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News/Politics 7-20-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. “I’ve Read the Nuclear Deal, Mr. President, and It’s Awful”

From LegalInsurrection  “In his combative press conference last week to defend the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran, President Barack Obama issued the following challenge:

So to go back to Congress, I challenge those who are objecting to this agreement, number one, to read the agreement before they comment on it; number two, to explain specifically where it is that they think this agreement does not prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and why they’re right and people like Ernie Moniz, who is an MIT nuclear physicist and an expert in these issues, is wrong, why the rest of the world is wrong, and then present an alternative.

First off it’s worth noting that Energy Secretary and MIT nuclear physicist Ernest Moniz said back in April that to be effective the deal would have to include “anytime, anywhere,” inspections, so Obama’s explanation about why 24 days notice is now good enough fails to convince me.

I want Moniz to explain why he changed his position on this AND why 24 days is now acceptable. I would like Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes to explain why he walked back his comments on requiring “anytime, anywhere” inspections.

And I want a more convincing explanation than negotiator Wendy Sherman’s excuse that the term was just a “rhetorical flourish.” (If that was a rhetorical flourish, I’m curious how many other administration comments about the nuclear deal were rhetorical flourishes.)

But in that paragraph, Obama limits the grounds of questioning the deal to whether the language of the deal is insufficient to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear breakout over the course of the deal.

Here’s where I have problem. Even if the agreement was airtight, and I doubt that it is, there’s a matter of the administration’s behavior during the Joint Plan of Action, which was agreed to in November 2013. The problem is that the Obama administration has acted as “Iran’s attorney” covering for Iran’s violations of the previous agreement.”

And it helps an Iranian General with American blood on his hands. 

From TheDailyBeast  “John Kerry denied it. So did Iran’s foreign minister. But the world’s most notorious spymaster stands to benefit—big time—from the accord with Tehran.

Among the big winners in the agreement to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, count a notorious and shadowy Iranian general who helped Shiite militias in Iraq kill American soldiers and who has come to the rescue of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

You’ll find his name, Qasem Soleimani, buried in an annex (PDF) of the unremittingly dense Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, along with some of his colleagues from the senior ranks of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as its various divisions and corporate fronts. They’ll all be granted some sanctions relief as part of the U.S.-brokered deal to curtail Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon.

That Soleimani—who runs Iran’s elite paramilitary and covert operations group, the Quds Force—was even on the list appeared to catch some U.S. officials by surprise. A senior administration official briefing reporters on Tuesday morning didn’t have a ready response when asked when and why Soleimani was added. Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly denied that the 58-year-old general was on the list to be freed from the sanctions yoke. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, agreed, saying Soleimani—whom the U.S. accused in 2011 of plotting to launch a terrorist attack in the United States—had been confused with someone else with a similar name.

They were all wrong—or maybe didn’t want to be right. Soleimani is, in fact, on the list, a Treasury Department official later confirmed to The Daily Beast. And his presence definitely surprised some powerful lawmakers, who are already sharpening their knives for a filleting of the Iran deal.”

““Soleimani is the guy that sent the copper-tipped IEDs into Iraq,” said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, referring to powerful improvised explosive devices, which Marine Corps Commandant General Joseph Dunford testified last week were responsible for the deaths of 500 soldiers and Marines. “That is really unbelievable,” McCain said when asked about Soleimani’s name showing up in the bowels of the Iran nuclear deal.”

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2. Unacceptable. 

From TheHill  “An internal Veterans Affairs Department report states that about one-third of the veterans waiting to receive medical care from the agency have already died.

A review of veteran death records provided to the Huffington Post found that, as of April, 847,822 veterans were awaiting healthcare and that of those, 238,647 were already deceased.

The report was handed over by Scott Davis, a program specialist at the VA’s Health Eligibility Center in Atlanta

He also sent copies to the House and Senate VA panels and to the White House.

A VA spokeswoman told Huffington Post that the department can’t subtract dead applicants from the list and that some may never have completed an application but remain on the back log.

Spokeswoman Walinda West also said that more than 80 percent veterans who come to the department “have either Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare or some other private insurance.”

“Consequently, some in pending status may have decided to use other options instead of completing their eligibility application.”

Davis dismissed that argument.

“VA wants you to believe, by virtue of people being able to get health care elsewhere, it’s not a big deal. But VA is turning away tens of thousands of veterans eligible for health care,” he said. “VA is making it cumbersome, and then saying, ‘See? They didn’t want it anyway.'”

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3. “Just your daily reminder that Medicaid is a ‘humanitarian catastrophe’”

From HotAir  “I’m sure most of you already know this, but Medicaid expansion–a critical component of Obamacare–is an abject disaster. In Virginia, almost a quarter of doctors aren’t accepting new Medicaid recipients–and those already enrolled into this government-run health care program experienced no improvement in care.

So, how is this a good blueprint for the rest of the country? Well, as you know, it isn’t–and the figures get worse regarding who is actually receiving care under this government program. As the Foundation for Government Accountability reiterated during their conference in June, there are still a lot of misconceptions about Medicaid expansion.”

“Unlike other forms of welfare, Medicaid has no work requirement, meaning states are being asked to expand eligibility for taxpayer- funded Medicaid to able-bodied, non-working adults. Research shows that expanding Medicaid to this new class of individuals discourages work, depresses earnings, reduces labor-force participation and hurts the economy.

Worse yet, the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that more than 35 percent of these potential new Medicaid enrollees have previous involvement in the criminal justice system, with many having been incarcerated.9 Put another way, ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion does nothing to protect or support kids, seniors, individuals with disabilities on waiting lists or pregnant women. Instead, it gives taxpayer- funded Medicaid to able-bodied adults, largely without dependent children, largely unwilling to work, with many having a record of serving time in jail or prison.”

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4. Finally, a judge with some backbone. 

From TheWashingtonTimes  “Goosed into action by an angry federal judge, federal immigration authorities will go door-to-door demanding illegal immigrants return the three-year amnesty approvals the Obama administration issued to them in defiance of a court order.

Those who don’t return their three-year permits will have them terminated at the end of this month, the National Immigrant Justice Center, one of the advocacy groups briefed on authorities’ plan, said in a statement preparing immigrants for what could be a traumatic encounter.

The move comes as Homeland Security officials, fed up with slow-walking by illegal immigrants, are finally playing hardball after months of less forceful measures.

They’re scrambling to meet an end-of-month deadline set by Judge Andrew S. Hanen for recapturing thousands of three-year amnesties the department issued even after the court had entered an injunction halting the new amnesty program.

Unless all of the permits are recovered, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson could personally have to appear in court to explain the foul-up, Judge Hanen said in an order earlier this month.”

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5. A race database?

From TheNYPost  “A key part of President Obama’s legacy will be the fed’s unprecedented collection of sensitive data on Americans by race. The government is prying into our most personal information at the most local levels, all for the purpose of “racial and economic justice.”

Unbeknown to most Americans, Obama’s racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school — all to document “inequalities” between minorities and whites.

This Orwellian-style stockpile of statistics includes a vast and permanent network of discrimination databases, which Obama already is using to make “disparate impact” cases against: banks that don’t make enough prime loans to minorities; schools that suspend too many blacks; cities that don’t offer enough Section 8 and other low-income housing for minorities; and employers who turn down African-Americans for jobs due to criminal backgrounds.

Big Brother Barack wants the databases operational before he leaves office, and much of the data in them will be posted online.

So civil-rights attorneys and urban activist groups will be able to exploit them to show patterns of “racial disparities” and “segregation,” even if no other evidence of discrimination exists.”

That sounds like a “community organizer’s” dream come true.

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28 thoughts on “News/Politics 7-20-15”

  2. Banks are businesses and are in business to make a profit. Not to lose money. As much as I have seen in doing short sales and as must as I loathe Bank of America I still say this. What got the banking industry in the bind it was in was making sub-prime loans. If you are making $ 10 and hour and are continually late on paying your utilities and other bills, why would I loan you money to purchase a 200K house? It doesn’t make financial sense. I understand all about redlining – where banks won’t lend money in certain areas and on one hand it is unfair, but on the other, it makes good business sense.
    It used to be that you put 10 to 20 percent down on a mortgage and if any money was “gifted” to you to help you with closing costs and down payment it had to “season” –stay in your account for X number of days.
    As a real estate agent I will sell you a property any where you want to buy. I can’t discriminate. I can’t steer you to one property over another. But if you come to me with a pre-approval for a 300K loan and in talking to you I get the feeling it may become a financial stress will will ask you if you want to push that limit or if you would like to look in the 250 to 275 range. After all you are going to want to afford some new furniture and ocassionally go out to dinner. You don’t want to be a slave to a house payment do you? I will even tell you that once upon a time I lived in my dream house. It was everything I ever wanted and I was miserable. I couldn’t furnish it the way I wanted and there was never any play money to go and do anything.
    Now about discipline in schools? Well that would take me the rest of the day to tell you what I have heard, what I have experienced, and what I think. I do know that an older teacher, nearing retirement once told me that every year the drugs get worse and every year the discipline problems get worst. YOU draw the conclusion. It also wasn’t a racial statement because she was the same race as most of the students in that school.

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  4. Kim said it better than I can. But some time ago, I read Reckless Endangerment, How outsized ambition, greed, and corruption led to economic Armageddon.
    It was a difficult read because there are no good guys. But the real culprit is Congress and the Government agencies that decreed that banks had to make loans to people who couldn’t pay them back. That is for fair housing. That was the cause of the disruption in 2008 that George Bush gets blamed for. Bush is partly at fault because he never vetoed the bills Congress passed.

    But every time you hear of the government trying to make thing fair and equal, you know trouble is the outcome.
    I just finished reading The Death of Money. James Rickards thinks that student loans is going to have the same result that the housing fiasco had.
    “You loan money to kids who like to spend money. What do you get?”
    Paraphrased there, but that’s what he was driving at.

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  5. I read something recently that said that government is going to build “fair housing” in upscale neighborhoods. That is only going to hurt the people who buy those houses. They won’t be able to afford the upkeep that’s required in such a neighborhood and the house loses it’s value quickly. It then becomes an eyesore no one wants.

    The agencies are run by well meaning (or) evil idiots. Well meaning or not, the outcome is the same. My son has a monthly homeowners fee just for living in his community. He gets benefits for it, but it’s still a cost.

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  7. “Current financial regulatory policy is misguided because the risk management models are unsound. More unsettling still is the fact that Wall Street executives know the models are unsound but use them anyway because the models permit higher leverage, bigger profits, and larger bonuses. The regulators suspect as much but play along, often in the hope of landing a
    job with the banks they regulate. Metaphorically speaking, the bankers’ mansions are high on a ridge-line far from the village, while the villagers, everyday Americans and others around the world, are in the path of the avalanche.”

    Ibid, p. 247

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  8. I see also in Rickard’s book that our national GDP is $15.7 trillion.
    Not in the book, but our national debt is now about $18 trillion.
    By comparison, the national GDP of China is $8.2 trillion, Russia is $2 trillion.

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  9. I remembered that I grew up in a nice, older subdivision that was not incorportated In the 1990’s it had reached a build out level that the government came in, bought some of the remaining lots and put government houses on them. You couldn’t be above a certain income level to purchase. The houses looked institutional. They were all built by the same floor plan with a one car carport. There were a drab brown brick and stuck out like a sore thumb among the other houses. In this subdivision all of the houses were different looking, some were brick, some were cedar siding, some were stucco, but there were all nice, well maintained homes. The people who moved into the government sponsored homes couldn’t afford blinds, some had sheets hanging over the windows, some had aluminum foil over the windows. Run down cars ended up on blocks. Grass wasn’t cut. They became an eyesore.( PLEASE understand that I am not being a snob). What eventually happened is that the new homes that were built were a smaller square footage and the people who had the nicer homes lost the value in their homes. Some sold and moved, but now that neighborhood is NOT a nice neighborhood.

    It seems to be a rule that you cannot make things fair and bring people up to a higher standard if you give it to them. You cause other peoples values to decrease. Someone who has the desire to live in a nicer area works for it and takes care of it. Home ownership isn’t for everyone. There is a lot o maintenance and repair that goes into owning a home.

    Recently rules have changed for Section 8 housing. Once a client is approved for Section 8 they have to follow certain rules in order to continue to qualify for it and the landlords have to maintain the proper in a certain manner. It looks better.

    Building low income homes in more affluent areas is a lose/lose for everyone.

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  10. What concerns me overall is that once government gets so big — and begins to control housing, health care and education options — there’s no going back. It’s probably already too late to reverse course on some of these things, sadly.

    Liberals naively think government will always have “the people’s” best interests at heart. But like any other institution in a fallen world, it will puff itself up, gain more and more power, and then exert more and more control. 😦 It’s just the nature of the beast.

    It’s really such a bad tradeoff that most people currently in the U.S. don’t recognize.

    In the beginning, it just sounds like they’ll be getting free health care, free education, free houses, income ‘equality’ …

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  11. Kim – Wouldn’t you say it makes a difference whether the low-income housing is pretty much given to the people or the owners have to pay for their home? Or, in the case of Habitat for Humanity, have to work for it?

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  12. Meanwhile,

    Obama, the DoJ, Homeland Sec., and the FBI search for his motives, which they claim are unknown at this time…..

    http://nypost.com/2015/07/20/chattanooga-shooter-said-he-wanted-to-be-martyr-in-disturbing-diary/

    “Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez’s diary reveals he had suicidal thoughts and was set on “becoming a martyr,” according to a family rep.

    Federal investigators have not immediately not found any direct link between Abdulazeez and overseas terrorists, but a journal the gunman kept since 2013 shed light on his spree.

    He wrote about suicidal thoughts and “becoming a martyr,” a family rep told ABC News.
    Abdulazeez fell into financial ruin after losing his job due to drug use, according to the family representative said.”

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  13. Something I wrote on Facebook this morning…

    I’ve been seeing some talk of how the U.S. should adopt “the European way” of offering a free college education.

    I wonder if they realize that “the European way”, as I have read, involves the schools dividing the students, by the end of 8th grade, into a college track or a vocational track. IOW, the government is only going to pay for college for kids they think are smart enough for it. It isn’t a case of free college for anyone who wants it.

    One thing I think is good about that is that the others are given vocational training, so that they are more easily employable. It’s too bad the U.S. doesn’t have more of an emphasis on vocational training in high school.

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  16. 1. Netroots — apologies are in order to kbells we have found the democratic frwakshow …O’Malley. Not to mention Webb made a fool of himself on television awhile back. I’m going to cut Sanders some slack and not just because I like him. The press is waiting to pouncebon him and one thing they like to criticize him for ulis his lack of minority support. The time reporter said he was annoyed but he could’ve just as easily said frustrated and confused. Not sure how the reporter could read his mind.

    Sanders likes to construct his speeches and policy on the basis of class but in America class often intersects with race and its there where Sanders will have difficulty getting his message out.

    2. I lived in mixed housing and it works. The school I teach in has at least six mixed housing townhouse complexes and for the most part it works. Two complexes have problems whereas the others do not and thus its case of management, superintendents and residents.

    I think it’s occupational hazard of teaching that every year seems worse and the past is better. In my school, I hear the same story as Kim relates, and at times I may express the same sentiment but then you have a year in which you realize no its not getting worse . And you can’t always tell which kids come from the complexes and which come from suburbia.

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  17. Banks like to blame govt regulation for the housing fiasco but the derivative market which securitized these mortgages isn’t regulated. And the bank regulators are often interchangeable with bank officials . for the most part lower paid regulators see the job as a stepping stone to a bank job.

    The Iranian treaty is interesting that n that if they fail to comply the embargo begins again. The UN security council doesn’t have to vote again. Essentially Russia and China gave up their veto.

    Libertarians and other antigovernment types puzzle me. On one hand, the govt is incompent and can’t be trusted to run things properly yet they fear the govt will be able to control everything.

    For some reason I posted as anonymous. It’s HRW on the last post

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  19. Karen – its usually around grade seven that Europeans start to stream. And by grade seven it should be fairly obvious if one is ment for the academic stream. In the Netherlands they stream again around grade 10 into five syr

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  20. Either I need a new phone or new thumb.

    The dutch divide into three streams at 12 years and then again in five streams at 15. One stream is you get to work. My Austrian Canadian friend normally opposed to govt subsidies has no problems with free post secondary education as long as those who really shouldn’t be at school leave at 15.

    30% of Canadians have a BA or higher yet we need to import tradesmen and medical assistants (nurses aides, tech staff etc) . horrible planning and a waste of govt resources.

    Every now and then a north american commentator sounds the alarm over the decay and decadence of Europe. The writer’s observation is nothing new. European homes are smaller but they dress better. Wars can be onlyna few hundred kms away and yet the cafe culture marches on. There’s little reason to panic. For Europe this is the way things are.

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  21. I like to research who I am considering voting for. At lunch today with a friend who used to live in Virginia I asked if she lived there when Jim Webb was in the Senate. She did but she did not vote for him. I have not personally spoken with anyone who favors him. I found this an interesting chart. While I agree with some of what he says the areas I disagree are more important

    http://ballotpedia.org/Jim_Webb_(Virginia)

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  22. When a politician, like Rick Santorum, say they will use “growth” to reduce the national debt, they mean inflation. That is the technique that has been used almost forever. Certainly since FDR.

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  24. What pathetic hypocrites! The U.S. nags at Mexico for the persecution of Christians while the U.S. government is almost solely focused on forcing Christians, Christian businesses, and Christian schools to endorse or support abortion and perversion.

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  27. kBells – We have one or two vocational schools around here, & I’ve known a couple kids who’ve gone. One had a job right out of school. (Actually, he may have started that job while still in school.)

    It’s too bad there is a sort of stigma to it, to some people.

    My husband knew a man who had gone to MIT, & even graduated, I think, who ended up running a lunch truck because he enjoyed that kind of work better.

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  28. “Libertarians and other antigovernment types puzzle me. On one hand, the govt is incompent and can’t be trusted to run things properly yet they fear the govt will be able to control everything.”

    That’s a curious way to move the bullseye around. Libertarians don’t claim the govt will control everything *competently.* The problem is that government–however competently or incompetently “it” runs its corrupt and wasteful programs–**HAS THE POWER TO DO THAT.**

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