Thursday, January 29, 2015
From: Gary L. Bauer
Israel vs. Iran
The American left is absolutely apoplectic about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address before Congress. The New York Times, the unofficial mouthpiece of the Obama White House, is even attacking Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the United States.
A Times story today headlined, “White House’s Dismay Over Netanyahu Visit Extends To Ambassador,” contains leaks from senior officials who felt it was necessary to demonstrate just “how angry [the Obama White House] is.” As my friend Bill Kristol noted, the Obama White House “doesn’t get angry at . . . the Islamic Republic of Iran. . . . It is only with respect to the Jewish state that the Obama White House is impatient, peremptory, and angry.”
House Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that Netanyahu’s visit “could send the wrong message in terms of giving diplomacy a chance.” Really?
President Obama has been giving diplomacy a chance for six years now. The problem is that the Iranians don’t take him seriously. The mullahs have watched Obama retreat from Iraq and Afghanistan. They have watched him do next to nothing when Putin invaded Ukraine. They watched him back away from his own red line in Syria.
They have watched him reverse American policy on Cuba and pressure Israel time and again. It is hostility toward Israel and weakness toward our enemies that is sending the wrong message to Tehran.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Hezbollah, the radical Iranian-backed terrorist group, attacked an Israeli convoy yesterday killing two soldiers and wounding seven more.
Here’s what you need to know: Hamas is bad, but it isn’t as dangerous as Hezbollah. Hezbollah has stockpiled tens of thousands of missiles and rockets, and there are fears that it too has dug terror tunnels into Israel.
When you read that Hezbollah is probing and attacking Israel, you need to understand that it is really Iran that is attacking Israel. That is why a senior Iranian general was killed this month when Israel took out several top Hezbollah commanders. (By the way, Iran is now threatening to assassinate Benjamin Netanyahu’s children.)
But it isn’t Israel that the ayatollah denounces as “the great Satan.” That slur is reserved for America. When Prime Minister Netanyahu speaks to Congress, his goal is to warn us that Iran’s ultimate desire is not just the destruction of Israel, but the destruction of America as well.
The Right To Work
During her confirmation hearing yesterday, Loretta Lynch, President Obama’s replacement for Attorney General Eric Holder, offered an interesting perspective on the concept of the right to work. Under questioning from Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Lynch suggested that illegal immigrants had a right to work in the United States. Consider this exchange:
SESSIONS: Let me ask you this: In the workplace of America today . . . who has more right to a job in this country? A lawful immigrant who’s here, a green-card holder or a citizen, or a person who entered the country unlawfully?
LYNCH: Well, Senator, I believe that the right and the obligation to work is one that’s shared by everyone in this country regardless of how they came here. And certainly, if someone here, regardless of status, I would prefer that they be participating in the workplace than not participating in the workplace. . .”
Not surprisingly, Lynch also defended Obama’s executive amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants. But the idea that American citizens should have to compete with illegal immigrants for jobs is not a popular one with the public. A 2014 exit poll found that 80% of voters felt that new jobs should go only to citizens and legal immigrants.
Under questioning by Senator Lindsey Graham yesterday, Lynch also admitted that in 2006 she signed a legal brief on behalf of Planned Parenthood defending partial-birth abortion. And when Graham pressed her to explain how states could ban polygamy if they could not legally define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, Lynch could not answer.
If you would like to share your thoughts with your senators about Lynch’s answers to these questions and her confirmation as Attorney General, call Capitol Hill now at 202-224-3121.
Pence & Propaganda
Indiana Governor Mike Pence is a rising star on the right and a growing concern for the left. So when I read reports this week that Governor Pence was trying to set up a “state run news agency,” I was immediately suspicious.
I’ve known Mike since before he was elected to Congress. He was a talk radio host, and the idea that he would favor a state-run propaganda agency is absurd. Sure enough, the ludicrous story from the Indianapolis Star was written by a left-wing reporter who once worked for Michael Dukakis.
What the governor’s office was really trying to do was streamline the dissemination of state agency press releases by creating a website that would host them all in one location. That way citizens and reporters could go to one site to learn what was new at all the agencies. But a left-wing reporter with his own agenda was able to spin an effort to promote transparency into something sinister.
The real state-run media is made up of left-wing activists who segue from the political arena into the media where they continue to be left-wing political activists advocating a big government agenda. It’s not surprising that a former Dukakis aide would publish a hit piece against a conservative governor.
But I was disappointed to see some conservative sites and reporters who should know better parroting the distorted propaganda of the left-wing media. Too often conservatives are quick to form circular firing squads instead of defending their own.
The damage to Pence is not significant, but it is a reminder that the left doesn’t play fair and that too many reporters are advancing their own liberal agendas rather than the news.
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