State Department Orders Crash Course on Negotiatin'

 Training is Meant to Increase Understanding and Effectiveness 

"Mr. Secretary Would You Like to Lead the Class in the Pledge of Allegiance?"

After disastrous negotiations with Iran in which they were allowed to run the table and call the shots, the Obama State Department has decided it just might be time to learn the fine art of not getting the floor mopped with their faces when dealing with adversaries.  

WFB

"Less than a week following the framework of a nuclear deal with Iran that allows the Islamic Republic to continue operating core aspects of its program, the State Department is looking for a new training course on how to negotiate.  The agency released a solicitation for “Negotiations” on Wednesday, revealing that the State Department is seeking a class for U.S. diplomats on “making and receiving concessions wisely.”

“The overall course teaches the essential skills, knowledge, and attitudes for U.S. diplomats to succeed in any of 275 overseas posts performing the full spectrum of political and economic work,” the solicitation said. “This module will focus on the complex art of negotiating across diverse cultures to find common ground for advancing mutual interests.”

The training is meant to increase “understanding and effectiveness” of negotiations between foreign powers.

The State Department said upon completion of the course diplomats will be better able to describe “basic, universal negotiating concepts and vocabulary,” and identify “objectives and underlying interests of negotiating parties. Preparing relevant strategies for diplomatic persuasion,” and “analyzing ‘Lessons Learned’ through debriefing to improve future outcomes,” are other goals of the course."

The three-week course also seeks for State Department diplomats to understand “cultural considerations” and “building trust” between their foreign counterparts."

READ MORE 

I guess this should come as no surprise to any of us that this bunch have no skills and couldn't negotiate their way out of an open box, considering the previous Secretary of State spent 5 years doing nothing but fly around wearing out government aircraft, having cocktails with world leaders and reminiscing about the Bill Clinton years....

Gov. Signs Virginia Criminal Fair Employment Act

Va. Governor Eliminates Criminal History Questions on State Job Applications

My friend, have you been convicted of car thievery?  Maybe dealing drugs to high school kids or beating up your baby momma? Or maybe just a politician skimming off campaign funds to buy yourself a nice fur coat.  Well, fear not for being convicted for jacking that 7-11 (of course you were innocent). Now you too can have a rewarding, high paying, cushy pension paying job as a Virginia State Employee thanks to the wee brained, but big hearted Governor Terry McAuliffe ( a bit of a shady creature himself) who in the spirit of Barack Obama, whipped out his pen and did you a great favor.....

BRISTOL, VA (WJHL) -  Applications for state jobs in Virginia will no longer will include questions regarding a person's criminal history.  Governor Virginia  Terry McAuliffe  signed an executive order removing criminal history questions from state employment applications Friday. Under the order, employment decisions won't be based on an applicant's criminal history unless it's specifically related to the job they are being considered for.

While it only applies to state employment applications, the order also encourages similar hiring practices for private employers throughout the Commonwealth.  Some business owners we spoke to in Bristol, Virginia are not on board with the idea.

"It could effect us, I do think its very important, as I said, if we are going to ask about their education and other types of history, why can we not know about their background," said April Barnes. 

"I think any business owner should ask about criminal background, I don't want a crook working for me," said Hugh Testerman.  

Governor McAuliffe, however, said he believes the executive order will eliminate obstacles for Virginians who deserve a second chance.  

I suspect as a one of his last acts as President and a final FU America, and to throw a bone to the folks in the hood,  Barack Obama will issue a blanket pardon to citizens convicted and jailed for simple marijuana possession and low level dealing now that it's legal in many states, all under the guise of "reuniting families and children with their fathers, or some phony nonsense like that..... 

Judge Upholds Injunction Against Obama Amnesty

"A federal judge denied the federal government's request to lift a hold on President Obama's controversial immigration actions in an opinion released Tuesday night.

Judge Andrew Hanen wrote that the government misled the court by revealing last month it had granted expanded work permit renewals to 100,000 illegal immigrants before the court blocked the administration from implementing its new policies.  He added a new hearing in March only 'reinforced' his February decision to issue a 'stay' to block those new policies, meant to delay deportations for millions of undocumented immigrants and provide them with the opportunity to apply for work permits. 

'It is obvious that there is no pressing, emergent need for this program,' he wrote as part of the rationale for not allowing the administration to immediately implement its new policies."  — Ben Kaisar, The Hill

 

It Happened One Night......

MIDLAND TX 1952. She was a young mother out for a few drinks with the girls at the country club.
He was a virile and shirtless busboy out behind the clubhouse, washing his tubs.
She’d gone there to throw up.   He held her hair…...

Earl Done This

Free People are Entitled to Free and Diverse Thoughts

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

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No. 03—1693

  McCREARY COUNTY, KENTUCKY, et al., PETI-TIONERS v.

 AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF KENTUCKY et al.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

[June 27, 2005]

    Justice O’Connor, concurring.

I join in the Court’s opinion. The First Amendment expresses our Nation’s fundamental commitment to religious liberty by means of two provisions–one protecting the free exercise of religion, the other barring establishment of religion. They were written by the descendents of people who had come to this land precisely so that they could practice their religion freely. Together with the other First Amendment guarantees–of free speech, a free press, and the rights to assemble and petition–the Religion Clauses were designed to safeguard the freedom of conscience and belief that those immigrants had sought.

They embody an idea that was once considered radical: Free people are entitled to free and diverse thoughts, which government ought neither to constrain nor to direct.

Reasonable minds can disagree about how to apply the Religion Clauses in a given case. But the goal of the Clauses is clear: to carry out the Founders’ plan of preserving religious liberty to the fullest extent possible in a pluralistic society.  By enforcing the Clauses, we have kept religion a matter for the individual conscience, not for the prosecutor or bureaucrat. At a time when we see around the world the violent consequences of the assumption of religious authority by government, Americans may count themselves fortunate: Our regard for constitutional boundaries has protected us from similar travails, while allowing private religious exercise to flourish....."

Among Wealthy Nations U.S. Stands Alone in its Embrace of Religion. Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly? 

_________________________________________________

While these words were culled from a Supreme Court Decision barring the posting of the 10 Commandments in public schools, these same words are relevant to the present dispute over the RFRA  and the Indiana Law. " Free people are entitled to free and diverse thoughts"......  "Religion a is matter for the individual conscience, not for the prosecutor or bureaucrat."

I suspect somewhere in the darkened bowels of Anti-Christian groups like the ACLU, People For the American Way, Freedom From Religion Foundation and numerous gay rights front groups plans are now, or will be soon, being drawn  to challenge in the courts the individual state's RFRA legislation. 

Pantsuits Prepares to Saddle Up for 2016

Clinton to start 2016 WH bid with focus on voter interaction
(because all of America loves her charming personality)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to launch her campaign for president sometime in the next two weeks and will initially focus on intimate events, rather than soaring speeches to big rallies, as her team looks to put her in direct contact with voters in states with early primaries or caucuses.
 
The goal, according to two people close to the Clinton organization, is to make Clinton's second run for the White House more about voters and less about herself.

The strategy is also aimed at playing to what Clinton allies see as her strengths. Friends and advisers have long said she is more at ease in small group settings and one-on-one conversations where she can display her policy expertise, as well as personal warmth that she sometimes struggles to convey in front of larger crowds.

The approach also comes with risks. More loosely scripted appearances increase the chances that Clinton could be drawn off message or make a misstep that causes a distraction for the campaign. The former secretary of state has been off the campaign trail for years, and she seemed rusty in fielding questions during interviews on a book tour last year.

_____________________________________________________

Seems her  strategist have quite a job on their hands, seeing she has the public persona of a fish and all the personal warmth of Richard Nixon......

But Hillary's advisors are talking of a Retooling of sorts for 2016.

As If They Hadn't Embarrassed Themselves Enough........

The Chicken Legs Kid and Mr.Transvestite Universe 

They Like Big Butts and They Cannot Lie

Scientist Continue Probing the Female Backside to Tell Us Why

Mens obsession with the female derrière' may be evolutionary, according to a new study from the University of Texas at Austin, research that dates men’s preference for curvy backsides to prehistoric times. According to the study, men prefer women with a 45.5-degree curve from their back to their rear ends. These curvaceous gals had an evolutionary advantage in that they appeared able to bear multiple children easily.  

Note: Militant Feminist should probably refrain from reading any further.

This graphic from the study explains it all:

 Co-author David Buss, psychology professor at UT-Austin:

“What’s fascinating about this research is that it is yet another scientific illustration of a close fit between a sex-differentiated feature of human morphology — in this case lumbar curvature — and an evolved standard of attractiveness. This adds to a growing body of evidence that beauty is not entirely arbitrary, or ‘in the eyes of the beholder’ as many in mainstream social science believed, but rather has a coherent adaptive logic.” 

Prehistoric women developed “wedging” in the third-to-last lumbar vertebra over great amounts of time, the study says. That shifted their centers over their hips.

This new research goes against previous reports that men prefer smaller waist-to-hip ratios. But then again, there’s also been recent research from Pittsburgh University that proves curvy women make smarter babies.

Is it just me, or do Scientists seem to spend a lot of time studying female behinds?  

Obama Blames Economy on “Insufficient Global Warming”

George Will hit the Obama administration with not one, but two, haymakers during his time on Fox News Sunday discussing our languid economy. The first hit came when Will reminded viewers that this was now the second year in a row where the Obama administration was blaming a bad economy on the fact that global warming wasn't severe enough!

"Well, for the second year in a row they've blamed poor quarterly growth on insufficient global warming, that is on winter, on an unusually cold winter..."

Will then went on to remind us all that during the Reagan recovery, when times were similarly hard, our nation saw greater job growth every month for two years than the Obama administration has seen in any single month! Then host Chris Wallace asked Will for another amazing statistic that he had recently been touting, this one about what the unemployment rate would look like if so many Americans hadn't left the job force during the Obama years. 

"If the workforce participation rate today were as high as it was on the day Barack Obama was inaugurated, the unemployment rate in this country would be 9.7 percent, we wouldn't be complaining about the bad recovery because we wouldn't call it a recovery..."

   

A Good Monday Morning

Bless Their Pointed Little Heads......Math Be So Hard