We are days away from the June 30th deadline by which the U.S. and Iran are to have finalized a comprehensive nuclear agreement. The framework agreement President Obama announced in early April ignored the mandate of six U.N. Security Council resolutions as well as his own promise to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
In 1955, songwriter Pete Seeger wrote “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.” It begins with young girls picking flowers and ends with those flowers growing atop the graves of young men killed in war. The song’s anti-war message is clear in refrains repeated throughout, “Oh, when will they ever learn?”
The idiom “selling one a bill of goods” conveys the message a buyer is being deceived—i.e., he is not getting that for which he thought he had bargained. Over the past several weeks, we have witnessed the occurrence of three events where this idiom appropriately can be applied.
Last February’s Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks proved a thriller. Behind 28-24 with 26 seconds left, the Seahawks had a first down on the Patriots one-yard line. With one of the best running backs in the league, the Seahawks were expected to run. Surprisingly, Seattle’s coach called for a pass play over the middle; the ball was intercepted and the Seahawks lost.
Otto and Elise Hampel were German citizens living in Berlin, Germany, during World War II. They were never Nazi supporters. But the loss of Elise’s brother, killed in action in 1940, saw their resentment of Hitler transition into action against his regime. The Hampels began a stealth, anti-Nazi protest campaign.
A six second video recorded of an April 2008 terrorist attack in Ramadi explains why the city fell without a fight to ISIS last week.
It is clear President Barack Obama suffers from a serious mental disconnect in his thinking about Islam. Those responsible for drawing attention to it, the media, suffer it as well—by willingly accepting his narrative on Islam.
“Peanuts” fans well remember a recurring Fall theme in the Charles Schulz comic strip: Lucy holding a football on the ground for Charlie Brown to kick, only to remove it at the last second. Each season, Lucy repeatedly assured Charlie “this time” would be different. A gullible Charlie repeatedly put his faith in Lucy, but readers did not. They knew she had no compunction about lying.
Typically, and understandably, the bond between mother and son is very close.
On May 3rd, a contest to draw the best cartoon depiction of the Prophet Muhammad was held in Garland, Texas, sponsored by the American Freedom Defense Initiative. It closed with a violent end.
While details remain sketchy about the incident, Iranian patrol craft forcibly stopped and boarded a merchant ship under flag of the Marshall Islands. The incident raises two questions—what triggered it and what, if any, responsibility the U.S. may have, under its treaty with the Marshall Islands, to respond to this act of Iranian aggression.
As if on safari, the hunters proudly display their dead prey. But the circa 1915 photograph depicts an undeniable horror. The hunters flank a dozen or so human bodies, laid out upon a dirt mound. The distinctive hunters’ uniforms identify them as Turkish soldiers of the Ottoman Empire; their victims are Armenian Christians.
If anyone understands the Iranian mullahs’ mindset better than most, it is Alireza Jafarzadeh. If anyone misunderstands that mindset better than most, it is President Obama.
MIT economist and Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber acknowledged President Obama depended upon “the stupidity of the American voter” to push through his agenda. The specter of a less-than-honest sales job to promote the Obama agenda raises its head again as the President touts a nuclear deal with Iran.
The success of the late 1960s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie was attributed to the fantasy-oriented premise of a 2000-year old genie released into 20thcentury society.
The March 2015 article by Jeremy Smith “Mystery Killers” correctly identified a major obstacle in improving public health globally—a lack of information. Specifically, of 50 million recorded deaths last year around the globe, few provided the cause. Oftentimes “garbage codes” were used—i.e., overly broad terms, such as “brain trauma,” having numerous causes. Thus, Smith opined, “How can we save lives if we don’t understand what threatens them?”
Events in February, half a world apart, should give the staunchest “Team Obama” supporters pause to question this Administration’s mental health in understanding the evil plaguing the Middle East, primarily, and the West secondarily.
Just like the short-lived television program “Kids Say the Darndest Things,” so too does Vice President Joe Biden.
“Doublespeak” involves manipulating language to deliberately disguise or distort words and their meaning. It is a subterfuge a speaker utilizes to leave a listener confused. In the U.K., Muslim advocates have perfected it to an art form.
With Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress to discuss Iranian nukes on March 3, one need ponder President Obama’s continuing rebukes of the Israeli Prime Minister for doing so.
A clear trend emerges when President Obama discusses religion. When discussing Islam, it is within the sole context of a “peaceful religion.” When discussing other religions, it is within the context of their once having fostered hatred and violence, as he said at the National Prayer Breakfast and the Summit to Counter Violent Extremism (SCVE).
Speaking at an Iranian-American Community symposium, an obviously frustrated former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani posed a rhetorical question to his audience.
If he ever took leadership classes in college, President Obama’s performance in office clearly suggests he slept through them. But his recent statements concerning the Crusades suggest he slept through history and religion classes, as well.
Obama’s legacy—absent a major shift in foreign policy—is clearly established. Taking editorial license with Winston Churchill’s famous quote lauding Royal Air Force pilots in World War II for defeating Germany’s Luftwaffe and applying it to Obama and his leadership team: “Never in the field of human conflict has so little been done for so many by so few.”
