Blackmail?

In light of the revelation that the NSA has been intercepting phone calls made by those in Congress, a caller to a talk show yesterday put this fact together with much of the counter-intuitive behavior that has been exhibited in our legislature (recent omnibus budget vote) and in our court system (John Roberts' strange flip flop on Obamacare) ... maybe even within the administration. Could it be that our White House, through this or an equivalent process, has assembled many juicy pieces of scandalous data on many in our legislature and on our courts ... and are using this info to sway the opinions of these individuals?

Add to this the possibility that there might have been a few brave souls who didn't bow to such revelation threats and thus were made examples of  ... Senator Menendez? ... General Petraus? ... This coercive behavior essentially would duplicate what J. Edgar Hoover did when he ran the FBI.

Am I being politically incorrect again?

Plastic Surgery

Chelsea Clinton has made the big time ... as she is now on the cover of Elle magazine ... see: Elle Magazine Story. Not only is this write-up an obvious puff piece ... trying to prepare her for some future political role for which her parents have ambitions ... but, to me, it sure looks like Bill and Hillary's daughter is more attractive than she has been in previous pics. Is this a bit of Photoshopping on Elle's part ... or has Chelsea had a few sessions with a plastic surgeon?

Which brings me to the real reason for this blog posting ... nothing is really what it is made to appear anymore. Almost everything is being media manipulated to look like something it really ain't. Viz:

- Senator Harry Reid's story about his facial injuries clearly does not fit the facts.

- The framework of an Iranian nuclear agreement is mostly smoke and mirrors ... as each side of this faux pact is describing it with totally different codicils.

- The brouhaha over Hillary Clinton's destroyed e-mails seems to have media partisans painting two entirely different landscapes.

- Senator Robert Menendez's corruption indictment is possibly justified ... but smells of the political swamp that is Washington.

- The Clinton Foundation is slowly being revealed as a ersatz eleemosynary institution created as a front for a Clinton super-PAC collecting illegal foreign money with the implicit promise of future influence in the White House.

- Even Olympic decathlon champion, Bruce Jenner, is slowly morphing into a woman ... an ugly one at that ... with the help of the nip and tuckers.

And there are many more examples than I can possibly mention here. Why has the American public gotten so jaundiced to these make-overs? Has television fakery, computer games, and movie special effects so blurred the line between reality and fantasy that standards of truth have totally disappeared?

To this blogger, it appears so ...

Pussyfoot

Foreign Policy magazine is respected as one of the premier sources for what is happening in international affairs.  It has just published a detailed account of  the Obama administration's position vis-a-vis Iranian sanctions ... and it is not pretty.  Please read it here and then return for a few comments from your blogger.

As you read, the Senate just passed an amendment to a National Defense Authorization Act with a 94-0 vote ... that imposes a series of harsher sanctions on Iran.  Democrat Senator Menendez of New Jersey, one sponsor of this amendment says, "The window is closing.  The time for the waiting game is over."  Yet our administration is opposed to these new sanctions based upon administrivia ... in other words, it continues to pussyfoot around in its dealings with Iran and the "existential threat"  posed by its nuclear ambitions.

What is, to me, more damaging in this article is that it also explains that the tough sanctions that were imposed on Iran last year (and which were bragged about by Obama in his debate with Romney)  grew out of another Senate action which was passed 100-0 and which this administration also opposed with equally appeasing language  Please reread the last paragraph in this article for more insight into what possibly is the real position of Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton on Iran.  To me it is obvious that, despite their rhetoric, they would not be unhappy when Iran finally acquires the bomb.  This is something that has been obvious to me for a long time.

One final thought -- last year the Senate vote for tougher sanctions was 100-0.   This year, the vote was 94-0.  I wonder if the six Senators who sat out this year's vote somehow are vying for the Secretary of State position?