Greg Corombos of Radio America and Ian Tuttle of National Review applaud Scott Walker for signing a 20-week abortion ban in Wisconsin and for his deft handling of the illegal immigration question in Iowa. They also groan as two of President Obama’s most disastrous policies come front and center today, as the UN Security Council approves the Iran deal and the U.S. restores full diplomatic relations with Cuba. And they react with disgust as the GOP is temporarily stuck choosing sides between the personally insulting Donald Trump and conservative-bashing John McCain.
‘They Obviously Don’t Know Islam’
The United States government refuses to acknowledge the Islamic threat confronting our nation and our leaders and citizens turn a blind eye to the danger to their own peril because what is often termed as radical Islam is actually the religion’s purest form.
Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis is the author of the forthcoming book “Never Submit: Will the Extermination of Christians Get Worse Before It Gets Better?” The book is due to be released in late August and is endorsed by the likes of evangelist Franklin Graham.
On Thursday, Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez attacked two different military locations in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He killed four U.S. Marines and seriously wounded a member of the U.S. Navy before being killed himself.
In response, President Obama responded to the deaths of the Marines by calling it a “heartbreaking circumstance” and cautioning Americans not to jump to conclusions.
For Maginnis, this is par for the course for Obama.
“When it’s politically expedient, he jumps to conclusions on other cases. When it comes to Islamic terrorism, he’ll drag his feet and won’t even declare we have a problem with Islamic terrorists,” he said.
The investigation is still in the early stages, but federal officials are classifying the case as terrorism and the early reports of extended trips to the Middle East jihad-related blog writings add fuel to the likelihood that Abdulazeez is the latest in a series of murderers acting in the name of Islam.
“It’s quite possible and probably likely that he was motivated by his faith of Islam and he was motivated by his belief in jihad and that he took out that hostility that is pent up in many of these people against targets of the U.S. government. Of course the most visible (targets) in many communities are the recruiters who wear military uniforms,” said Maginnis.
Obama takes pains to distinguish between what he considers the peaceful religion of Islam and violent extremists who be believes pervert the faith.
“ISIL is not “Islamic,” said Obama to the nation in September 2014.” No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim.”
Maginnis says Obama and his defenders have that all wrong.
“They obviously don’t know Islam. They need to study the Koran, the Hadith, the Sunnah. When you do, you find out that what ISIS is doing is exactly in compliance with what the prophet Mohammad taught and what the Koran says. ISIS is more Islamic than the vast majority of the people that calls themselves Muslims in today’s world,” said Maginnis.
And the worldview of Abdulazeez may be far more common among American Muslims than many realize. Maginnis cites a Polling Company survey conducted in June for the Center for Security Policy.
“Sixteen percent believe that jihad justifies violent holy war here in the United States. Forty-one percent believe that jihad is an obligation that they have from Islam,” said Maginnis.
Other results show 51 percent of American Muslims believe they should have the option of living under Sharia law as opposed to U.S. law. While a majority of Muslims believe Sharia and the U.S. Constitution are compatible, 43 percent believe if they conflict that the Constitution should be considered supreme. Thirty-three percent say Sharia should take precedent.
“What you have is a sizable part of a Muslim population that believes in violent jihad and the imposition of Sharia Islamic law,” said Maginnis, who says America is also faced with the simultaneous problems of unfettered Muslim immigration at the expense of Christians and a government awash in political correctness.
Maginnis adds that while Obama and other officials may be confused with the Islamic end game, others see it very clearly.
“In the book, I chronicle a number of people that have come out of the Islamic faith and say, ‘They are deadly serious about what they’re saying.’ Unfortunately, in the West we tend to forgive that as being naive. They’re not naive. They know exactly what they want, and they’re going to get it at our expense,” said Maginnis, who is quick to add that the general public is oblivious to the creeping Sharia threat as well.
“It’s total ignorance. It’s [fear] of the political correctness that permeates from the top all the way down to our local communities. This is especially threatening to Christians because just like we saw Christian genocide taking place in the Middle East, they have no tolerance for anyone that will not believe in their god, in their way of life, in their laws,” said Maginnis.
He added, “We’ve been the great melting pot for many, many years. This particular segment of the population doesn’t want to be part. They want to take over our country and make it into something tantamount to what you’re seeing today in the Middle East.”
Maginnis admits rolling back this momentum will be challenging, but he before we can win we need to admit we have a problem.
“If we don’t wake up as a nation…then we’re going to pay a very heavy price. And that price could be our own freedom,” he said.
Greece: The Musical
Are you struggling to keep track of the issues and developments in the Greek debt crisis? Fear not. The Capitol Steps explain it all, to the music of “Grease.”
Three Martini Lunch 7/17/15
With National Review personnel cleared out for the Alaskan cruise, Greg Corombos of Radio America holds down the fort by himself today. He details Arizona State Sen. Kelli Ward challenging Sen. John McCain in next year’s GOP primary. He also expresses conservative frustration over Pres. Obama referring to the Chattanooga terrorist attacks as a “heartbreaking circumstance”. And he assesses Planned Parenthood’s lame apology over the “tone” of the doctor who casually described crushing unborn babies to harvest their organs.
‘Culture of Death’ Targets Schoolgirls
The Obamacare contraception mandate was a major issue in the 2012 presidential campaign and liberals may soon be pushing for taxpayer-funded abortafacient drugs for young girls as part of the 2016 campaign strategy.
The issue appeared earlier this week in the New York Times’ “Room for Debate” blog. At issue is a growing debate arising out of Colorado.
“The most recent issue involves a pilot test in Colorado, where a private, charitable organization had paid for long-term birth control: implants and IUD’s and other things for teenage girls. They found that dramatically reduced the incidents of pregnancy,” said Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner, who contributed to the “Room for Debate” dialogue.
She says activists in Colorado then decided to take the idea statewide on the taxpayers’ tab.
“The Colorado legislature then considered legislation for taxpayer funding for long-term birth control,” said Turner. “It was not able to get through the Colorado legislature…because of the issue of government funded, taxpayer-funded contraception, particularly contraceptive devices that cause an early abortion, as an IUD does.”
Despite the defeat in Colorado, where the legislative chambers are controlled by different parties, Turner says we can expect this to soon become a national debate.
“When you see something like this as a pilot test and it reaches the New York Times that it is absolutely very likely to be advanced as a national agenda,” said Turner. “Hillary Clinton, if she gets the nomination, is certainly going to push women’s issues to the front and center, and this is certainly one of them.”
She added, “If we think that government really is supposed to take care of us, then that would be part of the agenda of those who would be advancing this particular type of initiative.”
She says the template was already set with the implementation of Obamacare.
“The abortion lobby has been very active in pushing for passage of the Affordable Care Act, then including in it a mandate that all private health plans free contraceptive coverage and that includes abortafacients. The preventive care mandate in Obamacare includes sterilization,” said Turner.
Turner believes this is all part of a larger, destructive agenda.
“What kind of message does that send to teenage girls, that we don’t trust them to be responsible with their own sexuality? The government is going to take care of them. They can have sex without consequence,” said Turner.
She says that message from the left is a bald-faced lie.
“There’s no sex without consequence, even if pregnancy is not one of the consequences. The incidents of sexually transmitted diseases will increase. The sense of responsibility for these young women, their ability to have longer-term relationships later in life (will be threatened),” said Turner.
“If young women are not taking care of themselves, men are not going to respect them,” said Turner. “It certainly could be compromising their health. Their sense of being able to earn their place in a civil society absolutely will be compromised.”
While Turner admits Republicans have been “all over the map” on the contraception issue in recent years in response to the contraception mandate, she says there are still stark differences between the two parties.
“There’s this culture of death that I think is such an antithesis to what health care is about. They treat pregnancy as a disease instead of leaving it as the life-giving force that it is. There is a very basic, fundamental difference between the agenda of the right and the agenda of the left. That’s really manifest in this most recent controversy,” she said.
Three Martini Lunch 7/16/15
Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review cheer a new AP poll showing voters are souring big time on Hillary Clinton. They also discuss President Obama bristling at CBS reporter Major Garrett for asking why there wasn’t a bigger push to bring home Americans held in Iran. And they celebrate the Wisconsin Supreme Court forcefully putting an end to the baseless liberal accusations alleging collusion against Scott Walker and outside groups.
Congress Can’t Stop Iran Nukes
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.
Three Martini Lunch 7/15/15
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.
‘No Requirement to Change Their Behavior’
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.
Three Martini Lunch 7/14/15
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.