Monday, December 8, 2014
From: Gary L. Bauer
Obama Frees Gitmo Thugs
Once again President Obama continued with his ill-conceived plan to close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by transferring the thugs housed there to third party nations. In spite of evidence showing that a significant percentage of previously released prisoners have returned to the battlefield, the administration on Saturday sent six detainees, all with connections to Al Qaeda, to Uruguay.
The Washington Post reports that Uruguayan President Jose Mujica considers the detainees to be refugees and that his government “did not intend to monitor them.” That might explain why Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was reluctant to sign off on their transfer.
Mujica agreed to take the six detainees in January. But, much to the frustration of the Obama White House, it wasn’t until July that Hagel notified Congress of their impending release.
By the way, according to the Associated Press, Uruguay “may be the only country in the Americas without an Islamic mosque.” The country may have as few as 300 Muslims out of a population of 3.3 million.
Landrieu Loses
Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu lost her bid for a fourth term Saturday. Rep. Bill Cassidy routed the veteran Democrat by 12 points — 56% to 44%. Landrieu’s loss brings to nine the number of Senate seats Republicans have picked up this year. The GOP will control 54 seats once the new Congress is sworn in next month.
Here’s something to keep in mind: Thirty Senate Democrats who supported Obamacare won’t be back in 2015. More than half of them were either defeated (8) or retired (8) and saw the seats won by Republicans.
Some Democrats say that is a price they are willing to pay in order to fundamentally transform America. When Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) recently criticized his party for focusing on Obamacare to the exclusion of all else, House Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi shot back saying, “We came here to do a job, not keep a job.”
Republican leaders might do well to ponder Pelosi’s comment. Without a major assist from the Supreme Court, repealing Obamacare will be as difficult as climbing Mt. Olympus backwards, while blindfolded in a snowstorm. But what policy victories are Republicans willing to lose an election over?
I believe it is fundamentally worth losing an election if normal marriage can be restored in America. I believe it is worth losing an election if the GOP can effectively rein in the growing power of the EPA and overturn Obama’s unconstitutional amnesty. I believe protecting the sanctity of life is worth losing an election over.
Race In America
A Bloomberg poll released yesterday found that 53% of Americans believe race relations in America have gotten worse since the election of Barack Obama as the first black president. Thirty-six percent believe they have stayed the same, while nine percent believe they have improved.
This poll comes on the backdrop of ongoing protests against two high-profile grand jury decisions to not charge white police officers for the deaths of black citizens in Ferguson, Missouri, and Staten Island, New York.
The Bloomberg poll also found that the country has dramatically different opinions about those two decisions: 52% of Americans agreed with the Ferguson grand jury, while only 25% agreed with the Staten Island grand jury.
The reason for the divergent opinions is clear: The circumstances involving the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner were very different, and there was a compelling video in the Garner case.
The Garner video is disturbing. It appears to me that the police were too aggressive. That is why the American public overwhelmingly disagreed with the grand jury decision. That 60% of Americans disagreed with the Staten Island grand jury should be reassuring. If racism were so “deeply rooted in our society” as President Obama contends, one would expect that 60% or 80% of Americans would applaud the decision. Instead, Americans of all races were disturbed by what they saw.
I don’t know why the grand jury reached the decision not to indict. Perhaps these things played a role:
- In addition to the arrest, the medical examiner’s report also listed Garner’s “acute and chronic bronchial asthma, obesity and hypertensive cardiovascular disease” as contributing factors to his death.
- One of the supervising officers on the scene was Sergeant Kizzy Adoni, a black woman. At no time did Sgt. Adoni intervene on Garner’s behalf.
- Moreover, Adoni was offered immunity for her testimony before the grand jury. While we don’t know what she told the jurors, it obviously didn’t persuade them to charge Officer Daniel Pantaleo. In fact, her testimony may have helped to clear him. We do know that a preliminary police report quotes Sgt. Adoni as saying that “The perpetrator’s condition did not seem serious and he did not appear to get worse.”Unfortunately, both the Brown and Garner cases ended in tragedy — for them, their families, their communities and our country. Sadly, the left is trying to exploit their deaths, further dividing the country, inflaming racial tensions and putting more lives at risk. In fact, in major cities like New York, complaints of police brutality have been declining in recent years — the exact opposite of what the left claims.In the meantime, law enforcement officers face increasing threats during their daily routines. In addition to threats from Islamic extremists, a radical gang that literally took over the Baltimore jails is reportedly plotting to assassinate on-duty New York City police officers.
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