Judge Jeanine to President Obama: ‘You Draw Lines, Putin Crosses Them’

(Fox News Insider) – The following is a transcript of Judge Jeanine Pirro’s opening statement from last night.

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Sometimes the perception of power is more important than power itself.

As our president continues to fumble on the world stage, he single-handedly is bringing about the decline of the U.S. as a world power, something that impacts you in every way from your pocketbook to your safety.

This decline in power has been ongoing since Barack Obama took office.

Starting with the red lines…

The finger wagging…

Removing economic sanctions against Iran, allowing it to continue its nuclear buildup…

Relying on Russian President Putin to broker a deal for Syria’s removal of its chemical weapons just to save face after announcing plans to attack Syria…

Not even sending reinforcements to protect our men in Benghazi…

Unilaterally removing the missile defense system that protects eastern Europe from Russia…

All the while trumpeting the reduction of our military on the world stage with pride.

Not only are we now perceived as weak…

Our enemies emboldened…

Impacting your safety and mine.

With this loss of power – or the perception of that loss – goes manufacturing jobs, trade alliances, allies standing with us.

Weakness encourages aggression.

Putin’s perception of power is so strong that he took Crimea with virtually no one hurt or killed.

Our president threatens costs, claiming to speak for the international community. Except the international community wasn’t with the president.  The UN, NATO, the EU – no one with initials – nobody was with him.

Our president revokes a few Russian businessmen’s visas to Disney World and withdraws Putin’s invitation to tea with the G7 – formerly the G8 – Putin being the odd man out.

Mr. President, while you’re moving tea cups, Putin is moving soldiers and tanks. Today 80,000 Russian soldiers on the Ukraine border.

Now you come out and say there will be more costs should Putin take more than Crimea.

Since Putin already took Crimea, you really didn’t mean what you said, and didn’t say what you meant, so why should he listen?

While you’ve got a pen and phone running around wagging your finger, Putin is running around with tanks and soldiers.

You brag about reducing the U.S. Military. He increases Russia’s military by 79 percent.

Putin’s influence in Europe and the Middle East increases. Russia is on its way to becoming the dominant world power.  And you say this??

“Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors – not out of strength, but out of weakness.”

A regional power?  Weak?  Really?

You engaged him to broker a deal with Syria after you didn’t have the fortitude to follow through on your threat, relying on this KGB agent’s “truth telling” that Syria would eliminate its chemical weapons – all the while he’s selling weapons to Syria.

And don’t we rely on Russia to get us into space now that we’ve shut down our own program.

And take a listen to this…

“And I think the strong condemnation that its received from countries around the world indicates the degree to which Russia is on the wrong side of history on this.”

I’ll tell you who’s looking like they’re on the wrong side of history.

You are not listening to history.  And he who doesn’t learn from history is destined to repeat it.

Ronald Reagan was a strong president. He trusted, but he verified.  He ended the Cold War.

You come in taking down the missile defense system in eastern Europe with nothing in return. Why are you doing this? Do you even know who our enemies are?  Do you know that your obligation is to protect us and our economy?

And you say Russia is a regional power? With all due respect Mr. President, Putin is a pig, but he’s been bitch-slapping you since the Edward Snowden mess.

And speaking of perception, your Secret Service bozos, passing out drunk in hotel hallways traveling with you in Europe makes you look weak yet again. Do you think Putin’s KGB guys would dare do something like that?

I suspect they can handle their Stoli better.

You draw lines… Putin crosses them.

You play make believe war games… He sends the troops.

You sit around moving tea cups… He moves armored tanks.

And you want to poke this tiger in the eye?

The perception of power – as strong as power itself.

[H/T FoxNewsInsider: Justice With Judge Jeanine]

Chickens come home to roost for Obama…

(New York Post) – Today’s quiz: What do Vladimir Putin’s aggression and ObamaCare’s troubles have in common? OK, that was too easy.

It is impossible to dismiss as mere coincidence the Russian Bear’s invasion of Ukraine and the continuing mayhem of the Affordable Care Act. In their own ways, each reflects the full flowering of the policies of Barack Obama.

His chickens are coming home to roost, and what a mess they are making.

Obama’s sixth year in the White House is shaping up as his worst, and that’s saying something. He’s been in the Oval Office so long that it is obscene to blame his problems on George W. Bush, the weather or racism. Obama owns the world he made, or more accurately, the world he tried to remake.

Nothing important has worked as promised, and there is every reason to believe the worst is yet to come. The president’s casual remark the other day that he worries about “a nuclear weapon ­going off in Manhattan” inadvertently reflected the fear millions of Americans have about his leadership. Not necessarily about a bomb, but about where he is taking the country.

We are racing downhill and he is stepping on the gas. Will he stop before the nation crashes?

Ideologues love to dream, and some do it eloquently. Robert Kennedy famously said: “There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why . . . I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”

Mario Cuomo, no slouch at dreaming, nonetheless offered a caveat, saying, “You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose.”

Obama hasn’t figured out the difference. Even more alarming, he shows no signs of trying to learn. In the ways of the world, he remains a know-it-all rookie.

The view from his faculty lounge has no space for reality. Anything that doesn’t fit the grand plan is dismissed as illegitimate. So while global hot spots multiply and the world grows dangerously unstable, the president still plans to slash the military.

His trip abroad last week further secured his reputation for historic ineptitude. It wasn’t that the trip was a disaster — it never rose to that level. His presence and his promises simply made no difference.

He failed to move the European Union toward a firmer stance on Russia, created bizarre headlines by differing with the Vatican over what he and the pope discussed, and got not-so-veiled threats from the Saudis about Syria and Iran.

He could have stayed home and not done worse.

No president can win ’em all, but Obama’s foreign-policy record is unblemished by success. From east to west and north to south, America’s standing and influence have declined universally.

It is impossible for a US president to be irrelevant, but Obama is testing the proposition.

The frequent reports that Putin laughs when Obama warns of consequences can’t be far from the truth. Otherwise, Putin would be cautious instead of carving up neighbors and massing his military. It was also noteworthy that, after their Friday phone talk, ­Putin copied the Vatican and put out his own version of the discussion. Two can play the spin game, he seemed to be saying.

ObamaCare is the domestic expression of the president’s ineptitude. The law that was supposed to fix health care has become a problem for millions, and now enjoys mere 26 percent approval, a poll finds. It is proving so unworkable that the White House has given up defending it as written and instead simply changes key provisions when they prove impossible to implement or politically inconvenient.

Change No. 38 came when officials extended the March 31 deadline for signing up. Never mind that those same officials said recently there would be no extension, and that the law wouldn’t allow it.

Presto — the limits on his power are moot because the president says so. Meanwhile, aides claim they don’t know how many of the 6 million who enrolled actually paid for insurance.

A Caesar at home and a Chamberlain abroad, Obama manages to simultaneously provoke fury and ridicule. He bullies critics here while shrinking from adversaries there.

He divides the country and unites the world against us, ­diminishing the nation in both ways. His reign of error can’t end soon enough, nor can it end well.

Bronze meddle by gov’t tan foes

A chain of tanning salons has learned an important lesson: Only the government can legally lie.

Hollywood Tans, which has seven franchises in New York and scores around the nation, promises to stop promoting certain health benefits of tanning in a deal with New York’s attorney general.

I guess that means the company can’t claim that “if you like your tan, you can keep your tan.”

A backpedalin biz

Color me confused. The Wall Street Journal reports that business experts say the big problem with Citi Bike is that the system is “underpriced and underused.”

In theory, then, raising prices will yield more customers. Really — that’s how business works?

Water under Chris’ bridge

Outrage! Scandal! Waste! You have to marvel at the absolute certainty of those who are denouncing a report that found Gov. Chris Christie knew nothing about the Bridgegate lane closings.

It is true Christie’s office hired the lawyers who did the report, but does that make it less credible than the probes being conducted by Jersey Democrats who repeatedly accuse him of lying? And the report is no more biased than The New York Times’ breathless coverage, which is as naked as the ladies in Bada Bing!

The Gray Lady outdid itself in Saturday’s paper with a snarling package that included a front-page story, a full page inside the paper, an editorial and an op-ed column. The editors also chose a photo of Christie that made him look film-noir sinister.

Of special note was a convoluted article on a conversation that may or may not have happened and may or may not have included any relevant exchange between the governor and a former associate.

The headline on the piece was a master of innuendo without a smidgen of fact: “Potentially Explosive Detail in Bridge Scandal is Unlikely to Be Confirmed.” The paper should have included tin-foil hats so readers could decipher the coded message to partisans.

None of this is meant to suggest that Bridgegate isn’t newsworthy, or that Christie is blameless. Rather, the issue is one of proportion and fairness, not to mention at least a pretense of respect for evidence.

Compared to the unanswered questions about the deaths of four Americans at the hands of terrorists in Benghazi, Bridgegate is more chaff than wheat. Similarly, compelling evidence that the IRS denied conservative groups equal treatment is a far more important story about government abuse of power than a traffic jam.

But those stories reflect badly on a Democratic president, so the Times doesn’t have much interest in getting the truth, especially when there is a Republican they can turn into a piñata.

[H/T NewYorkPost: Michael Goodwin]

Obama Must Show He’ll Use Military Means to Deter Russia in Ukraine

(The Daily Beast) – To deter Putin and other aggressors, diplomatic and economic slaps are not enough; the U.S. needs a military dimension.

Don’t pop the champagne corks just yet because Vladimir Putin phoned Barack Obama to pursue diplomacy on Ukraine and environs. It may be just a ploy, like Moscow’s proposal to denude Syria of chemical weapons to head off a potent U.S. air strike against President Assad’s forces. It may just be a gambit to tamp down the West’s drive toward greater sanctions against Russia. And all sinister explanations of the call gain weight by the fact that some 25,000 Russian troops still threaten Ukraine’s borders.

Even if Putin is serious about diplomacy for the moment, there is a deeper problem afoot for Obama. It is one that the White House rejects outright, but one that officials outside the White House and experts outside the administration are certainly fretting about. It is that Obama’s idea of combating aggression essentially by means of economic sanctions and “diplomacy” is not nearly enough, that the costs of aggression have to be raised, and that there has to be a stronger and more credible military dimension to U.S. national security policy. Whether the White House admits it or not, foes the world over seem to have concluded that Obama has taken the U.S. military force option off the table and made aggression easier.

In that vein, take a second look at what Obama said last Wednesday about a Russian attack on Ukraine: “Of course, Ukraine is not a member of NATO, in part because of its close and complex history with Russia. Nor will Russia be dislodged from Crimea or deterred from further escalation by military force.” That sounds awfully close to telling Putin that if he wants to grab more of Ukraine or all of it he need not worry about a U.S. military response. In effect, the U.S. president is saying that the only cost to Russia for totally violating the basic rules of international behavior is the threat of tougher sanctions (and this only if the Europeans and others can get their act together). Why on earth would Obama give Putin this virtual free ride?

Did the White House fear that unless the Ukrainians felt totally abandoned they might be foolhardy enough to actually precipitate a war with Russia? If this was the White House’s worry, Obama could have warned Ukrainian leaders publicly and privately that their only chance of help from the West was to make it absolutely clear that Moscow was the guilty party.

When Obama said that the United States would do nothing militarily to protect Ukraine against an attack, he was in effect walking away from the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 signed by Ukraine, Russia, Britain and America. By this paper, Ukraine gave back its nuclear weapons to Russia on a pledge by all parties not to violate Ukraine’s security and sovereignty. To be sure, neither London nor Washington was legally obliged to defend Ukraine if attacked. But it is perfectly obvious that Kiev never would have given up its nukes unless it believed the U.S. would come to its defense in some meaningful fashion.

The Budapest document makes sense historically only as a quid pro quo agreement resting upon American credibility to act. The United States cannot simply walk away from the plain meaning of the Budapest Memorandum and leave Ukraine in the lurch. And how would this complete washing of U.S. hands affect U.S. efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, supposedly a top national priority? Why should any nation forego nukes or give them away like Ukraine, if other nations, and especially the U.S., feel zero responsibility for their defense? It’s not that Washington has to send ground troops or start using its nuclear weapons; it’s just that potential aggressors have to see some potential military cost.

It’s bad enough that Obama thinks of the U.S. response to Russia in Ukraine almost exclusively in terms of diplomatic isolation of the bad guy, plus economic sanctions such as they are or might be, and a touch of military aid. But the real worry is that this has become his pattern worldwide.

If potential aggressors come to think that their power grabs will be met solely by diplomatic harassment and some economic squeezing, they will be tempted increasingly to snatch whatever they want first and worry later. Greedy lawbreakers have been  emboldened by Obama’s unenforced “red lines” in Syria. Same goes for North Korean rockets landing on South Korean lands without serious penalty. And the same holds for China’s new pattern of muscle flexing to establish its interests in the East and South China Seas. Ukraine only reinforces the pattern.

Economic sanctions are a good tool, but not a substitute for a credible military option. Even potent economic sanctions over decades have not brought Cuba, Iran, and North Korea to their knees.  Russia will be even more difficult to break with economic sanctions because it is the eighth largest economy in the world.

How can the U.S. add muscle in the present Ukraine crisis?

The boldest and riskiest course would be to dispatch 50 or 60 of the incredibly potent F-22s to Poland plus Patriot batteries and appropriate ground support and protection. Russian generals and even Putin surely know that the F-22s could smash the far inferior Russian air force and then punish Russian armies invading eastern Ukraine or elsewhere in the region.

There’s no sense at all in making this move unless Obama unambiguously resolves to use the F-22s. The worst thing to do is bluff. Nor would the dangers end there even if Obama were not bluffing; Putin might think he was bluffing anyway and start a war.  With all these complications and risks, the Obama team still should give this option a serious look—and let Russia and our NATO partners know this tough course is under serious consideration. Obama has sent a few F-15’s and F-16’s to Eastern Europe, some military aid to Ukraine and other states. But everyone knows this is tokenism.

Another plausible and perhaps less risky measure: help prepare Ukrainians for guerrilla war against an invading Russian force. Pound for pound in conventional war, the Ukrainian forces are no match whatsoever for the Russians. But irregular Ukrainian troops armed with first-class rifles, mortars, and explosive devices would do Russian troops great damage. Russians know this. They have surely not forgotten the horrors fighting guerrillas in Afghanistan.

These steps would be plausible, purely defensive, and a deterrent for starters. They would demonstrate to Moscow that further aggression against Ukraine would result in much more than economic and diplomatic slaps.  Credible force has been the missing ingredient in U.S. policy. Support for what might be the Ukrainian Resistance, combined with an F-22 deployment to Poland “to protect U.S./NATO security interests in the region,” should give Putin pause. And this approach would make the dictators in Pyongyang, Damascus, and Beijing think twice now as well.

[H/T DailyBeast: Leslie H. Gelb]

Obama’s “Kantian” decision to kill Tomahawk and Hellfire missiles

(Allen B. West) – Two different schools of thought clearly define the ideological separation between Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin.

Obama follows the school of philosophy of Immanuel Kant who believed that experience is purely subjective without first being processed by pure reason. He also said that using reason without applying it to experience only leads to theoretical illusions — in Obama’s case delusions.

Putin, well, he certainly follows Niccolo Machiavelli and his beliefs, as articulated in The Prince, that violence may be necessary for the successful stabilization of power and introduction of new legal institutions. Force may be used to eliminate political rivals, to coerce resistant populations, and to purge the community of other men strong enough of character to rule, who will inevitably attempt to replace the ruler.

Through these lenses, it’s easy to understand the actions of Obama and Putin. Obama believes that “reason” by way of economic sanctions will influence the actions of Putin. Putin believes he is stronger and is facing a weak opponent whom he can easily thwart by use of violence and coercion to achieve his desired end state: resurrection of the Russian empire.

And so in the perceived use of “reason,” Obama, who believes if we bury our weapons of war we will be liked, has decided to cancel two very successful missile systems for our military.

As reported in the Washington Free Beacon, “President Barack Obama is seeking to abolish two highly successful missile programs that experts say have helped the U.S. Navy maintain military superiority for the past several decades. The Tomahawk missile program—known as “the world’s most advanced cruise missile”—is set to be cut by $128 million under Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget proposal and completely eliminated by fiscal year 2016, according to budget documents released by the Navy. The Navy will also be forced to cancel its acquisition of the well-regarded and highly effective Hellfire missiles in 2015, according to Obama’s proposal.”

The proposed elimination of these missile programs came as a shock to lawmakers and military experts, who warned ending cutting these missiles would significantly erode America’s ability to deter enemy forces. However, reason trumps experience in Obama world.

“The administration’s proposed budget dramatically under-resources our investments in munitions and leaves the Defense Department with dangerous gaps in key areas, like Tomahawk and Hellfire missiles,” said Rep. Randy Forbes (R., Va.), a member of House Armed Services Committee (HASC). “Increasing our investment in munitions and retaining our technological edge in research and development should be a key component of any serious defense strategy,” he said.

No, Rep. Forbes, my former colleague on the HASC, Obama is not serious about our American defense strategy, his objective is “investing” in the growth of the welfare nanny-state.

The Navy has used various incarnations of the Tomahawk with great success over the past 30 years, employing them during Desert Storm and its battle zones from Iraq and Afghanistan to the Balkans. “It is definitely short-sighted given the value of the Tomahawk as a workhorse,” said Mackenzie Eaglen, a former Pentagon staffer who analyzes military readiness. “The opening days of the U.S. lead-from-behind, ‘no-fly zone’ operation over Libya showcased how important this inventory of weapons is still today.”

Obviously, Obama forgot about using these weapons in the ill-conceived and unconstitutional Libya excursion.

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Seth Cropsey, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for American Seapower. “This really moves the U.S. away from a position of influence and military dominance.” The cuts are “like running a white flag up on a very tall flag pole and saying, ‘We are ready to be walked on,’” Cropsey said.

And just so you know, the experimental anti-ship cruise missile meant to replace the Tomahawk program will not be battle-ready for at least 10 years, according to some experts — which means more like 15 years.

Hey America, we sure did pick one heck of a doozy for President, let’s learn a very important lesson and not repeat this faux pas again!

[H/T AllenBWest]

U.S. military in no shape to face the grandsons of the Red Army

(Press TV) – War fever is in the air. Fifty thousand Russian troops and armor are massed on Ukraine’s eastern border. Europe and Washington worry that the reborn Red Army may sweep west across Ukraine, Moldova, the Baltics – even into Poland.

The West is suffering from a bad case of Cold War chills.

Not only are the Western powers worried, they are discovering that they likely lack the means to stop possible Russian incursions into what was the former Soviet Empire.

They should not be at all surprised that Russia is again showing signs of life.

Frederick the Great, the renowned Prussian warrior-king, warned: “he who tried to defend everything, defends nothing.”

Every young officers should have Great Fredrick’s words tattooed on his right hand. Soon after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, a small number of strategists, this analyst included, warned NATO, “do not move east. It’s a bridge too far.”

Soviet chairman Mikhail Gorbachev had agreed to let rebellious East Germany escape Soviet control – but in exchange for NATO’s vow not to push east in previously Soviet dominated areas of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. The US and NATO agreed, then quickly broke their pledge.

NATO’s advance into Eastern Europe, the Baltic and the Caucasus – not to mention former Soviet Central Asia – that brought the US-led alliance right up to Russia’s borders. US anti- missile systems were scheduled to go into Poland, close to Russian territory. New US bases were set up in Bulgaria, Rumania and Central Asia.

Unsubtle US efforts to bring ex-Russian Ukraine and the vital Sevastopol naval base in Crimea under NATO control – no doubt to punish Russia for supporting Syria and Iran – proved the last straw for the Kremlin.

Talking tough is easy. Defending Eastern Europe from a possible Russian invasion will not be. The main problem is that while US/NATO guarantees have been advanced to Russia’s sensitive borders, their military capabilities have not. In short, commitment without capability.

Russia’s military could take over the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in an afternoon. Sizeable portions of their populations are ethnic Russians.

NATO is not deployed or equipped to go to war over Ukraine: its troops are far to the west, without supply systems or air cover. Besides, European powers, aside from the little Nazis in Denmark and Ukraine’s nationalists, want no part of war with Russia – that’s left to the war hawks safely at home in Washington.

The barrage of trade sanctions Washington is imposed on Russia is an act of pre-war. We should remember that US sanctions imposed on Japan in 1941 that led Tokyo to attack the Western powers.

During the Cold War, the US had some 400,000 troops in Europe, 800 warplanes and potent naval forces. Today, the US has only 43,000 troops left in Europe: two combat brigades and the rest air force and logistics personnel. The old days when the Soviet Union had 50,000 tanks pointed at Western Europe are long gone, but Russia’s modernized armed forces still pack punch.

Meanwhile, the US has scattered forces all over the globe in what Frederick the Great would call an effort to defend everything. Most notably, US troops have gone to Afghanistan, Iraq, then Kuwait, and many home. America’s strongest divisions are now guarding Kansas and Texas instead of German’s Fulda Gap and Hanover.

America’s military power has been dissipated in little colonial wars, just as Britain’s were in the 19th century. When British imperial troops had to face real German soldiers, they were slaughtered. Similarly, the US military, reconfigured after Vietnam to wage guerilla wars, is in no shape today to face the grandsons of the once mighty Red Army.

Cautious, patient Vlad Putin is not about to invade Poland. The real danger is what would happen if the ethnic Russian inhabitants of the Baltic states, Ukraine and Moldova rise up and demand reunification with Mother Russia?

Would Russia go to their aid? Would Europe and the US be ready to risk nuclear war for obscure places like Luhansk, Kharkov, Chisinau or Kaunus?

In Ukraine and Crimea we are now seeing the results of overly aggressive Western geopolitics. Russia was woefully underestimated. A crisis between nuclear-armed powers should never have been allowed to occur. It’s sheer madness. Like nuclear-armed children fighting over a toy.

[H/T PressTV: Eric Margolis]

Russia imposes own sanctions after U.S. “hostile thrust”

(Reuters) – Russia imposed retaliatory sanctions on nine U.S. officials and lawmakers on Thursday as tension over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea mounted, warning the West it would hit back over “every hostile thrust.”

President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said the U.S. sanctions imposed this week were unacceptable and that the Kremlin would act on the principle of reciprocity.

Three White House officials and five U.S. senators – Harry Reid, Robert Menendez, John McCain, Mary Landrieu and Dan Coats – were among the Americans barred from Russia, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner was also on the list.

“We have repeatedly warned that sanctions are a double-edged instrument and would hit the United States like a boomerang,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “There must be no doubt: We will respond adequately to every hostile thrust.”

Moscow’s action followed U.S. sanctions on Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean individuals announced by President Barack Obama on Monday and again on Thursday.

The latest U.S. sanctions, which also involved a bank, targeted several individuals close to Putin in retaliation for his military seizure of Ukraine’s Crimea region. Any assets they have in the United States will be frozen and they will also be barred from U.S. travel.

“The appearance of some of the names on the list causes nothing but extreme perplexity,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “But no matter what the names are, the practice of (issuing sanctions) lists is unacceptable for us.”

The White House officials cited by Moscow were senior Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer and deputy national security advisers Ben Rhodes and Caroline Atkinson.

Lawmakers in Washington were quick to welcome their new designation.

“If standing up for the Ukrainian people, their freedom, their hard earned democracy, and sovereignty means I’m sanctioned by Putin, so be it,” said Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

McCain threw in a bit of sarcasm.

“I guess this means my spring break in Siberia is off, my Gazprom stock is lost, and my secret bank account in Moscow is frozen,” said the Arizona Republican, who travelled to Kiev in December and addressed huge crowds of protesters against what was then Ukraine’s Moscow-backed government.

Peskov said the Kremlin was studying the latest U.S. sanctions list and Swiss-based oil trading firm Gunvor said it was assessing the impact of the inclusion of the company’s Russian shareholder Gennady Timchenko.

A Gunvor statement said Putin had no ownership, beneficial or otherwise, of the firm, and any understanding otherwise was “fundamentally misinformed and outrageous”.

Russian Railways, the country’s railway monopoly, said the decision to put its president Vladimir Yakunin on the U.S. list was unjustified.

(Additional reporting by Ludmila Danilova in Moscow and Patricia Zengerle in Washington; writing by Steve Gutterman, Doina Chiacu and Alexei Anishchuk; editing by Andrew Roche, James Dalgleish, Andrew Hay and Philippa Fletcher)

[H/T Reuters: Maria Kiselyova]

 

Ukraine: You Better Pay Attention Because That’s How It’s Eventually Going to Play Out in North America

(Ann Barnhardt) — There is basically a media blackout on the counter-revolution in Ukraine, but y’all better pay close, close attention, because A.) decent human beings are being slaughtered in the streets for standing up to an illegitimate government and this ALWAYS merits attention as a function of simple charity and B.) I think the events in Ukraine are basically a foreshadowing or prototype of what will eventually play out in North America.  The two situations have many similarities.

Please note that I used the term “counter-revolution” with regards to Ukraine.  Remember, “revolution” refers to any movement that turns AWAY from God.  Without doubt or question, the tyrannical Ukrainian oligarchy executed a cold revolution in which it turned away from God and toward Moscow, Putin and their own personal enrichment.  The “revolution” is a fait accompli.  What the people of Ukraine have been and are now doing is COUNTER-REVOLUTION.  They are sick and tired of being used and abused by a cadre of oligarchs who are toadies of Putin.  They want to turn back toward justice, honesty in government and the rule of law.  Again, Putin is an evil, evil, evil man.  You people who are still falling for his garbage need to wise up.  He is playing you for a fool.  Just because he goes into a church and crosses himself and makes token gestures against sodomites doesn’t make him good.  It makes him politically savvy and nothing more.  If Obama learns to cross himself (assuming that the action wouldn’t cause him to burst into flames or melt), are you going to fall all over him too?  Guys, Putin and Obama are cut from the same cloth.  It is not impossible that Obama has explicit ties to Moscow, and may have even been in Moscow for a time during the missing two years in the early 80′s when he claims to have been at Columbia in NYC, but was almost certainly nowhere near that sulfuric hive of iniquity.

With Putin’s approval, the Kiev oligarchs are now murdering people in the street, and are HAPPILY ADMITTING IT.  Check out this quote from one of them who spoke at a memorial service for one of the first killed.  And remember, this was said AT THE MEMORIAL SERVICE:

A local legislator from the Luhansk region, who is a member of the ruling Party of Regions said, at a memorial service for those killed in Kyiv, “it is ‘correct’ that they were killed. In fact, more severe measures should be taken against the demonstrators.”

Okay.  When the oligarchs stop pretending and happily admit that they are murdering people and that they intend and desire to murder more people, you quit talking, suit up and boot up, and fight until you are either gloriously dead or gloriously victorious.  Remember the Lord of the Rings scene I posted last week of King Theoden at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields giving his speech before the charge?  Do you remember the battle cry of the Rohirim?  ”DEATH!”  Were you taken aback by that?  It isn’t that the Rohirim were suicidal, because that would be a grave sin.  The battle cry “DEATH!” is simply a declaration that they did not fear death and were ready to lay down their lives in service to truth, justice and goodness – and many of them did.  And they understood that to die in that way was, in fact, glorious.  In any action involving a massive charge, there WILL be casualties.  Americans, it seems to me, only want to partake in a “charge” if they don’t have to A.) get up from their sofas, and B.) can be guaranteed that there will be zero risk of personal harm –  be it physical, financial or even mere harm to their reputation or social standing.  If those are your criteria, that’s fine, but understand you have ZERO chance of victory, and frankly, deserve to live under a tyranny for being utterly self-absorbed, cowardly and effeminate at that point.  Sow the wind – even through passivity, and you will still be made to reap the whirlwind.

Now, let me post a quote from a piece published today about Ukraine titled “Bloodlands”, and I will put in red brackets substitutions in the U.S. context and tell me that the two situations aren’t eerily similar:

…It is far more a criminal syndicate than a classic totalitarian regime. The tactics Yanukoych{the Obama regime} has employed as president — forging alliances with oligarchs (who have funded the president’s political party and also made him vastly wealthy personally); hiring gangs of brutes to cow potential opponents; assassinating opponents who didn’t get the message from the thugs or who refused to kowtow; aggregating power in the hands of a single party held together by greed, the lust for power, and the fear of retribution; the thoroughgoing corruption of the justice system and the courts; the eventual strangulation of parliament — were all previewed in the late 1990s and the early years of the new century when Yanukovych was governor of the Donetsk oblast in eastern Ukraine {an Illinois state representative and then U.S. Senator}. There, Yanukovych {Obama} honed his capacity to acquire, and then hold on to, a form of power that is cemented together by personal loyalties, financial cupidity, and fear rather than by any common ideology. Call it clan politics; call it Mafia politics; call it whatever you like, only don’t call it “democratic.” Yanukovych {the Obama regime} may have come to power through the formal mechanisms of democracy (although the legitimacy of recent elections in Ukraine {the former United States} is certainly open to doubt). But as EuroMaidan leaders {screeching American harpies}  such as former world heavyweight champion Vitaliy Klychko {Ann Barnhardt} have long insisted, Yanukovych {the Obama regime}has destroyed constitutional governance in Ukraine {the former United States}, and Ukraine{the now-overthrown United States} can no longer be considered a democracy.

Sadly, the author of this piece is George Weigel, who is a dyed-in-the-wool American neo-con, and as a big-time fanboi of Cardinal Timothy Dolan, I suspect, would scarcely admit to the similarities outlined above, and if he did would be in total denial as to the root causes, much less the solution.  So many Americans today can see things that are happening on the other side of the planet, but simply cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the same evils within the context of their own country.  This isn’t merely a blindSPOT, it is a de facto blindFOLD.  Indifferent, cowardly, and willfully blind.  Forgive me for despairing of a solution that does not involve legions of angels with flaming swords.

[H/T Ann Barnhardt]

Putin To Gay Olympics: Welcome to Russia – ‘Just Leave Kids Alone’

(Free Patriot) — A preoccupation with political correctness hasn’t yet taken root in Russia. That is reflected in many of Vladimir Putin’s comments, the most recent coming on Friday.

President Putin said in an address that gay visitors to the 2014 Winter Olympics

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that homosexuals travelling to his country for the 2014 Winter Olympics next month should feel comfortable. He cautioned them to “just leave kids alone.”

His remarks were aired during a meeting with volunteers at the Olympic mountain venue at Krasnaya Polyana. It seemed to be an effort to assuage concerns from participating nations around the globe in regard to Russia’s tough position regarding homosexuality.

Putin said, “We have no ban on the nontraditional forms of sexual intercourse among people. We have the ban on the propaganda of homosexuality and pedophilia. I want to stress this: propaganda among minors. These are two absolutely different things: a ban on certain relations or the propaganda of such relations.”

His statement was carried on Russian television.

Putin assured his audience that there would be no discrimination against gays at the Olympics. He said, “One can feel calm and at ease. Just leave kids alone, please.”

Putin commented as to the promotion of pedophilia which is being considered in some countries. He said, “There is nothing secret about it, look it up on the Internet and you’ll find it straightaway. Parties have raised the issue with certain parliaments. So what, are we supposed to shuffle behind them like puppies toward unknown consequences? We have our own traditions, our own culture; we treat all our partners with respect and ask for our traditions and our culture to be treated with respect as well.”

The legal system may be paying particular attention to the issue of gays in Russia, as is the Russian Orthodox Church. That church, closely allied with Putin, was the recipient of the protest by the members of the group, Pussy Riot, which resulted in their imprisonment for hooliganism.

A senior church cleric called this month for a national debate over the reinstatement of a Soviet-era law which criminalized gay sex. That law was repealed in 1993.

Some nations had voiced concerns over what they feared would be potential discrimination at the Games following the passage of a law against disseminating homosexual propaganda to minors was passed this past Summer by the Russian Duma, their parliament.

Russian authorities have acted to reassure their Olympic guests as well as placing restrictions upon protests during the Sochi Games.

Please scroll to the bottom of this page for more posts from Rick Wells, or to “Like” him on Facebook or “Follow” him on Twitter.

[H/T Free Patriot]

Vladimir Putin: I Envy Obama Because He Spies and Gets Away with It

“I envy Obama because he can spy on his allies without any consequences,” said Putin when asked about how his relations had changed with the US following Snowden’s espionage revelations.

During an annual question-and-answer session with journalists, Putin praised Edward Snowden’s actions, saying that he was working for a “noble cause.” At the same time he accepted the importance of espionage programs in the fight against global terrorism, but said the NSA needed guidelines to limit its powers.

“There is nothing to be upset about and nothing to be proud of, spying has always been and is one of the oldest professions,” said Putin.

[H/T Info Wars]

Did Obama’s ‘Open Mic’ Moment Translate to Valerie Jarrett’s ‘Flexibility’ to Negotiate Iran Deal?

[H/T Walid Shoebat] — The now infamous ‘open mic’ moment between Barack Obama and then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev captured Obama talking about having “more flexibility” after being re-elected. The comments were made at a nuclear summit in Seoul, South Korea on March 26, 2012. Shortly before asking Medvedev for “flexibility”, Obama was overheard asking his Russian counterpart to relay a message to Vladimir Putin:

“On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved, but it’s important for him (Putin) to give me space.”

Here is the video for memory refreshment:

In reporting the incident, The New York Times implied the comment had to do with “…objections in Russia to the American plans for a missile defense system based in Europe.”

How about the other portion of the Obama quote, to part about “all these issues”? Did any of those issues involve the prospect of a nuclear Iran? Were there any discussions about a deal similar to the on that was signed last week? Iran and Russia are allies with Iran seen as perhaps the greatest potential nuclear threat to the the U.S. It’s hard to believe Iran didn’t come up in the talks.

Consider an article written by the Daily Beast’s Eli Lake earlier this month. In it, he makes the charge that the Obama administration had been “quietly lifting sanctions” on Iran for months prior to the deal that was ultimately struck on November 23rd:

The Obama administration began softening sanctions on Iran after the election of Iran’s new president in June, months before the current round of nuclear talks in Geneva or the historic phone call between the two leaders in September.

While those negotiations now appear on the verge of a breakthrough the key condition for Iran—relief from crippling sanctions—began quietly and modestly five months ago.

A review of Treasury Department notices reveals that the U.S. government has all but stopped the financial blacklisting of entities and people that help Iran evade international sanctions since the election of its president, Hassan Rouhani, in June.

At the World Tribune, Sol W. Sanders indicates that the behind-the-scenes negotiating between the Obama administration and Iran may have been taking place longer than that:

President Barrack Ohama’s special friend and adviser, Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett,apparently, has been secretly creeping around the Persian Gulf for a year holding “unofficial” talks with the Persians, blind siding its allies including Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Of course, being that we’re in November, it’s been one year since the re-election of Barack Obama. Has Jarrett been working with Iranian leadership that long? After all, that’s when the ‘flexibility’ would reveal itself.

Jarrett: “Flexibility” to negotiate with Iran?An article published by Fox News just two days after last year’s election focused on a proliferation of reports from “Iranian bloggers” that Jarrett had been “facilitating communication between the two adversaries”.

The reports suggest that Jarrett, who was born in Iran to American parents and who served as senior adviser to Obama’s presidential campaign, may have held clandestine meetings, bringing together officials from the Obama administration and the Iranian regime.

Jarrett was born in Shiraz, Iran, where her father worked in a hospital. The family left Iran when Jarrett was five years old. Many believe she speaks Farsi, or Persian, the official language of Iran.

In the corresponding video report, filed by Wendell Goler, Obama administration officials vehemently denied any Jarrett involvement. Obama’s confirmed lies on Obamacare, coupled with Lake’s report that clandestine talks between the U.S. and Iran have in fact been taking place behind the scenes for months makes those denials then ring hollow now.

Also quoted in last year’s Fox News report was an Iranian official who said:

“There’s no such thing as negotiations between the U.S. and Iran,” Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said Thursday.

Yeah, right.