US Fruitless Talks with Taliban

By Sajjad Shaukat  "It is notable that in the past, Taliban leaders had refused any dialogue with America and Afghan President Hamid Karzai until foreign troops leave Afghanistan. They can again put this condition by rejecting American military presence on limited scale.
"American officials also say that the Taliban must accept the constitution and honour the gains made in the last 10 years by the Karzai regime and NATO, since they were ousted from power, but about these conditions, Taliban have shown no sign of acceptance."


Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations
 H/T to Watching America


West's romancing of the Taliban  by Praveen Swami of The Hindu  "Last month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought to reassure secular Afghans, promising that her country “intends to stay the course with our friends.” “We will not leave you on your own”, said Germany's Foreign Minister, Guido Westwelle, echoing her words."


Obama's Surrender in Afghanistan

2009: Obama: "Victory" is not our "Goal" in Afghanstan.

Will the courts rein in Obama's illegal recess appointments?

Rick Moran  "But there are also judges who wish to expand the power of the courts and this would seem to present them with such an opportunity. If the courts end up siding with the administration, the president will have been handed a new power not granted in the constitution. At the very least, it makes a mockery of the senate's "advise and consent" role."

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/glennfoden/2012/01/09/95333

The Hill: Obama's recess appointments might not hold up in court:  "Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, said waiting until Cordray or the new NLRB appointees act would make for “a much stronger case than the one they moved last week.”


NRO: Obama’s Overreach  "Yet Obama has betrayed the original understanding of the Constitution in another sense — as did Pres. George W. Bush before him. Prof. Michael Rappaport of the University of San Diego has argued that the Constitution, as originally conceived, empowered the president to make recess appointments only to those vacancies that arose when the Senate was in recess. This vacancy, however, has existed since Obama signed the Dodd-Frank bill into law in July 2010.

"If Republicans want to put teeth back into the Constitution, they should demand a return to the original understanding of the recess-appointment power in full."

Mr. Obama’s 99%; Are We Poor or Just Unequal or Both or Neither?

Victor Davis Hanson  "The 2012 campaign is heating up and we can see the outlines of an impending us/them class war. But in our strange 21st-century world, lots of crazy things blur the president’s 1%/99% divide. We watch the super-rich struggle for ever creative ways of blowing their money to distinguish themselves from the rest of us [such as] Johnny Depp’s... hosting of a creepy, expensive costume Halloween party at the White House ...
....
"Meanwhile we see the “poor” near rioting over buying the first few pairs of Michael Jordan $200 sneakers, or mobbing for big screen televisions on holiday shopping sale outings."
....
"Being unequal is not poor. And not having what the “rich” have hardly means having it bad. Sorry, that’s just the way it is."

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2012/01/16/95496

Alan Caruba: The U.S. is on a Suicide Watch/ Obama's "Fairness" is Pure Communism

The U.S. is on a Suicide Watch

"But America’s economic problems will not go away until Americans insist that the shackles of Big Government be cut loose to enable the growth of an energy industry that can not only make the nation energy independent, but produce billions in revenue as far as the eye can see into the future.


Where in Washington can we look to find economic wisdom?  Debbie Wasserman-Schultz?  Labor union headquarters? Bernie Sanders? Maxine Waters? Anybody in Obama's circle of advisors?  Not in this life. (You may say Ron Paul, but he is on the international suicide watch and ensures we will die not an economic death, but death by radical Muslims)


Obama's "Fairness" is Pure Communism

"Obama’s belief in the redistribution of income is hardly fair. Taking money from decent, hard-working Americans and giving it to those who won’t work or came here illegally hardly fits the description of fairness. It is, however, the classic definition of “economic justice” which gave us the 2008 financial meltdown when bad housing loans nearly destroyed the banking system."


It is not a good sign that we should have to fear whether Obama will get reelected because our national issue has become much more than Barack Obama. 
It shows that we recognize the American people are perhaps less than we were decades ago; that we have become the type of people who would elect someone like Obama to run this nation.  Hence the idea Mr. Caruba posits about national suicide (reflected in the Tunnel Wall masthead quote, in case you hadn't noticed). Alan nails it perfectly. TD


Both posts from Mr. Caruba's blog, Warning Signs.

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2012/01/17/95529