Iranian Aftershocks: Washington And Tehran Face An Uncertain Diplomatic Landscape

Nearly two weeks have passed since President Barack Obama made history with a phone call to his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, during the final moments of Rouhani's inaugural visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly meetings. And less than a week remains before diplomats from the two adversaries sit down in Geneva, along with European, Russian and Chinese representatives for the latest round of a long-running negotiation on Iran's nuclear program — talks that have suddenly assumed new meaning and newly inflated expectations thanks to the bilateral breakthrough. This interlude offers an opportunity to take stock of what has been achieved and what lies ahead for diplomacy aimed at resolving the Iranian nuclear crisis.
Since news of the presidential phone call went public — initially via a Twitter account associated with Rouhani, momentarily preempting President Obama's hastily-organized press conference — the shock of the unprecedented direct contact between Iranian and American leaders has faded. So has the glow of the calculated charm offensive that Rouhani and his colleagues waged during their week in New York. Both leaderships have seen some public pushback from their domestic political rivals, who distrust the sudden embrace of diplomacy, and are gearing up for the talks as the first real substantive test of the gamble they took in breaking one of the central taboos of Iran's post-revolutionary order.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/iran-at-saban/posts/2013/10/28-iran-us-un-rouhani-wrapup 

Obama’s Confession of Indifference

Last week I wrote a column accusing the president of having a vindictive streak — of deliberately trying to make the lives of average Americans worse just so he could score ideological and political points.
We already knew from how he handled the budget sequester that Obama liked this approach. He ordered Cabinet secretaries not to do their jobs — i.e., to manage as best they could under spending restraints — but instead to find ways to make the cuts needlessly painful for innocents caught in the Beltway crossfire.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/360936/obamas-confession-indifference-jonah-goldberg 

A LAW FOR YOU BUT NOT FOR ME

Tyranny comes in many forms but one sure sign of tyranny is when those elected to govern pass laws that impose tax burdens and limit freedom for all, except themselves. By this measure, Obamacare is an excellent example of tyranny.

The Administration is currently spending $684 million of our tax dollars on a massive, daily ad campaign to convince uninsured Americans to call Obamacare exchanges and buy health insurance at a cost of between about $5,000 per person and $11,000 per family per year.

While $684 million is being spent on this feverish, last minute attempt to convince the unwilling to fork over what is a veritable fortune for many in this troubled economy, the President is working in secret with House Speaker David Bohner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to ensure that members of Congress and their aides do not have to pay for their Obamacare insurance coverage.

http://newswithviews.com/Emord/jonathan312.htm 

National Debt Set to Double Before Obama Leaves Office

The national debt is set to double by the time President Barack Obama leaves office, if it continues to increase at the current rate.

In January 2009, when Obama began his first term, the federal debt was $10.6 trillion. As of this week it has increased 57 percent to $16.7 trillion, The Washington Times reported.

As Congress is faced with raising the debt ceiling by Oct. 17 or letting the government default on its bills, Obama has argued that doing so "won't add a dime" the federal debt.

"It does not increase our debt," Obama said. "It does not grow our deficits. All it does is allow the Treasury Department to pay for what Congress has already spent."

These claims by the president gloss over the growing total debt, according to Alex Brill, a budget specialist of the American Enterprise Institute.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/national-debt-obama/2013/10/10/id/530429?ns_mail_uid=38419335&ns_mail_job=1541225_10112013&promo_code=1525D-1#ixzz2hQdtByWv

The way out

For all the hyped indignation over GOP “anarchism,” there has been remarkable media reticence about the president’s intransigence. He has refused to negotiate anything unless the Republicans fully fund the government and raise the debt ceiling — unconditionally.
For all his protestations about protecting the full faith and credit of the United States — jittery markets are showing that his brinkmanship could have precisely the opposite effect — the president’s real intent is to score a humiliating victory over the GOP.
So far, so good. Republicans have fallen to 28 percent approval, the lowest level ever for either party in 21 years of polling and a staggering 10-point drop in the last month. Democrats have also declined, but only four points and, in the end, partisan politics is a zero-sum game. If you lose less than the other guy, you win — because every seat in Congress will be allocated to one party or the other, no matter how disgusted the country is with both.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-the-way-out/2013/10/10/9dc2e70a-31e2-11e3-9c68-1cf643210300_story.html 

Who owns government? The government or the people?

The link below is a thoughtful and provocative piece.  I agree with most of what is covered but not everything.  Specifically, I disagree with the author's characterization that it is the democrats that are the problem - their refusal to negotiate on a goodly number of republican proposals to resolve the government shut down, deal with the federal debt and Obamacare.  It is instead the progressive elements within both the Democratic and Republican parties that are the problem.  Many democrats are wary of the progressive influences that dominate their party.  But it is a fact that the democratic party is the home of far more progressives than the republicans so that is where the intransigence lies.  Hence, the theme of the linked article.  Because the bulk of leadership within the democratic party happens to be progressives getting past the current issue of restarting government, dealing with the debt limit and on to Obamacare will be most difficult.  As the article notes the democrats (progressives) think they own the government.  Democrats and even some republicans lambaste the Tea Party's influence on the repulican party.  The fact is that the Tea Party believes that the federal debt and government spending are out of control and that Obamacare will only exacerbate those problems.  So the progressive left has its world view (big government is good, spending is not out of control, debt is good, etc.) and the Tea Party right believes the opposite.  The progressive left frequently calls Tea Party adherents tyrants, terrorists, etc..  That is an affront to ligitimately held beliefs.  What if they called the progressive left such names?  Who would be more correct? 

Saying the above things about progressives does not mean that all progressive thoughts and actions are unworthy.  Not so.  The movement has done good things over time.  The problem is that progressives seek to place all faith and power in government.  In effect they believe the government is supreme and has the right to dictate policy to its citizens.  A consequence of such thinking is to drain private citizen resources in pursuit of their Utopian ideas.  And because their thinking, especially progressive dominated government, they assume private citizens and organizations on their own are unable to "innovate" and "improve" the lives of their fellow citizens.  Only progressive minded government can do that.  Not only does past history demonstrate that to be a falsehood but also validates such thinking as being socialistic in nature.  To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher:  Socialism does not work for the long term because socialist governments eventually run out of other people's money.  Again history validates that fact.  Nonetheless that is what is happening to us.  Progressive driven programs have caused our government to grow so big and unwieldy that it can neither efficiently and effectively manage the programs it implements.  Worse yet the money is drying up. 

Progressives have demonstrated that they cannot effectively and efficiently manage the tax resources forcefully taken from us.  Hence their penchant for borrowing seemingly without regard for eventual consequences.  As budget and debt limit battles show they apparently cannot fathom our objections to an ever increasing tax load and unbounded national debt neither of which we asked for, but no thanks to them we are responsible for.

http://www.humanevents.com/2013/10/09/democrats-to-america-we-own-the-government/

George Burns

About Our National Debt

If you want to truly understand the ins and outs of our national debt, this article by Murray Rothbard will go a long way towards that goal.  Here are two quotes I lifted from the article to provide a taste of what you will find.  It is an obvious reprint from several years ago but the examples and explanations are just as relevant today as when written, maybe even more so given current fiscal conditions

"If I borrow money from a mortgage bank, I have made a contract to transfer my money to a creditor at a future date; in a deep sense, he is the true owner
of the money at that point, and if I don’t pay I am robbing him of his just property.  But when government borrows money, it does not pledge its own money; its own resources are not liable. Government commits not its own life, fortune, and sacred honor to repay the debt, but ours. This is a horse, and a transaction, of a very different color."

And,

"Deficits and a mounting debt, therefore, are a growing and intolerable burden on the society and economy, both because they raise the tax burden and increasingly drain resources from the productive to the parasitic, counterproductive, 'public' sector.  Moreover, whenever deficits are financed by expanding bank credit
– in other words, by creating new money – matters become still worse, since credit inflation creates permanent and rising price inflation as well as waves of boom-bust 'business cycles.'”

http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/10/murray-n-rothbard/repudiate-the-national-debt-3/     

George Burns