(RussianTV) Comrade Lavrov: Russia Not Clinging to G-8 if West Doesn't Want It

Published on Mar 24, 2014


"The G8 is an informal club, no one gives out membership cards and no one can expel members," Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told at a media conference at the Hague. "If our Western partners believe that this format has exhausted itself, let it be. We are not clinging to it."

(CNN) Inside Politics: Obamacare's 2 Big Days

Dinesh D'Souza Discusses His Movie: "2016: OBAMA'S AMERICA"

[FULL SPEECH] Dinesh D'Souza: If Obama Didn't Like "2016" Wait Till He Sees "America"

Published on Mar 7, 2014


Dinesh D'Souza spoke at CPAC and talked about his movie, "America," which is soon to be released. D'Souza said it is wrong to think about Obama as a mere bungler.


Obama knows exactly what he is doing and wants to reshape America in his own ideology.


D'Souza called him an actor playing the roles in D'Souza's script for "2016."


After "2016" Obama was very upset. Modern Progressives allege that American is built on theft.


D'Souza's movie will explain what the world would be like if America did not exist.

Jimmy Carter Mystified: Why Doesn't Obama Call Me For Advice When Dealing With "Unsavory Characters"

Published on Mar 23, 2014


  Jimmy Carter doesn't understand why Obama does not call him for advice and is blaming his nonprofit organization's vocal support for Palestinians in the Middle East. "Unfortunately, the answer is no," Carter said when asked by NBC'S Andrea Mitchell in an exclusive interview whether the current inhabitant of the White House calls him, adding that former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan asked for his help with diplomacy when dealing with "unsavory characters." Saying that it is difficult to explain "with complete candor" why the two men don't have a closer relationship, he said that the Carter Center's positions on the Middle East may be the source of the tension. "I think the problem was that -- in dealing with the issue of peace in between Israel and Egypt -- the Carter Center has taken a very strong and public position of equal treatment between the Palestinians and the Israelis. And I think this was a sensitive area in which the president didn't want to be involved," he said.

(NYT) Ross Douthat: Russia Without Illusions

Russia Without Illusions

March 22, 2014

Ross Douthat

SINCE the end of the Cold War, America’s policy toward Russia has been shaped by two dangerous illusions.

The first was the conceit that with the right incentives, eyes-to-soul presidential connections and diplomatic reset buttons, Russia could become what we think of, in our cheerfully solipsistic way, as a “normal country” — at peace with the basic architecture of an American-led world order, invested in international norms and institutions, content with its borders and focused primarily on its G.D.P. Not the old Russian bear, and not an “Upper Volta with rockets” basket case, but a stable, solid-enough global citizen — Poland with an Asian hinterland, Italy with nukes.

The second illusion was the idea that with the Cold War over, we could treat Russia’s near abroad as a Western sphere of influence in the making — with NATO expanding ever eastward, traditional Russian satellites swinging into our orbit, and Moscow isolated or acquiescent. As went the Baltic States, in this theory, so eventually would go Ukraine and Georgia, until everything west and south of Russia was one military alliance, and its western neighbors were all folded into the European Union as well.

On the surface, these ideas were in tension: One was internationalist and the other neoconservative; one sought partnership with Russia and the other to effectively encircle it. But there was also a deep congruity, insofar as both assumed that limitations on Western influence had fallen away, and a post-Cold War program could advance smoothly whether the Russians decided to get with it or not.

Now both ideas should be abandoned. After Crimea, as Anne Applebaum wrote last week, it’s clear that Putin’s Russia “is not a flawed Western power,” but “an anti-Western power with a different, darker vision of global politics.” It may not be America’s No. 1 geopolitical problem, as a certain former candidate for president suggested. (Don’t sleep on the Chinese.) But it is a geopolitical threat — a revisionist, norm-violating power — to a greater extent than any recent administration has been eager to accept.

But at the same time, after Crimea there should also be fewer illusions about the West’s ability to dictate outcomes in Russia’s near abroad. Twice in this era — in Georgia in 2008 and now in Ukraine — Russian troops have crossed alleged red lines in conflicts with countries that felt they had some sort of Western protection: Ukraine through the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which supposedly guaranteed its territorial integrity, and Georgia because of our support for its potential entry into NATO. And in both cases the limits of Western power have been laid bare — the disorganization and disunity of “European” foreign policy, and the fact that even the most bellicose U.S. politicians aren’t ready to say that South Ossetia or Simferopol is worth the bones of a single American Marine.

For the rest, see:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/opinion/sunday/douthat-russia-without-illusions.html?_r=0

(LA Times) Shaping Response to Russia a High-stakes Test for Obama

Shaping a response to Russia will be a high-stakes test for Obama

President Obama's trip will be a plunge into American leadership in Europe after years of shifting U.S. policy away from the Old World.

                                  

President Obama, at the Andrews Air Force Base golf course in Maryland, will visit Europe this week. (Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images / March 22, 2014)

By Kathleen Hennessey

March 23, 2014, 5:30 a.m.

WASHINGTON — Planned as a springtime tour with a modest itinerary — affording time to chat with the pope, admire the Rembrandts and take in the Colosseum — President Obama's weeklong trip to Europe instead has become a high-stakes test of whether he can move the continent's leaders into a tougher response to Russia's annexation of Crimea.

Obama will huddle Monday in Amsterdam with other members of the G-7, seeking a strategy against what many see as the most threatening European land grab since World War II. He will have to navigate disagreements among the European nations over how far to go, and the price they are willing to pay, to sanction Russia for seizing the peninsula from Ukraine.


And he will have to reassure Russia's nervous neighbors that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is prepared to uphold its promises to defend them.


It's a retro role for the president, as well as for Western Europe, which has been snapped back into its pivotal place in global geopolitics. And it's not one that Obama — who has spent his presidency talking about shifting U.S. policy away from the Old World — is likely to have anticipated.
Some say he has not prepared for this challenge.


"It's going to require an enormous amount of American leadership in Europe, which we have not seen for the last five years," said Heather Conley, director of the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. "We've got a lot of making up to do."


Much of Europe welcomed the election of Obama after the go-it-alone style of President George W. Bush. But many diplomats since have come to view the U.S. administration as dismissive and disengaged. And that was before a top American official was caught on tape several weeks ago, rudely brushing off the European Union's views on the growing unrest in Ukraine.


On Obama's itinerary Wednesday will be his first visit as president to Brussels, the seat of the 28-member European Union. The EU-U.S. summit there, following a meeting on nuclear security at The Hague earlier in the week, will be the first such get-together since 2011.


The president's role in strategizing with his European counterparts also is complicated by revelations last year of U.S. spying on European heads of state and of bulk collection of phone data. The scandal has touched a nerve, particularly in Germany.


For the rest, see:
http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-obama-europe-20140323,0,5743042.story#axzz2wndrNjrU

"Uncle Joe" Biden Nominates Obama for Sainthood in Healthcare.gov Woes

(CNN) Obama: We'll Impose More Sanctions on Russia

President Obama announces more sanctions in response to Russia's support for the annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region.

(Russian TV, 46 Min) Putin Addresses Legislators Re: Crimea Accession: "West Rewriting Its Own Rulebook"

Crimea's secession from Ukraine was just like Kosovo's secession from Serbia, and any arguments otherwise are just attempts to bend the West-advocated rules that were applied to the Kosovo case, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. READ MORE: http://on.rt.com/0e4qji

Sen. Mitch McConnell Interview: Tea Party, 2014 & 2016, GOP Rift, & Obama

TPNN EXCLUSIVE: Senator Mitch McConnell shares his feelings on the Tea Party Movement, 2014 and 2016, GOP infighting and President Obama.

Krauthammer's Hammer: "Obama Is Being 'Ridiculed by Russians'"

(Pravda.Russia TV): Comrade, After Crimea, What's Next?

So, the issue is settled now: Crimea became the part of Russia. Almost 97 percent of its inhabitants voted for this. But, as it always happens, when one issue is fixed, then ten other appear. How will the other Russia speaking regions react? How unjust will be -- if there will be any -- the sanctions against Russia? What strategy should Russia stick to?


Denis Denisov, director of the Ukrainian branch of the Institute of CIS countries: "If Russia has the strategy about what to do next, what actions are better to perform, how to behave in general, then, undoubtedly, it would be better not to stop. If there are just some tactical understanding -- and it often ends up like this -- then we'd better stop before we figure out some strategy and think what we can do next after we have adjoined Crimea". The safety of the Ukrainian south-east is an important issue after some announcements made by the leader of the far-right party Right Sector Dmytro Yarosh, who threatened to provide unrest to the country and even to blow up the gas pipe that connects Russia and Europe. However, such claim doesn't' seem to be serious.


Denis Denisov: "All these announcements of the extremists like Yarosh -- and especially him, concerning the fact, that this is kind of his election campaign. We know that he wants to be a president of Ukraine. And the announcement of him is stupid, even absurd. Moreover, making such announcements - especially about the pipe - he acts against his European and American friends who actually opened doors for him". What do you think of Crimean referendum? Why do the West still consider it as an occupation by Russia despite the fact that people actually wanted it?

Krauthammer's Take: Arrogant, "Semi-Delusional" Obama "Radically Unaware" Of Completely Failed Foreign Policy

BILL O'REILLY: Why do you think he does this stuff? He is smart enough to know what the perception is going to be. Guys like you and me, we're going to say what are you playing golf for when you've got a crisis in this area? He knows that. Why does he do it.


CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I think it's a kind of arrogance. He thinks he actually has a good foreign policy. I think he is semi-delusional about the results of these five years. There is not a spot in the world -- you can go from Syria to Libya, to Iran to China, to Russia to Ukraine, where the United States is not worse off, less regarded, considered weak than it was five years ago. This is a completely failed foreign policy and he seems radically unaware of that.


O'REILLY: Is it all about power? Because Cheney and Bush were very aggressive in foreign. I mean, don't mess with us. Yet, it didn't really work to our advantage because some would say, and I think there is a point to be made here, they were overly aggressive, particularly in Iraq. Or is there something else that a president has to have to make other people respect this country? See, look, I agree that we're not better off foreign policy wise than we were when president obama took office.


KRAUTHAMMER: We are worse off, we're a lot worse off.


O'REILLY: Okay, and I don't think there is much argument there, I really don't. He tried the kindler gentler, he tried the we are all in it together, it didn't work. Not working. Alright? Not working in Afghanistan and Syria. Not working in North Korea. It's not working. Alright? But, I don't know if you get a bellicose guy like Cheney back whether that's going to make any difference these days.


KRAUTHAMMER: Let me give you one example. The other president who was rather weak in his foreign policy was Jimmy Carter, until the Russians invaded Afghanistan. At which point the scales fell from Jimmy Carter's eyes. You remember what Carter did right away? He imposed a grain embargo on the Soviets, he boycotted the Olympics, and the most important step he did is he sent [Zbigniew] Brzezinski to the Khyber Pass, carrying a rifle and that increased hugely the amount of U.S. aid to the Mujahideen, which within a decade bled Russia dry until they limped out of Afghanistan. The problem today, and what really scares me is given the same kind of shock watching Russia invade another country, Obama's scales remain on his eyes. The stuff he has been saying, this is 19th century behavior in the 21st century, as if a turn of the calendar has changed human nature and the Hobbesian international system is now a gentleman's club is absurd. It's what he said in his first U.N. speech. You could attribute that to being naive, but he's has been around now for five years. He sees the wages of weakness and he does not understand that he is now feeding the bear.

(ABC, This Week) Crisis in Ukraine

ABC News' Alexander Marquardt and Bianna Golodryga report the latest on the Crimea referendum in Ukraine.

Nigeria: Attacks on Christians kill at least 100 | CNS News

Nigeria: Attacks on Christians kill at least 100 | CNS News

Obama's Use of Executive Power

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) Slams Obama's Lawlessness

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., sponsor of the ENFORCE the Law Act, delivered a fiery speech on Wednesday and read a series of statements by Obama when he was an Illinois senator in which the then Senator warned of the encroachment of the executive on the powers of the other branches of government.


"How does going from being a senator to a president rewrite the Constitution?" Gowdy asked.


"What's different from when he was a senator? Mr. Speaker, I don't think there's an amendment to the Constitution that I've missed. I try to keep up with those with regularity."


Gowdy went on to argue that "process matters" in law enforcement, noting that evidence gathered with a legitimate search warrant is thrown out if an officer so much as accidentally checks the wrong box on the application. "Even though he was well-intended, even though he had good motivations, even though he got the evidence — because process matters," he added.


"We all swore an allegiance to the same document that the president swears allegiance to, to faithfully execute the law," Gowdy continued. "If a president does not faithfully execute the law... what are our remedies?"


He then argued that Congress should do exactly what then-Sen. Obama suggested before he was president of the United States: "To go to the Supreme Court and have the Supreme Court say once and for all: 'We don't pass suggestions in this body. ... We don't pass ideas — we pass laws. And we expect them to be faithfully executed."


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George Will's Take: Where Can Obama Campaign for Dems? Job Approval?

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"Another" Executive Order by Obama to Labor Dept: Overtime Expansion a Jobs Killer

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