Saturday Politics : Obama, Clinton, Schumer and the GOP Debates

Dear readers, with the first GOP debate, the 2016 presidential race has begun in earnest. So, on Saturdays from now until the 2016 election, I plan to write about presidential politics. The email bag will stay open and I'll incorporate your comments and questions into my new "Saturday Politics" blogs. ~~~~~ Let's get started by putting the Republican debates in a wider context. While the debates help to focus both GOP and Democratic voters on the coming presidential election, yesterday the debates overshadowed two key events in the Democratic Party -- and gave the mainstream media time to either spin or ignore them. ~~~~~ First, on Tuesday, the Washington Post announced that Hillary Clinton’s private email server was being assessed by the FBI. The WP was very careful not to call the probe a criminal investigation, and the Clinton campaign brushed off the damaging information, saying it wasn’t a ‘criminal referral.’ However, it turns out the probe actually is a ‘criminal’ investigation. A New York Post article on Wednesday quoted a source who spoke to them : “It’s definitely a criminal probe. I’m not sure why they’re not calling it a criminal probe. The DOJ [Department of Justice] and FBI can conduct civil investigations in very limited circumstances,” but that’s not what this is, the source stressed. “In this case, a security violation would lead to criminal charges. Maybe DOJ is trying to protect her campaign.” ~~~~~ Second, New York Senator and Democratic Senate leader-in-waiting Chuck Schumer announced that he will vote against the Iran deal. Senator Schumer is the most influential Jewish voice in Congress. He explained his decision : “Advocates on both sides have strong cases for their point of view that cannot simply be dismissed. This has made evaluating the agreement a difficult and deliberate endeavor, and after deep study, careful thought and considerable soul-searching, I have decided I must oppose the agreement and will vote yes on a motion of disapproval.” Schumer had spent the last several weeks reading his copy of the agreement and meeting with President Obama and negotiating team officials. His decision is a huge blow to Presidebt Obama and paves the way for other uneasy Democrats to join Republicans in showing their disapproval. Schumer wrote in his statement : “There are some who believe that I can force my colleagues to vote my way. While I will certainly share my view and try to persuade them that the vote to disapprove is the right one, in my experience with matters of conscience and great consequence like this, each member ultimately comes to their own conclusion.” And very quickly, Representative Eliot L. Engel of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who was widely expected to oppose the deal, announced his opposition to it. The arithmetic just got harder for House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi as she tries to build a firewall to prevent a congressional override of a presidential veto, in the event the House and Senate reject the Iran deal. ~~~~~ Pelosi's job has not been helped by the President, who would be its chief beneficiary. Obama has attacked Republicans who oppose the deal using vicious partisan language : "The Iran hardliners make common cause with the Republicans..." His comment has infuriated both Republicans and Democrats. Charles Krauthammer, the Washington Post political analyst, was blunt : " This tragicomedy is now in the hands of Congress or, more accurately of congressional Democrats. It is only because so many Democrats are defecting that Obama....tried so mightily to turn the argument into a partisan issue....Does Obama really believe the Death-to-America hard-liners are some kind of KKK fringe? They are the government, for God’s sake -- the entire state apparatus of the Islamic Republic from the Revolutionary Guards to the supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who for decades have propagated, encouraged and applauded those very same “Death to America” chants. Common cause with the Iranian hard-liners? Who more than Obama? For years, they conduct a rogue nuclear weapons program in defiance of multiple Security Council declarations of its illegality backed by sanctions and embargoes. Obama rewards them with a treaty that legitimates their entire nuclear program, lifts the embargo on conventional weapons and ballistic missiles and revives an economy -- described by Iran’s president as headed back to “the Stone Age” under sanctions -- with an injection of up to $150 billion in unfrozen assets, permission for the unlimited selling of oil and full access to the international financial system With this agreement, this repressive, intolerant, aggressive, supremely anti-American regime -- the chief exporter of terror in the world -- is stronger and more entrenched than it has ever been." ~~~~~ Dear readers, these two stories give the extreme poles of the Democratic Party under Obama. He refuses to admit that Hillary Clinton and he have forged a massive defeat for worldwide security with the Iran deal, even while Mrs. Clinton is swimming against a tide of allegations that should long since have ended her delusional belief that she is presidential material. Carly Fiorina said it in the first debate : "She lies about Benghazi. She lies about emails. She is still defending Planned Parenthood and she is still her party's front-runner." Obama and Clinton are the worst face of the Democratic Party. Compare that with Senator Schumer's decision to put America ahead of Party, possibly sacrificing a party leadership role in so doing -- something the White House is now threatening. And compare Schumer's courageous stand to Obama's determination to expose America to an Iranian nuclear bomb. Dr. Ben Carson got Obama's goals right in the second GOP debate : "If I was trying to destroy this country, what I would do is find a way to drive wedges between all the people, drive the debt to an unsustainable level, and then step off the stage as a world leader and let our enemies increase while we decreased our [military capability].” And Governor Huckabee summarized the Obama duplicity as he tries to hoodwink America into submission and defeat : "President Reagan said trust but verify. President Obama is trust but vilify. He trusts our enemies and vilifies everyone who disagrees with him. And the reason we disagree with him has nothing to do with party. It has to do with the incredibly dangerous place that this world is going to be as a result of a deal in which we got nothing. We didn’t even get four hostages out. We got nothing.” Huckabee’s statement was the number one “dial clip” of the debate. Why? Because the Iran deal distills into one clear argument why we must elect a Republican in 2016 -- to save America and the world from Hillary Clinton, Obama's lying, untrustworthy sidekick in evil. Yesterday's debates began that process. America must stay focused. The future of the world is in play.