Obama Administration

Bill Richardson could teach Donald Trump something about the art of the deal. He has done a lot of them. At present Richardson sees one of his deals in jeopardy, and he was in Washington last week to raise the alarm, meeting privately with former colleagues and appearing at a press conference at the National Press Club. The deal in jeopardy involves a commitment he made, when he was secretary of Energy in the Clinton administration, with the Russians to dispose of weapons-grade plutonium, the long-lived ingredient in nuclear weapons.

As the regional proxy wars heat up, Saudi Arabia seizes an Iranian "fishing" vessel that, in addition to fishing poles and tackle boxes, also happened to be carrying missile launchers, anti-tank weapons, and firing guiding systems likely bound for the Houthis in Yemen.

"When you look at recent graduates with student loans it gets really ugly, really fast. If alumni don’t feel they’re getting their money’s worth, we risk this tidal wave of demand for higher education crashing down."

"The people that want to come in and replace Assad, nobody knows who they are and they could end up being worse. We're constantly going out and siding with people and they turn out to be worse than the people who were there before."

"In my opinion, provision of military support to illegal structures runs counter to the principles of modern international law and the United Nations Charter."

Another day, another "what difference does it make" lie exposed for the mainstream media to ignore and excuse as simple witch-huntery. However, this 'lie' is unarguable and proves once again that Hillarinochio seems to believe she is above the law.  The Obama administration has discovered a chain of emails (exchanged with retired Gen. David Petraeus when he headed the military’s U.S. Central Command, responsible for running the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) that Clinton failed to turn over when she provided what she said was the full record of work-related correspondence as secretary of state, officials told The Associated Press on Friday. Is it any wonder her support has been plunging recently?

• Global Markets Rebound on Yellen Speech (WSJ)
• Obama and Putin to meet; Syria and Ukraine vie for attention (Reuters)
• Obama to host China's President Xi amid simmering tensions (Reuters)
• Don't Fall for It, Xi! Chinese Take to Web to Scorn U.S.—and China, Too (BBG)
• Yellen Confirms Fed Still on Track to Raise Rates This Year (BBG)... but is still China dependent?
• Abe's New Economic Plan Confounds Analysts (BBG)
• It's All `Perverted' Now as U.S. Swap Spreads Tumble Below Zero (BBG)

"The capability to maintain continuous deterrent patrols is a big milestone for a nuclear power. Once deployed it will provide China with a capability to strike targets in the continental U.S."

Government poses a threat to liberty, that much is clear. But what may be surprising is that almost half of Americans clearly identified government as a clear and “immediate” threat, and are obviously outraged about what is going on. It is time that Americans embrace their anger at government, and focus their attention past the politicians to the real problem. Start with the bankers, follow the money, and see where it goes...

In a startling turn of events, retired General John Allen will be stepping down as special envoy to the global coalition fighting ISIS and will be leaving government employment entirely. President Obama’s hand-picked choice to lead the U.S. in the international effort fighting the Islamic State will call it quits just as the harsh spotlight intensifies scrutiny over questionable decisions by the administration.

As Bloomberg reports, "President Vladimir Putin, determined to strengthen Russia’s only military outpost in the Middle East, is preparing to launch unilateral airstrikes against Islamic State from inside Syria if the U.S. rejects his proposal to join forces, two people familiar with the matter said."

"The American people have no reason to believe that they’ve heard the full story and every reason to believe that Washington assumes they are too stupid or preoccupied to care about cyber security."

As tipped last month, the IAEA is allowing Iran to self-police the sample collecting process at a controversial military installation. Although inspectors and Iranian officials give conflicting accounts, what's clear is that Tehran is not at all prepared to accept a situation that causes the Rouhani government to lose credibility with the Iranian public. Expect GOP lawmakers (not to mention presidential candidates) to hold this up as yet another example of why the deal is likely to blow up (figuratively speaking we hope) in the face of the Obama administration.