Tuesday, June 9, 2015
From: Gary L. Bauer
Jerusalem Reality Check
The Supreme Court issued a disappointing decision yesterday. Six justices ruled that Congress could not require the State Department to issue passports for Americans born in Jerusalem with “Israel” listed as their place of birth. That Jerusalem is in Israel might seem obvious enough, but the Obama Administration fought the law.
Sadly, six justices declared that the law was a violation of the president’s authority to recognize nations. Writing for the court’s majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy declared:
“Put simply, the nation must have a single policy regarding which governments are legitimate in the eyes of the United States and which are not. Recognition is a topic on which the nation must speak with one voice. That voice must be the president’s.”
Given this president’s record of executive abuses, it would have been refreshing to see the court rein him in and protect the prerogatives of the other co-equal branches of government.
The notion that Congress shouldn’t have a say in foreign policy is bizarre, as Justice Scalia noted in his dissent. “Who says so? The text and structure of the Constitution divide responsibility for foreign policy,” Scalia wrote.
Chief Justice John Roberts was particularly alarmed by the majority’s reasoning. Noting that the Obama Administration has repeatedly ignored the law, Roberts wrote: “The court takes the perilous step — for the first time in our history — of allowing the president to defy an act of Congress in the field of foreign affairs.”
Kennedy fretted that recognition of Jerusalem was a “delicate” subject and might negatively impact negotiations. That’s absurd. There is no reality in which Jerusalem will be given up. This continued charade only emboldens Israel’s enemies and makes peace less likely, not more likely.
You don’t have to take my word for it. A senior Hamas leader said this weekend, “Our policy is Palestine, all of Palestine.” In other words, Hamas is not interested in peace with Israel or even a piece of Israel.
Millions of pro-Israel Americans do not want one inch of the holy city to be surrendered. The Israeli people are showing no inclination to divide Jerusalem, which would be a disaster.
The reality is that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and people born there should be able to list Israel on a passport. Denying reality is ludicrous.
What Are The Children Singing?
My family has been spending some time at the beach lately, and there are a lot of boisterous grandchildren here. It’s not unusual for them to start singing their ABCs or “Jesus Loves Me.” A current favorite is “It’s A Grand Old Flag.” I was listening to one of these choral presentations this morning when I happened to notice a news item out of Gaza.
You may recall that the world insisted that if Israel would just withdraw from Gaza, the good Gazans would build a peaceful and prosperous society because they just want the same things that everyone else desires. Unfortunately, that did not happen.
Gazans promptly elected Hamas extremists as their leaders and turned the territory into a launching pad for more rocket attacks against Israel. Last year we discovered that Gazans were building “terror tunnels” under Israel in order to slaughter Israelis as they slept.
Today we are learning that a recent kindergarten graduation ceremony in Gaza featured young children marching in uniforms with toy guns. As they drilled for war, the following chorus was repeated over and over again:
Whether you come by sea, or by air — you will be crushed, you will be crushed.
If you stretch your hand, it will be chopped off.
If you just look with your eye, it will be gouged out.
The defeated army will be too terrified to come back.
We come for you before, and woe betide you if we come back again.
You come to this land alive, but you will leave it as body parts.”
President Obama might want to ponder those words the next time he suggests that there isn’t peace in the region because Israelis are violating Jewish values.
Still No Strategy
Last summer, President Obama made a stunning statement when he confessed that his administration had “no strategy” to combat ISIS, which he had previously labeled a “J.V.” or junior varsity terrorist group. Nearly a year later, you’d think that the best and brightest this administration has to offer might come up with something. Alas, no.
Obama has been in Germany this week for the G-7 summit of leading industrial nations. At a press conference, Obama said, “We don’t yet have a complete strategy,” on how to train Iraqi troops to fight ISIS.
Don’t worry about ISIS getting weapons of mass destruction, conducting a massive terror attack in the heart of Europe or the mass beheading of Christians. Obama and the G-7 gang were busy with more serious stuff. And that, of course, is climate change.
Our climatologist-in-chief and the world’s most powerful nations are incapable of defeating ISIS, but with complete certainty they announced that in the year 2100, 85 years from now, no more fossil fuels would be used in the world.
The way things are going right now, it’s an even bet that a number of G-7 countries may not exist in 2100!
Europe is years ahead of the United States in pursuing radical environmental policies. We should be learning from their mistakes, not embracing them.
If you think your electricity bill is high now, just wait until the left enacts its climate change agenda. Consider this analysis of European energy policies and their economic consequences:
“Denmark erected over 5,000 wind turbine towers. . . But in total, the turbines produce only 1.3 gigawatts of electricity on average. All could be replaced by a single large conventional power plant. Today, Denmark has the highest electricity prices of the developed nations. . . .
“[European] consumer electricity prices have doubled over the last ten years due to large subsidy payments to renewable companies. Nations with the largest percentage of renewable energy also have the highest electricity prices. Citizens of Spain pay . . . three times the U.S. price, and citizens of Germany and Denmark pay . . . four times the U.S. price.”
You can read more here.
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