The Front Page Cover
"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened"
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Featuring:
nObama's Secret Iran Strategy
MICHAEL DORAN
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"Rise up together as one voice"
"Be careful where you stand"
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loose lips-Biden Gets Key Endorsement. Again 
Barack nObama took to CBS's "60 Minutes" Sunday night to hang Hilly Clinton out to dry. "She made a mistake," nObama said, speaking about Clinton's private email server. "She has acknowledged it. I do think that the way it's been ginned up is in part because of politics. I think she'd be the first to acknowledge that maybe she could have handled the original decision better and the disclosures more quickly." Having dismissed the issue as "politics," he also called the server a "legitimate" issue — and then denied any security implications. “Well, I — there’s no doubt that there had been breaches, and these are all a matter of degree. We don’t get an impression that here there was purposely efforts ... to hide something or to squirrel away information." He then smirked and added, “I’m gonna leave it to ... Hilly when she has an interview with you to address all these questions.” Clearly, nObama's not happy with her decision and is content now to leave his old rival to deal with political accountability and an FBI investigation.
Meanwhile, he had nothing but glowing things to say about his vice president. “I think loose lips-Joe [Biden] will go down as one of the finest vice presidents in history, and one of the more consequential," he said. "He has done great work.” Just a couple of months ago, nObama spokesman Josh Earnest gushed, “The president has indicated that his view that the decision that he made … to add loose lips-Joe Biden to the ticket as his running mate was the smartest decision that he has ever made in politics. And I think that should give you some sense into the president’s view into the vice president’s aptitude for the top job." It seems pretty clear that nObama's old rivalry with the Clintons is still fresh, and that he'd love nothing more than for his No. 2 to win the Democrat nomination. -The Patriot Post
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The Left Is Simplifying the Message of Columbus Day
Today is the only day of the year when the Left loathes remembering the arrival of a group of undocumented immigrants looking for economic opportunity in America. The history of Christopher Columbus and the European explorers is certainly mixed — for example, with Hernán Cortés and his conquistadors on one side, and cannibalistic sacrifice by the natives on the other — but the Left would rather, er, whitewash the uncomfortable and nuanced discussions for a simplistic view of history. Nine cities across the country issued declarations celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day this second Monday in October instead of the federal holiday remembering ol' Columbus. In addition to the furor to wipe out the legacy of the Confederate States of America and other "politically incorrect" chapters of our nation's history, the Left wants to control how we think about Native Americans. As CBS News reports, "Columbus Day supporters say the holiday celebrates centuries of cultural exchange between America and Europe, commemorates an iconic explorer and honors Italian-Americans, a group that has endured its own share of discrimination." This bickering comes as California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation Sunday banning the state's schools from using the name "Redskins" for any team names and mascots. After all, how can the arc of history bend toward justice unless it's tweaked? -The Patriot Post
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Appeals Court Checks EPA's Clean Water Act Interpretation
In yet another check on the nObama administration's power, the Appeals Court for the Sixth District ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency needs to stop implementing its encroachment of small waterways nationwide. In August, a federal judge stayed the EPA's action after a conglomerate of 13 states filed suit. The states took issue with an expanded interpretation of the Clean Water Act that would, in the words of the judge in August, make states "lose their sovereignty over intrastate waters." The agency responded by saying the stay only applied to the states named in the suit, not the rest of the nation, and continued its implementation. However, the appeals court put that bureaucratic overreach to rest Friday by ruling the stay applied to the whole of the United States. "A stay allows for a more deliberate determination whether this exercise of executive power, enabled by Congress and explicated by the Supreme Court, is proper under the dictates of federal law," the court wrote. How about a little humility, EPA? This legal smackdown comes as the EPA triggered yet another wastewater spill from a mine in Colorado. The agency assumed that any questions of its actions would not be legitimate. Now there's mud on its face from more than one direction. -The Patriot Post
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'Settled Science' Strikes Again The federal government is finally walking back its dietary guidelines on fat consumption. This year, federal bureaucrats are engaging in a periodic rewrite of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and it appears this time they may finally be listening to what the research is telling them — because the science isn't settled.
Since 1980, the assumption held by the federal government was that a reduction in total fat content would reduce the risk of heart disease, which has long been the number one killer of Americans. As years passed, however, independent scientists discovered that it wasn’t necessarily a reduction in total fat that was at issue, but better management of the sources of fat in one’s diet.
For decades, federal bureaucrats led people to believe they could reduce the risk of heart disease if they lowered their fat intake. to only 20-35% of their diet, regardless of the source. As a result, people ate more carbohydrates and sugars to fill up, which led to higher rates of obesity. People also reduced their consumption of beneficial monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats like fish and nuts. Consequently, heart disease continued to rise. -The Patriot Post
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Syrian Christian leader: Russia “really targeting ISIS”...
{Raymond Ibrahim} ~ Whatever Russia’s motives in Syria, one thing is clear: persecuted Syrian Christians favor Russian intervention against the jihadis slaughtering them, while accusing the U.S. and Western allies of only engaging in cosmetic strikes... Here are the words of a Syrian Christian leader — one well acquainted with the persecution his people are experiencing — concerning Russian intervention, as reported in Asia News. Note also what he says of the non-IS rebels being struck by Russia, the groups the U.S. is eager to portray as simply “anti-Assad rebels,” but which in fact are also Christian slaughtering jihadis: http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/10/syrian-christian-leader-russia-really-targeting-isis-while-u-s-airstrikes-are-just-window-dressing.
Islamic State Seizes U.S. Missiles in Iraq
{Adam Kredo} ~ The Pentagon acknowledged on Monday that Iraqi forces could have discovered a cache of U.S. weapons and missiles seized by Islamic State (IS) militants operating in the country, according to U.S. officials and regional media reports... Iraqi forces combatting IS (also known as ISIS or ISIL) are said to have found a stockpile of U.S. weapons, including ammunition and anti-armor missiles, hidden at sites controlled by terrorist forces, according to foreign military sources who spoke to Iran’s state-controlled Fars News Agency. This is said to include a “huge volume” of advanced TOW II anti-tank missiles. When asked to address the reports on Monday, a Pentagon official acknowledged that U.S. weapons had gone missing last year, but denied that the United States was intentionally arming IS or its affiliates in the region..
Iran and nObama Teaming Up – The Nuke Deal Violations came early
There is no dispute over whether or not Iran conducted a test firing of a long-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile over the weekend... The Iranians themselves made the announcement and the nObama regime parroted their declaration. What is in dispute is the level of Iranian compliance or violations of the nuclear enablement agreement the regime just forced upon the American people. Iran maintains that they have done nothing wrong. According to them, the test does not violate the nuclear deal. http://rickwells.us/archives/20622.
The Bergdahl Fix Is In – Judge Jeanine...
Judge Jeanine Pirro says she isn’t surprised when Hussein nObama does things that are un-American, unconstitutional or just plain divisive and dangerous... like releasing the Taliban Five in exchange for the subhuman Bowe Bergdahl. She is angered that members of the military leadership have sold themselves out, bowing to the political pressures of the White House, kissing the ring of a treasonous, worthless traitor – No, she’s not talking about Hussein nObama, she’s talking about Bowe Bergdahl.http://rickwells.us/archives/20632
Video at the site.
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Whistleblowers Claim nObama White House ‘Doctored’ Intel Reports
{Jim Kouri} ~ Some of the U.S. intelligence community’s top analysts reportedly informed the Pentagon watchdog that their reports have been systematically edited to backup President Barack Obama‘s... and his national security team’s — assertions that the war on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as more successful than it actually is, according to news reports from outlets such asThe Hill. This revelation is being touted as the very first time that so many intelligence analysts have complained to the Pentagon’s “top cop,” Inspector General Jon Rymer, about the politicizing of the intelligence gathering and analysis function. In July, a couple of analysts filed a complaint with Rymer’s office, after months of internal complaints were allegedly ignored..
US Tax Dollars Funding Jihad Against Israel and Paying Terrorists
{Ronn Torossian} ~ In the past week, Israel has been under attack by Palestinian Arabs, with the incitement and encouragement of Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas... These terror attacks started directly following a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in which he said that the Oslo Peace Accords with Israel are abrogated – and this blood is on his hands. When he declared before the world that all agreements with Israel are suspended, he gave permission to go out and murder. And this may be the start of a third intifada – and amazingly, it has been revealed thatAmerican tax dollars are being paid to terrorists who kill Israelis –including Americans. http://www.truthrevolt.org/commentary/american-tax-dollars-funding-jihad-against-israel-and-paying-terrorists.
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Conservative Movement Finally Steps Up
{STEVE DEACE} ~ Its membership marches under the banner that “courts don’t make law,” but some of the highest ranks of this righteous army nonetheless understands a fundamental problem with its creed... As with so many other American ideals, their profound natures have been rendered from obvious to oblivious in a sickly proportion of the public mind. The selfish inattention and arrogance of successive generations of pseudo Americans has, for example, allowed for notions of “innocent until proven guilty” to be perverted. To such an extent that Kim Davis could be thrown in jail without trial, based solely on the whim of a single judge fueled by the rage of the Rainbow Jihad’s mob. She was just the latest example of a growing list of Christians (bakers, florists, servicemen, etc.) targeted by their own government because they refuse to cast aside the laws of nature and nature’s God for a lie. But if their sacrifices are to be worth it, that which they fought for must once again be stamped on the American conscience to no less an extent than when our nation’s founders put their lives, fortunes and sacred honor on the line in its defense. http://barbwire.com/2015/10/14/conservative-movement-finally-steps-up/.
Susan “Benghazi” Rice Tells Dumbed-Down Stanford Liberals...{rickwells.us} ~ Something is fundamentally wrong with the graduates being produced by the so-called elite learning institutions of America... A century or two ago an eighth grade education empowered all of America with the ability to function at a higher, more productive level than our nation as a whole is operating today. Basic decision making was something we all did routinely and did quite well. Nobody had to wait for some declared “wise talking heads” to provide us with the acceptable thought content. These days things are different. Too many people wait to be told how they are supposed to think, interact, respond to stimuli and our beliefs. Those people being programmed become Democrats or Marxists, accepting the unnatural and irrational as their foundation. Stanford University is a hotbed of the Marxist reprogramming, with its San Francisco Bay Area location, these otherwise smart young people are stripped of their sense and repackaged as good little communists, in the Democrat model. That’s the reality of what you get with the Stanford Indians, er politically correct Stanford Cardinal.
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China Expanding Regional Nuclear Forces
{Bill Gertz} ~ China is developing a nuclear-armed air-launched cruise missile as part of a military buildup of both its regional and long-range nuclear forces, according to a forthcoming congressional commission report... The latest publicly available draft of the annual report of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission presents a dire picture of advancing Chinese military capabilities and declining relations with the United States. “U.S.-China security relations continued to deteriorate in 2015,” the report concludes. “China’s aggressive behavior in the South China Sea and its unremitting cyber espionage against the United States were the key drivers of growing distrust.”.
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nObama's Secret Iran Strategy
MICHAEL DORAN
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{mosaicmagazine.com} ~ President Barack nObama wishes the Islamic Republic of Iran every success. Its leaders, he explained in a recent interview, stand at a crossroads. They can choose to press ahead with their nuclear program, thereby continuing to flout the will of the international community and further isolate their country; or they can accept limitations on their nuclear ambitions and enter an era of harmonious relations with the rest of the world. “They have a path to break through that isolation and they should seize it,” the president urged—because “if they do, there’s incredible talent and resources and sophistication . . . inside of Iran, and it would be a very successful regional power.”
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How eager is the president to see Iran break through its isolation and become a very successful regional power? Very eager. A year ago, Benjamin Rhodes, deputy national-security adviser for strategic communication and a key member of the president’s inner circle, shared some good news with a friendly group of Democratic-party activists. The November 2013 nuclear agreement between Tehran and the “P5+1”—the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany—represented, he said, not only “the best opportunity we’ve had to resolve the Iranian [nuclear] issue,” but “probably the biggest thing President nObama will do in his second term on foreign policy.” For the administration, Rhodes emphasized, “this is healthcare . . . , just to put it in context.” Unaware that he was being recorded, he then confided to his guests that nObama was planning to keep Congress in the dark and out of the picture: “We’re already kind of thinking through, how do we structure a deal so we don’t necessarily require legislative action right away.”
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Why the need to bypass Congress? Rhodes had little need to elaborate. As the president himself once noted balefully, “[T]here is hostility and suspicion toward Iran, not just among members of Congress but the American people”—and besides, “members of Congress are very attentive to what Israel says on its security issues.” And that “hostility and suspicion” still persist, prompting the president in his latest State of the Union address to repeat his oft-stated warning that he will veto “any new sanctions bill that threatens to undo [the] progress” made so far toward a “comprehensive agreement” with the Islamic Republic.
Why the need to bypass Congress? Rhodes had little need to elaborate. As the president himself once noted balefully, “[T]here is hostility and suspicion toward Iran, not just among members of Congress but the American people”—and besides, “members of Congress are very attentive to what Israel says on its security issues.” And that “hostility and suspicion” still persist, prompting the president in his latest State of the Union address to repeat his oft-stated warning that he will veto “any new sanctions bill that threatens to undo [the] progress” made so far toward a “comprehensive agreement” with the Islamic Republic.
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As far as the president is concerned, the less we know about his Iran plans, the better. Yet those plans, as Rhodes stressed, are not a minor or incidental component of his foreign policy. To the contrary, they are central to his administration’s strategic thinking about the role of the United States in the world, and especially in the Middle East.
As far as the president is concerned, the less we know about his Iran plans, the better. Yet those plans, as Rhodes stressed, are not a minor or incidental component of his foreign policy. To the contrary, they are central to his administration’s strategic thinking about the role of the United States in the world, and especially in the Middle East.
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Moreover, that has been true from the beginning. In the first year of nObama’s first term, a senior administration official would later tell David Sanger of the New York Times, “There were more [White House] meetings on Iran than there were on Iraq, Afghanistan, and China. It was the thing we spent the most time on and talked about the least in public [emphasis added].” All along, nObama has regarded his hoped-for “comprehensive agreement” with Iran as an urgent priority, and, with rare exceptions, has consistently wrapped his approach to that priority in exceptional layers of secrecy.
Moreover, that has been true from the beginning. In the first year of nObama’s first term, a senior administration official would later tell David Sanger of the New York Times, “There were more [White House] meetings on Iran than there were on Iraq, Afghanistan, and China. It was the thing we spent the most time on and talked about the least in public [emphasis added].” All along, nObama has regarded his hoped-for “comprehensive agreement” with Iran as an urgent priority, and, with rare exceptions, has consistently wrapped his approach to that priority in exceptional layers of secrecy.
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From time to time, critics and even friends of the president have complained vocally about the seeming disarray or fecklessness of the administration’s handling of foreign policy. Words like amateurish, immature, and incompetent are bandied about; what’s needed, we’re told, is less ad-hoc fumbling, more of a guiding strategic vision. Most recently, Leslie Gelb, a former government official and past president of the Council on Foreign Relations, has charged that “the nObama team lacks the basic instincts and judgment necessary to conduct U.S. national-security policy,” and has urged the president to replace the entire inner core of his advisers with “strong and strategic people of proven . . . experience.”
From time to time, critics and even friends of the president have complained vocally about the seeming disarray or fecklessness of the administration’s handling of foreign policy. Words like amateurish, immature, and incompetent are bandied about; what’s needed, we’re told, is less ad-hoc fumbling, more of a guiding strategic vision. Most recently, Leslie Gelb, a former government official and past president of the Council on Foreign Relations, has charged that “the nObama team lacks the basic instincts and judgment necessary to conduct U.S. national-security policy,” and has urged the president to replace the entire inner core of his advisers with “strong and strategic people of proven . . . experience.”
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One sympathizes with Gelb’s sense of alarm, but his premises are mistaken. Inexperience is a problem in this administration, but there is no lack of strategic vision. Quite the contrary: a strategy has been in place from the start, and however clumsily it may on occasion have been implemented, and whatever resistance it has generated abroad or at home, nObama has doggedly adhered to the policies that have flowed from it.
One sympathizes with Gelb’s sense of alarm, but his premises are mistaken. Inexperience is a problem in this administration, but there is no lack of strategic vision. Quite the contrary: a strategy has been in place from the start, and however clumsily it may on occasion have been implemented, and whatever resistance it has generated abroad or at home, nObama has doggedly adhered to the policies that have flowed from it.
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In what follows, we’ll trace the course of the most important of those policies and their contribution to the president’s announced determination to encourage and augment Iran’s potential as a successful regional power and as a friend and partner to the United States.
In what follows, we’ll trace the course of the most important of those policies and their contribution to the president’s announced determination to encourage and augment Iran’s potential as a successful regional power and as a friend and partner to the United States.
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Continue reading: http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2015/02/obamas-secret-iran-strategy/
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