FIVE Times Democrats Undermined Republican Presidents With Foreign Governments But Sen. Tom Cotton Is The Bad Guy?

Screenshot credit, Tomfernandez28’s Blog)

March 11, 2015

by tomfernandez28

On Monday, 47 Republican senators led by Tom Cotton, R-Ark., released an “open letter” to Iran’s leaders noting that any deal the regime signs with President Obama without the approval of Congress could be revoked by a future president or changed by Congress. The White House went into a tizzy trying to portray the move as somehow “unprecedented” — a view that has found a friendly audience with the media.

Vice President Joe Biden claimed the letter “ignores two centuries of precedent and threatens to undermine the ability of any future American president, whether democrat or republican, to negotiate with other nations on behalf of the United States.” The New York Daily News featured an editorial blasting the letter on its front page, with photos of the senators and the bold-faced headline “TRAITORS.” A more muted NBC roundup called the move “extraordinary — if not unprecedented.” In reality, whatever one’s view of the letter, to call it “unprecedented” is to ignore history. The reality is that on many occasions, Democrats have reached out to foreign leaders to undermine the foreign policy of a sitting Republican president.

1. That time “liberal lion” Ted Kennedy proposed a secret alliance with the Soviet Union to defeat President Ronald Reagan
A 1983 KGB memo uncovered after the fall of the Soviet Union described a meeting between former KGB officials and former Democratic Sen. John Tunney (Sen. Kennedy’s confidant) in Moscow. Tunney asked the KGB to convey a message to Yuri Andropov, the Soviet leader, proposing a campaign in which Kennedy would visit Moscow to offer talking points to Andropov and Soviet officials on how to attack Reagan’s policies to U.S. audiences. According to the memo, Kennedy, through the intermediary, offered to help facilitate a media tour in a proposed visit by Andropov to the U.S. Kennedy’s hope, as conveyed by the letter, was to hurt Reagan politically on foreign policy at a time when the economic recovery was working in his favor.

2. “Dear Comandante”
In 1984, 10 Democratic lawmakers — including the then majority leader and House Intelligence Committee chairman – sent a letter to Nicaraguan Communist leader Daniel Ortega known as the “Dear Comandante” letter. In it, the lawmakers criticized Reagan’s policy toward Nicaragua and whitewashed the record of violence by the Sandinista communists.

3. Pelosi visited Syrian ruler Bashar Assad
In 2007, newly elected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. As the Associated Press reported at the time, “The meeting was an attempt to push the Bush administration to open a direct dialogue with Syria, a step that the White House has rejected.”

4. Democrats visited Iraq to attack Bush’s policy
As Stephen Hayes recounts: “In September 2002, David Bonior, the second-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, flew to Baghdad in an attempt to undermine George W. Bush’s case for war in Iraq on a trip paid for by Saddam Hussein’s regime. Bonior, accompanied by Reps. Jim McDermott and Mike Thompson, actively propagandized for the Iraqi regime. McDermott, asked whether he found it acceptable to be used by the Iraqi regime, said he hoped the trip would end the suffering of children. ‘We don’t mind being used,’ he said.”

5. Jimmy Carter tried to sabotage George H.W. Bush at the U.N.
On Nov. 20, 1990, as President George H.W. Bush gathered support to oppose Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait, the former Democratic President Jimmy Carter wrote a letter to nations who were in the U.N. Security Council trying to kill the administration’s efforts. As Douglas Brinkley explained, Carter’s letter was an attempt “to thwart the Bush administration’s request for U.N. authorization of hostilities against Iraq. President Bush’s criterion for proceeding with a war was the exhaustion of ‘good faith talks,’ and Carter placed his interpretation of that standard above the administration’s.”

Disclaimer: This was not written by Lorra B.

NEW SECRETARY OF DEFENSE CAN’T EVEN DEFEND HIS WIFE FROM JOE BIDEN

February 17, 2015

We The People:

The Daily Caller Betsy Rothstein

Vice President Joe Biden clearly takes a hands on approach when it comes to his day job. What a complete creep !

United States Vice President Joe Biden talks to Stephanie Carter (R) as her husband Ash Carter (not pictured) delivers his acceptance speech as the new Secretary of Defense at the White House in Washington February 17, 2015. Carter served as the deputy defense secretary, the department’s number two position, from 2011 to 2013. REUTERS/Gary Cameron (UNITED STATES)

Tuesday, at Defense Sec. Ash Carter‘s swearing-in ceremony, Biden got all touchy feely with Carter’s wife, Stephanie. From the pictures, it looks like he’s whispering sweet nothings into her right ear. He’s also getting a good whiff of her shampoo.

Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt: Perhaps he was trying to be comforting after her spill on the ice at the Pentagon this morning while she was accompanying her husband on his first day on the job.

Biden also took a firm grip on the woman’s shoulders.

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Obama’s Third Term? Why It’s So Hard For Hillary Clinton To Shake That Charge

February 16, 2015

Slate:

Vice President Joe Biden spoke in Iowa on Thursday saying exactly what you’d expect him to say about the success of the Obama administration and how it should be carried on: “Those seeking to lead the nation should protect and defend and run, yes run, on what we’ve done; own what we have done. Stand for what we have done, acknowledge what we have done, and be judged on what we have done. … Some say that would amount to a third term of the president. I call it sticking with what works and what we oughta do.”

A third Obama term. The vice president isn’t the only one who feels this way. This, of course, is what Republicans have been saying Hillary Clinton’s presidency would be for months. Biden didn’t introduce this idea, but it’s one thing for Republicans to say it, it’s another thing for the vice president to bolt it onto the eventual Democratic nominee. 

When I heard it, I was fresh from having read David Axelrod’s book Believer about his life in politics from his first political rally at age 5 to the celebration of Obama’s re-election in Chicago on election night in 2012. In the book, he recounts the details of the 2008 campaign, when Obama repeatedly said he didn’t want to give “John McCain the chance to serve out George Bush’s third term.” 

This is a standard attack. Indeed, Democrats are raising money today playing on the idea that Jeb Bush is a third George W. Bush term. The big obvious difference in 2016 is that Obama is much more popular right now than George Bush was at the end of his presidency. Bush’s approval rating was 28 percent in the 2008 election night exit poll. Right now Barack Obama’s approval rating is 47 percent in the Gallup poll, almost 20 points higher. If the economy continues to improve, that number could climb higher still and you could imagine Hillary Clinton saying, If by third term you mean another 59 months of continuous job growth and falling unemployment, then yes I’ll be a third term.

According to David Axelrod, voters want a “remedy, not [a] replica” in the next candidate.

But what Axelrod’s book highlights is the way in which this kind of attack presents challenges that go well beyond mere association. In the 2008 campaign, the Bush’s “third term” charge was a way to highlight the contrast between the old and the new. McCain was a part of the Washington system, Obama was from outside that system. The attack created an appetite for the new, the flavor that Obama happened to be selling. Hillary Clinton may be a strong candidate, but she will never be able to pull off new.

Axelrod writes about a crucial lesson he learned from working on so many mayoral races. Voters want a “remedy, not [a] replica” in the next candidate, even when the incumbent leaving office is well-liked. He says this rule—which he learned most directly in the 1989 race for the mayor of Cleveland where Michael White, the Democrat, followed the popular incumbent Republican George Voinovich—applies to presidential campaigns, too. He wrote to Sen. Obama in 2008: “When incumbents step down, voters rarely opt for a replica of what they have, even when that outgoing leader is popular. They almost always choose change over the status quo.” This is a different formulation of what President Obama was talking about recently when he said voters wanted “that new car smell.” Clinton is associated with the status quo even more because she has the Obama years and the Clinton years attached to her. 

Given this view, simple distinctions between Obama and Clinton on policy or positioning won’t be enough to break the third-term lock. It will be very hard for Clinton to offer herself as a remedy because there is nothing that makes her so constitutionally different from Obama that voters will notice. She is probably, for example, a better deal-maker and would work harder at connecting with Republicans, but that’s hardly a vast distinction that makes voter sit up. Gender is an obvious distinction, but that’s not the basis for a presidential platform.

She doesn’t have to have any message. Her only message should just be ” I am not clinically insane”. That would sufficiently distinguish her from any republican candidate not named Bush or Romney. 

More at Slate:

‘We Have No Leadership’: Donald Trump Slams Obama for Skipping Paris Unity Rally (Video)

January 12, 2015

Lorra B.:  Not one of our leaders, President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden or even Secretary of Sate John Kerry, decided to attend as over 40 other leaders from around the world descended on Paris yesterday in unified support against the brutality of Islamic extremism.

How do you explain this blatant disregard for this world-wide threat by thumbing your nose at France while other world leaders rally around them?

Disgraceful in my estimation, though I am quite sure I am not alone in this sentiment.

 

 

Fox News Insider:

More than 40 world leaders marched through Paris yesterday in unity against Islamic extremism.

President Obama, however, did not attend. Neither did Vice President Joe Biden or Secretary of State John Kerry.

Not only that, but Attorney General Eric Holder was the only representative from the Obama administration who attended key terror talks in Paris.

Donald Trump said on “Fox and Friends” this morning that a high-level official should have been present at the anti-terror rally.

“Whether [Obama] is there or Biden is there or Kerry is there, somebody should have been there,” he said.

“These were the world leaders. These were the top people from the top countries. We were represented at a very low level.”

Steve Doocy pointed out that this administration sent three or four White House aides to Michael Brown’s funeral in Missouri.

 

More at Fox News Insider:

Can you say Boom! multiple times?

December 3, 2014

By Jim Campbell, Citizen Journalist, Oath Keeper and Patriot.

You would be able to without a problem it you took Joe Biden’s advice, to “Just get a shotgun, just get a shotgun.”

What the media failed to tell us was that Biden went on to say if you hear someone out side your door, just shoot the door, violating everything ever taught about shooting  and this is coming from your friendly neighborhood NRA  instructor.

Actually a new one below. HA!

Joe also failed to tell us that the preferred rounds used by our military against those who commit Jihad is depicted below.

 

Special forces use 100 Buck heavier on the bacon bits with hog intestines mixed in with the gun powder. 

Trip to visit Allah not included.

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THE GOP’S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET ON IMPEACHMENT

November 18, 2014

DESERT MUSINGS:

I credit David Martosko, political writer for MailOnLine for this one. I think he’s hit the nail on the head.

Want to know in a simple two-word answer WHY it is that impeachment is off the table when it comes to Obama issuing a blatantly unconstitutional executive order on immigration? Very simply put…Joe Biden.

There isn’t one single person in the GOP in DC that wants to go through the mess of impeachment, but it has nothing to do with the fiasco that followed Bill Clinton’s impeachment back in the 1990′s. This one has to do about a sitting vice president that quite frankly, isn’t cut out to be anything but a second banana to Bobo, the world’s second most famous clown. And when you really think about it…isn’t that enough reason to avoid impeachment at all costs?

Do you really want to wake up every morning to see Smilin’ Joe on you TV set, screaming about one topic or another and getting it all wrong…addressing the Canadian Prime Minister as “Tony Blair” (it’s currently Stephen Harper). Do you really want him telling you that last month he created 540 million jobs in the US? If we think we have a “feckless” leader now that no world leader respects, what in God’s name do you think we’re going to get when Joe Biden walks into a room? Great guy….love to have a beer with him and swap stories sometime because I bet he’s got a million of them. But to be honest? The guy doesn’t deserve to be vice president of the United States. Maybe vice president of his local Rotary Club.

And if you think for a minute that the leadership in either the House or the Senate is concerned about the blowback they’d get if they impeached Obama, I bet you’re wrong. Only because there are about as many people (slightly less) that would like to see him get what’s coming to him. I don’t personally think that impeachment should be the play here. But I’ve said all along we shouldn’t do it for political reasons, not obvious reasons.

I will credit Bobo with this. Back in 2008 when he was running for the presidency, and chose Biden as a running mate, he did it for one reason….and I’ve always wondered about it until now. That reason was, he knew the agenda he was going to undertake. He knew the blowback he would get from it. And he knew that nobody would impeach him with Joe Biden sitting there in the Senate smiling at everyone, as his replacement. One of the more brilliant moves of his presidency!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

‘Hard Choices’ Will Face Hillary Clinton Should She Seek Another Presidential Run

Hillary Clinton ran and lost in the 2008 presidential elections and many Americans wonder if and why she would run again. Others, however, eager to see her as our next president, wonder what would keep her from seeking the elusive office for a second time.

In July CNN asked the question, “What would cause Hillary Clinton not to run for president?”

Two months ago Clinton answered that question and said, “It would be wholly personal…Because I know so much about the job and how hard it is; I am very struck by the historic nature of a campaign that I might, in the future, undertake.”

Explaining that the job has gotten more difficult and is now a much bigger undertaking, Clinton addresses that issue by saying, “You’ve got to get the money from the Congress to really improve what you’re doing, personnel policies, and all the rest. So the job is as challenging as it’s always been, but I would say almost to a degree of amplification that’s hard to imagine.”

Now, in September, things are looking a little clearer.

It has been since 2008 that Clinton has graced Iowa with her presence. Her visit there on Sunday began fanning the flames of speculation about a possible 2016 presidential run stating that she has “a few things on [her] mind” of late.

“There’s that other thing [referring to the rumored presidential run]. It is true I am thinking about it.”

Why would Clinton want to run for president again? Clearly, the ultimate goal of becoming the first female American President has its own rewards but is it worth going through the process again? In July President Obama was interviewed by New Yorker and was asked if he believed Hillary Clinton [and/or Joe Biden] was ‘Oval Office material.’

“For both Joe and Hillary, they’ve already accomplished an awful lot in their lives. The question is, do they, at this phase in their lives, want to go through the pretty undignifying process of running all over again?” stated Obama.

That is a question that we are still left wondering as Clinton told reporters on Sunday that the reason for her Iowa visit was “to support candidates.”

“It is true, I am thinking about it,” Clinton said. “But for today, that is not why I am here. I am here first and foremost for Tom [Harkin], for [Tom’s wife] Ruth and for the great candidates that you have a chance to elect.”

Clinton has stated that she will make a decision “probably after the first of the year.”

America is in a very different place than in 2008 and its issues are tremendous. Being the first woman president would be an enormous milestone but with issues like war and terrorism, not to mention financial and social upset, Clinton may have an upward climb.

“To win the nomination, let alone the general election, Clinton will have to lay out her vision of the way forward,” reports TruthDig.

Tom Harkin told Dan Balz of The Washington Post that “…she is much more progressive in her thoughts and her inclination than most people may think.”

“There is much we know about Hillary Clinton by whatever label she chooses to wear or hide behind,” reported Quad-City Times. “She has been in the national spotlight for more than two decades and most people have already decided what they think of her.”

At this point Clinton has a 43% approval rating, a 41% negative rating, and 16% are undecided or neutral, according to a Wall Street Journal poll.

The question then becomes whether she can bounce back from a very high negative rating when the campaign has not even begun yet nor have the political ads.

“Some Democrats who backed other candidates in the state’s caucuses in 2008 say they haven’t yet warmed to Mrs. Clinton,” stated Peter Nicholas of The Wall Street Journal. “Others bristled at her recent criticism of President Barack Obama’s Mideast policy…some say they want to see a more accessible and authentic candidate than the one who finished third behind Mr. Obama and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina (in 2008).”

Negative ratings are not Clintons only obstacle. What memorable things did she do when she was first lady that sticks out in voter’s mind? She did vote to give authority to President Bush to carry out the Afghanistan and Iraq wars when she was senator. But most of Clinton’s resolutions and legislation were not memorable except when she failed to protect the three Americans and U.S. ambassador who were killed in Benghazi. I can see the political ads now and they won’t be pleasant.

Clinton was also notoriously unkind to her Secret Service detail, according to the book ‘In the President’s Secret Service.’ There were agents who had been assigned to her that referred to there assigned detail as “a form of punishment.”  This, too, will not play well in the media.

“An indication of how difficult it will be to sell Mrs. Clinton as a competent president comes from a column by Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times, who tries his best to create a positive record for her,” reports Quad-City Times. “Clinton achieved a great deal and left a hefty legacy—just not the traditional kind. …For starters, Clinton recognized that our future will be more about Asia than Europe.”

“More fundamentally, Clinton vastly expanded the diplomatic agenda. Diplomats historically focused on hard issues, like trade or blowing up stuff, and so it may seem weird and soft to fret about women’s rights or economic development.”

Advocates for Clinton, however, have a different view her. Harkin praised Clinton’s dedication to health care reform, (though ‘Hillarycare’ did not go over well). “Her fingerprints are all over that legislation (Obamacare). It would not have happened but for her strenuous advocacy all those years.”

A union member from Fort Dodge, Cindy Sturtz, stated, “I honestly believe she will be the next president.”

The support for Clinton was obvious in Iowa during the annual steak fry with over 5,000 Democratic activists. There were chants of “Hillary, Hillary, Hillary!” and much applause as she tip-toed around the possibility of her re-run for presidency.

Though the overall popularity polls show Clinton in the negative, early polls have shown her leading other Democrats by a large margin, including Maryland’s Governor Martin O’Malley, and Vice President Joe Biden.

Traveling to Des Moines next week, Biden has not dismissed the possibility of another campaign. O’Malley has made many trips to Iowa and plans on dispatching staff members this fall.

Mitt Romney chimed in his opinion of Clinton running for president and stated, “Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are two peas in the same pod, and the American people have tasted that and have said, ‘Look, that’s not a good taste. It’s not right for the American people.”

Romney went on to say, “You watched a president who just doesn’t understand how to make an administration work, how to interact with Congress, how to get things done. You have to have those things. I don’t think Hillary Clinton has that experience.”

We will have to wait until after the first of the year to discover what Hillary Clinton will do but it is clear she will have an up-hill battle if she chooses to run for the presidency again and many “Hard Choices” to make concerning the issues facing the United States.

 

By Lorra B. Chief Writer for Silent Soldier

http://SilentSoldier.us