Former Secretary of State Baker: I Signed Exit Form

NRO

"According to Baker’s policy assistant, John Williams, Baker signed OF-109 on August 24, 1992, the day he left the State Department to serve as White House chief of staff to George H. W. Bush. 

"Baker’s testimony casts doubt on the explanation offered by State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki about why Clinton may not have signed the same form. Psaki told reporters that the department’s most senior employees often do not sign the separation statement verifying the return of their documents because “there’s a long tradition of secretaries of state making themselves available to future secretaries and presidents and secretaries are typically allowed to maintain their security clearance and access to their own records for use in writing their memoirs and the like.”. . .

Breaking: Draft Deal Gives Iran Green Light For Nukes

Weasel Zippers

“After the deal expires, Iran could theoretically ramp up enrichment to whatever level or volume it wants.” This was exactly what everyone has been warning about, and what the White House denied, after ten years there are no restrictions. If Iran keeps to the deal, they will still get the bomb.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — The United States and Iran are drafting elements of a nuclear deal that commits Tehran to a 40 percent cut in the number of machines it could use to make an atomic bomb, officials told The Associated Press on Thursday. In return, the Iranians would get quick relief from some crippling economic sanctions and a partial lift of a U.N. embargo on conventional arms.

Agreement on Iran’s uranium enrichment program could signal a breakthrough for a larger deal aimed at containing the Islamic Republic’s nuclear activities.

The sides are racing to meet a March 31 deadline for a framework pact and a full agreement by the end of June — even as the U.S. Congress keeps up pressure on the administration to avoid any agreement leaving Iran with an avenue to become a nuclear power. . . .

More at the link...

The American Flag: Flag-Folding Procedures

The American Legion
The traditional method of folding the flag is as follows:

(A) Straighten out the flag to full length and fold lengthwise once.

(B) Fold it lengthwise a second time to meet the open edge, making sure that the union of stars on the blue field remains outward in full view. (A large flag may have to be folded lengthwise a third time.)

(C) A triangular fold is then started by bringing the striped corner of the folded edge to the open edge.

(D) The outer point is then turned inward, parallel with the open edge, to form a second triangle.

(E) The diagonal or triangular folding is continued toward the blue union until the end is reached, with only the blue showing and the form being that of a cocked (three-corner) hat.

Also at this same link:  Meaning of Flag-Folding Program;  Symbols for the Folds of the Flag

Sen Lindsey Graham Threatens Cut-Off Of UN Funding If Obama Bypasses Congress On Iran

Constitution Rising

"Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) claims to be digging in his heels on the sweetheart deal that Hussein Obama is making for his dearly beloved Iranian comrades. While Graham was perfectly fine with Obama acting dictatorially on an issue he supports, the illegal alien amnesty, there’s a limit as to how tyranny he’s willing to accept at once and Dear Leader has reached it.

"If Obama follows through with his threat to exclude Congress from the process which, if unchecked, will provide Iran with a nuclear weapons capability and will lead to a Middle East nuclear arms race, Graham has a message “The United Nations will receive no more funding from the United States.”

"Graham said, “Here’s what the ‘president’ needs to understand. If you go to the UN Security Council and you try to bypass the Congress to get this deal approved by the UN Security Council but not come to your own Congress, then you’re going to risk Congress cutting off money to the United Nations.”

"It’s a kind of government shutdown of the global government, the sort of thing that Graham wasn’t willing to “risk” in defense of our national sovereignty on amnesty. Now he’s had a sudden change of heart." . . .

Sad that the man in charge of the entire US government is a petulant, vindictive man

Victor Davis Hanson: At the White House, There’s Nobody Home; The absence of true leadership has created chaos at home and abroad.

"What has gone wrong with the U.S. government in the past month? Just about everything, from the fundamental to the ridiculous.

"Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the United States to warn Congress about the dangers of a nuclear Iran. He spoke without the invitation of an irritated President Obama, who claimed that he did not even watch the address on television.

"Obama declined to even meet with the Israeli prime minister, announcing that it would have been improper for him to have such a meeting so close to Netanyahu’s re-election bid."

Full article here..

. . . "No one seems to be in charge at the White House. And that has terrified America’s supporters and emboldened its enemies — with another two years to go."

After Netanyahu win, Obama takes off the gloves  "The Obama administration woke up Wednesday morning to a sobering new reality on the ground in Jerusalem – instead of a weakened or rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Washington will now face the return of “King Bibi.” The White House has to come to terms with a Netanyahu who, defying the predictions, has been shored up by a strong mandate for his rightward-turning campaign.

"In the final days before the election, the Obama administration was on good behavior – both the State Department and the White House barely responded to campaign statements by Netanyahu that walked back his previous comments in support of a two-state agreement. They also abided not-very-veiled accusations of US meddling in an effort to undermine Netanyahu’s candidacy. But on Wednesday, the gloves came off." . . .

Obama finally calls Netanyahu, says US rethinking Palestinian policy
But Obama also told Netanyahu that the US is reassessing its approach to Israeli-Palestinian peace in light of Netanyahu’s pre-election comments rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state, a White House official said. Netanyahu had backtracked on those comments earlier Thursday, but the White House had swiftly dismissed his new, more moderate comments.

Tom Cotton vs. Barack Obama: tale of the tape

Flopping Aces

Most of article quoted below:

. . . "Cotton has been called a “traitor.” Pretty strong stuff for a war hero. So now it’s Cotton vs. Obama. Let’s have a look at the tale of the tape.

. . .  TD isn't a birther so deleted the snark about birthplace. 

Tom Cotton: Educated in US schools by his parents
Barack Obama: Educated in Indonesia, abandoned by Mom, raised by typical white folk.

Tom Cotton: You can see his school records
Barack Obama: You can’t.

Tom Cotton: Earned admission into Harvard
Barack Obama: Admitted to Harvard with mediocre grades.

Tom Cotton: Admitted to Harvard Law in merit
Barack Obama: Admitted to Harvard Law Affirmative Action

Tom Cotton: Wrote something under his own name at Harvard
Barack Obama: Nope

Tom Cotton: His dad served in Vietnam
Barack Obama: His dad hated America. Member of Communist party

Tom Cotton: Served in Iraq
Barack Obama: Lost Iraq

Tom Cotton: Doesn’t want Iraq to have nukes
Barack Obama: Made NASA a Muslim outreach program. Wants Iran to have nukes.

Tom Cotton: Proud of his family
Barack Obama: Had a “typical white” grandma

Tom Cotton: Targeted the Taliban
Barack Obama: Targeted conservatives

Tom Cotton: Calls the Taliban “enemies”
Barack Obama: Called Americans “enemies”

Tom Cotton: Served in the Army: 101st Airborne
Barack Obama: Served in the choom gang

Tom Cotton: Honest man
Barack Obama: You’re an idiot to believe anything he says

Tom Cotton: Drinks coke
Barack Obama: Did coke

Tom Cotton: Believes in American Exceptionalism
Barack Obama: The Muslim call to prayer is the most beautiful sound on Earth

Tom Cotton: Weeps for his lost fellow soldiers
Barack Obama: Plays golf immediately after beheadings

Tom Cotton: Doesn’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons
Barack Obama: Apologized to Iran in 2009

Tom Cotton: Knows his way around a weapon
Barack Obama: Knows his way around a bong   (End quote)

As Relations With Israel Plummet To New Low, Obama Cuts Video To Iranian People Praising Ayatollah Khamenei…

Weasel Zippers

Anyone think it’s a coincidence Obama chose today to release his Nowruz message (it begins on the first day of spring)?

OPTICS TELLS YOU ANYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

No peace in our time

Benjamin Netanyahu’s reelection does not portend more strife in the Middle East.

Charles Krauthammer

"Of all the idiocies uttered in reaction to Benjamin Netanyahu’s stunning election victory, none is more ubiquitous than the idea that peace prospects are now dead because Netanyahu has declared that there will be no Palestinian state while he is Israel’s prime minister.

"I have news for the lowing herds: There would be no peace and no Palestinian state if Isaac Herzog were prime minister either. Or Ehud Barak or Ehud Olmert for that matter. The latter two were (non-Likud) prime ministers who offered the Palestinians their own state — with its capital in Jerusalem and every Israeli settlement in the new Palestine uprooted — only to be rudely rejected.

"This is not ancient history. This is 2000, 2001 and 2008 — three astonishingly concessionary peace offers within the past 15 years. Every one rejected.

"The fundamental reality remains: This generation of Palestinian leadership — from Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas — has never and will never sign its name to a final peace settlement dividing the land with a Jewish state. And without that, no Israeli government of any kind will agree to a Palestinian state." . . . Full article here.

The Faces of Foreign Policy Failure

G. Murphy Donovan "Personality is seldom thought to be relevant to national security analysis. Yet in the end, intelligence, policy, and failures are made by men -- and the occasional woman. We are fond of blaming history, institutions, processes, or systems for social and national security pathologies. Systems are the creations of ordinary men, too ordinary these days, it seems. Alas, there are no earthly institutions or human actions where men or personalities get off the hook. Failure is always personal.

"Carol Hanisch was correct. The personal is political too.

"Failure is about the wrong men in the wrong position at the wrong time. Five examples from the millennia era are Barack Hussein Obama, John Owen Brennan, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Martin E. Dempsey, and James Robert Clapper." . . .   Read more.

Cheney: President Obama 'worst president in my lifetime'

Obama Hasn’t Called Bibi, Called Muslim Victors PDQ

Sweetness and Light

Obama Yet to Congratulate Netanyahu Despite Not Waiting to Call Newly Elected Islamist Leaders

By Dr. Phyllis Chesler | March 18, 2015

At press time, President Obama has not yet congratulated the new Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu…

"But he has found the time to fill out his ‘March Madness’ brackets and release them to the press."

Obama’s self-indulgent behavior does not seem to change. For example, in 2013, it took President Obama one full week before he called Netanyahu to congratulate him on his election win.

This is the same vindictive man who blocked off open-air national monuments during the shutdown to "make it hurt".

25 Photos of Iran Before the 1979 Revolution

"Before the Ayatollah became the Supreme Leader of Iran, the country experienced 

a period of secularism under the Shah—but his dictatorship eventually led to 

his downfall. "(With the help of Jimmy Carter)

By Annum Masroor in the National Journal

The courtyard of the Church of the Holy Redeemer in the city of Isfahan, circa 1948

A royal portrait of Princess Fawzia bint Fuad of Egypt, the first wife of the Shah. Known in newspapers worldwide as "one of the world's most beautiful women," she filed for divorce in 1948 and returned to Egypt, leaving her daughter, Shahnaz, in Iran. After her brother, King Farouk, abdicated the throne and fled Egypt, she led a quiet life in Alexandria with her second husband. Upon revisiting the royal palace 24 years after the abdication, she said, “Twice in my life I lost the crown. Once I was the queen of Iran, and once I was the princess here."(Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons)

The exterior of Tehran's Theatre Saadi, where a group of people study a billboard, circa 1950.

A student at a vocational-training school for seamstresses inspects her work, circa 1952. The school was one of the first for girls and was founded by the government in Tehran.(Three Lions/Getty Images)

Chirine Tahmassab, Iran's first female foreign diplomat, pictured on February 17, 1967.

Then came Jimmy Carter and this man who said “There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam.”:

More photos here.

Obama prepares to punish Israeli voters for rejecting him UPDATED

Netanyahu's Extraordinary Win Gives Him Bold Mandate  . . . "In his speech early this month to a Joint Session of Congress, Netanyahu played Winston Churchill, warning America and the world of the Nazi-like gathering storm in a soon-to-be-nuclear-armed Iran.

In this case, however, it was an American president, not a British prime minister, playing Neville Chamberlain's role of appeaser." . . 

Hot Air   "Following the upset in Israel that saw Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party and its allies win a decisive victory in Tuesday’s parliamentary elections, a few postmortems have observed that Israeli voters did not merely fail to reject Bibi but they also delivered a resounding rebuketo the Obama administration. As any nigh-omnipotent being would, President Barack Obama and his administration have begun to suggest that retribution is imminent for the state of Israel, its profane government, and its idolatrous voters." . . .

UPDATE: U.S. Threatens Sanctions Against Israel, Makes Excuses for Iran  "The U.S. government might impose sanctions on Israel or allow its greatest ally in the Middle East to be tried in the International Criminal Court, according to Politico. Michael Crowley reports:

Obama officials must now decide whether more international pressure on Israel can help bring a conservative Netanyahu-led government back to the negotiating table with the Palestinians — or whether such pressure would simply provoke a defiant reaction, as some fear.

Obama has other diplomatic options. He could expend less political capital to oppose growing momentum within the European Union to impose sanctions on Israel for its settlement activity.

More provocative to Israel would be any softening of Obama’s opposition to Palestinian efforts to join the International Criminal Court, which the Palestinian Authority will formally join on April 1. Under a law passed by Congress, any Palestinian bid to bring war crimes charges against Israel at the court will automatically sever America’s $400 million in annual aid to the Palestinian Authority, although some experts suggested Obama could find indirect ways to continue some funding — even if only to prevent a dangerous collapse of the Palestinian governing body.

" Meanwhile, in other news, the U.S. government is making excuses for Iran's testing of its nuclear program. Bloomberg reports:" . . .

When nuclear monitors said Iran had started testing a single advanced centrifuge last year, some U.S. politicians and analysts jumped on the report as proof the Islamic Republic can’t be trusted.