Huge, Breaking National and International News

This came today, this afternoon, over at Daily Kos:

Report: Iran Nuclear Deal REACHED - 

to be Announced Tomorrow

A likely sign that a deal has been reached, according to news reports, is that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov just touched down in Vienna, and the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is expected to arrive later today.

If the two unnamed envoys' accounts are accurate, it has been a historic couple of weeks for the Obama Administration, and, I daresay, for the entire planet Earth. w00t!

It's also reassuring to know that Israeli PM Netanyahu and his Goposaur pals in Congress will be powerless to thwart any agreement.

If true and if a good, strong, verifiable deal to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons, this is not just huge but great news for Iran, for the United States, for the entire Middle East and even, of course, the world. And yes, like it or not, it would be excellent, fantastic, even events for the Obama administration.

Now wait for every Republican in Congress want to shoot it down.

Quote of the day -- On International Negotiations for Peace

More of the same from Republicans

And as soon as it was announced that this president reached the framework of an agreement to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons, the Republicans responded:

GOP rips Iran nuclear deal

Forget that they haven't seen the deal.

Forget that they haven't read it.

Forget that they then have no idea whatever what's in it.

They're merely continuing their same Republican platform regarding this president and anything he is for or represents:



So tiresome.

Meanwhile the rest of us Americans--you know, the ones attached to logic, calm, intelligent thought, peace and reality--are celebrating the possibility of a breakthrough. Even Iranians are celebrating and want this.

Iranians celebrate nuclear deal by taking 

selfies with Obama

They understand how they'd benefit from getting the economic sanctions lifted.

The Daily Kos got it right last evening:

Top Republicans pretty sure they don't 

like Iran deal

Yes, the rest of us understand what this could mean and "get it."

Not so, the Republicans.

If it's good for President Obama, even if it's good for America, they're against it.

The fact is, this is no time and this is certainly no issue for demagoguery.

Republican Party Priorities

By now, most of the nation has, I think, heard about the 47 Republicans who got together and signed a letter to the Iranian hard liners, saying they--the Republicans--support them and not our own president when it comes to negotiating for peace and keeping Iran from building a nuclear reactor.

It was fairly disgusting.

Moving on from that, local news station KY3, in Springfield, covered a story yesterday that bears some additional notoriety:

MoDOT lacks funding needed to fix bridges in 'critical condition'

This is another story I think most of us are familiar with. I know CBS "60 Minutes" did a story on it, telling of the lack of maintenance and upkeep our nation's roads, bridges, streets and other essential infrastructure have gotten and how they need work and investment. From this story yesterday:

74 Southwest Missouri bridges are currently listed in "critical condition" according to MoDOT, but department officials say the state doesn't have the money to repair those bridges...

And that's just Southwest Missouri bridges, not the entire state. If it were the entire state, that would have been concern enough.

Right now there are 600 bridges in Missouri listed in poor or critical condition, and officials estimate in 2024 there will 1,500 bridges in those categories. Without repairs, MoDOT says many bridges will have to be given weight restrictions or even be shut down completely.

And the great things about a solution to the nation's infrastructure would be that it would give more Americans jobs--good jobs, and for years---and secondly, also importantly, it would give the economy a boost.

Those are some huge benefits.

But instead of doing the nation's business and writing, proposing, voting on and passing an infrastructure bill, what do the Republicans give their time and attention to?

A letter to our enemies, saying they support them. instead of supporting peace negotiations and yes, our president.

The nerve, the stupidity the selfishness is fairly stunning.

We've all known we need to get money to our Highway Fund, too, but it's also neglected. This Congress and our representatives just simply aren't giving their jobs and our country, our nation, the people, the attention it all deserves.

Once again, they've put their political party ahead of the nation and the nation's needs, ahead of the people.

How long are we going to tolerate this nonsense?

Thanks for the blackmail, Mr. Netanyahu

I love the way Israel blackmailed us this week to give them warplanes, so they wouldn't build more homes in the Gaza.

Nice.

Good friend.

I'm so glad we give this good friend so many millions of dollars.

My thought was, instead of having them blackmail us to stop the additional settlements, we play hard ball and tell them--meaning it--that if they began the additional settlements, we'd withdraw all financial support until they a) cancelled them and b) sat down to earnestly discuss a true, long-lasting, meaningful peace with the Palestinians.  Meantime, tell the Palestinians the same thing--they have to sit down and earnestly work out a peace deal or 1) no financial support of any kind (if, in fact, we give them any) and 2) they must no longer officially call for the elimination of Israel.

But no one asks me.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone.

Link:  http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/14

Problems?

By and large, I think President Obama is doing and has done some terrific things, for sure, since gaining office this year.

Doing away with Guantanamo is an improvement for the country--re-establishing a nonpolitical Justice Department is huge, nominating Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court recently, the list goes on.

But there have been, as there always are, missteps.

Hey, they're all humans there at the White House but these missteps have seemed rather avoidable.

The first, I think, was the goofy gift he gave to Britain's Queen early this year.

(WTF?)

But that was really a minor problem or issue and we can all laugh about it and recover.

Then there was this odd oversight of the President's and French President Nikola Sarkozy's and Britain's Prime Minister. I mean, why would you NOT invite the one person to the D-Day commemoration WHO WAS THERE? (That being the Queen).

That just didn't make sense.

Now, in the very rare, overly-sensitive, odd and forever war-torn place that is the Middle East, the President made a very smart speech to the Muslim world and the rest of us.

In it, he said many wise, true and possibly difficult things.

He called for fairness and "give and take" from all sides involved. He asked for concessions from both sides and a lot more.

All good.

But one thing President Obama didn't do on this trip to the Middle East was include a stopover in Israel. I think that's a glaring omission and I'd love to hear an official explanation for it. I'm not saying he HAD to go or needed to go or that it was a huge mistake, at all.

It might possibly be one, though, and I'd love to know the reason he didn't make this stop.

(Link to story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090604/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama)

Where the President really hurts himself and his political party, though, is on spending, without doubt.

When now former President Bush proposed spending the trillions he said he wanted and needed to bail out the banks and support the economy, we all knew he was stupid and at the end of his Presidency.

For President Obama to continue this huge spending reflects especially badly on him and his Democratic Party because it makes it far too easy to paint him as the old cliche': "a tax-and-spend Liberal".

It's old but extremely effective and it makes a sort of "Achilles heel" for the President.

He needs to get away from this big, deficit spending, for the country's sake and his own.