Listen to “Mueller to Testify Publicly Before Congress” on Spreaker.
Former special counsel Robert Mueller will testify before congress on July 17th. Matt Fisher reports.
Mueller to Testify Publicly Before Congress
Congressional Border Battles
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The House and Senate will need to reconcile vastly different bills designed to provide billions of dollars in emergency aid for the humanitarian crisis building on our southern border.
On Wednesday, The Senate rejected legislation passed by House Democrats and approved its own $4.6 billion measure. House Democrats say the Senate bill is a non-starter.
While the two chambers head to the reconciliation process, Florida Rep. Ted Yoho says lawmakers cannot embrace what he considers an abandonment of law enforcement personnel along the border.
“It limits the authority of the Department of Homeland Security to surge employees at the border. [The House bill] cuts overtime hours cuts overtime for the exhausted officers that we have working overtime. They want to cut this. These are the very people doing what we hired them to do,” said Yoho.
Yoho says Democrats also want to cut funding for the National Guard at the border and voted down funding for enhanced border technology that could not only detect illegal entry into the country but also protect migrants from sexual assault and trafficking by drug cartels.
He says the partisan bickering on this issue needs to stop.
“The border crisis is not a political crisis. Well, it is a political crisis because Congress has failed to act. But we should not be Republicans or Democrats. We should come together to have a border security bill that solves this problem,” said Yoho.
“If we were doing what we were supposed to with border security and enforced the laws on the books, we wouldn’t have a crisis down there,” said Yoho.
Listen to the full podcast to hear Yoho discuss whether the House and Senate can find common ground in the border funding bill. He also details why he believes the Freedom Caucus deserves credit for forcing a fight on this issue and how his forthcoming bill to reform policy for immigrant workers in the agriculture, hospitality, and construction sectors can help address the larger need for immigration reform.
GOP Voters Want No Moore, NRATV Signs Off, Mayor Pete Feels the Heat
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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are glad to see Roy Moore a distant third in the GOP race for U.S. Senate in Alabama.. They also cover the National Rifle Association’s decision to shut down NRATV. And they discuss Pete Buttigieg facing new criticism for his handling of police and race issues as mayor of South Bend.
Mexico Sends Troops to Border, Chinese Concentration Camps, Bernie Proposes Student Loan Plan
Jim Geraghty of National Review and guest host Gregory Knapp discuss the Mexican government deploying 10,000 troops to the border to crack down on illegal immigration to the U.S. They cover the real concentration camps that the Chinese have constructed. And they discuss Bernie Sanders’ plan to wipe out all student loans.
Istanbul Elects New Mayor, Sestak Joins Democratic Race, Founding Fandoms
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Jim Geraghty and Gregory Knapp of National Review discuss the impact of the Istanbul mayoral results on Recep Erdoğan, President of Turkey, and his party. They cover the entrance of Joe Sestak, former congressman from Pennsylvania, into the Democratic presidential primary. And they discuss the emerging rivalries between fans of different Founding Fathers in response to Alexander Hamilton’s exploding popularity.
Colorado Baker in LGBT Cross Hairs Again
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Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with a Colorado baker who was punished by the government for refusing to design a wedding cake for a same-sex couple based on his sincerely-held Christian beliefs. But Jack Phillips is headed back to court yet again after refusing to make a cake celebrating the coming out of a transgender person.
Alliance Defending Freedom is defending Phillips again. Senior Counsel Jonathan Scruggs says a single attorney is bound and determined to make Phillips suffer the legal consequences of not accommodating the LGBT agenda.
This time a transgendered person identifying as a woman named Autumn Scardina wanted Phillips to make a cake celebrating Scardina’s decision to go public with a change in gender identity. Scruggs says it’s just the latest attempt by Scardina and others to sue Phillips.
“It really has been a story of harassment. Jack has received all these different kinds of requests, particularly from this one lawyer but from other people too that are really meant to harass him – things like celebrating Satan’s birthday or other obscene requests that no person would want to create,” said Scruggs.
The Colorado Civil Right Commission was chastened by the Supreme Court for not treating Phillips in a neutral fashion based on his faith. The commission initially joined this latest lawsuit but backed away when the Alliance Defending Freedom presented additional evidence of the state officials treating Phillips in a biased fashion.
While Scruggs believes Phillips is on very strong legal ground, it’s still an extremely stressful time for him.
“The government didn’t want to touch this in the State of Colorado but now that attorney (Scardina), who didn’t like the result of that case, has filed suit against Jack and is seeking attorneys fees and damages that really could put Jack in a very difficult financial situation. Really, his livelihood is on the line,” said Scruggs.
Listen to the full podcast to hear how ADF forced the Colorado Civil Rights Commission to back away from the case, how Phillips approaches his job in the midst of this debate, and what Scruggs thinks of the Equality Act, which would remove the legal underpinning for people like Phillips to live out their faith.
Iran Provoking U.S. to Distract from Domestic Crisis
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A leading Iranian resistance group urges President Trump to demonstrate strength and resolve in confronting Iran over its provocative actions against the U.S. and others in the region, insisting that such pressure will assist the Iranian people in toppling their own government.
Alireza Jafarzadeh is deputy director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is the Iranian parliament in exile. He urges Trump to keep the pressure on Tehran.
“The last thing you want to show is indecisiveness, to give them concessions, to give the ayatollahs what they want,” said Jafarzadeh, who says he is not suggesting Trump’s decision to call off an attack qualifies as indecisive.
Critics of a hawkish policy towards Iran suggest it could spark a brutal war in the region. Jafarzadeh says those people are too late because Iran has been waging war for the past four decades.
“The rest of the world looks at 40 years of the regime’s terror and hostage-taking and creating proxies in the whole Middle East,” said Jafarzadeh, pointing to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran sponsoring deadly aggression in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.
He says Iran’s unrelenting aggression in the region is now seen as “part and parcel” of the reality in the Middle East but it doesn’t have to be that way.
So why is Iran continuing to provoke the United States by attacking tankers, flouting uranium enrichment limits and even shooting down an American drone? Jafarzadeh says the mullahs in Iran are desperate to change the subject with their own people.
“The Iranian regime is facing a lot of domestic problems, first in terms of the uprisings that began a year-and-a-half ago that has continued. There is a huge amount of corruption going on that has translated to political unrest because the people of Iran hold the people responsible for their misery and hardship for the mismanagement and how the resources of the country are being plundered,” said Jafarzadeh.
Listen to the full podcast to hear Jafarzadeh detail the depth of the frustration by the Iranian people toward their own government and what the U.S. can do to best facilitate the people taking back the power in Tehran.
Nash: Trump Put Gun to Iran’s Head
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President Trump authorized military strikes against Iran but cancelled the attack just minutes before the missiles would have launched, a move that retired U.S. Navy Capt. Chuck Nash says sent an unmistakable message to the mullahs in Iran.
“I think this was putting a gun to their head, cocking the hammer, and then pulling it off and uncocking it and saying next time I may pull the trigger,” said Nash, who is a longtime expert on the Iranian regime.
Trump says he called off the attack after learning approximately 150 people in Iran were likely to die, a toll he considers disproportionate to shooting down an unmanned U.S. drone.
Nash believes there will be no kinetic response to the drone attack but Trump is leaving no ambiguity as to what will happen if Iran’s provocations result in any loss of life.
“If anything else happens, it’s all on the ayatollahs. It is now. But clearly, for the world, [Trump] pulled back. He got the message across. If they do anything else, Trump has free rein,” warned Nash.
He says Iran is left with a tough dilemma.
“If they do anything that causes the loss of life, this president will literally explode on them. If that happens, they are facing the end of their regime. So they have to weigh in the balance of trying to hold on to the regime over severe public discontent over the economy and the way the country’s being governed – and balance that against losing the regime catastrophically,” said Nash.
Nash says Iran was hoping to prompt Trump to overreact or not react at all in order to distract its people from their domestic disaster. U.S.-led sanctions and Iranian government corruption have Iran in major economic trouble.
“Here’s what’s going on inside Iran: there are demonstrations against the regime weekly. They don’t get any press. They’ve got crushing unemployment,” said Nash, who also detailed the soaring Iranian inflation.
Listen to the full podcast to hear Nash explain more of Iran’s domestic woes, why Europe has no choice but to side with the U.S. now, what we may have learned about Iranian defenses by starting to launch an attack, and how he was once poised to carry out airstrikes as a naval aviator before getting orders to stand down just before takeoff.
Trump Calls Off Iran Attack, Dem Infighting Heats Up, Cuba in Dire Straits
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Rob Long of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America discuss President Trump’s last-minute decision to hold off on striking Iran. They also cover the intensifying Democratic presidential campaign, as Joe Biden and Cory Booker scuffle over race and Bernie Sanders explains why he’s now neck-and-neck with Elizabeth Warren in the polls. And they talk about the desperate poverty facing many Cubans as socialism fails yet again.
High Court Says Cross Stays
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The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday ruled that a Maryland war memorial in the shape of a giant cross does not constitute government endorsement of a particular faith and can stay in place, a ruling hailed by religious freedom advocates and slammed by secularists.
In his majority opinion in American Legion v. American Humanist Association, Justice Samuel Alito says the “Peace Cross” in Bladensburg, Maryland, is clearly a Christian symbol but there is also historical and community significance to the 93-year-old memorial constructed to honor local soldiers who died in World War I.
The vote was 7-2, with multiple concurring opinions and a dissent from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that was joined by Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Clarence Thomas said the cross was “clearly constitutional.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the memorial should stand on “history, tradition, and precedent.” Justice Neil Gorsuch said the American Humanist Association did not even have standing to argue the case.
In her dissent, Ginsburg says it would be inappropriate to honor Christian soldiers with a Star of David so it is wrong to pay tribute to people of varying faiths under a cross. Justice Stephen Breyer sided with the majority but strongly suggested he would not support new monuments or displays in the form of a cross.
The Family Research Council submitted a friend of the court brief in defense of the “Peace Cross.” FRC Vice President for Policy Travis Weber says this is a good day for religious freedom.
“The court today said this memorial can stand. It’s perfectly consistent with the Establishment Clause of the first amendment. It’s not an establishment of religion. It’s good to see a majority of the court agreeing with this result,” said Weber, who also directs the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council.
Weber says those on the other side of the debate have a deeply flawed understanding of what the framers of the Constitution meant when they forbade Congress from establishing religion.
“It’s very clear that they were getting at the state setting up formally a system of religious belief and forcing people to abide by that specific system of religious belief. They were not getting at any religious expression in the public square,” said Weber.
While Weber is grateful for Thursday’s ruling, he wishes the court would be even more decisive.
“The court could have gone further to clarify the tangled confusion of the Establishment Clause case law that’s currently on the books. The heartening thing is this moves us in the right direction,” said Weber.
Listen to the full podcast to hear why Thursday’s ruling could spell the end of the “Lemon test,” which is often used by lower courts to remove religious symbols from the public square. He also responds to Justice Ginsburg’s argument that a cross should not be used for a memorial to soldiers of multiple faiths.