Not So Fast with the “1962” Allusions

Commentary  "The Iran-Venezuela situation of today is more complex; as it unfolds, its features will increasingly diverge from the profile of the 1962 crisis. Today’s impending crisis involves much more of Latin America. We should address it on its own terms. I don’t wish for a Kennedy-esque approach from President Obama. I’m apprehensive about what he would be prepared to trade away in missile negotiations with Iran."
J. E. Dyer

Is Israel assassinating Iran nuclear scientists?

Haaretz  "The Telegraph also quoted Israeli officials as privately acknowledging the new U.S. administration is unlikely to sanction an air attack on Iran's nuclear installations and that President Barack Obama's offer to extend a hand of peace to Tehran puts any direct military action beyond reach for now.
"As such, the reported goal of Israel's covert campaign is to delay or interrupt the Iranian research program, without engaging in a direct confrontation that could lead to a wider war."

Iran's nuclear arms drive delayed. Iran: Mossad killed Iranian official "DEBKAfile's intelligence sources note that the current Israeli intelligence timeline for a nuclear-armed Iran was previously 2011. Yaalon did not go into the reasons for the delay, but our sources mention two:

1. His estimate represented the first official Israel evaluation of the scale of the destruction and havoc the Stuxnet malworm has wrought to Iran's most secret nuclear weaponization facilities. Up until now, only the nuclear reactor at Bushehr and the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz had been admitted to have been affected by the invasive virus.
2. The second factor seriously slowing progress is the tightening ring of sanctions which are keeping Iran from receiving the materials, replacement parts and new electronic and technical systems needed to bring its clandestine military nuclear program to fruition

What would America do without Israel to protect her?

The Top Three Tea Party Questions

American Thinker  "If you are a part of the Tea Party movement, you might sometimes wonder, "What can I do?" Well, you can memorize, or print out and carry in your pocket, these three questions:

1. Which article of the Constitution gives government the authority to do this?
2. How does this help reduce the deficit and balance the budget?
3. Why does this have to be mandatory and not voluntary?

"It matters not what the topic may be; these three questions are fundamental. Include them in every political conversation you have with your family, friends, neighbors, and especially with your elected representatives. Tea Party activists nationwide can lead the effort to make sure politicians will not step out of their offices without credible answers to these questions, on any issue whatsoever."

President Obama and Michael Vick

Thomas Lifson  "Obama did not call up the owners of, say, the Texas Rangers to congratulate them for giving Josh Hamilton a second chance. Hamilton led that team to its first World Series appearance in its history. But Hamilton made some bad choices in life, and had his early MLB career derailed by drug and alcohol addiction. The Rangers took a chance on him and it paid off: He was brilliant at the plate in the 2010 American League playoffs, to the point that the New York Yankees wouldn't even pitch to him in the ALCS. Where was President Obama's call to Nolan Ryan, congratulating him for giving Hamilton a second chance?"
Hmmmm.

Rush Limbaugh on "the Obama Curse": Rush observes that every time Obama calls some team before a game, that team loses.
I'm just sayin'.

How one of the world’s top educational performers turned around

Boston.com  "Finland is one of the few nations that have accomplished both a high quality of learning and equity in learning at the same time. The best school systems are the most equitable — students do well regardless of their socio-economic background. Finally, Finland should interest US educators because Finns have employed very distinct ideas and policies in reforming education, many the exact opposite of what’s being tried in the United States."  Hat tip to Neal Boortz

Obama Will Make You Pay More at the Pump

Heritage  "In 2008, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) “blasted” the president for rising gas prices on his (and her) watch. In July 2008, ABC News asked the president what was his “short term advice for Americans about gas prices?” repeating a nearly identical question asked at a February 2008 press conference. In April 2008, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said gas prices were “the number one issue facing America today.”
"You get the point. Yet, at the end of President Bush’s presidency, gas prices were 9% lower than when he took office (adjusted for inflation). So where have these outspoken critics been since Bush left office?"....
"All of this news would be less frightening if the White House were focusing on potential ways to lower energy prices. Instead, President Obama is admittedly fixated with raising them."

The Obamaites’ About-Face

Victor Davis Hanson  "...the Obamaites are simply channeling their commander-in-chief, who spent a near decade, from 2001 to 2009, pontificating on the illegality or superfluousness of the Patriot Act, renditions, tribunals, Predators, Guantanamo, and overseas wars, and then as president embraced or even expanded all of them — with not a word of remorse that his earlier demagoguing might have done great harm both to the efficacy of the programs and to the reputations of those involved in them, as well as to his country’s image abroad. I suppose we are all Orwell’s farm animals now, mystified but quiet as we wake to see the commandments on the barnyard wall crossed out and written over."  Emphasis added.

Top 25 Left-Wing Films: #15 – ‘Born on the Fourth of July’ (1989)

Big Hollywood 
 "Using a true story or not, this is something Hollywood loves to do; haul out the template I call the He Who Believes In The Goodness Of America Template.
"And it goes a little something like this… When a character arrives on screen and makes clear that he believes in the goodness of America, Hollywood’s intolerant politics will only allow the arc of that character to rise in one of three ways:

1.He Who Believes In the Goodness of America will be revealed as the villain.
2.He Who Believes In the Goodness of America will be a liberal fighting evil conservatives.
3.He Who Believes In the Goodness of America will have that illusion shattered forever.

"I’m not sure how effective this formula is in the real world, but anti-American filmmakers use it all the time."

Mike Ramirez Cartoon

Warning Signs

Abbas promises apartheid Palestine state (Revised)

Ethel C. Fenig "Mahmoud Abbas, the expired term head of the mythical country of Palestine, has promised

"We have frankly said, and always will say: If there is an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, we won't agree to the presence of one Israeli in it," Abbas told reporters in Ramallah.

This space below is reserved for statements of condemnation from Hollywood and media persons:



Mental health care, Arab style  "Israel's late Prime Minister Golda Meir, of blessed memory, once stated that peace would end the Arab-Israeli war when the Arabs loved their children more than they hated Israelis. Sad proof that peace is not about to break out from Arabs soon is this horror story from the English edition of the Israeli Hebrew daily, Ha'aretz (the Land)."...Ethel C Fenig

Mallard Fillmore



http://www.jewishworldreview.com/strips/mallard/2000/mallard1.asp



Why we must stick with Obama's Afghan strategy

General Petraeus with General Abdul Khalil Bakhten.

Washington Post  "The U.S. presence in Afghanistan is driven also by our struggle with al-Qaeda senior leadership and the future of Pakistan. International forces stationed along the Durand Line are about 30 miles from many of the most dangerous centers of Islamist terrorism in Pakistan. From those positions, we can understand what is happening in Pakistan and, occasionally, take action. We should never underestimate the importance of this positional advantage. It cannot be replaced by technology, discussion with Islamabad or anything else. From the Afghan border we have a unique vantage point on the groups that most directly threaten the American homeland and the stability of the entire nuclear-armed subcontinent."

The shallow "we've been there almost a decade and it's time to end this" argument just won't wash in reality.

Frederick W. Kagan is director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. Kimberly Kagan is president of the Institute for the Study of War. They are independent military analysts who have conducted research for commanders in Afghanistan.


Max Boot: More Progress in Afghanistan  "...one of the more unsung good-news stories out of Afghanistan: the success that U.S. troops have been having in preventing catastrophic terrorist attacks in Kabul by the Haqqani Network."