to "deal with every day."
Most significantly, Obama never had any intention of stopping Iran from going nuclear. If Obama had any intention of preventing a nuclear Iran, he would have been an enthusiastic supporter of sanctions from the get go rather than fighting their implementation and passage tooth and nail. Instead he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the signing table only to grant waivers and exceptions that watered down their effectiveness. If he really wanted to prevent Iran from nuclear hegemony, he would have enthusiastically worked with Israel to draw a red line and put the fear of God in the mullahs that pursuing this endeavor would result in the demise of not just their nuclear facilities, but the entire Islamic regime.
Obama does not care less about his foreign policy legacy, as Benghazi, Egypt, and Syria painfully illustrate. Obama's only legacy that he cares about pertains to the transformation of America beginning with Obamacare and ending with European-style socialism. In between, his legacy involves knocking America down a few notches on the international stage, leading from behind, and blaming others for his failures. When Iran goes nuclear, it will not be Obama's fault - it will be that of the global community of which he only wants to play a small role - until he becomes secretary general of the UN.
Elevating Hagel to head up the Pentagon not only sends the palpable message to the Iranians and the rest of the world that they have nothing to fear from America with their deadly pursuits. It also ensures that Israel must now face the hard truth that any expectation of American military support in the face of such an incursion will be the stuff that dreams are made of.
American Jews who supported Obama despite his anti-Israel record will continue to make excuses, stick their heads in the sand, and defend their guy. As the Hagel nomination became official, the National Jewish Democratic Council issued a statement supporting the selection stating that they "trust that when confirmed, former Senator Chuck Hagel will follow the President's lead of providing unrivaled support for Israel." ( The irony in that statement -- given the fact that Obama's "support" for Israel is rivaled by every single one of his predecessors since Jimmy Carter -- has apparently been missed on the organization that exploited Israeli Jews in order to fabricate a pro-Obama video prior to the past election.) Jewish Senators such as Dianne Feinstein and Carl Levin have absolutely no problem with Hagel's nomination and Chuck Schumer looks forward to "exploring [Hagel's] views."
Then there is Obama advocate Alan Dershowitz, who published a column critical of Hagel's selection but stated, "Senator Hagel will have an opportunity to clarify, and hopefully to change, his previous statements with regard to these issues." Dershowitz concluded that he has "hope" that his "concerns can be allayed by the President and his nominee..." And pro-Obama Democrat, Ed Koch, chimed in on Monday with his assessment that, "Frankly, I thought that there would come a time when [Obama] would renege on what he conveyed on his support of Israel," and added, "it comes a little earlier than I thought it would." This is from a man who, despite believing that Obama would renege on his promises to the American people, voted for him anyway.
As I read of John Boehner's recent confrontation with Harry Reid, I cannot help but imagine Obama staring out at the television monitors and the faceless American people watching on the other end and thinking the same thing that Boehner so eloquently stated: "Go f--- yourself." Because that is exactly what Obama is saying to the American people when he nominated Kerry, Hagel, and Brennan. And if these recent appointments do not drive that message home to the electorate, nothing will.
With Obama steering the ship into the perfect storm of a disastrous, yet predictable foreign policy team, his favorite pastor and family friend's claims that, "America's chickens are coming home to roost" never seemed more apropos. Nor more scary.
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