Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
John Boehner Calls Ted Cruz "A Miserable Son Of A Bitch, Lucifer In The Flesh"
by Tyler Durden
Apr 28, 2016 5:14 PM
Is the establishment's fervent hatred of Donald Trump starting a U-turn? It's still too early to know, however at least one core Republican, former house speaker John Boehner, has made it very clear he is not a fan of Ted Cruz. At all. So much so that according to NBC the former Republican House Speaker told an audience at Stanford University Wednesday that the Texas senator is "Lucifer in the flesh" and a "miserable son of a bitch."
When asked about the 2016 presidential candidate at a forum hosted by Stanford in Government and the Stanford Speakers Bureau, Boehner drew laughter for making a face of disgust, according to the Stanford Daily.
"Lucifer in the flesh," Boehner said cited by the paper. "I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life."
Boehner's shocking statement came because he was urged by the event's moderator, Professor David M. Kennedy, to be frank because the event was not being broadcasted. Perhaps Boehner did not realize people were still taking notes.
Curiously, and an indication that the GOP faithful may be turning in their support for Trump, the former Ohio lawmaker had kinder words for his "texting buddy" Donald Trump, with whom Boehner has played golf with for "years."
And a surprising admission: Boehner said he'd vote for Donald Trump in the general election if he were the Republican nominee, but he would not vote for Ted Cruz.
Actually we take that back: the establishment is turning in their support of Trump.
Boehner also said John Kasich was a "friend" too, although he suggested that the relationship takes "more effort" than others. "[Kasich] requires more effort on my behalf than all my other friends … but he's still my friend, and I love him," Boehner said.
As the Hill reminds us, Cruz was a thorn in Boehner's side during several standoffs with the Obama administration, and some of his actions likely cost Boehner support from his own conference. Cruz met with House members of the conservative Freedom Caucus — an unusual move for a freshman senator — in 2013 and pushed them to fight to defund ObamaCare. The effort eventually led to a government shutdown that hurt the GOP. Boehner reportedly called Cruz a “jackass” over the issue.
At Stanford, a Boehner unburdened by the shackles of the office reportedly garnered laughter and smiles from the attendees as he struck a more informal tone than in most of his past previous appearances.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-28/john-boehner-calls-ted-cruz-miserable-son-bitch-lucifer-flesh
John Boehner Calls Ted Cruz "A Miserable Son Of A Bitch, Lucifer In The Flesh"
by Tyler Durden
Apr 28, 2016 5:14 PM
Is the establishment's fervent hatred of Donald Trump starting a U-turn? It's still too early to know, however at least one core Republican, former house speaker John Boehner, has made it very clear he is not a fan of Ted Cruz. At all. So much so that according to NBC the former Republican House Speaker told an audience at Stanford University Wednesday that the Texas senator is "Lucifer in the flesh" and a "miserable son of a bitch."
When asked about the 2016 presidential candidate at a forum hosted by Stanford in Government and the Stanford Speakers Bureau, Boehner drew laughter for making a face of disgust, according to the Stanford Daily.
"Lucifer in the flesh," Boehner said cited by the paper. "I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life."
Boehner's shocking statement came because he was urged by the event's moderator, Professor David M. Kennedy, to be frank because the event was not being broadcasted. Perhaps Boehner did not realize people were still taking notes.
Curiously, and an indication that the GOP faithful may be turning in their support for Trump, the former Ohio lawmaker had kinder words for his "texting buddy" Donald Trump, with whom Boehner has played golf with for "years."
And a surprising admission: Boehner said he'd vote for Donald Trump in the general election if he were the Republican nominee, but he would not vote for Ted Cruz.
Actually we take that back: the establishment is turning in their support of Trump.
Boehner also said John Kasich was a "friend" too, although he suggested that the relationship takes "more effort" than others. "[Kasich] requires more effort on my behalf than all my other friends … but he's still my friend, and I love him," Boehner said.
As the Hill reminds us, Cruz was a thorn in Boehner's side during several standoffs with the Obama administration, and some of his actions likely cost Boehner support from his own conference. Cruz met with House members of the conservative Freedom Caucus — an unusual move for a freshman senator — in 2013 and pushed them to fight to defund ObamaCare. The effort eventually led to a government shutdown that hurt the GOP. Boehner reportedly called Cruz a “jackass” over the issue.
At Stanford, a Boehner unburdened by the shackles of the office reportedly garnered laughter and smiles from the attendees as he struck a more informal tone than in most of his past previous appearances.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-28/john-boehner-calls-ted-cruz-miserable-son-bitch-lucifer-flesh
OT:
Trust Your Spouse
There comes a time when a woman just has to trust her husband...
For example...
A wife comes home early from a trip late at night, and quietly opens the door to her bedroom.
From under the blanket she sees four legs instead of two.
She reaches for a baseball bat and starts hitting the blanket as hard as she can.
Leaving the covered bodies groaning, she goes to the kitchen to have a drink.
As she enters, she sees her husband there, reading a magazine.
"Hi Darling", he says, "Your Parents have come to visit us, so l let them stay in our bedroom.
Did you say "hello"?
OT:
Trust Your Spouse
There comes a time when a woman just has to trust her husband...
For example...
A wife comes home early from a trip late at night, and quietly opens the door to her bedroom.
From under the blanket she sees four legs instead of two.
She reaches for a baseball bat and starts hitting the blanket as hard as she can.
Leaving the covered bodies groaning, she goes to the kitchen to have a drink.
As she enters, she sees her husband there, reading a magazine.
"Hi Darling", he says, "Your Parents have come to visit us, so l let them stay in our bedroom.
Did you say "hello"?
wild chart.
West Virginia lawmaker says Clinton comments were hyperbole
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A West Virginia Republican lawmaker said Sunday his comments made on Twitter calling for Democrat Hillary Clinton's public execution weren't meant to be taken literally.
House of Delegates member Mike Folk said that his tweet Friday over Clinton's use of a private email system while she served as secretary of state was "hyperbole."
In the tweet, Folk said the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee "should be tried for treason, murder, and crimes against the US Constitution... then hung on the Mall in Washington, DC."
Folk said in a telephone interview he still wants Clinton to go on trial, but he doesn't want her executed.
"It could have been said a little bit better," Folk said. "I regret the tone, and the second part of that tweet.
"The biggest misconception is that for some reason, everybody thinks I made a death threat, which I did not. Clearly it was not that."
The Justice Department announced earlier this month Clinton would not be prosecuted over her handling of classified information.
Folk said he sent the tweet after watching a video of testimony before a U.S. House committee over the Clinton emails.
"I watch something like that that gets me riled up, I usually just sleep on it and maybe do something the next day," he said. "I should have done that."
The state Democratic Party has called for his resignation. Folk said he won't resign.
Folk is a United Airlines pilot. United Airlines said in a statement that it is investigating the comments. Folk declined comment on whether he's spoken with the company, saying it was a private matter. He said he hasn't directly talked with the state GOP party about it.
Folk, who said he's received his own death threats over the comments, is seeking a third term in the House. The Martinsburg resident ran unopposed in the May Republican primary and will face Democrat and Berkeley County Sheriff Kenny Lemaster in November.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/west-virginia-lawmaker-says-clinton-comments-were-hyperbole/ar-BBuqssT?li=BBnb7Kz
Very true. In CA., it will never make a difference. We have Jerry Brown for 16 years and the state legislature is total Democrat too. We have no representation. We were lucky to get Reagan. I was in a finishing high school then.
Voting for Johnson unfortunately is voting for Hillary. Being 'Never Hillary' means we have to make sure she doesn't split our votes. If we do, Hillary wins. Perot split the vote and look who walked through the door.....
And he declares that he wants unity.
BO claims to have their back.
He's the man who agreed and said yes. The Shrill wanted the 'credit' because she was running for President. Part of their arrangement to build her 'credibility'.
She met resistance from then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who told Obama, "I don't think we ought to take on another war" and considered resigning over the decision to intervene.
Back when that intervention looked good, her emails reveal, she was eager to ensure that she got credit. Lately, though, the left-wing In These Times noted, "Clinton has tended to lay the decision to go into Libya squarely at Obama's feet." Admitting she was wrong? That's not happening.
She met resistance from then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who told Obama, "I don't think we ought to take on another war" and considered resigning over the decision to intervene.
Back when that intervention looked good, her emails reveal, she was eager to ensure that she got credit. Lately, though, the left-wing In These Times noted, "Clinton has tended to lay the decision to go into Libya squarely at Obama's feet." Admitting she was wrong? That's not happening.
He believes he got 8 concessions into the party platform and is 'satisfied'. Problem is, no one can ever trust what a Clinton will say. Those are just for your help and your voters pal.... Good luck with those concessions. Honk.......
Hillary Clinton's appetite for war
November 13, 2015, 4:09 PM
The United States has been at war every day since October 2001, when we invaded Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. Never in our history have we engaged in hostilities abroad without interruption for so long. But if Americans are weary of it, you can't tell it from our politics.
If they were, Republicans would not be vying to show their willingness to use force against Russia or Syria or Islamic State. More pertinent still, Hillary Clinton would not be the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. Democrats were proud to nominate Barack Obama in 2008 on the strength of his opposition to the Iraq War. But anti-war credentials no longer count for anything in Obama's party.
The president himself is partly to blame, having inured his followers to the notion that the United States can't extricate itself from foreign conflicts (see: Afghanistan). But Obama has also refused to be panicked into reckless military action against Syria, Russia or Iran. Compared with what his critics demand, his steps against Islamic State have been cautious and small-scale.
Obama has been willing to brave criticism for alleged weakness, appeasement and isolationism. As Harvard scholar Stephen Walt wrote for Foreign Policy, he has shown "an appreciation not just of the limits of U.S. power, but also of the limited need to exercise it."
No such restraint can be expected of Clinton. As secretary of state, she pressed for what turned out to be one of Obama's biggest mistakes: the air war against Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, which led to the chaos that has engulfed the country.
She met resistance from then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who told Obama, "I don't think we ought to take on another war" and considered resigning over the decision to intervene.
Back when that intervention looked good, her emails reveal, she was eager to ensure that she got credit. Lately, though, the left-wing In These Times noted, "Clinton has tended to lay the decision to go into Libya squarely at Obama's feet." Admitting she was wrong? That's not happening.
Her hawkish approach has been consistent. Clinton was far less committed than Obama to reaching a nuclear deal with Iran — which was ultimately concluded by her successor, John Kerry. She advocated a bigger surge of troops in Afghanistan in 2009 than Obama finally authorized.
After leaving the State Department, she criticized Obama for not doing more to help the rebels in Syria. She also derided the administration's informal foreign policy motto. "Great nations need organizing principles," she insisted, "and 'don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle."
In his 2014 book "Maximalist: America in the World From Truman to Obama," Columbia University professor Stephen Sestanovich (an adviser to Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton) wrote, approvingly, "Of all those who shaped the Obama administration's international strategy, the secretary of state was most comfortable with the precepts of a traditional maximalism."
Obama's first instinct is to steer clear of foreign conflicts. He can be persuaded to step in, but he needs a good reason. Clinton's first instinct is to intervene, whether through air power or ground troops or weapons. That is often her second and third instinct too.
Obama sees no compelling reason for the U.S. to remain at war indefinitely. Clinton sees no grounds not to. Her basic approach has a lot in common with that of George W. Bush.
It's a measure of how accustomed Americans are to ceaseless war that this worldview is not a liability in the Democratic presidential contest. Both Sen. Bernie Sanders, who voted against the Iraq War, and Martin O'Malley have criticized Clinton for supporting it. How has that line of attack gone down with the party's rank and file? No. One. Cares.
Either most Democrats are comfortable with her approach or they have concluded that more war is inevitable no matter who occupies the White House. That's a radical change from 2008, when Iraq was the defining issue between Clinton and Obama.
The president has drawn some powerful lessons from Iraq and elsewhere about the costs of war, the perils of plunging into places we don't understand and our modest capacity to shape outcomes in foreign crises.
Clinton has not drawn those lessons. She stated a very different credo in 2010, referring to America's role in the world: "We do believe there are no limits on what is possible or what can be achieved."
How long will we be at war if she becomes president? "No limits" is what I heard.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman/ct-hillary-clinton-barack-obama-bernie-sanders-john-kerry-1115-20151113-column.html
Hillary Clinton's appetite for war
November 13, 2015, 4:09 PM
The United States has been at war every day since October 2001, when we invaded Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. Never in our history have we engaged in hostilities abroad without interruption for so long. But if Americans are weary of it, you can't tell it from our politics.
If they were, Republicans would not be vying to show their willingness to use force against Russia or Syria or Islamic State. More pertinent still, Hillary Clinton would not be the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. Democrats were proud to nominate Barack Obama in 2008 on the strength of his opposition to the Iraq War. But anti-war credentials no longer count for anything in Obama's party.
The president himself is partly to blame, having inured his followers to the notion that the United States can't extricate itself from foreign conflicts (see: Afghanistan). But Obama has also refused to be panicked into reckless military action against Syria, Russia or Iran. Compared with what his critics demand, his steps against Islamic State have been cautious and small-scale.
Obama has been willing to brave criticism for alleged weakness, appeasement and isolationism. As Harvard scholar Stephen Walt wrote for Foreign Policy, he has shown "an appreciation not just of the limits of U.S. power, but also of the limited need to exercise it."
No such restraint can be expected of Clinton. As secretary of state, she pressed for what turned out to be one of Obama's biggest mistakes: the air war against Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, which led to the chaos that has engulfed the country.
She met resistance from then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who told Obama, "I don't think we ought to take on another war" and considered resigning over the decision to intervene.
Back when that intervention looked good, her emails reveal, she was eager to ensure that she got credit. Lately, though, the left-wing In These Times noted, "Clinton has tended to lay the decision to go into Libya squarely at Obama's feet." Admitting she was wrong? That's not happening.
Her hawkish approach has been consistent. Clinton was far less committed than Obama to reaching a nuclear deal with Iran — which was ultimately concluded by her successor, John Kerry. She advocated a bigger surge of troops in Afghanistan in 2009 than Obama finally authorized.
After leaving the State Department, she criticized Obama for not doing more to help the rebels in Syria. She also derided the administration's informal foreign policy motto. "Great nations need organizing principles," she insisted, "and 'don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle."
In his 2014 book "Maximalist: America in the World From Truman to Obama," Columbia University professor Stephen Sestanovich (an adviser to Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton) wrote, approvingly, "Of all those who shaped the Obama administration's international strategy, the secretary of state was most comfortable with the precepts of a traditional maximalism."
Obama's first instinct is to steer clear of foreign conflicts. He can be persuaded to step in, but he needs a good reason. Clinton's first instinct is to intervene, whether through air power or ground troops or weapons. That is often her second and third instinct too.
Obama sees no compelling reason for the U.S. to remain at war indefinitely. Clinton sees no grounds not to. Her basic approach has a lot in common with that of George W. Bush.
It's a measure of how accustomed Americans are to ceaseless war that this worldview is not a liability in the Democratic presidential contest. Both Sen. Bernie Sanders, who voted against the Iraq War, and Martin O'Malley have criticized Clinton for supporting it. How has that line of attack gone down with the party's rank and file? No. One. Cares.
Either most Democrats are comfortable with her approach or they have concluded that more war is inevitable no matter who occupies the White House. That's a radical change from 2008, when Iraq was the defining issue between Clinton and Obama.
The president has drawn some powerful lessons from Iraq and elsewhere about the costs of war, the perils of plunging into places we don't understand and our modest capacity to shape outcomes in foreign crises.
Clinton has not drawn those lessons. She stated a very different credo in 2010, referring to America's role in the world: "We do believe there are no limits on what is possible or what can be achieved."
How long will we be at war if she becomes president? "No limits" is what I heard.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman/ct-hillary-clinton-barack-obama-bernie-sanders-john-kerry-1115-20151113-column.html
Counting the days...... And he's trying to tell us the world is better than when he took office?..... Needs to get out of the office more..... Or turn on the television......
Says it all right there.
One Year On, How’s The Iran Nuke Deal Doing?
Jul 10, 2016
By Garrett Nada
The nuclear deal, signed in July 2015, has been a game changer for Iran.
A year later, the Islamic Republic is again a player on the international circuit. Top Iranian leaders have visited Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Tehran has hosted a steady stream of heads of state or foreign ministers, many from the West, interested in upgrading relations. It even won some praise for “transparency measures which go beyond Iran’s obligations” from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. watchdog.
Yet implementing the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has been rocky—at best.
The challenges are often based on disparate interpretations of what the deal requires, particularly in Tehran and Washington. Both capitals allege that the other is violating the spirit of the historic accord, one of the most important non-proliferation agreements in more than a quarter century.
Tehran contends that the United States is not doing enough to assure European banks and businesses they can now legally deal with Iran—without fear of U.S. penalties. “The United States needs to do way more. They have to send a message that doing business with Iran will not cost them,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told The New Yorker in April 2016.
Washington counters that it has publicly condoned re-engagement, including talks with major European banks . Kerry met with nine executives from leading European banks in May. “European banks, as long as it’s not a designated entity, are absolutely free to open accounts for Iran, trade, exchange money, facilitate a legitimate business agreement, bankroll it, lend money,” he said.
Washington is also annoyed with Tehran over its ballistic missile tests, which are inconsistent with a U.N. resolution prohibiting “any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons.” Its tests have increased pressure in Washington for new sanctions on Iran.
The dispute over sanctions is just one obstacle to Iran’s interaction with the world. The Islamic Republic remains on the Financial Action Task Force’s list of countries linked to money laundering and financing terrorism.
The nuclear deal has also not helped to ease tensions between Iran and the region—or won Tehran new allies.
The Islamic Republic also needs to reform its financial sector to comply with international standards, the first step in winning foreign interaction, sales and investment. “It is time for a plan of action on the economy,” said David Lipton of the International Monetary Fund, during a 2016 visit to Tehran. “Your ultimate success depends on what you do at home.”
Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif have maintained the working relationship forged during the grueling 2013-2015 nuclear talks. The two have met at least nine times in the year since the deal was finalized. They have also communicated by telephone and reportedly by e-mail —a significant shift, even though Tehran and Washington still do not have formal relations, which ruptured in 1980.
“There’s no question that it opened up the opportunity for communication,” Kerry said, in June 2016, of the nuclear deal. The two envoys have expanded discussion to other hot topics in the Middle East.
At the same time, Tehran and Washington both face domestic opposition to further U.S.-Iran engagement. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly warned over the past year that Washington is trying to infiltrate Iran. He has cautioned against cooperation on regional issues too.
“Whoever trusts in the United States is committing a big mistake and will be hit with a slap by them,” he said in televised address last month. “First they enter with a smile and (soft) language but later in practice they will not do what they should do and will not keep their commitment.”
In turn, U.S. lawmakers have introduced (but not always passed) new legislation to penalize Iran for missile tests, support for terrorism and human rights abuses. Some legislation, such as the Iran Terror Finance Transparency Act, could interfere with the nuclear deal if passed with a veto-proof majority. The reauthorization of the Iran Sanctions Act, which expires at the end of 2016, would also be interpreted in Tehran as a sign of ill-will.
A thaw in relations has been further slowed by Iran’s human rights violations. Tehran’s reentry into the world community has not changed its practices at home.
In 2015, the Islamic Republic executed nearly 1,000 people, the highest number since 1989. Over the past year, political dissidents have been denied due process or imprisoned for vaguely-defined criminal charges, including “acting against national security,” according to human rights groups. Religious and ethnic minorities have faced discrimination.
Despite his own campaign promises, President Hassan Rouhani has done virtually nothing to improve the plight of women, who have lesser rights in marriage, divorce, inheritance and child custody—and also face harassment over their dress in public.
Artists and journalists have experienced censorship. Iran is also “a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor,” the State Department reported in June.
A year later, the Islamic Republic is again a player on the international circuit.
The nuclear deal has opened the way for greater Iranian inclusion on regional affairs. In November 2015, Iran agreed to take part in a U.S.-backed initiative to launch Syrian peace talks. For decades, Tehran has provided strong political, financial and military support for the Assad dynasty, but it has shown a recent willingness to at least explore political solutions. Over the past year, Zarif has repeatedly said there are no military solutions to Syria’s five-year civil war.
In early 2016, Iran participated in meetings of the International Syria Support Group. In June 2016, Kerry and Zarif met in Oslo to discuss a wider ceasefire to facilitate dialogue about a political transition. “I do believe the conversation I had with Zarif indicates to me possibilities for how this could be achieved,” Kerry said.
Iran shares the West’s interest in defeating ISIS, which at one point in 2014 had marched so deep into Iraq that ISIS fighters were less than 20 miles from Iran’s borders. Iran is the world’s largest predominantly Shiite country; the Islamic State is based on a radical interpretation of Sunni Islam.
“I think the Iranians have a vested interest in doing what they can to prevent the growth of ISIS in that area, because ISIS has a very strong anti-Shia dimension to it, so there are some things that the Iranians can do and even some things that the Iranians have done that have helped to inhibit the further growth of ISIS,” CIA Director John Brennan said, on the PBS Newshour, in June. “On balance,” he added, “I think they have to do more.”
Overall, Tehran has not changed its core policies. The State Department’s 2016 Terrorism Report faults Iran for using its Quds Force, an elite wing of the Revolutionary Guards, to “implement foreign policy goals, provide cover for intelligence operations, and create instability in the Middle East.”
The CIA chief noted last month, “There are a lot of things that Iran does that tends to facilitate terrorism, and they still are the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world.”
Iran’s ballistic missile tests—in October 2015 and March 2016—have been particularly provocative. Iranian claims its missiles are only for defensive purposes. Resolution 2231 “calls upon Iran not to test ballistic missiles that were ' designed ' to be capable… That word took me about seven months to negotiate, so everybody knew what it meant,” Zarif said in March.
But the missiles are inherently capable of delivering a nuclear payload, according to former U.N. weapons inspector Michael Elleman. The Treasury Department has subsequently imposed new sanctions on suppliers involved in Tehran’s missile program.
The nuclear deal has also not helped to ease tensions between Iran and the region—or won Tehran new allies. In August, shortly after the JCPOA agreement, President Obama told NPR that one indirect consequence of the deal might be “that Iran starts making different decisions that are less offensive to its neighbors, that it tones down the rhetoric in terms of its virulent opposition to Israel.”
U.S.-Iran cooperation beyond the nuclear deal seems limited, at best, for the near future.
But the rivalry has only intensified between Shiite Iran and Saudi Arabia, a major Sunni power and the birthplace of Islam. In September, more than 450 Iranians died after a stampede erupted in Mecca, during the Hajj pilgrimage. In January, Saudi Arabia executed a dissident Shiite cleric, sparking demonstrations in Tehran that led to the sacking of the Saudi embassy. Riyadh then broke off diplomatic and economic ties with Tehran. The chasm deepened.
Iran’s rhetoric about Israel has not shifted either. In May, Tehran hosted a Holocaust cartoon contest. In his televised address last month, Khamenei lambasted “the US, the evil Britain and the damned and cancerous Zionist regime. These are the main enemies.” The nuclear deal has even forged a de facto anti-Iran alliance between Saudi Arabia and Israel, countries both wary of the agreement.
On the eve of the nuclear deal’s first anniversary, Kerry said predicting what happens next with Iran is “too fraught with too many variables.” But he noted, “Our hope is that we can continue to open the aperture.” Progress on other issues depends on the larger fate of Iran’s feisty revolution.
“Everybody understands that Iran is going through certain change,” he said at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif have a vision … that was carried out in the context of sitting down with us and negotiating. There were those in Iran who didn’t want to do that. We’re prepared to do that again if we have to.”
Over the next year, the deal is likely to remain contentious, partly because both countries have presidential elections. Rouhani faces a potentially tough reelection bid next June. Although he remains popular, public opinion polls indicate disillusionment because Iranians have not felt the anticipated benefits from the nuclear deal. The U.S. presidential campaign has in turn sharpened alarm—and rhetoric—in Tehran about the fate of the nuclear deal.
In March, presumptive Republican candidate Donald J. Trump said , “My number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.” Khamenei responded, in June, by warning that if the next U.S. president tears up the nuclear deal, Iran will “set fire to it.”
Others are saber-rattling too. Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of Parliament’s Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy, also threatened that Iran would ramp up uranium enrichment—the fuel cycle for a nuclear weapon—if the six major powers fail to meet their obligations.
The nuclear deal only took one of several issues off the table. Even if he is re-elected, Rouhani has limited powers to address the other flashpoints. The judiciary—a separate wing of government linked to human rights abuses—is still controlled by hardliners. Its chief, Sadegh Larijani, is appointed by the Supreme Leader.
The Revolutionary Guards, who report to the supreme leader, have also evolved into their own bloc of political and economic power. They manage Iran’s relationships with armed groups abroad. Khamenei, the ultimate arbiter of Iranian policy, has shown no sign of reversing his decades-long support for Hezbollah, Palestinian groups and others, let alone his intense distrust of the United States.
As a result, U.S.-Iran cooperation beyond the nuclear deal seems limited, at best, for the near future. The pendulum, for now, is swinging back.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author.
This article originally appeared in Newsweek
- See more at: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/one-year-hows-the-iran-nuke-deal-doing?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTURNeVkyVXlaVEZqWVRNMiIsInQiOiJMbnlyMVYwZHp6ZUZiYWZRUTFXTE1hT1U5cjlTVVdRZmx6RWNMSHBEQlJlRGx0NGh3OXdoaW9LWCtoU1RJbkxhcGNlQmhkakFGdkE2MkhXeUZTMWpaNlNVVzE3UnlcL0x6ckFIWmR0WUVsalk9In0%3D#sthash.15v1mdUe.dpuf
One Year On, How’s The Iran Nuke Deal Doing?
Jul 10, 2016
By Garrett Nada
The nuclear deal, signed in July 2015, has been a game changer for Iran.
A year later, the Islamic Republic is again a player on the international circuit. Top Iranian leaders have visited Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Tehran has hosted a steady stream of heads of state or foreign ministers, many from the West, interested in upgrading relations. It even won some praise for “transparency measures which go beyond Iran’s obligations” from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. watchdog.
Yet implementing the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has been rocky—at best.
The challenges are often based on disparate interpretations of what the deal requires, particularly in Tehran and Washington. Both capitals allege that the other is violating the spirit of the historic accord, one of the most important non-proliferation agreements in more than a quarter century.
Tehran contends that the United States is not doing enough to assure European banks and businesses they can now legally deal with Iran—without fear of U.S. penalties. “The United States needs to do way more. They have to send a message that doing business with Iran will not cost them,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told The New Yorker in April 2016.
Washington counters that it has publicly condoned re-engagement, including talks with major European banks . Kerry met with nine executives from leading European banks in May. “European banks, as long as it’s not a designated entity, are absolutely free to open accounts for Iran, trade, exchange money, facilitate a legitimate business agreement, bankroll it, lend money,” he said.
Washington is also annoyed with Tehran over its ballistic missile tests, which are inconsistent with a U.N. resolution prohibiting “any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons.” Its tests have increased pressure in Washington for new sanctions on Iran.
The dispute over sanctions is just one obstacle to Iran’s interaction with the world. The Islamic Republic remains on the Financial Action Task Force’s list of countries linked to money laundering and financing terrorism.
The nuclear deal has also not helped to ease tensions between Iran and the region—or won Tehran new allies.
The Islamic Republic also needs to reform its financial sector to comply with international standards, the first step in winning foreign interaction, sales and investment. “It is time for a plan of action on the economy,” said David Lipton of the International Monetary Fund, during a 2016 visit to Tehran. “Your ultimate success depends on what you do at home.”
Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif have maintained the working relationship forged during the grueling 2013-2015 nuclear talks. The two have met at least nine times in the year since the deal was finalized. They have also communicated by telephone and reportedly by e-mail —a significant shift, even though Tehran and Washington still do not have formal relations, which ruptured in 1980.
“There’s no question that it opened up the opportunity for communication,” Kerry said, in June 2016, of the nuclear deal. The two envoys have expanded discussion to other hot topics in the Middle East.
At the same time, Tehran and Washington both face domestic opposition to further U.S.-Iran engagement. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly warned over the past year that Washington is trying to infiltrate Iran. He has cautioned against cooperation on regional issues too.
“Whoever trusts in the United States is committing a big mistake and will be hit with a slap by them,” he said in televised address last month. “First they enter with a smile and (soft) language but later in practice they will not do what they should do and will not keep their commitment.”
In turn, U.S. lawmakers have introduced (but not always passed) new legislation to penalize Iran for missile tests, support for terrorism and human rights abuses. Some legislation, such as the Iran Terror Finance Transparency Act, could interfere with the nuclear deal if passed with a veto-proof majority. The reauthorization of the Iran Sanctions Act, which expires at the end of 2016, would also be interpreted in Tehran as a sign of ill-will.
A thaw in relations has been further slowed by Iran’s human rights violations. Tehran’s reentry into the world community has not changed its practices at home.
In 2015, the Islamic Republic executed nearly 1,000 people, the highest number since 1989. Over the past year, political dissidents have been denied due process or imprisoned for vaguely-defined criminal charges, including “acting against national security,” according to human rights groups. Religious and ethnic minorities have faced discrimination.
Despite his own campaign promises, President Hassan Rouhani has done virtually nothing to improve the plight of women, who have lesser rights in marriage, divorce, inheritance and child custody—and also face harassment over their dress in public.
Artists and journalists have experienced censorship. Iran is also “a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor,” the State Department reported in June.
A year later, the Islamic Republic is again a player on the international circuit.
The nuclear deal has opened the way for greater Iranian inclusion on regional affairs. In November 2015, Iran agreed to take part in a U.S.-backed initiative to launch Syrian peace talks. For decades, Tehran has provided strong political, financial and military support for the Assad dynasty, but it has shown a recent willingness to at least explore political solutions. Over the past year, Zarif has repeatedly said there are no military solutions to Syria’s five-year civil war.
In early 2016, Iran participated in meetings of the International Syria Support Group. In June 2016, Kerry and Zarif met in Oslo to discuss a wider ceasefire to facilitate dialogue about a political transition. “I do believe the conversation I had with Zarif indicates to me possibilities for how this could be achieved,” Kerry said.
Iran shares the West’s interest in defeating ISIS, which at one point in 2014 had marched so deep into Iraq that ISIS fighters were less than 20 miles from Iran’s borders. Iran is the world’s largest predominantly Shiite country; the Islamic State is based on a radical interpretation of Sunni Islam.
“I think the Iranians have a vested interest in doing what they can to prevent the growth of ISIS in that area, because ISIS has a very strong anti-Shia dimension to it, so there are some things that the Iranians can do and even some things that the Iranians have done that have helped to inhibit the further growth of ISIS,” CIA Director John Brennan said, on the PBS Newshour, in June. “On balance,” he added, “I think they have to do more.”
Overall, Tehran has not changed its core policies. The State Department’s 2016 Terrorism Report faults Iran for using its Quds Force, an elite wing of the Revolutionary Guards, to “implement foreign policy goals, provide cover for intelligence operations, and create instability in the Middle East.”
The CIA chief noted last month, “There are a lot of things that Iran does that tends to facilitate terrorism, and they still are the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world.”
Iran’s ballistic missile tests—in October 2015 and March 2016—have been particularly provocative. Iranian claims its missiles are only for defensive purposes. Resolution 2231 “calls upon Iran not to test ballistic missiles that were ' designed ' to be capable… That word took me about seven months to negotiate, so everybody knew what it meant,” Zarif said in March.
But the missiles are inherently capable of delivering a nuclear payload, according to former U.N. weapons inspector Michael Elleman. The Treasury Department has subsequently imposed new sanctions on suppliers involved in Tehran’s missile program.
The nuclear deal has also not helped to ease tensions between Iran and the region—or won Tehran new allies. In August, shortly after the JCPOA agreement, President Obama told NPR that one indirect consequence of the deal might be “that Iran starts making different decisions that are less offensive to its neighbors, that it tones down the rhetoric in terms of its virulent opposition to Israel.”
U.S.-Iran cooperation beyond the nuclear deal seems limited, at best, for the near future.
But the rivalry has only intensified between Shiite Iran and Saudi Arabia, a major Sunni power and the birthplace of Islam. In September, more than 450 Iranians died after a stampede erupted in Mecca, during the Hajj pilgrimage. In January, Saudi Arabia executed a dissident Shiite cleric, sparking demonstrations in Tehran that led to the sacking of the Saudi embassy. Riyadh then broke off diplomatic and economic ties with Tehran. The chasm deepened.
Iran’s rhetoric about Israel has not shifted either. In May, Tehran hosted a Holocaust cartoon contest. In his televised address last month, Khamenei lambasted “the US, the evil Britain and the damned and cancerous Zionist regime. These are the main enemies.” The nuclear deal has even forged a de facto anti-Iran alliance between Saudi Arabia and Israel, countries both wary of the agreement.
On the eve of the nuclear deal’s first anniversary, Kerry said predicting what happens next with Iran is “too fraught with too many variables.” But he noted, “Our hope is that we can continue to open the aperture.” Progress on other issues depends on the larger fate of Iran’s feisty revolution.
“Everybody understands that Iran is going through certain change,” he said at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif have a vision … that was carried out in the context of sitting down with us and negotiating. There were those in Iran who didn’t want to do that. We’re prepared to do that again if we have to.”
Over the next year, the deal is likely to remain contentious, partly because both countries have presidential elections. Rouhani faces a potentially tough reelection bid next June. Although he remains popular, public opinion polls indicate disillusionment because Iranians have not felt the anticipated benefits from the nuclear deal. The U.S. presidential campaign has in turn sharpened alarm—and rhetoric—in Tehran about the fate of the nuclear deal.
In March, presumptive Republican candidate Donald J. Trump said , “My number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.” Khamenei responded, in June, by warning that if the next U.S. president tears up the nuclear deal, Iran will “set fire to it.”
Others are saber-rattling too. Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of Parliament’s Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy, also threatened that Iran would ramp up uranium enrichment—the fuel cycle for a nuclear weapon—if the six major powers fail to meet their obligations.
The nuclear deal only took one of several issues off the table. Even if he is re-elected, Rouhani has limited powers to address the other flashpoints. The judiciary—a separate wing of government linked to human rights abuses—is still controlled by hardliners. Its chief, Sadegh Larijani, is appointed by the Supreme Leader.
The Revolutionary Guards, who report to the supreme leader, have also evolved into their own bloc of political and economic power. They manage Iran’s relationships with armed groups abroad. Khamenei, the ultimate arbiter of Iranian policy, has shown no sign of reversing his decades-long support for Hezbollah, Palestinian groups and others, let alone his intense distrust of the United States.
As a result, U.S.-Iran cooperation beyond the nuclear deal seems limited, at best, for the near future. The pendulum, for now, is swinging back.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author.
This article originally appeared in Newsweek
- See more at: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/one-year-hows-the-iran-nuke-deal-doing?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTURNeVkyVXlaVEZqWVRNMiIsInQiOiJMbnlyMVYwZHp6ZUZiYWZRUTFXTE1hT1U5cjlTVVdRZmx6RWNMSHBEQlJlRGx0NGh3OXdoaW9LWCtoU1RJbkxhcGNlQmhkakFGdkE2MkhXeUZTMWpaNlNVVzE3UnlcL0x6ckFIWmR0WUVsalk9In0%3D#sthash.15v1mdUe.dpuf
The 15th Obamacare Co-Op Has Collapsed. Here’s How Much Each Failed Co-Op Got in Taxpayer-Funded Loans.
Another co-op is shutting down, becoming the 15th to do so and bringing the total number of federal loans given to the failed nonprofit insurers to more than $1.5 billion.
Oregon’s Health Co-Op announced last week it will no longer be able to continue operating and will be shutting down. The insurance company is the third in the state to struggle financially and Oregon’s second co-op, following Health Republic Insurance of Oregon, to close its doors.
Oregon’s Health Co-Op’s closure affects more than 20,000 consumers living in the state, and customers have been advised to select new plans by July 31.
“It is with great sadness that I announce Oregon’s Health Co-Op is shutting down its doors immediately,” Phil Jackson, the co-op’s chief executive officer, said in a statement. “The board of directors agreed that it is in the best interests of our members and community that we wind down our operations.”
Oregon’s Health Co-Op was one of 23 co-ops that launched under Obamacare. The co-ops, or consumer operated and oriented plans, were intended to create competition and choice in areas of the country where consumers had few options.
The 23 co-ops—not including Vermont’s co-op, which never opened its doors—received $2.4 billion in startup and solvency loans from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The 15 co-ops that have since closed their doors received more than $1.5 billion in loans. The federal government awarded Oregon’s Health Co-Op specifically $56.6 million.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has not yet said if the money given to the failed co-ops will be recouped.
Oregon’s Health Co-Op lost $18.4 million in 2015, the bulk of which the nonprofit insurer attributed to high medical claims from its policyholders. The co-op also pointed to money it owes the federal government through its risk adjustment program as delivering the final blow to its bottom line.
The risk adjustment program redistributes money from insurers with healthy customers to those with sicker, most costly customers.
Officials with Oregon’s Health Co-Op expected to receive $5 million from the risk adjustment program. But late last month, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the co-op would instead owe $900,000.
“The result is a sudden deterioration of the company’s financial position that cannot be sustained and the company must stop doing business,” the co-op said in an announcement to customers.
One other co-op, HealthyCT, also closed its doors because of money it owes through the risk adjustment program. Two others, Maryland’s Evergreen Health and Illinois’ Land of Lincoln Health, have since taken action to prevent the collection of the risk adjustment payments.
Health policy experts expect more co-ops to collapse in the wake of the federal government’s announcement.
Just eight of the 23 co-ops that launched remain.
http://dailysignal.com/2016/07/12/the-15th-obamacare-co-op-has-collapsed-heres-how-much-each-failed-co-op-got-in-taxpayer-funded-loans/
The 15th Obamacare Co-Op Has Collapsed. Here’s How Much Each Failed Co-Op Got in Taxpayer-Funded Loans.
Another co-op is shutting down, becoming the 15th to do so and bringing the total number of federal loans given to the failed nonprofit insurers to more than $1.5 billion.
Oregon’s Health Co-Op announced last week it will no longer be able to continue operating and will be shutting down. The insurance company is the third in the state to struggle financially and Oregon’s second co-op, following Health Republic Insurance of Oregon, to close its doors.
Oregon’s Health Co-Op’s closure affects more than 20,000 consumers living in the state, and customers have been advised to select new plans by July 31.
“It is with great sadness that I announce Oregon’s Health Co-Op is shutting down its doors immediately,” Phil Jackson, the co-op’s chief executive officer, said in a statement. “The board of directors agreed that it is in the best interests of our members and community that we wind down our operations.”
Oregon’s Health Co-Op was one of 23 co-ops that launched under Obamacare. The co-ops, or consumer operated and oriented plans, were intended to create competition and choice in areas of the country where consumers had few options.
The 23 co-ops—not including Vermont’s co-op, which never opened its doors—received $2.4 billion in startup and solvency loans from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The 15 co-ops that have since closed their doors received more than $1.5 billion in loans. The federal government awarded Oregon’s Health Co-Op specifically $56.6 million.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has not yet said if the money given to the failed co-ops will be recouped.
Oregon’s Health Co-Op lost $18.4 million in 2015, the bulk of which the nonprofit insurer attributed to high medical claims from its policyholders. The co-op also pointed to money it owes the federal government through its risk adjustment program as delivering the final blow to its bottom line.
The risk adjustment program redistributes money from insurers with healthy customers to those with sicker, most costly customers.
Officials with Oregon’s Health Co-Op expected to receive $5 million from the risk adjustment program. But late last month, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the co-op would instead owe $900,000.
“The result is a sudden deterioration of the company’s financial position that cannot be sustained and the company must stop doing business,” the co-op said in an announcement to customers.
One other co-op, HealthyCT, also closed its doors because of money it owes through the risk adjustment program. Two others, Maryland’s Evergreen Health and Illinois’ Land of Lincoln Health, have since taken action to prevent the collection of the risk adjustment payments.
Health policy experts expect more co-ops to collapse in the wake of the federal government’s announcement.
Just eight of the 23 co-ops that launched remain.
http://dailysignal.com/2016/07/12/the-15th-obamacare-co-op-has-collapsed-heres-how-much-each-failed-co-op-got-in-taxpayer-funded-loans/
There's a Governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992, ranked 49th in the measured success between states and the Arkansas Attorney General from 1977 to 1979.
His fly was open, so why not?
Their bosses are inciting those that eliminate them.
Hard to believe.....
I'm sure they would. Here's a Cameron sign off slip up.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/11/david-cameron-caught-singing-a-little-tune-to-himself-as-he-re-e/
Being a 'stay' on the Brexit, so will be relatively neutral with the transition. Some that resigned will probably be reappointed according to our London contact, including Boris.
What I like is that there is already major trade negotiations going on. Sorry Barry, no last in the queue, A/H.
All it took was a poo f from Hawaii via Indonesia.
If we get it twice again......
She's there to cover his misdeeds. She already deleted her own.
We'll, when one looks at the alternative....
I love it.
The power of makeup.
The power of makeup.
Unfortunately, I think we're gone. Have been since JB took over in the 70s on his first two terms. Hope he'll finally retire after the 2nd two terms. We have cities that are overwhelming majority of illegals from So. Cal. through the valley and moving toward the top of the state. Guess that's where the under mandatory $15 and hour labor, already voted into law here, will come from. If one is a minority in Sacramento, you get the govt. job.
That's for sure.
Barack Obama's Failed Presidency
by Richard A. Epstein
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
The week after the Fourth of July is a good time to take stock of the presidency of Barack Obama. It is highly unlikely that he will change course in his six remaining months in office, so he will be judged by history on his current record. That record reveals an enormous gap between his grandiose promises and his pitiful performance over the past eight years.
Ironically, one of Obama’s finest moments came before he was elected President. When he secured his nomination in June 2008, a younger Obama waxed eloquent about his future role as a world historical figure:
I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.
Obama constantly used the word “we” in that speech, but all too often that first person plural sounded more like the first person singular, as if his nomination heralded a sharp demarcation between the past and future. He spoke as if no one had ever addressed these issues before he “began” a transformation that was “absolutely certain” to reach full flower in his future administration. Obama here is a visionary captured by the nobility of his ends. But vision and skills are not always doled out in equal measure, and his lack of the latter made him unfit to choose the proper means for meeting the challenges he set out for himself.
It is sobering to examine how and why his presidential performance stacks up so poorly against his ideals. An important question for any president is what issues fall in the domain of government action, and which should be left to the private sector. Any sensible answer starts with two presumptions that are antithetical to Obama’s progressive frame of mind. First, the government should seek to avoid interfering in economic affairs to allow the forces of competition and innovation to increase the size of the social pie from which everyone can benefit. Second, the government should focus its exercise of national power on defending the nation and its allies from aggression. Obama inverts these key relationships—a fundamental mistake. He is all too willing to use coercion in domestic economic affairs against disfavored groups, and all too reluctant to use it against sworn enemies of the United States and its allies.
A mistake of this magnitude cannot be corrected by marginal adjustments in office. The sad truth is that the United States today is weaker economically, more divided socially, and more disrespected across the globe than it was before Obama took office. With few exceptions, he made the wrong choices in all the areas in which he declared the dawn of a new era. Consider:
Just how has Obama provided care for the sick? On this, as in so many other economic and social issues, he faced this critical choice: Either he could seek to remove barriers to entry in markets, or he could impose a regime of regulation, taxation, and exclusion. The former increases growth and reduces administrative and regulatory overhang. The latter blocks potential gains from trade while increasing administrative and compliance costs.
His vaunted health-care exchanges violated every sound principle of economic theory. The benefit packages that were mandated were far more exhaustive than those supplied under any private plan. The more exacting standards for existing private plans forced many of them to close down or curtail their operations. The insistence that administrative expenses be capped at a predetermined fraction of total expenditures micromanaged businesses by outsiders who were totally ignorant of the trade-offs among various firm functions. Large numbers of insured people were forced out of sensible private plans into a restricted diet of public plans, typically heavily subsidized. The standard insurance problem of adverse selection was overlooked, as the president and his supporters acted as if young and healthy people were anxious to stay in health-care plans that forced them to provide extensive subsidies to older recipients. Instead, these healthy people simply delayed joining any plan until they had an immediate need of expensive medical services. Longer waiting periods for coverage of pre-existing conditions or required minimum periods of membership were brushed aside in a fit of ideological purity. The exchanges have had a rocky reception at best, and they have an uncertain future.
The situation is no better when we talk about “good jobs” for the “jobless.” The president’s policies have wreaked havoc on labor markets. A correct analysis starts with the simple insight that any regulation or tax on employers necessarily limits what employees can receive. In competitive labor markets, therefore, the government should enforce contracts as written, rather than rewrite them from above. Our unfortunate New Deal legacy contains many laws disrupting labor markets that no president can repeal at will. But the president can use his enormous administrative discretion to ease their burden.
Not this president. Just recently, the Department of Labor announced new overtime regulations under the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act that now cover workers who earn less than $47,476 annually, double the previous figure of $23,660. The FLSA was an unwarranted interference at the time of passage, but the distortions it creates are greater in today’s fluid economy. At a minimum, the new regulations impose heavy compliance costs on both private and public employers, forcing them to rethink virtually every job classification. It makes the “hour” the official unit of compensation even where it is entirely inappropriate in practice. Here are three examples. First, tech start-ups provide much compensation in stock and stock options, whose accounting value for regulatory purposes the FLSA caps at 10 percent of wages, forcing cash-poor firms to redo their entire business plans. Second, university graduate students and post-docs work long hours to secure an education and job. Yet no one knows where to find the extra cash once they become hourly workers subject to overtime protection. Finally, the entire “gig” economy works on a piecemeal basis because neither Uber nor Task Rabbit can monitor workers’ hours at a distance.
Elsewhere, the Obama administration has sought to prop up union membership by ordering quickie elections, limiting employer speech, and treating franchisors like McDonald’s as though they were the employers of their franchisees. These clumsy forms of labor market intervention have led his administration to take protectionist positions on free trade in order to safeguard faltering labor monopolies. President Obama has given some support to the Transpacific Partnership, but often under a mercantilist “fair trade” banner. It is all self-defeating. To be sure, unemployment rates have gone down, but so too have labor market participation and median family income.
The president’s policies also falter when it comes to the hugely complex issues of global warming and the environment. Most people think, all else being equal, that an increase in carbon dioxide will increase overall global temperatures. But how? Are the relatively flat temperature readings of the past 15 years a blip or a trend? Even though the president puts global warming at the top of his agenda, he ignores these questions, only to preside over an Environmental Protection Agency that refuses to rework its permitting rules to allow low-carbon emission plants to displace the antiquated coal facilities still in operation. Obama also champions massive overregulation under the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. And his international protocols could easily create domestic dislocation without securing any tangible environmental benefits.
Foreign affairs, for their part, have been an unmitigated disaster. Everywhere one looks—Russia, China, the Middle East—the situation is more dangerous than it was before President Obama took office. That is the inescapable consequence of a presidential reluctance to trust military affairs to generals, and to rule out of bounds, virtually categorically, the use of American ground troops to stem the violence in the Middle East. The relative stability that George W. Bush bequeathed to Obama in 2009 has been shattered in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, and by the rising power of Iran. ISIS commits atrocities nearly daily, most recently in Baghdad and Bangladesh. And the turmoil has created a migration crisis in Europe and throughout the Middle East. Red lines in Syria count for nothing, and ISIS has set up multiple permanent bases throughout the Middle East, which serve as springboards for terrorist activities that have reached the United States, most recently in Orlando. The breakdown has only heightened global intrigue, transient alliances and political instability. Yet Obama’s only firm commitments are to cut down our military capability and not to use ground forces in the Middle East, leaving a huge power void that the Russians are all too eager to fill. Pax Americana is indeed dead.
Nor has Obama done better on an issue close to his heart: race relations. Instead of firm moral leadership, the president has raised tensions. He announced, for example, that “if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” And even after his Department of Justice exonerated Darren Wilson in the killing of Michael Brown, it buried that story behind a searing denunciation of Ferguson, Missouri for the alleged racism of its ticketing practices. The “Ferguson effect” has made policing ever more difficult in African-American communities. No wonder crime rates are rising across the country, even in cities like Chicago that have strict, but largely ineffective, gun control laws, which the president relentlessly champions without any explanation of how they are likely to do any good.
Behind all of these social ills lies a president who lacks the skills of a leader. Sadly, his frayed political legacy has left us with a choice between two undesirable candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, neither of whom has the capacity and temperament to correct the many ills that President Obama has created at home and abroad over the past eight years.
www.hoover.org/research/barack-obamas-failed-presidency?utm_source=hdr&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2016-07-06
Barack Obama's Failed Presidency
by Richard A. Epstein
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
The week after the Fourth of July is a good time to take stock of the presidency of Barack Obama. It is highly unlikely that he will change course in his six remaining months in office, so he will be judged by history on his current record. That record reveals an enormous gap between his grandiose promises and his pitiful performance over the past eight years.
Ironically, one of Obama’s finest moments came before he was elected President. When he secured his nomination in June 2008, a younger Obama waxed eloquent about his future role as a world historical figure:
I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.
Obama constantly used the word “we” in that speech, but all too often that first person plural sounded more like the first person singular, as if his nomination heralded a sharp demarcation between the past and future. He spoke as if no one had ever addressed these issues before he “began” a transformation that was “absolutely certain” to reach full flower in his future administration. Obama here is a visionary captured by the nobility of his ends. But vision and skills are not always doled out in equal measure, and his lack of the latter made him unfit to choose the proper means for meeting the challenges he set out for himself.
It is sobering to examine how and why his presidential performance stacks up so poorly against his ideals. An important question for any president is what issues fall in the domain of government action, and which should be left to the private sector. Any sensible answer starts with two presumptions that are antithetical to Obama’s progressive frame of mind. First, the government should seek to avoid interfering in economic affairs to allow the forces of competition and innovation to increase the size of the social pie from which everyone can benefit. Second, the government should focus its exercise of national power on defending the nation and its allies from aggression. Obama inverts these key relationships—a fundamental mistake. He is all too willing to use coercion in domestic economic affairs against disfavored groups, and all too reluctant to use it against sworn enemies of the United States and its allies.
A mistake of this magnitude cannot be corrected by marginal adjustments in office. The sad truth is that the United States today is weaker economically, more divided socially, and more disrespected across the globe than it was before Obama took office. With few exceptions, he made the wrong choices in all the areas in which he declared the dawn of a new era. Consider:
Just how has Obama provided care for the sick? On this, as in so many other economic and social issues, he faced this critical choice: Either he could seek to remove barriers to entry in markets, or he could impose a regime of regulation, taxation, and exclusion. The former increases growth and reduces administrative and regulatory overhang. The latter blocks potential gains from trade while increasing administrative and compliance costs.
His vaunted health-care exchanges violated every sound principle of economic theory. The benefit packages that were mandated were far more exhaustive than those supplied under any private plan. The more exacting standards for existing private plans forced many of them to close down or curtail their operations. The insistence that administrative expenses be capped at a predetermined fraction of total expenditures micromanaged businesses by outsiders who were totally ignorant of the trade-offs among various firm functions. Large numbers of insured people were forced out of sensible private plans into a restricted diet of public plans, typically heavily subsidized. The standard insurance problem of adverse selection was overlooked, as the president and his supporters acted as if young and healthy people were anxious to stay in health-care plans that forced them to provide extensive subsidies to older recipients. Instead, these healthy people simply delayed joining any plan until they had an immediate need of expensive medical services. Longer waiting periods for coverage of pre-existing conditions or required minimum periods of membership were brushed aside in a fit of ideological purity. The exchanges have had a rocky reception at best, and they have an uncertain future.
The situation is no better when we talk about “good jobs” for the “jobless.” The president’s policies have wreaked havoc on labor markets. A correct analysis starts with the simple insight that any regulation or tax on employers necessarily limits what employees can receive. In competitive labor markets, therefore, the government should enforce contracts as written, rather than rewrite them from above. Our unfortunate New Deal legacy contains many laws disrupting labor markets that no president can repeal at will. But the president can use his enormous administrative discretion to ease their burden.
Not this president. Just recently, the Department of Labor announced new overtime regulations under the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act that now cover workers who earn less than $47,476 annually, double the previous figure of $23,660. The FLSA was an unwarranted interference at the time of passage, but the distortions it creates are greater in today’s fluid economy. At a minimum, the new regulations impose heavy compliance costs on both private and public employers, forcing them to rethink virtually every job classification. It makes the “hour” the official unit of compensation even where it is entirely inappropriate in practice. Here are three examples. First, tech start-ups provide much compensation in stock and stock options, whose accounting value for regulatory purposes the FLSA caps at 10 percent of wages, forcing cash-poor firms to redo their entire business plans. Second, university graduate students and post-docs work long hours to secure an education and job. Yet no one knows where to find the extra cash once they become hourly workers subject to overtime protection. Finally, the entire “gig” economy works on a piecemeal basis because neither Uber nor Task Rabbit can monitor workers’ hours at a distance.
Elsewhere, the Obama administration has sought to prop up union membership by ordering quickie elections, limiting employer speech, and treating franchisors like McDonald’s as though they were the employers of their franchisees. These clumsy forms of labor market intervention have led his administration to take protectionist positions on free trade in order to safeguard faltering labor monopolies. President Obama has given some support to the Transpacific Partnership, but often under a mercantilist “fair trade” banner. It is all self-defeating. To be sure, unemployment rates have gone down, but so too have labor market participation and median family income.
The president’s policies also falter when it comes to the hugely complex issues of global warming and the environment. Most people think, all else being equal, that an increase in carbon dioxide will increase overall global temperatures. But how? Are the relatively flat temperature readings of the past 15 years a blip or a trend? Even though the president puts global warming at the top of his agenda, he ignores these questions, only to preside over an Environmental Protection Agency that refuses to rework its permitting rules to allow low-carbon emission plants to displace the antiquated coal facilities still in operation. Obama also champions massive overregulation under the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. And his international protocols could easily create domestic dislocation without securing any tangible environmental benefits.
Foreign affairs, for their part, have been an unmitigated disaster. Everywhere one looks—Russia, China, the Middle East—the situation is more dangerous than it was before President Obama took office. That is the inescapable consequence of a presidential reluctance to trust military affairs to generals, and to rule out of bounds, virtually categorically, the use of American ground troops to stem the violence in the Middle East. The relative stability that George W. Bush bequeathed to Obama in 2009 has been shattered in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, and by the rising power of Iran. ISIS commits atrocities nearly daily, most recently in Baghdad and Bangladesh. And the turmoil has created a migration crisis in Europe and throughout the Middle East. Red lines in Syria count for nothing, and ISIS has set up multiple permanent bases throughout the Middle East, which serve as springboards for terrorist activities that have reached the United States, most recently in Orlando. The breakdown has only heightened global intrigue, transient alliances and political instability. Yet Obama’s only firm commitments are to cut down our military capability and not to use ground forces in the Middle East, leaving a huge power void that the Russians are all too eager to fill. Pax Americana is indeed dead.
Nor has Obama done better on an issue close to his heart: race relations. Instead of firm moral leadership, the president has raised tensions. He announced, for example, that “if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” And even after his Department of Justice exonerated Darren Wilson in the killing of Michael Brown, it buried that story behind a searing denunciation of Ferguson, Missouri for the alleged racism of its ticketing practices. The “Ferguson effect” has made policing ever more difficult in African-American communities. No wonder crime rates are rising across the country, even in cities like Chicago that have strict, but largely ineffective, gun control laws, which the president relentlessly champions without any explanation of how they are likely to do any good.
Behind all of these social ills lies a president who lacks the skills of a leader. Sadly, his frayed political legacy has left us with a choice between two undesirable candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, neither of whom has the capacity and temperament to correct the many ills that President Obama has created at home and abroad over the past eight years.
http://www.hoover.org/research/barack-obamas-failed-presidency?utm_source=hdr&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2016-07-06
Will California Ever Thrive Again?
The state is sinking, and its wealthy class is full of hypocrites.
By Victor Davis Hanson — July 7, 2016
There was more of the same-old, same-old California news recently. Some 62 percent of state roads have been rated poor or mediocre. There were more predications of huge cost overruns and yearly losses on high-speed rail — before the first mile of track has been laid. One-third of Bay Area residents were polled as hoping to leave the area soon.
Such pessimism is daily fare, and for good reason.
The basket of California state taxes — sales, income, and gasoline — rates among the highest in the U.S. Yet California roads and K-12 education rank near the bottom.
After years of drought, California has not built a single new reservoir. Instead, scarce fresh aqueduct water is still being diverted to sea. Thousands of rural central-California homes, in Dust Bowl fashion, have been abandoned because of a sinking aquifer and dry wells.
One in three American welfare recipients resides in California. Almost a quarter of the state population lives below or near the poverty line. Yet the state’s gas and electricity prices are among the nation’s highest.
One in four state residents was not born in the U.S. Current state-funded pension programs are not sustainable.
California depends on a tiny elite class for about half of its income-tax revenue. Yet many of these wealthy taxpayers are fleeing the 40-million-person state, angry over paying 12 percent of their income for lousy public services.
Public-health costs have soared as one-third of California residents admitted to state hospitals for any causes suffer from diabetes, a sometimes-lethal disease often predicated on poor diet, lack of exercise, and excessive weight.
Nearly half of all traffic accidents in the Los Angeles area are classified as hit-and-run collisions.
Grass-roots voter pushbacks are seen as pointless. Progressive state and federal courts have overturned a multitude of reform measures of the last 20 years that had passed with ample majorities.
In impoverished central-California towns such as Mendota, where thousands of acres were idled due to water cutoffs, once-busy farmworkers live in shacks. But even in opulent San Francisco, the sidewalks full of homeless people do not look much different.
What caused the California paradise to squander its rich natural inheritance?
Excessive state regulations and expanding government, massive illegal immigration from impoverished nations, and the rise of unimaginable wealth in the tech industry and coastal retirement communities created two antithetical Californias.
RELATED: Can California Be Saved?
One is an elite, out-of-touch caste along the fashionable Pacific Ocean corridor that runs the state and has the money to escape the real-life consequences of its own unworkable agendas.
The other is a huge underclass in central, rural, and foothill California that cannot flee to the coast and suffers the bulk of the fallout from Byzantine state regulations, poor schools, and the failure to assimilate recent immigrants from some of the poorest areas in the world.
The result is Connecticut and Alabama combined in one state. A house in Menlo Park may sell for more than $1,000 a square foot. In Madera, three hours away, the cost is about one-tenth of that.
In response, state government practices escapism, haggling over transgender-restroom and locker-room issues and the aquatic environment of a three-inch baitfish rather than dealing with a sinking state.
RELATED: California, Leading from Behind
What could save California?
Blue-ribbon committees for years have offered bipartisan plans to simplify and reduce the state tax code, prune burdensome regulations, reform schools, encourage assimilation and unity of culture, and offer incentives to build reasonably priced housing.
Instead, hypocrisy abounds in the two Californias.
If Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg wants to continue lecturing Californians about their xenophobia, he at least should stop turning his estates into sanctuaries with walls and security patrols. And if faculty economists at the University of California at Berkeley keep hectoring the state about fixing income inequality, they might first acknowledge that the state pays them more than $300,000 per year — putting them among the top 2 percent of the university’s salaried employees.
Immigrants to a diverse state where there is no ethnic majority should welcome assimilation into a culture and a political matrix that is usually the direct opposite of what they fled from.
More unity and integration would help. So why not encourage liberal Google to move some of its operations inland to needy Fresno, or lobby the wealthy Silicon Valley to encourage affordable housing in the near-wide-open spaces along the nearby I-280 corridor north to San Francisco?
Finally, state bureaucrats should remember that even cool Californians cannot drink Facebook, eat Google, drive on Oracle, or live in Apple. The distant people who make and grow things still matter.
Elites need to go back and restudy the state’s can-do confidence of the 1950s and 1960s to rediscover good state government — at least if everyday Californians are ever again to have affordable gas, electricity, and homes; safe roads; and competitive schools.
— Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Savior Generals. You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com. © 2016 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/437522/print
Will California Ever Thrive Again?
The state is sinking, and its wealthy class is full of hypocrites.
By Victor Davis Hanson — July 7, 2016
There was more of the same-old, same-old California news recently. Some 62 percent of state roads have been rated poor or mediocre. There were more predications of huge cost overruns and yearly losses on high-speed rail — before the first mile of track has been laid. One-third of Bay Area residents were polled as hoping to leave the area soon.
Such pessimism is daily fare, and for good reason.
The basket of California state taxes — sales, income, and gasoline — rates among the highest in the U.S. Yet California roads and K-12 education rank near the bottom.
After years of drought, California has not built a single new reservoir. Instead, scarce fresh aqueduct water is still being diverted to sea. Thousands of rural central-California homes, in Dust Bowl fashion, have been abandoned because of a sinking aquifer and dry wells.
One in three American welfare recipients resides in California. Almost a quarter of the state population lives below or near the poverty line. Yet the state’s gas and electricity prices are among the nation’s highest.
One in four state residents was not born in the U.S. Current state-funded pension programs are not sustainable.
California depends on a tiny elite class for about half of its income-tax revenue. Yet many of these wealthy taxpayers are fleeing the 40-million-person state, angry over paying 12 percent of their income for lousy public services.
Public-health costs have soared as one-third of California residents admitted to state hospitals for any causes suffer from diabetes, a sometimes-lethal disease often predicated on poor diet, lack of exercise, and excessive weight.
Nearly half of all traffic accidents in the Los Angeles area are classified as hit-and-run collisions.
Grass-roots voter pushbacks are seen as pointless. Progressive state and federal courts have overturned a multitude of reform measures of the last 20 years that had passed with ample majorities.
In impoverished central-California towns such as Mendota, where thousands of acres were idled due to water cutoffs, once-busy farmworkers live in shacks. But even in opulent San Francisco, the sidewalks full of homeless people do not look much different.
What caused the California paradise to squander its rich natural inheritance?
Excessive state regulations and expanding government, massive illegal immigration from impoverished nations, and the rise of unimaginable wealth in the tech industry and coastal retirement communities created two antithetical Californias.
RELATED: Can California Be Saved?
One is an elite, out-of-touch caste along the fashionable Pacific Ocean corridor that runs the state and has the money to escape the real-life consequences of its own unworkable agendas.
The other is a huge underclass in central, rural, and foothill California that cannot flee to the coast and suffers the bulk of the fallout from Byzantine state regulations, poor schools, and the failure to assimilate recent immigrants from some of the poorest areas in the world.
The result is Connecticut and Alabama combined in one state. A house in Menlo Park may sell for more than $1,000 a square foot. In Madera, three hours away, the cost is about one-tenth of that.
In response, state government practices escapism, haggling over transgender-restroom and locker-room issues and the aquatic environment of a three-inch baitfish rather than dealing with a sinking state.
RELATED: California, Leading from Behind
What could save California?
Blue-ribbon committees for years have offered bipartisan plans to simplify and reduce the state tax code, prune burdensome regulations, reform schools, encourage assimilation and unity of culture, and offer incentives to build reasonably priced housing.
Instead, hypocrisy abounds in the two Californias.
If Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg wants to continue lecturing Californians about their xenophobia, he at least should stop turning his estates into sanctuaries with walls and security patrols. And if faculty economists at the University of California at Berkeley keep hectoring the state about fixing income inequality, they might first acknowledge that the state pays them more than $300,000 per year — putting them among the top 2 percent of the university’s salaried employees.
Immigrants to a diverse state where there is no ethnic majority should welcome assimilation into a culture and a political matrix that is usually the direct opposite of what they fled from.
More unity and integration would help. So why not encourage liberal Google to move some of its operations inland to needy Fresno, or lobby the wealthy Silicon Valley to encourage affordable housing in the near-wide-open spaces along the nearby I-280 corridor north to San Francisco?
Finally, state bureaucrats should remember that even cool Californians cannot drink Facebook, eat Google, drive on Oracle, or live in Apple. The distant people who make and grow things still matter.
Elites need to go back and restudy the state’s can-do confidence of the 1950s and 1960s to rediscover good state government — at least if everyday Californians are ever again to have affordable gas, electricity, and homes; safe roads; and competitive schools.
— Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Savior Generals. You can reach him by e-mailing author@victorhanson.com. © 2016 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
http://www.nationalreview.com/node/437522/print