News & Politics

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review are hopeful that the Cuban people may inch closer to freedom as Fidel Castro announces he doesn’t expect to live much longer.  They also groan as Donald Trump dominates the New York GOP primary and looks to do the same in several more states next week, while Hillary pretty much puts Sanders away.  And they react to a Trump supporter trying to rally assistance in physically preventing Colorado and Wyoming delegates from attending the RNC in Cleveland.

Conservative House members are demanding the impeachment of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen over his repeated failures to preserve and present evidence and deceiving lawmakers in testimony before Congress.

The accusations stem from the ongoing investigation into the IRS targeting of conservative organizations applying for tax-exempt status.  However, members of the House Freedom Caucus separately asserts the IRS is blatantly guilty of violating the fourth amendment rights of Americans.

The push for Koskinen’s impeachment began months ago but Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and some of his House Freedom Caucus colleagues brought the issue to the House floor last week in conjunction with the federal income tax filing deadline.

Jordan says Koskinen has a consistent pattern of obstruction and lying.  Most frustrating is the destruction of up to 24,000 emails on Koskinen’s watch that may well have been critical to the congressional investigation into the IRS.

“On his watch, 400 back-up tapes are destroyed,” said Jordan.  “He had the duty to preserve the documents with preservation orders put in place.  He had a duty to produce them with two subpoenas asking for the documents.”

“He had a duty to testify accurately, which he did not.  He had the duty to correct the record when he testified in an inaccurate fashion and he had a duty to tell us in a timely manner when in fact they had destroyed the documents and lost the documents.  He failed every single duty he had and it seems to me, when you put all that record together, he should be impeached,” said Jordan.

Jordan says Koskinen has offered plenty of reasons for not complying with Congress, but none of them are any good.

“‘Bureaucratic snafu.  We just didn’t quite get it done right.  It wasn’t my fault.  It was all the people down here.  Oh, by the way, you didn’t send us enough money,'” Jordan recounted Koskinen as saying.

Jordan says the IRS itself would never be OK with the kind of excuses its leader is offering.

“If you were a taxpayer being audited and you allowed documents to be destroyed and you said, ‘I’m going to wait four months before I tell the IRS,’ do you think you could just behave that way.  There is no way the average citizen could do that, but yet if you’re the big-shot commissioner that the president brought in to ‘clean up the IRS,’ you get away with it,” said Jordan.

While Jordan and his allies do not expect much greater cooperation from any other Obama appointees if Koskinen were to be impeached, Jordan says Koskinen’s conduct demands decisive action and he says the legislative branch is long overdue in sending a clear message to President Obama.

“Right now the executive branch is trampling all over the legislative branch.  The founders, in their wisdom, wanted the legislative branch to be that part of our separate but equal branches of government that exercise the power of the purse and was the body closer to the people.  The executive branch is trampling over the natural checks and balances,” said Jordan.

But while the House Freedom Caucus is bent on holding Koskinen accountable, House GOP leaders have yet to back the effort.

“We keep pushing but we’re not hearing the right things yet,” said Jordan.

In addition to Koskinen’s actions that include failure to preserve evidence and possibly destroying it, Jordan says it’s vital to remember this all happened because the former IRS director for non-profits, Lois Lerner, lied about what happened and invoked her fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination, refusing to testify before Congress.

“It puts a premium on the documents, the emails, the actual record,” said Jordan.  “They were going after people’s most cherished right – the right to speak in a political nature against the policies of your government.  You shouldn’t be harassed for doing so.  Yet that’s what the IRS did.”

Jordan says the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, discovered the IRS falls $385 billion short of collecting all the revenue it should.  The GAO offered 112 recommendations to close the gap, but less than half have been implemented.

But while the IRS ignores its main job, Jordan offered a new bombshell, that the IRS has been tracking people through their cell phones through stingray technology without proper authorization.  He says the IRS is known to have used the technology on at least 37 occasions.

“They come into an area.  The stingray device mimics a cell phone tower.  So all cell phones in that area don’t run to the cell phone tower.  They now bounce into the stingray and the IRS has the ability to get your number and your location,” said Jordan.  “They are using this technology without getting a probable cause warrant.”

“So they’re engaging in this type of behavior as well, which shouldn’t surprise us.  If they’re willing to go after your first amendment liberties, they’re probably not concerned about your fourth amendment rights either,” he said, noting wryly that the stingray was not one of the 112 recommendations suggested by the GAO report.

 

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review are pleased to see Democrats worried that rising hostility between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders could lead to a fractured party in November.  They also shake their heads as Bernie Sanders’ tax return shows he doesn’t practice what he preaches.  And they return fire at Rep. Peter King in a fun way after King says he hates Ted Cruz and would take cyanide if Cruz is the GOP nominee.

Health insurance companies are sounding the alarm that they will have to drastically hike premiums in the coming year or consider exiting the individual health care marketplace in the wake of massive losses sustained over the first couple of years under the rules of President Obama’s signature health care law.

A report in The Hill newspaper quotes Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini as well as multiple policy experts concluding the current track is unsustainable for the private sector insurance.  Furthermore, a report from McKinsey & Company shows insurers lost money in the individual market in 41 of 50 states in 2014.

Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner says she hears the very same thing from health insurance providers.

“I have talked with insurance company CEO’s.  I’ve talked with people in professional associations.  They’re very worried because they were virtually assured by the Obama administration that the market would have stabilized by now,” said Turner.

She says this is not only a distress call to policy makers but a warning to consumers that much higher premiums are on the horizon.

“These reports and these announcements and these news stories are really warnings from the insurance industry, ‘Get ready because our premiums are going to have to be much higher if we’re going to continue to participate in the market.  And if you tell us that you’re not going to approve those premium increases, we will drop out,'” said Turner.

Turner says insurance companies bought the Obama promise “that there would be enough young, healthy people in the markets to be able to offset the sicker, older people.”  But something happened on the way to huge profits guaranteed through the individual mandate.

“The escape hatches [the health care law] created, the weakness of the individual mandate has meant that they wind up with many more people who are sicker and using many more health care services than anticipated and the premiums were not set to adjust to that,” said Turner.

She says the bad financial ideas underpinning the law are being exposed.

“They also thought they were going to get this other money through a lot of risk corridor reinsurance payments as well as the tax credits that people get to purchase premiums.  So they thought all of those were going to make this a stable market.  It’s only a stable market in the sense that the government is propping it up artificially with all these other funds and it’s not enough,” said Turner.

Turner says insurance companies are also getting crushed by people gaming the system.  She says people sign up for coverage, get a lot of expensive health care right away and then cancel their coverage, only to sign up at the same government-guaranteed rate in the next open enrollment period.

She says this whole sea of red ink exposes the fundamental flaws with the law.

“It’s not a sustainable market.  You cannot have government dictating how a market works.  Only the market can do that and we’re seeing the failure of government-controlled health care,” said Turner.

The insurance industry is likely to elicit few tears from opponents of the Obama health care law as conservative activists implored companies not to get on board the Obama bandwagon. The industry didn’t listen, but Turner says watching them leave the marketplace is not an option either.

“We need the private health insurance companies to continue to participate and to offer insurance if we are going to have a private market.  You don’t want them to fail,” said Turner.

Turner is hopeful that the issue will get a lot of attention in the 2016 election season.  She is confident that despite the rhetoric of some Democratic candidates, the American people do not want government-run health care.

“The support for single payer among the American people is as low now as it has ever been in decades,” said Turner, who advocates health competition in the private sector regulated by the states.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review applaud Ohio State officials for telling demonstrators to leave the building or be ready to be cleared out, arrested and expelled.  They also rip John Kasich for his dismissal of recent religious freedom and bathroom laws and presenting himself as the only adult in the room.  And they laugh as the Treasury Department reportedly makes plans to replace Andrew Jackson with a woman on currency and leave Alexander Hamilton in place – largely because of a successful hip-hop opera.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review suffer through clips of Thursday’s Democratic debate but come away glad knowing the Democrats are plenty dysfunctional too – and really annoying.  They also discuss more and more health insurers losing money under Obamacare and planning to jack up premiums or get out of the market altogether.  And they unload on AMC for planning to experiment with texting during movies – but the story ends with relief.

Retired U.S. Navy Captain Chuck Nash says Russian President Vladimir Putin is using the recent provocation in the Baltic Sea and other incidents to prove the United States will not stand up to aggression and won’t do anything to stop Russia’s efforts to gobble up its former republics.

Nash, who served 25 years in uniform as a U.S. Naval aviator, was responding to reports that Russian jets repeatedly buzzed the U.S.S. Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea more than 30 times and even simulated attack maneuvers.

He says Putin’s calculation is clear.

“Putin is trying to take down NATO without firing a shot.  His message to NATO is clear.  His message to the Baltic States of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania is very clear.  And that is, ‘The United States will not react, even when their nose is rubbed in it.  So what makes you think they’re going to come to your defense if shooting starts or if we really start posturing heavily,'” said Nash.

“That message has been transmitted and that message, trust me, has been received,” said Nash.

Nash says Putin views the U.S. as weak and has ever since Obama began his presidency by bowing to multiple heads of states in other countries.  He says Obama further proved Putin right by not enforcing the red line in Syria and doing nothing in response to the Russian annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine.

He says Putin is licking his chops over what the final nine months of Obama’s time in office may let him get away with.

“He has no idea who’s coming in in January, but he knows who he’s got right now and he’s going to exploit that.  My concern is that something really significant is going to happen in the nine months.  His strategic goal is to take down NATO and to rebuild imperial Russia,” said Nash.

Nash expects Russia to call the West’s bluff on the most important component of the NATO alliance.

“To take down NATO, all he’s got to do is get somebody to try to invoke Article 5, which is the mutual defense provision of the NATO treaty.  All of a sudden, he’s going to see who in NATO stands up to that Article 5 call.  If countries balk, NATO is done,” warned Nash.

Where could this major flashpoint occur in the next nine months?  Nash suspects it will be along the Baltic coast, namely a small piece of Russian land known as the Kaliningrad Oblast.  It strategically borders Belarus and Poland and is south of the Baltic States.

“He could use an incident there to where he says it’s being threatened.  He makes a move and puts troops up against the borders of some of the Baltic States and essentially tries to precipitate a reaction by those countries whereby he can do what he did in Ukraine,” said said Nash.

Nash says Putin got his message across to the Baltic States through the buzzing of the U.S.S. Cook but once again elicited a very weak response from the Obama administration.  Having flown these sorts of missions in the vicinity of Soviet and Russian ships during his time in the service, Nash says pilots are required to fly parallel to the ships, stay a minimum of 1,000 feet above the water and give 1,500 feet of space on the side.  The Russian planes came as close as 30 feet and zoomed perpendicular across the vessel.

Furthermore, the U.S.S. Cook was clearly in international waters and the Russian pilots did not return messages sent by the ship. Nash also points out that Russia conducted similar harassment of the U.S.S. Cook in the Black Sea not long ago.

The main response came in the form of White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest calmly reciting the protocol that should have been followed by Russian pilots.

“It is entirely inconsistent with the professional norms of militaries operating in proximity to each other in international waters and international airspace.  Any peacetime military activity must be consistent with international law and conducted with due regard for the rights of other nations and the safety of other aircraft and other vessels,” said Earnest on Wednesday.

Nash is unimpressed.

“What he was saying was, ‘This is the way things should be.’  Well Josh, they’re not.  What are you and the administration going to do about it?  If you continue to roll over, Putin is going to take more and more,” said Nash.

So what would have been the proper response?  Nash immediately explained what he believes the U.S. should do.

“The answer is you flood the zone.  You want to play games?  Fine.  You don’t like ships in the Baltic?  Get over it.  We’re going to flood the zone.  Every ship leaving Norfolk that’s headed east is going to come through the Baltics before it goes through the Straits of Gibraltar,” said Nash.

“We’re going to set up multinational, unilateral, and bilateral exercises with the countries in the Baltics.  Get used to seeing American ships.  We’re going to be here and they’re not going to be oilers.  They’re going to be combatants,” he said.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review fume over Russia’s blatant provocation of a U.S. Navy ship in the Baltic Sea and in the Obama administration’s pathetic response.  They also cringe as Indiana GOP delegates get dozens of troubling messages warning them not to oppose Donald Trump.  And they discuss Karl Rove and many deep-pocketed donors preparing to help Trump, mainly to deny Hillary Clinton the presidency.

A longtime Democratic foreign policy expert says the Obama administration is proving that the world is a much more dangerous place when the United States fails to lead and he says it’s time for Republicans and Democrats to follow the examples of two critical figures in history and galvanize to confront major threats to American national security.

Lawrence J. Haas served as communications director for Vice President Al Gore.  He is now a columnist and a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council.  His latest book is “Harry and Arthur” Truman, Vandenberg, and the Partnership That Created the Free World.”

President Harry Truman and Sen. Arthur Vandenberg, R-Mich., famously collaborated on the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine and other major projects after World War II to blunt the advance of Soviet aggression in Europe.  Vandenberg served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the critical stretch between 1947-1949.

So how does that story impact today’s world?  Haas says the same tension exists now as it did after World War II between America embracing a role of global leadership and dialing back our involvement on the world stage.

“Historians are inspired to write about history based on current events,” said Haas.  “We Americans have been doubting what we can do around the world in recent years.  We’ve been rethinking our global role.”

But Haas says the lesson both then and after seven years of President Obama is essentially the same.

“The lesson is there’s no one waiting in the wings to defend freedom,” said Haas.  “If we step back, there is no great power in the West to defend freedom.  There are great threats to freedom out there right now.  If not us, then who?  That’s the main question that I’m trying to raise for people to ponder.”

In the book, Haas pushes hard against the notion that there was an instinctive consensus in the United States after World War II to lead the fight against Soviet expansion.

“We Americans have this sense that there was this inevitability to America’s rise to global leadership right after World War II but there was really nothing inevitable about it at all,” said Haas.

But he says the circumstances forced leaders in both parties to conclude that active engagement in the world was the only option.

“World War II is ending.  The Soviets were still technically an ally but they were quickly turning into an adversary because it was clear they were breaking all their promises to allow for free elections in Poland and across eastern Europe,” said Haas.

“Someone is going to need to step up to ensure global security and defend freedom.  There’s nothing inevitable about America stepping in to do this.  It takes two men: an enlightened, brand new Democratic president and an enlightened Senate Republican leader by the name of Arthur Vandenberg,” said Haas.

Haas says Truman was a consistent advocate for U.S. leadership in world affairs.  Vandenberg on the other hand backed U.S. entry into World War I but later concluded it had been a mistake manipulated by bankers and weapons makers.  By the late 1930’s he was one of the leading isolationists in Washington.

The Japanese attacks at Pearl Harbor changed that.

“[The United States] couldn’t wall itself off because, if nothing else, weapons are becoming so sophisticated that there’s no such thing as safety by having an ocean to the east and an ocean to the left.  We needed to play a role because otherwise we would be increasingly vulnerable,” said Haas.

He says we’re learning the same lesson the hard way as a result of the Obama administration’s approach to national security threats.

“We have seen an experiment in recent years in American retreat, the president spending the last seven years reducing the American footprint around the world, particularly in the greater Middle East but not only there, in an effort to share global burdens with not only allies but adversaries,” said Haas.

While the parties remain fiercely at odds on some key security issues, Haas believes the people are once again realizing the role the U.S. must play in the world.

“I think that there is growing recognition that American retreat does not lead to a safer world.  It leads to a more dangerous world.  We face right now, probably, the greatest combination of threats to U.S. national security that we have faced since the time of Truman and Vandenberg,” said Haas.

Haas believes the obvious threat posed by the Soviet Union helped Republicans and Democrats find some critical common ground in the wake of World War II.  He says it will be harder to find that consensus again.  He ought to know.  Haas has publicly ripped the Obama administration and other members of his own party for their approach to the Iran nuclear agreement and other key issues.

Nonethless, he believes focusing on the greatest threats to U.S. security can forge some common ground again.  He sees multiple areas this could happen, most notably with respect to radical Islam.  While distinguishing between what he calls Islam and radical Islam, Haas says the latter must be dealt with – including calling it what it is.

“Radical Islam, and there’s nothing wrong with talking about it that way, is a political and a militant movement.  It’s a global movement and it threatens people not just in the Middle East, not just in Europe but here in the United States,” said Haas.

Haas considers the Iran nuclear deal a separate, urgent threat.

“I think there’s great controversy about whether it was wise to cut this nuclear deal with Iran and provide them with all this sanctions relief, billions and billions of dollars to the world’s greatest state sponsor of terrorism,” he said.

Finally, Haas sees some major threats emerging from more traditional sources.

“There is a sense of fear, I believe, about the rise of authoritarian powers around the world, whether it’s China in the Pacific or it’s Russia near Europe,” he said.

“I think there are three or four very prominent threats that are beginning to galvanize people toward a more robust U.S. role around the world to protect itself, to protect its allies and to defend freedom,” said Haas.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review get a kick out of Paul Krugman turning on Bernie Sanders and comedian George Lopez saying he endorsed Sanders but doesn’t want to pay higher taxes.  They also groan as an RNC member echoes Donald Trump in saying that winning more than 1,100 delegates will probably win him the nomination.  And they react to Keith Olbermann deciding to move out of Trump Palace because he just couldn’t bear having any association with its namesake.