Merkel Issues Rebuke to Russia, Setting Caution Aside

Dear All,

Many of us have been fortunate to have witnessed strong women leaders in our lifetime. Former Prime Minister [Iron Lady] MargretThatcher of England, and former Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir both made huge contributions to their countries and to the history of their time.

Today, we are fortunate to witness another such leader in Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel as she takes the lead in challenging Russia’s Dictator Vladimir Putin over his attempts to forcefully annex the eastern portion of the Ukraine; and after he already used militarily force to annex the Crimea portion of that country.

After reading this article, I think you will find Chancellor Merkel to be a pretty gutsy lady and the right person for our time; especially since America’s President Obama continues to be missing in action (MIA).

You might also want to recall how Obama obnoxiously chastised presidential candidate Mitt Romney, when their debate came to foreign policy and the Country of Ukraine when Romney remarked that Russia’s intentions in the Ukraine were certainly a concern of his where upon Obama went in to a critical tirade against his opponent. 

Well, like just about everything else we are seeing today, Obama has been dangerously wrong in his feckless and bizarre world viewpoints and now we are seeing that his weak grasp of foreign policy combined with his bankrupt leadership has unleashed tragic and unintended consequences on the lives of those who live in other countries; while making our world a much more dangerous place to live.

Thank goodness for a leader like Chancellor Merkel to help fill the vacuum left by President Obama.     

Ron Kirkish

Merkel Issues Rebuke to Russia, Setting Caution Aside

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/18/world/europe/russia-deports-german-polish-diplomats-retaliation.html?_r=0

By ALISON SMALENOV. 17, 2014

LONDON — Tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats. Russian naval ships showing up as world leaders meet in Australia. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany telling Russia sternly to play by 21st-century rules — and President Vladimir V. Putin practically spitting fury over Western reaction to his annexation of Crimea.

As relations between Russia and the West increasingly resemble the bygone days of the Cold War, Ms. Merkel abandoned her traditionally cautious tone on Monday, castigating Russia for its actions in Ukraine, for intimidating sovereign states in Eastern Europe and for threatening to spread conflict more broadly across Europe.

“The Ukraine crisis is most likely not just a regional problem,” Ms. Merkel said in a speech at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney, Australia. “In this case, we see it affects us all.”

“Who would’ve thought,” she said, “that 25 years after the fall of the wall, after the end of the Cold War, after the end of the division of Europe and the end of the world being divided in two, something like that can happen right at heart of Europe?”

Ms. Merkel’s speech followed a meeting of the Group of 20 leaders in Brisbane, Australia, where the souring relations were on full display as Western leaders pressed Mr. Putin on Russia’s Crimea policy and support for Ukrainian separatists — and the Russian leader slipped out early, insisting he had business to attend to back home.

President Obama said his meeting with Russia’s leader at the summit meeting was “businesslike and blunt.” Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, who in the days leading up to Brisbane had likened Mr. Putin’s actions to those of Nazi Germany, told the Russian president that he was at a fork in the road over Ukraine. Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada told Mr. Putin, “Well, I guess I’ll shake your hand, but I have only one thing to say to you: ‘You need to get out of Ukraine.’ ”

As the meeting wound up, Russia expelled multiple diplomats after Germany, Poland and Lithuania apparently took similar actions against Russian envoys accused of spying. Sweden, which for days recently was transfixed by the appearance off its coast of what appeared to be a Russian submarine, has also said Russia increased its spying this year.
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But the real surprise was the tone taken by Ms. Merkel in her speech after the summit meeting. In recent weeks, the chancellor has made it clear she sees that “Putin is testing us,” as she told parliamentary deputies.

In a discussion at the university, she developed that thought further, asking whether Mr. Putin’s annexation of Crimea and military and political interference in eastern Ukraine meant a return to the times when Moscow decided the fate of its near neighbors.

Ms. Merkel seemed to acknowledge that the West should consider Russian sensitivities to Ukraine — with long, close ties to Russia — joining NATO.

But she said that was not the case with Ukraine drawing closer to the European Union, which sparked the long-running unrest and conflict with Russia.

In such a case, “it cannot be that you forbid a country to act, or that it cannot itself decide freely,” she said. “Otherwise, we have to say: ‘We’re so weak, pay attention, people, we can’t take any more members — we’ll just ask in Moscow whether it’s possible.’ That was how it was for 40 years, or longer, and I really was not wanting to go back there.”

“And it is not just a case of Ukraine,” Ms. Merkel continued. “It concerns Moldova, it concerns Georgia.

If things go on like this, one can ask: Should we ask about Serbia? Should we ask about the western Balkans? That is certainly incompatible with our values.”

In an interview that was broadcast on Germany’s most watched television talk show Sunday evening, Mr. Putin was equally stinging.

Interviewed by a German journalist who has long had good access to the Russian leader, he pursed his lips and angrily clipped his words as he said the West had “reacted absolutely inappropriately” over Ukraine.

Striking a now familiar line of defense, Mr. Putin cited international law as applied to the independence of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo from Serbia, and declared his actions as more democratic.

Kosovo’s independence came only through a parliamentary vote, he said, whereas in Crimea the population voted in March to join Russia — which by then had already secured control through deployment of its elite troops in unmarked uniforms.

In an interview late last week in Kiev, Ukraine’s prime minister, Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk, urged Western countries to keep up pressure on Russia, warning that any other approach would only invite further aggression from President Putin.

“He is testing the ground,” Mr. Yatsenyuk said. “He will move as far as the world will allow him.”

Reports last week by NATO that Russia had recently poured tanks and military vehicles across its border into eastern Ukraine, Mr. Yatsenyuk said, suggested that Moscow intended to enlarge territory controlled by separatist rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk, two regions that have declared themselves independent states, and establish a land corridor to Crimea, which Russia annexed in March. So far, he added, there has been no sharp increase in fighting.

“Let me put it bluntly: This is a war,” Mr. Yatsenyuk said. “The well-known diplomatic language of red line is sometimes embarrassing to me because it seems as if we are geopolitically colorblind. Russia has crossed tens of red lines.”

Still, the Russian-German exchange is unlikely to stop Ms. Merkel from pursuing what she reiterated is the West’s course: to condemn Russia’s violations of international law, to pursue diplomacy if possible, but to punish with sanctions. Accordingly, on Monday, European Union foreign ministers decided to impose more sanctions on separatists in Ukraine, but also to pursue diplomacy. Ms. Merkel’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, travels to Kiev and Moscow on Tuesday.

But the fourth element in Ms. Merkel’s description of Western reaction to Ukraine was crucial: to refrain from military action against Russia, which, she noted, would almost certainly not be limited to the region. That perhaps is the strongest Cold War echo of all — the idea that a confrontation in one area would lead to a much bigger conflict.

Germans have been reflecting on this all this extraordinary year — which contains the momentous anniversaries of World Wars I and II, as well as of the Cold War’s ending, and shows how conflicts can flare out of control.

“And suddenly we are confronted with a conflict which goes to the center of our values, so to speak,” Ms. Merkel said. “Now we can’t hold speeches at commemorations. Now we have to show what we have learned from all this.”

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NATO Reports Increased Russian Troop Movement

More than two months into a shaky cease-fire, NATO reported significant new Russian troop movements into Ukraine. NATO’s top military commander said that convoys of tanks, artillery and combat troops were streaming over the border, in what appeared to be preparations for renewed military action.

Ten Arguments against Obama's Executive Action

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/11/ten_arguments_against_obamas_executive_action.html#ixzz3JL8xQFOH 

By Robert Charles - November 17, 2014

 Robert B. Charles is a former assistant secretary of state under Colin Powell, former counsel to a congressional oversight committee, a former litigator, and a teacher of government oversight at Harvard’s extension school.  He is currently a consultant in Washington, D.C.

Understanding why pending executive action by President Obama on immigration, residency, and citizenship are objectionable, imprudent, and unconstitutional – and what can be done legally and politically about them, if he proceeds – requires a snapshot of history and law. 

Ten arguments stand between the president and such bold, unilateral actions.

First, executive directives of all kinds – and some have been creative – started with George Washington.  They are theoretically justified by the indeterminate “executive powers” vested in each commander in chief by Article II of the U.S. Constitution.  Their legal justification begins and ends there, and is necessarily nested in a larger constitutional text and intent, which has always favored avoiding unilateral executive actions unless absolutely necessary (as for national security).  Thus, unless ceremonial or peripheral, the justification for directing agencies one way or another has been to clarify a law – never to create one.

So, here is the rub.  Since the over-assertion of executive powers by Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), the U.S. Supreme Court and federal appellate courts have ruled unconstitutional any Executive Order (EO) that seeks to usurp or effectively legislate where Congress has spoken or reserves the right to speak.

Thus, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned five of FDR’s EOs (6199, 6204, 6256, 6284 and 6855) for overreaching.  Similarly, the Court threw out President Truman's EO 10340, in which he attempted to control the country’s steel mills to put down labor strife.  The Court was clear: the EO sought to make law, not clarify it.  Again, an appellate court confidently nixed President Clinton’s EO 12954, which sought to prevent federal contracting with those who hire strike breakers.  In the last case, an obvious conflict with existing law invalidated the EO.

Now we come to today.  The first three arguments against the Obama EO are simple, and should be swiftly confronted in court if he issues broad executive action bestowing new rights on those otherwise not entitled to them under existing law or patently misinterpreting existing law to serve a political end, such as altering the process of citizenship.  In sum, if he:

(one) obviously exceeds all formerly accepted constitutional authority,

(two) seeks to legislate where the law is already clear or is clearly the province of Congress, or

(three) intentionally disregards the law, the EO should be legally discarded, or viewed as “void ab initio” – that is, of no credibility or force.

Four: If you issue an EO making permanent residents or citizens out of a significant number (say, five to seven million) illegal, unentitled, or “undocumented” foreigners on U.S. soil, you are instantly obligating federal taxpayers and states to afford these newly minted “Americans” or “newly legal residents” any number of privileges, entitlements, and rights not previously held, above and beyond not being deported.  This plainly costs taxpayers and States money, offering them every reason to appeal the decision and apparent standing to do so.

Next, there is the prudential side of the ledger.

Argument five: If you issue an EO that instantly grants “stay and work” status to currently illegal aliens, even if they have legal relatives, you instantly soak up part of the job pool from which real Americans are hoping to gain employment.  In effect, you hammering the working-class Americans again.

Six: If you issue this EO, you instantly send an international message – a new and shocking invitation: “We just gave away the citizenship or residency farm – so please line up or flood over and come get yours.”  In effect, such an EO will trigger multiple future waves of illegal migration for economic purposes by new and unconnected illegal aliens who see that our laws are not being honored, and so they will come for free entry, too – if not at once, then soon enough.

Seven: For every justification based on an illegal alien having a legal U.S. relative, we can now expect that the same argument will be made by the five to seven million newly minted “instant citizens” or “instant legal residents.”  In short, one thing all members of humanity – those legal and illegal – have in common is relatives.  Once all those here illegally with relatives make their relatives legal, the newly legal (and formerly illegal) relatives will now declare that they, wonder of wonder, also have relatives – that deserve to be legal.  Ad infinitum.

Eight: Status without assimilation is irrelevant, counterproductive, and historically illegal.  Legal status is traditionally achieved by processes of extended learning, intentional assimilation, and legal naturalization – all at a pace set by national need and absorption capacity.  Without understanding the American history, language, laws, values, civic duties, and social expectations, and what it takes to live (and what the nation expects of those living) lawfully, a resident made instantly legal is not American.  Absent the process that Congress has considered necessary for assimilation, we would become no more than a big holding pen, a mismatched conglomerate of humanity, with nothing in common but place.

That is not America, never has been, and cannot be.  To be American takes an aspiration, and a commitment.  It takes time, effort, and lawful process, as well as social integration.  A president can no more declare an unprepared member of humanity American than he can declare red blue or vice versa.  Assimilation means following a long and winding legal, social, economic and legitimate process.  It takes time; that is the whole point.

Nine: Just as adopting a child into a home affects other family members, instantly making “legal residents” or “citizens” out of five or seven million people – many of whom snuck into the country unlawfully – would have profound effects on the rest of the country.  It cheapens the brand we call American; it undermines the values and processes in which we take pride.  It slights and diminishes the struggle of those who have strived long and hard to become naturalized citizens, or permanent residents, many of whom are also from these same countries.  It says that laws under which we live are of less value, and can be unilaterally upended by one man.  It reduces respect for all those who have come to our shores legally, and who take pride in being legally American.  This is no small matter.  We are, collectively, only what we say we are and live up to – when we cheapen the definition of American, we cheapen it for everyone.

Finally: We are a nation and people of laws, not of whimsy or capricious acts by self-adulating leaders, not subject to any dictator or the assumption of power by this or that president.  These lines are well-drawn.  The U.S. Supreme Court long ago made the point.  We are not ruled by executive order, never have been, legally and prudentially cannot be, and should not now be.  For any president to believe that he has the power to step upon all these legal and prudential considerations, because he has a pen and a phone, indifference to rule of law, or illusions of unilateral authority is simply misguided.

Nevertheless, if the dark day comes when unilateral authority is asserted in these new and sweeping ways by a president, the answer is clear.  Instant moves to court for actions to stay and then reverse these executive orders would be fitting.  Preparations should be made for interlocutory appeals, specific relief by states and others with standing, preliminary and permanent injunctions, and defense of individual and collective rights across the country in federal courts.

On the political front, Democrats and Republicans who respect our Republic’s history and can see into the future should prepare to garner and act upon legislation that can be passed swiftly with a supermajority, making void the presumptive executive orders, and Americans should speak – as they did once already in November – with one voice, saying we are ruled not by one man, but by ourselves through Congress. 

That is the text, design, history, and enduring intent of our Constitution. 

If there can be disagreements about other things, there can be no disagreement about that.

 

Courage, Leadership, and Heart Needed in Ferguson

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/11/courage_leadership_and_heart_needed_in_ferguson.html#ixzz3JBiAf7U4

By Robert Charles - November 15, 2014

Robert Charles was assistant secretary of state under Colin Powell, former counsel and staff director to Speaker Hastert, and a Washington, D.C.-based consultant.

Here is the question of the hour: knowing that violence looms in Ferguson, as an unknown Grand Jury ruling hangs in the offing; that racial tensions are high; that sides are even now being taken; that both the citizenry and others are armed to the teeth; that senseless violence is predicted from all quarters; and that national leaders of all stripes could help suppress that tendency...where are those national leaders? 

Why are they not in Ferguson, walking the streets, working to calm mounting tensions?

There was a time in America, not so long ago, when our leaders spoke from the heart – not from an omnipresent, tail-wagging “teleprompter.” 

They took risks. 

They were not cardboard. 

There was a time when we saw ourselves – every one of us – as Americans first. 

We were not first black or white, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, or indifferent, not defined by sexual orientation, political party, or what we disliked most about ourselves in others.

We would have laughed (or cried) at the current reflection of who we have become, as if we no longer can see the world in multiple dimensions, only in a disharmonious variety of single dimensions. 

Today, we all have one-issue trump cards – here an economic or technology voter, there a health care or weather voter. 

There was a time when we were not focused on what divided us. 

We were not focused on dysfunction, although there was more of it. 

Less was more. 

We had greater patience with each other, in the process became bigger. 

We worried not about being cold to a neighbor, but rather whether our neighbor was cold. 

We did not point out our virtues and neighbor’s flaws. 

Our neighbors, we knew, were no more flawed than we. 

We were more about heart, less about getting what we could while getting was good, and more about doing what we could while doing was possible.

And we listened. 

We listened better to our leaders, because they were real – in both parties. 

We knew the put-up job. 

We could tell the difference between those who loved individual liberty and those who quietly mocked individualism. 

Why? 

Because we were all individuals – and we knew it. 

We shared a common secret: love of freedom and individuality. 

And in that, we were Americans.

This column turns on a single, powerful, and timely – too timely – speech. 

That speech was not given by the foregoing leaders. 

It was not the work of modern blame-gamers, political manipulators. 

It came from the heart. 

There was no emphasis on “I,” just a plea. 

That plea came from a worried, personally secure American, who happened to be attorney general, but who saw – from the perspective of his own pain and weakness – the human weakness of a nation.    

He pleaded for peace on the streets of a big city, for nonviolence, and for American idealism. 

He pleaded the cause of hope in a moment of hopelessness, restraint in a time of passion, respect in a time of tragedy. 

This leader might have been Ed Meese, or the president he served, Ronald Reagan. 

They both saw us through crises. 

It might have been a recognized conservative. 

But it was not.   

The spontaneous six-minute speech was given, in the heart of Indianapolis on a gut-wrenching night – the same night Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated – by Robert Kennedy. 

He was a former senator, attorney general, and candidate for the presidency before he too fell to an assassin. 

And why is that speech worth revisiting? 

Because, familiar with tragedy, Kennedy went to the sound of gunfire, to brewing discontent. 

He went there and spoke to all who would hear him, Americans black and white.

Why? 

To prevent predictable violence. 

He spoke earnestly and from within the crowd, not above it. 

He did not hang back in a distant location.

That night, Robert Kennedy reminded us that we were Americans. 

And this meant something.  He pleaded against “polarization,” against “division,” not for it. 

He pleaded for “understanding,” for listening to each other, not for the self-defeating consolation of violent revenge.

“In this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a Nation we are.” 

Are we falling to “bitterness,” “hatred,” and “revenge,” or are we made of something bigger? 

Can we, black and white, “make an effort, as Martin Luther King, Jr. did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion, and love?” 

In a pithy moment, Kennedy tells the crowd, “I had a member of my family killed.” 

There is no arrogance. 

From memory, he quotes “my favorite poet … Aeschylus.” 

No notes. 

“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our despair, against our will, comes wisdom, through the awful grace of God.”

This young leader is almost done. 

“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.” 

He casts no blame, asks universal forgiveness. 

“So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King … but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love – a prayer for understanding and that compassion.”

Final words:  “… the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land … let's dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.” 

And then he is gone. 

No pause for adulation.

And guess what. 

Cities rioted. 

But not the city to whom he spoke. 

In that speech, and others by bullhorn, he had a knack for reaching people. 

He worked to calm the unruly soul of Man, appealed to our love of America. 

Those around him, black and white, Democrat and Republican, listened. 

Because they knew he was right. 

They knew who they were, even as we know – when we pause – who we are. 

We are Americans, not a subset. 

Two months later, he would fall to the forces against which he spoke, a sad and validating irony.

In a prior day, real leaders went to the front – to the place where Americans were divided or where violence was threatened – and they turned the volume down. 

They did not ignore it, did not walk away, and certainly did not say things that fanned it. 

They did not live in ivory castles when the action was in the field, or take cold comfort in blaming and preparing to blame.

Which brings us to this hour: if the current attorney general is not willing to speak up for peace and calm in a brewing Ferguson, maybe the nominee for attorney general has a Robert Kennedy moment before her? 

Or maybe this is bigger. 

Maybe when Americans are divided, especially when we are divided, when circumstances threaten to divide us further, real leaders – of all stripes – step up. 

So where are these men and women of real heart? 

Where are those willing to walk tense streets, deliver “wisdom” to prevent another tragedy? 

Where are those whose voices could be heard – even now, like Senators Cruz, Paul, Portman, and Rubio; Governors Bush, Walker, and Christie; or candidate Carson? 

Former Senators Clinton and Webb, Vice President Biden, Governor O’Malley, others who know they have the power to gain purchase on the streets and air waves of this tormented city? 

Where are our Republican and Democrat leaders – those who lay claim to the communications acumen of Ronald Reagan and Robert Kennedy?

Being American is what it is about. 

Big ideals animate that powerful idea. 

Leaders rise in moments of approaching crisis to remind us of those ideals. 

When will we remember that some battles are best won before waged, some words best delivered from the heart, not a teleprompter? 

If ever there was a moment for action, with sand nearly gone in Ferguson’s hourglass, this is it. 

If Robert Kennedy were alive today, or Ronald Reagan for that matter, he would speak to us about our better angels – and do it from there.

Here is the question of the hour: knowing that violence looms in Ferguson, as an unknown Grand Jury ruling hangs in the offing; that racial tensions are high; that sides are even now being taken; that both the citizenry and others are armed to the teeth; that senseless violence is predicted from all quarters; and that national leaders of all stripes could help suppress that tendency...where are those national leaders? 

Why are they not in Ferguson, walking the streets, working to calm mounting tensions?

There was a time in America, not so long ago, when our leaders spoke from the heart – not from an omnipresent, tail-wagging “teleprompter.” 

They took risks. 

They were not cardboard. 

There was a time when we saw ourselves – every one of us – as Americans first. 

We were not first black or white, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, or indifferent, not defined by sexual orientation, political party, or what we disliked most about ourselves in others.

We would have laughed (or cried) at the current reflection of who we have become, as if we no longer can see the world in multiple dimensions, only in a disharmonious variety of single dimensions. 

Today, we all have one-issue trump cards – here an economic or technology voter, there a health care or weather voter. 

There was a time when we were not focused on what divided us. 

We were not focused on dysfunction, although there was more of it. 

Less was more. 

We had greater patience with each other, in the process became bigger. 

We did worried not about being cold to a neighbor, but rather whether our neighbor was cold. 

We did not point out our virtues and neighbor’s flaws. 

Our neighbors, we knew, were no more flawed than we. 

We were more about heart, less about getting what we could while getting was good, and more about doing what we could while doing was possible.

And we listened. 

We listened better to our leaders, because they were real – in both parties. 

We knew the put-up job. 

We could tell the difference between those who loved individual liberty and those who quietly mocked individualism. 

Why? 

Because we were all individuals – and we knew it. 

We shared a common secret: love of freedom and individuality. 

And in that, we were Americans.

This column turns on a single, powerful, and timely – too timely – speech. 

That speech was not given by the foregoing leaders. 

It was not the work of modern blame-gamers, political manipulators. 

It came from the heart. 

There was no emphasis on “I,” just a plea. 

That plea came from a worried, personally secure American, who happened to be attorney general, but who saw – from the perspective of his own pain and weakness – the human weakness of a nation.    

He pleaded for peace on the streets of a big city, for nonviolence, and for American idealism. 

He pleaded the cause of hope in a moment of hopelessness, restraint in a time of passion, respect in a time of tragedy. 

This leader might have been Ed Meese, or the president he served, Ronald Reagan.

They both saw us through crises. 

It might have been a recognized conservative. 

But it was not.   

The spontaneous six-minute speech was given, in the heart of Indianapolis on a gut-wrenching night – the same night Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated – by Robert Kennedy. 

He was a former senator, attorney general, and candidate for the presidency before he too fell to an assassin. 

And why is that speech worth revisiting? 

Because, familiar with tragedy, Kennedy went to the sound of gunfire, to brewing discontent. 

He went there and spoke to all who would hear him, Americans black and white. 

Why? 

To prevent predictable violence. 

He spoke earnestly and from within the crowd, not above it. 

He did not hang back in a distant location.

That night, Robert Kennedy reminded us that we were Americans. 

And this meant something. 

He pleaded against “polarization,” against “division,” not for it. 

He pleaded for “understanding,” for listening to each other, not for the self-defeating consolation of violent revenge.

“In this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a Nation we are.” 

Are we falling to “bitterness,” “hatred,” and “revenge,” or are we made of something bigger? 

Can we, black and white, “make an effort, as Martin Luther King, Jr. did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion, and love?” 

In a pithy moment, Kennedy tells the crowd, “I had a member of my family killed.” 

There is no arrogance.  From memory, he quotes “my favorite poet … Aeschylus.” 

No notes. 

“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our despair, against our will, comes wisdom, through the awful grace of God.”

This young leader is almost done. 

“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.” 

He casts no blame, asks universal forgiveness. 

“So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King … but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love – a prayer for understanding and that compassion.”

Final words:  “… the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land … let's dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.” 

And then he is gone. 

No pause for adulation.

And guess what. 

Cities rioted. 

But not the city to whom he spoke. 

In that speech, and others by bullhorn, he had a knack for reaching people. 

He worked to calm the unruly soul of Man, appealed to our love of America.  

Those around him, black and white, Democrat and Republican, listened. 

Because they knew he was right. 

They knew who they were, even as we know – when we pause – who we are. 

We are Americans, not a subset. 

Two months later, he would fall to the forces against which he spoke, a sad and validating irony.

In a prior day, real leaders went to the front – to the place where Americans were divided or where violence was threatened – and they turned the volume down. 

They did not ignore it, did not walk away, and certainly did not say things that fanned it. 

They did not live in ivory castles when the action was in the field, or take cold comfort in blaming and preparing to blame.

Which brings us to this hour: if the current attorney general is not willing to speak up for peace and calm in a brewing Ferguson, maybe the nominee for attorney general has a Robert Kennedy moment before her? 

Or maybe this is bigger. 

Maybe when Americans are divided, especially when we are divided, when circumstances threaten to divide us further, real leaders – of all stripes – step up. 

So where are these men and women of real heart? 

Where are those willing to walk tense streets, deliver “wisdom” to prevent another tragedy? 

Where are those whose voices could be heard – even now, like Senators Cruz, Paul, Portman, and Rubio; Governors Bush, Walker, and Christie; or candidate Carson? 

Former Senators Clinton and Webb, Vice President Biden, Governor O’Malley, others who know they have the power to gain purchase on the streets and air waves of this tormented city? 

Where are our Republican and Democrat leaders – those who lay claim to the communications acumen of Ronald Reagan and Robert Kennedy?

Being American is what it is about. 

Big ideals animate that powerful idea. 

Leaders rise in moments of approaching crisis to remind us of those ideals. 

When will we remember that some battles are best won before waged, some words best delivered from the heart, not a teleprompter? 

If ever there was a moment for action, with sand nearly gone in Ferguson’s hourglass, this is it. 

If Robert Kennedy were alive today, or Ronald Reagan for that matter, he would speak to us about our better angels – and do it from there.

American Leadership in Space -- Now or Never

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/11/american_leadership_in_space__now_or_never.html

By Robert Charles, November 12, 2014

Robert Charles, a former Assistant Secretary of State to Colin Powell, served as staff director and counsel to US House Speaker Hastert, and conducted oversight of NASA from 1995 to 1999.  He is a Washington-DC-based consultant.

 

Where is America’s space program going? After a bold promise of American leadership in space in 2010, as well as plans for a manned Mars mission by the mid-2030s, President Obama has dropped space like a lead balloon.

With a new Congressional majority, intent on leadership and accountability, let’s get back to space, shall we? 

Oh and by the way, it matters.   

Until recently, America’s space program was synonymous with leadership. 

Those days are now gone.

China leaps ahead to the Moon and Mars, planning a manned mission to the former, robotic missions to the latter. 

Russia is on a beeline for Mars and its moons.

Near earth orbit is becoming a parking lot, while space ambitions proliferate from the Middle East to India.

So, let’s be frank:  gone are the glory days – unless we dig deep, decide to care, reform and up-fund NASA, make the necessary long-term commitments.

And that is not an easy mandate, and it will take work.

In the Apollo and Shuttle eras, America was cooperative, but pushed international comers.

We led. Our leadership was built on looking forward.

We trusted ourselves, embraced risk, understood daring exploration, and saw the future as worth winning.

We had an itch to learn, to be first -- in a word -- to lead. 

In that process, high-technology jobs were unceasingly created in all 50 states, with spin-offs from microwaves to GPS, synthetic fabrics to iPhones, helping advance every sector of the U.S. economy. 

But space leadership was more than economic.

It protected American national security.

That last is consequential; it matters for reasons speakable and unspeakable. 

American space dominance is central to stability on Earth.

At present, we are flatfooted.

Our space program is going nowhere fast.

Promises made by this president with alacrity are broken with impunity.

And memories of America’s Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo days, the glorious and spellbinding moonwalks are fading.

All but one of the Mercury astronauts are deceased.

Ten of the Apollo astronauts are gone.

Four of the 12 who walked on the moon are gone, including the first among them, Neil Armstrong. 

Yet here we stand, watching dust blow over our prior leadership as if it mattered not at all.

We revere NASA’s past more as a relic than step toward a brighter, more ambitious future.

America’s boundless energy and ambition to explore space is reduced to that quaint, respectful admiration we accord Egypt’s pyramids, Greek statues and Roman ruins.

In April 2010, President Obama promised American leadership in space, path-breaking missions to the Mars.

The difference between his promise and that of former President John F. Kennedy, more than 50 years earlier, is stark.

Americans walked on the moon when Kennedy sent us there.

Obama has, so far, just added broken promises to the pile.

We are a long way from Mars.

Since 2010, Obama has:

·        overseen the death of America’s Shuttle Program,

·        cancelled America’s Constellation manned moon mission,

·        cut America’s unmanned Mars probes (ending two flights for 2016 and 2018),

·        slashed NASA’s planetary science missions,

·        slapped NASA with a recent 20 percent cut in that area,

·        failed to reorganize,

·        make cohesive or align NASA behind a core set of big missions,

·        and barely level-funded space.

Only Congress has saved any semblance of American space leadership, and this now hangs by a thread. 

Today, ironically, we are dependent on Russia -- the nation we beat to the moon -- for getting American astronauts to the orbiting Space Station. 

China brings moon samples back and plans exploratory missions, and we seem to watch helplessly. 

Despite proven advantage in heavy-lift rockets, we fiddle with experimental options that have repeat engine failures, blow up, and malfunction on launch.

We talk a good game on promoting Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) programs, but lag behind much of the world in sectors we decisively led.

It is time for hard truths.

Risk comes with space exploration, but smart decision making, cohesive and mission-focused commitments minimize risk.

We must press our advantages, not ignore them, from launch capacity and innovation to economic strength and raw daring.

We must press them now into space -- back into space.

That is the promise we got from our president four years ago -- still unfilled.

So, here is the solution.

First, a top-to-bottom review of NASA missions -- all of them.

Let us be tough on ourselves.

Cut those programs, whimsies and subsidies driven by purely political or regional interest, that have no real bearing on national dominance in space.

Kill any programs that cannot be effectively measured, aligned with the larger NASA mission of space exploration (manned and unmanned).

Insist on cohesion, because there currently is none.

Give budget control to the head of NASA, and insist on national results. 

End state-by-state lunch-snacking on NASA’s money -- that is, yours and mine.

Get NASA to serve the nation first.

In short, restore that agency to coherence and greatness.

Once accountability is established, we can up-fund NASA by a marked number, maybe fifty percent.

The key is to make America’s commitment to the nation’s future leadership in space real.

This will allow credible advances in space-based science, from near earth to a permanence on Mars.

Make this money work for every American, in a bona fides effort to explore, map, understand, and populate Mars.

In the process, pioneer new rocket engine development and deployment, maximize heavy-lift superiority, and protect America’s national and economic interests.

Make no mistake: China, Russia, India and others are already pressing the envelope.

We owe it to ourselves to do the same.  

One plan, authored by close colleague and Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, which is often proffered under the rubric Unified Space Vision, holds that America should cooperate (not compete) with others as they aim for the moon, while pressing a sequence of evolving American steps to pioneering and permanence on Mars.

That plan has been 30 years in the making, and has growing appeal.

But whatever course taken, the first step is the most important.

Just as 45 years ago, taking the first step is pivotal. 

Finally, take stock of promises made.

John F. Kennedy’s promise was not a one-off.

It was multi-generational; it was to the future.

So was President Reagan’s eloquent speech in the aftermath of the Challenger accident.

So were speeches -- incremental all -- from both President Bushes and President Clinton.

As we approach the 45th anniversary of all the Moon landings, it is time to keep faith. 

President Obama has a rare -- if fleeting -- opportunity.

Beyond keeping his 2010 promises, he can be the president who stabilizes a wobbly NASA, realigns the agency with America’s highest hopes, and resolves to put Americans on Mars.

That will take more than words.

It will take a remake, rethink, restart and enlarged budget for NASA.

President Obama now has a Congress more fully committed to keeping promises, protecting our national security, economic strength, legacy in space and mapping the future.

He has a more thoughtful Congress than in many moons.

Rather than stiff-arming them on this issue, the time is now to act. 

A thousand years from now, America and the world will remember the President and Congress -- is it this one?

 -- who set human kind on course for real space exploration, put eyes on Mars, launched the great experiment in human permanence on that foreign planet.

The terrestrial benefits surrounding this commitment, like those that surrounded Apollo’s moon missions, are innumerable and enormous.

The opportunity exists only for a limited time, and that time is slipping.

Beyond that period, America will cede leadership in space to others.

The consequences of surrender would be incalculable, likely devastating to national security and irreversible.

Against today’s international backdrop, you could say that the time is now or never.

So, Mr. President, shall we get at it?