Radio America’s Greg Corombos and Jim Geraghty from National Review discuss the increasing violence between Israel and terrorist groups such as Hamas, the Obama administration’s reluctance to dismiss the terrorists and the renewed call to end US assistance for the Palestinians. They talk about the news that more jobs have been announced as a coup for the Obama administration, when the truth is much more minimal. They close by talking about an Oklahoma congressman who was denied entrance into a border-crisis shelter in his own state where illegal immigrant children were being kept.
Middle East Teetering Towards Anarchy
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton says the Middle East is facing more instability now than at any time in the past 50 years and he blames the Obama administration for fueling the chaos through cozy relations with Iran, abandoning Iraq and funding terrorism through foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority.
Bolton says the most alarming developments center on Iran, the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria and the latest escalation of tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, but he says the erosion of stability impacts far more places in the region.
“It’s worse than at any time, I think, since before the 1967 war between Israel and the Arabs. In each of the countries, (including) Libya or Egypt or Yemen or other states that are just dissolving in front of us, you could see this series of crises merge into the entire region and really spinning into anarchy,” said Bolton.
Over the past few weeks, the greatest concerns stem from the growing success of ISIS in its effort to establish a caliphate in Syria and Iraq and the specter of Iran taking a more dominant role in the region as it tries to fend off the attempts of ISIS to overthrow the Shia government in Baghdad.
Bolton says he wishes it were possible for both sides to lose, but sees one as a much bigger threat than the other.
“As bad as ISIS is, never forget that Iran remains the principal enemy. It already has nuclear weapons. It’s the world’s central banker of international terrorism, fully capable of giving a nuclear device to a terrorist group. So Iran remains the central threat but it does not in any way diminish the potential that ISIS has. We’re just in a situation where two powerful groups are in play and neither one of them is a friend of the United States,” said Bolton.
As for ISIS, he says fears that a region of Iraq and Syria under the control of radical extremists could make that part of the world the new breeding ground for terrorist attacks, much like Afghanistan was in the years leading up to the 9/11 attacks.
“If they were able to establish a stable control over that area, as when the Taliban and Al Qaeda were running Afghanistan, it very much could be a base for terrorist operations. We’ve had reports there are lots of Americans and Europeans fighting with ISIS, who could well come back to Europe or the United States,” said Bolton.
The ambassador says many of the Sunnis fighting alongside ISIS are not radicals but see an opportunity to overthrow the hated Maliki government in Iraq. Bolton says President Obama’s decision to leave Iraq entirely at the end of 2011 was the trigger for the chaos we now see there. While lamenting what he sees as the squandered U.S. sacrifice in Iraq, he says the U.S. has very limited options in addressing the problem.
The latest explosion in the Middle East is the murder of three Israeli teenagers, and U.S. and Israeli intelligence strongly suggests Hamas is involved or even responsible for the bloodshed. Given the recent reuniting of Hamas and Fatah under the banner of the Palestinian Authority, Bolton says this episode is proof that peace between the Israelis and Palestinians is impossible.
“It really brings into focus this endless cycle of terrorist attacks that Israel is subjected to from Hamas and others. I think that justifies a very, very strong response from Israel. We all probably look at this as a crime. It would be if it were committed in the United States, but the fact is this act of terrorism is part of Hamas’ ongoing war against Israel,” said Bolton, who is comfortable with whatever level of response Israel sees fit to inflict.
“It’s an asymmetric struggle, the way the terrorists conduct their affairs. So, I think Israel is entitled to treat it as an act of war and to respond accordingly. Once you see that logic, it certainly doesn’t have to be a proportional response. I think it can be anything up to and including destroying Hamas,” said Bolton.
As for the U.S. response to the latest terrorist attack, Bolton agrees with the likes of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) and others who say the reconnecting of Fatah and Hamas means the American foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority should vanish.
“I think it is the right call. I think Fatah itself has very little legitimacy. When they team up with Hamas, I think it’s a statement that they would prefer to be making agreements with a terrorist group than making agreements with Israel,” said Bolton, who believes a two-state solution has proven to be unrealistic.
“I think the United States has to indicate that this charade is coming to an end and the whole thing is a tragedy for Israel and really a tragedy for the Palestinian people, who have been used as pawns in this struggle by radicals in the Arab world for a long, long time,” he said.
Nearly lost in the commotion throughout the region in recent weeks is President Obama’s latest effort to assist what he considers to be the moderate rebels in Syria. Obama wants Congress to approve $500 million to train and equip moderate forces trying to remove Bashar al-Assad from power.
Bolton says this is an idea without a plan and the recent exploits of ISIS should serve as a cautionary tale.
“It’s purely a political gesture by the president. He doesn’t have any strategy in mind at all here. I think what we saw ISIS do when the Iraqi army collapsed in Mosul, Tikrit and other important Iraqi cities, that allowed ISIS simply to scoop up their weapons and a considerable amount of finance. You can put weapons in the hands of so-called moderate, assuming we could agree on what the definition of moderates is. We could give them weapons, but there’s no way we can ensure that they’ll be able to hold on to those weapons,” he said.
Bolton says this is a very dicey time for all responsible actors in the region and he believes the absence of American leadership is making everyone vulnerable.
“I’m extremely concerned about it. I’m concerned about American interests. I’m concerned about our friends like Israel and the oil-producing monarchies of the Arabian peninsula. It’s a very dangerous time. Honestly, it’s not just that the president doesn’t have a policy to deal with it. He’s not paying attention to it,” said Bolton.
Three Martini Lunch 7/2/14
Radio America’s Greg Corombos and Jim Geraghty from National Review give their opinions on a recent poll that President Obama is the worst president since WWII. They talk about escalations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the wake of the murder of three Israeli teenagers and one Palestinian youth. And they close by revisiting a somber subject as a Boston widow received an appointment opening for her husband who has been dead for two years.
‘Israel’s Looking at the Big End Game’
A prominent Middle East scholar with close ties to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says three Israeli teens were captured and murdered just for being Jews, Israel is looking at a much bigger threat than a resurgent Hamas and the region is imploding due to failed U.S. leadership.
The bodies of Eyal Yifrah,Gilad Shaar and Naftali Fraenkel were discovered Monday, more than two weeks after they were abducted. Frankel also held U.S. citizenship.
“(Hamas) planned the target and murder of them. They didn’t know them. They just wanted to kill Jews,” said Evans.
“Hamas is part of the Palestinian government. As a matter of fact, the PLO website had a picture of three rats depicting these three children. In Ramallah and in Gaza, they were singing songs. They were passing out candy. They were celebrating the deaths of these three teenagers,” said Evans, noting that killing Jews simply because they are Jews is reminiscent of the horrors of the Holocaust.
Evans says one simple step Israel can take is to forcefully demand the U.S. stop foreign aid to the Palestinians, particularly since Hamas is still listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department. Currently, the U.S. targets one billion dollars annually to the Palestinian Authority, which just recently reunited with Hamas.
Netanyahu has not indicated what the scope of the immediate response would be, but Evans says his friend needs to think bigger than Hamas.
“This is really a declaration of war in many ways. Iran is behind Hamas. Iran funds it and fuels it. Al Qaeda is also there,” said Evans. “This is a very serious existential dilemma and here’s why: we pulled out of Iraq. We pulled out of Afghanistan. We told jihadists of the Middle East, ‘It’s yours.’ They’re taking us very serious. Now we’ve got a brand new caliphate in Iraq. They’re taking over the country. Israel just told the Kurds they should proclaim statehood.
“Israel’s looking at this heading at their borders from Jordan. You’ve got that. You’ve got Iran on the Hezbollah front and then you’ve got Iran nuclear. So Israel’s looking at the big end game and I think the prime minister’s going to have to look at this more serious than just Gaza. He’s going to have to look at this entire octopus and decide is it time to deal with the head of the octopus as opposed to the tail,” said Evans, referring to Iran.
In addition to blaming Obama administration policy for much of the recent upheaval in the Middle East, he says the recent coziness between the U.S. and Iran over the ISIS threat in Iraq is reason for even more concern.
“Obama has invited Iran to partner with him in fighting this new Sunni state, this new Islamist jihadist state. The quid pro quo, I’m sure, is an atomic Iran in exchange for that. So Netanyahu is looking at that and they realize the state of Israel is on their own,” Evans said.
Three Martini Lunch 7/1/14
Radio America’s Greg Corombos and Jim Geraghty from National Review discuss President Obama’s puzzling insistence that he only acts on his own when Congress won’t do what he wants. They also react to liberal legal pundits criticizing Obama’s overreach on executive power. They close by assessing the ironically intolerant consequences voices on the left predict from the Hobby Lobby case.
SCOTUS Upholds ‘Cherished Principle’
A closely divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that closely-held corporations do have the right to reject paying for contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs if doing so violates their conscience or sincerely-held religious beliefs.
By a 5-4 ruling, the court sided with the Christian owners of arts and crafts giant Hobby Lobby and the Mennonite leaders of Conestoga Wood Specialties. Hobby Lobby in particular was fine paying for some 16 different types of birth control, but refused to cover the cost of medications that induce abortion after conception. The decision in no way prevents women from obtaining any of the drugs in question with their own money.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said the ruling was narrowly limited to the issues at hand and did not give blanket permission for Americans to disobey any laws they wanted by claiming it violates their conscience.
Family Research Council Senior Legal Fellow Cathy Ruse says this was not just a case about reproductive health but about the larger ideal of religious freedom.
“The right to religious freedom and the right to conscientious objection is just one of those basic fundamental rights in our Constitution. It is embraced heartily by Americans and has throughout the centuries. It is one of those freedoms where the individual gets to put his hand up and tell the government, ‘No, you’ve gone too far,'” said Ruse.
“The court didn’t create a new principle here. It sure upheld and applied one of the most cherished principles that Americans own and that is our right to conscience,” she said.
The mandate was issued by the Obama administration in early 2012, as employers were ordered to cover all costs for birth control and abortafacients for women. The fierce backlash led the Obama campaign and like-minded allies to accuse opponents of waging a war on women during that year’s campaign.
On Monday, NARAL Pro-Choice America blasted the decision.
“Today’s decision from five male justices is a direct attack on women and our fundamental rights. This ruling goes out of its way to declare that discrimination against women isn’t discrimination,” said NARAL President Ilyse Hogue in a statement.
“Allowing bosses this much control over the health-care decisions of their employees is a slippery slope with no end. Every American could potentially be affected by this far-reaching and shocking decision that allows bosses to reach beyond the boardroom and into their employees’ bedrooms. The majority claims that its ruling is limited, but that logic doesn’t hold up. Today it’s birth control; tomorrow it could be any personal medical decision, from starting a family to getting life-saving vaccinations or blood transfusions,” she said.
Ruse is dismissing the pro-choice denunciation out of hand.
“To NARAL, I would say stop being hysterical, but I don’t have much hope that they will because that is their modus operandi,” she said.
In her comments outside the Supreme Court, Ruse said this was not a major setback for women but is one that further liberates women and Monday should be a day of celebration for them. In fact, she says women have been leading the charge against the mandate.
“Of all the plaintiffs that have filed lawsuits against the mandate, many of them are in fact women: women who run non-profits like the Little Sisters of the Poor and others but also business women who are part of small family businesses have filed suit to stop the mandate. One-third of all business plaintiffs who have filed suit against the mandate are women. This is a big win today for women in business and women job creators,” said Ruse.
Ruse also points out that as a myriad of judges heard challenges to the HHS mandate, a solid majority have sided with the challengers, although all three female justices on the Supreme Court voted to uphold it. She also says public opinion polls show women to be very uncomfortable with the mandate.
Beyond that, Ruse says there was a “perverse incentive” behind the mandate. She says instead of trying to champion women, the administration was really trying to saddle them with fewer options and higher health care costs.
“This mandate, and it’s perverse incentive to dump employees into the exchanges is not good for women at all. It means that women would face losing their trusted doctor, their trusted medical specialist, their trusted pediatrician who has cared for her children all their lives. That is not good for women, not to mention the spike in premiums and the sky-high deductibles that people face when they’re forced into the exchanges,” said Ruse.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy made a clarification that could take some of the jubilation out of Hobby Lobby supporters, by pointing out there was nothing stopping the government from footing the bill and making sure there is no cost to women for contraceptives or abortafacients.
Ruse says that twist would not be welcome, but she says it’s still a better option than forcing people of faith to spend money directly in ways they find morally objectionable.
“We are forced to fund things through our taxes that we disagree with all the time. It’s not good. It shouldn’t be that way, but that is already in play,” she said.
“It’s a far better result to make the government pay for it themselves. They already pay for contraceptives and abortion-causing drugs in the tens of millions with our tax money all across the country in Title X clinics. We don’t love that, but it’s happening. They already have an easy means to do it because they’re already in the business. So why conscript these unwilling employers and make them pay for it out of their pockets,” said Ruse.
Three Martini Lunch 06/30/14
Radio America’s Greg Corombos and Jim Geraghty from National Review breathe a sigh of relief for the Supreme Court rulings against the Obamacare contraception mandate and the ability of unions to force people into joining or paying dues. They blast Nancy Pelosi for saying all the illegals flooding our southern border are also Americans and this is not a crisis but an opportunity. They close with some news from Oklahoma too crazy to be made-up: a defeated congressional candidate alleges the winner is either a robot or doppelganger because the real winner was executed by the world court three years ago.
A Supreme Marriage Showdown
The Supreme Court is issuing a flurry of high-profile decisions in the final days of the current session, but an appeals court decision this week virtually guarantees the highest court in the land will rule on the definition of marriage one year from now,
On Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to strike down a Utah law defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The judges did place a stay on the ruling, meaning the current law stands until the Supreme Court weighs in on the matter. State officials insist they will appeal.
In the ruling, the two judges called limiting marriage to heterosexual couples a clear violation of gay couples’ rights.
“We hold that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the fundamental right to marry, establish a family, raise children, and enjoy the full protection of a state’s marital laws,” read the opinion. “A state may not deny the issuance of a marriage license to two persons, or refuse to recognize their marriage, based solely upon the sex of the persons in the marriage union,” the court said.
Traditional marriage supporters consider that rationale and similar court rulings to be ideological nonsense.
“There is no logic there. Why draw an arbitrary line between the two persons and where did that come from? Marriage has always been defined as between one man and one woman in the United States and in Utah particularly. Polygamy is outlawed at the highest level of the Supreme Court. What possible rationale is this to say that it is narrowly tailored to two. That came out of left field,” said Liberty Counsel Action Vice President Matt Barber, who is also founder of barbwire.com.
He admits same-sex marriage advocates are on a legal winning streak and that a majority of Supreme Court justices are personally sympathetic to their argument, based on a pair of 2013 rulings that struck down a California constitutional amendment enshrining traditional marriage and ordered federal benefits extended to same-sex spouses in states where the couples were legally married.
Despite the apparent legal momentum on the side of same-sex marriage, Barber says last year’s Supreme Court ruling actually strengthens the case on his side of the debate.
“Even the United States Supreme Court ruled in the DOMA decision that struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act…the hubris is astounding for (Kennedy) to imagine that he can somehow redefine the institution of marriage for federal purposes. He argued from a federalist standpoint and said unequivocally in the majority decision and in the dissent decision that states have a right to define marriage,” said Barber.
Barber says other court decisions also weigh in favor of traditional marriage.
“The 9th Circuit, the highest level that has looked at homosexuality and whether it is a suspect minority class, has said that it does not reach strict scrutiny,” he said. “They have said, ‘No, homosexuality is behavior. It is not an immutable characteristic.’ So there’s hope here yet, but with Justice Kennedy there’s no telling. You might as well flip a coin,” said Barber.
Barber says the Utah marriage case is at the front of the line for this issue reaching the Supreme Court since it is the first to be ruled upon at the appellate level. He says that means the justices will likely hear arguments late this year or early next year with a decision coming down in June 2015.
“They may have to rule pretty quick because there has been an emergency stay. That’s the good news. The 10th Circuit has granted a stay on this so that we don’t see all the homosexual activists clamoring to the courthouses to get their marriage certificates,” he said.
“I think within a year we will have a final disposition on Section 2 of the Defense of Marriage Act as well as whether or not there’s somehow a constitutional right for a man to marry a man and a woman to marry a woman, something the founding fathers couldn’t have even conceptualized,” said Barber.
Barber says he and his traditional marriage allies are undaunted by the Utah decision and will fight all the way to the finish line.
“The homosexual activists are celebrating and the leftists are celebrating, but this is not a final decision by any stretch,” he said.
Three Martini Lunch 6/27/14
Greg Corombos of Radio America and Patrick Brennan of National Review are pleased to see even a liberal journalist like Joe Klein calling Hillary Clinton’s book tour a “disaster”. They also groan as Pres. Obama calls for $500 million in aid and equipment for “moderate” Syrian rebels. And they discuss the revolting story of EPA employees in Denver being told to stop relieving themselves in the hallways.
Win for Free Speech and Religious Expression
Pro-life activists are celebrating a Supreme Court victory, as the justices unanimously struck down a Massachusetts law requiring a buffer zone around abortion clinics.
On Thursday, in the case of McCullen v. Coakley, the court voted 9-0 to strike down the Massachusetts requirement of a 35-foot buffer zone surrounding abortion clinics. Eleanor McCullen sued the state over the law, claiming the buffer zone gave her and other peaceful pro-life activists little opportunity to have conversations with women coming to the clinics. An appeals court previously sided with the state.
Writing for the court, Chief Justice John Roberts said the state could come up with less restrictive ways to preserve free speech for activists while allowing others unobstructed access to the clinic. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a concurring opinion criticizing Roberts for not going further and accusing the court of granting far more leniency to pro-choice groups than to pro-life activists.
While the decision could have been even stronger from a pro-life perspective, activists are still thrilled with the decision.
“This is huge. What this Massachusetts law intended was a ‘heckler’s veto.’ That’s essentially saying that if people don’t like the speech that they’re hearing from other people or others’ freedom of expression, that if they just yell out enough and enough people don’t like it then the heckler can veto free speech. The Supreme Court said, ‘No, that is not the case,'” said Liberty Counsel Action Vice President Matt Barber, who is also founder of barbwire.com.
Despite some conservatives hoping for a stronger ruling, Barber says the fact this was unanimous is a big deal.
“This was a surprisingly unanimous decision and speaks well for the protection of innocent human life as well as both freedom of speech and freedom of religious expression in the United States,” said Barber.
Many activists and court observers also expected the Supreme Court to hand down a decision on the constitutionality of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate that all employers cover the cost of birth control and abortafacient drugs for their employees. The Christian owners of Hobby Lobby and the Mennonite leaders of Conestoga Wood Specialties are challenging the mandate on the grounds it would violate their freedom of religious expression due to their opposition to abortion.
The court announced its final decisions of the session will come Monday morning and that ruling is likely to be issued. While Barber has no illusions of a unanimous ruling on that case, he hopes Thursday’s buffer zone ruling is a sign of things to come on the debate over the HHS mandate.
“The fact that even the most liberal justices on the bench ruled that this buffer zone law violated free speech is an indication to me that hopefully, and you can never predict what (Justice) Anthony Kennedy is going to do, but if I’m reading here, it gives me hope. He has shown, in the past, a sensitivity toward the importance of freedom of speech and freedom of religious expression on the first amendment. I’m hoping that it will tip the scales and he will vote affirmatively that the HHS mandate violates the first amendment,” said Barber.