Thursday, April 21, 2016

WHEN GIULIANI REBUFFED THE SAUDIS





MAYOR REFUSED SAUDI OFFER

WHAT OBAMA COULD LEARN ABOUT LEADERSHIP
NYC MAYOR GIULIANI PUT SAUDI PRINCE IN HIS PLACE





TAGS: MAYOR GIULIANI, NYC SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, SAUDI PRINCE’S

$10 MILLION DOLLAR OFFER, GIULIANI: "SHOVE IT",

OBAMA VS THE HOUSE OF SAUD, JASTA BILL, OBAMA VOWS TO VETO

LEGISLATION YIELDING TO SAUDI “THREAT”



(Thursday April 21, 2016 Liberty St., NYC) On October 12, 2001 with the massive recovery effort at the site of the World Trade Center into its 31st day, the unmistakable cloying stench of death permeated the 16-acre site; it hung over that mammoth pile of wreckage like a pregnant thunderhead. For anyone who had spent any time there that is an unforgettable odor:  so powerfully pervasive a scent that the rescue dogs had to be taken off site in order for them to get some rest.  When they remained on-site their highly trained sense of smell would permit them no relief.



Fires still smoldered unseen within the twisted iron, steel, concrete; the pulverized contents of 220 acres of office space and their contents.  Within the debris the remains of hundreds of victims lay yet to be discovered.  The recovery was a painstakingly slow process, at times simple bucket brigades cleared wreckage bit by bit searching for remains.  There was a decidedly solemn tenor to the efforts; we were in many cases seeking to recover our own.  But, of course, the victims were many, their remains precious to the hundreds of families seeking some modicum of “closure” if such a state was even attainable.



As the very ground beneath our feet emanated waves of heat as did the pile, so too our boiling anger remained just below the surface. There was, after all, work to be done, tasks to focus on.  The time for our anger would have to wait. 



October 12, 2001 was a day on The Pile just like the 31 that preceded it.   But there occurred an event that was a collective expression of our anger.  Mayor Rudy Giuliani hosted a visit from a member of the House of Saud, the ruling Kingdom of that gulf country, the birthplace of 15 of the 19 hijackers who executed the attacks of September 11, 2001.  Giuliani escorted Prince Al Waleed ibn Talal ibn Abdulaziz al Saud to “Ground Zero “and gave him a brief tour of the area.   The Prince offered a check for $10 million dollars to our Mayor as his family’s contribution to a relief fund for the families of the victims of the attack.  Later that day the Prince made highly charged statements that essentially said that the United States “policies” regarding the Middle East and the “Palestinian brethren” in particular were partially to blame for the attacks.  Upon learning of this statement Giuliani refused to $10 million dollar check and issued a strong rebuke to Prince Al Waleed.



Giuliani appearing on Fox News earlier this week said about that day in 2001 commented, “I was given a check by a Saudi Arabian prince for $10million and he had the temerity to put out a press release blaming America and Israel for the attack on September 11th. I can't tell you what I said when I decided to tear up the check and give it back to him because I can't repeat it on television. His money he can keep and go burn it in hell.”  Giuliani was on air to discuss the recent conflict escalating between the Saudis and the Obama administration regarding a pending piece of legislation known as the “Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act,” (JASTA) that would allow survivors of the victims of 9/11 to sue the government of Saudi Arabia.  This proposed bill has boiled over and has muddied the waters this week while President Obama is on a state visit to the Saudi Kingdom.



The Saudis have threatened to divest themselves of $750 million dollars of assets they currently hold in the United States so that their properties and accounts cannot be frozen in the event that JASTA passes through Congress.  For his part our President has vowed to veto the legislation should it make it to his desk.  His stated rational is that the passage of JASTA would make the United States vulnerable to suits from people in countries where we conduct military operations presently and in the future.  There is a profound difference between state sponsored military action as in the case of our declared military actions against terrorists and the countries that grant them safe haven and a blatant act of terrorism as was delivered onto our soil just a few blocks from here. 

Obama has expressed his concern that there may be an errant drone strike that kills innocent people and that such an error could result in a legal suit against the United States.  This is on its face a facile argument in that none of the countries our military is currently operating within, they it be in the tactics of drone warfare, Special Operations missions or more conventional embedding with various countries troops on the ground, all are acknowledged and known military activities that cannot be equated with acts of terrorism.  Our military abides stringently to the Code of the U.S. Fighting Force as well as the Geneva Conventions.  Adherence to the Geneva Conventions alone constitutes the legality in widely adopted international law governing the conduction of warfare.  Terrorism is at the diametrically opposite end of the spectrum between legal and illegal military activities.



President Obama could demonstrate courage and conviction by emulating those traits so evident in Rudy Giuliani in his dealings with the Saudi Royal family.  Is it too much for us to expect our own President to stand up in a dignified and principled, tough yet diplomatic manner?  Yes, sadly it appears that it is too much to expect from Barack Obama.



























Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2016 © All Rights Reserved










HILL NO! THE CASE AGAINST HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON





TAGS:  HILLARY RODHAM, MARRIAGE TO BILL,
FIRST LADY ARKANSAS, FIRST LADY USA, SCANDALS,
COATTAILS, IMPRESSIVE RESUME & RAP SHEET





(Wednesday April 20, 2016, Brooklyn, NY) Hillary Rodham would very likely have been an accomplished successful woman in whatever arena she chose to work based on her own merits.  Born into modest privilege and raised in the upscale Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, she graduated from Wellesley College with honors in political science and went on to earn her law degree at Yale where she met he future husband, fellow law student Bill Clinton.   It would be her marriage to the future Arkansas Attorney General, Governor, and two-term Democratic President of the United States that would propel her to bear witness at the highest levels of governance and politics.  She hitcher her wagon, so to speak, to a man who would come to be known as arguably the most adept politician of his generation.  Much has been speculated and written about the nature of their relationship and marriage but, all that can be taken as fact is that theirs is a very complicated pairing.

It has been widely documented that Hillary Rodham did not take to Arkansas easily; actually she basically hated it from the moment she arrived there.  An already experienced political hand and attorney in her own right she bristled at some of the demands that came along with being the “First Lady of Arkansas”.  Far from Washington, DC where she had spent some of her college time working for various Congressional committees and as a Republican Party activist, Arkansas seemed to her to be the backwater that it in fact was; a poor, largely rural southern state with dismal prospects for the predominately impoverished populace.  She did however come to launch some initiatives dedicated to women’s and children’s issues and worked for one of the most highly regarded law firms in Little Rock, the Rose Law Firm.

After 10 years as Governor Bill Clinton threw his hat into the ring in 1991 and ran for President.  And Hillary was buckled in for the ride of a lifetime. The ups and downs of that 1991-1992 Presidential Primary season have also been widely analyzed, documented, and closely examined from every conceivable angle and perspective.  Once candidate Bill Clinton’s womanizing ways were made public in tawdry tabloid-style news conferences, Hillary famously “stood by her man” although not in the same manner as Tammy Wynette had sang.  It was that early on in her national exposure to the media and public that her character and reputation began to be alternately defined as either a submissive, docile woman truly committed to her husband or as a calculating, emotionless bitch who would exact great rewards from her hubby for not abandoning him when his nascent Presidential run was very close to being over.

TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE

As we all know the Clinton’s made it to the White House.  As President Clinton so famously said time and time again, the American people had gotten “Two for the price of one” meaning his intelligent wife would play a major role in his administration.  And that she did.  Not satisfied with the historical duties that befall a First Lady she insisted on being included in Cabinet meetings, policy discussions, and others realms of governance she had no right being privy to.  The position of First Lady is not an official Office; it is a figurative title vested with absolutely no “power”.  Mrs. Clinton was notoriously reported throughout the Clinton years as being dismissive at best, disrespectful at worst to the members of the Secret Service who provided the Clinton’s personal protection.  She repeatedly overstepped her boundaries regarding important policy initiatives and, likely as a carrot to get her occupied with something other than the real issues the President was working on, assigned her to craft health care legislation that would go on to be known as “Hillarycare”.  Her foray into health care reform was an unmitigated disaster.  She conducted the affairs of her committee basically in secret with no input from anyone outside her own personal circle of “advisors” and friends.    It was roundly rejected by Congress and the American people before it could even get off the ground.  It was doomed to not being able to get off the ground by virtue of its static weight; her “proposals” were codified in an almost 2,000-page document that even the most dedicated policy wonk couldn’t stand to read.  Her initiative died on the vine.  So much for Hillary’s expertise.

BUILDING A RESUME AND A REPUTATION

To say the Clinton’s played fast and loose with matters of decorum and protocol in the White House would be an epic understatement.  From early in his first term President Clinton used and misused that residence for all manner of trite political means.  Friends of Bill (FOB) were invited to spend a few nights sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom and rather raucous parties were a strain on the Secret Service.  It did not take very long for what would be a distinct pattern of scandals to emerge and, perhaps “coincidentally”, but actually not, Mrs. Clinton was at the center of those scandals.

First came the White House Travel Office scandal involving misuse and misappropriation of funds for that Office.  The sudden and suspicious alleged suicide of White House Counsel, Vince Foster, a longtime friend of Hillary from her Arkansas days at the Rose Law Firm, soon followed.  Mysteriously some documents Mr. Foster was known to have in his possession disappeared only to be found much later, again coincidentally, by Mrs. Clinton.

They there was the cattle futures issue where her paltry investment of several thousand dollars reaped a windfall close to $300,000 dollars.  Of course the issue of Whitewater would haunt the Clintons for much of their time in the White House and it was Hillary who instigated that half-assed investment years before in Arkansas.  The Whitewater investigation would prove to be the point of entry that pried the seals away from the shields the Clintons believed they had erected years before.  That scandal would give birth to many others each of which Hillary’s fingerprints were scene.

Yes, during her years as First Lady of Arkansas and of the United States Hillary assembled an impressive resume rivalled only by her rap sheet.  She had demonstrated her mettle as the American public began seeing her for what she is; a crafty, corrupt, deceitful, dishonest, liar fueled by unbridled ambition and unmitigated arrogance believing herself to be so gifted and “special” that she can live above the law.  Imagine, if you will, her in the White House as President.  Yes, it is a scary picture made all the more concerning as it appears she has a real possibility of winning the election just seven months away.

COATTAILS

Mrs. Clinton has been able to parlay the circumstances of her marriage into a Golden Calf that keeps on giving.  Everything she has “accomplished” since leaving the White House has been basically handed to her on a silver platter.  She has been swept ever forward riding on the coattails of her popular husband.

When the liberal stalwart of the Senate, New York’s Danial Patrick Moynihan announced his plan to retire he handpicked Mrs. Clinton as his replacement.  The carpet bagging Hillary inherited the powerful New York Democratic “Machine” as well as the vast political enterprise her husband had so ardently assembled since his college days at Georgetown.  Her likely opponent was to be former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, but he was forced to exit the race before it even really began due to a diagnosis of prostate cancer.  The NY GOP had no real viable candidate waiting in the wings so Hillary sailed easily to victory.  What were her accomplishments during her eight-year tenure in the Senate?  Good question.

Her Senate seat not being large enough for her hyper-ambitious ass, she launched her presidential campaign in 2007 only to be defeated by an upstart first term senator from her real home state, Barack Obama.  Obama, another crafty politician followed the Sicilian practice of “keeping your friends close and your enemies closer” and handed to the trounced Hillary the Office of Secretary of State.  She was no more qualified for that position than is the wife of an astronaut to fly the space shuttle.  Her tenure at the Department of State was troubled from the start.  Scandals continue to transpire around her and, at some point, people began to realize that she was not a victim of circumstance but rather an incompetent empty pants suit simply not up to the tasks of that all-important Cabinet position.  She may have been the “most widely travelled Secretary of State” yet for all her air miles one would be hard pressed to name a single tangible accomplishment while the list of her missteps, ineptitude, irrational thinking, and deep lack of knowledge about the geopolitics of the times.

What are easily listed are her gross blunders; the instances of diplomatic failings, ill-advised initiatives and episodes of criminal dereliction of duty.  She was not liked or respected by world leaders and her credibility as the chief ambassador for the USA was a persistent issue in every arena she attempted to negotiate with foreign alleys, friends and foes.  She can testify to a Senate Select Committee for 11 hours a day for 11 months on end and still not be able to wash the blood from Benghazi from her hands.

Her use of a private e-mail server kept in her adopted home in Chappaqua raising questions not only about her judgment but of her understanding of the law and represents an attitude of both laxity and arrogance, another example of how she feels she is above the law.  Do we really want this type of person, this particular individual in the White House?  Hopefully the American public will not allow that to happen.  We know who she is and what she is and what she isn’t; she is in no form or fashion Presidential material.  

Yes, America may be ready for a woman president but it is clearly not ready for this woman to be president.  Her un-favorability ratings are higher than any other likely nominee in the history of polling.  She is seen by huge majorities of voters as dishonest, untrustworthy, and not possessing the character to be president.  The country has the chance to once and for all vanquish this awful woman from the national stage. Let us all hope that that is precisely what happens.













 Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2016 © All Rights Reserved