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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Robert Kagan to discuss his new book, The World America Made, the importance of America’s military muscle, and how the world may change if America is no longer the world’s superpower.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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The Return of History and the End of Dreams
Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order
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Americans aren’t the only ones shocked by U.S. Congressman Ron Paul’s assertion that international sanctions against Iran qualify as an “act of war.”

The Texas Congressman has made the assertion several times during the past few years, and reiterated it last night during the Republican debates in Florida when he argued that the U.S. had committed an act of war by “blockading” Iran (which the U.S. is not doing).

“We’re blockading them,” Paul said to a Tampa audience. “Can you imagine what we would do if someone blockaded the Gulf of Mexico? That would be an act of war–so the act of war has already been committed and this is retaliation.”

But Amir Fakhravar, a pro-democracy freedom fighter who was imprisoned and tortured by the Islamic Republic, disagrees.

Fakhravar, who spoke to Big Government today, says: “Sanctions weaken the government so much it will eventually empower the people of Iran to change their own regime without war,” and added that ”Ron Paul’s foreign policy toward the Islamic Republic is wrong. If we don’t have hard sanctions against the regime they will have more money to buy weapons, and then we will definitely have war.”

Fakhravar was imprisoned in 2002 for calling to rescind the powers of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and the Council of Guardians. During part of his sentence he was taken to a military detention camp where he underwent the first known example of “white torture.” He escaped in 2006 and came to the United States. Fakhravar is now a Research Fellow and Visiting Lecturer at the Center for the Study of Culture and Security at The Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C.

“If the United States lifts sanctions and Iran eventually gets the bomb, that means war,” he added.

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Despite an anemic economic recovery and an increasingly antagonistic Iran, President Obama decided to kill the Keystone XL pipeline. Creating thousands of jobs and securing American access to oil, the much-discussed Keystone project would transport crude oil from Alberta, Canada to American refiners in Oklahoma and Texas.

For years the pipeline was an innocuous project slowly making its way through the convoluted federal approval process. After receiving all but one permit, radical environmentalist—feeling affronted two years into the Obama Administration—set their sights on the soon-to-be approved Keystone pipeline. What should have been a non-controversial construction project became anything but. Before becoming the object of environmentalist scorn, the State Department approved and advocated for the nearly identical Canadian-American pipeline in 2009, arguing:

… the addition of crude oil pipeline capacity between Canada and the United States will advance a number of strategic interests of the United States. These included increasing the diversity of available supplies among the United States’ worldwide crude oil sources in a time of considerable political tension in other major oil producing countries and regions; shortening the transportation pathway for crude oil supplies; and increasing crude oil supplies from a major non-Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries producer.

Canada is a stable and reliable ally and trading partner of the United States, with which we have free trade agreements which augment the security of this energy supply. Approval of the permit sends a positive economic signal, in a difficult economic period, about the future reliability and availability of a portion of United States’ energy imports, and in the immediate term, this shovel-ready project will provide construction jobs for workers in the United States.

Drawing an arbitrary line in the sand, environmentalists threatened to sit out the 2012 election if President Obama approved the pipeline. Organizing daily protests outside the White House, environmentalists effectively turned a non-political issue into one of the most divisive topics of 2011.

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Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) has been roundly criticized for his foreign policy. Sen. Rick Santorum neatly–and accurately–summarized Paul’s views as those of “the Dennis Kucinich wing of the Democratic Party” (at 6:02 in the video below):

Paul’s views are not just libertarian. He is not simply concerned that “an overreaching military presence around the world is inconsistent with small, constitutional government at home,” as Edward Crane recently suggested. Paul goes further, blaming the U.S. for attacks against it, both foreign and domestic. That is a posture typically associated with the radical left.

It is clear that Paul is no friend of Israel. Gov. Sarah Palin, giving him the benefit of the doubt, suggested earlier today (with more than a hint of skepticism) that Paul is pro-Israel in his own way. It’s true that Paul’s suggestion that the U.S. end foreign aid to Israel (and all nations) is theoretically compatible with support for Israel. Privately, some of Israel’s staunchest defenders might agree that Israel should strive to outgrow the need for foreign assistance.

However, Paul’s voluminous public record–including his voting record in Congress–tells the real story. In one recent example, Ron Paul was one of only three Republicans to vote against a House of Representatives resolution condemning the Goldstone Report–a slanderous United Nations slur against Israel that even the report’s author, Richard Goldstone, later retracted. (Thirty-three Democrats also voted against; a bipartisan majority of 344 passed the pro-Israel resolution.) (more…)

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Pejman Yousefzadeh and Kevin Holtsberry are joined by Michael Totten, to discuss his book The Road to Fatima Gate: The Beirut Spring, the Rise of Hezbollah, and the Iranian War Against Israel, Iranian, Syrian, and Hezbollah efforts to control Lebanon, and Totten’s own personal encounters with Hezbollah.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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Buy The Road to Fatima Gate: The Beirut Spring, the Rise of Hezbollah, and the Iranian War Against Israel on Amazon
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(more…)

BILL DALEY: You shouldn’t have used the phrase “leading from behind” last spring when you spoke off the record about Libya, Mr. Vice-President.

BIDEN:  Well, I didn’t, Billy boy.  I said Hillary was leading with her behind.  Or maybe I said the whole NATO operation was like the blind leading the blind.  I don’t remember.  But the guy misquoted me.

OBAMA:  No lasting harm.  Research and Destroy knocked that off the front pages fast with the Cain revelations.

DAVID PLOUFFE:  Oh, Mr. President, the Smithsonian taxidermist just delivered Gaddafi’s head.

OBAMA:  Okay.  Tell Housekeeping to mount it above the mantel in the Residence, next to bin Laden’s.  And remind them to leave room for Baby Assad and Boehner.

VALERIE JARRETT:  Sir, the Libya bump is fading since Fox reported diehard Islamists have seized control of the country and Gaddafi’s massive stock of surface-to-air missiles.

BIDEN:  Damn Ailes, trying to make people think we shoulda known that could happen. (more…)

From AFP:

US agents have foiled what has been called a “significant terrorist act” linked to Iran which called for the assassination of the Saudi US ambassador and other attacks, ABC News reported Tuesday.

The Justice Department scheduled an announcement at 1800 GMT on what it called “significant national security enforcement action.”

ABC said the plot included the assassination of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, with a bomb and subsequent bomb attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington.

(more…)

In politics you can tell a lot about someone by the donations they accept. As far as my Congressman (and chairman of the NDCC) Steve Israel he is accepting donations from a man convicted of illegally selling arms to Iran. His name is Parviz Lavi and According to campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) has taken $6,500 from Parviz Lavi since 2006.

In 1998 Parviz Lavi was arrested by federal agents for conspiring to illegally smuggle fighter jet engines and their parts for Iran (yes the same Iran that wants to blow Israel to smithereens).

According to a March 4, 1998, Newsday article,

“The Iranian-born owner of a Hicksville firm was arrested by federal agents yesterday on charges of conspiring to illegally smuggle fighter jet engines and their parts into Iran, according to officials.

“Parviz Lavi, 62, the owner of Omega Turbine Corp., 150 Express St., had been under investigation since 1991 by customs agents in Norfolk, Va., for a scheme to smuggle at least six turbine engines for the F-14 jet fighter and thousands of engine parts, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Burton Ryan.

According to court papers, Lavi had been wiretapped since 1992 discussing various schemes to sell the F-14 engines and their parts to Iran by shipping them first to associates in Rotterdam, Holland. At one point Lavi discussed paying between $125,000 and $150,000 for six of the TF-30 jet engines, the court papers said

“The engine is used only on U.S. and Iranian F-14 fighters. The U.S. government sold 80 of the F-14s to the shah’s government before the revolution in Iran in 1979 but since then has barred the export of military equipment to Iran.”

(Source: “Man Held In Plot To Sell F-14 Parts,” Newsday, March 4, 1998)

The NY Times corroborated the Newsday story and took it even further:

According a March 5, 1998, New York Times article, “Mr. Lavi went to Norfolk several times with a shopping list of prohibited parts, officials said. Undercover agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and businessmen involved in the arms trade who were cooperating with the Government agreed to sell him what he wanted: 500 metal vanes, or blades, for the powerful TF-30 engines on the F-14’s that were made to stringent specifications by Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies, in North Haven, Conn.

“The sale price was $25,000, but the authorities said the value of the parts to Iran’s military was inestimable.”

(Source: “L.I. Man Is Seized in Scheme To Smuggle Jet Parts to Iran,” The New York Times,March 5, 1998)

(more…)

On this 10th Anniversary of the September 11th attack on America we’ll hear politicians and pundits wringing their hands over the “tragic events” of that morning. They’ll wonder aloud whether we’ve “learned anything” in these past ten years and whether we’ve achieved the correct level of “tolerance” and “understanding” that is so desperately needed to solve our worlds problems.

From our president we will hear a call to community service and a plea to find volunteer opportunities in our neighborhoods, because, you know… the real message behind 9/11 is to plant a garden at the local welfare office.

What we won’t hear enough of this momentous day is the truth about 9/11. The truth about what happened that day. The truth about why it happened.

The truth is that on September 11, 2001 war was declared on the United States of America. Our ideological opponents on the left (as well as some of the more troubling supporters of Rep. Ron Paul) will tell you that it 9/11 wasn’t an act of war because the perpetrators were not acting on behalf of any nation. As if in some way the fact that our attackers didn’t have a flag on their sleeves while demolishing our financial and military headquarters some how re-defines the act as merely a “crime”.

The liberals and libertarians mired in their denial of the reality of the world we live in are dangerous and must be answered with vigor. 9/11 was not a “criminal act”. And, despite what President Obama might say, we are not in a war against Al Qaeda. By narrowing our focus and pretending that we must only respond against those whose fingerprints can be found on the 9/11 attack is an invitation to our enemies around the world to wage war on us through proxies like Al Qaeda.  A Commander-in-Chief Ron Paul, with his pathetic call for Letters of Marque and Reprisal, would allow enemies like North Korea, Iran and Venezuela to send hundreds of organizations like Al Qaeda toward our skyscrapers all under the protective banner of “rogue criminal act”.

(more…)

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Pejman Yousefzadeh is joined by Mustafa Akyol to discuss the seeds of liberalism within Islam, how those freedoms were trampled in Muslim countries, and how the Arab Spring and the Green Movement in Iran might restore that personal liberty.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty
Islam Will Find Its Own Way to Freedom
The Forgotten Liberalism Within Islam
Mustafa Akyol on the Basic Compatibility of Islam with Free Market Economy

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OBAMA:  So I said, “Damn right, George.  The Force is with me.”  Anyway, it’s official: Lucas will produce and Spielberg will direct Barack CoJones and the Compound of ISI, with Denzel Washington playing me and Cat Stevens as Osama. Release date: October 2012.

KATHLEEN SEBELIUS:  I’ll announce healthcare waivers for Paramount, Lucasfilm Ltd., and Amblin Entertainment at 3:00 a.m. Saturday morning, Mr. President.

DAVID PLOUFFE: We should beef up your macho bona fides in the short term, sir.

VALERIE JARRETT:  And tie it into family values.  Visit your destitute brother in Africa and give him a few bucks, sir.  Then go into the bush without your Secret Service detail and kill a lion with a spear.  Gutsier than Palin shooting a moose with a 30-06 at two hundred yards.

OBAMA:  Maybe I’ll do just that once I force Netanyahu to risk national suicide for a shot at peace.  Leon, where’s Iran at right now.

PANETTA:  [checks wall map] Same place as yesterday, sir.

OBAMA:  Militarily, Leon.

PANETTA:  Oh.  We estimate they’ll have one Hiroshima-level nuke by Labor Day.  As you ordered, sir, our forces in the region remain on alert and are prepared take out Israel’s air force if an attack on Iran appears imminent.

JARRETT:  That would certainly give the lie to wingnuts who say you don’t have the guts for preemptive action, sir.

BILL DALEY:  Biden’s here . . . I think.

(more…)

The stunning speed of events in the Middle East that brought about the fall of Tunisia’s strong-arm dictator, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, followed by the resignation of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak might suggest that our intelligence services were caught napping.  While the final chapter of the ousters of Mubarak and Ben Ali have not yet been written, depending upon the outcome, political recriminations are certain to follow.  After all, some historians still are asking the question:  “Who lost China?”  While blame is invariably a by‑product of political debate in a democracy, particularly where our intelligence services seem to have been caught flat‑footed, we suspect there is less here than meets the eye.

To over simplify, we might categorize small intelligence failures into two main areas:  those that involve state secrets that could be uncovered only by traditional cloak and dagger work; and those that derive from actual political conditions on the ground that can foment potential revolutionary change.  Even though the latter can involve tens of thousands of people when they erupt, they are more apt to be missed than intelligence that is gathered through traditional sleuthing.  We will get back to the reason for this later in this essay.   Our failure to know that Saddam’s nuclear arsenal didn’t exist or that North Korea would suddenly conduct nuclear tests or that some shadowy group would attack the USS Cole and later the World Trade Center, are failures of our traditional intelligence assets.   Although those events were planned virtually under cover of strict military secrecy, which is obviously difficult to penetrate, it is not an excuse for northpoor undercover work given the billions of dollars we spend on it.

Contrast that with political explosions in Tunisia, Egypt. Libya, Bahrain or Iran, which toppled from power the likes of President Ben Ali, President Mubarak, or, 35 years ago, the Shah of Iran.  Those events, once triggered, seem to take on a life of their own often leading to chaos with participants having different goals . . . or no simple unifying objective.  Sometimes they operate like mobs without leaders.  The forces that are unleashed seem to know what they don’t want (the current despotic leadership) but typically can’t articulate a coherent set of demands.  What is even more difficult to predict is the potential ripple effect of a sea change in a despotic form of government.

(more…)

Predictably, the media is describing the goings on in the Arab world as consisting of revolutionaries fighting their oppressive leaders for democracy and human rights.  Never mind that democracy does not ensure liberty.  Never mind that the governments that will likely ultimately take over will consist of terrorists and terrorist sympathizers.  Never mind that in our words and actions we are implicitly if not explicitly supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, undermining anyone who might be helpful in the region, just as we did by sitting on our hands while actual moderate and secular people sought our help in Iran.

Egyptian rebellion in the liberal narrative, along with rebellion among any group hostile in nature to the US and Israel by default has to be good, as is any shakeup of the existing structure.  Crises are useful things.

And the useful idiots in our society, brainwashed by handlers in the media and academia can no longer recognize the difference between good and evil.  Whether it is “Palestinians” launching rockets at Israelis, or the obligatory disclaimer that there are plenty of patriotic Muslims in a State of the Union speech, leftists will always support anything that challenges the status quo, and pay lip service to Islam; anything that represents a threat to traditional Western civilization is a positive in the battle to create their Utopic socialist world.

Hope and change is inherently good, no matter what the hope is and what the change entails.  And why put up this facade instead of calling things what they really are?  Because pleasant and airy words hide the horrors of a socialist world or an Islam-dominated one (which are quite similar incidentally); these words distract us from despicable actions, and sound palatable to an apathetic public.

The leftists and the Islamic world understand public relations specifically and how to exert mass influence generally.  They know how to manipulate through media and propagandize in public institutions from the time our children are young, while committing enough people to their causes out of their own self-interest that given our quiescence heretofore, they appear to be well ahead in the fight to win the future.

(more…)

This past fortnight has delivered us citizen uprisings against the (to varying degrees) totalitarian governments in the Muslim-majority nations of Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Yemen.  It now appears that the Ba’athist Syrian regime also sees something coming their way.

Flashback to 2009 and we had what historians may look upon as The Beginning – the Green Revolution in Iran.  (Which is at least for now a bit misnamed – the Mullahs still rule the roost in Tehran.)

There are several common themes undergirding all of these land born mutinies.

One major one is the Internet.

—–

Dictator-weaved cloaks of ignorance have for decades enshrouded these populaces.  The more mis- and un-informed you keep a people – the easier it is to dominate them.

It has led to a ceaseless stream of patently absurd stories being sold by the regimes – and bought by the people over whom they lord.

Many of them are aimed at Jews, Israel and/or the United States.  Knowing that if these despots create Boogey Men to blame for their peoples’ horrendous lives, these poor peoples won’t notice that their plight is actually the fault of the Boogey Men creators themselves.

A magician’s misdirection – wave around and denounce the right hand while the left one holds everyone down.

(more…)

In stark, bitter contrast to his indifference to the popular Iranian uprising in the summer of 2009, Barack Obama has almost immediately engaged in events on the ground in Egypt, and it’s not good. Obama took no such action with Iran — a jihadist terrorist state agitating in countries all over the world. That was an historic missed opportunity.

In 2009, his silence about the brutal, murderous putdown of its people by the Iranian mullahcracy amount to his tacit support of that putdown, and spoke volumes. Obama became part of the problem, not part of the solution. He gave religious barbarism the free hand. In response, Iranian protestors had a direct message for America’s president: “You’re Either With Us or With Them.”

And since then also, Obama’s most consistent response to Iran (as well as to North Korea’s hostile moves) has been to ignore them and hope that proven evildoers will behave themselves. Wrong. The good cop is off the beat.

Obama failed, and the consequences of his failure have begun to be made manifest now in Egypt. I cannot understate the importance of Egypt to American interests and Israeli security. Egypt is arguably the second-most important country to the US in the region. Mubarak has been a U.S. ally for decades. We send three billion dollars a year to Egypt. And Egypt made a peace deal with Israel.

But knowing Obama, he will throw another ally under the bus.

(more…)

President Obama seems to think that every global policy problem is a result of misunderstanding, miscommunication, or mixed signals perpetuated through the Bush presidency.  If we could just get the world to like the United States, Obama argues, these problems will solve themselves.  Multiple unenforced ultimatums for Iran and Obama’s inflated faith in personal diplomacy fail to instill much confidence for the future.

Uncommon Knowledge all-star, Victor Davis Hanson, is back in our latest episode to take a tour of the world with Peter Robinson, discussing current major foreign policy concerns.  The topics discussed range from Europe and the irrelevancy of the EU to Mexico and immigration to Asia and its nuclear future.

Regarding Mexico, VDH sees little hope for the future.  Mexico’s statist, nontransparent economy and class-bound, racist culture naturally breeds unrest.  As for the immigration debate, VDH provides his proposed solution (involving both assimilation and deportation), but recognizes that it is unlikely to come about.  Who’s at fault?  The Chicano elite here in the US.

When it comes to Iran there are no good choices, only bad and worse.  Iran will have the bomb within 18 months.  What can/should we do about it?

To hear more on a dying Europe, a nuclear Asia, the Chicano elite and immigration, our future with Russia and dealing with Iran, watch the full episode, embedded below.

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American Jews, 78% of whom voted to make Barack Obama president are continuing to move away from Obama and his policies. According to a survey conducted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) , 51% of Jews approve of the way Obama is doing his job. While that number may seem high keep in mind that the AJC poll conducted in March 2010, showed the president with a 58% approval.

As expected, there is an uncomfortableness with Obama based on his Middle East Policies (although they still support his efforts), but surprisingly, many of the President’s economics policies are not popular with the Jewish community.
Approve of the way Obama is handling:

• The Economy 45% approve (51% disapprove)
• Health Care 51% approve (46% disapprove)
• Homeland Security 62% approve (33% disapprove)
• Gulf oil spill  53% approve (42% disapprove)
• The Iran nuclear issue 43% approve (46% disapprove)

Also surprising is the fact that American Jews support the controversial Arizona law to curb illegal immigration:

• A new law in Arizona gives police the power to ask people they’ve stopped to verify their residency status. Supporters say this will help crack down on illegal immigration. Opponents say it could violate civil rights and lead to racial profiling. On balance, do you support or oppose this law? Support 52% Oppose 46%

• Do you approve or disapprove of the Obama Administration’s handling of U.S. -Israel relations? The last poll conducted in March reported a 55% approval, that number today has slipped to 49%. During that same period support of the way Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is handling US-Israel relations has grown from 57% to 62%.

• Not that Jews are ready to leap into the laps of the GOP, when asked if they think the country would be better off if the Republicans controlled Congress, or if the Democrats controlled Congress? Republican 33%, Democrat 57%

The Most Important Issues to the Jewish Community are the same as those of the general population the economy.

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Last week the North Korean government (officially, the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea, a misuse of the word “democratic” if ever there was one), threatened a massive nuclear strike if the United States and South Korea carried out their annual “war games” in international waters.  This set of war games is being conducted to demonstrate that both South Korea and the U.S. maintain considerable, well-coordinated military strength in the region, and that the action of North Korea, in sinking a South Korean ship, the Cheonan, was intolerable and that it would not be permitted to pass unnoticed.

This somewhat more muscular response follows another feckless resolution from the United Nations, which condemned the attack on the ship but not the attacker.  Why the fear of offending this bankrupt nation that cannot feed its own people, all of whom live in a virtual prison camp?  The answer is obvious; – it is estimated that North Korea has a nuclear arsenal of up to 10 nuclear bombs They also have a missile delivery system, and so the world must wait with bated breath to see what the stroke-ridden dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong Il, known to his people as Dear Leader, will do in response to the war games.

We bring up North Korea to emphasize the outsize influence a rogue state can have if it possesses nuclear weapon capability.  The immediate relevance relates to Iran’s nuclear program on which there appears to be a consensus that weapons grade plutonium is being developed, and that a bomb will be manufactured shortly thereafter.  Whether the world is months or years away from Iran’s demonstration of its nuclear capability, we do not know.  Recently, CIA Director, Leon E. Panetta, stated that Iran already has material for two atomic bombs.  As we know, one nuclear bomb going off could spoil your whole day.

President Obama has spent a little more than a year reaching out to the Iranian regime to no avail.  No serious negotiations commenced.  Although the Iranians deny that their nuclear program is for other than peaceful uses, it will not permit international inspectors to verify that claim.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, in a report this spring on Iran’s nuclear program, suggested that Tehran has produced 2400 kilograms of low enriched uranium, which is apparently enough to build two atomic weapons after the material is further enriched.  Iran has made clear its intention to further enrich its uranium, and, tellingly, has agreed to ship, for storage, only 1200 kilograms (or half) of its stockpile to Brazil and Turkey under the much heralded fig-leaf pact it entered into with those two nations last May.   Accordingly, the United Nations, the European Union, and the United States recently imposed further economic sanctions on Iran in hopes that this set of sanctions will convince the Iranians to abandon their nuclear efforts.  We think that is very unlikely.

(more…)

Alexander Litvinenko was a hero in the mold of Mosab Hassan Yossef, the so-called “Son of Hamas,” who the US is sickeningly threatening to deport.  In fact, their fates may be quite similar if this is to happen, as in 2006 Litvinenko as you may recall was poisoned with Polonium-210, an extremely rare radioactive substance, and essential ingredient to early nuclear bombs.

Why was he poisoned?  Litvinenko, a former KGB/FSB agent who left the service and defected to London was a staunch critic of the Putin regime, and apparently knew too much for the Kremlin to bare.  For Litvinenko implicated the Russian government in a variety of terrorist attacks, abroad for example through their training of Al-Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri in 1998, and disgustingly at home through an attempted bombing of an apartment complex in 1999, and the infamous 2002 Moscow theater and 2004 Beslan school attacks.

I recently read his book Allegations, which in light of recent events is proving quite prescient.

One argument he makes that should resonate with all of us regards political resistance to the criminal Russian government:

There is no need to break any law, even most cruel one, in order to remain humans and citizens.  All we need to do is to take a civic stance, to demand that the authorities strictly obey the constitution.  Putin and his propaganda team know this, so they try to divide us, to set us against each other.  In doing so, the Kremlin strategists appeal to the lowest instincts, using every ethnic, religious or property differences we may have.  That is exactly why we must understand that our common enemy now is Putin’s regime (Allegations, 100).

Is this not precisely what we are witnessing today?  Our citizens are peacefully demanding a return to the Constitution, while our Progressive Putins try to spark racial and class warfare to divide and conquer us.

(more…)

Barack Obama promised during the 2008 campaign to end partisan politics.  Although Obama as President has governed with staunch partisan vigor, he has continued to deplore the politicization of American politics as a terrible failure.

Underneath that sentiment, Uncommon Knowledge’s latest guest John Podhoretz argues is a fundamental misunderstanding of the beauty of American democracy.  Simply put, Obama believes that since he won the election that he is entitled to remake the world in his image, with no frustrating arguments with people who disagree.

Podhoretz recently wrote in Commentary about The Purposes of Political Combat.  On our show he said, “We’ve gotten to a point where politicians and pundits seem to detest politics.  Politicians want to believe, particularly Barack Obama, that once an election is over politics ends and action begins.”

But in Podhoretz’s view, politics really begins when elections end.   Every action that is taken should be a political battleground.  Every argument needs to be won.  Every policy needs to go through a public process.  Our system is built to retard the ability of politicians to act.

Like all episodes of Uncommon Knowledge, the topics are wide ranging.  Other issues addressed include the latest on the tensions between Israel and Iran and why Jews are overwhelmingly liberal.

Watch the full show below.  Also, consider joining our new Facebook Page or following us on Twitter.