RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Pace of Obama’s Disasters

Bergdahl one week. Then Ukraine. Now Iraq. What could be next?

Was it only 10 months ago that President Obama capitulated on Syria? And eight months ago that we learned he had no idea the U.S. eavesdropped on Angela Merkel ? And seven months ago that his administration struck its disastrous interim nuclear deal with Tehran? And four months ago that Chuck Hagel announced that the United States Army would be cut to numbers not seen since the 1930s? And three months ago that Russia seized Crimea? And two months ago that John Kerry’s Israeli-Palestinian peace effort sputtered into the void? And last month that Mr. Obama announced a timetable for total withdrawal from Afghanistan—a strategy whose predictable effects can now be seen in Iraq?

Even the Bergdahl deal of yesterweek is starting to feel like ancient history. Like geese, Americans are being forced to swallow foreign-policy fiascoes at a rate faster than we can possibly chew, much less digest.

Consider the liver.

On Thursday, Russian tanks rolled across the border into eastern Ukraine. On Saturday, Russian separatists downed a Ukrainian transport jet, murdering 49 people. On Monday, Moscow stopped delivering gas to Kiev. All this is part of the Kremlin’s ongoing stealth invasion and subjugation of its neighbor. And all of this barely made the news. John Kerry phoned Moscow to express his “strong concern.” Concern, mind you, not condemnation.

If the president of the United States had any thoughts on the subject, he kept them to himself. His weekly radio address was devoted to wishing America’s dads a happy Father’s Day.

Also last week, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria seized Mosul. Then ISIS took Tikrit. Then it was Tal Afar. Mass executions of Shiites in each place. The administration is taking its time deciding what, if any, aid it will provide the government in Baghdad. But it is exploring the possibility of using Iraq’s distress as an opportunity to open avenues of cooperation with Tehran.

So because the administration has a theological objection to using military force in Iraq to prevent it from being overrun by al Qaeda or dissolving into potentially genocidal civil war, it will now work with Tehran, a designated state sponsor of terrorism for 30 years and a regime that continues to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon, Islamic Jihad in Gaza and Bashar Assad in Syria, to help “stabilize” Iraq. At least the White House has ruled out military cooperation with Iran. But give it time.

Here, then, is the cravenness that now passes for cleverness in this administration: Make friends with a terrorist regime to deal with a terrorist organization. Deliver Iraq’s Arab Shiites into the hands of their Persian coreligionists, who will waste no time turning southern Iraq into a satrapy modeled on present-day Lebanon.

Deal brusquely with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki —who, for all his manifest shortcomings as a leader nonetheless wishes to be our ally—and obsequiously with an Iranian regime that spent the better part of the last decade killing American soldiers. Further alienate panicky allies in Riyadh and Jerusalem for the sake of ingratiating ourselves with the mullahs.

The “liberal” democrat incumbents in many states are twisting themselves into pretzels defining “energy independence” but very few have any fracking courage. The most they will do is approve the Keystone Pipeline but only with EPA provisions that virtually doom the project. In New York Governor Andre Cuomo whose latest pretense is of being a tax conservative will not approve fracking which would save the economy of the state….rsk
Fracking Fracas in Loveland Democrats in Colorado are battling over whether to regulate fracking through local-ballot measures.

Loveland, Colo., has been best known nationally for its romantic name; each February, more than 100,000 letter-writers send notes through the city to their sweethearts. Loveland relies on volunteers to hand-stamp the mail with a love poem and forward the letters on to their intended valentines.

But next week, Loveland might well be the site of an epic break-up between Colorado’s environmentalist liberals and its Democratic establishment. The city’s 70,000 residents will vote on a highly divisive fracking moratorium, becoming the latest in a series of Front Range communities to weigh restrictions on this technique for extracting underground natural gas and oil.

Floyd Ciruli, a Denver-based independent political activist, calls Colorado “ground zero for a great hydrocarbon battle in the country.” The Loveland vote, he says, will test whether environmentalists can gain by pursuing strategic local-level restrictions against fracking. But these local votes, paired with proposed state-level ballot-initiative efforts, have created a major fault line among Colorado Democrats.

“The Democratic party is tremendously divided,” Ciruli explains. “That’s the gist of the problem here for the Democrats. Probably the rank and file oppose fracking . . . but the Democratic-party establishment is mostly in favor of it, including the governor, who is strongly in favor of it.”

Since 2012, the towns of Longmont and Lafayette have banned fracking outright, while Boulder, Fort Collins, and Broomfield have all enacted moratoriums. All of these restrictions are facing acrimonious challenges in court from energy companies and from the property owners who collect mineral and land leases.

Saving the Rule of Law
The president’s boundless disdain for the Constitution endangers our republic.

Andrew C. McCarthy prosecuted the Blind Sheik after the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and is a longtime contributor to National Review Online and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute. An expert in national security and terrorism, McCarthy is author of the new book, Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment. In an interview with National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez, he explains his case.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: “American constitutional republicanism has been strong enough to survive over two centuries of self-governance, civil war, world war, terrorism, social upheaval, and periodic economic calamity. But can it survive a Ruler of Law and his trusty pitchforks?” Is it really that bad?

Andrew C. McCarthy: Well, for constitutional republicanism, sure. I am not saying that we are on the cusp of rampant violence and social disorder. I am saying that we are witnessing the death of a republic under the rule of law. When I call the president the ruler of law, I mean that he selectively rather than faithfully executes it. His “pitchforks” — that’s his word, not mine — is the hard left base that he agitates to “direct action,” as he did in his community-organizer days, in order to extort his current targets — whether they are businesses, states, or political opponents — into concessions. A constitutional republic is a nation of laws; we’re becoming subjects of presidential whim.

Lopez: Still, just in case the New York Times and Talking Points Memo have read this far: You are not actually campaigning to impeach President Obama?

McCarthy: No, I am campaigning to make executive lawlessness a major issue in our politics. As I say in Faithless Execution, the best thing for the country would be for the president to reverse course, honor his oath, faithfully execute the laws, and finish his term that way. But if he will not — and things seem to be getting worse rather than better — then there either has to be meaningful push back or we must resign ourselves to being a very different kind of country. I want to create a political environment where the president feels real pressure that incentivizes him to follow the law. Impeachment is the ultimate answer to executive lawlessness, and it has to be a real rather than an illusory remedy if you’re going to rein in rogue behavior. But the real goal is to give the president’s opposition — which has been largely supine for five-and-a-half years — the backbone to use its other major tool, the power of the purse. Impeachment is the last resort … but it has to be a real resort.

Lopez: You do make the legal case, though. How is this useful when you yourself explain that there is not political will for this?

McCarthy: The political case has to be built, and political will has to be cultivated. Convincing people that there are compelling legal grounds for the conclusion that a president has committed impeachable offenses is vital to developing the public will to do something about it.

Lopez: What does it say about the American people that there is not a political will for impeachment despite some of the unprecedented things that are happening? It’s a little bit insane that the Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of religious sisters who serve the elderly poor, have to sue the Department of Health and Human Services because of Obamacare’s abortion-drug/contraception mandate, isn’t it? And yet the president was reelected?

McCarthy: I concede in the book that this is the part of the equation on which the jury is still out: us, the public. President Obama is a known quantity and has been a knowable quantity to anyone willing to dig a bit since he first burst on the national scene. He’s doing what you’d expect a movement Leftist to do. The president’s opposition is feckless in many ways, and they don’t fight the way many conservatives would like to see them fight, but let’s not mistake fecklessness for stupidity. When they seem paralyzed to act, it is not just because they lack backbone; it is also because they have surveyed the landscape and concluded there is significant political risk in fighting the president. To be sure, they miscalculate a lot, but I don’t think they are making that up out of whole cloth.

The question is whether a significant majority of the American people still care about individual liberty and having a government that is both limited and bound by the law. That’s why the Sisters have to sue: The administration does not perceive that the public at large cares enough about its own freedom of conscience or the Sisters’ good work to object much. It may be that the country has dramatically changed, that a lot of us don’t mind an intrusive government led by a president who rules by decree. And it may be that many people who do mind have been so beaten down by the relentless expansion of government’s tentacles and the lack of a real opposition to it in Washington that they just feel overwhelmed and powerless.

It couldn’t have happened without U.S. enablers.

Almost everything we are told about illegal immigration is both a lie and amoral.

Sometime around 1212, mystics in Europe cooked up the idea that kids could part the seas, reach the Holy Land, reclaim Jerusalem, and convert the infidel Muslims. Thousands of children in Northern Europe flocked to the Mediterranean in response to such rumors, but when they reached the shore, the seas would not part, and many of them died as they scattered home in hunger.

We are witnessing a sort of children’s crusade on our own southern border. Thousands of young, poor would-be immigrants — 90,000 this year alone — have swarmed across the border, the logical fruition of the entire cynical approach of the Obama administration toward illegal immigration.

During his first term, President Obama lectured Latino activists (at the same time he was advising them to “punish our enemies” at the polls) that he was not a tyrant and thus lacked the executive power simply to offer amnesty by fiat. Translated, that meant something along the lines of “Keep cool for another year or two until I am reelected, and then the law becomes irrelevant, and we will have more constituents to enhance our political power.” On cue, after the 2012 election, Obama opened the border and started issuing a series of de facto amnesties to various categories of illegal aliens, especially children.

People in Latin America took note of the erosion of U.S. immigration law, as did our friends in Mexico who facilitated their transit. It is not quite clear whether the recent surges of kids and teens are grass-roots phenomena, or in part orchestrated by the Latin American media and governments. The latter seem to think that the clueless U.S. is not much good for anything other than offering a safety valve for what they consider their own excess population and a source of billions of dollars in cash through remittances.

What we can say for sure is that Obama has nullified U.S. immigration law, made it clear that deportations were de facto over, praised the arrival of young illegal aliens, and thereby prompted a surge northward of thousands more kids without their parents. The apparent thinking of the crusading children was that the U.S. border would open, as the Mediterranean once was supposed to have done. Kids would become near-instantaneous citizens. And they would then be anchors for their patient parents, who had sent them ahead with the promise they would all soon be reunited in the north.

America is getting to know candidate Hillary… again. And judging from her recent poll numbers, the more the country is exposed to candidate Hillary, the less it likes what it sees (and hears.)

As Secretary of State, Hillary was certainly very popular. But she wasn’t running for office then and was generally viewed from afar as a non-partisan secretary relaying her boss’s diplomatic memos and international calls. Her favorability hovered in the mid-sixties throughout her service, peaking at 66% just before leaving the office.

It’s not the first time Hillary enjoyed high favorability ratings. Upon entering the unelected roll of First Lady, Bill’s helpmeet had solid numbers approaching 60% by spring of his first year in office (but still far lower than Laura Bush’s 70%+ favorability rating at around the same time in George’s presidency.)

But high approval numbers have not been the norm for the newly made-over former secretary. After being appointed by the 42nd President to chair the Task Force on National Healthcare Reform, the precursor to ObamaCare, and once on the scene promoting nationalized healthcare, Hillary saw her numbers dramatically sink.

By 1996, well after HillaryCare was abandoned, Mrs. Clinton would also have the numerical distinction of 42 — but in her case the 42 represented her favorability percentage, her lowest recorded for a recent First Lady according to Pew Research (unless her 39% Gallup rating is counted when President Clinton first took office and she was a virtual unknown.)

She managed to recover from that low point to achieve a high of 67% approval as she stood in a supportive roll by her cheating husband, just after he was impeached for lying. Yet by fall of 2000 as Bush and the GOP were on the rise for election victory in November and her political campaign for the Senate was in full public view, Hillary fell again back to the 40s in favorability.

There’s little question that the Benghazi horror has had a negative impact on Hillary’s ratings, but even this was only after she stepped into the limelight and testified. In addition to Gallup, a Washington Post / ABC News poll in December of 2012 also found Hillary airborne at 66% approval, three months after Benghazi.

One hundred and twenty years ago, Theodore Roosevelt wrote “True Americanism” in the Forum magazine. The piece is a striking contrast to the ongoing barrage of anti-Americanism that too often emanates from the media and the present White House occupant. Thus in April of 1894, Roosevelt maintained that

We Americans have many grave problems to solve, many threatening evils to fight, and many deeds to do, if, as we hope and believe, we have the wisdom, the strength, the courage, and the virtue to do them. But we must face facts as they are. We must neither surrender ourselves to a foolish optimism, nor succumb to a timid and ignoble pessimism [.] We enjoy exceptional advantages, and are menaced by exceptional dangers; and all signs indicate that we shall either fail greatly or succeed greatly. I firmly believe that we shall succeed; but we must not foolishly blink [at] the dangers by which we are threatened, for that is the way to fail.

So why do our present leaders distort and downplay the jihadist threat to the world? The FBI has purged all references to Islamic organizations and ties to terrorism, thereby putting agents and the country at risk. Such political correctness is destroying our ability to defend ourselves.

Consequently, Americans “…shall never be successful over the dangers that confront us; we shall never achieve true greatness, nor reach the lofty ideal which the founders and preservers of our mighty Federal Republic have set before us, unless we are Americans in heart and soul, in spirit and purpose, keenly alive to the responsibility implied in the very name of American, and proud beyond measure of the glorious privilege of bearing it.”

The 26th President had a great deal to say about immigration and it is quite apt in light of the “immigration bedlam” that confronts America today. He asserted that

not only [is it] necessary to Americanize the immigrants of foreign birth who settle among us, but it is even more necessary for those among us who are by birth and descent already Americans not to throw away our birthright, and, with incredible and contemptible folly, wander back to bow down before the alien gods whom our forefathers forsook [.]

And yet, American students of the last 40 years have been the recipients of a tirade of anti-Americanism that has permeated their thinking, resulting in utter disdain for this country.

How does an African-American pastor come to be a leading advocate for Israel on American college campuses? • And what does it have to do with Martin Luther King and the countries of sub-Saharan Africa? • Dumisani Washington explains it all in a revealing and in-depth interview with ‘Mida’ • A tale of a multifaceted love for Zion

Please tell us about the IBSI.
IBSI was formed in July 2013 as a pro-Israel group that focused on cultural issues not always addressed in other organizations.
This includes emphasizing:

Israel’s ethnic diversity: The fact that the Jewish people are ethnically diverse, and that some 90 nations are represented in Israel (Jew and non-Jew) is important to many Black people. Diversity and inclusion are signs of a healthily pluralistic society. Seeing people living, working, thriving in Israel that look like people from all over the world helps combat the Israel racism/apartheid lie.
Israel’s historical work in African nations: People aware of Israel’s history (or the history of Zionism) are aware of Theodor Herzl’s vision to help realize the “redemption of the African”. That vision has been a major part of Israel’s history since her rebirth in 1948. Long before she was Israel’s first female Prime Minister, Foreign Minister Golda Meir was so active on the Continent that Tanzania’s president, Julius Nyerer called her, “the mother of Africa.”

As my friend and colleague, Professor Gil Troy said in his book “Moynihan’s Moment”, “by the early 1970s, Israel had diplomatic ties with thirty-two African countries, more African embassies than any country other than the United States.” To this day, Israeli organizations continue to partner with African nations bringing technologies of every kind, while empowering the people to build strong infrastructures.
The oppression of the Palestinian people by their own leaders: One of the greatest tragedies of anti-Israel propaganda is the focus that is removed from the true plight of the Palestinian people. The people of Gaza and the West Bank are suffering human rights abuses replete throughout the Islamist world, yet the media is dominated by story after story of Israel’s “crimes against humanity”. Since the 1960s, no weapon has been used more frequently in bludgeoning Israel than racism; and no people have been more exploited in the campaign than Africans or African-Americans.

I wrote an article in Times of Israel entitled, “7 reasons why the Palestinian crisis & the Black struggle for freedom are absolutely nothing alike”. I will expound on it in my upcoming book, “Zionism & the Black Church: Why Standing With Israel Will be a Defining Issue for Christians of Color in the 21st Century.”

The claim by David Brat, an economics professor at Virginia’s Randolph-Macon College, that his victory in last Tuesday’s primary was because God intervened on his behalf, is obviously spurious. He won because 36,000 of the 65,000 people (13% of the electorate), or 55% of those who did vote, decided in his favor. Having read a reasonable amount of history, I feel comfortable in asserting that God does not take sides in secular matters. If anything, God must be shaking His (or Her) head in embarrassment at what He (or She) created: a bunch of boobs in Washington who have become increasingly isolated from those they are supposed to represent. Too many remain closeted with their lobbyists patrons and only emerge, like moths toward a flame, when microphones and cameras magically appear.

I have no idea whether Mr. Brat will make a good Representative, or even whether he is competent. I admit to an element of queasiness when someone claims their election victory was a manifestation of “God’s acting through the people,” or who once wrote that “government holds a monopoly on violence.” Mr. Brat was referring to, in regard to the latter, the fact that our government is empowered to force all laws, but one would have thought that such accusations would be reserved for groups like al Qaeda, Boko Haram and ISIS. On the other hand, Mr. Brat may be a perfectly sober and intelligent man; though why he seems upset with our nation being one that operates under the rule of law is beyond me. Granted, there are laws with which I disagree, but our Constitution provides ways of changing or amending laws, including passive resistance. I agree with him about the proliferation of crony capitalism and I respect his call for a simpler, more efficient tax code, one that removes special credits and exemptions.

A great deal of ink has been spilt on why Eric Cantor lost. He is blamed for favoring amnesty for illegal immigrants, particularly by talk-radio host Laura Ingraham and syndicated columnist Ann Coulter. The New York Post, somewhat waggishly, on “Page Six,” suggested “Cantor’s stunning defeat was blamed on spending too much time in the Hamptons.” It’s true that the Hamptons are a long way from Virginia’s 7th District, and they do provide “cottages” for a number of Wall Street bankers. It is said by many on the Left that Eric Cantor was done in by the Tea Party, but that seems specious as national Tea Party organizations provided very little in the way of support for Mr. Brat and gave him no money. (Mr. Cantor had a 25-1 money advantage.) One could argue that, as majority leader, Mr. Cantor’s duties as Majority Leader meant that he had to negotiate and compromise; so therefore did not adhere as close to the conservative wing of his Party as some might have liked. “Be afraid, be very afraid,” is the way John Dickerson of “Slate” put it,” a warning to Republicans on lessons to be learned from Cantor’s defeat: “Don’t fall out of favor with your activist base.”

Iraq is an area, not a nation. History and geography condemn it to be without the sort of nationalism that arises from a common ethnicity or religion that binds a country together for longer than any strongman can rule with an iron fist.

A Washington Post article last week said that the collapse of the Iraqi army “marked a stark failure for the U.S. military that trained it and for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government, which has struggled to address leadership and morale problems that now threaten the force’s ability to defend the country.” That sort of faculty lounge-level reasoning overlooks the fact that no matter how well an army is trained, its soldiers have to be willing to fight for something. And fighting for the Maliki regime, which stands for its constituency — the Shiites of Iraq — and for its Iranian allies is something that tens of thousands of Iraqi military and police forces have chosen not to do.

Seven or eight years ago, I appeared on Alhurra, the State Department-sponsored television network that broadcasts to the Middle East in Arabic. I debated a member of Iraq’s parliament on the point of Iraq’s future and predicted that Iraq would split apart into religious-ethnic principalities when American forces left. He scoffed, saying “As long as the sky is blue and the grass is green, there will be an Iraq.” Apparently not.

The revived al-Qaida in Iraq — ISIS, as they call themselves now, the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” — have captured the city of Mosul and are apparently on their way to Baghdad. According to some reports, they may have been stopped by pro-Shiite militias that answered a call to jihad last week by Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. (Sistani, we should recall, refused to meet with American commanders in Iraq for the entire time we occupied Iraq.)

The breaking apart of Iraq into three pseudo-states is, predictably, in the following form. Iraq is bordered — clockwise — by Syria in the northwest, Turkey in the north, Iran in the east and Saudi Arabia in the south. In northwestern Iraq, and to Iraq’s center in Baghdad, is the area dominated now by ISIS forces. It encompasses more than what we used to call the “Sunni triangle,” where much of the bloodiest fighting took place in the years following the 2003 invasion. Bordering Turkey in the northeast is Kurdish territory where a large part of Iraq’s oil reserves lie. Southeastern Iraq is Shiite territory, Maliki’s government closely allied with — in fact, a puppet of — Iran.

A paper recently published by Stephen T. Parente and Michael Ramlet of the Medical Industry Leadership Institute shows how the Affordable Care Act’s structural problems are going to take years to fully come to light. In the WSJ, Mr. Parente writes, “WSJ Industry experts say consumers should once again brace for significantly higher premiums.” Furthermore, by Mr. Parente and Ms. Frogner’s estimate, there will be more than 40 million uninsured by 2024—10% more than there are today.

First will be the Affordable Care Act’s “essential benefits” requirements. All plans—including those currently exempted for hardship and old plans extended for various reasons—must provide all of the law’s mandated benefits from Jan. 1, 2017. On average roughly 15% of plans offered in 2013 will not qualify for sale on the insurance exchanges once all extensions are completed. Depending on the state, as many as 60% of the plans sold in 2013 would not be permitted for sale.
The law’s “reinsurance” program will also expire in 2017. Health insurers will no longer be able to bill the government for 80% of a patient’s health-care costs when they make more than $45,000 in annual claims. The multibillion-dollar risk corridors for insurance companies will also sunset in 2017—ending the taxpayer bailouts that kick in when insurance companies providing ACA plans lose money. Insurance companies will have neither option by 2017, leaving consumers to pick up the tab through premium payments. Federal subsidies will be unable to keep up with such dramatic rate spikes.

Confronted with this cost crisis, consumers will react the only way they know how: by looking for cheaper options such as the remaining high-deductible health plans offered by private companies and the exchanges as well as plans with very limited physician and hospital networks geared to achieve maximum efficiency for the average patient. These plans are likely to provide no or limited access to specialized facilities and physicians. Rising premiums will create a cyclical exodus from insurance plans, with each wave of departures fueling premium spikes that cause even more departures.