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auroraluciferi · 4 years ago

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a white supremacist apparently had an issue with this random post I made.

my post was about the shocked reactions people all over the world were apparently having to American ads for prescription drugs played on the break during the Meghan Markle interview.

the point I was trying to make is that the avalanche of consumer ads for prescription medicine is yet another insane hallmark of the profit-driven US healthcare system which most people fortunately do not experience and no one seems to fully understand.

I feel this one detail helps to breach the facade shielding the dystopian reality which divides us, and it helps to explain for many why the United States has been especially crippled by the effects of the global pandemic. the suffering, deprivation and cruelty of our health infrastructure is an essential feature of capitalism, not a glitch. For many people it has been a time of reckoning.

so this worthless asshole clearly decided now was the time to plant his racist flag - he messaged several times over two days, then I guess he got upset with what I was saying and blocked me.

what follows is unpleasant and contains racist and deeply offensive language, copied verbatim from my inbox and chat.

it has been formatted to fit your television screen.

dee6000 submitted:

Can your socialist BS. The ads/big pharma are separate from or profit medicine. What harmed US medicine was result of democrat politicians copying Europe’s socialists that treated citizens rights with contempt. In the past US medicine was the envy of the world, British, Europeans, Canadians many others would travel here to receive care. Dems blocked enforcement of immigration laws hospitals went bankrupt and taxpayer funded medicaid was overburdened. Just as the influx of tens of millions of illegal aliens and migrants caused rents to skyrocket and wages to be dragged down. Hospital based infection skyrocketed as well hospitals started hiring illegal aliens who did not follow cleaning rules. These infections weren’t new, they are the norm in Latin America and other third world countries. Years later these hospital infections started showing up. Obamacare requires doctors under threat of fines to refuse to perform some diagnostic testing on some patients. Socialist and communist countries have even worse outcomes. And Britain and Europe are experiencing the results of 3rd world imported substandard doctors and nurses.

@auroraluciferi:

lmao. "ads/big pharma" are somehow "separate" from for profit medicine and everything else is the fault of these filthy immigrants from the third world

good luck with whatever ax you're trying to grind

dee6000:

Lmao, people controlling their own labor, by charging for their work, unlike in your communist, socialist sewers where the government elites enslaves people and profit off those slaves like parasites.Big pharma came about under globalism, globalism is Trotskyite international communism. Prior to Clinton’s pushing manufacturing out of the US, US pharmaceutical companies manufactured product here, under fda law, the drugs were tested. Now drugs made in communist China and socialist India are not manufactured safely, there is no oversight, illnesses have resulted as a result and while workers in those countries are abused hypocrite Chinese and Indian elites profit. You might resent truth but that is your problem. Superbugs took hold in western countries as they started allowing displacement of their citizens in health care jobs, from cleaning, nursing, etc with third world people, who yes do not respect hygiene and health and safety rules. That is a fact. When US citizens cleaned hospitals and nursing homes there were no superbug outbreaks, before illegal aliens were illegally working in US food manufacturing, children weren’t being sickened and killed from eating ecoli, salmonella, and mold contaminated peanut butter and peanut products as dozens of children and adults were in 2008-2009 when Peanut Corporation of America machinery then operated and “maintained” by illegal alien Mexicans, had developed toxic black mold because the illegals didn’t bother cleaning the machinery despite knowing that was the jobs they were paid to do. Hearings in congress were held and parents spoke about it. I don’t care what you think, I know you are a fascist

@auroraluciferi:

Okay then, I'll humor you - honestly I feel sorry because it clearly took a lot of effort and mental gymnastics to type up that word salad you sent me. Let's look at each of the "points" you just tried to make.

"People controlling their own labor by charging for their work" - that is a laugh. How exactly do you control your own labor if you are forced to sell it to the lowest bidder, competing against millions of others? If a business lays you off or goes bankrupt due to mismanagement, market fluctuations, accidents or a natural disaster, your labor then becomes worthless. The choice you are given as an employee or contractor unsupported by social welfare programs is "accept whatever pathetic wage we decide your labor and time is worth" or "lose your home and starve to death".

Your idea of "control" is an illusion in an economic system where human survival is based on abritrary market conditions and greed rather than the quality of life itself.

"Big pharma came about under globalism, globalism is Trotskyite international communism." - are you suggesting that some of the largest and most profitable companies on earth are the result of a global, communist conspiracy? Johnson & Johnson, Bayer AG, GSK and others follow the corporate conglomeration and consolidation model pioneered and perfected by 19th and 20th century capitalists and industrialists like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, William Hearst, and Cornelius Vanderbilts. Hardly a group of jaded communist revolutionaries.

The multinational companies they founded and combined have systematically destroyed competition within their respective industries, forced both their consumers and employees to accept substandard, dangerous products and poverty wages, then used their wealth to influence both conservative and liberal politicians to deregulate industries and labor laws for their own benefit. All done by willing and eager students of Adam Smith, not Karl Marx.

"Prior to Clinton’s pushing manufacturing out of the US, US pharmaceutical companies manufactured product here, under fda law, the drugs were tested." - I assume here you're talking about NAFTA and Clinton-era regulations, both of which were enormous gifts to those same companies I just described.

These manufacturers left America to gild their pockets by voluntarily exploiting the workers of countries that do not have labor laws, have substandard or nonexistent environmental protections, and would accept even lower wages than Americans. They could have easily remained in the US, paid higher wages to American workers, followed the most basic regulations, and still would have made obscene levels of profit - the demand of shareholders for more profit motivated the outsourcing of US jobs, not because a spineless corporate lackey like Bill Clinton forced them to.

At the same time, NAFTA enabled US agribusiness to flood the Mexican and Central American economy with cheap, government-subsidized corn - instantly destroying the ability of Mexican farms to collectively set fair prices, driving millions facing starvation and poverty into cities and ultimately North into the United States. It's pretty ironic that your illegal immigration crisis was created by massive corporations supported by the US government, but I guess that's inconvenient history for you.

Again, this is another pretty obvious feature of capitalism, not communism or socialism. Businesses have a natural tendency to cut expenses and maximize profit any way they can. In an actual socialist system, there would be no incentive to do that - healthcare and medicine would be provided as a right, rather than a paid-for privilege as exists in our current system. Workers would not have to compete with each other to survive if their basic needs were provided for.

Also just thought you should know, the FDA regulations apply both to drugs that are imported just as they are to drugs that are manufactured in the US. Furthermore, there would be no FDA at all without American socialists, reformers and consumer advocates pressuring Congress into creating it - not sure how you can pretend otherwise. It was made specifically to address how the 19th-20th century market failed to "self-regulate", resulting in toxic food and drugs manufactured here, in the US.

"Superbugs took hold in western countries as they started allowing displacement of their citizens in health care jobs, from cleaning, nursing, etc with third world people, who yes do not respect hygiene and health and safety rules." - This is pretty racist, and also the opposite of reality. "Superbugs" are the natural result of bacteria and viruses adapting and evolving to ever increasing levels of antibiotics, antivirals, and hyper sanitation in our food supply and cleaning products, as well as natural mutation. Diseases like the coronavirus are inevitable - the US has failed to respond effectively because our for-profit healthcare system does not have a market incentive to create stockpiles or public infrastructure to combat an outbreak, whether it's from China or Cleveland, Ohio.

People from other countries know how to wash their hands. They know how to clean. You have absolutely no evidence which would dispute that, just your own feelings and the idea that filthy brown people caused this totally avoidable disaster rather than a lack of basic planning.

Finally, when people are sickened by improperly cleaned equipment or tainted food and medicine, it is the result of a failure by the manufacturer or producer to properly train and supply their facilities out of negligence, to save on operating expenses, or because they ignore existing regulations and are not penalized for doing so - not because there is an army of dirty, ignorant Mexicans at the controls. Untrained, underpaid, and unsupervised workers will have a greater tendency to make mistakes regardless of if they are White Americans or immigrants.

"Facts" and "truth"? I don't see anything besides your own personal bias, poor logic and uncited bullshit that you have no proof of. The American healthcare system and things like advertising for drugs on TV are mocked and reviled across the rest of the world because people can clearly see how vulnerable it is to inevitable pandemics like this.

But I guess there will always be people like you who are happy to ignore reality and instead demonize normal working people for fleeing their capitalist-raped economies and come here in an attempt to provide for their families - exactly the same thing you would do in their situation.

dee6000:

Lmao! Then explain why for decades and they, the WHO, Doctors Without Borders and other wastes of resources still bemoan the fact that in Latin America, take Mexico for example the majority of the people not only don’t wash their hands before eating a meal, they don’t wash their hands after going to the bathroom. They send nurses into schools to make a game of washing one’s hands but it doesn’t take. Next you’ll tell me that it isn’t true that child rape is part of Latin American culture. Mexico is so substandard health and hygiene wise that it’s water supply is contaminated with feces. Which is why foreigners are warned not to drink it or anything with ice in it. Because intestinal diseases, parasites are the norm. Go into any hospital in the US that employs illegals and they do not smell like antiseptic but dirty. I do not care what you think, the data shows superbugs started showing up in the US a decade after hospitals and nursing homes felt entitled to ignore employment laws and hire illegals. And yes, US corporations that off shores and were indulged by communist China and the rest that have no environmental regulations, no labor laws (because under communism and socialism the people are slaves of the state) are only paid what the government thinks they deserve which is very little) they could profit more, or so they think. They became addicted to it and allowed their patents etc to be stolen. Under capitalism a worker has the right and power to reject a low wage. Under capitalism in the US a middle class grew and flourished, and poverty shrank. Under democrats and RINOs, who serve the same interests as democrats, the Clinton, Bush’s and Obozo the middle class was decimated, and poverty skyrocketed. Under Obozo more people became homeless, more so than during the Great Depression. You can spin and spin all you like. Your lies fall apart easily. Under illegal alien invaded democrat run California, the streets are tent cities, cholera, typhus and the plague have been found in Los Angeles, as well as other diseases.

At this point, he apparently blocked me. I didn’t realize this until after I was done writing my response, but here it is anyways

@auroraluciferi:

It's pretty clear you feel all of your grievances can be blamed on those black and brown people and "Communist" China that you hate so much. I feel sorry for you, but I don't actually believe that anything I say is going to change that.

Your illusions are so wrapped up this weird ethnocentric pride and your comforting blanket of privilege that you're basically helpless against what's coming. You're burning all this energy being angry at people of color for "wasting" resources you apparently feel you are especially entitled to, when you can't even see that the scarcity of those resources is a dominant feature of capitalism.

The wealthy and powerful who benefit from that scarcity - both here in the US and in China - look down at sad little racists like you and they clink their champagne glasses together and smile. By blaming their crimes on Mexicans or whoever it is you clutch your pearls about, you're just making it easier for them to divide and conquer the working class globally.

So go ahead, do their work for them - whatever makes you happy.

Waste all your time and energy hating someone you do not know, whose experience and culture you do not know. Blame all the diseases and scarcity and crime on them, instead of on the cruelty and pointless waste of capitalism

Squabble over the pathetic little crumbs they kick down to you from above or whatever you can compete with against your neighbors for, then proudly claim your little dirt heap for an imaginary concept of white culture.

Like I said before, good luck with that.

#2021 #us #united states #healthcare #health #racism #meghan markle #oprah #interview #pharmaceutical industry #big pharma #ads #advertising #racist ask #@dee6000

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thisdaynews · 6 years ago

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‘Everyone hates this place’: Border bill tears apart Democratic caucus

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/everyone-hates-this-place-border-bill-tears-apart-democratic-caucus/

‘Everyone hates this place’: Border bill tears apart Democratic caucus

Progressives said they felt stung by the stunning course-reversal by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, where she swiftly bowed to pressure from moderates. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

Congress

The four-day whiplash battle proved Pelosi, who often describes herself as a ‘master negotiator,’ is not invincible.

Democrats broke into open warfare Thursday over Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s surrender to the Senate’s emergency border aid package, with the caucus’s long-simmering divide between progressives and centrists playing out in dramatic fashion on the House floor.

Some lawmakers even resorted to public name-calling, with progressive leader Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) accusing moderate Democrats of favoring child abuse — an exchange on Twitter that prompted a pair of freshmen centrists to confront him directly on the floor, with other lawmakers looking on in shock.

Story Continued Below

Pelosi has spent months deftly navigating a diverse caucus brimming with political novices, deeply split on ideological lines and itching to throw the president out of office. But this week’s fiasco exposed fissures in Pelosi’s rank-and-file, in her leadership and in her relationship with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

“She is a very experienced legislator, but I think this is a very rough patch,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

“We can’t say that we have a lawless administration or a president who should be in prison, or whatever people want to say about him, but then cave,” she added. “You have to fight for what you believe.”

And the conclusion of the four-day whiplash battle within the caucus proved Pelosi, who often describes herself as a “master negotiator,” is not invincible. The battle further illustrates the hurdles Pelosi faces in the fall as she tries to keep her caucus united while negotiating with Republicans to avoid a fiscal cliff and debt default.

Just before the vote, Pocan, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, inflamed tensions further when he called the Problem Solvers Caucus — a bipartisan group of moderates that pushed Pelosi to take up the Senate bill — the “Child Abuse Caucus.”

The stinging attack was a reference to the Senate bill’s lack of additional language to protect migrant children that House progressives had fought aggressively for.

“Since when did the Problem Solvers Caucus become the Child Abuse Caucus?” Pocan wrote on Twitter.

Reps. Max Rose (D-N.Y.), and Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), both members of the Problem Solvers Caucus, confronted Pocan on the House floor over his tweet. According to sources familiar with the conversation, Rose used expletives, and Pocan said he did not apologize.

“I said, how come you can’t stay 24 hours to do your job?” Pocan said of his retort to Rose on the floor. “He said, ‘My mother thinks I’m a child abuser.’ I said, ‘I’ll tell your mother you’re not a child abuser.’”

Rose, whom his party considers to be vulnerable in 2020, vented his frustration Thursday shortly after the exchange, calling Pocan’s tweet “crazy, crazy language.”

“Mark’s tweet just speaks to why everyone hates this place. He’s just trying to get retweets. That’s all he cares about,” Rose told POLITICO.

Their spat continued on Twitter, with Pocan responding: “Maybe the REAL problem is someone who thinks this is about retweets and not about bad contractors, awful conditions and kids.”

More than 90 Democrats voted against the Senate bill, including members of leadership like Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) and David Cicilline (D-R.I.) — a sign of the deep discontent simmering within the caucus. In a shocking move, Pelosi’s entire team of negotiators on the border aid bill, including House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) and Reps. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.) and Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) also voted no.

Progressives, including Pocan, said they felt stung by the stunning course-reversal by Pelosi, where she swiftly bowed to pressure from moderates who had threatened to tank the House version of the bill — which contained hard-fought wins for the liberal Democrats. And Pocan warned that it could fire up the 90-member Congressional Progressive Caucus to take more hardline stances on key bills in the coming months.

“I just think it’s hard to ask our caucus to help deliver votes to pass things,” Pocan said. “It’s just going to be a lot harder for us to care to help deliver votes.”

Multiple other liberal Democrats were also publicly seething at their centrist colleagues for forcing Pelosi to abandon her initial plan to vote on an amended version of the Senate bill that contained additional protections for migrant children.

House centrists, meanwhile, took a victory lap for their earlier efforts to pressure Pelosi into taking up the Senate bill.

“You have to understand, you’re not going to get everything you want,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, said in an interview after the bill passed. “We just wanted to make sure that none of us went home without getting something done for children and families at the border.”

Hours earlier, Gottheimer and other Democratic moderates began privately lobbying their colleagues to threaten to oppose their own caucus’s version of the border bill, arguing that Pelosi should simply take up the Senate version. Those members, who belonged to both the Problem Solvers Caucus and the Blue Dog Coalition, ultimately totaled 18 — enough to tank the bill.

Pelosi went back to the negotiating table, speaking with Vice President Mike Pence for an hour before huddling with her leadership team. Pence agreed to some “administrative fixes” that addressed some Democratic concerns — and Pelosi announced her House would vote on the clean Senate bill as a result — but it wasn’t enough to calm furious liberals.

“I think the Problem Solvers Caucus is emerging to be this tea party within our own Democratic Party,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO. “I find their tactics to be extremely concerning. It’s horrifying. It’s horrifying.”

The New York Democrat said she blames the centrist group for the House getting stuck with the Senate’s funding package.

But other members of the Problem Solvers Caucus, who pride themselves on being bipartisan and largely staying out of the headlines, were privately livid.

Facing an uprising from both the right and left wings of the caucus, Pelosi struggled to contain members’ outrage on Thursday over being forced to concede to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who refused to entertain Democratic demands that he amend the Senate bill.

The end result also left House Democrats fuming at Schumer and Senate Democrats, who voted overwhelmingly for the Senate’s border aid package, weakening the House majority’s negotiating position, they said.

“It obviously significantly undermined our leverage and our ability to keep these important protections in the bill,” said Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), a member of House leadership who voted against the bill Thursday.

Pelosi expressed her own unhappiness with Schumer at a Democratic leadership meeting Thursday, complaining that he couldn’t corral his members to support the House bill, according to a source in the room.

Progressive lawmakers were much sharper — and public — in their criticism. Jayapal said Senate Democrats should have grown a “spine” and not voted with Senate Republicans on Wednesday.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a progressive firebrand, declined to fault House leaders, placing the blame instead squarely on the shoulders of Senate Democrats, most of whom backed the Senate bill.

“Let’s focus on the fact that Senate Democrats joined the leadership behind McConnell in support of something that had no safeguards, no basic human rights for these children,” she said. “What are you doing? You’re just throwing money and saying, ‘continue what you’re doing President Trump, you’re doing a fine job.’”

Senate Democratic sources privately blamed House Democrats, saying they pulled out of bipartisan border aid negotiations in May after the Congressional Hispanic Caucus objected. Some House Democrats also privately blamed Jayapal, who they say inflamed the CHC, urging them to pressure leadership to pull out of the negotiations in May. Others argued that some of the demands from both progressives and Hispanic members came too late in negotiations.

That resulted in the Senate moving forward on its own, with the Senate Appropriations Committee approving its bipartisan package 30-1 before it overwhelmingly passed on the floor.

“Senate Democrats were with the House Dems all the way, but their bill couldn’t pass the Senate,” said a senior Senate Democratic aide. “By refusing to participate in a four-corner negotiation for weeks, House Dems never allowed themselves the chance to have a say in a bill that could actually become law, so they only have themselves to blame for that.”

House Democratic leaders sought to tamp down the controversy but acknowledged they weren’t able to get the job done, refusing to blame their Senate colleagues.

“It’s done. It’s not time for blame,” Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said. “We would have hoped that we would have had the opportunity to get the vision that we think should have been supported by the Senate. We were disappointed we weren’t able to get that in there.”

John Bresnahan, Jake Sherman, Melanie Zanona and Laura Barrón-López contributed to this report.

#apart #Democratic #Foreign #Politics

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oldguardaudio · 8 years ago

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PowerLine 🔥 Highlights of President Trump – Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Press Conference

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Daily Digest

Highlights of the Trump-Netanyahu Press Conference

Obama’s Secret Communications with Mullahs Undermined American Foreign Policy

Popovich pops off on Trump

Dem comeback on hold in Minnesota

Ready for Warren?

Highlights of the Trump-Netanyahu Press Conference

Posted: 15 Feb 2017 02:37 PM PST

(John Hinderaker)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington meeting with President Trump. Prior to their meeting, they conducted the usual dual press conference. No major news was made, but several interesting points emerged:

1) I’ve rarely seen Netanyahu look so happy. He must be almost as relieved to see the end of the Obama administration as we are.

2) President Trump indicated that he was open to alternatives to the two-state solution, an immutable point of American policy for a long time:

So, I’m looking at two-state and one-state and I like the one that both parties like. I’m very happy with the one that both parties like. I can live with either one. I thought for a while the two-state looked like it may be the easier of the two but honestly, if Bibi and if the Palestinians — if Israel and the Palestinians are happy, I’m happy with the one they like the best.

This is smart, I think. The Palestinians need to understand that if they don’t shape up, they don’t get a state. Netanyahu finessed the question:

I read yesterday that an American official said that if you ask five people what two states would look like, you’d get eight different answers. Mr. President, if you ask five Israelis, you’d get twelve different answers.

(LAUGHTER)

But rather than deal with labels, I want to deal with substance.

3) A journalist effectively accused Trump of being responsible for a rise in anti-Semitic incidents:

Mr. President, since your election campaign and even after your victory, we’ve seen a sharp rise in anti-Semitic — anti- Semitic incidents across the United States. And I wonder, what do you say to those among the Jewish community in the states and in Israel and maybe around the world who believe and feel that your administration is playing with xenophobia and maybe racist tones?

Trump responded vaguely and with great restraint. Netanyahu answered a different question, then returned to the outrageous imputation against the president:

And finally one — if I can respond to something that I know from personal experience, I’ve known President Trump for many years, and to allude to him or to his people, his team, some of whom I’ve known for many years too — can I reveal, Jared, how long we’ve known you? Well, he was never small, he was always big.

He was always tall. But I’ve known the president and I’ve known his family and his team for a long time. There is no greater supporter of the Jewish people and the Jewish state than President Donald Trump. I think we should put that to rest.

Trump:

Thank you very much. Very nice. I appreciate that very much.

4) The first two journalists Trump called on were David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network and Katie Pavlich of Townhall. This caused Democratic Party journalists to go ballistic on Twitter. You can read all about it at Twitchy. The lack of self-awareness of liberal journalists never ceases to amaze.

One of their complaints is that Trump wasn’t hounded enough about General Flynn, although Brody did ask a question about Flynn, Russia, and Iran. Of course, the subjects of the press conference were American-Israeli relations and Israel and the Palestinians. The liberals were incensed that the journalists who were called on stayed on topic. As the press conference ended, someone called out: “Are you gonna answer any questions about your associates’ contact with the Russians during the campaign?” No such luck.

Obama’s Secret Communications with Mullahs Undermined American Foreign Policy

Posted: 15 Feb 2017 12:57 PM PST

(John Hinderaker)

The Democrats are trying to make a scandal out of the fact that one or more people associated with the Trump presidential campaign had telephone conversations with one or more representatives of the Russian government prior to Trump’s inauguration. Is there anything wrong with that? Not as far as we know. The CIA/NSA leakers have declined to say anything about the content of the conversations, so they must have been benign. Let’s release the tapes and eliminate all doubt, and then let’s fire the leakers and, if appropriate, send them to prison.

But in the meantime, let’s not forget an infinitely bigger scandal: in 2008, while he was running for the presidency, Barack Obama deliberately undermined American foreign policy by secretly encouraging Iran’s mullahs to hold out until he became president because he would be easier to deal with than President George Bush. I wrote about the Obama scandal here: “HOW BARACK OBAMA UNDERCUT BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S NUCLEAR NEGOTIATIONS WITH IRAN.” Check out the original post for links. Here it is:

In 2008, the Bush administration, along with the “six powers,” was negotiating with Iran concerning that country’s nuclear arms program. The Bush administration’s objective was to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. On July 20, 2008, the New York Times headlined: “Nuclear Talks With Iran End in a Deadlock.” What caused the talks to founder? The Times explained:

Iran responded with a written document that failed to address the main issue: international demands that it stop enriching uranium. And Iranian diplomats reiterated before the talks that they considered the issue nonnegotiable.

The Iranians held firm to their position, perhaps because they knew that help was on the way, in the form of a new president. Barack Obama had clinched the Democratic nomination on June 3. At some point either before or after that date, but prior to the election, he secretly let the Iranians know that he would be much easier to bargain with than President Bush. Michael Ledeen reported the story last year:

During his first presidential campaign in 2008, Mr. Obama used a secret back channel to Tehran to assure the mullahs that he was a friend of the Islamic Republic, and that they would be very happy with his policies. The secret channel was Ambassador William G. Miller, who served in Iran during the shah’s rule, as chief of staff for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and as ambassador to Ukraine. Ambassador Miller has confirmed to me his conversations with Iranian leaders during the 2008 campaign.

So Obama secretly told the mullahs not to make a deal until he assumed the presidency when they would be able to make a better agreement. Which is exactly what happened: Obama abandoned the requirement that Iran stops enriching uranium so that Iran’s nuclear program has sped ahead over the months and years that negotiations have dragged on. When an interim agreement in the form of a “Joint Plan of Action” was announced in late 2013, Iran’s leaders exulted in the fact that the West had acknowledged its right to continue its uranium enrichment program:

“The (nuclear) program will continue and all the sanctions and violations against the Iranian nation under the pretext of the nuclear program will be removed gradually,” [Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif] added. …

“Iran’s enrichment program has been recognized both in the first step and in the goals section and in the final step as well,” Zarif said.

“The fact that all these pressures have failed to cease Iran’s enrichment program is a very important success for the Iranian nation’s resistance,” he added.

So Obama delivered the weak agreement that he had secretly promised the mullahs.

That, readers, is what a real scandal looks like.

Popovich pops off on Trump

Posted: 15 Feb 2017 09:28 AM PST

(Paul Mirengoff)

Gregg Popovich is a marvelous basketball coach; probably one of the three best the NBA has ever seen. His accomplishments with the San Antonio Spurs — a team he has led to five NBA titles — are remarkable.

Lately, Popovich has indulged in political commentary. To be more precise, he has taken to blasting President Trump.

There is plenty to dislike about Trump, but Popovich’s comments are of the knee-jerk variety. Worse, they play fast and loose with the facts.

Consider his latest shot at the president:

We all hope President Trump is successful. We hope he does some good things for everybody, but he didn’t start the presidency by mollifying any groups he disparaged during the campaign.

He didn’t say anything about women, or black people, or Mexican people, Hispanic people LGBT people, handicapped people. [He] acted like it never happened. So that willingness to do whatever it took to get elected, to say and act the way he did, I thought was unacceptable and really disgusting, so I said it.

When did Trump disparage LGBT people during the campaign? This is what Trump said about them during his acceptance speech at the GOP convention:

Whether you’re gay or straight, the Bill of Rights protects the rights of all of us to live according to our conscience.

Also this:

As your President, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology, believe me.

When did Trump disparage black people during the campaign? He noted that many predominantly black neighborhoods are in terrible shape, which I think is indisputable, and he vowed to try to improve these neighborhoods. But disparaging black people? I don’t think it happened.

During the campaign, Trump disparaged Megyn Kelly, Hillary Clinton, Rosie O’Donnell, and other individual women. He also disparaged individual men too numerous to list.

However, the only disparagement of women as a group that I can think of occurred many years before the campaign in his “pussy grabbing” remarks. This comment did not manifest “a willingness to say anything to get elected.” It was made in private long before he ran for office. As a candidate, Trump apologized for these disparaging comments.

What about Popovich’s claim that Trump “didn’t start the presidency by mollifying any groups” he supposedly “disparaged during the campaign”? Trump started his presidency with his brief inauguration address, during which he said this:

When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.

I don’t know whether this statement “mollified” members of groups who felt “disparaged” by Trump. Many of them are probably beyond being mollified. It was, however, a clear statement that these groups and others should not be mistreated or disparaged.

With regard to Mexicans, a week after his inauguration Trump said this:

I have great respect for Mexico. I love the Mexican people. I work with the Mexican people all the time – great relationships.

During the campaign, Trump had disparaged Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. As president, though, Trump tweeted this:

Yes, it is true – Carlos Slim, the great businessman from Mexico, called me about getting together for a meeting. We met, HE IS A GREAT GUY!

Turning to what Popovich calls “LBGQT people,” we find that the White House issued this statement:

President Donald J. Trump is determined to protect the rights of all Americans, including the LGBTQ community. President Trump continues to be respectful and supportive of LGBTQ rights, just as he was throughout the election. The executive order signed in 2014, which protects employees from anti-LGBTQ workplace discrimination while working for federal contractors, will remain intact at the direction of President Donald J. Trump.

I don’t blame Popovich for not knowing much about what President Trump has said and done as a candidate or as president. He has his hands full figuring out how to contain Russell Westbrook, James Harden, and the collection of stars who play for Golden State. But maybe he should have someone do a little research before he spouts off about politics.

Indeed, it’s ironic that Popovich would discuss politics so ignorantly. He is famous for putting sports reporters down when they ask obvious questions about his tactics. For example:

One reporter asked if Pop had any regrets going with a smaller lineup.

Pop’s reply: “No. Are you coaching now? You should try not to do that.”

Note the clear difference between what the reporter did to Popovich and what Popovich is doing to Trump. The sports reporter observed the game and posed a reasonable question. Popovich, who derided the reporters for performing their job, pays scant attention to what the Trump administration has done and makes accusations.

During his latest anti-Trump diatribe, Popovich said “there’s going to be somebody who will say “just go coach your basketball team.” I’m not that “somebody.” I say if you want to talk politics intelligently, do your homework.

Dem comeback on hold in Minnesota

Posted: 15 Feb 2017 09:27 AM PST

(Scott Johnson)

Donald Trump narrowly lost to Hillary Clinton in the contest at the top of the ticket in Minnesota this year, but in other respects, Republicans had an astoundingly good year. They amplified their majority in the Minnesota House to an unprecedented number in a presidential election cycle, when the turnout advantage usually accrues to Democrats and took the majority in the Minnesota Senate. Republicans haven’t held a majority in the state Senate in a long time. As Star Tribune legislative reporter Patrick Coolican put it in the Star Tribune: “Senate Republicans have endured the indignities of minority status for all but two of the past 44 years[.]” I took a look at the results in “What happened in Minnesota” (part 2 here, part 3 here).

It was a bad year for Democrats in Minnesota. They didn’t see it coming.

Chisago (don’t spellcheck me, bro) County borders Wisconsin not far from the Twin Cities. It is Trump territory; Trump handily carried Chisago County by a margin of 30 points.

The Democrats got a rerun in one of the state House legislative races in Chisago County yesterday. Only last week the Star Tribune published an excited preview of the special election. The Star Tribune noted the efforts that Democrats put into the race to pull it off and make a statement.

Now that the results are in, however, the excitement over at the Star Tribune has faded: “Republican Anne Neu will represent Chisago County in an open Minnesota House seat following her victory in a closely watched special election on Tuesday. Neu took 53 percent of the vote in the House District 32B race, while DFLer Laurie Warner took 47 percent.” In his Star Tribune Morning Hot Dish newsletter today, Coolican laconically observes: “That means the House now stands at 77-57 for the GOP.”

Congratulations and thanks are in order for the excellent Ms. Neu while we pause to note that the Dem comeback is on hold in Minnesota.

Ready for Warren?

Posted: 15 Feb 2017 08:02 AM PST

(Paul Mirengoff)

Charlotte Allen at the Weekly Standard reports on the marketing of Elizabeth Warren. It includes a book, The Fight Is Our Fight; a webpage, “Help us elect Elizabeth Warren for president in 2020”; and a Facebook page, “Ready for Warren.”

But is America ready for Warren? A new survey finds her running behind President Trump by six points, 42-36.

A poll was taken almost four years before the next presidential election is meaningless as a guide to whether Trump would defeat Warren. What may be significant is that the same pollsters found that a “generic Democrat” runs ahead of Trump by eight points, 43-35.

As Lloyd Bentsen might say: I knew Generic Democrat. Generic Democrat was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Generic Democrat.

The public has not taken a fancy to the shrill would-be Indian from Harvard. Warren, it seems, is damaged goods.

It may be unrealistic to imagine that the damage can be repaired by a book, a website, and a Facebook page.

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