U.S. Acquiescence To A Bad Iran Deal Was No Mistake

By Capt Joseph R. John

In the below listed Op Ed, Admiral James L. Lyons, former Commander-in-Chief of the US Pacific Fleet, highlights a whole range of Obama policies that have intentionally weakened the Republic militarily and economically over the last 6 ½ years, with little opposition from members of the US Congress.  Obama’s dangerous intent to “Change” the very nature of the United States from a Republic to a Socialist State has also been free from exposure because the left of center liberal media establishment has been in league with Obama.

Admiral Lyons exposes the Iranian initiative which Obama and Valerie Jarrett initiated in 2008 to change alliances in the Middle East in favor of Iran.   It didn’t matter that Iran, the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, had been killing and maiming thousands of members of the US Armed Forces for the past 35  years and continues in that policy today in Afghanistan—any agreement that didn’t simply demand that Iran stop killing members of the US Armed Forces in Afghanistan is a bad agreement on the face of it.

Iran’s ultimate goal is to destroy the state of Israel, then attack the United States with nuclear weapons atop intercontinental ballistic missiles.  It has taken Obama nearly 7 years, but now it appears Obama and the Democratic side of the isle in Congress are well on their way to facilitating an international agreement to allow Iran to become a nuclear power, while giving them $150 billion to continue their international terrorism.  The agreement permits Iran to be within a danger thrust away from the hearts of the United States’ traditional Sunni allies in the Middle East, who are now developing their own nuclear weapons in self-defense.  

In the 2016 election, the American voters must go to the polls and remove members of Congress who continue to repeatedly make false promises to the voters in their Congressional Districts and states, but have no intention to protect and defend the US Constitution following their elections, especially those members in Congress who are supporting Obama’s dangerous Iranian International Nuclear Weapons Treaty, called an Agreement because of the failure by the Republican leaders in Congress.   The Obama administration will promote voter fraud once again, as they have in the last two presidential elections, and we will watch to see if the Republican establishment will finally get off dead center and spend some of the millions of dollars they raise to do anything about it, instead of just feathering their nests.

The leaders in Congress have not safeguarded the US Constitution on International Treaties with both this Iranian International Nuclear Weapons Treaty and the unconstitutional TPA International Trade Treaty that permits Obama to negotiate the Fast Track Trade Promotional (TPP) in Secret with 11 other Pacific Rim countries (which no American has been ever permitted to view since it was signed into law in June 2015).  That International Treaty will eliminate US sovereignty in favor of International Tribunals and effectively destroy the US Immigration system by allowing million Illegal Immigrants to enter the US from 50 countries, and be issued Work Permits, including allowing a new crop of millions of Illegal Mexican workers; those millions of Illegal Immigrants with work permits will unfairly compete at lower wages with 104 million unemployed Americans and undermine The Free Enterprise System.

We encourage you to read Admiral Lyons below listed riveting article and provide support for the endorsed and elected Combat Veterans For Congress listed on the Endorsements page of our Web site, and for a new slate of endorsed Combat Veterans For Congress who we will be endorsing leading up to the 2016 election.  Those we endorse are Combat Veterans who previously repeated put their lives on the line to protect their fellow comrades, and to also protect and defend the US Constitution and our way of life; they will work tirelessly to continue to protect and defend the US Constitution.

Copyright 2015, Capt. Joseph R. John. All Rights Reserved. This material can only be posted on another Web site or distributed on the Internet by giving full credit to the author.  It may not be published, broadcast, or rewritten without permission from the author.  

U.S. acquiescence to a bad Iran deal was no mistake

By James A. Lyons

There is no shortage of critics of the recently concluded nuclear agreement that President Obama has reached with the evil Iranian theocracy. All the "known concessions" by the Obama administration should come as no surprise. Make no mistake — these concessions were not due to incompetence nor the inability to negotiate. They are part of the president's planned agenda to fundamentally transform America by diminishing our stature and credibility. It is another example of his misguided view that America must be humbled for the many "problems" we have caused throughout the world.

Mr. Obama's game plan on how to negotiate with the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had its genesis in the summer of 2008. According to scholar and author Michael Ledeen, around the time when candidate Barack Obama received the Democratic Party's nomination, he opened a secret communication channel with the Iranian theocracy. The go-between was Ambassador William G. Miller, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who spoke fluent Farsi from his previous tours of duty in Tehran.

The message was, "Don't sign an agreement with the Bush administration. Wait until I am president — you will get a much better deal! You will like my policies. I am your friend." Here is a country that has cost thousands of American lives. Furthermore, all Americans should never forget that it was Iran that provided the key material and training support to the September 11 hijackers. Without that support the attack could not have been carried out, and some 3,000 innocent Americans who were doing nothing more than going to work would be alive today. Yet our president told this regime that he was their friend.

This borders on treason and most certainly violated the Logan Act, which forbids private citizens from interfering in government diplomacy.

The endless Kabuki dance that went on in Geneva and Vienna was not only an embarrassment for all Americans, but more importantly, it "conceded America's honor," an honor that has stood on bedrock principles which hundreds of thousands of Americans have paid the ultimate price to protect. Our nation was humiliated. This treaty must be rejected.

While being challenged throughout the world, the Obama administration continues with its senseless unilateral disarmament of our military forces, thereby jeopardizing our national security. As if disarmament were not enough, our military is being forced to train the military forces of our potential enemies. Specifically, Chinese infantry troops are being trained in the United States. Moreover, the Chinese navy was invited to participate in the 2014 Rim of the Pacific fleet exercise and has been invited again to participate in the 2016 fleet exercise to be held off the coast of Hawaii, alongside all of our major Pacific allies. We clearly are compromising our tactics, techniques and operations.

Compounding the problem is the use of our military as a social engineering laboratory to advance Mr. Obama's political and social agenda. With regard to the promotion of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender lifestyle, my late friend M. Stanton Evans in his monumental 1994 book "The Theme is Freedom" had it right when he called it a return to the "pagan ethic."

Clearly, the Obama administration is attacking the American way of life from all aspects. Our open border policy makes absolutely no sense. We have anywhere from 11 million to possibly as many as 30 million illegal immigrants within our borders. Sanctuary cities are also in clear violation of immigration laws. The welcome mat has been put out by the administration so that the more recent illegal immigrants are able to draw upon a wide range of taxpayer benefits, including food stamps, health care and earned income tax credit for three years, all at the American taxpayers' expense. However, the overwhelming majority of immigrants come here as the result of our visa policies. The U.S. issues the treasured "green card" to approximately 1 million immigrants per year, most of whom are unskilled. They are immediately entitled to numerous benefits at taxpayers' expense. Congress must act to limit the number of green cards issued.

Releasing illegal immigrants from jail with criminal records is a deliberate affront to all Americans. Seeding throughout the country Muslim immigrants who have no intent to assimilate is another affront and tears at the fabric of our society.

Compounding the immigration crisis, is the Obama administration's inclination to divide Americans by race and class. This is unconscionable. You are either an American entitled to all the benefits that being an American conveys, or you are not. Those are the only two classes. The first one is sacred.

The corruption of our government agencies, fostered by the Obama administration, should not be overlooked. The selective enforcement of our laws and traditions has lowered Americans' respect and trust of those agencies. However, taken in the aggregate, the fundamental transformation of America is taking place with no objections from Congress and the Supreme Court, which are supposed to prevent illegal and unconstitutional acts by an out-of-control president. Congress and the high court, and for that matter, our military leadership, are complicit in these illegal actions by not faithfully executing their oaths of office. This cannot stand. As Thomas Paine stated, "These are the times that try men's souls." With our corrupt leadership, it is now time to take back America.

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No more costly mandatory minimum sentences

Recent rulings at the U.S. Supreme Court on gay marriage and Obamacare are high-profile reminders that there is not much the left and right agrees on in this country. But yet another new bipartisan criminal justice reform bill, introduced recently by Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.) with the support of almost two dozen other Republicans and Democrats, shows that one thing we do agree on is that this country locks too many people up for too long at too high a price.

The bill, the SAFE Justice Act (H.R. 2944), has a little bit of something for everyone, from mandatory minimum sentencing reform to getting a handle on the proliferation of federal crimes and regulations that can snare even the most well-intentioned citizens.

The increase in overly broad and vague criminal laws has enabled overzealous prosecutors to bring charges against Americans who inadvertently violate one of them. More often, however, government lawyers have aggressively pursued those acting in the gray areas between “business as usual” and unlawful activity.

White-collar suspects have become especially popular targets for prosecutors due to populist anger at Wall Street. Netting high-profile, corporate whales is a time-tested method for ambitious prosecutors to boost their political careers.

Independent federal judges are often the only hope white-collar defendants have to resist groundless charges when they are innocent and to avoid excessive punishment when found guilty. Last December, for example, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals stopped cold the government’s effort to jail two hedge fund managers who had received information on the financial outlook for two computer companies from personal friends who worked there that the court found they had no reason to know was not public information.

Judges have also sought to restore some common sense and greater justice to white-collar sentencing. The U.S. Sentencing Commission, when drafting the first sentencing guidelines for judges, determined that corporate wrongdoers should be sentenced to short but definite prison terms. Economic crime offenders are less likely to reoffend than drug dealers and other street criminals, but the Commission thought prison time would deter others.

Beginning in the early 2000s, the U.S. Sentencing Commission and Congress reacted to high-profile frauds by launching an arms race that has more than doubled prison sentences for individuals convicted of economic crimes. The Sentencing Commission began the bidding by enacting several changes to the federal sentencing guidelines that, among other things, called for higher sentences based on the dollar amount involved.

A couple of years later, fueled by the collapse of Enron and WorldCom, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which raised the maximum statutory penalty for fraud from five years to twenty and forced the Commission to further increase its recommended prison terms for economic fraud.

The result: economic crime guidelines are nearly useless for judges whose job is to impose fair sentences based on the total circumstances of an offense (not simply the loss amount) and the characteristics of the defendant.

Judges have been unusually vocal in pointing out the guideline’s shortcomings, labeling it “a black stain on common sense” and “patently absurd on their face.” The guideline frequently contains terrible guidance. Why, for example, should a scheme that resulted in a $100 loss to 250 victims warrant a sentence more than three times as high as a fraud that caused a $25,000 loss to a single victim? It makes no sense.

Congress and the Sentencing Commission need to rethink their zeal to ratchet up prison terms for everyone who runs afoul of Congress’s vague criminal laws and better distinguish among those who intentionally defrauded others from those who were simply negligent or could have been more conscientious in managing money.

While those who steal from others or defraud the market should be punished, imposing new mandatory minimum sentences for these crimes would be a mistake.  Our existing mandatory sentencing laws –aimed largely at drug offenders - already force us to spend billions of dollars on prisons overflowing with nonviolent offenders who pose little risk to public safety.  They have devastated countless families and communities and have diverted resources from more important law enforcement priorities.  Mandatory minimum sentences replace a system of individualized justice delivered locally by independent judges with a one-size-fits-all, politicians-know-best sentencing scheme.

It is bad enough that Congress has surrounded the American people with an increasingly complex maze of laws and regulations that are almost impossible to avoid violating. Lawmakers should not add insult to injury by subjecting every misstep to a mandatory and lengthy prison term.

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on A WESTERN HEART.

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