Archives for July 2015

Vigorous debate is already underway in Congress over whether to accept or reject the multilateral agreement designed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton says the vast majority of the deal will go into effect regardless of what Congress does, meaning Iran will get the bomb.

According to the legislation passed earlier this year, Congress has 60 days to vote on the deal.  President Obama vows to veto any rejection of the plan, meaning Republicans would need considerable help from Democrats to amass the two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate needed to override the veto.

Even if that happens, Bolton says Iran and Obama still get most of what they want.

“The deal itself can’t be stopped by Congress.  Even if they got a veto-proof majority in both houses, the only thing they could do is prevent Obama from lifting American sanctions.  Once the UN Security Council lifts sanctions, the Europeans, the Russians, the Chinese, everybody else will rescind their national sanctions,” said Bolton.

While keeping the U.S. sanctions in place would temper the financial relief for Iran, Bolton says they will not provide meaningful resistance for the Iranian nuclear agenda.

“Even if the opponents in Congress prevail, our sanctions will remain in place but nobody else’s will.  That means Iran can get whatever it needs somewhere else in the world,” said Bolton.

“Absolutely Iran is on it’s way to nuclear weapons and free of economic sanctions to boot,” he said.

Bolton says the next president can “renounce” this agreement but that may not accomplish much.  In addition to the UN and many countries planning to lift sanctions, Bolton expects Iran to take advantage of the next 18 months.

“Iran can read the calendar just as well as we can.  Nobody knows who will be elected in November of 2016, but they know their man in the White House for the next 18 months.  I think you can count on the ayatollahs to take every bit of advantage they can out of Obama’s remaining days in the presidency,” he said.

Bolton has pleaded for the past few years for the Obama administration not to strike a deal with Iran.  Now that the terms of the agreement are public, he says the reality is worse than what he feared.

“Unbelievably, it’s even worse,” said Bolton.  “On issue after issue, Iran has won their point almost to the exclusion of any benefit to the United States.  In particular, I do think we have legitimized this regime, this state sponsor of terrorism.  We’ve legitimized their nuclear program.  We’ve left them with the technology that critical for a would-be nuclear weapons state.”

In addition to his service at the United Nations, Bolton spent the first four years of the George W. Bush administration as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.  He says that background shows him just how feeble this nuclear deal really is.

“I can speak as an old arms control negotiator myself.  Reading the exact language the parties have agreed to shows how many loopholes really exist.  So when the president, Secretary Kerry and others talk about what the deal provides, they’re only occasionally being accurate.  It’s almost like it’s a matter of coincidence,” said Bolton.

What is an example of these loopholes?

“There’s just so much flexibility for them to obstruct the work of the international inspectors and others, to build up stockpiles of uranium even though they’re supposedly committed to reducing them and to begin to take steps in full, plain view of international inspectors that will bring them closer to a real nuclear weapons capability,” said Bolton.

“For example, they will not only be allowed to continue to do research and development on advanced centrifuges, they’ll be able to test that with radioactive material.  They may not be able to accumulate more enriched uranium.  What they need is not to accumulate it but to test it, so that these more advanced centrifuges, once perfected, could be manufactured in secret somewhere else,” he said.

Bolton says that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

“There are more examples than time that we have,” he said.  “The inspection provision is full of loopholes.  The requirement to disclose possible military dimensions of their program is more loophole than agreement.  The so-called snapback provision designed to bring sanctions back into effect if Iran is found to be in violation is extraordinarily weak.  The list goes on and on.”

One of the concerns getting the most attention is the U.S. concession on inspections.  After months of insisting upon anywhere anytime inspections, the Obama administration agreed to have inspectors request permission to inspect facilities newly suspected of carrying on nuclear activities.  Under the agreement, a minimum of 24 days would separate the request from the actual inspection.

Why did the U.S. back off this supposedly non-negotiable position?

“I think the Iranians just ground the administration down on it.  So when you hear the president say, ‘We have full transparency here,’ that’s a fantasy,” said Bolton.  “The fact is the terms of the agreement give Iran innumerable opportunities to obstruct the [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors and to conceal and hide damaging information.”

Bolton would never strike a deal with Iran because he believes it would legitimize the Iranian regime and because he’s confident they will cheat on any agreement.  But he says any hope for a a decent deal collapsed when the Obama administration made a critical error early in the negotiations.

“The biggest mistake the administration made was right at the beginning of this latest round of negotiations two years ago when they conceded that Iran could continue to do uranium enrichment,” said Bolton, noting the UN Security Council was adamant that Iran stop enriching uranium as far back as 2006 because enriched uranium is the key to any hopes of any nuclear proliferation.

Defenders of the agreement, including Obama, insist blatant violation of the terms by Iran would not only result in renewed sanctions but keep a military option on the table.  Bolton says once Iran has nukes, that option becomes far more complicated.

“The world’s main funder of terrorists having nuclear weapons gives them impunity from retaliation for their terrorist sponsoring activities.  Think back to 9/11.  If Al Qaeda and the Taliban had had nuclear weapons back then, would we have been so quick to overthrow the Al Qaeda/Taliban regime in Afghanistan?  I don’t think so,” he said.

“I think we would have, quite rightly, had to worry about their retaliation with nuclear weapons.  Iran, I think, will soon be in that position,” said Bolton.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review blast the Obama administration for failing to include anytime/anywhere inspections in the Iran deal.  They also shudder at the undercover video showing a Planned Parenthood official enjoying lunch while explaining how she aborts babies carefully so the organs can be sold.  And they’re disgusted as Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson suggests he doesn’t know who the Steinle family is or whether the administration has contacted them.

The man who first publicly warned the West about Iran’s nuclear intentions is blasting Tuesday’s agreement as one that allows the world’s top sponsor of terrorism to grow its program, fails to provide meaningful inspections and does not force Iran to change it’s behavior at all.

Alireza Jafarzadeh is deputy director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is the Iranian parliament in exile from the government that was overthrown by Islamic radicals in 1979.  Jafarzadeh says assurances from President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry that this agreement will prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon is fiction.

“First, the agreement does not prevent the Iranian regime from having a nuclear weapons capability.  Second, it actually maintains and legitimizes the entire nuclear infrastructure of the Iranian regime,” he said.

Jafarzadeh has reviewed the agreement and is troubled by many aspects, starting with how little it actually restricts Iranian activities.

“It puts some cap on for the next 10-15 years, but it allows the regime to build an industrial-size nuclear program with very little limitations in about a decade.  It also allows the Iranian regime to conduct research and development on advanced centrifuges,” he said.

“These are significantly more efficient centrifuges that allow the Iranian regime to use a much smaller number of centrifuges in a hidden place to provide fissile material that they need for the bomb,” said Jafarzadeh.

And inspections?  Jafarzadeh says not to count on those to accomplish anything.

“It doesn’t provide anytime, anywhere access to suspect nuclear sites, including the military sites.  It basically provides what they call managed access with significant delays, which takes away the whole surprise element completely.  It undermines the very purpose of intrusive inspections,” he said.

The deal also provides no specifics on allowing inspections of several sites that Iranian officials have blocked United Nations weapons inspectors from visiting.

While the agreement is light on verification in his estimation, Jafarzadeh says U.S. and allied concessions are very clear.

“It is very specific when it comes to sanctions relief and the kind of break that is provided to the Iranian regime, including giving them relief in five to eight years on weapons and missile trade, which is a big problem.  It actually enhances the terrorism network of the Iranian regime,” said Jafarzadeh.

He added, “When you have the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism having a nuclear weapons program legitimized by the international community and over time they can actually expand it and not diminishing it or having any requirement to change their behavior, it’s a major, major concern.”

Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, or ICBM’s, are the most likely delivery system for a future nuclear weapon.  Jafarzadeh says that program isn’t addressed in the agreement either.

“Why do you want to have an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile program?  The only use for is delivering nuclear weapons.  There’s no country in the world that has so far developed ICBM without using it for nuclear weapons,” he said.

Along with the legitimizing of the Iranian nuclear program, some of the most nefarious groups associated with Iran would no longer be considered pariahs in the eyes of the U.S..

“A number of entities and individuals who have been involved in terrorism and weapons of mass destruction the exporting of violence in the region are going to be off the list,” said Jafarzadeh, specifically listing the Qods force and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in that category.

Earlier this year, after Obama announced he would not submit any agreement to Congress as a formal treaty, congressional leaders pushed legislation to give lawmakers the power to review and vote on the deal.  However, instead of needing a two-thirds majority to approve it as in the case of treaties, a two-thirds majority is now needed to override a promised Obama veto and sink the deal.

Jafarzadeh also blasted Obama for insulting the Iranian people by referring to them and the Iranian regime interchangeably.

“The Iranian people reject this regime,” he said.

Jafarzadeh also disputes Obama’s contention that the agreement will prevent rather than trigger a Middle East arms race.  He says Iran’s neighbors know exactly what this regime is capable of.

“Look at the countries that are all being troubled by the Iranian regime when they don’t have the bomb.  Imagine what things would look like in the region when the Iranian regime will get the bomb,” he said.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review break down the worst aspects of the Iran nuclear deal.  They rip the Obama administration for allowing the nuclear program to persist and agreeing to scrap any surprise inspections.  They slam congressional Republicans for tying their own hands and making it very likely any legislation to to block the deal is successfully vetoed by Obama.  And they scold Obama for stating the deal prevents a Middle East arms race when everyone else in the region says it will start one.

The Office of Personnel Management, or OPM, refused to encrypt the personal data of millions of Americans, telling lawmakers security is the top priority while failing to implement much of anything recommended by its own inspector general.

“Verbally, [security] was a high priority but as a matter of fact it was not,” said Rep Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Subcommittee on Government Operations.

“We see for eighteen months, everything else was a priority.  They just didn’t have time to get to it or they said they were working on it.  Yet it was priority number one.  Well, we find that priority number one was a whole lot of other issues with regards to this director,” said Meadows.

In June, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee heard testimony from OPM officials and others following reports that the data of 4.2 million Americans had been compromised.  More recent reports put the number at 22 million, triggering the resignation of OPM Director Katherine Archuleta.

Meadows is pleased to see Archuleta step down.  He says her performance before the committee last month proves she was not up to protecting sensitive data from America’s cyber enemies.

“In the hearing they said security is priority number one.  Yet, what we found was over and over again, each and every thing that was recommended didn’t get done, as if somehow there was a firewall that would not allow…Chinese hackers to come in but to stay in there for days at a time,” he said.

The biggest jaw-dropper in the June testimony was that sensitive data was virtually unguarded.

“The director and her chief information officer failed to take even the basic precautions of encryption.  You and I would know to do that.  You would think that someone who was charged with protecting the personal information of federal workers would just [do] the basics,” said Meadows.

He says Archuleta and Chief Information Officer Donna Seymour offered multiple reasons for the lack of encryption.

“One of the reasons why it supposedly wasn’t encrypted was because the programming language was so old that it couldn’t be encrypted,” said Meadows.  “Then it went further to say it was such a large volume of information that they just didn’t have time.”

Meadows says millions of Americans are now at great risk of having their personal information “sold or conveyed” to identity thieves.  However, he says the danger to our country is even more sobering.

“You’ve got a real espionage issue here, where you’ve got people with top-secret security clearance that have background information that are now in the hands of a foreign entity,” said Meadows.

He added, “The privacy of individuals is one thing, but the national security of a nation is another.  To not take the basic precautions as you would with any offensive threat from a foreign government is troubling.”

According to Meadows, just changing the director at OPM is not enough.  He recommends three areas of focus that he refers to as “buckets,” starting with the resignation of Seymour.  Next is a major focus on updating and strengthening encryption.

“We need to make sure that all private information is encrypted, and that includes not only Social Security numbers but other personal identifiers as well,” he said, while also highlighting the critical role the private sector can play in protecting out data.

“Get the private sector involved in the type of security clearance and encryption and cyber attack defenses that they use.  Google does a great job of that in the private sector.  We need to get some of those private sector solutions,” said Meadows.

In addition to the OPM story breaking in June, Meadows himself was in the headlines for several days after full Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, removed Meadows as chairman of the subcommittee on government operations at the behest of GOP leadership.  Meadows was punished for voting against various procedural motions on the House floor.  After fierce protest from House conservatives, Chaffetz restored Meadows to his previous role.

Meadows says he and Chaffetz work together very well and their ability to dig into issues like OPM is not at all hampered by the politics that played out in recent weeks.

“My vote was more one that was challenged by leadership.  Chairman Chaffetz doesn’t see that as a direct attack towards him, nor I his removal of me as a direct attack on me.  Hopefully, in the end, we have our priorities, both of us, on the American taxpayer.  That’s where it needs to be,” said Meadows.

And right now, he says, that focus needs to be protecting American information and assets from those who wish to do us harm.

“We can’t continue to turn a blind eye to the kind of attacks that we have.  Anybody that has any kind of connectivity with the World Wide Web has an issue with this.  So we need to be vigilant each and every day.  There are folks out there that are wanting to take this and use this for their benefit and our detriment,” said Meadows.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review welcome Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to the 2016 campaign.  They also groan as the friction between Donald Trump supporters and the rest of the GOP hits a fevered pitch.  And they laugh as Hillary Clinton includes Uber and Airbnb among the reasons for stagnant wages.

Congress is advancing a bill that would allow parents to opt their children out of Common Core but some conservative members say Republicans should use their sizable majority to transfer much more control of schools back to parents and local officials and move closer to scrapping the Department of Education entirely.

On Thursday, the House of Representatives re-authorized the No Child Left Behind law that was originally passed in 2002 but expired in 2007.  The vote was 218-213.  All Democrats opposed it, along with 27 Republicans.

Rep. Mark Walker, R-NC, is a leading congressional advocate for decentralized control over education.  He says the bill is definitely not perfect but does accomplish some important things.

“It does prevent federal coercion on Common Core.  It also allows parents across the country to specifically opt out of Common Core for their children.  Being a father of three, that’s something that’s very important to me,” said Walker, who is a bit worried about how the U.S. Senate might change the bill.

“It does go to the Senate, which can be frightening,” he said.  “I know they’re working together on an education bill and we hope that some of these amendments we’ve added would remain.”

The Senate version of the bill will eventually head to a conference committee, where House and Senate negotiators will hammer out a compromise.  Walker says it needs to include two key components if leaders want his support.

“If the parent doesn’t have more control than where it was just a couple months ago, then I would certainly vote a strong no against it,” said Walker.  “A good solid federalist approach would be to let the states have more control.  If those two things are in it, I can go forward even though there may be a couple of nuggets I don’t like.  If those two things aren’t in it, then absolutely not.”

Walker says the heart of meaningful, GOP-led education reform should be focused on moving power out of Washington and back to parents and local officials.

“Do you either trust the people in the local communities or do you trust Washington to do a better job specifically in the area of educating our children.  We did a poll recently in the sixth district of North Carolina.  Seventy-one percent believe that government is more effective and more accountable the more localized you can make it,” said Walker.

Walker also led an effort to amend the House bill to give states much more flexibility in how to spend federal dollars.  While the amendment failed, the congressman says his APLUS plan is another way to get Washington bureaucrats out of the classroom.

“It allows states to opt out completely of even the bill that did pass, but still keep the federal funding.  In other words, the funding would come in the form of block grants, but the state would not be required to adapt to any of the more than 80 federal programs that we have seen time and time again not bringing the success that’s needed,” said Walker.

Democrats immediately pushed back at the Walker’s amendment, claiming the receipt of federal dollars ought to be contingent upon following federal rules.

“I had to do this on the floor with the member (Jared) Polis from Colorado, who, in paraphrasing, talked about, “How are we going to manage this?  How do we hold them accountable?’  My question was this: how has that worked for us the past, 40, 45, 50 years,” said Walker.

The Walker amendment, which was also championed by Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., failed on a 235-195 vote.  While hoping for passage, Walker says getting that close on his amendment was a major achievement in just a few months.

“It was just three months ago when I took it to the rules committee that it was a slam dunk, no-way no-chance, not anywhere close.  To come back only three-and-a-half months later and get it to the floor for a vote, a lot of people were expecting maybe 125 or 130.  To go as strong as 195 was something that certainly encouraged us,” said Walker.

Walker’s current focus is on giving states more control over their schools.  His bigger goal is to abolish the Department of Education.  He says its track record is a disaster.

“You’ve got to somehow go back and do a generation of failed policy all the way back to the late Jimmy Carter administration, when it was first introduced.  Reagan tried to abolish it early on in his presidency.  He didn’t have the horsepower or the Congress behind him enough.  If you fast forward 35-36 years later, most of our lifetime, we now can look back and see that this new federal bureaucracy simply hasn’t worked,” Walker said.

While he admits no efforts to abolish the Department of Education have been introduced yet in the House, Walker says he would likely get behind that legislation.

“There’s been some drafts here and there, nothing that’s been assigned to a bill number, that would be aggressive to say, ‘We tried this.  There’s billions of dollars being wasted every year.  Maybe it’s time to take a look at that.  If it is, I would be one to support that and happy to go on record in doing so,” he said.

While Walker draws his line in the sand on how he’ll approach a final version of the current legislation, he is not as confident that GOP leaders will demand more rights for parents and states.

“No sir, I’m not,” said Walker.  “There seems to be a culture sometimes in Washington that to get it through is a victory.  As Dr. Phil says sometimes, ‘How’s that working for you?'”

That being said, Walker is very appreciative that House leaders allowed his APLUS amendment to be considered.

“We actually approached leadership and worked hard on these three amendments, both the Salmon amendment (which allows parents to opt their children out of Common Core), the one that shortened it (from a six to a four year program) as well as APLUS.  So they did work with us in allowing these three amendments to get to the floor, when just a few months ago APLUS was ruled out of order,” said Walker.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review applaud Rick Perry, Rep. Duncan Hunter and Sen. Tom Cotton for pushing for sanctuary cities to lose federal dollars for their refusal to enforce immigration laws.  They also discuss the OPM hack compromising the personal information of 22 million people.  And Jim makes a devastating case against the candidacy of Donald Trump.

Longtime Democratic pollster and strategist Pat Caddell says the American people don’t want the Iran deal the Obama administration is pursuing and he says America is on the brink of a major mistake because Obama and his allies are more focused on his legacy than national security.

Caddell, who rose to prominence for his key role in helping Jimmy Carter win the White House in 1976, is now a frequent thorn in the side of his party for criticizing the Democratic left farther and farther to the left.  He recently helped to conduct a bipartisan poll for Secure America Now.  The finding show the American people overwhelmingly concerned about a nuclear Iran and the deal being negotiated.

Sixty-eight percent of Americans believe Iran will give nuclear weapons to terrorists if it can develop them.  Eighty percent believe Iranian nukes will set off a Middle East arms race.  70 percent believe Iran would use nukes against U.S. forces in the region, and 79 percent believe Iran having the bomb will mean their children will be threatened with nuclear war in the years ahead.

Caddell says 80 percent of respondents also believe the deal being hammered out in Vienna would only “kick the can down the road.”  He says the American people make two things perfectly clear.  The first is that they want the Iran program entirely scrapped.

“When you go through some of the specifics of what we know was being discussed, the American people start with the idea that if [the Iranians are] going to be allowed to keep the nuclear infrastructure, then they’re not in favor of it,” said Caddell.

He also says the public knows what needs to happen to remove the threat.

“They would have to discontinue or deconstruct their nuclear program, not maintain it, and that they would have to allow inspections without any reservation and also get rid of the excess uranium they have.  People think that’s the base of a deal that would work,” said Caddell.

Those terms are a long way from the reports of what a final deal would likely include.  Caddell says a major reason is because Obama and other Democrats are too eager to get something done.

“There was a phone call reported by the [Associated Press] the other day, held by several White House aides and (Illinois Rep.) Jan Schakowsky’s husband, Mr. (Robert) Creamer and a bunch of very partisan Democrats, talking about how important this was to his legacy,” said Caddell, who is infuriated by the political focus on such a key issue.

“This isn’t about his legacy.  This is about our lives.  The problem is we’re going into this negotiation wanting three things.  The president wants a deal for his legacy.  (Secretary of State) John Kerry wants a Nobel prize.  The Iranians want a nuclear weapon.  And they all get what they want,” he said.

Caddell is mystified by another part of the negotiations as well.

“Wendy Sherman, the undersecretary of state for this, is the same woman who negotiated the deal with North Korea,” he said.  “The same person who did the North Korean deal is amazingly now doing this deal with Iran.”

“That is scary.  That really bothers me.  You shouldn’t be rewarded for your incompetence by being allowed to perform the same act with an even more dangerous player,” said Caddell.

Caddell is concerned that a nuclear Iran could turn the 2016 campaign into a referendum on national security.  He fears Obama can find enough Democrats to ratify a bad deal thanks to the Corker-Cardin plan, which gives Congress a say on the Iran deal, but allows Obama to veto the rejection of lawmakers.

He says the Democratic nervousness runs deep.

“There is a lot of consternation in the foreign policy community among Democrats and concern about this deal,” he said.

Caddell says the bipartisan poll shows lopsided concerns on both sides of the aisle and Obama and other Democrats ignore it at their peril.

“I’m going to make sure Democrats understand how our voters feel about these issues as opposed to what the president is claiming.  This is not about politics.  This is one of the most important issues of my lifetime, maybe the most important,” he said.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review cheer the entrance of Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson into the Florida U.S. Senate race because he would be easier for Republicans to beat.  They also groan as the Obama administration revives so-called “death panels.”  And they slam the DC City Council for wanting to permit non-citizens to vote.