{"id":1245,"date":"2011-11-10T15:22:28","date_gmt":"2011-11-10T15:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/voteforjoe.wordpress.com\/?p=1245"},"modified":"2011-11-10T15:22:28","modified_gmt":"2011-11-10T15:22:28","slug":"an-a-in-ayersville-bengals-bungling-played-valiantly-an-f-in-foreign-relations-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=1245","title":{"rendered":"An “A” in Ayersville, Bengals bungling, played “valiantly,” An “F” in Foreign Relations Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The “Back Road to the White House Tour” rolls on…<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 In Ayersville, Ohio (pop. it wasn’t even listed in the Atlas), I put up a campaign flier in the Ayersville Gas Station (one pump) \/ Carry Out \/ Restaurant (one table).\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>A guy at the cash register wished me luck and a guy at the pump said he was open to alternatives this election and would check out the website.\u00a0 Then it was on to Dupont, Ohio (pop. smaller than Ayersville), where I approached what looked like an extended family out putting Christmas decorations up around a house on the corner.\u00a0 I had a Browns cap on and\u00a0two of the guys were wearing Cincinnati Bengal sweatshirts.\u00a0 There was an awkward moment.\u00a0 I then started:\u00a0 “Hey guys (That’s what we say in Ohio, “hey guys.”), as unlikely as this seems, I’m running for president of the country.\u00a0 And the football thing notwithstanding, I’d really like your vote!”\u00a0 They\u00a0looked briefly\u00a0at the campaign card, then they looked a lot longer, again, at my Browns cap.\u00a0 Ohio sports fans can be a tough lot.\u00a0 Speaking of football…\u00a0<\/strong> Our kids’ Midget Football League Team, “The Rams,” clashed with the Ayersville (actually, I didn’t get the whole name) team.\u00a0 It was the last game of the season and I helped coach.\u00a0 As sometimes happens in these “games” with the younger kids, the coaches stay on the field like in a scrimmage situation.\u00a0 Our younger son Jonathan played halfback and safety.\u00a0 And our older son Joseph played offensive end and defensive linebacker.\u00a0 All the kids on our team played valiantly<\/em> this day.\u00a0 (Read:\u00a0 We got beat by a lot.)\u00a0 And at one point this really showed in the huddle, with our offensive tackle crying (literally) with a bruised shoulder and our quarterback crying (literally) from a bruised ego.\u00a0 (At that point we were losing 24 to 0.)\u00a0 One of our coaches, a young father, started to head toward the sidelines.\u00a0 “Where are you going?”\u00a0 I asked.\u00a0 “I just can’t take<\/em> all the crying man,” he said in exasperation.\u00a0 And so it goes on the Midget Football League gridiron.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now to move to a foreign affairs ‘gridiron’…\u00a0<\/em><\/strong> This\u00a0past week, I’ve been expanding our position on foreign affairs.\u00a0 And the last couple days I’ve been focusing specifically on our “strategic alliance” with Saudi Arabia.\u00a0 This is a country run by dictatorship, illiciting\u00a0continual charges of human rights violations.\u00a0 It is a country where if you’re convicted of robbery, say, the sentence can include (and regularly does): amputation of your hands and\/or feet.\u00a0 It is a country with no freedom of speech or press, with all media actively censored by the government to prevent political dissidence.\u00a0 It is a country where women are not allowed to drive, vote and only 5% of Saudi women are in the work force.\u00a0 It is a country with no religious freedom.\u00a0 In other words, it’s a country that displays principles seemingly antithetical to much of what America stands for.\u00a0 And last year the Obama administration rubber stamped a huge weapons deal with Saudi Arabia that could be worth up to $60 billion over 20 years.\u00a0 We are sending them, among other military hardware, 84 F-15 fighter jets\u00a0to:\u00a0 help protect their “kingdom” — and our interests.\u00a0 (Read: oil.)<\/strong>\u00a0 So in this case, basically, our economic interests trump protesting human rights abuses.\u00a0 Would that, in essence, put\u00a0America\u00a0in the same camp as Saudi Arabia?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The “Back Road to the White House Tour” rolls on…\u00a0\u00a0 In Ayersville, Ohio (pop. it wasn’t even listed in the Atlas), I put up a campaign flier in the Ayersville Gas Station (one pump) \/ Carry Out \/ Restaurant (one …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}