kanesrealm

As regular readers know I'm a political junkie. I actually watch C-Span, Senate and House hearings are meat and drink for me. So it will come as no shock that I've been following the Iran Nuclear Deal in those forums carefully. The fake outrage expressed by most Republicans and Democrats during these sessions would be laughable except for the seriousness of this deal. Many of them were against the deal before negotiations ever began. They had no intention of ever considering the deal no matter what it said. Members of Congress and Republican Presidential candidates have been using the Neville Chamberlain Munich Accord argument once again. This old chestnut is trotted out every three or four years to make points that have nothing to do with the topics at hand but makes for a good sound bite. They are all clearly reading from the same talking points undoubtedly drawn up by a think tank where very little actual thinking takes place. The analogy is completely wrong. Barack Obama...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has won his bid for a fourth term. Kudos for a well played campaign. Don't let the hair on fire media lead you astray to believe there is some big rift between Israel and the U.S. Our alliance is strong. Our mutual leaders aren't exactly bosom buddies and B.B.'s poke in our President's eye by speaking before Congress didn't help build bridges.  That said, the American Administrations criticism of how Netanyahu ran his campaign is none of our business and vice versa.  Can Netanyahu derail the President's negotiations with Iran? No he can't. It's also not just us in those negotiations, it is five other nations. Those nations in many respects are more important than we are because they actually have real trade with Iran. It is they who have the real impact on Iran. Obama and Netanyahu have never had a particularly close relationship and that won't change. They will however hold their noses and meet. Doing tha...

You might think I didn't watch Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before Congress but you would be wrong. I'm always ready to listen even if I politically disagree with someone and I'm a C-Span junkie. The speech was a rousing saber rattling whopper which soared to great heights of political rhetoric. It had no new information or proposals of any kind other than military hostility. Prime Minister Netanyahu is never shy about suggesting the U.S. go to war and spill our blood and spend our treasure. If I were the Prime Minister of Israel I probably would be a lot like Netanyahu, in fact I would sit down and smoke a cigar with  B.B. anytime. He is not the issue. His speech was a great political campaign stump speech for the benefit of his own domestic optics. The problem is how this was done. It is the Constitutional duty of the President to receive Ambassadors and Ministers of State. A foreign potentate must not be allowed to use a joint session of our Congress to campaign f...