Tuesday, January 14, 2014
From: Gary L. Bauer
Nuke Deal Is Obamacare Of Foreign Policy
Like Obamacare, President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran gets worse the more we find out what is in it. The goal was to put in place tough conditions to stop Iran from developing its nuclear weapons program. Is that what it does? Not according to the Iranians.
Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s lead nuclear negotiator, said, “No facility will be closed; enrichment will continue, and qualitative and nuclear research will be expanded. All research into a new generation of centrifuges will continue.”
What is Iran’s new “moderate” president, Hassan Rouhani, saying about the deal? Rouhani posted on his Twitter feed, “In #Geneva agreement world powers surrendered to Iranian nation’s will.”
The Iranians believe Obama is allowing them to continue developing advanced centrifuges and that the West has “surrendered” to Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Adding a little context to the bluster of the Iranian leadership, Iran’s foreign minister yesterday laid a wreath at the grave of Imad Moughniyeh, the Hezbollah terrorist responsible for, among other atrocities, the 1983 Lebanon bombing that killed 241 U.S. Marines.
Remember, after the administration announced the initial details of the agreement last year, the Iranian regime immediatelyaccused the Obama White House of lying and misrepresenting the deal.
Fortunately, there is a growing coalition in Congress that desperately wants to inject some sanity into these negotiations. Senate supporters of new sanctions legislation say they are nearing a veto-proof majority. But the Obama White House is pulling out all the stops to block a vote, which could only be seen as a stinging rebuke of Obama’s Pollyannish approach to our most serious foreign policy issue — a nuclear-armed Iran.
Speaking to reporters at the White House yesterday, Obama said, “What we want to do is give diplomacy a chance, and give peace a chance.” But Obama’s path leads to war. Every day we continue down this path, we are another day closer to Iran becoming a nuclear power, an existential threat to our ally Israel and to our interests throughout the Middle East.
Scandal Review
The FBI says it does not expect to file any criminal charges resulting from its investigation of the IRS/Tea Party abuse scandal. That’s not terribly surprising since it was revealed that Barbara Bosserman, the Justice Department official leading the investigation, has donated thousands of dollars to the Democratic National Committee and to Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, blasted Bosserman’s appointment as “highly inappropriate.” Issa is demanding that Attorney General Eric Holder immediately remove her from the investigation and explain how she was selected to lead it.
Meanwhile, declassified transcripts of interviews conducted during the House’s Benghazi investigation reveal that top military leaders at the Pentagon had no doubt that the events of September 11, 2012, were a terrorist attack, not a demonstration against a video.
General Carter Ham, who had responsibility for military forces in Libya, told members of Congress, “I think the command very quickly got to the point that this was not a demonstration, this was a terrorist attack.”
General Ham told investigators that he had briefed General Martin Dempsey, then-Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, and then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta within minutes of the assault, just as both men were preparing to go to the White House for a meeting with Barack Obama.
Nevertheless, the White House, at the insistence of Hillary Clinton’s State Department, misled the American people because the truth did not fit the narrative that Al Qaeda was decimated and on the run.
Obamacare Blunders On
Here are the latest headlines from the ongoing Obamacare blunders.
- The Washington Post warned over the weekend that another, even bigger wave of health insurance “disruptions” will affect millions of Americans when small business plans start getting cancelled later this year.
- Got Obamacare and think you’re covered? Don’t be so sure. More horror stories are emerging every day of folks getting lost in the bureaucratic morass.
- Young adults are not rushing to sign up for Obamacare. Demographic data released yesterday suggests that Obamacare faces a potential premium crisis. The administration estimated that it needed approximately 40% of Obamacare enrollees to be in the 18 to 34 year-old age range in order to keep premiums down. So far, just 24% of enrollees fall within that category.
- But the insurance companies, which backed Obamacare, aren’t sweating just yet. That’s because Obamacare contains bailout provisions requiring you, the U.S. taxpayer, to cover any losses. Now that’s crony capitalism!
The Left On The March
Conservatives have spent a lot of time in recent years arguing over the importance of values issues. Those arguments were reignited after the 2012 presidential election (Remember the autopsy?) and the 2013 Virginia elections.
In last year’s election, Virginia GOP elites believed their best strategy was to avoid social issues. So silent was the GOP nominee on life and marriage exit polls found that 30% of self-described pro-lifers voted for the most pro-abortion governor in Virginia’s history, because many didn’t know his record.
And while some on the right might want to avoid the “culture war,” the left won’t let them. The Washington Post reports that liberal Virginia legislators are announcing that their focus will be social issues, specifically same-sex marriage and abortion.
The radical left is really feeling its oats. Several Hollywood stars, including Sarah Silverman, are participating in an event in Los Angeles Sunday night. (If you are at all familiar Silverman and her antics, you can only imagine the name of the event.) But it’s a fundraiser to help pay for abortions in Texas because that’s really a pressing need in the fevered minds of many left-coast liberals.
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